Latest / Curtis Sliwa & Larry Mendte In The Morning / Joe Neumaier, WOR Movie Minute host interview
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Well, let's bring in Joe Neumeyer, film journalist w o
- 0:04Speaker 1: R Movie minuted hosts. Joe, I have never seen anything
- 0:08Speaker 1: like this, and you're the experts, so maybe you've seen
- 0:11Speaker 1: this before. But Imax theaters are sold out through the summer,
- 0:16Speaker 1: and on the secondary market, prices for the Odyssey are
- 0:20Speaker 1: up to twenty five hundred dollars for one seat. Have
- 0:25Speaker 1: you ever seen anything like that?
- 0:28Speaker 2: I never have. It's really it's an extraordinary thing that
- 0:31Speaker 2: I think really sort of speaks to a couple of things, Larry.
- 0:34Speaker 2: I think it kind of talks to how hungry people
- 0:37Speaker 2: are for something interesting in movie theaters. I think it
- 0:40Speaker 2: speaks to sort of people wanting to see something that
- 0:42Speaker 2: they can't watch on their phone, or if they would
- 0:44Speaker 2: watch on their phone, all they would see would be
- 0:46Speaker 2: Odis's nose or you know, the just the eye of
- 0:49Speaker 2: the psychlops or something. And I think it also speaks
- 0:51Speaker 2: to wanting to be part of a moment. People have
- 0:53Speaker 2: heard about the movie. They want to make the call
- 0:55Speaker 2: for themselves is it good? Is it not good? Are
- 0:57Speaker 2: there things they like about it? And they want to
- 0:59Speaker 2: be part of the conversation. But I've never seen anything
- 1:01Speaker 2: like this I was. I was thinking about serious movies
- 1:04Speaker 2: in summer. The only thing that I can sort of
- 1:06Speaker 2: think about sort of like this a little bit is
- 1:09Speaker 2: is both Saving Private Ryan and Unforgiven. Back in the nineties,
- 1:12Speaker 2: where those were movies that came out in summer and
- 1:14Speaker 2: they didn't have explosions or superheroes or you know, anything
- 1:17Speaker 2: like that, and people needed to go see them. It's
- 1:20Speaker 2: an extraordinary thing. The box office is out of control.
- 1:23Speaker 2: It's amazing. It's really an amazing thing.
- 1:25Speaker 1: Let me add to your list. Remember Jaws. When Jaws
- 1:28Speaker 1: came out, Oh.
- 1:29Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, you know what's interesting because there's
- 1:32Speaker 2: I kind of break up and maybe you guys do
- 1:33Speaker 2: the same thing. I break up movies into like you
- 1:35Speaker 2: know what, are those those huge movies that kind of
- 1:38Speaker 2: made the moment of the summer or something like that,
- 1:40Speaker 2: and then one of the perfect movies to see in summer.
- 1:42Speaker 2: And I never would have thought, I mean maybe I
- 1:44Speaker 2: would have that it's something like The Honesty would have
- 1:46Speaker 2: made that. But Jaws is on that list. Independence Day
- 1:49Speaker 2: is on that list. Speed, the Great Cano Reeves movie
- 1:52Speaker 2: that's a lot of fun is on that list. And
- 1:54Speaker 2: then my ultimate summer movie is Back to the Future.
- 1:57Speaker 2: I just feel like that's the movie that, you know,
- 1:59Speaker 2: I remember seeing it in Night eighteen eighty five. Capture
- 2:01Speaker 2: a certain thing. But I think for this generation now
- 2:04Speaker 2: to see something that, you know something, I mean, Supergirl flop,
- 2:07Speaker 2: who knows what Spider Man will do next week? I mean,
- 2:09Speaker 2: these are all just those are the typical things. The
- 2:12Speaker 2: Odyssey is not that, and I think they want that
- 2:14Speaker 2: to be their summer movie. No interesting thing.
- 2:16Speaker 3: You've lived with Hollywood, the producers raising the money, trying
- 2:21Speaker 3: to follow a trail where they can guarantee box office
- 2:26Speaker 3: because this has done such baffo box office with unlimited potential.
- 2:31Speaker 4: Now, uh, you know all these movie houses, are they
- 2:35Speaker 4: suddenly going to say, oh, we got to move in
- 2:36Speaker 4: this direction. You know, forget that those kids doing movies
- 2:40Speaker 4: on their iPhones and smartphones. We got to raise two
- 2:44Speaker 4: hundred and fifty million dollars and do one of these
- 2:47Speaker 4: mega movies.
- 2:49Speaker 2: It's a good pointerers it's funny because it is the
- 2:51Speaker 2: exact opposite. Right here. You've got like back rooms and
- 2:54Speaker 2: obsession movies that these kids paid on their iPhones or
- 2:57Speaker 2: they made for five bucks, and they made a lot
- 2:59Speaker 2: of money, and then you've got the honysty that like,
- 3:01Speaker 2: you know, there's very you know, there's CGI in it,
- 3:03Speaker 2: but it is very like it's these are actual boats,
- 3:05Speaker 2: they're actual caves that they've filmed on. There's actual cast
- 3:10Speaker 2: of hundreds of people on a beach, not just CGI stuff.
- 3:13Speaker 2: So it's one extremely to the other. I don't know.
- 3:16Speaker 2: I mean, I think that there may be an acceptance
- 3:18Speaker 2: of of Okay, look like there's only certain filmmakers who
- 3:21Speaker 2: can who could pull this off, or who they'd want
- 3:24Speaker 2: to back and put their money on. But I think
- 3:26Speaker 2: there's also like there's only so many titles like that,
- 3:29Speaker 2: and also let's put out that the idea of like
- 3:31Speaker 2: who would have guessed that these that younger kids would
- 3:34Speaker 2: go to see a movie that's based on a three
- 3:35Speaker 2: thousand year old story, right, I mean, it's not a
- 3:38Speaker 2: graphic novel from last year. It's a it's a classic story.
- 3:42Speaker 2: And I don't know how many of those they can
- 3:44Speaker 2: kind of they can drum up, and I don't know
- 3:46Speaker 2: if that's the if that's their thinking. But the other
- 3:48Speaker 2: thing is Imax, right, I mean I've seen the movie now,
- 3:51Speaker 2: I've seen it twice fully in Imax. One at the
- 3:54Speaker 2: great giant one at Lincoln Square, and then one in
- 3:57Speaker 2: at the Palisades Mall in Nayak, and then once on
- 3:59Speaker 2: a very small screen, not in Imax. I saw most
- 4:03Speaker 2: of it there. Just the kind of compare it. It
- 4:05Speaker 2: doesn't lose much on the on the smaller scream. I
- 4:08Speaker 2: mean it does, of course, but the power is still there,
- 4:11Speaker 2: which I think speaks to the storytelling and the and
- 4:14Speaker 2: the kind of the quietude.
- 4:15Speaker 1: Yeah, you've seen this movie three times, two.
- 4:18Speaker 2: And a half, I thought twice, and my wife hadn't
- 4:20Speaker 2: seen us. I saw, so let's be honest. But because
- 4:23Speaker 2: the half the halftime that I saw was on the
- 4:25Speaker 2: I just want to see what it looked like on
- 4:27Speaker 2: the regular, on a regular screen, because I saw it
- 4:30Speaker 2: on the Imax the other two times and it looked fine,
- 4:32Speaker 2: fine enough that I said, I'm gonna go get something hour.
- 4:34Speaker 4: This is a good reviewer. He didn't just go down,
- 4:39Speaker 4: he says, but the average, the average version is not
- 4:41Speaker 4: gonna be able to go to Imax. Make me until
- 4:44Speaker 4: two days from now that, as you described it, Larry,
- 4:47Speaker 4: they're sold out on this movie.
- 4:49Speaker 1: What's interesting, he said two and a half times. I'm
- 4:52Speaker 1: assuming the half was the regular screen.
- 4:55Speaker 2: That's right. The half was the regular screen. I figured
- 4:57Speaker 2: like it the first half hour and then the last
- 4:59Speaker 2: half hour to catch the middle hour and a half.
- 5:02Speaker 1: I want to go back to something you said in
- 5:03Speaker 1: the very beginning because it was fascinating to me, and
- 5:06Speaker 1: I'm going to paraphrase it because I don't have the
- 5:07Speaker 1: exact quote, but you seem to say that, finally Hollywood
- 5:13Speaker 1: has made a movie that is worth seeing over and
- 5:16Speaker 1: over again, is going to sell out. Have you been
- 5:20Speaker 1: have you been concerned with what Hollywood is putting out?
- 5:24Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's a good, a very good point
- 5:26Speaker 2: to bring up. I have been. I mean obviously, like
- 5:28Speaker 2: through the Pandemic was one thing, but even before that,
- 5:31Speaker 2: I mean, look the Marvel movies that they can be fine,
- 5:34Speaker 2: they can be Drek, the superhero stuff in general and whatever.
- 5:37Speaker 2: But yeah, like once that era of and I always
- 5:40Speaker 2: compare it to the Western movies, right, Curtis, in the
- 5:42Speaker 2: Western movies of the fifties, like there was a Western every.
- 5:45Speaker 1: Other What did you say, Curtis?
- 5:47Speaker 2: What did you say, Curtis?
- 5:49Speaker 1: Are you saying was that Agis does a little Agis,
- 5:51Speaker 1: wasn't it?
- 5:52Speaker 2: Oh? No, No, not at all. No, but I'm sure Curtis,
- 5:54Speaker 2: you know, went to go see Man who Shot.
- 5:55Speaker 5: Liberty Valance or something when it came, let's face it,
- 5:58Speaker 5: the spaghetti westerns in Italy with Clint Eastwood and before
- 6:03Speaker 5: he suddenly came back here to become the megastar that
- 6:05Speaker 5: he was.
- 6:07Speaker 2: Right right, I mean, so those were like the dominant
- 6:09Speaker 2: genre of the of the fifties and early sixties, and
- 6:12Speaker 2: then it kind of they peered out after a while.
- 6:14Speaker 2: And I think these when those superhero movies got their
- 6:17Speaker 2: claws in the in the Hollywood's wallets, they were like, oh,
- 6:20Speaker 2: you turn them out, turn them out, you know, a
- 6:22Speaker 2: swamp thing. Let's have a movie about everybody, and and
- 6:24Speaker 2: that stuff. That really did concern me because none of
- 6:27Speaker 2: it really had any any ump to it. You know,
- 6:30Speaker 2: I liked some things and some things I didn't, but
- 6:32Speaker 2: I was concerned that this was just going to be
- 6:34Speaker 2: their their model or bad horror films. And horror is
- 6:36Speaker 2: having a resurgence now and the kids like it, that's fine,
- 6:39Speaker 2: but this does make me feel like they can see
- 6:42Speaker 2: that the audience has got a brain, and let's let's
- 6:45Speaker 2: give them something you know, might end up not being good,
- 6:47Speaker 2: might end up not being as powerful or as or
- 6:49Speaker 2: as uh momentous as as the Odyssey is. But give
- 6:53Speaker 2: people something of quality. That's that makes me feel good.
- 6:55Speaker 2: And people are going to the theaters. We need movie theaters,
- 6:58Speaker 2: you know, let's keep them going.
- 6:59Speaker 1: Yeah, I love I love that people are now. Like
- 7:02Speaker 1: with Spielberg, people would go see the movie. He was
- 7:04Speaker 1: the star of every one of his movies. Everybody went
- 7:07Speaker 1: to see a Spielberg movie. Christopher Nolan is now getting
- 7:11Speaker 1: into that sphere. People are now saying, this is a
- 7:15Speaker 1: Christopher Nolan movie. I have to see it. That's fascinating
- 7:19Speaker 1: to me.
- 7:20Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, director as Starr, you know, the only other
- 7:22Speaker 2: thing that I can think of that sort of like
- 7:24Speaker 2: it's like Alfred Hitchcock, right, Like there was a time
- 7:26Speaker 2: in the late fifties where a Hitchcock film, and he
- 7:29Speaker 2: was on TV with Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He was a
- 7:31Speaker 2: personality and every film every year that came out of
- 7:35Speaker 2: you know, was north By Northwest, or was Psycho or
- 7:37Speaker 2: you know, people knew it. People said this is a
- 7:39Speaker 2: Hitchcock film. Spielberg was the only other one after that,
- 7:42Speaker 2: and Scarssese to a degree, I think there was a
- 7:44Speaker 2: point where everybody you know in the nineties, whether it
- 7:47Speaker 2: was you know, Goodfellas or Cape Fear. But I think
- 7:50Speaker 2: Nolan absolutely is that. I mean, it's nobody cares who's
- 7:53Speaker 2: playing Odysseus and mat Damon's really good. They care it's
- 7:55Speaker 2: a Nolan film. Yeah, exactly.
- 7:57Speaker 4: So I'm going to the prediction market right now, Joe
- 7:59Speaker 4: Noumar and I'm putting up what is the likelihood that
- 8:02Speaker 4: Joe will see the Ulysses classic for now a third time?
- 8:08Speaker 4: And we'll add the half hon to it.
- 8:11Speaker 2: Maybe I have to find some sort of thing, because
- 8:13Speaker 2: there is there's a four D thing right where you
- 8:15Speaker 2: can go in the I'm not gonna I'll skip that one.
- 8:20Speaker 2: I don't need that. I don't need an usher throwing
- 8:24Speaker 2: water at me to make me feel like, oh, I'm
- 8:26Speaker 2: in the sea with them.
- 8:29Speaker 4: I knew, I knew we were going to instract that
- 8:31Speaker 4: from you, Joe, But do appreciate you w a movie reviewer,
- 8:35Speaker 4: same time, same place, next week to