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This is Julio's Corner, my corner of the internet, where I talk about whatever is on my mind.

Usually, I'll talk about TV shows, movies, or whatever new content has taken my interest.

This episode is being recorded on Sunday, August 25th, 2024.

And today's episode will probably be a short one.

I didn't do much prep work for it.

I am going to talk about a new Amazon movie that just came out called Jackpot, with an exclamation point at the end, starring Awkwafina as Katie Kim and John Cena.

Former wrestler, actually going to go back to WWE for one last year before he retires from wrestling.

Anyways, in this movie, he is known as Noelle, indie bodyguard for hire, for anyone.

Well, let me get to the synopsis or the plot of the movie.

So I'm just going to read what I see on IMDB.

In the near future, a grand lottery has been newly established in California.

The catch, kill the winner before sundown to legally claim their multi-billion dollar jackpot.

So if it wasn't clear, this is a dystopian dark comedy set in the not so distant future.

I think it was like 2026 or something, like two years from now, or maybe 2040.

I don't remember the dates.

But anyway, yeah, in the not too far future, our world has been so destroyed fundamentally by capitalism that everyone sees everyone as a commodity.

Everything has been gamified.

And especially in specifically in this movie in the state of California, they created this new jackpot, this new lottery called, or I don't remember the name of the jackpot.

It's not called jackpot.

It's called something else.

But whoever wins, so everyone gets like these cards with biometric identification to sign you in.

And if your card gets picked, your congratulations, you are the winner.

However, you need to survive in that whole day until sundown.

Because if anyone kills you, they get to seal it from you essentially.

Well, you're dead, so they get to claim it from you.

And they added some stipulations.

Number one, you can't use real bullets.

You can only use blunt force to kill the person.

So you can hang them, you can strangle them, you can squash them, run them over, you know, anything but using a gun with bullets.

So in this dystopian world that's set up by the movie, obviously it's meant to be a comedy.

Well, it's meant to be dark, but it's also a comedy.

So things are a little exaggerated.

You have like the movie begins with a winner, played by, and I forget the actor's name, but he's known as like Stickler or Stiffler from the American Pie movies.

So anyway, he's the winner, the current winner in the beginning of the movie, and he's running to for his life.

And he's doing pretty good.

He's doing a pretty good job of of staying alive until he breaks into this house, where you have like this 40 year old seemingly passive woman babysitting someone's child.

So she's like a babysitter.

And she's just minding her business in this home that this guy breaks into because he's trying to find a way out.

So he basically threatens her a little bit, asks for her phone number so he can make a phone call.

And the woman's like, who are you?

So he's like, he's okay, I'm going to clear because she doesn't know who I am.

She doesn't know that I am the lottery winner, so she's not going to try to kill me.

So anyway, he lets his guard down.

And as he turns his back to her, she sneaks up from behind and basically essentially says, I'm sorry, but I do know who you are and kills him.

So, she claims his prize.

That's how the movie begins.

So yeah, a little dark, because she's a babysitter with this little kid and she basically kills this guy in cold blood in front of this little child that she's taking care of.

But hey, it's all good because now we're rich.

We can live the good life, so to speak.

So anyways, that's the very beginning of the movie.

The announcer of the prize comes to the place.

Once they've established everything is secured now, and awards her the grand big check or whatever.

And what's the word?

Presents it in live television.

It's all being filmed, so it's all on television and everything.

So anyway, we move a little forward to the, I guess like the next day or the next week or whatever.

And you have Aquafina, Katie Kim, who's moving back to Los Angeles.

She's been apparently away, taking care of her ailing mother who has since passed.

And that is why now she's on her way back to Los Angeles.

And apparently, all this time, she hasn't been watching the news.

She's been completely isolated from current events in the US., especially in California.

Because again, she's only been focused solely on taking care of her mother as her mother was, you know, what's the word?

Well, she was ailing until she finally passed away.

So like hospice care, so to speak, for mother for many, many years.

I guess she was fighting cancer or something.

So it was a long battle.

And so, yeah, she was solely focused on her.

They only watched like movies like rom-coms or something.

And so, yeah, she didn't keep up with the news.

So she has no idea that there's this lottery thing going on.

Anyway, her day is not going well, because obviously she's coming to California to try to get a job as an actress again.

Still grieving about her dead mother.

She gets her watch stolen from an old lady in the bus on her way to her new place that she's renting through Airbnb.

And it turns out to be a hell hole.

It's nothing like it was advertised on the Airbnb.

And the leaser who's subleasing the room to her, shamelessly is like, yeah, yeah, no, we put fake pictures up because who's going to come here otherwise?

You know, because we're trying to make money.

And it's just a glaring, it's just a glaring view or magnifier of of what's to come in society, how everything's been so commoditized to the point where people don't see people as, there's like no empathy, no sympathy, no human connection anymore.

Everyone is just out for themselves.

Aquafina, obviously, Katie Kim's character is supposed to represent us because she still was, during this whole time, she didn't get perverted from all of this change in society because she was, you know, isolated with her mom.

But now she's in this world where everyone is, I mean, this sweet old lady steals a watch, this woman conned her into getting this room.

And it's so bad, the living conditions are so bad that apparently sewage from the upstairs apartment, which this subleaser did not tell her about, was leaking into the room that she was staying at.

So now all her clothes are destroyed because sewage leaked all over it.

So now her clothes are basically garbage now.

And instead of apologizing and trying to maybe pay for the laundry bill for screwing her over like that, she charges her to use some of her own clothes.

So she just saw it as another opportunity to make more money off of this poor Katie Kim who got conned into renting from her and now is getting conned to rent out clothes from her because her and her own possessions have been destroyed due to the negligence of this woman who's renting out the room to her.

So anyways, she goes to her addition, and well, you think it's an addition, but apparently it's an acting class of some sort.

I'm not exactly sure.

They don't make it clear because it looked like a bit of both.

Like she goes into this room, and you have this guy who's evaluating her ability, and at the same time, not really paying attention, but they also charged her for it.

So it's like, well, how are you charging someone to addition for a part or for an agency or whatever it was?

They didn't make that part clear, but it's like, this is not how that's supposed to transpire.

If you're at school, then okay, yeah, you charge.

If you're an addition for a part, then you're hiring her.

You're not getting money from her.

And if you're an agency, same thing, you get paid when you get contract deals because you get a cut from whatever deals you get your actor or actress to sign on.

So it's just so predatory how everything is going on in this world.

Anyways, during this whole moment where she's additioning, she accidentally pulls out a lottery card from one of the pockets of the pants that she's borrowing from her leaser and accidentally biometrically seals her thumbprint to the card.

And unfortunately to her, she wins the jackpot.

So now she's the new $4.4 billion winner, and now she has to survive till sundown or she will be killed.

But she doesn't know this is happening.

She just dumbprints this card, doesn't know what the hell this card is, puts it back in her pocket, and continues on with her addition.

And of course, everyone around her has signed up for this lottery, because apparently, you know, things are so dire in terms of making money in this world.

Like, I mean, like, as I said, this agency is even charging their clients to sign up with them, that everyone also applies to this lottery.

So they all get notified that she's the new winner.

And so now, they're gunning for her, and she's like, what the hell's going on?

I didn't get the part.

Why are you attacking me?

And in all this, she comes across John Cena, who's looking for her, because he's not interested in the lottery.

He's interested in protecting her for a 10% commission.

Or I think it was, yeah, it was 10%, 10 or 15%.

Yeah, I think it was 15%.

And at first, she doesn't trust him, because I mean, look at everyone else that betrayed her in this whole situation so far.

So how could she possibly trust this woman from, I mean, how could she possibly trust John Cena after all the crap that she has just gone through?

But anyways, she eventually sets up an alliance with him.

And for the most part, he's doing well at keeping her afloat until they, and I do have the spoiler warning at the beginning of the episodes, so don't blame me if you haven't watched the movie, and I'm giving out vital details of this film.

But anyway, somewhere in the beginning of the movie, she heard something about Machine Gun Kelly, that he created a panic room in his house for some reason, because he's a punk and he's a coward.

So she thinks that that's the best place to hide.

So that's where they go, but then now obviously they are completely sieged, and they leave, which I think that was a dumb move.

They knocked him out, and instead of bringing him into the panic room with them, they leave him out there.

So obviously, her leaser, whose name I just remember is Shadi, she throws him into the swimming pool to revive him, and she does, and then she gets the passcode from Machine Gun Kelly to get into the panic room to unlock it.

So now they're out of options, and because of that, they, well, John Cena, Noel, calls up Sumu Liu's character, Louis Lewis, who's advertised all over the city as the best person to protect you.

He's the number one bodyguard.

And so they call him up to save them, and yeah, they cause all the cell phones to blow up around everyone, and that sets up the distraction that allows Sumu Liu's, well, Louis Lewis's team of bodyguards to get there and sequester both Akofina, Katie Kim's character, Akofina's character, Katie Kim, and Noel to their headquarters.

Now, and then when they get there, you come to find out that actually Noel, or Noel, I keep saying Noel because, I don't know, that looks like a girl's name to me, but it's a guy's name, Noel.

Apparently, Noel and Louis Lewis have history together with each other.

They have bad blood between them, and it's because they were both part of a SWAT team, no, not SWAT team, Navy SEALs, I think it was.

So they were part of like a black ops military team.

And Noel is a very noble character in this team.

He was in this movie, so he realized that his team started killing people, they weren't really keeping America safe anymore.

The reason why he joined the army, the armed forces, and became this Navy SEAL guy and whatever was because he believed the American propaganda of fighting for freedom and democracy in the world.

But it turns out that they're killing innocent people.

And this last one was like a family of civilians that they were going to kill, and he bailed on that operation.

And then the whole team gets destroyed in that operation, so you think.

The only survivor was Louis Lewis.

So, so, Nove has been feeling guilty all this time since that dark part of his history, and so he made it his mission to take care of the families of his fellow team members that didn't make it from that last mission, except for Louis Lewis who survived and created this bodyguard empire with his lottery.

Anyway, things are not quite what they seem, and they start to be suspicious of Louis Lewis, and through, I don't know, brainstorming or whatever, they've come to the conclusion that actually, Louis Lewis isn't really a bodyguard anymore.

He actually is killing the jackpot winners to steal the jackpot from them to maintain his empire.

So, they try to escape, and John Cena gets, Noel gets captured, and so, Aguifino was so close to getting to the border to just quit the lottery, because that was the one stipulation.

Either you get killed, and you lose it to someone else, or if you just want to quit the lottery, you have to get to the border and just leave.

And that's what she was aiming to do.

I forget what the name of the border was called.

It was some weird name that I thought he was just making it up, as in saying, when pigs fly.

I thought it was a saying like that.

But anyways, she was a couple of yards away from escaping, but because John Cena was now a hostage, she went back and tries to save her, save him.

So anyways, in the end, the good guys win.

Louis Lewis gets killed.

Awkwafina survives till sundown.

She wins the $3 billion or $4 billion jackpot.

She decides to split it with Noel.

And then they, you know, they say best buds, and they do a lot of crazy hijinks throughout the thing.

And it was a fun movie.

I definitely recommend it.

One thing that, couple of little things that I want to bring up.

One thing that I found funny, kind of, was the fact that Awkwafina and Simu, I can't pronounce this guy's name, Louis Lewis' character.

I'm sorry, Louis Lewis is the character.

The actor's name is Simu Liu.

I think it's Simu Liu.

Anyway, Awkwafina and Simu Liu have acted together in the Marvel movie Shang Chi, where she plays his best friend, best high school buddy or whatever.

And she did not know his secret back story that he came from a family of assassins or whatever, until of course his father starts pursuing him and then he becomes Shang Chi.

So in that movie, they're the best of friends.

So I found it funny that in this movie, they're playing the opposite.

They're now their enemies.

And so it was kind of odd looking at them, I mean, they're actors.

So obviously they can play multifaceted characters and whatnot, but it was just weird, like in one movie, they're the best of friends.

And not too long later, I'm seeing a movie where they're complete enemies.

So anyways, but the other thing that I found funny was a little tongue in cheek line that Aquafina says towards the end of the movie, which is basically, and I'm not going to say the swear word, but like effing wrestlers and YouTubers are movie stars now.

So like being, oh, because her whole thing was she wants to be a movie actress, because it's like a dream that she promised she would complete for her mother's sake, because I think she would act out famous scenes from movies to her mother.

And her mother loved that about her.

And also she was a child actress, you know, when she was a child, but the money was stolen by her father, which is why she has trust issues.

It all stems back from childhood, because her father stole all the money and left her and her mother high and dry, and then her mother got cancer or whatever.

And she ended up quitting the business to take care of her mother until her mother died.

And then she wanted to go back to it to keep a promise to her mother, so to speak.

But anyways, now we're at the end of the movie, and Noel's asking her, so are you going to be a movie actor now?

And she's like, no, it's not that big a deal anymore.

I mean, effing wrestlers and YouTubers, our movie starts now.

And what's funny about that is because, you know, John Cena is a wrestler, and apparently Aquafina was a YouTuber.

I didn't know that.

I just knew she was some kind of hip hop artist.

But I guess she was like a YouTube hip hop artist or whatever, which I don't think she does anymore because she doesn't need that.

She doesn't need that clout to be famous because now she's a famous movie star.

So anyways, those are two funny little.

Those are two things I found funny outside of the the plot of the film.

I think it's a well constructed film.

It's, as I was mentioning, it's a good reflection.

It's a good exaggerated reflection of how capitalism affects society and how it treats us like commodities instead of having that human connection with people because having a human connection doesn't make money.

It doesn't pay the bills, right?

You need to maximize productivity to maximize profits.

And that's what capitalism is all about.

Exploitation, maximizing profits, cutting corners.

And yeah, to the spoils, to the winner goes the spoils.

And this film definitely projects that in a very dark, comedic way.

So yeah, I found that interesting.

My left-wing minded, sociological minded brain did not miss that from the movie.

I mean, I was able to suspend belief just to enjoy the film as it was, but at the same time, I was analyzing the message being told in the nuances and the substantive plot points and detail that was expressed in the film.

And so, so yeah, I definitely recommend it.

It's a good film.

Check it out.

I think it's, what is it?

How long?

It's not even two hours long, I don't think.

Maybe an hour and 40.

Hour and 46 minutes.

So almost two hours.

It's, you know, it doesn't drag at any point in time.

And you get to see MGK being treated like crap.

If you're an M&M fam, that's something to enjoy.

And yeah, so that's all I have to say this week.

Talk to you then.

And that wraps up the show.

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