Gemini Man

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check You've made a podcast out of another podcast! That's kind of funny, right?

[00:00:29] I'm just happy we're talking about this movie now We've recorded this episode Back to back with Joker If you're listening to this, it's been a week since our Joker episode came out But it's been about seven minutes since our Joker episode ended And here's what's changed

[00:00:45] All of us are breathing again It's just nice This could be, you know, unsettling or difficult movie But it's very much not that Ben just switched the lights Your first line when the movie ended was, you went, oh, and he's so gentle

[00:01:05] Such a softy! In a great way Where he's like, what if something, right? Imagine the Hollywood pictures, like a guy talking to Jerry Brokheimer Like, what if your crack assassin, you shoot people, they dead, ha! So there's a guy, he's over your shoulder You're getting weary, but right

[00:01:25] You shot you with, yeah Who is this guy? He seems to know everything you know, right? He's chasing you, you turn around, it's you, a younger you, they cloned you And now you have to fight you

[00:01:37] And Ang Lee comes in and he's like, in my pitches, what if they became friends? What if the way to defeat him was friendship? What if a man haunted by his father, decides to become the father to the son? Who is him?

[00:01:53] This man defeats him with his greatest weakness, conscience Everyone hates this movie Yeah, fuck them It's getting, uh, Bastard It's getting, yeah, I don't know, what do you, what can we say? It's getting butter and fried Getting folded like laundry It is

[00:02:15] In the words of the great Mike Mitchell Oh boy It is getting folded like laundry And, uh, I think the three of us are gonna be three of the only outliers Kinda saying, this is kinda interesting Right

[00:02:29] Um, this of course is a blank check, it's a podcast of homography Directors of Mass Success, early on in their careers Give a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby

[00:02:41] I'm griffin'in' and I forgot to say that part Um, I'm David Sims And this is a thing we love We love to see it, which is A director we've covered in the past Comes out with a new talkie We get to take a little stroll down memory lane

[00:02:56] Or visit one of the old miniseries And resume our ongoing dialogue about their, this filmmaker And their career Yeah And so our old buddy, Ong Lee One of our very close personal friends A filmmaker of that I always liked But then, like, we did the miniseries on him

[00:03:18] And I really came to appreciate everything he's brought to his career All kind, you know, I really, really fell for Ong Lee when we did it And here's the thing, we saw this movie yesterday We went to a press screening Very graciously

[00:03:31] You extended a plus one to me Friend of the podcast, man, Jordan Hoffman Extended a plus one to producer Ben A.K. Ben Dusser, A.K. of the Poe Laureate A.K. of the Haas, A.K. of the Haas A.K. Mr. Positive, A.K. of the Hooper

[00:03:44] A.K. of the Ty Breaker A.K. of the Klamish, A.K. of the Booker A.K. of the Fart Detective Now this was a press screening where we got it You got to see it as Socomac Benny, White Hop Benny, Derpike Benny As the director intended

[00:03:56] Ditch Benny And that may be Yeah We saw it, I think essentially as he intended, right? Do you know anything more on this? I'll get to this in a second, excuse me I just have to mention that he graduated a certain college

[00:04:07] Of course, for me, it's such as Kylo Ben A producer of Ben Kenobi Ben Nye Chomlam Ben's 8th, say Bennything dot dot dot Ailey Ben's With a dollar sign A dollar sign War Haas A producer of Bane Ben 19, the Fennellmaker Then I believe after that

[00:04:23] He would have moved on to Robo Haas Yeah Then I think you probably after that got something Eat, drink Well, I think in between You got a Benglish and you got a Mr. Ben credible And of course it's You drink Ben Haasley And that's underlined, italicized

[00:04:40] Putting a bracket here Because we're coming back to Ang Lee But of course we've moved on since then So then you have Beetle Vape Juice Yeah You have the Haas Lede Yep You have The Auntie But that was the Haas Lede Right

[00:04:54] Did we ever come up with one for Michael Mann? I think we talked about this We did, didn't we? Public Ben-Ami There we go, great Thank you Book closed Right, right, right, right We essentially saw this exactly as the filmmaker intended Okay I believe there is one format

[00:05:14] Arguably superior to what we saw last night Which is 4K 4K, right We saw it I believe in 2K Is that accurate? Right Yeah That is the only difference 4K, laser projection 3D plus 120 frames per second Is only screening in China It's so crazy

[00:05:33] It is not screening anywhere It's a thing where it's like Within the continent of North America Is there a theater in Taiwan maybe? I believe there are five There's a few theaters in China I think there are five theaters There are five theaters in Asia Yeah

[00:05:42] That are screening the film in 4K IMAX laser projection 3D 120 Right Otherwise we essentially saw As he intended Yeah The only difference was resolution Right, right This film is going to get a wider release In closer approximations of what Engley intended Then Billy Lane In that I believe

[00:06:05] Most people will be able to With little hassle see this film at least In 60 frames per second 3D Right It's fairly wide in that presentation Right And in the 120 Dolby vision It's about one per major city Yeah, maybe a couple tops

[00:06:23] It's always, I feel like it's only in those AMC's That have the Dolby vision theaters pretty much I think there might be a couple outside But that's the main bulk of them That's the best list to consult I know people on the red Had tried to put together

[00:06:35] There's an ongoing thread with a master list If you're looking to see this movie I would consult that Because I could not even imagine What it would be like to watch this film Not in the format We were just talking about this Kind of intrigued to do that

[00:06:50] I will go do it And I will later pitch to you An idea based around that for Talking to Walk 29 Yeah, maybe that's the move I mean, JD's been blowing us up as well With his like John Wick rampage She wants to go on about

[00:07:03] Critics lambasting high frame rate Can I tell you what my pitch is here So we can float this And maybe people get excited about it Tell me your pitch I pitched Talking to Walk 2019 Is us walking to three different screenings Of Gemini Man

[00:07:20] In three different formats in one day With her buddy JD Amada No, I'm not, no Wait, we have to see the movie three times? Correct Griffin, what that Well, it's a good thing I just floated on mic And now people are going to tell you to do it

[00:07:33] Griffin, we're very overworked on this podcast We have too much to do I'm very aware That would eat up an entire day I'm very aware How about this But one could argue it's the sequel to the biggest podcasting event of 2018 No

[00:07:45] And I am worried about letting people down And I've been burning them in that old trance With something that feels epic enough Griffin, you need to relax Can't we just do the episode But this time we'll walk around in Prospect Park Can we just make it easier

[00:07:59] Like that is hard enough for me But I'll do that No, no, no I'm not seeing three I'm going to be very clear There's no way I'm seeing that film three times But would you walk around and do another episode? Yeah, sure, whatever

[00:08:11] So you have two versions that you could vote on My version is we kind of just do that same episode again But we'll revisit some bits But we'll be walking around Okay, I want to offer a qualifier Onto each pitch Oh wait, you want to add onto it?

[00:08:25] I'm going to take a pass on each pitch He's adding on, fuck Taking a pass on each pitch Pass one, pitch one Yeah Pass one, pitch one Pass one, pitch one Instead of having to go physically see Gemini Man

[00:08:41] Because I already saw it in the frame rate anyway The 120 I'm interested in seeing it in 24 I'm not at all interested in seeing it in six Going to bring a laptop and put it on the seat next to you Exactly, here's my pitch Repair it, Gemini Man

[00:08:55] Repair it No, here's Document the crime Jokes aside, deadly serious, retired bit No chaos Pitch one, pass one We watch Billy Lin Three times in three different formats From the comfort of a home Why does it have to be three? Because it's one standard, one 3D

[00:09:19] One high frame rate That's how the fucking combo pack is structured Okay, so that's fine So let me move onto Okay Pitch two, pass one Can we do it simultaneously? Can we watch all three versions at once? If we set up three screens? Yeah, that'd be cool

[00:09:37] That I'm fine with because it's time that I'm worried about But technologically we need three TVs or something Worry about time over here You know, the TVs Suddenly I'm hosting a podcast with Christopher Nolan Well, maybe you are Having existential dread around time

[00:09:54] Here's a pitch two, pass one We just take a walk and it's very fun It's us, we're the four friends I would just strenuously argue Except it's a 12 hour walk Because it's a 12 hour day crossover And kind of rattles from it No, no, no

[00:10:07] Considering how strenuously we are behind on our Patreon The last thing I want to do is eat up another whole day We're very behind a very stressed out We're doing alright We're fine Well, right now Vote on that We're here to talk about

[00:10:23] Or give us your own pitches Talking the walk 2019 will happen in some capacity In November This episode's coming out in October Sure Please give us ideas Yes, email the show Blank check podcast at gmail.com I'll tell you what our idea was supposed to be

[00:10:38] And it was foiled by the release of Gemini Man Our idea was We thought enough theaters would get converted With the full technology That we would be able to do a screening of Billy Lynn Because so many people failed to see it As intended

[00:10:54] And these guys really worked on trying to make that happen We were emailing for months We were trying to organize a screening that we would have hosted And maybe would have tried At the same time I was talking to Paramount And I was like sort of like

[00:11:06] Let me know like whenever you have an idea Of how widespread the 120 is going to be Because I think we all had this concept of like Right, Will Smith It's an action movie They'll have to spread the 120 Right

[00:11:18] And I think it's just too big an ask for theaters They toughed out at 60 in most places And so in six Because the 60 I think you only need one Yeah Right, it's like you need this sort of like Double laser thing Yeah, which is just crazy Right

[00:11:29] So that was our big swing That's what we've been planning on doing for the last year And also had been circling around Maybe being able to talk to Ang Lee in some capacity And you know who knows these things might have happened one day Talking to Walk 2020

[00:11:44] Perfect vision 2020 we're going to be able to pull off all these things Writing checks that are asses can't cash But the point is we were very optimistic That we'd be able to make one of those two things work If not both of them

[00:11:56] And now we're opening up to fan suggestions Of what Talking to Walk 2019 should be Here's the point, as you were saying There is this weird thing where I feel like we get Bias because When I have friends who try to get me into sports They go like

[00:12:14] But Griffin you love stories You love narrative Sure And the whole thing is The game is whatever It's about that you're following people for an entire season Right And you're tracking them And you're watching the growth And they're moving from team to team

[00:12:27] The history of the team and the management All this, it's all the narratives you carry to the game So that every point, every move Every whatever has larger Story meaning Right? Yeah And I now feel that way about any director we cover

[00:12:43] Where I get so much more emotionally invested In any movie they make In any career move they make Whether or not I like it Whether or not that's what I want them to be doing I feel that way I feel like this is my hometown team

[00:12:56] On Lee's The Yankees I'm fucking here for it I relate to it with Bance even Where it's like I've been going and listening to later Bob Dylan albums, artists I love And all these 80 stuff And it's just like I love Seeing the different fluxes

[00:13:11] And ups and downs of all these careers So we spend months at a time Being complete about someone in their work Which you start to really think about their life You know because we're doing it all Because we're doing it in order Of course

[00:13:24] We're starting to get into their head a little bit And try to figure out their moves Recognize the themes and all those things So we're bringing a lot to the table And we like this movie a lot more than most people

[00:13:34] And I suspect that's a lot of it But I also suspect a big part of it is You and I did both see Billy Lin In High Frame Rate Yes Most critics even did not get to see it in High Frame Rate I suppose not

[00:13:46] I feel like it was not widely screened It was the New York Film Festival screen Which you went to, right? That's right Was High Frame Rate I was High Frame Rate and then I saw it again Like a month later or whatever At the Sony picture room in 24

[00:14:00] But I feel like a lot of the press screenings were not And I also saw the Hobbit in High Frame Rate 48 I saw Hobbits 2 and 3 I think In the 48 Because the press screenings were in 48 Really? Yeah Because those were 2 definitely was

[00:14:20] 2 and 3 were barely released in High Frame Rate 3 I can't remember 3 they might have finally spared us 2, 100% was in the High Frame Rate Yeah I do think You watch this movie differently If you have seen a Hobbit A Lin And then a Gemini Man I think that's true

[00:14:38] Because you're watching the advancement of a medium Yes And while I question The long term viability of this For the first time watching Gemini Man I go He's done about 60% of the problem solving Purely from a technical level And I see

[00:14:55] Larger samples of what one could do with this format And why it is potentially valuable to certain filmmakers Now here's one take I have James Cameron Is making the avatars Now I don't know that this is official But he definitely always talked about wanting to shoot them

[00:15:11] In a High Frame Rate I mean not 120 but a High Frame Rate 480 No, yes he keeps on sort of threatening 1 billion Keeps on threatening High Frame Rate Because so much of the film is motion capture

[00:15:22] I think he has a lot more flexibility in terms of making those decisions in post And it's interesting to think of the narrative of this When you go from the Hobbit Universal Derision Billy Lin largely derided But also the sort of curio anyway

[00:15:34] Because who the fuck saw that This Mostly derision But as you know some people will be sort of like Well They're starting to fix some of the bugs here Matt Patches Emma Stefansky Friends of the show Good people Great people Good people Good people Imagine Avatar 2 comes out

[00:15:53] It's basically an animated film anyway It's in the frame rate Can you imagine a world when then Fiege is like Marvel movies will now be in High Frame Rate And then things start to sort of Like progress I'm not saying that's going to happen

[00:16:07] Because I do feel like there's this built-in hostility That may just be impossible to overcome But it feels like 1% possible In a way you hadn't before This is a scenario that I think is incredibly likely Okay Semeckis for years Would not put down his fucking mocap toys Right?

[00:16:25] And people were like Bob, we don't like these movies They look weird Stop it Pick up a camera Right? And he finally was like Fuck it I'm taking a flight Right? I'm welcoming you to Marwan We're going to Marwan Right But Marwan is

[00:16:42] He's officially confirmed as being lost in Marwan Right? He is lost in Marwan They've sent drones in And they won't return And we are now unwelcome to Marwan No one's welcome there They've banned us City Limits has our faces on Staple to trees But Everyone was like

[00:17:02] Why is he fucking sticking to this And he would always say this thing of You don't understand I have an obligation The power Position I am in To do all this field testing To workshop these tools For a future generation of filmmakers I'm taking all the hits

[00:17:19] I'm making all the mistakes So future filmmakers have these tools And people were like Go fly a kite What the fuck This is creepy, it'll never work Right? And now Every fucking movie uses motion capture Right? I know Semeckis wasn't the first Right?

[00:17:32] But he does deserve a lot of credit For getting a lot Of the kinks out of the system By so stubbornly Making fucking five movies in a row Right? With this weird creepy technology Right? And Only did an amazing Amazing fucking interview with The Guardian

[00:17:47] That's an incredible piece that everyone Should read And it Just like him It's very sweet It's very emotional Sort of vulnerable I believe the headline is I know I'm going to get beaten up But I can't stop I need to do this

[00:18:02] It would be funny if it was like He's like just tortured Right? Where he's like I can't, the frame rate demons Like they're in my brain But he in it A Essentially Directly says Hulk was my blank check It was the one movie where they Literally gave me

[00:18:16] Anything I wanted to do I had no over-sites They thought if you can do Crash and Tiger Maybe you can do anything Right? Anything I asked for Any amount of money I got Right? And I felt like I betrayed the audience Because I just thought about

[00:18:27] Making an Ang Lee film And I didn't think about the contract You sign with an audience When you are making An event film When you are promising them Popcorn Right? So for Life of Pi He very consciously went into it Saying I need to make something

[00:18:38] That pleases audiences Right? And it did People liked 3D It made it tremendous amount of money And he won his second Oscar Right? And now he has gone into The weird Zemeckis field of No, I'm 100% in on this technology thing And I'm gonna fucking solve this

[00:18:54] And in the Guardian article He keeps on saying That same thing Zemeckis used to say Which is I need to figure this out For future filmmakers Right? I'm old I hope I get to keep making movies For another decade or two Right? But it's more about me

[00:19:07] Using my clout at this position To figure this shit out So that other people have it Because I really believe There's something here That is important to add To the toolbox of cinema Not that all movies should be this way Right? It's very similar to his approach

[00:19:21] To 3D I think he feels a lot of regret About the fact That 3D was so misused So widely That it was sort of killed And that he takes 3D Very seriously in the Guardian article He keeps on going into conversations About Z-Axis

[00:19:33] In a very JD Yamato way And then saying to the journalists Like, I'm sorry You don't care about any of this This is not something you have spent months Thinking about But then he keeps on positioning mugs On tables and he's very scientific

[00:19:44] About the way the human eyes work And how we perceive images And that's his whole thing With high frame rate There is a little bit of a sense of loss That we have this filmmaker Right? Who is sort of one of the most elegant Primal storytellers

[00:19:56] Who is a great actors director Right? Who is great with text Getting a little bit lost in the weeds With this technology Yeah, you're right But there's something kind of thrilling And very classically blank-checky About this narrative And there is nothing more classically Blank-checky than the narrative

[00:20:12] Of James Cameron When everyone assumes he's about to fail Doing the thing that everyone tells him Is the worst possible idea And making it work wildly So there is that 1% chance That James Cameron's like Here we go It's 320 frames per second Everyone sees it and they go

[00:20:26] Jesus Christ It works James Cameron's a genius And every Marvel movie gets a limited Release in high frame rate And it becomes Something like that It becomes the new 3D Or whatever The new off-charge It becomes the new format Yeah, exactly A way you can see a movie

[00:20:40] Right? Because the thing I kept thinking About Gemini Man Is much like with 3D A lot of the best uses of 3D On a technical level After the 3D boom Were weird things Like Van Vendor's peanut Right? And Jackass 3D You know? And the Scorsese Rolling Stones documentary

[00:20:55] Right? And watching this last night I was like I would love to see someone Make a fucking concert movie In high frame rate 3D Right? Because a lot of the places Where this gets Is no one done anything like that? I don't believe so

[00:21:09] I mean sports are often Obviously, yes And that was the big threat Always with 3D TVs Was when you get to 3D sports It's gonna blow people's minds And the technology never worked Well enough to get there But that's what If Van was broadcasting 3D

[00:21:20] For like a month I know but beyond that That was such a stupid concept Because sports are very communal Sure And like It's just not something where everyone's like No Let's all sit down Put on our glasses And not move Like sports are very much Like everyone's around

[00:21:34] And getting up and getting down You know Well there was always this threat Of like They're working on the technology And 10 years from now There might be a TV Where no one's wearing glasses And eat different people Can be sitting on a couch And all that

[00:21:45] That's the thing that Cameron's also threatening With the avatars Right? I'm gonna figure out Glassesless 3D Essentially holograms Which is very Faber wave Right Totally But I think the key to that is There being enough revenue from traditional 3D That it funds the development Right

[00:22:03] To get to that point Right And when people stopped paying to see 3D movies and theaters And 3D TV sales totally crashed And I bought the last one ever Legendary moment for you It just like went out the window Right But look If anyone's gonna do it

[00:22:17] It's Cameron And there's no question that he's gonna throw Something crazy out with Avatar I would think so He has to Right Well maybe it's just, you know A seabayer Can I ask someone who doesn't know a lot about stuff? So you saw this with us

[00:22:34] But you had not seen Billy Lin No Was there an older jump Like this in film history? This is like the one thing That has weirdly stayed pretty fixed Because you have like The jump from like silent to sound

[00:22:48] You have the jump from black and white to color JD kind of talked about this On our Billy Lin episode that you guys should listen to If you haven't Best podcast of all time Right Where like 24 was kind of just a number That got arrived at

[00:23:00] But then it was the number I mean originally it used to be slightly different Which is why when you watch old silent films Often they feel sped up or whatever Because it was shot slightly differently But 24 was based around a song That people would learn The projectionist

[00:23:14] When it was actually crank projection So there was a rhythm They could memorize to keep the projection Going out with their hands I mean it's that arbitrage Right But it is this weird thing That contributes to the dream state of cinema Yeah it's the look that we recognize

[00:23:29] Right And I understand the immediate revulsion To what Emily is doing here Because he's essentially saying Let's remove all the dreamy aspects Let's make it look like a window And when he talks about it That's his whole selling point Film doesn't look like real life

[00:23:41] Wouldn't be great if it looked like real life If you could remove the window in a way Right Like you can just It just feels like If you put your hand through the screen I mean of course it's a land of giants Because they're close-ups

[00:23:51] But apart from that, yes To which I by and large go I like the dreaminess of cinema Yeah Like the way motions captured And not to mention This is the thing For over a century people have learned their crafts In the cinematic arts Based around the perception

[00:24:05] Of vision for 24 frames per second Right The way that costumes are made The way that people learn to act The way that lighting is executed The way that sets are painted All these things go out the window We've gone over this Billy Lange is restating a little bit

[00:24:19] But really worth listening to As an episode Yes One of our better ones Never gonna relive it Talking about 2019 Is gonna be a disaster Well like, I mean obviously film is still a thing But like film to digital Like I feel like there was

[00:24:31] Like I kinda picked up on some of that Kinda like noise Now the key is This feels like a moment where people are Super resistant Yes To the tech Because the key is That most of the jump from film to digital Was also accompanied with

[00:24:44] We have figured out how to make Video What's the word I'm looking for I'm sorry Replicate The image quality of 24 frames per second Right We train video Yeah, right, right, right To sort of fake 24 frames per second It's a thing, you know People bring up motion smoothing

[00:25:02] And again this is something JD talks about a little bit Like how this looks like Motion smoothing on your TV Quote-unquote But motion smoothing is actually Trying to look like this Motion smoothing is like a computerized Sort of cheat To sort of try and mimic

[00:25:16] The look of a very high frame rate It's taking every frame And it's just multiplying it four times And it's like the computer Is sort of trying to get you there Right Yeah The difference is with this It is actually that the camera itself

[00:25:27] Is capturing four times as much Visual information Right It's not pulling that shit out of your notebook Five For 120 Yeah, that's so Five times Fucking insane It's wild Wild stuff Now we were outside the theater I said to you Ben Get ready Because the moment when it starts

[00:25:44] You're going to be totally thrown off By how weird it looks Because We both experienced Tonight's been a sit with JD The feeling when Billy Lin started Everyone in the theater goes Everyone sort of went like Huh It's the opening shot When he rolls over in bed

[00:25:57] And grabs his cell phone Everyone goes like Yeah And this movie Immediately doesn't have that Even if you don't find it Visually appealing There was a noticeable lack Of Ugh in the theater Which I swear was Audible at Billy Lin's meetings Yeah

[00:26:13] I do not know a person who saw it In High Frame Rate And didn't experience that And those are all people who are there Because they really want to be there And they're reacting Because that movie made Fucking $4 Yeah You made a bold prediction Before the movie

[00:26:26] He did That you were not going to be They even repeated to me Freaked out by High Frame Rate Because you thought It was going to make sense to you That it was going to be How the world feels to you All the time Mm-hmm

[00:26:36] Because I'm in person with ADD And I just sort of felt like Oh yeah So I'll just focus on All at the same time at once Yeah I do that constantly anyway Right And the idea is That's what's unnatural About High Frame Rate

[00:26:47] Is it does more closely replicate The way your eye works Right Yeah But that's not how you're trained To absorb any filmed material Right Of any sort And animation fakes it And video fakes it You know There's a reason why When people criticize Billy Lin, Gemini Man

[00:27:06] Or the Hobbit in High Frame Rate They go Oh it looks like a soap opera Right It looks like Yeah You know It looks like behind the scenes footage It looks like home video Because those are rare examples of things That never tried to replicate frame rate Right

[00:27:19] Because even most of classical TV Was shot on film Right Right You know And when you watch like Playhouse 60s And they're shot on video And their high frame rate People are weirded out by them Yeah But most classic sitcoms Were shot on film And You know

[00:27:34] Soap operas were not News broadcasts were not Behind the scenes footage of movies We know where things look more fake Were not Sports were not And sports have been Broadcast in higher frame rates For a while now And the other big shift is Video games often

[00:27:50] Are in higher frame rates now It's an optional setting But most people at gaming computers Are watching Fucking crazy frames I was getting some of the Some of the shots And the smirking That's the whole thing Yeah exactly You want the continuous act

[00:28:03] And I believe that's the argument In Gemini Man is like Look The action is as clean As possible Right But the blurring is a thing We're trained into now For better or worse It's a thing we're trained into And when you remove the blurring Something in your head

[00:28:15] Kind of goes That looks cheap I mean they also have The problem that they try to get Around but that's unavoidable Is that if it's stuntman Is on screen In high frame rate It's easier to spot him Yes What are you going to do About that

[00:28:29] I mean there's nothing You can do about that Especially in a movie That's so loaded with stunts Here's what this movie does Will Smith plays The two main characters Yes he does He is a very good physical actor Who much like Tom Cruise

[00:28:40] Like to do a lot of stuff Right And for most of the sequences In which he is doing something That he could not physically do Or safely do He is doing motion capture For a digital stuntman Right So something like The big motorcycle chase In this film

[00:28:58] Which is the big set piece Right Is really Will Smith doing it On a green screen stage With a bunch of trackers And they're filming his face And placing it onto a digital stunt person That is recorded off of his movement But you know the body

[00:29:13] Shape is a little different Totally You can kind of tell It's not a huge complaint I don't really care And here's the biggest tell That I noticed in that sequence Which otherwise is pretty compelling And is one of the moments Where the movie makes an argument For like

[00:29:27] Here's something unlike Anything you've ever seen In a movie before Right They make it seem like It's these long continuous Runners running super high speed Through the streets of Where are they at that point Columbia Let me find the exact city That there, Cartagena Cartagena

[00:29:46] It almost feels like The motorcycle chase from Tintin I love the motorcycle chase Right Where it's like Here's this 8 minute Unbroken, limited cuts 100% All about choreography City streets But you can kind of start to tell The city streets or CGI And the people on them are CGI

[00:30:01] And the Will Smith's is CGI double And here's one of the big reasons for that When you get in a CGI effects With a high frame rate You are now having to produce Five times as much information In a completely Fictional generated model Right

[00:30:17] And a lot of how CG effects Have come so far In the last 10 or 15 years Is they've created computer programs That can simulate certain things Without them needing to do it Frame by frame So, and Pixar uses this In special effects houses use this

[00:30:33] If you have a digital character Doing stunts in a movie You no longer have to animate The ripples of their clothes Moving through space Frame by frame Which is really fucking laborant That's it It can simulate Oh, if the body is doing this

[00:30:45] And you put a shirt on them And the shirt is this material That you pre-established It will ripple in that kind of Algorithm It's an algorithm They build them And these people trade them And they use them And it works for all these sorts of things Sure

[00:30:56] But now suddenly that algorithm Is being tested To generate five times Clothing ripples Right Per second Right That's like some Doctor Strange shit Right, so the tell where I immediately David's doing the hands The tell where I immediately was like Oh, this bicycle sequence is all CGI

[00:31:15] Is the way their jackets are moving Look fucking bizarre It's just weird It looks like Doctor Strange's cape or whatever It just looks super animated Very helpful, okay Might have helped out in some of these Gemini man situations A great movie friend Very good movie friend

[00:31:29] But so shit like that is weird And the problem is It's literally a matter of time And money and human resources To be able to animate that much clothing That fast Fucking impossible We don't have the manpower We don't have the computer power

[00:31:43] No one has the budget, you know Stuff like that gets tripped up Yeah Yeah But Kind of a fun movie Also have this kind of breathless Fucking motorcycle sequence where Even if you know it's I'm kind of into it

[00:31:56] You're showing you something you've never seen in a movie before Yeah You know what jumped out for me? What? This movie 3D There's that The moment with the water You know, sort of All the wet 3D Splashing on the screen Really, really great Yeah

[00:32:12] I'm trying to think of other Real 3D moments It throws you off though With like the axis kind of When you're Because they're what It's like the cameras going into the water And sort of looking up and down That stuff's great I think water is always great

[00:32:24] For 3D movies It's why Water's also kind of interesting for 120 Like Yeah Just looks Like you're not used to it looking Well, there's so much Certain environments that really pop in the There's so much movement in water Where even when it is still Yeah, right, right, right, right

[00:32:39] There's so much movement happening That a camera cannot capture Right In the same way And this is the whole thing with actors With an eye frame, right Where we I think agreed Most of the performances in Billy Lin Don't come off very well They just don't under

[00:32:51] They don't know how to deal with the camera Right And in The Guardian piece Talks about Joe Alwyn Being someone who he pulled out of obscurity Who had no screen experience And he trained him for this format And that performance works in that movie

[00:33:03] And then you watch people He says, right, that I Unfortunately, I put all my effort on that And right Right, I couldn't work with all the other actors I couldn't work with all the background people You see people in the distance And you can tell they're having

[00:33:13] A fake conversation Things that we called out In our episode And we took full responsibility for No connection there But I'm just saying He is a man who lives with his mistakes Right, right, right, right, right, right And people like Vindy Zorgris, movie star And Steve Martin

[00:33:26] Who have learned tricks A solid movie star Yeah My second favorite movie star Sure Who have learned tricks over decades And how to work with a camera Suddenly those tricks Totally betrayed them Right And this is a movie where I feel like

[00:33:37] He really figured out how to get Good performances out of all the actors There are moments There are small scenes where I'm like This person's a little hammy Yeah It's a little on one of the time But Will Smith is One of our great close-up actors

[00:33:49] He is, that's true That's true And that's a big fucking Nice face Even now Oh, a beautiful face I mean there's a scene in this movie Where he brags about how good he looks now Yeah And it's an earned brag He ain't lying

[00:34:04] Yeah, it's not a humble brag It's a brag Well, we're tired, but Yeah But he, aside from being a very handsome man And a very compelling man to watch A natively charismatic performer Sure Right? He has become so good I think someone to the detriment of his career

[00:34:19] As he tried to move away from the Jokey, wise-ass 90s persona That made him America's favorite movie star Of course he decided to move away from that And has gotten more into playing the sort of Haunted torture Yeah, he's done a lot of haunt

[00:34:33] He's done a lot of haunt What else has he done recently Apart from suicide? I am legend, Suicide Squad Collateral beauty Well, I am legend as a while ago At this point But yes, collateral beauty, sure I'm saying I am legend's Kind of the beginning of the haunt

[00:34:43] It is a bit of a haunted beginning And one of his best performances It's, I think Maybe the best? What's the competition? Ali is a great performance Very different sort of vibe What else would be the competition? He is extraordinary I mean obviously one of the most haunted

[00:34:59] Performances of all time Bright? The genie in Aladdin Well, we were haunted by the genie Must haunting the performances Yeah, but yeah, bright I haven't seen I'm assuming is a little haunted In that one Did like an elf, you know Yeah Kill his mom or something

[00:35:16] Yeah, someone like that And seven pounds is definitely haunted Well, he's haunted Do not touch the jellyfish He's haunted because his partner Kind of helped him Or like he thinks this partner Was involved with his shooting That happened to him In that like an orc?

[00:35:28] It's an orc, yeah Right It's the first orc cop And he's his partner And he doesn't love it But he's putting up with it And I've seen this movie Oh, I'm away Oh, I am away And I know it not good Yeah, it not good It not good?

[00:35:43] Sorry But you own the whole Full line of Funko pops Because bright got eight Funko pops And the tech got one Wow Excuse me Can I say something quickly About Will Smith? Yeah Anyway, the thing I was going to say about Will Smith Yeah

[00:35:59] They make some such a powerful Close-up actor And I feel like this is the thing He's worked on It's the thing that McConaughey has also become Very strong at Yeah I think it's a thing with guys Who are Become big movie stars young And can feel sometimes

[00:36:15] Like am I just coasting on charisma I want to get more meat Right Those two guys know how to just Fucking fill up How to fill up their face with emotion Right And then hold all of it at bay Because this is a movie where Will Smith

[00:36:31] Is almost always seemingly On the verge of tears And is always holding them back Yeah, yeah And it is one of the most compelling things To watch an actor do Is to see that much emotion behind their eyes And to watch the restraint of them

[00:36:45] Trying to hold back that emotion From ending up on screen Right And it's a thing that makes you lean And then pay more attention to performance Because you're not feeling like Oh, this person is pulling out All the bells and whistles To get my attention

[00:36:57] Makes you lean in and go like What are they holding back and why? Right So I think that's one of the reasons He got so attracted to the haunted thing Because it's an interesting experiment If you are a skilled If you have the sort of emotional access

[00:37:07] That Will Smith does And he's able to marry that With his, you know Fucking control of the camera And his stillness Which comes in very handy For a high frame rate film Because to have a long close-up Of Will Smith tears slowly Welling in his eyes

[00:37:25] But never quite hitting Right Where he is maintaining a perfect stillness Without feeling stagnant That is the greatest sort of tool Ang Lee could have at his disposal For this film And to multiply him Yeah I mean, he's an improvement on Joe Alman No offense to Joe

[00:37:39] Who's fine in Billy Land I think Joe Alman But that's another movie that's obsessed With its star's face And I also think it's a movie where he's trying To get that performance out of him Most of the film is him in close-up Right He's a wobbly-eyed Right Right

[00:37:52] Yeah But that's Will Smith He's got like a real five-tool player You know, sort of A magician of an actor To mix metaphors Okay So that makes a huge difference Yeah And the whole supporting cast People like Benedict Wong We love to see him

[00:38:12] Benedict Wong's a guy where even when he goes big He feels very natural He's not only complaining about Benedict Wong In this movie The second he showed up on screen The second Which is what? Like half an hour in the movie He's Will's old friend

[00:38:27] He shows up on a fucking biplane Yeah, that's right That's right Which is another classic 90s movie Guy Fing This movie is so So much seaplane action in 1995 I believe it was written in 1997 Yeah The second he showed up I was like Fuck

[00:38:45] This character is written for me to really like him And then he's gonna die Because it's just like There's no actors in the movie really Right, like the fifth guy is Small cast Like the fifth lead is played by like Douglas Hodge Who's like a British Shakespeare actor

[00:38:58] And I'm like Okay, if that's the fifth most important guy I don't think Winstead's dying I know Willis is technically playing I mean Will's technique playing Like a couple characters One and two on the call I'm like, you know, Kyvo and he's the villain

[00:39:12] So he's sort of removed from this equation Benny ain't gonna make it Well, he's the color He's the color He's the colorful character And you know, in your third act He's the fun In all these 90s movies Yeah Your third act twist when it's gonna get real

[00:39:23] You know, it's time to get serious Yes After sort of towing the line That's when the funny guy dies He feels like the type of character that John Gabriel's on the show Described being his dream role Which is the guy who's kind of gone Too deep under cover

[00:39:37] Like he's gone too into the island life The guy where it's like, you know Dennehy plays him or whatever And it's like, look You could just about buy that this guy At one point was like a crack military operative

[00:39:49] He had like 20 years where his life was way too intense Now like wears Hawaiian shirts And lives in the Cayman Islands And drinks like pina coladas Everything's a joke to him Exactly Right, he's a constant party He's Baloo from Talespin But then they can have that moment Yes

[00:40:02] Where he goes like, and he's friend Benedict Wong to be clear Friends with the Toucan There's multiple Toucans And that's the thing with Benedict Wong But you can have that moment where he's like I know He's a lot of fun He's a little bit of gravitas

[00:40:14] He's a lot of personality Benedict Wong A. never feels like he's reaching for a moment Big Benny And B. one time a blank check attendee Bong, Bong, Bong Yes Yeah, one time that's true One time a blank check attendee That's right But yes

[00:40:29] Another actor who is naturalistic enough That he fits within this film There's a scene where Will Smith meets with A Russian operative Who is giving a very broad Yakov Smirnov's performance Yeah That guy Who's that guy? That guy is in a lot of stuff

[00:40:44] Let me look him up here His name is Yakov Smirnov His name is Ilya Volok He stops one step short Of literally saying, in my country That seems really weird Because he's like Hey, Will Smith You're good You shoot at the man Shoot blood goes everywhere

[00:41:03] I've watched a recent thing that happened to you What a country How do you know that? He's like Who knows and never touch on again What's that scene about? He had been in the theater with us Watching the first hour of Chairman Eman And he's like

[00:41:17] It's time for me to go in screen now Right We were like This guy is not real It's like when the electric mayhem Reads the script for the Muppet movie And he's like Pretty great ending But do you know what that is? Is it's like 120 frames per second

[00:41:29] Like 24 frames per second That would be a subtle And nuanced piece of Russian acting But with 120 he's like Ah, yes! And he's like doing a Russian dance And he has a big furry hat on I'm saying it increases the Russianness I spent the day shooting Before immediately rapping

[00:41:45] And coming to the screening of Gemini Man Retired bit And the entire time kept on thinking Oh wow, I would be so terrible in this format Like I would have no idea How to act in this format Pruddleback or whatever And I try to be pretty subdued

[00:42:02] But I was like watching it Even before this guy came on screen And then he came on screen I was like The best I could possibly achieve is this guy Who I'm sure in any other format Looks like a totally fun performance And in this you're like

[00:42:14] You fucking phony piece of shit Which is the Billy Lin problem Where you're like I can see the lines you have memorized I can read your brain You know And this movie I think he just held them down And he focused on it

[00:42:27] And he trained his actors properly And he cast well And all of that sort of works Now the weird thing is This is all in service of this movie That is like this unmade screenplay From nearly 30 years ago Right, yes Yes, I guess 20 years ago now 20 plus

[00:42:44] Plus, yeah Believe the initial concept was 97 Tony Scott Who's a classic Brock Heimer collaborator Right And I don't mean to say that word In a loaded way No But when you say Brock Heimer collaborator No, Tony Scott It's a Brock Heimer sympathizer With like Harrison Ford

[00:43:05] I believe was the initial pitch for this movie That was their idea And it was like What if you had the president from Air Force Won in an action sequence With Indiana Jones They were like What if you got a guy Who's been a star for 30 decades

[00:43:18] And you have him fighting The early stage of his career Console or whatever Exactly People loved it Millions of dollars were handed out immediately The script was bought It was developed Touchstone goes to work Trying to figure it out On a technological level And they go

[00:43:32] This is fucking impossible Goofy as shit Yes, they could never get it right Curtis Hanson was attached at one point Joe Carnaghan was attached At one point, Carnaghan Some of the actors they mentioned It's all actors Like Will Smith That have had definitive arcs To their careers

[00:43:50] Where there was a younger version Of them that we'd all remember Mel Gibson Clint Eastwood Kenny Sly Stallone Sean Connery Like all of these are just so obvious As Unlee put it He said It needs to be someone Who we have watched grow up

[00:44:05] And have witnessed as a star In three different decades But the thing that they did with Will Smith That is not true of any of these guys Is they picked a guy who looked Younger when he was younger But it's not that big of a thing

[00:44:20] Cause Will Smith has aged magically Imagine Sean Connery Not even now But untouchables Fighting James Bond It's not, no It's at least a very different movie And even Clint and Harrison Ford Both got weathered They're men who took their age And grew into sort of seniority

[00:44:40] Clint and Harrison Ford aren't like Running on a cyber treadmill And zero gravity And eating ostrich eggs Or whatever it is Will Smith does He probably sleeps in a cryogenic chamber So Unlee post Billy Lynn Sort of back, you know on his heels Sure

[00:44:56] Is looking for something to make The landscape has changed No one's gonna necessarily give him A giant budget to do whatever he wants In the same way Sure Because people only want to make Retired bit movies It's one weekend and I love it Good And

[00:45:17] Brachheimer who has lost his Disney deal After that being his home for decades Trying to find his new place Has carried that script with him Makes the big swing Unlee do you want to do this And he immediately recognizes The sort of philosophical implications Of the premise

[00:45:33] A man facing his own past Facing his own past Like, you know, reckoning with his own Growth of a conscience over, you know The years of his life And what he said also Is that he loves And wondering about his own obsolescence

[00:45:45] Right, you know and like Unlee is this director Who is wondering about that himself Making movies that are very futuristic You know, use all this fancy technology He said he also loved the meta element Of any movie star Is always in competition With their history Right, right, right

[00:46:02] Which is a fun element If you get to legend status You're not fighting with your contemporaries You're fighting with your legacy And trying to maintain it or grow upon it It's like what are the four movies That are gonna be at the top Your IMDb, Pature, remembered for

[00:46:15] And you hope that they weren't all In your past And you still have one IMDb It's not all from like 95 to 98 or whatever But it's too bad that James Avery The dad from Fresh Prince is dead Because I believe he died Uncle Phil and Treader

[00:46:28] Because what if he was Like the boss in this The Clevoan part Yeah, right Like literally you had the Fresh Prince guy And he had such gravitas too Clevoan is kind of a weird choice We'll get to that in a second He is a weird choice

[00:46:45] Why is he in this? I want to do five minutes on Clevoan's weirdness in this Yeah But can I make this point first? Yeah Hung Lee said that thing really struck me I want to work with a big movie star I like the idea of a movie star

[00:46:57] Giving a performance Because he loves fucking with people This Hung Lee thing where he's like So direct and cutting with actors And he's like You're bad at this I want to get this out of you Right That he liked the idea of the experiment

[00:47:09] Of working with an actor He's so into building up a sense memory Pulling on elements from people's Actual past The way he worked with the kid from Life of Pi To get the different stages And the different ages And all that sort of stuff Right

[00:47:24] That he wanted to work with someone like that And he said there are only two people This movie could possibly work with And it was Will Smith and Tom Cruise And Tom Cruise is the other one I look I quite enjoyed Gemini Man It has its faults

[00:47:37] I think Will Smith's pretty good in it I think he's actually The idea of it with Tom Cruise Is just sort of like dynamite And in next level Yes Because he also has remained boyish enough Where although time has taken its toll

[00:47:49] And you can tell he's a distinctly different age If this movie was Tom Cruise in fallout mode And the mask comes off And it's fucking top ground Tom Cruise I would have given it a standing ovation I mean if they could pull that off And again who knows

[00:48:01] What Angli said In his characteristic honesty was There were only two people who could pull it off Tom Cruise and Will Smith And Tom Cruise was unavailable So I asked Will Smith I love most directors usually say So I went to Will

[00:48:14] And I thought Will was better for it And Angli is like yeah Tom wasn't down So how about Will? I told Will he would be adequate Didn't you like sit with Will Smith And watch old fresh princes And be like You have to be bad Like in this

[00:48:30] Right He was like A bad performance When you were young You were not good at acting Watch this You are displaying too much emotion And there is something kind of striking To the fact that I just love that idea The performance of Junior is a little more wooden

[00:48:44] Which also reads it's uncertain The performance of Junior is kind of incredible Is that crazy to say? No it largely works I would say it sort of works I mean look The entire final scene Is a wash Sure And there are moments

[00:49:03] Don't know what's up with that final scene We'll talk about it We'll give that another sidebar along with Clive There are moments where Something weird is going on But by and large It works as a performance And it works as a piece of technology

[00:49:15] I think in like the pivotal scenes Of which there are only a couple And you missed one of the big ones You went to the bathroom during one of the big ones I wouldn't say which one You're really gonna body slam me for this

[00:49:22] I'm gonna body slam you He's um He's I believe that this is a person Which is a tough sell Yeah It's a real tough sell Yeah And once again I know he's I mean I believe that he's sort of A half person because he's been so stunted

[00:49:37] In his growth But the thing that belies His artificiality more often is The clothing that it is His skin Than it is his face There are moments where The human face is so fucking complicated In terms of the muscles The amount And the amount that

[00:49:56] Any movement of your mouth Affects your entire face Right And Will Smith is strong enough And comfortable And comfortable enough To have an actor on screen That he is able to sit in that Sort of stillness And in high frame rate

[00:50:10] Allowing Lee to capture all of his micro expressions Right Is much more difficult to animate That level of micro expression Right And it's much more difficult To in unforgiving high frame rate Properly apply Every single muscle that is affected By a quiver of your lip Right

[00:50:27] Because it also changes the way Your eye is positioned And the tension around your jaw And all that sort of shit There are moments like that Where I just went Some things like 2% off And I can't tell what it is There are moments where it is 100% credible

[00:50:39] I will say Light Definitely darkness It helps Most of the film is bathed in darkness This film does not have a lot of It seems to live off of Natural lighting Yeah A lot of it is natural lighting Exterior Or night scenes

[00:50:53] Where because of the high frame rate They're able to get away With lower lighting And you're able to see A lot in the dark Unlike Maleficent 2, Mistress of Evil A film I just saw Would you Let me just say Off-mic predicting is the best picture winner I'm pretty

[00:51:08] Yeah, of course Best picture this year Is being judged by to what extent A Mistress of Evil is present in the film How many Mistress is That could be qualified as evil Or in one film That film has a lot A lot of action in the dark

[00:51:22] That is literally impossible to see Yeah And of course I'm sure It was just You know Cost saving Yeah You know, like that's all that was And You can't see it It sucks The dark scenes in this Partly because of the frame rate

[00:51:38] You can see them pretty great There is a scene where they are Escaping at Dawn A very beginning of dawn A little bit of light's coming in But it's largely still night And they're escaping on a pier Trying to get to a boat Right And I thought

[00:51:54] Wow, I have never seen This time of day Captured accurately on camera Because it has literally been impossible To do up until this point That's the worst time Right And when you are around that time It's a weird time When people are not usually awake

[00:52:10] There is a weird magical feeling to me I'm up this late Or I've woken up this early Yeah, when you like wake up at 4.30 in the morning To get a cab for the airport Or something like that And you're outside And you're like Oh, you know, this is

[00:52:21] What is this? The thing Barbigli describes as They haven't finished writing the matrix yet Yeah, right Exactly And I was like Wow, this is the only time a movie Has been able to capture this quality of light And is because of this technology

[00:52:32] In the same way that you're watching things like glass Have a quality on screen That they never have had before Yeah Where it doesn't just look like this is a reflection You can see the actual Is this at all interesting in 24? I don't know

[00:52:47] In 24, I feel like it's just a regular ass I guess we're gonna have to say it Two more times a record now One time, one We already saw it in 120 One time three screens Jesus Christ Yeah, it's too bad it's not gonna be on DVD right away

[00:53:01] It might as well be I'm clear Because like it's not gonna be a hit No Right? Probably not Now, he said the big thing he wanted to do Was Billy Land He had his whole sort of thematic reasoning For why it was this high frame rate Yeah

[00:53:13] It's PTSD It's putting you in the state Of someone who's having an extended panic attack Right? Yeah And this movie doesn't have that same sort of thematic connection Between the material and the media Yeah For him it was the experiment of What does action look like?

[00:53:28] Is action better suited for this form? Action has always been more like dance in film Right Because you're faking motions in a way that will be captured On screen in a way that looks like fighting But is not Right And it's very specific, very choreographed

[00:53:43] It's a reason why It's almost saying Chris Evans has an extensive dance background It's one of the reasons he's so good at Captain America Because he can learn the moves Because he thinks about it like dance Same with Chang-Tay, you know? Yeah, I knew that about Channing

[00:53:57] There are a lot of guys like that Who have become action stars Right Where it's specifically because It's not that they're good at fighting It's that they understand the stunt guy can come in and go It's this step, this step, he'll turn, he'll turn Catch, drop, throw, whatever

[00:54:10] Right Fights aren't real? We're gonna have to talk about this later Okay But That was the thing he said he wanted to try to solve Okay I think when they're in hand-to-hand combat It looks really fake in this movie They have sort of some cheats

[00:54:26] I feel like to try and get around it, right? Yes I think there are other examples of action that look good I think when people are fighting fist-to-fist Yeah It looks fake They usually do it in darkness But you can kind of tell that the hits aren't connecting

[00:54:40] And you can kind of see the choreography And the moves and people anticipating And all that sort of stuff Right I think things like the vehicle shit works well Yes Vehicle shit's pretty great The thing that's really striking is like The explosions and gunfire And fire itself

[00:54:55] When things are on fire and they're burning And you're seeing the speed of fire Which fire always looks crazy slow down On film But yeah, the gunfire is very visceral in this movie And that's one of the best sort of like Tech real showcase moments is when they're

[00:55:10] Hiding out in that abandoned store And the barrage of bullets come through And all the bottles explode And it goes into slow motion And it's like the sprinkles of the glass In 3D and slow motion reaching out to you It going into slow motion in general

[00:55:25] Was just sort of like Right, there are higher levels of detail Available to us in this utter detail But there are things where like Junior is doing parkour And doing back flips Climbing up a building And that shit looks great Anytime they're in a vehicle

[00:55:41] It looks fucking crazy You know, there's a part where a plane Flies by the lens And you and I just both laugh And we're like nuts Like giddy enjoying it And they pull that trick like three times Because they know how fucking loud it is

[00:55:53] They do it with the train too The opening is him trying to pull off An assassination on a train The parkour made me think Normally when I watch parkour movies I'm like, I could do that But this is like This is very much like

[00:56:04] What? How can anyone do this? Yeah, that's true That's true because usually when you're watching a movie You're like, yeah well it's a stunt And this you're like I know this is a stunt Wow, that was fast He jumped up over that wall

[00:56:19] That crazy jump that parkour people do Where it's like a 270 degree jump Like their whole... That's crazy That's a Gemini man Okay so we're not going to talk about the pod Gemini man because it's irrelevant Let's talk about it I want speed round it

[00:56:31] Like I'm going to do it right now Cool He's an old assassin He's 51 First 30 minutes are just old assassin Assassin Trying to get out of the game He works for the government He's the best there ever was He's Will Smith, he's haunted He does a job that he

[00:56:44] Successfully executes a guy On a very fast moving train That you see with no motion blur Which is crazy And you know it's kind of It's a little close Too close for comfort Little close for comfort So he decides to retire

[00:56:55] He's checking in with some of his old friends Who got out of the game We're living it up on yachts Smoking cigars, bento, along on a biplane Right all that Then he learns That the guy he shot Maybe he wasn't a bad guy at all

[00:57:08] Maybe he was a patsy You know Will's essentially been sort of Taunted into this Or whatever Tricked into doing this There's some great lingo too Of like sort of spy Oh, AMF? Yeah AMF, remember that? What's that? Adios motherfucker What they call Killing someone

[00:57:27] I also like an animal where they go I'm gonna burn you Yeah, yeah Classic burnotist talk I love all the lingo And like They sort of even Maybe get into the tech a little bit With the private company But it's one of the points that I have

[00:57:37] And their DIA Is that the organization? Yeah, yeah Defense intelligence agency Right, isn't that it? Anyway So As he learns that Uh-oh They keep talking about this Gemini There's this project Gemini And it's run by Clivo And he's telling the DIA people Like I'm gonna handle this

[00:57:56] I'm sending in Gemini Like whatever, right? And Will Smith's friends start dying His buddy, some spotter Dead Right His guy's some guy and a both dead Right Benedict Wong alive for a while Mary Elizabeth Winstead Mary Elizabeth Winstead Who he identifies As murdering him As a mom Yes

[00:58:15] He burns her He does burn her Toast, she's toast She's toast She gets her noticed She gets sucked up into it But essentially Because Will Smith knows too much He is chased by a younger version of himself Who was cloned and grown by Clivo And

[00:58:29] Probably doesn't enter until minute 40 You'd like this sort of For enters at like Kind of the second big set piece But yeah End of act one Yeah And now he has to do battle with him And that's the plot of the movie Yes There's no deeper conspiracy No

[00:58:44] This conspiracy is very shallow Yeah This is not like some Jack Ryan movie Where it all turns out It leads to the secretary of defense And there's like 14 boardroom seats It's very simple Clivo did the bad thing He tried to cover it up He built this death squad

[00:58:58] Kind of off books That's it There was a classic Ang Lee kind of Economy to it Where it feels like what he doesn't want Is the standard rote version of this movie That is filled with quippy one-liners And is also filled with Boring expository time

[00:59:13] So the movie just kind of gets from place to place It's not a short movie It's two hours even basically But it's pretty repito There was a weird amount of Sort of silence and stillness For a movie of the silk

[00:59:25] That is not weird for a film within the Ang Lee oof Even if otherwise this movie Is not totally of a piece With his other films But it feels like he just sort of Much like the way Sheamus talked about The Hulk script

[00:59:38] That he just sort of chop chop chop All the stuff that feels kind of Boiler plate block buster-y out of it Right Because it is a weirdly kind of Dour movie Yeah It's not self serious But it's pretty dry It's dry and like

[00:59:54] It has these scenes like the sort of Early Will Smith flirting with Mary Elizabeth Winston scenes Where it feels like one Will Smith Is being restrained He's not being allowed to sort of Slip into full kind of like The guy we know And they're not doing full

[01:00:09] Meet cute, rad a tat Screen writing Right And it's like he's kind of Flirty But they don't want to get into Genuine sexy Right And they don't want their relationship To really be too romantic at all It's a pretty asexual film And a pretty aromantic film

[01:00:27] It's kind of about a Valsel Like kind of Does he have sex ever? There's a whole thing where he's like You're definitely a virgin To the younger Will Smith And he also makes it clear He's never had a long term girlfriend When Mary Elizabeth Winston asked him

[01:00:41] If he's ever had a long term relationship He says do you count And he has known her for two days And they have been on the run from assassins Not having sex Is the You know Eventual implication is supposed to be like

[01:00:54] Maybe he just never had any sex I think he has probably Had sex A couple of times That is my guess I think this is a man I think we should interview Ang Lee and Will Smith together And ask them these questions How many times

[01:01:11] How long are we talking Between times Do you know I truly had a It was either I could go to the screen tomorrow night Or do a phone interview with Ang Lee Wait really? You didn't say that Yeah But I was like I want to see the movie

[01:01:24] And maybe if I go see the movie I can find another time Yeah right No point talking to him But I had sort of gotten an offer To maybe interview him Which I thought we could parlay Into talking to Walk 2019 Which of course is

[01:01:33] Not going to be the biggest disaster Of the year in podcasting But yes I wish I could have asked him Has Will Smith's character ever gotten changed Has he had sex And I would have worded it that way Correctly That's an appropriate way

[01:01:48] Has he ever dipped his wake Yes Yeah that's not so good You know what I'm asking I mean look He's made some very sexy movies The Ice Storm Hulk Like even Ang Lee movies They're sexy like less caution It's like Oh god it's so fucking weighty Yeah

[01:02:08] That's the weird thing with this movie Is you feel like he took a script That was pretty conventional And aside from an interesting premise It's pretty perfunctory in how The story actually plays out And paired it down and down And down and down to the simplest

[01:02:24] Elements so he could use as a vehicle For the things he wanted to experiment with Technologically It is certainly not As a piece of work On the page At the level of his best films No I would put this at the lower end

[01:02:39] Of his best of his films But that's Mostly because he's made a lot of good films He's made a lot of good films But I just don't think it's bad I don't either I think it's kind of a gentleman 6 I think it's kind of inching To that gentleman 7

[01:02:52] I think it's in that zone I think it might be a 7 I think as a movie itself It's a gentleman 6 And I think with the added boon Of the moments where the technology really sings It hits 7s You know Most people are saying it's a 2

[01:03:06] And some people are walking out After the first 3 minutes Despite being critics Who are paid to sit and watch them all day Oh whatever I mean Dave If he's I don't know I can't speak to whether the person Who walked out I know that was reviewing it

[01:03:19] I don't know But What was I going to say A German man A lot of German men Involved A German eye program Clive Owen has Cloned Will Smith to say And I like that this is not overwrought But the implication that Will Smith

[01:03:36] Had sort of a hard ass military father There's just I think just the one flashback Basically Which is also one of Visually the most impressive moments in the film Very interesting moment visually Where he's underwater Having been a to end Then you cut to this weird Dream

[01:03:53] No no it's all just a dream He's not underwater when this is happening But the light starts going blue red Blue red And he transforms to the younger version of himself And his father reaches out for him above the water

[01:04:02] And then it turns out like that's his alarm flashing Right But yeah it's cool It's also a moment where you go like The thing that I still think Sort of Bumps the most With high frame rate Is Editing Yeah There's something about the clarity of the image

[01:04:20] Where every time it cuts It feels like Whoa why did the image out of my window Just change Right And so the movie works best When it is in sustained wonders Yes When it Does a lot of them Uses camera moves above cuts

[01:04:34] Or if it's working close ups If it's holding on those close ups for a long time Sometimes the camera moves Are so noticeable though Like there's just one where he's Totally In profile and the camera moves around Look at his face And I don't know you just

[01:04:48] Right you just really feel the movement Yeah totally It's so weird It's so weird It's so weird The thing But that's why I'm like You could do this with a concert film You know Look I You could pick material that's more stage bound I mean there

[01:05:03] Especially a movie like this What you wanted to see this so badly In regular frame rate Like let him take his swings Yeah I don't know Let this be like a fucking Interesting like Experiment and cinematic history Right And maybe it pays out in dividends

[01:05:17] For someone else ten years on the line Or maybe James Cameron makes it work Or whatever Yeah If he Does Look he's not an old man But he's an older man If he does this for like The rest of his life and kind of gets like

[01:05:30] Sucked up in it Like you know I could see where it could be Eventually become a bit of a distraction Right and look Where he keeps kind of sort of trying To solve this problem I hope he doesn't Because his last two films

[01:05:40] Have had the two weakest screenplays Of his entire career Right And it feels like it is because He is prioritizing the other stuff A little bit A little bit of a bummer Yeah I think Billy Lynn is oftentimes An aggressively bad screenplay I think it's a bad screenplay

[01:05:54] I think this one This is rudimentary Just fears kind of bland Yeah exactly Right Now Clive Owen is weird in this movie Because it's the thing He's a weird actor He's a very weird actor The thing about Clive Owen Because people pegged him as

[01:06:09] You know the James Bond that never was Yeah And so then his rep became just like Well you know He's a cool British guy And maybe because he didn't get James Bond He'll end up having a Weird or more varied career as a leading man Right

[01:06:20] And in fact he has ended up being one of those guys Who is like box office poison as a lead And he has starred in some great films And he's starred in some terrible films But all of them bomb Yeah What's his highest grossing film? As a lead

[01:06:33] Probably King Arthur by default But it lost the entire Like earnings of a nation You know And like Children of Men did 30 Which was a big big failure Good movie though A perfect film I think it's a perfect film I know a lot of people agree with you

[01:06:49] I think it's a perfect film Could you call No You couldn't call Sin City A lead Even though he's one of like three leads Yeah I'd say he's a lead of a third of that movie And that's the closest

[01:07:02] And that's kind of the only one that can act The only film you can Really call him the lead of That was a genuine big hit Is the inside man And he's the second lead to Denzel Right Like I mean he's certainly Above the title Big character

[01:07:15] There's no question Yeah But not really the lead He's the second lead to Denzel And Jody is promoted above Here are some of his flops Duplicity Good movie Derailed Bad movie Children of Men Good movie Closer I think a terrible movie But people like it Oscar nomination though

[01:07:32] The international I've never seen Some people speak up for that Last Sydney Pollock No that's Oh that's the Tom Tviker movie The one with the Guggenheim The Goog Chase I always get that confused With the interpreter Yeah no I know Right What else have we got here

[01:07:47] Right that's him and Amy Watts We've got like Yeah What's it called Shoot em up Shoot em up Beyond borders Yeah We're getting into the real You know Less than one million What's the final profit Not the final profit Final gross on King Arthur 51 Wow 51 But 203 worldwide

[01:08:09] I think they escaped with their hides I think that movie It cost a hundred I think it cost more than a hundred But even the Whatever Like it's not Not a hit The story I remember hearing about that movie Is there was one wall of one set

[01:08:21] That cost a million dollars In the castle I remember a picture It was a million dollar wall What are you looking movie Yeah it's really boring looking film Yeah Anyway What was I gonna say But he's in that zone That I feel like You and I

[01:08:36] Tend to love When a guy Who was supposed to be A star Was supposed to be the lead Has sort of failed by conventional standards And gets to move into character roles And very often sometimes They find a second life And find a greater comfort

[01:08:50] Suddenly playing the heavy Or the mentor Or the color Or whatever And This is sort of the second time He's doing it after Valerian Valerian he's very similar to this He is Kind of an obvious villain The company man Yeah He telegraphs The bad guy from the beginning

[01:09:08] Don't you fucking You know what he does But he's not a physical threat Here's the thing about Clive Yeah As we sort of You know unfortunately point out That he's had a lot of flops And recently He also made the nick And he's not

[01:09:22] It's not like he's not even the best thing About the nick But he's good And the nick rules Yeah And that thing Air for two seasons It's really interesting piece of Art That has been a little bit forgotten But I feel like has its fans I don't know

[01:09:38] Chief among them James Newman And Antonia Dofan No sure My mother and brother I think it's their favorite TV show of all time It's a great show Yeah So it sounds like he's completely Blown it No But he has made a lot of bad movies

[01:09:53] It's a weird career And you kind of Would love to see him Kill it in a role like this You would love to see Clive Owen Show up as the villain And be like This is where he fits into the studio landscape Sort of have more of

[01:10:06] In this Have more of like The closer energy Yeah That weird bristling aggressive energy He has in that movie Right Like and in this he's a I don't know He's kind of a jerk Yeah Well this is a bad guy Look This guy's no good I know

[01:10:22] He used a person To make a person I like bad guys sometimes This guy's just a jerk Yeah this guy's just like Listen why'd you fucking do it Cause you know We had to have the army of no Parents or whatever So I was one of the worst

[01:10:34] Justifications for a bad guy Jesus This performance just kind of doesn't register Aside from one nice moment at the end But I think he's kind of stuck Between two takes on the character One of them is The idea is that he has raised Junior as his son Yeah

[01:10:51] This isn't just an experiment Right he's got his maybe army of clones Junior is a little more like Boba Fett to Django Fett Like this special clone You're adopted Right I'm your father Left off at the doorstep I've raised you They have photos of the two of them

[01:11:04] Fishing together They spend every birthday together This is really his dad Right And there's a version of this movie Where the performance is Here's a really fucked up guy But you forefront the dad This guy actually loves his son And he's justifying This is Pinocchio and he's yeah

[01:11:20] Justifying this more really fucked up thing he did And you play the warmth of that And it creates an interesting contrast Or the other version is You do the weird bristly energy Yes Right and you go total Like what the fuck is up with this guy

[01:11:32] Why does he make me so uncomfortable And instead he kind of plays it like The new CEO who's in charge of Coca Cola This week Yeah, right It's just nothing Yeah It's just nothing He's got one great moment at the end

[01:11:45] When it's sort of the two Will Smiths Facing off with him Yeah that scene is just kind of interesting And he tries to transition between the two Being an asshole to old Will Smith Cause again And being mentoring to his son And there's one where he just doesn't

[01:11:58] Pause between the two sentences Moment that's Oh you're right Right Yeah And that could have been the whole performance maybe I kind of chuckled at that See when And I'm going to reveal there's a third clone I kind of At one point I'm like

[01:12:13] I hope he cloned himself And made me a super I thought it was going to be younger The biggest reveal in the movie Is that there's this super villain He looks like Night Monkey He's like a dude in all black jumpsuit With a full mask Doing crazy backflips

[01:12:28] And he's unmasked And it turns out yes It's another Will Smith And it's an even less Will Smith with no morals or feelings He's like season 4 He can't feel pain Right exactly The season where Will went to the dark side Exactly Which Fine

[01:12:45] Cause that's the whole Clive Owen thing is What if we could take some of all of your skills And attributes and remove all of the pain Your father And darkness And no parents to worry about their sons You know and daughters going off to war

[01:12:58] Like he has this whole argument of like You know also you had essentially he's making drones You had a shitty dad And part of Clive Owen's argument is I've been a great father to this boy I raised him well That's what he tries to argue

[01:13:10] I gave him a better life than you had Right So that's all fine But I really wanted, as you said I thought it might be a young Clive Owen Which would be kind of spooky and weird I really wanted it to be a young Benedict Wong Was denied

[01:13:25] Well you want as much Wong as you can get Damn that would have been good too David But you know there's a I mean look let me just say it Two Wongs would make her right Young Pope Young Wong He just took your joke

[01:13:42] Threw it out the window and it caught on fire With his joke Let me say this Imagine if HBO was like We're proud to announce a sequel to the young Pope The young Wong It's the young Wong We got Benedict Wong with $200 million worth of Daging technology

[01:13:55] He looks like he looked in sunshine And you're like Okay Okay Absolutely Oh boy There's something creepy though and I What I thought going in Yeah Was that this movie was gonna be The young Will Smith was just gonna be a killing machine

[01:14:14] And you have to stop him So is your pet So the thing that really took me by surprise in this movie Apart from the fact that it looks bananas Most of the movie is him reaching out to this Is him reading this kid Trying to make a connection

[01:14:24] Obviously you have that initial moment Kind of like in Looper A lot of these movies were like He sees him and he can't pull the trigger Like he's so designed But he sees this boy He looks like him Can't pull the trigger Fine

[01:14:34] But then instead of then getting over it And having to fight this evil kid He just reaches out to him as a human Bridges I mean that's the only thing A massive divide The movie becomes Will Smith And they work together Older Will Smith Trying to build bridges

[01:14:48] To reach the kid emotionally Because he understands how wounded and scared he is And he understands like What killing will do to a man You know As it's done to him Over all the years What's that thing he says at the end With Clive Owen

[01:15:01] I mean he doesn't say You don't want those nightmares You don't want that haunting You don't want those ghosts That's what he says Young Will Smith is about to shoot Clive Owen in the face Out of retaliation And he says Don't do this Trust me

[01:15:15] You're gonna lose a part of yourself You can't get back You don't want those ghosts And then he shoots Clive Owen himself Right and that's the point Which is I'm not saying this guy should stay alive I'm just saying You're the guy who pulled the trigger

[01:15:25] On your own father I understand how these things reverberate Yes Yeah And that's where the English stuff comes in Now When you reveal that there's a third Will Smith It does make me kind of Miss the potential of A finale in which they are fighting

[01:15:41] Against an army of Will Smiths That's the other thing Is like Once I got past the like Is this gonna be young Clive Owen Because there's this one wild set piece Where you see like A fake military operation Where these training the Gemini soldiers Right So right

[01:15:55] I mean you could have been there Setting up an army of Will Smiths But then also Then you've just made Attack of the Clones Because then you could just have a scene Where Will Smith visits The fucking Camino people And they're like

[01:16:08] And here are the baby Will Smiths Eating their breakfast And here is teenage Will Smith You know like right Here's another thing you could do Fucking burly brawl Matrix Reload So you're just saying Like take every sort of Big attempted action movie made

[01:16:22] To sort of clear this like Impossible gap I think you make that The final big set piece of the movie Is like When they're like The tank and here's a gunner And he's wearing a mask Who is this You have a whole squad of people around him Right

[01:16:36] And after the first guy is unmasked Then everyone else unmasked And it's like Here's 50 Will Smiths What? Copy paste it You've done all the work You built the thing But then you need to like Nuke them or something Like give me

[01:16:49] How do you stop an army of Will Smiths? Here's what I want You get a bunch of bees I want That's I forgot about the bees I want Oh yeah A big plot point in the movie Is they know they're the same person

[01:17:00] Because they're both allergic to bees Cause they're not just Which look This is a stupid 90s action movie I don't care about it It's fine But I feel like if you are Deathly allergic to bees You don't get to work for like Black ops It's a kryptonite

[01:17:14] Yeah you can't have that easy A kryptonite The world is full of bees A kryptonite that exists in the air at all times What else do we have to say about Gemini Man Anything? I mean So we talked to Klyvo And well the final scene Oh boy Yeah

[01:17:29] Okay So this movie I like the action sequences I really love Mary Elizabeth Winstead As a screen presence in general And Rose rooting for her And doesn't have a ton to do in this movie But she's a solid Kind of reliable player

[01:17:45] And it is one of those things Where if someone gives A successful performance in high frame rate It kind of shows you How It can be done Grounded and honest Their acting is Good call You know what I'm saying? Cause the phoniness rises right up to the top

[01:18:00] And she's someone who has played big And has played small And played in multiple genres But she's got The real fucking goods Yeah she's great Doesn't have a ton to do Very solid in this film Nice that she is not sexualized Agree

[01:18:18] I mean there's the one scene where she has to undress The strip search scene But I feel like they play that It's not salacious They don't play it salaciously And also that's just like a fun Set piece Where when the junior is doing that She's like Okay

[01:18:35] You know Like she's acting Like she's being put upon And then later of course Turns out he was totally right To try and find a bug on her It was in her tooth Cool spy move by her That was fun I like that That's my favorite part

[01:18:48] That whole catacombs fight Where they're all kind of doing spy tricks to each other The grenade, the trip wire The thing in the water All that Yeah and there's also that great payoff where like Will Smith is like You don't get it You're me They cloned you

[01:19:05] Your whole life is a lie Why else do you think they sent me They sent you to kill me And Junior's like because I'm the best And Wilson is holding a gun to his head And he says clearly now Clearly you are not the best

[01:19:17] Which is just such a successful It's a good Will Smith line Will Smith line Yes But here's a key distinction This movie is not using de-aging De-aging technology as we know it Okay Is Photographing The actor On camera Yeah Taking The footage Okay And digitally augmenting it Okay

[01:19:40] You know it's like doing Photoshop Well what are they doing here What they are doing is They built a completely realistic looking Digital 20 year old Will Smith That is being puppeteered in the same way that Andy Serkis puppeteers Smeakle Okay

[01:20:00] And there is a big difference because one is Will Smith on set Sure With shoe polish in his hair Yeah with the dots on his face and all that Right it's what Sam Jackson did It's what all the Marvel movies do It's what the Irishmen do

[01:20:11] And then someone goes in and digitally erases The wrinkles and tightens up Right And that's sometimes why it looks a little wonky Because you're like oh there are postures still there Yeah it's still the person that This is like Plan of the Apes or Lord of the Rings

[01:20:24] Or any of those things where they're just building Essentially a digital character And having it puppeteered by someone's Motion capture acting Right And it is Very successful By and large It's especially successful because you know what Will Smith looked like at that age And the performance comes across

[01:20:44] Right There are moments where bumps Like we talked about I wonder if some of those are smoothed over In lower frame rate or if it works better In high frame rate I don't know we'll talk about it and talk in the walk Okay But

[01:20:57] But there's this final scene After all the action is settled And this scene is a calamity It's the last scene of the movie So it's especially calamitous If it was somewhere else in the movie It would be bad As the last scene of the movie

[01:21:10] It's kind of inexplicable I leaned over to you and said Did they shoot this two weeks ago Because it feels like a desperate last second Like, soaring to try to put a super happy ending On the movie And also the technology looks Super unfinished It's also just bizarre

[01:21:26] Because it's like It's bizarre He suddenly looks like a render from He doesn't look good Grand theft auto-sand and drink You have this scene where the guy's like The handler's like I'm sorry that all happened I looked into it And there's no more clones Will Smith's like

[01:21:42] Sounds good, I'll see you later Which is, you're just like What? I mean the people were killed Benedict Wong He got blown up It's already a kind of tone deaf scene But it takes place in a bar And you're like Okay whatever let him leave the bar Right

[01:21:56] And then we cut to A university campus Where they have been earlier in the film Okay Mary Elizabeth Wynne says Taking them there to do a DNA test To prove that in fact Because she believed Oh maybe he had a son That he didn't know about

[01:22:10] And this is where she makes A startling discovery He's not like you, he is And so we cut forward Six months later or so And Junior is now Enrolled at this university Yeah, at like Gemini University And they're just like Sitting on the lawn Making small talk

[01:22:27] And Junior comes Strolling onto the quad Bast in sunlight Carrying books Big man on campus Making jokes And everything about it is fucking weird It's so weird He looks terrible Yes It is completely unconvincing The dialogue is Wouldn't as fuck It's very much like

[01:22:45] Like Mary Elizabeth Wynne says Like you should do the humanities And Will Smith's like No, no You should do engineering Or whatever It becomes like Father Knows Best Yeah, it's so weird And it's not just That it is weird That the film has a happy ending

[01:22:59] Because there are happy endings in this film That could have been Somewhat sold Right It's that the ending has everyone Suddenly acting out of super Out of character In that they are Weirdly happy Right Like everyone is upbeat Not just in a better place In their life Right

[01:23:14] And yeah It's super Super fucking unconcerned And it leaves a bad taste In your mouth Yeah It is weird how weird it looks And how weird Weirdly off it is, totally Yeah I think it was shot late I think it must have been It has to have been

[01:23:27] There's no question Everything about it's wrong Yeah Anyway, that's okay though I feel like we can have more to say about this I feel like J.D. is writing some sort of like Manifesto right now Yes I kind of want to see it again Yeah

[01:23:46] I like Ang Lee We got to see it stand out for him Right And we have to know We got it David, we got it now But we should see the like The Cobble Hill Cinema Like the worst theater in particular But I think we should take

[01:24:00] I think you should take A Lance Moore sets advice here You're saying I ought to know You ought to know Should we play the box office game? Yes And Ben under this Please play a Lance Moore sets You ought to know

[01:24:13] This is the first time that a Rock Jump Scam Is being scored I will definitely do that And that's not a copyrighted for a year So the box office hasn't happened yet We're recording this a couple days Before the movie comes out I have a feeling

[01:24:23] It's the only big release of them Not true Oh, what's the other one? Adam's Family The movie The Fall And there's one other release Jeksy That's a good name for a movie Because I'm immediately like gross That sounds like a bad sounding word Well, it's a great pitch

[01:24:42] What if her but horny That's it Yep Jeksy Remember the movie Her That Won Best Screenplay? Yeah What if instead The phone acts crazy Because you know Girlfriends are crazy Jeksy Alright, you're right So Adam's Family will get What, 20 million or whatever?

[01:25:04] I think it's going to have a soft 20 It feels like no one knows that movie is happening Who is it? It's a United Artist MGM who doesn't have an animation division Here's the history of this movie Chris Melendari or whatever his name is Who runs Illumination Okay

[01:25:19] Gets the rights for Adam's Family And he's like, I got it We're going to do Adam's Family We're going to court Tim Burton And go you get to make another 3D stop motion film I think he should not be doing Right? But the deal almost happens

[01:25:31] And is broken on variety And immediately all parties deny it And the movie never comes to fruition Okay And Deadline has spent years saying We swear to God that scoop That scoop was right And the movie just fell apart Okay But then they were trying to make it

[01:25:46] Without Burton Yeah In CGI And then they sort of gave up interest And then MGM Who I think had a steak In the Adam's Family TV show And the original movies Co-produced with Paramount maybe Yeah Said, oh we got an idea Remember Sausage Party

[01:26:04] That animated movie that was somehow made For like no money Yeah Let's hire those guys and have them do it In the same cheap way Even though we don't have any animation department Looks really cruddy So you know how Sausage Party Was made for so little money?

[01:26:17] I would assume that it's some sort of Massive labor violation Correct, thank you So I don't want to know the stories about How Adam's Family was made And it looks really bad And they've already made two Adam's Family movies and their masterpieces

[01:26:27] Would you say that this situation seems a little Oookie to you? Seriously, Oookie? Yeah Okay, altogether spooky? Yeah I think Gemini Man will You know, I think it can inch to like 25 So you think it's going to open at number one? No My friend Oh right

[01:26:44] Retired bit is going to be I assume You know somewhere in the sort of 45 range Yeah And Ben, can you please Bleep out the first time he said The name of the movie Sorry for making more work for you I forgot that we retired

[01:26:59] The bit about the very successful film That is certainly going to stay at number one You could say we not only Retired the bit, we canceled him So I'm going to say it's going to be Retired bit number one Gemini Man Sneaking number two Right over Adam's Family

[01:27:13] Number three with Abominable At number four and Down to Naby At number five Okay, here's my prediction I think retired bit It's probably going to have a pretty good hold Because I keep on hearing from people Who are like, I guess I got to see this thing

[01:27:28] To be part of the conversation There's such a morbid curiosity So a pretty good hold would be more What like in the high, the 50s I think it's going to be mid 50s Okay It's been doing really good Strong weekday business Yeah It has Oh boy

[01:27:42] It made like 10 million on Monday Ben and I saw morning screening Literally the earliest screening we could see People were there And it was like 60% full At 10.30 am It's crazy Crazy Right I think it's going to do like 52 or something Then I think Adam's Family

[01:27:57] Is going to probably do like 20 or 21 Right And then I think Gemini Man Is unfortunately going to do like 17 or 18 It's possible It could be a thing where like the balloon The air just gets out of the balloon

[01:28:09] I think you're going to see a bit of an Ad Astra No, Ad Astra overperformed its tracking Gemini Man is tracking at 30 But I'm talking about the number Ad Astra was projected to Perform at like 14 or 15 And then it did like 18 or 19 Yeah

[01:28:24] And I think that's what Gemini Man is going to do Which will be below its tracking I'm just talking about the number The pure number itself No, I think the tracking I think it would be higher than that Because the frame rate It just adds money Okay

[01:28:34] Agree or disagree That's the tension of this episode Is that I'm making a different projection What incredible tension Retired bit at 52 Yeah Adam's Family at a soft 21 Yep Gemini Man Just imagine who won Best Actu- Olivia Coleman And the Oscar goes to Joaquin Phoenix for Retired Bit

[01:29:00] Oh boy I think a I think a Bominable is going to take a big hit For Adam's Family this weekend So I think Doughton's going to jump up to number four That's my other big prediction I'm going out of the limo trying to create some tension

[01:29:14] I don't know We like this movie and no one else likes it And everyone's going to say we're in the bag Matt Singer liked it Angie Hahn liked it There are people out there There are dozens of us to use the You already mentioned Stefansky and Patches

[01:29:30] A legion of brilliant people 100% But look, I got to say We had so many listeners who Enjoyed taking the walk last year And talking that walk And Would message us And this is why we want to try to do a screen this year And say

[01:29:50] I feel so frustrated that I didn't see that movie When I had the chance I didn't know, I didn't get it Is there any way that movie ever comes back It's ever-viewable In that In that frame rate We tried to make it happen I promise you this

[01:30:07] If other people take the high frame rate Ball and roll with it And Cameron converts enough screens We will not stop trying to find a way to Screen Billy Lynn in 120 in New York City We're going to keep that torch aflame For as long as we can

[01:30:21] But if you're curious about that And You're into some real nerdy shit Which most people on this podcast are You owe it to yourself to go see this In the best format you can Whether or not you like it It's kind of important I agree with that

[01:30:37] What else are you going to do? Go be a person and have fun Yeah No one who listens to this should know how to do that So crack open a can of liquid death And stroll your way down To the cinema And pay, I don't know, $47

[01:30:54] That's the other problem I don't know what the pricing difference is I think it's like a 3D movie but I'm not sure And go see Gemini Man My big takeaway from this What I said walking out of theater is I feel like he solved 60% of the technology problems

[01:31:09] And I was not expecting him to make this big of a leap Which is both an achievement But also kind of an argument against like A little bit of a regular movie Because if you're going to just keep making movies

[01:31:17] To figure out how to make one of these movies In a certain point, what the fuck are we all doing here? You're great at making normal films What's frustrating is It feels like he's probably One movie away from making the thing sing That's your argument

[01:31:29] And my argument is Maybe They're maybe not going to let him do this ever again That's another argument My fear is That he will have now spent two movies in a row Working with technology and go great So I'm going to make another angly drama

[01:31:42] And they'll go sorry That's not an option anymore Do you want to direct Solomon Grundy? And maybe he will Maybe he will And it can be released on a Thursday I don't know As long as they start production on a Monday David's holding up his arms

[01:32:01] I'm going to top that I don't know I got to go see Hades Town Oh, congratulations Thank you So I got to go do Any final thoughts then I can't wait to see Hades Town Not from you, from Ben The voice of the people That's true

[01:32:16] I'd say I second your Substances? Would they help? Hurt with this one? Whoa You're so pretty dry Although your chain smoking outside the theater That's true I was very dry though Yeah, it might enhance If you take mushrooms It would be kind of an interesting experience

[01:32:33] I a couple times tapped David And pointed over to you And you were sitting With your mouth and gait Oh yeah And it was genuine It was like when we saw Like the first place I mean that's just classic Ben There were visual moments

[01:32:43] Where you were just kind of like Whoa, this is fucking nuts Yeah, no, I was like I was locking in And kind of having that Like this is trippy Whether or not you like it It's trippy and you owe yourself the experience Tripping

[01:32:55] And I say that especially as A nerd who doesn't like trucks And needs movies to provide my trips This is a cinematic trip Cool We're done But be careful with mushrooms Okay, thank you all for listening Be careful Remember to write reviews and subscribe

[01:33:11] Thank you to Ante for Guto For our social media Yes Thanks to Leemunk I refer to the theme song Jump on Pat Reynolds for artwork Thanks, bud Head over to the Patreon We just released Our Whisper the Heart episode We just released Ant-Man on the Wasp Tomorrow

[01:33:29] Yeah, we are about to release Ant-Man on the Wasp Yeah, we're about to release Ant-Man on the Wasp Yeah, we're about to release Ant-Man on the Wasp That's a fun one That's a good one Sure And what more is there to say? It's us just saying that

[01:33:42] For two hours on Big Nights Big and small Please give us your five dollars And Next week we get back to Miyazaki We're rounding it out Next week's Ponio Yeah, with Shirley One of your all time best movie friends Hell yeah Shirley Lee Yes The Tramphant Return Yep

[01:34:01] On to Talk Ponio All right, we're done Come on Thank you And as always I'm still here Oh, God Richard T. Bate What, you're not happy to see me? It's a good event For you