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In Episode 058 of Movie Podcast Weekly, your loyal hosts come together once again, joined this time by special guest DEADBOX MIKE INGRAM of Streaming Terror.com, for a review of the long-anticipated Orson Scott Card adaptation, Ender’s Game, as well as the largely-unanticipated old man comedy, Last Vegas.
On a good day, Movie Podcast Weekly features four hosts (and frequent guests), who give you their verdict on at least one new movie release that’s currently in theaters, mini-reviews of what they’ve been watching lately, and specialty recommendation segments. New episodes release every single Monday.
SHOW NOTES — with Time Stamps!
( 00:00:00 ) I. Intro
—The Shining / Room 237 Halloween Bonus Episode
—Planes, Trains, and Automobiles Premium Bonus
—Welcome Deadbox Mike
(00:4:09) II. Mini-Reviews:
Andy: He thinks he watched Myth-Busters
Mike: The Conjuring, Spartacus: Blood and Sand (TV)
Karl: Carrie (2013), Carrie (1976), North By Northwest
Andy: Remembered that he watched Clue, When Animals Bite Back, When Fish Attack
Jason: Only God Forgives, Daylight
Josh: The ‘Burbs, Slither, Monsters University, Dust to Glory, Nitro Circus: The Movie
( 00:47:04 ) III. Feature review of ENDER’S GAME:
Mike: 8.5 ( See It In the Theater / Buy It )
Andy: 7.5 ( See It In the Theater / Rent It )
( 01:11:10 ) IV. Feature review of LAST VEGAS:
Jason: 6 ( Rent It )
V. Segments:
( 01:20:44 ) JOSHUA LIGAIRI’S CONTINUING EDUCATION:
Documentary (Reality TV): Survivor: Redemption Island
( 01:27:56 ) ANDY’S ABSURD ASSOCIATIONS:
Films For Which Christian Bale Lost a Ton of Weight:
The Machinist
Rescue Dawn
( 01:31:32 ) ROBOTIC ROMANCES WITH KARL HUDDELSTON:
Romantic Dramedy: Nobody’s Fool
( 01:35:06 ) JAY OF THE DEAD’S CREEPS AND CRIME:
Creeps: The House of the Devil
( 01:41:00 ) VI. Wrap-Up
—Jason & Josh’s Ultimate Survivor / Breaking Bad Smack-Down Challenge
Next Monday on MPW: We will likely have feature reviews of Marvel’s Thor and the new Richard Curtis film About Time. Join us!
Links for this episode:
Watch a touching video (that brought a tear to Jason’s eye and a warmth to his heart) about Bear Grylls becoming the UK’s “Chief Scout” here: UK Scout Association’s YouTube Channel
Read about the death on Survivor: France that Josh talked about here: Hollywood Reporter
Check out Deadbox Mike’s site: StreamingTerror.com
Mike also says to check out: ChetDay.com
Follow Deadbox Mike on Twitter: here
Remember to check out our first premium bonus episode here: Cujo Commentary
Follow Movie Podcast Weekly on Twitter: @MovieCastWeekly
Follow Joshua Ligairi on Twitter: @IcarusArts
For horror fans only: Listen to Jason (as Jay of the Dead), Josh (as Wolfman Josh), and former MPW guest Kyle Bishop (as Dr. Walking Dead) here: HorrorMoviePodcast.com
Check out Jason and this week’s guest, Keith Stein, on: The Donut Show
Listen to Jason, Josh, and former MPW guest Jeff Hammer on Movie Stream Cast here: Movie Stream Cast.com
Special thanks goes out to singer-songwriter Frederick Ingram and the voice talents of Midnight Corey Graham from The Electric Chair Podcast, Willis Wheeler from the Terror Troop Podcast and Mr. Ron Baird for their help with our recommendation segment intros.
We’d also like to thank The Dave Eaton Element and Dave Eaton himself for the use of his music for our theme song.
If you like what we do here at Movie Podcast Weekly, please subscribe and leave us a positive review in iTunes. If you want to support the show, we have PayPal buttons in our right-hand sidebar where you can make a one-time donation or you can become a recurring donor for just $2 per month. You can also check out our Premium podcasts, available at BandCamp for a minimum donation of $1. Lastly, remember to start your Amazon shopping here by clicking through our banner ads at no additional cost to you.
You can always contact us by e-mailing MoviePodcastWeekly@gmail.com. Or you can call and leave us a voice mail at: (801) 382-8789. And you can leave us a comment in the show notes for this episode.
Thank you for listening, and join us again next Monday for Movie Podcast Weekly.
Oh, man. Jason, you sound so tired in that intro. Did you record that last before you posted the ep? You need get your beauty rest, buddy.
That’s just how my voice sounds in the morning before it’s warmed up. “Just call me Barry White, of the morning, Angel…”
Next time, let’s try “hello Clarice…”
On that Losing body weight topic, René gained and lost weight like crazy between Bridget Jones movies too.
It is funny actors gets barely enough attention to go though the journey to look like a body builder… I am sure the stuff they had to do is similarly challenging.
Totally agree, Que. I don’t know how they do it. Really good trainers, probably. I met a guy who was the personal trainer for Brad Pitt on Troy and was with Ryan Gosling for awhile. He told me some very interesting stuff.
There are also some pretty interesting featurettes on actor weight loss / muscle building on the DVD special features for 300 as well as Blade: Trinity. Apparently, Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Beil ate primarily baked chicken breasts for the entire duration of Blade: Trinity and their sweat smelled like broth. Blech.
Another one that comes to mind is Tom Hanks. He dropped a ton of weight for Philadelphia and Castaway, the latter being really hard on his health if I remember correctly.
Another interesting bit of trivia about Castaway for Jason … the network exec who first pitched Lost claimed in the DVD special features to be inspired by Castaway and wanting to do that as a TV show, but revealed in interviews later that the true inspiration was actually Survivor, because he saw how effective the circumstances were for creating drama. Lost started out great, but unfortunately, could not ultimately live up to Survivor. And Castaway, not even close.
That yong Henry did the same thing for man if steel, he had two tuples shots so he went through the intensive training to look the best possible for that 3 second shot. They ended up shooting those scenes first and when they finished, the director have him a pizza and a donut as reward. And you, Josh, didn’t even go and see it.
And Jessica Biel looking fit and smell like noodle soup? I don’t see the problem here, do you?
Jessica Biel could pretty much smell like anything. I’ll find a way to never smell again if necessary. Just sayin’.
Lol finally there is a movie I watched before you guys! This doesnt come easy because many movies release are one week behind than US release dates, if not more…. But honestly Thor is not that much of a brag.
Bummer. Well, at least you’ll be in on the conversation!
Yup yup, I will be fully on the page knowing what you are talking about, nod to Andy and roll my eyes to Jason.
Ha ha. I honestly have missed why I earned an eye-roll from you, Que, but that’s OK. Whatever it was, I’m sure I deserved it.
Also, I just saw your very generous donation to Movie Podcast Weekly. Thank you so much. We sincerely appreciate your generosity and support.
Jason
Hi Jason, we all love u. And you know it. Occasionally u can be quite generous to Those dummy popcornies, in my opinion, but we all love you, and u know it. Right? Right?
When I buy things using eBay it takes 4weeks to arrive, when I make donations the thank you note comes in the same day! I guess that means the world need less business, more love,…
Don’t stop the good jobs boys I enjoy a lot of your work. And don’t worry this is not a weekly commitment yet…
If ender’s game on par in weight with no country for old man, then that’s the jackpot, right? Or Mulholland drive?
But I have to agree with Jason here, that preview did nothing to me. It painted a product that’s kids orientated, nearly on Pokémon level.
Maybe I am wrong. I’d like to be wrong here.
Thanks, Que. I know you guys all graciously tolerate me. : )
I agree with your sentiments exactly when you said Ender’s Game’s trailer looks kid-oriented. I still haven’t seen it yet, but I hope all my co-hosts are right about it. I will view it with an open mind, but I predict my rating will be a 5 ( Rental ).
And yes, I’m often surprisingly kind to popcorn movies (such as “Escape Plan”), but I fancy myself a film critic who still loves movies. The late, great Pauline Kael once said something like, “Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them.” I totally agree.
Jason
hi Jason,
we all love to sit down watching things blow up in silliness from time to time. good fun when the company is right and mood is right. i am sure we all love KFCs or Pizza-hut from time to time, we wouldn’t call them state of art dining though. Foodie version of Josh will tell you that you need that saffron and truffle oil to go with shiittake mushroom foem and Fleur de salt so it can be called art, but they are less likely fun. Often not much fun at all.
:o) I think the trick here is when you give those burger king meals higher mark, it gets confusing when people like those cousins of mine were looking at it; without your additional lines such as “however I had good fun watching it with my kids so I am going to give it 7.5 and this is definitely rental for most of the people”, because if you put 7.5 on both wagu beef Carpaccio and Mac’s cheese burger, it is kind of confusing … right?
Actually i am going to watch Blade Trinity with left-over watermelon and bowl of fish fingers from yesterday; between you and me we could certainly call that a 10/10 Friday night experience but Karl will have issue convincing his wife that is what they should go for for their wedding anniversary day.
fragmented thoughts… but I think i got Karl’s better half on my side on this one. :oP
Blade Trinity is as good as the other two films in my opinion. I don’t get the hatred. Again though… Jessica Biel.
I’m with you on that, Hammer. Well, both of those things. I love a good Biel as much as I love a good truffle. Both tasty and delicious. And Blade Trinity gets dumped on way too much. As someone who is about a 6 on the first movies, I don’t see why the 3rd is any worse. In some ways, it is my favorite because at least Ryan Reynolds adds a fun element.
Hey! I like a good popcorn movie as much as the next guy, Que. I just don’t like a bad popcorn movie as much as the next guy. Especially if the next guy is Jason.
Wait until you guys see the cooking show I am pitching right now. It is truffle oil meets high adventure!
Honestly I think that Trinity is way more fun than the other two but I would probably be at about a 7 on all three. I can’t believe you agree with me on a comic book movie I don’t hate. 🙂
Josh, you railed against Dust to Glory then gave it a measly 1 point less than Nitro Circus, a film you started by saying you really liked. Just giving you a hard time, but it sounded like there should be at least a 3 point difference.
Karl is totally right. I think if anyone can just watch Kimberly Peirce’s Carrie side by side with De Palma’s and not take away significantly for the mere fact that it is a remake, then the only logical conclusion is that this version is a far better film. In both versions Sue Ellen and Tommy’s act of kindness is misguided (imo) but in De Palma’s it is downright nonsensical, perhaps this is to throw suspicion on their involvement for a while, but it just doesn’t work well without understanding their motivation. What I think is so much better about this version is having the understanding of where Tommy and Sue Ellen are coming from makes you really think that Carrie was about to turn a corner if not for this prank. So where De Palma’s version in my opinion is mostly a revenge film, this version feels much much more tragic to me. I’m also amazed by how much this film had my emotions mimicking other kinds of films. It had moments of serious drama, the awe of a super hero origin story and you know when you actually allow yourself to watch one of these silly feel good movies like the Footloose remake? And you get that dumb giddy feeling in the pit of your stomach? I got that feeling in this movie when Carrie danced with Tommy much like when Miles Teller’s character learned to dance in Footloose, again making the film more tragic. I also think the car revenge scene is better. And finally this film is barely longer than the original but fits so much extra information into the film that I’m really amazed, especially since as Josh said, it was basically a scene by scene remake. I’d also give this one about 1 point higher than the original. Also William Rowan’s comment about how he likes some remakes seems to indicate that he’s okay with films from the 70’s remaking 20-30 year old films, which makes sense. But that’s what Carrie is doing for this generation. I wonder if 30 years from now these remakes will be more respected than they are now, just like The Thing? Certainly not as much so, but will people 30 years from now see De Palma’s Carrie as better than Peirce’s? I sincerely doubt it, same goes with Evil Dead. Eventually the originals will get dated to the point they are as old to people as universal monsters and Vincent Price films which have an audience but just aren’t going to be widely heralded as great films that hold up for modern audiences. And this Carrie will be nostalgic to those who grew up in the 90s and 2000s.
I will respond to your Carrie comment when I have a minute to give it proper treatment, Hammer, but just to say something quickly about the your Dust to Glory / Nitro Circus comment, the difference for me is level of difficulty. With Nitro Circus, you have an established group of friends all getting paid a ton of money to do goofy stunts and basically have a party on camera. So, you have their full cooperation, they’re doing re-takes, the amount of crew and coordination is relatively small on more than half of the stunts. They barely eek a full-length movie out of it.
With Dust to Glory, you have a logistical nightmare, hundreds of racers to follow, and you’re following this thing at night, in harsh conditions, as it is happening, trying to track these guys that can go WAY faster than you, and you only have one shot at it. Then, you have to try and weave all of the craziness together into something watchable, which they did.
Now, I think Dust to Glory isn’t extremely successful as engaging storytelling, but their level of difficulty is so high, I cut them slack on their middling execution. With Nitro Circus, the stunts are insane, but the filmmaking is relatively simple. They aren’t striving for much, but they execute what they are going for quite well. For me, those extenuating circumstances evens the playing field.
Ambition is a big factor in my ratings, not necessarily in my viewing enjoyment, but definitely in my ratings.
Also, first and foremost, I want to say that the ratings are not as important as the discussion for me. If you listen to what I say, you should get a pretty good idea of what the film is and whether you might like it. The rating is my attempt to quantify a conversation that doesn’t naturally lend itself to that. Layers, man. It’s all about the nuance for me and the numerical rating is often too black and white.
I know, you’ve said this before, just thought I’d razz you about it 🙂
You son of a b$@*#%! I’ll kill you! 🙂
LOL quality forum reading! 🙂