I Have Some Notes: Recent Episodes
I Have Some Notes
Join Liam Creswick, Gregg Beever, and Scott C. Bourgeois as they examine Hollywood's most mediocre movies and attempt to rewrite a better film. How could the Man of Steel be less of a Man of Heel? What could Ghostbusters II have done to make bustin' feel good again? What could have made Star Trek: Generations a film for a…generation? All these answers and more on I HAVE SOME NOTES!
Season 11 comes to an end with Disclosure Day! That's right, we paid our money, ate our butter dusted popcorn and watched a brand new movie for you. Was it good? Kind of! And that is just the kind of movie that is perfect for the show.
Liam, Scott and Gregg have a lively discussion about what worked and what didn't in Spielberg's latest alien romp and how we could fix the missing connections between key characters.
Thanks again for being with us for another year of I Have Some Notes. We remain humbled to have such smart, passionate listeners who keep us coming back season after season. See you next in September for Season 12!
Kumite! Kumite! Kumite! David Rae of Quantum Kickflip returns to the show to Dux it out with Bloodsport. Together we cast aside an unnecessary military subplot and while making the Tanaka family ties to the fighting tournament much more explicit.
Oh, and we also unpack the many lies of Frank Dux!
Thanks for listening, and make sure to check out Season 4 of QK over at quantumkickflip.com!
Quantum Kickflip's Robyn Slack returns to take a pass at another lukewarm script: The Simpsons Movie. The cast was sharply divided on whether Homer's first ride on the big screen had any comedic worth, but we did agree the plot needed a lot of work.
Many set pieces hit the cutting room floor including the Simpson family's trip to Alaska. We'd pitched ways to get the town of Springfield more involved, and brought back a familiar rake-smashed face as the central villain.
You can catch Liam and Robyn starring in season four of Quantum Kickflip on June 3rd, so fired up your podcast app and subscribe today!
Okay, The World Is Not Enough is uneven. And yes, it's bland. And sure, the cold open is 10 minutes too long and ends with a hot air balloon ride. But, hey, Shirley Manson sings the Bond theme, and that kicks ass.
This Brosnan blockbuster had a great many things go wrong with it, so we couldn't just gently stir in some plot beats. No, the whole thing needed to be shaken. I promise the episode is better than these puns!
Video game adaptations have always been dodgy, but I dare say Resident Evil (2002) is among the dodgiest. Vacant of gory R-rated fun and unoccupied by characters of the slimmest depth, the only true resident seems to be an obnoxious soundtrack.
In other words, this movie is speaking our language. We completely overhaul the film's opening to both drive the mystery and bring the motivations of the main characters into view. There's much back and forth whether to keep the amnesia plot, or dump it entirely. And we had a METRIC TON of insightful listener comments.
This episode is a bit of a unicorn in and of itself, as we struggle to come to a consensus on a cohesive new pitch for Death of a Unicorn. Plenty of interesting ideas get debated, however, as we attempt to add more bite to the satire, as well as the featured creatures.
Let us know who's pitch you liked the most and why it was Gregg's.
A little bonus/gap filler episode for you this week in the form of movie/TV recommendations. We may or may not have recorded this some time ago, back when Fallout's second season had just dropped. Still, there are some gems in here that can help bust the endless Netflix scrolling cycle.
See you in two weeks for a full episode!
Jack Quaid may not feel pain in Novocaine, but we did. You'd think after nearly ten years of consuming the most mediocre films Hollywood can disk we'd be somewhat numb by now, but no.
Though, truth be told, Novocaine is a pretty fun high-concept action thriller. You've got a charming young actor and a premise that invites all kind of bloody mayhem. But, as always, we find a way to Monday Morning Screenwriter this into something that will rock the senses.
Having been burned back in the 90s with one of the most infamously bad movie adaptations in history, Nintendo clearly had a one word mandate for The Super Mario Bros. Movie: safe. Make every safe decision you can, don't do anything interesting or take any kind of risk that could reflect poorly on the brand.
And hey, it worked. Super Mario Bros. made all the money and kids loved it. But, what if the Nintendo made SOME choices, and took SOME risks? How much better a showing could this have been for the little Italian plumber?
Josh Skaar of the Talking SMAC podcast joins us once again to find out! Together we work out a stronger arc for Luigi and a really fun and organic way for the Princess to be in another castle. Let'sa go!
Nic Cage stashes his bags in the overhead bin and settles in for his second round of IHSN punch-ups. This was a really fun one as we got to play with a long manifest of colourful characters in a brainless action setting. Steve Buscemi in particular gets an elevated roll in our reimagined pitch.
Listen in and then join us on our Discord channel to continue the conversation! See you there.
For those old enough to be big Troma fans, The Toxic Avenger undoubtedly holds a special place in their hearts. When the remake was released in 2023 those hearts ceased to by mutated by radioactive sludge, instead slathered in the thick, inescapable goo of nostalgia. It comes for us all, my friends.
But honestly, this remake was pretty good. Peter Dinklage mops it out of the park as Winston/the voice of Toxie, serving up plenty of slapstick gore. But like most films, it ain't perfect, and we have fun developing our own mutations of the script.
The Ghostbusters are back, cleaning up the town! The gang is all here: Ray, Winston, Venkman, Janine…Pheobe, Callie, Trevor, Gary, Lucky…uh, Podcast. Postcast is here. Walter Peck. Oh! The library administrator. You remember the library administrator, he's the guy that says "what has that got to do with it?" Classic.
Yes, it's a nostalgia romp like no other, which makes it oh so hard to believe it didn't work out, doesn't it? But, if there's anyone who can uncross the streams, it's the I Have Some Notes crew.
Listen in to our final (probably) Ghostbusters episode!
We watched a ton of GOOD movies in 2025, and we're going to talk about them! That's right, we do, on occasion, watch films that don't stink and don't require page one rewrites. We sat down for our annual chat about the most engaging and inspiring movies we saw in the last 12 months. Enjoy!
For those who like to skip around, here's the time stamps for the episode:
- 00:04:38 – 28 Years Later
- 00:11:17 – Black Bag
- 00:16:10 – Bugonia
- 00:23:00 – Frankenstein
- 00:28:23 – It Was Just an Accident
- 00:32:00 – The Naked Gun
- 00:38:27 – One Battle After Another
- 00:44:27 – Sinners
- 00:49:43 – Superman
- 01 :01:46 – Universal Language
- 01:10:57 – Wake Up Dead Man
- 01:17:39 – Weapons
- 01:25:18 – Listener Comments
Everyone has wanted to see Santa do a Diehard, right? Of course! He's the most wholesome, selfless mythical character we've got, and we want to see him kill people. YAY, violence! Boo, children!
Violent Night is a solid romp, but doesn't quite hit the satirical notes it needs to become a classic. We pluck on the film's heart strings to maximize the fun in contrasting holiday cheer with righteous violence.
As previously mentioned this is our last episode of 2025. Thanks so much for sticking with us for another year, we're blessed to have such a smart, witty community of armchair screenwriters. Take care of yourselves over the holidays, and we'll see you again soon in 2026!
I.S.S. has all the modules necessary for an epic sci-fi thriller, but if we're reviewing it you already know it doesn't all fit together as intended. We explore the possibility of a few deft edits and key moments that could makes this cold war allegory much more explosive.
We were all set to perform our usual punch-up on the 1983 cult classic Deathstalker, when we hit a snag: the movie sucked. And not in the typical way movies we watch for the show suck. Completely devoid of plot and characters of any notable intrigue, we decided to do something a little different.
As it turned out, an excellent Deathstalker remake was a week away from release, making our punch-up rather redundant when the real thing was about to hit VOD. Instead, we decided to spend the episode comparing and contrasting two B-movies with the same name but very different levels of success.
Trigger Warning: This episode discusses sexual violence. If you'd prefer to avoid this portion of the episode skip to 00:35:41.
Final Reckoning may not end up being Ethan Hunts's last appearance, but as far as we're concerned, it's mission complete. There's only so much of the mega star's God complex we can take. Tom Cruise will just have to live without our Monday morning screenwriting, not that the blockbuster deity was asking.
On the plus side, David Rae from Quantum Kickflip returns to accept this last impossible mission. Or at least it seemed that way, until Scott fixed the film in virtually one sentence.
How? You'll have to hit play to find out!
This week we foist our brand of armchair screenwriting upon a slice of Canadiana, our country’s very first animated feature film, Rock & Rule. And how did that go for Canada? Well, we believe after making $38,000 at the box office 42 years ago it’s really gaining momentum.
Joining us is a rock star in his own right, JP Fournier of The Movie Jerks. Together we break down this interestingly flawed feature, workshopping how we could bring depth to the characters and add a whole lot more music to this “rock opera”.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines hubris (ˈhyü-brəs) as "exaggerated pride or self-confidence." After 11 seasons of "fixing" films written by professional screenwriters, we have finally amassed enough exaggerated self-confidence to scribble red ink all over one of the greatest writer/directors of all time: Alfred Hitchcock.
Are we humbled by the task? NO! It's pats on the back all around as we rework a new pitch for The Birds.
Everyone loves a legacy sequel right? Everyone has been a banger with no exceptions. And now that Adam Sandler and Netflix have jumped on board we're about to see some of the greatest– I can't keep doing this.
Happy Gilmore 2 is about what you'd would expect from a Sandler vehicle in 2025. A smattering of brief laughs buried in cameos and product placement. Comedies are often the toughest to fix, but we look to come in under par on a rework caddied by a stronger comedic premise.
Eleven seasons and counting! The armchair screenwriter crew are back to fix another fourteen to eighteen movies. Our episode count is about as uneven as the movies we watch!
Speaking of uneven, our flick this week is Supergirl. Despite making plenty of capital “C” choices, this first attempt at showcasing the caped crusader’s cousin is a real challenge to sit through. Interminably long and unable to find the humour in all the camp, even with Faye Dunaway crushing it, Supergirl is desperately in need of a rewrite.
Luckily there are plenty of fun ideas for us to play off of, and maybe some character arcs that were intended by the original screenwriters, yet go unrealized.
Listen now and let us know what you think of our solutions for this famously bad movie.
Another round of summer recommendations with a twist! This episode includes recs for a cult classic, a TV series and a an inspiring book for difficult times.
Would you be shocked to learn this is the first time we've tackled a proper Nicolas Cage movie? Well, BE SHOCKED, armchair screenwriters! Because it's true.
Listen in as we explore the long trail of riddles and clues that are key to unlocking a better version of National Treasure.
It's a bonus summer show! We talk about three movies we think you should watch RIGHT NOW. Well, not now now. You have to listen to the episode first to find out which movies. And then now!
We all know that the experience of watching a movie has degraded in the 21st century. Theatres have been abandoned, both by audiences and those who manage them. Streaming services offer convenience at a steep cost and at great sacrifice in quality.
Normally our hubris is saved for fixing movies, but why not aim higher? Why not try to repair the entire modern viewing experience as we know it?
Yeah, now that's what I call unearned white-guy-podcast confidence. LFG!
It's the season 10 finale! How in the name of the Q Continuum have we managed to do this for almost ten years? Largely thanks to you, honestly. Without your support, whether its been generously donating your own hard-earned cash or furiously working to submit your movie fixes every two weeks, this show wouldn't exist without you.
So, as always, thank you so much!
Now, sit back and enjoy us needlessly picking apart your childhood's favourite gang of puppets. Remember, you support this nonsense.
In the wake of the Andor series finale – arguably the best prequel to anything ever – we decided to go back and revisit our episode on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. With Andor's re-contextualization of the story, and the benefit of 8 years of hindsight, we wanted to find our if our fixes still hold up and if the film lands any different now. One thing we can say for sure, Saw Gerrera's appears makes way more sense.
Tune in to us I Have Some Note-ing and episode of I Have Some Notes!
Links:
- Our Original Rogue One episode
- Andor: Anti-f*scist Art (Just Write video Liam recommends)
- Discord Server
- Link Tree
- Patreon
Lately Marvel movies have been making for easy podcast fodder. Their blandness has only been outdone by their mediocrity. Unfortunately for us, as we were screening Thunderbolts*, we had to admit it was pretty sick. So sick, in fact, than even Gregg gave it 4 1/2 stars on Letterboxd. Gregg!
That makes our job a bit of a challenge. But, to paraphrase the old maxim, a movie is never finished, merely abandoned. To that end we throw a bunch of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks like the Brylcreem'd mane of a golden god and what falls into the void below.
A team of scientists unearth an ancient gate in the Egyptian desert that opens the doorway for humans to travel across the known universe in the blink of an eye. What marvellous wonders will they bear witness to, what awesome sights will they glimpse that no other human has glimpsed?
Sand…mostly.
Yes, as good as the premise is, Stargate is a cinematic snooze-fest that needs fixing. We sprinkle a little exposition dust to lift this story off the ground and get it running through the gate instead of walking.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is beloved by those bold enough to embrace a fantastical new reality, and abhorred by those aghast at this bizarre spectacle of unknown providence. It’s a film as divisive as it is confusing as it is gonzo, but we've assembled a massive crew of colourful weirdos to help make sense of it all; just like Buckaroo would have wanted!
I Have Some Notes welcomes David Rae and Laena Anderson from Quantum Kickflip. QK is an actual-play podcast about teen hoverboarders traveling to strange new dimensions to explore, get into trouble, and look cool doing it. Dave and Laena have two seasons worth of multiverse adventure storytelling experience, so they might be the only ones clever or crazy enough to handle the wild trip that is Buckaroo Banzai.
Listen to Quantum Kickflip, including the upcoming Season 3 dropping June 4, at www.quantumkickflip.com. Follow them on Bluesky at quantumkickflip.bsky.social.
The I Have Some Notes Discord Server is a great place to keep the conversation going. Let us know what you thought of our pitches and share your own thoughts on the next film we cover!
Old John Wick is warn out, friends. He's been on a revenge tour for three movies, and now he's going to have to drag his Freedom 55 ass through another two and a half hour gun-fu marathon. But not to worry, the schtick is only as derivative as the needle-drops.
Liam, Scott and Gregg fight through the urge to relentlessly critique and eventually find a solid new big picture direction for a better Chapter 4.
After you listen be sure to drop by our Discord Server and let us know what you thought of our pitch!
There are two forms of novel adaptations: thoughtful interpretations of the book and its themes and hack scripts stapled to a recognizable book title. Now which route do you think Netflix took for The Electric State?
If you guessed the former, you must be new here. Hi! Welcome to I Have Some Notes!
No guest this week, so it’s up to the classic threesome to find some kind of fix for the Russo brothers’s latest streaming “blockbuster” that doesn’t amount to just “do it like the book.” We get there…eventually.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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
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!
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
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.
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!
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.
After years stuck in development hell, all Sony could muster was to poop an incredibly mid adaptation of its triple-A video game UNCHARTED. Almost perfectly miscast, Uncharted succeeds only in misunderstanding what made the games so appealing.
Liam, Scott, and Gregg restructure the cold open in a way that unlocks a potentially fun adventure script with consistent themes and plenty of treasure-hunting intrigue.
We're back to season 10 of I Have Some Notes! It's a new season of cuts, keeps, punch-ups, and tweaks on your favourite (?) mediocre movies!
It's been a while since we circled back to the Alien franchise, which is surprising considering how plagued the series is with stinkers. But we'd inevitably try to fix Ridley Scott's follow-up to Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, and here we are.
Follow along with us this season on all our social media, especially Discord where we're having a blast discussing movies every week. Don't bother following us on Twitter, however, we have officially left the platform for reasons I'm sure you implicitly understand.
For our Season 9 finale, we dawned our nerdiest pair of boxing gloves for a Franchise Fight to determine the best science fiction franchise of all time! Gregg argues for Star Trek (obviously), Scott backs Star Wars, and Liam makes the case for Doctor Who.
Thanks to all our listeners for making Season 9 a success, despite some turbulence in the spring. We appreciate you all and are so happy to have built this little niche community of armchair screenwriters. Onward for Season 10!
In a fortuitous confluence of events, we all happened to see Deadpool & Wolverine in the theater opening weekend and figured we can't NOT do an episode on it, right?
And episode we did! While we all quite liked Ryan Reynold's love letter to the 20th Century Fox era of Marvel movies, we found a couple of things that might have tightened the film up.
00:07:17 – General Thoughts
00:13:11 – Trailer/Plot Summary
00:15:29 – Movie Review
00:44:03 – Pitches and Fixes
01:04:35 – Listener Comments
Twister, not to be confused with Twisters, is a disaster/thriller directed by complete loose cannon, Jan De Bont. The former Roar DP shoved Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton in a dirty truck and drove them up and down Tornado Alley stopping to shoot at random locations without a concern for coordinator or safety. We appreciate that kind of shoot-by-the-hip filmmaking, as we are shoot-by-the-hip writers who aim to fix a movie in, oh, say an hour. An hour and a half tops!
Listen in to our rewrites now!
Once every couple of decades Jerry Seinfeld gets bored enough driving classic cars and bottomless pots of coffee to make a movie. So what inspires this behemoth of comedy to pen a script worthy of the storied history of the silver screen? In an increasingly divided world, what draws this titan of jest to cut through the noise to deliver a heavy cultural impact?
Bees.
And Poptarts.
Robyn Slack joins us again to remaster and rehabilitate the script for UNFROSTED! Together we find stronger motivations to hang the comedy off of and delete some pointless references to current events.
We're back from hiatus and for our return, we wanted to pick an exciting, uplifting movie that would match our excitement of being back…and for some reason, we chose Star Trek: Nemesis.
The movie that ended the golden era of Star Trek is truly a depressing watch. It's dark, rapey, and far from the optimistic future depicted in The Next Generation's 7-year TV run.
We certainly had our work cut out for us imagining a rewrite for this one. Still, it's good to be back! Thanks for your patience while we were away, we're excited to bring you new movie rewrites all summer long.
Welcome to the first-ever Intellectual Property Lottery! We took 20 of your suggestions for IP that have yet to be turned into a feature film and with the roll of a 20-sided die, randomly selected one for each host to pitch how they would adapt it.
Comedian, musician, director, playwright, and all-around talented dude Robyn Slack joins us for another episode of slinging elevator pitches. His band, Success 5000, has a brand new album called Sad Forever, so please check that out, cause it's great! But also sad. But great! But sad. Forever.
- 00:02:56 – The Property Draw List
- 00:04:32 – Chrono Trigger
- 00:22:27 – Scrabble
- 00:34:25 – Shadow Run
- 00:42:30 – Megaman
- 00:56:35 – Alpha Flight
- 01:00:23 – Axe Body Spray
- 01:04:54 – Fraggle Rock
- 01:08:08 – Captain Planet
Baseball diehard Scott Belford of The Walk Off podcast joins us to rewrite our very first sports movie! Well…sports adjacent movie, anyway. The only problem is Richard Linklater's Everybody Wants Some!! is a pretty good movie, you guys.
We give it the old college try, though (Get it?!). Scott and Scott find an opportunity to add a secondary protagonist, Liam seeks to pass the Bechdel test, and Gregg questions whether adding any kind of central conflict would just undermine the whole point of the movie.
- 00:14:01 – Plot Summary
- 00:15:09 – Movie Disussion
- 00:30:50 – Fixes
- 00:55:38 – Listener Comments
We've teased it all season and at last, it's here, the great rewrittening of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania! Of course, we wouldn't have hyped it up so much if we didn't have some awesome guests lined up. Josh and Alex of Talking SMAC join us to reimagine the movie that officially landed Marvel in "jumped the shark" territory.
00:13:06 – Plot Summary
00:14:56 – Movie Discussion
00:38:36 – Rewrites
01:04:37 – Listener Comments
What makes a movie bad? What are the confluences of unfortunate events and decisions that cause a film not to work? Liam, Scott, and Gregg share their theories and experiences on the wide world of putrid cinema.
We have an absolutely MASSIVE year-end wrap-up show for you, but I promise we didn't plan it that way. The intention was for the first section of the episode to be a rapid-fire list of movies we loved and wanted to mention, but we just couldn't help but discuss each of them at length.
Hey, give us a break. This is the one episode of the year we get to talk about actual good movies, we're understandably a little over-eager.
Below are the timecodes if you'd like to jump around to the movies you really want to hear us talk about:
"Rapid Fire" 2023 Movies:
- 00:04:56 – Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse
- 00:07:25 – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
- 00:08:47 – Super Mario Bros.
- 00:11:03 – The Creator
- 00:13:04 – Dream Scenario
- 00:15:18 – Leo
- 00:17:32 – Talk to Me
- 00:19:50 – Reality
- 00:21:25 – Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3
- 00:23:31 – No One Will Save You
- 00:25:12 – Barbie
- 00:28:43 – Asteroid City
- 00:33:06 – Lebanese Burger Mafia
- 00:36:08 – Marc Maron: From Bleak to Dark
- 00:37:32 – The Holdovers
Most Disappointing of 2023
- 00:40:28 – Fool's Paradise
- 00:42:25 – Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
- 00:44:08 – Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning
- 00:47:12 – The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart
- 00:49:35 – Shin Kamen Rider
- 00:51:04 – John Wick: Chapter 4
- 00:54:11 – Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
- 00:54:46 – Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child of Fire
- 00:56:20 – Totally Killer
Best of 2023
- 00:59:44 – They Cloned Tyrone
- 01:02:57 – Leave the World Behind
- 01:09:05 – Blackberry
- 01:13:53 – Oppenheimer
- 01:19:36 – Anatomy of a Fall
- 01:22:32 – Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
- 01:28:11 – Godzilla Minus One
- 01:32:04 – Poor Things
- 01:41:25 – I Like Movies
Listner Comments – 01:52:41
Zack Snyder may be this podcast's most prolific source of content. Whenever a Snyder joint drops we know it will be ripe for pitching rewrites.
While Rebel Moon kicks off with surprising promise, the saga quickly develops into empty action and even emptier characters. Scott and Gregg try their best to restructure the plot and add more intrigue to the large cast of characters, while Liam takes a big swing at making this a much more challenging artistic affair.
00:08:08 – Plot Summary
00:09:23 – Movie Discussion
00:29:45 – Rewrites
00:48:43 – Listener Comments
The legend of Indiana Jones ends in an unfortunate snoozefest that fails to live up to the vaunted films of the 80s. Fortunately, that leaves us all kinds of relics to rearrange in the museum of Indy.Scott, Liam, and Gregg look to bring Indiana Jones to a close by interrogating the nature of the character and his history of looting. In addition, we add a fan-favourite character while conversely trying to make the audience feel as uncomfortable as possible.* 06:42 - Plot Summary * 08:27 - Movie Discussion * 30:10 - Punch-up * 01:02:17 - Listener Comments
The Flash is another in a long line of troubled DC movies. Although the core is simple and smart, director Andy Muschietti loses the handle to blockbuster bloat.
Fortunately, Scott has a simple, yet brilliant change that takes the drama to a whole new level and opens up the opportunity to keep the scope smaller and more focused.
- 00:14:43 - Plot Summary
- 00:17:06 - Movie Discussion
- 00:41:00 - Movie Punch-up
- 00:58:35 - Listener Comments
Ducan Jones' follow-up to Moon dropped, it barely made a sound. It remains one of the many Netflix original misses that have been scarcely seen – must less heard – by anyone. But hey, we were looking for a noir cyberpunk movie, and this one fits the bill!
Laena Anderson of Quantum Kickflip fame joins us to give a stronger voice to Mute. They deftly adjust the challenges the protagonist's disability would present in an ableist future, while Scott looks to change the film's protagonist altogether. Gregg tweaks a single scene, again, and Liam…well Liam may not have even watched this one.
- 15:57 – Plot Summary
- 18:07 – Movie Discussion
- 41:44 – Rewrites
- 01:06:44 – Listner Comments
This week we pitch modern remakes for the O.G. horror flick: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. A classic of the Weimar Germany era of expressionist films, Dr. Caligari left an indelible mark on the horror genre with its haunting score, trippy hand-painted lettering and sets, and unique film tinting. I can say with confidence I've never seen a movie like it. You can watch it for free here.
Liam and Gregg propose remakes that are essentially artistic love letters to a classic, while Scott zags in the other direction creating a techno horror/thriller that pays homage to the original.
If you are interested in checking out the short films that inspired Liam's remake, here is a list of links:
- The Periwig Maker – Stop motion short from 1999, based on Daniel Defoe's novel A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), narrated by Kenneth Branagh.
- https://vimeo.com/94166448
- Flying Sailor – Canadian short by Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis
- https://www.nfb.ca/film/flying-sailor-the/
- Behind Closed Doors
- https://youtu.be/H9InaUJm0A8?si=YYRPkdorPUKxiCNp
- Tall Grass
- Love Death and Robots - Season 2 Episode 5
- Mad God – Directed by Phill Tippet
- Available on AppleTV+
Ti West's X is honestly a pretty great horror/slasher movie, but would we let a quality film from A24 get in the way of our Monday morning screenwriting? Hell no!
The question for us was whether X took its themes all the way to the finish line. We propose a couple of character moments for Maxime that might done just that, while also making the deaths of certain members of the film crew more tragic.
- 10:46 - Film Discussion
- 37:34 - Rewrites for X
- 1:00:16 - Listner Comments
Originally a Patreon exclusive, we've unlocked this special Side Notes episode for all to enjoy: How to Watch Movie Good.
Making I Have Some Notes over the last eight years has really pushed us to become better cinephiles and media critics. Punching up movies week after week isn't easy, particularly if we hope to create interesting pitches that meaningfully move these screenplays in a better direction.
So we thought it would be good to share with you our individual journeys from average moviegoers to seasoned cinephiles. The result was a great conversation that traces our roots from working at video stores, to writing about movies, to developing a love for film theory and artistic philosophy.
As mentioned in our last episode, we intend to ride out the Hollywood strikes in solidarity with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, so we may not be punching up American superhero movies for a while. Fortunately, this presents a perfect excuse to hit the road and explore imaginative superhero movies abroad, like Shin Kamen Rider.
Kamen Rider is a storied Japanese hero who is as much a cultural touchstone in Japan as Superman is in North America. The franchise spans hundreds of hours of television and a dizzying number of feature films. It is also responsible for the popularization of the "transformation" scene that became of hallmark of anime shows like Sailor Moon.
We try work rework the break-neck speed of Shin Kamen Rider to something that is admittedly more accessible to us Canadians who have yet to ride with the masked grasshopper hero before.
- 09:00 - Plot Summary
- 11:08 - Film Discussion
- 25:04 - Punch Up
- 58:03 - Listener Comments
Did you miss us? Cause we definitely missed you! We're stoked to be back for another season of punching up movies, although this season will be slightly different.
As you know, the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild are currently on strike due to unfair pay and poor working conditions. To show our solitary, I Have Some Notes has chosen not to promote any struck work from movie studios that are unwilling to sign a fair deal with artists. They are the lifeblood of the industry and for the countless hours of entertainment they have given us, writers and actors deserve the opportunity to earn a comfortable living.
So the question is: what movies can we review?
Enter The Brain That Wouldn't Die, a 1962 sci-fi/horror B-movie that just happens to be in the public domain. No fat cat executive is profiting from this one, baby!
But instead of our usual punch-up routine, we decided to have some extra fun and violate our one single rule. That's right, we're doing page one rewrites! Specifically, our goal was to remake this classic for a modern audience.
So grab your headphones and listen in as we repitch The Brain That Wouldn't Die!
- 08:53 – Plot Summary
- 10:27 – Movie Discussion
- 19:05 – Remake Pitches
- 01:00:12 – Listener Comments
For our season finalé, we really felt we wanted to get to the center of a science fiction film. You know, really drill down, bore out all the flaws, and mine some truly creative solutions.
Additional core puns.
Robin Taylor (Cinematological) joins us for the conclusion to Season 8 of I Have Some Notes aiming to rewrite 2003's THE CORE. The crew struggles a bit with this one but ultimately pitches multiple fixes including throwing an Adam-McKay-esque satirical blanket around the entire plot.
Thank you to all our listeners and Patreon supporters this season. Because of your support, the show is now completely independent and self-sustaining. This show is a blast to make, and we're so grateful to be able to keep recording into Season 9 and beyond.
We'll be back in September, but if you're a Patreon supporter keep an eye out for some bonus content in July and August. Have a great summer, armchair screenwriters!
Hollywood has a long dark history of discriminating against and abusing women, an issue thoroughly analyzed by the revealing 2018 documentary THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING. When Anita recently watched this doc, it affected her so completely she was compelled to bring a panel of women together to discuss it.
As such a panel is no place for three white dudes, Anita, Glenna, Danica and Erin take over the show for an insightful conversation about gender disparity in Hollywood. Take it from the man who edited it together, there are plenty of things said in this episode that are tough, but necessary to hear.
It's fair to say the consensus amongst critics is that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness needed more verses and madness, and that's a given in all of our notes. However, where MoM really struggles is in its character development, particularly of its villain.
We work our way through the multiverse punching up Wanda's arc while sprinkling in some Marvel lore that could have made jumping from dimension to dimension much more fun.
After you've listened to the episode come check out our Discord Server for more great movie discussion in a safe space.
Bullet Train was not well received critically. When it sits at 54% on Rotten Tomatoes you can understand why we would look at it and say "Hey, the perfect movie for our podcast." And yet, this movie is mostly rad, leaving us a bit stunned and at a loss for how to go about our usual repitching shtick.
We soldier on, of course, but the rewrites are of a very minor variety. Still, it was fun to talk about a pretty good movie this time around.
When we think of director Neill Blomkamp we think of District 9 and not a lot else. While the once up-and-coming director may be short on execution, he's never short on ideas.
Elysium is the kind of film tailor-made for this podcast: tons of fun, interesting ideas that don't quite come together. The result? An absolute banger of a show!
As we mention in the listener comments section, Sean McKnight sent us a fully realized repitch of Elysium, you can read it here.
Barbarian is a very good movie and we talk about it. Okay, now on to the important stuff.
For the last six years, I Have Some Notes has been privileged to be part of the Alberta Podcast Network, the brain-baby of founder Karen Unland. Karen's love for local art built a platform for so many of us to stand on and gave us the opportunity to fund our passion projects. Although the APN ended its operation in March, will be forever grateful to Karen as well as Fawnda Mithrush and Breanne Byrne for their tireless work promoting ours and so many other great Alberta-grown shows. We're also thankful to all our dedicated sponsors whose contributions were crucial to keeping the lights on.
But as we say goodbye to the network, a new chapter begins for I Have Some Notes. Today we are excited to announce our show is now sponsored…by YOU! Yes, we have started a Patreon to keep the armchair screenwriting going for many seasons to come. So, if you are able, we humbly ask for a tiny sum of $4 per month. It would mean the world to us to have your support!
But that's not all, we have also started a new Discord Server! Let's face it, Twitter is a tire fire and not a great place to have fun, nuanced discussions about movies. Come join us where we'll be talking about all the latest Hollywood buzz and maybe holding rewriting some movies on the fly. It'll be a great time, so come join us!
Become an Armchair Screenwriter at www.pateon.com/ihavesomenotes!
Join our Discord Server!
As 90's action schlock goes, Sylvester Stallone's Judge Dredd is probably better than you remember. The money is all on the screen with great sci-fi sets and a badass animatronic robot. However, we wouldn't be reviewing it on this podcast if it were perfect. The plot is derivative, the villain is boring, and the satire the comic is known for is completely missing.
Listen in as we (mostly Liam) add contemporary social commentary and introduce a new criminal element as the backbone for Dredd's wrongful conviction.
John Dies at the End is a delightfully absurd horror comedy, or at least it would be if it had been better produced. Writer and Ph.D. candidate in Media and Cultural Studies, Pete Morley, joins us to relive this beloved web serial turned cult-classic novel turned mediocre movie in a collective effort to punch it up.
Bless the entertainment conglomerate Disney for churning out mediocre movie after middling movie that will keep this podcast well-supplied into the next decade. Perhaps century.
What film has Disney brought to the Gods of Rewrites as its next sacrifice? Thor: Love and Thunder.
Joining us to reimagine Taika Waittit's second crack at making Marvel magic is comic expert and fellow podcaster Josh Skaar, host of Talking SMAC (Superheroes Movies Animation Comics). Together we seek to eliminate some of the cringe subplots while taking Mjonir-sized swings at a film that is more Mighty Thor than Thor.
Some movies are just made for our podcast. Don't Worry Darling is a beautiful, well-made movie that takes aim at misogyny and the patriarchy in interesting ways but juuuuuuuuust can't quite bring it home.
Liam, Gregg and Scott differ on the level of mess Oliva Wilde's film is, but none can deny how engaging it was to watch. And hey, we're glad we did because it was a lot of fun to reimagine some of the twists and character arcs in a way that could've made for a stronger film.
You can have it fast, you can have it cheap, but you can't have it good. That is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze in a half shell. While not necessarily a bad film, this rushed Turtles sequel was a treasure trove of missed opportunities, some of which should have been fairly obvious to the filmmakers, assuming they had the time to read the source material.
Liam and Gregg take time to fix some minor issues, while Scott goes for broke with a page-one rewrite that celebrates the 90s cartoon.
It is always a bummer when a movie has a killer premise and completely whiffs. M. Night Shyamalan is back on the show for a second time and up to his usual twisty shenanigans (Shyamanigans?). This time the twist completely undermines his premise and makes us think far too much about the mechanics of his magic beach.
Listen in as Liam, Scott and Gregg make one simple change to OLD that helps all the pieces fit more cohesively into place.
Happy New Year, fellow armchair screenwriters! We take a short break from rewriting mediocre movies to talk about some good ones that don't need any rewrites. Liam, Scott and Gregg discuss their top films of the year including one they all agree was a cut above them all.
It's our final movie rewrite of 2022! We hope you're all having a safe, happy holiday curled up in front of the fire listening to us deconstruct and rebuild Edgar Wright's Last Night in Soho.
Admittedly this one was a bit intimidating, but ultimately we landed on several solid paths to a more thematically cohesive and perhaps more contemplative film.
WARNING! Last Night In Soho deals with themes of sexual violence, as does our discussion.
Kids movies! Fun light-hearted cinema full of catchy songs that get stuck in your head when your kid plays them over and over and over and sings along with them so loudly you can't think straight and you start to think "is this what losing my mind is like?" but no you haven't lost your mind because it is in fact your soul that is sinking into the inky black abyss with each repetition of the horrid whalings of a broadway singer turned accursed voice actor whose unwanted melodic tones trespass through your ears like those worms from Wrath of KHAAAAAAAAAANN!!!!Anyway, we rewrote Frozen. Enjoy.
We've talked about mediocre X-Men films before, so for The New Mutants we decided to try something a little different. Returning guests and X-Men experts Robyn Slack (Quantuum Kickflip) and Olav Rokne (Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog) face off against seasoned movie punch-up veterans Scott C. Bourgeois and Gregg Beever in an epic movie pitch battle.
Liam Creswick judges this winner-take-all I Have Some Notes slugfest. What spoils await the victor? I donno, pride or something.
While Brendan Fraser is experiencing a well-deserved renaissance, we thought it would be fun to rewind the clock to look back at his heyday in the 90s. George of the Jungle may have not been his strongest starring role, but there are many who still remember it fondly.
We, of course, look back and find ways to improve Brendan's role. Cutting a couple of needless subplots and more than a few characters, we streamline George of the Jungle to include more George IN the jungle.
Sequels! We love 'em! They're rarely any good and ripe for re-pitching. In Jaws The Revenge's case the film is really devoid of good shark-related kills and spends far too much time focused on the wrong character.
The crew takes turns adding to a new pitch that turns the shark into more of a metaphor before shifting gears into a straight-up supernatural slasher flick.
Ghotbusters: Afterlife may devolve into a cynical cavalcade of nostalgia, but boy what a ride. Glenna Schowalter of the Slugblaster play along podcast Quantum Kickflip joins our cast of armchair screenwriters to punch up a perfectly fine, yet slightly unsatisfying Ghostbusters sequel.
Together the paranormal foursome of pretend producers question the need for familial ties to the original cast, while also toying with the idea of making the O.G. proton slingers the villains.
As we all know video game movies are notorious for being great. They are among the most well-written and thoughtful blockbuster movies Hollywood produces, especially in the earlier 2000s when they definitely weren't cynical cash grabs.
You'd think Lara Croft: Tomb Raider wouldn't be the kind of film we review, but Angelina Jolie's video game adaptation managed to buck the trend of hit film after hit film. It is salvageable, however, as we manage to add more tomb raiding to this Tomb Raider flick.
It was amazing to see all you armchair screenwriters in chat for our LIVE broadcast of Morbius! For those of you who missed while it was live the episode is archived on here YouTube. Of course, you can also listen to it right here on our podcast feed.
Unfortunately Abdul was not able to join us due to a technical issue, but we soldiered on punching up Michael Morbius's relationship with his so-called friend Milo, while also making the film more of a THE FLY pastiche with requisite R-rated body horror.
We're kicking off season 8 of I Have Some Notes with a killer live show fixing a famous vampiric flop. That's right, armchair screenwriters, it's Morbin' Time!
Please join us on Friday, September 16th at 9 PM MDT for our season premier featuring special guest and talented screenwriter, Abdul Malik.
LIVE SHOW DETAILS Live Stream Link: https://youtu.be/jSDDOu_HwNI Date: Friday, September 16th Time: 9 PM MDT
Season finale we have reached. Fix A bad movie, we will.
It’s been seven seasons of playing armchair screenwriter on this show, but I dare say no movie has evoked as much emotion and exasperation as The Rise of Skywalker. A deeply flawed movie from start to finish, no director has earned a place on this podcast quite like J.J. Abrams.
As we mention in the show, you all came through big on your fixes for this one, and we sadly could not get to them all. However, we did want to highlight two really interesting pitches from listeners that were too long to read on the show:
Tak’s Pitch
Sean McKnight’s Pitch
Finally, here is a link to How Bad Movies Are Made feat. The Rise of Skywalker, the video Scott mentions at the end of the show.
Have a great summer, armchair screenwriters! See you in September.
Danica LeBlanc, Anita Bourgeois, and Erin Beever are back for another podcast takeover, and this time they've brought IHSN veteran Glenna Schowalter with them! The movie? 2018's women-led heist extravaganza, OCEAN'S EIGHT.
Together the takeover team works out a new conniving angle for Anne Hathaway's character, as well as adding some much-needed tension when the thieving is at its peak.
Cloud Atlas is an ambitious film about the ties that bind us through the passage of time. It is thoughtful and expertly edited. Does it deserve to be picked apart in the traditional I Have Some Notes fashion? Probably not. However, you suggested and voted for it, and we're not in the habit of disappointing our listeners.
While there are some obvious problematic choices the Wachowskis and company make that could be very easily cleaned up, many of our other notes are more of the picking nits variety. Still, it was a great discussion about a really interesting film.
For our 101st movie fix, Cruella, because here at I Have Some Notes we allow numerical coincidence to dictate the show. In all honesty, Cruella was a pretty good time. It wasn't the least notes we've given to a film, but it was certainly close. Still, the lore of the film was hotly contested, making this a fun episode.
We have officially fixed 100 movies, and still no calls from any Hollywood execs. This is a free service we're providing here, you'd think they'd at least reach out and say "thank you", especially on our 100th movie birthday.
One person we would like to thank is Colin MacIntyre, this show's original host, for returning for this momentous occasion. Believe me, it isn't easy watching mediocre movie after mediocre movie and to hit the century mark really feels Herculean to us, and Colin was a big part of that.
Listen to us flex our muscles 100th time as we take on an absolute classic in BATMAN (1989). I realize I just talked a big game about watching mediocre movies being rough, and no, Batman is not one of those. Give us a break, we wanted to watch something good for our centennial.
But before you do we just want to say thank you so much for listening. Whether you're a diehard listener from the beginning or listening to us for the very first time, we appreciate every one of you. Thank you!
You've heard us talk about fixing a lot of movies, how about our own movie pitches? We've got great ideas, but Hollywood isn't returning our calls, so now we're giving them away for free! Returning guest Robyn Slack of the Quantum Kickflip podcast joins us to pitch some wholly original movies, except the ones that are pitches for existing properties…then they're just mostly original.
Robot Jox spent its budget on some cutting-edge special effects for 1989, and not much else. While the giant mechs looked great, the robot choreography itself was a bit dull. But that aside we found plenty of other easy wins to punch up this B-movie classic.
Olav Rokne (of the Hugo Book Club Blog fame) returns for this sci-fi romp! He lends his insights into the genre as well as sharing stories about one of the screenwriters, who he knows personally.
A classic 80s character is stripped apart and rebuilt by the modern-day Hollywood machine. Robocop may not have been the most cynical of reboot cash grabs, but it certainly missed many of the opportunities it set up for itself.
That's where we jump in to reprogram some of the film's themes and attempt to add some contemporary pathos to a script ironically lacking humanity.
If you grew up in the 90s Adam Sandler probably had a large influence on your sense of humour. He likely did not have a large influence on you as an eventual parent, however. While Big Daddy was certainly a more "mature" turn for Sandler at the time, his childish instincts prevented it from being a really touching comedy about fatherhood.
Speaking of fatherhood, German Villegas of the Modern Manhood podcast joins us this week. The entire upcoming season of Modern Manhood is all about child development, which put Big Daddy right in German's big damn wheelhouse. Together we try to add some stronger comedic structure to the film while also analyzing Sonny Kaufax's style as a father.
Highlander II was so efficient at burning the goodwill of its fanbase George Lucas took it as a personal challenge, and that's how we got The Phantom Menace. We're not exactly Hollywood historians around here, but we're pretty sure that's how it went down.
For some reason, the minds behind Highlander thought the best way to continue the story of a 500-year-old sword-fighting immortal with a rich background, not even Forrest Gump could hold a bucket of shrimp up to by making him an alien who's charged with fixing the ozone layer. Yeah…
Suffice it to say we had a lot of gripes with Connor MacLeod's second appearance on the silver screen, but the fixes were a bit difficult. Thankfully Glenna Schowalter of the Quantum Kickflip podcast returns to lend us a head. Get it?
We're diving back into the MCU once again for Marvel's Studios The Eternals, a film rich in characters and short on development. The Note-ernals take passes at spreading the dense plot out over two films as well as dropping an entire sub-plot to make a more breathable single film. We also find an interesting twist on the main villain that would have been far more thematically relevant.
One good asteroid movie deserves another, we always say. For the second time in a row, we're tackling a planet-killing plot device, this time of the Michael Bay variety. Truly there was one simple fix to this oil-riggers-in-space fantasy, and we happened upon it quite quickly. However, we do spend a great deal of time taking shots at Michael, even as Liam is trying to get us to talk about what we liked about the movie.
Not since our Interstellar episode have we spent more time praising a film than giving it notes. Don't Look Up may have been polarizing with audiences, but for the hosts of this show, it was a unanimous thumbs-up. We may have only found a few things to tweak, but that didn't stop us from having a lively discussion about what the film wanted to accomplish and why.
This was a fun one, enjoy!
We typically use our last show in December to sum up the best and worst movies of the year. However, we skipped the tradition last year and, thanks to a certain mutating virus, haven't been able to see all the films we would have liked in 2021. So instead we decided to talk about our favourites and least favourites of the pandemics era. Also, we spend about 20 minutes complaining about a Spider-man movie we haven't seen yet. That's a thing that happened.
Thanks for sticking with us another year, armchair screenwriters, we'll see you again in January!
Love Actually is every kind of romantic comedy you want it to be. It’s got star-crossed lovers, it’s got love triangles and it’s even got your classic 90s style sex romp. Anita Bourgeois of The Read-Along joins us to sift through an actual plethora of love stories in an attempt to fix them all.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle is a deeply flawed film, which should make it the perfect fodder for our show, but can it be too flawed? Matthew Vaughn really stretched our capacity and desire to reimagine his movie, to the point that Liam felt the need to apologize to previous films we've given notes to.
Thankfully Evan MacDonald from Kino Lefter stopped by to help. With our combined notes, we explore deleting the resurrection of Colin Firth, eliminating the weird drug plot, and generally giving Pedro Pascal more to do.
However you feel about Zack Snyder, there is no denying he is a rich vein for movie podcasts such as ours. In fact, Man of Steel was the movie that inspired the creation of this show. While we've mined the depths of his DC offerings, listener Andrew Craig asked us to take a swing at Snyder's most polarizing film, Sucker Punch.
Liam, Scott, and Gregg look to add contrast and connective tissue between the dream sequences while failing – as Zack did – to add more meaning to the film's central theme.
CONTENT WARNING: This episode discusses themes of sexual assault.
Horror aficionado Glenna Schowalter joins us for a deep dive into the genre exploring what makes it tick. Is it the suspense? The scares? The atmosphere? The inventive R-rated kills? It will vary from person to person, to be sure, but this was an extremely fun episode discussing what we look for in a good horror flick. Let us know if you would like to hear more genre deep dives.
Paul W.S. Anderson had to wait an extra week for our Event Horizon episode, but we promise, Paul, it was worth the wait. Big thanks for Olav Rokne for saving our skin at the 11th hour, subbing in for Scott C. Bourgeois who was not available to record.
Together we make minor tweaks to a flawed, yet charming sci-fi horror. A change in motivation here, a removal of a text crawl there. I'd say Paul got off easy.
The all listener curated season continues, and for some reason you picked Charlie's Angels (2019). I love you, listeners, even if I don't understand you.
Thankfully, Glenna Schowalter of Quantum Kickflip fame returns to help the Altoids go down a little smoother (that's a funny reference to the movie, you'll just have to trust me). Together we shuffle around the plot twists, add some character conflict and remove weird and unneeded restraining devices.
Season 7 is here! Every movie this season will be chosen by you the listener, and for our season opener Chris on Twitter has selected for us SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY.
Prequels are hard, and prequels of cool but relatively thin secondary characters are even harder. With the help of returning guest Robin Slack (Quantum Kickflip) we jettison some unneeded back story, merge two weak characters, and beef up Lando's love of robots.
A recording of our season ending live show with special guest Stephanie Chan! With Steph's help, we took Wonder Woman 1984's gnarly script and created something hella bodacious.
Apologies for some of the rare digital compression noises, the audio is lifted directly from the live stream.
We're ending our 6th season in style. Tune in this Friday, July 30th at 9PM MDT for a special LIVE broadcast of I Have Some Notes. We'll be joined by guest Stephanie Chan giving notes to Wonder Woman 1984.
Catch the broadcast on our YouTube Channel or our Facebook Page.
Splash! A classic 80s rom-com with a stacked cast, a fun premise, and just enough flaws to make our show. We look at removing a problematic trope, giving Tom Hanks a relevant occupation and adding more context to the fishy romance.
Splash discussion starts at 00:09:53.
Say what you will about Hollywood, back in the early 2000s they really had their finger on the pulse of sci-fi fans. What they were really clamouring for was a product placement packed, extremely loose adaptation of Isaac Asimov's I, Robot.
Boom. Another home run for studio execs.
Speaking of home runs, we landed Olav Rokne as a guest this week. Olav returns to the show to provide some history and context surrounding Asimov's work, as well as advocate for stories of his that would have made better movies.
The I, Robot discussion starts at 00:16:18.
Christopher Nolan is a wonderful filmmaker who somehow keeps landing films right in our wheelhouse. Say what you will about the man, but he is never boring. There is always good reason to analyze his films forwards and backwards.
Back again to reverse engineer TENET's script is follow podcaster and time travel expert Robyn Slack! Together we unravel this pandemic blockbuster's curious directorial quirks and overcomplicated heist plot.
You may have noticed we are adding some general film discussion off the top of each show, which we hope you're enjoying. However, if you'd like to skip to the TENET discussion, jump to 00:14:03.
It took us six years to get to an M. Night Shyamalan flick, but the writing was in the corn fields, as it were, we were going to get there eventually.
Signs is a film made famous by its plot holes, but it is the film's philosophy that commits the greatest sin. We look to tweak the meaning of Signs to something that would speak a clearer message.
We take a break from furiously rewriting blockbusters to kick back, relax and watch some classic comedies from our youth. Did they hold up? Are they still funny? Has the evolution of our social consciousness rendered them unwatchable?
Join us as we relive the comedy stylings of the 80s and 90s with Dumb & Dumber, Liar Liar, Police Academy, Basketball and UHF.
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, I know some of our listeners have been out there protesting, but if, like me, you are concerned about the pandemic, consider donating to a bailout relief fund, or any reputable charity whose mission is to support black people and end racial injustice. I personally donated to the Black Resilience Fund in Portland because of my fondness for that town. I’ve posted links below.
Try to keep in mind that systemic change is going to take a long time, so start planning on how you’re going to continue your support today, tomorrow, and in the months and years ahead.
One last programming note, I’m about to head on vacation, so that means you’ll have to wait until July 13th to hear us take down Tron: Legacy. I apologize for the delay, but I promise we’ll make it worth it.
Until then, keep watching the skies.
Links:
- Modern Manhood “The Murder of George Floyd” Episode
- 1619 Podcast
- The 13th
- Black Resilience Fund
- Collection of Bailout Funds across the United States
At the height of their careers, Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton joined forces for an explosive disaster movie that had all the trappings of a certified hit. Unfortunately the box office did not agree, and this rather decent volcano flick has laid dormant ever since. Untill now!
We power up our script rewriting robot and attempt to pull Dante's Peak out of the rubble.
James Cameron spent years trying to put a live action version of Alita: Battle Angel up on the silver screen, and once he finally did it took us less than an hour to tell him all the things he could have done better. Sorry James, such is the nature of the internet, eventually three white guys with microphones are going to unnecessarily disassemble all your good work.
Truthfully though, Alita is not a bad film, and while we put it through our notes process, most of our proposed changes revolve around putting this film in a better position to succeed as a series.
We're just trying to help you make another buck James! We don't want you to starve.
Hey, do you love Aladdin? Do you love the Genie and Carpet and Abu? Well now they’re back, in soulless live-action remake form! Hooray.
This episode takes a few twists and turns as we discuss the cultural space Aladdin occupies and how that would affect any rewrites or changes to the film. We also get into a deep tangent about the value of remakes compared to more original screenplays. It’s a good one, listen in!
We asked you to send us your questions for the I Have Some Notes crew, and holy crap did you deliver! We spent this week’s episode covering topics from how COVID-19 will affect movie theatres to our favourite/most hated movies of all time to whether we regret doing The Mighty Ducks (no).
Huge thanks to all our listeners who submitted questions and a special thanks to our podcasting friends Flicks X-Rayed, Repodcasting and Cinematological for sending us audio questions!
Life is a movie from 2017 that nobody watched, which makes it perfect podcast material, right? Look, we’re wannabe screenwriters, not wannabe marketing experts.
It’s honestly pretty decent, though. There’s a lot of fun sci-fi and horror-y things going on, and a dynamite cast including Rebecca Ferguson, Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds. Still it’s not perfect, or we wouldn’t be looking for put it through our notes process.
Listen in as we debate if Life should be more science-y or more horror-ish, whether the twist should stay or go and how long we should keep Ryan Reynolds alive.
This week we take a microscope to the 2001 blockbuster attempt, Evolution. Liam, Scott and Gregg recoil in horror as they watch a decent sci-fi premise turned unnecessarily into a wacky goof-ball comedy.
Reimagining a comedy can be difficult, particularly when "make laugh better" is not an insightful note, but we manage to dig a bit deeper, add some stakes and create an arc or two all while downplaying some characters who were played by poor performers cough Orlando Jones cough.
What happens when you combine unchecked cinematic ambition with a the world's entire supply of cocaine? You get easily Bruce Willis' strangest (and possible best) film of his career.
As you may recall, we were forced to watch Hudson Hawk after losing the Rotten Tomator Prognosticator to listener Michael Senchuk. Hope you enjoy the episode Mike, because it holds a bit of a surprise.
After having our souls crushed by movies like Beneath the Planet of the Apes and Ready Player One, we decided to take a breather from really, really bad movies. For once during the pandemic we wanted to watch a good movie, so we fired up Netflix and hit play on Sharon Stone's THE QUICK AND THE DEAD.
How do you rewrite or reimagine a movie you have a lot of affection for? With great difficulty! But, as they say, art is never finished, only abandoned. We do, however, end up adjusting the Sam Raimi's firing pin slightly, but only after spending 30 minutes praising his flick.
Are your eyes and ears ready to be assaulted by the densest collage of pop-culture references ever put to film? Perfect! Grab a Jolt, fire up that projection screen TV and insert a coin for Ready Player One.
For an unremarkable film, we couldn't stop talking about it, this is our 2nd longest episode ever. It took a long time to record too, as we were having some audio problems again. Ain't podcastin' fun.
You've been to the The Planet of the Apes, but have you ever wondered "Hey, what's under there? What's beneath that little planet?" Well, wonder no longer! Today we grab our rewriting shovels and dig up Beneath the Planet of the Apes, starring Charlton Heston and a guy who looks exactly like Charlton Heston.
Just a quick note, we had some audio difficulty with this one, we did all we could to touch up the audio and the result is completely listenable, just slightly noisy. Enjoy!
It's a crazy time on this little blue ball of ours, so we hope we can provide you with a little distraction by reimagining the 2017 remake of Power Rangers. Thanks to listener Thomas Meehan for suggesting this movie to us.
The boilerplate pitch for this film must have been "Hey, what if we remade The Breakfast Club, but it was also Power Rangers?" but somehow doesn't capitalize. Instead, this remake contains a whole lot of training montage and not much else.
Gregg mistakenly attributes Power Rangers to Michael Bay's production company, which is incorrect. I could have edited it out, but I'm lazy. Go Go Lazy Producer!
We have yet to tackle a romantic comedy here at the I Have Some Notes studios – a.k.a. Gregg's basement – and for our first rom-com punch up we decided to examine perhaps the greatest on screen couple of all time, Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, in easily their second best effort: You've Got Mail.
We had a lot to say about this one, although the rewrites themselves were quick and easy. Oh, and here is a link to the Onion article Scott mentions.
Before the Matthew McConaissance or the Christain Balevolution or even the Gerard Butleration, there was Reign of Fire. This 2002 dragon apocalypse blockbuster had it all: a killer concept, an embarrassment of riches in its cast, and yet it couldn't convert on any of it. The only plus side is that this pile of mediocrity is right in our noting wheelhouse.
Liam, Gregg and Scott get into a spirited debate over what direction to take in this one, however. In the end, however, one of us earns the consensus of our listens.
One last quick note, we recorded this episode over the internet, so while the audio quality is perfectly fine, it's not totally where we want it. Bare with us, this is a work in progress.
We haven't put many Marvel movies through the notes process, and none from the MCU era. While Marvel has certainly been the more successful brand of comics-turn-movie, they are not flawless. That's where we come in!
Smash the play button to hear our Heroes of Note suit up for their first crack at the MCU in Iron Man 2.
Also, Liam recommended a video to watch towards just before the ad break, I haven't got the link yet, but I will add it when I do. Okay, now enjoy the show. EDIT: Here it is.
After wrapping up our discussion on the best movies of the 2010s we kept the mics on to continue the conversation on the decade that was. We discuss the impact of the biggest tentpole films, touch on some of the decade's the worst films and chat about our hopes and dreams for cinema in the 2020s.
But that's not all, our friends Abdul, Evan and Laura from Kino Lefter take over the show for 9 minutes to give us their top 10 of the past 10. We're sorry we couldn't fit you into the main episode, friends, but thank you so much for submitting your lists, really fun to get your perspectives.
One last thing before you hit play, we're taking a bit of a break in January to both recharge the creative batteries and to switch our podcast feed to a new provider. The feed transition should be a smooth one, but we'll let you know on Twitter and Facebook if there are any hiccups.
The decade is over! Yes, the calendar is about to roll over to 2020, you are 10 years older than you were and have lived through another era of movies. As with the end of all eras, it's time to look back, reflect, and pointlessly rank subjective art.
It's in that spirit that we present our Top 10 Films of the Decade. Liam, Gregg and Scott have carefully curated their lists and recorded celebrations of each film in exhaustive detail. This is the longest episode of I Have Some Notes yet, so strap in.
Also, our friends a Flicks X-rayed, Emily Missed Out and Cinematological have sent us their top ten lists as well, filling this episode to the brim with diverse perspectives on what were the greatest movies of the past 10 years. Big thanks to our podcast buds for contributing to the episode.
Alright, all that's left to do now is to pour yourself an eggnog, sit by an open fire and hit that play button. Follow along with our top ten lists below:
Liam
- Arrival (2016)
- What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
- Anomalisa (2015)
- Into the Spider-Verse (2019)
- Baby Driver (2017)
- Get Out (2018)
- Sorry to Bother You (2018)
- Scott Pilgrim vs The World (2010)
- Mad Max: Fury Road
- The Greasy Strangler (2016)
Gregg
- Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
- Interstellar (2014)
- Jojo Rabbit (2019)
- Your Name (2017)
- OJ: Made in America (2016)
- The Handmaiden (2016)
- Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
- The 13th (2016)
- Molly's Game (2017)
- Arrival (2016)
Scott
- Cabin in the Woods (2011)
- Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
- Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)
- Paddington (2014)
- Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
- Annihilation (2018)
- The Nice Guys (2016)
- Avengers (2012)
- John Wick (2014)
- Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Frank Herbert's Dune is a novel of intense size and scope, and somehow Hollywood, in their infinite hubris, felt they could condense it all into a single 3 hour movie. The only thing more egotistical than that is to think all that movie's problems could be fixed in 1 hour.
Thankfully we have enormous egos, and thus we have a new episode for you. Liam, Gregg and Scott drink deep the water of life, inhale the font of spice, and bask in the light of Sting to fix this 1984 epic.
On August 28th, 2003, pizza delivery driver Brian Wells was jumped, forced to wear a bomb and told to rob a bank or the bomb would be detonated. He tragically died after failing to complete the task in time.
I know what you're thinking, that sounds hilarious! Someone should make a comedy out of it.
Well, you're in luck, because Hollywood doesn't know the meaning of decency and 30 Seconds or Less now can be found in DVD bargain bins the world over.
I've thrown a lot of shade at this film, but it's actually right in our sweet spot. A mediocre comedy that, with a couple tweaks, could have been decent flick, optics not-withstanding. Listen in as we propose Jesse Eisenberg and Danny McBride go darker and explore the depths of one of America's weirdest bank robberies.
We have long been told that "The Rock is Perfect," but is he? This week we put Dwayne's appeal to the ultimate test, can it survive barely 90 minutes of extremely mild sword and sandals action? Will The Scorpion King forever leave doubt in our mind that TRIP?
Liam, Gregg and Scott break down the Mummy sequel/prequel that apparently spawned a direct-to-DVD series of films, none starting The Rock. At first it seems the boys won't pull it off, but soon the fixes coming Fast and Furious. (sorry) (not really)
We didn't so much choose to watch Freddy vs. Jason as it was inflicted upon us. For that we have our good friend Tony from Flicks X-rayed to thank. Tony beat us fair and square (probably) in the Rotten Tomator Prognosticator and got to choose our next film, and for some reason he chose the dullest cross-over film since The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones.
Best I can figure it, Tony has some kind of grudge against us.
However, we like a challenge at I Have Some Notes, and we tried our level best to sharpen the knives of this dull monster mashup.
Well, this is one movie we are not giggy with. Nineties movies typically have some bad taste jokes we’ve long since learned are not appropriate, but like an oddly placed giant mechanical spider, this movie is rife with them.
Liam, Gregg and Scott power through another rewrite, ditching problematic jokes and giving the singular woman in the film something to do (another common theme in our 90s rewrites). Steampunk cowboys should have been easy money, but Will Smith and Kevin Kline showed us that any winning concept can bomb if you try hard enough.
You may remember, back in March, we started a friendly wager amongst our fellow podcasters to see who could best predict the quality of 2019's summer blockbusters. "March?!" I can hear you say, "I barely remember what episode of Voyager I watched last night." Fair enough, let's remind you of the rules, the prize and who participated.
Each contestant guessed the Rotten Tomatoes ratings for an agreed upon list of summer blockbuster movies. Scores were determined by the difference between the guess and the final score of each movie.
For example, I guessed Avengers: Endgame would land at 84% and its actual Rotten Tomatoes rating was 94%, so my score was 10.
Today we tally all the scores to find out who amongst fellow podcasters from the PS2J Show, Flicks X-rayed, Modern Manhood, Emily Missed Out and Repodcasting podcasts. The person with the lowest total win and gets to select a movie the losers must watch and either live Tweet, or record an episode on.
I'm burying the lead here, but we've two special guests turned up for the Rotten Tomator Prognosticator Finale. Our beloved former Colin is back (already!) to talk about why he guessed so bad. We also have Tony from the Flicks X-rayed podcast, the lone non-I Have Some Notes member. Hmmm…wonder why he would be here. Welp, guess you'll have to listen to find out!
You can see all the final score RIGHT HERE!
Our listeners can be forgiven for thinking at this point that we hate the giant monster genre. After all, we've already taken Pacific Rim and Godzilla to the rewriters room, and now we're doing the same for Jordan Vogt-Roberts' Kong: Skull Island. The truth is we've genuinely liked all these movies (well, maybe not Gregg, but what does he like, honestly?), but even the most beloved movies can always be reexamined, tweaked and rejigged.
Liam, Gregg and Scott do just that for Kong, taking special aim at the relatively blank cast of characters, as well as tweaking some motivations and, of course, deleting the protagonist.
Liam Creswick choose easily the most colourful and frenetic movie we've attempted to rewrite yet for his first episode as host: Speed Racer.
We spend the bulk of the episode exhausting Lana and Lilly Wachowski for their ability to make interesting choices. Whether they are good choices is up for debate, but they are never boring. But, with great respect for wild choices, Gregg modifies the mystic surrounding Racer X, Liam cuts the amount of Chim Chim to just Chim and Scott expands the concept into an 8-part mini-series, because Speed Racer is a drug he can't get enough of.
Last month Colin retired as host of I Have Some Notes, so we decided for our bonus Side Notes episode we would salute the man who's given us so many laughs over these past three years. With that, we give you the very BEST of Colin MacIntyre. Thanks for everything buddy, we love ya!
Our break is nearly over and season five is just around the corner, so stay tuned to our Twitter and Facebook feeds to get your notes in for the upcoming season premiere!
The Green Lantern has got Blake Lively in it and not much else. We're used to watching some colourless DC comic book movies around here, but Green Lantern might be the drabbest. However, the blander the script the greater the challenge, Right? And we've got Edmonton comedian Liam Creswick aboard to light the blackest screenwriting.
This episode is bittersweet for us, as it is Colin's swan song as host of the show. As a founding member of I Have Some Notes, Colin helped shape our movie fixing podcast into the hilarious, insightful show it is today. I've always felt Colin's positive energy and brilliant sense of humour set the tone for the show, and probably prevented Scott and I from downing ourselves in the obsessively nerdy details.
We wish Colin and his wife Crystal all the best as their family expands by one more. The show must go on, but there is only one Colin MacIntyre. Thanks for everything buddy, we'll see you again soon, because you are now top of our guest list.
Yup, we're criticizing another DC movie in The Dark Knight Rises. If at this point you feel like we're just picking on DC film it would be hard for me to disagree, because we're even rewriting the good ones now. So…fine, we're DC haters and Marvel fanboys. You caught us.
It's also somehow our second Chris Nolan film. Yikes.
In our defence, The Dark Knight Rises is a film that legitimately could use some tweaks, and that is what we're here for. We rearrange the the rising and falling and rising again of Batman into a film I think we all truly wanted to see.
Also, stay tuned at the end of the show for some news about coming changes to the show.
The White House is being attacked by North Korean terrorists who are setting the monument ablaze. You're probably thinking "good, let it burn", but this script is pre-2016, back when it was occupied by someone worthy of respect and you might have cheered Gerard Butler on save it.
And save it he does, in the blandest, most mind-numbingly average way possible.
But not to worry, Colin, Gregg and Scott hold cabinet positions in the Department of Movie Fixing. We do a White House tear Down and raise the I Have Some Notes flag over top the house we rebuilt in its place.
In 1995 the internet was a new, fledgling technology and baby boomer screenwriters were super scared of it. They imagined a world in which all your information is stored online by a giant, nefarious software company who can use your data against you. Crazy boomers, so paranoid.
Of course today the internet is a totally safe place for everyone, a place where we can look back at Sandra Bullock's THE NET and laugh. HA HA…ha…ha………
Abdul Malik of the Kino Lefter podcast joins Colin, Gregg and Scott to upload a patch for this 90's "thriller".
For the first time we set our sights on a 3D animated kids movie, proving that no film is beyond the reach of our desire to cynically rewrite Hollywood's most popular movies.
Colin, Gregg and Scott peak inside the Secret Life of Pets to find weak motivations and convenient plot devices and together discover they're wasting their lives. How has it come to this, seriously discussing the merits of a Louis C.K. dog movie?
Christopher Nolan may be the most prolific and successful blockbuster filmmaker of our generation, so naturally we felt the need to pick apart one of his movies. His films are brilliant, fun and inventive, but they aren't perfect. There's always room for improvement, and who better to launch a reimagined Interstellar into the atmosphere than a rag tag crew of middle-aged, arm-chair screen writers? No one, that's who.
This episode has been a long time coming. Years back, when Colin and Gregg sat down at the Route 99 Diner to hammer out a new movie podcast, Godzilla was on the early list of film to go through the notes process. How it took us 4 years to get to it is anyone's guess. Let's say a health fear of giant, city destroying monsters.
But good kaiju movies come to those who wait, and we've got some atomic fixes for this Gareth Edwards monster mash. Now smash that play button!
Once a year we look to the stars for another Star Trek movie to fix, and this year it is Star Trek: Insurrection's turn. Admiral Beever, Captain Bourgeois and Acting Ensign Colin MacIntyre lock and load for a battle with sci-fi mediocrity.
We keep picking on Next Generation movies, for good reason, they aren't great. But we've only got one more to go, and then we're one to other Trek movies. I've personally go my phasers locked on those J.J. Abrams films.
You knew this was coming. At some point we were going to get around to Michael Bay's bombastic robot punch fest, Transformers. It was inevitable.
None of your hosts wanted to watch this movie. It's long, it's obnoxious, and it assaults all your senses all of the time. The things we do for our audience.
Spoiler alert: the first cut we make is Michael Bay. Not particularly surprising, but you may find some of our other keeps, cuts and changes surprising.
Summer blockbuster season is upon us and we're back with another critic score prediction show, the Rotten Tomater Prognosticator. This year, not only will Colin, Gregg and Scott be competing to be crowned the Nostradamus of movie quality predicting, but they'll also be contending with fellow podcasters from the PS2J Show, Flicks X-rayed, Modern Manhood, Emily Missed Out and Repodcasting podcasts.
Follow the LEADER BOARD HERE!
The Rules Each contestant guesses the final Rotten Tomatoes ratings for an agreed upon list of summer blockbuster movies. Scores are determined by the difference between the guess and the final score of each movie.
For example, if I guess Avengers: Endgame will land at 80% and the actual Rotten Tomatoes rating is 90%, my score is 10.
At the end of the summer we tally all the scores, and whoever has the lowest total is deemed the most accurate, and the winner!
The Prize In addition to all the prestige and glory, the winner will get to select a movie the losers must watch and either live Tweet, or record an episode on.
So tune into the episode to hear all of Colin, Gregg and Scott's wild guesses and rationals for such guesses. Are they out to lunch? Are they spot on? Hit us on the social medias and let us know what you think.
Here are the time stamps if you want to jump around:
- 2:23 – Game Rules
- 3:50 – Shazam!
- 6:26 – Hellboy
- 8:46 – Avengers: Endgame
- 12:00 – Detective Pikachu
- 16:15 – John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum
- 18:50 – Aladdin
- 23:58 – Godzilla: King of Monsters
- 26:14 – X-Men: Dark Phoenix
- 29:29 – MIB: International
- 32:01 – Toy Story 4
- 33:55 – Spider-man: Far From Home
- 36:25 – The Lion King
- 39:50 – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
- 41:14 – Hobbes & Shaw
Sigh, Ghostbusters was back in the news last month and once again it was for all the wrong reasons as Jason Reitman bungled the roll out of his entry into the franchise. Luckily Danica LeBlanc and Anita Bourgeois stopped by to help us work through our exhausted frustrations.
This episode also marks an I Have Some Notes first, Gregg is sitting in the host chair. Don't worry, he felt just as uncomfortable with it as you do. Colin will be back in two weeks, so you can relax.
Ah, sci-fi in the sixties, sexually liberated, costumes changes abound, and not a single plot thread connected to another. It's hard to fathom why things ever changed, today's "modern" sci-fi is so fixated on being "coherent" and "understood."
Pssshah! I say.
Danica LeBlanc, Anita Bourgeois and Erin Beever are back to break down the psychedelic mess that is Barbarella. Together they relish in its beautiful set design and ponder its plethora of literal boob windows.
What is it about bad movies that are so much fun? Why do we take so much delight in someone else's failure? How is it that Tommy Wiseau is beloved for his badness?
Robin Taylor from Cinematological is back with us again to explore the nuances of bad movies and what makes them tickle our happy lobes. Did that sound sexual? Too late, I'm going with it. Set your ears to "intrigued", hit play, and examine the cult of bad movies with us.
Once upon a time, movie studios saw Jean-Claude Van Damme as an action star they could build a big budget action blockbuster around. Studios would say, "Hey, let's rent out the Pittsburg Penguins' arena and drop a helicopter onto a hockey rink…and Van Damme will be there!"
Now, in 1995, you might be forgiven for thinking Die Hard + Van Damme + Luc Robitaille = boxing office gold, but today they take away your producer hat and give it to someone who wants to make Batman…again. However, we at I Have Some Notes believe we've come up with some script tweaks that would get Van Damme's arena romp a green light, even today!
This episode's guest is the glorious leader of the Church of Moving Picture himself, Robin Taylor. Check out his video series, Cinematological! But do that after listening to us.
Bonus content! We’re still on break, but we recorded some bonus content for your back in December in which we recommend some good viewing for you. Currently we’re eyeing an early February return to regular episodes, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for news on that front.
Here’s what was recommended:
Gregg
- Locke
- Sorry to Bother You
- Sunshine
Scott
- The Nice Guys
- Only Lovers Left Alive
- Seven Samurai
Colin
- Upgrade
- Batman TV Series Movie
- Hardcore Henry
We don't like to assign blame around here, but this episode is all your fault. We could've watching Home Alone: 2, or Paul Giamatti in Fred Claus but no, you made us watch Jingle All the Way. The only thing jingling were our pain receptors.
But, being the consummate professionals we are, we made our list of notes, checked it twice, and found which plot points were naughty or nice.
This is our last episode of the year, as we take a holiday break, but we'll have some bonus content for you in January and hopefully new full episodes shortly after that.
(Cover art by our very own Colin MacIntyre)
It's hard to imagine a bigger mess of a good franchise. Sam Raimi will always be remembered as the one who first fully realized Spider-man on film. Unfortunately he'll also be remembered for laying one of the super-hero genre's biggest spider eggs. Spiders lay eggs right? That metaphor tracks?
Anyway, the boys are back (literally) to pontificate on two problematic pals posturing powerfully in the pale populous light of New York City. How will we fix a movie so dense with villains it makes Joel Schumacher blush? Thwip that play button to find out!
No.
But, hey, if you want the long form discussion, it's actually pretty fun and interesting. Plus, Danica Leblanc is back, fresh off (or fresh before, as it turned out) her turn as host of I Have Some Notes.
Sorry this episode is late, but sometimes life is the movie that ruined your childhood. I know that didn't make sense, I'm so very tired. Just listen to the show and we'll see you all again in two weeks.
Reboots. The internet loves 'em. Especially when the reboot makes changes to the source material. Everyone says collectively "hmm…that's a really interest choice, I am looking forward so seeing that." Then we go see the movie and afterwards everyone has a pleasant, polite conversion about whether they liked it or not. Yup, that's the internet we know and love.
As you know, a couple years back Sony gave Paul Feig the Ghostbusters franchise to play with and he said "all the Ghostbusters are women now" and the internet said "oh, neat!" and we never spoke of it again…until now.
If the level of sarcasm in this post were a Twinkie it would be thirty-five feet long and weigh approximately six-hundred pounds. That's a big Twinkie. On with the show!
Back in May we played a game attempting to predict the Rotten Tomatoes scored would be for each 2018 summer movies. We played The Price is Right rules, so who ever was closest without going over took the point.
All the contestants are back – Colin, Gregg, Scott and Liam Creswick* – to tally up their points and see who best predicted the quality of this year's summer blockbusters. See all the results and follow along with this handy-dandy spread sheet (visit ihavesomenotes.com if you can't use the link in your podcatcher).
Weirdly in the episode we kept calling the prediction episode "The Price is Wrong" instead of "Rotten", but I now realize we should have called it "The Price is Ripe" which would've been aces.
*The part of Liam Creswick will be played by Danielle Newman
Did you miss us? Sure, we were only gone a couple months but I bet you missed us. Movies can't fix themselves, right?
Season 4 is upon us and so is, coincidentally, the hockey season. In light of that fact we dusted off an old sports classic from your childhood, The Mighty Ducks, a movie more fond of flatulence than Brett Kavanaugh.
Joining us on the bench this month is Mighty Duck's super fan Danielle Newman who claims to watch it twice a year(!). She also claimed the Edmonton Oilers themselves once employed the "flying V", and I'll be damned if she wasn't right.
Enough of my scribblings, smack that play button to hear our pitch for a better Mighty Ducks movie.
Part two of your bonus content while we get set for season four. You know we like to talk about Star Trek on the show, and wouldn't you know it, we do it some more this week! Hey, it's not everyday that Patrick Stewart steps out in front of crowd and announces he's going to play Jean-Luc Picard again. I realize that happened weeks ago, but so did the recording of this episode, so it was top of mind.
We also spend some time, along with guest Brandon Schatz, recommending things you watch. We fancy ourselves taste makers. Is it working? Are you making our tastes?
Alrighty, see you nerds in two weeks for the start of a new season, we're pumped, hope you are too!
As promised, we are delivering some bonus Side Notes for you while we're on break. Brandon Schatz joins us again as we shoot the poopie about a wide variety of movie things, including:
- The Meg and peak shark movie.
- Han Solo and it's surprising box office take compared to Rampage.
- Star Wars IX casting of Billy D. Williams and use of Carrie Fisher.
- Hudson Hawk for some reason.
- Our favourite bad movies (with plenty of recommendations).
- The loss of the R rated action hero.
- How to get started with Mystery Science Theatre.
- And comic books that don’t have movies that should.
Enjoy, see you again in two weeks for another bonus episode.
Tell me, dear listener, do you bleed…tears of joy knowing that we're about to fix Justice League?! We had to do something big for the season finale, DC's biggest cinematic event to date seemed most appropriate.
All your favourites are here: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, that robot guy and the guy who swims a lot. At long last the super friends are together to take on the classic DC villain…uh, Stephen Wolf?
There's certainly no shortage opinions when it comes to Justice League, something that became immediately apparent by all the comments you guys sent us. Some were virtual novels, which was awesome to see.
You know who else has opinions about super hero movies? Comic book store owners, and we got one! Brandon Schatz, co-owner of Variant Edition Comics & Culture here in Edmonton, joined the IHSN crew to correct this cinematic mistake.
Special thanks to Andrew Phillips for the our cover art for this episode. Andrew's a fantastic artist, we highly recommend checking out his Twitter page.
While we're thanking people, thank you, listeners! Your support made season 3 another success and we look forward to see you all back for season 4 in October. In the mean time, send us suggestions for films you want us to tackle and keep watching the skies.
When film franchises hit critical mass in popularity they often start to endlessly spawn spinoff novels, cartoons, TV series and comic books. For the hardcore fan it can be a mess figuring out what in all these spinoffs counts as canon – that is, what is officially part of the franchise's larger story.
Is it worth it? Does what counts as canon really matter?
Perhaps Evan Adnams can tell us. After all, he's a part of the I Have Some Notes canon, until our inevitable reboot, anyway. He joins Scott and Gregg to ponder whether story canon really matters and how it affects our enjoyment of a film.
As you may have noticed, we're big on Star Trek around here and, as you might expect, we have notes for some of the more questionable Trek films. The Next Generation films in particular form a quartet of mediocre films that partially inspired the creation of this very movie fixing podcast. You might recall Star Trek: Generations was our second episode.
Today we continue our effort to repair the TNG filmography. Because we're such nerds of Trek we have a plethora of fixes for this one. We dreamt up no less than four pitches for a new version of First Contact. Some involve the Borg, some don't, others even involve the insertion of another Starfleet captain.
Joining us on the show is noted Trek trivia winner Evan Adnams who learned to dislike First Contact more and more as the podcast went along.
Let's be honest, it hasn't been a great year for fandom, Star Wars fandom in particular. With social media tools at their disposal, toxic fans have plunged their spiteful light sabers deep into the chests of the very people responsible for bringing their favourite characters to life. It's been incredibly frustrating and sad to witness.
In this Side Notes we discuss the perils actors, actresses and directors face being on social media and whether there are any antidotes to the digital poison spreading throughout the various platforms. Fair warning, we get a bit into the weeds on this one, not all of it is directly movie related.
Joining us again is social media strategist, Beverley Theresa, who helps us try to make sense of all this.
Fast cars and gravelly dialogue, eventually we were going to get to a Fast and Furious movie, it was inevitable. In true I Have Some Notes we chose the most mediocre Fast film of them all, Fate of the Furious.
We tear down the latest installment of Vin Diesel's big-car-go-vroom epic to the nuts and bolts and rebuild the engine with some new motivations and elevated under used characters.
Social media consultant (to the stars) Beverley Theresa joins the family for our penultimate episode of season 3. Ride or die.
Scott was feeling a little self-conscious about his insistence in our Congo episode that the book was better than the movie, so he made us record an entire episode that made it clear he's NOT a book snob.
I'm busting Scott's balls a bit here, really the episode evolved into an interesting discussion surrounding movie adaptations and what makes them succeed or fail. Since most films these days are adaptations there was no shortage of examples to pick apart.
Let us know what you think. Is there something specific you think makes and adaptation really click, or things you think the movie studios do that ensure massive suckage?
Thanks in advance for listening, make sure to check out all the other Alberta Podcast Network shows, all powered by ATB.
Cutthroat Island may have been a record setting flop its director and star didn't want to be a part of, but…I can't think of a positive way to end this sentence.
Yes, Cutthroat Island, the 90s action pirate movie high on explosions but low on "pirate-ness". It's the kind of painfully mediocre film made for us to sink our cutlasses into. Join the I Have Some Notes crew and guest Alyssa Nider as we stab deep into the heart of Gina Davis and Renny Harlin's first and last swash buckling blockbuster.
Summer blockbuster season is upon us and we decided to play a game of movie prognostication. We looked at the remaining blockbusters to be released this summer and tried to predict what Rotten Tomatoes score each movie would receive from critics. The rules: be the closest percentage without going over, Price is Right style. You can play too, just send us a message on Twitter or Facebook with your own predictions.
We'll return to this episode in September to find out how we all did. Judging by the early buzz from the Solo: A Star Wars Story premiere, we're already VERY wrong.
We are once again joined by comedian Liam Creswick for our game of The Price is Rotten. As always, we are a proud member of the Alberta Podcast Network, powered by ATB.
1995's Congo may be the quintessential case of the book being better than the movie, we basically had a glossy of ready made fixes. Don't worry, our final solution for Congo went well beyond Michael Crichton's novel, the episode didn't turn into a book report. Not entirely, anyway.
Comedian Liam Creswick joins us for his 3rd expedition on the show to discuss lasers, talking apes and the under use of Bruce Campbell.
I Have Some Notes is part of the Alberta Podcast Network crew, powered by ATB.
Sparked by an article on The Verge claiming Infinity War’s Thanos is proof CGI super villains are bad practice, the Boys Who Note have a discussion about the nature of modern computer effects. Where do they succeed? Where do they fail? Why does puppet Yoda look so much better than animated Yoda? And speaking of special effects, Colin wants you to check out sweded trailers if you have not done so already. You will not be disappointed.
Colin, Gregg and Scott dig deep and discover Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim was a secret sequel to Independence Day. It's true. That's the kind of movie sleuthing you can expect from I Have Some Notes, the Sherlocks on Blockbusters they call us.
Of course, we also get into tweaking and punching up this monster smash, deleting some characters, amplifying others.
I Have Some Notes is part of the Alberta Podcast Network powered by ATB.
Next month Marvel will culminate a decade's worth of super hero movies with their biggest team up yet, which makes us wonder if super hero movies about to peak or are there an infinite (get it?) number of films yet to come? Colin, Gregg, Scott and guest Erin Beever ruminate on the history of capes on film and prognosticate what comes next for a seemingly unstoppable pop-culture juggernaut.
Will audiences tire as Marvel enters phase four, five or possibly six? Join us as we give definitive answers like "Maybe!", "Possibly!" and "Perhaps!"
As always, I Have Some Notes is a member of the Alberta Podcast Network powered by ATB. ATB: it's like a bank for your money!
Today super hero movies are a dime a dozen, but back in 2003 the super party was just getting started and old Benny Affleck was leading the charge. "Put me in a tight red leather suit" he said "animate me jumping all over Hell's Kitchen, the box office take will be devilish, devilish, I say!" That's how I assume putting Daredevil to film got started, anyway, but I wasn't there.
Of course, we wouldn't be setting up Daredevil up for you if the Affleck acrobat experiment had gone well. No, as you might have guessed, it could have used some notes
And who better to give those notes than a quartet of not-screenwriters? Colin, Gregg, Scott and guest Erin Beever are your crew for this one, and it's a gooder.
Well, we probably bit off more than we could chew with this one. Usually we stay away from movies of the page-one-rewrite variety, content to tighten the screw of more mediocre movies, but Street Fighter was such a notorious flop we couldn't resist. In the end there was little choice but to essentially pitch a bunch of entirely new movies.
This week Josh and Alan of Press Start to Join (fellow Alberta Podcast Network members) join Scott & Gregg in the elevator pitching. Together we quarter motion punch and quarter motion kick the crap out of Steven de Souza's directorial debut.
We forgot to mention it on air, but a good chunk of the behind-the-scenes stories we talk about came from an incredible Polygon article by Chris Plante, we highly recommended giving it a read.
https://www.polygon.com/features/2014/3/10/5451014/street-fighter-the-movie-what-went-wrong
Netflix pumps out more content than Cannon Films in the 80s, so we'd understand if a show or 10 escaped your attention. But one show we're confident did not dodge your senses was Bright. As Netflix's first "blockbuster", Bright was absolutely everywhere for a couple weeks, and everyone had an opinion on it. Of course, now that the hype has died down, we thought it the perfect time to release our episode on this Will Smith/David Ayer vehicle. In podcasts timing is every……………thing.
No guest this month, just your three hosts Colin, Scott and Gregg. Each wield the wand of screen rewriting magic to make Bright a little Brigher…don't leave, I promise the show is much cooler than this set up.
As always we are part of the Alberta Podcast Network powered by ATB.
Happy belated New Year fellow armchair screenwriters, we're celebrating the new year by dwelling on the past, rounding up all the movies we loved and hated from 2017! Yes, Gregg already wrote a Best & Worst article, but who like reading, amiright?
Colin, Gregg and Scott also spend some time ruminating on a little indy film called Star Wars: The Last Jedi. It had a small run in theatres collecting a measly billion dollars, you can be forgiven for having missed it. Anyway, we chat about all things Porg in a brief spoilery discussion.
Our Christmas episode comes but once a year, so pour yourself an eggnog, cozy up to the fire and listen to the I Have Some Notes crew pick apart your third or possibly fourth favourite Die Hard film, Die Hard 2. For Gregg and Erin this was a tough film to tackle because they actually quite like it. Scott, on the other hand, felt the movie didn't Die nearly Harder enough. As Colin is so fond of saying, conflict makes great radio, and arguing the merits of a decades old sequel is exactly the kind of thing we call fun. Enjoy filling your earholes with Die Hard, have a fun and safe holiday season, and we'll see you all again in the new year.
It's the final Side Notes of twenty-seventeen and we are in fine form, let me tell you, mostly struggling with the fact that our recording space has no internet access. Erin Beever joins us to follow up on last month's discussion regarding the plague of grossness that is Hollywood. Did you hear John Lasseter joined the ranks of sexual abusers. He directed Toy Story…so…nothing is safe. Horray! We also jump into a round of what-we've-been-watching. We chat about Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, Lady Bird, Big Mouth, Murder on the Orient Express, Atomic Blonde and The Punisher. Listen in and catch us December 18th for our Christmas episode when Die Hard 2 gets noted.
German Villegas from Modern Manhood returns to take on the macho cultural touchstone that is Top Gun. We attempt to find a better way for Tom Cruise to graduate from flight school, hopefully without being smarmy, grinning douche. Gregg and Scott are also on the flight deck, while up in the control tower resuming his hosting duties is Colin "Grouse" MacIntyre!
Can Top Gun be Top Fun? These and other terrible jokes this week on I Have Some Notes, members of the Alberta Podcast Network powered by ATB.
Fellow Alberta Podcast Network member German Villegas of Modern Manhood joins us for a chat about the torrent of sexual assault allegations spilling out of Hollywood and how masculinity is portrayed in movies. Yes, it's a bit less of the light-hearted affair you're used to when tuning into I Have Some Note, but we promise it's a fascinating listen and German provides some great insights. Besides, it would be weird to be doing a movie podcast and not acknowledge the depressing dumpster fire that is the entertainment industry.
Also, we welcome back Colin to the hosting chair!
In the future the polar ice caps have melted and the oceans cover every continent. It's a world of damp. A world of wet. A world…of water.
Waterworld, everybody! Whoo boy, this was a tough sit. Kevin Costner delivers a performance so subdued you'll think he's reading from a Shop Vac instruction manual. But no movie-fixing job is too tough for the Notesy Boys! I think we actually crushed it. In fact we spend a few minutes patting ourselves on the back about it.
Scott C. Bourgeois continues his stint as temp-host while Colin is away, Jeff Samsonow guest stars and Gregg is…also there.
Just FYI, the secret project Scott mentions at the end of the episode is no longer secret, go check out The Read Along where ever fine podcasts are sold!
It's our first Side Notes of Season 3 and we must have really missed doing these because it is a firehose of pop culture discussion. We touch on Blade Runner, MacGyver, MacGrubber, American Vandal, The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Planet of the Apes, China Town, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Peep Show and gasp for air The Thick of It. Also drinking from the film fire hydrate are returning guests Jeff Samsonow of the Edmonton Quotient and Sally "No Plugs Required" Poulsen.
The wait is over. I Have Some Notes is back for its 3rd season of movie improving and we're returning with a series of firsts for the show. The first first is our first Bond film: Moonraker. Yes, the Bond movie that never heard the phrase "less is more." Italian murder caskets? Sure. Super boats? Two please. Space? You bet your ass! Second on the list of firsts is no Colin. Mr. MacIntyre is off being a new daddy and will miss a few episodes, but the talented Scott C. Bourgeois has volunteered to sit in his chair and keep it warm. The last, but probably most important first is that this is our first episode as a member of the Alberta Podcast Network powered by ATB Financial. We're stoked to be joining the Network and its fleet of amazing shows sailing through the digital airwaves. Big thanks to Karen Unland for all her hard work putting the network together and helping to make our passion project more sustainable. Alright, enough preamble. Please join Scott, Gregg, Anita and the hilarious Liam Creswick in fixing James Bond: The Moonrakening!
It's the season finalé of I Have Some Notes! Don't worry, we're not leaving you for the summer without giving you something a little something extra special, we're fixing Tom Cruise's The Mummy! Okay, okay, so that in and of itself is not particularly special. What is special is that this time Colin, Gregg, Scott and Mark tried to fix the film IMMEDIATELY after watching it in the theatre. No note taking, no chewing on the film for a few days, no deep movie meditation, no nothing! It's all strictly off the cuff for our season finalé. We hope you enjoy it, and we'll see you again soon in the fall.
The dino park is open! The exhibits are amazing, the patrons are having a great time and everything seems like its going great when doggonit! Another dinosaur escapes in a surprisingly stupid way. Well, shoot, we better get Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard to wrangle up those rascals. Join Colin, Gregg, Scott and Anita as they try to refinish a movie that basically made all the money. But, hey, what do audiences know, right?
Achievement Unlocked: Microphones! You have all been loyal troopers listening to our show despite it's rather average audio quality. Well, dear listener, get ready to have your loyalty rewarded with BETTER THAN AVERAGE SOUND! Oh, and we also talk about Wonder Woman n'stuff. Sound quality not guaranteed, may not be available in your area, check with your doctor to see if Sound Quality is right for you.
This month we're wading into the rebellious waters of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. A controversial pick, to be sure, a lot of you love this movie, but that doesn't mean we can tighten the screws a little bit. Plus comedian Liam Creswick joins the cast, and that alone is worth the price of admission. The price is free, by the way, cause we're a podcast. Making money in radio is for chumps! Where was I? Oh yes, the Star War. We examine the which candy the pips on Tarkin's uniform most resemble, lament the missed opportunity that was Saw Gerrera and quibble about the inclusion of past princesses. Enjoy!
Comedian Liam Creswick joins the cast as we discuss what we've been watching this past month, telling Marvel to please just say f**k or don't in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Gregg asks that you repeatedly watch the fantastic reboot of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 so Netflix will pick it up for a second season. The Void is Scott's choice for a horror movie that has that Thing thing, and Anita recommends singing along with…Sing! A Dreamworks animated feature starring Matthew McConaughey. Our next full episode will be out May 22nd, when we take on a rebellious little flick called ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY.
Okay, you're Chris Pratt, you've accidentally woken from stasis on an interstellar cruise ship bound for a planet 90 years away and you'll die of old age before it ever arrives. Faced with unending loneliness do you: a) attempt to repair your stasis pod, b) play Dance, Dance Revolution for 60 years, c) stalk and then kidnap Jennifer Lawerence by awakening her from her stasis tube, dooming her to your own sorry fate in the process. Well, my friends, the choice is surprisingly clear in Columbia Pictures' PASSENGERS. Colin and Gregg are joined by the Bourgeois's to fix this highly fixable movie.
Our podcast foursome are back with more fantastic movie and TV recommendation, the fantastic four…you might call them. In this month's edition Gregg laments cueing up Josh Trank's super hero mess; Scott insists everyone immediately watch John Wick & John Wick: Chapter 2 if they have not done so already; Colin finds the pitch is far from perfect in Pitch Perfect 2, and guest Anita C. Bourgeois tells us about librarians. Following that we a chat about floppity-flop Ghost in the Shell, in which four whitey-white people from white-ville have a discussion about white-washing, for whatever it's worth.
Of the many praises we can shower on the Alien movies, Alien 3 is certainly the one with the highest shaved head count. Colin and Gregg are joined by now I Have Some Notes regulars Scott C. Bourgeois and Erin Beever talk about the thirdest movie in the Alien series. They discuss the plight of young up-and-coming directors; Ripley boning down with Tywin Lannister; saving Newt and Corporal Hicks, smelty smazes and turning Alien into a heist movie.
We're back, and it's time to talk about movies and other junk! Colin and Gregg chat with Scott C. Bourgeois and Erin Beever about what they've been watching over the last month. They crew hits on The Expanse, Leverage, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, Moana, The Lego Batman Movie and Mass Effect: Andromeda.
It's Oscar time, and the movie world is abuzz with speculation as to who will be the big winners and losers come Oscar night. Who are the category favourites? Who has the most to gain from an Academy Award? Who will get snubbed the hardest? "Somebody tell me!" you plead, "Give me the cure for my Oscars fever!" Well, you're in luck, dear listeners, because we recorded a special episode that answers none of those questions! Mostly we sat around the table talking about how great The Nice Guys was. Join Colin and Gregg with Oscars Experts™ Scott C. Bourgeois and Mark Jowett for our very first I Have Some Notes Oscars Special!
The Noter-boys are back for their biggest challenge yet, Suicide Squad! Colin and Gregg bravely tackle DC's world-building monstrosity with guests Eri Riot (Hellbound Ride) and Erin Beever. Tune in to hear Colin profess his love for Batman in a trench coat and Gregg plea for sanity amongst movie-goers. Fair warning: there's lot more swearing in this one than usual, so put your kids to bed early or plug-in your headphones at work.
In this episode of of Side Notes the boys who note talk about what they've been watching since 2016 came to a merciful end. Colin & Gregg discuss Oliver Stone's The Untold History of the United States, Hardcore Henry, Before the Flood, Love Actually, Logan, Colossal, Rogue One, Dirk Gently and more. They also tee up the next full episode of I Have Some Notes.
It's the Christmas season and boy do we have a holiday special lined up for you: How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Yes, Jim Carrey and Ron Howard team up to deliver a fart filled adaptation of your favourite Christmas classic. Grace and Champ blogger Jessica Holt and Anita Bourgeois join Colin and Gregg in an attempt to punch up this Joel Schumacher-eques mess. Together they ponder if the actors could breath under that heavy Who-makeup, ask whether Jim Carrey was the right Grinchy fit and all agreed that the dog, Max, is just the best. Slither and slunk your way into our best (and only) holiday special yet!
Hey film gleeks (that's film enthusiasts who have trouble controlling their saliva), it's another Side Notes episode. Colin and Gregg read some follow-up comments to the Mortal Kombat episode, discuss what they've been reading recently, revel in a Broadchurch re-watch, discover the secrets sauce of Gilmore Girls and explore the mouth-TV future of Angelina Jolie's Cyborg 2.
MORTAL KOMBAT!! If you were a 90s kid who grew up on a steady video game diet of fighters you will immediately have the MK techno theme song blaring in you head hearing those words. Yup, this month we take on what is probably still one of the best video game movies ever made, sadly the bar has never been lifted very high. We have an all cartoonist panel this month. Edmonton cartoonist extraordinaire Chad Huculak, author of the brilliant End of the Earth, and Jeremy Die, the other half of the Inglorious Hipsters duo, join Colin & Gregg in an attempt to fix a movie that was hardly a flawless victory. The four brawl over how many Mortal Kombat games there were; ponder the 90s obsession with industrial rock concerts; marvel at the film's slow, podding martial arts; and wonder if Goro has been mothballed in a Planet Hollywood storage room somewhere. http://www.ihavesomenotes.com/
Welcome back to Side Notes, our mid-month mini episode in which Colin and Gregg discuss the world of entertainment. Colin discusses his progressive exhaustion with "grim and gritty" comic book adaptations, the bizzaro flick The Lobster, hard sci-fi film Arrival and the confounding story devices used in London has Fallen. Gregg reviews the US election, professes his love for Arrival and turns his brain off for Netflix's Paranoid. Our next full episode attempts to fix the seminal 90s video game adaptation, Mortal Kombat! Catch that episode on November 28th.
The first full episode of Season 2 also happens to be our Halloween Spooktacular, in that we half-heartly picked a mediocre 90s slasher flick to fix. Ah the nineties, when NBC ruled the ratings, comic artists were obsessed with underboob and PG-13 "horror" films crushed it at the box office. This month we take on I Know What You Did Last Summer, a movie that wouldn't raise your grandma's heartbeat. We examine what to keep (not much) what to cut (Freddie Prince Jr.) and what to change to fix this dull slasher. Our guests this week are fan favourites Erin Beever and Marky Mark Jowett!
I Have Some Notes returns for Season Two…sort of! While this a "Side Notes" episode, the mini episodes will now be a permanent feature of the show used to tee up our next full episode, as well as chat about what we've been watching and the movie world at large. That means you the listener will be getting two episodes of I Have Some Notes a month instead of one. That's like counts fingers and toes like double the amount of episodes! In this mini-episode Colin and Gregg talk about some tweaks to the show format and get you ready for our next episode: I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, the "classic" 90s slasher flick. Erin Beever and Mark Jowett also join the crew to discuss Pokemon Go, the Vatican, Battlestar Galactica, TV watching habits and a weird Jake Gyllenhaal movie with a bonkers concept.
We're going away for a while. Colin is getting married and Gregg is off to Italy with his wife and frequent podcast guest Erin. So, in light of that, we've got another Side Notes episode to tide you over until season 2 gets started. This episode features some previously edited bits from our Star Trek: Generations episode in white Sam Power professes her love for Star Trek: The Motion Picture and asked the poignant question…is Riker the hottest? We'll see you hopefully near the end of October for season 2 of I Have Some Notes.
As promised, we'll be publishing some sub-episodes this summer while we're on break. We're calling these little podcast diversions Sides Notes. This episode Colin & Gregg chat about the summer that was in movies, what they enjoyed, what they didn't and what they're looking forward to in what's left of the movie calendar. Gregg expresses his love for disaster movies, his appreciation for things named Cloverfield and his complicated relationship with Ghostbuster 2016. Colin enlightens us on the Divergent series, explains how he came to watch Batman v Superman twice, and looks forward to a movie with no name. Send us your thoughts on the summer of 2016 and what you're looking forward to this fall. @ihavesomenotes on Twitter & Instagram, ihavesomenotes on Facebook.
It's our season finale! And what a doozy we have as we crunch the numbers and calculate how best to correct the 4th Indiana Jones film. Yes, the one with aliens. It's like Close Encounters of Third Kind and George Lucas had a baby, and Steven Spielberg was left to raise the child on his own. Our guests for the season wrap-up are two noted nerds, comic store owners Danica LeBlanc and Brandon Schatz from Variant Edition. Together we try to solve the essential question…why are there gophers in this movie? Well, that and a few other questions, mostly surrounding what the heck anyone was doing ever. Also, Gregg spends a great deal of time defending Shia LaBeouf. Huge thanks to everyone who made our first season a success! Thanks so much for listening, we'll see you again in the fall.
Prometheus is a very divisive movie. Some fans triumph its beauty, world building and willingness to tackle some big themes. Others bemoan its confusing script and the high rate of baffling decisions made by its main characters. In other words, it was a movie made for this podcast! Scott C. Bourgeois, formerly of The Unknown Studio fame, joins us along with returning guest Erin Beever to unravel this confounding sci-fi masterpiece. We jump into the Med-Pod and perform abdominal surgery on Prometheus, pulling out all its entrails and then trying in vain to put everything back better than when we found it.
Have you every had the burning desire to listen to four 30-somethings sing the theme to 80s television sensation, The A-Team, over and over and over again? Well, you're in luck, because episode five of I HAVE SOME NOTES has arrived! Sally Poulsen and Jeff Samsonow of the Edmonton Media Co. stop by to discuss the remake to end all remakes (not really), the 2010 hit film ("hit" should have quotation marks) THE A-TEAM. Grab your phone, jam those headphones in your ears and transport yourself to a world where tanks fly and the rules of physics only exist to be broken. How will we fix this one? Hit play to find out.
We ain't afraid of no ghosts, particularly because this movie didn't have a whole lot of them. Did have a lot of slime, though. Andrea Beca and Lauren Dary from the podcast That's So Maven stop by to breakdown, analyze and ultimately fix 1989's Ghostbusters II. We chat about our dislike for dancing toasters, our desire for more scares and the ways in which the movie's score made our ears sad. Oh, and the topic of Ghostbusters 2016 comes up, though we can't imagine why. Nothing to talk about there, right?
Welcome to the Genisys…of a new episode of I Have Some Notes. This week we look at the time-travel-palooza that is Terminator: Sega Genisys. Our guests this week are the avowed Terminator fan Evan Adnams and the wonderful Erin Beever. Together we explore the plight of the working class Terminator, murder fences, Etch-a-Sketch monsters and so much more. As always, if you have any notes for us, leave them in the comments or Tweet us (@ihavesomenotes) or catch us on Facebook.
Time is the fire in which we burn…for our second episode of I Have Some Notes! In episode 2 we take on the wonderfully flawed Star Trek: Generations, a movie that disappointed a generations of Trek fans. Good news Trekkies, we're hear to help fix this film with two amazing guests in Samantha Power and Adam Rozenhart from CJSR's All Intensive Purposes! We review in what way Generations was compared to 2001: A Space Odyssey, why the movie needs more Duras sisters, and whether Kirk's dynamite breakfast recipe can really smooth over dumping your girlfriend or boyfriend.
Welcome to the first episode of I Have Some Notes, the podcast that attempts to fix flawed, but salvageable films. This month's episode examines Zach Synder's Man of Steel. Host Colin MacIntyre and co-host Gregg Beever are joined by Edmonton entertainment news magnate Jay Runham and the heir to the Cornish Throne, Mark Jowett. The foursome discuss where Man of Steel went wrong (somewhere around "I've had a child Zod, a boy child"), share notes on how to fix it and ruminate on an alternative cast. Thanks for listening! If you enjoy the show, share it with your friends.