Weekend Watchlist: Ambulance, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and All the Old Knives
[Izon by Trent Walton fades in, plays alone, fades out]
SLIM Hiiiii, welcome to Weekend Watchlist, a look at what’s screening and streaming brought to you by Mia.
MIA Hello!
SLIM And together we’ll dig through what’s dropping this weekend, last weekend, recent trends on Letterboxd and we’ll take a look at our own watchlists. All under 30 minutes or your money back, guaranteed.
MIA First up we’re going to talk about two hyper icons: Michael Bay and Sonic the Hedgehog. The people demanded it: the watchlisters. Has a podcast ever talked about Bay, Sonic and Tony Hawk all in the same episode?
SLIM It’s never been done, Mia. I think we should probably add in Chris Pine’s luscious hair. [Mia gasps] We’ll get into Chris Pine’s hair later in this episode as well.
MIA We have Pine, Bay, Sonic, Hawk?
SLIM That’s it.
MIA Pine, Bay, Sonic, Hawk... [Slim & Mia laugh] We’ve done it!
SLIM Hashtag... [Slim laughs]
MIA Hashtag Pine, Bay, Sonic, Hawk. That’s the new EGOT.
SLIM This is maybe the biggest episode we’ve ever done for Weekend Watchilist, so we probably have to just jump face first into this weekend.
MIA I do think that we should talk about our huge new number one movie on Letterboxd, ing Parasite.
SLIM Oh my god.
MIA We want to give a shout out to Everything Everywhere All at Once.
SLIM What an iconic moment this week. We actually were lucky enough to talk to The Daniels. We had their reaction, they had an acceptance speech, very tongue-in-cheek acceptance speech. So that full podcast episode will actually be coming to this feed next week. But we have a bunch of information about that and some fun links that we’ll share later this episode.
MIA Woo!
SLIM I can’t wait to talk about it.
MIA So we will get to all of that in a bit. But first, this weekend, what’s hitting theaters and your couch.
SLIM Michael Bay is back, Mia. Michael Bay is back in theaters. Everyone loves those Transformers movies, all twenty of them that he did. “Decorated veteran Will Sharp, desperate for money to cover his wife’s medical bills, asks for help from his adoptive brother Danny. A charismatic career criminal, Danny instead offers him a score: the biggest bank heist in Los Angeles history: 32 million dollars.” Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen. When Michael Bay releases a movie, I feel like it could go either way. People could drift into doing jokes, you know, it’s Michael Bay, etc, etc. And he’s kind of a nut. But I feel like some people were enjoying Ambulance so far. Have you seen some of the reviews come in for Ambulance in LA specifically?
MIA I think people are genuinely enjoying Ambulance. Especially my Twitter feed, it’s LA-based.
SLIM Right!
MIA So I think they’re just having a fun time. Like I can’t tell, I never know if people are being ironic when they’re like “The new Michael Bay slaps!” [Slim laughs] It’s like I can’t... tell. But it seems genuine.
SLIM Mhmm.
MIA I’m gonna hazard a guess that it is genuine fun. The main thing I know about Michael Bay is that in college I had a film professor say that he is an “auteur pushing the boundaries of kinetic cinema”.
SLIM I agree. I... He’s such a weird bird. People love Armageddon, Bad Boys, The Island he also did. So I enjoy watching his film. So I’m actually pretty excited to see Ambulance with Jake Gyllenhaal. Where do you stand on Yahya Abdul-Mateen?
MIA He’s awesome, unequivocally.
SLIM I didn’t realize he was sexy Morpheus. I totally forgot and I just watched that movie. [Mia laughs]
MIA Yeah, I don’t even know what that means. [Slim laughs] What?!
SLIM He was in the direct-to-HBO Max Matrix [Resurrections] 4 that just dropped. And he was the, quote unquote, “Morpheus” character. And before that I’d only seen him in Candyman, so this past like year and a half. I’ve been seeing a lot of his films. I really like him a lot.
MIA So I thought you were saying sexy-Morbius... [Slim & Mia laugh]
SLIM No. I was not.
MIA Okay that’s why I... [Mia laughs]
SLIM You did like a triple-take.
MIA I baulked!
SLIM You did a triple-take in the studio when I said sexy Morpheus.
MIA It was shocking!
SLIM Let’s spotlight one review before we go to our next movie. Rafael has seen Ambulance, so I’ll spotlight a few sections. “While everyone is watching the latest from Ti West, I had the chance to view Michael Bay’s next mayhem… or shall I say, Bayhem? A film that everyone seemed to be looking forward to seeing, except me. As a result, I went into this picture with the lowest of expectations.” And then they go on to say... “And the cam? Man, the cam! It flows, it swings, it flies, it floats, it drops, it drones, it smash, it fucks, it bombs, I think there’s one scene where it does some hip-hop too. The man did everything in his power to keep it in constant motion.” So...
MIA See? Kinetic auteur!
SLIM There you go.
MIA Mark it down. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Hashtag kinetic auteur.
MIA Kinetic auteur, Michael Bay.
SLIM What’s next on our list this week. Mia what else is dropping
MIA Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the sequel, is also dropping. “After settling in Green Hills, Sonic is eager to prove he has what it takes to be a true hero. His test comes when Dr. Robotnik returns, this time with a new partner, Knuckles, in search for an emerald that has the power to destroy civilizations. Sonic teams up with his own sidekick, Tails, and together they embark on a globe-trotting journey to find the emerald before it falls into the wrong hands.”
SLIM Have you ever played a Sonic video game, Mia? Is it your bag?
MIA Yes, yes. As a gamer-girl, I have played a lot of Sonic. My favorite is Sonic Adventure 2 with the little ‘Chao’s... [Mia laughs]
SLIM Ooh, yeah.
MIA If anybody re the little Chaos. I hope they’re in the sequel. Yes, I am a big fan of this little blue guy.
SLIM My son--this was, you know, I think I said previously like my son’s interest level for weekend movies depends on what kind of YouTube ads he gets for it. So he has asked me about Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and said that he wants to see it. I have not seen the first one. So I might just go in totally blind for Sonic the Hedgehog 2. But it’s time for my son and I to unit at the theater, Sonic and Knuckles, the two of us. Social and Tails, I guess.
MIA Knuckles is the bad guy, yeah, he should just be Tails! Tails in the cute, little guy.
SLIM Depending on how good the movies is, he might leave the film as Knuckles. I don’t know. I think that’s Idris Elba...
MIA It is!
SLIM Who does the voice for Knuckles.
MIA And he said it wouldn’t be sexy in a statement. He said it. [Slim laughs] He’s lying! He’s just lying to all of us...
SLIM I love also how that could have read: “In his statement to Weekend Watchlist, Idris has stated that he will not do this voice sexily.”
MIA I just don’t believe that.
SLIM So he wanted us to know for the podcast. [Slim laughs]
MIA I just don’t see how that’s a possibility. But I do need to talk about Eggman.
SLIM Please.
MIA Thank you. Thank you very much. I was relieved upon this trailer because it turns out that they made Eggman not as sexy as he was in the first movie.
SLIM Oh no.
MIA Yeah, not to talk about sexy Sonic characters too much. But I do want to say... [Mia laughs]
SLIM This is a safe space.
MIA Okay, this is a safe space to discuss this. All I really have to say is that I went into the first movie being ready to be horny for James Marsden, and then I left being horny for Jim Carrey’s Eggman. [Slim laughs] So that’s a warning... This time around, they shaved his head. They gave him the big mustache, Eggman mustache, so I’m in less danger. But I do feel a little bit relieved that I won’t have to have that weird crisis.
SLIM I wonder if they got some test-audience . “Please make him less sexy.” And maybe Idris got the same note. There’s probably some kind of sexy task force working on these Sonic movies and they had to make changes.
MIA I mean, it’s the only answer... [Slim laughs] So yeah, go see the de-sexified Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
SLIM Let’s keep the sexy-train rolling and move into a Chris Pine film.
MIA Oof.
SLIM Let’s go deeper and talk about an actual Chris Pine movie, not just his hair, All the Old Knives hitting theaters and Amazon Prime. Janus Metz. This is written and based on the book by Olen Steinhauer. This is on one and a half thousand watchlists. “Two CIA agents and ex-lovers are brought back together after a failed rescue attempt and forced to blur the lines between profession and ion.” So I think the embargo was officially up for this movie as of this episode being released, and... I’m gonna shock you, Mia. I really liked this movie.
MIA I’m speechless. I’m speechless.
SLIM Look at the cast of this movie, right?
MIA No, you’re you’re right. The cast is incredible. Like you got Thandiwe Newton in there, Laurence Fishburne, Jonathan Pryce, like the cast is incredible. And Thandiwe and Chris Pine’s chemistry was...
SLIM Off the charts.
MIA It was off the charts. I really, really did enjoy their steamy scenes...
SLIM Oh yeah, I forgot about that scene.
MIA There’s a lot in there for—yeah, there are several steamy scenes. So there’s a lot in there for the hashtag Chris Pine nuts. [Slim laughs]
SLIM The amount of hashtags that are going to catch on from this episode are insane. But I will say, I had to add this movie to my Man ass list, because Chris Pine... he’s letting it all hang out back there in this movie.
MIA Yes he is!
SLIM So I do want to compare this to something—and this, I gave this four stars. So this is a positive comparison. So I sometimes go over to my in-laws house and they’re watching some, you know, BS TBS movie. Some kind of like thriller show or, you know, a movie that hasn’t been on cable yet and it’s finally on cable. You got like three hours and it’s commercials. And sometimes you just want to sit down and be like, what is this? Am I gonna sit here at my in-laws and do nothing for the next three hours and watch this thriller that I’ve never heard of? This is kind of what that felt like to me. I had a lot of fun with the thriller aspect of this movie. And Chris Pine’s hair in this film... there needs to be some kind of investigation. He has like, when it’s pulled back... it looks gorgeous.
MIA He has some of the finest hair in Hollywood. He’s also got this beautiful blue eyes. He... I mean, he’s easily the best Chris...
SLIM Easily.
MIA Of the Hollywood Chrises—the main Hollywood Chrises. The four. The four white Chrises.
SLIM What’s the order? What’s the order in your mind for the four Chrises?
MIA Oh, it’s so easy. It’s so easy. Chris Pine, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Chris Pratt—way at the bottom.
SLIM Yeah, I think I agree with that.
MIA Another guy with great hair: Tony Hawk! Yeah, I’ll say it! [Slim laughs] He does have great hair. So Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off, new HBO documentary, just dropped on Tuesday night. “This is a wide ranging definitive look at Hawk’s life and iconic career and his relationship with the sport with which he’s been synonymous for decades, featuring unprecedented access, never-before-seen footage and interviews with Hawk and prominent figures in the sport.”
SLIM What did you think? You watched it last night? This morning? What was your vibe?
MIA I ittedly don’t know a ton about Tony Hawk, but I’ve always been charmed by him and his social media presence and his awesome video games, which I’m very glad they touched on in this documentary.
SLIM Ohhh yeah.
MIA For those who are fans of the Tony Hawk video games, don’t worry. [Mia laughs] They talk about it. So yeah, I actually really enjoyed learning about him and his life, as somebody who wasn’t super familiar with skateboarding, or Tony Hawk himself. So I thought it was really well done.
SLIM Yes, Sam Jones directed this. 3.7 average, it’s been out for a few days on HBO Max, and on 670 watchlists. One thing that stuck out to me watching this was, I think my Tony Hawk knowledge started when he did the 900 at the X Games, and probably all of my skateboarding knowledge. But there was a segment right before that, where skateboarding was, like, not popular. And they talk about how, you know, him and his family were kind of like broke for years. And he was trying to pick up like odd jobs around just to make ends meet, how he could even pay the water bill. So I felt very seen by Tony in that moment. But that was an era that I kind of was unfamiliar with. Most people probably only know of like Tony Hawk, famous, rich, video game, and clips. But it was cool to see that there’s a little bit more than that.
MIA Yeah, I also really actually liked the family stuff as well. He told this really genuinely funny anecdote about his mom... Okay, so he shares this childhood memory of his mom threatening to flush herself down the toilet if he doesn’t, like, shut up and sit still. [Mia & Slim laugh]
SLIM Right.
MIA And that made me laugh! Because he’s like so terrified. He like kind of reenacts it, where he was like, “I was so scared that she was really going to do it.” [Slim & Mia laugh] It was just so charming. Yeah, really, really sweet documentary.
SLIM He sounded like a handful, to say the least, when he was a kid. So Gemma actually talked to Sam Jones about this film, and we actually have a clip of him talking about his relationship with his own family. He talked about the family relationships, about how he doesn’t quite yet share his love of film with his daughters yet. But let’s run the clip. Let’s play it right now.
[clip of Tony Hawk interview plays]
TONY HAWK My chapter of sharing the films I love with them is still coming. I hope it’s still coming. But, you know... to me, one of the greatest things that I can do as a father is try to find some middle ground, some meeting point, where our interests can overlap. And it was so easy when they were little because, you know, I just spent all the time in the world with them. And then, you know, like all kids are supposed to do, they grow up and they become independent, and their friends become more important than their parents. But on this film—and this is something I haven’t told anybody, but my daughter who’s fifteen, she’s a sophomore in high school. And she’s very into graphic design, and so I had her do the titles on the Tony Hawk film. So we got to work together and that to me, was my sort of surreptitious way of spending time with my daughter but also to share some of what I love with her.
[music fades in, plays alone, fades out]
SLIM So let’s look back at last week’s movies, what happened last week. And , if you want your review or list potentially featured on an episode of Weekend Watchlist, just tag “Weekend Watchlist” to your reviews or lists. And Mia, we should just talk about what we talked about the top of the show. Everything Everywhere All at Once, is the number-one movie on Dave’s official Top 250 Narrative Films list. It beat Parasite! What do you think?
MIA I think it’s well-deserved. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it is everything the modern blockbuster should be. Supremely well-choreographed, acted, the visuals are so dynamic and interesting. It also has a very, very touching story at its core about family and ending cycles of trauma, generational cycles of trauma and being the child of immigrants... Like there’s just so much packed into this and they completely pulled it off. I’m just so impressed by it. I cannot—again, I cannot recommend it enough. I keep saying that to everybody who will listen!
SLIM Yeah, it’s crazy. There’s only ever been two movies that were number one on that list, the official list. There are imitators, Dave’s list is the official one. So [The] Godfather before Parasite and just those two. So there’s only ever now been three movies that were the highest-rated in the Letterboxd community. So that’s pretty awesome to see. And I referenced earlier, but we have an interview, podcast interview coming next week with The Daniels. They were a lot of fun to talk to, very cool. And I watched Swiss Army Man last week, their other feature film with Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Dano. So much fun! I was cracking up!
MIA Oh yeah, Swiss Army Man is a ton of fun. Shout out to Mary Elizabeth Winstead as well who is in that film.
SLIM Gosh.
MIA Love her!
SLIM Every close up of a farting ass was poetry-in-motion, Mia. [Mia laughs] So last week, Morbius dropped as well. So I’ll spotlight a few folks that tagged their reviews “Weekend Watchlist”. Ry Stated “My confidence in Marvel Studios making a decent enough PG-13 Blade movie increasing exponentially after watching this.” I will say that I’m pretty pumped for the Marvel Blade movie. That has my interest.
MIA Are they bringing Parker Posey back?
SLIM That’s a very good question. Maybe we’ll get them on the show to answer that question. Put them on the spot. [Slim & Mia laugh]
MIA That’s my one question that I know everyone is wondering. Will Parker Posey be in the Marvel Blade?
SLIM Ask the questions! Idris Elba is about to send us another statement on Parker Posey, just to get the word out. What about you? What are you thinking about last week, when you look back at the movies that dropped last week?
MIA I just watched Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood by Richard Linklater. And I quite enjoyed it. It’s on Netflix now, you can check it out there. Very little fanfare considering how unique and creative this film is. It’s animated. It’s kind of like Waking Life, Linklater’s Waking Life, which is one of my favorites of is, also very underrated. So it’s like rotoscoped type animation. It’s also narrated by Jack Black, which is really fun.
SLIM Love his—have you watched his YouTube channel?
MIA No, I don’t!
SLIM You need to get on that, Mia.
MIA I will. We have another review tagged hashtag “Weekend Watchlist” for everything Everything Everywhere All at Once: “The reason I don’t believe in multiverses is because that would mean there’s a me out there who doesn’t like this film, and I think we all know that’s bullshit.” bbanks2121. So true.
SLIM So true. Next on our list this week is he Letterboxd Top 50 of 2022 that Jack puts together. And Jack has a lot of facts this week, for the movers and shakers for the past week of films. So for the most part, we’ll let Jack speak for himself. Everything Everywhere All at Once doing the impossible and not only overtaking The Beatles[:Get Back – The] Rooftop Concert, but beating Parasite to number one. And if you listening to the show since we started, Jack pretty much almost made a guarantee that [Get Back: The Beatles –] The Rooftop Concert would not be beat by the end of the year. And it’s already been toppled by [Everything Everywhere] All at Once. So it just speaks to the power of that movie that came out of nowhere and shocked a lot of people. So, pretty cool to see.
MIA Biggest call out besides that switch, is the eligibility of Mad God, the directorial debut of legendary visual effects god, Phil Tippett. He is the man responsible for the stop-motion parts of Star Wars, Jurassic Park and most importantly, RoboCop. That enters at number twelve. He’s been working on Mad God for over 30 years. And it’s his response to the CGI of Jurassic Park when he felt like he was out of a career. This film had a long festival run through 2021 and it was just announced that it will be released on Shudder from June 16.
SLIM Hell yeah. Hell yeah.
MIA Yes. It has been the top horror movie of 2021. And it’s now the top horror movie of 2022, since it’s getting its first proper release.
SLIM I saw the trailer drop for this when they announced that Shudder was picking it up and I need to see this thing as soon as possible. I’m so annoyed that many of the Letterboxd team have seen it. And now I have to wait until June. But it looks insane. I mean, just hearing that this is the guy who was responsible for the stop-motion Star Wars and RoboCop, one of my all-time favorite movies, like get me to the theater, Shudder. Shudder, if you’re listening this week, hook us up, please.
MIA Please! Yes, I tried to see this film during Beyond Fest in LA and the tickets sold out like that, like it is a very anticipated film.
SLIM Alright, last segment of the show. Let’s get into our own watchlists. We use this section to talk about what’s on our watchlists. We shuffle them and the last time we were together, Mia, you shuffled your watchlist and you got Scanners. It was going to be your first ever viewing. Talk to me, please.
MIA I loved Scanners. There was never gonna be a world where I didn’t love Scanners, much like that Everything Everywhere All at Once review. Because I love Cronenberg. And what was really fascinating to me as a Cronenberg fan was how this was kind of one of his... not his first, but one of his more defining films of his career. Like that head explosion is very famous GIF-wise. So it was very cool to see kind of the bedrock for a lot of what was to come. Just undeniably cool body horror and effects, practical effects. I loved it.
SLIM Great. I was looking at my review... I had a review... what did I say? This was 2019. Feels like a decade ago. I wrote “Stephen Lack turns in one of the worst leading actor performances I’ve ever seen.” [Slim laughs]
MIA Yeah, we were joking--
SLIM Stephen Lack! Yeah, What was he doing in that movie? What did you think?
MIA We were making jokes. We were like Steven is lacking in his performance. [Slim laughs] But we loved Scanners, but I do think that if it had a better leading-man performance would have been like a bona-fide masterpiece. The movie made me think about how important casting is. And it’s something that we don’t think about as much but it’s just so crucial to the movie.
SLIM review, he’s been going on his own Cronenberg journey, and I’m not sure if he’ll ever finish. He hasn’t found that one Cronenberg that really, he loved.
MIA eXistenZ.
SLIM You know what, I don’t think he’s seen that yet. How about—speaking of that movie. There’s a scene in that movie where people are using like, tablets...
MIA Yes!
SLIM Almost exactly how we use tablets and phones today. And it freaked me out.
MIA Yes, no, I made all my friends watch it with me for my birthday last December. [Mia & Slim laugh] And that was what people were struck by, was everybody like using iPads in this movie from 1999.
SLIM Yes!
MIA It’s just so prescient, Cronenberg.
SLIM And there’s like a scene where they’re just like sitting in a room looking down at a cell phone tablet, and I was like “WTF is happening right now?” [Slim laughs]
MIA Yeah, yeah.
SLIM So Proto write in his review about Stephen Lack—we love Stephen. You know, Steven, we love you. You’re the official actor of the Weekend Watchlist. “Stephen Lack managed to set fire to every scene he was in. The audio was captured from Mr. Lack in the morgue from his body three days dead.” [Slim & Mia laugh]
MIA Well, I will say, wait, I wanted to give one more compliment, if we have time. I’ll give Stephen Lack a compliment and say that some of his like, physical face acting when he’s doing the scanning power thing, and he’s like, whipping his head dramatically, like up and down.
SLIM Yes!
MIA And that part was cool. That, genuinely... he nailed that part.
SLIM Nice.
MIA And I said as much while watching. So there’s a nice thing, Stephen, because I know you’re listening.
SLIM There’s a silver lining, Stephen, and we’ll always find it.
MIA So now let’s shuffle our watchlists again. So let’s both head to our watchlists on Letterboxd, filter service by Stream Only and then Sort by Shuffle. And then whichever movie is first, we have to watch before we co-host our next episode.
SLIM Alright, here we go. My movie is... directed by Ben Wheatley, 2012… Sightseers. “Death has a ginger beard. Chris wants to show girlfriend Tina his world but events conspire against the couple and their dream caravan holiday takes a very wrong turn.”
MIA Uh oh!
SLIM So this is this director of In the Earth, In the Earth came out last year and people were all abuzz about that kind of like lo-fi sci-fi movie? So that’s my movie. For the next time we meet.
MIA You’re gonna freak it when I announce my movie. [Slim laughs] Get ready to freak it! Because it is very on theme with this week. It is the film... Blade.
SLIM What!
MIA I know!!
SLIM You got Blade? Holy crap.
MIA I told you you would freak it. I did get Blade. And here I am itting I—
SLIM I’m all chilled up. I got goosebumps right now, Mia. I got goosebumps. [Slim & Mia laugh] There’s some kind of entity in the studio with us that has conspired to get Blade for your next movie, that’s incredible.
MIA Yes! Ah, scary! Creepy!
SLIM It is scary.
MIA Yeah, I mean, I should watch Blade because I know that Parker Posey’s in one of them. [Mia & Slim laugh]
SLIM So next time we’ll meet we’ll talk about these movies and the end of the show. And just to call out some friends of mine in the 70mm Discord, were also shuffling their watchlists after listening to our episode last week, and they got movies that they are going to try to watch before the next episode. So if you do that, also tag your reviews with the “Weekend Watchlist” and we’ll spotlight them at the end of the episode.
[Izon by Trent Walton fades in, plays alone, fades out]
MIA Thank you so much for listening to Weekend Watchlist, brought to you by HQ page on Letterboxd using the links in our episode notes.
SLIM Thanks to our crew. And thanks to Letterboxd member Sophie Shin for the episode transcript. And to you, for listening. Weekend Watchlist is a Tapedeck production.
[Tapedeck bumper plays] This is a Tapedeck podcast.