 Have you ever had actor nightmares? Like you forget your lines or something like that? Anything. Yeah. I had the most vivid, all night long actor nightmares that the show I'm in was time to do the show and everything was changed. It was now no longer a four-person show, it was a full ensemble cast. There were things that my main character was having to do like ride a bicycle and do a full face plant into grass and get hair in your head without me ever having rehearsed it. I got so freaked out, I pooped in a van on the way to the show and I woke up screaming. Actor nightmares. Wow. Did you poop in your bed? Yep, I did. Yeah. Hey, welcome back to our stupid director, Corbin. I'm Rick and you can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, juicy content. Thank you for your support. Patreon, follow us on Twitter, account and subscribe, like button. And today we're doing a movie review. No, in this is not an Indian movie, per se. Per se, it is about Indians. With Indians. Yes, in it. In it, but Hollywood movie. Correct. Need that to be very specified. But you'll know why we're doing this for a million reasons. But we are reviewing the new 2024 directorial debut of Dev Patel. Correct. Monkeyman. Monkeyman, monkeyman, look out here, he comes. Monkeyman, monkeyman, he has poseable thumbs. Monkeyman, monkeyman, he's gonna get you now. Monkeyman, monkeyman, monkeyman, monkeyman, monkeyman. And that's the theme song for it. That's actually straight out of the opening credits. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We sent that to Dev Patel and he was like, this is better than anything I could have ever come up with. Yes, and he's asked us to score every film he ever does from now on. My wife is here. Being her lovely self. Okay. Yes, so we are doing a movie review of Monkeyman and this will be primarily non-spoiler. Yeah, we'll let you know when the spoils are coming. Yeah, because obviously it's not even out yet. We got invited, graciously, by Universal Pictures, to go watch the premiere in Los Angeles. And if every Indian Instagram influencer. If you wanna see, on both of our Instagrams, there's a lot of different things on there from when we were at the event last night. And that's what we got these last night. Yeah, a little small, but we got to meet some cool people. You can go check out on Instagram. But yeah, so I believe it comes out this weekend. It does. For you in America. It does not come out this weekend for you in India. But hopefully at some point, it will be released for you guys. Anyways, so Rick, your initial non-spoiler thoughts of... The Monkeyman. Monkeyman, sorry, not the Monkeyman. Monkeyman. So, I would have written a paragraph, but this time didn't a lot for that late night, last night, early start, so I will try to off at the top of my head give you my paragraph. While I was sitting in the theater watching the film, there was a point during the film where I thought, holy crap, kids, Dev Patel has something to say. I've always enjoyed Dev as an actor. I've really enjoyed everything I've seen him done. This made it really clear to me that the man is an artist who is very passionate. This is... Did you see his film last year? Which one? The Green... No, I did not see that. I did not see that, was it? Yeah. He clearly, this is a passion project for him if you know anything about it and it's obvious from what you see on the screen. This is what I was hoping Animal was gonna be. In a world where the most recent incarnation of the action genre at its peak is John Wick, this holds its own as its own action film with really wonderful fight choreography that bespeaks the title with an animalism that is really off the charts. The cinematography is spectacular and ultimately for me the biggest take away from this was he has an amazing story to tell that is very personal, it's pretty profound and you probably won't see it in India. You won't see it the way he intended to. He has a very, he and the producers have a really difficult decision to make, especially him, because he's gonna have to decide how much of this he's going to allow the censor board to change, if any. And I wanted to tell him this last night but he was too busy and he left early. I know you need to make the money on the film and it's a huge market. At the same time, don't change your film. That's what I have to say. But you hated it. I loved it. Oh okay, sorry. I loved it, it met my expectations and my expectations were really high. Yeah, obviously we reacted to the trailer and we were really looking forward to it. And we saw in the trailer, but then we forgot because she showed up right in front of us that Sorbita was in along with many other. Yeah, we'll save that for the spoilers because there's some nifty little surprises. Some great surprises. That we'll talk about in the spoilers. That is absolutely wonderful. But yeah, the film was really, really nice. I really, really enjoyed it. And I think they, I don't know if it was an inspiration or after they made it, they're like, people are gonna make this comparison to John Wick. It's not a story like John Wick. Not in terms of like an assassin and stuff like that. Action style, it is. Much less headshots. Yeah, it's definitely, you have to compare it because right now John Wick is the bar of action standards in Hollywood. But in terms of the action that it brings and the style of it, it's that. And it's with up a notch because I think it's more brutal sometimes. It is more brutal. With some of that. Because it's more personal. Which is when Rick said that's what we wanted from Animal, we're talking about the violence of it. And the story. Seeing the animalistic, it's nothing like the story of Animal. Well, there is some aspects of it that I think are comparable. But you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, so the action of it and the violence were absolutely fantastic. Fantastic, so satisfying. I thought Dev did a very good job outside of, I think what he struggles with. And you saw it in Slumdog too. He struggles to hide his British accent sometimes. Oh, I didn't see that last night. Yeah, he did in Slumdog too. Well, that's understandable. That was really, really early in his career. I've seen that a lot with British people. Yeah. If they have to do like if. For Scottish, yeah. If they have to hide their accent with an accent that's not just plain American. Right. They do that very well. Yeah. But like if they have to like do a Southern accent or a Boston or Indian accent, I'm guessing he had more of a, they said that he grew up in Guadrata, but then he was in Mumbai. Mm-hmm. I spoke very good English for, but there was occasional times, the only gripe that I have with his performance is that same thing in Slumdog. I saw, I've heard his British accent. Interesting. Multiple times. Yeah, I never picked up on them. But that's not just strictly just of Patel. Other than that, this is actually, whatever the one that came out last year was called the Green Night, the Green Night. Yeah. Fantastic film. Well, watch it please. Awesome. One of my absolute favorites of last year, actually. Much different film. But this film was a lot of fun, man. Oh, it was. There were points in this film where the action sequences were so satisfying in their brutality that the audience applauded. Yes. I then laughed. One of the other, if I was to have another gripe is that it was fairly standard in its format of an action film in terms of, this is where it's going, training one, like, you know what I'm talking about. Just the plot. Correct. Plot points. Obviously it's done differently in India. I don't think I've ever seen an action film in Hollywood that has full Indian culture and actors in the center of it like that, here in America. No. Haven't seen that. But in terms of the format of the action film, yes, it is fairly formulaic, but the action scenes are the peak. They are. But for me, like I said before, we'll talk some of the technicalities. Yeah, a lot more to say. We'll talk about technicalities. But the other thing that I'm really excited about, and I'm rooting for him about, because he said something really revealing, which doesn't surprise me. I think this guy wears his heart on his sleeve. He does in his cinema. It seems like it. He said it before the movie started. He talked about how personal this was for him. And part of it was he's always struggled his whole life to question, am I British enough? Am I Indian enough? And the thing I love about this film, besides from the artistic excellence, is the fact that Dev really is positioned, and I'm rooting so hard for this to do well this weekend, to really continue to do films and open up doors for the people that we've come to appreciate and love in Indian cinema, who really want to work here as well and don't have open doors. Guys, you'd be surprised how many legends and potential future legends in Indian cinema have a hard time breaking through here because of just not being known. And so the more things that can platform the greatness of artists, which there's many in this thing, I'm hoping that's one of the things that comes out of this film too. Yeah, another, in terms of the performances, Dev obviously is the main lead in this, but there's a bunch of supporting actors, and I'm so happy that he reached into India to get a lot of his supporting actors. I didn't recognize all of them, so I don't know if they were all from India or if he kind of handpicked some from Hollywood, some from, there's three we know. Four we know for sure that are very much in the Indian industry. Yeah, but Sorbita, you saw them in the trailer. You saw her in the trailer. She was there. No spoilers yet. We'll give you some spoilers in a second. If they were in the trailer. We got to speak to her for a little bit. We did, and bless her heart. Not interview-wise. No, we just got to talk to her at the after party and oh my goodness, I could tell she was doing her utmost best. I could tell she was pretty tired. She had just arrived and she's turning right back around to go back to India, so bless her. She was doing her utmost. She did a fantastic job. She's supporting. Yes, and spends a lot of the time just emanating her presence. And obviously, you know from Indian cinema, she has a great screen presence. Beautiful presence on screen. From what we've seen, PS1, PS2, in made in heaven. And what was the last thing we saw? I forget. And really got the chance, that was something I was happy we got to tell her was, one, we've appreciated her work, that anytime we see her in something, we're excited for it and really hope this opens up doors for her. The doors are already open for her in India, but she deserves to work in where she wants to. You also had a more substantial cameo in Vipin Sharma, who we also got to talk to at the after party. Lovely guy. Had a really good performance as always as he does. And Sikinder Kerr is obviously in the trailer. He was there, we just didn't get a chance to talk to him because one of the reasons we didn't get to talk to him or really talk to Dev was because the bar took too long. Yeah, the bar. Note to self universal. But yeah, he was great. And also I love the fact that this movie showcased so much of Indian culture that, obviously we are well accustomed to now in the 400 plus films that we've seen. But for people that have never outside of maybe RRR now that they've seen, because a lot of Americans have seen RRR. Yeah. You know, this is not an Indian film, we know that. But they get to see a lot of Indian culture that they've not seen before. Correct. And a little shout out here, we got to talk to him as well, to Charl-Toe Copley, who's the white actor in this. And we were really happy that he was good. We told him too. Well yeah, he's a SAG actor. Yeah, he's a SAG actor here. He was unaware of, huh? Is he Australian or English? I believe he's Australian. Yeah, he may be Australian, but he's a SAG actor here. Yeah. Well, he actually could be South African. He said in the movie he was South African. Oh, that's true, he could be. I mean, North African. But he was unfamiliar. He's not familiar with Indian cinema. He was not aware of, he only learned about some of these people as he started doing the film. But we told him, he said, yeah, it was really nice to watch. Usually we only get Mark Bennington. But Mark could have done that role. Yeah, he absolutely could have done it. There's so many Indian actors that I could have placed in this and I don't know how many he reached out to, how many he said yes, how many he said no. But it's wonderful that he got some really nice Indian actors. And they all did a great job. They did a great job. Spoilers? No, no. The score also I thought was absolutely fantastic. It wasn't, they blended it a lot. There was a lot of hip hop, a lot of Western music, but they've also, no spoilers, but they blended it also very well with a lot of Indian culture, Indian classical music influences. Another Indian rapper as well, I believe. I don't know who it was. Another huge shout out that is equally as impressive as Dev's directing and the cinematography that was done by Charone Mayer. The whole editing team that worked with Dev. The editing team. Yeah, it was nice. Oh my stars. Because whatever Dev was visualizing on the day with the cinematographer, then the editing process, just this movie is so, the storytelling is so dependent on the cinematography and editing and it's really uniform and it's really interesting how much I felt that Dev with his cinematographer, Charone, really understood how the dynamics of the cinematography and the editing are gonna contribute to the pacing of the storytelling. Hugely important with pacing, which we could get to in spoilers. So all those, it was a really, really fun film. Got what I wanted from the trailer in the movie. And then some great action film that showcases all of Indian cinema, which is stuff that, you know, when we were looking at like animal, well, there's why we talked about animal, even though that's a different story, but we wanted to see the animalistic nature of it and we've seen that a few times. With reality. With reality, yes. I think there's a new film coming up. I think teaser drops tomorrow, but it's called Kill. I think, to be in Santa Monica, we missed it. Sucks. But it's supposed to be a really great action film produced by Kieran Johar. But that's what I was expecting. Yeah, and I want this to do so well that I've already reached out to Alexis and I'm gonna reach out to Micah. I wanna go this weekend and give it some money and be a part of the box office for the weekend for Dev and everybody. Because I think it's that good and I'm really rooting for it. Yeah, so if you haven't seen it, please go watch it. Hopefully, I don't know when and if it will ever release in India, but if it does, please go watch it. It's absolutely fantastic. And if you're in the United States or anywhere else, please go see it. And one last thought before spoilers about why you're probably, it's gonna be a while and if you get it, you won't get what we got. It's for two reasons. Yes, the violence is brutal and so the censor board will probably want that to be cut up. But there are very bold, direct parallels that will, the terminology that you've heard over and over again is it's going to hurt sensitivities. And I don't know how you could ever edit this thing or change it to make it any different because like I said at the outset, Dev has something to say. Yeah, he does. So yeah, if you haven't watched it, please go watch it and then come back. Spoiler time, yeah? Yeah, I guess. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. I debate on it because I don't want anybody to. I know. I don't want people to watch it and then no. Well, at least some of the surprises in the film. We won't give away. When Shahrukh Khan showed up? The story, but you remember, for those of you who've been around a while. Dev did mention Shahrukh Khan. He did mention Shahrukh Khan. And somebody he loved and looked up to at the beginning. But if you'll recall, our very first interview on this channel was with Astaji Zakir Hussain and we asked him if he's ever done any acting before. We'll leave it at that. Let's just say there's a training montage. Yeah, that's what you fancy. That's one of the best training montages you'll ever want to see. Yeah. It's, I would love to talk to Dev because I would love to know, obviously I'm sure he wanted, Oh, I guarantee. to Indian people from Indian culture and that kind of stuff. I'm sure even if he's a non, like he was born in Great Britain, right? Yeah, he was born in England. But I'm assuming he still knew who Astaji was? Well, I promise that's who he thought of when he was writing the script. Yeah, he was like, if we can get who Astaji. The table of players got to be Astaji Zakir Hussain. Or if somebody, I don't know. It had to be. I would love to talk to him about like, I know. How much of, cause I'm sure you wanted to, how much was it a priority to show a bunch of Indian culture? Yeah, if anybody with, I know Dev's schedule is going to be nuts right now. But even if we have to wait and do it later at some point, really would love to talk to Dev. So if anybody who's part of universal production or even anybody we talked to last night can wing that around at his leisure, we would be happy if we got the chance to talk. But yeah, having all the influx of different parts of Indian culture that he incorporated into the film, making it also accessible to the Western audiences. Right. And, you know, a bunch of people spoke, not that, I know people in Indian speak English, but that was predominantly the language that was spoken. Because I'm assuming he didn't want the entire thing to be. No. And in subtitles. And the subtitles were right. If somebody said Marachoud, it was subtitled Motherfucker. Which was nice. It was very nice. That was really nice. I felt the symbolism throughout of the roots against cinematography and editing the constant throwback to the imagery of the storybook of Hanuman. Particularly in the climax, that wall. That wall was very nice. That was so great. Which is, I believe, a painting of the, what is it called? The Ramayana. Which Andrani had some points we were talking in the car afterwards that only an Indian would pick up. You and I would not. And she, Well, of course, but that's the point. You'd be far more likely to pick up on it than any American would. Read a Bible. But the whole relationship between Hanuman and Ram and all that symbolism. I knew it. Yeah. You need to watch that anime. It's really good. Yeah. There's some, I kind of- I didn't watch along with Steph like a year ago. I feel like a lot of folks are coming in here who won't have seen the film and I'm trying not to give too many spoilers away. Yeah. I really don't want to. Since it's so early. I really don't. I don't want to give a lot away. It's bad enough that we told you about the Stajia Zakir who's saying, because that was a, we all three of us went forward in our chairs. We saw him and we went, Huyah! Yup. And he got up during the credits when his name came up because he was given special credit that said and a Stajia Zakir who's saying and the audience was, they knew. Yeah. How do you get that guy? But yeah, the action was so good and so brutal. Because in the beginning, the guy introduced it. He was like, it's a beautiful film. It's a brutal film. And whenever somebody says that, I'm like, okay, you better- You better be. You better live up to you saying that because I'm expecting- So good. Brutal. And it's- So good. I don't squirm easily, but man, there was some stuff that I was like, oh! So good. There were at least five things that happened to different fight sequences that made everybody howl, laugh, go, oh my! Wow! I kept grabbing both of your hands. Oh yeah. Yeah. Because I was in the front. Yup. We're right on the front row and she'd reach out and she'd grab us. It was, I'm excited. I wanna see it again and listen to the audience react to those moments. Yeah. Yeah, I think it, I hope it'll do well. But my biggest, the thing I talked about with Andrani when we left was aside from all of those things, the really phenomenal performances of everybody, the direction, the cinematography, the editing, the score, you name it, right? The surprises. Yeah. Harry Belafonte, I quote him quite often because he has one of my favorite quotes when he spoke at the march on Washington with Martin Luther King. And he said that artists have a really incredible responsibility because artists reflect back to society who they are. Yeah. And that I would love to talk to Deb about because it's so very bold in his communicating and showing of stuff that he clearly has a strong feeling about regarding India. Yeah. And not just his own personal roots but about India as a whole. Yeah. Things he says that are directly related to politics, things that have happened in recent history of certain people groups being persecuted. Yeah. And I, that's one of the things, if we don't get to talk to him, I'm looking for interviews where I can hear what he's sharing about that because that was so, you can't get around that. That's why I'm wondering how the heck I don't know. You can't get around that. I have no idea. You destroy the film. Yeah. I don't know. So it would be interesting to see what's gonna happen. I don't know if it'll ever get released in India. Me too. Or what version they will see. I think they'll see it on OTT, sadly. Hopefully. But it deserves, that's the challenge guys and it sucks because you really, there shouldn't be a censor board telling a film artist what they can and can't do. Yeah. Rating system to warn everybody so that you know not to bring your kids, you shouldn't bring your kids to this. Definitely be R. It's an R film. It's an R film for subject matter and violence and some nudity and it's an adult movie. But no government should tell an artist what they can or can't say. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's about it. I don't really want to get into it. Yeah, me too. I don't really want to get into a lot of spoilers because it's so early and a lot of people haven't seen it yet. Yeah. So I would love and who knows when it's gonna come out in India. Exactly. And I want people to go see it this weekend. So if you have it here, if you're a stupid baby here in the U.S. or the U.K. or Australia or anywhere else where this is getting international distribution, go give it some love. You'll have a good time. Yeah, you'll have a great time. So if you haven't seen it, let us know what you thought about the movie and if you, other stuff, let us know down below.