21 thoughts on “Movie Podcast Weekly Ep. 184: Eye in the Sky (2016) and I Saw the Light (2016) and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (2016) and Against the Wild: Survive the Serengeti (2016)”

1. “— Ryan falls asleep and snores on MPW.”

   Sounds like MPW is going to be just fine when Andy is off in Alaska during the summer.

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   • Not even ashamed

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2. Hello MPW,

   Great show and great send off with Ryan snoring away.

   Have to agree with you Batman VS Superman Dawn of Justice, was just okay and if you not a DC guy you may not like it. Two things I did not know until I read them later on in an article is that Jesse Eisenberg is playing Lex Luthor’s son and trying to live up to be his father. It is missed the first time but when explained to me it made more sense to me the way he was. Also in the dream sequences to my understanding is that the Flash can go back in time and see different realities hence in the dream Superman is fighting Batman and there are Superman guards fighting him. Also that is Flash telling him that Lois Lane is the key and to get her help. A good example of this alternate universe and is streaming on Netflix is the Movie “Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox ” It makes more sense after watching that. Once again I am no DC fanboy but after having a better frame of reference to the DC universe it made the movie more enjoyable the second time around.

   I was also shocked you did not have Willis on the show when reviewing it. I would love to hear his thoughts on the movie as well. Anytime there is a Super Hero movie on you have to have him on there……

   As for movies this weekend I saw, I saw “Midnight Special” looking forward to your review on this. As for me I am giving it a 5 and to avoid. I had such high hopes for it because I love the cast but it was such a disappoint with a very slow pace movie and some very huge plot holes. I have to say it may be on my list for one of the worst movies in 2016. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

   Enjoy your week and have a great Garfield Monday

   Mario (LOON) Leon

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3. Still not convinced that Andy shouldn’t check out BvS. Again, the dude gave “Man of Steel” a 9 out of 10, wants his superheroes to kill, and I think I remember him appreciating Nolan’s Batman trilogy. I’d submit that Andy hates colorful, toothless Marvel superhero movies more than just superhero movies in general.

   Andy, you’ve been officially challenged by a listener to watch this movie. You can wait until it hits Blu Ray, but add it to your homework list.

   Okay, now I’ll drop this whole BvS argument thing. It’s silly really. I’m a grown man after all. But Jay, I’m with you. For some reason it has been on my mind a lot, fascinating stuff.

   And thanks to Ry for mentioning Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast. I started listening the other day and it is phenomenal.

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4. Jay, isn’t Return of the Jedi your favourite Star Wars movie? The one with the second Death Star that’s really, really similar to the first Death Star. Why does ROTJ get away with such gross repetitiveness while TFA is the constant target of your denigration even though its own incarnation of a Death Star is actually far more removed from the original than the second one was.

   Why is one unoriginal movie in the franchise acceptable to you while another is not?

   Originality isn’t dictated by plot. Star Wars itself is far from original when it comes to narrative structure. But originality can be achieved by introducing unique characters/visuals/ideas to otherwise tried and tested stories. And that aside, originality is far from the be all and end all of cinema. Why let an obsession with one facet of a film ruin your appreciation of a fun, action packed, emotionally charged, well acted, beautifully realised adventure?

   In short; why do you hate the cinema, Jay? Why?

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   • I was thinking the same thing about ROTJ while listening to the show, and I second your thoughts on originality. TFA shows us a lot that we haven’t seen before. We see a Stormtrooper take his freakin’ helmet off! We see another Stormtrooper who is a woman and featured prominently in the story. We see a villain who is actively fighting the pull to the light side. We see a female protagonist who is the most capable person in the film.

     Plus, that red arm on C-3PO.

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   • I’m happy to back Jay on this one. The Force Awakens is a great movie, but it borrows so much from the plot of the original Star Wars! It is a reboot as much as a sequel.

     The second Death Star from ROTJ is mere trifles compared to the plot rehashing that is going on in TFA. I could provide a list, but a quick YouTube search will already provide you with a plethora of videos highlighting all the similarities between the two films.

     The filmmakers could have followed similar themes from the original Star Wars, Flash Gordon, etc., while still providing a bit more creativity in their story telling. But they went the reboot route. I wasn’t a fan of that decision.

     But I can agree that TFA is still a lot of fun, even a great film in my opinion. But when the reboot debate springs up, all I can do is shrug my shoulders and say, “yep.”

     Hopefully Episode VIII doesn’t follow the same story beats as Episode V. (And I want more plot deviation than ‘Luke trains Rey on a mountainous seashore’ as opposed to ‘Yoda trains Luke in a swamp.’)

     Man, it feels so good to debate about a movie other than BvS!

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     • I do agree that the film is as much a reboot as it is a sequel but I believe that was probably intentional given how long it’s been since ROTJ. They definitely decided to play it safe and emphasise their influence from the OT (probably to quell worries that we might have another PT on our hands) but I feel like they were successful in making a good film that belongs in the Star Wars universe.

       I share your hopes that the next one won’t be a carbon copy of Empire but I’m pretty optimistic. In a way I feel like they needed to make TFA so familiar to lay the foundations for some more unexpected stuff. TFA is a transitional film; It would have been too risky to start a new trilogy with a whole bunch of crazy new ideas right off the bat. Better to re-establish the familiar, tried and tested elements and then go nuts in the sequels.

       I just hope they fix Snoke.

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       • One thing we’ve come to learn about Jason over the years is that he’s a stubborn fellow who tends to get hung up on certain elements of films that really don’t seem to bother anyone else (at least not to the same extent). Once he gets on one of these crusades against element X of said film, there’s really nothing anyone can say to sway him from his course. That was the case with Fury Road. And, now, that is the case with The Force Awakens.

         At first I found it maddeningly frustrating, but have come to realize there’s no reason for that – it doesn’t take away from my enjoyment of these films. If anything, with The Force Awakens, it makes me feel a little sad for him that he isn’t able to overlook the similar story beats and fully enjoy the delightful film that it really is.

         And, to be fair, I’m sure Jason feels that same sense of frustration whenever he tries to convince people that No Escape is a horror film… or, even just a good film.

         Of course, the main difference is that we are right.

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       • I wonder if/when we see Snoke in person if they’ll go practical makeup or motion capture. After watching the special features and their reasoning for going motion capture with Maz, my guess is they’ll go motion capture.

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         • I think they need to go with CG augmented practicals or it’s going to look pretty bad.

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5. Ok, I feel mightily compelled to respond to two things mentioned in this podcast:

   1) Karl: Calling Brian Eno, who has been described as “one of popular music’s most important and influential figures”, as that “New Age Ambient artist” seems a slight understatement. Long before his ambient albums, Eno contributed his music to and/or produced albums of, among others, Roxy Music, Talking Heads, U2, Devo, Ultravox, Genesis, David Bowie, Nico, and John Cale. An incredible electronic music pioneer and record producer, many classic albums, such as Talking Head’s “Remain in Light”, or David Bowie’s “Heroes”, wouldn’t exist as we know them without Eno’s contributions.

   For those rusty on rock and roll history, here is Eno at the start of his career and influence in 1973, on stage with Roxy Music, playing their iconic “In Every Dream Home a Heartache”. That’s him in the feather outfit at stage-left, standing by an analogue synthesizer:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G56DaSAeZfM&nohtml5=False

   2) Jason: So you’ve decided to add hating great television to your hate of cinema? 🙂 I mean, I can understand how “Mad Men” might not be to everyone’s taste (although it ain’t ‘soap opera’ – it’s actually fairly literary; heavily influenced by the writings of John Cheever), but dismissing it after the pilot episode? Ay caramba!

   That pilot episode is now considered one of the all-time greats (it’s script is currently studied in many script-writing classes), and it was that Mad Men pilot script that got it’s author, Matthew Weiner, hired immediately as a writer for “The Sopranos” after creator David Chase first read it. Seriously, you’re just wrong about that episode – it’s extremely well-written television. Criticizing it for being “heavy-handed” in it’s realistic depiction of the way women were treated in the office workplace in 1960 is like criticizing “12 Years a Slave” as heavy-handed in it’s depiction of the way slaves were treated in 1860.

   But regardless of your opinion of that episode, I still think passing judgement on highly-serialized dramatic content after watching a single episode of a show is completely fruitless. Would you pick up “War and Peace” (or any well-respected novel), read a single chapter, and then believe that your opinion of it had much weight? One of my pet peeves in podcast reviews is people giving their opinions about TV series after watching a single episode: please, if you want to actually “review” a series, watch at least 3 or 4 episodes to form a cogent opinion. That’s why most content producers send out the first 3-5 episodes to TV critics for review.

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6. Karl mentioned the phrase “dark side of the force,” and that reminded me of this: http://www.slashfilm.com/the-force-awakens-and-dark-side-of-the-moon/

   I doubt I’ll actually watch the whole thing, but there are a few nice synchronous-ish moments in that first eight minutes.

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7. I don’t think the dropoff on BvS for its first Sunday or second weekend is that meaningful, considering how huge it was the first Friday/Saturday. I think more people saw it those initial days than normal and then didn’t on that Sunday or the following weekend. Granted, it deserves some dropoff (as most films experience), and I disagree with Ryan about its general quality (and I think Eisenberg is one of the better things in the film). As you say, though, Ryan, it’s not the worst superhero movie ever, and sure, there could be a little bit of Marvel fanboy bashing involved, but I do think that compared to many Marvel films, it’s not as entertaining… it’s dark and dour and includes too much slo-motion and too many dream sequences. There’s a point where I understand why audiences in general wouldn’t embrace it, aside from any possible flak from Marvel fanboys.

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   • “Entertaining” is a subjective point of view, though. The first knock against BvS that you leveled was that it’s dark and dour, but for people who prefer darker tones in film, that could be seen as a plus. I’m on that side of the fence, and much prefer the serious tone of the first two DCEU films than Marvel’s more colorful, light-hearted tone. It’s all subjective.

     Also, I know many people have noted the frequent use of slo-mo in BvS, but it’s not something that I really noticed. I do agree that there were a lot of dream sequences, probably too many. However, it’s important to note that the dream sequences almost universally served as fan-service for comic book wonks. Of course, that likely won’t work for the majority of the general audience.

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     • Well sure, “entertaining” is subjective. And yes, I have my subjective preference to say that BvS wasn’t as entertaining as I would have liked for the three hours I spent in the theater.

       I think, though, that an objective observation can be made that for the general movie-going audience, there is a certain kind of expectation (justified or not) for superhero films as of late. So it’s not so much the Marvel fanboys being jerky towards BvS, but just the fact that there are have been so MANY Marvel films, and a lot of good and popular ones, that they may have colored the public perception. And by virtue of them having a brighter aesthetic, with some more levity and such, I can understand why audiences at large wouldn’t embrace the dark and dour BvS by comparison.

       I mean, just look at this list…

       Marvel films since 2008:
       Iron Man (x3)
       Incredible Hulk
       Punisher
       Avengers (x2)
       Captain America (x2)
       Thor (x2)
       Ghost Rider
       Ant-Man
       Guardians of the Galaxy
       Amazing Spider-Man (x2)
       Fantastic Four
       Deadpool
       Wolverine
       X-Men (x3)

       DC films since 2008:
       Dark Knight (x2)
       The Losers
       Jonah Hex
       Watchmen
       Green Lantern
       Man of Steel
       Batman v. Superman

       I love the Dark Knight trilogy, as dark and edgy as it often was, and audiences embraced that as well. But by and large, and in particular since Dark Knight Rises in 2012, Marvel has just DOMINATED so heavily. That Marvel list is just full of huge hit after huge hit, often critically as well as commercially. So of course the kind of feeling that those movies tend to generate, and the type of entertainment that those films are, has kind of set a standard that I think audiences at large would tend to reject in BvS. But I think the sheer abundance of them has created a “feel” for superhero films that BvS didn’t deliver. And normally, I’d be all for something being different (some of the Marvel films definitely blur together and seem too similar to me). Just that in this case, the example also wasn’t very good.

       It wasn’t just the slo-mo in BvS (of which there definitely are several examples), but that some of the sequences, especially earlier on, were just slooooow. As if it would create more drama to take extra long to get somewhere or to walk into a potential confrontation. Sometimes yes, that does create more drama, like in a good horror film. Here, it just felt laborious, especially combined with the slo-mo and dreams.

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8. I’m essentially with you on Mad Men, J. I’ve only seen a few eps. It’s okay, and the element of Don Draper discovering the answer to the current advertising problem is really interesting and a cool hook each time. But beyond that, it wasn’t compelling enough for me to continue. It is a good cast, and some moments here and there are nice, even outside of the ad work, but I agree that more of a focus on the advertising side would have been better. Eh, at some point I might watch some more, but it’ll have to be a pretty dry spell for me to get back to that.

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   • “It is a good cast, and some moments here and there are nice, even outside of the ad work, but I agree that more of a focus on the advertising side would have been better. Eh, at some point I might watch some more, but it’ll have to be a pretty dry spell for me to get back to that.”

     That’s a pity, Eric, because it really is one of the top 5 dramas yet produced. And as interesting as the advertising stuff often was (and the show put more or less focus on it at different points during it’s run), you have to accept that the show was also trying (usually successfully, although not always) to be both a historical reflection of the tumultuous decade that started the post-WW II decline of the United States (it starts in 1960 and ends in 1970), as well as a metaphor, as embodied in the character and arc of Don Draper, of how things went wrong. In those respects, it was the progenitor of a new show which was very similar in many respects, and was also well-critiqued and talked-about: The People v. O.J. Simpson.

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     • Right. Watching it, I could definitely appreciate why people love it, and also for some of its social commentary. I think it’s more that for me, personally, I didn’t really resonate enough with it beyond the advertising thing to justify adding it to my watch list. And even the advertising thing is a fantasy of sorts, where Don Draper is sort of a ad-making superhero. But that aspect of it was cool in the way of watching someone like Dr. House or Sherlock do their thing. An exaggeration, but interesting.

       I will try to return to it at some point, it’s just that I haven’t found a good window with my available time and whatever the current shows are that I’m trying to keep up on. Perhaps when the new season of Game of Thrones wraps up, I’ll fit it into that slot.

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9. It’s posted! MOVIE PODCAST WEEKEND! This episode will also explain how you can hear our Ghostbusters (1984) commentary!

   https://moviepodcastweekly.com/movie-podcast-weekend-ep-185-midnight-special-2016-and-hardcore-henry-2016-and-ryan-visits-utah/

   J

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   • Whoa, fast turnaround on that one! I’m not even halfway through the last show. :oP Might have to skip ahead to this one, though. I’m excited to hear it. I hope you guys had a good time. (Duh.)

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