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Movie Lovers Unite
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Hey, everybody, and welcome to a conversation with Movie Lovers Unite, specifically, John DeGregorio. Yeah, you actually got it right, man. Thank you. Oh, wow. Well, that was a lucky shot. I could have gone anywhere with that, so. You did really good. I’m proud of you, man. Well, you know, it’s kind of one of those, you have a lot of syllables in your name, so DeGregorio. Imagine trying to spell it in English. Well, imagine trying to spell this. I spelled my last name in grade school. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I could play Wheel of Fortune with it and maybe spell something different. Yeah, because you got two I’s, two O’s, an E. I mean, all you’re missing is a U and a Y. You got them all in there. So, yeah. You got all the vowels. It’s a Wheel of Fortune. There you go. Right. So…
Actually, I met John on KJNA podcast one night just out of happenstance. And then we did Fright Night and Dune. Yeah. And so, yeah. But I wanted to talk to you. So basically, I just talked to folks about what they’re doing. So how did you come up with Movie Lovers Unite? So it started off like as a Facebook page. And so, you know, my thing is this. I’m not big on Facebook groups. I hate Facebook groups. I hate trying to be an admin on a group. I had people try to get me to be admin. So I’m like, look, I’m not an admin. Put me on a page. I’m good to go. I’d rather go ahead and ban someone and I can just like the person and be done versus having to go through a bunch of members. But how the page came about was this. I got tired of seeing like fake movie news.
and if you remember movie pilot back in the day, I got tired of seeing fake news and stuff like that when it came down to uh sites like movie pilot and we got this Covered, but we got this cover came out like later on. But I got tired of that. So I’m like, you know what? I want to go ahead and create a page where people can feel welcomed. Not only feel welcome but be able to talk about their favorite movies just as i talk about my favorite movies and they have a safe place to do it without being judged because all movies are subjective. I might like, you may not like, or there might be certain scenes that you liked and I didn’t like. And you can’t measure film physically or anything like that. It’s just something that cannot be measured. So, you know, I always say all movies are subjective. I always root for people that love their films, even though I may not like their film. I’m like, good for you. I’m glad that you liked that movie. It didn’t work for me, but I’m glad it worked for you. That’s great. But…
you know, I was always in that type of space where i like i want to do a movie new new movie news then after that, I was like, okay, time to make a channel. I have, and then at that time, too, I also had somebody else that was working with me on the page, and i didn’t put any type of advertisements into it or anything like that because i don’t pay for advertising and well we got the admin at the time that i had was like, well, let’s put some money into it. Let’s go on ahead and do it. so Then after he left, it just was just me. And I had a couple of other people. And it was just like, you know, basically people coming and going. But, you know, I would never take anything back. And I’m happy that even though we may have our differences, I’m actually happy that he did support the page and he made it what it is. And then, of course, I continued off of it. But, you know, after that, I’ve just been there.
It’s just been Rossi and I ever since with just the page. But I want to say I started back in 2013 or 15. I think with the page now, I have like 22,000 some followers on it. Wow. That’s a lot. It’s done good. And everybody was telling me, oh, you cannot do a movie page. Because a movie… Like, movie taste and stuff like that is different for everybody said yes But if you do it right, in the right kind of context, it can work. I said, I can do movie memes. I can do memes from different movie quotes, stuff like that. I can make the algorithm work. And so, that’s what I did. Um Then one of my friends like well, you need to make a youtube channel. So, I was like, okay, now it’s time to make a youtube channel. So, in 2000 and, yeah, I want to say 2013, though.
i started watching amc movie talk and i was trying to learn the lingo, learn the business side of it. So I discovered john Campia, AMC Movie Talk, started watching them, watching how they do things as far as stuff goes. And then i decided, okay, it’s time. So I went on hit made the youtube channel. Then YouTube changed their ways of doing things. You know that um you have to have at least a thousand followers at that time in order to go live. And I was using Google Hangouts to go live. Oh, right. Yeah. So think of it like this. So I’m like, okay, so now I can’t go live anymore. And it would take me three to four hours to just upload one video because my internet speed was so crap because I lived down in the city. Here’s the thing. I don’t live out in the city area at that time. And so I had the most crappiest internet from AT&T. So you were on DSL back then. Yes.
And so I decided not to worry about trying to do a movie show anymore. Then my friend D comes up to me and goes, have you ever thought about doing a podcast? This is like in 2019. Okay. So it evolved into being several different things. And I also had another co-host named Charlie and stuff like that. We had our differences and stuff. And then Rusty and I was like, look, it’s always been you and I doing this together. Let’s just make it just you and I doing it. I’m like, okay, it works. But, you know, D was like, well, have you ever tried doing that? Have you ever tried doing a podcast? So 2019, I started the podcast and it was on my cell phone. And you remember Anchor, right? Oh, yeah. Anchor. Yeah. They got bought out by Spotify now. Right. So then I was like, okay, so I got Anchor. I’m using Anchor.
I’m using it on my cell phone. And if you listen to like earlier episodes, you can hear, uh, crickets outside. You can hear different things because I’m doing the shows in my car. Right. Oh, okay. Like in the summertime and a hundred degree weather in the South. Yeah. I’m going like three or four bottles of water in my car because you don’t have the air conditioner on. I’m guessing. Cause it’s too noisy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, even in the evening time, I’m doing an hour-long show in my car in the evening time, and you can actually hear the crickets and stuff like that. I was like, I like the sound effects. I’m like, that’s not sound effects. That’s actually crickets in background they’re like oh that felt really relaxing. I’m like, well, I’m glad it did, but that wasn’t intentional, but i’m glad that you enjoyed it. So, then i finally managed to be able to save up enough for a computer, got me a mic,
Got me stuff set up. But also, too, at that time when I was doing just the audio stuff, I didn’t know how to edit. I didn’t know how to do any of that. So I was just uploading episodes and stuff like that. And I was doing podcasting for about a year for the audio. And I’m eating lunch one day, right? So while I’m eating lunch, I had someone message me. I’m looking at my spam folder at lunch. And I happen to see a publicist from Netflix. Oh, cool. I’m like, what? So I’m like, this has to not be real. So I ended up, I messaged her. She goes, yeah, we would like to actually do something from Martha Luther King Day. Why don’t you do a trailer reaction to a movie that we’re releasing on that day? I’m like, okay, perfect. I’ll do a reaction to it. And that’s when I did that. And then I started networking with her more. She’s like, well, do you like short films? I said, yeah, I like short films.
Here’s how you try the Holly Shorts Film Festival. So then after that, I started doing film festivals with the Holly Shorts Film Festival. I always knew what I wanted the podcast to be. I came up with a goal. I want to be in film festivals. I want to have sponsors. I want to do this professionally for the rest of my life. It’s all a matter of getting there, right? Because you’re thinking, how long is this going to take me? is this going to take like a four-year plan five-year plan or anything like that, you know? And it happened within a year. Wow. That’s fantastic. Yeah. And I didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect that to happen in a year. I also didn’t expect to be able to interview coleman domingo a year later. Wow. So a lot of stuff is like pinch me now. I’m dreaming. I’m living my life like i want, but
Still don’t have no funds coming in, but that’s okay because I love what I’m doing. But at the same time, I’m humble enough to be like, wow. Are you still sweating it out in your car? No. As you can tell, I’m in. You’re inside now. Yes, I’m inside now, not sweating or anything. You guys don’t have to donate to me or anything like that. I promise you I have a house. No, that’s wild. So do you think, Like, were all these things iterative? So, like, the page begat this, begat this, and then it’s a culmination of all those things? Or what do you think, you know, kind of tipped it? Was there one particular thing that kind of put it over the edge? I think it had a lot to do with the audio, even though it’s in my car. Even though, you know, yeah, I’m just uploading. I’m not even editing anything. Everything’s uncut, raw and uncut.
And to know that I captured somebody from Netflix and you know what I’m saying? It was, it felt surreal because I wasn’t expecting it. I thought for myself, there’s no, I thought, okay, this is my plan. I’ll get a thousand subscribers because that’s what they normally look at is the subscribers, the followers and stuff like that. So my first initial thought was I only have like 200, 300 subscribers. I was like, there’s no way Netflix is even interested in it. Right. So in my mind, I’m like, I’m not at that four year plan that I had. So, so anyways, whenever I got that, I just dropped my, I’m eating a roast beef sandwich and I just happened to say, what the F did I, I was like, you’re serious. I just stopped. And I’m like, okay, this is what I want. This is what I wanted. I just didn’t expect to do it within a year, but I’ll take it. I’m not going to complain.
But yeah, I have to say it wasn’t for me doing the audio and not doing anything at all. I wouldn’t have gotten that. Yeah. No. Well, apparently you, you know, hit some button somewhere that people are like, Hey, this may be interesting for us to deal with. Right. So that’s a, that’s wild. Right. Because I was doing movie news and, because it’s basically what i was doing. I was doing movie news, movie reviews, and stuff like that. No reactions, of course. But my reaction would be a trailer uh reaction review instead. So, that’s how i would handle it but yeah i would never would have thought that that would happen. And I’m very blessed and thankful for for that yeah no that’s fantastic. So, I mean, as far as your background goes uh i mean did
Like, did you go to school to do this? Is this obviously just something that you want to do? And so you’re just pursuing it? I mean, what’s the path that, you know, brings you to that point where you’re like, I think I’ll do this back in 2013? It’s my passion for movies. It was really my passion for movies. I have no degree. And here’s the thing. I have no degree when it comes down to film school. Right. I have no degree when it comes down to doing any kind of audio editing. Everything is self-taught. Right. And I also didn’t know how to… Thanks. Because I didn’t know how to even edit my own stuff. So, you know, it wasn’t until I started doing… Let me think here. I actually had conversations about dot, dot, dot podcasts on with me doing Obi-Wan. So…
that’s when they’re like look we can’t hear uh we can’t hear william can you increase his volume levels when you edit it? I’m like, edit? Um, so after that, like, yeah, I gotta start handling this in the right direction. So I started, uh, knowing how to increase the volume levels, how they take out, uh, delays and dead space and stuff like that. I learned how to do all that stuff on my own including doing shorts for YouTube. But I had someone teach me that part, though. Here’s the thing. I had this friend named Luke. Luke helped me out. He’s like, look. And as a matter of fact, he’s actually doing, I don’t know if you ever heard of Christian Harloff. No. He’s also another pundit who does movie news and reviews and stuff, which is also another person that I actually look up to as far as my inspiration goes with John Campion and Christian. But here’s the thing.
Luke is working with Christian. And he’s even deeper in with Christian now. But before then, he’s like, look, I’m going to teach you how to make shorts. So he taught me how to make shorts. He taught me how to make the captions. He taught me all that stuff. And then the rest, I just went on ahead. Once I got that first high of a thousand views, I’m like, okay, I’m going to keep going. Right. You hit a point there and you’re like, okay, this is working. Right. Exactly. So you talk about loving movies and so forth. Is this something that came from childhood? Or what do you think you picked up on that at? I would have to say childhood. 1989 Batman, for me, was my first movie. Yeah. Big movie. Yeah. So therefore, that had a lot to do with my whole entire…
That had everything to do with my love for movies, including Jaws. But then now you talk about 89, then if you’re kidding, Jaws is 75. Right, 75. But here’s the thing, okay? I’m like 9 or 10 in the 80s, right? Right. So I would always go across the street where the projects are and everything because my family members lived in the projects area, and I would walk over there to get… jaws every single time. And during the summer time i never failed. I would always borrow jaws from them. Yeah. So, so you’re like a vhs kid then. So everything was on a video store, VHS, kind of a childhood then. So would you go to the video store? Would you be one of those folks that went to the video store and got like, you know, as many tapes as you could for the weekend or what have you yes blockbuster a matter of fact, my grandmother knew, uh, the guy on blockbuster
it would actually have movies set aside for me whenever i came in during the summer yeah yeah no i mean this weird tangent. I worked in a video store, not Blockbuster, worked for like a private uh you know, like a mom and pop kind of thing. And I mean, that was kind of, those were the days, right? With the, as far as media goes, the, it was the, you know, gateway for home media, right? So now we got streaming where everything’s there, but But before that, you had to wait. And then you went in and it was just rows and rows of movies. And you would go, where I worked at, you had to get a tag. You didn’t even actually take the movie off the shelf. It was just a tag. And you take your tag up and get your movie. Yep, I’ve been into those stores before. Yeah, I mean, that’s old school. But not Blockbuster. Blockbuster put them all on the shelf. But I mean, that was everybody’s…
initiation at that time into, uh, accessible, uh, movies, right? You didn’t have, before you had to go to the theater. I mean, I suppose you could talk about, you know, 16 millimeter prints or something, but nobody really did that. Not many people. That’s interesting. So that, that was your, your, your formative years were basically in those times when, cause when Batman came out on video, oh my gosh, I remember even, uh, where I worked at. It was just a wall full of Batman. I remember the billboard thing that they had for Batman just standing up for the VHS tapes. I remember that as well. And then also, too, in the movie theater, they actually had a comic book based off of the movie itself. Oh, yeah. The tie-ins were just crazy for that movie. It really was. That was a great time for cinema, if you think about it, when they sold merch for…
to the movie that you’re seeing. So when you come out, you’re wanting that comic book, are you wanting some type of merge that represents what you’ve seen? It was an event to go to a movie theater, to go see something. Right. Oh yeah. And that one, I remember, I remember going to see that movie and I think I went on, it had to be the opening weekend at like seven o’clock or something. It was, it was packed an absolute pack theater. I mean, there was hardly any place to sit. I mean, I, I haven’t experienced that for a decade maybe or more. I experienced that for the very first Avengers movie. And I felt bad for my poor friend Kevin because my friend Brandon and I were at a 12 o’clock midnight showing and we’re driving 45 minutes to go see this movie. My friend Kevin is already in the theater holding seats. I’m like, dude, you need to just hold seats for us. He’s trying to hold seats.
Right. Dude, I don’t know how much longer I can do this. That’s wild. So then, but I mean, that’s interesting. So that’s kind of the formative nature thing. Was there like, was your like parents or your aunts or uncles or somebody like really into it? So then that way, well, obviously you said you had to go get the jaws tape from your aunt, right? Right. So, so they were kind of, you know, feeding the passion in a way because they had that available for you. Right. But my mom took me to the majority of the movies I wanted to go see. Like if you notice in any of my movie reviews or whatever, I always mention my mom and I and the nostalgic part of the episodes. I’ll be like, yeah, I remember my mom taking me to go see this or that. So that when I was young, when I was like in 95 and stuff like that, my mom and I did a lot.
um she took me to a lot of movies i wanted to see, and i made her go sit through some horrible movies, and i apologized over and over again that probably traumatized her and probably wants to go see a psychiatrist. But, you know, and then everybody was mind-blowing because she let me go see bad boys at age 10. She let me go see seven at age 10. Seven? Oh, my God. Dude, I think that was just payback for me. making her suffer through all those movies so she wants to traumatize me but yeah although I mean if this is your interest right I mean this is your as a kid this is your big interest I mean you know obviously you don’t want people to be traumatized but why not I mean this is not like it’s a exploitation movie this is a big Hollywood movie so you know seven was
it had some cachet at the time. And I’m sure if you were tuned into that, you’d be like, you know, I want to go see that because it had, it, it is, you know, uh, above the fray as it were for that time period. So that makes some sense. Right. Right. Even though there are rated movie, but you know, right. But here’s the thing though, like there was just something my mom thought too. I’m going to go talk about this one last thing about seven, but, uh, My mom probably didn’t think I was going to sit through this movie. She thought maybe I might be bored. It was a 9 o’clock showing. So she probably was thinking, well, he’ll be out like a light, and all I have to do is just carry his ass home. There you go. She’s hoping for you to conk out. Right. Nope. Didn’t work. But I would also have to say anything at that time, like Edward Scissorhands, and then there was The Crow. Oh, The Crow, yeah.
here’s the thing, it was very weird. Like, I’m into, like, the gothic kind of setting and stuff like that at that time. I love Danny Elfman as a scorer. Never thought i would actually interview richard Elfman. But, you know, it was just mind-blowing of seeing, hearing the scores through batman and then hearing them through edward scissorhands and then hearing it again through other stuff. And then, you know mom’s like you want to see this gothic movie? Brandon Lee. You want to see this? Yeah. Okay. So we went to see that. We saw Edward Scissorhands. We also get this. She wanted to go see Howard Stern’s private parts. Right. I went and seen that with her. That’s funny. Yeah. But I mean, you know, if you’re like, you know, if that’s your thing, then why not? I mean, it’s, you know, it’s eventual. Yeah.
put it that way. You know, especially in the age of video, you’re gonna see it. Uh, you were gonna see it when it came out on video, no matter what. Exactly. Yeah. Well, that was nice. I mean, that’s very supportive of your, of your interests there. That’s fantastic. Thanks, man. Because seriously, um, I went from seeing movies for my mom to seeing movies with my brother-in-law as i got older. to see movies now about myself or with my wife and stuff like that too. You said by yourself, so how do you like the… Do you actually go to the movies by yourself at the theater? Yes. Well, here’s the thing. There are movies that my wife will go see with me, and there’s ones where she says, have a good time. Okay.
one of those being was Godzilla versus Godzilla and Kong. And the other one was Deadpool and Wolverine. Okay. I was like, are you sure you’re not going to be mad at me for going to see this one? Some of my friends either, because I’ll go over and see if someone’s just, no, that’s all you have a good time. Like, okay. I always have a hard time going to the theater by myself for whatever reason. I’ve done it in the past and so forth, but then I’m like, ah, you know, You get kind of wishy-washy, but I think that being able to do that shows your commitment. Right. And here’s the crazy thing, though, man. Like, I feel socially awkward going to a movie by myself. Like, it just feels weird, you know, because you want to be able to geek out, talk to somebody next to you or something, you know? Yeah. And, you know, and you’re by yourself, and then you see everybody else, and it’s like, eh, okay.
Yeah, it’s a little weird. So now since we’ve got, you know, streaming is so prevalent and so forth, and I mean, it used to be, obviously, you know, in the age of VHS, you had to wait a long time for a movie to make it on the VHS. Now, though, I mean, literally within a month or something, it gets to the movies, and the next thing you know, it pops up on, you know, you can pay Amazon to watch it at home. What’s your thoughts on… On watching at home versus actually going to the theater. I think there are movies for at home, and then there’s movies where you have to go and see something cinematic. Mm-hmm. You know, because there’s, I was like, I can get that same experience on a sound bar and my big screen TV. I said, really? So you can get the Dune wide shots on your little bar there in your 60-inch screen. Mm-hmm.
For something like Dune, which is also an event film like Batman, for example, you have to see that in theaters. There is nothing like going to see a Dune movie in theaters. I’ve seen Dune 2 in theaters and I fell in love with it in the theater watching that. But I think there’s movies that are like comedies and stuff like that. I’m like, yeah, that can be streamed at home. But when you have an event… movie like deadpool that’s getting leaked online and i’m looked at my wife i said i gotta go yeah she’s like what do you mean gotta go i gotta go see deadpool because otherwise i’m gonna have everything spoiled for me so therefore i have to go on and see it but i do agree with you about that question though i think that streaming is good in some aspects but other aspects though at the same time you know i feel like it kind of kills the movie theater experience
You can pause the movie anytime you want. You have to go use the bathroom. Guess what? You can pause it. You can put your feet up in your recliner at home. I’m not saying that you can’t, but I’m just saying I’ve seen people put their Cheeto toes on the seats. I’m like, you need to get your disgusting feet off there. And then there’s also the overuse of cell phone usage in the movie theater. But me having ADHD and having a blinding light distract me, that… gets on my nerves especially when i’m trying to do a review and trying to i don’t take notes in the theater pretty much what i do is and now if i’m by myself that’s a different story but if there’s like a lot of people next to me i don’t take notes i just um basically talk about the things that stood out to me and that i remember and i go from there but as far as taking notes in the theater i don’t do that because i try to be respectful to other people in the theater but i think that streaming can be good
but also can be bad, though, too, because it can also spoil you to the point where you’re like, you know what? Screw this. I might as well just stay home because there’s $20 here for me to go watch the same movie in theater, and I don’t have to spend $30 or $40 in gas. I don’t have to spend money to eat out on. I have all my food here, so it’s a convenient thing. But I also get it for people that have kids and can’t go to the theater and how convenient it is. who has kids and how convenient it is. I get it from a parent standpoint because I’m also a parent too. But at the same time, though, there’s nothing like going to a movie. I don’t know how old your kids are, but are you going to take them to the equivalent of seven when they’re 10 years old? My daughter would be traumatized. She’s 20 years old, but she would be traumatized because she doesn’t like anything like that. So…
Well, she did like it, I guess. Right. Now, my 11-year-old, he’s autistic and stuff, and I’m just waiting for him to have his own personality, in a sense, to where he’s going into a little bit of the pop culture kind of thing. Yeah. To where I can take him to a theater and watch a movie or whatever, because we tried to take him to go see the new Spider-Man at one time, and it wasn’t good. It didn’t work out. It didn’t work out too well. But I’m hoping as he gets older and everything, I can do more with him when it comes down to that. Well, it’s pretty noisy. I mean, movie theaters are, you know, historically they attack your senses when you’re, I mean, that’s the whole point of it, right? Is to be, to, to see these things that you cannot see in real life and have things happen that don’t happen in real life. And then the sound is overpowering sometimes. And,
And so, yeah, I could see where that would be kind of tough if you’re not into it. Exactly. Yeah. So what do you think things are going then? I mean, you’ve obviously had some good success and so forth. Do you have like plans for the future? Okay. So my goal is for this year is to do better on shorts. Okay. Because I’m also producing and directing Rossi’s channel, though, to her YouTube channel and her audio podcast. But my goals are to do a better job at being organized. Not only organized, but also doing shorts more, doing clip outs, attaching shorts and also clip outs to long form content on YouTube and also to book more guests on the show. But as far as my goals for 2025, my thing is I want to have I want to make this my career. And we have a Patreon and stuff like that. But I try to reformat it. I try to do different things with it and nothing is hitting. And so the intermission stuff that I used to do is now just going to be just putting it on to the audio podcast now. So until I figure out what else I’m going to do.
Because I like to evolve it. I like to change things. But my other main thing is I want to book more guests like Coleman Domingo and Richard Elfman. I like having celebs on a little bit. But here’s the thing. I deal with a lot of indie films and short films to the point where I’m like, I’ll take that too. I’ll take anything just to help other people to get their voice out and their movies out there. Because I don’t know if you’ve seen my latest interview with Jason Pitts for their film or anything. I had a five panel show on doing an interview for that one. Cool. No, I haven’t seen that. I’ll be honest with you. But that’s interesting. So it really is branching in a way.
I mean, obviously, but you’re still kind of staying true to the roots of everything. Exactly. Like, I’ll go outside my roots a little bit. Matter of fact, I actually ended up interviewing Matt Barnes, for example, an NBA player who had his documentary out on the Holly Shorts Film Festival. So I got in touch with his publicist, and I’m not expecting anything. I’m like, hey, I would like to actually interview Matt for his documentary film. I’d like to also have a screener for it. Next thing you know, they’re like, yeah, absolutely. So they let me have it. They let me have the… They sent it over to me. Booking Matt was hard. That’s probably one of the hardest things to do, including Coleman. I felt like I was actually on a dating app with Coleman, though, because of the fact that I felt like I was ghosted because pop publicists and stuff like that. It was like two or three months since I’ve heard anything back. Next thing you know, it’s like, hey, are you still interested in Coleman?
being on the interview, I said yes. Because Coleman also was interested in coming on this thing anyways because he was actually my first celebrity that followed me on Twitter. Oh, okay. So he’s familiar then, yeah. Right. And also, too, whenever i was tweeting at him about his film, he liked it, he retweeted it, and then he’s like and then i was like, Mr. Coleman, I would like to interview you. He goes, yes, absolutely. so He goes, reach out to my publicist. So I reached out to his publicist. I don’t hear anything for about three months. I’m like, OK, maybe this is not happening. Yeah. Then, you know, a couple of months later, I wind up having him on. So and I want to tell this to people that are listening. I’m like, just because you don’t hear anything back doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. It’s just certain people are busy. And just because we keep to a schedule and this is normalization for us to have a schedule.
Especially when we work a 9-to-5 job, right? For them, they work 24-7, basically, in a sense. And the publicist has to keep up with their schedule for them. So it’s a lot harder for them to keep track of stuff. So I just tell people, hey, look, if you want to reach out to anybody that I network with, you’re just going to have to be patient. And with Matt, I was texting them back and forth. And I went outside my roots a little bit, like I said, with sports. Like, dude, I had a power slap actor on last year that was part of sports. I also had… And also he was an actor. I always try to make sure that whoever I have on is also connected in with movies and also an actor or whatever. So if that’s what their passion is in sports, I want to make sure that they’re actually for my brand. So…
Get this. I actually had another… I had a tennis player that used to play in the Challenger circuit. He’s also a sports doctor. Oh, okay. And he was in the movie Challengers. Interesting. And so I had him on the show. We were talking about the Olympics. We were talking about different things. So I like the fact that I went a little bit outside my circle and outside my comfort zone a little bit to talk about something different that I don’t normally do. So that’s what I try to… push myself every year is try to do something different and try to expand on it. Yeah. The interesting thing I think is celebrities and so forth are like contractors. You know, a contractor, you get a hold of them and they’re, yeah, I’ll come over and fix whatever. And then they, you don’t hear from them for a month because something else came up. And so, you know, it’s always like that, right? Because they’re basically going to the, they have to jump from thing to thing in order to keep everything rolling.
Um, they can’t always just say, yeah, Friday, I’m all yours because Friday, maybe something else happens that they have to go do. So, yeah, it’s interesting. Exactly. That’s wild. Well, that’s interesting. So, well, you know, um, the, I, obviously I think you’re doing great. I’ve, I’ve watched from afar and obviously, you know, thank you for letting me be a part of, uh, your show a couple of times. It was fantastic. And, uh, you know, the, the, And it’s interesting to me that you’re so focused. I mean, so many people, to just be honest, a lot of people, this is very hobbyist. And so they’re not as focused as you are. You obviously have a goal in mind and you’re working on ways to reach that goal. And if it means to learn something or do something different or try this or try that, you’re obviously all in for it. So, you know, kudos to you for being so determined.
uh, at, uh, pulling this all together. Thank you, man. I do appreciate it. Yeah. It doesn’t have, everybody doesn’t do it, you know? Right. And, um, I want to point this out though, too, like with the intermission stuff, I don’t know if you ever listened to any of those shows. Yeah. Uh, I, I have a, uh, intermission. Yeah. I have listened to those, you know, a couple of them, not all of them, obviously, but you know, right. Exactly. I have a, I have a big catalog. I’m sorry. It’s just goes to show you I’m a workaholic. Um, but, You know, with the intermission, the idea was like this. I was listening to another podcast. They had this other side show called Brunch. So I’m like, you know what? That’s an interesting idea. Why don’t I just take their idea and mesh it into something different? So I was like, what can I do that is different that doesn’t say the word brunch on it? And I know that intermission used to be a thing with movies. Right, yeah.
So I’m like, okay, let’s just take a break. Let’s just picture me and you, and this is actually how I used to introduce the show. I was like, picture me and you waiting in line, and we’re talking about our top five movies, or if we’re talking about the new Eminem album, or the new Avenged Sevenfold album, or just a mixtape of something. That’s basically what intermission is. It’s just taking a time out from the norm and talking about geeking out about different things. Yeah, that’s good. That’s cool. Thank you, man. The crazy thing is the most played episode wasn’t even a movie-related episode last year. Oh, really? What was it? It was actually the Eminem Marshall Mathers LP. Oh, okay. So I’m like… Go figure. Right. That’s always the hard part. To me, this is the hardest part of all this is… I mean, it’s hard to obviously keep…
doing content and so forth. But one of the things is you see something like that happen, right? So you see this peak on this topic and you’re like, why, why that topic? You know what I mean? Amongst all of this stuff that’s going on, why did that, you know, why was that gravitated to more than all this other, you know, quality stuff that you would think would be a And it just, it’s constantly, I mean, obviously it’s one of those, the mysteries of the world, I suppose, but why that, that happens. And, and I know you can analyze it to, you know, kingdom come, but do you, how do you deal with that? So you saw that, you saw the peak on that. And then a lot of people would just be like, okay, now from now on, it’s going to M&M stuff. And obviously that’s the thing. Yeah.
That’s not what I’m about. I’m not about music. I’m not like music lovers unite or music hip-hop lovers unite or anything. It was just one of those things where I did two Eminem reviews. Well, maybe three. I did three Eminem reviews because it was just something that me and my guests felt like we needed to do. And we didn’t even have a clue that he was even coming out with a new album up until later on. So we did the Marshall Mathers LP. Then we followed up with the Slim Shady LP. Then after that, it was actually The Death of Slim Shady. And after that, we didn’t do any more Eminem reviews. Oh, I was going to say, then you did 8 Mile. No, I’m kidding. No, but it might be tempting. But I have thought about doing the 8 Mile review, though, for the movie. But when I see numbers like that, I laugh at it. I’m like, really? Yeah. All these movies I reviewed, you don’t want to hear me talk bitch and moan about…
my take on movies or anything, you want me to talk about this. But in order for you to talk about this, you also have to go ahead and get me with movies too. So when I see numbers like that, I’m like, okay, cool. I crushed it on that, but I don’t need to follow it up with anything else. I’m going to go on ahead. I’ll do best movie. Get this. I actually did an NFL draft style game for intermission. It was like the best Leonardo DiCaprio movies. And what we did was we picked 16 movies out of this thing and we did like an NFL draft. And with me and my guests talked about each movie that That movie was, but we don’t talk about the performance. We talked about Rewatch ability relate ability and stuff like that. And we come out with the winner that way and the service would be we actually had what guilt what’s eating Gilbert grape and
landed on our list twice because we actually did land out of the after land of the caprio we did johnny Depp. Oh, okay. There you go. Crossover. Right. So basically we made um what’s eating gilbert grape have a rematch and the johnny depp round. How did it do? It did pretty good for the numbers for a little bit. I like that movie. John C. Reilly as well john c reilly yeah what’s um Matter of fact, I did that movie part of mental health. I actually did a whole review on, um, what’s eating Gilbert grape when I was first starting out. So if you look at through my backlogs and stuff, you can actually find that episode. And I did a review on that. It was, uh, when I was doing mental health month. Okay. And doing a mental health movies. I did one flew over the cuckoo’s nest. I’ve done, uh, what’s eating Gilbert. Great. I’ve done a lot of these mental health topic movies that I thought was really good because I wanted,
And I still do. I wanted to actually be a salt of light for other people. So I was like, okay, I want to do something impactful. So I did like four movies on mental health. Yeah. Interesting. Well, everybody you see on the screen there, redcircle.com slash shows slash movie dash lovers dash unite. John D. Gregorio. He loves movies, and he always has, apparently. Yeah. And you can listen to him at Movie Lovers Unite. And then, obviously, I guess you go… Do you still host the Facebook group? Are you still doing all that work, too? I’m still doing… I still have a Facebook movie page on Facebook. Yeah. I still have that. I have Instagram. I got TikTok, which… you know, that’s not going to be a thing anymore, but I still have everything. I still have it. If you’re saying bye-bye to TikTok here in less than a week. Yeah. Right. Which sucks because I took me a year to get a thousand and 32 followers. And now all that work is for, was nothing. It’s like for gays. It may, it may have a reprieve, so don’t worry too much about it. But yeah, man, I’m still keeping busy on my, uh,
movie you’re super busy. Oh my gosh i i scan through stuff on on the different socials and you’re always got stuff. Always got stuff. And I’m just like, man, this guy’s just all over it, you know? I can’t keep up on my side of things. Before we close out, because i know we’re about to, but i want to mention this real quick sure too is if i i feel like if i don’t do a show, if i don’t post something. I’m doing a disservice to my followers. I’m doing a disservice to my subscribers. And a disservice to my listeners if i don’t have something. Because there’s a reason why they subscribe. There’s a reason why they’re there it’s like like for example if you i always use this analogy, right? Let’s say, for instance, you signed up for direct tv and you only had a basic, let’s say you only have, yeah, you have a you have a channel you may have like three or four channels, but guess what?
there’s nothing on them, then what’s the point? Right, right. True. So with that, I just feel like I need to do something instead of nothing. And I also have a thing saying if you’re not growing, you’re dying. So I have that need of wanting to do something. And it’s never for the sake of doing something. It’s always for a reason. And i’m gonna keep doing this until it stops being fun. Yeah. Well, fantastic. And everybody stop by and take a look. And, uh, I mean, you’re crushing it. Thank you. And getting it all done. And thank you, man. Um, a matter of fact, I just released a new episode called with practical magic. We did a re i did that with fiction fixation podcast. I did that review the other night and that’s out on the audio
I also got my Squid Game Season 2 review that I’m dropping soon. I saw that. I saw you had a blurb about that today. I think I saw that. Yeah. So, yeah. Have you finished all of Squid Game 2, by the way? Yeah, all of it is done. Here’s the funny thing, though, too, that you’re going to laugh your ass off on. The first season, I only reviewed the first three episodes. Oh, yeah? And it had, like, 246 downloads. Yeah. And so, yeah. season two was pretty good. Season two was good. It started off kind of slow at first i’m like i’m like should i become invested into this? I don’t know if i want to do this. Then once you get past episode four, I’m like, okay, I’m sold. Yeah. No, it was it was they they did it they did it differently than it wasn’t just a rehash of the first season. That’s the important thing exactly it’s not not a rehash. We won’t go into the spoilers or anything. No, absolutely. That’s what my show’s for the
yes right check it out with, the movie lovers unite. John D Gregorio. Thank you so much for being here. And, uh, and you know, we’ll be watching. All right. Thanks, Bob. I appreciate you having me on. I do appreciate it. Hold on a sec.