Film Junk Podcast Episode #377: Savages

Posted by on July 16th, 2012   Filed under: Film Junk Podcast

0:00 – Intro
2:30 – Review: Savages
35:00 – Review: Beasts of the Southern Wild
53:20 – Headlines: Michael Fassbender to Star in Assassin’s Creed Movie, Ed Helms Lands Lead Role in Vacation Reboot, Channing Tatum in Evel Knievel Biopic, Chris Nolan Not Involved in Justice League Movie, Oz: The Great and Powerful Trailer
1:12:40 – Other Stuff We Watched: Ted, Lady in the Water, The King of Comedy, Take This Waltz, Laura, Jackie Chan’s First Strike, Where the Wild Things Are, Oldboy
1:36:30 – Junk Mail: Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man Affecting Opinions of The Amazing Spider-Man, Lizard Cops and James Horner vs. Danny Elfman, Another Avengers Nitpick, D-List Comic Book Movie Recasting, Visiting Locations from Favourite Movies, Do We Watch Movies Together, High School + Kids Getting Killed in Movies, Film Junk Olympics
2:08:40 – This Week on DVD and Blu-ray
2:11:05 – Outro

Film Junk Podcast Episode #377: Savages by Filmjunk on Mixcloud

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  • Zac

    To me this movie just seems like an Act of Valor for stoner tweens. Everything was undermined by Blake Lively’s narration and character. Also, after watching Breaking Bad, it just doesn’t seem like Weed is that high of a priority for the Mexican Cartel, and the stakes weren’t very high. The trailers also made the scope seem more vast and action packed.

  • alechs

    Some well-known child death scenes on film: Alien^3, Memories of Murder, Once Upon a Time in the West, Let the Right One In/Let Me In, The Mist.

  • rjdelight

    I Agree with Frank’s rankings of the Vacation movies.

  • Jericho Slim

    I don’t think that you can blame Blake Lively for her performance in Savages. I think she did exactly what Stone directed her to do. I think any other actress would have given a similar performance.

  • projectgenesis

    I was also disappointed in the double ending of Savages. But I had a lot of fun on the ride. Like Jay said, it felt like 1996. Sean, I love you, but you have shat on my two favorite movies of the Summer—Savages and Prometheus. Switzerland you are not, sir.

  • My ratings do seem to be skewing a little lower than everyone else lately. Not sure if this has something to do with certain other people always thinking on a 5-star scale now. ;)

  • Gerry

    @projectgenesis, you like what you like. I tend to agree with Seans ratings more often than not.

    It would be a dull world if everyone thought alike, shuffling along like a bunch of zombified clones.

  • projectgenesis

    Totally agree. Just an observation that while some chide Sean for being neutral, I’ve found myself at odds with him lately on Savages, Spider-man and Prometheus.

    The return of the R-rated Summer studio film after last years relentless Superhero slate has me re-energized. Couple that with Moonrise Kingdom, Dark Shadows … it has been an unexpected good, diverse Summer.

  • Cody Lang

    I for one enjoy the new and improved hyper critical Sean. Helps sharpen the debate with the rest of the guys.

  • /\/\/\ true that

  • patrik

    Nice, I love the trip down memory lane at the end. Maybe that could be a podcast.. Storyjunk.. Maybe merge it with Cantankerous..

  • Bryan

    I do enjoy that it says “Do We Watch Movies Together, High ” in the Junk Mail area above.

  • antho42

    Is The King of Comedy the son of The King from Burger King?

  • For a C-List or D-List Avengers lineup, how did NO ONE mention David Hasselhoff? He’s the ORIGINAL Nick Fury!

    Also, as far as visiting famous film locations goes, I live a mile away from the cemetery in the original “Night of the Living Dead”, and this is also where the original “Crazies” was shot. Being in the Pittsburgh area, there’s a lot of Romero stuff in general that was shot around here. There are a lot of those zombie walks around Halloween and when horror conventions roll into town, and they get old in a hurry. There have been a lot of bigger productions rolling through town recently though, like “Dark Knight Rises” (where I got to play a cop for a couple of days) and “Jack Reacher”, due to a crazy tax credit that production companies get for shooting here.

  • Kasper

    I can’t stand Blake Lively. Sounds like I’ll be skipping this movie for now.

  • kyri

    It seems to me that Jay is conducting a very elaborate social experiment with Lady in the water, I am fairly surprised that you fell right into his trap sir frankie..

    He is obviously envious of the King and seeks to deviously convey the most idiotic movie opinions to your tender mind sir, so that you embarrass yourself at royal dinner table conversations..

    No wonder Lord Varys is an anagram for Jay Cheel..

  • Have you watched last night’s Master Chef yet? Felix is lookin’ CRAZY hot…

  • I saw clips of “Prometheus” in the ad for Fox’s “2012 Teen Choice Awards”. Did teens even want to SEE that movie? I wonder, is it because there had to be SOME sort of Fox connection? At my theater, the general consensus among the younger people that saw it was that the movie was “gaaaaaaaaayyyyyy”.

  • Henrik

    Lady in the water score is beautiful… I can’t relate to what Jay likes about the movie, much more so Franks points, but I appreciate that you both like it. When I saw it in the theatre it was magical, even though it was just me and a fat woman in the theatre.

  • Bob

    If the vapid characters in Savages didn’t behave in such a vapid manner then we wouldn’t get to hear the guys use the word “vapid” like Pee Wee’s word of the day and that would be vapid.

  • Jericho Slim

    Master Chef – I hate Monti with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns. Who but a complete whack job would name their son danger?

    And Felix needs to stop with the clown lipstick. She doesn’t own a mirror?

  • @Jericho Slim

    Everyone knows that “Danger” is a better…middle name.

    I could understand the bad lipstick job if it was the OTHER Asian girl, but still, Felix was lovely to look at in the steak challenge.

  • Tony

    My criticism of Beasts of the Southern Wilds has something to do with a bunch of white and most probably middle to upper middle class people filming and documenting the life of those in the “Bathtub.”

    Although Jay says people who carp on this are either envious of the filmmaker or burdened by white man’s guilt I would argue something very different. What bothered me with the content of the film is that in a way it romanticizes the Bathtub people, yes they may have a hard life, a father who should have had Social Services called on him long ago but they love their life, are proud of it to the point of wanting to die rather than leave the Bathtub.

    This smacks of something much more insidious than envy or white man’s burden. It is a perception from the more well do to that “Hey, poor people love being poor, are proud of their life style, and not only that they seem to enjoy their life with more abandon than a bunch of comfortable, stuffy, wealthy white people.” This plays on a classic cliche found e.g. in the Titanic where the poor have wild parties in the basement while the rich wile away a very boring evening with drab chatter to go along with cavier, fine wine, and cigars.

    So this film perpetuates this bullshit view of the poor, a more radical movie would portray the poor as being miserable but this would offend the sensibilities of the more well to do b/c then they might actually feel some guilt. This movie assuages the guilt of the more affluent white man, and we weep in the end when the girl raises her arms and becomes the Beast of the Southern Wild when I in a way saw it as a bit pathetic and pandering.