My Mummy, My Mummy, and Me (1932, 1999, 2017) (Patreon)

Remember the Dark Universe? Remember when mighty Universal Pictures was going to assemble an all-star cast (Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem) led by Tom Cruise for a 'dark' superhero cinematic universe based on their much loved antique monster movies? No?

That's because the whole thing imploded after the hastily assembled lead film, a nominal remake of The Mummy (1932) and The Mummy (1999), imploded at the box office and the entire project was swept under the rug, rolled into said rug, and dumped into a river like a mob snitch.

Stu and Nicole watched all three Mummy films and compare each, discussing how the original film's death-trasncending melodrama is shuffled backstage by it's remakes in favor of corny action. How the 1999 film, a in-name-only charmingly stupid summer schlockfest, serves as a missing-link in the evolutionary chain between the formative era of the blockbuster and the MCU-driven era of today. And how the 2017 film loses even the first film's few charms under the weight of trying to build a marvel-style universe and the competing demands of it's star and studio. In short: Even the bar for Big Budget Spectacular Entertainment Gruel has dropped precipitously in the past quarter century.

Along the way we also discuss set design, the power of dramatic lighting, hollywood's increasing contempt for it's audiences, Mummy 2017's glitched up trailer, and a century of cinema's worth of sexy broads.

Thank you again, as always, for supporting the show!