Latest / The Radio From Hell Show - Best Of / Sean Means Movie Reviews From December 5th, 2025

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Sean Means Movie Reviews From December 5th, 2025 · The Radio From Hell Show - Best Of

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 0:00
  Speaker 2: Here he is Sean Patrick means. He is a reporter
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: and editor at the Salt Lake Tribune. Sltrib dot com
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: is where you find his work, and he's also a
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  Speaker 2: movie reviewer. You can find his reviews at movie cricket
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  Speaker 2: dot net. Good morning, Sean.
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  Speaker 3: Good morning. Where we start here, we will start. We
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  Speaker 3: got three this week. We will start at the bottom,
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  Speaker 3: very very bottom. Five nights at Freddy's.
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  Speaker 1: Two at the very bottom. If I remember correctly, you
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  Speaker 1: didn't hate hate the first one.
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  Speaker 3: I went back and looked. I gave the three starts.
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  Speaker 3: This is the sequel to the horror thriller based on
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  Speaker 3: the video game. That's one jump scare after another. We're
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  Speaker 3: going back to the original pizza restaurant, not the chain,
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: not the one of the chain that we had in
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  Speaker 3: the first movie. Oh the original Oh okay, where the
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  Speaker 3: where the creepy animatronic creatures first became evil and possessing
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: the souls of dead children. This one adds a new character,
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: the Marionette, also known as the Puppet, which controls all
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  Speaker 3: the others and wants to kill parents. And there are
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  Speaker 3: reasons for this that they'll explain if you really care.
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  Speaker 3: I had to be reminded by one of my sons
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  Speaker 3: that my other son cosplayed as the Marrionette a couple
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  Speaker 3: of years ago at fan X.
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  Speaker 2: Really.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so that's the prologue and it's all downhill
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  Speaker 3: from there. I would describe the plot, but you know,
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: some of your listeners are driving right now, so I
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  Speaker 3: don't want to make them fall.
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  Speaker 1: There is a plot, though, there is something resembling a plot.
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  Speaker 3: It's mostly fan service, though, because the unless you're you know,
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  Speaker 3: if you're a fan of the video game and you
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: want to chase down all the.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Easter eggs, you know, good luck to you.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: My favorite Easter egg is the fact that in the
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  Speaker 3: first movie, the villain, the original creator of all of
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: the Freddy's franchise and all the all the Evil amer Tronks,
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: was played by Matthew Lillard. Yes, well, we have a
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  Speaker 3: new character in this movie who is associated with that character,
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  Speaker 3: and he's played by Skid Alrich.
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  Speaker 1: Oh so that's a scream thing that's fall following. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's a screen fact. Eight is very excited things like that.
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  Speaker 3: Otherwise, I mean, the first movie at least it gave you,
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  Speaker 3: I mean, it gave the fans all those kinds of things.
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  Speaker 3: But then it also gave regular people a running shot
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  Speaker 3: at actually enjoying a thriller.
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  Speaker 1: Not not here, no if you if you're not into it,
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  Speaker 1: don't even bother?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, one star, Wow, five nights at Freddy's too, Stay
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: and that, which is more rare than the four stars?
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  Speaker 1: Do you ever?
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  Speaker 2: Do you ever?
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  Speaker 3: Give no stars? Occasionally it's it's a difference between distaste
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: and loathing. I think, well, so this is just a stage.
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  Speaker 3: Not well, then I'd have to care enough to give
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  Speaker 3: it this. Well, then let's roll along, let us merrily
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: we roll along. This is this is this is a classic.
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  Speaker 3: This is a Stephen Sondheim musical that he actually wrote
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  Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty one.
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  Speaker 1: In it bombed.
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  Speaker 3: Then it's had revivals of very people have like tried
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  Speaker 3: to bring it back and realize, oh, that's right Steven Sondheim.
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  Speaker 3: He's brilliant and we didn't appreciate it back then. There
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  Speaker 3: was a revival a couple of years ago that won
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  Speaker 3: Best Revival, that won the Tony for Best Revival, and
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  Speaker 3: it won Tony Awards for two of the three stars.
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  Speaker 1: Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe.
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  Speaker 3: This is a filmed version our account of that production.
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  Speaker 1: They filmed the.
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  Speaker 3: Live Oh Oh shot in the theater that was doing
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: their revival. Three Friends Frank, Charlie and Mary, and it
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: details their ups and downs over twenty years, from fifty
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  Speaker 3: seven to seventy seven. It's told in reverse chronology, so
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  Speaker 3: we first see Frank at a party at his house
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  Speaker 3: in Hollywood, where he's a movie producer celebrating his latest
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  Speaker 3: blockbuster hit. But he's kind of alone except for all
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  Speaker 3: the people sucking up to him, except for Mary, who
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  Speaker 3: is sort of a drunk court jester telling him the
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  Speaker 3: truths he doesn't want to hear. We learned that Frank
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  Speaker 3: and Charlie used to be partners writing songs for musicals
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  Speaker 3: on Broadway. Frank's composer, Charlie's a lyricist, and Mary is
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  Speaker 3: a writer who not so secretly has been in love
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  Speaker 3: with Frank all these years, but he's never noticed. So
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  Speaker 3: we go backwards on the timeline. We see in reverse
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  Speaker 3: how these three friends went from being young and idealistic
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  Speaker 3: to older and cynical. The stars are excellent, Lindsay Mendez
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  Speaker 3: as really good as Mary is the sarcastic one with
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  Speaker 3: a broken heart. Daniel Radcliffe is really good as Charlie.
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  Speaker 3: He's great, he's great, He's his character is this giant
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  Speaker 3: ball of nerves, and he does really well with some
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  Speaker 3: of us. Sometimes very fast songs, songs of a lot
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  Speaker 3: of words and a lot of complicated rhymes.
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  Speaker 1: He does those brilliantly.
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  Speaker 3: There's a great number towards the beginning that where you
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  Speaker 3: just go, oh my god, he's so good. And then
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  Speaker 3: Jonathan Groff's great, he's great. You know him as King
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  Speaker 3: George and Hamilton you will be back, yes, Plus he
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  Speaker 3: did a stint on Glee, and.
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  Speaker 1: He was great on a TV series called mind hunder Right.
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  Speaker 3: Anyway, he's he's really good here as Frank is hiding
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  Speaker 3: his regrets behind the facade of being just incredibly good looking.
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  Speaker 1: Three and a half stars. Primarily, we roll along. It's
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  Speaker 1: playing in a few places.
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  Speaker 4: Around town Hamnet, Hamnet with an N not an L,
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  Speaker 4: and the movie and the movie gets into that, and
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  Speaker 4: there's talk about there's some discussion about how names can
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  Speaker 4: change in in Middle English in the sixteenth century England.
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  Speaker 3: For example, the main character, one of the main characters
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: here is Agnes, who's who we know who we know
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  Speaker 3: history knows better.
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  Speaker 1: As Anne Hathaway.
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  Speaker 3: These are she knows herbs and folklore and raising falcons,
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  Speaker 3: things she learned from her mother, who who they used
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  Speaker 3: to call it forest witch. She's played by Jesse Buckley.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: She's out in the woods and she encounters this handsome guy,
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: a Latin tutor who's who's teaching her her siblings. He's
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  Speaker 3: Will Shakespeare and he's played by Paul Muscal who again
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  Speaker 3: talking about impossibly handsome and he's sort of brooding character.
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  Speaker 3: They are. They get married and have kids, and then
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  Speaker 3: something happens, a tragedy that is as sad.
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  Speaker 1: As the ones. Will writes about that. I will not
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  Speaker 1: get into details.
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  Speaker 3: But when the tragedy happens, Will writes about his grief
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  Speaker 3: and a play about parents and children and how they
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  Speaker 3: handle their grief, something called hamlet Ah and how one
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  Speaker 3: can this? So this is a story about how how
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  Speaker 3: one turns pain into art.
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  Speaker 4: So it's a fictionalized account of maybe what now his
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  Speaker 4: son did die.
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  Speaker 3: He had a son named Hamlet who did die young,
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  Speaker 3: and so this is this is some really good art
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  Speaker 3: on screen. It's directed by Chloe Shoo, who did Nomad
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  Speaker 3: Land won the Oscar for that. She also did eternals,
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: but I know Marvel fans don't talk about that. It's
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  Speaker 3: very thoughtful. It's beautifully shot and has these quiet moments
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  Speaker 3: and and some real poetry, and of course you know Shakespeare,
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  Speaker 3: so there's there's definitely poetry here.
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  Speaker 1: And Jesse Buckley is amazing.
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  Speaker 4: Is she gonna win Best Oscar because there there's there's rumblings.
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  Speaker 1: She is up there.
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  Speaker 3: She's in the conversation for for best Actress this year,
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  Speaker 3: and this performance is deserving to be in that conversation.
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  Speaker 3: She especially in the last thirty minutes, when she sees
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  Speaker 3: the connection between her son and the new play that
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  Speaker 3: he's written, it.
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  Speaker 1: Is it is.
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  Speaker 3: You watch what's happening on her face as this is
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  Speaker 3: going on, and it is just so impressive and so emotional,
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: and you may you may start noticing how Dusty the
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: roommate has gotten all of a sudden three and a
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  Speaker 3: half for for Hamnt for Hamnet almost I almost went
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  Speaker 3: to four.
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  Speaker 1: But it's it's it's very very good. Is it playing around,
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  Speaker 1: It's playing at several theaters. I'm curious what kept you
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  Speaker 1: from four.
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  Speaker 3: It's it's hard to it's hard to divide define that sometimes,
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  Speaker 3: but it was just just didn't not quite you know,
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  Speaker 3: it's like it is.
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  Speaker 1: It is a high bar. Okay, all right, there you
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  Speaker 1: go and half for him. That's so what are we
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  Speaker 1: got next week?
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  Speaker 3: Next week we have Ella McKay seen promos for This
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: is a comedy from James L. Brooks, who did you
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: know terms of endearment in broadcast news. He hasn't made
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: a movie in like thirteen years, has been It's.
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  Speaker 1: Been a while.
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  Speaker 3: This one has Emma Mackie as an idealist, idealistic young.
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  Speaker 1: Politician.
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  Speaker 3: She's a lieutenant governor and then the governor is getting
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  Speaker 3: cabinet posts, so suddenly she's governor and she's trying to
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  Speaker 3: put her idealism into plactice. And she also has like
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: weird family issues because her dad's whatdy Harrelson, which.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Just which is a thing. Jamie Thee Curtis plays her aunt.
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  Speaker 3: It's good cast Iowa debris is in here somewhere Kumelin
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: and Johnny plays her state trooper driver who's like the
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: one friend she has. We also have The Secret Agent,
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  Speaker 3: which is a thriller from zill This is getting Oscar Buzzy.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: I think Wagner Mora who was I think in Narcos.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, he interviewed him at Sunday.
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  Speaker 3: He was brilliant and Narcos and he's he's the star
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  Speaker 3: of this and it's supposed to be big.
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  Speaker 1: I have a disk at home that I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: watch this weekend. All right, all right, snow.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Next week movie Cricket dot net and s l trib
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  Speaker 2: dot com.
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  Speaker 1: Sean means, thanks, Sean