Half in the Bag Episode 94: American Ultra

half in the back I'm filled with more gas than the Hindenberg yes I know you want to watch your Night Court tape mr. blinken we listen to me we tried coming to your house but it was gone there was an expressway there what would I don't want to go back out again listen just give us the address of where you're at wait let me write down the address Mountain did you have a pen wait that's the whole address Mountain ask him which Mountain there's more than one which Mountain Magic Mountain Mountain Dew Mount Doom Castle Grayskull Mount Rushmore Mount rush laughs look we're gonna have to call you back you're starting to break up why is there an article about canine aquatics in a VCR magazine well there's a craze in the 1980s where people are using VCRs as dogs surfboards ah very short-lived because so are most of the dogs people forgot to unplug the VCRs so that was the thing oh speaking of dogs have you seen an American old truck nema new rosada director of such classic films as project X no not that project X this project X what the why do you have a boner I don't it's just thanks my underwear sitting here funny ha brings us a film starring Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart no not Adventureland American ultra in this film Eisenberg plays a stoner who is a secret CIA sleeper agent living in a podunk town in West Virginia for no reason at all Topher Grace who plays a newly appointed CIA hotshot guy wants to have him eliminated I think deep down it's because he's secretly in love with Kristen Stewart who is also a secret secret agent pretending to be Eisenberg's girlfriend Oh spoilers check out the film uh Susan why don't you think of American ultra well why have a beer on ready yeah this one's almost empty all right that's fair yeah well Mike I did not like American ultra very much but clearly that's my fault because I don't like original ideas are you referencing max landis comments well I think you know it's certainly the audience's fault if a movie flops and a filmmaker should absolve themselves of any responsibility but their movie tanks and isn't very good well we had the director of such classic films what Hey yeah I would I would trust that man directing my script oh me ma it's such a great job Finding Nemo my name is career we had a fundable job entrance we're gonna fight me mother's car gates running good gonna find Nima's swinging from rafters in his basement ah what are we talking about oh we're talking about Project X Matthew Broderick and a monkey I'd rather see that there were lots of lots of mentions of monkeys yeah because I guess the word monkey get a lot of comedic mileage out of just the word the welder it was dead silent the theater the whole time until like the redneck guy goes hey she monkeys it's true and then everyone started laughing I thought it started off the setup was clunky the middle was tedious and it had some fun stuff towards the end there was a there was a brief little moment when when it was working and that was the part when the CIA woman and she comes in and she she tries to you know reactivate his brain feed him the code words that reactivate the the super soldier inside of him because when I see Jesse Eisenberg I think action star super soldier Jerry progressives listen Mandelbrot set is in motion echo choir has been breached is that uh lirikrip something well the CIA operates like the mob in this movie there's constant like backstabbing and at the end of the movie Bill Pullman is like a top FBI guy or CIA guy and he takes I guess do we care about spoilers well obviously he takes somebody out into the woods that disobeyed orders or went behind his back and he just shoots them in the woods like like like we're watching Miller's Crossing or something okay so that's the set up of the movie basically what you said he works in the convenience store Connie Britton shows up and she says the codewords to reactivate him so he can fight back against Topher Grace who wants to eliminate him all that would have been much better if we didn't already know everything about Jesse Eisenberg's backstory that's what drove me nuts like I'm picturing like I mean I guess some stuff is given away in the trailers or whatever but first of all we start with a framing device it's completely pointless where any sort of threat or tension is gone because we know he survives everything because we're seeing the aftermath of it of him being interrogated or whatever if it was like some strange woman comes into his convenience stores she says he's weird words what's going on there's more of a mystery element instead everything's just laid out before we even get to that scene yes you you want the story to be two steps ahead of your audience not your audience to be two steps ahead of the story it's sort of like a glorified stoner movie it's like you know if I wanted like a kind of more of a spunky funnier girlfriend character who has some charisma or charm she's also a wonderful actress I think the only parts that really worked in this movie and I think that's what the audience was wanting from it was kind of there was a lot of like I don't want say witty but there was a lot of dry kind of sarcastic humor like in terms of the contrast of a like a stoner guy be having being a secret operative like how he handles that and he kind of says some funny lines like there's a part where he's negotiating on the phone with Topher Grace and he's just like how do we do this this thing and he's a little clunky in it and I think some of the humor came from that but it was so sporadic how the did this happen I shot those guys in the head and that guy like I spooned him in the neck and his just like ended why are people trying to stab you I don't know Shh I don't know but I am I'm like freaking out all over the place babe I have like a lot of anxiety about this Jesse Eisenberg works as Mark Zuckerberg and that's kind of it um but he doesn't work as a STONER and he doesn't work as a badass killing machine either yeah you need someone who with good comedic timing who could kind of play the like the confuse Jesse Eisenberg always just looks like he looks like Easter Island statue like he always just is just like yeah well I've seen interviews with a mean he's very very serious he takes himself very seriously and he comes across sort of pretentious yeah like a like a more of a laid-back you don't want to do all the dumb stoner cliches and I kind of liked was I'm gonna say I thought basically like the poster for this movie and some of the trailers and stuff I thought it was going to be more of a stoner comedy and I'm glad it wasn't is just his character just happened to be a stoner yeah kind of it and they didn't go crazy with that I know you hate that when they're like ooh hood yeah the room is like psychedelic colors you know all those cuz it's like the laziest easiest humor I kept thinking of Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski like no sure you know the dude is the dude and he's laid back but he's thrown into this like big plot and he's just sort of like what yeah can you imagine at the dude suddenly turned into an action star in scenes like yeah not no I wouldn't I wouldn't someone who has that kind of charisma and and plays the role with a little bit of fun yeah he always looks like he's on edge even when he's supposed to be like stoned and just relaxing at his job and you're not caring about anything so we're asked to believe this wacky premise which is somehow looks like a depressing dark independent film and then there are CIA scenes which look like an Austin Powers movie and then all of a sudden everything becomes ultra violent yes and disturbing which is the other part of our discussion mm-hmm well I'm a fan of excessive violence in the right context and in this movie it felts needlessly excessive yes I'm not I'm not a prude by any means I love horrible graphic violence in certain things but in this movie it was like off-putting and weird and like why are we doing this now their first action scene that we see felt like a direct-to-video action b-movie it was like a terribly shot yeah Wow that's what happens when you cast Jesse Eisenberg as your action star oh where are we at uh tone is that kind of what we were talking about tone Lok bulky komak beat up count Lok heated the score for the film funky cold Medina I really liked the that they went with stock music for their action sequences rock and roll you're listening to a demo from stock music dotnet you can do like the this movie had some really awkward tonal shifts and you can do that in a way where that works like I was thinking of super like yeah that's a movie that I think does it perfectly but this is just like awkward and like the pacing was awkward everything about it was just off uh-huh there's stuff that's really funny and the stuff that's really scary and there's stuff that's really violent and there's stuff that's really emotional and I think all those things put together kind of make me make you swing in so many emotional directions it's a real press that's what Kristen Stewart is his little character undercover character was supposed to kind of like guide him back into normal life and then go back to the CIA but she falls in love with him and stays with them for five years and why does she fall in love with him we don't know anything about his character at the beginning of the movie uh well he's he loves her okay I guess that's sufficient motivation yeah I worked for 15 Twilight movies so so then yeah he and he also Topher Grace also hates Connie Britton calls her a dumb yeah whoa and some really quality dialogue you you elderly dog you elderly kunti dog and he's angry and I don't know why because now he has a big job like a big boy and he's angry and he hates women so so his character just decides to on a go rogue essentially and go on a mission to get all these goons that he's hired to kill Michael Cera no Jesse guys Jesse Eisenberg yeah well I think that remember when they had them all on the truck like all the good secret operative guys those were all like failed or somewhat failed people of the ultra program right is that what it was happening yeah they weren't just like SWAT teams or something they were like cuz they yeah no no they were yeah they're a part of this this project so he wanted to use all of them just to go after the one because he was so angry he was living in a town in West Virginia and working at a gas station or working at a quick stop in the middle of the night yeah just he just took it upon himself to eliminate all the previous ultra people that were living in undercover apparently he's been doing this without anyone else in the CIA noticing I guess except for Bill Pullman well Bill Pullman finds out and he sends a secret phone call to Connie Britton and not to prevent it just to tell her that it's going to happen as a courtesy as a courtesy yeah for no reason he says you're gonna put your puppy down so I just wanted to let you know that but I didn't expect you to do anything about it yeah so why did he even tell her and he as a courtesy as a courtesy he calls her and he uses the filter on the phone that makes him sound like Satan from the South Park moon I don't know I feel supposed to be funny or spooky or what but and then they show Bill Pullman in the beginning like watching the interrogation of Jesse Eisenberg in the pre flashbacks yeah in the the wraparound yeah which was completely worthless and useless and then there's a stupid scene where he orders a drone strike to eliminate the entire town oh yeah and Buster Buster Bluth done decides at the last minute to not let it happen for some reason Buster Bluth is is in charge of the third code yeah why he's he charge of the third cool and Topher Grace is like yelling on the phone like going bloodshed I thought Topher Grace was in charge of the entire operation why is buster bluth the man with the whip because Topher Grace called him big it's because he had to make a decision whether or not to help his best friend Connie Britton right which is were brought up earlier he drops her in like information or something yeah then his that's his character arc is that he and then Topher Grace calls him and he's mad that he was helping Connie Britton and he says no don't do that send a drone so he sends the drone and then he changes his mind at the last minute yep he becomes a man even though they make fun of him being homosexual because he on his phone call it's his boyfriend with a picture of a dog calling so I guess homosexuals don't have like a backbone but he develops one develops oh yeah yeah there wasn't a point to him being gay I don't know if that was just like he'll just be gay and I just character but and I don't know if him like taking a stand and not unleashing the drone had anything to do with him being gay I think he's supposed to be gay although him getting a call from it could have been his girlfriend - it doesn't matter boyfriend there wasn't or whatever there's no point to that regardless yeah what was the point of the movie was it to make you laugh was it to enthrall you like an action film well that's the problem is like it's not as a comedy it's not very funny and as an action thriller it's not very exciting but it's not an action movie yeah it wants to be I think in parts in parts but then in parts it wants to be like a dry independent black comedy and then in parts it wants to be the Bourne Identity and it doesn't work as any of those things really the blood identity the blunt identity the board identity oh my goodness what is that this is where it's at this is the this is that it just doesn't even work anymore ah such comfort in design such flawless execution everyone should own one of thee I agree I agree man come on just give us like - let's talk about max landis the writer of this film we usually don't talk about the screenwriter no no well this is this is partially the motivation for seeing the movie because he made some tweets that have become somewhat infamous I'm just going to go for a minute I want to say this I stop myself from tweeting it max landis made some tweets who are you questioning if the reason the movie flop is because mainstream audiences don't care about original ideas anymore so I'm left with an odd thing here which is that American ultra lost - a sequel SiC will reboot biopic cygwin rebus leads me to a bit of a conundrum why American author had good ads big stars a fun idea and honestly it's a good movie isn't it American ultra was also beaten by the critically reviled hitman agent 47 and sinister despite being a better reviewed film than either am I wrong it's trying to make original movies in a big way just not a bad career path anymore for anyone but a Tarantino or Nolan this hacks the question is has that changed I wish I could say ultra was a bad movie but it isn't divisive sure but better than others this week it seems the reviews didn't even matter the movie didn't matter the argument that can and will be made as big level original ideas don't money feel like I learned a lesson here but I have no idea what it is I want to joke there's only so many times people will go see Thor - and it's it's it's odd timing because max landis wrote Chronicle which was directed by josh trank who directed the Fantastic Four film so within a month of each of those movies releases both of them respectively made controversial tweets blaming everyone but themselves for their movies failures they came across whiny and arrogant so my question is did nobody care about this movie because it was an original idea um it's an interesting question because I read an interview with max landis and I didn't see his tweets but I saw his comments about original ideas Hollywood shouldn't make original ideas anymore because American ultra failed yeah and I'll only think people want to see are we make sequels reboots etc and it's funny because American Ultra is out I think it has like a 40 something rating on Rotten Tomatoes well he also tweeted negatively about Rotten Tomatoes now that's bad for film criticism then two other films came out this I think the same weekend as American ultra sinister 2 and hitman 47 and they made 47 of those movies no it's based on a video game and I think it has like a four percent online tomato something very low hit I'm 47 and of course sinister 2 is a sequel so video game and movie and a sequel yeah and so it's not and then of course Fantastic Four which is a reboot based on a comic book so it's not a guaranteed thing either way right idea is original or reboot or remake that either way it's going to be bad or unwanted yeah it just depends on the quality of the material well you also wonder is he talking about mainstream like big release movies because if he's talking about movies as a whole you think of just like last year like boyhood you know which we weren't fans of but that was a big hit critically it did very very well for an independent movie you have movies like you know Birdman Nightcrawler the whiplash yeah whiplash like all these movies original movies done very very well so it makes you wonder like is he just talking about big mainstream movies and if that's the case why would he be focused exclusively on those you're not looking at movies as a whole yeah he's putting his film up there with the Avengers and big tentpole summer movies and and I think his film needs to be in the red box you know I mean it's not so much the writing it's just the idea is is kind of stale and pointless yeah well some movies flop because of word-of-mouth or it gets out very early that movie sucks this is a movie it's got middle interviews it's not and it's not a terrible movie as much as we've been making fun of it but I think it's also marketing is a part of it where it's like American ultra what does that title mean you know so you got the title where you're like huh you've got Jesse Eisenberg and you're like yeah and then you have Kristen Stewart and you're like nope so that that combination of the three just leads to nobody really interested in the movie they should have put Buster Bluth on the poster see I gay ahem I'm holding like a little dog yeah that would have probably done better see I would CCI gay yeah he has a little pooch you know like a like a man-purse mm-hmm and he's got a gun and he's like how do we use it I'm a homosexual who do what far gone but I'm in the CIA's mom so he would be thrown into situations where he has to fire his gun and his preferred his preferred piece is like a tiny little lady gun and then his little like Chihuahua runs up and like jumps of the bad guys face and goes are we sure we didn't just time-travel to the 80s but with us yeah when a movie like this would actually get made what's your meeting s a hell why are there men hazmat suits thanks to your actions to CIA assets are dead did you think up on me please tell me you did not just hang up on me what would you say positives were I don't know Connie Britton was good I like I like to see the location of the little kwik-e-mart place I like movies said in little convenience crappy convenience stores for some reason so I like that the idea of having an action scene surrounding that's and then an action scene and like a was it called max max well max value like that like a Walmart type store or like I think that's kind of fun okay even even if the execution of that scene wasn't that great I thought the idea of it was kind of fun it was supposed to be a single shot but it's clearly not it's lots of digital trickery so it's like half-assed at the badass one-shot action scene half-assed badass half-assed badass oh boy if I were a film fest about a better title in American ultra cuz maybe people to know what the it's about then half-assed badass let's roll with this all right what do we got will cast Jesse Eisenberg the laziest CIA rich Ivan's stars is half-assed FS badass coming next winter Oh Gilda frying-pan blood trick so Mike would you recommend American ultra do you ever when we were leaving the theater and the guy in front of us was like I thought it was gonna be about cigarettes the only movie you should confuse with being about cigarettes as I love you Philip Morris so what are you asking me again would you recommend this film um no okay I want neither miss Kay horribly miscast very to varying of tones it's not funny enough and it's ultra violent and ultimately pointless and the plot is not interesting or revealing your your three steps ahead of the movie you want it to be over and then you have to watch sickening violence and then you have to watch Kristen Stewart try to act yeah and that's that's more sickening than the violence well take my car and we'll go to stone you want to get okay no no I recognize that now as like a faux pas oh my goodness the phone is ring oh my god lightning-fast VCR repair ah yes we do screenplay consulting let me just get your name down the max landis is a la ndis yeah we'll take a look at it give you some thoughts yeah hey I saw you in that that film about the the marine dog I thought it was excellent and I thought you did a really good job especially your delivery on the line woof woof woof woof woof was especially perfect yes I didn't know you wrote scripts yeah what do you have a special device that translates your barks into dialogue or do you use do your paws mash down on the keyboard okay mags alright we'll talk later bye you

Channel: RedLetterMedia

Views: 1,076,016

Keywords: redlettermedia, red letter media, red, letter, media, half in the bag, plinkett, mike stoklasa, jay bauman, rich evans, american ultra

Id: 0MEA7B3MKcg

Length: 26min 9sec (1569 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 31 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/SebbenandSebben]

These guys from WI? They are drinking Spotted Cow which is hard to get outside WI.

[u/TJ_McWeaksauce]

Goddamn, seeing Mike and Jay cracking up while making fun of American Ultra and its director is both funny and brutal. I say "brutal" since Max Landis is an active Redditor who is probably browsing /r/movies right this minute.

[u/bundt_trundler]

I liked Chronicle, but unfortunately it speaks volumes that I get more excited about new episodes of Half In The Bag or Best of the Worst than the latest Max Landis movie...

[u/MeanAmbrose]

I wonder how many people are gonna be "summoning" Landis into this thread...

[u/[deleted]]

"I thought it was gonna be about cigarettes." - some guy.

Put it on the poster.

[u/spook327]

Am I just the last guy to notice that they have a prop on their desk that is a tape labelled "the day the clown cried"?

[u/doyle871]

So Max when are you directing this?

http://imgur.com/ixxFioq

It's a lot more original than Chuck the Movie sorry I mean American Ultra.

[u/ianface]

LOVE THESE GUYS! I've been binge watching all the episodes the last few weeks. Great to see them getting love on here!

[u/Mr-Knee-and-Hand]

So what exactly about American Ultra is so "original"? Seems like a standard cookie-cutter action movie plot + stoners.