[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check I try to believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
[00:00:23] Count them Alice. One, there are drinks that make you shrink. Two, there are foods that make you grow. Three, animals can talk. Four, cats can disappear. Five, there's a place called Underland. Six, I can slay the podcast. Yeah, this is the one. This is gonna kill us. Right?
[00:00:42] Right? This is it. This is the one we'll be remembered for because it ends in a murder suit. How many is this for you guys? How many burdens? At this point. 21 in total? Are you fucking saying it's that many?
[00:00:53] Jesus, why did I ever let you make me do that? Maybe it's 17. This is the one where I was like, what fucked it? Why? He's not good. He's bad director. And then he made four more movies. One, two, three, four. This is like third to last.
[00:01:11] We've done almost all of them. All right. We've been going pretty out of order because of guests and such. I believe it's 20 with Dumbo. Okay. So B20 we haven't done Dumbo. Jesus. I would argue we have a couple good ones left. Okay.
[00:01:25] We've saved two of the only good late period ones. Oh, you mean right? Because we have not yet recorded Sweeney even though we're ahead of it now. Right. And big eyes you like less than me, but I'm going to fight for it. Yeah, you're going to lose.
[00:01:35] I will not fight for this. Fighting for big eyes is like bringing like an eye to a gunfight. Okay. Here, counterpoint the eyes are big. Big guns. Big guns. I'm going to bring my big guns. Okay. Maybe I'll like it this time. I don't know.
[00:01:47] I think you will. It's a great movie. So yes it is. It's a masterpiece. This film is not good. What's the film? What's the podcast? What's your name? This is kind of a key crux point. I'm getting to it.
[00:01:59] I'm just saying this is kind of maybe this is the one that breaks us. As you said, maybe this is the one that breaks us, but you go, this is why I
[00:02:05] never want to cover Tim Burton and I go, this is why we have to cover Tim Burton. Honestly, I don't think I said that because like I figured this would be the fun episode where we're all yelling and stuff, right?
[00:02:15] Like this would be, you know, so bad it's good. And our guest today is the Screamin' Jay Hawkins of podcast and get ready for the yelling. A man with a fiery temper. He's about to go talk to Carlson on this. He's got a bone in his nose.
[00:02:29] I want to be introduced first. I think that's only appropriate. Okay, that's the correct order. Right. Ladies and gentlemen, our very special guest Todd Vendorwarf. Hello, hello, hello from Vox. From Vox? Sure. A host of I Think You're Interesting. Yes, which is soon to become another thing.
[00:02:47] It's being read at this point is probably. Well, no, not at this point. It's it's re-launching April 11th. It's in like a chrysalis. Like, like Absalom. Yes, exactly. That was my shout out entirely.
[00:03:01] No, we we were going to originally, you know, kind of come up with a new focus for I Think You're Interesting because when we talk to like people about the title, they were confused by the title. They were like, when did I record a podcast?
[00:03:14] They thought that they were the I and I Think You're Interesting. Oh, clearly I stated that I was the I and I think I was. They thought it was a show in which very famous people interview Todd Vendorwarf. Yeah, I guess. I guess.
[00:03:25] But yeah, so we were like, we're going to do a bunch of different interview formats. We're going to do that. And then we kind of came up with this idea. It's called Primetime. It's for podcast fans. It's you must remember this, but for television, it's stories from
[00:03:38] the history of television, things like that. That's good. Is that going to be its own show? Yes. This is a part of the. Yeah. I think it's going to take over the feed. We we're figuring that out now as we speak now that it's March
[00:03:49] when you're listening to this. We know it already, so you'll probably know by now. But yeah, it's good. It's we got so excited about that idea. We were like, well, we can't do both at the same time.
[00:03:59] My hope is that will bring back I think are interesting, but like as a limited series type thing. Do do a couple of year. Yeah, I'll say when you posted Marcella was your final episode right before the rebranding, which was incredible episode. Yeah.
[00:04:13] And then you did like sort of not a great hits, but you're like here are some of my favorite moments. Yeah. You are such a fucking good interviewer. Thank you. I was like listening to it, like taking a back like you genuinely
[00:04:24] yeah, I've been on both sides of this thing now. I've interviewed people. Sure. I've been interviewed. I'm bad at asking questions. I find that often people ask the same stupid questions. When I listen to someone on your show, you ask at least
[00:04:36] three questions that's clear they have never been asked before. And you actually hear like your guests go like, wow, that's actually a good question and they have to stop and consider it because you're not asking them the same thing that everyone else does. Sure. Sure. That's so bad.
[00:04:49] What did I ask you that you were you didn't get because you've both been on the show. That's true. Yeah. I famously called Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol a summer movie. Right. And that was your key question you asked, David in
[00:05:00] response to that was why are you such a fucking idiot? Of course it came out of Christmas. You know, I don't remember how you phrased the question, but I feel like when we were talking about performance stuff, I somehow was able to
[00:05:13] verbalize things in a cleaner way than I ever have before, which I think must have been the way you point it because usually I'm a mess when people ask me how acting works. Yeah. Yeah. How does acting work? Don't get me started. I have no idea.
[00:05:24] I'm a mess. Who are your guys? Who are my guys? That I can answer. Michael Keaton. Someone's calling. Turn your phone off. I thought I put on silence. Why is it still ringing? I don't really understand Griffin's relationship with his phone. It's very antagonistic. Really?
[00:05:39] I think there needs to be some kind of intervention between you and your phone. Yeah, I throw it into the river and then people can't complain about me not responding because there's not even a passageway. Todd, back on to the point. You're a very good interviewer.
[00:05:53] So there will you still will be interviewing people on Mike and so forth? So the thing about it is that each episode is going to have interviews in it and my hope is that we'll run the most interesting of those interviews as like a bonus that you'll get.
[00:06:05] Gotcha. Like you'll get the main episode which is the you must remember this episode on Thursdays and then the next Monday you'll get like here's our hour long chat with Aaron Sorkin. Your oral history. Yeah, that sounds great. Well, of course. Would you walk and talk with Aaron?
[00:06:19] Yeah, that's the plan. We got it. Yeah, we're just gonna walk and talk. Wilshire Boulevard. At least roll and stroll. I mean, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, what if he's like I'm rebranding. I'm Aaron Strollen. From now on, it's all strolls. I used to be a stroller line.
[00:06:36] I used to be all about Sorkin and Torkin. Right. Then we came walking talking. What's he working? Strolling and rolling. Ben is loving this. Is he directing a movie? He's directing the Chicago 7 movie. Yeah. Okay. All this game wasn't bad. Seth Rogen, Sasha Baron Cohen.
[00:06:51] Wait, that's who's in it? Yep. All right. Anyway, my guest today, Griffin Newman, Dave Sims. There we go. Producer Ben Hosley. We finally have a pro on the show. And tell me what the show is because I forget.
[00:07:01] Name of the show is a blank check with Griffin and David. How's that? Interested in directors, filmographies, the crazy passion projects they get to make after they have massive success early on. Sometimes those checks clear. Sometimes they bounce. He's so good at this, David. It's true.
[00:07:18] We should just quit. Also, his like taught like your voice is like calm voice. Yes. I'm good hands when you're speaking. That's right. I really try to be malefluous if you will. Well, speaking of wonderful voices today, we're talking about Alice in Wonderland. I hate you.
[00:07:35] A film that is the equivalent of someone screaming straight into your eyeballs for two hours. And then just like dumping lemons in them or something. You know, I guess I was really the last time I was on or something about Munich. I love you.
[00:07:49] You know, it gives one of my favorite movies of all time. So I was like, I told David, I'm coming to New York and he was like, oh, you got to do Alice in Wonderland. He knows remember your least favorite.
[00:07:59] He said you have no idea how much Todd hates this. I remember you a few years back just ranting online. I think yeah about the the futterwacken scene. Yes. And just how insane it is to think that that was a scene.
[00:08:15] The movie not only a scene, a sort of like climactic, you know, fulfilling scene. That is the point where this movie crosses the threshold into actual like like felony. Right. That's the point at which like the FBI issues. They're like, we've seen enough.
[00:08:34] In a movie that was successful. Cute. Like if you watch that and you saw the futterwacken scene and someone would be like, and this is why the film, of course, was a flop. You'd be like, of course, I mean, you can as you can see
[00:08:44] from the evidence on screen happens in the last 10 minutes of this film. But I think legally theaters had to issue refunds of people came and complained post futterwacken here. I found it. Okay. So there's an Alice in Wonderland wiki. Oh boy.
[00:08:57] He linked to a specific Burton Alice Wonderland wiki. Wow. Futterwack. It's a dance in the Alice in Wonderland movie. This is not like some Lewis Carroll. No, no, because he's taken not he, but I mean this film is taking like the Jabberwock. It's taking elements.
[00:09:14] Yeah, it's pulling a lot of yeah. Futterwacken is fully off the dome from Linda Wolverton. Alice in Wonderland star Johnny Depp entered him on the set of his new movie by doing the futterwack apparently. So someone else did it. I don't know a stunt double.
[00:09:31] Here's a tasteless question. I'm going to know not a lot else on this Wikipedia page. I got to tell you, I'm going to happen on the Frab just J. I'm going to ask a tasteless question. Okay. Did the futterwacken ruin Johnny Depp?
[00:09:41] Is that where his like brain breaks? Like this is the moment where we all go like maybe I'm getting tired of this guy's performances, but maybe he literally breaks himself physically doing the futterwack in and then his mind breaks along with him. I think it's demonic.
[00:09:55] I think he that's what I'm saying like he channeled some ancient. Ghosts right haunts him now. He somehow conjure pinhead by doing the futterwack and this is sort of just not in terms of Johnny Depp as a person and his abuse of treatment of his
[00:10:09] wife and other various, you know, public which I'm going to say I don't like it all. Right. I think is tremendously bad. I will say the year after this is Rango, which is a film I enjoy and I like Johnny Depp in it.
[00:10:23] I don't know when he shot to see his face. Right. Exactly. Right. So I guess you could say in Rango, he's sort of trying right. Tourist is the year after this or two years. The same year as this was nominated for two Golden Globes this year.
[00:10:37] They nominated him in drama and comedy. I believe that's right. Double check or they know him twice in comedy. Did he get to comedy nominations because I know they put tourists as a comedy and I can't imagine them classifying this as a drama. This was a comedy.
[00:10:50] Let's see. Did he have two out of the five best actor nominations? He did. Right. So this is the moment I think everyone just goes like we have. I was going to say in 2009 he's in public enemies, which I know is not a movie that everyone likes,
[00:11:05] but I will say movie is I like that movie and it's one of the last time again on this. Right. And it's one of the last times he's making an effort. Some effort. Yes. I mean famously Michael man did walk up to him on set
[00:11:17] and said like I know your problem. I figured it out. You can't act. You're terrible actor. Do you know that story? That's a real story. Yes. And Johnny Depp was like I will not speak to this man again and it was there was like four months
[00:11:26] of production left. Yeah. Which is sort of I think Michael man's like one of those old NBA coaches who's like well you got to you know break them down and then build them back up. Right. You know, I'd like Johnny Depp was like why is this man
[00:11:39] saying I can't there is that weird thing though like there are so many incredibly successful actors and not just people who are movie stars but people who are taken seriously as actors who on a fundamental technical level cannot really act and somehow they work like right.
[00:11:56] They don't have the sort of formal skills one might right. There's just some magic thing and they have an understanding of that specific medium. I can't wait to read the five button globe nominees but they know how to like get it in the camera and
[00:12:09] they know how to work around editing and all that sort of stuff. There are also tons of people I've worked with where it's just like you're a really good actor and then you watch the footage and you're like this does not translate at all.
[00:12:18] Like there's great actors who cannot make it work on camera. On the other hand if Michael man told me I was a bad actor I someone who doesn't even try to act with throw myself into a river. I would do it. I would just be like yes sir.
[00:12:29] Yes sir. I'm sorry but you guys a guy with no formal training. He was a rocker and Nicholas Cage was like you should do movies they give you a lot of money. That's truly the story. 80s baby. They were like LA like rock club Bratz and he was
[00:12:45] like honestly you're good looking they'll probably give you a million. Johnny up was like how much wine could I buy with a million dollars. Right then he became like a teen heartthrob. He hated being a teen heartthrob and he defined himself by making weird choices.
[00:12:58] Right and the Tim Burton films were seen as somewhat of a high point for those but up until his point it was like he makes weird choices but they always seem correct. He's always in line with the movie and this is
[00:13:09] the movie where the Tim Burton Johnny Depp weirdness becomes like gold member where it's like I don't know what the angle is right and also it's sort of like where does this big when where do you begin and it ends like yeah are you a person
[00:13:20] even like we have already recorded Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at this point whether or not you like that movie. I think he's making like here in choice is a performance. It's good in that movie. I think so too right.
[00:13:31] He's kind of like amazingly funny and what we'll talk about will have litigated at that point right. I know some people don't like it and a lot of that is just it's disrespectful. It's crazy. He's creepy but I think he's funny and it's weird
[00:13:40] and the character makes sense internally internally. Like it may not be your Willy Wonka or your image of Willy Wonka but it's in sync with the movie and there's a consistent psychology right this year just like this actually feels like the supermarket sweeps challenge where
[00:13:53] they're like okay you have two minutes to raid this prop closet and come up with expectations. We go from just being like why does he look like that? Like what does it mean and I'm still like oh he's like a mad at her right but he's literally like
[00:14:07] two minutes like pulling the eyelashes off the wall taking a card that says Scottish Brogue. They sort of play it like he's got borderline personality disorder because sometimes he kind of becomes violent. It's a real realistic movie in that regard.
[00:14:20] I thought a lot of like there's like a contest where you got to make a short film in 24 hours. Sure. It feels like that as a performance. I think you're giving too much credit to say he had 24 hours to come up with this. 24 minutes. Right.
[00:14:33] The five nominees for best actor. Putt-Rex's cast the film is Alice Wanderling. Correct. The five nominees can you tell me? You can tell me two of the nominees. 2010. It's 2010 so the 2010s. So we're talking we're talking Black Swan. Think about it ma'am. We're talking Inception.
[00:14:51] I'm trying to think of the films that year. Here's a hint I'm going to give you now you've got. You know is King's speech is it the King's speech here? Yeah, but that's in drama right now. But I'm just trying to give myself a year of film.
[00:15:01] But just to give you a couple hints and these are not big hints one you know two of the nominees two of the five. Johnny Depp Johnny Depp for Alice in Wonderland and Johnny Depp for the tourists two performances. We're still laughing at today. Ha ha ha.
[00:15:15] That's so crazy to think about the Green Book one best comedy yes comedy. Yes anyway. Although when you talk to old people who love Green Book that's their note they go it's so funny. Yeah, I mean when I saw when I saw in a theater
[00:15:29] it was like laugh a minute I will say like not for me so much but like it feels weird to classify it that way but when people defend that movie that's Italian for pretty good is is a great laugh line. There are some laugh lines.
[00:15:40] There's a lot of lines anyway. Okay, I will just warn you the three other movies two of them basically were not released the third one like was released and was a flop. Okay, so two of them don't cast around thinking of like the big movies of 20 times.
[00:15:52] Two of them are like equivalent to like the Lezor seeker. Exactly. Do you remember when Helen Mirren got nominated for best actress of course I do. Months before the movie was released in theaters. For Lezor seeking? Yeah. Okay, I have a guess is Ewan McGregor and Sam and
[00:16:03] Fisher the Yemen incorrect. I think that's like the year before or something. You know that's somewhere. What is it that type of zone? Or do they exist even less than that? One of them I really thought this movie went unreleased. The winner I know this movie was released
[00:16:15] and in fact we were just talking about it. The Barney's version. Paul G. Motti wins best actor for Barney's version. Correct. And it was one of those things when he won when people were people like what's this movie?
[00:16:24] And it was so like I guess he has to win of these five. It's the only one that people even agreed was a good performance. I remember it being that way but that was one of those things where Sony was like we're going to do a quick
[00:16:33] qualifying release and then we'll release a wide later and then they never released a wide later. Barney's version about. Well, you know he's Jewish and his stomach hurts and he sleeps with all these ladies. Don't ask David you want to get Barney's version of the story.
[00:16:45] Barney get in here. I think that's literally it's like it's by like the Canadian Philip Roth. Yeah, Mordecai Ricler. Right. And he's like you know an angsty like neurotic Jew writer about like the perils of masculinity and it's a story
[00:16:58] about like how many times he loved and lost. You know it's a movie about if you always went like I don't see Paul G. Motti dating enough beautiful women on screen Barney's version is like we can give you like 12 in one movie. Okay. Rosamund Pike. Oh yeah.
[00:17:14] Who else is in it? I don't fucking know. He's a cast of actresses. So he like used up his quota on that movie? He did. He did. It's like Paul G. Motti doing his version of an Adam Sandler movie. You got Minnie Driver, David Cronenberg's in it.
[00:17:30] I can't go for this cast. All right. Two others. And do they exist more or less than Barney's version? One exists more one less. One exists more. Was one actually released wide? Yeah, it was released wide. I saw it in theaters. It's a piece of shit.
[00:17:45] But did we laugh? David, did we laugh as a nation? Did we laugh? Calling this movie a comedy is somewhat outrageous. I guess it's a romantic comedy sort of. It was a prestige play in a way. It's from a prestige director but like a bad one.
[00:18:00] He's a hot young star. There's a lot of sex in this movie. Does it even exist? I don't think it exists. No, no, no. Is it Jake Jilin Hall Loving Other Drugs? Jake Jilin Hall. Jake Jilin Hall. I guess about the other one.
[00:18:14] I might be totally off, but if I'm right, this is a good poll. Dustin Hoffman Good Luck Charlie? No, although, oh my God. The other person has been fully canceled. One of the most canceled men in Hollywood. One of the most. I would say. Top of the heap.
[00:18:31] Yeah. Brett Ratner for Tower of Ice? Yeah, right. Once again, I'm going to restate Brett Ratner for Tower of Ice. It's got to be Spacey, right? Spacey. Spacey was in the comedy? It's got to be on the sea. Not nine lives. It's not nine lives.
[00:18:46] I mean, really, I don't think this was released. It has one of those posters where you're like, oh, someone made this at home. And he's the lead. Let me give you the other four actors above the title on this poster. Okay.
[00:19:00] Barry Pepper, Kelly Preston, John Lovitz, Rachelle Lefevre. Well, okay. This is casino Jack. There it is. So Jack Abramoff, right? Yeah. And the final film of George Hickenloop. Uh-huh. But like talk, I don't think that movie was really released. I don't think so.
[00:19:19] You know, I'm sure it had like a limited release. You know, did a lot of press for that movie? Hit me. John Lovitz. Okay. He was ready for it to be his like, his Albert Brooks and Drive. Right.
[00:19:30] I love how we both knew exactly what movie we were thinking of. It made $1.0 million dollars at the box office though. Which is a less than its $12 million budget. I will admit. It also made a grand total of $40,000 overseas. Wow. People overseas. Anyway.
[00:19:48] That's one of those final and dignity movies. Just one of the wildest indictments of the Golden Globes is comedy category where people are always like, no, it's good that they have a comedy category because it's good to recognize comedies.
[00:19:57] And I'm like, oh yeah, all those comedies they recognize. Oh, oh, oh, chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. Jesus. I've seen you remember that the early 2010s were really bad for them being able to find movies that were actually good to put in the comedy category. Sure. Right.
[00:20:09] Like I don't know, they kind of overlooked a lot of the apatows. They overlooked a lot of other stuff that like it's actually funny. When American theatrical comedy was still robust, they were choosing to nominate like, oh, we're going to pretend that
[00:20:21] like Helen Mirren and Hitchcock is a comedy. Sure. Yeah, I bet you if I just took a comedy category from like any year, we could probably like rip on it for five minutes. Like, you know what I mean? Like that's how the Globes are. Okay.
[00:20:33] Save one in the chamber for later in the episode. Oh, sure. Fine. All right. So Alice in Wonderland last chance Harvey was the year before by the way. Oh, I said good luck. Yeah, right. That's what it's called. Yeah.
[00:20:45] I mean, it's called less chance Harvey is the right one. Yeah. Okay. Alice in Wonderland guys. What I was thinking about and I wanted to say this on Mike is this is 2010. Yeah. In 2011 you've got Thorne Captain America and it feels like
[00:21:02] there's a real divide between like what Hollywood's cooking up there. You know what I mean? Well, here's the other thing. I know this is the start of the remake, the Disney remake trend. Except it isn't. No. That's what's fascinating about this movie. Yeah.
[00:21:15] That is the one thing that is thoroughly fascinating about this movie culturally. The second thing I would say is this is one of the few movies in history where it's like its success is largely attributable to another movie. Yeah.
[00:21:26] Which is this comes out four months after Avatar and they just really sold it's in 3D and it's a world you've never seen before. That's why I saw it. I was like, I can't wait to join Wonderland through the power of my real D-Glass.
[00:21:36] And it was post converted. Of course. It looks like shit. It's gross. It's the ugliest movie ever made. This is my opinion. Not one frame of this movie looks good except the real world stuff looks fine. Like that's fine. So before she's in Wonderland.
[00:21:52] Here's a take I feel like you guys could drag me for. I like all the real world stuff in this movie. No, I agree with you. I'm totally locked into the first 20 minutes of this film. 10. It's not that long. Really? Fuck. I want to pretend it was longer.
[00:22:04] It's not. I'm like, first 10 minutes are fine. This is kind of interesting seeing Tim Burton do a British period drama. First 10 minutes, Mia Wasekowska has stuff to do. She's really good in the first 10 minutes. It's shot very flat. It's a little flat.
[00:22:16] There's a couple interests like the shot of all the people looking at her. That's the good shot. But yeah, a lot of the rest of it's like very boring reaction shots. But I think there's some good character development there. I like you go. All right.
[00:22:27] Now you're revving it too high. It's just fine. I'm going to rev it a little bit. No, no, no, no. Rev down. No, no. Here's the thing I like about it. Keep that in double it, Ben. Yeah.
[00:22:38] We've talked about how Tim Burton gets into an interesting place where it's like, man, maybe the guy has made every personal movie he could make. Like maybe he said everything on the subject. And there was another thing where Hollywood was just like, make another thing, anything you want.
[00:22:51] He's like, okay, okay. And then there came some point right where he was like, I'm out. I'm out. And they were like, okay, Allison Wonderland then? Well, and then the other thing is he becomes so successful that it's like, he can't
[00:23:01] really make outsider movies in the same kind of way. Well, he's trying though with this. Right. But I'm saying whereas like something like Edward Scissorhands, you're like, this is palpable. This is a guy still recovering from feeling completely removed from society. Sure. Now you're like, I don't know.
[00:23:16] He can't really like make it sing anymore. But what he's getting at in the first ten minutes of this movie, I was like, this is a way that Tim Burton could evolve. It's just making movies about like weird societal structures. Like, you know, like, oh, England manners.
[00:23:30] Like this is a kind of world that like he can come at with a similar kind of confusion and a satirical edge without him having to make a movie that's about like a little scissor boy. Right.
[00:23:41] And I was like into it and then it's literally the moment she falls down the hole. Into shit land. Right. I'm like, why do I now hate this movie suddenly and dramatically? It's a color of dirty dishwash. Literally. It's a brown. Glorious 3D.
[00:23:54] There's also this weird thing where like if like you don't know how to make a movie that look good, especially in like TV or something, they're like, let's add some apmos, which is they just run a bunch of smoke on set. Right.
[00:24:05] Because it at least adds a little texture. And this movie does the CGI version of that. They're CGI. It just looks like distance fog. Like it just looks like shitty effects. But I think they were just like, this just looks like handy land in hell.
[00:24:16] They're like, add some apmos. What the fuck? Make it tactile. Do it right. Yeah. Well, because this is like this movie costs $200 million. Correct. It's kind of all there on the screen in that I'm sure this was expensive to make.
[00:24:29] Like it's not like you're looking at this and it's not how do you know? I understand they had to render a whole world here. The super... But where is the talent? Yes, the special thing supervisors who worked on this movie said like far and away the
[00:24:40] most difficult job we've ever done. Right. And I think part of that was like everyone got cocky when like people were starting to do this like digital back-up movies. These clavitaries, these doing, you know, these green screen movies totally.
[00:24:53] And it's like Robert Rodriguez kind of figured out how to do it himself and was also doing all of it himself. Right. And he's a maniac and he works like too hard and he writes and cuts and edits and produces and everything, you know?
[00:25:05] And he was working off a comic where he could copy specific panels and all this shit. And like Cameron is... The world of Sin City is very simple. Right. It's like in rooms. Cameron is like Cameron. Sure.
[00:25:16] And I think everyone was like Tim Birdscrave, he could do something like this and you watch this movie and it's like people still fucking drag us for being like, top of all, the two of them like Avatar. Watch this movie and try to not like Avatar.
[00:25:27] Yeah, yeah, go watch Avatar. No, you don't even have to really watch Avatar. Yeah, you do. I'm saying watch also Wonderland the whole time you'll be like, you're right, Avatar is like an 8 out of 10 right now. No, you have to go watch. They drag you for liking Avatar.
[00:25:36] Oh yeah, all the time. So hard. They act like it's our favorite movie of all time. Well, I mean it is your favorite movie of all time. It is my favorite movie of all time. David texts me every morning, Avatar is my favorite movie. That's good.
[00:25:46] I text you every morning just da-da-da-da. That's neat text. I send you a voice memo of myself going da-da-da-da. Boy, oh boy. I wonder where you blocked my number. Yes, this is one of those movies where like they said like, why would we shoot it in 3D?
[00:26:04] It's like cumbersome. Yeah, we can do that later right? And James Cameron openly was like, that is incredibly tough. Right. And to this day you've got Alita coming out shot in 3D. The rare movie that shot in 3D and oh surprise, surprise, the 3D is good. Yeah.
[00:26:18] I think this movie killed 3D in a way. It both like- Obviously 3D is still around, but- Yeah, no, but a lot of people paid for the 3D and were like, what the fuck? That sucked. I'm not paying five bucks.
[00:26:29] And then did Clash of the Titans come out a month after this? Clash of the Titans came out before this I think. Really? Well, I can look it up. Okay. I think this is definitely a bloom off the rose moment where people went like,
[00:26:38] oh that was a one in a million thing, the Avatar thing. Like people are just going to be sloppy about this. But also the insane thing is like, Linda Wolverton who wrote or had writing credits on most of the Disney Renaissance movies. Right.
[00:26:53] Which are sort of very tight in their plot. You're right. Clash of the Titans is the next month. Okay, that's what I thought. That was another one. I feel like that's the final- Yeah.
[00:27:01] Where people were like, it's literally like the arm and the head are in like different dimensions. And the problem with most of these movies is the post-conversion process makes them dark. So then like most theaters in America under project their movies. Yes.
[00:27:16] So you're just walking into a situation where everything looks like it's in silhouette or something. And also the post-conversion process is essentially handing special effects people a live action film that is locked and saying, can you animate a movie under this? Right.
[00:27:30] Like they then have to create three dimensional CGI models to wrap the image around. And more and more they like don't understand what that pipeline is. And they're like, we can just shoot any footage and hand it to you and you'll turn it into 3D.
[00:27:44] And they're like, yeah, but it'll look like the feature on like 2009 era televisions where you hit the 3D button. And it's like Larry King's eyes are popping out of his head. Right, it's like a 3DS essentially. Yes. Alright, Linda Wilburton, she wrote The Beauty and the Beast screen.
[00:28:01] Which are like, these are like tight movies. Like she took these like big- She wrote The Lion King's movie. Right. She wrote a little film called Alice in Wonderland, a 2010 film by Tim Burton. Right, but she's on like the story team for all these Disney-
[00:28:15] She's on the story team for Aladdin and Mulan. Right. And she also wrote the Maleficent screenplay. Yes. She also wrote the screenplay for a film that, and I'm saying this on the air right now, is better than Alice in Wonderland.
[00:28:30] That film is called Alice through the Looking Glass. Oh, I... I'm team through the Looking Glass. It's better. I mean, it's only better in that this is the worst movie. Yeah, it's a little better. It's a little better. It's a little better. I agree with that.
[00:28:45] It has weirdly, it sort of like has a narrative. Like it's not... It's a sort of a stupid narrative, but at least it has like sort of like... There's sort of a task to accomplish. It's like, yes. It's like, age old philosophical question, should you kill baby Hitler?
[00:28:58] It's that. Right. And you know, I mean like... Slashburn Khan's fun in it. He's funny plays the concept of time as a person. It has like 20% practical sets, which that improvement... And it's also just made six years later.
[00:29:10] So just like, you know, the money, I don't know, it can be spent better. It looks a little cleaner. But what is so crazy is this movie is so sold on the visuals, the wonder, the 3D. It's Tim Burton, his imagination's unfettered.
[00:29:21] It's a full 3D, you know, Tim Burton CGI Fantasia. And it was still... We were still at the tail end of people being like, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is going to be twisted, like genuinely. Yes. Like when this came out, the Hatter poster. Right.
[00:29:35] All the posters look like bad. People are like, wow, he looks like a demon. Like, whoa, he's going to spook kids with this shit. I mean, this is his highest grossing film. I'm sure. By a good margin.
[00:29:45] This just feels like the first movie where Tim Burton realized he could get residuals from Hot Topic if he tried hard enough. Well, I was going to say. So here's... I think if you adjust Batman would beat this movie, but that's it. Adjusted, yes.
[00:29:56] But talk about cultural things with this movie, right? Okay. So like the rise and fall, like the high point and the low point simultaneously of 3D filmmaking, right? But the other thing is I think this is this weird threshold moment where Disney starts to become cool.
[00:30:13] Disney had always been like nerdy or childish. Yeah, you're right. The sort of Kingdom Hearts moment where like Disney is a brand. Right. It's like you can buy like an edgy Lion King shirt now. Whereas like Disney's brand throughout my childhood was more like... Babies.
[00:30:29] So it was also like parents know that they can trust Disney to entertain their child without being too fucking weird or political. It's going to be just a Disney movie and you're going to buy the white Clam Shelby HS. Exactly. Right, before...
[00:30:43] And then when you got old you were like, I don't want those fucking sanitized, the Disney-fied versions of things. Sure. Like that's the Gen X, like you get old and then you go like, may Disney, they whitewash everything? And do you know he was a Nazi? Sure.
[00:30:56] This generation that's cussing right with awesome Wonderland are like, wait, we can just buy ironic Disney shirts? Like we can still like Disney but seem above it because we're like re-owning it in a post-modern way. Except those shirts are still manufactured by Disney and Disney's coffers like start
[00:31:12] doubling in these years. Yeah. This is when they're also like buying every brand in sight because this one they buy Marvel? They buy Marvel I think maybe the year after like you know because we talked about it like... Star Wars 2012. They buy Star Wars in 2012. Right.
[00:31:27] They buy, I think they buy Marvel this year. I think they buy it 2010 because I work at the Disney store in 2011 and they've had Marvel for a year. In fact they bought it in 2009. Did you have to dress as Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter while you worked at the
[00:31:40] Disney store? No, because the bloom is off the rose a little bit. Okay. I think they were moving on to, they're so topical there but I'll tell you like when I work... What was the hot ship then? What was the hot ship then? Cars 2. Cars 2 fever. Mm-hmm.
[00:31:52] You have no idea. It was more of a low... Kids could not stop talking about Sidley the Spy Jet. Excuse me? Sidley the Spy Jet? Are you having a stroke? They still haven't stopped talking about it. Jason Isaacs playing the role of Sidley the Spy Jet.
[00:32:07] What if there's like one kid who just still has not stopped talking about the fucking Spy Jet? Sidley? Do you know there's a moment in Cars 2 where they're having a car chasing an airport and Sidley gets on the runway and he goes Climb inside me!
[00:32:18] No I didn't know that. And his ramp comes down and the cars drive inside his butt. And then there's a scene that takes place inside Sidley. He then becomes a location. He's a plane. Did you know this? I wasn't aware. But he's like living and they're just like...
[00:32:33] I just want to imagine you as like a senator who's like Are the good people of Missouri aware that there is a scene in Cars 2 who are Sidley... I'm reading from the record here. Sidley the Space Jet.
[00:32:46] It says Sidley the Spy Jet is both a character and a location. Is that right, Senator? Just try to break this down. So this is also when Disney loses its old reputation and gains a reputation for weird perverted shit going on in all its movies. Is that right?
[00:33:02] Because of the Spy Jet. Right. Yes. That was the same guy who made like put a penis in Little Mermaid or whatever. He came back for Sidley the Spy Jet and they were like... Alan! Sex in the clouds and not in Lion King.
[00:33:16] What if it turned out that those were Linda Wolverton's contributions? She was just like... Can you make one of the spires of King Triton's castle look like a Pean? No, but I remember like at this time Disney was in this rebuilding stage. They're buying out all these properties.
[00:33:32] They've been taking these big swings of we were not popular with boys. Sure. So it's like let's make a $200 million Tron movie. Can Alice in Wonderland kind of be a tweener because we really centralize the Mad Hatter and boys like Johnny Depp, Pirates is their one boy franchise.
[00:33:50] Of course their solutions to this ends up being just by Star Wars and Marvel. But at this point they're trying to make in-house big boy franchises. And what's weird about this movie is it's never positioned as this is Tim Burton doing a new version of Disney's
[00:34:04] Alice in Wonderland. This movie has no relation to Disney's Alice in Wonderland. This movie is a weird sequel to an Alice in Wonderland that was never made. It has sort of winks at Disney's Alice in Wonderland. Little Wink.
[00:34:17] When you do the flashback, the girl is wearing a very similar outfit. She's wearing the brighter blue dress and she is of course a child rather than a 20 year old. But none of the designs really match the Disney characters. It doesn't have any of the songs or music.
[00:34:30] No. It's an entirely different plot. You're saying it's not like the Jungle Book or something where it's like trying to queue pretty closely to the plot of the Disney animated movie The Jungle Book. That's the other weird thing because you go like
[00:34:40] Disney animation is starting to get back up on its feet at this point right? Like Tangled had come out the year before. The same year. Oh, it's 2010? I think you're right. Yeah, 2010. Here in Disney's 2010 movie, obviously their big hit is Toy Story 3. Right. TS-Twa. TS-Twa. And then Alice.
[00:34:57] They also had Tangled. They also had Tron Legacy. Those were their only hits. Yeah, see this is a weird turning point there. They had two Darnian flops. The Prince of Persia movie. Right, humongous flop. We're trying to get boys. And the Sorcerer's Apprentice.
[00:35:11] Gigantic flop trying to get boys. They also released some movies like Secretariat and When in Rome, You Again. These are Disney movies. Now Disney is basically like every movie! Captain America's in it! Every single one! Wait, Secretarian the Bojack movie? Yep. It was the Bojack movie. Oh, wow.
[00:35:31] I didn't realize that was real. Old Dogs. I didn't realize Old Dogs was Disney. Oh, yes it is. Because he had made Wild Hogs which was Disney. I think at that point it was Touchstone and by this point... Todd's the one with the Wild Hogs story.
[00:35:43] That's the one where your dad was like, We're seeing that movie! Yeah, exactly, exactly. That was like right down the middle of my dad. We went and saw it. What do you think? He loved it. Wild Hogs, Down Periscope, Gale Van der Werft's favorite movies.
[00:35:57] Are those his one in two? Down Periscope. Loves those movies. That dirty submarine movie from the 90s? That movie's good. Is that Kelsey Grammer? That should be a Benz story. Yeah, I love that movie. I always get Down Periscope. I just remember having a lot of dick jokes.
[00:36:11] Oh yeah, of course. Yeah, Mikael's Navy is... Is Tom Arnold? Tom Arnold, right? Which one is Roberto Schneider in? Is he in Mikael or Down Periscope? You talking about Rob Schneider? Senior Roberto. I believe he's in... You mean upside down exclamation point, Rob? Oh, he's in Mikael's.
[00:36:28] Down Periscope is obviously one of those movies they made for five million dollars back when you were trying to see if a TV star carried away. Excuse me, I hate to tell you this, but the budget of Down Periscope was 31 million dollars. Tom, please eat this crow pie.
[00:36:42] It has Lauren Holly, apparently Harry Dean Stanton and Rip Torn and Bruce Dern and William H. Macy. These things load up with character actors. What's the USS character actor? Can you quickly round out how many Academy Award nominations the cast have? Well, Schneider is 14. No, because like...
[00:37:00] Macy has one, Torn has one. Yeah, Torn only has one, right? Does Dern have two? Maybe one? I think he has two. I think Dern has two, yeah. Supporting for coming home, lead for Nebraska? Is that it? I think. Yeah, that's it. Wow. Kelsey Grammer, I don't know.
[00:37:16] How many is he going to... Oh, well they nominated him for Beast. Hank McCoy. Right, right, right. Best Beast. Yeah. Best Beast in a supporting role. Best Beast in a supporting role. My father doesn't trust fiction. He thinks it's all based on lies, which technically it is.
[00:37:31] But Down Periscope and Wild Hogs like... So what he likes is the versamillitude of those two. Yeah, exactly. He thinks those are the only two American films to tell it like. Periscopes do go down. They do. You got to bring them down sometimes.
[00:37:43] And look, and those hogs are wild. True. You got to admit David, you got to admit. Two Macy's, your dad is a Macy fan I guess. Is Bill Macy his favorite star? It might be, you know, I always thought it was Tim Allen
[00:37:55] because he loved, you know, the... He loved on Home Improvement when you go rah, rah, rah, rah. But maybe it's Bill Macy. Another true teller. Yeah. He really was. He had the courage to tell the truth when the rest of us didn't. Is that thing still on?
[00:38:08] Your favorite show. Last minute's getting it. Yes, it is. They've replaced two of his daughters now so it's about a white man who doesn't realize his daughters are changing into different people on their new sister's nose. Do you know that Caitlyn Dever was one of the daughters
[00:38:20] on that show? Of course I know that. And was still on it like five seasons. She's the one who's still there? She's the one, she's off to college now so she comes in every five episodes and is like, dad and then she goes away.
[00:38:29] But the other two left? The other two left. Did you know that there is a federal law that any film set in the Appalachian Mountains has to have Caitlyn Dever in it? Did you know that? I saw a movie at Sundance where I was like, where is she?
[00:38:40] Where is she? And then Tim and it's in. I was like, here she is. I knew it. I love her. I love her. Yeah. Caitlyn Dever. It's just like, yeah. Does your movie have moonshine and or like a snake handling in it? Caitlyn Dever is involved.
[00:38:54] He now has a Chinese exchange student living with him. That's a now part of the premise of Last Men's Man. Oh, you know what? He doesn't. He's real quiet. Yep. He keeps it to himself. Disrespectful. Does he say things like, tell me more about your culture.
[00:39:07] He really does. He's respectful and quiet. And then he just, you know, he vlogs later. He's like, I learned so many fascinating things about China. Vlogs? Vlogging part of the premise of the show is that he vlogs, David. Now he's made me mad.
[00:39:17] It's like a sex in the city with vlogging. Yeah. Is he vlogging like, hey, this is the Last Men standing with my daily report? Like, is it like he's in an apocalyptic movie? No. No, he has like access to,
[00:39:29] like visual effects and like avid and all this stuff. It's like he once did a thing where he was in a CGI car driving and ran into an iceberg. It's great. What? But the only thing I remember is the episode where the girl wears the Garfield head.
[00:39:42] Is that ever? That's, that's the first, that's the only AFRAM who is the first Mandy. Yeah. Have you seen every episode? No, I haven't seen every episode. I've seen most of them. Yes. Last Men standing. It's not a good show, but it's an interesting show.
[00:40:00] Is this season six now? Sevens. Yeah. And they're probably going to run two, three more. Right. Yeah. Cause now it's like, it's bumping. Sure. Yeah. Elizondo's in it. Earning that check. Nancy Travis. Love Nancy Travis. God. Hector. Yeah. I mean, in a post-Gary Marshall world,
[00:40:18] I think Hector needs that thing to run for another seven. Right? Shit. Maybe he should just start making the movies. Elizondo should make Arbor Day or whatever. It's Hector Day. My new movie Hector Day. Every part played by me using computers.
[00:40:33] I'm a, what's it a the FedEx line and run away bride where he's like, remember she gets on a FedEx truck and someone's like, where's she going? And Elizondo is like, I don't know, but she'll get there tomorrow by 11 or what right?
[00:40:47] He has, I've never seen a theater erupt more than at that line. That is the most killer line reading I've ever seen in my life. I have to find out the exact line. Talk about a pro. FedEx is the company in Castaway, right?
[00:41:01] They were like really good there in the late 90s at like doing product placement that you were like, okay, I buy it. Yeah. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because the whole first act of Castaway is just sort of describing to you how
[00:41:14] like FedEx is like male cargo system works. Right. And being like their colleagues. It's like Tom Hanks with a clipboard. You got Tom Hanks working the docs for them? Yeah. One documentary short subject. The Oscars. I wish people would do that.
[00:41:25] When Mechus gets up there and he's like, what the fuck is going on? In my head, he's so grumpy. Zemeckis? I interviewed him once and he was very grumpy. Not with me, just with like the movie industry. You didn't interview him for Marwan. I interviewed him for Allied.
[00:41:39] A master. And I was like, you know, talking to him about, he was just like, I just think Hollywood makes bad movies and I just wanted to make like a war movie that's like an old fashioned movie and they just don't make those.
[00:41:47] It is fascinating how all those guys who were like the biggest blockbuster directors and got to make everything they wanted to make. That's the time. Where is she going? I don't know, but she'll be there by 1030 tomorrow. That's kind of like the audience.
[00:41:58] Literally it was basically like they were like, pay this man anything. I'll do anything for Elizondo. Elizondo for president. Got it also got funnier when it becomes 1030 and not tomorrow. I mean, the specific really helps there. But was I was saying something about Hector Elizondo.
[00:42:17] This is the Hector Elizondo podcast. I don't remember what I was going to say. All those guys with the blockbusters and all those guys. Thank you. What a pro. All those guys with the blockbusters love to now complain about how the industry is terrible.
[00:42:30] Like James Cameron and George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and Zemeckis, all these guys who got to make every movie they wanted to make and were showered with like Oscars and billions are just like this industry is terrible. Everyone's making movies for children. Right. What are they doing?
[00:42:46] Remaking like comic book movies. We ever thought of that. Yeah. Did you get welcomed to Marwan? Oh, of course. We were cordially welcomed. Reformally welcome. Moving with a lot of weird similarities to this one. Yes. And that it's a nightmare. Yeah. That's the primary one.
[00:43:02] Welcome to Marwan was basically like Robert Zemeckis had been listening to blank check and we were sort of like, yeah, we might use Zemeckis and he was like, you're doing. Watch this. See how expensive this thing is. David's pointing to the wall. He's like showing us. Excuse me.
[00:43:18] I convinced a major studio to let me make this. He has a foot fetish. My point is Disney is at the early stages. My point I was starting to make 20 minutes ago. Disney's at the early stages of being like we're silos. We're franchises.
[00:43:30] Like we don't want to make movies like Secretariats or Old Dogs anymore. Every movie is a fucking event. It's an atomic bomb. The schedule clears to get out of the way. No one wants to deal with the Disney movie. But what they weren't doing yet,
[00:43:42] we're exploiting their own IP in the same way. They're using like public domain stuff. They're buying other things. They're using like weird cold IP, but they're not touching the Disney classics because I think they seemed like we have to keep those behind glass.
[00:43:56] Disney animation is finally starting to like get a little groove going on. Pixar is doing the first sequel that they were forced to do as part of the Disney buyout. Toy Story 3? Yes. That was the first like, okay, here you go. $5 billion.
[00:44:09] Now of course you're making Toy Story 3. Here are six other sequels we want, right? Right, right. But this is the start like it's after the Wally Ratatouille uprun and then Toy Story 3 is like, you know now we're in sequel town.
[00:44:23] Marvel they haven't started Flex and Creative Power on. Star Wars is still a couple years away. And so they're just like, who's like, what do we buy into? Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. So they're like, we're doubling down on Johnny Depp. What does Johnny Depp want to do?
[00:44:37] Lone Ranger? We're doing Lone Ranger. What did Tim Burton want to do? And the big thing was they announced him one go. Tim Burton wanted to do Dark Shadows I assume, right? Was that his point? No, go ahead. What did they announce? Go on, go on, go on.
[00:44:49] They announced him one go. They were like, we're bringing Tim Burton back into the Disney fold where he belongs. He's going to make two movies in Disney digital 3D. Do you remember when they would use that as a marketing point? They had their own proprietary 3D idea. Right.
[00:45:02] And they were like, he's going to make two Disney digital 3D movies. They announced this in 2008. So it's before Avatar when everyone's just rumbling about, man Cameron's going to change the game. What are they? And it was, he's going to make a stop motion film.
[00:45:13] It's going to be a favorite thing. They're going to bring stop motion back. Leica hasn't hit at this point. And they're going to, or Leica, no, Coraline comes out of your book. What did they announce? Frankenweenie and Allison Wonderland. Right, right.
[00:45:24] And it felt a little bit like he wants to make Frankenweenie. Sure. And Allison Wonderland is them being like, here's a classic piece of public domain. Do whatever you want with it. And his big announcement he makes is like,
[00:45:36] I always had a hard time relating to Allison Wonderland because it felt like a series of events. It's just meeting a bunch of crazy people. Here it is. It's a children's book. And he said, I want to see if I could add an emotional spine to it.
[00:45:47] What is insane about this movie? Ben's mad. Is it literally feels like he went into it with the opposite intent? Or he was just like, I don't know. I just want stuff to happen. That's certainly how the movie is.
[00:46:00] Right, because it's just a random series of shit happening. Well, he gives it the spine of the, you know, Vorpal sword and the flutter-wrapper. No, no, no, no, no, just of the real world. She's escaping her married life. And it's a feminist quest to dethrone one landed aristocrat
[00:46:17] and replace her with a second- She's not just fighting the Jabberwocky. She's fighting the gender binary. Yes, but it is. Does that feel like... Where's that again? The beginning and the end feel like they're an entirely different film because once she lands in Underland,
[00:46:33] one of the many dumb things this movie does where it's like, she was a kid, she misheard it. It's actually called Underland. But like this is where Tim Burton's like, let's do 5% of like Jan Svankmaier and 5% of Hot Topic where it's like, let's make it a little weird.
[00:46:48] Well, that was the other thing I was going to say. And this is why I think Dick Cook, who's running Disney films at that point in time, goes all in on Tim Burton as like anything you want to make just like, please come here
[00:46:57] is like, this is the point where like Hot Topic, Nightmare for Christmas sales are becoming like a billion-dollar industry in and of themselves. He's trying to make Disney a little cooler for teenagers. Tim Burton seems to be the key to that.
[00:47:10] And you have this movie that like starts like that, but I feel like aesthetically design-wise, this movie does not really look like a Tim Burton movie. No. Which is odd because... Who did the production design? Robert Stromberg who then directs Maleficent.
[00:47:23] Like this becomes a blank check for him to direct a $200 million Linda Wolverton, revisionist, feminist quote unquote, Disney adaptation. I kind of like Maleficent. Yeah, Maleficent's way better than that. I think Maleficent has a good script. I think it's poorly directed. Sure. It's a little anonymously directed,
[00:47:41] but Maleficent has Angelina making an effort. She's doing a good job. Whereas this has Depp, I mean, I don't know, he's making something. Sometimes he's Scottish. Making a poop. Sometimes he's Scottish. Sometimes he's angry. Sometimes he's like a child. Sometimes he's pooping. So commentary on mental health.
[00:47:57] No, Maleficent has like a... Gender binary and mental health came under siege from the Vorpal Sword. And fucking Alice just cuts it all in half and everything's great now. I just think it's such a bizarre choice to go like, okay, the technology exists, 3D exists.
[00:48:11] We can make a live action Alice in Wonderland like people have never seen before. Sure. First of all, the movie is 98% animated. Sure. That's our first take. Second of all, we're not going to make Alice in Wonderland. We're going to make a sequel to Alice in Wonderland
[00:48:23] in which she's appearing for the second time. Everyone tells her that she's wrong and she's not the same person. She suddenly forgets everything about when she was there for the first time and then most of the events play out in the same order as the book.
[00:48:34] I love that. Sort of. I love that. Sort of. So good. It's kind of like everyone having deja vu for a movie. No, but then it does the second book for no good reason. Which is so weird. Rather than end on the first book,
[00:48:47] it ends on the second book, the battle between the red and white queen. The first book is the Queen of Hearts. Yes. They get rid of the Queen of Hearts. They make the red queen the Queen of Hearts. Right. And instead they do the second book
[00:48:57] and then they add a Jabberwocky. I guess for like an ending. Can I add some context here? Yes, please. Which is in the early 2000s, I'm a big Wizard of Oz fan. OK. I love Oz stuff. In the early 2000s, Tim Burton
[00:49:12] got to do a pilot called Lost in Oz, I think for the WB. Sure. And like somebody sent me the script online. I don't know if it's the real script, but from what I remember of reading it when I was 18, it's very similar to this. Interesting.
[00:49:25] It's a lot of these kids go to Oz and like I think one of them is Dorothy's descendant she finds out and like they have to like work their way toward fighting with whoever's in charge. It's probably Momby or somebody like that.
[00:49:37] And a lot of like really unnecessary mythology. Yeah, but it's also like it's a TV show pilot. Sure. So you accept a little bit of that. Right. And it's also like set in like kind of a weird dark underland type place. Like it really I think this is
[00:49:53] he brought some of those ideas forward. Yeah. Yeah. This does kind of feel like the world's longest TV pilot. Yes. Because it just feels like it's introducing you to a bunch of shit. It's definitely introducing you to shit. Like it introduces you to the white queen.
[00:50:07] What do we know about the white queen? Well, she's white. Yes. She's real white. Really white. She's got a white gona. She holds her hands up by her shoulders. It's a fun performance. No, it is not. No, it is not. No, it is not. It is not.
[00:50:20] No, it is not. It's a bad performance. I love Annie out the way, but what the fuck? I don't know what kind of fucking choice she made. One choice to hold her hands right here. I think I just want to test because I want to believe
[00:50:31] knowing the three of you that we're all going to be in agreement here. I think there is one performance in this film that is thoroughly excellent. I know who you're going to say and I don't agree. Who do you think I'm going to say? Crispin Glover.
[00:50:44] No, no, I think it's a bad performance. I agree. And I like him a lot. No, the one good performance is Helena Bonham Carter. I think she's pretty good. She's good. I agree. I think Wazakao's cause doing a really good job,
[00:50:55] especially when you consider what she's up against. She's fine, but she's lost the second she's in Wonderland. The movie just gives her nothing. I was like the one of the reasons I look at it. The reason I went and saw this movie, all my doubts is
[00:51:04] I was a big Mia Wazakao's fan. Right. And I was like, I want to see her be the next great actress. I liked her in treatment and I was like, can't wait to see what she gets to do. She also wasn't one of those people who was like
[00:51:16] on Hollywood shortlist. Like it was like she was like a critic's favorite for a show that was like what she'd been pretty culty. Yeah. And then suddenly Tim Burton cast her in this and it felt like, oh, that's like a big anointment.
[00:51:27] And since then she's run as far away from this kind of movie as she can. And has had an excellent career. Exactly. For Alice in the Looking. Through the Looking. Right. Which like you just have to imagine she couldn't turn down that paycheck. She's like great.
[00:51:39] I assume she was obliged. She's actually much better in Through the Looking Glass. She's great. Little more to do. She's figured out how to act. And also she's like, she's the active like where it's like what's going on? Well, the Mad Hatter is not feeling so good,
[00:51:50] which is... The Hatter is the Matter. What you're saying is that the Hatter is the Matter. And she has to kind of like march around and sort of be like... That was the tagline, Ben. The actual tagline for the movie was the Hatter is the Matter.
[00:52:00] She also remember she has like weird sort of like multi-colored pajamas because she's been, she just came back from China. Yeah. I think... Another film where I like the first 10, 15 minutes of that movie the best. I like the Sasha Baron cone stuff.
[00:52:11] The rest of it I could sort of take her leave. I think the stuff with her on the ship is fun. I think the way Burton shoots Wazakowska, especially in Underland, is kind of creepy throughout. She feels very fetishistic. Yeah. In how... All the dress stuff.
[00:52:26] Now, Alice in Wonderland is a fetishy book written by a brother. Sure. Like, obviously it's in the text. You don't need to summon it out of the text, but it is in there. But this movie is like, it's weirdly kinky in the places
[00:52:39] you don't want it to be. And then it removes the kink from the places where it actually could have been interested. You guys have talked a lot about how Burton is not particularly sexual. She's a little afraid of sex. Yeah. Certainly, I'm depicting it on screen.
[00:52:52] That scene when she's very large and there's like small men who come up to her and are like, okay, yeah, that's Tim Burton's thing. Right, you're like this must be everything. A pale woman crushing him between her hands. Right. That's what he wants. Right.
[00:53:06] She is so pale in this way. I know she's a pale woman. I was gonna say she's a pale person. This was the first time I'd ever seen her in a movie. And looking back at this now, I'm like... You're telling me you didn't see Amelia?
[00:53:14] Apparently she's in Amelia. She's young Amelia, I don't know. Watching this now having spent a decade watching excellent work from Mia Wasikowska, I was like, oh shit, I didn't realize it at the time because I didn't have a frame of reference.
[00:53:25] He actually made her more pale in this movie. He did. Oh for sure. And he puts the dark makeup around her eyes. Everyone's pale in this one. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what he did to Anne Hathaway but he like coated her in chalk.
[00:53:36] And it's also impossible to do these fucking movies where like, here's an insane thing. The shooting schedule for this movie was apparently 30 days all in. They spent like two weeks shooting the live action stuff. I guess that makes sense
[00:53:47] because how much screen time does Johnny Depp actually have? Not that much. Like it's mostly just like a few monologues where he's like, oh I'm Scottish now. On one hand it's weird that the Mad Hatter is in this much of the movie
[00:53:57] because the Mad Hatter I feel like is a character that everyone remembers and likes but he's not like an intrical like part. He's in 19. Why is there even like a writing there? It's just the fucking tea party. Like the queen is like a big thing.
[00:54:07] Come back in the second part. Right. The queen's a little more but they've fucked with the queens. But when they announced this movie they're mashing the queens up. When they announced this movie they were like, Tim Burton's going to make a big 3D Alice in Wonderland.
[00:54:18] People were like, oh what is Johnny Depp going to play the Mad Hatter? And I remember being like, that wouldn't make sense. It's like too small of a role for him. And then of course this movie becomes Johnny Depp above the title. His face is the poster.
[00:54:28] Alice in Wonderland. Watch me drink tea. Yeah and like the Alice character poster is her little by the teacup. Whereas like the Johnny Depp poster is like his fucking face. Yeah and then you had the, I remember when they dropped the Helena look
[00:54:42] you were kind of like, oh that's fun. They're using CG to make her, to like warp her. And like I haven't seen a lot like this before. That is one of the things I like in this movie. And you go like, I would like this movie more
[00:54:54] if he was shooting practically and augmenting with CGI. For sure. Because that effect still plays kind of fun. I think it's great. And it feels like the kind of loopiness you want out of a live action Alice in Wonderland movie where it's like these are tangibles
[00:55:07] like these are tangible tactile things but you've distorted the perspective of them. Yes, the white queen. There she is. There's the white queen. And half way it's sort of a big moment for her too right? She's sort of a big star at this point.
[00:55:20] She's got her first Oscar nomination. She's a proven box office thing. Crispin Glover though. Yes. He's also being CG augmented right? To sort of stretch him out. So this is another example of just like them being like that stuff's easy right?
[00:55:33] His, it's not even that he's CG augmented. His body is fully animated. It's just fake. It's not motion captured. No, it's just like, but like, is it just to elongate him? Is that the idea? Correct. And you go, what's the fucking point? But he's only a little elongated.
[00:55:46] Correct. So it's one of those things through the whole time he's on screen you're like, what's up with him? Like, is there something up with him? And you're also like, why does his head feel disconnected from his body? He kind of, I'm sorry. Because it's just insane.
[00:55:56] They shot him on live action sets and then we're just like cool let's erase his body and then hire animators to do whatever they want with his physical positions. Kind of looks like the Fred Claus version of Slender Man. He kind of does. He kind of does.
[00:56:08] I think Fred Claus would have been a worthy addition to this movie and I think it's time for us to talk about it. It's weird that no one has revived the Fred Claus brand. That's 20 minutes from now. Okay, we'll get to that.
[00:56:19] I'm going to actually set a timer. So there's shit like that where you're just like, what's the point? Right? It only makes the thing feel uncomfortable to have CGI noodle body crisping lover in a way that's so subtle
[00:56:35] that you can't even tell what they're gaining from doing it. Where is Helen Bonkhara? You're like, I get it. I get it. And this is worth the money and it looks kind of cool. Right? So it's like you see the good and the bad. They do it.
[00:56:47] It's less effective but they do that to make Johnny Depp's eyes bigger in this movie. But you're like that type of principle is the kind of thing I'd like them doing building sets. I don't know if you notice this, but the Hatter in this movie? He's mad.
[00:57:00] A little mad. You know where that comes from, right? Yeah, then Mercury. Every English person knows that because it's like grew up in England. Jesus fucking Christ. The look he gives me. Okay, David, that's kind of cruel that you didn't give me the chance to... I'm sorry.
[00:57:13] I'm sorry that I didn't give you the chance to torment me like a cat with a mouse. It's totally fine. Let's reset. Reset. Todd, reset. Okay. You guys know the thing about the Mad Hatter, right? Where that comes from? Oh yeah. It's hat makers.
[00:57:27] They use Mercury to stiffen their brim. David, do you... No, a print. But like the... Made them a little crazy. Right. Yeah. But it would make them crazy. Right, so you guys know that? Definitely David, you're being quiet. Do you know that?
[00:57:40] Yeah, it's something every English person knows. It's like a commonly recited... Okay, but why do you know that? It doesn't make any sense. What? ...for 15 years. Did you know he's so committed to this bit... He's a fine actor. That when I first knew him,
[00:57:56] he would stay up in the middle of the night and pretend to be from England online. No one has this level of commitment. He would stop at like 4 in the morning. He would have to change his IP address to mask it
[00:58:07] to make it seem like he was typing from straight and big Ben. God, I used to stay up so late just to be on fucking Oscar watch. That's why I have the bag. That's what you say is that the bags under your eyes
[00:58:19] are permanent effective you spending time on the Oscar watch. Of me sleeping for four hours, like a night for like four years or whatever. I was just that goddamn entertaining. And when I got to college, I used that moment where it's like,
[00:58:31] oh, I can just sleep until 1pm. No one's making me wake up anymore. Then I got back into the old full sleep situation. Love that. My thing was like... I mean, I spent a lot of time messaging for myself. My thing was like TV.
[00:58:44] When it was like, oh, adult swim exists, county central air is weird things after midnight, Conan doesn't start until 1230, and then I just never slept a normal time again. I realized the other day the only flame war I've ever gotten to online
[00:58:54] was about the TV show Party of Five 90s when I was a teenager. So that was on a message board. Good memories. We've all had a flame war too. Ben, were you ever a message board guy? No. Never? No. You lived the message boards.
[00:59:09] You live in a tactile analog world. I was burning boards of a abandoned house. Planks of wood. So the take on this movie is, Alta doesn't want to get married. She's a weird girl. Her father tells her it's okay to be unusual. Martin Suckas?
[00:59:26] I think that seems kind of sweet. Yeah, that seems fine. Lindsey Duncan's goodness. Francis Delator is good in this. I did get an anarchist cookbook PDF on a message board. We'll think. You went to message boards to ask for the PDF. Yeah, I tried to get it.
[00:59:42] Yeah, well, yeah, I tracked it down. Yeah. There are rules. She doesn't want to get married. Yes. She sees the white rabbit. Yes. So she runs off. No, who's the guy who plays Hamish? Tony Bill. Great, great, great. He's fun in this. Great face. Leo Bill. Oh, sorry.
[01:00:00] Yeah, I'm enjoying all the performances in this for the first 10 plus minutes. I think you got Tim Pickett Smith is the step, you know, the father-in-law. All of this a lot. And I'm watching this and I'm like, oh, maybe Tim Burton should have made Jane Eyre,
[01:00:11] but like a straight laced version. You know? But I'm at it. Like maybe he should have taken like a gothic kind of like, you know, book and not done a Tim Burton version of it, but tried to like, maybe that's how he could have grown
[01:00:23] out of personal statements. Maybe he has to apply his vision to other worlds, you know, but not the Tim Burton take on that world. But then it just, they, Because what, it's true because like what you said and it's in here,
[01:00:37] it's like Burton developed the story because he never felt an emotional tie to the original book. Maybe let someone develop it who has an emotional tie to the original book. Maybe they've got some emotion that will, they'll pour into the movie.
[01:00:49] But the first 10 minutes, I'm like, this is a decent setup of like, okay, she keeps on since she was a little girl. She has what everyone tells her are nightmares about Wonderland. They tell her that was a weird dream, but she's never really gotten over it.
[01:01:01] Now it's like 10 years later, six years later, whatever. She's trying, you know, they're trying to force her into play society. She never fits. There's that moment when she's dancing with Leo Bill. And he says like, where are you? Like, where's your head right now?
[01:01:13] And she's like, I was thinking about clouds. Isn't it bizarre? Yeah. She's thinking about painting roses red. Right. She's like a fun character. And you're setting up this thing. I like the mom talking about blockages. Yeah.
[01:01:25] And everyone's like told her that she's crazy and that this thing that she remembers isn't true. Yeah, no, we got it. I gotta say though, Alice is stand-up set. What if Men wore dresses and what if people could fly? It just doesn't really work for me.
[01:01:35] She's got to work on it. For me also, it just feels like a little ridgid. She should have loosened it up, made it a jazz set. I think that's what we're gonna really made it sing.
[01:01:42] But then what drives me crazy, this is when I start to go like, what the fuck is this movie doing? She falls down the hole. The hole looks like a butthole. It's CGI butthole. Yeah, and she's like, yeah, that whole thing sucks. Right.
[01:01:54] And then immediately she goes, oh, this isn't real. I'm dreaming again. Sure. So it's one of those things where you set up for the first 10 minutes a character who believes what happened to her and everyone tells her she's crazy
[01:02:02] and you want to see that character be vindicated by returning to Wonderland, getting the affirmation that it's real and being able to save the place that she once lived. Right? Instead, this movie goes, we don't need you. You're too... She goes, this is a dream. Sure.
[01:02:18] It's not really a war happening but with very little urgency. Yeah, exactly. You're demanding a story. The movie, once she falls down the hole, there's no story. I'm demanding they pick a lane because I am totally fine with them making
[01:02:30] a live action Alice in Wonderland where it's here's a series of vignettes. Are you're totally fine with this? Yes. If they own that it's a vignette thing and every vignette doesn't end with you must claim the sword.
[01:02:39] It doesn't aim with the fake posturing of we're creating a Lord of the Ring style battle. What's weird is that every attempt to give this more of a story ends with like, well, Alice has got to fight the Jabberwocky and get the Vorpal sword to do that. Right.
[01:02:52] I get why you do that but like what the fuck? This movie vaguely tries to pin a chosen one narrative, a prodigal daughter returns. They show her like a scroll where she's killing the Jabberwocky. But then it's also like everyone has amnesia.
[01:03:05] I think the idea, this is barely defense but of them rejecting her is like, I guess, to add an element of mystery to that scroll because otherwise it would just be like that's you. You're going to kill the Jabberwocky. But I also hate that she immediately goes...
[01:03:21] And they're like, is that you? And she's like, I don't know. I hate that she immediately goes, oh this is just a dream. So none of this matters. It robs the movie of all suspense. And all intrigue. Right then the character has nothing going on.
[01:03:31] She's like, I'm going to ride this out. She just wanders from scene to scene. She could shuttle around by script for visions. In the book it is a dream. Right. And at the end of Through the Looking Glass she wakes up and she realizes that
[01:03:43] one of the cats was the red queen and the other one was the white queen. And like it's supposed to be like a reverie, you know? And I guess they're sort of paying homage. Again I'm doing the thing where I'm like, is this the defense?
[01:03:56] I guess that's the defense. But this is where I get into like my biggest gripe at this movie which is like it's a sequel that also kind of wants to repeat everything. You've mentioned this.
[01:04:05] Because here's a take and I'm not saying any of us would like this movie. But here's a cleaner version of the movie they're trying to make. Alice never gets over this bad dream. Everyone tells her she's crazy. She spends six years feeling disconnected from polite European society, right?
[01:04:18] She falls down the hole again. It's a post-apocalyptic wasteland. They go, we've been waiting for you. Why didn't you come back? Sure. And they're all huddled together. And she has to like lead them on a rebellion. Well here's the actual plot.
[01:04:30] Instead this movie is I'm going to very slowly wander around, meet everyone one at a time. Everyone's going to go, no I don't think you're Alice. She's going to go cool. Well it doesn't matter because I'm dreaming.
[01:04:38] And then the last three minutes she gets the sword and she fights. I do want to ask was Tim Burton one of the people who tried to adapt the Lucky McKee game Alice in the late 90s? Okay, so great question. That's the other thing I was thinking of.
[01:04:49] Everyone kept on saying that he was. And I think Lucky McKee kept on saying I want to try to do it as a movie. I want Tim Burton to do it. I think Wes Craven was going to do it for a while.
[01:04:59] But this movie has a lot of similarities with that game and the whole like Alice needs to become a warrior and defeat the Jabberwock comes straight out of that game. Which feels like one of the six things they're pulling from. American McKee. Lucky McKee is May.
[01:05:17] That movie May. I just had to look it up. I remember that game though. I remember that question answer which is what is. Which is a classic twisted Alice in the late 90s. And one of the first like this video games made by an auteur.
[01:05:29] Like he put his name on it. Except Sid Meier's thing was like, what if you could have a railroad? Like that's not a story to a Sid Meier. Chug a chug a choo choo. My question I never got answered.
[01:05:43] What is the only capital G great performance in this movie? I think Helena Bonacart is very good. But there's one performance that is immaculate in this film. Francis Delator. I don't know. The pig. Timothy Spall as Bayard the dog. Alright well I have a couple.
[01:05:59] He is so in the pocket in this movie. Bayard rolls. He's the Sidley the spy jet of Alice in Wonderland. Now you saying. America has Bayard's favorite. I'm doing my congressman again. His butt opens up and the cause can go inside.
[01:06:14] Does he feel pain? I ask you senator. No. Does Sidley have a rubble in his tummy when the characters are speaking? I have no problem with Timothy Spall's voice work as the fucking dog. His name is Bayard the dog and shows him. Here's my problem.
[01:06:29] That dog looks like shit. Even by the visual effects standards of this movie he looks unfin. All of it looks like the scorpion. Bad. No, no this looks worse. Like where he has no hair that moves.
[01:06:41] He's just like he's smooth even though he like has hair on his body. This is one of those movies where it's just like they don't. He's worse. I'm worse. I can't look at it.
[01:06:50] I'm not denying that what I'm saying is this is one of those movies where they were just like this is too much for any one movie to render. Like there's too much shit. And the special effects people were apparently having just nervous breakdowns all the time.
[01:07:02] Look at this. Look at this shit. Yeah but remember what he sounds like. Look at this shit. He looks like a dog who's being made into a glove. Yes, exactly. He looks like he's been vulcanized. The whole movie looks bad. Hey Ben did you watch this movie?
[01:07:16] Yeah fucking sucks. I hated this movie. I stayed up last night watching this. Did you watch it when it came out or? No. No. I took one look at it and I could tell it was a piece of trash. It is filth.
[01:07:29] This movie is pure disgusting toxic waste. Seriously, this is what I think. I think Tim Burton sold his soul to the devil. And these last movies- This is the devil like knocking on his door being like it's time to pay. This is bad. I think this is-
[01:07:46] Tim Burton was like do I have to do the sequel? And he was like no I wouldn't make you do the sequel Jesus. Come on. I think the devil could have not had that. Even I have limits. I know most people choose Planet of the Apes.
[01:07:56] I think this is his worst movie. Oh this is like 100% his worst movie. Do you think this is worse than Planet of the Apes? Yes. Of course. Planet of the Apes is at least super weird. This is maybe the worst film we've ever discussed on this podcast.
[01:08:07] And it's also one of the five most successful movies we've ever discussed on this podcast. Sure, right. And it's certainly his number one. So number two is How Do You Know? Right? No, How Do You Know is in the- Now nowhere near the bottom.
[01:08:18] What's the one that was- Elizabeth Town. No, no the one you're thinking of is- You are the best. Yeah that one's low. I'll do anything. That one's low. I'll do anything. But you hated that one because you were stressed out that day. I was having a moment.
[01:08:32] There was a moment. And I was saying- You came to the studio furiously after that episode. And we had to record two episodes on that movie. And then we had to watch a longer- Yeah. Hard to watch both dramatically and literally the visuals.
[01:08:45] Reminder, but I had said Brooks deserves to go to jail for that movie. The Chimperton should be sent to space. He should be spaced? He should be spaced. No, should he be sent to space like in a pod that he can breathe in? No, just-
[01:08:59] Or it's like an airlocking. He's just frozen floating around. Like a Pericles pod. He's like tucked in there in a monkey sized pod. Todd Ke- I mean I want to hear you get off the leash, David the dog style. Far far far. Barred style. Barred style. Woof woof.
[01:09:15] Barred style. What are the things that make you irate in this film? Like give me your fire and brimstone. Oh god, well you know the only thing that really makes me mad is when people don't understand that the main character of Last Man Standing is a vlogger.
[01:09:27] Yeah, but- Important. You don't know this, but Todd aimed a magnum at my head. He's the one I didn't know that. And he cocked it. And Griffin talked him into uncocking it, but he's still pointing it at me. There's an indent on David's forehead from the pressure.
[01:09:44] Now, when I watched this movie, I was watching it on the plane here, which you guys so generously paid for, Blank Check Air.
[01:09:51] And I was sitting next to someone and I kept angling away from them like I was watching porn because I was so embarrassed to be watching this movie in the year 2019.
[01:10:02] It is crazy to think about if I saw someone watching this movie on a plane now, I would be like, are they in a school? They might have sickled you off the plane.
[01:10:11] I would literally be like, this person must be sick and it's the only movie they can watch. Also maybe the worst place to watch this movie. Sure. And they were watching 13 Going Out 30 on their little monitor and I was like, boy, Jennifer Garner's good in that movie.
[01:10:24] And I had to keep forcing myself to watch it. It is an ugly ass movie to look at. It is.
[01:10:30] The process of the story is literally just sitting in a studio notes meeting and having an executive be like, I don't know what if the white queen had a sword? What if like the crown could float around because the gesture cat explains it?
[01:10:45] Every decision is contradicted by a different decision. Sure. Every scene sets new story goals. Alice has no character arc despite the fact that it's supposed to be about like her feminist realization of herself. It does truly feel like exquisite corp style.
[01:11:01] The live action bookends and the animated stuff in the middle were made by different people who were in no communication with each other. Like different scripts, different production teams. Yeah.
[01:11:10] And to top it all off, when I saw this movie, I was trying to make friends with some people that I worked with. Tim Burton, Johnny Depp. So I worked at the census. Yeah, John Johnny.
[01:11:19] I worked at the census at the time and they were like, let's go see Alice in Wonderland. And we went and saw it and we came out of it and I was like, boy, that was a piece of shit. And they were like, we all really liked it.
[01:11:28] And then like, I didn't get to have friends because of this movie because I preemptively was like, what a bad movie. But I did get the futter whacking out of it. I used to just send that to people I worked with in the middle of conversations and yeah.
[01:11:41] So my sister, Romley, you know, much younger than me. Sure. So when she was growing up, I was like, I'm going to endate her with all the things that I love the most. Right.
[01:11:50] And she, because she grew up in a household that was that I strong armed my way into being the third parent of. Yeah. I grew up a big Tim Burton fan. Right. She called him Tim Burton.
[01:11:59] It would be an event when I would take Romley to see a Tim Burton movie. She saw this one with friends on a sleepover. And I said, how is it? And she said, it's okay.
[01:12:07] There's one thing at the end that's maybe the worst thing I've ever seen in a movie. And for 10 year old Romley to say that I went, oh fuck. Right. Where like if she's saying even her critical faculties were like, this is no good. Right.
[01:12:20] She wasn't saying in a snarky way. Like she was just like, there's one thing at the end where I don't understand why they would do that. Right. It's, I didn't like it. It's the worst thing I've ever seen in a movie.
[01:12:29] And immediately when it happens, you just go like, what the fuck is this? But it's also the weirdest check off gun in the world because it takes maybe like 30, 40 minutes to get to Mad Hatter. Right. Sure. Then they get there.
[01:12:41] Then what's fun about the Mad Hatter is, oh these people are like, nothing, nothing. I'm sorry. What's fun about the Mad Hatter in the original text. Crazy. Right. The guy at Goofball McGillicuddy. Right. He's bouncing off the walls. Sure. Right.
[01:12:53] And the door mouse and the mad hair and all them are throwing shit, March Hair. They're all wacky. And Johnny Depp's take on the Mad Hatter is either he seems like a traumatized child or he becomes weirdly violent. Sure. He's never fun. No. Right.
[01:13:07] And he never feels like wacky. Like he either feels like victim. He's either melancholy or he's like a lot of other. Or like he's going to victimize someone else. Sure. Right? When he goes into those weird like Joker voice, like the Jabberwocky. Right.
[01:13:19] So they immediately, what was the fucking point I was gonna make? They offhand reference the Futterwacken. Right. They go like, remember he used to be fun. He's lost his will to live. He doesn't even do the Futterwacken anymore. And she's like, what the fuck is the Futterwacken?
[01:13:36] Like she's like rubbing her temples and she's like out with it. What's the Futterwacken? Right. And it's like it's the celebratory dance you can only do and pieces are stored to the kingdom. Then they just leave that thing on the table for an hour and a half.
[01:13:49] All of us forget about it because we want to. It is the only narrative thread they track in this fucking movie. Like the Cheshire Cat has the thing is like, I love to see Futterwacken.
[01:13:58] But they make it seem like that's going to be the great victory of the film. Sure. And then he does like CGI crumping. For like 20 seconds. Yeah. You sort of like. It feels like an eternity. It does. It's sort of like the ring.
[01:14:15] Like once you look on it, like your brain gets like lesions that can't be removed. And like this is supposed to be like a victory lap for the movie? Yeah. The script kind of, sorry the score kind of goes like.
[01:14:26] You know, like it's sort of like half hearted. Nothing like the rest of the score at all. It just like breaks into like a modern pop. Because Elfin is otherwise doing a totally serviceable generic. Incredibly generic. For kids though, do kids like that?
[01:14:42] That's one of those things where you're like, I don't know. This feels like it's out of like a Wiggles video or something. Well also you're cutting to, you're cutting from him Futterwackening. Uh huh.
[01:14:51] To like Alice who has like a one smile and the white queen who's sort of like has her arms lifted and she's sort of like vaguely kind of like, you know, sort of moving back and forth. And you're like, Nea Vosekowski is probably reacting to nothing.
[01:15:02] I bet she never met Johnny Depp. Right. And like they're tweedled him and tweedled he kind of go like, hey look, he's, you know, like that it's not like everyone's like, yeah, or there's some like crowd of people cheering.
[01:15:13] I'm just kind of like, I just cut to Yovna from the return of the Jedi. Of course. That's a crazy thing. Do you know that for this movie, they put Matt Lucas in a green like
[01:15:24] fat suit to have the egg shaped body then put him on stilts in the green screen space with Mia Vosekowski but didn't use it as motion capture reference. Okay. They just had him in that extremely physically uncomfortable state
[01:15:39] shoot all of his scenes and then they were like cool. And here's just raw assets of his face, stretch it onto the most horrifying looking creature ever imaginable and then copy, paste it and place it next to himself. Just do two. Right.
[01:15:52] There's all this shit where they had the actors act all the shit out and then like, look at her dancing. Look at this shit. Look at her. Look at the laziest fucking dancing I've ever seen. Look how bad his dancing is. He twists around. That's what it is.
[01:16:04] Right. It's like he can, he can twist around. And this weird gray bleak. What is this? That wiki that I linked to. This fucking mist background. It looks like a mortal combat level. The wiki that I linked to did it still have the name of
[01:16:19] the actual dancer and an entirely different font from the rest of the page. It did, yes. But I have to alert everyone. What's his name? David Bernal. Michael Brishnico. I have to alert everyone. Yeah. Oh, it's time for us to talk about Fred Colchon.
[01:16:33] So Paul Giamatti's fucking locked in in Fred Claus. He is. But it's a weird performance because of course like Paul Giamatti is Catholic but he reads so Jew culturally that it feels like this Santa is to Neboshi that haven't
[01:16:46] been said he's the one person who's finding the right comedic wavelength for the movie. Right. His makeup is very strange. Yes. Because they don't make his face rounder, they just make his beard huge but then his hands are very chubby.
[01:16:59] Like he's got like pointedly fat fingers in it. I watched it recently. I watched it just recently. I've been fighting a lot of insomnia recently and I just go down a rabbit hole of like no pun intended what's the worst thing I could watch that might
[01:17:11] make me surrender and my body will just fall asleep. Why don't you watch like some kind of like sort of very sleepy art? Like a kaira stommie movie or something. I do that sometimes. It doesn't work and then I go like opposite end like let
[01:17:22] the pendulum swing, watch Fred Claus. A couple of days before Christmas my wife and I both very busy people finally had a night off together and I spent that flipping between Fred Claus and the family man and anyway we're getting a divorce now. The end of that story.
[01:17:35] Had you ever seen Fred Claus in its entirety before? I had not. I had seen the family man in its entirety. Yes. Fred Claus is demented. I have never seen Fred Claus. Fred Claus is peak Vince Vaughn thinking I can just do whatever I want. People love me.
[01:17:49] Like that peak. He got a $20 million pair play concept, a pair play contract off the concept Vince Vaughn is Santa Claus's brother. Like he and David Dobkin walked in and we're like Vince Vaughn Santa Claus's brother and they're like cool here's 20 million now
[01:18:03] whether or not we make the movie we just need to pay you a kindness for giving us this gift. Thank you. Thank you. Rachel Weiss is in it. Kathy Bates is in it. Miranda Richardson is in it. America's favorite funny man Kevin Spacey is in it.
[01:18:17] Ludacris is in it. Elizabeth Banks is in it. John Michael Higgins is in it. I have never seen the motion picture Fred Claus. All right now back to Alice in Wonderland. Do you know that Fred Claus has a scene in which Fred has to go to a meeting
[01:18:31] of brothers anonymous, which is brothers of legendary creatures like Frank Stallone. Oh fucking hell. Stephen Baldwin. Roger Clinton. And Fred Claus. And everyone is like going on their spiels about like how did they get Roger Clinton to do it? That was all over the marketing right?
[01:18:51] All over the marketing. Right. And then Stallone was free. Stallone was free. He had space in his schedule. Well you know it used to be good you know things were fine we were on the same level and then Rocky comes around. Like they never have any of them
[01:19:04] identify themselves by name. They just make references to the big credits that their brothers have. Then my brother was elected president. Truly. Truly. That's like the joke they did. In 1992. And they're like Fred you've never spoken before and he's like well you know my brother's a Santa Claus.
[01:19:18] And then everyone gets irate at him and they're like you're making fun of us fucking Santa Claus isn't real. I gotta deal with real Alec Baldwin. There is an intense mythology about how Fred Claus is immortal in Fred Claus. Okay. He's an immortal man who's always
[01:19:32] been like a 40 something Chicago Shlove. They have to justify why he's the same age as Santa Claus and didn't get any magical abilities. And what's the reason? It's something to do with like they both were like Fred was cursed and Santa was blessed something like that.
[01:19:49] And yeah but at the end he has to deliver all the toys because it's a Santa Claus. Curse with a silver tongue gift to the gab. As a motor mouth. What's the movie that I just oh yeah no it's true detective true detective was the one that
[01:20:01] Bled vince Vaughn of the motor mouth that's gone now. Like he can't reclaim it anymore. Right. Alice in Wonderland. She goes to the tea party I don't know fucking no. Yeah I mean this thing is it is a serious revenge. Here's the plot she shows up
[01:20:16] they're like you're Alice I'm not Alice. You know much like in the original book she wanders through the four she comes across another person they talk for two minutes they go well yeah don't forget it you're not Alice or in the movie they do that right.
[01:20:27] She's the caterpillar and Alan Rickman he's like whew. Moves on. She ends up at the tea party she moves on. Okay the tea party everyone's crazy. Hatter's like you're definitely Alice which is unusual. Hypothetically. Everyone else is just denying that she's Alice. Hypothetically isn't the fun of
[01:20:45] this concept of doing a sequel that she doesn't have to meet everyone again and she can just live in a world where all of them communicate with each other. You're on the record that you don't like it's a sequel we got it we have that it's on the
[01:20:58] it's been written into the record but they all start helping each other I mean there's the dumb thing where the treasure cat steals the hat and when the hat starts flying at the guillotine I was like fuck is the hat magical now are they going to
[01:21:09] make the hat a character. Matt Hatter walks her over to a castle flings her over on the hat she does a hat flight and there's some castle business she gets too big the red queen likes her because the queen likes things that are disproportionate I kind
[01:21:25] of like the Red Queen stuff I like that everyone is elongating themselves in some way to match her head that's actually kind of subtle that like they have one thing right then they do explain it later but you know like she
[01:21:41] likes to put her feet on a pig the castle is an eyesore her whole kingdoms and eyesore but her performance is fun and you're least watching two actors who are both locked in talking to each other. Kind of right and then it becomes about then it's like if
[01:21:56] you defeat the Jabberwocky the White Queen will be in charge. You restore the kingdom. They predict the ending. Yeah it's on a scroll. Fucking scroll. So who cares? It's a chosen one. And also is the White Queen good? She seems like a white
[01:22:07] supremacist to me she's in like a white kingdom with white people. She's also like a necromancer. I don't like her. Yeah she's frightening. That weird flashback scene. She can't move her hand she's like John McCannery look. If you couldn't like bend his shoulders or whatever she's just
[01:22:18] got her hands up. Wearing a MAGA hat in the back room in the kingdom I swear to God. There is that's the post credit scene is the Mad Hatter just making MAGA hats. He's over the mill. Yeah right. These will sell? Um
[01:22:34] and then she finds the jab I guess there's the execution scene. Right. Because they're going to kill the Mad Hatter he's going to make some hats at one point. Right and then he wins over the favor of the Queen because he says he can make hats for her
[01:22:46] but then she doesn't like the hat so then she wants to execute him. Well she also realizes that he's in league with Alice. Right. Yeah. Every so often people just start speaking nonsense languages. Yeah. Which is in keeping with Louis Carroll. Sure.
[01:23:00] But I do the thing I hate about this is Alice just like is friends with people immediately because she's Everyone kind of tolerates her. read the book. But also they're both antagonistic to each other. Like she's like you're not real this is a dream and they're
[01:23:13] like fuck you your phony. Then she's really like oh I gotta save the Mad Hatter because he's played by Johnny Depp. Right. Why do you care about any of these people? Why does anyone care about anyone in this universe? Right. She fights the right.
[01:23:28] She puts on the Christian Stuart suit of armor from Snow White and the Huntsman. I forget I might have come after this again. Yeah but they look exactly the same is Chris Verlie. Is this his last performance ever? God what a depressing thought
[01:23:39] because this is one of those where it kind of sounds like he's on oxygen. Didn't he pop up in the Hobbit movies? Did he? He did. He isn't one of them I think actually at the beginning of the first one. He's like I'm Saruman but
[01:23:50] right now I'm fine. Yeah. Later I'm going to be a real pain. Saruman the okay. Yeah he's actually in two Hobbits. He's in the first and third. He's also in Dark Shadows and Hugo. Right. He had like another ten years in. He's fucking unkillable. He died like 96 right?
[01:24:10] He was very old also very tall famously tall. He died at the age of 93. Wow. I think his last like non-postumous release is Battle of the Five Armies. The last Hobbit movie. Thank God he didn't end on this. He did end on the Battle of the
[01:24:27] Five Armies though. The last Hobbit movie. You like those movies? I do. I do. I kind of like them. Okay. I'm a little bit of a fan. They're distressed assets you know what I mean? Like it's one of those things where it's like no one's
[01:24:40] speaking up for Hobbit so I'm like I'll speak up for Hobbit. I'm only on the record. I've only seen the first one. I saw it in high frame rate. I thought it was a fucking nightmare. I want to do Jackson's specifically to be able to see
[01:24:50] all three of them. But the high frame rate is a barrier. Like you should not watch it in high frame rate. It's one of those things where like ignore the director. I saw it with my father who had never seen or read any Tolkien
[01:25:02] and was like what the fuck is this? Well also it's the first third of a children's book. It's the movie so it's like you know it just have to stretch a little. That first one is my favorite because it's basically just like a three hour episode of
[01:25:14] Cougar Town starring Hobbits. Like they just hang out and like drink together. A lot of that. And then a couple of Del Toro monsters show up. It really is. It's a bottomless mimosa. It is. I mean the first hour is breakfast and then dishes.
[01:25:27] That's why I think my dad was like what the fuck is this? The scene where the extended dish washing scene is wild. He was like isn't this supposed to have sword fighting and shit? They're like throwing frittatas at each other. Like the end of the movie is
[01:25:39] them being like so I guess the mountains that away. Like basically. I went with my father. We went to this screening that was like one of the first high frame rate screenings. And I remember we're walking in and there's a new line like
[01:25:53] PR person standing outside the theater and she's like, OK, first screening down we only had 15 people walk out because of the high frame rate. So I think we're on a pretty good start. Oh my God. And they were doing a Q&A afterwards with Fran Walsh,
[01:26:07] Philippa Boyans and Peter Jackson. Wow, all three. And I forget who was moderating it but like the movie ends and the theater is kind of like silent and the person conducting the Q&A had to be like, so how did the three of you write? Do you?
[01:26:24] Kind of like one page at a time. And then there were two lines. Someone does the typing. Two laugh lines in the movie and he was like so that joke. Who wrote that joke? How did you come up with that joke? Like you couldn't find things to ask.
[01:26:37] Well what's there to ask? Exactly. I don't know. Yeah. I just was going to say it's an interesting comparison point because Lord of the Rings, there's so much influence of Lord of the Rings on this movie. Right. But there shouldn't be. No, this feels right.
[01:26:51] Like they redesigned the playing cards for no discernible reasons. Yes. That they look more like orcs or something. Yeah, they're more like armored. Yeah. No, that's what's weird about this because like Snow White and the Huntsman is not very good. No. But you're like at least that's
[01:27:04] a better shitty movie. Well also. Like it's just kind of dumb and it's like a bad approximation of Lord of the Rings and whatever who gives a shit. But also it's like Snow White is a fairy tale. Yes. It's very, very simple.
[01:27:15] So you can really spin it as many ways as you like. Yeah. Alice is like this odd work of literature. Right. It's a little more specific. Yeah. It's hard to fuck with that. I guess people have there's the video game. There's the things we've talked about.
[01:27:27] But like, you know, it's not a fairy tale in the same way. Disney got its claws on it. Right. But you know, the movie's good though, the original. I agree. I love that movie. And even like the old Disney Alice shorts are like some of the first shit
[01:27:38] Disney ever did, you know. He did like the live-action Alice shorts are like great. There's this history of Alice within the Disney company that I think they want to latch on to. But after this, it becomes oh wait a second.
[01:27:50] What we should do is tie these closer to. I mean, Maleficent becomes the blank check of this movie except Burton doesn't cash it. They really wanted Burton to direct Maleficent. He was in talks and then dropped out. So they handed to Strahmburg who secretly feels like
[01:28:03] the person driving this movie. Well, okay. This is my larger question. Yeah. What happened to Tim Burton? I don't know. This is the one where you're like what happened? This is when I finally kind of turned on. Yeah. This is the last one I saw in theaters.
[01:28:17] But you say like going into this post-Awesome Wonderland you go like did the guy just get lucky for 10 years and we all fell for it? Re-watching his movies over a short period of time do you feel like you have to give him credit for what he did well
[01:28:29] in the first decade of his career? Right. Right? Like I feel like you've come around to being like, you know what this isn't like a fluke. He did some interesting work. There's clearly a brain there. I basically really like everything from Pee Wee to Sleepy. Right.
[01:28:42] I don't like Planet of the Ape. Yeah. I'm mixed on Big Fish or more mixed than you. I like it okay. Yeah. I guess I'm mixed on Charlie. Don't like Corpse Bride. Sweeney. I like Sweeney. Me too. I love Sweeney. Sweeney. Is this the first one after Sweeney?
[01:28:58] That's right. Fuck. Ah, lovely. I'm a boba. I'll pull your tooth. This movie just becomes like confounding. Come here, Fred Claus. You need to shave. What if you mashed up Sweeney and Fred? Yeah. Fred V. Sweeney. Fred Todd? He says brother.
[01:29:19] He's like, I don't know what's up with my brother. My brother's crazy. Sweeney, the dawn of shaving. Oh boy. London. What a filthy town. The point is, Maleficent is, I think, the Wolverton blank check of like, I would like to make a Maleficent movie. Sure.
[01:29:33] And then when that does- It's like let's really recast this in an entirely different light. Right. It's a take on. Exactly. This is sort of halfway there. Riffing specifically on the Disney version because Maleficent is such a Disney character. And then after that they went like,
[01:29:45] wait a second, what if we just do the animated films again? And now we're moving to this like nexus point where like the films have essentially become like AI. Like they become self-conscious where it's just like they re-render the old movie shot for shot.
[01:29:58] There will be a hunchback of Notre Dame movie and they're like, they're willing. It's like, yes, yes, we will make it. Right. Like Deep Blue is like making these movies now. And then there's the same for me, the three live action remakes from before this one.
[01:30:11] In the Disney canon? Correct. 101 Dalmatians? Correct. There's a Jungle Book from before this. Correct. Steven Summers is the Jungle Book which was a Disney production. Yes. And it's more off the Rudyard Kipling kind of original. Yeah. It has animals. It has like live animals. Right.
[01:30:28] It's a scary movie because you're like- I saw it in theaters and it's scary. Scott Lee that close to that bear. Exactly. And then the third one, it's sort of only, it's a sequel. It doesn't really count. You're not 102? 102 dollars. Yeah.
[01:30:39] They did do a direct to video sequel to the Jungle Book. They did a Mowgli story. Sure, but that doesn't count. Come on. Anyway, Alison Wanderland is a piece of shit. She slays the Jabberwock game and she- It makes up billion dollars.
[01:30:50] She goes back and she's made a billion dollars. And yeah, it makes a billion dollars. She's like, I'm not fucking marrying you. Right. And the dad's like, you've humiliated my son in front of all these people. Yeah.
[01:31:01] Maybe, do you want to run like a shipping route for me? And she's like, uh-huh? And he's like, shake on it. But this is the beginning of the end of Disney trying to create their own blockbusters.
[01:31:11] Like despite the fact that this is like a legacy project based off a public domain thing that Disney has a history with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is trying to make something new. And after this they're like cool, like live action Disney is just doing nostalgia buttons? Right.
[01:31:24] But also- That's what we're doing, nostalgia machines? But also after this, Tim Burton only makes movies that are flops and critical flops. Right. Both don't make money and don't kick good reviews. This is the movie that made money but Doc didn't kick good reviews.
[01:31:39] And Disney is kind of just like- And so what does he do nine years later? He does Dumbbell. He remakes another Disney movie. And by the way, they have offered him every single one of these in between Alice and Dumbbell.
[01:31:48] And this is the one where he's clearly like, I guess I should do that. Right. Like rather than like, who cares, fuck them, I'll make whatever I want. Because they wanted him to do through the looking glass, they wanted him to do Maleficent,
[01:31:57] they offered him all of these, they wanted him to do their Pinocchio movie, like they keep on offering him these things. But this is the one where now it feels like maybe even Burton smells blood in the water and it's like, yeah, no, Dumbbell, I'll do Dumbbell.
[01:32:08] And it'll hit, hopefully. They hope. I hope God, I hope it's just nice. I hope it's just like a movie. He should just finally do his Oz movie. Like he's clearly gotten aesthetic. And everyone's forgotten the Ramy ones. It's not like anyone's worried about that.
[01:32:22] Which is the other weird relic of this time, like a movie that makes like $220 million. And they're like, we know we can't make a sequel to this. Like we know we can't trick people again. I think Suburban should get weird again.
[01:32:33] He should make a movie about adults or like teens. And it's like, maybe it's like rave culture about Goths or just like he should get back to what he's good at. Ben wants to make that movie. Have you read the graphic novel Black? Is it called Black Hole?
[01:32:45] I think that's right. Yes. Oh my God. Tim Burton would be great for that. Which David Fincher was going to do for a while. It's about like teens who when they have sex, they start like growing extra eyes and horns and shells. Oh, you've never read Black Hole?
[01:32:57] No. You'd have a good time. I'm actually going to buy a few as a perfect present. Because I want you to think of me when you're reading. It's got it all. Right, exactly. It's so good. You're right. That is a perfect thing for him to adapt.
[01:33:09] There are so many interesting graphic novels that Tim Burton could be making right now. There's so many weird genre films from his childhood. Like he wanted to make like X the man with the X or A eyes for a while, you know? They're like weird Corbin movies
[01:33:20] that he could be like making. And when this movie came out, I was like, okay, this thing fucking sucks. But he had a billion dollar hit. At least his next film is going to be something straight from the heart. Like he has such a big blank check.
[01:33:31] And instead he kind of shrugs and goes to Johnny Depp and is like, I don't know what do you want to do? And Johnny Depp is already putting on his fucking Dark Shadows cosplay. Like that's the real bummer of this movie. Sure. It breaks them all.
[01:33:44] What if this was means to an end to get him making a personal film on a grand canvas again? And instead he's like, I don't know, I don't really have anything left to say. Alice in Wonderland came out on March 5th, 2010. It grows an absurd amount of money.
[01:33:59] A day that will live in infamy. $116 million. That's correct. The biggest non-sequel ever. Coming up on its 10th anniversary. Although it is kind of a sequel. We are coming up on it. Right, but kind of to a movie that didn't exist.
[01:34:14] Number two at the box office was also a new film. A crime drama. A crime drama. Said in one of the five boroughs. One of the five boroughs. Now think of the movie Goddy if you forget what the five boroughs are. Yeah, because they're named in it.
[01:34:27] He welcomes us to the five boroughs. But wait, have you seen Goddy? I forget. You know there's a scene where Stacey Keats just names the five boroughs. Yes, I do. You got all five boroughs. Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx. You close them makes a fist.
[01:34:46] That's what he says. He literally, he cites off the boroughs. To John Goddy who's a New Yorker. Right, in the way that like they have to explain to Alice in this movie like the Vorpal sword holds all the power.
[01:34:58] Does he pull up list of boroughs of New York City on Wikipedia? Yeah, he does. He's like okay, what do we got here? Alphabetical order. Right, Brooklyn. But he recites them with the deliberate and like laser focused slow pace of someone who has to like unload dense mythology
[01:35:12] onto the viewer. In the beginning there was darkness and out of the darkness came the Bronx. Well, this one's not set in the Bronx. Okay. Where is it set? Brooklyn. Is it Brooklyn's finest? That's right. Anton Foucault, baby. One of the 15 Anton Foucault movies. In between.
[01:35:31] We were so surprised here where you're like who directed that and he and Foucault will sort of burst into me like I did. You can't believe it but I directed that one too. King Arthur that was me.
[01:35:39] The other weird thing is Foucault has been on kind of like a hot streak. He makes money. Right, this was this mid period where he was kind of dipping. This was. And you're like I guess Foucault was out but then like Olympus has fallen makes 100. Hit. Equalizer. Hit.
[01:35:53] He directed it. Right. Not a hit. No. Magnificent seven did okay. Equalizer two hundred and two million dollars. Yeah. Equalized again in that one. Equalized. This time to equalize. Yeah. The odds were in his favor. Equalizer two. Yeah, he made shooter. Right. He's made so many movies.
[01:36:12] He's made so many movies. Okay. What did that open to? $13 million. And was that like Sydney Kimmel Entertainment? That was a now defunct distributor. I know that. Over your fill. Now defunct. Number three. What a great movie. What a great movie. It's been in theaters for three weeks.
[01:36:31] And there's three. I saw it twice in theaters. I saw it twice. I cry at the end of this movie. You cried at the end of this movie? What a great ending it has. So it's some people don't like the ending. They're wrong. It's an early 2010.
[01:36:42] It was a holdover from 2009. It was positioned as an awards film. And then they were like fuck it. Let's release it in February. And it made a shoot. And then they were like, fuck it. And it was in February. And it made a ton of money.
[01:36:55] In my opinion, the best performance given by this actor with one other movie is competition. When you said you cry, I knew what it was instantly. It was originally awards con hender. Then they were like fuck it. We're giving up a big director. Big director.
[01:37:09] And it didn't get like a limited release. They just straight up pushed it. It was weird. They were just like, it's coming out in February and everyone was like, what? But like that wasn't going to be an awards movie. And they were just kind of like, no, February.
[01:37:20] But it was kind of good. It feels like maybe the distributor didn't get it. You know, I'd love to know what the actual reasoning is. Maybe it was unfinished. I have no idea. Maybe the distributor didn't have faith. The studio, big studio. The ending makes you cry.
[01:37:34] I love that ending. Is it like a pointedly emotional ending that some people think is manipulative? It's a twist ending. Big twist, right, Todd? Oh my God. A big sad twist? I think it's sad. I think it's moving. Do you know what it is?
[01:37:51] Or are you looking at it? It's more how can you not? I mean, I can't... And it becomes a surprise hit. I'll spoil it if I say anything. It becomes a surprise hit. I don't know if it was a surprise hit because it had a big star
[01:38:01] and it was from a big director, but it was a hit. It made $128 million. Wow. 300 worldwide. People expected it to flop and then it did. Yeah, I think because of the February thing, people were like, is this thing a mess? Yeah. And then it came out.
[01:38:17] It just wasn't an Oscar player is what it was. Exactly. Is it kind of genre? Very genre. We like to quote this movie, you and I. Oh, oh! Oh! That's right. What are we? You and I are duly appointed federal marshals. Hell yeah. No, Ms. Shut Island.
[01:38:39] Shut Island. We got to go to this island here. Right. You're right. That should have given it away. I'm not a twist that angers people, but you find deeply emotional should have given it away. They did this for him. I guess. It was for him. I got it.
[01:38:52] And did it work? Probably not. No. David, do you want us to do that for you? Put me on Shut Island. What if this podcast was your current island? They'd be crazy. I mean, you know Jackie or Haley. You could get him in for five minutes
[01:39:04] and be like, like lighting a big match. I got a lot of scores on my face. What a great movie. He told me some good stories about making that film. Really? Yeah. Do you know why I was dumped in February?
[01:39:18] No, I think it was that thing where they just went. This is a genre movie. Just dump it. Not dump it, but like forget Oscar season. Yeah, I think so. No, he told me that was like the first movie
[01:39:28] where he had the courage to like ask for more takes. Oh wow. Sure. He's like, I've got another thing I want to try or whatever. Gave a performance and Scorsese is so intuitive that like if he likes it, he doesn't need more.
[01:39:39] He's not a guy who needs a ton of coverage. Right. He was happy with it and was moving on. And he was like, fuck, I just kind of have come back after my career was like, you know, I was on the down and outs
[01:39:50] and I'm working with this massive director and he like built up the confidence to be like, can I do one more? I think I'm not doing what I want to do and what I can't do. Sure. Because he's really good in that scene. Great in that scene. Yeah.
[01:40:02] You know Marty too, so we can get him into the space. My two best friends, Marty and Jackie. Yeah. I gnawsh with them. We get bagels every Sunday. Marty and Jackie and I. Okay. Well, that's number three. It's a big hit. Number four. Oh boy.
[01:40:18] Saw this one in theaters. Comedy. Kind of an action comedy. Lazily directed, I would say. Pop out. You damn tootin. A movie in which I remember like Willis literally has guns pointed at him at all times. Right? Where he's just like, you want me to read the lines?
[01:40:40] Okay. He's got to come back by the way. Oh, no question. He was a hit. It's too bad he died. Yeah. He can never come back. Tracy is just being, Tracy, he's just been silly, right? It is also a movie so lazily constructed
[01:40:54] that they kept in the clapboards at the beginning and end of every take. Pop out scene three. But what I remember from the movies is that Sean William Scott is like pretty dialed in and is having a lot of fun. Like he's like, come on guys,
[01:41:06] this is fun. Willis is just like, who are you getting? You're the American Pie guy? He has a very, very fun, coked out 10 minutes. Sean William Scott has gotten really good at being the best thing in utter catastrophes. Yeah. Totally. He's just, you know, he's a professional.
[01:41:22] He's a professional silly man. How is he on a lethal weapon? Have you been watching the weapon? Have you been loading the weapon? I don't watch it regularly, but when I tune in, he's the best thing on a total catastrophe. He seems like a good cast.
[01:41:32] Like they show hired him the first time. And you know, the Goon movies are like one of those things that like in the 90s were common, those sort of almost straight to video franchises, but like he's kind of got one and he deserves one.
[01:41:43] It is one of those things. There's two Goons. Kevin Smith always talks about what a nightmare Bruce Willis was on Compout and how uncooperative he was. And it's like me because he hated being in the movie Compout. He didn't like you. Because of your personality.
[01:42:00] Number five is a film we've talked about that does 3D better than Alison Wonderland. It does 3D better than Alison Wonderland. Yeah, currently in its 12th week, it has grossed $720 million at the US box office. That could be any movie. Now I mean here's some movies.
[01:42:15] It could be The Crazies, Valentine's Day, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the Lightning Thieves. Is Percy Jackson in? No, it's number seven. Fuck, it's tough because all of these movies did over 700 domestic. Exactly. The Wolfman, The Ghost Rider, The Blind Side. Well that one is actually hit.
[01:42:31] Oh, huge, my right, yeah. Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Squeak-Wolves in there at number 18, Holding Fast. It's still on 562 screens. Let me ask you, did this movie inspire a very expensive theme park attraction? It did, but you know what else it inspired?
[01:42:49] It was really well written witty Cirque du Soleil show with some sharp humor. You're saying kind of like a subtle dry, a bone dry, but razor sharp wit. Exactly. A cutting kind of wit. My favorite thing is always to look at the bottom movie
[01:43:04] in the box office, which is The Cove this week. You remember The Cove? Yeah. Which has made $88 this week on two screens. So a per-screen average of $44. So it inspired a swifty and Cirque du Soleil show, a very expensive theme park attraction. It made over 700 million domestic.
[01:43:22] It's in 3D. It could only be one movie, Alvin the Chipmunks, The Squeak-Wolves. No, it's Avatar. Oh, okay. Where's Cameron's Avatar? Where is Squeak-Wolves? 18. Okay, that's all in there. I knew they came out the same month. Yeah, and Avatar's at number five
[01:43:36] and has grossed $8 million in its 12th week. Yeah. So a little better. A little better. There you go. Todd, any further things you want to yell about in relation to this movie? I want to discuss how this film has two Oscars. There we go. Which won over...
[01:43:53] Fair to note. Films like Inception, The King's Speech, which say what you will, great costumes and sets. What are some of the other ones that were nominated? I mean, Art Direction feels like the most egregious award to give this movie.
[01:44:07] Yeah, let's talk about some of the movies it beat. Because there one production design and costume design. Here's who it beat for Art Direction. This is actually our... It was nominated for visual effects as well. Yeah, and it lost to something. It lost to Inception. Okay. Thank God.
[01:44:23] A good movie. The Art Direction one is outrageous because literally every other movie should have won versus it. Right? Like it's number five. Yeah. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part one, which is a very well designed movie. Oh, all those are. Stuart Craig. Great. No, no.
[01:44:38] We both think Half-Blood Prince is the one that's the prettiest. That's my favorite. That's a beautifully shot. Inception, which probably should have won. Which has all kinds of insane production design. Incredible rooms. The King's Speech, which has like really great subtle production design.
[01:44:52] The room that they do the sessions in is really interesting. You remember that. Yeah. But you know, like a little more of a Tony period drama, but still better integrated, better get it right. True grit. Incredible looking movie. It is incredible.
[01:45:12] The other nominees in this category are all best picture nominees as well. Good point. Well, not Harry Potter. Oh, fuck right. I forgot. It should have been. Who knows? That is crazy that Alice wins. Crazy that. I mean, it's winning because it's most production design.
[01:45:27] I guess we would all agree, right? And then he off that Oscar gets to become one of those people who makes a $200 million debut film. Yeah, exactly. And like the production design in this movie, as we've already said, is a part. It looks bad. The sets are lame.
[01:45:42] The concept art, like the weird plants, the buildings and shit, lame. The fodderwacken, as we know it, is done in front of like a fucking arch. Like that's it. Like some kind of like rocks. I noticed it's all supposed to echo stuff in the real world, but.
[01:45:56] Kind of. But it's so sloppy. I mean, they don't really even ride that out. Well, yeah, this movie doesn't commit to anything. I feel like the costume wins a little more defensible, but also a little more defensible.
[01:46:07] But that's like, I mean, you know, my girl Colleen's done much better work than that. Colleen at Wood defeated. I am love a great costume nominee. Yes. The King's Beach, which has wonderful costume. The Tempest, Sandy Powell. If you're going to give that wild ass costume. Right. Anything.
[01:46:25] And true great, which has beautiful Mary's O'Fries, the Cohen's regular collaborator. Those great costumes. You're mad about it. You think true grit. Then made a little to catcher. Oh, for 10. Oh, for 10. Outrageous. Oh, for 10. What a masterpiece. Weird. What a huge hit that movie was not Cohen's. Yeah.
[01:46:42] Just great. Can you believe that though that there is a Cohen Brothers movie that grossed 180 million domestic? Yes. Because it's great. Yeah, but it's all their movies are great. No, I agree. No, it is weird that one of their films overperformed so much.
[01:46:56] That movie you think it's like, oh yeah, it'll make 70. It'll be like a, yeah, like a big hit for them. Exactly. It'll be sort of no country money. Right. But it was like number one for like four weeks. Yeah. It's.
[01:47:09] That was like the winter that was Jeff Bridges King of the Box office. It was like Tron and true grit were one and two for weeks on it. And now they're doing a combo sequel culture on grit. True Tron.
[01:47:20] I do want to ask if you fight for users. I do want to ask if you guys think this movie has had any cultural impact because I say no, but like I feel like I see that mad hatter a lot.
[01:47:33] Like when I had to go to Comic Con many years ago, there were a lot of. I think it's just a little now though. I literally saw an ad for the app TicToc the other day that featured a guy who
[01:47:43] dresses up as the mad hatter and performs his TicToc. I feel like there was still a good amount of it somehow inexplicably through like 2015. I feel like I don't see it that much anymore.
[01:47:53] Like I went to both the Disney parks, the North American Disney parks in the last year and it's fully just Jack Skellington land again. Good. It is that weird thing where we talk about what happened Tim Burton and there's this thing of just like Jack Skellington.
[01:48:07] The movie he didn't direct but like his like, you know, pure brain child kind of thing has become such an overpowering mascot of like what he represents that it feels like Disney just backs up the brain trunk to his house and goes like
[01:48:22] can you just try to make something like that again, please. Right. Please. There's a rumor that they're going to do a fucking live action Nightmare for Christmas now, which is just like a. That's so stupid. So stupid. It's like reverse idiocy.
[01:48:34] I think that's a better concept than movie. I don't think it's a bad movie. I just think the concept is so much better. But the key also is that that movie is like 71 minutes long and that Henry Selk's a genius. Yeah.
[01:48:45] I mean, I guess right where they're just thinking like, well now the tech is caught up that we can do it live action. But the songs are so gorgeous. Like that movie is closer to the old Disney animated films that are super short straight to the point.
[01:48:55] It will be one of those things too where it's like Beauty and the Beast where they're like, remember that like 90 minute movie? Well, this adaptation is two and a half hours long. Yes. Do you know that Tim Burton and Linda Wolverstein have been
[01:49:06] trying to do a Broadway musical of this? Really? Yes. If they do, I'll come back. She said she's working on it. Is that like part of like ISIS negotiations or something where we're like, we'll take that off the table if you stop gassing people.
[01:49:19] Because there's that weird threat. Tim Burton was going to direct the, what's his name? Jim Shaman, Batman musical in the early 2000s. Do you remember that? Chad out of hell, Jim Shaman. I know him. Wrote an entire book for a Batman musical. Batman out of hell.
[01:49:34] That's what it was going to be called. Are you serious? No. But he wrote an entire Batman musical that Tim Burton was going to direct on Broadway. They announced it in the trades and some of the songs have leaked out.
[01:49:44] He repurposed some of them for like that out of hell three, but the one that I like is called I work the graveyard shift at its Batman talking about working late nights. And seeing it sounds kind of good. Grave Yard Shift.
[01:49:57] You've also got songs called In the Land of the Pig, The Butcher is King. Which sounds like a Jim Steinman song. Yep. We're still the children we once were. What's going on? I don't know. Wait, are we done, Ben? I got to edit Snooki's fucking podcast.
[01:50:14] We got to do ads. You got to do ads. Where do you get all those wonderful toys? That's one of the songs. That's one of the Joker's songs. Anyway, if he comes, you know, a knock in on Broadway's door will bring you back, Todd. Wonderful.
[01:50:27] And if not, we'd love to have you on for a movie you don't despise down to its core. Oh well, you know. We can alternate. That's my plan. Some of your favorite, some of your least favorites. A gem and a turd.
[01:50:38] You know, I can just stick around and give you some throwaway lines to stick into the ads that are going to go on this episode. So I can be like, wow, that's great. We had to say about Robin Hood, Chancellor Angela Merkel.
[01:50:47] You want to give us a quick four? No specifics. Talk about products without saying the companies. I definitely think we should give Ben work to do it. Todd, give us three quick ad reads, personal experience ad reads without naming the product.
[01:51:01] I really use this product and it's a thing that I brought into my apartment and my cats all loved it and my wife loved it. And now they all love me more and I'm not getting divorced anymore. So one, Ben Mark, that is a select two.
[01:51:14] The second is, wow, this product cured my scoliosis. Okay. Mark that as a select three. This product made me feel good about the state of the world today. And third select. And I think that's a wrap on Todd. I'm sorry. I got a plug shit. I'm sorry.
[01:51:33] No, no, I was going to say plug the new podcast is called prime time. It's coming to your podcatcher of choice on April 11th. Oh yeah. I've also got another podcast called Arden. I'm not in it, but I wrote it and people seem to like it.
[01:51:48] Fiction podcast fiction podcast. Your dad thinks it's a lie scripted podcast. My dad thinks it's a lie. He won't speak to me. But you could find that at first seasons out on podcatchers. I also have a book, Monsters of the Week X files companion.
[01:52:03] It is in bookstores now and you can find me on Vox and at Twitter TV OTI to vote. And I also be on the internet. I know you're driving people to new stuff, but I recommend if you got time go go back through the archives.
[01:52:15] If I think you're interesting. So it was a wonderful show. I'm excited. We'll still be continuing in some form or another. Yes. Listen to Griffin and David's episodes. They're great. I do have a famous goof on mine though. Don't like that goof. What else to say here?
[01:52:33] Oh, merchandise spotlight. Tragically, embarrassingly, the last three things ever released for Disney Infinity, my beloved video game where Alice and the Mad Hatter. Yeah, you told me that right after they had canceled it. They were like, fuck, we already made these. Here you go.
[01:52:50] Nia Lasakowska did the voice. Yes. For Alice. I'm sure she was compensated. They made a time one to Sasha Brancon. I ended up didn't do their voices, but I have fucking Alice and Wonderland and Mad Hatter figures that are in a box that I'll never open ever again.
[01:53:06] Not like so in their packaging. Like I opened them and then blood started seeping down my walls and I locked them up in a crate and threw them in the bottom of the ocean. Your house 14 08 it or? Yes, it's 14 08. I had a full blast 14 08. That is a 14 08.
[01:53:21] Yes it is. Todd, thank you so much for being here. Great to be here. King amongst man. Next week, Dark Shadows. Oh my God, Todd, standing up doing the footerwack. Next week, Dark Shadows with Jamie Loftus. That's right. We're getting dark, baby.
[01:53:38] And I'll tell you after rewatching Mrs. Paragran and Alice Wonderland, I like Dark Shadows a lot more now. It's got some energy. It's got some energy. It's got a little bit. We recorded that episode when we were more in the actually good Britain zone.
[01:53:51] We recorded that right after recording Beetlejuice. We were like, what's this thing? And now you're like a rare return to form for Timothy Bird. He appears to have given instructions to the actors. Like now when we were recording the episode I was like,
[01:54:05] why did I stand up for this movie at the time? And I'm like, I should have fought for it harder on the episode. Anyway, thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Go to blankies.outread.com for some real nerdy shit.
[01:54:17] Go to T-Public for some real nerdy shirts. Patreon for some real nerdy bonus content. And I want to thank Pat Reynolds and Joe Bowen for their artwork. And for Godot for social media. Lay in Montgomery for his theme song. And as always, keep futtering that whackin'. Gross.