July 5, 2024 • 22 mins
Hap Erstein reviews the following films:
"Despicable Me 4"
"A Quiet Place: Day One"
"Ghostlight"
"Outstanding"
"Despicable Me 4"
"A Quiet Place: Day One"
"Ghostlight"
"Outstanding"
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
He Joel Malcolm Ford WJNO dot com, and we're talking movies with the movie
(00:05):
guy. I'm a week what twoweeks removed from this? I had vacation
last week. I'm sure hat Berstine, the movie guy from Pobby chartspaper dot
com really missed me, right,maybe? No, so desperately I can't
begin to tell you. We're goingto catch up on what we missed last
week a little bit as well.Yet, let's go back fourteen years for
a moment. Fourteen years ago,Universal Pictures had a surprise hit with your
(00:29):
animated Despicable Me. The tale ofa delicious note good nickname grew voiced with
high mirth content by Steve Carell andhis army of gibbers speaking yellow minions called
minions. So the success was sucha surprise, but there was no surprise
that had spawned many sequels now intheaters in time to dominate the July fourth
(00:52):
holiday weekend. Is the franchise calledWell You'll never guess. The fourth one
is called Despicable Me. For houseoriginality, I was ricards. Christopher no
and Patrick de Lodge introduced some terrificnew characters in this one. There's a
new arch villain Maxim Damal voiced byWill Ferrell and his hotty squeeze Valentina voiced
(01:22):
by the wonderful Sophia of Vargawa.Of Modern Family. Grew's family increases by
one with the arrival of Grew Junior, a baby with attitude, and when
they relocate the suburbs in sort ofa witness of Protection program. Living next
door is a precocious teen named Poppythat's Joey King's voice, who is obsessed
(01:44):
with Grew in his villainy. Anyway, the characters all get introduced, but
they never really didn't do much withthem. I think what they're really doing
is setting them up for a futureand to spickle mees installments. But there
certainly will be them. I mean, in fact, there really is much
plot in the whole movie, butthere's plenty of sight gags and silliness enough
(02:05):
to get to Spit On Me fanssatisfied. I think I think it's gonna
be big. Actually, To SpitOn Me is available only in theaters and
it's the most visible to release thisholiday weekend, so expected to be top
of the box office. And it'ssimply fun. Hm. You just pit
with me a fan, not reallyin fact, so I had my eleven
(02:25):
year old daughter for vacation, whowent with both daughters to see Inside Out
two during vacation. I like thefirst one better, but we don't have
to go into that too much.I'm clearly not its target audience. But
I did happen to mention that sheloves she my little one. She loves
(02:46):
the Minions. That is her thing. And we saw the trailer and I
said, oh, what a shame. I'll be dropping you off the bomby
before I you know, before thatone comes out, because nobody takes her
to the movies at home. Nobody. I'm the only one sou Yeah,
that's cool. I'm hoping it's goneby the time I see her again.
(03:09):
I think, well, what's thenext time you'll see it, because I
think it's gonna be around for awhile. I you know, look,
they're not they're not horrible, They'rejust did the minions themselves get annoying after
a while? And I think,of course, of course you had the
Minions movies separate from this, right, and the first one, maybe even
(03:30):
the first two Despicable means you hadfewer Minion minions in them like You didn't
Have. It wasn't taken, itdidn't take as much time of the running
time. It gave us a surprisehow how popular the Minions were. And
then this franchise moved in their direction, and now this is essentially just another
Minions movie. It is what itlooks like in the trailer. You know,
(03:50):
there's there's minutes or not minutes,but there's probably half the trailer goes
by where you don't see grew.It's just the Minions running around. And
I maybe that's true. Maybe that'snot how the movie is, but maybe
that's just how they want to.That's how they're targeting, that's what they're
selling, that's what they think they'reselling. Yeah, I think that's true.
But Steve Carell is still quite terrificin this movie. Oh I you
(04:12):
know, I have nothing against SteveSteve Carrell's performance in anything, but yeah,
it's just not my not my cupof tea. But like the Inside
Out movies, clearly they're not targetingme, right, I mean I know
they want to, they want tomake it, you know, parent friendly,
but right if she lived with me, you know we'd be going to
see it. This weekend. SoI'm not going to change going on your
(04:34):
own. Yeah, I'm not goingto say I hear it. I'm not
going to say I'm happy she doesn'tloud with me, because I'm not.
But that being said, you know, I guess I'll take this as a
benefit. All Right. That's horrible. I'm a horrible father. What else
do you have? Well? Speakingof franchise extensions, last week brought the
third in the Quiet Place series,A Quiet Place Day One. As the
(04:55):
title implies, this one flashes backto the origins of the l invasion.
You know, those sound sensitive extraterrestrials. But we really don't learn much knew
about these attacking creatures. John Krasinski, who directed the first two Piet Place
films, takes a step back thistime. He's credited as one of the
several producers and as one of thecreators of the story. Day one takes
(05:19):
place in New York City, ahigh decipal metropolis to be sure. It
centers on a cancer patient named Samira, whose field trip from her hospice to
a puppet show in Midtown is disruptedby the incoming aliens. She's played by
the terrific Lupita Nalongo. She ofcourse arned an Oscar in her first film,
(05:42):
Twelve Years of Slave, and it'ssimilarly intense. Here. She's joined
at dodging aliens by a British dudeplayed by Joseph Quinn and by a scene
stealing black and white cat, Samira'sconstant companion. Now, as we really
don't learn that much about what whothe aliens are, what motivates them,
(06:08):
why they've chosen Earth to invade,why they've chosen the United States for that
matter, so it's just sort ofgo with it except that's the case and
move on from there. The film'sdirector I named Michael Sartinovski. He made
the impressive Nick Cage film three yearsago called Pig. He inherits the look
(06:28):
of the aliens from the earlier filmsand manages to spook us with their occasional
appearance. Quiet Place Day one iscreepy, but like the earlier installments,
it really is always being cory.Fans of the other two movies will probably
want to see this one, butit's just a cut below the others,
I think, and it's short,it's only about ninety minutes. Yeah.
(06:50):
I've been reading some negative stuff aboutit, and you know, I mean,
is there a coincidence that Krazinsky's notthe director of this one? But
he was the first two that werepretty good movies. It really was his
creation. And I'm not sure whyhe stepped back, but yes, I
think his his touch is missing here. Wonderful only in theaters. I was
(07:13):
just gonna say, I wonder ifhe stepped back because he wanted to do
iff and maybe maybe the studio wanted, you know, wanted this one around
the same time. They didn't wantto give him time to do that one
and then come back. We maynever know the real story on that one,
I hear you. I don't know. That's just it's available in theaters
only, and it opened very biglast weekend, so it probably took around
(07:34):
for most of the summer. Whyyou would imagine that Despicable Me, though,
would probably top everything this week?Sure, absolutely, But I think
I think The Quiet Place will havea kind of a long, long running
marathon this summer. You have alesser known piece of art for us,
well, I have not only Ihave two art house picks this week,
(07:57):
okay, kind of making up forlast week's time off. The first one
is an understated but ultimately quite compellingtrauma called ghost Light. Now. The
title is a reference to that singlebulb on the stand that's placed on a
theater stage when the playhouse is dark, and the storyline of ghost Light has
a theatrical theme. It concerned aconstruction worker, a guy named Dan Mueller,
(08:20):
played by Keith Cooperfer, an actorI really was not familiar with,
but he's quite impressive here. There'sa tragedy in Dan's past that we learned
about eventually. We just know thatthere's an ache in his life that needs
mending. Unexpectedly, Dan is drawnto a community theater group rehearsing for a
(08:41):
production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.This is completely alien to him, but
it becomes fascinated by this world.Takes a small role in the play,
and over time the Elizabethan tragedy mirrorshis own life. Ghost Light is about
the healing power of art. It'sa simple human story, but I think
(09:01):
we'll gradually work its way under yourskin if you let it. It's directed
by Kelly O'Sullivan and Alex Thompson,who debuted five years ago with Saint Francis.
Similarly subdued but ultimately powerful drama.Ghostline is likely to get lost among
(09:22):
the big flash year Summer fair,but as well worth seeking out. It's
only in theaters. Also and onemore Okay, My Other arspic is an
outstanding documentary called outstanding as in twowords outstanding see It's a history of LGBTQ
(09:45):
plus stand up comics How they learnedto come out of the closet and stand
up for social change. Director PageHurwitz interviews a lot of gay headliners who
talk candidly about how they came toaccept their sexuality and made it the theme
of their comedy. Film. Thatis quite a cast, get this.
(10:05):
It includes such tellers stand up namesas Lily Tomlin, Rose O'Donnell, Margaret
Chow, Sandra bert Hard, andEddie Izzard, to name just a few.
And the film Grew Out of aQueer Comedy is special that was held
at LA's Greek Theater in May twentytwenty two, so it features bits of
(10:28):
the featured comics, stand up routinesfrom that night, plus talking head interviews
and a crash course in the evolutionof gay's end up comedy. It looks
it leads forward in the frequent stopsand backwards points in the evolution of it
all their references to the stonewall inriots, which are considered the beginning of
(10:50):
the gay movement, the increasing visibilityof gay characters on TV, the dark
days of the AIDS epidemic, andthen to today when LGBTQ comedy is liberating
and liberated. Outstanding. It's aneye opening, but educational and entertaining film.
And it's available now on Netflix,so you don't have to go far.
(11:13):
All right, some honorable mentions.And this is a movie I guess
it's been out a couple of weeksthat it's my particular theater. It's only
on a couple of showtimes. ButSean Penn and Dakota Johnson in this movie
called Daddy O. Yeah, thiscame out of the twenty eighth last Friday.
I don't care. I don't rememberyou well, we didn't know because
it came out last Friday. Hadyou seen it? I have seen it?
(11:35):
Yes, Yes, it's all right, boy, I give us a
five second review. Sure, Imean she's We're going to get into a
cab driven by Sean Penn and goinginto New York City. They have plenty
of time because there's a traffic jams, so they get talking. It's one
of these things you have to buythe fact that she would bear her soul
(11:56):
to this cab driver. She doesn'tknow. It's it's strictly a two hander.
It's okay, just it were out. It's welcome for me. But
Sean Tenn is quite good in it. So the whole thing takes place in
the cab it does. Indeed.Yes, wow, that's interesting. You
know, the movies can be goodsometimes when they all take place in one
(12:16):
place. I remember the Ryan Reynoldsone where he was buried alive and the
whole thing was he was in thehe was in the coffin, and I
remember not hating it. You know, it was a good movie. I
don't remember a whole lot about it, but it was pretty suspenseful. It
was quite different than most of thestuff Ryan Reynolds does, of course.
And then you had Phone Booth wasanother one booth right, which that was
(12:39):
a pretty good movie that was welldone. Wasn't that. There was a
Tom Hardy one where he's he's drivingand he's the only only person in the
film. Yeah, it sort ofgives itself creative limitations. I think this
one doesn't quite have enough to sustainmy interest, but uh, I think
(13:01):
let's give you a try. Ithink some of these you have to really
be appreciative of acting, right,you have to like really appreciate somebody as
an actor or appreciate the art ofuh being a theftian. Don't make me
say that Dakota Johnson is not thebest God's gift to acting. She's a
lovely, lovely old lady, butshe's she's she's a NEPO baby. Indeed,
(13:26):
call it uh max Don's daughter,Yes, Don Johnson. Maxine is
is coming out? You know aboutMaxine Maxine with three x'es, Yes,
three xes. This is actually it'sa third of three. What do we
call that? I can't even thinkabout it, but it's a three,
(13:46):
it's a it's like a three parter. And this is the third part I've
seen the other Yeah trilogy. Icouldn't think of the words thank you anyways,
to be confused with the the AerosolInhaler trilogy, this is horror director
Ty West you know who's done.This is his third of this trilogy and
(14:11):
they're basically vehicles for me at GoFwho I believe is also a producer on
these films, but I'll read youthe synopsis. In nineteen eighties, Hollywood
adult film star and aspiring actress MaxineMinks finally gets her big break, but
as a mysterious killer stalks the starletsof Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens
to reveal her sinister past. Andso here's the thing. This is an
(14:35):
extension of X, which was amovie they had done that was the first
of the trilogy. The thing isthey didn't go in order because they did
that one and there was an oldlady who mea goth by the way,
also played in that movie, andthey went back to her younger days for
(14:58):
the second movie movie and her namewas Pearl, and that movie was called
Pearl, and this one's Maxine.This is definitely uh so confused. Yeah,
well because you're not, because you'renot in on it, my friend,
I am not. I've seen theother two. I have to see
I have to see this one.I'm a horror fan, and these are
these are interesting movies. Pearl wasquite quite odd. X was a was
(15:20):
a downright horror movie. Pearl waskind of weird. And then you know,
and more of like a character study, I think, and then this
one it'll be interesting. So thisis Maxine. Maxine survives the old lady
Pearl in the first movie. Anyway, I won't, but you would probably
say to go check out the earliermovies before you jump into this one.
(15:43):
Yeah, I think I would suggestyou don't need to see Pearl because Pearl
goes backwards. Not only because itgoes because it goes back in time.
So that's just gonna Pearl's only goingto give you context for the old lady
who's dead in the in the firstmovie. Anyway, sorry spoiler alert,
whatever, but WHOA you ruined itfor me? I'm not gonna Honestly,
(16:04):
I think that anybody that's going tosee this has seen the other two movies,
or at least one of the othertwo it has an interest in this.
I don't think this is going tobe like what's this man? There
might be a few people, butyou know, maybe some maybe some dirty
buggers that are like, oh yeah, triple X, I want to go,
which is probably why they did that. But listen to who's in this
though, listen to besides me atGoth Bobby Connival. I think I'm saying
(16:26):
that right now, Bobby k he'sa detective, so he probably has a
small part. The uh, thepop singer Halsey is in this, and
Lily Collins, I know you knowLily's work. Kevin Kevin Bacon shows up
in this. I'm sure that it'sjust a cameo, but who knows.
Who knows? So he's going bythe studio and popped in. They said,
(16:51):
here, take these lines and learnthem. Okay, it happens,
right, it happens, it doesindeed, all the top qually. There
is also another movie that it's oneof those Angel Studios films, so I
know you're staying far away from it. But it's called Sound of Hope,
The Story of Possum Trot. Ihad to look into this a little bit.
This is actually about foster foster familiesand foster kids, and it's based
(17:12):
on a true story. I readthe I'll read the synopsis. The fight
for kids begins now, inspired bythe powerful true story Sound of Hope.
The Story of Possum Trot the nameof a town to Texas community. It
follows Donna and Reverend Martin as aignite a fire in the hearts of their
rural church to embrace kids in thefoster system that nobody else would take.
(17:34):
By doing the impossible adopting seventy sevenchildren, this East Texas community proved that
with real, determined love, thebattle for America's most vulnerable can be won.
So you know, I'm not aterrible person, but I'll pass.
Well, it's got the religious thing, but it's also got the foster children
thing. So you are a horribleman. Really quick. Couple of movies.
(17:59):
I saw We Have Time? Areyou? Are you? Are you
running? Yeah? You go?Sure? Are you anytime? So?
I mentioned Inside Out too, wasn'treally for me. We don't have to
get into that too much. Isaw Fortunate at the box office. It
is doing very nice. Fine,it's fine, and my daughters loved it,
especially as you do. She said, you like it. I loved
(18:21):
it, so she you know,she loved it well. And eleven year
olds are easier to please, rightanyway. I love my kid, but
you know she's eleven. The Exorcismwith Russell Crowe. I told you I
was going to see this one.I probably should have skipped it. Better
you than me. It had itsmoments, but by the way, and
(18:41):
spoiler alert, nobody. It's firstof all, it's gone. It's it's
going to be out as a Friday. I'm looking at my theater at least
gone. I think it's still theretoday, going to be out Friday.
But I was questioning whether it was. So. It's a story about an
actor, Russell Crowe, who isplaying in a movie about exorcism, about
(19:02):
possession, and all of a suddenit seems like he may or may not
be possessed and his daughter, hisdaughter h wonders, you know, is
is this really happening or is thisjust you know, is this just his
old demons coming back? And andand not the supernatural ones, but the
uh, the the liquid and thedrug demons that you know he used to
(19:25):
battle. And uh, well yeah, Russell Crowe, I didn't know what
where, what avenue it was goingto take. It's definitely a horror film.
And uh it was fine. Nothinggreat, nothing. Uh it'll be
fine to stream when it when itgets somewhere, don't pay too much for
it. I love Russell Crowe,but eh, it was okay, it
(19:45):
was all right. What else didI see? I saw one oh the
bike riders and I know you alreadyshared your thoughts on this. I thought
it was good. I'm a hugegood Fellas man. This has absolutely nothing
in common with good Fellas, regardlessof what somebody always let's talk about Goodfellas
and stuff. Some some reviewer musthave said that. Some critic must have
(20:07):
said that somewhere, And in someof the early commercials, some of the
early ads for this movie, theyon TV they said good Fellaws on motorcycles.
No it's not. But the thingis the reason that they did that.
There are some some some times inthe movie that I feel like they
are pulling from Goodfellas, which isfine, because that's what they do.
You know, every movie, everymovie, every the good stuff, right,
(20:30):
So there there's things, you know, whether it's bar scenes or this
or that, and there's there's stuffthat you go maybe in some of the
in the dialogue of the movie,I did not think of Goodfellas once.
Well I watched it. Well you'renot, you know, you're not as
you know, you're a more ofa Godfather guy than a good Fellaw's guy.
That's probably why. But I likeGoodfellas a lot. Okay, all
(20:53):
right, I like the gunfeather ofbut sure, I liked the movie.
I like the Bike Riders, Ireally did, and I was I was
actually toying with another watch just soI can kind of some of it can
sink in a little bit. ButI don't know how much realism there is
because I've not been around bikers proudly. So so all right, that's that.
(21:18):
I know. We have a newmovie coming out soon. It's called
fly Me to the Moon. Becausethey're doing previews this weekend of it.
The pre like the pre I amseeing it in time for next week.
I got your Johansson and chan Tatum. Yeah, so we can forgive them
for having Channing Tatum when they haveScarletts. Is that? How well?
Exactly something for everyone as to say, he's fine, He's got a lot
(21:41):
of charisma. I'm just yeah.I think it may be dropping this weekend,
but I will catch up with anew Beverly host cop movie, Eddie
Murphy's Back. Yes, that'll becoming out on Netflix. And I don't
believe fly Me to the Moon isgoing wide locally. My theater has it
like at a seven o'clock showtime bothFriday and Saturday nights, and that's it.
(22:04):
So I think it's just like apreview. But I could be wrong.
I've been wrong. I think it'snot really opening officially until next Friday,
right, right, so folks willget a chance to check it out,
but you might as well. Theymight as well wait for you next
weekend to share you. They haveto be told whether they should see it
or not, of course. Allright, Well, I'll be catching up
on some movies for sure. You'renot going anywhere this week. No,
(22:27):
I'm good, and I'll let Maxineknow. I'll let Maxine know you said
hi absolutely XXX to her. AllRight, we'll talk soon. Have a
good week. Take care,
He Joel Malcolm Ford WJNO dot com, and we're talking movies with the movie
(00:05):
guy. I'm a week what twoweeks removed from this? I had vacation
last week. I'm sure hat Berstine, the movie guy from Pobby chartspaper dot
com really missed me, right,maybe? No, so desperately I can't
begin to tell you. We're goingto catch up on what we missed last
week a little bit as well.Yet, let's go back fourteen years for
a moment. Fourteen years ago,Universal Pictures had a surprise hit with your
(00:29):
animated Despicable Me. The tale ofa delicious note good nickname grew voiced with
high mirth content by Steve Carell andhis army of gibbers speaking yellow minions called
minions. So the success was sucha surprise, but there was no surprise
that had spawned many sequels now intheaters in time to dominate the July fourth
(00:52):
holiday weekend. Is the franchise calledWell You'll never guess. The fourth one
is called Despicable Me. For houseoriginality, I was ricards. Christopher no
and Patrick de Lodge introduced some terrificnew characters in this one. There's a
new arch villain Maxim Damal voiced byWill Ferrell and his hotty squeeze Valentina voiced
(01:22):
by the wonderful Sophia of Vargawa.Of Modern Family. Grew's family increases by
one with the arrival of Grew Junior, a baby with attitude, and when
they relocate the suburbs in sort ofa witness of Protection program. Living next
door is a precocious teen named Poppythat's Joey King's voice, who is obsessed
(01:44):
with Grew in his villainy. Anyway, the characters all get introduced, but
they never really didn't do much withthem. I think what they're really doing
is setting them up for a futureand to spickle mees installments. But there
certainly will be them. I mean, in fact, there really is much
plot in the whole movie, butthere's plenty of sight gags and silliness enough
(02:05):
to get to Spit On Me fanssatisfied. I think I think it's gonna
be big. Actually, To SpitOn Me is available only in theaters and
it's the most visible to release thisholiday weekend, so expected to be top
of the box office. And it'ssimply fun. Hm. You just pit
with me a fan, not reallyin fact, so I had my eleven
(02:25):
year old daughter for vacation, whowent with both daughters to see Inside Out
two during vacation. I like thefirst one better, but we don't have
to go into that too much.I'm clearly not its target audience. But
I did happen to mention that sheloves she my little one. She loves
(02:46):
the Minions. That is her thing. And we saw the trailer and I
said, oh, what a shame. I'll be dropping you off the bomby
before I you know, before thatone comes out, because nobody takes her
to the movies at home. Nobody. I'm the only one sou Yeah,
that's cool. I'm hoping it's goneby the time I see her again.
(03:09):
I think, well, what's thenext time you'll see it, because I
think it's gonna be around for awhile. I you know, look,
they're not they're not horrible, They'rejust did the minions themselves get annoying after
a while? And I think,of course, of course you had the
Minions movies separate from this, right, and the first one, maybe even
(03:30):
the first two Despicable means you hadfewer Minion minions in them like You didn't
Have. It wasn't taken, itdidn't take as much time of the running
time. It gave us a surprisehow how popular the Minions were. And
then this franchise moved in their direction, and now this is essentially just another
Minions movie. It is what itlooks like in the trailer. You know,
(03:50):
there's there's minutes or not minutes,but there's probably half the trailer goes
by where you don't see grew.It's just the Minions running around. And
I maybe that's true. Maybe that'snot how the movie is, but maybe
that's just how they want to.That's how they're targeting, that's what they're
selling, that's what they think they'reselling. Yeah, I think that's true.
But Steve Carell is still quite terrificin this movie. Oh I you
(04:12):
know, I have nothing against SteveSteve Carrell's performance in anything, but yeah,
it's just not my not my cupof tea. But like the Inside
Out movies, clearly they're not targetingme, right, I mean I know
they want to, they want tomake it, you know, parent friendly,
but right if she lived with me, you know we'd be going to
see it. This weekend. SoI'm not going to change going on your
(04:34):
own. Yeah, I'm not goingto say I hear it. I'm not
going to say I'm happy she doesn'tloud with me, because I'm not.
But that being said, you know, I guess I'll take this as a
benefit. All Right. That's horrible. I'm a horrible father. What else
do you have? Well? Speakingof franchise extensions, last week brought the
third in the Quiet Place series,A Quiet Place Day One. As the
(04:55):
title implies, this one flashes backto the origins of the l invasion.
You know, those sound sensitive extraterrestrials. But we really don't learn much knew
about these attacking creatures. John Krasinski, who directed the first two Piet Place
films, takes a step back thistime. He's credited as one of the
several producers and as one of thecreators of the story. Day one takes
(05:19):
place in New York City, ahigh decipal metropolis to be sure. It
centers on a cancer patient named Samira, whose field trip from her hospice to
a puppet show in Midtown is disruptedby the incoming aliens. She's played by
the terrific Lupita Nalongo. She ofcourse arned an Oscar in her first film,
(05:42):
Twelve Years of Slave, and it'ssimilarly intense. Here. She's joined
at dodging aliens by a British dudeplayed by Joseph Quinn and by a scene
stealing black and white cat, Samira'sconstant companion. Now, as we really
don't learn that much about what whothe aliens are, what motivates them,
(06:08):
why they've chosen Earth to invade,why they've chosen the United States for that
matter, so it's just sort ofgo with it except that's the case and
move on from there. The film'sdirector I named Michael Sartinovski. He made
the impressive Nick Cage film three yearsago called Pig. He inherits the look
(06:28):
of the aliens from the earlier filmsand manages to spook us with their occasional
appearance. Quiet Place Day one iscreepy, but like the earlier installments,
it really is always being cory.Fans of the other two movies will probably
want to see this one, butit's just a cut below the others,
I think, and it's short,it's only about ninety minutes. Yeah.
(06:50):
I've been reading some negative stuff aboutit, and you know, I mean,
is there a coincidence that Krazinsky's notthe director of this one? But
he was the first two that werepretty good movies. It really was his
creation. And I'm not sure whyhe stepped back, but yes, I
think his his touch is missing here. Wonderful only in theaters. I was
(07:13):
just gonna say, I wonder ifhe stepped back because he wanted to do
iff and maybe maybe the studio wanted, you know, wanted this one around
the same time. They didn't wantto give him time to do that one
and then come back. We maynever know the real story on that one,
I hear you. I don't know. That's just it's available in theaters
only, and it opened very biglast weekend, so it probably took around
(07:34):
for most of the summer. Whyyou would imagine that Despicable Me, though,
would probably top everything this week?Sure, absolutely, But I think
I think The Quiet Place will havea kind of a long, long running
marathon this summer. You have alesser known piece of art for us,
well, I have not only Ihave two art house picks this week,
(07:57):
okay, kind of making up forlast week's time off. The first one
is an understated but ultimately quite compellingtrauma called ghost Light. Now. The
title is a reference to that singlebulb on the stand that's placed on a
theater stage when the playhouse is dark, and the storyline of ghost Light has
a theatrical theme. It concerned aconstruction worker, a guy named Dan Mueller,
(08:20):
played by Keith Cooperfer, an actorI really was not familiar with,
but he's quite impressive here. There'sa tragedy in Dan's past that we learned
about eventually. We just know thatthere's an ache in his life that needs
mending. Unexpectedly, Dan is drawnto a community theater group rehearsing for a
(08:41):
production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.This is completely alien to him, but
it becomes fascinated by this world.Takes a small role in the play,
and over time the Elizabethan tragedy mirrorshis own life. Ghost Light is about
the healing power of art. It'sa simple human story, but I think
(09:01):
we'll gradually work its way under yourskin if you let it. It's directed
by Kelly O'Sullivan and Alex Thompson,who debuted five years ago with Saint Francis.
Similarly subdued but ultimately powerful drama.Ghostline is likely to get lost among
(09:22):
the big flash year Summer fair,but as well worth seeking out. It's
only in theaters. Also and onemore Okay, My Other arspic is an
outstanding documentary called outstanding as in twowords outstanding see It's a history of LGBTQ
(09:45):
plus stand up comics How they learnedto come out of the closet and stand
up for social change. Director PageHurwitz interviews a lot of gay headliners who
talk candidly about how they came toaccept their sexuality and made it the theme
of their comedy. Film. Thatis quite a cast, get this.
(10:05):
It includes such tellers stand up namesas Lily Tomlin, Rose O'Donnell, Margaret
Chow, Sandra bert Hard, andEddie Izzard, to name just a few.
And the film Grew Out of aQueer Comedy is special that was held
at LA's Greek Theater in May twentytwenty two, so it features bits of
(10:28):
the featured comics, stand up routinesfrom that night, plus talking head interviews
and a crash course in the evolutionof gay's end up comedy. It looks
it leads forward in the frequent stopsand backwards points in the evolution of it
all their references to the stonewall inriots, which are considered the beginning of
(10:50):
the gay movement, the increasing visibilityof gay characters on TV, the dark
days of the AIDS epidemic, andthen to today when LGBTQ comedy is liberating
and liberated. Outstanding. It's aneye opening, but educational and entertaining film.
And it's available now on Netflix,so you don't have to go far.
(11:13):
All right, some honorable mentions.And this is a movie I guess
it's been out a couple of weeksthat it's my particular theater. It's only
on a couple of showtimes. ButSean Penn and Dakota Johnson in this movie
called Daddy O. Yeah, thiscame out of the twenty eighth last Friday.
I don't care. I don't rememberyou well, we didn't know because
it came out last Friday. Hadyou seen it? I have seen it?
(11:35):
Yes, Yes, it's all right, boy, I give us a
five second review. Sure, Imean she's We're going to get into a
cab driven by Sean Penn and goinginto New York City. They have plenty
of time because there's a traffic jams, so they get talking. It's one
of these things you have to buythe fact that she would bear her soul
(11:56):
to this cab driver. She doesn'tknow. It's it's strictly a two hander.
It's okay, just it were out. It's welcome for me. But
Sean Tenn is quite good in it. So the whole thing takes place in
the cab it does. Indeed.Yes, wow, that's interesting. You
know, the movies can be goodsometimes when they all take place in one
(12:16):
place. I remember the Ryan Reynoldsone where he was buried alive and the
whole thing was he was in thehe was in the coffin, and I
remember not hating it. You know, it was a good movie. I
don't remember a whole lot about it, but it was pretty suspenseful. It
was quite different than most of thestuff Ryan Reynolds does, of course.
And then you had Phone Booth wasanother one booth right, which that was
(12:39):
a pretty good movie that was welldone. Wasn't that. There was a
Tom Hardy one where he's he's drivingand he's the only only person in the
film. Yeah, it sort ofgives itself creative limitations. I think this
one doesn't quite have enough to sustainmy interest, but uh, I think
(13:01):
let's give you a try. Ithink some of these you have to really
be appreciative of acting, right,you have to like really appreciate somebody as
an actor or appreciate the art ofuh being a theftian. Don't make me
say that Dakota Johnson is not thebest God's gift to acting. She's a
lovely, lovely old lady, butshe's she's she's a NEPO baby. Indeed,
(13:26):
call it uh max Don's daughter,Yes, Don Johnson. Maxine is
is coming out? You know aboutMaxine Maxine with three x'es, Yes,
three xes. This is actually it'sa third of three. What do we
call that? I can't even thinkabout it, but it's a three,
(13:46):
it's a it's like a three parter. And this is the third part I've
seen the other Yeah trilogy. Icouldn't think of the words thank you anyways,
to be confused with the the AerosolInhaler trilogy, this is horror director
Ty West you know who's done.This is his third of this trilogy and
(14:11):
they're basically vehicles for me at GoFwho I believe is also a producer on
these films, but I'll read youthe synopsis. In nineteen eighties, Hollywood
adult film star and aspiring actress MaxineMinks finally gets her big break, but
as a mysterious killer stalks the starletsof Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens
to reveal her sinister past. Andso here's the thing. This is an
(14:35):
extension of X, which was amovie they had done that was the first
of the trilogy. The thing isthey didn't go in order because they did
that one and there was an oldlady who mea goth by the way,
also played in that movie, andthey went back to her younger days for
(14:58):
the second movie movie and her namewas Pearl, and that movie was called
Pearl, and this one's Maxine.This is definitely uh so confused. Yeah,
well because you're not, because you'renot in on it, my friend,
I am not. I've seen theother two. I have to see
I have to see this one.I'm a horror fan, and these are
these are interesting movies. Pearl wasquite quite odd. X was a was
(15:20):
a downright horror movie. Pearl waskind of weird. And then you know,
and more of like a character study, I think, and then this
one it'll be interesting. So thisis Maxine. Maxine survives the old lady
Pearl in the first movie. Anyway, I won't, but you would probably
say to go check out the earliermovies before you jump into this one.
(15:43):
Yeah, I think I would suggestyou don't need to see Pearl because Pearl
goes backwards. Not only because itgoes because it goes back in time.
So that's just gonna Pearl's only goingto give you context for the old lady
who's dead in the in the firstmovie. Anyway, sorry spoiler alert,
whatever, but WHOA you ruined itfor me? I'm not gonna Honestly,
(16:04):
I think that anybody that's going tosee this has seen the other two movies,
or at least one of the othertwo it has an interest in this.
I don't think this is going tobe like what's this man? There
might be a few people, butyou know, maybe some maybe some dirty
buggers that are like, oh yeah, triple X, I want to go,
which is probably why they did that. But listen to who's in this
though, listen to besides me atGoth Bobby Connival. I think I'm saying
(16:26):
that right now, Bobby k he'sa detective, so he probably has a
small part. The uh, thepop singer Halsey is in this, and
Lily Collins, I know you knowLily's work. Kevin Kevin Bacon shows up
in this. I'm sure that it'sjust a cameo, but who knows.
Who knows? So he's going bythe studio and popped in. They said,
(16:51):
here, take these lines and learnthem. Okay, it happens,
right, it happens, it doesindeed, all the top qually. There
is also another movie that it's oneof those Angel Studios films, so I
know you're staying far away from it. But it's called Sound of Hope,
The Story of Possum Trot. Ihad to look into this a little bit.
This is actually about foster foster familiesand foster kids, and it's based
(17:12):
on a true story. I readthe I'll read the synopsis. The fight
for kids begins now, inspired bythe powerful true story Sound of Hope.
The Story of Possum Trot the nameof a town to Texas community. It
follows Donna and Reverend Martin as aignite a fire in the hearts of their
rural church to embrace kids in thefoster system that nobody else would take.
(17:34):
By doing the impossible adopting seventy sevenchildren, this East Texas community proved that
with real, determined love, thebattle for America's most vulnerable can be won.
So you know, I'm not aterrible person, but I'll pass.
Well, it's got the religious thing, but it's also got the foster children
thing. So you are a horribleman. Really quick. Couple of movies.
(17:59):
I saw We Have Time? Areyou? Are you? Are you
running? Yeah? You go?Sure? Are you anytime? So?
I mentioned Inside Out too, wasn'treally for me. We don't have to
get into that too much. Isaw Fortunate at the box office. It
is doing very nice. Fine,it's fine, and my daughters loved it,
especially as you do. She said, you like it. I loved
(18:21):
it, so she you know,she loved it well. And eleven year
olds are easier to please, rightanyway. I love my kid, but
you know she's eleven. The Exorcismwith Russell Crowe. I told you I
was going to see this one.I probably should have skipped it. Better
you than me. It had itsmoments, but by the way, and
(18:41):
spoiler alert, nobody. It's firstof all, it's gone. It's it's
going to be out as a Friday. I'm looking at my theater at least
gone. I think it's still theretoday, going to be out Friday.
But I was questioning whether it was. So. It's a story about an
actor, Russell Crowe, who isplaying in a movie about exorcism, about
(19:02):
possession, and all of a suddenit seems like he may or may not
be possessed and his daughter, hisdaughter h wonders, you know, is
is this really happening or is thisjust you know, is this just his
old demons coming back? And andand not the supernatural ones, but the
uh, the the liquid and thedrug demons that you know he used to
(19:25):
battle. And uh, well yeah, Russell Crowe, I didn't know what
where, what avenue it was goingto take. It's definitely a horror film.
And uh it was fine. Nothinggreat, nothing. Uh it'll be
fine to stream when it when itgets somewhere, don't pay too much for
it. I love Russell Crowe,but eh, it was okay, it
(19:45):
was all right. What else didI see? I saw one oh the
bike riders and I know you alreadyshared your thoughts on this. I thought
it was good. I'm a hugegood Fellas man. This has absolutely nothing
in common with good Fellas, regardlessof what somebody always let's talk about Goodfellas
and stuff. Some some reviewer musthave said that. Some critic must have
(20:07):
said that somewhere, And in someof the early commercials, some of the
early ads for this movie, theyon TV they said good Fellaws on motorcycles.
No it's not. But the thingis the reason that they did that.
There are some some some times inthe movie that I feel like they
are pulling from Goodfellas, which isfine, because that's what they do.
You know, every movie, everymovie, every the good stuff, right,
(20:30):
So there there's things, you know, whether it's bar scenes or this
or that, and there's there's stuffthat you go maybe in some of the
in the dialogue of the movie,I did not think of Goodfellas once.
Well I watched it. Well you'renot, you know, you're not as
you know, you're a more ofa Godfather guy than a good Fellaw's guy.
That's probably why. But I likeGoodfellas a lot. Okay, all
(20:53):
right, I like the gunfeather ofbut sure, I liked the movie.
I like the Bike Riders, Ireally did, and I was I was
actually toying with another watch just soI can kind of some of it can
sink in a little bit. ButI don't know how much realism there is
because I've not been around bikers proudly. So so all right, that's that.
(21:18):
I know. We have a newmovie coming out soon. It's called
fly Me to the Moon. Becausethey're doing previews this weekend of it.
The pre like the pre I amseeing it in time for next week.
I got your Johansson and chan Tatum. Yeah, so we can forgive them
for having Channing Tatum when they haveScarletts. Is that? How well?
Exactly something for everyone as to say, he's fine, He's got a lot
(21:41):
of charisma. I'm just yeah.I think it may be dropping this weekend,
but I will catch up with anew Beverly host cop movie, Eddie
Murphy's Back. Yes, that'll becoming out on Netflix. And I don't
believe fly Me to the Moon isgoing wide locally. My theater has it
like at a seven o'clock showtime bothFriday and Saturday nights, and that's it.
(22:04):
So I think it's just like apreview. But I could be wrong.
I've been wrong. I think it'snot really opening officially until next Friday,
right, right, so folks willget a chance to check it out,
but you might as well. Theymight as well wait for you next
weekend to share you. They haveto be told whether they should see it
or not, of course. Allright, Well, I'll be catching up
on some movies for sure. You'renot going anywhere this week. No,
(22:27):
I'm good, and I'll let Maxineknow. I'll let Maxine know you said
hi absolutely XXX to her. AllRight, we'll talk soon. Have a
good week. Take care,
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