[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 Now a podcast Now a podcast?
[00:00:27] Man, why don't more movies pull the 15 minutes of Isabella Rossolini trick? That feels like a card to play. Oh, like that one movie a year should play that card. Yes. More movies should offer 15 minutes of Isabella Rossolini wearing only jewelry. Her costume is made out of various bangles.
[00:00:51] Like how has Nolan never been like, you know, who should do this exposition? Isabella Rossolini. Like, you know what I mean? Like someone like that, like just brings who's better to just bring her in.
[00:01:03] She'll just explain some shit and you'll be like, that was a very classy and sensual explanation. Thank you. I'm very involved. I think it was a anime where she's got like a couple really good scenes at Jirlen Hall's mom
[00:01:17] where I was like, oh fuck major filmmakers are going to start utilizing Isabella Rossolini in this capacity now. And then that wave didn't happen. There's Joy, you can't, she's got that great scene in Joy where she's like, I have one rule in business.
[00:01:32] Remember she has like a crazy monologue in Joy? A crazy monologue that has nothing to do with what happens in the rest of the movie. Yes, that's what that whole movie is.
[00:01:40] That whole movie is just scenes where you're like, wait, what does this have to do with anything? Joy is fascinating because somehow it defies space and time and that no scene has anything to do with any other scene in the movie. Or characters or actors or anything.
[00:01:56] It feels like watching New York, I love you. Like somehow it's an omnibus movie of 22 Fort films all made by the exact thing director cast and crew. But that's the only movie that I can think of that did what you're talking about post-enemy.
[00:02:11] Like was like, oh yeah, we'll bring in Rossolini for two scenes. No, you're right. It's like, look, I have not seen Tenant because I don't want to die and I don't have a car. Sure, that's the main issue.
[00:02:23] But I could see Isabella Rossolini being the one who does what? Why am I forgetting her name now? Who I love, the French actress. Jesus. Clément Pozzi. Yeah, it is Clément's Pozzi. Right. There's her. There's another character played by, her name is Dimple Cappadia.
[00:02:47] She is the Isabella Rossolini role. Now that the person he cast is actually good, but you know, an older lady who is worldly and knows about such things and can tell you about things over a glass of wine like Ben Hosley. Yes, cheers. Ben is drinking wine.
[00:03:05] He's got a glass of vino in front of a zoom background of Goldie Hawn and Merrill Streep's upside down decaying heads. And he's wearing congratulations tea. He looks very classy. I am a very classy guy.
[00:03:19] I got to say, I could see why she had this like the prolific modeling career. She is just such a striking looking person. She's really an incredible face. Like, I don't know enough about her like film career. I only really know her and Blue Velvet.
[00:03:34] You know Blue Velvet. I think this is the first time she's come up. We might have to unpack Rossolini. One other big blockbuster movie using Isabella Rossolini to add a little gravitas that you have forgotten, David. Like of recent note or I know where this is going.
[00:03:50] You know where this is going? I'm on IMDB. So yes, I see it as Ambassador Henrietta Selleck and make incredible sale. Thank you. Yes, that's a very good point. Yes. Yes. I mean, like again, I'm looking at our IMDB now. She's done two voice performances in her life.
[00:04:08] And the other one is in a movie called My Dog Tulip that looks like sort of an independent animated film. Like she's got one of the most famous dang voices. Bring her in. She was on the cover of Vogue like many months in a row.
[00:04:23] Like it was crazy. She, well, we're into it. I mean, well, we'll get more into it. Like when you're not only a famous and beautiful actress, but you're also the child of a famous and beautiful actress and the manner of your birth was famous.
[00:04:38] Like that, you know, there was this like gripping affair and all that. Yeah. I mean, you're going to have to be on the cover of Vogue like 12 times. That's just going to have to happen. Like daughter of like like Golden Mount Rushmore Hollywood star, right?
[00:04:53] And firebrand political like neorealist filmmaker born out of a scandalous affair. She becomes a world famous model. Marys two of the biggest directors of the 20th century. That's true. I think she never married Lynch, but whatever, you know, like. Did she not? I think they were probably whatever.
[00:05:16] You're right. You're right. Engaged to Gary Oldman. Oh, I didn't know. Yeah. Yeah. She was with Gary Oldman for a bit. Yeah. But then also, yes, like world famous model started her own cosmetics company.
[00:05:32] You must remember this did a really good Isabella Rossellini episode talking about all the aspects of her life that don't get discussed.
[00:05:39] And one of them was that she tried to revolutionize cosmetics industry standing up against what she thought was, you know, like big corporations owned by men trying to push different standards of beauty on women in order to sell products.
[00:05:53] And she was trying to upend it by saying like I want to make high quality things with better materials that set a better standard of what women actually want, whether trying to sell them an idea of what they should want. And it didn't totally work.
[00:06:09] But it was like this very admirable failure. Can I say the one thing that we haven't brought up that used her properly? Two episodes of 30 Rock really early 30 Rock episodes. Oh, she is so wife. She's so funny. Yeah, you know, I love my big beef and cheddar.
[00:06:24] It's the funniest line in the first season of 30 Rock by far. It's there's a lot of famous people who were in the first season of 30 Rock. We don't come back like Nathan Lane is Jack's dad and like they did what they needed to do to show up better.
[00:06:35] But I don't get what happened. I don't get why they didn't keep bringing her back. Her and and Broderick Broderick's performance in 30 Rock those two episodes or what? Oh, yeah. The Booster Administration forgotten like.
[00:06:49] Matthew Broderick has given good performances and has had a long and varied career and he said he's obviously worked on stage producers, you know, he's done. He might be his singular.
[00:07:04] That's like his best work is Cougar and I'm not even being sarcastic and I'm not even being patronizing. It just makes me his little face makes me laugh so much in that stupid episode where he he like is it.
[00:07:18] Donagie like pulls off the lampshade and there's a candle instead of a light bulb. There was there was a crew member on the tech who Peter Serif and which one they pulled me aside and said.
[00:07:35] I don't want to sound mean, and I really think he's a lovely guy and very good at his job. But I come to this realization I need to share with someone because it drive me crazy.
[00:07:45] Do you not think that blank looks like a little boy who's been dressed up by his parents for each year. And I couldn't unsee it and Broderick has some of that energy like now that he's gotten older and he's gone grayer.
[00:08:01] He's still just the way he comes his hair and the way he wears his little sweaters.
[00:08:05] And as you said David, his little face like the bearst Euler like the awesome like cool team war games like the kids fucking with the institutions to now looking like a little boy who's dressed up.
[00:08:18] I assume Peter Serif and it's was right like that's a dead on description of this guy. It was it was a brutal, brutal murder. He bodied this guy. Yeah, yeah, dead in the ditch. David's new favorite phrase. Hey listen, what is this we're talking about here?
[00:08:39] This is a loose fun episode I can tell. And we're kind of serves of context. All this is relevant. We're establishing context because this is a podcast called blank check the Griffin David. I'm grip.
[00:08:54] I'm David and the podcast is about filmography is about directors who have master's success early on in their career and give us a blank text.
[00:09:02] Every crazy past projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce down the stairs and you think they're dead and then they come back up and then they end up being excused to try out a lot of new special effects techniques.
[00:09:17] So the movie series of Robert Zemakis, the infamous Bobby C and they were talking death becomes her, which I realized.
[00:09:31] I've been making a mistake for almost every episode of the podcast so far where I say that I said that flight and use cars are the only two R rated movies that Bobby Z. Oh sure. You keep forgetting about this one right.
[00:09:44] Oh, this was a PG 13 right. Allied is already as Allied has has fucking you know it has sex unlike you know like some grown ups having sex with each other. But these are two things I want to say one.
[00:10:00] I might be hoisted by my own petard making this statement as well but I would categorize this as Robert Zemakis's last proper comedy.
[00:10:11] I think he makes movies with comedic elements after this and watching force gone we were like oh that's more satirical than we remembered, but I think his latest movies after this point are family films. They're not comedy for a conform.
[00:10:32] Yeah, I don't think I mean the honestly the witches, I guess might be a comedy like that seems comic in tone. But I don't think he's made a film that you could call a comedy since this gump right.
[00:10:45] I mean but gump was gump was a drama at the globes right like that received as a drama received as a drama.
[00:10:51] I just think it's a thing we've covered before on this show Tim Burton is another example for me of like someone who comes out of the gate and is like a comedy director first and foremost, and then starts to get caught up in the trappings of other stuff.
[00:11:05] And with Burton it's just sort of like the size the machinery the art direction the intellectual property, you know, and with Zemakis it just like I mean partially it's the special effects wizardry, but it also is a little bit I think of what we talked about in our use car episode like
[00:11:21] I want to be taken seriously, you know, I want to be, you know, a serious adult filmmaker I don't want to be seen as childish I think it's the same as the Spielberg thing.
[00:11:33] Even when he's making like, you know populist movies they're edgier because he doesn't want to be seen as the ambly cute sort of. Yeah, he wants to shed his family right. Right. That makes sense.
[00:11:49] Introduce our guests you introduce the show introduce our guests and then I have a question I want to ask our guest today. One of her favorite. One of the best. We're turning for the sixth time because last time was the five time or so.
[00:12:03] Yeah, that was the momentous moment and now here I am just you know, I don't know what you get from this anniversary just pop it in. It's easy. It's chill. You got the gentleman six. Yeah, I couldn't be happier.
[00:12:18] It's tough to make the five but you don't really become a channel myth until you're. Ladies and gentlemen from local men mother of Charlie mother of Charlie. Sam and Sam. I guess I guess Sam hasn't been on the show.
[00:12:37] He's going to I mean we're just going to have to wait until he's you know eight and you guys have you know which miniseries will be doing at that point and then I'll have both kids on to share their opinions.
[00:12:47] Yeah, Sam doesn't have his own blank media page yet. No, although maybe. I don't know. I'm not sure. Maybe this is how he gets it. He doesn't have movie taste yet, so I can't get I can't endear him to to the masses yet. It's just Elmo right now.
[00:13:05] Because Charlie seems to be naturally a cinephile. Yeah, he likes movies like we used to go to the movie theater together which I loved and was like looking forward to continuing to do and like obviously it's not going to happen for a while.
[00:13:17] But yeah, he's been watching me watch is a ton of crap like Netflix is rammed with terrible kids movies do not get me wrong. Yeah, I mean there's some good stuff. I can tell you about the good kids stuff on Netflix.
[00:13:31] I don't know how many parents listen to show but like story about rules. But Disney plus has been very helpful to us. We've been watching fantastic Mr Fox and Lilo and Stitch Rock solid. He's fantastic. Mr Fox on Disney plus it's on Disney plus.
[00:13:43] Yeah, it's a is it because it's Fox search later. I don't know how we got lucky enough to have it on there and but it works out. Also obviously Toy Story 4 and 4 key for every day.
[00:13:55] You know what? It was just it was just Fox so he's still down with 4 key. We're still don't yet. We like rotate the toy story is in and out.
[00:14:04] I mean he got this book from school that it's like lift the flat book where like it has a picture of the thing and then it shows you the word on the other side. This is like a common kid thing because of Disney books.
[00:14:13] It's all Disney characters and the number of Disney characters he recognized on site was terrifying creepy. Yeah, he just knew all of them like like characters I did from movies. I didn't realize he'd seen like Baloo in the Jungle Book like yeah it goes deep man.
[00:14:28] That's what I was like. That's a young Griffin Newman thing right? Absolutely. I got some bad news for you. They might be in on a future line. You're looking at Charlie's future. Let me see I'm looking into the future.
[00:14:45] I'm looking at Crystal Hall. Okay so Charlie's podcast is going to do well. Yeah that's good. It's a very valuable collection of action figures that you know he'll sell some day up on something. Absolutely romantic relationships that might need some more. That's where I come in.
[00:15:00] Come on. Yeah exactly. You just need Katie to fix your steering in the right direction. Today we're talking about Death Becomes Over which is a fucking buck wild movie. Oh man it is wild. This movie is like your kooky divorced aunt. Absolutely. This movie smokes capri cigarettes.
[00:15:20] It's got long fingernails. It's wow it's wild. I found the threads. I have my readings but I still have a hard time keeping this movie in my head. It's a mechus movie. Like it just doesn't click there. And I remember like. Go ahead.
[00:15:42] Well just the way it clicked for me as a mechus movie is when I realized like oh it's a loony tune. Like it's Roger Rabbit adjacent. That's where I see him the most.
[00:15:55] Like that's where because it is crazy that this is essentially an iconic queer film of the 90s. Directed by Roger. Roger Jesus. Robert Zabeckis. Directed by Roger Rabbit. Listen to the words coming up.
[00:16:15] Directed by Robert Zabeckis who I do not want to tell tales out of school but strikes me as an excessively straight person.
[00:16:22] Like I have there's nothing wrong with that but I the guy doesn't really like you know scream like I've got a queer classic in me when you know when you're looking at interviews. Like he's your dad's friend who tinkers in the basement. Exactly.
[00:16:38] Like maybe he has some Hawaiian shirts you know that's about his flamboyance he's going to get. Katie you were talking about your sons and your setup at your home before recording. Zabeckis feels like a suburban dad who has a train table does he know.
[00:16:56] But like a big extra table. Like Astro Turf on it. Oh yeah. Right like Will Ferrell in the Lego movie but with the train. Yeah. Where just intricately like every single tree all the little shops like he feels like he has like a Beetlejuice town model.
[00:17:14] Now the question for Zabeckis and like this might be what we get into at the actual context but like do we credit the screenplay for all of the like queer classic sensibility that's absolutely the screenplay by let me check notes David Kemp. That's what I do every day.
[00:17:29] And then Kevin who is a little more you know he's he's probably where that's coming from. His script originally kept does the Zabeckis rewrite. We'll dig into it.
[00:17:39] But for me it's like I remember in like high school when I started really becoming obsessed with like viewing things as part of careers TLA video which I talked about had their movies organized by director and I remember seeing death becomes her on the Zabeckis shelf and going like was this put here accidentally.
[00:17:59] Like, I hadn't heard of it. Like, I feel like in 2002 or whatever, when I saw the the VH sort of a forgotten, derided film or maybe not to write it. Total. But for yeah. And we were talking right before recording movies that like get bumped up
[00:18:16] a star on Netflix, which are sort of like the, you know, the heir parents to movies that would get bumped up a star on TBS or TNT or Comedy Central. And I feel like this was not a movie that was in that regular cable TV rotation,
[00:18:31] even though it feels like that kind of movie. So I saw it on the shelf and I was like, was this put here accidentally? And then I looked at the back and I was like, are there two different directors named Robert Zemeckis? Is this a different Zemeckis?
[00:18:45] Because everything about this just feels like, oh, this is Barry Sonnfeld directing a paramount production of a Paul Rudnick script. Like you look at the front of the box and if someone had you guess what it is, you're like, Scott Ruby produced this Rudnick wrote this
[00:19:04] and Sonnfeld directed that feels like what it is. And then it sounds like it does feel right. Yeah. It's Zemeckis and otherwise pretty much all the above the line team that went on to do Jurassic Park the next year. Like it's same DP.
[00:19:20] Aya Len has credited a lot of the breakthroughs that they did on this movie as pairing them for Jurassic is the same production designer. All the same people go over Jurassic with Spielberg plus John. Are Zemeckis and Spielberg still bros at this point? Oh, for sure.
[00:19:40] I mean, when Zemeckis, as we briefly talk about in the next episode, when Zemeckis wins for Forest Gump, which is two years from now, you know, from this movie, Spielberg presents the director award and Griff, I rewatched it and he says he opens the envelope and he says,
[00:19:58] Alex, your dad just won an Academy Award. He's speaking to Robert Zemeckis's son. That's like that is like a true like this guy's my pal. It's like I'm on first names terms. First names for the son. A sequel to Max Spielberg, the director of Jaws 19.
[00:20:15] It's the future too. He's getting back. Sending out messages to each other. And then Zemeckis takes the stage and is like the first person I want to thank is Steven Spielberg. Thank you for believing in me.
[00:20:27] You know, like it begins with him thinking like so they are very much still bonded at the hip, I think it's also I mean, it's fascinating to me that like Dean Cundey, who was such such a big cinematographer for such a long
[00:20:41] while, but was really huge for Zemeckis. Yeah, right. But like he, you know, he does like B movies. Like Harpenter kind of like legitimizes him. And then there's the Zemeckis like romancing the stone back to the future. Who framed Roger Rabbit?
[00:20:57] Back to the future two and three, you know, with like big trouble in little China in between Roadhouse and stuff. And then after that, Spielberg just pulls him for like two movies. He pulls it. He just did Hook and Jurassic. Right. I'm sorry. And Jurassic.
[00:21:15] That's what I mean. Yes. With this movie in between that he stays in the Amblin zone. He does like Flintstones and Casper. Yeah. Paul Thirteen is like his last great work. I mean, excuse me, the parent trap. He did shoot the parent trap. You're right. And holiday.
[00:21:33] Excuse me, Krippendorf's tribe. Krippendorf's tribe is the is low key the most bananas film released by a major studio in the history of the 90s at least. Then you know the premise of Krippendorf's tribe. Do I know the premise of this movie?
[00:21:50] No, I know you know the premise. I want to see it. OK, I've seen it too. It's not a theater. Is this a fantastic beast? A Krippendorf. Yeah. Fantastic Beasts and Krippendorf's tribe is the third movie. No, I don't know. Krippendorf. Krippendorf. It's a movie about an anthropologist
[00:22:17] played by Richard Dreyfus, who has failed to find a lost tribe in some, you know, he's journeyed into New Guinea or whatever. And he instead just makes up a tribe and like shoots a fake documentary with his family playing tribe members.
[00:22:34] And like is like, oh, and they do this and they do that. And he becomes super famous because of it. And like so it's one of those like comedies where there's a lie that has to be revealed in the third act. It's the worst.
[00:22:45] It sounds like Disney made it. He has to keep creating new mythology and finding new videos of this tribe. Richard just his kids in a suburban backyard. We must see these are his white, his white kids. His white kids.
[00:23:00] Cover them in mud and put like feathers in their hair. He also falls in love with Jenna Elfman, who he is like 25 years older than like it's not like a small distance. In age. Yeah, if you look at this movie, I think like every the posters canceled.
[00:23:15] I'm the bees canceled for hosting the poster. Yeah, yeah, you have to watch Krippendorf's tribe using like a VPN otherwise. Our groups are going to crack down your. If I watch if I rented it from like a video store and then like I was
[00:23:33] nominated to be like secretary of defense, like the senators would be like, ah, we looked at your blockbuster history, Krippendorf's tribe. And I'd be like, I on advice of counsel, I will not answer the question. Wait, is it on Disney Plus? Absolutely not. No, it's not.
[00:23:50] Yeah, it's in the Disney negative zone. It's not in the Disney vault. It's in the Disney tomb. Do you remember when Chris Hanson did that special David that was called Dateline to catch a person wanting to rank Krippendorf's tribe? I made a big blockbuster.
[00:24:06] The only problem was no one ever did it. That was the only issue. No one actually ran in the movie. They built this blockbuster. They hired after to pretend to be the employee. He was there with his stack of notes ready to go.
[00:24:18] So what were you planning on doing tonight? What movie were you thinking? And they all come in like flubber and he's like, OK, yeah, sure. Take it. I guess you're safe. Technicality. I guess he also shot the holiday.
[00:24:32] You know, he became a Nancy Meyers person because he shot home again. He shot her daughter's movie home again. The last last major movie he shot. Because home again is now a major movie. Is that what we're I mean?
[00:24:49] Can I can I list the six films before home again, Katie? Lama Jamma, the girl in the photographs, Diablo walking with the enemy, crazy kind of love. And then before that, what I would say is his last major film is Jack and Jill.
[00:25:07] The Cachinos, someone had to capture that. Yeah, he shot the Dunkachino. So, you know, we stand. But like he was such a big deal. He kind of defined the next like three years of blockbuster cinema with his
[00:25:24] aesthetics and much like Vilmos Zygmunt, like he ended his career shooting ten episodes of the Mindy Pod project. It's very odd how he went from being like big, big, big, bigger.
[00:25:39] And then he sort of gets ghettoed into like, oh, now you hire him if you want to do a movie where you have to combine live action and animation. Like he becomes the specialist for that. He does Garfield and Looney Tunes back in action.
[00:25:53] Nancy Meyers is still hiring him to do like rom-coms. And then he just sort of like falls off a cliff. He did a Scooby-Doo TV movie. He did Camp Rock, the Disney Channel original movie. Like it's very, very odd.
[00:26:08] And he only directed one film ever, the director video on Ewey Shrunk ourselves. Oh, that's right, which I have seen. It's when they shrink themselves. That's the third one, right? Yeah, that's post blew up the cab. Hey, someone punched Moranis, man. That was fucked up.
[00:26:29] That was mad here about that. So fucked up. I hope that dude gets locked the hell up and then shrunk into a mini jail. Oh, and then I'd poured into a bowl of cheerios and then eaten by his. Yeah, by Rick Moranis. By Rick Moranis. Yeah, Moranis's revenge.
[00:26:52] The wildest shit was that the news reports were like, oh, Rick Moranis was attacked and the photo they use of him is from like the 80s because no one even thinks what he looks like now. He was in that cell phone ad. Yeah, it was right.
[00:27:05] Griffin Griffin, I'm aware that he was in a mobile commercial. I didn't want to talk about it. It wasn't like a thing I wanted to revisit in my memory palace, but it's with. I'm not Ryan Reynolds, correct? He's like the owner of the Canadian.
[00:27:22] Yes, is it? Yes, exactly. I want to get your opinion on this, Katie, because I was ranting about this. David and I were talking about this with some friends the other day. I feel very strongly about this.
[00:27:35] What is this fucking trend of all movie stars and celebrities also at a certain tier when you become like an A-lister suddenly feeling like you also need to be a venture capitalist? Why does Ryan Reynolds own Mint Mobile? Ryan Reynolds, you're a movie star.
[00:27:55] That's the coolest fucking job that anyone can ever have. Make movies. Don't fucking buy a cell phone company and a majority share of a soccer team. And a gym company. But what is all this shit? Because George Clooney made like a literal billion dollars selling
[00:28:11] his company and they're like, it's a Clooney. But you know what? When Clooney did it was cool. You're not George Clooney. It's like a Jack Kennedy line. You don't think I serve with George Clooney. Action Cooker, Kutcher doesn't have to work because he invested money in
[00:28:25] like Twitter or whatever. Like, see, that's fine. Why is Action Cooker a shark tank? Why is he in a chair? He's not a fucking shark. Yeah, he's making a ton of money. He invested it all well.
[00:28:36] If you want to quietly invest in like Beats by Dre or whatever and just quietly make a hundred million dollars and then like one day there's like a news article, it's like, oh, did you know that like fucking Krippendorf like made a hundred million dollars?
[00:28:49] You know, I'm like, oh, that's crazy. But yeah, if you're going to start to build your brand around it, you're going to do Instagram ads. If you're going to do fucking Super Bowl commercials about how you own a bank, like I'm out of here. I'm out.
[00:29:03] If you're going to pull fucking Rick Moranis out of retirement and look at the camera and go, hi, I'm Ryan Reynolds, owner of Mint Mobile. What? You're Deadpool, bitch. Shooter out the window. I think if you are famous, you are told that you are valuable and you are
[00:29:22] brand and that you need to like market yourself and that like the people want to be a part of you and you believe it and then you buy some shit. And I mean, many of them go bankrupt doing that stuff. So you can root for that, Ryan Reynolds.
[00:29:33] It's weird that he's doing that and he's Deadpool. Like he has like an iconic thing on the screen and now he's like trying to get his own Cosmigos at the same time. Yeah. And it also feels like his whole brand is like, I'm Ryan Reynolds.
[00:29:45] I'm making fun of the stuff I do. Like even to the degree that the free guide trailers. Right. The free guide trailers have like Deadpool intertitles where it's like from the studio that brought you and then shitty movies.
[00:29:57] Like now every Ryan Reynolds movie is advertised as if Deadpool was the head of the marketing department, but also he wants to look us in the eyes and be like, hi, I'm Ryan Reynolds. This is my new lip balm. Go fuck yourself. The movie star.
[00:30:11] Is that not enough? He's because he it's because he knows he knows he's not a movie star. You know what I mean? Now a word from our sponsor. What if he's like, hey, hey losers, it's me, Ryan Reynolds. You want to save money on your fucking phone bill?
[00:30:30] No, too bad. I don't even know. See, I can't do it. You know, that's his Deadpool magic. You know what I mean? I can't even be a reverent like he can. So maybe I should take it back. It's hard.
[00:30:40] Well, the real trick is he knows he's being a reverent. We should clarify that it's not that any of Ryan Reynolds companies are sponsoring this episode. Ryan Reynolds himself has bought three ads. He wants us to just promote him that he's cool and successful.
[00:30:56] Man, maybe I should buy some Costa Migos. Costa Migos is classy. Yeah, I see these bottles are. Have none of us had it? I had it. I've had it. Yeah, I've had it. I tried the one around Jinnet. It sucks ass. It's so bad.
[00:31:12] Well, that's the point, Griffin. It's a success. Yeah. Right. Well, I heard you try this. Jin. Oh, what the fuck? It's called Aviation American. You were in the aviator. Are you Matt Ross? No. And he got married on a plantation. I'm not forgetting about that, Ryan Reynolds.
[00:31:37] All of it. I love Jen. It's my spirit of choice and I was at a bar and I ordered my usual back when bar still existed 15 years ago. Jane and Ginger Ale, as you know, is my go to drink. You do. You do love a Jin.
[00:31:52] And they said what kind of gin would you like? And it was this fucking Sponkhan Instagram culture bullshit in effect. I looked, I saw Aviation Gen on the shelf. I went, isn't that the thing that Ryan Reynolds bought? And I went, why not try it?
[00:32:07] And it tasted like fucking cat piss. It's tough. And I'm someone who often will say whatever is cheapest. Like, I often order my mixed drinks with saying whatever is cheapest. And this was worse than well, Jim. Anyway, and now I mean, no fucking around.
[00:32:26] I don't want to do any bits anymore. And now we're from our sponsors, Aviation American. Jin. Aviation American. OK. It just starts off with a raspberry and it's like, buy a jerk. Why doesn't this taste more like canvas? I did.
[00:32:44] All right, you saw this movie recently for the first time. You only have seen it in quarantine for the first. Yeah, yeah, I was we had some friends who stayed with us for a few weeks as they
[00:32:52] were between houses, which is a great way to quarantine if you have a space work, because then you don't feel so locked in your house just with the people you already live with. And what they've been doing like weekly, like 90s movies nights in quarantine,
[00:33:04] which is a great idea. So we watched it becomes her, which like, like I had seen Back to Future Million times, all three of them. I'd seen Forrest Gump a million times. Like and it's they were both such like factors of being a kid in the 90s.
[00:33:16] And this movie, like you were saying Griffin just kind of like slipped by me. Like I wasn't old enough for it when it came out. And I didn't have like, I don't know who were the movie nerd friends who
[00:33:25] would like when I was a teenager would have been like, you got to watch this. Like, I think that was happening for people, but it just wasn't in my sphere. And then I had heard of people like coming back to it and like when
[00:33:35] it had its anniversary now maybe it's 25th anniversary. Anyway, edit a piece about like how it become a queer classic and I just somehow never seen it. And then it shows up and you're like, I can't believe this movie existed in 1992 or ever in some way.
[00:33:49] It's like this miracle that gets like dispatched to you on HBO Max now. So it's right there for you. And also especially as like, you know, all three of us big Oscar nerds. When you're like this movie like slam dunk one best visual effects.
[00:34:04] It was like a cakewalk of like, well, obviously that's the visual effects showcase of the year. No other nominations. Yeah, I can't reconcile what this movie is. It feels so bizarre that this exists as a Bruce Willis comedy
[00:34:20] flanked by Meryl and Goldie Hawn that is mostly a visual effects showcase. And the movies that make us make in between the back to the future trilogy and forest. I mean, if you're looking for deliberate palette cleanser between like a huge trilogy that takes up like five years,
[00:34:37] seven years of your life and then for a scum like you could do worse than this. It's a very nice change of pace. But it's the other super odd thing about this film is that like on its face, it seems like, yes, let's make a smaller movie.
[00:34:50] I just did a big, big trilogy that got increasingly more and more complex. I did Roger Rabbit, which is like the most insane visual effects movie ever made up until that point in time. Why not make like a smaller comedy get back to my roots?
[00:35:04] And instead he finds this script that's written by sort of like a journeyman writer who mostly had sitcom credits and he's like, oh fuck, this premise could be turned into a big visual effects extravaganza. Like all the sort of like Looney Tunes, one outmanship,
[00:35:19] distortion of their body shit was all added by Zemeckis, who then brought on David Kepp to like rewrite it for visuals. Do you want to? Well, all right. So my experience of this movie as a kid was that it was
[00:35:33] oh, it was even though you're as you say, it was not as much of a cable player. It was for some reason always on the British TV channel Sky One, at least for a while. And I lived in Britain. I lived in Britain.
[00:35:50] I lived there when I was a kid from the age of nine. We haven't talked about it in a while, but it's true. Has this come up? No, it's come up before several times. And you guys sometimes pretend not to know it. But I did live in Britain.
[00:36:05] We do that. It looks like you're still working through this. I feel like I would remember if I did a bit about forgetting things that I already know. He tattooed on his back, actually. Do not forget that you forgot. Right. Yes. Don't work here. Forgetting this one.
[00:36:23] I don't know if you remember this, Griffin, or if you had this experience at all. But they would play the commercial for this movie all the time. And it would emphasize that in it, Meryl Streep's head gets turned all the way around and Goldie Hawn has a big
[00:36:37] shotgun hole in her chest. Right. And they would just show the ad and I would be like, that looks like the most disturbing movie ever made. Like I would just watch it in horror. I'm like, how was that allowed to exist?
[00:36:49] And you know what really creeped me out was the blue eyes. Like on top of all the body horror stuff, just how creepy they look. Right. And so I was really scared of this movie. Like until I was basically a grown up.
[00:37:05] Like, I think I thought this movie was that that was just a teaser for how fucking demented this movie is now. This movie is demented, but the body horror, obviously those are the those are the big, you know, bits of body horror.
[00:37:19] Like maybe I think I must have thought like it just gets wilder and wilder in that front. So I was very scared of this movie. Sort of the centerpiece of the movie. Yeah. That's the other weird thing is the damn poster. Right. Right.
[00:37:31] When that shit starts, I'd seen this movie once before. I probably watched it like streaming on Netflix seven or eight years ago. And when they finally start the one upsmanship, the shotgun through the chest, the twisting of the head, I went, oh, so right.
[00:37:48] Is this just the remaining 45 minutes of the movie is just hit for Tats by versus by escalating attacks? Right. I forgot that it's sort of like that's the big centerpiece of the movie is all
[00:38:01] the big effects, money shots that are then put on the poster that were used in the marketing and then there's sort of a final like Danie Montchase. Yes. Right. It's it's not. Probably. No, it is interesting also like you have as your virtual background, David,
[00:38:19] the image is now like the cover for all the home video releases where it's Bruce Willis looking terrified, holding a candle lab or through the hole in Goldie and has his other arm around Merrill, whose head is twisted backward. Weirdly, they flip their dresses. Goldie's always wearing red.
[00:38:37] Goldie has the red dress. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's it's a odd thing. I don't know why that image is like the famous sort of promotional image from the movie, but I was digging into it.
[00:38:48] That was pretty much the overseas poster and then was used for all home video. Yeah, the US poster is the potion, right? It's the it's the purple potion and Isabella Rossellini's chest. And it just says in one small bottle, the fountain of youth, the secret of
[00:39:05] eternal life, the power of an ancient potion. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Street, Willis, Han, death becomes her a very odd way to sell this movie. But but the other way is also an odd way to sell it, which is just like this is
[00:39:19] a really gross thing happening to bodies. If you're looking for like the depth of the movie, though, and I think that's definitely at least like why it's become like iconic for people and for
[00:39:28] women as it goes along, like it is about something in a way that like, I mean, I guess Roger Rabbit is as well. But like, you know, we'll get into this in depth. But like what it hits on about like women in aging in Hollywood specifically
[00:39:39] is real and like is the engine that drives the whole thing. And it sells the Looney Tunes silliness and like the kind of body horror that's like under the surface, even when they stopped doing all the effects stuff. Absolutely. I know the original screenwriter and forgetting his name.
[00:39:56] Martin Donovan. Martin Donovan. Not the actor. Yeah, I had. He's half not half not half not Mr. Tenet, not Mr. Tenet from Tenet. Mr. Tenet. He I think kind of disowned this because he was like, I wanted to make a much
[00:40:14] sadder sort of sapphire and Zemeckis got his hands on it and became all about the possibility of special effects and the promotional campaign became so forward with the violence in the body stuff that I felt like he got away from it.
[00:40:27] But I do think it is the weird combination of all those elements. Like if you look at this movie's Wikipedia page, it has an entire subsection pretty much just about this movie's legacy on RuPaul's
[00:40:38] Drag Race, how often it has come up on RuPaul's Drag Race, how many different drag queens will mention it as an inspiration while dressing up on it. That there was an entire challenge based around it. They named episodes off of it.
[00:40:50] And I do think there's something like it's weird. The the sadness of the script and the sort of like pointed accuracy of what it's satirizing, combined with Zemeckis's cartoonish G-Wiz, Looney Tunes sensibilities, end up accidentally making this very camp movie.
[00:41:14] You know, that it should be produced by these people. Right. It's like a weird combination of text tastes that harmonize into something different. And there are so few movies that fall into that kind of like camp 90s or like gay classic from that era that like are
[00:41:33] this expensive as this. They're expensive mainstream blockbusters. Yeah, like the birth page, which comes out a couple years later. It's just not the same scale as this. And it's about like straight people and like women fighting over a man to some degree.
[00:41:46] But like the way that they stop fighting over him and like team up is kind of subversive in that way. Like there's not a lot of movies that would follow them in that direction. And it's just like, yeah, it's can't be.
[00:41:55] They call it to their hell and mad from the very beginning and wear amazing dresses and like fight with fireplace pokers. Like it's like a dynasty episode. It is also from this crucial window in Streep's career post her first
[00:42:10] serious decade, you know, Silkwood, Sophie's Choice, Ironweed out of Africa, you know, like all you know, out trying the dark. Casually takes down two Alice Spurs. Munches down to Oscars. Appears in four different best picture winners. Right. Is in a bunch of canonical masterpieces.
[00:42:32] Kramer versus Kramer versus Kramer, maybe it's three. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, then like it's basically it's like she double postcards from the edge, defending your life, death becomes her right? One those are four years in a row and postcards from the edge is the one
[00:42:50] that's the closest to being a drama and even that is a comedy drama. Yeah. And they're four funny movies. They're all good, I would say. Right. She devils. She devil is probably the most controversial. But the other three are really good. That would be a rip.
[00:43:08] Right. I know. But you know, it has the worst rep right of those four years. I always thought the reputation I thought it was a calamity and I was like, I might like this, but I'll understand why other people hate it.
[00:43:20] And then I watched it and I was like, this thing is just good. I don't understand why this was so reviled in its time. But I do think it has something to do with. Can I throw it out there?
[00:43:34] I think Meryl was going through a little bit of an Anne Hathaway thing where people started to resent how perfect. Don't try and impress us. Yeah, you know, come on, you're not you're not funny too. That was the whole thing was period. It was like the classic.
[00:43:48] Meryl isn't funny, right? Which is insane when you see this movie. It's insane when you see this movie. Yeah. Right. And of course it's later in saying when she sort of like does Devil Wears Prada, right? You know, you see this on Luxor, Older Comedy Crew.
[00:44:05] All the D.A. of Devil Wears Prada is in this performance and you look at this, you're like, how did you let that movie like get treated as a surprise when she was doing so much of it in this?
[00:44:13] She's really good in this in a way where she's not trying to be funny, I feel like not like in a desperate like, you know, feel her being like straining for laughs like she's she will talk about. But anyway, it's just isn't it interesting?
[00:44:28] If that's like that's her little comedy pocket and then death becomes her being the final one where she's like, all right, fine. You guys want serious shit from me? Bridges of Madison County, Marvin's Room, one true thing, music of the heart. I'm back to that.
[00:44:43] OK. And then adaptation, I feel like is what finally unlocks her again where it's like, you know what, Meryl? Why don't you just have fun? Why don't you do a bunch of stuff like absolute? But like she just gets thrown in some River Wild.
[00:44:58] River Wild is the movie she does right after this. I love the River Wild, but she was again sort of slammed for straying from her lane where it's like an action movie, Meryl, really? Like I love that movie. It's a great movie. She's great. She was so prodigious.
[00:45:15] She came out of the gate so hot, she dominated so hard. And then I do think there was just like people were waiting to find a thing she couldn't do and you read all those reviews and they do, Katie, as you said,
[00:45:27] have this tone of like, well, we found it. Here's the one thing Meryl can't do. It's comedy is not funny. She tries too hard. Like they all say that and it's interesting that of those four movies
[00:45:38] you're listing the only one that was like really successful financially was this one. Postcards from the edge is the only one that gets awards. She gets an Oscar nomination. Right. But everyone kind of treats it as like, why are you doing this comedy thing?
[00:45:55] Meryl, move on, get back to like crying in different accents. Do accents. Yeah. And all these comedies like I mean, I guess defending your life is different, but death becomes her. She devil and postcards from the edge.
[00:46:12] I think all play on this perception of her being too perfect. Like they're all kind of tanny performances where she's playing these very self involved image of Seth sort of divas and people were so fucking against them. And then she comes back and does this again
[00:46:33] 15 years later and people were like, finally, what took you so long, Meryl? Right. She finally becomes a box office star, like a consistent box office star for the first time in her career, doing straight comedies for like.
[00:46:46] And kind of becomes like an iconic like, you know, queen type, you know what I mean? Versus like a serious actress or what? She had to get older to do that, though. Like that's the key, right? And even though it's not like, I mean, how I mean,
[00:47:02] honestly, how old is she in this movie? Like it's not like she hasn't been fucking working for 15 years. I looked at one point. Goldie is really almost 50, which is goldie is basically Goldie is there with this movie. Goldie's already an iconic queen that we love.
[00:47:19] You know what I mean? Like when she's in this movie, this is her in the pocket. Yeah, right. And all the reviews are like Goldie just fucking runs circles right there. Home run from Goldie. Unsurprising, right? Of course, like she's she'll give you this any day.
[00:47:34] Willis, I mean, we got to talk about him in a second, but I just want to. What, you talking about Willis? Yes, I guess. You are talking about Willis. Griffin, in terms of billing, I just have to bring it up. Yeah.
[00:47:51] So the movie begins with a hammer to the face. You know, it's like to me, it's just like I gasp at a billing type card like this. You know, a film that begins with the three stars splitting a card.
[00:48:07] Yes, all in one, you know, not like being billed one after the other. They somehow negotiated there was going to be the three of them. Now, as you probably would know, Griffin, maybe you notice this, the movie starts with Goldie, Han, Bruce Willis, Merrill Street, that's the billing.
[00:48:22] Yeah. Yes. The poster reverses it. Yes, the poster is Merrill Street, Bruce Willis, Goldie, Han. Bruce is always in the middle as he should be because he's sort of being warred over. But I love whatever fucking insane three day
[00:48:41] divorce type lawyer negotiation in Hollywood with the amount of sandwiches that were ordered, the assistants who had to like abandon their families so they could end with like, OK, you know what? Goldie can be top on the movie and third on the poster.
[00:48:57] OK, like that they finally agreed to that. I am going to blow your mind one step further, David. Please, please. You forgot to mention that the way they format it, Merrill and Goldie are on the same line and Bruce is center but dropped down
[00:49:15] only on the poster to be clear in the movie. They are there. There's three three in a row. But yes, yes, that is right. I watched the trailer for this movie for a reason I will come back around to in a little bit.
[00:49:26] Do you want to know what the billing is on the trailer as announced? Don't tell me. So it's that don't tell me Willis is first. I feel like Willis is first. Hold on. I'm sure you're right. I think it's Bruce Willis, Merrill Street.
[00:49:44] And I'm watching it right now. It's definitely and Goldie Honda. Give her an end. This is going to give David an A or something. It's it's Merrill Bruce, but you're right. It's and Goldie. And so that I'm glad I'm glad we decided on this.
[00:50:02] I feel like all of our listeners are at the edge of their seat for that reveal. That was just huge. That was just huge. Rosalini, I guess still. I guess Rosalini just can't muscle into that because even though she's
[00:50:15] pretty big at that point, you know, and it gives you the weird sight of this opening number where like you see like Merrill strutting down the stairs in this Broadway show and then Isabella Rosalini's name shows. I feel like, oh, we're still doing that, huh?
[00:50:25] Because we're in the middle of this amazing musical number that kicks off the whole thing that like no one ever talks about because it's, you know, there's all the special effects that come after. But like, holy shit, Alan's best redo that. Who did that? It must be.
[00:50:37] I would assume. I mean, right? This is a thing I'm so glad we're talking about. A phenomenon that I went like, huh, no, this feels worth doing a little sidebar on blockbuster directors who seemingly have the itch
[00:50:55] to direct a musical number but won't commit to doing the full musical. I think of right like this is a great example of that. You also have like, you know, little sort of semi-musical numbers and Roger Rabbit, but this is him doing like a big fucking old fashioned
[00:51:11] Broadway style musical number. But also the terrible. Which is great. Yes. Right. Right. It's like noises off. It's like also kind of bad. Right. Spielberg opening a Temple of Doom, but she's only finally, finally making good on now with West Side Story.
[00:51:28] But that's a similar like, here's my big Indian Joan sequel, hold open and fucking anything goes in China. Right. Spider-Man 3, Spider-Man 3. Everyone remembers the fucking dark Spider-Man disco number. Oh, yeah. But people forget that Mary Jane is starring in a musical in that.
[00:51:48] And there are two extended sequences of watching her do Broadway productions. Those sequences are so weird. So weird. Oh, my God. Reading someone's review of Spider-Man 3 and just going like, Jesus Christ, someone let Sam Raimi make a musical. It's clear he doesn't want to be doing another Spider-Man.
[00:52:07] Can't stop putting dance numbers into this fucking thing. I like a dramatic descent. Oh, yeah. You like stairs? Yeah, it sets up the whole thing where everyone's like, this is such a piece of shit and it started like, I don't know.
[00:52:22] Like there's billboards like Merrill's got a dress on. And then it's when they start doing the hustle like near the end of it. You're like, oh, and yeah, the site of like Merrill like hoofing on stage with people walking out as like the camera pans back. It's gorgeous.
[00:52:36] Perfect. It's gorgeous. It's perfect. And also get like you say like, you know, Merrill doesn't do a lot of shit. You know, like this is some funny dumb shit. Like, you know, and she's kicking off the movie with it. And it's great. We'll get there again 20 years later.
[00:52:55] I mean, but the thing about Mama Mia, which I guess we will go again. No, we're not going to. We might do here we go again. We might just have to do that one. But I can't who the fuck directed Mama Mia? What's what's a little lawyer?
[00:53:08] Oh, I'll park into the sequel. He did the sequel. No, it's Lloyd Lloyd did. Yeah, because she did. Mama Mia and then did the Iron Lady, which is my least favorite movie of all time. Wow, she had a movie this year. I forgot about that.
[00:53:23] I think it's not yet. Yeah, it was a Sundance. I remember people were at least that they didn't hate it was if they was fine, right? I don't know. But Mama Mia is Merrill being like guys. Look, look. I'm in I'm in Greece.
[00:53:42] I'm singing an Abba song like just we're going to be having fun. Like this is going to be silly. Yeah, like, you know, it's very much her being like just everyone relax. I know I'm in it, but everyone just relax.
[00:53:52] And this is her being like, guys, this is going to be wild. Like I've dialed up like, you know, this is this is stupid. Which before we get off of the directors want to make musicals. Alan, Alan Silvestri altered the music for Captain America,
[00:54:06] the first adventure, which has a great musical number in the middle of it. Great little musical number. But that number I know is by Alan Mankin. Oh, that's right. They brought it in the big guys. But Mankin wrote that song. Spangle man.
[00:54:20] I mean, as far as I believe, you know, Zemeckis is working. I think actually I can't speak to the witches. I don't know what's up with the witches. But I believe Zemeckis is working on Pinocchio. Alan Silvestri will be working on Pinocchio. Pinocchio is a musical.
[00:54:37] I don't you know, the movie that I don't know that the live action version will have songs, but I I mean, I have to assume it. Well, I didn't think that was important. So who knows? But you know, no offense to them. Go ahead.
[00:54:51] Now, what were you going to say? Make your make your offense. I wasn't no offense to the songs in Mulan, which I enjoy. But like, you know, Pinocchio's got some it's got some big honking numbers. I got no strings when you wish upon a star like these are
[00:55:06] you can't just know card now. Yeah, like that one. I love a number that hocks. Yeah, hold your horses, David. I'll make a man out of you yet. But the I think what what I did when I were both hearing when Mulan was in
[00:55:23] development was like, oh, this is the big test to see can Disney do a remake that is not that devoted to the Disney film, that is able to take a new sort of approach to it and obviously other X factors at play. OK, I can't stop.
[00:55:43] But it does feel like that experiment is going to scare Disney back into do the remake where you do all the songs and everything is similar. You wasn't Dumbo that too, though. Like it was like a little bit like the departure. But I didn't do that well either.
[00:55:59] I mean, but Dumbo, Bumbo much like Pinocchio was made by a veteran director who probably can kind of do a little more what he wants. Right? You know, I assume Zemeckis will have some leeway just because he's Robert Zemeckis. He gets you Tom Hanks.
[00:56:14] You know what I mean? Like, but I don't know. I don't know. Death becomes her. What do we want to say about Willis musical number and then we start with single favorite Meryl comedic moment in the entire film, which is her
[00:56:32] practicing her reactions to Goldie Han walking in before she lets her assistant open the door. That is so exquisite. And and who's right off the bat? Who's what? Who's playing the assistant? I don't know. Then I think it's Mary Ellen trainer.
[00:56:52] I'm looking around. I'm pretty sure that's OK. OK, anyway, sorry. She was funny anyway. Good. Go on. You know, Zemeckis comes from comedy. His his early movies were all comedies and this feels like now he's got
[00:57:07] the cloud, the stage, the budget, the star power as director to really make this kind of like elegant, exorbitant screwball comedy. And just the timing of all of this, how much is sort of controlled by the actors? He's got like such fluid camera movements in this,
[00:57:28] which he always has, but especially like the first 10 minutes of this movie cover like 10 years, it moves so fast at the beginning. I'd be right. The cut is very, very funny. Like the, you know, the the I have no interest in, you know, like that is that is.
[00:57:48] But then you have like another seven years later, like he's just barreling through sort of backstory table setting at the beginning of the movie. And part of what I think makes it work is you have these like really, really sharp performances.
[00:58:03] You have people who are capable of doing stuff that you don't really see in comedy movies today where things are like all based around improv riffs, riffs and a ton of coverage and editing together 18 different angles. So every line as a composite of four different shots.
[00:58:20] This is like, oh, you're just watching 30 seconds of Meryl sitting in a chair, hand-deliming how she's going to look shocked until she finally feels ready and makes the hand gesture and lets her assistant open the door. Yeah. And even before that, you get that
[00:58:34] but take of like all the audience leaving the show and it all lands on Bruce Willis. But this like struck look on his face and he's so funny and Goldie next to him is so funny and they are like nailing every single bit of it in this really
[00:58:45] complicated shot. Bruce Willis is so talking funny. Of that in this movie, which I love, which is like super complicated like a camera move, like following a lot of action, a lot of information.
[00:58:57] And then you land on the final person and they have to deliver a perfectly time joke. And that's sort of like super complicated. Like I'm willing to do 80 takes of this to get the one that works. Shit. You rarely get to see comedy directors do this.
[00:59:14] You need to have made like a blockbuster or four to be given the permission to waste this much money trying to get that one good tape with a crane. Well, now it's so easy to imagine current Bruce Willis like putting up with that
[00:59:26] and really like staying on the set for a long time and like wanting to get it right and like diving into his character. So let's get into this. I kept thinking over the course of this movie. I cannot just imagine the patience that Bruce Willis used to have.
[00:59:42] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Given his reputation in which we are alluding to as a person who, you know, helicopters into your Bulgarian action movie like at 10 a.m. And the copter doesn't even turn its rotors off.
[00:59:58] Like he's going to do his four lines and he's going to get back on the copter. Like and you're going to give him a million dollars in cash. Yeah, thank you. It's one million dollars per day.
[01:00:08] He will do eight scenes if you can get them all done in one day. But if it's two locations that you're going to have to pay him two million dollars and you're going to have to pay for a hotel, my friend. Right? Like all this shit.
[01:00:20] He's so lazy. He just sits by in a chair. He's probably not wearing pants. He's like a guy behind a desk at the final scene. He lifts a gun up so they can put that on the poster. We talked about this Griffin.
[01:00:31] Like I have to assume that's not true when he's in something like Motherless Brooklyn. Nothing he has a big role in that. But right. Like that has to be Brooklyn. I think he's great in it. But you know what I mean?
[01:00:41] Like that's something like he's not like, OK, Edward. I'm going to need five million bucks. You know, like he's probably like, sure, I'll do. I'll do a nice one for you once in a while. Right?
[01:00:54] He's still so like his name still means a lot overseas, which is why people still pay him to do those direct video movies. Right. Right. And I would think the same thing. But. Like there's the when the Bruce Willis roast happened.
[01:01:11] Edward Norton told this story about he was doing a play and Bruce Willis came and visited him backstage and had like tears in his eyes. And it's like, you're the exact actor I wanted to be when I was young and I got
[01:01:26] caught up, I became a sitcom star, I became an action star. I got so distracted with all this other stuff. Like I'm so inspired. You've reinvigorated my passion. I want to work with you someday. Someday we'll work together. Just let me know anytime I will be there.
[01:01:40] And like in the 15 years that Edward Norton was always trying to get motherless Brooklyn off the ground, it was always there's a lot of things like I'll be there, I'll be there. But then he's not in it very much. You have to wonder.
[01:01:53] He could have shut all those scenes in two days and asked for two million dollars. It's not impossible. It's not impossible. It's a good part for him, though. It is a good part. Like it's the part that makes sense for him in that in that movie.
[01:02:06] I mean, I guess he could play the Ock Baldwin role, but like what? You know, like, you know what I mean? Like as the old mentor, but you are not wrong, Griffin, that you can watch
[01:02:15] the movie and think like, yeah, maybe he wrapped in two, like maybe three. And this is why I think that because of Glass. Like, do you remember how excited we were before Glass came out?
[01:02:25] We were like, oh my God, it looks like Bruce is giving a shit again. It's Bruce fucking back. And then he's third building. We were like, that's weird that his billing so low and you watch the movie
[01:02:35] and for the middle 50 minutes, he's just locked in a room and no one sees him or talks to him. You know what? He's not bad in Glass at all. He's good, like when he's doing he's good. Acting like when he's playing the yes, he's good.
[01:02:49] But I mean, I love Bruce. I do too. But watching Glass, I did the calculations and I was like, OK, this movie costs $20 million. M Night Cell financed it. You would think that he would throw his quote out the window in order
[01:03:03] to redeem with one of the directors who's been desperate for him. Playing an iconic role in a sequel that people have been begging for for years. To be clear, maybe he did like to be clear, maybe we don't know. To be clear, maybe he did.
[01:03:15] But I watched Glass and I'm like, this might have been three days of filming and he asked for $3 million. It might have been a thing because M Night was paying for it. That his role was written down because they couldn't afford more days. That's all I'm saying.
[01:03:32] I just want to say I want to ask you what you think of Bruce Willis, Katie, and we can talk about him in general. In general. But I do want to say that last year he was in a film called 10 Minutes Gone
[01:03:44] that I think probably holds the Guinness World Record for the baldest movie of all time because Michael Chickless and Bruce Willis, like Michael Chickless is in this movie. You think they were like, you know what? We don't need Willis for this one. We have Chickless.
[01:04:00] We've got a stocky bald action guy. And they're like, you know what? No, fuck it. Let's get Willis for a day. Come on, they'll bald it up together. It'll be great. I'm looking at this poster. The third name above the title is a faded headshot of Telly Sovalas.
[01:04:16] Yeah. What if they were like trying to do a bald Avengers and Telly Sovalas die and they're like, shit, we can't do it. Of course. Chickless and Willis. Yeah, right. A bottle of Mr. Clean. Delroy Lindo politely declining by email politely. Yeah, politely. I really appreciate it.
[01:04:42] I'm busy. I'm doing the good fight right now. I can't be in 10 minutes gone. Katie, what are your thoughts on Bruce? I don't have strong Bruce feelings in general. I'm presently surprised when he's good and often have seen him be bad,
[01:04:58] especially like a lot of his movies have seen less 15 years. I like in this him playing low status and what I don't totally have a grip on is like obviously he's got die hard going in at this point. I've never seen Bonfire in the band or Hudson Hawk.
[01:05:11] And I don't know what that had kind of done for him at this point. Like, I know, obviously there are huge famous disasters. They're two huge bombs. So he certainly needs a hit and he got really wrapped for those movies.
[01:05:24] Even though I don't think he's the problem with either. Like at all. I actually kind of like it. I'm not like a big passion project of his or was it somebody else's? Yeah, he wrote it or he wrote the story. So he's the problem with Hudson Hawk.
[01:05:38] Well, his performance is not right. Yeah, right. Right. Yeah, because yeah, you're it's a fair point, Katie, that like, yes, die hard is only four years ago. And also he'd been in like in country, which he got like good reviews for.
[01:05:55] And like we're not far removed from moonlighting, obviously. But yeah, I guess he's a very big star at this point. Oh no, 100 percent because like last year he had the Last Boy Scout, which was a big hit, you know, like say, you know, so like.
[01:06:08] But he's definitely been dinged a bunch coming out of moonlighting. You know, like he's like transitioning into stardom and he's been dinged for non action movies. Isn't the music career starting around this time too? I mean, he's got the weird thing where it's like,
[01:06:24] you know, he's sort of like a struggling actor for a while. Then the fucking moonlighting, huge breakout. Sybil was the known person. He was the unknown and suddenly Bruce Willis becomes like beloved by women and men across America, right? He was the Russell Crow.
[01:06:42] Yeah, he's also like he's a little older. He appeals to older like women as well. You know what I mean? Like he's like a man's man, right? You know, he's like just a little older, you know, Russell Crow, George
[01:06:53] Clooney, like those types, the guys who just emerged slightly later. You know what's the evidence of his stardom at this point? Played at Hollywood launched October 91. Like that's Hollywood. A huge deal. He's in the player as himself, you know, like and like the joke is he's a
[01:07:09] you know, he's Bruce Willis, the movie star, right? But he is a grift. It really is wild. You're looking at his IMDb, I assume. Like how many fucking bombs he made? Yes. But here's the weirdest thing. Moonlighting, huge breakout, right? He's the guy.
[01:07:23] Everyone's like, fuck, this is going to be that rare thing that happens sometimes where someone pops so hard on TV where they're like movie star, right? It's inevitable. It's inevitable. And very often that dooms up.
[01:07:34] You have like the Taylor Kits syndrome where you're like, this guy seems like a movie star, he should be a movie star, push too hard. Out of Moonlighting, he does two Blake Edwards comedies that both bomb. He does blind date and he does sunset, right?
[01:07:49] And so I think people are like, fuck, is Bruce not going to translate? It seems like he should be a good like comedy lead. Is he not going to carry over at that point? Die hard for which he was, I believe the highest paid actor of all time.
[01:08:02] Even though he was like the seventh choice or whatever. The first die hard, he was the highest paid actor of all time. Wow, Katie, it's like a banana story about how fucked up agents and deal making became in Hollywood in the 80s.
[01:08:16] He got five million dollars for it. It may not have been the highest of all time, but he was essentially paid an A list salary like a Warren Beatty salary for like a movie, even though he'd
[01:08:30] never been in a hit movie as seventh choice coming off of two comedy flaws. They were so worried because when the trailers would play and Bruce Willis his face would come up, people in the theater would laugh because they'd be like the moonlighting guy in an action movie.
[01:08:45] So he wasn't on the poster. They redid the poster and the main poster then was the one that's just the building and then die hard blows up and they're like, fuck, OK, Bruce proved us wrong.
[01:08:55] I guess he is a movie star and also he's like kind of a serious movie star. So then you get like in country he's doing like a dramatic role in supporting part. You got look who's talking where it's comedy, but it's only voice and it's
[01:09:06] playing off of his reputation now as like a tough guy. Then like die hard to look who's talking to. And then he's like, cool, I'm ready to go back to comedy now. And this is this pocket where he's like, I proved myself as an action star.
[01:09:19] I have my franchise and now I want to go back to big budget comedy. And it's Bonfire the Vanity. It's hot, hot and hot, huge spot. Last Boy Scout solid hit action movie like Comeback and the death becomes or finally gets a comedy hit again.
[01:09:34] And then after this, he's like, I guess I shouldn't fuck with comedies anymore. Yeah, because even though this was a hit, it was not a huge hit. And post this he has the double bomb of color of night and well,
[01:09:46] he's barely in north, but he wears a bunny suit in it. Oh, yeah. And then but he died. But then he also does Pulp Fiction that year. So it's like, well, all right, even though like maybe he's not popping
[01:09:58] quite as much as the other two leads of it, like the other three. But like he's still come on, that's huge. I heard with a huge my favorite performance in that movie. Nobody's full great small performance. Very good in that. Love monkeys is his best performance ever.
[01:10:12] Love that movie. He's so good at it. But if it's a little bit, it's dude Armageddon like, you know, the element rules. I just want to go on the record and say, I think that's one of my favorite. That's like a major ass porch movie. Hmm. Absolutely.
[01:10:33] I mean, I love him. Certainly he had a tough time retaining foot in throughout the 90s. And then the second half of the 90s, he just sort of like ramped up and it was like, hey, he was doing well, but he would have like small flops in between.
[01:10:48] Like he would do like breakfast of champions in the story of us and Disney's a kid and shit like that, but it'd be buffered by like other movies doing well enough in between. And then we get six. Yeah.
[01:11:00] And the sixth sense being the gamble that like pays off so much that it makes it work. And he's so fucking good at it. Like, Katie, your first appearance. I mean, like it's such a good circle. I can't believe I don't have strong
[01:11:12] opinions after the second Bruce and unbreakable is my favorite performance of his ever, but then he just falls off the cliff. I feel like throughout the 2000s, he's like really hit and miss. And then by the 2010s, it's just like, oh, he stopped giving a shit.
[01:11:28] You have that one year where he makes Moonrise and Looper. And then he goes back to being the laziest actor in history. I know. And even before Moonrise and Looper, he's in red, which is not a good great movie or but like he's
[01:11:44] that's that's a real move and he's funny in it. Right. I mean, the same year he's in cop out where it looks like that that's a movie where the helicopter rotors are always going, but like one thing he's staying around long enough to make
[01:11:57] Kevin Smith and everybody else on set. He gives Kevin Smith a nooky every day. It was his contract. The thing is like you hear these stories that are like simultaneously. He's so lazy, also he terrorizes everyone.
[01:12:11] He's lazy, but he's also committed enough to making people know that he dislikes them. And it's just it's so compatible with like the Bruce Willis, who seemingly like goes up to the fucking island to like shoot Moonrise Kingdom for scale and deal with him.
[01:12:29] So good in that movie. Tinkering like you're just like how is Bruce Willis sitting on set where West Anderson keeps on going, sorry, I need to adjust the picture frame. Let me tilt your glasses a little bit. You know, like how does he put up with this?
[01:12:42] What happened? Like where's the switch flipped where he just becomes completely incapable of ever giving a shit ever again? Like is it one of those things where he owes a lot of money to Demi Moore? I genuinely wonder about it. He has some debt.
[01:12:58] Like he's like, yeah, is he over leveraged? He would be flying to Bulgaria all the time. Right. Like is he just is it Planet Hollywood? Like does he is the mob chasing him? Can we get the man a gin brand to make him a billion dollars?
[01:13:14] Good question. Good question. But it also it's like even Nicholas Page, the king of financial troubles, the king of how many Bulgarian action movies can I make to dig myself out of this hole has now started going like great, I can like relax.
[01:13:30] I'm still going to make a bunch of shitty red box movies that don't exist. But also I'll make Mandy. Also I'll do like Joe and Bruce just hasn't really done anything you could imagine him caring about in the least outside of Motherless Brooklyn. Right. Glass and glass.
[01:13:47] Yeah, glass. Yeah, while. I it's in a while. It's basically before that it's it's fucking, you know, Moonrise Kingdom. It's that year. It's Luper. Yeah. I don't know what it is. All I know is I do love him.
[01:14:04] And anytime I see a movie like Death of a Comistrate, which I've seen before, but like I just see him being a goof, you know, giving a shit, like being physical, making faces like I just love to see it. Like it makes me happy.
[01:14:20] Like I wish he'd do it more. And like he's I mean, he's obviously an asshole. I mean, or whatever he's, you know, everyone's an asshole. Like, but he seems like a difficult person in many ways. I've never met the man.
[01:14:32] But he also seems like kind of a mensch, like kind of that Russell Crowe energy again, right? We're like this guy's probably the worst if he's mad at you. But like also he'll get drunk with him all night. You know, like he's like friends.
[01:14:45] You know, he would like pop in on like Letterman and shit. And you know, and clearly it's like, oh, he's just doing this because he thinks it's funny. Like so I don't know, man. Funny on Letterman, like such a good line. Always so funny. It funny on SNL.
[01:14:58] Like, you know, whatever has a sense of humor about himself, but only sometimes right? Like between two ferns is great. He's like great memorable episodes. He's so good. And this is such a telling performance. Like to be the guy coming off of two diehards and be like,
[01:15:14] I want to make a movie that's about like I'm very much the third. Right? And I'm a limp dick fucking cuck idiot. Like, you know, it's kind of about the fact that this guy sucks, right?
[01:15:29] Like the biggest joke in this comedy is that he's the guy they're fighting over. Yeah. Right. Exactly. The first half of the movie they're fighting over him, but then they're like, oh, oh, forget it. Forget you to be our tool for the rest of our lives.
[01:15:43] They're going to continue fighting for him. Right. And then at the end, they're like, he should stick around because we need a slave. Right. Exactly. He looks good though. OK. He does looks good. He looks like the nerdy version of Bruce Willis, which is still looking.
[01:15:56] Bruce Willis has great luck. Bruce has done so much for men with thinning hair. That's all I'm going to say. He is an attractive balding man. Woof. Yes. I should go as I'm going to be him for Halloween. Oh, just all.
[01:16:09] And it's all except the Hornrim glasses, a cardigan. Yeah, you did it. Your personal best becomes her and some aspirin. All right. Yeah. I mean, it is funny, Katie. As you said, this movie is creating the nerdy version of Bruce Willis.
[01:16:27] Like how nerdy can we possibly make this very handsome Veral movie star? Look. And that look is now essentially the absolute best case scenario mood board for most freelance film writers. Oh, yeah. Like his whole look is the sort of like
[01:16:44] carefully like sort of comb, thinning hair, the mustache, the retro glasses. Yeah, he puts on a toxin. You're like, oh, that's what like everyone thinks they look like. I had to dress up or something. That's like a swipe right on hinge. You're like, sure. Yeah.
[01:16:58] I mean, there's a time though, the pivotal seat in this movie involves Meryl Streep screaming flaccid at him and it's she's perfect. It's my favorite. I'm talking about his dick. And he is like doing this like cooped up rage thing, but not like the cool guy,
[01:17:13] John McClane, where he's going to figure it out. He's like so in-p-tent and incapable. He's so good at it. One of the best gags in the movie is him. He's going to rescue her before she falls down the stairs.
[01:17:25] And then she says one last mean thing and he's like, like, it just always gets me. But the weird thing about him is. On its face, you think you could imagine what kind of performance this would be of like, oh, this is like the rock playing a nerd.
[01:17:41] Like it's like a joke at this point as greater than action movie is playing like this like Lintek, like sort of loser who's being like tug award between two more compelling movie star actresses. And instead, it's like he seems to be
[01:17:58] relishing the opportunity to play like a sketch comedy character. Like there's no sort of winky like look at me. I'm like subverting my movie star persona bullshit here. This is just him going on to like making funny faces. Yeah, he has my favorite joke delivery,
[01:18:16] I think in the whole movie where they've taken Meryl Streep to the hospital and he realizes she's in the morgue and she's like, in the morgue. Show me the areas. And he's so terrified of her delivery and he nails that line so well.
[01:18:29] The hospital scene is so funny. We've got to shout out Sydney Pollock, one of the great like one scene performers in so many movies. My single griffin. I don't know if you saw this, but he was the runner up at the Los Angeles Film
[01:18:49] Critics Association Awards that year for best supporting actor for that. For this death becomes her husbands and wives and the player. They but like you know husband and wives. He's like one of he went out.
[01:19:05] He's like he's playing a real character in that like that they were like, but you know what? Let's fucking fold in the player and his uncredited role in death becomes her into our little shoutout. I would have nominated him for this performance. He's so funny.
[01:19:22] And most of this scene is a one or like it's crazy. There are a couple times I'll cut your reaction shot, but the large majority of his scene in the office is like hammer movements him in real time. And his fucking comic timing is thoroughly it is perfect.
[01:19:41] There are so many beats he does. I mean, what's the thing? Well, when he checks her with the stethoscope, right, he doesn't hear anything and he like runs the back wall, throws it out, pulls another stethoscope. And then him taking the flask from Bruce
[01:19:59] Well, I always think about I remember seeing some cynical interview where he talked about like being an actor, being in drama school with like all these like hunky guys and realizing like, oh, I'm never going to be a movie star.
[01:20:12] I'm going to be stuck playing as he put it, the stotager or the friend of the guy who gets the girl. And that's when he decided I should be a director instead, because I'm never going to have the kind of acting career I wanted.
[01:20:23] That he weirdly went into directing out of vanity by realizing he was never going to be a leading man. And I look at Justin Neapolitan's career as an actor, which was very much a tertiary thing for him. And I'm like, that's my dream career.
[01:20:40] Michael Clayton eyes wide shut. Doctor Clayton eyes wide shut. You're talking those four supporting performances are everything I want to age into. That's the range of like the worn out guy trying to give you advice.
[01:20:54] The scary guy who you're not sure whether or not he's going to kill you. So good is the scary doctor. You know what occurred to me and this feels like it's going to like tarnish this somehow.
[01:21:04] But you know, the scene in Elf where John Fabro plays the doctor who's examining welfare like that had. Do you think this inspired him to do that? I mean, like, yeah, this is the scene where the director gets to come in and
[01:21:13] have fun with the lead actor and like try not to laugh on camera. Every actor, every director who also has an acting background to play a doctor in one of their movies. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's not his movie, but Harold Grayness is so good as
[01:21:28] the doctor in that one scene of as good as you get. He's in a couple scenes. But that was in particular. Two scenes. So I mean, he's I mean, he's great when he's knocked up for that one scene. Like he's another one. I mean, obviously he's an actor.
[01:21:40] He's crazy that Sidney Pollack was in Tootsie and then has no acting credits for 10 years until this. Like, I don't know what and that was what changed his first acting credit in forever. He was like, I'm out and Dustin Hoffman asked him to play the agent
[01:21:53] because like Dustin Hoffman and his fucking method both it was like, oh, I need the agent to be someone I'm actually intimidated by. Like that's the story that he begged him to do it because he was like, I want to be scared in those scenes.
[01:22:06] But he's so fucking good in Tootsie. Right. Then doesn't act again for ten years. Hoffman. Thank you. A lot of value that has these days. And then why what's up? Sorry. Nothing better than a Ben Hosley. Why what's up? A classic.
[01:22:29] Do you think about Sidney Pollack and Merrill being like on the set of Out of Africa for like whatever, six months or however long that we must have taken to make it and then coming back to this thing like, hey,
[01:22:37] let's hang out in a set and LA for a night. And that's my question. It's not like Zemeckis has clear ties to Pollack. And this is no one starting to bring Pollack back.
[01:22:48] So it's like what street the one who was like, hey, can we get Sidney for this? Maybe Zemeckis like you introduced me to Sidney Pollack. I feel I loved him in Tootsie. Out of Africa is the last best picture winner that I have not seen.
[01:23:04] They're like the most recent. It's one of those things where I'm always like, oh, I should I should watch it just to kind of check the box. And then I'm always like, Jesus, it's like three hours long. And I'm like, what's it even about?
[01:23:16] And they're like, well, and I'm like, you know what, don't even tell me. I don't care. You don't want to hear about this like white European lady in Africa. I can't get the fuck out of here. I don't care.
[01:23:26] I know we have a lot more to talk about, but I just remembered the big. Weird aberration in the last ten years of Bruce Willis's career. What? We need to just acknowledge that Bruce Willis did misery on Broadway with Mori Metta.
[01:23:46] Yes, although I believe it was reliably reported that that production was. I mean, the show itself did not get great reviews, but I think the production was a nightmare. Yes, that's a little weirder that he would be like, I want to do this.
[01:24:05] Right. He must have wanted to do it. Half. Yeah. She was like, it was a mess. It wasn't theater. It was just like we did very well because he was a movie star and people want
[01:24:13] to see him in person, but no one was really there for any reason. That material doesn't really translate well to the stage. It shouldn't have been a play in the first place. Like everything about it strange. But then you're like, he did the full run.
[01:24:24] It must have been a nightmare to get the helicopter into the theater. I can't imagine. And they have to pay him a million dollars today, which I don't know. You guys may not know Broadway economics, but that is that is a lot for. Sure. I googled misery.
[01:24:43] Bruce Willis page six based on what you're saying about it being reported because it's a bigger. You found it. Well, apparently they banned drinks with ice in them because it made too much noise and I'm assuming learning that half is not the one who was demanding that adaptation.
[01:24:56] Well, no. OK, well, there's a page six thing that because you have not found it. But there was the rumor was and this is reported in part six is that he had an earpiece that was feeding him lines. Oh, yes.
[01:25:10] On stage, like Laurie Metcalf would say a line pause. He would say his life that it was noticeable that he was being fed lines. Now, this was like when it was in previews and the article even says the script's changing a lot. He's really nervous about it.
[01:25:26] Like, you know, so like there may have been a reason for it. But that's not the buzz you want going on Broadway. You know, he's like he needs of Norrie Metcalf to her credit got a Tony nomination. She's you know, she's a pro.
[01:25:40] I mean, was it like I feel that the Hillary Clinton play was the first Tony nomination she didn't get in a year. She was eligible. It's probable. The last decade. Yeah. No, she got a Tony nomination for that. Wow. She she's got she's gotten four in a row.
[01:26:00] That's crazy. That's hard. It's just hard to do that many fucking plays and didn't her who's favorite junior wolf like not open? Was it an open? I think it's opening night was like the night Tom Hanks got. Tom Hanks ruined it for everybody.
[01:26:16] Oh, that was yeah, that was with I forget who that was. Rupert Everett. That's right. That's right. Anyway, death becomes a self. Can we talk about the hospital for a second and that shot where the nuns are floating down the hallway for no goddamn reason?
[01:26:29] And it's so funny and I don't understand it or why it's in there. So much visual humor in this movie that's so like delightful, so much background detail, Fabio, the use of Fabio. Oh, that's Fabio. Holy shit, real fuck. You know, it's hard.
[01:26:46] You got to go by the year to know if it's just Fabio or if it's a Fabio type. You know, this is when it's still just Fabio. Wow. You know, if you've got a a muscled European with long hair, like it might
[01:27:00] if it's the early nineties later, it might just be Fabio. Yeah. Fabio has the body there. Yeah. It's amazing the the opposite of this episode. The amount of ground this movie covers in the first 10 minutes. Musical number them going backstage. I will never ever like see him again.
[01:27:21] The rivalry being established. Right, right. Goldy, Goldy overeating, getting institutionalized, hatching her plan for revenge. I always forget that you cut to Goldy like fat and then in a mental institute. I always forget that there's that two minutes right at the start of the movie.
[01:27:40] And then and then it's over with and then we never return. Are amazing like for me, they are. I don't know what fat technology was at this point. And also I would say the fat jokes have probably aged the worst of anything
[01:27:50] in this movie, but it's an amazing effect. Totally. And then you she gets the idea and then it says like another seven years later. Like the movie is consciously making a joke about how many time jumps it's made in 10 minutes. Yeah.
[01:28:08] It's just wild how like how quickly it's sort of covering a lot of terrain. You have to assume that's where it is losing the audience, losing the critical community. Like now I think people will be like, this is wild.
[01:28:24] I love this. But like, you know, in like 92, they're just like, what? Now get out of here. Right. You always feel that tone in those reviews. Right. So then you get to sort of like the status quo of the movie proper,
[01:28:36] which is unhappy marriage between the two of them. They've been together for seven years. Willis is drinking himself into oblivion. He's disgraced no longer doing surgery. Now a mortician and Meryl sort of blooms off the rose in her career,
[01:28:50] obsessively worrying about her fading beauty, which is the other area. You say like, what are the Zemeckis links? Where do you see this? Where do you see the Zemeckis DNA and who even want to do this? One is the Looney Tunes potential, right?
[01:29:08] For all the physical sort of back and forth. Two is, oh, this is another tapestry to try a lot of new special effects because that becomes so much of the juice for him. Is there a new technique I can pioneer for the first time in this movie,
[01:29:22] let alone multiple techniques I can try, let alone are there techniques that I've used before that I can refine with this material? And then the third thing is it took me a little while to crack that you can view the movie through this prism.
[01:29:37] It does fall into that subcategory of perfectionist directors making movies about futile obsessive requests. It does fall into even in its weird comedy way, like Fincher doing Zodiac, James Gray doing Law City of Zee, these directors who are so obsessed
[01:29:56] with these sort of like Herculean efforts that they can never quite conquer. It is a movie about like and especially because the mech is so technical, so visual, is so poppy. The idea of just like these women are never ever going to get the physical form
[01:30:13] that makes them happy. It's just going to be an endless quest in the name of fighting over this shitty guy who in and of himself is just like a baxter. He's just the he's the representation of the rivalry between
[01:30:27] and any exterior appearances or what they think can actually turn the war in their favor. And I think that's part of how it has empathy for them, too. Like it's obviously making fun of the idea that like you can try to stay forever
[01:30:40] young and how it's kind of a privilege pursuit. But you think of how so many movies, especially from this time, like treat women for getting plastic surgery or for like trying to stay young forever. And it doesn't do that.
[01:30:50] It's not shitty about it the way that you would expect it to be. And that might be what you're saying, Griffin, that like he recognizes that impulse in himself about something different and therefore will treat them more as human beings in pursuit of perfection, which we all want.
[01:31:03] Much like the other thing, the other theme is that much like other movies, the Sydney Park has made guest appearances in such as Michael Clayton and Eyes Wide Shut. It is a movie about a secret society of rich, insane people
[01:31:17] who have meetings and in big fancy houses that are kind of inexplicable. That's all I just want to also put like just at the end you're like, oh, this is like an eyes wide shut party. Like it's just an atmosphere where party though.
[01:31:31] You know what I mean? It's got that crossover vibe. Right. Also, the party is like him doing the Roger Rabbit thing again of like how many visual gags can you establish of revealing, oh, this person is actually this
[01:31:45] celebrity, like the party becomes, oh, this cult is unifying every tragically young celebrity death or disappearance. And in like 10 minutes, he sneaks in James Dean, Andy Warhol, Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Jim Morrison. Like he just starts cramming on it.
[01:32:04] Also a very boomer is the mechest thing to do, right? Like it is a little bit of a walk down memory lane for him. It's like a force count preview, like getting all the famous faces in the background shots. Yes, absolutely.
[01:32:19] Yeah. And they're all revealed as if they're porcupig and Roger Rapples. They all have that kind of like yeah, because the minute they start talking about it, you're like, oh, who's it going to be? Who's going to be hanging out in the party? Making surprise appearances.
[01:32:35] But yes. So but back to the plot, though. Yes. I mean, the main sequence we need to talk about next is her and Isabella Russell, like that. You know, after all this insane preamble, right? Right. You see their marriage sucks. He's a mess.
[01:32:50] Then they go to the party. Right. They go, they go to the Gold Goldie party. Her book party, she's finally written the book and she looks amazing. How did she do it? Can you believe she's 50? I cannot. Goldie Ham looks amazing. That's all he looks incredible.
[01:33:08] And also Meryl Meryl also visits her young bit on the side, young lover, young master. And and he has rejected her for a younger woman. Right. I feel like this movie is before digital touch ups. Now most movies with A-list actresses and even with A-list actors
[01:33:33] have like extensive visual effects applied to making everyone look as shiny as possible and removing all the wrinkles. And this is before that, but I feel like this movie, through some combination of makeup and lighting and and, you know, lenses and
[01:33:50] does a really good job of showing the two of them in the first timeline at the beginning of the movie, then cutting forward almost 10 years where you're actually seeing like the appearance of early wrinkles on Meryl.
[01:34:02] I feel like the movie really wants to make you start to notice where her face is beginning to fall and then how quickly they sort of undo all of that. There's like a little bit of visual trickery, but I also just think it's
[01:34:14] really good styling on both of them. Well, there's a great shot of her like watching her like butt lift. Like in real time, which I don't know what they did for that. I mean, maybe it's a digital effect that it looks great.
[01:34:27] And then, yeah, she just looks gorgeous. Can I read the big Meryl quote? Yeah, this is from some interview where they asked her about what it was like doing Death Becomes her as like her first big visual effect movie because you hadn't really done anything.
[01:34:44] She says my first, my last, my only, I think it's tedious. Whatever concentration you can apply to that kind of comedy is just shredded. You stand there like a piece of machinery. They should get machinery to do it.
[01:34:58] I loved how it turned out, but it's not fun to act to a lampstand. Pretend this is Goldie right here. Oh no, I'm sorry, Bob. She went off the mark by five centimeters and now her head won't match her neck. It was like being at the dentist.
[01:35:13] I mean, it's very funny quote like and it is funny that more people don't just say like, fuck that man. Like, you know, like they just kind of whatever put up with it. She makes it sound so miserable.
[01:35:24] I mean, look, I had to do a bunch of this on the tick and it's soft and it's really difficult is as fucking tedious as she makes it sound. And it's very hard to act with any sort of emotion or comedic instincts
[01:35:36] when you're working around like the exact centimeters of placement and lighting and timing and all that sort of shit. But I also think people have just gotten beaten down of like that's how most things are made now. You just can't fight it.
[01:35:48] This is now acting and it's in their more ability to fix it in posts now at least. Like, you know, with this point, like they didn't they couldn't tweak things the way they can now. But there's still I mean, if you're doing a high visual effect stuff,
[01:36:01] there's still that sort of like precision where it starts to become more like dance choreography than it does like traditional acting and you try to fit whatever sort of energy and naturalism you can into it.
[01:36:16] But this movie is such a wild because it is sort of at the tail end of practical. You have you have IOM doing CGI refining a lot of the techniques that they really bring to bear on Jurassic Park.
[01:36:29] This is the first movie where CGI was used to replicate human flesh. That's like it's big, right? Sort of like Astro is that like all that transformation. So it was the first time that had been ever done. Sort of organic material via CGI in that way.
[01:36:47] And but there's so much stuff that is mechanical, that is prosthetics, where it's like the amount of different devices that were strapped to her, the amount of time she probably had to do a scene three different ways to get three different elements, one time for body walking backwards,
[01:37:03] one time her head walking forwards wearing a green sock, one time saying the dialogue off screen while no one was there. Like all that shit. It's just one of these movies where like any sequence or any of those things happen had to be so meticulously done.
[01:37:18] And this thing that I love, that's like the American werewolf of London in London thing where you have to build these big like prosthetic devices for one shot. Like if you want to do the gag of she falls down the stairs and then her
[01:37:33] neck gets twisted, every single part of that is like an entirely new dummy they had to build or appliance for her. You know, there's one that goes down the stairs. There's one they puppets here that can get up on its feet.
[01:37:44] There's one that's her wearing the upside down like back chest. You know, all that stuff. It's just so labor intensive, but it's fucking cool to watch. And that shot of her falling down the stairs is really visceral.
[01:37:59] Like you that is worth making all those dummies because boy, do you feel it. Forky was like what? I mean, was generally taken aback by this movie, which is a weird movie to just throw on now that I think about it.
[01:38:11] Like like the first part you're like, oh, OK, this is OK. I'm with this, but we have to talk about Isabella Rossellini. We have to talk about that scene. It's such a tone setter. It's such a crucial tone set that the jewels on the boobs are so
[01:38:28] like like one of those like costume decisions. You can't take your eyes off like where you're just like, are they glued on? Like what's going on? Like is she wearing anything under it? Like never. Yes, she never wears a top the entire movie.
[01:38:41] She wears a robe over it at the end. But otherwise, she's just wearing jewelry over her naked body. It's funny. It's like I am such a sucker for an irritating European monologues at me in a ridiculous room.
[01:38:59] Like I just that always makes me laugh or makes me really involved. I she's so funny. Yeah, and it's it's she's fancy and European and intimidating and beautiful, but also being really funny in the process. I don't even totally know how she's nailing that tone.
[01:39:16] Like there's no way she has mayoral guests her age and she gets offended. Like that's an actual joke. But the whole thing is just very like it's art. It's camp. When Meryl sees the transformation of her hand after she puts the drops on it
[01:39:29] and she goes, my God, and Isabella Rossellini goes, thank you. That of Isabella Rossellini thinking she's calling her a God is so fucking well done. But it's such like it feels very Goldie and Bruce and Meryl are very heightened in this movie.
[01:39:49] And somehow Isabella Rossellini gets away with seemingly playing it very straight while knowing that she must be aware of where the comedy is and what she's doing. Yeah, but she's not really pointing at any of the journey. The comedy is kind of in her being
[01:40:05] Isabella Rossellini and having this amazing accent and being this beautiful and being kind of present in the world that Meryl sheep and habits and intimidating her in the process. Right. She's so confident that Meryl just has to buy it. She just has to believe this crap.
[01:40:22] And she never breaks the facade at any point, right? Like even when at the end when like Bruce Willis is getting away, like she's like very cool and collected the whole time, right? Yes. No. Never, never raised her voice. Never breaks the sweat.
[01:40:34] She would be a great Halloween costume also. Let's just all go as death comes her. Yo, that'd be fun. Yeah, I don't know where we're going, but on Zoom. On Zoom. I'll be Sydney Pollock at home. You have a stethoscope that you throw out for another step.
[01:40:50] I just keep throwing them out. The reveal of the potion working by having her boobs like cartoonishly like zap up is great. The stuff is great. There's the sort of like there's like a digital sort of like
[01:41:06] Vaseline on the lens effect on her face and her hair sort of gets more volume. The breast and the boobs tighten the breast. Jesus Christ, breast and the boobs. But even even the hand the hand effect is really well done. The hand.
[01:41:22] And that's like just basically the same technology as Martin McFly's disappearing hand, right? Like that's just like whatever the name of the technology is not. Effective one hand disappear, but they have the other hand underneath it. That's how they did the effect, Katie.
[01:41:36] That effect was actually done all in camera. They had an actress who was playing the older hand and then they went back in time and stopped her parents from getting together. Oh yeah, in real time, her hand disappeared on camera and Chuck Berry and involved. Yeah. Yes.
[01:41:50] The younger hand underneath that's entirely in camera. But weirdly, Zemeckis doesn't have a DeLorean. He had to borrow Isabella Rossellini's. That's that's the thing you would think it's his. Actually, she was like, oh, you can use it again. But then we get to murder. Then we're on murder.
[01:42:10] Apple post that whole thing. We're into murder. We're into Bruce being convinced to kill his wife by Goldie in their eternal struggle. Yes. And then this is the big step. This is all of it. This is the head. Because the shotgun seducing Bruce while Meryl is with Rossellini.
[01:42:31] Those two things happen at the same time. Then Meryl comes back home. He's sort of, you know, did you get a haircut? And then they're fighting asphalates to the staircase. Just the visual of her balancing off the stairs and the heels like where she's like 45 degrees.
[01:42:50] Yeah. She's like, come on, help me. You don't have much longer. That she has that. It's like the run, run, run, run, run, run, run, clip. Yes. Right. It's like such a precise balance, but that Frank Tasslin kind of thing
[01:43:05] of like we are going to build a joke out of a purposeful denial of physics like we're going to have, like to nail that thing where it doesn't look like you've done a bad job with wire work, but it looks like this is
[01:43:21] a deliberate choice to have her defy the laws of gravity and balance on the edge of her heels for slightly too long is so good. You also have that great shot of like where they're talking. Meryl is watching Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis talking
[01:43:38] from the top of the staircase and hears that they were plotting to kill her and then says she's a has been and then Meryl's like claws go down the banister and scratch the wood. Zemeckis, like I've noticed a couple of movies in a row.
[01:43:54] A lot of Zemeckis using mirrors and obviously contact has one of the greatest special effects shots of all time with the bathroom mirror. And I do think this type of very precise, like sort of technically obsessed director often tends to become obsessed
[01:44:12] with mirrors because of the like economy of being able to frame a shot where you're able to get multiple faces in the same frame all at once. But also with this movie, he does it a lot.
[01:44:25] And I feel like it's also a reflection of how obsessed these people are with how they look to themselves. Yeah, not even how they look to other people, but what they see when they look in the mirror. But there's like a lot of that.
[01:44:39] There's several scenes where there's like a conversation being played out from one angle and you're looking at one person head on and then the reflection of the mirror on the other side. Yeah, Meryl falls down the stairs. He calls Goldie.
[01:44:52] I love just what a fucking idiot he is. I know Goldie Hans plan isn't even that good, but at least it's fully thought out and then he immediately does the opposite of what she told him and then thoughts up by calling her calls her and just her doing
[01:45:08] the thing of like being like you idiot ended then having to retract because she's sort of like, well, this is the person I've schemed for for years. Like I guess I have to support him in his stupid decisions.
[01:45:26] It's more about her being mad at Meryl than wanting him. Like that seems to be what she eventually comes around to when they when they finally see each other. It's like, oh, I was just mad at you. I didn't love him so much. Right.
[01:45:38] Right. He's just like, I mean, I feel like that's the other thing that maybe Zemeckis is keyed into all the force dump is the one that comes after this. But the very Hollywood thing of like, is the next thing going to make me happy?
[01:45:51] If I get this part, if this movie is a hit, if I win an Oscar and what tends to ruin a lot of people is they just become obsessed with trying to fill the void without ever recognizing that the void is never going to get filled.
[01:46:04] And it's that same kind of thing where they're like so hung up on the idea of what this guy represents to their sense of femininity and valuable value and also what he means to their history.
[01:46:18] But neither of them really seem to give a shit about this guy much. No, do we know why he becomes an undertaker? Like why he's like they blame Meryl for it, but it's unclear to me why that happens.
[01:46:30] My read on it is that he started drinking so much because of their married failing because there's that bit where he gets served his bloody Mary and then he picks up the scalpel and his hand shaking too much and he throws it.
[01:46:43] I read that as it's a MacaCee storytelling thing of like he's his hands to shake you to perform on living people. And every day he tests to see if he's got it. That makes sense. Yeah, right. That makes sense to me. Yeah. Yeah. Not super unpacked.
[01:47:00] No, but whatever. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Now you have Meryl and Goldie in the house and you have 12 minutes of obviously just throwing all the tricks in the in the bag out on the screen. Just just like this whole thing just rules, it still looks pretty terrific.
[01:47:20] It really does. Like considering that it is innovating so much of the stuff that it's doing. Yeah, sure, you can see some of this, but like the head spin, like stuff like that, it looks pretty fantastic.
[01:47:31] The only effect that I don't think has aged very well is the one that is most wholly digital, which is Meryl walking with her head on backwards. That's the one. It's really like two different images composited. A lot of the other stuff is using makeup, using clever angles.
[01:47:47] That shit all looks perfect. Yeah, like when she bashes Meryl's head down and it's like all their like neck skin scrunched up around like a like a sharp. Yeah, pulling the neck up like a sharp.
[01:47:59] I mean, Meryl's bit of like when the neck has been sort of dislodged and she's trying to place it back, but she keeps on falling forward. Yeah, like she's got this weird prosthetic neck piece, but that's also just physical comedy. That's just her playing it really well.
[01:48:14] The the the sitting at that bones that terrifies the neem polyc so much are so cool that give me the creeps to think about it. All right, she's got like 12 different neck pieces that like are applied at different parts of the movie. There's the one with the bone.
[01:48:27] There's the one that looks twisted backwards. There's the one that's just like sort of like saggy because it had been stretched out. There's so much neck shit in this movie. Good neck shit. Who did the makeup on this? I mean, it's mostly visual effects, though.
[01:48:45] Is that I mean, like, I guess so. No, there is. I know it's funny that it was only even acknowledged by the Oscars for visual effects that makeup was. I mean, like makeup feels like such an obvious. You know, so much prosthetic stuff in this,
[01:49:02] but wait now now I'm annoyed and now I have to look up what the makeup category was that year. Dracula, which is huge. Batman Returns, which is huge. But then Huff, which I think is more just like old guy makeup. Yeah, there's always one of this every year.
[01:49:18] Yeah, Dick fucking Smith did the makeup. Dick Smith, Lizard, the greatest makeup man of all time. Right. So whatever. I don't know why they ignored him. But yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's so cool. They got the best whoever did it.
[01:49:30] Dick Smith, little big man and Godfather and I mean, to be clear, this this movie rules like I mean, it's a feather in his fricking calf. Absolutely. And then right, I remembered the rest of the movie just being to protect body damage.
[01:49:47] But then, of course, there's this whole thing where like he gets fed up is like enough that two of you can be with each other. I'm over this. And then they realize like, you know, it's a weird arc of like
[01:50:01] it stops being about them competing with each other. They they solve the psychological trauma of you thought I was cheap. I tried to get back at you by sleeping with all the guys, taking all your boyfriends. Like they just talk it all out.
[01:50:15] They have this great heart to heart by the fireplace. That's it. I love that. That happens midway through. Right. Exactly. Right. And there's such a good little Zemacosy like a tiny moment that undoubtedly must have caused so many headaches.
[01:50:29] It's such a like a quietly complicated visual effect shot. But Meryl has thrown the spear through her and then it goes through her, hits the couch, Meryl cheers and then realizes, no, I've only damaged my own couch and Goldie keeps on talking.
[01:50:44] And then at one point she sits down on the couch and when she sits down on the couch, the spear goes perfectly through her. Yeah, it's really funny. It might be the most complicated shot in the entire movie. And it's like a sort of throwaway gag.
[01:50:59] It must have taken its truth. There's so many things like that where you're like, God, this must have taken a fucking forever. This must have been such a big Zemecos having the budget to do comedy with this kind of effects thing that he's doing at this period.
[01:51:11] Right. It's like nobody else I can think of now certainly would do a gag like that, that's that complicated and take that much time and resources. Like it's just it's all in the service of like money shots and not a joke.
[01:51:23] That even it's not even like a full laugh. It's like, oh, and then it's all part of like tapestry. And as Meryl said, that kind of technical craft is counterintuitive to a lot of how comedy performing works. It is to his credit as a director,
[01:51:45] even if it was unpleasant for them to do that he was able to handle both and especially with three very different movie stars. Very different. I mean, like I don't know. Has Goldie Hawn, I obviously Goldie Hawn at this point is still just like an A-list comedy icon.
[01:52:04] Yeah. Has she done a lot of like I don't think she's really ever done anything that would be this convoluted right now. This came out the same year as House Sitter, where a movie I definitely saw as a kid for some reason.
[01:52:17] Of course. Ben classic House Sitter did have a 50 million dollar VFX. That movie is Ben Ben. You saw house. You never saw House Sitter? No. I don't know. You'd like it. Stephen Goldie Hawn to scam. Ben, Ben, you did see House gas, right? Is that who's in that?
[01:52:43] Sinbad, Phil Hartwell. Hell yeah, of course. Yeah, maybe you hadn't seen that. I'd be like, are you not Ben? Like are you an imposter? Yeah, no, I would never have not seen that. I couldn't have like dodged that if I tried.
[01:53:02] David, can you name the director of House gas? Can I name the director of House gas? Is my life depend on it? No, I cannot name the director of House gas. Why it's none other than convicted manslaughter Randall Miller. Oh, of course.
[01:53:19] The the maker of the sixth man and whatever. I don't know what else has he made? No, he's the guy. He was the one responsible for that horrible incident where they like recently. This is like a few years ago, right?
[01:53:35] A crew member died on one of his films because they were filming on train tracks without a permit. Oh, is the Midnight Writer thing with the writer guy? Yes. Oh, yeah. He went to jail and has been arguing for his release and now got released.
[01:53:49] And one of the conditions of a sentencing was that he could never make a movie again and then he went to like Germany and made a movie about competitive baristas or some shit. Jesus, right?
[01:53:58] He's the one who made that like he made a wine movie at some point. He made what is it? One of those wine. Yes, that one. He made the awful CBGVs movie. He's he's one of the worst actors of all time in many different respects.
[01:54:12] Yeah, but I did see houseguests. House sitter was directed by Frank Oz. Have you guys ever put him on the March Madness bracket? We we've talked. I mean, he's never been a bracket boy, but I mean, he's obviously a candidate. That would be a really fun run.
[01:54:26] And I mean, you got to do the Stepford wives, but it'd be fun. I love is a fascinating disaster. And in a certain way, Stepford wives is the thing that completely definitively kills this type of comedy. Yeah, yeah, expensive, big, effects driven movie star comedy.
[01:54:44] The witch and Stepford wives are like the one to pie. Yeah, like 2004 and 2005. Kidman kills the closest things he's made movies that are close to truly incredible, like Little Shopper, Harz, Bo Finger, Moab & Sake Manhattan in and out is more like that's a fun movie
[01:55:05] that would also just be wild to discuss today. But again, there's nothing in his filmography where I'm like, well, this would be boring to talk about because even something like the Stepford wives or the score, you're like, well, shit, there's a lot to dig into.
[01:55:21] So do we have we obviously talked about the hospital scene, which is iconic? We there's the shock. And there's we've talked about all that. Like, I guess the only it's just that that final party scene in the sort of triumph of earnest, not taking the fountain drink.
[01:55:41] Yeah, because there's that there's that window after he takes her to the hospital, he realizes she's dead when he finds her in the body bag before Goldie comes in where he seems reenamored with her because she is this medical miracle.
[01:55:57] Like, he starts getting very attracted to her again and falling back in love with her because of the whole like sign of God thing. Right. But then he is able to spray paint her back, shows his value in that way.
[01:56:10] You have the final sort of cat and mouse chase through the party. All those the magazine look who's still alive. Right. And then he makes that final choice. Now, do you know that this movie, the reason I watched the trailer
[01:56:23] and saw the billing before this, this is like a weird Rogue One trailer where there is so much footage that is not final. Well, because there's this whole card subplot with right, right. Tracy Oman being the big
[01:56:36] woman, Tracy Oman was the woman that he was going to leave both of them for. And she is not in the movie at all, but she has dialogue in the trailer. She was a bartender that he went to to complain about what's going on.
[01:56:48] And then he falls in love with her and goes off and marries her. Wow. And like, I get why they cut it. Like there's a whole ending that they cut that's not even available. You can't even find it on like a DVD or no. No deleted. No.
[01:57:04] But you know where that's him meeting her and getting with her. I think it's funnier to cut to his funeral and have the priest be like, and then he had such a nice life. And here is funny that we don't see children. Yeah.
[01:57:19] Is Tracy Oman in that scene somewhere? Like as in like old age makeup or if she is, we don't see her. Right. Hating an entirely different ending. They reshot the ending. Absolutely. Because like the audiences hated it. The ending, most directly,
[01:57:39] the original ending was entirely redone after the test audience has reacted negatively to it. The ending feature earnest after he has fled Lisa's party meeting a bartender, Tracy Oman, who helps. So it was going to happen after he escapes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
[01:57:54] A new bartender helps him fake his death to a vape Madeline and Helen. The two women encounter earnest in the bar center 27 years later, living happily as retired couple. The Mecca stop, the ending was too happy and opted for the darker ending feature in the final cut.
[01:58:09] Oman was one of five actors with speaking roles in the film to be eliminated. There's a lot of like big people who had big supporting roles who just don't exist at all. Jonathan Silverman. Of Weekend at Bernie's, another Porsche classic, I assume, been played played Merrill's agent.
[01:58:29] If are you looking at the son of a guppet? Can you click on Jonathan Silverman's page and see the phone? Yeah, I did click on it and it's one of those iconic like has no one addressed this images or it's like, why is he mid-sneeze?
[01:58:42] Like what is this? His eyes closed. Could you click on Porsche movies for me? Just tell me what comes up. Weirdly, Jonathan Silverman's sneezing is what comes up. Porsche classic. It I just think it's interesting that like they they tested the movie.
[01:59:04] The trailer, the first image in the tailor trailer is big title card. A Robert Zemeckis film. It shows you how big he was at this point in time. That's the first thing they put in the trailer is like, get ready.
[01:59:17] It's the news of Mecca and then the trailer has so much shit that's not in the movie, not just Tracy Olman, not just I think a little bit of Jonathan Silverman, but also like it has a bunch
[01:59:27] of pieces from what seems to be an entire set piece of him trying to freeze Merrill Street and putting her in the fridge. And she comes out. She's in the fridge. Yes. Yes. There's like all this expensive stuff that they shot
[01:59:41] and they test screened it clearly after that trailer had come out. And Zemeckis was like, the movie's not fast enough. There's too much other stuff. Let's cut it down and then they reshot the ending and none of that stuff has ever been released in any one.
[01:59:56] But the thing is the ending rules like the funeral is so funny and then falling down the stairs and popping into pieces as Ben's background is great. Like a joke. Like how many movies pull off that?
[02:00:14] Like having a one liner, like you think of something hot as being like the peak version, but it's really hard to pull off. It's a solid button truly like to go out on very good. And also it is the rare case of like bad test screening
[02:00:30] come up with a new ending that is darker. The audience hates that the first ending is too happy and you are like no cynical funny ending. That's not the vibe of this movie. Like you got it wrong. Like, yeah, this should be this should be dark.
[02:00:44] Yeah, the audience kind of got it from the beginning. And it's good that they that they have each other in a weird way. Like they've both been fighting against things they can't defeat, but at least they have each other, even though they're these weird,
[02:00:57] you know, you know, cracked ladies. The weirdest thing about this movie is it ultimately becomes a romance between the two of them. Yeah, I would imagine that's also part of it like becoming part of the queer canon, too.
[02:01:11] It's like these women being like, fuck this guy, like let's run off. They're on their own. Ladies are doing it for themselves. This was a big hit. I mean, it was coming in between mega, mega hits. I would not I would not call this a big hit.
[02:01:26] I would dispute that. It made it made 58 domestically and its budget was 55. Now, you know, it did OK overseas, so it makes 150 worldwide. But I don't think I don't think anyone was like what did you three make because that was when they came right before we made 90.
[02:01:46] Three is the one that dropped. Yeah, I made like 90. Three is the one that's three had more than this. Sure, it's obviously more than this. Like if three had made, you know, similar numbers to the other two. They would have figured it on making a fourth maybe.
[02:02:01] You know what I mean? Like I feel like three made just no. I don't either. I don't need to defend you. Yeah, they were. You're you're not wrong. But I'm just like, just imagine if it had made like 500 billion dollars.
[02:02:12] You know, like it's just one of those things where at a certain point the studio would be like, well, we got to do something, you know, like. But anyway, but it was weird creative control and kill rights.
[02:02:23] Also, I was looking at the box office after we reported and two and three were so big overseas. You know, in the late 80s, early 90s before that was really a thing. Even though three dropped off a bunch domestically, they pretty much made the same amount internationally.
[02:02:40] So that franchise was so huge. This movie, a step down and then his next movie is the third highest grossing movie of all time to that point. So let's play the box office game. It's a July 31st, 1992.
[02:02:53] So it is a summer release a little later in the summer. But and it does open number one, 12 million dollars. So, you know, not bad. Number two at the box office. We referenced one of its sequels on this episode. It's a children's film. It's a sequel.
[02:03:17] That's one of it. Yeah, we were another entry. This is number two. We made thirty eight million dollars in three weeks. Not the kind of gangbusters performance of the first one. Well, I think the third one to. Oh, it's a honey eye blow at the kid.
[02:03:43] That kid's big. Definitely saw the movie. It is that's what I was doing. And that's what comes her in two. Absolutely an early theater going memory for me. I had the novelization of that movie, which really shows you how deep I was in.
[02:03:57] I have seen that movie multiple times. I feel like we rented it a lot or whatever. The only thing I remember is like the kid in the red overalls, like, yeah, playing the guitar. You know, I was surprised. Yeah, right. Playing the guitar.
[02:04:12] Yeah, I mean, is it good? Probably not. Like I just don't remember the movie really. I rewatch both of them recently. I think the first Honey Eye Shrunk, the kids is underrated. I think it should have the same status that shit like Goonies has.
[02:04:29] I think it's much better than Goonies are home alone. I know people are going to attack me for this, but I think for that era of that sort of like kid adventure movie, it's Joe Johnson. It's fucking well done. It's it's a good. Yeah, for sure.
[02:04:42] The whole cast is good. The second one's kind of a mess. Randall Plycer directed Grease. It's just like not the right tone. But the first one I think is really, really. Number three at the box office, Griffin,
[02:04:55] is a film that is, I would say, mostly lost to history. I just want to read the tag line and see if you get it from that. OK, you ready? Here's the tag line. Some of the best things in life are free.
[02:05:12] But if you want it all, it all underlined. Just say Moe. Just say Moe. Just say money, Moe problems. You got it. It's Moe Money with Damon Wands, Stacy Dash, the debut performance of Bernie Mac. Wow. Wow. Written by Damon Wands, right? Yeah. Unsurprisingly, a Ben Closset.
[02:05:43] Moe Money, Moe Problems. Just Moe Money. Moe Problems is implied. I do believe that problems ensue. I do think that there are some problems, right? That's the one has to be about something. Yeah, Moe Problems would have been how they built out the franchise.
[02:06:00] Is his name Moe in that movie? No, same as Johnny. Oh. Would would be cool. I agree with you. Just kind of like money, kind of a like or East money. Damon Wands, like in Living Color is on.
[02:06:17] Last Boy Scout just came out like, you know, like he obviously I'm going to get you suck and stuff like, you know, like let's just let's have a Damon Wands vehicle. Right? Why not? Yeah, and it doesn't really hit.
[02:06:29] It's interesting that Damon Wands, like made a lot of movies until Jim Carrey became a movie star and then he kind of disappeared. Yeah, I mean it's true. I mean, like I saw Blank Man in theaters fully, like saw that in theaters, thought it ruled.
[02:06:45] Probably doesn't rule, but I remember loving it. No, it still rules. It's still rules. But it's funny on a lactic like strand hit somebody that comes back to you. That's good. That's just good. Like a garbage robot sidekick. He gets a ball. Yes, that should he right.
[02:07:03] He lives in a subway station. I mean, of course, that movie was like one of my top 10 movies when I saw it. It's directly like Bender of man doesn't marry man. It is. That's right. But then like after you've got like Celtic Pride, Great White
[02:07:16] Hight Bulletproof in 96 where it's like, oh, a lot of the Damon Wands movies. And then that is it. Like he's made five movies since then at all. And one of them is playing the hey, that's my ass penguin in farce of the penguins. Oh, yeah.
[02:07:33] But he also had a show that we're 123. He had my wife and kids. You know, that was right. That was his moneymaker. And yes, he had my life and kids for many years and he also spent three years begging to quit lethal weapon.
[02:07:48] You're fire me every time you interview the thing, please let me stop being on this. And then they were like, OK, OK, we won't let you leave the show. We will fire the guy playing rigs. And he's like, OK, you're going to recast him.
[02:08:04] No, Sean William Scott will play a new character. He's not going to play rigs. This show is called lethal weapon. No, he will not play. We're going to kill Riggs off, brother. No, just some guy Riggs dies offscreen.
[02:08:21] Riggs, a character defined by the fact that he is suicidal just sort of died offscreen for unrelated reasons. And between. Anyway, number four at the box office, Katie, we've talked about this movie so many times, a movie we will do on this podcast one day. A sports comedy.
[02:08:45] The big hit of 1992. Little Jack. No, there's a lot of sports comedies in the early 90s. You're going to do it on this podcast. Yeah, no offense to little John. I don't think it's going to make it. Is it is an adult sport comedy? Is it for? Yes.
[02:09:06] Yes. Sure. I mean, it's a family movie, but you know, it's about grownups. It is no angels in the outfield. If that's, you know, like it's not white man can jump. No, no, no for families will enjoy this film. Families. Yeah, it's for everybody.
[02:09:24] It's adults, but a broad appeal. I definitely saw this year at PG, I would assume. And we're definitely going to do it someday. Yeah. Yeah. This director was on our bracket last year. I love this movie. I just rewatched it. I had a great time.
[02:09:44] How about the stars of this picture? We've got a major female star who is more famous as a singer, but nonetheless, definitely an actress as well. And then we have a male star who's kind of roughing up his image just enough, still cute,
[02:10:01] great supporting turn should have been Oscar nominated. Their own. A perfect movie. Amazing. Literally perfect. And it has Laurie Petty who Ben. I assume you're a huge, Laurie Petty fan. Wait, she's in a leader and tank girl. Oh, yeah, of course.
[02:10:24] And then legally, she's just full of a poster of time girl. My wall. And I'm assuming, Ben, you also had a poster of John Lovitz on your wall. No, or David Strafaren as the handyman. Oh, yeah. I have a poster of Lovitz on my wall.
[02:10:41] No, you still do. League of their own. What a great movie. Big hit in 1992, Penny Marshall. Of course, number five at the box office, a film best known for the television series it eventually spawned. Opening this week, a huge flop. Buffy, the vampire slayer. I have to be.
[02:11:05] Nineteen ninety two, during starring Christy Swanson directed by Fran Rubel Kuzooie, who is credited on every episode of the series and gets a paycheck for all of them, despite having nothing to do with the series. Nice work if you can get.
[02:11:22] Yeah, essentially not residuals for the rest of her life for ruining Joss Whedon's screenplay for fucking up. Like, right? He was like, you fucked up my movie so badly that I now need to make a series to try to rescue what I thought the thing was about.
[02:11:38] Continue to cast your facts. Right. Wow, stuff. You guys ever seen it? It's not very good. I've not seen it. I saw it. Yeah, it's all right. It's like it's kind of dumb. Yeah, yeah. Dumb. I knew it existed enough that when the show came out,
[02:11:55] I was like, hmm, that's weird. And then. Yeah, exactly. You've also got Sister Act here. Got boomerang. All these like three adult comedies. Absolutely, you have Bay Bay's Kids, the cartoon based on the based on the comedy stylings of Robin Harris.
[02:12:19] I mean, passed away by the time the movie came out. I believe that's right. Had died like two years earlier. Yes, I watched it recently. That movie is fascinating because he was any great standup comedian. Yeah, Bay Bay's Kids rules.
[02:12:35] It fucking yeah, written by Reginald Dublin who directed boomerang. Yeah, it's so good and so well animated. But he was a stand up. Who is fairly successful than he was in the house party movies? That was sort of his movie breakout.
[02:12:50] And then they took this routine of his that was about going on a date with a woman and accidentally realizing he had been tricked into taking care of baby sitting right. But they weren't even her kids, they are Bay Bay's kids.
[02:13:04] That's the whole bit is that like he's taking care of some other person's kids. Who's Bay Bay? What I'm sorry. They fucked up so much. I'm sorry to be a hack, but the nineties are so great. Like this is a great box office game.
[02:13:19] David, I lost the original routine. It's so good. And every time he drops another Bay Bay's kids, it lands. Bay Bay's kids. I know there's the joke. Always fine. We don't die. We multiply, right? Like that's that's the sort of like yes, yeah, it's a little stinger. Right.
[02:13:39] Um, so that's the first team. They were like we could make an entire high genc animated film about this guy being tricked into taking care of some other person's kids at a theme park. And that's that's the movie.
[02:13:52] And because animation took so long, they like made the deal with him. They started on the movie and then he died and the movie came out like two or three years later and phase on love plays. Because he never even got to record it. Yep. Wild stuff, man.
[02:14:08] You've also got unlawful entry, a film in which Ray Liotta makes unlawful entry into someone's home, the home of Kurt Russell and Madeline Stowe. Adds up. Sounds about right. Yep. And Universal Soldier. Hey, Universal Soldier, that's a fun one. Ben, you've seen Universal Soldier, I assume. Absolutely.
[02:14:32] That's it. That's the box office game. What a great what a great time in America. 1992. Yeah. Yeah. Things are going well. You knew there's no problems. Yeah. Maybe it's good. Bill Clinton was about to be president and that didn't create any problems at all. No, no problems there.
[02:14:48] They're great. Great time to be a boomer, honestly, between this, the forest comes coming right down the pike. That's we talk about it. We talk about it. It really is. It's like they're just like, this is it. We did it.
[02:15:05] Forest Gump is absolutely like a ticker tape parade for that entire generation. When did the millennials get that man? Did we already get it? And I didn't even realize it. You don't deserve it. Neither did they. I hope we have America Civil War.
[02:15:20] They're going to tell us that was actually for you. That was no, it's going to be like a gift or like a. Vine has been deleted from the Internet. Some where we're going to get our epic. Yeah, it will be your spot on.
[02:15:33] It's going to be a thread. It's going to be a thread with gifts in it. It's going to be a list of call. Oh boy. Right. Great. Everything we did it. We're done. We're done. You're the best in the biz. I'm sure this is the best.
[02:15:51] It is my favorite thing to do. I have been having a good time listening to this series also. We'll see, see how it see how it goes when the when the going gets tough in a couple weeks. But you asked me before we start recording and it's like
[02:16:06] what neither of us are worried. Usually we're like any mini series that's longer than five films were usually like. No, I'm worried about these couple. Yeah, I don't know how we're going to make an episode about that.
[02:16:17] But but all of the bad ones are also just so weird. 100% what is the airing election week? Is it this one? What do you guys get? Contact. Oh, well, right. No, no, you're right. It's far scum. You're right. It's first come.
[02:16:32] I forgot how early election works out perfect. And the witches. A screen of your schedule. I assume. No, we have to. Which is at the end of the series. Oh, yeah. So yeah, yeah, we'll do it in order. Because I'm going to the story.
[02:16:47] I'm not set for schedule. Correct. Well, but the witches took its time. Which is essentially just going into the West Side Story spot. It all lined up pretty. Sounds like everything's going just fine. I got no complaints. Making the show has been super easy.
[02:17:05] I don't want to go back into a studio ever again. I love the way we make the show now. Also, the way you do this allows me to be on it more often, which I have set the surplus. See, that's the advantage.
[02:17:18] It's opened the door to us doing this anytime. But we don't have to do it all the time. And for example, next week, Forest Gump is wild that this guy goes from Teth Becumster to Forest Gump. But next week, we'll be talking about Forest Gump
[02:17:35] with our friend returning guest, the great Jamel Bowie in the New York Times. I like that Jamel Bowie has been writing amazing up ads about the threat that democracy is under. And then was like, I'm watching Forest Gump.
[02:17:47] And I'm like, oh, God, they got him to take his eye off the ball to watch Forest Gump. Jamel, stop trying to pack the corn. We got to talk Gump. I told my dad that we had recorded with Jamel and he was like, how did you get him?
[02:18:03] And I was like, he like listens to the show and is our friend. Even though I was saying it was hard for me to not put the stain on it. Like, I think he's smart, but for some reason. He literally said, good point, Ben, to me.
[02:18:21] He's like a legit thought-provoking guy who's like, I'm not going to talk to him. He's a legit thought leader. And yet he's giving you guys his thoughts. Yeah, I think he's one of the smartest people in America. Anyway, tune in for that.
[02:18:37] It's a good app. It's a good app. It's a good app. It just continues to be the only thing that makes me question Jamel's judgment. And same for you, Katie. Katie, you were the first person where you were like, I was listening to your show, David.
[02:18:56] And I was like, oh, shit, this is real now. I listened to all those Phantom Menace episodes for some reason and I was like, I don't know why I like this. I think everyone went through this for you're like, why do I keep listening to this?
[02:19:07] And then that's how you got us all. And now it's been like what, 15 years since that all started, you know, 20. 15 years since the pandemic started. That's correct. Yeah, that's right. No, no, because our fifth anniversary was this March. So now we're at 15 years. Yeah, exactly.
[02:19:25] And it shows all of our faces. Absolutely. No, I mean, we said before, but you were you were kind of the first proper guest of blank check. You know, she didn't name the show and you were the first guest on a proper director mini series.
[02:19:41] And then then you're in the DNA of the very show. I'll be back any time. I will be glad to be a part of it forever. And we at Win Penny Marshall's number comes up. You better bring me back on. Just wait for your own episode.
[02:19:57] I promise we will ask. We will offer. I mean, for your thought. And I'm off or only by the way, so I'm not auditioning for that shit. Yeah, of course. No, no, no, offer, offer only. Listen, a little bit. Yeah. And fighting in the war room.
[02:20:16] I got mad at David when he came on and never plugged the podcast that we have been doing for actually 10 years. Yeah, he's a dummy. He didn't plug it. So fighting in the war, I'm also a little bold man. Yeah, that's where you can find me.
[02:20:31] Do I plug my Twitter? You guys do that? Sure. Twitter. You're rich. A T Y R H. I listen to the show, but I often do not make it to this part of it. I apologize. I forgot the rules. That's fine. There's a lot of work.
[02:20:44] This is the best part. We were just done. And we're just like this. Where David's like, we got to go. But what else can we talk about? Yeah, it's that. And that's me going, did I forget anything? No, that's all the. We're done. Past midnight.
[02:21:03] Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate or subscribe. Thanks, Leymann, for coming for a theme song. Job 1, Terran, for our artwork. Thanks to Ang for Gudo, for our social media and helping to produce this show. Go to page.com slash Blank Tech.
[02:21:22] Blank Tech special features for watching the alien movies and doing fun, fun, bonus-y stuff. Tales from the crypt and the like. Go to Blankies.Red.Com for some real nerdy shit into our Shopify page for some real nerdy merch next week. The Gumpa-Nang. And as always. Flasted. Blasted.