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Flying the Not So Friendly Skies · The Red Solo Traveler Podcast

0:08
Speaker 1: Hello, we welcome to the Red Solo Traveler podcast.
0:10
Speaker 2: This episode is set for Wednesday, August fifth, twenty twenty six.
0:15
I'm your host, Lewis. I'm the author of Redsolo Traveler
0:18
dot com. I'm the head han show, the author, whatever
0:21
you want to call it, and this is what I
0:23
sound like. So here we go, and welcome to another
0:28
week in Paradise. We have some great stories for you today,
0:32
one on American Airlines, kind of a tale piggyback on
0:36
from last week. And also I'm going to do some
0:39
pop culture in this episode because I told you I would,
0:42
so there you go. We will talk about Spider Man
0:45
and the Big Box Office that happened this weekend. Before
0:48
we do that, please like, share, and subscribe to on
0:51
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm on
0:55
all the podcast apps, and I'm also on substack now too.
1:01
At least my website is based on substack, and substack
1:05
likes to doesn't really like to promote, at least the
1:08
algorithm anyway doesn't link to promote other places. So what
1:12
I've decided to do is put the at least syndicate
1:16
the podcast feed onto substack.
1:18
Speaker 1: So if you just want to listen to it off
1:20
the website, you could certainly do that.
1:22
Speaker 2: Now. There is a link on the website. It's under podcast.
1:26
Just click on that link. You'll get every single episode
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of the podcast that's published so far. That's in the
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podcast feed. And so if you want to listen to
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the Deep Dives, you want to listen to me on
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be able to listen to it. You know, you'll get ads.
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You know it's it's in the podcast feed. It is
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what it is. But when I get when I get
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a good listener base, maybe someday I'll do a ad
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free version.
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Speaker 1: We'll see what happens. But check it out.
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Speaker 2: It's at red Soolo travel dot com, which does link
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to which.
1:58
Speaker 1: Is a I guess.
2:00
Speaker 2: It just goes right to the substack, so you'll get
2:03
it right there and it'll show up right on me
2:05
on that page. And if you have the Substack app,
2:07
you can listen to it through there as well. And
2:10
again if not, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you want to
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get it. Personally, I think I find it easier just
2:15
to go through the podcast app and one of the
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podcast apps and listen to it there, especially with the
2:20
playlist functionality and all that stuff that really not a
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lot of not a lot of the podcast apps have.
2:25
So anyway, check it out there. Also follow me on
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social media. It's official Red Solo Traveler on Facebook, but
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it's otherwise it's Red Solo Traveler at road Solo Traveler,
2:34
I should say, on YouTube, on Pinterest, on Instagram, and
2:38
on X. All right, let's get into it. So American
2:41
Airlines CEO lays out his vision to close a more
2:45
than three billion dollar profit gap.
2:46
Speaker 1: Now why am I.
2:47
Speaker 2: Talking about this article because I think with American Airlines. Well,
2:52
let's get into the article and we can get into
2:54
the reasons. So the airline is forecast to increase earnings
2:58
this year on an adjusted basis by close to eighty
3:00
percent from twenty twenty five, according to according to analyst estimates.
3:06
Speaker 1: I've had a long day.
3:07
Speaker 2: Work the carriers, working on improving reliability, investing in more
3:12
upscale cabins and lounges, and preparing a wide body plane
3:16
order from Boeing or Airbus to attract higher spending travelers
3:19
as early as this year. This is an article in
3:21
CNBC by Leslie Joseph's published on Sunday, July nineteenth, twenty
3:26
twenty six. So this article says at the CEO has
3:30
a math problem. They're flying sixty five hundred flights per
3:33
day this year, nearly an entire Alaska Airlines, nearly an
3:37
entire Alaska airlines, more worth of travel than I can't
3:42
finish this.
3:42
Speaker 1: This is horribly brittant. The profit gap has grown.
3:47
Speaker 2: United Airlines brought in three billion more than American last year,
3:50
and US profit leader Delta Airlines made five billion more.
3:53
An exclusive interview with CNBC last month, Aisim said, and
3:57
hopefully I'm pronouncing the gentleman's name, Robert ism as the
4:00
CEO of American Airlines. He said that American and it's
4:04
nearly one hundred and forty thousand employees want to be
4:07
quote the best at everything that we do end quote.
4:09
He said that the carrier's long range plan is certainly
4:12
making up the margin gap, but he didn't put a
4:15
timeline on that goal. So essentially, he describes the carrier's
4:21
identity as a premium global airline with the largest footprint
4:24
in North America, and it has more decisions than it
4:27
needs to make and soon.
4:28
Speaker 1: To close the gap.
4:30
Speaker 2: Perhaps the biggest challenge is getting customers to shell up
4:33
more to fly something Delta and United zero in on
4:37
in years years ago they said it says American has
4:41
mastered running an efficient business. But we will measure over
4:44
time is are we closing this revenue gap and closing
4:46
the unit revenue gap. So it's you know, they want
4:49
to beef up the cabins and the planes and the
4:52
lounges and essentially, you know, one of the criticisms I
4:57
hear all the time is that many of these airlines
4:59
are glorified credit card companies with a great loyalty program,
5:03
but not a great airline. And you know, I can't
5:07
say the criticism is wrong in a lot of cases.
5:11
You know, they're remodeling cabins across the fleet, according to
5:13
this article, taking deliveries on new planes with interiors that
5:16
feature new amenities and more premium seats. Executives have said
5:20
that they're considering, but they have not decided to bring
5:23
back seat back screens on its narrow body fleet, though
5:26
American recently joined the airlines that they're that are adding
5:29
Wi Fi from SpaceX and the customers that are willing
5:34
to pay more for premium seats or other perks like
5:38
lounge access have a bright spot according to the across
5:40
the industry, and everyone from profit leader to now defunct
5:43
budget carrier Spirit Airlines has tried to woo these travelers
5:46
as airlines rushed to get fancy new seats but small
5:50
but profitable real estate in the air.
5:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
5:54
Speaker 2: I mean, the problem that I have with this is
5:57
it ignores the bigger problem that you know. It's wonderful
6:01
to have a seat on the airplane. It's wonderful, they
6:03
have a nice see it in the airplane, but you
6:05
need to actually fly. You need to actually have flights
6:08
ready to go for people. And I go to another
6:10
article from the Travel dot Com published by Alessandro pass By.
6:17
I'm sorry if I mispronounce your name, sir. Not not
6:20
my intention. I practiced the day before I signed on here,
6:25
but I couldn't get it. So obviously American Airlines experienced
6:30
yet this is published. I'm sorry, this is published in
6:32
the Travel dot Com. On July fourteen, twenty twenty six,
6:35
American Airlines experience yet another ground stop issued at Dallas
6:39
Fort Worth International Airport. As a result, both the airport
6:42
and the airlines saw a surge in canceled flights due
6:45
to the groundstop. American Airlines wasn't alone in its recent struggles,
6:48
as Delta Airlines is also faced staffing issues and ground
6:51
stops that halted service. Although the ground stops at DW,
6:55
I'm sorry at the ground stops at DFW were due
6:57
to thunderstorms, American Airlines pass You're sited other reasons for
7:01
the delays, including cruise timing out due to the disruptions.
7:05
As a results, some passengers were provided with hotel accommodations,
7:09
which weren't exactly ideal according to online testimonials. And you
7:13
had a ground stop, and I get it. They said thunderstorms,
7:17
and I mean that is a reason for it. I
7:19
mean that is going to be a reason for it.
7:21
But if there's no thunderstorms, and I mean you would
7:24
know because you look. You can look outside of the
7:26
airport and there's windows, and there's windows everywhere, and you
7:29
could see that there's uh, there were a lot of delays.
7:32
You know, there the weather outside anyway, and we also
7:36
have weather apps on our phones and we can see
7:39
what what the weather's going to be like. And the
7:43
ground stop had had a lot of delays, but there
7:45
was also staffing issues as well, and I've had this
7:51
problem myself, you know, obviously the last episode, if you
7:55
listened to the last episode, you'll hear my whole travel
7:57
story where I had to go to a different airport
7:59
because as the flight kept getting delayed because of quote
8:02
unquote mechanical delays. Well, the mechanical delays oftentimes are not
8:06
just mechanical delays. They're because they don't have enough staff
8:09
or they can't they can't use their staff because of
8:13
FA regulations. So we have government regulations basically saying you
8:18
can't have a certain crew or a certain amount of
8:21
people flying at the same time. So, I mean, it's
8:24
one of the other here. And I understand with all
8:27
the with the weather delays, things are are going to
8:31
be an issue, but you really have to do something
8:34
with that. And it's not just weather delays. We had
8:37
a brief IT outage back on July twenty ninth, is
8:40
according to ABC News, American Airlines flights resume after a
8:44
brief IT outage led to nationwide groundstop. American airlines are
8:49
departing again after a brief IT outage led to a
8:51
nationwide groundstop. According to the airline and federal officials. American
8:55
Airlines flights not in the air were being held because
8:57
of an IT outage. According to an advisory from the
9:00
Federal Aviation Administration, a technology issue briefly impacted connectivity.
9:05
Speaker 1: For some systems.
9:06
Speaker 2: Systems are coming back online now and flights are departing again.
9:10
And look, I mean, this is this is one of
9:13
the major problems with the American Airlines right now. It's
9:16
it's you have you have an IT outage, and then
9:18
you have you don't have enough crew, and it's all
9:22
these different things that are quite honestly preventable. You know,
9:25
maybe you need to hire more staff and spread them
9:28
out a little bit more. And if you're going to
9:30
charge customers more money for their flights, you can't just say, oh,
9:35
it's just because of fuel. Say we want to hire
9:38
more staff. We want to bring in more people so
9:41
that we don't have this issue of mechanical delays, so
9:45
we don't have this issue of having to cancel and
9:48
delay fights. When I get it the IT outage, maybe
9:51
sometimes that happens.
9:53
Speaker 1: It outages happen.
9:55
Speaker 2: Find a way that find what's causing that to happen.
9:58
Because this isn't the first time that has happened past
10:00
year with American airlines. So according to this article in CNBC.
10:05
I go back to this article because it's very lofty
10:08
and it has all this vision of, well, we need
10:10
to improve, you know, we need to improve our service.
10:14
We need to make the cabins nicer. Yeah, cabins, you know,
10:17
I don't know. I mean, does the main cabin always
10:21
have to have seats where you have literally about five
10:23
inches of legroom? I mean, that's a problem. And maybe
10:27
you don't need to jam so many people on the plane.
10:30
Maybe maybe you know, I'd love to see an airline,
10:33
and I think someday we will have this.
10:37
Speaker 1: We're an airline will.
10:38
Speaker 2: Just focus on business and first class passengers and kind
10:43
of relieve the tension from these other airlines in a
10:47
way where they can compete more effectively for it, Like
10:51
you have one airline that just focuses solely on business
10:55
and first class passengers and says, look, we're not an
10:57
airline for your family to fly down to Florida. We're
11:00
flying to certain cities and that's what we're focused on.
11:04
And we just fly to these cities and that's it,
11:07
and we want to make it a premium experience. And
11:10
so I mean, and I understand, you know, and I
11:14
come from a smaller airport city, so my city is
11:17
not a hub for American and it's not a hub
11:19
really for any airline in particular.
11:22
Speaker 1: So we get what we get.
11:23
Speaker 2: And but the issue is is that it's not just
11:26
it's it's not just flights from hubs. It's also regional
11:29
jets as well that we get, and you know, it's
11:33
not the same as some of these other experiences. So
11:36
I like some of their ideas. I like that they're
11:40
trying to improve the cabin and improve the customer experience.
11:44
But improving the customer experience also means the flight taking
11:47
off and the flight taking off on time and not
11:51
having one excuse after another for outages and for all
11:56
the other issues that come into play with American airlines.
12:00
I mean the customer satisfaction that I was looking at
12:03
customer satisfaction when I was doing research for today. And yeah,
12:08
people like the loyalty program, but they also want to
12:11
be able to use it. You know, I personally have
12:13
American Airlines. I have the AA advantage myself, and I
12:18
have a lot of miles and I'm building up the
12:20
miles as I travel for work and for other things.
12:23
But the experience on American is not great. I'm just
12:27
gonna be honest, and every single time I go on American,
12:32
you know, I almost look at it too. And I
12:35
can understand why there's no loyalty necessarily by airline passengers
12:39
for certain airlines, because at the end of the day,
12:43
I think the experience is the same for a lot
12:44
of people. You know, if you fly American, if you've
12:47
like Delta, if you fly Southwest, if you fly United,
12:51
whatever airline you fly, it tends to be the same
12:54
same experience. You're squeeze into a seat that is, you
13:01
know where you hope and pray the person next to
13:04
you isn't going to take up any more room than
13:06
they can take. You don't have any leg room, you
13:09
don't have a screen in front of you, so you
13:11
got to bring your own screen. Now, I mean American,
13:13
they don't have any screens in the back. They don't
13:15
have back seat screens, and again, not every airline has
13:19
to do that. I do like that they're offering Wi Fi. Now,
13:22
that's nice, be nice if it worked, you know, or
13:26
at least some of the time. But there's there's just
13:30
a lot of things that they can do to improve
13:33
the experience, and I like that they're thinking about it.
13:35
But improving the experience starts with having flights take off
13:39
on time. It starts with getting flights off the ground.
13:41
That's all. I mean, it's that's a big piece of it. So,
13:46
like I said, the intention the right the heart is
13:50
in the right place on this one. But at the
13:52
same time, American Airlines needs to figure out and figure
13:55
out a way to stand out in the crowd. You know.
13:58
I feel like they're all trying to do the same thing.
14:00
All these big airlines are trying to do the same thing.
14:02
We're gonna try to make it more premium. We're gonna
14:04
try to make it we want you to sign up
14:06
for our credit card, and we want you to try
14:08
to make it more premium and give a more premium
14:10
experience and have luxurious seats on board that we never.
14:13
Speaker 1: Get to see.
14:13
Speaker 2: I mean, it's always, you know, it's always, oh hey,
14:17
I read from the points guy a lot, and the
14:19
points guy is I feel like they're just a paid
14:23
shill for the airline industry and for the hotel industry
14:26
and everything else. I stopped following them a long time ago,
14:28
because I mean everything is just like everything is a
14:31
glowing review for them. You know, Oh, I got this
14:35
wonderful mint seat that costs eight thousand dollars for a
14:37
person to fly in. I mean, you're not talking to
14:40
the average person with these articles. So I just think
14:45
with you need to find a way to stand out.
14:49
And part of standing out is delivering good service. And
14:53
it's why you're losing market share. It's why you lose
14:56
market share. Even yeah, the cities you have hubs and
14:59
you're always gonna be number one in market share, but
15:01
the city is you don't are you aren't hubs in
15:04
You're not. So it's something American has to figure out.
15:08
Something all these other airlines have to figure out as well.
15:10
Stand out from each other, is my point. So speaking
15:13
of standing out, let's get to our Let's get to
15:16
some fun stuff, shall we. You know we always I
15:19
said to you before when I started this podcast up again,
15:21
I said I want to do some pop culture too,
15:23
because look, I'm a guy who has many interests, not
15:28
just travel. I love traveling and one of the things
15:31
that I'm sure most people like to do, and I
15:33
think this is a good, good topic someday to talk
15:36
about on the show is do people go see movies
15:40
when they travel? And I think a lot of people do.
15:43
You know, When I was a kid, my family and I,
15:46
you know, my I would travel with my family and
15:49
we would go to Upstate New York. We would go
15:50
to a lot of these different places, and sometimes the
15:53
weather wasn't great, and you know, there wasn't a lot
15:56
of the touristy stuff that's that's available now in a
15:58
lot of places, and you do have to look for it.
16:01
And that's kind of my job of showing that to
16:03
you on on Redzulotraveler dot com.
16:05
Speaker 1: But I also believe too that.
16:10
Speaker 2: A lot of the terroristy stuff, like the tours, you know,
16:13
these things weren't around, you know, even ten years ago,
16:16
even fifteen years ago, in a lot of these places
16:18
or there weren't well known, I should say. And you know,
16:22
one thing that people would do is go see a movie,
16:25
you know, and I mean going to see a movie.
16:27
Sometimes you don't have time to go see a movie
16:29
in your regular day to day life, and you're on vacation.
16:32
You got some couple hours to kill, especially in the
16:35
morning too, which is when I when I love to
16:36
go see movies, But I mean, why wouldn't you at least,
16:40
you know, consider it, you know.
16:43
Speaker 1: So, but I get it.
16:45
Speaker 2: I mean, like I said, teach his own when it
16:46
comes to traveling. So but I also believe that, you know,
16:50
things are sometimes you don't want to travel. Sometimes you
16:53
just want to travel a different way. And that's going
16:56
to see a movie, you know, Jerry Bruckhammer once said
16:58
the producer. The producer, Jerry Bruckheimer once said that the movies,
17:04
we're in the transportation business.
17:06
Speaker 1: And he's not wrong.
17:08
Speaker 2: You know, movies do transport you to a different place,
17:12
different time, especially if you go see him on a
17:14
big screen, you know, if you go to the movie
17:15
theater and see it. And it's something I did this
17:18
past weekend. I went to go see this new Spider
17:21
Man movie, and apparently I wasn't alone. Now, I do
17:25
follow a website called Box Office Theory, and I do
17:30
follow them through my personal sub stack, and they had
17:33
said that the two big movies were going to be
17:35
Spider Man Brand New Day and The Odyssey. Now I
17:37
haven't seen the Odyssey. I probably won't see it. It's
17:39
not my kind of thing. I'm a history guy, as
17:42
you know with the website and with just how I
17:44
talk about history and things like that. But I'm not
17:47
an ancient history guy. My my oldest niece is loves
17:55
loves ancient history. She loves Greek history. She's all in
17:58
it at so she looked me in like I was
18:00
an alien. When I told her that, I said, I'm
18:03
not into agent history. She goes, what you're history guy?
18:06
I know I never had been, even when I was younger.
18:09
I was like, this is boring the crap out of me.
18:12
Speaker 1: And it does.
18:12
Speaker 2: It just bores the crap out of me. So I
18:14
don't follow it at all. And again it's nothing personal,
18:18
it's just the way it is. But the Honesty did
18:21
very well. Again, more power to you if you want
18:24
to go see it. Not my thing, but Box Office
18:28
Theory talked about the differences between Spider Man Brand New
18:31
Day and The Odyssey and the first the articles goes
18:35
into detail of the key tracking factors and rationale. The
18:39
first live action Peter Parker movie in nearly five years
18:41
continues to soar in final pre release tracking. Spider Man
18:45
Brand New Days excellent reviews ninety one percent certified fresh
18:48
from one hundred and fifty eight critics on Rotten Tomatoes
18:50
only adds to the weekend's potential. When we start talking numbers.
18:54
This large all variables of contexts that have to be
18:56
kept in mind for starters the Spidery and broader Marvel franchises,
18:59
or massive pre sale focused which warns at least some
19:02
caution for ballooning expectations as the weekend approaches.
19:06
Speaker 1: So he goes into detail. Got a great newsletter.
19:08
Speaker 2: I think it's Sean Robbins's name, and it's a box
19:11
office theory So check that out. Just go on box
19:13
office theory dot com as well. So the weekend forecast
19:17
had essentially had a three hundred million dollar combined movieme
19:24
movie going frame. So they were saying, with the first
19:28
weekend of Brand New Day, Spiderman, Brand New Day would
19:31
have come in between two fifty two and ninety million,
19:33
Studio tracking was one at ninety five million, and then
19:36
the Honesty was going to come in between one forty
19:38
five and fifty two million. Well according to according to
19:43
the numbers, I'm sorry. According to Deadline, it happened. This
19:46
is an article. According to Deadline, spider Man Brand New
19:50
Day with three hundred and sixty million is now the
19:52
biggest opening ever at domestic box office. That's incredible, I
19:56
mean just incredible. Three hundred and sixty million dollars over
20:00
three days. That's one hundred plus million dollars a day.
20:04
And that's just in the United States alone. So or
20:08
North America, North American box office, I should say it happened, Sony.
20:12
Marvel Studio's Spider Man brand New Day is now the
20:15
biggest opening ever at the North American box office with
20:19
a three day sorry too, a little swigg of water
20:21
with a three day sixty million dollar taking down Disney
20:26
Marvel Studio's previous domestic debut record with twenty nineteen's Avengers Endgame,
20:30
which opened to three fifty seven.
20:32
Speaker 1: That's incredible. It beat Avengers End Game. Wow.
20:36
Speaker 2: The revised global opening is now nine er thirty two million,
20:39
which still stands the second best worldwide opening at the
20:42
box office behind Avengers Endgame one point to two billion. Incredible,
20:48
I mean just incredible numbers. And you know, I went
20:50
to the movie theater this weekend. I went to go
20:51
see it because I'm a Spider Man fan. I mean,
20:53
I'm shooting to be honest, I'm a fan of the
20:56
original movies.
20:57
Speaker 1: Did I ever read the combooks? No, but I like
20:59
the movie.
21:00
Speaker 2: The movies are fun, and I think I identify with
21:04
a character. I just you know, it's one of those
21:06
He's a character that I think a lot of us
21:08
can identify with, and I think that's why he's so popular.
21:12
Speaker 1: And I grew up with the Spider Man movies.
21:14
Speaker 2: You know. When the first Spider Man came out was
21:16
two thousand and two, and I was in college at
21:18
the time, and I really just fell in love with
21:21
the character, and it was really my first real superhero
21:24
movie that I would really wanted to see and enjoy
21:28
thoroughly when I went to see it, and it was
21:29
right after September eleventh, and there was supposed to be
21:32
actually a scene in Spider Man where they were going
21:35
to fight at top of World Trade Center, a top
21:37
of the World Trade Center. And the only reason that
21:39
movie came out in two thousand and two was because
21:41
they had to scrap that scene and they had to
21:43
do it they last minute reshoot and supposed to come
21:47
out November of two thousand and one, if I'm not mistaken,
21:50
but it came out in May of two thousand and
21:52
two because of that fight scene that they had to
21:55
basically they had to scrap the whole ending because it
21:57
was it was gonna be a top the Twin Towers
22:00
of the World Trade Center. Well, obviously that wasn't gonna happen,
22:03
so they completely scrapped the ending and changed it. And
22:07
then Spider Man two came out, and Spider Man two
22:09
is so good and it holds up to this day.
22:13
It holds up and I can't believe that movie is
22:15
twenty two years old. It just blows my mind. And
22:18
then Spider Man three came out was a big let down,
22:20
I thought, because again, when you have it's like The Godfather. Okay,
22:24
it's like going to see it's like the Godfather trilogy.
22:27
You have The Godfather, which is really great, the Godfather Too,
22:30
which is even better. The Godfather Too is a movie
22:33
that's three and a half hours long, and you are
22:36
engrossed for that entire three and a half hour running time,
22:39
and that's rare to do. You cannot mean that it's
22:44
hard to do for any movie in general.
22:46
Speaker 1: But you are.
22:47
Speaker 2: Engrossed in this world for three and a half hours,
22:50
you know it's an amazing movie. And then you have
22:53
Godfather three, and I mean the original cut that came
22:58
out really wasn't that good. Franz for Coppola did a
23:02
recut of the movie in twenty twenty that was better,
23:06
but it's still not as good as the first tip
23:08
I mean again, and he did what he could with it.
23:11
He obviously did that movie for money. I read that
23:13
he did the movie for the paycheck because he had
23:16
lost so much of money on the other movies that
23:18
he was doing in the eighties that he had to
23:20
make Godfather three, I mean essentially, and he made it
23:22
for the money. So unfortunately, you know, quality suffered. But
23:28
Spider Man went through the same problem, went through the
23:30
same issue where you had first one was good, second
23:33
one was even better. Third one kind of lost its
23:36
steam a little bit.
23:37
Speaker 1: Then.
23:38
Speaker 2: Because Sony owns the Spider Man rights, they have to
23:41
do a movie every ten years. So the way it
23:44
works is they have a deal with in place with
23:47
Marvel where they have to do a movie every decade.
23:49
I think they have to do it every ten years,
23:51
and a new movie has to be made and released.
23:54
Speaker 1: Within a ten year period.
23:58
Speaker 2: So they had to make the Amazing Spider Man twenty
24:00
twelve and I didn't think it was that good. Quite honestly,
24:03
I felt like it was a remake of Spider Man
24:05
and a little bit of a remake of Spider Man two,
24:09
and they just wasn't that good. And then the second
24:11
one is completely forgettable. And then you brought this new
24:15
Spider Man series that came out in twenty sixteen. And
24:18
what was attractive about this one was that it was
24:20
tied with the Marble Cinematic Universe, the MCU, and the
24:24
Marvel Cinematic Universe was iron Man, it was Thor, it
24:28
was all these different Marvel characters and the movie. The
24:31
movies were good. The movies were really really good. And
24:35
I again, I'm not a combook combook collector, I'm not
24:39
a combook guy. I just love the story and the
24:42
action and the characters. That was what I was interested in.
24:45
And first off, like iron Man, the first two Iron
24:48
Man were really good, especially the first Iron Man. You know,
24:52
I mean they put that movie together with duct tape.
24:54
I mean, it's amazing what they did with it. Apparently,
24:58
what I read was that they never had to finish
24:59
script it. They were working on the script as they
25:01
were producing it, as they were making it, so it's
25:03
an incredible story. But Spider Man came out the New
25:09
Spider Man. I think it was Homecoming. I believe it
25:11
came out in twenty seventeen, if I'm not mistaken. They
25:14
had brought the character in in Captain America, I think,
25:17
and if memory serves correct on that, and then they
25:21
did Spider Man Homecoming, which had Michael Keaton as the villain,
25:25
which is awesome having Michael Keaton as the villain. And
25:28
then I mean, Tom Holland has always been good, but
25:33
he but they what they did with the character was
25:35
kind of brought him back to high school and it
25:39
became more of a coming of age Spider Man where
25:41
he really wasn't necessarily he was kind of the building
25:44
blocks of Spider Man were there, but he was he
25:48
was not Spider Man yet, you know, and it took
25:51
a while to get that could get that kind of
25:53
thing going.
25:54
Speaker 1: Second movie was goodness.
25:58
Speaker 2: I keep I forget the name of the second movie,
25:59
but yeah, Jake Gillinghalls vic as the villain in that one. Really,
26:05
I thought it was fine and I thought it was okay.
26:07
You know, I didn't I didn't love it. I didn't
26:09
hate it. The third one just blew my mind and
26:12
how good it was. The third one was Spider Man
26:16
No Way Home came out in twenty twenty one. That
26:20
had just kind of tied all the loose ends together,
26:24
and it really created Spider Man as the Spider Man
26:28
we know and love, and it really cemented that character
26:33
a little bit more. And Tom Halland's portrayal really good.
26:36
I mean, he's just a really good Spider Man. I
26:39
liked him from the moment I saw him, you know,
26:41
I as Spider Man. I thought he fit fitted perfectly.
26:44
I wasn't thrilled with Zendaia as MJ. I'm just gonna
26:48
be honest. I wasn't thrilled with her at first. I
26:51
have since evolved a little bit with her. I think
26:54
her acting has improved too. I'll be honest. I think
26:56
her acting has improved.
26:58
Speaker 1: She came off as.
26:59
Speaker 2: Very wooden to me in the first few movies, and
27:01
then you know, as as she got older and and
27:04
again it's you know, you go from a child actor
27:06
to an adult actor, and she's she's a much better
27:10
actor than she was, you know, back then. So it's
27:13
good to see that with her. But the movie was good.
27:16
I went to see brain New Day, Full Theater. You know,
27:19
I think I went. I went into the early showing.
27:21
I did a early in the day showing, full theater,
27:25
went Dolby Cinema. If you ever do a movie, go
27:28
see it in Dolby Cinema. Don't spend your time with
27:30
Imax unless it's like a real Imax theater. And my
27:34
whole thing with movie theaters is similar to what my
27:37
whole thing with airlines is comfort. Comfort comfort. Give me
27:41
a comfortable seat, give me a good experience, and I'm happy.
27:46
And I'm not worried about the I'm not worried about
27:49
bells and whistles. Just give me a nice, comfortable experience.
27:52
One of these days I am going to do a
27:53
podcast where I talk about my experience at Alamo Draft
27:55
House and how cool that is. But anyway, I'll get
27:58
into that someday. But this is Adobe Cinema. Dolby Cinema
28:04
is I forget how many speakers there are in a
28:07
movie theater. It's got to be like fifty speakers in
28:09
the movie theater. It's crazy, and you hear it from
28:12
all different angles. The picture is really clean and sharp,
28:17
and the seats just are great. I mean these are
28:21
good reclining seats you could do if you wanted to.
28:25
At least my movie theater, you were able to do
28:29
it in a bucket seat way where you're almost like
28:32
it's almost like a bucket seat where your legs kind
28:34
of hang off the end and you're almost cradled in
28:37
the seat. And it's great because then you don't have
28:40
to go to the bathroom, or at least you can
28:41
hold it in and not sit there and go the
28:44
whole time.
28:46
Speaker 1: So the movie itself was good.
28:48
Speaker 2: I thought, again, not a movie I'm gonna probably see again,
28:53
but it was.
28:54
Speaker 1: I give it a solid B.
28:55
Speaker 2: Plus some confusing elements of the story. I felt like
28:59
there was a lot of loose end that were left open.
29:02
I liked Sadie Sink as Jean Gray. I thought she
29:06
did a good job. Like I said, Zendia improved for
29:10
as MJ. Tom Holland just did a really good jobs
29:13
as Spider Man. And then and then you have I
29:17
don't know who the villain was though, you know. That
29:19
was my only thing was who's the villain in this movie?
29:24
Is it the guy running the I forget even the
29:28
name of the program that he's running, Like what was it.
29:32
That's the only problem I had with this. With the
29:34
writing of this movie, the action was great, just I mean,
29:39
just amazing set pieces in this thing. And again, when
29:42
Spider Man is weaving through the city, it just feels cinematic.
29:48
You know, you just feel like you're with him. You're
29:50
with him on that on that journey and on that voyage.
29:54
And I liked that Spider Man was Spider Man and
29:58
a man and not a boy anymore, and they've they
30:02
lean into that. But also at the same time, he
30:05
didn't really foreget where he came from, you know, I mean,
30:08
the element of him having to save his friends by
30:13
having them forget about him. What's interesting about the movie
30:18
is deep down, and it's kind of intimated throughout the movie.
30:22
Deep down the friends still remember him, but they can't
30:26
figure out how they remember him. So that was the
30:29
most interesting aspect of that of the movie for me,
30:32
was was that. So again, give it a solid B plus.
30:36
We're seeing in the movie theater for sure. I Mean,
30:40
the best movie I've seen probably the last five years
30:42
is Top Gum Maverick.
30:42
Speaker 1: Is it? Is it Top Gun Maverick?
30:44
Speaker 2: No, But it's it's But it's good it's really it's good.
30:47
It's well made, and it's worth seeing in the movie
30:48
theater and go see it Adobe Cinema if you can.
30:51
So it's Spider Man Brand New Day. It's uh. And
30:55
I think, and I think that three hundred and sixty
30:57
million dollar number is more like because of pre sales.
31:01
You know, you were able to buy tickets to this thing,
31:03
I think two months in advance, and I did. I
31:05
did because this is like the one superhero movie I'm
31:09
seeing now. I haven't seen an MCU movie since Avengers Endgame,
31:13
and I won't because I don't really care about the
31:17
I mean, Avengers Endgame to me ended it.
31:19
Speaker 1: That was it. And apparently this movie is.
31:22
Speaker 2: In Phase six of the MCU and I didn't even
31:24
know the hell where the hell I even stopped on
31:27
my end. I think it might have been Phase three
31:28
or four.
31:28
Speaker 1: I don't even know.
31:31
Speaker 2: Are there elements in the movie that threw me off
31:33
a little? Yeah, I mean there were certain characters I
31:36
didn't really know who they were. But at the end
31:38
of the day, you know, you still you were still
31:42
able to figure it out. So it wasn't like like
31:45
in normally who hadn't been watching the MCU movies. Could
31:48
I think, approach this movie and still enjoy it even
31:51
if they don't really know everything that's going on.
31:54
Speaker 1: So, you know, if you're if you're just a regular
31:56
Joe who.
31:57
Speaker 2: Just doesn't watch the MCU movies or doesn't really know it,
32:00
kind of knows about them, you know you're gonna be fine.
32:04
I think you're gonna be fine if you watch the
32:06
MCU movies, if you're all in on it, then you'll
32:09
probably get more a much better experience than somebody who doesn't.
32:12
But at the end of the day, like I said,
32:14
you're still gonna get the same experience no matter what.
32:16
Speaker 1: So I do recommend it. I give it a B plus.
32:20
Speaker 2: Yes, I do movie reviews sometimes and I will do
32:23
that on this show. So because it's my show, I'm
32:25
gonna do what I want.
32:26
Speaker 1: So there you go.
32:27
Speaker 2: All right, that's gonna do it for me for this week.
32:30
Thank you for listening. As always, So we got some
32:33
travel talk in, we got some pop.
32:35
Speaker 1: Culture talk in.
32:36
Speaker 2: That's what I want to do with this show is
32:38
kind of do a mix of both, because you know,
32:41
you we're all living in a weird time right now,
32:44
you know, and everyone's at each other's throats.
32:46
Speaker 1: This is not what I want to do.
32:48
Speaker 2: So I want to bring people together. Well not really,
32:52
but you know whatever. Anyway, So anyway, thanks for listening
32:55
for this episode this week, got We've got some more
32:58
deep dives coming up. We have now transitioned out of
33:01
the Atlanta stuff, so we have one one up that
33:05
came up on Monday called how to Get new Museums
33:09
for Free. It is based on an article I did
33:11
a couple of months ago, really popular article two about
33:14
the North American Reciprocal Museum program. So if you get
33:18
a chance, listen to it, but also check out the
33:20
article on red Soolo travar dot com. And again it's
33:23
called how to get Museums for Free? Very simple, very
33:26
easy to remember. But it'll be again in the podcast feed.
33:31
The last episode is the Deep Dive and it has
33:34
that in there. I've got more deep dives coming up,
33:37
more stuff coming up. I can't remember what I've what
33:40
I have queued up, at least off the top of
33:42
my head of the moment, but I got more good
33:45
stuff coming down the pike, so it'll be it'll be
33:48
in your podcast feed later this week. It probably surprised
33:51
me too because like I said, I'm sitting here going Oh,
33:55
that's right. I scheduled it for this time, so anyway,
33:59
more more coming for that again. I'll be on social
34:02
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34:06
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34:10
and of course go to Red Solo travel dot com
34:13
sign up for the newsletter.
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Speaker 2: The newsletter is basically just a version of the most
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Speaker 1: I'm trying to get it every two weeks.
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Speaker 2: I don't want to argue with too much stuff, so
34:50
you're probably you might be subscribed to other newsletters. And
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I mean, heaven knows, we all have so many emails
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35:41
Speaker 1: Really appreciate your support, really do. All right, that's gonna
35:43
do it for me. We'll see you next time. I
35:46
have a good one.