I Must See John Travolta's Trilogy Of Low-Budget Heist Movies

This is important.

Hulu released its October premiere schedule earlier this month. This is the kind of thing I had to care a lot about at my old job because of search-friendly headlines like “When Does ‘The Adventures Of Ricky Avocado’ Premiere?” and “Where To Stream ‘The Adventures Of Ricky Avocado’” and “Who Is Ricky Avocado (Where To Stream The Premiere)?” that I don’t have to write or assign anymore and do not miss even a little. I usually do not even open the emails these days, which is kind of freeing in a way that makes me not ever want to unsubscribe, just so I can keep flinging them into the trash. It’s all very healthy. I’m fine.

This one, though, contained something important, as a few people pointed out to me when the announcement circulated: On October 31, Hulu will begin streaming a movie called The Gentleman Thief, which stars John Travolta as, you guessed it, a gentleman thief. I saw this information and sought out the trailer with such urgency that I almost knocked an entire cup of Diet Coke onto my laptop, which would have been a whole thing, mostly because the last time I was in the Apple Store, one of the employees said, “I remember you. Didn’t you spill a Diet Coke on your computer a couple years ago?” I would’ve had to go to a different Apple Store to avoid the shame. The next closest one is like an hour away. I don’t have that kind of time. I'm already missing too much, apparently.

Luckily, for you and your devices, I’ll just post it here.

This is… incredible. It looks so bad. Like, it looks like someone fed every heist movie stereotype into an AI script generator created by a college sophomore named Laxton and printed it out and started production two days later. The trailer literally opens with Travolta explaining that he’s retired. That's how you know it's good.

Guess if he gets roped into one last job.

Guess if it’s on a yacht.

Guess if DJ Khaled shows up 25 seconds into the trailer.

I must see it at once.

Which, in an infuriating twist, brings me to the other news here: This movie was actually released on VOD ALMOST TWO MONTHS AGO. Right there in the YouTube description, it says “Release Date: On digital and on demand July 28 and in select theaters July 31.” I had these immediate thoughts upon seeing this sentence:

How THE HELL am I just now finding out that John Travolta made a ridiculous VOD heist movie where he has to steal a painting from a yacht using speedboats and unspecified services provided by DJ Khaled for some reason?
What do they mean by “select theaters”?
I COULD HAVE SEEN A RIDICULOUS JOHN TRAVOLTA HEIST MOVIE IN WHAT I AM IMAGINING WAS A COMPLETELY EMPTY THEATER??
WAIT, THIS IS A SEQUEL TO ANOTHER LOW-BUDGET TRAVOLTA HEIST MOVIE CALLED HIGH ROLLERS THAT CAME OUT LAST YEAR AND I ALSO HAVE NOT SEEN???
HE GETS ROPED INTO ONE LAST JOB IN THAT MOVIE TOO????
WAIT, HIGH ROLLERS IS A SEQUEL TO A 2024 MOVIE CALLED CASH OUT?????
WHICH IS ALSO ABOUT HIS CHARACTER DOING ONE LAST JOB?????
I MISSED AN ENTIRE TRILOGY??????
WHAT THE HELL???????

God, I’m so upset right now. There will always be a part of me that loves a preposterous low-budget movie, both to watch it and to go online and tell everyone about it. It’s one of the reasons I started blogging in the first place. It’s why a podcast like How Did This Get Made? makes me laugh like a maniac. Like, after thinking all those things in those bullet points, once I calmed down, the next thing I thought was, “Oh wow, this is actually not Travolta’s first low-budget action movie that prominently features speedboats,” because I have seen Speed Kills, the movie he made in 2018 that stars Matthew Modine as George H.W. Bush and features this paragraph on its Wikipedia page:

The film has a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 17 reviews, with an average rating of 2.5/10. Barbara Shulgasser-Parker of Common Sense Media awarded it one star out of five. Simon Abrams of RogerEbert.com awarded it half a star. Powerboat Racing World website told their readers to 'prepare for disappointment'.

That last sentence might be the most devastating review of a movie I've ever seen. I mean, when you've lost Powerboat Racing World...

I will close here with three final points:

I cannot wait to watch all of these movies and make very many screencaps that I will almost certainly post 1000 times on any platform that I can
I hope he makes another one next year titled One Last Job and one the year after titled One Last Job: The Last Job
One of the YouTube comments below the trailer for The Gentleman Thief just says "Looks like JT has his head on up side down!!" which, for reasons I can't fully explain, is the funniest thing I've read in my entire life

This is all equally exciting and infuriating. I have much to ponder.

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STUFF I CLICKED ON

— a good blog that echoes points I have made in this very newsletter about Disney fumbling the Muppets

— Sepinwall wrote about Fleabag, which remains a terrific show

— good stuff here from Jordan Ritter Conn about Lane Kiffin and/or college football and/or revenge

— important chicken tender journalism

— “It’s a Great Time to Be a Guy Who Loves His Cat”

— I love the dog draft

— Reacher is fed up (with the president) (for ruining a season of the show)

— cool Defector blog about trick plays

— the New Yorker wrote about Tom Brady and included the full title of a YouTube video called "Eagles strip sack on Tom Brady - Local Announcers / Multiple Languages" in the opening paragraph, which gets a hearty and enthusiastic “hell yeah” from me

— okay, I am now stoked for the new Darkwing Duck show

— Method actors remain super weird

— scientists discovered a new mouse in the Knuckles Mountains Range, which is a pretty cool name for a mountain range

— “Tyrannosaurus rex was warm-blooded, new study confirms”

— “Heated legal dispute over 'hot garbage' smell in a $5,850 Midtown luxury apartment”

— "Italian police find $3.6 million in cash hidden in apartment’s walls, floors and furniture"

— PHILLY BEEF HEIST

— PHILLY DONUT HEIST

— massive shoutout to the Grapefruit Ladies