Jack Ryan: Ghost War is a Simulacrum of Cinema | SVU

29:12So the way he's going to prove it is he's going to commit all the terrorist acts that the group prevented. Correct. Which is the most dumb thing I've ever heard in my life. So this group, Section 31, whatever they're called. I forgot what they're called. Starling? Starling or something. Starling, I think. Starling prevented a bunch of, and this movie just goes for it. It's like, eh, there are a bunch of crazy Muslims that wanted to blow up a bridge. And Starling stopped it. I think we can all agree that that's good, that they didn't blow up Tower Bridge in London. Sure. So then Starling, this guy, this villain is like, Starling must continue.

29:48I'm going to reactivate those crazy Muslims. And he just like, and suddenly they just show up. A bunch of brown people show up doing his bidding. They're running around. It's like, what the hell is going on? How, what, what am I missing? And there's a lot of chasing and, and God only knows. And then Sienna Miller shows up and she's shooting and everybody's running. And then the movie continues and eventually it ends. That's basically how it goes. I mean, the politics of the movie are not even worth discussing. But just the idea of what is the movie trying to say about this group is unbelievably muddled.

30:26I felt really bad for Wendell Pierce because it kind of falls to him to try to enunciate what point the movie is trying to make, which the movie does not know. It changes from scene to scene. They give him the floor a few times to give a speech. To give these speeches. Yeah, 20 years ago, there was nothing but darkness. Every minute we lost with red tape, one of these monsters slipped away. Serling was created out of goddamn effing common sense. when you're being attacked, the rules change. And then the next scene, he's like, we've got to stop this guy. It's like, well, which is it? And I suppose there is a way where they could have suggested that he's such a careerist at this point, this character, Wendell Pierce's character, Greer, who's from the other, you know, like that was James Earl Jones, I believe, in the movies, that character.

31:19Yeah, yeah. That they're trying to make him a careerist who's concerned about how things look now, but they don't even like thread that needle. They don't, you know, like it seems like it's at times he seems to be defending what he did. And at other times he says like, this group has gone too far and it needs to stop. I shut it down. I tried to stop them. But then other times he's like, you don't understand what it was like. We had to do it. We had to do it. And it's just like, which is it? And, you know, and then, and, and, and, when the Jack Ryan character does have his own half of these scenes, you know, he's saying like, maybe I don't even believe in the American dream anymore.

32:00Krasinski does not have the juice. I mean, I look at it. He's great in The Office, obviously. I think the A Quiet Movie, what are they called? The Quiet Time, whatever the hell they're called. A Silent Place. A Quiet Place. Those movies are fine. I've never disliked any of those movies. I like all three. They're certainly more interesting than this. And Krasinski co-wrote this along with a fellow named Aaron Rabin, or Rabin, who wrote Nobody Part 2, which is, I mean, a lot of this is on autopilot. But the thing that struck me is, like, they did put a lot of money into it. They went to Dubai. They got a lot of drone footage.

32:35Well, did they put money in it or did Dubai put money in it? Because a lot of this movie looks like a commercial. Dubai looks cool. Dubai looks cool. Dubai has, like, these tons of drone shots. There's fountains everywhere. They go to Dubai on Emirates Air, and basically the movie pauses for a commercial for first class on Emirates Air. I couldn't describe the movie to you, but I could describe what the first class seats look like and all of the features. They have a little divider that goes up and down. They bring you champagne. And they wear nice outfits. And then they go to the boat. The big action scene in Dubai is on a boat.

33:13and before they go on the boat, it's like sexy dames and hot guys everywhere. It's like, oh my God. Walking along the water and everyone looks beautiful. There's no schlubs in Dubai, let me tell you. And then they go to London. London. And London photographs well. So they did spend a lot of money locking off streets and whatnot. Yeah, and they were in New York. I guess we do have to give some amount of credit that this was not shot in the volume. Yeah, in Atlanta somewhere. It doesn't look like Jack Ryan is John Krasinski is standing in front of a green wall and they just filled in the backgrounds, which we have discussed movies on this podcast that did look like that.

33:52For sure. But they don't do anything with it. Like the action sequences. I mean, like even, you know, like you got to compare something this to Mission Impossible. And I know those movies are at a very high bar. but when you think about the action sequences like the the least impressive action sequence in the worst mission impossible movie wipes the floor of this and it's like they didn't even try no this is i mean this is even like there was that there was that netflix film the gray man which is in prague which is a dumb movie but those action sequences at least are better they hired some good people for the gray man action sequences in the czech republic yeah and that's not happening here.

34:32That's a good thing to mention. It's like, it would be one thing if this movie was dumb and didn't know what it wanted to say, but at least it was an exciting action movie because it's like a 90 minute movie and 55 minutes of it is chases and shootouts. But they are all totally interchangeable. It's all smoke and squibs. It's a lot of bullet hits and a lot of steam and smoke and shake the camera. and, you know, there's nothing interesting or distinguished about any of them. And, you know, you mentioned Krasinski. And again, comparing it to the pilot, when I, because he, again, you think of this guy as someone, I know, I know now he, as you mentioned, he directs horror movies.

35:16He's, you know, he's a bit of a tour. You know, he makes his own projects in a variety of genres. But yes, you know, you think of him as a comedy guy first. and watching the show though i i get why you cast him and it is because the original show at least in the pilot it does have some action but it is also like a workplace drama he works at the cia yeah there's office politics he's conversing with other people in the office he's trying to cajole them into doing jobs for him off the books kind of you know it's kind of the office in a different genre and a different milieu. And there's something interesting about seeing the everyman kind of hunky, cutesy guy from The Office in another world and doing and bringing kind of an everyman quality to Jack Ryan.

36:11Again, he's a veteran but also he's kind of like he's got a lot of baggage and he's not like a superhero. That sounds interesting. It sounds like the show started out well and then by the time it got to now, they'd completely run out of ideas, but the contract still has some... I don't want to be a spy, but also I'm the coolest spy on the planet. I can do anything. And, you know, comedians can do good... Like a comedian or somebody known for light or fair pivoting into action hero can work. I mean, Michael Keaton I think is the best example of, you know, when he showed up as Batman the first time.

36:49You're like, this is ridiculous. How can the guy from night shift being Batman. Or even those nobody movies we just mentioned. It's Bob Odenkirk. Like, you know, he's making action movies now, too. It's not that he can't do action. It's that there's nothing about the action that's good here. You know, like the scene with this big drop that we've talked about, the thing that, you know, that he's sent to do is find this information from this one guy, like, spoiler alert, this guy gets his throat cut and the guy who does it just appears in the shot where it happens. Right. There's no clear shot of who it is.

37:28They vanish. We never see that person again. And then Sienna Miller shows up and she's like, you know, it looks like Jack Ryan has done it and she's holding him at gunpoint. And instead of surrendering, he like hops a railing and jumps onto a boat and he starts punching and kicking the guy in the boat. And it only eventually becomes clear this was the guy who cut the guy's throat. But you don't know that because they don't show the guy before he does it or after or that he gets on this boat because there's no connective tissue whatsoever. And you're just going, who did he? Is he commandeering this boat?

38:04Did he? Oh, this is the bad guy. This is the bad guy. How did he know that? How did he get away? Did he have this boat? It's just absolutely unclear. Well, I disagree with you there. It's a little bit clear. I somehow was able to follow that, but it is sketchy. But also Jack Ryan didn't know that. Jack Ryan was just punching some guy. You know, he couldn't have said, pardon me, sir. May I borrow your boat? I think we've talked about this movie enough. It sucks. Is this the worst? Is this worse than Apex? Yes, it's worse than Apex. Oh, it's definitely worse than Apex. Is it worse than Outcome? That I don't, it's a different kind of band.

38:38Yeah, I think it's a different kind of band. Outcome was very bad. But weird. But also weird. Yes. And it felt like heartfelt in a way that made it interesting bad. This movie, nobody, this is a movie that is really just, we have the rights. Yeah, nobody cared about this. We have a contract with these people. We have some corporate sponsors, perhaps. There was a lot of product placement. Or multinational sponsors. A lot of product placement. And how do we use these pieces that we have under our control, you know, in the best way? It's a corporate film. Nobody working on this movie was like putting their heart into it.

39:22You know, like anybody working on this movie, you know, below the line was like, this is going to look good on my resume because I'm going to make really good squibs and I'm going to get hired for a job I want. I mean, Krasinski, the minute they would call cut, he was probably working on whatever project he's working on next in his trailer. This is this is these were a bunch of people going to work each day to make money. And, you know, it's for Jeff Bezos's Amazon streaming. Bezos, we're recording, you know, we record this a few days before the streams. Bezos had a pretty rough night last night.

39:52One of his rocket ships blew up. So I don't think he's too worried about that. Better get Jack Ryan on the case. I don't think he's too worried about this flub of a movie, but it is pretty lousy. And I think I hope Krasinski's moving on to other things and let Jack Ryan snooze for a while before they bring him back. I guess the only other thing I would say is I am curious because, again, I only watched the pilot and I have a lot going on. I am almost certainly not going to watch more, but I could see myself watching more if I had a lot more time in my hands. But I would be curious to hear from people who were fans of the show.

40:29Did the show get really different and bad? Or is the movie not like the show? Did you, you know, I would love to hear from people that liked the show. And I would be curious, what was their reaction to the movie? Obviously, our email address, feedback at filmspottingsvu.com. They can send us. I would be curious to hear that. But either way, the movie is the pits. It is Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Ghost War, and it is streaming on Prime Video.

41:23Hey Jonas guys. I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. And we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast where people could call in and say, Hey Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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42:47This is going to change my life and my family dynamic forever because everything that had existed prior in my reality is now untrue. Listen to Deep Cover, The Family Man on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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44:25Just then, we felt the plane turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive headfirst into the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything. And me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off.

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45:21Maybe it's you. Well, it's like this. Neither of us like Jack Ryan. Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Ghost War, but we do want to recommend something that is pegged to it in somehow, as we always do, an alternative. And I was thinking, I mean, it's such a big, such a big, you know, opportunity here. You know, it could be any spy movie, any CIA movie, any movie that involves governmental duplicity, anything that involves Dubai. But I said, You know what? This is an opportunity to take a look back at the thing that started it all. Well, hold on. Yeah? You're not going to say the name of the segment? Oh, no.

46:04You're not going to use this chance? You don't want to say it? I don't. I want you to say it. This is your glory. What is the name of the segment? It's a recommendation segment. No! Rex Egg! Rex Egg. Rex Egg. Rex Egg. A-o-ga. A-o-ga. That's new. E-o-wee-oo. Rex Egg. W-R-E-C-K apostrophe S-E-G-G Rex Egg Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan's Rex Egg Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan's Rex Egg and my Rex Egg for this is let's just go for it when was the last time you watched The Hunt for Red October? It's been a few years it has been a few years it's a damn good movie John McTiernan at the top of his game Sean Connery beyond at the top of his game so good powerful in every scene and most surprising now in 2026 we talked before about john krasinski and a uh a narrative arc to his career beginning in the office and now doing shlop jlup junk like this look jlup it's not i didn't know whether to go with junk or look do he's doing jlup like this i think jlup is is streaming on bazooka right now people check it out it's a limited series on bazooka whoop alec baldwin was not the man we think of today alec baldwin is a man that comes with a lot of baggage alec bag you could say you could say that comes with a lot of a lot of baggage i've been i god alec baldwin but he's so good in this back when he was young and handsome and so handsome straight laced and you know going to be the next action star.

47:50I mean, no, they, they replaced him with Harrison Ford because he was in that league, you know, a little younger, um, you know, today, of course, I mean, 30 rock, he was brilliant in 30 rock. There's no denying it. His Trump on SNL is, you know, for the history books. I mean, you know, they, they, when you, when you do, if you are a scholar of Abraham Lincoln and you read about Abraham Lincoln, you do read about, um, satirical jabs that were made at the president at the time. They're footnotes now, but at the time they were really important and Alec Baldwin will remain a footnote to Trump, assuming that our history continues that long.

48:28And then of course there's the incident that happened, the very unfortunate incident when the accidental death of that woman and how he handled it was just awful. I mean, that's just the thing. He's such a, he comes across as a real pompous pain in the ass and I don't like the guy, but he's talented. Matt's just smiling at me. I don't like the guy, but you should go watch him in the Hunt for Red October. But the thing is, he is a talented guy. I mean, he's, I mean, his voice, I mean, he still does, even when he was at the depths of that, like, trial and whatnot, and he was like, any smart person in his shoes would have just vanished.

49:05He was still doing, like, radio stuff, NPR, podcasts. He had a podcast about art thievery. You know, it's a weird dude. Anyway, it's still, you know. And he has a great voice. The Hamptons Film Festival, he's sort of the spiritual leader of the Hamptons Film Festival. And it was like soon thereafter, after the death of that woman, he was there that year going to parties. I was there. I saw him. I've seen him. I saw him after that, I guess maybe the year after. Yeah. I saw him at like the official restaurant of the festival just by eating by himself. Well, that was a year after. I was like six weeks after.

49:42I'm like, holy shit, that guy. anyway it's complicated but what isn't complicated is his performance he's so good the camera loves the guy he's got good hair his eyes are beautiful every line is just like you know and I think we all and you even summarize that the the sort of the miracle of Tom Clancy in general he was a nobody working in always literally was like an insurance salesman and he was He wrote a book in his spare time and it turned out to be The Hunt for Red October. The thing about the book is, and it's an often told joke, is that when the book got famous and got read, you know, the head, I don't know whether it's the head of the CIA or the head of the Navy, the Secretary of the Defense or whatever, said, who cleared this?

50:32Like, you know, how did he know all this? Like, you know, this information, I thought this was buttoned up. Like apparently the tech, the technical aspects of how submarines work, which are just so legit that even these these eggheads at the Navy were stunned that the information was available enough to just some guy who had no access. You know, he was not he wasn't in the Navy. He was not in the Navy. He was never in the military. Yeah, he was just a just a fan. Yeah, just a fan of the Navy. It was fan fiction. It was naval fan fiction. And the group that published it, which was called like, it was called like Navy Books.

51:11I said it in the introduction. That publishing company, like they just - Naval Institute Press. Yeah. They're loosely affiliated with the Department of Defense. They mostly just put out, you know, biographies of old admirals that no one's ever heard of and that 25 people read. And this was like, let's take a shot at fiction. Why not? Well, this book is kind of good. and it became a phenomenon like that story's cool that's like that's just great i love that it's like andy weir self-publishing his wacko the martian right as a kindle exclusive for 99 cents and then now he's you know he's he's andy weir so um and then of course but tom clancy didn't just become a writer he was like a guy he would like show up on the news he would be like on Crossfire to talk about events in world affairs.

52:02And he had no real reason to. He was just a guy that liked to think up stories, you know? And it all started with Humphrey Road October. And this was the first movie. And I mean, Sean Connery as the Russian submarine captain is just so cool. The look of it is great. I still, I remember being in the theater, maybe it was even opening weekend. Certainly it was soon after it came out. And at first they're talking Russian. I was like, are they going to talk Russian the whole time? That's a choice. And they do the thing, which is just so clever at the time, they zoom in on his mouth and then they zoom out and he's now speaking English.

52:35And like, even the dummies know it's like, I got it. I got what you did there. No more subtitles. It's a real clever movie. And it's thrilling. So, I mean, it's great for a reason. Tom Clancy's, he's dead now. He's beyond the grave. They're publishing 30 books a year, video games, comics. There's a reason. It all starts with Hunt for October. It's pretty damn good. I recommend you go back and watch it again. Where is it streaming? That's your job, Jordan. I forgot to look that up. You're supposed to know that. I'm going to tell you right now. It's streaming at, I mean, if nothing else, it's going to be$3.99 on Amazon.

53:12But no, you want to guess? This will be our game. Where is it streaming for free if you're a subscriber? Is it Paramount Plus? It is Paramount Plus. Good job. if you are a paramount plus subscriber you can watch it for free if you're a fubo subscriber you can watch it for free if you're a canopy uh person if your library has canopy you can watch it for two credits and you get like 12 a month or whatever and if you have none of those for 3.99 it's on paramount sorry it's on uh apple prime video and then fandango at home formerly known as voodoo, not bazooka. That's my rec sec. Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Sam Neill, Scott Glem, the hunt for Red October.

54:01I'm telling you, he wants to defect. I'll shake the man loose. Rightful rudder. Conson on Crazy Island. Okay. And yours. That's a great, yeah, it's a great recommendation. I think we would agree. I don't know if you've seen every Jack Ryan movie before this. Okay. Well, I have. And I feel very confident in saying, even though some of them were not great, this is certainly the low point, Ghost War, for this very kind of disjointed franchise. and one of the funny strange things about what we do is that i don't i'm maybe i read hunt for red october when i was in middle school or high school or maybe i read what you know when you were in the merchant marines you were reading right when i was sailing the seven seas i would always have a tom clancy paperback nestled in my in my under the crook of my elbow but But if I've read one, maybe I've read one.

55:00But I have seen every single one of these movies. And, you know, I think maybe The Hunt for Red October is probably the best one. But the one that I also kind of like a lot and decided to recommend, because I also decided I'm going to pick a Tom Clancy, because there's one that I like to stump for. And it is not the first Harrison Ford, Jack Ryan, which I actually think is not so great. but they made a second. And the second one is the one that I really like, which is Clear and Present Danger. Nice. From 1994, directed by Philip Noyce. And it is also streaming on Paramount +, which is how I knew that The Hunt for Red October was there, is that I knew that.

55:43Got it. So. And, again, I guess maybe, I mean, Patriot Games was a hit, and that's why they made another one with Harrison Ford a few years later. But I definitely prefer Clear and Present Danger. You don't need to see Patriot Games. You don't even need to see The Hunt for Red October. You don't really need to know anything. Unlike Ghost War, which does feel like you're kind of being thrown into the middle of an ongoing storyline that may not make sense. You don't need to really know anything else to watch Clear and Present Danger. And in this particular movie, the Greer character, which, again, is James Earl Jones this time, that's the Wendell Pierce character in Ghost War, he falls ill.

56:25And so Jack Ryan, who is still working at the CIA in this movie, he becomes the acting deputy director of intelligence for the CIA. So he becomes kind of stuck in the middle of this political tug of war involving some of his colleagues at the CIA and the president of the United States who's running for a second term and is trying to kind of look strong and tough on the drug war. Because, again, this is the mid 90s. So that's the world of the movie. And it is sort of astonishing to watch these two movies together. I've seen Clear and Present Danger before. I was a movie that I kind of enjoyed watching on HBO.

57:09It was on cable a lot. I remember watching it a lot and revisited it a few years ago and thought, actually, this movie holds up really well. And then I took a look at it again this week. And it is wild to watch them Ghost War and Clear and Present Danger together and see how two movies can be part of the same franchise and have basically the same main character, the same world of CIA and spies. But Ghost War really is just this dumb action movie with lots of chases and shooting and fighting over this pointless MacGuffin. and Clear Present Danger, it does have a somewhat tacked on action finale.

57:53Yeah. But a lot of it is like, you know, like about the reality of bureaucracy. It's an intellectual film. It's about meetings and briefings. And Harrison Ford, he's about, he's a little older than us in this movie. I think when he made it, he was like 52 or something. But he very much is, as a character, this Jack Ryan guy is a guy who sits at a desk. He gives briefings. He is an analyst. That thing that they say all the time in these movies and the shows that doesn't actually seem to actually like. Yeah. It doesn't seem true in Jack Ryan Ghost War, but it is very true in this movie in Clear and Present Danger.

58:33What is James Bond's official title? He's 007. Well, yeah, I know. But his official title is like. License to kill. Well, something like that. But like his real job, we know, is to woo women and kill guys. But Jack Ryan was to analyze. That's why he in Red October, he's the one who figures out, no, Sean Connery is trying to defect. He's not trying to blow up the world. Right. He's always the guy who's the only guy who understands what's really happening. Puts the puzzle pieces together. Yeah. Right. And in this movie, he's like a real bookworm. He looks at books. Forget about looking at a computer.

59:07He looks at like binders. Oh, my God. And books. Wow. Old school. Other characters. The 90s are another world, for God's sake. They really are. Other characters derisively call him a Boy Scout. And I give the movie some credit because unlike, you know, we were talking about what are the politics of ghost war? And is it like endorsing these like kind of extraditional killings? It doesn't even know. It doesn't really actually puts Jack Ryan kind of in opposition to the U.S. government, to the president. And it is such a stark contrast. You know, like, yes, there's like a drug war going on. There are drug kingpins and all that sort of stuff.

59:47But really, the ultimate villain in Clear and Present Danger are like they're the bureaucrats. He's like image conscious bureaucrats that kind of instigate a kind of unauthorized war in South America. And and the president who kind of tacitly authorizes it. Why was I kept out of it? You weren't kept out of it. You're neck deep in it. You went before Congress and you got the money for it. You went before Congress and you lied. I never lied to Congress. You said to my advice. You told them no truth. There are truths, Jack. I didn't know that. You know I didn't know that. No, I have no recollection of that.

1:00:23That's the term you have to learn. In tone, it almost feels like, you know, like one of those great 70s paranoid thrillers. It's not quite that paranoid necessarily, but it has that kind of cynical, clear-eyed view of the world. Which is different from Red October, I think. Red October was a little bit more rah-rah America, this Russian's coming, our shores to live his life of freedom. And this is a little different. Right. And I'm not criticizing. Again, that's almost a different time unto itself at the end of the Cold War. I mean, to each its own. And it's sort of interesting to compare these things.

1:00:56I just think they both compared to Ghost War pales in this comparison, no matter where you're doing it. It's got a great cast of that guys besides Harrison Ford, Willem Dafoe, Henry Zurt. I always have trouble with his name. Zurt Cherney. Cherney, you know, who's like he was in every one of these 90s movies playing this kind of sniveling bureaucrat guy. He's in Mission Impossible. Harris Ulan, Benjamin Bratt, Raymond Cruz, Reggie Cathy, Joaquin Dalmeida, Vondi Curtis. Just like so many great guys where you're watching it and you're like, every part in this movie, even the smaller parts, has good actors doing good work.

1:01:33it's just a it's a movie i want to see it again i want to watch it but here's the thing here i can on parent plus thanks to your rec seg but here's the thing jack ryan the the double whammy of harrison ford's jack ryan really led to a certain spot were it not for patriot games were it not for clear and present danger it is potentially the case that we would never have gotten the 1997 masterpiece Air Force One. Okay. That's probably true. If nothing else, these movies should be recognized and celebrated for bringing us Air Force One. You love Air Force One. Die hard on the president's plane. Air Force One is so good.

1:02:18Every time I watch it again, I just find new things to love about it. It's so, so, so good. Get Off My Plane, Glenn Close, how the hell did they get Air Force One? So good. Don't spoil it. Don't spoil it for people who haven't seen it. They want to know how the hell they got Air Force One. They get it. They get it. They get it. And she's so, she wants to know. She wants to know how did they do it? How the hell did they get Air Force One? What a line reading. How the hell did this happen? How the hell did they get Air Force One? She's never won the Oscar, and she should have won it just for that.

1:02:55Just for that one line. Okay, well, to reiterate, both of our recs here, Hunt for an October, Clear and Present Danger, both streaming on Paramount+. And let's move on now to our personalized recommendation. Do you want me to read it this week, Jordan? Yeah, read it. This is good. We got a lovely email here from listener Patrick. Patrick writes, hello, Matt and Jordan. First off, I'm so glad you're back. I've missed the show. and while I was excited to get Allison back on a podcast this year, that's Allison's doing Critical Darlings is the name of that podcast. Give it a shout out. I was missing Matt and bam you are back plus now I get two podcasts with you to plus Jordan who's a wonderful addition.

1:03:36I don't know. I don't know if I agree with that. Somebody, yeah. Somebody paid this guy off to say that. I don't know. Yes. I would love to get some Rex. Hey, can I interrupt this Rex seg? Of course. Allison who we love was just at the Cannes Film Festival. Sure. If you track her down on Instagram, she made a little movie. That sounds creepy. Don't track her down. No, no. Just look at her Instagram. Have you watched her little movie from Cannes? I just saw it yesterday. Sure, yeah. It's a lot of fun. It's been up for like a week, but I only saw it yesterday. It's like a day in the life of a critic at Cannes.

1:04:07It's a really lovely video. We both really are big Alison fans, and we love her to pieces. She's so fantastic in this, and great. I want everybody to see it. All right, continue. Okay. Okay. So Patrick writes, I would love to get some recs for movies to watch with my daughter. She is 13. She loves theater and comedies, and I want to show her some classic movies. Let's use the Netflix classics, which means anything from the last century, with great performances by actresses. She loved Some Like It Hot and enjoyed Born Yesterday. I'm looking for other movies that are funny, but not too raunchy or violent or horribly outdated.

1:04:42We have all the streaming services plus Criterion. what would you recommend for a budding theater kid who loves comedy jordan what would you recommend i have it ready to go but i forgot to see which service it's on so i'm gonna tell i mean it's it's definitely out there jordan there's literally you have literally one job i know okay this movie is available to watch for free on again canopy which we talk about a lot if you have the library card it's also for free on plex if you don't mind some ads but if you want to pay four bucks as usual Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV or Fandango at Home, formerly known as Voodoo, not Bazooka.

1:05:18My choice is a 1972 film. I'm going to I'm going to make this into a game and see when you can guess the title. 1972. Yeah. It's directed by someone whose initials are P.B. Peanut butter. Yeah. And it stars a man whose initials are R-O-N, but the real star is a woman with the initials B-S. Okay. It is What's Up Doc. There you go. Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan's What's Up Doc. A great recommendation. Yeah, I mean, I was thinking, oh, this young budding theater star, maybe Philadelphia Story or something like that, because they mentioned Born Yesterday. And was it Bringing Up Baby? Was that the other one they mentioned?

1:06:17I think that was the only one. Born Yesterday was the only one mentioned by name. Okay. But I said, let's do something, at least, you know, something in color at least. And what's up, Doc? I would imagine many people listening have seen it or maybe at least heard of it. it is the knee plus ultra of just like zany screwball comedies it was made by peter bogdanovich when he was absolutely at the top of his game and he was a guy who was enamored besotted with classic 30s movies and he took everything he and buck henry the screenwriter took everything they could from every wacky preston sturgis uh type movie uh it happened one night uh all those screwball comedies and put it in a blender plus looney tunes and put it into this very silly very delightful um comedy and then frothy is it frothy and then famously effervescent and it's always and you know it's confusing there's there's mixed up suitcases and austin pendleton's running around who's with rocks and whatnot and then very famously they thought they had the script done and buck henry said no no no we need one more complication let's add another missing briefcase and they went oh my god it's got the gag with the wall with the big glass pane and they're in san francisco going down the hill it's just so funny but it mostly is about one thing was it something i said i beg your pardon listen what do you think i am a piece of ripe fruit you can squeeze the juice out of and cast aside miss i think you're making a mistake sure that's all i am to you a mistake clerical error erase me forget you even know my name i don't know your name judy maxwell how do you do how do you do uh could you let go of my hand i don't think so barbara streisand who much like alec baldwin is somebody who's got a lot of baggage not everybody loves her she can be a little full of herself sometimes but in 1972 she didn't she didn't kill anybody though but barbara streisand let's let's get that out on the record barbara streisand at in 97 there was no bigger star in her you know 700 the mirror only had one face at this point still you know hadn't gotten the second thing broadway um uh her albums every album she pumped out nine zillion copies also something very important to remember barbastrizen's career is that she had these television specials with cbs she was had did like six of them and each one was like the talk of of the of the year they were big big big deals for television specials and then she started making these films and what's up doc is in a way it's kind of a small little movie it's not a big budget movie it's just a silly comedy but it is perfect and if you want to see a an actress i mean barbara shreisen you think of her as a singer first maybe but she is such a talented funny person and she's so good in this and very beautiful she's a she's very sexy lady yes and Brian O 'Neill is very funny also.

1:09:12He's kind of playing a lunkhead. Yes. And it also has a huge cast of characters. I mean, the plot is absurd. One of the funnier things out there in the world, back in the day, there was a thing called DVDs with commentary tracks. I'm going to write, say that, what is it called? I'm going to write it down. Digital Video Disc, DVD. Okay, interesting. The commentary track to What's Up Doc is one of the greats. I mean, the all-time great commentary track. I don't think I've ever heard it. I don't think I've heard it. Well, the number one of all time is Total Recall. Sure. Any of the Arnold Schwarzenegger ones are great.

1:09:42Arnold and Verhoeven going, look at him now being shot. This is great. I love how you did this. I murdered 16 guys all in a row. It was really good. And Verhoeven screaming. A lot of other people would have cut away, but you really focused on the violence. You showed all of it. It's fantastic. It's terrific. And all of those things. In the Hall of Fame, that's number one. But the number two commentary track is Barbra Streisand rewatching for the first time in 25 years. what's up doc because all she's doing she's watching it going oh this is crazy oh this is crazy yeah barbara you're fantastic in this movie over here oh oh arnold governor schwarzenegger i didn't know you were here i know she's over and over and she's going and i don't know who else is in the room with her she is bouncing off of somebody i don't know if it's bogdanovich or someone else it might have been bogdanovich but she's just going like i don't understand man, where are they going now?

1:10:35Where are they running now? Oh, this is crazy. Oh, look at this. This is crazy. And this is that for 92 minutes. It's wonderful. But anyhow, if you've got a 13-year-old girl looking for great performances, particularly funny, this is the one. Every sitcom that was a classic of the 70s, 80s, they all stole from this movie. There would be no Rhoda Morgenstern if it were not for What's Up, Doc, to pull out a reference that I'm sure your 13-year-old kid is still about. So to Patrick who's listening, your 13-year-old kid has probably heard of Barbra Streisand. She's still alive. She's out there still.

1:11:11She's probably heard of Barbra Streisand. It's a name. Maybe she even knows one or two of the old songs. Evergreen is pretty famous and might think, oh, I don't want to watch an old Barbra Streisand movie. But What's Up Dog is really, really good, and I love it to pieces. All right. That's a great – I think that's a great recommendation. I don't know that I would have thought of it in this context, but I love it. I think that's awesome. I have to admit, I did not follow the exact contours of Patrick's request in terms of like wanting something from the last century. A broken rex egg. It is a little broken.

1:11:44But the reason I did it is because I'm bringing personal experience to this one. I am also a dad with budding theater kids who love comedy. My oldest in particular is who's 10 is not 13, 10 years old and has just the most, I would say, Jordan esque sense of humor. Loves anything involving slapstick, silliness, people getting hit in the groin, me getting hit in the groin, anything like that. But, you know, when you take something that's big and broad, you mix it with music and like kind of performance loves that. That's a home run. And while my recommendation is not necessarily like a adaptation of a musical, like a stage musical, it is a musical.

1:12:35And it is the thing that my kids are super into, like right now, like as we were recording this, the number one thing when I say let's do a movie night or let's watch something, the thing that they want to watch right now are - I got a guess. I'm going to guess. Take a guess. Because you sang a wacky, big, broad slapstick musical. It's big. It's broad. It has musical numbers. All that jazz. This is a franchise. Yeah, exactly. You got it. We want to see the one where the guy is dying and getting it showtime. Well - This is a franchise. I'm going to recommend something from a franchise. Mamma Mia.

1:13:13I don't know. It involves puppets. Sing. No. The Muppet Show. I don't know. What is it? It is The Muppets. Yes. After years of trying to get my kids into The Muppets, the thing that really hooked them was there's a Muppet Show special that they just made on Disney Plus. It was produced by Seth Rogen, and it was like they resurrected the classic show in a new context, and they absolutely loved that special. Yeah. And after we watched that, we watched a couple of the vintage Muppet shows. Nice. That's how you do it. It was weird because then I have to sit there and explain, like, who is Ruth Buzzy?

1:13:51Who is Liberace? What is Moominchance? Why is Diane Cannon hanging out with Kermit and Gonzo? And after a couple of Muppet shows from the 70s, 80s, which are on Disney +, which is great, we then started going through the movies. And we watched them all. The one that they actually like the best, the one that they keep asking to rewatch, believe it or not, is 2014's Muppets Most Wanted, the sequel to The Muppets from 2011. Yeah. Which was like the soft reboot of the franchise. Yeah, Jason Segel. With Jason Segel. Got a lot of attention at the time. Oh, the Muppets are back and Jason Segel. And it won an Oscar for Best Original Song.

1:14:35And at the time, Muppets Most Wanted was like the disappointing follow-up. Did not do great at the box office. Did not get great reviews. Jason Segel and the other human star of the Muppets, Amy Adams, not in it. They like just, whoop, they're gone. But here is a hot take to rival that time that Jordan said Cats was better than Moonlight. Yes. I like Muppets Most Wanted better than the Muppets. Better than the Jason Segel Muppets. The Muppets. Yeah. Honestly, I like it better than almost all the Muppet movies. Oh, stop. I like it better than the Muppet movie. Oh, give me a break. Get out of here.

1:15:15You heard me. I'm outraged. But more than The Muppets Take Manhattan, which is the best of the series? Yes, easily. Yes, easily. The only one that I might like better is The Great Muppet Caper. The Great Muppet Caper is great. Oh, my God. Your Muppets opinions are awful. Well, look. The best Muppet movie is The Muppets Take Manhattan. When was the last time you watched the best Muppet movie, Muppets Take Manhattan? Weirdly recently. Well, I watched it like two days ago. So it was real fresh in my mind. The second best Muppet movie is the Muppet movie, the second one. And close on its tail, third place, of course, is Muppets Christmas Carol.

1:15:51I mean, Muppets Christmas Carol is wonderful. Yeah. It is wonderful. But. I'm going to give you this. I have not seen Muppets Most Wanted since the disappointing. Right, so you're disagreeing with me without having the context of seeing. I went to the press screening and like everyone else, I marched in lockstep and said, this is a flub and they got to get their act together. No. But I do agree that the recent show, which I watched with a group of people with Sabrina Carpenter's in it and she's very cute, it was good. It was very good. You know who else is in there? Let me stop. Can I defend Griffin Newman?

1:16:28Yes, our friend Griffin Newman is in the audience. He's in the audience. He flew himself out there on his own dime to be in the audience. I mean, I would have done it if I could have. I think that was great. Look, let me stump for this movie that you're trying to dismiss. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is silly, funny, very fast-paced, has great human performances from Tina Fey and, yes, Ricky Gervais. And I think important for the purposes of this wreck, it has this amazing soundtrack of funny original songs by Brett McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords. there are more good songs in Muppets Most Wanted than in The Muppets even though that was the movie that won the Oscar.

1:17:05That's a fair assessment. I'm going to reevaluate that. That could be the case. And if your 13-year-old kid loves musicals and comedy you are going to get it in this movie. But the music in the original Muppet movie with Dr. Teth and Electric Mayhem is pretty fine. It's fine. It's good. At Rainbow Connection it's great. Oh, you go, Valderick. It's better than fine. It's better than great. It's superior. by the way I wanted to state for the record The Great Muppet Caper is still good I like it Charles Grodin is in it Charles Grodin tries to tries to make sweet love to Miss Piggy he's romancing Miss Piggy and let me tell you something that is incredible incredible that's cinema Jack Ryan's Tom Clancy's Ghost War that is cinema in The Muppets Take Manhattan Mayor Ed Koch shows up We have yet to see Zoran in a Muppet movie, and I'm surprised.

1:18:02Well, they haven't made a Muppet movie when he's been the mayor. Zoran will be in the next Muppet movie for sure. That would be fine by me. Ed Koch is so good in The Muppets Take Manhattan. He should have won, much like Glenn Close should have won an Oscar for Air Force One, Ed Koch should have won a special Oscar for Muppets Take Manhattan. How did the Muppets take Manhattan? That's his line. Yes, so it is a really funny movie. It is honestly what I also like about it is a sequel about how do you follow a very successful and popular thing? That's the premise of the movie. It's not easy to do.

1:18:36And the Muppets in this movie get lured into this like sketchy business partnership with Ricky Gervais's character. Do you remember his character's name? No, I don't. Dominic Badge, spelled like bad guy. and he uses the group to go he uses like the tour that they go on as a front for these robberies which are executed by him and his partner Constantine, the world's most dangerous frog who happens to look just like Kermit but he has a mole and the evil Kermit character who's portrayed by puppeteer Matt Vogel he might be genuinely, I'm not joking my favorite Muppet of all time everything that Constantine does is funny Now that we control the Muppet Tour number two, phase one of our plans complete, we are now positioned to carry out greatest burglary.

1:19:30Burgl. Burgl. Burgl. Burglary. Yes. Of all time. You're selling me on a rewatch on this hard. Like, I'm ready to go watch it right now. He has this crazy foreign accent, and then he tries to sound like Kermit with the foreign accent. It's good comedy. Give it to me. I would watch a Satan Tangle length movie about Constantine the Frog. You're like a militant. You're like someone who's so radical. If you tame your rhetoric a little bit. I am a Muppet radical. You're being radical by saying that this is better than Muppets Take Manhattan or the Muppet movie or whatever. If you just say it's as good, I think you're going to have fewer rejections.

1:20:16I won't say it. You can't be. I have watched all of these movies with my children in the last month. You can't be stopped. You can't be stopped. And some of them went great. Yeah. Some of them went less great. And the Muppet movie, it didn't go that great. Oh, all right. All right. You're killing me here, but okay. But look, this isn't about me. This is about Patrick. It's about Patrick and his daughter. Recommending things to Patrick. Yeah. And odds are, he's seen the Muppet movie, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've watched it and it's great. Wait, I'm not trying to, I'm not here to bury the Muppet movie.

1:20:49I'm here to praise Muppets Most Wanted and to recommend a movie that has a not great reputation. Yeah, no, you're a radical in this sense. That he might have missed. So that's my recommendation for Patrick and his daughter. Yeah. Muppets Most Wanted. It is on Disney+. I hope they like it. Austin Pendleton in What's Up Doc is basically a Muppet, too. So that's good news. Great. All right. Let's move on because I'm the whirlwind. You're upset. Well, I'm just shocked. and flabbergasted, but let's move on.

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1:23:46Listen to Deep Cover, The Family Man on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:23:57Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Dani Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. Just then, we felt the plane turn in the air. So much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive headfirst into the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything.

1:24:40And me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Shall we play a game? Oh. As we bring in Sam here for the game, I do want to give a quick shout out that we do have, if we have Letterboxd user listeners, Sam does a great job of maintaining a list of everything we recommend on the show. So from the first episode on, it's a running list of all the titles we recommend.

1:25:18And if you click read notes, you can read a little about what we've said about each of them. If you missed any episodes, we mentioned, I think he puts in there like where you can stream them, all that sort of thing. So it is on Letterboxd. I think if you search for FilmSpottingSVU or you search for Bazooka under lists, you will find it. It is a really great resource if you are a listener and you're looking. Oh, I heard Jordan talk about a movie and he was mentioning some strange film about like monks in the Alps listening to, you know, banjo music. Where do I find that? That's right. You can find all those sorts of things on that list on Letterboxd.

1:25:56Search for FilmSpotting SVU. Search for Bazooka under lists and you will find it. Okay. Now. We should do a Monks in the Alps because I have two great monks movies. Of course you do. I do. I wasn't just pulled out of here. One is a documentary and one is a fiction film. I'd love to talk about it. And one last thing to mention, if you would like your own personalized recommendation that can get Jordan and Matt yelling about the Muppets at each other, the email address is feedback at filmspottingsvu.com. Send us what kind of movie you want to see or what kind of recommendation you're looking for and the streaming services you use.

1:26:31And that's all we need. Okay. Game time. We don't get to all of them, but we do get a lot of emails and we do try to answer. They're starting to come in. And we're going to, yes, we've been answering over email and we're answering them on the show. And we might have to start doing it where Jordan recommends one and I recommend one because they are starting to like backlog a little bit. That's true. All right. Yeah. Let's do the game. Sam is here. Hello, Sam. Yeah. Hello. Hello. So Muppets hot take quickly. Yes. Just about any episode of the original series is better than any Muppets film. I mean, you've got to go to the show.

1:27:02Wow. You've got to go to the show. It's not, I think that's a not that hot take. I kind of think that makes sense. It's just like it's the right length. It's the right length. All the movies are very good. Who is your favorite bananas? Like how the hell did this guy show up on The Muppet Show? Oh, there's too many. I was just saying to Matt as we were breaking, like the Milton Berle episode, maybe season two, is truly one of my favorite 22 minutes of comedy ever recorded. Okay. I got to watch that. Disney Plus. We did not watch that one with the kids. I don't know that one. We will have to watch that one.

1:27:32Milton Berle, Mum and Sean, it's all the greats. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so game. All right. So as you discussed earlier, of course, Jack Ryan, well, let's not forget Ghost War. Tom Clancy's. Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan's Ghost War. The Return. It's been played on screen by four actors prior to Krasinski. We talked about this. Baldwin, Ford, Affleck, Pine. So the name of this game, of course, is called The Sum of All Jack Ryans. Nice. So Alec Baldwin has appeared in films with all the other Jack Ryans. Did you know that? Oh, wow. I don't want you to jump in. You may already be thinking about this. Yeah, I'm trying.

1:28:07In part one of the Sum of All Jack Ryans, you will tell me what those films are and which Jack Ryans appeared in them. So two points per film. One point per Jack. This is great. You don't know Jack. One point for the movie. I can't think of a Jack. Oh, no. I'm going to give you clues about each film. No, I know, but I'm pre-stumped. Stay stumped. Stay stumped for now. Yeah, yeah. Film number one, nominated for six Oscars. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress. Two Best Supporting Actress nominations. And a win for best original song, Let the River Run, music and lyrics by Carly Simon. What is that film?

1:28:45And who are the Jack Ryans who appeared in the film? The year 1988. Oh, so it's not, wait, which, so this could be any Jack Ryans? How many Jack Ryans? I told you that Alec Baldwin has appeared in films with all of the Jack Ryans. So Alec Baldwin's going to be in all of them. Well, actually, we don't know that, but Alec Baldwin is likely to be, but if it's not 88. Well, wait, isn't it, can I guess? Yeah, go ahead. Isn't this Working Girl? Working Girl. Okay, so you get one point for Working Girl. Now I need to know who are the Jack Ryans. So if it's got Alec Baldwin and it's got Harrison Ford.

1:29:19Okay, so you have two points. Matt has two points. Wait, where is Alec Baldwin in Working Girl? He's the slimy boyfriend, Melanie Griffith's slimy boyfriend. He's pretty much - He is. I haven't seen this in a very long time. Yeah. I have not seen this in a million years. it is good but I really haven't seen it in so long that I don't think I knew I probably saw it before Alec Baldwin was famous oh probably yeah when you were still a working girl when this movie came out in 88 and what year did Humphrey Red October come out 91, 90, 90 I think I bet you I didn't know Alec Baldwin's name until Humphrey Red October anyway I'm not going to guess here Humphrey Red October is 90 okay Okay.

1:30:01All right. So film number two, Matt's up two. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Game's over, right? Game over. Okay. Film number two, this historical epic was the sixth highest grossing film of its release year. It made nearly$200 million at the box office. It was nominated for four Oscars, winning one for best sound editing. It was nominated for best original song. And of course, losing that Oscar was Diane Warren. It has a 24 % on Rotten Tomatoes. What? 2001 historical epic stars two or features two Jack Ryans. So is it 2001 historical? I think I know. I have no idea. Is this Pearl Harbor? Pearl Harbor is correct.

1:30:47Can you name the Jack Ryans who appears? It's going to have some Ben Affleck and it's going to have some Alec Baldwin. You got it. Alec Baldwin is James Doolittle. Ben Affleck is Rafe Macaulay. What a name. Okay, Pearl Harbor, to bring it all back, Pearl Harbor currently streaming on Hulu and Tubi with ads. Working Girl. Yeah, go ahead. But we should say, like, mentioning it does not equate to an endorsement. Yeah. This will not show up on the now streaming. Depiction does not equal endorsement in this game. Not in this game, though. And Pearl Harbor came out in, like, summer of 2001. Is that right?

1:31:24Yeah. Wow, okay. Yeah. Good job, Jordan. I was totally blanking on that. 2-2. too. I thought you guys would get, I'm glad that, you know, we're giving our listeners a chance to think about this as you do too. Okay. Cause this is actually, those were the easy ones. Oh boy. I'm afraid. Okay. This is actually, you should be able to get this after some thinking. So this love triangle comedy is often confused by me anyway, with an earlier love triangle comedy from the same writer director. The main character of both is a woman of late middle age played by one of our great actresses who is adored by a pair of men.

1:32:00In the earlier film, the earlier Love Triangle film, one of those men is a handsome young doctor, the other an aging womanizer. In the Jack Ryan's version, one of them is played by a Jack Ryan, the other by the jerk. Okay. Yes, Matt? By the jerk. What does that mean? Wait, I thought I knew, but I don't know what the jerk - Go, say it, say it. I was going to guess this means war? Oh, no. I'm sorry. Who plans to - It has Chris Pine. He was a - Okay. A love triangle with Steve Martin - And it's a love triangle. Yes, Steve Martin. And Alec Baldwin. Is this LA story? No? Oh, wow. So this is 2009. Oh.

1:32:432009. What was Steve Martin - Oh, oh, oh, oh. It's complicated. Is it complicated? It's complicated. It's complicated. You're on the board. Wow. Okay. So, yeah. So who are the Jack Ryans who appear in It's Complicated? It's complicated. Well, who else besides Baldwin? Is Chris Pine in that too somewhere? I don't even remember that movie at all. I will give you one point. John Krasinski plays Streep's future son-in-law. I forgot about you. You forgot that he was a Jack Ryan. I forgot. After talking about that movie for 30 minutes, I legitimately forgot that I could say John. That shows you how meaningful his work is.

1:33:19I think we're at 3-2, Matt. We're at 3-2. 3-2. That was like when you missed a free throw there. Yeah. Yeah. It's complicated. Currently streaming on Peacock and Cinemax also available. That's a Peacock, yeah. EOD and Bazooka. Okay. Film number four. This is hard. Maybe you'll know this. Dark City. If I was on your side, I would not get this. In this 2012 animated film. Oh, boy. So these are voice actors. This is tough. Sorry. What year? 2012 animated film. Jude Law. Got it. Not a Jack Ryan. No. He plays an evil spirit named Pitch who threatens to plague children with nightmares. Oh, I think I know this.

1:34:02Is this Jack? Not Jack Frost. Chris Pine plays Jack Frost. He does. You're right. Shit, but it's not called Jack Frost. I think I'm going to let you try to pull it out because I think I might know the name of this without having ever seen this movie. I went to the world premiere of this movie. Of course you did. And Chris Pine is good. Did you meet Reed Hastings there? it's a um it's a it's a dreamworks animated i believe shit um and it was ultimately a a bomb i think it made you know it was like a very expensive film to make it was the adaptation of a series of books uh i think i i think i do know the name okay yeah the reason it was a bomb is it was a it was a it was a four kids animation film that i actually kind of liked and that's why it didn't work um and chris pine plays uh jack frost got it al baldwin is probably a villain and there's somewhere like a wacky old man.

1:34:53I don't remember. Not as villainous as Jude Law's pitch, but yes. It's called like a touch. Nope, nope. Frosty touch. Nope, no, not frost. It's nowhere in the title. No. All right, can I guess? A Tale of Winter or something like that? Oh, this sucks. What is it called? Is it called Rise of the Guardians? It is. Yes. I think because Jordan named the Jack Ryans. Yeah. Matt named the film, so I think we're at 4-3. Yeah. Yeah. Now here's what's funny. It's called Rise of the Guardians, which is such a bland title that no one can remember. And the other thing is about a year or so beforehand, the Guardians of Gahool came out.

1:35:35Yes. I was confusing it with that. The Guardians of Gahool also is terrific. That's a Zack Snyder film. That's Zack Snyder. About owls. And the owls are like warriors. It's like Watership Down for owls, basically. And The Guardians of Gahool is pretty good. And I kind of like that movie. It might be the best Zack Snyder movie of all. But yeah, so who's going to possibly remember Rise of the Guardians? It should have been called Jack Frost, but they couldn't. Well, there was a movie called Jack Frost with Michael Keaton. Yeah, they were Jim Frost. Amazing with one of the greatest lines in movie history.

1:36:09How did they get Air Force One? No, it's great. And it's in the trailer. It's, you know, Michael Keaton is killed in like a snow accident. He comes back as a snowman. Right, okay. He comes back as a sentient snowman. Right. His spirit imbues a snowman. So what happens is like he's trying to reconnect with his son. Yes. And so they're on like a snowboard going down a hill shooting snowballs at the bad kids who've been bullying the sons. And finally, the dad is impressive to the kid. Like the kid's been ignoring his dad. And even when he comes back to Snowman, he's like, ah, you're a dopey dad. And he's like, and the kid goes, you the man.

1:36:52And the dad, Jack Frost, goes, you the man. And the kid goes, you the snowman.

1:37:01It's beautiful. It's art. So anyway, that's your heart. Not a line from Rise of the Guardians, but from Jack Frost, just so we're clear here. Rise of the Guardians. You the man. You the snowman. You the snowman. Rise of the Guardians currently only available VOD. So we're 4-3. I do have a bonus question here. Is this the last one? Because there is another pairing of Jack Ryans that does not include Alec Baldwin. One more. Oh, okay. That I was able to find. All right, let's do it. This is a Baldwin-free Jack Ryan combo. That's right. So remember John Krasinski. Actually, you don't have to, but I'm just saying don't forget about him.

1:37:37The sum of all Jack Ryans part two. Only two other Jack Ryans have appeared in a film together. Which two and what film is it? The year 2006. Okay. Written and directed by the man who gave us this year's The Rip on Netflix. Also The Grey. Oh, okay. I know the answer. Yes. It's Smoke and Aces by John Joe Carnahan. You are correct. Smoke and Aces. Wow. And Smoke and Aces has Chris Pine doing some weird, like, he's like - He's a neo-Nazi. Yeah, but he's got a weird voice in it. But here's the thing. Which other Jack Ryan is in it? That's correct. So right now, it's 4-4. Yeah. You got the movie. I know that it's Chris Pine, but I don't know, is it, it's not Harrison Ford.

1:38:23It's not Alec Baldwin, because he said, so it's got to be Ben Affleck. It's Ben Affleck, isn't there? It is Ben Affleck. I don't remember him being in there. So now we're at 5-4. I think you're... No! Smoking Aces. Wait a minute. I do have... He can't win. There's a ball home. Not on Smoking Aces. I don't want this to be how it ends. Even though we should go. I do know I have a double bonus. Okay, good. Good, good, good, good. I don't want to win on Smoking Aces. He's going to spike the football. Smoking Aces is not a bad move. It's okay. It's better than some other Joe Carnahan. It's Carnahan.

1:38:57Joe Carnan, I don't know if we mentioned that, but of course the director and writer. You both have a chance for points here. Right now it's Jordan 5, it's Matt 4. Because you are the Jack Ryan completist, Matt, I'm going to give you the chance to at least tie Jordan. And I'm going to ask you, because the only, from what I could tell, we mentioned James Earl Jones or the character played by James Earl Jones showing up in several of the Jack Ryans. Agreed. But that character does not actually appear in all five of the Jack Ryan movies. The only character who does actually, with the exception of this new one, is Caroline or Carol, sometimes Kathy Ryan, sometimes Kathy Muller.

1:39:38Yes. The wife of, sometimes just the love interest of Jack Ryan. My question about the October one is for Jordan. So for the rest of them, do you remember who played? No. Okay. I'll just give you a chance. There was one actress who played. I... Dr. Carol and Kathy Ryan in both Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. Which I just rewatched. I'm getting like, if it's not her, it's her substitute. It's a Rene Russo type, right? It's not Rene Russo. I feel like... I don't know what happened to this actress. Yeah, it's like... Carla Gugino. Her name starts with an A, doesn't it? You're right. Yes.

1:40:18It's Anne... Anne Archer? Anne Archer, correct. Oh, Anne Archer. Yeah, yeah. Of course, Anne Archer. Yes. And I had that thought watching Clear and Present Danger last week. It's like, she's good. She's good. What happened to her? She had an 80s run. She's probably doing theater in Portland and having a great life. And in Jack Ryan Show. Can I name? I do know one. It's Keira Knightley. That's correct. Kathy Muller. Because I watched a few scenes of that earlier this week. Correct. Some of all fears. I did not revisit the some of all fears, but my brain is telling me, I could be totally wrong. Is it Bridget Moynihan?

1:40:51You're right. Wow. Oh, wow. That's a pull. Good call. I did not revisit it. I just pulled that one. I just remembered. You saw the pilot, it sounds like. Yeah, it was Abby Cornish. Abby Cornish. The pilot of the TV show. She's not in Ghost War. Okay. They mention her character. They're like, it didn't work out. They retcon their love affair carrying on forever and just wrote her out. She was probably unavailable or something. Can I give a brief Ann Archer update here? Yes. Please. Her career really kicked off in TV. She was on 700 episodes of Falcon Crest. Wow. And then she was making films, including the ones we met.

1:41:30Fatal Attraction was kind of her biggie. Yes, that's right. And then she was in Patriot Games, but then also movies like Narrow Margin, Eminent Domain, Clear and Present Danger. She was in Shortcuts also. She was one of the many characters in Shortcuts. But more recently, she has been doing a lot of TV. She was a recurring character on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Interesting. She did one, two, three, four appearances. She was on The L Word. She had three appearances there. Most recent stuff, Law & Order episode. And it was in 2016. And then in 2022, she was on a miniseries called The Dropout, which I did hear of.

1:42:07That was the thing about Elizabeth Holmes. Oh, sure. Yeah. Good for her. With Amanda Seyfried. So she was in that. She's living a good life. She's 78 years old. And she's working when she wants to, I think. That's good. Good to hear. Good for her. So this is, it's tied now. So now this is your chance to win, Jordan. Oh, God. Yeah. So in the hunt for Red October. Yes. This character, who goes by many names, was played by Cheryl Gates McFadden. Oh, my God. Okay. You know what I'm going to ask you, right? What character did she play in the Star Trek universe? Oh, come on. I got a tricorder behind me.

1:42:47Gates McFadden's an old friend of mine. She is.

1:42:53Dr. Beverly Crusher. Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, of course. I mean, come on, Sam. Gates McFadden, the dancing doctor, whose career, by the way, began as a choreographer. She worked with David Bowie on Labyrinth. And I believe I saw her recently in The Muppets Take Manhattan. That's right. She has a small role. You're right. You're right. She's a dancer. Yeah, she's like the secretary for, what's his name, who plays the Broadway producer. I'm going to tell you - Daphne Coleman. I'm going to tell you a quick Gates McFadden story. And by the way, she's a very lovely woman. She's terrific. As some listeners may know, I used to have a semi-formal relationship with the Star Trek franchise.

1:43:41I was the moderator at many, many Star Trek events. And I had the Star Trek podcast for many years. And I used to do the Star Trek cruise, which still exists. And they're doing great. And I did five of them. And one of the ones I did was in February 2020. Now, you may remember what happened in March 2020. It was the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic. and when we were getting ready to go in february 2020 it was like a couple of emails hey how is this thing going around china i don't know cruise ships i don't know and they were gonna no no game on game on we're still gonna go we're still gonna do it and as we got on the ship it was a little nervous but it was still contained and while we were on the ship for a week you know you check the news each morning and it would be like a couple of cases oh a couple of cases in canada America, a couple of cases.

1:44:40Oh, shit. And there was another cruise that was docked and couldn't get back in. So we were all terrified, but we all had our game face on and we were doing the shows. You know, I was moderating panels and doing fan events and doing trivia games and whatnot. And then the thing is, when you're on these cruises, the cast is allowed to disembark before the rest of the gang if you choose to. But what that means is getting up at 6 a.m. and being at the dock to get off first. Then you sit in a bus and they take you to the airport. But you still have to wait, I mean, until everybody's off the ship, which takes hours if you've been on one of these cruise ships.

1:45:17Anyway, this year I'm like, you know, there's this thing called the coronavirus pandemic. I'd like to be off a boat now. I think I'm done. I'm getting up really, really early. Before I have my coffee, I'm going out there. And there was one person that was there before me, And it was Gates McFadden. And I looked at her. I'm like, oh, hey, Gates. Yeah, I guess another great show. We did it again. And, you know, it was an unspoken thing. We didn't want to talk about coronavirus because it would make us all kind of scared because we didn't know what it was. And then she just looked at me. She's like, I have to get off this goddamn boat right now.

1:45:53Not that she didn't love being on the ship. She loves the fans. It was just we were all kind of scared. And so she was the first one. And then we got off the boat. She went back to L.A. I flew back to New York. Everybody went back. home and like oh seven days later eight days later it was like coronavirus for real like we just and that was when everything shut down so when i think about gates mcfadden i think about that look of terror in her eyes let's get the hell off this boat dr crusher couldn't she should have been working on the cure what was i know had it been dr beshear he would have stayed behind but that's what it is that's what it is okay well you win again i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry And you got to tell a random and totally unrelated story about meeting a famous person.

1:46:40This is the worst. It's Reed Hastings. And when with Reed Hastings and Gates McFadden. Seven degrees, six degrees of Jordan Hoffman. Well, you know, once again, folks, you listen to another episode of Film Spotting SVU. But before we say goodbye, and by the way, great game, Sam. That was a fun one. Not just because I won, but that was a fun one. It was a really good idea to jack Ryan it up. We should talk about what's coming out in streaming this weekend. And it looks to me, Matt, you've got the first section. Do you want to talk about what's coming new to streaming? Sure. We've got these are these are titles that are technically not streaming.

1:47:22They are rentable. They are purchasable. You can get them on VOD. We've got Hokum, the haunted in horror movie starring Adam Scott. we have I swear the biopic about the Tourette's advocate who I guess we don't need to go into it but if you heard about an incident that went down at the BAFTAs I'm not getting involved in that HOKUM by the way is pretty cool okay I missed that one you can recommend HOKUM? somewhat, wait a few more weeks and it'll be free you don't have to pay but it's pretty good and then finally we have Guy Ritchie's In the Grey with Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal. They play covert operatives.

1:48:03I wonder if they know Jack Ryan, the shadow recruit. He's an analyst. He's not a covert operative. Anyway, all of those will be available to rent or buy on Tuesday, June 2nd. We've also got some theatrical releases that are coming to streaming. They include Hoppers coming to Disney Plus on June 3rd. That's the new Pixar movie. And that's a straight up Pixar. That's not even a Disney animation. That's a Pixar movie. It's the latest Pixar movie. I didn't see it. It was okay. Not one of my favorites, but it was cute. All right. Pleasant. Mm-hmm. We've got Pillion coming to HBO Max with Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård.

1:48:44Can I - BDSM romance. Oh, boy. This is a gay romance with BDSM, as they call it. Now, I got to tell you - I'm terrified what celebrity and digression this could lead into. I went on my, for an assignment, for a writing assignment, I went to see the film Melania earlier this year. Okay. Opened the very first screening of Melania in public because there were no press screenings, famously. Can't imagine why. Go ahead. So I went to the first screening of Melania, which was packed with MAGA hardcore right-wing supporters who were there to see their guy and their gal and applaud. Sure. And there were some trailers before the film.

1:49:28And most of the trailers were like made sense for the Melania audience. And one of them was even like this thing, a very low budget Revolutionary War thing with like somebody romping around like Ben Franklin. I don't even know what the hell that was. I don't think it's come out yet. But then there was the trailer for Pillion. I swear to you. How'd that go over? Just stone silence. No heckling. I'll give the crowd some respect and say they did not heckle. but absolute stone silence. Maybe not the best spot to put that trailer. But anyway, Pillian, that is available on HBO Max on June 5th. And then also available on June 5th on Peacock is the latest documentary about Lorne Michaels and SNL.

1:50:13It's called Lorne. This is directed by Morgan Neville. I did see this one. It's fine. It's meant for streaming. It's probably a good streaming documentary. Yeah, I saw it and they did put it in theaters. I don't honestly, I mean, I'm not entirely sure why you would put that movie in theaters. Contractual obligation. Maybe. But in a world where, you know, last year was the 50th anniversary of SNL, there was so much documentary content about SNL. All of it's on streaming, on Peacock. I'm not sure we needed one more thing, but this one is okay. It's not bad. There have been some clips of sort of surfaced funny stories that John Mulaney tells and whatnot.

1:50:47Yeah, John Mulaney has a lot of great stories. I mean, every funny person in the world is in this documentary talking about SNL and Lorne Michael. So it can't be that bad and that boring. And it is funny. I don't know that you learn all that much if you are a real SNL aficionado. But again, as a streaming title, it's probably worth a watch on streaming. That's Lorne on Peacock on June 5th. And then finally on June 6th, we have Scarlet, a new animated adaptation of Hamlet called Scarlet. I believe this is anime. Mamoru Hosada's Hamlet adaptation, Scarlet. I haven't seen this one. Jordan, have you seen this?

1:51:28No, no, no, no. And where is this one streaming? On Netflix. The Big Red Machine. That's great. Thank you, Sam, for that. Okay, Jordan. Also, coming up direct to stream, so everything we just mentioned, I don't know, some of those we had to pay extra. Some of those were VOD, and then there were some that were from theaters now on streaming. These are things that are going straight to streaming. The true stream. Yes. Apple TV, the 10-episode limited series adaptation of It's Been a Movie Twice. How about a series? Cape Fear, which is based on a book, The Executioner's, 1957. and of course it's been done twice uh back in the day with uh robert mitchum and gregory peck and then in the early 90s martin scorsese with de niro and and nick nolte and um oh juliet lewis right and and now who's gonna play the big bad this is pretty good casting robert mitchum robert de niro javier bardem i'm down i'll see it yeah i'll watch it how many episodes 10 I don't know if I'll watch all 10.

1:52:36On Netflix, Office Romance with Jennifer Lopez and Brett Goldstein. Written by Goldstein and directed by Ollie Parker. Old Parker. Old Parker. Good old Parker. And he's the guy who did the Mamma Mia and Ticket to Paradise. Ticket to Paradise was pretty good, actually. I like that. You saw that, didn't you? I did. Yeah, it wasn't bad. Yes, it was. It was okay. It was pleasant. It was George Clooney in summer clothing. It was pleasant, you know? Sure. I was on vacation with my friend George. They were on vacation. George Clooney was in it. Julie Roberts was in it. So that's called Office Romance.

1:53:18I'm probably not in the market for that one, but who knows? You never know what you're going to see. And then also on Hulu, after a short theatrical run, Psycho Killer, written by Andrew Kevin walker who of course is most famous for writing seven and directed by a guy named gavin pallone and gavin pallone this is the first feature film he's ever directed he's directed some episodes of television before gavin pallone is one of the biggest producers in hollywood and has been for 35 years i mean television movies mega producer and i guess now he's in the later stage in his career he's like i want to direct movies and he's doing something called psycho killer for hulu uh it wasn't theaters but direct for 20th century films is what it is and they have you know used to be 20th century fox and now their stuff all goes to hulu and that's what's going on what are we going to watch next week man i don't know that's what we got to figure out i mean uh we could watch psycho killer we could watch office romance although you you said that's you're not in the market for an office romance we've been doing a lot of a lot of netflix maybe we've never done a hulu we did prime video we haven't done a hulu although this one is i'm always you know We are the streaming video unit, and that one did technically play in theaters.

1:54:34So we'll have to look. We'll figure it out. We will review something. But do you even remember this coming to theaters? I mean, I didn't see it in theaters, but I was aware that it came to theaters. Yes. It was a thing. It did not set the world on fire. I mean, there's some horror movies out right now, Obsession, Back Rooms. People are talking about those films. Sure. Nobody's talking about Psycho Killer. No disrespect to Gavin Pallone. But you know what? He can cry into his many, many, many millions. And because his movie was maybe a dud. I don't know. We might watch it. We might not. Come back next week and find out.

1:55:09We'll leave listeners in suspense. I love that. They don't know. In the meantime, they can send their feedback to feedback at filmspottingsvu.com. Again, that's also where to send your requests for personalized streaming recommendations. If you want to contact us online, you can find me on Instagram on Letterboxd at SuperPulse. I'm also on Blue Sky. I think I'm at Matt Singer there. Jordan is at Blue Sky at Jay Hoffman 6. No, I'm just regular Jay Hoffman on Blue Sky. I'm Jay Hoffman on Blue Sky and I'm Jay Hoffman on X. I'm considering reactivating X, much like Jack Ryan was reactivating. And I'm considering going back on X.

1:55:50I don't know. Elon Musk sucks. I don't know if I will or not, but you could find me on Blue Sky at Jay Hoffman and on Instagram. And Matt, what do you got going on this week? Anything fun? Just writing every day at Screen Crush, ScreenCrush.com. Aren't you making an appearance? I was recently on The Next Picture Show, our sister podcast. I had a really great time with Keith and Tasha. We talked about Shogun Assassin, I think, this week. And then next week, you'll hear us talking about The Mandalorian and Grogu. Ooh. That's nice. With Keith Phipps and Tasha Robinson. My old colleagues from The Dissolved.

1:56:27Keith Phipps has another podcast all about sci-fi. I was a guest on that not long ago. We talked about Night of the Lepus, the killer bunny movie, which is just really quite something. I think Barbra Streisand was in that as well. Yes. Thank you to all the listeners. If you're out there in traffic, we hope that you made it through and you're in the tunnel now. Now, if you're on a plane, if you're walking your dog, if you're doing the dishes, thank you to Sam for coming up with yet another good game. He's on fire with the games. He really is. Good job, Sam. That was a fun one. And thank you, Matt, for being you and your children and all that.

1:57:06And thank you to me for being great. And everybody's thankful for everything. And thanks to Gates McFadden. And getting off that boat. We survived the coronavirus pandemic. We'll see you next week. Okay. I'm Matt Singer. He's Jordan Hoffman. Thanks for listening.

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