I Have Some Notes

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.