Latest / All About The Joy / Will We Ever Love Movie Theaters Again? Hollywood's Struggle and How We'd Fix It
Transcript
- 0:00Carmen Lezeth: Hey everyone, welcome to All About the Joy.
- 0:06Carmen Lezeth: The private lounge In the house is Cynthia Rick Mario Alma.
- 0:11Carmen Lezeth: How you guys doing Hello?
- 0:13Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I'm doing.
- 0:15Alma Dawson: Okay, I'm loving the shirt.
- 0:19Alma Dawson: I am, oh, thank you.
- 0:20Alma Dawson: Yes, I'm on spring break, so I'm doing great.
- 0:25Carmen Lezeth: Oh, okay, cool, cool.
- 0:26Carmen Lezeth: I see, like the mellowness, the mellowness.
- 0:28Carmen Lezeth: So I wanted to talk a little bit about your thoughts on Hollywood and the changes that are happening.
- 0:33Carmen Lezeth: I know that you guys, alma and Mario, live here, so you probably have noticed there's not a lot of filming going around at all, like there was a time when you would go anywhere and there would be film crews or whatever.
- 0:47Carmen Lezeth: Like every you would drive, there'd be traffic and you would know so-and-so was filming or whatever.
- 0:53Carmen Lezeth: It would just be kind of cool.
- 0:54Carmen Lezeth: But I haven't seen that in a long time.
- 0:56Carmen Lezeth: And we had the strikes writers, actor strikes but even before that Hollywood was changing a bit right Because of the streaming services.
- 1:04Carmen Lezeth: So I just wanted to get your initial opinions on Hollywood and then we could get down into the nitty gritty of what you think the problems might be.
- 1:11Maurio Dawson: They suck.
- 1:12Maurio Dawson: No, I'm just joking.
- 1:14Maurio Dawson: No, you know what, Like you said, living here, especially where we live.
- 1:25Maurio Dawson: You saw film you mentioned.
- 1:28Maurio Dawson: You see film crews everywhere.
- 1:30Maurio Dawson: I did see one film crew over here in Santa Monica, off Bundy, just this past week.
- 1:36Maurio Dawson: A lot of the actors and directors are really pushing for film and television to come back to Los Angeles because a lot of people are losing their jobs here Now, mind you, Georgia and Las Vegas and Nevada.
- 1:59Maurio Dawson: They're giving a lot of tax credits and incentives to come to their states and people like Tyler Perry, who have built large stages and making big strides for Black artists and directors and producers, which is great for them, and he has an amazing studio there where Marvel has taken all their filming and that's a big chunk of a lot of media cinema right now.
- 2:33Carmen Lezeth: Well, a lot of cinema also is being filmed overseas.
- 2:36Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, that's kind of the other part of it too, like Canada, you know anything made it on Hallmark, by the way, is all in Canada yeah.
- 2:44Carmen Lezeth: London overseas.
- 2:45Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, Even all in Canada, London overseas.
- 2:47Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Even here in Boston, like last year, we used to see a lot of trucks and trailers.
- 2:52Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You always see the signs on the crew and set up this way and crew this way, and I haven't seen any in a while.
- 3:00Rick Costa: There's a lot in Canada, though.
- 3:01Rick Costa: Isn't there Like Stargate?
- 3:02Rick Costa: Wasn't that in Canada?
- 3:04Carmen Lezeth: Oh yeah, that's been going on for a long, long time, yeah in a while.
- 3:07Alma Dawson: It's a lot in Canada, though, isn't it Like Stargate?
- 3:09Carmen Lezeth: wasn't that in Canada?
- 3:10Carmen Lezeth: Oh, yeah, there's.
- 3:10Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, that's been going on for a long, long time.
- 3:12Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, I mean right, it was always like another, like I always say that because when you're like an avid fan of Stargate SG1, they always come through the wormhole or whatever, it is no different angle of the same forest.
- 3:28Alma Dawson: For me, the way that I've noticed it is, a lot of the film crews tend to like to use the schools for craft services and to use their parking lots and things like that, or to film school scenes, you know, even in the schools.
- 3:43Alma Dawson: So we would get a lot of that traffic and then we'd get like a donation at the end so they would rent it through the city of la la films or whatever that's who does all the contracts and all of that stuff.
- 3:57Alma Dawson: But then at the end the film, you know, the actual company, would do a donation to the school for hosting them.
- 4:04Carmen Lezeth: For people who don't know what craft services is.
- 4:06Carmen Lezeth: It's how everyone on a crew gets food.
- 4:09Carmen Lezeth: It's how they get to eat.
- 4:11Carmen Lezeth: Sorry, I just want to make sure, because not everybody knows the lingo.
- 4:14Alma Dawson: That's how that's how we've noticed, because a lot of those donations have dried up because there's not a lot of filming going on.
- 4:24Alma Dawson: So then you know, it is a trickle.
- 4:26Alma Dawson: You know, like I said, trickle down, it really does trickle down because even though you would see them filming in the communities and you're like, oh, they're just using that house, no, they actually, you know, use the, the schools, any places, the parks, sometimes it's at the churches, sometimes it's at the schools.
- 4:42Alma Dawson: It just, you know, it all depends, and then in the end, they also go ahead and do a donation to wherever it is.
- 4:52Carmen Lezeth: And the reason why it matters too is because if you're filming in San Francisco or you're filming anywhere in you know, chino Hills or something, the whole crew will stay there.
- 5:00Carmen Lezeth: They'll have dinner there, they'll you know, maybe they'll grab a movie when they have, you know, a nighttime off or something.
- 5:08Carmen Lezeth: So all the businesses end up losing out too, all the restaurants, you know, all the other little places in whatever place they're in.
- 5:15Carmen Lezeth: And I know that Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, is trying to get the legislation to add some more tax incentives.
- 5:23Carmen Lezeth: But I think I want to bring it down to us.
- 5:25Carmen Lezeth: As you know, someone asked me the other day what would it take to get you back into the movie theater?
- 5:30Carmen Lezeth: And I'm like Mara and Alma, I'm like I go to the movie theater, I love being in the movie theater.
- 5:36Carmen Lezeth: But what they meant was why aren't people going to the movie theaters anymore?
- 5:42Carmen Lezeth: And I think it's a combination of things, but I wanted to know what maybe you guys thought, rick.
- 5:48Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Cynthia, honestly, I think ever since COVID, you know, a lot of people kind of social distance themselves and now it's like they're like, oh well, if I can stream it at home, I pay, you know, $15, $20 to go to the movies.
- 5:59Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I can see it in my own house and be comfortable and not have to worry about getting sick from anybody else.
- 6:06Carmen Lezeth: That's interesting.
- 6:07Carmen Lezeth: Was it happening before COVID?
- 6:09Carmen Lezeth: I don't even remember.
- 6:10Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, streaming was already happening, but it just hadn't taken off like it did, like during COVID.
- 6:17Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, I don't even remember.
- 6:18Rick Costa: One big thing is a lot of people complain it's so expensive.
- 6:23Maurio Dawson: I'm not going.
- 6:23Maurio Dawson: You're hungry.
- 6:24Rick Costa: No, you're already paying all this money for the ticket, and now you won't.
- 6:26Rick Costa: No, it's expensive.
- 6:28Rick Costa: If you have a family, that's even worse.
- 6:30Rick Costa: The more kids you have, the more you spend Like $100 for one night.
- 6:34Rick Costa: I'm like, oh my God.
- 6:36Carmen Lezeth: That's not even an exaggeration.
- 6:38Rick Costa: No, I have friends with families.
- 6:41Rick Costa: They're like it's $100 when you go to booths.
- 6:43Rick Costa: But I think one other issue is too many remakes.
- 6:49Rick Costa: Give me something new and original.
- 6:53Rick Costa: Snow White bombed.
- 6:54Rick Costa: Sorry, but they did not do well.
- 6:59Rick Costa: How about the remakes?
- 7:03Maurio Dawson: Come up with new original stuff.
- 7:05Carmen Lezeth: Well, Sinners is a brand new movie.
- 7:07Maurio Dawson: Yes, it is Top to bottom Written and directed 100% Rotten Tomatoes, and it is getting critical acclaim, even though it is considered a horror movie.
- 7:18Carmen Lezeth: I'm not going to see it, but I support it, but I support it.
- 7:22Maurio Dawson: But they're saying there's so many subplots to the film that you have to see it in the theater people always say.
- 7:32Carmen Lezeth: People always say I want something new and fresh, but and then they don't go to the movie.
- 7:36Maurio Dawson: And then I'm gonna see it but he did something really great and it's doing really well so far this weekend have you guys seen it already?
- 7:44Maurio Dawson: I have no desire.
- 7:45Carmen Lezeth: Oh yeah, I know yeah yeah, I'm interested because I mean, I think that's the part thing, the the thing that's really important is he's been promoting it.
- 7:52Carmen Lezeth: He's been on tiktok, he's been on all these interviews, he's been talking about it, he's been showing, and someone sent us on linkedin they said I'm gonna go see this just because he's showing um kind of I forget what it's called, but the background, how he does it.
- 8:07Maurio Dawson: Yes.
- 8:07Carmen Lezeth: Like how he's filming it or whatever.
- 8:09Carmen Lezeth: So he's showing all these other parts.
- 8:10Carmen Lezeth: That's making people really intrigued to the making.
- 8:14Alma Dawson: That's what I'm trying to come up with.
- 8:15Alma Dawson: I'm going to go see it, but it has to be daytime when I walk out.
- 8:19Carmen Lezeth: I'm not going to go see it until you guys tell me how scary it is, then I'll go, because you know I'm like no, no, it's not my genre, but I want to support it.
- 8:27Rick Costa: Ryan Coogler right, he's the one that made that thing, and Michael B Jordan you don't know who he is, you know who he is.
- 8:34Rick Costa: Not everybody knows who he is.
- 8:36Rick Costa: Oh my.
- 8:37Carmen Lezeth: God, I thought you were quite I was about to kick.
- 8:40Rick Costa: Rick knows who Ryan Coogler is.
- 8:42Rick Costa: I mean, if I didn't know who he was, duh.
- 8:43Carmen Lezeth: Did you hear how he said it?
- 8:45Carmen Lezeth: He said is it Ryan Coogler?
- 8:50Maurio Dawson: Sorry, I had a little hot flash For those who are listening, who don't know.
- 8:54Maurio Dawson: Ryan Coogler directed Black Panther Fruitvale Station well, actually all the Black Panther films, but he did Creed with Michael B Jordan, so he I didn't even realize that, that I did not know that before.
- 9:10Carmen Lezeth: During Black Panther I found out.
- 9:11Carmen Lezeth: I did not know that at all.
- 9:16Rick Costa: Yeah, they have a long history.
- 9:18Rick Costa: Did he do Get Out too?
- 9:18Rick Costa: No, he did not.
- 9:19Rick Costa: No, that was Jordan Peele.
- 9:20Maurio Dawson: That was.
- 9:21Rick Costa: Jordan Peele oh, that's right.
- 9:24Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, I think it'll be interesting.
- 9:26Carmen Lezeth: I actually think the changes to Hollywood is something that can't be stopped.
- 9:33Carmen Lezeth: I think part this is just my opinion.
- 9:35Carmen Lezeth: I think this idea that they can force people to go back into the theaters and not be in their home theaters, you know, is kind of a I don't know like a bulldozer that's that everyone's trying to jump in front of you know, and complaining about it, and I'm like I think you're going to have to make it important for me to go to the movie theater Not just me, because I'm an avid moviegoer, but people who never used.
- 10:01Carmen Lezeth: And you have to make it cheaper, you have to make it accessible, like, I think here's a great example.
- 10:06Carmen Lezeth: I used to go to the Bay theater, which is here in the Palisades, one of my favorite theaters to go to.
- 10:10Carmen Lezeth: But every time you go there you have to find parking, and it's not that easy to find parking in the Palisades, you know.
- 10:15Carmen Lezeth: But they do have kind of this, um, you know, like one of these big, huge parking things and you pay like five bucks or whatever.
- 10:21Carmen Lezeth: That's not normal in most places, you know.
- 10:24Carmen Lezeth: But that's another addition.
- 10:26Carmen Lezeth: It's not just the food or whatever, it's also finding parking and not making it easy so you don't have to walk 10 blocks, you know.
- 10:33Carmen Lezeth: So I think they have to make it a whole different experience.
- 10:38Maurio Dawson: But just to go to a matinee was.
- 10:40Maurio Dawson: I went to the matinee by myself and it was $15 for a matinee and I was like wait, and then if you go for an evening show, you're talking about $23 to $24.
- 10:54Carmen Lezeth: Just for one person.
- 10:56Maurio Dawson: For one person I'm having fun until nighttime.
- 10:59Alma Dawson: That's not the dine-in.
- 11:00Rick Costa: That's not even the dine-in.
- 11:01Rick Costa: If you want to do the dine-in, that's another $10 to $15.
- 11:04Alma Dawson: Right, right, yeah, dine-in If you want to do the dine-in, that's another $10, $15.
- 11:07Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Right, wow, there you go.
- 11:08Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: That's why people watch it at home, they're like I'm going to cook a meal and I'm going to eat it in front of my TV and be comfortable for free.
- 11:16Alma Dawson: How about I can Uber eat the meal and still be cheaper, watching it from home.
- 11:22Maurio Dawson: How about I pay that same $20 to stream it and have a whole house full of people who can watch it?
- 11:27Carmen Lezeth: Yep, Yep, that's the thing too.
- 11:29Carmen Lezeth: That's for real.
- 11:30Carmen Lezeth: And now that the movies come out, you know they're.
- 11:34Carmen Lezeth: They're on screen for a week and then they're on streaming the week after.
- 11:39Rick Costa: That's kind of dumb on their part, like they should make it exclusive to the theater only for a longer period of time, exactly before it used to be in the movie theaters.
- 11:49Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: For what like three, four months before?
- 11:51Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You would even get it on pay-per-view, right that's because it had legs, right.
- 11:56Carmen Lezeth: so that's part of that industry thing that people were going in to see them.
- 12:00Carmen Lezeth: If nobody's going into the movie theater to see the movie, they're trying to do like straight to video, right?
- 12:05Carmen Lezeth: You remember back in the day that movies that would go straight to video because they would fall in front of whatever.
- 12:10Carmen Lezeth: So it's kind of the same thing Like if the box office.
- 12:13Carmen Lezeth: So I used to work for this guy, paul Garabedian all they do is box office numbers and he's a pretty big deal now, right, and I mean he always was.
- 12:22Carmen Lezeth: But it's just so funny.
- 12:23Carmen Lezeth: I said we used to work for that mean guy, but all they do is box office numbers and it's kind of interesting to see his charts and everything that he does all the time and how he talks about the movie industry and what's happening with the box office numbers.
- 12:38Carmen Lezeth: But that's what happens, cynthia.
- 12:40Carmen Lezeth: If they put out a movie and it doesn't have legs, they put it on streaming because they know you'll watch it on streaming because you've already paid your subscription.
- 12:49Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Right.
- 12:49Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You know, so or you've watched everything on Netflix already.
- 12:54Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You're like, oh, let me just watch this low budget movie.
- 12:56Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You know see what this is about type of thing.
- 12:58Alma Dawson: I was going to say we just watched.
- 13:00Alma Dawson: What was it?
- 13:00Alma Dawson: G20?
- 13:01Maurio Dawson: Yes.
- 13:03Alma Dawson: And we watched it on streaming.
- 13:04Alma Dawson: It's Viola, oh Viola.
- 13:06Maurio Dawson: Davis Good it was excellent.
- 13:09Alma Dawson: We were like we would have watched this at the movies.
- 13:11Maurio Dawson: I would have gone to the movies to see that.
- 13:13Carmen Lezeth: Where is it on?
- 13:13Carmen Lezeth: What streaming is it on?
- 13:15Maurio Dawson: Amazon Prime.
- 13:16Carmen Lezeth: I don't have that either now.
- 13:17Maurio Dawson: What's it called?
- 13:18Maurio Dawson: It's called G20 with Viola Davis.
- 13:21Rick Costa: Anthony.
- 13:22Maurio Dawson: Anderson Marseille, martin Okay, with Viola Davis.
- 13:26Maurio Dawson: Anthony Anderson Marseille, martin Okay the gentleman.
- 13:28Carmen Lezeth: She's the president, or something right?
- 13:29Maurio Dawson: Yes, she is the president and he's the first gentleman.
- 13:31Maurio Dawson: But, rick, do you watch the Boys?
- 13:35Maurio Dawson: Okay, the gentleman who plays Homelander.
- 13:40Rick Costa: Okay, yeah, anthony Starr.
- 13:42Maurio Dawson: Yes, he is the villain in this story.
- 13:44Maurio Dawson: He's a great villain.
- 13:46Maurio Dawson: You know he plays a great villain, so it's a great storyline.
- 13:51Maurio Dawson: It was.
- 13:52Maurio Dawson: It was good.
- 13:53Carmen Lezeth: So I wonder why it was on Prime and not promoted, as Because you just said something that's really important.
- 13:58Carmen Lezeth: You're like I would have seen this in the movie theater.
- 14:02Alma Dawson: I rarely hear anybody say that the storyline was good, it was action, it was suspenseful.
- 14:07Alma Dawson: I was like, oh, this was really good.
- 14:10Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Yeah that's another thing that they do, though, but they make things just for Prime, or just for Hulu, just for Paramount.
- 14:17Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Instead of putting it out in the movie theater to see how it does, they just put it directly, just on the streaming sites.
- 14:22Maurio Dawson: Can I be perfectly honest.
- 14:24Maurio Dawson: They didn't put it in a movie theater because there's a Black woman who was a lead and I'm going to be perfectly honest.
- 14:32Rick Costa: And a president and I got to meet her.
- 14:35Rick Costa: She was like a female black Rambo.
- 14:37Rick Costa: She is.
- 14:39Maurio Dawson: She's a superhero she basically that sounds just like Viola Davis.
- 14:43Carmen Lezeth: Anyways, I just want to say she is badass.
- 14:47Maurio Dawson: Yeah, I love her she kicked ass and took names and her back.
- 14:51Maurio Dawson: It was a fully developed backstory for her character as a president is it just a movie or is it a series?
- 14:58Maurio Dawson: It's just a movie or is it a series?
- 14:58Maurio Dawson: It's just a movie.
- 15:00Alma Dawson: That's horrible, it was really really well made.
- 15:03Maurio Dawson: It was really good and it's number one on Prime.
- 15:07Maurio Dawson: That doesn't surprise me.
- 15:10Carmen Lezeth: But what surprised me is what you said, because I know you're right.
- 15:13Carmen Lezeth: I don't want to live in that world, but you're right, it's the reality.
- 15:16Carmen Lezeth: That is so sad, because I trust your judgment when like I'm, I'm gonna see it.
- 15:24Carmen Lezeth: Um, I'll pay for it and see it.
- 15:26Carmen Lezeth: I just feel like you said something before that struck me, that I've never heard someone say I would watch that in the movie theater.
- 15:33Carmen Lezeth: I have never heard someone say that when they're watching it on their own home theaters.
- 15:37Maurio Dawson: You know yeah, it was that.
- 15:39Carmen Lezeth: It was that good that is so sad that racism is just continuously prevalent.
- 15:46Carmen Lezeth: But I think you're right.
- 15:47Carmen Lezeth: I don't think people would have gone to the movie theater now.
- 15:50Carmen Lezeth: They would have if it was denzel.
- 15:51Carmen Lezeth: Right, people would have gone to see a movie if it was denzel opening it no, not like, not, not for this and not because he's the president.
- 16:01Maurio Dawson: I, absolutely I don't agree because of the social climate we're in right now.
- 16:05Maurio Dawson: I think the time oh, you mean because of the social climate, when, right now, yeah, I think if if it came out three years ago, okay, it would have done well.
- 16:14Maurio Dawson: I think it would have done well.
- 16:15Maurio Dawson: But I think that I think it was a it was a political move to do it that way, and that's kind of like what we're doing in the film industry as well.
- 16:24Maurio Dawson: Film industry has politics underneath it as well.
- 16:27Carmen Lezeth: Everything does.
- 16:28Maurio Dawson: Yeah, and I'm not trying to bring it to politics, but I'm talking about we can do it no, no, I don't want to.
- 16:34Maurio Dawson: We're in the private room you can say whatever you want it's, but in the private room you can see it's dollars and cents.
- 16:41Maurio Dawson: It's really about dollars and cents and it's just about what makes sense to the industry in the moment.
- 16:45Maurio Dawson: Um, and I understand they really want to recover because we're not making the hollywood is not making the same type of money they used to they're never going to make the kind of money they used to never, things have changed, that's yeah, that's my whole point.
- 16:59Carmen Lezeth: Like I, you know, I'm sad.
- 17:02Carmen Lezeth: You know, to me viola davis is star power personified.
- 17:07Carmen Lezeth: You know, like I would think anything that she does you would go and see in the movie theater you know like wouldn't even question it and uh, yeah, that just makes me sad.
- 17:20Rick Costa: I was going to say, unless the theaters in Hollywood figures out what they need to do to adapt, they're going to become blockbuster video Blockbusters.
- 17:33Rick Costa: No, we're not going to do streaming.
- 17:36Rick Costa: Imagine if they went into that they would have been so rich.
- 17:39Rick Costa: But they're like no, we're not doing that.
- 17:41Maurio Dawson: Well, now you're gone yeah, I had to say, um, the other thing with, uh, ryan coogler with this movie he he shopped his film around.
- 17:52Maurio Dawson: He didn't go with disney and, even though he's worked with marvel and stuff like that in the past, warner Brothers was the only studio that gave him full proprietorship of his material in terms of getting it back, like after it, after it does his rounds, all of that stuff goes back to him Cause they were the only studio that was willing to give him his own material back.
- 18:17Maurio Dawson: Everybody else wanted to take it from him.
- 18:20Maurio Dawson: Yeah, you can write or produce it, but we're going to own it.
- 18:22Maurio Dawson: Warner Brothers was the only one to say no, it's yours, we'll work as a distributor for your film, get our money back, get your money, but you own it.
- 18:33Maurio Dawson: And that's important nowadays.
- 18:39Carmen Lezeth: I mean it's important and I agree with you.
- 18:41Carmen Lezeth: I think that's part of the problem, right.
- 18:43Carmen Lezeth: It's like so back in the day and I'm not defending the studios, but I'm saying back in the day the studios owned things, so they promoted things and they even had stars attached to their studios so you would see the same star over and over and over again in the same movies.
- 19:00Carmen Lezeth: It's kind of like in a way I'm not comparing the two, but if you notice, if you watch any hallmark movies right there, they have the same stars in the same.
- 19:10Carmen Lezeth: It's the same show over and over and over again, but people watch it and it's the same stars because those stars are attached to that network and they in the way it's kind of old hollywood way.
- 19:22Carmen Lezeth: So I think you know there's that problem with it too.
- 19:25Carmen Lezeth: I hope he succeeds and I think he will thank god.
- 19:29Maurio Dawson: I mean I hope he does I'm sure to what extent um I might just buy a ticket and not go see it, but just to support it.
- 19:36Carmen Lezeth: Oh you, don't like horror films.
- 19:37Carmen Lezeth: I don't like horror, but there's things I won't.
- 19:38Carmen Lezeth: I just go see it, but just to support it, oh, you don't like horror films.
- 19:39Maurio Dawson: I don't like horror, I just want to go see it.
- 19:43Carmen Lezeth: Look at Alma Alma's like I will be seeing that movie.
- 19:48Rick Costa: It's all in her face.
- 19:49Rick Costa: You buy it for Cynthia's theater, and then there you go.
- 19:52Maurio Dawson: I'll buy your ticket, Cynthia, and I'll send it to you Wait, wait, wait.
- 19:57Carmen Lezeth: She's going to go anyway, so we want to support him.
- 19:59Carmen Lezeth: So we have to buy the ticket anyways.
- 20:01Maurio Dawson: I'll buy one ticket.
- 20:02Maurio Dawson: I'll buy somebody's ticket.
- 20:03Maurio Dawson: They can bring friends.
- 20:07Carmen Lezeth: They can bring friends right.
- 20:09Carmen Lezeth: I just yeah.
- 20:10Carmen Lezeth: What about the audience influencing Hollywood?
- 20:16Carmen Lezeth: Or is Hollywood dictating what audiences want?
- 20:19Carmen Lezeth: So earlier you guys were talking about I think it was Rick who was saying something about, you know, repetitive movies that are sequels or whatever, right?
- 20:27Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I think Hollywood is kind of deciding, because now it's like Disney is a good example, you have the Lion King, you have Snow White and they're doing all these live actions.
- 20:36Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: They're just remaking the same movie, just in a live action, and some of them are good, some of them are not.
- 20:42Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: And same with horror movies.
- 20:45Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Horror movies now are not the same as before.
- 20:47Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You know what's going to happen.
- 20:50Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I know Carmen hates horror movies.
- 20:52Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I'm not saying it weird.
- 20:55Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You kind of already know what's going to happen in each horror movie.
- 20:59Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You know like it's like nothing.
- 21:03Carmen Lezeth: nothing is new but do you have?
- 21:06Carmen Lezeth: Do you seek new?
- 21:08Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: like there's so many indie films nobody watches yeah, that is true, that is true, but I think they're not marketed?
- 21:15Carmen Lezeth: I think they're not marketed well, like if you want me to see something I need to know it's out there.
- 21:21Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Absolutely yeah.
- 21:22Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: It's like when we watch, like all these golden globes and Oscars and stuff like that and they talk about all these international films, it's like where do they play on?
- 21:29Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Who saw them?
- 21:31Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Everybody but us.
- 21:34Carmen Lezeth: Exactly.
- 21:35Carmen Lezeth: And then they send you the, the, the DVDs or CDs or all the those so that we can stream them.
- 21:39Carmen Lezeth: And then I have to sit and watch like nine stupid films, you know, half of them with subtitles.
- 21:44Carmen Lezeth: And I say stupid because that's the worst way to watch it in a rush, because you have to vote.
- 21:48Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean.
- 21:49Carmen Lezeth: Like that's the worst way to watch a film.
- 21:51Carmen Lezeth: And where am I doing it?
- 21:53Carmen Lezeth: On my computer or on my little TV, not in the movie theater.
- 21:57Carmen Lezeth: Or on my little TV, not in the movie theater.
- 21:58Carmen Lezeth: You know, I was having a conversation with somebody the other day.
- 22:00Carmen Lezeth: I think I told Rick this too.
- 22:03Carmen Lezeth: I think it would be a great idea, and he came up with this idea, not me.
- 22:06Carmen Lezeth: He said would you go into the movie theaters and watch like old school movies that you haven't seen in a long time in the movie theaters, like in Indiana Jones or Star Wars or whatever?
- 22:18Alma Dawson: I'm going to have to do it tomorrow, oh when are you?
- 22:20Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: going to go see it.
- 22:21Alma Dawson: Pride and Prejudice.
- 22:22Alma Dawson: It's like their 20th anniversary.
- 22:25Alma Dawson: I'm going into the theater to go watch it.
- 22:27Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Yeah, it's a good movie.
- 22:33Maurio Dawson: Not after watching it 25 times.
- 22:38Carmen Lezeth: Time pieces.
- 22:39Carmen Lezeth: Time period pieces.
- 22:41Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I know what I do in them.
- 22:46Carmen Lezeth: I'm not trying to take away from it.
- 22:48Alma Dawson: And we went to go see Purple Rain.
- 22:50Alma Dawson: I made him go see White Christmas with me.
- 22:54Alma Dawson: You know just all of the, so we do do that.
- 22:59Carmen Lezeth: We will go see right so he was saying what if they did like a huge, big, you know, like they, they promoted it too, like there's going to be would people go back to them?
- 23:08Carmen Lezeth: I'm like you got to do something, because if you want the theaters to survive, well, you have to market it to us and let us know.
- 23:15Carmen Lezeth: You know, know, I think part of the problem is is the reason why we don't see indie films.
- 23:20Carmen Lezeth: I never hear and I live here, I'm in the industry I never hear about these indie films until the nomination come out.
- 23:31Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I'm even part of, like the Sony screenings and the GoFoBo screenings.
- 23:35Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: So once in a while I'll get emails and say, oh you, you know you're invited to come see a screening of, let's say, sinners yeah on this day and time, like they should do that, like with you, carmen, while they send you the dvds, why don't they pick a theater and say, hey, we're going to have a screening of this movie on this day and time, so you guys can actually watch it in the theater, not at home or on your computer?
- 23:59Carmen Lezeth: I'm saying, you know, countrywide.
- 24:04Carmen Lezeth: Like I'm saying if they promoted the film they said listen, like you'll see commercials, you'll see it on the bus, right, you'll see whatever that you know.
- 24:14Carmen Lezeth: I don't know whatever movie it is.
- 24:15Carmen Lezeth: Indiana Jones is going to be in the theater, blah, blah, blah blah.
- 24:17Carmen Lezeth: Or the Color Purple, whatever it is, you know, out of Africa remastered blah, blah blah.
- 24:21Carmen Lezeth: Two days or this weekend only, or something.
- 24:23Carmen Lezeth: I wonder if it would bring back.
- 24:28Carmen Lezeth: I think it would bring back Gen X people to the theaters.
- 24:30Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean.
- 24:30Carmen Lezeth: It might do that.
- 24:31Carmen Lezeth: I thought it was a great idea.
- 24:31Carmen Lezeth: But I told him he needs to call the Academy, because the Academy is the one who owns and holds all those films.
- 24:37Carmen Lezeth: There's a reason why they're not doing it.
- 24:39Maurio Dawson: They don't want to spend marketing dollars honestly Of course not.
- 24:42Carmen Lezeth: But they don't want to spend money to make money.
- 24:44Carmen Lezeth: So I don't know what to tell them.
- 24:46Rick Costa: I just had another idea, so I just saw a trailer for another.
- 24:49Rick Costa: I think it's the third one Tron movie.
- 24:52Rick Costa: I saw that Insane.
- 24:54Rick Costa: But why don't, before that one comes out, put on those first two?
- 25:02Alma Dawson: do you know?
- 25:03Alma Dawson: All the people that don't know yeah, you know how I see do that all the time.
- 25:07Alma Dawson: I think it's regal, regal theaters will do that all the time because I remember when it was, uh, indiana jones, when they were going to put that, the new one out, they did a whole like week of all of the old.
- 25:21Alma Dawson: You know lost arcs, the whole thing.
- 25:25Alma Dawson: You know they had a whole marathon.
- 25:26Alma Dawson: You could buy the buy the whole marathon or you could pick which ones you wanted to go to before you went to go see the.
- 25:33Alma Dawson: The new, the new one.
- 25:35Carmen Lezeth: I kind of miss it, I miss, I, I miss.
- 25:38Carmen Lezeth: I said it a million times the last time I had so much fun in a movie theater was Endgame.
- 25:43Carmen Lezeth: I've seen movies since then that I enjoyed or whatever, but Endgame it just felt like everybody was that communal feeling.
- 25:52Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Into it, yes, you were an Avenger.
- 25:58Carmen Lezeth: Just the crying and the whatever it's true.
- 26:01Alma Dawson: That's what it was like when we went to go see Black Panther Same thing Everyone was here.
- 26:06Alma Dawson: It was so good.
- 26:07Maurio Dawson: Cheering.
- 26:12Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: That's what we're talking about, and not to bring up horror movies again.
- 26:16Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You can bring up horror movies.
- 26:18Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You just can't force me and Mario to go see them.
- 26:21Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: But the movie Halloween Like there are so many versions of Halloween, but I've seen them in the movie theaters and it's like anytime you see Jamie Lee Curtis, come on, you hear everybody clapping Like she's about to kick ass.
- 26:35Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You know what I mean.
- 26:36Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Like it's that whole like community know what I mean.
- 26:40Carmen Lezeth: It's that whole community feeling.
- 26:40Carmen Lezeth: I didn't realize Jamie Lee Curtis was in those movies.
- 26:43Alma Dawson: Yeah.
- 26:46Maurio Dawson: She's the OG screen queen.
- 26:49Maurio Dawson: I can't.
- 26:51Carmen Lezeth: She's the one in the movie.
- 26:52Carmen Lezeth: I didn't know.
- 26:53Carmen Lezeth: I've never seen them.
- 26:54Carmen Lezeth: Why would I know?
- 26:56Maurio Dawson: You know who else is in that movie.
- 26:58Alma Dawson: For anyone who can't see I roll my eyes as a kid, I'm sorry, what, mario.
- 27:05Carmen Lezeth: I couldn't hear you because Alma was dissing me with her eyes.
- 27:08Maurio Dawson: Kyle Richards, kyle Richards from Housewives and all that shit.
- 27:12Maurio Dawson: Oh yeah, yeah yeah.
- 27:13Maurio Dawson: She's the original kid with Jamie Lee Curtis in the original Halloween film.
- 27:17Maurio Dawson: I, the original kid with Jamie Lee.
- 27:18Carmen Lezeth: Curtis in the original Halloween.
- 27:18Carmen Lezeth: I've never.
- 27:19Carmen Lezeth: I'm telling you, the other day I was watching a rerun of something and and it got me mad because this is one thing I don't like they put really horrible horror commercials, trailers in between, like I'm watching the fucking golden girls, and then there's like some horror thing coming on or whatever in between, promoting some scary thing or whatever, and I just I like turn it mute, I walk away.
- 27:43Carmen Lezeth: I am really like chicken shit or whatever you want to call it.
- 27:47Carmen Lezeth: I don't like anything horror.
- 27:48Carmen Lezeth: Oh my god, you know.
- 27:50Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I'm just saying her mom was in one of the movies with her yeah.
- 27:55Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Jamie Lee Curtis' mother, yeah, who played in Psycho.
- 27:57Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Yeah, you know her sister-in-law, jennifer her.
- 27:59Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, yeah, who played in Psycho?
- 27:59Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
- 28:00Maurio Dawson: Jennifer Jason Leigh.
- 28:02Carmen Lezeth: I had to see Psycho in film school, but I really didn't watch it.
- 28:08Maurio Dawson: She's like royalty.
- 28:09Maurio Dawson: Jennifer Jason Leigh is her mom, not Jennifer Jason Leigh, janet Leigh, janet Leigh and Tony Curtis.
- 28:17Carmen Lezeth: I know who she is.
- 28:19Carmen Lezeth: What's his name?
- 28:19Carmen Lezeth: Tony Curtis from back in the day.
- 28:21Carmen Lezeth: Right, that's her father.
- 28:24Alma Dawson: But I just I've never seen Halloween that makes me think of a question.
- 28:30Rick Costa: Now, compared to like even 25 years ago, does the term movie star carry the same weight that it used to?
- 28:38Carmen Lezeth: me it does.
- 28:38Carmen Lezeth: I live here, so I don't know why people I don't know about movie star the same weight that it used to me it does.
- 28:40Carmen Lezeth: So I live here, so I don't know why people so mad about movie star.
- 28:42Alma Dawson: I think it's more celebrity now.
- 28:44Alma Dawson: It's not really, but there are some movie stars yeah, right yeah, because denzel is a movie star.
- 28:51Carmen Lezeth: Yeah yeah, yeah, viola davis is a movie star.
- 28:54Carmen Lezeth: No, I do.
- 28:55Carmen Lezeth: I, I think there was.
- 28:56Carmen Lezeth: I mean, I think there is a, there's celebrity, and I don't think there's anything wrong with either one of those terminologies.
- 29:02Carmen Lezeth: I know people.
- 29:03Carmen Lezeth: I think what's getting confusing, or what's making it harder, is, first of all, all the negativity in this country about anything to do with people who have any fame is weird, like we want to blame everything on rich people.
- 29:16Carmen Lezeth: We always want to blame it on the wrong rich people.
- 29:18Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean?
- 29:19Carmen Lezeth: Um, and then the other thing I'll say is I think content creation, right, the content creation world, which is different from hollywood, right, which is like the.
- 29:29Carmen Lezeth: What's his name, mr?
- 29:30Carmen Lezeth: What's the?
- 29:31Carmen Lezeth: What's the guy's name?
- 29:33Carmen Lezeth: I can't remember his name oh, the one that's the he's, he's, yeah, you know what I'm talking about anyway, all the content creators who are big you're talking about, mr beast.
- 29:41Carmen Lezeth: Right, right, I'm really having a head fart in the I can't remember, but all of them, you know, like there's all this weird kind of like you become instantly famous on tiktok or youtube or whatever and that's muddying the waters.
- 29:56Carmen Lezeth: But to me I still think there's Hollywood royalty.
- 29:59Carmen Lezeth: And you know, movie star, I don't know, I still have that dream of the.
- 30:07Carmen Lezeth: You know, I see certain people, like you said, denzel, viola Davis, I think, meryl Streep, I think it was old school people.
- 30:14Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean?
- 30:15Carmen Lezeth: Old school, what's her name?
- 30:17Carmen Lezeth: Who's in?
- 30:18Carmen Lezeth: Uh, the?
- 30:18Carmen Lezeth: I think she's lovely selena gomez, is that her name?
- 30:22Maurio Dawson: uh, yeah, um, you know, I think she's a movie star, but I see her as a celebrity because she's celebrity.
- 30:29Maurio Dawson: I see her on tv, then movie star.
- 30:32Carmen Lezeth: I don't see movie star right, well, I, I was just gonna say, like I see up and coming, like this possible sendaya, I see people who have this possibility.
- 30:41Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean Because they're talented.
- 30:42Carmen Lezeth: Ariana Grande, like we could.
- 30:44Carmen Lezeth: Like I see possibilities in their talent and the way in which they present themselves.
- 30:49Carmen Lezeth: And you know, like I, I see all that.
- 30:52Carmen Lezeth: So I'm just saying I think it's still there.
- 30:54Carmen Lezeth: I think we're losing a lot in society because we're very skeptical and negative and blaming and we don't.
- 31:01Carmen Lezeth: You know, I'm not trying to say it, but we don't have a lot of joy anymore.
- 31:05Maurio Dawson: So I think, celebrities.
- 31:07Maurio Dawson: They lost their mystique because of social media and because of TMZs and all the gossip.
- 31:14Maurio Dawson: Well, the gossip rags used to do this.
- 31:19Maurio Dawson: They've always been there, but it was more mystique because you didn't know for sure.
- 31:26Carmen Lezeth: You weren't positive.
- 31:27Carmen Lezeth: Now you can double check.
- 31:28Maurio Dawson: So it's like, hmm, and it gave you fodder for conversation.
- 31:32Maurio Dawson: You know what I'm saying, but but like you just didn't know, like the doris days and in in all of those people, even way back when jay, different time.
- 31:47Maurio Dawson: Yeah, jimmy stewart's, the charlton charleston, charleston, heston yeah, and they just and that's a legend and the thing,
- 31:56Alma Dawson: is that they knew.
- 31:58Alma Dawson: I will say they knew their role.
- 32:00Alma Dawson: They knew when they came out of their house they presented themselves a certain way, you know, and now it's like, oh, whatever, they come out in their sweats and their whatever.
- 32:10Alma Dawson: They look like a hot mess Doing, you know.
- 32:14Maurio Dawson: A hot boiling mess.
- 32:15Alma Dawson: Yes, so it's definitely you know.
- 32:18Carmen Lezeth: It's also just a different time.
- 32:19Carmen Lezeth: I mean, I agree with you Like we've lost a lot of that in just our world in general.
- 32:24Carmen Lezeth: Like I can't remember the last time I put on a suit to go to work I don't you know what I mean.
- 32:29Carmen Lezeth: Like when you just said sweats, I'm like I wore sweats today Into the office, you know.
- 32:35Carmen Lezeth: But yeah, so, and again I agree with you, I miss the old school Hollywood.
- 32:43Carmen Lezeth: But when I see somebody like Zendaya, am I saying her name right?
- 32:46Carmen Lezeth: I feel like I'm saying it wrong.
- 32:48Maurio Dawson: Zendaya.
- 32:49Carmen Lezeth: Zendaya, right, I'm doing the Teresa thing, which is like saying it in Spanish.
- 32:56Carmen Lezeth: We know somebody that every time she meets somebody like somehow their name becomes Spanish, even if they're not.
- 33:05Carmen Lezeth: It's cute, it's cute.
- 33:06Rick Costa: Do you do the?
- 33:06Carmen Lezeth: same thing, but yeah, like I see all the possibilities and the elegance and maybe that's what it is.
- 33:13Carmen Lezeth: Hollywood celebrities, you know, now become not just a given just because you're in the movie.
- 33:18Carmen Lezeth: Celebrities, you know, now become not just a given just because you're in the movie, um, but now it really is more of a rarity, you know.
- 33:22Carmen Lezeth: And maybe the rest of just celebrities, you know, like there's the hollywood fanfare and then there's, you know, that was one of my questions- they used to have media training and they used to have um training about how you present.
- 33:35Maurio Dawson: Like I'm gonna say, how you present yourself when you go out in public.
- 33:38Maurio Dawson: You had a script, you stuck to it and you know.
- 33:44Maurio Dawson: And then you go in the house and mind your business.
- 33:48Carmen Lezeth: You know and and then people would talk about you behind your back, right.
- 33:52Maurio Dawson: But that was fine, because you didn't know for sure.
- 33:54Carmen Lezeth: But then there were.
- 33:55Carmen Lezeth: So there were pros and cons to that right.
- 33:57Carmen Lezeth: So I'm going to push back a little bit, because then you had things like people having to hide themselves from who they really were, like rock hudson or right or you.
- 34:05Maurio Dawson: You couldn't be who you were but the backlash of that also backed into.
- 34:08Maurio Dawson: Then you have the britney spears.
- 34:11Alma Dawson: Yeah, I think it's fun too much the other way, where, oh, we want to see them as real people, we want to know that they're real people, we want to know that they're real people, we want to know that they're relatable, that they're approachable, that they're this.
- 34:21Alma Dawson: So then it went all the way the other way and it's never kind of, you know, it's not ever going to self-correct itself.
- 34:30Carmen Lezeth: No, it's not, Because it's part of our society.
- 34:33Carmen Lezeth: Now, it's the way we all are.
- 34:34Carmen Lezeth: So, man, tomorrow I'm going to get up and wear a nice suit to the office because I'm feeling good.
- 34:40Alma Dawson: I want a selfie, I do Wow.
- 34:45Carmen Lezeth: Do you wear suits when you go to the office?
- 34:48Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: No, I'm just saying it's been a long time I wear yoga pants and a T-shirt.
- 34:53Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Really, really.
- 34:56Alma Dawson: Okay, well, I'm not that bad.
- 34:58Carmen Lezeth: Really Okay?
- 34:59Carmen Lezeth: Well, I'm not that bad.
- 35:00Carmen Lezeth: The schools is just being, you know, presentable for the children.
- 35:11Carmen Lezeth: Nothing, you know that's going to be.
- 35:12Carmen Lezeth: They're not wearing like little tassels and like a thong right.
- 35:13Alma Dawson: But I mean, I think the only place they really have a, a dress code, is at the main offices, at the main headquarters, I'll say People in banks still dress up.
- 35:28Maurio Dawson: Still, If you walk into a bank, which is very rare that you do that- I know right.
- 35:33Maurio Dawson: I was just going to say that, yeah, but when I do, because I have a mother who still likes to do it old school so I have to go on the daycare.
- 35:39Maurio Dawson: But even when you go in the tellers and the managers, they're all still Monday through Thursday.
- 35:47Maurio Dawson: They're going to have a tie on, they're going to have trousers, they're going to have a blazer.
- 35:51Maurio Dawson: They might not have a tie on, but they will have everything else on.
- 35:55Carmen Lezeth: Maybe we need to bring it back.
- 35:57Maurio Dawson: No, I'm good.
- 35:58Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, me, neither everything else.
- 35:59Carmen Lezeth: Maybe we need to bring it back.
- 35:59Carmen Lezeth: No, I'm good.
- 36:00Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, I mean somebody said that about playing.
- 36:00Alma Dawson: They were like people used to dress up to get on a plane like you used to smoke on a plane too, and I'm good with that yeah, no, and I would tell you now, because of all the you know, especially if you're in a union, if they want to have a dress code, then they have to give you an allowance.
- 36:16Alma Dawson: I like that.
- 36:20Alma Dawson: So then it's you know.
- 36:21Alma Dawson: So it's all dollars and cents again Again.
- 36:26Carmen Lezeth: Yes, that's so sad.
- 36:28Carmen Lezeth: I'm going to dress up in a suit tomorrow.
- 36:29Carmen Lezeth: Actually, I do have a big lunch date tomorrow, so I'm going to be dressed up anyway.
- 36:34Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Yeah, look at you and be like what's wrong with you, carmen?
- 36:39Carmen Lezeth: I don't dress bad, I guess I don't, I mean I don't really.
- 36:42Carmen Lezeth: I guess I don't.
- 36:43Carmen Lezeth: I always wear nice slacks, but I always have on a t-shirt forever, a really nice t-shirt but a t-shirt and I have the same.
- 36:50Carmen Lezeth: Sorry we're talking about this, but I do have like I have like 20 black t-shirts.
- 36:55Carmen Lezeth: They're all the same.
- 36:56Carmen Lezeth: I wear them all the time.
- 36:57Carmen Lezeth: It's just easier.
- 36:59Alma Dawson: That happened because of COVID, remember you didn't have to get on your Zoom.
- 37:02Alma Dawson: The Simon Powell of All About the Joy.
- 37:06Carmen Lezeth: Is that what he does?
- 37:07Carmen Lezeth: Oh, shoot.
- 37:09Alma Dawson: Oh, I got to change it.
- 37:10Alma Dawson: Now that's going to be your nickname.
- 37:12Alma Dawson: Nobody's happening.
- 37:14Rick Costa: I noticed that with some podcasters.
- 37:17Rick Costa: At first I didn't pick it up.
- 37:18Rick Costa: Not that dude wears the same color shirt every single time.
- 37:26Carmen Lezeth: I do it on purpose.
- 37:27Carmen Lezeth: I do it so that I don't have to first of all be worried about it, and it happened during COVID.
- 37:31Carmen Lezeth: You'd have to be on all these Zoom calls with all these different people all day long, and then you realize, like you know what?
- 37:37Carmen Lezeth: I'm just going to wear the same shirt.
- 37:38Carmen Lezeth: And then I was like okay, I can't be wearing the same shirt, so I just bought.
- 37:41Carmen Lezeth: So it was just you know, because then you have people who would just dress like halfway, and then they would get up and they'd have on shorts or Yep.
- 37:52Maurio Dawson: Or no pants at all.
- 37:53Maurio Dawson: Okay.
- 37:53Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, well, now we're going into a whole other avenue.
- 37:57Alma Dawson: We're veering away from the topic now.
- 38:00Carmen Lezeth: That's okay, it goes where it's going to go.
- 38:03Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, let me see if I have any other.
- 38:05Carmen Lezeth: Do you think streaming services are hurting movies in Hollywood?
- 38:11Carmen Lezeth: I think, they're hurting TV maybe I don't know.
- 38:18Maurio Dawson: I think they're hurting television but not movies, because if you're going to go to the movies, you're going to go to the movies.
- 38:23Maurio Dawson: But streaming.
- 38:24Maurio Dawson: I'm here for streaming for reality stuff and a good series because, like elma and I are stuck right now on the wheel of time so good.
- 38:38Carmen Lezeth: What's the wheel of time?
- 38:39Carmen Lezeth: Where's it's like?
- 38:40Alma Dawson: sci-fi fantasy yeah no but where is it streaming?
- 38:46Carmen Lezeth: Prime.
- 38:48Alma Dawson: So good.
- 38:50Maurio Dawson: And I'm stuck.
- 38:51Maurio Dawson: I'm stuck on stupid because I'm right there.
- 38:53Maurio Dawson: I'm like wait, we're in the middle of season two.
- 38:59Carmen Lezeth: How many seasons does it have?
- 39:00Carmen Lezeth: Three so far.
- 39:01Carmen Lezeth: Is it a new show?
- 39:05Maurio Dawson: It's relatively new, I'm just catching that.
- 39:08Carmen Lezeth: Rick, have you already seen it?
- 39:11Rick Costa: I just started season two.
- 39:13Rick Costa: So, you're right, I'm busy watching.
- 39:16Rick Costa: This Is Us.
- 39:18Carmen Lezeth: That was worth every minute Wait did you finish?
- 39:20Carmen Lezeth: This Is Us.
- 39:22Rick Costa: I'm on the fourth season.
- 39:25Carmen Lezeth: You gotta get faster.
- 39:26Carmen Lezeth: So I have a question.
- 39:27Carmen Lezeth: So I have a question.
- 39:30Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: So, with streaming, do you prefer the entire season to come out all at once or do you prefer it to be like two episodes?
- 39:38Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Wait till next week.
- 39:39Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: One episode, you know.
- 39:42Alma Dawson: I like it when they do chunks, so they'll put out like two or three, and then you wait, and then they'll put out like two or three, and then you wait, and then they'll put out another two or three, and then you know, I like it that way.
- 39:53Maurio Dawson: But if they won't do it that way, if they're making me wait week to week, then I will wait until they're all out and then I'll watch it, so you know it depends on the show, Cause, like I'm watching daredevil, like they give you first, they gave you the first two and then they pulled me.
- 40:10Maurio Dawson: Because I'm watching Daredevil, they give you the first two and then they pull me in and I'm waiting for the next week.
- 40:13Maurio Dawson: So I'm going right back because I got through the first two.
- 40:16Maurio Dawson: I'm like, okay, now I've got to find out what's going on now.
- 40:18Maurio Dawson: So yeah, it just depends.
- 40:19Carmen Lezeth: See story matters.
- 40:21Carmen Lezeth: Story matters yeah the story really matters and the characters really need to connect with people, and I think that's the other part of it.
- 40:30Carmen Lezeth: No-transcript, none of us need to go see that movie.
- 40:47Carmen Lezeth: We know what's going to happen.
- 40:48Carmen Lezeth: We all none of us need to go see that movie.
- 40:48Carmen Lezeth: We know what's going to happen right right, but it was, it's the characters or whatever and get connected to it and you want to be the hero, you want to be the person that's in the know.
- 41:01Carmen Lezeth: I think what I miss with all of this kind of binge watching type of thing is and you already know what I'm going to say because we've talked about it before is you used to watch an episode and talk about it, and then the following week it would come out, and so, for the children who are listening to our show, possibly, we used to have three channels NBC, abc and CBS.
- 41:22Carmen Lezeth: You'd have PBS and whatever the other channels were.
- 41:26Carmen Lezeth: If you watch Spanish channels, you have the Spanish channel Right the Spanish channel but you would watch like everybody collectively would pretty much watch the same things, especially if they were popular and you'd go the next week Like I remember X-Files, that was a big deal.
- 41:41Carmen Lezeth: Oh my gosh, I love X-Files.
- 41:43Carmen Lezeth: Oh my gosh, yes, oh, my gosh Now.
- 41:51Carmen Lezeth: I think, it's kind of horror like some of it is because I was in love with that.
- 41:56Carmen Lezeth: What's happening?
- 41:57Carmen Lezeth: I am old, oh yeah.
- 41:58Carmen Lezeth: No, I've always hated horror.
- 41:59Alma Dawson: I've been saying that is not horror.
- 42:01Alma Dawson: Do you not see the gray hair?
- 42:03Alma Dawson: Do you see mine?
- 42:04Alma Dawson: But that is not horror okay let me okay wait, let's talk.
- 42:08Carmen Lezeth: Okay, we're gonna have an argument there are.
- 42:10Carmen Lezeth: We're gonna have our we need to have an argument, because that will bring people in.
- 42:13Carmen Lezeth: So here it is what I loved about x-files.
- 42:17Carmen Lezeth: First of all, I was in love with david ducovny.
- 42:18Carmen Lezeth: I'm just gonna say it straight up.
- 42:20Rick Costa: I knew it but I did.
- 42:21Carmen Lezeth: I loved him so because I I used to watch him on twin peaks I don't know if you ever watched it, okay.
- 42:27Carmen Lezeth: And then he was on X-Files and I loved it and I love the kind of whole sci-fi part of it.
- 42:32Carmen Lezeth: You know, I love the whole deep throat-esque thing, blah, blah, blah.
- 42:35Carmen Lezeth: What I didn't like was some of the horror.
- 42:38Carmen Lezeth: I'm calling them horror.
- 42:39Carmen Lezeth: Do you remember?
- 42:40Carmen Lezeth: It sticks in my head.
- 42:41Carmen Lezeth: Do you remember the brothers that lived in the house?
- 42:44Carmen Lezeth: And there was the one under the bed on that roller thing and he was like that's horror.
- 42:49Carmen Lezeth: That's still in my head to this day.
- 42:51Carmen Lezeth: It's been like 30 years.
- 42:52Carmen Lezeth: It's still in my head.
- 42:55Carmen Lezeth: That is horror.
- 42:56Carmen Lezeth: So they had moments and then they had those satanic ones.
- 42:59Carmen Lezeth: Remember when people yeah, that's what I'm saying.
- 43:02Carmen Lezeth: So they had sections of it, alma, that were horror.
- 43:06Carmen Lezeth: Yes, mario, I never want you to watch those because I understand the sense you had to go see the movies with me.
- 43:13Alma Dawson: No, I didn't the movies weren't horror, though the movies were not.
- 43:18Maurio Dawson: I respectfully decline.
- 43:20Maurio Dawson: It was not me.
- 43:21Carmen Lezeth: Okay, but the movies aren't horror.
- 43:23Carmen Lezeth: The movies are not horror.
- 43:26Maurio Dawson: I don't like it.
- 43:27Maurio Dawson: No, that's not my horror.
- 43:27Carmen Lezeth: I don't like it.
- 43:28Carmen Lezeth: You didn't like X-Files.
- 43:29Maurio Dawson: No, that's not my jam.
- 43:30Maurio Dawson: I remember I was in college when it was coming on and I used to hear the theme song and it irritated me and I just left the room.
- 43:37Maurio Dawson: It's good just the horror episodes are bad, I'm okay.
- 43:44Carmen Lezeth: Because there's a difference between suspense and the horror part.
- 43:47Rick Costa: No, I'm good, I'll put my two cents in.
- 43:50Rick Costa: Mostly weird, very alien-ish a lot of times, but there were some gross stuff that seemed horror-esque.
- 43:59Carmen Lezeth: I'm going to do it this way.
- 44:02Alma Dawson: Alma, alma.
- 44:05Maurio Dawson: I saw gore and gook.
- 44:07Carmen Lezeth: There was gore and gook in some of those.
- 44:08Carmen Lezeth: I walked by the TV and I'm like I'm not and Gook.
- 44:09Carmen Lezeth: There was Gore and Gook in some of those.
- 44:09Maurio Dawson: I walked by the TV and I'm like I'm not watching this shit.
- 44:12Maurio Dawson: I kept walking.
- 44:15Carmen Lezeth: But a lot of the show is really about the kind of alien idea of the government hiding it, yeah, but no, it's not the same it's suspenseful, it's suspenseful, it's suspenseful.
- 44:30Carmen Lezeth: There's a difference, but there are horror episodes.
- 44:33Carmen Lezeth: Thank you, rick.
- 44:34Alma Dawson: I appreciate you.
- 44:36Rick Costa: I think what I liked most was the dynamic between Scully and Mulder Character driven Good writing.
- 44:44Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, exactly.
- 44:45Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, it was good.
- 44:46Carmen Lezeth: It was kind of like Twilight Zone in a lot of ways.
- 44:49Carmen Lezeth: There was a lot of kind of interesting because you could watch some standalone episodes.
- 44:53Carmen Lezeth: So like it was like Twilight Zone, suspenseful, interesting, made you think you know it was kind of like Black Mirror, like sort of no, not really.
- 45:04Carmen Lezeth: I don't know if you would say like Black Mirror, would you?
- 45:06Carmen Lezeth: It's a little bit more well Black Mirror.
- 45:08Maurio Dawson: it gives me Twilight Zone feels and vibes too, but I think X-Files is more sanitized than Black Mirror.
- 45:16Carmen Lezeth: Do you know what I mean?
- 45:17Carmen Lezeth: It's a little bit easier to take.
- 45:19Carmen Lezeth: It also was like 1996 we're talking about.
- 45:22Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean?
- 45:22Carmen Lezeth: I don't even know if that was the exact year, but it was like 93, 94.
- 45:29Carmen Lezeth: 93, 94.
- 45:30Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, so, but yeah, I think, I mean, look, I think the movies are easy, because the reason why the movies I thought were not well done at all is because they tried to explain it to the general public, whereas the rest of us had already seen everything.
- 45:46Carmen Lezeth: We didn't need an explanation.
- 45:47Carmen Lezeth: And see, I didn't need an explanation, exactly.
- 45:48Maurio Dawson: And see, I didn't like the show, so therefore I was not interested in the films I was like I'm good.
- 45:55Carmen Lezeth: So, Mario, did you not like X-Files?
- 45:56Carmen Lezeth: I'm not sure we got that clarity.
- 46:00Maurio Dawson: It was my favorite show.
- 46:02Maurio Dawson: I could not miss an episode.
- 46:05Maurio Dawson: I'll never I have to go binge watch it again because I loved it so much.
- 46:10Maurio Dawson: Oh my God.
- 46:11Rick Costa: And they tried to do a spinoff and it totally bombed.
- 46:13Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Of X-Files?
- 46:14Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Yeah, I think so.
- 46:16Rick Costa: I think so.
- 46:16Rick Costa: No, the movies were not that great.
- 46:20Carmen Lezeth: I don't know, there wasn't a spinoff of X-Files Really.
- 46:24Carmen Lezeth: I think there was.
- 46:31Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I would have never even bothered which, clearly, why are we doing this again?
- 46:37Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I can't even leave you for that.
- 46:38Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: That was really good don't encourage him I know right that was good.
- 46:45Carmen Lezeth: The y file, no, look.
- 46:48Carmen Lezeth: I think what we're kind of really saying is that story and character matter and that we will go to the movie theater and we will watch it on streaming if it's good.
- 46:58Carmen Lezeth: And part of the problem is we're not marketing the good stuff or the things that maybe we should be seeing, which are indie films, because indie films don't have marketing budgets because, they're not usually supported by the studios, no, and lower pricing of tickets.
- 47:16Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I don't think that's going to happen.
- 47:17Carmen Lezeth: It's kind of saying you want lower ticket prices at Disney.
- 47:20Carmen Lezeth: That's never going to happen either.
- 47:21Carmen Lezeth: We're here now.
- 47:24Rick Costa: Well, now it's like we're in a catch-22 because not as many people.
- 47:28Rick Costa: We need to make more money to make up for not as many people.
- 47:30Rick Costa: So how can they do that?
- 47:31Carmen Lezeth: Well, you know where movie theaters make most of their money, right, it's not from the ticket sale.
- 47:36Carmen Lezeth: It's the food Concession which is weird.
- 47:38Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, that's where they make their money.
- 47:41Carmen Lezeth: It's kind of like when you go to a restaurant Most restaurants, doesn't matter which one it is.
- 47:45Carmen Lezeth: They don't make their money off the food, they make money off the wine.
- 47:48Carmen Lezeth: You buy, the liquor.
- 47:51Maurio Dawson: Well, and now they're serving alcohol at AMC.
- 47:53Maurio Dawson: Shout out to AMC for the liquor.
- 47:54Carmen Lezeth: I only go to the movie theaters when I have to see a movie in the theater.
- 47:58Carmen Lezeth: I will go see his movie.
- 48:00Carmen Lezeth: No, I won't, because you guys have to tell me about how bad it is horror-wise.
- 48:04Maurio Dawson: Yeah.
- 48:10Carmen Lezeth: Sinners, yeah, sinners, yeah, I would go see it because of him, or any black movie I'll go see in the movie theater because I want to support.
- 48:14Carmen Lezeth: It's true, sorry, yeah, I'm really bummed.
- 48:16Carmen Lezeth: What you said about the viola davis thing, though, in this movie.
- 48:19Maurio Dawson: Did you ever?
- 48:20Maurio Dawson: Did you go?
- 48:21Maurio Dawson: I don't know I watched.
- 48:22Maurio Dawson: Did you ever watch the document documentary about movie?
- 48:27Carmen Lezeth: No.
- 48:28Maurio Dawson: You have to go and take the time to watch that documentary MoviePass.
- 48:33Maurio Dawson: I don't remember you guys.
- 48:34Maurio Dawson: Back in the day we used to get the little.
- 48:36Maurio Dawson: It used to look like a little credit card and you can go to the movies.
- 48:39Maurio Dawson: And this was before we had Stubs Club and all that stuff.
- 48:42Maurio Dawson: You could use your MoviePass at any movie theater to buy your ticket for less value, for a cheaper cost.
- 48:50Alma Dawson: Actually, we would pay $10 a month.
- 48:52Alma Dawson: And you could go to a movie.
- 48:55Alma Dawson: It was levels, so $10 a month.
- 48:57Alma Dawson: You could go once a week any movie, any time.
- 49:01Alma Dawson: It didn't have to be a matinee, whatever it could be first run, whatever, and you would just swipe your card and go to the movie.
- 49:10Maurio Dawson: So okay go ahead and it went under.
- 49:13Maurio Dawson: But it was started by two black men and it was then.
- 49:18Maurio Dawson: It was then stolen and now he's trying to get it back and it's a great story of what streaming, how really streaming kind of started.
- 49:30Maurio Dawson: They really are kind of the catalyst, but they had a great strategy, bad planning and they became millionaires on stock market and lost it all because it was stolen from them.
- 49:45Maurio Dawson: And I really suggest anyone really take a look at the documentary.
- 49:51Maurio Dawson: It's called Movie Pass the documentary and it was very insightful, not only about streaming, about these memberships, and also about marketing and the film business and how they were kind of they just didn't think it through, but it was the start of something great but just didn't have the right foundation, if that's the best way to say it.
- 50:18Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Yeah, it reminds me of a movie called Founder.
- 50:22Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: It's on Netflix and it's about McDonald's and how it started with two brothers and it was stolen from them.
- 50:31Maurio Dawson: Same thing with movies, yeah, so take a listen or take a watch.
- 50:38Carmen Lezeth: I'm so sad.
- 50:38Carmen Lezeth: Now that's your topic, ma'am.
- 50:42Carmen Lezeth: No, no, no, no.
- 50:45Carmen Lezeth: Well, I didn't think we'd solve the problem, but it just bums me out.
- 50:49Carmen Lezeth: You know, racism seems to seep through into so many, into every part of our lives, and it just.
- 50:56Carmen Lezeth: You know.
- 50:57Carmen Lezeth: It's hard to find joy in that.
- 51:00Carmen Lezeth: You know, and I know we don't want to talk about it, but that's part of what's happening.
- 51:04Maurio Dawson: The joy is go to the movies.
- 51:07Maurio Dawson: Support Ryan Coogler.
- 51:07Maurio Dawson: That's part of what's happening.
- 51:09Alma Dawson: The joy is go to the movies.
- 51:10Alma Dawson: Support.
- 51:10Maurio Dawson: And support and try to get these films back in California.
- 51:15Carmen Lezeth: Gavin Newsom has to.
- 51:16Carmen Lezeth: I mean, that's why he's working on that right.
- 51:18Maurio Dawson: He's trying.
- 51:19Carmen Lezeth: We have to have tax incentives.
- 51:21Carmen Lezeth: I don't understand why that wasn't, why we wouldn't do that anyways.
- 51:26Carmen Lezeth: But you know, if it's cheaper for me to make something in another state, I'm going to go make it in another state, right, you know?
- 51:37Carmen Lezeth: So we have to have the tax incentives here and he's working on it, and so you want to make sure that you support legislators who are supporting that.
- 51:45Carmen Lezeth: But yeah, go to the movies.
- 51:47Rick Costa: Oh, you know what To answer a question.
- 51:49Rick Costa: Cynthia asked earlier about binging or not, or weekly.
- 51:52Rick Costa: For me, if it's something that I know nobody I know is going to watch I'm not going to talk about, but nobody, I definitely going to binge.
- 52:01Rick Costa: I'd rather binge it because I'm not going to talk about it with.
- 52:04Rick Costa: But if it's something people can we talk about a lot, then yeah, I'd rather watch week to week, because then you have to let it breathe a little bit, talk about it, think about it, see your eyes I missed.
- 52:13Carmen Lezeth: I missed that part of our lives.
- 52:15Carmen Lezeth: Though I know this is how I know I'm old, I really do miss like watching a show in the next day at work with your friends, and when you pick up the phone you're like did you see what happened?
- 52:26Alma Dawson: I'm not talking about that.
- 52:28Alma Dawson: And don't miss it, don't be late, don't forget to record it.
- 52:36Carmen Lezeth: And everybody else is talking about it.
- 52:38Carmen Lezeth: You remember who shot JR that whole time?
- 52:41Maurio Dawson: We had to wait for months, for months.
- 52:46Rick Costa: I remember one place I worked at.
- 52:48Rick Costa: They had a cafeteria and everybody went to the cafeteria before they started working.
- 52:52Rick Costa: It was a cool place.
- 52:53Rick Costa: I would get to the table where most of my people were and I'd sit down.
- 52:57Rick Costa: Let me guess You're talking about the Sopranos.
- 52:59Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Yes.
- 53:00Carmen Lezeth: Yes.
- 53:00Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Sopranos.
- 53:02Carmen Lezeth: Yes, I mean, I do miss it and think that's why we're all so isolated.
- 53:09Carmen Lezeth: It's not just social media, it's just everything we do is so solitary.
- 53:13Carmen Lezeth: There's no communal.
- 53:15Carmen Lezeth: The thing about movies that's great is that you do go into a theater with strangers and you enjoy something together, and there's something just uniquely beautiful about that.
- 53:25Carmen Lezeth: What about with your?
- 53:27Maurio Dawson: friends and then having dinner and talking about it afterwards, because that's the thing we used to love to do Like a group of us.
- 53:35Maurio Dawson: We would all say, hey, you want to go to the movies and go to dinner, or yeah, it was always movie and then dinner.
- 53:40Maurio Dawson: We'd do an early movie, enjoy the movie and go to have dinner and talk about the movie and then laugh and catch up about everything else you've been.
- 53:49Maurio Dawson: We don't do that.
- 53:50Maurio Dawson: Our friends don't do that either, but we still have our friend group, but it's just not the same the last time I did that which was really fun was after.
- 53:57Carmen Lezeth: Black Panther, too was like this kind of we all got together just talking, oh, you couldn't have shut.
- 54:02Carmen Lezeth: I mean I'm glad I went and saw Black Panther, first by myself, then I went and saw it with Juliana, and then I went and saw it with a whole bunch of Black friends.
- 54:10Carmen Lezeth: So you know those are three different experiences, very different experiences.
- 54:21Maurio Dawson: Yes, I remember our friends.
- 54:22Maurio Dawson: They all went and dressed up to go to see Black Panther.
- 54:26Carmen Lezeth: I didn't do that, but that's nice.
- 54:28Maurio Dawson: Yeah, they all had their African garb on their kente claws all that stuff and they were all ready, and you know, I didn't do all of that.
- 54:37Maurio Dawson: I didn't do all that either, but I appreciate it.
- 54:40Maurio Dawson: I appreciated it too, yeah especially on social media.
- 54:43Carmen Lezeth: You can just like Amazing yeah.
- 54:45Carmen Lezeth: Yeah Well, all right.
- 54:47Carmen Lezeth: Well, thank you so much, guys.
- 54:49Carmen Lezeth: I appreciate you guys hanging out in the private lounge and that was fun.
- 54:54Carmen Lezeth: I'm not sure we fixed anything, but maybe we gave people some hope and some homework.
- 54:59Maurio Dawson: We solved world hunger tonight.
- 55:00Maurio Dawson: You did that, we did that, we did.
- 55:01Maurio Dawson: We solved world hunger.
- 55:03Maurio Dawson: We fed some people, we started a conversation.
- 55:06Carmen Lezeth: That's right, of course we did.
- 55:08Carmen Lezeth: We did the big things.
- 55:09Maurio Dawson: We did the big things.
- 55:09Maurio Dawson: We threw up some water tonight, it was great I was going to say, find the joy, however you watch your content.
- 55:18Carmen Lezeth: Oh, I love this for us.
- 55:19Carmen Lezeth: Okay, thank you everyone.
- 55:21Carmen Lezeth: Good night everyone, and remember, at the end of the day, it really is all about the joy, all about the joy.
- 55:27Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Bye.
- 55:28Carmen Lezeth: Bye.
- 55:28Carmen Lezeth: Thanks for stopping by.
- 55:31Carmen Lezeth: All About the Joy Be better and stay beautiful.
- 55:34Carmen Lezeth: Folks.
- 55:34Carmen Lezeth: Have a sweet day.