I Have Some Notes

Goon (2011)

With Canada/US relations at their lowest point since we burned down their White House, we felt we should try generating some cross-border goodwill. We invited good friend of the show Josh Skaar (TalkSMAC podcast) to share in a bit of Canadiana as we take on Sean William Scott’s GOON.

Surprisingly our first hockey centered movie, GOON is largely a fun, competent comedy that we all liked. Of course, because we’re a bunch of movie snobs, that doesn’t stop us from beating up on this one a bunch.

For our non-Canadian friends, here is a link to the Halifax Explosion we mentioned at the end of the episode.

Once you’re done listening, keep the conversation going on our Discord channel!

Brave New World

Captain ███████: Brave New World may be one of Marvel’s better cinematic efforts of late, but it’s also one of their better efforts of late. Disney’s former golden goose has become just a regular old goose, and if you know anything about geese, you know they suck.

Still BNW isn’t completely devoid of fun. There are two monster action sequences that make this film worthy of some touch ups.

Good friend of the show and walking cinematic encyclopedia, Robin Taylor, joins us to rip the script apart with all the ferociousness of an 80-year-old man in a CGI Hulk suit.

M. Night Shyamalan's Trap

At this point the true trap for us is an M. Night Shyamalan movie. They're just bad in very, very interesting ways! TRAP is maybe less of a mess than some of his more recent efforts, but it still features wild decisions from strange cinematography choices to straight up playing the nepo-baby card with abandon.

As always, we try to play script doctor, working to keep the trap in the movie TRAP as well and shuffling the character deck for some fun thematic changes. Enjoy!

Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning: Part I

If you can get past the Tom Cruise of it all the Mission Impossible series is generally quite good. Each new addition offers clever heists, death-defying stunts, and occasionally a man reloading his arms like some kind of sexy human shotgun. Also running. Lots of Tom running.

Dead Reckoning: Part I, however, struggles to match the thrills of its predecessors. Its omniscient AI-run-amok plot is derivative enough to have been written by ChatGPT itself. If that weren’t bad enough, it’s interminably long and gets bogged down by the ego of its star.

But where there’s mediocrity you’ll find the I Have Some Notes crew. We dive into the AI plot to make it more fun, while rearranging some of the main characters so there is less…fridging.

2024 Movies in Review

As a movie podcast, we are bound by law to collect our thoughts and broadcast our picks for the best films of the year. We may have no choice in the matter, but it's our favourite episode of the year all the same. 

It's also, as is tradition, our longest episode of the season, so let's get to it! Hopefully, we'll inspire you to add some new movies to your watch list.

If you prefer to jump around here's a breakdown of our discussion by timecode:

• 00:01:36 – 2024's Top Box Office Earners
• 00:04:56 – Super Hero Movie Reprieve
• 00:08:44 – The Year of *whispers* Musical
• 00:11:36 – The Year of AI
• 00:18:48 – Hundreds of Beavers
• 00:22:16 - The People's Joker
• 00:26:58 – Speak No Evil
• 00:31:42 – It's What's Inside
• 00:35:28 – I Saw the TV Glow
• 00:43:41 – Love Lies Bleeding
• 00:52:44 – Stand Up Solutions
• 00:58:28 – Heretic
• 01:02:03 – Conclave
• 01:06:29 – Challengers
• 01:13:30 – The Substance
• 01:20:31 – Megalopolis
• 01:27:55 – Nosferatu 
• 01:35:41 – Civil War
• 01:50:16 – Listener Comments

The Last Voyage of the Demeter

Fresh off the heels of watching Robert Eggers' superbly grotesque Nosferatu, we decided to screen another, less well-regarded, Dracula film.

THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER travelled swiftly through theatres, perhaps faster than warranted. It sets up the stakes and principal characters nicely and skillfully envelopes the audience in a creaky nautical atmosphere. Still, even though there was a lot to like about this Alien-Vampire mashup, it left us wanting in the way that makes it a perfect candidate for the show.

Join us for a retelling of the retelling of The Last Voyage of the Demeter!

A Hallmark Christmas Movie...Each!

Every year, we float the idea of watching a Hallmark Christmas movie for our traditional holiday episode, and every year we chicken out. The trouble with Hallmark is that their formula is so streamlined that not one film stands out above the rest. So how do we tackle these movies in an interesting way?

Then it occurred to us…if every Hallmark Christmas movie is the same, it shouldn't matter which movie we choose. In fact, we could all watch a different movie, and fix the Hallmark formula itself! 

So that's what we did! Liam watched Jingle Around the Clock, Scott screened Every Christmas Has a Story and Gregg sat through Crown for Christmas. We then evaluate the Christmas movie mill and give the studio some notes on how to improve the product.

Happy holidays, Armchair Screenwriters!

Show Note Links:
Liam's Sketch Group The Debutants

Star Trek (2009)

I Have Some Notes boldly goes to the one branch of the Star Trek franchise we’ve never gone before! Star Trek (2009) offers an exciting blockbuster reimagining of the classic Original Series, captained by the one and only J.J. Abrams (and thank goodness there is not more than one of him!). 

Liam, Scott, and Gregg riff on ways to clean up the convoluted time travel plot, add some depth to the supporting cast, and try to put the third act back on trek…er…track.

Side Notes: Toxic Fandom

Some weeks back our Discord channel erupted in a lively discussion over a recent article from Variety titled Toxic Fandom: How Hollywood Is Battling Fans Who Are ‘Just Out for Blood’. In it, journalist Adam B. Vary reports about the effects toxic fandom is having on the personal lives of actors and how studios are combating it from hiring security firms to focus grouping diehard fans.

The article inspired us to explore the topic more deeply in a Side Notes episode. This was an inspiring and enlightening conversation, and I hope you all get as much out of it as we did.

Back next week with another movie fix, see you then!

Insidious

It's nearly Halloween and we wanted to watch a creepy, blood-curdling movie for this week's episode. Unfortunately, we watched Insidious instead, a film whose spine-chilling twist is that it's not a haunted house movie, it's a haunted kid movie. Eat your heart out Wes Craven.

Liam, Scott, and Gregg propose a cold open with some fun ambiguity that adds much more intrigue to Patrick Wilson's character. They also work in music that plays a central role in the climax, something that was honestly a huge missed opportunity.