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This week, on Jarnathan and the Fireball of Honor:
It’s time for Joe’s Pick®, and this year it’s easily one of the best movies of the 2020s: 2023’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, from Game Night directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley.
Smoosh together the tones of The Princess Bride, Monty Python, The Lord of the Rings, the MCU, Indiana Jones, and Ocean’s Eleven, and you’re probably going to end up with one of the best movies of all time. Wait, is Hugh Grant in it? He is, so we’re good. Greg and Joe dig into the heist-crew chemistry, the practical-feeling magic, and why this might be the easiest Great Great Movie award they’ve ever handed out. Hold on… is Jarnathan here? Let’s wait for Jarnathan, obviously.
Note: This transcript has been auto-generated, so… You know… It’s not our fault.
Greg: Joe. The movie we watched this week is based on a famous role playing game. When you were growing up, did you have a favorite like board game or role playing game?
Joe: I never got into role playing games. I kind of wish I had. I played as an adult because my son really got into DMD. For a few years. And so I played one time I got what they call one shot and it was really fun, so I wish I had done that, but we played all of them growing up.
Joe: So like monopoly we even tried like mousetrap. I’m actually a card player. I really prefer card. So I love like hearts and spades and.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: You know cribbage and those sorts of things and poker a little bit here and there. Sure. But I do enjoy a good family game night every once in a while, so that’s pretty fun. What about you, Greg? One of our in the swineherd family. You’d be the youngest. So was that, like, for there lots of fights for I, my brother and I.
Joe: There are many games that ended up right across the room because someone was losing.
Greg: So that’s a really important part to this question, isn’t it? Your birth order?
Joe: Yes.
Greg: I was definitely the worst player in whatever game we played. I was not a role playing game person. I the longer the game, the harder it was for me to kind of get into it because I was already, you know, so behind my older sisters and my parents. So my favorite games were like the simpler ones that we could play where it was a little bit of an even playing field, like sorry.
Greg: We definitely played cribbage.
Joe:
Greg: Boggle was a big deal I remember growing up but I think sorry I mean the one game I think of is sorry. So that was probably my first choice every time I did it because it was like I think a seven year old didn’t understand.
Joe: That’s that’s a good one. It’s surprisingly competitive too.
Greg: But it was just like a mistake to get out monopoly almost every week of the year. The week between Christmas and New Year’s is the only week you can fit in one game of monopoly, but you’re actually finished.
Joe: Yeah, I had some friends in high school. We would play monopoly. Everyone had to put in $5 or something like that, and the winner took it home. And those are the only games I’m not playing that were ever finished. And they even those we kind of got to this point where just like we’re done right? Yeah, we’re done with this game.
Joe: And we had a totally a house rule that we started with. No one started with money. That was the I had never done that. So like on your first trip around the board, you could only make money. You couldn’t lose money. Oh that was the rule. And then once you started, then you got once you got your $200 for passing go.
Joe: It was all bets are off. It was very interesting.
Greg: Okay. I thought you were gonna say there was no money. It was all drugs.
Joe: Yeah, it should have been. I mean, that was the lesson. I think they were trying to teach us.
Greg: All right, so we get the show.
Joe: Let’s do it.
Clip: Here’s the thing. We’re a team of thieves. And when you do this, you’re bound to make enemies.
Clip: Sometimes those enemies come looking for revenge.
Clip: Okay, truth be told, we help the wrong person steal the wrong thing.
Clip: We didn’t mean to unleash the greatest evil the world has ever known, but we’re gonna fix it.
Joe: So how do we pull that off? Figure it out over a drink.
Clip: Probably best. You need to give us a fighting chance. We’re going to need strength. You got this right. I know you don’t.
Clip: Understand? We also need courage back. You do magic.
Clip: And you? This one’s dangerous.
Clip: But whatever happens.
Clip: We’ll be ready.
Clip: For.
Joe: Ladies and gentlemen, coming in a little different this episode as this is my pick. So the year 2023. And that’s right. Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daly are back. Fresh off their success of game night, they decided to make a movie about a game directly, not walking around the edges of it. But we’re going in hot. We’re coming in with a with a movie called Dungeons and Dragons Honor Among Thieves, one of my favorite movies.
Joe: Maybe ever. Honestly, we’re talking first time Michelle Rodriguez, who should only do comedy after this movie. I think it’s ready. Gene Paige makes an appearance. We have Justice Smith, Sophia Willis, Hugh Grant is hilarious and this movie again should only do comedy is going forward. Chloe Coleman they the head in it. We have an amazing cameo by Bradley Cooper and then reading the IMDb page somehow, Tom Morello shows up in this movie.
Joe: Oh, I had not. I’ve seen this movie like five times and I missed that. So that’s right. We are talking about Dungeons and Dragons Honor Among Thieves. What is probably the best definition of an action comedy out there? I find this movie to be both hilarious and just a joy to watch, but Greg’s fine art. You’ve never seen this movie.
Joe: What makes Dungeons Dragons Honor Among Thieves a great bad movie?
Greg: Do you think that every movie from now on should just have the Princess Bride vibes?
Joe: I think so, yeah.
Greg: Do you think we’d get tired of that? I feel like I.
Joe: Know.
Greg: Right from the beginning I was like, oh, the tone of this movie is amazing. I love this movie already. From the very first scene when we meet Chris Pine. Yeah. Michelle Rodriguez, they’re in a jail cell.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And like, an ogre is put in their cell, and.
Joe: It’s.
Greg: Hilarious. From the very beginning. And it was like, oh, I’m completely on board with this from, from, like a cellular level, you know.
Joe:
Greg: I feel like this movie was made for me specifically.
Joe: I was secretly because it’s getting a gang together, and I know that that is like, like a Greg Steinhardt special. It was like, this is I, I was and I also hoped you would watch it with your kids. I don’t know if you got a chance to do that.
Greg: But no, I didn’t get the chance to do that. But, I did watch it with, Nicole. And this is not at all up her alley, and she loved it.
Joe: So, yeah.
Greg: We had a great time watching it. And, you know, we both wondered afterwards, is there going to be another one? It must be on the way. Right. And so, you know, we immediately wanted another one with this one ended, which is a great sign for a movie that’s over two hours long.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: There’s like a smirk on everyone’s face in this movie. Like they know what they’re doing.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Hugh Grant shows up and he’s just like, I’m just going to be I’m going to be funny about a bad guy. Strap in you know. Yeah I love again getting back together where some of them are talented but most of them aren’t.
Joe: Know and yeah.
Greg: Justice Smith is incredible in this movie. Chris Pine is incredible in this movie as just, like, overconfident and dumb.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And then Michelle Rodriguez is the best she’s ever been in any film. She needed 30 years to warm up, apparently. And I’m not saying she wasn’t amazing before. I just was like, I loved this movie. I, I don’t know how we call this a great bad movie. We’re going to have to really investigate where the word bad comes into play, because I don’t think there’s a bad scene in this movie.
Joe: No, I don’t I mean, if we talk about, you know, a great movie has three good scenes and no bad ones. Yeah. This have like three great scenes and then all good scenes throughout. It is just it is it is a joy to watch this movie. Every time I watch this movie, I just am sucked in. This is like the perfect Saturday afternoon movie.
Joe: I don’t care where you are in the movie. I’m going to watch the rest of it. If I if it’s on. Totally. Oh, that’s how I feel about it.
Greg: And I hope it’s on every room I walk in for the rest of my life. I watch that one Dungeons and Dragons movie.
Joe: Yeah, and I will say I was why? At the time my son was very into Dungeons Dragons. He is not a fan of this movie. No, but I think he’s just being stubborn about it because, you know, there were there were things that they took liberties with within the game, but there’s a lot of like Easter eggs for people who play the games throughout.
Joe: But you don’t have to have played it because I have played one one round and I know some of like the, the kind of jokes, you know, there’s a gelatinous cube in it and that’s kind of a famous thing within it. And there’s the scene where the person who can shapeshift goes into the castle and Mike.
Joe: You kind of do it as like that’s their turn in the game, you know. And he was frustrated because you really can only change into one shape per turn. So you know she turns into a deer and into a rabbit and into the realm multiple. And she’s a fly and all of that. Yeah. Those are things that you just have to forgive a movie like this when they’re in the middle of it.
Greg: How would we denote a different turn in a movie?
Joe: You couldn’t really. So that’s that’s how you kind of get around. But like that was her turn, like when they were trying to get information, it was, you know, I saw her.
Greg: Park.
Joe: And then, you know, Justice Smith has a part where he, you know, like a turn. So they each kind of take turns in different parts. In the beginning of the movie, as we’re kind of being introduced to the characters. And we have the Bard that’s, Chris Pine’s character and his. Yeah. In the world. I found out his job is not to be good at anything, but he inspires confidence in everybody else.
Joe: And so like he’s the person who makes the plans and he’s like, we’re going to make it. One of my favorite ones is at the end when they get through, something is like, I didn’t think that was going to work at all. He was like, but I believed in you. And he was like, that’s the whole point is he believes in you.
Joe: And then he brings out the best and in you. And so, yeah, this movie is it is to me, it’s perfect. Like it’s funny start to finish as well. Yeah, yeah. And I am like in tears at the end of it. Like my thing got me. Yeah. Every time.
Greg: You said you’ve only played D&D once. Is that because that game is still happening. Because it never ended.
Joe:
Greg: That’s my experience of Dungeons and Dragons and really. Yeah.
Joe: It’s it’s just life basically.
Greg: I have no idea.
Joe: About.
Greg: Dungeons and Dragons. I have almost zero experience with it. But the people that I know that have played long term are some of the greatest people I know. So creative, incredible actually at criticizing stories in in film because this is how they think of the world. Do you remember that show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld?
Greg: Yeah, Jerry Seinfeld, famously, Superman is his favorite character. I think he did like an American Express commercial line. And then with Superman, he had Patton Oswald, who is a, I think, a Big Daddy guy and a big comic book collector, and he was criticizing a Superman movie, and then he just said what he thought they should have done.
Greg: And it stops Jerry Seinfeld in his tracks. He’s like, hold up. That’s really good. And yeah, and I was I was like.
Joe: Yeah, that’s.
Greg: That’s just in my wiring. That’s what I do all the time, you know? Yeah. So I think it’s pretty incredible how how Dungeons and Dragons brings people together. I mean, I know a.
Joe: Movie.
Greg: Who has been has had a weekly game for so long that his his son grew up and is now lives in a different part of the country, but plays in the game every week with this guy and his friends. Just the greatest stuff. I really love how it brings people together and connects them long term, but obviously in this conversation I will have zero Dungeons and Dragons commentary to actually give.
Joe: Yeah, and I think I will have almost zero. And I think that’s what to me, this is what makes a great movie, is you don’t have to have played it to enjoy this movie. Like, I hope that there are people who are listening, who are who may have avoided this movie because they’re like, oh, it’s about Dungeons and Dragons, and it’s not my thing.
Joe: This is your thing. Trust us, this movie is really funny and just the jokes, the way they pile joke on jokes and scenes is so good.
Greg: Pretty incredible.
Joe: And then when? Oh well, I always butcher his name, but Red John Page shows up. And Chris Pine just hates him or hates to me. It never gets old of how much he just hates this guy. And Reggie John Page character is nothing but good and helpful throughout their entire time with him, and Mike makes fun of him constantly.
Joe: There’s a scene where he’s like whispering to Michelle Rodriguez and he can hear him and they’re like, how can he hear that? You know, it’s just to me, I this is one of those movies I just want to start over and over again. Yeah, it strikes me that this may be a boring episode for folks to hear us just prattle on about how much we love this movie, but I do think that there are probably some things to talk about when this cast I feel like is perfect.
Joe: There’s not one person in it that I want, and it made me want more of all of them. Yeah, made me want more Michelle Rodriguez doing comedy. Yeah, she is so funny in this. She was the question mark that I had when I first went into this movie of like, okay. And then she is so perfect and a deadpan perfect throughout this entire movie.
Greg: And her stunt work is incredible.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. Her fight seems, that it’s so fun. Yeah, yeah. You know, and again, in the from what I was told, you know, she’s a fighter. So she’s like the strong, you know, like, I’m not the smartest one, but in a fight is the one that you want because she can take all kinds of damage and dish out all the hit points and stuff like that in that.
Joe: Yeah. And then her and Chris Pines chemistry throughout this movie to me is so awesome.
Greg: Really good.
Joe: I really hope that they really do like each other as much as I want them. I kind of need them to.
Greg: It kind of. I mean, it’s very, very much reminded me of Game Night with Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams. They were just perfect together. And that movie in my mind. Yeah. And I got a little bit of Jason Bateman from Chris Pine in this movie occasionally.
Joe: Yeah, I can see that.
Greg: But not so much that the role wasn’t his, you know.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. And then Hugh Grant, who plays the bad guy throughout.
Joe: And I wonder how many of his lines were scripted. It’s like he has a couple moments where he just complains about stuff. Yeah. And like he has this tea that is so hot that’s blistering. It’s blisteringly hot yet again. And I’m like, whoever the wizard that is kind of the red wizard, we find out that’s like the real power behind the throne.
Joe: Like, yeah, cools it by putting her finger in and just save that for later. And such a like, perfect line. Read total, you know. And so I just enjoyed this cast.
Greg: There’s probably people listening to this that haven’t watched the movie. So just to give a sense of what the vibe of this movie is, here’s our introduction to Chris Pine and Letty. No Michelle Rodriguez, okay.
Clip: Oh, great. Another so made no fuss about it. You seem lovely. Let’s show you around. Get you situated here. This is the bucket where our pee freezes and, Yeah, let’s just. What’s your name Laughs that’s what I’m again. And you are I’ve been in a lot of cells there room several male female think I’ve been a like if word of advice Hoga doesn’t love to be disturb while she’s eating her potato.
Clip: It’s kind of the highlight of her day. Sort of. You.
Greg: So that’s that’s it. That I mean, that is the whole movie right there.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: There’s like big monsters everywhere. And it’s still somehow super fun.
Joe: Yeah. And I can totally hear that. Jason Bateman in that scene. Yeah. And somehow, again, Chris Pine should be in everything.
Greg: A great he’s pretty incredible.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I really want to rewatch Star Trek sometime soon.
Joe: Yeah, absolutely. You know, there was a big debate about who was the best. Chris. We had Chris Evans, Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth. I think we’re all in the running at different points.
Greg: Through Chris Pratt.
Joe: On Chris Pratt. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Greg: And you’re just saying I’m.
Joe: Saying any Chris will do, but Chris Pine, yeah. Chris Hemsworth I think is probably top of the list. I look because, yeah, it’s tough. I mean, I know they know.
Greg: I just saw extraction occur to you.
Joe: Yeah, I know, hold on.
Greg: It’s tough. That’s why they’re the Christmas.
Joe: Yeah I know pretty incredible. Yeah. It’s pretty. Yeah. They’ve got the gray man I mean I’m, I’m sorry. Chris Pratt, you’re out. And yet I do love you forever. Andy Dwyer, from Parks and Rec for me. So.
Greg: Totally. But if I’m hearing you right, it sounds like you liked the movie The Gray Man and. And Chris Evans and that movie.
Joe: Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, wait.
Greg: Was it not extraction? Was it the gray man that occurred to you?
Joe: It was a great man. And then I said, man, man, if I.
Joe: And then throw in a little bit of, you know, Wonder Woman for Chris Pine and this movie and yeah, I it’s a three way tie. I just can’t I can’t choose. So yeah.
Greg: I mean, it’s hard to say that Chris Pratt is the weak link, but that’s tough competition.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Okay. So can we get back to, the conversation about great, great movies? Because I feel like we kind of dangled that in front of in front of our faces. And now, no, I want to know where we’re going to land on that, because I don’t love fantasy movies. And so when we get a little bit, like, CGI ish people kind of morphing into different things, there are a lot of great shots where stuff is really creatively done with morphing into different animals, but there’s also just kind of a lot of fantasy stuff going on, like people pointing their fingers and, you know, yeah, magic’s happening.
Greg: Not as much as I would have expected. So I, I appreciated this movie for that. But the only thing for me that’s a on it is it’s a little too fantasy heavy, but I, I can’t deny it for that because the movie’s so good.
Joe: Yeah. I was secretly hoping that this would be the case because I went, I just thought that this would be like the great gift for an art special in terms of what, the kind of movie that you would like, knowing that fantasy is not your thing. And you know, there are, there are a couple rough CGI moments throughout, especially that, you know, I happened to see this in the theater and again, much better experience in the theater with, you know, better kind of technology behind it.
Joe: There are a couple like times where it does just feel like, oh, and now they’re looking at a tennis ball that is, you know, some sort of big monster type of, you know, moments. But again, this is where great characters, great writing and a funny script save. Yeah. You know, and even the action sequences which I’m usually waiting for in these sorts of movies, they’re kind of almost an afterthought to me.
Joe: And like, they’re really great. They’re really fun to watch. And there’s some really fun things. I love it when Michelle Rodriguez is fighting kind of later in the movie, and then her ax gets like burned and it comes out like learn together. I don’t hate that. And then like, looks really cool. It’s like, what a perfect way to end mad scene.
Joe: Yeah, yeah yeah, totally. So it’s it’s like those are the moments to me that just take this movie and just like turn up the volume, just the right amount at the right point where you’re just like, oh, that’s cool. That’s exactly what I would say.
Greg: Totally, totally. I will say there are a lot of scenes in this movie where crazy CGI is obviously happening behind the characters, and it is beautiful. It’s incredible. It looks unbelievable. You know, even though you’re like, that’s obviously not real. Yeah, I thought this movie probably cost like $800 million. I mean, how do you make it look that good?
Greg: Yeah. And so I don’t hate it. There were some scenes where I was like, they are definitely in a soundstage right now. And that is a green screen in front of them. Yeah. And but, you know, like when you watch The Wizard of Oz, you have that feeling too, like that’s obviously a soundstage and I’m here for it.
Greg: It’s great. So yeah, I’m not going to deny it, especially when the dialog they’re having as they’re walking, you know, pretending to walk on a mountainside. But really it’s it’s soundstage. Yeah. It’s hilarious. And it’s like, well, I could use another hour of them walking on this mountain, I guess.
Joe: I know, I know, that’s really what it is. These characters are so fun.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: That you kind of hours are sucked into their world, you know, and you meet, you know, Michelle Rodriguez and her whole guy’s ex who is, who turned out to be Bradley Cooper. Who’s this like halfling, I think. Yeah. And it’s the you know, it’s like they have actually a really poignant theme. Totally together. Yeah. And yet, you know, it’s, it’s just again, everything is perfect throughout this movie.
Joe: And it is it’s a long movie and that doesn’t feel like it to me throughout.
Greg: You know, it’s crazy about that scene with Bradley Cooper is he was added at the very last minute in post-production. That’s crazy. So like they were done filming and then they added Bradley Cooper to that scene. I wonder who was recast. Yeah, it’s incredible how good these actors are because they were definitely not in the room at the same time.
Greg: They were definitely not actually responding from each other and they were amazing.
Joe: That’s awesome. That’s that’s wild justice Smith I had never seen before as perfect as the pretty terrible wizard.
Joe: Sophia Lillis is the shapeshifter Derek. She’s been in some other stuff that I have seen before, and she was in a Netflix show. And there was it was interesting. It was kind of like, a different take on Carrie, almost. I am not okay with this was the show and it was it was a really good dark thing.
Joe: Maybe there’s magic. Maybe there isn’t. Yeah. Kind of TV show out there. And one of my favorite artists, says that was the guitar player for blur.
Greg: Are you talking about Graham Coxon?
Joe: Yeah. Graham Coxon does the music for that show. Oh, wow. And actually, there’s, a band that’s called Blood Witch. And so he created a whole album for Blood Witch, and it’s an amazing album.
Greg: Not a surprise that got can put together a record in a month.
Joe: It’s so good. It’s so good. And I looked it up. I was like, oh, there’s blood, which I and but it’s like, you look at this. Oh it’s Graham Box. And he did it and did it just for that show. And it’s amazing. So Graham Coxon again just being of genius.
Greg: For the win. Yeah. Is he in blur right now. Can we have a segment called is Graham Coxon currently on blur. Because he famously left.
Joe: He famously left. And then I thought that he came back for some of their reunion tour and then for the Magic Whip. I think he is, although I don’t know because I thought they had another album that I haven’t listened to that came out after that. I don’t know if he is that and The Magic Whip really is them getting back to their 90s Britpop sound, and there’s some great songs on there that’s awesome.
Greg: The answer to the question is yes, he is currently okay, so I guess we’re done here. We did it.
Joe: Nailed it right? Episode.
Greg: You saw him when he came to town after he had left blur and started putting out solo records, right?
Joe: I never saw them.
Greg: I did okay, he played. He played Chop Suey in Seattle.
Joe: Oh, my God, that’s such a great place to see a show.
Greg: Did he put out like, he put out like three records in three years. And they were incredible. They were so good.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I like Think Tank though as well.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah.
Greg: Okay. So there’s been a lot of talk lately. If we could sidebar for a second, since you bring up our.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: To have the conversation that needs to be had about Dungeons and Dragons honor among thieves, we probably need to sidebar about Blur and Oasis.
Joe:
Greg: There’s a lot of conversation happening about Oasis right now because they did some shows and then they made a documentary, and now they’ve announced more shows for next year.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Where do you stand on blur versus Oasis?
Joe: I was always Team Blur. Really? Yeah. Okay. I like their music better than Oasis. Oasis, yes. And they’re they’re like, well, we would be as big as the Beatles. Nonsense. When they say to me, we’re like, copying the Beatles sound was I just was like, unforgivable to me.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: And right when the Great Escape comes out, I mean, there’s a great Oasis album that comes out right at that time as well. But I got again, I’m just, I was a blur person. Still am through and through. I will listen to 13 and Blur and The Great Escape at least 2 or 3 times a year.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah I just love it. Every single time I go back in there.
Greg: So I listen to 13 once a year for sure.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I listen to Think Tank as well.
Joe: I remember we saw Oasis went live together.
Greg: That’s right. Do you remember the night that I came home and I said, I heard a new song, and I need to play it for you right now. And it was Wonderwall.
Joe: Yeah, I do, I remember that. And. And Mike, I feel like the next night we were watching them live.
Greg: It was. Yeah, like weeks later for sure.
Joe: Yeah. It was, it wasn’t the next night, but it felt like we.
Greg: You passed out. Yeah.
Joe: And you woke.
Greg: Up in the car on the way to that show. To be fair. So it felt like the next day for you.
Joe: Yeah, I was drugged. It’s, It’s a thing. It’s fine.
Greg: I was Oasis, then I was blur, and then I just. I was like, who am I kidding? I think I bought what’s the story? Morning glory for the fourth time, like with real money, I purchased that album, and the fourth time I bought it, I was like, you know what? I think it’s time for me to be honest here.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And while I listen to a blur record a couple of blur records every year, I listen to Oasis. I listen to their catalog probably three times a year, and I will go back to certain albums monthly, probably. Right. So I’m Oasis, and I found out that I don’t need to feel shame about that. Yeah, I think I’m Tom Updike.
Greg: Okay. Because people from England think that blur are pretentious art school kids, and Oasis came basically from the projects. They’re like the Jay-Z of England.
Joe: Right?
Greg: So that’s why I’m better than you. Is that was the wrong okay.
Joe: We got there. Yeah.
Greg: Because I care about the people. Jail.
Joe: That’s right, that’s right. And I’m just some art school dropout that’s named universities. That’s right. I accept this,
Greg: Should we start a band called the Nepo Babies?
Joe: Maybe, if it doesn’t already exist. I feel like that’s. We should, like, copyright that name, and then we can at least make some money when someone tries to start that band, and then we sue them and then say, you can have it for $50,000, and we.
Greg: Go, oh, that’s a good.
Joe: Idea. You know, 3% off the back end of anything you all do with that one.
Greg: This must be already copyright and out there.
Joe: I’m sure, I’m sure it’s got to be there’s got to be some terrible band in Orange County. That’s the nipple.
Greg: Babies. This started being an old idea eight years ago. You feel like it’s brand new?
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: We’re geniuses.
Joe: Yeah. That’s what happens when you’re a parent. Your ideas are just like, so behind.
Greg: Okay, we can beat up with sidebar.
Joe: Okay. Thank you. You know. Okay. This movie is great. Everyone should watch it. It’s a joy. Yeah. And, you know, it’s a feel good movie through and through as well. And there’s just there’s not, there’s not a bad scene in this movie, and it’s funny. Start to finish. And then that to me is always rare in a comedy.
Joe: Usually I feel like comedies like the first 30 minutes are make the funniest things you’ve ever seen. And then they get into the plot and then they kind of lose the humor that kind of started it off and their irreverence. And this movie is just start to finish. The funniest movie you’ve seen in a long time.
Greg: Are there other movies that it reminds you of? I got Princess Bride vibes immediately. But are there any other movies that kind of come to mind?
Joe: I kind of got Spaceballs vibes from it. Oh wow. In terms of if I had seen this movie because I saw Spaceballs in the theater when I was like 11, which was the perfect time to have seen that movie, when it was just like, I felt like every fart joke was written for me. It was how I felt watching it.
Joe: And as someone who grew up watching Star Wars movies and the fact that they were making fun of it and all the references that they were making to it, like I was just like, I will never not think that that movie is perfect.
Greg: I watched it three weeks ago. Yeah, with my son, who’s ten.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. And it’s at again, like getting to watch it through their eyes is probably just as fun. So that’s what this movie reminded me of. Of, a Spaceballs for another Generation. Okay. Or something I watched with my son. He didn’t like it, but, you know. No. Let him. He can not like it, but he’ll.
Greg: Love sorry in the movie because he doesn’t play. Sorry.
Joe: Exactly.
Greg: Oh, I just it just occurred to me there are probably other board game movies we could watch in a series like battleship.
Joe: Yeah. Oh.
Greg: We’re going to get to battleship.
Joe: Oh, we’re so getting the battleship. And the way they stitch battleship into that movie is so good. I mean, just.
Greg: As classy as it gets.
Joe: Oh my gosh.
Greg: What a great movie. I mean we’re talking Liam Neeson Rihanna, Jesse Plemons Peter Berg directed it.
Joe:
Greg: That’s why Jesse Plemons is in it from Friday Night Lights. I mean there are 18 of our best actors in that movie. They were trying to make a Transformers movie I feel like.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: But it’s better.
Joe: It’s it’s underrated. I think it’s one of our better aliens come to Earth movies. And try to take over, you know. Yeah.
Greg: It’s one of our better Hasbro movies.
Joe: I yeah, I think it’s this. And, Independence Day are probably the two best. Yeah. Aliens are going to blow up the world movies.
Greg: Okay, like, E.T. almost just walked into your place.
Joe: And.
Greg: Did a little cigaret burn on your arm.
Joe: With his finger.
Greg: But yeah, aliens going to blow up the Earth.
Joe: And strip all the resources out of it and go on to the next planet. As they always are, I want to do that.
Greg: Seems like a pretty good idea.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I can’t discredit them for that of you.
Joe: Know, I can’t fault them. If they have the capabilities to get here, they can have it. Will we get to Independence Day or we have to get independence? Yeah. That movie is ridiculous. Do you think we could just.
Greg: Spend a year on Will Smith movies?
Joe: I think you could. I would, I would burn out after like, three.
Greg: Okay, okay. That’s right. We did learn that about Will Smith and you.
Joe: But that I could get through Independence Day. And that’s probably my favorite Will Smith movie.
Greg: Okay, let’s see if I go back to how we got here. Movies that this reminds us of. I definitely got Indiana Jones in this movie. There were a lot of, quick humor moments where Chris Pine was pulling, Harrison Ford. I felt like. Yeah.
Joe: Sidebar again on Spaceballs.
Greg: Oh, sure.
Joe: Let’s get back to that. Yeah.
Greg: Spaceballs two coming in this next year.
Joe: I know the search for more money. So Lone Stars character, was going to be modeled after Han Solo. Yeah. And they said Mel Brooks, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. George Lucas. Yeah. And he was like, you can’t do that. So they dressed him like Indiana Jones.
Joe: It’s not like that was like, they’re little, like, okay. He’s gone. That’s his character. They can’t cross them over. So well, we’ll have him be this other.
Greg: That’s really funny.
Joe: I was like, okay, that is, my.
Greg: Son was trying to ask me why. Why is he Lone Star? How does that apply to Star Wars? And I was like, I don’t know. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: He did ask me, is he named Lone Star? Because that’s the isn’t that a beer in Texas? I was like, why on earth?
Joe: Awesome.
Greg: I mean, Bill Pullman president, Bill Pullman from Independence Day.
Joe: Yeah, I know all the ties to this episode right here. So yeah.
Greg: Yeah, I met him when I worked for the Seattle International Film Festival.
Joe: Awesome. I hope he was lovely because I was, like.
Greg: The nicest guy.
Joe: Yeah, yeah, he said.
Greg: It’s really nice to be in Seattle, wasn’t he? And Sleepless.
Joe: In Seattle. Yeah. You’re right. Yeah. Cause no, not sleepless.
Greg: Tom Hanks for Sleepless in Seattle. Yeah.
Joe: But he was another one, while you were sleeping. Hold up a Sandra Bullock, right? Yeah.
Greg: All right, so I think Meg Ryan was with Bill Pullman in Sleepless in Seattle, and she left him to go look into whether Tom Hanks was the right person for her. So at the Seattle International Film Festival, he said, I was in a movie.
Joe: Right?
Greg: That had to do with Seattle. And the whole place lost their minds. And he was like, unfortunately, I don’t think I filmed here because I was I was in like New York or Chicago or something in the movie. So let’s play that scene where I immediately was like, oh, that’s totally Indiana Jones right here.
Clip: This I give you now, trusting that you are protected with your very life, I will.
Clip: Feel this.
Greg: Hands it off. Incredible. The hard pivot that he does so many times in this movie. Here’s another moment.
Joe: So many of my kin gave their lives in battle here. I’d always imagined I’d be buried in sacred ground like this.
Clip: Yeah. Anyone got a.
Joe: Shovel?
Greg: Can we talk about the graveyard scene?
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Maybe one of the best scenes in cinematic history, to be honest.
Joe: Agreed.
Greg: If. If someone listening to this doesn’t feel like watching this movie, it’s on Netflix right now. You can watch it. Yeah, I bet this is on YouTube, though, as well. The graveyard scene. Is this the thing in Dungeons and Dragons? Is this like a common thing? You can go to someone’s grave and you can ask them five questions, and then they’ll they’ll go back to being dead.
Joe: It’s got to be a special spell that Wizards can have. Okay. You know, because I think a lot of what that character has are, are very specific to the game.
Greg: Can we hear the scene where they wake up the first guy and asking the five questions?
Joe: Okay, yes.
Greg: I feel like we need to paint the picture for people who haven’t seen this movie, what the vibe is like.
Joe: What they’re trying to do, if you haven’t seen the movie is tracked down, there’s Magic Helmet. And so they’re asking at the battle where this magic helmet was last seen. They’re digging up the corpses, essentially. Yeah. And getting the story of of the magic helmet. They need to break into the castle. That’s all you need to know.
Greg: Such a great idea for. I mean, this should happen in every movie. It is the greatest idea for how to get from here to there for a MacGuffin you’re looking for. It’s just perfect. But here’s here’s how this movie was.
Clip: It scared me. Really startled.
Clip: Here we go.
Clip: Were you killed in the battle? They have a horse? Yes. Great. I mean, not for you. I’m sorry for your loss or question, right? Yes. No, no, that was the one for you. Did that count as a question? Yes. Damn it. Only answer when I talk to you. Okay? Yes. Why did you say okay at the end of that?
Clip: I didn’t. Fantastic. First the shovel.
Greg: That’s unbelievable.
Joe: That’s like 100 out of 100. No notes. Yeah, that is a perfect moment. So then they keep.
Greg: Waking people up and they’re getting exactly the information they need. And then the person is killed and they accidentally wake up the guy’s brother rather than. Is it? Then they wake up Sven. Yeah. Just incredible. They get to the last guy. They’re they’re all, like, impatient. And, they’ve asked him for questions. And here’s where we get with that.
Clip: Excuse me. I’m still alive. Right. What’s your favorite book? Hard to pick just one. This question. Right. Oh, guns of historical works. I’d say the final tome of, like, fantasies are. That was only the fourth question. Hello?
Joe: Oh, that’s.
Greg: So they think they’ve asked him the fifth question. They walk away. Yeah. He knows that it’s only been the fourth and they just leave it. And then there’s the most amazing call back at the end of the movie.
Joe:
Greg: Do you think that every movie should have something after the credits?
Joe: I don’t think every movie needs it. I think Marvel has kind of ruined, it where everyone is expecting it, especially in superhero movies. I’m like, what’s the after credit thing? What does it mean?
Greg: Yep, yep.
Joe: This is a perfect use of it. It’s a perfect callback. If you don’t see it. It doesn’t change the movie experience at all. Right? And if you stay through the credits, you get that one little laugh at the end. Yeah. One more time to bring it back home. And it’s a perfect it’s perfect.
Greg: So and this one isn’t it’s the in between the like highly stylized casts of the movie credits. Before we get to the scrolling credits. Yeah, it’s like the in between. We’re not making families sit through a whole credits ten minute experience, but I feel like every comedy should have something funny after the credits. Every single company should have that.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: I don’t know if I fully agree on every single comedy, but I think let’s aspire to that and then let’s raise the bar. This movie’s done it. So next, next movie up. Let’s go.
Greg: I don’t think this movie does it after the full credits though, it’s just no.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: Anyways, just perfect callback. All right, Joel, I’m assuming everybody we know and love and everybody that listens to this show has watched this movie by now. But if not in the small chance that somebody is listening to this that has not watched this movie before, let’s pretend you’re walking through Blockbuster Video.
Joe: And.
Greg: You’re picking up boxes off the shelf, as when it was like 2005 and you’re reading those boxes to see if you’re interested in the movie, if it’s the one that you should rent tonight. That’s right. It’s time for the back of the box.
Joe: It’s the back of the box. Sometimes you just need to find the right team to storm the castle. Follow this band of misfits into the depths of the underworld and into the ancient battlefield of yard. As they search for a way to stop the impending doom, sure to wipe out the kingdom. They may not necessarily be the people you want, but maybe they are the people we need.
Greg: That’s amazing. I think I rented every day of the week.
Joe: Okay, sweet.
Greg: But this I’m not asking just for, like, marketing here, right?
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I think it’s time that we cut to the chase. It’s time to let Joe Skywalker be Joe Skywalker and give us the actual, honest, real back in the box.
Joe: All right. I love this movie. It is a perfect action comedy with just the right amount of poignancy to have you shot it here at the end. You don’t need to have played dad to enjoy it either. I’m sure there are jokes that went over my head because I never played, but it did not affect my enjoyment of this movie at all.
Joe: It is a crime that this movie is not more highly regarded.
Greg: What have you heard? How is it not well regarded?
Joe: I mean, I’m kind of more basing that off of. I just don’t see it on like lists of the top movies or, you know, I don’t know that I would have seen it if I didn’t have my son playing daddy every week. Yeah, during the pandemic. And it feels like it kind of came and went faster than it should have.
Joe: Yeah. And I feel like this, the fact that we don’t have dad three and four in the works, it kind of boggles my mind a lot. Yeah. I’m, I’m more basing that off of my own gut feeling that it’s not as highly regarded as it should be. And it may and may be really highly card. We’ll get to that I guess.
Joe: Facts and figures are coming up next.
Greg: So so my pick last year was game night I can’t remember. You hadn’t seen that movie before when I picked it. Right. Okay.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: So this movie was totally on my radar because of game night. But then you’re right, it kind of did come and go and I didn’t see it.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: By the way I’m so glad you make this movie this week. All right. Should we get to box office. And the critical response for this movie.
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: All right Joe this movie came out in 2023. What do you think the budget was for this movie.
Joe: It is a beautiful film. I’m going to go though. I’m going to go 125 million oh 150.
Greg: Okay. Sounds like they could have saved some money.
Joe: Yeah, probably. They come to me and I, but I hooked them up.
Greg: So here’s what’s crazy. It made $93.5 million domestically and 100, almost 112 internationally, for a total of $205 million.
Joe: Okay. So it didn’t break even.
Greg: Yeah. You kind of have to, like, double it and then add a little bit more, probably to cover marketing costs. And this movie didn’t. And crazy thing happened right after this movie came out. Super Mario Brothers came out and made like $1.3 billion or something. And so this movie was delayed quite a few times, I think, because of Covid.
Greg: And there might have been other reasons as well. And it just happened to come out when an international sensation came out and and also kind of took the game narrative as well.
Joe: Right.
Greg: On planet Earth. So.
Joe: Right.
Greg: Not as successful. Which probably leads to that feeling that you had. What do you think the critical response for this movie was, though? What’s the Rotten Tomatoes critic percentage.
Joe: Feels like a 70? Since we’re doing it.
Greg: I kind of feel like it’s more like an 85. Like it’s a great, great movie.
Joe: Yeah, I’m going to go a little higher. I’m actually going to go in 85, I think I feel like, okay, yeah, it’s a to me, I am a I’m hoping that our hometown paper really like the where McDonald’s saw this and loved it doesn’t have the rock so it’s probably down.
Greg: So it’s anyone’s guess. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. 2.5 out of four stars or whatever. Her usual. But yeah I go 85.
Greg: Maybe if it had been Dungeons and Dragons and hops.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: By the way, not a bad idea for a sequel.
Joe: Idea at all. I mean, I watched that movie every day of the week.
Greg: Do this movie has a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes from the critics.
Joe: Wow.
Greg: Okay, now let’s get to. We only have 2500 verified ratings from the audience, which is a little low. What do you think the audience response is? What’s the popcorn meter on Rotten Tomatoes?
Joe: I then off on the popcorn meter I’m going to go 85. I’m going to just going to stick with my guns on this one.
Greg: 92 also really high So let’s find out what is behind those numbers here. Let’s get Soren Anderson, our friend Soren Anderson, wrote about this movie in the Seattle Times in March of 2023, and he says the picture moves nimbly from set piece to set piece, never losing the narrative thread. And allowing the actors to inhabit their characters with great empathy.
Greg: Three and a half out of four stars I agree.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Next we’ve got, Sam Tillman from Slate’s Sam Road as an adoption of the source material. I think it’s probably not too grand to say it works perfectly. Great. Kyle Smith from the Wall Street Journal says it’s a blizzard of rubbish.
Joe: I’m just going to.
Greg: Ring the bell immediately because I disagree with his podcast. It’s a blizzard of rubbish, lurching from one barely explained magical gizmo or beast to another. So quickly that none of it has any impact whatsoever.
Joe: So I’m not a fan. It’s not a bad thing. Yeah.
Greg: Clarice Lowry from Independent UK says as a game, Dungeons and Dragons is all about balance. A strong team of players will know how to account for individual strengths and weaknesses. Honor Among Thieves, in turn, has found itself a cast capable of the necessary humor, sincerity and action. Four out of five stars. Variety says it’s a once cheesy and charming hold up the way.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Great name for the show.
Joe: I know that.
Greg: One’s cheesy and charming, synthetic and spectacular, cozily derivative and rambunctious, inventive, a processed piece of junk culture joy that by the end may bring it here to your eye.
Joe: Every time I watch this movie. Yeah, when Michelle Rodriguez’s character. Sorry, Railers. Yeah, yeah, passes away and it’s. Yeah, it gets me every single time. Yeah. And the whole plot of the movie is around Chris Pine bringing his wife back. And then when they bring Michelle Rodriguez’s character back, it’s just it’s perfect. And it’s it’s like, I don’t know how they do it, because by that point I’m like, it’s just a comedy.
Joe: I’m just like watching these fun characters. And then I’m.
Greg: Like, totally.
Joe: So drawn in to.
Greg: Them. But also what what a great character moment for her when she wakes up and says, you wasted it on me like you wasted on me.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: So it’s like she it’s exposing what she thinks of herself and what they are saying to her, as by doing that.
Joe:
Greg: There’s a lot there’s a lot packed in that one moment. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: All right Bill get a Barry from New York magazine says Dungeons and Dragons honor among thieves is the work of filmmakers who understand that the best way to take stuff like this seriously is not to take it seriously at all, and to have fun with it. Other movies could learn from the example.
Joe: Agreed.
Greg: All right, I have two more for you. The first is Kevin Moore, our favorite guy who runs hot and cold in the times UK. Kevin says best of all, there’s genuine heart here, as well as glimpses of depth. Four out of five stars.
Joe: Wow.
Greg: Kevin gets it.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: All right. And let’s finish up with one of my favorite people on the planet. Helen O’Hara from Empire magazine says, reveling in its own ridiculousness but finding an emotional core to this is a wildly entertaining, high fantasy meets low comedy. Four out of five stars.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Reveling in its own ridiculousness. By the way.
Joe: Yeah, yeah, that’s probably the best show.
Greg: All right, Joe, should we get to drinking games?
Joe: Absolutely. Let’s do it. We will start with our stock drinking games. You know, again, you don’t have to be drinking alcohol for these. Could be whatever. Whatever’s handy. Whatever whatever is your favorite, beverage of choice? Yeah. Because this this is a fantasy there. Some of our drinking games don’t necessarily land. That said, there are a fair amount in there.
Joe: We do not have a silent helicopter. We do not have push an enhanced. We do have a slow motion. Look, when people share our, shared slow motion look in the middle of chaos. We don’t have silent suffering or ringing in the ears, but we do have the opening credits scene locking in a place to the sound.
Joe: The score kind of rises up and totally there’s a special animation around it. We do have a flashback to dialog. We have some bad CGI. I did put that in there, specially in a couple scenes, and then we have some great bad shots throughout. But no, I did not notice. Inexplicably wet streets. There are a lot of shots of them riding horses, but I didn’t notice the streets being when I think because they were on soundstages.
Joe: And then the shots of the horses were very clearly second unit. Let’s get our stunt coordinators out there and we’ll just spin around them a little bit. The, Lord of the rings movies is what I was getting from from that. Well, yeah.
Greg: Yeah, they’re in there too.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Yeah, totally.
Joe: So, No, give us the room. No Interpol and no cell phone. Smash. I toss it to you. Greg, sweetheart, what is your first bespoke drinking game?
Greg: Every time Chris Pine plays some music, take a drink.
Joe: Nice. I have anytime they mentioned Jonathan. Take a drink.
Greg: Jonathan.
Joe: Jonathan? Yeah. Jonathan.
Greg: That’s totally my next one. So how dare you? I have, every time the sorcerer lady takes off her hood.
Joe: Oh, awesome. You know what I have? I have every time the sorcerer lady has her hood on.
Greg: Oh, nice. Okay, so two different games, two different people at the party watching this movie.
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: Okay. My next one is every time Chris Pine comes up with a new plan, take a drink.
Joe: Yeah. And pace yourself for that one, because he comes up with a lot of plans. This is a this one happens only once. But finish your drink anytime there is conversation around linseed oil.
Greg: That’s great. Every time someone asks a dead corpse a question, take a drink.
Joe: So, anytime you see a dragonfly in this movie, you take a drink.
Greg: Oh, that’s good. Every time. What’s her name transforms into a different creature. Take a drink. And if she transforms into an owlbear, take two drinks.
Joe: Yeah, perfect. I have anytime Hugh Grant complains. Take a drink.
Greg: Every time Zinke takes a metaphor completely. Literally. Take a drink.
Joe: Yeah. Awesome. Any time there’s a potato, take a drink.
Greg: I’m out. Do you have any more?
Joe: I had any time. You have shots of them on horses, and it’s like the big panoramic clear the second unit team. Take a drink. Okay?
Greg: Okay.
Joe: That’s all right there, but I’m out.
Greg: This is going to be a good time if you watch this movie with your friends.
Joe: Yes.
Greg: All right, Joe, there are things in these movies that we watch. I don’t know how many are going to be in this movie. This is the common thing with great, great movies where sometimes the tropes don’t hit as hard. But a lot of times there are things in the movie that turn it into one of our movies. So it’s time for Joe’s trope Lightning Round, aka signs.
Greg: You might be watching a great bad movie. All right, I’m starting the clock.
Joe: All right. Someone says you’re making a mistake. Hugh Grant says that people unconvincingly knocked out. We have a ragtag crew, redemption as a driver of the, protagonist. Odd couple. Unlikely, unlikely. Partnerships. Kind of. One last job, a very charismatic bad guy. And Hugh Grant, who is amazing in this, a conversation that happened in the middle of chaos or car chases, amazing recovery time, sort of downloading a file under pressure in some of the scenes where they’re trying to get, you know, through.
Joe: And then the protagonists are captured but not killed right away and saved by their wiles. That is our trope. Lightning round. Wow. Under the gun. Nice.
Greg: All right, Joe, is there anything else you want to say about the Lightning Round?
Joe: I will just say that I was surprised that we had as many tropes as we did because as I was watching the movie, I just like this movie is perfect in every way, and it’s not going to have any tropes. But the beauty of our trope Lightning Round is that the tropes grow and grow and grow. And so, all told, for our listeners to know how many do we have?
Joe: There are 78 potential tropes fire trope, lightning round. Wow. So so yeah, that’s But it was, I was happy to see that there were some tropes in there, so that was a joy for me.
Greg: All right. So there’s some very key things we’ve been dancing around. In this conversation, the elephant in the room is it needs to be addressed. Yeah. Let’s get to important questions. First. Important question. Did this movie hold up in 2023?
Joe: Yeah, I think it did.
Greg: Of course it did. I didn’t see it then but I’m assuming.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. Does it hold up now. Yeah I almost feel like it holds up more now because I think movies that are standalone in a way where you want more, but they’re not they’re kind of have more, more umph to them. So every time I watch it, I’m like, why isn’t there at least one, if not two more of these that I can complain that they missed the mark on because it’s not as good as the first one?
Greg: I think something about holding it up in fantasy movies is I think I’m we’re much more forgiving of fantasy movies with holding up. I think this movie might be timeless.
Joe: I agree, I think this is great. Yeah.
Greg: When was the last time you watched The Princess Bride?
Joe: Maybe two years ago.
Greg: What do you think? Did it hold up?
Joe: Yeah, I was like, this movie is amazing. Yeah. And the way that I also know that it’s like a perfect movie is like the thought of people remaking it. Makes me so angry. Yeah. It’s like, how dare you remake it? We have made you have perfection. Totally. I remember the first time I watched the Princess Bride, and it blew my mind because they.
Greg: Totally.
Joe: Played with the normal kind of tropes and arcs of movies that I was used to. And, you know, when the when the Wesley character dies and I was just like, what is happening? They can’t do this.
Greg: Well, spoilers for The Princess Bride.
Joe: I know I was totally Fred Savage in that movie, and, it was it. I just couldn’t believe it. I could not believe what was what I was watching and I love, I loved it, but I was so confused.
Greg: I was totally Peter Falk. That’s why we get along.
Joe: So, yeah.
Joe: Welcome to our podcast.
Joe: All right.
Greg: How hard do they sell the good guy in this movie? Joe.
Joe: I don’t think that they really do a, classic. Now, the good guy.
Greg: It’s not a Steven Seagal movie in any way. No, I know how hard they sell the bad guy.
Joe: They kind of do, because they have the opening speech when he is like, yes, again, to the parole board, like setting it up. Although we don’t really know that he’s the bad guy until we get back and meet him. So, yeah.
Greg: All right Joe hard question.
Joe:
Greg: But an important question. Yeah. There’s no way around this. We have to go straight through it. Okay. Okay. Why is there romance in this movie.
Joe: There’s not a lot of romance in it, but it really is the driver of Chris Pine’s character to bring his wife back who has been killed.
Greg: Yeah. And Justice Smith, is a little creepy in pursuing.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: What’s her name?
Joe: Zorich. Yeah.
Greg: I feel like we could have lost that.
Joe: Yeah, they kind of play it out for jokes, but it doesn’t necessarily drive anything in the plot of the movie. Yeah, yeah, but I think there’s just the right amount of romance in it. Like, they seem to have a really nice, beautiful, you know, relationship. And as we’re going through the movie, you’re with them going, okay, let’s bring her back.
Joe: You know, you see he wants to bring his family back together. Everybody is, you know, on board with this plan and he has to learn to let go. And that she has gone and that’s. Yeah it’s a really touching moment at the end as well. So a rare.
Greg: Romance pass from Joe Tucker.
Joe: That’s what I tell you. This movie has it all for me.
Greg: Are we bad people for loving this movie?
Joe: No. This movie, we are good people.
Greg: We have never been better people for loving this movie.
Joe: Exactly. Agreed.
Greg: All right, next important question. Does it deserve a sequel?
Joe: Absolutely. Yeah. I’m sad it doesn’t have one. This is a gang that I want to hang out with.
Greg: Okay, so these guys really thought they were going to get a sequel? I think everybody involved did. It’s still a thing being spoken of. So it’s not like there’s not going to be a sequel. It’s just questionable because of the money that it made. Yeah. So now’s the time that we should mention a movie called Mayday just came out with Kenneth Branagh and Ryan Reynolds that these guys directed on Apple TV.
Greg: I’ve heard very mixed reviews on this movie, which is kind of my gift to everybody. Lowering the bar. Yeah, in case you love it. Yeah. Kenneth Branagh has some amazing fight scenes. I watched like the first half hour the other night, see what the vibe was. Okay? And it’s basically like.
Joe: A Top Gun.
Greg: Spin. It takes place like two years after Top Gun, and it’s it’s a world of Navy pilots that is aware of the movie Top Gun.
Joe: I’m in. I mean, this movie and I mean, I didn’t like Game night as much as you did or do. But I feel like.
Greg: What if I’ve turned on it. What if I hit it now.
Joe: Yeah, yeah yeah I know it. But these are now directors, writer directors that I will watch everything that they do. Yeah. You know and for me game night what it has that is very similar is it’s true to its world and it’s ridiculous. But it’s, it’s funny start to finish and there’s just ridiculousness within it. They are on to something.
Joe: This group, you know, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein I will watch any movie they do. I just think that they’re totally they understand that action comedy blend, which is a hard one to land, I think, as well.
Greg: I mean, they filmed Game Night, it’s a comedy film, like a thriller.
Joe:
Greg: And this is a comedy filmed as a fantasy movie.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: So this movie doesn’t have a sequel, but it does have made a we can watch made a enjoy these guys. So at least we have that.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: All right next important question. Does it deserve a prequel.
Joe: No I’m out on prequels. Yeah. Oh yeah. Almost always.
Greg: Should it have been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars in 2024?
Joe: I don’t even need to see the here than than movies. The answer is yes, but wow it up again.
Greg: Hold up. That’s a first.
Joe: Yeah, as a first.
Greg: This is a year we’ve spoken of before. It is up against American fiction. Anatomy of a fall, Barbie, The Holdovers, killers of the Flower Moon, maestro Oppenheimer, which was the winner, Past lives, Poor Things, and The Zone of Interest. Now, I should let you know that this year came up. Because this is the year that Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning would have been nominated.
Greg: And we decided, no, it should not be nominated for Best Picture. Although you did give one caveat. You thought that Mission Impossible seven should be nominated sooner than Top Gun Maverick.
Joe: Yes, I agree on all fronts on that.
Greg: So where do you stand on Dungeons and Dragons honor among thieves against that slate?
Joe: Yeah, I slided in there. I haven’t seen any of those movies. Honestly.
Joe: I will watch Oppenheimer for her. Sam, our amazing editor. Yeah, soon. And Barbie, I will watch that. So I would get rid of any of the other eight films or this movie. And let’s throw Mission Impossible in there, too. Now I’m in.
Greg: Wow, that movie’s getting better and better in your mind.
Joe: It is. It is.
Greg: Okay, well, I will say American fiction was incredible. That was one of my favorite movies that year. The Holdovers, also one of my absolute favorite movies of that year. And Oppenheimer was my favorite, you know, in the Oscar contender category was the movie that I write. When I saw it, I was like, that should win Best Picture.
Greg: I’m gonna say, I don’t think we need Barbie on this list. Shots fired for Barbie. I think Dungeons and Dragons Honor Among Thieves is a better movie. In a movie that I think deserves to be in this list more than Barbie. As much as I love Barbie, I think I don’t think Barbie was as good as a Little Women, so I would I would lose Barbie in this movie.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: Where are we gonna put Mission Impossible seven? I’ll say, maestro.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I didn’t see maestro because I don’t know.
Joe: I’m fine. Take him out of that. It just seems.
Greg: Like, I don’t know, I had a bad and a bad taste in my mouth about maestro from the beginning. Actually, let’s give this movie let’s put this Bradley Cooper movie on this list instead of maestro.
Greg: And we’ll take out Barbie for Mission Impossible seven, which is what I wanted to do in that episode, by the way.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: Yeah. Okay. We did it. Wow. Congratulations to Dungeons and Dragons honor among thieves. I wonder if it gets a sequel now that it’s been nominated for Best Picture.
Joe: And better now, this is probably what’s going to put it over the top. Yeah. Yeah.
Greg: Totally. Joe, next important question. How can this movie be fixed? AKA who should be in the remake.
Joe: As this movie is perfect? No notes, don’t change the thing. Yep.
Greg: I’m just going to say it’s basically perfect. I would do a little bit less shapeshifting, but I would keep all the awesome kind of wonder shots that they have where the shapeshifting is going crazy. All right, Joe, next important question. What album is this movie?
Joe: This may surprise people in in the direction that I went with that, because I was kind of going for a genre album.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: And I don’t know, many kind of fantasy albums. They just don’t exist for whatever reason.
Greg: I really like this is going to.
Joe: So this is Ziggy Stardust, which is a whole, a futuristic like world. Yeah. So kind of the world building that you go through in Dungeons Dragons. Yeah. Concept album. It’s an amazing album. So I’m going with Ziggy Stardust.
Greg: I love it. And the fact that you just said that is making me change my album on the fly.
Joe: Awesome. Sweet.
Greg: I will say that my album I originally had, which I’m going to take off the list and I can use some other time, is temple of the dog okay? Because it’s a one off? It’s a special moment in time that I’ll never forget. Some of the most talented people on the planet came together to make it, and it will live forever.
Joe:
Greg: But I’m not going to do that because I, I really want that in my back pocket for another movie.
Joe: Okay. Perfect.
Greg: Well I was suddenly thinking about like rock albums that like use fantasy which is just the funniest genre.
Joe: Right.
Greg: So what’s an album that uses fantasy but is also admittedly and honestly hilarious and knows that it’s hilarious and it’s made by comedians? This movie is a 2001 album called tenacious D oh.
Joe: So nailed it. That is. Yeah.
Greg: It’s just a special moment in time. Yeah, my kids constantly. You’re talking about the Monkey Monk and how they’re Wonder Boy. Yeah, and, they’re battling the Monkey monk. We use Monkey Monk in our family. I should call Jack. We should have Jack black on the show and explain to him how much how valuable the words monkey monk in our family have been.
Joe: That’s awesome. That is the perfect album for this. Yeah.
Greg: Oh my gosh. And Wonder Boy is obviously the song that they put on there.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Joe, it is all come down to this. We’ve already done this. Is it a great bad movie? Good bad movie. We don’t need the scale. We’re throwing the scale.
Joe: Out on this one. Yeah. This is a great, great movie.
Greg: This is our fourth great, great movie. Unbelievable. It’s been two episodes since our last great game.
Joe:
Greg: We’re just. Listen, everybody has their price, and we just happened to, you know, if you send us the right amount of money, we’re going to give you a great, great movie.
Joe: Chris Pine showed up with an envelope full of money, and we were like, done and done.
Greg: Could Chris Pine have played the Ryan Reynolds part in safe House?
Joe: Yeah, I think he could have.
Greg: Do you think Ryan Reynolds could have been Jack Ryan in Jack Ryan shadow Recruit?
Joe: Yeah. You know, I think it’s a better movie if he’s in it and kind of changes his dialog. I needed something, I just said it and I couldn’t get through it. I wanted to go back to it a few times, but I.
Greg: Ryan Reynolds and Chris Pine, I mean, they’re obviously both distinctive voices.
Joe: I think maybe it’s a little bit interchangeable.
Greg: Are they auditioning for the same movies?
Joe: I bet they were. Especially. And like from, you know, 2000 to 2008 when they were, you know, kind of more unknown and that. Yeah, totally. And I feel like Chris Pine also kind of had his stardom is peaking in a lot of ways. You know, he was just we were having conversations about the most popular Chris, and he was definitely often at the top of the list for films.
Greg: You know, it’s crazy. Is, I was just looking it up. I didn’t know who Chris Pine was in 2008, which is when I worked at the Seattle International Film Festival. That’s the year that I met Bill Pullman, and Chris Pine was the star of the movie that Bill Pullman was in.
Joe: Called Bottle Shock.
Greg: And Bill Pullman came in, Chris Pine did, and I was just like, wait a minute, was Chris Pine there as well? I don’t know if I brought this up in our Atomic Blond episode, and I definitely didn’t bring it up as a regret either. Can I do lapsed regret? That should have come out last week. An hour, but absolutely.
Greg: Charlize Theron came to Seattle International Film.
Joe: Festival ninth year.
Greg: I work there and it was kind of the first kind of brush up against A-list Hollywood royalty for me. And, it was incredible. It was so eye opening for me because we were given like the rundown of kind of the red carpet and stuff for our big opening movie. And we got like, Charlie’s schedule and it was like, she lands at 11.
Greg: She goes to hair and makeup to 4 p.m., and then she’ll be it’s like 5 p.m. we’re like, hold up, can we go back? And they’re like, yeah, yeah, no. She’ll be in hair makeup like 3.5 hours or something.
Joe: That’s crazy.
Greg: And they were like, that’s what it’s like to be an A-list star in Hollywood. You have to go and sit in a chair for that long to get made up for these things. And I was just suddenly so embarrassed.
Joe: Right.
Greg: That I was a part of any sort of industry that would make sure, or at least there and go sit in a chair for 3.5 hours to like, put makeup on. I’d have her hair done. It was so ridiculous.
Joe: All right. Well, yeah I think we did it. I don’t know if anyone should really talk about this movie anymore. We, this is the conversation that needed to be had about the The Honor Among thieves. Instant classic in our minds.
Greg: Instant classic. Yeah.
Joe: You know, and, you know, I.
Greg: There’s a little bit of sadness in my heart that, you know, there’s no need for people to talk about it anymore because this is a movie I feel like we should be talking about forever.
Joe: Yeah, agreed.
Greg: But, you know, an episode is an episode of great bad movies.
Joe:
Greg: Especially when it’s a great, great movie.
Joe: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah. If you have great, great movies on your mind let us know what you think they are. We will actually be the final arbiter of that. If you think it’s a great game or not as a flick, you know, I know shots fired at our dear listeners who I adore and also have a love hate relationship with for no good reason other than I think it’s hilarious to be involved in conflict with the people supporting us every day.
Joe: But yeah, if you like this episode or didn’t hit us up on Great Bad Movie Show on Instagram or email us at Great Bad Movie Show at gmail.com, or find us at Great Bad movies.com.
Greg: Totally. And I’ll be honest, we were moving a bit. I’m inside my remodeled kitchen now. That’s why it’s so echoey in here. But I was kind of lax on Instagram for a couple months, and so I’m doing a thing right now where every day I’m posting about a different episode that we’ve released to kind of catch us up on this on the Instagram feed.
Greg: So, we are definitely back, and we have potentially some fun stuff in store for Instagram coming up. So check us out there. And definitely message just hit us up in our DMs.
Joe: Yeah. Like and subscribe as they are. As every YouTuber says, you know the best way to make the algorithms find us and and rate us on your favorite podcast app, wherever that might be. We’re we’re doing pretty good, pretty good reviews. I was saying, you know, we want to keep it that way. So if you have a bad review, keep it to yourself, is what I’m saying.
Greg: The number one thing you could do to help out our show is, first of all, just put some cash in an envelope and send it to us.
Joe: Yeah. That’s great. Right now.
Greg: I don’t know where you send it, but I think if you just put Greg and Joe on the envelope. Yeah, the post office will figure it out.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Tell a friend about this podcast. You have friends that love great bad movies. And, I bet now that we’ve been around for two and a half years, there’s probably an episode that they would enjoy checking out, and you guys should get together and watch one of these movies. It’s so much fun.
Joe: Sign out the drinking games. Come up with your own. Send us what you think your favorite ones are. We’ll make it happen.
Greg: So if you think we’ve missed a drinking game, hit us in the comments.
Joe: Yes, please.
Greg: Totally.
Joe: That’s the kind of podcast that this is. You know, we want to know how much more we need to drink, which is, you know, a lot. That’s what I’m guessing, you know. You know, and I also just want to shout out to Sam, Sam Cunningham, new father, the best podcast editor we could ever hope for. Yeah. Makes the sound coherent.
Joe: If you heard the rough cuts of these episodes, you wouldn’t believe. You wouldn’t believe what I’m saying.
Greg: So many swear words that he takes out. Yeah, it’s just unbelievable.
Joe: So many. And then the staff and the mouth staff. But yeah, he he is the best. And if you want to hit him up and he’ll edit your podcast, it’s not free. It’s gonna cost you about $1 million an episode. But you know, it’s worth it. Because he is the greatest podcast ender in the history of the world.
Joe: And probably that will ever be. I don’t want to oversell it now, but he is. He’s perfect in every way and maybe a funding to be our God emperor right now. So.
Greg: You know, that reminds me, if you if you really want to boil it all down to probably the most important thing that you can say about Sam Cunningham, and, I mean, we could go on and on and on, right? There’s so many things you could say, so many things. But since we’re we don’t have a lot of time, you know, it really could be summed up simply by just, you know, saying, oh my gosh, Joe, I just noticed the time.
Joe: It oh yeah.
Greg: I it’s getting a little late. And, listen, this has been great. This has been really great.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: Great. Great. Mimi, this has been great. Great I should.
Joe: Say. Yeah. Yeah. But, I,
Greg: I feel like I’ve gotten a little dirty today. I need to go throw myself through a gelatinous cube just to wash off of that. So I’m going to go, oh.
Joe: That’s wild. I’m stuck in the gelatinous cube as we speak. So once you know, have you you have a moment. Could you help me out? Help a brother out here? Because I’m kind of stuck, you know, and I need I, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m either going to disintegrate or I. You’re going to pull me out.
Joe: It’s kind of what’s going to happen.
Greg: You’ve had this displeased look on your face like you were burning this whole time. So that makes a lot of sense.
Joe: Yeah, yeah, yeah. All of this is coming into focus for you. Yeah.
Greg: Okay. Okay. Oh, you know, I’m actually a little bit relieved to hear not about the burning, but about everything else that you need to go because, I have some very specific questions that I need to ask. A few corpses in a nearby cemetery, so I got to go.
Joe: Awesome, awesome. You know, I’m just I’m just going to hang out here. Jonathan is running late again, so I’m just kind of just. I’ll be waiting here for him.
Greg: I really want to see the list of names.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: That was narrowed down to Jonathan, I bet. Yeah. 48 of those names would make me laugh out loud.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Okay. Well, that really works for me, because.
Joe: I’m going to.
Greg: Just walk in a completely straight line away from the camera right now.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And then over a large boulder. Just like thinking this movie.
Joe: Track that track. You know, I just put on a helmet, this magical helmet that told me what was standing in my way with me all along. So I’m. Oh, I just I just had an epiphany, so.
Greg: That’s so weird. I always thought it was your great uncle that works for me, because I need to put on this magical helmet and see if I can, in tune, do it real quick. Before I accidentally fly across the room.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. That’s right. Oh, my friend, my friend just turned into a deer, and I think I just lost a bat because of it. So I got to go.
Greg: Your taxi.
Joe: Is just. Yeah.
Greg: It’s always been weird. Someone had to say it.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Well, that works for me, because I’ve got to lure this, like, super chubby, red hilarious dragon out of this cavern.
Joe: So.
Greg: That scene was so funny.
Joe: I was like, it’s at the line. I was like, he’s he’s moved on from that the first place. He was like the eat the first place he was. And this is like so good.
Greg: You know, something I wanted to say that occurred to me while that scene was happening was just about everything in this movie is something that I delightfully have not seen before.
Joe:
Greg: Yeah. This movie is so original in a lot of ways. Well, it’s also super nostalgic. Yeah. Okay. Well that works for me because I’ve got a scene with Jonathan tonight, so.
Joe: Oh. Oh yeah. Yeah. That’s gonna be.
Greg: After, you know.
Joe: Yeah. Probably. He’s always late, so. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I’m on an impossibly high cube in the middle of, these games, and so I’m really afraid of heights I need to get. I need to get down to.
Greg: The end zone. Okay, well, Joe, that works for me, so I will see you soon.
Joe: I will see you soon.
Joe: Hello.
Clip: Can somebody please ask me another question?
Clip: Anyone?
Clip: Anyone?