39 thoughts on “Movie Podcast Weekly Ep. 078: Divergent (2014) and Muppets Most Wanted (2014) and The Bag Man (2014)”

1. Yay! I’m excited for next week’s episode. Wohoo! Thanks, Jason!

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   • It’s the least we can do, Rhardo, since you listen to our show. We appreciate you, and we want to show it.
     Jason

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2. Thanks guys. As soon as I get off work tonight I will be making my way to the computer to leave a review and look for a way to donate!

   Oldboy (original) 8.5/10 Rental
   Oldboy (remake) 5/10 Low-priority rental

   Oldboy is powerful stuff as a narrative, very heavy. The remake is less effective, but is, stylistically, very well done.

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   • Thanks so much, B-Rye. We’re very grateful for iTunes reviews. And thanks for posting your ratings on the Oldboy movies. Very interesting…
     Jason

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     • You got your review man. Keep ’em coming for a long time please. Donation coming as soon as I get paid. Sorry it took so long… Busy week. I became a dad!

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   • I’d give the original an 8-9, going to revisit it this week, and looking forward to checking out the remake for Episode 80.

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   • I’d give the original an 8-9, going to revisit it this week, and looking forward to checking out the remake for Episode 80.

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3. Jason: who would you cast as Jesus?

   Karl: probably that guy who played the devil in Prophecy.

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   • I totally agree with Karl, Jeff. I’d cast Viggo Mortensen … (I’d just have to figure out a way to break the news to him that he wasn’t going to be naked in this role). Thanks for writing; we’ve missed hearing from you.
     Jason

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     • It’s not that I disagree about Mortensen. I just think he played Lucifer well, so the thought amuses me. He was sort of a good guy even as the devil though.

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4. Hey guys, I just read a review of Noah that says God is referred to as “The Creator”.

   I don’t mind that. I’m not sure this movie will do it for me, but I do hold out hope.

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   • And that Legends of Oz trailer…I saw that three times in the theater and it looks ATROCIOUS.

     And the trailer for Annie is painful. Cameron Diaz is shrill and cartoonish. The jokes are rotten. The whole thing looks bad. BAD. BAD. BAD.

     Of course, I hate the original.

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     • Hi Levi,
       I’m OK with “The Creator,” too. I won’t see it until Friday, but I’m guessing there are several indirect references to God, as well as other titles. And to be honest, I’m actually OK if Aronofsky doesn’t want to be too “on the nose,” because I actually think that takes away from some Christian media. I give him the benefit of the doubt and hope he just wanted to be a little more subtle.

       Short story:
       I’m a songwriter. In 2002 recorded a CD of my own Christian music that I hoped would have a little more mainstream appeal. So, instead of putting the usual religious iconography on the cover, I put a dead fish, which is a symbol of Christianity. And when you opened the case and saw the CD inside, it had a subtle image of a butterfly, which is a symbol of the resurrection. Well, the distributor said the book stores “didn’t get the dead fish” and just wanted a picture of Christ.

       Nothing wrong with that, of course, but I was betting that some teenagers might be more likely to buy a CD with an edgy-looking fish on the cover.

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       • That distributor was looking at the bottom dollar, wasn’t he? There’s a band called Blindside who put out an album that shows a playground with a little girl standing in the forefront of the picture. And she has a monkey face. It wasn’t even growling or screaming, it was just a monkey.

         The Christian bookstore in our town put stickers over the ‘scary’ monkey face. Seems like someone complained or the owner of the store was just being overly cautious.

         I think some people take pride in being offended or upset as if they’re behavior is what makes them righteous.

         I can’t wait to hear your review for Noah! And I’m going to see Sabotage. From the director of End of Watch? I’m there.

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5. And Jay, as far as Captain America goes, that CGI was wonky. As far as the movie looking like a play, was it the framerate set up for the television you watched it on, possibly? It looks fine on the big screen and great on my tv, but if I were to turn up the framerate feature it would look really weird, like the actors were stomping around on a set. It makes the film look like it’s shot on video instead of film or digital.

   It is a bit slow, but I’ve seen it three times and each time it does get better.

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6. My problem with Captain America us it treads the exact same plot points as Spider-Man up until he goes to war.

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   • i slept through part of the cap america movie in cinema. i however think the coming one will be better.

     and all the superhero startup movies are almost identical plot… they got same problems and the same emotional pathways. it gets boring.

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   • I actually really like the the Captain America origin story as depicted in the film.

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7. Okay. I’ve heard just about enough of this assigned seat crap. Garbage. Never. Shouldn’t happen. And un-American. No way should cinemas have assigned seating. Get there early and if someone moves your jacket while you’re taking a leak, fight them or move to another seat. And as for Frozen… I mean sometimes you have to allow a film to be metaphorical, don’t you? I mean it’s about parents wanting her to repress who she is to avoid harming her sister and she feels she has to push her sister away to do that. Like harboring a secret. I understand if your problem is terrible parents but the girls in my view act like how they might, if put in that situation.

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   • here in Sydney the assigned seats started back to when the second LOTR movie came about, and ever since you will need to pick a seat and stick to it.

     it does create a lot of issues at the beginning a few years, when people didn’t know of the system will enter into the cinema and seat on your seat. that gets annoying when you specifically picked your seat wnating the best results of the sound in the room… some confrontation required.

     here they use that as incentive to lure people to buy tickets online. ‘you can pick your seats’ when purchase ticket online but you have to pay extra $1 online booking fee.

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     • See it is un-American. It’s downright Australian! Just kidding. I just sort of hate it, I like general admission, first come first serve personally. I don’t want to have to pay $1 more to prevent some johnny come lately from coming into a theater after the film starts and taking the best seat.

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       • Somebody send Hammer a Soviet Union flag will ya? 🙂

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         • Oh Hammer… you lack of appreciation for reserved seating reveals your lack of planning. Fortune favors the prepared. I don’t know about you, but I certainly love the extra hours of my life that I get back by not needing to get to the theater early to get a good seat. And, if you’ve ever had to save seats for a large group of people, you’d appreciate assigned seating.

           I will give you that one unintended consequence of assigned seating is that I sometimes pack enough into my life before seeing a movie that I get to the theater in a rush and it takes a few minutes to get my mind settled in to watching a movie. However, as I look back at my movie-going career, I realize that I did this well before assigned seating was a thing, only now I have a better seat.

           Plus, there’s a good chance I’ll fall asleep anyway, so being able to sit at the back protects me from most of the ne’er-do-wells.

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         • This is to Andy but it had no reply button below his response. I guess that depends what you call planning and preparation. For me that means getting to the theater (a place I love to be) early enough to get good seats. Not trying to figure out when I can get online first to grab the best seat. If I have friends one or many of us get there early to save the seats. If someone gets there last minute, sorry bout them. I was just razzing you but I sincerely hope my theatre never uses this system.

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   • My big problem with assigned seating is the spacing. I like picking a seat where I don’t have to sit next to a stranger whenever possible and the reserved seating system, at least at the theaters I frequent, don’t allow for the coveted one seat space.

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     • Exactly, that one problem is enough to say “screw that.”

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     • Just want to get ahead of the battle. I agree with Josh on the Episode 079 argument.

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       • Haha. Awesome. But which argument do you mean? There were so many battles in Episode 79. Curious how many made the final cut.

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         • They all made the final cut, naturally… I did not omit one battle.
           Jason

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8. Karl, I think you need to switch to metacritic. You keep saying things like “that film doesn’t deserve that high or that low a score.” But those scores aren’t an average rating, they are a percentage of people that rate a film either 6 or higher or lower than 6. So my point is that you said Divergent didn’t deserve a 43% but based on your score of 7.5 and Jay’s score of 5.5, the metacritic score would be 65 where the Rotten Tomatoes score would be only 50%. You also said a similar thing about The Lego Movie, that it didn’t deserve a 96%, but the reality is that just means that 96% gave it 6 or over, like you and Jay both did, despite being underwhelmed. I’m only bringing it up cause I’m bad about saying this sometimes too, something like “that’s too high a RT score”, but to say Lego Movie isn’t THAT good, but then give it an 8 sort of seems like you’re saying “well somebody should really give it less than a 6, but I’m not going to.”

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   • Good point Hammer – I was unaware of the “above / below” thing.

     They should change the name to “Above or Below the Rotten Tomatoe” .com 🙂

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     • Yeah. Metacritic is a better barometer.

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9. I’ve never busted anyone’s chops in a movie theater, but don’t invite me to your home to watch a movie if you’re going to yak all the way through it. Especially if your reason for yakking is to provide “hilarious” commentary about the movie we’re trying to watch, and double especially if it’s a movie I think is awesome. I once plunged an entire roomful of a dozen or so single adults into awkward silence by blowing up at them for talking during “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.” A) Save your D-grade MST3K impression for something that’s actually bad, and B) SHUT YER PIEHOLES WHILE I’M TRYING TO WATCH THE MOVIE. Boom.

   Somewhat magically, despite having seen hundreds of movies in theaters in my life, I’ve never actually had the misfortune of sitting within earshot of someone who couldn’t stop flapping his yap in an actual movie theater.

   Interesting that Jay would question the judgment of the woman who complained about this loud writing for daring to reprove a stranger’s moviegoing behavior without knowing whether that stranger is a nutjob. How did that observation *not* immediately lead to a discussion of this recent incident:

   http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/cyfair/crime-courts/article/Movie-theater-argument-turns-deadly-in-Tomball-5324753.php

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10. That’s funny Cody. I’m with you on the home theater experience. I have 4 friends that I grew up with and each year on each of their birthdays we get together for dinner and a movie. The movie usually happened at my house because (up until recently) I had the best home theater. And it’s amazing how many times I have to hit “pause” on the movie cuz one of them is commenting at a crucial moment that they will completely miss a key point in dialog or plot point while they discuss something that already just happened. I gently smile at them and pretend I don’t want to drag them out front of my house and beat them like a baby seal. On the flip side – that is one of the benefits of home theater is that you can pause the film for interruptions .

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    • I actually rarely invite friends over to watch movies. Partly that’s a phase of life thing: Almost all of my friends have small children right now, so you can’t really get together for a movie anyway. Even when that’s not a consideration, though, I find it tends to be the case the people would typically rather talk than be quiet and watch something. In an at-home setting, the movie is almost always seen as being a secondary consideration, even if it was the reason for everyone to get together in the first place. If I want to watch a movie with friends and I expect everyone to actually watch the movie, then we usually man up and pay theater prices. You risk winding up seated near someone with no social graces, but at least within your own group everyone seems to focus more because they had to get a sitter and pay movie theater prices.

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11. Oh crap. I hope I’m not one of those friends that talks through movies. I don’t think I am. I do think I’m guilty of talking TO movies. I sometimes pretend that the characters can hear me saying “NO YOU IDIOT, DON’T GO IN THERE,” or “you are a douche, and she will never like you.” I am almost always wrong about the things I shout, but I feel it somehow relieves me of responsibility for the characters’ poor decisions if I fervently counsel them from the confines of my micro-fiber couch.

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    • you are forgiven if you were doing this in the Muppet movie or Frozen.

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12. Hey guys. Great podcasts lately. I listen because you make me laugh.
    First off, Happy Birthday to Jason’s mother. I like it when Jason talks about seeing movies with his mom. He’s a nice boy.
    Secondly, about the Oscar podcast; (I know I’m going back a few weeks – sorry) I think you fellas are wise to avoid reviewing and critiquing the fashions. You did talk some smack about the lovely and accomplished Bette Midler that I have to take exception to. She is a PERformer and she did, as she ALWAYS does, a great job. Her gown was classy and she got a standing ovation. So there.
    Next; You all answered a question for me awhile back about keeping track of movies one has seen. I loved your on-air response, and wanted to thank you for it. I know you didn’t really plan it out or anything, but I thought your various responses represented some good ideas for a wide variety of people and in a funny way reflected your personalities. A recap; Andy reminded me of the Netflix viewing activity option. Keeps track for you, as long as you watch the majority of your movies on Netflix. I’ll give that a score of Six out of Ten. Jason quickly came up with a simple word doc idea that you could use to sort your movies into the ones you loved, the ones you hated and all the ones in between. Pretty easy, (even for people who “don’t get on the computer much. Remember that part, guys?) Seven out of Ten for Jason. Carl suggested depending on your own (photographic) memory. Nice. I also interpreted this as “Don’t sweat it so much”, which is a tip I really like. Carl, I’m giving you an Eight out of Ten. And finally, Josh, (so practical) mentioned social media and gave several suggestions of sites to try. This is more like what I was looking for. I did some searching around and found that Flixter seems to be the most accessible and adequate enough. Although I didn’t find one that really made my heart beat faster. Nine out of Ten for Josh. The overall winner, though, is probably gonna be Carl. I’m probably going for the memory route. Seems the best. Thanks again for answering my question!
    Oh my gosh. I’ve got more to say! Jason, I’m going to talk to you for a minute. On the week where it was just you and Andy you mentioned the editing that you do on the podcast. I HAD NO IDEA! I’m just a listener, of course. But the fact that I never heard anything weird or even suspected editing is a credit to you. I’m sure it’s a labor of love and I wanted to let you know that it’s totally worth it. Also, I think your new feature reminding the listeners about what’s streaming and available at Redbox is a really good idea. Super helpful.
    Okay. I loved that whole segment about you guys going out the to theatre. Your pre- game rituals, the fight scenes, where you like to sit. (shhhh that’s a secret) I loved all that. My story; I got to go to an early screening of the Hobbit at a Megaplex in the big city nearest to where I live. A rarity for me, for sure. And I just couldn’t BELIEVE the amount of food in there! Whole meals – on trays! I mean – just. Ewww. I thought popcorn and candy were bad. So yeah. I think that food should be outlawed right along with cell phones in the theatre. You wanna eat and talk on the phone? Stay home in your (freezing cold) basement. Sitting in the dark listening to strangers chew and swallow and smelling all those competing aromas – not for me.
    One last thing – I promise. It’s about Andy’s joint review of The Muppets with his daughter. I’m not a fan of “Take Your Kid To Work Day” and also not overly sentimental about children. Also I hate to give Andy any kind of compliment because he’s such a JohnnyHotpants. However, that review was clear, concise, and SOOO well done. She was unaffected, honest and received just the right amount of guidance from the interviewer (her dad). A great addition to the podcast and ugh. I really do hate to say this; A fantastic moment of great parenting, Andy. Well done.
    Okay team. Keep up the good work. Sorry to save up so many comments for so long. Carry on.

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13. Thank you Jenifer! We give you 9.5 out of 10 for being an awesome listener! (only half a point off for misspelling my name – oh vanity! )

    😉

    -K

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