Beowulf with Jordan Hoffman

[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 am Ripper, Terror, Slasher, Goudre

[00:00:24] I am the Teeth in the Darkness, the Talons in the Night Minus Strength and Lust and Power I am podcast! Yeah, yeah, of course you had to Very good, good job, good job Good aggro windstone Yeah, why does this go on windstone?

[00:00:45] It's the yelling at you that I am Beowulf He's Beowulf Oh right, this man, I'm kinda calm now But no I'm Beowulf! How else would you know him, him Beowulf? He has to know, sorry for the misunderstanding here I should have introduced myself earlier I'm Beowulf!

[00:01:05] What do I know about cholesterol? He used to do this ad I feel like I've talked about it on the podcast before For like Special K or some healthy cereal Wasn't it Weedabix? Or no, no, Bob Hoskins is Weedabix

[00:01:20] But at one point he goes, Bored one, about cholesterol No one thought you knew anything about cholesterol It wasn't a problem To be fair I thought he knew a lot about cholesterol You did? Fair enough Wait now I have to look this up

[00:01:34] It's for some, go ahead, go ahead I confirmed that, no, because Bob Hoskins was the voice of one of the Weedabix's tufts In the commercial where the Weedabix was animated and animate And he was like, I'm Weedabix, ain't I? You're right, you're right

[00:01:49] Famously in Britain, Bob Hoskins, it's good to talk He was the voice of British telecom Now I'm trying to figure out which cereal Ray Winstone God damn it David don't beat yourself up You have to look this up It's the first time you would ever hear this information

[00:02:09] This is new to you You wouldn't even know where to look It was called Octavia Octavia? It was a cereal? Yeah, I'm watching the ad now When it comes to food, there's a bit of a nanny culture thing going on Food is, don't do that, do this

[00:02:27] He's just like monologuing at us, like talking about like they're always nanny-ing us When from? Um, it's a great question, 2006 Around this time Around this time He's feeding you Octavia and teaching you about ancient Norse culture Simultaneously Getting this big Beowulf paycheck Getting that wolf money

[00:02:49] Top build in a hundred million dollar American animated film Can I throw out a couple other quotes from this Beowulf IMDB quote page? Go ahead Wig laugh Best character Bracket Stabbing at Grendel's crotch I swear to bastard has no pintle That's old English Griffin That's old English

[00:03:14] It propels the plot though, because when he discovers that his eardrums are his pintle He says something to the tune of the pintle pointing at his eardrums The pintle Yeah Here's another classic, classic quote from the movie Beowulf, the 2007 Robert Zemeckis Beowulf film King Hrothgar Yep

[00:03:35] During Grendel's attack and then here's the quote A sword! Give me a sword! Is that it? Yeah, remember that quote? I mean you seem to be, you're getting mad at the IMDB quotes page for Beowulf now Now you're just picking fights

[00:03:51] Okay, but what about this one? What about this quote from Wig Laugh? Okay? Wig Laugh Wig Laugh is a great character Wig Laugh rules Load of laughs I agree and here's a great quote from a great character, ready? Wig Laugh Seeing the dragon for the first time

[00:04:03] Odin swiping balls Alright, that one's good, come on, that one's good I swear to God Swiping means to lay with a woman Wow, so his balls? Fuck? You're telling me that this guy's balls? Fuck? Hey, you know, it was ancient times, what can I tell ya? Wig Laugh

[00:04:29] Hello everybody, this is a little podcast called Blank Check with Gryffin and David My name is Gryffin I am David! This is Beowulf This is a podcast about filmography Directors who are massive success early on in their career to give a series of Blank Checks

[00:04:46] Make whatever crazy passion products they want Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby It's a main series on the films of Robert Zemeckis That tricky Bobby Z And today we're talking about I was gonna say one of his weirder entries

[00:05:04] But this would be a weirder entry in almost anyone else's filmography And instead you're just like, oh yeah another Zemeckis movie Yeah, it is Well he has made a lot of weird movies I guess it's tough for me to It's the weirdest It's very weird

[00:05:20] It's very weird, but here's the thing I feel like in someone else's career this would be uncontested the weirdest And instead this is in that batch of five where you have to wrestle with which one might be weird No, this is the weirdest

[00:05:33] It's the one that looks like a PS2 cut scene where there's like jizz all over a fake Angelina Jolie in a cave Excuse me, golden jizz That's true, that's true Introduce our guest Griffin Well I was trying to start the show quickly

[00:05:50] Get the introductions out of the way quickly Because our guest needs no introduction Hence why we have not introduced him the previous times he's been on the show Apparently a sticking point No, no, not at all

[00:06:02] It's just, you know when you were a guest on a popular podcast Your introduction is the thing you look forward to the most Anybody who says otherwise is lying And the two times I've been on this show prior

[00:06:12] My introduction has come about 11 seconds before we were all out the door I mean a classic bit though It's a classic bit Oh yeah, it's a classic bit

[00:06:20] You are notorious for usually, I mean let's say this is the reason I've always held off your introduction for the last minute You think so thoroughly that a podcast peaks when you're introduced That you tend to leave the show right after your introduction You're notorious for bailing post-intro

[00:06:37] Beowulf, bail, bail, bail-wulf thing I don't know David Wow, wow, that was amazing I tried to leap on that and it just blew up in my face David you have to leave I'm gonna go You have to bail a wolf on this podcast

[00:06:55] I can't do the same joke that I was about to do Come on You made me cleaner I didn't stumble on it I didn't hit any speed bumps Yeah, all right, fine Jesus There are no wolves in Beowulf

[00:07:10] That dog in the beginning kind of has some wolf characteristics It's a fair point I guess there's no absolute wolf character They're a lot of wolves roaming around back then Right, like it was sure of an issue

[00:07:23] I mean, yeah, maybe there are no wolves exactly to speak of in this episode But this movie is full of some dirty dogs You know what I'm saying? That is true Everyone at home lean in for that joke The movie's like a wall-to-wall wolf whistles

[00:07:41] This is his horniest movie I mean, that's kind of what's most fascinating about it Is he's this filmmaker where you feel like he's just keeping his horniness at bay Like he's trying not to go full horny on main But it's always like, it's right there

[00:07:56] He always got one scene where it peeps out And you're just like too horny, too horny Bobby And this movie he's like, ahhh Okay, very horny I have a couple things to say to that One, you're probably right, it's probably his horniest movie

[00:08:08] You are forgetting Marwan is horny in its own way I think this is horny Yeah, I think it is too I think it is too, but this movie is like so completely subsumed in fears of castration Like in the most basic Freudian male sexual terror

[00:08:27] That horny isn't even the word Definitely, there's a lot going on sexually with this movie It's his weird Catholic guilt movie Ahh, yeah baby, I don't know In certain ways, look there's a lot to dig into here

[00:08:40] But our guest today, you know him from the blue steel episode Sure, kids went crazy for that You know him from our Melvin and Howard episode Ladies and gentlemen, the great Jordan Hoffman is here Oh wait, hold on To talk Beowulf, oh my god, applause, to applause

[00:09:02] It's a big day, it's a big day Hello everyone, nice to see you all What a pleasure It's a pleasure Griffin and Dave Sims Dave, you and I normally see one another on the reg in a non Yeah, once a week, maybe more In a non-pandemic era Right

[00:09:21] We have not seen each other in a long time So it's really nice to see you through the I know this is an audio show for the audience Yeah, but we can see each other, you know, on the screen Yeah, so it's nice, you look beautiful

[00:09:34] Oh, that's ridiculous And then you look nice, everybody else I miss, you know, just trekking up to the AMC Lincoln Square, like at seven o'clock on a Monday To see, you know, whatever, underwater This year's Beowulf Yeah, exactly And thinking like this sucks

[00:09:53] You remember when you used to like complain about screenings Right, yeah We'd record an episode and you'd be like, oh Now I have to Have to go uptown, right To see Sonic the Hedgehog Yeah It's just like I would crawl across broken glass

[00:10:08] To see Sonic the Hedgehog in a theater Yeah, at a fucking 9 p.m. matinee Do you remember that the glory days when we got to see Sonic at 9 p.m. on a Saturday? You mean 9 a.m. 9 a.m., sorry That was a morning screen

[00:10:19] Did you see Sonic, Jordan? Were you there? Were you one of those few? I think I did miss that one I had Sonic in it But I've done my share of those Saturday 9 a.m.s I've seen Hop with Russell Brandt There you go Right, he was Hop

[00:10:37] He was second runner up for Beowulf He was almost Beowulf He would have been great Swaggering and imagining Oh, I'm Beowulf Grendel, mine going around the shop Going around the corner shop And pick me up some kippers That's what they do in England Absolutely

[00:10:56] Dad would have come up He would have a prank phone called Grendel on his radio show And made jokes about having sex with Grendel's mother Boy, Grendel I had a bang with your mom Isn't that how they do it?

[00:11:11] Oh yeah, here's the thing I've been thinking about recently I don't think I said this on this podcast I think I said this maybe somewhere off, Mike To you, David Okay Sonic the Hedgehog is currently the last film to make $100 million at the domestic box

[00:11:25] I believe that's accurate I can't imagine what else they would do It comes out in February It has a big, big opening It's the last film that opened strong enough And had enough time afterwards To make easily over $100 million It had legs It had legs, blue furry legs

[00:11:42] And it went like this Fast They just went like a wheel How long do we think it is Before another film crosses $100 million? That's a great question Right? Like how long is Sonic the Hedgehog going to hold onto that title as the last blockbuster

[00:11:59] I hope a long time Years Monster Hunter But Monster Hunter, right, that's supposed to come out when? January, February? Christmas, Christmas Is it still on Christmas? I feel like it's one of the only movies that hasn't moved

[00:12:12] Well you know, I mean, I don't want to be too optimistic But they are announcing today I mean not to put a time-send There was encouraging news today about the vaccine From two's places about the vaccine And then there's a second news item

[00:12:26] That they have a therapy drug And did you see the name of this therapy drug? It's like Bob, Bob, Black Betty, Bam, and I am I don't know, something like that It's a ridiculous name I mean could you imagine the world being saved by a medicine called

[00:12:39] You're gonna look it up? Bam, Laniv Imab Yes, Bam Laniv Bam Bam, Laniv Imab Bam, Laniv Imab What the hell? How did they come up with these things? I think they were in like a cave with Angelina Jolie And hunting the sword and various north Various north totems

[00:13:03] And Agenie said Bam, Laminimab I'm gonna just call it Bam Margera for short Oh, Viva La Bam Viva La Bam Hooked me up with some Bam But the Bam might do the trick And I'll take a little Bam, you know, why not?

[00:13:16] At the time we were recording there was a deadline story today About how like Wonder Woman is the one big movie still on the schedule for Christmas We're recording this in early November And that it's like the theater chains are making the last big plea

[00:13:32] To California, LA, New York, government officials To get them to open the theaters in time for Christmas Because apparently like this is the week where Warner Brothers needs to pull the trigger on the marketing campaign Or give up on what they see as this year

[00:13:47] There's a lot of rumors that it'll get pumped to the summer Right, but they're like throwing out the last Hail Mary pass Right I have mixed feelings I have mixed feelings, it's a shitty situation I don't know if you can cuss, but it's a shitty situation

[00:13:59] You can cuss a storm Cuss a storm I don't like to cuss, you know man I'm family man But you know speaking of cussing In this here Robert Zemeckis motion picture You'll hear Kostas Mandelor's voice In a shitty CG feign from God knows where

[00:14:18] Saying to a busty wench Come on, my mighty lust limb can transport you to paradise To ecstasy and back No other man will ever be able to satisfy you again That's old English Jordan I mean that's just poetry

[00:14:35] You're supposed to walk into the room saying that in a booming voice Into a mead hall Directly from the poem I'm pretty sure That's a direct translation I got a quick follow up question for you Jordan That busty wench Wiping down the tables who has an extended sequence

[00:14:55] Where they cut back and forth between her and Mandelor And her pendulous breast just swing and jiggle In glorious 3D PlayStation 3 level graphics I think you want to say, I think it's 3D How come on, I mean Oh wow Do you know who plays that wench?

[00:15:11] No, no I wish I did Leslie Zemeckis Leslie Zemeckis This is a through line He gets remarried to a woman who I believe at that point in time Is predominantly a burlesque performer Yes, I can look it up officially It happens right before the motion capture era

[00:15:31] But there is a burlesque marionette and polar express That I swear is modeled after her This character is modeled after her played by her And then she's also one of the women of Marwyn He loves making these really horny sexualized Depictions of his wife in the CGI movies

[00:15:50] That's a great story I mean that warms the cockles of my heart Who says romance is dead? She isn't indeed credited in the polar expression In Beowulf and Marwyn She's also credited in a Christmas Carol So we gotta watch out for her in that one

[00:16:06] I'm looking here at the credits Fred's wife The ghost of Boner's future Oh Fred's wife Oh boy god That's the one I'm the least looking forward to Well I mean so right before You're right Before this scene She's wiping down the table

[00:16:23] Costas Mandalore says that his loins are burning By looking at her And then there's a joke Now so there's a joke right before the line I just quoted My muddy lust limb We can transport you to paradise When they're outside and there's a noise

[00:16:38] And he's like well was that Was that your demon And she says no, no that was a wolf You don't hear Grendel when he comes And he goes well ha ha You'll hear me I promise Yes Now what's amazing is that this movie's PG-13

[00:16:54] PG-13 this is a PG-13 film It is animated and they were pushing And we're gonna get into this I'm sure They were pushing the 3D in this movie This movie was aligning the sand before Avatar Before Avatar there was Bayow

[00:17:06] This was the first like modern digital 3D movie On a thousand screens This was the widest release yet Nobody remembers it That's why this episode of this podcast Is significant and important And we all should be excited So it's for kids This movie's for kids

[00:17:23] This is Cliff Notes If I was in school I'd watch this as Cliff Notes baby I'm not reading this shit I'm watching this movie Here's the thing Ben Here's the thing if you read the If you watch this as Cliff Notes And then went into school

[00:17:37] And used this movie Your teacher would be like I don't know where you get the longest from You've got a wild reading on that poem Do you know Ben None of the sex stuff is in the poem Oh boy The king is in Grendel's father

[00:17:52] Bayowulf isn't the dragon's father That would be an awkward book report So noted You just keep this Don't do what I just said Describing fucking But your teacher would know It was like oh you saw that Horny Costas Mandalore didn't you You saw him

[00:18:06] You blame it on man We'll see him Okay we gotta pull this back Pull it back Pull away back We're here to talk about Bayowulf Obviously podcast away Robert Zemeckis Bayowulf So the 8th century No no I'm kidding What? Further Perfect

[00:18:24] We gotta go all the way back to the 8th century What's the first line of Bayowulf This movie What's the first line of the movie Or of the poem I can tell you what it is It's a shredding guitar line Na na na na na na

[00:18:35] Yeah it sure is It basically sounds like corn But after you hear some corn And they chant Hrothgar Hrothgar enters Puny little CG awful looking Anthony Hopkins And he says I want mead He does Oh you're setting up your Yeah I'm setting some up

[00:18:53] Now I wish we could be there today in person That's the sad thing about this being The pandemic Because I happen to have here And I'm gonna uncork it for you I have and this is no joke I know I have a bottle of mead here Whoa

[00:19:06] That's right That's right I have a bottle of mead I'm gonna drink a little mead While we do our show And I'm gonna Little of that stuff goes a long way I'm gonna put it in an original Star Trek 3 The search for spot glass Let's see it

[00:19:22] I wanna see that glass Taco Bell put these out a long time ago Well Hoffman I feel like I have to match you My good man So I am going to You have mead also? No I have a raspberry flavored white claw

[00:19:36] And I'm gonna pour that into a C3PO Tiki mug Oh nice nice Jesus now I want to drink Lahayem Now mead is essentially like fermented honey I think I've had it once or twice It was like the white claw of its day Overly sweet

[00:19:53] It's a good trainer for middle schoolers Who has stolen some drinks It's like lean It's like now the kids have lean Back then they had mead Kids love lean The thing about mead is It's an ancient drink Yes But so is wine and beer

[00:20:07] People still drink wine and beer They don't drink mead And for very good reasons It's terrible I think that the wine and beer of the day Would baffle our tongues Like I think they've evolved They've modernized But even so mead was the sweeter option

[00:20:23] Mead was your Sminoff ice Your Mike's hard Your white claw Your Forloko was your mead So I'm drinking mead Harathkar loved his mead And I'm having some today too So we're here to talk Beowulf As we drink our mead in our beer hall

[00:20:41] Jordan you demanded to be on this episode You said you were at the premiere Am I making that up? I was at the big event screening in New York In New York, right It wasn't the Hollywood premiere or whatever But it was, you know, whatever

[00:20:53] I feel like you threw out your shot To be on this episode Before Zemeckis did even one March Madness Like it was like in the early rounds You were like if Zemeckis wins I'm doing Beowulf Yeah, because this movie is fascinating It's a fascinating blend

[00:21:09] Of a lot of stuff And when we get to some of the performances When we get to Screwy, what's his name? We get to the guy, Crispin Glover When we get to Crispin Glover I have a little tale to tell

[00:21:22] I have an oral poem, an epic poem to tell I'll like the bonfire And tell you an amazing story Excited for that I do like, I mean I have extremely mixed feelings About this motion picture I want to know what you guys think I do too

[00:21:38] I do too I do think it's good If you made me decide But it's certainly a mixed feeling I can't hate this movie It's too much fun I come down pro But it's one of those movies We're watching it You're like, this should rule

[00:21:55] Like I should unabashedly love this And there's obviously the technical barrier That the film is so much a product Of the filmmaking process at the time That's what makes them overreaching beyond their means But also there's just something That doesn't totally connect It's not just that

[00:22:14] It's an odd beast The screenplay is lopsided But the thing is There's an inherent paradox in this film Which is The technical barrier is huge The movie just looks atrocious I mean, there are moments that are cool The movement is good But the dead eyes The uncanny valley

[00:22:31] It's unbearable Yeah, it is It is inherently a failure And you say to yourself Well, if this was shot as a quote-unquote real movie And not in this weird computer generated thing It would be amazing But you could never do it It would cost $700 billion

[00:22:47] And 20 people would have died If you can't make this movie Like this You can't do a shot for shot Recreation of this with live action It just can never be done No That's the big quote You know Avery and Gaiman write this as a script

[00:23:05] Because Avery had gotten hired To try to adapt Sandman In one of the many Misbegotten attempts to make a Sandman movie Yes They got close Avery and Gaiman started talking Beowulf I think it was Avery who had this reading Of all this sort of sexual misconduct Within Beowulf

[00:23:25] The fact that you never really understood The relationships Who Grendel's father was I want to get all into that I'm going to believe me Well, we'll get into it Yes But I guess I'll let you play that all out But to jump ahead

[00:23:38] It was a script that Zemeckis Was producing Signed on to produce And Avery was going to direct As a $20 million Roger Avery Right Roger Avery Who had won an Oscar for Pulp Fiction This is before Laws of Attraction Post-Killing Zoe He wanted to make a scrappy

[00:23:56] Sort of Excalibur style Low budget medieval film Scrappy Wolf Right So he wrote a scrappy talky Beowulf With this reading of the text With Gaiman Neil Gaiman Neil Gaiman Sir Neil Gaiman Zemeckis comes on as a producer For years it just doesn't get off the runway Then

[00:24:17] Post-Polar Express When he was like Fuck it more More more more more mocap He goes back to them And says I could get your script Greenlit tomorrow But you have to let me direct it Because I think the way to do it Is with mocap

[00:24:35] And the big thing he says to them is I want you to rewrite it And make it as big as you possibly can Cause they had written it budget consciously Right And he was like forget it But the line he says

[00:24:46] That I remember repeating so much through the press At the time As they were trying to sell this movie as like It's this fucking hardcore Adult Action Epic The reason it's animated isn't cause it's for kids It's because you could never do this shit in live action

[00:25:02] And his big quote that he always repeated was I went to Gaiman and Avery and said There is nothing you could possibly write Which would cost me more than one million dollars per minute And for a 90 minute movie That's not That's nothing to sneeze at

[00:25:18] Or maybe two hours But yeah Alright that works Hair under But that's It very much is directed with that energy Of just like I'm gonna do every fucking thing I've never been able to do as a filmmaker before I mean he rides a dragon

[00:25:32] With like bodies flying everywhere He swings He dislodges his own arm And then he's got like basically Full frontal Angelina Jolie in a PG-13 movie What a time Incredible chain work Jank, I mean a lot of chain work Off the chain So good And just

[00:25:52] I mean he did it on Polar Express But all the camera stuff And the zooming through things And the You know flipping around the room like crazy And all that You know, that's great Let's also say this For as much as this movie does not look good

[00:26:06] Having just watched Polar Express And watching this And knowing those movies are three years apart This is like a seismic advance That's the thing And I wonder if Christmas Carol will feel like that too Like is it all big leaps? Because yes

[00:26:21] This was way better than Polar Express Even though They still have the creepy flat faces Like you just can't get past the creepy flat faces There are other things You're like oh it looks okay There are some shots that really work

[00:26:33] I mean it's on a shop by shop And there are some shots you're like Yeah, fuckin' hey Bay Wolf this movie rocks And then they just do a cut To a close up of Malkovich And you're like this is I'm in hell I'm in a dimension of hell

[00:26:45] It's lovable It's also this thing I think they hadn't like certain The technology was not advanced enough To pick up certain types of actors You know there were only certain kinds of performances That even translated onto these models And someone like Malkovich Who's such an energy actor

[00:27:03] Like he's a very subtle application Of energy aside from when he screams There's not enough being captured there To get anything other than fuckin' wax figures You know that's a good point Because you know Winston plays Winston plays Bay Wolf one note Screaming like a lunatic

[00:27:19] You know he's a monster But you know Malkovich is giving A genuine performance And so's Anthony Hopkins a little bit And they come off much worse Because there's attempt at nuance Is attempt at being an actual human being And you can't do that

[00:27:35] You know the what's her name Frowny McSad the queen in this Robin Wright Yeah she comes off awful That's a disaster She looks like a painting Like her face just does not move at all And she's so unappealing And you're like Bay Wolf can have any

[00:27:52] Wenge in the meat hall And he's stuck on her Leslie Zemeckis right there I mean I hate to say it But she at least has The boss' wife She was lively I mean that shot of her As you put it 3D pendulous breasts Is meant for humor

[00:28:07] It looks weird But there's more life in that Than in Robin Wright Who's supposed to be the The one you're in love with I think Bobby spent 20% of the budget On the breast shot From the boobs He just kept on saying

[00:28:23] Sir I think we're done with this sequence Another pass I have more notes Yeah it's So the visual aspect is weird But then also Something that watching it now You don't know The 3D was so great So that when you saw it in the theaters

[00:28:39] I mean I don't know if it was As good as Avatar But it was in the same ballpark I remember when people go in Nuts for Avatar I was like hey where were you last summer Didn't you see Bay Wolf And they're like no that looked dumb

[00:28:51] So I didn't see it Every bit as dumb as Avatar They're equally dumb This was two years earlier And it absolutely felt Like the dry run for Avatar And I even feel like The entertainment press Was positioning it As like this is the first glimpse We're gonna see

[00:29:06] Of the kind of technology That Cameron's working with Because everyone knew That movie was gonna be Like advancement most in capture Advancement in digital 3D And most of the 3D releases Up until this point were Like kids movies kind of post converted

[00:29:22] A lot of like Nightmare for Christmas Being re-released And small limited runs This was like a thousand screens Were being converted to 3D For this, this is a movie designed for 3D And I remember convincing a bunch of friends To go see it

[00:29:36] Only interested where they're like 3D What's that even gonna look like? It's not red and blue Like the novelty of just the technology Was all it took to convince some friends To drive me to the theater to see it And then afterwards I was like And get this

[00:29:49] James Cameron is using all that shit That we just saw To make a movie about an alien war And we were just like Holy fucking shit Crash into a tree I mean it was an amazing time Yeah and then there was a little bit

[00:30:02] There was a sort of an interzone Between this movie and I think my bloody Valentine Remake came out that had Like a good 3D That has great 3D There were a few others And yeah I mean all That's the same years Avatar

[00:30:18] Yeah so there's this weird sort of Now 3D is kind of over But for a few years it revolutionized People listening now who are a little younger Maybe don't remember It was a psychosis A 3D psychosis at the end of the Aughts that really Through that changed

[00:30:39] Theatrical movie going Mostly for the worse because You'd go to the local regal and they'd leave The 3D lens cap on the Projector and you'd go to see A non-3D movie it would be dark You couldn't see anything I mean it was a very weird time

[00:30:54] That's pretty much all gone now It's 4DX now I mean that's just like It's not only 4DX 4DX or boss I've always been a very pro 3D guy I bought the last 3D television ever produced Not the last actual unit But the last model

[00:31:12] The furthest incarnation the technology Was ever going to reach in North America I finally broke down and said I'll get it So what's on 3D that you can watch Like just Blu-rays or can you watch sports There's a button you can hit

[00:31:24] No one's broadcasting on the 3D anymore There used to be some deep cable channels That were 3D and I don't even have cable Channels don't even exist anymore There's a button on the TV that says 3D which you can use and it will Like auto convert things

[00:31:38] Like clash of the Titan style The worst sort of flow That's like a Nintendo 3DS And do you need to wear glasses for those? Yes so I got the TV That just any sort of like movie theater glasses Work There are the more high end ones

[00:31:53] Where there are like heavy duty glasses That require batteries and it's a lot more complicated I got the one where you can just use The cable glasses from the theater But I've been buying a lot of 3D Blu-rays Especially during quarantine

[00:32:05] As I try to make my home feel more like movie going And I bought all the Zemeckis movies on 3D So I could watch this way Beowulf is the one that was never released On 3D and it's the one that I argue was The best Weird

[00:32:19] Like it really was a great use Of 3D in the theater I saw this in the next 3D I remember being fun Yeah it fucking it ruled You can't see it that way anymore I blame the death of 3D Wholly on the king of Quibi himself

[00:32:35] Not David Sims Jeffrey Katzenberg Who once the first wave of movies were successful Was like the biggest champion of This is how we fight piracy Everyone should release their movies in 3D Every single film should be in 3D Either you should shoot it

[00:32:51] Or post convert it regardless of genre And also at that point in time The 3D surcharge was like one dollar On top of normal tickets And Katzenberg was like We could be making so much more Make it four or five dollars surcharge And that's when things started bombing

[00:33:06] And you had shitty conversions And everyone got burned on it And people started avoiding it at all costs Actively Right Cause like Beowulf end of 2007 You look at the other 3D movies in 2007 It's Disney's Meet the Robinsons Which got a very limited release

[00:33:23] Everything else is a nature documentary Or Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Had 20 minutes in 3D only in IMAX Right Wow So Beowulf is like the first proper one In the following year you have a lot of like U2 3D, the Hannah Montana 3D movie

[00:33:41] Which does well And then Journey to the Center of the Earth Which weirdly overperforms But that also kind of overperforms Because it's like fuck this movie's built for 3D That movie's also really good Never seen it Well alright really good as overstating That movie is tolerable

[00:33:56] But not bad 2009's the turning point Cause then you have my bloody Valentine Coraline You have Up, Monsters vs. Aliens And then like at the end of the Final Destination in 3D You have like all the animated films are coming on 3D Michael Jackson's This Is It

[00:34:13] Christmas Carol and then Avatar at the end of the year And then it's the fucking thing Then they're off to the races Yeah And yes But Beowulf guys Beowulf We're gonna talk about the movie Beowulf Not about 3D Well we're gonna talk about the 3D Ben

[00:34:29] As you were saying Beowulf The poem The Old English Poem That's school Yeah Right? Like this is a movie This is a movie that's adapted from school Which I feel like is Tricky Like this is Yes of course Beowulf is

[00:34:49] A famous Old English Poem of adventure and glory And you have swords And you have dragons and monsters There's nothing more I want to see Converted but an old poem Like a really old poem That's what I want to see converted from modern old poems

[00:35:05] It does have this Like where I feel like You love dusty poems You're dragging people to the theater Griffin, your friends And they're like Beowulf You're like wow that's in 3D You know come on That'll be fun Well you know it's funny There's two funny things about that

[00:35:18] And there's you know what Beowulf Like there's the line in Annie Hall She's like I want to take classes What should I take And he says well just don't take anything Where they make you read Beowulf Like Beowulf is the most Eat your vegetables of anything in history

[00:35:31] And what's interesting is that One of the better aspects of this film Is and I'm going to assign it to Neil Gaiman because it probably is him Because he's Mr. Mythology and whatnot There is some cool stuff in here That feels very teacher friendly

[00:35:50] Like certainly not the jokes about coming And that But like there are moments where Like a teacher could show it hit pause And say you see what they just did They just used you know The blah blah blah fallacy or whatever

[00:36:05] Kind of poetry crap they teach you in school There's some of that you know And they talk about geography They talk about other myths That are The psychology of Grendel Were supposed to kind of feel bad for him Well there's that too 100% that

[00:36:20] But also like they talk about Fafnor Which is another that's the legend from The Gatredammerung So that's like a little you know Maybe they were going for like Some sort of like cinematic universe Where they do like school poetry Cinematic universe Because that's not in the Beowulf poem

[00:36:36] I don't think But they mentioned that So it's like oh we learned about Gatredammerung last unit Now he's in this movie isn't that cool That's clearly at least I think Clearly Gaiman's shtick And you can see him being like Oh aren't I clever you know

[00:36:50] Putting that in there And I think that's really cool So there is a little bit of that School stuff in there So you know there's a little bit Of vegetables in this movie But it's also just like I want to whiz the camera around Like a lunatic Yes

[00:37:03] And show violence and And crazy action Right but so my wife Forky We know her well Star of Toy Story 4 Star of 4ky Asked a question Ami Winner I'm trying to think of any other Credits for 4ky No That's it The pandemic's been hard On the whole industry

[00:37:23] You know one's really booking In the way they were before this Yeah Great utensil Great utensil Great utensil Top tier utensil She's also an English teacher Humble brag And she teaches Beowulf To her children That's right You know what's funny I've had a conversation With 4ky about Gilgamesh

[00:37:42] Which is the Pepsi to Beowulf's Coke It is Gilgamesh is the other one Where it's like the kids are like This is boring And it's like You don't understand This is the first fucking story That we ever found Written down You nimwit Just enjoy it Nimwit

[00:37:56] Also it's like It's an action story It's a genre piece Right But that's the thing about Beowulf It's kind of like Showing someone Casablanca Now and they're like I don't get it This is cheesy Like and you're like No no no no It's doing it first

[00:38:10] Sure he's a guy He fights a monster Like there's not a lot here And it's like No no no No one had ever done this before Literally Like this is the first one So I just It's I just think it is a bigger task Than One might imagine

[00:38:26] Right to adapt Essentially the first story About a guy with a sword Fighting a monster Like Like it's hard to flesh it out Also weird for like One of the oldest Existing English texts That there is no definitive Beowulf adaptation Like it's weird that in

[00:38:45] 2007's a Mech is making a Beowulf movie Wasn't treated as Ugh Beowulf again Yeah right You know it was just treated as Like fine do that Okay And I think it speaks to David's point Is that when you When you read Not that I have since seventh grade

[00:39:00] But when you read Beowulf Or read the Wikipedia Summary as I did today They're kind of Like there really isn't a story It's like there's a guy Beowulf He kills one monster Kills another one Right Twice the third one Doesn't make it He drinks mead Everyone's drinking mead

[00:39:16] That's a big detail He drinks mead So I mean The thing is It doesn't really lend itself To adaptations Which is why it took Right It took Roger Avery This brilliant Aha moment Of kind of faking it A little bit And then Yeah Game and sprinkles his

[00:39:32] Minotaur pixie dust On top And you know And then we get Angelina Jolie In the cave It also maybe has a bit Of a like John Carter You know princess of Mars Problem where it's like It's such a foundational text That like the most popular

[00:39:48] Works in the American canon All sort of use Beowulf as a stepping stone So that when you go back To Beowulf You're just like There's less meat on the bone Here Cause everyone's taking The ball and run with it Right so I'm watching it With Forky

[00:40:02] And she's like Has she ever seen it before No And she's like Well that's Well that's not in the point You know like she's noticing The thing She's read it She teaches it She teaches it You f**king kid She's read it like one million times

[00:40:16] She asks the question Yeah she asks the question And then I'm like right But like and I have read I studied Beowulf in college Like Okay All good English literature Students from the UK And Like Swear to God And But that's the thing It's like

[00:40:37] The poem doesn't even Really clarify If he kills Grendel's mother Like it's pretty bare But there's a lot of room To play around with Like it doesn't get into Anything except that Beowulf is a hero And he kills the monsters And then he gets old

[00:40:54] And he kills more monsters Like that that's really And then the monks Got their hands on it And they added some stuff About Jesus That's what Beowulf is Right That was That was Avery's Aha moment by all accounts Was Oh they never actually Make it clear

[00:41:09] If he kills Grendel's mother Or Grendelvald Jesus Christ I've been making Grendelvald jokes all day Wait the crimes Crimes The media won't report on this It's insane His crimes are numerous Oh Grendelvald Yes he did Right Finish your point Never make it clear In the original poem

[00:41:28] Whether or not Grendel's mother Is actually defeated And Avery said Oh there's kind of an interesting Unreliable narrator thing Going on here There's sort of an implication That he succeeded But it's never actually made clear What reasons would Beowulf Have to cover this up

[00:41:41] And then he sort of Unpacks this line of Sexual misdeeds For which society Is punished forever These life ruining Cris Right It's not exactly a feminist film No Beowulf is so Boring As a Written hero That Roger Avery is Endgame And are like You can't

[00:42:03] This guy has to be like Hiding shit Otherwise like He's just really really boring Like We just have to Assume that there's More going on here Because There can't be a movie If there isn't One also the Pride is the curse That was the tagline The Hopkins character

[00:42:21] The king In the poem Is never under threat From Grendel Grendel never even tries To attack him And they were like There's going on there too And there was this thought Because the text was then Sort of finally committed to paper By these monks That like

[00:42:37] Perhaps this story was in an oral tradition And then got sanitized Got fussed with a little bit Right, these men of the cloth Took some shit out of it So this is like Edited for television Right, this isn't your Bible's Beowulf You know

[00:42:51] I keep on wanting to say Grendelwald Grendelwald He could show up in here You never know Is Roger Ivory in jail By the time this comes out When did he go to jail? I think we're right now No, 2008 Yeah, right after Yeah, he went into the rock

[00:43:04] And we're like Hey man, I'm Dave Beowulf None can touch me Yeah, he's out now He made a movie Lucky day If you say so That's what it's called That's what it's called I'm just saying You know what's funny Is the animation style With the actors

[00:43:19] You know we talked about Mr. Zemeckis' wife And obviously Angie And Hopkins Ray Winstone Does not look like that Like everybody kind of looks Everybody kind of Right, everyone looks like themselves Brendan Gleason Looks like himself Malcovich Looks like himself Ray Winstone is a man

[00:43:43] Who likes his weeded picks Or whatever it was from earlier He's a hefty gentleman But they make this look Like he's totally cut And what's funny is that The other big thing that was happening in 2007 And it's a very important movie In comparison to Beowulf

[00:44:03] And it's a lesser film Is a masterpiece by a film director Named Zack Snyder It's a movie called 300 And 300 is a complicated film That opens a door To a big discussion I don't know how much of that We want to get into But it's not a masterpiece

[00:44:18] But I know you're I knew this is your opinion I really think that 300 is an important film It turns as a page on a lot of things That's different Yeah, see I don't like it And I would not even begin to argue Anything other than it being one

[00:44:31] Of the most important films of that decade Okay, fair enough It's very, very important Because it has all the things The visual things that it has And this movie has Its own visual shtick it's doing Which is much, much worse But more weird and fun things

[00:44:47] Happen in Beowulf Hard of it Then in 300 Definitely 300 is really boring And I remember that being my biggest beef with it It was weirdly dull for a movie About constant war and violence And kicking people into big holes And all that I mean okay

[00:45:08] I'm not going to argue that But I disagree But I definitely think that you could say That it's, you know It affected film grammar And the technology And the look and all that stuff But there are connections So you know 300 had the line This is Sparta right

[00:45:26] There were t-shirts with that And clearly Well I don't think this movie This was a Newton-Libnitz thing Because they came out the same year So Beowulf did not copy off of 300 But the marketing of Beowulf Wanted to make the line I am Beowulf That autumn

[00:45:46] 300 came out in March And the kids were running around Saying this is Sparta The kids were saying it I saw them And then I did Do you want to know how I saw them? Yeah In March of 2007 My job was as

[00:46:02] I thought that was going to be a retort No no no Go ahead This leads to my big story later But in March of 2007 I worked as a licensed New York City tour guide That was how I made wages And that was what I did

[00:46:17] And I liked the job There was no money in it So I eventually quit But I took school kids around And I did the double-decker buses And I yapped about historical spots In New York City And I took a bunch of Canadian school kids To friggin Statue Liberty

[00:46:34] In Ellis Island Right on the boat You know you do the circuit And they went to the statue They went upstairs They look around And then we got to wait for the next ferry And we're killing time And these were like 13, 14-year-old kids And it was March

[00:46:49] There was like dead branches on the ground So a bunch of the kids are taking the dead branches And they're hitting each other as they do And they're screaming This is Sparta! And I'm like Little Tommy Little... Well they were Canadian So little Jacques You know little Francois

[00:47:12] Francois, why are you shouting about Sparta? What are you talking about? And they're like You haven't seen 300 yet And I'm like No, I haven't seen it What is it? They go It's the best movie I've ever seen And the whole school agreed The kids were loving it

[00:47:27] And they were telling me about Sparta And it worked And it was a huge hit Changed popular culture So clearly they wanted To tap into that with Beowulf Because it's similar stick Swords and magic And 300 absolutely Stole this movie's thunder

[00:47:46] Like I feel like there was a lot of buzz Around this movie If not excitement People were curious about it When it was announced And then 300 was such a revolution That this movie couldn't look like anything Other than like You know leftovers And 300 weirdly went into it

[00:48:03] With like the bolder visual style The visual style that on paper Seemed riskier Versus this And everyone loved what 300 was doing I say everyone But like the public loved it And this everyone was like It looks creepy It's exactly what it is On Canne Valley

[00:48:21] But you know it's just so funny So yeah How many times does Ray Winstone Declare himself to be Beowulf in this? At least five times Yeah, half dozen Yeah, easy But I need to get back to the point You made of he doesn't look like Ray Winstone No

[00:48:37] Now Ray Winstone claims That he kind of looked like this when he was younger I've seen like Scum I've seen like the movies Ray Winstone was in when he was young He didn't look like this Wait, he was in a movie called Scum Ben Ben Ben

[00:48:52] You would legit love this movie Do you know what Scum is about? No, it sounds good Scum is about a boy Like you know He's a young man Played by Ray Winstone Who goes to a borstle Which is like an old Like fashion British prison for youths

[00:49:09] Like they're really tough places Where you know bad kids would go I thought you said fashion prison And I was like going off on hold Thing about what that would be But old fashion No, you still have that premise You can put that in your back pocket Ben

[00:49:24] Yeah, I actually will And it's about him He meets like banks Who's like the current daddy Of the prison You know, like he's the boy who's kind of in charge of shit And it's about Ray Winstone becoming the daddy Oh shit, that sounds fucking good

[00:49:42] There's like a big fight with like a lead pipe Like it is the most When you're a kid in Britain Everyone sees that movie because it's like You know, it's about being born You had me a lead pipe I'm checking it out Oi, I got me lead pipe

[00:49:56] Right And he didn't look like What he looks like What's unescapable in this movie is Sean Bean Right, he kinda looks To the extent that I had to say to Forky Like it's not Sean Bean Like it's actually Ray Winstone Like, but do you think they

[00:50:13] There's no way, because like Zemeckis cast Ray Winstone, he never, there's no I have a little answer for you So much like how on Polar Express There are like four people credited For each part because like If Hanks is playing one character

[00:50:28] Then he needs someone else to fill in for that They had children playing the child parts To get the physical dimensions right But then also adults playing the child parts Like all these things There's a lot of doubling on this movie

[00:50:39] And so Ray Winstone did do the entire movie And Zemeckis did say my intent is to age you down I want your gravitas, but I want him to look like You at a younger age ripped beyond The point you ever were Right

[00:50:54] But they also got this guy Alan Richardson Who Alan Richardson is this guy who was like On the superhero runway for the last 15 years He played one of the Ninja Turtles Which is why I know him Because I screen tested alongside him

[00:51:10] You mean he played one of the In the new Michael Bay produce Right, he was one of the mocap Ninja Turtles In the Michael Bay Ninja Turtles I think he was Raphael He also was like Aquaman on Smallville And then now he's on Titans DC Universe show

[00:51:27] He's one of these guys who just looks Like a fucking corn fed All American football player And he keeps on getting into these Like almost superhero roles And he hired Richardson To be like physical model And to also be like a motion capture Reference for someone's body

[00:51:47] Moving with the right dimensions I'm seeing him and he He kind of looks like a very cheap version of Yeah, he looks like Bay Wolf It's a mashup So I think he took some elements of young Winston mapped them on to young Richardson

[00:52:02] Used more of Richardson in the action scenes More of Winston in the acting scenes The oratory Right I mean Ray Winston is a great actor I love Ray Winston to be clear He's the best This is a great time for him Where he's suddenly popping up in like

[00:52:20] The departed And he's not really changing his accent And you don't really care Like even though he's playing a Boston Gangster called Mr. French Let's go Gash, I'm Duncan Like he's such a delight He's at what? He's in Crystal Skull, right? That's a year from now, right? Yes

[00:52:42] Another one where he's like Yeah it's me You're friend Mack, right? You know like it's just Bananas I feel like he has now dipped Like he was in Cats though He was in Cats I haven't seen a lot of Ray Winston recently

[00:52:57] But he did pop up in Cats But this was yes This was the couple of years Good in Cats, right? I think he rules in Cats This was the couple year run It tends to happen for like A UK character actor British character actor Right

[00:53:09] At some point you hit a couple of years Where it's just like You're gonna be one of the go-tos You're gonna have four years of paychecks You won't believe And then like you'll return to normal And you'll go back to having the kind of Mark Strong

[00:53:19] Mark Strong had that run And he's like everything And now he's not Right, like Sexy Beast was kind of like Reactivated Ray Winston in his 40s And then for five years Hollywood Just was paying him like a million dollars You have to imagine for all these movies Exactly

[00:53:35] So good for him I'm glad he did it Sean Bean kinda should play Beowulf Sean Bean has a Northern accent He has a Yorkshire accent And like Beowulf is a You know, he's not Ray Winston has a Cockney accent He sounds like he's from London

[00:53:49] Like he is from London Like, and Beowulf in this movie Sounds like a working class Londoner And he's supposed to be from the land of the geeks He's supposed to be this Like frickin' you know viking warrior dude And it's weird

[00:54:04] Don't you think that's part of the interpretation And especially as a mech is trying to move it away From feeling like homework is like We're gonna give Beowulf this like Football hooligan energy Like he's like a fucking rowdy bar dude He's a pub brawler

[00:54:18] He had recently played Henry King Henry VIII in like a British TV series And I remember that And at the time it was seen as like Oh this is weird cause like Ray Winston's not posh You know And he played it very Ray Winston

[00:54:32] And apparently Zemeckis had seen that and liked that So that was also, so you're right He's probably like right he'll give me He'll bring some gritty street realism To this fucking poem movie Cause I think both this and 300 had A similar goal of like Okay Gladiator was like

[00:54:50] Seven years ago now It failed to bring on the new wave Of sword and sandal epics that people thought Would come Everyone else who tried to do it afterwards Didn't click including the times that Ridley tried to return to the well, right? Yeah

[00:55:04] But you do have Lord of the Rings Which this is also a draft Sure But that's I think part of their like Their decision is like okay so Lord of the Rings Was like fantasy and then that spawns The sort of like children's book adaptation thing

[00:55:17] You have your Aragans and your Narnia It kind of gets lumped in More with the Potter thing Whereas Gladiator is like that's like old fashioned Adult sword and sandals Then the follow ups don't hit And then I feel like this And 300 in the same year are like

[00:55:34] We want to make these fucking movies Feel edgy and urgent again You know it's like this real appeal to like How do you make these things feel fucking hardcore I know how you do it You open the movie with two guys taking a whiz

[00:55:46] But with their skirts in their mouths Cause they gotta hold them in their teeth So they don't get their skirts wet While they whiz on the side of the Need hall That's like in the opening montage It's a wild movie

[00:56:01] I mean it just feels like yeah he just wants Shit to be happening at all times on screen I was so certain in my memory That this movie was R rated And I watched on iTunes I bought the unrated cut Which is like five minutes longer

[00:56:16] Makes zero changes to story No added scenes It's just like five minutes worth of shots That were either you have to imagine Cut out at the last second Or blood that was removed And it's just like more sexual shit Yeah and more blood That sounds good actually honestly

[00:56:34] That sounds great, that sounds fun and super metal Yeah it fits in the metal tone But also I think that was another Goal of this movie is like Zemeckis at this point was All in on MoCap Like he was saying I'm gonna only

[00:56:48] Make MoCap movies for the rest of my life This is the future This is the technology I'm A fully committed to being the guy Who like makes this shit Breakthrough Uses my clout to Advance the technology so that other Filmmakers can use it

[00:57:04] Let me go through all the weird growing pains And B he was like You can do anything in this technology Have you ever seen behind the scenes Footage of Beowulf Because it's You know they call it the volume Right they call it the volume it's like a gymnasium

[00:57:20] And there's footage of Crispin Glover as Grendel Barging into shit And they just have like big foam blocks There's like go Alright and action just destroy these Foam blocks and Crispin Glover who is Incredibly committed to this performance In a remarkable way

[00:57:40] And I say this with no sarcasm He's really really good Doing whatever the hell it is That he's doing in this And the behind the scenes footage of him On having an emotional rampage With these foam blocks Is heartbreaking if anybody out there has The Beowulf DVD

[00:57:58] Go to those behind the scenes You can watch the whole thing picture On the Blu-ray they have an option Where you can watch the whole movie I only found this out afterwards I'm gonna fucking buy the Blu-ray now It costs like six dollars

[00:58:12] But you can watch the whole movie picture in picture And the one exception is the Joe Lee scenes Because she blocked that footage Sure good for her She was mad at this movie it's built But like All the actors and Tom Hanks Says this too about Polar Express

[00:58:28] They like compare it to theater Like Brecht or what you know what I mean Because they're like unlike a movie Where you shoot a quarter of a page A fucking day or whatever you just kind of Do it in a week like You do it really really fast

[00:58:42] Because they can just do everything else around you And you're in this empty space And you don't have to keep stopping and starting Right you don't have to fucking Like find your light or like play to the lens Like a big Breakthrough with this technology

[00:58:56] Is that like you just capture the performance And then Zemeckis can pick the camera angles later So you're just focusing on the acting And then he deals with all the other shit So all these actors sign up because they're like This sounds weird and freeing

[00:59:08] Yeah I mean it's great until You look at the final product And they all look terrible I mean that's really negative is that It's a bad film I mean who was to say right I mean and listen in X amount of years

[00:59:22] There's gonna be a nostalgia factor for this look too I mean we you know We're just watching a B movie from the 50s Where you can see the strings on Gamera and it's cute So people are gonna look At John Malkovich's dead eyes And chuckle over it

[00:59:38] Right now we're still close enough to Where it makes us gross Book reports from years to come This is gonna be it This is gonna be the text Honestly truly The book reports will be like It's so great how Bayowell fights Grendel Naked

[00:59:54] And he's just gonna be like He watches the fucking movies I just find it so funny That most times that a classic Is adapt into a Hollywood film They just cut a bunch of the weird shit Out and so like The mistake a kid

[01:00:10] Like me who watched the movie and didn't Read the book would make in my report is You leave out large swaths of scenes That were cut out of the film Or you saw the one with The happy ending and this is like

[01:00:22] You know they put in all this weird shit But I feel like this was a big Like I don't wanna get into this too much But Steve Bing who has this very Very weird Millionaire figure We can't get into Steve Bing, it's a whole episode

[01:00:38] It's so fucking insane I'll let people go down there fucking rabbit hole But just to say very quickly He inherited $600 million From his grandfather who was like A real estate mogul and then was like To be like the fucking Howard Hughes of the film industry

[01:00:54] And he started this company Shangri-La films And his first big Big investment was He put up $90 million Of Polar Express's budget No one wants to make Polar Express No one wanted to give him the money he wanted So Bing independently put up More than half of the budget

[01:01:12] And people were like you're insane You're gonna lose your entire fortune And then Polar Express was so huge And he kind of never had a hit movie Ever again But he immediately afterwards was like Bobby let's do it again Let's fucking do it, let's do another one

[01:01:28] What scripts do you wanna do And Zemeckis was like there was this Bay Wolf script from years ago that I was gonna produce He was like sounds good I'll buy it $2 million Paid Avery and Game in $2 million After they had already been paid previously

[01:01:42] And had their rights lapsed But I think a big part of it was To Paramount Columbia thought they had this movie on a handshake deal For years and then he was like Never mind Paramount offered more money But this is pretty much Bing bankrolled

[01:01:56] And I think the big thing was Zemeckis was like I wanna prove Because I'm so committed to making MoCat movies forever that these Aren't animated films and they're not For kids, like I wanna do the one That's an action film, that's intense

[01:02:10] That's bloody and sexual because I wanna Move this shit out of the cartoon ghetto And it's interesting That even though this movie was kind of a flop It was like I feel The most successful Attempt at adult animation Like pure adult animation

[01:02:26] In America with this kind of budget for sure 100% And no one tried it ever again It's an absolute dead end It's as dead as Malcolm Vitch's eyes in this film It's a fascinating film, it's a Sui generis thing, there's nothing else Zemeckis is Beowulf and

[01:02:44] You know, and a lot of it is After this he goes back to Christmas He's just like fuck it I'll do Scrooge It's a weird cul-de-sac And another aspect That I think I just alluded To in a moment ago, one of the things I really

[01:02:58] Really am moved by Emotionally is Crispin Glover's Performance As the world's most Upset neighbor at the Rowdy party next door Grendel who can't handle it That there's fun At the beer hall, at the meat hall And he wasn't invited And murmuring in old English And his mother

[01:03:22] Has a Russian accent for some reason And He's so Upsetting in this film He's really, I don't know how would you describe His performance? Is it sadness? Is it, what is he doing? He's got a cune-a-non kind of vibe to it It's a sort of 4-channy

[01:03:42] 8-chan a jason Yeah, edged lord kind of vibe But I also think it's telling that It's like his performance holds up the best No question And his character Overall holds up the best because It's the one that is leaning Into abstraction Not trying to represent the real world

[01:04:02] Because that's the other totally Quixotic aspect of this Mocap era for Zemeckis Is his like, sort of like Slave-ish devotion to I want them to look like the movie stars you know Like there's something about The corner turned where you're like Josh Brolin is Thanos

[01:04:20] And everyone just knows it's Brolin And we maybe try to make his eyes look a little bit Like Josh Brolin, but you let him look like some other Fucking thing Right, yeah, I mean look I think it's partly just getting the tech

[01:04:32] There too, like it's not just that I want Tom Hanks to look like Tom Hanks I want to see if we can make it look like Tom Hanks Right, like there's a challenge in it too Totally, so much of this is R&D, but there's that uncanny valley

[01:04:44] That's harder to cross When you're like, I know What fucking Malkovich looks like Whereas with Grendel you can spend more time Thinking about what Glover is contributing And in a weird way you see his performance More clearly Because you're not hung up on like

[01:05:02] That's not quite what his cheekbones look like Similarly I think Winstone holds up the second best Because it's also like Its own weird model It's not, it's its own visual creation Right, right, it's a good point, you have the monsters And Winstone because he's not a

[01:05:16] He's not a real human, he's a fake human You know, a composite character They're louder bombastic performances Built on Actual just cartoon models That people can puppeteer And it makes you wonder if this movie Would age better if they were just like Let's stylize it more

[01:05:34] And not worry about looking like the people Yeah, like the close-ups on Grendel Work and they're the only close-ups on a face That work in this film So I'll tell you a quick story about Crispin Glover in this movie Now I mentioned earlier that

[01:05:48] When 300 came out in March of 2007 I was working as a New York City Tour guide And then that, I left that job And by the time This movie came out I had a new position I was working in a very In a very weird roundabout way

[01:06:04] I ended up working At a website that doesn't exist anymore Called UGO.com UGO, I remember UGO was the Pepsi to IGN's Coke Right, they were Around for a long time and they were competitors That's the second time I've used that analogy

[01:06:20] Tonight, I use that one a lot You gotta go for five Five more times, I'll try to use it Five in total Five alive, it's like the five alive to Minutemate, I could do that Alright, keep going So Dig this, dig this, dig this

[01:06:38] I'm at this new job and I don't know what the hell I'm doing and I just started And they're promoting Beowulf, right And I had done a few Interviews with celebrities before For this job But nobody too big Literally one of them was Peewee Harmon So Paul Rubens

[01:06:58] Yeah, that's cool Now I do interviews Three times a week but back then I didn't know what the hell I was doing So I'm doing a phone call interview With Crispin Glover Right And I'm trying to You know, he's Crispin Glover He's a little weird, right?

[01:07:18] He's had some issues over his career His life, he flipped out on the Letterman show He's been known to kick himself in the head during interviews I mean, you're in a dangerous position I've been nervous having the conversation

[01:07:28] With him so like, you know, he gets on the phone Hello, I can't do his voice He's like, hello, I'm Crispin Glover Hey man, how are you doing? Yeah, just was saying, big fan of your work I try to butter him up a little bit

[01:07:40] Now you know that Crispin Glover has directed A handful of films I've seen at least one of them Okay, so one of them I forget the name right now Is this it? Is that the one? That's the one I've seen There's one called It's Fine Everyone is Fine

[01:07:56] Or something like that I maybe have seen both So I said to him once Oh, you know, I'm a fan of your work And I've seen Your films And he's like, oh yeah, where did you see it? I'm like, oh, you know, I live here in New York

[01:08:12] And he goes, yeah, which theater did you see it at? So here's the deal When these movies came out I knew Over the course of my life I've known some people in the film industry Like, I know you Everybody listening So as it happens I had a guy

[01:08:32] I knew a guy, I haven't talked to him in years He got everything He got Phantom Menace on a tape Three days after it came out And I don't mean like Cramer style somewhere with a camera Yeah, he somehow had it

[01:08:46] I didn't want to watch it because I hadn't seen Phantom Menace yet I'm in the kitchen, I don't want to see this So this dude, Mystery Man X Had this screwy Crispin Glover movie We watched it, you know, we had a few glasses of mead

[01:08:58] So I was a little heavy But we watched it And the thing is when Glover Shows these films, you know, he does like a live performance He travels with the films He does slideshow projection There's like two feature films It's what

[01:09:14] Is it and this is fine, everything is fine Is it fine, everything is fine And he's got like one print of each film And he brings them city to city And hosts them and reads poetry It's very much a one man show Yeah, now I didn't see that

[01:09:28] So I saw a tape So I'm like, oh you know, I saw Like an idiot, like a freaking idiot This was 13 years ago so I had solved myself And I was new with the job that I had no business being at Now I'm a professional

[01:09:40] Again, I write for various teen publications At the time, I didn't know what the hell I was doing I was at a friend's house He goes, what? He's a crisp and glover, Grendel in this film He's so good, he's so good as Grendel

[01:09:52] I said, oh I saw it on my buddy You know, he had a tape What is this person's name? I'm like, oh yeah I'm like, this is some guy that I know So let's talk about the film He's like, I need to know this name

[01:10:06] Because I am in conversation With the FBI And the FBI And I speak and we need to stop These tapes circulating So this guy's in the industry I mean, he's not like a big producer But he was involved in the production Of some very high level

[01:10:24] He directed the motion picture avatar Look, you know what I mean We can't say his name He's nobody anybody's heard of But he's made some stuff, mostly TV commercials But like with what he did was He did TV commercials with big directors

[01:10:38] He produced a bunch of f***ing TV commercials that never went in the years Jordan, stop leaving breadcrumbs Sorry, sorry I'm just saying, bleep that out I'm like, alright, you know I can't remember his name I was at a party, you know And it was on

[01:10:56] And he will not let it go He will not let it go I'm sweating now I'm like a mess Because I knew it this job I really want to talk about your performance as Grendel He's like, no, we must talk I need to know this name

[01:11:12] Will you email me this name? I have to know right now And he starts screaming at me Like it's not fun, he's f***ing livid And I just say, you know I really don't remember his name It was a friend of a friend I'm so sorry

[01:11:30] I had no idea I recognize now that this is a bag Taking money out of your pocket I don't know what the hell I was drinking a lot of meat that night Who remembers? All I know is that the interview does not go well

[01:12:14] It does not go well We didn't run anything And I had to go and tell my new boss What just happened So I'm like, we gotta go into a room You know how I told you that on Friday We were gonna publish an interview With Crispin Glover

[01:12:30] Why? Because he just screamed at me About this thing It was an FBI investigation Luckily My boss thought it was hilarious And we considered running the freak out And then we're like, you know what That's a little much, let's not run the freak out

[01:12:46] Let's just pretend it never happened So that's my one encounter With Crispin Glover Who is certainly very dedicated to his craft He grandaled that I was a quivering Rothgar And I needed a beowulf to come in And save me I had several different people Feed me similar scoops

[01:13:06] In anticipation of this episode Once our Back to the Future episodes Come out and we obviously spent Arguably too much time talking about The Glover, Zemeckis Gale Divide Because it was kind of a big story That Glover was gonna be in this movie

[01:13:24] Especially after he had been involved In this big lawsuit with Zemeckis and Gale And the thing I heard mirrored By many people is that The root Of the sort of Glover fallout from Back to the Future Is just that Robert Zemeckis is Obviously a perfectionist

[01:13:42] And a very controlling detail obsessed Filmmaker and Crispin Glover Is on his own wavelength And never wants to do the same thing twice So with these very complicated Zemeckis Shot setups, he could Never get continuity right And it drove him crazy

[01:13:58] And he didn't want to deal with him So he would send Gale to be the bad cop Which means that Glover always Resented Gale more than Zemeckis So it was when they got to this Movie and Zemeckis went like Well we're still kind of on good terms

[01:14:12] All considering and also if it's In motion capture none of my problems With Glover apply anymore I can use whatever I want I just need him acting Put up a bunch of foam things There don't even need to be other actors on set

[01:14:26] And he'll hang them up until start crying And knocking down walls And we'll just have the raw data And I can make my shot choices later And the performance is kind of A revelation in that way Like you're just like man this is just raw

[01:14:40] Feed Glover and like The last time you feel like you really Got a showcase like this to just go for it Yeah I would imagine When Zemeckis had The idea to bring Glover back there Had been someone in a circle being like After all the trouble this guy's

[01:14:56] Brought you and just The state of him in general Like somebody would have Had to said do really want to do that I think so but like I went to that screening of his two movies With poetry in between and he talked about

[01:15:10] That like he thinks the film industry Is morally bankrupt but he has to make Studio films in order to slowly Amount The budget For his next movie like that's The whole process so A I think You offer him enough money he'll do almost

[01:15:26] Anything because he's like this is Money laundering for me to make my real art And secondly I think Zemeckis was able To say to them like no other actors on set We can get all of his shit done in a day Like it's so low risk to us

[01:15:38] Right right but also like somebody Would have said like could Other people have done this role I mean sure but he's really Good right I mean He's really good he's the right Choice right like in our studio Boy it's cool I also it just kind of warms

[01:15:56] My heart that Zemeckis The you know CGI techno nerd Finds a way to kind of Offer an olive branch to Crispin Glover through this ridiculous Technology you know what I mean he's like I found a way for us to work together

[01:16:12] Where we're not going to get on each other's nerves And you'll make a good performance And yeah exactly And also like I recognize Your skill like we had our fucking problems But no one can deny he's great And back to the future and he is like

[01:16:26] The best choice for this and he's Very compelling he's very compelling And all that vulnerability I mean I don't think Any other actor would have brought This level of empathy to the character No it would have been just another CGI Monster like it would

[01:16:40] Have been nothing yes this is I would say I enjoyed the movie Beowulf I enjoy all of its nonsense but The first chunk the Grendel chunk Is the best chunk Yes would you agree like Hard core it does have the most Mead Chugging and Troth

[01:16:58] Horny Hrothgar I get you kind of have to Get past that but just like Grendel is just Frightening and Like you know unpredictable In a way that the dragon isn't Later right you know like The Jolie scene is much hyped But it's very short like it's actually not

[01:17:16] This is the problem A big problem with the movie is that At his lopsided the coolest stuff happens In the first 20 minutes and then The big ending is cool but the beginning Is not as good as the beginning And also there's this Really fascinating sort of

[01:17:32] Like study and contrast where the movie Is so maximalist from the beginning Right it starts with Alan Sylvester just fucking shredding Right he's shredding and all His logo is like fucking slamming you In the face and fire and then you go to

[01:17:46] The mead hall and it's just like Cacophony of noise Of dancing of violence of Leering like a lot of the shit They wake up Grendel they hurt his little ears Right but But they give you like eight straight Minutes of just debauchery of just Fucking like you know

[01:18:04] Animal house shit It's like Emir Cuesterica's 3D computer generated film You know it's like underground but In things and days I think the majority Of the added footage for the Unrated cut is just in this Opening like they add in like a Lot more groping and shit

[01:18:24] But it's just so loud It's so noisy he's doing all these Wild camera moves you also can Tell he's getting off on like Oh I don't have to actually Light this thing I can make It be lit by candlelight without Having to do like these insane

[01:18:40] Barry Linden sort of like Jumping jacks and backflips To figure out how to make this work With new lenses you can just make Something look really dank and Murky and it's fine It's animation you're in control of it And he's got the camera up in the rafters

[01:18:56] He also doesn't really bother to Like give you much geography Of the mead hall It's just a big rectangle and in The back there's bedrooms but like Well this is the other really fascinating Thing about the opening of the movie is

[01:19:10] For how much it's like bombarding you with Shit it's also kind of A chamber piece like the first half of the Movie mostly takes place in the Mead hall you very rarely Leave the mead hall and there's Something kind of nice of like oh

[01:19:24] In a way this could be a play The action is so largely centered They're almost just two sets So much of the poem The poem is really like that too There's a lot of like let's explain how this Works everyone comes to the mead hall

[01:19:38] We all drink we all sing songs This is who this is this is You know it's a lot of that it's just a lot of like When the world is so Dark and cold And there's fucking nothing out there

[01:19:50] Right like you know what are you going to live On some snowy mountain Starving to death no everyone should just be together In one big room eating meat Like Here's the here's the okay What job do you want in this time

[01:20:04] This is we fork and I were discussing this Because you don't want to be Fucking fighting because then you're going to die You don't want to row a boat that's hard Right like what's a job where you can kind of keep To yourself stick to the mead hall

[01:20:16] Oh I know the answer Okay The answer is you want to be somehow involved In mead production Oh Everybody will love you Yeah you want to be the mead man You want to be the mead smith Either either the making of it

[01:20:34] Or the bottling of it or the delivery This was our yes It's like you need to have a skill that is not Right easily right like so like black smiths Like you know but black smith that's a lot of work I would make metal music

[01:20:46] Like I would be in a metal band That's what I would do You'd be like a chain singer right Yeah A court dresser's gone out of fashion At this point in time I don't have a skill for me to work there There is but here's my only concern

[01:21:02] About being an entertainer right Being a singer or a fool or whatever You're really at the whim of a drunk guy Like he might be You know you just one false move And he's like fucking kill that guy I'm sick of him You don't get to bomb twice

[01:21:18] You got one bad show in you Tough crowd That's why I was like yeah if you're a black smith It's like you know there's not like Not lousy with black smiths I would assume Right something like that Also you're just doing the same Like the same crowd

[01:21:34] You're performing for the same crowd over and over again You just got to constantly be generating new material Tough No opener Like you gotta warm the crowd up yourself Then get to your A level shit And then they could be like you were better last week

[01:21:48] With the same song Absolutely Alright so the plot of Beowulf Attacks and he doesn't attack Crossgar Can I say my favorite moment in the entire movie What I think is the high point of the entire film Yes So like cacophony, debauchery Pidam pidam pidam tits

[01:22:08] Pidam pidam pidam blood Then you're up in the rafters And the crossbeams You land on what is it that bird That takes the rat You have the rat stealing the meat And then there's sort of the bird that grabs the rat Out of the mead hall

[01:22:24] And the further you get as you like fly You're like Tracking backwards in the sky It's a contact shot It's the contact shot Which like most semestges movies start with The really long tracking shot Where he sets up like the environment It gives you the story details

[01:22:42] Contact does that with zooming out And letting you know this film takes place In the universe This movie starts in the tight place Lots of fast cuts, all this sort of shit And then this is like The big sort of like establishing shot

[01:22:56] Where you just go further and further back And you get further away from the noise Until all that cacophony Is just so distant But also as you said David You're underlining the fact where it's like This is just this one fucking castle In the middle of snowy nowhere

[01:23:12] Like this has felt so exciting and vital And now you're just like man This world sucks there's like nothing here And you keep on pulling further and further And further back until it's like silent Like pin drop silent And if you feel like it's eerie

[01:23:26] Like why is he deflated the balloon this much And then you finally land back In the cave with Grendel Who is just screaming in agony Because the noise is too loud for him And that's like the whole movie Just perfectly encapsulated Like everything he wants to do here

[01:23:42] Told entirely visually And it sets up like We get it, we get it Like here's Grendel's a sympathetic character As you said he's the neighbor who like These fucking kids won't stop partying It's such an amazing reframing of him Right but I mean he's very

[01:23:58] You can, he's very mutable Like you could do so much with Grendel Even in the poem right like he's the outcast He's like our sins I mean like the Christian retelling Right he's kind of like He's the pay he's rejected God or whatever That's why Grendel rules

[01:24:14] Grendel's mother I mean Grendel's mother is It's just a great concept For a monster Like that's why it's always such a bummer I always forget the bay wolf ends with a dragon I have no beef with dragons to be clear But dragons are fine

[01:24:30] Dragons fucking rule David how dare you Alright fine maybe I should be more pro-dragon It's just like I've seen a dragon I've never seen a Grendel Have you seen a dragon really though? Yeah he told us Yeah right they're lousy They're be dragons it's a kingdom over there

[01:24:46] Yes So Grendel comes He smashes There's the blue flame that's very cool He like comes in and out of the blue flame And the way he triangulates The ripping of his arm off by Using the poles and the chain And the wheel it's very very Very athletic

[01:25:06] He's so violent And there's so much nudity He never sees his wang but it's the block The Austin Powers fight He does a full Austin Powers fight Right so Bay Wolf shows up He talks about how he beat a guy in a big race

[01:25:20] All that stuff but right He's like I'll take down your guy And I'll do it naked because That's a fair fight I guess It's a gentleman's concept Can we talk about the race though Because and I don't know if it's in the poem He loses the race

[01:25:36] The race is in the poem Because he gets the hots for a mermaid And this is the recurring theme In this very Not woke movie He's horny Women will ruin you in this movie His dick keeps getting him into trouble He should never trust a dame

[01:25:54] All dicks get into trouble All dogs go to heaven And all dicks get in trouble Yeah it's like This movie is like Very anti-woman I think There's a twist at the end where the woman helps save the day I mean you have four female characters

[01:26:10] One of them is defined by her Giant pendulous breasts I mean Bay Wolf the poem Is not giving you a ton to work with To be a little If I may and I'm sure we all agree Because we're all very progressive men on this show

[01:26:26] I think that if you're going to make Adjustments to the script As they did make tremendous adjustments Somebody at some point should have said Hey guys All women do here are either Evil witches or they're there to screw There's the wife There's the mistress

[01:26:44] And the wife and the mistress are cool with each other Allison Lohman That's the failing of the movie from that angle There could have been a twist At least a little something A little nod At the end where Robin Wright Or Allison Lohman could have at least

[01:27:00] Thrown a rock At the friggin' dragon To help out instead of just Cowering and then being saved And then the last one is attend the bride Attend the queen It's not Having sex with the witch stuff is not good either Well I mean at least she's active

[01:27:20] She's active And Janjelina Jolie as we said We would mention she was told She'd look like, she said she was told She was like a lizard, right? Like that she would have like some kind of reptilian form Which is what you see in the reflection Right

[01:27:38] And literally she filmed this over two days Like it's not like she gave a ton of her time to this movie And then she sees the movie And she's like I'm just naked That's like I just look like Anjelina Jolie and I'm naked

[01:27:50] That's what you came up with for me So clearly she was She pretty much expressed her unhappiness Yes she said that was not She felt exposed Absolutely and this is the other thing I wanted to bring up Much like Alan Richardson being sort of the Secret physical model

[01:28:06] They hired a supermodel to be the body double Who I think they scanned physically And modeled I mean it's Jolie's performance but they digitally Randered this other woman's Presumably naked or scantily clad by I just thought they used Frank Frazetta paintings I mean it just looks you know

[01:28:22] Just Frank Markovic I mean I will say as I said In late 2007 I was working At this digital media company And Able to track the metrics Our gallery of pictures of Anjelina Jolie From Beowulf was like our number one story For a month I mean I remember

[01:28:42] The audience being A pin drop silent A Friday night opening IMAX screening And it felt like Once again this sort of like The edginess of this movie trying to be like It's not for kids It feels like that is still Her rising out of the water

[01:29:00] Is still the single most photo realistic Shot in the movie And it feels like they put so much energy into that Because he was like people have to get horny When they see this I'm trying to prove a point here This isn't a fucking tune

[01:29:14] They have to get boners when they see her Pop out of the water It's so funny because Brendan Gleason looks like shit in this movie But she looks so amazingly good They are essential To support the Jolie Sentiment, I'm going to send you guys the link

[01:29:28] A microscopic merchandise spotlight The action figure of Grandal's mother is the lizard form They made an action figure that was Sold in stores that looks like the lizard form That you never see fully in the movie So I fully believe they Intended They weren't just lying to her

[01:29:46] That at some late point they decided To go full cheesecake DNA Julie could have sued, right? But you know, you're not going to sue Zemeckis. I mean, but she was exploited if she if she went, you know, at what point did they tell her?

[01:30:01] They tell her opening night or did they do they? She says she went to the movie and was like, I did not know this is what when she thought for the first time. I don't know if it was the premiere or an early screening,

[01:30:12] but she said like she sought it and did not know that's what it was going to look like. I'm going to say that's fucked up. I'm going to say that's that's I do not approve and that is not righteous.

[01:30:22] Yeah, it's like what you say, Ben, it's like the weird moral of like he she seduces him. But like I get again, if you read Beowulf, you're trying to find some tension. You're trying to find like flaws in the hero.

[01:30:40] And so Grendel's mother's sort of mysterious aspects, like that it makes sense. It's like, yeah, there has to be more going on with this woman, right? Like, you know, but like, you know, this is the thing about Beowulf,

[01:30:52] I'm like, I kind of like how berserk it is and how silly and how like swing for the fan, like how high energy. But also at the same, I can't deny, like it's kind of fucking like stupid. It's shit. Like dumb as a bunch of fucking rocks.

[01:31:05] How is this the original story? How have we continued to propagate the sleazy little Kings assistant? How is that still a thing? That character sucks. I always hate that character. You always hate that guy who's like, oh, I hate that guy. I always know that guy sucks.

[01:31:25] I'm it's never tricked me. All right. Well, what about the trusty friend of your hero character who is arguably more honorable and reliable than the guy himself? Well, that's a good character. If he has a beard braid and he's what's the actor's name? Brendan Glee. Brendan Gleason.

[01:31:45] If he's Brendan Gleason, he's got a beard braid than I feel good about. But then how does the movie end on? Now his dick's going to get him in the trouble too. These damn dicks getting us all in the trouble. The last shot.

[01:31:55] No, he has a great last shot because you don't know it does. That's why this movie is good. Beowulf is good. This movie is good. I can't get over it. Beowulf looks like shit. It's so it hurts your eyes to watch.

[01:32:08] It's such garbage, but it's a good movie. I don't understand. It's good by a hair. It's like it defies logic. It's somehow and you're like, it's disqualified. Right? It's automatically disqualified. The judges come in and they're like, I don't know what to tell you.

[01:32:22] I got a bronze medal. Somehow it got a bronze. They're like, but I saw it. That didn't, they didn't finish. Right. Right. They fell. They fell. I watched them fall. They fell into the fucking lake. I was like, yeah, I know, but we decided that was good.

[01:32:43] They stayed in the locker room. The last chance was really smart. You think at first just to fast forward. So Angelina Jolie, she's the sex witch. She's Eve. She's, you know, she's all these right. He goes to kill her and she essentially seduces him

[01:32:57] and promises him power in exchange for not killing her. And they fuck, right? Oh, they fuck. Okay. Yeah. With fronting. Hey, by the way, you mentioned unfurth this, the, you know, the grimoire, warm tongue, the evil kind of swarmy guy. Yes, Malcovich. Malcovich gives Beowulf his sword, fronting.

[01:33:19] And it's like, fronting will help you. And then fronting is no good as a sword in, you know, it can't defeat. And in the book or in the poem, he finds another sword that works. They left that sword out and the horn is not in the story either.

[01:33:34] That's made up for the movie. But my point is scholars for a thousand years have been arguing was unfurth's bestowal of fronting meant in good faith or in bad faith. And the movie does not answer the question because Malcovich is a good actor.

[01:33:51] You wouldn't know it because he looks like a PS2 cut scene. But he, he, he's doing good things and it's ambiguous. You know, you know. The implication is he used that sword to kill his siblings, right? So there's also this Chris.

[01:34:05] And he also laid with his mother and whatnot. It's a whole. He also got four stars in Grand Theft Auto. So it's like, hard to tell really what's going on. Yeah. Right. He, he didn't go full platinum, but he got a gold trophy.

[01:34:17] He got a bunch of the gold trophies. Right. Right. He has defeated the rainbow road. That is true. Right. But they're laying in this sort of unreliable narrator aspect of Beowulf where like he only manages to sever Grendel's arm in the door

[01:34:32] and then immediately goes like, I killed him. I killed him. I killed him. Everyone celebrates him and then he's like, I got to do due diligence, go to the cave, kind of make sure this dude's dead. Right. You're talking about Malcovich now? Yeah. Yes. Right. Yeah.

[01:34:45] But so what's fascinating to me is, well, first of all, the sword is named Krunting. I mean, that just gets me hard right there. I mean, so Krunting, is it the best sword? Is it the word? Like, did, did, did he send did Ulfgar or whatever

[01:35:00] his name is, Malcovich? Did he send him off with a defective sword on purpose to try to get him killed? Or was he on the level? He's like, I, you are now my new God. I love you. Here's my best sword and we'll never know.

[01:35:14] And the movie leans into this and it's like that and the last shot of Gleason is like, there are these ambiguous things in this film that on one side you would think is just made for the 300 crowd. There's not a lot of subtlety in 300.

[01:35:28] 300 does not lend itself to discussion. Whereas this you actually don't know. I like hunting sounds like a, like a deep, like a fifth page deli menu item. Oh yeah, you don't want stuff derma here. You want the Krunting. You want the hunt with a side of cash.

[01:35:45] Yeah, yeah, the Krunting is good. I like it with horse radish. Yeah. So the implication is, it's not the implication we know. It's like he gets in the poem, Bayreuth grows old and eventually kills the dragon and that's what kills him. And that's it.

[01:35:59] There's no implication of where the dragon came from or anything like that. He just gets old. Yeah. But in this, he gets old because he lays with Grendel's mother and she eventually gives birth to a dragon who's really a golden man who looks like Ray Winstone

[01:36:17] and is essentially like his sin coming to like claim his life, right? Yeah, and Grendel is Hrothgar's son. Yes, correct. Hrothgar, right. Grendel being Hrothgar's version of that, yes. I mean, here's my thing. I kind of agree with you guys where I'm just like,

[01:36:33] in theory dragons are cool, but I never actually get that excited about a dragon. And it just feels a little deflated, especially because Grendel and Grendel's mother have so much personality that the second it becomes a dragon, I'm just kind of like, well now it's just gonna be

[01:36:50] a big fighty-fighty thing. Yeah, I feel like they could have done it. I mean, dragons are great. I dig a dragon, but like it could have been a Nazgul or something, right? Or a Ringwraith or it could have been a weirder winged beast.

[01:37:04] It's very hard to map emotion onto this dragon. It looks cool, but it kind of deflates the emotional stakes of this is Beowulf fighting his son because it's so in-hand. But then again he flies around and they're on it and it's bright kind of yellowish orange

[01:37:22] against the gray gold. Gray gold, yeah. And the snow and the gray and the snow and it looks nice. But it looks good. All this stuff looks good. And Zemeckis having fun doing this like giant fight that he could never pull off.

[01:37:36] Yeah, but it is compared to the other two antagonists. It's the bronze medal to go back. It's also telling that like when Zemeckis came in with his rewrite note to Avery and Gaiman and said like make it as big as you possibly can,

[01:37:53] this was the main thing that was changed because in the script, thinking they were gonna make a $20 million movie, it was supposed to be a conversation. They had a long conversation and then there was like one final killing stroke.

[01:38:06] And they were like make it the most fucking knockout, drag out, he's got him in his talons, he's flying them around the ocean sort of fight. And it does feel a little perfunctory in that way. It's just scale and scope for the sake of it. Yeah, it's weird.

[01:38:24] And also it's like at this point, you've been watching the CG for so long you're kind of exhausted. A little bit, yeah. If the movie lasted another 10 minutes, it would have been like enough already, I can't take it. The movie should be a tight 90, it's two hours long.

[01:38:38] The movie is too long. I think it would work better if it was really just like half an hour in act, all action, all pendulous boobs, all nonsense, just total fucking heavy metal nonsense. It takes, it spends a little too long on, I guess chatting.

[01:39:00] I'm trying to think of where the sag is, but yeah, it's those sort of like where there's their fighting in the mead hole and stuff. Like I don't care. I think definitely the 10 minutes after the time jump with like Winstone and Allison Lohman

[01:39:14] is just like the air letting out. Yeah, there's the Frisian Hordes are coming. I am Fife the Frisian and I'm like, could have cut that guy out. That was a Tom Bomb, it'll wait and happen. Let's get rid of that guy.

[01:39:29] But it is one of these things where like the movie by the skin of its teeth, I guess is good for all of its baggage, for all of its moral and ethical issues in the making of the film. The movie rules except for all of the fatal errors,

[01:39:43] as you say. It's basically, it's a zero, but it also rules, I guess. But it's also one of those things where you're like, if they did a remaster of this, shave 20 minutes off of it, 15 minutes off of it and made it look less creepy.

[01:39:56] Like pushed it into a more stylized realm. If it looked more painterly and less photo realistic with the advancements we have, you'd be like, yeah, things like a hard seven. Yeah. Right, it's like a 7.5. If you somehow were able to do this live action,

[01:40:09] now obviously you couldn't do all of these shots. The camera doing cartwheels is just through the roof, but literally. But if you somehow did it live action with the same script, it would be incredible. It would just be incredible. Beowulf, yeah.

[01:40:26] He could also, I need to know who he is. I was really confused. You know, he says I am Beowulf a lot, but there's one moment where he's eaten by a sea serpent and he comes out through the eye of the sea serpent. How can you be mad?

[01:40:41] He goes like, no, he doesn't even say I am Beowulf. He just says Beowulf. He just pronounces his name. Beowulf! I mean, if I'm ever eaten by a sea serpent and then I come out through the eye, I'll say my name, you know? That's the-

[01:40:55] How can I be mad at a movie where the thing you just described happens and Ray Winston plays Beowulf? That's the problem. Yeah, you kind of can't. Ben, come on, Ben, you like the chains. This movie is Ben friendly in many ways.

[01:41:09] Just in terms of the silliness, I would say. Well, I mean, it's so close to homework. It's close, right. So that's just- It's Trash, which I honestly love. I brought up before we started recording, this movie isn't the tradition that would then lead to Warcraft, right?

[01:41:28] Another bad movie that I actually kind of love. Yeah, oh, yes, of course. We've passed down Beowulf Warcraft those stories. Should we do Warcraft as a Ben's choice? I think we should. I think we should because it's important because it's gonna lead to more movies.

[01:41:48] I mean, we can't end it there. They're gonna keep making those. Yeah, right, right. They're almost the inverse of each other, Ben, because Warcraft is like, here's this thing that everyone finds really fun and Duncan Jones is like, okay, hold on one second,

[01:42:01] stick with me here, I'm gonna turn it into homework. Right. And this movie is the opposite- You need to know about all the factions, right? It takes homework and is like, I'm gonna make this so fucking punk rock and trashy. Like Zemeckis is trying,

[01:42:14] so are like kids come back here, come on. Look, they're titties. Yes, of course, right? Drink your mead. This would make it into my drink your mead. All these things would make it into my book report if I was using that as my source material. Yeah.

[01:42:31] To answer your question though, David, it's the visuals. You can't get past it. They're so bad. They are so bad. Yeah, that's the thing. It's a movie of extremes. On the one hand, the visuals are unbearable. And on the other hand, he jumps through a sea serpent's eyeball

[01:42:49] and says his own name. You can't argue with that. They're both extremes. I mean, how do you... I don't know. I don't know. They wrestle within me. It comes down to, are you a pessimist or an optimist? I mean, ultimately, I gotta take the good, you know?

[01:43:06] Otherwise, why get up in the morning? Not to get too heavy, man. But I gotta take jumping through the eyeball over the awful, truly repugnant and repulsive visuals of this film. For me, the goblet of meat is half full. Yeah, there you go. Me too. Me too.

[01:43:24] All right, let's play the box office game. This movie... It was like almost a hit. Almost a hit. Yeah, well it made 195 worldwide, which was probably just about enough to not ruin Steve Bing's investment or whatever. You know what I mean? But it made 82 domestic. Not good.

[01:43:41] Not great. Versus like Polar Express or whatever. I mean, yeah, I don't know. It's okay. It opened fairly well, right? It opened like high 20s. 27 on November 16th. Pretty good opening. Yeah, it drops off 40%. It falls overclose eventually into the ocean. Kiteen by a sea serpent, yeah.

[01:44:01] You know, it did fine. It did fine. Let's talk about this box office though, Griffin. It's a weird one. So we're November, 2007. So this is my freshman year, my only full semester of college before I dropped out. I have just graduated from college, yes.

[01:44:18] So in America, like normal kind of situation. Yeah, I look no person. In Britain, that's where I went to college. What? Oh my gosh. I'm just calling my shot. This might be one of those top fives that I answer very quickly

[01:44:30] because this was such a foundational movie going period for me because for the first time in my life I needed people to drive me to the movie theater. Because you're in California, right? I was in California, I was in college. I am afraid of cars.

[01:44:43] So movies, I was very strategic about theater going but had my tabs on everything. And this is when I worked for People Magazine as a plucky young intern and I did a lot of red carpet and I covered the red carpets of two of these five

[01:44:59] in the top five. So number one is Beowulf. Number two, it's in its third week. It's made $93 million. It's an animated film and yes, I covered the red carpet. Is it Beemovie? Beemovie! Jesus. Yep, yep. Honey just got funny. Yep. I'm telling you, I remember this vividly

[01:45:17] and now that you gave me the red carpet hint I believe I know what one of the other five is. Fair, well fair enough. But yeah, so Beemovie Jerry Seinfeld I got to talk to Jerry Seinfeld on the red carpet and Renee Zellweger. That's what I remember.

[01:45:30] Ray Leode Private Select. Beemovie. Rock is in that one. I don't think he came to London for the premiere. Who else is in that? You asked me, more of a Seemovie. Oh wow, have you seen Beemovie? I actually never have. No, I've seen segments of Beemovie.

[01:45:48] I've never been able to watch the whole thing. I've done the thing on YouTube with the video where it gets twice as fast every time he says honey or bee or whatever. I think it's bee, right? Every variation exists. Every variation exists. I've seen the memes.

[01:46:04] I've seen the Beemovie memes, Barry B Benson, like jazz, all that good stuff. But I've never actually seen it. But that's such a perfect example of movie I would have taken my sister to see and gone like, oh, I got to take care of my sister,

[01:46:16] but really I wanted to see Beemovie or would have dragged a bunch of teenage friends to go see under the auspices of it being an ironic viewing. And instead I was like, I have to make tough choices here.

[01:46:26] Either I go see No Country for Old Men or Beemovie. Only one car ride is gonna happen this week. So number three at the box office was a big Oscar contender that didn't really pan out, but it was a hit. It's a pretty good movie. American Gangster.

[01:46:42] A crime movie, yes, American Gangster. Ridley Scott's American Gangster. Oh yeah. Which you know what I mean Griff? Like that was the front runner. You know, it was just kind of like, wow, come on. Like this thing is just gonna completely destroy. And I remember it being fine.

[01:46:58] And a big fucking hit. And the album sells a ton. And then it gets just Ruby D, right? It gets Ruby D and yeah, maybe that was the only nomination. You don't like American Gangster? I saw it, I have no memory of it whatsoever.

[01:47:12] I don't have much memory of it. It had an art direction. I remember it looking good, like costumes. It's got some mood. You know, uptown, yeah. I remember it being fine. Ridley Scott at the, you know, I mean. Oh, don't, don't you dare. No, no, no, no, no.

[01:47:26] You be careful. I mean like, I don't know. If you're gonna, he's made a lot of boring movies. I agree with you, Jordan. How dare you? It's just outrageous and disgusting. This is deplorable. Stop the counting. I would watch Beowulf any day of the week

[01:47:39] over 85% of Ridley Scott's output. Oh wow. I can't even litigate that. We have to move on to number four at the box office. You wanna litigate, he might wanna hire a counselor. I do like the counselor. Counselor, Blade Runner, and Alien. Counselor slaps. Counselor slaps. Counselor is Beowulf.

[01:47:59] That's it. If the counselor slapped you, you'd fucking end up in like the Bahamas. That's how hard it slaps. It would slap you across the country. Ben, have you ever seen the counselor? I have not. It's maybe the closest anyone's come to making night eggs. Oh fuck. Yes.

[01:48:15] Scum and the counselor on my list. Right, the counselor is also the scummiest movie of the decade. But anyway, look, we can get on the counselor. It's too late for us to delve into that right now because we have to talk about the Christmas comedy.

[01:48:27] Cameraday has fucked a car. Oh, Christmas comedy. That is number four at the box office. Oh, I know what it is. I know what it is. Fred Claus. It is Fred Claus. Wow. Yes. With Vince Vaughn, Paul Giamatti as a Jewish Santa Claus. He's not really.

[01:48:44] Is that a Dennis Dugan joint? No, it's not. It's fucking David Dobkin. David Dobkin, the judge himself, who finally made a good movie this year. What was his movie? Eurovision, baby. I take a Fred Claus over that. All right. Number five, it's new this week.

[01:49:06] It's the other movie that I covered the red carpet for. Lions for Lambs. It's not Lions for Lambs. What? That is number eight. That is number eight. Oh, my God. So that's out. Confident. OK. That's another one where I covered the red carpet. Now this one.

[01:49:21] How to even explain this movie? Give me a genre. Got a silly title. Family. Family. It's a family film. It's new this week. It's a bomb. 2007 silly title. Does it star an African-American comic? It does not. It stars two Oscar-winning actors.

[01:49:43] I think one of them had not yet won her Oscar. Oh, it's Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. It's Mr. Magorium's Oscar Emporium. It's about how they make the trophies. They make the trophies. It's Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. Yeah. Zach Helms, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

[01:50:00] with Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Jason Bateman. Right? He's the villain maybe. I mean, fundamentally a movie representing the last gasps before studios let algorithms decide which movies got made. That's a movie that a computer never greenlights. Yeah. Computers like the trap door opens

[01:50:23] before you even get to the pitch reading. Right. Right. Yeah. Grendel shows up for those, yeah. He was such a hot spec screenwriter. He had written stranger than fiction and people were like, is this guy diet Charlie Kaufman? Is he Charlie Kaufman but commercial? Right.

[01:50:40] And off of the excitement of that movie, Sony greenlit his directorial film. They were like, you're going to win an Oscar in 2006. So 2007 will hit him with a family comedy. And he got fucking Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman, and Jason Bateman. He hasn't made a movie since. No.

[01:51:00] Hey, you make it, you know, it's like Harper Lee. You knock it out of the park and then why go back? You know, it's Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. I hope like 50 years from now when he's on Death's Bed, his children are like, our father made a follow up.

[01:51:15] He never wanted it released. It's the ghost at a watchman of old man Magorium. Turns out he was a total racist. Count Griff, number six is Dan in real life. Put it on my tab. Put it on my tab.

[01:51:29] Number seven is no country for old men in its second week, expanding, getting ready to win an Oscar. You also have lines for lambs. You have saw four, the fourth of the saws. So Mandalore, Costas Mandalore running the table in this box office. That is a great point.

[01:51:51] That was when Costas Mandalore was fucking at the high roller table for one to two years, dining out on saws three to six. I want to say something like that. Like you see a lot of them folding the box office like laundry.

[01:52:09] Was he, you know, there was a character named Hoffman in the Saw movie. He is Hoffman. He's Hoffman. He's kind of the main character of every Saw movie that no one remembers. He becomes the main detective, right? Yes. Yeah, exactly.

[01:52:23] And he probably eventually turns into, I don't know, a bear trapper. You know, I don't know what happened. That movie gets very, that series is very convoluted. Yeah. That franchise is such a cash cow for him because his quote went up to like $65,000 per sawm.

[01:52:39] I mean, if he used a skill saw, it really would have been good. I mean, hopefully spiral. Once we open the book, the book of Saw. We have to open the book of Saw. We need the vaccine so we can open the book of Saw.

[01:52:53] It has to happen. This isn't natural. We're not supposed to live this way. We're supposed to have opened the book of Saw months ago. Yes. All right, we did it. We did it. We did it. We did it. We did it. We did it. We did it.

[01:53:06] We did it. Jordan, what a pleasure. I don't know why that was funny, but it was. Yeah, it was all right. It was all right. Fun time. It was all right? I was Bay of Wolf with the boys. I'm telling you something.

[01:53:22] I watched Bay of Wolf again earlier today for the first time in 13 years, and I had a good. I like this movie. It's so it's so confounding to me. I am Bay of Wolf. I was positive on it in theaters. I hadn't seen it since.

[01:53:39] I bought it on iTunes when I saw it on sale recently, knowing we were going to have to cover it. And my takeaway is I'm buying that fucking Blu-ray so I can watch picture in picture.

[01:53:47] Like I will watch Bay of Wolf again at some point in my life voluntarily. Sure, I'm going to do it right now. And it's funny because I am not as a mech as completist. You know, there's a lot of his stuff I haven't seen. Such as?

[01:54:03] I've never seen I've never seen Polar Express or Christmas Carol. Oh boy. Yeah, that's OK. You're not missing much. Yeah, you're all right. Christmas Carol is the Christmas Carol is the last one I haven't seen. I've seen every movie he released since then. I missed The Walk.

[01:54:20] I missed a few others, but. Yeah, you don't need to go for a walk. Yeah, you can take a seat. You're fine. What if he if The Walk had been such a hit? He had to make a sequel called The Seat. The rest. The nap.

[01:54:43] I like the Allied. I like you know, hey, Jordan. Yes, I'm all about Ally. David's been shitting on Allied since day one for years. I've been spending on this podcast. It's the number one reason I'm excited to do that. It's good because I want justice for Allied.

[01:54:59] I think David's going to rewatch it. I think I was probably in the theater with you, David. When we saw, yeah, it was days after Trump got elected and you had long predicted his victory and I would would always get so mad at you.

[01:55:10] And then you were right. I know I am one of my I'm upset about that, but I knew. I knew I knew somehow I know. Oh, did he know? But you know, it's funny. There's a couple of his biggies that I've never seen.

[01:55:20] I've sort of whatever reason never got around to cast away. Sure. And I never saw what lies beneath either. Good movie. I guess that year is the same year they came out. I watched neither of them. You'd like those. You should check those out. Yeah, I probably should.

[01:55:35] And I was deaf become so I know was a big cult hit. I remember seeing that in the theater and not being on its wavelength at all. You might be 28 years on, you might be who knows. But anyway, yeah, I might like it now.

[01:55:47] All three of those movies are more interesting now just as like, wow, they let people make these. All right. But anyway, anyway, you were wrapping us up. Yeah, no, we're wrapping it up. We all got stuff to do. Just real quick. It's good.

[01:56:02] Good seeing you guys, you know, wait, wait, Ben Jordan, weren't you going to announce something or did I make that up? Did I forget that? Oh, no. I was now it's late. Well, you know, by the time this airs because we've already recorded,

[01:56:15] I'm doing a new podcast for those who liked the sound, the mollifluous sounds of my dulcetones. A friend of mine, maybe you guys know him. His name is John DeVore. He's an internet guy. He's a writer. His award winning writer. He's a he's a real deal.

[01:56:30] He's won a bunch of crap. John DeVore is obsessed with the movie with David Lynch's Dune. Yes. So we have recorded a mini series called the Dune Conversations for four 30 minute shows allegedly about the movie Dune. And by now, hopefully it's out and people are listening to it

[01:56:52] or at least they can if they want. Hell yeah. Check it out in the show description. We'll have links. Oh yeah, links. Yeah, forget about links. Yeah, great plug, Jordan. Unfortunately, I think it is going to fall on deaf ears. I cannot imagine that appealing to our listenership.

[01:57:11] A very obsessive dorky mini series about a film that most people dismiss. I don't think you're barking up the right tree, but I'd love to be proven wrong. That sounds great. Can't wait. Really quick guys next week. You know, just remind the fans

[01:57:31] my untitled slow Christmas album is slated to be released around the Christmas Carol episode. So God, I forgot. Stay tuned for that. Yes, let's. Yes, of course. By all means, please keep your eyes peeled to Blank Check Media

[01:57:55] social Blank Check social media accounts for information on the drop of Ben Hosley's slow Christmas album. And thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Thanks to Ant for good for our social media. Lame on current for our theme song, Joe Bonaparte rounds for artwork.

[01:58:15] Go to blankies dot red dot com for some real nerdy shit and go to patreon dot com slash blank check for blank check special features where we're digging into those Ridley Scott alien movies as he comes back on the planet. That's right.

[01:58:28] Makes you ask a lot of questions about God. Can't wait. God and rabbits. Tune in next week for. Christmas Carol and Ben's album. I want to hear that, of course. And as always, Robert Semeckis is the only filmmaker with the courage

[01:58:53] to do an entire action sequence in the style of Austin Powers, the spy who shagged me is opening credit sequence.