Latest / The Radio From Hell Show - Best Of / Sean Means Movie Reviews for November 15th, 2024

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Sean Means Movie Reviews for November 15th, 2024 · The Radio From Hell Show - Best Of

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, here he is on the telephone with us. Sean
• 0:02
  means uh. He's a writer and editor of the Salt
• 0:05
  Lake Tribune. Sltrib dot com is where you can see
• 0:09
  his work, and he's also a film critic movie cricket
• 0:13
  dot net. But Seawan is on the phone because he's
• 0:15
  he's down there rock climbing and in moad right or dune.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm on the road.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, you're dune buggying or something hit. You're hitting the dunes, Sean.
• 0:26
  I hope you're relaxing. But if you had chance to
• 0:28
  review a couple of movies.
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  Speaker 2: M hm, Yeah, we have two movies this week. One's good,
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  the other is not. Okay, we we will start with
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  Red One. You've seen you know, you've seen the ads
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  for this and and you probably thought yourself, wow, what
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  is this going to be on Netflix? Yeah, because it
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  looks this looks like it should be in movie on Netflix,
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  you know, like like like Red Notice or one of
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  those things. Right, Yeah, but no, it's in It's in
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  movie theaters. And I have no idea why it is accepted.
• 0:59
  It costs a lot of money to make it, like
• 1:02
  they're saying, it's like two hundred and fifty million dollars,
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  a lot of it because of cost overruns, which apparently
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  some of that was because the Rock is always late
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  to set.
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  Speaker 1: Bottles.
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  Speaker 2: There's that. There's that too. Yeah, I'll leave that. I'll
• 1:16
  leave that to y'all. So, yeah, Christmas time, North Pole,
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  Santa Claus getting ready for the Big Knight, and so
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  are all the people and beings that are around him,
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  including the Rocks character who's the head of security and
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  for Santa Claus. And his character is basically what would
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  Dwayne Johnson look like in Red and Green. Yeah, that's
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  that's That's about as much character development.
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  Speaker 1: That's the depth.
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  Speaker 2: That's that's Yeah. So Santa is played by JK. Simmons, right,
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  and they don't even try to and he's a Sata
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  who works out. He's he's very buff, which should which
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  should be funny. Yeah, yeah, it's it's not whatever. JK.
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  Simmons is a great actor. I really feel sorry for
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  him for being stuck in this thing. So it's two nights,
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  two nights to go before Christmas Eve and there's a
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  security breach and Santa Claus gets kidnapped. Okay, that's that's
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  the gift.
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  Speaker 1: That's all right, now that could be okay, way to
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  have a funny movie.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, And then so Callum has to find Santa now,
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  and so he's forced to get find a tracker who's
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  who's the one who hacked into the top secret computer
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  systems and whatever. Anyway, the guy that helped whoever the
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  bad guy is, and the tracker Jack O'Malley played by
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  Chris Evans. And here the character of the writing assignment
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  seemed to be, what if we took all the bad
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  guys from every Hallmark Christmas movie and put them into
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  one guy? Who do you feel who.
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  Speaker 1: Do you feel worse for him? Or j Simmons?
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  Speaker 2: I based outside the paycheck, I say J K. Simmons
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  because you know, and you know he's a gambler, he's
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  a deadbeat dad. It's all. It's all every bad character trait,
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  you know, call it and he hates and he hates Christmas.
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  So of course, yeah, so they have to team up
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  to find Santa and and find out whoever it is
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  that took him. And this is just dreadful. There's no
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  there's no buddy cop chemistry between these guys. The computer
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  effects are crap, look like garbage. The story is like
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  made out of spare parts, and and and the emotional
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  steaks you're supposed to have of Jack finding his Christmas
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  spare non that it's looks terrible. Yeah. The only funny bet,
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  and it's in the ads is evolves Crampas and the guy,
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  the guy playing Krampas underneath all the makeup is Christopher.
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  You who's uh, the big redhead guy from Game of Thrones.
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  Oh yeah, yeah, okay, so yeah, and he's the only
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  he's the only reason, he's the only half decent thing.
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  And that's just for a minute or two. So one
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  and a half stars.
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  Speaker 1: You're being generous, but there you go. Possibly it's Christmas
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  after so A real.
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  Speaker 2: Pain, A real pain. Yes this This won the Screenwriting
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  Award at Sundance this year for Jesse Eisenberg. Eisenberg wrote it,
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  directed it, and he stars in it. He plays David
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  and Karen Cochlan plays Benji, their cousins who are going
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  on a trip together to Poland to to where to
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  see where their late grandmother lives before she had to
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  flee before World War Two. Grandma never really talked about
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  what happened, and so this is the cousin's chance to
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  dig into their family history. It's not easy because David
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  and Benji are very different. David is very uptight, neurotic,
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  concerned about the schedule for the tour group they're on
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  and everything. And Benji is like his live wire, joking
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  and very you know, grand gestures. He's very manic, and
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  of course you can tell you who is who and yeah,
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  that's very definitely Culchin and of course being Mannix. Somewhere
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  on the trip you can get to see the other
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  side of that, the ession. This is a very sharp,
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  very well observed comedy. There's a lot of humor in here,
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  involving the idea of tragedy tourism, this this sort of
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  tour group, you know, tracing history is connected to the
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  holocausts and whatnot. But the main source of comedy is
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  the nervous interaction between David and Benji. It's also where
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  the tension and the drama really come through. Now we're
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  familiar with Eisenberg playing these neurotic types, and he does
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  very well here. He's great. You really get a sense
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  of the way that David thinks he's carrying in this world.
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  And Kieran Culkin. I mean, if you watch Succession, you
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  already know how good Karen Culson is, but this just
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  solidifies that he's this like jagged wounded heart of this movie,
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  and together they're just amazing. So three and a half
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  stars everywhere. It's in a few theaters. I know it's
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  at the Broadway. I think a few other places. But
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  seek it out. It's worthwhile, excellent.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: What now next week? I see we have big week too,
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  Gladiator and Wicked. Have you seen either of those yet?
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  Speaker 2: I'm seeing Gladiator too when I get back. Wicked, I'm
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  gonna miss so no. I know I'll have to catch
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  up with it later. But yeah, yeah, this is this
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  is this is Christmas. This is the Winter's version of Barbenheimer.
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  We got Gladiator too, and we got Wicked, and you
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  got to figure out and we have to figure out
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  a name for this Wicked. I think Glendiator.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, okay, Glicked, I.
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  Speaker 2: Got that's that's the best that coming up.
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  Speaker 1: Glicked. That's clicked?
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  Speaker 2: All right?
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  Speaker 1: All right, Sean means Salt Lake Tribune Movie click at
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  dot net. H safe travels, and we'll see you next week.
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  Speaker 2: Yep, Talculator, all right, thank you? All right? I think
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  Wicked's kind of review proof.
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  Speaker 1: It's gonna yeah, it's gonna be chucking. Although I have
• 6:53
  I have very good things about it, so