[00:00:00] 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 is a show, it's Blank Check
[00:00:19] I know you need to stay your ass on the porcelain. This is going to require a little finesse. And given your prior reputation as a hothead, you'll be the first one to fuck it up.
[00:00:29] Hey, I wrote the fucking book on finesse. You just wait for me to wipe my ass, Angel. I'm coming with you. Angel, get me a fucking podcast, Jack! I don't know. I mean this is what we were saying.
[00:00:42] That whole scene is just... Isn't there some... like Garrett Headland's in the shower for the whole scene? Correct. Like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's... yeah. Right, I mean this is... It's a lot of energy. I was saying... It's a lot of testosterone. Oh my God, yes. So much testosterone.
[00:01:02] The quotes page for this movie is almost as long as the entire script. And I was saying this is a movie that doesn't necessarily have like an obvious, iconic line to pull from, but also every line in the movie is demented.
[00:01:16] Either as written or the way the actor chose to deliver it. But the toilet scene feels like the thing I want to represent the most. This didn't work as well, the butcher for the opening.
[00:01:26] But this is the other exchange I just want to repeat from the toilet scene. Sure. Angel comes in. I got to ask you a question. Me and Sophie did a lot of make-and-up last night. It seems like I got a little rust on my tools down there.
[00:01:38] Opens his bathrobe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then, then Walberg says, whoa, whoa, whoa. Ask the cockologist in the shower. He calls Garrett Headland a cockologist. I guess, I guess I don't even, is it supposed to be like a dig at him?
[00:01:54] And then Garrett Headland pokes his head out and he's like, yeah, it's a rug bird or whatever. He actually has a take. And he's like, oh, thank God, I thought my luck ran out. Right. It's insane.
[00:02:06] Well, because right, it's like there's the ongoing thing of like, does Headland get laid a lot? Like that is a point of discussion across the movie. And he also threw a lot of homophobic jokes his way.
[00:02:19] When he dies, they get in some homophobic digs on his death, not even deathbed, his death ground. Death ground? His dying moments. Right. So it's like the cockologist thing.
[00:02:32] Are they like saying he's the one who gets laid the most or is it a dig on him being obsessed with digs? Or he sees a lot of penises. I don't know.
[00:02:40] The other thing is just, isn't the whole point that these guys were raised by a nice lady? Yes. They do not act like they were raised by a nice lady.
[00:02:50] Well, to be fair, they do talk about that right up top because he's like, sounds like she did a terrible job. They're saints compared to what they would have been. Right. They look like congressmen. Yeah, they look like congressmen. I like that. I like that idea.
[00:03:08] I think the most potent thing in this movie is whenever they envision Finula Flanagan there with them. I think that as a device, the movie should have repeated more. It feels like- Maybe had it a couple more times. Yeah. Like use it every half hour or whatever.
[00:03:26] Because you do walk out of this movie or walk away from this movie or in my case roll out of bed and over to the desk from this movie. Asking a lot of questions about her.
[00:03:37] She is such a presence that looms so large you're trying to find the connective tissue between these four guys and what that upbringing was like on a day-to-day basis and all that.
[00:03:47] And you get obviously so little of her in the beginning that every time, and it's only really those two scenes. She is good though. She is very good. She's definitely- Yeah, you're like, well I can see how she raised these four brothers.
[00:04:00] But there's the dinner scene and the end scene and both of those times I'm starting to get it. Right, right. By the way my wife Tessa has never watched Lost, Humberrack, and we're watching Lost now. So it was just very cool to see Faraday's mother.
[00:04:21] Pivotal, what's her Eloise Faraday's name? Eloise Hawking. Eloise Hawking, right. Right, but then she takes Faraday as the marionette. That's, I mean our friend Joe Robinson who hosts the Storm podcast which is Recapping Lost.
[00:04:37] I've wedged myself in there as the go-to Desmond guest whenever there's a Desmond specific episode. You are the Desmond. Because the Desmond arc is my fucking favorite. Yeah, it's amazing. I've rewatched just the Desmond arc two times in the last year and her entrance is incredible.
[00:04:57] That first scene where she's making small talk with him and then she does the pin turn to like, you're not supposed to buy the ring. Yeah. Is the moment where it feels like how fucking big is this show?
[00:05:09] Where you suddenly went like, is this show gonna do everything? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're messing with space and time and fate now. You're not supposed to buy the ring. Oh man, it's creepy when she delivers that one. It's great. Who is she? She's a great actor.
[00:05:24] She is great in this movie and yeah, it's a failing that she's not in it more. But this of course is a podcast of alphamography. It's called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. Mm-hmm. I'm David.
[00:05:37] And it's about directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. This is a mini series on the films of John Singleton.
[00:05:52] It's called Pods in the Cast. Mm-hmm. Our guest today, a dear friend of the show, one of the oldest friends of the show, one of the oldest supporters of the show, been far too long since he's been on the
[00:06:03] show from Astronomy Club, from the Black Man Can't Jump in Hollywood podcast, Jonathan Braylock. Thank you for having me. The fourth brother of Blank Check. It's been, yeah, longtime fans, but it goes way back. Way back to when this podcast was just a joke. Yep.
[00:06:24] It was a bit we could not escape. Yes. But then we escaped. I remember you coming up to me at the UCB Training Center where we would both like work out with our groups, our comedy groups and whatever. I'm firing with them.
[00:06:44] Yeah, we get swole with our mod teams. But where we used to record the show and you were like, hey, I like your Star Wars podcast. And I was like, what are you talking about? You're like, no one listens to this. And I was like, no, I do.
[00:07:01] But I was like, I actually like your podcast because you guys had just had Keegan Michael Keegan, which is like such a big episode so early on in your run. I was like, your podcast is like really good. And you were like, thanks yours too.
[00:07:13] And I was like, no. Yeah, right now. No. I do enjoy every time a list comes out and we're both we're both of our podcasts are on it feels nice. It's just always makes me happy. We also like we started at like exactly the same time. Yeah.
[00:07:30] And the shows have different bands, but I do feel like we both have tried to toe the same line between like trying to find some actual insight and be funny at the same time. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:07:43] So it's cool to have us be lumped in together in a good way. But no, sorry. What were you going to say? No, just that it all culminates in the four brothers. Finally. Finally. Yeah.
[00:07:55] I feel like we sent you a list a while ago because we had the moment of just like, oh, we haven't had Jarrah James or John on in too long. So we sent both of you guys. I feel like the list for like seven months out in advance.
[00:08:08] Yeah, it was like Musker and Clements, right? And you know, all of this stuff we were right. So Jarrah and James both took Musker and Clements at the beginning of the year, but you very quickly put your chips down for like four brothers is wild.
[00:08:20] I would really like to talk about yes four brothers. I think about that movie and then you had been pushing hard for Carpenter during March Madness. So when he won, I was like, look, we haven't booked any of the Carpenters.
[00:08:33] Do you want a Carpenter instead of four brothers? And you were like, no, I want to stay on four brothers. Yes. Four brothers. This is a big one. This is a wild one. In a weird way. There's a lot here. Yeah.
[00:08:49] Can you explain your history with it and the decision making process of staying on four brothers? Yeah. I mean, well, I just I wanted to do a movie that like I felt like people don't there are movies that people talk about all the time. Right? Yes.
[00:09:03] And so John Carpenter has a lot of those films and John Singleton has a lot of those films too, but four brothers is one of those ones where it's just like, this is a blockbuster movie that I'm sure like a lot of people haven't seen
[00:09:15] like because it's very specific. It's like if you don't, if you didn't like Mark Wahlberg in the early aughts or you're not really into like action movies, you probably didn't catch this one. It was also like an August blockbuster.
[00:09:28] And I feel like you have more substantive movies that come out in August now. I feel like they pack every single weekend, but it used to be like the first weekend of August is the last weekend. You can release a major film. Right.
[00:09:42] And then the final couple of weekends in August, you have movies that open to like 15 or 20 and are decent like third base hits maybe. Yes. That's right. Like and this was that corridor of just like, oh yeah, last weekend of August, I'll go see a Mark Wahlberg movie.
[00:09:56] Right. With like three guys who Holly would is continuing to test out as movie stars. Exactly. And I think that's what that's what did it for me. Honestly, one of the biggest reasons I want to do this podcast. This this movie was because of Chibotel Ijiforce performance. Yeah.
[00:10:13] He I think like this is the movie where like he really stood out to me as like, I was like, oh, this dude's going to be huge. He was because his presence in this movie. This character is nothing really.
[00:10:25] This character is just like the most basic villain on paper. There's nothing there. Yeah. It's like he wears a big jacket. He's mean. Like I'm describing the character to you right. Right. He's mean in a specific way. He's where he makes people do crazy shit. Yeah.
[00:10:45] He's passed off the floor. Yeah. Sit with the kids table. Like, yeah. Well, power moves. Honestly. Let's talk Chibotel for a sec. Because this is in the middle of Chibotel just like, I guess it's just like whatever you've got, he'll do it.
[00:11:00] He's just suddenly like he's it, you know, his breakout on movies is dirty pretty things, right? And then he's like in love actually for a second. For a hot second. He's the cuckold. No. Yeah. Right. In a very age appropriate marriage to Kira Knightley. Kira Knightley was like 14.
[00:11:18] Anyway, call out. He's like the only black actor to have a primary role in a Woody Allen movie period. Is that? Yeah. I guess that's because he's he's Melinda Melinda. He's in the dramatic part of Melinda and Melinda, right?
[00:11:31] But he's he is the male lead of that half of the movie. And I don't I cannot think of any other black actor in his entire fucking 87 movie filmography with a role of substance. And then this year and also he's in She Hate Me That
[00:11:47] Year, but this year for brothers, the villain, Serenity, the villain. He's incredible in Serenity. Kinky Boots, which didn't he like get a Golden Globe nomination for that? Yes. And a BAFTA I think. Yeah. He was only for a Golden Globe. Yes. Not a BAFTA, but a Golden Globe.
[00:12:03] And like next year he's it's Inside Man and Children of Men, right? The two men movies, the two in both of both of which he's like, you know, he's what the fourth or fifth or six or, you know, like, yeah, and just pops in and is great. Yeah.
[00:12:19] You're just like, I'm more of this guy. Like why is this guy playing the third cop? Like why, you know, like, I mean, yeah. Year after that, Talk to Me an American Gangster. He's really good at Talk to Me. So good.
[00:12:32] That's him finally getting to play like a co-lead in an American movie because it had been like British, he gets to be above the title, America, he's like fifth. Yeah. Even all the way to like Salt, right? You know, like he's still just kind of like playing one
[00:12:47] of the guys and I know he's like kind of the third lead in that he's like chasing Salt who is Salt. Of course, the question on everyone's list. But you know, like, and I think it's, you know, it's partly that Hollywood is racist and doesn't know,
[00:13:00] you know, how to find roles for this guy. But like, I think he also was just like, you know, I'll do it. I'll do whatever. Like I like to be in movies, right? Like he just, he's not a particularly egotistical actor
[00:13:14] and he is in these scenes where he doesn't, this movie he kind of takes over his scenes. But in a lot of these movies, he doesn't. He just, he does what the movie asks. He's a character actor. Yeah. Who's hot.
[00:13:27] But he's hot and he also is good at being a leading man. He's not one of those guys. That can do that too. He has the charisma and he has the gravitas and the star power to be a leading man. But he is a character actor.
[00:13:42] And the thing is, you know, this is the time in which the black actors who got to be the leads of movies were more personality actors and they're bigger stars. Like as great as Denzel is, still kind of a personality actor, right?
[00:13:54] You have Will Smith and then it was like the comedy stars. It's the Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, Chris Tucker. Yeah. It was like those were the, those were the black actors who got to be the lead of a movie.
[00:14:05] And everybody else, you know, if you were a black character actor, you probably like three, four. You know, you get to play a cop here or there, you know, that kind of thing. Right. Yeah. No, and I mean, I've been invoking you a lot
[00:14:18] throughout this mini series and black man can't jump in Hollywood in general. But you guys always sort of talk about how much more willing Hollywood is to make a musician with zero acting experience, a lead, then to sort of like cultivate
[00:14:37] a career of an actual black actor, like a trained black actor. Right. And it feels like that. I've been in four brothers. Right. It started shifting in like the last 10 years. It's a thing I kind of keep thinking about watching all these
[00:14:49] singleton movies of like, it does feel like there is this wave of like, and most of them by the way, like have to have come out of the tonyest acting schools in the world, right? Where you have like Winston Duke and Lupita from Yale
[00:15:04] and you have like Jonathan Majors from Juilliard and Corey Hawkins too. But there's like finally this beginning of like classically trained young black leads starting to like carry movies. But in this era, yes, it's like Chewattel's got the and and two of the four brothers are played by
[00:15:22] musicians and one of them, this is singleton's third time being like, he's a movie star, he's a movie star, he's a movie star. And Andre Benjamin is someone where it felt like Hollywood was demanding him to be a movie star.
[00:15:34] Like he had been a little reticent to start acting and everyone's like, you should be a movie star, right? Right, right, right. This is one of those movies where, you know, you cue this movie up that the cast, well, you know, Finola Flanagan gets shot obviously.
[00:15:50] The cast list starts rolling. It's a long time before there's a name you don't recognize. That is the fun. That's the crazy. Exactly. You're like, oh my God, like everyone is in this. I was also Chewattel. I mean, math on this.
[00:16:04] I mean, like Terence Howard gets his Oscar nom this following year, right? Because this hustle and flow in this movie come out within a month of each other. Correct. This is the year that he's in this, hustle and flow crash. Yes.
[00:16:17] You know, and gets a lot of those sort of critic awards where they're bundling all of it together. People, the question was, will Terence Howard get two nominations or one? And he only gets the one. Taraji was sort of like on the outside list for supporting actress.
[00:16:33] Then she finally gets her nomination a couple years after this. Wahlberg gets his nomination the year after this, or two years after this. With the departed. Right. And then Chewattel has to wait a little bit longer. But it's like there are four people who are
[00:16:47] within like five or six years of getting their first nomination in this movie. Right. Right. Terence is still waiting. You know, Sophia of Vergara with, it's just like. Yeah. Yes. You're like, wait, oh wait, Sophia of Vergara. And then it's like Josh Charles.
[00:17:02] Wait, Josh Charles playing another corrupt cop like a year after SWAT. Yeah. You know, Phenola Flanagan, Barry Shabaka Henley. We love to see him. We love to see him. Any time he rolls in. Yeah. Could have done with more of him.
[00:17:15] You know, Adam Beach has a scene in this movie. Yeah. Yeah. Like I think people want to work with John Singleton still. I do think that's part of it. Like he, because this movie, you know, it's a pretty straightforward, well, plot-wise it's not
[00:17:29] totally straight, but you know, it's a, like it's an August movie. Yes. But you know, Singleton's given it that weight probably, right? Oh, Singleton's making it up. I would work with John Singleton. I think so. And he's a good actors director. Yeah. I like this movie.
[00:17:42] This movie is kind of good. I don't know. It's sort of ridiculous. It's kind of, it's kind of so stupid, but it kind of rules. Yeah. I don't know. I, like, I get a little frustrated watching it because I feel like it should be better.
[00:17:56] And I can't figure out what doesn't quite work like it is entertaining and fun. But you're like, this thing should rip. On paper, this should be the ultimate guilty pleasure, you know? It's got like 50 plots that, which is sort of a problem.
[00:18:12] You know, like for a 110 minute movie, it feels like a mini series level of shit going on. I don't, Bray, what do you, Bray? I assume you like Four Brothers. I assume that is, or is it just you would tell that you wanted to swing in
[00:18:26] for that's what's drawing you here? Yeah. I mean the reason, first of all, the cast is definitely a part of the reason why I love this movie because it's one of those movies that sticks with you because the cast is so great and like everyone is committed to
[00:18:39] what this film is, which is just is a lot of testosterone. Just like the idea of like, well, you know, but then this idea of like, this idea of family and even though it is for sure like a somewhat of a toxic
[00:18:54] family, it's still a family, you know? And you like, and so there is something really endearing about it. It's like, I also grew up in Jersey and then, you know, grew up at a time where people were had this kind of, you know, like friendly animosity
[00:19:11] where you're just like making fun of each other. Like that's how you know this guy loves you, that they're constantly hanging on you, you know? And so that like that part of it, obviously there's like a coolness factor of these guys seemingly can get away
[00:19:24] with anything which is amazing. They're constantly just holding people at gunpoint in public places all the time and never getting caught. Not one person ever like accuses them to the cops, which is like, cool, I guess that's just Detroit. Like interrupts a basketball game.
[00:19:46] A high school basketball game. Yeah, this seems a real picture of Detroit as a fully lawless society. It's truly lawless. That first scene where Howard goes to talk to them in the backyard, I guess after the funeral, and he's kind of like, hey, you guys aren't
[00:20:05] going to do that four brothers thing, right? Like he's not just like, hey, don't try to take the law into your own hands. He's like, don't do whatever weird action movie thing you're thinking about doing now. I sure wouldn't want there to be a series of set pieces.
[00:20:20] Right, exactly. Armed sieges on like residential streets essentially. Like that would really fuck up my week. Yeah, I don't know what it is. It's just like, it's just a movie that I feel like works. You know, it's one of those, it's like you have, you have
[00:20:40] premises like this all the time or just simple kind of like, oh, this person got murdered like somewhat of a revenge tale. I'm going to find this, you know, my loved one's killer and we're going to get revenge. But rarely I feel like do you
[00:20:54] care about the characters? And I personally, like I cared about these four brothers, you know, I cared about the mom even though you only saw her for a brief bit like the way that they crap the story is like it just, it just
[00:21:08] kicks with you and it's just, it's very enjoyable. And it has like some cool scenes like that scene, the scene at the end and like on the ice, like it does look cool like it, you know, Joe Dillon is chinchilla for
[00:21:21] coat. Like, I don't know, it looks awesome. Snowcrime is great, you know? I love when crime is happening in snowy places. Isn't it good? I always like cold crime and I always find it more visually arresting. Like this movie is so good even just from the very beginning.
[00:21:38] From the beginning! Right, right. Just sort of like the iced windshields and I feel like the diverse millitude of their breath being visible in every scene. Like this is a movie where you can tell the actors are actually cold in a way that gives it a good energy.
[00:21:55] It's clearly like February in Michigan. Like it's just clearly, you know, all of Detroit, Detroit does not look lush obviously but like it looks very real. Like it looks like it's winter in Detroit. In mid-2000s Detroit. I believe it was mostly shot in Toronto.
[00:22:13] They did a lot of Toronto. They got the specific landmark sort of shit in Detroit. You know, Detroit and Toronto, they're like across the pond from each other anyway. It's okay. I'll allow it in this case. I think the sequence, the car chase in the snow
[00:22:29] is like, it's so great. It really just makes it so much more exciting. Singleton's good at car chases and he's just done a whole movie of that. I do think like the watching the like fifth consecutive big gun violence scene made me
[00:22:50] just kind of realize like, oh it is just more difficult to make gun action cinematically compelling. You know, right? The more of it you're gonna do in a movie, right, it's gonna start to feel a little same. It gets a little samey, right? But it's got, I mean
[00:23:08] this movie has an undeniable energy to it. I mean the origins of this thing are weird and we've talked about this but this is a movie like, you know, Singleton is almost the opposite of what we say in the introduction for this podcast, right? Where he somehow
[00:23:22] gets this like very small blank check to make his debut film exactly the way he wants. And then that it makes such a seismic like impact that he gets to make like four John Singleton movies and define what a John
[00:23:38] Singleton movie is at the beginning of his career and then he goes like okay, I've like kind of hit a wall I don't want to be pigeonholed let me show them I can do like studio action. And he makes two movies Shaft and Too Fast, Too Furious
[00:23:54] that are both hits but are kind of negatively received and like leave a bad taste in people's mouth. Like he's this weird case of a guy where his biggest financial hits set his career back and I found this Entertainment Weekly article that I remembered from when this
[00:24:10] movie was coming out about how like 2005 was the summer of Singleton where it's like he's back he's made a new action movie but it's a little bit closer to the tone of his early films. It's in like a smaller more personal scale he's working with actors
[00:24:24] he likes but also that he was like the driving force behind Hustle and Flow he found Craig Brewer he wanted to get that movie made no one wanted to make it so he mortgaged his house and financed it largely himself and then went to Sundance
[00:24:40] and was like the spokesperson for the movie and that movie being a hit was seen as much as a comeback for Singleton as it was the emergence of like a new director and he got the biggest deal in the history of Sundance at that point in time.
[00:24:56] That was a huge Sundance bidding war movie, like $16 million. This was the crazy thing though everyone was like bidding around that amount it was like 7.5 now it's 8.5 9 and Paramount said we'll give you 9 plus Singleton we will give you a two picture deal to produce two more movies
[00:25:20] at budget similar to this with your fee baked into it so it was like $16 million to Singleton essentially wait so are Black Snake Moan and what's the other one Illegal Tender? In 2011 Singleton sued Paramount for $20 million for breach of contract Oh wow
[00:25:40] so even Black Snake Moan wasn't part of that deal maybe or maybe it wasn't It went to Paramount but I think it was its own thing somehow That was an handy moving I don't know It would be him sort of finding new guys
[00:25:52] and making small movies of that size and whatever and I think also this movie was already happening Hustle and Flow shot the same time as this movie so Paramount releases two big Singleton movies within a month of each other he's doing so much press for both of them
[00:26:08] I think he was like this is my home studio I'll be able to foster a new generation of young filmmakers here I'll be able to make my movies here and then he doesn't and Paramount claimed that nullified his contract because he went and made another movie
[00:26:24] with another studio and that was against the first look deal Singleton was like my first look deal ran out I took abduction because that had finally run out and you guys hadn't used me for six years Our researchers have run down here we gotta go through this
[00:26:46] in the 2000s that never happened there's so many the biggest one is Luke Cage that's the Columbia post Spider-Man we wanted to do a Luke Cage movie with John Singleton that's like John Singleton's big passion project with Tyrese with Tyrese obviously being the
[00:27:04] he wanted to do it I feel like right after Spider-Man and it was like gaining some steam and then when Spider-Man 2 was huge they were like okay now Sony really wants to do Marvel movies the closest that movie comes to getting made right he want he apparently
[00:27:18] almost made a Sinbad the Sailor movie that eventually got kicked to Rob Cohen starring Keanu Reeves that never happened he was gonna do fear and respect the video game like gangster movie with Snoop Dogg which was also going to be a video game that also never got released
[00:27:36] right that also got pretty fucking far along he signed up for these two movies within a month of each other and I think this one went first because it was smaller it was easier to get mounted but he was like deep in development pre-production on fear and respect
[00:27:50] he was gonna do something called Convoy some kind of Afghan war movie people driving trucks through Afghanistan I don't know he was gonna do without remorse which finally came out you know on Amazon this year the you know Tom Clancy's without remorse yeah right
[00:28:10] he was gonna do a movie potentially titled to lia Texas starring Halle Berry and about a small town in Texas where all the black people were arrested and railroaded for drug dealing yeah I mean now this is the stuff he almost did after five brothers
[00:28:24] right the A team is the other big one that's the other the A team was he I think initially his and then Joe Carnahan I forgot how far along he had gotten with the A team
[00:28:32] I think he was on it for a year or two and Ice Cube was gonna play BA Barakas probably would have been better probably and it says here that it came down to casting issues where I don't know if it was about the other
[00:28:42] three guys but I know he really wanted cube to do it but the yeah it's like it's the weird thing when you look at a director's career and it's especially with Singleton he died so like you know there's like there's even more movies that won't get made
[00:28:58] like you know he would have still been work but like and you're like oh look at this gap here what's going on like you know between four brothers and abduction and like why does he end up making abduction that feels like kind of a you know
[00:29:09] damp project for him to take and it's like yeah there's just years of things of him like bumping around getting made yeah not getting something going oh so frustrating yeah and if you look at I mean there's a Hollywood reporter article and you can literally read the filing
[00:29:25] of the lawsuit he he did against Paramount where it just feels like he was very frustrated that they like courted him so aggressively they made this movie they overpaid for Hustle and Flow gave him this first look deal and then didn't make the movies
[00:29:41] that he wanted to produce and didn't give him the green lights on the movies he wanted to direct and like he kind of just lost you know six years of his directing career waiting for them stuck in that system and then the second that deal was done
[00:29:54] and he took what probably was just one of the quickest green lights he could get available like I think that was kind of why he took abduction that everyone was so eager to test if Taylor Lautner could be an action star
[00:30:08] that it was like this will start filming in four months if you want to make this you know and then Paramount then said that that was a betrayal of their contract which is bullshit I mean I was talking about this with someone the other day about like
[00:30:22] contractual stuff and they said you know like it's good to get this stuff in paper but ultimately the studios are going to do whatever they want to do or not do whatever they want to do like as much as you can get these guarantees on things
[00:30:38] even if you're a big-name guy like John Singleton for whatever reason they just go cold on you they will find any way possible to not live up to their end of a contract it's so crazy I like I was talking to a friend of mine
[00:30:54] who has a first look or one of these overall deals and they were like they were like oh yeah I thought that the perception was this overall deal means they really want to make something for me so every time I bring something up
[00:31:11] they're going to try to make it work and they realized like oh no it feels like the overall deal is just to make sure that I'm not making stuff for my competitors right and that's really all it is and it's just like
[00:31:24] it's so crazy that that's how people work but it for sure is in Hollywood that part of Hollywood is like it's the reason people are like well why is so much trash made it's stuff like this that happens you have great people who can't get stuff made
[00:31:41] even though they've proven that they can do it and to that when you read about okay what's the genesis of four brothers Lorenzo de Bonaventura the guy who produced this wanted to make a movie about brothers what the fuck does that mean
[00:31:57] he's sitting in his office looking out the window and sees like two brothers and he's like oh what if there were four brothers though like I just don't even but even like the foster brothers element wasn't part of his original pitch
[00:32:09] like he goes out to a bunch of writers and someone bring me a brothers thing and they went like what if they're foster brothers and he went huh interesting and it's like how was that not the starting point the starting point was just a thing about brothers
[00:32:23] it was that general though like Lorenzo de Bonaventura he was the head of Warner Brothers in a really strong run like Matrix was one of his many sort of movies that made him look like a visionary right like if you have a movie
[00:32:39] like Matrix come out under your stewardship you get to cash out on that for decades he did the Matrix and he bought the Harry Potter rights he was the one who swept in fast and got those those are his big wins right and then after this
[00:32:55] or you know rather he becomes an independent producer rather than being a studio head and he was one of the guys I would say at the beginning of the 2000s who was like we should make dork stuff high budget and classy like he was sort of
[00:33:11] constant team doom but he got the transformers rights early transformers right like you know he was pushing all these things buying all these properties and being like you could make this as a serious movie and then trying to make sort of like mid budget
[00:33:27] programmers with movie stars like this kind of was into like respect for junkie stuff you know right but but yes he just says I don't know we should do something about brothers these two writers come to him who I think were the same
[00:33:43] guys who were had been developing G.I. Joe for him I don't know the writers David Juliet and Paul love it they have a credit on Ryza Cobra and that's right I'm surprised they weren't brothers you know I think I would help the writing process you would think
[00:34:03] I am starting to get at a point in my career where I'm like I'm having my agents come to me with this kind of stuff like this like very loose like hey these production company or this you know this famous person or this studio wants to make something
[00:34:23] based off of this very loose IP what do you have a pitch and it's like what like it's like here's an article about this you know person here's a yeah it's just like oh they want to make something about like the idea of
[00:34:41] somebody coming up in hip hop do you have an idea and it's like you have no show like what like blank wants to do a comedy now blank right learned French is there anything you can write where they can French right and I own half
[00:34:57] of whatever you pitch by the way all the work get to them yeah yeah I'm just like oh this is what it is it's your bid David but this movie really is Lorenzo de Boventure one of the most powerful men in Hollywood
[00:35:11] at this point in time leaning back in his chair like holding out the like directors like Panavision fingers right and staring off into the middle distance and going what if there were four brothers like that yeah although no to be fair he said
[00:35:25] what if there were brothers and these two fuckheads walked in and said what about for and he gave them that's the you know that's the number he was like I'll pay you a million dollars yeah you can't leave this room you can't take this to anyone else yeah
[00:35:41] I think Walberg is the first person aboard and he bring singleton aboard like that's their yeah their pals there's a piece I feel like I talked about in our shaft episode the Shane Solerno wrote for deadline when singleton died about his experience working with singleton on shaft
[00:36:01] and in it he mentions that they were flying somewhere for the movie and Walberg was also in first class and the three of them and a fourth person I'm now forgetting all just talked about movies for like the entire flight just sort of dorked out about movies and
[00:36:23] Walberg was talking about how much he wanted to do something with singleton the other thing that the great JJ Birch now doing research for us on the podcast pulled up a lot about a lot of really incredible excerpts of interviews with Walberg around this time
[00:36:41] where Walberg was kind of like I made all these movies that I think are dumb I worked with all these big directors that people told me would be good for my career and they were stupid and I was right and Walberg talking about inarguably the good
[00:36:55] movies that he has been in here's the thing it's half it's half the good movies that he's been in and half I was realizing this the only Walberg movies we've covered on this show are all of Walberg's flops where he was miscast by an
[00:37:11] auteur right where it's like that's happening truth about Charlie planet of the apes where you could just tell the directors were like look work you got to work with this person to the point where when he's making this movie and Scorsese is trying to get him
[00:37:27] in the departed and he's doing interviews for this movie I guess when this movie is coming out he's like I don't know if I'm gonna do it I don't know I'm edgy about it like because he's like telling me I can't turn down Scorsese I
[00:37:39] can do whatever the fuck I want don't tell me I can't turn down Scorsese every time I work with a good director it's bad but I remember when what was it called broken city broken city is the is that what it's called one of the Hughes brothers
[00:37:53] the Hughes brothers yeah it's called broken so corrupt mayor movie with him and Russell Crowe where I remember his press tour for that movie which just like bombed and didn't really exist was him going like no this is the kind of movie I actually like
[00:38:07] I don't like all those other movies I mean that you guys go see this is the kind of movie my dad would have actually respected this is what I wish I could be doing all the time and four brothers feels like the beginning of him being like
[00:38:19] this is when entourage is starting up he's had some big hits but he's had some big flops on his resume he's getting more active as a producer and he's just like I don't know I kind of want to make like cops and criminals be movies
[00:38:31] like I want to make like inner city tough guy movies right this is kind of a good run for you know he's just done Italian job and I heard Huckabees I heard Huckabees is like obviously his best performance ever I guess you could argue for departed but like
[00:38:47] he's so like vulnerable and funny and like open in that movie it's an incredible performance it's in his response to it seems to be like yeah the movie was weird I didn't like it I don't fucking get it I mean I want to read this exact quote
[00:39:03] here he said this is in August 2005 to promote this movie he said imagine all my friends watching I love Huckabees they're like it's pretty cool when you punch that guy in the face but the rest of it who gives a fuck how am I going to explain
[00:39:19] an existential comedy to my buddy who just got out of jail he wants to see tits and ass and some heads being busted and then Rolling Stone says does that mean more movies like four brothers and fewer movies like Huckabees and he says not necessarily
[00:39:31] but that doesn't mean a fucking favor for every motherfucker in the business I don't give a fuck if you've got Oscars if you ain't fucking giving one to me I don't give a fuck I feel like Wauberk has kind of mellowed a little bit right? Yeah
[00:39:47] you end up this energy now right? Right it's reading this was a flashback to like oh right like in 2005 Mark Wauberk was still seen as the guy who might punch strangers aggro very very he's still like he had this movie at TIFF last
[00:40:05] year called Joe Bell that's like a true story movie you know like where he's like making an effort I don't think the movie is totally successful but he does occasionally still do it once in a while that's not really much anymore now he really like it's Peter Berg
[00:40:21] for the lighter side there's like Sean Anders right and that's kind of it he's kind of just doing that over and over again isn't there another guy oh oh Fouqua Fouqua his new movie is a Fouqua yeah that feels like another
[00:40:35] guy who's a good match for him but he has he's in the uncharted movie right like right this was the run where he was kind of really finding his zone I mean obviously like departed after this Huckabees the year before this he has this run of like
[00:40:51] good mid budget like thrillers and crime movies where he's really getting strong right you're talking well yeah I mean yeah geez I mean like the big hit he's great in that three kings he's great in that the yards he's fantastic and he's
[00:41:07] like yeah he does have a good I mean he's right but then he has the perfect storm well that's a hit but then Planet of the Apes Rockstar Truth about Charlie that's the sort of bumpy you're not quite an A-lister yet buddy
[00:41:19] and it's a great period for him I think the thing for him was he was an ultimate example of one of those guys where it's like you gotta cast him properly right when he's bad he's like calamitous but used correctly he's really powerful and then
[00:41:33] right the year after this he has Invincible which is kind of like a surprise hit he gets his Oscar nomination for the departed Invincible rules I love that movie yes I would love more movies like that Are you an invincible fan? Is that the football?
[00:41:50] It's the inspirational, yeah. He becomes an eagle. He's like cut off the streets. Yeah, yeah. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, it was good. I don't know about that one. Directed by Erickson Core, whoever that is. Yeah, he watched it on a plane. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:42:05] You know, I don't know. But then he's in this, like, the shooter, we on the night happening as obviously a step back for him. Max Payne doesn't exist. Shooter is weird. Shooter stinks. We on the night is incredible. Yeah. Max Payne is awful. Right.
[00:42:21] He is really miscast in Max Payne. That is... I never saw Max Payne. Oh, I mean, that's a bad movie on every level. And the Lovely Bones. That's what I was going to say. So then 2009 is Lovely Bones. That feels like the last time for a while
[00:42:34] he is that fundamentally miscast, right? And then he enters this zone where he finally becomes the A-list guy, where he's like in the pocket. Other guys, right, fighter. Other guys, fighter, contraband, Ted, broken city is the only one of that run that doesn't, that isn't a hit.
[00:42:51] Like even contraband comes out in January and makes like 90 million dollars. Payne and Gaine, two guns, lone survivors, huge. And then he takes over Transformers. And you're like, fuck. Now he's like, got to franchise. His crime movies do well. He like hosts the kids' choice awards.
[00:43:11] He does comedy and action and sci-fi and whatever. And you're like, I guess he's got it figured out. And then he sort of starts to like, oh, he does the gambler, buddy. Once again, you're misreading yourself. All the money in the world is a huge misread.
[00:43:25] The entourage movie flops, Ted II flops. Daddy's home's a huge hit. But then like Deepwater Horizon Patriots Day both underperform. Transformers last night kind of kills the franchise. All the money in the world, as you said, like huge misidentification. And then now he's in this odd zone
[00:43:42] where it's like, mile 22 doesn't exist. Instant family quietly rules. Spencer Confidential apparently was watched by eight billion people on Netflix. I watched it, it's bad. It's like the bad version of Four Brothers. Spencer Confidential. This was a Wahlberg detective movie with Winston Duke
[00:44:03] that Netflix claimed was like the biggest thing in the world that no one has ever talked about. It sucks. It stinks. I did not see this movie. It's based on the TV show. It sucks. It's really Four Brothers-y though. Like it's set in Boston instead of Detroit
[00:44:18] which only makes it more insufferable. Post Malone, is it? Post Malone is in it, that is true. And it's him like busting heads and getting into, digging into organized crime and like only Spencer. And it's the bad version of this movie. Right, okay.
[00:44:38] It just feels like every time he gets some juice in his career, he wants to go back and make a movie like this. And in 2010, they announced that they were developing a sequel which I have to imagine was just
[00:44:51] because Wahlberg was hot and he wanted to do it. Like I can't imagine Paramount was like we need to get this off the ground. It was more like if he wants to do that we want to be in business with him.
[00:45:01] And then as you pointed out even this year Tyrese has been claiming it's still gonna happen on Instagram. I want to address this because Tyrese apparently posted, I'm gonna read his caption on Instagram. Paramount has officially green-lit a sequel to Four Brothers, no lies here, LOL.
[00:45:18] It's all over the net. The script is almost done to the sequel and it's magic, gonna be cool as hell, getting back with the crew. Hashtag Detroit, give me four favorite quotes from the movie, go. And then he links to the Hollywood Reporter article from 2010. Okay, okay.
[00:45:34] I love you Tyrese. Great, you're the best. Oh my gosh. Clearly he's like, oh the script's so good. I mean it says so here in this Hollywood Reporter article. The director is dead and one of the Four Brothers is dead in universe.
[00:45:49] Yeah, in the movie, in the movie. Like what is this sequel gonna be? Is it Five Brothers and you have to add two brothers? Like I like to use that. Or is it titled Four Brothers, negative one? Yeah right, Four Brothers minus one
[00:46:04] maybe that's how you do it. It's Four Brothers and then it's just that Tyrese now sees his dead brother and it's just like a umbrella academy where he's just following him. Look, I'd like that. Yeah but I do think, I mean this movie was just
[00:46:21] like Boventure had a good relationship with Wahlberg. Wahlberg wanted to do a movie with Singleton. They come up with this very simple premise. It does kind of feel like I remember seeing the poster for this movie and going like, oh that seems cool. It's a cool freaking poster.
[00:46:33] It's cool, it's a cool poster but it was more just like all I need to know. You're telling me these four guys are brothers and they got guns and they're gonna take justice in their own hands? Like I don't need to know anything else.
[00:46:46] I was gonna say like, I always find it weird when I watch certain movies that have these kind of simple premises but they're premises that I like you know. I gravitate towards these types of movies and yet the movie just somehow screws it up. It's not good.
[00:47:04] It's less the, because I don't need a movie to be innovative all the time. I just want it to be interesting, exciting. I want the action to be good. I want the acting to be fun you know. And I want it to just make enough sense
[00:47:19] so I'm not constantly questioning the logic of the film. And yet it feels like Hollywood has such a hard time making these types of movies and this, that's why it's like movies like this they stick out to me because I'm like,
[00:47:32] oh yeah I remember Four Brothers like that movie. Like it did everything you wanted to do. It's successful in it, it's fun. You don't necessarily, you're not like going home rethinking your life but you're like, hey I had a good time.
[00:47:46] I like, I paid money to go see this thing and it was worth the price of admission. Singleton's quote was, this is one of those Saturday night special movies. You have a good time and enjoy it for what it is. Like you have to admire that he knew
[00:48:01] that's exactly what he was trying to deliver. Right. This is now the third episode in which this is going to be brought up. But Bray have you seen for those who wish me dead, the Angelina Jolie fire movie? Okay I literally, I'm not gonna lie,
[00:48:22] I literally put it on and then it was like falling asleep. Like I did not pay attention to that movie whatsoever. It didn't capture you. It did not. Not at all, yeah. You're saying that that's a Saturday night special.
[00:48:35] Yeah I love that movie for knowing exactly what it is with very capable actors and like over delivering a little bit. And I said this on a Patreon episode but I wanna say this again on main feed. Any critic who gave that movie a bad review
[00:48:51] should be arrested. That should be illegal. Like it just- I think that is too hard to take Griffin. I like that movie but okay go on. Keep going, keep going. No, because here's my thing. You don't have to say it's great. You can't criticize it.
[00:49:04] But the thing that drives me crazy is the amount of reviews I read for that movie where people are like, I don't know it's just like one of these things. And I'm like- Right, right. Then you don't get to complain about every $250 million movie
[00:49:16] ending with a portal in the sky. Like it's the same people who go like why won't they give us movies that don't have the portal in the sky? And then someone makes a movie like that that's a Saturday night special that is an Oscar bait, right?
[00:49:28] And it feels like anything in between those two polls, they like a lot of people don't know how to process anymore. Yes, it's weird and let's say four brothers came out now. It would probably get a similar reaction. Not the four brothers
[00:49:45] is the reinvention of cinema or anything. But yeah, people would be like, yeah I don't know. It's kind of what's the deal? They're just brothers. I didn't get- It didn't really grab me. And it's like, you know what? We need more movies that don't really grab us, okay?
[00:49:58] They're just pretty good. I'm confused by why this thing exists. It doesn't seem to set up any spin-offs. Why? Yeah, no it's like you want more sort of like good junk food movies like this and movies that are made for adults are not sophisticated
[00:50:14] but are like intelligently crafted adult popcorn which I feel like watching Singleton's Hollywood sort of blockbuster run these couple of weeks has really made me long for. Yes. I just want to throw out a wild stat here from I Am To Be Trivia,
[00:50:35] so who knows how well this is sourced? Betty White was apparently considered for the role of Evelyn Mercer. Can you imagine how distorted it would be to watch this movie today? We're brilliant in the movie. Yeah. I guess this is pre-Betty White as living meme, right?
[00:50:53] Like it would be right before then. It would have worked at the time. She would have been like- I griffon, I'm not sure that it would have worked at the time. I don't know. I'm gonna be honest with you. It might have.
[00:51:05] Cause she had been in bringing down the house. Isn't she kind of doing the Betty White thing and bringing down the house? Yes she is but yeah. I feel like she probably would have been doing the Betty White thing. Like I don't know. Right, right.
[00:51:17] It might have undercut the, cause they did try to, the movies tries to like make you feel like, no, no, no, this is a real mother who like cares about these men and these men respect her. Sure. She's really good
[00:51:30] but it does suggest that they really were like, we are looking for a nice little old lady with white hair. Like who you got? Like if Betty White was their first choice. Yeah, seriously. The Bobby list was Ethan Hawke, Matt Damon and Affleck before they go to Wahlberg.
[00:51:45] Wahlberg brings on Singleton and then I imagine Singleton, I don't imagine, I read interviews to back this up. Singleton immediately went, I'm obviously bringing Tyrese on again while I break the streak and then Andre was his big like project where he really wanted him to do this
[00:52:02] and I think everyone was like, Andre Benjamin feels like a guy who should be like a movie star but was very reticent to take his steps into it because he wanted to manage his career properly and the bizarre thing that JJ pulled up here is that Andre,
[00:52:24] I'm just gonna read this verbatim. Andre initially turned it down because he quote, just wasn't sure he could play a guy with three brothers and then Andre Benjamin's further quote is, I'm an only child in real life. I love being by myself. That's where I feel most comfortable.
[00:52:42] I didn't think I'd make a plausible sibling. They're two in their heads about the brothers. All of these guys. First of all, that's hilarious but also it worked out because he was the brother who was kind of the most estranged. Yeah, true. And it actually, it felt right.
[00:52:59] Like he was like, he's in it but you always feel like he never felt like he really belonged in this crew when he has to like put it on, and you're like, oh yeah, he's playing this role great. He seems a little bit out of remood.
[00:53:12] He seems like he's the one who's a little more elitist and judgmental. The whole movie most of its tension comes from trying to figure out whether he's with them or against them. And like that's not the way probably anyone else was envisioning using Andre 3000
[00:53:26] as an actor at this point. Like if you think about Heya being two years earlier than this and Be Cool being exactly the part, he's probably being offered 8,000 times a week. It's smart for Singleton to use him this way. And then yeah, and then the headland part
[00:53:44] was just like, okay, here's a role for one of the white guys were testing out whether or not he could be a movie star. And Renner and Cooper were apparently both in the running for it, but headlands much younger, Huddlin's 20.
[00:53:57] Yeah, cause he had as I love to think about he was the runner up for Ryan in the OC for the lead role in the OC. And again, my new favorite podcast is the OC recap podcast, the Rachel Bills and Hosts. And the casting agent came on
[00:54:13] and this is crazy and said that Chris Pine was the other runner up and was rejected cause he had acne. He had like bad skin, which is crazy to think about like, he was like, I feel horrible saying this, but that was the network's objection to him.
[00:54:26] He had shitty skin. But anyway, Garrett Hedlin. So yeah, he's a baby. And when like Tron Legacy is five years later, like he's not really a thing post this movie for a while. He's not really happening. No, I mean, he does Friday night lights
[00:54:43] the year before this, right? And this is those two movies, this and that are like the, do you know this guy came close to getting that big show? This stupid thing. I mean, you talk about the weird ways that the industry thinks, Braylock,
[00:54:56] it is often better for your career to not be hired for something that goes on to be a hit than to be in something that does okay. Because they're like, well, if they thought about him for this thing. Right. And so, but they didn't have a hit show.
[00:55:12] The only time I have ever had like, I felt genuine momentum in my career is when I didn't get hired to do the Michael Bay Ninja Turtles movie. And that was like the only time where I started getting jobs by reputation because they were like, well,
[00:55:28] I don't know, they thought about you. And I was like, yeah, my screen test was a disaster. Like, but it didn't matter. The fact that they had considered putting me in something like that. It meant you were on the list of young actors.
[00:55:40] That they, you know, what have the pool that they dipped into to find turtles. It's very much a monkey sea, monkey dew industry. And yeah. And the Friday Night Let's movie is a lot of those like kind of young guys. And then this movie, it's like,
[00:55:54] oh wow, you're putting him like above the title with like one proven movie star and two like very famous musicians who are also becoming movie stars. I guess he's a dude. And then it feels like for like seven years he was one of those guys who was constantly
[00:56:10] on those short lists about testing for the young blonde handsome guy in any 10 pole movie. Like it just felt like he was always in the mix. And then Tron was the one he got. And then that didn't really connect. And then kind of right after Tron,
[00:56:25] he starts having a really interesting career as more of a character actor where he starts doing like Lou and Davis and shit. He's really good in Lou and Davis. I enjoy him in Billy Wulin. I feel like we shouted him out in that.
[00:56:40] Maybe the best performance in that movie, yeah. Yeah, without a doubt. I like him more when he's doing that, when he's off to the side a little bit. I think he's good in triple frontier. He's good in Mudbound. He's good in Mudbound.
[00:56:51] But like he's pretty bad in Pan, which is like where he plays Captain Hook where he's being asked to be like the sort of like charismatic movie star. He's fine in Tron Legacy. I mean, that's a horrible role to get because obviously you're just being surrounded by noise
[00:57:07] and visuals and like, you know, that's... I really, I like him. And yet I'm looking at his career and it's not like there's any slam dunks here. What's my favorite Garrett Hedlin performance? Is it still his silent performance in Inside Lou and Davis? Is that it?
[00:57:24] It's pretty undeniable. But also he's great in Billy Linn, which it's like... He is really good in that. You kind of have to give him props for that because as someone who hosts the podcast Blank Check and has watched Billy Linn in four different formats,
[00:57:39] he is the one performance that plays equally well in all of them. Yeah, he's genuinely good in that movie. Look, this movie is weird. Okay, there are four brothers. Yes. Okay? Mark Wahlberg is Alpha Brother. And like... Mercers. Yes, in classic Mark Wahlberg style,
[00:57:59] I guess he's just a dirtbag. Like that's who he is, right? He doesn't even like... He's got a hot head. He's a real hot head. He's got a hot head. Yeah, there's no actual description of the crime that he gets into. Right, what he is. Right.
[00:58:11] It's like does he sell drugs? Cold Open of the movie is Fanola Flanagan getting shot, right? Then you go to the credits. A good sequence. Great sequence. Chilly, like you said Griffin, like it's all snowy and kind of dark and it's good. It's a good sequence.
[00:58:27] And it's also showing that she's... She lays down the law, but she actually really cares about this kid. Doesn't want him to get in trouble. Then you go to this cred sequence. The start of Singleton's use of like deep
[00:58:41] 70s kind of dark ages of Motown on the soundtrack, which I think gives this movie... The soundtrack to this movie. Really great energy. Really good. With these guys in the like bitter cold driving back home to this funeral, right? And then you get to them
[00:58:55] in the backyard post funeral and then the scene with Josh Charles and Terrence Howard, where Terrence Howard like sets up the four characters, right? Explains to his partner who they are. I re-round this scene three times for the reason you guys just said
[00:59:09] where I kept on being like, I feel like I missed a line. He like starts setting them up and finishes setting them up and never actually sets them up. Like he... It's just... We all know there are four brothers. There's the hothead, there's the army guy,
[00:59:24] there's the successful family man and the rocker. Yeah. And the little runt rocker. He's the youngest. The four types of brothers. Don't let him fool you, he's still a Mercer. I think that's the line. That's the specific... Don't let him fool you, he's still a Mercer.
[00:59:41] And then they're like, they're like, oh, and this guy must be bad. No, actually he's okay. Right, I just... Don't you ever... He's chill, he's chill, nice guy. It's an odd dynamic, but I do like this energy of like four guys who are very different,
[00:59:57] who do feel a genuine sense of brotherhood. And I agree with you, Braylock, it is the thing this movie probably does most successfully is just the sibling energy between them. Yeah, because you... It's like Tyrese, Mark Wahlberg, Hedlund, they have that together, right? Like they're all...
[01:00:17] And then Andru feels like he's kind of somewhat outside of it, but trying to join in at times. And then other times just being like, you guys are idiots, you know? I'm staying over here. You know? So that feels right,
[01:00:31] but they're like, oh, they care about each other. You kind of don't care about what their lives were. Like how long it's been, like they're like, oh, like there's just a general feeling that they've been away for some time,
[01:00:43] even though the one kid seems like he's very young. So I'm like, how long has he been away? A year? Like he couldn't possibly have been away that long, you know? But it's like they both have the feeling like they haven't been here in 10 years.
[01:00:57] And also they were here yesterday because they haven't skipped a beat. Like everything that they do in this movie, it's just with the utmost confidence. And like the only thing that's changed is that Victor Sweet has now like, I guess taken over.
[01:01:15] He's the head gang member of Detroit. He's taken over a restaurant and he's bossing everyone around. You were saying that this movie is sort of like overly stuffed with plot. There is like a chunk in the middle where I would say,
[01:01:30] I started getting confused about what I should be caring about and what I shouldn't. Like in a movie like this, you go like, which threads do I actually need to pay attention to versus what is just superfluous kind of like exposition? Yeah.
[01:01:45] In the revenge movie where they get their revenge pretty early on, but there's still like a good chunk of them hunting down the killers and killing the killers. And then there's, but then we've got an hour and 20 minutes left. There's the mystery, right? Right.
[01:01:57] And then it's like, okay, well something's up with Andres character, you know, in terms of like public corruption and state senators and payoffs and all that. Something's up with these, there's a corrupt cop. Like there's a whole Terrence Howard subplot to deal with.
[01:02:12] And then also there's like, okay. And also, okay, there's Victor Sweet. Let's introduce you to Victor Sweet and let's get this going because this is gonna be our major thing now. Which maybe takes like an hour? Yeah. Then he shows up and it's like, okay.
[01:02:28] I do think, I mean, we were talking about like, you know, head lens a guy who just kind of gets lost in movies over a certain budget size, right? Like I think this is the thing we often talk about when we break down careers is like,
[01:02:42] some actors do not have the versatility to be able to find their way to do their thing in any type of project. Not just genre, but like structure and budget and size and all this sort of shit. And you know, you forefronted this Braylock
[01:02:58] with how much like Chewattel's performance is the thing that really sticks with you in this movie. It is kind of a good point where like up until this point, he was this very respected British actor who had gotten roles in movies
[01:03:11] that allowed him to like sort of act in a traditional sense, right? Like play a human being, handle real like intimate human drama and shit like that. And sometimes actors like this when you start going like, hey, can we make you the and
[01:03:26] and give you like five scenes where you just kind of have to pop as the villain? You can tell they don't really give a shit about it or they can't figure out a way to do it. You know, they can't figure out
[01:03:36] a way to adapt their process to something where it's not really there on the page. And this is that year where you go like, oh, Chewattel can kind of do anything. Like he can kind of just look at the script
[01:03:46] and figure out how to elevate whatever you're giving him. He knows when to go big when the choice is to not take it seriously at all. He knows when to like really drill down. He could be funny, he could be scary, he could be romantic.
[01:04:00] Like he and I also feel like he can fully own being the lead and he can also be very generous about knowing like, I know exactly what my part is. I know exactly how much I can do before it starts to disrupt the thing. Exactly right.
[01:04:16] Which, because that's the thing is, you know, I do think a lot of actors get the chance at being just this villain and they're like, all right, here's my chance to like ham it up and like kind of, you know, chew the scenery, do everything I can.
[01:04:32] But as the audience, you kind of feel that a lot of times like you feel them doing it and then you're like, I don't know if I buy it. You have to buy the fact that this person feels as dangerous as they are presenting.
[01:04:45] A lot of people forget to actually bring tension to the plate. Over qualified actors playing underwritten villain roles. They're like, oh, I get to just like have fun. And it's like, no, but your role in the movie is to create tension somehow. Right.
[01:05:03] So I just feel like he does, because again, when we, he also brings a presence to a character that like when we first see him, it should be like, who is this person? Why do I, what do we do? Like shouldn't I find out who this guy is
[01:05:15] at the end of the movie? Isn't this a mystery? You know, but it's like, no, no, no. He's the person looming in the background and we're like, okay, we're gonna eventually have to deal with him. They're setting it up. Like Mark Wahlberg is gonna have to face
[01:05:26] this guy at the end, but you kind of, yeah. He has to set that up in essentially like two big scenes, right? Leading up to the finale. Like you need to introduce a guy this late, give him two scenes and make it still feel like
[01:05:40] he's in your mind. You're aware that that's the big bad they're ultimately trucking towards. Right. Can I offer though one thing of criticism? Please. Yeah, only one. Okay. One. The shooters feel to me like they aren't, they're kind of like dealt with really quickly
[01:06:03] and I know obviously it's like we wanna get to the big bad guy, but I do feel like that's a big part of their revenge but I feel like it's almost like, all right, now that we got that out of the way,
[01:06:14] we gotta figure out the guy who's behind them. Like, I don't know. I guess I'm just putting myself in the shoes of like, logically, wouldn't you wanna go after the shooters? Not necessarily take down the infrastructure of crime. Well, yeah.
[01:06:31] Guys, we gotta take down the infrastructure of crime. It's a weird structural thing with this movie where it's like, this is a personal revenge thing, right? Then it's wait a second, is our brother responsible for this? And then once they untangle that,
[01:06:47] they go like, oh, he isn't but he is caught up in this thing, we need to save him. And I would argue the stretch of the movie loses a little momentum is in the middle between the two when they've gotten their revenge
[01:07:01] and they haven't cleared Andre Benjamin yet. And they're sort of like, how much do we need to care about the rest of this movie? Yeah, I mean for me it was like, first of all, the hunt for those two shooters was awesome
[01:07:14] because that's the snow chase car scene and their cars are slipping around and crashing into each other and then going again and it's like, that was cool. And then they, but I guess, I actually couldn't track when they found out that they were contracted killers.
[01:07:29] If it was before they killed them or after they killed them, might be after. Yes, they definitely wiped those guys up the mat without asking a lot of questions. Yeah, it was like boom, boom, get their wallets. Communicating plot information is this movie's weakness
[01:07:46] where sometimes you go like, has that been confirmed or am I just inferring this? Right, right. It's like, oh, I know their contract. I, the audience member know their contracted killers. Does Mark Wahlberg know that? I don't know. He killed those guys.
[01:08:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah, because he certainly killed them like he knew that he was like, I will say though, once you know, and once it feels like everybody now knows that it's contract killers, I would say you don't care about,
[01:08:13] like those are the people they got paid to shoot them. You want them dead, but you also, the real revenge is the person who ordered the hit. Right. That's the real, yeah. I feel like, I don't know. I've never had lost a loved one to murder
[01:08:30] and got on a revenge tour, but if I did, I would want to hunt down the person who hired the- I only have one brother. I could never put myself in the shoes of these characters. I mean, thank God I wasn't asked to play the role.
[01:08:44] It would have been very hard to relate, yeah. Yeah, four brothers. I can understand three, but... I should mention that after Andre Benjamin turned down the role because he didn't think he could convincingly play someone with siblings, he then was on his iTunes
[01:09:04] and he got a computer-generated recommendation for an album by the folk revivalist, The Brothers 4. And that he took as an omen, he called Singleton. He said, never mind I'm doing the movie. So this is Andre Benjamin's career decision-making process. I will rule out a role because I think
[01:09:24] imagining having multiple brothers is outside of my wheelhouse, but if an iTunes algorithm gives me the name of that movie in an opposite order, I'll take it as a sign that I have to do it. What do you guys think of Andre?
[01:09:40] I think he's pretty good in this movie. I think he's pretty fucking good at this movie. Against type. Yeah. Obviously it's not like the richest role in the world but he's good. I think he's a pretty talented actor. He's obviously an incredibly talented musician.
[01:09:54] He's never cashed it in or what? Like he's never figured it out, I feel like. Like I enjoy him and basically any movie I've seen him in. How much has he bit? How much? Okay, so you- I feel like this and Be Cool are the ones
[01:10:09] that I remember him from. Are you ready for the run? So Be Cool 4 Brother same year, right? Before that he did two, he did an anime dub and he has a small part in Hollywood homicide, right? The same year as this he also does Revolver,
[01:10:26] a Guy Ritchie movie that doesn't exist. Yes, the Guy Ritchie, it exists. It's a famed bomb. It's the one that's all like Kabbalah influenced. It's crazy, yes. Then this is the thing that I would argue kind of derails him. The following year is Idlewild. Yeah, Idlewild, yeah.
[01:10:43] Which I think everyone was like, well clearly this should be Outkast's Purple Rain. Their videos are so good. They're so compelling. Everyone thinks this guy's gonna be a movie star. This is gonna be their last album and that movie is just like a total non-starter,
[01:10:57] but more than anything he is really fucking boring in that movie. I remember being like, well come on, like I know it hasn't gotten good reviews but Andrey is so good. And then you see it in Big Boy Pops
[01:11:09] and he is just like so low energy in that film. I wish that movie was good. I do too. I started watching scenes on YouTube the other night because I was like, is there any chance it's good and I didn't get it at the time?
[01:11:22] And it's just kind of a nerd. Yeah. And then after that, like forgetting some voice roles, like apparently he's in Fracture, I'm not seeing. He's in Battle in Seattle, the famously unreleased- Oh, he's in Semi-Pro. And then right, he's in Semi-Pro.
[01:11:37] That was like one where now he's like above the title, he's the third lead, he's good in that, he's funny in that. And then he doesn't do another movie until the Jimi Hendrix movie five years later. Which was so hyped because he kind of,
[01:11:53] kind of looks like Jimi Hendrix a little bit. And I guess just, it's like, oh, he's a musician, this'll be great. The Jimi Hendrix, there's never been a good movie about- Been attached for like a decade to make some kind of Hendrix movie. He gets a spirit nomination
[01:12:07] but it feels like that movie didn't really get a lot of attention. And then he doesn't make, me neither. And then he doesn't make another movie for five years until High Life. And when he shows up in High Life, he's great in High Life, but you're like,
[01:12:20] why isn't he doing something like this every year? I feel like he's just chilling. I guess he, yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's not for him. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I respect that. Like he hasn't, like where is he in music wise?
[01:12:35] I know he'll pop in on other people's albums and stuff. He does a track on Frank Ocean's Blonde. Yeah. And he's great on that. He has a track on Channel Orange too, I think. But like, I don't really get it.
[01:12:50] I guess he was in the season two of American Crime. Oh right. I guess he was, you're right. He did his Cartoon Network show. He did two seasons of that, class of 3000. Which I think was very hands-on with.
[01:13:06] But yeah, I mean, he hasn't done like a solo album. Okay, he did an EP in 2018 that was self-released. Yeah, I don't know. And that is the only solo thing he's done since Outcast? But someone who is like so transformatively important
[01:13:26] as a musician when like basically all the 90s and 2000s and then just kinda, I don't know. I guess he just kinda picks his spots now. He's only 46 years old. Have you all seen Dispatches from elsewhere? This Jason Segal show? No, is he on that?
[01:13:44] Yeah, he's one of the four leads. Wow. That sounded so weird and I kept meaning to check it out and I never did because there's too much TV. Segal Andre Benjamin, Richardi Grant, Sally Field, yeah. It just feels like, I remember I saw the trailer
[01:14:02] for this show and I was like, wow, this show feels like a big swing. It's got some names in it. And then I heard literally no one talk about it. And I was like, well, I guess it must not be good.
[01:14:13] I don't even think you got bad reviews. It's just people are like, yeah, it was sort of interesting. And then that's that. It's on AMC and it just floats away. That's one of those things where I'm like, is there just way too much TV?
[01:14:25] If that had come out six years ago, would people be really into it? Does no one just have the time to check that out? Genuinely Griffin, I think you nailed it. No one had the time. And it obviously debuted days before the pandemic. Right, yeah.
[01:14:41] And I guess everyone's just like, sorry, Jason, I know you've basically been in soft retirement in your back, but we don't have time to check out whatever this is from you. Also, I don't know if it's on streaming. Oh, I guess it is now.
[01:14:55] It's probably on fucking AMC plus or whatever. This is the other problem. That's the thing. AMC has their own thing. That's another thing that fucks them. It's just like, you have to subscribe to the AMC specific streaming service. Yeah. Come on.
[01:15:11] I mean, you guys realize you are saying we don't have time and it's a fucking pandemic. I know. We've all been home. Well, no, but here's the thing. Here's the thing about television during the pandemic. Television during the pandemic, one, it had to be on a streaming.
[01:15:22] You had to be bingeable. Right. Everyone know, you can't watch it on your phone. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, Quipi. And you have to, and it also had to be somewhat of a escapist kind of programming. Yeah. Maybe like this may destroy you, maybe being like the only show.
[01:15:46] There were a couple of things like that, right? That broke through because they were so good that people were like, okay, all right, we're gonna pay attention to this. But yeah, mostly escapism. But yeah. And I think this was just a little too weird, not bingeable.
[01:16:00] And it also got caught up because I feel like there was a lot of high premise stuff, like upload and, you know. Right. You know, there's like Avenue Five and I don't know. There was like a lot of like, oh, this is kind of a weird quirky premise.
[01:16:15] And I don't know, this one didn't break through. Yeah. It's weird because AMC does have a good track record. But yeah. Here's the thing I'll say about- Maybe it's great though. Maybe it's- That's why I'm like- Fucking incredible. Right, maybe this is my favorite show. I don't know.
[01:16:33] I will say this about Andre and I've been trying to find a smarter way to say this. I'm just gonna say the dumb thing. He does have such a natural musicality to the way he speaks. Like he is just so engrossing. He has bizarre speaking rhythms, you know?
[01:16:51] In a way that doesn't feel too affected. Like he's able to play the low key guy in the group but always be captivating. I mean, he's playing the calm one in this movie but he doesn't make the guy like a shrinking violet
[01:17:07] which I think is, you know, like no small fee. Yeah. I mean, he services the movie very well, I would say. He does kind of get stuck with the role that's like probably the least memorable because it just, you know, it's an action type movie
[01:17:25] and he doesn't, we don't really get to see him do much. But- And he's gone for a big chunk of it. Like the whole sort of middle act of the movie is based around the fact where it's like, where is he? What's he up to?
[01:17:38] And Taraji is his wife in this? Like her character is almost non-existent. Like it's almost a favor that role. It's almost her being like- This is Singleton. I mean, A double dipping with Taraji and Terrence Howard from Hustle and Flow at the same time.
[01:17:57] But also I feel like he was like single-handedly committed to making Taraji Pans in a movie star. From when she didn't get the role she should have gotten after Baby Boy, he just kind of stuck with her. And it was in the notes that JJ put together
[01:18:13] but an interview where he said he saw like Terrence Howard in The Best Man. He thought this guy was a star. He tried to get him for a part in Shaft and he took a TV movie that I forgot existed.
[01:18:26] He played Muhammad Ali on an ABC TV movie that bombed. And then Howard's career was kind of just like floating for a couple of years, like playing the bad guy in Big Mama's house. So then when he found Craig Brewer and the Hustle and Flow script
[01:18:42] he was like, Terrence Howard should do this. And then he went to Terrence Howard and he was like, you should have fucking listened to me five years ago. I was ready to like make you one of my stock company guys.
[01:18:51] And he said that like he asked Howard to do this as a favor because he knew that he was gonna pop when Hustle and Flow came out and he wanted to be a guy who could benefit from that pop.
[01:19:01] But like those were two people where he was just like they should be stars. I'm gonna keep on trying to put him in shit until Hollywood takes notice. Yes, I mean her role, she is so over qualified for this role at this point. It's nothing.
[01:19:12] I kept on waiting for there to be any scene where she does anything. Anything. Right but then it's like. Sophia got like at least she got, she had consistency. Like she was like the hot crazy. She has like comedy. She's got like a character game. I don't know.
[01:19:28] There's like shit to play. To be clear a little crazy her part of the movie. You are kind of like, we could have cut this but yes she has things to do. What are the two names they give her? One of them is Loco Ono.
[01:19:39] Livin' La Vida Luca. Right that's the other one. Oh no yeah. He keeps saying that. I don't know. I forgot what else he said. He calls her Loco Ono and Livin' La Vida Luca. Yeah. He's such a piece of shit. Yeah he really is.
[01:19:52] He's such a fucking piece of shit. Like I love him but he's such a motherfucker. He is. And this is like that classic like, I don't know if you can make characters like this that you love it. We're watching Lost and it's the same thing with like Sawyer.
[01:20:10] You're just like Sawyer is a horrible racist. Like terrible person. And then like it's like on this lovable character and you're just like, you can't make characters like this anymore. But also like look the next year is the departed where he finds like his perfect role right?
[01:20:28] Oh my god it's perfect. Right and they're just like what if you suddenly took the burden of being a leading man off of Mark Wahlberg and just said shoot as many spitballs as you want. Right. And it's just the most thrilling thing to watch in the world
[01:20:41] because when you watch him in this movie you're like is this guy like an issue? You know, like I should be having fun watching him like dick around with his brothers but sometimes he goes too far. And the part of your like go further.
[01:20:53] I don't have to be rooting for you. It's fine. Is the rule of Mark Wahlberg that he doesn't have to play someone from Boston but he has to play someone from a city where they play hockey and he can wear a hockey shirt.
[01:21:07] Like he wears a Red Wings jersey in this. And you're like, yeah. Like is he doing a Detroit accent? No, he's just doing Mark Wahlberg but he's just kind of like, yeah Detroit. It's like snowy or Boston? I get it. Yeah Detroit is Boston. It's the same, yeah.
[01:21:22] I mean this is- Like what's the difference? This is the other rule with Mark Wahlberg. Mark Wahlberg's best when he's got a chip on his shoulder and he's playing low status right? In a movie where like no one's taken him seriously they doubt him and he's gotta prove
[01:21:34] that he's like with it and he gets it and whatever. That's what like all his comedy roles have started using them so well to do and what Russell got early on. And then with things like the gambler or all the money in the world misidentified.
[01:21:49] Or you can have him be the guy punching down as long as he's not the lead of your movie. But it feels like this is his mode that he wants to be in and when you put him at the center of the movie
[01:22:01] you sometimes go like, take it down a notch. This is my favorite line from him and it's horrible but it's when he's like they're at the bar and he's like pour me and my brothers another round and some nice warm milk for my sister
[01:22:15] and he's like, man I'll drink you under the table. He goes we're not talking about sperm Jack. This is a fiscate. It's just like non stop. I'm just like why does anyone put up with him? He's so annoying. It's also like why is he the de facto leader
[01:22:31] of the group? Like I get he's the lead character because he's the one played by Mark Wahlberg. But Griffin, this is a great question. Tyrese Gibson is in the military. He is clearly better at all of these things. And he's bigger. Is there any reason why this guy
[01:22:48] is the largest role of the four brothers other than that he's the one played by the most famous actor and the answer I kept on coming back to is no. I think he's just like he's the craziest. I mean he is crazy.
[01:22:59] He certainly will interrupt a high school basketball game with a loaded gun or whatever. With a loaded gun. I got the rock now. Oh my God. Oh my God. When he goes, I got the rock now. He does a couple of jibbles and you realize
[01:23:13] that he is at least a foot shorter than everyone around him. Like truly every single person around him. He drops a few and words. I would say at least one. Couple. Yeah. I mean obviously the idea being he's from this family. I grew up with black brothers. Right.
[01:23:36] But still where you're like wow, like unblinking Wahlberg. You just I mean he's he sells at this guy definitely would act this way. I buy it. Totally. Let's say three years later his agents would not have let him do this. Like to be like but it's realistic.
[01:23:52] They'd be like Mark you cannot say that word on camera under any circumstances. I don't care what you're playing. You seem too happy saying it. You're having too much fun. The IMDb trivia fact I want to throw out here. Almost all of Mark Wahlberg's lines were improvised.
[01:24:10] Garrett Hedlund had difficulty improvising his lines. So director John Singleton and Mark Wahlberg helped him through it. What that sounds like to me is Mark Wahlberg kept on insulting Garrett Hedlund a 20 year old actor in a lead role for the first time
[01:24:25] on camera and Singleton had to be like come on say something back. You're the say something back. Right. Stand up to him. You're taller than him. Right. But it does feel like those scenes are him being like hey fuck it stop drinking so much cum.
[01:24:38] And the Hedlunds like come on guys I like girls like his comebacks are very they make sense when you realize they were not in the script and Hedlund was thrown off. It's it's I mean Hedlund works in this movie in that he feels like the youngest brother
[01:24:56] who is just kind of along for the right. He's like the look out. 100%. But he's not bringing a lot to the table in terms of crime fighting. No characters the most under in but he looks really fucking cool in this movie. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:25:11] Ben please speak speak to this. Yes. Yeah. When I saw this movie in theaters I then was I remember asking my girlfriend at the time to try and cut my hair like his hair. He's got that thing. I don't think I've ever seen anywhere
[01:25:28] other than on this head where he's got like the long stringy sideburns. Do you know what I'm saying? That's what I loved about it. Yeah. It does work. It's weird. It's weird that it works because I'm like not a bad looking dude. No. It works for him.
[01:25:46] This tells it. It didn't look good on me. I was going to say it's not it's not fair to say his character was underwritten because we have a scene where the mom looks at him and says I know you went through some really bad things
[01:26:02] before you got here. Yes. And he is shaking in fear. So we know we know you went through some really bad things. We know he went through some really bad things and then look headland plays all of those moments really well. Yeah. I believe it.
[01:26:16] Even just his sort of like bottled crying at the funeral like every time they cut to headland and give him a shot where he has to express a lot with zero dialogue. He that guy knows how to fill up with emotion like he's there.
[01:26:30] And he must be like look this is my you know these guys are all I got to make an effort with every bit of material right like you know he's clearly trying but I die on page 75 I got to do as much as I can.
[01:26:43] Yeah. I got a kind of surprise he died kind of shocked me. I figured the brothers were going to make it. Yeah man it's dude it the death rocks you know one of the brothers dies man. Yeah. It's you know sometimes sometimes the brothers die
[01:26:58] and that's why you got to kill Chewattel it's a for you got to kill Victor get him got to get them and they got to set him up talking about cold crime snow crime and all of that you know it's like Fargo obviously does this really well
[01:27:14] but when you get to this final Andre versus Chewattel standoff I just love that visual when you have the ground and the sky are the exact same color of white. Yeah. You know when it's just ice and snow and it totally white sky
[01:27:31] and it's just like characters existing in like a void it's it's unnerving. I read the the the warmest it ever was when they were filming this movie was 24 degrees and it was often below zero. Wow Jesus. Wow crazy that that's like a major American city it sounds cold.
[01:27:50] Yeah. And I live in New York. New York is cold. It's not like New York is Toronto and Detroit Toronto and Detroit like the most major city in one country and one of the most major cities in another country both presented as inhospitable in this fall. Oh man.
[01:28:10] Oh there is one other part where Victor Sweet is like I guess they're at I don't know if it's a dinner table or a poker table and he looks at it this other guy's like oh you got married
[01:28:24] and he was like yeah maybe I'll have to take her for a ride and like there's a look that he gives that is maybe the most disturbing look I've ever seen on screen where just the lust and like villainy in his eyes is just like truly
[01:28:39] I like had to look away. It was so crazy. He's like the fucking mad king from Game of Thrones. He's playing like a pretty small time Detroit crime guy and he's acting like he's like I am God and if I look at him you turn to stone
[01:28:57] like that's how much energy he's putting. Well at the end that fucking fur coat and that like he's got like what looks like a $25,000 ski cap right? Like he's wearing like a white ski cap that looks like it's made out of chinchilla or something.
[01:29:14] An interesting thing about Shua Tells he has those interesting scars on his forehead right? Those are his, he got those when he was a kid or whatever. Right and you know they don't cover them up in movies I feel like certain films they accentuate it more
[01:29:28] but I do think it's interesting that like in his roles where he is playing like you know his sort of like sophisticated man fighting against injustice right? Even from like the obvious like 12 years of a slave scale to like his dumb paycheck version of that is 2012
[01:29:46] where he's like begging the president to acknowledge that the world's about to end. I feel like those scars lent him like a sense of vulnerability and depth of just like oh this is a man who has like suffered you know?
[01:29:58] There's like such a well of feeling in him and then when you put him in villain roles like this it makes him more menacing as well. Like it can both be a vulnerability and an additional element of intimidation for him.
[01:30:11] He's also just got such a fucking interesting face. He's got a great face. He's super handsome but super you know interesting to look at. His voice is just phenomenal. Like he just has the most like rich voice. Yeah. And like I said before like I just appreciate
[01:30:29] that he'll do a lot of stuff you know? Like as much as maybe Hollywood has shortchanged him like I do like fuck for Kranat like remember when he was in like the Maleficent sequel remember when he was the sort of villain in the old guard?
[01:30:44] Like he'll pop in. Oh yeah, he's right. He's right in the old guard. Yeah and even the Fuqua-Walberg trailer that just came out this week have you guys watched that? I haven't. Infinite is this movie we're talking about which was gonna come out in theaters now
[01:30:59] it's gonna debut on Paramount Plus. Here's my pitch for watching that trailer. Chewie is going for it. Right, right. Totally shaved head, big beard, big performance choices. That sounds good. As a villain just intimidate Mark Wahlberg like more of this
[01:31:15] it just feels like him trying to outdo this character. That is one of the movies essentially cause Wahlberg got so in the Peter Berg zone that it is surprising he's making this kind of high concept sci-fi movie with Antoine Fuqua. You know like that seems like a swerve
[01:31:31] but then it's too bad it's like going to par... I mean maybe it's horrible I don't know but like it sucks that it's going to Paramount like cause he'll probably be like yeah fuck that I should just do Peter Berg movies, right? Like that's the lesson I learned.
[01:31:43] I read a piece this week somewhere Hollywood reporter or something about how Ingrid Wahlberg was about that and Fuqua as well and how this is one of many cases where they literally were not notified. They found out when the story broke. I don't...
[01:31:59] I understand that Hollywood is run by morons and I understand that their reaction to the pandemic was especially moronic and they were like scrambling and yada yada yada and they're all owned by these companies that are like why don't we have Netflix?
[01:32:13] You know they're just yelling that all the time but it's so weird that that's what they've done. Like you would think the one thing I remember how to do is massage the egos of super famous people you want to work with again.
[01:32:24] Like it's just come on, you know you call Wahlberg and be like it's going to be the biggest thing for Paramount Plus It's great for us if you can do this You know what I mean? Like sell him on it, right? We're going to change the logo
[01:32:37] it's going to be you on top of the mountain. It'll be Wahlberg Plus. Yeah. But no but like I feel like this week that we're recording this was the debut of you know obviously this is a thing we love talking about in this show
[01:32:54] what I think inarguably is the greatest logo of any movie studio ever which of course is Warner Brothers Discovery. Yes, now to be fair that is not the logo that was played before a movie that is the corporate logo. Thank God.
[01:33:09] It still sucks farts it sucks farts through a straw. Have a look this up. Oh great. Just Google Warner Brothers Discovery logo I mean it looks like something that maybe you cooked up in I don't know how generous should I be Griffin? One minute. Two.
[01:33:27] This is the actual image. No here's what it looks like. This is the real image. Yeah, yes. It looks like a like a gateway 2000 screensaver option where you can pick any text you want and it makes it into like. It looks like clip art. Yes. Yeah.
[01:33:44] And also the fact that it says the stuff that dreams are made of like that is that a tagline that you just like David. Yeah, this is why I bring this up because the whole press release with that dreams are made of.
[01:33:57] Yeah, don't end with a fucking proposition. The whole press release that came with this logo is them being like we are reestablishing Warner Brothers Discovery as the number one place for artists to tell story. We love artists. We are about artists now.
[01:34:13] Like the whole thing is them trying to damage control for how much AT&T pissed everyone off with the HBO Max deal where they're like we're not using the word content stories. We love stories and artists dream stories artists dreams. You're the clouds.
[01:34:30] I mean, it's a it's a line from the Maltese Falcon and you know what summons the you know history of noir more than that beautiful logo that looks like a bunch of just a bunch of golden letters hanging in a blue sky.
[01:34:45] I make me think about digging around and just replace the shield with Bogey's face. Right? Because for years they had the Casablanca song underneath the logo. Now it's the logo with a different Bogey tagline. Just make it his smiling face.
[01:35:00] Make it like the the Animaniacs popping out of the water tower. Right? The WB shield that flips open and you have Zemeckis with a reanimated Bogey saying, hey, come on. So I want to have this picture. I love Bogey.
[01:35:15] Four brothers, what have we not talked about with four brothers? Do you want to shout out Josh Charles who was in this, like I said, in the SWAT year before maybe two years before he plays the exact same character like weak chinned corrupt cop. What what happened there?
[01:35:34] Like, I guess the good wife he just sort of saved himself. But like like post sports night is he just he's just kind of like what you know what what do people want to do with me? And this is all they can think of.
[01:35:46] I think look, Josh Charles also like quit good wife at like arguably a peak of the show because he was like, I don't know. I was just kind of tired of doing it. It's true. He is a guy who does not really buy into like career
[01:35:59] strategizing and just like, I don't know. I feel like doing this like you have to imagine his reps were like, Josh, you cannot play another correct cop in an August blockbuster. You were going to be typecast forever. And he's like, no, I'm going to do it again.
[01:36:14] John Singleton will be fun. The and then specifically his character, Detective Fowler, who kills Terrence Howard in cold blood in a pretty good little showdown scene, but then gets totally, totally fooled by this like insane plot that Tyrese comes up with where it's like, yes,
[01:36:31] I'm going to pretend that I'm recording him on a wire and the cops will be summoned and he'll think they're there to kill him and thus fire on them. Like there's just a lot of assumptions being made. A lot. It is it is a huge swing.
[01:36:47] It really is. Let me tell you because there are so many ways for that to go wrong. Just because exactly how they wanted to go. It goes exactly how they want to perfectly couldn't go better. Like he could have just came out, held a gun
[01:37:01] and then the guy would have been like, what are you doing? We thought you were the suspect and he would have been like, oh, I am and I got the drop on him. And then that would have been done.
[01:37:11] You know, if he had a if he had just an inkling of communication skills, he could have got out of it. He was like, I'm going to go out in a blaze of glory. I mean, wild, but the cops are literally like,
[01:37:26] we're here to help you like put the gun where to help you. And he's like, I'm not going to jail. Fuck you. I definitely want to shoot you. It also feels like the cops are like, hey, we haven't been watching this movie. Can someone give us a quick?
[01:37:41] Fill us in. Point. We don't care about Tyrese. Having a hard time tracking the major events that have passed in the last couple hours. I mean, I guess the idea is that he thought he was going to die no matter what because they think that he killed
[01:38:00] Terence Howard, who is also a cop. You know, cops come after cop killers pretty hard and who knows what they would do. So but I mean, yeah, it's a little bit of a stretch.
[01:38:10] But you know, you you buy it at that point in the movie, you buy it. I prefer the Andre plan. I like the idea of just like, you know, like, no, I'm a pro union guy. I take care of my workers.
[01:38:24] Honestly, the Andre plan was the only plan they need. I mean, I don't even know why they needed to call the like because did he call the cops? They like they called the cops. Right. It's like right. So Fia Sophia was a part of the plan, right?
[01:38:38] Like, yeah, she's the one who told. Yeah. So it is one of those things where she goes to the cops and says, this guy like they're going to kill a cop. But you know, here and so the cops are going there to ostensibly rescue Josh Charles.
[01:38:51] It's not like she went to the cops and said, you got to get Josh Charles. And they just they do such a great job. Just yeah, it's look it's it was one of those things where you kind of like why wasn't it just the wire?
[01:39:05] Like, why did you have to do this switcheroo? I can get his confession. It could have just been that and everyone would have been OK with it. But it was like, no, no, that's what people expect. Let's have them be even smarter.
[01:39:20] They'll they'll they'll say it's a wire, but it wasn't even a wire, you know, because they weren't able to do that. And you're like, oh, OK. That's where the movie frustrates me a little bit. And just because like Singleton directs this well, you have such a capable cast.
[01:39:37] It's such an engagingly simple premise. It's such a like pleasantly unpertentious movie that knows exactly what it's doing. And I just kind of wish there was like 10 percent less incomprehensible overthought plot mechanics and 10 percent more just kind of like character investment.
[01:39:56] Like, I literally just feel like I want 10 minutes distributed across the movie of them being brothers. Beyond what there is in the film. Right, right. That's fair. And instead, there's like insane shootout scenes. And then Terence Howard shows up and is like, yeah, this is no problem.
[01:40:14] I can cover this, you know, like it's fine. No one's going to ask you any questions about this. It's no big deal. Yeah, they probably could have had one less, you know, interrogation for brothers interrogation of somebody they had like maybe like four.
[01:40:31] There are scenes that are raw, though. Like that scene where the Walberg interrogates the guy and then doesn't shoot him. And the guy says, thank God. And Walberg's like, thank Victor Sweet and shoots him where it's like, that's nasty.
[01:40:43] But I kind of like, you know, brutal it is like, you know, this is not a totally easy to root for hero. No. And there's the the Soviet Vagara washing machine sex scene, which is once again just like specific choices are being made here. This movie has.
[01:41:04] I mean, that was, you know, that was that was that was for the teenage boys. Well, sure. They put that in there for the for the teenage boys. Could you just imagine like going on to like a time traveler
[01:41:16] going back to the set of four brothers in 2004 and go like, which person in this cast do you think is going to become like a mogul in 15 years? Right. So if you've got is always on those lists of the highest earning stars
[01:41:31] in Hollywood where like she makes 50 million dollars a year selling like coconut water or whatever. Yeah, she just has a right. She is America's most beloved like shopping figure right now. Like she does like Kmart. She does Pepsi. She does head and shoulders.
[01:41:50] She's got like all the, you know, products. She's married to Joe Manginello. That's wild. I don't think I knew that. Oh yeah. No, she's married to Joe Manginello. She was married to someone else that got divorced. Joe Manginello, I believe literally was like, she's getting divorced,
[01:42:07] gotten a plane flew to a set where she was filming and he's like, I've had a crush on you for a long time. I'm not missing my window. I believe that's the story. That's incredible. Yeah. And also respect. Respect. Yeah. Glad, glad for a very hot couple, obviously.
[01:42:23] Yeah. Yes. Nicolo, she was engaged to Nicolo. It was called off. Right. And she was married to Joe Manginello. Roused him. He fucking nightcrawler teleported to her or whatever. He bamped. Yeah, he bamped. Yeah, I mean, I'm seeing here, you know, these numbers are always like sketchy,
[01:42:44] but I'm seeing here that her net worth is one hundred and eighty million dollars. That's a lot. She was making five hundred thousand per episode for the last couple of seasons of Modern Family. Right. She makes ten million dollars for America's Got Talent.
[01:42:58] I wasn't even aware that's a thing she does now. Like she just does everything. Yes, she's she's kicking ass. I mean, Phenolophanagan to be clear is worth two hundred and fifty million dollars. So she does have her beat right. But that's because Phenolophanagan invested in the vaccine.
[01:43:16] Phenolophanagan owns Pfizer. Yeah. I don't know. I wanted to talk about and for brothers, the use of gasoline, which it's pretty nilly. Early, early. He's like, yeah, let's do the gasoline thing. What what gasoline thing? We pour gasoline all over make him think we'll set him on fire.
[01:43:35] That's what I'm talking about. Like how many how many plays they have? Like, oh, let's do that play. And that's like that routine that never works out for us. You do this often. This reflects so poorly on the mom. This is what I'm saying. Yes. Phenolophanagan.
[01:43:49] It's like you should have maybe stamped out the gasoline antics. You know what I mean? The bearish Shabaka Henley scene is bananas. Here's the thing. They're villains with the heart of gold. They do have hearts of gold.
[01:44:01] Sure. And they look like congressmen compared to what they could have been. And they were like, congressmen compared to what they could have been. They could have been Victor. So I guess he would have had four Victor sweets on your hand. Is that the idea? Yeah.
[01:44:14] And I guess she's probably thinking like, look, Andre Benjamin, that guy worked out, you know, Garrett Hedlund. He's a sweetie. Tyrese is in the army. Walberg's the one where I fucked up. Walberg is really he's the real chaos. Yeah. Yeah. He's the one with the gasoline.
[01:44:28] Right. He's not even like a successful criminal. He let's also say, I mean, let's acknowledge she like fostered a lot of kids successfully who then went on to other families for the four that she actually kept because they were no nobody was the complete fuck ups.
[01:44:46] Yeah. That's how you would do a sequel. You would add in some brothers who are, I guess, straight laced brothers. I don't know. Right. You add on a Vincent Cassell and Eddie is. Yeah. You had Catherine Zeta-Jones. Well, four or you could do four sisters.
[01:45:05] You could do kind of a side sequel. Wait a second, David. Hold on a second. What then? What then? Four sisters. They'd laugh. I know that I'm pitching it up. But I know you're going to laugh me out of your office.
[01:45:18] Please, please, please. Let me just get through this pitch. OK, sisters, the guy's like, David, I don't know. And I'm like, four sisters. What are you talking about? Four sisters. I have to take this to the boss. I just imagine, though, that these fucking like
[01:45:37] executives, junior executives at these studios are like going through filing cabinets, looking at every title they own and going like, is there a gender flipped version of that? Is there a version where I can literally just change two words
[01:45:50] in the title and now you know it's about women? I mean, what men want. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. I'm just surprised almost they haven't been like, it's four sisters. I don't know who gives a shit. Yeah, I think this movie is fun. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun.
[01:46:07] The at the end, we've talked around it, but they pay Vincent Sweets, sorry, Victor Sweets, cronies to dump him in ice because he sucks and nobody likes him. He sucks and he's been disrespecting all he made. Some of them eat off the floor.
[01:46:23] He put them in the die car. He's threatening to have sex with their wives. He's responsible union members. And that pasta, that pasta looked good. And right there's a union bond too. But here's the thing. Who's going to do it? Right. And that's what they say.
[01:46:36] Who's going to step up to the plate and then who shows up with the lone man walking out of the beyond? Yeah, Mark Wahlberg. Yeah, so ridiculous. How did he get there? What is he was waiting in the horizon?
[01:46:51] He knew he knew the exact place he had to be. You know, so that those snow would the snowfall would cover him. And then he timed it perfectly where he was like, OK, I think now is the time.
[01:47:06] I feel like right now is the time where Chew-A-Tel, Victor Sweet is wondering who's going to kill me. Oh, it's perfectly out. And then he's like, there he is. Wahlberg's just standing out there in the cold. Hey, man, Chew-A-Tel takes two steps to the left.
[01:47:22] He has to take two steps to the right. Yeah, he's still obscured. Like he has to keep on adjusting vantage points. Chew-A-Tel kills that scene. It would he really does. So good. I like the way you do business. Oh, who's going to do it?
[01:47:37] Yeah, all that stuff, all his like sort of vamping. Do they drop him in the ice? They do. They sure do. Look, next week, we will talk about abduction, which neither of us have seen David. But by all accounts, is that's a tough one.
[01:47:51] Right. By all accounts, that's the one where he kind of his voice as a director becomes anonymous, right? Right. It's just not a winner on any front. No one really sticks up for abduction. But but his three big, you know, kind of Hollywood action movies that he made,
[01:48:06] two Fast Shafts and four Brothers. I do think are interesting. I know so much of our podcast has become like the fucking both of us being Eli Wallach going back in my day. They used to do things this way in the industry, right?
[01:48:21] But I think watching these three movies underlines a key difference in how the industry works now, where it's like if you are a director who makes your small personal dramas, your indie films, whatever,
[01:48:35] and you get the call to step up and get to make a bigger kind of movie star driven blockbuster. The machinery is so big now. The stakes are so high. The budgets are so high that it is very hard to work as much
[01:48:50] personality and individualism as I think Singleton does in these three movies for their failings. They feel of a piece with his earlier films. You see the things that he's bringing to them, not just that he was like a very
[01:49:04] skilled craftsman. These films are very well shot and constructed. He's good with actors, but you have like his interests on display there. You know, you have his personality, you get his sense of humor. As Bill Goh pointed out, how much his movies are about like male rage,
[01:49:18] right? Like men dealing with anger. They don't know how to place. And, you know, if you get hired from doing Boys in the Hood to getting to make a $200 million superhero movie, you get kind of sucked up in the machinery.
[01:49:33] We've seen that. I mean, very few people come out with movies at that size that still feel individualistic rather than movies like that where you go, oh, they're like two or three scenes where I see their thing.
[01:49:43] But a lot of it was directed in previs by a board, you know, or it was taken away from them in the edit and it's not really what they wanted to make. And this is sort of like, you know,
[01:49:54] this career term for him is representative of a point where you could go big and still kind of retain control of your filmography. It still felt like your work, you know, and it's like. I feel like you were watching a lot of shitty superhero movies
[01:50:13] in the early days of the pandemic, David, like texting me about it and being like, it's weird that this movie feels quaint now. Like, and you said that to me about like the first X men or whatever. Green Lancer. And I was like, you've gone too far.
[01:50:24] You can't say the Green Lancer feels quaint. But it is true. There is something I miss about standalone superhero movies now where you just imagine John Singleton in 2004, 2005, 2006 at this time. I mean, I really think probably him signing the Paramount deal is what killed Luke Cage is now.
[01:50:47] Sony has Luke Cage and he's committed to a different studio. But you imagine him doing a Luke Cage movie with Sony in 2004, 2005 that probably would have cost like 40 or 50 million dollars. And you're like, that could have really been an interesting movie.
[01:51:03] It would have been pretty good, probably it would have been flawed, but it would have been and it would have been beginning, middle and end, as you're saying, it would not have been, you know, setting up a bunch of
[01:51:12] you know, it would have been like, yeah, here's this guy. You don't know anything about him. You're going to meet him. You're going to meet all his friends. You're going to meet the villain. He's going to fight the villain.
[01:51:19] He's going to win and everyone then someone's going to kiss. And it's just like they just don't, you know, it wouldn't have been two Netflix seasons where four hours of story are stretched out to literally 20 hours.
[01:51:31] It wouldn't be what will happen if Feige reboots Luke Cage in some way and it becomes way too high stakes, you know, especially because Luke Cage's whole thing was like, this is the street level guy. This is the guy who doesn't get involved in the big cosmic
[01:51:45] Marvel shit who's looking out for people on the corner and shit. I wish that movie existed, but I also wish that movies like that period still could exist. Well, play the box office game. Bray, is there anything left you want to say about those four brothers?
[01:52:02] All four or anyone you can pick one. No, I mean, it's just it's yeah, it was it's just it's a fun movie for what it is. And like I said, like if you don't if you don't like action
[01:52:17] movies, you probably won't like this one and you have to, you know, sit of course with any movie that's made honestly more than five years ago. It's like you have to sit through some stuff that you're like, oh, OK,
[01:52:29] but like it's still, you know, it's it's I don't know, there's something about that that definitely works. And I I enjoyed rewatching it. I definitely enjoyed it when it came out. I watched it a few times.
[01:52:40] I think it was just like, oh, this is a cool action movie that, you know, just kind of does its thing. Yeah, yeah, I agree. You know, yeah, to me it was like a prove John Singleton can do
[01:52:51] like it was like he doesn't need to just write something personal about race. You know what I mean? Like he can do just like this kind of movie and he would have been great at it. Like it would have been interesting to to see him have more flexibility.
[01:53:08] He could have done 10 more of these. Yeah. Yeah. He literally could have done 10 more of these. Now I'm trying to find it, but there was some interview with him where he just said like, I love Westerns. That's what I grew up watching.
[01:53:20] This was like me making a Western. Right. You know. Yeah. That sense. I will say, though, this and this box office through August 12th, 2005, this box office is pretty cursed. And it is pretty indicative of how creatively bankrupt Hollywood was then, you know, and like obviously
[01:53:40] Hollywood is creatively bankrupt in a different way now where it's just tied to IP that it's just trying to like, you know, G up and keep alive and tie into other stuff. You know, like this is not a great box office.
[01:53:52] Now I like some of the movies in this but I'm not saying like they're all bad movies, but it is kind of like, you can sort of, you know, that mid to anyway, look, number one is four brothers. OK, 21 million dollars. It was no problem with that.
[01:54:03] Yeah. Number. It was it was a solid hit yet to give you the right to run down and made 74 domestic about 90 worldwide. You know, not a not an overseas player. I will say in the Shane Salerno eulogy I've talked about that you can read on deadline.
[01:54:20] He points out that Singleton was very proud. Like it was a real running point of pride for him that almost every one of his movies opened at number one. That's them. That makes sense. You know, when he enters Hollywood, there's really so few
[01:54:36] black directors. There's a little more by this time, but not many. And I'm sure that really mattered to him. Like, yeah, I can open a movie like I can make you a movie that'll that'll perform and, you know, make your money back.
[01:54:48] Yeah. And I bet it would have done better overseas if they pushed him because this is still at a time where they like black directors, black actors forget it. They were like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Right. Don't bother. Right. Truly. Yeah.
[01:55:00] Wild. Like it came out in Britain, but I can't have to imagine it did not come out in a lot of places. All right. Number two. How do you know that it came out in Britain? Yeah, wait a second, David, let's explore that for a moment.
[01:55:12] All right. All right. Well, no, I would just it was just a weird thing to just rattle off. How did you know that it came out in Britain? I grew up in Britain. Oh, no. OK. OK. I want to say number two at the box office for all
[01:55:30] my saying that this is a curse box office is a horror movie that I think is pretty good. It's new this week. I feel like it was, you know, pretty much ignored at the time. Is it the skeleton key? It's the skeleton.
[01:55:43] This is a movie that I also really like with an overqualified cast. Yeah. It is an overqual because it's got Gina Rollins and Peter Sarsgard and John Hurt. Like it's not. A masterpiece, but it's good. Good, not cheap.
[01:56:01] You know, like it doesn't do dumb jumps like it's a fun, creepy horror movie. It's got sort of an angle. It's got a pretty good, you know, twist at the end. It's solid. It's just a side. Kate Hudson, she's fine.
[01:56:14] She's in softly who did backbeat and also a couple of the worst movies ever made did Kpex Wings of the Dove. Yeah, in cart. Yeah. But, you know, so skeleton keys. All right. So those two, it's like, OK, Hollywood's got some stuff on offer
[01:56:28] for you if you want to come into the multiplex this weekend. Number three down from one last week, it's a reboot or sorry, it's a cinematic version of a television show. The extent to which you would not do this movie now, it's powerful. Dukes of Hazard.
[01:56:44] It's the Dukes of Hazard. Yeah. Johnny Knoxville, Sean William Scott, Jessica Simpson, Jessica Simpson in her Daisy Dukes. Bert Reynolds is Boss Hogg. Right. Yes. And Willie Nelson is Uncle Jesse. And I just can't remember. Does the Confederate flag get the with or the and above the title?
[01:57:08] I think it got both. Because it's in a lot of that truly true. I never I never saw that movie, but truly this is how dumb teenage boys are. The only reason I was going to see that was because Jessica Simpson wasn't
[01:57:20] Daisy Dukes. It was being sold pretty much on that. Right. Yeah. It was despised when it came out. It made some money. Right. I don't know. It was a dissent, but I remember there being actual like vitriol from all quarters. Yes.
[01:57:38] Critics hated it and audiences were like, well, it isn't for the critics. And they went to see it and they were like, wait, I hate it too. I'm also upset. Number four. Number four is a comedy, a huge hit comedy this summer, a better movie than
[01:57:52] the Dukes of Hazard. But it's wedding crashers. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Amazingly. I don't like that movie. I don't think that movie has aged well. I did like it when I saw it. I definitely liked it when I saw it. Hide your bridesmaids, guys. The wedding crashes are coming.
[01:58:11] Yeah, not since Baluchi and Aquaride. Now that now I will say as much as that movie is not aged well, feels like a movie that someone is going to try and remake. Oh, yeah. Someone is going to be like wedding crashes. People know what that is.
[01:58:23] We're going to we got to figure out a new angle on this. We'll quit and crash. It's we'll figure it out. Yes. Yeah, here's the angle. They're women. I guarantee you they're already developing it. Griffin, stop it. I four sisters is my thing.
[01:58:35] OK, wait, wait a minute, Griffin, Griffin, I'll do you one better. Not only are they women, they're lesbians. Oh, they're gay. Oh no. Oh my God. They're crashing gay weddings. Oh my God. Topical. Topical. This Hollywood with like the butterfly. Yeah. Is this a. Is this inclusion?
[01:59:01] But what if it's the women who hate other women? Yeah, and only use them for sex. Is that number five, number five to round out. And I forgot that August was a real dumping ground for like shitty comedies. Yeah, you got a comedy sequel.
[01:59:16] Comedy sequel from a lesser, a lesser comedy star, I will say. A lesser comedy star. Is it do Spigolo European jiggaloo? Oh, it's all I had to give you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I knew this week, knew this week. Not opening. Not opening.
[01:59:36] Well, what were you going to guess, Bray? No, I was this is not a lesser comedy star. But I was thinking like I was like to big mama's house to come out this year. Sure. Sure. Right. Right. I was just thinking that right.
[01:59:48] What's a comedy that had enough of a following to support a sequel, but not enough of a following to release any time other than the end of August? That was the math for me. That's that's that was great. No, that was perfect. That's is that the movie where
[02:00:03] Ebert and Rob Schneider kind of gotten like a fight about it? Like as Ebert said, it was a piece of shit. Schneider was like this big, a little European jiggaloo. Yeah. Yeah. Ebert was throwing hands for a couple of years there in the 2000
[02:00:16] because he had his Vincent Gallo dust up to. He did. He did. He got salty at the end there. We love it. Yeah. All right. So the some other movies he got the Charlie and the Chocofactory remake. You have Sky High, Griffin's favorite. My beloved.
[02:00:33] Yes. A movie that should have been a franchise, but also retains a purity because Disney didn't run into the ground. Right. You've got Muscle of Dogs. You must. You know, one must. It's not it's not the John Dahl war movie, The Great Raid. Mm hmm. Exactly.
[02:00:51] You know, it's just not the Dukes of Hazard wedding Crashers, Deuce Bigelow trio. It just reminds me of that kind of nasty, sweaty mid 2000s Hollywood approach to comedy, especially like, you know, they had a hand in its defeat. I guess it's a good point.
[02:01:08] I'm trying to make you know what I mean? Yes. Yeah. I think so. Well, also I think the next weekend, 40 year old Virgin comes out. Am I right about that? Well, let's find out. I think it's literally the next. Yes, Griffin. And thank you. You know that.
[02:01:26] You're faster. I am dead inside other than the box office data that rattles around my brain. But that changes everything. That's the answer right there. Right. But still had to play that. Still had it was like it was like a Trojan horse because it was still coming in
[02:01:44] like, hey, comedies are for teenage boys who want to see tits. Right. You know, unrated now to control DVD release, selling the sex front and center. And then when people responded so well to like the emotionality of that movie, then that is just like great.
[02:02:03] Now you find new cheap stars, you let them improvise as low premise concept as possible. And that's the next 10 years of comedy. Yeah, the sort of like boys will be boys kind of grody cynicism goes away and is replaced by like, but sometimes boys are kind of nice.
[02:02:20] Right. I just have to let you know that Tesla has been texting me being like, how are you guys still talking about this? Check, baby. And I play check, baby. That's what's that's what we are done. Yes, for you. That's blank check next week. Also, red eye.
[02:02:40] I just want to point out red red eye. Good movie. Oh, that's one that's probably only age better too. That's that's one of those. Truly they don't make it like this anymore. They don't even yeah, they don't even try to make movies like that.
[02:02:53] No, no, that is absolutely a movie that would go to Netflix now. I mean, to be fair, so do big budget movies. Yeah, to be fair, right? So does so does every so does everything. Yeah, fucking Netflix. OK, we're done. We're done for brothers. Braylock, you're the best.
[02:03:13] Take four sisters. That's mine. That's David's and I have a wedding. Wedding, crash or S's. I don't know how you make that title clear. Lady wedding crashers, Miss Wedding Crashers. You should try. I think you should move on. No, I'm going to I'm going to make this work.
[02:03:34] Braylock, sorry. It had been so long. We will have you on again sooner. It's always a pleasure and a privilege. Yeah, not not not like three years again. Yeah, I don't know. But everyone's to listen to Black Man Can't Jump in Hollywood.
[02:03:49] You guys have done episodes on most of these singleton movies as well. Right? A good handful of them. Yeah, that's that's another to be fair. That's another reason why I didn't pick. Yes, sure. But yes, we've done yeah, like higher learning and poetic justice.
[02:04:04] Obviously, boys in the hood. Yeah, and everyone should watch Astronomy Club speaking of things that are on Netflix, Netflix. Yeah. No, we love Netflix. We love. Oh, we love them. We love them. And thank you all for listening to this show. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.
[02:04:27] Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media. Alex Barron, AJ McKean for editing help. Thank you to Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song. Research on this episode done by JJ Bersh and Nick Luriano.
[02:04:44] Go to blankies.right.com for some real nerdy shit and go to patreon.com slash blank check for blank check special features where our Taylor Lautner Summer is about to crest as we finish the Twilight franchise over on that feed with those commentaries.
[02:05:04] And we we tackle abduction next week on this feed. One of the more depressing final films we've ever had to cover. I mean, look, maybe it'll surprise me, but I don't think so. I would love to love it. And I fear.
[02:05:25] So that's all the stuff I don't think I forgot things that I'm supposed to say at the end, which I have been recently doing. And as always, Garrett Headland is a cocologist.