The Fandom Portals Podcast
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The Fandom Portals Podcast
Red One, How Christmas Lore is brought to modern audiences. Does Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson save Christmas?
Join us as I, Aaron Davies, introduce my new co-host, Adam Brasher, to the Fandom Portals family. Plus, meet Ace, Adam's loveable husky, who has enthusiastically claimed the role of our show's unofficial mascot.
We then shift our focus to the holiday blockbuster "Red One," where we dissect its unique take on Christmas lore with a lively discussion. Picture J.K. Simmons as a super-speed Santa and Christopher Hivju's feisty portrayal of Krampus—it's as thrilling as it sounds! Listen as Adam and I engage in a trivia showdown, revealing fascinating tidbits about the film's Greek-inspired roots and its hefty budget. We also delve into the film's narrative around accountability, particularly analyzing Chris Evans' character, Jack O'Malley, whose journey from hacker to redemptive father offers intriguing fodder for potential sequels.
Our conversation takes a closer look at the broader industry implications of "Red One," pondering its financial performance and its standing among other Christmas franchises. We critique everything from the film's extravagant CGI and action sequences to its pacing and storytelling devices, offering a balanced view of its strengths and weaknesses.
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Hello and welcome to this episode of the Fandom Portals podcast, the show that explores how fandoms can help us learn and grow. I'm your host, aaron Davies, and this is a very special episode for you, fandom Portaleers, because in this episode you will be able to meet our new co-host. Our new co-host is none other than Adam Brasher. Adam's guested on the show before. He's a very special friend of mine we did a Dungeons and Dragons podcast before the Fandom Portals podcast and he lives in the same hometown as I do, so we're doing our recordings in person and this was the first time we actually got to sit down to do a recording together as co-hosts. So we hope you enjoy it. We also are excited to introduce you guys to, through this episode, our fandom portals mascot unofficial, of course, but there is a young pup by the name of Ace who lives at Brash's house and he has he's present for all our recording sessions, so he's now unofficially our mascot for fandom portals. He's a very quiet, husky, and you'll get to hear a little bit about him in the entry point of the show, so stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1:But this episode here, more specifically, is all about the Christmas movie, the Christmas blockbuster, rather Red 1. In this movie, we hope that you will learn about the theme of accountability for all those naughty listeners out there. We will also deep dive onto Christmas lore and pitch potential futures for Jack O'Malley or Chris Evans' character. Was he mythic or was he mundane? We answer and talk about those questions in the podcast to come. And, lastly but not least, we also have a little bit of a chat about the current state of Hollywood in terms of big budget movies like this action blockbuster, which had a very inflated budget, and how movies tend to make a profit in 2024. So Brasher and I are very excited to share this journey with you.
Speaker 1:Brasher will be featuring on a lot of different episodes now as my official co-host for the Fandom Portals podcast. This is me also officially welcoming him. If you're listening, brasher, which I know that you are, thank you so much for taking the leap and joining me in the podcasting journey of the Fandom Portals space, and I hope that you enjoy your time as much as I enjoy making these podcasts and having chats with you as well. So, to our audience, thank you so much for sticking around with us so far during this busy period. We definitely appreciate it and stick around to the end of the episode, because, if you love this podcast as much as we do, or you find it very interesting or you take something from it, we have some brand new ways for you to get involved with the fandom portals, and we love our community here and we want you to be a part of the show as well.
Speaker 1:So, without any further ado, I would like to introduce you to Adam Brasher, the new co-host of our podcast and the episode that we created featuring the Christmas blockbuster, red One. Hey everybody, it's Aaron here from the Fandom Portals podcast, and I'm here with Brash, my brand new co-host, and we're here to talk about Red One today. How you going, brash? Woo, yeah, not bad, not bad.
Speaker 2:A bit of Christmas spirit on the way.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, love to see it, especially during the week of the year where nothing really exists. That time from Christmas to New Year's is just dead timed, though I'm still working, unfortunately. No way, you're still working. Yeah, I have to work tomorrow, goodness me. Well, that's the good part about being a teacher. You know you get this time off and you get, you know, spend some time with family, which brings us to our first segment.
Speaker 1:It's going to be a continuation, going to start most of our shows this way. We're going to talk about our gratitudes and our growths and it can be something that you're grateful for for the week. It can be something that you feel like you need to improve on for the week. It's just a way for our fans to get to know us and also just to get the ball rolling on the show. So for me I'll start off I am grateful at the moment because I have discovered Lorcana. I talked to you about this before. Lorcana is a Disney trading card game and I'm playing it with my partner, my wife, at the moment, and it's just some nighttime fun after the kids go to bed, and the Disney cards, just. It's fed my collection mentality where I just really need to complete a list, and it's safe, it's harmless and it's something I can play with my kids later on when they get a bit older. So that's what I'm grateful for, um this week that I found something new, a new hobby, because I needed more. What about?
Speaker 2:yourself. I'm grateful for friends, actually, and a couple of. I. Had some dinner with a couple of friends that I haven't seen in four years and, um, just getting to see them again sort of renewed my I don't know spiritual a little bit Been shut in a lot lately and just working heaps, and so getting out and being with friends was like just a really nice change of pace.
Speaker 1:Yeah, connecting with people, that's a good one, especially this time of year as well. Oh, 100%, yeah, here's me saying like I'm happy I found a card game.
Speaker 2:It was like friendship is really time of year Also me because, like, all my family is in Victoria, all down south, so it's only really me up here. Yeah, and like, even on Christmas day I had a friend. They invited me out to a big lunch buffet for Christmas.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, that's awesome, that's so good. And you know we're joined here today by our third unofficial co-host. His name's Ace. He's Brash's dog. Do you want to tell us a little bit about him?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he is not all 10 months. 10 months now, no, 9 months, sorry, 9 months to be 10 months in 10 days. He is a husky. He is black and white and he is very quiet for a husky he is. He doesn't howl, bark, yap nothing, talk at all. He is just very, very silent. He's a placid little boy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but if you do hear him from time to time on the podcast, just know that's our third co-host, just have a little chime in for the day. And yeah, we're going to show some pictures of him on our social media as well. At times as well, if his daddy says it's okay, got to get that permission, you know.
Speaker 2:He'll be fine. I actually need. I need to start up his own Instagram thing. So I've got like hundreds of photos of him.
Speaker 1:Well, that'd be good. Yeah, we can definitely have him feature on the Fandom Portals podcast page for sure, cause everybody loves dogs, all right. So during during that segment, sometimes we'll do some gratitude, sometimes we'll do some growths, sometimes we'll do both. It's up to us what we want to sort of share at the time. But, yeah, no, going home today because we've got a podcast to record and our first official segment as a pairing of co-hosts is going to be called First Takes. All right, so First Takes is a segment where we discuss how we found out about the movie that we're talking about today, or we discussed our initial impressions of the movie before having seen it, and then we can also talk a little bit about how we felt after watching it, but not going into that review territory, because that sort of comes a little bit later. So obviously, the movie that we're talking about today is Red One.
Speaker 3:Cool place. Welcome to the north pole, come again. Last night, red one, also known as saint nicholas of myra, was abducted. Are you saying santa claus has been kidnapped? You're the best tracker in the world. You're gonna help us find him. I work alone. You used to. I'm not going to like you. I can tell right away out of everyone here, I like you the least. Garcia. What the hell Should we do the thing I'm afraid we're going to have to?
Speaker 1:You're mine until we find him. Oh God, I suggest you get going. Clies. It is a Christmas holiday comedy action adventure flick. It came out this year, in 2024, rated PG, starring Dwayne the Rock Johnson, chris Evans, lucy Lou and JK Simmons Brash. I'm going to kick off with you. What was your first take of this movie? How did you find out about it? What was your first take of this movie? How did you find out about it? What was your first impressions of it?
Speaker 2:Well, actually I first heard about it because of wrestling, because I recently got back into wrestling and obviously the Rock had his he came back a bit last year, so they do love promoting things that wrestlers are in and because the Rock still pretty much is a part owner for of the wwe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was all of the ads for wrestling, so I saw a fair bit, yeah they're hit and miss with some people, hey, so initially your first impression of it was seeing it there and then you thought, oh, christmas movie is that it I.
Speaker 2:I saw it and went oh look, it's jumanji, but christmas funny.
Speaker 1:You should say that because it's actually written by or directed by the guy who did the first two Jumanji movies. That being said, you know Holiday Blockbuster this is what I thought of it initially. This is my first take, holiday Blockbuster starring the Rock. It's got Chris Evans in it, so obviously there's that action duo.
Speaker 1:Initially I kind of looked at it and thought it was like a bit of a piss take, honestly, because Christmas movies to me don't really resonate with this kind of vibe that it portrayed on the poster or any of the ads that I saw. They aren't really action-packed, they aren't flashy or anything like that in terms of action or punching sequences or anything like that. But this movie just seemed that little bit different and I also knew that it was probably a high budgeted film because the marketing for it was literally everywhere. Like you said, it's cross-contaminated into wrestling. You go into your imdb app for me this is where I discovered it and it was literally on on the banner ads for imdb as well and um, and if you're a person that has prime here in australia, get the coming soon stuff, and I saw it there as well. So I was like, okay, well, that's the Christmas flick of the year Because I didn't really think I heard about very many other Christmas movies for this year.
Speaker 2:No, no, like there are always the Netflix ones, there's plenty of Netflix ones, and the biggest Netflix one I saw was one that had he used to be in One Tree Hill. Oh, one that had, um, he used to be in one tree hill. Oh, yeah, brothers. Chad michael murray, yeah, yes, and he where he works at a bar and then the chiller makes him end up being a stripper yeah, that's. That's the biggest I love, biggest one I've seen.
Speaker 1:So there you go. That's your competition. You've got one for the ladies, or one that's seemingly for the ladies and one that's for the the gentleman here with uh, with the red one so the ladies, if they're into the Rock and Chris Evans, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 1:True as well. So, in terms of initial impressions, I didn't really expect much. This definitely wasn't going to be a movie that I thought would stick in my brain and be one that I was going to continually talk about and re-watch, but that was my initial impressions. How about yourself? The only reason why.
Speaker 2:I would have thought that it would be a half-decent movie. It was literally because of JK Simmons. I saw JK Simmons and he was Santa and I was like, damn, I'm here for it.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's exactly right, and fun fact actually, this is the second time he's played Santa in a movie, the first one being he voice acted Santa in the movie Claus or Cloud.
Speaker 2:Claus, which is my favorite Christmas movie. Yeah, yeah, I watched that the other night.
Speaker 1:There you go. So yeah, I think JK Simmons returning for the Santa role is something that we might talk about a little bit later as well, but that cast, that star set of the cast, definitely is something that I saw as well, because the four of them were on the poster with that big polar bear at the back and you're like, okay, this has action movie vibes, because when the Rock's wearing his aviators, you just know that he's going to be punching people in that movie.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. So like what, welcome to the Jungle. Same thing aviators, like sold timber posters.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's the way Perfect, perfect start. All right, so let's get into our next segment, which is called the fandom face off. So, with the fandom face off portion of the show, this is where brash and I treat each other to a piece of trivia about the show, just to ground us in the movie that we're talking about and to give you guys a little bit of information. If you haven't seen it, this may contain some spoilers as well, and the later sections of this podcast will also contain spoilers, also for the movie of Red One. So if you haven't seen it, or if you want to save it till next Christmas, definitely make sure you avoid hearing about those spoilers.
Speaker 1:That being said, this is a space where we give each other a trivia question or a piece of information about the movie Red One, and it's basically how we test to see how well we researched the movie before we talked about it, and it also gives you guys some context as well. So we each give each other three questions, we score them and whoever wins is treated to a monthly movie date between myself and the co-host, brash. And yeah, they have to shout snacks and shut the movie and and do all that all our scoreboards and things will go up onto our social medias. So if you want to keep track and see who's winning, definitely check that out. And, um, we might go with you first, brash, if you would mind giving us our first piece of trivia for the fandom face-off segment of the podcast for.
Speaker 2:Now this isn't totally confirmed because no one's really said anything about it, but only people who have studied languages and everything like that. So JK Simmons in the movie always shouts a word to make his reindeer go super speed Cavallame, cavallame, cavallame, yeah, cavallame, cavallame, cavallame, yeah. That word translated means to ride on.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or to go forth. But other people are thinking that's a loose translation. Other people are thinking, because that first portion of it, cava, is where the Christmas actually originally started Ah yeah, was situated Yep yep. So they sort of brought that whole St Nicholas sort of thing from Cava, from there.
Speaker 1:Into the word that he says the most His reindeers. That's interesting, that's good, right? So Cavallame was the word, obviously, that JK Simmons says, and he always says that with such power hey, through the movie he just yells. It really well, gets you hyped up, always followed by that. You know that zoom out, that you see, and the flashing lights, that just gets you straight into it.
Speaker 2:I loved how the rain is, but I also loved how they glowed. Yeah, yeah, whenever they were going to go, it just went. Orange yeah, absolutely, they were going to go, it just went orange?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, just boom straightforward. All right, my question for you, brash. Okay, so this movie was directed by a person whose name was Jake Kazdan, and he is famous because he has collaborated with the Rock before on two other pretty decent action flicks. Do you know what they are, will?
Speaker 2:that be Jumanji and.
Speaker 1:Jumanji 2? That is Jumanji 1 and Jumanji 2. So you actually get a point now because you got the question correct. So Jumanji 1 and Jumanji 2, this is Jake Kazdan's initial roles into action flicks and you can tell, as we talked about. You know, this is very much a similar vibe to those Jumanji movies, action blockbusters, this one with a holiday theme, a holiday throughout. So it was his next sort of hurrah and I also get the feeling correct me if I'm wrong but it felt like to me that they were going for the beginning of a franchise, yeah, a holiday movie franchise. So that's my first question. So at the moment it's 1-0. So your question?
Speaker 2:to me. When our dynamic duo go to see krampus, they are halted by some hellhounds and then saved by the distraction of a rubber chicken. What's the?
Speaker 1:name of that chicken. That's a good question, and you know what I don't remember, but tiffany comes to mind I'll give.
Speaker 2:I'll give you a hint. Okay, it's the name of a book show, is it Ellen?
Speaker 1:It is Ellen Like Degeneres. Wow, Is that a link? Like did they link that?
Speaker 2:I don't know, but I know she's being blasted a fair bit lately, yeah, but yeah, I don't know if it was a thing, but yes, the chicken's name is Ellen.
Speaker 1:Very good, there we go. So it's one. All Two questions down for Brash. Oh, one question down for myself. All right, so the next question for me. One of my personal favorite characters in the whole movie was Krampus. He is played by a very famous actor whose name is Christopher Hiview. He plays a very famous role in a Game of Thrones. Can you tell me what that role is? Brasher? Ooh, famous role in a game of thrones. Can you tell me what?
Speaker 2:that role is brasha. Oh, I'll give you a clue. He has red hair and a red bushy beard. Oh, oh, yes, the wild, wild man. What's his name? Brash? Oh, I'm mind-blowing. It's been ages since I watched game of thrones.
Speaker 1:It's tormund yes, one of the greatest characters in Game of Thrones. Oh, the funniest character in Game of Thrones? Yeah, completely. And he was unrecognizable as Krampus too, and I only knew because obviously I'm an IMDB freak and I obviously looked through that and saw his name. But yeah, that scene with Krampus in it and next realm or to the darker parts of Scandinavia, that was probably some of my favorite parts of this movie. So I had to include a question for you about Krampus in our Venom Face-Off. So that means it's one all with one question to go Brash, you're up. Last question Venom Face-Off.
Speaker 2:We just touched on this. I wonder if you can, I wonder if you know the full title. Okay, so they use Santa's full Greek title in the movie. What is it, santa's full Greek?
Speaker 1:title.
Speaker 2:Yep. So when Lucy Lou is talking about him, she actually calls him by his full.
Speaker 1:Greek title Saint Nicholas of Myer. It is yes.
Speaker 1:It is, yes, perfect. I wouldn't have got that, but I did rewatch this three times, so there's definitely a line that sort of stuck with me. St Nicholas of Myer and I did a little bit of research as well into the, the backstory of Christmas lore as well, so this movie was good for that, at least you know, coming off as a bit of a launching pad for that sort of research. Alright, last question for me how much money in US dollars was spent on the movie of Red One?
Speaker 2:Brash, I did look this up to try and remember it, but I've forgotten it already. It was like $6.
Speaker 1:I'll give you a clue. It is nine figures and it is over $100 million and it is under $400 million.
Speaker 2:Oh, is it 250?
Speaker 1:It's close. It's $350 million estimated US dollars and gross worldwide it only took 182 or 183 if you round up million dollars worldwide. So it didn't even make half of its budget back. That being said, I've got a little bit of information later on in some of our most valuable takeaway segments about that sort of budget issue and the state of Hollywood in that sort of budget space as well, but it does seem like the budget was a massive, massive amount of money to put onto a movie like this. What do you think they spent the most of it on? This isn't a question, this is just curiosity.
Speaker 2:100% CGI or CGI, or just even the publication, like the marketing.
Speaker 1:Marketing's huge, both absolutely correct Publication and marketing CGI. And also Dwayne the Rock Johnson's how I Love. So different sources I've found, but some people say that he was paid about $50 million, which makes him the highest grossing actor pretty much of all time, and other sources say he was paid between $20 and $30 million. Either way, a lot of money for a Christmas movie, brash, A lot of money, all right. So if we do a score check I believe it is two to me and one to you Is that correct? Do a score check? I believe it is two to me and one to you. Is that correct? That is correct. That is correct, okay.
Speaker 1:So for this round only, I am the victor of the fandom face-off, but obviously these challenges last for a month, so I will be definitely trying to keep my lead so Adam can shout me a movie at the end of the month. Sound good, sounds good, all right, okay. So for those of you that don't know, we are talking about Red One today and the basic plot of the movie I'll give you that before we move on is that, after Santa Claus, our most valuable takeaway, brash. Just so we know where we're coming from in terms of our space for this movie. Did you enjoy the film or no? I did. Yep, I feel a butt coming on.
Speaker 2:No, I did, but my butt can wait until probably the takeaways. Yep, but no, I didn't go in with high expectations. I wasn't disappointed, but I also wasn't blown away yep, and that's pretty much the same with me.
Speaker 1:I went into this knowing exactly what it was. It was a jumanji like flick. It was an action comedy set around christmas. That being said, I do have some expectations for christmas movies, which I'll get into a little bit with you later. But um, but yeah, um didn't, didn like it, didn't, hate it. So same with me.
Speaker 1:All right, let's move on to our MVT section. All right, so the MVT section is our most valuable takeaway. This is going to be the primary sort of section of the podcast where we talk about something that we can learn about based on this movie, or something that can help us grow in our everyday life. It could be something that you learned that is factual from the movie, or something you learned about different characters from the movie, or it can be something topically that you learned from the movie, or it can be something like an attribute that you feel like the characters displayed that you could then apply to your life, and we were talking before Brash about how this is really what you see is what you get kind of movie In terms of life lessons.
Speaker 1:There are some that they try to sort of pull through the movie, and we might start with one of my MVTs for this, and that is the message of accountability through this. So we all know what accountability is. It's basically taking responsibility for your actions, which seems to come up a lot at Christmas time, especially if you're a person that has anything to do with children during this time. There's that age old hollow threat that parents used to give back in the nineties, where Santa's watching and if you don't do the right thing, then you'll be on the naughty list, and that's something that features in this movie a little bit too. But I think accountability and the journey of accountability is really most poignant through the character of Jack O'Malley, which is played by Chris Evans. We're introduced to Jack and he is this notorious sort of hacker he's very well known in the dark web spaces of the world as the wolf and ruining a bunch of young ladies yoga sessions with a fire to break in and secure this dongle-like device to an astrology department of a university.
Speaker 2:Access meteorology to find seismic disturbances.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, which is definitely the start of the Christmas movie that I expected. But yeah, I just thought as well we were talking CGI before, how they have this massive budget. But that little dongle thing that they had that just attached to a couple of wires and the green led light flash, that's the device he used to track down santa. That's all it takes. Um, so, so yeah, but that that's besides the point. I digress.
Speaker 1:So we're introduced to this. This very bad. He's a class four or a level four, naughty lister. Uh, as he's mentioned in the movie and through the journey of Christmas and through his interactions with none other than Dwayne the Rock Johnson, a pillar of morality, he changes his ways, he is held accountable for his actions and in one of the most poignant scenes of the movie, or one of the most intentionally heartfelt scenes of the movie, chris Evans who does have a son in this movie, a deadbeat dad, as he's described they're trapped in the. What's the word that they use for this? The snow globes? Yeah, the Glasgow fig. There, it is the Glasgow fig.
Speaker 2:Yep, there it is.
Speaker 1:So, yes, he, he is trapped in the Glasgow fig with his, his son, after really wanting nothing to do with him. We find out that it's because, you know, he feels like he is a bad influence or a bad role model for his son. And then he gives that beautiful speech about how he doesn't promise that he's going to do. He can't promise that he's going to get everything right, but he promises that he's going to try.
Speaker 3:Every day, every decision is an opportunity, and I want to start taking some of those. So I'm not asking you to believe me. I'm just asking for you to give me a chance. I know I may never be the greatest father in the world, but I know I can do better, and I'm telling you right now that I promise I will never stop trying.
Speaker 1:And I think, if nothing else from this movie, that element of trying and trying to be accountable more so for the important things in your life is something that is a good takeaway for me in terms of most valuable takeaways for this movie. So so, what did you think about the, the arc that chris evans's character had? I know we had a bit of a discussion before and you're very welcome to express that opinion um, about that sort of message of accountability and how. That's sort of a takeaway that I found and I think it was very intentional from the movie makers. There was, like this has to be, an emotional arc that we're doing here, and that message of accountability for me, or the importance of trying your best to not hurt other people's feelings, to not be on the naughty list anymore, is something that resounded with me.
Speaker 2:I, on the other hand, don't think that he needed to have a kid in that movie at all, or a family. Yep, I think the biggest thing is from the very start of the movie, when you see him as a kid. He was at his uncle's house, because I don't believe either his parents both passed away or something, but he was at his uncle's house and he seemed to be by himself. So I think him having a family doesn't have as much impact, because it should have been him going through a whole solo thing, saying, look, I'm happy on my own, I can do anything on my own. And then the fact that I also think that they could have turned him into his name, jack.
Speaker 1:Frost. Yeah, yeah, we spoke about this a little bit over message as well, the fact that Jack O'Malley's character could have had some mythological tie-ins. I think we'll circle back to that, because that's a really good point that I want to talk about at length. But if we're talking about his family, I kind of agree. I think that I just found that I've I found to be like it's almost like a side plot, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it was also just a tiny side plot, like his son was in there. He had to pick him up from school once, yep, and he's like, oh, I'm going to a concert. And he's like, oh, great, cool.
Speaker 1:And then leaves, leaves. Yeah, he didn't really add anything to the story in terms of the overall narrative of red one, but but jack o'malley actually having a family also didn't really, um, like there are other ways that they could have explored that element of accountability without giving him that son. So, as you were saying before, I think him personally if he went on the journey on his own, uh, being that completely self-absorbed character and then moving into a space of actually being accountable and doing the right thing on your own and not doing it because you have to be that way for your child, because if you're not, then you're literally an asshole yeah, so there's literally no choice like it's never too late to do the right thing, which I think is probably a bit more poignant message at christmas yeah, time that like it's not, like it's not hard to be nice, like it's not like sometimes it's hard, but like um, being nice doesn't take away from anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the fact that it's christ's Christmas time and the big thing about Rock. Rock's character, callum Drift yeah, how he was losing faith in the adults, yeah, and then for an adult to then turn around from being someone who the Rock was like I don't know if I can do this anymore because of these adults him actually teaming up with one of those adults and then that adult turning around and doing something good and renewing faith for the Rock.
Speaker 1:That, for me, would have been the message. Yeah, and I think they did try to do that, but they did that by inserting the character of Jack O'Malley's son into the picture, which, as you said, may not have been the most effective way, but I do think that they were trying to spur on moments of that accountability and how he's promising to try. That was the thing that sort of set him apart for me. But all right, so we'll go to your most valuable takeaway. Did you want to introduce that for us, Brash?
Speaker 2:Yes, so my takeaway was that between Jack Frost yes, I reckon it would have been cool to have made Jack a, not a mortal. Let's be honest. When they were fighting in Krampus' castle, jack and Roquefort were just beating down these demon guys and I'm like he's meant to be mortal. I'm pretty sure these dudes would just rip him apart. Yeah, but he's like nah, he's holding his own and he even gets a snowman. I was gonna say that even the snowman like he's holding his own. That's why the whole time I'm like, and his name's jack.
Speaker 1:I'm like this guy's jack frost jack is a extremely mythologically charged name, especially, especially around the Christmas mythos, jack Frost being one of them. And you know, jack Frost is notoriously like a cold, mischievous character who, like, loses his way, which is definitely what Jack O'Malley is In terms of this being. We talked about this being sort of like a franchise perhaps in the future. And the fact that this is, you know, may have been a franchise at the start of the movie when he's living with his uncle and that child just makes that offhand comment where it's just like, oh yeah, that's right, you don't know where your dad is. That's literally a tie, like in a second movie you could tie that back and say you know, his dad is actually Jack Frost and he is the son of a mythological creature and the son of a mythological creature and his mother and his Jack Frost father. Obviously, you know he's got all the traits of his father being Jack Frost. Another one that I looked up as well was, you know, jack O'Lantern. If they're going to make it a holiday franchise, they could bring something out on Halloween.
Speaker 1:Jack O'Lantern, who was? I did a little bit of looking up, but he was known as Stingy Jack through the mythology. Um, and you know, the mythology says that he he was notoriously good at um tracking people down and he was really tricky in terms of how he would uh, like the devil would actually track down Stingy Jack. And then they would go into these bars and they would drink and he would convince the devil to pay for his drinks and then, through doing that, the devil himself would turn the devil like the devil would turn himself into a coin and then Jack would place him as the coin next to a crucifix, so he couldn't change back. And then there was continual times that Jack O'Malley just sort of fooled the devil into him saying you know, one of the ways that I'll let you off this is if you promise that I never go to hell. And the devil was like yep, fine, no worries.
Speaker 1:So when Jack eventually passes stingy Jack eventually passes he goes to go to heaven and God won't let him in because of the sinful lifestyle that he led.
Speaker 1:And then when he goes to hell, the devil's like ah, ah, ah, I told you I'd never let you in here.
Speaker 1:So he has then been left in purgatory to walk the realm in between, not really belonging to anyone, always being a trickster, having a jaded lifestyle as a Jack O'Lantern and he is given this ember shard that he then puts into a turnip which eventually, eventually leads into a pumpkin through American history and and culture. But that could also be something that they bring out in a halloween movie, because he does portray some of the traits of jack o'lantern where he is pulling these tricks on krampus when they're in the, the cast of a krampus schlap, which is a great. I just love saying krampus schlap great. But yeah, I, I agree I think he could have been something a bit more than what he was and there's those questions and there's I think they definitely have that on the cards for chris evans's character yeah, yeah, just just instead of because I don't think they touched on the fact that a kid enough, or brought that emotional tie in enough for his arc with his kid to be enough.
Speaker 2:I know what you mean. Like there's pretty much nothing until the very end and then all of a sudden it's this soppy, oh, I'm going to be a better father thing.
Speaker 1:And then that was it. Also, honestly, after Callum and Jack go and find the contact that paid Jack O'Malley to track down Santa, which was Nick Kroll, after they found him, really Jack's character has no motivation to continue that quest to find Santa, other than he's being paid by the director, or Zoe Lucy Liu's character. So his usefulness also fades away after that moment as well, because he's supposed to be the best tracker. After that they go to the darker regions of Scandinavia, to Krampus' castle. His skill set is completely, if nothing else, it's, almost like a tag along, but also like a burden.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because he takes from the treasure Trove which gets them caught, which gets them caught, gets them in trouble. And then it's almost like a way the filmmakers were saying let's show how tricky he is and how he's going to trick the devil. Because that's an element that we want to continue on into a future franchise movie.
Speaker 2:And the fact that you've got Mora.
Speaker 1:Yeah Mora, sorry the organization. Yes Mora.
Speaker 2:And they've already showed the Headless Horseman, yep, and the fact that and like oh, we're questioning the usual suspects, meaning there's a lot more things that they can end up touching on. So Jack might come back again because, I don't know, the Tooth Fairy's lost the piece or something, yep, something like that, and they have to bring Jack back in. So I think the Rocker paid so much because I don't think he's going to be in another one.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I think so too, because if they're going to do another one set around Christmas, definitely they'll have Calendrift come back. But I think Jack O'Malley, chris Evans is the through line for the franchise. If they're going to do one about Halloween, or if they're going to do one about, you know, easter, if they want to, or another Christmas one, whatever it is, jack O'Malley is obviously, or Chris Evans is the cheaper option to continue the franchise and the through line. But they can then introduce other star characters as well, without the rock and his exorbitant price tag that comes along with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, because, like Jack, could just end up working for Mora tracking down rogue mythological creatures, exactly, he's got a lot of roles and usefulness in that space.
Speaker 1:And you know what? I'm not sure what the news is. We'll have to look into it and maybe post it on our social medias. But about any news about sequels?
Speaker 1:But given the takeaways and the budget for this movie, usually movies that perform in this manner don't really get the franchise tag. That being said, we'll move on to my next most valuable takeaway and that is, you know, the budgeting space that is in Hollywood at the moment. So usually back in the day when a movie was made, they'd have two chances to make money, and this is more of a factual takeaway than like an enlightening growth takeaway. So this is my learning takeaway, and I actually did a little bit of reading about the budget space in movies. That had two chances basically to make money off a movie, and the first was obviously in the box office when people would go to to make uh, to to see the movie. And the second space was on physical take-home media, which used to be through video stores or buying the DVD itself. Um, but that's all gone now. So that second payday really doesn't happen for actors in residuals because of streaming services.
Speaker 1:This was originally marketed as a streaming movie for Prime, but it tested so well with audiences that they released it onto theaters. But also, I feel like they released it onto theaters so they could make that initial payday money because they spent so much on the budget. That being said, a lot of the actors in this movie had increased salaries because negotiating deals between actors and studios used to include a back-end payment and in this instance obviously there wasn't going to be much back-end payment. So the Rock got paid his upfront, as did some of the other actors. They got paid their residual upfront, which inflated the budget of the movie.
Speaker 1:As a result of that, obviously they didn't make as much on the gross worldwide and it did go to streaming pretty early, which can affect your theater box office prices, as we saw with the Black Widow movie, which pretty much kicked off this trend as well, by the way, because of Scarlett Johansson's losses for that movie. But I just thought it was very, very interesting to see how the changing media and the changing dilemma of Hollywood is being flipped on how actors actually take their pay, and it's going to be harder as well to determine what a successful movie is going to be and what it's going to look like, because usually you'd take the budget and you'd look at the gross earnings and you'd think, okay, did it make more than it spent? It's successful. But that's no longer the case. It's different now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and because of that it may come to a point where your non-big-named actors will get more roles, because they're a cheaper option than what the big-name roles are. So either the big stars are going to have to suffer a bit of a pay cut to get the movies, or else the studios just won't be able to afford them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they'll go for younger talent, which is good. I think it develops that younger audience and it levels the playing field a little bit. And I do think, whatever the number is, whether it be $30 million or $50 million for the Rock, a bit over the top in my eyes Because personally for me, I don't think he played a character that was worth $50 million to $30 million $50 million, I could retire and just live off $50 million.
Speaker 1:That's generational wealth. Man, that is just that's like you and your kids and your kids' kids Like one movie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one movie. Yeah, I 100% agree, and I think we discussed this before as well. But he basically played the same character that he always plays. So that budget element was really interesting for me as a takeaway, because it sort of is the first time I've seen where a movie like this, as a summer blockbuster, is spending way, way more than what it is earning through, which is also why I think it was pushed to IMAX.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you heard, but when the Rock was marketing this movie, he said he watched Oppenheimer in IMAX and thought you know what would look good on IMAX Red Oppenheimer in IMAX and thought you know what would look good on IMAX Red One. You think Oppenheimer looks good? Come and see Red One on IMAX. And everybody was just like bro, those two movies aren't even in the same caliber. You're two different styles. But yeah, imax can charge more for a ticket at the theater. So I think he was literally trying to get people to pay more on the IMAX and visually it is a feast, a feast for the eyes. So yeah, I think that budget thing for me was a big takeaway. Do you have any more takeaways from the movie? And, mbt Brash, are you good with yours?
Speaker 2:I wish they had of not done as much. It seems so cramped in.
Speaker 1:I agree In terms of it felt we've talked a lot about franchise it felt like they were setting it up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:In terms of world building, exactly, but.
Speaker 2:I'm going back to it again If they had cut out all the kid stuff, it would have felt more open and it would have been like they could have shot more scenes. So just instead of a headless horseman they could have had the headless horseman, and then they could have had another couple of mythical creatures that they could have popped up, just so it sort of entices the people that world without the time constraint. Yeah, that'd be awesome to see that character in a movie. Yeah, yeah, but um, and like everything else just felt so cramped in, like them finding the snowman just seemed a bit cramped and it moved along very quickly yeah, as well yeah, they just just quick one on place after another and it's just like whoa, slow down, like definitely you have to sort of expand it.
Speaker 2:You know that you can't cram everything in and hope for it's gonna like work.
Speaker 1:Well, the pacing was just a bit off, yeah, and do it in clever ways as well, I think, because I don't know about you, but I kind of got sick of chris' character saying wait what? Oh yeah, like he was just about to be explained some law that the audience needed to hear from a character All the amounts of times in the movie that someone dropped an acronym. And Chris Evans' character, again Jack O'Malley, was like what does that mean? So then they could then go and cleverly explain the acronym as like a ha-ha-ha moment. We're so clever, we've got these real world acronyms for fantasy things that we've created. Yeah, I think that that world building element was very apparent and I don't think it should have been. I think that it they should have focused on making this movie great, because we know that franchises are built on content that people like, and when it's forced down people's throat, I just feel like it just gets forgotten and lost yeah, yeah, like elf, yeah that was a forced acronym, yeah, but don't call them elf Brash.
Speaker 1:Don't call them elf ELF. Yeah, that was such a forced acronym though. Yeah, 100% yeah. What was the extremely large and formidable?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was.
Speaker 1:Oh man, that was like for fun's sake, but, goodness me, it obviously has a different meaning in the movie. But, yeah, extremely large and formidable wowee yeah, I think that definitely is the case. The forced franchise moment it could have been done a little bit differently. For that as well, for the most valuable takeaways for me, all right. So this is the real deal segment. This is basically where we draw a bunch of cards and we talk about a technical element of the film, some of which we've already discussed through the movie.
Speaker 1:But this is more like your review space and instead of actually reviewing the movie from top to bottom, we're doing it in more of a gamified way, just to keep us on our toes and to talk about something different every single time. So I've got a list of actual technical things that people review movies on, all the pros you know, and we're going to use ChatGPT, our amazing overlord, to generate and give us one of these at a time, and if we're not sure on what they actually are or what they're asking, I can ask this amazing ChatGPT to give us a little explanation of it as well. So these range from things like character development all the way to themes that are in the movie and strengths like that as well. So the first one that we're going to talk about will be generated right now the themes. So talking about the themes for this segment of our Red One review, and themes are like central ideas or messages explored.
Speaker 1:We kind of went through this when we talked about accountability, but let's look at this through the lens of it's supposed to be a Christmas film, brasher. Yeah, the theme of Christmas. Did it feel like a Christmas movie to you?
Speaker 3:No, no, not really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree. So for me, there are things that has to be sort of in a Christmas movie, and a lot of people will argue this for the Die Hard. Do you think actually, here's a point. Do you think Die Hard is a Christmas movie? No, there you go. So I think that these two fall into a similar vein. I think that, yes, they're action filled. They are set around Christmas.
Speaker 1:I feel like this is more of a Christmas movie than Die Hard because it does feature things like the North Pole and reindeer and Santa and Christmas law. It's not your traditional Christmas movie, because I don't feel like it embodies a Christmas message or a Christmas spirit. There are very few Christmas carols in the whole movie. Yeah, I just think that the very sort of the action drowns out the Christmas. Yes, perfect, yeah, beautiful. The action drowns out the Christmas in terms of your focus, and I feel like that comes back to the target audience for this movie Teenagers, definitely teenagers, or adults, middle schoolers, if you're a US person listening. But, yeah, I think that well, for example, what is your favorite Christmas movie?
Speaker 2:Klaus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and mine is Home Alone, so those two movies there definitely embody the spirit of Christmas, and I like the christmas movie of home alone because the message that you get through that is spending time with family, which is very strong with me. I haven't actually seen class, so you'll have to tell me what the theme is for that one, but it's basically.
Speaker 1:It's basically just a read like a new take on how santa came about yeah, so it's definitely retelling that lore Actually a similar sort of space to this, but obviously more traditional. But yeah, I definitely agree. I think this was marketed as an action sort of flick and then a Christmas flick.
Speaker 2:Second, the theme of mixed lore, the lore-wise, christmas lore they have a lot of and probably like their world building their law, they used a lot of law which was really fun and it's really fun to research. Look up, they did both greek, mythological, all these kinds of law, but because of that it came so jumbled, yeah and confusing. They should just either stuck with the mythological part of it, because that seemed like the main focus of the movie was mythological over, like your Greek and other sort of types of lore. Yeah, yeah, they should have focused more on the mythological, especially if they wanted to franchise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because then it kind of blows lines a little bit in terms of are we talking about characters like Jack and the Beanstalk fairytale, like, or are we talking about ones that used to be folklore, like, where are we drawing the line here?
Speaker 2:with fairytale characters, or and they talk about saint nicholas of- here of maya maya, sorry, um, and it's like, yeah, things have had different names, but you're heading towards like it was a greek person. You're heading more towards an actual person. He was a person who used to marry people on the sly, yeah, like he used to give. He used to give gifts to children and all that and it's uh, it's just sort of they want to go a mythological route but then they bring it too close into just being just things that have actually happened, that are real people who are mythological.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I understand where you're going with that. I think that the mythological element was definitely inserted for that franchise tag so that the mora had more jobs to do than just save christmas, because obviously one day a year, as they talked about, it's the big job, as they say, but like mora seems like that the head head franchise, and then there's lots of different holiday franchises and it might be of yeah, exactly of holiday movies.
Speaker 1:So so, yeah, I think that they need to just sharpen up on the lore and just basically make it less of a franchise thing that they were trying to do and make it more of just a Christmas movie that everybody was going to enjoy.
Speaker 2:Or even change it from a Christmas movie to a holiday movie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so during this segment as well. I forgot to mention at the top, but you and I, after discussing the element for the real deal segment, we're going to give it a rating of good or bad and if we think that it's good, we're going to call it Cavalame.
Speaker 3:Any last words for your most faithful warrior? Only one, cavalame.
Speaker 1:And if we call it, if we think it's going to be like bad or it needed work, we're going to call it Krumperschlap.
Speaker 3:They're playing Krumperschlap. Krumperschlap. It's the official game of Krumperschlap.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. So for the themes, do you think the themes in red one was done good or bad in terms of, uh, kavalame, or crumpish slap, crumpish. I am also giving it a crumpish slap or a crumpish crap. Um, I think that the themes are definitely something that needed work and they needed to focus in on the right themes for a Christmas movie.
Speaker 2:So themes? There were three. I think I can't remember three Christmas themes. Yeah, like they actually focused on the actual Christmas theme, the very beginning where he tries to expose the fact that the parents buy the presents and hide in the closet. Yep, yep, that's very Christ. That is the end where you see jk simmons doing the rounds. Yep, that was. That was awesome. That was actually one of my favorite things. I did one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1:That was good, that was fun and krampus yep, krampus as well, and you know what it was. Almost like, um, like a metaphor, because you know how you see. You see the north pole in all its blade runner, 2049 glory, completely cgi'd, massive, stark tower in the middle of it, just everything that we know not to be Christmas looks completely oh wonka, yeah. But when you drill down to it and then Callum Drift, the Rock's character looks down at what was in terms of the old shack where it all began, it's like, yeah, that's old Christmas movies and this is new Christmas movies, big and flashy, and AI. I was like no, I want to see the story that's in that shack. Yeah, give me that. So, yeah, krumperschlapp, all the way, all right.
Speaker 1:So the next one that our chat GBT overlord, speaking of AI, has given us is the villains in the story. So the villains in the story being Greylar, but also, I think, we can put Krumpus. Do you think that there are solid villains that can carry this movie through? Because we all know a good movie centers on a good villain. Krumperschlapp, cavallame what do you think? Krumperschlapp? Really? Okay, go ahead, tell me why.
Speaker 2:The biggest villains and the most hardcore villains in that entire movie were the snowmen. Correct, they were the only ones that actually did any damage, realistically, to anyone. Yep, that is true. Yep, they froze the crow's character. Yep, and oh, it froze one of the bodyguards. Yep, gorilla didn't do?
Speaker 1:yeah, no, she didn't. Well, she had this massive overarching plan um, which brings me again to the law you were talking about in terms of Grilla and Krampus, how they tried to merge those two together by saying these two characters loved to punish people. And we were talking, before we recorded, about how, yeah, they love to punish people. And my partner, kalia, when she watched this movie, she said if they love to punish people so much because they're naughty, why are they also being naughty? I'm like that's absolutely correct. Like Krampus is there living in a castle of debauchery with all his fantastic friends.
Speaker 1:Is it called an oxymoron? I don't think it's an oxymoron. It's hypocritical, hypocritical, yes, there it is. So it's very hypocritical that Krampus and Grula really love to punish people, but then again, they do stuff that is punishable. Yeah, like slapping each other in the face for a game of fun Krumpish slapping Obviously, partying all the time. Every day is Krumpish Nacht. All of these things would leave them in the level four naughty list category. But here we are looking at these villains with these massive, overarching, hypocritical plans that the heroes then have to thwart. That being said as well, I feel like Grilla also. I wasn't too fearful of that villain? No, she had a lot of henchmen and a big master plan, but they literally found a loophole through their master plan by just as we talked about before being accountable for your mistakes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, power of friendship, the power of yeah.
Speaker 1:I see that that's the constant thing. It's just absolute shit. It's like the power of friendship won the day. Power of love. Power of love broke this. Yeah, this mythical cage exactly, and I think that was just a really easy get out of the jail free card that they used. Jack O'Malley had no business being on that bridge. You know he did say that famous line there are worse go out than defending Santa Claus. But after that he ran up to Grillo or he dodged a few blows and then he got smacked off the bridge, did nothing.
Speaker 2:Which, if he actually got smacked by the thing, he would have broken ribs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:He'd be out. He'd be internal bleeding, hemorrhaging. He'd be done.
Speaker 1:I honestly think that the way that they made would have been a callback. If they were franchising it, saying only a mythological creature or someone with mythological ties or powers could have broken a spell that was created by a mythological creature. So maybe that's what they were going to harken back to that foreshadowing element, but again in a standalone movie where you're just supposed to take it as what it is, I feel like Krumpish was a better villain than Grilla and they should have stuck with that as the story.
Speaker 2:And can we also talk about him breaking out of his snow globe for being, you know, power of love and everything? Mm-hmm, how did the sun get out of his? Well, that's true as well. He didn't go through anything like awakening or something. He was just himself and his dad told him he loved him. Yeah, it was like.
Speaker 1:That's true. Well, it goes back to that line he said about how you're only in here because of me. I was like, okay, fine.
Speaker 2:No, he's in there because he picked up a snow globe and got stuck in it.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's the whole point of a snow globe.
Speaker 2:You pick it up and you're stuck in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but didn't they also say that the snow globe was supposed to imprison and punish people on the naughty list?
Speaker 2:No, it was just created. It was created purely just for people to when they grab onto it, like it was to punish naughty children. But it didn't. It wasn't created to distinguish Yep.
Speaker 1:It was just created to trap people. Yep, yeah. Well, how did the kid get out of his? That's a good question. Plot hole We've got to make a jingle for plot hole. Work in space for the fandom portal spot, guys.
Speaker 2:I feel, and she's meant to be like an enchantress type character, who's also a giant ass troll with two tails yeah, but an enchantress and barely does her magic. The only sort of real magic she ever did was take control of Nick Kroll, and that was cringy as to watch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was so for you. You rated this a Krampus schlap. In terms of villains, I really liked how they represented Krampus, just because he was cool. He was.
Speaker 2:He was cool.
Speaker 1:He was villain-ish yeah, he was villain-adjacent, he was anti-hero by the end of it, especially because he got that Avengers 3.0 landing moment, took on his ex-girlfriend, got beat the fuck up. Yeah, absolutely Just like all types, and then that was it. He was my favorite character in the movie, but he wasn't overly villainous.
Speaker 1:No, you're right. And in terms of this category, when we're talking about villains being that villainous sort of role or at least questioning something that we're talking about, I'll have to give it a crumper schlapper as well, a big old schlapper. All right, last one for this segment, for our real deal segment, let's get the next one Character chemistry. So this is where we talk about the actors and how they worked on screen, whether it was well done or not. So well done. Interview.
Speaker 1:For me personally, I've sort of read articles and seen interviews. You know you always see them sitting in the press junkets together. It seemed more fake and forced between Chris Evans and Dwayne the Rock Johnson than I have seen the Rock in other press junkets would say Kevin Hart for Jumanji and Jack Black. So I feel like their on-screen chemistry. It was hard to sort of grasp and get behind them because they're both very cynical characters. So the Rock or Callum Drift was cynical because he'd lost faith in the adults around Christmas. And obviously Chris Evans, jack O'Malley's character was overly cynical because he never believed in Christmas in the first place and he's a criminal full stop. So you've got these two cynical characters that are just sort of walking along trying to find their belief in Christmas again. And there wasn't really somebody that you could get behind. That was a moral standpoint. The and there wasn't really somebody that you could get behind. That was a moral standpoint.
Speaker 1:The only one that I found in the whole movie that was a moral standpoint was JK Simmons as Santa. He was asleep for the whole movie. Also, great role to take if you're an actor. If your character is just sleeping the whole time, what a payday? Awesome. But for me, I think this is a crumpish slap. For me, too, I love both. Well, I love Chris Evans as an actor. I'm hit and miss with Dwayne the Rock Johnson, because I know what studios hire him for. It's for a movie like this. But in terms of their chemistry together as two protagonists, they were too similar in my eyes and, yeah, it just didn't really click, didn't work. What about you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel I feel as much as you may like you see the interviews of the Rock and like Rock and Kevin Hart and they were joking around and everything like that. But I don't know, for me the Rock always seems a little bit more serious rather than jokey, whereas I know like Chris Evans, for a fact, is always like like more of the relaxed, like funny, just like like not natural, not jokes and everything. I just natural like just yeah, yeah, laughing, having good time, whereas rock, I think he's a bit more. Yeah, I know what you mean. I think that he's like look at um chris evans and chris um shit, hemsworth, hemsworth. Like when they're on stage they get on the stage, they're doing these like high fives and high fives and stuff like that and they're just messing around, yeah, whereas I don't see the Rock and Chris doing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know what. I did read some things about the production of this movie where everybody talked about the Rock or Dwayne Johnson being late to set. Have you seen any of that sort of stuff before?
Speaker 2:No, I try and avoid that because as much as I don't like hearing the negatives about actors purely because then that sort of ruins movies for me I try and separate the actor from the person.
Speaker 1:See, I'm the exact opposite to that Brash. I'm just like I can't separate it. And the reason that I can hit or miss with the Rock is because of the things that I hear about this and they might be true, they might be not, but yeah, it costs a lot of money. When an actor is late to set, all of his cast and directors have backed him and said you know, he is late on some days, but that was pre-organized. He's a very professional actor. He always does his job when he's there and he's friendly to everybody on set and he's got that awesome social media presence. But yeah, I, I I think maybe there was some some tension there based on that, but you can never really know, as fans like you and I, um, all I know is that on screen, the characters just seem to be too similar to me, and chris evans, being a what does that mean? Kind of character, was just almost like a little bit too annoying for me to, yeah, to give it aum, eh, so for me, crumbish slap all the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah and like, yeah, you hear all these things about like actors, but then, like I've never been personally, all this is secondhand information, like it might not be true. The person who said it might have been the person who was the asshole and was just trying to like, make themselves seem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or you know clickbait yeah, it works and it bites, and yeah, but like if I I try and always base the movies and like the things off of the actual movie and their like, their acting, and try and stay away from any of the other nonsense because it'll make me biased.
Speaker 1:Good, because in future episodes of the Fandom Portals podcast, you can definitely pull me up on that, because I will tell an actor that they're absolute rubbish because of what I've read about them. So pull me up if you need to. That's great that we're both on opposing sides of the coins. There for that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I give merit on that. So the three categories that we've done for the real deal so far are all crumpish schlap. Is there anything else that you would like to bring up in terms of theme or technical aspects for this movie before we move on to our final segment of the show?
Speaker 2:One Cavallame I will say is I did like the views it looked spectacular.
Speaker 1:The CGI was Cavallame for me too.
Speaker 2:Good call. Even when the Rock had to jump from the tower down, you could tell it was CGI, but it wasn't the worst I've seen. I've seen a lot worse. I've seen a lot worse in, probably, movies that should have been a lot better. But yeah, I reckon the snowmen were cool as they were all gangster like they were gangsters like with the pipe too. Yeah, pipe, yeah From. Like a snowflake ninja star. Yeah, like it was. I liked how it looked Like the reindeer. Reindeer were amazing. Yeah, slade looked like the.
Speaker 1:Batmobile basically.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. And like so, full props to the CGI. Yeah, like his, his Slade, oh yeah. And like so, full props to the CGI. Yeah, like his sleigh. Oh yeah, his sleigh slayed. Oh it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it looked, it looked amazing, visually stunning, and I think you know if the budget was spent a lot on making it look like that, I'm kind of happy with how they spent that money then, because it was visually pleasing, appealing to the eye, and even the effects on Callum Drift, the Rocks character shrinking and then increasing the size. It's really hard to pull off and do so in not a way that you're like that's balkingly CGI, yeah, and that was really cool, but it actually worked really really well. Every time that he did it and you know, when he was small and he'd grind across the ground and then mid-slide he would then turn big again. Yeah, like actually pulling that off and thinking about how that would be pulled off technically.
Speaker 2:How much work, though it's hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I feel like we've got to give props and some Cavalamaze to that team.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and also the CGI, the action was good.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think that's a good point to say as well. The CGI and the action of the movie were definitely Cavallamese for me too. I wanted a longer fight at the end, or even just a more. A better choreographed fight, yeah. Because it was almost like everybody runs at the big thing. They hit them away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but when they're fighting guerrilla kids 12 kids they had Lucy Liu fighting a small snippet of her fighting pulls out the Eskimosins or the lightning batons and she like kicks ass for like a couple of seconds yeah, it's 10, maybe 10 seconds and then it cuts away to them chasing Grilla down the ramp. I'm like, nah man, stick with Lucy, Give her a bit more ass. Kicking Lucy is amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, from the 90s and the 2000s, great action star. One of the Charlie's Angels, yeah, and especially if they're going to franchise it out, she's obviously the director of Mora. She's going to be in all of the movies pretty much. So let us spend some time with Lucy Liu, let her her some more in that space. But, yeah, definitely, cgi Cavallamays and some of the action sequences were really well pulled off. So it's not a complete loss. For Red One, I've mentioned that I rewatched it three times, not because I enjoyed it, but well, I did enjoy it, but not as much as I thought I would. You know, not a Christmas movie that'll stick with me. I watched it one time because Carly wanted to watch it, my partner and yeah, so it does have that rewatchability for me. But I think overall it's a crumpish lap for me, just overall crumpish lap.
Speaker 2:Crumpish lap with a few Cavallamays.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with a hint of Cavallamay throughout.
Speaker 2:With, with a toned down, jk Simmons Cavallame. Yes, that's right, not a full Cavallame.
Speaker 1:Not a fully yelled Cavallame. I love it. So that was our real deal segment. We're going to be doing that on most episodes. It's sort of our fun little way to review a movie and we're going to move on to our last segment of the show now. All right, so the final segment of our show is where we do a portal pitch, and that's basically where you and I, brash, give our audience or our listeners a little recommendation on what you think people should play, watch, invest their time in. It can be related to Red One, or it might be something completely left field or Christmas movie adjacent, it is up to you. This is just a portal pitch. Our last segment of every show is probably going to change. It could be a game, it could be a recommendation, but this time we're doing a portal pitch. Is there anything that you would like to recommend to our fans, or do you want me to go first while you think about it?
Speaker 2:You go first, while I think about it Alright.
Speaker 1:So I think that the one that I want to see the most, and I think that people should go out and actually look at, is the new Bob Dylan movie, a Complete Unknown with Timothée Chalamet. I'm very well into music biopics. That being said, better man. The one about Robbie Williams is one that you should go see as well. So that's two that I recommend that people should go see, because they're definitely on my watch list for my letterbox as well.
Speaker 2:Brash, you want to, you know, still go down the christmas route. I I suggest watching klaus. Um, if you for the christmas movie, and, uh, well, yeah, for if, especially if you want to cleanse the palate, like that's a good way of if you want some christmas spirit yeah, yeah, if you really want to go down the because, what Redbine, I think, tried to do, klaus does better.
Speaker 2:yes, but in terms of like, in terms of someone turning around their life and, you know, becoming going from naughty to nice, um, I reckon Klaus does it better very good, and it's one that like, like it got me teared up in it as well, like it's yeah, it's sad but sweet.
Speaker 1:Beautiful Yep. Definitely go out and watch some more Christmas movies, guys. Klaus is one that you can sink your teeth into, recommended by Brash from the Phantom Portals podcast. Any recommendations from you? Ace is asleep on the rug at our feet, beautiful boy. So that is our Red One episode here. Thank you so much for joining me. Brash, welcome to the show, as well as the new co-host.
Speaker 2:Hey, happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's awesome to have you here. Just someone to back and forth with, someone who also enjoys media and movies just as much as I do.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's going to be great, it's going to be awesome, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Can't wait. Yeah, in the future, guys, we are going to be doing more episodes with Brash. Obviously, we want you to get to know him and get to know me, so we're going to be doing some episodes that surround that in terms of picking movies and talking about movies that really allow you to get to know us, and we will also be doing some Letterboxd challenges every month. So be doing some letterboxd challenges every month. So our letterboxd challenges is where we pick eight to 12 movies that Brash and I will be watching. Some of those movies will feature as episodes on the Fandom Portals podcast, others we will just watch for fun, and basically it just gives us like a landing pad for us to discuss and talk about the different sorts of media on a monthly basis. So, with that being said, this time Brash picked four movies and I picked four movies. So the first four picks in our challenge is mine. The next four picks is Brash's, and we tried to pick movies that the other person hadn't seen, just so we could actually talk about it from a fresh perspective in terms of fresh pieces of eyes. But other times our challenges can be related to just a list of eight criteria that the movies have to meet, for example, the one that I did for December. One of the criteria was you had to watch a movie that was made in 2003. Or another one was you had to watch a Christmas movie that didn't feature Santa. So sometimes our monthly challenges is that, but this time it is just four movies from Brash, four movies from me. If you wanted to join that, they're joinable challenges, you can find them on Letterboxd.
Speaker 1:Our Letterboxd is at Fandom Portals. Brash Rackham's got his own as well. His is at Brash Rackham, I believe. Both will be in the show notes and you can find us there. It's a social space for our movie loving friends Talking about social spaces. You can also find us on Instagram and we're very active on threads, which is at fandom portals. You'll find some awesome photos, some updates and ways to interact with us on there. And I couldn't end the podcast without doing that thing that podcasters do, which is asking you from the bottom of our hearts to share this with somebody that you think would enjoy it. Share it with somebody who is your movie or film buddy and, if you have the time and the ability to do so, definitely rate us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasting stuff. We'd love that feedback as well. So that's me signing off. Any final words from you, brash.
Speaker 2:No, thanks for listening, for those listening. And yeah, yeah, leave comments. Talk to us, we're open to hear anything you guys got to say, recommendations Leave comments.
Speaker 1:Talk to us. We're open to hear anything you guys got to say, recommendations, anything like that. That's actually something that I kind of want to put on. Some of our Letterboxd challenges is maybe leaving a space or two for audience recommendations for movies for us that we can discuss on the film. So good, call out Brash. Definitely we'd love to hear from you guys in that space too. All right, signing out, catch you later.
