Sardonicast - Sardonicast 222: Spider-Man: Brand New Day, The Mummy (1999)

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

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three two one death is only the beginning i'm at um from here movie sucks this is sardonicaz i'm alex from i chi i'm i'm going to go with mummy there's a mummy off to be um eh eh eh uh i'm jake uh i'm jake for a man carrying thing and with great power comes great the Punisher in Spider-Man. Nice. That's my goal. Thank you guys.

That was a... Which is in the new... The new Spider-Man turned me into punished Adam. Oh, yeah. I heard, yeah, no, I watched your video. It was quite scathing. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Are we going to say into that? Sure. Why not? What are we doing with our lives? We go new Spider-Man. Technically. People got mad at Adam. We can start there.

We can talk about your view. Sure. You're kind of talking about like the, the vibe I got was that it was almost more like a meta commentary on like the state of blockbusters slash superhero movies and how you're just kind of over it. Yeah. I mean, like I'm experienced, well, I'm like well past the point of experiencing the fatigue of of this genre.

And so for the, the. title, you know, to very clearly signal, like, this is a new film, you know, and they're trying, you know, new director, they're going a new direction for the story technically. And sure, there are some really negligible differences in terms of, you know, the presentation that just, like, don't really address the root. The root annoyances of just the fucking, the genre, you know, and not genre of superhero movies. Just the genre. of this MCU fucking devoid of personality

only exists to make money, make room for the next one, bullshit. I just like, I'm so sick of it. I'm allergic, you know? Like, people just fucking like, oh, why don't you, why don't you

review the movie? And then I do, they're like, why are you even reviewing this movie? So like, I can't. Literally, it's just unwinnable. But whatever, here we are. I'm still, still tracking. I guess that sounds to a degree.

I guess my disagreement, though, with your take was how I just feel like this one is a big improvement over those John Watts ones. I don't think it is negligible. I think this is kind of what it should be. I thought, like, the action stuff in particular was, damn, I forgot you could be this kinetic and fun. And it was reminding me of those insomniac video games and directly referencing these moves that he's pulling out. And it's, it kind of looks like a movie. there are shadows. And I guess that's kind of your point with like where the bar is.

Exactly. I think there's like there's plenty of, um, that's the conversation. I think there's plenty of stuff that actually does, you know, like hit the bar for what this kind of movie should be like a big broad blockbuster. I think Spider-Man's a fun character. It's like a monoculture film. It's like it's been a while since we've had like a, I guess like a Barbie or something like

that hits that kind of standard. But we've had like Odyssey and now Spider-Man. And this is like the, it's like the. successful film ever in all of history. Yeah, what the fuck? It was like the second fastest billion dollars in cinema history. The first was like Endgame or something, right? I think so, yeah.

Yeah, one weekend it made a billion bucks. Just everyone's Spider-Man Mad, and I'm kind of there with him. Like, I think he's a good, fun character. Which MCU films have you not watched? I've seen them all Exactly I've seen every single one I feel like

I don't know Like maybe maybe if that was my like experience with like What a movie You know like I feel like I feel like I've got a higher average For for like the types of things that I see Because I just avoid those things at this point

Like I'm just peering back in Just to see what the hell's going on And it's just so It's just I It's unsurprising and I just, I have an allergy. I have an allergy. Yeah, you're just sick of it.

I got to start avoiding these things more. Although after the response to this video, it's like I'm kind of tempted to watch the fucking, fucking, what is it called? Doom's Day. Dune's Day. It would be funny to go in without like any context. Just the Spider-Man movie.

Yeah. That's probably all I need. It's been a big to it, really. Really? That's what they're hoping for, I guess. They're just going to kill all of the other heroes and just Spider-Man's going to be the only one left. I'm going to be like, all right, it's just Spider-Man now.

Yeah. I saw some report that, I guess, Marvel, they get like a 25% cut, I think, of the Sony Spider-Man movies. And even with that, 25%, it's the most they've made off of a movie this year. Oh, great. That's funny. Because it's making so much money, and their, you know, other offerings haven't been fantastic. I mean, Moana flopped.

I mean, Disney, you know, they're just. they're going through it I mean everyone pitch in some tip chip jar for Disney so they get by these tough times every once in a while grandma at the slot machine hits it big that doesn't mean she should stay at the slot machine

right she's just going to keep spending that money that's the philosophy of my YouTube channel she's going to put it right back into the fucking slot machine but somebody's got to tell grandma like no you got to be putting a home before you blow my fucking inheritance like Jesus Christ

Grandma you're disappointing your children yeah no I you know what I thought this movie was good I really enjoyed it and I do feel like Adam you're you're a bit blinded by your fatigue of the genre and you just it's not for you anymore and that's

I totally understand that but I do think especially when you look at the other films on offer and I also think like trying to get past the nostalgia because I have a lot of nostalgia for the Ramey movies too but I think what those movies do, excellent. Yeah, this movie can't top Sam Ramey direction, right?

They can't top the energy, the kinetic power of those movies. But I think that this movie does much better have a like emotional maturity and core between, you know, the relationships of the characters. When the Ramey movies often have kind of like, you know, MJ melodrama with James Franco and that stuff is never my favorite parts of those movies. It's more like the Peter stuff, the action. So I feel like this movie, and it has Justin Kyritsky's. He worked on the script. He didn't get a credit, but he apparently wrote quite a few of the scenes in the film. So I think the movie does have this elevated quality.

It's doing things much, much better than I had hoped for and expected. And it's a movie. Like, it's, again, it feels like it shouldn't be a, a high bar, you know, but it is in terms of having like a script that has payoffs, you know, the character, like, look at Fantastic Four from last year. Like that movie, I liked it, but it didn't really have any character arcs. This movie, like, The Punisher has a character arc in this movie, you know. We get, Sadie Singh, we get, you know, we get lots of stuff that I think is really satisfying

and emotionally resonant in connection to the rest of the other Spider-Man movies. I think there's a reason why people keep showing up is because even though the direction of the Watts trilogy wasn't great. It was kind of like standard gray. There's something that works with these characters and the approach to Spider-Man that people keep returning to. And this movie really elevated that. I really liked it. Sure. No, I think that what you're saying is fair, but it also fits exactly in line with, like, what my criticisms are. Like, bringing up the disastrous lack of having character payoffs in other Marvel films is like exactly my point, that the bar is so low that doing things that should be considered like the bare minimum

for just the concept of a movie are being praised at this moment. And like, and it's fine if people connect with it and love it, right? Like, that's totally great. I'm glad that both of you enjoy it. But in terms of what I'm looking for, I don't think my nostalgia, for the Sam Ramey films is influencing my my want for like

a memorable, notable musical composition. I make those criticisms in other films that have nothing to do with like nostalgia of an IP. I make those criticisms in plenty of recent contemporary movies. But in this one there's a very

clear example of like, hey, here's an example using the same character from earlier. So even if the Sam Ramey's Spider-Man films didn't exist, I would be making that exact same criticism about the music. I would be making the same criticisms about the overall blandness about, you know, just, sure, sure, there are, there are some differences in terms of how things are filmed with action scenes, you know, but it's just, it's, it all feels so negligible to me. Like, I'm just like, again, like, it really feels like

just such a fucking low bar. And I had a pretty similar perspective with like Superman. in the sense where I walked away from it going like, oh, that was pretty good. And I'm happy that they met the bar that should be the standard. But I mean, like, yeah, I just, that one I just happened to connect with a bit more. Okay.

So you feel like this is about the same level of quality as Superman? Or do you feel like this is worse? No, because Superman, I felt that the visual effects were much better overall. Really? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would say so. I thought the effects in this were a bit better. I felt a lot more tangible to me

in this one. I also appreciated the tone more of Superman because, you know, this still feels like weirdly like serious for like a Spider-Man movie. Like sure, it does have humor and levity and we got fucking a hot tub scene where she talks about Spider-Man Rule 34

while his feet are shown, you know, weird shit in the movie. Like there's jokes, I guess. but like this overinflated sense of importance because it's connecting to this like grander timeline chronology of Marvel and leading up to I guess Doomsday or whatever and... I don't, I didn't get that as the reason why it was a heavy tone. Well, I mean there's many, there's many reasons why the tone is heavy, but...

I think the tone actually worked very well as far as these go. And I think that's one of the kind of interesting things about why this movie or how this movie is connecting, especially following. up that previous one with the a million Spider-Man and the kind of memberberry stuff and that how successful that was like this this beating that is like interesting because he is a it's like a low point for this character in this like context of the the John Walt Spider-Man and Tom Holland Spider-Man and however many appearances he's had where he's like isolated and burn out in this iteration and it's

connected to people it's speaking to something I remember bringing up in a previous episode and like just this like loneliness and seeing a character like this so poppy so like i don't think the appeal of this is that it is in the like broader mcc i think is that it's spider man and like you kind of can just watch this and enjoy it in a vacuum you don't really need you don't need to have seen the punisher show you don't really need to have context for the hulk stuff for it to make sense and for it to work and it's kind of what is refreshing about it to be honest is just like picking up a solid run of a spider man like comic and You know, there's one of the appeals to me is like, kind of smashing these different characters together and having like this main arc and complimenting it with certain characters that you pluck here.

And so, oh, the Hulk could be good for this thing here with this like inhibitor and take this thing from here and combine it all together. And like, what story are you going to tell? And, you know, the cherry on top is this action stuff, which I just think is so so much fun. Like I can't wait to see this one again, kind of unlike the John Watts ones, which I feel like do get weaker on rewatch. I think the casting is good and they have some, like, they're charming on a degree. Those John Watts ones, they're okay. But this kind of like finds the right balance, I feel. Because especially when we're in this landscape of like this Marvel, almost like embarrassment of itself,

where it's like, it has to undercut itself with humor all the time. And that's kind of what it got known for doing and people were just sick of it. And this found the right balance with the humor. It was kind of like playful with it to the right degree, but also to itself seriously didn't really undercut itself. The only stuff that kind of did make me feel like, yeah, this is the same old Marvel humor is the Black Widow and the tub kind of stuff where it's just like two goofy characters bouncing off each other. And I didn't really need that to that degree. But all the other stuff around that I enjoy it.

I thought tonally this was nice. This was good. This kind of internal conflict and the way it's kind of mimicked through the villains. It's just like classic stuff. It's just how you do it, I feel, with this like combination of characters, this. style of movie and to be clear I think the last what three MCEU movies have been solid like it was the stuff before that that was the issue right it was like a run of like black widow eternals uh Thor Love and Thunder and Wakanda forever that was like this is just like what the

fuck are we doing yeah marvels yeah that whole run was like this isn't doing it anymore where the last three have been like okay this is this is more like it. And when you put Spider-Man in there, then it has the, like, broader appeal. Everyone's in there. Yeah, I dug this. I don't know. I'm just like, there's a, there's, there are fundamental ingredients that used to be at some point in history, uh, a standard element of filmmaking, uh, within large box office productions,

Hollywood productions. you pick up, you pluck like random films from like the 90s and 2000s even, right? And you still are able to get just so many films that we would say from that time period are just kind of like, you know, not even important, memorable or ones that you might have even just like written off at the time. Elements like care in the musical compositions, right? So before an overabundance of temp music. Also very important.

Like staging and blocking, right? And cinematography and framing in a way where it's actually being used in synchronicity with like emotional beats of the story and not just, hey, they did a cool action shot and they didn't CG at this time sort of thing. You know, like if we're thinking about like core emotional moments of this newest Spider-Man film, you know, the emotions that were ostensibly supposed to be feeling when MJ are spoilers for the Spider-Man, when MJ finds out that he's not from the Epstein universe or whatever. And they're just like, you know, they're in the sub or whatever. It's like really boringly shot for what's supposed to be an emotional moment. But the formula to this slop is literally just like, oh, we're playing the sad music

and the characters are angry at each other. And it just feels like such a surface-level way of, of, using the medium of art to express something, right? Like, it doesn't have to be Sam Ramey, like, oh, the camera's moving everywhere and we're getting Dutch angles every single time, right? But you can consider that, like, different emotional contexts in the script require different presentation for how it's shot in ways that aren't just action, right? Like, it's, it feels insane.

It feels insane. happy you guys enjoyed it but I just yeah there are definitely like certain qualities that stick out to me as as being like abandoned and maybe perhaps the fact that like you know me and X amount of other people feel so fucking alone and crazy on this and have catharsis in each other maybe the fact that there's not enough of it that like are really bothered by this is exactly why it's in this state, you know? So that's just how it feels. I agree with you on a lot of your points, honestly, especially about like the degradation of having great blocking and creative blocking and especially larger budget blockbusters. But I do feel like in terms of like

coverage for a dialogue scene, it didn't distract me in, especially in a moment like that, that's super quiet and focusing just on their faces. I do feel like in another, film or a, you know, a lower budget film, an art house film, it's not something that would have bothered you that it was shot in that type of coverage, you know, like, especially in that scene when I feel like the emotional and the focus for the audience is on their faces and for the actors. So, you know, and the Ramey movies have scenes like that, too, with just, you know, standard over-the-shoulder coverage, you know. So I do feel like in general, yeah, like that seems like an issue in Hollywood filmmaking and

a lack of creativity and shooting things cheaply and that sort of thing. But in this movie, I feel like they go out of their way to do things pretty great. I mean, I liked, if we're even talking about the sub when they're around there with the Punisher, there's a sequence where MJ is lying in this bunk bed and Peter is, you know, behind this curtain. I thought how that was filmed or in blocked was a bit creative and dynamic. It wasn't anything spectacular, but, you know, there's enough there to visually make it feel distinct from scene to scene, you know? I just, I need to. I need to point out that if you go to my channel and just look at one of the most recent videos published on Our Hero Balthazar, I do make that criticism on a very low budget movie. So like, you know, I appreciate the pushback, but that is, I don't think that that's an accurate characterization. I think that I'm pretty consistent with these things. And if, you know, there's examples of me not being and then I'd be happy to hear them. But yeah, no, I do feel as though. the budget doesn't really have much to do with like the cinematic language of expression in

terms of your concepts for how things are shot. There's tons of like micro budget films that are just much more expressive and intentful when it comes to how things are framed and presented and not just like in a consistent throughout the entire film sort of way, but like recognizing that like, oh, this is why this shot. is a little different here because this emotional moment called for it, right? There's subtleties to it. There's like a genuine artistry to it and it really feels as though that that artistry is being lost. Like it really feels as though in mainstream Hollywood films and mainstream culture even for people consuming these films,

that these just like aren't even real conversations that people have anymore. When we do see, it done incredibly well on films that like pierced through the cultures, you'll see some accounts and some, you know, commentators pointing out things about the cinematography from something like parasite, right? Where it's just like such a huge thing. And I think everybody can tell, like, the level of difference in quality when it comes to like how things are shot and presented there. But the conversations around those often devolve into like almost like they're just kind of like Easter eggs or like extra things like top 10 facts you didn't know almost or like it all just feels so fucking content and clickbaity almost these discussions.

I just don't, yeah, I don't know what's happening. And that's, again, part of the reason why I'm frustrated at this movie in particular is because in a vacuum, this movie by itself, I might have given a five instead of a four. but I think in the context of this whole fucking era of just absolute soulless soulless fucking garbage to me not to everybody but to me and a few other people in the context of this it is just so so frustrating and it feels like just damaging to the landscape of film as a whole no I think there might be more examples of the opposite than what you're giving credit with like the doomsday trailer for example it was getting like flamed like

people were like joking about how ridiculous it look contrasting at the dune which is like a big like Hollywood blockbuster series that people are really into and does have like fantastic blocking and cinematography and composition and uses like you know space like in a visual way to like communicate its ideas um so i think it is out there and i feel like yeah this film just isn't like an egregious example of it doing it badly. I do agree with my two biggest critiques with the movie, two of the things you brought up being the score. I really wish it had a more inventive, that's a used original score. Definitely deserved it. That would really help

just to make it pop that last kind of, just that last level that I'm looking for. And yeah, the dialogue blocking specifically. And this kind of, it reminds me of when we were talking about, I can't remember which mission impossible it was, like years and years ago, like fallout or something. And I think it just, it's how the film sits in totality, how much that bothers you or not. Because for you, like, in that movie, it was right down the middle of, like, half the movie is this awesome action, but the other half is this exposition they're not into, and that brings it all down to you where it just doesn't.

Yeah. Bug me as much. Like, I'm going to mention it. I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to criticize it for that. But the other side of it is good enough and above average enough to bring up the experience. And I like the characters and I like, it doesn't, this, there are a lot of science. there are a lot of soulless blockbusters

and this doesn't feel like that to me. It doesn't really feel cynical like that. It feels like they actually kind of gave a shit, you know, like changing the director and like... More than usual. ...caring about the characters and committing to like the memory loss thing from the previous movie because that easily could have been hand-waved. And like, I don't know, there are loads of,

from the past few decades. Like we're going to be talking about the mummy later. Like, I think this is like a huge step up from something like that, even though, you know, there's something romantic about the, that era of filmmaking and kind of the restrictions of it but I don't know I like this I think this is just how you do a poppy superhero movie thank you for something patient yeah oh and you can go ahead I was going to say no yeah thank you thank you for like putting that into perspective as well and phrasing the you know that that like you're not particularly bothered by like the totality of like how many scenes are going to be influenced or or made worse by like crappy blocking or like dialogue etc etc because yeah to me you know this might be an autism thing I don't know but when I look at movies like there is like a totality of the movie where it's like okay even if even if there's

seven to ten out of ten scenes within a movie and that's not 100% of the movie then you know like what what what what's the other chunk of the movie if most of the movie is like really boring crappy dialogue and you're kind of just like you know basically using it as like a patient loading screen to get to the points you really enjoy that does affect my overall feeling of the movie my overall rating my overall perspective right um everybody has different ways of experiencing things everybody has different values that they place on different aspects of filmmaking um And so, yeah, no, I appreciate being able to have disagreements with my friends. You guys are great.

Yeah, no, it's fun to like flesh it out. No, fuck you both. I'm right about it. Yeah, they want us shouting each other. Like this comment, if you were happy when Jake totally gave Adam a spanking. Yeah, I just feel like there's a lot at play in a scene. Even if I'm bringing up the blocking as a ding against it. soon the like pros and cons list if I were to write that out.

Sure, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A ding, but I just feel like in a scene where maybe I don't love the blocking and it's kind of like plain or flat. There's an, there are other elements at play. Yeah. That might make it work for me.

The, the, the, the chemistry between the characters, the performance, the dialogue, the script. The, you know, the set design. There's all sorts of like different elements. So yeah, it's a ding. It just doesn't pull the whole thing down quite as much as it does for you. Even though in my ideal world, I would prefer it to have more thought. put into it on that as well. Yeah, I feel like more than anything, I really value, I guess, balance in terms of all the elements

working together. And I think about particular scenes that stand out of the others, like the one with the Hulk and Gene Gray and that fight with the Punisher. Like, that is such a comic booky scene, you know, just watching Spider-Man creep in and the amount of patience that it builds up with the suspense. You don't really see the Hulk. You know, you just hear this banging and booming. And then the fight, I think it works well with balancing the character moments,

the little beats that don't overwhelm anything. And I just appreciated the patience that the movie had with the screenplay to let the feeling sit. You know, let the characters just feel these things throughout the movie. And yeah, and you guys know, I mean, I'm more prone to favor a movie if, like, the script works. And I'll forgive, you know, visual aspects. to it, even though I do think the movie visually was, yeah, a step up from the John Watts movie. It's not like, to me, in quality, this movie is very similar to Thunderbolts, which is a movie that I liked but didn't love.

But it seems like they're going in a direction that's favorable. And I guess I'm also just more like, yeah, you know, they're trying. They're doing something different. They're doing their goddamn best. Yeah, that was funny. With the Thunderbolts thing of like the, they kind of resolve the conflict in a very, very similar way. So I wonder if that's going to be the new, like, laser pointing into the skylight trope. You know, like they go into Doom's head or whatever and find his, like, traumatic childhood and sort him out or whatever.

I thought this one did it a little better than Thunderbolts. Yeah, I think it's better than Thunderbolts. I think both have, like, good sequences. And there are a bunch of moments and, like, shots from this film that have stuck with me in a way that, like, really none of the Watts. ones did in the same way. It's like vague imagery I remember from that, but there's, man, there's like some really cool action in here. And I really, that's kind of what I'm looking for from superiors stuff. It's like inventive action that feels like it has weight consequence. And I feel like they nailed that, especially that fight towards the end with the hand. That was,

that was awesome. With the way? And the rate, the ninja guys. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Also, the ramy-esque aspect I thought to like Jean Grey's powers earlier in the film, the way she's like possessing people, but there's like a 30 feet limit. And it's just like all the extras and all the acting that they're doing. It was just kind of fun and very like, you know, old school. I really like that. And there's one moment especially that hit me where it's like there's really great emotional payoff, especially between his friends with Ned and MJ. That scene when he he sits. I can't remember his name. Sorry. Ned. He's where they're, he's still in his suit. And MJ knows who he is, but Ned does it.

And they're back at the apartment. They're just playing with the Legos. And MJ is drawing in it. And it's just such a quiet, it's just such a little scene. But that's like the heart of the movie to me, that they allow moments like that to breathe where Peter really gets to reflect. And one thing that I really loved about this movie is that there's been four years. We see four years past where like they've been through college.

We're not doing a college trilogy. You know, they're like growing up and becoming adults. And I think why people like Alex, you were talking about, about resonate with this special version of Peter is that even though most people in the world, you know, everyone remembers who you are and nobody's getting their, you know, brainwashed or anything, hopefully. But in this movie, the fact that he's watching his friends grow up on the phone and it feels like he can't communicate with them or talk to them or say, hey, remember, we used to have a special thing. That's something so many people have with friends from their past

or people they grew up with. You know, it feels like you're watching these people. grow up and live their own lives and for some reason you just can't connect and I think that's something that and when MJ confronts him you know when she finds the letter and says like why did you make this decision for me you know and it makes you wonder like hey maybe if Peter had told MJ right away after everyone forgot after their minds were wiped then maybe they could have had time to build up a new relationship but now it's like it's been four years you didn't try to talk to her you didn't try to be with her you know so um that's on you that's on that's on peter parker so um i like that love that perspective they build that into the script nicely with how they

visualize it as well and like communicators in a struggle with this kind of comic booky silly idea of like the the arachnid DNA being out of balance out of whack with the human DNA um totally and it kind of letting him slip into this this rage and there are moments where he does go too far when he's like losing himself and it really feels like he's got something to go through and something to like learn and change through. And yeah, we've already mentioned Gene Gray being like part of the movie. Kind of like soft launching X-Men using this film to like get that in there. I know like other X-Men have appeared in the last few movies and credits or whatever, but this is the biggest thing in this movie.

But I thought that was well done the way those stories like overlapped, how they kind of were similar. and she was a kind of a fearful look of what he might become if he kept going down that same route that he was being teased with in that like scorpion fight. But yeah, there's a, I was really surprised too by the, that final shot with the handshake, I thought, that was such a nice touch. That was like the emotional highlight of the movie to me.

I was like, that's such a nice payoff, like the way that was communicated with the, like, looks on their face. And that was just a nice, like, bookend. The ambiguity, too. It's not like... Yeah. you don't know what that means and it just lets it be. Yeah, I really dug that.

There's lots of stuff to pick at as far as well I liked and this like inhibitor stuff and the way that works in the Hulk and banner coming in and him pretending to be like a student and the kind of humor that comes from that, that felt like very natural and just fun to watch. The fun dynamics at play in the humor of like the Punisher character I don't normally like that much. Like, I like that character specifically when he is a contrast to someone else, a daredevil, a Peter Parker in this instance, or Spider-Man. He just reminds me too much of, like, seeing those trucks with the Punisher Lerick on the

back in the truck. Yeah, but he's fun in this. He's, you know, a bit less serious than that Netflix show. Marvel had the opportunity to do the funniest fucking thing in the world. If they just took the Punisher character, like kept the same logo and, like, you know, made it overly present throughout the entire film. And then the character was, like, trans or something. Then everybody with the Punisher logo on their, like, shirt and truck and all the tattoos would be like, fuck. And I have to, like, cut their skin off or whatever.

Wait, you're saying the Punisher is trans? I'm saying they could have made the Punisher trans and it would have been funny because there's too many people that are knee-deep in that logo as their identity. that wouldn't like that. Would this get a 7 out of 10 if the Punisher was trans? Sure. Yeah, that's my only... That's the only thing that was holding me back, actually. No, I love hearing you guys talk about what you got out of,

like, especially like the story and themes. To me, that type of conversation is one where it's something that I naturally explore in a movie that I enjoy with characters that. I connect with, believe, relate to, or even don't relate to often. But characters that I believe are characters to me, it's just really difficult for me to view this film and many films like it, but not, you know, 100%, but many films like this, it's very difficult to see these as characters. They kind of feel like symbols in a way. You know, they don't feel fleshed out in the way that it would feel like a character to me.

And maybe that's just a disconnect. Maybe it's just like an inherent like block in my brain or something. But it's my experience and I'm sharing it. And I think that other people that feel the same way deserve to have someone that vocalizes those perspectives. That's interesting because like the symbolic nature is kind of like what I think is cool about these characters. Like Peter Parker like stands for something.

Spider-Man stands for something. He's got like ideals that like baked into the character and represent something. better, something you want to like strive for. So I like the symbolic nature of it. Of course. Especially when you combine it with all these different characters that all symbolize something slightly different. It's not a coincidence, though, that the most relatable, kind of likable one is the most successful one with like a Spider-Man, you know?

Like he speaks to something that people really connect to, I think. He's got anxiety. Yeah. Yeah. I will say these films, there's a little bit of an issue, and maybe it's a nitpick, like the Spider-Man kind of villain issue where it kind of blew their load with that last movie. And now this movie, he's, the villain is an X-Man. So the whole Rogue's Gallery is kind of all fucked up.

When, like, well, we can't have, like, Doc Arc now. We can't have Green Goblins. They've literally used the Ramey ones. And I don't know, I don't really trust them with the, what they're going to do with the X-Men angle, because they make, Gene Gray's like killing people, like straight up, like murdering people. And that scene where she like kisses Peter through MJ,

which is like a fun review. That's like, that is diabolical. That's the word for it. That's really fucked up. And in the moment, he's like, you realize this is unforgivable. right and he does kind of wind up forgiving her that's like they kind of need to like do something about that in the in the future movies i hope there's some like plan for that because jean gray is

supposed to be like a conflicted kind of fucked up character but we'll see if there's like any kind of plan for that or if it was more just for the the kind of shock of the scene in its you know moment they didn't really think too hard about consent in this movie no i think they did because i mean peter ends up talking mj about it in a scene i thought was kind of nice the fact that wasn't like joking or like making a joke out of it you know he's just like hey this happened you know sorry about that um but the m jean gray stuff yeah i mean i don't know much about the comics or anything but it does it would be nice i think if they have like a bit of an edgier take on the x-men and how the x-men would fit into this world that is very very very familiar with

superheroes already. Not to mention Peter Parker basically just created a device that will be able to, like, take away the X-Men's powers and neutralize them. Yeah, that felt quite important. They were, like, emphasizing that in a way, it was like, don't forget this. This is going to come back around in some point. Yeah. So, I mean, it's building up the lore somewhat, but ultimately, like, the Gene Gray stuff

felt like if her name wasn't Jean Grey, it wouldn't have changed the movie at all, because that's just like a new character. It's only just we know who that is, but to the characters in the film, it's someone, some random person. But I thought the Tremel Tillman stuff, as much as I love him as an actor,

that's the whole, what is it called, damage control, the organization being evil. Evil incorporated. Obviously, it's the evil organization. What else? Yeah, yeah.

They don't really do anything to hide it that it's going to be the reveal that they're the bad guys. Like, I think that's pretty obvious. Yeah, that's the most obvious thing ever. Yeah. But again, the way it incorporates action with that setting is kind of like enough of a payoff for me, like having the, I forget the Spider-Man villain's name with like the glove

and the way that works its way into the fight with the Hulk and just little stuff here and there like that. Reincorporating some of the older stuff, even though, yeah, that definitely is a ding against it, like, completely obvious is. Adam, did you like when Peter Parker got shot? No. It was just so, I was like, oh, yeah, sure. I'm totally concerned about this character right now, and he's like, he's totally at risk.

Yeah, he was going to die. It's just like so, yeah, like I just, I can't. The insincere moments were the funny moments to me. And then I was just like basically fucking asleep with my eyes open for the last 90 minutes of the entire film. I was just so checked out. And I wasn't, there wasn't any good reason why. I shouldn't have been. I was there.

It was like early enough in the day too. But I was just fucking checked out. Oh boy. Spider-Man. Spider-Man. I think I'll watch the next one. What do you think the next one's going to be called? It's going to be called Day, Day Man, Spider-Man, Day Man.

Brand new month. Brand new month. I find all of their names quite difficult to remember. Do two of them have home in it? It's far from home and no way home. And homecoming. That was the home trilogy. That was the motif.

Yeah. Home. Right. That's going to be day. Oh yeah. Yeah. It has to be another motif, I guess. No.

That's the theory. Mini trilogies. Yeah. Okay. No, I think, yeah. No, I'm happy with the review I made. I thought it was hilarious. It was, I think it's a funny thing for people to get upset at.

And obviously, here's it. Here's something that I think more people should be aware of is like, there's intentional choices that I make with like the music in my reviews that should indicate the level of seriousness that the video is, right? Media literacy, if it's really silly, like, you couldn't imagine getting like mad at that. Like it's a comedic thing. I think that goes back to the symbol thing, though. I feel like people treat Spider-Man like Jesus.

Exactly. You know, like it. While I'm watching a review, I understand, like, where you're coming from. And obviously, like, it's not surprising that you have that opinion to me. Yeah. Yeah. If someone loves Spider-Man, they go check that out and don't really know you or whatever. Yeah.

It kind of hits stuff on. Oh, here's the funny thing that I realized. Is that in the same way that I'm peering back into the MCU after not, having seen it for so long and just kind of being like wonder what the fuck's going on here in that exact same way there's a large amount of people that are doing that with my channel whenever I make a video on the MCU so these comments of like I haven't been here since the last time you shout on it and then they'll be like why don't you like any movies and it's like damn like it's such a such an interesting statement on one's like overall grasp of like what a film is.

You know, if I'm like covering things that are I consider movies, but then they only hop back in when it's like Disney products and then they go, why do you hate every movie? Yeah. It's like it's not really, it's not really criticism on me. It's funny. I enjoy it.

What is the guy called I hate movies? have to say about that. Yeah. Fuck. I mean, I hate everything. I hate it sucks. Your movies everything. Yeah, I guess that encapsulates also.

That means I hate not hating. Yeah. Well. You hate hate hate hate. That's clear, I mean. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, just a snake eating its own tail.

Hmm, Spider-Man. Yeah, I don't know. Like, I just. It just doesn't feel that cynical, especially when that output lately, even from a Disney, is like the Moana live action and stuff like that. And I know it's just like the bar going lower and lower. But I just don't see it as being that level. Sure. I really don't.

Final point. I feel as though the things that if they were in the film for me, that would make me have a more positive experience with it, despite the. inherent nature of me not really ever going to connect with these characters to the degree that a lot of other people do. The things that could be in the movie like more attention and detail on the cinematic qualities like the score, right, or blocking or cinematography, all of those things. I want to remind people that they are not in conflict with what other people want. Like, people, people act as though what I want would, like, turn it into a movie that they don't like, which is just not the case, right? If someone watches these and, like, has no strong feelings or comprehension about any of those qualities, they would still like the movie.

I would just also like the movie, you know? I'm not even asking for it to be changed in a way that would, like, make it inaccessible to people that don't like art films, you know? So, that's part of what makes it frustrating is like we could have things that everybody enjoys pretty much, but we just choose not to. Is Dune, in your opinion, like the most recent example of something that would be like mass audience appeal and also, you know, suitably and creatively and creatively filmed to your liking? I mean, yeah, the presentation for sure. And I have mixed feelings about those. films as well. You know, I think I gave the first one of five and the second one of six. And there's tons that I love about them,

despite not connecting with every aspect of the full experience. But, yeah, I mean, Denny Villeneuve is a director that has a big enough name that he can choose his projects because he's passionate about them. You know, like, I'm just going to take a wild guess and assume that he decided to do the Dune films because he actually. likes the source material, right? Rather than just being like random director to pick from the pool of for hire to, you know, the studio wants the IP released because chat GPT said it would be a good time or whatever.

Like, these are the types of things that I gravitate more towards, even without knowing the backstory of why someone made it, it's inherent by watching the art. It's present in the art because you can see the past. passion that they're bringing to their projects through how it's made. That's what I want. Films to me as an art form and every other piece of art. I want to see authenticity.

I want to see something where someone made it because they wanted to express something. And right now, all of these fucking Tom Holland Spider-Man movies, sure, there might be inklings of that in certain aspects of it, but it's not really the project, right? So. All right. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

I just feel like this much of a change in comparison of those Watts movies with this director change does indicate that there's more of like a passion and some of these like just commitment to like the suit and like showing the eyes from behind the fabric and there's mouth moving. And it's just little details like that where it's like that Watts didn't really care about that and didn't embody the film with that kind of personality. And yeah, I do think the film is. has pacing issues. I think it's, uh, it feels long. And because I was enjoying myself, it didn't really bug me. Um, but it did, it did feel fairly long. Um, I didn't love every shot. Like in, in some of the action stuff, there was some weird looking, like, closeups of the Hulk. And like, when it's like mid transformation in the like halfway point, he can look a little bit funky. Um, and also the kind of, this is just kind of a comic book problem where you get,

you fall into like, there, there are movie tropes and then there are like comic book. tropes like always happens with Superman and the Hulk where they're like so powerful always winds up with them getting like mind controlled or something like that that's literally happened in the MCU already in age of Ultron like Hulk got mind controlled by a witch or whatever yeah nice respectful nods to Ramey throughout it was lit better it looked better there are scenes and shots i remember some nice like establishing establishing shots and atmosphere and mood that seemed like they actually gave a shit um yeah probably the worst shot in the movie is that one on the rooftop towards the beginning which was

in one of the trailers um but after that there was nothing that was like really pulling me out of it oh yeah outside of the the story those doves looked pretty big pigeons i guess because it's right yeah although although as from a story framing the doves did look like cartoony but i i liked the angle of him being all like out of balance and fucked up and he kept like crashing and that was like a fun angle that CG would have felt exactly in place in a scene where spider man took mushrooms right beforehand right that's what I felt like yeah yeah he's not like iron man psychic anymore he gets to just be like a street level spider man which I think everyone's been like hungry for um a criticism of the advertising is that it this is

like siloed off from the critique of the movie. It's like, they just spoil everything in those fucking ass. It's like really annoying. And yeah, I'm just looking through my notes, see if there's anything else to shout out. Yeah,

the reference to the Insomniac games, I thought was really cool, like in the action. Like, he's straight up just doing moves from the game. Nice. Because this film is like so huge. It's just like on Twitter.

Like I've seen it on my timeline the entire movie, like five times. Like someone just going, fuck it. His Spider-Man. brand new day. Vocoded to I miss the rage. Yeah.

But just going through certain moments and like seeing gifts from it and people comparing like to the video game and stuff like that. So that's, yeah, this is how he should move. This is how it should look. There's like a shot when he's like pinning the Hulk against that building. And he like smashes through and it's from the inside the perspective of the building. And just like the you really feel him like smashing through the glass and it has like weight to it. And it's like so exhilarating.

Yeah, I kind of can't wait to see this again On my own terms Because this was also the I just stopped staying staying for the after credits Tease shit in Marvel movies Like for years And I just start Googling As soon as it says directify

I just leave and go on my phone And just Google like What's the after credit scene? But this one I was like You know what I dug that I'm going to stay And it's like Just pointless

Like I don't even know what it meant It felt like they made that on the day of it being released. I don't know what that. It was even teasing. But that's not like a big deal in particular. So, I mean, yeah, I kind of like this. I'd give this a like a solid three and a half star. Also, this is good.

I want to see more Spider-Man. Dig it. Yeah. I'm giving this an eight out of ten. Nice. 5 out of 10 in a vacuum 4 out of 10 in real life Why would you watch this in a vacuum

It's so small and dirty in there Not a clean one Not a brand new vacuum It's for science You can watch in the vacuum of space That'd be kind of cool Exactly That's where it would get a 5

In space No one can Give your movie lower than a 5 at a 10 It's the only movie that's ever existed. There's no reference point. It's the best and the worst simultaneously. All right.

That's a great discussion. I love that. Yeah, that was fun. Is it Bubby time? Bubby. Mummy. I guess, yes, it's mommy for you guys. The mommy movies.

The other mummy. We're talking about the mummy. Jessica Chastain. I know that one. Whatever, Bubby. It's time to talk about the Bubbies. Yes, this is my wreck. The 1999, The Mummy, directed by Stephen Summers.

Before we get into this movie, I kind of wanted to list out just how expansive this franchise is, right? Oh, no. So we got the 1999 movie, the original, you know, Brendan Frazier and Rachel was business. This is excluding all the just, you know, The Mummy as a concept and all the Universal movies from before that. then in 2001 you go the mummy returns did you watch that did you guys rewatch that or have you seen that i've i've seen it several times i really really fucking wanted to i really fucking wanted to and then this odyssey review that i've been like fucking frankenstining over the course since recording it it just took my whole fucking weekend and i literally like stopped recording it

went to bed immediately woke up got to the office early and watched the mummy right before recording. That's why I was 10 minutes late. Right, right, right. It's because I was watching the mummy. So I would have loved to have watched the mummy returns, but I couldn't. That's fine. Like, the wreck was for just the 99-1. Exactly. Did you see it, Jake? I've seen it several times, yes.

This franchise has been cursing this house ever since I learned that my wife loves these movies, and I've seen the mummy and the mummy return so many times. I've never seen the mummy, the curse of the dragon, what is it? Yeah, that was 2008, the Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I have seen

that around that time. I did not rewatch it for this conversation. I don't think it was necessary. But what I found fun when doing research for this. Son of the mummy geniuses. Oh, right. Yeah. It was the scorpion shit. Like the scorpion king is obviously introduced in Mummy Returns in the infamous, like the worst CG of all time. I'll mention that again in a bit, but there are five Scorpion King movies. That's unspriding, actually. Wait, what? Yeah, it's from that, yeah, it's from that era where it was just the DVD sequels,

you know, straight's DVD shit. So it's the Scorpion King then. The Rock isn't in all of them, right? No, he's only in the first one. Yeah. But in the third one, I think it has, um, who was it? It's like Dave Batista and, uh, Hellboy. Um, that's pretty funny.

So yeah, there's a Scorpion King 2, Rise of the Warrior in 2008, Scorpion King 3, Battle for Redemption, 2012. Yeah, it goes all the way up to 28. 18, Scorpion King 4, Quest for Power, 2015, and then the Scorpion King Book of Souls, 2018. And so, shit, that's funny. Yeah, Book of Souls came out 2018, but the Tom Cruise 2017, the Dark Universe reboot. So that means like the Scorpion King stuff, like outlived that. Oh my God, that's such a funny perspective.

It's like the head of lettuce and Liz Tressor, whoever it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah, good pool, good pool. So, yeah, I've not seen the school. King or any of those shits. I've just seen the mummy trilogy, I guess. I was very fond of those movies, the first two anyway. The mummy returns when I was growing up. They were like horror movies to me. I was like really scared of like parts of them. I was like the perfect age for it. There is some terror in there. And yeah, I mentioned with it being 99 is this kind of fun era of Hollywood to revisit where it is a certain level of restriction on how much

CG schlock even though these are definitely schlocky action movies T-moom Indiana Jones but there's some stuff to appreciate it was a fun experience to revisit the first one maybe not the sequel I think it was a little bit mummied out nice after uh after that first one um but yeah like what is the plot there's a mummy like what the for like you don't even need to say the story, right? There's, there are pyramids and the mummy and the law and everyone knows the mummy, okay? It's just got Brendan Frazier and Rachel Wise this time. Yeah, I can't really say it's good. There's like a lot of stuff I like about it, but it doesn't really come together in any meaningful way for me. It does. Yeah, the Timo Indy thing really just was, I was just thinking about,

there were a couple of reference points I was thinking about actually was obviously Indiana Jones and just like it was kind of just make me want to watch that any of the original trilogy of those to be honest and just how much better they are how much better the scripts are how much better the the action is the set pieces but then I was also kind of lamenting I kept thinking about the speaking of Tom Holland and Spider-Man that uncharted movie for a few years yeah because they're kind of like equivalent movies for like what they represent in Hollywood of that time, right? Where kind of similar budgets adjusted for inflation, but that uncharted movie, like, God, it looks so bad. There's like a, what was it? It was like a pizza.

There's a whole scene in like a pizza shop or something weird, like a weird product placement. And it just felt like so fake, whereas, yeah, the timing of this being 99 kind of meant that they like went to a desert. And like they were on the, on location. And it like, I'd never seen this film. like in 4K before and the version I watched was 4K so it's like I'd never seen it in this kind of clarity I didn't see them on the big screen I was too young when they came out so that was kind of fun from that angle to just kind of appreciating that time capsule nature of it I struggle to call them good though is the problem um

by you guys what are you sitting on the mummy well I mean I'll go for that S of J Adam um I I have a love-hate relationship to this franchise in this movie, but it always goes down easy. And I always forget what happens in the movie. Like, where the plot goes, I literally can never, I've seen this probably 10 times now. Like, I got the Blu-ray set for Nadia like a year or two ago, and we watched them all the time. So, but the first one is by far the best one. The second one is like just basically identical to the last. the first one, except way worse and there's an annoying kid in it.

Yeah. But the first one, it's like, Brendan Frazier, whatever you say about him, he's always giving 100%. He is giving 1,000% in this movie. I mean, one of my favorite moments is when the mummy screams at him and then he screams back. It's just so stupid. But like, the movie has a sort of a Looney Tunes cartoon logic to it.

It's very silly. And there's like Buster Keaton type of gags, like silent movie. Just like the way he's fighting all. the mummies at the end of the movie. It's very like Ray Harryhausen. And some of the effects hold up better than others for sure. But again, like what you're saying, Alex, there's something magical about watching a movie from this time period. And it's like, oh, wow, they picked up a camera and went to a place and filmed. It's like you think Christopher Nolan today talking about making films, it's like a revolutionary thing. Yeah, we took the camera and we went out to the place

where it's supposed to be. But it's like, no, like the mummy, like here, I will share the beginning of Roger Ebert's review of The Mummy because I looked at this again and it reminded me it's, it's a very good encapsulation. So let me just share this real quick. There is within me an unslaked hunger for preposterous adventure movies. I resist the bad ones, but when a Congo or an Anaconda comes along, my heart leaps up and I cave in. The Mummy is a movie like that. There's hardly a thing I can say in its favor, except that I was cheered by nearly every minute of it. I cannot argue for the script, the direction, the acting, or even the mummy. But I can say that I was not bored and sometimes I was unreasonably pleased. Yeah. I mean, that's what it's, it's, it's, it's, it's the greatest.

But like, I, um, it is such a fun, stupid movie that I can't help liking it a lot, even when it's, it is just kind of like schlocky, bad. Yeah. Like you're saying, Alex, I always think about the Indiana Jones movies because as soon as I turn this on, I'm like, why are we not watching Indiana Jones? But it is just like, yeah, they're putting it all in there. It's stupid and fun. And it's like, yeah, God, from a bygone era, if this movie was made 10 years later, it would be, which they basically did, I guess, with the Dragon Emperor one, it would just be so much because it would be not filmed on location as much. It'd be with way more CGI. Yeah, so it's a nice little time capsule of a period.

And it's a better than average. It's better than it has any right to be, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I feel watching this that I have also seen it a million times, but just couldn't even remember that I did. And it would, yeah, like it's digestible in a very passive way.

Um, yeah, this is, this wasn't a movie that I was like actively engaging with super hard, but it was nice and relatively inoffensive. I mean, well, there are parts that are pretty offensive, actually, but, uh, yeah, I was kind of, um, I think this is mostly due to the infamous nature of, uh, that shot of the rock, which I guess is from the second movie. Yeah, yeah. But I was expecting the CG to be a lot worse than it was. like it's pretty good for 1999 and especially in the scenes where it's darker um you know like it's

yeah there there there's creative elements of it that gel with me um i like some of the design but at the same time you know even with it it being in like 1999 it does just kind of feel like one of the most derivative films that could exist like they took a bunch of popular concepts threw it in a blender and it happened to work out not to say that there wasn't any heart in any aspect of the film or anything but I did find myself thinking of

other better things while I was watching it yeah definitely like the production design does carry it pretty hard and just the setting is really cool like the 1920s and all the ancient Egypt kind of imagery and that pantheon of gods and stuff, the way that's kind of wrapped into it, that stuff's great.

That is very, that's kind of the hook of it. You know, the tomb raiding stuff and something in the water, I guess, just around this time with just that kind of imagery and wanting to explore that kind of thing. I guess it was maybe something to do with like the next generation of filmmakers after Spielberg, like growing up with like an indie and like the, wanting to recapture that feeling and it's very rare for it to really work out. I kind of feel like the indie stuff, the original trilogy,

it's the only one that's really captured this kind of adventure movie to a degree that clicks with me anyway. There were some gags, though, that I did find pretty funny that were quite good. Because everyone's like a cartoon character, right? Like the setup of like the Americans and they're just like cowboys and there's like funny jokes and gags about that. like hyper-British characters. Also just like parodies of themselves. And like, yeah, with the Indiana Jones thing, like with even down to the the, the George Lucas wipes and it is like Hans Solo and Princess Leia basically, the prim and proper

lady and the scoundrel, like rugged man and that kind of, these tropes, they're fine. They're, they're doing what they need to for this to work. And the pace is like so quick. And with the variety of like the sets and the action, I wish there was kind of more to the action. It was again, just it's going to be a constant comparison to Indiana Jones. But these like,

the structure of the action and Indiana Jones is just so above and beyond. Like the way they're paste out and like blocked out and have like mini arcs to the action. Whereas it's quite chaotic like what they're doing in this movie. Like when there's a shootout, it's just like, oh my God. to be like movement all the time and it's like it feels quite insane from that kind of angle um and the kind of restraint to not have the mummy for like an hour of the runtime it's like an

i noted down exactly it was an hour and four minutes as how when you got to wait for the mummy to actually be on screen outside of that um opening um um and i kind of like that committing to the horror of it where he's like this creature that's like absorbing people's skin and sucking out their essence and slowly being rebuilt. That's like a fun concept that is kind of, it's dark for how goofy this is. And there is like a lot of death and destruction throughout the film. And yeah, it is weird. What age do you think you watched it for the first time, Alex?

It would have been on VHS, I guess. It probably would have been a ratch. the time like the Ramey Spider-Man movies were coming out on VHS like 2002, 2003 maybe. So you were one year old. Yeah, it was minus one. Yeah, it would have been like under 10, I guess. Yeah, no, because I, what I find interesting is like a lot of people watched this like pretty young. And so, you know, it's like it is PG-13.

it's not hiding the fact that it's PG-13 and although there's nothing like as sexually explicit as you'd expect for a PG-13 movie but like the terror of what they show and the seriousness

with which they show it I could see being very traumatizing to a lot of kids yeah it seems like perhaps maybe in the marketing it seemed a bit more family friendly. And like, you know, it's not so egregious.

It's not like a controversy, I guess. But I just find it interesting that seems like a lot of people watched it definitely under the age of 13. Well, no, it was just on TV all the time. I remember, like, just out of order. I'd probably watch it out of order on TV all the time. But the image of the scarabs going under the guy's skin

is just the most unsettling shit. That was the image that stuck with me all. ways, and not to mention the Universal Studios ride, which is probably my other deep connection to this movie, which I don't know. Have you ever done The Mummy Ride at Universal Studios? What was it again? What happens in it? It's a dark ride, but it's like a roller coaster, and it's in a big, it's just completely pitch black almost, but then at the end of it, it goes in reverse. It's kind of fun. I think I might have, but I don't know, because I've been to Universal Studios, but like, yeah.

Is that Revenge of the Mummy, the Ride? Yes, yes. Because, yeah, I was looking through his IMDB and it's on his director credits. It's quite fun. Oh. That's fun. Yeah, so it's part of the law, I guess. It's like a chapter I don't know.

Yeah, this director could like only exist during this exact time period. Like when you look at his run of like the mummy, the mummy returns, Van Helsing. G. G.I. Joe, the Rise of Cobra. Oh, my God. like a lot of schlop I think I saw Gia Joe the Rise of Cobra in a theater

I think I saw that in a theater Oh congratulations Yeah I saw that I've seen most of his films He did like you started off doing like these Kind of Disney He did a real live action jungle book Back when they used to do that

version Yeah and like a Huck Finn like thing or something And yeah Then he just kind of disappeared after 2013 The bang. We, like, did a passion project movie that didn't work out.

But I guess he's made his money. He can just produce Scorpion King movies forever. Sure. I guess one of the things that was, like, a major ding for me against this movie, because I, ILM did do a lot of the effects work, and especially why it looks so good, as well as that mixture of practical and that era of CG. This is, like, the Matrix and, like, Phantom Menace, which I think, I think they look a lot better in this movie.

from a visual effects standpoint. The Phantom Menace actually kind of changed the game as far as influencing big blockbusters like this and basically setting the template for how you end them. Like how you escalate to like two big armies charging at each other, flexing like, we can do this now. Look, there's like 100,000 people running at each other. And Lord of the Rings kind of perfected it.

And you really see it in the mummy returns. Like that's how that film kind of wraps up as two armies like charging at each other. And it's clearly like, we could do this stuff. Is this like awesome? And it was kind of like that era's equivalent of the laser going into the sky and this kind of stuff. Yeah, true actually. That is. Yeah.

And it kind of hasn't been done like that well since Lord of the Rings. It kind of is the example of it. True. And the time period of when that came out and just the right amount of like restrictions to the like production pipeline working out and it looking good enough. And without looking like all plasticity and fucked up like the Scorpion King does and that sequel. Yeah. Are visual effects going to get better? That's my question.

Like are we ever going to get back to that era where it was just like a perfect ideal of visual effects? Like, can it ever go back? Can we return? I guess, like, the Odyssey is kind of like a nudge and the way people love that. I think people are tired. Like, the laser in the sky thing became, like, a joke. And people do get tired of things. And then it becomes, like, a, not just an advertising point, but like a,

an appealing point to a movie where it's like, look, Tom Cruise is actually, like, breaking his legs and, like, flying helicopters and shit. And it's kind of going the other direction. with that kind of stuff. But yeah, I don't know. What do you guys think? I mean, I don't, probably not. I mean, in terms of the way the industry has gone,

in terms of cutting budgets and the workflow for, you know, digital effects, I just, I don't think it can go back, especially in the way that it seems like they're really pushing the industry towards generative AI. I was going to say, yeah. That's a big thing right now. They're doing everything they can to get the budgets down and not pay people. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I honestly, like, I just feel like in 20 years it's going to be like, yeah, of course we use digital, we use degenerative AI in our big budget blockbuster film. Like, I want to fight about it? It sucks to say. Yeah. I just feel like sadly, that's where it's going. No, anyways, like the movie is is not great. Like it's really fun, but you think about, yeah, like, I don't know.

The way I think about it is like, okay, Steven Spielberg, he grew up watching the actual original mummy movies and Universal Picture Monster movies. And he's watching, you know, serials and adventure films of that era. And that's what Indiana Jones is referring. That's what it's all about, you know, and he's doing his own take on it with like a modern, lens, you know, in the 80s. And then now this, you know, Stephen Somers in this movie coming out in 1999, it's taking Indiana Jones and re-updating it. And you look even at the characterization of Rick in this movie compared to Indiana Jones. Like Indiana Jones is like, he's sensitive and he's like

a professor, you know, he's, he's not brutal. Whereas Rick in this movie is, is kind of like, I don't know, he's more like a John Wayne type to Indiana Jones's Jimmy Stewart. Right. He's he's just like brutal and mean and just like very American and like screw you. Trigger happy. Yeah, trigger happy. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to shoot as soon as I can. And it is like a just, I don't know, it's a less sensitive, less nuanced. Again, very cartoony type of movie. It doesn't it doesn't feel like actual characters. It's just like, oh yeah, we're doing a. fun, goofy bit. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. It almost felt like there was like maybe a bit of me remembering kind of like Sam Ramey

at points, but not like I don't know if that would have even been like any kind of a direct inspiration at all. Because I mean just like I think the cartoony kind of silly nature and also zombies being there. might have been why I had that thought in my head. Yeah, I, it's a movie that I think I'm just going to forget about again. And even though I don't hate it, you know, I didn't hate watching it, but I just, yeah, that's kind of where it sits. That is, it's vibe.

It's kind of disposable, but, like, I was trying to think about it in terms of what's, like, the scene of the movie, what's like a set piece that? really stands out, you know, like the plane scene from Raiders or whatever, like the boulder scene. Like, what is the equivalent, like, damn, like, it was building to this. There's like a crescendo there. It's more just like little moments of like, oh, the mummy look kind of cool there. Like how it's like see-through or this is a cool set design or there's like a nice scale to how many, you know, extras you have on scene on screen here. I like the sandstorm mouth, but it just felt like really short-lived. And then they used it on so much of the marketing, too.

It was like, damn. Like, I wish that was more present. It was like, it was a nice moment. It was a nice scene. That's a whole motif like throughout at least this and returns. It's the like stretching mouth and like his face appearing and everything. That's kind of campy and fun to me. Yeah, that was fun. They constantly return to that. I really love, I think my favorite stretch of the movie is when the mummy is like tracking them down in Cairo and, um, Like one by one getting the people who opened his his coffin. Yeah. And one of the kills that he does is so great because it's all like in shadow.

Like you see him enter the room and attack the guy and you see the body float up in the shadow of the body. Just get like squeezed like an orange and then drop. And it's like just that little touch that I really appreciate is like, yeah, they're creatively trying to like communicate the goofy. gore of this in a piece of yeah there are a couple of good shadow murders yeah yeah also good like murder and like just kind of like weird quirks like when they open the sarcophagus and they're like still juicy

it's just like weird like a way to describe that um and this there's this character Benny who's like this rival to the Brendan Frazier character who's like this through line throughout which has like a lot of screen time and kind of has some of the better gags, to be honest. Like, when he thinks the mummy's going to kill him and he's going through all the, like,

all the different religions that he's got, like, a cross or whatever, until he gets the star of David. And that all, like, links to the mummy. That stuff was kind of funny and, like, there's some, like, personality. It does have a personality. Oh, yeah, totally. Even though it is just kind of, like, bad. And, I don't know, like, weird kind of rough around the edges charms.

like the John Hanna, well, Jonathan character, who is a Scottish actor and like he's supposed to be this super British dude, but his accent like kept bleeding through and it was like, whatever, like, it's kind of a funny nitpick. And honestly, like, there's a line towards the end that kind of is the plot

of the movie and the whole vibe of it where Brendan Fraser basically looks at the camera and is like, rescue the damsel in distress, beat the bad guy, save the world. That's like, that is the movie. Yeah. At least you're not coming back empty-handed.

I would rather watch this movie. I'd rather watch this movie a million times than watch the Tom Berlin Uncharted movie months.

It was awful. People were too kind to it when it came out. It was like a oh my God, it was embarrassing. There's like fire. There's real,

I remember Last night, I watched this with Nadia because, of course, she wanted to watch it with me. And we were just watching it. And I just took a moment. And I went, like, that's actual fire on screen. They put fire in a movie. Base. Like, there's,

it's not CGI fire. We've just become so inundated with seeing fake fire on screen that to see actual flames and effects and stunts, like, there's guys leaping off of camels and, like, old school, like Hollywood shit. That's just like, Man, I can never dislike this movie.

It's just too fun and it's got too much of the old tricks that. Brenna Frasier, like, nearly died. Like, in that, the hanging scene. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, no. Yeah, it was like, there's a lot of, like, really dodgy stuff in the trivia about, like, yeah, like, how many people were getting injured and, like, stung by scorpions in the desert and being by snakes.

And that's how it should be. Old School Hollywood. Yeah. Some of those horses just looked like hella tripped. You know, like not stage falling, but like fucking face planting. Right. Like, it's not good. But I do agree.

When it comes to fire, like, that's an observation I have often. And I wish people would just do a stunt. You know, do a stunt. Have some fire. Have a fire somewhere. You know, it requires a bit more planning and safety. Yeah. But I find it just, you know, insane that we,

that we make that sacrifice in a way that is just so noticeable. And yet, most American productions, it seems, still use real guns with blanks. You know? Like, for talking about safety,

like, I don't know if I would notice if it, well, maybe a gun nut would notice. If it's, you know, like a replica of a gun that wouldn't actually be able to fire something. Right?

Because you're sweetening the, the muzzle flash in effect anyway with CG it's not like I don't know depends on the movie it's the thing is they can still do the old effects and you can do it safely

you can have stunts you can have real fire you can do it all it just costs more money and it's it just takes more time like you that's like filmmaking is so hard like I imagine that it's like if there's any

part of the filmmaking process that you can say, you know what? This, we can do another day. We don't have to do this right now. We can just film this part and figure out another day. Like, then you're going to do that. But, man, is it just those little details change everything? Having a real fire,

having an actual stunt, stuntman do something like, damn. Yeah, you got to respect the commitments of the bit. Even the score was like decent, especially near the beginning. Like it kind of blended into just being like, okay, more 90s, whatever. But like near the beginning, the score of the film was like, oh, you're doing something.

It was Jerry Goldsmith, I think. Yeah, who has a really funny, I found a funny quote about him and why he didn't return for the sequel. Before playing a track of his mummy score during a London concert in 2000, composer Jerry Goldsmith

explained how much he hated the film in the production, calling it a piece of shit movie. But unbeknownst to him, the director, Stephen Summers, was in the audience that night, therefore Goldsmith wasn't called back for the sequel. I thought that was pretty funny But yeah

The whole commitment to the bit with the Because like the script sucks right But the execution of it is just like admirable Like that whole library domino scene Which I read that they basically had to do in one takes It was just so expensive Set up again That's how you introduce a character

That's like her character all right there Yeah Don't let her near a library ever again Yeah And I love in the sequel They just do the exact same thing but with the boy, with their kid. Oh, no. They're in like a bunch of, a bunch of statues.

The sequel is so dumb. This, this fucking era of movies where it's just, you know, like, there's things that are kind of off-putting to me about it with fucking Brendan Fraser. Like, the way he escapes the cage is just forcefully kissing her. Because there's this presupposition that just like, oh, yeah, I know, she secretly wanted it the whole time. And then she spends the rest of the movie just basically trying to fuck him. And he's like, stop it. Like, this, okay. Yeah, that's basically like Han Solo and Empire.

Yeah. It's like the, yeah, the whole kind of trope of these types of movies. Yeah, what do you think of like the comic relief stuff? The way it was using like this kind of stereotype mysticism of that part of the world. That was handled. I mean, yeah. Yeah, there's lots of broad caricature and offensive stereotypes. It's not in any ways trying to be like an authentic depiction of any group of people or nationalities or anything.

It's pretty in poor taste and very typical of this era. I mean, in some ways it is like, oh, damn, they were still doing this shit in the late 90s, huh? And even, you know, still today. But I thought that, look, the thing is to me, So much of it is just like, again, like a cartoon. It feels like it is taking on just like Looney Tunes type of gags. You know, like when they, the fire on the ship and they swim over to safety. And then the guy, what is his name?

Benny, his rivals on the other side of the river. He says, guess who's on the side with all the horses? And then, Leonard Fraser is like, guess who's on the wrong side of the river? I don't know It's just like It's a nice little thing And it's not I know we talk about like

MCU type of like Quippy humor It's not really here It's a different type of comedic sensibility Yeah True This got one Oscar nomination

Oh what fool For sound Oh sound Yeah best sound I can tell you That I just Okay call it a nitpick, but like, they were spamming the fucking stock library in this movie.

So, so much so that there was a point where it was literally the exact same fucking horse stock sound in a row three times within like 10 seconds. And I was losing my mind. And then there's like a, when they're carrying like the bag of like gold or whatever is inside it outside of the fucking like entrance through the sand, there's like literally like the same stock sound effect spammed like a tim and Eric fucking skit it was like somebody was like mashing a button in a video game prompt like they're trying to get out of the menu

but it was like a like kind of like a shimmering sound like ching ting ting it was so weird like I don't know if I've heard more stock sound effects in a movie but that's not it's kind of a stoke movie yeah true that's not the totality of the sound design I know but it's just my I have eartism it was funny

yeah there's like on the cartoonish shit that Winston character the show itself he's like another just like he's like a World War I vet and he's like just appears like twice in the film

just to like fly a plane honestly this movie's set in like 1923 he's kind of old to be a World War I vet I thought yeah true like a pilot

okay I don't know about that hasn't been that long since the Great War they cast a lot of conventionally attractive people in this movie. Hell yeah. It's part of what's so awesome about it.

You want there to be uglier people in the movie? Yeah. Give me a shot, Hollywood. Let me be in the movie. Everyone's fine as hell in this film. It became really apparent during the I lost my glasses scene and dude's like a fucking total fucking Chad face.

Like, oh. Well, you know, it's like it breaks the stereotype. It's subversely. to the convention. Is he the one that gets like his tongue ripped out and his eyes? That's good. Yeah, that's definitely the best stretch of the movie.

True, yeah, yeah. I love in that scene after his eyes are taken out and his tongue, Rachel Weiss comes in there and she's like, the mummy's like about to attack her and she goes, help me, help me. And I'm like, the dude, his eyes are gone. His tongue is gone. If anything, you should be helping him.

Like, what do you expect him to do for you in this moment? I don't know. It was fun. I mean, it was kind of. It was fun. It was kind of fun. Yeah, it's slightly too long for what it is. Some cool stuff, though.

There was always something I'd be appreciating, whether it be like costume design or the scale of something, just, yeah, the commitment to the bit. Sure. Interesting visual effects. I really like that shot where the sand is being like propelled up around Brendan Frazier before it turns into the big CG face. I thought that was like a cool.

practical way to combine these things. So there's some, like, thoughtful stuff in there for how unthoughtful the whole kind of story is on paper anyway. Yeah, yeah. No, thanks for the wreck. And it's always fun to revisit something that has some level of nostalgia or history, even if I couldn't remember anything until I was in the scene. I'm like, oh, yeah, this is familiar.

What do you have to do you have anything to say about like the second film like yeah no I did have a few things because I did rewatch it um I wasn't paying the most attention because it was just very quickly it was like oh it's just the same shit again basically is exactly the anubis like dog army that was kind of what I was getting at earlier with like this huge scale like just two armies running each other with the he's one of the cooler characters actually he's got like the most aura the uh oh dead fear dude with the like tattoos on his face he's probably got like the coolest presence and like his costume design and stuff um as much as i like brenn fraser's like presence there is something goofy about his like costume design i know it's

like it's channeling the 20s or whatever but uh it's not like indie like indie has a different thing going for him um and yeah there's a bunch of stuff like that Yeah, the biggest ding against it is the new character Alex. His fucking Alex's man, they just ruin everything, you know. True. He's awful. He's fucking son. He's like, he's a really young kid.

He just, he's clearly enjoying that he's there, but he's just, it's a really bad performance. Yeah, he really brings it down. And his stupidity kind of is the plot, right? Because he keeps doing stupid shit. Yeah. He's got like the rock bracelet on. That was like the funniest thing about it. I was like scream laughing.

Whenever the rock was on it, it was like his first appearance, I think, in like a big film. Yeah. Like I haven't seen it since like being a kid. So seeing the Scorpion King in 4K was like, way.

That is something else. Like you released that. And the fact like the rock doesn't have like a, he doesn't have like a single line, I don't think, at least in English. He might say something in the opening sequence, the flashback sequence or whatever. Yeah, they do the same thing again with like the faces and the water and the sand. It looks a lot worse despite coming out a few years later. Some like really dodgy compositing with this like flying air machine thing. Oh my God, that shit.

I hated that thing. Yeah, that shit sucks. I didn't mind the concept of them going to London and like the mummies chasing them through London on a double deck of bus. That was fun. That was fun. Yeah, that was fine. The only thing I actually remembered outside of the Scorpion King, cringe, was the like pygmy mummy chase thing. That was like super cartoonish and was very reminiscent of the Lost World Jurassic Park with the long grass stuff.

they do the scream, scream, scream thing again in that as well. That was like bad cartoony where a lot of the cartoony stuff in that first one is a bit more charming. It just felt a bit more like obligatory. Like it was just so successful that first one. And like on the day it was released, the director was called up for the studio and like, we need another one. That's just the vibe of the sequel. Just really bad acting. There's like a death scene where they pretend that radio.

Rachel wise is being killed for like two minutes. Nice. It's like, right, maybe even bothering with that. There are some, like, quite impressive, like, big scale wide shots with, like, hundreds and hundreds of horses and, like, the army stuff. It looks okay. It's not, like, narratively interesting in any way. And, yeah, anything else that stood out about it?

Yeah, there was something. I kind of like how they wrapped up the, the, Emhotep, like, mummy, character. He's got this kind of like tragic, like kind of like fucked up Romeo and Juliet thing going on where like that's his whole motivation is like trying to get his girl back basically. And when he gets rejected towards the end, he's like, he just accepts his fate and like just drops into the underworld. And it's like, good. That was kind of fun. But yeah, very, very boring. Oh my God, it's super boring. Also. The sequel. So then the Odyssey saved me. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Thank you, Christopher Nolan.

I got a weird fucking flashback memory that I didn't even think about until just now. I own the mummy returns for Game Boy Color just since I was a kid. It was just one of those random things that I guess like, like, oh, I got it. I don't know. Like maybe I had a Game Boy and like going on a road trip or something. It was just like there at the store. I don't remember why I have it. But I do remember trying.

trying many, many times to play the game. And it's just like such a fucking frustrating, broken, annoying, joyless mess. That's just, it's not even like, I think I made it past the first level or something. And it's just like, disgusting. That was prime, like, movie tie-in games that was, like, made in like six months.

Yeah, you could have stuck a different movie title on it, like legit. And yeah, I guess he didn't return The director I mean for Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. It was Rob Cohen, who did that one. The only thing I remember about that one is there's like Yeti's in it, I think. Nice. And Jetty.

It's not good. Yeah. Okay. I wouldn't revisit that one anytime soon. So I'll do an inverse. I'd give the mummy returns a one and a half star. Like, it's just not it. for that first movie.

I think it would give like a two and a half star with a like. You know, it kind of flew by. Even though I do think it's slightly too long, there is something fun, especially in that kind of middle section. Everyone seems to be kind of on the same page with the type of movie they're in and kind of, yeah, just I keep saying it, but committing to the bit.

That's kind of the whole vibe of it. Yeah, Mommy six out of ten for me. That's just a good time. Good time. Mummy returns. I don't even want to think about or talk about. No rating. Unreviewable.

Yeah. Just everything that it makes, it retroactively makes me like the mummy less because it's just like, it's just like everything that the mummy is but slightly worse. And you go, oh, wait a second. Maybe there was an accident that had worked for the first time. Oh, no. That's sad.

And they're doing a new one with Brandon Frazier. very soon, I think. Oh. Oh. Wait, you guys didn't know about this? They're doing a new mummy. I think I probably saw it on Reddit and then forgot two seconds later because my brain's stupid. He's serious right now?

Yeah, look it up. Mummy Brendan. Returning for the mummy four, yeah. What's the source? And it's not Lee Kronin's the mummy. It's, uh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow.

That's exciting. Okay. Deadline. Entitled Mummy Project, yeah. Slated for October 15th, 2027. Damn. Oh. Oh, with Rachel Wise as well,

because she didn't come back for three. She was over it by then. That could be interesting. I'm more interesting. I'll see what the trailer's like, sort of thing. Also, according to deadline, Brendan Frazier is going to be in full the whale costume. Oh, hell yeah.

The entire film. Yeah. So it's kind of like... Double excited. the whale crossover. Oh my God, that would be so good. See, like Hollywood just wastes opportunities. Like, there's so many good concepts at there.

Yeah, now that it would kind of be perfect for a mummy movie to come out now because then it would be the like new trend of like legacy sequels. Like just ticking whatever the new boxes are. That's really funny. I can't believe it. I mean, it'll probably not capture the spirit of the original. Let's be perfectly honest. Yeah, how old is Brendan at this point?

Like, it's been a long time since Georgia the jungle. That was my exposure to him. I love that. Yeah, that's kidding. For me, Looney Tunes back in action. They'll have a trailer. It'll be like dark and mysterious. It'll like slowly reveal him out of a silhouette and he'll be like,

I'm getting too old for this. We'll have like a really epic version of some popular song, something about mummies or something. where like you look at the surface level version of the lyrics and you're like, oh, I can see why Chat GBT, GPT told them to use that song. It's going to be a Billy Elish song. It's going to be like sand sweeping over the desert and then you just see, yeah, Brennan Fraser from the back

and then that's all you see. Yeah. And he pulls the whale face from the poster. Oh my God, yes. And directed by Xavier Dolan. Yeah, maybe it will be as fun as, seeing old miserable Indiana Jones who's like

in his fucking 70s like making his life and how Yeah is it gonna be set in like the 50s or 60s Their kid is going to be dead In Vietnam I'd be fine with that actually

I'm just like Yeah that's actually You're gonna sell them Sure yeah yeah Why not Get rid of them Yeah All right

Yeah that was That's fun That was a good dishe Oh yeah I didn't give My rating, five out of ten also. Nice. Yeah, so same as Alex.

Yeah, didn't hate it. Was detached, but in a way that I wasn't frustrated. And I was like, I could be like socializing watching this, you know? Yeah, it's breezy, it's stupid, watchable. Yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad we're all kind of like on the same page as that. I was like worried that I would be the hater or something. But we're all pretty similar.

It's a fucking masterpiece, you fucking imbeciles. How dare you. 10 out of 10. That's awesome. All right. Well, wait, are we doing questions now? Yeah, I think it's question time, right? Either questions or another pee break if somebody has the pee.

I just have a bottle next to me. I'm good. Yeah, I can survive. I can do some questions. All right, let's do questions. In which case, let's do some questions then from the Sard-Donat-Cast community. head over to the suggestion thread over on the subreddit. If you want to leave questions for future episodes,

let's start with this one from Vince is depressed. The Star of Obsession has been rumored or reported to be in talks for roles in Blockbusters. Is that Michael Johnson? Johnston, sorry? Yeah, it has a T. Okay. Yeah, Johnston.

He's in talks to be in The Mummy sequel and Navaretti. Is that you say a name? Naravetti. Naravetti. I thought it was never ready. Naravetti. I don't know. Isn't talks to be an X-Men.

People on the internet are acting like this is a betrayal. What are your opinions on this, if any? I mean, they want work. Why is it a betrayal? How dare these actors get a big paycheck. What are we talking about? Unless their contract says you're not allowed to be in other movies or something, then what the fuck?

Who cares? Yeah, there's a non-traversy at its core. Like, why would you be upset about that? In fact, it's kind of insane flex if she gets into the MCU of one film. Yeah. This just in 16 year old on Twitter said this. Like, is basically what the story is. Who cares?

Breaking news. Yeah. There's always like a desperate attempt to like make, charge it somewhere. Yeah, yeah. Even if it makes no sense. It'd be different if it was like some big, actor who's like it'd be like if Daniel de Lewis wanted to be the next Magneto you know it'd be oh yeah okay came out of retirement he's like one last final film then it'd be like

why why are you doing this why do you I'd respect it I'd be like they must have been giving you like literally a trillion dollars or they have blackmail on you he's in the abstain files I get yeah I guess there's this I guess it's like a kind of lack of understanding when people see a face on the big screen and they just assume they're like Robert Downey Jr. are rich, you know, and are getting like residuals and the money. Like, so they see obsession, huge film making all the money. So then everyone is going to be like linked to that success somehow. And she is as far as like getting her face out there. But yeah, she doesn't pay much for the actual film. No, I definitely made nothing making that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but it's a huge

career boost. Exactly. People are watching her stream the last of us on a Windows computer that didn't pay for its license. She's probably making more from the streaming. Oh, yeah. Look, like, if I was like a very conventionally attractive female actress breaking into the scene, I would also immediately start Twitch streaming.

Like, continue acting, but nice little side gig and you get some simps out of it, you know? Yeah. Oh, okay. Oh, this is a weird one from Crazy Minus. With Warner Bros. choosing to partner with an AI podcast to promote the end of Oak Street with AI generated Talking Dogs a week ahead of release. Given how marketing is like this, sorry, this is written kind of weirdly, could hinder anyone's interest of expectations in seeing the film.

Would you guys ever consider marketing with a good or bad to take a part in any film's presentation or overall quality? concert expectations for sure it's like a tonepiece when they're done well when they can reveal too much sometimes this this aoid dog bullshit that was kind of insane this that whole film i'm gonna wait until after i've seen the movie to like i see the screen cap of it and it looks stupid and i could imagine what it is but i don't i don't even think i don't remember if i've even seen the trailer or not i might have seen the teaser i just like the director so yeah same that's the main reason i'm curious about it too. It's just like a weird

project, like all round. That's what it seems like. That's why it's intriguing. Yeah. It's an August movie. August gets weird. Here's the thing. Also, as we learned

from late night with the devil, a controversy over using AI seems to just get more eyes on the fact that a movie is even coming out. You know? So maybe it's a viable marketing strategy for something that like if not as many people know.

But like that's why people, that's why people were talking about I saw the devil. It was a success in large part because there was a controversy over its AI usage. It probably wound up helping the Brutalist too. Yeah, probably. Like more people are talking about it. More people are aware of it, you know.

I think we're also going to see more often, and this is more in relationship to the Brutalist, but did you guys see that report that Netflix released that like 300 of, their movies and shows released within the last year used like generative AI at some point, or I don't know if it was generative AI, but used AI in the process. No, I didn't see this. Yeah, I'm entirely unsurprised.

And they just put their report out there. It's kind of like, yeah, we're just letting you guys know that this is happening. And I think that it's going to be used selectively to kind of like knock movies down as like with the brutalist. There was debate about what was being used as AI. and then there's going to be like a slop just being made constantly with AI that because it's slop, you know, it's just, it's going to be trickier even defining what these studios are telling you as AI or not because it's very clear that they're hiding so much of the process right now. Oh, yeah. I mean, AI or not like the conversation for like what I value in films is authenticity.

Like a human can make inauthentic art. AI makes an authentic art. If AI is involved in art that has authenticity, that's the human element guiding that authenticity, right? Like, yeah, like it's a lot of the same problems exist, and I'm glad more people are talking about it. I was walking through like a little farmer's market sort of thing, and there was a T-shirt vendor.

And I looked at the designs on the T-shirt, And I'm like, damn, these look like kind of fucking AI, not because it had like an extra finger or anything, but because it was just so conventional clip art sort of like disgusting, uncanny smile cartoon sort of thing. You know, you know exactly the type. And then I realized like, wait, even if it's not AI, like, it's like we're being, we're given more tools to recognize when something is like inauthentic and is just like the average. the average inoffensive version of something, right? Like the median. Yeah, it's an interesting conversation. Yeah, at the moment it's quite easy to spot for that kind of shit.

Like on every high street you see like a burger joint that has its menu and it's just AI slop. Oh, yeah, that's annoying. It's so obvious. Take a photo of your food. And it's like flea markets. You have a smartphone. Yeah, I saw like a It was like a

A carpet cleaner van or something The logo was like very obviously like an AI thing Yeah Yeah, it's pretty lame I'd much prefer to see like a corny clip art An actual human made Yeah Isn't like through all these filters of it

Like referencing stuff that Has been made But it's you know It's the joke about Doomsday where it's like all trained on this kind of similar looking stuff. Exactly. It just winds up being this

everything just looks like Disney bullshit. The average. Or like all the Pixar animated style AI slot. Yeah. Now they have to move away from it. Yeah. Yeah.

It's Jeez. Yeah. And it's like the, it's the default criticism of shitty looking movies now too. Like I can't even remember the name of that Disney animated film that's coming out.

Everyone was kind of mocking it because it looked like gen Slop Yeah So that might be a bit of an issue for them I'm curious if they have like access to Versions of this tech that's like Better than an average person

Guaranteed They must have Yeah like Disney obviously has like access to stuff like that Sorry it seems like there's a There was a time in which The big studios were somewhat oppositional to the AI companies And it was a short-lived time But there was a moment when they were like, hold on, you're training your stuff on our shit.

That's copyright. You can't be doing that. And now it seems like just as fast as that moment happened, they're now completely in league, working together in tandem. None of that concern anymore, you know. They were only ever suing because it was in competition with their AI company. 100%. 100%. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, I mean, open Facebook. once. All the shit the boomers are watching on there. It's just, it is already that,

you know. And on the other end, like, a really weird trend in, like, the movie space is, like, these condensed versions of movies

with an AI narrator that might be, like, mimicking a character from it. Yeah. Like, explaining the plot of the movie, but it's in,

like, three minutes instead of two hours or whatever. It's a very weird stuff. Like, you'll see sometimes. Um, yeah i guess on some level like a lot of people just like it which is awesome yeah we like eating our own shit more shit please yeah there's definitely something poisonous about it um i don't know

i brought up before like the idea of you know we talk about like animal welfare in movies and you have to put in the credits you know like yep this has been approved that animals weren't destroyed in the making of this. Yeah, I don't know if I... I don't know how high of a standard that is. It seems like putting organic on a label. There's Milo and Otis got one. Yeah, but you know what I'm getting at, like,

some kind of standard, some kind of standard or some acknowledgement or... I guess it's going to become like kind of an advertising point of, like, we made our film without any AI, and that's why this is interesting. Yeah, people are doing it already. It's gotten weird, quick.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But then how do you? verify it. Let's say you hire a composer and you didn't oversee their entire process and every single bit of every single program that they used and they used some like AI generative thing just for like one instrument in the wealth of like I don't know can you even guarantee that your own movie that you made as an artist if you involved other people can you actually guarantee that I don't know. Also there's like a porousness to the term to the point where like there's stuff

that we do every day with editing that now the companies are trying to say, well, that's AI. It's like, no, no, no, that's not, like you can't just call anything AI and dilute what it is. You know, it's like, there are different tools that you use. Yeah. In post-production, so it's, it's very

annoying and they wanted them. Yeah, it's a very unfocused conversation. It's like, the tool side of it is like, okay, the search engine side basically. But it's the generative stuff that's the affronts to art. Yeah, no, I'm just kind of pissed because, like, whether or not there are, like, much more, quote-unquote, intelligent or advanced versions of this that, you know, maybe either large corporations or governments have access to.

It seems like what's on the public-facing front is just kind of, like, in this, like, plateau or loop or something where, you know, I remember when the conversation, first started happening when we were seeing some like weird AI shit starting to take place it was just you and I on the podcast at the time Alex we were having you know that that sparked like philosophical conversations about like what is consciousness you know and now it's like okay well we're in this pretty fucking deep and the the fucking like the AI chat bots are not intelligence they're literally just repeating the average of conversations, text that they've seen on the internet, right? Like, it's like worse search results, right? I have to fact check fucking everything. Not that I didn't before, but now I have to extra hard. And it's like, okay, well, what is the product here again? It's just for tricking old people and that's it.

Like, what? I'm just kind of pissed. Like, another hype scam of people who are involved in the companies is directly benefiting from investment in stocks saying, oh yeah, no, this is like actually going to take over the world. Same shit I fell for when Elon was talking about fucking self-driving cars.

I'm like, oh yeah, they'll be here in five years. Right, yeah, fuck, fool me ten times. Yeah,

shame on me. Yeah, it is one of those like follow the money type things. It's not even real. Like the stock is insane. Like, just look at like in video and all of this stuff is like so just out of whack. And yeah,

like all the biggest podcasts just have the, the guests that are just like people from AI companies that have certain interests and they it's like what the what is actually the reality you know well don't worry like the bubble will burst conveniently right after Democrats are in power so you just got to wait a little bit yeah yeah I don't know it's quite infuriating quite tiring um they all say what 2027 it's like that's what It's we're going to reach the Z-death and everything's got to go right. Is that what they all say? Yeah.

Yeah. That's what they're saying on all they're like, these podcasts or whatever with all these like tech people. Is that like just right before an election? I don't know like where it comes from. It's like a project. I don't trust anybody. I don't remember. Yeah.

Yeah. So you show it to me. but uh okay we got i got a really fucked up one hell yeah you can do from uh a zealous ideal world 89 who says of the three of you who can twerk the longest without getting tired me obviously that's a good one i don't have a feeling jake might be like a secret pro twer um back in the day my back is so beyond up. I literally can't even like move. No, no, not anymore. I don't know. Alex, I feel like you've got it in you still. Go on then. That can be Patreon content. Oh yeah. Well, we'll settle the debate once

and for all on the Sardonicast Patreon. We're going to have a special one, one member $100,000 tier, one time only, you know, like the twerker. The twerker. I think we got to meet here's what here's what we got to do we all got to meet up for Dune's Day right we got to I want to be there as Adam watches Victor von Dume on screen

you know beamed through his cornea I want to be there no you got to twerk through the entire two teams do you work through oh yeah that might make the experience a little better actually insane

yeah D-Bucks that's cheating. Shit, yeah. Like making everyone to work in the audience. Sure, why not? Yeah. It's part of our heritage. Let's do a real one from OZAR.

Okay, fine. All three of you get together at TIF and are waiting in line to see a highly anticipated movie. Suddenly Assad runs up to you and excitedly asked to take a picture. You all agree. Unfortunately, the fan forgot to turn off the flash. So as the phone takes the picture, all three of you are suddenly permanently blinded by the bright light. Now that you are blind, do you continue to watch movies? If so, would the type of movie you watch change to those that are purely dialogue-driven?

Would you watch with audio description? Or would you not being able to see the cinematography and visuals put you off movies forever? Okay. This person set up their question about how would we live? life if we were blind by posing. Involving a specific scenario. We got, yeah, a camera flash blinded us. Okay.

I like, there's a whole narrative. There's like lore to this question. With an illegal modifier to the flash on your camera. Like a military weapon. This sounds like this person, it has a plan for us. So maybe you should be on the lookout. Yeah. Well, I'm like, when you started describing the story, I'm like, this has happened until

I got to that. Like, this is already happened. Right. Yeah, yeah. No, a twist. No, I've, like, thought about it, but I wouldn't be able to give any, like, kind of guaranteed answers. Because, you know, your perception of the world around you is entirely just sensory input. When you lose one sense, you don't really understand what that's like until you go through it. Yeah, like, I think the better way to find out the answer would just be to ask, like, actual.

visually impaired people, like what they do. Yeah. Like, from my understanding, there's tons of blind people that will watch a movie even if it doesn't have audio description and kind of just infer things happening depending on what the film is. Yeah, audio description can be fun and funny sometimes. Really depends what you're going for. I could imagine being more drawn to, uh, like audiobooks and music I was going to say yeah

because then you get your like narrative checks and I don't know so much of what is enjoyable about movies to me is the visual element still get the score yeah I would be curious so yeah you do get the score and the dialogue I guess

and you can pick up in like tone performance and stuff like that still they do in the described video depending on the movie they do like describe a good amount of visual information. But you're never going to get the full picture, obviously. But depending on the movie, they do put efforts into describing more than just like what the characters are doing.

Yeah. I'd have to read some anecdotes from how well. Yeah. No, you guys put it well. I really wouldn't know. That's how I watched the prequel trilogy last time. Really? Oh, yeah?

Yeah. It was for the podcast. And I was like, this version's going to be better for me. And it was. I still had my eyes open, just FYA. But it's just an extra audio track. That's how I watched Tobolly flee. That's how I watched Tabas Baby.

To Boss Baby. All right, should do a couple more, wind this guy down. Let's do this one from J. J. Marston, who would be your dream guest for Sardonicast? Any director, actor, YouTuber, author, etc. Who would you most like to get on the show, no matter how impossible it may be? Rachel Dolos.

Jeffrey Epstein. Oh, at the same time, dream blent rotation. I think, I think, I think a daddy Derek absolutely Oh no I think that would be like legendary

Sure but no Oh yeah Like it would never happen As a surprise I mean John Favro Right Okay serious answer

Like obviously Charlie Kaufman Right I could I'd love to talk to him again Yeah I connect a lot with his art Yeah my non goofy answer

I think Lynch, David Lynch would be a funny one. Sure. Just like a funny personality. I feel like that would be hilarious. Just to ask him opinions on. So I watched him maybe on my phone and just trying to upset him, you know, get him angry. He's really funny when he's angry. Sincerely, I wouldn't want to talk to anyone.

I, like, revere, like, David Lynch. That would be so fucking, like, I don't, do you feel that way, like, certain artists or people, you're just like, I don't really need to know you as a person because I have your art and I don't, you know. It's not necessarily like a feeling of need per se. I get what you're saying. There's certain artists that I wouldn't have much interest in approaching at all. And in fact, you know, like, I do a lot of film festivals. there's like tons of directors that I'll see like outside a screening and there's like people you know swarming them asking for pictures. I usually just keep my distance and just be like, I'm glad to see them, but like I don't need to like have an interaction with them. But if it's

more of like an actual like conversation, whether it's like an interview for a podcast or you know, like something that's not that type of environment, I love learning about people regardless of whether or not they're like big directors. I just like learning about different people and talking to different people and understanding or attempting to the way other people's brains work. Yeah, now Charlie Kaufman is one where there is

something there where I would I would want to... I don't know. I don't know. I have no idea. It's a complicated... thing to answer. His artist is so personal to me. Yeah, it depends on like their vibe and how they like when we had Jeremy Perron, yeah, Mars Express director on, but I found that like a very fulfilling. Hell yeah. Conversation and I, you know, I could pick his brain all day long and had just

so many questions. At the same time, there are other like artists or people like, I don't feel like I need to have like a conversation with Christian Bale or something, you know? Like, yeah, I'm fine, just leaving them as like, it depends on the person to me. And like, yeah, it just doesn't have the vibe that he would enjoy like sitting in that space, whereas like a Jeremy who kind of got it, he understood the format and was like willing and just open about that. Yeah. I don't know. I think Robert Pattinson would fuck with Sardana cast. I was going to say that. I was going to say he'd be a cool guest. Yeah. He listens to death. Yes.

Really? Yeah, no, there's a photo of him and Beyonce and death grips all in the same photo. It's like cursed. It's incredible. Oh, you haven't seen this? It's fucking hilarious. FC rides looking like disassociated. Oh, my God.

Oh, yeah, no, I'll show it to you. That's awesome. It was like, yeah. I'll make sure you see it. I would only want him on if he did like an insane voice we haven't heard before. Oh, you guys would, yeah, you guys would just have. have to do voices together, Alex. You can do the most unhinged voice for two hours.

Okay, that raises the question. Who would be the worst guest to have on this podcast? Daddy Derek. Well, that would be the worst best. Sure. Well, pre-sitin vigilante, I remember years ago, like, reaching out to Ove-Bowell, see if you'd come on. I thought that would be kind of funny.

No, not so much Now, yeah, I wouldn't want that now All right I'm sending the picture Let me see this What? It was like in a It was like an award show that

It was like some music industry thing And then Beyonce I think wanted a picture with Pattinson But had no idea who the rest of them were And Pattinson's chill with death grips and actually listens to them. And so this just weird photo existed

because, I think because Beyonce wanted a picture with Pattinson because maybe Twilight or something, I don't know. It's just such an odd, cursed photo. I love it. That is,

yeah, that's a dream blunt rotation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's such a great photo. Expressions are everything too. Fucking,

some of them looking homeless right now, too. That shit looks like a jaw phone now. Bullshit. I'm putting this out in the... I think Ari Aster would be an awesome guest one day. Oh, yeah. Sure.

And I'm putting this out in the world. I think Ridley Scott, we've got to get him on. I think that would be a nightmare of a podcast episode. Sure. I agree. I think it would be a nightmare as well. If there's one person who, like, I would actually... We're talking about, like, people in film that we would love to talk to,

like Scraesey like hands down sure the one I'd want to talk to the most more than anyone he also just seems like he'd he's like because I think about like the Cohen brothers they're kind of like not very open about talking about their process and their work

but I feel like Scraese is very like he's a talkative guy yeah he's talkingative he's got he like gets the like online space like his TikTok and his daughter and stuff like that he has help yeah exactly he like gets it no more he's great to be a presence there it's great to have him there yeah it's nice to

see like significant figures from older generations like having some help getting into those spaces and you know it kind of it might be exposing a lot of young people to his filmography too like undoubtedly that's the case no 100% like people spam the like absolute Cinema. True. Nice. We'll get more guests on in the future. There's some directors I really like that have expressed enough interest.

But we'll see. We'll see. Because it's funny because sometimes I have like someone's DMs or email or whatever. But then their career gets like so big that then I get self-conscious. and I'm like, are they too big for the podcast now? Right, right. I'm like, damn, you're like fucking popping off. I should have got you on earlier.

They should be so lucky. They should be so lucky. Yeah. You gotta get them when they're off coming. Hmm. Okay. Was that the last one? Right.

It's one more we could end on. Sure. A bit more of a philosophical one, actually, from We Shall Mate Now. ironic with that name I love Reddit usernames yeah there and I when I screenshot I don't really look at the name

until I'm like reading it in the moment I'm like surprised this is yeah I sound like crazy saying this thanks rim job Steve what do you think your stalker wish would be as in something that you've always wished

deep down subconsciously not something that comes immediately to mind so to as a quick reminder the stalker wish is from towards the end of that movie where your most sincere desire your true nature.

Oh, stalker. I thought they're like, like, who do you want to stalk? Like, your wish is a stocker. Like the fuck. No, no, the science fiction concept. Yeah, you're, what makes the ending of that film so kind of thought-provoking and interesting. Like, would you go in there? Would you object to self to?

So the deepest desire that, like, but it doesn't have to be something that's like... What, it could be something subconscious? It's not like, I wish for a billion dollars. Oh. You know, it's something deeper. It's something that you can't control. It's that you will get your deepest desire. What is my subconscious desire that I have no knowledge of?

Yeah, I don't know. It's a great question. Well, I have like a good degree of confidence that I'm like in tune enough with my, my uncontrollable subconscious desires to know. like those types of things on a conscious level. So like my answer would be the same, whether it's a regular wish or a stalker wish, is just like, you know,

peace and comfort and happiness to be shared with one or more people that understand me and don't judge me and I can intellectually get along with and I'm attracted to. And a feeling is mutual and financial stability. You know, the general shit of just like the stuff that our brains are hardwired, Hawaiian.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking in terms of like a calming of the mind, something like that. It would probably be like a monkey's board thing where it's like, it would probably be like, I get like lobotomized or something. Yeah, something along those lines just in a piece maybe. You see, I'd probably go into the room being like, yeah, inner peace, you know, harmony, that

sort of thing and then I would just get $10 billion. Yeah. Just like in the pocket. Like, yeah. That's about right. Yeah. Deep down.

Deep down. And then they tax 1001% because Mom Donnie got elected and then you owe money to them. The stocker tax. Yeah. Mom Donnie's issuing the stocker tax. You got all your earnings from the

room. Yeah. What it didn't say in the fine print was that it applies in Washington. Oh, damn. They probably are building like the stalker room in the fucking white house at this point. Oh, it's in the data centers.

Yeah. Yeah, what's under the White House right now? Sorry, there's too many things to pay attention to. That's a good... I forgot about that one. Some of the nefarious going on. Portal to hell, yeah.

Well, as long as we never forget about the fucking Dijon mustard tan suit, you know. Like, we're good. For sure. Yeah, yeah. That's the good stuff right now. Damn, Stalker's a good movie.

That's such a great movie. I love it. Fucking incredible. Okay. All right. There's some good ones in there. Nice variety. Thank you.

Thank you so much for the questions. Yeah. About as unhinged as usual. Thank you. Good selection. I think it's my recommendation. It is. All right.

I would like you. to both open a tab or just on your phone or whatever and just search on Google random number generator

no or pick one well fucking pick one I don't like this I don't like where this is going random number generator between between the number one and 31

one and 31 okay no you make the choice this is you this is on you this is on the house well Alex you can participate I've done it I've done it what's the number okay

one okay All right, Jake, pick heads or tails. One. All right, we're watching The Beast. We're watching The Beast. 2023 film with LESA do, yeah. Director Bertrand Bonello.

Yeah, never seen it. I've wanted to watch this as well. All right. What was the other choice? I'm so curious. Yeah. What do you mean? There was more, there were 31 choices.

Sure. Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah, we were narrowing them down. All right. Hell yeah. But I should, you know, I'll just like, I'm not going to tell you. But this one worked out great.

That's right. Yeah, no, it's something I want to see. Yeah, if you don't want to be spoiled for The Beast, directed by Bertrand Bonello, if that's how you pronounce the name, watch it before the next episode comes out. These episodes come out every two weeks. You can listen to them early by going to sardincast.com. Sign up for premium. It's only a few bucks a month. Also, patreon.com slash sardonicast.

Also, you can go click the join button for the members thing. It also gets you early episodes. All of these things are ad-free, okay? You don't have to listen to stupid, annoying ads if you do that. Perfect. Excuse me. Whoa. That was the beast talking.

Sorry. Coming out. I'm coming out. Thanks for listening, everybody. Have a happy daddy. Have a happy mummy. Have a happy beast. Yeah.

Have a happy beast. Bye Bye bye Bye bye