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This week, on Formulaic Bish-Bosh
It’s time for the MCU and the GBU (Great Bad Universe) to finally have a crossover episode. Greg and Joe have the conversation that needed to happen about our greatest actors, producers, and second unit directors, who team up to make a popcorn movie that’s better than anyone anticipated. It’s real to both of them, and they’re not afraid to say it at the dinner table with their fake Russian parents.
Take a drink every time Greg makes a sound effect and every time Joe complains about CGI action.
Joe’s Back of the Box
On the run and fighting for her life, Natasha Romanov (Scarlett Johannson) must reconnect with her “family” to defeat the shadowy figure behind the Red Room who has an army of Black Widows under his control. She must fight to free them from his grips before time runs out. But can she learn to trust her undercover former black widow sister or will they kill each other in the process? The fate of the world hangs in the balance as she looks to Avenge her lost childhood and make up for lost time with her sister.
The REAL Back of the Box
It’s a good Marvel movie. Not a great one. Not a bad one. But a good one. One that delivers some fun action and the calculated, we-haven’t-had-a-laugh-in-so-many-minutes formula that Marvel has perfected. If you are a Marvel fan you will love how they fill in the story, if you are not, it may be a struggle. The cast certainly helps elevate this movie otherwise it would veer into the B movie territory.
Note: This transcript has been auto-generated, so… You know… It’s not our fault.
Greg: Joe in the movie we watched this week, Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh have a huge fight, and that’s their way of reuniting. After not seeing each other for a long time, maybe decades. You and I were quite close after high school, and then we lost touch for a really long time, maybe even decades. And now that we’ve reunited for this podcast, is there anything we should fight about?
Joe: Probably. I mean, we should probably just fight about everything until we figure out how to reconnect. It’s maybe about dishes we could fight about that when we lived together and that could have been something that was not.
Greg: A great dishes roommate.
Joe: I don’t think anyone was. I mean, we were 20 years old. Who is who’s good at doing dishes at that age, can maybe.
Greg: My favorite thing that I feel the worst about from us living together is I went off to work at a summer camp after we lived together, and you and cam and actually Gabe moved in right then.
Joe: Gabe moving. Yeah.
Greg: And you guys came out to the camp to visit me, and you said we’ve had a huge ants problem. It’s like, oh, that’s weird. And then you said that you had found a bunch of old recycling in a drawer, like a wooden chest of drawers that we had next to the kitchen. Do you remember this?
Joe: I don’t remember this at all.
Greg: There’s some reason we had a chest of drawers that was like, right next to our mini kitchen in the basement of this house in Bellingham, Washington. And I decided, you know, we’ve got all this recycling. We should not throw this away. We should have, like, a recycling area. And so since we didn’t have another garbage can for recycling, I put it in the bottom drawer of this chest of drawers next to the garbage.
Greg: I don’t remember what month I did this, but then I promptly forgot about it. And that caused a massive ants problem. And I still feel I’m. I don’t know why I bring this up if you forgot about it.
Joe: Yeah. So that’s what we should probably fight about, I guess.
Greg: All right, let’s get to the show.
Joe: Let’s do it.
Clip: You don’t know everything about me.
Joe: I’ve lived a lot of lives.
Joe: Before I was an inventor.
Clip: Before I got this family. I mean, mistakes.
Joe: Choosing between what the world wants you to be and who you are.
Joe: One thing’s for sure.
Joe: I’m done running from my past.
Clip: Know?
Clip: At long last, the crossover episode that America and Iceland.
Greg: And Europe and parts of Australia have been clamoring for. And also Canada, we see you listeners in Canada, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the great Bad Universe, the MCU and the GBU are finally coming together talking about 2020 ones. Black Widow. We’re talking about Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh.
Joe: Rachel Vice, David Harbor, David Harbor.
Greg: We can’t forget about William Hurt. He shows up in this movie. Ray Winstone, who is in every movie for quite a while.
Joe: All the.
Greg: Kurylenko who we know from many other movies that we will get into. I think it’s important to say that Cate Shortland directed this movie and maybe most importantly in my mind for this movie. Scarlett Johansson produced it with Kevin Feige, lots of other producers. But I want to say that in my research, those are the two producers that really shaped this movie alongside Cate Shortland.
Greg: So here we go, Joe Skye Tucker. It’s the MCU and the Gbbo coming together. What makes Black Widow a great bad movie?
Joe: That’s a tough question because I struggled with this movie. You have to put the asterisk by it that for me, this is a marvel movie and they have by this point created and perfected the formula of what a marvel movie is. And there are different tiers of them. There are like some pretty terrible ones, and there are some great ones.
Joe: And this is a good one. This isn’t a great Marvel movie, but this movie is really anchored by an amazing cast. As we mentioned, doing a lot of work through parts of this movie. There are some really fun action scenes. Yep, there’s a fairly interesting story within the Marvel Universe. I know the fans are clamoring for a Black Widow movie for years and years and years, and they kept saying no when they finally put this one together.
Joe: So it has a lot of good elements in it. Scarlett Johansson is great, Florence Pugh is greatness. David Harbor and Rachel Weisz are great also as their parents kind of quasi parents, if you know the story of it. Yeah, I didn’t remember exactly where this falls within the timeline of all of the Marvel movies. It’s kind of before endgame and before the final Avengers movies.
Joe: So it kind of sits there and kind of is like a bridge to some of that. It feels on its own and what it is, and they kind of stitch it together. It really feels like if you’ve watched Endgame and Infinity Stone, you know that Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow character dies in that. So this is kind of a prequel, which you know how I feel about prequels.
Joe: So there’s pieces to it. But I think on the whole I like the movie even for Marvel movie, which I have, you know, it’s hit or miss for me with those, but there are some really fun moments in it. But before I get into those, I’d love to hear your thoughts on Black Widow and if you think it’s a great bad movie or what makes Black Widow a great bad movie.
Greg: I think this is a really great movie and I’ve been asking myself all day, why are we talking about this movie on this show? I do think it’s a great bad movie, but we are wading into hilarious fanboy waters right now, and the timeline of this movie is such an interesting one, as I was thinking about that, because this movie, as you were saying, yeah, it takes place before Avengers Infinity War.
Joe:
Greg: It takes place after Captain America Civil War. So it’s in between those two things. The actual year of this movie I think is 2016. They actually say that it’s 2016 in the MCU. I don’t think they do in this movie. So this movie was supposed to come out in early 2020 and be a movie about 2016. So it itself was a prequel.
Greg: But then because of Covid, it was bumped three times, came out in 2021. And so it a big critique of this movie is why now? Why is this just coming out now? Why didn’t this come out in 2016? And I don’t know if Marvel has a great answer for that. But in 2016, I think in 2016 or 2017, they were planning this movie, they had announced it and it was happening, and then they worked on it for a few years.
Greg: So why are we talking about this movie? We’re talking about this movie because it is a great movie in that the acting is incredible. There isn’t a bad performance in this movie. It is directed by an amazing director. Cate Shortland does an incredible job keeping it as a very personal movie. You know, she’s from Australia. Her goal was to give Scarlett Johansson’s character an interiority that we had not seen as much in the other movies, because she always shares the screen with people, and she had some good scenes.
Greg: She had like 1 or 2 amazing scenes per movie, basically, if she was lucky. And so this is just an incredible movie of performances. It gets very quiet often, but then also the action scenes are really good, really good. And then because it’s a marvel movie, the action scenes get preposterous towards the end where it’s just suddenly a CGI fest.
Greg: Yeah, but there are a lot of aspects of the action scenes that are not that they kind of ramp up to that. And so the only thing that makes this a bad movie is some of the plot stuff is a little thin.
Joe: And then it’s it’s stuck.
Greg: Being a ridiculous big dumb popcorn movie. And they knew that they had to make that, but it seemed like they were also trying to make something else at the same time. And I think they succeeded at the something else quite a bit. I really like the relationships in this movie. I really like the performances, and I also really like the action.
Greg: And some of the plot is just kind of like, wait, what? What’s this guy’s deal again?
Joe: Where? What’s this?
Greg: And so that’s why I think we’re talking about this movie. It has incredible performances. It is legitimately, in my mind, a great movie, but it also is a big, dumb movie. And that’s my favorite thing, you know, inches towards greatness, but then occasionally makes you go, wait, what’s happening? What are we doing here? And that makes me laugh.
Greg: Yeah, this movie tips its hand all over the place, but my very favorite place that it tips its hand is whenever they put a new location that this movie is taking place in the name of the city, or the name of the location just is in huge letters on the screen, and a huge push happens whenever that.
Joe: Comes on the screen. I was like, oh.
Greg: There we go. That’s what I’m doing. And honestly, I mean, I am such a big fan of cinematic booms in life. We use them on the show occasionally. I think we need to be using them more. We just need to just any time we go to something new on the show, we need to drop a.
Joe: Oh, nice.
Greg: You know what I mean?
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And and you know, like as we’re going, if it starts to get a little bit more official, we throw in.
Joe: A0I like that.
Greg: Build up. You know what I mean.
Joe: So it’s it’s a listener.
Greg: I would expect that you’re going to be hearing a lot more of those because that’s what makes a great bad movie. And that’s probably what makes a great bad movie podcast episode as well.
Joe: Yeah. I had a moment where and it was totally Jurassic Park reference of the Tyrannosaurus rex scene. And the first one. Yep, of the foot friend of the you know, you hear them, but I’ve almost added a trope of when people get out of a car shows, and then the door opens, and so they’re showing the foot, and the person’s foot steps out and it hits.
Joe: And then there’s the. And then each footstep.
Joe: They do this in this movie a couple times, especially with the.
Greg: Taskmaster.
Joe: Right? Yeah, yeah.
Greg: Love it, love it.
Joe: I think you like this movie a little bit more than I do as I’m like in the. It’s good. It’s, you know, they’re pieces with it. I go back and forth with the Marvel movies because I feel like they have they’ve hit this formula piece of like even when they add the laughs into the movie, it’s like they know they need to, like, break the tension or they need to do it.
Joe: Almost feels calculated. I the second time I watched it, I almost timed the space in between action scenes and laughs. And this feels like, okay, it has been 12 minutes since we’ve had a laugh or an action scene, so now it is time to have one of those. Yeah, this movie is 100% saved by the actors performances. It’s, you know, in the hands of other actors.
Joe: This veers into B and C movie territory real quick. You know, it does some of my favorite things and great bad movies where there’s a great fight scene on a bridge with Scarlett Johansson and I can’t remember that character’s name, Master Taskmaster. And then she falls into the water and instead of, like, following her, which would probably be pretty easy to find her in the water, she’s injured.
Joe: And so it just cuts to her in Budapest, right? You know, how did she get there? We don’t know. She’s in Norway. Budapest is in Hungary. If you know geography at all, that’s at least like seven hour flight.
Greg: There’s Hobbs and Shaw. Travel logic in this movie.
Joe: Exactly. Yeah.
Greg: I love it, I love it.
Joe: So those are the moments that I really loved. I do really appreciate from a marvel perspective that they filmed on location as much as they did. Does that I think adds a richness to the story and to the to the movies? Yep. So I really appreciated that. I like this character. I think it’s one of everyone’s kind of favorite characters.
Joe: You know, she doesn’t have superpowers. She’s right. Kind of fighting alongside these Avengers and all these other movies and holding her own. And so she’s fairly beloved, I think, within the canon and within the fandom. Sure. So I appreciated all of that. But there are moments there’s those travel logics of how do they get there? And, oh, don’t worry about it.
Joe: I just won’t worry about her friend that just can procure helicopters and jets and things like that.
Greg: Yep. Mason, is that his name?
Joe: I think so, yeah. One of my favorite pieces. And this is where, you know, you’re watching a great bad movie is so there’s a great prison escape scene. Yeah. In this. Yeah. However, they fly a helicopter over a prison. Sure. And it isn’t until they’re trying to escape that they actually, like, notice the helicopter. So is it a silent helicopter?
Greg: Oh, I hope so.
Joe: Because you would imagine that a helicopter over a Russian prison would arise suspicion and maybe like bullets being shot at it, but they don’t start shooting at it until they’re actually trying to help David Harbor’s character escape. Right. So that’s, to me, an awesome sign of wouldn’t that cause alarm? If you know you’re in a prison and there’s a helicopter just like hovering right over your prison.
Joe: Sure. Because I have to wait for David Harbor to get the package from the mail and open it. And then find the earpiece and try to escape, all while they’re just, like, standing there. You would imagine that takes like 15 or 20 minutes, but. So those are like, you might be watching a great bad movie if totally moments for me.
Greg: So when that scene started, I thought, okay, he’s outside now. Oh that’s right. And they’ve got the they’ve got the helicopter. They’ll just drop the thing out of the helicopter and pick him up. That won’t take very long. And then like five minutes later, they’re still having some bonkers action scene. I was like, they are really dragging this out.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: They’re really making this hard for themselves.
Joe: I know shades of, extraction two, if you will, on this one. So yeah. But yeah, I did thoroughly enjoy the action scenes in this. They do some fun stuff with it. There is some CGI fast, especially at the end, but that’s kind of to be expected with a marvel movie and it didn’t feel too over the top.
Joe: It was like just, you know, it rides that line of like, they amp it up so that you’re kind of ready for how crazy it gets, even though it’s beyond ridiculous what actually happens in any sort of reality other than the Marvel MCU. You know.
Greg: How many times have you seen this movie?
Joe: Twice.
Greg: Twice. Okay. And when you sat down to watch it for this episode, was it about as good as you remembered? Was it better than you thought? Was it worse? How did this viewing affect you?
Joe: I so I only have watched it within twice within the last week. Oh, okay.
Greg: So you’d never seen this movie?
Joe: Yeah, I hadn’t seen it when it came out. I wanted to because I had heard it was good. And there, you know, again, like I said, it is one of the better Marvel movies. Yeah, it is in the camp of like, it is a good Marvel movie. It is not any of the Thors besides Ragnarok or. The second Doctor Strange and some of the earlier ones or there and, and even Captain Marvel.
Joe: The first one is not a great movie in my mind, but this one is a good one, you know, and I think the cast and really the some of the moments, I think my favorite scene is when the family is reunited. So kind of the conceit is they’re undercover in America is how it opens you up.
Greg: And the girls are young.
Joe: Yeah, but they’re all kind of in on it. And then they reunite later in the movie, and they have this great dinner scene where they’re kind of having, like, multiple conversations at the same time, which is as funny and kind of poignant at the same time. And so that is a that is probably my favorite scene in this movie with just how layered it is.
Joe: It’s funny, it’s a little sad, and it really sets up the third act of this. So yeah, I really love that scene.
Greg: It’s just interesting to think about this movie in that you judge them on a couple different levels. One is, where does it sit in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? And by the time this came out in 2021, I was already quite apathetic about the Marvel Cinematic Universe and not really tracking with the ongoing kind of story arc. And so a lot of that was lost to me then.
Greg: It’s comical to watch it three years later, three and a half years later and just think, okay, officially, I have forgotten everything that they’re talking about, and I think there was an aspect of that in 2021 when they were talking about the plot points between Civil War and Infinity War. I didn’t remember it then.
Joe: You know, so it’s like.
Greg: So I’m really only judging this movie and for the, for the sake of this show, I’m really just judging Black Widow as a movie called Black Widow and maybe 10% I’m judging it on what’s come before and what’s come after. But really I’m just looking at this movie as a, I guess, a superhero movie. But that’s not necessarily a super powers movie.
Greg: There’s only one person that I can think of in this movie that seems to have real superpowers, and that’s David Harbor.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: What is he, the Red Guardian? He’s, kind of Russia’s answer to Captain America. So he kind of has that same super soldier stuff, but he was doing that for Russian patriotism.
Joe:
Greg: So I’m really just watching this as like this is interesting. This is a movie with almost entirely female protagonists. You know there’s David Harbor, there’s Ray Winstone, there’s Mason who’s kind of her friend and arms dealer contractor guy, but for the most part like through and through, it’s like when henchmen come. They’re not henchmen. They’re like super soldier women.
Joe:
Greg: And it is just so nice to watch a movie where it’s like, oh my gosh, this has such non stupid dude energy. And I hate this aspect of this conversation, but it has to be had where it was like there had been Wonder Woman and there have been Captain Marvel kind of in the superhero world. And I guess there was a Supergirl movie in the 80s, but there really hadn’t been any many female led comic book, big dumb action movies like this.
Greg: And I loved Wonder Woman when it came out, but on rewatch, it wasn’t as good as I remembered. I think it was mostly just like, well, we haven’t gotten this before, this is great. And then Captain Marvel was pretty bad, and then this movie was awesome. And I was like, well, at least Scarlett Johansson did it right, you know?
Greg: Yeah. And Kevin Feige, you know, was a big producer of these. He and Scarlett Johansson kind of teamed up to make this thing, it seems like. And so I think the fact that this movie is a successful movie on its own, I think we can just place that on Scarlett Johansson. She kind of owned the brand of this and turned this into the movie she wanted it to be, and I love it.
Greg: I think this is a great, great movie, and it’s kind of unfortunate that it’s a marvel movie in my mind in some ways. So that’s that’s kind of my overarching kind of meta conversation about this movie. When you get down into what it actually is, it’s should we just say it’s sometimes Mission Impossible, it’s sometimes a Jason Bourne movie and it’s often a James Bond movie.
Joe: Yeah. I mean, they referenced James Bond in this. Yep. Multiple times. Some of the fight scenes are. Yeah, it’s all of those things. It’s like trying to be all the different kind of spy movies, because she is renowned in the kind of fandom or in the canon as a spy. She’s, you know, known as a spy and an assassin.
Joe: So that’s what the Black Widow character is. Yep. And so we kind of get to see a little bit of that, but it’s mainly an action movie and it’s they definitely are referencing those and playing homage to those sorts of things. And there’s a part of me that almost wishes it were a one off that’s kind of outside of the cinematic universe.
Joe: I feel like they could have pushed it more like that’s I wanted a little bit more of like, you know, with the Marvel movies, you kind of know what you’re going to get. Yeah. In terms of, you know, the look, the feel, the how it goes. And I feel like in some ways this is kind of a pretty depressing movie, as you kind of know, the know the plot of it and how it is.
Joe: And yeah, I could have seen them kind of taking it a little further that, that they couldn’t do under the Marvel banner. Necessarily it’s kind of like how they have Deadpool, like in the Marvel Universe or in that, but it’s universal or something like that is the one that that’s actually putting it on. And so it’s, it can be a little bit more dark.
Joe: It can be a little it can be an R-rated.
Greg: You know, there’s 25.
Joe: Fox 21 device.
Greg: Which Disney bought. So we’re good there.
Joe: Yeah. So it’s like if they had pushed it out because like, besides a few lines about The Avengers and yeah, it could be just a really kick ass spy movie. Sure. What our action movie about freeing the the Black Widows that are kind of trapped around the world, being used to kill people and affect global politics or. Yeah, through mind control.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Dreykov Ray Winstone is somehow controlling their minds, making them do things they even audibly say, I don’t want to be doing this, but then they do it. Yeah, yeah, 100%. And then, you know, she watches Moonraker in this movie.
Joe: You’re not a sportsman, Mr. Bond. Pilot workout encounter with my bad boys on his own. Discovered he had a crush on me.
Greg: She’s watching debatably the worst James Bond movie, and she’s quoting it. Yeah, I read somewhere that the the screenwriter Eric something or other was was debating with the director throughout which James Bond movie should she be watching? And it had to have been a debate between Moonraker and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, because that one also has a plot line of women soldiers who are brainwashed around the world that can be activated at any time, but Moonraker ends or begins with them jumping out of a plane and there’s like a fight sequence where James Bond and a bad guy, they’re falling without a parachute, or one of them has a parachute, but the fight is
Greg: very point break ish where they’re they’re falling and fighting, and that’s how Black Widow ends. There’s like this 800 hour fall from the sky. That was awesome. So I think Moonraker and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service were influences. There was apparently a cut scene and deleted scene in this movie where Natasha specifically says, I love watching James Bond movies.
Greg: Spies watch James Bond movies, the way Housewives watch The Real Housewives.
Joe: Awesome.
Greg: And that they cut that line. But that was her explanation of it was like, I like, I like that that’s happening in this world, you know? And there’s this conversation about James Bond, but also this movie. I mean, David Harbor was in Quantum of Solace, a movie we will definitely be getting to. Taskmaster ends up being Ray Winstone s daughter, played by Olga Kurylenko.
Joe: Kurylenko sorry, Olga, we are but your name.
Greg: But sorry about that. And then Rachel Weisz is married to Daniel Craig, who was James Bond, obviously. And I want to say there was one more person in this that was somehow related to James Bond. So amazing. I mean, that’s totally what they’re going for.
Joe:
Greg: And that’s why it’s a great bad movie. That’s why we’re here today you know.
Joe: Yeah. The other piece that also makes us a great bad movie is and it’s really kind of a rhetorical question of like what’s the deal with their accents. Because. David Harbor and Rachel Weisz and.
Greg: Florence.
Joe: Pugh and Florence Pugh are all Russian spies. But in the opening of the scene, they’re speaking in perfect American accents, right? And then they speak in problematic Russian accents that slide in and out. Rachel, voices is okay. Yeah.
Greg: David Harbor’s is just for comic effect. It sounds like.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Florence Pugh.
Joe: Pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah. Pretty good. There moments where it slides a little bit but right. You know, it’s like if they are these characters and chameleons and spies, pick a lane, pick a lane on the accents. Well, and didn’t Natasha.
Greg: Have a Russian accent when we first met her? And then she just kind of sounded like Scarlett Johansson. 13 movies later.
Joe: I think so. And she speaks Russian, but yeah, yeah, so it’s that’s, you know, and that’s another like, you might be watching a great bad movie, right. You don’t know why they’re speaking in these accents.
Greg: I mean, you mentioned if these are real people. I think Scarlett Johansson in this movie is a real person. I think Florence Pugh in this movie especially is a real person. And then the mom and the dad, while I love both of them as actors, and I actually really love both of their performances, what they do as characters in this movie, I just cannot track with it, does not track, does not check out.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: So that is a huge flaw in this movie for me. That makes it entertaining on rewatch.
Joe: Like what?
Greg: How are they this all of a sudden weren’t they? And something else in.
Joe: The last scene. Yeah I think the other piece, it’s like a uniquely Marvel attribute is their use of music I think is pretty clever. Yep. But it opens in the early 90s, and the first song you hear them singing is a song from the 70s, right?
Greg: American Pie.
Joe: Yeah. And it reminded me some of, Guardians of the Galaxy with the music in that, is slightly off in terms of the time frame is trying to reference like it’s trying to take place in the 80s and music and they kind of do that with music like I would, but they do have this beautiful cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit that kind of comes over the in.
Greg: The opening credits. Yep.
Joe: So I appreciated that. But like sometimes their use of music and in their movies feels a little off in terms of like, why is this family in the 90s singing this song from the 70s? And I can I’m sure that there was a reason for it of like the Russian. Then they’re in America trying to do this thing and so but they’re always little odd choices like that with the music and Marvel movies.
Joe: For me, at times that kind of take me out of the movie and I’m like, why did they choose that song? I kind of.
Greg: Felt like the American Pie song, like lyrically kind of checked out, like I thought it was a good thematic choice for them, but also like, what could possibly be more of a quintessential American song that a Russian. Yeah. You know, Russian spy in America would have, you know.
Joe:
Greg: They’d be a little bit obvious, but also the lyrics to that song, I felt like when they were singing along to it in their drive to escaping, America after three years of being spies here, I thought it made sense.
Joe: All right, I don’t know, I.
Greg: Had that CD.
Joe: I’ll allow it. I guess I.
Greg: Had done clean, I think I checked, done and clean out from the library and had it for a really long time in Bellingham. Sorry. Bellingham Public Library.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And I listened to that one song and probably not much else.
Joe:
Greg: But yeah, those are the two songs. And then the rest is the learn both music. The guy who does the Mission Impossible movies. Yeah.
Joe: But what was your take on.
Greg: That opening scene when we first open up the movie? It’s a, it’s almost like an indie movie.
Joe: Taking.
Greg: Place there in Ohio. There’s like fireflies flying around. There’s bioluminescence. Florence Pugh’s character is maybe three, and then Scarlett Johansson’s character is maybe 6 or 7, something like that.
Joe: Something? Yeah, something like that. I mean, they’re yeah, I’m trying remember the age difference that they put on them. But or maybe she’s like 12 and six or something I can’t remember. But it’s there’s a pretty big age difference. I like the opening scene. Yeah. I noticed the second time I watched it, there’s a kind of a ring moment or a full circle moment on it.
Joe: The opening scene shows the trees, and then she’s riding her bike. And then the last scene is her, the trees, and she’s riding her motorcycle. And so I appreciated that kind of symmetry that they bring to it. And I like that I wanted a little bit more. I know that they’re probably fighting for time on that. It’s about a two hour movie.
Joe: And so you’re like fighting for every second at that point. And I don’t feel like, like I often have a thing like, oh, it’s a little too long. I feel like the runtime on this was perfect. Yeah. I didn’t want any more. I didn’t want any less, but I could have had a little bit longer. Opening scene I feel interesting.
Greg: Why? Just to live with them a little bit longer?
Joe: Yeah, just like set it up. I felt I felt like they were also like kind of referencing Stranger Things a little bit with David Harbor. Yeah. So I felt like they could have extended it a little bit more. I’m fine that they didn’t. Yeah. You know, I wasn’t like, man, I really wish the scene was longer. But like, you go from that right into an action scene, right.
Joe: Them escaping.
Greg: They go to a plane.
Joe: Yeah. David Harbor plane.
Greg: Somehow like throws a truck out of the way. It’s like oh I guess that guy has superpowers.
Joe:
Greg: And that’s a what are we. We’re at like eight minutes into the movie and he throws a truck. And it was a little bit startling when he does it. Oh this has been such a calm drama in Ohio in the 90s. Everything’s kind of yellow by the way.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Just like Ohio was in the 90s I suppose. And that happened a few times in this movie where things are just so quiet and so interior, you know, and slow that when superhero movie kind of happens, it’s like, oh, I forgot we were doing that, you know? But then they happened to plane and they get on the runway from fast and Furious six, which takes about 20 minutes for them to get down.
Greg: Yeah, they have a whole fight. There’s a whole, like, car chase thingy.
Joe: Car crashes, and, yeah, he’s got a great shot. There’s lots of great bad shots in this, but he is a great shot to like, shoot the tire out of a car that then drives into the other car to get the runway so they can get out. Yeah. So there’s lots of like craziness about that. Like I did a like the quiet scenes in this movie, I think where my favorite parts in this.
Joe: Yeah. After the kind of ridiculous fight scene between Florence Pugh and Scarlett Johansson when they first meet, and then they have a truce, which is, you know, I am trying to figure out a way to word that. But so many of the movies we watch, Partners in Crime, start off fighting each other or in fast five, when Vin Diesel and the Rock are fighting, you’re going down to that, oh, I’m right here.
Joe: And then they they stop or and fast for when Paul Walker and Vin Diesel are fighting. You did it for you, Tom. She did it for you. Right. Yeah. So I think that’s a trope in and of itself, but they have this, like really funny scene when they’re sitting at at, the cafe talking, and, they have great chemistry.
Joe: Florence Pugh steals every scene she’s in. She’s legitimately funny in this movie. Yeah, in ways that I feel like were ad lib that felt or it felt like she was ad libbing a lot of those lines to me. So I really love those scenes between the two of them. I felt like once I kind of got over the silly, they have to fight, and then they got to come to like, a truce, right?
Joe: Their relationship is as awesome in this.
Greg: Yeah, that was just clear. Great, that movie making where they haven’t seen each other for a long time. Florence Pugh kind of sends word, I guess you could say it to Scarlett Johansson. She sends her a thing and then has a picture of them when they were little. And so Scarlett Johansson finds her, and then they just try to kill each other for a few minutes, like with a nice.
Joe: Yeah. Like, why.
Greg: On earth would they be trying to kill each other, other than just to show that they’re upset at each other for some reason? And also, they’re both trained killers now because they were taken from their families when they were little and and trained by what’s his name? Drake. Drake off.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Drake off in the red room. You know, I went to some place called the Red room where they were trained to be killers for Russian. Yeah, but it makes no sense.
Joe: Yeah. That’s the, like, hardest scene to watch, especially the second time, because I knew it was coming. Yeah. And it does make no sense when she’s Scarlett Johansson is supposed to be completely isolated in Norway by herself. So how did Florence Pugh know to send her.
Greg: The red files?
Joe: The antidote to whatever the mind control is. Then the. And I’m blanking on her name again. Olga Kurylenko character.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Find her in Norway. Rat. Super sneaky. Apparently she’s just trying to get away and live her life and escape, and everybody seems to know where she is.
Greg: I guess we don’t know what her plan is.
Joe: Yeah, she hasn’t seen her sister since they were taken away and separated when they were like, however old. And after the first scene.
Greg: We never really hear when they stop seeing each other, right? Because they were taken together and then both went to the Red room. They seem to know about what each other has been up to a bit in the intervening years.
Joe: Sort of. But yeah. How does she know to send that there? So great bad movie. You don’t like it. Yeah.
Greg: No no no no.
Joe: And when you meet they’re going to fight for five minutes and then be best friends.
Greg: And so the vials with the bright red lights in them made their way to Scarlett Johansson. That’s all you need to know.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Also, there were vials of something in Moonraker, if I remember right. The James Bond steals and ask you to look into. Well, okay, I guess I want to talk about a couple things that happened before that where Florence Pugh is on a mission and someone sprays this red stuff into her face, and it kind of unlocks her from the power of Drake off where she’s she gets her own free will.
Joe: She gets her mind back.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don’t know what the stuff was called in my notes. I just called it the Red.
Joe: You know, that.
Greg: Happens a few times in the movie where, you know, if you want to free someone, give someone some free will, you give them some red? Yeah, but there was something awesome that happened in that scene, and that was Florence Pugh running down to attack somebody. She has like, a wire coming out of her back, and she runs down the side of a building.
Joe: Yeah, face forward down. The sides are not rappelling down, but like right. Run. Yeah. It’s awesome.
Greg: Do you ever do that?
Joe: I should start, you know, shades of Hobbs and Shaw and the opening action scene there. So this is.
Greg: The thing that just has to happen in the most recent decade of films, we have to run down a building or run up a building. In the case of Tennant, we will get to tenet here.
Joe: You mean. And I feel like they do that also in the A-Team, there’s a scene where they’re running down the building, so oh, good signs for one of our movie.
Joe: In case you were wondering if this is a great bad movie. Yeah, we’ve got you covered.
Greg: Totally, totally. There’s the argument with Mason about whether it’s pronounced Budapest or Budapest. Where do you land on that?
Joe: I think I’m with, Scarlett Johansson on Budapest.
Greg: Okay. I go with Mason on that one.
Joe: Well, that’s what we’re going to fight about. That’s what we found out we did. Yes.
Greg: Mason is. I guess he’s British. He talks about how when she gets to her trailer out in Norway, that she’s going to need to take the rubbish into town. And it really made me wonder.
Joe: Why do.
Greg: We call it garbage and not rubbish? Rubbish. It’s so much.
Joe: Better. I had a very similar thought. Yeah, yeah, I think we should.
Greg: What are we doing?
Joe: Yeah. Come on.
Greg: America. Rubbish was better. Yeah. Okay. So it starts here. It starts now. Rubbish is now a thing.
Joe: Yeah. Great.
Greg: So that gets us to the bridge scene where Taskmaster attacks her while she’s, like, driving the rubbish into town, I guess. Or maybe she’s. The power has gone out, so she needs to go in or something.
Joe: She’s got to get more gas for the generator. Right, because she’s watching Moonraker and then the power goes out, and so she goes into town, and.
Greg: As she’s turning onto a bridge, like some big red light crashes into the side of her truck and it makes it roll onto the bridge and almost fall off the bridge. Yeah, no explanation of what that red thing was that hit it. It’s just like MCU movie magic. It was some comic book thing that hit her. But it’s 24 minutes in and it’s quite quiet in the movie leading up to that.
Greg: And it’s just like that opening scene when David Harbor flips some cars to get out of the way of the plane, like, oh, that’s right, it’s this kind of movie I forgot. And in those moments I thought, man, I’m really enjoying this movie. And I didn’t need the the Marvel ness of it. Yeah, I don’t hate it. I like that I’m watching a marvel movie, but it was just kind of like, oh, it’s not all red lights coming and hitting a truck and making it flip for no reason.
Greg: It’s not all David Harbor throwing. It’s really nice how little of that there is in this film.
Joe: Yeah, I almost wonder if this is more just a thought that hit me about like, what if the director who did the extraction did this movie and kept the action, like really tight? Because there are some moments where the action is really close? Some of my favorite scenes in it have that feel, or some are almost like a Jason Bourne feel to it, but.
Joe: Yeah. With like keeping the action real tight, close over the top in a ridiculous way. In that way, but not having it be the Marvel action.
Greg: There’s some really cool stuff. Well, Joe, does that mean we need to get to a segment called who is the second unit director at this?
Joe: Oh, oh.
Greg: It’s a dude named Darren Prescott. You want to hear about Darren Prescott.
Joe: More than anything in the world right now.
Greg: All right. So here’s the deal. Darren Prescott has been doing stunts for a very long time. If you look at his stunt work on IMDb, it goes all the way back to 1994. He did stunts in Barbed Wire with Pamela Anderson, and then he did stunts in eraser with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Joe: A movie will for sure get to that is awful and well, for sure get to that. Absolutely.
Greg: But then he climbed the ranks and eventually became the second unit director. Now this person largely is like the super stunt coordinator, but also kind of runs the action crew, could be called the action director of the movie. And in a lot of cases, like in the case of Edge of Tomorrow, they actually are the ones that say action to film the stunts.
Greg: That’s not actually the director of the movie, the credited director of the movie. It’s the second unit director. And so this guy, there’s been a second unit director credited since 2010. His first movie that he’s credited on is faster with the Rock, a movie that we for sure will be getting to as well. And then he worked on drive.
Greg: Have you seen drive?
Joe: I have done That’s Nicolas Cage right now.
Greg: You’re thinking of, drive angry, I think.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: A movie we may get to. That one’s on the list, but the question mark drive is actually a great, great movie. It’s one of the best ones.
Joe: Ryan Gosling. Yeah. Yeah, right. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that movie is awesome.
Greg: Really kind of low to the ground action though. Or like, cars are doing stuff and whether it’s not crazy special effects.
Joe: Yeah, it’s a gritty dark movie. Yeah.
Greg: I’m gonna kind of skip through his filmography a little bit, but Darren Prescott did contraband, a movie.
Joe: That we liked, Marky Mark. Yeah.
Greg: Well, is like, too strong. Where do you stand on contraband?
Joe: I struggled with contraband. I tolerated contraband.
Greg: He did the last stand with Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2013. He was the second unit director for two guns.
Joe: Oh, we will for sure get to do that 100%.
Greg: That’s Denzel Washington and Marky Mark.
Joe: A movie that makes no sense. It’s awesome.
Greg: Oh my gosh, we should do that soon then. Too bad we did a Denzel movie last week, I know. Oh, well, okay, here’s where we are really cooking with gas 2014 Darren Prescott is the second unit director of John Wick. Oh, wow. Skipping ahead, he’s the second unit director for Captain America Civil War, which also had some great action scenes.
Greg: I’m skipping ahead. John Wick chapter two, then.
Joe: Hey baby.
Greg: Driver, a movie we will also be getting to fantastic action in that movie with the.
Joe: Driving.
Greg: Black Panther Deadpool two. So clearly he has like the Chad Stahelski.
Joe: David Leitch.
Greg: David Leitch connection, David leaches. Deadpool two is what he did after Black Panther. He did John Wick Part three, Ford versus Ferrari, Ford v Ferrari. Have you seen that movie?
Joe: I have not, it’s awesome.
Greg: I just rewatched it. It’s incredible. It’s such a good movie. Then he did this movie and then he did the second Black Panther and Madame Web, which has some kind of solid.
Joe: Action in it.
Greg: I don’t know how to say this. I liked Madame Web more than I thought I would.
Joe: A bona fide action.
Greg: Yes. Oh, one of our best is what I’m saying. Like you’re talking about extraction.
Joe: Sam Hargraves. Is that what it is?
Greg: Sam Hargrave yeah, he’s in that crew, you know, he’s amongst the best. He is the second unit director for ballerina. The movie coming up. That’s in the John Wick universe. And that movie is directed by Len Wiseman. By the way of Die Hard four fan. Okay, so that’s exciting to me. Oh, I think he grew up in Fremont, California, by the way.
Greg: We’re both Bay area people.
Joe: Yeah, he also did the vampire underworld movies as well. Yeah. So yeah. All right. I’ll allow it.
Greg: Anyways. So Darren Prescott, there’s really good extended fight scenes like fist fights in this movie. There’s lots of like, wrapping legs around people’s necks and flipping them kind of stuff. Yeah. And I think that Scarlett Johansson’s kind of signature move in these movies, which also just made me think of Ilsa Faust, you know, once I heard kind of had Mission Impossible on the brain, but then it also grows into great motorcycle chases, great car chases.
Greg: Florence Pugh and Scarlett Johansson are in a car. They’re being chased by someone on a bike. They flip the car to go backwards so they can open the door and break off the door so that it goes underneath the motorcycle, and the person on the motorcycle flies off of it.
Joe: Yeah, that was awesome. Yeah.
Greg: I mean, like, these are the imaginative stunts that I’m sure Darren Prescott was putting together for this film. And so there’s like real action bonafides. And then, you know, eventually there’s like an avalanche and it’s a CGI fest and whatever. Yeah, I don’t hate it. I’m I’m okay with it. I’m glad that we progressed to that. And we didn’t start with that you know.
Joe: Yeah I should say that I don’t mind the CGI fest if it’s done right. Like I feel like in this movie. Yeah it’s done well. It’s not distracting in terms of oh we’re just watching CGI fight scenes. So I feel like they did it well, that car chase, really, I and I know this was probably done before Mission Impossible seven, but really reminded me of the Mission Impossible seven car chase in Rome.
Joe: That one’s a little bit longer and probably a better car chase overall, but you have very similar. You have the big Jeep thing that just kind of crashes through everything, and then you have them on and in a car and then kind of being chased by another car and then motorcycles and it’s it’s perfect. So yeah.
Greg: You’re right about that. But also it reminded me a few times of Mission Impossible six, the car chase in Paris.
Joe: You know, he’s riding the.
Greg: Bike and he, like, falls off of it and like rolls. I think Scarlett Johansson did that in in a scene. Yeah, yeah. So there’s that’s the scene specifically where I was like, wow, this is really Mission impossible.
Joe: Yeah. Spoiler alert for my drinking games. There may be one. Anytime you’re thinking about a mission impossible movie when you’re watching this, basically. And well, for sure, I don’t know if we’ll get to Mission Impossible 6 or 7. There might be too good. Other Mission Impossible seven hits every single one of our stock drinking games, which we we watched that opening together and it’s.
Joe: Oh, it’s so good in so many ways.
Greg: If we watch something just like soul crushingly bad, we might have to like tip the scale over to Mission Impossible to cleanse the palate, to make us feel exactly.
Joe: We want to.
Greg: Do this podcast.
Joe: More.
Greg: Oh, by the way the red it’s a synthetic gas. The counter agent to chemical subjugation. The gas immunize is the brain’s neural pathways from external pathways. So it’s an antidote to mind control. Is that is that how you would do it if you were making that?
Joe: I guess so, I mean, it works for this movie. Yeah. Would you.
Greg: Go synthetic? I don’t if I would go synthetic.
Joe: I mean, there’s only one man who will use nitro.
Greg: So and he is way over in Los Feliz.
Joe: So I tried.
Greg: When they eventually get out of their car chase motorcycle chase, they eventually go down to a subway.
Joe:
Greg: And they do a thing where, you know the escalators that like go down under a building. Yeah. There’s always that space in between the escalators. That could be the most amazing slide in history. They just jump straight down that and I like that. That’s a trope in movies now where it’s like, well of course we’re going to do that.
Greg: Like, we don’t even have to, like, have them look at and go, well, I guess we need to. They just go straight to it. Every day of my childhood, when I was in San Francisco going down the Bart stations, I was just like, can I please slide down that? My gosh, you can’t do it. I was like, can I please slide down that?
Greg: So maybe every kid feels that way.
Joe: Did you have you ever felt that way? Oh yeah. Every time.
Greg: Yeah. Okay.
Joe: Okay. I think now I know that they have little objects down if you actually look at those, so you can’t slide down them. I’m waiting for the action movie that adds those in there as, they try to do it and they get like flipped over and off of it, so I. Yeah, exactly.
Greg: Did you ever see that It’s always sunny in Philadelphia when Frank goes down the slide that doesn’t have the water on yet.
Joe: I don’t think but there’s a very good Brandenburg.
Greg: Anyways, so we’ll get we’ll get Danny DeVito.
Joe: To be a.
Greg: Movie.
Joe: When he gets up. That’s why.
Greg: About 46 minutes into this movie, Florence Pugh talks about the poser thing that Scarlett Johansson does in all the other movies.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And just kind of makes fun of her.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: That’s awesome. Really funny. Florence Pugh, if we have not emphasized enough steals this movie every time she’s in it.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And I feel like Scarlett Johansson, we see on her face how she’s enjoying Florence Pugh’s performance.
Joe:
Greg: Same thing happens with that guy Mason. I feel like Scarlett Johansson in the scenes. Maybe she’s just acting, but it’s like. And it seems like she’s really enjoying what this person is doing in the scene. My read of that was Scarlett Johansson is a great producer. She’s making the movie she wants to make for Black Widow, and the people around her are punching way above their weight and making this movie so much better.
Greg: And she is letting them take it. I really like that about this movie.
Joe: Yeah, she kind of plays the straight sure woman in this. You know, she’s doesn’t she’s got like 1 or 2 laughs in it. But yeah, she really has to hold the center and let everyone else kind of shine around her and be kind of ridiculous. David Harbor’s character is pretty ridiculous and silly and played for laughs, sure, but I wonder about the scenes between her and Florence Pugh.
Joe: If they really were, how much of that was ad libbed? Because it feels like the delivery of it. It’s like a silly conversation that they’re having. Florence Pugh talks about this vest that she’s bought. That’s the first thing she bought for herself. And like, she loves how many pockets it has. And that’s like really useful. That’s really like a, a silly conversation.
Joe: And she just delivers her lines perfectly like it’s like really funny. And so she is really funny. She’s like, you know, she does steal every scene. She then what.
Greg: Had we seen her in before.
Joe: This movie, Little.
Greg: Women.
Joe: Maybe. I mean, she’s kind of blowing up right now. She’s been in. Right? Oppenheimer and lots of big stuff. And this. Yeah, pretty well known right now.
Greg: I think just Little Women was what I had seen her in.
Joe: I don’t know that I tried to think if I had seen her actually in a movie. I saw her in the show, the Marvel show that they did, that was the one about Hawkeye. And she was she was funny in that. But yeah, you know, she’s just kind of a bit part in that. So yeah, I think I’ve, I’ve seen her in other stuff besides just kind of knowing her that she’s in lots of stuff and has kind of has a growing stardom that’s, that’s burgeoning right now.
Greg: Yeah. I think Midsommar really kind of thrust into the spotlight. But little women, I mean, everybody in Little Women was incredible. I remember when people were singling out Florence Pugh and I was like, how can you pick one person in that movie that mean was so incredible. Anyways, she just absolutely steals it. And I really like that Scarlett Johansson is producing this movie and is like, yeah, the whole movie is better when the people around me are even better.
Joe: Yeah, it takes a lot because this is her movie. She shines. She’s the she’s the action star in it, but she really does give space for other people, especially Florence Pugh. And yeah, it is a bridge too. And you know, you sent me the trailer for it, but Florence Pugh character carries on. Yeah. And so was a way for the Black Widow kind of character to live on within the Marvel Universe.
Joe: Now that Scarlett Johansson isn’t. Although I will say this, this is my thing. They have introduced time travel into the Marvel Universe. Any universe that has time travel in it, no one is actually ever really dead. And if you’ve ever watched any Fast and Furious movie, you know that even if there isn’t time travel, no one is actually ever dead.
Joe: So I 100% expect to see the full cast of characters coming back when Marvel is like dying on the vine and they need Tony Stark back and they need Captain America, and they need Scarlett Johansson to come back. I that’s that’s what I feel like will happen. But any universe that has time travel in it, there’s no way that anyone is actually dead in terms of them coming back or bringing that character back.
Joe: So this is my pre spoiler alert that there’s no way that they’re not. If they wanted to, they could bring them back in a second and they would just flash back to the time travel machine. That’s an end game. And yeah bring them back from another time where they were and whatever. So they’ll throw in the word quantum and we’ll just go along with that.
Greg: So yeah I agree I feel like that is just a dramatic minefield. I think the better thing to do is have Scarlett Johansson come back for a scene. It’s a memory with Florence Pugh, you know, when she remembers them sitting somewhere. Get the. I guess they can’t do that because the girls, when they were younger are grown up now.
Greg: I didn’t mention this when we were talking about the the beginning, though, but the younger versions of Florence Pugh and Scarlett Johansson, especially the younger Scarlett Johansson, I thought it was fantastic. So good. Yeah, I thought she set the tone for the movie that was going to come. So they were in in Ohio for three years, so she, I guess I’m assuming she had kind of already had some training before she was stationed.
Greg: You know, she’s alludes to David Harbord. I don’t want to go back or don’t. Why do we have to leave? You know, she doesn’t want to go back to that. And then she, like, pulls a gun from one of the people. And, you know, it seems like she’s already had some red room training or something.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: So she’s a little battle worn. But Florence Pugh’s character often talks about how that really was her childhood. You know, those really were her parents, even though they aren’t her parents like they were parenting her and her memories of that time. It’s very emotional stuff. And when she, you know, is kind of like leaning into that in the movie.
Joe: It’s.
Greg: Unbelievable the emotion that she brings to a scene. Yeah. And that’s another reason she’s so funny. And then she’s also just like, oh my gosh, this person is making the scene so much more effective than it would have been with if somebody else was doing it.
Joe: Yeah. That scene and I go back to that scene at the dinner table when they’re all together as a family again for like the first time. And yeah, I can’t remember how 30 years or 21 years or whatever the timeline is sure is so good. And it’s really well-written because there are basically like 3 or 4 conversations happening simultaneously.
Joe: Yeah. And the the impact of those each happening at the same time and the impact on each character, especially on Florence Pugh and on Scarlett Johansson, are amazing and kind of what they’re trying to do. You know, Florence Pugh is trying to like, say the yeah, what you were saying about this is her childhood and these are her parents, and that’s how she views them.
Joe: And then scores your hands, is trying to figure out how to like, stop the bad guy. And right, Rachel Weisz and David Harbor kind of flirting with each other and not answering questions. And it’s, you know, this like family microcosm moment and it’s, yeah, perfectly acted and written. It’s so good. It’s so fun to watch that scene.
Greg: I mean.
Joe: Once they.
Greg: Pick up David Harbor from that Russian jail. And we should say that Florence Pugh has a rocket launcher that takes out one of the guard towers, and that starts an avalanche that buries the entire prison. And we’re just good with that.
Joe: Yeah, don’t think about it. It’s all right. They’re bad guys in there, apparently.
Greg: I mean, are they bad guys or are they Russian political prisoners of some kind? That was my read on it. They’re probably Russian political prisoners. So probably weren’t all questionable people.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Probably journalists.
Joe: Or Navalny is over.
Greg: There.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah.
Greg: So that that was an issue. But anyways once he is in the helicopter a 24 minute family drama happens. They get to Rachel Vice. She’s just living her life controlling pigs with her iPad, doing brain control mind control stuff. And then there’s like this 24 minute, very quiet family drama that happens. And as you’re saying, like when they’re at the table, it’s interesting when they’re not at the table anymore, the camera is still by the table showing where they are in relation to the table.
Joe:
Greg: Like the family table is kind of a center point to let us know where we are in the house. That’s really interesting to me. But yeah 24 minutes, it’s about an hour in and then for 24 minutes we’re in a very quiet family drama, basically Little Women. But the Marvel.
Joe: Movie. Yeah. Brought to you by Marvel Little women.
Greg: Yeah, David Harbor is hilarious. Florence Pugh is incredible. Scarlett Johansson is incredible. Rachel Weisz is really good. But I feel like could have been given a little bit more.
Joe: Yeah, I agree with that.
Greg: But I guess they’re just trying to stand off the edges. She’s basically like the evil scientist for a James Bond villain who’s controlling an army of brainwashed girls, and the army is one out of 20 girls that they have captured and tried to train. So 19 out of 20 are killed. So they say, yeah.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: So, like, she’s horrible. She’s an awful, awful, complicit person. So maybe we’re just trying to not think about that.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. Oh well, no, I think about the political prisoners. And Rachel Weisz is complicity with and a global conspiracy to enslave women, to kill political people across the world. So.
Greg: And the same goes for David Harbor. Like, he’s hilarious and he’s put on some weight, and his red guardian suit doesn’t fit the way it used to. And at every moment he’s undercutting it with humor in then comical Russian accent. But like, who he really is? Is this also complicit, horrible Russian person?
Joe:
Greg: Yeah. He’s been doing horrible things and cheers on his daughters for like the river of blood that they have.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Spilled in the name of Russia.
Joe: Pretty rough stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
Greg: It’s a lot to juggle.
Joe: I feel like those are the moments where like it could have been if it wasn’t in the Marvel Universe. It’s a darker movie and you to lean more into that aspect of things. But because it’s in the Marvel Universe you have to kind of gloss over some of that and just kind of keep it at a surface level.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: This reminds me of our shooter episode where Fuqua was trying to allude to atrocities in Africa, but he was doing it in the form of a mark Wahlberg movie.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And he just kind of openly said, in a movie like this, you can’t talk about these things.
Joe:
Greg: But it’s what was on my mind that’s it’s similar.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: It’s a similar balance in this one there, there’s some very deep heavy dark things.
Joe: And.
Greg: They’re almost joking past like when they’re talking about how they had hysterectomies.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And they were girls because they were soldiers.
Joe:
Greg: And it’s almost funny the way Florence Pugh is describing it.
Joe: Yeah. Rough. That’s rough. Yeah.
Greg: But they can control you know pigs. So it’s it’s silly.
Joe: Yeah. It’s makes us. Yeah.
Greg: It’s also super disturbing.
Joe: That.
Greg: She makes that pig stop breathing and then it almost dies.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: But just in case you forgot what kind of movie you’re watching, not only is this the kind of movie where there’s just Big Bo, you know, like, cinematic booms when, light shines through the window, it makes.
Joe: Them.
Greg: The loudest. But noise, like a light makes a noise helicopter right outside the window or whatever, that kind of like. Yeah, Harrier jet that’s outside the window. Silence. Can’t hear that. But the light, it shines so the window makes the loudest noise in history.
Joe: Right. Yeah. That’s awesome. I forgot about that.
Greg: And we’re back to an action comic book movie.
Joe: Shall we get to the back of the box so people know what kind of movie they’re in for?
Greg: I think that’s a great point. There’s a chance that people listening to this have not seen Black Widow. And so let’s pretend they’re going to Blockbuster Video. They’re walking down the aisles. They’re picking up box after box reading the back to see if that’s what they’re in the mood for. Joe, I think it’s time for the back of the box.
Joe: All right, so you’re in Blockbuster Video. Here is like 1998. You pick up Black Widow and you look at it. This is what I have.
Joe: It’s the back of the box on the run and fighting for her life. Natasha Romanoff Scarlett Johansson must reconnect with her family in her quotes to defeat the shadowy figure behind the Red room, who has an army of black widows under his control. She must fight to free them from his grips before time runs out. But can’t you learn to trust her undercover former Black Widow sister, or will they kill each other in the process?
Joe: The fate of the world hangs in the balance as she looks to avenge capital A on that, avenge her lost childhood and make up for lost time with her sister. That’s the back of the box.
Greg: That’s really good. It’s almost better than the movie, to be honest.
Joe: I leaned in heavy on that one, so I enjoyed writing that one.
Greg: Okay, so that is like that. We could sell that. Let’s let’s send that to ourselves certified mail, so that no one can steal that, because Marvel is going to use that at some point on a reissue, a steelbook reissue. But, Joe, if you were to add some stank on that, if you were to put your own opinion into this, what’s the real back of the box?
Joe: All right, the real box, the boxes. It’s a good Marvel movie. Not a great one. Not a bad one, but a good one. When they deliver some fun action and calculated. We haven’t had a laugh in so many minutes. Formula that Marvel has perfected. If you are a marvel fan, you’ll love how they fill in the story. If you’re not, it may be a struggle.
Joe: The cast certainly helps elevate this movie, otherwise it would veer into B-movie territory.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, it is kind of a glorified B-movie, isn’t it?
Joe: Yeah. To me it’s. Yeah, as we’ve talked about, like because it’s in the Marvel Universe, there are things that it can’t do. They won’t go super dark with them. It’s a comic book, popcorn big dumb movie, as you said, you know? So if it wasn’t in that universe, I feel like it could go a little darker. There’s a lot of dark themes within it.
Joe: Yeah. And keep, you know, the action sequences to make it maybe a little bit more grittier. And like, as you said, lower to the ground. It’s like, yeah, I think that’s where I really loved extraction. And extraction too, is like they have the scenes or they really do feel kind of gritty and you’re in it and you’re not quite sure what’s going to happen.
Joe: And they’re trying something a little different. Like I’d like to see them do us try to do a single shot. 20 minutes. Last action scene time. Yeah. Shot.
Greg: I bet they could have. I don’t know why they didn’t.
Joe: I mean, it’s to me it’s like because it’s a marvel movie. They can’t veer too much out of the what’s out of character for the universe.
Greg: I think this movie was quite out of character, though. This movie does kind of stand out, doesn’t it? Not to the degree that, like Logan does.
Joe: Right.
Greg: You know, that’s a marvel movie.
Joe:
Greg: But it was in the Fox thread of things and it was rated R. Is that kind of what you think this movie should have been is like a funnier but also darker I think.
Joe: So it’s like it has to kind of play it straight down the middle and a lot of ways where there are moments where it could go kind of darker, could have kind of gone John Wick with kind of the action scenes or. Yeah, or extraction or, you know, Logan, as you say, they’re trying to fit it in, like in a very specific time period within the timeline of the Marvel movies.
Joe: So they can’t really go too crazy with it. Yeah. I’m trying to think of what this one stands out to me for sure. It’s in the upper tier. I feel like the Winter soldier. It’s probably the best just straight up action movie within the Marvel Universe.
Greg: And she was also one of the main people in that movie as well, right?
Joe: Yeah. And she’s great. And that was.
Greg: Great. Yeah.
Joe: You know, Thor Ragnarok is awesome.
Greg: The best.
Joe: One. Yeah, the best one. And the first, like straight up comedy. It’s legitimately funny to me like that movie is and this is, it’s probably in that upper tier. I’m not the biggest fan of Infinity War and Endgame. I probably need to rewatch them, but they kind of. I know we were building to those. I did like The Avengers, the first one and Age of Ultron I think is a great one as well.
Joe: Wow, I might be on an island on that.
Greg: I think you’re unique in that one. Yeah, you’re literally floating in the sky in Sokovia. Yeah, and that one.
Joe: I’ll take it. I did enjoy that. So I feel like from an action movie, like Big dumb Marvel movie, I enjoyed both of those. The last two kind of Endgame and and Infinity War. I lost the thread on it.
Greg: I mean, like I was saying, like 10% of me can bring and knowledge or care about the MCU to this movie, that movie, you have to have like a 90% interest in all the connecting threads to enjoy them, I think. And I that’s something I don’t like about those. And that’s something I do like about this one. You know, it’s kind of on its own terms.
Greg: You could be cynical and say, well, it needs to set up Florence Pugh as the next Black Widow. But the whole time this movie’s going on, that didn’t occur to me that that’s what they were doing. I was just like, wow, she is stealing this movie based on merit. Not yeah.
Joe: Anything else? Yeah.
Greg: So you mentioned Age of Ultron and they mentioned the Sokovia Accords. Quite a few times in this movie, which is the main time that I go, oh, was I supposed to Google something before I watch this movie? I don’t think I understood what the Sokovia Accords were back then. I still don’t understand. I don’t think I could explain to you Civil War, and I don’t need anyone to explain it to me.
Joe: Just to let you know. Yeah, I don’t.
Greg: Care. But I never quite understood why people were upset at each other.
Joe: I will say I have only seen many of these movies once. Yeah, I couldn’t tell you what the Sokovia Accords are either, except that they set off the beginning of Age of Ultron. And also, I thought Civil War was. Well, there are some good action scenes, and that was just navel gazing at its best. And like, why is this?
Joe: Why? Wait, what? Like I felt like, well, we have to do this because it was in the comic books and we want to make the V people that love the comic books happy like that. But yeah, it did not to me further anything except for we want to show that Captain America and Iron Man hate each other. And that’s what I got from that movie.
Greg: Which I never believed.
Joe: Yeah. And then they were introducing Black Panther as a character and okay, trying to give him. But I hated that movie.
Greg: I really dislike that I’m even bringing this up. But for the people who are listening to this and screaming at their treadmill that they’re on right now.
Joe: Or.
Greg: Hopefully they aren’t at work and the cubicle next door is wondering what’s happening. Wasn’t Sokovia the thing that happened at the end of Age of Ultron? And a lot of people in that town died, and then it was like, we need to have the Avengers under government oversight. Is that what the Accords were? Wasn’t it a response to the end of Age of Ultron?
Joe: It could have been. I have no idea.
Greg: Okay, that was a test I failed. That’s what just happened there. You hooked me in, and then I had to try.
Joe: Yeah, I really don’t think you’re right. I think you’re right, though. I think it is at the end.
Greg: It’s like the city thing that. Yeah, that your Age of Ultron tech is on right now.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. For those of you who love this universe and know it better than us right. We apologize for not knowing this better and also oh well.
Greg: But this is the conversation that needed to happen in 2024. This is what everybody was asking us for.
Joe: I mean, yeah.
Greg: Our inbox was just.
Joe: Stuffed with.
Greg: Request for this episode. And by that, I mean, I don’t think people know that we have an email address. It’s great that movies show at gmail.com. We read all of the emails.
Joe: Please email us at.
Greg: Great Bad Movies show on Instagram if you want to hear what our next movie is going to be. And obviously, if you ever want to know anything about our show, great bad movies.com. When the attack on the house happens after the 24 minutes of family time and the light makes the loudest noise coming from a Harrier jet that’s right outside the window.
Joe: Right.
Greg: A silent that house fight. And there’s all these agents kind of attacking the house. I think they were widows. Were they widows? It seems like whenever a henchman show up in this movie, they’re widows. Except at the end.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Which is kind of cool. That actually reminded me there are all these just amazing hench people who are the widows. It’s a bummer that they are not in control of themselves, but also it reminded me of what was the group that Angelina Jolie led and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, where it was like the female spy group wasn’t like a spy group.
Greg: And it was. It was all women.
Joe: Yes, but I cannot remember.
Greg: And now we’ll get to Mr. and Mrs. Smith. You kidding.
Joe: Me? Or is it wanted? Which is also a movie we all for sure got to with. Yeah. Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy.
Greg: Morgan Freeman, Morgan Freeman. Yeah. Terence Stamp I want to say common was in that movie.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Chris Pratt shows up. He’s like one of the coworkers in the office.
Joe: Awesome. Yeah. Or you can bend bullets.
Greg: We’ve all been.
Joe: There. Yeah. It’s awesome.
Greg: What if the person’s behind the building? You just curve the bullet?
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: Anyways, that house attack scene that happens was so much better than the house attack and shooter.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I just realized, wow, this is a really. This is a good movie. You know, we just watched shooter recently, and this movie is better than that in a lot of ways. Good bonafides going on here. Well, and then they take them to the Red room and the red room when that title goes on the on the screen, it is the loudest.
Greg: It’s the best one of all of them. And at that moment I thought, I wonder what the Red room is.
Joe: Yeah, I know, and I had shades of Cloud City from Empire Strikes Back as well. But that’s, you know, nobody knows where it is. While he’s above the radar is what they say, because it’s a floating city type of henchmen. Central.
Greg: It’s totally an old school James Bond bad guy. Yeah. You know, that’s like in a volcano. Or it’s like Doctor Evil’s layer in any of the Austin Powers.
Joe:
Greg: It’s so quintessential James Bond that I.
Joe: Was like, oh.
Greg: Awesome. I hope this thing blows up at the end. And guess what.
Joe: Totally. That’s us. Yeah yeah. Don’t worry.
Greg: You were not a James Bond movie unless a big bad guy layer was up at the end. So yeah, we get to the red room. I mean, this is kind of like ground zero for the horribleness that they’ve been describing all the way throughout this movie. And we really get to spend some time with Ray Winstone, and he ends up being like, legitimately a James Bond bad guy.
Greg: Are he is so over the top. He is good. The script that they handed him, he is bad because of this and bad because of that. And just, you know, has like this whole presentation of all the the widows that are around the world and he just he can activate them at any time. He has like a pheromones lock on all of them so they can’t hurt him.
Greg: We learned that when.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: The mom and dad have suddenly turned good after a lifetime of working for the bad guy.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Completely unexplained.
Joe: Don’t worry about it. Let’s just go with that.
Greg: Whole family. Goes up to the red room, though, and decides to take him down.
Joe: Yeah, they let him have a big monologue. The only thing he was missing was a big, fluffy white cat on his lap. Yeah, well, he missed a Blofeld moment, but other than that, he is leaning heavily into a James Bond villain. It’s awesome.
Greg: He knows what he’s doing, and they know what he’s doing is I mean, they she’s watching Moonraker in this movie. I mean, they know what they’re doing.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I also would have accepted a hairless cat, by the way, like white, fluffy or hairless either. Okay. Bad cat. Yeah. What do you think of the pheromones? Like where Scarlett Johansson can’t shoot him. Can’t stab him?
Joe: I thought it was a little silly. But it allows us to, like, delve into her character of, you know, she can take a punch and you’ve got to sever the nerve in the nose to right, not smell the pheromones and then she can kill him and. Right. So I thought it was a little contrived as plot point, but I didn’t like it wasn’t, like, bothersome either.
Joe: It was just like, a little silly to me. They could have done that a million different ways. But. Yeah, well, I guess they were trying to demonstrate the hold and the control that he has on all of his widows.
Greg: Yeah. So I liked the seven the nerve thing he like hits her a bunch.
Joe: And.
Greg: Then she smashes her nose against the desk to sever in the nerve so that she can’t smell him any anymore, so she can take him down.
Joe:
Greg: And I just thought, I wonder if we were to go back to 1909 when women were going for the votes. I wonder if there’s some author who was talking about severing some kind of nerve. For women’s suffrage. I bet you could find something like that. When it happened, I was like, I freaking love this. I bet, I bet you go back.
Greg: There’s some meaning.
Joe: There, right?
Greg: I trust the people making this movie enough that this is stupid. But it’s also, I bet they’re alluding to something here that it seems like is the theme of this movie.
Joe: I can see that 100%.
Greg: I’m probably overthinking it, but whether or not I was like, I trust these people that there’s something here, and I kind of like it, you know? It’s also badass that she just breaks her nose so that she severs the nerve. You know?
Joe: Yeah. And then resets her nose, and then they take the prosthetic off, like, instantly. Right. So it’s fine. Yeah. It’s fine. No swelling, no nothing. No.
Greg: She didn’t need a drink. She didn’t take a shower. So like all of our big great bad movie reasoning of how our first agonist gets better all of a sudden.
Joe: Yep, is out the window.
Greg: Marvels like, just forget it. She resets it. She’s fine. Anyways, it falls apart pretty fast at this point in the movie. It really just becomes a bond movie. We don’t understand why the parents are suddenly good, but we just go with it. They read a bunch of the widows so they are freed. Melina, Rachel Weisz shoots one thing and it falls through one of the turbines that’s keeping the floating city floating.
Greg: Yeah. And so she says, we’re going to start going through a controlled descent or something. So, yeah, we start the longest ending scene in history.
Joe: Yeah, we’re.
Greg: They’re falling and fighting.
Joe: Yeah. It’s awesome. I know it’s ridiculous. Yeah. And it’s a CGI fast as you say. Yeah. But it was one of those moments. I was like, I’m here for it. Okay. Yeah. You know, it’s one of those. It’s like in shooter when he shows the picture of his wife and it’s like, oh, Donnie, you’re so dead. Donnie. You pick the word, it’s like, oh, we have a floating city.
Joe: I bet this is going to crash. Yeah. How is it going to explode? And it does. And then they have a great fight scene as they’re falling through space, right? Multiple times. Scarlett Johansson’s flying without a parachute. Then she gets Florence Pugh and gets her in a parachute and then goes back up to fight the person and then like so it’s awesome.
Joe: It’s an awesome shot.
Greg: That I’m sure there are all kinds of digital things to it, but she grabs a parachute and then jumps over a rail to fall towards Florence Pugh, who has just taken out Draco’s plane or whatever and is now falling, and Scarlett Johansson, like, grabs the parachute and jumps over this railing and just starts falling. And it looks real enough to me.
Greg: I’m sure it was some kind of stunt that was done with a green screen, but it looks awesome. It’s incredible. And then she gives the parachute to Florence Pugh and then starts fighting with Taskmaster.
Joe: Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah, yeah.
Greg: I was watching this with our friend drew down in the Bay area when I was visiting them, and, Drew’s wife, Megan fell asleep during this part twice. And she was like, oh my gosh, they’re still falling. I just woke up like the second time. That’s how long the scene is. You can drift off twice during it.
Joe: Yeah, it’s definitely, shades of fast six with the longest runway in the world.
Greg: By 100%.
Joe: But, you know, when you hit this point in the movie, it’s just like, okay, let’s just lean in and sit back and enjoy the ride.
Greg: So I remember when I saw this in the theater as the scene was happening, I was like, of course the big third act, stupid action scene is happening. That’s a CGI fest, but I’m all in on this thing. This is what I signed up for when I came here, and they’ve given me so much more than I thought I was going to get to chew on, to enjoy, to appreciate.
Greg: This is great, I love this, I know it has to happen and I’m okay with it.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And then when they get down to the ground, she gets to Florence Pugh and Florence Pugh is looking at her upside down. She says we’re both upside down, which is a callback to the opening movie when when they were little. I kind of choked up a little bit at that moment is pretty good stuff. Pretty good stuff.
Greg: And then, Olga from Quantum of Solace, you know, she gets red in the face, and so she’s no longer under mind control, and she just starts crying and says, is he gone? I think it’s what she asks.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Scarlett Johansson has, like, her forehead against her, and she says yes. And I was just like, wow, this is like a real.
Joe: Real.
Greg: It’s not hard to draw a line from a stupid comic book movie to like a real trauma, you know?
Joe: Yeah, I think they do a good job of her because you think that the big fight scene is going to be between, and that she’s got to kill Olga Kurylenko character, right? Right. But she’s trying to save her and does, you know, and that was a little bit of a twist for me of like, they, they fight, but she’s not trying to kill her.
Joe: She’s trying to save her and is able to like break the spell with the spray. So I appreciated that.
Greg: Taskmaster is is a mimic. And I think they changed who Taskmaster is from the comics, but the idea is the same. Whenever Taskmaster fights somebody, they can exactly copy their fighting style afterwards. So they have, like all of the skill of everybody they’ve ever watched or fought. When they do that a couple times where like Taskmaster and Scarlett Johansson do the same, flip and land the same way and whatever.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I wondered if they were going to do something at the end where when Scarlett Johansson is not attacking and saying, I’m not going to fight you. Taskmaster would learn to mimic grace and and forgiveness or something. You know, it didn’t quite go there, but I wondered if that. No, I wondered if that was something they were going to go for there.
Joe: Yeah. That probably would have been a better ending actually. Yeah. Yeah.
Greg: There is a nice moment when the whole family gets together at the end there on the ground. Scarlett Johansson asks David Harbor do you have anything to say? And he says I would just ruin it and holds her hand. For a minute. I thought that was a really sweet moment.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I still was like, I, I really don’t. I love these parents. I love this family. I don’t understand how there’s two scenes missing in this movie. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah, we’re filling in a lot of, like, oh, they’re just like, okay, with all the like this that’s happened. All right, all right, totally fine. We’ll move on.
Greg: Right. So I’m sure there’s all kinds of things that have happened in this movie and things that they’re alluding to that connected to either Civil War or Infinity War. Like she dies her hair blond, which I think shows that she changed her hair for that movie or whatever.
Joe:
Greg: She gets like a jet at the end, I don’t understand. Was that something important.
Joe: I don’t know probably, I probably yeah.
Greg: And so then she goes off and then we get to it’s a marvel movie. So there’s a post-credit scene.
Joe: I missed the post-credits scene. Oh right. Yeah. What is the post-credits scene?
Greg: Florence Pugh is at Scarlett Johansson’s gravesite, so it kind of cuts forward the current day. And the gravestone, by the way, says, like daughter sister Avenger.
Joe:
Greg: And then has the Black Widow X icon. It’s like wow branding on the.
Joe: On my gravestone.
Greg: Nice work Disney.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: But then it turns out that Elaine from Seinfeld is standing next to.
Joe: Her mom.
Greg: And they know each other. And I think they had maybe met in something before this movie came out. I’m not sure this is where I kind of stopped. I didn’t see all the shows. I was very selectively watching the movies. I decided to stop trying to hold on to every thread.
Joe:
Greg: So I think they had met. But anyways, in the scene, Elaine, I can only call her Elaine.
Joe: From Seinfeld.
Greg: Hands or an iPad and said, well, I have your next mission for you and shows her a picture on the iPad and says, I thought you might want to go after the person that killed your sister. And it’s Hawkeye. And so they’re setting up that Florence Pugh is going to be in the Hawkeye show.
Joe: Right?
Greg: Which is basically like a marvel diehard. It’s like takes place over Christmas.
Joe: I like that. I don’t remember it very well.
Greg: I remember really liking it. So this is my problem with Marvel. I’m like, I’m out. And then I watch something and it gets me kind of like I was pretty good. And I go back and watch. Everything that I’ve missed is like, yeah, that was great. I don’t need it again for a while.
Joe: But yeah.
Greg: I go through these spurts, you know? So I like to Hawkeye. I’m sure I’ll go back and watch Captain America and Winter soldier.
Joe:
Greg: I haven’t watched Loki, I haven’t watched Secret Invasion. I haven’t watched a ton of that stuff.
Joe: Yeah, I’ve watched the first season of Loki. I haven’t watched the second. The first season is amazing.
Greg: Yeah, that’s what I heard.
Joe: I watched whatever the one with the Winter soldier and the new Captain America. Yeah, yeah, that was pretty good. Wasn’t amazing, but.
Greg: I really liked WandaVision. The two people who wrote that have a story by credit, I think on this movie, they kind of came up with a bunch of it. I mean, if you get great actors in these things, I’m probably gonna watch them. So Catherine Hahn’s in the new one. Agatha something or other.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: She’s awesome. Of course. I’m gonna watch Kathryn Hahn in something.
Joe:
Greg: Well, let’s talk a little bit about the critical reception and the box office. Let’s start with the box office. This movie had a production budget of $200 million. And in July of 2021 it made 379 million worldwide. This movie was bumped three times because of Covid, and it also came out, I think, the day it came out in theaters, it also came out for $30 on Disney Plus.
Greg: That was the thing they were doing over Covid.
Joe: I vaguely remember that. Yeah.
Greg: So like, you and your family could watch it and not go to a theater.
Joe:
Greg: And that’s why Scarlett Johansson sued Disney. Because they were taking money from the Disney Plus side and not counting that as income for the movie.
Joe: Oh interesting.
Greg: So she sued them and none of the details were public. But it’s been reported in some places that they, it was about $40 million that she got from them, 40 million more dollars that she got from them. So not a success, although I think it did pretty well compared to other things that were coming out in kind of a Covid time.
Greg: What do you think critics gave this movie? On Rotten Tomatoes?
Joe: This feels like a 74 million critics score, but that might be audience score. But I feel like this is probably pretty high. I feel like I did pretty well, so maybe not the joke answer that. We always give that everything as a 70, even though everything is a 70 in our mind. Yeah, I would say it’s like an 85.
Greg: This is a 79.
Joe: 89. Okay. Yeah.
Greg: So yeah, I think it’s a little is nine high probably. It feels about it feels about like a 70. It was.
Joe: Like it was like a 70 is.
Greg: A slam dunk 70 movie.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Audience score on this 191%. People really liked this movie. It’s only 10,000 users, which is very low for a movie. So, you know, that could have been made by bots or whatever. But I also did really like this movie, and I feel like, you know, people who are kind of lukewarm on Marvel movies, but like Jason Bourne movies or Mission Impossible.
Joe: Yeah, or.
Greg: Little Women.
Joe: Or.
Joe: Little women too. This time in the personal.
Greg: Yeah, exactly. I mean, there’s so many places where movies that I liked because I like those movies. I would like this one. Let’s talk a little bit about the critical reception of this movie. One of my favorite reviewers, Amy Nicholson, she writes for The New York Times. Now, back then she was writing for KPCC, NPR in Los Angeles.
Greg: She said, I appreciate the way that Cate Shortland adapts herself well into an action movie. This is one of the individual MCU films that I would keep.
Joe: I’d agree with.
Greg: That. Yeah. Austin Chronicle says Black Widow gives Marvel’s super spy the callback filled swan song that she and the loyal audience deserve.
Joe: Yeah, maybe a little too high praise, but yeah.
Greg: The Atlantic says the film ceases to be about Natasha wrestling with her heroism by pitting her against a raging misogynist. Black widow tries to simplistically cast Natasha as a pop feminist icon.
Joe: Oh. Allow it. It’s a it’s maybe a little too too thoughtful. Yeah. Trying too hard on that. Okay, okay.
Greg: This is one of my favorite ones. Melanie McFarland for Salon.com and all the ways that matter to an MCU fan, Black Widow the film meets or exceeds all expectations. It is a killer action flick and a unique viewing experience in that I loved it, and the fact that I loved it also makes me livid.
Joe: I like that.
Greg: This is my very favorite one. Deborah Ross from The Spectator says more women is its only decent idea. Otherwise it’s business as usual. Otherwise it’s all formulaic. Bish bash. Yeah, which would be a great name for this show, by the way. Formulaic Bish bash. That’s.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: If we ever need another one.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: As she goes on, that mean smash crash action scenes broken up by lame jokes and lame philosophizing along the lines of your pain only makes you stronger.
Joe:
Greg: So formulaic. Bish bash. She really didn’t like it, but I.
Joe: Thought, yeah, well.
Greg: I do love formulaic mish mash movies.
Joe: So yeah I mean yeah that could legitimately be the, the name of this podcast.
Greg: So yeah I’ll just finish with time magazine. Pursuit of the nameless. Something just out of reach is the motor that keeps Black Widow worrying. If nothing else, it puts the self-serious quest for a dumb jeweled glove in perspective. Yeah.
Joe: All right. Yeah.
Greg: I like that review a lot.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Okay, Joe, we’ve gotten through so much about this movie, but I think it’s time for us to move on to drinking games.
Joe: Let’s do it. Oh, well, I like that a lot. I’m going to need that sound effect in just my daily life. I think.
Joe: All right. So again these are drinking games. We have our stock drinking games. You don’t have to be drinking alcohol. You could be drinking coffee water soda milk whatever you want. So our first one is a silent helicopter or just a helicopter. We’ve kind of amended this one low flying helicopter shot of a helicopter. So you’re drinking on this one because there’s also conversations in a helicopter with and without headphones.
Joe: Amazing. Where you’re just not quite sure how loud it is and why they can be having this perfect conversation. Right. Where are they at one point? Need you to wear headphones and then they take them off. It’s awesome.
Greg: It’s so much louder. And that very front part, apparently. Yeah. And then one foot back, we’re good. We’re taking these off.
Joe: Yeah. Pushing and enhance. We don’t have a classic one, but I did give this one to you. We have kind of where they show the widows across the globe and where they are. So that’s kind of it’s a it’s maybe a little bit of a cop out, but we’ll allow it. We do not have a when people share, a slow motion look in the middle of chaos or an explosion with silent suffering and ringing in the ears, there was many more opportunities for that.
Joe: So opening credits scene where the, locks in place with the sound 100%. They do. It does? Yeah. They have kind of like that washing sound that you just played. Okay. And then you also, I also gave you credit for the Marvel opening and right at the beginning where it kind of flashes through, does it flashback to dialog?
Joe: There is a flashback in this, a few times.
Greg: So not to scenes that we’ve seen though, right?
Joe: Yeah, but there’s flashbacks in it.
Greg: So there are flashbacks. Yeah. So if there’s a flashback, take a drink.
Joe: Yeah, take a drink. There’s CGI, close calls, all over the place in there, especially in the last part of this.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And then just great bad shots everywhere you look. And this. Anytime a bad guy is shooting at you, they are almost killing you a million times. But just missing.
Greg: All you have to do is run. And a person with a machine gun cannot show you.
Joe: Exactly.
Greg: It’s a great.
Joe: But if you’re in a helicopter, you just completely ignore the fact that they’re shooting at you, and then you shoot them with, right, with a grenade launcher or whatever it is. So no inextricably wet streets? No. Give us the room and no Interpol references. So those are our stock. All right. Thanks. Reinhardt. I posed to you. What is your first drinking game that you came up with?
Greg: Okay. Any time a new location name is on the screen with a sound effect.
Joe: Oh, I love that. Yeah.
Greg: How about you?
Joe: I have Marvel comedic moment, so anytime they break the tension with a laugh, take a drink.
Greg: This might happen more in this movie than any other movie.
Joe: Yeah, in the Marvel Universe, Thor Ragnarok might be the one that you would not want to put this one up against, but this is the like second funniest one for sure.
Greg: Yeah, and much like Ragnarok, this movie is legitimately funny. Yeah, anytime someone is red in the face.
Joe: Oh yeah, I have that one too. I have aerated spray shots as definitely one that I. Okay, yeah, you have a cool sound effect that I do. So.
Joe: I have, anytime there’s a superhero landing pose with the hair flip that Florence Pugh makes fun of. Yes. Or take a drink.
Greg: And then she does it and has that. She’s like, that felt disgusting or something like that. Yeah. Anytime someone says Sokovia Accords.
Joe: Yeah. That’s awesome. I have any time there’s a shot of the vials of The Cure before they become R-rated. Make a train.
Greg: Hilarious that people are looking for those in there, like bright red lights.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Yeah, I’m sure Taskmaster could see exactly where Scarlett Johansson was when she fell off that bridge and was in the river. Yeah. Oh, there’s those red lights. I was looking.
Joe: For the thing.
Greg: Even if they’re in a bag, you’re still going to see the red lights. Anytime someone says Avenger.
Joe: Oh, man, you are drinking a lot. You’re getting a lot. I feel like.
Greg: That’s like five.
Joe: Oh, I think it’s more than that. Oh, yeah. Because they talk about, I mean, the whole point of why they’re trying to get Natasha back or Scarlett Johansson back is because she’s an Avenger. He can control the Avengers with her under his.
Greg: Sure. Okay, well, maybe split it with somebody.
Joe: Yeah, or drink the orange juice. Yeah, whatever you want. I have any time they’re hiding an event or sneaking through event, take a drink.
Greg: That also made me think. She keeps saying, like, Clint and I were here eight years ago. She keeps talking about eight years ago.
Joe:
Greg: And that makes me go. Was there something.
Joe: Else? What happened eight years ago I don’t why was she here anyways.
Greg: Oh and my next one is any time you feel like you should have watched a couple more Marvel movies or shows to understand what they’re talking about.
Joe: That is constant in this movie. I feel like, yeah, I have any time there’s a James Bond reference, take a drink.
Greg: Oh, okay. So we’ve got Moonraker.
Joe: Yeah, we’ve.
Greg: Got the Henchman Slayer getting exploded at.
Joe: The end. You have the bad guy and his speech. You have him, you know, the monologue and how he is. I have another one that’s kind of in line with that. Was shots of his ring. So, like, I feel like Blofeld had a ring on his finger. Sure. And the ring kind of plays is like how she is able to like, hack into the computer and download everything.
Joe: But that to me was another James Bond reference. I’ll try to remember the other one.
Greg: Okay. Any time they say Red room.
Joe: Oh that’s a good one. You’re drinking a lot with that one. Any, any time there’s a shot of a hidden wall with weapons on it, you take a drink.
Greg: That’s a perfect for almost every movie we.
Joe: Watch, right? Yeah.
Greg: Anytime they say Red Guardian.
Joe: Oh.
Greg: Or a variation of Red Guardian, they say like crimson something at one point.
Joe: Yeah, yeah, I have every time Marvel. Slightly odd use and decades off use of music. Take a drink. Sure, she might be just for me, so I’ll take that one.
Greg: That Nirvana cover, though, the kind of the emotional smells like Teen Spirit. Yeah. Pretty great opening credits.
Joe: Really great.
Greg: Let’s see. Anytime they say family.
Joe: Oh, that’s a good one.
Greg: And that’s my last one. What else do you have?
Joe: I have the one time they have a John Woo Dove moment.
Greg: 100% before they have a John Woo like gun.
Joe: Off in the kitchen. Yeah. And then I have oh anytime you think you’re watching a mission impossible movie take a drink.
Greg: That’s awesome. All right. So, Joe, should we get to Joe’s trope lightning round, also known as signs. You might be watching a great bad movie.
Joe: Oh, nice. Yes, we should. So I won’t go through the ones that isn’t. But I have her as the best at something, so she’s like the best black widow in this. She’s kind of a reluctant hero. She’s trying to get away, just live a quiet life and escape. Yeah, but then revenge or avenging, which always reminds me of Ralph Wiggum.
Joe: If you remember The Simpsons and Schoolhouse of Terror when they do a hamlet. Oh my gosh. Okay. And he is so in the weeds, but he is the son of, I think, Polonius who has died and is like, I love avenging things or I love revenging things is what his line is, imagining things.
Greg: Perfect.
Joe: So and then we had yeah. So revenge is a driver and then redemption. So she’s also trying to kind of save herself. And we have amazing recovery time. She takes a lot of damage and doesn’t seem to get hurt at all, but doesn’t have any superpowers. Yeah, she’s helped out of the room at the end by Florence Pugh.
Joe: And she’s like, they like fight off all the Black Widows. And then they save them with the spray. Right? And then she’s like limping. And then all of a sudden she’s parachuting out and fighting just fine.
Greg: So that was a question mark for me. Like she’s when she falls a couple stories, she’s like hitting dumpsters and like, yeah, I really like this one. She gets beat up.
Joe: Yeah, a lot, but doesn’t seem to matter.
Greg: Yeah. It was some like pain inhibitor or something I don’t know.
Joe: Yeah. And then we have medical care from a love interest or a friend. So she helps Florence Pugh who gets cut or stabbed. Yeah. Patched up. And then I’ve added a new one. I texted you this a new trope is downloading a file under pressure is what I have. You know, where there’s, like, lots of time and they’ve got a, you know, you they’re showing like, percentage completion and like, when are they going to make it right.
Joe: That’s so in every movie we rewatch stuff.
Greg: Oh, I did love by the way. Speaking of that, it’s usually like a USB. Yeah. But in this movie, in the beginning, in the 90s, it’s like they have like an old, like disk drive disk.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I loved that. Yeah, I love it. It’s like a huge.
Joe: Disk a three and a half by five inch, you know. Classic.
Greg: Right. Amazing.
Joe: So those are our our trope lightning round.
Greg: All right. Well Joe no one else is going to do this. So I think it’s time for us to finally ask some important questions about this movie. Are you ready for important questions?
Joe: I’m ready.
Greg: Okay. Great. Did this movie hold up then?
Joe: I think so, I think it did. I think I’ll just say yes.
Greg: And, does it hold up now?
Joe: I think pretty well. Okay. Maybe a little less because we’re I do feel like we’re in a different era with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And so it definitely is not at the heyday of endgame and all of that, where it was a big deal of what was happening within that. So I feel like we’re resetting. So we’re in a reset moment.
Greg: Yeah. I feel like right now I have very low expectations for a marvel movie. And so going back and watching this kind of like we had a pretty good this was a pretty good entry into this series.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Okay. How hard do they sell the good guy.
Joe: Pretty hard in this of
Greg: Do they talk about her quite a bit that she’s the best at this or that.
Joe: I’m maybe not. I’m trying to remember. I feel like there’s enough. Maybe I’m just remembering the last scene with the bad guy where he’s why he wants her to kind of come back into becoming a black widow. Yeah, maybe they don’t sell her too hard in terms of her skills.
Greg: I bet we could go back to, like, whatever movie she was introduced in, and they probably sell her a bit there. You know, some government agency is saying Natasha Romanoff is, you know, the greatest there ever was from the Black Widow.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: How hard do they sell the bad guy?
Joe: I guess now, thinking about it more than they sell the good guy or the good. Yeah. And then I.
Greg: Just have, like, six out of ten.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: They talk about them, but it’s, you know, we don’t really understand the full weight and measure of who he is and how bad it is until he explains it.
Joe: And yeah.
Greg: At the end there was a deleted scene or, gag reel thing where he says to, I think it’s, Scarlett Johansson. He says, don’t interrupt me while I’m acting. And the laughing.
Greg: Why is there romance in this movie?
Joe: I mean, there isn’t. They kind of want to have a little bit of tension between her and the person who procures stuff for her and Mason. Yeah. Mason. There’s like, a little bit of, like, a flirtatious little bit.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Kind of more coming from him than from her. Yeah. But that’s it. That’s nice.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: It’s like I mean I, I.
Greg: Did like that. He asks her you know, how are you doing. And she says something. Whatever they say back and forth to each other about friends.
Joe: I’m actually better on my own. Are you sure. Yeah. Because you can tell me you know, that’s the way the whole friends thing works. You know, I have friends. People who have friends don’t call me.
Greg: They’re very sweet. They’re scenes that I found really effective, but, Yeah, yeah, I think the central relationship of this movie is mostly her and her sister.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Maybe a little bit. The parents as well. Does this movie deserve a sequel?
Joe: I would watch any sequel with Florence Pugh in it. Okay.
Greg: And Thunderbolts has been announced.
Joe: Yeah, Thunderbolts has been happening.
Greg: Which is a group that I think William Hurt’s character puts together.
Joe:
Greg: In the MCU, this movie has David Harbor in it. I think it has Olga. What’s her name from?
Joe: Yeah. Quantum Solace. Yeah. Carly Yanko and I think it also has Elaine from Seinfeld. Yep. It’s kind of the Marvel’s version of Suicide Squad is what it seems like. Yeah.
Greg: And that’s I mean, this is the way great bad movies works. You know, once we set our sights on something, it’s time for a sequel. You know, it’s time for a culture to look at that movie again.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: So, you’re welcome. Everybody. Does this movie deserve a prequel? Now, this movie itself is a prequel. So my question is, does this prequel deserve a prequel?
Joe: No, absolutely not. I I’m barely okay with this prequel, and I know that there are people out there that will like to watch things, and whatever the timeline of the universe is on these things. And yeah, and that I could get behind. But no, it doesn’t need a prequel.
Greg: I think the the world agrees with your attitude about prequels on this one. This shouldn’t have been a prequel. This should have been a movie that came out in 2016.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: A great shame on them for not doing it. Are we bad people for loving this movie?
Joe: I mean, maybe not as bad as we are for watching some of the other ones. This is another you know, this is pretty good. I mean, it’s not it’s not amazing, but it’s it’s a marvel movie. It’s, you know. Yeah. If you hate people who watch Marvel movies and I guess you can hate us. Do.
Greg: Yeah. I don’t feel so bad about this one.
Joe: Yeah, I don’t either.
Greg: Okay, Joe, how can this movie be fixed? AKA who should be in the remake?
Joe: I want to do a full remake with the Jason Bourne characters. So I don’t know exactly how we, we all put it together, but let’s bring the original Jason Bourne cast and recast them into this movie and see what happens. That’s what I want.
Greg: Is Doug Liman directing.
Joe: Sure. Yeah. Doug Liman, as long as we have the second unit director who did edit tomorrow, I’m in.
Greg: Oh, okay. Interesting. Who also did a bunch of bond movies, by the way.
Joe: So there you go. Okay, what about you? How can this movie be fixed?
Greg: Well, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I feel like they need to sell the bad guy a bit more in this one. Or explain the Red room more for me to care about it. I mean.
Joe: He’s he’s.
Greg: Not bad. In fact, I think Ray Winstone is pretty great in this movie, but they just kind of quickly explain how bad he is at the end and then he dies.
Joe:
Greg: I don’t know. There’s a chance that there’s a whole backstory here from other movies that I’m forgetting, so apologies for that MCU if that’s the case. But more importantly than that, why do her parents turn their back on who they’ve been loyal to their entire lives? I mean, these are like brutal Russian agents, and this movie could be fixed by them, each individually having a scene, talking to one or the other.
Greg: Daughter. David Harbor should talk to Florence Pugh, and Rachel Wise should talk to Scarlett Johansson. And there should be just a moment where they’re like, I’m going to help you here. I’m realizing what I’ve done and what I’ve become and, and you know, no more or at the very least like I’m going to help you here. And then we’re going to go back to you’re an Avenger and I’m a Russian agent, you know, some something like that.
Greg: I think that would really fix this movie quite a bit. That would make it much more realistic to me.
Joe: They have the opportunity to do it because they both right before the House is attacked, before they go to the Red room. David Harbor is with Florence Pugh, and they’re kind of they’re singing the song and like having a moment. They just need like that one shot close up of David Harbor as he like, realizes what he’s missed out on in raising her as a father.
Joe: You know, that sort of thing. And similar with, you know, Rachel Weisz and Scarlett Johansson at the table when they’re talking and she says, yeah, I informed, you know, the Red room, they’ll be here any second, you know? Yeah. They didn’t need to add more than 30s to the movie to like, convey that. Yeah. So I’m with you on that.
Greg: Yeah. And even if they had remained loyal to Russia and Florence Pugh and Scarlett Johansson are going their separate way, do like a Rock and Vin Diesel at the end of Fast five. Or it’s like you’ve got 48 hours.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Anyways, I love this movie, but after where it’s kind of thinking about these things, it kind of had weird vibes.
Greg: Or it just has like afterthought vibes where it’s like, why did this come out after endgame?
Joe: I don’t get it. Yeah.
Greg: So this is so dumb. But if we’re going to remake this movie, what if we remade it with an all male version of this movie?
Joe: Come on.
Greg: What are we doing here?
Joe: And after this, women. I mean, let’s get back to our bread and butter.
Greg: No, I actually, you know, I grew up with two older sisters, and so movies like this, movies like Whip It, that Drew Barrymore movie that had Ellen Page. Now Elliot Page about the roller blades, I don’t know, movies like that where it’s almost entirely women. They’re just like joking around and amazing. That’s what my house was like growing up.
Greg: And so, you know, when I’m watching this movie, it’s like, I get this vibe. I love movies like this, you know? So the whole meal version, that’s pretty much all the other movies that have ever been made. So yeah, I’m totally joking. I also think there could be an interesting remake where they recast the entire cast of this movie with the cast of The Americans.
Joe: I that would be awesome.
Greg: Let’s do that. And vice versa. Let’s do a swap where there’s a there’s another episode of The Americans with just the cast of Black Widow. All right. Joe, what album is this movie?
Joe: Oh, this was hard for me. And I ended up having to kind of, again, kind of go a little bit off script and pick a song. And so I wanted to go with a James Bond song. Oh, wow. And then I also wanted to keep it within the Daniel Craig verse. Okay. James Bond, okay. We have Rachel Weisz in there.
Joe: We have Olga Kurylenko from Quantum of Solace, Quantum of Solace of and two obvious choice. It’s got to be a good one. Not the best one. This can’t be Skyfall or Casino Royale. Wow. Which to me are like the high watermarks which are like, so this is specter. That’s the song.
Greg: Oh, it’s Sam Smith.
Joe: Yeah. So Sam Smith’s specter song, that’s what it is. What about for you? What what album is this or song.
Greg: By the way? That’s perfect. That is perfect. Although I like Sam Smith I don’t love that song. Yeah, but I think people should still listen to it on our Spotify playlist. Great bad movies music, which is a hilarious listen, by the way, after all these episodes, it’s a really funny listen. All right, so I decided to go from the angle of, this is the 24th movie in the MCU, and there’s all kinds of baggage and expectations that people are bringing into it.
Greg: And so it’s really interesting to see what they did to refresh it or to stick with some of the old stuff as well. So I decided to go to the 24th studio album by an artist.
Joe: Oh, wow.
Greg: And the first person I thought of was Paul McCartney. What was Paul McCartney’s 24th studio album? And I was so excited to see it. Was the album new, which is an album I actually really love. It is totally the Black Widow of Paul McCartney’s catalog. It’s really good, really good, a little bit different. Also reminiscent of, you know, there’s no point where you’re like, I’ve forgotten why I love Paul McCartney.
Greg: While you listen that album, he’s trying out new stuff. He’s working with Mark Ronson a bit on that album.
Joe: Really.
Greg: Just a great song called Queenie Eye on It that I really love, and the video for that song is actually filmed in Abbey road. Anyways, this album is Paul McCartney’s 24th studio album when it’s called neo. I still listen to every album that Paul McCartney puts out. They’re all worth listening to. It’s really interesting album, new album, how he’s still just vital.
Greg: Okay, so I think I might put Queenie in on our playlist. I might put some else on.
Joe: I don’t know.
Greg: All right, Joe, we’ve come to the time to rate this movie. We have a scale. Great bad movies, good bad movies. Okay. Bad movies, bad bad movies. Worst case scenario, awful bad movies. What is your rating for Black Widow?
Joe: I, I’m guessing we’re going to have, a little bit of a disagreement on this. I have this as on the border between okay and good, but as always. And talking about it, I like it even more. So it’s a good, bad movie for me.
Greg: It’s on the low end. Okay.
Joe: Yeah, it’s a low end. Good, bad movie. You know, they’re pieces that are great. There are pieces that are not. And that’s okay. But I didn’t love it as much as probably you did. Where do you have this? This might be a shooter scenario where I just love shooter.
Greg: So you’re giving it a gentleman’s okay. Bad movie, which makes it a good, bad movie.
Joe: Yes, exactly. Okay. Good man. Okay.
Greg: I just love this movie. I mean, this is a great bad movie to me. I’m generous with the great bad movies, but you know what? I’m fine with formulaic bish bosh.
Joe: Perfect. I’ll allow it.
Greg: I think this movie cost $200 million. It’s made by very creative people. The action crew was incredible, the CGI people incredible. The director that’s making people deliver great internal performances. Incredible. It’s funny whenever it wants to be. I think it’s a great bad movie.
Joe: All right. Now, it’s not.
Greg: The best bad movie.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: All right, Joe, as always, spoilers for Black Widow. Yeah. You know, if you don’t want to have Black Widow spoiled, you should turn this off. Watch the movie and pick it up from right here.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Well, we made it.
Joe: Yeah, we did it. Add the conversation that needed to happen about Black Widow.
Greg: This movie came out in 2021. It was supposed to come out in 2020. But you know, we wanted to give it a couple of years to breathe before we put the lid on it. We’re then talking about Black Widow as a society from now on.
Joe: Yeah. I mean, just listen to this podcast if you want to learn anything about this movie. Otherwise. Yeah. You know, don’t talk about it. Quite frankly.
Greg: We think you should listen to this podcast and at the same time, shut your mouth.
Joe: Yeah. And don’t look us in the eye, but let’s. Yeah. No eye contact.
Greg: So. Oh, that totally reminds me. Oh. Oh my gosh, I just noticed the time. I’m so sorry I this has been great, but, I’ve got to go. After all this time, I think I’m running out of runway, and this plane I’m in is about to take off, so I should go.
Joe: Oh, that’s. That’s interesting. Very, fortuitous. I have to go fly a helicopter, into a prison where they don’t notice me at all for a long time. And then, while there’s an elaborate escape plan happening below me. So that’s that’s good. Good timing.
Greg: Okay. Yeah. I don’t think I’ll be near you. I’m sure what I’m doing has nothing to do with that. I’m taking off in one of the bad guy planes, and they’re silent. I’m going to go up to this house and be right outside the window, and they won’t hear anything until I turn my light on, and it makes a massive noise.
Greg: And, just got some. I just got some people we need to pick up. That’s why you just got to go. Oh.
Joe: Well, that sound like if someone were, you know. Well, hearing the sound of light.
Greg: Well, well, here’s what the just. I mean, just to set the scene. This is what the plane sounds like.
Greg: And then when I turn on the light, it just goes boom.
Joe: It’s, It’s interesting. I’ve got to go. I’m going to go switch between accents for no reason, though. Completely randomly.
Greg: That totally checks out. Okay, well, that makes sense. And actually, that, you know, totally works for me because I need to head to a subway station and try out sliding down between the escalators for once in my life.
Joe: Oh, nice. Nice. That’d be fun. I’m teaching a friend how to say Budapest, so I think that’s awesome.
Greg: I need to go help a bunch of Russian political prisoners out of the snow at a nearby jail. They’ve been trapped there for a little while. Yeah.
Joe: That’s. That’s a humanitarian need right now, for sure. Yeah. I am going to go skydive for an exceptionally long time. So.
Greg: That sounds like a great plan. And actually that works for me because my pig that I have in this house, the mind control iPad app I have is a little buggy and it’s totally messing up on my taxes.
Joe: Oh, that’s that’s too bad. I’ve got to go create a secret room with lots of weapons, but never actually use those. Even when I’m being attacked by endless hordes of bad guys and black widows.
Greg: So full of guns. Only two earpieces. That’s what this movie could have been called.
Joe: Yes, exactly.
Greg: Okay, well, that works for me because I need to go be emotional about how this podcast felt real to me, and no one seems to agree with me about that.
Joe: Okay. That’s good. I’ve got to go learn about, fireflies and catch them while also watching the end of my childhood as we have to leave, Ohio, as I have lived there my entire life.
Greg: It’s always the bioluminescence with you.
Joe: Yes. Nicholas. Right.
Greg: Okay. Well, that. Actually, no, that totally works for me, because I need to get to the recording studio. I’m recording a slow, emotional version of Nirvana’s Heart-Shaped box for the sequel. This movie.
Joe: Awesome. I’m out. I’m done.
Greg: All right, well, that checks out. I will see you soon.
Joe: All right. See you soon.