Answering The Call Of The Black Phone, And Maybe Finding Some Love Along The Way If Thunder Strikes Twice?

On this episode of Nick Nack Goes To The Movies, we have another mixed bag of horror and super hero content.  And likewise, the mix not only includes genres, albeit ones you loyal listeners are super familiar with, the blend of scares and supes.  The big mix is once again expectations.  A big budget MCU movie, the juggernaut of movies and now shows with Disney Plus, versus a short story adaptation with one name brand actor to that movie's roster.  Ethan Hawke is a fine actor, but it would be tough to take him over Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, and so many more!  But through the entirety of this podcast episode, let us look and examine the differences and interest levels and execution of both these movies and see which reigns supreme.  Will you answer the call of The Black Phone, or can lighting and thunder strike twice?  Let me know your take on social at @NickNackMovies or @NickNack_IC on Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, and Letterboxd.

Transcript

Nick Nack Goes to the Movies Pod S3E13

-Intro/Jingle

-Hello there and welcome to Nick Nack Goes To The Movies, back after I needed to take a bit of a break, but now we have so much to catch up on.  I have been doing so many random movies on streaming services that we don’t even have time for like Last Night In Soho, which was super, super good, and the latest super hero seasons of Ms. Marvel and The Boys.

-But those are both actually pretty good teasers to the movies I have seen in theaters that we will be talking today.  Which if you are as familiar with this show as I am and what we talk about, this is that to A T!  One-part super hero content and one-part spooky movie content.  The latest MCU show may not have made the cut, but the latest movie of course had to.  The Thor movies have been one of the more mixed bag but longest solo super hero outings from the MCU, and this 4th entry, second by Taika Waititi, may continue that trend of being par for the course.

-And we can’t have too many fun swashbuckling super hero things without sprinkling in some horror things.  

-I told myself that, like Top Gun: Maverick, I could wait for a streaming service for The Black Phone.  And I nearly did, but a post-work 5:15 showing was calling to me, and I think it was good I answered it.  Because it was one of the neater more atmospheric small-scale scares movies I have seen in a while, go check it out if you haven’t yet.  Ethan Hawke is more than the horror guy from the first Purge movie, and it should be clear to see why.

-He too was in the MCU, because who hasn’t been after all?  But I feel like he and the Moon Knight and so many more could have been in this first movie all about the gods of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so let’s kick things off with this catchup episode to see if lighting can strike twice for taika and if it can make you fall in love with the god of thunder again.

-Thor: Love and Thunder

-As to be expected in the latest style of Marvel Cinematic things, even the solo outings are packed with cameos and team-ups.  Obviously, Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, and Taika Waititi are back, kind of the main three.  The Guardians team is involved minus Zoe Salanda and with Sean Gunn taking over for Michael Rooker, one of my favorites from the MCU and Walking Dead.  

-The new adds are the obviously Super Hero vets Christian Bale and Russell Crowe.  The later who I love, but I have some thoughts on him in this one.

-I think the most exciting things going into this were the returns of both Jamie Alexander and Natalie Portman, who felt excluded unjustly from the franchise and MCU since the, less than ideal Thor Dark World entry.

-Also, while this isn’t as important to the plot, the group of actors are back to retell things like Olaf in Frozen 2, but now Sam Neill, Matt Damon, and Luke Hemsworth are joined by Melissa McCarthy, who is actor Hela.  I loved it the first time around, and while it is not as good here, having Matt Damon have lines outside of the play was super fun, love him in this, and Neil fresh off his Jurassic World end cap.

-There are some little ones here too with Kat Dennings, an eventual Idris Elba, and spoilers, a post credit with Brett Goldstein, still haven’t seen Ted Lasso, but we will get there.

-I was really close to reading internet things and thinking the Warriors Stephen Curry was in this instead of the actor one, that was a close one, lol.

-So, I don’t know if the look of this movie’s villain is doing wonders for me, but I do like that at least we have some good enough villain motivations.  Having your faith shattered and losing your last family member in one brief moment is pretty understandable for your villain origin story, the idea of killing every god seems a bit much, but at least the motivations are believable, and when Bale becomes evil big shadow sword Gor, I feel like he has that intimidating presence.

-I did actually have an enjoyable watch with all of the Guardians parts with Thor existing on their team and all that entailed.  I am of course excited for the next two Guardians movies, both 3 and the Christmas special.  So there was something fun seeing this as well as Thor existing with them, and of course seeing how strong he is to be able to topple most of the villain problem groups with ease compared to everyone else he is fighting with.  Like I said, fun.  

-Also, how about the running through time of him growing up and fighting.  It is just a much worse version of the amazing beginning of X-Men origins Wolverine, a movie that is not very good, but that beginning war running scene is super, super good.

-I of course was excited to see Lady Sif back in the Thor world, knowing she was not killed off in Ragnarok or Infinity War.  But man did she have nothing to do outside of losing an arm off-camera.  I can’t believe that she continues to get little to no screen time, because I appreciated what she brought to the first, and yes, second Thor movies.

-Now, how about seeing Darcy back from Wandavision, a show that people forget how cool and fun and different was, what a way to kick off the Disney Plus MCU shows.  And along with her was a cameo to fill out the squad with Stellan Skasgott.  But Thank goodness they found a way to bring Natalie Portman back!  She just became one of those characters we heard about but never saw, kind of like what they were doing with Gwenyth Paltrow until they gave here that important camera time back, especially in the Infinity War/Endgame movies.

-These Thor movies have always played with blurring the lines between science and magic, and having Jane Foster try to figure out her medical concern with science before turning to magic, I mean, smart and fun character development.  And it was nice to see the reason of their breakup between the pages instead of just telling us about it.  

-Speaking of storytelling, there is this interesting theory going around where the whole story is somewhat fantastical, especially when Thor and Korg are involved.  The notion goes that this is a retelling of events from Korg’s perspective, which makes it all the more over-the-top.  I kind of buy it, because it is even more outlandish than the last movie.

-Some of the Marvel jokes are just a bit much in this movie, I love dark depressing things, but still, there are a few jokes that make me laugh and aren’t the whole goat thing.  That was…not it.  That play retelling was fun though, not as good as the one from the third movie, but still, that callback jokes were fun.

-Now once we got to see Thor and Jane reunited, and seeing her whole new vibe, using the broken Milneer that can separate and re-connect at will is super cool to see. 

-Now I am all about dark/depressing and action things, but the love story here was nice to see too of course.  Not just like two people loving each other, but opening each other back up to just the concept of love, that deeper thing was probably the best part of the love story for me.

-And once again, seeing Gor in action, super good and scary, what was not good, the number of spider-like creatures in this, not good for me and the wrong type of scary.  

-Not sure how much I care for the Heimdall son storyline, probably because I just love Idris Elba too much and nobody can replace him.  Imagine if he could be the next James Bond, that would be fun right?  But besides that, at least the power being in the story leads to some super fun things with Gor and scaring kids and being able to be a bit of a menace to society.  Since we don’t get to see him hunting gods and more so just see the aftermath, we can only get what we can unfortunately.  Because at the end of the day, I did not care for the kid storylines, at all.  Rescuing kids is one thing, but giving them all the power of Thor at the end so they can fight shadow monsters, I don’t know, that was like a cringier version of It, not a compliment.

-I was for sure excited to see, I initially thought Olympus, the Greek god Marvel stuff instead of the Norse stuff, but instead it was just where all the Gods live.  No Khonshu stuff sadly, we have begun to see more MCU deities after all.

-So, Russell Crowe, love him as an actor, but he was too much of a joke.  I get being pompous and over-confident, but I was bummed out with the direction for him.  Now all the fighting they did here, fun.  Also, maybe this is harsh, but if Zeus had actually killed Korg, I think that would have been some fun stakes that matter for the Thor story, instead of letting us off easy and having him just be a head for the rest of the movie.

-I am happy they did not kill off Zeus, even if he did lose his thunderbolt.  But the hope that something cool could come with him and Hercules, it is a bit similar to the whole Guardians and Adam tease that we are waiting on still.  As always, a ton of plot threads in the MCU overall still waiting to be sorted out.

-Now this movie has some pacing/story length issues overall.  The thing felt both rushed and dragged on at times.  

-I realize I have been kind of dogging on this movie, and that is not to say I didn’t have fun watching this, there were both fun and visually cool parts to this.  The initial seemingly big battle between Thor, Jane, and Valkyrie and Gor looked to be super cool.  The visuals of the absence of color minus a few cool weapon things and his shadow realm, not the one from Yu-Gi-Oh which was of course the first thing I thought of, pot of greed and all that.  But this visual battle was super cool, and I was all about it, I wish this was the final battle.  It was cool to see Gor win and all, but the final battle we got after this was, a bit of a disappointment.

-The emotional stakes of Jane and her health and the to Thor or not to Thor with it making her weaker was a good conflict.  There were some really good heartfelt drama things mixed into this movie, but the tone shifts sometimes were just a bit too jarring.

-Now the actual final conflict weaponizing children, like I said, that was too much for me to get behind.  But having Thor do well until he needed Jane to help, she sacrificed herself one more time to save the man she loved, that that once again was really good, the silliness mixed in was just undercutting some cool stuff in here.

-I really did think they were going to use the wish to save Jane from her cancer, but there was something noble about her sacrifice that they could not cop out of, Gor died after not doing too much, saving his daughter was a fine enough wrap-up story for him, but still, him adopting and having a daughter, I did not see that coming, nor am I all that stoked for it.  But the Jane sacrifice and ending up in Valhalla with Heimdall I enjoyed.

-But maybe this MCU movie was just a bit Mid for this Midgardian.  It was fun and fine, but I remember just leaving the theater a bit underwhelmed, rushed, and tonally mixed up.

-Also, would have been super curious what the Lena Headey and Peter Dinklidge roles would have looked like in this.

-The Black Phone

- So, to a movie that underwhelmed to a different movie that I had no expectations for.  I genuinely had no interest in going to the theater, Marcus Theaters to be exact, to see this.  But on a whim and going through some stuff, I needed a new horror break to feel something, and boy did this hit the spot.

-So while Ethan Hawke has some lovely horror roles in the Purge, and Daybreakers, and more, I don’t think he was a draw by himself to see this, even if he was the only actor I really knew from this ahead of time.  I would have seen it on a streaming service eventually.  

-I at least knew of Jeremy Davies from the untimely cancelled Constantine TV show, and one of the Detectives also had roles in the second Hunger Games and The Walking Dead, but let’s talk about our two leads.  I know nothing about the supposed lead Mason Thames, but he was good for all he had to put into this type of role at a young age.

-But we have to talk about the breakout star of this movie, Madeline McGraw not only had so much to work with in the role, she killed it being emotional, strong, and also hilarious.  I didn’t expect to laugh in this movie, but the small theater of 6 or so people, we all laughed at some of her great lines in here.  Cast her in more things as a sassy and strong type role.  She was one of the best parts of this movie, and that is saying something, because, it was a good movie!

-So, if we aren’t here exclusively for the actors, let’s talk about the movie plot.  In short, kids are getting kidnapped, and somehow supernatural things happen through a very specific rotary phone.  For my younger fans who weren’t around during the roaring 70’s and the Ice Bowl, unlike me, a rotary phone was a way you could call people, while playing the equivalent of a rhythm action game making small circles, but it had to be attached to a wall and you could not play Pokemon Go on it.  Different times, I remember them fondly.

-So this movie is a bit of a period piece, a little retro taking place in the late 70’s, like Stranger Things, but less Kate Bush and Metallica.  And somehow less kids seem to make it out of this movie as opposed to the 4 seasons we have had of the best mainstream thing Netflix has out there since it became a original content pumping out machine.

-Because it for sure is not the newest attempt at a Resident Evil adaptation.  I will take the Mila Jovovavich movies, or more so, I will really take that latest movie with Robbie Amell, Hanah John Kamen, and Tom Hopper.  That deserves a sequel, please make that happen.  I love Lance Reddick, but this show was bad.  But how funny is it that everyone thinks his version of the vintage albert wesker was just westley snipes in blade.  And that is not a compliment as someone who likes all 3 of those blade movies.

-But enough about zombie horror film adaptation wish fulfillment, we have a short story adaptation to the big screen to discuss.

-This movie kicks off with just a creepy vibe, a world/community where child kidnapping is a thing people just live with.  Kids are getting in fights that are pretty vivid and even the scenes with our main family we are following are pretty hardcore.  This movie is not for the faint of heart and the domestic abuse moments of their drunk dad and our two protagonists are a lot.

-I feel like the kids being kidnapped all continue to have some passing relationship with our lead Finney.  But maybe I am over analyzing and this is just a super small-town community where everyone is at least aware of each other, the whole thing of my high school was massive compared to others so that is tough to fathom, that and the California style campus in New Jersey, where we have a bunch of weather and seasons, that was hard too, hah.  

-What is neat about this movie, is there is real world, albeit sometimes a bit dated, horror, mixed in with some supernatural elements.  Now, sometimes some things need a bit of explanation, but not here.  We don’t need to know why this specific black rotary phone can communicate with certain dead victims of ethan hawke.  We don’t need to know why the women in this one family can both have psychic dreams about the past and present.  These are just things that exist in the world, and neither us nor the characters in the movie can explain why.  This is the world/situation they all live in, and now they have to deal with it all and literally survive in some cases.

-It’s crazy how kids being taken is just like an accepted part of life in this small-town, and law enforcement trying to solve this crime is just local and not having this seen to be something bigger that needs federal agents or something.

-I for sure got It/Stranger Things kid kids in the 80’s or such vibes, but I feel like that is just the genre, but the big difference is no matter what Finney always felt alone in the world, he and his sister Gwen had each other, but that was it.  Even his cool bully fighting friend Robin only did so much before he was taken too.  And the loneliness really hits you in this movie, the isolation of two kids, which obviously becomes worse when the two kids are spilt up after Finney gets taken.

-Gosh that scene was brutal with his sister telling him about the black balloons as a hint or a calling card after her dream and he still got got, but not before his friend Robin.

-But before that, not only does his sister have cool dream vision powers, let’s not forget she can throw down, she literally bricked a kid in the dome for beating up her brother, Gwen was the best character of this movie between her taking care of herself and swearing at the cops/and during her prayers, and legit having some semblance of super powers in this movies world.

-Now, while all that stuff is cool, let us not forget about how good Ethan Hawke is.  He does take a bit to be on camera, and while I would never trust a guy like him to help with his groceries, like how do kids trust clowns in drains after all, he was acting his butt off.  He was creepy, unpredictable, and scary.  This movie may not be like gory, but even before Hawke is terrorizing us on camera, this world has a good amount of violence.  But his scares are so much more psychological.

-Now to the big part, the parts of the movie from this point on are either Gwen trying to find her brother using her dream powers, not it is not like Nightmare on Elm Street Dream Warriors or anything like that.  No matter what, Hawke has no seeming powers outside of maybe being able to hear the black phone ring, but the big part of this movie all takes place predominantly in one house, even more so, one room.  And that is where we see Finny and the titular black phone.

-So, what does this black phone do?  Well you could argue one of two things.  You could say, nothing, it is all imagination.  It is Hawke being presented with guilt for his murdered victims, and Finney using it as a psychological coping mechanism to help him eventually, spoiler alert, escape.

-But I like to think there is something going on with it in a spooky ghostly spirit kind of way.  And for whatever reason, these two, Finney, and Hawke, can hear the phone.

-So, once he has his basement living, Finney is visited by the ghost of victims passed.  Slowly learning from each one from their experiences as his sister learns from her dream visions to eventually lead the cops to the right house to save her brother.

-While Gwen’s dreams almost got them to the right house and such, a lot of this work was done by Finn and all the boys who were taken and killed before him.  He learns a new tip from each and every one, things that they tried that worked for a bit or not at all, and every time you see him get more and more comfortable, sometimes just hearing voices, sometimes seeing a ghostly manifestation of them for a nice jump scare, this movie had a few.

-There were some crazy parts of this whole thing being a game for Hawke and waiting for him up the stairs to beat him, this movie had so many just tense moments.  But there is a great build up and it never feels too long in the tooth, perfect pacing for a 100 and a bit more minute movie.

-But the emotional build climax moment had to be when Finney was able to communicate with Robin.  While we don’t know the full extent of their relationship, it was one of the more hopeful ones for Finey of the whole movie besides that of him and his sister.  But seeing Robin communicate, console, and teach him how to fight, and combining that with all he learned from the previous victims, there is something truly amazing watching finney fight this man, this monster, and absolutely take him out, permanently.  And having the ghosts haunt their killer feels like something out of the Mike Flannagan Netflix shows, something that you can hear my take on all 3 of them on this podcast.

-And of course, the hug between brother and sister at the end was really good.  I assumed one final jump scare was coming at the end with Hawke not being dead, but I guess this really was not one of those kinds of stories.  And you just know that abusive dad will have to have learned his lesson, because his kids are super strong and have seen some stuff, so they will not be taking anything from him.  I am happy they gave him a shred of humanity for caring for his wife and not being able to handle her dream warrior powers.  And Finney has a bit more confidence at school, no one is picking on him and he is talking to the girl he met from the beginning pre-abduction again here

-All in all, this is a good movie!  It is small scale, which works for it, but it is very condensed with so much of it happening in one basement.  But for sure unique for a recent horror movie, not unlike Nope which we will talk on soon.  But now you are caught up with some of my July movies, excluding Elvis which I will get to, let’s look at these letterboxed reviews for a movie I really wanted to see and one that surprised me.

-Letterboxd Reviews

-The Black Phone – 3.5 Stars

-Thor: Love and Thunder – 3 Stars

-wrap/call to action

-So we are all caught up once again until Nope and all of those early August movies come out again.  Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, Prey, and Bullet Train.  None of these August ones are like OMG watches preemptively, but I am excited and hopeful that at least one of them will blow me away either in theaters or that Predator one on Hulu.  I know Nope will at least which will be the next episode topic on here.  So if you want to keep abreast of what I am watching, make sure to check out my Letterboxd, Tik Tok, Twitter, and Instagram at Nick Nack Movies or Nick Nack Underscore IC.  So cheers and as always, until next time cinephiles.