Podcast: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)

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Your Stupid Minds continues its “semi-recent movies that actually aren’t that bad and available on Disney Plus” series with the third Narnia movie that Disney dumped and neither of us got around to seeing until now. It’s 2010’s The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader!

Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley) are stuck in northern England waiting out the Blitz with their annoying cousin Eustace (Will Poulter) when they’re sucked into a painting and end up back in Narnia. They board King Caspian’s (Ben Barnes) ship the Dawn Treader and must recover some magic swords to stop an evil green mist from ravaging the land.

Some Notes:

• After Prince Caspian underperformed at the box office, Disney quibbled with Walden Media over the budget (Disney wanted it to be $100 million, Walden wanted it to be something less absurd). Disney left the project and 20th Century Fox picked it up. When Disney bought Fox, Dawn Treader came back to them.

Podcast: The King's Daughter (2022)

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Your Stupid Minds accidentally reviews two Kaya Scodelario movies in a row by covering a film shot in 2014 and intended to release in 2015. Instead it was dumped unceremoniously into theaters in January of this year. It’s 2022’s The King’s Daughter! Directed by Sean McNamara (3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain).

Marie-Josephe (Scodelario) is an orphan brought to 18th century Versailles for unknown reasons. It turns out she’s, get this, the king’s daughter. Specifically, the daughter of King Louis XIV (Pierce Brosnon). So she must navigate the court intrigue of the palace while she finds true love.

ALSO, the king wants to live forever, so he uses his quack court doctor Labarthe (Pablo Schreiber) to concoct a plan wherein if he eats the heart of a mermaid during an eclipse, he will achieve immortality. So the king hires a Captain Yves (Benjamin Walker) to capture a mermaid (Bingbing Fan) to do the deed. Will he go through with it? Will he have a change of heart? Did anyone see this movie? You’ll have to listen to find out.

Some Notes:

• In the time between shooting and release, Kaya Scodelario and Benjamin Walker met, dated, got engaged, got married, and had two children.
• One of the main reasons it was on the shelf for so long was Bingbing Fan, who plays the mermaid, got into some tax issues with the Chinese government and is basically blacklisted. Since this film had a lot of Chinese funding, the presumption was they were waiting for the scandal to blow over so it could release in China. It never did, so it was dumped into theaters this year.
• Also this is technically an anniversary episode. The Your Stupid Minds podcast began just over ten years ago: May 2, 2012. 🥳

Podcast: Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)

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Your Stupid Minds features another underperforming pandemic film with this hard reboot of the Resident Evil franchise, removing Alice and the laser puzzles of the Paul W.S. Anderson films and sticking to something closer to the video game remakes. It’s 2021’s Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City!

Claire (Kaya Scodelario) is a former orphan from Raccoon City who returns to visit her brother Chris (Robbie Amell) and tell him something’s not right with the town. She is almost immediately proven right when a warning siren goes off and the T-Virus zombified townsfolk start attacking everyone. Can Claire, Chris, and the rest of the S.T.A.R.S. police squad escape the city before it explodes? Can they cram as much stuff from the games as they can? Will Jill Sandwich make an appearance? You’ll have to watch to find out!

To help you play along to the arbitrary rating, here's the GamePro Game Rating System:

Podcast: Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins (2021)

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Your Stupid Minds returns to the ninja movie well in our futile attempt to find a bad one. Surely the huge flop reboot based on toys will do the trick, right? Right? It's 2021's Snake Eyes: G.I. Origins.

Snake Eyes (Henry Golding) witnesses his father's murder as a child, and he vows to get big and buff and seek revenge. When evil Yakuza guy Kenta (Takehiro Hira) says he'll give him his father's killer if he works for him, Snake Eyes agrees. It begins when he's asked to execute a traitor in the gang's midst, who turns out to be Tommy (Andrew Koji) heir to the Arashikage ninja clan.

I can't get into much more without spoiling the plot, so let's just say there are some cool ninja fights and a glowing jewel that vaporizes dudes. And of course Cobra is involved.

Podcast: The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010)

 

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Your Stupid Minds returns to the well of meh Disney movies with an unfaithful adaptation of the broom dancing sequence from Fantasia. It’s 2010’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice!

In a flashback to 740 A.D., Merlin (James A. Stephens) is betrayed by this trusted apprentice Horvath (Alfred Molina) and slain by the evil sorcerer Morgana (Alice Krige). A bunch of years later, in 2000 A.D., a kid named Dave (played by Jay Baruchel when he grows up) wanders into a curio shop and is given a magic dragon ring by Balthazar (Nicolas Cage). Ten MORE years later, in 2010 A.D., they must work together to stop Horvath from freeing Morgana, who will destroy the world or something.

Some Notes:

• Jay Bachual's only Disney role to date.

Podcast: Staying Alive (1983)

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Your Stupid Minds covers the dingy, sociopathic, completely unnecessary sequel to Saturday Night Fever: the Sylvester Stallone-directed Staying Alive from 1983. And to sweeten the pot, we have a special guest: author and Plan 9 from Outer Space lover Katharine Coldiron!

It’s six years after 1977’s Saturday Night Fever, and Tony Manero (John Travolta) is a struggling dancer trying to make it in the big city. His on-again-off-again girlfriend Jackie (Cynthia Rhodes) supports him, despite his general flakiness and constant desire to cheat on her and treat her like a doormat. When Jackie scores a spot in a hit Broadway show, Tony ingratiates himself with/seduces the star Laura (Finola Hughes) and gets himself into the laughably titled and orchestrated Satan’s Alley. Tony sleeps with Laura, then becomes weird and possessive. Can he make it in the show? Or will his machismo sabotage his aspirations?

Our guest, Katharine Coldiron, has a new monograph out about Plan 9 from Outer Space, a movie that inspired our namesake and is near and dear to our hearts. It’s called, appropriately, Plan 9 from Outer Space and it is available through PS Publishing. You can find it in hardback or ebook and is also available from Amazon.

You can also find Katharine on her website, Twitter, and the Dana Gould Hour.

Podcast: Vanquish (2021)

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What is Vanquish (2021)? Is it an action film? Is it a money laundering scheme? Is it a sweetheart deal with some new Uzbekistani streaming service? Whatever is is, it isn’t good.

Retired hero cop Damon (Morgan Freeman) was paralyzed in the line of duty and therefore Freeman does not have to stand up to leave the room throughout the entire movie.  He now lives in his giant glass mansion calling corrupt cops on the phone and scheming criminal deeds. He decides to “help” his ex-hitwoman caretaker Victoria (Ruby Rose) by kidnapping her sick daughter and making Victoria do five cash pickups in one night to get her back. However, not each pickup is what it seems. Is there some ulterior motive for his plan? Yes.

Some Notes:

• Available for free (with ads) on IMDb TV.
• In the episode, Nick says that Spy Kids was shot on digital. This is incorrect. Spy Kids 2 and Spy Kids 3D were shot on digital, while Spy Kids was 35mm. We regret the error.
• For our zoomer fans who are unaware of pre-2017 memes, here's the full audio of the Christian Bale rant on the set of Terminator Salvation.