Intro

SPEAKER_06 0:00

This week. Well, we told you we weren't gonna see minions and monsters nor young Washington.

SPEAKER_04 0:08

Yeah, instead we're gonna be discussing our top summer blockbusters.

SPEAKER_06 0:14

And we're back with TV again. We'll be recapping the season three premiere of Apple TV's Silo.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

I guess we should move along and uh make it a blockbuster night, huh? Eh? Uh episode?

SPEAKER_06 0:33

Hey, they can't all be winners. Or blockbusters, I guess. This is we should watch episode 15.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Ashley and so she feels the vibes. It's a night sound.

TOP SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS - *Special Segment* Intro

SPEAKER_06 1:01

It's here.

unknown 1:02

Ooh.

SPEAKER_06 1:03

Some would say that means, and the living's easy. Or maybe time to kick back in and wind. Referencing one of the many hit songs from coincidentally one of the names most associated with summer blockbuster movies. The Fresh Prince, aka Will Smith.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Summers.

SPEAKER_06 1:25

I know we've been a bit vague about what we mean when we say our top summer blockbusters, but since we pride ourselves at being a bit different in the way we review and rate movies, we decided to take the same approach with this special segment.

SPEAKER_04 1:40

So here's a breakdown of how it's gonna go down. As far as the numbers and facts went, we had a list of movies. I'm not sure why the total movie count for the list we had ended up being 234. But what I can tell you is that those 234 movies had the top worldwide box office earnings adjusted for inflation and were specifically released between May and August across 1975 to 2026. With the only caveat being that some movies released prior to 1990 um were only domestic box office numbers. Uh, since that was what was used then, international tracking was quote, incomplete at the time.

SPEAKER_06 2:28

Anyway, out of that list, we've each picked five top movies to discuss. But in an attempt to make things a bit more interesting, we decided to use the loose criteria of movies that just stood out to us on the list for personal reasons. Yeah, I guess that's still really vague. But even if I can't be more concrete about that, because it'll vary from each selection to the next, what I can say is that we'll likely talk about things like why beyond the release date, we think it suits or doesn't suit the summer blockbuster label.

SPEAKER_05 3:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 3:04

Compare our thoughts on the movie at both the time of its initial release and seeing it now in 2026. If it's a franchise film, how has the franchise evolved over the years, our favorite moments from the film, and maybe even why we think our selections were able to be as financially successful as they were to make it onto this list?

SPEAKER_04 3:28

Honestly, like Sush said, the only real criteria was that they were on that list and stood out to us personally for some reason.

SPEAKER_06 3:37

Yep. And with that said, let's kick things off with Ashley's first selection. Yay. I'm gonna say uh in no particular order, but Ashley, feel free to correct me if that's not gonna be the case. Uh yeah, let's go.

TOP SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS - Ashley's 1st Pick: 22 Jump Street (2014)

SPEAKER_04 3:52

Yay! Okay, sushi, I have four words for you. Sun's out, guns out. If you've never seen 22 Jump Street, Channing Tatum spends the entire spring break section wearing a tank top that just says, Sun's out, guns out, man. And honestly, that shirt is basically the movie. It's loud, it's stupid, it's weirdly iconic, and it somehow captures everything I want out of that summer blockbuster. I saw this when my parents were visiting in 2014, and none of us could figure out what to watch. So we just kind of like landed on 22 Jump Street, and holy shit, my parents were dying of laughter. You have never seen Keith Bates laugh like this, Sushi. It was crazy. I was laughing so hard, I thought I might throw up.

SPEAKER_05 4:45

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 4:46

It was just one of those theater experiences where the audience is still laughing at one joke while the next joke is already happening. You got the meat cute joke, you got my name's Jeff, you got Kate Land Kit with the budget, you got Ice Cube, oh my God. Absolutely losing his mind at the parents' weekend. And it never lets up. Now, looking back, I think I finally figured out why I love 22 Jump Street so much. I mean, yes, it's funny, but it might sound a little hyperbolic, but I really believe this movie understands comedy on every possible level. So let's talk about cast here. Channing Tatum is unbelievably likable and somehow one of the greatest movie idiots of all time.

SPEAKER_05 5:36

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:37

So good at being an idiot. Then you got Joe Nahill. He's convinced he's the smart one, which makes them the perfect pair. And Ice Cube might be secretly the MVP because he spends the whole movie trying to have just a normal day while these complete morons destroy his life. Then you've got visual gags, relationship comedy, college jokes, and wonderfully stupid stuff like Peter Stormere just selling octopi out of a trap. Don't know where he got the octopus. I don't care. I want to see Stormare with the octopus, okay? And here's the brilliant part. The first movie, it just made fun of cop shows.

SPEAKER_05 6:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:21

This movie made the sequel itself the joke. So every five minutes, someone is basically saying, just do the exact same thing again. We got a bigger budget. And they really made the trope the joke. I love movies smart like that without trying to convince you they're smart. Yeah. This one is just trying to entertain you. And somewhere along the way, you realize he watched one of the best satires of Hollywood franchises of all time. Now, watching 22 Jump Street in 2014, I just thought it was one of the funniest movies I ever saw. Watching it now. Yeah, the same. The same. It's incredible. The difference is now I really appreciate how incredibly well put together it is. Also, when watching this again, I forgot how surprising it was at the time to see Channing Tatum be this funny.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Oh, yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_04 7:17

Back then, he was like jock dancer guy, sometimes played the serious romantic lead. And now he's one of those actors that I get so excited to see in comedies. And I think that's part of why it became such a huge hit. Whether you're a movie nerd laughing at franchise satire or you're just watching Channing Tatum get shot in the ass, there's something for everybody.

SPEAKER_06 7:41

Also, while you're on that topic, I know that before you had mentioned uh Channing Tatum played a great idiot in this. Oh, yeah. I have a feeling that that somehow also helped them land the role for Roofman.

SPEAKER_04 7:57

Yeah, Rufman, also a great idiot in that. Likeable idiot. Then you've got Fellow Hill who's unlikable but thinks he's smart. You know what, too, is the relationships really matter in this movie. Like I really cared about each sort of combo of people.

SPEAKER_05 8:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:16

Okay. The movie, as far as its success at the time, it opened to the second biggest opening weekend ever for an R-rated comedy.

SPEAKER_05 8:25

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_04 8:26

And Channing Tatum celebrated by sending Jonah Hill and the Sony executives what might be my favorite email from a celebrity ever. Now, we only know this because of the massive Sony hack perpetrated by North Korea. So um that's one hell of a sentence. But anyway, the email basically was all caps lock and said, second biggest of all time, bitches, followed by what appeared to be about three pages of ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Honestly, I mean, damn, I don't think anyone's ever embodied the energy of their own movie so well. Okay, Sishi, I'm so excited to talk about this movie. I'm losing it. Now, this might be my favorite part. For a movie that's completely obsessed with making fun of franchises, they almost pulled off one of the craziest franchise crossovers ever.

SPEAKER_05 9:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:24

The makers of 22 Jump Street franchise were developing MIB23.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 9:32

A full jump street slash men in black crossover.

SPEAKER_06 9:38

I don't even know how they would do that. What would they do with them afterwards? Like, are they gonna neuralize them after this? Are they just gonna like let them remember everything? Because if they don't let them remember anything, they don't get to make references to it in the future.

SPEAKER_04 9:52

Oh my god. Just the idea is so exciting. Yeah, getting Tatum said is one of the funniest scripts even he never read for a third movie, but still, honestly, I would have watched the shit out of it. Oh, yeah, me too. But of course, Hollywood happened, it sort of fell apart. But okay, this is exciting. They're actually making another jump street movie now.

SPEAKER_05 10:14

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:15

Yeah, I had no idea until today, and I have been so happy. So sadly, it's not the Men in Black crossover, but we're apparently getting 24 jump street, not 23, 24. They literally skipped the movie they never made. And apparently the joke is it took us so long to make the follow-up, skip one, which is again a dumb smart joke.

SPEAKER_06 10:42

You know what though? That may even cause people to start researching why this was not the 23rd movie, and maybe eventually they'll petition to get that MIB 23 movie made. You know how it works now. I mean, they got the Snyder cut made, so oh, don't get my hopes up like that.

SPEAKER_04 11:05

Oh my god. So yeah, that is my first pick. Seosh, what do you think of 22 Gemstreak? Do you have any memories of it from when it came out?

SPEAKER_06 11:15

Kate Blanchette with the budget is probably my biggest thing about the dad. Is this the one with Wi-Fi?

SPEAKER_04 11:22

Yes, work hard, yes, play hard, yes.

SPEAKER_06 11:25

I thought that was funny, having been a rave youth. The drug stuff was kind of funny.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

And you were also a computer youth. So yes, I was also a computer youth, so that was also funny.

SPEAKER_06 11:38

But yeah, it was hilarious. And also uh that there's Vietnamese Jesus. Yeah, they have to go to the Vietnamese church and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 11:46

Right, they started out with Korean Jesus in the first one.

SPEAKER_06 11:50

Like got taken back by the Koreans, right?

SPEAKER_04 11:52

Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_06 11:54

Yeah, the Koreans wanted the church back, so they gave it back to them, so they had to go to the Vietnamese uh church, but it's yeah larger, and I remember Vietnamese Jesus looked a lot more luxurious and ice cube but said like his Vietnamese Jesus dripping swaggoo.

SPEAKER_04 12:13

Thank you for saying that. I I really wanted to say, yeah, he was dripped, yeah, dripping with swaggoo.

SPEAKER_06 12:19

So yeah, that those are my memories of that movie, but yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_04 12:22

So incredible. It makes me miss a time when we had massive comedies like that, massive R-rated comedies. I think the last one we got was Naked Gun, probably. And oh, I want more. Give me more. So I'm just excited. I have to take a deep breath. But while I'm doing that, tell me about your first blockbuster pick.

TOP SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS - Sushi's 1st Pick: Men in Black (1997)

SPEAKER_06 12:45

Well, that's kind of connected to yours. I figure I'd kick off my list of top summer blockbusters with the first movie where I was both aware of the term summer blockbuster and saw the movie at the theater during the time of its initial release. That was like I didn't see Will Smith's Summer Blockbuster from the previous year, Independence Day in the theater.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06 13:11

I think mostly because I wasn't sure if I would like it, given that I wasn't anywhere as into sci-fi and alien stuff or horror as I am now. So I don't think I got the full experience of how huge that movie was seeing it at home. I also don't remember Will Smith making as big of an impression on me in that movie compared to Men in Black. I know I found out about Men in Black and was eager to see it more than anything, I'd say, due to how much I liked the Men in Black soundtrack song that Will Smith was given.

SPEAKER_05 13:42

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 13:44

And also seeing some clips from the movie in that. Anyway, I was 15 when I saw this movie with friends. I'm assuming I probably found more value in paying attention to the movie because while I don't exactly remember who I saw it with, I do remember that I hoped they would have had Will Smith's character be a part of the organization, Men in Black, sooner, or maybe even already in it at the start of the movie. I remember early on, I was really like, damn man, let's get it moving. When does he get the suit in the little flashy thing?

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Ah, yeah, those are cool.

SPEAKER_06 14:21

But eventually I got over it uh once we start the scenes with his orientation and stuff, because those are just hilarious. The rest of the movie, I was just hooked and along for the ride. Will Smith, he's just great in this movie. Hilarious plays really well off of Tommy Lee's whole straight man routine. Uh but I'll come back around to him later. For now, let me just talk about the other aspect I loved about this movie, which was just the whole visual style of the VFX costumes and props. Mostly because as someone who hates steampunk shit, I do find it slightly amusing that I was so into this. It's almost like steampunk because it's kind of crosses new stuff with old stuff too. I don't know, but I think maybe it's just because the stuff in Men in Black was shinier.

SPEAKER_04 15:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 15:22

And Steampunk stuff is usually like rusty and brown. So maybe I'm just not into the color palette or something. I don't know. But I just loved how a lot of it was that crossover design from different eras, like yeah, having featuristic components in a car from the previous decade, and the design of the furniture and even the MIB office itself was really cool.

SPEAKER_03 15:46

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_06 15:46

Uh, but yeah, revisiting what I was saying about Will Smith, even though he'd done the Fresh Prince TV series by this point in his career, re-watching this movie today, I will say I did feel that Will Smith had noticeably less presence, I guess, as a movie star in this movie. But I probably attribute uh most of that feeling to playing a character that's just learning his role as a men in black, than actually being new to playing leading roles in movies as an actor. But it was kind of early in. Because what was this, the third summer blockbuster in a row that he put out?

SPEAKER_04 16:26

I think so. It was this.

SPEAKER_06 16:29

It was like uh Bad Boys One, then Independence Day, then this movie. This was the third in a row. So by this point, I think he was getting pretty confident, and it's starting to kind of show in this movie, but you can still kind of tell he's like early on in the movie side of his career. Regardless, I think this role did more than Bad Boys One or Independence Day to showcase how well-rounded he was as an actor.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:54

I mean, for those of us who know him from the fresh breaths already, we know that he's dramatic on that and he has the capacity to do really well. But for people who maybe just didn't know, I think this was like a good opportunity for them to see that. With that said, I think, at least for me, this movie was really what marked him being Mr. Summer Blockbuster. Yeah, it was the third consecutive year. He had a 4th of July weekend film release. And I think also that this was the movie that really got me to look forward to Will Smith being in movies in general for years to come after that. As for Men in Black as a franchise, I mean I still think it looks cool, at least. Even if it doesn't feel as genuine as it did with both Will and Tommy Lee as the leads. I did even see Men in Black International in the theater, and I still watch the 4K Blu-ray at home because it just looks phenomenal.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

It looks cool.

SPEAKER_06 17:57

But yeah, I just didn't seem to care about that last movie as much as I did any of the ones before it. I don't have much else to say about this movie, but I will say that I think it really fits the summer blockbuster label well since it's appealing to a broad audience. Definitely a movie that you could take your family to, or even just hanging out with your group of friends, or even a date. It's really polished, it's fairly original as far as the details go, but not so much as to completely avoid existing character archetypes or stories.

SPEAKER_05 18:35

Right.

SPEAKER_06 18:36

Big budget, which definitely applied in this case. And overall, summer blockbusters I always associate with movies that are more entertaining than thought-provoking or deep in any way.

SPEAKER_05 18:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 18:52

And this is definitely one of those movies. So I think it was a great fit as far as the label.

unknown 18:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:59

Just a really great, super fun movie that I just wanted to start off my list with because I know at some point um the picks are not going to be for uh positive reasons.

SPEAKER_04 19:17

Oh, okay. So you got some stinkers in the list.

SPEAKER_06 19:20

Yeah. Do you have any memories or anything to say about men in black? The first one or the I mean, I just was obsessed with it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:28

Uh I also learned about what is the fair at the very end? The something the world's fair? Yes. Okay. I remember being like, oh, the world fair was in New Jersey. My grandparents lived there. Cool. I don't know why that was a thought that came to my mind at 16, but I was like, I'm connected to this movie in some way.

SPEAKER_05 19:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:49

I thought it was hilarious. I love all the little dudes who are complaining and the men in black office. I love that you've got uh well.

SPEAKER_06 19:58

Your boy is in this too.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

Which which boy? I guess it's so many boys.

SPEAKER_06 20:02

Which of the uh uh damn.

SPEAKER_04 20:06

Oh, Vincent D'Anafrio.

SPEAKER_06 20:07

Yes, D'Anafrio is in this. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 20:09

God, Vincent D'Anafrio is doing something so grotesque and hilarious in this role. He is yucky.

SPEAKER_06 20:19

I always forget that it's him, unless I'm watching the movie from the beginning, because that's the only time where he's really recognizable.

SPEAKER_04 20:28

Yep, yep. He's great. I mean, I love the whole cast, and I just uh I love 90s Will Smith, man.

SPEAKER_06 20:39

Yeah, 90s Will Smith is Will Smith.

SPEAKER_04 20:42

And then you've got Tommy Lee Jones. Oh my god, you've got Tony Shaloub. It's just great. Oh my god, and the little dog, the little alien dog.

SPEAKER_05 20:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 20:52

The little uh this makes me get fired up. I just want to watch it now, but genuinely, I think it's so funny. I really like the director, Barry Sonnenfeld. Yeah, he's someone who's fun to watch interviews with, too. Really weird creative guy, but really love this movie. Yeah. Great first pick, actually. Awesome.

SPEAKER_06 21:14

I can't wait to see who talk about this. Yeah, your next pick.

SPEAKER_04 21:18

Ooh. Okay,

TOP SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS - Ashley's 2nd Pick: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

SPEAKER_04 21:20

so my next pick is continuing on where I talk about the most my summer of summer blockbusters.

SPEAKER_05 21:28

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 21:29

So our next one is Guardians of the Galaxy, Numero Uno. Out of all the summer Marvel movies, this one is my favorite, or at least the one that stole my heart. The weird thing is, I knew it was gonna be amazing. I remember sending people the trailer saying, This is gonna rule. I remember reading interviews with James Gunn, even though I've never seen anything with him before, I just felt like this is gonna be my Marvel message.

SPEAKER_06 22:00

I think that's funny that you say that because I feel like Guardians of the Galaxy is the first Marvel film that I really think a lot of women were actually talking about. Mostly because the soundtrack, there was some hint ahead of time that it was going to be fun. You know, comic books are mostly dude stuff.

SPEAKER_04 22:23

Dudley Dudes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:25

Yeah. But it was the first one where I heard a lot of women were looking forward to it. I don't know if it's because of the raccoon. I don't know. It's because there's a strong female lead that's posted. That's true. That's true. You know, I don't know if it's the soundtrack. Well, yeah, it could have been any of that. Maybe the tree.

SPEAKER_04 22:42

I'll tell you what, for me, it's all of it. The crazy thing is, I was really dead sad. Like, I think this movie's gonna kick ass. And it was still better than my expectations. I saw it two or three times in the theater because I just kept dragging people to it. I had a friend in town. Okay, Michelle, we're going to the movies. We're seeing Guardians. And seeing in the theater was such a huge part of it. The soundtrack just engulfed you. It was really loud, really awesome. And then it just took over the summer. I mean, I don't know if this was your experience, but for me, I felt like it was everywhere I went. That soundtrack was at every store, every radio station. The thing that blew my mind is one time I went to Delilah's, my favorite punk rock bar in Chicago, and all these ornery bartenders were playing these 70s saccharin amazing songs on the soundtrack. Like, damn. And then looking back, I think what set this one apart for me is a lot of summer blockbusters can feel buttoned up. You know, they look incredible, they're loud, they save the world, but you can kind of see the blueprint underneath. Guardians just never feels like that. It feels very messy, but in the best possible way. It's weird and emotional and funny. It's sincere. And it's all those things at once. I think I love it also because the weirdness means something. I know that's something that really connected for me. The soundtrack isn't just there because James Gunn knows how to pick out songs. It's Peter's connection to his mom. She left that tape for him of all her favorites. And then you've got Rocket. He's not just a talking cartoon. Drax, he's not just a big idiot. Brute's not just a tree. Every choice in the movie has an emotional reason to it. They all have real interesting character arcs. The style, too, isn't just decoration. It always kind of comes back to the relationships. That's why I cried during the opening scene with Peter's mom the first time I saw it. You've got this big group of weirdos that somehow ends up making an intergalactic movie with a lot of heart and a lot of nostalgia. So it's just a really interesting formula. Also, in thinking about this movie, I forgot how big a deal it was when Chris Pratt was cast in this movie.

SPEAKER_05 25:15

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_04 25:16

It's a little hard to think back to where he was then. He was just like a lovable idiot from Parks and Wreck. And Marvel's like, okay, we're gonna pay this guy to get jacked for the first time and then have him laid a giant space movie. It's a crazy move. And Dave Batista is so fantastic in this. I'd never even heard of him before, and I was really blown away. You've got Bradley Cooper, of all people, as a raccoon. That was nuts. You've got Benicio Del Toro looking like he wandered in from an art gallery. It just wasn't the same formula. The one thing that was the same, gosh, kind of a generic villain. Real shame because I like Lee Pace so much, but I don't even care because everything else really works. And I'm curious about your opinion, but I think Guardians really changed Marvel, both because it opened up the galactic uh portion of the stories, obviously. Also, I think up until this point, things were a little more grounded. And in this one, you've got the emotional grounding, but then we've got all the crazy stuff: the space pirates, talking trees, raccoons, all of that. I think it proved that you can make a blockbuster about just about anything as long as people care about the characters. James Gunn manages to do something really unique with the Guardian trilogy. I think it's the strongest trilogy in the series. Part of it is because when you step back, you realize he's not really telling three separate stories. He's telling one story of growth over three movies. The first movie, you're finding your family. The second movie, you're realizing that your past doesn't define your future if you don't let it. Then the third one, you've got confronting trauma and moving on. It's pretty insane when you think that this whole thing is just like a crazy outer space talking raccoon movie. But but that's Guardians watching it in 2014. I thought it was one of the most fun superhero movies I'd ever seen. And watching it now, yeah, I think it still is. If you strip away the aliens and spaceships and the soundtrack and the raccoon and the tree, like underneath, it's basically a movie about weird lonely people managing to find each other in a gigantic galaxy. That's a pretty awesome story to tell. And yeah, it's weird, and I love the weirdness, but I I think those relationships are probably my favorite part.

SPEAKER_06 27:51

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_04 27:52

Yeah, so were you big on Guardians of the Galaxy when it first came out?

SPEAKER_06 27:57

I was not as big on it when it was came out. Mostly because I think most of my movie watching for the MCU, at least for the initial two or three phases of it. I still wasn't a hundred percent bought in to the MCU because Oh, no way we had the whole thing with like Thor the Dark World, Iron Man 3, Captain America the first Avenger, which was good, but it just wasn't what Captain America ended up becoming, right? Which I love. And also there was stuff before that. I feel like, sure, you got Iron Man, you got the first Thor movie that was also a big deal. Obviously, Avengers, but like Incredible Hulk with uh Edward Morton wasn't a huge hit.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

Right, right.

SPEAKER_06 28:48

Iron Man 3, some people didn't like. Obviously, Thor the Dark World, I think, was the first movie of the MCU that was really canned, and even MCU fans kind of criticized.

SPEAKER_04 29:00

Did that come out as like a second Avengers movie?

SPEAKER_06 29:03

Yeah. Basically, Guardians was the last movie that Marvel put out before Avengers Age of Voltrons.

SPEAKER_05 29:10

Okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_06 29:12

I think there was still some question for me anyway, as to whether or not I was 100% bought in. Also, at the time, I was a lot closer to the source material. Oh, yeah. At least I cared a lot more. I think it coincides with the time where I was probably reading comics the heaviest. So I think I just naturally cared more about that stuff back then. And for the most part, I think I was the only one out of my friend group that really cared about seeing Marvel.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

Interesting. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 29:42

Yeah, I had one friend that was also interested, but he was a bit younger and I didn't always get to see movies with him. But I think most of my friends who were my age or older than me were not necessarily interested in seeing Marvel Studios films. It was more because I was close to the source material and I okay, interesting. So yeah, I think it's cool that a lot of people kind of got into Marvel movies through this movie, actually.

SPEAKER_03 30:16

Really?

SPEAKER_06 30:17

Oh yeah, that's how I feel is somebody who has been watching them from the beginning and looks around to see who's in the audience. Yeah, I I felt like this was really the movie that kind of tipped things more towards women appearing for it. And like maybe younger people too, even.

SPEAKER_04 30:38

It's interesting. Earlier, I was thinking about the four quadrant movie. Do you know that phrase?

SPEAKER_06 30:45

Uh no.

SPEAKER_04 30:46

So basically, it's a movie that caters to four quadrants. Men like it, women like it, people under 25, people over 25. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_06 30:58

I think I've heard something along those lines before. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:01

Yeah. Of those Marvel movies that we were just talking about, the ones that came up until this point, I really agree with you that this is the first one I would say as a four quadrant in terms of age and appealing both to men and to women. So I think that's a really strong observation that I hadn't thought about.

SPEAKER_06 31:21

But yeah, overall, I feel even though I wasn't really as eager to see it, after seeing it, I did quite enjoy it. Definitely a lot more than the lesser films up until that point, which would be Thor of the Dark World and Iron Man 3, probably for me. Then I think at this point, or at least soon after this, because once we hit Age of Ultron, I'm like, forget that first Avengers movie, man. That's like schlock compared to the last one we got. Like we got Winter Soldier, which updates Cap's suit for God's sakes, finally. And then Age of Ultron kind of rebalances that out. The classic suit elements back, but they're kind of combined with the stealth suit he was wearing for most of the Winter Soldier. So I feel like once we hit Age of Ultron, it definitely started feeling like things were taking off. But as I'll mention later when I talk about one of my other picks, there definitely was a point where I'm like, oh yeah, we're coasting. Yeah. Like, forget it. They can't be stopped. It literally could throw anything at you. There's like 10 years of this certain point in the timeline of the world, you know, in the greater zeitgeist with Marvel Studios. We basically were willing to take whatever at that point. Uh that I'll talk about later. But with that said, uh let's move on to my next

TOP SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS - Sushi's 2nd Pick: Spider-Man 3 (2007)

SPEAKER_06 32:54

Spider-Man 3, which came out back on May 4th, 2007. It's actually one that made it to my top summer blockbusters list because of how much I took issue with it. At least around the time of the initial release.

SPEAKER_05 33:10

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 33:11

Yeah. Uh, it's the third movie in the original Raimi Spider-Man trilogy. I think my biggest issue leading up to seeing the movie was Topher Grace being cast as Eddie Brock, aka fan. Uh, at that point, he was mostly known for being on that 70s show, which I really disliked.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:28

Probably an unpopular stance to take at that time. But I think as an angry teenager, I was more bothered by people not being motivated to change the drug policy in our country.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06 33:40

Being the way it was at the time, while also seemingly being okay with humor rooted in activities relating to drug use. So sure, I get that they got around censors with the whole having them do the circle shot thing. But yeah, that was kind of my frustration with it. And maybe that carried over to Topher Grace as an actor.

SPEAKER_04 34:03

Oh, definitely.

SPEAKER_06 34:04

Because he was associated with that show. But honestly, I think my beef was just with him being physically the wrong kind of shape and just not being able to portray the same type of personality and attitude as Eddie Brock, Venom from the comics. All I know is I definitely remember a very specific hatred of that movie even before I saw it. But after I saw it, even though it eliminated any doubt that my hatred was justified, it almost made me come to this realization that as a comic book fan, maybe I needed to know when to stop making excuses for movie studios. For context, at that time, Marvel properties in the movies outside of Spider-Man weren't really delivering their best. We were getting released as like Daredevil, Electra, and the Fantastic Four with Jessica Alba playing Storm Invisible Woman. DC actually almost seemed more promising at that time, given that MM begins had come out a few years prior and the Dark Knight would eventually come out the following year after this. While I'm on this topic, though, I did want to mention one interesting realization that I came to while I was researching this stuff.

SPEAKER_04 35:41

That was a crazy movie year.

SPEAKER_06 35:43

Yeah. So going back to what I was saying before about Spider-Man being the only successful Marvel character at that time, it was just kind of an emotional roller coaster for someone who was really into comic stuff.

SPEAKER_05 35:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 35:58

Nowadays, especially with more insight on the development of this movie, I kind of understand how we ended up with what we did for the most part. Yeah, it's honestly just hard for me to understand what could have led to the whole Peter being an unconvincing ladies' man after being taken over by the symbiote, and also why they kept allowing Kristen Dunce to sing in this movie. Uh, but I kind of have a better understanding of how the casting and story ended up being what it's and I at least feel like I can at least see the value in Spider-Man 3 as a movie alone, even if it's a lot harder for me to see its value as a comic book movie specifically. This was the movie that basically marked the end of the Raimiverse, as some now call it.

SPEAKER_03 36:47

Oh, yeah, I guess so.

SPEAKER_06 36:48

And yeah, for people who don't follow comics, it kind of ushered in this era where Marvel Comics felt obligated to push characters that Marvel Studios own the rights to.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_06 37:03

Like there were clear combined efforts between Marvel Comics and Studios to prioritize the inhumans over the X-Men.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Oh my god, the Inhumans.

SPEAKER_06 37:14

Marvel Studios didn't own the rights to. I have to assume Sony was at least more open to having conversations about partnering for movies than Fox did. Since I don't recall Spider-Man titles being as deprioritized for the comics.

SPEAKER_05 37:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 37:29

And eventually, after the two movie run of the amazing Spider-Man movies starring Andrew Garfield, they did come to an agreement with Marvel Studios to let them use Spider-Man in some movies. Even though I don't necessarily associate this movie or other comic book movies up to that point with their summer blockbuster status. Even if they meet the criteria, I think what comic book movies became, uh especially as the MCU grew and we got more and more movies from Marvel Studios, then DCEU stuff with Zack Snyder kind of running the greater timeline for action movies there, really did end up fitting the typical characteristics we associate with summer blockbusters, like shit, big studio, backing, wide appeal, all those kind of elements. So moving on uh to my favorite or least favorite moments of this movie. I think they're pretty obvious since I've mentioned them already, and they lean heavier towards least favorite, I would say. First, the least, a casting and characterization of Eddie Brock, Venom. No, I'm not gonna say much else about this. I think I need to be clear that Venom is actually one of my favorite Marvel Comics characters. Maybe even was my favorite for a long time. I'm not sure if I actually have one anymore. I think that has a lot to do with why I felt how I did around the initial second least favorite moment. Curst and Dunn singing. But I will say that upon a few rewatches since the initial release, I'm starting to feel like the reason why I felt the singing was so bad was intentional. Part of me has started to agree with others that have argued that it might have since her character in the movie gets let go from the show that she so yeah, something to think about. Third least favorite moment was just the whole thing with how they treated the black suit or the then be it.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 39:33

I didn't like how it basically was just a monochrome version of the existing Spider-Man suit from the movie. Oh yeah, I mean, I was obviously more of a stickler for comic book accuracy back then, and I wanted more plain black suit, I guess. I will admit, even if I found Venom to be too slender for my taste, I did think some of the CG showing Tofer's face and the symbiote suit looked kind of cool. And then I will say that my favorite, or if the most positive aspect of this movie for me was the Sandman story arc.

SPEAKER_03 40:07

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 40:09

Yeah, I think if I were to highlight any aspect of this movie being a positive, I could admit it was likely that story arc, even though I don't think Raimi did a good job conveying the changes Peter's personality went through when he bonded with the symbiote as seriously or as deeply as I'd like to. Honestly, for a character like Venom, I remember personally feeling like they should split it into two movies. One to handle Peter dealing with the symbiote, then another with Eddie getting it becoming Venom and Peter having to face it. But I think the handling of the Sandman story in this movie really made up for it. And Thomas Hayden Church probably got me to care about the character more than I ever did reading the comics or watching the Mary Spider-Man cartoon with that character in it. And then my second favorite kind of positive thing was thinking Toby Maguire is Spider-Man and Peter Parker interacting with others outside of his primary circle of family and friends. Yeah, one of the things I really enjoyed most about Toby's portrayal of Peter was that even when he's gone off to college and moved out on his own, there's still a real sense of innocence and naivety, this wholesomeness that definitely wasn't carried on by Andrew Garfield. And while it's kind of present in Tom Holland's portrayal, still seems much more encapsulated in this specific trilogy of Spider-Man movies. But I think at this point in the evolution of live-action, Spider-Man, and comic book films, overall, I actually feel like I enjoyed the Remy verse and Toby Maguire in the Peter Parker Spider-Man role over Andrew Garfield. I mean, admittedly, I think Garfield was too cool of a Peter Parker for me.

SPEAKER_04 41:56

Yeah, he was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_06 41:57

But yeah, even with that said, I'll say that Tom Holland is probably the best portrayal of Spider-Man I've seen across live action and animated films. But yeah, this pick was more of a stand-up because of how strongly I felt about it at the time. And I guess it kind of did just maybe make me feel unhopeful about Marvel-based movies for a while, but that was quickly changed because the following year was Iron Man.

SPEAKER_03 42:26

So yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_06 42:28

Yeah, that changed real quickly. Once Marvel Studios was established as a thing, there's no way that I would ever worry about it again that at least they had their hands on.

SPEAKER_04 42:38

So and I have to say, this is the Spider-Man movie that I have the least memory of, probably of the series. It's probably a good thing, though. Yeah, I think so. Because yeah, the first one, you know, well, it's the first one. The second one, is that the one where he does the the beatnik snapping while walking down the street?

SPEAKER_06 42:58

No, that's the third one.

SPEAKER_04 43:00

Oh, never mind. I love the third one. Oh, no, I just love that scene. But these movies were so strange because at the time I remember them talking about how advanced the special effects were. And I think that was my initial awareness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 43:16

The second one, definitely.

SPEAKER_04 43:18

Yeah, the first one I remember seeing and just thinking, well, they don't look like they have any weight to them. Then the second movie had changed a lot. And actually, my second uncle, I don't know, used to run a special effects magazine called Sinefacts. Oh. And I remember that they had a big, I think like more than 10-page spread all about the different effects. I thought that was so cool. So I think that was a lot of my awareness of it. Three is very weird. As you were talking about it and just now thinking back, it has so many moments that I'm like, how are those part of the same movie? It's kind of all over the place. Yeah, I do love, however, this. Sandman in this movie. I think he's great, awesome performance, gives you a lot of heart. And he's definitely the character that I was really surprised how happy I was to see him in Spider-Man No Way Home. I was like, oh my God, I forgot I was invested in this guy. All right. But yeah, Spider-Man's Spider-Man's three. You know what I noticed, Souche? So far, all of our movies have been uh part of a franchise.

SPEAKER_06 44:27

Well, that that is a big part of uh what makes a typical summer blockbuster, actually.

SPEAKER_04 44:32

So it really is, because either it's successful and they want to make more money off of it, or they had another one and they gotta make more. Well, it'll be interesting to see as we move

TOP SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS - Ashley's 3rd Pick: Independence Day (1996)

SPEAKER_04 44:44

on. And I've got my next movie, which surprise is part of a franchise. It is Independence Day.

SPEAKER_06 44:55

Oh, yeah. ID4, welcome to Earth.

SPEAKER_04 44:58

Oh yeah. Now I think if someone asked me to define the phrase summer blockbuster, welcome to Earth, I would be. That's all you need to say. I was gonna say I just hand them Independence Day. It's got everything. You got your giant explosions, you got your aliens blowing up famous landmarks, a wildly charismatic movie star, and a president giving the most over-the-top speech of all time. I mean, it came out on the 4th of July. It's literally called Independence Day. It is the ID four deal. It's the ultimate summer blockbuster to me. Okay, there have been many summers of Will Smith, but this one was the year where I was like, wow, he really just stopped being the fresh prince of Bel Air and became one of the biggest movie stars on the planet. It seemed instant. He was just so cool. He somehow even made Harry Connick Jr. seem cool. He's a young guy who's trying to impress your grandma with old-timey songs, you know?

SPEAKER_06 46:02

Yeah, I used to work at the library, so I've seen his album.

SPEAKER_04 46:05

Oh, yeah, you know his ouvra. Is that how you say it? But yeah, there's so much charisma in this movie. And I think the secret as to why it works, Will Smith just keeps it from getting too far up its own ass. Okay. Because everybody else is making these huge speeches about saving humanity. And then Will Smith just punches an alien in the face, wraps it. Yes, yes. He wraps it in a parachute, drags it across the desert while talking trash to it. Like hell yeah. Then you've got Jeff Goldblum doing the same thing in a different way. He's doing the skeptical guy asking all the questions that I would be asking if I wanted the movie to make sense. But guess what? I don't. It's Independence Day. Welcome to Earth, bitch. And I gotta be honest, I miss this kind of blockbuster. Like I know it sounds weird, but I kind of miss the unapologetically patriotic disaster movies.

SPEAKER_05 47:11

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_04 47:13

It's just so out there. Independence day never winks at the audience. It never apologizes for being ridiculous. Bill Pullman's gonna stand there and give a speech about how this is our Independence Day, both from the British and from the aliens. All right. This is a movie that commits with its whole chest. Now, if this came out today, I'd probably spend half the movie wondering what political party the president belonged to and why America was automatically leading the whole world.

SPEAKER_06 47:48

Yeah, at least you're honest about it.

SPEAKER_04 47:50

Yeah. But in 1996, I was like, hell yeah, America, let's save humanity. Also, okay, I gotta step aside from the actual review and talk about a few things. First, Will Smith's character proposes to his girlfriend in this movie with one of the ugliest engagement rings I've ever seen in my life. If you haven't seen the movie, close your eyes. Picture this. You've got two pewter dolphins, 69-ing with a tiny diamond and a thin gold band. Okay? Every time I watch this movie, I forget it exists. And then it's pretty good at SeaWorld. Yeah, I think it did. Oh now, second, I gotta mention the weirdest coincidence of my life happened that summer, or at least the weirdest of the summer. So I have family that lives in Pennsylvania. So we, as you would, take a trip to Philadelphia. We're checking out the various museums. We get in line to see the Liberty Bell. Yes, the actual bell that was rung to announce the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Then I look over, and also standing in line is Bronson Pincho.

SPEAKER_06 49:10

Oh, cousin Larry Appleton. I mean, he wasn't cousin Larry Appleton, but that's what he said. Yes, and Balkie Bartakamus.

SPEAKER_04 49:18

If you remember, Balkie played a scientist in Independence Day, the biggest movie of the summer. It was amazing. I was like, wow, this is the ultimate American summer experience.

SPEAKER_05 49:35

Sounds like it.

SPEAKER_04 49:36

Now, okay, watching it now today, you know, not everything's aged perfectly. Some of the, I'm gonna say, gender mores feel a little dangerous. But honestly, it's not that bad. And I don't care that much because the movie still makes me feel the way I want a summer blockbuster to make me feel. Makes me feel happy and optimistic. Like I know the good guys are gonna win, but they're gonna do it with a little attitude. Okay. There's something comforting there. Now, if we were talking about the best summer blockbusters of all time, this movie would not make the list. All right. But I think when I picture a summer blockbuster, this is just it. It's just loud and funny and crazy. You got Will Smith at the height of his powers, and you've got just so many wonderful, strange, disparate things going on. Um, and then also Sishi, before we move on, I don't know if I've told you this before, but years ago, I auditioned for the role of Jesse Ventura's character in a predator musical. Oh, cool. And for my audition piece, instead of using a theatrical monologue, I performed the president's speech from Independence Day.

SPEAKER_06 50:55

Oh, hell yeah. I could see you doing that.

SPEAKER_04 50:57

Yes. So somewhere out there, another version of me is uh suddenly going, We will not go quietly into the night. That's my best era. Yeah. Out there in the multiverse. And yeah, so I leave you with that. Now, what did you think of this movie? Did it make a big impact on you at the time?

SPEAKER_06 51:18

Uh as I was saying when I was talking about Men in Black earlier, I didn't see this in the theaters. I ended up actually seeing this on home video. I can't remember if uh 96. Yeah, I think I had a DVT player then, if I remember correctly. But anyway, regardless, I saw this on home video. So I definitely didn't get the same.

SPEAKER_04 51:46

Oh, that would be real different. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 51:50

So there's that. But with that said, I did really enjoy it. When I saw it, as I was mentioning when I was talking about Men in Black. I think that also affected my view on Will Smith and how big of a movie star he was up until I saw him in Men in Black. I didn't think he was that that big.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 52:16

I didn't get the same impression that you did, I think, at the time. Sure, I know that he was in Bad Boys, but I still don't think that that was on everybody's radar.

SPEAKER_04 52:26

Like, I think that's like I just was so impressed by him and was just like, this guy is the best. I think this guy's gonna be mass. It was like a precipice.

SPEAKER_06 52:36

Yeah, I think it was mostly because there were so many other big names in that movie. I know Will Smith got top billing on it, but I also felt like he didn't have to do nearly as much as he would as a lead in a different movie.

SPEAKER_04 52:53

The charisma though.

SPEAKER_06 52:55

No, but I'm just saying that's why I feel like I don't have the same kind of memories about Independence Day. I will tell you what memories I do have. Uh, once again, welcome to Earth.

unknown 53:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 53:09

And then also, I do think that there definitely ended up being a stranger than fiction moment that Randy Quaid played a crazy conspiracy theorist type person, I guess, in this movie, and in real life ended becoming a crazy conspiracy theorist person. So, yeah, that is one thing I think I'll always associate with Independence Day and will always give me a reason to kind of remember.

SPEAKER_04 53:45

Roland Emmerich was like, I think this guy's gonna lose his mind in 30 years. Let's have him test out his material now.

SPEAKER_06 53:53

Yeah, I had no idea. It's not like I had the foresight that it was gonna happen based on the role in this movie, but I do think it was interesting how that should be coming.

SPEAKER_01 54:04

Amazing. Cool.

SPEAKER_06 54:07

Independence day ID4. I do definitely remember the producer. It was like the promotion. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:14

So sushi, what you got for us next?

TOP SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS - Sushi's 3rd Pick: Captain America: Civil War (2016)

SPEAKER_06 54:17

Oh, well, from a war uh between humans and extraterrestrials to another movie that has war in its title. My next pick is Captain America, Civil War. Yeah. Released on May 6th, 2016. This movie made my list more due to its significance in my personal life. And maybe comic book movies overall than any feelings specifically about the movie itself.

SPEAKER_05 54:53

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_06 54:54

So I'm just gonna apologize ahead of time if I don't spend as much time talking about the actual movie when I get into it. But the release of the movie took place during my most recent run of consecutive years, I'd say probably between 2013 through 2018, where I kept up with several comic book titles across the two major publishers, Marvel and DC. And I can definitely say that around the time of this movie was probably the time in my life where I was spending the most time in a given day reading comics or consuming other media where it was the main topic or involved in discussions about comics, either in person or online and attending cons. Also, I likely won't forget that all relating to this movie specifically, because my second screening of this movie during the initial release was with some employees and regulars at the comic shop. I picked up all my weekends since we saw it as part of a going away party for the comics manager there at the time. I actually credit that guy for making my return to reading comics really easy. As far as what I thought about the movie specifically, though, leading up to and seeing the movie during the initial release, which I think I ended up doing maybe four times when it was in theaters. And I don't just bring that up to show how obsessive I am over Marvel Studios releases, but because I recall feeling notably different about the movie across at least two of the viewings. That didn't surprise me, though, since I definitely assumed and found out that uh the Civil War that we got in the MCU just felt a lot smaller than the one that took place in Marvel Comics.

SPEAKER_03 56:38

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_06 56:39

Yeah, in the comics, for people who don't know, Civil War involved pretty much all the superheroes across the Earth 616 Marvel Comics Universe, third parties that tried to stay out of the conflict and not take sides. Uh, but in no way did I feel like the comic story was as small as we're gonna have Baron Zemo orchestrated plan that eventually leads to the Avengers disagreeing over whether they should let the government oversee them. And somehow that leads to play fighting it out and an airport, but really all as a setup to finally just drop the bomb of revealing Bucky as the killer of Tony's parents.

SPEAKER_00 57:16

Oh man.

SPEAKER_06 57:17

Even though he was clearly under mind control, right?

SPEAKER_00 57:20

Right.

SPEAKER_06 57:21

And then have the Avengers not getting along so we can rebuild and have them reunite, grow with the addition of new allies, and then eventually take on Thanos a few years in the future. Initially, I felt a bit dismissive about how much civil war as a movie would mean to me, given all that. Uh, but I think ultimately this also became the movie where I kinda came to either understand or maybe give in or accept that comic book movies would likely always require some sort of compromise uh when adapting the source material from the comics. Uh nowadays, I think I appreciate this movie a lot more, mostly because it really was, like some people say, an Avengers movie disguised as a Captain America movie. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 58:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 58:14

Yeah, I mean it was in scale huge when compared to the Avengers and Captain America movies before it, even.

SPEAKER_04 58:23

Right. That's true.

SPEAKER_06 58:24

As far as the MCU as a franchise, I think this movie was definitely near the start of when I felt Marvel Studios was able to just coast with their releases. While there might have been holdouts and arguably bad movies in the few years prior, I feel like this movie and all those that came after it, up until endgame, were at least fairly well made.

SPEAKER_02 58:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 58:52

So moving on to my favorite moments in this movie. Versus the opening scene with Steve and the newer Avengers, where Kickstarter. Man, what a great way to kick off some movie. This is a fucking Avengers movie.

SPEAKER_04 59:08

I know.

SPEAKER_06 59:09

Again, only a cat movie by name. We literally only hit a break with Ant-Man between this movie and Age of Ultron before it. But here we are now, with the whole team opening the goddamn movie.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

So cool.

SPEAKER_06 59:23

The next favorite moment of mine is basically any scene where the focus was on Bucky and Steve.

SPEAKER_00 59:29

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 59:31

These characters are true BFFs in this movie, and each of these guys provides some of my favorite hand-to-hand combat and action scenes in this movie. Related to this, I also thought it was nice that we kind of got a preview of what becomes the great and definitely hilarious partnership between Sam and Bucky later on in the Falcon and Winter Soldier series. The next one of my favorite moments was just the introduction to Black Panther.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:02

Oh my god, yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:04

I honestly thought he was a hundred times cooler in the MCs and then the comics. So cool. Man, Chadwick Bozeman really was a great challah. Yeah. And Marvel Studios costuming did a great job with that design.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:18

Same goes with the costume for Spider-Man, which is like the next thing that I wanted to talk about, whose introduction scene was definitely one of my favorite moments. Like, it's the first time I really feel like Peter is a teenager, not someone in their 20s or older playing a teenager, but probably because Tom Allen was still 19 at the time. And then my absolute favorite moment, and I think the one that really got me to just be okay with the compromises that sometimes need to happen with these comic book movies, was the climax of the movie where Cap is shielding himself from Iron Man's Repulsor Blast. That shot is taken straight from the cover of Civil War number seven. Oh, cool. That was drawn by artist Steve McNiven. It's fucking amazing to see it in live action.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:10

That's so cool.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:12

Yeah, it completely blew my mind the first time I saw it. That was one thing that I couldn't argue with about that movie, uh, regardless of how much I tried to, I guess, nitpick it as a comic book fan.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:24

Sure.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:24

We've seen stuff like this happen in other comic book movies where they replicate a famous panel or a cover, but this is one that really made me feel like fuck, these people actually give a shit about comic book readers.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:38

My least favorite moments in this movie, first one having Bucky killing Tony's parents, the nail in the coffin that drives the Avengers apart.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:47

Through Steve and Tony and all the other heroes choosing to side with one of them or the other, and then revealing it as a scheme by Baron Zemo. I think I'm more accepting of Zemo's MCU character, at least now. I think what bothers me most about this plot thread is mostly how easily Tony seems to use Bucky's killing his mom as justification to immediately attack him and Steve. Like even knowing it was kind of science that allowed for the mind control and ultimately his parents' murder stand. It's not like this guy wanted to do it.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:26

He's a victim too.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:27

Yeah. Next thing was while I understand it's because he's only appearing for the first time in this movie. I think throwing out how important Spider-Man's involvement from the comics and having him just be Tony's young recruit because they both love science kind of limited the potential depth of this movie. In the comics, he's the guy who's torn between both sides, but ultimately decides to side with Captain America in the comics.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:58

Yeah. And then the last thing that I kind of didn't like was uh airport fight scene. Honestly, it seemed way too much like let's dump out all the toys on the floor and let them all fight.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:11

Like, why even do this?

SPEAKER_06 1:03:13

Why don't they just decide who to side with based on personal ideology and then wait for something to actually happen before they start fighting instead of having a stupid play fight? They literally talk about pulling punches and shit like that. For a studio that's seemingly taken pride about how down to earth the heroes are in the MCU, how real life the scenarios that these heroes deal with feel outside of the use of superpowers. It just feels weird to have superheroes play fight when maybe they should be standing by for a real threat.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:43

You know what? I was so giddy seeing that in the theater the first time. I mean, it's cool.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:47

It definitely is yeah, let's lay all the action figures out, display them all out.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:53

It's a visual way of showing alliances. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the main reason that story-wise, they bring it down.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:01

Yeah. No, I got I understood the point behind it. I just feel like as somebody who read the comics and how much that meant to the overall Marvel comics timeline and how much smaller this seemed in scale, and at least in reasoning, I think it was just those kind of things that bothered me, if anything. But overall, I do think the movie was great. And looking back now, I definitely feel like it's one of the better Avengers movies.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:33

Yeah, I love that movie because sort of the central stories, you know, Tony and Cap, I do think I really agree with you that the thing that sets it off, I wish it was something else. But I do think that both of them are very good at loving each other, you know, as as colleagues, as people, but coming to this conflict and seeing the way how disagreeing with someone can completely change how you feel about them. And just all the side characters, and oh my god, like you were saying, just Black Panther is incredible. Oh, and my Ashley's stunt corner, the Captain America and Bucky scenes where they have those fights were primarily choreographed by 87 Eleven. The stunt team that now is a production company that makes the John Wick movies. Right. And uh Captain America actually during this uh phase was played by Sam Hargrave doing his stunt as his stunt double, who went on to direct the extraction movies.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:38

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:39

So just a little fun fact for you there.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:41

Cool. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:44

You're welcome.

TOP SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS - Ashley's 4th Pick: The Dark Knight (2008)

SPEAKER_04 1:05:46

Okay, well, moving on, I have another comic book movie, but we're moving over to the DCU, DCEU.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:55

It was I don't think it was the DCEU. I don't think there was anything at the time.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:59

It was Just uh a Batman movie.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:05

So my next movie is The Dark Knight. So this one, now this might be a stretch, but I was thinking about it and I was like, damn, most summer blockbusters get to take over theaters for one summer. But for me and for the people of Chicago, the Dark Knight took over an entire city twice.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:30

So the first uh summer of Dark Knig was 2007 when Christopher Nolan turned Chicago into Gotham while they were filming. And then the second was in 2008 when the movie came out, and Batman was just all anyone could talk about. I've never really experienced a blockbuster in that way before. So I just within a year or two had moved to Chicago when they started filming the movie. And because Illinois had these incredible film tax incentives back then, all these massive movies were constantly shooting there. It was like everywhere you go, there'd be like street closures for a movie.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:10

Transformers.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:12

Yes, Transformers. But the Dark Knights was kind of different because it was there for I think five months they were shooting, which is a really long time to be on location. It felt like they were literally everywhere. Okay. These are real things people have said to me. Oh, yeah, I saw the Batmobile by work today. And dude, I saw Christian Bale and Gary Oldman on a fire escape last night. These are literal things in my life, I've heard it was just everywhere. Looking back on it, honestly, Chicago spent two years just being Gotham City, one way or another. Also, I was completely obsessed with this film. Okay. I wasn't just excited for the movie. I was convinced I already knew it because I was living on Batman Forum.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:05

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:06

Oh, yeah. I was in Facebook groups or whatever we had at the time, looking at paparazzi photos to try to figure out what the different sets were.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:15

And wild.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:16

I would watch leaked behind the scenes videos. Like I really thought I had the plot figured out. But uh I did not. Okay. Christopher Nolan completely fooled me, of course. Then this was also one of the first viral marketing campaigns for a movie. Oh right. Oh my god. And I was very involved. So I remember winning a free Domino's Pizza and also I got uh free Howl, Batman Cow and free tickets to see it in IMAX early when it was opening. It was incredible. Oh my god, this contest.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:55

That sounds incredible.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:56

Yeah, the opening weekend, me and my friend actually got to see it early in the week. We drove to Indianapolis because that was the closest IMAX screening we could get to. We almost screwed everything up because Indiana has a different time zone in Chicago. But then also parts of the state don't participate in daylight savings time. So like halfway there, we literally didn't know what time it was. We barely made it, and it was amazing, totally different than what I was expecting. Also, it was one of the first real IMAX movies I saw. Before that time, I think I had only seen an IMAX at a science museum, or I think once at Navy Pier. But it was incredible. Then here's the other thing. I was an extra in the movie. So I spent three days as an extra during the hospital evacuation scene. It was so cool. Christopher Nolan doesn't use a second unit director for crowd scenes. So he literally would be pointing at us and being like, more intensity. I got to see Heath Ledger walking around in his nurse uniform, smoking between takes. Honestly, it was an amazing experience. So then the movie came out. All of this happened, all of this interaction, all this investment happened a year before the movie came out. And it was incredible. It really was. It lived up to the hype and more. It wasn't just a superhero movie. It felt like a great movie. Heath Ledger's Joker is obviously incredible. The opening bank robbery is still one of the best opening scenes ever filmed. Then the whole thing felt a lot smarter than anything else in the genre. The one thing I still don't love, however, Rachel, man. Rachel! Christopher Nolan, listen, he has many positive qualities. One negative is I really don't think he knows how to write for women. And let's just say I was a little more relieved than devastated when her character exited the movie. But looking back, I think Dark Knight raised the bar for superhero movies. Like they weren't just popcorn entertainment. They could be taken seriously. They could be nominated for Oscars. But the other thing is, in a way, it changed my relationship with movies. I think it was the first movie that I really was super interested in before it came out, like a year in advance, super invested. And you know what? I'm still unhealthy obsessed with movies, guys. Yeah, and it's so cool because also I've always associated Chicago with Gotham. I think a lot of people do, but even before the movie, I remember when I first landed here when I first visited, I was like, whoa, it was nighttime, it was raining, you see the city, and I was like, this is Gotham. So it doesn't surprise me at all that they made it here. And yeah, I just love this movie for so many reasons.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:08

Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:08

Yeah, what do you think of it, Sush? Where were you in your comic book and comic book movie journey at the time?

SPEAKER_06 1:12:15

Well, I think the two things that I just wanted to definitely mention is one after this movie was made, Gotham City was used as a nickname for Chicago. Yeah. Sometimes I know as a DJ, there's definitely been some dance music events that I've seen that have been called Gotham or something like that. And they have Batman themed or Dark Knight themed type flyer.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:39

I love it.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:40

Other than that, I think what's interesting is, and just so the people listening know, this is way before we started dating. Oh we could have crossed paths on this movie if a few things had gone differently.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:59

Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:00

Because at the time I was pretty heavily, uh leaving town, probably I would say every other week or so for a gig. But what was interesting is that I was actually contacted about being an extra in The Dark Knight.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:19

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:20

Because of a booking, I couldn't make it. Then I ended up referring my friend Phil to be in the movie, and he actually ended up being one of the extras that played the guys on the boat.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:33

But I think his Oh my god, the tough guys.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:36

Yeah, we watched it in the theater, and I think he already knew maybe by then that his he was getting cut.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:43

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:45

At least in a way where you wouldn't see him. Oh yeah. You almost never see yourself when you're an extra. It's just kind of interesting that I almost would have missed it.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:55

There's a couple of those. Yeah. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:58

Well, yeah, that's cool that we both were well, you actually were an extra, and I almost was the movie. But beyond that, this also came out around the time of my birthday of Red Year. So man, I was pretty hyped. I definitely saw it the day it came out. I think at the time the AMC at Rosemont. That used to be a theater called Movico. That was kind of like the first luxury theater in the area.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:32

Oh, they just started serving booze around that time. Now it's standard, I feel like.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:37

Yeah, I remember seeing it there, and I'm like, hell yeah, I'm gonna see it in the premiere lounge, which you get to watch over everybody else who's in regular seats below. I thought that was cool. But yeah, I absolutely love the movie. I was already bought in because of Batman Begins, but this movie definitely made me feel like, damn man, just keep making. But uh that's a good segue to my next pick because I don't know if I feel the same way about this franchise as far as going like keep making them.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:13

Ah oh my gosh!

SPEAKER_06 1:15:15

But that's okay, because we're coming actually to the end of that. So moving

TOP SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS - Sushi's 4th Pick: F9: The Fast Saga (2023)

SPEAKER_06 1:15:20

on. My next pick is F9. Oh, the fast saga.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:27

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:28

Which was released June 25th, 2021.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:34

I nearly forgot how stupid this specific fast movie is. Honestly, it was almost important to me that I include this in my top summer blockbusters list, purely based on how well this movie provides insights as far as the upper limit of ridiculousness I'm willing to put up with before I call a movie trash.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:54

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:55

I don't know if I'd really call it a fine line or any cliche like that. Uh I I consider it reasonable if someone described it as a steep drop-off between what I find amusing and what I find to be complete hot garbage.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:10

Oh god.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:11

So it wasn't any surprise leading up to this movie that the Fast and Furious franchise had gotten pretty ridiculous. Okay. I think the consistency of having a new movie in the franchise releasing every two to three years and gradually increasing how ridiculous the plot and stunts were over the course of 20 years definitely was what helped us get there. So I think that, combined with the fact that I saw this with my friend Mark, who doesn't really watch many movies outside of these, and maybe Mortal Kombat and some martial arts movies, he's got a ridiculous laugh and probably would be the most amused out of all my friends seeing this movie. All of that probably blinded me from how stupid this was when I first saw it on its initial release. Because damn, and you know, like re-watching it at home recently, man, I definitely had to yell at the TV a few times because of how stupid some of the stunts were. I mean, I get their stunts, but I want to clarify that I rewatched this movie after seeing Fast X, which I honestly don't feel is worse than this movie. The reason why is because my issues with that movie are based on things that could have potentially happened. By that I'm talking about the notion that Jason Momo and Alan Richson's characters were present during the events of Fast Five. Oh my god, that's and we just weren't told about it or shown it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:39

They're like surprise.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:40

Yeah, I can believe that. I can believe the Mr. Nobody explanations, too, even if I have to call it lazy writing. But god damn, man. Like, how far are we gonna believe Dom is able to do such insane non-racing things with cars in this movie alone?

SPEAKER_05 1:18:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:00

I mean, I might as well take this opportunity to just go into my favorite and least favorite moments of this movie, starting with my least favorite, obviously. I can even get on board with the ridiculous use of super magnets in this movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:14

Oh my god, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:15

Even though I have to point out I can't really believe that nobody died during all that shit happening. Or at least we weren't told that anybody died. My biggest problem is that I think I've hit my upper limit as far as suspending disbelief for a lot of the shit that Dom specifically does in this franchise. This movie alone, guitar sand swings his goddamn car using the remains of a rope bridge. Very good. Like the fuck? How? Honestly, I'm willing to go as far as believing fixing or tuning a motor vehicle. Dom is probably capable of dealing with it. Yeah. But this is fucking physics. This of is not making the calculations needed in his head to make this happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:00

Oh man.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:01

And then just making it to the other side by smashing your car against the side of the cliff so it tumbles over it. And then somehow both you and Michelle Rodriguez live. Fuck you guys, man. Exactly. Seriously. Then the whole scene with that huge armored big rig thing along the mountain where he manages to find the only bit of shelter, is there like rock falling down and has this drone shooting fucking missiles at it? Then Michelle Rodriguez again, Letty, just power slides through and picks them up like it's nothing. Fuck you guys again, man. And ultimately, though, by the time I got to the space fear part, I was just exhausted with them. And so I just kind of settled into another place of acceptance with this franchise. Similar to how I did with Civil War and what Marvel Studios was doing. Except with this franchise, it was more like telling myself, hey man, you only got one more of these things to go before Vin Diesel either stops acting or has to go back to doing Riddick. At least. With all that said, I do kind of credit the Fast and Furious franchise with creating at least some association between summer blockbusters and car films.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:19

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:20

If not at least the specific franchise. I mean, there's no denying that the Fast and Furious franchise definitely doesn't shy away from typical summer blockbuster characteristics of being probably more of a thought-on superficial big budget Hollywood studio movie, uh, rather than a low-budget complex or deep offering from an independent studio. It doesn't require much attention to be paid to it.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:52

Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:53

And uh clearly these movies have been developed for and marketed to appeal to wide audiences across different age groups and countries around the world. So yeah, uh, even if I have gotten kind of tired and maybe now indifferent towards getting a ton of enjoyment out of the Fast and Furious movies, I do think that they really fit the silver blockbuster mold really well.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:17

Yeah, they do.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:18

I admittedly am gonna be a bit sad once they're no longer putting out these ridiculous movies every few years. Hopefully, they'll at least continue with spin-off movies like Hobbs and Shaw, because I honestly just want Idris back.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:32

Oh my god, Black Superman. Oh my god, yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:36

You were Black Superman.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:38

Oh, I love Black Superman. Oh man. Yeah, this movie is wild. I mean, my problem with it is that Ben Diesel is in it.

unknown 1:21:49

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:51

I'm really sick of his shit in these movies.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:54

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:55

But I was happy that Han was coming back, and I sort of knew that was gonna happen because Justin Lynn had been wearing a t-shirt around that said justice for Han. So I was like, okay, yes. Now the way they brought him back, weird, weird. I don't get it. Okay, whatever. But that was interesting. The outer space thing. Yeah. I don't even know. It's just hard. I do like that the French people say they look like minions. That made me laugh the first time I saw it, but still kind of rough. It was fun seeing the uh our boys from the well, I guess technically the second, but also the seventh movie, the Tokyo Drift or whatever the order is.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:41

Tokyo Drift.

unknown 1:22:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:43

That's the movie that spawned the term interqual.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:46

Interquol. Hell yeah. So that was cool. But yeah, I just was like, you you all, your your bodies would be broken. Also, they tried to with this one speak to some of what was going on in the internet at the time. There'd been a meme about how the only thing left they could do is go to space, so they went to space.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:07

But also in this one, they do that weird thing where they have Tyrese be like, I think we're invincible. Which is it's so hard because in another movie with another performer, that bit could have been real funny. But like and I'm Mr. Baby Boy, no, they just play things a little too serious in these things for some of those lighter moments to work, but uh yeah, I am not displeased that the franchise is ending, but like I said, there is a part of me that feels sad because what other franchise can you depend on this consistently for stupid movies?

SPEAKER_06 1:23:48

Yeah, I know they'll take it completely seriously.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:51

Yeah, I think there's still some good stuff left, hopefully. But yeah, I'm looking forward to the window. All right.

TOP SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS - Ashley's 5th Pick: Barbie (2023)

SPEAKER_04 1:24:05

Move over, boys. We've talked about explosions, aliens, and action heroes. But one of the greatest summer blockbusters I've ever experienced stars a blonde doll in pink heels. That's right. My next pick is Barbie, the movie that totally took over the summer of 2023. And it really took over. I mean, the songs were everywhere, people were all wearing pink. Oh my god, the merchandising. Every food product had a Barbie item. Then there was the whole Barbenheimer thing, which I was very into. I went with a big group of friends, I wore a little retro dress with some big science-y goggle things for the Oppenheimer part of the outfit. Then we spent the whole day doing the whole experience. It was like at the theater, every showing was sold out, everyone was taking pictures. There were whole families dressed up together. And then, oh my God, one of my favorite moments when we were walking to the bar afterwards, this woman drove by us and rolled down the window and yelled, Hi Barbie. So we all just automatically went, Hi, Barbie, back. And oh my God, it was wonderful. And it was the first time, I think, post-COVID that I felt like I was a part of a big, fun experience in public. Crowds were not something I was excited about, you know? Now we're with this big group of people, everyone's having an incredible time, and I just felt like, oh my God, movies are back again. And it's become a communal experience. So it was just fantastic. Crazy thing, too, is how good the movie is. It could have been the cynical Mattel cash grab. But then they hired Greta Gerwig, which when I heard that, I was like, okay, that's interesting. Because she started out making all these really low budget DIY movies, and now she's gonna be making this massive blockbuster. It was nuts. And then, oh my god, when the photos of Margot Robe and Ryan Gosling in those insane neon outfits, rollerblading came out. I was like, oh, this is gonna be my new favorite movie. I just knew.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:24

Yeah, funny.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:26

And it really delivers, you know. The movie proves how good it is almost immediately. It opens with this insane dream house, the whole neighborhood. It's just like a little girl's dream brought to life. You're like, okay, this is cute. And then Barbie asks, Do you guys think about dying? I was like, Oh my god, this movie is insane. So I was incredibly excited, and just the production design gave me such a dopamine hit. Like the dream house, like I was saying. I love all the fake food when she makes her breakfast, the plastic beach. Even that awesome trip they make from I'm gonna call it Barbie Land to the real world is so cool. Everything looks like it's a toy that a little girl is playing with.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:17

And then you've got Ryan Gosling. Okay. Ryan Gosling is, as you would say, one of my boys. He's one of those actors I'm always excited to see. And he is so good at being this idiot. Like completely like such a dumb doofus. He plays it like this overexcited puppy dog, that he discovers the patriarchy and he thinks it's the greatest thing in human history. I'm like, oh that's kind of sweet that they make us okay with it because he's a puppy dog art. Oh my god. Don't get me started on I'm just can. See she can attest to this because I literally sang it around the house so much that he banned it. Like I wasn't allowed to listen to it or sing it anymore. I agree though. It wasn't too much. I did go overboard. But here's what surprised me. I expected a movie that was going to be centered on girlhood. But what I didn't expect is it was going to be a movie basically about becoming human. I mean, literally becoming human. And I don't think it's really a coming of age story. It's almost a coming of human story. Because Barbie has to reconcile with this perfect plastic world with the messiness of reality. She has to sort of go back and forth between both. And that's what growing up is. Learning to live with vulnerability, discomfort, sadness, fear. That's something that everyone has to do. And I think Margot Roby really does a beautiful job showing Barbie's growth. She starts out the movie all happy and naive, then she's confused and horrified by the real world. And then finally she becomes this vulnerable yet self-assured woman. And she doesn't have it figured out completely, but she chooses to embrace that uncertainty. And I just think that's fucking beautiful. And also, oh my God, when people talk about Barbie, there's one scene I think everyone remembers. And that's America Ferrara's monologue. She opens it with, it's literally impossible to be a woman. Then she spends the next few minutes laying out all of these contradictory, impossible expectations that women somehow feel like we have to live up to. I know for me, that moment made me feel like I kind of had some tears welling up. And I had some friends who were straight up sobbing. It just felt so good to hear something like that coming from the biggest movie in the world. It felt like people maybe really would hear this message. Maybe men would hear it. Maybe men would understand this a little bit better. Do they now? Uh fuck if I know, but it still was a fantastic movie. And honestly, it just felt amazing to be there on the day. So yeah, it's not a traditional blockbuster, but it's one of the biggest summer movies I've ever participated in. So yeah, what'd you think, Sush? I know you had a different uh theater experience than me because we didn't get to see it at the same time.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:23

Well, I actually saw it before you.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:25

You did. You were giving me.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:27

And I remember I was texting you because it was really good. A lot of it was just unexpected. I knew they were going to go into this surreal kind of angle dealing with the Barbie character, having it in a different world and everything, but I didn't think that it would end up being as fun as it ended up being. Yeah. I will say that eat raised by a single mom, maybe I don't have as much context as other guys as far as how much this movie affected them. Because I personally I got what it was trying to say, at least from my point of view, it did a great job conveying and delivering that message so guys can understand how it is that struggles and challenges that that women face. So I thought it was great because I think that it did a great job of poking fun at masculinity in a way that just made it hilarious. They presented in a way where I don't think most men would get defensive about it. They could laugh about it and laugh at themselves, even. So yeah, I just thought it was done really well. But I do ultimately think that it was just it was a lot wilder.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:47

It was pretty wild. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:49

Yeah, there are moments in the movie, especially yeah, just off the bat with her being like, Hey, do you guys think about dying? Oh my god, I love it. The moment that happened, I was like, Oh, okay, I kind of know what movie this is. It's gonna be one of those movies where it's like shit is crazy, but it's gonna have a message and like it's gonna have some heart. So yeah, it definitely did deliver that. And I think it was a unique summer blockbuster because I had less experiences in my childhood of my family going to see movies. So maybe you could tell me, but for me, this kind of felt like it was the first summer blockbuster that I felt was really directed towards women, or at least they were the primary audience for it. I don't know. The only other I can think of that might be like that is ghosts, but I mean that's like another wide appeal.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:41

I mean, that's a really good question, you know. I mean, legally blonde is maybe the biggest biggest I could think of. That's a really good one, but yeah, it's rare.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:54

Oh so what do you have for us next?

TOP SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS - Sushi's 5th Pick: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

SPEAKER_06 1:32:57

Well, moving on to my final pick for top summer blockbusters. I know I love joking around and laughing about movies and the experiences we've had seeing them. Uh, but I really think working on the summer blockbuster segment has reminded me about the more meaningful memories that have associated with the movies over the years. So I really wanted to end my picks with a movie that's been in my ongoing personal top five movies of all time. And probably one of the first movies to really make me realize how much I loved or could love the medium. Uh Terminator 2, Judgment Day.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:34

Oh my god, yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:35

Which came out back on July 3rd, 1991. Thinking back, I kind of marked this as the end or at least near end of the whole parents overlooking violence and entertainment thing in the US. Because the next year, Mortal Kombat came out, and then they had the ESRB, which was the ratings thing that came out with for video games. And I think from then on, it was just this whole thing of like everything that your kids are doing promotes violence. But yeah, I mostly bring that up because this is an R-rated film.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:16

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:17

But I remember back then, movie theaters didn't really care to card kids who were able to make it to the movies on their own, which was basically all of us. Saying if you could take a bus, you could make it. So even my own parents, that includes my mom, who later started believing reading comic books caused kids to want to get into fights.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:35

Oh no.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:36

Didn't seem to really care about violence in the form of hand-to-hand combat or guns in movies back then. Oh, all right. Anyway, getting back to my experience with T2, uh, I should probably first mention that I didn't see the original Terminator movie in theaters because it would have been two at the time. And I remember actually seeing it after I had seen this movie, uh, probably on network TV during some weekend afternoons. But I think the combination of all the magazine articles, entertainment news shows on TV back then did a sufficient job if the short intro at the beginning of T2 wasn't enough. So I in no way felt lost seeing this movie. I remember going to see it around my birthday, probably during the second or third week it was in theaters. Now, at that time, my family mostly only saw movies at the discount theaters. So it was a pretty big deal that I was going to see this with my parents and my cousin from Taiwan. But he was attending college in the US at the time. So we were all seeing it pretty soon after it premiered. It's probably the movie that I saw closest to the release date at that point in my life.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:47

So cool. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:49

It was a big deal, even with how bad the seating was back then. I remember being completely blown away. And I kind of credit it with being one of the first movies that I saw as a kid that really got me interested in movies, like I was saying before. My parents were both Taiwanese immigrants, so the Western movies that they were exposed to growing up were already limited to big studio films that managed to somehow make it overseas and get translated, which I assume probably affected the popularity of film back then for them. All I know is I'd ask them about movies, and they really only were able to name about half a dozen titles they saw before moving to the US. Anyway, but this being a movie that I've often re-watched over the years, I'd say at least once a year. That's probably why I either don't believe my opinion of it has changed over the years, or maybe I just haven't noticed it since those changes and how I felt about it would have been more gradual. Who knows? I mean, sure, there's the obvious things that cement this movie as being from the 90s. Let's go through the list. A shit ton of people being at the mall.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:56

Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:57

I mean, if you live in the Chicago suburbs, this might still be a thing depending on the mall you go to. But yeah, a lot of people used to hang out at the mall across the country. Payphones and phones with cords attached to them that are not at the workplace. Yeah. Getting a cheap hot drink, like a coffee or tea, out of a vending machine.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:21

Oh, that was so weird. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:23

Yeah, that had the hand of poker that you'd play on it. Oh my gosh. Four cards going around the cup. Then you'd look at the fifth card on the bottom of the cup to see the final hand you would get. It was it was a simpler time. So I mainly bring that up because that part is in the movie, and I think maybe some younger people might not understand what's going on there. And then the last thing is obviously the fashion, the auto and building design, hairstyles, and stuff like that. But otherwise, I really think this movie still looks amazing today. I mean, they honestly still haven't quite been able to improve the look of liquid metal that dramatically since this movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:02

I know it looks good.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:03

Yeah, nor do I think the practical effects showing both Terminators at various stages of damage back then, that eventually was completely taken over by CG, even looked that bad comparatively. I mean, even some of the stuff like two to three movies ago on the Terminator franchise, especially like that de-aging stuff that they always did to Arnold, was just god-awful sometimes and just had to be hidden in the dark. Uh, as far as the Terminator franchise goes as a whole, I think for a lot of people, this was probably one of the last movies they either bothered to see in the theaters or took seriously from the franchise. Uh, I personally just like movies that kind of lean into technology and time travel, so I've kind of hung on and pretty much saw seen all the films and even the TV series, the Syracono Chronicles. But I definitely have recognized the drop in overall quality across the follow-ups to this movie. More than anything, I feel like that has to do with the IP changing hands so many times. Because even if it wasn't his best work, there was something about the most recent Terminator film that James Cameron produced and Linda Hamilton returned for that made it feel like almost a proper follow-up to T2.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:17

It was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:19

Yeah. And there's no doubt that this movie fits the summer blockbuster label. Even if I do think it delivered a lot more than was necessary for one, given how good the acting as well as the practical and visual effects were at the time. Timing, the fact that it was a big budget studio film and the sequel to a film, an arguably established Terminator as a franchise, to all the hype surrounding it, leading up to it, and even following the release, all that definitely contributed to this being a perfect fit for a summer blockbuster.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:53

Definitely.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:05

Alright, let's run all these. First one, Arnold appearing naked, crouched down. Oh my god, of course. Time travel electro ball and rising slowly to ominous music. Like one of my favorite things. That whole biker bar scene.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:23

Oh, fantastic.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:26

John saying, She's not my mother, Todd. Oh my god, yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:31

The shotgun that the T 800 uses when he's riding the motorcycle. So one that he flips to reload.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:39

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:40

Oh my god, that looks so cool to me as a kid. I'm like, I love it. Damn. How do you also have the coolest shotgun? Yes. Um many explosions.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:53

Yeah. I mean, obviously.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:56

Liquid metal.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:57

Love it.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:59

John telling the T-800, you can't just go around killing people. And teaching him lingo like hasta la vista, baby. Oh my god. Oh, Sarah Connor, just in general in this.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:14

Oh, she is so cool. She is the case.

SPEAKER_06 1:41:17

But especially when she runs up on Miles Dyson in this home, holy shit. Oh my god. That was scary. I love it. Yeah. The whole scene at Cyberdyne where they have to fight off the police and escape.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:29

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:41:30

Especially the part where the T-800 manages to fend off all the police with a goddamn minigun, but somehow resulting in 0.0 human casualties.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:41

Yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_06 1:41:43

Um, what else? Oh yeah. I think this was the first time I even heard of liquid nitrogen. But god damn, what a way to learn of its existence by having it used to freeze a liquid metal terminator so Arnold could just shoot it into a million tiny pieces near the end.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:01

Crazy.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:02

Fucking amazing. From the special edition cut, uh, the scene where the T800 scans and horribly replicates a human smile. It was a great laugh. And then, of course, Arnold's final lines during the theme where he's lured into the molten steel and gives a thumbs up, which is I know now while you cry, but it's just something I could never do.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:31

Damn.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:33

Yeah, man. This is uh definitely in my top five movies of all time, and I could probably say it probably is my favorite summer blockbuster of all time.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:45

Oh, okay. Nice.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:48

Yeah, T2. Uh what was your experience with it? Uh I'm kind of interested.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:53

I don't think I saw it till I was probably in my 20s or 30s.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:57

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:58

I mostly knew about it from Wayne's World. Oh when Robert Patrick's like, have you seen this child or whatever?

SPEAKER_06 1:43:06

Yes, have you seen this boy?

SPEAKER_04 1:43:09

Yes, yes. Oh, you're so good at the Terminator-related impressions. Um, I thought that was very funny, but it was still in the zeitgeist. So there are moments that obviously anything with him appearing in the nude, you know, that's definitely gonna make it out there. So I knew about that. I really thought that Sarah Conert was the coolest. Like I thought she was so cool, so tough. I'm like, I want to be a tough girl. I mean, I don't want to be locked up and I don't want to be a party to the end of civilization, but yeah, the muscles, that would be fun. Um and then I remember being very freaked out by her dream sequence.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:51

The one where the part where she gets blown away by the nuclear uh blast. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:58

She like goes, she's watching this happy day at the playground, seeing these kids play. She tries to warn them, but they don't notice.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:07

She got that, she got that line when she's yelling at Dr. Silverman from the recording.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:12

I'm trying to remember the line of the like, anybody who's not word SPF 1 million is gonna be at the Oh my god, it's so good. I love it.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:23

Yeah, she's so good at that role.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:25

Um, it's just, I mean, it's just every aspect of that movie is great. We re-watched it last week and it's just incredible. So, really, really good pick to send us off in our summer blockbusters.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:39

Awesome.

TOP SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS - *Special Segment* Outro

SPEAKER_06 1:44:40

Well, that does it for our special top summer blockbuster segment. We hope you enjoyed it because we've actually talked about using the same list of 234 movies each year, but just making it, you know, unnecessarily complex by removing the movies we already picked the previous year, then adding as many movies in each following year that fit the criteria. Oh my god. Otherwise, keeping the list at the same exact unexplained count of 234 movies. Um, and then I think the other thing that we had talked about, well, I guess I should just keep that a secret, so okay. I don't know. Uh Ashley, do you have any other stuff to say about this segment?

SPEAKER_04 1:45:30

Uh Blockbusters rule. They're dumb and they're fun. And uh, I hope you have a good blockbuster that you see this summer.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:38

Cool. Yeah, make it a blockbuster uh summer.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:42

Yes.

TV Episode Recap: Silo - Season 3, Episode 1 (Premiere) - "Who Are You?"

SPEAKER_04 1:45:47

Hey Sush, what's going on with the season premiere of Silo?

SPEAKER_06 1:45:52

Well, season premiere uh titled Who Are You?

SPEAKER_02 1:45:59

Great name.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:00

It opens several months following the events of the season two finale, where Juliet has somehow survived the incinerator chamber and returned to Silo 18. The population credit her with bringing peace back to the silo and views her as a symbol of hope and renewal, with her now occupying a position of leadership within the silo. However, it's soon revealed that Juliet's dealing with serious memory loss, unable to remember much about the events leading up to her confrontation with Bernard, leaving her dependent on others to explain who she is and what happened. As Julia continues to adjust to her new reality, we see Camille Sims has more or less been assigned to her as a personal assistant, offering guidance and reassurance whenever she becomes overwhelmed. The narrative then shifts unexpectedly to a second timeline, which I'll refer to as the flashback timeline, kind of like how I did over with Bonarch.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:00

Oh my god, you're always getting these timelines.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:03

Yeah. Uh set centuries earlier in Washington, D.C., there an Air Force officer moves cautiously through the city. She's changing routes and taking precautions to avoid surveillance or pursuit, and eventually meets with a man. It's revealed the woman is Charlotte Keane, as she meets at a park bench with her brother, Congressman Daniel Keane. She seems unable to tell him directly what's going on, only encouraging him to get on a Senator Thurman's Iran committee and to provide details to a reporter that he crossed paths with earlier. Oh. Back in the present, we see Julia asleep as fragmented memories of her final encounter with Bernard begin to break through her amnesia and she's forced to wake. We see Camille arriving immediately following the incident to hear Juliet frantically describe what she seemed to remember and seemingly encourage her to deny any significance of these flashbacks. Later, Robertson's escorting Juliet to the door of the incinerator chamber, explaining her memory loss resulted from the trauma she suffered during the fire, presents a straightforward account of the events that followed. According to the story she's told, Bernard died from injuries sustained during the incident while she survived but lost her memories. Although Robert and his wife both appear eager to help, it's revealed in a flashback that he actually took Bernard's life, suffocating him after he survived the chamber. Oh bad. And together they've seemingly been manipulating Juliet's return to better their own situation. We cut to another scene in the flashback timeline where Congressman Keene meets with Senator Thurman and potential connections are reinforced between a drill that he helped them jineer and what eventually came to be with the silos. Their conversation reveals a backdrop of a nation facing political turmoil after a dirty bomb attack that has been attributed to Iran. The meeting concludes fairly quickly with Thurman telling Keane she'll keep him posted on his status with her Iran committee. Back in the present, Juliet attends her first major council meeting under the silo's new leadership, as Robert passionately outlines a series of reforms that he claims are reshaping Silo 18 and recounts how surveillance has supposedly been reduced, governing rules are being revised, and the administration presents itself as more open and democratic than under Bernard, eventually rounding back to credit Juliet with inspiring the positive changes, though she's clearly still uncertain how to feel given her memory loss. Timeline, we see Senator Thurman's daughter and I guess assistant sat by this. Congressman Keene, apparently, soon after his meeting with Thurman, uh, he assumes it might be regarding whether or not she's been chosen to be a part of her committee. However, she's actually there for a much more personal reason. Instead, confirming Congressman's sister, Charlotte, was chosen for the Iran operation, which he finds out is actually happening that night. We cut to Charlotte already in her jet. As their squad approaches the destination and enter dense clouds, they soon see some kind of slime appearing on their instrument pads.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:39

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:50:39

As their jets begin to malfunction. We see Keen led back to meet with Thurman, who reveals the sister was actually not a part of the Iran mission being covered on the news, but rather a secret mission. And though that uh led to her plane going down, she's actually been rescued and is alive. Cutting back to the present, we see Juliet listen to various representatives discuss the silo's future, but still noticeably distracted by the persistent feeling that something important has been taken from her. The atmosphere is tense and paranoid, with many arguing how to best respond to different concerns. Following the council meeting and a scene where Juliet is being led home and seemingly away from encounters with old friends, we get a sense this new administration is not simply governing in Bernard's absence, but actively concealing the circumstances of his death while using Juliet's condition to maintain control. Regardless of what efforts the Sims might have made to minimize the significance, signs of dissent begin to emerge within silo 18. Messages challenging the official narrative circulate among the population, and a banner proclaiming that the public display is a lie appears inside the silo. In the flashback timeline, we see Congressman Keene on the phone, then eventually arriving at a medical facility to see his sister. She's alive and turns to see him as he approaches her, but we soon find that she seems to be experiencing memory loss, potentially connecting these scenes with Juliet's memory loss in the present. As we see Juliet enter the cafeteria with Camille following closely behind, she stares at the screen or window as she relives the moments within the incinerator, reviving old doubts and triggering additional memories for Juliet, suggesting that the truth she once uncovered is still trying to reach the surface. Immediately, we see Camille try to redirect her towards the memories they've made up, showing her supposed video evidence. This is followed by Camille meeting with the algorithm, who seems troubled by Juliet's returning memories, and advises her to increase the dosage of the medication that's clearly causing her memory loss. Luckily, even with all this seemingly putting a stop to Juliet's mission to reveal the secrets of the silos, the episode ends on a hopeful note as she slipped a note in her food, and she discovers that there are others out there who seem to support these feelings that she's had that there's more going on that she's been led to believe by the Sims. Yeah. Yeah, what'd you think of the episode?

SPEAKER_04 1:53:19

I liked it, man. I think this episode has such a good title because we see Juliet really trying to figure out who she is. And I think that it's definitely more of a setup episode than one that's trying to blow your mind. But there's one moment that I just kept thinking about. Juliet is getting um food delivered for the evening, and she asks the man delivering it if she likes mushrooms. She's being served something with mushrooms. And it's sort of a random thing to focus on, but it really hit me how terrifying your situation is. She doesn't remember even the most basic things about herself, including her preferences. Now, going into the season, I was a little worried. Okay, she's got this memory thing going on. How long are we going to spend with her remembering who she was? That was really my concern at the start of the episode. But by the end, I was feeling pretty optimistic. So I'll kind of get into it. The reason is even without her memories, Juliet still feels like Juliet. Yeah. Like she immediately starts questioning people. She's asking follow-up questions at the meeting. She notices when stories don't quite add up. Even the little things, like the way she treats the people who bring her food, still feel like her. She's still really connecting or trying to. And it made me realize they're not just testing whether memories make a person who they are. They're testing whether you can actively change someone by taking those memories away. I think that's what our evil AI wants to happen. But after this episode, I'm not convinced you can do that. At least not with her.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:00

What surprised me though wasn't Juliet as much as it was the people around her.

SPEAKER_05 1:55:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:06

Like at first, I thought Shirley was actually angry at Juliet when she didn't recognize her.

SPEAKER_05 1:55:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:12

She's a character who's very tough, very strong.

SPEAKER_05 1:55:15

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:16

I thought, geez, she is someone who could take it the wrong way. But then we see Shirley completely break down crying and sort of collapsing into Knox's shoulders as soon as Juliet turns away. And it just totally changed the scene. You know, she's not angry. She's grieving. To Juliet, these people are strangers. But to Shirley and Knox, it's like they've lost their lifelong best friend. Except she's still right there. I thought that was one of the strongest emotional moments in the premiere. The thing that really stuck with me the most wasn't even the memory loss. It was just how completely people have taken control of Juliet's life. They made her mayor, even though she has no idea why, and she has diminished capacity. She's become this symbol that everyone looks up to while she has almost no agency herself. Then there's this heartbreaking moment. Oh my God, where she talks about her father's sacrifice. Oh, isn't that where my father sacrificed himself for the good of the silo? Almost like she's reading a fact out of a history book. Like she knows what happens, but the emotional connection is not there. And you can see everyone around her is very alarmed by it. This is just not normal, not that it's normal to be in an incinerator, but like something seems to be really fundamentally wrong, and everyone's getting a sense for it. Meanwhile, she's constantly being watched, medicated, and fed a version of reality that other people think she should believe. It's just, it's creepy, man. And then we get the scene where the AI tells Camille to double Juliet's uh forgetful pills. And I was like, damn it. The AI is really afraid because it knows how powerful she is. It's not just that she's gonna remember something here or there, it's that she is fundamentally, as a person, someone who figures things out. Questioning people and pulling those loose threads is how her brain works. So she's definitely a real threat. But outside of those themes, I think that the episode planted a lot of interesting mysteries. The comments about the tunnels being roughly 300 years old immediately made my ears perk up because it feels like God, that's gonna be important down the line. And then Carla from Supply investigating missing supplies seems like it's leading somewhere. And I'm not sure how much time we're gonna spend in the DC storyline, but I'm definitely interested. The fact that uh Charlotte Charles, I think her brother calls her, goes to an Alzheimer's research center, a brain injury clinic type thing. Like all the possibility of that connecting to what's happening in the silos is kind of rich. They start trying to bring back memories, they realize how to take them away.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:14

That's what I get a feeling for going forward.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:17

But overall, I think it's an effective season premiere. It really establishes where we're at, what the consequences of the last season were, starts some new mysteries, including the mystery people putting up banners, and it puts Juliet in a pretty urgent and unsettling situation. But I'm really excited to see what happens next because she is such an awesome character, and there's so many exciting, delicious little nuggets here so far. So, what do you think, Sush?

SPEAKER_06 1:58:50

Well, uh touching on what you were saying about how it felt more like a setup episode. Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. I also felt like it handled it really well too, making you not feel like they were recapping as much as some premieres.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:59:09

But seeing how we kind of did just get thrown into everything at the start of the episode, a following however long everything that happened at the season two went down. Yeah, I admit it was also pretty jarring and it was hard to figure out how I felt about the episode initially, too. Probably the best example early on was feeling like it was kind of silly that they had a lady in the crowd at the council meeting trying to flip a badge that was owned by Julia. She only wants to accept trades, though. So the other item is also another item owned by her being offered in exchange, just so they can show you how much of an icon she's become to everyone. But later I did feel that it probably was a legitimately good way to illustrate how willing some people might be to believe in anything that might be implying a better tomorrow. So I kind of dialed back a little bit on that. But ultimately, I ended up enjoying the episode since I feel like the showrunners likely wanted to kick off the season with these seemingly random scenes and flashbacks to maybe parallel the kind of disorienting feeling that Julia is experiencing herself. I really do think I was meant to feel as uneasy as I did, as she's revealing how convinced she is that stuff is being kept from her leading up to the end of the episode, but revealing that there's others out there who at least want to let her know that she's not wrong, if not provide some sort of help to reveal that truth for her. Speaking about the truth, but more specifically in regard to the past events of the show, I really enjoyed that we're finally seeing some scenes that took place leading up to the silos being populated because I think that was probably the biggest thing for me. I felt like, yeah, you spent two seasons without really explaining how this even came to be. That was like the big thing that was missing. So I'm glad that they're finally getting around to that in season three. I almost feel like this mission that the congressman's sister was flying in where they encountered that weird goo kind of weapons.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:13

Yeah, that is weird. I'm very curious about that.

SPEAKER_06 2:01:16

Yeah. But I have to assume we'll either find it was one being carried out by the Iranians, since I can't see at least the proper US government admitting to carrying out a test like this, and also telling each congressman his sister was used as a guinea pig.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:01:32

Or it's something created by scientists outside of this conflict and maybe down to some other black ops group or maybe aliens. I don't know. Who knows where this show can go? Because I feel like when you're underground, and that's really all we've been shown, there's so much that it could be. Regardless, I thought the goo as it was covering the instrument panels kind of looked like maybe it could have been comprised of nanos or whatever. But maybe that's just a side effect of it covering digital displays and wasn't an intended visual effect, but I did think that was kind of cool looking. So maybe they just lucked out. I don't know. Yeah, I'm really eager to find out how exactly the Sims were able to involve themselves so deeply with Juliet's situation with her recovery and everything. Like, I assume based on the flashbacks we see, that Robert could have likely been the one that got her out of the incinerator.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:32

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 2:02:33

But I just find it strange that others are just going along with it, given that people already were under the impression that there were secrets being kept from them about the silos and all that before she even returned. Sure, I guess it's pretty much a miracle to these people that she was sent out to clean and returned alive.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:50

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_06 2:02:51

But like, how did we get from that point to her putting her trust in the Sims to so many in the silo, just seemingly going along with what they decided or has had Juliet recommend that everyone do, even though I definitely enjoyed the episode. I thought and was hoping I'd have more to talk about as far as the premiere, but I eventually realized that the reason why I didn't was because there was a lot more setup, like you said, for things to come in the present timeline. Time and effort was used this episode to reinforce these ideas that even though The Sims have been trying to keep things from Juliet, there are still people out there that want to help her continue with her efforts to find out more about the history and the secrets of the silos, as well as flashback timeline now. All I know is there's this 10-episode Apple TV season, and I know sometimes their eight to ten episode seasons can feel rushed, regardless. I'm happy to have one of our favorite shows back, and I'm really looking forward to hearing how the silos came to be. Me too! Yeah, maybe even more than the actual new events that are going to happen. So that's gonna be pretty cool. Really looking forward to it. I think it's a great way to kick off a new season by showing us some new stuff, but also low-key, just kind of reminding us of some things that have been going on.

SPEAKER_04 2:04:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:04:22

So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:04:23

I'm excited to see what happens.

SPEAKER_06 2:04:25

Yeah, we'll catch up with that next week.

SPEAKER_04 2:04:27

Yay!

What We're Watching Next

SPEAKER_06 2:04:30

Ashley.

SPEAKER_04 2:04:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 2:04:32

What are we watching next?

SPEAKER_04 2:04:34

Next week, we're gonna be discussing Evil Dead Rise and oh my god, the live action version of Disney's Moana.

SPEAKER_06 2:04:43

Man, I just gotta say, every time I see the rock in the trailers for that movie, dude looks like he's wearing a goose suit. Which absolutely doesn't make sense given how legitimately huge that makes. Oh my god. But maybe it's like the makeup or whatever they applied to him that makes it look like not actual skin. Oh god. Looks like rubber. It's wild. But yeah, also for TV, we'll be talking about season three, episode two of Silo.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:10

Yay.

Outro

SPEAKER_04 2:05:11

Well, thanks so much for listening, guys. We really hope you had a good time. We hope you had a great 4th of July. And uh, yeah, thanks.

SPEAKER_06 2:05:20

Yeah. Hope you uh enjoyed listening to us talk about a summer blockbuster.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:25

Blockbusters.

SPEAKER_06 2:05:27

Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review. Yeah. Preferably positive. Like how the big movie studios are positive that they're gonna make money off of summer blockbusters. Even if they end up sucking.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:41

Yep, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_06 2:05:43

And then also remember to follow us on social media, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. Other than that, we will catch you guys next week.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:53

That's great.