Matt Damon says the quiet part out loud
And Chris Pratt reviews are BAD
Matt Damon just said the quiet part out loud regarding Netflix movies
Confirming what everyone already suspected about the streaming service. In case you missed it, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck released a new movie on Netflix last week. It’s called The Rip, it’s a cop drama written and directed by Joe Carnahan.
Anyway, this is Damon and Affleck’s first Netflix original film and in a recent interview, Damon spoke about some specific notes they got from Netflix. First he said, Netflix wanted a dynamic action scene in the first 5 minutes, which makes sense because Netflix is keen on viewer retention
But then Damon explained that Netflix also said “it wouldn’t be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phones while they’re watching.”
If you’ve watched any Netflix original content, you’ve probably encountered this over explaining and people have speculated that Netflix does this. But here finally we have confirmation, from an A-lister no less.
Damon to his credit, didn’t seem thrilled about the note, saying “It’s going to really start to infringe on how we’re telling these stories.” But Ben Affleck who was also in the interview had a more optimistic view, saying not everything on Netflix follows this rule, “Look at Adolescence, it didn’t do any of that shit and it was fucking great.”
Reviews for Chris Pratt’s new movie are straight up embarrassing
In case you’re not aware, Chris Pratt is releasing a new film in theaters this weekend. It’s called Mercy, and it’s a futuristic crime thriller directed by Timur Bekmambetov.
To start, The Toronto Star gave it 0 stars, say it’s “lazily written, chaotically directed and played out with all the zest of a convenience-store security video, it lacks not only vision and purpose but the faintest hint of entertainment.”
The Independent called it “A baffling piece of work,” HeyUGuys called it “really dumb.” The Hollywood Reporter said, “It should be avoided by anyone suffering from screen addiction, which these days is pretty much everybody.”
The Daily Beast said it’s “Designed in every way to make one bleary eyed, it’s the new year’s dreariest, and goofiest, film.” Geek Vibes Nation compared it to last year’s War of the Worlds, while Region Free said, “It must be Thanksgiving in January, there’s no other way to explain a turkey of this magnitude.”
As of Friday morning, just 22% of the 90 reviews assessed by RottenTomatoes are positive. They include Deadline, who said, it “will have you on the edge of your seat” and Collider called it, “an engaging investigation that’s twisty, complex, and surprisingly action-packed.”
Sinners, Chalamet, and Moura made Oscars history
The 2026 Oscar nominations were announced this week, and they came with a lot of fun surprises and snubs. For example, F1 made it into Best Picture and Ariana Grande was omitted from Best Supporting Actress.
But let’s talk about some of the awesome records that were broken. One, thanks to The Secret Agent, Wagner Moura just became the first Brazillian actor to ever get nominated for Best Lead Actor. Meanwhile, his competitor Timothee Chalamet the youngest man to ever be nominated 3 times. Sinners costume designer Ruth E. Carter became the most nominated Black woman in Oscars history. And Sinners ‘Sinners’ DP Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman of color ever nominated for Best Cinematography.
But Sinners overall made history as it broke the record for the most nominations for a single film in movie history. Sinners was nominated for 16 awards total, beating All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land — which previously tied for the record of 14 total nominations.
Sinners 16 nominations are: Supporting Actress (Wunmi Mosaku), Supporting Actor (Delroy Lindo), Make Up and HAir, Score, Original Screenplay, Casting, Costumes, Song, Production Design, Editing, Sound, VFX, Cinematography, Lead Actor Michael B Jordan, Director, and Best Picture. The real question now, is which of those will it win?
This giant YouTuber is about to turn the film industry upside down, Taylor Swift style
Have you heard of the upcoming horror movie Iron Lung? It’s based on a 2022 indie video game, set entirely aboard a micro submarine. This film adaptation has no studio behind it, no major distributor, and no mainstream marketing rollout and yet, on January 30th it’s going to open on at least 2,500 screens and many of those showings are already sold out. How is this possible?! Markiplier.
Iron Lung was co-written and directed by Mark Fischbach aka Markiplier, who is one of the biggest YouTubers on Earth, he’s got more than 38 million followers. Markiplier rose to fame making gaming content, but in recent years he’s expanded into longform narrative work.
He first approached Iron Lung’s creator David Szymanski about making a movie of his game in 2022. He then shot it on a modest budget over 35 days in Spring 2023, without any real release plan. But he knew his fans would come out, if it got the right distribution.
So Markiplier met with some Hollywood distribution companies, but none of them offered the theatrical rollout he knew he was capable of and so, as Indiewire reports, he partnered with film buying veteran Bill Herting, who helped him negotiate directly with theaters. Just like Taylor Swift did with the Eras Tour film, Markiplier took his film directly to exhibitors, banking on his large and loyal audience.
At first, Bill Herting proposed releasing Iron Lung in 3 theaters and again Markiplier had to explain that wasn’t going to be enough, saying, “I have an audience of millions. It would be insultingly low — not to me, to them.” When Herting started contacting theaters, he quickly learned Markiplier wasn’t lying. Many theater owners and their employees were familiar with him. And in one week, the movie went from 60 bookings to 600
And then, Markiplier released a trailer for the film on his YouTube account along with a website listing all the places the movie would be playing. His fans started calling the theaters in droves to get tickets and more information and this allowed Herting to roll the snowball even faster. Indiewire says by January 30th, it’s possible the movie will be on 2,800 screens worldwide.
Not bad for a first-time director with no major companies backing him. But has Indiewire explains, Markiplier worked up to this moment for years, “He built an audience first. He earned their trust over time. He invited them into the process [and then] He gave them tools to act.” The big question is how much will Iron Lung make opening weekend?