I Have Some Notes

Watching mediocre to bad movies is exhaustive work, so from time to time we believe we're entitled to treat ourselves. Birds of Prey is just a genuine blast of a film that honestly doesn't deserve a place in the cannon of I Have Some Notes, but don't worry, we still find some nits to pick.  Besides, if we didn't take on Birds of Prey we would have missed out on a glorious opportunity to have Glenna Schowalter back on the show. Together we examine all of Harley Quinn's successes, as well as some of the film's darker aspects. 

Plot holes…gotta catch 'em all! This week we're joined by celebrated musician, sketch comedy artist and newly minted podcaster, Robyn Slack, to assist in training Detective Pikachu to be a better movie. We contemplate the wisdom of casting Ryan Reynolds, meddle with father and son dynamics, and try to detect a better use for all that bad gas. Enjoy!

A behemoth of a movie requires a behemoth of an episode, so strap yourself in armchair screenwriters! If you had the stamina for Zack Snyder's Justice League surely you can survive 90 minutes of us rewriting the already rewritten.  But how could we talk about Zack Synder's Justice League without bringing on two of Edmonton's biggest and brightest comic experts to help us break it all down. That's right, Brandon Schatz and Danica LeBlanc from Variant Edition return to relive the the Super Friends all over again.

Blues Brothers 2000 is our first foray into Saturday Night Live movies, and it will likely stand as the most challenging to rewrite. Dan Aykroyd gave us precious little to work with, for a movie billed as a celebration of the Blues, the script feels like the equivalent of Hot Cross Buns. But all is not lost, Robin from Cinematological joins us to try and crack the musical code of this would-be comedy. Robin also provides a follow-up to our discussion on Netflix stream quality during our Pitch Black episode.

Pitch Black is a movie I dare say most of us remember fondly. After all, it gave us Vin Diesel, and what would the movie going world be like without that living pile of muscle? But, as with every film we choose, it's far from perfect. Listen in as we explore the many ways Pitch Black lets down its secondary characters and how giving them more depth could have made this movie the Pitchest of Black.

Sometimes when I walk away from watching a film for the show I'm not certain it will turn out to be a great episode. The Da Vinci Code is kind of bland and felt like it might not be that exciting to talk about, but boy was I wrong. We had tons to say about it, so much so that the first half of the show went 10 minutes longer than usual. So enjoy our spirited attempt to fix this famous book adaptation.

Take the first draft of your script, hire an A-list cast, sprinkle in some Guy Ritchie and voila! You've got a Robin Hood. Trouble is, will anyone watch it? They might have if only they had passed the script over to us for a punch up. Sadly, no one may remember that Jamie Foxx was once in a Robin Hood movie, but you'll remember this episode for all our great fixes!

The thing you have to appreciate about a director like Baz Luhrmann is that he doesn't make boring films. Regardless of the finished product's quality, there will always be plenty to talk about. And talk we did, discussing The Great Gatsby in all its glitzy glory and bombastic faults. We did decided – rather wisely, I think – not to relitigate the plot of a classic novel, instead focusing on how Baz could have been more successful in his adaptation (hint: no 3D). Enjoy!

We've been released from our cryogenic prison blocks to bring you an all new episode of an old classic. Are movies from the 90s considered classic now? Don't say yes, I want to maintain some illusion of youth. The boys who note take a cold hard look at Sylvester Stallone's Demolition Man, sending scenes back and forward through time in hopes of generation a better movie. Also this one is chock full of your comments, apparently you had a few notes for old Sly.

Ah ha! Fooled you. You thought we were done making pod for the year, and BAM! New Side Notes! It's a Christmas miracle, if you really stretch the definition of a miracle…and we are. We got together for this bonus episode to chat about the movies, TV shows and YouTube channels that made 2020 at little more bearable for us. We realized there were way more movies released in 2020 than we thought, and that we've barely seen any of them. Most of the films we screened were the stinkers we had to watch for this show…we made that sacrifice for you, I hope you know. Anyway, have a happy and safe holiday and we'll see you soon in the new year!

Skyscraper, finally! Yes, I know we're late on this one, sometimes life gets in the way of rewriting Hollywood blockbusters with friends. However, the show is here now, and we want to thank you (sort of) for suggesting Dwayne Johnson's ode to Die Hard, and for all the other great movie suggestions that we'll keep them in mind for future episodes. Speaking of future episodes, this is our last show of 2020. Unfortunately I (Gregg) am too swamped at my day job to produce more shows this year, so we're taking our holiday break early. Normally I would summarize the episode here, but I just want to take a moment to sincerely thank everyone for listening, it's been a tough year and making the show and getting all your input on these mediocre films has been one of the few bright spots. So, until 2021, stay healthy, stay safe, and keep watching the skies.

Christine is not a movie about a talking car, that's the first thing I learned watching it. It is a John Carpenter film. And while his skilled fingerprints are all over this movie, overall this vehicular horror could use some tuning up. Glenna Schowalter joins us again for a ride down Armchair Screenwriter Lane, helping us re-imagine the themes floating around the spookem infested car known as Christine.

We recently watched two heavy social media related documentaries, The Social Dilemma and Feels Good Man, both of which left us jonesing to work out our feelings about. Sorry, we don’t offer any fixes for the giant mess Mr. Zuckerberg has made, that’s a bit outside our wheelhouse. We do, however, dive deep into the social and political ramifications of his software and how Facebook, along with many other companies, shape our everyday lives for good and for ill.

Venom is good…actually? Sure there's a serious lack of Spider-man, and there's at least 40-minutes of pointless globetrotting, but overall we have to admit this film is pretty fun. Of course, that doesn't mean we didn't find plenty to tweak. I mean, the titular symbiote has some real motivation problems, and Riz Ahmed needs a better relationship with his new genocidal alien buddy Riot. No amount of fun can stand in the way of our movie meddling, and we do it all with fan favourite guest, Danica LeBlanc!

September marks the beginning of season six of I Have Some Notes. Six seasons, where does the time go? What is time? I seriously don't know anymore. Speaking of milestones, we pass 100 episodes like three shows ago and didn't even mention it. Acknowledging significant milestones is for suckers. Anyway, for the 104th episode *party streamers* we watched DUNGEONS & DRAGONS with our wonderful guest and D&D expert Glenna Schowalter. It's the kind of movie that takes gleeful pride in making all the wrong choices . None of us were interested in fixing it so much as pitching a page-one rewrite.

The Old Guard is a pretty decent movie…there, the end, no need to listen to the show! I suppose if you missed the dulcet tones of our voices, we’ve got some tweaks that might be fun to consider. Gregg adds a new sentimental brotherly subplot, Scott sends Nile into the arms of the villains in the first act and Liam eliminates the TV pilot-esque stinger. Special thanks to Deja for providing research on this film for us. He dug up all sorts of great tidbits including the fact that the post-production team was made up of 85% women. This is especially impressive considering among the top-grossing films in 2019 only 6% of VFX supervisors were women and just 25% were editors. Even if you weren’t over the moon about the movie, this is definitely refreshing in a frustratingly male dominated industry.

A listener recently asked if we've done an X-Men film yet, and we thought to ourselves: Wow, what an excellent untapped franchise! Of course, what better film for us to tackle than the worst one. This could be our last stand, friends. Liam, Scott, Gregg and special guest Olav Rokne take their first class in X-Men, united by the franchises' potential future, haunted by its past. Together we look to stave off the screenplay apocalypse and attempt to resurrect Dark Phoenix.

Indiana Jones, beloved cultural icon and with a fan base that spans generations, surely suggesting rewrites to a sacred franchise will go over well on the internet. Liam, Scott and Gregg struggle mightily with trying to fix the character of Willie Scott, while finding a bit of an easier time eliminating the films offensive elements. The end result is a reimagined story that belongs in a museum.

We're back from a brief hiatus! Hope the armchair screenwriting community got along without us, we certainly missed you. This week we're programming updates for the TRON: LEGACY, Walt Disney's attempt to cash in on a property that made almost no money the first time around. Sounds like a great business strategy to us! We spend time tweaking the villain, adding conflict for the main characters, and building a new plot device to beef up the secondary characters. Tune to the episode then let us know what you thought of our changes.

Sorry, everyone, the newest episode has been postponed. In the wake of the horrific murder of George Floyd and the massive protests that followed, now doesn’t feel like the time to riff on mediocre movies, so we’re kicking the Tron Legacy episode down the road a bit. We’ll be back soon, but in the meantime, if you are looking for ways to listen, learn, and participate in the fights against systemic racism, here are some things you can do. On the listen and learning side you can start right here on the Alberta Podcast Network with Modern Manhood’s latest episode “The Murder of George Floyd” in which German speaks to Avry Lewis-McDougall and Sharon Ruyter about their experience living as black people in Edmonton. I also highly recommend the podcast 1619 by Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ava DuVernay’s documentary The 13th. Follow the voices of black and other marginalized groups on social media and soak up all you can about what it’s like to walk in their shoes and how you can be a better ally. As for participating