Total Number of Ratings: 13
Murmur - Episode #1 - Summer Movie Preview 2009
First Published: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 12:30 PM
Last Saved: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 2:57 PM
June 23, 2009 - It's Murmur's first podcast! Murmur staffers Conor Kilpatrick, Josh Flanagan and Paul Montgomery sit down to chat about the 2009 summer movie season. They give their thoughts on the movies that have hit theaters already and discuss those that are still to come! Somehow Billy Zane's The Phantom gets involved. No one's quite sure how that happened.
Listen to the Podcast:
i finally found enough minutes to listen to this whole thing, and i'm sorry i didn't make more time, sooner. laugh out loud funny in several parts, especially the violent reactions to napoleon dynamite.
i saw the red band trailer for funny people yesterday, and it looks like a different movie (i don't think it mentions the cancer at all?). it also looks like one of those movies about comedians that is depressing as all get out. i'll probably be skipping it for quite a while.
I enjoyed the podcast and look forward to the next one. Hopefully, it will include a review of Public Enemies.
I enjoy Paul's input (and Conor's and Josh's, obviously), but am wondering who else will be in the rotation (this may color my iTunes review of the podcast).
Great first Podcast!
Star Trek was best movie I've seen so far this summer.
Terminator Salvation was good if your already a fan of the franchise or Christian Bale. :-) otherwise it was more of the same. I agree your take on the movie.
The movies I'm most looking forward to seeing are:
Public Enemies - I love historical based films... and I might a subconscious man-crush on Johnny Depp.
The Boat that Rocked - The cast looks amazing.
Inglourious Basterds - I'm a WW2 buff and I'm curious to see this cast in a Quentin Tarantino movie.
I LOVED this first episode.
The movie I'm most looking forward to this summer, however, is Funny People. I'm still not tired of the Apatow folks or even Adam Sandler (though I'll readily admit to being wary of his movies sometimes).
Josh was right though, that trailer was just ridiculous. Aw! He's sick! That's sad. He's all better! That's great!
Year One, however, is criminally bad.
Haha, glad to hear that other people love the shit out of Stranger Than Fiction too!
Looking forward to Public Enemies, Harry Potter, and Inglorious Basterds.
It looks like we'll be doing this bi-weekly to start, and weekly eventually. Probably after San Diego Comic-Con.
YES! A murmur podcast!
Looking forward to Funny people and Inglourious Basterds. I am very curious about the latter. Seems almost like a mashup of a WWII parody/nazisploitation.
favorite line from the show: "where's the emotional truth in this pooh scene?"
it almost made me drive into a ditch from laughing.
thanks for the near-death experience, conor!
i've been hoping you would start a podcast for this site. i love the ifanboy one - but now that i'm caught up on all the old eps, i don't have anything to listen to tue-fri on my drive to work. thankfully, murmur, now, can be worked into the mix now and then and i'll be able to smile again. :) great job, guys!
Awesome good remakes (if we are just going on remakes in general and not in the last few years) John Carpentar's The Thing, and David Cronenberg's The Fly.
You know what I loved about seeing the Hangover? Seeing it with my hard core Catholic mother, who went on to laugh her head off and call it the movie of the year. It took 22 years, but I'm finally getting her to my side of the humor fence.
I also wasn't a big fan of the first Transformers movie, and have no desire to see the new one. It's hard for me to invest emotions in a bunch of warrior alien robots that look like American cars. I was born in 84, so by the time I was old enough to play with by brothers' Transformers action figures, I didn't care enough about them. That emotional/nostalgic detachment may be the reason I didn't care about the first film (or the new one).
As for G.I. Joe, as awful as the trailers look, I'm going to see it opening night. I cared a lot more about G.I. Joe as a kid than I did about Transformers, so the nostalgic factor is working for me. I know I'll hate the director for ruining the Joes in the new movie, but I'm still itching to see just how it all plays out. According to a Slashfilm.com user review of a test screening, those idiotic super-suits don't play as big of a role as the trailers make us think. I hope the reviewer was right about that.
Just to clarify my thoughts on some the films:
Wolverine Origins: Worst film of the year in my eyes.
Star Trek: I can see why everyone loved it, but I am part of the 3% of the public who thought it was overhyped garbage.
Terminator Salvation: This was a weak film until the last hour of it. Was it released far too late? Yes this should've been done immediately after T2. But McG is setting up a nice trilogy to show how brutal this war was. So I was pleased with it.
The Hangover: Best comedy I have seen in a long time, probably since Borat. I dont know if it's one of my best films of 2009; but it'll probably be on the list
Year One: Peice of shit. I'm gald you brought up the problem with Michael Cera. If you like him that's great; but since he plays the same character no matter what the film/tv show is....that's a huge problem. It's why I am very skeptical of the Scott Pilgrim film.
Bruno: Even if it's not as great as Borat, I bet you it'll still be better then 99% of comedies that have been out this decade.
G.I. Joe: Our childhood is about to get destroied.
Inglourious Basterds: I dont see why josh thinks QT has 'coasted' since Pulp Fiction. All of his films have been great, maybe his films he decides to promote (like Hostel) or produce (the Dusk til Dawn sequels) but his writing/directing career is spotless. There has already been a lot of heat for this film at the Cannes film festival. Some say it's one of his best works, others say it's a peice of shit. I think if QT puts as much dedication in this film as he did with all the others...it will be good.
Wow, surprised to hear the skepticism of Bruno. I saw a screening in March and i've been chomping at the bit to see it again, although the R-rating means they probably cut some of the funnier bits. This was probably the funniest, most-shocking, smartest comedies I've ever seen. Borat is 10% of what Bruno is and the trailers cannot do it justice b/c they simply can't show most of the bits on TV.
I was at the movies on Sunday and it was a packed house. Sold out. And the BRUNO trailer came on and I expected a big reaction, but there wasn't one. There were some laughs, sure, but at no point during the trailer was the whole theater rolling. I dunno -- I really have no idea how BRUNO is going to be received. I won't be surprised if it's a huge hit or if it flops.
I dont see how it could be a flop. It might not make as much money as Borat...But Borat was such an anonmaly in terms of popularity. No one, not even the studio that produced it, thought that would succeed. It had one of the fewest releases in terms of theater quanity. Then it broke the world record for biggest box office opening in the smallest release. So it became a one of the biggest films for pop culture and no one can explain why.
Will Bruno be almost the same as Borat? Most likely. But as long as the jokes are funny and the stuff he does is outrageous and never before seen on a film....then it'll be a hit for me.
After watching some trailers again today, even the red-line one doesn't present what they show in the appropriate context so I understand the doubts. If it is anything close to what I saw, the first minute begins a continuous alternating stream of OMG's and hearty laughter, but the set ups are just as important as the punchline. It's like showing single, unrelated panels of a comic. This might be the mythical film where the trailers are poor and the movie is great and I literally can't wait for this film to be unleashed on america
If you want to wash the aftertaste of Transformers 1 with a John Turturro film, watch Box of Moon Light: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115738/ . It's a slow building character piece so if that's not your cup o' tea...
As for Borat - the Ali G series was aired in Israel many years before the movie came out, and it already became repetitive and over saturated - Ali G appeared in a Madonna video clip, and had a nice but forgettable movie of his own. I don't know if the entire seasons of that TV show were aired here, but after a while it was a case of wanting something new.
Bruno was that something new - he was in the TV show and posed as a somewhat flamboyant gay reporter. His skits were the best of the TV show because there weren't a lot of them, and because he let the interviewees hang themselves.
I remember an episode with some stylist that has his own TV series now I think, and Bruno acted serious and somewhat soft spoken and asked questions about homosexuality, and the answers he got were so ridiculous and were said with such a straight face, and Bruno was playing along so well, that it made that part the strongest of the entire series.
Also by watching the show I noticed that the three characters are the same guy, and that Borat isn't a real guy and I knew that he isn't some racist reporter - which (it seems) some people thought when the movie opened and bought into that persona.
Also he spoke some Hebrew words during it which isn't a good way to sell it, but a nice way to create an inside joke - a sort of "look at these jackasses" - both in the movie and against it airing.
This was a great podcast. I'm gald you guys are going to try and do a podcast for this site now. Other then the whole 'Hangover' trailer comment...I agreed with all of your points.
If I can ask, and I know it's all sudden since this was just posted. But what is the schedule for the podcasts on this site? Since you guys already do 3 podcasts already: Is it gonna be a weekly show or like 'hey we got some free time let's do a podcast!' type of deal?
Either way I am stoked for what you have plans for the site.
Josh: The trailer (for The Hangover) is better then the movie.
Wow, that might be the most inaccurate statement I have heard all year. I know Paul and Conor saw film thanks to Twitter. Did you guys like it?
I agree with Josh on the Hangover. Though I did see it with a small audience, so that could have affected my overall enjoyment. I didn't dislike it. I just don't know that it lived up to the trailer.
I thought Hangover was phenomenal save for the creepy Asian gangster from Role Models. He is an awful, awful actor and seemed to have no idea how to do anything interesting. I thought Zach Galifianakis really nailed it. Some of his stuff (Between Two Ferns for example) on funnyordie.com makes me laugh until my ribs hurt.
I'm excited for The Boat That Rocked, and still mad that I missed my screening of 500 Days of Summer. *sigh* Apparently I'm getting dragged to a midnight screening of Transformers tonight though. Thanks for doing this podcast though guys, I was curious if there was going to be one. Downloading!
Respond
I haven't seen most of those movies (I'm typically more of a "wait for DVD" guy), but one statement stuck with me:
"Brick was a terrible movie--"
LIES! HERESY! BLASPHONY!
...Not really, but seriously, I loved that movie. It's basically Dashiell Hammett with high school kids, but that's what made it so cool. IMHO, of course.