Movie

Normally, psychopaths are the villains of the story. Are there any where the protagonist is not only cold, ruthless, and exacting, but is also a force of good? They don't necessarily need to be completely devoid of empathy, but still hard-hearted and maybe even sadistic. Thanks!

It's sexy, funny, gory, disturbing, frightening, and all kinds of clever. It's also one of those movies that you don't want to know anything about your first time watching. The amount of glee I get from it reminds me of all the hours I spent watching The Mummy (1999) as a kid, although I believe The Mummy is superior. There's just something special about horror that doesn't take itself too seriously while also delivering genuine frights on the back of a roller coaster plot.

Per the Patreon conversation, I wanted to shout out Marie. I've been doing Denis's filmography for a different podcast, and watched Polytechnique a few months ago. It's an incredible feat of filmmaking, I encourage everyone to watch it. That said, I don't know how you do a comedy podcast about a tragedy.

It made me curious, have they covered any super downer movies?

There are many bad film franchises out there, but few hold a candle to the absolute disgrace of the Big Momma's House movies. For those fortunate enough to not know, BMH is a series about a cop played by Martin Lawrence who goes undercover as an elderly fat woman to get to the bottom of various crimes. Now, this premise doesn't sound completely awful on paper. If they were just some dumb family films, I might be more forgiving. But these movies are ADULT comedies, so you know there's gonna be a lot of immature sex humor in them because that type of humor worked in a few really good comedies in the past, so it MUST work in every movie, right? But that kind of humor isn't what ruins these movies for me. What ruins them for me is that these films present the crimes in question like Law and Order rather than a zany comedy. Not every police scene is serious, but 9 times out of 10, the police characters act like they are in a totally different movie about serious police work. And there lies the problem: What are all these professional officers doing in a movie about a guy dressing up as a quirky old lady? And furthermore, why does the main character, who is supposed to take these life or death scenarios seriously, act like a horny teenager every time a hot woman is in his vicinity? The first movie is literally just two different smaller movies fighting for control of one film and neither one is particularly good. The clash of these tones really drives me up the wall.

And it'd be one thing if these films actually had some funny jokes, but they never do. It's is either the main character being perverted, unfunny slapstick, or cringey sex and/or bathroom joke. I'm not saying this premise lends itself to a lot of amazing possibilities, but you'd think SOMEONE in the writing staff would've tried harder than this. I miss a lot of things from the 2000s, but this franchise is not one of them. I hope to god Martin Lawrence doesn't make more of these movies. The world sucks enough now these days. We don't need to add gasoline to the sucky fire.

Which movie made you stay away from vans, bushes, forests...people? Which movie made you do certain things that you never died or perhaps which one played with your head for a long time? Any certain stories?

Off the back of news that Liam Neeson will be in a Naked gun reboot it made me think how much work he has done. Pre Taken I think if you asked pretty much anyone, they would drop Schindlers List as what he’s known for and then Taken came along and now it’s his entire being.

Keanu seems like the other big example, dare I say he’s done it multiple times for each generation of his career, he went from Bill & Ted to Neo to John Wick with plenty of work in between.

Any other good examples?

FT13TH - JASON TAKES MANHATTAN - I would say JASON LIVES but it's still a well made movie. JASON TAKES MANHATTAN was just godawful: weak final girl, forgettable kills, even the set-up was deceitful since most of the movie happens in a cruise ship. And the whole narrative was silly beyond belief.

ANOES - THE DREAM CHILD - I think DREAM CHILD just loses because while FINAL NIGHTMARE is a worse movie, I had more fun watching it. DREAM CHILD was bad and boring. It's the only ANOES movies that I always forget to remember. And sorry for the Alice fans but I always thought she sucked, boring version of Nancy.

Now by now, I think we've seen at least in passing what Biblically accurate angels look like and for good reason. Contrast with the typical human figure with wings and halo, the burning wheel of eyes looks well, other worldly. It properly captures a sense of power and even dread that I often think how terrifying it would be to witness one. A lot of faith based movies tend to just see faith and religion as an easy comfort but I think these giant designs sort of go against that. And it got me thinking could you make a cosmic or psychological horror movie about angels?

Now I know there are movies movies that tackle sort of a warning from a supernatural place. Take Shelter is probably one of the more famous modern examples and this is what Darren Aronofsky tried to do with his take on Noah but how would you imagine a movie that focused on an encounter with the more eldritch looking angels?

Wanting to become something in the film industry but I live in Australia. A lot of people (it seems) who study film here end up doing commercials or mediocre cable TV shows which sounds incredibly boring to me. The international recognition of Talk to Me and the fact it was picked up by A24 gives me some hope but I’m still not 100% sure. Is it worth studying and making short films and networking and try to get somewhere? What are the odds of actually making a living doing this? I have been overthinking this a lot and any thoughts would really help.

I was reminded of this the other day, and boy does it piss me off. I for one happen to really like this franchise, I think 1-3 make a great trilogy and range from decent to very good. Then there’s the Marked Ones which I LOVE, and really breathed some interesting new life into the series . Chris Landon not only killed it by making a great horror movie, but laid an interesting mythology for the series to continue with. I actually wanted to see more and cared about the plot again.

So not only was The Ghost Dimension a pile of garbage, but it’s absolutely inexplicable that they chose to not even MENTION Katie, the most important character in the series after the titular demon.

We receive zero closure on her, a character who’s been in every movie, and we’ll probably never get any closure. She’s just possessed off doing nothing important and that’s that? She appears in ALL FIVE MOVIES, and suddenly once it’s time for the grand finale, the creators just said ‘nah, she doesn’t need to be in this one, no need to wrap up her story’?!?!?

Inexplicable.

The dreamy yet melancholic narration from the Assassination of Jesse James, Marlon Brando’s patriarchal voice over directed at his son in Superman, Henry Hill’s internal dialogue through out Goodfellas, each character’s thoughts in Sin City, Keanu’s monologues in A Scanner Darkly, and many others have made a lasting impression on me as a film man. What are some that you think about for this topic?

I know that sharks, crocodiles, snakes, bugs and piranhas are the most frequent in horror movies, but I think that there are far more scarier animals that could make for a great horror movie if done right.

My most obvious pick is Cassowary - it's literally perfect for a story set in Australian forest, you could have a group of adventurers or campers getting lost in the middle of the night with a pack of them and they get picket off one by one while trying to escape.

Then Grizzly Bear - there was even one in 1970s, and Cocaine Bear proves that bears are perfect candidates and should be used more frequently, but of course, make it serious, there was an incident in Japan in early 1900s when a brown bear killed people in their own houses totally unprovoked so yeah, not to mention Grizzlies and Polar Bears attack people just because they feel like it.

Orca - no matter what Willy told you, Orcas are not nice to anyone except humans. I know that they don't kill humans in the wild, but they do in enclosures and what if they did? Perfect movie plot right there.

Komodo Dragon - I don't think I need to explain this one.

Hippo - yeah some herbivores are not nice, they are one of the animals responsible for most deaths yearly.

Giant Squid - you can get the idea.

Giant Flying Fox/Giant Bat - I know that they are vegetarians, but just make them behave like Vampire Bats in movie and voila, stuff of nightmares!

And also, there are dinosaurs who would be perfect candidates, of course everyone would first think of Raptors which yes, but there's also Quetzalcoatlus, Therizinosaurus, Spinosaurus, Troodons which would be nightmare fuel. Not to mention other extinct creatures that aren't dinosaurs such as Arthropleura, Titanoboa, Giant Scorpions, etc.

So which animals do you think would make a good candidates?