19 thoughts on “Movie Podcast Weekly Ep. 197: The Legend of Tarzan (2016) and The Purge: Election Year (2016) and The BFG (2016) and Jason’s 40th Birthday Bash!”

1. Happy (Belated) Birthday to Jason once again! You are the capital-M Man, Jay. (You can’t be the capital-M Mann, because that’s still Yancy Butler [Super-obscure reference joke!], but anyone who makes it to age 40 is wise and refined enough to not need extraneous Ns anyway.) I haven’t given Ep. 197 a spin yet, but I’m pleased and excited to see that Karl is mini-reviewing both “Downton Abbey” (for the 43rd time) and “The Dream Team” (For the second time in the past three weeks? Or was it GCR or Jay who brought it up previously?) yet again. (Back me up, MPW peanut gallery; I can’t find it in the show notes for previous episodes, but either I was caught in a time warp and listened to this episode before it posted, or Karl just barely told us all about his enjoyment of both “Downton” and “Dream Team.” Am I delusional? Straight trippin’? On drugs? Senile?)

   This morning I finally caught the back half of Ep. 196 and had a blast, especially when “The Shallows” came along and Jay started perving on Blake Lively every other sentence. Especially loved the bit where Karl is trying to give his final thoughts and discuss things like cinematography and acting, and Jay drops about four Blake-tastic wink-nudges in a row before Karl finally picks up what Jay is putting down.

   The discussion of “ID4-R” was also very enjoyable, especially when Jay and Yolo kept slagging Karl for his positive take. Ep. 196 will go down as the show where everyone but Karl hated the cinema, and Andy hated air travel in Alaska (but still loved “The LEGO Movie” and Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart).

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   • Thanks, Cody.
     You’re exactly right. Karl frequently gives us the same Mini Reviews for a few weeks in a row. He will tease buying films A, B and C. Then the next week, he will tell us he bought films A, B and C. Then the third week he will talk about watching A, B and C. Ha ha.

     And it’s not that I was “perving” on Blake Lively. I just like to make the audience aware exactly the sort of content they’ll be seeing if they watch a particular movie. (But did I mention that Blake Lively looks amazing in “The Shallows”?) Ha ha. Shut up, Cody — Natalie agrees with me…
     : )
     J

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     • My wife and I sided with Karl on Blake Lively in “The Shallows.” Sure, it showed a lot of skin, but there wasn’t slow camera pans across her body while sexy music played in the background (ya know, like when Megan Fox fixes cars/motorcycles in Michael Bay movies). There were a few body shots, but mostly it was just a girl surfing. And when girls surf, they where swimsuits, not rain ponchos. Sexy moments to be sure, but it could have been a lot more gratuitous.

       But J, I totally agree with you on the shark. There were some spotty CGI moments late, but mostly the shark looked great. I do wish it was perfect throughout. I can’t understand why we can have a photo-realistic tiger in “Life of Pie,” but not a photo-realistic shark. “The Shallows” and “Kon-Tiki” are the best I’ve seen recently in the shark department.

       Funny side note, we asked my sister-in-law if she could “watch our kids while we go to ‘The Shallows.'” Her face went red and she got all flustered. After some prodding we realized she thought we said “watch our kids while we go to the showers.” Proper diction is important, apparently.

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     • Great show this week, Jay. Enjoyed hearing your extended discussion of “Tarzan” with your mom, who also made a strong appearance in your review of “The BFG.” I gotta say, though, what would Phyllis think of Movie Pervcast Weekly if she’d heard your crack about paying for a full-service Disney princess experience at Disneyland? Isn’t MPW a family friendly show, brother? 🙂 Suddenly we have Andy making cracks about Karl’s anniversary, and GCR dropping the M-word into a discussion of sitting too close to the television. You’re making it awfully hard for Vance to keep listening with his children.

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       • For real Cody! Gathering around the ole’ podcast-radio with the family has been increasingly uncomfortable. My 5 year old is asking a lot of tough questions about killing Kanye, Disney princess prostitution, and what mommy and daddy are up to during anniversary celebrations–and if it is only a 3 minute celebration or longer?

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2. There’s plenty to bring up regarding martial arts flicks from the past 30-40 years or so, but I think we’d all be remiss without mentioning the Muscles from Brussels:

   Jean-Claude Camille Francois Van Varenberg

   Any of his movies, really, should be exalted and are Damme fine. The action is Damme good and the fight scenes are Damme impressive.

   Much like the previously mentioned Seagal, JCCFVV even made the same movie twice….and it was great both times!!!

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   • Gomez, yes!
     I know people will say “Bloodsport” (1988), but:

     ***Favorite Van Damme: Death Warrant (1990)

     Second favorite: Of course — “No Retreat, No Surrender” (1986).

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     • Respectable choices, to be sure.

       Best credit (uncredited) for our man Jean-Claude tho, goes to way down on his IMDB page saying he was a spectator in Breakin’. Oh man, don’t think it gets any better than that…I gotta find that on YouTube!!!

       I had a similar experience to Ry’s. Ol’ Papa Gomez would sit me down for Samurai Sundays to watch a flick or two (or was it Saturdays?). Either way, one of my favorites was Kid With the Golden Arm. Some many other good ones tho. 🙂

       Happy Belated, btw, J!!! I hope you had a good one. 🙂

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       • Oh…that was easier than I thought it would be….maybe easier that it should be… 🙂

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1mqHPjvHVU

         This is like Nutella and toast….like red wine and Tombstone pizza…ketchup and scrambled eggs…two of the greatest things from our past, combined to make a fantastic pairing!!!

         Alright, alright….I’ll settle down. 🙂

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3. The story about Andy’s 911 call reminded me of a similar experience I had about 12 years ago when my wife and I lived in a small condo literally about 300 feet from the Towne Centre mall in Provo. We had gone to bed around 11 p.m. on a cold night in January. Just after falling asleep, I get jolted awake by an enormous boom and a blinding flash of light. Being a child of the ’80s, my first thought was a completely irrational “Red Dawn”-tinged vision of Russian paratroopers starting World War III. I come flying out of bed, and just as my feet hit the floor, there’s a second boom and another flash of light. Suddenly my head clears enough to realize that it’s Provo city officials shooting off fireworks for the First Night celebration. There was some weird delay that year (probably because Dec. 31 was on a Sunday, or something), so it was actually a day or two after New Year’s Eve. We’d gone to bed not even thinking about the town festival. The fireworks team was launching from the mall’s north parking area, so the explosions were literally directly overhead. Loudest fireworks display I’ve ever heard.

   Also, though I know there’s a separate standard for discussing the quality of martial arts action movies generally, and for this episode in particular, I gotta disagree with Karl. “Kiss of the Dragon” is a sucking pile of suck. I actually saw and reviewed it as a new theatrical release in the dawning of my film critic career. What a waste. Jet Li is great at fighting, but terrible at acting, especially in English-language films. A better English-language Jet Li vehicle is “The One,” which came out the same year as “Kiss of the Dragon.” It’s still pretty dopey, but much more fun, especially since Jet Li mostly fights himself (“Finally! A worthy opponent,” to borrow a line from the awesomely excellent “Kung Fu Panda.”) My favorite Jet Li movie is the period adventure epic “Hero” (that’s the English title), which has some truly breathtaking fight scenes.

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   • You know, for a movie as terrible as “Red Dawn,” it sure did leave an impression on kids of the 80s. I remember checking the skies more than a few times as a kid to ensure that there weren’t paratroopers coming to shoot up me and my classmates.

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     • Thirty years later, it’s easy to forget now how much genuine “World War III” paranoia there was floating around in the 1980s. Everyone was feeling it. I mean, Sting, who was a supposedly rational adult at the time, actually wrote and recorded a song titled “I Hope the Russians Love Their Children Too.” It didn’t take much to set people off.

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       • I totally wanted to dig out portions of the front lawn, hide in the hole and then cover it with the grass I’d removed so I could pop out and get whom-so-ever had the ill-fortune to invade our yard with my machine-cap-gun. Poppa Gomez wasn’t too keen on that idea… 🙂

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4. It was great to have your Mom join in, J. But now it makes me feel bad for the song I sent you for episode 200, knowing she may hear that. J’s mom, please know that it’s all meant as satire, and I only roast your son because of the great appreciation I have for him. 🙂

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   • I haven’t heard it yet, Eric, because I’m saving all special Ep. 200 e-mails and voicemails to be enjoyed LIVE on the recording.

     But not to worry … my mom will probably be encouraging such a roast. Plus, we take jabs at you in Ep. 198, too. ha ha
     J

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     • Ruh roh. Ha, I can’t wait. 🙂

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5. Hi Everybody,

   Here is Episode 198:
   https://moviepodcastweekly.com/movie-podcast-weekly-ep-198-the-secret-life-of-pets-2016-and-mike-and-dave-need-wedding-dates-2016-and-swiss-army-man-2016-and-carnage-park-2016/

   And by the way, even though I’ve been releasing these episodes late, we’ve still been recording on schedule. Therefore, today is Sunday, July 24 (Pioneer Day in Utah). Tomorrow — Monday, July 25 — is when we’re recording MPW Ep. 200. If you were planning to send any e-mails or voicemails for that episode in particular, please get them to me right away. : )

   E-mail: MoviePodcastWeekly@gmail.com
   Voicemail: (801) 382-8789

   Thanks!
   J

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6. Hey Ryan, I’ve got a follow-up to the Disney Experience that you shared. So yeah. My daughter (we’ll just refer to her as “The Princess”) ‘Is fresh back home from a year at DW Florida. I start telling her the story as closely as I could to the way you told it on the show. I get to the part about Samantha. And she said; “I know what Samantha’s going to do.”

   And I made her tell me; “What? What is Samantha going to do?”

   The Princess; “She’s going to get those little girls some fast-passes to see the princesses.”

   Me; “Yes! Yes! That’s exactly what she did! So the question is…”

   The Princess; “Ryan wants to know if Samantha is undercover or something.”

   Me; “Wait.”

   The Princess; “Samantha is exactly what she appeared to be. Not undercover. Just “park service” or whatever it said on her name-tag. Everyone at Disney has the same job. #1 Safety. #2 Happy. That’s it. The employees really genuinely want you to be happy while you’re there, and there are simple ways to do that. Any employee can do it, and you wouldn’t believe the kind of behavior that knowledge leads to. Grown people. Whining, complaining, demanding. Going out of their way to be UN-happy. Spending all their magical day trying to work the system. But we don’t let them bother. It’s a magical day. Just be happy to be in the Kingdom.”

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   • Wow! Jenifer thank you so much for the update.

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