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This week on Great Bond Movies:
Seattle Times writer Moira Macdonald and our good friend David Hallgren join us to talk about (Moira’s pick!) Rampage, with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson… Moira was a mystery guest to Greg until the moment she arrives, orchestrated by David and Joe Sky-Tucker.
This week we learned 2018’s Rampage is an under-celebrated feat in cinema…. Potentially one of the most enjoyable movies in recent years. The Rock once again teams up with director Brad Peyton to make a movie David describes as “the seventy-est percent movie ever made.” (70% of course being our Rotten Tomato rating for every movie we watch.)
This was a surprisingly easy movie to write a love letter to, and an absolute blast for Greg and Joe to hang out with Moira and David.
It goes without saying… All four of us laughed a lot, and learned a little something about ourselves along the way 😀
Note: This transcript has been auto-generated, so… You know… It’s not our fault.
Greg: So, Joe, you have set up a secret guest for us this week.
Joe: Yes, I have.
Greg: And they are in our lobby right now. So let’s let this person in.
Joe: But the man.
David: What? Hey!
Greg: Get out of here! David Holmgren.
David: How you doing, man?
Greg: It’s 1130 over there.
David: I know it’s a late one.
Greg: Oh, my gosh, this is long overdue to get the hell going.
Joe: That’s right. Friend and fan of the show, David Hellgren in the flesh.
Greg: I think we can just say that before you even say anything. Official third chair on the podcast.
Joe: Yeah. Seriously?
David: Well, it’s an honor to be here. I feel like, Joe, I feel like I’m best friends with you because I listen to the pod so much, and I’ve heard about you so much. So this is pretty awesome to see the three of us on this.
Joe: Totally, absolutely new best friend in the whole world.
Greg: Totally. So how did this all come together?
Joe: David reached out and said he wanted to surprise you for as, like a birthday last Christmas. Slash Arbor day.
Greg: Arbor day, mostly.
Joe: Arbor day, mainly. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Greg: So, wait, we have somebody else in our lobby. Were you expecting somebody else in our lobby?
Joe: I was expecting someone else in our lobby. So here we go.
David: Hi. What?
Greg: Moira MacDonald.
Moira: It’s me.
Greg: Oh, my gosh, this is amazing. How are you doing tonight? Thank you so much for being here.
Moira: I’m very well. Happy birthday.
David: Thank you.
Joe: So this is the real surprise that David reached out to me with. Was that, Moira MacDonald of the amazing Seattle Times, our movie critic, had agreed to come on to our little podcast and talk about the greatest movie with CGI apes in them ever made.
Greg: Wait a minute. There was CGI in the movie?
David: Yeah. Without me? Yeah.
Greg: Moira, this is unbelievable. Thank you so much for being here.
Moira: It’s so nice to meet all of you.
Joe: If you knew how many times we had talked about, man, if we could only get Moira MacDonald on the podcast, we would have made it.
Moira: So I see. Hi. I’m just available and it’s incredible. Okay, Greg, who did you think the special guest would be? You think I was gonna be the Rock?
Greg: I thought it might be Dwayne Johnson. Yeah, totally.
Moira: I do apologize, I am not the Rock.
Greg: No, this is unbelievable. Moira, your review of this movie rampage was the greatest thing I read all week.
Moira: I went back and read it. I thought, okay, that was pretty good.
David: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: You always sum it up in the best way possible. You released great book this year. Storybook ending.
Moira: I just finished a book this year. Yes. Thank you. That was quite thrilling.
Greg: Yeah, I’ve started it, but I’m a little bit into it. I haven’t actually gotten all the way through it yet. What’s the character’s name? Wesley. Wesley with a T. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it with a T before.
Moira: By the way, he is spelled with a T in Princess Bride. I double checked.
David: It.
Greg: Oh, okay. That makes sense in the description of the book. It said something like he was not the most perceptive, and he was kind of distracted by, like, a movie being filmed somewhere in the bookstore.
Moira: Yes. Keep reading. We’ll find.
Greg: Out. And I was like, well, I feel like I’m going to relate to this guy in this book.
Moira: Well, he’s he’s lovely. He’s a lovely person. But yeah, he’s a little distracted.
Greg: Before we get into the movie, what has it been like for you this year promoting that book? Has it been?
Moira: It’s been so strange. I mean, at my age, in my stage in life, I did not think I’d be coming out with a debut novel. I didn’t think I would be debuting anything. But, So, yeah, it’s just it’s thrilling. I it’s still. I was in a bookstore the other day, and that was in Port Townsend for the weekend, and they have a wonderful bookstore there.
Moira: The imprint Bookstore. And there it was on the shelf. And I just gotta think, like, it’s just happens every time. The greatest.
Greg: Feeling.
Moira: And I hear from people who have seen it in bookstores all over the place, even all over the world. It’s actually been published in quite a few countries. Great. So that’s been amazing. My friend was in Cape Town, South Africa, for reasons I can’t begin to explain, and there was my book in the books, in the bookshop at the airport.
Greg: It’s an airport novel.
Moira: Yeah, it’s an airport. Yeah. So, no, it’s it’s been really, really thrilling. And I, I keep thinking I’ll get I’ll get sick to death of talking about it, but not yet.
Greg: Nope.
Moira: It’s been fun. It’s been a lot of fun.
Greg: I can’t wait. I’ve only started it. I got it, and then I. And then I moved, and. So.
Moira: It’s okay.
Greg: Bernice accidentally kind of put it down.
Moira: Thought I would have told you to wait to wait for the paperback. So thank you for getting paperbacks coming in the spring.
Joe: Yeah. Now we’re paying the hardback prices because you came on this podcast, so.
Moira: Oh, there you go. Thank you.
Greg: Christmas is in April. We’re going to do it now.
Moira: Oh that’s right yeah. Yeah. It makes a wonderful Christmas gift. It’s a it’s a festive kind of novel.
Greg: Well, congratulations. The first book is a huge deal.
Moira: Thank you. It has been thrilling.
Greg: You’ve been working for the Seattle Times for how long? 25 years.
Moira: 24 years?
Greg: Yes. And you’ve kind of expanded from just writing about movies and reviewing movies to kind of more.
Moira: Oh, yeah. About six, seven years ago, I think, as you know, newspapers have kind of gone through some rough times and we’ve kind of contracted a little bit. What happened then was that our books editor retired, and we did not have budget to replace her. And so I was asked, would I take on books as well as movies?
Moira: Would I just suddenly take two jobs? So I well, at least on to the books. So yeah. So I did that, which meant by necessity, I did fewer movies. I do a lot of television now, which is fun. I’ve been covering dance, which I really enjoy.
Joe: And now podcasting.
Moira: I guess I will add this to my resume. When I was just reviewing movies, I did like five movies a week, but that was a long time.
Greg: Too much.
Moira: Don’t do it anymore. Yeah.
Joe: We find that the best movies that we have on this podcast are ones that you have a really low expectation going into, and then it it’s only up from there as how it goes.
David: So I think we might have nailed that this week. Oh I think we did. You’re welcome. Yeah.
David: A rescue George, when he was two years old. George never survived on his own. Last night. George was seven feet away, 500 pounds. George. Okay, buddy. You’re scared. It’s okay. This morning, he’s nine feet, pushing 1000.
Moira: Are you familiar with genetic editing? Changes will be incredibly unpredictable.
Greg: George, we didn’t ask for this. They’re going to put them down.
David: That’s not happening.
Greg: The year 2018 and Brad Payton and Dwayne The Rock Johnson teamed up for the third time after journey two, which was the sequel to journey to the center of the year. But what was.
David: It, ten the.
Greg: Okay, there’s a book, right? I was waiting for the movie this whole time and I didn’t see it. Brad Payton also directed San Andreas, which is a movie that I famously love. Joe Guy Tucker is famously mixed on. So, of course, you know, I was excited about this movie. We are talking about the movie rampage with Dwayne The Rock Johnson.
Greg: Naomi Harris, Malin Akerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jake Lacy, Jack Quaid is in this movie for a minute. I think that’s most of the cast that we need to mention here, but we are joined by our best friend, David Hall Green and famed Seattle author and Seattle Times writer Moira McDonald, our first real journalist and movie reviewer to be on the podcast here.
Greg: So Moira McDonald, thank you for being here and what makes rampage a great bad movie.
Moira: Oh well, you know, Joe asked me to think of some movies to suggest, and action movies are generally not my very favorites. I don’t want to shock you or anything.
David: What?
Moira: But I thought I knew it had to be the Rock. I love watching him in movies because not because he’s a nuanced actor or anything like that, but that he just he just is who he is. And rampage is one of those wonderful bad movies in that it has the courage of its convictions. It is incredibly stupid, but in a way that it embraces.
Moira: Naomi Harris, who is an Oscar nominee and a truly great actor, is playing a discredited geneticist.
David: We’ve all been there.
Moira: I mean that alone. You have to love that there is. I didn’t have a chance, unfortunately, to rewatch the whole movie. I haven’t seen it in seven years, but I did watch a few clips today and I had completely forgotten some of it. And there is a 30ft wolf who grabs a helicopter out of the sky above the river in Chicago.
Moira: And you know, I’m sorry, what is more fun than that?
Greg: That gets you in. That gets you in for sure?
Joe: Yeah, absolutely. David, take us away.
David: I mean, the rock. Yeah. I love him, and I realized 2018, I think I took the year off from the Rock because I did not see this or skyscraper. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you, Moira, for suggesting that this was a guest I watched for the first time this week.
Greg: Oh, my gosh, it.
David: Is really great. Bad movie candidate. Probably in your whole entire library that I hadn’t seen. And thank you. It’s amazing. I was super frustrated that I had to watch this movie and four minutes in was all in. Yes, it took me so little time to fall in love with this movie. So it was great. I just love the rock.
David: I love the humor. Ridiculous. I mean, you said like, a 30ft was not the biggest animal in the movie.
David: The flying squirrel wolf meeting the Jurassic Park alligator. Yeah. No spoilers here yet, but that was amazing.
Moira: And they can all fly, which is just a really awesome sort of detail that is never explained.
Greg: Never explained. No, of course the wolf flies crossed with probably something like a bat. It’s very Jurassic World where they’re just doing whatever they want, mixed with kind of the whole kaiju. King Kong, Skull Island, Godzilla universe that’s been happening.
David: Meets Marvel.
Greg: Meets Marvel. Totally. Yeah.
David: Every other movie made between 2010 and 2020.
Greg: Maybe even going back to like that original Godzilla, though, that Roland Emmerich made. What was that, like 98?
David: Yeah, yeah.
Moira: Sounds right.
Greg: Where we realized, oh, Jurassic Park can go really wrong. We thought The Lost World was the worst that could be, but that movie was basically just a really bad Jurassic Park movie. This movie kind of gets Jurassic Park right, where the animals are sympathetic, yet doing all the crashing and burning. They’re doing all the destruction. But we care for them because it’s not their fault that they’re like that.
David: They’re the heroes. This is one nuance. I will say this this movie had nuance totally. And it was that Dwayne The Rock Johnson was not a superhero.
Greg: Well.
Moira: What is he, like, an animal behaviorist or something?
David: Yeah, he’s a zoo guy.
Joe: Special forces.
David: Right? There’s some backstory.
Moira: He knows how to fly a helicopter.
Greg: Amazing. We have a thing on this show, Moira, where we we talk about. It’s especially a great bad movie. If they have to sell the good guy or sell the bad guy at any, at any moment, where rather than showing us someone has to read, like some sort of spreadsheet on somebody and tell us why they’re the greatest.
Greg: And at some point, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, is that his name? Yes. He’s reading something where he’s he’s reading, like the government file on Davis, Sequoia.
Clip: Davis, Sequoia primate specialist, blah, blah. Oh. Army special forces. But what are you, some kind of international man of mystery? I see a lot of redacted. Redacted, redacted? Oh, here we go. Transferred the United Nations special Anti-Poaching taskforce. Oh, wow.
Greg: So that’s. They sold the good guy in this movie. And by telling us all of that in one scene.
Moira: Except you don’t have to. When the when the rock is the character, you don’t have to sell him. He is the good guy. There’s just there’s no you don’t need to explain anything. There’s no shorthand. He’s the rock. Yeah.
Greg: So, Moira, I went back and read this week. I have to say. Can I just read the first sentence of your review of this? I’m so glad you’re here. Because I really wanted to talk about your writing on this movie because it was so incredible. It starts with only two things need to be said about rampage. It’s really terrible and I enjoyed it immensely.
David: That’s all your review of the stuff? Yeah.
Greg: It’s incredible. So after I read this, this had two and a half out of four stars from you. I went back and read your San Andreas review from a couple years before this, because that’s this is kind of like San Andreas two, if you look at the people who made it and you didn’t write a positive review for that movie, but you also said it was two and a half out of four stars.
Greg: So I think you and I are on the exact same page about this team of Brad Peyton and and Dwayne The Rock.
Moira: Very hard to rate these movies because yes, on the one hand, they are completely awesome and on the other hand, they’re dreadful. So you find the middle ground, which is two and a half stars.
Greg: Yeah, I love a good two and a half. I mean, that’s all I can say is it feels it’s basically like a 70% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is.
Joe: Yeah, that’s our code.
Greg: It’s our code. But that joke came from David Hogg when I was visiting him at his house and Pennington, new Jersey, and he said, you should just say all the movies are 70% because there’s 70% in my heart. And I was like, we are totally doing that. And I wrote it down.
David: Yeah. And that’s all I need. All I need ever is 70% and I’m. Yeah, yeah. Or two and a half stars between us. Right.
Joe: And this, this is a perfect the Rock movie. He is the hero. It is. It doesn’t ask him to do anything but be the rock in every scene. There is so much ridiculous exposition that they just cram into every little moment, and then just the leaps that they take to get to the next scene are just spectacular. I loved every second when he is talking to anyone and then they’re, you know, they just like make these massive leaps.
Joe: Oh, they must be being called to Chicago through some radio wave. You’re just like, okay. Yeah, sure.
Moira: That’s that’s why they’re going to Chicago. Yeah, they have the reasons.
David: That happens.
Greg: For plot reasons. Exactly. But then it’s so funny that the kind of like, almost like B-movie bad guys in this movie that are clearly trying to just have fun and be over-the-top. Melanie Akerman and, Jake Lacy.
David: The guy from White Lotus is what I call them.
Greg: Yeah.
David: Right.
Greg: There’s some really funny deleted scenes from this movie, by the way, where he is just doing way more with his face than he needs to in those scenes, and Malin Akerman cannot keep it together. She’s like your face. You have to stop doing that with your face. His eyes are just like all over the place, and he’s basically like Napoleon Dynamite.
Greg: He’s basically playing that character, like to pulling inanimate, gosh, they bring the monsters to their building where they’re sending that tone out or whatever that they have to come to in Chicago. So it’s not it’s not the monster’s fault that they’re coming to Chicago. The humans are the bad guys bringing them to Chicago. So it’s the humans fault that they they’re on their way there.
Greg: Don’t blame George the the rampage gorilla.
David: But do evacuate all of Chicago right now.
Moira: Yeah, yeah, because that’s super easy, you know, just point to the doors and everything would be done.
Greg: Give me a ten block minimum radius and very hard numbers. Every time that general asks how clear is Chicago? He’s like, yeah, we’re at 50% right now. It’s like, it’s been ten minutes. How did you do that?
Moira: These people are getting their jobs.
Joe: That’s right.
Greg: Absolutely.
Joe: We call that, the the Hobbs and Shaw travel logic.
Moira: Oh, I love Hobbs and Shaw.
David: Yeah, I got the of Donald. Where have you been? A good writer.
Joe: But it’s the same thing where, like, people, they just make it from one place to the next that is, you know, are so far apart that it would take sometimes days to travel there, but instantaneously they are. If it’s Hobbs and Shaw, they’re in Samoa all of a sudden, traveling from Russia to Samoa in like an hour or two hours, maybe.
Greg: Getting through security when they’re when it all over the planet.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. So same thing with this movie on how fast the animals got to Chicago. How fast? Jeffrey Dean Morgan makes it to Chicago after the Rock has already been there, but then shows up to save the day. It’s beautiful. All of those things are just, encapsulate why this movie is perfect and pretty much every way.
David: I did wonder, and I do wonder about these things if when they’re writing the script, if they really think about plausibility because, I mean, Chicago is laid out like a grid evacuation, it might be the easiest city in the United States to evacuate. Oh, because this was set in Atlanta, it just would be over, right? I mean, good luck.
David: There’s not a straight street in all of Atlanta. It would take a year to evacuate Atlanta. Do they talk about that? I mean, does someone say, well, we should put it in Chicago because it is possible.
Moira: I think they wanted the river going through the city so they can have the enormous water crocodile creature thing, because that was, of course.
Greg: That was a very cool shot. All the shots of Chicago honestly made me want to go there. David and I were there last year and me kind of made me want to go back.
David: We rode one of those boats. We did?
Moira: Yeah, I did too.
David: Yes. Awesome.
Moira: That was so fun. Okay, well, I was watching a clip today and I saw the Malin Akerman character getting eaten by George. How did how did that happen? How did she get eaten? I want to remember this.
Joe: She’s on top of the building.
Greg: On top of the building that they are destroying, and she’s the one who brought them there. But she decided, let’s just hang out and have full on, calm conversations on top of the building as the monsters that she’s called are climbing up.
Joe: Right while she’s trying to get to the helicopter. Right? And then George and, Wolf are trying to destroy the radio tower, and then basically, she tries to run, and then she’s grabbed and thrown up in the air and eaten.
David: They put the antidote into her purse.
Greg: Right.
David: Oh, so she she has to get eaten because that’s the whole like.
Moira: Oh, right, right, right. Is that Naomi Harris also has the antidote on her.
Greg: Well, she had one and she put it in her purse. And then just kind of willed that into being. Melanie Carmen’s like, what are you doing? She’s like, I’m feeding you to George or something. And then George just seems to know what to do.
David: Yeah, to grab her.
Greg: And I think that’s the thing that happened in the game. This was based on a video game that really was really just monsters that actually morphed from people I think is the game. And they kind of changed that for the movie because they thought that was kind of dumb.
David: And the red dress, like in the game, there’s a she wears the red dress. Oh, okay. Okay.
Greg: So that’s I think that’s the thing that happens in the game where George eats somebody in a red dress. Yeah. So fanservice is why that happens. Yeah. Fanservice never makes any sense.
David: But there are 100 guys in their basement going. Yes.
Joe: Yeah. In service to a very small community of folks. So yeah.
Greg: I’m so curious. Back in 2018, you were probably seen quite a few movies a week. Or was this when you would become kind of a book reviewer as well?
Moira: Yeah, it was around there, but I couldn’t tell you exactly.
Greg: So we, we struggle finding to watch a movie every other week that we will enjoy. You know, we kind of don’t make the call until after we record. We decide what we feel like watching next because we we were finding that we were signing up, you know, to watch movies that were really dumb, that we just knew we wouldn’t enjoy.
Greg: So when these things are just thrown at you, I’m curious, do you remember what was going on in 2018 when this movie came out? It was probably like April.
Moira: I do not know. But yeah. April 2018. Yeah. I don’t know what was going on in life back then. I don’t know. The Rock is making a lot of movies back then.
David: Yeah.
Moira: And I know that I already had a great fondness for his screen persona. And then I heard what this movie was about, and I thought, this sounds really awesome and like it might be a lot of fun. And I went and had my popcorn, and I think I had a lot of popcorn in this movie. You have to.
Greg: Yeah, you have to for sure.
Moira: And yeah, I just really what I said in that first line of the review, I said, this is terrible. I loved it.
Greg: And the San Andreas one, you said, I’ve learned that if anything like this is ever happening in real life, I would like to be next to the Rock while it’s happening.
Moira: Yes. Yeah. Because he will save you. He will be there, he will be calm and he will know what to do. What’s the other one? He did the skyscraper.
Greg: Remember that one same year? That’s my theory on these two movies, as they should not have come out in the same year.
Moira: Yeah, probably not. Yeah. Skyscraper high. It’s some incredibly tall, weird looking building. Yeah, I forget where it is. Somewhere. Somewhere in Asia, maybe. Yeah. But, Yeah, he rescues a kid, and he. Yeah, he’s. And he slides basically, he kind of jumps off the building.
Greg: He totally.
Moira: That’s not. Yeah. He’s he’s gonna save that kid. He’s he’s gonna do it.
Greg: No question. Yeah. That movie from the director of We’re the Millers with Jennifer Aniston. And,
David: Do they get Jason Sudeikis?
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. So I have a sidebar question for you. More. How do you pick the movies? Do you have any say in the movies that you get to review, or some of them? Just an edict from above that say you have to, or do you get any sort of editorial license?
Moira: I am pretty selective. And yeah, I work with an editor and we decide together. You know what I will see and what I don’t, and it’s partly what I want to see, and it’s partly what I think readers would be most interested in. There’s a few movies, I think you know what? I am not in review that because I just don’t want to.
Moira: Because I don’t think you should review something if you’re already feeling like you’re not going to like it.
Greg: Yeah, sure. Oh that’s interesting.
Moira: Yeah, I just I don’t think that’s right. Like, if it’s, if it’s a franchise and if I hated the three previous movies, why should I go to the fourth one? You know, I’m it’s not going to perform a miracle and suddenly make me love it and better have someone with fresh eyes come and take a look. So sometimes I will just say, you know, I don’t think I want to go to that, but mostly I just try to give them as many different kinds of movies a chance as I can.
Moira: Last week, I saw five movies actually, because right now is, is the businesses and they’re screening a lot of stuff, all of the December, the Oscar contender movies, all of not everything I saw last week will be an Oscar contender is a contender.
David: Yeah.
Moira: But but yeah, so so I, I still sometimes have weeks when I see a lot.
David: They can’t all be rampage.
Joe: That’s true.
Moira: No they can’t. No. This. That’s so true. Me I wish they could. My job would be so much fun if they could all be rampage.
David: Yeah.
Joe: One of our important questions that we have for every movie is should it be nominated for an Academy Award? And then we.
Moira: Go, oh yes.
Joe: Okay, so we.
David: Have.
Moira: The Oscars take themselves too seriously. Yes. This movie.
David: Is.
Moira: We have any other questions?
David: Yes. In fact we do. I’m glad you I that’s amazing.
Joe: You’re the professional in the room, so I, I can’t disagree with that about magic at all. So what was nominated Greg do you have that pulled up?
Greg: Of course I do. This came from we were doing it review of Top Gun Maverick Moira, which was nominated for best picture that year and saved Hollywood famously.
Moira: That’s right.
David: Yes.
Greg: And Joe had such a visceral, visceral reaction. He talked about it for about 20 minutes in that episode, and I bet I cut out like 30 other minutes of him saying, this movie should not have been nominated for the added as one of our important questions that needs to be answered about every movie we talk about. Should it have been nominated for Best Picture?
Greg: And so in 2019, we were talking about movies from 2018 when this movie came out. So the winner that year was Green Book.
Moira: Okay. Rampage is better than Green Book.
Greg: Absolutely no one disagreeing with you both. Farrelly brothers, even the one that didn’t direct Green Book is like, yeah, that’s true.
Moira: What else was nominated is Black Panther. Okay, okay, Black Panther is a better.
Greg: Better movie than rampage.
Moira: I’ll give it that. Yeah. You know, in the.
Greg: In the stage adjacent.
Joe: Yeah, barely.
David: Yeah.
Greg: I mean, it was beautiful. This movie was beautiful. The special effects in both of these films are really something else. I feel like in some ways, special effects. CGI is less beautiful now than it was in 2018. Weta, the the company that did the special effects in rampage. Just next level. Really incredible stuff.
David: There’s a, Black Panther shout out in this movie. Oh, when they first introduced the gorillas at the beginning, they play the music that when you’re entering Wakanda and you’re seeing the savanna and you’re, like, embracing the continent. Sure. For like, 30s, it’s that music.
Greg: The exact music are in my homage.
David: I don’t know if it’s the exact music, but it’s like, similar. The same like, you’re like, oh, and then it’s gone. Like, it’s literally like it’s 30s of introducing the gorillas and then you’re back in San Diego. Yeah.
Greg: That’s incredible.
Moira: I did not notice that. That’s that’s very impressive.
Greg: Let’s talk about some more movies that were nominated for Best Picture, because this is when it kind of expanded. It could be anywhere from 5 to 10. Black Klansman was nominated that year. Where do you stand on that? Moira spike Lee, John David Washington.
Moira: Oh, God. Seven years ago was a long time.
David: I.
Moira: I know I saw it. I don’t think I reviewed it, I think I thought it was good.
Greg: Yeah, I haven’t seen it yet. It’s on my list of movies to watch since the last time we talked about this year at the Oscars, where I was like, oh, I never saw that. I need to see that. Okay. Bohemian Rhapsody was also nominated that year.
Moira: Oh, it wasn’t that good.
David: Yeah. No. Yeah.
Moira: You know. Disappointing. Yeah, a good story, but yeah.
Greg: Agreed. Great airplane movie is what I learned when I watched it on an airplane.
Moira: Oh, that makes sense. Yeah.
Greg: The favorites.
Moira: Oh I love yeah.
David: Yeah.
Moira: Yeah, that’s a good.
David: Movie. Yeah.
Greg: That could have one. Honestly.
Moira: Yeah. That probably isn’t too weird to win.
David: But yeah yeah yeah.
Moira: Yeah. It’s it’s really good.
Greg: More accessible than the Lobster though.
Moira: Oh yeah. Yeah. More accessible than Begonia. Yeah.
Greg: Yeah. Right. Right, right. Okay. Roma, where do you stand on Roma.
Moira: Oh my. Oh I love Roma. Yeah, yeah I think I thought Roma was going to win I think I predicted it would win. I usually predict the Oscars wrong, so.
Greg: Sure. Me too. I can’t believe Roma didn’t win. I can’t believe the favorite didn’t win. I can’t believe Black Panther or Black Klansman didn’t win over Greenway.
Greg: All right, a star is born Bradley Cooper.
Moira: I actually really love that. Yeah that’s a really nice musical. And Lady Gaga was just was great. Very believable. And yeah I loved it. They really created some chemistry together.
Greg: David, can you tell us your, your Bradley Cooper story on Broadway in New York?
David: Oh, I’ve Atlantic superstar. Oh, about waiting outside and seeing him.
Greg: Yeah, I think you were. You were waiting out there. He was waiting out there, or you walked out. Anyway, you noticed him, and you kind of, like, recognized him and kind of, like, pointed at him, and he, like, stopped you with his hand and then kind of, like, dismissed you away.
David: Yeah.
Moira: Oh, God. Oh, that’s so rude.
Greg: And then you both started laughing and then you went away.
David: I do remember that, like, I really, I like, took a step and I almost he like, put his hand up and I froze. And then I think he literally dismissed me like that. And then I think he realized how ridiculous that was because he he burst out laughing. And that made me laugh. And I have thought about that laugh.
David: I was in New York, right before, Thanksgiving. Right. And I walked down the same street and I thought about that moment. Yeah. And I and I chuckled like, it’s our enough. We have. Yeah.
Greg: Yeah, yeah. You and B whoops. Yeah. All right. The last movie nominated that year is vice. Adam McKay’s movie vice.
Moira: Oh, the Dick Cheney movie. Right.
Greg: Dick Cheney.
David: Movie. Yeah.
Moira: Yeah, yeah, I know I saw it, and I know I read it and I, I’m not remember that much. Yeah.
Greg: I think rampage is it.
Moira: It’s funny. Over the years the movie stay with you in some movies do not.
Greg: Write like The Big Short. I think I would remember more specifics about than I would vice. I would probably remember more about vice than I would. Don’t look up his next movie after that. But obviously when.
Moira: You go, I’m impressed. You can read a lot of his movies like that.
Greg: It’s a problem.
David: Lawyer. I mean, Greg.
Joe: Greg is our Rain Man for movies.
David: Okay.
Greg: I’m currently counting toothpicks on the ground, as we said. And, Wapner is on a screen right behind me. But of course, you have to go back to, like, I was going to say, like Anchorman or Talladega Nights. Even stepbrothers. Stepbrothers is maybe the one with the most longevity out of all those for people I think would surprise me.
Greg: Surprises me quite a bit.
David: Watch the last week. So good.
Greg: Here’s my here’s what you need to know about David and any movie you mentioned. He will have watched it within the last 90 days.
Greg: No matter how random. He’s like, yeah, I’m like two months ago I saw that a bunch. All right. So just Guy Tucker, where do you stand on this movie being nominated for best? We’re kind of doing important questions out of order here, but,
Joe: Yeah, I would take this over. Bohemian Rhapsody and a few other movies on that list easily, so absolutely put it in there. I agree that the Oscars takes us up far too seriously, and this is a beautiful, funny, ridiculous movie. And I would love to see. I’m imagining that it’s probably when the alligator eats the head off of the.
Joe: The wolf would be the clip the man would.
David: Show for.
Joe: The Oscars, and then they would cut to the audience.
David: That that.
Joe: Would be awesome. That would be so, so amazing to see all of those people kind of in a little bit of a stunned silence as this was being shown.
Greg: So they probably would also show that same scene during it. In memoriam for the Wolf, right? Yeah. The people crying.
David: Yeah.
Greg: All right. So we are going to enter drinking games here. Let’s do it.
David: All right.
Greg: All right Moira, this came from I have a lifelong drinking game. Every time I’m watching a movie, even if it’s by myself. If out of nowhere, a helicopter shows up in the movie like you couldn’t hear it, and then suddenly there’s a helicopter right there that you would have heard for the last 20 minutes approaching you. But for some reason, it was right underneath that, like, building or whatever, you know, right underneath, in the onramp of a of a freeway.
Greg: And then suddenly there’s somebody there shooting at you. I have a lifelong drinking game. Anytime that happens, any drink that’s around me, it could be water. It could be coffee. You have to take a drink. You also need to text all of your friends that it has just happened just to bring more joy into their life. And I also make like a little meme out of it.
Greg: So we have created drinking games that you can assign each of these drinking games to a different person at a party that you’re at. And then whenever one of these things happens in the movie that, you know, specific person that it’s been assigned to takes a drink. And we have people out there who play great bad movie drinking games together with their friends while they’re watching these movies.
Greg: There’s a crew down in Portland that actually does this pretty regularly. They’ll watch movies that we’ve reviewed and they’ll take our drinking games and, assign these drinking games to people. So we have stock drinking games that we apply to every movie. And if it happens in the movie that it sparks joy for for all of us. So, Joe, what is our list of stock drinking games that we apply to every movie?
Joe: Right. So we start with, Silent Helicopter, and we’ve really kind of amended that to low flying helicopter. Anytime there’s a helicopter in a movie, any time there’s a conversation on a helicopter when they, like, this movie has it where they’re walking away from a helicopter that’s still on, but they’re just having a full on, just like, conversation without headphones on, like, take a drink.
Joe: That’s that’s perfect. We have a push in and in hand. So like, they’re looking at a computer and then they’re like, can you clean that up, push it on that, you know, get the license plate. There’s a lot of that on this one, especially in the beginning of the movie when they’re looking at some of the science, the science I want to put air quotes around anytime I say science about this movie.
Joe: So all right. A third one is when two people share a slow motion look in the middle of chaos, take a drink. But we don’t have that missed opportunity.
Greg: Honestly.
Joe: Missed opportunity. Yeah, yeah. Explosion with like, the silent suffering and the ringing in the ears that happens. Opening credits scene where the title locks in place with the sound. We don’t actually have a title that the shows until the end, but the score kind of rises up for it. So that’s maybe dealer’s choice. You can drink or not drink on that one.
Greg: This one has been down shifted to if the title shows on the screen, you have to take a drink. Pretty much best case scenario is like Die Hard when it’s like the the luggage, you know, retrieval area at a airport in the two words like crash into each other and make a huge noise. So that’s best case scenario for us.
Greg: If they, like, crash into each other and make a noise. But on this one, you know a little bit more tasteful.
David: Trampy it’s rampage.
Joe: Yeah. You know.
David: What?
Moira: It’s nuanced.
David: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Exactly.
Joe: Does the movie flash back to dialog? We say two minutes ago, but that’s, more Greg, an inside joke, but that’s a flashback dialog. There is not a flashback, that I remember in this one, but I may be wrong, you know, very sad. Is there crazy bad CGI there? This is a beautiful CGI film. There are some moments that.
David: Are.
Joe: New, so that’s kind of another one. Maybe the person to your left can drink on that one. We have what are called great bad shot. So it’s like they’re shooting a machine gun at someone. It like almost hits the hero. Like it like hits like the, you know, they’re driving a car that’s all over the place when they’re shooting, especially at people.
Joe: And then apparently there’s no effect that happens to the super smart, strong animals when you shoot them with anything other.
Moira: And because they’re the result of a rogue geneticist. I mean, there’s science involved here.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. Crispr was said like five times to make sure that we understood that they knew what they were talking about. Some of are our next stop drinking game is, are the streets inexplicably wet at any point during this movie? There was missed opportunity here. David. Greg, where did I miss one?
Greg: You did, in fact, in the special features. Well, this is a famous because of, like, Richard Donner in the in his movies in the 80s and 90s, every street was wet. And especially in this movies, like in LA, there was no road un wetted by like a rain truck, a water truck. And in this, in the special features for this movie, they show a truck going through Chicago, wetting the streets.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: Specifically for a drinking game. I mean, it is more beautiful. Let’s be honest.
Joe: Yeah, it is, and I was I missed it because I was so enthralled by the action sequences happening in Chicago.
David: So yeah, you’re too busy looking at the river.
Joe: Exactly. Yeah. Does anyone say give us the room? Nobody in this.
Moira: 197.
Joe: Yeah. And then our last one is any mention of Interpol. As our last talk drinking game.
Moira: We probably should have involved Interpol. That would have been helpful.
Greg: Obviously.
Joe: Exactly. Yeah. Mission impossible. Dead reckoning has.
David: All.
Joe: Of our stock drinking games in the first hour.
Moira: I would have said the first ten minutes.
David: Yeah, yeah, almost pretty much better drink Lacroix on that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joe: Oh, sorry, I forgot our last one. Do they smash the cell phone? That’s our last drinking game.
Greg: Oh, that happens in movies like this all the time.
David: I don’t think so. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah they don’t, but yeah. So those are our stock drinking games.
Greg: I forgot to mention that there are two helicopters out of nowhere in this movie where people are having very quiet, hushed, calm conversations. How many times does Dwayne The Rock Johnson stay calm to George in this movie, or other people telling you just got to keep George calm? They are having a very calm moment. The cops are standing down, they’re putting their guns down.
Greg: And then out of nowhere, there’s.
David: A.
Greg: Helicopter, right? They’re shooting, whatever. They’re the darts that they’re shooting at, George. They can fall asleep. We get that twice. Yeah. The deuce.
David: That’s right. Yeah.
Moira: Well, one of the helicopters, the wheel itself.
Greg: That’s true.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. And then they fly one that doesn’t have a tail. There’s all kinds of helicopters in this movie. It’s a Tony Scott film, which is we one of our favorite directors. He famously uses a thousand helicopters in every shot.
Greg: So yeah. And in this movie they show they do a Tony Scott trick where they actually film the helicopter with the camera in it, as if it’s the press, as if it’s like the news. But then they cut to the shot that that helicopter is actually shooting in the movie. So, they, they’re getting the most for their money.
Greg: All right, well, should we, should we turn the corner to unique drinking games for this movie that we’ve created?
Joe: Absolutely.
Moira: Let’s hear it.
Joe: David, do you have any? I’ll toss it to you first.
David: I do, so here’s one. And it does stem from the Chicago climax scene. So you’re going to finish strong any time a vehicle gets thrown into a building. Awesome.
Greg: Incredible. That is a perfect dream team.
David: It could be a tank. A Humvee, a jet plane. Helicopter. Yeah, yeah.
Joe: Any time. George flips off the rock.
Greg: Yeah, it was kind of like all grown ups in this movie. But George can act like a teenager.
David: That’s. Yeah, exactly.
Greg: I have, any time somebody says the word rampage.
Joe: Oh, that’s a good one. That is also part of our, our tropes where, that we have which are almost interchangeable with drinking games, quite frankly. And the difference between a trope and drinking game is.
Moira: Is whether or not you have a drink in your hand.
David: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: Basically. Yes.
David: Yeah.
Joe: But if someone says the name of the movie, that’s a trope for us. Yeah. David, what do you have another one for us?
David: Anytime. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, over emphasizes his southern drawl.
Clip: Is it when science crossed the bed? The guy they called changed the sheets.
Joe: I have one where he says cowboy. Anytime he says cowboy, you have to take a drink because they want you to know he’s a cowboy.
David: Yeah. South of the Mason-Dixon.
Greg: He’s so great in this movie.
Moira: He’s very funny in this because he’s just he’s kind of laughing to himself. The full time is your only one who really gets what movie he’s in.
David: Yeah exactly. Yeah.
Greg: When he walks, he’s so good in this movie. And yet I bet he was like the eighth person they asked to be in that role. And he has that look on his face like, listen, I was the eighth call and I’m giving you this.
Moira: I’m like.
David: Yep, yeah, you’re all getting paid for.
Greg: This movie, by the way. Legitimately funny. Like, there are real jokes in this movie that made me laugh really hard.
David: Yeah, I was surprised. Yeah, yeah. Hey, give me some good news.
Clip: Oh, I have some 30 minutes up, give or take.
David: Just want to take out any blocks you might have. Mom, I’m never taking a call again.
Greg: This movie, by the way, is incredible in almost every way.
David: I loved it.
Greg: All right, my next drinking game is, any time a phone rings. But not with the ringer on just the vibrate. Just.
Greg: That’s awesome. Take a drink.
Joe: I have any time you question why the rock is suddenly an expert in science and also in special forces, like, you know, you just, like, kind of question.
Moira: Well, he’s a man of depth, no less. Yeah.
David: That’s fair.
Joe: And moments when he isn’t.
Greg: He hates humans.
Joe: Which is fair.
Greg: Which is fair. Yeah. We had it coming. Moira, one thing I loved about your your review of this was that people just state what’s happening in the movie in case, like, people are missing it, like, why are they going to Chicago? Or. Look at that. There’s something in the water.
Greg: Or this scene in the beginning where the woman kind of picks up on the rock, and then the nerdy guy is by himself and just goes, I just love him.
David: Girls really like him. Just like, what?
Greg: Why would you just say that?
David: Like.
Greg: Like the soldiers as they’re being attacked, they’re just literally yelling. Nothing’s working just now. Just so we don’t have to show it. They can just yell.
David: Nothing’s working when the rock is like driving the helicopter without the tail. Yeah, he’s totally narrating the whole time. Like what he’s doing and what’s going on.
Moira: Yeah, it’s not remembering, right? This movie has, like, four screenwriters. Yes. And I think each one just came along and added more, sort of more things to explain.
David: It’s the proverbial more is more. Yeah.
Joe: And it works. I’m in, I’m in, I’m in for it.
Greg: I feel like that’s a really good plan for this movie specifically. Like the first guy, it had the pitch of how to make it more like jaws but more like a Jurassic Park where, you know, Jurassic Park, we’re kind of on the dinosaurs side throughout. That was his kind of lens of of how to make it less of just a random monster movie.
Greg: But then, like Carlton Cuse came in from Lost and Walker, Texas Ranger, famously and he did like a pass where he was making the relationships have an arc in the all the characters had more of an arc where you could actually kind of track where they were and where they’re going, and then another guy just did a jokes pass, and I’m so glad.
Greg: I mean, the jokes are just shoehorned into this movie, but I loved it so much. I’m forgetting what the fourth guy did.
Moira: Well, the fourth guy came along and said, we’re not explaining things well enough.
David: So yeah, you know, yeah, I need for dialog dance position. Yes, it was the.
Greg: Explicitly stating things pass.
David: Yeah, yeah. Yes.
Moira: The movie was very subtle before.
David: Yeah. So that’s why.
Moira: That director’s cut was amazing. Yeah.
David: Oh, I did have another drinking game every time Malin Akerman had a wardrobe change.
Joe: Oh that’s awesome.
Greg: She’s so good at everything she said. I’m the biggest Malin Akerman fan. She’s so funny. I have, any time there’s a Dave and Busters product placement in the building that’s being demolished.
Joe: Take a drink. Oh my.
David: God, I was going to say product placement at all. The the Ford Bronco. The David Buster’s. Yeah.
Greg: Let’s go with that one. That’s better because I they only did it once. Let’s let’s get a couple in there for that drinking game. So anytime there’s obvious product placement take a drink.
Joe: Absolutely. I have anytime they say crisper, take a drink the first like 15 minutes. They just.
David: Yeah.
Joe: Black pepper that in there. And they really want you to know that they research what that means. After that, they don’t care. But in the beginning, Crispr. Okay, gene editing, I got it. Crispr gene editing, that’s what they.
Greg: And the opening credits are like a visualization of gene editing, which, yeah, I was a little I had it, I thought. David, what do you have?
David: Oh, well, this is maybe a little more a little more hidden, but any time the rock has a big picture view of what’s going on, that no one else has, like, yeah. George is like breaking out of the cage, and he. Everyone’s in the room panicking, and he’s like, it’s not going to hold back in all even.
Greg: Before that happens. And he they kind of move the camera towards and he goes, oh no. Like he can see before it happens. That’s about that’s his superpower.
David: He doesn’t have any power. But that’s a superpower. When they’re in Chicago, he’s like, you better evacuate. Yeah. When they’re in the helicopter and the Army’s there and they’re giving it a shot. He’s like, let’s give him a shot. And then he’s like, they’re not going to be able to do this. We got to get the antidote.
Greg: When he said we have to get the antidote, I went back three times because I swear, he said, we have to get the anecdote.
David: I swear it.
Greg: Was like there’s a plot point that we made right here.
David: Easter egg.
Greg: I’m almost positive he says. Anecdote right there.
David: Rampage too. Yeah.
Greg: Can I just take you on a journey of my week? As I was kind of like researching this, where I was going through everybody who worked on this movie and on IMDb, you know, there’s that like upcoming section. We kind of have to open up on IMDb where it shows like what’s coming up in the future. Every single time I was like, come on, rampage to rampage.
David: To rampage to.
Greg: Make it happen.
Greg: Nobody’s working on rampage two.
David: No they’re not. Yeah, it had its moment.
Moira: You know. So you guys, I probably should be on my way. It has been lovely, but I have to get up very early tomorrow and it’s been really fun.
Joe: Yeah. You are welcome any time. So we’re here. Great. Bad movies.
Moira: Seriously, let me know what your next movie is like. If it’s if it’s one that I like, I’ll hop on. So we thought.
Greg: We would love to have you back. Moira, thank you so much for taking the time seriously. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Moira: Absolutely a pleasure. This was really fun. Thank you for arranging it. And happy birthday to you, Greg.
Greg: Thank you so much.
Joe: Thank you.
Greg: Oh my gosh. So anytime we have I’m looking for the Seattle Times review. When it’s not her I feel a sense of disappointment.
David: My same.
Greg: I wish it was Moira MacDonald.
David: I was sitting here thinking like, oh my gosh, I’m talking to Maureen MacDonald. I’ve read her stuff for 24. Yeah, yeah.
Greg: Yeah, totally. Oh my gosh, such a fan. That’s so incredible. Well thanks for that David and Joe. Thank you for both of you. Do you have any more drinking games that you want to cover while we’re well, we’re drinking games.
Joe: I have a couple, but I’m also happy to toss it to David or to you, Greg, just to kick us off with this.
Greg: All right. Every time they say the word plan, take a drink.
Joe: Awesome. I have, every time I say chill pill or take a chill pill, take a drink.
Greg: How many times is that in this movie?
Joe: It’s pretty frequent in the beginning when they’re talking either to George or I think he even says it to, what’s his name? Quaid.
Greg: Jack Quaid.
Joe: Jack Quaid? Yeah.
Greg: Okay.
David: Did we say every time we do sign language?
Joe: Oh, that’s on mine.
David: Yes.
Greg: David Horgan packing double. He’s. That’s incredible.
Joe: If you’re doing that one, you need you need water. You need something that is not.
David: Yeah. Hydrate I’m not. Yeah.
Greg: I have any time they do a fist bump.
Joe: Oh I had that one too. That was, that was I have, every time there’s Hobbs and Shaw. Travel logic. Take a drink.
Greg: Yep. That’s all it. Do you have any more? David, this.
David: Is another, hydration. Anytime there’s air travel.
Greg: Including with the package, the Moab. Yeah. The mother of all bombs.
David: And I’m counting outer space. I’m counting, cargo plane. I’m counting helicopters. There’s a there’s some air travel going on.
Greg: In the best way. This might be the most PG 13. Best PG 13 movie of all time. Yeah. Like if I had a 13 year old, Greg would have been so excited to.
David: See this movie. There’s sort of been a birthday ask for David Hogg.
Greg: And, we’re all going the whole family summer movie.
David: Yeah, this is it.
Greg: With both of your sister’s been excited about that?
David: No. And my mom probably wouldn’t have gone. Your dad is like, if it were me and my dad.
Greg: I’m so glad you said that.
David: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: Okay, great. My last one is, anytime they say the word Moab.
Joe: That’s a good one.
David: Anytime. The general questions the rock.
Joe: Or why the rock is in the room.
David: Yeah, exactly. Like, how’d that guy get it? Well, they ask that. They literally ask that. And then we’re like, well, he is with the U.N., right? Animal rights.
Greg: They didn’t ask you that. The door. No, they didn’t ask it. And it was not immediately.
David: And we’re that’s gone for probably. Right. Yeah. Gosh.
Greg: House of dynamite is occurring in the background of this entire movie.
David: I what where.
Joe: Does the Kathryn Bigelow cut of this.
David: Movie?
Joe: Could we get her to direct the next rampage movie just to see, like, how tight it is? And in the style of House of diamond.
Greg: Can we get video of the lunch where Dwayne The Rock Johnson is pitching this movie to Kathryn Bigelow, trying to get her to do it? Can we just have a tight shot of her.
David: Face.
Greg: Just blankly staring at them? Like, who.
David: Do you think I am? Yeah. What kind of project would that be to take this script? This exact script, and pitch it to five directors?
Greg: Oh, that’s a great question.
David: And they each make their movie off of that.
Greg: Okay. It’s is it 2018?
David: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So Tony Scott’s in the loop right.
Greg: Tony Scott had passed away at that point.
David: Oh he had.
Greg: Okay. Oh is it living or dead.
David: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s do okay.
Greg: Yeah I think Abraham Lincoln is the best cut of.
Greg: You know, that guy’s making bad hits.
David: Yeah.
Joe: I love this question. Oh my God.
David: Yeah.
Greg: Joe, what’s your first answer?
Joe: It’s hard to beat thinking of Tony Scott doing this movie. I mean, there’s so many quick cuts there. 20 more helicopters, Christopher Walken than it for like a second giving some sort of speech that has no bearing on the movie. But everyone is like, love that scene.
Greg: It’s the scene on YouTube that everybody watches the most.
Joe: Yeah, yeah, it’s the scene. And he’s nominated for Best Supporting Actor just based off of that.
David: So.
David: Totally.
Joe: That’s my first one.
Greg: I mean, because the guy who initially wrote it was going for Jaws and Jurassic Park. I want to see with Steven, Steven Spielberg going to do I mean, he’s like the first call.
David: Yeah.
Greg: You know, always I mean, I’m not just saying this. I think Brad Peyton made the best disaster movie in San Andreas. I know Charles Guy Tucker does not agree with that, but it is the greatest one. I think as I was watching this, I was like, Michael Bay would have ruined this scene. He would have ruined that scene.
Greg: And Brad Peyton didn’t.
David: I thought, that’s too many times to I thought so many times. Oh, someone else would have cut that. But that never would have made it into so many other director’s movies.
Greg: Yeah, I was going to say Peter Jackson, but Peter Jackson made King Kong and it wasn’t this good.
David: It would have been like two hours and 45 minutes.
Greg: And that’s just part one of three.
David: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: A lot of slow motion shots of Crispr on a ring. Probably somehow.
David: Just a.
Greg: Close up.
David: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Heroes of Mount Doom.
Greg: Yeah. I really in this time, I don’t think I would have chosen a different director. Brad Peyton floored me when I saw San Andreas in the theater. I was just kind of like, I did not think I was going to like that movie, but I just went to a movie that night for whatever reason and walked away being like, I bizarrely, like, loved that movie.
Greg: I will definitely watch that again soon. Yeah, I mean.
Joe: Robert Zemeckis about the Russo brothers.
David: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’d be good. So when Moira picked this movie, I was like, oh man, why couldn’t she have picked timeline? Because that’s.
Greg: The movie. You would think.
David: That’s because that’s what I absolutely would have picked. Yes, or Pitch Perfect. Yeah. But I got done with it and I was like, Brad Peyton. Yeah, I’m going to go watch everything he’s made. It was so good.
Greg: I don’t know if everything he’s done has been so good. This might be peak Peyton.
Joe: Yeah, you can skip San Andreas.
Greg: David, where are you? In San Andreas?
David: I haven’t seen it.
Greg: Oh, my gosh, can you wait for me.
David: Craig? I’ll probably watch it tomorrow.
Greg: Let me know you’re gonna watch it before you go to bed tonight.
David: Yeah.
David: Maybe.
Greg: I think this might be the better movie. Yeah, I’m on the fence. Joe is not on the fence. Probably about.
Joe: That. Yeah, I think this is the better movie for sure.
Joe: To be fair, I think I was sick. I was getting Covid at the time that I watched San Andreas, because I remember when I watched it. So yeah, but, I struggled with that movie.
David: That’s the one with his daughter. There’s like a daughter. Yeah. Relationship.
Greg: Right? Yeah. And his ex-wife, Carla Gugino.
David: Is a Geno. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Greg: Solid family dynamics.
David: I think I liked it, I think I have seen it.
Greg: Is this like, when I saw a paycheck and I didn’t, I was like, I think I’ve seen it. And then I realized it was the third time I had watched it.
David: Yeah, I’m pretty sure I, I next time I go on Netflix and I’ll, it’ll be in your reasonably viewed.
Greg: You’ve already rated it.
David: Yeah. Oh thumbs up in 2019.
Greg: Wow. In 2021 okay.
Joe: I’m trying to think of other directors. I would have liked to watch this.
Joe: What about John McTiernan?
Greg: Well yeah.
David: Totally. I’d greenlight that.
Greg: Yeah I think he was he might have been in jail in 2018.
Joe: Renny Harlin.
Greg: Renny Harlin.
Joe: Yeah he’s my pick. He’s who I want to direct the sequel. If Brad Bateman doesn’t.
David: It would have cost 190 million. And it’s box office would have been like 23 million.
Greg: And it’s, it’s actually a sequel to 12 rounds with John Cena.
David: Yeah.
Greg: But nobody knew that 12 rounds was a real movie.
David: Yeah.
Greg: 12 rounds, by the way. Great. That movie that. We’ll get to 12 rounds. Are you kidding.
David: Me? Yeah, we’ll get to that.
Greg: Joe, I’ve actually been thinking about this for a little while here. I think there’s a chance that some people have not seen this movie, and there’s a chance they have no idea what we’re talking about. Can we pretend they’re. We’re walking through a blockbuster in bend, Oregon, where it looked for picking up the boxes. We’re trying to see what we should rent tonight so we can give the synopsis of this movie.
Greg: That’s right. It’s time for the back of the box.
Joe: It’s the back of the box. The fate of Chicago and the world hang in the balance. As genetically altered animals bear down on the city, destroying everything in their path. The rampage will be devastating, and the ending will be nothing like you’ve ever seen before. But your wild side out and enjoy.
Greg: It. Rent it.
Joe: Yeah, I think you rent that. I think you rent that every single time.
Greg: I think this is one of those movies that after I’ve rented it, I regret that I can’t rent it again for the first time.
David: Yeah, I was going to say that is worth, like a $12 late fee.
Greg: I’m not even rewinding this VHS tape that it was, for some reason available in 2018.
David: Yeah.
Greg: All right. Well, that’s like the marketing back of the box. Let’s go on down to Honest Town right now. Joe. What’s the real Joe sky Tucker back in the box.
Joe: This movie is far better than I expected, and somehow more outrageous and ridiculous than imaginable. It would fit right in with the King Kong Godzilla world. This movie boasts a powerful CGI crew and capable performances from everyone cashing a check to be in this movie. This movie is best suited for mindless entertainment. Put the popcorn on and turn your brain off and enjoy.
Greg: Perfect, perfect. They have continued making these movies less successfully. I think.
Greg: This is the better movie than like Kong Skull Island and that I loved Kong Skull Island. Don’t get me wrong, we will get the Kong Skull Island.
Joe: Oh for sure. And all of those movies.
David: Yeah, I.
Joe: Remember I saw Kong versus Godzilla. That’s the only one that I’ve seen in those in that world.
David: Yeah.
Joe: And that’s a round that came out I think a little after this.
David: Yeah.
Greg: A couple years and.
Joe: This would fit right in. But that movie is also ridiculous. And they like similarly evacuate a city of 10 million people in 30s. And they’re ridiculous fights that happen between Kong and Godzilla. It would fit right in.
Greg: Here’s what I love about Kong versus Godzilla or Godzilla versus Kong. I remember, yeah, they actually took shots from our favorite action movies and replicated them for that movie. I think one of them is John McClane jumping off the building when it’s blowing up. They actually replicated that shot.
David: Yeah.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there’s another one from like, Lethal Weapon, I think, or Lethal Weapon two, and they say it in the credits. Thank you to this movie for like for the shot. There’s some sort of like direct reference, almost like when a song samples another song. They have to mention the sample, right? That movie just sampled shots for their, like, super hyper CGI.
Greg: It’s such a good idea. Every movie should be doing this.
David: Yeah, yeah. Brilliant.
Greg: Such a good idea. All right, well, Joe and David, should we talk about the box office in critical response to this movie in 2018?
David: Absolutely, yes.
Greg: All right. Well, this movie came out in 2018. It had a budget of $120 million, which I think it looks like a $200 million movie. It looks better than $200 million to me now. It’s almost like how Jurassic Park had like 64 special effects shots, and they look better than almost anything that’s made now. Yeah, they just knew what they were doing.
Greg: All right. $120 million budget worldwide. This movie made $428 million, which is just, I think, slightly less than San Andreas, which was made for like 110. So, I mean, these guys are making movies that are returning four times the budget.
Joe: They’re making.
Greg: Money. They’re making money. Yeah, that’s 101 million here. 327 internationally less than San Andreas. And then I don’t think I think, skyscraper did worse than this. It was a movie that wasn’t as good as this one anyway. So too much rock in that year, I think. David, let me ask you this question. When it comes to the critics of this movie, what do you think the rotten Tomatoes critic score is on this movie?
David: I don’t think they liked it because, well, for a lot of reasons, I would maybe put this at, like a 47%.
Greg: Interesting.
Joe: I think that number you’re looking for is 70, David, I think this feels like a 70.
Greg: Feels like a 70 doesn’t it.
David: Oh yeah 100%. This is a David Hogg and it’s like this is the seven best movie. I never what the seven best movie.
Greg: And I 100% this is the 70s movie.
David: Yeah 70% of the time. 100% of the time.
Joe: Yeah exactly.
Greg: So what do you think the, we I think we all agree it feels like a 70 because there’s, like, stuff that isn’t amazing, kind of ridiculous, but also it’s really, really good for a lot of reasons. But what do you think the critics score for this movie is? All right.
Joe: I’m going to go I’m close to David on this one. I’m going to go 55.
Greg: It’s a 51. It’s right in between you guys.
David: All right.
Greg: There we go. Not bad.
Joe: Nailed it. Yeah. Nailed it.
Greg: We don’t have a lot of users a lot of audience people rating this. There’s over 10,000 ratings for their audience score. Not horrible, but we usually have more. What do you think the popcorn meter is on this David, than Joe?
David: 99%. Yes okay. Okay. So what do you think that’s optimistic.
Joe: That’s I’m going to go 6571.
Greg: Kind of low for us. When we were first starting this show, David Joe was like, if it’s a 30% from critics and 70% from the audience, I think it’s automatically a great, bad movie. And we have ended up watching better movies. But this is kind of right in line with that initial thesis for this show. 51 and 71.
David: If I went to a used movie parking lot today, I would come home with like, I would buy this and come on with it.
Greg: I’m coming home with two copies of it because one of them is going to wear out.
David: Yeah, yeah yeah.
Greg: All right. Well, I already read Moira macdonald. I can’t believe she was here. I already read hers, but I’ll read it again. Only two things need to be said about rampage. It’s really terrible and I enjoyed it immensely. Incredible. That was Moira on April 11th of 2018. The Washington Post that at times rampage almost hides its problems. It’s just funny enough, just exciting enough, and just visually impressive enough.
Joe: It feels about right. Okay, that could be a title for this, this podcast.
David: I frankly so.
Greg: This week and just funny enough, just exciting enough and just visually impressive.
David: Enough. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yes.
Joe: You know the low bar. But we got there.
Greg: J.R. Jones says ridiculous but entertaining, which probably should have actually been the name of this podcast.
David: Exactly.
Greg: The Toronto Star says it’s not a good film. It’s actually a supremely silly one. But with Dwayne Johnson once again flexing his pecs and the cause of popcorn distraction, it’s not entirely bereft of amusements either. Not entirely bereft of amusements. Pretty good name for the show.
David: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: One of my favorite reviewers, David Sims from The Atlantic, says it’s telling that two of rampages biggest set pieces end with a gigantic albino gorilla laughing and giving the finger straight to the camera.
David: Nailed it.
Greg: David Sims from the Blank Check podcast. Great podcast. All right. Mick LaSalle from the San Francisco Chronicle says, obviously this makes no sense, but if you worry too much about sense, you will never really love movies or appreciate a star like Johnson.
Greg: Three out of four stars.
David: Brilliant.
Greg: If you worry too much about sense, you will never really love movies is just truth smacking you in the face.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: My favorite review is from Stephanie Zachary from time magazine. She says it’s not big and dumb enough.
Joe: Is another good name for this podcast.
David: I might have thought that halfway through. Yeah.
Greg: I mean, they’re funny in the big and dumb, right? We could use some more.
David: Yeah, and we get some bigger and dumber.
Joe: That’s one Vin Diesel like, makes a cameo in this movie. Just for fun.
Greg: Yeah. There was a scene where Dwayne The Rock Johnson does like a feat of impossible strength. Oh, it’s when he is, like, in a his wrists are kind of like, yeah, together. And he just breaks them legs tight. Yeah, yeah, I totally that’s totally something Vin Diesel would do in a Fast and Furious movie. All right. Two more that I have.
Greg: One is from the New York Post. It’s big, bloated, and if you give in to the familiar charms of it’s jacked leading man not unenjoyable.
David: Yeah, that could be another name for your podcast.
Greg: Not unenjoyable. Totally. Yeah. Getting a lot of the sweet, Matt singer from Screen Crush says who was it? Socrates, maybe. Or Snooki from the Jersey shore. Who said it? That the most important thing in life is to know thyself? Rampage knows itself.
David: Nailed it.
Greg: That’s solid. All right, well, we’ve already been through drinking game, so I think it’s time for us to go through Joe’s trope Lightning Round or signs. You’re watching a great bad movie.
Joe: Like all tropes, I just add more when I hear them. So anytime a character in a movie now says you’re making a big mistake, that’s a trope. So because Dwayne The Rock Johnson says that in this movie to the general, there’s also a moment when the the movie name is said by a character. We kind of have a variation on finding the keys under the flap.
Joe: They actually make a joke about it when they steal the helicopter. Yep. So you get that he’s he’s the best at something. So he’s the best primate specialist in the world, is kind of a reluctant hero. We have a charismatic bad girl in this case Malin Akerman, who’s amazing in this movie, and I wanted more of her in every, every scene.
Joe: We have a duffel bag full of guns from them. Murderers are us. When they get murdered by the the wolf medical care from my partner love interest. I may even have to add a new trope when they talk about he says they missed all the vital organs when he gets shot. Like, how the hell does he know? A total gray man reference there.
Greg: And we’ll get to the gray man. Oh, obviously.
Joe: And, the protagonist is captured, but not killed right away. And then to save by his wiles, we should have the conversation around at some point. Best scene in which a plane is exploding in midair, and there’s a fight scene on it and parachutes that are happening because also the Gray Man a little bit better than this. I would say, but just slightly.
Joe: A-Team flying a tank.
Greg: Fast and furious six. I’m assuming it was a jet. The plane from Fast and Furious six.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. So that’s our trope. Lightning round.
Greg: Okay. Amazing. All right. We we covered a little bit of the important questions, but I’m going to be honest, guys. There’s more elephants in this room that we need to talk about. Are you ready to jump in the important questions I’m ready. Let’s do it. First question David, let me ask you this question. Did rampage hold up then?
Greg: I guess you don’t really know. You didn’t see it then?
David: I took the year off from the rock, apparently so. I don’t know.
Greg: Joe. Did you watch this movie back then?
Joe: I didn’t, but Moira MacDonald was a it did for sure.
David: Yeah.
Greg: Does it hold up now?
David: 100%? Yes.
Joe: I second that.
Greg: I saw this movie back then and I think it holds up better now. Like we didn’t know how good we had it in 2018 and it was great then. Yeah. All right David, how hard do they sell the good guy?
David: Pretty hard. Just by having his name on the movie poster. Yes.
Greg: And he’s the same in every movie that he’s in.
David: Yeah sure. I he’s never been like the greatest primate scientist. Special forces guy before this, to my knowledge.
Greg: No, but he it fits like a glove for him. Yeah. Joe, how hard do they sell the bad guy?
Joe: Not as hard as they sell the good guy in this.
Greg: It’s not like a list that somebody is reading. It’s not like a rap sheet.
Joe: Yeah.
David: I think they ironically sell the murderers are us bad guys. Just to show how dangerous the animals are.
Greg: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
David: Because they have like Joe Angelo and they have like a UFC fighter. Uriah Faber is one of the bad guys.
Greg: I wondered if there were people that you’d recognize in there. Yeah.
David: Yeah I mean they have like the guy from I don’t remember, but I’ve seen him in 19 different. He. Yeah. He had 19 different movies where he’s the same guy.
Greg: He’s like the Frank Grillo.
David: They had all of those guys and they’re in the movie for like eight minutes.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: By the way, that scene was incredible.
Joe: You know, they’re all going to die.
Greg: I realize we never even mentioned the opening of the movie, which has Marley Shelton showing up where she’s like in space and it’s basically alien. It’s alien, but rats.
David: The most ridiculous. Yeah. Monster. Not in the world. In space. Yeah.
Greg: I mean, I don’t want to say spoilers for the book it. But wasn’t it a big rat at the end of the movie? It or was it a spider? It was a spider at the end.
David: Of a spider.
Greg: But there was a big rat at the end of another Stephen King book. Right?
David: All I can think of is those big rats was in there like big rats and like that Wesley one that the one where he rolls down the hill.
Joe: Princess bride. Yeah, rats of unusual size.
David: Yeah, that’s what I thought of. Okay.
Joe: And then there’s the rat that they have in the cage that they’re passing back and forth. The brother and the sister.
Greg: What was the deal with that rat? Do we ever find out?
Joe: They never. Okay, that’s in the director’s cut, and we didn’t watch that.
David: So rampage too? Yeah.
Greg: Rampages. I mean, the dollar sign.
Joe: I mean, I’m in green light.
David: Absolutely. Yeah.
Greg: Joe, this question is for you. Why is there romance in this movie?
Joe: There isn’t. There’s, like, mention of romance, but there isn’t. It’s great. And the fact that Naomi Harris would even be interested in the Rock after all this, it’s ridiculous. But I’ll let them live their lives and bliss. Fine. Whatever.
Greg: I really liked that. At the end, they were just friends. Yeah, like, can I say we’re friends? She’s like, yeah, we’re friends. It’s like, okay, we’re friends. It’s the proper amount of romance.
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: Guys, I’ve a really important question for you here. Are we bad people for loving this movie? David’s doing some real introspection right now.
David: Yeah, I don’t feel better for liking this movie.
David: You still feel awful? Is that what you’re saying? Maybe it’s a maybe we are.
Greg: Yeah, maybe. Joe, where are you on this?
Joe: I might be with David on this one. It’s. I mean, it’s not the worst movie we’ve watched.
David: Okay, okay.
Joe: But, yeah, I don’t feel better. I don’t feel worse now. We’re kind of in that, in that liminal space of. Yeah, great bad movie.
Greg: Yeah.
David: So Kristen judged me for watching. It was okay.
Joe: So yes, I guess the answer is yes.
Greg: I think that’s I think that’s our answer right there. Yeah. Although I did feel a little bit worse the week we watched played with Gerard Butler, which is, I think, one of our best episodes.
Greg: So our show benefits the worst I feel about the movie we were watching. I think.
Greg: That movie was so good. Oh my gosh, I just realized I haven’t thought about playing in a while.
Joe: Oh, it’s coming out.
Greg: Boat is coming out.
David: Yeah, the sequel is so good.
Greg: It might be coming out like a month. That movie that was like a January movie, I think. Yeah. Oh my gosh, Joe, have you seen a trailer for this movie?
Joe: I haven’t.
Greg: I bet they’re putting out in the summer. They’re like, this thing’s going to be a hit. It’s going to come out in June and.
David: Make like $80 million and.
Greg: Be the best movie we see in all of 2026. We’ll get to boat. Are you kidding me? Oh, yeah. It’s a future great bad movie. I’m like Babe Ruth sitting, just pointing at the fence right now with boat.
Joe: It’s a great, great movie. I’m calling it right now. I’m calling the shot.
David: Wow. Wow.
Greg: That’s drive. Okay, David, does rampage deserve a sequel?
David: Part of me wants to let it just be. And in a way, it’s was the sequel for me because I didn’t watch it in 2018. I watched in 2025. But now nobody know I’m going to let it stand on its own okay.
Greg: Hard pass Joe. Yeah.
Joe: Oh I want as many sequels as I can find for this one.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: So I want this time it’s personal. I want the third one when they’re like they’re fighting and yeah I want more more of George and the Rock. Bring it on.
Greg: You’re saying like Jaws the Revenge this time it’s personal. Like Lorraine Gray, the mom from jaws is on vacation.
David: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: And rampage shows up.
David: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: Mario Van Peebles is there. Michael Caine is there. Don’t explain everything.
David: Yeah. Go buy a.
Greg: House.
Joe: The Christopher Nolan movie all of a sudden and.
Greg: Christopher Nolan 1,000% should have made jaws four. We can agree on that, right?
David: Yeah.
Greg: Okay. I kind of think that you could argue that, like the Kong Godzilla movies are the sequels to this. I think this movie’s better than those. I think just because they found a better way in with the story between the Rock and George. I like that this is a nice little one off, actually, though. David, I’m with you on that.
Greg: Or I think this one’s probably better because it’s on its own.
David: Well, no, because we haven’t asked the prequel question yet, have we?
Greg: Well, okay, so let me finish my answer here. I do think this does deserve a sequel, but I like that it didn’t get one. But I mean, honestly, come on.
David: Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. If they came out with rampage two, are you saying no.
David: No no exactly I would okay. Yeah.
Greg: David stays up on the East coast where it’s after 1:00 right now and watches that immediately.
David: Yeah, absolutely. I’m watching.
Greg: Yeah, yeah. All right. So David, let’s move on to the next question. Does rampage deserve a prequel?
David: Yes. Hundred percent. Okay. I think it’s a franchise. And here’s why. Okay. Because we see the case. Spoilers. We see the case come from outer space and go in three different directions.
Greg: Totally, totally.
David: The alligator, the wolf, and George, we get a little bit of George’s backstory, but we know nothing about the world for the alligator or their story. Interesting. I’m very interested in the origin stories of the young wolves that becomes a man, so to speak, and, and and go through those thresholds of life and. Yeah, learns and and then journeys to Chicago later.
David: Yeah.
Greg: Becomes a flying man. Let me just ask you there.
David: When when did he first realize if I stretch my arms out and I jump from a tree or a building. Yeah. This all happen, and then I have to thank the alligator. We’ve already had the prequel.
Greg: Lake Placid.
David: Lake Placid. Thank you. Greg.
Joe: We will be for sure getting to Lake Placid on this.
David: My gosh, super smart alligators. Of course we. Yeah, yeah. Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt, Bill Pullman. Yeah, it’s it’s almost that is almost a perfect movie. And yeah, it’s like that is Betty.
Joe: White’s in it. Yeah.
David: Yeah. You would only need to film like three scenes to really make the jump.
Joe: I’ll allow it only because of the tie in to Lake Placid. The only other acceptable answer would be the Special Forces Dwayne The Rock Johnson prequel that we would get of him saving George, but it doesn’t need a prequel to stand on its own.
Greg: Yeah, you famously dislike prequels. Joe.
Joe: Yeah, I hate prequels.
Greg: I like your idea quite a bit. David. Going back with that, I think we do that. Okay. Green light, make your movie go out there. Do what you got to do. I’m going to be over here making prequel, TV series. You guys know how, like Law and Order has, like, Law and order and then Law and Order SVU.
Greg: And there’s different cities that things are happening in. CSI is happening in different cities.
David: Rampage. Everglades.
Greg: Yes, exactly. I think there’s I think there’s like Davis McCoy, a primate specialist.
Greg: And then but then we go back one step and it’s Davis, Sequoia, Army Special Forces.
David: And.
Greg: Then there’s a prequel to that. Each season is a prequel by the way, Davis a.k.a. redacted. And then the season, the next season, which is a prequel to that, is called Davis Parkway, a redacted. Redacted because that’s something that what’s his name says in this movie. And then obviously we go all the way back to the United Nations Special Anti-Poaching Task Force.
Greg: So each season is a prequel to the one before. Has this ever happened, by the way, has there ever been a series of movies where it only goes backwards, like memento style? Anecdotally, yeah. What is done this where it always goes backwards, never forwards?
Joe: I can’t think of anything. But let’s call Christopher Nolan. He is. He’s in.
David: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Greg: I think the Davis Sequoia series is amazing.
David: And then the last one is Davis, Sequoia and Tenet obviously.
Joe: But they’re all clones so that we’re tying in the The Prestige as well.
Greg: It’s called Davis Sequoia colon. A word in a gesture.
Greg: Yeah. And I think they are all like procedurals. They’re on CBS, obviously.
David: Yeah.
Greg: All right. We’ve already answered. Should this movie have been nominated, do we answer the question, should this have been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars?
David: Well, Moira MacDonald, 100% said yes.
Greg: I think that’s all I need to hear.
David: Oh, yeah. Hot dog.
Greg: Yeah, yeah. Do you guys agree I agree, I.
Joe: Agree, I agree I.
David: Can’t disagree with Moira MacDonald I know.
Joe: Yeah, she’s a professional.
Greg: This is the kind of movie that would only get nominated for like sound effects for some reason.
David: Yeah.
Greg: And I think there’s way more going for it than the sound mix. And by the way, sound makes me solid on this movie. I love the helicopters out of nowhere. We’re super loud and I appreciate it.
David: Yeah. Clear, concise rotor sounds. Yes.
Greg: Oh my gosh. But not for the 20 miles that it took for them to approach.
David: Yeah.
Greg: All right David, how can rampage be fixed aka who should be in the remake?
David: The only thing that I think could make this better, is if the last scene was Bill Pullman showing up in his Lake Placid sheriff’s truck.
Greg: Oh, interesting. I thought you were going while you were sleeping.
David: No. To haul the gator back to the left. That that’s all. And maybe it’s even an end credit, so. Oh, and that just. Yeah, I think it’s a maybe a perfect movie. Yeah. So I would just add an end credit.
Greg: Yeah. Yeah. Like a little stinger thing.
David: Yeah.
Greg: Josh.
Joe: Guy Tucker I said this in the, in the Kong Godzilla world.
Joe: And I bring in Denis Villeneuve or whatever to direct the new Villeneuve. Yeah. Villeneuve. Yeah. That guy who did Dune.
Greg: He’s doing James Bond now.
Joe: Yeah. So I said it in the James Bond universe. Kong versus Godzilla verse and.
Greg: But all the cast of a rival.
Joe: Yes. And make the most beautiful movie. That really doesn’t make a lot of sense, but follows the book pretty pretty closely. Whatever the book is for this.
Greg: The rampage book.
David: Is.
Joe: A rampage for.
David: The videogame. It’s exactly scene by scene, frame by frame from the video game. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Yeah.
Greg: For the fans, you gotta stay true for the fans.
Joe: For the fans.
Greg: I only have one. Simple, I have two. Okay, I have three, three simple fixes. The first is, and I’m sure this is obvious to everybody, more middle fingers.
Greg: Made me laugh every time. Amazing. Yeah.
David: David.
Greg: I wanted more for Naomi Harris in this movie.
David: Yeah.
Greg: I mean, she was nominated for moonlight, I think, the same year. Not the same Oscars, but around the same time. She was like, an Oscar nominee for some. She deserved more in her part for this movie. Although I did appreciate her voice being kind of a meta voice, too. Like, you guys are talking like stupid dudes. And what if we didn’t try to solve problems this stupid way?
Greg: And then when that doesn’t go the way they think it should, she’s like, that’s weird that it didn’t work out when you were acting that way. I thought that was pretty good. I like that she was doing that love scenes so more for her. And then also more for the bad guys. I feel like we needed way more of the bad guys in this movie.
David: Yeah.
Greg: All right. Let’s get to our last two important questions here David, are you locked and loaded with this. What album is rampage.
David: I wanted to think about like what’s what’s an album that came out that when I first listened to it, I was like, I don’t know. I mean, it’s good. It’s, it’s a little departure from maybe how you started, but then I turned around and all of a sudden it’s like, oh my gosh, that is like the greatest anthem that has the greatest anthem of, like, current world.
Greg: I really like where this is going.
David: So I thought as elephant.
Greg: Oh, interesting.
David: White stripes. The white Stripes. Yeah. And the song would be Seven Nation Army. Yeah.
Greg: Yeah, that is high praise first of all.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: That’s incredible. And I am entirely with you there. When that song came out, I was kind of like, okay. And it is basically a national anthem at this point. So that will, we’ll put this on. That song will be on our, our new, our Spotify playlist. It’s not new. I don’t know, I’m saying it’s new all of a sudden.
Greg: Great bad movies, music our our Spotify playlist. Joe, what is the song or the album that this movie is that we’re going to add to that playlist?
Joe: This might be a little on the nose, but I went Gorillaz perfect Plastic Beach. Oh, it’s one of my favorite albums. There’s an album that at the beginning I didn’t really love, but has some amazing songs on and isn’t. Their first two albums I think are almost perfect, but this album took a little bit for me to get into it.
Joe: And it’s George. George could be the the gorilla in the in this case.
Greg: So is this maybe an album you’ve already done?
Joe: I don’t know if I’ve done a Gorillaz album, but I’m not 100% sure on that.
Greg: I think you have, and I think it’s okay if you have. I think we just pick a second song on this album. Okay. It could be the same album.
David: Sure.
Greg: I’m loving that. I can give myself the green light to repay God.
David: What’s the future? Okay.
Greg: So I think you breaking new ground.
Joe: They’re all going to be Toad the Wet Sprocket from now on from Greg.
David: No, no, that would be so funny.
Greg: I gotta say, guys.
David: Dulcinea again. I.
Joe: All right. What album is this for you, Greg?
Greg: Yeah, totally. Speaking of things with out longevity, I.
David: Don’t I’m not sure.
Greg: I think this album will hold up longer. Okay, so I liked that this movie was a one off, but it was made by people that I already knew and trusted and loved. It’s an incredibly solid yet derivative movie. Like, this movie is great because it’s kind of copying my favorite movies. So I’m going to say that this is Mark Ronson’s album, Uptown Special, which is the album with Uptown Funk in it.
Greg: I know that Uptown Funk is like Morris Day at the time. You know, like that band that played with Prince a lot. I know that it sounds exactly like that, and it sounds exactly like that on purpose, because that was amazing. I bet that band has made more money since Uptown Funk came out, because Uptown Funk pointed at that.
Greg: Like, wasn’t that great? You should go listen to that. So I’m okay with that. So I think more people need to know about more stay in the time. But as far as Uptown Funk goes, if you go back and listen to or watch their performance like Bruno Mars is performance of that on SNL, it is one of those SNL performances where like, time almost.
David: Stops.
Greg: And then when it ends, you’re like, what on earth did I just witness? I watched it live as it was, as it was broadcasting, and it was just like, what on earth just happened in 30 Rock over there? That was unbelievable. Bruno Mars has had that effect on me a few times. I very much swear by Bruno Mars, I’m a big Bruno Mars fan.
Greg: So I think this movie, I loved this movie and Uptown Funk was a very special moment in my life back then. So I think this is Uptown Special by Mark Ronson.
Joe: Awesome. Was at this the performance where he has the curlers in his hair like for fashion?
Greg: No, I don’t think so. I think that might have been 24 karat magic I had.
Joe: I’ll have to go back and look.
Greg: But yeah I guess I don’t, I don’t remember.
Joe: There’s a Bruno Mars moment that was very similar where I was like, oh my God, this is ridiculous. I cannot believe I am watching this right now, or maybe even even a Super Bowl performance that happened.
Greg: Oh, one of the best. That was such a good halftime show.
Joe: Yeah. We’re just like, oh, I see this is what we can do with the Super Bowl. Yeah, yeah. So and I’m not a big fan of those but.
Greg: Yeah of halftime shows.
Greg: That one was unbelievable though I’ve watched that one so many times.
Joe: Agreed.
Greg: I’m just now connecting that Bruno Mars and Dwayne The Rock Johnson both were fighting for something on Kona because they’re both from Hawaii.
Greg: So there might have been like a subliminal connection between the two of them because I think they were working together on something with Jason Momoa. I think on something in Kona that I was checking out. So spiritual connection between. Yeah. Bruno Mars and.
David: You brought the aloha.
Greg: Absolutely. Someone had to write.
Joe: A plan to steal all the women off the face of the earth.
David: That’s not what it was. I think it was. Yeah. Okay.
Greg: Through charm and dance.
David: Oh, more. Sure. Yes. No more shirt. Yeah.
Greg: Yeah. So Bruno Mars, Dwayne The Rock Johnson and Jason Momoa, they should start a band.
David: Yeah.
Greg: All right, guys, it is all come down to this. It’s time for us to rate this movie. Let’s start with you, David. Are you going to rate this a great bad movie? Good bad movie. Okay. Bad movie, bad bad movie or worst case scenario, awful bad movie.
David: I’ve gone from 0 to 1000. Yes. In a week. Yeah. This is a great bad movie.
Greg: Oh my gosh, the greatest. Yeah. Joe, what do you think.
Joe: I can’t I can’t disagree with that. This is one of those movies. And again this podcast does it to me every time where we start talking about it. And I was fully prepared to go after that. Okay. Bad movie. No. This is a great bad movie. Isn’t that it’s perfect in every way.
Greg: And the fact that Moira macdonald from the Seattle Times, one of our favorite writers, and our local paper, someone we have been standing, someone we’ve been rooting for, someone whose book we promoted when it came out. I think we promoted like an event that she had at the local library.
David: Yeah.
Greg: So nice of her to take the time to be here. So thank you. Moira MacDonald. The fact that she recommended this movie brings so much more. When I watched it, you know, the other day, I was like, why am I watching rampage? Who recommended this? And then I was watching. I was like, whoever recommended this is a.
David: Genius, and.
Greg: It’s a great movie. All right, well, guys, we did it.
Joe: We had the conversation, and if we had it, I don’t know if anyone should talk about this movie ever again. This is it. I mean, we have the Moira MacDonald from the Seattle Times.
Greg: And the David Haugen.
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: Huntington, new Jersey.
David: Yeah.
Joe: Nailed it. This is the definitive rampage conversation. Everyone else should just stop talking. Quite frankly.
David: We rampaged.
Greg: We did so hard. David, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for staying up so late over there on the East Coast to record this.
David: My pleasure. So good to hang out with you guys. I listened to you and Greg. We’ve known each other and so I feel like I get to hang out with you through the podcast. Joe, I feel like I’ve become friends with you. And even though it’s the first time I’ve met you, this has been amazing. Thank you guys for having me on.
Joe: Yeah. Oh my God. Welcome. You’re welcome any time.
Greg: So seriously, the pleasure was all ours. Yeah. Everything’s better when David Hogg around. I always say that.
Joe: Absolutely. Yeah. That’s what everyone says. And I didn’t even know you then. And it was a weird come. There’s a weird saying, but I was like, I’ll just go with it. And now it makes a lot of sense.
David: So.
David: I did that. Yeah.
Greg: Well, listener, if you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard today, go back and listen to other episodes I would recommend, like the plain episode. I think that’s one of our strongest. Joe, do you have an episode? Do you think people should go back and listen to.
Joe: And the extraction episode always comes out? That’s one of my favorite movies. I love that movie, the Gray Man movie that we will do in the future.
Greg: You’re just recommending movies at this point?
Joe: Yeah, I’m just recommending movies.
David: Yeah, that’s the plan, you know, it’s. I’m stay the gray man.
Joe: So one of the greatest action movies.
Greg: So the agreement came out when I was at David’s house.
David: Yeah.
Greg: And we watched it together.
David: Double feature.
Greg: That’s right. What was the. What was the other movie we watched?
David: Nobody and the Gray Man.
Greg: Oh that’s right, that’s right. Oh my God. And then we watched too many Harlan movie after that that we kind of regretted cleaner. It was called cleaner.
David: Cleaner.
Greg: Ed Harris Samuel Jackson yeah. We were like, is that new? It was ten years old and we had never heard of it. And there was a reason we had no.
David: Yeah, I had not thought of it since right now. So thanks. Okay. Probably should watch.
Joe: If you’d watched it first, it would have been perfect.
Greg: Oh, you got to work your way up from that. There is a movie called The Cleaner that I actually really loved with Daisy Ridley.
David: Yeah.
Greg: We’ll get to that cleaner.
David: You kidding me?
Greg: Clive Owen? It was really good.
David: Oh, yeah, that is good.
Greg: I should say it was not really good, but it was so enjoyable. Okay, great. Bad movie. All right, well, David, can we invite you back for The Gray Man? Would you come back to talk about that movie with us?
David: Absolutely.
Greg: Okay. Awesome. Oh my gosh, I’m really looking forward to that.
Joe: Yeah. Are you a 4242 regular though? Sorry. That’s a inside gray man joke.
David: All right. Oh, no, it’s so funny. I said to Greg, like, you probably can’t do Gray Man because he’s gotten some crap for fat shaming. And I said, you know, as a 50 L I get it, I get it. Her 42 regular. Yeah. Okay. Totally. I’m up for it now.
Greg: Okay, okay, okay. Take some work.
David: Yeah.
Greg: I’ve always said David’s name is David, but his pants have always leaned Lloyd, so.
David: Yeah. Yeah.
Greg: That’ll make sense when we get to the movie.
David: So. Great. I feel like I.
Greg: Do a whole podcast, like a weekly discussion of The Gray Man.
Joe: The greatest movie that’s ever been made. Yes, absolutely.
David: It’s only 145. I mean, I’m not doing anything. No.
Greg: Let’s do a live commentary right now.
David: Yeah.
Joe: David, you have no idea how many times I have watched The Gray Man just because I’m on Netflix and it pops up and I’m like, well, I’m here and I love this movie. Yeah, might as well. And it’s never have I regretted the decision to make to watch The Gray Man.
David: So yep, it’s 200%.
Greg: I bet the 18th time you watch The Gray Man, you still get something new out of it. Like you learn something about yourself as well.
David: Yeah, true.
Greg: All right. Well, listener, we would appreciate if you would, like and subscribe to this show. Follow us. If you’ve liked what you heard, you can read us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you’re listening to us. If you haven’t liked what you’ve heard, we just pretend I never said that. And, tell a friend about the show.
Greg: Yeah, you can find us at Great Bad movies.com, great bad movies show on Instagram. If you want to reach out to us, comment on our YouTube versions of this podcast.
Joe: You can email us at Great Bad Movie Show at gmail.com. And as I say, like and subscribe. It’s, it’s the best way to get us money, I don’t know. And listeners.
David: We’re gonna get.
Greg: So.
David: Rich.
Joe: You were going to ask so right off of this podcast for, like, dozens of dollars.
David: Yeah.
Greg: All right. Well. Oh. Oh my gosh, guys, I just noticed the time. Listen, I don’t want to take away from what we just did. This has been great. Don’t get me wrong. This has been amazing. But, the science lab just called, and apparently science just crapped the bed again, and it’s my job to change the sheets, so I gotta go.
David: I have to get going because I just noticed that there is a giant alligator climbing up the outside of my house, and I have to go take care of it. Yeah, yeah, that’s,
Joe: That tracks. I’ve got to go. The plane I’m flying in is exploding, and I need to go find a parachute for me and the, the two other people that I am, I want to save on that plane. That’s exploding. It’s not quite as exciting as the Gray man. Exploding parachute, plane scene, but it’s a close second.
Joe: So.
David: Yeah.
Greg: That works for me because I have this noise cancellation thing going on with my microphone right now. The whole time we’ve been recording my phone, it’s going.
Greg: So I need to go answer this thing. I know what’s going on.
David: Well, Joe goes and takes care of his airplane, so I have to. Coincidentally, I have to go to because I just woke up and realized Joe had put in a parachute on me and just pulled the cord. Oh, that was.
Joe: That was good timing. That was I was nice. I mean, I’ve got to go. I just had a gorilla to flip people off, and now I’m banned from the zoo for some reason. So.
Joe: I gotta go before they arrest me.
Greg: That works for me because I have no idea what the plan is. I feel like after watching this movie, there’s a lot of motivation to figure out what the plan is. I have no plan for my life, and I think it’s time for me to go and figure that out.
Joe: Yeah. That tracks.
David: That’s great. I gotta get going, too, because I didn’t know if you noticed. I’m. I’m inside, Dave. And Buster’s right now, and there’s something going on outside.
Greg: Well, that works for me, so, guys, I will see you soon. All right?
Joe: See you soon.