Jungle Cruise (2021)

Matt (00:00:00):

Hey folks. This is our season finale of the Summer of Rock miniseries on the Load Bearing Beams podcast. The last episode we’re going to be doing, we’re recovering a movie of Dwayne the Rock Johnson. Next week we’ll have a little mini episode sort of wrapping everything up, but this episode is on Jungle Cruise, a much more fun movie than I remembered. I’d seen it one time, it was much better than I remembered. It’s a fun movie. We had originally intended to cover Black Adam as the season finale, but then we just decided that was too disappointing, too depressing a note to go out on, and so we pivoted to this movie a much more fun movie and it’s a fun episode. We went through the history of the Disney theme Park Attraction, jungle Cruise, and the history of movies based on theme Park rides longer than you think.

(00:00:41):

Then we talk about the making of this movie, the troubled production of the movie, the Delays because of COVID, the weird release where it premiered on Disney Plus in the same time as it premiered in theaters. Is there anything that could have done to make this movie a hit? And will there ever be a movie that’s a hit again that isn’t based on a really pre-sold intellectual property? Obviously Jungle Cruise isn’t intellectual property technically, but it barely counts. It’s kind of sad to think that a movie like this can’t be a hit. We also go into a little bit more messy rock drama and gossip by going through his unhinged Instagram posts, watching unhinged Facebook video of his as he prepares the world for Black Adam, and then the Disappointment that was Black Adam and also read Notice and Read Won. We take you through the end of the Rock’s career. By the end, I mean everything leading up to the present. If none of that history stuff interests you, as always, you can look at the episode description, it will give you a timestamp and you can just skip right to the movie discussion where Laci and I talk about Jungle Cruise. Thank you so much. I guess let’s hear the Summer of Rock theme song one last time. Hit it!

Matt (00:03:08):

Hello. This is Load Bearing Beams, the finale, the season finale of the Summer of Rock. We are bidding a fond A to the man, the Rock, the

Laci (00:03:20):

Myth,

Matt (00:03:21):

The Myth, the Bram Bull, the Skipper, his best known role, Skippy

Laci (00:03:26):

And Dr. Pants.

Matt (00:03:27):

I’m Matt Stokes.

Laci (00:03:28):

And I’m Laci Roth

Matt (00:03:29):

And hey Laci.

Laci (00:03:31):

Oh, hey Matt. Oh

Matt (00:03:32):

Hey,

Laci (00:03:32):

We’re

Matt (00:03:33):

Married. This is our marriage podcast where we watch movies and talk about ’em and make lots of

Laci (00:03:38):

Love.

Matt (00:03:39):

Love

Laci (00:03:39):

To the camera and to the microphone as you are experiencing right now.

Matt (00:03:45):

Make a lot of fun of the movies we talk about. If you love the movies we’re talking about, it’s all in good fun. It’s okay, and we we’re here to celebrate the movies. We love the movies.

Laci (00:03:54):

We go to the pictures.

Matt (00:03:56):

This is the finale of the Summer of Rock. So a few things upfront. I want to thank again Wade Heel and TJ Barrons for helping us produce our summer of rock theme song, which I’m going to miss dearly. Wade is in my band with me, roar, route nine. He performed it with me. Tj produced it, engineered it, and thank you Laci for going along with it and singing on it. Well, going along with my dumb bullshit. I’m like, I want to write a song about the round.

Laci (00:04:22):

Well, I was just thinking if we have enough of these series that require a song, we’ll have a whole album

Matt (00:04:28):

In

Laci (00:04:28):

A couple years. Yeah,

Matt (00:04:30):

We could be like the Bob’s Burgers album

Laci (00:04:31):

Or the Dough Boys

Matt (00:04:34):

Or The Dough Boys. Yes.

Laci (00:04:35):

Do they

Matt (00:04:36):

Don’t have an album? No.

Laci (00:04:37):

Yeah, they do,

Matt (00:04:37):

But they

Laci (00:04:38):

Wish they were a hot dog.

Matt (00:04:40):

So those thank you to those men, you can

Laci (00:04:42):

Thank you Men,

Matt (00:04:43):

The links to their Instagrams are in the show description, so go support their musical endeavors and keep up with them. So yeah, finale of our summer mini series. I’m going to miss the Rock. I’ve grown. I don’t know how my feelings have evolved on him. They’ve evolved, but I don’t know where I land. I feel like I know him better, even though I feel like he’s a bit of an unknowable entity and I feel both more fondly toward him and more annoyed with him.

Laci (00:05:15):

I feel well primed for his comeback. Not a comeback, but his come to fruition. I feel like there’s an actor in there and maybe he’ll start to see it too and maybe not be so distracted with a bunch of other things or maybe have kind of chased those trails as far as they lead and they’re not really what they thought. Like having a drink, being a constant sponsor for a vodka and a, sorry, a tequila and a energy drink. How fun could that be? No one wants to be a fricking Red Bull promoter.

Matt (00:05:49):

My fear is he has this movie, the Smashing Machine coming out, which is, I’m going serious. I’m working with a serious director, Benny Sty. I’m doing a physical transformation. My fear is he won’t get an Oscar nomination and then he’ll be like, tried that. No thanks. Didn’t work.

Laci (00:06:03):

I don’t think so. I don’t know. I guess he’d have to be really hoping to step away outside of where he’s ever tried. I don’t think he’s ever tried to even be in that realm of Oscar. He even kind of laughs it off to people who are really into the acting part of acting. So I mean, if this is him going all in, I feel like he’s a person who understands that you have to work your way up. He just happens to get to skip a few steps because he’s gifted. But I don’t know. I think if he gets enough critical praise in a way that he hadn’t before around his acting, then it might make it worth it.

Matt (00:06:39):

That’s the hope. I don’t know. It’s a 24, it’s coming out in October, and I worry that if it’s a thing where he isn’t immediately met with lots of praise, then he’ll think, forget it. I’m not trying this again. This was way too much work, way more.

Laci (00:06:53):

It’s definitely a lot of work and who knows how much it takes. You know what I mean? He already feels really separate from his household stuff, and I don’t know how old his kids are now, but I think if he really throws himself into a different person, a different frame of mind to really get good acting out, he might just personally become very drained and even more distant, and he may not have the psyche that can bounce back and a lot of actors don’t, but love acting so much that that’s okay. It becomes part of them and it kind of breaks them a little each time they take on a role like that. He’s certainly not willing to do that,

Laci (00:07:28):

But

Laci (00:07:28):

If that thrusts him back into the joy of an action movie and can manage to keep it small and fun, I’m here for that too.

Matt (00:07:36):

Yeah, I guess when we go through the history, I’m going to take us through up to the present, and I really noticed he doesn’t, this is the first small thing. He’s done this up movie with the Smashing Machine. He only does $200 million movies.

Laci (00:07:51):

The Jungle Cruise was small.

Matt (00:07:53):

No, jungle Cruise was huge. I’m saying Smashing Machine. His upcoming movie is his first small movie in more than a decade, if not more. And I know that you actors and producers absolutely get accustomed to being in a giant production and all of it comes with that.

Laci (00:08:08):

All the things. It’s not on the screen. I mean it is, but you’re right. I’m not even thinking about just the catering. The amount of time in a place where you stay. How big is your trailer? How big is a support staff? Do you get three assistants? All those things. I could never, right?

Matt (00:08:25):

So if you want to be somebody like Robert Pattinson who after the Twilight movies went really small, went into the art house world, I was totally happy. I used to be super famous and in tabloids and stuff. Now I’m working in Art House Fair. I’m going all around the world working with super serious directors on movies that are never ever going to make money, and movies that probably don’t have things like catering and trailers for every individual actor, and that is probably, if you want to be taken seriously as an acclaimed actor, that’s kind of the world you’ll have to go into and stay in for a while. So that’s just something to keep our eye on. We’re going to have a little mini episode next week to come out where Laci and I are going to sum up our feelings on the Rock, our final thoughts. We’re going to rank all the movies that we’ve watched. Also going to take a few mailbag questions. That’ll be the episode that comes out next week before we resume our normal programming in September. But I wanted to put it out there to all of y’all. Laci and I have really enjoyed doing the Summer of Rock, and it seems like people like it. We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback and we liked digging into an individual.

Laci (00:09:29):

We

Matt (00:09:30):

Really liked it last year with Spielberg. We liked it this year with The Rock, and I feel like we’re good at it. And so the question is, should that be something we’re doing full time? What do you think? Just if you listen to the show, let us know. Would that be

Laci (00:09:46):

Something, change the format of the show where not like a six, not like an entire summer or whatever, but at least four week stretches where we dig in four to six weeks.

Matt (00:09:58):

Right. And it wouldn’t have to be we’ve done it, one director, one actor. It can be like that sort of thing. Do whatever. Yeah, we do want to dig into an individual. Interesting.

Laci (00:10:06):

I don’t want to do a company, right?

Matt (00:10:08):

Oh yeah.

Laci (00:10:09):

Or a production. A certain kind of a producer would be weird too because I feel like people or producers kind of hop around what their roles are.

Matt (00:10:16):

If there are, well, yeah, there are O Tour producers, but it has to be like you have to see their personality in the

Laci (00:10:22):

Movies. Yes, yes.

Matt (00:10:23):

That’s why Spielberg and The Rock both work. Yes.

Laci (00:10:25):

What is a random outlier where you could do something for someone that’s not that, and I was thinking the guy that does all the buffet music,

Matt (00:10:32):

John Williams,

Laci (00:10:34):

We’ll

Matt (00:10:34):

Do a John Williams two years.

Laci (00:10:37):

I think what we would find out is that the through line is the money

Matt (00:10:42):

And the buffet,

Laci (00:10:42):

Right?

Matt (00:10:43):

So let us know what the drawback is. I think that the podcast I like I would listen to no matter what they talked about, but I know that there are people who want to listen to the podcast because of the subject matter, and if we start talking about a figure who makes movies that you don’t care about, you might just check out. So that’s my concern.

Laci (00:11:06):

Well, and we also have the kind of crowd who are probably movie lovers and movie experts, so we also run the risk of someone who already knows so much about it. They’re like, oh, there’s no way. If we did all Star Wars all the time, we’d really turn some people off. We’d just be constantly getting it wrong. No,

Matt (00:11:21):

If we wanted to stare death in the face and just stare into the abyss, we can talk Star Wars more than we already have, which is only

Laci (00:11:28):

In poorly

Matt (00:11:28):

For us. You

Laci (00:11:31):

Don’t go there

Matt (00:11:31):

No matter what we do, it will be the same. The show will be the same in that we do the history, we make fun of each other. We’re inappropriate. We go through the plot of the movie, et cetera. It’s just are we choosing to investigate movies that are from our past or are we

Laci (00:11:45):

Maybe

Matt (00:11:45):

Taking a figure from our past? I love the movies of Sandra Bullock. Let’s do a month off Sandra Bullock movies.

Laci (00:11:50):

It allows us to be a little more detached too. Neither one of us has a big stake, and so we don’t come in it from that. It’s been probably a long time though, since we’ve really come in. Okay, come on. I’m fighting for this one.

Matt (00:12:01):

No, we

Laci (00:12:01):

Don’t. I think we both just take it for what it is in that moment. And is this good or bad? We’ve gotten better about not rallying the troops for a movie.

Matt (00:12:09):

I can’t remember the last time and it happened. I mean, honestly, it’s like you were mad at me last night about Jungle Cruise because you were not, you loved it and I liked it and you’re like, you bastard. What’s wrong with you?

Laci (00:12:19):

I liked it a lot. And you didn’t like it a lot?

Matt (00:12:22):

No, I liked it.

Laci (00:12:22):

Don’t tell me I loved it.

Matt (00:12:25):

You seemed like

Laci (00:12:25):

Don’t tell me. I loved it. I think I love Emily Blunt and that’s different.

Matt (00:12:29):

Emily Blunt with the Rock in Smashing Machine. She’s playing

Laci (00:12:32):

His wife. I’m going to like that. Well, you know what, that director’s fucking smart. I’m telling you, from all the movies I’ve ever seen him in, and even if it’s because of her, she’s making the chemistry happen. She makes chemistry happen with him. I believed it here for the first time. The kiss always kinds of ruins it kinds of ruins it. But

Matt (00:12:51):

No, she’s, I mean, maybe quietly the best actor in the world right now, just great in every single genre, every tone of the movie. She can do comedy, she can do serious stuff. She can do plucky adventure like this, and she can have chemistry with men like Dwayne Johnson and Tom Cruise. It’s crazy.

Laci (00:13:08):

They’re the rock and she’s the soft place to land. She envelops them.

Matt (00:13:13):

Yeah, she’s a nice place to go. I feel okay with her. I feel protected.

Laci (00:13:17):

I feel like if she likes them, I like them. Right. She’s a person that can vouch for a guy.

Matt (00:13:22):

You would.

Laci (00:13:22):

I’m buying it because you’re saying it. Emily,

Matt (00:13:25):

You would overdose with sweetness if you watched their interviews together. They’re so cute together. Dwayne and Girl.

Laci (00:13:32):

Maybe it’s like with Chevy Chase and Beverly. Beverly. Beverly. Yeah. Some people just understand how to make another person feel safe, and so they’re not a total asshole or a total little hermit that wants to go back in his Is everything safe out here on

Matt (00:13:49):

The Rock? Yeah. I mean, has, it always seems like a facade of, oh, I’m a showman.

Laci (00:13:56):

I’m so very full of gusto.

Matt (00:13:57):

She makes it seem a little more natural, right?

Laci (00:14:00):

Yeah. Versus

Matt (00:14:01):

Ch, we’re not saying the rock is an asshole like Chevy Chase. The only person in the universe who likes him is Beverly DeAngelo.

Laci (00:14:07):

You get the same thing out of a guy for a long time, and then all of a sudden they find a person that unlocks whatever it is that needs to be pulled out of them.

Matt (00:14:18):

So let us know. I mean, or if you just, Hey, keep it the same. It’s a nice fun change of the summer. You change the format, you change your artwork, you get a new song. It’s fun. It’s a nice little treat. Just let us know what you think. And hey, I’ll go ahead and say, if you’re watching us on YouTube, hit like and subscribe. And if you haven’t already subscribed to the podcast, the audio podcast, leave us a review. Follow us on Twitter load-bearing pod, Instagram load bearing beams, TikTok, load bearing beams, and I have a video about Little Nemo that you can watch on YouTube.

Laci (00:14:45):

It’s gone viral.

Matt (00:14:47):

It’s gone a little viral.

Laci (00:14:48):

He’s a viral sensation

Matt (00:14:49):

On TikTok. People are responding to it because nobody apparently ever talks about that movie.

Laci (00:14:55):

And maybe I just shouldn’t be on the podcast. Maybe you just talking about something that you plan to talk about saying words that you meant to say, maybe that’s the way

Matt (00:15:06):

I

Laci (00:15:06):

Am. Let me know. Am I ruining this?

Matt (00:15:09):

Should Laci be fired

Laci (00:15:10):

From the show? Yeah, maybe a format is know me, know me. Oh, know me from Showgirls. Let’s get her in here.

Matt (00:15:16):

If we could get Elizabeth. No, no,

Laci (00:15:18):

Me herself wouldn’t know me. I want her to dance crazy.

Matt (00:15:21):

She’s just got a quality.

Laci (00:15:22):

She’s got a little well

Matt (00:15:24):

With other people and I don’t enjoy it as much as I enjoy podcasting with you.

Laci (00:15:27):

Oh, thank you.

Matt (00:15:29):

You’re a pros pro.

Laci (00:15:31):

Ooh, I’m your person

Matt (00:15:34):

In some ways, in other ways.

Laci (00:15:35):

I’m your Emily Blunt.

Matt (00:15:37):

So is there any more business? I mean some ways. Jungle Cruise. Jungle Cruise. We,

Laci (00:15:45):

How tall is Emily Blunt? May I ask? She sure does look tall here. I’m just saying. Yeah, five seven. That’s right. She’s way up there. Five seven. You’ve met your match.

Matt (00:15:57):

A rock that’s not tall. He’s way taller than her. He’s a full what? Eight inches taller than her?

Laci (00:16:02):

Well, I’m just saying she’s model height. That’s the minimum of a model. Five seven. She could do it.

Matt (00:16:09):

Are models supposed to be tall? Is it like the opposite of actors? You

Laci (00:16:12):

Can’t be under five seven.

Matt (00:16:13):

Okay.

Laci (00:16:14):

They don’t let you.

Matt (00:16:15):

So it’s good to be big if you’re a model. Bad if you’re an actor.

Laci (00:16:17):

Right. Also, gymnast bad if you’re tall.

Matt (00:16:21):

Also airline passenger bad if you’re tall.

Laci (00:16:23):

Right.

Matt (00:16:24):

So you had never seen Jungle Cruise?

Laci (00:16:26):

No. It would’ve never even crossed my mind to see it. I don’t even like the ride.

Matt (00:16:30):

Oh, forgot to mention this. We did announce we were doing Black Adam as our final.

Laci (00:16:35):

Oh, well we did Black Hole. It got sucked in there and now we’re doing this instead.

Matt (00:16:41):

It’s not like we even started watching the movie. Both of us just looked at the thumbnail and just my heart sank because I’ve seen it before and it’s so fucking boring.

Laci (00:16:49):

And I just looked at Matt and I said, is there anyone in this movie that saves it that I can look forward to? And all he did was start listing people, but not that they were any good at it.

Matt (00:17:01):

Pierce PNS in it. Is he good? I don’t even like that guy at No, you don’t like Pierce

Laci (00:17:04):

Because he kisses so loud Doesn’t kiss in that movie. Thank God.

Matt (00:17:09):

Shut

Laci (00:17:10):

That down.

Matt (00:17:11):

So the same director made Jungle Cruise. And Jungle Cruise just has way more interesting stuff going on. It’s a different flavor of the rock, but in some ways it’s kind of him return. I mean, he’s done a lot of adventure movies. We are realizing likes the jungle likes throwback adventure pictures in a time where those are not in fashion. Maybe this is what he actually wants to be doing. That would be an interesting thing. He’s

Laci (00:17:35):

A very physical person and he’s good at the physicality that this movie needs. Another thing is that he leans way more into very believable. It’s very authentic feeling the way he will all of a sudden be speaking another language or, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying.

Matt (00:17:55):

Well, that he’s adaptable and he seems at ease in these rough and tumble environments and maybe a way you wouldn’t buy from another actor.

Laci (00:18:04):

Him having his clothes on the entire time in this movie was weird because I can’t really gauge how muscly he is right now. He seems kind of all he is seems kind of tall.

Matt (00:18:14):

Yeah, it does seem like they’re trying to hide that aspect of him for this character. Who should be more of an every man

Laci (00:18:21):

Kind

Matt (00:18:21):

Of plain guy?

Laci (00:18:22):

The other Right, the other, dammit. I know this word. Our normal guys.

Matt (00:18:31):

I’ve seen this movie. I took our child to see it in the theater in 2021. My feeling was I liked the first half, didn’t like the second half, and I still largely feel the same way. I enjoyed it more this time. What I liked about it, I liked it. I liked it more, and I still think it does. I think a lot of the airs led out of the balloon. Once things turn supernatural,

Laci (00:18:56):

That’s always a risk.

Matt (00:18:58):

Yeah. I feel like it’s so leaning

Laci (00:19:00):

On a lot of CGI, A lot of gross stuff, like almost overly designed bad guys and they don’t even end up being the big bads, but the gross out stuff a little feels a little out of place in a movie where I’m not even going to see some pecs.

Matt (00:19:16):

I like the gross out stuff, but it was taking me out of it because I was thinking, I can tell this is the studio saying a movie that doesn’t have supernatural shit, a movie, if it’s Pirates of the Caribbean had the ghost zombies and stuff.

Laci (00:19:32):

There’s no explosion. So we need to go heavy on these spooky guys.

Matt (00:19:37):

If this is just, they’re on a river cruise and trying to find some treasure that’s not a blockbuster.

Laci (00:19:43):

They also didn’t really do a great job of explaining or setting the table for why do these guys look the way that they do? They almost kind of speed through that these guys became part of the earth or that we find out they need river water to activate them. But when the German man is doing that, we don’t really know why he’s doing that. Why that would matter. We just know. I don’t know. There’s a little bit of sloppy storytelling here. The plotting, it gets wrapped up at the end, but maybe it shouldn’t take until the end for me to go, oh,

Matt (00:20:15):

All that plotting is pretty confusing. It’s only a day later and I’m struggling to remember, okay, the tears of the moon, because if you get a pedal then you can do, but you got to get the pedal underneath the moon and the river water’s got to be there and you can carry a bucket of sand. That bucket of sand will protect you, but make sure you do it on the tree log. All that’s a little unwieldy. I’ll watch the movie again and it will make more sense to me.

Laci (00:20:37):

I also am unclear as if we are just waiting for another blood moon to get the tree to bloom again. Or once you crack open the heart and put the little red thing in. The thing is that though a onetime use situation, and if so, how come it was used once before? Do you just got to find these things around or

Matt (00:20:54):

Right. And it’s frustrating because this movie was working as a straightforward, we’re a bunch of people on a boat

Laci (00:20:59):

Going

Matt (00:21:00):

Through the Amazon looking for treasure.

Laci (00:21:02):

This

Matt (00:21:02):

Is working really well. This is a lot of fun. It’s nailing the tone the rock. I think you like him more in this movie than I do. But yeah, he’s got some good chemistry. I think Emily Blunt’s great. What the fuck is the actor’s name who plays her brother, who plays McGregor?

Laci (00:21:16):

Who knows? But I do like him.

Matt (00:21:18):

Jack Whitehall I think is really lovely in this movie, and he knows exactly what tone the movie is going for. So it’s all working so well for me that when he takes that turn and becomes more Pirates of the Caribbean e, that’s when I get frustrated and kind of check out of the movie.

Laci (00:21:33):

We don’t get to spend as much time with the really nice personalities and the bickering and stuff and just the relationship building that they were doing. Yeah, I agree.

Matt (00:21:48):

I’m glad we ended it with this instead of Black Adam where I would’ve felt totally depressed. My depression is like, it sucks that this movie wasn’t a bigger hit. We’ll get into the reception. I wonder if there were ever a universe where this movie could have been a big hit. It came out at a weird COVID time.

Laci (00:22:04):

That’s weird. I mean, I just feel like it’s got everything you want. If you have a kid that likes Indiana Jones or The Mummy or, I mean, it’s right there. I feel like it scratches that itch.

Matt (00:22:15):

I think kids don’t like that anymore. I don’t know. Those movies never seem to do well anymore.

Laci (00:22:21):

Slap Jack Black in it.

Matt (00:22:23):

I don’t know. Let’s talk about the history of Jungle Cruise. Alright, so Jungle Cruise was an opening day attraction at Disneyland in 1955. The ride was largely inspired by the African Queen, the film, the African Queen. This movie is also very much a tribute to the African Queen. A great movie if you haven’t seen it, even if you don’t like old movies, that movie will charm the pants off. You’ll want to have sex with the African Queen when you’re done with it, with

Laci (00:23:10):

Her pants

Matt (00:23:11):

Off with Catherine Hepburn at age 65 and Humphrey Bogart at age, probably like 42, but looks like he’s 89

Laci (00:23:18):

In a relationship. Yeah, Rob in the Cradle. I like that little bit of a reversal.

Matt (00:23:23):

I don’t actually think she’s older than him, but also they’re elderly in that movie. But it’s sexy, fun time on a boat. So the original plan was to use live animals, but then Walt Disney himself realized the timing wouldn’t be right. You wouldn’t be able to time every ride.

Laci (00:23:41):

Oh, I thought it was like rhinos are in season.

Matt (00:23:43):

They’re not in season. My rhino guy can’t get a good deal for me. You want every ride to be timed perfectly. Also, the animals might hide. They won’t want to come out or they sleep during the day.

Laci (00:23:56):

Or hippos famously kill people.

Matt (00:23:58):

Well, that’s another issue. The hippos might kill you. So they do animatronics and the boat and the animatronics are on tracks. The water is died to hide the tracks.

Laci (00:24:12):

What do we call that?

Matt (00:24:13):

We call it business water in my notes. That is some business water.

Laci (00:24:17):

Had Disney already leaned heavily into the animatronics like Pirates of the Caribbean, it was already a thing.

Matt (00:24:22):

No. Okay. This is the very first day that Disneyland opened. This ride was open with it. They had the animatronics. Pirates of the Caribbean didn’t come around until the sixties.

Laci (00:24:31):

What all opened on opening day? Do you know that? Oh gosh. Wow. It’s a lot. It’s a lot. It’s so full theme park. That’s fine. I just wasn’t sure how, I mean a roller coaster. I mean we’ve got the more lazy Susan trip down a river ride here.

Matt (00:24:45):

Well, a lot of the fantasy land rides were there like Mr. Toad and I think Alice in Wonderland.

Laci (00:24:53):

Are those on track? I don’t know what they are. Is everything a rollercoaster? Those

Matt (00:24:56):

Were dark rides

Laci (00:24:59):

In a house.

Matt (00:25:00):

Sleeping Beauty Castle was there, and I never put this together. Sleeping Beauty wouldn’t come out for four more years. It was an advertisement for Sleeping Beauty, the movie. So in Fantasy Land you had Snow Whites Enchanted Wish you had Peter Pan, the Carousel, Mr. Toad towed. You had the teacups were there.

Laci (00:25:21):

Famous

Matt (00:25:22):

Opia, which is the fucking stupid ride nobody likes where you drive a car.

Laci (00:25:26):

Imagine if you could drive a car. Mom and dad. So like Disney World, Disneyland is very much broken up into

Matt (00:25:35):

Lands

Laci (00:25:35):

Areas, so it should be called Disneylands. What the fuck? Okay. And so it opened with which Lands?

Matt (00:25:46):

Main Street, USA, Adventureland Fantasy Land, frontier Land and Tomorrow Land.

Laci (00:25:50):

Hey, that’s most of them. Yeah,

Matt (00:25:51):

That’s most of them. All

Laci (00:25:52):

Right. Yeah,

Matt (00:25:52):

The layout’s pretty similar. So there’s tons of stuff that’s still there that has been remodeled and revamped over and over and over again.

Laci (00:26:00):

And Epcot is that only Disney World?

Matt (00:26:01):

That’s right. So the Ride currently operates in every Magic Kingdom style park in the world except for Shanghai. The skipper of the boat uses a lot of bad puns. It’s very comical. This wasn’t always, thanks

Laci (00:26:16):

For telling me.

Matt (00:26:17):

Wasn’t always the case at first. It was just supposed to be educational. Over there you’ll see a hippopotamus.

Laci (00:26:22):

Oh, educational as to the animals.

Matt (00:26:24):

Yeah. Hippopotamus is our animals in the water. But

Laci (00:26:27):

Are they jungle animals?

Matt (00:26:28):

Well, I mean, what is the jungle?

Laci (00:26:30):

I guess that’s a comment. I mean they address that in the movie, but hippopotamus aren’t in indigenous to the Amazon. It seems kind of like a joke of like, yeah, well Disney didn’t know that when he put it in the,

Matt (00:26:41):

Well, the Disneyland version is set in, it starts in Southeast Asia

Laci (00:26:47):

And

Matt (00:26:47):

Then you go to Africa.

Laci (00:26:48):

Oh. Kind of like it’s a small world, but for the river

Matt (00:26:52):

And then the Magic Kingdom version in Florida opens in the Amazon like the movie, but then

Laci (00:26:56):

The

Matt (00:26:57):

Skipper’s like now we’re entering the Nile River of Africa. We are Okay, so you’re now you’re seeing elephants and

Laci (00:27:02):

Lions and stuff. That’s a smart way to do a little bit of a, people need variety. You know what I could have done a little more of done with a little more of is a little bit more like Rubes and tourists who shouldn’t be in the Amazon. That part was funny to me. I

Matt (00:27:18):

Know.

Laci (00:27:18):

And if that really is a place where while there’s colonization going on and just a bunch of Europeans who have no business, not that Emily Blunt’s character necessarily. I mean, she’s a very well to do privileged person who has the time. She’s a doctor, all these things. So it’s like she’s not perfect, but there was something very, very pleasing to watch The Rock come upon or Frank come upon someone. He thought he knew very, very well. He sees them over and over again and she’s different.

Matt (00:27:51):

And it’s a nice little idea that the tour we see him giving at the beginning is basically the theme park ride. And he’s even set up his own little things. The thing where he’s like, and now you see the eighth one of the world, the backside of water,

Laci (00:28:03):

Which I laughed

Matt (00:28:04):

So loud. Yeah, that’s literally from the ride.

Laci (00:28:06):

It’s still funny.

Matt (00:28:08):

Yeah. If he is just serving Rubes. Yeah, I wish some Rubes came back. It’s a

Laci (00:28:13):

Good point. I mean him interacting with Rubes in front of her because for her to see what his life is usually, why is he surly like this? Why he’s kind of like a scammer like this. It’s not that really big. These people who should not be on the Amazon River exploiting this area just to be looky loose. Her seeing him act this way with them makes sense. She could respect it because she also doesn’t identify with these people.

Matt (00:28:40):

Yeah, you’re right.

Laci (00:28:41):

It’s a missed opportunity.

Matt (00:28:42):

It really is a missed thing that would unite them

Laci (00:28:46):

And the little town that they’re in, I don’t know what they say, what it is, where Frank built a town is what they say, but maybe it seems like a little Casablanca. It seems like a kind of small, it seems like its own little thing. Just one of everything seems like they could have maybe spent a little more time there to do it. If not on a boat. I understand why there’s not room on the

Matt (00:29:04):

Boats. I know when they leave there, I miss it. It’s a great, great location. Those are just good locations in general for stories.

Laci (00:29:09):

Not enough use of Paul Giamatti.

Matt (00:29:11):

I remembered so much more of him in this movie than is there. I mean,

Laci (00:29:14):

I appreciated his sunburn and skin cancer though. It was very realistic. Another example of a person who probably just shouldn’t be on the Amazon,

Matt (00:29:21):

But you were pointing out things like, Hey, I like how long the Hebe, Emily Blunts hair are being wet.

Laci (00:29:26):

It’s

Matt (00:29:26):

A thing that movies sometimes forget to do

Laci (00:29:29):

And they don’t need to make her sexy. You’ve got pants under your pants. That’s funny. Yes. There would be long underwear. In fact, those long underwear would be on under a dress too. That is what underwear looked like. So I mean, she’s sexy because she’s Emily Blunt and they don’t even show nipples. I mean, I could do with a nipple, I’m just saying. But I like that. It just all felt, I mean, she’s impossibly beautiful. Her clothes are impeccable, but still, somehow it was believable. What they’re showing me now,

Matt (00:29:57):

Her attitude is sexy. She could.

Laci (00:29:59):

Okay.

Matt (00:30:00):

Why do you think they wanted to make a movie out of Jungle Cruise? They’ve been in development for a very long time.

Laci (00:30:06):

Well, it kind of worked in the past and in one instance it worked really, really well.

Matt (00:30:11):

But if you’re out here thinking Pirates of the Caribbean, that was the first time they ever took a theme park ride and made a movie. You’d

Laci (00:30:16):

Be wrong.

Matt (00:30:18):

It’s got to correct you. The very first instance was actually an A BC TV movie, tower of Terror.

Laci (00:30:23):

I remember it well

Matt (00:30:24):

In 1997 starring Steve Gutenberg and Kirsten Dunt.

Laci (00:30:28):

I really liked Steve Gutenberg. I did. I was a real Gutenberg head.

Matt (00:30:32):

I was a Gutenberg head just because of it. Takes two. One of my favorite movies. Didn’t see a single other movie. He was ever in

Laci (00:30:38):

Three Men and a baby for me. Yeah.

Matt (00:30:40):

Well, maybe we’ll do a Gutenberg month. We’ll do a police academy and we’ll do Three Minute Baby.

Laci (00:30:46):

I would love a Billy Crystal month. I love Billy Crystal.

Matt (00:30:49):

Okay, well

Laci (00:30:50):

He bothers you, right? But he’s got range. He does it, but I love all the stuff he does. It’s

Matt (00:30:54):

Crystal month.

Laci (00:30:55):

That’s not what he’s like

Matt (00:30:56):

On the podcast.

Laci (00:30:59):

Okay, now I really want to do it.

Matt (00:31:01):

You know what it is? He

Laci (00:31:02):

Gave me goosebumps.

Matt (00:31:05):

I’ve never thought that pecan pie thing is funny at all. I think it’s the worst shit of all time. It’s

Laci (00:31:10):

Not. It’s whoa, whoa. It’s two people leaning into doing and saying something very stupid, which is super believable as just something two friends do. Not everything is cinematic and beautiful and built for the screen. It’s like we do say something dumb and then both say something dumb and keeps saying it. It sounds funny. For whatever reason.

Matt (00:31:30):

Oh, he makes me think he’s doing it. He’s amused with himself

Laci (00:31:34):

And he should be. He’s very funny.

Matt (00:31:36):

No, I don’t like that. So Tower of Terror, 1997 Star, Steve Groberg, Kirsten Dunst, Brian De Palmer’s 2000 movie Mission to Mars.

Laci (00:31:45):

Is that any good?

Matt (00:31:46):

Well, it’s a movie I loved as a kid and I’ve had it on our list of movies to cover for a long time.

Laci (00:31:51):

Must not have loved it too much.

Matt (00:31:52):

Well, it was a movie that I saw at age 12 where I thought like I’m an adult for seeing this. I understand this movie.

Laci (00:31:58):

I didn’t even get scared.

Matt (00:32:00):

It was based on a Tomorrowland attraction that closed in 1993, but technically based on a theme park ride, a movie was made by the Disney company based on a Disney ride. Then over a 15 month period, three movies came out. The Country Bears in 2002, a flop. Pirates of the Caribbean, curse of the Black Pearl was the enormous crossover hit that the studio had been chasing for a long time. Just crossover. Blockbuster.

Laci (00:32:27):

You think they knew what they had? You think they knew it?

Matt (00:32:29):

No, they didn’t. I mean, not until in advance of the movie, but the Disney War book by James B. Stewart has a lot of information about this and about the drama and how confused the studio was. Like, Johnny Depp is the star of this and he’s making all these demands. I don’t get it.

Laci (00:32:47):

He makes the fucking series. That was a gamble and it worked.

Matt (00:32:50):

Yes.

Laci (00:32:51):

Without the weirdness of Jack Sparrow. There’s nothing to hang your hat on here.

Matt (00:32:55):

I watched the first Pirates of the Caribbean a few months ago. I’ve never liked those movies, but I watched it a few months ago.

Laci (00:33:01):

The first one was fine

Matt (00:33:02):

And I liked it a lot. And then I watched the second one last night. It wasn’t as good, but I liked it. And Johnny Depp for all of his weirdness and I was just trying to compare him as a leading man to the rock

Laci (00:33:14):

And

Matt (00:33:15):

Thinking he knows so much more. He has so much more screen presence.

Laci (00:33:20):

He knows how to keep it small. I think the Rock having started well in football where you’ve got a helmet on, you’ve got Patty, you don’t know who that is, you’ve got to make such big moves, such physicality all over this big fucking place to get any notice. And then you go to a wrestling arena and only big people get noticed was physically and the way he does promos and just yelling at the crowd and all that. Keeping it intimate and weird and small, small motions, small reactions, little weird things about just seeing someone in person like Johnny Depp knows how to tap into that good actors do. It’s the subtle things that make acting really effective on a screen. So

Matt (00:34:05):

It’s funny you say that. A story I’ve heard about him, I think they said this on the Blank Check podcast, is somebody who was watching onset Johnny Depp act and said to somebody else, what is he doing? He’s not even acting, he’s not even doing anything. And then went and looked at the footage and said, oh, okay. It only translates once you see it on screen. And I don’t know, I’ve never acted, I don’t know anything about acting, but I’ve heard acting in a theater and acting for a camera are two entirely different things.

Laci (00:34:30):

Completely.

Matt (00:34:31):

And if you come up doing wrestling, that is literally playing in front of an audience of thousands. It’s also a TV product, but you are playing for the live crowd.

Laci (00:34:40):

And when you think about what the rock struggles with it’s small facial reaction, he knows how to do big emotions because that’s his background leaning into, I don’t know that he’s very good with introspection or looking at himself in the mirror and what do I look like when I’m confused? Those things are really helpful to keep it subtle, to keep it human. And that’s what he’s missing. He’s Mr. Charm. But we just need Mr.

Matt (00:35:07):

Because on our Hobbs and Shaw episode, when we talked about how Jason Sadam and the rock’s reactions to each other are all played out often the actor by himself looking into the lens,

Laci (00:35:18):

You’re in the center of the fucking frame. It is all you. I

Matt (00:35:21):

Started trying to pay attention to how often do they cut away from the rock? And it’s all the time. It’s after every single line.

Laci (00:35:28):

And

Matt (00:35:28):

So then I watch Pirates of the Caribbean. Are they doing this with Johnny Depp? No. He holds the camera.

Laci (00:35:33):

And that’s such an underrated skill, this ability to just keep someone locked in with you just being so, I don’t know, you just fill the screen

Matt (00:35:47):

And I don’t even like Johnny Depp

Laci (00:35:50):

Now. I love, love, loved Johnny Depp all the way through up into right here prior to the Caribbean is where it goes down for me, I think because after this, his big stuff, I mean, I liked the movie where he’s an undercover cop. Donny Bra. Is that before this?

Matt (00:36:06):

That’s before.

Laci (00:36:07):

Okay.

Matt (00:36:07):

So it’s Once Upon a Time in Mexico it’s it’s finding Neverland secret window. He goes on his big movie star run the movies of which are escaping

Laci (00:36:20):

Me right now where I stopped everything before that, especially early. Him loved Johnny Depp.

Matt (00:36:25):

I think if you make the super weird fucked up choice, I’m going to be playing him. So kind of weird like Keith Richards, but also kind of gay and it turns out to be the biggest hit of your career. You get an Oscar nomination, the movie makes all the money, and suddenly you’re an enormous a-list movie star. You’re like, oh, all my instincts are perfect.

Laci (00:36:43):

Right, right. Yes, yes.

Matt (00:36:46):

So that’s the Johnny Depp corner. And again, setting aside all the shit about him personally,

Laci (00:36:52):

That is a person I’d sing my teeth into. That’s a guy. Can we make a list of who

Matt (00:36:56):

Deary?

Laci (00:36:57):

Ooh, yeah,

Matt (00:37:00):

I

Laci (00:37:00):

Like that.

Matt (00:37:02):

So it sounds like Laci’s got a problematic fve or is he problematic? I don’t even remember

Laci (00:37:07):

Now. People

Matt (00:37:07):

Like him now they don’t. Did he do something? Did he not? I can’t even, it was all jumbled in

Laci (00:37:11):

My head. He’s definitely not a good person to be in a relationship with and he definitely manipulated. He has an amazing PR team that really fucked over Amber Herd who doesn’t have the backing of what it’s, it’s a power imbalance, right? It’s if a relationship goes wrong and you’re married to a mega star, you’re fucked. You’re in a imbalanced relationship. I don’t know what to tell you.

Matt (00:37:37):

So later that year the haunted Mansion starring Eddie Murphy came out also relative disappointment, but the paradigm had shifted. Oh, pirates of the Caribbean. This is the new thing now. I think zero people in the world went to see that movie because it was a theme park attraction

Laci (00:37:55):

Less Than Zero. Some people might not have gone because of that,

Matt (00:37:59):

Right? Yes.

Laci (00:38:00):

It’s fucking weird. It’s stupid and it’s so cynical. What can we tap? What candy do people love? Let’s Skittles movie just, oh, it’s gross.

Matt (00:38:10):

Well, it’s just the financialization of the industry means that everything you have in your war chest, if you’re not using it, you’re losing money. So you have to exploit all of your resources that you already have. And

Laci (00:38:21):

This is way into what other fucking production companies have, their own stores and malls that are really expensive. The Disney Store, they’re just everywhere. You don’t want them to also be able to mine things they fucking have in their thing. Making constant money at the theme park is not fair. It’s like making money off of that really enthusiastic guy that just talks you through one of the rides. It’s just a movie about Gerald

Matt (00:38:48):

And they’ll all reinforce each other. The theme park stuff will reinforce the movies, which will reinforce the merchandise sales, which will reinforce the Disney Store. And then The Hope with Disney Plus is now we’ll have another arm where we can get you there too. Now you’ll watch the fucking Pirates of the Caribbean streaming show, which will get you more excited to go back to the theme parks, which gets you excited to go to the store. But that’s the mindset. It’s like, okay, what other ride do we have? Jungle Cruise. Okay, so in 2004 they announced that they’re developing a Jungle Cruise movie, but it lingers in development. Hell for a long, long time. At a certain point Tom Hanks and Tim Allen are attached to Star in it, which would be interesting. I love

Laci (00:39:26):

A Tim Allen movie. I do, I do.

Matt (00:39:30):

You got all the best faves, Johnny Depp, Tim Allen.

Laci (00:39:34):

I got good ones too.

Matt (00:39:35):

And then in 2015, Dwayne Johnson and Seven Bucks production Get involved.

Laci (00:39:41):

Please rename that shit. God Such a trope. Fucking prove it was $7. He

Matt (00:39:46):

Only had $7 in his pocket.

Laci (00:39:49):

Every everyone starts off with less idiot.

Matt (00:39:53):

Patty Jenkins was in Talk to Direct, but ultimately the director hired was Jama Colette, a Spanish gentleman from Spain, JAMA Colette, I believe is how you pronounce his name. He has made a lot of movies that I like a lot. His first movie was the Paris Hilton starring remake of House of Wax.

Laci (00:40:08):

I would revisit that because I’ve never visited it.

Matt (00:40:11):

Oh, okay.

Laci (00:40:11):

I’ve never seen it.

Matt (00:40:12):

I’ve never visited that House of Wax either. But Orphan in 2009, that movie’s a lot of fun.

Laci (00:40:17):

Yes,

Matt (00:40:17):

He made four Liam Neeson movies.

Laci (00:40:19):

Oh, this man

Matt (00:40:20):

Knows I’ve seen two of them.

Laci (00:40:21):

This man knows a star. When he sees one,

Matt (00:40:23):

He made unknown, nonstop run All Night in the Commuter nonstop. That’s like a near masterpiece. I fucking love that movie. Should we watch it? Maybe I like an airplane movie. I like a vehicle movie. The commuter’s also a lot of fun and it’s kind of the same problem as I’m on a train and there’s a killer and I must stop him, but people think, oh, I’m the killer.

Laci (00:40:44):

It’s misunderstanding.

Matt (00:40:45):

That might be what stops you from enjoying it is they all think he’s the killer, but

Laci (00:40:48):

He’s not. It takes a hell of a movie to make me overcome my issue with misunderstandings.

Matt (00:40:54):

Right. The tension is they think he’s the terrorist, but he’s like, but I’m super not a terrorist. I’m a good man. I just talk this way. A very fun shark movie, the Shallows and then Jungle Cruise, his sort of mainstream blockbuster debut. And then Black Adam in 2022, both Financial disappointments. He went right back to making his smaller movies like Carry On and Woman in the Yard.

Laci (00:41:15):

Who was that there? That’s the lead of Carry On. I don’t Karen

Matt (00:41:17):

Edgerton. I don’t think you know him. He’s from the Kingsman movies. He played Elton John in that Elton John movie. You might remember him as the Voice of the Gorilla from the Sing movies.

Laci (00:41:26):

Well, now I do

Matt (00:41:27):

That

Laci (00:41:27):

Of a Danger.

Matt (00:41:28):

He sings an Elton John song in that movie. That might be why he got to do the thing.

Laci (00:41:32):

They remade cliffhanger.

Matt (00:41:34):

This looks like it’s an upcoming thing that he’s involved

Laci (00:41:37):

In. It’s a remake, which I will not be watching. It’s a real cliffhanger.

Matt (00:41:41):

Do you not like?

Laci (00:41:42):

I don’t like that. I don’t like movies where someone’s just in peril the entire time. The movie where that guy’s stuck in between a rock, he was fucking hiking. I don’t like, but I’m buried alive and I’m like, Ooh, I’m going to submarine just, I need people to be able to walk around.

Matt (00:41:56):

See, I love these movies. I love a submarine movie. I like 127 hours fine. I like rock climbing movies. I realized in the past few years I love a mountain. I love a mountain movie. You don’t.

Laci (00:42:07):

You’re Alone.

Matt (00:42:08):

The single biggest difference we have with each other. So okay, they entered production in 2018. This movie started production in 2018 in Kauai. A second movie in a row that shot on Kauai, one of the islands of Hawaii where they built that little port town set, which looks great. It’s the best looking part of the movie and production was designed on this movie. Outstanding. I have so much. I wish I loved this movie. I wish I liked it more, but I feel like just tons of gratitude and affection for it. For like guys, you went all out. You built the fucking town. I wish less of it was blue screen with the boat, but you built a real boat, put it in a real tank. In a big warehouse. The production design’s great. I just appreciate how much effort and you can see it on screen and I think that The Rock might be a part of that and part of his, I only do giant movies is, but I make them put the money on screen

Laci (00:43:06):

And

Matt (00:43:06):

That’s an attitude that I like that that’s how to wield your power as a producer and as a star is to force them. Don’t do the shitty assembly line production where we pre-vis everything and then shoot the movie in six months and then put it out in a year. The movie takes as much time as it needs to spend a lot

Laci (00:43:22):

Of money. Sound like the Rock. I hope that’s what he’s like. But that’s not what my impression so far.

Matt (00:43:29):

I think his presence on set is going to be short, but hey, the movie doesn’t, it doesn’t need to come. It can come out when it’s ready to come out. That might be years and years down the line. I’m a global thinker. I’m thinking in decades. I’m thinking in centuries

Laci (00:43:41):

Galaxy.

Matt (00:43:42):

Right, exactly. Then the production moved to Black Hall Studios in Atlanta. They built a really cool open air sound stage with an enormous tank surrounded by blue screens with the little boat that can move around. It has engines in it and they have the water tank and then the movie required a year of post-production, but it was supposed to come out in 2019. But a little thing happened. Well first they needed more work on the visual effects, so it was going to come out in 2020. So I’m sure nothing will happen to prevent that from happening.

Laci (00:44:14):

It is a bummer how bad the cruise ship industry got it. During COVID. It’s Jungle Cruise. Just it’s such a tricky title.

Matt (00:44:20):

Those poor cruise folk.

Laci (00:44:22):

Oh, I just mean that it fucked with the movie title probably.

Matt (00:44:25):

You think so? You think less people wanted to see it. They remember the poop cruise. I do think that

Laci (00:44:29):

The poop cruise was not during COVID.

Matt (00:44:31):

I know, but I’ve smashed them. I now assume it was COVID. So now it was COVID reconned of reality

Laci (00:44:37):

And there were still poop issues with the book that Donald Trump would not let because he wouldn’t let it in because it would inflate the numbers people’ve to count it people.

Matt (00:44:46):

No, it’s like me on the scale. If I don’t get on the scale, I don’t have to see that I’m gaining weight. Yeah. That the Ozempic aren’t

Laci (00:44:51):

Working. Wear three pairs of shoes, say that’s the reason.

Matt (00:44:54):

Yes. I put so many pennies in my pocket. What am I supposed to do with them?

Laci (00:44:58):

Take ’em out.

Matt (00:44:59):

So during production in truth 2018, some hot goss hits the news stands about something that’s going to happen in this movie that is going to be a big paradigm shifting deal.

Laci (00:45:13):

Did it happen? Because I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Matt (00:45:17):

And it’s that for the first time ever, guys, Disney will have an openly gay character in a movie. Oh my God.

Laci (00:45:23):

I was going to give it praise and now I don’t want to.

Matt (00:45:26):

Now to be fair in the live Action, beauty and the Beast fu briefly for one second, dances with a man implying he might be attracted to men. So that’s the first gay character. The second character who is gay is McGregor in this scene that I think is a nice scene in the movie. Yeah,

Laci (00:45:41):

I do too. Where

Matt (00:45:42):

He says encoded language to the rock that he is gay and the rock is totally cool about it.

Laci (00:45:49):

Yeah. Well, and in a time when it was scandalous for women to wear pants, I mean this movie because of where it’s set is very progressive because of that part of it, I think.

Matt (00:46:01):

Sure.

Laci (00:46:04):

But then the rock acts a little bit put off by wanting to do different things with him later. It kind of undermines the really, really nice scene.

Matt (00:46:11):

There’s

Laci (00:46:12):

A couple of times where McGregor’s asking to twist it or pull it, or maybe I should come over there. Maybe I come. No, don’t. What he’s saying could be a double entendre. You could read it that way. And the way McGregor’s saying it is because he seems kind interested in doing it and the rock’s like, no, no, I’m good.

Matt (00:46:29):

Oh, I wasn’t picking up on that, but yeah, I’m going to watch it again. Maybe it’s funny the way everything smashes together in your brain. I remembered it was The Rock who was gay in this movie and thinking, oh, that’s kind of an interesting choice that the Rock and I definitely remembered these super coded like, okay, we have to tow the line with what he says here because we want to simultaneously get all the praise

Laci (00:46:53):

For

Matt (00:46:53):

Being a socially progressive company while also Disney, one of the great evil companies in the world, funds the politicians who are right now working to take rights away from the gay and trans people of the world also.

Laci (00:47:05):

Well now I’m not going to watch the movie. Oh, I did.

Matt (00:47:08):

Also, this movie’s going to come out in a lot of countries where their governments are not going to be happy with. So we need to keep it all in one scene that we can easily cut out for the Myanmar cut.

Laci (00:47:18):

And crucially, let’s stick that gay character with a woman who’s sort of his age for a little while just to kind of take the edge off. He’s hanging out with that lady that lives in the the jungle.

Matt (00:47:31):

They

Laci (00:47:32):

Could be a

Matt (00:47:32):

Couple. You can release production stills. And here’s McGregor with Trader Sam. Our favorite couple, we don’t say one here. This is from TMZ. From the time Disney is making strides by introducing its first openly gay character in the upcoming Jungle Cruise movie, which will feature a big coming out scene. But there’s one important step that’s missing. A test screening of the film took place last week. It’ll get a wide release in 2020 and sources who attend and tell TMZ Disney avoids using the word gay when Jack Whitehall’s character McGregor comes out to join the Rock Johnson. Were told at one point McGregor has a heart to heart with the rock’s lead character Frank about dating history and McGregor makes it very clear he isn’t into ladies. Keep in mind this flick isn’t set in modern times. McGregor explains to Frank, his family had tried arranging marriages for him with several women, but he didn’t want to marry any of them or any woman for that matter.

(00:48:21):

He also says Emily Blunt’s character Lily, his sister in the movie was the only one in his fam to accept him and support him regardless of the person he loves. We’re told the scene was well received by the audience, but the glaring omission of a pronoun to describe McGregor’s love interest did not go unnoticed. Unclear if the scene will make the final cut, but you got to imagine it will. Given how significant a move it is for Disney to include a gay character in an action blockbuster. There was already backlash from the L-G-B-T-Q community over Whitehall’s casting earlier this summer. He’s a straight guy playing a gay character and now it’s obvious. Disney’s watching its step even closer as it tiptoes into the 21st century end.

Laci (00:49:00):

It only took them 19 years to get into the 21st century.

Matt (00:49:05):

Right? The creeping in,

Laci (00:49:07):

They’re getting

Matt (00:49:07):

There. Again, the character, I like the scene. I think that Whitehall’s performance is very good, but no, I’m not going to give fucking Disney any credit for this. I

Laci (00:49:16):

Liked it before I realized it was like a fucking marketing tool. It doesn’t seem nice at all now,

Matt (00:49:25):

Especially because you’re also the company that’s gobbling up all your rivals. So you are the only studio that makes movies anymore. So you get to decide for the entire industry how we’re going to represent everybody. I mean, if there were more movie studios, if 20th Century Fox still existed or if MGM still existed, maybe one of them would say like, Hey, we’re going to make a queer friendly blockbuster because we know this is an underserved market. Not we’re so progressive, but because we know gay people want to spend money at the movies too, we’ll make a movie, a big budget, $200 million movie with openly gay characters. We won’t be sly about it. We won’t try to sneak it in there, but only people paying attention will notice it. Maybe you could have that in an environment where you have actual movie studios competing with each other.

Laci (00:50:13):

You’ve taken away competition, you’ve taken away other options, and then this is all you’re willing to give us.

Matt (00:50:19):

Yeah, exactly. And then this was fashionable to do in 2018. 10 years later, however many years later it is now, the Disney officials like Kevin Feige are like, yeah, we’re kind of not going to be doing that stuff anymore. We realized how divisive, basically the rock quote, Jesus, we created so much division,

Laci (00:50:37):

So let’s go on the side of the asshole.

Matt (00:50:40):

Snoop Dogg just said he took his grandson to see the movie Lightyear and he’s like, I didn’t know there would be a same-sex couple. And how am I supposed to explain that to my grandson?

Speaker 3 (00:50:51):

Let Martha

Laci (00:50:52):

Do it, Snoop

Matt (00:50:53):

Or I mean,

Laci (00:50:56):

Why do you need He gets it. You probably don’t even need to, buddy.

Matt (00:50:59):

That was what I thought too. I think kids,

Laci (00:51:02):

How is his fucking grandson?

Matt (00:51:04):

I think kids, they’re going to get it and they’re going to be like, oh, okay.

Laci (00:51:08):

You being uncomfortable about it means that’s going to be the weird part. You’re going to need to explain some more there. Just leave it.

Matt (00:51:12):

But this is just the poverty of our world where the only thing we can do for social change is have representation in movies. And that’s why it’s so useless because studios can take it away from at any time. It also doesn’t translate to any material reality improvement. If you are a gay person. If you’re a gay kid especially, I think it’s lovely to see gay characters on screen and know that they exist, but what would be far better is if you just had a world with laws and resources that supported you. So that’s the gay moment in Jungle Cruise. Then there’s the whole pandemic thing. Jungle Cruise was originally supposed to come out in July of 2020, but it got pushed. It came out July 30th, 2021 simultaneously in theaters and on Disney Plus

Laci (00:51:58):

Where

Matt (00:51:59):

You had to pay $30 to watch it for the Disney plus Premier Access, and this was the second movie to do this that summer after Black Widow, which resulted in Scarlett Johansson suing Disney and winning I think $20 million because they did that without consulting her

Laci (00:52:14):

Took away from the part of the pot that she gets from. That’s really

Matt (00:52:18):

Profit. Yeah, because profit sharing.

Laci (00:52:20):

Fucked. Okay.

Matt (00:52:21):

Which I’m convinced that’s the main reason studios wanted to switch to

Laci (00:52:24):

Streaming. Right. Because then you can’t even prove how many people downloaded this movie or

Matt (00:52:29):

Accessing. We have many people watch Black Widow, sorry, scar, sorry.

(00:52:32):

With movie theaters aren’t owned by studios, so there’s at least a layer of transparency. There has to be a neutral party that evaluates how much money these movies make. The summer of 2021 was a weird time. The vaccines had rolled out lots of, in some ways it was like Pandemic. Pandemic we’re past that, but then in other ways the Delta variant was coming in. There were a lot of stops and start, there would be, I remember Fast and Furious Nine felt like we’re kind of back to normal times. It’s like a big movie opening and go into the theater and seeing it. It makes a lot of money, but then movies start making less money anyway. The movie does not make a lot of money. It makes $117 million domestic and only 221 million worldwide.

Laci (00:53:19):

And how much did it cost to make

Matt (00:53:21):

200 million and again, supposed to set off a whole series. This is supposed to be the new Pirates of the Caribbean.

Laci (00:53:30):

I mean that’s a little silly.

Matt (00:53:32):

It is a little silly. At the time it was like, well should

Laci (00:53:36):

Pirates of the Caribbean was a fluke. If you’ve only got one example, that’s not a good model to follow. Just like with 21 Jump Streets stop, that was just a flash. That was just a special duo with a movie that made sense for them. You can’t just repurpose other properties from the same time and think that’s the magic. It’s not, not No one cares. The 21 Jump Street existed before we just Care. It was a good movie. Same with this,

Matt (00:53:59):

But you had Pirates of the Caribbean and then you had the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is like, so now we have a model where every movie ties into every other movie and the only reason to make movies is if they start franchises. There’s no point in just having a standalone movie anymore. You’re losing money just putting out a standalone movie. Well,

Laci (00:54:17):

I’m glad we put a stop to that as a society

Matt (00:54:20):

If they hadn’t opened it simultaneously on Disney Plus how much more money it have made. I don’t think this could ever have been a hit,

Laci (00:54:26):

But I also could buy that. This is not the kind of movie people think they need to go to the theater for. If you don’t know, it’s going to be a big moment on the screen. I am sure it did. Undercut it. Yeah.

Matt (00:54:37):

I mean they put all of their marketing muscle into it and the Rocks was constantly promoting and he was always out there with Emily Blunt, it reminds me of last year with Fall Guy how much publicity Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling were doing together one this

Laci (00:54:50):

Emily Blunt thing

Matt (00:54:51):

And that movie underperformed and I remember reading Box office analyst saying, is anything ever going to be a hit again if it’s not a franchise? Is this just the reality we live in now? Nobody wants to see movies unless they’re pre-sold on them.

Laci (00:55:05):

Well, and maybe we just need to adjust what is a hit. I mean, we can’t just keep basing it off of being the highest grossing thing and comparing it to pre pandemic numbers. Maybe we just haven’t Totally. People learned that streaming is fine. There’s diehards and there’s people like you who insist on seeing things on the big screen. The pandemic probably taught a whole lot of people that I’m just as good. I enjoy just as much if not more. I can pause it and pee my kids can be annoying All it’s like, yeah, you’re still giving people the options to see a movie in advance and while it’s still in theaters, you are going to constantly be taking away from, I think you need to have a restart from that moment on and judge it off of that. Or

Matt (00:55:49):

You can be somebody who says, I love to see movies in theaters. I’d rather go to the theater than watch it at home. But I’m poor. I don’t have the amount of money I had 10 years ago. Everything is

Laci (00:55:58):

Fucked. The theater is not getting cheaper.

Matt (00:55:59):

The theater isn’t getting cheaper and everything else is getting more expensive. I have less disposable income.

Laci (00:56:05):

I’m freelance now where before I was part of a company. Yeah,

Matt (00:56:08):

Exactly.

Laci (00:56:08):

My role doesn’t exist anymore.

Matt (00:56:12):

All of these things are working together.

Laci (00:56:14):

Something

Matt (00:56:14):

I’ve tried to incorporate in my analysis, I do all these box office videos is try to remember, this is all part of a much larger story of

Laci (00:56:25):

Right, this isn’t, these two actors failed.

Matt (00:56:27):

And it’s not even just a movie industry story. It’s like everything. Everybody has less disposable income. Everything you’re already paying for your Netflix subscription so you might as well use it. Right. Alright, we’re going to read a few more Instagram posts. So the Rock It Disappointed at the box office, but The Rock, he claimed Victory and on went to his Instagram and said,

Laci (00:56:48):

I love him for that. Honestly, can I ask, does he get a piece of the pie for people who choose to stream the movie?

Matt (00:56:56):

Probably.

Laci (00:56:57):

I mean, he seems smart enough to do that, especially if Scarlet Scargo is in a fucking lawsuit about it. You’d think

Matt (00:57:03):

And it’s his company. His company has a stake in the movie. So

Laci (00:57:06):

It’s

Matt (00:57:07):

Got to be Yeah, quote. Thank you everyone. Another great weekend of Jungle Cruise box office business. Despite tough variant restrictions around the world, families are going to theaters to watch and love Jungle Cruise and families are also watching Jungle Cruise at home on Disney premier access for a premium cost. But they’re watching our movie multiple times, which indicates not only a smart strategy during these harsh COVID times, but more importantly it indicates millions had millions of happy families enjoying the adventure of a lifetime.

Laci (00:57:35):

Oh my God, calm down.

Matt (00:57:37):

I like that. He had to turn every family into like you’re your own little entrepreneur. You’re

Laci (00:57:43):

You’re really going on your business grind watching this movie.

Matt (00:57:47):

Yeah. You’re streamlining the amount, your rate of return on your purchase of Disney Pro. Premier your access.

Laci (00:57:51):

Think of what you’re saving by not commuting to the theater.

Matt (00:57:55):

And that part about creating joy and entertaining families is the greatest asset we can deliver. Love and appreciate you guys and we love reading all your responses to the movie. Have a kick ass week DJ

Laci (00:58:04):

From now on. Emily Blunt writes your tweets. Okay. You needed her to market this with you to make this at all. Anything anyone ever wanted to fucking see, calm down or let us watch you snort the rail of Coke and then the tweet makes sense.

Matt (00:58:21):

Want to know why Habit rhymes with a rabbit?

Laci (00:58:25):

Because look at my happy tail. I know that’s not what he says. Your

Matt (00:58:29):

Whole life disappears down a bunny hole. I like what I said too. I know. I love that line so much. I know you do. Your whole life disappears down a bunny hole

Laci (00:58:37):

Wall. He liked it so much he said it twice.

Matt (00:58:40):

So that’s Jungle Cruise. It’s like he went on a charm offensive. He’s piloting boats at Disney World. He’s like trying by sheer force of will like Napoleon, can I bend history to my will and make a hit out of this? No, you can’t. You cannot do that Rock. Sorry.

Laci (00:58:59):

Sorry. I liked it Dwayne. I enjoyed it.

Matt (00:59:02):

Later in 2021, his company Seven Bucks Productions, it’s producing red notes and it gets put out on Netflix. This is a $200 million movie starring the Rock. Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot, my three favorite people. It was supposed to start filming in 2019, but it got postponed. I wonder whose fault that was. So filming moved to January of 2020 and then got interrupted by the pandemic. So it was permanently delayed. They resumed producing in September of that year. That’s what made it the most expensive Netflix production in history. But it comes out on Netflix. Netflix is like good news. It’s been watched by 48,000 quadrillion people over an infinity of ours. Wow. Alright, so the reviews are dreadful. And I just want to read Josh Lewis from the OIDs podcast. He has a great letterbox. All of his reviews on letterbox are great. This is what he wrote on letterbox quote. They spent $200 million assembling the most cursed trio of famous people imaginable who couldn’t have less chemistry if they tried. And then let them all explain the high plot at each other and improv their shtick for two hours in front of a camera

Laci (01:00:07):

And

Matt (01:00:07):

Called it a movie.

Laci (01:00:08):

Gal Cado doesn’t have improv. We

Matt (01:00:14):

Need the Red Mouth

Laci (01:00:16):

Zionist.

Matt (01:00:17):

Is this the Zionist style?

Laci (01:00:19):

Am I a Zionist? I’m so good at this.

Matt (01:00:22):

An original movie that is somehow still a generic white noise amalgamation of pretty much every current shitty action comedy franchise blockbuster trend. Just in case you didn’t get what it was going for. Ryan Reynolds literally whistles the Indiana Jones theme.

Laci (01:00:35):

Oh my God.

Matt (01:00:36):

But here’s what the rock said on Instagram. It’s official as the numbers are coming in from over 190 territories around the world, include ’em all. Rock red Notice has become the biggest opening ever for any movie in the history of Netflix. What’s

Laci (01:00:51):

Nice for you to say when you can’t prove the numbers?

Matt (01:00:54):

92% audience score.

Laci (01:00:56):

Wow. 92% of the audience gave it a score. It’s just a problem. It was one star.

Matt (01:01:01):

What the fuck is the audience score? That’s

Laci (01:01:03):

What I’m saying. This ain’t even a feature they have anymore or in 2021 or

Matt (01:01:09):

If it’s just the rate, no indication that that’s what that means.

Laci (01:01:13):

That’s not But remember it used to be a score and then it went from thumbs up to thumbs down and then that even switched to You’ll like this.

Matt (01:01:21):

No, but I’m sure this is first to just a number. Someone made up

Laci (01:01:23):

92% of the audience gave it a score and it was one star.

Matt (01:01:28):

Yeah, they

Laci (01:01:28):

Were really motivated.

Matt (01:01:30):

Love you guys. And tonight I’m raising my at Tara to y’all and Red notice more to come dj.

Laci (01:01:36):

When did he start signing off? Dj? Has that been a thing?

Matt (01:01:38):

Yeah. I only noticed this seems to be about 2019. He didn’t use to do that.

Laci (01:01:43):

What’s he trying to cover up? Is he trying to show some sort of connection to the Tanners

Matt (01:01:48):

Trivia question for you Laci. Give it to what was DJ Tanner’s real name? I mean, what did DJ for Donna

Laci (01:01:53):

For? That’s right. Good job. I know everything about full house.

Matt (01:01:55):

All right then answer me this.

Laci (01:01:57):

Moving the goalpost. 5 5 5 2 4 2 4.

Matt (01:02:02):

No, I know you know that he ever, he was never called Uncle Joey. This drives me crazy. When people talk about full house and they call Joey, they refer to him as Uncle Joey. He was not Uncle Joey. This was not something that Stephanie DJ or Michelle ever called him. People will push back and will say no. When Jesse had his twins, Nikki and Alex, they called him Uncle Joey. That’s not what you’re talking about. You say Uncle Jesse and Uncle Joey.

Laci (01:02:24):

They called him Joey lovingly like the dog. He was a dog. Joey. Just Joey.

Matt (01:02:30):

That’s what it was.

Laci (01:02:32):

What do you mean that’s what it was? What did they call it if it was an uncle? Joey.

Matt (01:02:35):

Joey.

Laci (01:02:36):

That’s what I’m saying. I just remember them saying Joey a lot. Not uncle.

Matt (01:02:40):

Okay, good. Good

Laci (01:02:40):

Uncle Jesse. Yes. I think people are just like

Matt (01:02:44):

Model

Laci (01:02:44):

Affecting that shit.

Matt (01:02:45):

That’s right. That’s what they’re doing. And it’s bullshit

Laci (01:02:48):

Because one of them is an uncle and the other one is, well, it was an uncle in-law or I mean one of them is related by marriage and one of them’s related to Danny.

Matt (01:02:56):

Joey’s not related. He’s a friend. But it’s that thing

Laci (01:03:00):

From That’s disgusting. You let a man into your house that’s not a relative there to abuse your children. You only let the relatives abuse the children only

Matt (01:03:10):

In the cesspool. That is San Francisco.

Laci (01:03:12):

Oh, a piece of shit house too.

Matt (01:03:15):

You know how for us growing up, you always called your friends’ parents, Mr. Or Miss and then first name. First name,

Laci (01:03:23):

Yeah.

Matt (01:03:24):

And in TV and movies growing up I’d see they’d say Mr. Or Mrs. Last name. And I’d be like, that’s bullshit. No one does that. But you talk to people in other parts of the country or world and they’ll say, no, we did that. That’s what we did.

Laci (01:03:35):

And it’s a very New Orleans or it’s about very, this part of the country thing to have aunts and uncles that are not related at all. I mean, I’ve got a lot of those

Matt (01:03:47):

I would see on TV and movies when they would call their parents’ friend, uncle or aunt.

Laci (01:03:52):

And

Matt (01:03:52):

That was never something that I experienced in my life. So I

Laci (01:03:55):

Wondered that would take your mom and dad being close to people,

Matt (01:03:58):

But you’re talking about cousins who you’ll call aunt or uncle. That’s

Laci (01:04:01):

Not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about close friends and it happens constantly, especially in gay communities. Everyone just, it’s just a way of saying you’re part of this family.

Matt (01:04:12):

I know what it is. It just was never anything that I ever saw firsthand.

Laci (01:04:15):

You’re not the kind of person that would’ve ever seen it or ever experienced it. Now, no way. You’re going to call any of your friends uncle, whatever.

Matt (01:04:24):

I hate this condescending attitude. I’m not talking about what I’m doing right now. You turn everything into a diagnosis about how antisocial I am. But

Laci (01:04:32):

Look at how you’re pushing me away and I’m the closest person to you. Fucking introvert.

Matt (01:04:37):

Yeah, but sometimes I’ll talk to you and you’d be like, someone’s a chatty Kathy this morning. That’s never happened. I was literally never happened. It happened that one time. It made me feel very embarrassed.

Laci (01:04:46):

I was probably just, I don’t say chatty. Kathy, you I probably said chatty Kathleen.

Matt (01:04:50):

No you didn’t.

Laci (01:04:50):

I’ve never said that in my life. You did. I’ve never said chatty Kathleen in my life. So I’m agreeing

Matt (01:04:55):

With you. Okay. Okay. Yeah, it probably was annoying. You’re not used to me talking to you at that time.

Laci (01:05:00):

I probably just wondering, have you taken stimulants or is this the beginning of the end? What’s going on with you? Do you smell burnt toast? That’s all

Matt (01:05:11):

Suspicious. Next up was black Adam and he had been spearheading an adaptation of black Adam, the DC character for a very long time. Now this movie too is delayed for a long time, but it’s going to come out in December of 2022. And he makes a lot of bold claims about this movie. This movie, black Adam is now the face of the DC franchise of movies. Fuck off Batman. Fuck off Superman. It’s black Adam. The hierarchy of power in DC films is about to change. He famous said, said yes.

Laci (01:05:44):

He said, fuck off.

Matt (01:05:45):

Oh no. He said the hierarchy of power. That’s what he put out on an Instagram. It’s about to change. So then I have on screen this photo of him just taking a picture of his marketing team doing a totally not staged meeting. And he said this quote,

Laci (01:06:00):

Wait a second, Matt. Is he at a table and also video conferencing with himself? What is on the screen?

Matt (01:06:06):

On the screen is the black Adam movie

Laci (01:06:08):

Poster. Oh, it looks like him talking to him. He’s wearing the same outfit. Looks like that’s

Matt (01:06:13):

How he gets so much

Laci (01:06:13):

Done. Conference me in.

Matt (01:06:14):

That’s how he gets so much done. He’s got a time machine.

Laci (01:06:17):

No, you know who that is? It’s Uncle Van. It’s uncle. He doesn’t do anything without Uncle Vinny there

Matt (01:06:22):

At my house. I’m Uncle Van. Hey, can I be here for black?

Laci (01:06:26):

My old house? I tell my children to call me uncle, uncle daddy.

Matt (01:06:30):

My niece calls me Mr. Matt and I have to keep, no, stop it. Not

Laci (01:06:36):

She corrects herself.

Matt (01:06:37):

It was a long time before she stopped doing that. I would be like uncle. Actually no, because I never called my aunts and uncles aunt or uncle. I just called ’em their first names. No, if I did I would get shocked.

Laci (01:06:47):

Shocked.

Matt (01:06:49):

So marketing is truly one of my passions, especially on a global scale. And our black Adam at WB Pictures, marketing, publicity and distribution teams are aligned, galvanized, and inspired to deliver to you guys around the world. So that’s interesting. So this isn’t a seven bucks meeting. This is a Warner Brothers meeting that he took charge of is like, guys, hold on. Pose for the camera.

Laci (01:07:10):

You think he’s sitting on someone who was in charge? Mario Gag is flat. Hello?

Matt (01:07:17):

Marketing is truly one of my passions. Loser. Oh, I already read that. Every exec in this room, whom I have respect immensely takes total ownership of black Adam as they should because this is our passion project. One of our core at Seven Bucks prod principles is that we never want to market to the world. We want to have a relationship with the world.

Laci (01:07:35):

Then why are you saying marketing is your passion and not people? What are you talking about?

Matt (01:07:40):

It’s about people. And imagine the psycho who says, marketing is my passion.

Laci (01:07:44):

Look at the diversity in that room. Just kidding.

Matt (01:07:47):

And that’s what I love doing. Audience first for black Adam, myself and my fellow black Adam Castmates will travel the world. I’ve made many movies over the year with this talented, hungry, focused, optimistic, passion, scrappy Warner Brothers team. And I will always root,

Laci (01:08:00):

Scrappy, upstart Warner Brothers. You

Matt (01:08:03):

Got to root for them. They’re the underdogs and work my butt off for them to win together. We are going to usher in a new era of the DC Universe, hashtag black Adam hashtag global campaign globe emoji. So he’s part of the Illuminati hashtag teamwork. Hashtag LFG

Laci (01:08:21):

Light funky guy.

Matt (01:08:22):

We’re getting to the end here. We have something really special for you guys is in 2022 when the trailer of black Adam premiered, he made this absolutely psychotic video.

Laci (01:08:32):

I like that we switch gears and did an entirely different movie, but you couldn’t help this.

Matt (01:08:36):

Well, because I wanted to take us to the end, up to the present because we’re going to be leaving the rock I wanted. We’re going to be

Laci (01:08:41):

Leaving him. Right?

Matt (01:08:41):

Wanted to fill in the gaps. What happened after Jungle

Laci (01:08:43):

Cruise? We need to land in a soft place. That’s right.

Matt (01:08:47):

I don’t get it.

Laci (01:08:47):

Rock in the hard place.

Matt (01:08:48):

Oh yeah, you’re vagina.

Laci (01:08:52):

Jesus. Okay. He’s never looked better. Two words,

Speaker 5 (01:08:55):

Black Adam,

Laci (01:08:56):

No puck. You.

Speaker 5 (01:08:57):

And another two words. Most importantly, thank you, thank you, thank you. Around the world, guys, your global reaction and response to our world premier trailer Black Adam yesterday was staggering, staggering, staggering. 98% positive review and reaction. How are you reviewing 98% around the world? Shit, I have launched some big bro in my career in Jungle Cruise, Jumanji, Hobbes and Shaw. You guys have put black Adam in another stratosphere.

Laci (01:09:29):

Dude, it just didn’t happen.

Speaker 5 (01:09:31):

I can’t thank you enough. No. You know what this property means to me deep down here.

Laci (01:09:34):

This property, property, property. I’m passionate about this property, about

Speaker 5 (01:09:37):

This property. 10 years in the making of working my ass off to deliver for you guys. And the response was incredible

Speaker 3 (01:09:44):

From, and

Speaker 5 (01:09:44):

This idea of the hierarchy of power in the DC universe is about to change, which now you see, but it’s not a tagline.

Laci (01:09:53):

No, it’s not.

Speaker 5 (01:09:55):

It’s ushering a new era in the DC universe.

Laci (01:09:58):

Yeah. The end

Speaker 5 (01:09:59):

With excitement, with disruption, with disrupt, with strategy, with strategy. Most importantly, how I operate and how Seven Bucks operates. Listen to the fans. I always say you listen to the fans, I’ll always guide and inform you on where you need to go. Always take care of the fans audience first. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Black Adam, the man in black, we’re just getting started. I thank you. I love you. And here we go.

Laci (01:10:21):

Okay. I know what’s wrong. I know what happened. Okay. He is paying one or three yes men who are pretending to be number crunching, poll guys who are instantly have data based on absolutely nothing and they just keep giving ’em the figure. 98%.

Laci (01:10:37):

98%. It’s

Laci (01:10:37):

The second time. Used it, 98 here and then 98 with the other one. They

Matt (01:10:41):

Don’t even have to make up the numbers. They just hand him a microwave brochure and they’re like, Dwayne, look at the numbers. They’ve just come in. He’s like, oh, that’s fucking tremendous. Oh my God. 98% property. Property. I’ve launched a lot of great properties like Baywatch and Jumanji

Laci (01:10:57):

And Hobbs and Shaw.

Matt (01:11:00):

So

Laci (01:11:01):

Oh, you’re delusional, my guy and your music taste is ass.

Matt (01:11:08):

It’s not a hit. It needs to make $400 million. How

Laci (01:11:11):

Dumb he looks. He looks like he’s wearing a fucking ball, a gymnast outfit.

Matt (01:11:17):

I barely remember the movie, but I at least remember he’s not good in it, but he is doing, I’m only going to play Angry and Stoic in this movie. So it’s a little bit different from

Laci (01:11:26):

What

Matt (01:11:26):

He normally does. It’s still a bad movie and it is not a hit very, I don’t remember the timeline of this, but the leadership at DC turns over. New management takes over. James Gunn, the director of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, he actually gets put in charge and Dwayne Johnson is like, yeah, but Black Adam’s still going to be part of the future. The hierarchy of power is still shifted. I’m still right. And they’re like,

Laci (01:11:49):

I promised a lot on my Twitter.

Matt (01:11:51):

Oh no, sorry, there won’t be any more black Adam going forward. We’re going to totally start from scratch. And he’s like, okay, well,

Laci (01:11:59):

Does he ever do any like Mia Copa or just some sort of any kind of vulnerable, humble

Matt (01:12:06):

If he did, I didn’t find it. I mean, he gives these interviews, these good interviews that I’ve used to inform all of these history segments, but I’ve not found anything about, Hey, you sure did make all these giant claims that didn’t come to fruition. What’s the deal with that? Well,

Laci (01:12:23):

That doesn’t match my numbers. Okay, I got the data and polls were taken.

Matt (01:12:29):

So his next theatrical film is Red One directed by the Jumanji director Jake Kaden reportedly cost 250 million. Why? I think because it was an Amazon movie that was only going to theaters for a little while and streamers pay their actors up front.

Laci (01:12:46):

Oh sorry.

Matt (01:12:47):

So that’s why the budgets go over because there’s no backend on the box office. That’s why streaming movies always cost more. But it went to theaters. He did not do well. The great Anthony Deandro from Deadline, I want to read his analysis quote, but damn, if this isn’t a high budget, that’s the biggest problem you hear with Red one overall. But it’s what you get when you do business with the industrial complex. That is the rock. The gossip can cry, tardiness, entourages, water bottles, schedule, studio execs sleep at the wheel in an exorbitant amount of jelly beans and rock trailer. It doesn’t matter. Capish, this is what it costs to get into business with Johnson. And the only ones who are bold enough to invest in this endeavor are streamers like Netflix with Red Notice and Amazon MGM studios here with redone The Rock has yet to scale down the budgets of one of his tent poles. So that’s interesting. That might be why he’s only on streaming from now on

(01:13:40):

Is you’re not going to get a traditional movie made at the scale you’re used to, but maybe something good is finally coming. I mean, Moana two was a big hit, didn’t mention that, but his next movie, he’s playing MMA fighter Mark Carr. And in the Benny Sty movie, it Smashing Machine, it’s budget is only $40 million. That’s still big for an 8 24 movie, but it’s 8 24. It’s going to theaters. His co-star is Emily Blunt, but as I said up front I worry, he thinks he’ll get an Oscar nomination and then when he doesn’t, he’s just going to go back to doing crap.

Laci (01:14:11):

He looks good with hair, he has to wear hair for just a little couple scenes in the Jungle Cruise movie. And I was worried it was going to be very stupid looking. I was like, that is shockingly natural looking. It really transforms him.

Matt (01:14:24):

Does he look like Tommy Lee Jones here?

Laci (01:14:26):

I see what’re saying every

Matt (01:14:28):

Time I look at the picture,

Laci (01:14:29):

I see what you’re saying. But I was more feeling like there’s another maybe Mickey

Matt (01:14:34):

Rourke.

Laci (01:14:35):

Yeah.

Matt (01:14:36):

So he’s someone who did the wrestler, got an Oscar nomination, and you’re like, oh, he’s only going to do serious awesome movies from Mount No.

Laci (01:14:43):

Right back to doing that was a big hated asshole and go to Big Brother.

Matt (01:14:47):

But just in terms of his career

Laci (01:14:48):

Choices, is that what a called Big Brother? No,

Matt (01:14:50):

It’s something like that. Big Wanka is the British version. No.

Laci (01:14:53):

Oh no, it’s not.

Matt (01:14:55):

I don’t

Laci (01:14:55):

Know. It’s Big Brother.

Matt (01:14:57):

So that’s the history of Jungle Cruise where we mostly didn’t talk about Jungle Cruise, but our time with The Rock is coming to an end and we’re going to be sad to say goodbye to him. But again, next week we’ll do our final thoughts on the man and rank his movies.

Laci (01:15:09):

Can we go see the Smashing Machine or when is that out?

Matt (01:15:11):

Yeah, that’s out in October and I definitely want to,

Laci (01:15:13):

I was hoping we’d see it before a little thingy.

Matt (01:15:16):

Yeah, I know, but we’ll review it. We’ll review it in some capacity.

Laci (01:15:21):

Okay. Thank you.

Matt (01:15:23):

Okay, and now it’s time to talk Jungle Groove. Let’s do it.

(01:16:00):

We begin our jungle cruise with the Disney Castle, of course, which then dives into the water, and then we get this narrator from the Amazon comes the Legend of the Tears of the moon. A single petal from the Great Tree could cure any ness, break any curse. So in Sgo with Eldorado or anything like that, we just made up some shit. Magic Tree down there, kind of an avatar tree cures you and took a real figure. Aguire, the famous conquistador who was searching for El Dorado and went mad. See if you haven’t seen Warner Herzog’s great movie Aguire. The Wrath of God. You should check that out. Maybe you have a double feature. Jungle Cruise and a Gary, the Wrath of God.

Laci (01:16:42):

How much of this story is part of the ride though? Where does it park? None

Matt (01:16:46):

Of this.

Laci (01:16:46):

None of this. Okay, so it’s literally just there’s some animals over there. I make a joke. Okay.

Matt (01:16:52):

Frank, there’s references. Frank.

Laci (01:16:53):

Frank?

Matt (01:16:54):

No. Okay. The Skipper is whatever the employee’s name is, whatever the cast member’s name is. Who’s being your skipper?

Laci (01:17:02):

I didn’t know he wasn’t animatronic.

Matt (01:17:04):

No, it’s a real person. It’s very cute. You can find,

Laci (01:17:08):

I remember you and the kid liking it. I thought you went,

Matt (01:17:11):

It’s fine. It’s always been like that’s something good to do. If you

Laci (01:17:18):

Need a nap ride,

Matt (01:17:19):

Nap ride. If the lines are really bad for all the, it’s not what you’d call an etic ride.

Laci (01:17:24):

What’s an etic ride?

Matt (01:17:25):

An etic ride. Back in the day when you had to actually buy individual tickets for the rides etic were the most expensive. So those are your big tent pole

Laci (01:17:34):

Rides. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re

Matt (01:17:35):

Not going to go and I think Jungle Cruise was a C ticket

Laci (01:17:37):

For instance. You’re not going to get a fast, you’re going to waste a fast pass on a jungle cruise also. Right. You’re going to prioritize that layer down.

Matt (01:17:45):

God. I mean, Laci, I’m so out of my depths. They’ve changed the FastPasses so much since I’ve been

Laci (01:17:50):

There. Don’t know. I

Matt (01:17:50):

Don’t know. It’s all app based and reservation based and you got to fucking wake up four days early to do it and I don’t understand it

Laci (01:17:57):

Yet. It’s sound amazing. Once we don’t have kids, you and Misha get married there.

Matt (01:18:01):

Oh my God.

Laci (01:18:02):

Finally make this thing official

Matt (01:18:04):

A aguire and the conquistadors are looking for the tears in the rain or tears of the moon down there in the jungle. The conquistadors things got bad, but then they got saved by some indigenous people. But then Aguire went mad and turned on the indigenous people and stole their arrowhead. He

Laci (01:18:21):

Didn’t even go mad. He got aggravated. He got sick of waiting. He killed the fricking chief. He’s an asshole.

Matt (01:18:28):

He just got mad. As in

Laci (01:18:30):

God damnit. Yeah. That’s how the story is. He didn’t go mad. He just, he grew impatient.

Matt (01:18:35):

He grew impatient. That’s what they said. Well, he was growing impatient.

Laci (01:18:37):

Wow. Then we got to go ahead and kill some folks. The people who saved your life.

Matt (01:18:42):

It’s kind of like Laci when she gets ready to go out too early and we’ve got an hour before it’s time to leave.

Laci (01:18:49):

Oh, I thought you meant I get stabby. I don’t, don’t get stabby.

Matt (01:18:53):

I mean, you get a little

Laci (01:18:56):

Tappy with my foot, like TikTok, I think he might’ve been cranky because he still had on all of this is like William Shakespeare clothing. He still has armor on. He’s got his fluffy collar. You’re in the Amazon, maybe you’re hot, maybe you need a snack.

Matt (01:19:09):

Lazy, please. It’s Amazon,

Laci (01:19:11):

The ice in the Amazon and he needs a snack and he needed to snap to a slim gym or have a Snickers and then maybe he wouldn’t have killed anyone.

Matt (01:19:19):

So then we go over to the Society of Snooty British people. The year is 1916 and onscreen caption tells us it’s two years into the Great War. This is one of the classic World War I movies right up there with Wonder Woman and all quiet on the western front. So McGregor is who we’ve met now, Jake Whitehall. I can’t tell if the narration literally switches from another guy to him or if it’s him doing both. He just speaks in a different voice, but whatever. It’s like he’s explaining to this society. He’s like, and that’s the legend of the tears of the moon down the jungle.

Laci (01:19:57):

He’s just giving a speech. It’s not narration.

Matt (01:19:59):

The narration that we hear in the beginning of the movie transitions into him giving his lecture. And so it’s like, oh. So were we just hearing his lecture? Except that it’s two

Laci (01:20:08):

Different speakers. Oh, I didn’t take it that way. Okay,

Matt (01:20:11):

Look, I like that it’s set in World War. I love World War. I love this period of history. I just wish the movie would do more with it because

Laci (01:20:18):

They gave you an entire German man with a submarine and

Matt (01:20:22):

That’s fun. Okay, listen,

Laci (01:20:23):

That is fun.

Matt (01:20:24):

I shouldn’t get greedy. I think it’s so much fun to have a German villain who’s like an inbred weirdo royal guy. He’s the sixth son of Kaiser v. Helm.

Laci (01:20:33):

He’s got to find a way to really stand apart.

Matt (01:20:35):

Yes.

Laci (01:20:36):

Is there any chance that Amazon is deep enough for a sub in all of its routes? There’s no way he’s getting through in the submarine.

Matt (01:20:44):

Yeah. I don’t know.

Laci (01:20:45):

That’s really not,

Matt (01:20:46):

I don’t know, but I love a submarine popping up where it shouldn’t, you don’t expect it

Laci (01:20:49):

To. Very Dr. Evil

Matt (01:20:51):

McGregor, he’s talking, he’s lecturing these people and his sister’s got these crazy ideas about the tears in the moon and the Amazon and the people in the crowd are like, no, no, no, no, no.

Laci (01:21:03):

But they have to disguise that it’s the sister at all. It’s supposed to be him

Matt (01:21:07):

As he speaks, we pan up and we see Emily Blunt, she is speaking along the words with her brother. So it’s her words and he is like her face to the world. Just as

Laci (01:21:16):

She’s up there with the other women in the women’s, in the women’s seating. This is such a split area that even the women aren’t allowed to sit with the farty old men. What a privilege.

Matt (01:21:28):

They all have more concerns right now than meeting their little snoot society. The war is going on.

Laci (01:21:33):

Jesus. Well, I mean clearly they’re in charge of funding things and they’re some sort of museum. I don’t really understand what they are except for, I guess they were looking for assistance.

Matt (01:21:43):

This is a real thing called the Royal Society.

Laci (01:21:45):

Oh,

Matt (01:21:47):

That’s boring. That does again, just, oh, we just do British stuff.

Laci (01:21:51):

But they give resources for things. And if they thought that this expedition would actually result in medicine that could help everyone in the war.

Matt (01:22:02):

Yeah, they really, they’re so concerned about winning the war. They don’t seem to mind that Kaiser Wilhelm’s son is in amongst them just walking around like, ah yeah, I love Z six Z beat

Laci (01:22:14):

His full name. And that was a whole problem.

Matt (01:22:17):

But no, it seems like they don’t know that he’s a prince, but they do know he’s a goddamn crowd. And this was a time when the Royal family, I forget what their actual family name was, they had to change it to the house of Windsor because their old family name was too German sounding and sauerkraut. They renamed to Liberty Cabbage?

Laci (01:22:35):

No, just like our Freedom fries.

Matt (01:22:37):

Oh yeah. There’s nothing new. Everything just repeats itself.

Laci (01:22:40):

Oh. But it’s such a novel, beautiful idea. I thought for sure it was the first time.

Matt (01:22:44):

But there’s some nice symmetry with later McGregor’s. Like my sister stood by me. She’s like, she’s why I can continue being amongst polite society. And so they have

Laci (01:22:56):

A very nice relationship. Yes.

Matt (01:22:58):

Where they help each other, they lift each other up and move in worlds that they’re not allowed to move in. But he’s like, so what I’m requesting is access to your archives because you have the arrowhead that will lead me to the tears of the moon.

Laci (01:23:10):

That’s all he wants. He just wants to go in the archive. He doesn’t even want money. Just like, oh, let me open a box.

Matt (01:23:17):

But they deny him permission to open the box. So he just has to start filibustering so his sister can go look in the box. And she runs into Jesse Clemens as said German freak. Again, this is World War. They hate the German so much, but they’re fine with this guy walking around. And he’s like,

Laci (01:23:33):

Ah, his money spins well in the society.

Matt (01:23:36):

This secretary is galleys upstairs lady. And she goes up, she’s sneaking around trying not to be detected. Then she does find the arrowhead in a chest just as Jesse Clemens is coming in to look for the same thing. And then we get a little sequence. What

Laci (01:23:53):

Are the odds? What are the odds? The two people that a thing not looked for in such a long time, they both have the same idea

Matt (01:24:01):

The same time.

Laci (01:24:02):

What a thing to make a movie about.

Matt (01:24:04):

So kind of shades of Rachel Vice in the Mummy in the opening of the Mummy where she’s in the library,

Laci (01:24:09):

She wishes. But yeah,

Matt (01:24:11):

Who wishes who

Laci (01:24:12):

Vice because or Weis. Help me out here. Vice.

Matt (01:24:15):

Well,

Laci (01:24:17):

Just Emily Blunt, she’s just so cute.

Matt (01:24:20):

On the other hand, Rachel Vice.

Laci (01:24:23):

All right, I’m going to chop off that hand.

Matt (01:24:25):

I think they’re both fine. We don’t have to pit them against each other.

Laci (01:24:30):

I’m not pitting, I’m just choosing,

Matt (01:24:31):

Well, Emily Blunt, but Rachel Vice and the Mummy is like she’s clumsy. She accidentally destroys the whole library, whereas Emily Blunt is getting on ladders and stuff and being resourceful and fighting off

Laci (01:24:41):

These. Yes. So yeah, Emily Blunt rules. She’s going against stereotype. The other one was leaning in. Fuck that

Matt (01:24:48):

I guess.

Laci (01:24:49):

Yeah.

Matt (01:24:50):

Well she ends

Laci (01:24:50):

Up, she’s very capable. She’s wearing pants. She couldn’t do any of this in a skirt. Look at her kick.

Matt (01:24:54):

She ends up hanging out of the window by a ladder and then Jesse Ples and she has the arrowhead. And Jesse Plemons is like, give me the arrowhead and I won’t kill you. So she pretends to throw it to him. And then her brother has a bus pull up underneath her cause she can just drop into the bus.

Laci (01:25:11):

A German killing someone at this polite society.

Matt (01:25:14):

I

Laci (01:25:14):

During a war in broad daylight, and it’s a woman, but she’s wearing pants, a killer.

Matt (01:25:20):

I think that’s it. I think that’s the key. But they speed away in the German and Jesse Clemens is like, who were they? We need to follow them again. And so he’s, he’s Prince Yohi who was the real sick son of Kaiser Wilhelm, which is just hilarious. And sometimes it’s fun to just look up where are whatever fucked, weird royal family from,

Laci (01:25:45):

Where are they now?

Matt (01:25:47):

Where are the ho and OERs now? Oh, they’re one of the richest, wealthiest, most powerful families in Germany still. They just don’t have the royal titles anymore. But those people are still around. But we can make fun of them in movies. That’s another reason it’s fun to do World War I is. You can have a lot of fun with the Germans. They’re not evil. In fact, the world would’ve been better if they had won that war.

Laci (01:26:07):

You have a lot of fun with a German often.

Matt (01:26:09):

You’re talking about you.

Laci (01:26:11):

You’re

Matt (01:26:11):

Not German. Come on.

Laci (01:26:12):

Yes, I am.

Matt (01:26:14):

Your

Laci (01:26:14):

Last name is Roth.

Matt (01:26:15):

I don’t buy that. So my name is Stokes. You think I’m I don’t even know

Laci (01:26:19):

Belgian. Yeah, I do. That’s

Matt (01:26:21):

Not Belgian. The Belgian is from my mom’s side.

Laci (01:26:26):

I assure you. I am German of other things too. But

Matt (01:26:31):

Should we just go ahead and do it?

Laci (01:26:34):

Yeah,

Matt (01:26:34):

23 and me.

Laci (01:26:35):

I think so. You

Matt (01:26:36):

Finally find out,

Laci (01:26:37):

Just put the shit to bed. Yeah.

Matt (01:26:39):

Laci’s one of these people who’s always talking about her.

Laci (01:26:41):

I don’t always talk because you shut it down. You think it’s so stupid. I’ve stopped. You’ve bullied me out of it. I don’t want to claim any oppressed person. I just want to know. You

Matt (01:26:54):

Don’t want to do an Elizabeth Warren thing. I

Laci (01:26:55):

Don’t want to do it. I don’t. Yeah, I want to do it for good reasons.

Matt (01:27:00):

As soon as we find one, we’ll do it.

Laci (01:27:03):

How much does it cost? Let’s just, man, you got my hopes up. Thought we’re going to go swabbing some stuff and

Matt (01:27:08):

Lily convinces her brother to go with herd of Brazil where they can go up the Amazon and hire a skipper. And so we do that. We head on over to Porto Velho on the Amazon, and we meet the Rock as the skipper Frank on his boat. And he is halfheartedly giving a tour to the Rube tourists of all the boats you could have hired on the Amazon. This is definitely the cheapest. And I just think he does not deliver these jokes well at all.

Laci (01:27:35):

I had such low expectations that I was pleasantly surprised. Bay watched me.

Matt (01:27:41):

Okay, I could see that. It’s just

Laci (01:27:43):

He’s not good with quick, witty stuff. There’s a couple of times where he does try something that’s very fast and he just can’t do it. But his comedy works for me here more than another movies. So Yay.

Matt (01:27:55):

The puns are funny. And they are funny.

Laci (01:27:58):

I mean, he’s charming. I’m charmed. I’d be on a boat with him.

Matt (01:28:02):

I guess it’s just, it is only in the movie though, because it’s from the ride. It has no connection to who he is. And there’s an easy way to make it. It could be like we find out he has been alive for 400 years and if you live that long, you just so detached from humanity

Laci (01:28:19):

That

Matt (01:28:19):

He’s condescending toward everybody.

Laci (01:28:22):

But

Matt (01:28:22):

He doesn’t play it that way.

Laci (01:28:23):

Well, and he has to stay on the Amazon, right? There’s only so many ways to make money and he does have to eat and stuff. So I mean, you think he’d be really, really good at finding food in the Amazon and not needing clothes and why would you need clothes? I don’t know. I’m just trying to think of what would your problems be if you were there for 400 years? Boredom. So he’s doing the right thing. Just making fun of people.

Matt (01:28:43):

Yeah, that makes sense. I used to, before this, I used to work in an orange juice factory, but I got canned.

Laci (01:28:49):

Oh, I was like, Matt, you never told me.

Matt (01:28:50):

Couldn’t concentrate.

Laci (01:28:52):

No, I didn’t know. No, it was the one where I dated across.

Matt (01:28:57):

I wrote that one down

Laci (01:28:58):

And she was always

Matt (01:28:59):

Seeing someone on the side.

Laci (01:29:02):

That is funny. The other one wasn’t fun,

Matt (01:29:04):

But it’s like this plot maps so easily onto Star Wars and also onto Casablanca. And you mentioned Casablanca, but he should be playing him like a Han Solo or like a Rick Blain who’s just so cynical and above it all bitter. And then meeting Lily, meeting Emily Blunt, that reawakens his passion. Oh, I feel connected to humanity again.

Laci (01:29:30):

I mean he is like a scoundrel. He is like an Aladdin figure. He’s not he, he’s conning people. He’s getting them to give better tips, threatening their lives and saying he’s not going to let the boat go fast unless I need a new motor. So they pay him, he’s a scammer, but he still seems to not be able to pay the guy that runs the city. I don’t really understand what his deal is, but he still can’t pay his debts. So he steals his boat back.

Matt (01:30:01):

But you just said Aladdin and that’s kind of how he’s playing him is I’m a Disney scoundrel. I’m not actually Han Solo. I’m not actually

Laci (01:30:09):

Willing to

Matt (01:30:09):

Be unlikeable and villainous. The

Laci (01:30:11):

Unlikeable person is the guy who wants his money. That’s how it’s played. He seems like the villain when he just wants his fucking money.

Matt (01:30:20):

This is basically where he’s giving the theme park version of the tour. There’s even references to the theme park like a hippo, a mechanical hippo coming out of the water and stuff. And then an Indian tribe attacks them. And then the rich guys like, oh, step on the gas. We got to get away from him. And the rock’s like, oh no, my engine, I don’t want to blow it out. I don’t have any money to fix it. And he just hands him a bunch of cash. He’s like, alright, let’s go. It’s a good little racket. Alright, so Porto Velho, which they really did build in Hawaii. Fun little town, the Crossroads. It’s a great setting, A crossroads of worlds. All these worlds intersect. And it is weirdly, like most Icely and Paul Giamatti is kind of a job of the hut, which means that the Jaguar proxima is obviously Chewbacca. Okay, well I know you don’t care about Star Wars, it’s just I really don’t. Crazy how much this, you could graph this onto how Star Wars opens with them needing to hire a ship and then he’s got to escape from town because he owes people money. And then bounty hunters start chasing them as they try to get out.

Laci (01:31:19):

That’s true. Empire. The empire. And the only reason, reason he takes the job is because they’re paying the right amount of money. He doesn’t care about the moral thing, which is that they’re going to save lives.

Matt (01:31:27):

And then the empire in Star Wars or the German Empire here starts chasing them immediately. So Emily Blunt arrives and she is thrilled to be on this adventure. Her brother is not. She walks around the bazaar. This is our fourth or fifth movie with a baard. It’s like, oh, it’s also wonderful. Oh, did you paint those fans yourself? Oh wow.

Laci (01:31:50):

She seems to be very gracious and aware of the fact that she’s not in her own home. She’s being a good tourist. If there is one.

Matt (01:32:00):

I disagree because she sees the monkeys in the cages and she’s like, oh, how horrid. And then she’s just going to go set them free herself. There is that. If you were a worldly person, you have been aware of something like this. Oh, animals are kept in cages. I can’t believe it.

Laci (01:32:17):

But they were selling them. She didn’t want them to be selling them. It’s 1916. It’s 1916. Emily, what are you doing? You got to put something in this cage.

Matt (01:32:30):

Frank owes money to Paul Giamatti who plays Nico, the mafia guy who runs the town or just an actual legitimate businessman who’s like, well, I lent you some money and you haven’t paid me. So I get to take the engine as collateral.

Laci (01:32:42):

He just has gold teeth. So you think he’s bad? Yeah, he looks like Peshy.

Matt (01:32:45):

You think he’s going to be waste lesser than he is. He just has a pet cockatoo for some reason

Laci (01:32:49):

He’s sweetheart needs his money. Pretty

Matt (01:32:50):

Nice guy actually talks

Laci (01:32:52):

About Frank a lot and his personal time for that parent

Matt (01:32:55):

To have, oh, he loves Frank.

Laci (01:32:56):

Well, I’m just saying for the parent to have that pay or give me money. Frank calls me money. Frank calls me money.

Matt (01:33:02):

So he confiscates Frank’s engine and then Frank’s like, I got to sneak back into that office so I can get the key and get my engine back. So he, Emily Blunt and the Rock meet each other because he’s sneaking into Frank’s to Nico’s office while she goes into the office looking to hire charter,

Laci (01:33:20):

A boat,

Matt (01:33:20):

Nico to hire Charter a boat. Yeah.

Laci (01:33:21):

Thinks he’s Nico. They strike up a deal owe. And then the real Nico comes into the restaurant and she realizes what a liar he is a scoundrel. A scoundrel. But then a cat enters a very dangerous cat. What kind?

Matt (01:33:39):

Jaguar.

Laci (01:33:39):

A jaguar and some heroics will help a lady get over some lying. She sees how capable he is fighting off this Jaguar.

Matt (01:33:50):

Yeah. Just kicks it out the window and then closes the window and then everybody applauds him and he bows. He’s like, oh, thank you, thank you.

Laci (01:33:56):

And what I immediately thought was, but now you’ve just got a Jaguar outside who’s been kicked.

Matt (01:34:00):

That’s the outside people’s problem.

Laci (01:34:02):

That’s going to be you soon. You guys don’t live here like Nico, who a coward snuck up the stairs and left everyone behind. And of course Emily was, what is her character name? Lily was immediately, it’s a flower was immediately like, oh right, the Amazon’s dangerous. I need someone that’s not going to sneak down below deck and make me have to deal with the problems.

Matt (01:34:23):

I

Laci (01:34:23):

Need this view roll man meet in front of me.

Matt (01:34:27):

Well, they’re haggling over the price. And then she’s like, I’ll pay you whatever amount is the one.

Laci (01:34:32):

20 is the indoors goal,

Matt (01:34:33):

But we have to leave now. And this is literally Star Wars, but we got to leave right now. Oh, okay, great. And just like in Star Wars, Han Solo is trying to play it cool. I’m not actually in super serious trouble. And then goes and talks to his Jaguar and he’s like, holy fuck, we got to fix the ship really fast and get out of here.

Laci (01:34:49):

And then the brother comes in, all proud of himself is he was a tough negotiator, but I worked him down to $50,000. He was proud that he had already chartered the actual Nico. She seems to be an expert in a lot of things. She just knows a lot. She reads a lot, but I don’t know if she’s an expert in the place she’s in. And if she were, would she be demanding? This day is halfway over, he wants to leave in the morning. Maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe we don’t want to spend an extra night on the boat in the middle of the Amazon. Just, I don’t know. She immediately was like, no, no.

Matt (01:35:23):

It is to Emily Blunt’s immense credit because that this character is not obnoxious

Laci (01:35:28):

Because

Matt (01:35:29):

On paper she is. I’m a book lady, I’ve never been here, but I’ve read a lot about it. And from that I know everything. And in fact, I’m better at this world than all of you. And I even know how to fix your boat better than you. I can kick it.

Laci (01:35:42):

But she is very capable and she does get her hands dirty and she’s very brave. And I can see the child, Lily inside the adult, just the precocious little asshole that was always, couldn’t sit still at dinner and was always climbing shit. And you always had to be scared Lily was going to fall and up on the refrigerator and she grew up and stayed and kept that quality as a fellow climber. Lily, I appreciate that about you. Are

Matt (01:36:07):

You a climber? I can’t picture that. As a child, I certainly can picture like rambunctious. Can’t sit still

Laci (01:36:12):

As a child. Yes. I was a percher like a child we might own. I’d find high ground and I’d like to perch. Yeah. I wasn’t doing it to be like, well, look at me balance. My balance has always been bad, but I did like to find a seat no one was using and those are usually up in the air.

Matt (01:36:31):

We should go climbing sometimes.

Laci (01:36:33):

I do not like to climb.

Matt (01:36:34):

I like to perch too.

Laci (01:36:35):

I like to park or climb. I like climbing indoors in little places. I don’t want to go up high

Matt (01:36:43):

Just to say something. I like just to say something I like. What

Laci (01:36:47):

Do you,

Matt (01:36:48):

Here’s what I like. I is when the reveal that Frank, the Jaguar is his pet and she just listens to him no matter what he says, he has a magical connection with the Jaguar is he’s in his boat fixing stuff up and a ball just rolls on the ground and then he kicks it away, rolls back to him, he kicks it away. And then he is like, no, come on. Not now. And then the Jaguar walks out and you’re like, oh, he’s in cahoots with the jaguar.

Laci (01:37:10):

The Jaguar’s a scam or a fucking scam. Jaguar.

Matt (01:37:14):

Just a nice little moment. I don’t know, tons of,

Laci (01:37:17):

What are you saying you like about it that it’s not a dramatic reveal? I have a cat. Just

Matt (01:37:21):

A nice little understated moment between him and the cat

Laci (01:37:24):

And

Matt (01:37:24):

The camera revealing that it’s the jaguar kicking, kicking the ball to him and then suddenly all is made clear. Oh, that whole fight with the jaguar was staged.

Laci (01:37:33):

So you have a relationship with this jaguar that entails you just pushing the fuck out of it in the throat midair, but

Matt (01:37:39):

It bites you so

Laci (01:37:41):

Hard this time.

Matt (01:37:43):

Tons of porters are bringing luggage chests onto the boat and Frank’s like, oh, it’s that stupid girl, isn’t it with her luggage? But no, it’s actually her fancy brother. And he’s like, I like this line. He says, well, dinner without a dinner jacket is hardly dinner. No,

Laci (01:37:57):

Anyone, anyone.

Matt (01:37:58):

So Frank just starts tossing his trunks into the water. Just like Mortal Kombat,

Laci (01:38:02):

Right? This is fine luggage. You could just keep it at the place. We’re coming back here, the boat’s going to come back here. No,

Matt (01:38:09):

Got to throw it in the water. Well,

Laci (01:38:09):

You’re making quite the display, Frank.

Matt (01:38:12):

He’s like, well, I have to take my giant toiletry chest. This rang true for me because my dad my whole life has always, whenever he travels, even for a night packs, just most giant Mardi Gras bead bag of toiletries.

Laci (01:38:25):

Marty be bag.

Matt (01:38:26):

Yeah.

Laci (01:38:26):

He doesn’t just get a toilet tree bag.

Matt (01:38:28):

Oh no, that’s not big enough. I don’t know what he’s carrying in there, but he’s got all kinds of stuff.

Laci (01:38:33):

He’s definitely bringing his own toilet paper. You really can’t replace that one. Ply Scot’s when your butt’s used to it.

Matt (01:38:38):

No, you can’t. But what else is in there? I don’t want to look

Laci (01:38:44):

Plunger. He has three in the bathroom, so he probably brings his own personal.

Matt (01:38:49):

He is just not the same. No plunge and it doesn’t plunge as well as your own plunger

Laci (01:38:53):

Squeegee

Matt (01:38:54):

On a nearby boat. Some people are putting birds into cages and Lily’s like, what are you doing with those birds? They’re like, we’re going to send them off to Paris to be stuffed. And she says, oh no, you are not. And she’s going to go put a stop to it. Who does she think she is?

Laci (01:39:09):

I don’t. I do not know. I thought she wanted to save mankind. What are you doing? You going to save animals too? We can’t save ’em both. They’re at odds with each other lady. But yeah, she really is taking the livelihood from men that she doesn’t know in a place that doesn’t have a lot of opportunity. And you know how long it took to catch those? They’re flying animals. Not easy to catch ’em,

Matt (01:39:29):

But as much as we think like, oh, she’s like progressive worldly girl boss.

Laci (01:39:33):

No, you’re right.

Matt (01:39:34):

She knows better. She’s a colonial overlord. I’m going to come in and tame these savages

Laci (01:39:38):

Clearly. Do you guys just need to go to Cambridge and then you can be lawyers and live out here and do lawyers stuff.

Matt (01:39:44):

It’s the 1916 version of Learn to Code all you coal miners.

Laci (01:39:48):

Right? Look around. Some of us live outside. What the fuck?

Matt (01:39:53):

So she gets, but this,

Laci (01:39:55):

Now I’m mad fucking Lily,

Matt (01:39:57):

But this is just a ploy to trap her. There’s some bounty hunters who are after them, just like in Star Wars, they put her in a cage, but she’s plucking enough to escape.

Laci (01:40:05):

She’s good at picking things.

Matt (01:40:06):

She is a good picker because she variety. She grew up on the streets of Delhi. She says

Laci (01:40:10):

Variety. Variety of skills. This one.

Matt (01:40:13):

And there’s a pretty little fun chase and escape sequence through the town. It’s very Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s not directed with a skill of gore devinsky in the Pirates movies.

Laci (01:40:21):

But I’m following it. I’m not confused. It all feels like a ride. And maybe I knew this was based on a ride. I just assumed all of this was I really should go on this ride. This is cool.

Matt (01:40:33):

Yeah, no, I mean it’s a good ride to base something on because there’s a tiny bit of mythology there and story and then you can just paint whatever you want onto it. Which is why I said in the history segment, it’s a bummer that this movie wasn’t a hit because everything has to be IP if it’s going to be a hit. Technically this is ip, but it’s like really not. There’s no preexisting story.

Laci (01:40:54):

It’s like saying the monorail is ip.

Matt (01:40:55):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But Frank goes and catches up to her and she’s going to jump on the roof to run away. And he’s like, no, don’t run on the roof. And she’s like, I know what I’m doing, Frank. And then she falls through the roof onto the ground and there’s just a nice little detail of her having the wind knocked out of her. And both of us commented on this.

Laci (01:41:13):

It takes a while. Not only is the wind knocked out, but it is knocked out for the appropriate amount of time.

Matt (01:41:20):

And it is following a scene where the rock is just slamming people an iron skillet into people’s faces, right?

Laci (01:41:26):

I mean doing the kind of damage that would put you in the ICU, but no blood here.

Matt (01:41:31):

Right? But then she just falls and has the wind knocked out of her and you just stay with her for a second as she can’t breathe. But finally gets on a huge close line, uses it as a zip line and ends up on the boat. Alright, great. Okay. Oh, but fuck,

Laci (01:41:47):

I do like how non plaza the brother always is though. There goes Lily, just always

Matt (01:41:54):

Just doing her old shit.

Laci (01:41:55):

Swinging around, sliding around.

Matt (01:41:57):

But as they’re all on the boat about to leave, suddenly Jesse Clemens, the prince, emerges from the water of the shallow harbor in a German submarine. Well first we see him in his elegant dinner, in his magnificent room on a sub. I love a weird submarine. He’s given the bad news that the girl has escaped. He was like, well, I’ll do it myself because I got to get that tree. The tree is key to Germany winning the war to

Laci (01:42:22):

Heal all your troops. You send it right back. I guess

Matt (01:42:24):

It’s funny to, you can fill in the gaps of they need something for the fail son of the Kaiser to do so. Just give them some.

Laci (01:42:32):

They send them just like an up we sends them to find the bird that doesn’t exist.

Matt (01:42:36):

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Laci (01:42:37):

And then you bump,

Matt (01:42:37):

Go find the tears of the moon, please. So the sub is going to shoot them with a torpedo, but the torpedo smash clashes into a warehouse. There’s a big chase allowed to do

Laci (01:42:50):

Because I mean it’s going to seek and find it. So he uses his 400 year old boat and jumps it up, uses a building like it’s a ramp,

Matt (01:43:02):

Basically destroys the town.

Laci (01:43:04):

It has two buildings, that town there goes one another,

Matt (01:43:07):

But it’s okay. I made $10,000

Laci (01:43:11):

Rebuild the town with that.

Matt (01:43:12):

Now we are on a real deal. Jungle Cruise. I was promised at Jungle Cruise. Here it is. 30 minutes into the movie. And so

Laci (01:43:22):

The hi jinks begin the witty re repertoire, re repart a rat between the three of them. And I think they work as a trio. They’re getting to know each other.

Matt (01:43:35):

He has the hilarious, we couldn’t see eye to eye joke. And this McGregor already Brother

Laci (01:43:39):

Lamb. Yeah, McGregor’s enjoying him. He’s already thrown all of his shit in the water. But McGregor is just, he’s a good sport.

Matt (01:43:48):

Yeah. He’s like,

Laci (01:43:50):

He has a dominating sister who’s the only family member who still will allow him near her. And he’s used to being dicked around. This is a gay man in 1916. He’s fucked. If someone wants to make him laugh and it’s not a joke about him, he shall take it in. Good humor, sir.

Matt (01:44:07):

Yeah. And just a little, little joy. And in seeing my sister get what’s hers?

Laci (01:44:12):

Yeah. Here’s somebody that, right. Usually men are always just probably so moved by her looks that they don’t give it back, but well, and she wore pants. She wasn’t going to be seen as just any old lady. Do

Matt (01:44:23):

You like that? He always calls her pants. I do.

Laci (01:44:26):

I love a nickname of pants is funny.

Matt (01:44:29):

It’s funny. Okay, fine. It’s funny. Fine. I hate nicknames, but you’re right.

Laci (01:44:33):

I love nicknames.

Matt (01:44:34):

So you know what another thing I really like, JAMA Colette, Sarah I think directs this really well other than the shitty CGI action sequences. I love the thing with the motion picture camera where she takes out a hand cranked movie camera and it will go back and forth from you hearing them talk to you, just seeing the silent footage and then you don’t hear responses.

Laci (01:44:57):

Right. It really adds to the way that I’ve immediately saw, he’s not quite stealth and agile enough to be pulling this off. But his boat very much seems like the general, the train from Buster Keaton’s movie. He knows the ins and outs of this piece of equipment so much that he is everywhere on it. If something is making a noise, he knows to go pull a thing, jump up on this. He can come out of the fucking chimney. There’s below deck, who knew? And there’s even a quarters for him. How big is this below deck? He has it rigged. It’s like a little floating home alone house. So I like that. Anyway, so when I’m thinking silent movie and then they kind of switch to a silent movie, it adds to that.

Matt (01:45:46):

Absolutely. And I like her just saying, well, he’s kind of intrigued. He’s never seen a movie before. And she says, moving pictures are so much fun, you can be anywhere in the world. He’s like, huh, okay. Well find out later. He is. He’s not allowed to go anywhere. He gets them food by just shooting a rat out of a tree and then throws it into the water and piranhas swarm and he scoops a bunch of them out.

Laci (01:46:10):

No, I thought they eat rat. Yeah. I couldn’t remember that scene correctly.

Matt (01:46:13):

In reality, piranhas do not eat live food. If you jumped into the water with piranhas, they would just swim away from you. They wouldn’t attack you.

Laci (01:46:21):

They’re just carnivorous fish. And that sounds fucking scary as hell. They’re so small and they’ve traveled in schools.

Matt (01:46:28):

So if you just type do P-R-P-I-R, it will auto complete. Do piranhas eat people. It’s nighttime. Get a little moment where Frank is playing his guitar. Lily is sketching like Jack Dawson. Oh, these are good. She’s are very good,

Laci (01:46:43):

But she’s not good. And he’s like, your perspective is off. And she’s like, damnit, you’re right. I appreciate that. They’re not too up their own asses about their little skills.

Matt (01:46:52):

Prince Jo goes down to the jungle chamber where the fucking conquistadors are stored and he squirts some river water onto a branch. And

Laci (01:47:03):

This is annoying because we do not know why they’re doing this.

Matt (01:47:06):

And

Laci (01:47:06):

I mean, we knew going to be kinky s coming back to the situation, but we don’t know why they look like this and why they need river water and why there’s so many CGI I snakes and bugs and this is the second almost movie. Well, JI also had a bad guy that just had shit coming out of his eye. He was made a bugs or something. Ew.

Matt (01:47:27):

He squirts a little bit of river water and then some snakes come out of this guy’s head and he just starts talking to the snakes.

Laci (01:47:34):

He does come down on the funniest adult kid swing thing. He’s lowered into this cannon with on this board that makes him have to part his legs to write it down. And just like a little hobby horse,

Matt (01:47:48):

He’s so much fun in this movie. He is Jesse Clemens.

Laci (01:47:52):

This is what a good bad guy can do. These parts could be so fucking boring. I could be so annoyed every time it switches over to this plot line the way I was bored in Jumanji. It was just like the fucking movie came to a screeching halt Every time we have to see these underdeveloped and unimaginative. You’re bug guy cool. But Jesse Plymouth. I mean you can do anything with very little.

Matt (01:48:15):

He doesn’t often get to do just wacky. And I guess the conquistadors are the actual menacing villains. So he’s allowed to be the flamboyant, silly villain, even though he’s way more my eyes drawn way more to him than to the other guys. Yeah. He tells the fucking snake guys like, Hey, I can set you free if you help me find that arrowhead. And they’re like, yeah, great. So then like a billion bees and a billion snakes come out of these men. Do you love rapid sequence? And I think this movie has a very good rapids sequence. It’s all done very well, all digital, but it looks really good. They’re about to go down a huge waterfall, but the rock is able to steer the boat safely away to another channel. And they were only arrived at these rapids because the only blunt insists we have to go that way in the rock.

Laci (01:48:54):

I really don’t understand how they get around them, but fine.

Matt (01:48:56):

He just turns on the engine real hard.

Laci (01:48:58):

But how do they get around? It’s the river.

Matt (01:49:01):

It’s just the one way. No, there’s a fork in the

Laci (01:49:03):

River. Oh, okay. The

Matt (01:49:04):

Movie doesn’t establish that, but it’s like, oh, we just need to pilot over this way and then we can go to the calm river.

Laci (01:49:09):

That boat has fast and furious nitrous in it all of a sudden. It really does. Not very believable, but he makes it. And this is the, oh, Disney, you brave, brave company for your big gay moment. This is the McGregor and the rock conversation where they’re learning about each other and the rock is very nice about him being gay. But I mean, it’s ruined by the fact that this was an implant. It was supposed it’s queer baiting. I don’t appreciate it.

Matt (01:49:43):

Sorry. What is queer baiting?

Laci (01:49:44):

Queer baiting is when you put things into consumable content, movies, whatever, that pays lip service to the L-G-B-T-Q community without advancing it or without even sometimes totally providing it with squid games where it was heavily implied that there could be a romance between the lead bad guy and the lead good guy, at least in the peripheral talk around the second season. And so all the gay people, all the gay people go to watch the third season in spoiler alert, at least there’s no relationship in that one. More

Matt (01:50:34):

Like the Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock Holmes

Laci (01:50:36):

Series. Yes, yes, yes. It does enough to make the L-G-B-T-Q community keep watching it and then doesn’t deliver.

Matt (01:50:45):

So if it’s done, you’re saying, but done cynically, not like it’s part of the text that may be going on, but

Laci (01:50:53):

So there’s more than one way to do it. In the case of squid games, I don’t think the creators ever intended there to be that relationship. But then when there were so many people who were hoping for it, they didn’t tell them no, that’s not the case. They let it keep going. And they even played into it maybe because the lead actor is gay, I think.

Matt (01:51:13):

I don’t know.

Laci (01:51:14):

Yeah, I know. He is like a famous sexy, sexy model. It just looks a bait and switch. That’s my understanding. That’s why it’s baiting. It’s like, oh, here’s something you might enjoy. Nope. It wasn’t the thing you thought it’d be for whatever reason.

Matt (01:51:26):

I mean the bait and switch here is like, hey, he will barely quietly acknowledge lots of ladies proposed to me, but my interest lie elsewhere.

Laci (01:51:34):

No, the bait here was,

Matt (01:51:36):

But listen, oh,

Laci (01:51:36):

I’m sorry.

Matt (01:51:37):

But then the movie being like, that’s all you fucking hogs are going to get and you need to be happy about it and you need to celebrate us for it.

Laci (01:51:44):

Well right. To make an announcement at all in advance of the movie that there would be, that moment is just so gross. It’s just let the moment be. And if there’s talk about it later because it’s someone thinks it’s important enough to mention, then have your fucking media attention. And if you ever need to point to the fact that you had a gay character point to that, then, but why? Guess what everybody we’re finally doing, it just feels gross.

Matt (01:52:09):

And any praise you’re going to give them is that shield they can use to deflect criticism for all the horrible ways they’re actually harming the world, including harming gay people both here and abroad. So that’s that scene and he’s very good. Jack Whitehall’s, very good. I think The Rock is pretty good here reacting

Laci (01:52:30):

To

Matt (01:52:30):

It. But this is intercut with Emily Blunt going sneaking around the boat. She was told, don’t go to my quarters, but she goes in anyway. She’s like, just a little peek. And she goes and she sees he has all these, well one, he has all these postcards from London and he likes magazines about motor cars. So he’s very enthusiastic about the modern world, which is a nice little sad detail. But he also has,

Laci (01:52:52):

I didn’t put that together that it’s all these things he doesn’t think he’ll ever get to

Matt (01:52:56):

See. Right. He also has all of these maps that he shouldn’t have. That

Laci (01:53:00):

Makes sense why? The first line he says to her is he’s like, women in Britain are wearing pants now. And she’s like, no,

Matt (01:53:08):

He’s

Laci (01:53:08):

So in touch. He just feels like, oh, did I not get a magazine that showed this new fashion trend?

Matt (01:53:14):

So Lily confronts him with all these documents. She’s like, you are after the moon, the flowers of the moon, the tears of the killers, the tears of the moon yourself like to kill the clowns from out of space. Not anymore. Not after the clowns anymore. I used to do that, but now I have given up and she’s like, you shouldn’t give up because now you have this, the arrowhead. But then they all get shot with fucking darts from some mins that’s

Laci (01:53:37):

Very Moana.

Matt (01:53:38):

And the rock’s like, oh shit. And then passes out, they get revived on some canoes and McGregor’s like, where are we going? And the rock is like, they’re taking us to the head hunter’s village, which is a terrible place to be headed. I can’t turn it off.

Laci (01:53:54):

And then this is when it does turn off, it doesn’t come back again until the end of the movie. But they imply that this is just a scam that he runs and that this was already set up. He didn’t call it off. He didn’t know to call it off. Does that mean that there are sometimes people who make him go this way into the Amazon in searching for this very thing? Is that what is implied? No way. This big elaborate hoax is something he does all the time. They don’t

Matt (01:54:22):

Dunno.

Laci (01:54:22):

They don’t say,

Matt (01:54:24):

It seems like he had set it up. I need to be able to ditch these people, these specific people who are very determined. So you guys will help me arrange that. But it doesn’t seem like he actually arranged that. When would he have done it? When would he have done it? He need had to leave in 10 minutes. He can’t shoot off a text message.

Laci (01:54:38):

It doesn’t make sense. And I mean, we already see him be helped by the same group of people on a much smaller scale with the regular river crew, jungle crews that he does. So it’s implied that, oh, this is just scam cobra that was scam delta. Or it’s just like he just sends a message via parakeet to we’re going to run this one.

Matt (01:55:04):

They get taken to the head hunters village. It’s your classic scene of Indians. By the way, when I say Indian, most indigenous people of the Americas call themselves Indians. They prefer that to Native Americans. I’m not doing it to be an asshole, but it’s a classic scene of native seeming scary at first. But then actually, oh wait a minute. He’s in cahoots with them. And this is a reverse of the rundown where we get one person translating for the natives and then telling their friend in English, don’t worry, I’m going to tell ’em that you’re cool in the native language. He’s an asshole. They’re doing that. You know what I’m

Laci (01:55:43):

Saying? Doing that. They’re doing that here.

Matt (01:55:46):

Lily breaks free, grabs a spear and tries to start fighting them, but then they all just start laughing. They’re like, no, we’re all friends here, including Trader Sam is their leader. Trader Sam is a tiki bar at the Disney properties.

Laci (01:55:57):

Oh.

Matt (01:55:57):

So that’s why this character is named that

Laci (01:55:59):

Fantastic. Is any of them named Fast Pass.

Matt (01:56:03):

And we get to spend a lot of time in this village and traitor, Sam is translating the arrowhead. And she’s like, okay, so there’s a lot of rules here. You got to take the arrowhead to the chamber of the moon, cure a broken heart where the rock turns

Laci (01:56:19):

To water turns to rock, and then they got to have a blood moon. And she’s like, oh, that’s in two days. That is so fucking convenient. Emily Blunt, you’re telling me you didn’t even know that huge piece of this before coming out here. How often is a blood moon?

Matt (01:56:36):

And then you’re

Laci (01:56:36):

Lucky this is a Disney movie. And

Matt (01:56:38):

Win Trader Sam is done giving her explanation. She even says, I told you it was complicated. That this is another big critique of just the script I have of this movie is this is all getting really, really dense and it’s going to become hard for me at least to track it. Now I’m an idiot and Laci’s much smarter and pays better attention than me. And she’s like, well, I understood everything that was going on at every moment, but when the qui store show up covered in bees and snakes,

Laci (01:57:01):

I can’t look at that. The comb the honey, I can’t do it. Thank

Matt (01:57:05):

You. And they are, I think they’re MI think they look really good.

Laci (01:57:10):

They are. It’s just unneeded. It’s unnecessary.

Matt (01:57:13):

And I think that this, whenever they’re in the movie, the movie gets very dark and weirdly poorly lit, just kind of smudgy. And since they’re in most of the rest of the movie, it’s just less visually engaging for me. For me, there’s this whole battle and escape sequence. The heroes versus the conquistadors. The bad guys, the conquistadors, they steal the arrowhead, but the rock steals it back, but then it gets stabbed and he falls really far, but he throws the arrowhead up to him, won catch, and she catches it.

Laci (01:57:37):

Well he’s stabbed and then further stabbed and falls in such a way that you know, that person would die. It was kind of shocking because I didn’t know what the movie was doing

Matt (01:57:46):

And

Laci (01:57:47):

I was just like, that was fucking violent.

Matt (01:57:48):

And for good measure, you watch him fall and watch his head crash into a thing

Laci (01:57:52):

And then his body just listed as a pile. He doesn’t go into the water like, oh, maybe he’s still alive. No, he crashes on rocks.

Matt (01:57:58):

Right though the Conor is, they regroup. They’re like, okay, we got to go get that woman, steal the arrowhead from her. Then we can get the tears of the moon. We can restore our souls or whatever, but we need to know where the tree is and the only way we can know where the tree is if we have to talk to the German prince. So you send your bees, they’ll go talk to the German prince. German prince will lead us over to the tears of the moon tree trees place. Okay, good.

Laci (01:58:19):

What did you do for 200 years before you were trapped in the cave and you couldn’t walk up and down the river? Why not go find the fucking the tree thing? Well,

Matt (01:58:27):

As the rock leader says, I looked and looked, but I could not find it. I don’t know. You weren’t as good at finding stuff as this white lady.

Laci (01:58:35):

You were good at doing your doodles on your fucking map photographer, but oh, interesting. So because Kevin Hart had to get photography in Jumanji, you just had to take it in Jungle Cruise, huh? My god. Can’t you let any of your fucking co-stars just have something? He’s going to be an air marshal in something. Watch.

Matt (01:58:53):

I think you might be right. I think because to be clear, Kevin Hart’s character in Jumanji, his great attributes is that he’s the best map guy in the universe. And so now this is the rock being like, well, I can’t let that stand. He’s not in this movie, so I’ll make myself the world’s greatest map guy. Although you made these, Emily Blunt says, wow, you’re one of the world’s minor great. Or something like that.

Laci (01:59:17):

She says something a little nicer than that. The word minor is in there. But I remember thinking

Matt (01:59:21):

A minor master,

Laci (01:59:22):

A minor master, no,

Matt (01:59:24):

Our heroes are reunited. They see Frank, oh, he is still alive, but he’s got a giant sword in his back. And he’s like, okay, yeah, actually my name is Francisco and I’m like 400 years old a ghost. It’s

Laci (01:59:35):

Not going to fuck up like our situation.

Matt (01:59:38):

Also, are you a vampire? It’s complicated.

Laci (01:59:42):

It seems complicated and I feel like you’re making it more complicated as well. It is confusing what you are. You don’t bleed, but you do get tired

Matt (01:59:51):

And you do eat.

Laci (01:59:52):

You do. We don’t know if you have sex, you do whim, but you don’t seem to need to breathe underwater, but you do bring breath with you.

Matt (02:00:03):

Are there blood cells are white blood cells in your body.

Laci (02:00:05):

You can take in a breath, but you don’t need to breathe. Why do you sweat? Why are you so sweaty? Why do you have hair growth?

Matt (02:00:15):

So there’s this, why

Laci (02:00:15):

Do you have hair loss? The hair loss makes sense. Actually,

Matt (02:00:19):

There’s this, I don’t know,

Laci (02:00:22):

I’m just very upset.

Matt (02:00:24):

There’s this whole thing where the Emily Blunt needs to pull the sword out of him and they’re making a big deal lab out of it. But also the joke is they’re talking about it like it’s sex. It’s my first time. I’m very nervous. Oh, you shouldn’t be nervous.

Laci (02:00:37):

And that’s why when the brother then,

Matt (02:00:39):

So this is what happens. So he’s like, don’t worry, I’ve done this thousands, hundreds of times and says, I don’t know how to take that. And then McGregor who’s standing over the side says, I can maybe give it a wiggle and the rock’s like absolutely not. And yeah, you’re right.

Laci (02:00:53):

Yeah. And then there’s one more after that where it’s like, we get it. You don’t want McGregor to wiggle it. That’s

Matt (02:01:00):

Kind of weird.

Laci (02:01:00):

Yeah. Why undo the work you did and why? Fuck in front of the brother if that’s what we’re miming here.

Matt (02:01:08):

He’s do it apart. He’s learned from his best friend, Ryan Reynolds. If you embrace gay people, you then have to make a joke about how you think gay people are weird too. Well, they pull the sword out and then McGregor, he’s got a broken leg, so they’re just going to leave him behind, but the prince is chasing them with the aid of some bes. Now Lily and Frank are alone on the jungle cruise together, and he gets to really open up to her. See, I went on a mission to the New World with Aguire. I was raised with aguire. We were like brothers, but he had a daughter who was dying of an illness. So he sent out to find the tears of the moon to save her. We went all over the Amazon. I was his cartographer. I charted the whole Amazon, but one by one the jungle took us, killed all of us. We were all going to die. But then we got saved by the natives with their tears of the moon petals, and Gary was really happy. He’s like, oh, great. The tears of the moon. I can go ahead, get back to Spain with those, but no, not yet. So he grows impatient and then kills the natives.

Laci (02:02:05):

I now understand why he was impatient. His daughter’s dying.

Matt (02:02:08):

Yeah,

Laci (02:02:10):

Maybe don’t stab a guy.

Matt (02:02:12):

Maybe took her too far, but yeah. Well yeah,

Laci (02:02:14):

TikTok, she’s probably dead already. My guy.

Matt (02:02:17):

I mean, the journey back is going to take years and years. So

Laci (02:02:20):

She’s 27 and she’s long dead.

Matt (02:02:22):

So he grew impatient. So he started to threaten the chief and the chief’s like, no, I’m not going to let you harvest our sacred tree. And so you’re

Laci (02:02:31):

Not ready. You’re not worthy. You’re not yet worthy. Yeah, the ouch. I would stab him too. You’re just now telling me I can’t, we did all this stuff here and I can’t bring a pedal back to my fucking kid. She’s not worthy is what he’s saying. I’d stab him too. I’ve completely changed my mind.

Matt (02:02:46):

But Frank is like, I can’t stand by and watch a Gere slaughter these natives. So he turns against him and then they were all cursed to live indefinitely attached. They always had to be within sight of the river of the Amazon River. There’s over hundreds and hundreds of years, they would fight each other. They could stab each other, but they could never die.

Laci (02:03:06):

It’s not like a hundred or 200 where they were fighting then for the last two or three, 400 total. And I don’t remember, it’s only half the time where the other’s alive. Frank’s been alive the whole time, or you know what I mean? Active.

Matt (02:03:19):

You’re right.

Laci (02:03:20):

You’re welcome.

Matt (02:03:21):

Very important. Once Frank finally trapped all of his enemies in this chamber where the jungle could reclaim him and the river could never get there, then he’s like, well, now that they’re out of the way, I can get back to trying to find the tears of the moon. Oh, I can’t find it. Okay, well, I’ll just build a town, build a cruise, start giving jungle cruises.

Laci (02:03:36):

Okay, it sounds lonely.

Matt (02:03:39):

La Luna Rotta is like this lagoon where they have to go underwater and solve a puzzle like it’s banjo, kazooie, and then they drain the lagoon and then that leads them to the tears of the moon.

Laci (02:03:51):

You get the sexy, sexy breathing, kissing because the rock can only gimmick kiss.

Matt (02:03:57):

So explain that.

Laci (02:03:59):

Either it’s Jumanji and he’s pretending to be a teen who’s never kissed before so that he is all over the face. Or it’s a kiss that’s interrupted by a brother with Hobbes and Shaw. It’s interrupted by the brother. There’s always a joke or something that interrupts it. There’s never a full kiss or he kisses because he’s trying to do a mission in Baywatch and he’s caught where he shouldn’t be. It is never just like, I’m with you, you’re with me. We are alone. We are intimate. Here’s an adult kiss ever, ever.

Matt (02:04:37):

And the one that I love is a skyscraper. The movie opens up with him as like a green beret or something, having to go in on a dangerous mission and his leg gets exploded and he’s being carted off. And then the doctor who is working on him is played by Nev Campbell and she’s presented as this angelic figure and then it cuts ahead 10 years. Now he and Nev Campbell are married and have two children. So it’s just like, we don’t even want to suggest that there was ever any time where they were romantically entangled. It’s just she was an angel who cured me and then gave birth to my offspring. So we never have to see any romance. So they do it, they drain the lagoon, but then the fucking submarine appears, oh, we were here too.

Laci (02:05:22):

Great. And now they go get taken into where the tree is and in order to save the stay alive, you promised to make the tree do its fucking fruit bearing.

Matt (02:05:37):

This drives me crazy trying to figure out what all the machinations that happen here, all the shifting alliances and the, I’ll make a deal for you. If you let me keep one pedal, you can keep one pedal if you kill him. I’ll kill him. Kill him if I get to keep his pedal. Oh, okay. That’s delicious. Well go ahead and kill him.

Laci (02:05:51):

I followed it. I mean it was fine. And then I liked that she remembered all the little things that the lady told her. I like that that was a thing and that it came back. I hate when there’s whole moments that this movie is organized enough and it turns out that it was ever an arrowhead. It’s at heart. You open it and it’s got a little red heart in it, and that’s what you put into the tree. It’s a very complicated fucking tree. This tree does not want to give us its fruit. It’s kind of like, God, I do miracles. That always, what’s she going to give me?

Matt (02:06:23):

That always has to be in your Indiana Jones movie or your whatever Quest movie is like, oh, it wasn’t an arrowhead. It was a, oh, it wasn’t

Laci (02:06:32):

Only

Matt (02:06:33):

The secrets. Goals weren’t referring to treasure. They were referring to knowledge.

Laci (02:06:36):

It’s like only people with autism are ever going to, those are the only ones who are worthy. Which, you know what?

Matt (02:06:42):

Who have the persistence to solve this thing?

Laci (02:06:44):

Just have a brain that can see beyond what is being shown. She cracks the coat though. She is worthy. She does have the best goal you could have for seeking out this tree. It is not for one person. She never waves from that.

Matt (02:07:00):

In contrast to the prince who’s like, I want Z, so I can win the war and rain for a thousand thousands

Laci (02:07:05):

Until she falls in love and she’s got the one pedal. The rock is already now frozen in part of a wall. You could just say bye. But then you just shove your pedal in his mouth.

Matt (02:07:18):

Where’s

Laci (02:07:18):

Your morals now, sister?

Matt (02:07:20):

But once she revives him, the tree rewards them with one additional petal, which they’re going to go use to.

Laci (02:07:30):

We don’t know.

Matt (02:07:31):

This is an alternate world where there’s no disease in the 20th century. But yeah, again, would’ve been a better outcome if you just let the Germans win the first World War. You would not have gotten Hitler. The world would probably be better. They win. They save. Frank

Speaker 3 (02:07:45):

Won

Matt (02:07:46):

And Frank Revives. And then he jumps out and he gives Lily a big enthusiastic hug and

Laci (02:07:52):

A one armed. She is running. She already thinks he’s died. She’s already moved. She’s already trying to accept that she cannot have her love. She wasted her pedal and she’s really far away. And then all of a sudden, I don’t know, here’s rock stuff happening. And then she’s running, Emily Blunt is selling that fucking shit. She’s You feel

Matt (02:08:09):

It all over her?

Laci (02:08:10):

Yes. She’s just Yes, yes woman. And then it flashes him and he is like, come here little. He fucking scoops her up with one arm.

Matt (02:08:20):

You have the other arm like a junior high boy and girl hugging. Lay one on me sister.

Laci (02:08:27):

What a good smacker.

Matt (02:08:28):

And the most awkward kiss that where you do not see their lips meet. It is blocked in such a way that you can’t see it. It’s

Laci (02:08:34):

Probably got a little dental dam or something where it’s like, we

Matt (02:08:37):

Don’t want to get pregnant. And then before that can go on too long. McGregor and the Jaguar join in and hug. We love these guys. We’re going to get to see them go on Lots of adventures and lots of sequels. Alright, well the movie closes in London. They go back to the Society of Snoots and McGregor’s giving a speech and he’s like, by the way, I reject your membership to your society. You are not ready for a real girl boss like my sister. You can take your society and shove it up your association. Which is kind of funny. But then I was thinking about it. You can take your society and shove it up, your association. Those are the same things. It’s a little, little

Laci (02:09:15):

Yes, but he just wants to same. A little bit of a leap right there. I

Matt (02:09:17):

Know. Know outside, Frank is dressed in a Purple Gentleman’s costume and he and Lily are going to have a ride in her motor.

Laci (02:09:25):

I think they’re going to go open a chocolate factory,

Matt (02:09:27):

I guess. So

Laci (02:09:27):

Based on the attire, they drive

Matt (02:09:30):

Motor

Laci (02:09:30):

Car

Matt (02:09:31):

Now that she’s the skipper, she’s making bad puns and

Laci (02:09:35):

I like that she’s in a full suit.

Matt (02:09:37):

Yeah, she’s still

Laci (02:09:38):

Wearing the pants, not just a paint. She’s in a three piece suit and a tie

Matt (02:09:41):

And

Laci (02:09:42):

A hat, a bowler hat. She, she’s very masculine coded and he’s so supportive of that. He gave up eternity for it.

Matt (02:09:53):

But as always, the kinds of arguments they’re going to get with anything that goes wrong. You know what I gave up to be here in London for you.

Laci (02:09:59):

Oh God. I know. Just like with you in New York, fucking did not let that go for years

Matt (02:10:03):

Or Bella and Edward or whatever,

Laci (02:10:06):

But you actually did it. This is our actual life and you’re actually get mad at me that I never got mad. That’s what you were like.

Matt (02:10:10):

No, you projected onto me. I never did that.

Laci (02:10:13):

You’ve literally said to me before, do you know what I gave up? That was a really bad fight that we had though. Okay.

Matt (02:10:18):

But I was a literal baby. I was 24 years old when I

Laci (02:10:22):

Said that. Now I’m a fricking cradle. Robert,

Matt (02:10:25):

You were also a baby, to be clear. That’s right. You were yelling at a

Laci (02:10:28):

Baby. That’s mean.

Matt (02:10:29):

That is You were the angelica to my Tommy. Yeah. So final thoughts on Jungle Cruise. Do you want to go first?

Laci (02:10:53):

I would recommend it to people with kids. I think it’s a perfectly fine movie. It’s not embarrassing. 3.5

Matt (02:11:01):

Like Jumanji,

Laci (02:11:01):

Three, maybe three. It’s not as good as Jumanji, but it is. But I don’t think it’s good as jam. I don’t fuck, I don’t know. 3.5.

Matt (02:11:10):

I think they’re about as good as each other. But I think like what we said about Jumanji, welcome to the jungle. If you’re together with your grandmother and some kids, whatever bizarre situation you’re in, where you have to

Laci (02:11:21):

Thanksgiving,

Matt (02:11:22):

Put on a movie that will kind of please everybody and offend no one. Although I guess there’s that gay scene that might offend some people. People, you’re so right. This movie will be fun fits the bill and yes, it will appeal to everybody. I think it is directed with some real style. And I think Emily Blunt and Jake Jack Whitehall are very good. Jesse Lyon’s very good. The Rock is fine. It’s

Laci (02:11:45):

Fine. We really end a lot of the movies with that statement.

Matt (02:11:50):

I guess this is one of his better later career performances.

Laci (02:11:53):

It is. But then the reason why we are ending every good movie with that very similar phrasing is because I think it just so happens that not just so happens the movies that are good that he’s in are despite him or he’s fine, but it’s the surrounding cast and story and writing and direction that ends up winning the day. I think.

Matt (02:12:13):

Right. Jumanji, he’s very good and part of the team and as an asset, I think Pain and gain, he’s really special. And so that’s the last time where I feel like he really elevates the movie that he

Laci (02:12:26):

Is in.

Matt (02:12:27):

Whereas otherwise it’s just, oh, the best you can say is a nice welcome presence. I give it three stars. I really, really am into this movie for about an hour and then I really start to check out. But

Laci (02:12:40):

These rides aren’t meant to stay on for two hours. So they really should have thought of that.

Matt (02:12:44):

That’s another thing that’s annoying is the same way where it has to bring in supernatural, weird, fucked up mutant pirates. Because that’s what a blockbuster would have. A blockbuster can’t be an hour and 40 minutes then it wouldn’t seem like a serious movie. So it has to be two hours in 10 minutes. That makes no sense. It should be an hour and a half long movie. The Mummy from 1999, the perfect example of what you do that’s a short movie, gets in, gets out, and it made lots of money. So that’s that. And next week we are going to have a little mini sode where we give our final thoughts on the Rock Free Association thoughts.

Laci (02:13:26):

Oh my God. Scat poetry. Yeah, poetry about poop. That’s right.

Matt (02:13:31):

And we will answer a few mailbag questions as well. We will be back for real with our normal programming in two weeks on September 12th, episode 171 about Fern Gully, the Last Rainforest. Do subscribe to our Patreon load bring Beams, collectors edition for $5 a month. A great way to support the show.

Laci (02:13:51):

Please do.

Matt (02:13:52):

Please just do it. Just fucking do it. Tell a friend about the show because you like the show and no one’s heard of it, so you’ll get the joy of sharing it.

Laci (02:14:00):

Oh my God, you guys could be just like Indiana Jones. We were discovered by you. It

Matt (02:14:07):

Belongs in a museum.

Laci (02:14:09):

I’ll go there if that’s what it takes. I’ll Emily blunt this shit. All

Matt (02:14:15):

Right. Is there anything else, Laci? I mean,

Laci (02:14:17):

You know where to find us guys.

Matt (02:14:19):

We’re on letterbox. I’m at Mads Stokes nine Laci’s at Load Bring Laci. And my band has music for the joy of averages by Rural Route nine. Can listen to that. Yeah. So we’ll talk to you soon.

Laci (02:14:29):

I love you. Smell you. Bye.