The Kristian Harloff Show - The Flash's failure poses many questions about the future of superhero movies.

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

Join the site! http://www.thekristianharloff.com The Flash continues to be on a skid in the box office. What does this mean for the future of comic book movies in general? Will it make a difference? Should the budgets be scaled down? Why did people decide not to see this  one? Chris Van Vliet joins Kristian on today's show They discuss Flash, WB, The Rock, building an online presence and more. Wrestling, impressions and more on the Big Thing! #marvel #theflash #youtube #youtubeshorts #brand #wwe  This episode is brought to you by  Better HelP: http://www.betterhelp.com/bigthing RUMPL: http://www.rumpl.com/thebigthing ATHLETIC GREENS:  http://www.drinkag1.com/bigthing OUR MERCH STORE IS LIVE: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/the-big-thing-kh-channel?ref_id=27393 FOLLOW KRISTIAN + FIND HIM ON CAMEO https://cameo.com/kristianharloff https://twitter.com/kristianharloff https://facebook.com/harloff https://instagram.com/kristianharloff AMAZON WISHLIST: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1KPH42T0TP0PG?ref=cm_sw_em_r_un_un_djbxgIW5ZQMMg SCHMOEDOWN ARCHIVE CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheMovieTriviaSchmoedownArchives Ask Kristian questions for next time! https://facebook.com/harloff Become a Patreon of the Schmoedown: http://patreon.com/schmoedown OTHER GREAT CONTENT: REVIEWS https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSJdE28YyUT368qY7sfE0nKE4c04CqGvu TV REVIEWS https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSJdE28YyUT1LU-t2Z9AD5UJDiWW4pS_E STAR WARS SHOW https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSJdE28YyUT0XmfpbblkF9PY7uO2qhbN6 THE BIG THING PODCAST https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSJdE28YyUT3KAwbzDsv6mdR-gwUiydQg

What's going on, everybody? Welcome back. It's Monday, and I know that it's a little late today, but I'm working on some good stuff, good stuff. And if you didn't know this already, we were just in New York. We had the show. We were sold out. Why am I showing you this if we were sold out, and it's in the past?

Well, because on the website, the Christianharlov.com, you can actually still watch the whole entire stream. It's available for you guys. If you are $10 and over member of the site, you can get it, or you can just go get it a la carte. It was a really fun show. It was hilarious. It was sold out.

You guys were great. I'll meet a lot of you guys. So thanks for coming by. Don't forget Katie Sackoff is doing that show. Her show, blah, blah, blah, blah with Katie Sackoff launches this Wednesday, this Wednesday on her YouTube channel. And then we're going to be in Comic Con July 22nd at the American Comedy Company. And you can get tickets at blah, blah, blah, blah, katie.com. Super excited about that as well.

Not done with plugs yet, everybody. Also got to tell you about this. No, not that one. Shoes and beef. Shoes and beef. That's right. The animated series, it's coming to the site July 1st, right around the corner. So make sure you check it out.

You can go over there at the Christianharlov.com. Make sure you check that out. And then the comic book for Capes and Cals, Big Thing, that will also be available July 1st and get that a la carte where you can join the site. Check it out. All right. I got a special guest here today, man. My buddy, Chris Van Vlee.

If you haven't seen Chris Van Vleet's stuff, then you are not on social media. You can't miss it. He's got so many great guests, so many great clips, and he's one of the best interviewers out there, and we're going to talk to him about what he's doing with his channel, obviously some of the movies that he's seen,

a little wrestling talk here and there, and we're just going to shoot the shit. So it's my buddy, Chris Van Vleet. We're talking about our time at the Netflix party together. So I'm about that also. But let's get into it, everybody. It's the big thing. What's up, everybody?

Welcome back. It is. The big thing. It's Monday. Yeah, it was a little late. Like I said, but went to New York. And then I knew I got this character coming in. What's up, man?

How you doing? So good to see you, man. You too. Look what you built out here. Well, I mean, you're very kind. And you say, and the first thing you said is when you said, look, oh, this studio. And I'm the most genuine guy I know. But you're also very humble.

Like, what you've been able to do lately has been nuts. You got so many your interviews that you get, the people that you get, the people that you get, building out the channel, I mean, everything about it. And you understand the space. And it's, it's, it's, it's, I always kind of push people towards you when they wonder how to build a brand and other because you do something that I would, and I don't know if you're going to be able to, I'm curious because you're, you're a dad now. So I wonder.

Yeah. You said something that I was like, yeah, this, see, that's a guy who's going to continue to be successful because he's got the right mentality. You got the wrestler's mentality of, all right, well, I have an interview. And it's with, uh, whether it's Chris Jericho or whoever at my might be at some of it, but I got to drive four hours to get it. Yeah. Can you do that now?

I think I have to. It's the job, right? Even with the little lady. Yeah. See, I give you all the green in the world. I don't know. I know. I know.

Because you're so new to it. She's four weeks old today. Right. So I don't know. Right. That was the great thing about when I was really intentional about my channel. And by the way, this is why you've been so popular and why your channel's growing so much is you've been intentional.

You know, you don't do all of this. by accident. You've been intentionally going, okay, I'm going to do X amount of podcasts a week and we're going to talk about this specific thing. You've been so good at that. When I really dialed into it like 2019, I was just like, if someone is going to say yes, they will do an interview with me, I will find my way to get there. I'll drive four hours, five hours. I'll book a flight using miles or whatever. I'll pay for my own hotel, whatever. If you say yes, I will find my way to go there. I don't know what happens now with the baby. It's tough. It's But I like that grind, though.

I know. I love the grind. I understand that. For sure, I really do. I mean, even being on the road for myself this week, my wife, I was on the phone with her after the set. She's like, you seem so happy when you get out of the stage. It was also a good set. So that's also when you have a decent set.

Then, yes, you feel good about it. But it's also that grind, like you said. It's like the travel in there to do it. Like, it makes you feel like you're alive. You know, you're doing that thing. But there's also that at the same, my family was away for like six days before I left. in New York. And then so I got back and I only saw him for a day. And then I was gone again. I was like, I want to see my family again. So it's like, it is, it's funny to hear you say that.

You're like, I don't know yet. I don't know the answer to that because it's like one of those things that you get, because you're only gone, even if you're only, how long you usually gone if you have you drive, if you just to drive for like four hours? Oh, that's like a day trip. Right. Right. Right. So it's, so like, I had one yesterday. Okay. Where I did a junket yesterday. Okay. And I left in the morning at like nine-ish and I got back at like 10 p.m. Right. It was, you know, 13 hours away from the house. It's because of where we live, we live in Orange County, so it makes it, it's a little bit

of a drive, an extra maybe hour compared to living here. But, I mean, I just enjoy the grind. I mean, as we sit here, you're cutting between shots here. You love the grind too. I mean, it's almost like it's just part of you now too, right? Because my wife was even saying, it's like, how long do you really want to kind of push and do it this way? because you're, if I don't mind, you, what are you, like 38?

I just turned 40. Right. So I'm a little older than you are, right? So it is one of those things. And I think even when I was, I just turned 40, I was at AMC or Collider, rather. And it is. It's that push. It's this, it's, you get that satisfaction of, okay, well, I put this work in.

It's like you always want the saying of hard work pays off to come to fruition, right? Sure. and it's such a kick in the nuts sometimes when it doesn't. But it's almost, I think it's built in a, because I've been to a place from, I, I don't want to do this anymore. And then I'm like, that's a switch that goes, no, you can't, you can't stop. Yeah. It's just, I think it's built in certain people. Yeah.

For better or for worse. I think the realization for me is when, I realize when you work a salary job and you could be the hardest working person there or the laziest person there, you're going to make. the same amount of money. Right. And that was the thing was like, well, that doesn't make any sense to me. Like show up early, work your ass off and get paid the same amount as someone. You can get promotions, but I hear what you're saying. Yeah. Like if you were on a salary and like that's, that's how much your money you're making, that's that's that. Right. I was like, well, I'd rather put in really hard work. And then I'm the one in control of how much money you make at the end of the day. Yeah. And I think that that's, and it's the whole thing, right? It's, it's like,

okay, you push hard and that's why I tell people, and we'll talk about it a little later in the, in the episode is that where for our business, like sponsors are like crucial, right? And I know that you do the same thing. It's like when you find sponsors that you like, that you want, that your audience will like because it's beneficial to them and it's obviously beneficial to your show, right?

But you've got to put that push out there and say. Yeah, and if you have sponsors like where your audience isn't gonna buy it, those sponsors aren't coming back. They're not coming back. They're gonna give you like one thing and then it's like, like a trial and like, oh, that didn't work. And I've had many of those. Yeah, it is.

And it's also, it's one of those things where you understand because as a consumer of like YouTube and other things too, you're like, oh, I want to get to the point where someone's talking this, where are your time codes? And then when someone puts in the, well, I skipped over just to get to this. And I'm like, oh, they missed the fucking ads. I mean, they might have missed because they might have missed that they legit. What if some guy who's got his beard is a freaking mess? And he's like, ah, he got nothing is bullshit. He's like, oh, I'm going to skip to the flash conversation. And he missed manscape, right?

Where he could have gotten the beard trim. He could have done. We don't even sponsor today's episode. I'm just saying, though, but like, it's like, it's like, it's. It's one of those things, but it does benefit the show, benefits you. And then, like you said, you put that grind in there, and then you get your channel. Your clip channel is kind of blown up. And I'm sure that's one of your biggest sources of revenue.

Yeah, that's one of them. And I just, you raised such a good point there about like having sponsorships and like the audience appreciating it. I really wish that audiences were, you know, if you really love your creator, if you love Christian, you love supporting this channel, like actually support the channel. And it's amazing to me how many passive view. words there are on YouTube. If you like a video and you watch it, actually click the like button on it. It's amazing to me how many people don't do that. I could have a video with 100,000 views and there's like 1,400 likes. It's like, come on, guys. It's free and it takes you no time to do it. I think, though, it's also human nature in general of where what I learned

years ago is that's why call to actions and fun call to actions are crucial because I know for myself as well, there's someone right now who's listening to us on YouTube. watching going, oh yeah, the like button. I totally forgot. And then they just did it. Perfect. But they might have forgot to because we didn't talk about it, right? And it's like sometimes you just go, I'm just watching it.

I get a kick at this person. And it's the same thing. Like I said, I always tell people, there's tons of ways you can support the channel, whether it's liking, commenting, because not everybody can afford to get, you know, a particular sponsor or buy a rumple blanket, whatever those things. They can't do it. But there's other people who just click that like, hit a comment, share it, tell people about it. That's what helps. And that is part of the grind, as you say. And I wish that that was

talked about more in the creator culture, the creator world that we're in right now that, like, it is so simple to just click like on a video. Or if there's something that stands out about it, just leave a quick comment. That goes such a long way with the creator. It also makes you feel like appreciated. It does. And it also, it's like one of those things where I'm sure you do the same thing. You're kind of a stats guy like myself. I look at as the episode goes up and it says, this episode is performing as usual or this episode is doing better and it's like you always want to see that arrow

that it's doing better because more people sharing and more people are liking it like I put out like I had Amber Mid Thunder on last week right and she was amazing like what a great she's gonna be a superstar amazing amazing she was so good and pray and like just really really great interview and I looked and it was like

it's lower than usual I'm like hit the fucking button guys for the people who were watching because like every comment is going this is a great interview I love talking I love that you had her on. I was like, let people know that. Because the algorithm is an asshole. It's a real asshole.

It'll say like, okay, no one. It's a good way of putting it. Algorithm's an asshole. It's like, okay, look, tell you what, not enough people are commenting on this and liking it, so I'm not telling other people about it. Yeah. And it's, and but eventually, the good thing with interviews, as you know,

you can have one that does not great in the beginning and then like just catches fire. Like Josh Harwitz is a king of that. Like years later it can catch. That's right. Reddit's a big, like, pour the gasoline on the fire. They'll find something like, you know, six years later. Right. Like, can you believe that this person talked about this thing back then?

We didn't even know what they were talking about. Now it all makes sense. Right. I mean, today I got tagged in that Anne Hathaway viral video that happened 12 years ago. It's hilarious. I get tagged in that like once a week. Actually, I also got tagged in the one we talked about last time, the Leslie Mann, Dakota Johnson interview. That was seven years ago.

I got tagged in that every week. It's so funny, though. That one again, if you'd be, like, football. both those. I always, that's how I first, like, knew about you. That's like, yeah, when I first heard about you was through that one and I was like going, man, my 25 year old self really wants to be this guy right now. I was 28 when the Ann Hathaway one happened. You're single? Yes, you're single at both of those. So like, so that's, that's why like, yeah, you got to walk out of that, I going, all right, I feel all right by myself. I think I walked out of the Ann Hathaway one going,

could have phrased that question. Oh, yeah, the Ann Hathaway one for sure, but, but she played it off like a jam. And she also, and she was also, you know, she thought she was, yeah, she played it off really was a while. I, it's so, what do you think is about Ann Hathaway? Because I find Anne Hathaway, I don't know if you find this too. I've, I used to talk about this on the Shmo's all the time. And I think it's less now, back in the day, it always seemed to me, like, dudes loved her, but women had an issue with her. Oh, that's interesting. I never knew why that was. Like, I was always, it was always like, yeah, every guy I talked to was like, I love Ann Hathaway, it was, you know, obviously attractive, but very, really good actress. So talented.

So good. And then I always remember, like, there was, we used to give crap to one of our co-host, I'm like, let me ask you a question. Why do you hate Ann Hathaway? I don't hate her. I just, I just don't like it. But never a fan of Ann, she wasn't a fan of Ann Hathaway. And then there was a couple people, women that I found that didn't like her. But I think that's changed. Don't you find, though, that a lot of people will like an actor based on a character that they like?

Maybe. So they will project a lot. Maybe. I think that happens a lot, maybe. It could. It could. I mean. Project it.

Yeah. And I think she's fantastic. But I like the way that she actually handled herself. Yeah, that was fine. Yeah, because we've all been there. We've asked questions sometimes, I was trying to ask a fitness question, which I asked of lots of different actors and actresses.

I just didn't phrase it very well. Okay. What was the actual phrasing? I said, you know, the photos just came out as you as Catwoman. You know, how did you fit into that suit? And she's like, oh, you know, like bench kicks and tricep curls or something. I'm like, I mean, you're in phenomenal shape. How much weight did you have to lose to get into this role?

It's like, how much weight did I lose? What a forwarder. young man you are. And I'm like, yeah, come on. But what's so interesting is I've asked so many actors about, you know, how much weight did you lose slash gain for this role? And it's never, she just made a joke out of it. It was fun. It was great. I thought it was amazing. And it is a good clip. You can see why that clip has, has legs for sure. But you've been getting a lot of, a lot of legs in the, in the wrestling space, even more so. You've always been involved in it. you've always been a hardcore wrestling fan,

and now you're getting into, it seems like you're getting everybody now. So is it, is it, the, you're becoming more aware of your stuff and giving you more access? Because you're getting a lot of people.

I've always had interviews with WWE, but they've just been really kind recently. And they've also opened it up. They've been a lot more media friendly. Like, WWE used to never have these, W.W.E. never had these, like, junkets that they have now. So for WrestleMania,

they had two days of press coverage, where you just went into a big ballroom in a hotel, interviewed everybody. Yeah, and they just brought people around. You know what's funny about that is I got in, I got invited to that. Hey. Yeah, but I didn't get tickets to WrestleMania.

So I was like, and a lot of people didn't. And I was like, I had just. And honestly, I had, so I had avoided COVID for three years. And I got it like two weeks before WrestleMania. Oh. And it, it leveled me. Like, it took me out of like hosting on the channel. It leveled me.

And I was still showing a little bit of a line at the time. anyway when the press stuff come out. But I didn't get tickets to WrestleMania. I wanted to take my daughter to it because it was in L.A. And then I was like, just for the interviews, my channel, like for you, it makes, did you go to WrestleMania? Yeah. And by the way, WWE doesn't comp WrestleMania tickets like for media.

They do, though. Not for WrestleMania. Really? All the other events, absolutely. But I've never had a comp ticket for WrestleMania. I got a press pass and kind of just floated around and was in the press box, which is really cool. But not tickets actually.

Not a ticket, yeah. All right, well, either way. He was actually famous people that comp tickets for. That makes sense. But I said, I was like, either way, I was going to try to get tickets or try that. And I just couldn't, I couldn't do it. Plus, I wanted to take my daughter. But for someone like yourself, it makes sense regardless to go, even if you didn't get tickets to WrestleMania, you go because you have all these different people that are there, starwise.

And what do you think, I mean, with everything going on? I have, I know that when WrestleMania happened, it was like right before the buyout with Endeavor. And then the next day is still widely regarded as like the worst raw of all time. And after Vince comes back, does this thing. Terrible. Really bad. I'll be honest, I haven't watched as much. I watched the other day.

And I know what they were doing with the bloodline and how that storyline is playing out again is pretty good. But has it gotten better? Is Vince still involved? What's the latest? It sounds like Vince is involved. Yeah. But I think WWE is definitely on a high right now. Okay.

Like AAAH even said it at the night one press conference. He's like, we're hot right now. And it's true. A lot of eyes on WWE. And I think that that's in part because of the bloodline storyline. That's, in my opinion, a top five storyline of all time. It's so good. But it's also in part of like, you've got Logan Paul there.

He's really good, man. Really? Like, he has no business being that good. He is so good. Yeah, he's really good. I've been saying this to friends. He's the new Shane McMahon because you put him in a match and you never know what he's going to do. He's going to steal a show.

And I think he's more athletic than Shane. Absolutely. And like I, look, I'm not necessarily, I can't say I was a fan of his. I can say, like, when I never watched this stuff when he was coming up on YouTube. And when all the shit went down with him, I was like, who's this fucking dude? You know, like everybody else. But when they announced him in wrestling, I'm like, okay, this is another gimmick. You cannot call that guy a gimmick.

You can't. So good. You can't. That thing he did with Ray Mysterio? A ricochet. Oh, not a ricochet. Excuse me. With ricochet, when they jump from each side of the, the rickshaw.

and like, I mean, that guy puts his body out there. And he also, and he's not, and he's not disrespectful of the wrestlers. And he's giving and he's trying to protect him. He's just naturally. I mean, and he boxed. I mean, he fought Mayweather. You know what he got on. Whether you like him or you hate him, you have to respect what he's doing.

You have to. It's impossible not to. And I think that the bar for celebrities was pretty low for a while. And then Bad Bunny came in and raised that bar so high. Like Bad Bunny. Calm alone. Okay. Or Dennis Rodman.

Or Drew Carrey. Oh, my God. Remember Buster Douglas? You know, do you not remember how the whole Buster Douglas thing came to be? No, how? Because Mike Tyson was supposed to be the ref for Hogan and Savage during that whole Saturday that's being an event thing. And then Buster Douglas beat Tyson.

Oh, right. So they went and they got Buster Douglas. Man. And it was like, you know, it still was ratings goal because, you know, he was the hottest thing in sports at the time. It would be just beating Iron Mike. But, like, yeah, I mean, that was before Tyson came in during the Stone Cold, you know, show Michael's thing. Yeah, during the DX.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, it's nuts. I find myself going through YouTube, like watching a lot of the old school things. I have, so I would watch that Iron Sheik and Hogan title match so many different times. Really? So many different times. But now I can't watch it the same.

Oh, yeah. No, but even before that. Even before he passed. Do you know the thing? What do you mean? I had a fucking heart on, on, on, When he goes to put the camel clutch on Hogan, he's got a raging heart on. What?

Yeah, I never. Is this like public knowledge? It is now. Oh, wow. So it's, it is, it is, it is, it'll, you'll never watch the match the same because like, and it was, and this happened like four days before the Sheik died, right? There was, I can't remember the guy's name. I'm sure you know him. He's a guy who was doing shoot interviews forever, but he hosts a show at Kevin Nash now.

Oh, Sean Oliver. Sean Oliver brought it up to the Sheik on his show a while ago. but then brought it up again to Nash. Because he brought it up to the Sheik, and the Sheik's like, oh, yes, yes, of course. And it's, it's, it's insane. It's insane. Oh, man.

She's like, he's got his own camel clutch. He's got his own camel sticking out of the side, but it's, uh, but all these other clips, but like that pop up through like YouTube, I'm trying to do work, these old school clips. I got watched a whole thing of Marty Genetti and Sean Michaels. And this comes full circle back to what we kind of briefly, mentioned before is like clips are such an important thing right now. And I, people keep saying,

oh, clips are important because people's attention span is so small. And that's not it. That's not it. Why clips work is because it's a taste test. If I were to send you a three hour podcast and go, oh man, you've got to see this guest on Joe Rogan. You're going to go, yeah, thanks, man, but I don't have three hours to watch this. But if I send you a 37 second clip of that exact same thing or the point I wanted you to see, well, you're probably going to watch that. Yeah. So the reason that clips work is it's a taste test to show people you probably never heard of me before you've never heard of my show but you probably know the guest that I'm interviewing there's a little just taste well it's also part of the like we said before with the algorithm

right so if if if you start if I see Chris Van Vleet clip and it keeps popping up and I keep watching your clips well then every time I open up my home page I'm going to get another recommended I hope so yeah well it is and it's like and so it's same thing with how Instagram and everything works too I I see your stuff all the time because whether either liking it or watching it through. That's why it's recommended. Likewise. I see stuff all the time.

I've also just, I doubled down on content. I think even since I doubled down the last time I saw you. Yeah. I post across all platforms. I'm probably posting like 20, 25 times a day.

Wow. See, like that's, that was the thing. When we had, so as I mentioned to you and people know now that I'm producing Katie Sackoff's podcast and like the way that one of the,

I mean, I've known her now for 16 years, whatever it is, but like she was on my show recently. And we had a bunch of clips that went viral and all the clips that we put on on shorts and everything all across the board. Just something like 13 million views across the board. Wow. Yeah.

Because a lot of different things that had popped. And then it also just made me, the thing that's tough with me is because I have a few other people that I work with. But like for the most part, it's really, it's really me. I have someone who helps me out with shorts. I have somebody who is, you know, Brett Sheridan helps me out with this stuff. who helps manage the site. But for the most part, when I'm actually uploading and posting this stuff is all on me. And like this last past weekend, it's tough.

You know, I'm like, okay, oh, yeah, I got to post this. I have like a backlog of shorts in my email that I had to, that I have to post. But it's a matter of when you do it, how you do it. And it's also when you have the time to do it. I just realized that I was editing, I was doing all the jobs. I was wearing all the hats. And I realized I'm not that great of an editor. I can do it, but I'm like a four out of ten.

what if I were to be able to hire someone who's a 10 at a 10? And then I could take some of that time to do what I'm better at, which is researching for interviews, booking interviews, doing them. And that's what I just started building out my team. I can make a graphic. It's not very good, but I can make a graphic or a thumbnail. That's what I do. I've been working on thumbnails and like I'm better.

I'm better. Like you look, I mean, compared to what I was doing like a year ago. Yeah, your thumbnails are way better. Yeah, now they are, but they were horrendous in the beginning. You also have the benefit of having an audience that's, going to show up for every episode. Like a certain percentage of your audience is going to show up whether you're talking to someone

very famous or whether you're talking to me. So it's great. Yeah, I mean, it is. It has that benefit also from the built-in audience from, again, Shmows and Shmowdown and those things too, for sure. And I mean, I met so many of them again in New York. They're just so loyal.

And it's crazy and surreal at the same time, right? Because they're just like people that you see and people that have been to shows before and people who you know are commenting. I met a few people who were like, oh, I'm so-and-so with the username. And I've seen your name all the time. And it's like, so that is beneficial. And it is one of those things as far as community goes and what's so important about it.

But it's like, it's all of it combined. It really is all of it combined. The posting, thumbnails, like as I'm working with Katie's show, you know, we have, I told you, I'm not saying it publicly yet, but like who our first, like, three guests are. It's amazing. People are going to lose their minds. Crazy. They're going to lose their minds.

And just but that, it's like, you know, Like that's where I can't do thumbnails for. That one, I have to outsource for that one. I've got to. And you should. Yeah, because it's like, only, not even because, like, I don't have the time for it. Just because, like, I want the absolute, like, I'm, my last, like, there was a thumbnail that I did with Roxy and I the other day.

And I was like, oh, it looks like somebody else did that. I like that. Hey. I was like, and then, you know, and then I'll do another one as a guy that didn't work, because it's, it's too fast if you do it. But it is. It says, like, it's teaching your things, like, like this, this whole thing and learning this.

My world has changed when shorts allowed you to start to pick the thumbnail. Because that wasn't a thing for a long time. You just uploaded the video. You picked the title and then they picked a frame they thought would be a good frame. Now that you can pick your own thumbnail, you can't upload one, but you can pick a frame. That's changed everything for me. Yeah? Yeah.

It's like, it's, I still think that, so I think that one of the things with you, because for me, what I found, where, because I, I had started to get into shorts because I was like, well, I really want to you utilize that for YouTube and I really want to do that and I was like oh and then I'll post it on TikTok and I'll post it on Instagram My my things do the best there Because YouTube for two like sometimes it'll cat sometimes it'll pick up sometimes it can't sometimes it'll catch Sometimes it won't but they talked shit Meaning oh yeah yeah the monetization's gonna start in February Oh don't get me start it's awful it's garbage like I could pull up the numbers right now but I have videos with 10 20 million views and I'm made like $200 bucks top.

Yeah. And if that was a vertical, or sorry, not a vertical video, if it was a 16 by 9, I'd be living in Beverly Hills on that money. So that's what I tell people, though, too, because I do my ad of the theater reactions. And I had done one as a short one time, and it did like, whatever, it was 70,000 views.

And then I did one vertical. No, like 16 by 9. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Horizont, excuse me. And the structure strange that did vertical. And then it was half the time, when I have the time, half the, it was 30,000 or something instead of like the 65,000 that it did. But it made significantly more on AdSense because that's just a way, and it was only a minute and a half as opposed to 59 seconds. You have keyed in on something so brilliant with those out of the theater reactions.

Also, how do you skirt around this when they say it's, you know, review embargo and social embargo? I never do it when there's no social embargo. Oh, social embargoes. I do appreciate how you're like, this is not a review. The full review will be coming next week. This is just my reaction. This is not a review, by the way. Yeah, I mean, you got to be right away after.

I love it. Because the way that I look at it is, in there are some people that have tried to do it since. And they haven't gotten busted for it, but I think, you know, eventually they will. They'll do the out of the theater reactions where they're doing a full on review. The way that I do it is I make sure that I'm, I look and I say, okay, what's my tweet? And, and smart. Because if you look at the reactions, it's only like, okay, talk about the acting. Yep.

I talk about how I fell about the movie. Yeah, you talk about the crowd reaction. And that's it. There's no, there's no real big, like, I don't go into the full, like the story details and this, it's a minute and a half, two minutes. And if it is any longer than that, and it's because the social embargo has dropped. Do you, like, rush to your car and upload it the second you get in your car, see the first one?

So smart. It just depends on the movie, right? Like, so, like, it just depends on the movie. Like, if we do, tomorrow, we're going to go see Mission Impossible. Yeah. I think the reactions are already out for that. Yeah, so I'll record it from the Paramount Lot and upload it. But what I do is I usually record it, upload it,

and then I go home and then make the thumbnail and re-upload the thumbnail. That makes sense. Smart. Yeah, because there's a certain movie, because the thing is that there's a few other people that do them. The out-of-the-the-the-the-the-the-reaction, and it's amazing how, I can only imagine what AI is going to do for the algorithm down the line. Because, like, right now, the way that it works is that,

because I do the out-of-the-the-the-the-the-the-the-teat reactions a lot, I will see that the, you, YouTube will push mine out there because I'm one of the few people who started doing it. And your click-through rate on those probably pretty high. They're pretty good. But the flip side of that is like reactions, right? Like trailer reactions. Trailer reactions, if I don't get it up right away, then I usually either don't do it

or I just have to bite the bullet because real rejects will catch that algorithm first or there's other people who've just been doing it for a lot longer. I'm going to give an unpopular opinion here, but I think, Trailer reactions are so stupid. See, I... Because all you do is go, oh, there's that thing. Oh, my gosh. Oh, wow.

How is that going to play into this? Oh, that's crazy. That's it. It depends. It depends. I think that there's an argument to be made for that, but I think the argument against it is, again, is I brought the real rejects, right?

Greg and John and Coy, they have such insight, like, afterwards that... I get it. But that's more of a trailer review then. It's a reaction. But when it's literally two and a half minutes You're saying people clicking on it just to watch people reacting to it. Yeah, and it's like, I don't, I just, I'll just watch the actual trailer and make my own reactions. I think, I mean, I do it, but I will say.

This isn't a knock on you at all, of course. No, I understand what you're saying. And you're not, that is not an unpopular opinion. A lot of people that feel that way. And I think that, I mean, I used to hear people at Collider that used to be so opposed to it and would, you know, I think would go after people for doing it all the time, which I think is. Look, it's low-hanging fruit. And that's what the internet's all about. I said I wouldn't go that far with it.

I mean, no, I wouldn't go that far with it. Because I think that there is a, because there is a thing to it. I think there is, you know, there are some people that just kind of won't react to it or do, what I don't like. It's not, it's not the reactions himself because I think that trailer reactions actually think they can be. There's, like, I will go in, like, let's say, an episode reaction, right, of like the Mandalorian. And I want to see how people reacted to when Luke Skywalker showed up. And I want to see, I like watching that kind of stuff. What I don't like is the fabricated.

reactions. That I can't stand. Because it's like I would much rather somebody be like this as opposed to, Hey! Ha, la, blah, blah. It's like, what are you doing? It's like, that's not real. And, and, like, Greg and John, do not do that. Like, they don't do that. But, like, there are people that I see that just do these over-the-top reactions. Like, come on, just, I would much you rather just go. Yeah, if you were sitting there watching it with your friends or your wife or your kids or whatever, you're probably just going to go, oh, hey, that's pretty cool.

Right. Well, so look, so I did an episode reaction to Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon. Did you watch the season? There's one particular moment, not spoiling for anybody that happens, and I legit, like, was like, no, no, no. And I'm going, I would, I, that's how I would react in my, in my house. And I did. There were a certain time, but like I said, it's authentic.

And it's like you're going to catch those. If you have the camera on you enough, you're going to catch those moments. Yeah. But you're also going to, like, I had, sometimes like, there was a guy who said one time, this guy's just kind of staring and laughing a little bit. He's not really, what do you do? That's how people watch TV. You want me, you want me to do a headstand?

Every time somebody shows up, it's like, it's like, no. But it's weird when people are treating like an episode of TV like it's a Super Bowl. Like, of course you've seen the reaction videos of people like smashing their TV or throwing the beer bottle through the TV. Like, that is true, genuine, like just, like, just, like, a shit. This is the team that you've wanted to win the Super Bowl or championship or whatever sport it is for years and years and years and years

and they have you right there and then it doesn't happen. Sure. But I do think that there's something to... I think that more so there are too many people who do reactions and a lot of it is because I think that they feel it's low-hanging fruit that they feel like that's an easy way to build their channel.

That I don't necessarily disagree with, but I do think that there are people who are really good at it and very entertaining at it. Look, all of this is a very crowded space. Like, you know, when you're talking about someone launching a new podcast or someone starting a new YouTube channel, it's all very, very crowded. But to quote our friend, the macho man, Randy Savage, the cream rises to the top. Cream rises to the top. Oh, yeah. That's so, you should have been on camera for that.

My goodness. Yeah, the cream rises to the top. The cream rises to the top. Oh, yeah. Optimus Prime. This one I was doing the one. I wanted to do Optimus Prime and Gary Busey having a... Oh, let's hear.

Gary, get over here. Optimus Prime, I would appreciate it. You did not put your oil spill next to my bathrobe because it allows me to chew on the bathroom with a bagel. Shut up. Hurry. Get him to the doctor. That's all.

That's all I got. I've been working on nonsense. I feel like every wrestling fan has three impressions. Every wrestling fan can do macho man. Yeah. They can do Hulk Hogan. Let me tell you something, brother. Yeah.

Everyone can do that. And then everyone has a bit of a stone cold at some point. Like, what? Stokel, Steve Austin. Yeah. What? Yeah. I don't know what else I would say.

And that's the bottom line. Because stone cold said so. Well, you know, you got Chris Van Vleet. Chris Van Fleet. Now, you come over here and you, wandering around talking about you can't react you can't react to this you can't react to that well the rock says

you can react to me back slapping your candy ass while the rock says this you take that little microphone there shine it up real nice turn that some bitch sideways and stick it straight up your candy ass that's the best I did so I didn't

that wasn't even a good rock impression that was better it was good I did one I did one for for Schmowdown who'd you do it for it for it doesn't matter who you do you do Did I tell you my rock story? Please. Dude, so that gave me PTSD.

So there's a clip of me when I worked for WWE that Shane was like, hey, do you want to do a scene with The Rock? Oh, you're backstage, right? Yeah, and so I'm, and he walks up to me and he goes, excuse the Rock. And I'm like, can you tell me where the APA office is? And I'm like, it's down the hall. And he's like, thanks.

And he walks by and he goes, you knew here? And I was like, yeah, my name is an uh-uh. He goes, the Rock. And I go and he walks away. So fast forward to he's gone now, you know, he's making, he just made the run down. So this is like 2002-ish, right? So there's a party, UTA was, I think it was still a thing at the time. They had this big party.

So I go to the, like my friend at the time was invited the Rock. And Rock in this whole room, he's sitting there talking to people. He's like, hey, you know, you worked with the Rockfield, but it was like, yeah, he did. He's like, you want to go talk to him? I said, sure, why not? So I will walk over. He's like, hey, Duane. And you know, you talked to him a handful of times.

He's just like the most given guy in the world. The best. And he's like, Twain, this guy, you know, said he used to work with the WDV. He says, hey, we used to work together. And I was like, yeah, and I told him the whole scene and everything too. And we sat there. And we talked for like, it was a while. It was a while.

And he was a while. And he was talking to people. He didn't have to give me that time. And he didn't with this party. And then we stopped talking. We were both there to the end of the party. So the party ends. And it's like, you know, two in the morning, whatever is.

And he walks up. And he goes, he's like, hey, dude, it was a great scene. You can talk to you. It's like, yeah, you too, man. He's like, tell me your name again. I go, crazy. He goes, uh, you son of my bitch, he'll be twice. Twice.

So, you know, I've never seen him since then. I'm sure you're well. I know. It was 20 years ago the last time I saw him. Wow. Yeah, about 20 years ago. And he was that kind then. He's even kinder and more generous now.

His memory is like an elephant. It's unbelievable. Yeah. Like I saw him at Black Adam. Yeah. And I hadn't done an interview with him in four years in person. And I was there the night before just happened to be at the SLS

where the junk it was. And I was just hanging out with my buddy Jake Hamilton who's just a rock star when it comes to junkin interviews. We were just standing around the lobby and the Rock's security walked by. We're like, oh, that means the Rock's about the walk by.

So sure enough, Rock walked by. He's like 30 feet away. Sees us. And I was figuring he'd just go, eh, what's up? Sees us. Walks over and goes, Jake, Chris, how you guys been?

I'm like, you did not need to, one, come over or remember our names. I'm sure the Rock appreciates your hustle, though, because that's kind of like, I hope so. I'm sure he does, dude. Like, he, because he's, he's so tuned in to, like, social media and that type of stuff, too, you know, and the clips that are going around, because he is his own brand, you know, so he's got to pay attention to which clips are going around.

And a lot of the clips, the clip that you put out of him of the quote that he gave about, shit, about being kind. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that one. It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice. That's right. That one. Such a good quote.

It's a great quote, but it's gone around. So, like, if, if I'm him and I'm him. I'm looking around, who was the one, that clip? Yeah, I remember that clip. Oh, that was during Van Vleet's interview. Yeah. Oh, here's this thing where, like, you tell him about, you were having a dad, you were having a kid and he gives you a hug. That was a cool moment. Yeah. And like those things, like, that, I'm sure he pays attention to that because like that, as much as, I'm not saying this is

the only reason he does this, obviously, but it's, it's, when those clips go around, it, it helps his brand. Sure. And like, he was like, are you still living in Miami? I'm like, oh, I'm living out here. And he's like, oh, that's great, man. That's a good move for you. Yeah. And I was like, what? And then my friend Mark came over and he goes, you were, the rock was just making small talk with you.

Like not the other way around. I was like, I know. It's crazy. It's awesome. He's such a good dude. Yeah. So what do you think? You think he's getting a bad rap for, because it's so strange how it kind of comes around with him, right?

You look at what happened with all the D.C. stuff. Yeah. And there's a lot of stuff that you don't really know the behind the scenes of because of the transition from when Zazlov got in power. and who the Rock was dealing with at that time when he was trying to get Caval in there when he had to go around people in order to get his movie made Black Adam has a massive budget

and it does okay. It barely breaks even as far as overall but in hindsight the Flash does less than Black Adam right? And then Shazam 2 eats a pile of shit. So if you're the rock you're going

yeah. If I was the rock I'd be going, hey, you were giving me a hard time for Black Adam. What about this? Right. What's going on here? Right. Like, look what I was able to do with the property that dust doesn't seem to be pushing for people. It's a weird thing. I think that people go out of their way to try to find a reason to not like the Rock. Because, you know, like things go pretty well for him, right?

And he's worked really, really hard to be in the position that he's in. And I think that, like, when the numbers started to come out, the early numbers were coming out for Black Adam. It was amazing going on Twitter and being like, well, there it is. The Rock's a failure. It's like, okay, so it's his biggest opening ever. And you're making a big deal about the fact that it's not meeting the tracking right now. Like, come on. I think it's less of a rock problem.

The Black Adam is as much as it is a Hollywood thing right now where I'm sure Rock and everybody pushed for like a high budget in that movie. I think budgets are way too high on films right now. They're way too high, especially on movies that aren't. Like the only reason that Black Adam did, well at all was because of the Rock, was because of Henry Cavill. And I should say, the only reason it broke even was because of those two guys, right?

Because of the Star Power, because Black Adams, nobody really knows that character at all. You knew him because the Rock put him out there in the forefront. But that whole thing was an optics thing. Like that, the whole, like, whose side are we on with this? All just came down to who got the press out earlier. That's true. And then I saw a tweet like two weeks ago

where it was like, the XFL lost $60 million last season. Young Rock just got canceled and Black Adam was a flop. Like, sucks to be the rock. It's like, what? Like, why are we hating on a successful person like that? I think that it's also, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not, it's human history, man. Like, they, they love you when you're coming up. Yeah.

They love to watch you fall down. And then they love to get, watch you get back up again. That's a great point. Yeah. But I just think that when people are successful and they're doing well, it, we love to be able to go, ha, but not right now. Right. It's, it's that, it's that thing.

It's that thing of like, okay, we get it. You're really, really good looking. You're popular. You make money all the time. You're not that great. That's it. You're not that great. It's like, you want to make sure that you can fall down.

It's like, it's just the way human nature has always been. You look at like, even we were just talking about to Mike Tyson, you know, and like Tyson, I remember people would, every week would just gather around. It's a Tyson fight. It's a Tyson fight. You got to watch Tyson. Tyson's going to beat everybody. And then when he lost the bus of Doug goes, see, he's not that good.

He lost, he lost. And Mike had his own demons, and he lost because he, you know, he was out partying his balls off the night before when he should have been getting ready. Tyson's an interesting one because if he went to jail for a felony conviction now, he'd be canceled forever. You'd think, you would think so. But he's an anomaly. He kind of falls into the same categories like Donald Trump, where it's like,

we kind of expect it from. Yeah. But it's weird, though, with him as well, too, because, It's like, there's just something about, because the weird thing about Tyson and that whole thing with the conviction and everything, too, is that Mike admitted to all, a lot of crimes that he'd done in his lifetime, things that he had done and things that he had been with women in the ways he'd done stuff too. But that's the one he was adamant about that. He's like, I haven't done some shit, but I didn't do that. And whether you believe him or, you believe it or not, yeah. Or not is beside the point here.

But now you can have a bad tweet about somebody like, you. hey, yeah, I consented to that, but it didn't go the way that I wanted it to go. And then that person gets canceled. Yet on the flip side of it, you've got someone who went to prison for rape and we're like, yeah, well, let's put him in movies. It is. It's a weird thing how that plays off with. It's also, but it is also the way that people handle things as well, too. You look at like, let's look at Joey Diaz, right?

Joey Diaz, who I know, I knew from the comedy store was always super kind to me. It was always really, really nice to me. And I always like Joey. A lot of things came out about Joey and things that he said about things in the belly room and all these things too that happened. And people went after him and they tried it. And he's like, what the fuck, man? You know what I don't fucking understand?

I've been doing this fucking shit. People can't fuck cancel me. He's going, nothing happened. Because it's like, it's like you know who he is. You're right. It is about how you react to. It's how you react to. And it's also who does your audience know you are?

Like when it's like there's certain things that. that said throughout, like, okay, look, I want to, I like that person, I like this. It's like that person, did that person trick me? That person do this. Did a person do that? Like, you look like Roseanne, when Roseanne got canceled, right? Roseanne was out there tweeting some fucking really, like, bad shit all fucked up. And her audience that, she was just back on television now and her audience who was buying her as this mom again, well, that's not who I'm buying it. Yeah, yeah. So it's like this new thing.

And now she's starting to make a comeback now, too. There's always, let's comebacks. Like I said before, it's like, Yeah, seriously. Like, look at Robert Downey Jr. That's probably the best example of a comeback. Yeah. Where it's like that guy was down and out.

Right. Nobody wanted to hire him. Wasn't there a story that he was uninsurable? He was, they wouldn't, yeah, he wouldn't, they wouldn't insure him. Like, for like, and it was, so Downey and Favro had been buddies, Ben Favro made the pushy.

He had just done, so I was working at Silver Pictures at the time and all that shit went down, like where, He was cleaned up by then, you know, when he did Kiss Kiss, Kiss Bang Bang. But that movie's super underrated. And they didn't push, Warner Bros. did not push that movie at all. It's a fantastic film. But he was starting to do movies like that.

And then Favro and him, I forget how they, whatever it might have been. Like there was this whole interview that Downey did with Figey, not excuse me, Favre did with Fige about the Iron Man and how it all came to be. And apparently Downey was interviewing or auditioning for Fantastic Four and all these different things and it was putting them in

but Paramount didn't want him. Paramount's like for Iron Man. They're like, he's going to wind up doing the Allen McBeill thing all over again. And you know, it's just one of those Hollywood stories of look at him now. It's so interesting we were talking about

Mission Impossible before. We're going to see that tomorrow. Tom Cruise is now back on the up because there was a point in time there in the mid-200. thousands. Even still, when I tell people like, I love Tom Cruise, I'll see every movie that he puts out, like, oh, he's really weird. I'm like, he's an incredible actor. He's right. Who cares? He's incredible actor. Not going over his house for Thanksgiving. Yeah. I want to watch him in the movie theater. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, and but he did a thing that was smart. He was starting, because I think, and we were talking about this off air, I think a lot of times what people do now is they put their own political beliefs, politics studios do this, um, actors, do this and they put their own thing

into their, and they force it on you and they push it into your face and the audience goes, whoa, fuck off. I don't want, I know thank you. I just want to watch your movies. If you're splitting your audience like that with politics, it's pretty much 50-50. So you're telling 50% of your audience, I don't care about you. I think there's a lot of times

there's a balance of it. There's a balance to do the right thing and to put the right people in movies and to have the right. And there's other times when you do things where it's just like, well, I'm doing it because they're this this could benefit us and we could monetize off of this. And the intent isn't true, right?

And there's other times you're just like, well, I want to make my statement no matter what the cost is. And it's like, well, you're going to pay for it, right? Tom Cruise was starting to see that. Tom Cruise, when he was doing all the Scientology stuff, and he was telling Brooke Shields not to do this, and he's jumping on couch. Matt Lauer interview. Right.

And finally, they're like, someone said, chill the fuck out. Because he doesn't, he still probably feels the same, if not more so now. But he's not taught. He's a smart businessman where he knows, okay, I got to, in order, I'm going to hurt my business if I keep doing this. And I think he, and that's what he did. That was smart. And Top Gun Maverick was so brilliant. So good.

And I love the fact that there's always talk in the movie of we're going to get the enemy. We're going to get the enemy. And they fly out of San Diego to a place with mountains and snow. And you're like, it might be Russia. I don't know. It could be. But they don't ever say, like, we are fighting against this country. where you don't ever see flags.

It's just we are fighting the enemy. It was brilliant how they did that. That's why I'm so curious to see how Mission Impossible plays out. Because like, so I went to New York and I was with Ellis and he was watching Mission Impossible. He watched two then leading into three. And I just done a rewatch with my wife, like over the pandemic, watch it. So it's the second one is not a good movie. It just is not.

And you really forget, people like to give JJ Abrams shit, you know, for whether it's the rise of Skywalker and other things and lens flares. Whatever. They give him shit all the time. But what they don't give him credit for is, he saved Mission Impossible. He saved it because if that movie would have been shit, the third one, after the second one, that franchise is dead. That's such a great point.

Yeah, it's dead. You watch that movie. It revitalizes the whole thing. I don't think it's the best one out of them, but it's the one that goes, no, this can be something. Yeah. Because when that movie comes out, I don't know if this is going to be any good. And then Philip Seymour Hoffman is fantastic.

in it. It's really, it's got a good story. It sets up future storylines for like four and five. And then it just keeps getting better and better and better. The second one is just a John Wu movie and like overstylized and like hair flips and slow motion shots. And what's interesting about that is Tom Cruz had never done a sequel up to that point. Is that true? He's only ever reprised two characters ever, Mission Impossible and now Top Gun Maverick. That's it. Wow. So it's so interesting that in the 90s he didn't need to do a sequel or a franchise. especially with the run he was on with Jerry McGuire and Vanilla Sky and Magnolia, like he was on this incredible, like, I'm going to win an Oscar run.

Yeah. I don't feel like he needed to do more Mission Impossible's. But fast forward now 20 plus years later, it's one of the best things he's ever done. It's so good. I love the movie so much. The Top Gun. Top Gun Maverick is just so all that's everything that he's, the way that he's been playing, both Mission Impossible and the way he did with Top Gun.

I hope they stopped with Top Gun Maverick, though. I hope they don't make a fair one. I agree. Because you can't top it. You really can't. Before we, we're going to continue on with Chris in just a second. As we mentioned on the top of the show, how important the sponsors are. And we always have sponsors on here that we think that you guys are going to respond to.

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I'm such a fan of BetterHelp. They've helped out people in my life. I am really excited to be working with them again. I was hoping that they would come back, and I'm glad that you guys have been using them as well. That's why they're back. And I'm so glad that we were introduced to them because if you didn't know, it's really important for you to emphasize on yourself from time to time. It really is. Sometimes we're always thinking about other people.

You don't think about yourself enough, and you have to because sometimes you feel stretched thin. Sometimes it's a lot going on. You have no one to talk to. and I'm glad that BetterHelp allows you to do that. It's entirely online. It's convenient. It's flexible. It's suited to your schedule.

So if you are thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. You just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist and then switch therapist anytime, no additional charge. So find more balance with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash big thing today and get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P-com, slash. Big thing. All right, guys, as I mentioned at the top with Chris, please take a look at one of those sponsors, right?

If you, I skip through and now I want to see them talking about the next topic. Go back and look at one of those things and see if there's something right there for you because it will help the show out tremendously. It will help you out tremendously, depending on what it is. So better help has been fantastic because my, and she's talked about it openly, so I'm not saying anything out of turn. Roxy used Better Help, was looking for someone to talk to. She, like, loves it.

It's been, like, so helpful to her. And my daughter, who was 11, was, like, wanted someone to talk to. And I was, like, look to see if they could, if they would talk to, like, minors and stuff too. and they did. And you got to, obviously, get permission for me and her mother. But, like, she just has someone to talk to. The guy's super kind and nice and has been talking to her through, like, certain things.

Better help was a sponsor on my show. And I was like, well, I'm not going to use this unless I've actually used it. I'm not going to promote it unless I've used it. It was so helpful. Yeah. It's so helpful to, like, just talk about stuff. to a neutral audience who's going to see it

through a completely different unbiased lens. Yeah, that was very interesting. It's true. I just wanted to optimize everything. I want to optimize

health and sleep and fitness. I want to optimize that. I'm so glad that you brought that up because I said to myself I was going to do this. So one of the things that I am terrible at because I put myself

through the ringer. Like last week, my wife and my kids went out of town and so what I did was some people were on vacation basically the whole week. I'm like, mentally maybe, because I'm not waking up at six in the morning with a five-year-old to go to do things before I start my day.

I'm just starting my day. I walked a dog and I'm back in the office at 7.30 in the morning as opposed to nine. Right. And then I take a break. And then I went to a friend's party and, you know, then came back. I watched Commando Twins. I watched a whole bunch of shit that I wanted to watch for a while. But that sounds like vacation.

That part was. But right after I finished a movie, I was back in the office as opposed to shutting it down at 6 o'clock, hanging out with the, helping out with the wife for the kids and all stuff. And I was working until midnight every night, like editing. And my wife says to me last night, what I did at one point is I had, I was working out a lot with the VR headset. Like I had the, there was a program that I was using that was to help me out. And I lost a bunch of weight on it. And I was in, I was in shape.

And I, my, I was watching your interview. I can't, who was the wrestler that you're talking about just how more people should be? The guy who was hanging out of Billy Gunn a lot of the time. Oh, Mike O'Hern. Yes. Legend bodybuilder. Yes, yes. And I'm going, like, it's one of the things that I was like,

I've got to bring this stuff to Van Vleet. I want to do a challenge in the same way that, like, you know, whether it was the Howard Stern show or these other shows had done before, I want to try to do a challenge to myself that the audience pays attention to, that I was going through this fucking picture that was deleting all my pictures, like, to make space. And there was this app that I did one time of, like, what I would be like if I actually got myself in shape.

And I was like, there's no way I could ever get myself into that kind of shape. Of course you could. And I thought of your interview and I said, I literally thought of you saying, of course you could. But like, it's a matter of, I was like, okay, what if I did some kind of challenge with you on both our channels to where I could get myself in shape to where I actually tried to do it? Well, it's not trying to do it. It's like you just have to make the commitment to actually doing it. That's the thing. How would the fuck with two kids and what I'm trying to do it?

to do with this, all this. Where do I find the fucking time? Where do you find the time to do everything that you're doing here? It's about... Yeah, but don't I sacrifice that? If I'm picking up heavy things for fun? Well, Christian, the well man has a thousand problems and the sick man has one. Health is so well, like health is wealth. Yeah, you know the quote.

If you don't make time for health now, you're going to have to make time for disease later. You're 100% right. My father-in-law, who was very much into bodybuilding, he's very healthy. He's 80 years old. You think he was 55. He takes care of himself. This guy is such a beast. He's had open hip surgery and, dude, no medicine.

That's incredible. No medicine. Look, instead of watching Commando, you could go look like Arnold. Right. Like, this is the thing. Like, everyone who's like, oh, I don't have time for this, has watched every episode of the Mandalorian. I've said that.

Look, you're right. Because I taught a class in YouTube where people, and I basically say, exactly what you just said. And they were like, well, I don't have time to work on my channels. I go, if you have time to do this, you have time to do that. I guess there's no difference with, but I guess it's like, look, there's a gym not five minutes away from where, it's actually where I see the movies. It's just a matter of, again, A, I think planning it out. And B, it's also, I always feel, because there's, like anything else, you've got to have the right regimen. You have to know what you're doing, the routine. You need to hold yourself

accountable. That's the most important thing. And I think, that if you were having trouble like finding the time to do it, get a trainer. And then you're, you're going to be, your wallet's going to be working against you too. Right. Because if you don't show up at 7 a.m. for your workout, there goes your money. Right. So you might as well make that work for you. Yeah. And that's also, that's the other thing is finding the right, trainer, find the right person. You're making a lot of excuses. I am. No doubt. I've got to find the time. I got to find the right trainer. I'm not going to tell you that's true. Any trainer is better than no trainer right now. You look, okay. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. But I'm not

one of these people that's going to go like, oh, you know, I'm like, no, I know, I'm making excuses. It's just, but it's also because I do know I have so much shit that I'm working on. And yeah, everything you said was right. Everything you said was right, but I just know that I'm like, I'm going to be so mad at myself. I'm like, shit. I know I feel good right now.

I know that I feel like I had a good workout and I'm sore and I feel good at it. But now I'm two hours behind with all the fucking emails I got to sign. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a great quote. What is it? It's fidastique. Come on. You get results or excuses. You can't have both.

Hey, Chris Finfleet is correct. I'll tell you why. He says, whiskey and Lulu are going to be here. I pick up whiskey on one hand. I pick up Lulu and the other one. And I'd say, hey, I'm going to watch some of the Chris VanVille clips. And Christian Harlow, he said, and they eat in the cookies. And he has milk and milk, as I told you, is for babies.

So go ahead. Do you make your excuses? And Chris Van Vlead has the little baby. He's cut like a brick shit house. And you have a belly like a donut. Who knew we'd have this many impressions on the show today? It'll happen more. But this is why I did the thing of like, I want to get into the best shape of my life by my 40th birthday.

And I wanted to do it for two reasons. One, selfishly, I wanted to, like, push myself to see what kind of shape could I get in by my 40th birthday? And number two, I wanted to show people like, 40's not the end of your life. Like, just because your age begins with a 4 or a 5 or a 6 or 7, whatever, doesn't mean you're now old. And I wanted to show people what was possible. Although it was very interesting, seeing how many people in the comments were accusing me of being on steroids, TRT, peptides. is like, no, it's just really hard work that's paying off. And next thing, you know, you're going to tell me that you actually interviewed Michael Myers.

I can't believe that one. People are ridiculous. So people who don't know what we're talking about, Chris put a, he did an interview with Mike Myers over like Zoom or something. And he was asking questions and people, it was a nice fake interview. That was the top comment. It's like, why did this guy pretend to interview Mike Myers? It's amazing how much time people have on their hands. It's not enough time to Google to see if the interview is real.

100%. Yeah. But go back to the workouts and stuff too. So how long, so how many days are you in there seven days a week? Five days of lifting weights. Okay. Six days of cardio. Right.

But I have a treadmill in the garage now. Okay. So the first thing I do is I wake up, I drink a quarter gallon of water with some lemon and some salt in there just because you're so dehydrated when you sleep. So you want to just be able to super hydrate the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning. Then I walk on the treadmill for 20 to 30 minutes. and I'm answering emails, I'm putting out my first TikTok or whatever the day, and then I go to the gym later on in the day.

So it's weights five days a week, cardio six days a week, one full day of rest. And I know everybody's going, that's way too much. I can't believe I'm getting tired just listening to that. Well, look. I think that what you do, look, I have, I'm not going to tell you that I've never, like there was one point of my life, which is I have never been able to get back there. And it was 2002. I was in the gym seven days a week.

And I saw this video as we did a short film. And I was in the best shape of my life. I've never been in that shape to this day. And it was the thing that what you're saying, though, and when I started, it was exhausting, right? And it was hard. But after a while, it just becomes repetition. It becomes a thing.

And all it comes down to, it's the same as you making the content here. You just have to start being intentional about it. You're not going to make content by accident. You're not going to get into shape by accident. You have to, like, carve it out and be intentional about it. And it's fascinating how many people just think, like, oh well I'll just park the car further away when I go to Walmart so I get some extra steps in it's not how this works right yeah and I walked a dog for an extra 10 minutes is not going to do it

yeah I mean it's better than nothing I guess that's what I said to my wife the other day where I was laughing I mean clearly knowing that I was just bullshitting but she's like you know she asked me if I was doing the cardio and the thing I was like I walked the dog for an extra 10 minutes she goes yeah you know that was that so I mean you guys are saying the same thing um all right so good I feel just as bad about myself as I did before. Right. That was the intention. That was the intention. But before we move on to, or say goodbye rather, I did want to talk to you as we said they, let's talk a little about the Flash because you haven't seen the movie yet, right? I haven't seen it yet now. So I had this whole conversation with, I mean, it seems to be like a thing within our

circle for sure and where whether it's the people who watch our shows, whether it's the people who are just in our industry. There's a very different reason why people, people, A, didn't see this movie, B, think people didn't see this movie, then what I think is the reality of what a lot of average movie-going people, why they didn't see the movie. Because I was, and it's also generational as well. Because I was very curious about it when I was in New York, and I asked, there was a bunch of people who came to see us,

and I asked the audience, how many people saw The Flash? And there was spatter of people. You know, some people saw it some, but mostly, I'd say, 75% of the audience didn't. And I said, how many people in this audience, round of applause, didn't see because Ezra Miller? Yeah, no one cares. Yeah. Two people glad.

And I said, how many people just didn't give a shit about superheroes at this point? Most people glad. And it was also, and then I said how many people for, and this was a conversation I had afterwards about DC, more people that were coming out, I said, what about the DC stuff? And the DC stuff, actually, they didn't know where it was, how it connected, and not necessarily the whole. James Gunn of it all. They just didn't, it's just not as clear cut as everything else. And I talked to my uncle, didn't know who Ezra Miller was. My friend, close friend, didn't know who Ezra Miller was.

My cousin, who was 24 years old, did, because he pays attention to TikTok and Twitter and all that stuff too. But it wasn't the reason why. It was more so his reasoning was because of James. Because I don't know where the DC connects. Where is anything to stuff? So I didn't care. And it was interesting to listen to all of that because it was so different.

and people just didn't care. And I think that we're a little superheroed out right now. Yeah. I also think that, like, we see a lot of movies, obviously, because we work in this industry. I think your average family or your average person that lives in America doesn't see a ton of movies unless it's like something like,

I need to go to the theater to see this. Which is amazing that box office numbers continue to go up. Well, look at it. So what we've been having on this, the conversation on this show, is that I do think, it's less of a superhero fatigue as more of it's a superhero mediocrity fatigue, right? You look at, because across the Spider-verse did pretty damn good. Guardians of Galaxy 3 did pretty damn good.

And somebody arguing, though, Guardians and do the good at today, $800 million. Didn't make a billion? Everybody thinks that it needs to make a billion dollars. Now this is this weird thing that comes along. Someone said the other day, like, Thor, Love, and Thunder, Which is more than, it's super, less than mediocre, but it's still made about $700,800 million. It's a movie bombed.

What the fuck are you talking about? I wish we were to, like, could we stop talking about box office numbers? Yeah. I think the real metric that needs to be judged in it will never be this is how many people saw the movie? Could you imagine going to Dodger Stadium tonight and them going, man, we've got a record setting crowd, $1.3 million in ticket sales. You go, yeah, but how many people are here? Right. And it doesn't make sense that in movies, I get why they do it.

It's a good number to look at to go, yes, this movie made X amount of dollars. But how many people bought tickets? How is that not like the secondary measurement? It made $800 million. Right. And if you can track the money, you just track the numbers of people who saw it. Right. And of course they know that number.

Of course. Yeah, no, that's true. It would sound pretty sexy too. Like how Netflix only tells you their numbers when the movie does really, really, really well. Right. But you're like, well, okay, thank you for the numbers of that movie. could you tell me the numbers of these other movies? No, we keep those.

We're okay. We're not telling us. Yeah, no, it's true. And it's, it's interesting how that kind of plays, but I think that it is the mediocre kind of, in general. And it's just, and streaming. And, like, I was watching extraction too last night.

How good is extraction, too? So far, I was watching with my wife last night. So far it's pretty, I'm good. And this is an interesting part of the conversation. I started watching it. Like, when you go to the movie theater to watch something, You're carving out two and a half, three hours of your time.

Right. It's amazing how passively we watched things on Netflix, Lulu, Max. Well, last night, I was why we started because it's funny, this is what I do at my house because my wife was, she called me the other day when she was out of town. And she's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I was going to start in Commando. And she's like, I haven't seen that movie in forever. She's like, I'll watch that.

With you wait for me? And in my head, I'm going, there's no fucking way. She's going to watch it. Even if she does, I'm going to watch 10 minutes of it. She's like, I changed my mind. She's going to. So I watched it without her. And then last time we started watching Commando again, right?

And then sure is shit, in 15 minutes. She's like, ah, let's watch something else. And I was like, yeah, I nailed it. And I knew it right away. So we then, she's like, let's watch extraction too. And I've been having people on this channel tell me I need to watch it. So I started watching it. I was like, I remember, because I only remember the end of extraction one.

And so how the hell is it going to? And they explain what happens at the end of one. But I don't remember really much about the first one at all. I remember liking it, but this one's really good so far. Have you got to the 21-minute one-shot action sequence? Yes, yes. It was amazing. I saw it at the New York premiere, and the crowd just applauded after that scene was done.

I'm like, it's so good. It's really good. But my point with all that is that that's a movie that in 1995, you wouldn't even imagine that that wouldn't be in the theater. Of course. But there wouldn't be another option. That would definitely not be a straight to DVD or straight to VHS at the time. Right.

That's a movie that, you know, is hand-to-hand with the new Hemsworth. movies coming out, which you don't hear anymore. You'll hear about, you know. Yeah. It's changed so much. Like, if we were to walk down your street here and knock on people's doors and actually have them answer their door, and you were to say to them, how many movies have you been to the movie theater to see in the last 12 months, I would bet the answer is zero or one.

I think you're right. It's because it's a different, this is why I also think that budgets need to come down and people also be very, they need to choose when they need to choose when they, they put something out in the theater as opposed to streaming because, oh, I meant to, fuck. I almost want to, like, do like a thing with you when you're going to do your interviews to say, like, hey, by the way, so like, you see over there. Yeah. You interviewed Sebastian and I and De Niro. Yeah.

So Sebastian and I did the row together and I came up at the store together. He looks unrecognizable on that. Yeah. That was funny. Wednesday, April 2nd, but what year is that? 2003. Wow. Brett Ernst, he has an aged.

He looks identical. So, but yeah, those were. Those are my guys at the comedy store. But then Burke Kreis, I was at Pop Bellies, the night he did stand up for the first time. And I gave him advice. And he talks about it on his podcast all the time. But I was like, shit.

I was like, because he had done his podcast and he was supposed to do this pretty soon. But like I thought about both their movies. And like I just told you, I'm friends of both those guys. I think, I understand why they took a shot at putting movies in the theater. But those movies are going to be a hard sell in the theater.

comedies right now. What's the last comedy? Sandra Bullock's movie with Channing Tatum did pretty good at the comedy. It's more like an action comedy. Those, it's a different time now. Yeah, and those are very like netflixable. Whether it's on Netflix or not, those are very netflixable because you go to the home screen, you see Sebastian's face

or Bert's face, you go, oh, that's my dude. I didn't know he was in a movie. That's right. Of course I'm watching this. Right, exactly. And it's like it's not the one that you go. People don't go to the theater for those types of movies anymore, the way that they did, even in like 2010 when the hangover was on, right? Even something like the hangover comes out today, that's a harder sell to get people to the theater

than it was in 2010. And again, it's a hard sell to get people to go into the theaters, but somehow the box office numbers keep going up. Like, where are they coming from? Well, because the thing is when you hit, when you hit gold, you hit gold now in that billion dollar range that you never, look at Mario, right? Billion dollar was not easy to do back in the day.

day, I mean, at all. And now... It was basically like Avatar. Right. And the Dark Night. It was harder to do. And now there's at least one or two that does it a year, right? And it's like, so you're, and you probably have, um, across the Spider-Verse isn't going

to do it. I think the new one, I think the third one will do it, um, next year because I think across the Spider-Vis will probably hit around like 700 total. But it is interesting that people go to see movies when it's an experience. Like I'm excited to see Mission Impossible and Theaters with you tomorrow. That could hit a billion. It could. It could.

It's going to be very interesting. and I'm sure you've already talked about it, but then a week and a half later, Oppenheimer is going to take a lot of those IMAX screens, which is going to take a lot of the bottom line away from Mission Impossible. It's true, but I mean, and what an interesting battle between Oppenheimer and Barbie. Yeah.

Because as Ellis was going, Ellis was doing something for Fandango. That's interesting, yeah. Barbie is tracking way higher than Oppenheimer. Of course. That makes sense. Well, it's PG-13. It's at a bigger IP, bigger movie stars. Yeah.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense why it is, but I think that movie's going to be huge. And then Dune is the one I'm looking forward to the most. Yeah, Dune's going to be great. I can't wait for Oppenheimer. And I love the idea that, like, people are going to see movies based on who the director is. Right. Like, gone are the days of like, oh, I'm going to go see the new, you know, Brad Pitt movie or whatever. Yeah.

But I'm going to go see the new Christopher Nolan film. I'm going to see the new. Tarantino. Yeah, of course. Tantino. Yeah. I think there's like, I think there's like five. Spielberg.

Spielberg, Scorsese. I think there's like five people, Jordan Peel. Oh, yeah, definitely. I think there's like maybe five or six directors that can do that right now. Greta Gerwig has a shot if Barbie plays, but like it's,

there's like five or six directors I can do it, but I think what it is now, it's like, it's IP is one of the main things that gets people in there for sure. And it's a matter of, I think that now, what I think is a good trend

that it's happening, to be honest, because I think it was more so IP over the last couple of years, right? And no matter what it was. But now I do think that it's, are people saying it's good? It's like the quality of it is,

and even then, because I like The Flash. I think The Flash is a good movie. It's funny how an opening weekend, like a general consensus comes out about something, very quickly too. Even before all the Rotten Tomato numbers are out, it's just like there's a general consensus

of like, this movie's good or this movie's not good. I know. And that drives the narrative into that weekend. And then whatever the numbers are that weekend, it really sucks about Hollywood. It's true. You have one weekend. And there's so many factors playing into this,

including what else is opening that weekend? What was the weather like? All these things factor into it. Everything. And if your movie doesn't perform well on the first weekend, well, but that's it. And Jeff Shepard talks about that all the time. It's true.

And that's what is so different again with streaming, right? So I'm a big Andor fan. And I loved Andor. And when that show came out, I saw people commenting, it didn't do that well. I'm like, it doesn't work like that in movies, guy. I mean, the way the movies do, it works. Like in movies, like you just said, you got Weekend 1, and then you might, like, look at, like,

the Flash, the Week 2 was terrible, but I think Elemental had a better week 2. It's rare, but it can happen. But then eventually it'll start to kind of track off. In streaming, because you already pay for the service, people could start watching Andor tomorrow. The show's been out almost seven, eight months. So much of streaming is, is it on the homepage? Right.

That's right. Netflix is brilliant about that, right? Like Netflix is so good about telling you this is coming up next week. And then when it is out, like it's flashed all on your screen and you can't miss it. Yeah, it's, but the only problem with Netflix is, like you said, they have so much shit. It's hard to get everything up on it. I saw some meme that the Netflix home screen is the most watched thing on Netflix. Because think about it.

You know, you sit there with your girlfriend, your wife, boyfriend, husband, whatever, kids. You're like, just doing this the whole time. Does this look good? I don't know. We'll keep that as an option, but we'll keep looking here. Yeah, you could spend half an hour, dude. Every time.

I was in the dentist chair watching, just watching all the different screens coming up. And I was like, oh, I didn't know what that is. What's that cloning show? That's interesting. Yeah, and you're like, oh, but look at this docu series. Oh, there's four of them? Oh, I don't know if I have time to watch four.

I hate their trailers, though. I hate the trailers. Really? They're not trailers. It just scenes, random scenes from the movie. Oh, there are a bunch of trailers on there. trailer's on YouTube and then if you if you go but if you go and you like actually look for the trailer sure it is like a trailer option but like when you you know when you scroll over it and then you

start playing something I turn my auto play off it's it's so it's so stupid it's like these random scenes like hey you know seen jerry lately yeah yeah jerry's gonna be down at the diner i we'll go meet them neither jerry or the diners in the movie for more than three seconds and it's like it's like why it's crazy that we're complaining about a service that's 999 a month No, it's like 15, dude. Netflix? 799's, I think, the entry level one with ads. Really?

I think so. Maybe we can look this up. And you might be right. But I think it's $7.99, but we don't look up things on this show. We have all the world's information. I'm going to look this up right now. But it's amazing that it used to be like you went to Blockbuster. Oh, yeah.

And you spent $5.99 to watch something for one night. I know, it's true. I still, every time someone brings up Blockbuster, I tell the day that I lost my innocence. And I don't talk about being. And I lost being naive anymore. I had rented Sister Act 2 with my ex-girlfriend. Sister-A-2. And she lived, so she lived like right here,

and the Blockbuster was like right here. And so we walked, and I took a cab back to get to my house. And I was like, oh, hey, can you do my favor to the cab driver? Can you just pull over to the Blockbuster? I need to drop this off at the Blockbuster. He's like, look, you know, because we were ready, because I forgot to loop back around. He's like, I'll just drop you off and I'll loop back around and drop it off for you. I'm like, great, it's amazing.

Fucking asshole stole it. Right? Stole it. And I think it was like 60 or 70 bucks. I don't know. I don't know if I actually had to pay it or whatever was, but it was like, I might have. Or somebody, maybe my, my ex-girlfriend's dad had to, something happened. But I was like, that was the day.

I was like, I don't, I'm not going to trust people anymore because I was like, I was like a 16-year-old kid. I'm like, all right, you know what? I'll trust you. asshole. This says that it ranges in price from $699 to $1999 with ads I guess. With ads. Yeah, the basic starts at $699.

Wow. They changed it up. Yeah, once they changed the... Remember when it was like the late fees were like $2 a day or something? Yeah. And like you're right, it could be like $60. And then I think they came out in their later years. I'm probably going to get corrected on this. But like they came out where like your late fees would never

surpass the cost of actually buying the DVD. Yeah, yeah. People went, this is great, I'll just keep this now. I kind of always wanted to watch Sister Act 2 again. I'm a bitch. But you know what's funny with that? Isn't that crazy how that works? Just like, some of the butterfly effect or just like one

decision, one phone call. You know, Blockbuster was in position to buy Netflix. Yeah. For like 70 million or something? And they said, no one's going to do it. Well, hubris. To be fair, that was when it was mail away DVDs. It was. But it was, but it's

still, whoever was involved in the company, would have gotten bought over, who had made the decision to let's start doing this. You know, it's like, but, and then they went the way of the dinosaur. My friend the other day said, I prefer, I prefer that experience. Like, I would much rather go to Blockbuster to rent a movie

than to look at it on Netflix. I think it's, in nostalgia. For sure. I said, so you would prefer to get into your car, park your car, walk into Blockbuster, walk around and find something like, and it might not be available. I'm already halfway through my movie. Yeah, but dude, you would stand there at the

and like the movie that you wanted that they were out of. You stood there and you watched someone come in with it. You're like, oh my gosh, there it is. Could I get that movie? Like, yeah, I get that. It's exciting. Right. It's,

but now for $6.99 a month, $7.99 a month. I can watch like 3,000 titles. I remember that. I thinking back in the day, I was like, one day you're just going to be able to like, whatever movie you want, whatever comes into your head, you can just put, type it in and it'll come out. I'm like, I'm wonder when that's going to happen.

And now it's just like, yeah, you can find anything. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, it is. And that's what, But that's also going back to the original point of that conversation. That's why the theater experience has dwindled. There was conversation during the pandemic that it was going to go away forever. It'll never go away forever.

It'll never, but... It's still the number one date, you know, to take someone to the movies. Yeah. So I get that that will never go away. Budgets need to change, oh, man. Budgets need to change $200 million every single time. It's just... But how are you going to make a superhero movie when it's not $200 million?

You can make it. Look, you can do... You, you, because that's, all the CGI is so expensive. No, but that's the whole point. I think that that's the reason why, right? You look at, so what's your favorite Terminator movie? Right, probably Terminator 2, right? See, one's my favorite.

Okay. And the reason why one is my favorite is because it's the story, the low, kind of almost like low budget, excuse me, horror film aspect of it, and it's scaled down. And that's another reason why I think Prey was so successful. It's a scaled down film. And granted, it was a streaming movie, but I think you can scale movies down

and not just rely on the CJA because we just think that the audience needs to... Like, look at Logan, right? Like, Logan is a scale... That movie costs like $100 million, right? It's a scaled down film that you can still focus on the character and the emotion and all that. But then you need to have an incredible script.

That's right. And unfortunately, that doesn't exist a lot right now. It's because people get... Because of what you just said, and the reason like that it's a lot of... That's what studios think. It's like, well, look, we might not have the best script, but we got this big over-the-top action scene

and dump some money into it and we'll make it look real shiny. And that's where you start to make $250 million movies. And I still think there's this misconception, like, you know, from the mid-2000s, when something went straight to DVD, we went, ooh, straight to DVD, like, it must suck. Yeah.

So when something skips theaters to go straight to Netflix, who will it were, ever streaming, I think people still have this idea of like, oh. 100%. Extraction two last night. I was watching it last night and I'm going, and I had to go, away from that thought. Because I said, oh, it's

Chris Hensworth, and it's the Rousseau. So I'm like, and it comes from a first movie, but that's, yeah, they made it it directly for this. It's just, it's not like that anymore, because my mind did go there. Because I worked at Silver Pictures where they had a division that they made like direct

to DVD, like just shit bombs, right? Like, they just made overseas and it's just like, they knew they were making shit. And they made him for like $2 million and they made hand over fist for the amount of money that they would make from these things. But it's just, you know, it's direct TV. I don't want to say the executive's name,

but we called it a blank, blank special. You know, whatever the guy's name was, because you knew it was just going to be a total shit piece, but they were going to make a lot of money out of it and the amount of money that they were going to take home from themselves because of it. But no, you're right. It's a... It's perception.

It's perception. I feel so bad saying a movie's not good because I know, and you know as well, how much time in effort goes into every different aspect of that movie. Yeah. And for it to play out in 90 minutes or two hours on a screen and to not deliver what you're expecting it to deliver, I hate when people go on YouTube or a podcast or TV and just like trash a movie because I'm like, oh, but hundreds of people worked so hard on it.

And I get that it's not good, but I still respect the work that they put into it. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, I had made the decision last, I don't know if I've done this forever, but I decided to do it last year. For a long time, like when Ellis and I were doing Shmo's, we used to do like the top 10 worst of the year. year, but I stopped doing it last year. Like last year, I was like, I don't think I'm going to do that this year. I was like, you know, I'll say, well, I do say if I think, like I just said, like, those movies that were made during, they were, they were shit pieces.

I don't care how many people worked on them. People had jobs, they were working on shit pieces. But there are times that people put their, their heart and their soul into movies, and it just doesn't come out maybe good to a lot of people. Yeah. To them, they might love it still. There's some movies that people put out. I think, oh, man, I thought people were going to love this.

And it's just, like, I remember there was the one that was it somewhere. What was the one Sophia Coppola did? I can't remember. And it was, but, and it was Stephen Dwarf. It was in it. We have all the world's information. I'm not doing it. And I'm not doing it.

And people, that's not why people watch my show. They want to see you stumble through this. You're going through, I tell people this. If you're coming to my show for research and for me to pause it, like, I literally am pre-taping, I could pause it and make it seem like I knew it. This is true. Like right away. I'm going to guess and say that the movie was called somewhere.

And if I'm right, that's what we're. what I use. I use this. And if it was from somewhere, then I found it somewhere in my head. But there's this opening scene where the fucking car is just going around in a loop. And I'm like, let's go! But it's Sophia Coppola, right?

I'm just like, come on! And I hated the movie because of that. I don't even tell you the rest of the movie. It's just because of that. And like these long kind of pretentious shots. But to her, she loved it, love what she was doing. But I was just like, come on. It's also so interesting that when you see a movie, it depends on the mindset that you're in, depends on the mood that you're in what's going

on in your life as to whether you're going to love this movie or not. I also think that it's difficult to see a movie and like appreciate the full scope of that movie like in the moment. Right. It takes a few years, maybe even a decade ago, you know what? The town really holds up or like it's, it's hard to look at something from the last 10 years and go that is an all-timer. I mean, there's definitely something in there. Sure, sure. We could talk about this for the next few hours. But it's hard in the moment to leave the theater when you see us and go, man, I really like that. That was so good and so profound.

It's hard to go. Am I still going to be talking about this movie 10, 20 years from now? It's true. There's one movie that I do remember saying, I'm going to love this movie for the rest of the two that I can remember. And that's Inception and Wolf of Wall Street. Ooh. I remember leaving Wolf of Wall Street.

I saw it at a press screening and there was like three of us in the theater. And I remember my rep going, what did you think? And I'm like, it's also so hard, right? The credits are rolling. And they're like, what'd you think? And you're like, oh, there's so much to like digest. That's a movie that it took me like two or three times to go.

Oh, yeah. DiCaprio should have won the Oscar for that. Yeah, he should. Like, I feel like he was great in the Revenue. But they gave it to him for other past work. Yeah, for sure. I love the Wolf Wall Street. I loved it.

I love the one I saw the first time. Just because Jonah Hill have always liked. To this day, I think he does the most accurate New York accent out of any performance that I've seen. Oh, that's interesting. It is like, Leo's is okay. But like, but Jonah Hills is like dead on.

When I saw him in Moneyball, I went, he is an actor. Yeah, he was really good. He got nominated for an Oscar for that film. He's an actor. Yeah, he was really, in both. And it was kind of like back to back.

And then there was so much going on in that movie. But it was like, it's, it is really the follow-up to Goodfellas. It really is. And when you look at the style and the way that, that it's just obviously different because of the eras that the movies are made in,

both from when the story takes place and both when it was shot. But if you look at it in the way that it's kind of positioned and in the length, but in the storytelling aspect, in the voiceovers, in the, it just the pacing throughout different times and how they go back and forth,

it's a very sister piece to Goodfellas. It's interesting how that movie has made Jordan Bellford, like a hero, like an American hero. And like, going back, he's a convicted felon who took lots of people money and never repaid them. And like, now that guy's making so much money off the fact that

it works because like to some people. Leo played me in a movie. It's weird. It's weird that that is sometimes some people do feel that he is because you're right. Leo played him. But if you look at it, he's not, he's shining a very despicable light. But now, like Jordan Belford is making millions of dollars a year. You're right. He certainly benefited from it. There's no doubt about it. But when people say that he was he was you didn't say this but he's not painted in a good light in the movie now whether or not he's looked upon as you know people like oh that guy's like because they stay used him all the time no one looks back at that movie and goes oh what a dirt bag he is they look at the memes of like the throwing the money or like I'm not going anywhere yeah

that memes everywhere right yeah I've used it for sure so I think that that's what people go back to yeah I mean that that that scene though when he's driving oh that's the you're going to talk about it. Oh, yeah, yeah. Not the other one, his family show. But no, but that scene

when he's driving and you think that he makes it on the lutes and they go back and he's banging into everything. And it's the comedy that is involved

in that whole thing. The scene where he crawls right after that, back into the house, that's the Oscar winning scene. That's what I mean. Like that whole thing. Every best actor,

best supporting, best supporting actress, it all comes down to one scene. That should, been his scene easily and then even even when they're on the on the boat get the loads what get my loads i love that movie watched it not too long ago during a pandemic but um yeah like you said we didn't even really know exactly what we were going to talk about we probably could talk

about another three hours and i feel like i need to come back on here to actually talk about a movie you should i mean whether it's um mission impossible or oppenheimer or oppenheimer might be a good one too you're going to do that are you doing that junket i'm sure you will i well there might not be a junket Oh, right, because of the strike and everything, too. Yeah. Yeah. How is that affecting you? Well, they basically front-loaded everything right now.

All the movies that are coming out in July, they just did all the junkets this weekend. Right. So, obviously, Mission Impossible was in Rome. So you didn't do that one. But so what did you, so for people, this is a good question for, I guess people who are looking to get into interviewing and those types of things. How did you, because I know you worked for an outlet when you were in Florida. But like. I worked for, I mean, started in Toronto.

In Toronto, Vancouver. or Cleveland, Miami now here. So when you went on your own, your own thing, did you just keep a lot of those contacts from before? Did you have to kind of go out and reach out to new contacts to say, hey, look, this is what I'm doing.

Because it's all about stats, right? It's all about like, look, this is what I do on social. This is what my YouTube channels are doing. And then we've obviously had this relationship when I was working for so-and-so. So can I do the junket? Can I get some?

Because you have both the junkets that you do and then you do your studio show. Where's your studio show? Is that your place? No, it was a studio I rent in a hall. Hollywood. Okay. Sometimes at the Blue Wire Studios in Las Vegas.

Okay. But it comes down to a little bit of both. So I still have all those contacts, but they still wanted to air somewhere. Yeah. And it just airing on my YouTube channel or just airing on social media isn't quite a big enough. It's crazy. Yeah.

Isn't that wild? So I freelance for the CBS station in Las Vegas. And you kind of license out your stuff? Yeah. It's my old news director. Oh, so it's just like, hey, are you still doing celebrity interviews? I'm like, yes. He's like, do you want to air?

I'm like, sounds good. Let's do it. And then that gives you the opportunity to them, then give you the access to it. And it's like, if that's where the first run is, the studios are pumped about that. And then they get an additional, however many views off the social media stuff. So weird that it's just shows you that the old, like, fat cats are still running it because they still don't get it, like the social media aspect of it all because you can put, I mean, it's awesome that your CBS guy lets you do that. But like, you don't. Like, you're, you don't.

If it's my movie and I have stars in it and I'm going, look at Van Vleet. Every time he puts a short out, like he's going to, I don't know, Margo Robbie's in my movie. So let's get him, Margo in his studio. He's going to probably get like 10 to 15 clips out of that. He's going to post it all over social and we're going to get the word out. I think this is going to start to happen eventually. With a new generation. I mean, it's already starting to happen.

My friends that went and covered the Mission Impossible World Premier said that there was like just a whole section on the red carpet of influencers that weren't interviewing anybody they were just like taking video like we're here and i i wouldn't be willing to bet that the studio paid them to be there too i know some of them and they absolutely were paid to be out there for sure just to it's like a promotional tool for them like that i saw straw high goofy yeah he's the best fast and furious at fast 10 and i was like well yeah of course you know he had millions of followers on ticot that's right it makes sense but i would hope selfishly that you Universal will go, John Sine is in our film. Chris has a big wrestling audience. Hey, Chris, would you

like to just talk to John Sina for this movie? Of course I would. Yes. But that's what I mean, though. It didn't happen. No, because there's still a lot of people do. Tried so hard. But there's a lot of people out there that don't get it yet. There's a lot that do in the studio system. And there's a lot that don't. I remember when we first started for Shmose, getting into press screenings at first, you got to do, you guys are what? YouTube? Like, no, we, we only let in like, like print critics. And then like we got turned down a lot. We finally, our first screening we ever got into his press was true grit. It's the first one. And then that started to open up other ones, but it took a little bit for us to get in there. Now there's tons of YouTube people and reactors and

everything that get into press screenings now. But that was not the case for us. And then it's as, it's the same thing like politics, where politics are, you see certain policies that will not go through today that will go through tomorrow because the millennials and that's a good point people start to get it shifts it shifts every single time where certain people are coming through and it's the same thing with this like studio system it's like okay there's going to be some somebody who's like 21 years old now is going to be an

executive in 30 40 years who it's going to be like no print who cares about the print let's make sure that whatever the new app is at the time that person is covering that person will because I would make sure that Marga Robbie, if I was my movie, is getting an interview with you. Not on the carpet thing, like sending her to the studio to do it because you want to get the word out there. Because, again, I had, Katie Sackoff, I had on my show because I know Katie.

Right. Like, I would have had to gone through the Lucasfilm publicist, everything, too. And they're not giving me that interview. Right. They're not. I had to end. That interview did 275,000 views on YouTube alone. And then, like I said, 12 to 13 million on social.

and that's because people shared it, they saw it, and Diego Luna came in. That one I did get through, but again, got that through working with Collider and working with Perry, and Perry was able to set that up because Collider has that name. But I think studios need to pay attention to other things. I think studios are going to, it's starting to happen, but I think they're going to stop looking at the outlet and start looking at the individual. That's what I'm saying. And they're going to go, oh, you've got the, especially when it comes to like superhero movies,

like, oh, we'll go talk to these six influencers. where their audience just loves that stuff and eats it up. Yeah. I would like to think that I could be part of those conversations the next time Dave Batiste has a movie, The Rock. Actually, they've been pretty good. Like Warner Brothers was really good. I hadn't done a Warner Brothers junket in so long.

Yeah. And then Black Adam was coming out. And I think combined, all my Black Adam stuff got like 20 million views. Yes, that's brilliant. But it's also, and that's why I give you all respect and roll, because you get like three to five minutes with them. And you're a long conversationist like I am. Yeah.

It's so much better. So much better. And it's like, but it's, you take what you can get, right? And you get those clips, especially when you know that when you put the rock on, you can get, if you have five minutes with them and you can make three or four shorts out of it, then you take that shot, especially with all the short form. Yeah. But I just, I mean, I think that I also understand the hesitation on the studio as well because not everybody who does social media, TikTok, YouTube can interview. And you're like, oh, okay, just because they have millions of it doesn't mean I want to rock talking to him for an hour. It's like, do your research, and you can see that.

Chris Van Vlee can, you can talk to the rock for two hours. But look at the buildup that Mr. Beast had to play rock paper scissors with the rock. Do you remember that? Yeah. And then it ended up being like a two-minute thing on the red carpet where, like, they just kind of brought the rock. Mr. Beast was in this one little area. They did it. And that had hundreds of millions of views later.

Right. Right. That was a brilliant partnership. Yeah, it was. And so it's a strange time that we live in for sure. But I think that I agree with you. I think that more, it's also good. back to the beginning of this conversation. It's the grind, right? It's like getting out that

the word of saying, hey, look at what I'm doing right now. And I'll say this. And obviously so. And it should be this. I found myself as I reached out to the studio saying, hey, I'm executive producing Katie Sackoff's show and Katie would like to interview so and so. I'm getting more responses then that I would have. But I understand, rightfully so. Because they know that, A, who she is. B, she's going to get people to get more eyes on the project, the interview and everything too. And what people don't also understand is that they're not, people are going to ask this question

before seeing. I'm sure you thought the same thing. Is Katie any good at interviewing? She's fucking awesome. She's so good at talking to people and so good because she's like so, I think like, just real as we were talking about before with certain people when they're not being real and you can see it as not authentic. It's so real inside the conversation.

that like she doesn't try to pretend she's she's not going to run into it. Oh, well, Chris Van Vleet, you've been doing it forever. I'm going to come in and do what you do. It's not even close. It's like, am I any good at this? Am I doing this? And she's just talking. And I think that's why people are going to fall in love with that show. I can't wait to see it. Yeah, it's really good. But all right, brother, so where

can they find you? You know, tell them give them the goods. Everybody watching, oh, it's this camera right here. If you're watching this on YouTube, check out my YouTube channel at Chris Van Vleet. And then the Clips channel, which we talk so much about here, it's CVV clips and then on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok,

I'm just at Chris Van Fleet and there's a lot of clips. There are a lot of clips right now. And they're really, really good clips. So you should check, if you didn't know Chris beforehand, you should know him now. He really, him and Josh Harwitz, I think, are really two of the best in the game

and are so good at interviews. And thank you for having me on the show. It's just great to see you, great to be able to hang out with you. Yeah, we didn't talk about this, but we hung out at that Netflix party. Oh yeah, you teased in Then we didn't talk about it. I know, we didn't. It's funny because we went to this,

it was, it was the beginning? It was the beginning. It was the beginning of this year, right? It was January. Was it January? I think it was either January or the end of the year. I can't remember. I feel like it was the beginning.

Yeah, it was like a Christmas party, wasn't it? Maybe. Either way, we ran into each other at this Netflix. We have all the world's information right here. We had this party that we went to this Netflix party. And my daughter at the time, and still is, was obsessed with Wednesday, the show. And so Chris and I are sitting there were talking.

I will look over, and there's Jen O'Otega sitting there with the lead, I guess, whoever played her best friend in the show as well. And I was like, oh, man, I got to, my daughter's gonna lose her mind and he should be mad at me if I don't take a picture with her. So Chris, like, get in there, I'll take a picture of her. You're standing right there. I never posted, I

won't ever post a picture. It wasn't for me. It was for, it was for my daughter. And I just remember, like, seeing her and it was, it was like a Christmas present to my daughter, so I think it was. Who was Christmas? I think it was right before Christmas. I think it was. That was wild also when, like, you

pull up to valet. Yeah. And my wife was like, how, like, dressed up do we need to be? I'm like, not that dressed up, like, you know, fairly casual. And we pull up. And the second you got out of your car, there was paparots. Yeah, there was. Clearly not for us, right?

Like, it was for Jenna, actually. Yeah, must of that. But she was like, what have you got me? What are we doing? Yeah, it's hilarious. She's like, I am so underdressed. I'm so mad at you. I'm like, it's okay.

I did so many circles. It's okay. Yeah. It's, well, they get, look, I got, I was, when I showed up, I felt the same way because I, luckily enough, put like a suit jacket on. But I didn't know what they didn't, they didn't really give you a good prep. I was just wearing a sweater and I was like, oh, good enough. As soon as I walked in, I saw Keegan Michael Key and I wanted to tell him like, that one little moment where I asked him, how would the substitute teacher say my name?

And he's like, Chirice. Say it. Say it. Say it correctly. It has so many millions of views. And I wanted to be like, just thank you. Thank you for calling me Chirice. It was. But he was very busy. I like that clip. I've seen that clip many times.

Yeah, yeah. It's true. So, I mean, again, I think that that's what people are going to hear. When, if you're listening to this on audio and you're going to go, oh, Chris Van Fleet, it sounds really familiar. And then you're going to look at his clips and go, fuck, yeah, I've seen this guy. Like, he's everywhere. You can't miss him.

Follow him on TikTok, Instagram. Check out his YouTube channel. Really, and very inspirational, a lot of the interviews that he's done, whether it's The Rock, seen a lot of different people there. So please go and check it out. Chris Van Fleet, thanks for joining us, man. Dude, thank you. And congrats on everything.

Thanks, brother, man. All right. So, guys, once again, for you guys, guys. If you didn't already do it, please go and check out the live show that we did in New York. It is available on the website right now, the Christianharlov.com, myself, Mark Ellis, Corey and Martin from Double-Tosted, did a long podcast, and then Brett, Jen, Kate, and myself all did stand-up, so you can go and check that out. Make sure that you go and check out the comic book.

It comes out on July 1st, done by the Great Wicked Art that will be up there, and then the animated series shoes and beef coming out, all found on. the website. And last, but certainly not least, Katie Sackoff will be doing her show. Katie Sackoff will be doing her show at San Diego in July 22nd, 4 to 6. You can get tickets. Tickets are going fast. You can get it blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, katie.com. And you can also get the live stream there as well. So thanks again for Chris Van Bleet and myself. We'll see you guys on the flip side. Peace. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying.

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