Darkman with Chris Weitz

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check I'm everyone and no one. Everywhere. Nowhere. Call me... Podcast Man!

[00:00:30] So, also the last line of the movie? Last line. I did... Okay. An episode that won't come out for a couple weeks. Don't want to spoil, but yeah, you pulled this trick again with a future ep. Now here's the reason why. It's a good line.

[00:00:41] It's a good line. It's also not my favorite line in the movie. Is that my favorite line on this quotes page? The other ones I can't... I'm gonna say this. I've never said this before. I could not possibly disrupt the sanctity, the perfection of a line.

[00:00:56] Such as? A line like? Take the fucking elephant! Yeah, it's a good line. Right. Or, I'm sorry, what's the other one here? What is it? Maybe I should be wearing a silly little hat! That hat rules. I took note and I was like, tin hat rusted good.

[00:01:13] It's just a funnel. He's wearing a funnel like the fucking tin hat. Yeah, I know. Yeah, Ben, I mean, I feel like this is gonna be a big part of this episode. I have to imagine you're whipping open the notebook

[00:01:24] and jotting down fashion ideas every scene of this. Ben, you've never seen this film. No, I can't believe it. We've been hyping it up too. Because it's extremely my shit! We've been hyping Parking lot. I just feel like that... A lot of rags, a lot of... That's true.

[00:01:36] A lot of wet rags and dirty clothes. Bandages. Old fucking 90s tech shit, you know? That's true. Weird wireframe car... Also, just good henchmen. Good! That's four days! Who are swagged out. Yeah, man. You said it right before we started recording, David.

[00:01:51] Lot of bad guys in this thing. And that sounds like a stupid statement, but then you watch the movie and you're like, this thing does. It is... It opens with bad guys. Yeah. It's like a sampler assortment of bad guys too, because they're all dressed a little differently.

[00:02:04] Yeah. Some of them have long hair. Some of them look like your typical European mercenaries in suits. Some of them are like bald, rough... Yes. ...ruffians. It's great. You have a man with a gun lag. Gun leg man. I want to talk about gun leg men later.

[00:02:19] Can I just speed around a couple more lines here? Sure. You have been a very bad boy. And as IMDb says, punching on each word in brackets. Right, right, right. But here's like a line that just speaks to, I think, the skill of this movie, right?

[00:02:36] And I will attribute this to Rami, to all his collaborators, and to Neeson knowing exactly how to thread the needle on this performance. A very specific, very difficult performance to execute properly within this movie. That this movie is able to properly sell what is it about the dark?

[00:02:53] What secret does it hold? Right. Yeah, you're totally right. You're absolutely right. At the same time, my question is, did it properly sell it, I guess, to a mass audience? I guess the movie did well. It did well. But were people walking out of that being like...

[00:03:05] Well, Durant was able to return a couple years later. Durant came back. Unfortunately. Unfortunately, Durant has returned. That's what I would love to know because I was too little to see this movie. Right. When I caught it years later, I feel like I'd probably already seen Spider-Man

[00:03:20] or at least the Evil Dead. Yeah. So I sort of knew like, yeah, I know what Sam Raimi's tale is. Right. But were people just like, Darkman, sure. Is he like Batman? Let's go see it. I think so. Going to see it and walking out and being like,

[00:03:32] I've never... That was crazy. Or were they just like, yeah, that was fun. Because it's just so tonally specific. And it's very tonally specific. But just think about it. I think this is so much of this movie's legacy. This is this weird post-Batman run of like,

[00:03:46] we want pulp heroes. Right? The radio hero. I was going to ask about that. This is post-Burton Batman. Yes. Oh, interesting. It's very obviously very Batman adjacent. It's like, how can we get Mig Batman without using the intellectual property? It's only a year later, right?

[00:04:00] Because this movie came out summer 90. Yeah. And the Burton comes out summer 89. Yes. But there is that weird feeding frenzy. I mean, I think Raimi wanted to do Batman, could never get close to it. And then wanting to do the Shadow

[00:04:12] is the big part of the origin of this movie. And met with them several times for that. And then our old friend Bobby Z. And made the right decision because the Shadow fucking ruled when they made it. Sure. Really? Are you a... I don't know.

[00:04:24] Actually, maybe it's my main one. Yeah, wait, Chris. I'm kind of joking, not joking. I don't know actually. I don't even know what I mean when I say that. I want to just jump in on your behalf and say,

[00:04:32] like, the Shadow, I've listened to it and it's like... Oh, you're saying you've listened to the OG Shadow? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That shit. Because my grandpa or like... I'm pretty sure my grandpa was like, you're going to love this. On the wireless?

[00:04:46] Your grandpa made you listen to the Shadow? We're astonished. I'm astonished that you have heard the original. Extensive memories of listening to countless episodes of the Shadow. Yeah, and I was like a kid with ADD and I just was like, what is this?

[00:05:01] This is like, I cannot sit still. So Batman, because it was so like Burton, doubled down on this sort of like 30s art deco, pulp hero radio serial kind of vibe to it. When that movie's successful, people aren't like more superheroes. They're like more things like this.

[00:05:18] So then it leads to Rocketeer, Dick Tracy, Shadow. And I think when you're talking about like, what was the audience response to this movie, David? Yeah. Those three movies were so hyped up, so much more expensive than this was. Yeah. And had bigger stars.

[00:05:32] And I think all three of them were viewed as... Disappointment. Serious disappointment. But of course, this movie probably made about as much as those movies did. Exactly. They all topped out around the same spot. The difference is this is the only one that exceeded expectations.

[00:05:46] Because it was made on a budget. Yeah. And this is a plucky little movie. Right? Yeah. Say again? This is a plucky movie. It is plucky. When I talk to you guys about, I try to finagle my way back into the main feed here. The door's always open.

[00:05:59] My friends, all you gotta do is ask. You were on the main feed last year. What did you do? You did Zemeckis. Allied. Allied. The great allied debate of 2021. Was that last? Or was that 2020? I can't remember anything anymore. That was 2021. Right? Jesus. I don't know. It was.

[00:06:16] It was. Don't tell. Yeah, it was. 2020. It was January 2021 though. So it's been more than a year since you've been on the main feed. Okay. I'm actually sorry for being dismissive. Back on the main feed. Back on the main feed.

[00:06:27] I was canceled into the Patreon for a while. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Look, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmography. It's directors who have massive success early on in their careers and sometimes...

[00:06:39] And are giving a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Wow. Almost lost the thread there. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they go into the darkness, baby. Very true. It's a miniseries on the films of Sam Raimi. Yep.

[00:06:53] It's called Podcast Me To Hell. Yeah. Today we're talking about his first studio film. For Universal Pictures. And his first superhero movie. Yeah. A thing that becomes a weirdly big part of his career. But an odd version of a superhero movie.

[00:07:06] But also, right, kind of also a Universal monster movie. Yeah, right. There are like five different interesting things in the soup with this movie. It's called Darkman. Yep. Wait, I just am realizing now. Is he considered close to the Dark Universe? He should have been leading it.

[00:07:22] This is the biggest problem. Is Universal should have said, obviously we have our classic stable of monsters. But let's officially induct Darkman. There's a new monster in town. Yeah. But do you bring Neeson back? Do you say like... Hey, Neeson's hot. Let him be the elder statesman.

[00:07:37] We were just talking about this. How the Warner Brothers movies are now bringing Keaton Batman back to be like elder statesman Nick Fury tie it together. Have Darkman be the guy like, I'm putting together a team. From what I... I'm a monster. I'm a monster. With other monsters.

[00:07:55] Give me the fucking elephant. I was just looking up the synopsis of Darkman 3, Darkman Die, Darkman Die. Another incredible title. Great title. Yeah. And it does end with him continuing to be Darkman. I was like, did they like close the loop? Did they tie it off?

[00:08:10] Did he know? Right. He like, he doesn't. He's like, no, I'm still Darkman. I'll see you later. I think I was reading they did a TV show pilot too that didn't go, but they're like gonna just keep this thing fucking moving. Yeah.

[00:08:21] I mean, like, I'm sure there must have been someone who floated like an animated series. It's just like, but the whole thing with this movie, obviously is it's not for children. No, but this is an era where you have like a fucking Robocop.

[00:08:34] The R-rated things sometimes right being marketed to kids. Darkman that would have been a very easy transition to just man of a thousand faces, and he's a little less haunted. Yeah. I mean, another thing you didn't mention, this isn't radio, but the Saint had that vibe as well.

[00:08:48] Like a lot of those 90s action movies that were kind of like throwbacky. The Phantom's the last one. Phantom being probably the last one. Right. In this wave. And then by that point, we're like a couple of years away from just earnest superhero revival. From X-Men.

[00:09:03] Which then hits its apex with Raimi. Like there's just such an interesting 90 to 2002 sort of arc to this. Our guest today is Chris White, back on the main feed where he belongs. Thank you. The great Chris White. Great to be here.

[00:09:16] And like I say, yeah, I edged my way back in and I didn't. And when you offered up Darkman, I said- You asked for Darkman, my friend. David told me you put a chip down. Yeah. I didn't say Darkman. You were very excited to do Darkman.

[00:09:29] I was excited to do Darkman, but I'm going to be honest with you. I think I told you Raimi and you were like Darkman. I was excited to get back in. I want to be back in the game. And I remembered it. The door is always open.

[00:09:39] I remembered it being on pretty constant rotation on either HBO or Cinemax when I was a kid. Sure. I hadn't seen it since. And so in part, I was worried. I was going to watch it again and think that it was not good. But actually it was good.

[00:09:52] It fucking rips. It was really, really fun. It's really fun. And you watch this and it does make you question, what are all these fucking big movies doing today? Right. There's just something about the economy of this thing, the focus of this thing. The emotion.

[00:10:06] The emotion, the visual inventiveness. And it's like he did this for $15 million. You get out in under 90 minutes? Why aren't we doing this? And now, now it's 96 whole minutes. Oh, I'm sorry. This thing is saggy. Joking. But it's 96 minutes. But you'll see it's in our notes.

[00:10:24] But that's why I was getting confused. Universal was like, the movie has to be over 90 minutes. He was like, I really like an 85 minute movie. And Universal was like, 90 minutes, goddammit. Minimum. It was in his contract. Ramy's like, I think all movies should be under 90 minutes.

[00:10:38] And Universal was like, don't go pulling this fucking 82 minute shit on us. We need to be able to sell it to Hungarian television so that they can put in enough ads. Or whatever the hell it is. I want to clarify. They demanded between 95 and 105.

[00:10:50] So him putting it 96 is being like, I just edged it over for you. All right, guys? Like, yeah. But also, I mean, we'll get to it. The story of this movie's editing process is wild. The final fucking story that JJ put in the dossier is unbelievable.

[00:11:05] Did you know there's a video game? I did. For the NES. So, and there's one for Game Boy. I've been playing vintage Game Boy recently. Yeah. And I immediately was like, I want to fucking play the Darkman game. Like $200.

[00:11:18] Well, this is the thing with these cartridges these days. If the game wasn't a hit, they can be hard to find. Because I'm shopping. I'm getting like vintage cartridges. Oh. Darkman's up for it. This game looks good. It looks good. It got good fucking reviews.

[00:11:30] Are you opening the box of vintage cartridges, therefore destroying their value and playing them? Which I admire. I buy loose vintage cartridges. Okay. I don't even... Because I have that. Yeah, you're going to overpay if you want the box. Right. Wait, damn, you're a pretty cool guy.

[00:11:47] Let me tell you what kind of guy Griff is. Hold on a second. Wait, hold on. You're cool as hell. Thank you. I bet you would even open a box though. Because you just don't give a fun. I would. No, this is the thing.

[00:11:57] All the dumb shit I collect. Sometimes the best way to get it is in box. And I always feel like an asshole when I rip it and throw it in the garbage and don't give a shit. This brings me to my first one.

[00:12:07] I just messed up because I promise. The other day, I was listening to the blank check as I often do out loud in the morning while making breakfast for my children. Oh no. My daughter, Athena... My daughter, Athena, age six said,

[00:12:22] Why do you listen to those guys who say the F word and the SH word? Oh, the SH word. Yeah. And I said, well, listen, sometimes people use bad words, but they're still good people. It's all about context, right? Connoisseurs of context. We are connoisseurs of swearing context.

[00:12:38] And today, I said, I'm going to go and record this episode of blank check. And Athena said, with the guys who say those words? And I said, yes, but you know what? I'm going to promise you that I'm not going to say those words.

[00:12:48] And you already broke your solemn promise. Bleep it. For the first time in blank check history. No, God, no, no. Any time Chris curses, he's dropping a little bleep. I mean, Ben... Put it in the episode notes. You can decline. You can already tell he's like...

[00:13:02] I don't know. It's okay. No, no, no. Keep to your standards. It's all right. Listen, this is me. This is my problem. My problem. Ben doesn't have to clean up after me. I understand you want to set an example for your daughter.

[00:13:12] No, give me a time code and then I'll do some... I'll cough or I'll say something like sugar right when I'm about to say it. Actually, that's perfect. Let's get some ADR lines. Okay. Chris, you just want to do a run of just nice words. Yeah.

[00:13:26] Right now, sugar, fun, fudge. Christmas. Shasta. Christmas. I'm going to say a C word. I don't think so. Hanukkah. Hanukkah. Donuts. I don't know. Oh yeah, donuts. That's a good option. Yeah, I think we've got some stuff there. We'll definitely use that if we need to.

[00:13:46] But again, I have faith in Matt Griesle. Is your daughter the youngest? She's the youngest. Then you're the third. You're hearing all the words. She's got to... I know, right? It's all in the air at that point. I've told the Austin Powers story with my sister before, right?

[00:14:00] Probably. We were on family vacation. Austin Powers 3 had come out. My sister was five and my dad just wanted to see it. Right. And we didn't have a babysitter around vacation or whatever. And he was like, well, take Romilly. And my mom was like, she's fine.

[00:14:14] And he said, there's nothing in that she hasn't heard before. Right, right. She's fine. There's a lot she hasn't heard. She's a city kid, but there's a lot she hadn't heard. Yeah, she was five years old. Had she had heard, yeah, baby. She hadn't in that room.

[00:14:26] One of the final jokes in that movie is they go to the premiere of Austin Pussy. Another word she had never heard before. Austin Pussy. No space. Compound word, right? They go to the premiere of the movie within the movie in which Tom Cruise is playing Austin Powers.

[00:14:38] And at the end, everyone cheers. And there's a guy who stands up and he's like, Austin, Austin. And they're like, who's that? It's Fat Bastard and he's lost all the weight. Right. Oh my gosh. Yes. Austin is hanging off him or whatever.

[00:14:51] He's wearing like a T shirt and he's just got skin hanging off of him. And he's like, you look great. He's like, thank you. I feel so good. My neck looks like a vagina, though. Right. He says that my sister's favorite saying for two years. Two years.

[00:15:05] Not only had she not heard that, but she was like, she knew it had. I'm picking it up. She understood the human body. I'm just saying like your dad was so wrong. She picked it up. She wasn't just scandalized or whatever.

[00:15:18] She also was like, I'll be saying this. Truly like friends would come over for dinner and they'd be like, why don't we want to say hello? And she'd be like, my neck looks like a vagina. Classic. You know, the youngest, the youngest kid is.

[00:15:31] Well, she's grown up in a world full of challenging things. Well, a world of dark men. I mean, this world of dark men. Yeah. Yeah. What lurks in the shadows? No, that isn't that. Well, the shadow knows what lurks in the hearts of men, right?

[00:15:46] Like I fucked it. His power. Like I look, I don't know. His nose changes shape. I believe also. He does have a facial transformation. But it's like what? Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

[00:15:59] The shadow knows that was the introductory line to the radio show. And it became like the tagline for the movie or whatever. But yeah, I don't know what's his power. It is funny that all those other movies, by the way, post Batman. He can become invisible.

[00:16:13] That makes sense. He's a shadow. But Chris is right. There was a thing in that movie where fucking Baldwin wore a fake nose. And it wasn't just like for one scene. Part of his transformation. Well, yeah, he doesn't have to put it on.

[00:16:24] It is weirdly some magical thing about him. It's the Clark Kent thing, right? Which is like they got around that. He goes to like Tibet. Yeah. And he learns some sort of Tibetan powers. Right. There's an Eastern mysticism to shadow.

[00:16:38] I'm sure this would all go over great now. The villain arrives in New York inside Genghis Khan's sarcophagus. The villain is played by John Lone. Right. Ian McKellen is in it. Yeah. Peter Foyle. This is a movie that would go over incredibly well if it was released today.

[00:16:53] Right. I miss John Lone. John Lone, a great actor. Yeah. Is he not with us? No, he is. He just doesn't seem to appear in things as much as he used to. Yeah, he retired. Honestly, his last big performance is,

[00:17:07] oh, well, he was in the Jason Statham Jet Li movie War. Really? That's his last performance. Weird. It is weird. I agree. Great actor. So good in The Last Emperor and many other things. All those movies did the marketing.

[00:17:20] They tried to do the marketing thing that Batman did, where you could just put the poster out. That was just the fucking symbol. It's a logo. It's a face. Right. It's a very clear symbol. Like Shadow did that. And Dick Tracy did that with his silhouette.

[00:17:33] And Rocketeer was just sort of like, what is this illustration? I mean, the Rocketeer poster is a beautiful post. Do you like the Rocketeer? I do like the Rocketeer. Another movie. I do think it's a good post. People really stick up for that movie.

[00:17:43] I have not seen it in so long. Good movie. But the poster is incredible. But yeah, the art deco-y post. And the comic was beautifully drawn. But all of them had this attitude of, you're supposed to know who this is. Like, you should be excited seeing this image.

[00:17:57] Darkman had a famous and very successful marketing campaign that was the exact opposite, where the tagline was, who is Darkman? Who is Darkman? Right. And it worked. It was like all these other movies were coming out. I feel like a more innocent time.

[00:18:10] Like, to say that now, I'd be like, I don't care. Because there's so many bits of content coming at me constantly. Yeah, I do think they did a good job nabbing Darkman. How had no one ever done that before? What a good fucking name.

[00:18:22] Because it is a pretty good name. It's simple. Yeah. I don't know. It's grabby. Yeah. Darkman. Darkman. And you ask who is he? And I'm like, I don't know, but I want to find out. Well, find out this summer. Oh. In 1990. Yeah. The summer of 1990.

[00:18:36] I just think it's funny they did the exact opposite approach of everyone else with a character that actually didn't exist before. And everyone, not everyone, but people leaned in. I agree with you, but I do again want to just add the caveat.

[00:18:47] They all made the exact same amount of money. Right. It's just that Darkman was cheaper. This is just the only one that made a profit. It did. But I would say that there was a general audience level of interest in these kinds of movies,

[00:18:58] which was somewhat, you know, and then like eventually someone is like, you know what? Comic books have sold en masse for 40 years. Maybe we should just like do comic book movies and not couch it in this stuff or whatever.

[00:19:13] Let's just say though, like the fucking marketing blitz of Dick Tracy, right? Well, that movie did a lot better to be clear. That movie was a genuine hit. But also lost money. It underwhelmed because of its colossal budget.

[00:19:26] But that movie did triple whatever any other movie we're talking about. It made so much money. A year of the media yelling at people like this is important. There's an album. Yeah. You know, there's an entire Dick Tracy tour.

[00:19:39] It was one of the most famous actors of all time. The biggest pop star of all time. The score was written by Stephen Sondheim. It was a huge movie. It cost a fortune. It made a lot of money. Had a video game.

[00:19:49] It's got fucking Dusselhoff in an album. Do you like Dick Tracy? The Beatty movie? It's been so long since I've seen it. I don't recall caring about it. You should check it out. Okay. It's the best. Really? There's this guy. He's got like a really flat head.

[00:20:05] What's he called? I mean, such a good post. Yeah, but this is what I'm talking about. I know what you're talking about. You're saying like they were like, there's also this guy. Sell them on minimal. Sell them on logo alone.

[00:20:17] And people just tilted their head and went, what? And who is Darkman? They went, yeah, that's the question I'm asking. We're on the same page with this. There's only one way to find out. Put down my money, sit in the theater. Exactly. Come on. You see this?

[00:20:26] Can't ask anybody who saw it. Ben. You don't want to see this? Flat top. Look at that. Do you see the tagline? Elad Kappa. That's pretty good. William Forsyth was flat? That's right. Here's a question though. Just encouraging me lately.

[00:20:38] And I'm sorry if this is provocative, but do sometimes you guys like movies? Not because necessarily of their inherent qualities, but because of their strangeness or oddness in context. Sometimes absolutely. If a movie especially with years removed, you're sort of like,

[00:20:55] this was such a unique object that obviously you and I have these conversations a lot. I would say when you're like, well, David, do you really like this? Like where we're talking about, you maybe have just rewatched something that you know I'm a fan of.

[00:21:08] Do you like it as a cultural object in its historical context? But I mean, no, Dick Tracy, so good. Okay. I see. I will lean towards more fascination as a cultural object. I don't think that movie works dramatically.

[00:21:21] It looks incredible, but I look forward to doing an episode on it someday. Uh, absolutely. I'm maybe a little more fascinated by that one as an object than as a movie, but I think it goes both ways. I don't know.

[00:21:32] I was talking to David yesterday about, uh, uh, Masters of the Universe. Uh, cause I do the voice on the cartoon show and I was like trying to explain a character to him. And anytime I talk about this thing, I don't care about this action figure line, whatever.

[00:21:46] But then I was like explaining a character backstory to him and the speed at which David pulled up the like He-Man wiki and was like, hmm, lore. Like he just liked that there was lore. I just like, exactly. I just like knowing about it.

[00:21:59] I like that there is a backstory here. David is sometimes shockingly quick on the, on the, on the Google or Wikipedia. I'm amazed. Listen how fast he's typing. No, but sometimes I do think I look at things like that and I'm like,

[00:22:11] huh, Dick Tracy's marketing campaign was wide enough that they had a character teaser poster just for Flat Top Eat Lead Copper. Yeah. I like that too. That makes me happy. Darkman, no character posters. Well, he is the character. Well, I don't know. Durant.

[00:22:28] I'd see a Durant character poster. Iconic figure of Durant. Eddie Black, that guy pops. Sure. Oh, but you could have used the first line because he's a donut. Cause he's a donut. Right.

[00:22:40] Not because that's the first line of the movie, which I kind of admired for it's just. It's a punch in the face. How do you feel about Sam Raimi, Chris? Yeah. On General. I actually kind of love Sam Raimi for his idiosyncrasy. Right.

[00:22:56] I think Simple Plan is, was kind of a great movie. Oh yeah. I think here's where I'm just going to get myself in trouble. I do not think that Jesus Christ, I'm about to say this. I do not think The Evil Dead is a good movie.

[00:23:12] Look, I've had other filmmakers say this to me. We we've had, we're not going to out them. No. Other people have said this. They're like, I don't like that. I don't like those movies. Actually, one person I was talking to was actually,

[00:23:22] I actually kind of came around on one, but was like, I still can't stand two. I guess because it's so plotless and silly. I think there's some great gags in it and some wonderful invention. And obviously like what they're doing with so little,

[00:23:37] but I also do think that there's some sort of genre elements that are rather sort of unenthusiastically delivered. And I think that there's some. So you don't like any of the three? Have you seen all three Evil Deads? Oh Christ. Over the years.

[00:23:53] I'm really fucking painting myself in a corner here. I've only seen the first one and this was just to get up to speed for this one. You've never seen Evil Dead 2? No. And I'm excited to see that in Army of Darkness. And I'm really sorry.

[00:24:03] I'm sorry to everyone out there. My feeling is Army of Darkness might be the one that you like the best. It's based on the trailer and snippets I've seen here and there. I think I might. Yeah. Have you seen The Quick and the Dead?

[00:24:14] Sharon Stone, Russell Crowe, Cowboys. No, I have not. You might enjoy that. I'll tell you why actually. A lot of people haven't seen that. Early on in my career when I was, I think my brother and I were pitching something and somebody said,

[00:24:27] you know what, this is just not working. And you need to see a movie called The Quick and the Dead, which we're making right now. Wow. Because that really works. Were you pitching a Western? Like were you pitching something adjacent?

[00:24:40] It was just like some executive slamming us, right? You suck and this is a good movie. Yeah. Listen, I'm working on a movie right now called The Quick and the Dead. And you guys, you want to know the way to do these things, you got to watch that.

[00:24:52] It seems like he was being helpful. Yeah, he's trying to help me. That's true. So you didn't see the movie almost out of spite because you're a little bit. Well, out of trauma maybe? No, I get it. Yeah. Actually this reminds me of another story, which is okay.

[00:25:06] I'm going to hit you with some true Hollywood stories. Please do. A spring that here. I know that we've got like only so much time here. No, no, no, no, no. But I remember once I was in,

[00:25:16] we were sort of pitching my brother and I was early on and this guy pitched us something back, which is just his idea and he says, it's about this kid who falls overboard into the water. And there's a pack of whales and he survives

[00:25:30] because the whales kind of keep him above water and he like eats the barnacles or something. And so he survives and then he becomes this champion Olympic swimmer. Okay. And this is the best part. He says it was based on a true story, I think.

[00:25:44] And I was sitting there thinking, I don't think that's based on a true story. I think if that's based on a true story, I might've heard of it. But also the confidence of that's based on a true story, I think. Yeah. It's like, I think you're an idiot.

[00:25:58] Now, wait, I have a follow-up though. And I don't know if you maybe, I don't know if you have the answer to this, but did he speak whale? Boy. Oh, the guy in the movie, he does. He can do that. He can summon whales. Right, right, right.

[00:26:10] But the thing, and also the thing is he's very, he, when he, as he lives with the whales, right. He's kind of raised by whales. He, he, he acquires a lot of blubber, right. So he's not like super fit. He looks like a very fat, fat man.

[00:26:23] And yet when he comes to compete against Olympic swimmers, he's just destroying them. He's like a human whale. Because of his barnacle power. Yeah, he's a human whale. Wow. He just moves his body in such a way. Right.

[00:26:34] That he's faster than anyone has ever been in the water. I think that's based on a true story. So you bet, yeah, I think that's based on a true story. I'm pretty sure that is. So you think, you like A Simple Plan, obviously. That sort of-

[00:26:43] I do, I do. I think it's a wonderful movie. Have you seen For Love of the Game? His baseball movie? Yes, I have. That's the one where- Costner's Pitching a Perfect Game. And he injures his hand. Yes. I forgot that's a Raimi movie. Okay, interesting.

[00:26:57] Everyone forgets that one. Yes. Wow, yes. He injures his hand in Kelly Preston, I believe. There's a moment where he's flying off in a helicopter. He's like, I need my trainer guy. There's no space for Kelly Preston right now. That classic Sophie's Choice. Yeah.

[00:27:12] Do you take your trainer guy or Kelly Preston? We've all been in that position. 50-50. How about The Gift? Do you like The Gift? Cate Blanchett murder mystery with psychic supernatural thriller. Do not remember, I'm sorry. How do you feel about the Spider-Man film?

[00:27:30] I like the Spooderman films very much. I do very, very much. And then Drag Me to Hell. I can remember actually going with Nick Holt when we were shooting About a Boy. Teen Holt. We went to Spider-Man to get- I think I've heard of the Spider-Man.

[00:27:49] That makes sense because it's 2002. No, yeah, it was Spider-Man. Right. The first one is where Bonesaw's in it and he goes, Bonesaw is ready. That's the first one. You went nowhere. I took Nick Holt to Spider-Man. Get ready for a full- Oh, I'm excited.

[00:28:02] And we had a whale of a time. A whale of a time? A barnacle of a time? Did you look at Nick Holt and you're like, someday you're going to test for every one of these movies? Someday you'll be-

[00:28:12] You'll do like three, but you're also going to be shortlisted on an additional 10. Someday, yes, this will be a fun part of your life, no doubt. It's which is like going down the funnel shoot. You'll have those, but then it'll get more and more CGI over the years.

[00:28:26] Yeah. Someday this will be the only viable path to being a young leading man in the studio system. And then Drag Me to Hell. I mean, we don't need to talk about Oz the Great and Powerful, but Drag Me to Hell is the other-

[00:28:37] I have not seen Drag Me to Hell. I feel like now I've just been interrogated. No, I'm just asking. I'm coming short in the eyes of check, of blankies everywhere. And I apologize. Who do you think you are, Chris? How dare you cast judgment on Sam Raimi?

[00:28:54] No, no. Zena, were you a big Zena fan? Well, I didn't sort of watch it religiously, but I approve of it. I really do. I think like great, pulpy, fun, awesomeness. And I like Bruce Campbell, who's obviously Raimi adjacent. It's kind of crazy that they never rebooted Zena.

[00:29:14] I know they have talked about it. There's been attempts or whatever, but that feels like a brand they would want to throw out. If they announce tomorrow, they are doing a streaming limited, big- Streaming Zena. Lawless is in it.

[00:29:26] Lucy Lawless is in it, but also, you know, ex-young actor will be passing the torch or whatever. But if they were like, we're doing 10 episodes of like... I mean, the production will be too good. Right, exactly. The production part is tough to... You're right.

[00:29:42] Is that you watched it in the middle of the day when you were a little baked. And you're like, this is sick. They wouldn't use enough trampolines to have people thrown... It was one of those things where you would be like,

[00:29:52] you're sitting on the couch, whatever you're watching has just finished. You don't have a TV guide or whatever. And it's like, next up Zena. And you have that kind of 50-50 of like, should I go do something? I don't know.

[00:30:04] I could just kind of watch Zena, I guess. It is also... It's funny that Hercules was so big and... Or Hercules. And then Zena just like... Zena ate his lunch. Yeah. Ate his lunch. Zena was more like, this is new. Hercules, it's like, I get it. He's Hercules.

[00:30:18] But I think people were like, this is surprising how big this Hercules show has gotten. And then here's this character in one episode that pops so fucking hard that they were like, is this insane to spin her off? And it becomes more of a cultural phenomenon.

[00:30:30] Hercules is associated with homework. Oh, I see. Because it's like, legend. Boring. Oh. I mean, Hercules, he like fights people with a sword. But it's like, I'm learning something. I guess you're barely learning. And then there were those quizzes that they had at the end. Right.

[00:30:48] It was like picture pages. They made you fill out the book. You had your workbook as you were watching. Sometimes when you guys talk on the podcast about watching things, and especially about watching things that are kind of junky,

[00:30:58] I realize how much older I am than you guys. And I see myself down the road in a world in which I cannot afford to watch something that I do not believe is going to be really, really good. Because I'm going to die sooner than you go.

[00:31:12] Oh, sure. Yeah. So it's like, I can't watch anything ironically. Yes. I can't risk it. I just can't risk it. I don't think I watch anything ironically. I think there are a lot of things I watch perversely. Perversely, yes. Okay. That's actually probably more to the point.

[00:31:28] I do a little bit of box checking. Like I finally watch it. The Doors. Oliver Stone's The Doors. I'd never seen it. Why? Many reasons. I was too young when it came out. Never really cared about it after that. Right?

[00:31:45] It's not like the kind of acclaimed movie people are like, you got to see it. But it's also not the kind of nothing movie that people are like, don't even buy. Obviously, it's still a movie. Yeah. You had your whole Morrison face too. That really surprised me. Yeah.

[00:31:58] Weight wise, I'm in my Morrison face. Not in any other way. People don't know there's a full year of this podcast that you did shirtless and leather pants. And we just were like, let's not acknowledge it.

[00:32:09] You're just like, we got to keep them together for the podcast, man. Give him whatever he needs. The lizard makes no sense. I've got this backlog of rewatchables episodes. If I haven't seen the movie with that podcast, I'll just kind of keep it in the feed.

[00:32:21] And I'll be like, I'll watch The Doors eventually. So I finally watched The Doors. And? Four out of 10. Bad. Kilmer is outstanding in it. It is kind of magic. His profile. Have you seen The Doors? I have seen The Doors.

[00:32:34] Like Kilmer is so good that you're sort of like, it is almost crazy. Obviously, he was a movie star, but it is crazy that he wasn't more of a movie star or his movie stardom was a sort of a briefish window.

[00:32:45] Such an odd guy when you're like how big he both was and wasn't. Yeah. And it's like, it's not, The Doors wasn't a hit upon hits, but it was a big deal. Yeah.

[00:32:55] And then you watch it and he's, he just is Jim, you know, and you're like, that's crazy. And then you're sort of like, but also I think Jim Morrison is this character in this movie when he actually probably wasn't. Right.

[00:33:06] You're also like this became so culturally ubiquitous is this is what Jim Morrison was like. Right. And it's like, he was probably like 80% of this at best. Right. Like he wasn't this ridiculous all the time. I don't know. Anyway. Oh, actually this brings me to my.

[00:33:18] But that's a perfect example of a movie where I'm watching it where I'm like, I'm not really enjoying this. Why am I doing this? But another side of my brain is like, gotta check that box. David checks off boxes.

[00:33:25] He's like, I want to have seen every film in this sub genre, in this era, this actor. This director, this franchise. I mean, as a film critic, every reason to write, to have this kind of, I know, but I

[00:33:37] do always caution film critics against like the idea of like, just because you watched everything doesn't mean you know everything. Or, you know what I mean? Like just watching stuff doesn't like it's a little bit automatic. I think this is without judgment.

[00:33:49] It is also a little bit more of a compulsion with you. Like as much as it does help your criticism, you're someone who needs to be like stimulated at all times. I like that being some purpose to what I'm watching, I guess these days.

[00:34:02] Cause it is a little harder for me, Chris. I can't just channel surf and be like, why? Because he's physically raised in England. Yeah, right. I'm sorry. What? All right. No, we're not doing that. We're not doing that.

[00:34:16] Actually, that brings me to uh, this is actually a good point to step in. Ben and I have some, have an announcement. Oh, that's a good point. Okay. Wait a second. I'm going to eat a black one. Okay.

[00:34:27] Chris brought black and white cookies, but another thing he brought that I saw him casually pass to Ben right before the episode was in fact an envelope. Now you are a listener. You understand the weight of an envelope being passed to Ben. Yeah.

[00:34:44] And we don't know what it says, but it written on the outside is blank check and co. Is that what it says? Okay. So maybe I should just read it, right? Yeah. Just okay. Open the envelope. Yeah. Okay. I'm seeing there is in fact, tight lens. Okay. Okay.

[00:34:59] So it's very official. Yeah. Form BC 10 23 application to have bit retired. What? Yeah. Dear sirs and madams, this is to officially request retiring of the bit night eggs from the blank check cannon under the usual protocols per my recent discussion with Ben Hossley,

[00:35:21] aka producer Ben, aka the Ben Dueser, et cetera, et cetera. Oh, good. Thank God. Jesus. I'm glad he yada yada that. Fuck master. No, no. Be it acknowledged that most people think eggs are for the morning, but some people know different. Sincerely, Chris Bites. Wow.

[00:35:40] Can I see this? I support this not out of dislike for the night ex bit. We're out of worry for you guys. I don't know where you're going to take it. And very stressed by it. Yeah. Let's wait heavily on any time. Chris is coming on the show.

[00:35:53] Ben's like, do I write an entire screen? Like how far does this go? I'm like calling staples. I'm like, do you can I print 200 pages on black paper? Can you turn the white old draft for me? I don't want to pay for the software.

[00:36:10] I have to say this does hold up. It's it does. Yeah. I was looking at it. I just needed your guys stamp, but yeah, here's the thing. I just was getting to the point where in order to top where we had gone before,

[00:36:23] things were going to have to get really, really serious. And I thought about hiring or trying to reach Samuel L. Jackson, which wouldn't have worked because why would he care about me? Sure. Hiring a Samuel L. Jackson impersonator to do a long monologue. What was the other one?

[00:36:40] I forget what the other one was. I mean, at this point though, you're saying in order for the bit to continue, you had to put your career or money on the line or both. Well, no, and a lot of things on hold.

[00:36:53] And I wasn't sure that I could pull it off even, you know, to the level of, you know, where I think we so far like in a British TV show, right? They reach a certain number of episodes and they've done well and they just decide to stop.

[00:37:07] David, in England, unlike here, where shows will continue for long 22 episode seasons, go on for a decade. I don't understand what you're explaining. Because as you can see clearly up in the rafters, David is from UK. Is there a tire next to the Joker next to the Joker?

[00:37:26] And I'm going to just now pull on this chain and my home. Well, I want to say there's also an empty gap for a big rag, which was up, but then was taken down. Right? Right. Right. Right. Yeah.

[00:37:35] It was kind of see a little bit of a like fading. It's kind of like how Tom Brady retired and then he was like, ah, you know what? Let's keep going. Let's keep going. Yeah.

[00:37:43] But I'm going to pull on this chain and that will be sadly the end of night eggs for now. We'll maybe bring it down again. Who knows? Maybe I'll actually write it. No, I would never do that. If spraying screenplays is hard. Wow. It's almost like it's homework.

[00:37:58] Exactly. I'm sorry. No, don't apologize. Chris, if anything, it's a testament to how great of a guest you were because I threw some dumb ass shit at you when you were so down. You have another testament is this printed letter. Printed out something.

[00:38:14] You have a printer and I do have a printer. Humble brag color. Colorless. I appreciate that you went through the proper channels. I appreciate. Yeah, I mean, there are no loose ends here.

[00:38:28] The irony, of course, is that Darkman is almost definitely a guy who eats eggs at night, right? It's got some night eggs energy. I mean, the man isn't really hanging out when the sun is up. So it's dark man eat. His mouth is messed up.

[00:38:41] It's maybe my single favorite element in this movie that Darkman doesn't have lips. And so he's got prosthetic teeth on the outside of his mouth. But he can form plosives and fricatives, which is a surprising. But it's weird because you're watching it and you're like,

[00:38:54] the sound shouldn't be coming out of his mouth. I'm just watching teeth moving up and down. Like he looks like a science room skeleton. He's like, listen to me. Yeah, he's doing all kinds of things that you couldn't. But I think Neeson carries that off.

[00:39:08] I think the makeup is really good, right? I think the makeup is incredible. It's excellent. And we're talking about Bill Paxton really want to play Darkman. Who is the third guy who was in contention? The third guy who was in contention was Gary Oldman. Right. Also makes sense.

[00:39:23] A lot of like, because all those actors are not that famous yet. Right. Guys. But you could make them the leading man. You could, but also they make sense for leading men who are going to have a lot of makeup on their

[00:39:34] face for a lot of movie or whatever. Put up a lot of sugar. Paxton said he wanted it really badly campaigned for it really hard. Yeah, I'll tell you, I'll read you the quote actually. I came very close to being cast as Darkman.

[00:39:47] You know, you never talked about movies. You never got, but that was one I really wanted bad. And I made the mistake of telling an actor friend of mine about the role, Liam Neeson, and he ended up getting the part. Goddamn that bastard.

[00:39:57] Now my thought is square brackets laughs. Yeah, there is no one else who could have played Darkman. I truly think as much as he's very well, there's a good Gary Oldman. Good Paxton version of the Neeson version of it is across all universes,

[00:40:11] the best possible version of this film. And I think first of all, you got Ramey tapping into the weird power of action movie Neeson 20 years before anyone else. Just his frame, his hugeness, his imposing this, but also his kind of cute face and his

[00:40:26] gravitas of yelling things, the intensity that he can sort of conjure him understanding how to use himself as sort of iconography that he's a man who can give very sensitive, naturalistic performances.

[00:40:36] But he also understands when he needs to be like a color on the palette and use his size and his timber and all of that. The other thing is, which I think there's a quote there that speaks to this.

[00:40:45] Ramey was like, he has the old universal monster thing. He has that sad romantic quality does don't have. Yeah. I mean, the thing is like when you hear Bill Paxton, I guess you think of near dark, right? That's the thing I would think of the most.

[00:40:58] And I'm like, okay, I can sort of imagine electric. He's you hear Gary when you think this very intense villainous performance that would be very, very angry and very good probably, but a totally different vibe, right? Much more, uh, I'm a monster. Right now.

[00:41:14] And it actually reminds me of that line. Doesn't Judy Davis say in husband, husband's wives where she says, he weeps like they're talking about how he cries, right? He's got that bruised poet thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

[00:41:26] That's, I mean, it's, it's the Irishman in him, not stereotype about the Irish people, but they're all beautiful poet. And he's got, he's got, I think famously soulful eyes. And this is a movie where for a lot of it, his eyes are the only thing you were going

[00:41:41] to see on encumbered. So like, yeah, of course his voice needs to punch through and his eyes need to punch through. And he has that thing that like the Karloff thing where it's like, that's what made that movie a fucking phenomenon.

[00:41:52] Is there some weird romantic sadness that Karloff put into that monster that made him like relatable? Let me give you some context about dark. I always thought these would be an incredible Frankenstein's monster all the like, but he's got the lumbering hype, but he's got that.

[00:42:10] Who was going to be in that? Was it Bardem? It was gonna be Bardem. Or was he going to be the Wolfman? No, he was going to be, he was going to be Frankenstein's monster in the dark. I think Wolfman was going to be Frankenstein.

[00:42:21] I could see that. Yeah, I could see it too. He's, he's got another actor with a really good frame. Like I like him. But the Nissen version, I just think, I mean, well, he's already version that doesn't exist. Right.

[00:42:31] Wolfman was like the last on the list because the Benicio Wolfman had happened recently. So they were going to let that one lie for, I think, a little while. Now it's coming back right now. It's now Ryan Gosling is doing with Derek's sound friends. Yes. Sound friends. Yes.

[00:42:44] Anyway, let me give you some context. The film Evil Dead 2 comes out. Sam Raimi is hot again. To a certain extent, you know, maybe he's not getting a hundred million dollar movies, but he's he's a classic sophomore slump movie. And now he's, he's reestablished himself.

[00:42:58] He really wants to make the shadow. That's one of that's the top of his list. He wants to do the shadow as we discussed. It also feels like, you know, he didn't want to do Evil Dead 2.

[00:43:09] He, there was a career necessity of like, do the movie that can get financed. That's what people want out of you. It feels like he generally was ready to make the studio leap at this point. Little bit. Sure. But who's working on the shadow? Robert Zemeckis. Robert Zemeckis.

[00:43:25] Because the movie that eventually is directed by Russell Mulcahy, who's the Highlander guy without Baldwin, that was, that's the Zemeckis project. He eventually departs. But I think Raimi was like interviewing for until Zemeckis showed interest.

[00:43:39] Like there was a little bit of a flirtation where Raimi was in the room before Zemeckis came in. Sure. Maybe. I mean, yeah, I don't know. But basically the way Robert Taper puts it, is it tapered? I think it was Taper, but who knows? I don't know.

[00:43:54] Is only, only the shadow. It was just impossible because it was Zemeckis and Sam was just like, okay, I will try to, you know, take my love of that superhero and that genre of 30 superheroes and I'll do Darkman. Right.

[00:44:08] You know, like Darkman is very obviously him being like, let me, let me plan that. There's that story. Much better for that, I think. Yeah. I think so. So much better. There's that story that Tim Burton was supposed to do after hours. Yes, of course.

[00:44:20] Because Griffin Dunn loved Frankenweenie. Right. And they hired him and he was like… And that led him to do Edward Scissorhands. Yes. No, they were like in pre-production and then Scorsese was like post Temptation of Christ. He was like, I'm feeling like cursed.

[00:44:34] I need to get back out there. I need to make a movie. What are the scripts? He read the script. He reached out. No, it's not post Temptation of Christ. I think it's the Temptation of Christ had fallen apart again. You're right. Or whatever.

[00:44:43] And King of Comedy hadn't done well. That's what it was. That's what it was. It was that Christ had fallen apart. Yeah. As he has wanted to do. And… People really beat the shit out of that guy. He comes back though. And went like, hey, I'm just weird.

[00:44:59] Scorsese is like asking to do this movie now. And Tim Burton was like, yeah, so then I quit. Right. I'm not going. Especially Tim Burton circa 1985. Yeah. Getting out of here. I have to imagine as much as Raimi really wanted to do The Shadow,

[00:45:12] if you're like Robert Zemeckis coming off of Back to the Future and Roger Rabbit back to back. Right. Wants to do The Shadow. I'm not going to compete with that. Yeah, you're not going to be like, F that guy.

[00:45:23] Obviously, Zemeckis hasn't even made Forrest Gump yet, but he's still… Sure. He's still king of the mountain. But Sam Raimi also says it wasn't just The Shadow, obviously, because this movie is very sort of Phantom of the Opera, right? Very Hunchback of Notre Dame. Yes.

[00:45:37] Those sorts of, you know, I'm a monster. Yes. You know, the elephant man. You could never love me. Yes. But he says that his first idea was more the idea of the man of a thousand faces. Right. Right. That was the actual initial idea for Darkman.

[00:45:54] And then he brings in the… And what if he's all burned up? And what if he's got bandages on his face? It's like a big part of why I think this movie works is that he's pulling a couple different things in and he's unbeholden to any source material.

[00:46:07] And he's able to pick the best elements from like a couple different… And do it fast. Right. But like things that he loves, right? It's like, what do I like about the old classic romantic sort of wounded heart universal monsters?

[00:46:20] What do I like about these two-fisted pulp heroes? Right. And then he had written a short story when he was younger. Yes. Right. That he was like, I always liked that idea of the guy who can make a mask, who can like be anybody. Who battles criminals. Right.

[00:46:34] So he had the short story in his back pocket. And I guess then he's like, but what if this guy doesn't have a face? That's why he makes faces. Right. Uh, which is cool. It's just like a perfect three sort of things to pluck from.

[00:46:46] He brings Ivan right? Ivan Ramian, his brother. His brother's a doctor. Ivan Ramian. I don't know if you know that. I didn't know he was a doctor. Practicing physician. Yeah. So I guess Ivan also has his perspective on how could this make sense or whatever.

[00:46:59] Which I've heard this movie scientifically. So then there's the Jenny Agadir hospital scene. Yes. The moment. It is funny that she pops in for one scene. Where is she? I mean, Jenny, is it Agadir or Gutter? I've gotten slammed for saying it wrong.

[00:47:14] And now I'm in my head about it. I was worried that Gutter sounds kind of pejorative. I think it's Agadir. Gutter. Jenny. Obviously a legend. But this is like post like Equus and Walkabout and all her like Logan's run.

[00:47:27] Like she's like five seconds as one of the tribunal faces in the first Avengers movie. Yeah. Like I think a lot of. She's in two Avengers movies, my friend. She's in Winter Soldier as well. I just think sometimes people use her as like.

[00:47:40] You know, stern British lady who says something important. But also a certain kind of film nerd is like Jenny Agadir. That's cool. That's from Walkabout. You know, that's yeah. You know, American werewolf, you know, lots of anyway. Right.

[00:47:51] Um, but yeah, no brings in Ramy Ivan, Ramy comma Ivan. They take it to Universal. Empty. They take it to Universal. Universal is interested, but for the first time in Sam Raimi's career is also like, we have notes. We want to rewrite this.

[00:48:06] Like it's the first time that he's ever dealing with studio being like, OK, so can we put some structure on this? Like, uh, so I think all the crime wave problems happened like during production in edit. Yes. So, so Chuck, because this script is credited to five people.

[00:48:21] It is those two. Yeah, it's credited to Chuck Farrar, who is an ex Navy seal who eventually writes hard target, which Sam Raimi produces. So I think they got on well. And then these guys, Daniel, Daniel and Joshua Golden,

[00:48:34] who were like hot new writers who never really amounted to much in Hollywood. No offense to them if they actually did, but like their IMDB list is certainly not robust. I know a lot of people just kind of the golden voice behind the scenes. Right.

[00:48:47] And the Goldens wanted to, they were like, they, I guess Universal was like, OK, kids, what do you want to do? We want you to rewrite problem child. And they were like, we don't want to do that. We want to rewrite this movie. Dark man. That seems cool.

[00:49:00] And so they work on dark man. And they said, basically, they had to take what was a lot of really interesting ideas and just turn it into a three act story. Like, yeah, that's, that's the way to describe the Raimi script is a big, interesting heap of documents.

[00:49:16] Which because my guess is like the evil dead style thing was more just kind of like, you know, we'll figure it out. Right. Like, I don't know. Like they were just not used to the sort of like, we need something that is going to just

[00:49:27] make a ton of sense before there's the green light. It is just funny how like this movie has a tremendous amount of ideas, but it also feels very like focused and streamlined narratively in a way that we were saying like the movies of this genre today do not.

[00:49:45] And I also think something like we recently David, you and I went in for our yearly checkup. Oh, with Dr. Michael Morbius? Dr. Michael Morbius. In international waters, of course. Right. We had to, you know, just get a full physical. Yes, on a boat.

[00:50:01] But that's a movie where you're like, this feels like 18 writers and five different scripts cobbled together. And obviously like COVID delays and reshoots and uh oh. It turns out we're not in the universe we thought we were in. Like a lot of stuff like that.

[00:50:15] For how many different hands touched this movie? Have you seen the doctor? Have you gone to see the doctor recently? Uh, no, I haven't. I don't want to make... I feel like it's been a while. Chris, I don't want to be so self-conscious about your age,

[00:50:26] but it is important for men over a certain point to go see Dr. Michael Morbius regularly. He's very sensitive about weight and height and all that stuff. There's nothing... He's not going to shame you or tell you to calorie count or anything like that.

[00:50:40] Now, I would wear turtle. Yes, I just want to say. The colors are stiff around Dr. Morbius. Radical. Yeah. This guy. I don't know if you know this Chris, most empires are dead. Yeah. They die at some point along the way. Rip. Right. You made a vampire movie?

[00:50:57] Yeah. All these guys are pretty dead. Those guys are dead. Those guys are dead. Not Michael Morbius. Did you think about putting Morbius in your movies? In New Moon? Oh man, he would have spiced things up a lot. He actually could have been another guy who likes...

[00:51:10] You got the Volturi. Right. And they're like, okay, interesting developments. And then it cuts to international waters. Morbius is like, what's going down in Seattle? Well, Dr. Carla, imagine fucking Carlyle. Sure. An empire medical conference or something. Right. In like Vegas. Swap notes.

[00:51:27] And he's like, so you're alive? Anyway. Okay. So you're saying we should see Morbius though? Like as someone who hasn't seen it. No, you're okay. You don't need to see it. It's pretty bad. The test results are back and America has Morbius fever? I'm seeing that. Not prescribed.

[00:51:42] America definitely has some kind of fever. Maybe it's Morbius fever. The Goldens loved working on the movies. They say Sam is the nicest director they ever worked with. The whole thing was interesting.

[00:51:51] It was Sam and Ivan and my brother and me, just a bunch of brothers working on this. That's what they say. Everyone's looking at their phones right now. No, I'm looking for... No, I'm gonna tell you... In the notes. I have chocolate on my fingers, some cookies.

[00:52:04] I'm getting texts from my wife who was on the way to see the music man with my little kids and he was stuck in a taxi. One of those horrendous kind of like stuck on one side of Houston street or something. Sure.

[00:52:16] So she's going to be late to hear Gary, Indiana or whatever it is. And she sort of had this notion how much the kids would love it. And this is a real major bummer. They're going to be fine.

[00:52:26] They'll see the music man, which I am seeing in May, barring, you know, whatever. A humble brag. Say hi to your wife. She's the best. Let me see. Rob Taper says also the Coen brothers... That's what I was looking for. I forgot. Were instrumental in building the structure.

[00:52:44] I guess basically talking Sam through his idea, I guess is the way he's describing it. Great idea. What are the beats of it? That is exactly what I'm impressed with. So another set of brothers, a lot of brothers. A lot of brothers.

[00:52:59] No, but I just think this movie for how many ideas it had, how many different scraps they were pulling from, how many different hands touched it. It does just feel very focused. It makes sense that the Coen brothers understood him well enough. We're friends with him.

[00:53:12] Knew how to sort of just like organize it. Yeah. 100%. He also says Chuck Farrer was best at the villains. So I bet you Chuck Farrer did a lot of work on this movie because a lot of villains. A lot of villains.

[00:53:24] But anyway, the most interesting thing is just Sam Raimi. And like this is the whole thing with him. I feel like as we talk about him is it's like, yes, the story is friends in the woods making the evil dead.

[00:53:39] But then every time the Darkman or something comes up, he's like, okay, I'm gonna... This is my chance to like elevate or whatever to like, you know, be Hollywood. Like, you know, to be taken seriously.

[00:53:51] He always wants to prove himself at some new thing or in some new way, some new level it feels like. Yes. So like, you know, that's just like he was very scared, but he was very excited to, you know, and there's just lots of quotes basically of like,

[00:54:06] I don't want to just be the special effects guy. I don't want to just be the inventive, you know, horror guy. This movie has a plot, which is a new thing for me. The camera is not a star. Now that's really funny that he says that.

[00:54:18] Because yes, maybe the camera movement is a little calmer in this movie, but it's still pretty exaggerated. JJ wrote in the notes or researcher. He was like, look, I try not to editorialize when I'm putting these together, but that's fucking insane.

[00:54:31] Like he had five excerpts of Rami saying like, I really calm down on this. No fancy tricks. I'm not focusing on the special effects. He's like, what is he fucking talking about? Yeah, Bill Pope, the DP of this movie. He's a big deal. Absolute legend. Yes.

[00:54:45] One of my favorite DPs of all time. Like one of the first people I ever thought about as a DP when I was like a 12 year old. Dick. Well, that's Dick Pope. That's the Mike Lee guy. Bill Pope is like the Matrix. What else? Scott Pilgrim. Scott Pilgrim.

[00:55:04] Amazingly, Team America, World Police, which I always love to think about, like what it was like shooting that. The Freaks and Geeks pilot. That's true. Yeah. Alita. You know, he's now in the Marvel. He did Shang-Chi. He's working on a movie. Oh, right.

[00:55:16] But he's always been kicking around. But this is when I thought Brie Larson and Allison Brie were the same person and thought what an amazing career she had put together. She's in everything. How does she make time for all of it? Shot Dark Man.

[00:55:30] So anytime she dyes her hair, she's like totally transformed. Anyway, no, no. Dick Pope, of course, was famously once called Dick Poop. When his Oscar nomination was announced by. Oh my goodness. What was that? A Travolta? I don't remember who it was.

[00:55:42] He was the president of the Academy at the time. I just can't remember. Was it Don Hunts? No. Wasn't Don. Cheryl Boone Isaacs. Cheryl Boone Isaacs. Called him Dick Poop. And did she then win? Did he then win? He didn't win. He did not win.

[00:55:52] He couldn't set the record straight. But it was just one of those things where she said Dick Poop and it was like. And then you can't be like, we're sorry we called you Dick Poop. Of course, you're not called Dick Poop. You can't do anything.

[00:56:00] You can't take it back. As you were saying, JJ did editorialize a bit where he's like, you know, after Sam Raimi's like I'm really trying to calm the camera down. Bill Pope is like we use the eyeball fly ball rig, the perfoloc danso cam, the drunken

[00:56:15] cam snap zooms whip pans, Dutch angles, camera attached to sticks and blankets, virtually anything that moved. We always move the camera. I was told by our dolly grip on day 50 something that we were doing our first shot in the film where the camera didn't move.

[00:56:31] And it was a 360 degree pan. That's the first time the camera was locked down. Where it's not with a space. It was just spinning around. Then all the quotes from Francis McDormand. It's funny because in the quick and the dad episode, which is next week, two weeks.

[00:56:47] What's in between? Is the same thing where Gene Hackman was like, I swear to God, can you just let me act? And Sam Raimi was like, I have a bunch of setups I want to do.

[00:56:56] And Francis McDormand felt the same way where she was just like, if you're going to crash zoom into me when I'm crying, wait, let me find the, you know, like, then I'm not going to act because anything I do is going to feel completely over the top.

[00:57:10] If the camera's already over the top, like she makes a good point. It's really interesting because like clearly she, Sam talks about it. Sam Raimi, my friend, Sam. Yes, Sam. I am. He does not like Green Eggs. He actually does not.

[00:57:24] He does not like them in a box. No, but he doesn't like them with a fox. Obviously, because he's Sam Raimi and she's in Crime Wave briefly or whatever for a second for a moment. But like, he's like, oh, working with my friend, Francis McDormand.

[00:57:39] We used to live together. This is going to be great. But she was Francis McDormand, who, as we all know, is a strong personality. Yes. Isn't afraid to say her opinion in any forum. Clearly was like, Sam, will you stop fucking doing all this bullshit?

[00:57:52] Like I want to act over here. And he was like, I don't get it. Why aren't we friends? Like, it is interesting. They both talk openly about what a difficult time they had working together on this movie. And it sounds like to them that they talk openly.

[00:58:05] And sounds like they are friends again now. Like it didn't. Yeah, I think they're right. They're fine. I saw McDormand say also that she was like, there was a lot about it. I found frustrating. I found the process frustrating.

[00:58:15] There is not that meat that much meat on the bone with this character. Right. There was this thing that Sam had sort of gotten criticized in the Evil Dead movies of like, the women are one dimension. I would say it has to be killed.

[00:58:27] Quick and the Dead is an exception. There are exceptions. The gift is an exception. But he has a lot of damsels in distress. Yeah, it's filmography. Right. Yeah. I actually. It's a trope he leans on with the superhero shit.

[00:58:37] I actually think handling a Mary Jane across the Spider-Man trilogy is a time he has done well in avoiding that. Outside of certain sequences. I don't know. Becoming too damsel-y. There's some, yeah. There's a moment that quite threw me where, um, Liam, you know, Darkman, Liam Neeson.

[00:58:53] Yeah, Darkman. Says, was there anybody else, um, you know, while I was burnt and in a way. Yes. And she says, there was a man who comforted me. But it's, you know, it doesn't really mean anything. And Liam Neeson is like, oh, fantastic. You're not dirty. Yeah.

[00:59:10] Like, I don't, I don't think I would have felt that way. No. Also, that's very bad judgment on Frances McDormand's part, like her character's part. Yes. The character of course is called Julie. Julie. Right. She sort of. How could I forget?

[00:59:24] She said, how could you forget the famous character of Julie? You wanted, first choice was Bridget Fonda, of course, who you will eventually work with in a simple plan and briefly ended in army darkness, but she was quite young. And you thought she would play weird against.

[00:59:37] Did you read the Julie Roberts thing? Was that in the dossier? I did. We'll get to that. That is fascinating. But it sounds like it was this thing. I mean, I guess McDormand had her first Oscar nomination at that point. Mississippi burning had come out.

[00:59:48] That's a good call. Is it really? Yeah. Cause that's 88. So yes. So it's that kind of thing where like she had an Oscar nomination. She was taken seriously as an actor. She wasn't a movie star. And she's doing a solid for a friend.

[00:59:59] This is really only like her fifth movie. It's a twofold thing where like, Rami, by all accounts kind of pushed for her. She was on the list, but she was maybe lower on the list. Right. And he really pushed for her. He wanted the gravitas.

[01:00:12] He was like, I want this to have real human feeling. I want there to be a relationship that is like played straight at the center of this. So we can hang our hats on that. Yes. She had all the silliness.

[01:00:21] She had also gotten a Tony nomination for a Broadway revival of a streetcar named desire playing Stella. Sure. Okay. So that was probably a very good performance. Probably was. And also that's the kind of thing people pay attention to.

[01:00:35] But I think she had a little bit of weight, but she wasn't seen as like a movie star. And by her account, she was like, this was a career decision where I was like appreciative

[01:00:43] that he gave me a big part in a big studio movie that I got to work on a more technical film that I got to be like the ingenue. Like I wanted to see she has her line where she's like, I wanted to learn how I like look

[01:00:54] on camera and how I react to lights and all these sorts of things and learn my angles and all these things I did not feel experienced with. And she was like, my lesson was that's not the kind of actor saying I don't like doing that. But she's right.

[01:01:06] She says the quote first bimbo she ever played. Yes. Uh, Francis McDormand, obviously again, never afraid to shoot straight. You have a line there about like the eyes roll back into the head. The eyes roll back into the head. It's somewhere there.

[01:01:21] But she said like, because they both. Yes. Oh, right. This is a good quote. Always being concerned about the way I look and what my clothes are like. I'm just not good at that.

[01:01:29] In many female roles on film, most of your energy goes into making sure you look good and that you don't do anything that's going to make your face look too weird on camera, which I can't do. I do things in my eyes roll back in my head.

[01:01:39] I can't help that. I just think it's funny that she was like, I have an Oscar nomination now. I'm taken seriously as a movie actress. I don't think I know how to be a movie star. I'm aware of. So let me give it a shot. Right.

[01:01:50] Let me do the things I need to do to be like a sexy woman in a movie. And she did it once with her friend. I was like, no, I hate this. I'm not good at it. I'm going to do my own fucking thing.

[01:01:58] Because her whole career is kind of formed in response to trying this one part. Yeah. Frances McGorman has three Oscar. Yes, she's the most winning living actress. Right. She's very famous. I would say a lot of people probably know her.

[01:02:14] But is she a movie star in that like she could open a movie at any point in her career? Like maybe post Fargo, but then she's just obviously not very interested. Yeah. In pursuing that. Yes. But like she never really took roles where it's like my face. No.

[01:02:31] My name on the poster. Right. You know, like. No. And I feel like she didn't want to be after this. No. It's just not something she's ever really done. Right. She's like Buscemi. Real actor. Like, but she has three lead actors. I know it's wild.

[01:02:45] I know what you mean. Like, we've talked about him too, where it's like a really famous character actor. Right. So recognizable. Right. She's funny because it's three leading roles in like three big ass movies.

[01:03:01] You know, one of them is like her husband positioning her as a lead at a time where she was sort of allergic to I think probably most leading type roles that were being offered to her writing a part that did suit her interests and her skills. Right.

[01:03:13] Like post this. Yeah. Let's see. She's in a movie called Hidden Agenda, which is a Ken Loach movie. Right. British movie. She's the lead in that. She is. But that's a small movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:03:23] She's in a movie called The Butcher's Wife, which is not a major role. That's a weird Demi Moore, Jeff Daniels comedy. Yeah. She's in Short Cuts. She's in Beyond Rangoon, which is a Patricia Arquette movie. She's in Polukoville.

[01:03:35] Like she's in a lot of movies actually kind of not going anywhere until she gets Fargo. It's not like she was like inevitable when Fargo came out. And then like post Fargo, it's like it's only three or four years later.

[01:03:45] She's in Wonder Boys and Almost Famous, where she's graduated to the like Gravitas supporting funny, whatever. More comfortable. Also, by the way, anytime she's ever done like a paycheck movie post Fargo, it's in a small role.

[01:03:57] Like it's her doing like Transformers 3 and she has four scenes where she's like Optimus Prime. As quickly as possible. Looking at this document. Sign the check. And yeah. I mean, her performance in Eon Flux, which is a movie I stick up for. Yeah. Is fascinating.

[01:04:09] And that is clearly a movie that was a lot of work because you have to wear all these crazy costumes and do all this stuff. That feels like her being like, well, I'm interested in working with this director. This is an interesting project.

[01:04:20] But like it is weird when you see her in a blockbuster. Yes. Eon Flux is a weird blockbuster, but still we are like damn it. Michael Bay has that weird thing where he collects Coen Brothers actors. He clearly loves the Coen Brothers and uses all of their stock.

[01:04:32] I think he also has that reputation where people like you should do it once. It's wild. There's nothing right. So Turo's coming back to her and going like, you're going to find this fascinating. But anyway, McDorand, it is just all these quotes are very funny. Go ahead.

[01:04:46] I don't think that. Which Pope is it? Bill now. Bill Pope. Bill Pope is the. I don't think he's doing it in any favor. Because here's what I think. I'm actually developing a little theory here that so some of the scenes had to be so about

[01:04:58] being dark that the scenes that weren't were too light, right? Yeah. Sure. Sure. And hose down with 10 Ks. Yeah. Like it is a nuclear. It's like it's a very like sort of pop already all the day light scenes, which are the scenes that she's in by and large.

[01:05:13] I also think she has a very interesting face that I imagine, especially if your job is we want to make her just the love interest in this movie when you're not playing up the

[01:05:26] character and the tension in her face, which I think a lot of her best roles do. She seems like someone who is hard to figure out how to light. And you don't want to blast her with with light.

[01:05:35] I think you get the sense like she feels uncomfortable in these outfits. She feels uncomfortable wearing this power suits. That whole part of this movie is just sort of like, okay, whatever. It's total shoe leather where it's like, look, the city and property and, you know,

[01:05:49] right buildings and land. I thought the whole meeting was like on a different context. I really thought she was like a journalist. She's working for Bado McPherson, right? Yeah. Or on that. I mean, actually, this is one of these evil developer movies, right?

[01:06:03] Which was like the quicksand of the nineties. Absolutely. And by the way, they were right. Actually, it's a lot of the like hobgoblins of Hollywood movies turned out to be exactly right. But somehow been declawed by the fact that they've appeared in studio movies like

[01:06:18] development, the evil corporation, the evil tech guys, 10 years of like this overworn trope, the evil tech guy. And now all of them are evil. And they're like, I'm building a rocket ship. And we're like, they fucking pulled us in a movie.

[01:06:32] But somehow because they've been in big movies, but it no longer really has an actual real life. Because it's what you're saying where it's like evil developers. And then the movie is like, I want to develop a death ray.

[01:06:44] And it's like, well, they don't want to do that. And it's like, well, yeah, but they do want to do a lot of bad boring shit. Like that we should call 200 housing units. The thing I find fascinating in the McDormand thing is that she sort of says like,

[01:06:56] a, you know, he was like doing me a favor. I thought I needed to do this type of movie as like learning experience means to an end understanding how to fit in Hollywood. It taught me the things I don't want to do.

[01:07:06] I found it difficult to work around his process and whatever. And it was like he was asking me to bestow gravitas around a thing that was not really that well written. This part specifically, right? Right. There's not that much there.

[01:07:18] And he's doing all this crazy pyrotechnics around me. But she also says like, I came to set talking to him like my friend. She admits she was maybe too fresh with me. In my living room. Because. We're in a professional environment.

[01:07:31] I'd be like, Sam, what the fuck are you talking about? I don't want to do that. That she was sort of like that. And it's tough to yeah, you don't want to talk to a director on his set that way. Because then, you know, right.

[01:07:40] It's gonna throw off the balance of a lot of things, I guess. I don't know. If someone looks you in the eyes on set, you fire them, right? Yeah, of course. You wear sunglasses all the time. You wear a mirrored suit so no one can see your body.

[01:07:52] If they speak to me. They speak to me. It's a problem. He takes out his notebook lightning fast. And like if someone talks to you, someone immediately just pulls them away and gives them a card being like, the director cannot be spoken to.

[01:08:04] You can, you know, the director will speak to you. Please report straight to HR. I'm just like too much of a pussycat actually, I think. I'll tell you my scariest moment with an actor on set was like, oh, actually, no, they're two. It wasn't scary.

[01:08:19] But once I was rehearsing this scene with Nicole Kidman on Golden Compass. Sure. And Nicole looked at me and she said, no, it's got to be clever. And I was like, wow, the implication here seems to me that I'm not clever. Good kid impression too.

[01:08:40] And then there was when Sir Ben Kingsley, whom I love, first day on a shooting operation finale asked me or summoned me to his green room. And he looked at me with a very scary kind of like sexy beastish kind of feeling. No, yes, yes, yes, yes.

[01:09:00] And he's also playing Eichmann in your movie. He's like fucking Harry Potter. He's saying, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And he said to me, I think I have a feeling that you do not want me to surprise you. And I was like, Jesus.

[01:09:15] Like, no, no, I think that'd be great. Man, I love surprises. And I was just like, I went into a bit of a cold sweat. And he said, because if I am the most disliked person on this set, I don't give a donut.

[01:09:28] And I said, well, I don't see why you should be. There's no reason for that to be the case. Everything's going to be fine basically. Right. That's throwing down quite a marker on day one as well. I was like, oh God.

[01:09:38] Was he the most disliked person on this? No, actually by the end of it, once I think he realized that we knew what we were doing and that he was not in kind of one of these programmers where he's sort of thrown to the wolves.

[01:09:50] No, it was great. And he was lovely and he would do anything. I remember seeing Oscar Isaac was the most despised. Too hot. Too hot. Everyone's just like, grr. I know. I was like, I'm too attracted to you. Exactly. No, this is just not going to work.

[01:10:00] Where's this guy get off being such a cutie pie? What a fucking dreamboat. Can we talk about the Julia Roberts thing? Yeah. If you want to talk about the Julia Roberts thing. I know.

[01:10:09] I always try and just sort of get, but yes, Francis McDormand, of course, said that the final two choices were Francis McDormand and Kelly Lynch, according to Nancy Nainer. Kelly Lynch, a bit of a forgotten early 90s star. Right.

[01:10:22] But was on a bit of a roll and slots more obviously into this type of part. She's in cocktail. She's, she's very good in drugstore cowboy roadhouse and she's in roadhouse, of course. But the studio was pushing for Julia Roberts.

[01:10:34] This is pre pretty woman release is my guess. Right. But she's still again, an Oscar nominee for still. Has still is. She's in mystic pizza. What's the other element of play? She and Liam had dated briefly and had broken up.

[01:10:49] And when they read the audition scene together, both actors had tears in their eyes. It was so intimate right after her agent called and said she should maybe be taken out of consideration. It's too raw for her. Um, but fascinating to think about.

[01:11:02] Especially when Rami is like, I wanted to build this love story that like you actually cared about the idea of them like watching these two actors walk in with tears in their eyes and go like straight into the depths of feeling they must have been like, holy.

[01:11:16] Honestly, when I hear that, I'm like, shit, I want to see that. I do too. Because Frances McDormand is fine in this movie, but it's probably like the worst Frances McDormand performance of all time in a way where you're kind of like, yeah, she's, she's pretty good.

[01:11:30] I sense her discomfort in this movie. I don't have a lot to do. But yes, it's, it's just, it does feel like the one where she realizes she learns exactly what kind of actor she is by doing this and learning what she doesn't want to be.

[01:11:44] She's giving a melodrama. Yes. Performance, right? Which to her point makes sense. She's like, if this movie is this bombastic around me, I'm not going to go small. I'm not going to go intimate. Right. You know? Yeah. Right. Neeson though is just like so properly dialed in.

[01:12:02] It's kind of incredible. And it's like you think about he was a guy who was a little bit known but wasn't a movie star and wasn't a leading man at this point. He is about to be Oscar Schindler. He is a thousand. Right.

[01:12:17] But that's still three years off. He put in this movie, the good mother, which is the Leonard Nimoy movie. An insane movie. Do you know what the premise of that movie is? We've talked about it. We talked about it. It's insane. We talked about it. Yes.

[01:12:27] Uh, he was in a movie called next of kin that I think was sort of like a solid thriller. But yeah, he's an Excalibur, right? I mean, the smaller parts. He's like a baby. Yeah. Like he's got like baby roles. Yeah.

[01:12:38] Next of kin of course is a um, Swayze. He's in the dead pool. Is that right? He's in one of the dirty. In one of those. Yeah. And um, let's see. Let's see. Let's see.

[01:12:49] Is the dental the one where there is there an actual pool with like a thing that goes over the pool and no, that's the drowning pool. That's the drowning pool. The dead pool is, you know, someone's betting on killing cops.

[01:13:00] And so dirty Harry is going to shoot them. Right. They'll be in the dead pool. He's in that zone that I think studios liked for movies of this budget level where it's just like, that's a face that people have seen before.

[01:13:12] He doesn't cost us too much money, but audiences will feel a little bit comfortable and he's got leading man chops. He's handsome. As Neeson says, yeah, the script appeal to the little boy in me because I know it would

[01:13:27] have been something I would have loved to seen on a Saturday matinee growing up in Ireland with that little kid from the movie Belfast. He didn't say that part. And also he says, and it was a big fat juicy lead in the movie. I'm Liam Neeson in 1990.

[01:13:39] Who am I to turn that? Works is that it doesn't feel like a craving calculation. Even if he does like, oh, fuck, this is my entree into being the guy on the poster. Certainly found this movie exhausting to make.

[01:13:49] I'm just going to put a bunch of fucking makeup on his face all the time. It was a 60 day shoot. Yeah, it was not easy. He's got a caper around quite a lot. And he's got to play crazy. Rainy setups.

[01:13:59] And he's apparently his next film is a movie called The Big Man. Never heard of it. Liam Neeson playing a big man. What they do build small sets. Uh, in which he played a bare knuckle boxer, which was like being shot in Scotland.

[01:14:13] So he would like get up before filming Dark Man and like do boxing preparation. 3am box and train for three hours and go to makeup chair at like 6am so that he could be on set at 9am. It's he said it was five hours to make it.

[01:14:27] They got it down to three at some point. So, you know, but he does say the film is very dear to him to this day. And he's been in a lot of movies. He's not doing like the little things that actors can do to say like,

[01:14:42] I know I'm better than this movie. And you and I audience member know that this is horseshit. That's what I work. Yeah, he's not winking. No, it's it's but I think it's exactly what you said, David, that he's like, I would have loved this movie as a kid.

[01:14:55] I would have been hook line and sinker in on this. I want to give the performance that I wanted to see rather than being like, I'm fucking Liam Neeson. I'm a trained doctor. And it's like he knows exactly how silly to go when to be scary.

[01:15:11] You know, he understands the sort of like vocabulary of his poses. He just had some good monster work, you know, sound and physicality. Yeah, he's got like a lot of Quasimodo in. Yes. Like, yeah, but I feel like all this posing,

[01:15:26] like when he's hunching and sort of lurching and the way he runs and everything. It's like he understand, like he looks like illustrations. Now, Chris. Yes, I the other actor we should briefly mention main actor is Larry Drake, who plays Durant. Oh, yeah, that cigar chomping fucker.

[01:15:44] That's sure. He's good. He's got kind of this Edward G. Robinson thing going on, which is what you're talking about. His hair is so interesting. It's so I can't look away from this. It's just this push everything forward. Everything is just perfectly in the same direction.

[01:16:03] His bit with the cigar cutter is great villain stuff. It's simple, but it is a good kind of calling card behavior, right? It's kind of nasty. It's kind of old fashioned. Look, there is a reason why like people had been asking us,

[01:16:20] are you guys going to do the Darkman sequels on Patreon? And we thought about it and then we were like, does anyone like these or is it just the titles? Right. And it's like Die Darkman Die is a funny title,

[01:16:29] but there's also just something so funny about being like, we didn't get Neeson back. We paid for Drake. It's now Larry Drake above the title. He's the biggest face on the poster and movie is subtitled The Return of Durant as if Durant was like Tommy Lee Jones

[01:16:44] in The Fugitive. Like this guy popped so fucking hard. The sequel is going to be all about him. They do give him too much weight. Yes. Yeah. The Return of Durant. Also, I mean, he's back. I think throughout the movie, he makes some really bad decisions, right?

[01:17:01] Durant or Larry Drake. Durant definitely makes some bad decisions. Durant should not fire missiles at police helicopters. So Sam Raimi wanted it to be a flamethrower and all the special effects guys were like, Sam, if there was a man hanging out of a helicopter with a flamethrower,

[01:17:16] the flame will engulf the entire helicopter because of the blades and everyone will die. We're not fucking, we're not even having a conversation about this. That's not going to happen. Sure. Would have been cool. Would have been cool if it was animated.

[01:17:29] You're pro flamethrower over missile launcher in general? I can't, I can't answer that question. Okay. It's like your favorite children. Favorite children. Yes. Anyway, Larry Drake. No, I'm just thinking like the consequences of his actions are going to be pretty terrible one way or the other. Yes.

[01:17:46] In as much as, you know, somebody will have witnessed, right? This guy firing missiles at police helicopters. Sure. And no matter how nihilistic he's feeling at that stage, he cannot be reckoning his future very carefully at that point.

[01:18:01] The one element of the movie that feels like it's in response to like this, the lonification of action movies. And I like it. I like the pulpiness of it, but it is funny that the rest of the movie is like happening

[01:18:12] in like warehouses and abandoned alleyways and whatever. And then you have this one just like bright daylight, middle of traffic. Yeah. There's a dark man hanging from a helicopter and a guy with a rocket launcher. Right. I also like that he has two commands to his pilot.

[01:18:28] And one of them, one of them is something like dip him. And the other one is with him or something like that. Right. It's excellent. Yeah. And so the finger cutting things, I also thought do, would the fingers be so well preserved in his little finger display case?

[01:18:45] Wouldn't they have been shriveled? He's got a bombing fluid. He must have a guy. He's in some formality. After he's done it. Takes them back. Yeah. He's got a guy or he does it. He's it blocks them very carefully.

[01:18:57] I was like, I got, we got to get this to him in like the next. These gangsters have, they all are right. They've all got their looks. I'll give Larry Drake a big compliment here. I think he's good.

[01:19:08] I think his strong, his high point of the movie when he's playing the two versions, right? His performance as Neeson playing him is really fucking good. He's having the most fun with that. Well, you know what? I like that long haired guy. He's fun.

[01:19:26] It's always fun when they do that. But yes, no, you're right. Drake really thought about the difference. He feels like the guy who was the actor who was playing the other guys. Well, like the guy who plays Pauly, I was thinking, I wrote this note to myself.

[01:19:39] Like what were, what are his dreams? Like that actor, like what is his, this is probably a big role for him, right? Maybe the biggest he's played. Probably. But what was he, what, you know, what else? Who does he want? Oh, sure.

[01:19:52] The actor, you know, he'll play heavies for his entire career. Presumably Larry Drake. No, no, no, no. Sorry. Guy who plays Pauly. Bald. Nicholas Worth. First like body with the tattoo. Right. It's a lot of it. It's a lot of movies I haven't heard of without being rude.

[01:20:10] Right. But it's a lot of thug one bull, right? I bet he's Tucci, right? Rhino. Yeah. A lot of guys who sound like heavies. Yeah. I bet he's dreaming of like stickball or this childhood, something nostalgic. Right. Because he looks like he's having a good rest.

[01:20:26] He's dreaming of stickball. Stickball. He's thinking of the movies. This is the movie I'd want to see when I was a kid. He thinks that too, but Liam Neeson gets to say it, you know.

[01:20:36] To give people a sense of the plot of dark man in case we haven't done a good enough job. Dr. Peyton Westlake. If you will. Yes. A great name. Incredible. Peyton Westlake is a really good comic book hero named Dr. Peyton Westlake. That's the thing.

[01:20:50] Everything about this movie, you're like, he's making this up. This feels like it's pulled from the annals. He's trying to create synthetic skin, of course. Much like Dr. Michael Morbius creates synthetic blood. Right. But he wants to help burn victims by creating synthetic skin to graft.

[01:21:05] It's always disintegrating. What is it? The light. After 99 minutes, they figure out that it's photosensitive. Yes. Keep it in the dark. And what's also really cool is everyone's surrounded by sick gear. Yeah, their lab is very much a Ben Hosley environment. Yes.

[01:21:22] A very cool set design in my opinion, actually. So cool. And then in classic Sam Raimi style, they throw Liam Neeson into every part of the set during the big he gets set on fire sequence. The fucking...

[01:21:36] God, I love the shot of him being slammed into the glass, pulled out over the next one, pulled out over the next one. That whole camera. I love that. The bad guys, when they do the things that they do also, they're very joyous in their ego. Yes.

[01:21:51] Yes, sure. Which is remarkable. Which isn't just a job to them. There are guys who are doing jobs, but they seem to... Even also at the end, the big bad guy, even when he's doing things that to me seem like he should really be worrying about his future.

[01:22:06] Again, I'm worried about these bad guys. You're right. You're being too parental. Yeah. You're like, come on, guys. Have you thought about next year? Retirement account. Get a GED. Come on. You're really on the edge of your entire dream being destroyed right now.

[01:22:20] And yet you are so wrapped up in... I mean, you're standing on the top of a building in construction with a bolt gun. This is not good. Whatever happened, this is not good for you. This is not a good result. But you're so enjoying shooting at Darkman.

[01:22:35] Like, I think it's strange. Chris, did you see the bolt gun? Did you consider the bolt gun? Consider the bolt gun. Because I agree, I don't like heights. But I'd be interested in trying it out. You know, it's funny.

[01:22:48] Rami does a lot of scaffolding battles because he does that in Spider-Man 3 as well. And I feel like there's another movie. I was going to say, I mean, No Way Home brought it back.

[01:22:56] But I do feel like there was a 10 to 15 year period where if you were making a superhero movie, it had to end on scaffolding. You had to be at a high height in an abandoned... Factory. Jumping for building sacks. Right. You have to be on a steeple.

[01:23:11] You have to like... That was the big... There were no giant portals in the sky. That's the famous Batman story, right? Where John Peters is like, it's ending in a church. And Burton's like, no, it's not. What? And he's like, I already built the church.

[01:23:21] Get him up that church. And motherfucker, you're going on the top floor. And Burton's like, this isn't in the script. Why are they? And he's like, it doesn't matter. It's like you need a location. Dark Knight ends that way too. Yeah, it does.

[01:23:31] And I feel like that's the last of that. The original run of your final set piece. And people really complained about that Dark Knight where they were like, this action is muddy. I can't tell where anything is because it's just a bunch of girders.

[01:23:43] X-Men, first X-Men ends in the Statue of Liberty. Sure does really good action sequence. Right. But then it did feel like weirdly a throwback that No Way Home is scaffolding around the Statue of Liberty. Another one where they barely explained why that's happened.

[01:23:56] Reason not to have a lot of people around. Yeah, of course. You get the civilians out of the way. And also it looks cinematic. And it's dark. You get Skyline behind you and all this shit. And then you always get to...

[01:24:06] People love to have bad guys fall from a great height. Anyway, very good falling out of a window gag in this one. Yes. I thought they did that very well. The bald guy. Yeah, the bald guy. Yeah, that falls. It's really long.

[01:24:19] Like it takes a long time before... I don't know how they do that. And it kind of doesn't look like a dummy at all. No, I don't know what they did. And the guy wasn't doing the stunt dancing of overly gyrating his arms on the way down.

[01:24:30] You know? So Julie Hastings, his girlfriend, she's a lawyer. She's got this document that her boss... What's it called? The memorandum. What's it? Yeah, the Belisarius Memorandum. That's like we're going to rebuild the entire city or whatever.

[01:24:46] It's just these little simple things that Ramy is just good at making sure he covers. Where it's like put the coffee cup on the paper. The coffee stain is very good. And focus on just give us one clear shot so it sticks in the back of our brain.

[01:24:57] And we can shorthand get back to that later and make you put together the piece. Right. Because this memo is at the lab to rant and at all show up. They beat the shit out of Liam Neeson. It's a memorandum that reveals we are bad guys.

[01:25:09] We like doing bad things. Please don't tell anyone about the bad stuff. Also, don't copy this. Also, PDFs don't exist. Also use a coaster. They really do Robocop him where it's kind of like you're dead now 15 more minutes. You know what I mean?

[01:25:25] Like they really go to town. I think there's a fair amount of Robocop in the DNA of this movie. Even talking Chris about how joyous the goons are. That's the thing I really think of like Robocop.

[01:25:35] It's not pioneering that like all the bad guys in that movie fucking love being bad guys. Like they can't stop laughing as they're shooting people and shit. And maybe it also shares the DNA of someone not actually terribly pre-possessing being considered a super dangerous bad guy.

[01:25:50] Like Kermit, um, no in Robocop. It's a, uh, Kirtwood Smith. Kirtwood. Right. Right. The sort of banality of these guys. Right. This guy who doesn't even look that scary. Combine get his foot in your ass. Right. But yes, yes. They're these insane like nihilistic hedonists. Okay.

[01:26:07] I'm sorry to interrupt this too, but, but, uh, uh, leg, leg gun guy. This is a fantastic guy. Okay. This fucking guy. It started, it starts with establishing super bad guy. He's the very best guy. I haven't touched on it. Uh, yes.

[01:26:20] Durant comes in with his guys who are not enough guys. They're all surrounded by guys with machine guns. Right. The, the, the what's his name? Sorry. Eddie black. That's the current big boss. They make fun of this guy with the limb. Right. I do like Eddie black's joke.

[01:26:34] I dated a lady with one leg when happened, had to break it off. Yeah. It's good. Yeah. Two comedy points. Or it could have been like, it was all just hollow at the end. Well, there you go now.

[01:26:44] Now I'm just, I want to see a line of drama. You should have done a few jokes. But yes, you liked it. There's no, what else? What else? What else? My favorite thing about this opening scene. Okay. Let's see. Let's see. Okay. All right. Hush. You too.

[01:26:56] Be quiet. I don't see if we can make it. Finish your point about gunman. Well, okay. So, so then it, it, it, it turns out that the man's a fake leg is actually a machine gun.

[01:27:08] Which, which is somehow very quickly acquired off of the guy who then under him, pick it up and start fucking mowing people. Now, notwithstanding the fact that you suddenly have a machine gun that they did not expect you

[01:27:20] to have and that, okay, it may work better than you would think a machine gun leg would work. Everybody else still has shit loads of machine guns and rocket launch and everything, but they seem to be so stunned by this, this turn by this gestalt shift.

[01:27:34] You never, they cannot defend themselves adequately against what then comes. I do like that Eddie black is like, okay, get them. And then a bunch of cars drive out of shipping containers. Yeah. Nowhere. So I do like shipping. He has a backup. Yeah. And she's like, don't worry.

[01:27:49] There's guys in shipping containers. You're Sam Raimi and the studio is giving you $15 million. How many cars can I buy? I had to blow up my own car twice, you know? Yes. That's true. He did.

[01:28:02] But that guy, but the surprise of cars in shipping containers did not trump the surprise of leg, which turns into machine gun. And so somehow the game is just one. The moment that machine gun is deployed, it's all over. It's psychological warfare. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:28:18] So they burn, they, they, they burn acid and throw in a river. They murder his, his assistant. They do murders. Right. They rob him. And he ran rapidly shouts an assistant, let him go. And they, uh, in order to give him a, what did they say?

[01:28:35] Breathing room or whatever. Give him some air. Right. They give them some air by shooting the head. Yeah. It's actually Ted Ramey who does it and he seems nervous about it. It's actually a really well-played scene. Yes. Yeah.

[01:28:45] So Ted Ramey is the guy who makes his first kill. Who was then beloved by Durant. That's Ted. Um, but he doesn't die. He Jenny got her, I got her whatever. Instead he's recovered from the river and she's just like, great new, new process.

[01:29:01] Uh, he'll feel no pain. We'll snip his adrenal glands. Very, very quickly. Just cause I wanted to shout out like sort of just this moment where like, like kind of quickly passing by, but just because it made me excited and illustrates why I think

[01:29:15] Sam Ramey rules as a director. So I just wrote down. So, okay. Um, the flying burnt ass body, silly fun. Right. Sure. Like the fucking building, you know, into the river splash. Yeah. Okay.

[01:29:29] Fade to her, like standing out in the street and it turns to the funeral, right? Fun. Kind of just like matches all very nice matches. And then it goes right to then the grave digger making a joke about the guy being blown to bits.

[01:29:45] That's just like kind of a bunch of rapid fire. I just love this like goofy filmmaking, but it's like economical and like interesting. It just like, I don't know. I just like that little one minute little part of the movie, I think was greatest comic

[01:30:00] cool digger since Hamlet. Good call. You think so? Good call. Trying to think if there's any competitors there. Um, you read the reviews at the time and it's great diggers. That's a wrap. Critics are starting to see more movies like this.

[01:30:13] They're like, this is the first time someone's made something that actually feels and looks like a comic book. And I think part of it is things like the transition of McDormand to the funeral. With the speed of it.

[01:30:23] But also he's like, he's leaning into the artificiality of his techniques in the same way that you have a guy who's drawing his 80th issue of whatever. And it's like, how do I keep this fresh for myself? What are some cool transitions and devices I can use?

[01:30:36] And I feel like all the composite shots in this movie, anytime they're in front of what is clearly an artificial background, they're like heightening it. Like they're making it look sort of pop already rather than trying to create a seamless effect. Yeah, it's painterly.

[01:30:50] That's all I wrote down. All true. I just also think it's really funny that he wakes up after everything we've just described. Because what is this? Like 20, 25, 20 minutes before he used argument? Correct. He wakes up and it's like, okay, so I can't feel pain. I have no face.

[01:31:05] He's attached to a Sammo cam essentially. We talked about this in the Evil Dead episodes. Oh sure, yeah. That spinning cross that they would put. Right, right. They're just spinning them all around.

[01:31:15] I'm just trying to say like, he's like, if Dark Man, if you were to sit down at this moment, write it down. I can't feel pain. I'm going insane. I have no face. Everyone thinks I'm dead. Everyone thinks I've been left for dead.

[01:31:29] I can make faces with a computer. I'm good at impressions. It's my life's work. But then there's the added wrinkle of like, I'm not so bad with the impressions. I'm a pretty quick study. So do you think he should have taken it on the road?

[01:31:44] I'm just saying, I love that. He could have been like, rich little one better. He puts all that together. Instead, he just got stuck up on revenge. Ridiculous. Because it's always those comic books, like when you're like, I'm going to read detective

[01:31:56] comics, blah, you know where it's like, and it's like Batman. It's like two pages. Yeah. They're just sort of like, of course his parents died, but he was rich and he didn't like Bats. He saw Bat one time. Yeah, yeah. Like, and you're like, yeah, whatever, man.

[01:32:06] He's Batman. I get it. Let it be Batman. The language of those comics is just has to be fast. So you're just saying, you know, by panel eight, they're like, I've got it. I'll be Spider-Man.

[01:32:16] And you're like, okay, but this where he's just like, I guess I should. And we're like, yeah, you should. I buy that. You should. Don't have a lot of options. Be like an insane master of disguise who also like brutalizes people. Sure. That's good.

[01:32:29] I get the specificity of. And there's a time limit. Like, you know, you gotta keep watching the clock. There's another time constraint, which is that in order to make a Liam Neeson face, it takes 512 hours.

[01:32:40] Whereas to make any other face that he needs to make, it takes less. That to be fair, Liam Neeson has a pretty particular face. Okay. Now, very particular set of face. I thought it was that they were doing the whole body.

[01:32:50] So I was assuming it was taking all that extra time for this huge hog. Oh, well, every time Neeson's discussed on this podcast. Chance Dickinson described it as an Evian bottle. Someone's scratching the fucking. Now I'm going to Tingo card. Chris is to go.

[01:33:05] Now I'm going to tell a story in which someone once reported to me that his innocent had been described like a dead German hanging out a window. Why German? I don't know. But for some reason, when my friend, well, I guess it was like World War Two. Sure.

[01:33:24] Who would like snapped himself into some kind of harness. Yeah, no, I understand. Right, right, right, right. But then also this is where Athena comes in as well, which is the connection is actually not dirty for some reason.

[01:33:36] She was at the end of the table when this was was being discussed. But not clearly a little too loudly. And then for a while she kept on singing that German hanging at the window. I'm a dead German hanging.

[01:33:48] So she just picked up on the image of the dead. She didn't get the sound of it. No, she did not. Right. That's that is now that will haunt me. Yeah, absolutely. Liam Neeson. Yes, I do. Liam Neeson. Yes. Oh, no, no.

[01:34:05] I was going to say you were talking about how long it takes to make the mask. This thing where they built the machine that pretty much could do it in real time on camera. Exactly. Could at least do right.

[01:34:15] If you wanted it to be just about as realistic as it could be. It's like a 3D printer. How great would it be if we could hire magicians and come up with a way to let this play out

[01:34:25] so that Sam can cover it and treat it however he wants and use as much of the footage as they want. So essentially, like everything up to the finishing of the mask could happen continuously. Right. And then they would swap out a different thing.

[01:34:36] The special effects are really good. They're really good. They are really good, especially because it's not that expensive. No, it's pretty digital. I mean, in one sense, it's digital because you see the computer images, but really, it's pretty CG on it.

[01:34:49] But you know what I like about this too? Like the Mission Impossible franchise has probably become our preeminent mask franchise. Right. Famous. Right. And there they just always use the trick of we swap out an actor and they just look perfect.

[01:35:02] At some point, except for the De Palma movie, the De Palma movie, they made the mask. Oh, sure. Sure. But apart from that, mostly, no, yes, yes. The thing I like in this is like when Dorkman is pretending to be Durant, they put makeup

[01:35:18] on Larry Drake to make him look a little artificial. Yes, it's just a little bit wrong. Like it's the colors a little bit off. His eyes are a little. What about when they do the two masks, though? That's cool too.

[01:35:31] Where the first mask comes off and then the second mask has the tape on the mouth. Yeah, right. Because it's the first mask looks fake. Then he takes it off. It's a perfect niece. And with the tape underneath, like instead of teeth, essentially, right? It's crazy. Right.

[01:35:45] And then there's the mask. I fucking rule. That's pretty cool. Yeah, I always like that with masks. Can I tell a true Hollywood story lookalike thing? Sure. I'm going to tell this as quickly as possible. Okay.

[01:35:56] So back when I was a younger person, I would occasionally look like Christopher Reeve. Yes. Reeves? Reeve. Reeve, right? What a burden. I remember. I know you poor motherfucker. So I remember when I bought my first house ever in Los Angeles, right?

[01:36:15] It had a jacuzzi and I inherited the cool guy who would come to the jacuzzi. So this guy shows up one day and I go out to say. Christopher Reeve looking motherfucker. And I say, hey, oh, hi. Thanks. My name's Chris. How are you?

[01:36:30] And he looked at me strangely. And so this was after Chris Reeves had had this terrible accident. Yeah. So he looked at me. He read like I really gave him the willies. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, that's weird.

[01:36:42] And I kind of went back later and later I got the bill for his services and it said Christopher Rivas, right? Because there's a Mexican guy who had spelled Reeves the way that he, yes. Phonetically. And I realized this guy thought that I was Christopher Reeves. Reeve.

[01:36:59] But that Reeve, yeah. That he, but that Christopher Reeve has been putting on. Yes. This accident the entire time. It's almost like he thought you were right. Coming to fucking Francis McDoran being like, I'm here. I'm fine. Yep. Right. Which he does do. Which he does do.

[01:37:13] I'm, I'm not dead. I'm just wounded and insane. That must've been mind blowing where he's like, did he get better? And no one knows about it yet. Or is this a huge conspiracy? Well, you know what these Hollywood folks, they're always pretending to be injured and stuff.

[01:37:28] It's all part of the process. I got one more thing. You can cut this out of this is too boring. No, we'll keep it in double. Don't say that Alex will do it. So then there's Christopher Reeves again.

[01:37:38] I told this on the podcast before, but, but, but actually the apartment that I rented before that, right. The cable guy came over to turn on the cable once. And he said like, Hey, you know who you look like?

[01:37:46] And I said, yeah, sometimes you might say Christopher Reeves. Cause people say that sometimes like, yeah, you really look like him. And he said, you know what you should do? You should call up the studio and say that, you know, you can keep on making Superman.

[01:38:01] I know you guys are sweating this, but right. I look just like him. Yeah. And I said, ah, I don't, well, I don't think that would work. I don't think we get a damn.

[01:38:09] That's not really what I, what I, what I do is like, no, you should really do that. And I was like, eh, I mean, I guess, thanks. I guess, but I'm not going to do that.

[01:38:15] Then he looked at me and said, man, it's sad when people give up on their dream, man. It's sad when people give up on their dream, man. It's sad when people give up on their dream.

[01:38:32] He thinks he's like you, you, you want, you don't have the guts, but his dream became yours and you were letting it down. You were lying to yourself. Um, okay. Sorry for interrupting. No, no, no. Uh, uh, dark man.

[01:38:47] No, I'm just trying to, I mean, obviously then he is dark man. Right. Um, and, uh, he is, he does find Julie and he convinces her he was in a coma, not dead. He sets up a, you know, it gets an apartment lab.

[01:39:03] He put, you know, work from home. But I can only do a short hang. Right? He puts Ted Raimi, uh, up a manhole and gets him knocked over by a car. That's very fun. Cartoony.

[01:39:13] That's what he said is like, he would direct me and he'd be like, I want you to fall down and then spring back up like this. And he'd be like, Sam, that's not how humans are. And then you watch him do this with his brother.

[01:39:24] And it's like, he just has this little brother where it's like, Hey Ted, let someone pick you up by the legs and swing you around like you're fucking meat on a stick.

[01:39:33] Um, but, uh, so yeah, I mean like, I don't know that we need to go beat by beat on dark man after that. It's a lot of crime fighting and stuff, but what do you want to focus on?

[01:39:42] What the movie builds to is like, does this guy have superpowers? Like beyond, you know, his ability with this technology? And it's like, no, it feels like the thing is this just kind of broken. Right. Well, he's got mega adrenaline power. Yes. Right. Yes.

[01:39:56] And he can't feel pain. And he's in. So he's, he's good at fighty fighting. But also he's like gone insane. Like it's this thing at the end of the movie where he's like, I'm a monster now. Yeah. I'm like not a person. I don't think the same way.

[01:40:08] Right. I think another power that no one, they're not like, they're not taking advantage of this as like an aspect of the character. Like a detail is that he's got a stink. Yeah. He must smell terrible. He must stink. Here's he's got open wounds. I know you do.

[01:40:23] And those bandages are like. I was worried about secondary infection because fine. I wouldn't want to be touching. I thought a good little detail was when he becomes a bald guy, he sprays after shave and I feel like to cover up that he is rank as hell.

[01:40:36] We don't see him in full fucked up face mode too many times. Obviously most of he's banded. But I do love the design. It's so good. And it's really nasty. It's really, really. The way that the muscles. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:40:51] I know to me and about the middle, I'm thinking actually this is a movie because once he starts dating Francis McDormand again and takes her on these weird dates like very weird stuff like that. Like yeah. Not nice. Quietly. Can't spend the night.

[01:41:03] Um, uh, it's really about a guy who is afraid that his trauma. It's like psychologically speaking someone who, who is afraid to show his weaknesses and trauma. Yes. Yes. Significant other. Yeah. Yeah. And it's both. Yeah.

[01:41:16] He's like, I don't think you'll still love me if you see the real me. And there's the physical level of it, which is obvious and surface level. But it also is this shit of like he's like emotionally unbalanced now. Like he cannot control his rage. Yeah.

[01:41:28] He's a madman. He's a madman. He's a he's a dark man. He's gone mad. He's a dark man. He is a dark man. That's true. Um, I just think the circus scene, not the circus, but the carnival. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:41:39] He's just like that shot of him with the thing. Well, that fucking shot. That's which I feel like has kind of become the dark man image in a weird way online or people like, do people know about this movie? Like I've seen that image pass.

[01:41:52] What incredible fucking expressionist is filmmaking that just feels like a weird dicko splash page or something, you know? Absolutely. But also just the bizarreness of that scene, Neeson's performance, like him understanding there is comedy to this and the comedy comes from me giving this the absolute greatest

[01:42:12] amount of Neeson gravitas and doing it in this surrounding, this incongruous setting with this guy over this elephant. And then the graphics behind me, like amping it up even more. What are you looking at me as scans? It makes sense that he's dark man. He is dark.

[01:42:27] Because he needs to be in the dark. Dr. Pitmuss. He's out at night. It's just weird that Batman's Batman bats are like this big. Yeah. Like, it's just like there was only like a few superheroes and the guy was like, I'm nailing bats.

[01:42:42] Do you want to go down this road? David? Just weird. I don't like bats. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I admire them or whatever. But if there was a bat coming at me, I would also go like, do you know who's also a Batman? Dr. Michael Murbius.

[01:42:54] We don't say this enough. People like to describe him as a living vampire, but you watch that movie is kind of more of a bat man. He is a literal bat man. Batman doesn't ever use echolocation, does he? Well, you know, Nolan has him.

[01:43:06] Dr. Michael Murbius fucking does. Dr. Michael Murbius. There's so many shots where they zoom in on his ears and the little hairs like pick up in his ears. They do that. I miss that trick. He's got Morbius hearing.

[01:43:17] But but, you know, in the Nolan in the Dark Knight, Nolan has Batman have this like sonar device. Oh, yeah. Which was kind of I know you don't love this. And, you know, actually, Val Kilmer's Batman in Batman and Batman forever uses a sonar thing once. Oh, yeah.

[01:43:33] With his own voice. It was like that would be cool if he had to go like what? What if that's Pattinson's big note on the sequel? Like he comes in and he is like, OK, we're right now. Now I'm going to do a full bat.

[01:43:46] At least one Batman has slept upside down, right? I'm not remembering that. Yes, that's the key bit. Yeah, I'm trying to get like a yogic thing to send noise to his brain. Maybe, but it's a fucking gag.

[01:43:58] I love that in the first Burton movie, Vicky sleeps over and she wakes up in the middle of night and he's not there and she looks and he's hanging upside down by his feet on the bedpost. Yes, it does rule. Yeah, Pattinson should do that.

[01:44:11] Anyway, I'm sorry for bringing up Batman. Darkman. What else is Darkman do? There's the elephant. No, I was just gonna say, can we do a full sort of fashion rundown of the look then? Because I just think there are a lot of things going on here.

[01:44:23] Yeah, they only pull up his entire right. I want to pull them up too, because I think right off the bat, the bandages are great, right? They're so very fancy, but they start getting more aggoy. Right. And a little mummy.

[01:44:37] The other character he's kind of riffing on here is the unknown soldier. Sure. It's the DC character. Right, right, right. Who had a similar look with the bandages. He's got some bandages. This guy who was assumed dead and can take on different identities. Yeah, obviously bandages crucial.

[01:44:53] Now, next, he's got a hat. Let's just say like the layout of the bandages is really good. Ben, like you were saying, like it's just sort of well, like it's wrapped around the head. The eyes are exposed and then it's like it's and there's a nose bridge. Right.

[01:45:07] It's right. Yeah. And it brings up kind of just like one, like sort of like narrower strap up his nose. And he's also got him on the hands. He's got sometimes he has leather gloves, but he also looks cool with fucking mummy. And they're all like, yeah, dangly.

[01:45:21] He doesn't steal new bandages. He doesn't replace his bandages. He's in like, are you worried about the dressing? I'm also worried a little bit like you should have some some antibiotic. They get worse the longer the movie goes on. Like they look rancid.

[01:45:34] But I think I think the lines of the bandages are really good. And then as he fights more and the bandages come undone, whenever he has that sort of half bandage look, like anytime you see another inch of his face exposed, it's worse. It's always just well done.

[01:45:45] Yeah, yeah. Great long trench coat. Especially in the daytime when he's on the roof. He pops. Right. What do you call this thing on this coat where it's like, it's got the weird shoulder thing? Do you know what I'm saying? Yes, I do. It's like the cape thing.

[01:46:00] Yeah. Isn't it an inisculin? It's like what Sherlock Holmes had. Right. Yeah, correct. I don't remember the exact term, but it is for like a trench coat type of coat. Yes. Right. They have those sometimes. Jet black. Yep. Like this bright red Oxford shirt underneath.

[01:46:19] And then how do you top it off then? A little tilted fedora. Yeah, a little hat. Yeah, of course. And sometimes switch it out for a metal fucking funnel. Yeah. A rusty metal funnel. Into a little dance for a monkey. Do you think that's why Durant hates him?

[01:46:33] Because Durant really needs a hat for his weird little haircut. And he's like, this fucker's got a great hat. And Durant describes it as my weird little haircut. Get me a fucking hat for this weird little haircut. I know he talked about the teeth already.

[01:46:46] Also, I like just the one eye. Like more fucked up. Yeah. And his skin kind of like... Wait, is there something up with him? Is he okay? He got pushed into goo and that exploded and tossed in the fucking river. His teeth look terrible when he's Darkman.

[01:47:02] But then when he is Liam Neeson again, he brushes his teeth properly, I guess. And then somehow they become... It's a fair question. I want to see the tooth machine. It's like popcorn is like... They wanted to tie him and you have to load him in.

[01:47:18] The teeth only last 90 minutes. I love the gag whenever they do when the face is starting to deteriorate and they have whatever it is like the sort of like the inflation of the prosthetics where the face starts bubbling. Yes, that's really good.

[01:47:32] Yeah, it's great the way they dissolve. I think the little amoeba that you see in the microscope, I think they achieve that effect really well. Yeah. And it's unsettling whenever someone chases him and they're like, where'd the guy go?

[01:47:43] And they look on the ground and there's just flesh dissolving. Yeah. I like Darkman. Good guy. I'm pro-Francis McDormand, even though this is a sort of... I like Larry Drake. Enjoy Ted Raimi. Big fan of Eddie Black played by Jesse Lund. Colin Friel's is Louis Strack Jr.

[01:48:01] Little underwhelming. Not doing a lot for me. No. No offense to the man. Thankless. And I wonder, you know, like I wonder about an actor in his position at that point. He's married to Judy Davis? That's right. He's an Australian actor. Still married.

[01:48:15] He's married longer than I've been alive. No, he's Scottish born, but Australian raised. Ooh, a lethal combination. Yeah. I mean, this is the kind of thing where you... It's a poison pill, right? You get this gig.

[01:48:29] And it's tough because he's like the final boss and you're like, no, you aren't. You know, like... Right. I think it's hard to do something interesting with this part, but also his performance is a little bit off the rack. And in order for this to have any juice,

[01:48:42] you kind of know from the moment he's set up, this guy's going to be a problem. He doesn't exist just to take Francis McDormand out on chase dates, right? There has to be a reason he's in this movie. Right.

[01:48:51] And they're trying to hide it, but you're like, you can't hide it. You want to be a little more seductive and charming. I like that they did it in Venom where the other guy is actually kind of a great guy.

[01:49:02] That is one of the funniest things about Venom. And that they keep it up in Venom 2 is really funny. But he's still around and he's like, all right, what's the matter with you? I'll help you out. You're talking about. Yeah, right. Yeah. Excellent choice.

[01:49:15] I think I incredible choice. This guy is the power of amazing balance too, because you find it at the very end on those girders. He used to go and work on building sites and that he has amazing balance. He's doing like pure wets. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:49:30] I do obviously like Darkman killing him. I love it. Because Strack tries to be like, you would never come on. Like you're a good guy. But that's amazing. Yeah. I don't see what he bases his, you would never do. It's true because Darkman seems crazy.

[01:49:43] I would definitely not be like, come on, let me appeal to your rational heart. Right. Bandaged goo man. Well, but he's more even doing that provoking where it's like, you don't have it in you because you know that you're. Whereas I would have been all about like,

[01:49:57] listen, this is an important moment in your life right now. You've got to make a decision about who you're going to be from this point on. Even though you're dangling like by one foot. Yeah. What kind of person are you? You're dangling like a niece and dick. Yeah.

[01:50:08] That's it is the weird, like, I mean, we, we record our simple plan episode, which hasn't come out yet. But I was sort of comparing it to the evil dead movies in that all of them are about

[01:50:17] this sort of, and I think this is a theme with Rami. It's like, is there a moment that can fundamentally break a point person to the point of no return? Whether it's an act of choice or a thing that happens to a traumatic thing.

[01:50:27] And like, how do you recover from that? And can your humanity be restored from that? You know, these sort of like biblical sort of things that can be thrust upon a person. And it's interesting that Spider-Man is the ultimate, like with great power comes great responsibility.

[01:50:43] Here's a guy who a thing happens to, and he constantly rises to the occasion. He struggles. He has internal drama, but that is ultimately clear. That's why Stanley is so brilliant. Right? Like, it's like, this guy's super powered and I'm like, love it.

[01:50:56] I would love to be super. Right. And he's like, but you see what's important is he decides to use it like responsibly and decides to not just use it frivolously. Up until that point, almost every Ramy story had this sort of like Edgar Allen Poe-esque

[01:51:09] like, and then they never recovered. You know? And I do think there's this thing to Darkman where his final thing is he's like, no, what I just realized in letting that guy die is like, I'm fucking Darkman now. He is Darkman.

[01:51:20] I can't go back to just pretending to be Dr. Pete Wesley. He's everyone and no one. He's everyone and no one. He's everywhere and nowhere. We should mention that too. I know we've said this in other episodes, but originally when Ramy was setting this up, he

[01:51:31] was like, obviously it will star Bruce Campbell. Like my assumption is I always work with Bruce Campbell. Yes. So Bruce Campbell, of course, theory talked about it at a certain point is like, Sam,

[01:51:43] I have to step out of the way you are going to sabotage your career insisting on me being the star of all your movies. Like I am not. But it's like incredibly noble, very touching friend thing. It gets repaid on the next movie with army of darkness.

[01:51:59] But of course, Bruce Campbell does show up as we're, as you're referencing the final movie. He's the new Darkman, right? He's his new face. It's kind of a cute little thing. There's something, cause I know we've thrown this turnaround, but I haven't explained it.

[01:52:09] There's a Ramy, obviously such a student of the three stooges. Yeah. Shemp, the least loved stooge died and they had these unfinished shorts that they had to get guys lookalikes sort of like the Bella Lugosi dentist in Ed Wood where you could shoot it

[01:52:23] from certain angles and fake the thing. And Ramy loved that so much in spotting the fake Shemp that he would like on the evil dead movies be like, we lost this actor, get someone else in there, put a wig on them, turn them from an angle.

[01:52:34] They're a fake Shemp. You fit them in. So you always see the credits. Shemp. It's these credit is the Shemp Bruce Campbell's final Shemp. Ah, that explains it. I was wondering. So he loves this idea of the quick slapdash double thrown in for a specific insert shot or

[01:52:49] whatever it is. And then Darkman is essentially a movie about Shemps and he does sort of like give Bruce the honorific of especially with the thing of like you were saying like, okay, you can't be my

[01:52:59] movie star forever, but right now, did you see the additional thing I did put in? So Bruce Campbell's wife had just divorced him. He said he was broke. I don't know what to do with himself. I guess it's 1990. He's not quite in like Briscoe Downing County Junior yet.

[01:53:14] Right. And so Sam is like, look, we're doing post on Darkman. I have all sorts of problems. We both love sound. The movie needed tons of sound effects. And so I made studio guy money voicing every criminal who fell to their death.

[01:53:28] He just would like scream his brains out for every, you know, all of that. I love that. I love the friendship. That's really. Yeah. There was a point where Sam was like, shit, I need Darkman to yell Julie.

[01:53:40] And he looked at him and said, get in the booth. So a lot of that. What? Yeah. So a little bit of the Darkman ADR is Campbell. And I said, I think he did it for foreign countries as well. Yeah. He did the television looping. Whatever that means.

[01:53:51] They have to go over curse words. Sure. Right. Right. Wait, like Chris just did. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. He said donut. All right. So, yeah, some of the post production. Monkey fighting Hanukkah. Right. Universal insisted it be at least 95 minutes long. And Remy was like, okay, you drama queens.

[01:54:09] Fine. I'll give you 10 more minutes. But they also brought in their own editor, Bud Smith. They tried to get Sam out of the process and wanted to cut it into a romance movie. Why are you making? Why am I? Why did I just?

[01:54:27] Why did my body just limp? Yeah. As I heard about someone bringing in an editor. Like you were melting. I don't know. It's almost as though I remembered another life. This weird thing where like it didn't test amazing Sam's version. Yeah.

[01:54:39] But then the more universal meddled with it, the scores were just going down. It was one of these things where they were like, it tested like in like the high 60s, low 70s or whatever. And they were like, fuck, can we punch it up?

[01:54:50] So then they bring their own guy. It goes to 50 and they're like, let's cut it some more. Like they were like every single test went down and they would not give us back control of the movie. This is the fucking turn on this story that I cannot believe.

[01:55:04] Robert Taper, is this what you're talking about? Yeah. Without studio approval, cooked up a scheme to bring the film closer to the director's vision, which remained secret to the public for 30 years. So this interview is from 2020. Taper says, I don't mind saying this now.

[01:55:19] Sam will probably be unhappy. But the studio said there's nothing we can do to save this picture. Let's lock this awful cut. Right. So this insane thing, we've talked about this before, but where like studio executive development people refuse to move backwards.

[01:55:32] So if you're like, we had a movie that was testing better two months ago. Yep. We refuse to release that earlier cut. We have to release the latest one, our lowest testing thing. And we're just deciding we're giving up and just that's what goes out.

[01:55:44] So they locked picture. He knew there was a deadline. Like they're going to lock picture tomorrow at 10 PM or it has to be delivered by Friday at 9 AM or whatever it was. So then Sam's editor, Bob Murr, Murrah, Murawski. Yes.

[01:55:57] He's like his editor through the Spider-Man movies, dragging to hell. Yes. He's not credited on this movie. Obviously. Yeah. Said there's a much better movie we could do. So they spent 48 hours recutting the entire movie, added nine minutes back in things that previous preview audiences had maybe like,

[01:56:13] you know, whatever rejected. Right. And they were like, who gives a shit? It's gotta go. This is the best version of the movie. They locked it universal. They didn't tell anybody. Universal comes to watch it after the mix and they were like, what the fuck?

[01:56:24] You're not allowed to do this. And they were like, nothing to be done. Negative has been cut. Critics screenings are in 48 hours. And universal was like, okay. And they just had to release it. But they also said Tom Pollack, who was the head of Universal at that time,

[01:56:37] like screamed at them. Was like fucking irate. Like they truly just like swapped out. They did a switcheroo. They did a switcheroo and just made them watch it. And they were like, what the fuck happened? And like Ozymandias, they were like, the print went out yesterday.

[01:56:51] There's nothing you can do. Exactly. Sam on his own, tapered says, probably would not have done it. But I am that kind of guy. Yeah. Couldn't do it today physically. No, you physically. Yeah. So those 48 hours must have been gnarly. Yeah.

[01:57:04] First of all, because you're cutting actual film. This is pretty avid. Yeah. If you did it today, you just go back to version seven, eight, whatever. Call it Friday's version. Right. Yeah. That is right. You're saying like they actually are like there's film strip. There is film strip.

[01:57:19] It's gone. Would you do just a little scissors? Like you did all that snip snip. Would I? Whatever it is, whatever it is they do in there. Would I make that sound? Yeah, sure. No, no, no. Yeah. When you were starting, you were still editing on film, right?

[01:57:34] No. No? Like American Pie was not. American Pie was avid, was a very slow avid. But we still had to send out things like dissolves. Right. To the lab for opticals. Oh, that's funny. Okay. So you couldn't, you couldn't. Right. It couldn't render the dissolves quickly enough.

[01:57:47] Hey, Larry Drake, Durant himself. Sure. I did a rewatch of the four theatrical films recently and I forgot. The four theatrical American Pie movies? Correct. So Pie, Pie 2, Wedding Reunion. Correct. Right. Okay. Yeah. Is Larry Drake in?

[01:58:05] Larry Jake plays the father of the girl that Jim sleeps with at the beginning of the movie where the bit is first college hookup. American Pie 2. In American Pie 2. Yes, I know you didn't direct this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I just.

[01:58:19] But Chris, you were a producer on that movie. You had a lot going on in that movie, right? We were in. You had your figures deep in the pie. We were in London shooting about a boy. My executive producing functions on that were minimal.

[01:58:30] That film was of course JB Rogers. JB Rogers. Right. Fantastic guy. Our first AD on American Pie. I just think that's a funny sequence. It was the trailer for the movie. I do remember that sequence. That was the big one they were selling it on. Right.

[01:58:46] Jim's like awkwardly trying to hook up for the first time since Michelle. And he's like really nervous about it. He's in college. And it's parent visiting day and one by one everyone walks in. And Durant is there. Durant is the final high point of him going and going.

[01:58:57] Oh my word, what's happening here? I just like him as like irate scary dad you don't want to see when you're in bed with a naked woman. Well, I remember I saw that movie in old Forge New York, which is in the Adirondacks with like my cousins.

[01:59:12] I must have been. Yeah. Seriously. So when is American Pie 2? 2001. Yeah. So I must have been 15. Yeah. And I was like, I just remember packed house. Yeah. We were on summer vacation. Pandemonium. Fucking pandemonium. Like that movie could have literally just been Stifler throwing up for 90 minutes and

[01:59:29] people would have just been like, this is great. It's just like that movie. I don't think hangs together perfectly. I would say in my memory. But I'm not just saying this. I know you didn't make one. Is the best. I think what is the best is one evening.

[01:59:42] I think I was recovering from surgery. And for whatever reason, I was like, I'm going to watch all four American Pie. You were on strong painkillers. Yes. And Chris, one was famously put on in my math class when I was 14 years old at the end of

[01:59:54] school when it was one of those days where it's like there's only a week left of school. Oh my goodness. And my math teacher, Mr. Nagy was a sweet, sweet man who I think let some kid talk him into American Pie. It's cute though. It's about kids. Right.

[02:00:08] And then when it got to the scene where he comes twice in front of Shannon Elizabeth, I remember Mr. Noggin just doubled over laughing at his desk being like twice. Like, like it got him. You know, it's funny.

[02:00:20] You talk about what a cultural phenomenon the movie was and how to was greeted with like our heroes have returned from we get to see our friends again. Right. Two is like maybe the only other movie I can think of that does the Downton Abbey movie

[02:00:33] approach where the poster doesn't have actor's names above it. The poster has the entire cast is Jim. Stifler. Jim's dad. The Shermanator. It's ever. Yeah. It's just like fucking 15 names as if it's Avengers and the game, but it's just. Have you seen the Downton Abbey?

[02:00:51] A new era trailer? Yes. You know that Hugh Bonneville says you're the captain now to Michelle Dockery in that trailer. Wow. Have you picked up on that? Yeah. What if I watch that and only that? Like I've never seen an episode of the show.

[02:01:04] I didn't see the first movie. What if I just go into it? You'll get it. I'll get it. Marketing shows that people like teams reuniting, especially if it's under a captain. Right. Yes. Okay. So can we fit that in? Who can be the captain now? Okay.

[02:01:18] Barkha Dopti should be part of it. He should be. He should go to Downton. And Jane Ackman also. That should be the end. The end credits cookie of Downton Abbey should be like her sitting in her captain's chair,

[02:01:27] putting on her hat going like, okay, I think I'm finally settling into this role as captain. He walks out of the shadows and goes, excuse me, I'm the captain now. The movie came out, Darkman. It's going to wrap this up. Sure. In August, late August, 1990.

[02:01:41] A classic spot for a movie like this. Yeah, absolutely. It's like, okay. Came out at night or in the afternoon? I think it came out at night. I don't know. The first film to be given no matinees. Open number one, eight million dollars. Everyone was happy. Yeah.

[02:01:56] It was truly like a fuck you, Universal. You were wrong. People wanted to see this. Everyone made money. It got pretty good reviews. Uh, it spawned direct to video sequels. As we've discussed, I do like Sam Raimi's quote here, which is as a writer, I'm thrilled.

[02:02:12] The Darkman character lives on as a director. I'm horrified someone has taken my baby and made money selling him to children. And as a producer, I think it's good for Universal to be doing this because they're taking their assets and making quality pictures for the video crowd.

[02:02:25] It's like the three sides of Raimi, right? Yeah. Uh, I mean, how do you, do you get checks on American pie eight or whatever? Like, cause Raimi does. That's what he's saying. He's like, I can't deny I'm making money. Adam Hearst does right? Is that?

[02:02:39] I hope he does. Yeah. Um, uh, we, we get checks on American by two sometimes. Right. But beyond that, no, you don't, you don't get band camp. You don't get girls rule. You don't get book of love. No, you don't get naked mile.

[02:02:51] No, we were all, we were offered high lobby sort of kickback to you guys. Jerry. Yeah. Every time I get one cent, so I encourage people to do that. I will say I fucked up high the other day and immediately got a Venmo request from you.

[02:03:10] It was like immediate. The second after I came, it was like right there. To give Chris a penny. Um, anyway, all right, let's do the box office game for August 24th, 1990. Number one at the box office. Griffin it's dark man. Dark man. $8 million. The final gross 32. Yeah. 50 worldwide.

[02:03:30] Yeah. Everyone's had a huge home video cable movie. Like you said, yeah. Big HBO movie. Yeah. Oh yeah. Totally. Number two at the box office. It's the phenomenon of the summer. It's been out for seven weeks. It's going to win two Oscars. Be nominated for best picture.

[02:03:47] Is it ghost? It's ghost. Yeah. What if there was a ghost? I'll say this. I found ghosts to be a pretty good first word. I'll guess. Oh yeah, sure. I've been using ghosts a fair amount. I use sonar. I use that's pretty great. I was using audio.

[02:04:04] I was using audio and I was advised maybe you're using too many vowels. Yeah. So by the way, do you remember the famously difficult one? No. Okay. Oh, LL. Yeah. It was. Well now it's nasty. I got that in two. All right.

[02:04:15] I lucked out with my first guest. I got beaten up by watch. The one that beat up a lot of people. I did the classic like catch match. I kept guessing other actors. I had one of those the other day. That is a tough one. Yeah.

[02:04:25] Where I had four out of five and the third one was the one I didn't have. And I was like, it could be four things and I have three guesses left. Ghosts. What do you think of ghosts? I really liked ghosts when I saw it.

[02:04:36] I haven't seen it in 20 years. I would let it go. I know I feel like this is super schlocko, but you know what? He was a ghost. Let it lie. Remember it well. I've never seen ghosts. You've never seen ghosts?

[02:04:46] I've always had the suspicion that I would love it. The thing with ghosts, in my opinion, and it's been a while since I've seen it, is the stuff where he's a ghost and this sort of weird, like the subway train,

[02:04:55] like Patrick Swayze walking around and stuff is pretty well done. Yeah. And it's kind of a weird, creepy movie in ways. The romance stuff is so hard on sleeve, straightforward. It's easy to mock. And a contrarian and a goofball. Tony Goldwyn in the Friel's role, right?

[02:05:13] The good looking asshole role. He has a nasty death that kind of traumatized me as a kid. Spoiler alert for what happens to him. Does he get ghosted? He gets like impaled on a broken window. He just keeps texting and he's like, are you on vacation or something?

[02:05:26] And then a bunch of ghosts grab him. It's cool. Impaling also very big. Missing elevators, quicksand, impaling. Impaling is a big one. Yeah. All right. Number three, speaking of ghosts, is another movie about death. It's another movie about death. Starring a lot of hot young actors. Flatliners.

[02:05:41] I know this. Flatliners. Yes, it's Flatliners. Yes! Somehow didn't see your grip say it. So you got to try. I said it quite fast. You got it. You're so fast. You got it. Honestly, it's Flatliners. But give me the cast of Flatliners in 1990 with their feathered hair. Kiefer.

[02:05:57] Yeah. Kiefer Sutherland. Julia. Julia Roberts. Patrick in this as well? No. Kevin Bacon. Riley Baldwin. And the sexiest of them all, Oliver Platt. They're all flatlining. They're all flatlining. That's a Schumacher. It was a real, it was an epidemic in America. The kids today can't stop flatlining. Uh.

[02:06:18] They're calling it flatlining. Have not seen Flatliners in a very long time. Don't really remember Flatliners. What do you think of Flatliners? I think it was bad. I thought it was bad when I saw it. You know what I watched recently? Another box check for me.

[02:06:32] St. Elmo's Fire, another Joel Schumacher. That movie is fucking terrible. You gave that like a stinky one-star letterbox, right? And like you want, I think I did. And you watch it and you're like, I guess I can see how this was like a mini culture phenomenon or whatever.

[02:06:45] But it's so bad. It's like a real, like if I'm a Gen Xer, I'm like, what the fuck? This is, this is the movie of my generation. But then we were terrible. Schumacher has movies that fully rule.

[02:06:56] He was a really odd, inconsistent filmmaker, but he took a big swing. He's encouraging a lot of big emotion, I think, on set most of the time. And sometimes that matters. All right. Number four at the box office.

[02:07:09] It's a legal thriller that I believe we discuss on a future episode. It is really good. Major movie star. It's a really good legal thriller that we discuss on a future. It's not the firm, although that is a great film. And it's not the verdict.

[02:07:24] It's not the verdict. Right. I think, by the way, you were right the other day. That is another amazing film. Yeah. Unbelievable. One of the greatest movies ever made. It's a major, major movie. Just discuss. I think we discussed it yesterday. My time bleeds. Plan yesterday.

[02:07:41] Oh, uh, uh, fuck. Is it, is it Billy Bobbin? Is that why it came up? Don't think so. Is Pauly Shore in it? No, it's really. The number one movie star in America. The number one movie star in America. It's a few good men. No, not Tom Cruise.

[02:07:57] Tom Hanks? Nope. Who's the number one movie star? Harrison Ford. Oh, presumed innocent. Presumed. Harrison Ford is being presumed innocent. Yes. Our guest brought this up. It's not the one though where his wife removes used. Correct. Correct. Condom. Bonnie Bedelia takes his condom. Cum burglars.

[02:08:19] That's a future joke. Yes. But yeah, Dennehy, Raul Julia. It's a call forward for our listeners. A classic, uh, you know, Harrison Ford's like, I had sex and I regret it movie. Hashtag cum burglars. I want people building anticipation of. Number five at the box office.

[02:08:38] What's the cum burglars joke going to be? Okay. Sorry. Is a comedy written by someone we've discussed on this podcast. Okay. Um, that is sort of famously. Well, I'm not going to say more, but it starts two comedy icons. And we discussed the writer. Yeah.

[02:08:55] The writer's not a performer. No, she's a director, but she didn't direct this. She's a director. She didn't direct this. She did write it. She did write it. Stars two comedy icons. It's not my blue heaven. Isn't it? It's my blue heaven. Steve Martin, Rick Moranis.

[02:09:11] We brought her up today. No, not today. I'm just saying she, we discussed her. Oh, oh, okay. My wife and children were allowed into the music man. I'll be up late. So that's okay. So you got, they missed the first number or whatever. Yeah.

[02:09:22] But isn't that like one of the best ones? Isn't that Gary? And probably they always phone the first comes later. You know, the 11 o'clock number. That's your yeah. The first number, the first number that shows like, no, no. See, that's when he entered.

[02:09:38] I'm saying the first number that shows something like this town is normal. The thing happens here. No, no personality. I do an encore. Yeah, they'll do the first song or something. You could ask. Maybe. Oh yeah. I think it's like, excuse me, Michael,

[02:09:51] bass style, ask them to roll it back and do your top. First number in the music man, of course is rock Island. Yes. He's from saying this. Look how fast you are on the keyboard. It's insane. Number six of the box.

[02:10:01] It's one of those numbers where they're like, this is our town. It's fine. Number six of the box office is the exorcist three, which we will discuss on this podcast. One day. God damn it. Great exorcist three trivia is that okay.

[02:10:13] What famous Knicks player appears in the exorcist three? Now let's see. It's 1990. Patrick Ewing plays the angel of really in a dream sequence. Oh yes, I do know this. Yeah, I do know that. I just took a guess because he was at Georgetown at the time. Of course.

[02:10:28] Okay. He was truly the only nineties Knicks player I could name. I got lucky on that one, but now I remember. Number seven is a men at work. Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez are at work. I just want to call out not to move backwards,

[02:10:41] but just because anytime I get the chance, I like to remind people. I'd like to move forwards, but okay. There was a movie written by Nora Ephron that is essentially a sequel to good fellas in which Steve plays.

[02:10:51] I was going to, that was going to be my clue is like, yes, kind of a comedy companion to a movie, but then I was like, well, then you'll just. They cannot fucking believe it. I know it's crazy. Number eight of the box office.

[02:11:00] And they come out the same year. Yeah. Number eight of the box office is of course, James Belushi, Charles Grodin. What are they doing? Mr. Destiny? No, no, they're taking care of business. Taking care of business. That was the clue. What are they doing? Every day. Number nine.

[02:11:13] So many comedies. Kind of a forgotten, but when I was a kid, a cable classic in a way air America, Mel Gibson, Robert Downey Jr. Right. Smuggling heroin by mistake maybe into like South America. Right. Yeah. Tim Thomerson. Is that the director? No.

[02:11:33] Tim Thomerson is a sort of B movie actor. Incredible name. Usually has a kind of a handlebar mustache. Yes, he is in it. Tim Thomerson. Well known for his work as Jack Death in the Trancers films. Well known. Number 10. Nick Rogues, The Witches. Terrified an entire generation.

[02:11:53] A film that was remade perfectly. Of course. So that's your top 10. So it's a weird top 10 where it's like, you know, ghost and exorcist and stuff where they're hanging out. Nothing really is new except for Darkman and Men at Work. Darkman got to eat.

[02:12:09] Good week to come out. Right. Darkman gets overperformed. The next weekend, Ghost Games 33% and takes number one back. Ghost was such a fucking finale. Darkman holds. Darkman makes the exact same amount of money. But Ghost just surges again in week six. In week eight. Fuck.

[02:12:27] The week after that, Ghost still on top in week nine. Finally, it's knocked off in week 10 by Postcards from the End. Yeah. It's wow. People just like it was one of those things. I mean, it just doesn't really happen anymore in the same way.

[02:12:41] But the thing where people were just like, the emotions this movie makes me feel. I need to go back and experience it again. Right. Where it was like this element of rewatch ability of just like this thing fucking grabbed my heart.

[02:12:54] And I want to have that catharsis over and over and over. I like pottery. People loved pottery in the 90s. They did. And Unchained Melodies. Yes. The melodies had been so chained for a while leading up to it. These burdened melodies. Ugh, so burdened.

[02:13:09] David has closed the laptop. I've closed the laptop. Wrap it up. Yeah, you think we should end the episode? Yeah, I think so. Chain this melody. Chain this melody. Chris. You guys. What a guy. Thank you for having me. What a guy. Wait, see, you're the best.

[02:13:21] Glad to have you back. I'm glad to be back. I'm glad to be here. And what is the name of this place? The Hoselium. Hoselium. The Hoselium. The Hoselium. It's great to be here. I just want to call out because we've talked about this on the show before.

[02:13:35] But for people who don't know, it was announced that you and your brother are going to make a movie about the production of Spanish Dracula. We will. Which is one of my favorite like fucking weird objects in film history. And which your grandmother was.

[02:13:47] My grandmother starred in it. Yes. My grandmother was a silent film actress who was recruited from Mexico. Lupita Tovar? Hmm? Lupita Tovar. Yeah. Very good. And was brought to America to be in silent films. And then like in the movie The Artist, the talkies came along.

[02:14:05] She was shit out of luck. But she was dating my grandfather who worked at Universal and convinced Carl Laemmle to make Spanish language movies on the sets of English language movies from midnight onwards while the American crews weren't working. It's like an incredible story.

[02:14:19] And it's an amazing film. That's a brilliant idea. Right. It is really good. Some people say it seems like such an obvious thing. Better than the Todd Browning movie because they actually like fixed its mistakes. They would watch the film. They could see dailies.

[02:14:32] Some people, especially me, my brother and my uncle Pancho say that. No, but I think that's like the film had been lost for a while and now it's back in like regular circulation. It's easy to watch.

[02:14:41] And I think a lot of people believe that it's the superior film. The weird thing about the Todd Browning movies, there's no music. Have you seen the Todd Browning? Yes. I went to a screening of it once and there's no score. There's the overture. But like…

[02:14:56] But then once the movie starts, it's like deathly silent. And it's just kind of Dracula walking around and you're like, this is weird without a score. It's not bad. It's unsettling. But it is… Yeah, right. It's uncovered.

[02:15:06] People have like written scores for it post fact that it's different. Anyway, I'm very excited to see. I just feel like that's… I've never seen the Spanish version. It's great.

[02:15:14] And I think that project is the kind of nerdy shit that fans of this show will be very excited to see. Thank you. First, I'm going to make a horror movie. Then I'm going to make a movie about a horror movie. Go make a horror movie.

[02:15:24] And then make your own. Metal horror movie. Are you making the vampire movie with your brother? Is that you? Yes. Yes, we'll be back together. It'll be from the guys who brought you American Pie. Good movie. It's been way…

[02:15:34] It's been too much of a singular from a guy who brought you American Pie. Do you get money if someone says Milf? I'm not sure if that wasn't already established. And I think that would be Adam Herz if he actually did that.

[02:15:45] Did that movie invent Milfer or is it just like popularized? I had this debate with someone the other day. I think it wasn't you. I think I've had this conversation with someone else in the last week. All right, we don't need to… I keep bringing it up.

[02:15:55] Chris has made a lot of good movies. I shouldn't keep making it up. Literally just like he's talking about this really like interesting eloquent… Milfer, can we talk about Milfer? Let's talk about your grandma and then this. Sorry. No, it's great. Thank you for being here.

[02:16:10] It's all great. It's great to see you. You're the best. You're such a good friend of the show. And we're always happy to have you on. Main Theater or Paywall. Door is always open. The door is always open. You don't have to wedge your foot in. I don't.

[02:16:19] Maybe sometime in the summer. Do you like Stanley Kubrick? Dude, I like Stanley. Do you like Stanley Kubrick? He is a god. Well, we'd be one March Madness. What do you got? Barry Lyndon? What's your favorite? Is that your favorite? It actually kind of is. Yeah.

[02:16:33] And I also think it's probably an underappreciated one. So that won't probably block anybody else from some of the more like… Chris, people are crawling over. Chris, we're getting noted. They're on Barry Lyndon? Chris, no, I don't know. Not necessarily. We're just hearing everybody's opinion.

[02:16:50] We're going to tell you something wild the second we stop recording. But yes, look, let's have your reps talk to our reps. We'll enter negotiations on potential Barry Lyndon episode. We'll see if we can make the time table. How many black and white cookies does it take?

[02:17:02] It's a fair amount. But you brought a good box today. Thank you for being here. And thank you. And I'm shifting my focus over to the person listening. For listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media.

[02:17:18] Alex Barron and AJ McKeown for our editing. Joe Bull and Pat Rounds for our artwork. JJ Birch, Nick Lariano for our research. And for the first time ever, a little bit of editorializing. What are you talking about, Sam? Just a little what you're talking about, Sam?

[02:17:31] He editorialized about Robert Tapered as well. I thought it was funny. It was funny. I liked it. JJ, again, a little saucy. Thank you to Lemon Caron, the great American novel, for our theme song.

[02:17:41] You can go to BlankCheckPod.com for links to all the nerdy things around the show that we do. And you can go to Patreon.com slash BlankCheck for BlankCheck. Special features where we're doing hashtag not all Batman movies that feature the Bartman. Or I guess is Matrix on?

[02:17:57] I don't know. I don't know where we are in this. Whatever. Just listen. Just sign up. It's got good stuff, including K. Walt, Chris White's episodes from the past. Twilight commentary still? I still think that's one of the best things we've done.

[02:18:07] No, you should say, Griffin, that we are still doing the Matrix. We're about to close out. Resurrections. But this month, our bonus episode, we're doing the Evil Dead remake. We did the Evil Dead remake. Yes. Right. Which, yeah, I think it's a fun episode.

[02:18:27] We talk a lot about sort of the state of horror remakes at that time and how things have shifted to like a sequels and talk a little bit about Ash versus the Evil Dead and all that sort of stuff.

[02:18:37] If you like the Evil Dead episodes, that's a fun thing to listen to. You can tune in next week as we go back to Ash with Army of Darkness. Guess Eva Anderson. It's a really fun episode. And as always, give me the pink fucking elephant.