Coraline with J.D. Amato

[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 How can you walk away from something and then come towards it?

[00:00:24] Walk around the podcast. Small podcast. See this is what I did. Is J.D., our guest, who I haven't introduced yet... No. False. Suggested a cat quote for me to open with. And I very quickly punted the responsibility of impersonating Keith David to you. I can't do it.

[00:00:45] It's impossible. But I just tried to give it a deep voice. If anyone else could do it, then he'd be out of a job or whatever. He'd be down two homes. I don't know how many homes Keith David has. Number of homes. I'm Googling it. Look it up.

[00:01:00] I'm not seeing an answer to that. Weird that I can't just look that up. Apparently he's been in more than 300 movies, though. Is there anyone who that works for? Who you can just Google number of homes? Mitt Romney? Remember when that was the thing with Mitt Romney?

[00:01:14] He has nine homes or whatever. He's so rich. You know how there are all those websites that have completely false celebrity network listings? There should be a similar sort of celebrity real estate numbers. Yeah. How many homes they got.

[00:01:26] And it doesn't have to have any connection to reality. I like celebrity network because it's like if I was asked how much a celebrity is worth. That's what it always feels like to me. Like, I don't know, five million dollars?

[00:01:36] It's just like someone's thinking about it for five seconds. It's also funny. I feel like the last time I checked me, it was like $150,000. And I'm like, how come I'm the only one who doesn't have an inflated... I think there should be a sibling site to that. Sure.

[00:01:48] Where it just guesstimates how happy they are. Oh, yeah. I will say that when I Googled your network, it says various things such as that you are a Pisces. True. I'm Cusp, but... You're a Pisces. That you're American. That you're white. Correct. Religion believes in God.

[00:02:08] Nothing listed there. Pretty much the opposite. I have a religion and I'm not sure I believe in God. Residence. And I just like this. This is the only thing I want to read. He lives in an unknown fashion in New York City, New York.

[00:02:22] I just like the weird AI-generated descriptions. He lives in an unknown fashion. He's in New York. That's all we can say. As friends of Griffin, I think we can all... House apartment folks. We can all say it's unknown. It's dead on. Zach Cherry, friend of the podcast,

[00:02:40] future guest, I'll say that. We looked up his celebrity net worth or his AI-generated biography on some site like that. And there was the best line I've ever seen on one of these, which is, he is very funny. He is always making jokes. He is always making jokes.

[00:02:56] They're getting it right. Zach Cherry, very funny. Griffin lives in an unknown fashion. Unknown fashion. Zach Cherry is Scorpio. Amazing. Sam Rogal, another friend of the podcast, past and future guest, has said to me, sometimes at just random moments in the day, I stop and think,

[00:03:16] how is Griffin existing at this moment? What do you do on a day-to-day basis? What do you have in your oven? What do you store in there? A lot of things. I bet it's toys. Not oven things. Shoes, toys, stuff. I have a proper place for the shoes,

[00:03:32] but yeah, toys and books, basically. Some paperwork. You know, my social security card. Birth certificate. He does it so if anyone comes knocking, he can just burn it all. Exactly. Smart. Hey, everybody. This is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

[00:03:52] I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. This is a mini-series on the films

[00:04:08] of Henry Selick. It is called Ben Hosley's The Podmare Before Zazmus. I'm taking credit for this mini-series. You're the producer. Producers always get above the title credit. That's how film works. That is how it works. And this podcast has a director and we don't talk about him.

[00:04:30] We don't talk about him ever. Our guest today, returning to the main feed, returning to the public who's been demanding to talk Coraline. The best use of 3D in the history of cinema. I'll say it. It's my favorite use of 3D

[00:04:48] in the history. I don't think a 3D... That's my... Griffin's trying to revive a non-argument from years ago. I can't even remember what episode it was on. Maybe this is one of the Star Wars episodes. I think it is the Star Wars episode. That sounds right.

[00:05:00] We were probably discussing technology, movie pioneering technology. JD Amato is here to talk Coraline. Hello! It's so good to be back! Hi, JD! It's nice to have you back. Welcome back. There was a couple on the books that went off the books because of

[00:05:14] busyness stuff. So it's been a minute. Wait, what was on the books? Oh, well you were supposed to be on Evil Dead 2 at one point. Is that what you're referring to? I think there's another one I'm forgetting.

[00:05:22] There's another one. I don't remember what. But it's been a minute. And there's your fabled April Fool's Day episode which will never happen. Which will never happen. And that's your decision, by the way, to be clear. Yeah, I mean... It was an idea. It gestated. You explored it.

[00:05:34] And you kind of put it away and we supported you. Yeah, well also COVID didn't... Well, COVID and stuff like that. And it's like the enthusiasm... It was something that would have... It was a cute idea when we were 19. It would have made sense in 2019 or whatever.

[00:05:46] It would be ridiculous for us to do it now. It would be bad. No one would be into it anymore. But I also don't know if we should say what it is until we ever suddenly feel like... No. It was from like a looser, junkier

[00:06:00] time in the podcast too. Where it was kind of like, I don't know, can we do some stupid thing? Exactly. I don't think it would fit now. Am I allowed to say that you're kind of like a Michael Clayton of TV shows? Okay. Describe.

[00:06:14] You know who Michael Clayton is from the film, Michael Clayton, George Clooney. Yes. He's like a fixer. Right. It's like he's on staff and everyone's like, oh, he's a lawyer. And they're like, well, he is a lawyer. Like, he passed the bar. I'm not even saying that thing.

[00:06:28] The opening scene of Michael Clayton is like Dennis O'Hare calling Michael Clayton at 3 o'clock in the morning. Michael Clayton is like, fuck, okay, this is my number one priority now. I gotta solve this. And you have a lot of jobs that will come up very last minute and

[00:06:42] then become all consuming for a couple of months. Some of them are publicly known, some of them are not. But so a couple of times over the last couple of years, we've like had an episode on the books. And then we're not trying to withhold JD from

[00:06:56] the public. JD is not hiding, but sometimes logistically it becomes impossible. Yeah. I mean, there's been so many ups and downs of career stuff, COVID stuff, all of that things. Which is weird because the entertainment industry has never been better. It's

[00:07:10] the most comfortable, calm, and stable it's ever been. Well, the hard thing is that the pod... I'll say this. It has been so much fun to watch the podcast continue to grow and evolve and become such a big thing. We were talking earlier about

[00:07:26] when I first did the podcast, we were in a basement of a bar talking about Star Wars. And now you're conflating two things. The basement of the bar was where he did his Chris Kedward show. Oh, I guess that's... Oh, yes.

[00:07:40] We were in a broom closet. You're in a broom closet. It was the four of us. That's true. That was the first time David and I ever did a podcast together was him subbing in for Riley Solner on the episode you did. Right.

[00:07:50] But anyways, the point being now it's been so fun to see how many fans and how much people love this show because there are... No joke, I've been in meetings. Meetings with people who are big people in the industry and they'll be like,

[00:08:06] I'm a big blankie. I'm a huge fan of... And they'll want to talk to me about Speed Racer or something. So it's been... Truly, I feel like I get... To be fair, that meeting was with Pop Eraser, right? Yes. Pop Eraser. Fuck.

[00:08:18] It was with Pop Eraser. I was like, what's this? Pop or Pops? I can't remember. Not John Goodman. No, Pops. Yeah, Pops. It's been so fun to see all that stuff happen. Actually, it was with Royalton because they were trying to get him to sign on the dot.

[00:08:32] Royalton. Yeah. Royalton content. They're trying to launch a streaming service. Royalton wants workflow help with how they're producing stuff. So I got pulled in. I don't know if I ever shared this anecdote on Mike before and maybe I'll keep it anonymous, but

[00:08:46] a friend of the show who works in television had a meeting with development execs. Yeah. And they were noting him on something that he thought was stupid. And he pushed back by saying, you know, on a recent episode of Blank Check, Griffin and David were

[00:09:04] citing this other movie as an example of a story getting away with not having to do that and actually working out better. And the exec went, huh, Blank Check said that? Interesting. And backed off the note. Oh my gosh. You guys are notebusters?

[00:09:16] That's crazy. That's maybe the most satisfying thing I've heard about our podcast accomplishing is killing bad exec notes. I think that's great. I heard a similar story and I won't reveal the source, but there was someone who was facing kind of a similar situation and the executive was

[00:09:34] just like, I think that this is, this scene is just too dry. And the person pushed back and they were like, but producer Ben. Yeah. It's ridiculous. Loves wet stuff. And I just really think we need to keep this scene moist as hell. Why is this scene

[00:09:52] about dry law abiding citizens? Wet crime. All right. This has been... It's nice to have you back, J.D. It's nice to be here. This is one of those episodes that was sort of just pinned of obviously, Selleck will happen eventually if Wendell and Wilde ever comes

[00:10:10] out and J.D. will do Coraline. Have you seen Wendell and Wilde yet? I have not seen Wendell and Wilde yet. It isn't available to see. Oh, is it? Just saw it this week. At the time we're recording, it will go up on Netflix tonight. Oh, like

[00:10:22] right. It's going up on Netflix. Yes. There's been an unpublicized Oscar qualifying theatrical run. Oh, I didn't know that. Barely. And then it's going up on Netflix tonight at the time of the recording. It will have been out for months by the time people listen to this.

[00:10:36] But, fucking rules. It's good. You like it? I really like it. I really like it and I'll say this. This might be one of the harder director rankings at the end of this movie. Oh, I was about to ask and I'm like

[00:10:50] I forgot you do the full ranking at the end. We do. Also, it's not. This is a hard one because there's only five movies. It's only five. I mean, like Fosse was a similar deal. But this, they're pretty close together.

[00:11:04] I know what you mean. Okay, can I ask a question? Okay. Are your ones clear to you? Yes. I think one and two, I think they're two movies pretty much dead tied I think there's one, two. I haven't rewatched Monkeybone as of the time of this recording

[00:11:18] Okay, rude. But I think three, four and five might also all be on a similar level. I think there's one, two at like five star masterpiece and then three movies I put between three and four. Interesting. I mean, I would agree

[00:11:32] with that. I just know, I know what the number one is. Yeah, I think that's clear. Yeah. We're not going to say it, are we? We're not going to say it. This is why I think it'll be interesting in the next episode. I'm not going to say anything.

[00:11:44] I do have something I want to say about Coraline. This is my favorite film that Henry Selick has directed. I'm not giving anything away or whatever, but like this would be my favorite film he's made. Right. Okay, so that's like a hint. Interesting. That's like a little

[00:11:58] dusting of clues for people to you know, they can follow the trail. Yeah, I mean this movie fucking rips. It is so good. Ben, you had not seen it before. Really? No. Okay. You've never hung out with Coraline before? She's kind of like Benny. Yeah, she is.

[00:12:12] You know, cool, spooky, you know, kid, digging around in the mud. A little stinker. Yeah. Definitely a little stinker. Definitely got some tood. I think even like sort of similar dynamics somewhat with my parents. They both were like working pretty hard. Yeah, exactly. Only child.

[00:12:30] Only child. I wasn't even making that notion. With alcoholic parents. You talk a lot about your like only child symptoms, syndrome with older first time parents who were very preoccupied with their careers and adult stuff, quote unquote. Yeah. And didn't have time to like entertain you.

[00:12:46] Definitely. Or go to your level. I did not think about how hard this movie might hit for you until right now. Yeah, it got me in a place where it's so dreamlike. So I feel like it really tapped into some kind of interior place. Okay, here's

[00:13:06] a starter question. Because you're, the three of us have siblings. J.D., David and I. Yes, I grew up with two older sisters. What's our sibling count here? I'm oldest of three. Right. But my brother's three years younger. So I didn't have very long as sole domain. Yeah.

[00:13:20] Same. I'm the older brother. I do have a half sister but I didn't grow up with her so like that sort of doesn't, you know, it's different. So she was in New York but you didn't grow up with her? Go on, J.D.

[00:13:32] Ben, what was your, I forget your siblings. I'm an only child. He's an only child, is what I'm saying. Like Coraline. Okay, yes. Understood. Classic Coraline Ben over here. Yeah, Ben's a bit of a Coraline. Yeah, I was an unpleasant kid too. I don't think Coraline is unpleasant.

[00:13:48] I do but I think it's a little brittle or a little strength of the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because she's definitely in pain mode. She's pain in the neck mode. The way that she does it, like she can't make friends really. I related to her a lot.

[00:14:04] She's a little prickly on the first meeting. There's one kid you see her interact with the entire movie. Yeah, to be fair, he's a little annoying. I know but she just comes on so hard from the get go.

[00:14:16] I mean it is also that kind of... And at the end of the movie she's sort of like jokingly negging him. How old do we think, like Coraline's what, like 11 or whatever, right? So here's a question I want to start with.

[00:14:26] Because I do feel like when you're like 10, 11, like boys and girls back then. We're gonna dig into the psychology of Coraline as a character. Has anyone here read the book? No. No, I have not. I feel like we're a generation

[00:14:38] too old for it. Yeah. Yeah. I've read Coraline. That book came out in 2002 so I would have been like 16. Right. Yeah and I was whatever. Romilly, my sister, read it and I feel like not only read it but it was just like one

[00:14:48] of the books that everyone reads. It's a slim box. It's a 150 page book. I think it's continued generationally as one of the books that every kid reads when they can read chapter books for the first time. The book is really, really good. I really recommend it. Honestly, if

[00:15:02] anything in Coraline piqued your interest in the movie I would say read the book. It's Neil Gaiman. It's Neil Gaiman. They're different in a lot of ways. One of the things that I think is interesting that I wanted to bring up is that in the book

[00:15:12] I think Coraline's much younger. She feels much younger. Yeah. Coraline in the movie feels much older and a lot more emotionally verbal. Yes. Which I thought was very interesting. She's quite capable. Yes. Which is, I love that in an animated protagonist. She's still a kid

[00:15:30] but she's like a pretty independent, happily independent kid. Yeah, exactly. And very self-assured. She's quite self-assured. Although I would say her prickliness maybe belies a little bit of self-consciousness. That's another thing that I thought was interesting is that in the adaptation

[00:15:48] the movie, a lot of the characters are a little pricklier than in the book. Which was always interesting to me. This movie was made by a warm-hearted and generous man who's always nice. So I don't get that at all. Yeah, well that, I mean

[00:16:02] there is a lot of, it's for a kids movie, there's a lot of edge running through this in a lot of ways. Yes, just generally. Which I think we're going to touch on is there's moments where you're like, a kids movie? This is what, like.

[00:16:16] But this is what, I mean, this is one of the reasons this is a great film. Yes. And the fact that this kid's fantasy like, that's why I asked her age. I'm going to say she's 11. I'm going to say she's basically like a 5th grader. The fantasy of

[00:16:32] a kid that age is still like I get everything I want. It's almost a little mean. Like, you know what I mean? It's so selfish. The paradise she's being offered. It's not just like, whatever video games and cakes. It's like he's silent because you don't like

[00:16:50] when he talks. You know what I mean? That slightly unnerving lack of empathy that kids have. The fascinating thing that she resents that her parents don't conform to traditional 50s sitcom gender roles. Right, right, right. That she wants her dad to act like father knows best

[00:17:08] and she wants her mom to be in the kitchen baking with an apron on. Yeah, and I think what's interesting is in the book and the movie in the movie in particular, the exploration seems to be of that thing that you

[00:17:22] go through as a kid. You have all these hopes and dreams of what you want your life to be. And then when you actually interface those, you realize that's like, oh, the life that you have is the life that you want. Which I would say

[00:17:36] is the theme of every Henry Selick film. Yes, yes, sure. I'm a big proponent of the fact that I think for a lot of directors, most of their films are about themselves in some way. Right? And I think there's, it's interesting because I can think

[00:17:52] of like sort of like a lot of categories of directors but I can break people down into two. There's directors who make the same film over and over again and there's directors that make like a lot of different movies. Yes. I always

[00:18:04] think it's so interesting. A lot of people sometimes begrudge directors or creators that create the same thing over and over again where it's like they're just doing the same thing. But if they're good, they're revealing Yes, and I think that's fascinating

[00:18:16] to me because what that means is that that person's trying to work something out and they're just gonna keep doing it. That's their life's work. I support it. This is another thing I find. And some directors shouldn't stray outside of what they're good at.

[00:18:28] Absolutely. And when they try, you're like, oh, they don't have any connection to this. Right. Or they're not passionate, you know, and it's like they're not. Yeah, exactly. There's not a there there that they're trying to wrestle with or process. No,

[00:18:38] and I mean, so often when people have this sort of like, oh great, another one of these attitudes, I'm like, do you actually want to see that director make the type of movie that you claim you want to see? Right. Would you not

[00:18:50] rather see someone else make that type of film? Right. This person's film cannot be for your liking, but it's like if you're complaining that Wes Anderson is making a, you know, a twee outsiders versus systems comedy, tinge with pathos and father issues, then it's like,

[00:19:12] what do you think you want out of him? Maybe you just don't like him. That's fine. Now to that end, Henry Selick's is particularly funny because it is so specifically the same story over and over again, right? Sure. It is always like a character who's like

[00:19:28] lured by circumstance by their circumstance to another universe. Sure. So like a Skellington being lured to Christmastown, a James being lured to peach world, a man being learned to learn to the interiority of his creativity or whatever. Right. And it's a place that

[00:19:46] at first might be somewhere they want to be. That's their dream. They like it. And then it becomes evil or there's challenges that they don't anticipate or that aren't going to solve the thing. And then at the end their desires to get back to the world which

[00:20:02] they started. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the one exception to this is the flip of James where and we talked about this a lot in the episode. The first 20 minutes of James are like the most unpleasant reality ever committed to film. That is the one

[00:20:16] in which the character is correct to not want to be where he is. And the thing he's dreaming of is everything that he hoped it would be. He has family and friends. He goes to New York City. Shirako Dunlap points at him. Everything's perfect, right?

[00:20:32] That's the one that's flipped. But it is this thing I find fascinating and it really clicked for me watching Nightmare Before Christmas this time. It's like very often, celic characters don't really learn their lesson. They return to where they started but with a sort of arrogance. Right.

[00:20:50] Jack Skellington definitely doesn't really learn his lesson. You have this musical number that's literally called Jack's Lament. Poor Jack that ends with him being like no, fuck that. I'm not going to feel bad about myself. I fucking killed this. Best Christmas ever. Jack the pumpkin goes back

[00:21:08] twice as resolute. James again, I mean obviously it's based on a novel. He overcomes his fear of death and what his parents went through. But you know, he confronts something and moves forward. And he comes back to reality. Yeah. So he's a little different.

[00:21:22] And I will not spoil Wendell Wilde for you but there's a sort of reality underworld thing, right? Got it. But there's also a current day version of this town and the past version of the town thing. He's once again dealing with there's always two realities.

[00:21:38] Yeah. There's a character who starts in one, dreams of being in the other. Right. It's always macabre kind of too. He's spooky. He's spooky fuck. Yeah. But I like it's I remember you know because I took Romlee, my sister, see that she would have been... It's 2009

[00:21:58] So she's about 10 years old. She's 11 at the time. She's Coraline aged. Perfect age for this. Has read the book, loves the movie. And they were talking about it at school and her teacher was like, that's not a good movie. Wait, really? And she was affected by

[00:22:12] this and she went back and was like my teacher was arguing that Coraline wasn't good. You agree with me that Coraline's great, right? And I was like, yeah, what's his fucking argument? And she was like he says it's like dramatically bad because she starts

[00:22:26] out being sort of a brat and she doesn't really learn her lesson at the end of the movie. She's still a brat and I'm like, I think that's interesting. I don't think that's true. I think she does learn a lesson. I think she is changed but I think

[00:22:36] it's not in the sort of holistic completely transformed way that a lot of very pat movies would give you. No, but she learns the lesson of like I shouldn't take my annoying parents for granted. Of course. They're alright. I shouldn't take this, my life circumstances

[00:22:52] for granted. But a lot of movies would be her like, you know, like, dogging them, crying, being a perfect little girl, this and that. Even when she like goes to YB and she's sort of like, you're alright by me. She's still negging him when she does that.

[00:23:06] I like that no one changes that much in a way that's somewhat realistic within a celibate movie. I also think there's a thing that happens and we don't have to go too far down this rabbit hole but there is a notion especially in American entertainment that

[00:23:24] holds on to the like Campbell-esque hero's journey as the definer of what a story is. And the only Yes, and it drives me nuts because there's people that are like, you know a story arc, like you know, a beginning

[00:23:38] middle end, it's an arc, you come back and it's like that is a type of story that is a, you know, obvious, you can get into the intersectionality of where that comes from and what that represents in terms of like Greek and Roman storytelling

[00:23:52] being passed down through their empire conqueror, you know, all this stuff. But I think Yes, and it's very limiting and I think some great stories don't fit into that rubric and I think that can unsettle people when it's not like, oh the exact and not to, Coraline's

[00:24:12] pretty hero's journey-y so we're not far off there It's quest-y and she's still, he sort of defies that always because the growth is so kind of quiet and internal, as much as there are crazy externalized circumstances around the characters, it does feel like it's slight changes that happen

[00:24:32] within them. Yeah, I mean it's hitting all the beats of the Campbell-esque bit, but the point being, I like a character sometimes that doesn't learn their lesson because the point of storytelling to me is not that the character has to learn the lesson, it's that the viewer

[00:24:44] the audience learns it. Well that's fair That's a good point, I like that. I mean I agree with you on that, and it's fair. People don't always have to be learning lessons, lessons are overrated but this movie reminds me a lot

[00:24:54] of Spirited Away, one of my favorite movies ever Very similar. And there's a lot of movies a lot of children's stories along these lines where the lesson is more like you lose your parents, your parents are taken away for whatever reason temporarily. Yeah. You have to

[00:25:08] you know, struggle on your own, and then when you get them back, you have improved or you have had that experience and you're happy to see them but you are different, because you're like, well I did make it without you. Right. And there's like

[00:25:22] that's very satisfying when you're a kid Also, that you kind of know the world sucks now. Like there's something about this exact age we're talking about, eleven? You've matured. You're starting to become autonomous enough that you're like, why is anyone fucking telling me what to do? Why can't

[00:25:36] I do everything the way I want to? But the sort of crushing existential dread of like teenager-dom has not hit yet. Yes. Eleven year, twelve year old. Have you ever has anyone ever read, probably haven't, has anyone here ever read the book The Thief of

[00:25:52] Always by Clive Barker? Yes. Yes, I have read this. Yes. There's a similar book similar story to this And Barker and Gaiman both sort of They're similar guys. British who like making children's stories even though that's not their number one thing. They'll occasionally dabble

[00:26:06] in young adult and you're like, ooh, this is spicy for young adult. Right. It was one of my favorite books as a child and I've read it a million times. It's the same thing of like the kid is tempted to another place that's a paradise. The

[00:26:18] paradise is a false paradise when it's the same lesson of like, he's going home he'll be safe. He remains a kid. Yeah. It's not like he's going home when he's 35 years old. But he did all this on his own and that's valuable.

[00:26:32] Yeah. And this takes place in the Hellraiser universe? It does not. But you should read it. I mean, you'll read it in a day. It's so fucking good. A little aside I always think about how the one Cenobite is a kid and it really messes me up.

[00:26:44] Yeah, that sucks. I just rewatched Hellraiser. It's like when a kid is raised in Scientology. You're like, you didn't even give him a chance. Yeah, sure. Because there's the point. Well, these Cenobites are always fucking. They're going to have kids. No, no, no.

[00:26:56] Ben can't relate to this. Ben looks like Flummox about why that would be a curse to be a Cenobite child. I'm sorry, what? Well, then why are you looking confused that I'm saying one of these Cenobites is a kid? No, Ben is confused by you presenting that

[00:27:08] as a negative. Yeah, I don't get it. What's wrong with that? All the Cenobites at some point revert back to what they looked like as normal people when they summoned the lament configuration and one of them is a kid. And I'm like that's dark.

[00:27:24] Sure. It makes me uncomfortable. Ben spent his entire- Hellraiser doesn't make me uncomfortable most of the time. Ben spent his entire childhood- It's definitely a very comfortable mood. Just quick bone here. Rooting around for lament configurations. He was trying to become a Cenobite

[00:27:36] child. Yeah, absolutely. Just vote here. If we all had the lament configuration who here would have put it together and just summon the Cenobites willfully? What do I know? You know. I know what's gonna happen? Yeah, you know. eBay, whatever. It's gone. I don't want it.

[00:27:54] But I think the idea of the lament configuration is like if you're being handed it the guy already knows you wanna fuck with it. He's not just like, oh, I found this and you figure it out yourself. It's like, it's someone who's

[00:28:04] just like, look, I've tried everything. Right. You have the carnal call to it like you're not- Ben would be seconds later. I would have it. The guy that whatever, antique dealer wouldn't even be done explaining

[00:28:18] what it is and Ben would be like, I finished it. He would be drawing in his breath to blow the dust off and I would already- Ben would post wanted ads for lament configurations on Craigslist. I just rewatched Hellraiser because- He's got an eBay alert.

[00:28:32] Ben's fucking the things into him and Ken Head's like, calm down. Yeah, right. He takes them himself. Give me those hooks! I was upstate with David Ehrlich on the show. Humblebrag. And he'd never seen it. And I was like, all right, fuck. You've never seen Hellraiser? Yes.

[00:28:48] And I was like one of those things- He calls himself a critic. Exactly. And we put it on and of course to his surprise, you know, the centibites don't show up in the movie for like a full hour. And he was like, wait, this movie

[00:29:00] is about a lady who cucked her husband with his filthy brother? Because that's mostly what Hellraiser is about for a while. It's one of those franchises- It's about a guy so horny he had to call the centibites. He's just like, I've done it all!

[00:29:16] It's one of those franchises where the first movie is so different from the cultural idea of what the franchise is. Parker had no control of the sequels and the sequels they were like, centibites wall to wall. Hellraiser 6 is like a cop drum. It's like a Saw movie.

[00:29:32] Anyways, I want to pause for a moment and just imagine- Something centibite-y about this murder. That's what it is! Something from the book of Saw. I want to imagine the image for a second of the two Davids upstate in a little log cabin with a fire

[00:29:48] going and hot cocoa in their hands and a blank table. Wife's elder and left back home in New York. No, no! They were there. This is the image I want. The whole thing, I take these trips with them every year. We always leaf peep.

[00:30:00] We always have a leaf peeping weekend. Me and David and Howard. A leaf peeping weekend? You go upstate, you peep some leaves. Did you create this term? No, definitely not. A leaf peeping week? I defer to you as the peeper. You peeped a leaf or two.

[00:30:18] Absolutely, I love peeping. Leaf peeping. He's the one who made it the United States before. America should have been called Peepsylvania. That's an old Jon Stewart joke that always got me. Amerigo Vespucci, right? There's a reason it's not called Vespucci and Idol. We watch all ritual movies.

[00:30:46] We watched that movie, The Ritual. It's a good ritual. It has a good monster in it. It's not very good. It's like a bunch of guys go hiking in Sweden and you know, classic like, this trail is too long, let's take a shortcut through the haunted forest.

[00:31:06] It's not that good, but it has a good monster. It has a fun monster. Then we watched Lair of the White Worm. Have you seen that? The Ken Russell movie? Great movie. Very campy 80s. Ken Russell at the end of his life. Young Hugh Grant.

[00:31:22] Ritual is the Nighthouse Hellraiser guy. Of course he did the Hellraiser reboot. When Hellraiser came out, I was like, we're in ritual territory. This is the most ritual movie ever. It's all rituals. Rituals wall to wall. I can't remember why I was talking about this.

[00:31:40] Coraline completes the Lament configuration and is summoned to the other universe. It's the same thing of like, you do the thing you probably shouldn't do. You open the door, you go to the place. You're summoned to the void. And you are summoned and now you're in

[00:31:56] another world where it's like, what are the rules here? To get back to where this all started, which is what Griffin was saying, there is a thing in cinema or in life that we explore through cinema that age of like 6 to 11 where you start experiencing

[00:32:14] this desire for independence. But it's not the teenage desire for independence where you want to fly from the nest, it's that you want to know that you can fly from the nest. You want to push against the boundary. Maybe get your hand out and then be like,

[00:32:28] okay, okay, alright. And then you retreat into being like, I want my parents to fucking do shit for me while they still can. There becomes a balance of, what do I want my parents to fucking handle with? Which adult responsibilities do I want to avoid and which things

[00:32:44] do I want to push further away from? Yes, and once that's taken away, the comfort of your parents, it's a really scary feeling. The master of this is Miyazaki, right? You look at all of his, but Totoro is a great example of that. It's this fear of being

[00:32:58] without your parents. I think Spirited Away is the, it's scarier because the parents literally transform, it's frightening, you don't know if they're coming back, your identity is under threat. Totoro is the more younger kid version of it where it's like, we're being independent and the parents are still

[00:33:18] there, but you understand they could not be there and that's the fear that you're contemplating. That's what they're kind of working through. I feel like this is a thing that gets thrown around too often and perhaps too lightly now, but this does

[00:33:34] feel like one of those few movies you could put into American Ghibli-esque films. And a big part of it is, all the movies we've been talking about, the first two purely stop motion, are 75 minutes long. Most stop motion films were like 75 minutes long.

[00:33:54] It takes a while to make these things. This movie is 140, it's pretty much like 134 before credits. That extra 15 minutes, it feels like is mostly devoted to... The term is Ma, right? Isn't Ma the term that Miyazaki uses for the moments of existence in between the story, the plot?

[00:34:18] There's things in this movie, like when Coraline is playing occupying herself with the lump in the rug. I wrote that down as I was watching it. To me, that's the moment that I felt was this film operating at its best. That there's this bunched up

[00:34:36] part of the carpet that she keeps stepping on. To me, that was the moment that felt... When she goes to the clothing store with her mother and she's trying to get her attention. This movie has robust prologue epilogue that I feel like would be the thing you'd

[00:34:50] cut if you're like, fuck, we can only afford 70 minutes of a movie. For a movie that's so much about the boredom of this girl, it does spend time in the boredom. It does spend time in that feeling. It evokes

[00:35:00] so well of when you're a child and you're looking for anything to keep you entertained. How to turn anything into a game, especially if you're lonely. Animation is so difficult. I feel like this is sort of the point that Miyazaki always tries to make is that

[00:35:16] most people don't want to spend the effort to depict those small moments because those small moments aren't free in the way they are in a live action film where you can just have an active... You're not Malick. You can't just point a camera

[00:35:28] at a dandelion. For 10 seconds on screen, right? That you have... It takes as much craft to make this thing happen. It's so expensive. It's so time consuming. But those moments are really important and especially for this film in setting a tone and a mood

[00:35:42] that is very different than most American animated films. As much as this falls into the spooky stop motion world... It is spooky. There's a patience and like a weird quiet to this movie. Yeah. I will say since I know sometimes as a blank check listener myself, I don't...

[00:36:00] I haven't watched the movie sometimes. To those who are catching up, the basic premise of Coraline is she's like a... Let me go through the plot. In fact, let me crack open the dossier and then we can talk about it. We haven't talked Monkeybone yet, full disclosure.

[00:36:14] We have not recorded that episode yet. Oh, interesting. Ben has yet to get boned. Oh my gosh. I have not boned. Monkeybone was maybe the most anticipated film of my childhood. It was way up there for me as well. I was like... Because I knew...

[00:36:28] I was a big animation nerd and I knew who Henry Selick was and I was like oh my gosh. Making a live action film. And I feel like the premise of Monkeybone is like the first idea most kids have when they're like

[00:36:40] oh and then you go inside and all the characters from like it's such a classic and so I was like this is gonna maybe be the best movie ever made. Did you see it? I did see it. And what'd you think? It's a very long movie

[00:36:52] but it's what I remember as a kid. But as a kid you were not like I like that and I don't get why people didn't like it. I struggled with it as a kid. I liked it a lot as a kid. I'm very curious to re-watch it.

[00:37:02] I haven't seen it in probably 20 years but I watched it multiple times as a kid and was always a defender even in the face of most people shitting on it. It was equally anticipated for me but I was at an age where I was

[00:37:14] capable of clocking a movie like that as a disappointment. Burden Plain of the Apes is that same year I know this isn't working. I can't even lie to myself that much on this one. I think Monkeybone is the first time that I was like oh.

[00:37:28] It might not be. There is that thing when you're a kid also when you see movies when you're around 10 or 11 you start being like I didn't like that I think. I used to like every movie ever but this one wasn't so good. Yeah. I remember I liked Monkeybone.

[00:37:46] I'm sure there's stuff in it now as an adult that I really enjoyed. But I remember as a kid being like oh this isn't what I imagined it was going to be. I remember my parents would always talk about Dark Crystal that way

[00:37:58] where I loved Dark Crystal as a kid and they were like it's so long. It's a really long movie and I was always like no it's great because that was what a movie was to me. It's also not that long. It's like 90 minutes long. It's really slow.

[00:38:14] A movie I love but it also is like incredibly oblique plot wise. It's one of those movies where famously Henson wanted to try to tell the story with as little dialogue as possible and it made no sense. But to this point Monkeybone was highly anticipated and then was

[00:38:34] for a long time in that state where it was like delayed for a very long time very extended post production process they moved it around the schedule like 18 times it finally comes out it's dumped at the beginning of the year it bombs really fucking hard

[00:38:50] It made 5 million against a 75 million dollar budget and that's before marketing or whatever Big disaster and there was a real sort of gang up like this is a disaster But a huge problem was that Fox's animation product which this was not but it was still under Bill Mechanic

[00:39:08] who was a disaster like Anastasia did well but Titan A.E. was a big bomb It was developed under Fox animation and by the time it comes out Fox animation is dead and so it sort of shifted from being a Fox animation

[00:39:22] project to a Fox live action project where no one wanted it So director jail for Henry Selleck Yes Like fuck you You cost us so much money It truly felt like one of those things that he might never come out of

[00:39:36] It was such a sort of radioactive bomb Yes Neil Gaiman around that time does hand him his upcoming novella Carline and you know Selleck is intrigued but also is like I saw a movie in it but I felt like it needed more flesh on its bones

[00:39:54] just because the story is quite short He did take it to Bill Mechanic who was like write a screenplay Pre-agent at this point I guess just looking for a supporter is like you take it from here I'm not going to be fussing I trust you That's it

[00:40:18] Gaiman famously sometimes he's very hands on with adaptations of his work because he's been burned This is around the same time he's doing Mirror Mask which is like his movie Him and Dave McKean's big visual project The bigger thing that Selleck does obviously

[00:40:34] is he adds the character of YB because he was like she needs to talk to someone literally The book is obviously all in her head like internal narration or whatever I really like Carline It's a movie that I really like

[00:40:50] My hot take is I don't think we need YB You don't like YB? But he's got a little mask I like YB but I get where you're coming from if he's necessary but I do like him as a character He's doing YB posture

[00:41:06] He's got a little eye gore I think it would force us into having more alone time with Carline which maybe would slow down the movie I think it just might be tough literally for kids to handle that little dialogue I think it's true I like YB

[00:41:22] I'm pro YB I'm a huge fan of just his fucking mask, helmet, whatever you want to call it It's Little Dirt Bike It's Dirt Bike I would love a character like that though on Little Dirt Bike with a skeleton costume to feel a little kid movie cool

[00:41:40] You know what I mean? Boy, here comes the kid on the skateboard But he's so genuinely awkward That's sort of sweet Also, he transplants into America That's the other big thing he does The book is British I also think there's a little bit of literalizing of the events

[00:41:58] that goes on in the movie I think the book is a little more internalized a little bit more I think the book also, it's like she goes to the other world once and is stuck there Selick is the one who makes it more back and forth

[00:42:10] Which I love You're upending the rules of how all of these movies work JJ in his dossiers keeps on She comes back Maybe she does He just says he built it up more He wanted it to feel like maybe it's a dream

[00:42:26] Maybe this is happening when she falls asleep I think the book is more like that I think this, there's a lot more story context of YB being like My grandmother's It becomes more literal Oh, this bad thing is actually happening Which I think is not Not bad necessarily

[00:42:44] The strangest thing is that Bill McHanick had a production deal with Disney that he had signed that prevented him from developing animated projects specifically And so they had to initially pretend that they were planning on this being a live action film Wow And Michelle Pfeiffer was considered

[00:43:04] for the other mother I mean, would be perfect But that's kind of one reason it just is sort of floating in development for a long time I wonder if that was like a non-compete thing If that's some vestige of his Fox contract

[00:43:20] It's like yeah, you can come aboard buddy but we're Disney so we're already doing animated films You can't like bring us animated films I guess Well there's also the story history of Laika's creation of which this was the first Because that's so interesting

[00:43:34] But in between, first the guy who comes to sell while he's in director jail is Wes Anderson because Wes Anderson uses him for the life aquatics to build the little stop motion animals the whales or whatever the fuck Which it truly feels like What's the beast called?

[00:43:50] The Jaguar shark He's in aquatic life All the fish are Henry Salick Which I think a lot of people weirdly don't know But it felt very much like this is what his career is going to be He's going to be one of these guys where you're like

[00:44:06] Oh Jack Cardiff was like the greatest cinematographer in history and then he made a film that got nominated for best picture He did a couple more exploitation movies My voice is all fucked up today, excuse me And then he pretty much went back to being a cinematographer

[00:44:22] Is this a guy who was indie, commercial, animation director made a couple movies and now is just sort of for hire doing effects on other people's movies doing short term projects small, short form projects But the other thing of course

[00:44:38] the sort of fork in the road thing is that because they collaborate well on life aquatics Salick is like you should direct Fantastic Mr. Fox which I'm developing And Salick was going to do it and backed out because Coraline was suddenly greenlit

[00:44:54] He was like this was my original project I'm sorry, I have to do this They had it set up at Revolution A great studio that never did it Well that's the thing I think it also took a long time for that movie

[00:45:06] to get off the ground because Revolution was collapsing and eventually Fox had to buy it out of turnaround But yes, for a couple years there it was like Wes Anderson and Henry Salick working on this together and that's his way to get out of jail

[00:45:20] is teaming up with another director Which can we imagine I'm so curious how that collaboration will go There are two guys with particular points of view I have no idea Wes Anderson seems like a friendly fellow I will say I have no idea

[00:45:38] In interviews he doesn't come across as some sort of stormy, inflexible No, I think he's a friendly fellow He's famously control freaks Yes Incredibly particular, exacting artists And of course Salick says This is his quote Wes Anderson's still mad at me but I said

[00:45:56] Look I worked on Coraline before I ever met you and this opportunity has come up and he hooked him up with Mark Gustafson who was like the guy who led animation on Infinite Salick saying Anderson's still mad at me I think Salick perceives a lot of enemies

[00:46:10] around him at all times And Wes Anderson is mad at him Hard to say But that's a momentary does this get Salick out of jail thing that doesn't happen If they fought who do you think would win Physically? I think Salick He's wiry Well Salick is like Slenderman

[00:46:34] That's what I'm saying though It feels like he scrambles up onto the ceiling and drops on top of you or something They both fall into the category of directors who look like they belong in their own movies I think Wes Anderson has a blunderbuss

[00:46:48] He's got weird antique hunting gear That's his If there's a Mortal Kombat with video game Have you guys Have you announced the brawler that you guys are We should do a Smash Bros with fucking directors We should think of more of those What's the name Salick in 2004

[00:47:10] is hired at something called Vinton Studios Which did like claymation Something called Vinton David Your ignorance is showing Pull your fucking pants up I was never claiming not ignorance of Will Vinton Will Vinton and Will Vinton Studios Massively important He's the California Raisins guy

[00:47:34] You don't understand how important this is Five, I gotta say Love this guy's vibe He looks like he's about to sell Saltwater Taffy This opens up ten things I need to talk about You don't understand how important Vinton is to stop motion animation I never ever said otherwise

[00:47:54] You said something called I'm cold reading a dossier I am not saying anything else You said Will Vinton doesn't matter I didn't say something meaningless You said he can lick your fart For a whole month at Great Cinema for free Okay, go ahead

[00:48:15] Will Vinton is one of the major figures of stop motion Yes Who had a hard time getting these huge Never had the platform It's expensive You gotta get someone to give you a lot of money for something that might not be a hit He literally worked in clay

[00:48:35] He was a clay animator For so long, claymation was a term used interchangeably with stop motion Most stop motion we saw was Artman and Will Vinton The two most prominent studios were working in clay Your kids cartoons Svankmeyer Svankmeyer's more of the

[00:48:57] taxidermied animal, but I guess he does a lot of clay But they were Plasticine guys And Vinton is this very interesting balance of, he had a lot of success in things like commercials for higher jobs He's a little bit like Richard Williams actually He did the California Raisins

[00:49:15] The Noid Much like Richard Williams The Noid Red, yellow, blue, green and orange M&M's I think the thing that people would maybe most pop culture recognize him for is the stop motion stuff in Moonwalker In Moonwalker? His style is very distinctive

[00:49:35] The look of his characters is very distinctive If you google Will Vinton, you'll see a bunch of things you recognize The PJ's? The Richard Williams comparison I think is apt because these two guys were considered absolute top of their fields were sort of low level moguls

[00:49:51] had their own studios Everyone was envious of their craft They were always in demand for higher gigs especially commercial gigs and shit or to come in and pinch hit on some studio project Their own personal projects their magnum opuses were like vaguely disastrous Sure, right

[00:50:09] When they were unfettered The Mark Twain movie does get credited as the first feature length stop motion film Is that correct? The Adventures of Mark Twain, 1985 stop motion claymation film I believe it holds that title Sure It is a bananas film People might remember it as

[00:50:27] I feel like especially in the 90's a weird deep cable constant rotation movie It's on Amazon Prime right now I watched it the other night It's bizarre It's like two present day kids in a space submarine with Mark Twain Yes They're chasing a comet Flying around the galaxy

[00:50:51] Not a hit, right Will Vinton Big flop That can transition into the like of it all Because what happened was not a little pretty tragic in terms of his whole trajectory Right, because when he's brought on board it's Vinton and Phil Knight, of course Nike founder

[00:51:15] invested in this company and Travis Knight, obviously, former rapper then decides he likes animation Yes What rapper was he? Do we know? He's the son of the founder of Nike Founder of Nike Tell me a little bit about this the other day Has a record deal

[00:51:35] and then finds his true passion It's worse than I thought Chili tea It's really bad It's really, really bad You know Look, if your dad founded Nike you could pursue your projects and if you were 20 years old they might be stupid projects I'll say this

[00:51:57] When people hear that the director of Kubo and the Two Strings had a rap career they're like, that seems improbable If you watch his music videos it absolutely feels like who you would imagine directed Kubo and the Two Strings Interesting He has music video

[00:52:13] It's not like that's bizarre that that guy has the personality of a rapper but he has the personality of a stop motion animator Now maybe you guys can explain this to me In 2002, Nike takes over Vinton Studios and it's renamed Leica in 2005 So what happens to Mr. Vinton?

[00:52:29] Is he put in jail for selling salt water taffy and it made someone sick He just looks like a salt water taffy salesman He's got a big bushy mustache I think there's basically just a kind of complete financial collapse that is largely tied to the rise of CGI

[00:52:45] I don't know how much more we can dig into this but the company was just sort of shrinking and shrinking and shrinking with very high overhead and you know we talked about in the James and the Giant Peach episode so much of that movie was

[00:52:59] I've spent the time to build up a crew, to build up a studio to have sound stages. I want to keep them working Right? We need another project It's the thing with his animation studios and he had a big studio He had a big company

[00:53:11] and the work was drying up and he was like, I'm going to have to cut it by the year The PJ's thing is kind of like that was such a big project That was supposed to be the thing that would give them another 10 years

[00:53:21] Eddie Murphy is producing it and it doesn't make it a season Brian Grazer, Ron Howard It did two seasons Gary and Mike is the one that did only one season Which was a UPN show Which I always liked by the way Never heard of it?

[00:53:37] But this was the thing They had a couple big failed projects like that I can see why this didn't exactly light the world on fire What about Celebrity Deathmatch? Who did that? Eric Fogle I don't remember The guy's name was Eric Fogle Eric Fogle

[00:53:57] I want to preface this by saying I don't know the exact details So I'm hearing this completely second hand Sure What I've heard happened with the Will Vinton of it all Was that the studio was struggling and Phil Knight said that he would make an investment Yes

[00:54:17] His son is at that point working at Vinton Part of the investment was my son has to have a major role here His son was just an animator I believe at that point I don't know the details I can't He was an intern

[00:54:35] Part of the investment literally was hiring him as an intern Right Gotcha In 2003 when Phil Knight takes over the company Travis is suddenly on the board of directors So that flip happened pretty quickly from what I've heard From the timeline I can guess yours

[00:54:51] we're talking like five years maximum Yeah I'll invest in this but can my son work here Actually I'm in charge and my son is going to be the one that's creatively charged That's what I think is interesting I think his son ends up being pretty good at

[00:55:11] It's the whole distressing thing of it all sounds so evil Yes Every part of this should have been a nightmare I've heard stories about You hear stories about any animation studio Pixar, Disney Where you're like oh my god people who work to the bone It's so intense

[00:55:29] But at the same time They are pretty much the only people making these kinds of movies And it is nice to have them And Travis Knight has directed Chili T Chili T Has directed two films One a stop motion film and one a film starring Bumblebee

[00:55:45] of the Transformers Both of which I thought were pretty good Not like Masterpieces Kubo's pretty good Kubo's close to Masterpiece Kubo has its problems So I don't know what to do about this It's beyond like regular Hollywood nepotism

[00:56:01] Where it's like oh it turns out this person's parents are actors No this is Yeah The guy's dad like bought him a studio I would also say To his credit His dad buys him a studio And then he doesn't direct a movie until they're four in

[00:56:17] It was the fourth one right You know Paranorman and then Foxtrolls He let other people actually It's a very bizarre story He does that, he does Bumblebee And then he does the next Laika release Is he? Yes

[00:56:35] And then he also just signed up to do Six Million Dollar Man Great Six Million Dollar Man Apparently gets you a cup of coffee But I think that's also one of the One of the bummers David's Pointing at his cup of coffee It's good, I like it

[00:56:53] That's one of the bummers I will say though Is that Laika You know I was an animator in college right And there was only so many places that you wanted to end up Companies Because there's not that many animation companies back then

[00:57:05] It was like you get hired at Pixar Maybe you go to Disney And then it was like some people were like ooh what about Laika It's a bummer that sort of like One of the only paths to having sustainable Studio for

[00:57:17] Stop motion animation and to be in charge of it It's like a charitable Yeah is a thing Billionaire has to pay for Laika situation right Is I Had it mixed up in my mind That he was already a low level Animator rather than

[00:57:35] The internship being part of the conditions Of Travis Knight Investing the money No it was Already there but it was that he was already Into stop motion but I believe As the story goes it was basically That like Travis went to

[00:57:51] His dad on hands and knees and was Stop motion is going to die as an Art form if this company is not Saved someone needs to do it There is no American government investment Into the arts Fair point there's very little Where so many when you watch

[00:58:09] Like you look at The best animated short film Nominees each year and it's Like you might get one short film that's a Pixar Or Disney because they've started You know they've stayed investing in those And otherwise you're mostly seeing foreign films That come out of countries that have

[00:58:25] Like fucking arts grants and lotteries And funds for this sort of shit For people to work in this medium that is not Commercially viable But it is this thing where it's like dad You have so much fucking money Can you find the kindness in your heart to

[00:58:39] Save an art form And then it becomes this hostile takeover That makes a little bit of sense When you're like Not to be cynical and crass about it but you're like Vinton's old at this point He dies in 2018 He had not been able to turn

[00:58:55] A profit in the company for about a decade at that Point there is the argument That there needs to be fresh blood When you go the guy who bought it just Installed his son at the top of the food Chain within like

[00:59:07] 18 months of him starting there as an Intern that seems like red Alert red alert but it Works then he finally Takes over as director on the Fourth movie it's really good Then he takes a jump to doing American live action studio

[00:59:23] That's the thing where you're like well right is that Was he just using this as a leapfrog Kind of thing to get to a bigger career To do a transformer spin off And there was that moment where It's like it's not great

[00:59:35] They ended the distribution deal with focus Like a signs a new deal with Anna Purna They release missing link missing link Bombs really hard yeah there's no new Like a movie announced on the horizon Right after bumblebees come out and everyone's like Is Travis night bored with like

[00:59:49] Is like gonna be left in the Dust and instead Travis night goes Back invest new money in it Forms new distribution deals Starts doing a new film at Like a continues to constantly Like almost directed fucking uncharted Is now attached to six million

[01:00:05] Dollar man like will jump in between Developing live action films And directing movies for Like and supporting other films There it does Seem to basically Work I know but It's so reading I think a page you just Want everything about this guy you want to

[01:00:23] Yes I think I don't want to strangle Travis night to be clear he's boy capitalism Is great I do think Happened that's great no Complaints there the only bummer is that Travis nights hobby wasn't like mental Health advocacy and instead it was stop Motion that is billionaire People

[01:00:41] I'm just Laughing because it myself I agree Where I'm like oh thank god someone Is trying to keep stop motion alive but you're also Like god if you'd like the only way to get Anything done is like pull at the like Tailcoat of a billionaire and be like

[01:00:55] All right all right let's get off Travis night well not even just need To clarify it's not like A chili pepper no it's like chilly Like yeah okay chilly Chilly why You know look snow Sure snow was hot back Then yes you know if you're a white rapper

[01:01:13] Snow was snow You know like it's like it's I feel Like if you're vanilla ice Ice cream ice cream Weather phenomena No it's like I think if you're a white rapper You might want to lean into like I'm Cold icy snowy

[01:01:29] Right you want to just go that direction Maybe yeah I guess there's some correlation There Coraline Coraline and we're back the first thing Selec does with this company You know whatever you know Moon girl is moon girl which I Have seen I

[01:01:45] Short film it's not very good it's cg Yes this is another thing where I'm like the Founder of Nike bought well Vinton Studios installed His son Lured selec over and now the first Thing they're releasing is a cgi Short film and I was like right

[01:02:03] Everything's done this this is why are they In cg How is selec sunk to this low How embarrassing for everyone involved When they announced Coraline Is happening as a feature in stop motion I'm like you're Skeptical just because there's no track

[01:02:19] Record here like you know why would this Everything about the cgi films shitty it's one of these Things where you're like this is around the same time That flushed away comes out Why are we doing fake Stop-motion yeah like cgi Stop-motion yes I also remember

[01:02:33] There was because again I was In college this was all happening and that was an Animator who was like oh maybe My dream is to work at like I remember Their whole thing with the 3d was like they're Trying to build a new system yes That could basically

[01:02:47] Use the principles of Stop-motion as the method For animating You know computer Generated imagery which it felt like A sort of backwards but that was their big move And I sort of that was also the Era where people were like we're

[01:03:03] Minutes away from computers being able to do Everything yeah exactly easy but they Really pioneered the use Of 3d printing in stop-motion Which involved doing a lot of pre animation On computers and then Just physicalizing it later So that was all context of the fact that

[01:03:19] Then that leads us to Coraline I'm asking the first Like a release yes yes which Has a lot of attention now on it in the Animation world in particular because it's like All right well let's see It's an embarrassing hobby film But it's also I guess the last

[01:03:35] Stop-motion animated feature is probably Wallace and gromit right was there anything Of note in between Wallace and gromit and corpse bride I was going to say corpse bride Wallace and gromit underperforms At the box office here in the states Is obviously big overseas

[01:03:51] Did very very well in Europe yeah chicken run Is still the only stop-motion film to Pass a hundred million dollars domestic So there was kind of this feeling of like Art men had the potential to be the next pixar It took them way

[01:04:03] Too long to do a follow-up film Walsinger wins the oscar is below Was well underperforms at the box Office dreamworks drops their deal Another thing that makes it feel like stop-motion is kind of dying Tim Burton was actually did well Right well gone on an oscar

[01:04:17] Nomination got good reviews But it sort of feels like maybe stop Motion only gets made in studio level if Tim Burton works into his Contract well and the corporate things we talked About on the corpse right episode i believe Was that people didn't

[01:04:31] Realize it was stop-motion yes because they did So much cleanup and they did a good job it looks Too clean we talked about this I don't remember if we talked about this but It's like the contracts For charlie in the chocolate factory And corpse bride are done together

[01:04:45] At warner brothers it's it's basically a One for me one for you and the same thing Happens again with allison wonderland And frank and weenie it's like when timber Wants to they'll let him make a stop-motion Movie as payment for Making a bigger studio live action film

[01:04:59] So here's a question that i've always Had about henry Selick and timber Their styles That they become known for Are so close To each other that I'm always curious in a chicken And egg sense If that's just That's why they came together

[01:05:21] Because i think they met in college If that's why they found each other Because it's like oh we like to make these sort of Macabre you know But it's so interesting because when you think of I mean obviously the timber Of it all with night before christmas People

[01:05:37] Attribute that style to him But if you see timber Own illustrations It is that style of these He's making puppet versions of timber Illustrations right and This interesting thing we've talked about that every One of selick's films has A different primary designer Yes he will pick someone

[01:05:57] With a very distinct illustration Style and model the entire Film in their vision we have Not seen a selick movie that is like His personal art style Quote unquote because the first one he's doing Burton then he's doing lane smith The name of the illustrator on this film

[01:06:13] I forget it's a japanese illustrator yes I have it somewhere but i thought He wrote you say right And then wendell and wild it's the New yorker guy I'm sure yeah i'm forgetting his name We'll talk about next episode no well william

[01:06:27] Sean no he's the modern guy who does Like the little portraits for profiles And things like that right and a lot Of the movie review images right whatever But they all tend towards this Extremely disproportionate big Headstick thin big head which is That's also easy for stop

[01:06:43] Motion right like Because a big head you can like change But i'm saying the proportions are Not easy because it's no The characters cannot support Themselves at all right natural Because the two of them yes made That the sort of status quo if you

[01:06:59] Look at will vint and you look at art And they're very stubby yeah yeah These characters that sort of Waddle same with gumby like you just Kind of have these characters were lumpy Don't body shame gumby i mean it's how The guy was born i mean look healthy

[01:07:13] Gumby's very healthy it's muscle mass That's yeah that's interesting sure So it's like annoying to deal with these Things well it's just it's you know They're so it's not a natural They can the legs will snap You know what i mean it's like but like i guess

[01:07:29] It's like you can have such sort of expressive Movement yes well that's what makes i think That's i think that's part of what makes Them stick in the zeitgeist right They are so expressive because they are So disproportionate because their armature is Basically like barely covered in

[01:07:43] Right plasticine or whatever i mean It's a thing i feel so strongly watching This movie where anytime a new characters Introduced you're like fuck i can't wait To see how this person moves right right Maybe especially in this movie with yes with

[01:07:55] The neighbors yeah okay a little bit More moon girl he makes right the whole Thing is that that you know night moves Fucking vinten to oregon Yes this is where like yeah right that's where Phil night you know phil knight is mr. Oregon

[01:08:07] Yeah um they ask him to do Car he has carline they're like bring Carline we'll start working carline And then they're gonna back out and i'll say Selick gives travis knight credit Calls him one of the best animators in the world Says that he worked on moon girl

[01:08:21] And basically went to phil Knight and was like we cannot block this Project this must happen like so apparently You know selick says carline Was in trouble for being quote unquote too dark You know a bit like and travis

[01:08:33] Knight was the one who got it over the line So that's cool travis knight Has to know if we're building an animation Fucking henry selick yeah this is the number One guy we want in our stable Um and it very much feels like so

[01:08:45] Much of the formation of laika is if we Can get selick here He can be our lassiter we can build this Whole place around him um Selick told the la times In 2005 that his plan with carline Was to do the real world As cg and the magic world

[01:09:01] Is stop motion they were considering using Cg for the animation of this film Glad they didn't yes Um i mean i get the idea of the two Yeah that's fun but still Um bill mechanic thought stop motion Was passe It's a fucking thing in animation i know

[01:09:17] Where they're like boring beautiful Stop motion or beautiful hand drawn passe Why can't it be showy You know um but They didn't really like Uh how the cg Looked in whatever test they were Doing looks shitty Yeah it does My friend had a term recently

[01:09:37] I was talking to him He was talking about i won't name him For the reasons i'll be clear As i tell this story he was talking about He and his wife are in the Stage where they're debating whether or not They want to have a child

[01:09:51] And he was confessing to me over Several rounds of drinks Uh one of the things that gives him Trepidation about having a child Is having to watch uh children's With the kid where he's just like My friends who have kids my brothers

[01:10:05] Their kids have to watch it's so Fucking dispiriting and he said every Character just looks like a shampoo bottle Now and i it's such A good descriptor of this sort of Blandness of so much cgi character Aroundedness the boring Colors looks like a shampoo bottle

[01:10:21] And like moon girl is one of those things Where you're like this looks like shampoo bottles But of course what's the thing they settle On is like okay if we're not gonna use cg What can we use 3d 3d three Dimensional photography this

[01:10:35] Done it on nightmare yeah so that's That's the i think we didn't really Talk about that much in that episode but They do the 3d release that Starts making like 10 million dollars each Year this is the beginning of Disney starting to invest in

[01:10:49] 3d something like chicken little will come Out and they'll put it on like 40 3d screens but it's starting to Grow everyone knows that avatars in Pipeline and they're working towards that Which everyone assumes is gonna be the total threshold Breakthrough moment but this film Comes out nine months

[01:11:05] Before avatar it sure Does it's a real important film In i am certain It is the first 3d movie i saw that was Not like a movie about asteroids i saw At the natural history museum or whatever with like red Red green right i think it's the first

[01:11:19] Movie i wore those real 3d Real d polarized glasses 3d movies are red And blue polarized And i didn't see like i Didn't see beowulf what's it i don't Fucking sick what's it called Anaglyph yeah the red and blue is Yeah but i didn't see beowulf

[01:11:37] Because beowulf is before this right yeah but all These things no no no it is But all these things had like Semi-limited releases yeah I mean i would i'm such a fiend for 3d That i would go anytime Meet the robinsons i think that a limited

[01:11:51] I remember when i saw this in 3d it was like Oh how funny look at these little glasses This was a big deal this was like This is really kind of announcing this as a medium Yeah and we can take a little walk

[01:12:01] To the history of 3d and that we don't have to go deep A little walk a little baby walk We should stay seated though We'll stay seated we're not gonna yeah No actually well Walk around the room so obviously like It was like 80s through the

[01:12:15] Early 2000s it was all of what You're talking about david right where it's like Amusement park yeah you go to the natural history museum We go to disney world IMAX 3d documentaries They had non Red blue or like Yeah no it's you're right i saw

[01:12:31] Some imax thing about a postal Delivery made in alaska Like headsets yeah you would wear these Giant goggles yeah so there's We can talk about that a little bit later we'll talk about 3d but This After around 2003 2004 is when Studios

[01:12:47] And theaters started going maybe 3d is the next Big thing and The issue was that People were not shooting 3d Films they were taking films and converting Them to 3d right and back then the technology Was so now when they move Convert movies to 3d they will

[01:13:03] Create actual Sort of like 3d elements that things Are sort of like fake projected onto So that has a three dimensional Depth to it whereas back then CGI animate a movie With the same shapes as the live action footage And then wrap the live action footage around

[01:13:19] Those shapes yeah theoretically right What they were doing simplified but yeah in the Early mid 2000s is it was like It was ever for his paper cut out right We're just be like great this 2d plane is farther Ahead than that 2d plane looks like a spider man

[01:13:33] You can just everything is flat but you can Create layers of where those Things are funny and science Double your four crusties yeah exactly So it Wasn't very good there was a cut there's A few things that were shot natively 3d But i think coralline

[01:13:49] Was for a lot of people The first film and i Can get into it in a little bit about The technology what they did technologically That was so impressive but it was one of the first Films that was shot natively 3d

[01:14:01] And they did it so well with actual Cameras because it's stop motion right So many of the 3d digital 3d movies that were coming out in these Experimental years were cgi Films because they were easy to post convert Because you're just modifying the files that already

[01:14:15] Exist in the computer and there'd be a Thing where like superman Returns when it played in imax there Were like two sequences that were 3d Where they flash the symbol they Test the waters a little bit right but this Is like in terms of a film that

[01:14:29] Was actually shot with cameras Intentionally designed for 3d this was a humongous Step in the modern era because it also Had to coincide with the Proliferation of digital cinema right So 3d If you're shooting something 3d For those of you who are not

[01:14:47] In the know you basically have to Have one camera for each eye Because if you right now if You like hold your hand in front of your face You know As if you're doing a Eye poke blocker and you

[01:15:01] Go back and forth between your left eye and right eye Right your eyes are seeing different views of things And so when you're shooting 3d the whole thing It makes it 3d is that you're having these two views And your brain is processing into one image

[01:15:11] You have to have two cameras That are next to each other And theoretically they have to be next to each other At the exact distance that the human Eyes are typically apart that's what Creates depth now with film Cameras That's really hard because you've got these big bulky

[01:15:27] Cameras that require film and Need to be because they need to be super precise And they need to be completely in sync Because you can't you know You can't have them off temporarily Even a little bit because that's going to create this weird distance

[01:15:39] Twice as loud it's harder to do Camera movements all these things Become incredibly complicated And so digital cinema Means that now you're dealing with a Digital processors which means Cameras start getting a little bit smaller A little bit easier to deal with and you can sync stuff

[01:15:55] Up digitally so you're not trying to have things be Mechanically synced you can digitally Sync them which is a lot easier and better for 3d But the rigs are still ginormous And they don't exist There is not enough Flow of money or time

[01:16:09] For it to be something where People are creating really easy Solutions for this stuff so the only Films that can really do this like shoot Natively in 3d are these The avatars of the world That are investing all this money into New huge budget technology

[01:16:25] And well James Cameron literally Went to Fox and went I don't know if this movie's doable Will you give me two years and five million Dollars to do some R&D and Maybe I'll have a film I don't know Exactly and so Coraline

[01:16:37] Just has to be right place right time To make good Use of some of this technology In a really interesting way a lot of the stuff that Cameron sort of field tested on The documentaries that he did In this period A thing about

[01:16:53] The use of 3d in this movie As A child I used to always think That Wizard of Oz Had to be the first use of color In film because it feels So poetic when it comes in Comes into color you're like oh my god

[01:17:11] No one had ever seen this on a screen before To believe that was the introduction Color because it feels like well this is The moment where a world opens up even though Color had existed for a decade plus at

[01:17:21] That point in films right and also there's like those Weird like hand tinting All this stuff I similarly Feel JJ keeps on in all the dossiers You know in his very JJ way Of his very quiet sort of editorializing That only we read right Talking about how much

[01:17:41] Wizard of Oz comes up with Selick yeah whether by his own admission or Other people's because the whole thing we're talking About of the imagining another world another place Another dimension you know these sort of Alternate realities what have you Saying to Selick you get to use 3d

[01:17:57] Now you now have a tool That is kind of equivalent to being able to open The door into the world of color In Wizard of Oz It's one of the reasons that I argue this is the best Application of 3d because it's so Tied to the narrative

[01:18:11] Obviously and Avatar Also has this thing obviously where it's a guy Entering a different world But And Avatar is so experiential And like incredibly Well executed but So much of the technique that Selick uses here To make the 3d Thematic to Truly use depth as

[01:18:35] A very deliberate pointed Storytelling tool Rather than just like Immersion Yeah or have stuff jump out At you It's kind of insane that he Nailed it this hard when so Much of what he was doing was basically uncharted Territory and figuring it out

[01:18:55] As they went along. Yeah, and so that Sort of leads to my feeling Which is I think this is In my experience watching movies The best Most fulfilling as an Audience member use of stereoscopic Film that I have Seen Ben like

[01:19:13] I know you watch this for the first time Right you're not seeing it 3d You didn't see it in 3d We should talk at some point about How this was also tied in with the 3d television craze which was a whole Yes yes yes

[01:19:27] No we're gonna talk about that We don't have to talk about it Don't worry about it What's our running time right now? An hour 20. Yeah exactly We're recording two episodes This is part one of the Caroline episode An element that you

[01:19:43] Didn't get to see which actually makes this film A good film that I like To a film that I think is A good example and a film that like I Hold in this very high esteem is What they do with stereoscopic Imaging so

[01:19:57] We talked to obviously we've talked here About like Billy Lynn and everything that's happened there And how Ang Lee is one of the people that really thinks About this in a creative sense as part Of the medium I would say that there's A lot James Cameron does too

[01:20:09] But I would say there's a lot of filmmakers That 3d to the Studio was just an added thing to Add to ticket sales Yeah and so they shoot Their film exactly how they'd normally shoot their film Don't do anything to

[01:20:23] Really maybe they'll have one or two little things that play with Oh something's like you know Passes in front of the screen or whatever People who do it skillfully immersion is usually The beginning and the end of the thinking Right like Scorsese will have a couple

[01:20:35] Moments that are very clearly explicitly Designed for 3d yeah he's Certainly conscious of it in the framing of every shot And something like Hugo but it's Also like not tied to Story in the same sense I do remember Hugo using it quite nicely

[01:20:49] Well like Dark of the Moon uses it Well you know there are other dark of the moon uses Right yeah but I will say This not only from a story perspective But again stop motion Ends up being the one place where you can

[01:21:01] Actually explore everything that stereoscopic has To offer yes so something that I think is Fascinating and that's why I sort of talking About the camera side of things which I won't Go too much deeper into it but In the past for stop motion Obviously they would use

[01:21:15] Film cameras in the past which was its own complicated Thing you know you take a frame Move your puppets take a frame it's Long arduous process literally don't know if it's Working or not until you get the footage Back developed from the lab

[01:21:27] Yeah well you did have things called lunch boxes Or things like that that would allow you to see previews But it was hard digital cinema comes along It makes a lot easier because you can see your frames Are happening yeah corpse bride for example

[01:21:37] Is shot on like a canon 1d Like a consumer Consumer grade camera yeah Like that people probably have And they had to create all this technology to try to get It to work and operate but it's a little clunky So in Coraline what they ended up doing

[01:21:51] Is they use a machine Imaging camera the type of camera That you would use like in like a factory Setting what that allowed them To do was program the camera Super specifically so Reason I was talking about these this two camera thing is that when

[01:22:05] You're shooting live action elements with two cameras To get stereoscopic you're One of the biggest Early hurdles is Cameras have lenses which is the glass stuff that Makes the light look cool You know that yeah we know We've discussed them with you yes Exactly right so Stereoscopic

[01:22:25] If those lenses don't match It Head cold There yeah yeah yeah holding that one In for like 15 minutes Everybody If you're in a car right now give a quick Honk So Yeah if you're in a car Just this episode give a quick Honk if you love stereoscopic

[01:22:51] Bumper stickers Actually because I do feel like people don't Okay so you have a camera Right So lenses I think we think of as these finite Objects that are just like You know always perfect lenses are really Imperfect things because it's glass elements Right so lenses

[01:23:11] Have a lot of these issues that can come About them that are unique to those lenses That you have to test in films Usually to see if your lenses match just Generally between shots let alone stereoscopic Those things like chromatic Aberration where that's when your

[01:23:25] Different color wavelengths don't focus The same place that's when you get like This sort of edge coloring On weird lighted objects you have Like spherical distortion And aberration which is like All these little things that make lenses unique Which is why also cinematographers will search

[01:23:41] Out for lenses that have the Perfect balance of all these things And it's not something you can really plan for You just have to Each lens can have its own quality but When you're shooting stereoscopic right each Of those lenses represents one of your eyes

[01:23:55] So any of those lenses are different It creates these weird effects That don't quite line up exactly And that's when stuff starts Because again imagine if your eyes Were seeing images that were Even more different than they already are You'd start to get a little

[01:24:11] It'd take you a minute to adjust Well we already have that with our eyes Now add lenses to the mix If the lenses of a 3D film are different It's starting to create this weird thing And Ang Lee talked about it so much

[01:24:23] And Billy Lin we talked about is They had to search far and wide for lenses That were as close as humanly possible And they couldn't find the lenses because All these huge images Well stop motion Some people talk about 3D giving them headaches It's because of not exclusively

[01:24:39] But so often these sort of discrepancies Will cause your brain to have to work overtime Right well also think of this If the cameras are off timing at all That means the two images being processed In each eye when you're watching it Are slightly different

[01:24:53] And that's the stuff that creates these headaches And that makes you feel sick And you can't sense it You just feel sick With stop motion Your subject isn't moving Right obviously You're taking still photos of it You don't need two cameras So what they did is

[01:25:13] They took one camera Would take a photo This already sounds stressful And then move it over And take another photo Now what's even more interesting about this When you are doing stereoscopy You have to get those lenses really close To be the distance between human eyes

[01:25:31] And a lot of times what you end up doing Is you use these mirror deflection plates That basically use mirrors To shoot the images Into the two different eyes So they can be much closer Now you're dealing with another element of glass

[01:25:45] Which is mirrors which is going to take down some of your brightness It creates all these issues They're not having to do that They're able to Create that distance And beyond that A thing they do that I think is fascinating That makes this absolutely brilliant

[01:26:01] Instead of having the cameras The distance of human eyes They have their cameras separated by the distance of the puppet eyes So that your Three dimensional perspective In the sets Is not that from a normal sized person Looking at these miniatures But from the three dimensional perspective

[01:26:19] Of someone who is of that size I have a couple notes for you Notes or questions? One, you said the puppets don't move They do when everyone leaves and goes home And turns out the lights The puppets come to life and they move around

[01:26:33] Did you say the after credits thing in window one? Wait until you see this Two, that's all very interesting But James Cameron went to Pandora And filmed a whole movie there That was pretty difficult He had to wear a gas mask and all that

[01:26:47] So give him some credit Horrible You gotta deal with Fuck I don't even know what the company is called Whatever they are But the Na'vi workers unionized eventually Which I thought was really good No, I support them obviously I think they should be Given

[01:27:07] I don't even know what Na'vi currency is They should be given as many bows and arrows As they like Yeah, yeah, A1 bucks, great I'm sure they love that They put their head Right, they gotta recharge Whatever Union mandated ponytail break No, that's very interesting

[01:27:27] So are puppet eyes further apart On their heads or is it They're tiny They're tiny so they're much closer The difference between the two The left and right movement of the camera And that's also why they're using What's so funny is like when you

[01:27:43] If you are a film nerd You sort of like to look up What cameras they're using And what lens system Did they use Zeiss or Angenieux Or this or that For this the camera they used was The Megaplus EC 11,000 Color CCD machine vision camera

[01:28:01] Yeah, yeah, I've got one of those Is this essentially like a Ford factory line camera Yes but it's Like at a car manufacturing Yeah, it's probably used To like, I don't know, make like microchips Sure, sure But they could program it

[01:28:17] Super intricately and obviously the movement of the camera Is being done robotically So they can have it be tiny It's not just some guy who's like I don't know what is this two inches But that's how they would do it Back in the day, I'm sure

[01:28:29] Like Corpse Bride, they shot it on a 1D That's a thing you have to like, you know It's like your dad Has a 1D to shoot pigeons In the park It's like a sub-iPhone camera I just think it's fascinating And then the thing that

[01:28:45] Ben, I'm curious if you picked up on watching it for the first time 2D Is that they do something fascinating That again, you cannot do And the other thing is a stop motion This is the argument Which I think is just like beautiful This is not an argument

[01:29:01] I'm not interested in an argument David knows this movie is beautiful I love this movie to death Then you're right, it's not an argument because we've won Griffin just wants you to take back that you call this dumb animation nerds like 8 years ago You are dumb animation nerds

[01:29:15] Nothing about this episode supports that idea Have you not heard of Bill Vinson? Then you look up a man who looks like a Mario villain Smart special animation boys Also, be great at the California Raisins Goddammit Show some respect To be clear

[01:29:39] He does not look like a Mario villain He looks exactly like Sonic's villain He looks like He looks more like Eggman He looks like a Coney Island strongman I respect the guy I like that that was what that guy looked like It's good

[01:29:55] It's just funny when you guys are like Haven't you heard of this guy? I like David's over at Will Vinton Studios Trying to get him to tear a phone book open Exactly Take this mallet Let's see who can ring a higher bell Oh man Question for Ben

[01:30:17] You were doing I was doing the build up So Ben, I don't know if you noticed this But what they did in Coraline Henry Selick Creators and all the people We want to create this dissonance between the real world And the other world

[01:30:33] We want the other world to feel Magnificent to Coraline when she first arrives And you got this redefined medium Now at your disposal So I noticed it only because I know But you might not have even not Noticed it watching it in 2D

[01:30:47] Is that all of the sets in the real world Are Tilted at an angle Like the floor and the walls So that they can be flatter So that there's very little depth to them Okay So the room is actually instead of being Long

[01:31:05] Is really short and it's a perspective trick So that They're animating these characters not on a flat ground But on an angled ground To make it all collapse in It's basically like all the live action sets In James and the Giant Peach They're using forced perspective to essentially

[01:31:21] Make sets that are closer to Cut out, pop up books Yeah And doing tricks with the physical animation Of the characters to make it look like they're Existing in a normally Proportioned room but the effect is They're shooting a space that is Close to flat

[01:31:39] So that there's not as much depth And that everything feels more tight So that when she goes to the other world Suddenly they do the opposite That fucking moment in a theater If you can imagine when she opens The door and the tunnel extends All the way out

[01:31:55] It truly feels like you were looking Into an infinite void I remember I saw this movie like three times In theaters because it was just Like well who knows if I'm ever going to be able to watch 3D again in any other form You know and every time

[01:32:09] That first unfolding is just Gasped from the audience where they're like Holy shit this is possible And I think it's interesting that Rewatching it and I rewatched it flat I will say for this episode because I want to be able To judge it on

[01:32:25] Merits knowing how most people Will end up rewatching this In the first 15 minutes of the movie He does a lot of Shit coming out at the screen at you Tricks he gets those out of the system He understands that there's going to be

[01:32:39] A novelty factor that everyone enjoys People have glasses on they want to understand why The first image of the movie is the needle poking through The button right and that shit Pokes all the way Fucking out it's like a theme park Movie like holy shit this is

[01:32:53] Attacking me the introduction of YB Is him riding the bike right into frame Isn't it like workers carrying a rug or something All of this shit he's doing all of that And then like minute 15 The tunnel unfurls And he's like no this is about depth

[01:33:07] It's not about me throwing things out At you it's about pulling you deeper and Deeper in I remember both with this Language changes of the movie Right like I thought Was that my bloody Valentine movie right there were a few horror movies

[01:33:21] That had done the kind of like a pickaxe flies at Your face thing and it was this An avatar where I was like oh I see it's like That the world has texture I've never seen Yes that deployed that makes so

[01:33:31] Much more sense or that that seems like A less gimmicky use of the technology The sets when you go into the other world Are so fucking deep It's the exact opposite it's so cool with Stop motion yeah the seltzer sets Are their sets these are things right

[01:33:45] Yeah but it's the exact opposite of what JD was Talking about with the opening sets where the sets Are then humongous when he's Shooting this stereoscopically you're Feeling the empty Space around them you know so The shift and I still think it works Visually watching the film flat

[01:34:01] Yeah he uses Obviously the color palettes and the Contrast between the two worlds that still Works flat But but even I think Visually you do Sense how much more claustrophobic the Rooms feel in the beginning And obviously he desaturates the

[01:34:19] Color a little bit yeah he does other stuff To make it feel lame. Coraline is basically the only Character in Her world at the beginning who has Color everyone else is desaturated is muted Is earthy she's got a bright yellow Raincoat and bright blue hair and then she

[01:34:33] Goes into a world where suddenly everything has as much Color as she does but also She can finally fucking breathe you know I really didn't pick up on it Though yeah and that's that I think That's what's so strange when it's 2D you don't know

[01:34:49] Would you say though with The 2D version there Is this sort of noticeable Visual quality That's just slightly off and I Can't really encapsulate what I'm Seeing the best I could Explain it is it feels almost Like the movie is choppy Or buffering

[01:35:09] Kind of does that make sense Are you watching it on your phone Without wi-fi as well was that a problem I was outside of the McDonald's Right and just kind of so one of the Things that I will I won't Say more than this is that

[01:35:23] I've I know A group of I'll say a handful people that Worked on Coraline or Jason To Coraline and so they have been A little bit of my resource Mm-hmm especially for this episode Of trying to sort of reach out be like hey what was this

[01:35:41] So one of the things last time I was watching That I was texting about was I was like Noticing that exact thing where I was Like so in animation there's you Can animate on what's called ones twos Threes fours as every frame talked about

[01:35:53] This right yeah so stop motion You're always going to animate on one right just because Like you're doing all this work just Animate on ones yeah it's A hand-drawn animation ends up Doing more like twos like that because it's More work to do a frame

[01:36:07] Versus in stop motion it's you're like I'm here anyways I'll just do the extra movement For whatever hand-drawn you're gonna have to redraw The entire thing versus stop motion you're making One adjustment exactly yeah but There's moments in Coraline where I was like oh

[01:36:19] It looks like that's on like twos or threes Like what's going on there yeah so there's Some things that are purposely chosen for that so like all The ghosts are animated like fours yes Like as their CG creations In some Okay dossier disagrees with you but okay

[01:36:33] They're go on I believe That they are Computer Composited But I don't believe that they're CG unless I have Apparently there is one fully CG sequence which is The ghost children coming into her dream To warm her oh interesting he Says the backgrounds there are pure CG

[01:36:53] Because Paranorman has CGI ghosts And it's a lot more apparent like They choose to make almost all of the ghosts In that CG And you can tell that it's CG approximating Whereas here it does feel like CGI effects applied to actual There's some CG cleanup too

[01:37:09] Yes so in Coraline what they did Is they did a lot of Computer Compositing of As many live action elements as possible Maybe that is one CG sequence But that's the only fully The rule of thumb for Celica And this from what I've gleaned was

[01:37:27] Everything has to have at least Some sort of piece of live action Not live action but like real Actual something has to be Something has to be photographed At some point And so what you're noticing there Ben I was like why is that Happening at the time

[01:37:45] I was texting A person That was like what was And what I think is going on Is that's artifacts from digital Time remapping that they would do So basically when you Are doing stop motion In a movie like this right You're going to have every shot being animated

[01:38:05] Like somewhat simultaneously Just because it takes so much time So you'll have like 30 stages going at once Where a bunch of stuff is happening And so you can't really go back And do retakes if you get into post somewhere And you're like I don't really like that

[01:38:19] But what you can do is you can digitally remove frames Or lengthen frames Or blend frames together To tweak the timing if there's something That's a little off So there's a handful of times where I noticed that in shots Where they did some digital time remapping

[01:38:33] For the animation but I noticed That you're talking about where there's moments Where you're like oh it looks choppy But it created this interesting They did it in a way where it does feel very tactile Though now can I throw out a couple other points

[01:38:45] While we're in this area You know with stop motion You're either doing a face Replacement or you're Creating a puppet With an animated face right Or a manipulable face right So for example like in Nightmare Jack Skellington is all head replacement Right he has these extreme expressions

[01:39:05] You can see the behind the scenes photos Where they just have like A shelf of a thousand Jack Skellington facial expressions But also every In between mouth shape For any type of word he would need to say And all of that which used to just

[01:39:19] Have to be crafted by hand With people sort of figuring out These are the transitional stages we'd need And all of that But Nightmare like Dr. Finkelstein Or Oogie Boogie Have these wide mouths with bigger lips And those are puppets where they're actually just animating The lips movement

[01:39:37] With one set model Rather than pulling off a head replacing it With a new head, new head, new head, new head A big thing that Laika pioneered Was using 3D printing So that they could animate And this is particularly helpful With lip sync

[01:39:53] If you're doing dialogue and things have to be Incredibly precise in their timing You can record the audio with the actors Then you can animate just The facial expressions on a computer And then it can print out Sequentially the individual Framed faces

[01:40:09] So it gives them a lot more flexibility In that area I think also The puppet you could pull pieces of the face off And change They did top and bottom There's a slip that essentially runs across The eyes And it's two pieces that they can pull off

[01:40:27] And replace and combine in different ways And this movie by and large With the exception of I know one or two Babinski maybe feels like they kept them in They'll digitally remove the seam lines Now because We just saw Wendell and Wild

[01:40:41] Two days ago and then I was digging into interviews With Selick In that movie they keep the seam line on the face Yeah, I think it's the move And he said it's because He feels like so many of the things That Laika pioneered in this film

[01:40:55] That they've now pushed further in their following films And have been adopted by The medium at large and the industries at large Have made Stop motion too smooth, too clean Right, it almost looks like computer generated Too much digital touch up Too much exacting

[01:41:11] Sort of polish that he was Like on Wendell and Wild I'm going to keep all the seams On their faces for every character And Wendell and Wild I think he animated on twos He was like I want it to be herky jerkier I wonder to some degree

[01:41:25] And I believe everything you're saying GD But I also wonder to some degree A, how much Some of the herky jerkiness comes out of Growing pains of the 3D face printing And Which 3D printing itself is in a much

[01:41:39] Different state at that point in time than we are right now In precision And B, how much Selick Wants to continue to own Some of the things that remind you That the thing is made By hands He seems adverse to cleaning up Things too much

[01:41:57] Makes sense, which I love Because it makes you think about the fact that this was Built Well that's why I think honestly in a lot of these Movies those final post credits moments Are like the most breathtaking moments of all The movies Every stop motion movie now

[01:42:13] Like at the end you'll see a moment where it includes The animators or the rigs They love to pull back the curtain Or like that Like the box trolls has it where it's like an all day photo Where you see 10 laps The cutting ass cutscene

[01:42:27] My takeaway from watching this visually I'm like How do people do this It's incredible It looks so beautiful Like especially The outside The surroundings The house The miniatures that they built I'm glad they did this for me It makes me happy But I

[01:42:53] It seems like a lot of It's sort of like oh you shouldn't have Like someone makes you a nice meal and you're like This is too much trouble for me One of the details I love So the special edition DVD has all these special features

[01:43:05] That are worth watching It blows your mind the work they went into One of the things I love is all their fog effects Fog and fire Fog, fire, water Water That's usually stuff people will be like we're just going to use CG What they did

[01:43:21] In Coraline is they actually Handmade all of their Fog assets using actual Like smoke machines So they would shoot on black fabric All these smoke effects To be like oh YB moves backwards So alright we'll blow some smoke back there And then they composited those all in together

[01:43:39] And it was really really beautiful Fire, they hand drew all of the fire And then composited that But it almost seems like they were like we did all that And maybe we've realized You can It might be worth saving the time on some things

[01:43:53] Yeah but in a certain way that makes this movie Like a real key transition point In the medium Here's another insane Little factoid They hire a woman specifically To make all the sweaters and knitwear Yes Which are truly knit They're not like fabric sweaters approximating knitting

[01:44:13] As a pattern They are actually knit by hand And the The fact is that The knitting needle she had to use To knit the tiny sweaters Were the size of human hairs Okay so it's very small I don't want to know the fine detail

[01:44:33] You're fucking working in there I think the wardrobe of Deborah Cook Was really amazing too because they built all these Wardrobes for all of these It's absolutely Because everyone has multiple clothing chains Which often doesn't happen Most stop motion films you watch characters have one look

[01:44:49] That persists throughout the entire film Maybe Jack Skellington has two looks, three looks And there's a woman, Suzanne Moulton That they hired that did all the hair effects This is one of the first stop motion films ever where Every individual hair was animatable So they would lay down

[01:45:03] The individual hair and pair it with wire As well so that Watch the shots where Coraline moves her head And her hair moves with her That's so much work This is what I'm saying I'm glad they did it for me I like it, I appreciate it

[01:45:19] You seem to be getting stressed out It's stressful! I don't know if you should have done this much work for me Well we know they did it for David Because they have a title up front David Sims Actually they have the title at the end

[01:45:31] It's like the E.T. ride Every movie They have the title at the end that lets us know it's for David That's a little joke for the Coraline heads It says, for those in the know Jerkwad That's good There you go, you roasted me I remember someone

[01:45:51] What's the movie where it was like clockwork I think it's Corpse Bride It was kind of like clockwork It's mechanics inside the hair I remember I did some interview with an animator I would have nightmares that I was clockwork People's heads opening

[01:46:05] And I was just like, I don't know if we should be doing this to people Also that technique was bad Right, that was maybe, whatever You make so few of these things it's trial and error on every one of them Practically

[01:46:17] You have to invent entire new ways to do stuff This movie is responding to that movie In which all the characters kind of look botoxed And you can see Selick being like Let's bring faces back in I just can't help but think about sneezing

[01:46:29] When I see this stuff Oh you mean like you just knock Coraline over It must be so stressful You can't, like, cold season You can't report for work That's part of why they will have Oftentimes individual animators working alone

[01:46:45] It's not like a team, it's like one person doing a sequence Because they're just like That seems stressful too though Like least room for error No one's bumping it, it's just like one person And then when you sneeze you're just like Laying on the ground

[01:46:59] In the behind the scenes featurette It's like two animators working on one sequence Two different characters And they're like, yeah so our sequence is seven seconds And they're like it'll take us probably Four and a half weeks to animate it And you're just like

[01:47:13] And then they show the clip and it's just like Someone being like, here take some And you're like Not even, it's probably the first half of here Exactly, it's wild Also, imagine trying to animate To the music Music's so lovely in this film But imagine stop motion animating

[01:47:31] To lip sync of music And Selick makes everything more complicated for himself He wants as much movement and frame He wants camera movements He wants all these things It's incredible We gotta talk about Kowalski We gotta talk about the opening of this film 2007 when Beowulf comes out

[01:47:49] Wait a second This has nothing to do with it It does Great, let's talk about Coraline So Beowulf 2007, Beowulf comes out November 2007 This movie comes out February 2009 Correct So it's about 18 months later, a little under They played a trailer for Coraline Before Beowulf Because they needed to announce

[01:48:13] Call it their shot There are more 3D movies coming And the trailer before Beowulf as I remember Was a cut sequence With some different intertitles That's all it was because that was probably all they had At that point in time And that feeling when

[01:48:29] It just said like, and now a sneak preview of a movie Coming 2009 And then the first image you see is the needle going through the button Right It was the most exciting statement Promise for the future And plus it's like for nerds like us

[01:48:43] It's like Selick's out of jail We're not as plugged into all these projects That are happening, I don't think I knew about this movie No I was following it closely I think about Erlich in our Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon episode Busy getting laid Erlich was busy getting laid?

[01:49:01] Probably, good for him You were saying you were busy getting laid I had sex like two times at this point Erlich Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon Talks about the first title of that movie With the opening strings of the score And being like, has any movie ever

[01:49:17] Proclaimed itself a masterpiece faster I'm just doing it I think Coraline is in that Conversation with just like The look of the first opening Like Laika Presents In this sort of like stitch tapestry And the score for this movie Is so god damn good It is

[01:49:37] A chorus of French gibberish children Speaking nonsense words Yes Obviously the girl who does The singing girl voice, her name in real life Was Coraline That's wild considering I've never met Anyone with that name I will also

[01:49:55] I know we just said we're going to start talking about this Opening sequence, such good mood setting Yes, for me I've watched Coraline because I went to NYU And NYU often has these Well Coraline is their mascot They're fighting Coraline We all have buttons for eyes

[01:50:13] Is what we chant when we're rooting On our football boys So they always have these Screenings where it would be like these director's screenings Oh man There's some very funny stories about disaster screenings Of people who brought their films to NYU

[01:50:27] And it's a bunch of pretentious film kids that are like Actually So this was one of the first ones I always feel like I'm not allowed to go to things So I never go to things This was the first one that I was like, I'm going to this

[01:50:39] Henry Selick was screening Coraline Not for NYU but at Real Union Square But NYU was letting people go to it So it was not out It was way before it came out And there was like maybe only a trailer So me and all the other animation

[01:50:55] Nerds were like we have to go to this Henry Selick was there, he was introing it And So we're all sitting at Real Union Square Those glasses go on And again no one has seen this yet So when it starts

[01:51:09] And it's a room with a lot of animation dorks in it Just the Energy in the room is electric Because people are like holy shit Not only is this Incredible stop motion that we have not seen Of this caliber

[01:51:23] With that sort of Henry Selick quality for a while But also the stereoscopic nature of it And also just like This is going to be cool Because it starts with all the titles are hand stitched to start And then Confronting the handmade quality Like this opening sequence is

[01:51:39] Calling your attention to the craft Of the way this film was made By showing a tiny model Creating something With that level of craft and detail At a tiny scale for them That's what I was going to say It is a It is Babe Ruth calling their shot

[01:51:57] It is a Think about this It is a stop motion model A tiny stop motion character Making a tinier As detailed stop motion character It's like we're starting Two levels down the rabbit hole And being like The stop motion character Our stop motion character is making Is good

[01:52:21] The adage of a movie teaches you how to watch it That is especially true For good and great films This sequence is doing that so effectively A it is training your brain To pay attention to the craft Of how this film was made

[01:52:37] Of knitting and sewing and stitching Being like hey we fucking made all this You need to appreciate this It is weird that it says idiots though Yeah He keeps showing up The animation stops and Henry Sully walks on screen And is like idiots listen Fucking morons

[01:52:55] JD is doing Henry Sully postures That's a thing I wanted to talk about at some point I went up and shook Henry Sully's hand Sure And was like you know So nice to be able to do that And he was like well I thank you very much

[01:53:09] And it was the first time that I realized That he walked and moved Like a character And then from that point forward I've had this theory that you know Not theory it's just obvious Animators characters all move like the animator Because they came up looking in a mirror

[01:53:25] At their own movement So like my favorite is like If you look at a Nick Park interview He like has the same smile as Wallace He does the hand He'll be like I was so excited And he'll bring the hand And so every animator

[01:53:41] If you watch an interview with them You will see their character Like come to life within them And it's absolutely hilarious and wonderful And like when Will Vinton Is you know kidnapping A damsel And lifting him over his head With one hand

[01:53:59] It looks exactly like a California Raisin Another thing this movie has to do In terms of teaching you how to watch it In this opening sequence is like Get you used to 3D Knowing that this is going to be Like the first exposure for a lot of audiences

[01:54:13] And so he's doing more of the in your face Kind of tricks In this close up photography But I mean David we saw Avatar again recently Re-release in 4DX But it finally jumped out to me How much especially in the first 20 30 minutes of that movie before

[01:54:29] Jake goes into The body How much Cameron is working with layers In that film he's always placing Multiple screens and panels And things in front of characters So he's just getting you used to before you're going to get into the big spectacle The amount of layers

[01:54:45] You can create between the frame And the main subject right And this is a movie like They re-release Jaws in 3D Over the summer Which Good movie Was that a good movie to do in 3D though This is the thing so you're like

[01:55:03] Is this going to be one of these shitty fucking post production things And the fact is Spielberg's natural Shooting style is so perfectly Suited for 3D You watch Jaws in 3D and you're like It should have been this way the entire time Not just the fact that obviously

[01:55:19] The movie takes place like On the high seas and you have that innate depth And the like infinite horizon behind it And all that sort of shit But he frames his Images in terms of where to draw Your attention you know And creating natural depth

[01:55:35] And movement and the shot timing That he's not someone who cuts too fast Right There's that principle 3D you need to Guide the audience's eyes If you're changing Their focus point too often Too rapidly, too wildly It's another thing that causes a headache or confusion

[01:55:53] The lack of orientation And this is one of those movies where if you watch Coraline Flat you're like What fucking just mastery of shot Composition Selick has And visual storytelling because It then becomes like Spielberg Especially because I think he does His camera moves a lot

[01:56:11] Less in this movie than it moves In his other films Because he understands I can't Over stimulate people Yes I think it's really well done Also to Spielberg in 3D There is that shot in ET where ET sticks his finger out

[01:56:25] And he just keeps it there and sort of like waves it In the audience's face And he does the paddle ball He does paddle ball And he throws a bunch of ping pongs at you ET comes out of the closet Dressed in the wig

[01:56:39] But he's also carrying a 2x4 over his shoulder And he's like ET you have to do construction He's got a trumpet He's like swinging it out He can play trombone Opening sequence is great And then we go to They're moving into The Joneses

[01:56:59] And not the Joneses from that Jon Hamm movie Keeping up with Are moving to Ashland, Oregon This is set in Oregon Shout out to Leica The Pink Palace Apartments You know, manse that's been cut up into apartments And we see a great three planed image

[01:57:15] Of the big apartment with Bobinski on top And the cat on the sign So who lives here? You got the landlady who you never meet And her son Wybie You meet her at the very end Do you meet her? That's the end of the film Wybie's her grandson

[01:57:31] You've got Bobinski He's supposed to be like a Chernobyl liquidator Like he's a Russian immigrant You've got Mrs. Spink and Mrs. Forcible A real recurring Because Wendell and Wilde has the two nuns You obviously have the two aunts Spiker and Sponge And James is a giant peach

[01:57:53] I feel like the witches in Nightmare form a similar thing He loves the sort of like Two intertwined Old ladies There's the double faced person in Monkeybone Oh sure Well it was funny I was like This is a real Henry Selick character It's a real Henry Selick moment

[01:58:13] Because it's worth noting So Neil Gaiman wrote the book Henry Selick wrote the screenplay At Gaiman's behest Gaiman was like You do what you want to do with it He's got sole credit on this And he had that script I mean they rewrote it many times

[01:58:31] But he had that script long before like Laika existed That was like his thing I think there were talks of being live action It could have been a lot of things So Caroline is the coolest character In the history of cinema She's got blue hair and a raincoat

[01:58:45] I think she's so fucking cool Somewhere around like I wish I was friends with this person When I was ten and we could have adventures Can I also just quickly call out I guess I'm kind of a YB in a way

[01:58:55] Because YB clearly just wants to be her pal The two movers You're a YB okay Well I guess there's no one in this room I'm the cat okay That's the coolest character The two movers are modeled after the Ramft brothers Jerome Ramft who's still alive

[01:59:11] But this is Selick's tribute to Joe Ramft Who's the one who takes the shitty tip And sort of gives the look to camera But yeah Ramft had died a couple years before this This is Selick's first movie since he passed Who had obviously worked on his previous films

[01:59:23] Absolutely And a legend It's a very sweet tribute So Caroline coolest girl in the universe Using a stick as a dousing rod That's the other thing Why don't you love that Well because it Again so I'm a little infected Because I reread the book In anticipation of this

[01:59:45] And so the book is so lovely Because it's more just about this girl It's very Totoro when the kids find the new house And they're just sort of like wandering around The book is just this young girl who's like I'm gonna go explore Exploring I'm a kid

[01:59:59] I love the dousing rod thing Because I did that when I was a kid It's that kid concept of like Sort of very basic magic Where like I think One of my parents told me Yeah this is some folkloric idea

[02:00:13] You get one of these sticks and you can find water And I was like well I can get a stick Right This is not complicated witchcraft over here So I would do that It feels like a very little kid thing to do

[02:00:25] It's a good story too because she finds the water And so it works She finds the well And that sort of alerts you to like maybe mystery is afoot here And the well is within a whatever Fairy circle The other thing is that the score is going

[02:00:39] And you're like alright we're in a mysterious land right now Because the opening credits Score is the like fully Gothic thing And then it goes into this Whimsical But like what's so jarring is that she's got these Parents who are So regular and have like a flip phone

[02:00:57] And a car Aggressively You know and like dress like normal people And like the dad's on a computer They're so distracted Which I love to be clear but it's so odd Seeing it in stop motion because you're like This is a fantasy world I don't understand

[02:01:13] Like I've never seen anything like this Everything's so drab and earthy and quiet And I just remember You know This is one of those movies where I think much like you J.D I'm just like I want this to fucking work

[02:01:25] I want Selk to be out of jail I want him to have a win I was so nervous For this movie where I was like I want it to be good and I want it to be a hit And I want people to like it right

[02:01:35] And the first visual Reveal of the father Yeah When they cut to the reverse shot Because you're seeing him from behind And then you just see the world's most tired Looking puppet The whole cast is phenomenal Yes I agree Dakota Fanning is remarkable Terry Hatcher is incredible

[02:01:57] Hatcher is the one where you're like That's such a funny moment Where it's like oh she was sort of famous Because of Desperate Housewives again And it's like is that why she got the role And you're like oh do I take her seriously And she's so good

[02:02:11] She's so good It's this interesting thing with animation Because it takes so long Desperate Housewives is hot in 2004 That's when it's at its hottest Especially at big studio animation I think you see this a lot with Dreamworks Where they are very star driven

[02:02:27] And want to load up their cast Part of the casting process is trying to guess Who's going to be a big star in four years So Dreamworks will often cast A lot of comedy actors Who are popping in supporting roles Who they would predict maybe by the time

[02:02:41] This movie comes out they're like a bigger name There's this guessing game And when this movie gets announced And it's like the cast is Dakota Fanning, Terry Hatcher And the guy from the Apple commercials You're sort of like Are they going to have a film that comes out

[02:02:57] Four years from now and the entire cast is dated By the time this movie comes out It's the year after Dakota has done Secret Life of Bees She's sort of in her weird transitional period Terry Hatcher was cast when Desperate Housewives was at its peak

[02:03:11] By the time this movie comes out Yeah but it's no longer cultural juggernaut Right? I think the Matt Campaign is like wrapping up at this point In time. It is this thing And then it's like everyone Is fucking phenomenal Deadwood was cancelled

[02:03:27] Deadwood was cancelled, yes everyone was like Cast at a peak point Going against what they would tell you to do And you're like is this going to be like Damaged Stars And everyone's fucking great in it It's great, I think Hodgman's performance is so good

[02:03:41] It's kind of key to the whole movie Because I think And Terry Hatcher as well, I think both of them They ground the film So much because They are the script Of the parents is mean The parents are kind of mean

[02:03:57] Which again, the book they're not as mean In the movie they're mean They're distracted 2000s people You know what I mean? But they're also pretty dismissive of Coraline in a way and like you know It puts you in Coraline's headspace where you're like

[02:04:09] Maybe I would want to be away from But I think Terry Hatcher and John Hodgman Both do such an amazing job Of grounding those characters To something that still feels Like there's love And John Hodgman especially Distracted and overworked And like their kid is like

[02:04:27] You know, pay attention to me And they're like oh my god The way I was explaining it to Nellie is it feels like it's a Wednesday It feels like it's the middle of the week Jesus Coraline we're moving Can't you fucking spend 45 minutes Just hanging out By yourself?

[02:04:43] Just the relief I felt when they cut to his face And then Hodgman's voice comes out of the puppet And everyone in the audience, every adult laughs Like a real laugh Not like a one-liner laugh But this laugh of recognition of I know exactly who this guy is

[02:04:57] And I know exactly how he feels right now And I think every adult relates in a different way To a kid who's just like oh right This is when my parents depress me or bum me out Or bore me And I think it's such good casting

[02:05:09] And I think Hodgman and Terry Hatcher do such a good job And John Hodgman He brings this life You care for the father In a way that is really particular He's goofy and boring And all of these things together There's this lightness to him

[02:05:25] It's funny because he's someone too who Again, you're like oh the guy from the Mac commercials But I think anytime I've seen him being given a Role that has A there there to it Like I really liked him in Mozart in the Jungle

[02:05:39] And his little side thing there Hodgman's a great actor He's one of those guys where I'm like I'd love to see him in more stuff He can really, really, really bring He's very self-deprecating about his acting abilities I think he always says

[02:05:53] I don't really know what I'm doing and people pay me to do this And I'll show up and I'll do the one thing I can do But as someone who has worked with him He is an incredibly skilled actor His sort of self-effacing quality Is not put on

[02:06:05] Like on set he'd be like I don't know what I'm doing but you're a real actor And I'd be like you're fucking good, you know what you're doing He's a very, very skilled Performer but this is pretty Early in the run of people actually

[02:06:17] Giving him stuff to do We talked about it in our fucking Evil Dead episode But he has such a bizarre path To becoming a performer And this is one of the first times that Someone's giving him real meat outside of Sort of just doing the Comedy persona

[02:06:33] And Terry Hatcher also Again I think it's such a nuanced performance And both of them My gosh, their other performances The alterations to their voice That they do I really think this is really good And Dakota Fanning is She is so young when she's doing this

[02:06:51] Yeah but she was one of those kid actors Who just had such crazy poise I think usually It's the thing with her She's like a 37 year old In this movie she feels like such an 11 year old Right, she feels absolutely Like a kid with some tooth

[02:07:07] This is just such a relatable kid She's an uptown girl one could call her She is She was in a movie called Uptown Girl That's true That's true about her She was living in a downtown world Call over line But yeah it's funny because this is

[02:07:25] I mean this is the same year as New Moon Yeah, wild Which she's probably like 18 at the point That it's coming out It takes so long that she's been working on this for years You know She has a whole god damn career

[02:07:39] She gets cast when she's 11 and comes out when she's 15 Probably Okay so we meet Wybie He shows up on a dirt bike Wyborn, his name is Wyborn Kind of mean name It's mean and she immediately Like fucking finds the bruise Why were you born? Bitch

[02:07:59] That was a weird line that Sally put in there It does feel like classic 10-11 year old thing That kind of like Well boys and girls are at war with each other We need to kind of be like Ribbing each other at all times Because we're enemies

[02:08:13] In the great battle of childhood Coraline is so bored and she's so annoyed that she's bored That she moved to this shitty town That her friends aren't there That her parents aren't paying attention to her And then when Coraline shows up she's like Hey fuck you

[02:08:27] I'm not interested I have friends, they're not here And so I don't need you And also Wybie is annoying Like I love him But he does kind of have that vibe of like I don't know I was just hanging out No you're not, you're wannabe friends

[02:08:43] He's too vulnerable It's like Wyborn It's tough that he's called Wyborn He's very cute Jaboukie Youngwhite The great comedian One of the great tweeters of all time Yes, one of his Least antagonistic tweets of all time He tweeted I don't think that

[02:09:03] Animated movies should be remade in live action Except I should play Wyborn Yes, and now whenever I watch the movie I'm just like fuck yeah I want to make a point Never ever remake Coraline It is funny how much he looks like this character

[02:09:17] They should remake Coraline in live action Did you name wise? I've mentioned Sava Dimms Which someone hit me with when I was 11 I've talked about this on the podcast I went through my entire childhood And I certainly got picked on You had to have been picked on

[02:09:33] Yes, obviously No one ever fucking cracked Sniffin' Poomin' Which was right there I identified it at like 19 Literally, you know, Sniffin' Poomin' It feels just a little too clever No one ever threw that at me I feel like you were dishing them out Definitely

[02:09:53] I got a lot of like Davy Crockett That was just still a thing you would call any David Back when Davy Crockett Yeah, anyway, Wyborn He's fun And he has found a little Doll, rag doll That looks like Coraline So he gives it to her

[02:10:13] It's sort of the only interesting thing that's happened to her I do like that the dad's She's like dolls Sure, she's getting a little old for dolls But I do like that the dad is like I don't know, go count the windows

[02:10:25] Come on guy, that's going to take her like two minutes Although there are a lot of windows In the pink palace Yeah, they include it in the movie But the book it's also Make a list of everything that's blue Which I love Yeah, that is fun

[02:10:41] It's just when the dad says windows Like man, you moved here without a plan You have an only child, you're moving to this place And all you've got for her is windows Maybe buy her a Super Nintendo I have to Imagine if that's the movie

[02:10:55] She just plays Super Nintendo for an hour and a half I have to just read this quickly Because recently A fit of insomnia, whatever I was texting you throughout this I decided one night in a fit of mania To Create a master list of every

[02:11:11] Video game, tie in video game For a movie we've covered on this podcast And this does have a tie in video game This does, I was looking to see Because I was like I got a DS recently I've been playing DS games which I missed that whole Era

[02:11:27] And I was like is the Coraline DS game worth playing And I looked up the AV club review And I just want to read the opening paragraph of this Because it's exactly what we just talked about When Coraline's father tells her to Count everything blue in the house

[02:11:39] Viewers of the stop motion movie Coraline Can clearly feel the pain of being a bored Neglected child, but when you're asked To perform the same time wasting task As part of the Coraline game You have to wonder whether You have better things to do That's savage

[02:11:55] Then you go to the other world which is playing A different game This film does end in a Video game fans call a fetch quest Where she has to go find the hidden items And that's how she's going to defeat the big boss The final boss

[02:12:09] So I can see someone watching this And being like I feel like This could be a video game Congrats you got one There's three left This is the end basically of the era where If you're making an animated film and you don't have a tie in

[02:12:23] Video game you don't exist It is perfunctory, it is assigned to you no matter what Something has to come out And when I saw Coraline I was like I wish I could be counting the stuff that's blue This game just sounds like it's a series

[02:12:35] Of mini games and they're Mostly the games of when she's in the real world But I would yes if I'm the game designer There's a whole level where you're walking On that stick and you're trying to balance If I'm the Fucking game designer and someone's like

[02:12:51] Well she has to count the windows in the movie should we do That in the game I'd be like No we can skip that let's have something maybe she fights A monster or something cool I feel like that game designer has like ten IP

[02:13:01] Games he has to finish that week The reality of it She counts stuff great That's an hour Anyone else would just be like I don't know She has to pick up coins and break blocks who gives a shit I mean I've watched

[02:13:15] A big part of the movie is she goes around and collects coins I watched a YouTube of the game It actually looks alright not the DS version But like the Wii version or whatever And the whole voice cast did it which is You're walking around the house

[02:13:27] It's alright PS2, Wii and DS I'm still probably gonna fucking buy it It's not really playable That guy's fun I just want a fucking Bobinski Call of Duty game I want like Bobinski first person fighter It's Call of Duty but with his bare fists

[02:13:43] Like him training his mouse You know And you do a sequence game And then you get him to do a little dance If they did like an Elden Ring style game with Coraline Where you can just like explore the lands Between other That'd be good

[02:13:59] It's funny you mentioned that J.D. This is your first time recording in our new studio We have our offices here Blank Check Productions Yeah this is really nice I'm looking around and I'm seeing Did you clock this too? Walls, ceiling, floors We're talking about counting windows

[02:14:17] There's no windows in here But there's one, two, three I guess does that count? Yeah There's three in whatever this is It's a really nice space Well there's Look there's the front door to the hallway Of the building And then there's the door for our bathroom

[02:14:37] And then there's There is that weird What do you guys put in there? We didn't put anything in there It came with the space It was just kind of painted over I mean there is a key that they left for it For this little tiny door

[02:14:53] Yeah and you're pointing to it of course It's right there Anyway so Coraline is bored and she's like counting No no Wait JD what are you doing? Wait Okay you're turning the latch Oh yeah I'm over this Hi I didn't know I was going through the door

[02:15:13] Well of course You're clearly the one with the body built Passing through Crawling through a tiny passageway Why would I Build like a child Volunteer for this And the one who knows what's happening Through that door as well But okay No no no I'm going to do it

[02:15:37] Here I go JD what's going on in there? Hey JD What's up? Wow there's another There's another podcast studio in here Oh my god Are they recording? It seems like they are let me see if I can listen in Yeah let's not interfere I won't interfere

[02:16:05] But let's see if we can eavesdrop a little bit Is there like an other podcast guest? Yes Okay hold up your mic Yes I know you grew up in England We all know Okay so let's just do the bit What? No ding dong bell? No bit?

[02:16:23] I guess in this other world It's not a big deal and you're just allowed to Own your own childhood And no one makes a big joke out of it That's good for you Other David Oh and Other Griffin I was reading Other Deadline this morning

[02:16:37] Congratulations apparently on season 7 Of the Tick That's cool And I guess you're about to start filming draft day 9 The Chronicles of Rick I like this other place this is good But to answer your question So right you're absolutely right

[02:16:53] I'm going to start with my voice singing the Other Father song That is the voice of John Linnell Of They Might Be Giants Who wrote that song And what happened was the day before I went Into Laika to record The day before

[02:17:07] I had a call from the wonderful director Henry Selleck Asking me oh I forgot to ask Do you know how to do a Michigan accent Specifically an upper peninsula Michigan accent And also do you know how to sing And as for the first part

[02:17:19] I was like I have no idea what you're talking about No and as for the second part singing I was like sort of And it was very nice And he let me sing the song and we recorded it And I did my best but

[02:17:31] It did not surprise me at all When I saw the movie in the theater That I did not hear my voice and instead heard John Linnell's voice And it did not bother me Because you know It sounded better it's his song

[02:17:45] And John Linnell and John Flansburg are both My heroes and I thought it was An honor to share a stop motion doll body With They Might Be Giants for However long that song was But you know I do sing the song Quite a bit in the shower

[02:18:01] Trying to get it right finally I guess And we're here in this kind of Alternate other Universe that you call it so Would it make any sense for me to sing My other version The other version Of the song from the other father Would that be cool

[02:18:19] I'll take your eerie Unblinking silence as a yes Okay One and a two and you know what to do Making up a song about Coraline She's a peach, she's a doll, she's a friend Of mine She's as cute as a button in the eyes of

[02:18:41] Anyone who ever laid eyes on Coraline When she comes around exploring Mom and I will never ever make it boring Our eyes will be on Coraline Fart I said fart At the end there to indicate that this Was clearly parody and therefore fair use

[02:19:01] So you can't be sued So wow That felt great I tried to put a little other father spin on it There I don't know, you know, John Lennell's amazing But that felt good to me I'm glad that dream come true I like this place

[02:19:19] I'm glad I found that little Weird door Hidden behind those stacks Of author's copies of Vacationland And Medallion Status available in paperback And crawled through it here Maybe I should stay here What do you think You all seem to be nodding silently

[02:19:37] Hey, um, Father Ben, why are you coming at my face now With that huge needle And that very unsanitary looking thread What is it, buttons? Buttons for eyes? Uh, no thank you No, I mean it, no please no Ow, ow, ow Ow Ow Ow Take down Ow

[02:20:03] Take down Ow Alright so we're ten minutes in She pretty quickly discovers this door Very early in the film which I like I'm back, right? Yeah, you're canonically back Well the mouse leads it to her And she meets Peeling a wallpaper

[02:20:26] And she finds the little door, she cracks it open The tunnel unfurls And the language of cinema has changed forever Yes The next thing That I want to point out, number one I love the other performances John Hodgman has this sort of like southern draw

[02:20:42] Ooo, I can't really do it Yeah, corolla It's a funny You're sort of like how are they going to make this guy fun Right? Like with the mom you get it That she's nurturing and she's attentive She's making her kid food, it's all this stuff

[02:20:56] Because like whatever, you can tell that the mom in the real world Is like can we just order takeout I'm busy, I'm distracted What's that language like for two people who write about plants all day You sure hate dirt? Like it's this thing of like

[02:21:06] What you do is boring and you don't even Like it when it's disturbing You're a kid of like this is it Anyway, but Hodgman Like his other version Is this kind of like How do you describe it? Like loopy sort of showman But it is this weird

[02:21:22] Sort of swinger dad I love this Bing Crosby energy Yeah, but he's not like some cool sunglasses wearing No, but it's like smoking jacket Hot dad He reminds me of the dad Like you go to a friend's house and it's the dad

[02:21:36] Who you're like, ooo that dad's fun He's got this incredible piano With giant mechanical hands Which is very cool What's better than a white glove puppet hand thing So this is A song about how great his daughter is How cool she is, she's a pal of his

[02:21:52] Nice of him Let's talk about this for a second The one place where it is not our friend John Hodgman It is instead John Linnell John Linnell of They Might Be Giants Flansburg and Linnell Made I believe like 12 songs

[02:22:08] Yes, this at one point was going to be a full on musical Which is interesting because There is a Coraline stage musical That I believe premieres in New York City The same year as this Like they're two Coraline musicals That are completely separate going on

[02:22:22] But this was going to be a Yes, a full like 12 song musical And I think it is such a shame that That full They Might Be Giants Version of the music for this Never saw the light of day Is this the only thing left over?

[02:22:36] Is this one song? You have the song that the French and Saunders did Did they not do that song? No, I think this is it There's the one other musical number in the movie When she sees them perform Sure What is that? That's Nelly Jean

[02:22:54] What's the song called? Because the only thing John Linnell wrote Is the Other Father song Which he performs So there's a whole They Might Be Giants Like this was like a They Might Be Giants Songs throughout Yes They wrote 10 songs We need those songs

[02:23:14] I think it's released as a fucking album It's been over a decade It makes sense that he was like This movie is melancholy I want this coral score and all that It makes total And this is a movie about a lonely girl It fits that vibe

[02:23:30] I'd like to hear the music If they just happen to show up online somewhere Because I'm sure they're owned by Whoever I don't know That shit always comes down to how contracts work I would love if that snuck out into the world

[02:23:46] Wouldn't that be so fun to get Does Chilly T own that album now? He might actually He just privately records over it Can I just read a quick quote here From Selick That is It's from Portland Monthly An article called Hollywood Nights From February 2009 talking about the

[02:24:08] Inception of Laika And Selick's talking about How much they supported him and his vision And he says Coraline was a huge risk but these days In animation the safest bet is to take a risk That's nice Isn't that nice

[02:24:24] It is the kind of thing Henry Selick would say when he's trying to get you to fund his movie I've thought about it And this is actually the safest move for you Here's how I would describe Other Father

[02:24:32] He's the kind of dad who listens to They Might Be Giants Yes It's a perfect fit Perfect for a pre-teen kid Like a teenage kid might think Oh dad you're being You're being all showy and silly What does she want out of her dad? Attention

[02:24:48] She wants attention out of her parents When she first goes into her dad's office He's on the computer he doesn't even fucking turn around He's on the computer his eyes are fixed to the screen He's mopey he's depressed he's got bad posture

[02:24:58] You know his skin is like fucking melting off his face This dad turns around immediately He fucking sings about how cool she is You know He makes her feel special I will say one of my favorite lines Is uh

[02:25:12] She meets her other parents who then create this huge dinner for her And it's raining They got button eyes They do have button eyes but they also have mango Like smoothies or whatever for her But I love that the first thing they offer to her

[02:25:24] Is they're like let's go play tag outside in the rain Yes Her parents are like ooh let's go play tag in the rain Which is like I think that's such a wonderful little detail Of like To a kid

[02:25:36] Their dream is that their parents want to go play tag Even though it's raining outside Because when you're a kid it's like can I do this And they're like no why not Because it's raining because that's dangerous You know like it's all the Because it's dinner time

[02:25:50] Because it's illegal Because you can't push me down Benjamin that's not nice Like it's like when my daughter's like I want that knife and I'm like you can't have the knife You're a toddler Understandably it's like I want the knife There's no good reason for this

[02:26:08] You said yes to me for most of the things in my life I wish to walk around the house Knife was her first word right Knife knife That would be disturbing One of my favorite lines of John Hodgkin's Is he goes we love mud here Like other fathers

[02:26:24] Like we love mud As if it's like that's like we love mud in this world Hell yeah Obviously also her neighbors Are more fun in the Parallel world but I guess We don't really grapple with them until later So she goes to sleep right now

[02:26:40] Which by the way this is a moment where I had A very set select character She goes into her other bedroom And all the toys are alive There's the one octopus that goes What's shaking baby That's the most select character

[02:26:54] I think in every movie there's like some little Sort of like crass Side character It's the bone daddy centipede Saxophone player character Just a little character that says a little thing That you're like get out of here Someone who's like a 30s gangster

[02:27:10] I could tell though that something was off As soon as she goes to bed And they watch her sleep That ain't right I know it's supposed to be like oh isn't that sweet They're being so nurturing There is something not right about that

[02:27:24] You don't like your toys watching you My parents would button eyes watch me That's another thing that's not right about them Is that they have buttons for eyes She's sort of skirting past that It's such a good like When you're someone like Gaiman

[02:27:38] Trying to write a modern day fairy tale Which is a hard task Because you have had centuries It's one of the oldest storytelling forms And one that really persists to this day Right Like the classic fairy tales Have a stickiness that a lot of other works

[02:27:54] From those eras do not And relevance in our current culture Hard to come up with a new concept That someone has not already tapped into Because they sort of so thoroughly mind The primal fears and desires Of a child you know Button eyes is such a fucking

[02:28:10] Good idea There's something so upsetting about it Yeah And the notion of the stitching Needles You know something that looks close enough To an eye but is dead Yeah And feels upsetting to think about being actually Permanently affixed to your face

[02:28:30] And when they introduce those to her later It's like one of the scariest lines When other fathers like Needles show so sharp you won't feel it I also like black is customary But then they're like but you know You can have another color if you want

[02:28:44] That makes it better So she wakes up in real life She's getting a taste of it Like this is how the other mother is getting her Just give you a little bit Which you know most of these Wizard of Oz type stories

[02:28:56] We talk about once they go into the place They stay there Maybe they jump out one time There's something interesting about the fact That this is really about her maintaining A good chunk of the running time But when she goes back the second time

[02:29:10] She meets other YB who is mute Right We also meet Bobinski When she wakes up she meets Bobinski Real Bobinski His animation is stellar I was going to say it's an example of You're introduced to him what Hanging upside down on his hands

[02:29:28] Flexing and he's the guy where I'm like I can't wait to see how this fucking guy moves He's like Jack Skellington with a big old beer belly With a mirror on his legs He's like a Little ball of Mashed potatoes with toothpicks Sticking out

[02:29:44] He has a line that I love Which is again in the book as well It's like the moment that's chilling Where he's like He comes back and he's like oh the mice want me to tell you Don't go inside that little door

[02:29:56] She's getting warnings of like don't do this And you're like oh Bobinski is sort of this guy That's a little out there And the mice are like telling her things that Are real Then you're like oh whoa He's fucking the only adult paying attention On the wavelength

[02:30:12] He's like who knows what it means then Sure but Spink and Forcible The ladies who I love as well They're more like they do have insight But it's like they don't even know They're like And then they give her a peep stone later

[02:30:26] You know where they're like they actually are smart But they're so dotty They're so obsessed with their past It's about I mean it's why Coraline fantasizes About them being able to fucking unwrap And reveal Also Spink's cheeks So Spink is the short one With the cheeks that wobble

[02:30:44] It's just such good animation I love her dogs Forcible how would you describe Forcible I would say What on her is notable and moves a lot What feels like it was definitely Designed Forcibly like almost the most protruding Element yes Forcible is

[02:31:02] Stacked I'm looking down at my notes It says the titties Question mark? Tickle bitties And she also has It's bonkers that this is the design It's such a funny design though I think it's so funny For a kids movie though I mean I know

[02:31:16] This is of a certain age Well that's interesting I wonder what they were like Wild yeah I'm sure But like is it like they're burlesque Performers is this like A little not appropriate I think the best kids movie Is kind of like on that edge

[02:31:34] I think it's a thing we've lost I don't know how I feel about this to be honest It's that thing when you're a kid where you really Zero in on someone's like Some physical attribute Of an adult in a way that's inappropriate

[02:31:46] And like how kids will be like Pointing something out That they shouldn't you know You're missing a leg You have one eye that you're not supposed to talk about You can't get past the cheeks and the boobs Yes so like everyone in this movie But the same

[02:32:02] Bobinski he's got the giant belly and everything else The dogs are so great too The idea of knitting the angel wings For the dog that's still alive because she's just like Well he's gonna die There's a thing to creating models of characters That defy physics

[02:32:16] When things are hand drawn or CGI You don't think about it as much because it's not an Actual weighted object existing In the world but when you look at these dogs And you're like they could not stand up The disproportionate relationship Of their head and their

[02:32:30] Jowls to the rest of their bodies Yeah forceful being a wheelchair Yes. Should not be okay Yes. No I think she'll be fine What do you mean totally normal That's all cool And then she goes back to the other world She meets YB again who is mute

[02:32:46] She meets The cat The cat's been walking around I know but he speaks to her I believe And it's the same cat He is moving between the worlds This is not an other cat He's the one who sees it Only in the other world can he speak

[02:33:04] With the beautiful sonorous tones of Keith David Always a good Yes great conversation So we go to the other world And that's when we have The garden sequence Which the garden sequence is One of the great animated Sequences The reveal of the garden

[02:33:24] In the shape of her face Can I say that I think the mouse Sequence is even better Yes because that's the one where I'm like Good lord how much Effort did this take There's a reason they make that sort of pull back

[02:33:38] The curtain thing at the end of the credits Because it looks like a fucking zoetrope And in 3D Synchronization of it and all that 3D the garden is Incredible because you're seeing All of these things moving In 2D it's good But in 3D it was

[02:33:56] I remember just feeling like A pure dreamlike happiness In the theater being like this is what it feels like To be Within joy It's another thing too where Selick understands The most effective way to use 3D Is to know when to withhold it

[02:34:12] So like making the opening more flat And really really call your attention to it When she goes into the other world And similarly that sequence you haven't had a lot of things Protruding out at you I just remember there's sort of the perspective

[02:34:24] Shift as you go to the overhead Shot but also while that's happening All the sort of flora starts Acting up it's all moving and sprouting It does the nightmare unfurling moment Where you're like oh right Incredible like stunning Gaspy stuff They also establish in a very funny way

[02:34:42] The big robotic grasshopper that the dad drives And you're like well this won't turn evil later for sure But it's also so funny because it's like What do my parents do? They're like concerned with like agriculture You know But in the world's most boring way

[02:34:58] They don't even like dirt They just look at computer screens And write shit all day And it's like if my parents are going to have a job Like this I want them to be writing a giant mechanical Praying mantis grasshopper Like digging around

[02:35:14] Making a flower bed in the shape of my face Exactly We also have dinner where We get another great John Hatcher line I love dinner breakfast food I mean a classic kid fantasy Or it's sometimes a reality But what does a kid love more than breakfast or dinner

[02:35:30] Right? Exactly Reese's for breakfast I would say maybe Other Wybie and Other Bobinski I love when with Other Bobinski Is where we see all these again very Henry Selleck Little machines That have the like There's a bunch of that It reminds me of all the Christmas Town stuff

[02:35:52] Yes where they're all sort of clockwork There's little clockwork machines that like Cotton candy comes out and all this stuff And then yes the mouse circus Which I mean what a Feat of stop motion It's hundreds of characters

[02:36:06] And it's like am I ever going to get this budget again Is the studio going to shut down after one movie They had to individually 3D print Every one of those frames How do you make them jump That must be annoying They put I mean you CGI out

[02:36:20] The like metal But it's absolutely insane That's cheating F They cheated You gotta make it jump itself All of your Atlantic reviews have gotten very weird Cheating My review just stops Wait a second The filmmakers clearly thought I wouldn't recognize This man as Mr. Tom Hanks

[02:36:46] From previous films It's not Otto at all You're reviewing movies now like you're Mystery Inc So on her third visit is obviously When it turns malevolent When they're like you know you can stay here forever I also we have the moment Where we go into real life town

[02:37:06] That I really like because we get against Very celic characters He always has to have street musicians at some point He also a very celic thing Is the weird stop motion Character that crosses in front of Like there's a lady That like waddles across And I'm like that's

[02:37:24] Every Henry Slade movie has some weird Waddling foreground character That it's like they're just like to some animator And I'm like I don't know make this fun For three seconds Which I absolutely love Breaking animation news Miyazaki's new film is basically done Wow It will probably come out

[02:37:44] Next year hopefully At least maybe in Japan Apparently it took them one minute per month Of animation is what they say So anyway What else happens That's when things turn sour Then she goes back that's when she meets the cat

[02:38:00] That's when we get the forceful and spink performance Yeah Doesn't she get trapped in the mirror In between those two That's when she meets the ghost Yes And they are like the rag doll Yes It's after the dinner for breakfast I think I mean look it doesn't matter

[02:38:20] It's fine But these This character does not exist Solely in relation to her This is the bell dam It's bell dam she's the bell dam But she is trapped in sneered children before This is what she sort of preys upon Is the lack of fulfillment in children's lives

[02:38:38] Assuming the role of the parent they wish they had Until she lures them in and out They're these three ghost children So Caroline is going to be trapped She knows and then her parents get kidnapped Her parents are gone And she escapes from the mirror world Yes

[02:38:54] And so that's when she proposes The game of like let me try We also see this forcible and spink performance Yes Which is very very unnerving and cool And that's the moment when it's like Them unzipping themselves is brilliant Caroline is like she's like naked practically Right

[02:39:12] That's like a line Caroline has That's another thing I remember getting like a huge cathartic laugh From all the grown ups in the audience When Caroline calls out like should we be seeing this Yeah I cannot believe they're putting boobs this big In an animated film in 3D

[02:39:26] And then she comes out wearing pasties Is this for kids Yeah now she's like almost topless That's when you have the sequence Where they're pulling the levers and changing the sets Which is such incredible sort of like Once again just like 3D fucking show off shit

[02:39:42] Where you're like changing the It's so good Now I think this is a 5 star movie I love this movie I think it's the least interesting part Just because it feels like the movie is like okay There has to be

[02:39:56] She has to do this we're running out of time I agree with you I think they do it pretty quickly They do it quickly The thing I'll defend most about it is that You've at least set up within The movie This character becoming very skilled

[02:40:10] At creating games for herself In order to keep herself occupied The only child thing Where you're like this is the special skill Wax on wax off moment It's so crucial to kids stories That she's got a clever way out of it What is she specifically trained for

[02:40:26] That she never even realized is her greatest asset And I think It's the main thing Of the book So the book has a lot less plot stuff going on So when she's given the rock with the hole in it That's like what's that for

[02:40:40] And this fetch question is sort of like the only Thing And so I think it's harder In this one because there's other stuff going on So then you're like oh a new thing It's like fetch question They take care of it quickly because it needs to be done

[02:40:54] Which is fine I also love the moment of Coraline going around with the cat and realizing That the artifice of the environment The world is limited The way that's done The way that's all visualized There's so much in there That is so nuanced And I don't know

[02:41:14] If I could pick up on that But I think there's so much from that In so many different ways Different people can really read into that In different ways I think it's brilliant And I love that they use a lot of the illustrator Tadahiro Yusagi

[02:41:30] His style of those sort of like Viny kind of things It feels very of his style That when things start disappearing And turning away I like that aesthetic And the symmetrical design Which so much of animation is symmetrical Round, balanced Do we like the Other Mother's arachnid

[02:41:50] Monster form? Yeah, here's the thing I love about it Much like Miss Spider In James and the Giant Peach It turns you all the way on Step on me Spider Other Mother No what? J.D. Amato now has 50% stake in Blank Check Media No, I think

[02:42:10] Once again it's a Character design that allows Selick to strip Away the stop motion puppets To their essence A lot of this form of Other Mother Especially her hands and stuff Feels like he's actually just using The underlying armature of these puppets

[02:42:26] Especially when you've got her skeleton hand At the end there Pretty cool And her sort of fractured ceramic shattered face And even the sets start It's like The stop motion universe is becoming Unveiled to be a fake Stop motion universe Which is the story

[02:42:46] And going back to the opening of the film Where we're seeing, yes Yes, I also want to point out That Teri Hatcher followed this up with Great voice work in Planes and Planes Fire and Rescue What's the name of her character? Dottie I also like the big bug

[02:43:02] Armoire thing I also think that thing's cool That house becomes more insect Bug-like, yes I love a good fake out ending Yeah well of course, she does defeat the Beldam She rescues her parents She's back home And it feels genuine It does, and it is kind of genuine

[02:43:22] She mostly has accomplished her goal And I love them being covered in the snow Being like, what are you talking about? We just got home, nothing weird has happened And she's like, there's snow on you I know there's tangible proof that this really happened, it wasn't a dream

[02:43:32] I love that ending where you're like, I'm the only one who knows That something weird happened But there's the evidence, the physical evidence There's the little thing, whatever it is They're like, was it a dream? And then you open your hand and there's a magic coin in it

[02:43:44] And you're like, I guess not Which is the opposite of from Time Bandits to End Which is like the most like Remind me, I haven't seen Time Bandits You know what, J.D., I brought up The end of Time Bandits in the James and the Giant Peach episode

[02:43:56] I feel like that ending is very influential On Selick I came short of saying the ending Just because the ending is so insane That I don't want to ruin it Even for a 30 plus year old movie And also we have another episode to record

[02:44:10] So we don't need to talk about Time Bandits too much But I genuinely feel like Even for an old film What's this door? What's this T.B. door? Does it go to Tampa Bay? Sorry Oh, it's a call with a Star of Time Bandits

[02:44:28] Yes, the ghosts show up I do like that the ghosts are now happy little angels Not creepy ghosts And they're like, thanks for saving us But you do need to deal with her She's still a whole thing She's like, good, we're all safe

[02:44:42] And then everyone was like, eh Not really, we're okay Which I like When ghosts are like, yeah, we're good You're still You're in trouble There's only one key, you have it If you don't get it again, she will come for you again

[02:44:58] It makes death this sort of thing Where you're like, oh, that seems nice Well, you're still alive Best of luck But that's their thing too They're like, hey, the good news is You're still alive So that's great, you're not out of trouble But you're alive But she does

[02:45:18] Successfully fend off the hand And destroy the key with the help of good little Wybie On his motorcycle No mask Okay, here's my one I keep doing this What I like in the book Is that Coraline comes up with a plan To kill the hand And in here

[02:45:38] She seems like she's Doesn't really have a plan And it's like Wybie has this But she's had a lot of hero moments already But what I like in the book is she has this moment Of like, I'm gonna take this on myself

[02:45:50] I knew you were gonna say that You're inviting it by being like I know I keep talking about the book I feel like I'm usually that guy on the podcast So I'm enjoying not having David Raz me For comparing

[02:46:02] The book, it was all written down on a piece of paper And you didn't have any of that Alright, let's talk about 3D TV technology Oh, fuck no We're not doing that He's talked about his 3D TV quite a lot Over the years

[02:46:16] I think by he I mean Griff It's still the thing that is the biggest red flag About Griff He said he still has a 3D TV You mean like he invites a lady home And they see the 3D goggles But also when he's with his therapist

[02:46:30] And he's like, hey I think we've made a lot of progress Maybe we can And the therapist is like, tell me Do you still have your 3D TV And he's like, yeah And they're like, great I'll see you on Tuesday And actually the rate's going up

[02:46:44] You know what I like What? Thanks for asking Just that the final thing Is that nice little party And it's that Coraline is like Invite everyone Because even though they're weird I want to see them One of the things that is nice About the way the character changes

[02:47:06] She starts out the movie being like This town fucking sucks I keep on looking at this photo of my two best friends Who I can't see anymore Whenever they come to life And she's like, I'm so fucking bored And lonely

[02:47:20] And it's like, Coraline, you've moved into the world's weirdest neighborhood Everyone in your immediate vicinity Is fascinating And she's like, fuck off And by the end she realizes Like, oh I'm like lucky that I get to Have this odd childhood Surrounded by the world's most bizarre grownups

[02:47:36] Well I think that's a thing too Is that obviously this story Fucking bring Babinski over In its form the base of the story Is about an internal Change, right? But what I like about the ending, especially here in the movie At the end

[02:47:52] Is that when you bring those characters in It also makes her change external So she's also come to realize That all these people Who she thinks are like boring or weird Or whatever Actually probably have these rich inner lives And rich pasts to them Like, you know

[02:48:10] She hasn't changed them on a superficial level But she's like, I'm gonna find out who they are Right, like, she now sees Babinski as this person That might be teaching these mice to do these amazing things Or the spink and forcible Or these crazy old performers

[02:48:22] Like, they're not just old people anymore And I love an ending You know, I love Labyrinth is like my favorite ending Where it's like, oh all the characters come back And have a party at the end Just to have the characters be like

[02:48:34] Great, we made it to the end of the movie, let's have a party Like, it's such a nice run Every movie should end that way You can't name a movie that I don't think would be better Would be worse

[02:48:44] If all the characters at the end came together and had a party All of them come together I was gonna say there will be blood Yeah, exactly, just some of your everyone's dead There will be blood, it'll be fun Let's party! And I've got milkshakes for everyone

[02:48:58] That'd be good Rodney Dangerfield pulls the cover off the golf bag And reveals a stereo system Why didn't you say so? Somebody's getting laid tonight Wait, why is he shotgun? He's Daniel Plainfield Trying to do Daniel Plainfield, I don't know

[02:49:14] Uh, yeah, you know what else more movies should do? They should have 26 individual posters For every letter of the alphabet Heard a character poster Did you ever hear of letter posters? They got one for every one Every letter, some of them are stretches

[02:49:28] My child's bedroom will have every one of those posters on it Focus Features releases this film Zeefer Zanzibar Chocolate Beatles Look, they had to really stretch for some of these It's an independent animation studio Why is Four Yum? Because she eats food?

[02:49:40] Potentially the future of this entire medium Rests on the success of this movie Not, you know, to mention the success Of this man being able to make another film ever again This director And Focus is releasing it Not even Big Universal

[02:49:54] So it's a specialty independent arm of a studio Releasing a kids' movie in the winter They had to get very creative In how they marketed this movie And I think that's a good thing They had to get very creative in how they marketed this movie

[02:50:06] Well, why don't we play the box office game Where we can talk about what a success that was Look, success is not Ultimately defined solely through box office No For someone who's obsessed with the box office Of course not I've certainly come around to the victories

[02:50:22] If the movie exists out in the world And if they got away with it They somehow got the money to make their vision Right, right, right And we're better for it culturally I mean, this movie opening weekend And having it play well with an audience

[02:50:36] That was sold out Doing well the first weekend And then fucking multiplying well It dropped 12% in its second weekend It had very good staying power You're like, this keeps Leica in business for 20 years This gives CELIC another movie Even if it took fucking 13 years to make

[02:50:52] Like, it just, net positive for the culture That this movie was successful And as long as Michael Jordan brand is still pumping out the dollars We're not worried about that box office This also is like so against The trends of animation at the time

[02:51:04] Like, I really think I was worried It was going to be seen as dorky or quaint We have talked about though How, we've mentioned how like The five Oscar nominees this year Are up, which wins Best picture nominee as well Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox

[02:51:20] Princess and the Frog and Secret of Kells It's this like great Looks like you just got disturbance in the force Both Ponyo and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Don't make it in Is this one of the best animation I think it is

[02:51:34] Every other lineup has one stinker in it I would argue You usually look at any category Any animation Grouping from the Oscars Since they started And there's one movie where you're like They had to round out the three or the five

[02:51:50] Is there a year that has had more No, when you consider that the two things Fucking left off the list are Cloudy And Ponyo I would have Ponyo in there and I would probably kick out Up I would too, people think we're fucking

[02:52:04] Mood to up but we all have the same opinion Which is like, it's better than most movies And not as good as most Pixar movies And Cloudy is a very cute movie Is there an animation year That has Fantastic Mr. Fox I don't know, I mean probably not

[02:52:18] It's hard to, Coraline No I bet two stop motion features came out In the same year Yeah, it's very cool And from like different studios There's a diversity in every sense It's a great lineup And this film made $75 million domestically And $126 million worldwide Very, very robust numbers Yes

[02:52:42] It opened, however I will say also, I looked when it came out on DVD And that DVD was a red and blue Later they packaged this disc And they put it in a frame with 3D TVs To incentivize people to buy it

[02:52:56] I have the one with the 3D glasses The red and blue one First week it did $20 million in DVD sales It's a thing that CELIC always talks about Where they cap stop motion budgets They'll never give them the same amount of money That they do CGI films

[02:53:10] Or even hand drawn films And there's sort of a ceiling to how they can perform At the box office but they linger for a long time And I think Coraline has been a really consistent Performer You can see merch Constant Blu-ray releases It's a highly profitable film

[02:53:28] That has kept Laika in business But it opens number 3 at the box office With $16 million Behind, well, number 1 is a new entry It's a comedy An ensemble comedy February 2009 Yeah, it's sort of Valentine's themed Is it Valentine's Day? No Number 1 At the box office

[02:53:54] It's new this week, $27 million opening It's based on a book That's based On a phrase He's just not that into you This is going to be the one box office game Where I feel like I have a shot Yeah, sure, sure Did you see Ken Quapis' Quapis?

[02:54:14] Ken Quapis' I don't think I did There's that section This is the episode where Ron Livingston I think it's Miranda Oh, the guy, he won't call me back, blah blah blah What's going on, what's the game He's just not that into you The mystic knowledge of men

[02:54:32] He hosted a daytime talk show Off of the success of that phrase That's what that's a deal breaker Is making fun of Bad movie In my opinion It's a whole thing of like, well maybe you like this storyline Better than that storyline Connelly's kind of great in it

[02:54:50] Sure, when is she bad? Never Jennifer Goodwin is sort of like the Soft star of it Sort of this moment of like Oh, is Jennifer Goodwin, she's on Big Love Is she about to be like America's next Rom-com sweetie pie

[02:55:04] And she gets caught up in Once Upon a Time for a decade What's this little door Justin Long adding another character To his stable of horror movie icons Yeah, honestly So that's number one at the box office Number two is an action film

[02:55:18] That came out last week and surprised By doing quite well Making 24 million dollars But perhaps even more surprising is that they're Sipping only 17% Now I know what it is For an action film A fairly like, junky, cheap action film That no one saw coming as a big hit

[02:55:36] And a franchise launcher I know you know what it is We talked about it many times On these box office games And its sequels Because it's an action movie that's being dumped Super Bowl weekend The worst weekend to release a movie for guys And it overperforms that weekend

[02:55:54] And then holds so strong the second weekend It becomes a phenomenon And launches a franchise It dropped 17% this weekend, it drops 8% the next weekend I'll say this, it becomes a franchise It fully mints this actor As an action star He was not prior, but he's older

[02:56:10] Already a major movie star A serious actor and he becomes a very unexpected Late in life action star Yes What is it? It's Taken Starring Mr. Liam Neeson Which has made 53 million dollars Oh my gosh It had been released in Europe like two years earlier

[02:56:28] Maybe not two years But had been released It was readily available online And people were like, Fox is dumping this, it's just gonna be nothing It exploded Number three at the box office is Coraline Number four at the box office Is also new, I would say an underperformer

[02:56:44] It is a comedy sequel To a comedy remake That was perhaps ill advised to begin with Okay And this is the sequel J.D.? Pink Panther Pink Panther 2 Really? Oh no? Good job Did you have a guess? I didn't yet

[02:57:02] I was gonna stew on it but I didn't have an immediate guess Harold's Walt I got one I've never seen The Pink Panther 2 Is Cleese in that one? Yes he is Cleese replaces Klein as Dreyfuss You've got Alfred Molina, Andy Garcia Emily Mortimer

[02:57:22] It looks like they bring in What's the Bollywood star? An Indian actress, yes She was supposed to be Everyone thought she was gonna be a huge crossover deal She's a gorgeous, charming star Do you know who was the female lead in the first Pink Panther remake?

[02:57:36] No one talks about this I talk about it daily Beyoncé's in it Right because that was the period of time Austin Powers, Funny Temptations, she was doing movies Isn't it so funny that Beyoncé was like Austin Powers, Pink Panther Like truly would not Obsessed

[02:57:54] She just did a bunch of movies, obsessed And now it's like you would never think of her Well now it's like you can't even do an interview with her She's this sort of Cleopatra level figure She made like several Mainstream hits That would feel beneath her now

[02:58:08] And then she did like two Oscar play movies Dreamgirls and Cadillac Records Cadillac Records which she's phenomenal in Her best performer And it now feels like she'll probably never do a movie again

[02:58:18] Or if she does, she'll do it in like 20 years and it'll be a big ass deal Wasn't she Nala? Yeah I mean Will she play a role on camera again? I don't know It's fascinating because it's also people would be like

[02:58:30] People love to put people in a box She does things like Lemonade which are sort of like Films in a way Like they're visual albums that are almost feature length And she's very you know She made more movies than Whitney Houston But she also never found her bodyguard

[02:58:44] Right And something like Dreamgirls maybe should have been that for her She's so overshadowed I would always argue that she was Like a very capable Star in these mediocre movies Yes and once again Phenomenal in Cadillac Records She's great in that

[02:59:02] But like in Austin Powers she's like quite charming She's like 20 in that movie 19? She's very funny in that movie In like Pink Panther I'm sure she gives subtle nuance for it Number 5 at the box office Another comedy This is back in the day when you know

[02:59:18] Fucking winter, crappy comedy central What if a guy had this job? What if this guy had this job? Oh it's Paul Blart Mall Cop Because January 2009 Paul Blart And Taken which are both sort of like dumps Yeah like who cares Not only become like huge fucking

[02:59:36] Like middle America Sensations But suddenly like I guess these are our two biggest movie stars Kevin James and Liam Neeson We have to build fucking franchises around these guys Henry Selleck also directed Paul Blart correct? He did It's a wild type two movies

[02:59:52] And then we have our first film here Which is Push Not based on the novel by Sapphire Push the sort of vaguely X-Men Kind of movie Which Dakota Fanning is in isn't she? Chris Evans This is right after or right before Jumper Jumper is 2008

[03:00:10] I remember there was a series of action films That were based on Like a one word Magic ability Right because I guess Maybe Chris Evans can push people Something like that I don't know Dakota Fanning, Camilla Bell, Jimon Hounsou Yeah Precious

[03:00:28] I guess right now the heroes in Push are called Pushers That's like their Designation Precious comes out this fall But it's playing at Sundance January 09 knowing that this movie Is coming out a couple weeks later And Lionsgate when they buy it Is like you gotta change the title

[03:00:46] Everyone is still gonna the memory Of Push Six months from now is gonna be overwhelming But yes so they renamed it Precious I think Ben is negotiating something with a pizza delivery Feels like this is a tense standoff Other films at the box office You got Slumdog Millionaire

[03:01:02] And it's sort of carrying on from its Best picture win You've got Gran Torino Which is sort of the big surprise You can't not do it I was gonna do it if you weren't gonna do it Gran Torino Why don't you come to your senses

[03:01:18] But that's the other one Fucking January Cause it goes wide in January Gran Torino taken Old men are seeing movies god damn it But that's the thing those three movies in January A dumping ground feels like Hollywood being like fuck are we not making movies

[03:01:34] To like 50 year old men in the midwest You've got the mostly forgotten The Uninvited The American remake of A Tale of Two Sisters Directed by The Gard Brothers Who I don't think ever made another movie On guard And then you have Look They said it couldn't be done

[03:01:56] They said they couldn't do it They said those dogs couldn't have a hotel But they do Ben's not here to see it Cause he's negotiating the release of our pepperoni So that's your top 10 In the Coraline week Coraline does very well Just to remind you famously

[03:02:14] A movie that made Ben cry Because he was so proud of them for pulling off that hotel David Just as a Film critic to Atlantic The hotel Is it for dogs Or run by dogs You're asking me You're asking me that As a film critic for the Atlantic

[03:02:36] Yes you have a Extrasensory ability to perceive Process film Whether they tricked you This hotel isn't for dogs at all It's just for people and there are dogs in it F. Cheat Ben, hotel for dogs A plus Is it for dogs Or dogs operate it Both man

[03:03:00] The humans work there What's this little door You know what What is that little door Come on, come on, finish your bit What's in the door Let's see You might not come out for another two years Where's J.D. Went into the dog door

[03:03:22] He was looking for a hotel Interview with CGI dog Can I say two things quickly You can One, additional micro merchandise spotlight A cool thing about the Laika movies Being funded by Phil Knight Is that they always do Shoes to tie into the movies I have this up

[03:03:44] Have you looked at what these David, google Coraline Nike Dunks They are so fucking cool Okay, here we go And for this one They're so fucking cool Oh my god, yes They're incredible They were so desperate to get attention For this movie knowing that they didn't have

[03:04:04] The marketing budgets to compare with Major studio animated releases That these basically were only sent out To press to try to garner goodwill for the movie And they go for thousands Upon thousands of dollars

[03:04:16] It looks like in my size right now I'd have to pay six thousand dollars Do we think any NBA player ever Played a game in Coraline Dunks Now I'll say, the paranormal sneakers Look like something you could see on an NBA court

[03:04:28] Yes, that's what I was looking at They are my least favorite Those are also really Expensive The missing link and the box trolls One seem to still maybe be in circulation At reasonable prices Cool And the Kuba ones are really cool

[03:04:46] But I advise people to look into these Just to stare at them and imagine Having the disposable income To pay for these sneakers You'd like to stare into the void of capitalism And have it stare back They're nice looking sneakers What's the shoe called in Elizabeth Towne

[03:05:02] Oh, fuck, I don't know, look it up Um Annie Awards Spice Monica Oh, well done I've been doing little Annie Award check-ins On these episodes Because it's relevant, right Sure We didn't do it on the Nightmare episode But, or we did

[03:05:24] No, no, we did on the James the Giant Peach episode Sure And the only other film nominee Is Batman Mask of Phantasm Pretty decent Three nominees Agreed It goes to show how much more limited In 2009, the lineup is the same As the Oscars, but they just added

[03:05:44] Cloudy with a Chance at Meatballs Good Where's Ponyo though They put Miyazaki in for director Interesting That feels almost more insulting They have Best Achievement in Creative Supervision Which Selick wins Beating out people Like Bob Camp, creative director On Ren and Stimpy

[03:06:06] Bruce Timm, producer on Batman the Animated Series We need to be done I know, this is the final fucking thing I'm saying You're doing the Nightmare on Elm Street category I was filling in a gap The voice performance category Which I'm always really interested by

[03:06:20] Right, to be clear, it lost to Up at the Annie Yeah, Up fucking won everything Up was a big deal Voice acting, Jennifer Cody wins for Princess and the Frog Which is a surprising winner She plays the rival girl Yeah, that is weird Yes, a good performance

[03:06:36] Jennifer Lewence is also nominated for Princess and the Frog Which I feel makes a lot more sense as a winner They nominate one cast member from Coraline Dawn French Kind of a weird choice to Spotlight her over Saunders Right

[03:06:50] But also, that's not the one I would pick out of I would, I think Fanning's performance Is incredible, but then yes, I would pick Terry Hatcher or John Hodge for it Fanning, David Hatcher all feel like more obvious nominations Or you nominate French and Saunders together

[03:07:02] Keith David, God bless him, you can't nominate him Because then you're just nominating him every year for anything he ever did Do it! Give him an honorary spot Yeah, the other nominees were Hugh Laurie for Monsters vs. Aliens And Leguizamo for Ice Age I want to say three

[03:07:16] Four, I think Dawn of the Dinosaurs Pete Docter wins for Up But Miyazaki gets the nomination there Bombeck and Wes Anderson win Screenplay Yeah, and Coraline not even nominated Which is stupid But it does win Best Music For that nice score And it wins for Character Design

[03:07:36] So that's nice That's nice What's in this door? Oh, it's all the different types Of 3D televisions we can talk about Let's run through it Alright, come on, done We gotta record another episode It was so fun It's good to be back

[03:07:56] Hey, this might be one of the longest ones too Really? I mean, because you had the Hodgman You had the ads Hodgman's gonna do a type 45 You better not stretch him out Alright, we're done Now I'm freaking out because we have to do ads

[03:08:12] Thank you all for listening Please remember to rate, review and subscribe Thank you to Marie Barty For our social media and helping to produce The show, thank you to AJ McKee And Alex Barron for our editing Pat Reynolds, Joe Bone for our artwork

[03:08:26] Leigh Montgomery and the Great American Aul for our theme song JJ Birch for our research You can go to BlankCheckPod.com For some real nerdy shit I think JD's responding to the fact that I now have to close my eyes When I'm doing the fucking rundown

[03:08:38] To make sure I get all the names right Like I'm summoning some fucking Truly it becomes a stressful Point in my life BlankCheckPod Links to some real nerdy shit including BlankCheck Patreon, where a month ago We will have done Talking the Walk Talking the Moonwalk with JD

[03:08:56] Which we are recording about 30 minutes from now But right now on the main On the Patreon we're in the middle of Cotsy, we're in Cotsy town We're doing the Cotsy trilogy Wow That's great, that's a great That's awesome

[03:09:12] We think it's a good idea, it's a good way to start off the new year That's what I'm saying, it's on the record It's on the fucking record Also the films that I think the most should be using The Billy Lynn technology Yes, absolutely, great argument

[03:09:24] Tune in next week For Wendell and Wilde Uh, yeah Selk's newest film Which will be a couple months out For now, don't wish any ill upon him I just mean the end of the miniseries The end of this brief little miniseries But we'll see what we're doing next

[03:09:42] And as always What's that door over there? David, why don't you go through this one David, why don't you go through this door Yeah, I'm gonna go through this door And never come back What's on the other side? Looks like our lunch