Sardonicast - Sardonicast #89: Cruella, Drag Me to Hell (feat. Jenny Nicholson)

Episode Date: June 28, 2021

Jenny's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/JennyENicholson Support the Show for $2 a month and receive all future episodes early at https://sardonicast.com and https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast. Buy Sardonicast T-Shirts, and other merchandise at https://teespring.com/stores/sardonicast. Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/sardonicast Website: https://sardonicast.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/sardonicast Twitter: https://twitter.com/sardonicast Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sardonicast Ralph's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ralphthemoviemaker Alex's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/IHEOfficial Adam's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/YourMovieSucksDOTorg Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/IHE_OFFICIAL Ralph's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ralphsepe Adam's Twitter: https://twitter.com/2gay2lift Adam's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/YMS Ralph's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ralphthemoviemaker Intro music by: https://www.youtube.com/user/anUnkindnessvideo Fan art: https://old.reddit.com/r/Sardonicast/comments/o16f5e/alex_ralph_adam_and_jenny/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Sardonicast/comments/nwxvlr/not_my_proudest_work_but_there_you_go/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Sardonicast/comments/o6t3on/my_little_sardonicast/ Timecodes: 0:00 - Intro 7:27 - Star Wars 20:10 - Cruella 49:49 - Spiral 55:03 - Disney Rides 1:01:27 - Drag Me To 1:33:20 - Q&A 1:33:25 - Any movie franchises you want to marathon for a video? 1:38:28 - What film director would you like to enter the world of animation? 1:42:40 - For Jenny and Adam any experiences with Brony community you'd like to share? 1:47:50 - Do you go through film series release order or chronologically? 1:52:10 - What shoes do each of you wear? 1:53:20 - Favorite Sitcoms? 2:00:58 - What's more important? A good story with bad characters or a bad story with good characters? 2:09:38 - Ralph Recommends Almost Famous

Three, two, one. So, that was it, that's the intro. Hi, everybody, this is Sardana cast. This is Adam from your movie, Sex. Who else is here? You're supposed to be coordinated here. Oh, Ralph, I'm so used to you going second. Oh, I thought our guest should go.

Usually the guest goes last, the movie maker. Based on every single other episode we've recorded. Who else is here? I'm Alex from Ritchie, and we are, of course, joined by the special guest, Jenny Nicholson. Thanks coming on. Yeah, thanks.

I didn't want to just jump in until I was invited formally. Yes, you know, Discord. I prepped everybody for everything but that. I was like, oh yeah, maybe I should have told them how that goes. Oopsie, whatever. I think it went really well. I think it was really engaging. Awkward moments.

It's natural. You know? Yeah. Yeah. The old pregnant pose is, you know, you need them in podcast. Did you say pregnant pause? Yeah. Yeah.

That's a thing. I've never heard that expression. Jeez. I don't really know why it's called that, but it is a phrase. Okay. You learn something new every day. Earlier we were learning the term e-meat. Yeah, maybe it's pregnant pause.

Like, it's gestating the next thing that's going to be said. Like, it carries the weight of a forthcoming thought or something, a sentence. I honestly can't hear the word pause without thinking P-A-W-S. And the word pregnant pause, just... Do you think it was like a furry? username or something. Yeah, like a fairy thing. It's given me deviant art flashbacks is what it's happening right now.

That was my deviant art name, pregnant paws. Oh, awesome. Okay. Yeah, it makes sense. A lot of sensation fetish stuff, you know. Mm-hmm. A lot of BronyCon related stuff, by the way. Congratulations on your Hugo nomination.

Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, amazing. That's sick. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. How did that come about?

Can you talk more about that? Because I actually don't know much. About your Hugo nomination? My BronyCon video got nominated for Best Related Work for the Hugo Awards. So I'm up against like a bunch of, it's the category that's like a catch-all. So like most of the Hugos are novels and stuff. But related works can be like podcasts, parody works, a couple of conventions are running against me. So it's really anyone's race.

That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah, I think at least one, maybe two. conventions. And then I'm like, that's hard because then how can people vote if they didn't attend that convention? But I think a lot of it was online so they can like watch. Oh, they're not allowed to. Well, no. I like, I guess they, everyone's supposed to vote. So I just, I don't know. I think that maybe they're going to watch the panels online and then gauge like the content at the con. I'm not sure. I don't think a cons ever been nominated before. That's interesting.

But yeah, I want to try to watch all the other content I'm against at least. I know I can't consume like everything before the hugo's, but at least the stuff in my category. It would be nice to know. Yeah. Your competitors. Yeah. Yeah. Tell everybody in our audience who might not be familiar with you what you're all about, what your channels all like and what you do.

I feel like every year that gets harder to answer because at first it was like, oh, I do like Star Wars stuff. And then it was like, I do Star Wars and like Disney and Marvel. And then it was like sometimes I talk about theme parks. And now it's just kind of like any topic that I think would be fun or interesting to talk about for like a really long time. Like an excruciatingly long time. But yeah, I guess I like to do like deep dives into things, which could be theme parks. They could be movies. They could be weird reality shows, weird books, all kinds of stuff.

Right now I'm working on a theme park, like an independent theme park in Utah called Evermore. Oh. That's like a foreboding name. That sounds like, it is. Quote the Raven. Yeah. Yeah, it's an interesting story. It's not a part that's doing super well right now.

There's a lot of drama, a lot of weird backstory. So, yeah, I'm excited about that one. Awesome, that's great. Yeah, what I've always appreciated about your channel is it's very you. I think one of the things that really struck me when I discovered it was that you were doing reviews of literature, which is not a very common thing on YouTube. and I wouldn't imagine would be a very particularly marketable thing because a lot of people are just looking for video related content. But I guess you can make video content out of reviewing literature.

Yeah, I know there's a whole subculture. So yeah, there's like a whole Booktube culture they talk about. I think mostly YA books are the most popular topic of Booktube. But I think that it's kind of like a thriving community, but kind of like a lot of YouTube subgenres, maybe the biggest channels in Booktube are still, like, relatively small compared to other genres might have. But I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe there are some really big booktubers.

But, yeah, I didn't see a lot of, like, parody content with books. Especially, like, I think it's hard to do because you have to, like, know what to leave in because you can't sit down and read an entire book. But you also can't assume that your audience has read the whole book. So you have to, like, read parts of it. Yeah, that's a difficult thing. imagine. Yeah, whenever I would do a book, I would just read the whole thing first and, like, highlight passages and, like, stick post-it notes in if I thought it was, like, a funny part. And then just go back and read all the highlighted parts. So I would know what was necessary to,

like, understand the story, but also, like, what's funny. And then it was pretty fast to record after I did that, because, like, all the work was basically done. But a lot of pre-preparation. That's awesome. Somebody in my audience notified me that you've written a couple articles for Playboy. How did that happen? Oh yeah. Well, that was weird. That was a while ago, too. I think they literally just emailed me and were like, would you want to do that? And I was like, okay. Like, I think both times they even like approach me with the topic. And I was like, yeah, that sounds interesting. And I thought that was cool because it's like a real publication, you know? Um, but yeah. And that was it. They basically just emailed me with like the idea. And I was pretty like new to YouTube.

So I thought it was like really flattering that they would want me to write something for them. Oh, yeah. So I did it. But yeah, I wish it was more exciting. How big was your audience at the time? I think I was at like, like between 100,000 and 200,000 subscribers. Which I feel like is like you have an audience, but you feel like insecure in your place as a YouTuber kind of. Yeah, I noticed, I didn't do like a deep dive or anything.

I noticed Adam Conover also wrote an article for Playboy. And I guess it got me to be thinking. about how like a lot of old media publications are kind of having to compete on the internet now, you know, it's like a normal thing. Yeah. And so combining old media and new media almost seems like a viable strategy for them at some points. Yeah, definitely.

Did either of you have any questions, Alex and Ralph? Yeah. I apologize in advance to Adam because I know you just don't care about this topic at all. Oh, great. Star Wars, we have to talk about Star Wars. Right. Where do you kind of stand on it at the moment? Are you just done with it at this point?

Did the Mandalorian do anything for you? Yeah, that's a really good question. I'm genuinely really curious. Yeah, I kind of have just like stops liking Star Wars, I guess. It's weird because I still have all my Star Wars stuff. Yeah, like I have all my porgs and stuff like that. But I just feel like a lot of the newer content is like, actually, I don't want to single anyone out. I feel like there are some creatives at Lucasfilm who make a kind of content that I'm just not interested in that's very like fan boy centric.

And I feel like all the new stuff is like that. And so I just, I don't know. They kept really seeing products that I like didn't care about. And then I really disliked the rise of Skywalker. So, you know, at first when that movie came out, I was like, that's okay. I still like Star Wars. And then the more stuff that came out, the more I was like, I'll see like an R2D2 in a store and be like, I'm free. Like, I don't care about Star Wars anymore.

But it's kind of sad because I have, you know, all my porgs and my BV8s and I have like lightsabers in my living room. Yeah, your channel banner still BBA8. Is it really? Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah, I never, I never update those. It'll probably stay BV8 forever. Yeah, well, Amanda's channel is forever Amanda the Jedi, so.

Yeah. She's got to deal with that a bit more. Is she still super into Star Wars? Oh, I don't know. I think we asked her about why her channel name was Amanda the Jedi, and she didn't seem to be like, I don't know if she's super into it. She didn't seem to be like a super Star Wars fan at this point. I don't think she dedicates a lot of time to talking about Star Wars. She could liberate herself.

No, it would be really easy to just like, I mean, her name is already part of the name. So if she was just Amanda last name, then I feel like she could easily transition if she wanted to. Yeah. Well, at least we now know why Han Solo's name is Solo. Yeah. At least we have that. That was really necessary. Yeah, that whole movie.

Rise of Skywalker's. That sucks. That was a bad movie. Yeah, it was horrible. It, like, ruined, it crushed my soul. I was so sad about it. Like, for, for, like, months, I was so sad. Every time I thought about how disappointed I was about it.

And I guess I still am. No, I'm just angry, so that's better. I was angry about it, bitter. Yeah, I can't say I blame you. The secret to never being disappointed is never having expectations. Yeah. I wish I hadn't. I just was really tricked into thinking it was going somewhere, you know?

Oh, wow. I was completely fooled. Yeah. That was like originally supposed to be like a Lord and Miller thing and then they scrapped that idea or something. I don't remember. What, the solo movie? Yeah, it was supposed to be, it was. Yeah.

It was supposed to be something completely different. Oh, yeah, solo-wise. I feel like you can kind of see all the thumbprints in solo where it's like, you can imagine beats that in an absurdist comedy would have been like a funny scene and then they turned it serious so it's not. It's just a really weird movie. Oops. It turns out that having a lack of direction in a franchise spanning multiple films is not a good thing.

What was that new quote that came out? Was it JJ Abrams that said, hey, I guess maybe we should have had a plan. That's right. That's funny. Yeah, you said maybe it would have been better if we planned all three. And it's like, yeah. Yeah. You don't say.

No sure. Very interesting. What a crazy. I was looking at just the finances of the movies, like the Star Wars trilogy, the new one. And the newest one made significantly less than like Last Jedi. Like each one, there's like a huge drop off. Like the highest grossing movies of all time, Last Jedi is 14, right? And then the one after it's much less.

less. I hope that was word of mouth and like people it was because people heard it was bad, but I don't even have faith in that. It was probably just because people were bored of Star Wars. It's still made a billion dollars, of course, but I'm just saying like top grossing movies of all time, it's 32. Oh, that's a disgrace. Yeah. You know, like there was a huge drop off. If I can kind of rationalize why people would be so unwilling to check out the third movie, I think it's because like episode seven was such a carbon copy. of episode four that it didn't really tell you much

about what the new trilogy was going to be so you could kind of fill in the rest with your imagination and be like oh they set some stuff up and it could go really interesting I wonder what they'll do when they actually break away from just making a carbon copy a nostalgia bait thing and the

expectation was that they would and then episode 8 happened and people were like oh I didn't I didn't like what this was you know so it's no longer Episode 8 set up, like, so many, it basically diverged from the old trilogy. Like, I felt like episode 8 I watched it and I was like, oh, like, it's doing a new thing. Like, this could go in any direction. It's got all these, like, status quo shakeups and, like, characters are ending the film in, like, weird places.

Like, it made a lot of moves you would expect the final film in a trilogy to make. So I felt like that left the board, like, basically wiped clean where you're like, oh, anything can happen. What will the third movie be? And then the third movie was just, like, resetting the chess board and being, like, actually, it's going to be. be all the most, all the things you can expect the most of a Star Wars movie with like, nothing, nothing exciting, nothing new. It's just like all the saddest, most played out beats back for more. It was two directors arguing with each other over what the series should be with the movies themselves. Yeah, and it's like, he electively left and didn't do the whole

trilogy. So it's like, you know, once he's yielded that, he can't come back and be mad at what they've done while he's gone. He has to like accept that and try to make a good movie. instead of like resetting everything. Yeah. I'm honestly shocked that there was no coordination. Because even with the credit showing like written and directed by Ryan Johnson, in the back of my head, I was thinking, I mean, his name's there, but he didn't, you know, he's working with, like a blueprint that somebody else gave him, right?

But apparently no. I thought it was like there was a room where they're all together and they were like, okay, and then it's going to go this way. Or at least he had the ideas, but then it was collaborative from there where he's like, what if Snoke dies in this one? And they're like, oh, and then we can do this. But it does seem like they just sent him off. And then he came back with something.

And they're like, I guess we'll figure it out after this. And it's like, why would you do it that way? There's so much writing on it. Financially, they were in the middle of building a theme park set in this timeline. Which is such a horrible idea. It's so insane. I think part of that probably comes from how ballsy they were just thinking like, you know what? We can do anything and people will eat this up.

I think that's how Disney thought about Star Wars. I think it was that. Yeah. They were like, we don't need to do anything because it's Star Wars. You can tell they had no, it was like all hubris. Sure. There's a lot of things going on. Ryan Johnson's definitely a talented director because he made knives out, which I think is really good.

I think that's a really good movie. And I also, I put some of the responsibility on JJ Abrams and also Kathleen Kennedy, who was like the producer of the trilogy. Wait, so do none of you guys like The Last Jedi? Am I the only one that likes it? I liked it at first, but I'm souring on it as time goes on. Oh, I loved it. Yeah, I did as well at the time, but I just feel like now.

But in the trilogy, it doesn't work, but that's not the fault of the movie. Because, like, the trilogy, you know, he thought they were going to continue his story. And I felt like he did leave it open for them to do that. It's almost too conclusive the story. Oh, no, I loved it. I loved that it was conclusive. I mean, that was like literally, I made it, like, a wish list before the movie came out and I was like, what if Snoke died in the second one? That would be such a game changer. And then it

literally happens. I was so excited. Because like, I don't know. I liked that it, people said it was conclusive, but to me, it was like the opposite of it because it was like there was intended to be a third movie. And the fact that so many of what you thought were like these basic boring plot threads were wrapped up left you to have this kind of like gray character beats like moral ambiguity. You're like, now we don't have a cartoon villain. We have Kylo Ren who's like a conflicted villain. And he's probably going to have to lead the first order in the next one. And you have all these pieces set up where you're like, oh, it could go anywhere. Like all bets are off. So yeah, I didn't feel like it felt over. I felt like it had negated all of the most predictable story beats and kind of

like pruned those threads. So you felt like all the remaining possibilities would probably be something really unique and exciting and not just Palpatine coming back from the dead somehow. I guess that's what I lament more. Yeah. I agree that that's exciting. But, But it has, for me, in order for that to work there, I mean, if you're going to do a third movie, it's like you have to have, that has to feel justified somewhere, right? Because like the trilogy doesn't end on the second movie out of the trilogy. Personally, I'm a little indifferent about it. I don't really care too much about Star Wars as a whole.

I'm not like a huge fan of any of the films. But for me, episode eight, I loved what was happening filmmaking-wise. I loved the cinematography. Some of the most memorable parts are like the visuals for, you know, the salt red planet and the crashing and blah, blah, blah. And it's like visually, that's really striking and I love it. But story-wise, it's not like I was offended at anything. It's just I wasn't really that invested. And then key moments like the, I don't know, it's always, it always irritates me no matter what the film when it's like,

Love saves the day and we kind of got that message with Rose and what's the guy's name Or it's like she crashes into him like that that moment I was like that was like that I didn't like that was a cringe moment for me I couldn't with the kiss yeah very strange Well I thought that was gonna set up something that would happen in the third movie but Exactly yeah I was like oh that line is gonna be like a poignant line in the next movie that'll come back Yeah. But then even Rose didn't come back effectively. Rose was just kind of gone in the next movie.

Yeah. They're too scared. The complete picture of the trilogy makes each of the individual films worse. They all drag each other down. I don't know. Yeah, I guess I still like The Last Jedi the same amount because I think, like, especially knowing it was created in isolation, you're just like, well, he thought it was going to have a better ending after it.

So I still like it the same, but I can't really enjoy watching it now because it is just like frustrating being like, oh, this effectively never had a sequel. It basically just, you know, didn't end because, you know, no one attempted to pick up those plot threads at all. Yeah, none of them were picked up. Yeah. I think ranking them, like, it's not the worst movie. There are a lot of prequel fan boys who go after it.

I think attack of the clones is a worse movie. No, I blame seven more as well. Yeah. Revenge of the Sith, you want to debate? Of course. Like, Revenge of the Sith has some redeemable parts, like some fun. parts I guess like attack of clones is boring that's just fucking boring yeah like Revenge of the Sith is like camp which I think is fun attack of the clones I think is a little

worse I think phantom menace is like the worst of all but I think last Jedi is better than no I think it's better than a lot of the yeah it's a little more interesting it's a little better shot the story's better like yeah there's like a little bit things like that it depends on what characteristics you value them because the people that love the prequel Trilogies love space politics and there's a lot of space politics in those movies, right? Even so, it's like, I don't know. The first one is so unwatchable. I don't get any visuals out of the prequels. If I'm looking for some good, interesting visuals, I'm not really getting that out of the prequels because every shot looks so bad. Like,

everything looks so fair. Yeah, I mean, it's just the constraints of the green screen where they have to just kind of like be standing in front of a flat plane. Yeah, the constraints that George Lucas put on the movie himself. Yeah, I don't know why. The restraints he consciously gave himself. They were fascinating series of movies. Yeah, for sure. Not for me.

I mean, none of them are really for me. Sure. Yeah. Anyway. Speaking of Disney dumpster fires, we all saw Girl Joker. I mean, Cruella. What did everybody think?

It was Joker and The Devil Wears Prada. It was both of those things. It was a lot of things. What are your first start here, Jenny? It was so horrible. Like, to kind of a fantastical degree, I felt like the first hour or so was, like, horrible in a really unfun way where I was, like, constantly mad at, like, all of their, like, editing choices and, like, directing choices and the writing. And then, like, the final act, which felt like an additional hour. I'm not positive.

It felt very long. The final act started to get so crazy that it was like fun, bad. And then I was like way more on board. But I don't want to give it any credit by saying that because it was definitely just like an extremely bad, like very incompetently made movie. But at least it was like funny at the end. So I'll give it that. I did really really enjoy it ultimately. It was almost like a saw movie reveal at the end.

Yeah, yeah. The reveal were, wait, are we spoilers? Are we spoiling for a lot? Spoilers. Yeah, let's do spoilers. Thanks for the reminder to tell you. The reveal with the butler when he's suddenly like, you know, this key opens a music box and the Duchess is your mother. I was completely losing it at that scene.

It was like the craziest thing I'd seen in a theater in years. Also, okay, am I confused here? Did I miss something? But like, the Duchess doesn't magically give up her property because she's going to jail, right? Like, that's an inheritance thing. She's still alive. Also, the property's going to the imaginary, or sorry, to Estella. not Cruella.

And even if Estella writes in her own will that everything she owns goes to Cruella, how did Estella get in the first place if the baroness is in? Yeah, why didn't she fake Crewella's death? Because, like, she faked the death of the person who stood to inherit everything. Maybe in this fantasy universe, whoever has the music box key inherits the manner. And that's why the key was so instrumental. I was recording a review for this earlier and I was skimming around trying to find the scene and I couldn't find it.

But I swear that maybe I made this up in my head, but I swear there was a moment of like them saying oh and I I signed my will as Estella saying I'm giving everything to my friend Cruella I'm just wondering how Estella gets it in the first place if the baroness is still alive maybe she was killed in prison and they cut out that scene on the in the editing process also there's no body for Estella she's just a missing person well she fell into the sea yeah but everyone saw her plummet to her dad that was a hilarious scene she could have a parish sir into the ocean she did front of all those people. That was so fun.

Yeah, and she somehow didn't hear any of those, like, hundreds of people coming out on the balcony. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And she goes into a parachute, drives away in the boat, does a costume change, goes all the way back to shore, and then shows up in the DeVille vehicle just to flex on the Baroness right as she gets. But this is just as the cops are arriving to the murder scene. Yeah, she had to be there. They were already there. Remember, they were putting handcuffs on her?

So in between walking her from the backyard to the front of the house, she did all that. Oh, wow. The cops were already there. Yeah, she preemptively called the cops to be party to the murder. Yeah, the cops were there. They were putting handcuffs on her immediately, remember? She's like, what do you do with those handcuffs? Oh, okay.

They just always walk around with those at the ready. I don't know. The movie was, I wasn't a fan of it. Sorry. Wow. I'll start with the two things. I liked, okay. Yeah.

That being the two lead actors and the costume department, those are the two things I liked in Snoopy. The two lead actors mean Emma Stone and other Emma, the two Emmas? Yeah, the two Emmys. The dual Emmas. Yeah. I thought they were okay. Well, I loved Emma Stone in it.

Like, she seemed like she was having a wonderful time. Yeah. I love Emma Thompson in everything, but in this I didn't like her. I felt like she was just doing the Meryl Streep Devil Wears Prada thing. Like, it was, I don't know. It felt like it could have been a zanier character, but she just seemed like she was like, well, I guess this character just acts exactly as you'd expect. And she just kind of was mimicking like every character of that type. I was wanting to love Emma Stone and to some extent Emma Thompson in this film.

But I couldn't because before I watched Corolla, I had recently watched the 90s Dalmatians movie with Glenn Close. And also the 60s one. I mean, it's not a good movie, but yeah. But the performance is very captivating. And it's exhilarating. And it's funny. It's cheese. You know, a lot of it you don't take seriously.

I don't know how much you're supposed to. It's not a good movie. But the performance is like so wild and out there. Because what Glenn Close was doing is she was matching what the character was in the 60s film. And the character in the 60s film was also very eccentric and out there and like spoiled and pampered and clearly has never had anybody tell her know in her life and just freaks blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And a very huge energy to this character. And it's so toned down in Cruella. Well, it's her origin story, and it's an alternate universe. So she has to be lovable now. If you're making a movie trying to market towards people who may, you know, who recognize the character, theoretically you're marketing towards people who want to see that character. And if you're not going to show the character, then what is that, you know?

They showed a glimpse of it for one scene. in this new Cruella film where she basically just told Horace and Jasper I'm Cruella and it's like oh now she's like a bit more eccentric and then I thought she was going to do the rest of the movie like that and then she tones it down again and like oh fuck Disney

everything's so toned down with Horace and Jasper like when she started calling them like imbeciles and stuff it was amazing because it's like she's playing this like in some scenes she's like an extremely grounded character and then in other scenes she's like acting like Cruella.

So it like begs the question of like imagining you are her friends and you like come back to your apartment and suddenly someone's doing like a crazy mid-Atlantic accent and being like fools, I need you to capture those dogs. And just like having to take that in stride. And that's just your life now. The black and white hair is a metaphor for the two sides of her personality. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It was like venom. It was venom. Guys, we did it. I was amazed. to see five writers credited for this, three for the story, two for screenplay.

One of them, because I noticed the devil wears Prada thing while watching it too. And, yeah, sure enough, the screenplay writer for Devil's Wells Prada wrote this movie a long side. That's so much more embarrassing to rip yourself off. Kelly Marcell, one of the other writers wrote Venom. Oh, my God, just doing their thing.

Yes, that's amazing. That's why it feels like five different movies, Because part of it's like a heist movie, it's like such a mess. Oh, the heist stuff was wild. I kept laughing at that because I just kept kind of like, my soul kept leaving my body. And I kept being like, I can't believe what I'm watching right now. I can't believe this is the Cruella movie. Yeah.

When the first 15 minutes are like the epic prologue. Oh, yeah. The prolog is interesting because this kind of ties into what you said about like, you know, I can't believe this is marketed to people that went in like looking for Kuala. I would argue that it's not even marketed to people who care about Crueladaville or the animated movie, like just people who have a vague cultural awareness of it. Because the prolog gave me such Disney descendants vibes where it's like it's a little kid. She's wearing her little punk rock costume with her fingerless gloves that they probably sell at the theme park right now. She's got her little wig.

So she looks like a doll. And they cast like this this cute little girl with like big eyes and like petite features. And it's like, okay, she's supposed to look like a little doll that you want to buy a doll. love and you want to buy her costume and be her for Halloween. Like, it felt like it was made for like seven to 12 year olds who they, who love descendants and are going to buy the merchandise and kind of identify with this sanitized Disney version of like a punk rocker girl. Oh, yeah.

He's like cool and edgy, but still a good guy. Which was so confusing, though, because it was two hours, 14 minutes long. I would feel like if you're trying to be a movie for that audience, a 90-minute Corella movie I could enjoy, you know? It's way too long. Just get in and I don't juggle all these different ideas. Yeah, that was the worst part for me. It's so boring.

She felt, yeah, it was way too long. Yeah, there's that iconic scene where she's doing the monologue, like straight to camera, and you're like, oh, this is the closing monologue. And she keeps going. And finally she's like, I'm Cruella. And you're like, okay, the movie's over. It's going to go to credits. And then she goes, anyway, I have lots more to do.

And then the movie, like, keeps going. We got to totally prank the Baroness for a while. We're going to, we're going to update her. And I'm going to sing a song on stage and I'm going to do some vandalisms and I'm going to do some art performance pieces. I'm the new Marina Abramovich or some shit. Like, it was so weird. Like, I don't. Yeah.

There are so many different ideas in this film that are all just like mishmatched together. Yeah. But they don't fit. And like one of the more consistent elements of this film is just like, okay, obviously it's a Disney remake in current year. Obviously, they're going to do a lot of. references and callbacks to the original film yada yada yada and it's clear that the focus is putting them in the film but the focus is not putting them in a film in a way where it makes sense it is actively contradicting itself so you see things like uh like her hair being oh she was

born that way with it it's like okay now that says less about her character because that's not something she decided right oh she met horace and jasper when they were really little okay now makes less sense that she treats them like shit because they're so nice to her in this. I was expecting some sort of justification. And then, oh, the puppies... Yeah, they're like her found family. Yeah. They saved her in multiple times.

And then we got like, Dalmatian pushes the mom off the cliff and you think, oh, this is to justify why she hates Dalmatians. And then it doesn't. And it turns out it was the baroness. And she likes Dalmatians. The twist flashback where she's got the little dog whistle and she's pointing. She pretends she kills them in this movie and wears a coat,

but she doesn't. And then later, I guess she gives the puppies of these Dalmatians to Roger and Anita in the end credit, post-credit scene, mid-credits. And it's like, okay, well, I guess we needed to have that explained. Who could imagine how those characters could have gotten a dog? You can't just buy a dog. We need to know exactly how they go. Yeah, and Kongo and Purdy are incest dogs because they were siblings before they had a bunch of babies. That's the implication.

And then, again, like, reference, like, oh, let's throw in the Corrella DeVille song, right? at the end. Oh, there's Roger. Perfect. He's going to play that on the piano. In the original 60s film, that was a spite song. That was a hate song. He wrote the song right after she came in, trashed her cigarette ashes all over the place and yelled at them. In this film, he writes the song right after he gets a free dog. And they haven't had any conflict throughout the entire movie. So why are you, and they didn't change the lyrics. So it's like, why is he writing this hate song? No, Roger was amazing, though. There were so many, like, iconically dumb moments. Like, when they first introduced Roger, who didn't have to be in the movie at all. Like, there was no reason

from exactly but uh the emma thompson character is like um i'm going to call my lawyer his name is roger and he also writes music on the piano it's like why does she know that about her lawyer why is she volunteering this information it's like socialite woman who doesn't like any of her workers and like dehumanizes them knows the piano playing hobby of her lawyer that she also hates i guess yeah it's make any sense yeah the the amount that they insist on over explaining every else of every single thing that you've seen in the previous films makes it so much less valuable, you know? Just like solo, yeah.

I was so mad that I missed the scene where she got the car. I went to the bathroom when she got the car and apparently saw a license plate and went, DeVille, I like the sound of that. I was so mad when I got back and found out I'd missed it. Because moments like that are like the tackiest part of any origin story where it's like a character has to see an iconic object and be like, I'm going to carry that cane all the time now or whatever the iconic object is. All of her character traits just come from the Baroness. Like they're not hers. It says less about the character. There's a tiny moment where

she's watching like literally it's like five seconds in the film. She sees someone do an evil laugh on TV and then just like smirks like oh she she wouldn't have known how to do an evil laugh. That's where she got it. She had to hear someone else say the words imbecile in front of her for her to learn the word imbecile. Like she's she's the most unoriginal human being on the planet. it and everything she does is lifted from just another moment. That like that fishnet veil or something over her face, it was from her throwing out garbage and it just landed on her face. Oh, she learned how to do a fashion choice from like the 50s or whatever, or the 20s.

I don't remember. I love moments like that though, because like my least favorite film genre of all time is like fictionalized biopics or like these kind of fictional character like retroactive origin stories. Yeah. So like, you know, if you hear like, oh, they made a movie about Charles Dickens and you're like if I go to see that movie there's going to be a scene where he like meets a man that looks like Scrooge and I always think that like yeah I don't know yeah

like movies about creatives are such a bad thing to do biopics about yeah because you have to visually represent them getting ideas and it's always by just like putting something in their field of vision that's like a top hat or like some kind of other iconography they're not even talented it's like the tackiest thing a movie can do everything just kind of fell into their lap there's this amazing lifetime movie about the life of jK rolling which I love and of course yes to be like sitting in class and have a teacher that looks like Snape and things like that. So whenever Kruela did anything like that, I was like, yes. But unfortunately, it was a lot of like other nonsense that wasn't just moments like that.

Well, I guess you're traveling solo. So your name's Han Solo. It's like it's all the same shit. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Over and over and over again. And in the Han Solo, he gets handed the blaster and it's like, oh, I'll use this blaster forever. It'll be my iconic blaster.

And, like, Lando has to only wear capes. Here's a weird one. At the end of the movie, she takes the sign Helman House and removes the man and then it's Hell House. Hell House. Was that to imply that there were, like, a lot of feminist themes in this film? Do people think that? Is that a thing? Or is it just because it stars women?

I think the people who made it think that. Yeah. I think the creators thought it was a feminist tax. Yeah. There's women in this movie. It's feminist. Okay. It's not really doing anything.

And a different pop song every five minutes. There were so many like weird elements like making Cruella's aesthetic like this London punk aesthetic when it's like she's always represented like wealth and nobility and like privilege. Yeah. Why not just have her be like a bratty socialite kid that shakes up the upper crust or something and then you're like, oh, she just got a bad rap because she was a visionary and she didn't fit with their stuffy lifestyle or whatever. It's like it doesn't make any sense to make her. like a punk rock scrappy kid who had like an Oliver Twist childhood. It's much less interesting. Yeah, and it doesn't resemble Corella or like anything that her character is about.

I was going to say the opening, it reminded me of Wonder Woman, the film Wonder Woman, when they focus on her as a kid. And it's just kind of manipulative because it doesn't really add anything to like the character. I don't think you could just start it with Emma Stone. I don't know. Yeah, it definitely, I don't know. I noticed that Disney movies love to have kid flashbacks now, which they never do. did in the past. And I think it's entirely

because now they sell dolls of the child versions of all the characters. Even the ones retroactively that didn't appear as children. But like, yeah, like Moana, you had to see her as a kid. Marita was a kid. It's like all of the new princesses, you have to see them as a child at the beginning. And it's because then they can sell a canonical looking

baby doll of that character. So what what happened in this movie that was even PG-13? Do you think Disney wanted a PG-13 rating to make it seem more like It was a PG-13? Apparently. I can't even know that. Was it just violence? Was it the jokes about skinning the dogs or something?

Yeah, I don't know. There weren't like any, were there any curse words? The death at the beginning? I mean, it's not violent. Yeah, I mean, like, I don't know. The Lion King had a much more traumatic death, right? Yeah, true. That wasn't PG-13.

Did she say anything kind of edgy, like hell or damn? I mean, the word hell house, but that was also in the 60s film. I mean. Yeah, but like, did she use it colloquially or anything? Maybe the soundtrack has a swing. Do you think they asked for a 13 rating? I don't know. Yeah.

It's pretty edgy. Yeah. She's so edgy. Yeah, what's so edgy about Hell House? Like, that's not even that bad. Well, it's edgy. It's terrible. There's like a club and that.

They should have called that. Oh, God. Well, imagine a house that's in hell. That would be really frightening. Yeah, like that's nothing. Yeah. Come on. Come on, Disney.

I don't know. I can't believe I paid 30 bucks for this because I had to watch. Oh, congratulations, Ralph. No. Oh, you watched it on just new... I saw it in a theater. Yeah, I'm not gonna... It's cheaper to see it in a theater for sure,

but I didn't want to go all the way out to see this. Oh, I love seeing movies. I'll see any movie in a theater just because I get to eat popcorn. You can't take popcorn in your own house? I feel like any bad movie is better in a theater because then you have to look at it. I feel like it's hard to watch a bad movie in your house

without like getting up and walking away. But if you're in a theater, you have like your snacks. Sure. Yeah. I watch this in Luca like as a double feature. If I'm watching... Watching a bad movie, my ideal experience is to kind of riff on it with a friend who also is laughing at it. And be able to pause it when it's two hours, 20 long.

I don't like disturbing other people in a theater. So if there's like a really, really bad movie and I need to like whisper something very quietly to a friend in a theater, we move to the front. We sat in the front. We did get shushed for laughing at it though. Like we're going to move far away from everybody just so we can like. the entire. I didn't feel this needed my undivided attention the entire time. That's insulting.

Yeah. I do insults it. What did you guys think about the baroness plot? I was so frustrated that like they gave her these two personalities and I thought they would do the thing that movies typically do where it's like one personality gets the approval of the baroness and the other is like invisible to her. And so that would be kind of the seduction to becoming Cruella is like I'm getting this approval from like a mother figure.

But instead it was the inverse. Like her good self was noticed and respected by her evil boss, even though she was like all mousy and shy. And then the evil one was like her rival, but also kind of had her respect. So it's like what's the point of the two personalities? I felt they went the least interesting route with it. Yeah. And she didn't have any conflict about like maybe I like her because she's kind to me when I'm my other self. It was like once she decided to like kill her and destroy her, she just wanted to do that.

So it made no sense. There was like no point to it. there are kind of more interesting things you could explore with that you're right yeah it felt pointless bizarre but i guess it had five writers so yeah they they throw things in without any care about why it's in there just the fact that it's in there most represented by the element that this is the worst with i'm looking for the right phrasing here is the music the the soundtrack where we hear every hit song from the 70s that has ever existed. And you're on to the next one before you have a chance to breathe.

Yeah, exactly. It literally doesn't stop. It was so obtrusive. Yeah. I think the editor literally couldn't have done this movie without being able to cut to songs. I think they didn't know how to transition to a new scene without throwing in like an extremely recognizable pop-top. It's padding.

It reminded me of Captain Marvel. Yeah. Where they had to remind you what era was. Yeah. Every time. It was too much. That soundtrack must have been like 90 songs. long. It was insane. I know. I swear it broke a record. I have never felt this way watching a movie just

being like, really already again? And just like they weren't even edited in in great like sometimes they would just have this like really weird fade where it was like oh, that was noticeable. And then they'll talk for like 20 seconds. And then the same song comes back later to like end the scene. And everything's just so like weird disjointed and awkward and like there's no way that these songs were in the script. Yeah. And the music wasn't even like deep cut. They just tossed his as they could. All the songs were like the most obvious, like famous songs. Exactly.

So you weren't even like, oh, like this is the director's like niche familiarity with like 70s music. It was just like every song you've already heard even if you're like not from that era. It just felt so basic and obvious. That was the worst part of the movie for me. It made it legitimately exhausting. Yeah. I mean, if it wasn't exhausting already. Yeah.

What was making me angry was the, and we've complained about this in Disney's output the last few years. with just animals and making them CG. They can't get real dogs for this. They weren't it wasn't even just like when they were in peril. Like they would just be in someone's arms and they would be like pet and that would be a fake dog and it's like why. And it always

look bad and never look good. Yeah? It might be controversial now to use like dogs and movies but I don't even like I think dogs are okay. Like dog actors are fun. It might be. Yeah. I watch this movie with my dog. I think that must be the only reason is it's like a PETA thing. It was really just the main reason. Make an anime.

movie making anime it's really distracting you know like all these cgized dogs it looked really fake the dogs looked horrible they looked scary they didn't have so much of a role in the film that if they were real I would think that's mean to put them in that seat like they ran

and they growled and that's it like her side her psychic dogs were just kind of being held in people's arms for most of the scenes they were in I could understand CGI in them when they needed to like do things in the mission and they just didn't feel like training dogs or like when they needed the dog to wink or whatever. But most of the time it was like, no, that person's just holding a

dog on a leash. That could just be a dog, especially the non-Dalmatians. It's like, I'm sure there are a lot of trained chihuahuas in Hollywood. There's a lot of ways they could have taken the story. And it's crazy that I barely remember anything about a two hour and 15 minute long movie. I remember like the absolute most basic plot points and just how irritating the music was. and that's all I'm left with at the end of it. Like, holy crap, you could have done this in so much last time. I feel like it's like almost a gift in that like I'll keep remembering like a random moment and like chuckling at it because it was like really weird.

Like I was just remembering the flashback where you find out that the Baroness is her mother. And there's that shot of Emma Thompson with like old-timey movie star like makeup running down her face in like the destroyed room and she's just like, I'm pregnant. And like that was a great moment. there were a lot of moments like that where you were just like this is absurd so I appreciate that the entire thing with the butler revealing that her locket is like the key to a music box that holds her secret birth certificates was such like a little girl movie moment that that was like fun for me but yeah it was it was at its best when it was being extremely terrible and most of the time it was

just being like you know minorly terrible and most of it is very bland it was very average yeah especially the whole first half everything pretty pretty much preceding that Corella monologue that she gives was like really, I don't know, contemptuously boring. And then everything after it was pretty like screwball and fun. Yeah. Yeah. The IMDB lists the younger characters ages as 12 years old for Horace Jasper and Estella. Wow.

And the... I thought they were much younger. They were small. What's funny is they explicitly say in the film, 10 years had passed. And then they all turn into like 30 year olds Yeah Like Horace and Jasper especially

I'm like you're not You're not in your Yeah no That's not a 22 year old Yeah 10 years later Okay Why not just say 20 years later That's weird

It would be so easy to just say that If it's a kid's movie Why not just have them be kids The Corella's origin story as a kid She could just be a kid the whole time And kill Emma Thompson That would be more interesting Yeah like Matilda

I don't know Like the inverse of Matilda. Yeah. Fucking girl Joker would be so much more interesting in that way. Yeah. They could figure it out. It's like a...

CGI. Home alone thing. CGI and accent. Yeah. CGI her creepy socialite accent. Yeah. Yeah. What's really funny is after rewatching the 90s

Dalmatians film, a lot of the same elements that we heavily criticized for this generation of Disney remakes were found in those, in that film as well they just weren't as spammed like there weren't as many of them it wasn't like this huge trend that they were capitalizing on so it was like oh I guess not that big of an issue

but like maybe it wasn't forced like it just no it was definitely forced it was definitely clear the 90s movie was definitely there were so many 90s in the same way that this is a very current generation of film thing to just spam the thing with spam the film with previously existing soundtrack music licensed songs right

in the same way that that was a thing in the 90s movie it was very heavily spammed with cheesy 90s like Home Alone style orchestral score right like that was just unbearable too that was in like every kid's movie

whenever funny mischief was happening and they kind of they kind of just turned the Dalmatians 90 movie into Home Alone also like with Horace and Jasper the puppies were like pranking them and like setting up traps and stuff

Everything other than Cruella in that one is like unwatchable, dumb slapstick. I don't know. Did you guys like it as kids? I couldn't even tell you. I definitely watched it when I was younger, but I couldn't. I don't remember what emotional reaction I had to it, if any. I have no connection to it. I remember not being charmed by it, but I also was like scared of dogs when I was a kid.

So like I had never had a dog. I thought they were like loud and scary. So its charms didn't work on me. I wasn't like, oh, so many puppies. I just was like, oh, this is kind of a dumb movie. Yeah. It was kind of dumb. All right.

Do we have anything else about this film that we are eager to complain about? Or should we wrap this up and get on to the next? Sadly, no. I'm not eager about anything in this movie. No. Yeah, maybe that's everything. Yeah, that's one of my complaints. It's just average.

What would you rate the film if you want to give a rating you don't have to? I would give it a two out of ten. Wow, that's so low. I think it's fair. I would give it like a four out of ten, I guess. It depends. Are we talking about just like how fun was it to watch? It's whatever your rating system wants to be.

Okay, I'm going to give it a four out of ten. It gets those points for being kind of fun to watch sometimes, but it was very bad. Yeah, it's not really for me, so I'll give it like a five out of ten. Wow. Yeah, but it's really just average. I think that's like the worst thing you can give it though It's just in the middle Yeah

Yeah It didn't like there was nothing horrible about it Really? I thought it's pretty horrible I thought Harley Quinn was horrible Like suicide squad is horrible If I'm writing it off my like enjoyment It's genuinely like a half star I was bored to tears like

I purposefully my whole life avoided these live action Disney movies Like Maleficent and everything I don't know if this is bad as those Like, you know Yeah, I didn't see those I don't know I avoided them for a reason

And I mean Oh I saw them all I've seen all of it Is this like worse than those Or is it kind of in line Um I guess the second Mollifacent was worse than this

That was probably the worst one They've ever done Oh they did a second one Was okay Yeah the second one was so bad Ugh Just unwatchable There's nothing about it

That's like worth seeing ever Avoid it at all costs I did not even know there was a second one. Yeah, I did not. You should stay that way. To me, it just comes down to the fact that they felt the need and thought it was a good idea to explain why Crowella hates Dalmatians. But they didn't. It was literally baked into the character design.

It was more like a, here's the real story. I think it was meant to imply that like what we thought we knew. It's like wicked. It's like what we thought we knew about Corella was wrong all along. It's just wicked for Corella. Another parallel to the Venom movie is creating a villain story where they're not actually a villain. Yeah. Yeah.

I just mean the whole way the Dalmatians were implemented into the story. And then having the multiple twists with the Darfader father thing, I couldn't actually believe it. It was getting comical. I'm just going to keep it a half star. Why didn't we talk about spiral? We could have done a saw episode. That would have been great. Yeah, that was now that I had a good time.

time with I'm obsessed with song. I still haven't seen Spiral. Yeah, I love the Star Wars. I gotta see it. I want to see it again.

Okay, well, you see in Kroella and a bunch of Disney crap. Without delving into it, what did you think of Saw Spiral? What's your, what's your,

what's your experience? I really, really enjoyed it, but it, like, wasn't, like, good. I don't know. It was better than the majority of Saw,

but that's a really low bar to clear once you get to like those ladder saws. The thing that was weakest about it, and a, Unfortunately left like a big impression was like the final scene, which didn't have a clever twist. Like didn't really mean anything.

Yeah, I won't spoil it. But it just, you know, usually at least the ending scene will leave you with some kind of like strong feeling about what you've seen. But it was very bombastic, but very hollow, which was disappointing because it seemed like they were trying to form a movie with some kind of meaning. So, but I overall liked it. I really liked Chris Rock's character. He was probably the most empathetic character that's ever been in a saw film. and I'm glad they're making saw again. I hope they keep making more.

I don't know if this will be it. It didn't really make much money, I don't think. I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think it was marketed very well. I heard Chris Rock was great in it. Yeah. What about you, Alec? That makes me want to see it.

I was having fun, like, laughing at it. I had a great time, like, just with how ridiculous it is and just how bad their choices are. I feel like I'd have to delve into, like, for spoilers to get into it. Yeah. That's the thing. I really don't want you to spoil it.

Like, I'm actually really looking forward to this. Ralph, you want to watch it before next episode? We'll have a little discussion. Yeah, I'll definitely watch it soon. Yeah. I'm really looking for it. Yeah. I, uh, I'm glad you enjoyed it, Jenny.

I, I could not. I could. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, had it. Well, how do you feel about Saw? I love Saw. But I don't have like this. Which, which saws do you love? I love one.

What are your top three? And six, are my favorites. So that should give you a little insight into. That was the one before. Was six saw 3D or was seven? Seven was three D. Is that the health insurance one?

Yeah, the health insurance one. Yeah. That's six. That's my favorite one. And the, you're a smoker. That's great one. Is that the one of the couples that like the girls cheating and they have the two

guys have to like fight outside of them all? That's seven. No, that's seven. Yeah. But that's the same director. Saw six and seven are a little similar. I know a lot of people hate. Seven.

Yeah. I love six, and to some extent, seven, but more six. Because it's very... You don't like Saw Two? I think Saw Two is my least favorite. No, not... No, not with Spiral and Jigsaw. Those two are my least favorite.

Of the original seven, Saw Two would be my least favorite. Yeah, it used to be... When I was going through the films, like, completely unironically when I was younger, I really enjoyed Saw Two and Saw Three, like, I would just eat it all up. Yeah. But my current experience with Saw, the only one that I enjoy truly unironically in a way where I'm like taking the majority of it seriously is Saw 1. The rest of them I'm just looking for some dumb, stupid fun. You know, I'm sure. Part of the experience of enjoyment for me is to make fun of it at the same time. And I'm able to do that a lot with 6 and 7. And it's also very fan servicey. So it's like it's walking the line between like trash. and like actually delivering on like what people want out of a soft film, right? It's doing both simultaneously.

But I think part of what I want a soft film is Tobin Bell. I think two and three. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was so mad that they didn't bring him in. And I know it wouldn't make sense, but like it hasn't made sense for a long time. And that hasn't stopped them.

So I just feel like you should be in every film. One is a little more genuinely good. So it didn't need as much Tobin Bell. Not that it's like a good movie because it's still like the Holly. Like, you know, that shit. But it's still like, yeah, like that was awful. I love the first one. I just rewatched it like recently and the editing is so funny.

Like the car piece where they're just driving through fog really fast at the camera. Kevin Grutter. It's so good. It's iconic. But that's the voice of the SA franchise is the editing. It really is. And yeah. Yeah, it is.

It's hilarious and stupid and weird. But it legitimately is the voice of the films. Like all the jittery cuts, the transitions where like a character walks into the set from the next shot. Every single. single saw film except Spiral was edited edited by Kevin Grudert aside from six and seven which he directed so he was very much the voice of the franchise and in saw spiral looking at the editing in that film it's like somebody thought that they could do what the saw fit like the editing was so much worse in saw spiral I don't know if you agree or not but it didn't even feel like they were trying to do a

saw thing it was so weird it was so weird movie which was kind of sad because I like the other saw movies don't feel like real movies they feel like weird student films I got to see this Yeah, yeah, we'll have a more in-depth discussion about this next episode. But yeah, I really want to do a video ranking all the song, like re-watching them and ranking them all. After I do my Barbie video where I rank all the Barbie movies. I wanted to ask like a tier list of some theme park rides, maybe just Disney because I was like doing that. I don't know, they're all Magic Kingdom, I guess, or Epcot. What are your hot takes?

Hot takes. Well, like S-tier rides and Magic Kingdom? Like Big Thunder Mountain. Speaks Mountain, right? Haunted Mansion just because of the atmosphere. Like that's just kind of what I would say, right? So like what's an S-tier? What about the people mover?

It's kind of boring. What? No. That's like a B or an A. Oh my God. Like Indiana Jones. In like Disneyland, that's an S-tier. Oh yeah, that's one of the best rides of all time.

Like the combination of theme and frill, but still being like not a roller coaster. It's crazy. Yeah. Or Universal, like they have the S-tier rides, Spider-Man. That's an S-tier for me. I do. I do. Yeah.

Do you have you written the Transformers version? Yeah. I like the Transformers one. There's no real fire in it, though. I think that takes away. Yeah, Universal is unique. Disney doesn't really use, like, heat effects and fire. And universally uses it on a lot of the riots.

I wanted to do a tier list of all the Universal Orlando rides, because I feel like that resort has some of the most, like, stratification and, terms of quality. Like Disney, I feel like a lot of them are like pretty darn good, you know, maybe a couple that are bad. But Universal, it's almost like a 50-50 distribution of like the worst rides ever and like the best rides ever. I wanted to ask you about the Fast and Furious ride. I just went on that last month's name. I haven't written it. I have to. The California tram has like an iteration of it where you go through a tunnel and get like a truncated version of the ride. But I haven't ridden the Orlando version, which is probably much funnier to see it contextualized. as though it's like its own ride

when it like firmly isn't. So yeah, I want to I want to ride that. I need to just go and ride all of it. But even the men in black ride they like dance before the ride like you see them dancing. Yeah, I heard that they show you the car. You have a dance party.

The ride isn't that good though. Like I miss earthquake. That's what used to be there. It's like a ride we want to see that. It was so cool. That's an S-tier ride but it's gone now. They got rid of that. So did you go there a lot as a kid?

Yeah. I went there instead of Disney. I liked it much more. Did you ride Kong confrontation when it still existed? That I didn't get to go on. That was gone by the time I was there. It was replaced with the mummy. That would be like my ultimate.

That sounded like such a cool ride. That sounded really cool. My dad tells me about it. What is it? I never got to go on. And what about the Jaws ride? Did you ever go on that? The Jaws ride I went on.

That was just a boat ride. He got the shit scared out of him. It's a shark off. It's terrifying. The King Kong ride. It's just like you're on a tram. And then King Kong, like an animatronic giant gorilla comes out and just like shakes the

I've ridden the new one. And that one's like, okay. But it's gone. That sounds awesome, man. But yeah, confrontation was it used to be on like a cable car going through a whole city set. And like the giant King Kong was like inside a whole city and there was like a helicopter crash. Yeah. But the new one's okay.

And the new one's fine. It's fine. It's not as good. Yeah. Yeah. I'm jealous of the Jaws ride though. Yeah. Did you go on that?

No, I never got to write it. And now it only exists in Japan. So maybe someday I'll get to write it. Oh, yeah. That's right. Yeah. It looks like an incredible ride. That's a shun. Yeah. They built like a whole river there. I guess they just got rid of it for Harry Potter.

They filled it all in. Yeah. It's Diagon Alley now. Yeah. That stuff's fine. I miss jaws. Yeah, I mean, their Harry Potter rides are like pretty crazy. Like the Haggard one's honestly one of the best rides like ever that I've ever been on. But usually malfunctions though when I go on it. It does. I waited like two hours to ride it. Yeah. Oh, how does it malfunction? function. Like it's just so complicated. It's just really complex. It has like a part where it goes backwards. It has a part where it drops. A lot of animatronics. So there's just a lot that can go wrong. It's a roller coaster mixed with screens and stuff. It's very complex. Yeah. Usually the timing gets off. Like, you know, like the movie would end while you're like looking at the screen. Well, the GreenGgots one has the screens. And then the Hagrid one, you're in like a forest. And there's like a part where you vertically drop onto a new track. And it's like all this insane. technical stuff that can break.

Cool. Yeah, theme parks are cool. That was a good... Yeah. Yeah, you guys, we got to plan a trip. Well, I'll have to spend more time in America land, the greatest theme of all time. I don't know any of these.

Seriously. We're going to have to get acclimatized. Yes, I want to go to Dollywood. That's on my list for this year. Oh, you haven't been? I've been to Dollywood. It's actually a lot of fun. It's very nice.

I really want to go. And, like, Pigeon Forge and Gabbinberg have a lot of, like, kits stuff that I wanted to. It's a Dali Parton's Park. Oh. Oh, really? It's in Tennessee or yeah, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there's like a whole little boom town that sprang up around it of like kids tourism things. It's a whole tourist stuff there. Right. Yeah, there's like a mini golf. Yeah, a lot of mini golf.

Yeah, I saw a magic show there, right? Because they're very religious down there in Tennessee. So like they did the magic show and all that. But they're like, these are all illusions. The real magic is Jesus. I'm like, yeah. Yeah, they had like gospel dinner theater The real illusion

But it's just so bizarre How they would say that like in a theater setting Yeah Well they have to just claim that it's not the work of the devil Yeah Oh my goodness You can't say it's sorcery I loved it there

I thought the people were great I've been cleaning my house for a couple weeks And I found a I don't know if you saw I posted it on my Twitter I found a VHS in my home That I guess one of my friends just left or something. And it's a early 90s

film by Peter Lalonde called Your Child and the Occult, the game's children play. And it's like an hour long and it's literally just like a paranoid man screaming into the microphone about how like Thundercats and Dungeons and Dragons are making

children kill their parents. And it's so funny. And it's on you, if you check my Twitter I retweeted a YouTube, somebody had a YouTube link to it too. I have to watch it. Oh, it's so good. Review it if you want to.

I'm not going to, so. You should. You should review it. All right. So we have a movie recommendation. I recommended it. We all watched it. Spoilers for Drag Me to Hell, 2009, Sam Ramey film, starring Alison Lohman and Justin Long.

And it's about a main character who, uh, is who I guess does loans for the bank if she doesn't approve the loan of Mrs. Ghanush. And I know that they say, there's like a cultural name that they give Mrs. Ghanish, but I think that that's a slur, so I'm going to avoid it and say Mrs. Ganesh. Because not a, yeah, apparently that's a slur. And I don't, I don't, so Mrs. Ganish. Yeah, it's fraught. I mean, honestly, though, if we're going to play that game,

And the whole movie is very questionable in that territory. Oh, yeah. As far as trading in stereotypes and all that. Sure. But it is done with a heavy layer of comedy and irony that, you know, I think it's still fun and entertaining and enjoyable. Anyway, she gets cursed. And the film continues on from there. And just her boyfriend, Justin Long, is, I believe, a.

psychology professor. So he's questioning the validity of all of these supernatural occurrences and what's in her mind. What did everybody think? Starting with Jenny, I'm curious. I think it's good. I just rewatched it yesterday.

I had seen it when it came out, but there was a lot of stuff I didn't remember. And I mean, I just really like Sam Ramey, so I'm kind of biased. I like how campy all of his stuff is. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I mean, it did feel weirder.

I feel like the year it was made was like a different time as far as all the stuff about the Romani woman, Mrs. Gnush. The way that she's characterized, especially the funeral scene, I was like, this does feel a little caricature-ish. Yeah. But I don't know. Like, it clearly was like also a lot of commentary on, like, class divides and things. So it felt like it was probably woke of its time. It just aged poorly. But, yeah, I enjoyed it.

Sure. I like the character, Ms. Gannush. She was good. I don't recognize that actress, but she was very, like, good. She's apparently been in other things, but, yeah, there's a lot of gross-out humor with her, and I think it's really good. I'm going to look her up right now. I was kind of grossed out by that. That was the main thing I remembered.

I was like, yeah, usually when I watch a movie, you'll be, like, when I sit down for, like, lunch or dinner, I'll put something on. And I specifically remembered that I should not do that with this movie because I remember to have a lot of, like, bile and slime. Yeah. Like just the Foley when she's on screen. Her whole first scene is just like endless slime sound effects from the Foley department of like Yeah. It's like, okay, this is gross. It was a little dehumanizing to her maybe.

But I think that was almost like the fairy tale aspect of it is like, you know, almost beauty and the beast. Like a test of characters. Like she's meant to be off putting and that's why like it proves your moral metal as to whether you're going to be kind to her or not because she is like physically ugly. But you're supposed to take sympathy. on her. What about you out? And it's so over the top. It's like a cartoon at points. Yeah, I'm the same. I mean, I really enjoy Sam Ramey's style and it just feels like he really wanted to make this movie

and had learned a lot after making the evil dead movies and the Spider-Man trilogy. I guess this was what he followed Spider-Man 3 with. And yeah, yeah, it just feels like he's having so much fun and he's at the top of his game making this kind of schlock, just the best it can possibly be. He thrived in his shadow. This was a return to form for him. Really, I definitely agree. So, like, people love this movie when it came out. They're like, yeah, Sam Ramey's back with horror. There were a lot of people that really didn't like it.

There, I think you'll know if you go to the IMD. Yeah, the tone of it though. Yeah, the tone can be really confusing for some people. Do the people that hated it were they like teenagers that were like, this isn't paranormal activity? Yeah, it was like that audience. They made a lot of money. The comedic elements are kind of like tongue and cheek, right?

So I could imagine a person watching. This is stupid. Well, because there's a lot of like. gross out elements, right? Where it's like she's like gumming her face or like, you know, hocking a lugy. Oh, no. I think it is primarily like, you know, teenagers that thought they were going to go see, you know, a saw movie or like hostel or something.

And they were like, this is dumb. It's too silly. It's not scary. And they like didn't understand that was the point. Which is weird. Oh, yeah. That couldn't have helped. Oh, is it?

Yeah. It is. Because there's, you know, significantly like there's a lot of blood, you know, like there's parts. That's crazy. Because there are two versions of the movie, right? Yeah. There's an unrated version. That's so weird.

I don't think there's much of a difference, though. That's hilarious. I guess they were trying not to get an R rating. Yeah. I think the anvil part is in the original cut, like, you know, which it falls under her head and her eyes pop out. Like, it's so absurd. But I think that was in the other one, too. And there's, like, a lot of moments like that where it's clearly supposed to be funny and campy.

That's absolutely crazy. It's going for that Evil Dead 2 vibe. But I think the scares are very creative. I think it's a very creative movie with how it scares you because it's not R. People aren't just dying all the time It's a little more creative than that It doesn't have any deaths I guess except the end You know Mrs. Ganesh

Like it depends on how we're going to define Death right? Because I mean like yeah I guess it is well there's the character dying That was awesome like so gruesome like holy shit And you really got a sense of how scared she was We start off the film with like a child death The little boy dies at the beginning of the movie And suffers yeah you know

It's like that's pretty brutal I'm surprised this is like But it wasn't relying on like slasher tropes, you know? Because like most of the scares were like, oh, the curtains have blown the windows open. Like it wasn't just relying on like her having a gaggle of friends who can all get picked off by demons or whatever. Which is like if it was made today, it would be like the baba duck or not the babadook. The bye by man. Yeah.

The back version of the boba duck. You know, where it's just like a gang of like 10 dumb children. And then, you know, you follow each of them to their house where they are stalked and then killed by a. monster. It's like CGI. The characters themselves don't matter as much in those films, whereas like this is a movie. Yeah. And then this one she was like very characterized. Yeah. This is a character-driven horror movie. Tell you her whole backstory. You learn a lot about her and like what drives her. And I feel like not a lot of horror movies bother to do that. I wanted to mention this at some point. We kind of mentioned just how how many gross out elements there were, lots of vomiting,

lots of her hair being pulled out. I love that. I love the hair pulling. There's a deeper reason why these things are in the film, and I'm going to ask if anybody else knows about it, but this movie is very metaphorical for a type of condition. And if nobody wants to jump in, I'll just explain it. I have no idea what you're saying. Okay. Okay.

I feel like I can guess, but I want to know what your take is. I don't want to just blind guess without thinking it all through. This film is basically Is it an eating disorder? Yes, you got it. Because of her weight problems and the hair falling out. They're constantly flashing back to her being like fat

and all of the, you were a fat girl, weren't you? Blah, blah, blah. Like they're constantly reinforcing that. Almost every single haunting involves, you know, she shoves a fist down her throat and like, you know, the, uh, the horror cake.

Yeah. All of these symptoms of bulimia or anorexia, like just in general eating disorder. Interesting. She stabs the eye demon coming out of the cake and everything. It's like a lot of it is just so heavily. Well, and also that whole scene, like everyone else is eating the cake undeterred. And she's the one that's like sitting there not eating it and really put off by it. So it's that kind of visceral.

She goes to the diner and they're like, are you just going to drink coffee all night? Yeah. Yeah. Sure. I took it as something different. I took it as like, I thought it was about predatory bank loans. I mean, you know, banking inspires people to be kind of sociopaths. Well, it is kind of about that too.

There's just like a lot of things going on in it that are very interesting. Yeah, you're right. It's not just like dumb. There's a lot going on. And it's very funny. That's what really hammers it home. Like, it's just a very entertaining film from start to end. Lots of great scenes.

I really like Justin Long's character too. I thought he was really funny. He could have been really annoying. but for the most part I thought he just kind of played the ignorant boyfriend quite well I can't think of a movie I like him more in honestly yeah I can't think of either

I love the ending of this movie and I love his reaction like his character's like turmoil of watching his girlfriend get dragged into that yeah I believe his performance at that moment that's like one of the most condensing just a good twist and it's also good that like they spell out that she has not learned her lesson

at the end even then because you know she's just cursing this woman's soul to hell, like, she thinks she deserves it. And yet at the end, she's like, well, honestly, I could have helped her with the loan. But now everything's fine. So it's like, there's no, like, contrition on her part. Like, she's just happy that she's no longer, like, burdened by the curse. So she still is, like, deserving of her fate in a way.

It didn't just feel, like, purely a mean-spirited twist. Everyone is deserving of their fate in the movie. It's perfect. Like, even Justin Long, just not even taking the situation seriously. Like, and then at the end, he sees his girlfriend get dragged to hell. He's like, what the fuck? That's great. And also, like, he didn't back her up with his family that much.

No, no. He abandoned her with his mean mom. It's kind of a loser, too. Yeah, and he had, like, the casual privilege thing where it was just like, you know, he'd grown up a rich kid and he was constantly like, oh, we'll go to my family's little cabin. And, like, it's all extremely intimidating to her. I was laughing during the scene with his, he was all on the phone with his mom. And his mom's like, you could have married this other girl that went to Yale.

Like, I was laughing during that part. Like, who even cares? Like, why would she even care about this? Oh, yeah. His mom thinks of her. It's so outrageous. But it's set up for later. It is.

It's a very over the top movie. Yeah. So I forgave it. And it's set up for later. It's feeding into the classism thing too. Yeah. Well, and it's also the point is like her hearing it too because then it's her inadequacy. I mean, everything is like her inadequacy and trying to fit in.

So that's why that is good with the eating disorder thing. I guess like as soon as you said it, it was like, oh yeah, of course. But I hadn't thought of that when I watched it. Yeah, because horror movies, especially like, funny horror movies that are like really gross out and this tone, you don't really see a lot that try to tackle deeper meanings or subjects, right? Like, it's a very rare thing. You don't expect it from this genre. You expect it more from like an art house drama or something, you know?

There's actually so much going on in it, yeah. Yeah. And it's all weave together really well. It balances the tone extremely well. Like I wasn't expecting that whole, you know, the fly, the CG fly going inside or and hearing inside a stomach or whatever. Oh, yeah. That being like a whole setup later on for the cake.

her mother spitting it out because she thinks she's like a farm girl. And it all like comes back in on itself at that point. There's lots of cleverness hidden in the movie like that, which, yeah, I wasn't expecting. Because I had memories from watching it the first time too and it's not really connecting. But it was a long time ago now, 2009. Yeah, I liked it a lot this time. Awesome. I don't think I got it the first time.

Yeah, I saw when it came out. Yeah, it definitely missed it the first time. Yeah, I liked it, but I thought it was way too goofy. And I guess something that even bothers me now is some of the CG. I think some of that takes me out of it. I get it's campy, but that's kind of an excuse. Like the eyes popping out and stuff? Yeah.

Yeah, it's a little bit of top. I love the car fight. I think when they're fighting in the car, that's like an excellent. And the music that goes along with it. Yeah, let's not forget about the score. The music is great in this. That whole scene's great.

That's like the first like escalation into like full camp that you get. Yeah, absolutely. And so it's just funny because it just keeps escalating more and more. Like it starts a little silly. And then it's like she's crashing into one car. She's crashing into another car. They're like busting out the windows and just keeps like getting more and more insane. It keeps going and going.

Yeah. I feel so starved for really good camp because there's a lot of campy movies that kind of use that as like an excuse not to do anything impressive. Right. They're like, oh, it's campy so we don't actually have to try. Yeah. The acting or the character writing. And it's just like a band-aid. Or the story or anything.

And I hate stuff like that. And it's competent at the same time. And Sam Ramey is so good at that. I wish he would direct more of these. It's because it's Sam Ramey. Like that scene is so visceral. It's so exciting and like scary. There's a lot of moments like that in this movie.

Well, he understands tension and how to build up the scene. He understands how to tell a story. Yeah, yeah. He understands the filmmaking elements that make it all come together because, yeah. It's not scary. But at the same time, the way it's presented and the way the tension is built up can kind of catch you up in the moment. Like, it really gets engaged. It's so cartoonish and like exaggerate.

No, it may be over the top, but at least it's memorable and you're excited by it. Yeah. And there are those moments where you're actually into it. Like, yeah, this is kind of scary if you're into this character and this world. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're kind of torn the whole time. It's like, on one hand, you're rooting for her.

On the other hand, you're like, I don't know. Like her motivation is funny. I wanted to see Stu suffer a little bit, being perfectly honest. I was mad at Stu. I know. I wanted to see him come up. I wanted to see something. I think that's the thing is like, yeah, everyone's rooting for him to get the button.

Yeah, because he's not, he doesn't, he doesn't matter if he gets fired. He'll find some other people to take advantage of in his life, you know? He's going to cry and pretend he's sorry for, you know, that character's not done being a complete asshole. So. Yeah, the fact that he, like, cried to her and she let him go and he still tried to blame it on her. It was crazy. Yeah, I took it as he's so pathetic. He could never accomplish anything.

He's just done He's just such a loser He couldn't even Like do anything But yeah Every character gets their kind of like a great ending You know Like it's just a natural compit's

Yeah So in terms of the writing When everybody saw this for their first time Nobody saw the twist coming Is that a correct assumption? I think that I didn't Although it's hard to remember my first watch I'm happy that I didn't see it coming.

Oh, that's cool. As soon as she drops the envelope, though, you're like, oh, there's going to be a switcher-roo. Yeah, but I didn't know what the switcher-roo was. Because they make it so that you're not confident about it. Yeah, because they work in his coin habit early and then kind of like, you know, let enough time pass that you might forget about it. They do it really well. It's really well-written, I think. Even if you see it coming, it doesn't matter.

It's not just a case of it being like super early in the film, but the way that the scene, is structured around it. It's in the middle of introducing character development, basically. So there, Alison Lohman, her job, her farm, blah, blah, blah, she works with money, Justin Long, nerdy. And then immediately, before you can even think about the nerdy coin collection, and you know, that serves its purpose as being a character moment, and then immediately we're distracted by the speakerphone conversation with his mother. So it's, it's tucked in there. It's not something you missed. They didn't do like a whole close-up hey, everybody, notice I put this in this bag and this is what it looks like.

Like there was a tiny shot of him putting it in the envelope. But aside from that, it didn't really feel like the film was ever begging you like, please remember this. It was just like, oh, this is there. Yeah. And it didn't feel out of place because everyone was kind of getting quirks. Yeah. Yeah.

So you kind of believed in the moment like this is just a character quirk because he was doing it with other characters. He called himself nerdy. Whereas in another film, if like, no other characters get traits or like quirks or whatever, it would stand out more. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

It works well. I don't know. The distraction's a good word. There's a lot of jump scares in the movie that are kind of cheap. How do you feel about those? There's a couple that I don't like and there's a couple that I do like. There's some that are just so funny. I don't naturally like jump scares.

I think they're lazy. I like midsomer where there's no jump scares or something like that. You know, like it's just lazy. Like the sound mixing was obnoxious. I don't know if I would say all of them are lazy. And I get it's because it's PG-13. It had to compensate. I just hate jump scares

I just think it's so cheap you know that that would be my one of my complaints or criticisms with the movie yeah like I just wouldn't watch it again just because I don't want to it's just fucking loud like

I'm going to annoy my neighbors it is it's a very loud movie I don't know I feel the the whole movie is done so in such such a tongue and cheek way that sure it's

not like a specifically direct commentary on jump scares, but it, you know, almost could be, you know, I don't feel upset at it. But that's not as clear. Like, I feel like there's so many other, like, the banking allegory or like even you pointing out the kind of bulimia subtext, like that was all like eye opening. Like I totally see that in the movie. That not so much. I don't know.

No, because I mean, like there's some that are clearly done for laughs, though. Like the handkerchief coming to the car and then popping up on her windshield. Yeah. I just mean the comedy. elements like I don't know I like a movie like Evil Dead or Evil Dead too much more because I think I really like Bruce Campbell and I think I like the lead and this lead character I don't I don't think the actor is as good or as like iconic as someone like Bruce Campbell and I think that drag it down she had some things at the time part of it is like imagine the way that Ash is written

versus this character you know it's a much more grounded yeah very different like I can't think of a different performance she could have given with this like script that would have been you know, more of a standout thing because she was mostly like the straight man with a lot of weird stuff that was happening. Well, there's some funny parts with her. I thought the scene where she's eating like ice cream like because she's so upset.

Yeah, and when she's a little crazier toward the end. Yeah. She gets crazier. And then, you know, when she gloats after the car fight that had like a lot of character to it. We're at the end when she shoves the paper down her throat like in the cemetery.

Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely a can't be horror film. There's so many like it's definitely benefit. Coke on it, bitch. Love it. Yeah. Or the goat, the goat was iconic.

As soon as you see the goat, you're like, okay, it's a Sam Rame movie. This goat is going to, like, become a puppet. You tricked me, black-hearted, whore. It's so funny. Well, the goat, that scene becomes very, like, funny toward the end because the goat isn't sacrificed. It has, like, a human, like, face that gets angry. But at the beginning, I thought that scene was actually pretty, like, intense and scary. Like, they're going to sacrifice this goat.

Like, this is really kind of, like, midsomer-like, scary stuff. Yeah. And they tie it up next to her and it's like smiling at her. It's smiling, yeah. It's kind of foreboding. It's funny, but it's scary. It works really well. And I love that set that they're in when they have some great sets.

I think that's an excellent set. Yeah, it was almost like the Winchester Mystery House, the exterior of that house. It's so big. I love the stumps as well. Yeah. Uh-huh. Excellent stunts. Oh, yeah, the demon is like crazy.

Like it doesn't even like, it's just like possessing three different people and throwing people around. Like it doesn't care. It's a very scary demon. It's campy, but I don't know. There's like nothing you can do to stop it. Surprising amount of restraint, though, in the way it's often relegated to shadows and things. I like when it's the shadow of its legs turns into, you know, hands. It's just constantly creative and it's always mixing it up to avoid that repetition.

Movies of this type can often fall into. Yeah, it's essentially showing a lot of things that might have been in Evil Dead, if it was created in 2009, you know, with the same budget and restraints. It's like a 2000s version of Evil Dead, right? It's very much like ring. Like the ring will be seven days until you die. This is like three days until you die. There's like a countdown element.

You have to, I don't know, stop the demon before it takes over your soul or something. I mean, I feel like the era came out. Like I remember when it came out being really excited about it because I feel like in this era of horror movies, like horror definitely goes in cycles as to like, kind of creature or like genre is in vogue. Yeah, so right now it's more like conjuring and like a lot of indie witch horror that's like, you know, kind of copying hereditary and stuff like that. Yeah, exactly.

All those like knockoff. But yeah, I feel like in that era of horror, it was a lot more grounded. It was a lot more like saw and slasher. And like I think like my bloody Valentine was around this time too. So it's a lot of just like gore and violence like the hostile era. the human centipes. Yeah, they were hitting just the end of that era. So I feel like it was kind of a time with like, yeah, it was like kind of a dearth of just

spooky supernatural horror with like curses and stuff. So I've always preferred that kind of horror. So I was like, you know, it's refreshing to see that when it's so counter to what was coming out at that time. I feel like if it came out now, it would everyone would assume it was like a parody of the conjuring franchise. But at that time, it was like not really like anything. It would feel like a response.

Yeah, this came out just as they found footage. Wave was starting. Right. I loved the found footage wave. So many, like, crazy movies. But, yeah. Yeah, paranormal activity kind of put ghosts back in fashion. Yeah.

Before that, they were considered kind of like old-timey and not that scary. Yeah, that really grounded ghosts made them like realistic again. Exactly. Yeah. They added a level of realism to it. But this movie, the ghosts aren't realistic at all. It's just like goofy demons, throws people around. And I feel like that makes it better, like, looking at it in hindsight and being like there were no movies like this being made at that time in the horror genre.

I mean, pick a time. It's like family. He's one of few people doing this competently and he doesn't do it every year. But even like the subject matter and stuff, like I feel like if someone that was not him was trying to get the script made that year, it just never would have happened. Yeah. So that kind of adds to its charm. Yeah, a lot of the same people that worked on Evil Dead were credited. I believe

Ivan Ramey It's really a return to form I don't remember if Greg Nicotero worked on Evil Dead I think he did It's a really good horror film Like especially to be It made so much money and like that's great Like it's like a mainstream horror film

That made a lot of money And it's really effective And funny and scary It has a lot going on It's on conventional I didn't know if it was that big It was a success in the time So that's good

Yeah I'm looking it up right now Budget of 30 million And worldwide made 90 millions So, successful enough. I think that's pretty not a failure. I think it's a good budget too. For 2009, too.

Yeah. I'm sure though for horror, a studio would look at that and be like, you know, you can make a paranormal activity for $2 million. $500 million. $1.5.000. It costs $10,000, $20,000.

Yeah. Not even joking. Yeah. Like that made $100 million. So, of course. Well, I'm sure the majority of the budget was just advertising it. Yeah.

So, you know, I feel like it was by the power of Sam Ramey that it was made. Yeah. Sam Ramey's power is making a film like this. Like, that's really can't be in using the visual medium. Like, it's a very visually strong movie. Like, there's a lot of images I remember from it. Like the nails on the desk, like clock.

I love how that was revealed. You hear it first, and then that's the first part you see of her, and then you see your face. I love that. He's a very visually strong director, and that adds a lot to the movie. And, like, you know, paranormal activity is different. Like, I get just one. watching found footage can be scary because there's no style to it, I guess, because it's more

objective. But this works too. And it's very quiet so you can have jump scares more effectively because it's just silent. Yeah. Like, it's really supposed to be funny. Ultimately, I think this movie. And I think it works as that 100%. I've noticed an interesting parallel too in the film Sam Ramey followed the Drag Me to Hell

up with was a Disney prequel remake. Oh, what was it? Oh, no, was it the Oz movie? I never watched that. I never watched that. I saw it. I saw it. Because I love Sam Rhee.

It's fine. But nothing about it. I saw clips of like Milakunis as the wicked witch and it was like the worst thing I'd ever seen. Anne Hathaway is like the good witch. It's just, yeah, one of those live action Disney movies. That sounds like it could be good. I just feel like Milakunis is like not equipped to do camp. Whereas I feel like Anne Hathaway, you're like, oh, she could probably do camp in like a fun way.

But Milakunis, I don't know. She's, I don't think that's her skill set. She's been in like, unironic camp, like American Psycho 2, you know? Yeah. Yeah, she's unintentionally been several, several campy things. Yeah. It's a very strong movie visually. Because Sam Ramey's a good director.

And storytelling wise, pacing's great. Yeah, it didn't feel like there was any part where it lagged or, like, felt like you were seeing filler. It was just constant progression and escalation. It's always a good scare somewhere. if it gets boring, someone pops out, there's a jump scare and, you know, an anvil gets dropped on their head. It's really unexpected. I thought those moments were kind of funny, even though I complained about the jump scares.

Like, I don't know, when she's in the shed and like the woman pops out, like starts attacking her. I did not see that coming at all, right? It's like a really good scare. Like, there's a lot of animal sacrifice in this movie. That's like really disturbing, I think. I'm a vegetarian. I volunteer at the puppy shelter.

Yeah. It's being hurt. But it shows you how scared she is of this demon. Like, there's never any doubt. Like, this woman is terrified. Well, and I felt like the cat thing was kind of a good, like, continuation of, because we had the characterization where she's at the bank. I felt like the cat was the direct continuation of that.

Yeah. All these points in the story where she, like, fancies herself a good person where it's like, she's at the bank and she's like, I'm a nice person. I try to help whoever I can. But then as soon as she, like, needs to, to benefit herself, she's willing to, like, essentially sacrifice this old woman by screen. over. So then you see that again with the cat where she's like, I would never do that. I'm a nice person. And like, you know, the same night, she's prepared to sacrifice the cat because she

thinks it'll help her. So that was kind of the recurring thing with her. She flat out lies like a lot to people like, oh yeah, my boss told me to cancel her mortgage or whatever. Yeah, she lies to the daughter. She says, I did everything I could to help her. Yeah. And there's never any like redeeming that. Like she never, she never apologizes for those lies. So it is like the ending is perfect. She actually gets... It is perfect. She deserves it. She deserves it. There's no other way to say it. But then how do we think that ties in with the eating disorder narrative? Like, what does the ending then take from that? You know? Is she supposed to be punished for that? I mean, you could tie it in to think like maybe they're trying to say that an eating disorder will lead you down this path, not necessarily literally being

dragged to hell, but like it will destroy your relationships. It will, you know, make you ugly. Like she kind of doomed herself in a way. Yeah, like it's self-harm. I think that kind of idea. Because, yeah, if we're, especially if we're going to say that, like, she kind of brought this on herself, this whole thing. It's like, you know, it's self-inflicted. Well, yeah, she did.

Much like eating disorders can be. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know about the, I don't know about the subtext. I see what you're trying to do. I see what you're trying to do. I'm giving it some credit. I mean, and maybe those two were disconnected in this.

I don't think the film is trying to be that deep. I think there's definitely something going on there, for sure. But I think it's mostly trying to be funny with the dumb eyes popping out. I appreciate that that stuff's in there. And it's not just like dumb cotton candy kind of doesn't... Yeah. I don't know. I feel like I would have to rewatch it because it's like I feel like you don't seed something like that through the whole movie without it ultimately meaning something.

But I can't think of what you'd be trying to say about it. Yeah, I missed it. Just because of my experience, you know, like I just paid attention to the banking stuff. I'm like, oh yeah, it's like a sociopathic. It made her into a sociopath, and she turned down this woman's bank loan. So now this woman put a hex on her that destroyed her life. And it's an allegory about how, like, you know, capitalism or whatever. Yeah, it seems like if you wanted to be uncharitable to him, you could imagine like, oh, maybe he's saying that, like, an eating disorder is, like, a manifestation of vanity.

And, like, that's kind of, you know, she buys the code at the end. She's constantly trying to, like, social climb and better herself. So it's like, is that what he's trying to say? like being punished for like vanity, but then that's kind of an unfair take on eating disorders and like what causes them. Especially from Sam Ramey.

Like I don't know if he has a lot of experience. Yeah, I kind of imagine he can't have like that much contempt for eating disorders. But yeah, I mean, maybe it could be about how like any form of self-harm is like, you know, it's kind of a fable against self-harm behavior. I don't know.

Like I said, I feel like I'd have to rewatch it through that lens and try to figure out what he's trying to say. Yeah. All right, what would you give it out of 10 if you wanted to give it a rating at a 10? I'd probably give it like an 8 out of 10. Same. Eight.

Yeah, same. Adam, I saw you rating 10 out of 10. That's a very extreme rating. No, I gave it an 8. Oh, you did? I saw somewhere maybe because it was on letterbox, I guess. My brother told me you gave it a 10 out of 10. I guess because it can't be reasons, right?

No, I gave it an 8. I'm sorry about that. At a 10 Are you gaslighting me? I don't understand what's happening. I'm sorry. He's trying to pull a seat on you. No,

no, I was just wrong because I thought you gave a 10. I guess it made sense because I totally understood why like the campy elements. Like I love those too. I still wouldn't go eight out of 10 though.

Yeah. Because I think there's, it's not quite like Evil Dead or Evil Dead too. Okay. And like there's a few elements. Like I think the lead actress I thought she was good

but I think they could have gotten someone a little better. I don't know. Like the jump scares really bothered me. I think some of the subtext with like eating disorder maybe it's like too much maybe like more of a seven out of 10 it's very can't be fun I really like it I think I think evil dead is better or like shall win soccer you know but this is like

it's almost like I definitely get the appeal of it when it came out it was a big deal because it's a return of form of Sam ramy making more films again with all those same people and it's really funny and it's really well done I don't want to take away from it but yeah more objectively it's like a seven I think like I really think there's some really funny parts in it though like that car fight or like the anvil yeah it's a great like campy horror movie awesome I'm glad we all enjoyed it yeah thanks for recommending it I'm glad I got to rewatch it I like it I think a little bit better this time because I think I had it as a three before oh I messed up yeah I thought it was really funny this time I was watching it with other people and they were like really uncomfortable during some parts like when she vomited into her napkin. All the gross out.

Yeah, like it was great to see people like they couldn't even look at the TV. Yeah, I'm also for like gore movies and stuff but when it comes to like bile and stuff I am really like squeamish. So I was deliberately like, okay, I remember enough to know one to look away. The Pt13 made it like the scares are much more creative.

Yeah, like boggs to look at it. Fomit. It's gross. I don't know. Okay, let's do some questions from the Sardonicast community. If I want to leave your own questions, head over to the subreddit, whether it will be a suggestion thread where you can ask, whatever you feel like.

Butter 467 is going to start us off. Question for Jenny Nicholson, but of course the other Sard's can answer as well. Since you did a whole marathon on the Land Before Time movies for a video, are there any other movie franchises you want to marathon for a video like that? Yes. Talked a little bit about it earlier with Saw, but what else have you got on the brain? Yes, Saul.

I've already done a marathon of, all, I think there are 38 canonical Barbie movies, but I also watched some from the 80s and stuff. So I spent weeks and weeks watching every Barbie movie, and I've already, like, done my write-ups on all of them, but now it's just a matter of shooting and editing this

gargantuan, probably three-hour video. So I've shot, I think, like 20% of it. But it's going to be quite a project. And then I also have seen, I had seen all of the Swan Princess sequels, but they've since made another one, so I'm behind again. But I would like

to eventually do a ranking of all of those as well, because those ones are crazy. They're very strange. Didn't even know. And I think that's it. Barbie saw in the Swan Princess films. It's a very... I have to really like a franchise or think it's interesting to do it

because very labor-intensive videos having to, like, go through all those movies for Cliffs and edit them together. When there's so many of them, too. It's fun, it's fun marathoning stuff. Yeah. There were so many. And some of them were rough. Like, I watched the top of it.

because I was the most interested in up front. And then, like, by the time I got to the latter half of the list, I was like, oh, another Barbie puppy adventure. Like, it was the worst one. They just kept getting worse at a certain point. So it became kind of a slog. But I don't know, watching them all in such close proximity was a very immersive experience. I'm glad he survived. Aren't there like American Girl movies?

Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, I could do American Girl. I don't know if every doll got a film, though. But that would be fun. I could go to the American Girl Cafe that they have at the Grove. Yeah. I saw they sold those at Walmart. They sell American Girls at Walmart?

Yeah, like I saw they sold some American Girl movie. That's the only reason I know about it. It's like right in the front. American Girls are some high-end products. Those are like $200 dogs. They have their own store. It's crazy. There's a surprising amount of it.

This store has a tea party. Yeah. There's a surprising amount of sequels for Dragonheart. If you look at it. Oh, God. How many? At least five, I think. I also, like, one year I would love to do all the Halloween Disney Channel original movies.

Oh, wow. That's a good genre, too. Rank them all. But there are a lot of those, too, and then there's a lot of stuff that's, like, arguably Halloween, but, like, maybe not Halloween. It's a fine line. How about high school musical? Have you seen those?

I have. I don't think I would do a video on them. There's four, I think. I had to listen to the soundtrack of that when I worked at HMV. So yeah, they're just three But yeah, I don't think they're worthy of content Yeah Yeah

Those are bad I feel like there's just not much to say about those ones You know Unless someone was doing like a fashion commentary or something I feel like these fashion channels could do a good video about it I am very heavily wanting to And with my schedule not this year But maybe next year

I'm very heavily wanting to do a series review On Final Destination I think I have a lot of I love the final destination I feel like with those is like you either like those or saw most of the time so I was more of like a saw kid

but I feel like usually people kind of pit them against each other I loved both of them I thought they were great especially the second one there's more than two second there's four right

there's five yeah there's five oh he meant both franchises but I love I love the second one especially the second one is really good and yeah I think that's the best one actually.

What was the disaster in the fourth and fifth movie? Because didn't it go playing car crash roller coaster? It went from the first one's an airplane crash. No, but like the big catastrophe. One was like an escalator. I think I don't remember. An escalator? I don't remember.

The fourth one there's two. It's a racetrack and then there's an escalator crash or escalator escalator escapade at the end of the mall. Yeah, but then there's a mall kind of like the mall burns down or something. The escalator sounds cool. Oh yeah. They're like gets destroyed. I think they put the character.

in a movie theater. Yeah. And there was like a fire outside. And they were like, if you're watching this in theaters, this could happen to you right now. Okay, that's kind of cool. The fifth one was a bridge accident just to wrap up. Oh, yeah. That was a bridge car accident.

God, it's all so hazy. I like that one. I like the bridge accident. The best one is the second one, the car accident. Oh, of course. Like seeing all the trucks like crash into each other and they fucking blow up and like fiery explosions. Car accidents. Or like a guy gets a log shoved through his head like in his car.

Terrifying. It's awesome. Awesome. So good. I love that stuff. Jojo's crazy Reddit has one for us. So I've heard that Bong Joon Ho is going to be directing a South Korean animated feature film about underwater creatures. And this got me wondering, what film director would you guys love to see enter the world of animation?

For example, I'd love to see Quentin Tarantino direct an R-rated animated film like that sequence he did in yeah he kind of already did i have a good answer jenny do you have any yeah yeah i don't know i feel like when i watch animated films i'm not thinking so much about the director like they feel like such studio productions that i don't even feel confident it would like impact it that much you know i i feel that way for a lot of animated films

but there are some so like uh anomalisa is very much like a one voice thing and you know fantastic mr fox and is a very much west end Oh, right. Yeah. Thing, right? So really depends on the director and it also depends on how much of a grip that or how much money goes into it especially. It's just how much of their voice stays in the project. I mentioned this in the other episode.

I'm waiting for like a really personal one voice computer animated film because I can name them for other types of animations. And when I say that, I mean feature length. So please stop recommending me short films in the audience. Yeah, I was only thinking computer animated because I was like, that's all they're making right now. you know. I know. Yeah, I don't know. I guess actually I'll say Ryan Johnson because I know he likes musicals and stuff like that. Like he's into Broadway and all that. And so I feel like he would make like an interesting musical if he ever did. And especially if it was animated, that could be

fun. So I guess that'll be my answer. Okay. My answer is a little complicated, but director Christopher Nolan, I think you won't know him. He's a big fan of these guys, brothers Quay. He's a huge fan of these animators and they're like these twin brothers who make like animated movies together. He's clearly like inspired by that style with even his live action movies. And I think he could make a really good movie just in the style of like the Kui brothers just doing that. Just like, you know, because he's clearly inspired by it, you know. I think he directed a movie called Quay.

I think it's called. So that would be my answer. What about you, Alex? my mind jumps to very visual filmmakers like like Edgar Wright I think he's such an he's already such an animated director I feel like I could really see him doing like a CGI animated movie he already almost storyboards like exactly like an animated movie exactly yeah yeah definitely his style like Sam Ramey's style they seem very animated just watching drag me to hell just now the shot composition all that it's very it's like an anime or

almost, you know, very cartoonish. You could kind of argue this, that it's already an animated film with gravity, but Alfonso Caron, I feel like his style basically could translate quite well into it, again, with the visual language that could be really strong if you had the right idea. Yeah, it would be very different, for sure. I rewatched Requiem for a Dream a couple nights ago, and I think Darren Aronovsky, would probably do really well in the animated genre. He obviously loves anime.

He bought the rights to perfect blue before creating Requiemperaturedream. Just so he could use the tub shot, apparently. Yeah, he bought the American screening rights to perfect blue, so nobody could accuse him of ripping off the screaming in the tub shot. And then people accused him of that anyway, so who knows how everyone was. Yeah, that's right. Requiem for a dream, that's right. He just, he took this, well, he didn't, I don't know about rip off.

It's all paying a large. I mean, if he literally bought the rights to. the film. It's not like it's not like he's pretending. It's a soft reboot. Yeah.

He's done a remake of it. It's just like a one shot. And then yeah, there's other parallel shots to like black swan and stuff. The guy obviously loves some anime. He loves some Satoshi Khan or whatever. So I would love to see him tackle that.

And just the strong visual elements of Requiem for a Dream watching that again like this weekend. Just so good. I could see that working well in animation. So that's my answer. a good pick actually. T.G. Whatzers says now that we have both a furry and

a My Little Pony expert on the podcast, do you have any experiences with the brony community you'd like to share? Oh, I wouldn't even know where to begin. What's the brony response been? Oh, yeah. To the video? Mostly positive, I think.

Obviously, you mostly hear from the ones who are, like, mad. So a lot of, like, a lot of the saucy fan artists were like mad because they didn't watch my video, I think. Because, you know, if you've watched it, I wasn't really coming down hard on that. The only thing I condemned was specifically like saucy art of child characters. So like some of the people who were mad were drawing it of child characters. So, you know, I guess it was directed at them.

But then a lot of other people were just like drawing saucy fan art of other characters. And they were like, oh, she's making this like puritanical video, like making fun of us for drawing like porn of the ponies. And it was just like, I don't know. I think someone even went on like a podcast. They called into someone's like live streamer podcast and were like complaining about all these things that I hadn't said. And finally like the people in the chat were like none of that's in the video. And they were like, oh, well, I didn't watch it. I just read like a Twitter thread that was angry about it.

And I was like, okay. That explains it. No, they never did. But I think most of the bronies were like supportive of it. You know, the ones that watched it all the way through. I think we're good. Maybe some of them like rage quit. in the first half hour because I hadn't like explained yet that I had been in the fandom.

So they just like presumed that I hadn't been. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah, there's, uh, there's definitely overlap between the furry and brony community. Yeah. I mean, like a lot of bronies are also furries because why not? I mean, it's just a more specific property whereas furry just encompasses. Yeah, the circle inside the Venn diagram.

Yeah. Furry encompasses a concept. and brony encompasses a specific property within that concept. So, yeah, there's a bit of overlap. I had some friends trying to convince me to go to a local brony thing, and I was like, why? They're like, no, yeah, we're just going to party there. I'm like, we can party somewhere else.

What really makes me not as excited to do like a brony thing, and no offense to bronies, but there's a lot of lower age range, you know, not only in the participants, but also like it, you know, it's a show that's for lower age range, not to say that you can't enjoy it as an adult or whatever, but I'm happy with the furry community.

I'm happy with the demographics there. It's like a big family, you know? It's a lot of people I hang out with. I don't want to show up even with other furry friends and then just be like, let's have a room party away from this convention that's happening. It's like, well, you don't really need. the convention. We can just do that. We can have a party at someone's house. You can just get a hotel

and have a party. I'm not going to hang out with children or anything. You're not going to hang out with children. So like why are we? I don't know. I feel like a lot of the hotel parties would be like furry parties. And then like, you know, the after parties would just be like the furries would post a banner, like come to this furry party like after the con and they would have like free alcohol and like, you know, they'd bring their own like disco lights and stuff. It was like, you know, you could tell it was these people that were very experienced with cons that like predated the Brony community. Like did you ever go to a con with the Klingon party at it?

Oh yeah, yeah, I have. Yeah, those guys are crazy. They like decorate the whole room like it's a starship. Yeah, that's a thing. Was that at FC or MFF? But yeah, I was at the Klingon room. It was awesome. It's such like an ambitious party

and they do it like completely complimentary. They have like a tip jar. But everything's just like, they just show up to random cons to like throw an incredible party for everybody. It's amazing. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, come to a furry convention. I should. I've never been to a furry convention. I've just been to a brony convention. I will be your spirit guide. I have been to the prancing skill tear, one of their parties, which I didn't realize until after the fact were like the inventors of the furry fandom. I watched like a documentary on them. But yeah, because I used to just live really close to that house. And someone just brought it up like, hey, there's this crazy furry house party that.

happens once a month and I was like oh I'll go to it and it was like surreal like it was a whole house that belonged to furries so like all the decor was like furry decor like they had all these shelves up high that were like plushies of like fival and uh land before time characters and stuff like that and a lot of lion king I know furries really love the lion king um but yeah just crazy it's a crazy community because it does seem like a lot of people that are just like willing to altruistically like throw these parties for everybody else to have a good time and it's very welcoming so yeah i should go to a furry convention sometime do it i need a fursona you'll be you'll be assigned a fursona don't worry okay good make the line has one for us when indulging in a series that's been released

chronologically out of order star wars halo lord of the rings hobbit etc how do you typically go through them by release order or chronological order? Typically, I would say release order. Yeah, I always do release. I would also say release order. But also, I can't, I've never sat down and watched every Star Wars in a row anyway. Yeah. But yeah, I would say definitely release order.

I would say release order. I don't like humans imposing their will. Like, yeah, this is how, this is the order you made them. You know, you don't get to. Yeah, the release order is also like the original vision of the story. Like, you know, if they've released it in a different order, it's still set up with all those, like, info you need in the order that you need it regardless. So, yeah.

I would like to see a fan edit of all of the Saw films in one, but chronologically. Oh, see, that would actually be interesting because Saw is confusing. I bet I could do it. I think I would have a good understanding of what the longer were. I would actually watch that if you did it. Oh, yeah? That would be insane, especially with how much the flashbacks, like, negate former things that have happened.

The very muddled franchise. No, I would love that. It would be so chaotic. Oh, Amanda's there too. Yeah, you have to cut in other characters with like green screen effect. You would have to reshoot scenes to make it make sense. It works. You don't understand.

It's not contradictory. They plan this from the beginning. There's a saw Bible. Oh, yeah, the one vision the whole time. Everything makes sense. Yeah, they've been planning it out even until now. Yeah, he's got a creepy notebook with like everything from. start to finish for Saw.

Chris Rock. Chris Rock came up with the whole thing. Yeah. That would have been so good. I don't care what excuses they have. My favorite thing about Saw is them basically retconning the story. That's like one of my favorite things about Saw. Me too. Especially because so many of the middle movies are like

disappointing. You're like, yes, undo it. I don't know me. They were also also helping Jigsaw. Yeah, the only scene I remember from the film Jigsaw is like when Dr. Gordon comes back and that was like the greatest moment of cinema of like my entire life. Like creepy, campy, Dr. Gordon comes in with a cane.

The only thing I remember about that movie is how mad I was with the stupid, we're doing the same twist again thing where it's like this was before the other movies. You thought it was after. Yeah. But they used like newer flat screen TVs when later in the time, Saw one, Jigsaw uses like an old tube TV. I'm like, come on. Either you did that deliberately or you don't care. And also that's been the exact twist for like five of the different saw movies

You were mistaken about the timeline and it's like you can only do that a couple times before it stops being shocking Jigsaw is dead but this whole movie happened before he died Tric yeah in the past before he died yeah that's the twist and he's got a million like disciples that he trains Keep it going essentially bring back to the ball cart I'm getting one person to agree to do this with you but he's like yeah Amanda helps about but Like, oh, so Amanda was a good guy until she wasn't, but it turns out it was actually this other guy who was a cop who's actually working behind the scenes. And then it puts Amanda and then yeah, Gordon was also his disciple. And then yeah, Gordon was also helping.

It doesn't even make sense. It's so convoluted. Well, because Dix saw like nursed him back to health and gave him kisses and stuff. Yeah. And then the guy from the first movie is actually the guy who set it up the whole time. He was like actually the basketball. Well, no, he didn't work for him yet. He afterward, after he cut off his foot, he's like maybe this guy is right about a couple of things.

Jigsaw gave him kisses and he felt better. It doesn't make sense. Yeah. It's a hurt comfort thing. It's beautiful. I want them to do like a secret twin review. That's what I want so bad. Oh, they're showing.

Like Jigsaw never died. It was his twin brother. Please do it. They just don't think it'll work, but it'll totally work. Well, I remember like, you see him die and I was thinking like, oh, he's got a trick of his sleep. He faked his death. And then the fourth movie begins with his brain being like removed by an odd. Popsie person and you're like oh I guess he did really die I'd scream ugly but he left the tape in his tummy

He would scream Let's do this one from mr. Hollywood People usually only ever see you from the torso up in your videos I think we deserve to know what shoes do each of you wear That's funny It's fucking purple shit whatever's purple and comfortable. I don't care Purple, yeah I like purple in my videos I don't really

wear shoes because I'm inside. I usually put my feet up on the chair out of frame. But I guess if I'm inside and I am wearing shoes, it's my Lightning McQueen Crocks because I use those to go to my garage. And like if I had to take out garbage or something.

Do you have Jordans? No, I should. Yeah. I'm a Kiwi. I don't wear shoes. It's just not there. The sandals. Yeah, jandles. I wear a lot of sneakers

under armor. sneaky. Sneaky boy. Is that one? A sneaky boy? No, you're the sneaky boy. Exactly. Oh, I'm a sneaky boy.

Oh, thanks. Yeah. Appreciate it. All right, that was an easy question, I guess. Sneaky boy. Yeah. Simple. What about this one from a QB.

Dezuki? Sorry for that. Any favorite sitcoms? I feel like you guys haven't talked about sitcoms very much in the podcast. Oh, yeah. I usually don't like them, but Fresh Prince. I would say that's the one I like. Okay.

Fresh Prince of Bel Air. I don't really watch, like, TV shows at all, let alone sitcoms. I guess when I was a kid, I watched, like, Disney Channel, so I guess I'll say sister, sister. The only one I can think of. I've never seen Friends or any of that stuff. That was a little after my time. Okay, okay. I heard it was good, though.

It won Emmys and stuff. Sure. I like Sweet Life of Zach Cody. Oh, wow. But I was a kid. Okay. I guess Seinfeld is good. Seinfeld's probably the best.

Yeah, I haven't watched any grown-up sitcoms. I haven't watched it all the way through. I'm not huge on Seinfeld. Bring on the hate everybody. But I love Curb Your enthusiasm. That's like the ideal version of Seinfeld that I like. Well, do we mean a sitcom without a live audience or with a live audience? You can have a sitcom without a big.

A sitcom doesn't need to be a lot. Sure, but I think people like to specify at least because like there's a difference between Big Bang Theory and something like Seinfeld. Well, yeah, because some people call like Arrested Development a sitcom. I guess I like that one. Yeah, situational comedy. When I think sitcom, I think like studio audience. Or like the office, but the office doesn't have a live

audience. You know, it's very different. Yeah. People can be very literal. Yeah, I mean, I know like the Simpsons. But it's like an animated sitcom. Seasons one to three of Arrested Development is a good answer. Yeah, I never watched the last season as with many people. So. Yeah. Yeah, just don't. Staying bother.

If you're going to count without like a live audience, I love the office. I think the office is great until Steve Carell leaves, which is what I'm saying. The UK one I like too. Steve Correll one I like better. I think it's more my team. Did you guys ever see extras by Ricky Trevades? I felt like that was this fun of the series to me. You should check it out.

If you liked the office, you should watch extras. It's very funny. Sure. I bet I'd like it. Freaks and geeks. I bet I'd like that too. I haven't seen it. Alex was asking why I didn't like sign.

Yeah, what's your problem with Seinfeld? Yeah. It's, I don't have a hatred towards Seinfeld, but it doesn't stick with me at all. And I feel like I've watched every single episode, but I also feel like I've watched one episode, you know? Right. Where it's like if I just happen to be at someone else's house and there's a Seinfeld episode playing or somebody shares a clip on Reddit or something or I happen to see a moment from Seinfeld, this will happen like 200 different times. I'm like, oh, I've seen that. I've seen that.

But in my memory, I've only watched, like, one. I don't remember watching all of these episodes. That's part of the joy of it, you know? It's just like about nothing, you know? I do think that's kind of the appeal of it, right? Yeah. If you're in the move for that kind of thing, which I am right now, like now I want to watch Seinfeld.

But I think that's what's kept me away from it, yeah. Is that it's very, I don't know, formulaic, maybe. Incredibly formulaic, I don't even want to insult it. Because Seinfeld. Seinfeld's like, he's a fucking genius. I don't even see. Jerry Seinfeld. It's a genius.

Yeah. Yeah, I love Kirby Enthusiasm, though. I hope we see another season. Absolutely. He wrote on Seinfeld, right? Yeah, he's a co-creator. Yeah, yeah, he's co-creator.

And that's another great sitcom. So have you seen all of Kirby enthusiasm? I've seen a lot of, like, the best episodes, like the one where he goes to the baseball game with the prostitute. There's a lot of funny episodes of that shit. It's a really good show. There's like an entire season

where they do like a, a Seinfeld reunion subplot. Oh, really? Yeah. Because Larry David is playing himself in the show. And so in the show, they do a Seinfeld reunion special. And yeah, it's really funny. Curb is very funny.

I still have to watch the newer seasons. But I've seen like the best of. I love, it's always sunny in Philadelphia, if you'd count that as a sitcom. I think that's really, those characters are so like, they're almost like despisable. But I think they're very funny too. Oh, yeah. They do a lot of unlikable things, but it's, I guess, a commentary on how shitty people are. It's a commentary on eating disorders, Ralph. You didn't get it. Oh, I didn't even pick up on that.

It's about how they have to be punished. Yeah, Dee has an eating disorder. The trash man. I think Danny DeVito really holds that show together, though. Like, second season when he showed up, that's when the show got really good. Yeah, he does need to be there, I reckon. Yeah, he absolutely needs to be there. They're all great. I think all of them adds something. even D and Dennis

Mac with this like constant like weight loss and weight gain like I don't even understand what's going on It's like fat for a season It's just depends on the episode Yeah it's bad for one season It's very weird Very bizarre humor

I love that stuff for me though The answer is peep show As far as British cringe humor Yeah You guys like that kind of like You know where it's like just so uncomfortable You actually want to

Rick your face is and I think it's funny, definitely, but it's not like, I don't know, I don't like it as much as kind of dumb American humor. I feel much more safe with like dumb the office. Right. Whereas Pete is about making you feel bad. Smashing a vending machine. Like, that's much more safe to me. I loved the American office when it first came out and I watched it all the way through up until, I don't know, mid-season 7 before I realized I wasn't laughing at anything and then never looked back.

Yeah. It's crazy how quick you can drop off of a show, like, just like that. Like heroes. I loved heroes for two seasons. Oh, I used to love heroes. You watched Heroes too? I loved Heroes. I did.

That was like one of the only shows I watched. I watched so little serialized TV because I didn't have like a TiVo in my room. So that made it like kind of an impossible task to watch like serialized things. So I just would only watch like, you know, channels with movies playing and stuff. But Heroes, they would post every new episode on the NBC website, like with ads. So I would watch it every week. And I was so into it. And I'm sure if I rewatched it, I would think it was dumb the whole time.

But it got really dumb. Even at that age, I realized how dumb it got. Zachary Quinto. Oh, yeah. The cast was so talented. Like, a lot of big people, like that you've seen it all this thing. Yeah. And I love that guy that plays Claire's dad.

I don't remember the act. I think Coleman, something Coleman. He's like a character actor. He's not like in a lot of. He's very talented, I think. Don't look at me. I think he's a good guy. Yeah, I watched the British office in the past few years and loved it, and I like it better than the American one.

And I don't think I could go back and watch the American one. Not that they tackled everything the same, but I've tried, like, even just watching clips on Reddit and stuff, I'm like, man, I just, I feel like I grew out of it, not to say, like, everybody who enjoys it as much. child or anything like that. I can see that. I don't gel with it anymore. Even the early stuff that I remembered fondly. I think it was good for its time. It stood out. Yeah. I think the characters are great. I think Steve Carell. Like the actors too and all that but yeah that yeah I think I think Steve Carell I love all those actors. It was refreshing for its time. Dwight yeah yeah yeah it's good like a golden era. John Crosinski went on to do other things that yeah he directed a quite yeah and Pam was in Pam was in taking a poem or not taking a poem uh what's that of the

one. 15-17 to Paris. Oh. She's in that. Which is pretty bad. Let's do this one from Johnny the Fancy Man. What is more important? A good story with badly written characters or a bad story with really interesting characters.

I personally feel like the characters of the story are more important, but what do you guys think? Example, in my opinion, Tenet, has a pretty cool story, but really boring characters. I definitely say the latter. I really care about characters. I would say that Game of Thrones is a good example of a badly written story with well-written characters for most of it anyway. But yeah, I always care more about characters. Although I obviously care about things like themes and story and things like that.

You know, I feel like the movie needs that to come together. But I think the movie will be worse if it has bad characters. So, yeah, I would pick good characters. Yeah, they're kind of the meat and potatoes. Yeah. Like Tarantino movies, very strong characters. Usually the plots are good, not as strong, though. they're more about the characters.

I don't think the plots are bad though, you know? Like, I don't think hateful late, the plot is bad. I just think there's a lot of, like, character interaction. And I like that stuff. It just depends on what you're looking for. I don't know if I can think of a single example of a well-written movie with poorly written characters because that makes the movie poorly written, right?

The characters are the subject that the plot is happening to. So if you have an interesting plot but shit characters, it means nothing because if you don't, it's like you could have a murder happen. And if the character sucks, you're like, I don't care that they got murdered or I don't care that their mother got murdered or something, right? I mean, their example was Tenet, which I feel like Tenet was a good example. I mean, I didn't like Tenet. And I don't even think it had a great story, honestly, if it's being perfectly honest, I don't think it had a good story. And her invites to go bobo. I like the, I like Ten a lot.

But those characters are not. It's not really the focus of the movie, those characters are so weird. about Christopher Nolan is like he writes such good monologues for his characters. Like, you know, prestige is like my favorite one that he's done. And that one has so many like iconic lines and moments and monologues. Or the Joker and Dark Night. Was just like action and like explaining the logistics of his sci-fi concept. So it was like so little to cling to, I guess.

I don't know. The characters in Tenet are so because, you know, they're like people who went through time and stuff. They're so weird. Like you can't even relate to them. He is named Protegians. Well, you don't learn that much about them. He's literally named protag. The main guy in Tenet, he's called the protagonist.

Like, he's lived through the whole thing and he's trying to reorganize it. Like, it's so odd. Yeah, whenever they talk to each other, it's not about, like, what makes them a character or, like, how they, how their dynamic is. It's, like, talking about the mission they're about to do or explaining something about his sci-fi science. So it's, like, you can tell he, like, he was probably really enamored of this concept for, like, a lot of years and just,

had thought about it for so long that he really wanted to convey this, like, concept he'd thought of, and just completely ran out of time to, like, develop any characters, which made it not work for me. Which is the theme of the movie, yeah. Inception has stronger character stuff, for sure. Tenet is not as focused on that. It's more focused on, like, the action and, like, the concept, which is really bizarre. And they have to, there's a lot of explaining for that. I was just thinking, I was trying to wrap my brain, trying to think of an example of a good story of badly written characters in a film.

It makes the story bad. I thought of one. Oh, yeah? Yeah, yeah. The M-night Last Airbender movie is kind of that problem. Because it's based off a good story, but the translation is missing all of the character writing in depth, which is what made it good. So it just has nothing. See that remix.

I based off of a good story, it doesn't mean good story, though. So it was a person who's never seen the original property. But it was technically the same story, so I guess it counts. It is beat for beat the same story. It's just badly tough. And I would say the original story is good. Very compressed though, too, right? Yeah, it's condensed.

Yeah, I don't know, because I think that having bad characters makes the story bad. Like, the characters are an extension of the story. They're a part of the story, right? Yeah, fundamentally. So it almost seems like oxymoronic. I don't know. I think 10, it is a good example, though. That would be one of my criticisms with the movie.

It's just not as focused on characters, you know, because it is so weird. The concept's so weird. Yeah, and I think the last Airbender was a good example because you're like, oh, yeah, the story beats are physically there, but they're like hollow because they didn't develop any of the characters. Yeah, no vessel to connect to it through. The show, you get much more time to develop those people. Yeah, or any show. I mean, I think a lot of people said that of Tenet is like, if only it had been like an HBO prestige miniseries or something like that. He probably could have done something better with it.

Uh-huh. But then it wouldn't have had that pacing, you know? Like, that movie is so intense, I think. I'm sure he would have added more intense action scenes and stuff, though. It's just not about the characters. It's about that experience of going on that roller coaster ride. And if you're like, okay, after an hour, we're going to take a break. Like, cut to credits.

See you next week. That takes you out of it a little. I think Nolan understands, like, filmmaking. I don't know. I think you could re-escalate. You could have dialogue and then you could re-escalate into the action scenes. You could add more action scenes in the middle. I'm sure there was more drama going on with those characters.

Yeah. I love the experience of just watching it all at once, you know. I think that's more what he wants to do. Yeah, the characters in that movie are, they're odd, for sure. I'm not going to defend him. I think of like Zach Snyder, too. Whereas what is ruined? Well, a few things have ruined his movies, but the particular standout is how weak his characters are.

Yeah, Nolan's just like, you know, Robert Pence's character in Tenet, his like, that first scene when he's interacting with the protagonist, They had been with each other for like years at that point from Robert Patton's point of view. Like how do you even write that? It's so bizarre. Yeah, you'd think he could have infused some kind of like warmth or fondness between them, given their backstory. But even when they reveal, there's like no emotional impact from that revelation. Yeah, perhaps. It's a very concept heavy.

Yeah. Yeah. It did feel like it had a skeleton that you could put good characters into and put a lot of drama into. But it just wasn't quite there. Yeah, yeah. But I like the music. It's like very hypnotic. I thought that was the coolest part is like when he goes into the, when he goes through like backwards in time or whatever, it feels very like scary and visceral.

Like you hear his like breathing in your ears and it helps you feel how like scary is the way that you probably couldn't. It was just like a distant shot and a lot of helicopter sounds. You'd be like, okay, he's running and getting shot out, whatever. I don't know. But I would not want to do that. Yeah, I wouldn't want to be in that situation where I'd have to reverse in time. It seems pretty scary. Good news.

Whenever he was like seeing stuff reverse. I think that's why I like that character. Because whenever you saw stuff reverse in time, he was like really freaked out by it. You could tell. He's like, what the fuck is going on? I don't know. I don't feel like that's a character, though. I feel like that's a, you know, it didn't, I don't know.

I just didn't feel like we knew anything about him or his, like, personality. I felt like there was a well-shot sequence, but I didn't feel like it assisted his character. Yeah, because he's so odd. It's such a, like, you don't know anything about him. And, like, post when the movie's over, he kind of reorganizes everything to be in place when the movie starts, you know, like all those pieces that kind of pop up during the movie that you're like, or like Robert Patton's showing up. How is that possible? It's because, like, the protagonist set it all up when the movie's over. It's like such a weird idea.

Does it hold up on rewatch or does it just get worse? Because I've only seen it once. I watched it after I got my. vaccine. I watched it when I was sick. I liked it. I'm like, this is really trippy. It's just, it's so different. I get the character part of it because I think the characters are like, they're so abstract. Like the concept is so abstract. How do you even make a character like that relatable? It was like going through time and shit like that. But I don't know. I thought the concept worked. I think he did the best he could. I like Tenant a lot.

10 out of 10. 10. 10 to 10. 10. The crazy music and the visuals. That's really what makes it. All right. I guess that does it for questions.

Thank you. That was cool. Thanks. And I guess we have a film recommendation. I believe it's from Ralph this time for next episode. Is it really for me? Well, last time was... Oh, yeah, Cure.

Oh, wow. There we go. Okay. Are you prepared? I'm going to recommend a movie from 2000 called Almost Famous. Okay. From director Cameron Crow.

Haven't seen that one in a long time. Oh, yeah. Cool. I really love that movie. Super cool. Have you seen it, Alex? I haven't seen it, no. Okay.

Thank. I've seen Vanilla Sky. though. Mm-hmm. Is that Cameron Crow? Really? You wrote it. Oh, cool.

I've seen Vanilla Sky and, you know, the one it's based on. I forgot the name of it. It's like a Spanish movie. So, if you don't want to get spoiled for Almost Famous Year 2000, directed by Cameron Crow, watch it before the next episode of this podcast. These episodes come out every two weeks. You can listen to them early as they're edited by going to sardonacast.com, signing up for premium $2 a month.

Same with patreon.com slash sardonicast. Also, we got merch. And I'm assuming our lovely guest, Jenny Nicholson, might have some things to plug. Where would people find you if they wanted to check out some of your stuff? Plug whatever you want. Oh, they can see me on YouTube at my channel, which is named Jenny Nicholson.

And that's it. Oh, and vote for me in the Hugos. If you have a membership for the Hugues, you can vote for me. If you've seen all the content I'm up against, then you really think that my... It's a voting process. Okay. Yeah.

Come on, everyone, vote. Yeah. Have you seen Almost Famous? I've not. You should. It's very good. It's a very good movie. I'll watch it too, but I won't be back to give myself off.

But I'll just watch it. That's fine. Just watch it. It's good movie. Watch at some point. Add it to your watch list. Okay. Awesome.

Thank you so much for joining. And have a... Yeah, thanks for having me. Happy Trek. everybody Shrek Shrek is love Trek is life

Thanks for listening everybody Bye bye Bye everyone