Johnny Oleksinski (2:24)

Do you.

Miranda Devine (2:25)

Do you abuse your power?

Johnny Oleksinski (2:27)

No, I never abuse my power. I am just 100% honest. Also, I. I think we all read critics who you can kind of tell didn't really like something, and they. And they sort. They. They talk around it. They're overly kind. But I would say I don't write for the people that put on Broadway shows or make movies. I write for readers. And the real people that are coming to see them. So I just want my totally honest opinion to be out there.

Miranda Devine (2:59)

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that's why I think your reviews are so worth reading. Because, I mean, you and I don't often agree on movies, even though we're friends. And there was one in particular, it was. It's the latest Leo DiCaprio, one battle after the other, that has just had the most rave reviews. It's nominated, I think, for seven Golden Globes. Big buzz that it's going to be, you know, best film, the Oscars, et cetera. And that turned me off initially anyway, but. And I hadn't read your review. I'm sorry. I normally do, but I watched it with my husband and hated it. And we switched off halfway through, and you told me, oh, I loved it and sent me your review, which I read. And suddenly everything shifted because you just have a way of introducing people and making people understand what the movie's about. So last night, went back, started watching the second half, and everything was different. I thought, oh, I can tolerate this movie. I didn't love it, but I understood it more and I appreciated it more. So let's talk about that. Like, it's been a huge flop at the box office. And honestly, I wouldn't. If it wasn't for you, I would never have persevered. I was turned off in the first five minutes. But why? Like, I know you thought it was a great movie, but it doesn't resonate with audiences. And there's, you know, just to start with, the. The swearing in it is, like, so I know swearing's all big, and I'm not offended. I swear myself. But it's just unreal. Like, every second word is just foul language. And I think that turns off a lot of people. Why is Hollywood seeming to do its best to turn off regular Americans?

Johnny Oleksinski (4:57)

Well, first of all, I wish that your quotes were on movie posters because I tolerated it. Miranda Devine. That might sell a lot of tickets. Well, one, I do think that this movie is overrated. Don't get me wrong. I gave it three and a half stars. I love the director, Paul Thomas Anderson. The action elements of it are very cool. All the performances are great. But you're right. People are writing about it like it's the second coming. And that. That I don't get it. Probably. It is steamrolling right to the Oscars. It's winning all these awards. I don't understand why it is winning all these awards. So I agree with you.

Miranda Devine (5:33)

Well, I think it's Political. I think it's because it's anti ice and it's like seeming to glorify antifa, which is these revolutionaries. It's just because of the moment. I think it just gets grasp politically. But as you say, it's a little more complex than that. A little bit more morally ambiguous.

Johnny Oleksinski (5:52)

Yeah, Hollywood is totally detached from what people want to see. It's. It's remarkable. So it is a big flop. Part of the reason it's a big flop is because it cost about 130 million to make. And a movie needs to make much more than just what it costs to make because then you spend another 100, 150 million on top of that marketing it and flying Leonardo DiCaprio in first class to Paris for big premieres. And this one capped out at about 200. So at best it would break even maybe. And it didn't do very well over here. It only did 70 million. Most of its money is overseas. It is, it's a difficult movie to describe it. I won't. It doesn't glorify domestic terrorists, but it sympathizes with domestic terrorists. And you tell 80% of people that and they go, I, you know, they don't say pass the popcorn. People don't want to see the, the nice domestic terrorist movie. I do my best when I review. And this was a directive an editor gave me a long time ago saying, you know, you don't need to put your politics in it because people at the New York Times are putting politics into reviews all the time in a rather obnoxious, off putting way. But if I just come down to craft and entertainment. Was it entertaining? That's what I try to do. But you are right, it is a very, very, very vulgar movie. And when a movie like this wins best picture it's telling average people that they'll probably enjoy it and not that it'll align with their moral code, but they're. It's a big endorsement of movie. And I think a lot of people will be very surprised when they hear the words coming out of the characters mouths in one battle after another. Yeah, that's right.

Miranda Devine (7:45)

So I wanted us to talk today about this. The year gone by in terms of entertainment and culture and a little bit of a look forward to 2026. So the year of the Hollywood flops. I think we would have to call 2025 one battle after the other. But what are some of the. The worst and the best?

Johnny Oleksinski (8:10)

Well, it's been a big year for flops and actually it's getting Almost routine for me to say it. I miss when I could say the year of the hits, but I'm not writing that very much. And it's everything. It's everything. It is so adult fare, the sort of stuff that you and I would have gone to in the. In the 90s, you know, like a shock a lot or something like that. People don't want to pay to leave their house to see movies along those lines anymore. That's that to them. That's Netflix, that's Hulu. I'll wait till it comes to tv. So they keep making them and they keep losing millions of dollars. So Kiss of the Spider Woman, the $50 million musical with Jennifer Lopez, is just sort of adding to her career. Low after low. I think, you know, J. Lo can't get any lower. It's just an unsalvageable career. And she was thinking, I saw the world premiere that at the Sundance Film Festival, and you could see her eyes welling up and she, oh, this is going to be my Oscar moments. And you own that. The words Kiss of the Spider Woman on nominations day will not be uttered once. But poor JLo two best of JLo in the millions. Oh, it's. Well, it's based on a Broadway musical that I like. And people probably remember the film in 1986, Kiss of the Spider Woman and the novel. And I just thought when I was watching it, it looked like I was watching her perform on a miniature golf course. It looks so cheap. And that's the other thing. You're going to have people spend $30 a ticket on something that looks cheap and awful. Another movie that massively underperformed was the Smashing Machine, which is an MMA fighting movie with Dwayne the Rock Johnson, another one that cost about 100 million. And common wisdom has been that the Rock is one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, often the highest paid star in Hollywood. And. But people want to see him be fun. They want to see the Rock in Jumanji or Jungle Cruise. They don't want to see the Rock try his hand at very serious acting. And he was good. He was fine. But no one wanted to see that movie. But even the big budget stuff, five years ago, Marvel was the talk of the town, right? That was almost the entire reason cinemas existed was to show Marvel movies. And the big ones this year, Captain Brave New World, which was a war crime. It was tantamount to torture. And it made 200 million, which is peanuts from Marvel. So there's superhero fatigue. There's serious films geared towards adult Fatigue. The only thing that seems to be working is family. Family movies. So Lilo and Stitch, the remake that made over a billion, the Minecraft movie made over a billion. Zootopia 2, those are the hits. But smart, well made, well crafted movies. They've just been used by tv.

Miranda Devine (11:04)

Right. So you don't think it's because average Americans just turned off cinema because it got so woke and preachy? And I mean, the impact, I think, of seeing the Oscar now, the Oscar rules, where you have to have, you know, a certain percentage of black actors and transgender and disabled, et cetera, or crew is. It's sort of evident in the formulaic way the movies now seem to be the new ones. Is that part of it or is that just me adding a political lens to things?

Johnny Oleksinski (11:44)

No, that's part of it. It's a post. Post 2020 was sort of perfect storm. You had people not wanting to leave their homes, and then a lot of very wealthy people in Los Angeles wanting to pat themselves on the back aggressively and not be canceled. You know, so much that happens in Hollywood and on Broadway is just an effort to not be canceled. So they did just start churning out films to check a box rather than to entertain or delight or move. And sometimes I read the descriptions of these and I fall asleep midway through the paragraph. And so you're right, Hollywood has been turning on a lot of woke stuff, and they're just so behind the population that really has lost all interest in that. Everybody, everybody just wants to be entertained. They do. A friend of mine in Canada works at a theater, and they did a big survey asking what people would like to see, what is their number one criteria for going to a show. And it was unanimously entertainment. People don't want to be preached to or lectured to or What Hollywood does a lot is admonish.

Miranda Devine (13:04)

I mean, for light relief. I then watched J. Kelly, George Clooney's latest movie, which is, you know, I mean, it's just pleasant. It's not. He's a great actor. He's not a great actor, but he looks good. And he's certainly, you know, he pretty much played himself. So he's, He's. He eats up the screen. He's easy to watch. It was a pleasant. Had a lot of nice scenery in Europe and so on. And it kind of doesn't challenge you, which I think sometimes that's all you want.

Johnny Oleksinski (13:37)

You and I, as you said at the start, we do disagree on movies a lot.

Miranda Devine (13:42)

And you hated J. Kelly.

Johnny Oleksinski (13:44)

The problem with J. Kelly and George Clooney in that movie is. Hollywood loves to make movies about itself. As though we're so interested in the inner work, in the Sapali work and George Clooney. That was celebrity navel gazing on a, on a massive scale. I, I couldn't believe that. And I, I sort of was over what the story was about very quickly and I felt ahead of the story. I loved Billy Crudup in it though. I thought he was fantastic.

Miranda Devine (14:14)

Yeah. And Adam Sandler was pretty good.

Johnny Oleksinski (14:17)

Oh yeah. And Adam Sandler, that, see that, that's a man that makes movies that people want to see almost routine. Everything he makes. Happy Gilmore 2 wasn't terrific, but I have more people asking me about Happy Gilmore 2, certainly, than one battle after another.

Miranda Devine (14:32)

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can't see J. Kelly winning best film or doing particularly well, but I can't imagine it was that expensive. And it was just a nice relief. And then of course there was F1 with Brad Pitt, which was another just, you know, mainstream like, no preachiness, no wokery. I didn't particularly like it that much, but my husband loved it because he loves racing. And I think you liked it.

Johnny Oleksinski (14:59)

I did. And if you go back to best picture lineups from the 70s, you look at 19, 1977 and you have Star wars and Rocky in the best picture line of the five movies. And I can't picture today this year, if you look at the Golden Globe nominations, and this might sound a bit jingoistic, but there's five Golden Globe nominated films in the top categories that are foreign language films and some of them are good, some are massively overrated. No one that watches the Golden Globes will see any of those movies. They just won't see them. So you go, what is the point of making us turn on a TV show and watch it? Honoring movies that no one will ever see and kind of telling us that they'd rather shove Hollywood aside at these shows that ostensibly are designed to promote and present what Hollywood has on offer. Now we're getting what Iran and Norway have on offer. They have their own born shows. It's very bizarre to me. And. But then something like F1, which even if you didn't like it, it's very well made. I think the character arcs are moving big, appealing. It's not challenging, but it's also not stupid. And I don't see why they didn't make room for something like that that many, many people went to see. Many people liked. But Hollywood turns their nose up it popular entertainment.

Miranda Devine (16:36)

Well, therein lies the problem. And you know, I. I think the Golden Globes favoring all these foreign films this year is an indictment on Hollywood Fair. Really. It's. I mean, as much I know, they're the foreign. They're all foreign reviewers, but foreign judges. But still, it's very hard. I mean, I talk to everyone in this room right now, everyone in the crew, and they. We were just talking before about it's very hard to find a movie that gets you out of the house and go to the cinema, whereas we used to go, you know, at least once, once a week.

Johnny Oleksinski (17:13)

Yeah. I do a weekly radio spot on wor. And it's always made very apparent from the reader message or the listener messages that I am always the first they'd heard of any of these movies. It's not. Gosh, that's my. It's. My entire career is keeping abreast and seeing all this stuff. And then I, you know, really. The release date comes, the award shows come, and the host just goes down the list. I haven't seen that one. Haven't seen that one. Haven't seen that one. And I can't blame them. You know, also, these are tiny movies playing in a handful of theaters around the country. It's impossible for people in. In Iowa or, you know, Little Rock or to see them because they don't come to their communities. So it's very much a coastal thing, too.

Miranda Devine (17:56)

And it's not xenophobia, because Parasite, the Korean movie, did one, I think, best picture in the Academy Awards and was hugely popular.

Johnny Oleksinski (18:06)

I think part of that is that director Bong Joon Ho is great. I read when he took the stage at the Oscars and gave a beautiful speech. He said his biggest inspiration in filmmaking is Martin Scorsese. So you have this. This South Korean filmmaker being inspired by the best and most entertaining of Hollywood and American directors. And so that's.

Miranda Devine (18:27)

And it was a great movie.

Johnny Oleksinski (18:29)

Oh, excellent movie. And it actually had a very Hollywood sensibility. And how there was something pretentious about it was just so exciting and unpredictable, scary, funny. He makes movies that people want to go see, though. He did. He even had a big flop this year with Mickey17, which started out the year. So after Parasite, they handed him $200 million and said, oh, go make us a big. Another big hit. Didn't work out that way.

Miranda Devine (18:56)

Is that the problem, too, is just too much money and there's so much at stake that there's hardly anyone will make in Hollywood will take a risk. You know, they just do the, you know, the seventh iteration of the Marvel movie.

Johnny Oleksinski (19:11)

Sometimes I don't know about you, but sometimes I go to the theater and I usually fully know what the budgets were or where they are around, and you look at it and you go, wow, this looks really kind of cheap. Or the special effects have a kind of a screensaver look to them and you find out that it costs 250 million to make it. There is a movie on Netflix. Oh, my gosh. I coming on here, I'm getting. I'm getting PTSD from my year just having to remember it. But there's a movie on Netflix called the Electric State. And as Millie Bobby Brown, who used to be a teenager and now is somehow 47 years old. So it has Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt in it. It is abysmal. It is dire. It costs $320 million to make. $320 million. It is the most expensive movie ever made, and everyone hated it and nobody's heard of it. But you watch it and you think, how did this. How did this cost? The same as Avatar? Where are you spending this? Was it production delays? Was it $320 million worth of unnecessary N95 masks? What was it?

Miranda Devine (20:21)

Yes.

Johnny Oleksinski (20:22)

So I do think they need to figure out how to spend money in a prudent and practical way, because they can't just keep inflating these budgets. We won't have movies anymore.

Miranda Devine (20:33)

I think they should spend money on writers because that seems to be the big problem. They don't have good plots, they don't have good dialogue. A lot of them, you know, Leon DiCaprio improvised a lot of his dialogue in one battle after the other, and he is brilliant.

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Miranda Devine (21:21)

All right, so movies aside, it's not been a great year for Hollywood. But what about Broadway?

Johnny Oleksinski (21:28)

Well, to me, what defined this year on Broadway was how astronomical, wildly astronomical ticket prices have become.

Miranda Devine (21:36)

Yeah.

Johnny Oleksinski (21:37)

And I got into a little. A little scrape this year because of it. And there. There was so. And this was one of many shows, but there was Othello starring Denzel Washington. And I did. Oh, this is really scrappy journalism. I did. I went to the website and clicked tickets and saw the prices. I said, wow, a balcony seat for $900 to sit in the balcony of a Shakespeare play. And I wrote a column about it saying this. Broadway is being overtaken by these celebrity vanity projects that are often mediocre and are making people mortgage their home to go. To go fall asleep during. And it wasn't just at Bellow. There was Good Night and Good Luck with George Clooney, which was fine. And also the. There was the David Mamet play Glengarry Glen Ross with Kieran Culkin and Bob Odenkirk. And those tickets were.

Miranda Devine (22:34)

People paid for those?

Johnny Oleksinski (22:36)

They did.

Miranda Devine (22:36)

I mean, they were hard to get the tickets.

Johnny Oleksinski (22:38)

Yeah, they did pay for them. And the argument in favor of it is those are also the only shows right now that are making money. And you go, how could you not be if you're paying $900 to sit in double D in the balcony? Yeah, but there is a demand for stars. But I think it's a bad precedent to set. I believe it's destroying the industry entirely because now producers have caught. It's sort of a band aid to an ailing. An ailing business, which Broadway shows cost enormous amounts of money to put on. If you go see the musical Death Becomes her, that costs $35 million. That is six times 35.

Miranda Devine (23:17)

How much?

Johnny Oleksinski (23:18)

$35 million. So that's seven times more than the budget of the movie. And Nora is how much it costs just to put on Death Becomes Her. And so people are afraid to invest in Broadway musicals because they know their. When you go see a Broadway musical, you're pretty much watching a bonfire of money. You're never gonna never get into that. So instead they go, well, the safe thing would be let's convince Leonardo DiCaprio to star in Streetcar Named Desire. We don't know if it'll be any good, but people will go. They'll spend whatever they spend, and then soon we won't have new musicals and we don't have new plays because we're giving all the theaters to this. It's a bubble that's going to. It's going to burst. We're at a point now where we're watching Keanu Reeves. You're waiting for Good. That's. That's where Broadway is.

Miranda Devine (24:10)

Yeah, yeah. It's a totally different genre. I guess movies have. Have given over to television and now stars are finding, as you say, vanity projects on Broadway. And why not? They get paid a lot of money. But it is sad because that whole tradition, you know, New York's beating heart is Broadway, and it suffered a lot through Covid. Is this partly a reaction to what happened in Covid and trying to recoup.

Johnny Oleksinski (24:43)

Their money a little bit, also to bring it back to wokeness when theaters reopened in 2021 after far too prolonged closure, which they'll look back on. All of this people will look back on with enormous regret with. So when the theaters reopened, they started doing these plays that were so unappealing and so bad and rushed out just to sort of make. Make their point. And it turned off audiences very quickly, and people didn't go see these plays. And Broadway got this reputation for being kind of a place that ladles you some spinach, which is not what people want to spend hundreds of dollars on. So there was that. Plus the costs went up during COVID and the unions kept demanding more and more money, more and more concessions. So shows that really should be costing 20 million are costing $10 million more than they should. And nobody knows how to fix it because none of them will take blame. They just keep blaming each other and asking for more money.

Miranda Devine (25:50)

So what would you do, Johnny O, if you could wave a magic wand?

Johnny Oleksinski (25:55)

And I mean this in the most unreal way possible. It kind of needs to be burnt down and emerge from the ashes. I want Broadway to succeed. I encourage people to see the shows if they want to go see them, but they need to learn a lesson. And they're being taught a lesson by themselves right now with all these shows closing and not succeeding. So I think we need to rein in budgets. There's things like the stagehands union. I'm sure you've seen shows where they take rows of seats out or they take all the seats out. Sometimes they'll say, oh, another show that wants to do that could come in. Right after they did that with Cabaret, they removed all the seats and they built a cool thing, and then another show wanted it. But the stagehand union requires that they have to be paid to put all the seats back in first and then be paid again to take them out again. So you kind of see all these added costs from organized labor that are un. They're just simply unnecessary.

Miranda Devine (27:05)

Now, we. We were chatting about the Olivia Nuzzi drama that happened. This is the journalist from, I think, latterly at the Vanity Fair, formerly the New Yorker, who had an affair, some sort of an affair with Bobby Kennedy Jr. And, and it's become a huge drama because she's written a book about it and her ex boyfriend or her ex fiance has written a multi series sub series Substack that's like gone off the charts and I think it's the seventh most red thing on Substack and it's really been a gripping drama, albeit real people being hurt here. I think you said that it would be a best film movie if, if it was made into a movie.

Johnny Oleksinski (28:02)

Oh, I love it. I love it so much. And the Post is a very entertaining newspaper. And when I would flip to the pages about the Olivia Nutzy scandal about Nutsegate, it was like I was reading the entertainment section. It has it all. It has media intrigue, politics, those awful, awful Kennedys. It has everything in it. Sex, glamour and characters you love to hate. So many characters you love to hate. And I'm sure that book is an appalling piece of writing. It's extremely self indulgent, has very little to say. She said in that New York Times interview that she wrote much of it on her phone, which is actually quite plausible.

Miranda Devine (28:48)

When you read it, it looks like.

Johnny Oleksinski (28:50)

It that she maybe went on a jog and said, siri, take this down.

Miranda Devine (28:56)

Or lying in bed at night angsting.

Johnny Oleksinski (28:58)

Exactly. And I don't know if you ever turn on Hulu or Netflix and see these sort of ripped from the headlines shows that they, they rush to production. Like doing the, you know, the Murdoch murders down in South Carolina. They made, yeah, you know, a bunch of shows off of that. While this is, while Olivia's kind of a nothing burger. Oh, I bet they're going to make so many miniseries out of it and I can't wait. That's a very good kind of pour yourself a glass of trashy tale.

Miranda Devine (29:30)

Yeah. I mean, when reality is more exciting than what you're seeing in Hollywood, it's pretty sad. But this story had it all. And I think her book American Canto has not been a success at all. I don't think it sold many copies. It was I think 30,000 on Amazon when I last looked, but. And it's terribly written. But she is a good writer and she, she seems to think that journalism is. She just puts her heart and soul into it, let's say, and seems to keep falling in love with these presidential candidates that she has to cover. And it's shocking for journalism, it's very unethical and she won't work as a journalist again. But it's amazing for human interest entertainment I guess.

Johnny Oleksinski (30:22)

Well, it is. It is shocking for journalism, and as entertaining and fun as it is. But what do we hear repeatedly, all the time? That the public has lost faith and trust in American media and in journalists and the likes of you. And I go, no, please, please trust us. We're doing it. We're acting in your best interest. And then someone like Olivia waltzes in and we find out that she's having relations. I sound like I'm Bill Flintan on the podium. Having relations with these various politicians who she's supposed to be holding to power. It's unfortunate. And you're right, she is talented. When she was working for New York magazine, she came into it late, like many of the liberal media did. But that piece she wrote about Joe Biden being a doddering fool when she went to that Christmas party, remember, they'd met 20 times before and he looked at her, they'd never seen each other. And that was when she realized that he just wasn't quite there. It was a very, very good piece. It made a lot of waves. I'm glad she wrote it. But if you're going to be hooking up with governors and telling RFK that his nose is the favorite part of his body, it's time to choose a.

Miranda Devine (31:45)

Different career and worse, the love poems that he had. And it's very sad for his lovely wife, Cheryl Hines, I think very humiliating and, and good on her. But I think, you know, Ryan Lizza, Olivia Nuzzi's former fiance, has also uncovered a whole lot of other unethical allegations, he claims, about Olivia Nuzzi. And one of them was, she said, he said, how did you get that off the record conversation into the, the magazine? And she said, I, Michael Wolfed it, which is a fabulous new verb, but it's right. Michael Wolff has made millions of dollars sort of acting as a quasi journalist writer. But, you know, as, as a professional author and journalist, I guess he's managed to get a lot of rich and famous people to talk to him and do biographies and, and so on, and then he just makes up quotes and he gets away with it. He told someone that his house, one of his books on Trump, he got a house in the Hamptons out of it. So why Trump trusts these people, I don't know. But Michael Wolff is another one who's really besmirched the good name of such as it was, of journalists. And I, I can't blame the public for thinking that we're all liars and cheats and stay a million miles away from us.

Johnny Oleksinski (33:27)

And we give into it. You think about Michael Wolf's books where say someone told him that, what is it that Trump threw a cheeseburger at the wall. So he hears this from somebody and then he will write dialogue to go with something he's heard second or third hand and turns it into a kind of novel, a loose, loosely, loosely, loosely based on semi fax novel. And then we pick up these excerpts or find the splashiest headline in the book and make it into a legitimate news story as though somewhere like the New York Times, as though they put 16 journalists on it when they've just sort of read a hacks quickly vomited out book. And we do it because it gets clicks, but it just makes the public get further and further away from trusting us. And then they turn to, they'd rather turn to places like Pod Force One than the New York Times deep dive into the Michael Wolf book.

Miranda Devine (34:35)

And so Olivia Nuzi was one of the big cultural pop during the year. And what were, what, what was another one that caught your eye? Oh gosh, the late night shows.

Johnny Oleksinski (34:49)

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Miranda Devine (34:49)

Death of Late night. Yeah.

Johnny Oleksinski (34:51)

Well, this is it. It's so fun to me because so I love, and I'm gonna say I love late night tv. It's a, a rite of passage for American teenagers is when you realize you can stay up past 10 o' clock and watch funny comedians. And that's how it was in the 90s. That's how it was since Johnny Carson. That's something people used to do with their parents and made them feel like they were an adult. And everyone around in America would watch Johnny Carson and David letterman in the 80s and 90s. But now these guys are so political and unpleasant and unfunny that I can't stomach it anymore. And I've stopped watching them. And then when Stephen Colbert was canceled by cbs, everyone was saying, oh well, Trump did this. Which is a ridiculous thing to say. It is an obviously, obviously dying genre. I know if you go up to someone in Gen Z or Gen Alpha and you say, have you ever watched the Tonight show or the Late show, they're gonna get, they'll probably scare you like, you know, like deer. They, they have no connection to it. The way that people get their humor now is on, on x or on YouTube or Instagram because people can instantly make a joke about the news of the day and not have to wait 12 hours to tell it. And the people online are gonna be funnier than Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel. So I just think that they wind and wind and wind about, oh, Trump did this. No, the Colbert Report or the Late show with Stephen Colbert is hemorrhaging money. Of course it's gotta go. Jimmy Kimmel can't be doing much better when he made that nasty Charlie Kirk remark. It wasn't that Trump called him up. There was stations all around the country that didn't want to air the show. That is bad. He was briefly kicked off because there were many markets that don't want to watch him. And then I think ABC got cold feet, brought him back, renewed him for just one year. That's not a very big renewal in entertainment, is it? It's like you want it, you want to sign the two year lease. At least not the one year lease. So I just think we're done with it.

Miranda Devine (37:15)

Yeah, and that whole episode was pretty telling because, you know, again, it's like we're talking about Hollywood and Broadway where the sensibilities of those insiders making $100 million shows and massive salaries is so out of kilter with the way regular Americans act and think. You know, most Americans are kind and decent and friendly to their neighbors and think well of each other. Whereas this poisonous political Trump derangement syndrome mode that has seems to have gripped late night television and Hollywood and everywhere else in entertainment is destroying it, I think certainly not for themselves, but, but if they want any kind of a large audience, and you can see that with the ratings for Kimmel and Colbert, they're, they're spiraling down. And it makes me wonder why do the, their bosses keep paying the money?

Johnny Oleksinski (38:26)

Well, in the case of Stephen Colbert, they don't. And smartly so. Yeah, people act and they act as though it is absolutely necessary. And there's historical precedent to late night shows being almost all politics. And that's just not true. It's just not true. It started with the Daily show and the Daily show with Jon Stewart spawned, I mean, that's where Colbert came from. And then everyone started to copy it. I always admired Conan o' Brien for not going there, really. He wanted to do silly skits and the old kind of Carson Joe, he wanted to do Carnac, basically. That's what, that's what Conan wanted to do. Letterman toward the end, became a bit strident, but nothing like these guys. And I don't see the Daily show was popular, but it was a very, it was a creature of its time and it still is, and it has its niche audience, but it was on Comedy Central. The mainstream America didn't want a whole show of mean, spirited Political barbs. That's not when the whole idea of late night was you're getting into bed and you're ending your day with something light and watching a few stars chat and a few fun and monologue jokes, not, you know, msnbc. Who wants to go to bed watching msnbc?

Miranda Devine (39:51)

Well, that's why Greg Gutfeld on Fox has done so well. He's filled that gap and he's not really a right winger at all. He's, you know, libertarian and his guests, many are like that, but they poke fun at both sides and they just have a light hearted attitude that is, is exactly what you want at that time of night.

Johnny Oleksinski (40:16)

He's also a comic and it's, it's amusing that on what is a news network that you have a late night host that's more in the tradition of how they used to be, which is sort of stand up comedians and you watch the network ones and it's as though they're, you know, they're trying to get a spot on 60 Minutes. They think they're journalists when they're just silly clowns that we pay to make us laugh. So I think that Greg is all about the audience and that's what the Stephen Colbert's show they go on about, you know, oh, we have to speak truth to power. That is not what we're looking to the Late show and Jimmy Kimmel Live to do. So they're talking themselves out of a job. And in Colbert's case, he's already done it.

Miranda Devine (41:09)

Ah man. Couldn't happen sooner. May 2026. I don't know why they left Colbert so much time to go and pull the try. Maybe he's trying to keep his job.

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Miranda Devine (42:22)

And so that's the story really what you just said of the year is people neglecting their audience. And do you think if we look ahead to 20276 that there will be a shift with the content creators or the creatives towards paying attention to an audience and not being contemptuous of it?

Johnny Oleksinski (42:43)

Historically, that's what happens. Entertainment often learns its lessons. Some of our more glittering shows and fun movies can come during depressions or in post war moments because they sense the mood and the mood is that we want, you know, we want to smile and laugh and forget about all that darkness. That was the big miscalculation of COVID What did you want to do after Covid? You wanted to smile and laugh and have really good time. And Hollywood and Broadway said, wait just a minute, we're not going to. We refuse to let you have a good time. We need to open your book to chapter 16, you know, slap your wrist with the ruler. So if they're smart, if they're smart and they want to make money and they want to ensure an audience of the future, get young people seeing movies again, because they're not, they're on their phones and I can't blame them, then they need to start making more. They need to listen to the audience and learn from what's doing well. I thought the Barbenheimer moment was so telling that you. I hated Barbie. I think Barbie's a horrible, horrible movie. But it was a light cotton candy kind of thing. And Oppenheimer was just a very well made, big budget. You got to go to the theater to experience it. Film. And everyone thought, okay, the movies are back on their feet. Cinema is doing great. And it turns out they learned nothing from it. Absolutely nothing. That is still the last big moment at the movies and we haven't had anything else like it. So I'm not holding my breath that a lot of these imbeciles and dunces get their act together. I hope so. I like being employed and in order for me to be employed, they need to be making movies and Broadway shows that people want to read about. So far it's not looking great.

Miranda Devine (44:41)

Well, there is that lost generation that used to, you know, the Disney movies used to be an absolute success, instant hits and parents could take their kids along and be comfortable. And I think because again, the work ification, you know, introducing trans characters or trying to preach Trying to propagandize kids in that politically correct way has made parents very wary of Disney with some even accusing them of being pedophiles. And you know, it's gone right off the rails. They're. Their brand has suffered enormously and that's the way you breed the next generation of moviegoers and theater goers is by getting kids young in the theater with their parents. So do you see Disney reforming itself?

Johnny Oleksinski (45:33)

Disney is a big problem. Disney and it's a combo of factors. It's what you said where they take a cartoon and they go well let's use this scene, this cartoon to show that, you know, lesbian parents, which no one really is going to cartoons to learn anything about the political goings on of the day. And nobody really wants that in their Pixar movie. So that's a problem.

Miranda Devine (46:02)

Or Snow White becoming like a, a massive against the patriarchy feminists.

Johnny Oleksinski (46:09)

No, I, I don't even know why they remade Snow White. It's such a, it's, it's nice to go back and look at it. It's an old fangled, charming, very important part of Hollywood history. The first full length cartoon film in color. And that movie was just so off putting and poorly made.

Miranda Devine (46:30)

Yeah.

Johnny Oleksinski (46:30)

And of all the things to be to use to preach Snow White. You have to wonder what's going on in their brains. That there was a room full of people. It's not just one person. There's a room full of people that thought this was a great idea and they rubber stamped it and threw money at it and it was so misguided from top to bottom. But this is the other problem with Disney is they're so creatively bereft. They don't have truly inspired fun ideas. They take old ideas, they take their old properties, wring all the cash they can out of them and then try to get the media to like them by adding wokeness to them. So we'll just remake the old stuff and throw in some gay parents and hope for the best. And that's all they're doing. So I worry for Disney. A few years ago they were looking hot. They bought Marvel, they had Pixar, they bought Lucasfilm, so they had Star Wars, Indiana Jones. And then they told us that they were going to make 10 Star Wars TV series which I had an out of body experience when I heard that. It was so painful. But they misjudged the audience. People want great things. They want to go to something they know is really good. Not just familiar brands and just repeated ad Nauseam. And I'm not sure Disney is ready to accept that now.

Miranda Devine (48:00)

What do you think happens with the Warner Brothers Netflix Paramount deals? Is that going to shake up Hollywood? Make a difference to the fare we see, make it better?

Johnny Oleksinski (48:14)

I am hopeful. This story is turning out to be pretty fun too. Ever since Allison had as engaged in this hostile takeover bid on behalf of the CBS the thing, I wrote a column about this. I hate Netflix movies. I deeply, deeply hate Netflix movies. Every so often they make so many. Every so often there'll be a good one, of course. But for every, for every golden gem, there are about 100 turds on Netflix. And for those people to be in charge of Warner Brothers, which is probably the best movie studio we have left, what tends to happen is the, the person who acquires it becomes the dominant force. That's the dominant brand. And I don't want that one. I don't want Netflix to ruin or to ruin Warner Brothers films. And I still and everyone's going to please feel free to email me how wrong I am. I like going to the movie theater. I like that experience. Netflix doesn't care. They think that's dying and they want to make that experience die as soon as possible and quicken it because it benefits them. It means more subscribers for them. But you can't make movies like Avatar or a great new Star wars without the exhibiting part of the business. Subscriptions can't pay for those movies. And filmmakers who like a James Cameron, he doesn't want his movies to go straight to Netflix so then he'll just stop making them. So I don't want movie theaters to die. I want them to keep going. So if Netflix wins out, I think that will be very pressing for the future of Hollywood. Dangerous. I'd rather much, much, much rather see Paramount succeed because I think as a, as a, they have their heads on straight and they're committed to, they by the way, are very committed to making entertaining movies. We're getting a new Top Gun and I want that so hopefully it watches out that way or all the deals will fall through. President Trump has been very kind of non committal in remarks about it because people are trying to get in his mind about is he closer with Ted Sarandos or is he closer with, with Ellison at Paramount? And he won't, you know, he doesn't, he's not really letting his cards show.

Miranda Devine (50:44)

Avatar, that's a new, a remake coming out and number three, I think that that should be a bright spot.

Johnny Oleksinski (50:54)

I liked it a lot. I liked it A lot. It's three and a half stars in the post, which is my lowest. I've given the last 2 4, because this one, it doesn't go far enough in advancing the story. But the world that James Cameron's created is so intoxicating. And I spoke earlier a lot about how you go to the movies and things look cheap and you go, where did the money go? When you see Avatar, you know exactly where the money went. Every millimeter looks like be a whole house. It's just remarkable. But that's, I think, what Hollywood needs. All these poor exhibitors, everybody, they're just waiting for Avatar to finally boost their fortunes a bit. That's going to be the big movie, but don't expect to see it at the Oscars. Probably the biggest movie of the year doesn't end up at the Oscars.

Miranda Devine (51:47)

So the year ahead, what do you see in 2026 as the real bright spots?

Johnny Oleksinski (51:54)

I'm hoping for some great productions of musicals on Broadway because this year is a tough year. There's only six new ones opening because of how much they've cost. And I think we're about to have a course correction. And some of what I've seen in London was really inspiring to me. I told you, I've heard that Paddington's coming over and that will help fill a gap, which is Broadway has very little family entertainment outside of the Lion King and Aladdin. And this is a very smart, wholesome, funny, witty, good songs show that Broadway could really use. So I'm looking forward to that. And, you know, I'm just sort of hoping, I'm really hoping that Hollywood starts to get its act together and because people often email me and they say, why are you so curmudgeonly? Actually, I met a movie publicist once and I, you know, I'd only emailed with him. So I went to get my ticket to go see a movie and she went, I thought you were 90 years old. And she said it very, very legitimately. She thought, she thought that I was about 50 years older than I am just because I write in a forceful and direct way. But it isn't that I'm trying to be negative. I'm never looking. Look, this is. My entire life is going to movies and going to shows. I don't want to waste two hours of my day, thousands of hours of my life on bad things and I don't want to write bad things. But the situation is just that right now there are so many bad things. I know you're a bit of A movie buff and we disagree. But I think you would agree with me that the vast majority of what comes out is lousy. So it's hard to be an optimist. I'm reaching for bright spot. But we'll see. Often just when things look the bleakest is when the clouds part.

Miranda Devine (54:03)

And Johnny O. What makes you. Johnny O. What makes you unique among your generation, really so forthright and like the mind of a 90 year old man, you know, wise. You're, you're very wise. And you grew up in Chicago and you are the ultimate theater kid, the real thing, aren't you?

Johnny Oleksinski (54:31)

I am. And I know not many people know it, but I did go to acting school. I made the, I made the decision right away, the middle of acting school to become a critic, which is not a decision many people make.

Miranda Devine (54:44)

No.

Johnny Oleksinski (54:45)

And sometimes when you say that they go, oh, you know, you're just acting out your frustrations as a failed actor. I'm not a failed actor. Never even tried. I've only professionally ever been a critic. But I am a, I am a kid.

Miranda Devine (54:58)

Why did you do that?

Johnny Oleksinski (55:00)

I actually had, I was, I was going to school and I had this great professor because I used to, used to talk about what I would see in Chicago. I went to Illinois State University, which is about two hours south of Chicago, and I would take the Amtrak up to those C shows and we'd have these conversations and he said, you should start a blog about, with theater reviews. And I did. And then I started to get invited to major, to major productions at Broadway in Chicago and the Goodman and Steppenwolf. And I talked to this professor about it and he said, I had a feeling you were more of a critic than an actor. But I didn't want to tell you that. I just wanted to do my duty as a teacher and encourage you to try this other thing, which was the best advice I've ever gotten. And I just loved it. I am, I have to stress, I'm turning 36. So I've been a critic since I was 20. Since I was 20. And so despite my, my winning complexion, I'm one of the more experienced critics, certainly probably the most of my generation.

Miranda Devine (56:11)

So Johnny, tell us about your childhood growing up.

Johnny Oleksinski (56:14)

Oh, so I, and as a, as a person from the Chicagoland area is what we, it's kind of a pet peeve. So I grew up, I'll admit, about an hour north of Chicago in a town called Libertyville. You know who also grew up in Libertyville, funnily enough, is Marlon Brando Marlon Brando went to my high school. We did not go together, and as did Ann Margrave. And I interviewed her about it once, which I thought was very cool. But I was early on, from freshman year on, I was always in plays in high school. Loved being in plays. I was on the speech team. I was third in state in the original comedy category for a piece I wrote where I was a comic Sans, the font, working at the font factory. And so I was pretty creative. Always very nerdy. Very nerdy. Jamir is not the word, but sort of a quiet guy. So I like theater more than sports, which probably also. No one listening or watching is shocked by me just saying that. But it was a great childhood and an artistic one. I. Looking back on it, it's no shock that I'm where I am.

Miranda Devine (57:29)

Yeah. And how did you get to be, like, a big city critic at such a young age?

Johnny Oleksinski (57:36)

Well, I guess this is. Speaking of the Oscars, this is when I get on my podium and do my thank yous. So when I went to Chicago and I had this blog, I got a job at a weekly paper called New City because I was recommended by a writer who read the blog. I was being paid $25 a review. Yeah. Big bucks. Big bucks. And then from there, one day, my friend Chris Jones, who is the theater critic of the Chicago Tribune and was also there, the director of their editorial board, he took me out for a drink and asked me to come to the Chicago Tribunal to be an editorial assistant. But they were building out the theater section. It was always a. It was a career first for me, to have someone say, we'd like you to come. And through that, I got to know all these longtime theater critics like Charles Isherwood, who's at the Wall Street Journal now, and I went to his wedding in New York. I flew out for it. And there I met Michael Riedel, who was the great Post Broadway gossip columnist for 25 years. And I said, I see that there is an entertainment writer job at the post. This is 10 years I've been at the post. Just over 10 years. And he said, yes. And so if you put down. If you put down my wife's name as your recommender, because his wife used to be an editor at the Post, then she'll get the hiring bonus. So. So I put down her name. They put me through seven interviews, and I got the job. And I moved to New York a week after getting the job because I thought if I gave them too much time, if I said, oh, I need a month to get there. I thought they wouldn't hire me, so I moved within days and I'd never looked back. I think it's the greatest newspaper in the country. I will stop doing my job once. It's not fun and the Post makes it just buckets of fun all the time.

Miranda Devine (59:30)

Well, you make the Post buckets of fun. So I love your reviews. And everyone go read Johnny Olusinski. Thank you Johnny. And have fun in London.

Johnny Oleksinski (59:39)

Oh, thank you, Miranda.

Miranda Devine (59:41)

Happy New Year.

Johnny Oleksinski (59:42)

Oh, Happy New Year.

Miranda Devine (59:45)

Thank you so much for watching. I'm Miranda Devine. Let us know your favorite stories and your favorite movies in the comments below. And please subscribe so you don't miss future episodes of Pod Force 1.

Andy Staples (60:00)

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