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TrueBreenius

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Posts posted by TrueBreenius

  1. Posted

    Here's my hypothesis about Governor Gabbi: Governor Gabbi is a companion piece to Fateful Findings. They have similar production values, acting, unintentional comedy, blatant misunderstanding of how government works, anti-corruption messaging, and terrible direction and editing, I think this isn’t a coincidence and the films are part of the same universe. Both movies have a few cartoonishly evil figures who represent political corruption and are defeated by the leads. We know that Neil Breen is hacking the most secret government and corporate secrets and uncovering more corruption than has ever been discovered, and given his godlike hacking alien powers, I’m sure he’d be capable of rigging elections in his favour and using a flimsy “bake sale mixup” to justify the outcome. We know from his films that he likes bland virtuous young blondes, what if he rigged the California election specifically to make Gabbi governor so that she could fight corruption there while he’s busy in Nevada?

  2. Posted

    After thinking about it for a while, I think it would be more affecting if Rita stayed in the old man's body but Peter continued to love and support her in that form. People with AIDS don't get the disease because they desire it, and it can't be cured by wanting it hard enough. I personally believe that the mechanics of body switching in this work muddles the AIDS metaphor. 

  3. Posted

    This was such a strange movie, and I was baffled to find out that it has 63% on Rotten Tomatoes. It was a bit disappointing that June couldn't make it to this episode, I'm sure she would've had a lot to say about it. 

    After some research online, I've learned that apparently the play was intended as a metaphor for gay couples who struggle with the looming spectre of death after one partner develops AIDS. Additionally, the playwright, Craig Lucas, is gay and has written other plays about AIDS and its impact on the gay community. For me, this adds a lot of context about why it may have succeeded on Broadway since that knowledge provides significant depth and purpose to the plot. Maybe it comes across more clearly in the original play that this storyline is intended to be viewed in this light because it completely went over my head watching the film.

  6. Posted

    I wasn't much of a student-athlete unless you count debate and mock trial as sports. There was, however, a free public tennis court near my house, so my family and I would go there and play. I haven't seen this film in at least a decade, and all I remembered about it was that Michael Jordan plays basketball with Looney Tunes characters. Watching it now as an adult, it's truly a bizarre film.

    • Am I the only one who thought there were some weird racial undertones to the premise of the Looney Tunes having to play basketball against their potential captors to get out of slavery?
    • Also, I don't think we discussed enough how much of a creep Bugs Bunny was in this movie. Why is no one talking about the fact that he kissed Michael Jordan? That would not fly in a post-#metoo world. This guy's walking around fully nude, planting unwanted kisses on famous basketball players, and openly leering at another bunny who, for male gaze reasons, happens to have boobs and a big butt. Way to ruin my childhood.
    • I also have a lot of questions about the mechanics of losing one's talent in this film. At the 24 minute mark, one of the players tries to drink from a water bottle and fails spectacularly. You can be bad at basketball and still be able to drink water! Additionally, the stolen talent made the monstars both taller and beefier than the actual players are, which is odd. Also, clearly that demonstrates that size is considered a contributing factor to the players' talent, and yet none of them shrinks when their talent is stolen. None of this makes much sense.
    • Finally, there was a very disturbing moment at the 22-minute mark, where some of the aliens are bundled up in a coat and hat and go to watch a basketball game. The aliens are moving around and talking to each other and the woman beside them says to her male companion that "the guy next to us is doing something very strange in his coat." To me, that implies masturbation, and I don't know why the man doesn't seem to care or be bothered. I figure that most people if they thought someone was masturbating beside them at a basketball game might try to talk to one of the employees about it, or at least be concerned.
    • Like 4

  7. Posted

    This movie was at least on the short side which made it relatively painless to watch. I didn't find it funny but there've been plenty of other movies for this podcast that were more of a chore to get through.

    I've been hung up on one particular detail in the film, which I noticed during the film's master of disguise training montage. Pistachio is seen reading "The Master of Disguise for Dummies." Of course, the For Dummies series is very well-known and widely available, which raises the question of why such a book would exist if being a master of disguise is supposedly a hereditary secret. Presumably, the intention of such a book would be to allow anyone who read it to be able to become a master of disguise, regardless of lineage, and it would mean that the Disguiseys' talent really isn't that special or unique to them, which would undermine the film's premise. In this universe, this book shouldn't exist, and the only justification consistent with the film's plot for such a book existing would be that someone in the Disguisey family made their own "for dummies" book and infringed upon that trademark (oh dear.)

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    • Like 5

  10. Posted

    This was one of the first films I watched for the podcast and it was mesmerizingly bad, so seeing this show up on my podcast app this morning made today a magical day. I'd like to talk about the scene I found most upsetting, which is the one where Neil struggles to lift a cup of coffee, collapses, and then spills the coffee all over his 1995 laptop, papers, and face. Why would he put the coffee mug on his laptop? Does he deliberately use that specific laptop as a coaster, and if so, is the reason that he has so many dead laptops because he uses them for non-computing purposes as well? Does Neil not have any straws or travel mugs that could aid him in drinking coffee without spilling in his impaired state? I need to know more about his relationship with coffee and computers.

    (P.S., if anyone from the show is reading this, I'd love to hear the gang talk about more movies from the Neil Breen vault because they're all gems)

     

     

    • Like 3

  13. Posted

    It's absolutely hilarious and in my opinion much funnier than Superbad which I never really got into. As a former type A teenage girl, it was nice to watch a silly teen movie where girls like that were the leads. There's also a bit of absurdism to the movie, which was a welcome surprise. I also appreciated the diverse cast and the LGBTQ representation. Easily one of my top movies of the year.

    • Like 2

  14. Posted

    This movie was bonkers. A specific detail that I have been hung up on for the past week is the fact that the computer system in the car that pulls up people's personal data lists their statistics (e.g. height and weight) in metric measurements (cm and kg, respectively). Did the earthquake cause America to abandon the imperial measurement system? Does the collapse of freedom units in Los Angeles have anything to do with the simultaneous deterioration of civic society, or is it simply coincidental? 

    • Like 6

  20. Posted

    I love when a movie which on the surface seems like it should be successful (acclaimed director, all-star cast) turns out to be a total mess. The reviews for this film contain some top-notch roasting (seriously, check out the Rotten Tomatoes page if you're looking for a good time). It seems like an incredibly bizarre and misguided film, and I'd love to hear June, Jason, and Tall John discuss it.

    Starring: Natalie Portman, Sarah Gadon, Kit Harington

    Directed By: Xavier Dolan

    Synopsis: A decade after the death of an American TV star, a young actor reminisces the written correspondence he shared with him, as well as the impact those letters had on both their lives.

     

  21. Posted

    The King's Speech. Sure, the acting is top-notch, but the film itself was like watching paint dry. So many of the other nominees from that year (Black Swan, Inception, The Social Network, etc.) strike me as so much more interesting, memorable, and innovative than The King's Speech, so it wasn't like there was a dearth of qualified competitors. That film was pure Oscar-bait and it's disappointing that the Academy chose the blandest film of the bunch. 

    • Like 2

  22. Posted

    A lot of people are understandably a bit confused as to why Steve Mnuchin has produced all of these movies. I'm currently reading "An Economist Walks into a Brothel" by Allison Schrager, which discusses the economics of risk. As she describes it, movies are a particularly risky investment. It's not unusual at all for movies to flop when projected earnings are high or vice versa. Movie investors and economists have tried to create algorithms to predict which films will be critical and box office hits, but no one has nailed it. I'm sure we can all think of movies that have big budgets, high-profile directors and/or cast members, and a topical theme that nonetheless fail, and smaller movies with perhaps less recognizable individuals attached that manage to get awards, critical acclaim, and/or surprisingly high box office figures. A majority of films don't earn a profit at the box office, and certain genres which tend to earn more box office revenue, such as action, also have significantly higher production costs than, say, an independent drama. As a result, when people invest in movies, they frequently invest in a bundle of projects because it mitigates the perceived risk (slate financing). 

    Quote

    Investors who finance the films usually get equity, meaning they get a share of the film's profits after writers, actors, directors, production crew, and editors are paid. Because the expected return on most movies is less than zero, the investors shoulder most of the financial risk for next to no reward. To offset the risk, deals are often made for a slate of about a dozen movies at a time, but investors often cannot choose which films are included in the slate.

    Steve Mnuchin founded Dune Entertainment, a film investment company, which later merged with Brett Ratner's film financing venture, RatPac Entertainment. RatPac-Dune relies on slate financing to generate profit and has invested in countless movies, especially due to its partnership with Warner Bros (which ended in 2018 because of Bret Ratner's #MeToo scandal). Some of these films, like Unforgettable or Collateral Beauty, turn out to be flops. Others, such as Wonder Woman and Mad Max: Fury Road, are profitable and well-received by critics and audiences. Those successes are expected to compensate for the losses of the flops, thereby increasing the chance that Mnuchin will earn money on his investments. So the next time you're wondering why Steve Mnuchin has production credits on such a seemingly odd array of films, slate financing through RatPac-Dune Entertainment is your answer. 

    • Like 4
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