I Have Some Notes

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...

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 needles...

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 mak...

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...

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 l...

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 Som...

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...

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 brot...

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 cours...

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 fri...

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 w...

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 der...

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 h...

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 t...

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...

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 suppo...

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...

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 charact...

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-hunt...

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 wit...

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...

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 – Traile...

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 w...