Simply Cinema 4/27/26

And welcome to another episode of Simply Cinema. We are your hosts Maximilian Ciminelli and Dustin Braga. So Dustin, we have another interesting little episode today. We do. But I think at first we have to do the proper opening. Let's do it. And here we go. So yes, today will be an episode focused on television. That's right, we're talking TV. That's right, that's right. Because we're definitely in this era now of like the TV has kind of, it's almost surpassed cinema in a way. You know, at least in terms of like the event or like the, well, what we're going to talk about today, the bringing back the legacy continuations of certain TV shows. Yes. You know, which is not a bad thing. It is guilty pleasure at times. Like, oh, they did the Obi-Wan show and they brought Ewan McGregor back to play Obi-Wan Kenobi. And, you know, it's like some are good, some are not good. Well, yes. But sometimes it is the, it's the long awaited sequel that fans have been waiting for. So, you know, it can be, it hits the nostalgia. It just scratches the nostalgia. It does. And in this day and age, yeah. Making a TV show out of literally anything. Yes. It only makes sense that the reboots and requels and reimagining, reimagining, spin-offs hit the TV circuit as well. Yeah, exactly. What did I see recently? They're going to make a TV show, I think it's a limited series, a TV show remake of Amadeus. Ah, yes. With Paul, Paul Bentany. Yes. As a Salieri. And I thought, okay, it might be worth a watch, but I'm like, really? Amadeus, you got no screen capture, no idea. So here we have, let's see. I actually don't know the name of this actor, but he's probably playing Mozart. Oh yeah, there's Paul Bentany as Salieri. And I'm just like, okay, it might be good. It might be. Again, like you're going to remake this movie. I will say it did take a while to have this movie remake because this came out in 84. Yeah. So it wasn't like, hey, they rushed it. And it's been a while, like I said, but it's just, I don't know. Really? You're making a remake of this? Hey, I mean, as long as it does something new. Yeah, that's true. Well, that's the other thing we keep saying is how you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. If it's just the movie put into like eight episodes of a limited series, it's okay. You didn't do anything new. Yeah. If you do something new, it's like, well, that's not the movie. Yeah. You know? And you don't, you know, my gripe about taking liberties with historical accuracy. I do love Amadeus, but it is definitely not the most accurate. No. Few things, few liberties taken here or there. Oh yes. For the sake of the story. But that's a whole nother episode. Of course. Anyway, let's say we start talking about the examples we had planned for today. Why not? So recently, another show has come out, a continuation of a show, which I got to say, I really thought this wasn't going to happen. Did you? I really, I'm serious. The first example we have, ladies and gentlemen, is Malcolm in the Middle. So up top version was the original show about kind of a problematic family, but it was a comedy. Frankie Muniz plays Malcolm, seen here in the middle. And I think I laughed. So now at the bottom, you see that they've made a continuation of the show. Malcolm is all grown up and he's kind of distancing himself from his family. But of course, his brothers, Francis and Reese, and I don't know if Dewey's going to be in it. I think the actor said he didn't want to be in it. Yeah, I believe they got a replacement for him. But the parents are still there. Yeah, it does look like him, but the parents are still there. Yes, they are. And which is funny because, so Brian Cranston, who plays the dad, Hal, I knew him first from this show. Yes. And he was famous. A lot of us did. As Hal, yes. But then he went on to greater fame with a little show I'm going to find for you right here. Let me see. Go back to ScreenCapture. He went on to play Walter White in Breaking Bad. And I thought, OK, he kind of broke the Malcolm in the Middle curse, if you will. Yeah, he did. And so I thought, OK, he's basically done with that. And then they come out with this show. And I thought, I mean, paycheck is a paycheck. I'm sure he loves the craft. But I just feel like there has to be an element of just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in because he's back playing Hal, a polar opposite character to his role of Walter White. Oh, yes. Yeah, it's quite. I know Brian Cranston did a lot of comedy. Yeah. Before he was on Seinfeld for a few episodes. He was on Seinfeld, was also a voiceover role in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, believe it or not. And yeah, Breaking Bad was kind of his first big foray into like, hey, he's actually a serious actor. It's interesting because Breaking Bad did that with a few like you had Bob, if I could find him here. You had Bob Odenkirk, who also does a good job. I feel like he was kind of comedy oriented. Yeah. Better call Saul. Yeah. Better call Saul. Yeah. And but again, what I liked about the show was how it will go back to us for a moment. What I liked about the show was that it showed, OK, comedy actors are actors. That can act. Yeah. It just gives even Bill Burr was at the show and, you know, kind of funny, but not like intentionally funny. It's like they're actors. They can act. It's like it saddens me when an actor is typecast and it's like, well, this is what we going back to Amadeus for a moment. The Luke Skywalker actor, Mark Hamill, lost out on the role of Mozart because the casting director or whoever was was like, all I see is Luke Skywalker. I'm like, the dude's an actor. Let him play Mozart. You know, Tom Holst did a great job, but I'm like, that's sad to me. It is, you know, anyway, a little sad. But yeah, so continuation of Malcolm in the Middle, the kind of long awaited. That's the thing that's what it is, because Malcolm in the Middle ended and it felt like, OK, this is that's it. This could be it. They did kind of end on a not a cliffhanger, but it didn't. It didn't feel like a full fledged finale, but it also felt like, OK, that's it. Yeah, that's where it ends. Like it was a mostly satisfying ending, but it kept the door cracked open in case there was more. Yeah. And well, apropos, because now they're back. Yeah, it is. Like I said, just seeing the nostalgia you have, like the guy, the actor playing Francis, the older brother and his his wife, Piyama seen here at the far right. I was like, oh, yeah, that's all of them. Yeah, I came back. It's like so it is. It is, like I said, and there's new characters like Malcolm's kids, you know, so it is interesting. Yeah. Did you where were you able to see this? No, I was not. Oh, I did. OK. What do you think? Honestly, because it's only four episodes. Yes. Four half hour episodes. You can get through it in less than two hours. Watching a movie. Basically. Yeah. Honestly, at that point, because it does feel kind of rushed. Did you watch the four episodes? No, I watched one hour. Yeah, I literally just blasted right through it. And it's good ish. Not great. Um, Brian Cranston, though, of course, like he's he's still got it. I was going to say that's that would be the problem for me is if the best thing it has going for it is the nostalgia. Yeah. Then it's like, all right, it's cool to see them again. I remember the Frasier show came out. Oh, yeah. And oh, my God. The actor Frasier. OK. Kelsey Grammar. The name was named. Thank you. Beast. Kelsey Grammar comes back. I thought, OK, this could be like the same format. Right. What it used to be. And I heard mediocre to not great things about it. Yeah, it was kind of mixed. Yeah. But again, like so it's like, oh, look, we brought back your favorites from 20 years ago. Right. Is that all you have going for yourself? Apparently so. So but Bryan Cranston, you're saying is good. Oh, yes. He's fantastic. Yeah. Um, does not miss a beat. Mm hmm. Uh, still help. Yeah. I imagine the wife to Lois's is still long. Yes. Along that same train. One cool thing I've liked that they did is, uh, Malcolm's daughter. Yes. Uh, we know how Malcolm likes to talk to the camera. Yeah. She does the same thing. Nice. It was a nice little touch that they put on the series. He was the only one that did that in the original show. That's interesting. I actually never thought of that. It's correct. It was kind of in that, uh, that time of when, like, you know, you had like the office. Oh, yeah. I was coming out. I was like, oh, breaking the fourth wall. But with him, it was like he was the only one doing it. Yeah. You know, it wasn't like we're making a documentary about this family. It was just it was like him in his own head. Yeah. Like his own narration, basically. Yeah. It was kind of cool. Yeah. Maybe I'll give it a whirl. We'll see. Yeah. I mean, it's not too bad of a watch. Don't expect anything radical from it, but it's fine for an afternoon. That's good. Why don't we take a quick break? Sure thing. We'll be back with another example of television. Yes. And welcome back. Hey. So thank you for bearing with us, ladies and gentlemen. So today, Dustin, we're talking about television. We are. Each example we have is kind of the the long awaited continuation. It is. Yeah. So in the first example, we had Malcolm in the middle, which I won't judge the new episodes, but you're telling me it's not the best. It's not the best, but it's not the worst either. Like it could have been a lot worse. That's true. But the next example we have did pretty well for itself. Oh, yes. Ladies and gentlemen, we also have like I'm introducing a guest. We have the animated X-Men series. So the in the 90s, before the X-Men films by 20th Century Fox were made, you had this animated show, which was quite fun. Yeah, it was quite enjoyable. And then they finally came out with X-Men 97 only a few years ago. Yeah. And it was it's called 97. I want to say the they ended in 96. So then this. Yeah, the continuation. The continuation was X-Men 97. And it was like, look, they bought back the voice actors or at least most of them, most of them of who could come back. Yeah, exactly. And it was it's cool. Yeah, it's cool seeing them, seeing them come back. Yeah, it's nice. It is also kind of this interesting blend of because they tried to get the same animation aesthetic. Yes, because pretty close. Yeah, they got close to it because I mean, the the old animation, they don't do it that way anymore. Yeah, it was that cell animation. But I think they they did all right. It was kind of like this weird blend of 2D and 3D. Yeah, well, it's because in the original. Let me see. Is that an example of them there? So seeing that this is the Cyclops character, those of you who don't know, they cut at the end of the original show, like the last three episodes. Yeah, they changed the animation a little bit, which I got to say, I'm personally not a fan when they do that. Yeah, you must remember the go back to us for a moment. You must remember the Batman animated series. Oh, yes. Yes. Classic classic show. You know, I'm going to bring that up here. The and they did the same. Where are we? They did the same thing in this show where they change. Here is they change the animation from this to to this because they were going to bridge the to the show with the animated Superman series. Yes. And I thought, OK, well, we have to have the match. So we're going to change. We're going to change the look of Batman to fit the look of Superman. So I didn't know that. So for the longest time, I thought, oh, yeah, that's right. Season four of the show just awkwardly looks different for no real reason. Yeah, it was kind of weird. It was. And they only changed like a few things. Like it was still like, you know, the Joker was still the Joker. But like, you know, all the color scheme was a little different. Two faces. Face was a little bit weird. I was like, what was the point of, you know? So there you go. But getting back to X-Men 97, same thing. It was like, OK, they did a pretty good job of because they have to utilize the modern technology. They do. You know, that's kind of the only way that it's animated. So that's true. It's how can we make this look like it is from the 90s? Yeah. But they did a good job. They definitely did a good job. I would say so. Yeah. Besides some wonky parts. Yeah. And season two is actually coming out in a month. 98. It's still 97. Hopefully it'll be 97, 98 at some point. But honestly, it was an interesting little show. I just hope that it would. I do hope that it becomes more connected to the other stuff, because they did give this as like a we're getting a Spider-Man thing, too. Isn't there a Spider-Man animated series? There is. The first season came out, I believe, last year. OK, it's called Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Right. Is it is it connected to the 90s Spider-Man? No, not at all. It's its own thing. Gotcha. So now I have a gripe with Marvel because I go, OK, you gave us X-Men 97. Give us Spider-Man, the animated series continuation. We do get that, actually. Oh, really? In comic book form. Aha. Yeah. I don't want that. I want TV. I don't want to read. I know. Start having ideas and thinking. Jeez. What a world. Yeah. But this was this was a fun show. It is. I tell you the truth. I actually discovered this long after it was I think it was because 97 was coming out. And I was like, you know, I've never actually seen the original show, which was is what the X-Men was to a lot. For me, it was the movies. You know, so I knew like the image of the characters. But for me, it was 20th Century Fox. So watching the show, I was like, you know what? This is this is kind of cool. Yeah. Like this. Yeah. It's a pretty good jam, especially on a Saturday morning. Yeah. Honestly, I might go back and rewatch it. Still got the theme song in my head. Yeah. It lives rent free. OK, favorite favorite character from either team. Favorite character. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Honestly, I've always been a team Cyclops. Nice. Yes. He did not get his due. No. You know, he's hopefully he's coming back. Yes. James Marsden is coming back. So hopefully we we get he gets his. Yeah. Hopefully Cyclops can be more a little more prominent. Yeah. And just more like more useful, more of the leader that he's supposed to be. Right. Yeah. How about you? Give me Magneto. Magneto is the best. It's no small part due to Ian McKellen of the movies. But yeah, it's the best. But yeah, overall, overall, a good little show. It is definitely fun. Absolutely. Yeah. And so for our next next example we have here, what's it going to be? I Carly. So this is another one. It was interesting. This was this actually we're going to change gears a little bit because what happened here was the so the original show ended. Yes. And then they came out with a few years later. They made slightly more of an adult show. Not inappropriate, but you know, Carly is older. All the characters are now adults, like Freddy, for example, seen on in the right. He's funny. He's in the left picture. He's the far left right picture. He's the far right. Yeah. Look at that. So it's like they're adults. I think I think he's divorced and has kids. Yes. And like the unrequited love with Carly is still kind of there. Yeah. Spencer's still there. He was the best part of the show. But so they turned it into like sort of like Malcolm in the Middle. It's hey, this child character, the star of the original show. Right. Is now an adult. Yeah. And they're revisiting some things. And I think they could they could swim a little bit. They could get away with a couple of things. Oh, yeah. It wasn't hard. No, it was definitely like a little more. I think it was more like I think it was some episodes for TVPG. Some of those were TV 14. But they kind of you brought up a point when we were discussing this, like you they aged with with the with the audience. And now it's like, hey, the kids like us that watch this when the first show was out are now, for lack of a better word, adults and are now watching the newer show. Exactly. So, yeah, there's definitely there's some fanservicing there. Yeah, it was a little bit of fanservicing. But I think for all intents and purposes. Yeah. The R. Kiley reboot was a pretty good continuation of the series. Like you said, it grew up with its audience. So obviously it's what Carly and Freddie are all going through. Yeah, kind of matches what? Because they definitely had a will they or won't they in the original show. And then and the show kind of ends with that. It doesn't really get answered. Yeah, it it ends on a cliffhanger. Yeah. And never got it got canceled. Right. And there's been some talks of them doing like a like a movie. Yeah. Kind of finish everything off. Right. Hopefully that happens. But we'll see. Yeah, it's interesting. This is a great example of when they have to rewrite certain things to fit. What's that? For example, we see very important character Sam seen here. Jeanette McCurdy does not return. She does not. But we make. Yeah. For very good purposes. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That was a bit of a little bit of controversy. Yeah. If you get that, you know, just a little serious for a moment. If you can watch the documentary at Quiet On Set. Yeah. Quiet On Set. Yeah. Which basically just without going too far into it explains the problems with Nickelodeon kids shows. Certain producers who were not good people, certain production assistants who were not good people. And some of the awful things that happened. It's it's bad. Yeah. But it's kind of important. It is. I'm watching it going like, wow, I look at things differently now. You know, like some of the original shows. Oh, all the while this was happening. Yeah. So it kind of it sours a little bit. Yeah. It's a very happy show that brought a lot of people much joy. Yeah. Ends up turning out to be it. Yeah. Behind the scenes is pretty. But I also think it's kind of heartwarming that they have that they came back for, you know, despite all that, most of them at least came back for the reboot show. And it was kind of like, well, we still enjoyed making this thing. So let's continue. It's kind of like a legacy. Let's continue it. And I know none of the problematic producers, a.k.a. Dan Schneider. Yeah. He did not return. Yes. So that is it's iCarly without Dan Schneider. And everyone seems more happy about that. So they finally have the continuation of iCarly. If we could just get the continuation of Greg and Josh. Doubtful. I highly doubt we'll ever see that. More things connected to that. Yeah. But that's a whole other topic. Yeah. That lore goes deep. It does. That could be a whole other episode, in all honesty. Oh, yeah. We don't want to get too serious here on Simply Cinema. No. But we are serious about commercial breaks and we have to take one right now. OK, we'll take one. We'll come back with our last example. Stay tuned. Welcome back. Thank you for joining us. Oh, my God. So, Dustin, for our last example, so we had changed gears a little bit with the iCarly show. An example of how the continuation of the show ages with the audience. Yes. And gives us something, something a little bit new. So our last example, you're going to be taking the helm. We have Samurai Jack. Yes. Which you were telling me the original is like, you know, as seen here on the left, it looks like a kid friendly show. And the continuation is very much not. It's like, is it R rated? No. OK, it looks like it could be. It's TV 14. OK. But there is a substantial more amount of darkness and blood. Yeah. And violence in it. Even more darker themes. Yeah. Like even the animation looks like it's darker and just like a little more gritty and serious. Which is hilarious because they did actually animate it the same way they did the original series. Really? Yeah. OK, because it does not go back to it. It does not look the same. It doesn't look the same, but it was used. It's using the same animation technique. OK. Which is crazy for modern day animation. And that's all. Genndy Tartakovsky is the creator of the series and kind of the mastermind of everything here. I see. And yeah, it's it was a little show on Cartoon Network. Got a pretty big following. Yeah. Did you expect that there was going to be a continuation of it? I was hoping. Yep. I got you. But like, there's no way they're going to continue this. Yeah, because the way that it ends doesn't it's not really an ending. So that happens too often in shows. Yeah. Like they leave it on a cliffhanger or whatever because they were intending to do more and then the network cancels it. And it's like, OK, so this show doesn't end. Yeah. It's like that wasn't the plan. It's like it kind of has become the ending because it's like, what happened to writing a finale? You know, like giving them the time, like knowing when, OK, you know, we're done. Right. Let's put a bow on this. Yeah. Unfortunately, too few shows do that these days. You're absolutely right. Because it's like, you know, same thing with films. It's like they don't want to actually end. They just want it to be a commercial to get to the next thing. And I get it. You got to squeeze as much money out of this thing as you can. But like at the same time, you got to have a good ending on the off chance. It doesn't work. Yeah. Stick the landing. Exactly. So yeah, getting back to samurai. Sorry about the rant there. Getting back to Samurai Jack. But no, speaking of sticking the landing. Yes, yes. This fifth season that they made. OK. Does pretty much stick the landing. Although it was controversial among fans. In what way? Because it's a very bittersweet ending. OK. Is he actually what's the picture I saw? Is he actually the villain? You can maybe think of Jack as the villain in this season. Maybe a villain to himself. OK. Anti-hero. I love a good anti-hero. A little bit. Because in this, the whole thing is that Jack gets thrown out of his own time from Japan into a futuristic dystopian future. Of course. Controlled by this demon. Naturally. Named Aku. And he's trying to get back to the past. OK. And he does not achieve his goal at the end of the original series. Oh no. And at this point, we learn that Jack cannot age. And he's been in this. It's a Highlander thing. Yes. And he's been in this kind of absolute struggle to he's kind of given up on going back to the past. OK. Now he just kind of wants to. Exist. He wants to exist and go out on his own terms. OK. Like a samurai. Yeah. Nice. I like that. But there does come a way where he can actually go back to the past. And he meets kind of his love. OK. And spoiler alert, they do go back to the past. OK. But down the aisle, they're trying to get married. His love collapses. Oh, no. Starts fading away. Oh, no. Because she informs him that because they defeated Aku. Yes. She does not no longer. She no longer exists because she was basically bred to kill Jack. Oh. Or Aku. So she dies. This is very serious. Yes. I kind of like this. Yeah. And this is animated shows can't be serious. Yeah. But he finds at the end, he does find solace with himself and the situation. So. OK, well, that's sort of something that I go for. Yeah. A bittersweet ending. Yeah. That's the other great thing is it's like animated shows specifically became more serious. Yeah. You know, there was a time when they were just cartoons. They were silly. They were whimsical. Nothing wrong with that. But now we have, like you said, Samurai Jack growing up, Batman, the animated series. Yeah. Avatar. Oh, yeah. Last Airbender. It's like, no, these they're fun for kids, but they also have like adult or growing up themes and concepts that kind of like it makes you think. Absolutely. You know, it makes you kind of not question, but like you look ahead to like, OK, where am I going? This speaks to me more and more because I'm becoming an adult. Like that's that's good filmmaking and good writing. Exactly. Yeah. Let's just get writing. Yeah. Well, this has been an absolute pleasure. Once again, the time flies by when we're talking about movies and TV. I know. I wish we had more, but we will see you all in the next episode. Yes. Next week. Yeah. We don't know what it's going to be. It's going to be a surprise even to us. Oh, yeah. But it's going to be fun because we love doing this. Oh, yes, we do. So get out there. I'm going to say watch movies. I'm not going to tell you to watch TV because everyone out there is already watching TV too much. In fact, I say watch more movies. And I'm going to say watching TV because it's about TV. Well, that's OK. We can respectfully disagree. That's OK. But still watch the movies. Yes, yes, yes. Watch movies while you're watching TV while you're on your TV. That's an idea. Multitasking. Yep. All right. Well, we will see you next week. Thanks as always for coming in and take it easy. Bye.