Mike Schulz discusses cinematic matters with Dave Levora and Darren Pitra. Levora believes Twisters could have used more twisters than it gave its audience. That was last week. This week’s fare pales in comparison:
Mike Schulz discusses all things movie with Dave Levora and Darren Pitra. The haul promises to be pretty light in the forthcoming weeks, as today’s catch shows. Levora marvels over Inside Out 2 having become the best-selling animated film of all time, with $1.465 billion (and counting) on a $200 million budget. We’re still halfway through the year, though, so who knows if IO2 will close out 2024 as the top dog.
Mike Schulz reunites with Dave Levora and Darren Pitra, having spent the Fourth holiday and a personal vacation away from the studio. Schulz has seen him some movies, and by gum, he’s going to talk about them.
Mike Schulz talks with Dave Levora and Darren Pitra about his gratitude that Inside Out 2 is still going great guns at the box office. The film’s animated depiction of a panic attack has drawn plaudits from people who suffer from panic attacks, who say it speaks fairly accurately to their experience (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/23/movies/inside-out-anxiety-adults.html).
Mike Schulz talks with Dave Levora and Darren Pitra about the films he’s watched, the first official day of summer, and today being the 49th anniversary of the release of Jaws — the latter which, incidentally, coincided with a family health scare. Happily, Schulz’s mother wasn’t bitten by a shark. Also, The Goonies is playing this weekend at The Last Picture House, 39 years after the film’s release. If you wish to relive a bit of your childhood, then you might consider some other film for that. Anyhow. Onward.
Mike Schulz talks with Dave Levora and Darren Pitra about the films he’s reviewed this week. Before they get rolling, Levora informs Schulz that an unidentified, unsolicited caller had texted him to convey to MS that Bad Boys: Ride or Die was his jam. Thanks, Identity Redacted!
Mike Schulz talks with Dave Levora and Darren Pitra about the latest round of films he’s reviewed. They get right into it, folks. These are professionals at work. They know their jobs. Don’t taunt or gawk at them. They’ve got moves, and they know people.
Mike Schulz discusses with Dave Levora and Darren Pitra what a low box-office draw this Memorial Day was — you have to go back to 1995, the summer of Caspar, for a lackluster opening that couldn’t be blamed on a pandemic. Schulz wasn’t expecting Furiosa to break records, being a Hard-“R”-rated film. Still, it must have been tough for him to watch a film crash and burn, financially, in quite the manner that Furiosa, a film devoted to crashing and burning, did.
Mike Schulz discusses with Dave Levora and Darren Pitra the films that he brought for them from the sea. The haul this week was considerably more plentiful than the one film Schulz saw (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes). Such privations forced them to talk about TV shows. They appear to be stuck in that mindset, as they find other stuff to discuss other than film. Like their childhoods, and whether or not they had imaginary friends.
Mike Schulz has only one full-fledged film to discuss with Dave Levora and Darren Pitra: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, directed by Wes Fall and starring Freya Allan, Kevin Durand, Peter Macon, and William H Macy. Compared to the bravura direction of Matt Reeves (2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes), Fall’s is workmanlike — that is to say, competently executed. Competence, particularly in this era, isn’t anything to disesteem outright. Nonetheless, one returns to the words of the Twentieth Century dramatic critic John Mason Brown: “The more one has seen of the good, the more one asks for the better.” If you can tell a story well, then good on ya; but if you can make that story stick in peoples’ heads for decades to come. . .