Speaker 1: Joe Ascalante Live from Hollywood. By Hollywood, you mean Burbank.
Speaker 1: I am here with engineer Sam and producer NICKI.
Speaker 2: We are going to talk.
Speaker 1: About the entertainment industry. This is two hours of the
Speaker 1: business end of show business. But since this is a
Speaker 1: podcast episode, because we're preempted once again by the National
Speaker 1: Football League, we are just going straight through the stories
Speaker 1: and your podcast company might add a commercial.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Sam, can you hear me?
Speaker 3: Yep, loud and clear.
Speaker 1: How you doing, Joe, I'm good, good. I saw a
Speaker 1: lot of movies. Nick Key's here too, she's saying movies.
Speaker 1: And first, before we get to the movies, let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about a couple of legal cases that
Speaker 1: are going on right now. The one is very exciting
Speaker 1: to me. It is the guy named M. Knight Chamalan Shamalayan.
Speaker 1: How do you say that, Niki?
Speaker 4: I think it's.
Speaker 2: Did you really?
Speaker 3: Yeah? M Knight Shamalama ding dong?
Speaker 2: How old are you like seventy?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Totally.
Speaker 2: Well, he's getting I.
Speaker 1: Have so many stories I'm gonna have to scroll around.
Speaker 2: For this one. He's getting sued now.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people get sued when someone
Speaker 1: steals their movie or movie idea or a television idea.
Speaker 1: But very rarely, almost never do these things go very far.
Speaker 1: Someone throws it out or they settle. In this case,
Speaker 1: the guy has they're in trial right now. They're in
Speaker 1: riverside on. There's a trial going on. It is a trial.
Speaker 1: It's from the plaintiff, this woman, filmmaker, Francesca Gregorini. That's
Speaker 1: a pretty good name, right, Francesca Gregorini. She alleges that
Speaker 1: the psychological horror series Servant copies elements from her twenty
Speaker 1: thirteenth film The Truth About Immanuel. Both works feature narratives
Speaker 1: where a grieving mother cares for a lifelike doll as
Speaker 1: if it were a real child apple where Shyamalamaj Shyamalan
Speaker 1: has his servant. They say that their project was independently
Speaker 1: created by a guy named Tony Bascallap, who began developing
Speaker 1: it in two thousand and five, pre dating Gregorini's film Okay,
Speaker 1: this isn't aside. This guy starts this in two thousand
Speaker 1: and five. It is now twenty twenty four and he's
Speaker 1: barely got it off the ground, and then he gets
Speaker 1: a big lawsuit. That is the entertainment business in a nutshell? Okay,
Speaker 1: what was what was this guy bascalop doing that whole time,
Speaker 1: just running around with this and other projects that are
Speaker 1: going nowhere, and he finally got a break here and
Speaker 1: then someone says, you stole.
Speaker 2: It from me.
Speaker 1: And they're also suing the director because he's famous m
Speaker 1: Night Shayamalan. And the trial started on Tuesday. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: guess where it is. It's in Riverside. Why I haven't
Speaker 1: been not able to figure out. But Francesca Gregrini is
Speaker 1: suing him an Apple for eighty one million dollars, a
Speaker 1: legend that they stole key elements and that there would
Speaker 1: be no servant without the truth about Emmanuel. Her attorney
Speaker 1: is like, are showing you know clips of the of
Speaker 1: her movie and his movie and this courthouse and Riverside.
Speaker 2: These people are probably thrilled.
Speaker 1: It's the biggest thing to happen in Riverside since that
Speaker 1: new in and out. Now here's a problem. We've talked
Speaker 1: about these cases. What do you need for an infringement case? Well,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you you need substantial similarity and you need
Speaker 1: one other thing.
Speaker 2: What is it? Geis? Do you know I really don't
Speaker 2: you need access something you find access access would be.
Speaker 1: Let's say Francisca Gregorini wrote this film and then produced it,
Speaker 1: but it never came out or it only showed in
Speaker 1: Italian cinemas. Then he would have no access. These people
Speaker 1: would know, they wouldn't know it existed. So if they
Speaker 1: don't know it existed, we never charged someone infringement. It
Speaker 1: would have to be a complete copy. And even then,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like the room full of monkeys in
Speaker 1: a with typewriters and eventually though bash out of Shakespeare
Speaker 1: and drama. But it'll take millions of years by accident.
Speaker 1: So did it happen by accident? Well we don't, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't want. We don't live in a society that
Speaker 1: wants to penalize someone if they came up with the
Speaker 1: exact same thing, So they have to have access.
Speaker 2: You can't.
Speaker 1: But the more access you have, like if you were
Speaker 1: like looking over the shoulder of Francesca Gregorini and you
Speaker 1: put out something that's kind of similar, you would you
Speaker 1: would be in trouble. But if you never ever, if
Speaker 1: you came from another planet and you made something similar,
Speaker 1: people would just say, that's just a coincidence. Now, have
Speaker 1: you guys ever seen a movie about a reborn doll?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, you've seen a few.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's the defense that m night Yamielan is saying. Look,
Speaker 1: this is a movie about a reborn doll. Happens all
Speaker 1: the time. You can't own that. You can't own facts.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't really know why they call it a fact,
Speaker 1: but it's just like, but they're trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: throw a copyright excuses into the mix.
Speaker 2: Here, but it's it's not really a fact.
Speaker 1: It's just like, well, I guess they're saying, dolls are
Speaker 1: reborn in literature, all in all kinds of literature, and
Speaker 1: she can't own that forever, and just say, I made
Speaker 1: a movie in twenty thirteen about a reborn doll, so
Speaker 1: no one can.
Speaker 2: Ever do it.
Speaker 1: So there has to be more than that. So now
Speaker 1: they're going over in front of the jury, going through
Speaker 1: all the programs and saying, is there more than just
Speaker 1: the reborn doll here? Did they steal something like maybe
Speaker 1: a character's name, or maybe a character's job or something
Speaker 1: like that that could give evidence that they really stole it?
Speaker 1: But how hard would it be to change those things
Speaker 1: if you were really stealing it. So that's why these
Speaker 1: things really never go anywhere, and they really only go somewhere.
Speaker 1: If it's like maybe they were partners back in history
Speaker 1: and they broke up and then one guy released it
Speaker 1: and I says to mine and you were in my
Speaker 1: office the whole time.
Speaker 2: But in this one they are.
Speaker 1: I don't think she's going to win. I'm surprised it
Speaker 1: went this far. The reason why it went this far
Speaker 1: is probably because Apple and SHAMAI Alon have terrible attorneys.
Speaker 2: That's my guess.
Speaker 1: And now that I've been, you know, in the high
Speaker 1: stakes world of music for the last year, I've seen
Speaker 1: some bad attorneys.
Speaker 2: There's one other thing. Both sides. This is the interesting
Speaker 2: thing about this case.
Speaker 1: They're trying to both sides say that they came from
Speaker 1: humble beginnings and the other people came from wealth. As
Speaker 1: some part of the equation here, the one attorney noted
Speaker 1: that Shayamalan's attorney said he was born in India and
Speaker 1: raised in Philadelphia without any entertainment industry connections, and then
Speaker 1: noted that Gregrini's father was an Italian count more privileged
Speaker 1: than an Italian count, and count Shacula I think was
Speaker 1: his name here. I don't know how to pronounce Chocula. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and her mother was a bond girl. That's pretty elite
Speaker 1: right there. And her stepfather, oh Ringo Starr, one of
Speaker 1: the Beatles. That's a band. And uh, Emmanuel was partly
Speaker 1: financed by a German princess, Tatiana von Furstenberg.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just picturing. I'm just picturing a count there
Speaker 3: going one Lassu coming ah ah ah blah.
Speaker 1: Cola Furstenberg is a fixture in New York. She's been around.
Speaker 1: We have mutual friends. But this is gonna This is
Speaker 1: great because they're gonna reach a verdict and this verdict
Speaker 1: will will serve to clarify copyright cases infringement cases in
Speaker 1: the future. We almost never get them, so that's why
Speaker 1: this is kind of exciting. I'm going to go over
Speaker 1: one more thing.
Speaker 4: Well, actually, just to to add on to that really quick.
Speaker 5: I don't know if you guys heard about the I
Speaker 5: think it's the lawsuit happening because of Molana too. There
Speaker 5: was someone who I guess had shown or shared parts
Speaker 5: of their script with Disney before even Molana one, and
Speaker 5: now they're suing for I think what ten billion dollars
Speaker 5: over Mowana two similarities to I guess this film that
Speaker 5: they were going to title Bucky the Wave Warrior that
Speaker 5: has some.
Speaker 4: Unique connections to Polynesian culture.
Speaker 5: Now he didn't, I'm sure he did not invent Polynesian culture.
Speaker 5: But I would be really curious to see how like
Speaker 5: kind of an animated adventure style heartwarming Disney film script
Speaker 5: would have similarities between you know that and Molana.
Speaker 4: Well, that will be an interesting one to see.
Speaker 1: I will be surprised if it goes anywhere, because they
Speaker 1: never do. That's why this one is going somewhere. Now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't heard of them Molana to one, but we'll
Speaker 1: follow that. And then there's a couple of people came
Speaker 1: to me, Oh yeah, I see them Mona two one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's five days ago. This guy is like run around
Speaker 1: ten billion. I mean that's just like irresponsible shooting for
Speaker 1: ten billion. But there's the Disney movie read not just yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's well as Park Disney. Who's a pixel
Speaker 1: Christmas movie, the Christmas movie about Red one or whatever,
Speaker 1: Santa Claus gets kidnapped, whatever like that. They have to
Speaker 1: bring in the government. That one someone came to me
Speaker 1: and said, hey, look they stole my script. So if
Speaker 1: a movie's success, but that was before the movie was successful.
Speaker 1: It turned out to be pretty successful movie. Now, the
Speaker 1: problem with the fun Furstenberg film financed film is that
Speaker 1: they produced evidence of how much that it that it played,
Speaker 1: you know, in theaters and it and it earned like
Speaker 1: nine dollars.
Speaker 4: Awesome. Yeah, I think the source that I found they
Speaker 4: were sharing said nine dollars from one viewer.
Speaker 1: Movie and it was probably the counts is I think
Speaker 1: I got to watch this thing my money.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So here's another story that I like, I want to
Speaker 1: get to before we get to the movies. There's this
Speaker 1: guy named James Dolan. He owns Madison Square Gardens, and
Speaker 1: he's my new hero. He's the owner of the New
Speaker 1: York Knicks and the Rangers. And he's under scrutiny for
Speaker 1: using facial recognition technology at Madison Square Garden to ban
Speaker 1: attorneys from firms engaged in lawsuits against his companies. This
Speaker 1: policy has led to legal challenges and debates over its
Speaker 1: ethical implications. Dolan's tenure has been marked by controversies. A
Speaker 1: lot of people don't like him for various reasons. It's sports.
Speaker 1: People hate people for whatever reasons. But what he's doing
Speaker 1: is this lawyer said, there's a lawyer named Barbara Hart,
Speaker 1: and she's part of a law firm called Grant and Eisenhoffer,
Speaker 1: and they are suing MSG over some overpaid somebody overpaid
Speaker 1: for the MSG cable network or whatever, and saying that
Speaker 1: Dolan received unique benefits from the acquisition to the detriment
Speaker 1: of stockholders. That's like a shareholder, sir, that's a nuisance
Speaker 1: lawsuit if you ask me, from a disgruntled shareholders.
Speaker 2: And he said that.
Speaker 1: She said she attempted to do an attendant concert at
Speaker 1: the garden in October twenty second, unaware that Madison Square
Speaker 1: Garden had instituted a policy of banning lawyers at firms
Speaker 1: currently suing the company.
Speaker 2: While I'm at.
Speaker 1: MSG, I was identified as a banned g and e.
Speaker 1: Eisenhoffer attorney via facial recognition software. MSG employees stopped me
Speaker 1: and asked for my ID. After I refuse to give
Speaker 1: it to them, they correctly identified me as Miss Barbara Hart.
Speaker 1: Come with me, please, yeap, escort it out of the
Speaker 1: building where she belongs.
Speaker 3: No Knicks basketball for you?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean to me, I don't know how you
Speaker 2: guys feel. I like it.
Speaker 4: I mean I feel like you know, parties have similar
Speaker 4: door policies.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: It's like, if you can't hang with me, you don't
Speaker 4: get to come to my party.
Speaker 5: So if the guy owns Madison Square Garden, I can
Speaker 5: understand why he wouldn't want his haters to be uh
Speaker 5: enjoying his awesome situation.
Speaker 1: You know, he's using the only power he has as
Speaker 1: a poor, humble arena owner to keep these people from dancing,
Speaker 1: you know, just rubbing his face in these injunctions or
Speaker 1: in these lawsuits. So he so it goes to court
Speaker 1: and then one it's gone like back and forth through
Speaker 1: the courts. But right now the courts are saying, all right,
Speaker 1: you can't just those people. You can't throw them out
Speaker 1: after you've already sold them tickets and use your facial
Speaker 1: recognition stuff to throw them out, probably because they you know,
Speaker 1: in the ticket, they had a right to it.
Speaker 2: They bought the ticket. There was a right to attend.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a license of a seat, and they
Speaker 1: bought the license and they got to go in. But
Speaker 1: the court said you could refuse to sell tickets. To
Speaker 1: those people in the first place if you want, go ahead,
Speaker 1: so you could tell them, hey, all you people suing me,
Speaker 1: you're not coming to Madison Square Garden anymore. Now, someone
Speaker 1: might say that has a chilling effect on those people's
Speaker 1: right to sue, because it would hard to be hard
Speaker 1: to get an attorney, because all those attorneys in New
Speaker 1: York are they want to go to Knicks games.
Speaker 2: So interesting. But still I like it.
Speaker 4: Hey, I get it.
Speaker 3: You know, that's a level of spite that I wish
Speaker 3: I could achieve.
Speaker 1: I I just I mean, there's I got a list
Speaker 1: sam people that I would not let in my arena.
Speaker 1: So and another thing before you get to the movies,
Speaker 1: TikTok has been restored, so you can breathe a sigh
Speaker 1: of relief.
Speaker 2: Nikki.
Speaker 1: It's very interesting that you was removed in the first place,
Speaker 1: and both the President Biden and President Trump both wanted.
Speaker 2: It not to be banned.
Speaker 1: I remember we remember Trump used to say it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's dangerous, but he now, I guess, wants it to
Speaker 1: be sold to an American company. But he didn't want
Speaker 1: to just take it off. I think nobody wants to
Speaker 1: be the person that takes away young people's TikTok. So
Speaker 1: but now Trump Yeah, it was.
Speaker 4: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 5: There's like a there's the I think the warning message
Speaker 5: that announced that TikTok was being banned was changed. There
Speaker 5: was one wording that came out first that was a
Speaker 5: little bit more vague or just you know, just only
Speaker 5: addressed the US ban.
Speaker 4: And then the second.
Speaker 5: Wording that was like an updated version of this band
Speaker 5: message included President Trump in it.
Speaker 1: You go to but he will be yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 1: go to TikTok right now. It says President Trump did
Speaker 1: this all a favor here, let's all celebrate him. So
Speaker 1: President Trump is having quite a honeymoon even though his
Speaker 1: term hasn't started. So people are hostages, are getting free
Speaker 1: TikTok is back up, he's milking it. So, yeah, we
Speaker 1: have There's one other thing that might that is a
Speaker 1: little bit of an issue for some. I mean, any
Speaker 1: issue with Trump is going to be an issue for
Speaker 1: half the country. But it seems to me that it's
Speaker 1: becoming less than half in a way, it just seems
Speaker 1: like less than half. But there's still people that just
Speaker 1: you know, hate this man and want to kill him.
Speaker 1: As you know, when people you know tried already. Two
Speaker 1: people tried to actually kill him. One got pretty close.
Speaker 1: But there is some concern in the television world because
Speaker 1: he has nineteen people that he has hired in his
Speaker 1: new staff that are Fox News employees or formal employees.
Speaker 1: So people are thinking, you know, how's this going to work.
Speaker 1: They're preparing to cover for a government filled with former
Speaker 1: network employees. Now the president and executive editor of Fox
Speaker 1: News Media, He's emphasized the network's commitment to journalistic integrity,
Speaker 1: stating that their newsroom operates independently of any political affiliations.
Speaker 1: This development raises questions about the relationship between media organizations
Speaker 1: and government, highlighting the movement of personnel between the two sectors.
Speaker 1: And this has always been going on, Like the Biden spokesperson,
Speaker 1: that one, that's Karine Jean Pierre. She came from MSNBC
Speaker 1: and Jensaki is now in MSNBC.
Speaker 2: So they both do it.
Speaker 1: But it just seems like Trump really did it. I mean, everybody.
Speaker 1: My Apello guy is now the Secretary of the Interior.
Speaker 1: I heard.
Speaker 2: You're not laughing at that. That's the best I have.
Speaker 4: Sorry, you're you're who my Pello guy, the my pillow guy,
Speaker 4: the Mypello guy.
Speaker 2: Hey, come on, Nikki, Nikki, do you have a television?
Speaker 2: You know I don't just watch movies. Yeah, okay, well
Speaker 2: let me tell.
Speaker 4: You the movies and and tiktoks.
Speaker 1: You know that, well, you know they You're lucky because
Speaker 1: if you did watch cable like I do, you'd have
Speaker 1: to you'd be bombarded with commercials form mypellow dot com.
Speaker 1: And uh so it's con He's constantly on Fox selling
Speaker 1: is my pellow dot com pillows?
Speaker 4: Oh see cultural cultural divide here.
Speaker 1: Yes, there's a cultural divide. The Mypello guy is uh
Speaker 1: now in the cabinet. Hilarious, Joe, Okay, never mind, all right,
Speaker 1: let's go to the movies.
Speaker 2: Number one at the movies this week? Yes, do you
Speaker 2: want want to guess?
Speaker 4: Enlighten us?
Speaker 2: What do you say? I said?
Speaker 4: Enlighten us?
Speaker 2: Oh, enlighten you? Okay?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Sam, do you have a guest number one movie
Speaker 1: of the week?
Speaker 3: I have no guests whatsoever right now. I BET's probably
Speaker 3: the same one as last week.
Speaker 1: It isn't.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a surprise. One of them days.
Speaker 1: This comedy the best friends Drew and Alyssa are about
Speaker 1: to have one of them days when they discover Alissa's
Speaker 1: boyfriend has blown their rent money. The duo finds themselves
Speaker 1: going to extremes in a comical race against the clock
Speaker 1: to avoid eviction and keep their friendship intact. It's just
Speaker 1: two black female comedies, just comedians, and they've they're tearing
Speaker 1: up the box office. It must be hilarious. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Is that the one with Keiky Palmer?
Speaker 3: And this is a yeah, it is yeah.
Speaker 4: I do actually really want to see that one.
Speaker 1: Palmer. How do you pronounce the other person? You know?
Speaker 4: It's so funny.
Speaker 5: I loved her music when I was in high school,
Speaker 5: and I had no clue how to pronounce her name.
Speaker 5: And then one night I had a dream where like
Speaker 5: in the dream, she like sits me down and she
Speaker 5: explains it's pronounced sizza, and then I woke up and
Speaker 5: it was correct.
Speaker 1: Okay, So there you go. That's the that's the only
Speaker 1: girl's dream that's ever been told to me that actually
Speaker 1: benefited me and didn't waste a good portion of it.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So that's number one New movie Number one. Number two
Speaker 1: Mufasa people Love It Making Money. Number three is Wolfman
Speaker 1: from Universal four, Sonic The Hedgehog, Narber five, Dinneres Part two,
Speaker 1: Pantera number six at Mohana two, which is now like
Speaker 1: another billion dollar movie for Disney. So all the people
Speaker 1: that are saying Disney's Studios going downhill and they're gonna
Speaker 1: dry up, they're making money. They got Mufasa and they
Speaker 1: got Mohana in the top ten right now. Noseratu from
Speaker 1: Focused Features tried to see that, but it just didn't
Speaker 1: work out. A complete unknown. I'm doing documentary number eight,
Speaker 1: number nine, wicket number ten, Baby Girl, and then there's
Speaker 1: a tie for number eleven and number twelve. Maybe we're
Speaker 1: gonna call it flow. Let's talk about flow. Anyone see flow?
Speaker 1: What is slow?
Speaker 4: I had not?
Speaker 2: Flow?
Speaker 1: Is the movie about is a movie, an animated feature
Speaker 1: about a cat from Janis Films that survives like an
Speaker 1: apocalypse of some kind. They don't really explain it because
Speaker 1: it's about animals and what happens. There's the kind of
Speaker 1: a utopian situation going on and there's only animals left
Speaker 1: and they don't talk. So the animals, it's a movie
Speaker 1: cartoon of the animals that don't talk.
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen that? It can't talk?
Speaker 4: It looks really cute.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's the best. It's a great movie. It's pretty short,
Speaker 1: so it would be nice to see it in a theater,
Speaker 1: but I don't think.
Speaker 5: You have to.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: I broke my rule and I left the cinemak world
Speaker 1: and went to the AMC World in the Long Beach.
Speaker 2: Have you ever been there?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 5: My god?
Speaker 2: And it's wild and I saw it there.
Speaker 1: It was super fun. Wild Robot still hanging in there
Speaker 1: in the top fifteen. A couple other movies that I saw,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about like Conclave on Nora. We don't
Speaker 1: need to talk about that, we already have and September five,
Speaker 1: So Nikki, let's start with you. Let's start with Sam,
Speaker 1: since we know he didn't see a movie because he's
Speaker 1: got all these kids. Sam, what movies did you see
Speaker 1: this week?
Speaker 3: None? Thank you very much. I saw Ostriches yesterday. Actually
Speaker 3: you saw what I saw Ostriches. I went to an
Speaker 3: ostrich farm yesterday.
Speaker 5: Oh, I was like, when did that come out?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Actual actual animals and the outdoors.
Speaker 2: You okay?
Speaker 1: Where Nikki? What did you deprive yourself of Vitamin D
Speaker 1: this week by watching? So you usually watched like classic
Speaker 1: movies and old movies and things like this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this week was a little This week was a
Speaker 4: little busy.
Speaker 5: So I only did a rewatch of The Substance with
Speaker 5: a handful of my friends who all had not seen
Speaker 5: it yet, and I went to the AMC at the
Speaker 5: Glendale Galleria.
Speaker 4: I have to say I was shocked at the audience.
Speaker 4: They were so rowdy and ridiculous.
Speaker 5: I I my friends and I I mean, hey, we're
Speaker 5: all film students, so maybe we just have a little
Speaker 5: more respect for the cinema than the average joe.
Speaker 4: But these people were like hooting and hollering and going like,
Speaker 4: oh no, she didn't.
Speaker 2: At Oh no she did.
Speaker 4: No. I'm like, yeah she did, like be quiet and
Speaker 4: acknowledged that she did. Okay, what the hell?
Speaker 5: So I was like, yeah, she did everything quiet, and
Speaker 5: like they were being so ridiculous. If they're like especially
Speaker 5: with the naked bodies, I'm like, can you please just
Speaker 5: be chill about this and not make it some meme
Speaker 5: or joke in your head because you just can't handle
Speaker 5: a little bit of artistic, you know, expression that maybe
Speaker 5: challenges you for a second, but you have to you
Speaker 5: just have to.
Speaker 4: Crack a joke.
Speaker 5: And there were three people on their phones taking pictures
Speaker 5: or videos of the screen, and people were yelling in
Speaker 5: the audience, off your phone, we can see your phone.
Speaker 4: I was like, if you, if you really need to
Speaker 4: be addicted to that thing, like, get out of the theater.
Speaker 4: This is so ridiculous.
Speaker 5: There was even a guy next to me who was
Speaker 5: going like not even just laughing at every scene, He's going,
Speaker 5: oh my god, oh I can't believe it.
Speaker 2: Ahahaha.
Speaker 4: At every scene. I'm like, Okay, not only is it
Speaker 4: a horror movie, but it's like I don't it's it's
Speaker 4: too it's too good for this behavior. I was so displeased.
Speaker 4: I felt like a sorry.
Speaker 5: I felt like a boomer in this moment, a real
Speaker 5: I felt like I was aging my I was like,
Speaker 5: two young people don't know anything.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't approve of that. And and that's why I
Speaker 1: picked my theater. My theater doesn't have that a lot
Speaker 1: of it. It's it's mostly if there was one group
Speaker 1: that you could like identify that sees movies at my theater,
Speaker 1: it's young Vietnamese kids, and they're you know, they're just
Speaker 1: very quiet in general. They're quiet people. And then there's
Speaker 1: some old people and they're quiet and there's not much
Speaker 1: teenage routiness going on at the Beltara in Huntington Beach.
Speaker 1: But in their defense, I'm going to say this, that
Speaker 1: movie was very interesting. What do we call it, like
Speaker 1: a psychological thriller?
Speaker 4: Is that we were sure?
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's a classic psychological.
Speaker 1: Thriller until the last half hour when it becomes a
Speaker 1: teenage gore horror movie that does attract people that are
Speaker 1: gonna yell at the screen. So that was that guy's choice.
Speaker 1: That was an amazing movie until that last part and
Speaker 1: then you're like, what what am I watching? It got
Speaker 1: it got over the top, and I think word got
Speaker 1: out and said let's go see this movie and get crazy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I understand during the last scene, like
Speaker 5: the third act, where you know, it goes from being
Speaker 5: kind of psychological and they're being suspenseful moments and some
Speaker 5: stakes to just all out mayhem. That is okay to
Speaker 5: laugh at because it is truly so bizarre that I
Speaker 5: can understand the comedic element, okay, but like nothing else
Speaker 5: until that point is worth really like lolling about, which
Speaker 5: just I think I was like huffing and puffing, just
Speaker 5: so irritated.
Speaker 2: By the whole thing, come to come to adulthood.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I could feel my prefrontal cortex just like hardening.
Speaker 3: In that moment.
Speaker 5: I was like, I'm really coming into myself here then
Speaker 5: out of whatever the hell that was?
Speaker 2: Did you see?
Speaker 1: Did you see any So if you want to see
Speaker 1: the substance, don't go to the Glendale Galleria. What's the
Speaker 1: is that an AMC.
Speaker 4: Or it was an AMC and the first time I
Speaker 4: saw it.
Speaker 5: This is actually I can recommend seeing it at the
Speaker 5: Culver City Theater because that's where I saw it the
Speaker 5: first time in October. It's right next to an arawon
Speaker 5: and also a like skin or dermatology clinic that does
Speaker 5: botox and other crazy facials and whatever. And so walking
Speaker 5: by the Arawon and then also by that and by
Speaker 5: the way, like that one skincare clinic looks a lot
Speaker 5: like the bathroom in the substance.
Speaker 4: So with my boyfriend and I.
Speaker 5: When we went to go watch it, we like looked
Speaker 5: at both of those buildings and had our fun poking
Speaker 5: at them. Right, But after leaving the substance quite disturbed,
Speaker 5: we had to pass by them again and that was
Speaker 5: a nice little add on going like, oh no, get
Speaker 5: out of there, you know, all.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, I know you have to go soon, So
Speaker 1: I want to rush through the rest in the movie,
Speaker 1: or at least my letterboxed list, unless you have any
Speaker 1: other ones you want to you want to say that
Speaker 1: you saw it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I watched a lot of arrested development this week.
Speaker 2: It's been okay.
Speaker 1: So what I saw is I saw The Conclave, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's beautifully shot, beautifully directed, great actors in it,
Speaker 1: but it's just as a Catholic, this is my domain, guys,
Speaker 1: and you guys are just out of your minds, just
Speaker 1: like you know, whenever it's somebody, if any movie makes
Speaker 1: it to this level, these stars and this budget, and
Speaker 1: it's about Catholicism, it's anti Catholic. So this was this
Speaker 1: was no different. So it's just like it was embarrassing.
Speaker 1: Uh still still like well crafted, but like such low
Speaker 1: hanging fruit like that of their attack on the church.
Speaker 1: And so I pity their souls, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I pity their souls, everybody who made the con Club.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pray for you guys. A couple of days later,
Speaker 1: I saw Better Man. Better Man is the I'll just
Speaker 1: read my review. Not since Lancelot Link Secret Chimp went
Speaker 1: off the air have I had such a good time
Speaker 1: watching anything. All I can say, right, all I can
Speaker 1: say is that if you're the guy that made the
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan biopic or any biopic in the past five years,
Speaker 1: you would just hide after seeing this movie and hope
Speaker 1: nobody ever brings it up again. There's tons of genius
Speaker 1: at work here that no one else ever thought of. However,
Speaker 1: I always go back to my religion. His grandmother was
Speaker 1: buried in a grave with a cross on it. I
Speaker 1: bet she gave him some fear of God that they
Speaker 1: left out of the script. But I'm gonna only ding
Speaker 1: him a half a point of that. And I gave
Speaker 1: it four and a half stars. I think that's my
Speaker 1: first movie of the year with four and a half stars.
Speaker 1: It's all about this guy and his grandma. I raised him,
Speaker 1: uh and he he's he's Robbie Williams who's a huge
Speaker 1: star in in a boy band, then becomes a star
Speaker 1: in his own right. And his grandma's advice is always
Speaker 1: you know what guides him. But he turns into a junkie.
Speaker 1: So I don't know how great of a grandma she was,
Speaker 1: because you know, my grandma gave me advice that that.
Speaker 1: You know, Wait, did they grandma's better than his grandma?
Speaker 2: Is what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Did they actually have to get a junkie monkey to
Speaker 3: play him?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have a junkie that's high on coke and
Speaker 1: uh as a sexual.
Speaker 3: Addict like an actual monkey.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you know, it's like a it's like
Speaker 2: a Mufasa monkey, you know.
Speaker 3: Okay, oh okay. So I was telling my wife it's
Speaker 3: like kind of a computer generated kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I was telling my wife, how can they How can
Speaker 1: that lady do all these sex scenes with his monkey
Speaker 1: because he must have really bad peanut butter breath.
Speaker 2: Sammy, Sam gets that joke.
Speaker 3: I get that joke very well.
Speaker 1: In the old days, when we used to enslave chimpanzees
Speaker 1: for our amusement in movies and TV, we would give
Speaker 1: them a peanut butter and then they would try to
Speaker 1: lick it out of their teeth, and then we could
Speaker 1: dub in a dialogue while for that, because they look
Speaker 1: like they're talking when they're trying to get the peanut
Speaker 1: butter out of their teeth.
Speaker 3: So seriously, Lancelot Link is just a classic. It's a
Speaker 3: treasure that people just let slip by, and it's gone
Speaker 3: off into obscurity. I'm sure we could find episodes of
Speaker 3: it on YouTube or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can find it, but it'll never be made again. Okay.
Speaker 1: So four and a half Stars three and a half
Speaker 1: Stars to September five is the other movie I saw
Speaker 1: about the Israeli kidnapping at the Olympics in nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: old enough to remember this, and so it was really
Speaker 1: cool to see this movie. It's controversial because it's told
Speaker 1: only from the the point of view of these A
Speaker 1: TV network employees and executives, you know, and so there's
Speaker 1: no Palestinian TV executives.
Speaker 2: Here's a sentence you never heard.
Speaker 1: Oh, if these Palestinians didn't control Hollywood, I could maybe
Speaker 1: get ahead. So it's not exactly a balanced treatment of
Speaker 1: the of the topic of the Palestinians kidnapping the Jews.
Speaker 1: But technically I loved it. The the vintage television hardware
Speaker 1: and technical problem. It was like that movie apol Thard
Speaker 1: Team where they're trying to put together the I think
Speaker 1: that was the one they're trying to put together the
Speaker 1: rocket and before it crashes or it disintegrates.
Speaker 2: I mean it looks like that.
Speaker 1: They go, we got a problem, and we got all
Speaker 1: these big giants and weird technology to make Cairns and
Speaker 1: and go over to the satellite. There's only one satellite
Speaker 1: and they got to give it back to CBS at
Speaker 1: three o'clock. And we're having a fight with CBSA we
Speaker 1: have a world story here, and CBS is like, the
Speaker 1: don't care. We got to show Days of our Lives whatever.
Speaker 3: A documentary or a dramatization.
Speaker 1: Well, let me tell you that it's a good question.
Speaker 1: It's a dramatization. It's a script with good actors like
Speaker 1: Peter sarsgard. I think this is the day. But they
Speaker 1: use a lot of actual stuff, like the ABC Wide
Speaker 1: World of Sports. They use one guy, Jim I forget
Speaker 1: his last name anyway, Jim, the main anchor.
Speaker 2: They're using this the.
Speaker 1: Regular film of him from a long time ago. Peter Jennings.
Speaker 1: They use an actor and they don't use him, and
Speaker 1: I think it might have to do with life story rights.
Speaker 1: Maybe his family didn't want to give it up. Howard Cosell.
Speaker 1: They never show Howard Cosell, and that was the tragedy
Speaker 1: of this movie. Never showed but they play his voice,
Speaker 1: his actual voice, because he was there and he was
Speaker 1: help so very sad. And then to not see.
Speaker 2: Howard cosell and I heard.
Speaker 1: What the problem was is they were going to have
Speaker 1: Hierd Coselle was going to be played by a chimpanzee,
Speaker 1: and then when they found out about this Better Man movie,
Speaker 1: they just abandoned that idea because they thought people would
Speaker 1: think they were, you know, copying the Abby Williams thing,
Speaker 1: and no one wanted to do that, so they just
Speaker 1: showed his voice or you know, played his voice. Now
Speaker 1: this movie is since it only tells you one side,
Speaker 1: and it's just not not even just one side, but
Speaker 1: it's a narrow vision of this thing. It's just whatever
Speaker 1: these guys knew while they're in the TV station, because
Speaker 1: they're like, oh my god, there's shoot, there's guns, there's shooting.
Speaker 1: We got to go what are we gonna do? We
Speaker 1: can't do this, we can't do that. Let's try this,
Speaker 1: Let's try that. Very riveting, keep you on the edge
Speaker 1: of your seat. But I wouldn't go see it unless
Speaker 1: the next day you watch this other movie called A
Speaker 1: Day in September, which is a documentary from nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: which won Best Documentary in the Oscars in the year
Speaker 1: two thousand. You can see it on MGM Plus, which
Speaker 1: is a faulty app because they make you stream.
Speaker 2: It from your phone. Oh wow, it's true, but.
Speaker 1: Still a fascinating documentary, and it's there on MGM plus.
Speaker 1: You can get it, and then you can get a
Speaker 1: free trial for seven days of MGM plus. Put on
Speaker 1: your phone, stream it to your TV and there you go.
Speaker 1: But if you're gonna watch September five, watch one day
Speaker 1: in September the next day, and that's like a complete
Speaker 1: picture of what happened, rather than the you know, the
Speaker 1: half story, which is, you know, really wildly entertaining. But
Speaker 1: it's not like a lot of people online were saying, now,
Speaker 1: this is propaganda from only one side. No, it's telling
Speaker 1: it's only telling you what these guys knew. It's only
Speaker 1: what they knew. So that's the story. When in September
Speaker 1: the commentary, I gave it four stars and September five
Speaker 1: I gave three and a half stars. So that's it
Speaker 1: for me and movies this week. And I think that's
Speaker 1: it for us, right Nikki were getting you out on time,
Speaker 1: I think so, thanks guys.
Speaker 2: All right, okay, so that's for.
Speaker 1: Joe Scalante live from Hollywood, and we'll now leave you
Speaker 1: with just a taste of the greatest song ever written.