[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 Don't worry Wilson! I'll do all the podcasting! You just hang on!
[00:00:26] Yeah, perfect! Thank you! Look at OK Hanks yell right? There's that quality in his voice way, it's like, ah, come on! Yeah, you gotta get into your solar plexus. It's the buzz! Right, I was gonna say it's Midwestern but he's like a California guy, right?
[00:00:46] No, he's from Iowa? Is that possible? Really? I'm seeing California here. That's exceedingly possible for Tom Hanks to be from Iowa. That sounds right, maybe he moved, I don't know. No, he's a California boy, Griff. Really? He's California. Conquered California.
[00:01:04] Conquered was the energy of that place because California's very, you know, runs the gamut. It is big. It seems closer to the Bay Area. It's probably like east of San Francisco. Yeah, OK, OK, yeah, it's like 30 miles east of San Francisco.
[00:01:21] I'm not a California person. No offense to California. I just, like, I am an admitted novice in terms of... Are you guys both in New York? We're both New Yorkers, yes. Wait a second, but David, I thought you grew up in... London?
[00:01:39] England and spent your entire life in England. You didn't grow up in New York. You lived in England exclusively until you were 12. What's this exciting guess you're starting this crap like right away? It's so fast. Oh my God, yeah, I lived in New York.
[00:01:54] David, I heard you got knighted, so that's very exciting. Hey! Yes, the Queen's Honors. OBE? Well, OBE is, that's like, that's not a knighthood, that's below a knighthood. Right there, that's like four levels. So I can't call you Sir David?
[00:02:10] I mean, you could if you wanted to, but it would be highly inaccurate. Like there was that brief period where Ben Kingsley apparently insisted on being credited as Sir Ben Kingsley. Yes. But that is seen as, I think, largely seen as ghost.
[00:02:24] Usually you don't want to put it in the title. The other thing I heard was that he would insist on being referred to as Sir Ben on set. I mean, I would. I don't know if you'd drop that, but there was certainly a period, I think,
[00:02:35] where he was feeling himself after the knighthood and he wouldn't let people call him anything other than Sir Ben. Sir Ben. Yeah, like Sir Ben. I am not Sir Ben. I'm looking this up. It says that he was born and conquered, but they moved a lot.
[00:02:50] And it says this line here, because I remember going over this with Richard. Yes. By the age of 10, they'd lived in 10 houses. Okay. So he, they moved all over. His dad was maybe an academic. So maybe that was part of it. An etymology professor.
[00:03:05] Did you guys listen to that? That I think at the daily episode early on the pandemic, they were trying to give people like some light at the end of the tunnel from the stuff, like some nice every Friday, a good story.
[00:03:16] And a journalist did a story about her interviewing Tom Hanks. I think she like started crying or something. Yes. And he talks about his niceness, perhaps coming from the fact that he had to move all the time and, you know, adapt and get people to like him.
[00:03:32] And I thought that was really interesting. And so that completely attracts. Yeah. That makes sense. He was like a career new kid. So he had to develop a really acceptable geniality. It's also, it speaks to his weird, all American quality that like he must have
[00:03:49] just lived in a bunch of different regions at formative ages in a way that he just sort of crosses over because you're like, what is he? He doesn't feel like he belongs to any coast. Well, it's just, it's why you, whenever you see him give an
[00:04:04] officer speech or whatever, you're like, it's kind of crazy. This guy like never ran for president. He just sort of has that vibe. But wait, what were you going to say? He's the president of Nopali, but though I guess. Right.
[00:04:15] He's, I don't know what I was going to say. Oh, he feels at once like completely general, like, and at once incredibly specific, like. Incredibly specific. He's a total like, he's such a one off in so many ways, but especially amongst modern movie stars.
[00:04:35] And I know now he's like an elder statesman. But even if you look at him in the class of like the 80s and the 90s, in terms of the range of what he did and how odd his sort of movie star
[00:04:47] persona is because his persona as a public figure is like president of Hollywood, Mr. Nice, you know, Mr. Professional. But then that isn't necessarily what he plays. Like by and large, he doesn't exclusively coast on his charm in that kind of way.
[00:05:08] There was a period when he did. I would say then he kind of swerved away from it. That kind of like Apollo 13, you know, era, you know, the mid 90s era, he was maybe, and this is sort of the end of that a little bit.
[00:05:24] What is he going to say? Because after this, he does road to perdition, which is like, you know, oh, he's making, he's playing some kills people. Like even though he's a sympathetic character like right, right. And where he plays the conflict, where he's the annoying character.
[00:05:41] Wait, which one was that? Yeah, you can. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Where he's the guy who's stopping the movie star from being in a cool movie. Yeah. Right. And then after that, the lady killers, he definitely right in the 2000s.
[00:05:53] He's like, well, I shouldn't just play like, you know, iconic figures of Americana like forever. Like he's definitely, but cast away is a little bit the hinge point. Like he goes into the movie, the, you know, like friendly sweater wearing guy that we all know and love.
[00:06:09] And he comes out and he's like, I'm changed man. Like, I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. But the beginning of the movie, he's literally just like yelling at a bunch of Russians. Like, We got to get these packages boss.
[00:06:23] It's so, I was, because I remember him. I remember what you were saying, David. Like he's so like, Oh my God, Tom Hanks. You know, the, his warm, love, lovely, loving self. And then I was rewatching it this morning and I was
[00:06:35] like, oh yeah, he's just screaming at a bunch of Russian people. He's nice to that kid. But then I remember thinking I had to Google like, what is his job? Like, what is he? Why does he have to do this? Like, Did you find anything out?
[00:06:47] Because I feel like the movie doesn't accept that he works at FedEx. Right. He's like a logistical guy, like trying to shave five seconds off of everything. Right. I don't understand why he has to keep flying places. I should preface all this by saying I'm obsessed
[00:07:01] with, I love cast away and I'm also obsessed with the fact that Zemeckis shot an entire film, which is an amazing film by the way. I could also just talk about that for seven hours and then comes back and like is a
[00:07:14] better director and like shoots other half this movie. Like it's crazy. How many other examples are there? It's so great. This is kind of it. I sent you a list of some of the movies that were open when you graciously said you would
[00:07:29] be willing to appear in this podcast and you immediately went like cast away because I can't get over the fact that the movie has a bigger gap and he's snuck in a whole other movie in between. Yeah, no I had to. Because What Lives Beneath wasn't
[00:07:42] available I think right? It must have been. I think. Yeah. I actually, when I was shooting Candyman, my DP and I, John Gulliser and me like sat down and watched What Lives Beneath. Because I had mentioned it for some reason
[00:07:57] and I was like no that movie is actually really good and I hadn't seen it for a while. I was like no that movie is really good and it's really well shot. And he was like oh no I watched it the first time two weeks ago with my
[00:08:05] wife because she made me watch it and it's amazing. And then so we watched that and that was like weirdly became like one of our like references for Candyman. And then and then cast away every watch last summer too. And I was just like yeah this movie.
[00:08:17] DPM Plus Movies. Oh shit. I love that they just travel together. Like I don't know man whatever you're doing. All right John come on. I think that was a big part of it. I mean it will have come out by now but as of the time this recording
[00:08:29] I have not seen What Lives Beneath and it's one of the few Zemeckis that I haven't seen that I've been looking forward to. It's very good. It's very enjoyable. It is device. Wait all right Griffin introduce our show, introduce our Jackson. Oh my god we didn't introduce the
[00:08:43] show yet. Oh we never did. We were always terrible with that. And hey you're already a great guest because you started talking immediately which is what we like. The thing that makes us uncomfortable is when we're talking and the guest doesn't know if they
[00:08:57] should speak and we're trying to like gesture to like you can vote in at any time. You immediately just took I listened to an episode like that recently actually. You took the volleyball and ran with it. This is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David.
[00:09:10] I'm Griffin. I'm David. And it's about filmographies. I'm Justin. I'm Justin. I'm Justin. I'm Justin. I'm Justin. It's ignore me. No perfect. Perfect. It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their career and are given a series of blank
[00:09:26] checks and make whatever crazy passion products they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they crash. Baby. This is a mini series on the films of Robert Zemeckis. We've gotten to the namesake of this mini series podcast away. And our guest today, director of Little Woods,
[00:09:47] director of the upcoming Candy Man, Nia D'Costa. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks for having me. This is so exciting. This is very exciting. We were talking about... That is so nice of you to say and it is the only thing
[00:10:04] that has made me question your judgment as a director. But... That's weird. It's a bad opinion. But we were talking right before we started recording because you and I worked together on vinyl in that you were an office PA and I was one of the absolute
[00:10:20] lowest ranked cast members. You were one of our esteemed actors. What do you mean? I mean, I was number 40 on the list of esteemed actors on that show. One of the many prompts of that show. Too many characters. That show was so insane. And I remember...
[00:10:37] And I have a lot of respect for everyone who made that show but I remember being the pilot and just being like I guess. I mean... We can do this again. You know? Perfectly put. Everything about that show was I guess if they think so, right? Yeah.
[00:10:53] But it was like the best cast like the best cinematographers even the AD like this guy like it was so and for me it was really exciting because it was my first like big scripted show I was like doing reality before that. It was really fucking exciting.
[00:11:07] Actually one of the reality things I did you also were involved in Griffin. What? So I was like I'm going to call it reality. I call it like I guess it was like one of those clips like talking hit clip shows
[00:11:17] it was a pilot that didn't get picked up. 20 versus 30s. Do you remember this? Yes. Yes. Jesus. Wow. Like but I mean our interaction was very limited. I was like oh that's the guy from trivia um... video. Right so this is what we had to talk about.
[00:11:32] This is what we had to talk about because uh you've been this humongous uh rising star in the film world. Candyman everyone's so excited about I for one am particularly excited that the movie is uh being delayed because I can't wait to see it in a theater.
[00:11:46] I think that's a great decision. I support it wholeheartedly. Um but uh your face was like popping up everywhere and uh I had that thing where it's like if you've worked on enough shoots you sometimes have a hard time placing like I know I've talked to that person
[00:12:03] I know I've worked with that person but I can't remember which set it was on and then I DM'd you and was like you worked on vinyl right? That was it and you were like yeah I've just started listening to the podcast this is such a weird coincidence
[00:12:15] asked you to come on the show great but then you revealed right before we started recording that you were a trivia person and that you used to like uh view David and I with disdain as like Yeah we used to lament your arrival to trivia
[00:12:30] we're like fuck we're not we're not gonna win this we're definitely not we wouldn't have won anyway but we just knew if you guys were there it was gonna be a mess for us I remember there was one NYU team that was good like that was
[00:12:42] that was my team that wasn't our team actually you know what maybe it could have been I mean the best trivia teams I'm on is usually when I only know half the team because the half I know interesting right isn't gonna be helpful I'm really bad at trivia
[00:12:55] film trivia like I used to be really insecure in film school about not being like well watched enough and whatever apparently it didn't matter but it worked out I um yeah I love trivia it's so fun we would bring so many people like to the trivia just whatever
[00:13:13] for fun and they would leave being like that's I'm too stressed out like I just feel stupid now like I get that you guys enjoy that but it's just hard and I just sit there being like well why don't I know this like it was not easy trivia
[00:13:28] it felt like no it was really intense and like every week we would sort of have like five of our regulars and maybe one open spot and we would constantly try out different friends of ours many of whom later become regular guests on this podcast
[00:13:42] and they would be like I get it I can't do this on a weekly basis this is too much and David and I were in the state of like getting there at like 4 p.m. when they open so that we could have first dibs on the booth
[00:13:56] so we came up there for four hours like you would show up with your laptop David like write pieces or I would fucking do whatever and then it would be there for another four hours doing trivia yeah I would do nothing but here's the thing Nia
[00:14:14] David and I started going we've talked about this too many times but that Trivia Night is entirely why this podcast exists it's the reason David and I became such close friends we had only hung out once before the night that we went to trivia together and became
[00:14:30] obsessed with it and we're like we need to send our entire lives around this and at the beginning it was just the two of us and we couldn't even place on the charts and it was this ascension to us being like a team that could break
[00:14:45] the top three I love it the first time we ever came in first place and like people were excited for us they were like oh the underdogs and there was the distinct moment after like a year when we won our like third championship in a row
[00:14:59] and everyone gave us like side-eye when David and I looked at each other and we were like we have to leave we've become the assholes it depends on where else yeah no but truly we were conscious about the exact thing you're describing of like people hate us now
[00:15:13] we're camp mohawk we suck no yeah it was pretty much yeah that's how we felt we were like yeah that was good it was very much just like oh we weren't going to win anyway but do you guys do trivia now because I was doing Nighthawk
[00:15:28] on zoom for a while I heard the Nighthawk one was good we have we keep wanting to like host trivia or like have a monthly night or something I do miss it I did one zoom trivia night and found it difficult and I don't know if it's just
[00:15:44] because I'm so zoom exhaustion right zoom exhaustion but also so like all my trivia strategies are so specifically built around like conferring in a huddle and my brain had a hard time adjusting to like being on a team with people in separate cities texting oh but on
[00:16:06] on Nighthawk you go into a breakout room so you're all on you're all on a screen together interesting yeah I have one that sounds good it's good if you guys want to trivia maybe we'll win this is selfishly for me because I would like
[00:16:18] to win trivia one day whatever let's do it that sounds great I did want to win general knowledge trivia which was crazy I I like general knowledge trivia too I enjoy all Travill pursuits but I'm so it's crazy that we never well maybe we did
[00:16:36] cross paths of ideology who knows it was always packed to the guild yeah I'm sweaty in that room yeah it's still open it's closed down right it closed down crazy yeah but yeah but here we are we're going to talk about cast away so Zemeckas
[00:16:53] alright so what lies beneath that's is that your favorite Zemeckas or is that just kind of like the one you kind of speak up for in his you know ignoring the big boys name the big boys for me I have to look at a list of his credits
[00:17:07] yeah you got your back to the future your Robert Roger Rabbit I mean Gump you know which is agreed agreed I agree with your hand gesture which I will not describe I don't let you have that hand gesture contact there are some big contact fans out there yeah
[00:17:24] contact rules of course the polar express American masterpiece which one polar express oh my god that was terrifying bring a ding ding so much of my when I was doing post on on Candyman whenever if we had a CG character or something I would be like
[00:17:43] listen this can't be like polar express beowulf like we can't we need to figure this out also the Irishman of course came up really we can do it right we're wax people actually I won't talk about why that was important oh I probably gave away some plot points
[00:17:59] but who cares hey I don't know have either of you seen someone did and now I feel like there are a ton of videos like this there's one I saw that's really good where someone just used like deep fake technology with old footage of De Niro
[00:18:16] and re-did the Irishman scene using deep fake technology it's so much better wow it's weird it's weird how much better it is it's weird how much better it is and the performance is better like not just does does it look more like young De Niro but you're like
[00:18:32] oh this is going to fall apart when he starts emoting and like the mouth doesn't sync up or whatever it totally works for me the biggest problem was the I mean the face was a huge one but the body is still being old absolutely you know
[00:18:47] it was the the physical he couldn't you know whatever he couldn't make it up and the eyes the weird blue eyes like I just that's the biggest thing for me though what colors his eyes are right exactly agreed and also if you're going to have three scenes
[00:19:03] in which he has to like kick a guy maybe just bring in a young body double for that and like he's actually kicking the guy and not just a dirty part of the pavement right like maybe Bobby can do full bottle for the fucking
[00:19:16] full body for the dinner or whatever but let someone else do the kicking I still like that movie though yeah I need to rewatch that movie it's just sitting there I enjoyed that song actually yeah I just remember you seeing it David and I was asking
[00:19:29] I was like the de-aging looks so bad from what I've seen how is that not a distraction and you were like it's bad and it somehow doesn't matter and that's my whole take on that movie it's objectively not successful in that regard and somehow the movie completely
[00:19:42] makes that kind of irrelevant it's because you have so many scenes of alpachino eating ice cream that you're like well Solidarity! yeah so good I love Flameloo! okay so yeah so what like well cast away but is cast away as part of the hook for you just that
[00:20:02] crazy production you know I think so because my favorite Zemeckis might be it's hard actually because after this movie does he make a good movie oh I can't talk like this about people hey I think he does but he never has which one is that
[00:20:22] a sort of widely accepted slam dunk I feel like this is his last movie that most of the public liked that was well reviewed and was a hit I mean you're you stick up for Allied Griffin I love Allied but yeah I mean he certainly does not
[00:20:40] make a movie that is I would say critically respected people like Flight which is pretty brutal Flight is the closest I like Flight less than Allied Flight was close you know I like Flight more than Allied but I love playing crashes in movies a lot
[00:20:53] okay so I'm terrified of playing crashes and I'm terrified of playing crashes in real life me too you're terrified of planes period yeah me too well right yes okay I'm gonna reply I love the scenes well I mean so I have that where I'm like
[00:21:07] you know it's like it's the thing I fear most so right so watching it is super super thrilling but I have never seen Flight because I know that it has an intense plane crash and I am very this movie also has a very intense plane crash
[00:21:23] yeah I love it but I am this one I love I mean this one really this is a good time for me to be watching movies with plane crashes because I'm not getting on a plane anytime soon so like I might so I'm actually kind of
[00:21:35] excited for Flight I've long avoided it for that very reason honestly Flight is like varied by the numbers very predictable and like also weirdly satisfying I think when it came out like and this is how I feel also about what lies beneath because I feel like
[00:21:52] if what lies beneath came out this year well not this last year we'll say it would have been like wow how great this is really exciting like what a great movie it came out sort of at a time when lots of these kinds of movies I feel like
[00:22:04] were getting made but lesser versions of them so it was hard to pick them out whereas like Flight I feel like if it came out when fucking what lies beneath came out people would be like Castaway is a particularly wild movie to watch in that kind of way
[00:22:19] but I do feel like I mean I'm looking forward to rewatching Flight my memory of it is I was so amped for it primarily because like oh Zamec has finally put down the fucking mocap shit and is making a live action adult movie he's working with a huge
[00:22:34] movie star again right yeah in total right and then the concept and the trailer just seemed like oh this is interesting kind of like morally grey material and then I felt kind of disappointed when the movie becomes as you said a lot more kind of
[00:22:50] conventional by the numbers after maybe the first 30 or 40 minutes yeah 100% but the plane crash is incredible and I feel like Zamec is very much a filmmaker where there's like clearly a hook to each movie that is what got him excited about making it whether it's a story hook
[00:23:07] or it's like a sort of technical thing right a technical thing a structural thing I mean it really feels like for him the hook on this was A how do you make a movie where you have that little dialogue you have that much isolation
[00:23:21] that much silence for that long and B I just think he probably fucking geeked out at the idea of I could shoot half a movie way to year and then shoot the second half and no one gets to do that it feels like that was the whole appeal
[00:23:34] to him yeah that just he and Hanks at this point individually but especially the idea of the force gump guys are reteaming could go into a studio and say like here's what we're going to do and they had to say yes what did Tom do in that
[00:23:50] besides lose weight and grow that crazy beard was he just not doing anything in that time or correct yeah that's a good question America's biggest movie star just kind of sat on the bench for like a year wow right because the movie before this is The Green Mile
[00:24:03] and then yeah he doesn't make a movie again for two years so Road to Perdition and the O2 so yeah he really did throw everything into this basically it was a huge hit and he got an Oscar nomination and you know like it was not a bad idea
[00:24:18] what did he went for Philadelphia Gump and Gump back to back back to back and then the wilder thing is it's like he has the big nomination then Philadelphia and Gump back to back wins then he gets nominated for Apollo 13 saving Private Ryan Castaway
[00:24:34] and then this is his last nomination for 20 years he did not get nominated once and then it's that Mr. Wilson's Mr. Rogers Mr. Rogers right all the movies he didn't get nominated for are a it's a bananas list interesting interesting yeah wow no Captain Phillips
[00:24:52] no Bridge of Spies he's really good in Captain Phillips like against I don't enjoy how much I liked Captain Phillips like I really don't I mean one reason you liked it so much though is because it's incredibly good he's so good those the two leads I mean
[00:25:10] him and Barcauptor Barcauptor is an unbelievable one such a great you know what's funny I mean I shouldn't talk about Peter Berg right now because we're talking about Robert Zemeckis but there's already directors where always time for Berg you're like it doesn't really matter
[00:25:24] if your movie is bad like I just will enjoy it because I like the way you do the thing and weirdly Peter Berg is that for me which seems crazy like to say out loud does not seem crazy at all I think Peter Berg
[00:25:35] is a good example of that like even when I dislike his movies I like his movies yeah he just has a way about him that they all vibrate on the same frequency so you're just like yeah this is working because it is what it is yes
[00:25:47] we went to the post I'm just looking at Hank's movies Sully obviously stuff for Sully stuff for the just movies that Oscar would go for yeah Sully is just hard to look at interesting but also another good thing this is America's number one Sully podcast
[00:26:07] you're entitled to your opinion you just need to know that we simp for Sully that we're Sully bootlickers do you really like it actually oh we love Sully to the degree that people think it's a bit people think it is a multi-year bit once every six months
[00:26:23] there will be a thread on the blank check reddit which is can someone explain the Sully bit to me because I don't believe you don't like it this much interesting just reply with like he say five hundred and fifty five souls like right great for impact
[00:26:38] there was a forcewater landing you want to make it human wait who shot Sully who shot Sully I think it was probably Eastwood's guy but let's let's let me double check yeah Tom Stern who which shoots all the oh yeah I know what you mean
[00:26:50] that's sort of like very grayed out look of all those Eastwood films also every light that is available is on in every room yes I remember what on earth he does the weird like desaturated with fluorescent light in the yeah it's like what
[00:27:08] a lot of it feels to me like his whole I don't want to waste time on setups I only want to do two takes like just honestly yeah I've heard some funny stories about that which I will not share but even Tom Hanks has talked about Clint Eastwood's
[00:27:23] rapid style of directing what do they work on together Sully helps I literally I was like I know sorry my bad oh my god I think that's the only one that's the only one that's why my brain is black I can't think of another girl no yes Hanks
[00:27:43] some interview he did talking about working with Clint Eastwood he said that he doesn't say action or cut like everyone's just sort of set people call places and then he's just sort of sitting there and then Hanks looks over to him waiting for him to say action
[00:27:58] and then Eastwood just kind of goes like well like he just sort of throws his hand out and says well I believe he says go ahead I think that's the story go ahead and then at the end of the scene there's just silence and then he goes
[00:28:11] like that's enough for that and he asked him like that seems like the most passive way to direct a movie and apparently it's because of all his time working with horses that when people would yell action or cut horses would get startled and it would fuck up scenes
[00:28:26] wow that's so funny did you remember that time and then I swear I'll keep this on track but like when I feel like when everyone was talking about lady directors they were being ladies and directing and I feel like so many women were interviewed and it was like
[00:28:44] how do you run your set and like a couple were like I don't say action it's just very masculine and so like aggressive and I just say let the spirits take you or whatever and it was such a big deal and I was just thinking
[00:28:56] like you found like the two female directors who resist this and now it feels like every woman this you know like floats on to set and says whatever your heart wants to do I was just like it was so weird and I find but maybe
[00:29:09] they would just all talk about Clint Eastwood I don't know but I don't know why you would make movies if you didn't want to shout action I mean people can do what they want but like to me that seems like the biggest thrill we don't say action
[00:29:22] that AD does right sure sometimes if I don't like my AD but no just kidding but also why why direct movies if you can't talk through like an analog megaphone and wear the little like post-boy cap backwards exactly that's exactly what I do
[00:29:37] this is I have this question for you because you were very much like a rapidly rising female director in the industry which means you know you get discussed within that prism like what is it like to be a female director how is it different you know
[00:29:52] do you feel like I wonder you talk about something like that right that piece and I've been lucky to work with like almost 50% female directors just by total chance it's not like I have any higher in power over the things where I'm number 27 on the call sheet
[00:30:12] but also doing a lot of TV where more female directors work and have worked for last 15 years than features unfortunately and I don't feel like there are a lot of seismic changes in that kind of way like differences do you feel like
[00:30:26] a variety is writing a piece like that unlike what is it like to be a female director they are pointedly seeking out directors who they think represent a different female way of directing quote unquote I don't I mean I feel like sometimes I think
[00:30:42] well here's what I think can happen right it's like you can you can say like here's what it's like to be a female director and then interview like Miranda July and like what's her face from transparent or what's their face because they don't
[00:30:56] yeah, Joe's all the way no longer what's their face she's non-binary now and like they are very specific type of director unrelated to them being at the time both of them at least fems you know what I mean so it's like it's a bit
[00:31:15] like if you interviewed like Patty Jenkins and myself and Ava DuVernay and I don't know like Lulu Wang like we all have pretty different wait because we just make different kinds of movies but I feel like at the time it felt so much like
[00:31:33] okay we're going to talk about how women don't direct horror films or action films but only talk to women who absolutely want to do those things okay but then there are women who don't but like
[00:31:44] I don't know I think people do kind of pick and choose in ways but also now that there's so many of us and so many of us still being like 1% but still better than 0.5 it's kind of harder to like do that pigeonholing thing
[00:31:56] it's also that thing of just like I'm sure if you went on a Harmony Corinne set he would do a bunch of weird shit differently than most directors I wouldn't find myself on that set ever you couldn't pay me to go to a Harmony Corinne set
[00:32:08] you don't like bacon taped to walls I can't I honestly I can't even watch kids I haven't watched kids I started it and I was like I absolutely not I can't do it we should mention because Harmony Corinne has come up on the podcast
[00:32:19] and producer Ben has not said anything which is unconventional for this show but the reason why is Ben was unable to sit in for this recording he did bring in a backup producer it's Wilson Volleyball and this is not a bit that I am doing
[00:32:39] this is a real thing where Ben charged to the blank check business account the purchase of a official cast away Wilson Volleyball with the face printed on it and he has placed it in front of his laptop on zoom in our zoom window
[00:32:57] there is a Wilson volleyball in front of a virtual background of an island and Ben is just going to leave his computer open like this for two hours so there's a nice sunlight on Wilson's face right now actually yeah it's feeling very integrated this whole he looks lovely
[00:33:14] yes okay no one would try to frame any of the weird shit Harmony Corinne does as emblematic of male directors which is the point right but Robert Zemeckis in many ways a very traditional director like very much like a guy who's part of the institution
[00:33:33] grows up on popular culture as part of that Spielberg generation of TV kids who become like the populace blockbuster guys but he does all these weird little experiments within his very mainstream films and this movie comes about because Hanks births the idea he said that he read somewhere
[00:33:55] about how many flights it takes for FedEx to maintain their service and they have so many planes with so few people on them mostly carrying packages going over large sort of unmanned seas every day and so then he had the thought
[00:34:13] of like what would it be like if one of those planes went down rather than a commercial airline where you know there's a much larger search a much larger number of people lost at sea so then he went to Zemeckis with it
[00:34:27] and I think Zemeckis latched on to A they were as TV kids gelling on the idea of like we grew up with this shit like Gilligan's Island and to a lesser extent like all the Robinson Caruso adaptations where people are able to suddenly build
[00:34:43] like this incredible fort coconut radios and all this shit like no one's made a movie about what it would actually be like to sort of survive on an island for that long and like relish in the isolation and the silence and how menial the sort of learning curve
[00:34:57] would be for everything and so they get onto that idea you know I think pitch the movie everyone wants it hire what's his name who's like just the ultimate 90s studio screenwriter at this point William Broiles right who wrote he wrote Apollo 13 he wrote
[00:35:15] he wrote Entrapment what if there was well well an entrapment what else did he created China Beach did he yes he did he created China Beach the TV series yes but like come on entrapment what if you know a 70 something jewel thief teamed up with a 20 something
[00:35:37] jewel thief right I can't remember maybe there are people that found in that film in that way I remember being really young watching it and I love the movie but I'm being like he is so old he's very old and what universe
[00:35:51] although I guess her universe because she's literally married someone 20 years older than her but that is true she did then I don't think they have sex I can't remember I have a movie in theaters and I remember there's a crucial set piece takes place because he unplugged
[00:36:05] the laptop too quickly and it sets off an alarm that that's the era entrapment came out anyway but yes that's who he William Broiles comes in I believe he was he was in the army like you know that's it so he like whatever he's
[00:36:21] he's right in the movie what else what else griff I mean he I guess he like scouts like FedEx right like yes that all works they get them on board right but I think another big part of it was like Zemeckis and a bunch of crew members
[00:36:35] I don't know if this is once they had started filming or if this was a sort of prior thing but actually spent time on islands so they could learn firsthand like oh what are the challenges what are the things you would try to solve so started constructing
[00:36:49] the sort of narrative around that and I know the Wilson dialogue was fully written like Broiles wrote out full back and forth dialogue scenes between him and Wilson so Tom Hanks knew exactly what the responses were in his head to play off of it
[00:37:07] yeah then they do this totally bananas thing where I guess DreamWorks was DreamWorks and Fox were they the two studios on what lies beneath as well yes yes they were and in fact it's like this was a Fox movie that DreamWorks took internationally
[00:37:30] and what lies beneath was a DreamWorks movie that Fox took internationally so they worked out some whole fucking deal that was part of I think the whole pitch was like he liked the idea I think in just a sort of competitive sportsmanship
[00:37:42] kind of way of like could I make an entire movie within a movie could I have the opportunity to make a movie with this sort of like production gap got DreamWorks and Fox on board with like I'll give you two big movie star films within the same year
[00:37:58] and then the other thing was having what lies beneath in between allowed him to retain all of his key crew because otherwise it was like oh I'd shoot with people and then a year later I can't tell them to just stay on hold so he was able
[00:38:14] to promise people I'll give you a whole movie in between here'll be an eight month shoot here are the outside dates for the next 18 months of your life crazy crazy crazy but they made two like 300 million dollar hits out of that like they made back to back smash
[00:38:30] hit he had two of the 10 films of 2000 right both original movies I mean both obviously based in like you know what lies beneath this sort of a Hitchcock thriller haunted house movie cast ways of deserted island we but like you know to just whole cloth
[00:38:46] originally it's like you say me like if this came out now people would be like this is the best shit I've ever seen I really made these both films honestly both films because I think it's because we have so much saturation of IP stuff
[00:38:58] but it's like people like I like when I someone an original when a big original film comes out whether it's big in terms of like if it's like a drama or thriller like what lies beneath like mid-mid budget or like high budget like film like cast away
[00:39:12] like you're like oh shit like people are still thinking with their brains and doing new things and they're also both really well made so they are yeah there's also just something to how sparse the pitches for this movie there's something exciting about just like
[00:39:26] some mechis and hanks had so much trust that they were like here's the movie he gets trapped on an island and the bulk of the movie is him just learning a series of skills I was actually when I was watching it and I was like he got to
[00:39:42] the island I was like oh how much time has passed in the movies like two hours and twenty minutes it's a long movie and I was like oh only twenty minutes has passed and I'm gonna supposed to be here for two more
[00:39:50] hours and the movie doesn't feel long to me at all so it was like it's so good like the pacing is so good and like you know knocking out his tooth and then four years later and you're just like what it's it's so good like
[00:40:04] it's one year as you say like the movie is really long and doesn't feel in at all it has big book ends like you know like substantial book ends that don't feel to me at least like superfluous and it's really the island action
[00:40:18] is really just two days like it's like kind of his first night there and kind of his last night there like you know it like it sort of asks you to imagine everything in between and like it's kind of not hard to do yeah it's while David
[00:40:32] is taking off his Atlantic sweatshirt oh shit he's getting real not David 2020 I'm gonna be next because it's really hot in this closet it's a stunningly confident movie in that like we're gonna dole things out so patiently we're gonna give you so little and we are confident that
[00:40:55] the audience will remain engrossed in this and the filmmaking is not flashy like he's not doing sort of Danny Boyle like I'm using all this sort of extreme cinematic language in order to make the sort of subjective experience of this guy being trapped here
[00:41:15] it's very sort of like lockdown little scene fragments watching gradual progression of things can we talk about actually in the filmmaking and the simplicity of it like how some of these VFX shots did not age well at all please the whole movie is a day for night yeah
[00:41:37] so I'm like staring at it like this feels bad like not bad wrong to my eye that is absolutely the stuff that works the least they just they didn't want artificial lighting and it would have been too dark to get any proper image on film
[00:41:53] they shot all the night scenes during the day and then digitally darken them and paint it out the sky and the sky looks the worst yeah it looks like this but somehow you're still in sometimes the water looks really weird right they cloud some of the water right
[00:42:09] yeah it's pretty disturbing at times like I remember I was watching his first night especially you were like what? because it feels almost like my eyes are bad my eyes can't focus when I was watching it it looks like a weird Instagram filter it just has that unnatural
[00:42:31] quality to it they also almost the entire movie is ADR because like everything on the island they said the waves were just too loud so pretty much like every line of dialogue every piece of sound yeah it's like all Foley, all ADR it's like that always lost
[00:42:53] yeah yeah is all lost though? sorry there's a very famous notorious press screening where someone got up and asked a question that went on for five minutes and at the end they were like what's your question though? I guess my question is is all lost? oh my gosh
[00:43:15] it's always held up by film critics it's the worst Q&A question I don't know about it so much there's some of that yeah but they shot it in Fiji right maybe not yeah an uninhabited island in Fiji which that must have been crazy
[00:43:37] I'm looking at it now, has it Guanas? this looks cool I was wondering what natural predators might be on that island I was like are there boars? this is the thing I also there's no way that lost I don't know if you were a lost watcher
[00:43:53] but you know there's no way lost isn't just the initial germ of it was someone being like oh right we're just gonna do this right and lost has boars and I kept confusing plot points with lost I kept being like right does he like hunt animals?
[00:44:09] no I guess he doesn't there's nothing going on just gets his fish how quickly would you guys, I would die immediately I was having this argument with my wife but I was just like no I can't do the fishing I don't think I'd make it
[00:44:23] I don't think I'd last like five nights yeah he's in exact circumstances you can use all the FedEx crap right you can hopefully take advantage of some choice packages but that's it oh man maybe it's
[00:44:41] me being too generous to myself but I think I'd live for a little bit I don't think I would have ever got here's what would not happen I would not have gotten off that island no there's no way you would ever I'm engineering a raft
[00:44:53] going over those waves unless I was like I'm ready to die and I might as well try right I would be so scared not just of going over the waves but like Ben what exactly yeah there's a shipping lane out there he saw about
[00:45:11] my thing would be like I'm ready to die I'm ready to kill myself I will at least attempt to escape sure I just feel like I say this a lot as a joke but it's also not a joke I feel like my very existence continued existence
[00:45:27] is proof that we as a species have overcome survival of the fittest like I am someone who is not supposed to survive the elements in terms of how I am built so I just feel like I would accidentally die very quickly oh sure sure yeah
[00:45:43] infection, trip and fall you'd be like oh let me get that stick that seems helpful right and then you cut your foot and then that's it I would be too cowardly and disorganized to figure out a way to even like build a raft
[00:45:55] so I would just be complacent and be like cool this is where I live for the rest of my life and then I think something would accidentally kill me within 48 hours that's my guess but it make I mean it's crucial that he is a logistics
[00:46:09] he's a problem solver right that's why we have that opening bookend and look because otherwise we don't buy probably that he would be like your shit out on this island right yeah there are two moments that I really love one for just the practical sense of it
[00:46:25] like when he's trying to open the coconut and he smashes the rock and then that shard comes out I was like thinking about the rock I was like how do they do that and then the cut to four years later and the spear and the
[00:46:37] it tilts up and he's just like one hit jut it out like in his winecloth and his hands is coming down slowly it's also just like the guy is like having as dominant a run as a movie star has ever had for him to look that radically
[00:46:53] transformed that deep into a movie when he is like America's favorite it's just so fucking striking like not just that he's that skinny the hair the beard but as you said just the physicality like he's moving in a way different
[00:47:07] than he's ever moved in his life up until that point it's the best magic trick of the movie like it's the kind of thing like whatever boyhood movies like that that just do weird time shit you know like it's just there's nothing like cutting to him
[00:47:21] looking like that and you just immediately knowing well this can't be fake I guess he just lost all this weight it just gets you I mean this is not a plotty movie it's tough to sort of go through maybe we can sort of go in order
[00:47:41] let's talk about how that went yeah I mean yeah I think you made a very good point which is it feels like most people's version of this movie would be an hour before he gets on the plane they would be like you really need to spend a lot
[00:47:57] of time with the guy and know what he's losing and be invested before he's stranded and this movie is like 20 minutes until the plane crashes it moves so fast it's unconventional that of the book ends the coda is longer than the prologue so to speak
[00:48:15] it feels like most people would do the opposite and would not have the confidence to have a solid like you know 90 minutes plus on the island but the opening is just sort of so fast just what like the shot where he goes
[00:48:35] to her office and she's at the photocopier and he's just like looking at her and then the way Helen Hunt just performs that meeting like she turns around and she's like sort of like tired and she's like stretching and then like it just feels so real
[00:48:49] and you're like oh these are real fucking people like in their adults Jesus yeah grown ass people we talk a lot on this podcast about Tom Hanks movies being about a guy who's good at his job that that's the main thing that unifies
[00:49:05] most of his films and that Tom Hanks is great at his job of playing people who are good at their job but it's like right away that's the number one thing the movie wants to establish this is a guy who's a problem solver thinks through everything knows all
[00:49:19] the variables and it's fun that you have the getting to see the package truffle with the little kid and everything but also I totally forgot that the cold open of the movie is the woman and her husband husband you never see and her weird business iron wielding wings
[00:49:47] no idea I also forgot that I knew that she had a cheating husband but I forgot that like the wings was like that motif throughout it's like his weird little religious icon that he fixates on yeah yeah she's like an industrial
[00:50:03] artist that's what I took away from it right like she's just out there in Texas making cool shit out of metal what's her husband doing in Russia I remember thinking that I was like what's he doing there and because it's so awkward when the package gets
[00:50:15] there and he's like it's from my life and then goes inside I was like what it's so awkward but I kind of love it I love it too yes and I love Helen Hunt I mean this is Helen Hunt's year you know this is we've talked
[00:50:29] about what women want which also came out this year she also does pay it forward which is obviously a big movie not a hip but you know but like she won the Oscar three years ago her sitcom has wrapped up like and she's just in
[00:50:43] four movies this year she's just like kind of everywhere. Matt about you had ended and she was finally able to do movies again post Oscar and all of them came out like within a six month period what would you want an Oscar for again?
[00:50:57] It's Good as It Gets Oh my god of course I love that I love that her son in that movie has the disease that all kids have in movies which is unspecified He just coughs a lot he's got a real coughing problem
[00:51:11] I love her in that movie I mean I have such a crush on Helen Hunt in all movies She's amazing She's honestly a good run like I feel like she got kind of a bad rap for a while because she won an Oscar and that
[00:51:25] whatever puts a target on your back if you go like twist her through to this like she makes a lot of fun movies I think there was a backlash at this point and it was a little bit of the Jude Law Syndrome where it's just like
[00:51:41] for four months she was in every movie like it was like September, October, November, December she had like four big movies right? Yeah yes I mean you're right I think you're right Wait, this is Jude Law thing though Did anyone care except for Chris Rock
[00:51:55] who made it a big deal I mean I don't think anyone was mad at Jude Law per se but I do think it's not like because if Jude Law had made four great movies in one year or whatever then everyone would be like
[00:52:09] it was just that there was suddenly a lot of Jude Law in like okay movies It was Alfie, Closer Lemony Snicket where he's pretty much only voice over Aviator where he's a little bit more than a cameo and then Sky Captain the World Tomorrow and there's one more
[00:52:27] It's six movies It's great I heard Huckabees though It's a lot of movies Between September and December I feel like Dave and I were both nerds who were spending a lot of time on Oscar prediction message boards in high school
[00:52:43] and it was very much a thing that people were doing jokes about It feels like it was noted but I don't think anyone was like Chris Rock crystallized it and weirdly then the Sean Penn reaction did more damage than Yeah everyone was like shut up Sean Penn
[00:53:01] we're allowed to not like Jude Law Jude Law probably was just like leave me alone I'm just here at the ceremony I don't know how it was whenever that happened and then we're being like feeling so awkward for Chris Rock
[00:53:15] not for Chris Rock but just for everyone Chris Rock was talking about because it felt so personal and I couldn't really identify with his emotion also because he wasn't like oh isn't that Jude Law and everything he literally was like if you can't get a star
[00:53:27] don't get Jude Law, get a star I was like that's right His whole bit was like Jude Law as dollar store Russell Crow or whatever It was a somewhat aggressive way to frame it It was so awkward I honestly I don't like any either time that Chris Rock
[00:53:45] hosted the Oscars I love Chris Rock stand up I think he's a genius at it but both times I was just like I don't know what we're doing here together Chris I think it's one of those things where the years leading up to that
[00:53:59] people were like why don't they just get Chris Rock to host the Oscars, he seems like it could be great for he did it, no one was super happy with it everyone forgot that he hosted and then five years later people were like
[00:54:09] why don't they just get Chris Rock to host the Oscars he seems like he'd be good at it he did it before and it's like no I remember that I remember that I did it again and then the same thing happened Second time I remember being more
[00:54:21] underwhelming, I don't mind the first Rock host, my mom was the hugest fan of it she every year after Chris Rock was just like they should bring Chris Rock back I don't know why I'm looking at this guy right now so maybe that colored my opinion
[00:54:33] It's such a weird job because people don't want to host who's too fawning but they also don't want someone who's too critical and like he's a little bit too cutting and you know he's just the opposite direction where it's just doing a magic trick on stage
[00:54:47] Who's been a good host? Like recently They look like Crystal lost points for Blackface He certainly did When everyone was like he's back, the legend is back and he opened with Blackface and it was like oh boy Hey maybe not And Tintinface
[00:55:07] I don't want to rank the issues here but Tintinface was also an issue Something that we don't talk about enough Absolutely I know that she has recently been discussed quite a lot and has criticized her fairly but you know Ellen Degeneres is two performances
[00:55:23] I remember being pretty solid I think Steve Martin is the best modern Oscar host, I guess what are we calling modern anymore? That's my point Is Steve Martin has now been long enough that I wouldn't call him modern Ellen was the best of anyone in the last 20 years
[00:55:35] Because she kind of tapped into like what people actually want to watch the Oscars for which is like the excitement of like we like movies a lot actually and like the excitement of people who might win them And I remember that little video she did in the beginning
[00:55:49] with everyone sort of like and Jennifer Hudson was like don't I look good y'all or something? I don't know I remember being like oh this is fun and now everything after that I've kind of hated I think she struck the right balance and I think there's also
[00:56:03] that thing, I remember someone saying about Billy Crystal in the years after Billy Crystal when everyone was like bring Billy back and then Billy came back and made us all rue the day we wish for that but in the years I remember people analyzing why Billy
[00:56:17] was someone more successful than other people and they said like because he was at just the right level of like being a Hollywood insider while also being like a comedian and having like a little bit objectivity But there's something about like if someone feels too far
[00:56:35] removed from that world you're like I don't know should Seth Farland be making jokes about nude scenes? That was so disgusting How dare you It is crazy It is crazy that that happened And of course he got his Jennifer Lawrence attorney's there on to be like
[00:56:55] we're in on it, hee hee but it's like you shouldn't have to be in on someone literally talking about your foreign hub scenes Like it's crazy Someone recently texted me being like I'm not misremembering this, right? That happened in this decade Yeah, it was disgusting
[00:57:13] I was like this is so crazy world Maybe I'll this is the standard, I don't know if I'm going to be able to direct a film I'm going to deal with these bobo's Seth McFarland's Oscar hosting performance almost made you quit this industry So, Castaway's amazing Castaway's amazing
[00:57:33] We do enjoy it It's got a great plane crash Wait, what were you going to say, Gryff? No, no, no, just the opening setup stuff I feel like the dinner scene with the family is so good
[00:57:49] I mean because you have him showing up to see her at work there's really good just like two movie stars two good actors who are able to convey an entire history of a relationship in like their body language very instantly as you said, just like
[00:58:03] the way she turns around, the way they look at each other She's just she's just exactly the kind of person you would want to stay alive for as corny as that sounds and if she was whatever she's the perfect sort of she just feels like a real person
[00:58:21] She's the most famous charming type of person who you're still like well this is a real person Yeah, it's funny I remember like as a kid you know I was 11 when this movie came out when Helen Hunt was having her sort of like banner year and I remember
[00:58:37] like feeling that this movie totally fell off a cliff when he gets back to land and sees her again and I remember feeling similarly about what women want when she enters the movie and like what women want, 100% 180 I think everything before she enters is intolerable
[00:58:59] the movie becomes somewhat good once she kind of takes control of the narrative and her stuff for me in this works a lot better but I do feel like there was that weird resentment of like oh all these movies where like Helen Hunt
[00:59:11] comes in and reality comes crashing back into these like sort of fantastical premises I think that was a common hit on this movie like it's so good but if the island stuff is what's good and re-watching it I'm like I don't think the island stuff is enough
[00:59:27] like obviously it's very impressive and it's very involving you know like and maybe there's just that sort of like cinematic like endurance thing where it's like how long can you make a movie with no dialogue with just you know him talking
[00:59:41] to a volleyball like people are just sort of into that sort of like the critique of like Wally or whatever like you know come on make the whole movie just him cleaning up garbage like which is so annoying because the reason why
[00:59:51] you like it is because you got just enough of it not because you need to have the whole fucking movie that that's that's exactly right they they don't know they would want a full course of that yes that's also for me the brilliance of this movie
[01:00:03] is just like his sense of balance is so correct in all the island stuff not just how much of it there isn't totality but also just when the time jump happens how long each scene is like it essentially is scene fragments for 90 minutes you're just
[01:00:23] getting these little pieces with these jumps whether it's a short jump of just the progression of a fire or a slightly longer jump of him moving to an entirely different task like I when Lady Bird came out and there was the inevitable like second
[01:00:39] wave backlash to how beloved Lady Bird was and I remember a lot of people like we're throwing out the like well how hard is it to direct this movie like it's silly
[01:00:47] that we're putting this up for Oscars it's like a high school comedy it's not that hard to direct and I which is stupid but but I remember the best rebuttal I read to it I think now I'm trying to remember who
[01:00:59] it was who wrote this but just sort of explained like it is not sort of like bravera you know sort of like technically complicated filmmaking that is usually lauded but it is deceptively difficult to make a film like Lady Bird where most scenes are 30 seconds
[01:01:17] long like that's another movie where it's a year of her life and it takes all these jumps and the difficulty of that is you're sort of doing like all filmmaking is pointillism but it's super extreme pointillism where you're like these scenes don't really have coverage
[01:01:35] there's no way to edit those fragments internally it's all about having the right judgment of what angle are you at and what is the length of the action of Tom Hanks using the rock to try to break the coconut how do you direct that
[01:01:51] performance how does the actor of the right judgment has the director cover it the right way and then how do you edit that properly how much or how little do you want of each of those things and it is just like these very small
[01:02:03] puzzle pieces that build really really well yeah my favorite little vignette is the fire I made fire it's just like such Tom Hanks ishness but it's also that thing that makes the movie work so well it's because you want to watch him do this
[01:02:31] you want Tom Hanks to come back too yeah it's also why like a movie like this is so off base not off base but it's off topic but a movie like um you've got works when like you should really hate him so much because he like
[01:02:47] his life and then it's like in exchange I give you myself but I love that movie and I think it's because you just Tom Hanks has this thing about him where it just he wants to watch him he just works I don't know
[01:03:01] it's that ineffable movie star thing I mean like Road to Perdition his next movie after this is just like this guy is a murderer and I disagree with this but the complaint that some people have about that movie is he's too likable I can't accept him as
[01:03:15] being dangerous even though you see him kill people he just has that fucking thing but I also feel like it's such a good study in um the power of withholding stuff from the audience when you go that long without him having dialogue and also you've watched so much
[01:03:35] uh Tom Hanks sort of being a husk of himself yeah being so silent and so defeated and so stressed out and scared and angry and sad when you get a classic sort of Tom Hanks he's seen of him dancing around a fire and being funny
[01:03:51] and charming it feels like such a fucking victory because you're like yeah Tom Hanks is still in this and then then all of a sudden he's like crazy blonde hair and right you know he's a silent fish assassin who has like a
[01:04:07] statue erected to the time he tried to kill himself on the island like that's like and it's because of Hanks that that jump works too if it's a regular, wait maybe it's a different actor we see them as a skinnier person
[01:04:21] we're like okay I get but like to see Hanks like that just sort of feels a little more shocking. The movie's two hours and twenty minutes and there's twenty four minutes of score and seven minutes of that is the end credits so there's very very little music for
[01:04:38] a guy who uses a lot of music. And also for a movie that lacks dialogue for someone like you'd think like well yeah we'll have this score that kind of like you know that can like fill things out don't worry we'll rely on that and he's like no
[01:04:52] we can't rely on that like we can't rely on anything that's gonna put the audience at ease about it probably you know what I mean right yeah I mean. He's taking away most of his tricks he's like he's a guy who's had a lot of movies with like
[01:05:06] quotable witty dialogue you know great comic chemistry and energy between actors crazy set pieces and special effects like it feels like this is sort of him doing his like dog experiment in certain ways but also he's been doing that so good. No no with the weird gambit of
[01:05:26] the you know split and half production what were you gonna say? No just I feel like and this is something I appreciate about Zemeckis is like I feel like he's just kept doing that like okay now I'm gonna do like this mocap thing now I'm gonna do
[01:05:40] like this kind of movie now I'm gonna like he's always like challenging himself and that's something I like a lot about the cast away what lies beneath cast away of it all is like you're like watching someone who's like knows how to do what he's doing really well
[01:05:54] and it's sort of like maybe I'll try this exactly and that's what I really appreciate about him even when I'm like oh my god Fuller Express is terrifying to me on a spiritual level I mean it's why I'm happy that we're doing him and
[01:06:08] we were talking with a friend last night and she was like are you worried about any of the movies coming up because often especially if we're covering a long filmography we're like that's gonna be a bummer episode or just I don't want to rewatch that movie
[01:06:24] that one's boring and the movies of his that I dislike are all just so weird and even just like on a level of why was he doing this like what was the thing he was trying to challenge himself with by taking on this project
[01:06:40] I've been watching so many interviews and shit with him but also like about him and I forget what it was on the special features for but there was some interview with Spielberg where he said like I think it was Spielberg who said it but like he's a guy
[01:06:56] who really thrives from conflict and he needs to feel like he's fighting against something he's like kind of incapable of getting complacent for better or worse and repeating himself and then I saw him say in this interview where he is like you know there's
[01:07:16] this double-edged sword to becoming successful and respected which is then people don't really question you as much he said like after back to the future people kind of trusted that I knew what I was doing and I hated that because I wanted people to question me
[01:07:32] I want to have to fight for my ideas and I wanted to be worried that things might not work and when you're surrounded by glad handlers it's a big issue and he's like it's paramount that you have to surround yourself with the right people
[01:07:44] who you know are critical and also challenge yourself doing things that might not work and he's like a great example of that a dude who is clearly very willing to make movies that could completely blow up in his face and have them even flight was
[01:08:06] did that make enough money? that made money it was like a solid hit not like a farce, gump-sized hit but I think it was made relatively cheaply considering the star power and it did well again the tangent but flight was actually
[01:08:22] one of the movies that made me hire James Batchdale in my first film he's a legend Iron Man 3 those two performances I was like oh yeah okay it's interesting because initially I feel like when he emerged played he was on 24 shows like that
[01:08:44] he was kind of like a stocky guy he was kind of like a little bit hard-hearted and then in flight he's kind of like skinny and wiry and weird so it's like oh this guy actually has some tools he's a fucking chameleon he's amazing
[01:09:02] he's doing the Jeremy Davies part in flight apparently he fought really really hard for that role I remember seeing some interview with him where he talked about how badly he didn't want to cast him because of that perception of who he was
[01:09:18] and so he lost the weight in advance to convince them that he could do it did a bunch of reads right for one scene with a character who's never even named but he's so good in that also Iron Man 3 Rips
[01:09:32] it's the best Marvel movie up until this point I don't love all the Marvel movies but I'm Marvel trash my friends call me, I will watch them all I don't care I'm there but my favorite ones are the ones like Iron Man 3 that kind of deconstruct
[01:09:48] the superhero thing but also that talk about oh this guy has PTSD and is having panic attacks and that's why that's fucking interesting because Iron Man 3 is about talk therapy this guy flew into a black hole he needs to deal with it
[01:10:02] we stan Iron Man 3 almost as much as we stan Sully on this part I can't even engage with the idea that they're on the same level I definitely can't do this 2 American Heroes 2 American Heroes I mean look Iron Man 3 also saved all the people aboard that flight
[01:10:18] there they have it's like 12 of them but yeah the barrel of monkeys which I love the truth sequence wait what was the mech as his last movie his last movie was Welcome to Marvel oh dear and his next movie which will be out by the time this episode
[01:10:38] comes out is his remake of Rawl Dahl's The Witches with Anne Hathaway yeah I saw that trailer written by the legendary trio screenwriting trio that we all know and love so well Robert Zemeckis Kenya Barris and Guillermo del Toro obviously those three guys Robert Zemeckis, Kenya Barris
[01:11:00] Guillermo del Toro are the screenwriters of The Witches did you just watch Black AF I didn't that's the one where he plays himself that's the Netflix show did not watch that it's a struggle I don't think you need to I got an audition a breakdown for that show
[01:11:22] and I didn't go up for it just because I had made a decision for the sake of my sanity not to play personal assistants anymore but just seeing the breakdown I was like really this is the thing you want to do with your overall deal
[01:11:38] you want to be the lead of the show it's very strange I mean people I think everyone thinks they can be Larry David and truly it's not possible he's one of a kind yes and even he has bad seasons of Curb so like let's live in reality
[01:11:54] everyone you know what I mean by the way Griffin do you ever worry about all this shit you talk on this podcast and not getting done I have probably torpedoed my entire career so in certain ways I have less to lose but also far less security no it's
[01:12:12] it is a thing that I have made my piece with to some degree but it is definitely a thing I've been conscious about that I have sort of made my choice I also feel like these are the couple things I tell myself one I have such divergent taste
[01:12:34] as proven by my love of Sally that almost anyone I've ever shit talked on the show there's probably at least one thing they've done that I love like I really with very few exceptions couldn't find at least one thing where I would wax poetic about that to them
[01:12:54] I also find that a lot of people in the industry such as yourself but also like people who are like executives at studios or directors or screenwriters or showrunners or whoever listen to the show some of them who become guests some of them
[01:13:10] who very much don't want to come on the show and say anything potentially damning about anyone else but we'll DM privately I think get that that like it's not a negative show yeah it's all like love based that we praise so much that even if we're
[01:13:30] like that thing's a fucking stinker it's not like we're just dunk town yeah for sure but I worry about it constantly yes and to some degree I think my career is over I think about that sometimes when I because I genuinely have
[01:13:44] I don't know if it's like I don't care because I do care but I generally just want to say things I'm like whoopsie daisy I support it I mean I prefer that to you know how most people comport themselves very wisely have sort of like gotten off of
[01:14:02] Twitter yeah I was like I can't engage with this right now my tweets like I'll hear about them from execs like yeah we saw that tweet so we really wanted to make sure we did this I was like oh lord which is also a great tool but
[01:14:16] I'm like that's too much at a certain point you wonder if it's worth it like risk versus reward yeah let's talk about this movie one thing we didn't talk about the plane crash let's get into it which is such a good plane crash just
[01:14:34] not my number one nightmare because it's maybe one reason I'm less afraid of this one just because like when am I ever going to be on a FedEx plane you know like it's not the true nightmare of like being in your chair and then just being told like
[01:14:44] brace for impact or whatever also those planes will fly through things that commercial flights will never fly through because yes they don't have to worry about they don't have to worry about bouncing people around right yeah which is that also
[01:14:58] freaks me up god imagine just flying one of those things like absolutely not but I think that was Hanks's whole idea I mean he was like the whole spark of it for him was like these planes operate differently and fly over different
[01:15:10] areas and it would be harder track yeah what were you saying David Sarray well just just like the little details like the way you're sort of seeing you know how fucked up everything is out the window but you can't really you know like you're just seeing glimpses
[01:15:24] like the focus on the guy hitting his head like which is such a bleeding out of the floor mundane injury like it's literally a put your seatbelt on injury like and yet it's so it feels so insurmountable like it just like you're just like this is
[01:15:40] they're not going to be able to deal like this is it this is it's over I love that moment where where this is the moment I always remember from from it's when you see the actual water and I always think it's earlier than
[01:15:52] it's going to be and then it's always later than I remember but just that like the whole sequence is amazing because you have the moment where he like wants to get his the locket as opposed to the the life jacket and then
[01:16:04] the guy's like sit down do that do this do that and then he hits his head and then he's just standing there looking out of the window and then when that water shows up holy fuck that's the same it's that moment where it's like
[01:16:18] there's no avoiding it the plane is going into the water whether or not you die now there's there's no pulling up for this there's it just it fills me with so much dread it is fascinating that I feel like the reputation at the time was
[01:16:32] like oh you have never seen a plane crash sequence this visceral this terrifying this technically advanced like it was sort of cited as a high water mark for like plane crash terror and then 10 or 12 years later both Hanks ends a mech is there like I want to
[01:16:50] make another crash yeah I think I think this one is better than selly is sorry actually here's the thing about selly's plane crash so this plane crash is amazing because it is and this is what I enjoy about I think about both is that
[01:17:08] for my like anxiety about planes is that like you can survive but also like people know what to do and watching someone calmly like know what to do is like that's all I get out of selly is like you just
[01:17:18] tell me what happened exactly in the real world but like with some drama and in two hours you know and then Griffin I'm facing now Griffin. I'm so sorry I just have to correct you it was not a crash it was a forced water landing
[01:17:34] it was a forced water landing 100% I think it's like no that's inarguably the best part of selly like I don't know a single look I've made so many people watch that movie and a lot of them don't like it but everyone agrees the fucking crash is stunning
[01:17:52] and so much of it is just that such a different energy you've ever than you've ever seen of him trying to continue to check off all the boxes once the plane has landed his management of the crisis is the most stunning thing it's also just the type
[01:18:08] of shit that Hanks is absolutely best at as an actor and is the same muscle that this movie uses really well yeah I fucking love it I love the moment in the bathroom where he's taking off his bandaid right before yes and he's like
[01:18:22] such a great it's just so well done and that's what I love about Zemeckis we've all done yeah we've all yeah yeah it's also just as a kid like any movie like this would fill me with so much anxiety and dread like I would
[01:18:38] just any movie where it's like based around a crisis something going wrong the pressure cooker or like horror movies in particular thrillers I would want to see them and then I would sit there in so much dread of when like the shoe drops and the movie becomes like
[01:18:56] a fucking you know boiler room and like relishing that like oh it's a scene where they're like at a family dinner and they're like making cute banter and they're comparing their planners and this is like nice character stuff the moment when he's in
[01:19:14] the bathroom with the bandaid is such a nice character thing but I just I flashed back to me being 11 years old and just being like fuck this is the last second you're gonna get of this shit like get ready the rest
[01:19:24] of the movie is gonna stress you out do this while you can oh man the tooth right like we've talked about a lot of the island stuff but there's just like you're just so stressed out immediately by like any any little thing like like the tooth
[01:19:42] his tooth hurts and you're like oh fuck 20 minutes from now that's gonna be a problem like you see I don't know there's like that early shot when he washes up on the beach and the packages are washing up and you I just immediately start having
[01:19:56] that anxiety like dude dude you gotta get the packages dude dude wake up we gotta get the packages like they're gonna go away they're gonna get you know like you just immediately are so stressed out by any interaction with any object and so mech is such a big
[01:20:12] uh setup payoff guy like back in the future is all based around setup payoff but like really cleanly set up and explained and visualized so you can't miss it and this movie lets you fill in a lot of the gaps he doesn't hammer things too hard
[01:20:28] in the setup like even just the I like that Helen Hunt's character is also really busy and focused on her career that it's not a thing where it's like oh he has the woman that she is leaving waiting at dinner and spends the entire time on the island
[01:20:48] wishing he had spent more time you know it's like they both were mutually that's what made them attracted to each other all the shit where the families are making fun of them for not getting married and like how excited they are when the beeper
[01:21:00] goes off there's such a nice moment where she looks at him and you're ready for her to go like ugh like you know do this sort of classic like other woman sigh and then since she just goes like okay
[01:21:12] so let's figure it out where do we celebrate Christmas it's in the car okay like the fact that they're yeah that they're both equally haunted by the fact that they couldn't slow down and appreciate it and they had it but it also means
[01:21:24] that the stuff like the tooth ache he sets up similarly subtly like he just he does it one time he does one beat at the dinner table they go is it something with the food he goes no and then it takes like an hour
[01:21:38] for it to come back in again but as a movie watcher you know god damn it now he's crashed on the island and the fucking tooth is gonna come into play yeah you're just sitting there in dread of when the tooth comes in as she and that's like
[01:21:50] the most harrowing part of the entire film dude yeah because that makes you think about like all the things that you have to go get regularly checked out that like if I were on island this would just be the worst like all those cavities would just
[01:22:02] end up being a mess and blah blah like oh you know thinking about George Washington's wooden teeth you know I'm just like wow that could be me if I were on this island right it's like he you only have to set up one medical issue
[01:22:16] like that and watch him solve it in the most grotesque way even though the scene itself is not that bloody it's very visceral and upsetting it's just that it's like I stuff gum teeth stuff just the idea of anything touching them
[01:22:32] you just immediately tense up in a movie yeah because you know how much the nerves are in there oh yeah I said number one worse but this scene hits me in the way that I stuff usually I still said oh I said to forky to my wife
[01:22:50] yeah I'm married to forky I literally was about to say did you say forky congratulations thank you David thought that Toy Story 4 looked bad and that forky looks stupid and he claimed that forky was a war criminal and I bet that he was going to like Toy Story 4
[01:23:10] and like forky and so we made a bet which I said if he ended up enjoying forky he had to marry forky and so my wife just doesn't want me to say her name on the podcast so now we just call her forky but no but she
[01:23:24] I was we were watching and I was like yeah I mean you know Gary he's going to take his fucking tooth out with an ice skate and she just looked at me and she was like I can't even know that that happens not only am I not watching
[01:23:38] that scene I'm mad that you just told me that that is a scene that's how visceral that sound oh yeah it's the worst it's so telling of his storytelling instincts though that like he does that he falls to the ground
[01:23:54] and that's when you cut to four years later because he knows like that's the peak you're going to hit of this first stage and now that you've now that you've seen him do this you can in your mind fill in how he would handle any similar crisis
[01:24:08] across the next four years and then you do like okay so level level two yeah right right his XP has gone up he's got it so you can just cut ahead to him now getting like the new skin where he's fucking caught and got blown rocks
[01:24:26] I was literally like red dead redemption there was up to castaway redemption too oh man they should do that rockstar should do a castaway game Chuck Nolan should be a playable character in fucking mortal combat they should have rock and roll yeah um
[01:24:46] went down this weird rabbit hole I was looking at like indp trivia facts for the movie which are not always really reliable and there was one that said there is a scene that was in the theatrical and vhs versions of the movie that was then cut out
[01:25:04] for the dvd and vhs in which you see him commit suicide and instead you only have the scenes where he talks about it and where you see the robe later and I was like that feels unlikely I actually was going to say I think I remember that scene
[01:25:24] so here's the weird thing I remember that scene too but I was like why would that be cut out only at the dvd stage especially since this was 2000 dvd and vhs at the same time why was there not a test screening version but why would he
[01:25:40] have recut this movie after the fact and it not be like a known thing so I went down this whole rabbit hole there was like a whole Mandela effect thing on the internet where people are arguing over whether or not that scene ever existed
[01:25:54] and people are saying like I had the memory you have the memory I viscerally remember a scene in which he is at the top of the mountain at night he hangs himself from the tree the branch breaks he falls to the ground it's haunted me
[01:26:10] and then I watch the movie and there is the scene where you see him pull the robe up and there is the scene where he says to the guy at the end that he tried suicide and the actual visual of it was missing
[01:26:20] and people contend the scene never existed it's not on any deleted scenes you can't find it anywhere there is no alternate cuts of the movie it's just that the suggestion from those two scenes places the image in your head so vividly that's crazy as much as I
[01:26:40] still want to say like no it's the fucking Bernstein Bears and I saw the scene this is the kind of movie yeah that's the whole power that this movie traffics in is that you fill in all these gaps from the couple of things you do see
[01:26:56] it takes so many that happens to me with the hours where I so I love the hours yeah sure and it's not that I invented a scene but I miss remember the performance beat and when Nicole Kidman is on the platform
[01:27:10] she's like I'm going to London by bitch and her husband is like dude you're not well please come back home whatever and she says my life has been stolen from me and I always remembered it as a yell my life is in stone from me
[01:27:24] and then I rewatched it a couple of years ago and it was like I remember it as a scream because that's how I felt it and I was just like holy shit how did I miss remember that so I'm not surprised at all that scene doesn't exist
[01:27:42] because I remember watching castaway when I was older and being like oh that scene I thought I remember the scene differently there's so many so many great people saying that yes that's true but doing this podcast also I feel like that happens to me all the time
[01:27:58] where I'm like getting ready for a scene I remember really well where I'm like god this scene rules and then it either maybe barely exists at all or it's like you say totally completely not what I remember but I remember the emotion of it
[01:28:10] and that's what I remember we went to see Armageddon in a drive-in last week at the Blank Check Crew in a semi-adjacently parked cars I was in a car with my brother and his girlfriend or good friend and neither of them had seen the movie before
[01:28:30] and so like I don't want to miss a thing hits the earlier strains of it when the animal cracker scene is happening and the two of them were like that's it that's the only time they use the song in the movie
[01:28:42] and I was like no get ready they're buttering you up they bring it back from maximum impact and I was so fucking certain that the song played under spoiler when he does the final like over video feed goodbye to live Tyler
[01:28:58] I remember Bruce Willis giving the hero speech like he pushes Ben Affleck back into the thing the song starts playing he comes on the screen and he says like I love you you're my son whatever all the hero shit and the music's playing under it
[01:29:12] and I was just like when does it happen and of course it's the fucking end credits over B role of their wedding so funny it's over the credits certain that it played under that scene yeah right that's crazy how that happens isn't it
[01:29:28] yeah cast away guys are there other well Wilson we haven't talked about we're talking about Wilson I mean I guess there's it's it's funny that just became the meme from the movie like it is so effective like I still feel crappy when Wilson goes away
[01:29:47] I do that at all I've done that throughout my entire life I don't know if you guys like just like anthropomorphize things that I have like in my you know right like pencils or fucking I'm sorry David you don't know if I do
[01:30:01] that all right look I'm just giving you guys extrapolate based on everything you know about me and my obsession with toys yeah I anthropomorphize the far too many objects that I own it's the one right the one thing in this I'm like oh I would
[01:30:15] do that in within a week I would have a whole cast of characters I think I think it's the only way I could deal with it yeah for sure 100% there's the last man on earth sort of heightening of this bit where he makes
[01:30:27] like an entire supporting cast of like I don't know if you watch that show I saw the first few episodes I watched yeah yeah yeah Wolfort has like eight different like balls and pieces of sporting equipment that he paints faces
[01:30:41] on they all have different names and he has like very complicated multi-part situations with them and it feels like they think that's a comedic heightening of it but in reality I think that's a more realistic version of what someone would do they would not settle
[01:30:55] for one ball right but but the Wilson stuff is just it's so elegantly done like everything that you could describe it to someone and it would sound hokey of like oh his hand is bleeding he picks up the ball then he looks at it the handprint
[01:31:13] kind of looks like a face he paints it he names it Wilson because of the thing but like the scenes are so well written and so well acted and it's an area in which the movie gets really patient and actually spends the time
[01:31:27] to like slow down and show you the build of him starting to personify Wilson I mean and it's like the joke in Bridesmaid that like her lowest point in the movie is her on her mom's couch watching the Wilson scene and sobbing hysterically right yeah you know
[01:31:45] that it's like an ultimate like you think it's stupid you're not gonna fall for it and every time you get a lump in your throat when Wilson gets lost at sea oh so good that's such a great moment to also just
[01:31:55] for like the mechanics of the plot like like more and more of the island is like slipping away as he gets closer to the real world right yeah absolutely and that's also it's that's when the score is kicked in for the first time it's like he's
[01:32:09] leaving behind that movie in my memory Wilson got blown away or when I like and I forgot that it's you just watch him leave like he just sort of like bobbles away and Hanks goes into the water and you're like you just sort of know
[01:32:23] like no this is it's like he can't do this anymore like he's got to say goodbye to this thing and there's that would be great if he showed back up with Helen with Wilson under his arm and was like this is Wilson yeah or
[01:32:35] it would be great if when he gets to and Helen Hunt is like I I actually got married and Wilson's her husband Wilson somehow got to live for a while like a month ago I married him like a week he just got
[01:32:49] here but it was a quick whirlwind romance he's gone for five years right four five years and she four something like that and then she ends up married with two kids or one one kid she marries her dentist so it's another dental you know in
[01:33:07] in dignity she marries Chris Knopf right at right he never saw enough that he never had his teeth looked at by perfect casting Chris is perfect casting where you're kind of like I guess if Tom Hanks isn't
[01:33:21] around this guy'll do you know what I mean where I'm like yeah he's sort of like you're like I don't like that guy well there's that to that kind of like but you're also like something's off right there's something slippery about him right there's that thing
[01:33:35] because you don't want to be too charmed by whoever she's with now there's you right you want to have the romantic sentimentality of like she should leave her husband yeah yeah I mean it's just I mean the whole end of this movie may and also like maybe
[01:33:51] when I saw it and I was a kid I was like man I don't get this shit this is like and now I'm just like the whole time I'm like man what the fuck would you do like what would you do like I
[01:34:03] hated all this shit as a kid and it's weird because I was certainly a very sappy sentimental kid and I was not like you know a boy who was allergic to romance or emotion in movies in that kind of way but I remember just thinking like
[01:34:17] ugh like what like the movie gets so fucking overstate it and the only area which I think the movie really does I I think the the speech he gives to Nick Sergei about like what kept him going is a little bit overdone I don't think you need it
[01:34:35] I don't think you need the speech I think that's the one area where he kind of does the Spielberg thing the thing that often plagues late period Spielberg where he just doesn't trust that you get the message of the movie and he has a scene where someone spells
[01:34:51] it out or he does a visual metaphor that hammers it in too hard or whatever it is yeah and it's also interesting to me that like you know Hanks gained weight for the first chunk of the movie right so he was bigger than he had ever been before
[01:35:07] so that there would be a more striking contrast when he lost weight and then was pretty much more cut than he ever had been before and then they took like a little break where he like you know shaved and gained a little bit of weight back
[01:35:21] before they shot the stuff back on land but that one scene that one monologue he looks a little plumper in that I just noticed even then when they cut app from that to hand back on the road trying to deliver the package
[01:35:37] with the wings that he's back to looking leaner I wonder if that was a late reshoot because they didn't they felt they needed to have more closure hammer something home right and truly yeah having gone through the studio system and movies would be so much better
[01:35:59] if we could limit honestly I mean I just it's a different skill set if reshoots aren't allowed like you know movies would be better no no reshoots are amazing no reshoots are amazing you're talking about notes I'm talking about notes from
[01:36:17] because there are some execs and I think I'm working with them now who are great like wow like to the point where I'm like what why can't this just be everyone and then there are some where you're just like we don't have even have
[01:36:31] the same taste in movies so why are you giving me notes on my film you know and it's and I think that sort of thing it's like you have to figure out when you're like directing like an editing like okay what's a you problem
[01:36:43] what's a me problem like what's you being a little daft and what's me just knowing better you know it's a hard balance but like that for example it's like maybe that scene is good for the people who like literally are like what I don't know
[01:36:57] tell me more but in terms of like the movie being just like good and solid and like growing into understanding the movie like we all did you know from being kids to adults like ugh it was to be so much better anyway it's like a weird half
[01:37:09] measure because the movie does end with this sense of open-endedness and I feel like that ending works for people people like still talk about that ending of him at the literal crossroads it's not subtle but I think it's effective and I think the Helen Hunt stuff works
[01:37:23] and I almost just wonder I think the Helen Hunt stuff works because she's a good actress and like it's just such a mental whammy to consider like you know what if you like the weird guilt that she would feel like having given up
[01:37:37] on him even though of course she's gonna like just that like it's that's Twilight Zoning enough for you to just be so invested in the crossroads I like the Penny lost stuff like I'm such a fucking sucker for the Penny Desmond plotline on Lost but the realization
[01:37:53] of just like god damn it she was looking for him the whole time like it's so much worse that it's like not that oh she remarried she moved on but she tried so hard to hold out for so long she was actively trying to
[01:38:09] believe he was gonna come back and searching for him and then finally broke that's the thing that's right that's so heartbreaking and it is like a very messy adult ending of just like right but she's got a kid and she's got a life and it's also like
[01:38:27] there's no way they can go back to what it was before they're both fundamentally changed by this thing now it's really permanently affected both of them I wonder if it was just a thing of like the audience needs to hear Tom Hanks say he's gonna be
[01:38:43] okay so that they don't worry that this guy is gonna be depressed for the rest of his life. Castaway too is him in therapy absolutely and dating Bettina and dating who? Bettina that's the nice Austin nice Texan artist oh my so absurd I think Tom's performance
[01:39:09] in the book and the end of the film is so good he was really in how these three very different people yeah he's haunted without seeming overactive about it if that makes sense I really think because this is the year that Russell Crow wins for Gladiator
[01:39:29] and that was so much a sort of star anointment here we go new leading man Gladiator wins best picture also I love Gladiator but could you do I just like the next year is a beautiful mind which even if Gladiator is a better film than beautiful mind
[01:39:45] beautiful mind is very much like Russell Crow skill very I don't know how to performance ages but like there was even the thread at the time of like right right people thought oh is it gonna be a fucking Hanks thing where he
[01:39:57] wins two back-to-back years because he just had two juggernaut movies and it was unavoidable there's a part of me that wishes that Hanks had one for this and Crow had one for beautiful mind instead Hanks would have one for this if he didn't have
[01:40:09] two Oscars yeah I don't think there's really much question for just because physical transformation is just something they value so much like yeah and the fact that Hanks did it feels like sort of especially crazy because it's like dude you could just play nice
[01:40:23] guys yes for the rest of your life like you didn't have to go lose 60 you know like I feel like there's just that weird like they kind of bow down to anyone who does for a year the biggest movie star
[01:40:33] in the world was like I'm gonna spend a year just getting skinny and growing out a caveman beard so that I can finish filming a movie it's like antithesis of Joaquin Phoenix doing it for that absurd documentary yes yes everyone was like don't waste our time like this
[01:40:53] you mean talking about the documentary film I still haven't done a movie is it good well uh I get it I see what you're doing there that was so wild where's they were like well it's produced by Scorsese Scorsese was like actually I didn't produce it
[01:41:13] like my name is not on it initially and he just retained it yeah right and then they were like did you like him he's like I get it I got what it was doing I loved when everyone was getting all like
[01:41:25] verclement about him being like oh I don't understand or like those Marvel movies and I was like what do you need him to like these for did you think he liked them like that's what they were do you think he's like you care
[01:41:37] you know an ant man on the wasp it's just like you know like what did you expect Scorsese to start saying what why do you look at it Scorsese to validate your comic book movie love that's the fucking thing I feel
[01:41:49] like the three of us are very much on the same page where it's like Marvel Trash is the best way to put it in the air where it's just like oh look look I love that shit and I love lofty cinema and I understand the conflict
[01:42:01] between the two of them I don't need him to tell me that it's okay for me to like Iron Man 3 it's irrelevant I'm doing I like I'm like Martin Scorsese I like a lot of other shit not not everyone I like has
[01:42:15] to like everything I like that's not one of them I don't know if you had this Nia but just like being around did did you work on the pilot or were you only on the series only on the pilot okay okay so like during the pilot
[01:42:33] I just constantly like without seeming like a hanger on would just try to position myself in earshot of wherever he was whenever there was downtime because it was just like I'm so curious what his opinion is on everything I was just so curious to hear him
[01:42:49] drop morsels and anytime there was like a complicated setup and like cannibal or whatever had the courage to make small talk with him and ask him for his opinion on stuff it was that kind of thing where I was like
[01:42:59] I want to know like does he like fucking Pixar movies what does he think of Borat I'm not going to be offended if he doesn't like something I'm like I'm just curious what popular stuff he likes and what he does exactly yeah he's just like a he's
[01:43:13] an elder statesman like it's just like information about point you don't have to take it personally totally totally and just to clarify his attack on was so much more brutal because he did not even see the movie right yeah I get it I see what you're doing here
[01:43:31] I don't need to be part of this also it's basically like you know like a juiced up Kings of Comedy so I think that's also kind of funny to watch I understand when you're doing it I did that before I don't need to do it again
[01:43:45] have fun yeah yeah he's like I've literally like same also happened in a round table interview sitting across from Todd Phillips who just had to sit there and not his head oh my gosh yeah so I find it fascinating that Tom Phillips did it is wow
[01:44:07] to your point of how good Hanks is in this last sort of third of the movie this is all the stuff where I'm like I'm the fucking Oscar this is like him just sort of like staking his claim of like I'm one of the all timers where
[01:44:25] the way he plays all those scenes that could be so hackney of and they do like this beat like four or five times but him picking up the crab leg seeing the lighter you know flicking the light switch on and off like all his weird
[01:44:41] having a difficult time readjusting to society but also just being fascinated by right these things are so easy these things I took for granted and what a battle it was for me to get to sustainability with all these things the part that is so
[01:44:57] heartbreaking for me you have that shot of him in the hotel room where it's just the lights flicking on and off and you can't see his body and then it cuts to the other side and he's lying on the floor with the switch and he's put
[01:45:11] the stopwatch on the bed and it's like oh right this guy wouldn't be able to immediately go back to sleeping in a bed at this point he is conditioned to feel comfortable sleeping in a cave he needs to recreate the setup of what that felt like
[01:45:25] for him until he's comfortable enough to sleep on a comforter yes 100% it's so you're just like fuck like there's a long road ahead of you sir like yeah it's totally um it's like this thing where it's equally like the triumph of like human adaptability and how you know
[01:45:43] we are actually incredibly resilient creatures but also like everything leaves a mark totally there was controversy I mean on a relative scale but I feel like people complained a lot at the time and people still cite this as an example of like oh
[01:45:59] the trailer gives away the ending all the trailer for cast away had the scene with him in the plane and Nick sir she's saying we had a funeral and he says what was in the casket like and and people were like
[01:46:11] why would you put that in the fucking movie and Zemeckis is lying which I just thought it's so funny agree with he's like first of all we've done so many like surveys on this people want to know they want to be told exactly what they're getting
[01:46:25] they pretend that they don't but I've been in these fucking meetings with the market research and the focus groups they always respond better and this is an expensive movie with one guy on an island and the other thing is like it's like fucking McDonald's like people
[01:46:39] want the comfort of understanding what they're signing up for but the other thing is and I haven't heard him say this he said like it's Tom Hanks in a movie about a guy who gets stranded on an island he's gonna make it back no one thinks
[01:46:53] he's not gonna make it back like I understand we could lie to you and pretend like it's ambiguous but people fucking know it's a big studio movie I'm adding in a lot more fucks yeah I'm like oh Zemeckis really went in there I do think to some degree
[01:47:07] this movie would not have been as big a hit if they didn't reveal that in the trailer because it makes it easier to watch the struggles knowing like he's gonna overcome as you said the movie becomes about like oh it's like the human spirit how much
[01:47:23] we can conquer anything it makes it more family appropriate and a Christmas or Christmas movie obviously like versus like this is gonna be an intense fucking grind of a movie it's not the fucking Revenant exactly they kind of needed to telegraph there was
[01:47:39] gonna be a happy ending in order for audiences to sit through two hours of silence and ice skate root canals and shit what would the Revenant version of the ending happy ending be he just he sails to another island and there's just like a pyramid
[01:47:55] of skulls and then he looks right at the camera I don't know the end of the Revenant he looks right at the camera I do think it's almost I almost applauded where I'm like damn that's your ending actually that's so funny he looks right at the camera
[01:48:09] hugely exhausted by that movie I was like it's just give them their fucking Oscars and go just take your Oscar and leave hardest of a grease I call that movie art house jackass yeah I'm just like boo boo and I'm obsessed
[01:48:21] with interi too I love him I think he's brilliant and like I love I love like basically all those movies like whatever but but I remember watching that and being like just please give Leo his Oscar maybe he'll relax Leo needed to relax Leo fully needed to relax
[01:48:39] and look you watch like once a month time in Hollywood and you're like great have some fun you can kick back now get it girl that's all I will confess I only saw the Revenant one time and I remember finding it a total
[01:48:51] grind and not really digging it at all I occasionally think about it like I'm mostly about the like the sort of first half hour with the big battle and like all this lands and I'm like man maybe I should watch that
[01:49:03] again like I bet it looks good like I've been thinking like but anyway I have not yet I have no desire to ever see again it's the ultimate I get it I see what you're doing there movie for me
[01:49:13] that's the one where I would say that at the round table and then you're at two would say who would let this guy in at the round table you'd be like sees him get his ass out of here I have about like 10 more minutes before I do it
[01:49:27] yes let's play the box office game because I was this movie was a humongous hit I feel like it broke records for Christmas release at the time no I remember because I grew up such a box office nerd my dad telling me
[01:49:47] it had either the biggest three day or five day for a Christmas movie at that point in time wow I mean I'm looking at the number and it's not insane it did really well like I mean like the movie made how much money Jesus I'm sorry one second
[01:50:07] 200 a movie made a $420 million for what like I mean like it was a huge hit it opened to 28 and then the next week it made 33 or whatever you know so like I used to happen yeah that's sort of Christmas thing of like
[01:50:23] oh yeah this movie is just going to stick around it's the third that was the other thing it's the third biggest movie of the year after Mission Impossible 2 and Gladiator oh okay World Wide was it Grinch Grinch might have been the biggest domestically
[01:50:41] right because that thing was not received worldwide no the rest of the world hit and taste that year the movie was a new film with a box office Christmas 2000 Griffin also features Helen Hunt what women want it's what women want
[01:50:57] she was in the number one and number two movie that's hilarious no wonder they were like get rid of her yeah exactly she owned Christmas alright so that's what we've talked about how the hunts go Christmas is what they should have called it well exactly
[01:51:13] number three Griffin is by the way you correctly guess Grinch Grinch is four so the Jim Carrey Grinch the Ron Howard Grinch yes number three okay it's an actor you like it's a hmm sort of like a fantasy comedy drama not a fantasy like family drama hmm
[01:51:37] 2000s fantasy family drama is it The Family Man it's The Family Man which I saw on a plane with Nicholas Cage and Taylor Yoni I remember it being that kind of crummy it's a Brett Ratner movie I was gonna say I'm not gonna stand for it too hard
[01:51:55] but how exciting I've never been cheesy it's like he's rich he's like a rich evil guy and he wakes up and it's like oh what if I'd like married my high school sweetheart and I have a nice family that's it right that's the whole movie
[01:52:13] yes I think it's a sweet movie it is the most unratnery ratner film and kind of an uncage cage as well right like it's a pretty calm cage this is my big take on it as someone who was trying to watch all the cages
[01:52:29] it's I think the time he most successfully played just a normal person usually when you ask him to just play a guy that's when he sort of short circuit I remember a scene where he like argues with his like gas station buddies he like
[01:52:45] works I don't know he like has some blue collar job and they're like saying that the nets are going to win the title and he's like the nets and then they all look at him he goes that the nets are do that's the only thing I remember
[01:52:57] out of family man of course that's the only over the poster you're here he's standing yes yes it's very similar to his poster for the weather man another movie he made oh yeah that's a movie I love I know you all right so number four is grinch number
[01:53:13] five is a fairly high concept rom com that I recently rewatched and it holds up big movie star rom com it's a stupid movie what is it take the gas I think is it sliding doors it's not sliding doors that is a very high
[01:53:31] concept of rom com that is the highest concept of wrong so it's a lower I do not know if sliding doors holds up I have not seen that movie in a long time I saw it like maybe seven years ago and I was like love me too
[01:53:45] okay it's sort of like I don't know I mean it's to be clear it's a silly ass movie big movie star not shallow how not shallow how you're in you're in the Gwyneth zone get out of the way yeah you know think darker hair
[01:54:07] is it a Julia Roberts no no is it a bullock it's a bullock it's a bullock it's a bullock high it's a movie that shouts out the day after my birthday and it's most iconic line Sandra Bullock number four the box office high concept
[01:54:31] summer birthday right miss congeniality miss congeniality miss congeniality what's the perfect date April 25 April 25 yeah not too not too hot no too cold exactly all you need is a light jacket David you turn me off because I don't think of that as a rom-com
[01:54:49] me too yeah it's not really a rom-com I don't know how to I guess it's just a comedy it's sort of hard to describe because I almost said action comedy but it's like it's not like there's really action she just is an FBI agent
[01:55:01] yeah yeah it's like a cop comedy it's like a cop pageant pageant comedy that is a romantic overtones I rewatched it I love it it's just like you know cane is locked in like everyone's just having fun you know what I mean like it's just
[01:55:21] it's just sort of very easy to I mean I Heather Burns is fantastic oh the great Heather Burns is this it's opening weekend this is it's opening weekend it's opening at number five and it's gonna like have huge legs it really because I remember
[01:55:41] like everyone thinking it looked hacky it opening low and then like three weeks later people were like that movie is actually good and then it ended up making a hundred million dollars it just like stayed and stayed and stayed and grew and then I feel like it's
[01:55:55] only grown in estimation and then they made it and immediately went that was the mistake we shouldn't have yeah I've never seen the sequel it's really not good the only good thing they did was hire Virginia King and then that's after that it's yeah arm in fabulous
[01:56:09] right anyway so that's the top five you've also got emperors new groove you've got Dracula 2000 never forget with Dracula what if Dracula was in 2000 you've got vertical limit with Chris O'Donnell climbing mountains you have crouching tiger beginning it's you know that movie like Cinderella life
[01:56:33] hell yeah that's when I was like Asian film what's going on there let's check it out like yeah I was just like oh oh I see they make the best movies in Asia I had no idea well this is fun that was when my like
[01:56:49] my John Woo Chaeyeon fat like life started and then like in high school it was like Bong Joon-ho in Korean film like after right after that and into college um you guys should do a Bong Joon-ho like I'm obsessed with him as everyone I've ever met we
[01:57:03] he was in our March Badness Bracket where we like let people vote on which director we're gonna do and we were expecting that he was gonna win and Zemeckis beat him which which was kind of a surprise only time that's gonna happen exactly I do love Zemeckis
[01:57:19] but yeah we'll do at some point no question um yeah uh what was the thing I was gonna say oh out of curiosity what is Crouching Tiger up to at this point the last weekend of December six million dollars it's got and what weekend was it this is
[01:57:35] its third weekend it has it's gonna make a hundred and twenty eight million dollars like so it's like these are just look there's so many box office performances in this 10 that just don't happen anymore like cast away opening to 20 whatever and then making more
[01:57:51] next to 200 plus and then making hundred misconjuniality opening at five and ending up at a hundred million dollars like yeah I miss when movies had time to breathe yeah Sam yeah and really got like even like Titanic went from made more money
[01:58:07] every weekend pretty much for and it was in there's like six months until like fricking April yeah yeah it's why is it um alright we're done thank you so much for being on the show thank you for having me I'm like
[01:58:21] so excited I hope this is like good hope this is a good episode this is a great episode come back anytime yes I'm starting a podcast actually really should be hilarious yeah it's so niche so along with my Korean
[01:58:35] I love Korean film I started watching like Korean dramas when I was like 17 and then like for a couple years I stopped around when I was like 1920 but then the pandemic started and I was like oh I have time for these long ass episodes
[01:58:47] and then my friend is talking to her and we're basically along so short we're doing a K drama watch podcast that is awesome that's also you know find your niche right like that's what podcast should be like just something that people are obsessed with
[01:59:01] I agree so silly but I'm very excited about it keep your eyes killed for that and I very much look forward to seeing candy man in theaters me too yes absolutely I'm not gonna watch it again but I'm excited for everyone else to see it in theaters
[01:59:17] has that been I mean we need to end the episode but like I can't imagine what the last 6 months have felt like for you with that movie like being so close to coming out and all the ups and downs of that yeah it's been a crazy year
[01:59:35] it's been really insane but thankfully enough people could see it so I can get my next job and move on with my life until it comes out it's been good that's awesome look forward to it look forward to pastoring you to being on the show again
[01:59:51] and also pastor us to do trivia yeah and I want to pastor all of our listeners to rate, review subscribe and I want to thank Antriguio for social media name and comment for us Eamesong Joe Bonapet rounds for our artwork
[02:00:09] and we'll do blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit and patreon.com patreon.com don't go to patreon.com it's probably terrible but do go to patreon.com slash blank check for blank check special features we're watching the alien movies doing commentaries on them
[02:00:29] and tune in next week for the polar express hey all aboard for the weird shit is coming the weird shit is coming then baowulf then christmas carol with jim carrey it's all kinds of stuff he makes a little glassy eyed christmas sandwich with a slab of baowulf
[02:00:56] in the middle what a weird fucking dude and as always for the record we still just have a fourth window on our zoom screen that is a wilson volleyball propped in front of ben's computer