I Have Some Notes

Season finale we have reached. Fix A bad movie, we will. 

It’s been seven seasons of playing armchair screenwriter on this show, but I dare say no movie has evoked as much emotion and exasperation as The Rise of Skywalker. A deeply flawed movie from start to finish, no director has earned a place on this podcast quite like J.J. Abrams.

As we mention in the show, you all came through big on your fixes for this one, and we sadly could not get to them all. However, we did want to highlight two really interesting pitches from listeners that were too long to read on the show:

Tak’s Pitch 

Sean McKnight’s Pitch

Finally, here is a link to How Bad Movies Are Made feat. The Rise of Skywalker, the video Scott mentions at the end of the show.

Have a great summer, armchair screenwriters! See you in September.

Danica LeBlanc, Anita Bourgeois, and Erin Beever are back for another podcast takeover, and this time they've brought IHSN veteran Glenna Schowalter with them! The movie? 2018's women-led heist extravaganza, OCEAN'S EIGHT.

Together the takeover team works out a new conniving angle for Anne Hathaway's character, as well as adding some much-needed tension when the thieving is at its peak.

Cloud Atlas is an ambitious film about the ties that bind us through the passage of time. It is thoughtful and expertly edited. Does it deserve to be picked apart in the traditional I Have Some Notes fashion? Probably not. However, you suggested and voted for it, and we're not in the habit of disappointing our listeners.

While there are some obvious problematic choices the Wachowskis and company make that could be very easily cleaned up, many of our other notes are more of the picking nits variety. Still, it was a great discussion about a really interesting film.

For our 101st movie fix, Cruella, because here at I Have Some Notes we allow numerical coincidence to dictate the show. In all honesty, Cruella was a pretty good time. It wasn't the least notes we've given to a film, but it was certainly close. Still, the lore of the film was hotly contested, making this a fun episode.

We have officially fixed 100 movies, and still no calls from any Hollywood execs. This is a free service we're providing here, you'd think they'd at least reach out and say "thank you", especially on our 100th movie birthday.

One person we would like to thank is Colin MacIntyre, this show's original host, for returning for this momentous occasion. Believe me, it isn't easy watching mediocre movie after mediocre movie and to hit the century mark really feels Herculean to us, and Colin was a big part of that. 

Listen to us flex our muscles 100th time as we take on an absolute classic in BATMAN (1989). I realize I just talked a big game about watching mediocre movies being rough, and no, Batman is not one of those. Give us a break, we wanted to watch something good for our centennial.

But before you do we just want to say thank you so much for listening. Whether you're a diehard listener from the beginning or listening to us for the very first time, we appreciate every one of you. Thank you!

You've heard us talk about fixing a lot of movies, how about our own movie pitches? We've got great ideas, but Hollywood isn't returning our calls, so now we're giving them away for free! Returning guest Robyn Slack of the Quantum Kickflip podcast joins us to pitch some wholly original movies, except the ones that are pitches for existing properties…then they're just mostly original.

Robot Jox spent its budget on some cutting-edge special effects for 1989, and not much else. While the giant mechs looked great, the robot choreography itself was a bit dull. But that aside we found plenty of other easy wins to punch up this B-movie classic.

Olav Rokne (of the Hugo Book Club Blog fame) returns for this sci-fi romp! He lends his insights into the genre as well as sharing stories about one of the screenwriters, who he knows personally. 

A classic 80s character is stripped apart and rebuilt by the modern-day Hollywood machine. Robocop may not have been the most cynical of reboot cash grabs, but it certainly missed many of the opportunities it set up for itself.

That's where we jump in to reprogram some of the film's themes and attempt to add some contemporary pathos to a script ironically lacking humanity.

If you grew up in the 90s Adam Sandler probably had a large influence on your sense of humour. He likely did not have a large influence on you as an eventual parent, however. While Big Daddy was certainly a more "mature" turn for Sandler at the time, his childish instincts prevented it from being a really touching comedy about fatherhood.

Speaking of fatherhood, German Villegas of the Modern Manhood podcast joins us this week. The entire upcoming season of Modern Manhood is all about child development, which put Big Daddy right in German's big damn wheelhouse. Together we try to add some stronger comedic structure to the film while also analyzing Sonny Kaufax's style as a father.

Highlander II was so efficient at burning the goodwill of its fanbase George Lucas took it as a personal challenge, and that's how we got The Phantom Menace. We're not exactly Hollywood historians around here, but we're pretty sure that's how it went down.

For some reason, the minds behind Highlander thought the best way to continue the story of a 500-year-old sword-fighting immortal with a rich background, not even Forrest Gump could hold a bucket of shrimp up to by making him an alien who's charged with fixing the ozone layer. Yeah…

Suffice it to say we had a lot of gripes with Connor MacLeod's second appearance on the silver screen, but the fixes were a bit difficult. Thankfully Glenna Schowalter of the Quantum Kickflip podcast returns to lend us a head. Get it?