DC goes to the movies…

Hello everyone and welcome to WFHR's Directors Cut number 47. Seth and James here with you and just us this show.

We're going to have fun. We haven't got to do this in a little while. Seth and I are going to have some fun with the show.

We're going to get into Oscar buzz talk a little bit about that. I will mention a little bit about the voting process and some of those things.

That's really cool. I think people will be interested in that. We'll definitely get into that. Also want to talk about not only new movies for 2024, some of the up and coming movies that people are jacked about.

But also the box office in general how we're coming out of 23 going into 24. We've had some blockbusters already released that haven't seen the best of numbers.

So I wanted to get into that a little bit. We'll touch on all these things and we'll see what else we have room for.

Sure. But getting into the Oscar buzzer. We're not going to go through every single category. We're not going to go with best foreign film or something like that.

But I do want to get into best supporting actor, best supporting actress, best film, some of the big ones.

Sure.

And some of the more heavy categories this year. But as far as the voting process goes back in 2008, I was fortunate to be brought into the screen actors guild.

And I didn't know it at the time. But as a guild member, you were able to vote and you are required to vote on SAG and Oscar voting.

And I do mean required. They will bug you. I've only had this happen one year. But one year I didn't get my stuff in on time. And I was I was reprimanded for it. I was I was scolded very harshly for this job. Tom Hanks showed up in my house. No, joking.

That'd be hilarious.

It'd be awesome. It'd be worth it. I could be laid on it.

What they do in years past, and this has changed a little bit overall. And I can only give so many details.

But I can tell you what usually happens is they send you an email and it has links to these things. So we're going to get into the best supporting actor first.

Okay.

And with that, there are some big, big dogs that are up there.

There really is.

Robert Downey Jr. Ryan Gosling, Mark Ruffalo, some of these guys from the movies, Oppenheimer, Barbie, and little poor things.

So with those three actors, and I'm just using them three as an example, I got links to these movies to certain scenes that feature them.

Okay.

Now you used to send out tapes back in the day. What do they call them?

The something real.

I can't.

Well, daily is what we used to call on set.

When we're filming, I don't know. I don't remember the term. I know what you're talking about.

But now, yeah, it's a lot of mine now.

And these links expire that you have only so much time to look at them before so that you can't just continue to use them or anything.

And it kind of keeps it, you know, kind of in-house a little bit more.

With that, you check these out.

But the interesting thing to me, I think, is like say I get a best editor and Oppenheimer is up for best editor.

I will get a different clip.

I won't get the Robert Downey Jr. clip they sent me or the Silly and Murphy clip they'll send me.

They'll send me something specifically that shows the editing work in this film.

I love that they take the detail to this.

Yeah.

I think for a lot of people that look from the outside in and I don't blame them for this.

You would think, well, Hollywood cares about this, this, and this.

And they don't care about this other stuff. It's just in there.

As far as what I've been able to tell and see, they do.

They care about the best boy. They care about the grip guy. They care about these things.

Most of the good people in the industry understand we don't get to do what we get to do without these people.

Oh, absolutely.

And there's a, there's a real, this is an opportunity for us to not give a tip of the hat to people we don't always get a chance to.

Right.

Or the people that might not be as interested to the general public.

But it's definitely, well, and it makes sense.

These are industry awards.

They should go to the, you know, the important people in the industry, the back line folks.

It's, it's also noteworthy that we, this whole process starts with us giving nominees.

And there are a lot of guild members.

So I cannot imagine the amount of emails and the amount of like names that they get and everything.

For example, cause we don't know the awards have not been announced yet.

The nominees have not been announced yet.

One of the names that I put into the running was William Defoe for, for poor things.

And there isn't a lot of talk about him being nominated.

There's a lot of people don't think that he's necessarily going to get the nod.

But for me, not only his performance stood out, but it's William Defoe.

We've never really gotten to award him.

We've never really gotten to give him an honor.

Yeah, exactly.

And this is where it gets a little bit interesting to me.

It goes back to when I was a kid and seeing Samuel Jackson lose out on this morning actor for Pulp Fiction.

Right.

Now, Walter Mathau, well, I mean, Walter Mathau, Martin Landau won the award that year for Ed Wood.

And nobody in the right mind is going to have a problem with Martin Landau,

winning an Oscar when he's never won one and he deserved one.

Right.

But it's also not Samuel Jackson or the people that voted that year's fault.

The Martin Landau didn't win one yet.

That's true.

That's years past.

The fact that he should have won one and everything I agree.

But I don't think that that should be, well, Samuel Jackson misses out on winning one.

And he's not been nominated since.

And who knows if he's going to get another opportunity.

Right.

Because Samuel Jackson, you know, it's not to say that there's a perfect way to do this,

or it's a just system.

But I do think that it's important that integrity wise, we stick with the year.

You know, I'm the biggest Robin Williams fan you're ever going to know.

Had Robin not won an Oscar and he's still with us and all this and everything.

I wouldn't be voting now that I get to vote.

I wouldn't be voting for him just because, well, Robin didn't do as good of a job in this one,

but he deserves it.

I don't think that's right.

And I don't think that's what Robin would want.

And I have a hard time believing that's what Martin Landau wanted.

Our most actors for that matter or anyone I guess that's nominated, I think it goes back

to something you have said in the past about for you personally, the nomination is the

important thing.

Yes.

Not necessarily winning because I think part of that is that we know what goes into it.

These things are all taken into consideration.

The lifetime achievement Oscar, you know, they call it that, even though it's not really.

Well, and I think, you know, using your example, Martin Landau and Samuel L. Jackson, Samuel

L. Jackson, relatively young, you know, he's like, oh, he's going to have plenty of chances

to do this.

And, well, that's not true.

We don't know what's going to happen in the future.

And that's a great example.

I hope that that kind of with, if I could be honest with younger generations, that kind

of corrects itself a little bit.

It would be nice.

But we'll see.

We'll see.

Exactly.

So that's, I mean, kind of the gist of the voting process and everything.

There's not a whole lot to it.

I'm positive that people that have a lot more of a bigger IMDB page than I do have a

lot more, could give you a lot more information on it.

I'm going to beat a dead horse because I've been saying this for years and years, release

the vote totals, the academy release.

That would not, I mean, I kind of get why they don't, but at the same time, think of

all that could generate.

It's a really close one.

Look at how close they were or it was a landslide, you know, unanimous kind of, well, it's

never going to be unanimous.

You know, it was like a landslide, everyone agreed on this.

I think that would just generate more interest, more discussion, more debate.

And that's good for the academy.

It certainly seems to work well for, you know, the, the Heisman trophy, a lot of other

sports things.

Sports and sports and live off of that stuff.

We make like debate television for hours and days off of that kind of thing.

Imagine what the entertainment industry could do.

It could be really interesting.

I couldn't agree with you more with you on that.

So looking at some honorable mentions, Sterling, looking at the supporting actor, Sterling

came brown in American fiction, Column and Domingo in the color purple, all good actors,

Charles Melton in my December.

Looking at the top five, that they're, they're seeing, we're seeing mostly on this list,

on most people's lists.

Jamie Bell from all of us strangers, Mark Ruffalo from Poor Things, Robert DeNiro and

Killers of the Flower Moon, Ryan Gosling and Barbie and Robert Downey Jr. and Oppenheimer.

I mentioned that I have William DeFoe as my outside looking in.

I think that DeFoe has an opportunity to get in, but I don't know if he will be nominated.

It will be interesting.

I have already, you know, put in my stuff and since they don't release these kind of things

and it really, there is no accountability.

It's not as if I'm, for one, even if I was fortunate to work with one of these other actors,

it's not as if they're going to be, hey, I heard on director's cut that you didn't vote.

Like that, very few actors pay attention or care about those things.

But I personally, while I think all of these performances are noteworthy and all great

and in other years might have won especially Mark Ruffalo's performance, it is hands down

easily, Robert Downey Jr.'s award, hands down.

I don't have any even thought or question about this.

I don't know if this has ever happened to me before and I've only been voting since

I wait, but I've never watched a movie before and in the middle of the movie thought, well,

that's the guy I'm nominating for.

That's the guy I'm nominating.

While you're watching the movie, I've never thought about that before and I was so enthralled

and so wrapped up in Oppenheimer.

It's a two and a half, three hour movie.

Right.

I planned on, and I have no time, I have no free time, so I planned on, okay, I'm going

to watch half of it now, a half, a half later.

I couldn't turn it off.

I was so good.

It was so good.

It was so good.

And part of what was great is, yeah, Christopher Nolan does a great job with setting the

scene, with editing, with his use of sound and everything, but he is so good at casting.

This is not a character that I think most people would picture Robert Downey Jr., taking

wanting and let alone doing a good job with.

It may be his best acting performance, and I think that's saying something.

And that is saying something.

Two-time Oscar winner himself.

He's been nominated what, eight times or something like that.

We know how good he is, but that's, I mean, if he's reached that point now, wow, that's

pretty cool.

It's going to be so cool to see what happens with this category, because in my book,

there, you can't lose, like, really, I'm glad you touched on this, man, because I think

it's an important aspect of all this conversation.

Most actors, most people in this industry, getting nominated truly is the win.

Like, you've already won, getting the award and everything.

That's cool.

Yeah, most people would like that.

Oh, of course.

Very few people are going to turn that down.

That's conversation piece on your mantle.

You got an Oscar?

Where'd that come from?

You know, unless you're mildly brando, I guess, you know, most people are going to turn

this down.

But it is truly the act of being nominated that goes so far for people.

It's your peers.

These are people that, you know, you have, you work with and you have respect and to

show their respect for you, that means a lot.

That's got to mean a lot.

In any job you're in, you know, getting the respect of your peers is so important.

And they're at, you know, yes, it's dramatic.

They're actors.

Come on.

This is what most people of the academy are actors.

We have to make sure we put that out there, too.

Yes.

That's what, so they are peers.

And I think that's the big thing about it is that mutual respect.

It looks like for the predicted nominees for Best Supporting Actress, Devine Joy Randolph

from the Holdovers, Emily Blunt from Oppenheimer, Julian Moore from May, December, and Jody

Foster from NIAD, and Sandra Hooler for the Zone of Interest.

I hope you're all sitting down and may shock you.

I did not vote for Jody Foster.

Foster.

That is shocking.

It's shocking to me to even say it out loud.

And I hope she doesn't hear that because I love you, Jody, you hear one of my biggest

influences.

I personally thought that Julian Moore and May, December, did an amazing job.

And I love her work.

Another one of these times where it's a win-win because not only did she, I think, earn

it, but you get a chance to give a tip of the hat to Julian Moore.

One of our most underrated, fabulous actors.

I mean, her body of work, just the consistency, she is so good all the time.

To me, it's a little surprising.

She hasn't got, you know, won an Oscar yet, but I would love to see it won on its own

merits.

Like we've been talking about.

It's like, no, no, no, this performance is the reason she gets that Oscar.

And you heard it here first, folks.

He's not voting for one of his favorite people of all time because that's, he's doing

it the right way.

So that's it.

I'm just saying I want second.

I want to see if I can change my vote.

I'm kidding.

I'm joking.

I wouldn't anyway.

I really would.

Right.

I'm very, very, I feel very strongly about this, but I want to also be clear too.

I know what I said about the Robert Downey Jr. performance, but outside of that one, in

every other single category, it could go to anybody else and I'd be cool with it.

Like everybody else to me really stood out and did a great job.

It's just by a hair.

Just by a hair, a certain performance is over.

A little bit here, a little bit there, yeah.

And let's wrap up with talking about Best Picture, the big dog, the big one.

On the bubble going into this, I would say, and there are 12 nominees now.

So it's a little like the college football playoffs, like it's hard not to get in sometimes.

But I think that it's an interesting list on the bubble, the color purple.

Now that is an interesting one because the previous incarnation of that, I believe, did

win Best Picture.

It did.

It just did.

Yeah.

So interesting to see a movie kind of nominated twice almost.

That is a little odd.

That doesn't happen very much.

See that very often?

No.

American fiction, it's a locked in for picture actor, adapted screenplay.

That is an interesting one and some great performances in it.

I'm hearing Maestro might be nominated and I'm a little surprised by that because I feel

a little bit bad for Bradley Cooper with this.

He worked for six years to get this character down.

He put so much of his talent, his time, his money, his blood, sweat, and tears into this.

And all anybody can talk about, including myself, is this horrible prosthetic nose he put

on that makes him the very anti-Semitic.

And even though I know Bradley Cooper is not anti-Semitic, like it's just, it's not a good

look literally and metaphorically.

I don't know how that's going to go, but if it does get nominated, I kind of wish him

well with it.

And I almost feel good for him because he's not going to be nominated for Best Performance.

I don't think he may.

He's a very liked guy and we haven't talked about this, but there is certainly the elephant

in the room of politics involved in this one.

We did touch on it a little bit with Walter Mathau, but I'm out in the land now.

I don't know why I keep mixing those names up.

There's nothing alike.

Neither actors, anything alike.

There's M's, I guess.

Okay, maybe that.

Thank you.

You're such a good team.

It'll be interesting to see where some of these things fall when it comes to that, that

it's right on the fence kind of thing.

One of my favorite movies of last year, The Holdovers is, I mean, I think for sure going

to be nominated, okay.

And Paul G is a side note, Paul Giamatti, maybe the one actor that can steal Best Actor

from Silly and Murphy.

I don't know how you give that award to anybody else this year than Silly and Murphy.

That's a tough one, man.

He's definitely the front runner.

He's got to be.

But Paul Giamatti's performance in The Holdovers is both beautiful, aggravating and heart

breaking.

I get goosebumps thinking about this one.

The whole gamut.

Yeah, that's tough to be.

It's such a good actor.

And The Holdovers is such a good movie.

That's a fun one.

Poor things.

The feminist spin on Frankenstein is this year's Shape of Water.

This could be one of those ones where nobody sees a coming and it steals everything.

Right.

It's one of those, is there, is it, maybe we're inventing something prestige horror?

Yeah.

Can we call it that?

I think that's a cool thing.

You know, Guillermo del Toro is the guy who kind of, you know, brought horror up that

to that next level.

Yeah.

And we're kind of seeing more and more of that, which is really cool, I think.

I couldn't agree more because I'm not a big horror guy, but that stuff I really did.

I really get into a real drama and they got real stuff and it not just the scares and

all that, yeah.

And I feel like there's even a bit of suspense to it.

Oh, yeah.

The thing that I never really realized as a kid enjoying Hitchcock movies and liking

so much of Agatha Christie and some of these is the setup, the build, the build to the

moment.

Now it's all about jump scares and things like that.

I don't find that that scary, but the build up can really do it.

And I think Guillermo has taken a bit of that all along with the modern techniques and

technology that we have.

Yeah.

It's really cool to see that they're continuing that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Some great performances in that one too.

I'm excited to see both for the actors and the movie itself where it goes.

Barbie will be nominated for Best Picture.

It will be.

It's really, now normally in years past, when you see like Transformers nominated for

Best Picture or something, we understand, okay, that's just so that fans of that movie

will hopefully watch the Oscars.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Not the case with this one.

This movie actually does belong in the Best Picture category.

I'm going to take a quick little side trip here because I think the best director nominations,

I think that's going to be the most interesting one because obviously Nolan is going to be nominated

for Oppenheimer.

Greta Gerwig will be nominated for Barbie.

Yeah.

I think, boy, as good as Oppenheimer is, what has more of the director stamp on it.

And I think you got to go with Barbie on that.

She took something and completely turned it to the way she wanted it.

And that's amazing how she was able to do that.

Man, if I got a vote, I think, as good as Oppenheimer, I would vote for her just because

her vision was so there and she figured how to do it, which is amazing to me.

Now here's one where I show my hypocrisy a little bit.

And I think that's important.

I purposely did not bring this up earlier, hoping that a way to have an opportunity and

you just gave me the, oh, I opened the door for you, there you go.

Because I do believe you should get this on merits and I do believe it should be this

year in this year alone.

But in the back of my head, I know Christopher Nolan has won an Oscar before.

And I don't, and I think Greta deserves this Oscar.

So that I know that he's already won.

I have an easier time voting for her, which is what I did.

I voted for him for the last director.

And that's part of why I did just to take you through the process.

And I'm sure that many other people that vote on these things are do similar things.

We thought about all these things.

Yeah.

But it does show a little bit of the hypocrisy of it.

And you have to own that.

It's hard not to, it's hard not to.

I mean, you take all of this stuff into consideration.

So yeah.

And the big one, of course, is Oppenheimer.

Oh, I'm sorry, I almost forgot.

Killers of the Flower Moon.

That's another one.

That brings up the interesting debate and conversation about the streaming count.

Should streaming be included in this conversation and all that?

Wow.

That's an interesting thing.

That's a tough one.

I think in the future, as we move forward, I think it's going to have to be.

We don't know the future of theaters at this moment.

You know, it's, I'm not saying they're going to go away or anything like that.

It's a good point.

It's up in the air.

What is it going to be?

They're kind of figuring that out, feeling that out.

What is it going to be in the future?

So if someone makes what's called a film and, but they'd end up just on, you know, streaming

or whatever, I think they're going to have to, I think they're going to have to figure

that out.

Killers of the Flower Moon tell a story that is not common knowledge and I think that's

very important.

No to this.

And Hollywood does also like those kind of stories.

And you get a chance to have a Schindler's List or something like that.

You have a topic that people think they know, they vaguely know, but they don't know the

inner details of Hollywood loves being able to highlight those kind of movies.

There's some really, it's been very interesting to see in the last couple of years the rise

in support for Native Americans and Native American culture.

And I think that's not worthy to this too.

So I would not be shocked to see that pull off best picture.

You know, that's an interesting conversation and I think it has to do with the wheelhouses

of the directors of those Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan.

Yes, I totally agree with you.

Killers of the Flower Moon, sorry, is, you know, a great story.

It's fascinating.

It's history, you know, just like Oppenheimer is.

But it's still, it's still kind of Martin Scorsese's wheelhouse.

You know, that's kind of what he's really good at kind of thing.

I think Nolan took kind of a risk.

He doesn't do historical, he's never done this before with why he's Dunkirk kind of was,

but, but, but this one is, this was a little bit different for him.

He's pretty much straightforward.

Even different than Dunkirk and it's based on a book.

Yeah, and exactly really, really.

And Dunkirk was a, forgive me, but as much as we have American ties to it,

a kind of foreign story, if you will.

It's more, it's focused on Europe, yeah, the British and stuff like that.

Yeah.

Oppenheimer is an American story.

Through and through.

It is, it is, it has all the, and this is the one we'll wrap up on.

The one that I voted for for Best Picture, and I think that is going to win Best Picture.

I agree.

If anybody is going to sweep award season, it's Oppenheimer.

Yes, I agree.

And, but as a side note, I don't think anybody's going to sweep the awards this year.

I think it's going to be a mixed bag.

It would be a little bit more interesting than that.

You're going to see probably Oppenheimer come out of it with the most Oscars, but I don't

think they're going to sweep by any means.

Yeah.

Oscar-friendly biopic that Hollywood loves, going back to Ray, walked the line, any

movies like this, and it also has the ties to World War II, another thing that Hollywood

loves to award.

Well, the Hollywood War II movies, yeah.

And it tells a true story that is not necessarily common knowledge, but is, even to generations

that grew up during this time, because there was so much that was hidden that so much secrecy

was not able to be released until many, many years later.

This is one of those times where I don't just recommend people see this movie, and I never

do that, but I highly recommend people see Oppenheimer.

I also recommend you read the book both are noteworthy, and I think if you are, and this

is just me talking here, if you are a proud American, I think you have to see this movie.

I think you have to do it for a number of reasons, one of them giving credit to JD Oppenheimer

and the people that created this, that did this, to put their time into this, that risk

not only their lives, their careers, their families, and all of that to forward this act,

and to do this thing, to end a war, to end maybe our worst war, or at least at the time

our worst war, but also to give some credit, because as this happened, Einstein told Oppenheimer

this would happen, and it did, and now here is a chance for us in history to give credit

to where it deserves, and to, in a true story, the whole story, not just the parts that

we like.

Like the heroic scientist doing the thing, and then, oh wait, there was an aftermath, and

it was, wow, yeah.

To me, the act of being an American is not just USA, USA, but accountability along with

USA, USA, you could do both, and I think that's important.

And you could say that if you love your country as much as you say you do, you have to

point out the blemishes, you need to point out where, hey, we're not doing so good here,

maybe we should, we should do something about that.

How do we treat family?

We treat family that way, we should treat our country the same way, we treat family.

100 family.

Good segment.

That's fine.

Be ready for the Oscars, they're coming up next month, looking forward to that, that's

going to be fun, and enjoy everybody, and we'll come back with more fun here on Directors

Cut.

We're going to talk about movies coming up in 2024.

Well come back to Directors Cut, Seth, and James behind the mics, thanks so much for

joining us, everybody.

Do you want to take a side note to not only think the best listeners in radio promoting

and helping support this show, but remind all you creatives out there, we got a chair open

here.

We want you on the show.

We are already booking up for 2024 and getting some great guest lined up and everything,

but we got plenty of room, we do a show every Sunday, everybody, as much as we can.

There are artists out there, there are creatives out there that you know that we know that we

want to have on this show.

To reach out to us, our team, you can do that in a number of different ways.

You can email me or Seth, James.mailf at civicmedia.us, Seth.habhagger at civicmedia.us.

Call our station, direct messages on Facebook, however you've got to get a hold of us, reach

out to us and get on the show, we'd love to have you.

We'd love to have you.

We're going to take some time to talk about what's coming up in 2024 and some of the big

releases coming out.

Before we do that, though, Seth, I do want to just touch on for a moment, 2023, and

the box office numbers.

As we are in winter, there were some, we've had a frigid start to the beginning of the holiday

box office, or 2024 box office season.

For those that don't know, the December numbers do play into January and to further months.

So, they are paying attention oftentimes, even though there has been kind of a dip in

the big Christmas release, I would say almost the Lord of the Rings movies were the end

of that.

We really haven't seen it come back since.

Wow, has it been that long?

I hadn't thought about that really, but yeah, it kind of has been.

You'll see Christmas movies come out here and there and stuff, but for the most part,

you don't see a lot of big box office movies come out, and usually no.

Now this year, we had Aquaman, the lost kingdom come out, and as most people know by now,

that did not have a big box office release.

It put in about estimated 28,000, and it was projected to have about overall a domestic

office of 40, so you were not making your money back.

You were not going to end up in the black on that one.

To be fair, this was a DC kind of like cleaning house.

Yes.

They would like to make their money back, but this was not going to affect DC's plans

going forward.

Anything they could get for it, I think, would have been fine at this point.

But and I'm not just picking on that.

The Iron Claw, anyone but you, migration, all these movies did way under expectations,

and that's a uncomfortable feeling if you're if you're the movie industry going into 2024.

The color, the color propel did well, but Michael Mann's, Ferrari, George Clooney's, the

boys in the boat, some of these other movies, just have not stood up and done very well.

Kind of disappeared.

Yeah.

And I think that that's just as noteworthy as it is going into this season that there

is only one big Marvel release.

That's right.

Marvel is Deadpool 3.

It's going to hit theaters July 26th.

The DC Big reboot plan is all for 2025.

Yep.

So there is an opening.

There is an opening this year for everybody else.

There is going to be a new Mad Max movie for OSHA coming out.

There is a Joker movie coming out, but that is not considered necessarily a superhero movie.

That's a little to the side.

Yeah.

It's a little different.

So there is openings here.

And I think that Hollywood noticed this too.

There is going to be a new fresh installments from the Alien franchise, Despicable Me.

Beetlejuice has one coming out, and I know a lot of people are excited about.

We're going to see a lot of that this year.

Okay.

And we've already seen a bit of it.

We have.

Mean Girls.

That's right.

And did already did very well.

The kind of reimagining of that story and continuation of that.

And there are some other big ones coming out.

I actually have an article here that has, from Fandango, did a survey to find out what

people are most excited for in 2024.

Okay.

So the people speak for themselves here, not just what I think is going to be cool coming

out or what you might think.

At number 10, a quiet place, day one looks like a prequel to the quiet place movies.

It kind of tells how that happened.

Being honest, I have nothing against those movies.

I love John Krasinski and Emily Blunt.

I like both of them a lot as individuals.

And as a couple.

And even together in movies, they get great chemistry.

They're really good together.

Yeah.

I haven't seen those movies though.

I haven't seen them.

Just to be honest.

I haven't seen them.

But I support them and very happy for them.

It seems those are more like, I know they're not, they were kind of called horror movies.

They're more like thrillers if you ask me.

They're more in that genre.

Gladiator 2 coming out.

This has Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington as a part of it.

I think James McAvoy, I want to say or somebody else is in it.

I'm not sure about this one.

I'm going to see it because of Denzel.

I mean, I'll be honest.

I'm with you on that one, if nothing else, because, oh, wow, Denzel Washington, make

you perk up a little bit.

But boy, was there a movie that really didn't need a sequel?

That's right.

One of them.

Honestly, I thought it was weak to begin with.

I don't know how it won the Oscar, honestly, but it wasn't voting back then, man.

I don't know how that happened.

No problem.

I like Ridley Scott.

He's a great director.

Really interesting things in his career, but really, that's what he, all right, I think.

I love Ridley Scott, and I would work for free for that man.

But yeah, I'm with you.

I don't know how that won.

Anyway.

A lot of people excited about it, though.

Lord of the Rings, the War of Rahim, it's an animated prequel.

That could be interesting.

On a number of levels, one, we already know that the Lord of the Rings franchise is well

loved, and it's going to get numbers.

You're going to get people to show up for it.

If nothing else, just to see what it's, yeah.

But I wonder, and I admit, this might be a bit of a reach, but I wonder if generations

like Arseth, that grew up with the animated Hobbit movie?

If there might be a tie to that, it might be a callback, a nostalgia, a pullback for

people.

Again, it's a reach, but I don't know.

I wonder if some of the numbers of people that come in and go see the movie, go because

of those reasons.

I hadn't, you know, I'm fascinated by that, because there were the two that they did

on TV, Rankin Bass, of course, the famous animators did the Hobbit, and then they did the

final one, Return of the King.

There's also the famous infamous Ralph Bakshi that started, was going to make two movies,

and that one was, boy, talk about a polarizing movie.

People hate it.

Some people think it's awesome, and wow, fascinating.

It's got a weird track record with animation.

It's going to be really interesting to see what they do with it.

You're right, though.

It's going to pull the people in.

I mean, look at what happened with the rings of power, you know, and that was big and

everything.

So it'll be, yeah.

It'll be interesting.

That Amazon series, I talked about this on the air.

I don't think it was the greatest thing I ever seen or anything, but I watched every

episode, and they, I got to admit, they, not no spoilers, but they wrapped it up incredibly.

Right.

If you're a fan of the series, if the books and everything, they did such a great job

of like, this is for the people that read the books.

Yes.

And I thought that was a brave choice, let alone spending billions on it.

That series.

Well, yeah, and because if you saw it, there's a lot of stuff they added, which you have to

do.

I mean, considering the source material, it's like legends.

You can't just put that on the screen.

It doesn't work.

But the way they incorporate it, absolutely.

Another one that everybody's excited about coming out in 2024, Inside Out 2, animated

film.

But, you know, of course, the first one had Amy Polar, Lewis Black, Tony Hale.

Then each one of them playing different emotions.

Correct.

Yep.

There's a father of younger kids.

I have seen the first one.

I have to give the voice cast huge kudos for that one.

They were fabulous.

I think this is a no-brainer that they brought them all back to do it again.

And now they're, I guess, introducing teenage hormones.

Yeah.

That's going to be, that's the whole story.

Oh, that's really fun.

It'll be, I think it'll be just as fun.

Most Pixar movies, at least have something to cleverness or whatever and fun.

This is probably going to be another good one.

And here's something that we're probably going to see, not just in 24, but going forward

a little bit more.

Not just kids movies, but mid kids movies.

Where do you, you know, you got kids movies and then you got adult movies.

But where do like 12, 13, 14, 15 year olds?

What about movies for them?

The Harry Potter movies were kind of that for quite a while, but there hasn't been a

real genre for that in quite some time.

Maybe Hunger Games a little bit?

Oh, yeah.

Good stuff.

That would be one.

But you know, that's not a lot though.

We're just mentioning a couple.

Yeah.

So that should be kind of cool to see more movies kind of geared towards that.

Despicable me for is going to be coming out.

I Steve Carell recast in that one.

Of course, those movies do well.

Those do well.

Yeah.

I've seen like the first one.

I think that's it.

So, yeah, me too.

Yeah.

My dad seems to love them though.

My dad loves those movies.

Venom 3, another big one coming out.

And one of the few superhero movies being released in next year.

You know, I'm, I'm, I'm just, I've not seen the other two Venom movies and I'm just not

interested.

I get it.

I am not interested as much as I love Spider-Man.

Right.

I just, I don't know.

Maybe I'm not a big fan of Tom Hardy too.

I think that's part of it.

And this is according to him.

This is his swan song with the role.

This will be the last time he plays the role.

Of course, was superhero movies.

If it cameo shows up here or there or something, I would be shocked.

Yeah.

But that one has got a lot of people excited and it is looking at a November release for

that.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

A couple and we wrap up with a lot of big ones here.

Dune part two.

Ooh.

I'm ready for that one.

Me too.

I like the first one.

I'm ready for the second one.

I was a little, I was a lover of the movie as a kid.

The original.

And I loved it as a kid.

It played on WGN all the time.

Why they played that in the afternoon on WGN almost unedited.

I don't know.

Um, but yeah, they did quite a bit.

They did.

They do that with David Lynch films, right?

Yeah, right.

Right.

Um, but I went into it like, okay, this has got an insane cast, one of the biggest

cast you'll ever see.

Oh, yeah.

Miss Smithy-Shellamy Austin Butler, Florence Pus and Daya.

You've got a bunch of French card cards.

Oh, yeah.

With his that really, wow, nasty roll, who?

William Defos, isn't it?

Yeah, it is a nasty, nasty roll from him.

Yep.

And it's of course based on the books which a lot of people enjoy too.

But it's just a Daniel Velueia is just one a Denise is just one of his directors.

There's different.

He sees things differently, man.

His attention to detail, some work that he's done, it's so cool to see him alone, I think

makes me want to see him move.

Yeah.

And it's a passion project for him.

This is the one he always wanted to make.

And I'm really glad the first one was successful enough they were able to do because you got

to continue the story because when you get to the end and the epicness of it, man, you

got it.

You can't just leave people hanging.

You can't do that.

This is a trilogy.

So this is the middle piece, there will be a third.

And I think that that's important to note too.

Absolutely.

Looking forward to that.

Doon Part II.

Shout out to Timothy Chalamet, kind of made his bones with that role and he pulled it off.

He made it stick together for someone so young.

That was amazing.

I am just walking around with my fingers tied and knocking on whatever chance I get because

I just want this young man to have a great life and to continue to work.

I am so excited about his career.

He's so good right now.

I know.

And he's one of these kids that continues to try to get better too.

So where could he be in five years from now?

Exciting.

Please don't do anything silly.

Please don't get cancer.

Please stay in this.

No, no, no.

Just keep on the path.

I actually think he will.

I think he seems pretty down there.

He seems like one of those ones that you got to worry about.

Ghostbusters, Frozen Empire, also going to be released in 2023.

I'm excited about this one.

I really, I was on the fence with the other one.

They blew me away.

I thought it was one of the best kind of like reimagining him continuing.

I have forgotten about that and I still haven't seen afterlife.

I know I have to.

That was a, I know for when I was a kid, seeing Ghostbusters was formative.

I mean, it's still, it has not aged great, you know, the original, but it's still a

fun movie.

It's got great lines, you know, I quote him all the time, you know, but, but I'm willing

to give these ones a try just because I haven't, and now I got to see the first one

before I see this one.

But I am interested.

I think I will do that.

I'm a huge fan of Paul Rudd.

I've seen everything he does and I'll watch everything he does.

And what I think really brought people home to this one in particular was not only bring

it back, Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Ernie Hudson and that, but was the idea of like, oh,

we get to see what happened to these characters and, and the tip of the hat to Harold Ramos.

I've never seen anything like it in the way that, the end of that movie, there's a scene

in there that I've never seen to happen in a movie before when honoring a fallen actor.

Right.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't say fallen actor.

Oh, an actor was passed away.

I was just talking veterans affairs with a set of the test sets in my head.

But I think that, that is part of what brought this home, that movie and why it's, it was

successful.

And I, I do think Frozen Empire has a chance to be successful.

I hope so.

No idea if it will be or not.

That's one of those ones where they're really, oh, they're nervous, they're nervous.

They, they need this one.

They don't need it to do well, but they're really hopeful it does because I don't think it

was a guaranteed that they were going to do a sequel to it.

Oh, no, not at all.

And I think this is one of those that has a chance, you can't go just on nostalgia on

this.

You have to update it.

You have to figure out new ways of doing it.

And hopefully they did that.

Beatles juice two being released September 6th, again, Tim Burton behind the camera for

this one.

Interesting to see some of the producers on this one, Brad Pitt is an executive producer

on this movie.

Really?

And part because like many of us, he grew up loving the original and this is one of those

ones where I don't think and Tim Burton and I don't see eye to eye much anymore.

But I will say, I don't think this is necessarily something he came out wanting to do.

This was his idea.

It came from a lot of people, including people like Brad Pitt and actors that were on them

in the original that really thought, hey, we should tell this story again.

This story actually would hit home more nowadays than I think it did when the original came

out.

That's according to them.

Right.

We'll see.

I really enjoy the first movie.

I watched it many times when I was younger.

I am not, I'm really not excited about this.

I'm not really, if I miss it, I don't care.

I really don't, I guess I don't have a, I'm not really interested.

Which is good considering you're a father of two and the chances of you seeing a new movie

are very slip.

Exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm curious, so you and I have never talked about this.

You don't seem, I'm speculating here, but you don't seem to be a big sequels guy, you

know, in general, for the most part.

You know, it's, I've never really thought about it, well, and it also depends on your

definition of sequels.

Now, you go to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, yes, they have sequels, but this is a larger

story that they're telling, this huge tapestry, just like comic books, which is where they

got their thing from.

That's a lit, to me, that's a little bit different.

Making a sequel just because something is successful, then, yeah, I'm really, you know,

something interesting.

Yeah.

Yes, on that, I'm 100% with you on.

And I, I don't know if this is a cash grab or if they really do want to continue the

story.

I'd say, yeah, I will say Michael Keaton, we're known a writer coming back, you, you've

got me there.

Jenny Ortega is playing Lydia's daughter, and that I think is perfect casting.

It is very good.

With her playing the Wednesday role in it, yes, Monica Balucci is in this, and I love

her world.

Oh, she's great.

And William DeFoe, Catherine O'Hara.

I mean, nice cast.

Glad that Catherine O'Hara's coming back.

Yes, he's very, very underused, by the way, she's great.

Any chance to talk about Second City's own Catherine O'Hara, I'm going to take it.

And the most anticipated movie of 2024, according to FanDango's survey, Deadpool 3, and it only

made sense to me.

And there is not a ton of, as we touched on, not a ton of these type of movies coming

out this year.

So I think that that's immediately going to get people to want to see it.

But there is, of course, the Deadpool fan base that has been very strong, very strong.

And then, oh, yeah, you're bringing back just as a side note here, Wolverine.

Hugh Jackman is reprising the character that he was not going to do.

He said he was, he was done.

He said he was done.

Him and Ryan Reynolds are very close for us there.

And Ryan Reynolds is one of these guys.

He will let you know he is not going to leave you alone.

If he wants you to do something, he's not going to leave you alone about it.

They can't.

Are you annoying Canadians?

He's fine.

Right.

He finally got Hugh Jackman to be on the fence about it like, look, you come up with a great

idea, a great script.

You can get the suits to agree, and the lawyers to agree, and everything, I'll do it.

So Ryan, and he didn't think that would happen though.

Hugh Jackman knows the industry better than I do in most, and he knew that the idea of

getting this character on that show is very difficult to do with all you look behind

the scenes and all the copyright issues and attorneys and lawyers and all this.

Let alone he said he wasn't going to do the role anymore.

And he's one of these guys.

He says something he really wants to stand on his word.

It's very important to Hugh Jackman.

But he got the script.

Everything else went okay.

And most importantly to him, the fans wanted him to come back.

So he's doing it.

Yeah.

And he is going to be co-leading in this with Ryan Reynolds.

He's not just, it's not just a cameo or something like that.

And he's starring in the movie with him as Wolverine and in the old X-Men Wolverine costume.

The yellow, the classic, the original yellow, which, that part is cool.

I love that.

How they pull off that.

No spoilers.

Earmuffs, if you have not seen Logan or seen some of the other Wolverine movies, they

do kill off the character.

So bring in the character back.

Everybody's fascinating how they do that.

And we all know time travel and all that.

God bless the multiverse.

That's all I'm missing.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The old model, not quite working the way it was before.

So they have decided to, you know, to flip the script a little bit and do that.

I think this is a brilliant move.

The only movie they're releasing this year is Deadpool.

Super popular.

They're going to, I know they're going to be cleaning up because this is going to take

place at least partially, at least adjacent to the MCU.

Yes.

They're probably going to figure out a way to do stuff like that.

I think this is a very, very smart move by Kevin Feige and the whole crew over there.

I think they're doing damage control.

But I think they're doing it a very smart way.

Just some honorable mentions real quick.

Our guy is coming out on February 2nd.

This one looks kind of good.

Henry Cavill is in this.

It's based on Matthew Vaughn, Matthew Vaughn directed it.

Bryce Dallas Howard, who I really like is in this as well and it's got some nice actors

in it.

A bunch of actors I really like.

Lisa Frankenstein is out February 9th, written by Diablo Cody, who has won some Oscars

before.

Yeah, she's very good.

I've done some great work and I got to get this in without getting broken up.

It's directed by Zelda Williams.

Zelda Williams.

And if that name sounds familiar to you, that is Robin Williams' oldest child.

Oh.

That's right.

I believe his oldest.

He's his daughter.

Yeah.

I totally forgot that he named his daughter Zelda, totally went right by it.

This is her directorial debut.

How cool is that?

I will go see this in the theaters and I am extremely excited about supporting this great

young lady.

Yeah, that's so cool.

Yeah.

It's be fun to see.

And of course, if there's any movies you guys want to hear us talk about or preview or

hear about or anything, anything, anything above, let us know.

Or want to send us to pay for our contestants and send us to where we're going to review it

that way too.

Definitely do that.

We are not above that.

So we got one more quick segment here on Director's Cut before we wrap up the show.

We'll be right back.

Welcome back to Director's Cut, Seth and James Featured here.

We just got a couple of minutes left.

I thought it'd be fun to kind of wrap up with trigger warnings.

We'd like to see on some movies.

Most movies, most TV shows have a warning that, you know, these scenes will take place.

Yeah.

That kind of stuff.

Well, let's have some more modern ones here.

Let's have some ones that actually really help us.

For the movie Elvis, Tom Hanks does this really weird thing with his voice.

He's probably should have warned people about that.

Love that idea.

Weird accent.

Coming up.

Yeah.

What about the TV show Lost?

You are about to commit six years of your life to a show with a horrible ending.

Ooh.

Ooh.

See now, you could, there's a couple of shows that I can think of.

Now, again, these are all shows that I, I never watched.

Okay.

Lost was one of them.

But from what I have heard from the fans.

Yes.

Yes.

The ending soprano was polarizing, but there are people who liked it, people who really

didn't like it.

True.

Pretty much consensus.

Game of Thrones.

Yeah.

It was really bad.

Yeah.

From what I've heard.

So, yeah.

You can reuse this one.

You know, you might have changed the years, but you can reuse this one a number of times.

This one is just a note from me.

It's not only attached to Marley and me, but any movie with a dog, the dog dies, tell

people.

All right.

Like, come on.

You know how I feel about spoilers.

You know how I am about spoilers, one of my biggest pet peeves in the world.

But it is one of the coolest things there is to make a movie where the dog is made, the

movies about the dog, and we all know we've all read old Yeller.

I was going to say old Yeller, it's the blueprint right there, man.