Full Comment - That virus that mutated the movies

00:00:00.000 hey everyone welcome to the latest episode of full comment with me anthony fury have you been

00:00:10.440 to the movie theaters yet movie theaters closed for well many months in canada throughout the

00:00:15.480 pandemic although film production actually has been happening quite a lot all throughout the

00:00:19.920 country one of the first sectors to get back up and running so are movies going to recover from

00:00:24.680 covid in some sense well they never really lost steam when it comes to the filming of it but when

00:00:29.420 it comes to the showing of it on the big screen oh boy that was put on pause how are things going

00:00:33.980 to be changed for the foreseeable future are people just going to jump back in two feet forward or is

00:00:39.520 there going to be things that are changed forever is this just accelerating trends that were already

00:00:44.420 happening what's going to go on both in terms of how we watch movies but also in terms of the topics

00:00:51.200 the subjects is hollywood becoming much too woke those oscar ratings not doing so well these days

00:00:56.780 to break down all of these subjects we're joined now by mark daniel post media entertainment writer

00:01:01.640 hey mark how's it going good anthony how are you i'm doing well it's uh it's great to have you here

00:01:07.320 on the show and uh to answer that question of have you been to the movies i i finally went first time

00:01:11.520 in a year and a half uh here in ontario and uh the kids and i we we had a good time we checked out

00:01:16.420 space jam and uh i'm glad the movie theater experience is back so am i uh actually my wife and i went and

00:01:23.840 saw fast nine uh and the movie was sold out with limited seating so it was sold out with limited

00:01:30.800 seating but i think you're right anthony i mean after you know 15 months of being indoors of not

00:01:38.180 being in theaters uh to be back it is quite something and it is quite special um because it

00:01:45.600 is you know it's something that i look forward to and i think a lot of other people across the

00:01:50.400 country look forward to and i'm glad that we're able to do it again wait so that was pretty much

00:01:54.840 full i know i think the rules are 50 capacity when i went to the theater uh it was not very busy and

00:02:00.520 i've actually had a number of experiences where i've gone to things that are kind of back up and

00:02:04.200 i was originally worried oh the gym is only 50 capacity am i gonna have to wait outside and it's

00:02:08.640 like no i've had you know it's been totally easy for me every time and when we went to see space jam

00:02:12.920 there weren't many people there there's like 10 people actually at the showing and i thought

00:02:16.480 maybe that was indicative of just you know broader trends like not that many people are stepping

00:02:21.240 into it but you're saying you go to the new fast and furious movie and it was pretty much packed

00:02:25.540 the new fast and furious was packed now for certain you know hollywood had to pivot uh some of the

00:02:33.320 titles that have been released this year have been going uh directly onto streaming as a add-on pay

00:02:39.840 right uh so through your subscribe you have a subscription to disney plus uh and you want to see the new

00:02:45.480 black widow well you had the option of subscribing to it through disney plus or seeing it in a theater

00:02:51.380 um for space jam particularly space jam also was available to people in home uh as a separate

00:02:58.420 purchase uh and so yeah many families may have opted to see it that way in the comfort of their

00:03:03.780 own home do you think that's going to stick around and i remember like hollywood uh legends of old it

00:03:09.320 would be like okay the rule is you know this director or whatever says i want the i want i don't

00:03:14.300 want the the vhs or the dvd release to come out until like a year after it's in the theaters because

00:03:19.100 i'm a cinema director like a you know a marty scorsese view or what have you but now you're saying

00:03:23.200 like well no now you get theater and streaming on kind of the same day do you think that's sticking

00:03:28.060 around okay anthony uh jungle cruise just came out recently last month and the movie made 30 million

00:03:34.620 dollars on disney plus uh through subscriptions and it made 35 million dollars in the cinema

00:03:41.140 that's just north america alone uh black widow which came out earlier in july that made uh 60

00:03:48.740 million dollars on disney plus worldwide so of course everybody's wondering now well are people

00:03:55.320 just going to pay extra to see these movies in their home on their 70 inch screens um that's a big

00:04:01.580 question mark i think once everyone feels comfortable going back into a theater uh and that

00:04:07.940 means for family films as well like space jam uh maybe the crowds will come back but maybe audiences

00:04:15.660 have decided no i'd rather just stay home and watch this movie for me to take my two kids or three kids

00:04:21.540 buy popcorn pay for parking you know all of a sudden it becomes a hundred dollar plus a night out

00:04:28.200 whereas you know disney plus is 35 all in now mark i remember a year ago you were telling me

00:04:34.000 not big concerns about covid in the theaters safe to go back uh the head of cineplex here in canada

00:04:39.400 saying i think he said basically there have been zero cases of covid19 transmission attributed to movie

00:04:45.640 theaters in canada really at all tell us about that yeah i mean they were cineplex was very much uh

00:04:54.920 right out front in terms of keeping theaters safe uh they implemented all sorts of cleaning and safety

00:05:01.720 measures inside their theaters uh social distancing in their theaters uh became commonplace however when

00:05:08.920 the government moved to shut things down you know theaters were one of the things that had to close

00:05:14.520 now that they're back they've welcomed back i want to say it's something like almost a million people

00:05:20.040 have been going have gone back to the theaters uh since they reopened in early july now they won't sell

00:05:27.480 out the entire theater right now right now there it's it is limited capacity um depending on the

00:05:33.160 province you're in depending on the city you're in uh that can range um anywhere from 20 to 50 percent

00:05:39.800 but i think people want to come back and have those experiences i really do i mean you want to see a movie

00:05:47.080 like black widow and you want to experience it on a big screen um the filmmakers involved with these movies

00:05:54.200 they oftentimes they're shooting them with imax cameras and they're developing the stunts and the action

00:06:00.760 scenes to be seen on a big screen right now if audiences decide well we'd rather stay home and watch this

00:06:07.960 stuff at home that's going to change the types of entertainment content and the product quality i think

00:06:14.440 that you're seeing inside your home well where do you think that film goers are going to sit in the

00:06:19.240 general public like like what what is going to be their attitude in the months moving ahead i know

00:06:23.800 people are probably a bit reticent now but where is the sentiment going i know right now i am just kind

00:06:29.320 of sick of small screen viewing the number of movies i've seen everything just you know on that home

00:06:34.120 screen i don't have have the giant home entertainment system just watching it on the regular tv screen

00:06:38.600 i was really glad to get into the movie theater and just have that experience i think the big

00:06:44.360 question is i think for big movies so we have dune coming out it's slated to come out in october

00:06:51.160 there's a new matrix movie that's coming out this christmas top gun is due out in november

00:06:56.840 the new james bond is due out in november you gotta see james bond on the big screen i mean there's no

00:07:01.880 other you gotta see yeah exactly and so i think for those movies i think the audiences are going

00:07:08.520 to remain intact and i think also from a studio point of view listen they can make a lot more money

00:07:15.000 screening a movie in on a big screen than they can at home for people who are streaming and doing

00:07:20.040 in-home purchases because then something like piracy becomes a bigger issue as well we have no way

00:07:26.120 to quantify the number of people who watched pirated versions of black widow we can't but i

00:07:33.480 imagine piracy played a huge factor in that movie's overall bottom line so i do think audiences are going

00:07:41.640 to come back to those movies this year i think they'll be back next year and i don't think they're

00:07:47.160 going to go away anytime soon what i do wonder and worry about is what happens to those mid-level dramas

00:07:53.880 okay the the movies like nomadland which are great fantastic moving experiences but maybe people

00:08:01.080 will feel i don't need to see that on a big screen and so those are the movies that i think could be

00:08:07.000 in jeopardy you know one of the things that's been so interesting during the pandemic is how

00:08:11.160 filming has actually largely continued almost entirely throughout it it's really been quite

00:08:16.600 something and i know a lot of people have complained they've said oh you know restaurants are shut

00:08:20.440 down in toronto and yet i drive down the street and they're filming a movie scene in a restaurant

00:08:23.800 so you know you can do it if you put a camera in front of it and in fact i think a hamilton hair

00:08:27.640 salon even tried to get around some rules by by putting up putting up a camera in front of them 1.00

00:08:32.680 while cutting hair and saying this is a film shoot and so forth and it didn't pass muster um and and

00:08:37.640 i know you speak with a lot of film directors you speak with a lot of movie stars uh for interviews

00:08:41.880 that are in the post media papers mark what were they saying about the experience of just filming

00:08:46.120 almost like i'm sure there were a few weeks obviously where things were shut down but they got back to it

00:08:50.200 way sooner than most sectors did you know yeah i i had a really unique experience uh speaking to a

00:08:57.800 few different actors one of which kaylee cuoco for the flight attendant ryan cranston for your honor

00:09:04.520 those two come to mind and they uh were filming uh tv projects uh as a matter of fact but they these were

00:09:11.080 projects that started pre-pandemic and then had to be finished after the pandemic or in the midst of the

00:09:16.920 pandemic and so hollywood had to pivot what hollywood did is they they introduced rapid uh testing uh

00:09:24.840 they really limited the amount of people on a film set uh you know in years past i along with uh many

00:09:32.600 other journalists would be invited to go visit some of the these big film sets as they were being shot

00:09:38.920 and and and and all that went away i haven't been on a film set since uh february 2020 um uh but you

00:09:46.360 know listen hollywood couldn't stop because uh there's only so many weekends in a year uh you know

00:09:53.160 prime uh some of these weekends are are considered prime real estate prime viewing uh for for moviegoers

00:10:00.840 and so i think that they just uh they they just closed things down and then also limited the amount

00:10:07.080 of background actors that you would see in any given scene and um and they were able to do it

00:10:13.000 but listen anthony uh some films like the the new mission impossible i feel like has been shut down

00:10:19.000 at least three or four times uh due to covid uh the batman movie with robert pattinson that's due out

00:10:24.760 next year that was shut down due to uh covid uh and all these shutdowns i mean they cost money

00:10:30.440 um they cost time and they jeopardize uh film release dates you know i heard in ontario they

00:10:37.880 had a rule i'm not sure if it's still in place or it was just sort of last year that you needed to

00:10:41.800 spend 10 of your budget on covid uh precautions and covid testing so it was like a lot you know

00:10:48.440 a 10 million dollar movie or or miniseries or what have you you're spending a million dollars on your

00:10:53.240 covid protocols and testing and there were a couple projects i knew a couple crew people who were saying

00:10:57.560 they were being they were being swabbed five times a week so i mean it was almost the most airtight

00:11:03.720 operation film sets you know across canada compared to anything else almost you know comparable to

00:11:08.440 long-term care homes or what have you yeah i mean they had the the kevin hart movie that was shot uh

00:11:14.840 here in toronto uh late last year the man from toronto i mean that that went off without a hitch

00:11:20.840 jason momoa uh as you know him from his aquaman uh movie uh he was here for almost a full year he

00:11:28.680 was shooting apple's sea and then he was also doing a movie for netflix uh and these movies here in

00:11:34.840 toronto i mean we didn't hear about any outbreaks or any delays to uh covet 19. no it was interesting

00:11:41.880 to see that and in fact the crew person i was speaking to recently said that that big show that

00:11:45.480 they were talking about and you know 60 000 tests all combined only two people ever tested positive i think one

00:11:50.520 of them was the director and then they took a home and for 14 days they tried to direct via zoom which

00:11:54.600 must have been an absolutely very difficult experience oh wow yeah i'm sure most definitely

00:12:01.560 yeah one wonders where things are headed because now we're in this kind of in-between period where

00:12:05.480 it's like all right well you know what are we doing some places have dropped protocols almost

00:12:09.240 entirely some provinces some states others still have them and so on where do you think the film

00:12:13.800 ministry is headed when it comes to covet they're having the same conversations about the vaccine

00:12:17.880 passports and so forth as i guess any other line of work is so i think you know listen hollywood

00:12:24.040 is is always forward thinking uh they're thinking about movies that are coming about coming out in 2024

00:12:30.920 and 2023 and 2025 so i think that they're going to proceed as if audiences are going to come back

00:12:38.440 now if you and i are talking a year from now and audiences haven't come back and we've seen some

00:12:44.040 really big high profile failures then i don't know if hollywood would rethink some of these movies

00:12:51.560 rethink the budgets on some of these movies and rethink their strategy altogether um i don't think

00:12:58.440 that you can expect a big screen entertainment experience for the small screen in other words

00:13:05.240 what i mean is i don't think marvel is going to spend 250 million dollars making its next avengers movie

00:13:12.440 if people are only going to be watching or largely going to be watching that from home if audiences

00:13:18.440 don't go to the theaters they need to they need to dial back their expectations i think well it's

00:13:24.360 funny you should say that because amazon prime has released a couple uh direct amazon videos that i

00:13:29.720 know they financed it was no remorse i think starring michael b jordan i saw that one there's another

00:13:34.280 one with chris pratt i think michael b jordan's a fantastic actor but you know this movie and then

00:13:38.600 the chris pratt one i was kind of like eh you know it's got a little bit of the 90s like you know

00:13:44.440 bit of the steven seagal direct-to-video vibe kind of thing i mean that's almost kind of what you're

00:13:48.360 talking about here is it mark well it though in those those two movies specifically anthony were

00:13:55.720 supposed to come out to theaters they were both um produced by paramount and they were both slated for

00:14:01.880 theatrical release and paramount um decided to sell them to amazon so in the case of the pratt movie

00:14:07.960 they sold it to amazon for 200 million dollars so that movie was supposed to come out for uh was

00:14:14.040 supposed to be on the big screen it was actually supposed to come out last christmas so my criticisms

00:14:18.600 are just kind of random not connected to that i just don't like those movies then apparently

00:14:23.000 uh and without remorse again that's another movie that was due out last year and um amazon does have

00:14:31.640 the rights to the jack ryan character on they do have a series with john krasinski starring as jack ryan

00:14:38.440 and so the without remorse is uh also a tom clancy character and so uh you know eventually you might

00:14:45.640 see some sort of crossover there so that that it made a lot of sense for them to pick that up and then

00:14:50.360 in terms of tomorrow war with chris pratt well jeff bezos is uh he's a huge sci-fi guy so you know as

00:14:56.760 you or maybe you don't know but he bought uh the expanse from the sci-fi network just so he could keep

00:15:02.440 making that tv show speaking of spinoffs i i gotta ask you mark the marvel world how is that faring in

00:15:09.160 terms of success with all of like every week there's a new show that comes out and you know i remember when

00:15:15.160 i was a teenager you know in my early 20s and then like once every 18 months a marvel movie

00:15:20.120 comes out and i would watch kind of all of them and now it's like there's just like a gazillion of

00:15:24.440 them and i feel like they're kind of suffering a little bit for quality out there but i guess

00:15:28.920 there's an audience for it i mean what do you make of what's happening with that that uh very much kind

00:15:34.440 of enjoying getting that you know everything they can out of that uh brand identity so listen i mean

00:15:41.880 disney disney set up disney plus disney plus was going to was always going to be a home

00:15:48.280 for the vast repository of disney content and that's disney marvel star wars pixar on and on and

00:15:56.680 on as well as fox however part of disney's plan was to start taking some of its properties so in

00:16:04.920 star wars we had the mandalorian uh and then in marvel uh they decided to start using some of their

00:16:12.040 sort of smaller characters and expanding them out into tv into short tv shows now anthony these shows

00:16:19.640 you know they they operate almost as like you know elongated movies uh you know they're they're

00:16:27.160 they're not self-contained episodes uh every week there's a new episode and it picks up with last

00:16:32.360 week's cliffhanger so they've done so far this year they've done one division falcon in the winter

00:16:37.720 soldier and then loki um what's cool about this is that all of these shows are impacting marvel's

00:16:45.320 greater cinematic plan that they have um later this year marvel will release eternals and they've

00:16:53.080 got shang chi they just put black widow out in the theaters and so really marvel is building disney

00:16:58.920 and marvel and building out this interconnected world um so for fans of course you know they can

00:17:06.040 experience the shows then they get to go see the movies and all of it enriches and feeds in to one

00:17:12.440 another now for fans it's an amazing thing i mean i count myself among them i love uh these new shows

00:17:20.440 um if you're not into marvel though you're probably sick and tired of hearing about all these characters

00:17:27.400 mark you mentioned hollywood being forward looking and i know what you meant by that from timeline

00:17:31.400 schedules businesses and so forth also very forward looking in terms of being very progressive

00:17:35.640 looking being very woke and so forth lots of concerns now that hollywood perhaps becoming a bit too

00:17:41.400 much woke uh disconnected from well maybe not their audience entirely but i don't know 50 of their

00:17:47.320 audience something like that you hear the complaint a lot uh from from some pockets of society what do you

00:17:53.000 make of the hollywood woke conversation you know what at the end of the day anthony i've always felt

00:17:59.960 what hollywood will do uh whatever the audience wants whatever direction the audience wants to go in

00:18:07.800 wherever their pocketbooks are telling them to spend their money is where hollywood will go so certainly

00:18:15.400 yes there have been conversations about diversity on the screen uh and behind the camera as well and and some

00:18:23.240 of those are overdue and some of them are some of those decisions are coming because it makes business

00:18:29.320 sense for hollywood um i think that uh anytime that there's an opportunity for them to make money or to

00:18:38.120 or they see a a segment of the population that's being under service where they could potentially make more

00:18:45.000 money they're going to go out and they're going to make uh entertainment for that segment of the population

00:18:50.440 well i don't know that there's a couple examples where i wonder is that actually what's at play

00:18:54.920 one big big example is the television show last man standing which i i didn't even really know much

00:19:00.040 about it here in canada it wasn't advertised or promoted much and i found out it was like one of

00:19:03.320 the number one sitcoms in the us and i got a chuckle out of some of the episodes a tim allen show

00:19:07.560 his latest program and then it was just kind of dropped like it was hot well it was hot it was really

00:19:12.600 popular and they asked tim allen on a podcast why was this show cut and he's like i don't know i feel

00:19:17.160 no reason you know we were doing great ratings were great i feel like it was just because there

00:19:21.000 was such a sympathetic conservative leading man because he was always making jokes from the

00:19:25.240 conservative side of the spectrum so tim allen thought that that was kind of what was going on

00:19:29.640 i thought something similar with the roseanne show they rebooted roseanne and then she made this

00:19:34.600 you know dumb tweet or what have you and people were angrily you know tweeting back at her and so

00:19:38.840 forth and you know maybe she shouldn't have made that tweet and then they drop her from the show and 1.00

00:19:42.600 you're like okay it's roseanne she made a stupid tweet did you need to actually cancel her from the 0.99

00:19:46.840 show kind of in perpetuity i'm looking at those examples and i'm like mark was this really like 0.97

00:19:51.800 a business decision here so it's funny that you should the roseanne the rose the roseanne one was

00:19:59.640 very curious because listen the show had been off the air for i don't know 20 something years or maybe

00:20:06.760 not quite 20 but quite a long time so they decide okay we're gonna bring back roseanne we're gonna bring

00:20:12.040 back the connors they bring back the family and then yes she makes this ill-advised uh social media 1.00

00:20:18.200 post i think in her case though uh she was slow to to be uh to to own up uh to to the error of doing 0.96

00:20:27.960 that um and i think they looked at it and said maybe we can keep this going without roseanne we've got

00:20:35.080 john goodman who's a celebrity in his own right uh and the rest of the cast who who people had known and

00:20:41.880 loved over the years and so they decided let's let's see let's try and get rid of her now if the 1.00

00:20:47.480 if it didn't work if audiences didn't tune in then the connors would have been canceled but in fact

00:20:53.400 audiences stuck around with that show uh in terms of the tim allen one the tim allen last man standing

00:20:59.640 yes again very curious uh that show originally i believe aired on abc abc is owned by disney

00:21:06.680 except tim allen does have a very uh healthy and prosperous relationship with disney uh due to him

00:21:13.320 voicing buzz lightyear in the toy story right so i always felt that that one was again um you know

00:21:21.640 you can say the ratings for something are good but maybe uh the bean counters upstairs feel well the

00:21:27.160 ratings aren't good enough i mean there's been other shows brooklyn line of brooklyn 99 was on fox and then

00:21:34.120 it was cancelled and picked up by nbc um lucifer was another show uh that was cancelled and picked

00:21:41.240 up by netflix designated survivor was on i think abc and then cancelled and picked up again by netflix so

00:21:48.680 i mean we have seen these things before i know that tim did think that potentially his conservative

00:21:55.400 viewpoints might have had something to do with it um but i'm not entirely sold on that argument what about

00:22:01.640 the gina carano situation i had never really heard of this lady before i guess i'd seen her fight once 1.00

00:22:06.360 or twice i know she was a prominent ufc fighter then she becomes uh one of the leading characters 0.94

00:22:11.720 in the in the star wars series and uh great show i loved it she was fantastic on it she had a lot of

00:22:19.080 fans and then she was dropped from the show for and it's like how do i really explain this i guess

00:22:25.080 she'd put ambiguous social media posts suggesting oh she might be a trump supporter she's not woke

00:22:31.960 she's not an sjw you can kind of tell that maybe she's saying that trump actually fairly won the

00:22:37.400 election biden didn't win and so forth but she wasn't even saying it outright and it was just kind

00:22:40.920 of like this odd situation where i think people got a whiff that like i don't think i like this lady 1.00

00:22:46.600 so let's kind of push her out of here and i can't remember exactly the offending post that that

00:22:51.560 pushed her over the ledge but a lot of people were really upset and there's calls cancel your

00:22:55.320 disney plus subscription uh and so forth my kids wouldn't let me do it so i had to keep subscribed

00:22:59.800 to it and so forth but uh you know lots of lots of questions and and culture war around the gina

00:23:05.080 carano situation yeah gina carano is someone who had been outspoken on social media for a while

00:23:12.200 um the thing that the thing that sort of you know was i guess the the last straw with disney uh lucasfilm

00:23:21.400 was a post in which she compared um you know the divided political climate in the united states

00:23:28.280 to nazi germany uh and you know she went all of a sudden from being just the sort of fringe um

00:23:37.000 celebrity to all of a sudden everyone there were there were petitions to to have her um removed from 0.99

00:23:44.040 the star wars show the mandalorian uh there were petitions to have her action figure um cancelled

00:23:51.960 you know hasbro stopped selling cara dune figures uh and karana was supposed to be part of a spinoff

00:24:00.360 a star wars spinoff her her part in the spinoff was was cancelled and they announced that she will not

00:24:07.000 be back for the mandalorian season three um it's one of those things where uh again uh what was it

00:24:16.840 was it uh something that was perhaps uh she shouldn't have spoken about was it an analogy

00:24:23.720 she shouldn't have made um it's not for me to to really say on that but um but i think disney felt

00:24:31.160 that her character cara dune and and her specifically uh they could live without her

00:24:37.720 as part of the mandalorian and as part of the ongoing star wars franchise and so they elected

00:24:42.440 to just say uh we're moving on and and we're leaving her behind mark i certainly hear from

00:24:47.800 more conservative-minded folks that look i'm happy to watch you know whoever act in this role so long

00:24:53.160 as they're talented and so forth i just don't want to hear their politics i don't want to hear them

00:24:56.120 ranting at me and that that is argued to be one of the reasons why oscar ratings are just plummeting

00:25:01.400 and in recent years uh there have been more preachier or more politicized speeches that have

00:25:06.040 taken place when people go up uh to pick up the golden statue i got in front of me ratings i guess 1998

00:25:11.640 academy awards year of titanic 57 million people and then you get down to 2008 80th oscars uh 72 million

00:25:19.480 pardon me 32 million people um dropping down to 24 million last year in 2020 and then this year

00:25:27.240 10.4 million people and they go well it was coveted and i was like okay i know it was coveted but you

00:25:32.600 know also everybody's sitting at home so they could watch it what's going on with the oscars mark

00:25:37.560 you know it's a combination of things anthony i think really the the reason that the oscar ratings

00:25:42.840 uh are dropping to to i feel like every year it's a record low is is some of the nominations and the

00:25:51.880 films that they're choosing to sort of celebrate are ones that people aren't going to and ones that

00:25:59.320 the majority of the population don't see or uh don't care about um you know a few years ago they released

00:26:07.160 um avengers endgame okay biggest movie of all time uh and that movie doesn't get nominated for best

00:26:15.960 picture well i mean to me i look at that and say well how is that possible here's a movie that's

00:26:22.440 the culmination of 10 years of filmmaking from marvel it brings together 22 or 21 different uh movie

00:26:32.040 storylines uh it's celebrated all over the world it's the highest grossing movie of all time and

00:26:39.480 you're you're saying well that's not at least in the conversation for best picture to me that makes

00:26:45.640 no sense and then you look over the years uh previous to that avatar which uh i think is now actually

00:26:53.880 again the the highest grossing movie of all time avatar in 2009 lost to the hurt locker now i i

00:27:01.800 i i say to you anthony if you go up to anyone on the street and say hey what did you think of the

00:27:05.880 hurt locker right 90 of the people aren't even going to remember that that movie came out but

00:27:10.680 everybody has seen avatar and avatar changed the movie going game with its use of 3d and its digital

00:27:17.400 technology so to me again that there's a movie that should have won best picture so i think really

00:27:23.400 hollywood is a is not in sync with with audience uh likes and and audience and what audiences

00:27:31.560 are into so if you're home on a sunday night uh are you going to watch them celebrate a bunch

00:27:37.560 of movies that you didn't even watch probably not i also feel like i guess there's just been

00:27:43.000 so many newcomers and such a democratization of the film industry which is a great thing but all

00:27:48.360 these movies come out and i'm like i've never heard of any of the people who are starring in it

00:27:52.200 and then if some of them do a really good job they get nominated for an oscar i'm like i have

00:27:55.400 no clue who this person is yeah i mean i think that that certainly it's great to celebrate newcomers

00:28:04.040 and it's great to celebrate new cinematic visionaries certainly 100 and and i i think some of the best

00:28:11.960 films that come out every year are the ones that maybe not everyone is going to see i just think you

00:28:18.840 know when we look back at last year's nominees for best picture uh you know the majority of them were

00:28:26.600 titles that not a lot of people saw or cared about um certainly the performances might have been great

00:28:33.080 and and deserved uh consideration but the oscars and and all award shows really need to sort of mirror

00:28:43.560 what is in line with with popular tastes more and they're not doing that and that therefore people

00:28:49.480 aren't watching and i guess what a lot of people want out of the oscars is you know us regular schmoes

00:28:54.520 just want to see you know this this fantasy evening of of you know lifestyles of the rich and famous

00:28:59.800 beautiful people up there smiling their perfect smiles being happy and uh you know winning their awards

00:29:06.120 and we can be like maybe that's us one day and kind of thing and there's that it's almost like the

00:29:10.040 original reality television kind of thing or something yeah certainly i mean look this year

00:29:17.080 it was a different year yes people were at home people were watching a lot of content at home and

00:29:23.400 i think when you know the oscars rolled around it was april usually i think the oscars are in late uh late

00:29:30.280 february um you know i think people were i think people were you know the weather might have been a little

00:29:36.600 nicer people want to get outside a little more and are you going to stay home and and and root for

00:29:42.760 for you know mank which was on netflix but i didn't hear a whole lot of people talking about

00:29:49.000 that movie or or saying how great it was i know and when i say people i just mean you know the people

00:29:54.520 that i meet average people that i talk to and what about the fact that there's just so many choices

00:30:00.200 out there so many streaming devices you know if you want to watch uh this thing that's only on apple tv

00:30:05.000 well you got to get apple tv and not everybody has all seven or eight or twenty of the things that

00:30:09.960 are on offer i always think back to when people are like everybody watched game of thrones and i'm

00:30:14.440 like well i don't know if you look at the numbers not really that many people watch game of thrones

00:30:18.760 everybody watched the series finale of mash and everybody watched the season finale of seinfeld

00:30:23.720 but now we're kind of out in in all these different pockets out there of things we watch and

00:30:27.880 view and that's great i have no problem with it but it's kind of funny like i'll find this you

00:30:31.240 mentioned brooklyn 99 i actually only started watching that very recently a few months ago i

00:30:35.960 barely heard about it i watched i'm like i love this show why didn't anybody say fury this is your

00:30:40.680 thing you got to watch this but you know i just didn't actually hear it talked about all that much

00:30:45.800 you know it it is i mean listen anthony i think people uh in the industry looked at netflix they saw

00:30:52.760 what netflix was doing and i think they saw that the future is you need to create content you need to

00:31:00.520 own the content that you create and uh and people will want to watch that content enjoy that content

00:31:07.160 except okay so you have netflix then you have disney with disney plus and disney plus is only going to

00:31:13.720 get bigger i mean your kids are never going to let you uh cancel it because it's going to just

00:31:18.920 it's going to have yeah it's the the amount of original programming that it's going to uh that's

00:31:24.360 going to be coming out of disney plus is just going to grow and grow and grow and yes you mentioned

00:31:29.240 apple tv plus apple tv plus is great they've linked up with a lot of really really high profile uh

00:31:36.360 filmmakers and actors and actresses and they're putting out some really great content as well

00:31:42.120 paramount plus is another service that not a lot of people are talking about but paramount plus here in

00:31:47.480 canada is going to have you know even more uh he's going to have even more uh content uh services that

00:31:54.840 people can take advantage of so uh geez and i probably forgot there's hbo max in the united

00:32:00.120 states hbo max in the united states is putting out um the uh warner brothers movie titles this year

00:32:07.240 and uh as well they're going to have their own shows including a sex in the city spinoff so um

00:32:14.360 you know it's it's it's just growing and growing and growing you know one thing i love about all these

00:32:18.760 streaming devices mark is the back catalog as well i know we're talking about disney plus and my kids are

00:32:23.160 watching the new stuff but also we have a new ritual now where we sit down and we watch the

00:32:27.320 home alone movies together at christmas time because it's like hey this is what dad watched

00:32:31.880 when he was a kid a teenager now we can watch it and i'm even going through the back catalogs i'm like

00:32:36.280 oh yeah this 80s movie i never got got around to seeing or this classic 90s movie let's sit down and

00:32:40.840 you know watch the first speed flick and it's just you no longer have to wait for them to like

00:32:45.160 you know come on tv on a sunday afternoon on tbs like used to be the case now there you go they're right there

00:32:50.440 yeah and especially with disney plus you you also have the fox catalog that's on there so

00:32:57.000 you know all the old die hard movies will be there and the alien franchise ridley scott's alien movies

00:33:03.240 um you know you could you could literally sit on your couch and never leave um there's so much to

00:33:09.320 watch uh on all these different services then of course netflix has some of the older movies as well so

00:33:15.960 so it's certainly um it's an embarrassment of riches i can't even imagine what it would be like

00:33:21.480 to be a child now one thing i do want to get your thoughts on though is like yes there's an

00:33:25.880 embarrassment of riches but sometimes if you want an older movie if you said i want to see this movie

00:33:31.080 you can't find it because the rental places they don't exist anymore you can't i guess you can buy

00:33:36.360 dvds at best buy but you know it's kind of a challenge maybe the library has it to rent a couple

00:33:41.560 examples and i know this doesn't apply anymore because it's on fox but um we were watching

00:33:46.120 re-watching the x-files series on streaming and then we had to see the x-files movie because the

00:33:50.440 x-files movie happens in the middle of of uh the x-files and it was like i couldn't find it eventually

00:33:56.200 i drove to another city to buy it in one of those two dvd combos and it came a planet of the apes for

00:34:01.640 like 7.99 but i had to like search around ontario for it i finally found it last week i went to the

00:34:07.640 ago they have an andy warhol exhibit it reminded me i always wanted to see the movie i shot andy

00:34:12.760 warhol from like what's it from like 1995 or something i was like i got to see this movie

00:34:16.520 always wanted to see it couldn't find it someone had posted it to youtube so i watched the whole

00:34:20.680 thing on youtube just blown up on the screen finally saw the movie but it was like and it wasn't on any

00:34:25.560 streaming like i would have paid i would have given my credit card to this or that to rent i wasn't

00:34:29.240 trying to steal the movie but it's like some things yes you can find almost everything but the

00:34:33.960 things you can't you can't yeah it is it is really funny i mean listen here in toronto uh there are a

00:34:43.480 handful of independent video stores that still exist if there's something you're really they're great

00:34:48.440 uh hungering for uh certainly in other cities across canada i'm sure there's one or two remaining

00:34:55.400 video stores that will happily search that title i will find it for you but you're right anthony um you

00:35:01.800 know there's there's uh there's so many times where i think to myself i'd really like to see

00:35:07.800 you know i wanted to see the the most recent fast and the furious movie with my with my nephew so i

00:35:13.320 looked on netflix and it wasn't there and it's a universal title so it's not going to be on disney

00:35:18.040 plus right and uh and and so we and it wasn't on amazon prime so we were we were uh we were sol we

00:35:24.360 weren't able to watch uh the the fate of the furious because i wanted to get him ready for fast nine

00:35:29.960 and um so you're right but the beauty of our times is that you can just quickly move on to something

00:35:35.320 else uh and save that movie for another day yeah good point good point mark daniel before we go

00:35:42.840 you're always up on all the movies you got to see all the great tv series you speak to a lot of the

00:35:47.880 celebrities yourself as they're coming into town or as they have a new release out there tell me what's

00:35:52.600 the latest news in terms of what are the things you got to see this summer and and tell me about some

00:35:56.440 of the things the celebs have been telling you well anthony we did a lot of coverage for james gunn's

00:36:02.600 new suicide squad this is a new sort of rebooted suicide squad it still features some of the actors and

00:36:10.680 characters that appeared in the last suicide squad but there's some newer uh villains if you don't know

00:36:16.680 the the storyline behind suicide squad basically it's the crappiest super villains uh in the dc uh

00:36:25.800 comics universe uh they are all in prison they are all allowed out of prison to complete a mission

00:36:32.680 for a government agent known as amanda waller uh that's played by viola davis uh if they complete 0.67

00:36:39.320 the mission uh that will most likely result in their death they get 10 years off their sentence

00:36:46.120 so this new movie uh takes some of the crappiest super villains uh in dc comics sends them on this

00:36:52.280 crazy mission uh down to a fictional country in south america where they have to fight a giant alien

00:36:59.560 starfish uh it is just a wild wild ride anthony um it's so violent it's not for kids you'd have to

00:37:08.200 leave your kids at home um and it's so bonkers uh and so outrageous and certainly comic book movies

00:37:16.600 have sort of fallen uh followed a a certain uh trend uh if you will um they're never too violent

00:37:25.160 they're always uh the type of movie that can appeal to just about anybody but this movie is really

00:37:31.000 outrageous really over the top it's a great time though so if you're not too squeamish if you don't

00:37:36.840 mind uh the odd swear word here and there and you don't mind lots of blood and guts you're going to love

00:37:41.800 this movie um the other movie that we saw recently that we liked was was actually uh there's a new

00:37:48.680 matt damon movie called stillwater it's just come out into theaters uh amanda knox uh made some headlines

00:37:55.480 because she accused the movie of ripping off her life story um but really the movie is loosely inspired by

00:38:04.760 by her case but really it focuses on uh the family and and how the family would react right how the

00:38:12.600 family deals with uh their daughter who's in prison for for killing uh her girlfriend so it's it's a

00:38:19.720 great drama it's one of those it's at the beginning i talked to you and i said well what's going to

00:38:24.680 happen to those mid-level dramas uh and this is an example of that type of movie uh it's not flashy

00:38:32.120 there's no stunts matt damon doesn't play a jason born type hero um he's just a father trying to

00:38:40.600 work to get his uh imprisoned daughter uh out of jail uh it's a great movie it really stuck with me

00:38:46.840 uh after the ending uh and then of course you know uh there's the new jungle cruise with the rock and

00:38:52.680 emily blunt i'm a fan of that ride at disneyland as are a lot of people and and that's a great fun kind

00:39:00.520 of uh popcorn summer movie it's a great blockbuster and i think it's one that families can enjoy

00:39:06.040 together mark daniel you're one of the most knowledgeable guys on all things movies it has

00:39:11.080 been a great conversation thank you sir for joining us today thank you anthony full comment is a post

00:39:17.400 media podcast i'm anthony fury this episode was produced by andre prue with theme music by bryce

00:39:23.000 hall kevin libban is the executive producer you can subscribe to full comment on apple podcasts google

00:39:28.920 spotify and we're now on amazon music you can listen through the app or your alexa enabled devices

00:39:34.360 and you can help us by giving us a rating or a review and by telling your friends about us

00:39:38.200 thanks for listening

Full Comment - August 09, 2021

That virus that mutated the movies

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