Topic: The YouTube Generation is Finally Taking Hold

Topher Mac spent the week watching movies and is ready to gush and gore about them!  Really though, most of this episode is about discussing a possible new hope for the future of cinema:  the YouTube generation.  In addition to exploring parallels of cinema’s past and present predicament, Topher also shares a terrible story of an event that occurred during a recent trip to the movies.  

Transcript

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There are gonna be some high highs and some low lows here today, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Tophra Mack. This is Shadows That Shine. And what we're gonna get into, I mean, let's just jump straight into it. Crazy, crazy unexpected uh week. Since we last uh, you know, were with each other. I have watched a lot of movies in the movie theater and a couple movies at home. And I have had some wonderful experiences, and I have had the single worst experience of my entire uh life in terms of being inside of a cinema. So it, I mean all over the place. And I think I'm gonna save the bad story till the end, and we're gonna just jump straight into things. Alright, this is Shadows That Shine, a movie podcast, and we talk about cinema, la cinema, and um, you know, I'm happy that y'all are here with us. Let's get right into it. Okay, first things first, box office. Who was our top five domestic scorers? Uh the the winners of the box office this week. Well, that's the whole that is, you know what, actually, before we get into that, I'm sorry, I do got one thing to say. I want to say rest in peace. Marsha Lucas. When she passed away, I made the decision that we were gonna do this episode uh about Marsha Lucas. I had from the inception of this podcast wanted to do an episode on her. It's in the very first like 10 things I wrote down of I want to cover this. Um, I wasn't able to get into the room with the person I wanted to cover it with originally. Then when this all popped up, uh a director friend of mine, Max Wood, who's in town, uh, he mentioned that he would want uh that he would, you know, also be interested and also holds Marshall Lucas in high esteem. So I said, all right, cool. Well, this is the thing about doing podcasts uh at last minute. He uh is not able to participate because of a sore throat, so we're gonna do a special episode on Marshall Lucas as soon as we can. Then I started thinking, what are we gonna do our episode about this week? And this is why I've interrupted my box office portion because I am so excited to finally see some change. In fact, I think that we may in fact be looking at a new the beginning of a new era. I thought that we've been in the decline of cinema, and I might be wrong. It depends how Hollywood reacts to what's happening here, it depends how the cinema industry reacts to what has been happening all year this year. Is it 1968? Because the seismic change in cinema history since the release, uh I mean I'm sorry, because the most seismic change uh change in cinema history since the release of Easy Rider has happened. Today we're gonna talk about Kane Parsons, we're gonna talk about Curry uh Curry Barker, we're gonna talk about Marki Play, we're gonna talk about Danny and Michael Philippou. We're gonna talk about the change of cinema. And it starts with our box office because lo and behold, the for the last 26 years, franchises have ruled. And now we are seeing, and we've seen other examples of this like uh you know lately, but but now we are seeing without dispute what people want. Backrooms comes in at first place with $81.5 million domestically for A24, second place obsession, $26.4 million as focused features. Hey, guess what? Those names I mentioned, Kane Parsons, 20-year-old director, Curry Barker, 26-year-old director. That's your one and two. That's right, New Blood. And what did they what did they do? Why is it so impressive? Because they took Star Wars, the Mandalorian and Grogu, and put them to shame. Star Wars only pulled in $25 million for Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures this week. Michael, 11.7 million more for Lions Gate, you know. I mean, I guess technically that's an IPO, uh, I mean, an IP. But I mean, well, uh, it's done really well this year. I'm not even gonna talk shit on Michael, uh, but I I haven't got a chance to see yet. Uh, fifth place, the breadwinner. That's a Sony Pictures release. What's the breadwinner about? It's a stand-up comic who says, I have an audience that likes me, it's my turn to make a movie. Let's make comedies successful. And um also, guess what? I forgot to write that the breadwinner brought in $7.5 million. Now, you know me, I like to talk about uh the full intakes. So let me just get through that real quick. Uh the backrooms was 81.5 million domestic, 36.5 million internationally for a total of 118 million. Obsession. Now, with all the things that it added in, 104.8 domestic so far, 43.2 internationally so far for a total of 148 million dollars worldwide. That's that's incredible, and that was for focus features that they brought that money in for. Focus features is got a lot of interesting stuff coming out this year. It's almost like smaller movies are more interesting. But anywho, uh Mandalorian and Grogu has uh made 137.4 million domestically, 109.2 million internationally, for a total of 246.6 billion uh million dollars. It was a time where a Star Wars movie came out and you just knew it was gonna be a billion. That's a fourth of that. That's a that's a dying brand. Um, I mentioned earlier. Boom. Uh Michael, where is it at? Speaking of billion-dollar brand, uh domestically, 339.9 million dollars. Internationally, 506.4 million dollars, 846.3 million dollars worldwide so far for Lionsgate. Michael is uh one of the most successful films of the year. People um people were after uh it looks like thrillers are the see what it is, thrillers are doing well this year, you know. I don't know, I just thought I'd mix it up with a joke. Come along with me, people breadwinner, like I said, that's uh Sony Pictures uh releasing, and it just did the 7.5. But you know what? That's nothing to be ashamed of, especially it's a PG movie. I mean, you know, it's obviously working. Now, what does that mean for the week? That means that there was improvement this week over last week. Now, when I say last week it was Memorial Day, I am talking about just the weekend. But for the May uh, as in May 22nd to May 24th, exclude excluding Memorial Day. Well, this weekend, May 29th to May 31st, up 0.1%. And it's backrooms, backrooms, the most successful release of A24 uh ever, uh in terms of opening weekend. They have crushed it. In just a few minutes, we're gonna dig a little bit deeper into the these ideas that are going on. But before we do, I want to pump the brakes and I want to talk about my week of movies, the good stuff. Now, I say the good stuff, and some of these movies aren't gonna be good. The bad experience I'm gonna share at the end of the podcast today. Oh my god. Awful, awful. It will make your skin crawl. We're not there yet. We're gonna save that till later. I want to talk about the good. So then why am I gonna start by saying uh since we last spoke, Star Wars, Mandalorian and uh Mandalorian and Grogu is the first movie that I saw after um recording. And I, you know, you you're like, hey Tover, Tover Mac, what'd you think of it? Well, I'll tell you what I thought of it. It was eh, you know. The problem with it is it's not a bad movie, but it's not a good movie. It it's a fuck it's a TV show. That's what it is. It's a TV show that they put on a big screen. And it's not even like if you were to to like break it into episodes, it's not even the best episodes that you would have gotten. I don't think that they advanced Grogu's character enough for my liking. I don't think that um The Mandalorian had uh any significant growth. The movie doesn't justify its existence, and I'm extremely disappointed because I love the director, and to me, this is a real um damage, it did real damage to his career as a film director to have released this movie, but is what it is. Here we are. Then uh the next day I watched Mortal Kombat 2, and um here's the thing. Uh, by the way, you know what? I'm gonna actually tell you guys what our letterboxed uh reviews were for that. Star Wars, Mandalorian, and Grogu, I gave it three stars. Mortal Kombat 2, three stars, and it's the first thing I've ever written about a movie because that movie is dark. No, no, not like fun dark. I mean, I can't see the freaking movie. How am I in a movie theater and I can't see everything happening on screen? Going way too deep into the dark on that one. Brighten up the image. It's a movie theater. Like, I guess they took uh shadows a little too far in the explanation of everything. Um, but you know what? It's okay because after I got done with that movie, it was a double feature day. Guess what? I filled up my icy cup and I went and watched backrooms and woo-hoo, four stars, baby, and I liked it. Oh, backrooms was so good. Backrooms was so good. I loved me some backrooms. Was it perfect? No. There um it was fascinating to see him take uh Kane Parsons, uh, who some of y'all know as Kane Pixels, that's his YouTube channel, to take what he was doing there and to bring it into this format. I think they call them ARGs, if I'm not mistaken. Um, and that's the you know multimedia storytelling method because everything that you've seen on his YouTube channel, that's all still true. This is adding to that story, and it's a little bit different than the other story in some very key ways that involve spoilers, and so I'm not gonna say. I will say I personally was very satisfied with it. Some people were not. I'm okay with the fact that we didn't get all the answers in the world because I feel like we got some answers that we didn't have before. In the in the same way that um Bash and uh Mandalorian for being a TV show on screen, I think Backrooms took a TV show to the screen and made it a big a big movie. And a young filmmaker proved to us what greatness is. So, anyways, um then uh I got busy for a couple of days. Finally, I get a chance to watch a movie again. Body Double. That's a Brian De Palma film from 1984, and I didn't like it. I did not think it was good, I did not like it. One more time, I didn't like it. I cannot seem to find anything by Brian De Palma that I like. I'm told there are movies of his that uh are good. I have never seen Scarface. I also get ready to hate me. I also don't like that um oh um why am I so bad with names? Scarface Star. He was in The Godfather, he's really good in The Godfather, and then I haven't liked him in anything. Al Pacino. I haven't liked Al Pacino in anything ever, except for The Godfather. Part one, because he starts to come undone in part two for me. I mean, he's still good enough in that that I'm like, he's a good actor, but by the time you get to to things like where Scarface was, he's playing a he becomes a character and not a character. And I I don't feel it. I don't like his work. I've seen him act live and I'm glad I gotta see it. It just further showed me there's no reality in that man. I don't buy his performances, I don't think he builds good characters, I think he's um extremely overrated. But I'm here talking about why I don't like Brian DePalma. I think he did Mission Impossible, if I'm not mistaken, and if he did, I very much like that movie. Uh of course I haven't seen that movie in 20 years, but you know, is what it is. Well, hey, that was May 31st. I saw that. I woke up the next day and I decided I'm gonna do a triple feature. I'm gonna tell you about the first two movies, and at the end of the podcast, we're gonna talk about the third movie. I start my day with obsession. Directed by that's right, Curry Barker, age 26, one of our topics that we're gonna be talking about today. Um I gave it a four-star rating and I liked it. We'll talk more about that as we do our deep dive. Finally got to see the sheep detectives. Y'all have heard me circle in this shark, and I'm so glad that I went to see it. It is adorable and fun and pleasant and interesting and everything you want it to be. Hugh Jackman is charming as can be. I've never seen Hugh Jackman be as charming as he is in this movie, except for when I saw him. Uh I worked a show that he was in. He did a one-man show on Broadway, and I worked there one day, and he's that charming in real life. So they actually have him basically being himself on screen, but like a little bit more, you know. I don't know. I just thought it was him, to be honest with you. And I loved it. Sheep Detective, highly recommend. You know, is it um profoundly gonna change your life? You know, is it is it uh Schindler's list? You know, no, and that's kind of the point. Life is hard right now, things are are miserable for a lot of people. Go watch a movie like The Sheep Detective and feel good about yourself. You can feel good about life. And for once in your life, feel good about sheep. You're not gonna be counting those sheep to go to sleep, you're gonna be like, oh, that was so pleasant. I'm you know what? You know what? Let's go have a wonderful evening. All right. Those are my reviews recently viewed. We're gonna take a break. And when we come back, we're gonna talk about these directors and the movies that they've been coming out with and why all this stuff matters. Okay. Um I am uh I want to take a minute to point out that friends of the show have been doing a lot of really interesting stuff. Uh, Mike with a success story, uh, Thomas was here last week with us. And he has his uh projects going on. I'm very excited for him and his successes. He'll be producing some shows soon, so you want to check out his Instagram. Um, you can find that through our Instagram. Our Instagram is at Shadows that chan. Uh John Paul, JP good old John Paul Edmondson, aka J P Zach Blackfire, um JP and uh Zach and JP's Burnout Hijinx is the name of their podcast. They recently had on Lisa Buck, who um is a comedian I'm fond of, who is also an actress and been in a couple movies and will eventually be on our podcast. Uh, if our schedules and uh geographical locations work out to make that happen. I'm excited about that. Um and y'all should be checking out their stuff. I recently did an episode. So if you want to see me talking about something other than movies for five seconds, go see me on a stand-up comedy podcast. Yeah, that's right. I do stand-up comedy. I mean, I haven't for a few months, but I did I did the stand-up comedies, and I will do the stand-up comedies again at some point. So that's just a little bit of the what's going on outside of the world. We're gonna step away. I'll be right back. Scream quote. That's a scream quote. I'm Topher Mack, Shadows That Shine, a movie podcast. We are back. I am Topher Mack. I'm excited because I'm gonna be on a film set this week for the first time in a long time. Um that'll be that'll be fun. That's gonna happen this week for me. It'll be my first IMDB credit uh in I think about five years. Um so yay! Working on something that's uh a sag after contract. Yay! It's been a while. Someone came to town, they're working on something. I can't say too much about it at this time, except that I'm gonna be there, and uh maybe I'll be able to talk about it a little bit next episode. We'll find out later. Here's what we can talk about now. The whole point of this podcast for me. Earlier, you you heard me mention 1968. All right, now I like to fancy myself a film historian. Now I have a lot to learn, and I'm still trying to consume what I can to get better and a stronger knowledge. 1968 was a significant year. So let me paint the picture. The studio era had really started to not be great. And it had been about 20 years since the I mean not about, it had been just over 20 years since World War II. And they had never really got back to what many people believe 1939 to be the uh pinnacle of the studio system era. There were some movies individually spaced out after that that were incredible, but 1939 was the year that just delivered, delivered, delivered, delivered, delivered. Next thing you know, two years later, we're in a world war and it's just not working out like that. Well, now at least flash forward, by the time you get to 1968, it's not unlike night we'll say 1967. It's not unlike it's been the last few years. Just dismal. And they're competing against TV and they don't know how to compete against TV. They're failing all the way. TV's been around now since the mid 50s, and they just haven't. Been able to adjust ticket. Uh sales are all over the place. They think that the way to answer this problem is to do these massive epics. Uh so they release movies like um am I really about to it's okay. Boom me right now. Boo. They release these massive epics. There we go, it's back in my head now. Like Ben Her. They're releasing musicals like crazy, such as um My Fair Lady. That's an example of one of these movies, okay? And nothing's really working all that well. Like, I mean, it's kind of the business is kind of getting by, but it's just a shell of what it used to be. And then 1968, someone decides we're gonna make a movie about our culture, about us, the generation that's up and coming. Um, and I don't have the director's name in front of me. Uh, we're gonna eventually cover uh the movie Easy Rider in detail, because Easy Rider is what happened in 1968 that shifted everything. Because at that point, they go, Oh, yeah, maybe we should let like new blood into this dying corpse that is Hollywood. Maybe that's that'll be what saves it. And then over the next few years, the film crew, uh, I mean, sorry, the film school generation arrives. Who's the film school generation? Let me just name some of these directors for you, okay? Uh, how about uh George Lucas? How about Steven Spiird? Hmm? How's about um oh I don't know. I just mentioned Brian De Palma, he's one of them. Uh, and he did a lot of really important movies, even if I don't like him, I acknowledge that he did important stuff. Uh Zoe Dechanel's dad uh did a lot of important stuff. Uh Mr. De Chanel, who I can't remember his first name, and uh Francis Ford Coppola is in this group, and you know, I go on and on and on, and at some point I will when I get into the the minutiae of this generation, but we have truly special filmmakers come through and completely set the cinema world on fire. That's why I say it's 1968 again. Because we're on the ver, like you know, we're getting our THX 1138, we're getting our American uh um graffiti, American graffiti. And who's given it to us? The YouTube generation is finally being allowed to step up to the plate and do what they can. Kane Parsons, the youngest director of a Hollywood film. You heard me talk about it last week. He's 20 years old as this movie comes out, and he delivers something that's better than I can do. Oh my god. And and like, you know, you're over here, like, well, of course it's better than what you can do. Well, first of all, fuck you. But second of all, no, I mean, like, I don't know if I could ever set a mood as effectively as he's doing at the age of 20. He sets this mood uh at a time where they say uh Generation Z just doesn't have an attention span. He says, Oh yeah, watch this. I'm gonna have very little happen and they're gonna love it. And that's what it is, because all it is is like a big old chunk of this movie is wandering around the backrooms, and you're just trying to figure out what's going on, and it's glorious and wonderful, and I'm all about it. I can't wait for more from Kane Parsons. I can't wait to get to the end of the backrooms, and then I can't wait to see what else he gives us. This is going to be a visionary director who's gonna give us some very cool shit as we go forward. He might be that generation's George Lucas, except he didn't need Marsha Lucas to be great. And you'll hear why I feel that strongly about Marsha Lucas eventually. Curry Baker, I'm sorry, Curry Barker, age 26. He's put out a few things that I haven't seen that I've heard good things about, but never on a big scale until now. Now he was given the chance to give us obsession. I'm in there, I'm still thinking about backrooms, and I'm still thinking about obsession. Now, it's been about 30 hours since I saw Obsession. And I gotta tell you, I'm sitting there at the beginning of it, trying my best to turn the director in me off, trying to just watch it, and I did not like a lot of the beginning of that movie. I don't like uh character choices. I roll my eye, I don't relate to some of the things these characters are doing, and I feel like this uh anxious, overly nervous, it almost becomes like a comical level uh from the main character uh that he's given us of insecurity. It almost becomes a caricature, but guess what? As the movie sets in and they keep going, all of a sudden, what you think is about to be this like cliche, you know, B-class horror film starts becoming A class in a hurry. I start caring a lot about certain characters and relationship dynamics. I'm getting payoffs for very subtle hinting at the beginning that I was like, oh, you know, you know, I bet that uh these characters have this uh sort of interaction between them, and then they give it to us. And you really had to be looking to see it. It was awesome. The ending was fucking incredible. I don't want to say what it is, I don't want to spoil it. By the time you get to the end, it's earned, and you're your ego parts of the tension of what's going on, but you're also sort of scared that he's gonna be cliche, and then he's not. He takes you places you don't expect to go, but everything feels justified uh by the time you're getting towards the end, and it it just it was a very good story. I can't wait to see what Curry Barker does with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Uh, he has been given Core Blanche to reboot that series, and I cannot wait to see what he does with it. I trust in him after just seeing this movie. Earlier this year, we had Mark Applier, who's the oldest person on this list at the age of 36, just a few years younger than me, do some uh prove that you don't need Hollywood to make movies. And delivers the iron lung, which I've still never seen. Iron Lung, I've heard great things. I've heard great things. Can't wait to watch it when I finally get the opportunity. You know you're gonna hear about it. But I am damn proud to see what he was able to do because I started thinking about the fact the millennials didn't get a fair shot. We had a handful of uh directors get to come out and do their thing, and very few examples of millennial directors. All of the ones that came up did really well. But what happened during the studio era leading into '68, you know, when they got their new blood to be able to come in, you know, the old guard didn't want to go away. They were clinging and clamoring. It was Hulk Hogan, you know, in '95, '96. All right, we get it. You've done great. It's time to go. And don't get me wrong, uh a lot of my favorite directors are older, and they all have move, almost all of them have movies coming out this year, and I can't wait for those movies. But room could have been made. And it would have been made if it wasn't for how heavy we relied on sequels and franchise, sequels, prequels, reboots, and franchises in the last 26 years. It did so much damage. People in my age range barely got to speak, barely got to have a voice. But when they did, you get Bo Burnham's eighth grade, one of the best movies ever made. Yep, I said it. I think it's the Citizen Kane of in terms of innovation and quality. I think it's on par with a Citizen Kane. I do. I fully believe that. Let's debate it if you don't believe it. Come on on here. Let's have that argument. But it's gonna be a shot match. Because I fully believe it. Then you get into um uh another example. Uh, I believe Greta Gerwig is close to me in age. I believe she is also, but she really only got her chance because she was an actress and she did Francis Ha. And what does she give us? Ladybird, incredible. Then she goes and does um Lil Women, which is okay commercially. I mean, you know, it does pretty good. It's a good movie, though. Then she does Barbie, sets freaking records. One of the most successful uh Marvel directors, a millennial, and one of the only millennials that have been given a fair shot. And I'm talking about Ryan Kugler, who's just a handful of years older than me. He's fantastic. Fantastic. Why were they not giving more of us chances? It's because old has been directors were clinging on. Uh the system was set up to lean into the past and not set up the future, which is a problem in American society in general. I don't mean to get political, but like I think that it's a fair thing to say that politicians running this country are all uh much older than they should be. Now that's not saying left, that's not saying right. I'm not over here trying to say any of that, but I think it is a fair thing to say why are so many of the people running this country so close to the grave? When they make decisions, they don't have to worry about how it's gonna affect them, they're gonna be dead in three years. I almost on the inside I wanted to make one of those like, unless they drink the baby's blood, ha ha ha ha. But that's a joke, and I don't want you guys to think that's how I really believe. Anyways, Hollywood's been doing the same thing, though. They've been clinging and clamoring, and then you have people like Bob Iger running Disney, and Bob Iger did a great job. He even convinced me he was great because all these moves he did and how big he made Disney, but all he really did was just take other people's success. He he he Steve Jobs the place up. He took other people's successes, he he pushed it in to their comp uh, you know, swallowed it up whole, said it's ours now, this is what we are, and didn't give us anything new. I mean, sort of Marvel did new stuff. I don't hate Marvel, but unchecked or just left alone, it becomes less special when you know it used to be like, oh, we're gonna get these Marvel temp pole movies, three or four of these things a year, but the rest of the year there's gotta be movies to watch. And Hollywood turned their back on all that stuff. Well, here we are in a year where we get Kane Parsons, Curry Barker, Marka Plier. Um, just last year we had Danny and Michael Filippu. I'm saying the name wrong, uh, but they gave us Talk to Me. And that was that was the same thing. Had a lot of people excited, had a lot of people happy. YouTubers, twins, age 33. I guess they have a channel called Raka Raka. I don't know anything about it because, you know, unfortunately, YouTube's a big space. There's a lot of stuff. I don't get a hear about everything that's happening. I'm fixated on the people that I watch, and most of the people that I watch in terms of cinema are, you know, not pushing to make new work. They are commentators, they're doing stuff more like what I look forward to doing before I start making movies, which is video essays and things like that. Um which, you know, is part of the plan. Um so I I think that we're at the beginning of what could be a renaissance of cinema. And if Hollywood isn't gonna wake up and do what needs to be done to make sure that filmmakers like this succeed, thank you, Markiplier, because he has shown us a way. We do not need Hollywood anymore. Now, it would be nice if Hollywood changed with the times and if Hollywood stopped acting um, you know, like David Zaslov about everything and being like, it's all about money, money, money. And and actually sat down and said, uh, let's do an Alan Ladd Jr. approach and watch how much awesome shit happens. Uh by the way, Alan Ladd Jr., for those who don't know, he was the executive that signed off on having Star Wars happen. And also a lot of Mel Brooks films and a lot of other very important films. He's worth doing a whole episode on. He's a very important executive that ran uh Fox for a while, uh 20th Century Fox, and he ran a few other companies as well. Listen, I'm over here, blah blonde, but it's nice to say something positive for once about the film business because I was getting real dreary. I don't know if it was coming across on the on the pod, but I was starting to feel really depressed. I I've been little by little working on uh history. I want to do a uh a big long history thing with you guys, a multi-part series of podcast episodes. And when I do that, I'm gonna break the film business down into eras as far as I'm concerned. I think these are certain eras, and some of them will agree with what other people have said, and some of them will disagree. Well, I think since the year that didn't happen, that we've been in the dying phase of cinema. I think there's a lot of proof of that. But man, I tell you what, backrooms was full of young people wanting to watch movies. I went to see uh um oh gee whiz. This is what happens when I put my notes down for one second. I went to see Obsession in the movie theater on a Monday morning, but practically morning. First showing of the day at this theater, one I think it was 1.15, there were 20 people in there. That I mean, come on. Come on, there's no holiday. There's no holiday. School's not all the way out, but there we are. A thing of frickin' beauty. I'm super, super excited. So here's what's gonna happen for the rest of this podcast. In just a second, I'm gonna take a little pause break and get some water, and I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna tell you the horrific story of what happened to me last night in a movie theater. It's fucking awful. It's graphic. You do not want your kids listening to this story. It's bad. Um before I go, I want to say happy birthday, Gabriel! You know, because it's is it's your birthday. Uh, but I don't know if you're listening. I know your mom listens. Um old friend of mine. Old buddy, old pal. Um yeah. So I'm gonna go and step away. Then after I tell this horrible story, I don't want to leave you with that. So after that, we're gonna briefly talk about what's coming next. So I'm gonna take that break, I'm gonna get that water, I'm gonna, I don't know, juggle. Then I'm gonna hit record again. I'm not gonna juggle while I record. That would be silly, that would be ludicrous, and not a talented rapper either. I mean a ridiculous notion and idea. Don't mind me. Uh, but yeah, when we get back, but seriously though, this is this is a fucked up story, and I'm gonna tell it to you as it goes. Alright. This is uh Shadows It Shine, a movie podcast. And I'm Tover Mack. Not yet, we're not leaving no bye, because we're still here. Why was I about to sign off? Stay tuned. Alright. Here we are. This is the moment. I'm gonna have to freaking relive this. Oh god. So Monday I decide, you know, since I'm not doing the Marsha Lucas episode, I'm definitely gonna be covering just all the new material. I didn't realize at this point how excited I was about the the YouTube generation starting to finally get their chance to to be out there, you know, and that shifted what this was gonna be uh about. And so I go to movie theater to triple feature, I start with obsession. Incredible. I knew I was gonna like the sheet detectives, that's why I put in the middle. Third movie of the night. What was I gonna watch? I didn't know. AMC does these things called screen unseen, and you get to see a movie that hasn't been released yet. They, I guess, have like discounted tickets, doesn't affect me. I got A-list, that's why I go in, and um, I've been having a lot of bad experiences at my local AMC's. We have two different multiplexes that are AMC here. We also have another theater uh chain that's like a smaller chain, and then we have a local multiplex, and then we have a local independent theater. Um, so lots of options and choices, but I have found, typically speaking, that I have been more unhappy at AMC than anywhere else. Literally, the only reason that I go to AMC is because they're the only theater in town with uh Dolby showings. I mean, like other theaters have Dolby setups, but like they have a special uh Adolby Vision thing. The other main reason is because the A-list. I need to watch a lot of movies, it would get very expensive to watch the amount of movies I'm watching. Um, so you know, there we go. I get excited about this thing. I'm like, what a cool idea! Like not having to choose the movie, like you know whatever you're gonna watch is new, and you know that you have to be an adult to watch it, and that's all you know. Like, you know, you have like a rough idea of a rating, you know, they're not letting kids into this thing, hmm. Hmm. So here we are. I sit down, and to my left, these two old ladies are just talking and talking and talking through the movie trailers, just saying the stupidest, most mundane, boring. It was it was very frustrating, and I'm like, this is gonna ruin my whole freaking day, isn't it? I had such great days so far, and then these two freaking ladies were. Shut up. And I was ready to turn to them and tell them to literally shut the fuck up. Like it was that bad. It was that bad that I felt like I was gonna need to tell them to shut the fuck up. Well I wait until this, you know, I wait until that moment. You know, when the the house lights come down, they actually shut up. Yes. But at the same time that that's happening, someone has gone to sit in the seat directly beside me. AMC uh has the chairs where you can like pick the um armchair up, and then you know, for like date night, it's really good for that. I usually get away with not having to share that seat with anybody because I go see movies by myself, and people think it's weird to sit beside someone who's just by themselves, so it's great. I usually get that space to myself, not on this occasion. A man sits down. Seems a little bit weird, but you know what? I'm just like, whatever. Let's watch this, let's see what we're gonna get. And then all of a sudden, by the way, all the trailers have been showing up. I'm getting disappointed because I'm like, well, I don't get to see that early, I don't get to see that early, I don't get to see that early. But you know what pops up? A movie called The Furious. It's a little Kung Fu film that's coming out for us uh on June 12th, I believe is the release date for that. And I was like, you know, I don't I've I've still never covered an action film on this podcast. I need to give this a try. It's not a genre that I'm gravitated to typically. Let's let's check it out. Movie starts. It's actually starting off pretty good. It's an Asian film. Um, I am personally very fond of uh certain aspects of Asian culture, so I like watching movies where you get to see uh Asian family dynamics and and relationships going through with that, uh community interactions, you know, it's set in America, but like it's definitely like a Chinatown part of America. But even before we get to that, like we're seeing some sort of a rescue attempt, and it's very clear that there are kids being um not treated well. Kids are being molested on this place, and there's a woman who's trying to save them, and it doesn't go well. I'm okay saying that because this is three minutes into the movie. I don't feel like that's the biggest fucking spoiler in the world. Um I'm also mentioning it because the person beside me starts kind of shaking a little bit. And I'm like, that's weird. I notice the pants that he has on is like workout plant pants, like little smooth workout pants. And then, like, as you see the kid not being treated well during this fight scene and bad thing happening to the kids, you start to notice this man's pants. There's a rock solid giant Mel Genitalia sitting beside me, basically. I'm like, oh, this is fucking weird. But you know what? Whatever. Like, maybe he's got restless leg syndrome. Like, my leg shakes a lot. Maybe that's why there's all this movement happening. I try to keep my eyes for it. I'm trying to ignore the the old ladies beside me that were getting on my nerves. Now I have this other distraction on my nerves. The plot starts going on through. There's this uh adorable little uh Chinese actress doing a great job of acting. There's some sign language in it, there's some Chinese in it, there's some English in it, just really doing a good job. And then the father figure really I'm starting to connect with this guy. He seems interesting. I want to know more. He's he's strong silent type, because I'm pretty sure that he can't speak, because he is using sign language primarily. But I'm like, this is awesome. It's it, you know, you're winning me over a genre I'm not a fan of. This is going well. Except then we get to the scene where the little girl is starting to get kidnapped, and there's a lot more movement to my right side. And this guy, I'm like, this is and I'm like trying not to like look directly at him, but like I kind of you know, do the little like side glance thing, and he's sweating beads over there. Like his face is shiny. This is a large black man, and uh sweat drips down his face and shines, especially shiny, because of the you know, the reason why I mentioned this skin is just the way that the sweat hits on on black skin is a little bit different, a little bit more noticeable to me than would normally be the case. And I'm like, this is fucking weird, and now I'm definitely sure this guy is like rock solid, rock hard, which is also making me super hella uncomfortable because I'm way too fucking close to this guy and I don't know what's going on. But he's starting to breathe funny now, and more fucked up stuff starts happening in the story. This is where I'm gonna stop saying what's happening in the story because I don't want to spoil anything. Because now we're you know 15-20 minutes in, so we're we're leaving the first act going into the second act, and this dude grabs his dick. This dude grabs his dick while a kid is not in a good place and in a bad situation, and I am deeply fucking disturbed right now. And I have a choice to make. Do I s like what do I do? Because I I I know what I'm not gonna do. I'm not gonna fucking sit there and let this fucking happen. I'm not gonna say anything to them because who the fuck? People are fucking nuts nowadays. So I just get off my recline, I say, well, my I've I've seen two and one third of a movie today, and that's enough for me. I fucking walk out, I go to the ticket taker, I tell them what I saw, they say, hold on, they send the manager, all these people mad young. At most, the manager is just a hair over half my age. I mean, they got a nice young dude fucking working there, and he's very polite and reasonable and asks me to go uh explain like where I was sitting at and tells me to go over to talk about the refund that I've I've asked for. They're being very nice. Then he comes back to me and he says, Look, man, like uh I didn't see anything, but I believe you. Let me ask you a question. And then he shows me a picture. He says, Is this the guy that was sitting beside you? And it's a it's a police report. And I go, Oh god, yeah. And I'm immediately repulsed because it has just clicked in my head. And then this manager says out loud what has clicked in my head. He's a convicted sex offender and a convicted pedophile. So I believe you, but we didn't see it. And because we didn't see it, we're not able to remove him. And that's it, doesn't matter if you remove him or not. I'm done for the night. I'm disturbed. I don't want to see anything else. I'm I'm movied out today. Thank you. I was real bothered by it, ended up going to the police uh and filing a report, and they like end up going off to do something about it. I don't know if AMC uh called the police. I'm to understand that they didn't, which is wild to me. Like, how is uh but I you know I don't know what the laws are for this state in regards to that. Like, are convicted sex offenders allowed to go to the movie theater? And they also told me that they've had issues with this guy before. Are they allowed to ban people from the movies? I don't know. It's a weird, weird like thing, but I just know that I was it was deeply disturbing, and I don't wish that on anybody. I've been in a movie theater before while people were fucking like that's different. It's not cool, but like it's different because it was a rated R movie that like four people were in the uh room for, and it was a shitty movie. It wasn't a jam-packed, you know, 150 people are in this room trying to watch a movie that nobody else has got to see yet. I could have come on here today and bragged about, oh, I saw The Furious and it doesn't come out for a week. I feel special, yay! They ain't gonna do that. Instead, I'm over here talking about a fucking creepy ass dude touching his dick because children were suffering. It's just fucking disgusting, disturbing, and bothered me, uh, and I'm still bothered by it. Like the way I'm telling the story right now is very disconnected from how I actually feel. I'm trying not to feel the feelings. Um, but if you'd have been around me last night, dude, dude, not cool. Alright. So if you're not going to that AMC theater and you want to go watch a movie, terrible, terrible transition, um the fact of the matter is that uh this week we have good really good uh really interesting movies coming out. It's it's gonna be another good weekend to go see a movie, no matter what your taste is. I am not interested in this, but the top billing uh build movie for the weekend is Masters of the Universe. I uh don't expect to watch this movie. Um, if you do see it, please reach out on Facebook, reach out on Instagram to Shadows That Shine, and let us know what you thought of Masters of the Universe because unless someone says this movie changed their life, I'm not wasting two hours and 20 minutes of my life on something I have no interest in. But you know what I'm gonna be at the very first showing of in my town? Scary movie. Scary movie is back. Wayne's brothers are back. I'm excited. I actually hold a lot of resentment towards Scary Movie 1 and 2 because I think that it takes something away from the from Scream. Specifically Scream, like the other movies I I don't care that they took the piss out of, but I'm a little bit bothered at what they how they affected my viewing of Scream. But you know what? Enough time's gone by and I just missed the way they're just funny. At the end of the day, they're fucking asteroid, but that's how they ruined it. They're just too funny, they're too good. So I can't wait to see what they do this week. I will definitely be there, and there's a movie that I was sleeping on that I saw the trailer for uh that now I want to see. It's called Power Ballad, and it uh it has Nick Jonas, who I beat in bowling. That's a story for one day. Uh, it has Nick Jonas against um Paul Rudd. And I say against, but they're buddies who write a song together, and then one of them takes credit for the song. That sounds like a hell of a good move. Like you see the trailer go, oh, this is gonna be a good ass movie. Here's the thing: like, I didn't even know who the Jonas brothers were when I met Nick Jonas. They were very, very uh famous, apparently, and I didn't know that. But um, I know that that dude can fucking act, and I know that he's interesting to be around and interesting to watch on screen or on a stage. So the fact that he's doing a movie with one of my favorite actors, Paul Rudd, that's yeah. It wasn't in my summer review, but now it's here. So there are at least two of these three movies are worth going to check out. There's some other movies coming out too. Something called Chum, which seems like a uh a shark movie, something called Signal One, something called The Birthday Party, something called Another World. Um, you know, I don't know what any of these movies are, to be honest. Uh they didn't grab my attention. Uh, I think I saw trailers to some of it, but obviously it didn't stick with me. So, um, I don't know. Punch pedophile in the face. I don't know. I'm not your boss. Maybe that's what I should have done. I don't know. Fucking gross. Movies are wonderful though, and I would like people like that to not be in the space. So fuck. See, I ruined my that's why I waited until the end of the podcast. Because it's like ruining my night. Just talking about it again. I hope I did not ruin your day. I hope you're having the best of days. I hope that you're in a fan fucking task mood once you get done with this thing, and that that you go go watch a comedy show. Go watch Stand Up Tonight, watch something with joy in it. Go go watch uh a good there's so many good movies right now. Backrooms, obsession, um, you know, fucking sheep detectives, dude. I mean, don't fuck sheep, but like sheep detectives is what I mean. That movie, oh my goodness, it brings joy. Go see it while you got the chance. And then when it comes to the just the little like other ways to watch the movies, do that. Good movie. I want them to make more movies like that. I appreciate your time. I appreciate you listening to me uh talk about what I love more than anything else in this planet, um, other than people, and that's movies. I love movies, that's my thing, and thank you for sharing this time with me. I have been Topher Mac. I'm gonna be on a film set again this week for the first time uh since I moved back to North Carolina, and I can't bleepin' wait. Thank you. Subscribe to us if you haven't. Give us high ratings, give us reviews. We need these things to grow. Appreciate each and every one of you. I'm on my way out of here. Bye! You've been listening to Shadows That Shine, a movie podcast with Tover Mac. Uh, I already did the thing. Bye.