Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with David Ehrlich

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to express All you need to know is that the name of the show Is Blank Check I don't understand. Why the legend about the city of gold?

[00:00:24] The uggo word for gold translates as treasure But their treasure wasn't gold. It was podcasting Podcasting was their treasure No wonder I forgot that line Howl! Welcome to Blank Check I said it for some reason Yeah, with Griffin and David With Griffin and David

[00:00:49] Everybody, my name's Griffin Newman I am Mutte Sims David Mutte Sims David Sims the third The name I picked for myself But he picked the name Mutte This is a podcast about filmographers Directors who have massive success early on in their career

[00:01:05] And then are issued a series of blank checks To make whatever wild passion projects or follies they want And sometimes there's You remember that's this theme? I thought you guys just pick people you liked Yeah, kind of Call me column B Sometimes those checks are clear

[00:01:24] But sometimes they bounce, baby Good We are hashtag the two friends And the director that we are currently investigating is Steven Spielberg Asterix, the Dreamworks years Yeah, I don't know if you knew that I don't know anything Yeah, we're only doing Dreamworks

[00:01:41] The idea of his Dreamworks was the blank check he got The ultimate blank check The biggest blank check He wrote it himself His own damn studio His own name's on the check He got a K and a G in there with him

[00:01:53] Don't forget the K and the G though Don't forget the K and the G SKG though This main series is called Pog Me if you count And we've gotten to probably what is the most Contentious Yeah, right? I would say so I'd say the hot button Movie Project

[00:02:12] Yes It is Indiana Jones Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Now Kingdom of the Crystal Pog Give those words a second to resonate with people And bounce around their ear holes Indiana Jones Don't just rush over them like that And the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

[00:02:30] Okay, let's try alternating I take one word you take the next word Okay Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull And what a skull it is We have very special guests with us today This is a great time on the podcast

[00:02:47] You might remember him from our episode on The Village That's right Great episode Great movie Someone say your finest episode It was a nice, it was a late night Blank check My mom said that Yeah It was a blank check after dark Yeah, a blank check after dark

[00:03:02] This is a blank check in the late afternoon Correct I don't know what that is Also known from the Fighting the Worm podcast And Is working any wire? Yes And what else? What else do we know you from, buddy? I am His great Twitter fiends Great Twitter fiends

[00:03:20] And everywhere But I just, I always wanted to be known as the guy from that Blank Check episode of The Village So we can just leave it at that Well, mission accomplished David Erlich is here with us in the studio today Happy to be here

[00:03:32] To talk about this film Now I David Hello Usually you know where it kind of serves a contact Sure I didn't do that much research today But from what I gathered This was the first in a planned franchise About Indiana Jones

[00:03:45] That I think never got off the ground We're not doing that bit What bit? Oh, God, good friend I assume Georgie Porgy Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford Got together with the intention of making a series of If you call something Indiana Jones and

[00:03:59] You assume they're going to be others Yeah And what you really want to do with the first one Is give it a real Trips off the tongue name Like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Yeah And way too many characters There was only one fantastic beast

[00:04:09] And where to find them And then we all as a society agreed that we need We needed no additional beasts There was only Divergent series Allegiant They decided not to do more of the Allegiance Isn't it funny that they're just not going to do the last one

[00:04:23] Yeah, they just They were like I don't know, it'll be a TV show And then it was like Will it? And they were like It'll be a web series It'll be a podcast A TV dispenser is like Look, I'll do it You know, I'm on board

[00:04:34] I heard the next Divergent Is going to be the first movie Really straight to granola bar It's going to be on your traffic light On the yellow You get to see two seconds of Divergent See part two, Allegiant Is that what it is?

[00:04:48] Is it Divergent, Allegiant part two? I think they were going to call it Like Resurgent or something They were, I don't know You know Okay, so Divergent, Detergent Officially off the books But this movie Look, no bits I'm going to be straight with you No bits

[00:05:04] It's the fourth It's the fourth Indy and Jon Snow Indy I guess not Because we're living in a weird time Where there is an Indiana Jones 5 On the book Set to go Disney How old is Harrison Ford now? Is that like 70? I think 74 He's 74

[00:05:17] Want to take a quick glimpse? I think he's 74 But he has to play old versions Of all of his most iconic characters Before he retires He is 74 Oh, so he's going to be An old like That detective from Witness Next, that'd be good

[00:05:29] Yeah, well no, he was in Because you know, of course Of course, there's Star Wars He played Runner Played Runner, that was the other one I was thinking of, yeah Witness, Mosquito, Old Mosquito Code Old Mosquito Code Old Mosquito Code, so let's get that going That's going great

[00:05:39] What else can we do? Old What was that movie about? The Park Nights 6 days, 7 nights You gave it Oh, I see what you're doing I just got it I got it Thank you So old Ford Random Hearts Oh yeah, Random Hearts Now, but Sidney Pollock, R.I.P.

[00:05:54] You know, you gotta get Living Directors That's the thing about Harrison Ford His directors are dying Old Hollywood homicide Yes I think that guy's sort of Silver like homicide That's a, what's his name? Ron Shelton, who did Bulderm That's right Bollywood homicide With Harrison Ford That'd be good

[00:06:13] Yes, multicultural Exactly To get like Prenkaya Chopra in there Yes, the great Prenkaya Chopra And also I thought it was Priyanka Priyanka, I have no idea Yeah, I don't either If I mangled her name You don't watch Quantico, bro You don't watch the pilot of Quantico

[00:06:30] I pilot Quantico That's a great episode So we're gonna talk about Everyone made extraordinary measures Extraordinary measures And now Brendan Fraser plays like a prison guard Who's fat on the affair season 3 Brendan Fraser is on the affair season 3 Season 3 in like a recurring role And he's fat

[00:06:50] He's like fatter than me He's like not in good shape Did you read that recent like Oral history of Crash? Where they talked about That the only reason that fell Like getting Brendan Fraser was what got them the green light

[00:07:02] That's the only reason they got a green light I read it for a reason in one scene And he's just like I'm the DA And I say racism is great He like points at the camera and he's like Where's like you got a gross beef sandwich

[00:07:14] I can eat on my way out of here There's a whiteboard with the word racism on it And he circles it six times The turns of the camera gives a thumb up You can't tell me if there was a web series Called Fat Brendan Fraser

[00:07:26] Starring Brendan Fraser as his fat self You wouldn't watch every week I would watch him on Crackle as hard as I could Do you want to know what the weirdest thing is about Brendan Fraser? On Snap, on Crackle, on Pop I don't care God I love Crackle Originals

[00:07:40] Quickly guys, I noticed You do love a Crackle Originals series I know this is a sidebar We're all one day going to be on a Crackle Originals series So we shouldn't diss him too much I know this is a sidebar And I know we're already avoiding talking

[00:07:50] At the movie at hand But can we just quickly go around the table And everyone named their top 5 Crackle Originals I can't I need to do top 10 I can't limit it to 5 I mean, Art of the Steel is one I really couldn't name a Crackle Originals series

[00:08:05] Number 2 has to be start up The thing about Crackle is once their PR person said Like, I know the pilot and second episodes of this are bad But keep watching And I was like, you're the PR person for crying out loud That's not how this works Anyway

[00:08:24] Well the thing is about him playing old Versus himself Is like in Star Wars And in Blade Runner supposedly According to this plot synopsis that League It's the same goddamn plot Which is like, you know, young people Gotta find him Yeah, like, you know, uncover

[00:08:41] You know, a secret scroll of information That leads them to old Harrison Ford Who's gonna be sarcastic It mimics the process of probably getting him to say yes To be in your movie You gotta like track out to the mountains of wherever he lives With the flocker

[00:08:54] With a scroll With a scroll of a screenplay Be like, wait I got three words for you Old morning glory Who told you where I am I haven't been born in glory in a long time Afternoon glory? But I think the difference is with Indiana Jones

[00:09:12] Harrison Ford actually wants to do it Yes He loves Indiana Jones He's like, sign me up Which is weird Okay, there are a couple factors there Go ahead One is Indiana Jones is his favorite character Well, it makes sense He fucking loves Indiana Jones

[00:09:27] Hunsell is like, when do we get to kill this motherfucker? I want him dead I want it on screen Hunsell has always sort of been an albatross around his man You know, he has a difficult love-hate relationship with it Whereas Indiana Jones, he fucking loves

[00:09:41] He just thinks like, space and lasers are stupid Like, is it that simple, do you think? He's a practical man Yes, I think he's a practical man He likes working with his hands He likes flying a plane and crashing into a field

[00:09:52] And he likes piercing one of his own ears I rewatched Raiders of the Lost Ark as well last night I wanted to do a counterpoint, so I did these two as a double feature It's a little unfair to Crystal Skull in my opinion, but okay

[00:10:09] I thought you were just trying to see how much people could have grown as a filmmaker over Makes sense The years in between Well, here's what's embarrassing You watch Raiders of the Lost Ark, barely any CGI He didn't know how to use it yet

[00:10:19] Yeah, he hadn't mastered the CGI yet Animals are real, and it's like this guy's a fucking amateur Plus, a disappointing amount of Rain Windstone in that one Hardly any I know, I mean, if I spotted him, it might have been a mirage

[00:10:33] I think he played one of the dates Yeah, yeah One of the bad dates He's John Rhys Davis' hat Okay, carry on, sorry So he likes Indiana Jones Well, and I was watching Indiana Jones last night Raiders of the Lost Ark And just trying to go like, okay

[00:10:49] What is it that Crystalized, upon unintended In this movie that made this character really sticky in the culture You know And it's like there are very few examples of action heroes who are that cerebral Like Indiana Jones is this weird example of someone who's like a two-fisted

[00:11:10] You know kind of like adventure hero who's also like a big dork Yeah Is driven by like wanting to support a museum That's true And is able to like lecture at the drop of a hat Right

[00:11:21] And I think because Harrison Ford is often written off as just being like a movie star first and an actor second You know Yeah, definitely He's unfairly, I would say maligned, you know, certainly Yes And treated by his peers as such Yes

[00:11:37] And also he's got this reputation of like, he hates doing press He's crank, he's a grumpy, he's a stoner You know, like he's contradictory things Either he's just like a miss and throw up and he hates everything Or as a stoner, he's not paying attention to anything

[00:11:49] And I think he likes that Indiana Jones allows him to be an intellectual While also harnessing everything that he's innately good at The other factor is Harrison Ford owns a piece of Indiana Jones Right, so he gets the money Right

[00:12:04] He doesn't really have any vested interest in Star Wars It was a job, I think he feels an authorship over Indiana Jones That makes sense I mean that's why he got so pissed off at Shia LaBeouf Yes And the other part of it is

[00:12:14] Also Kashi'la was being annoying Yeah, being a little fart But the other part of it is And an interesting counterpoint to Ghostbusters Which was rebooted in 2016, Year of Our Lord It was Did anyone have anything to say about that? Or was that sort of pass on notice?

[00:12:30] Well, and it's bizarre because the Ghostbusters are women in this one In Indiana Jones and Kareen the Crystal Yes Yes They could've done with a couple of lady Ghostbusters in that movie There is one Her name's Irina Spalco and she's played like Kate Blanchett

[00:12:42] I think she gets busted and not like Goat She does get busted It didn't make me feel good though Yes, go on Cancel the show No, no, no, as you wanted to say about the Ghostbusters reboot Starring Melissa McCarthy

[00:12:55] There were deals in place with Indiana Jones and Ghostbusters To the big franchises of the 80s that I think you will never see replicated Ever again in this capacity Where like the stars have a piece of it And not only that They have the piece to block it

[00:13:10] Uh-huh Right, right, right So Ghostbusters it was like Bill Murray could be a little shit and be like I don't like this script and you can't do anything without me Ramis, Murray, Ackroyd and Reitman all had equal voting rights for Ghostbusters

[00:13:23] And no one could do anything with Ghostbusters without the four of them Yeah, but Ackroyd, you don't gotta worry about that guy Right I mean, you could just give him a bag of potato chips and say like It's Ghostbusters 3, here's the script and he'd be like

[00:13:32] This looks great Let's do this right now For so long they couldn't make a Ghostbusters 3 Not only because Bill Murray didn't want to do it and wouldn't read the script But because even if they tried to do one without him

[00:13:43] They couldn't do it until he said thumbs up And he was like, I don't want to exist And they finally like We've talked enough about Ghostbusters India Jones is the same thing Where Lucas, Spielberg and Ford all three have to prove at the same time

[00:13:56] Like pressing a button simultaneously Yeah right, it's like a nuclear launch Yes it is It's harder though You gotta time it exactly You gotta time it exactly and George Lucas has to agree which is not easy Yeah Right, well that was the problem right?

[00:14:09] It means specifically for Lucas Yeah And each of them gets like 11% of the first dollar gross Like 33% of that movie's gross went to the three of them So yeah, Harrison Ford likes money a lot He talks about this openly He loves doing stuff for money

[00:14:28] He doesn't lower his quote That's why in the early 2000s his career sort of torpedoed when he He makes movies like Firewall Because it would pay him $20 million Firewall

[00:14:38] And he turned down a lot of more interesting roles where he could have evolved into becoming an elder statesman character actor Yeah sure, whatever True Agreed on all points So these are reasons why Harrison Ford loves Indiana Jones He loves Indiana Jones

[00:14:51] And so they made another Indiana Jones How many years later was it? It was in 18, 19 Something like that 89 to 2008, it's 19 years 19 years later they made Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull So the first three Indiana Jones movies all contained within one decade right?

[00:15:09] Erlich, what do you think of Indiana Jones? Overall As a guy and as a franchise Like let's say before Crystal Skull were you an indie fan or were you sort of an indie I was conversant in the indie world But it wasn't, it wasn't your

[00:15:23] I work at Indie Wire after all I got it Which was founded by Indiana Jones Yeah it was And then we realized that the only had four movies to talk about and we would occasionally dip into the adventures of young Indiana Jones

[00:15:36] And the video game that was made Oh the Loot of Stars video game Very very good Loot of Stars With Atlantis, the Atlantean But even then could only generate enough content for one maybe two days and so we had to diversify

[00:15:47] You sold out, started talking about independent films and the rest of the story That's the origin story of Indie Wire But I And your editor is a Crystal Skull alien We get all of our, we have to submit all of our pitches to the Crystal Skull

[00:16:01] Through John Hurd They all spin around you as you read your copy Tony Erdman listicle and it's like Great John Goodman starts like whacking spoons together But I What am I talking about? I wish John Goodman would be so good as an ox

[00:16:17] John Goodman would be fun in this movie I think Indiana Jones is fine I think that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a borderline masterpiece but we'll get there That's why we got you here

[00:16:27] But yeah the movies, very few movies of this ilk have a special place in my heart I did not watch them repeatedly as a child They did not sort of, were not branded upon my brain But in a way that like the Lord of the Rings films did

[00:16:43] I don't know maybe I just gave more shit then or was in like a more formative stage in my life I grew up brain-aged later I don't know but they're fine movies I like them These are important points

[00:16:54] One is that I feel like you take a pretty hard stance against a franchise filmmaking right now As many film critics do but Not out of principle just by proxy of watching the movies

[00:17:06] Sure, I feel like when I read your reviews of whatever the latest entry is in any major franchise And sometimes you like them more and sometimes you like them less There's a real palpable frustration with what has happened to American film culture Yeah, that would be fair

[00:17:20] It's because usually you don't have actual artists behind the camera on these films And they are not given a set of guidelines that are amenable towards making art Yeah All true

[00:17:31] And I think the other thing is you don't have a sort of reverential nostalgia for the movies of your childhood I have an active antipathy for the movies of my childhood I didn't want to say that

[00:17:41] They made me into the man I am today and who wants to be that Yes Stranger things can kiss my ass Well, stranger things can kiss all of our asses God, it'll blow How could you watch something by a guy's name the Duffer Brothers?

[00:17:52] Have some self-respect, come on I don't have a lot of self-respect but I did not finish Stranger Things That's the only bit of self-respect I've ever had turning off Stranger Things It was a banner day for me I was moving when Stranger Things happened Yeah

[00:18:06] I was like moving apartments and I was just like Listen, if I wanted to watch a movie from the 80s I'd pop in a little film I like to call Broadcast News, alright Hey, you're in the right place You're one of the best

[00:18:15] But as far as this nostalgic horseshit goes In Deanna Jones movies Is there something... I mean, at least two of them are excellent Yes, at least two of them are excellent I would agree with that But the point is, I mean, it's not a franchise that you revere

[00:18:30] It doesn't have some sort of emotional like corridor in your heart No Which is the same for me, I was also... I mean, I liked Deanna Jones But respect the craft I gotta tell you this right now I just gotta come out and say this

[00:18:40] I was thinking about this when you were talking about Harrison Ford as a guy I would not be sad if he died Wow, that's just crazy I'm not saying that I want him to die You're just saying like... alright, alright Okay, alright

[00:18:53] She got a few things to say Should I cut that out or... You know what I'm saying? I do know what you're saying You know what I'm saying? It's like we all we do now is I agree with this one And I disagree with professional capacity

[00:19:04] It's just more celebrities We all get together on social media and process our loss through them And I am certainly not... Not hoping that he dies Neither am I I hope that he lives a long and happy life

[00:19:16] I am hoping just because I'm in his little book I want I just have... I have no personal connection to him as a human being whatsoever And there's nothing for me to connect to Like I felt sort of the same way about Carrie Fisher

[00:19:28] Until I saw Bright Lights And started really... And then she died And I started engaging with it And I was like, oh I can understand her as a person I get you know because when it feels like something is very unfinished It's very heartbreaking for me

[00:19:40] I don't usually get affected by celebrities dying Because it's sort of... I mean how much of my energy can I devote to these things You know I just can't be sad all the time essentially I refuse to be

[00:19:50] But things like Carrie Fisher or somewhere where it just feels like No no no, it's just too bad Like there was more to happen here I think it's an extension of the fact that he really Yes he has witness and he has You know firestorm, firewall, firewall

[00:20:04] But like he is really in my mind An extension of these franchises He is not a real person so much as he is This anthropomorphic icon from these movies And if he died it would be the same to me As like closing a ride at Disney World

[00:20:21] Like you know it's just You just be like well it had a good run Yeah and they put it into storage Ben if Harrison Ford has died by like God knows April 20th or whatever this is Yeah we're recording this episode in March of 2008

[00:20:35] Before Crystal's go comes out Listen there are 7 billion people on this planet I can't get bent out of shape for all of them But uh Yeah I do think it's a good point I mean like Han Solo is like one of my Han Solo is a big deal

[00:20:48] Touchstone film characters Especially in my childhood Is that the character's name in firewall? Yes You mean that Alden Error right character? Yes Um But I don't feel like I have an emotional attachment to him I certainly felt more of an emotional attachment to Carrie Fisher

[00:21:01] And I think that probably has more to do with her public persona Yeah sure of course The thing I found very upsetting about the Carrie Fisher thing was that Uh It felt like she had really sort of reclaimed Yes

[00:21:14] A role of her narrative in the last couple of years And it was a very exciting thing to watch And she was a strong advocate for people with mental illness And also Yeah she was an icon for Yeah pertinent Pertinent to this conversation

[00:21:26] Uh part of her personal narrative involved being I don't know what the right word is Uh but sexually You're in dry sand Involved with Harrison Ford in a way that was Oh that's true Unflattering towards him Right that was right at the end there

[00:21:44] That was her final move It did not speak too well of his behavior towards women At a certain point in his life Certainly Yeah You know 30 year old Harrison Ford A bit of a shit Yeah he was like 35 And she was like 19 35 Yeah man

[00:21:59] Hey but you know what I'm not gonna be 19 when he's 35 I'd do it You're just looking at me So the podcast is Hey guys just try him in guys Oh yeah producer Ben A.K. the banduser A.K. the producer A.K. the poet laureate

[00:22:12] A.K. the haze A.K. the tiebreaker A.K. the fart detective A.K. the meat lover A.K. close personal friend of Dan Lewis A.K. white hot Benny I don't even remember that one You'll remember it Go on go on A.K. the poet laureate

[00:22:23] A.K. the health panel I just remembered it Go on Thank you Uh He's great Uh he's graduated with certain tells Over the course of different majors Such as Ben I. Chomlin Ben Sate Producer Ben Knobe Uh Kylo Ben Should I come back?

[00:22:39] A.K. Ben's with a dollar sign There you go He did it It's gotten longer since you were here Producer Ben Hosley Yeah hey Ben what's up Uh so to the point about Carrie Fisher I feel the same way But actually uh like about Chevy Chase

[00:22:53] I'm gonna be really sad when he goes And I feel like he's really cleaned up his act in the later years Oh I don't think that's true I was hoping you were gonna say You felt the same way about Chevy Chase That I do Harrison Ford

[00:23:03] You're just like Chevy Chase is gone You're like Salute Like No man I'm gonna be sad I know you're gonna be sad When Chevy Chase dies Are they gonna do another vacation movie You think like an old vacation movie Well they did the fucking Ed Helms

[00:23:17] He's already passed on the fedora Remember the Ed Helms They passed on the RV But I think you gotta like You gotta pick your spots You know I mean like We're gonna get into a point now When because with the baby boomers And celebrity culture coming of age

[00:23:30] In its own way In the middle of the 20th century Where there are going to be people That we regard as famous Who die every day in great volume This is true And you're gonna have to pick your spots And like for me last year In well January

[00:23:41] We'll put into a division all of its own But after that you know It was like Abbas Kira Stami Over the summer For you cinephiles out there And that wrecked me I was weeping in the lobby Of a movie theater in the Czech Republic

[00:23:52] And that sort of enured me to A lot of the celebrity deaths that came later I was like I don't know I got it out For me it's just you know Once in a while there's just one where I'm like

[00:24:01] Ah that one matters to me more I guess I don't know I mean like There are people die every day Like Antony Elkin fucks me up Because he was so upsetting So it's similar Hoffman's Like the big disruptor for me Gene Wilder because I always kind of

[00:24:13] Hope he was gonna come back He at least had a nice run but yes He had a great run But he was maybe my favorite actor Billy Crystal Billy Crystal Sco Billy Crystal Sco Billy Crystal Okay so we're recording this episode in January Won't come out in April

[00:24:27] What if we pick celebrities we think are gonna die In the next three months No no no enough back Carlos I compiled the list of the people that I thought We should pre-write obituaries for So Bill Crystal's top of the list

[00:24:36] But I put some you know like everyone was like It's a Kirk Douglas obviously But like there were a lot of people in there Who were in their 50s or 60s That I was just like I got a feeling I think they're perfectly healthy

[00:24:46] But you wouldn't be surprised if you read Like Eddie Murphy dead I don't know That would be a weird one That'd be crazy if Eddie Murphy The thing about someone like Eddie Murphy Is it's like then you're like Okay so now do we finally get to know

[00:24:58] Like what was up with that guy You know there's a few people where it's like They're not like out of public life exactly But they're practically out of public life Like Irina Spalco you wanna know You wanna know man So let's get back on something Three Irina Spalcos

[00:25:12] That was his classiest second way I can come up with An excellent second way Away from the presumed death of Eddie Murphy Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Billy Crystal Now that's a movie If it's Billy Crystal when they put the head on And he's like hey

[00:25:26] That'd be good If it starts performing as one man play Yeah he's just like 700 Sundays He does the fucking jazz character My dad in the Yankees And oh my god Vicky man I can make fun of Billy Crystal all day

[00:25:45] Every Sunday my father and I would go out Search for the Ark of the Cuffin If we had only had the good sense to nominate Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for best picture And he had hosted the Oscars that year He would have had it all day

[00:25:56] This could have happened Your dream could have been reality I don't really know he did host the Oscars this year He was the Oscars recently And as Ben is referencing Did Blackface That happened like During the Obama Administration For a Katrina fundraiser Is that true? Yes

[00:26:13] He did Jazz Man I was watching that Jimmy Fallon blackface thing What? That is fucking crazy He played Chris Rock in Blackface on SNL Bull Blackface? What? In like what is it probably like 2001-2002 Somewhere around there And so when he was hosting the Golden Globes

[00:26:28] He was like oh I've got a really good idea When he was doing the Chris Rock Everyone was like Oh that was kind of odd And everyone was like You thought that was not You should see his old Chris Rock impression And here's the other thing SNL

[00:26:41] Oh my god Can I see the picture? Yes The picture works every time When Jimmy Fallon dies That should be the photo that runs next to it Isn't it sorry? We would tweet this out from the blank check pod But we don't want to get banned

[00:26:56] That just threw out there SNL moves so fast in his live show That they had to commit to like We're gonna put him in full blackface Including his hands and body And take Jimmy Fallon out of five consecutive sketches In order to do

[00:27:09] Like they had to put so much thought into like Yes this is a good idea that we should commit to Crazy Also Jimmy Fallon in blackface Never on Harold Knight So Indiana Jones came in the Crystal Skull I think about 1999 Like ten years after Last Crusade

[00:27:26] Which at that time they thought Like this is it, book closed It's called The Last Crusade after all They ride off into the sunset That was the last one That ten years later But the first movie in the series Was called Final Destination And there were six

[00:27:37] Five of them That's probably what Harrison Ford Said to Jordan Lucas and Steven Spielberg That's what changed his mind In 2000 When Final Destination 2 came out he was like See they're doing it So he They start talking again They start talking again, right? And Lucas is

[00:27:56] In his prequel land Yeah he's making the prequels And they hire a series of writers They're sort of revolving door I mean I know Darabont obviously But who else was out there Jeff Nathanson I know that he gets a story credit Who did catch me if you can

[00:28:10] In the terminal with Spielberg Here's the thing about Jeff Nathanson Wrote Catch Me If You Can A movie we both like Yeah Apart from that Like Love love love I think it's a masterpiece We just raved it on a previous episode

[00:28:21] I said I think it's one of his finest It is Here's Jeff Nathanson's career Speed 2 cruise control The three rush hours No Only two and three Two and three Not even one And I don't know if one is like A better tip, you know Flower in your hat

[00:28:36] But just two and three That's not looking good The terminal Yeah Then he writes and directs that movie The last shot The like movie making comedy With Matthew Broderick And Baldwin, yeah And then Tower Heist Which is good Takes a long break

[00:28:50] And now he's the writer of Pirates of the Caribbean You know Eight or whatever Which you know the new one Yeah Bardem Talk about franchises I want them to reboot I would love to see a new Those cocky mother fuckers Don't even put the series name

[00:29:04] In the teaser for the Bardem one It's just the goddamn Skull and crossbones It's just Bardem going like Would you tell Would you tell him that for me Please A little captain jerk I'd like to save time You know maybe we should get coffee sometime

[00:29:19] And do some caramels I certainly do I'm a head shark I love how they're like What do people love about The Pirates of the Caribbean series? It's a ship of pirates That turned into some weird thing, right? Yeah, that's the whole thing That's what they want, right? Yeah

[00:29:34] Nobody cares about that Yeah, I also Who cares about that? I don't know I don't know Who cares about the fucking cursed pirates? The other ones are like They're all like sailing into some goddamn Like sector of the Indian Ocean And they're all turning into mollusks It's ridiculous

[00:29:50] It's also like Okay, first one What is it? They're skeletons Second one, what is it? Sea monsters Yeah, they're fish Right, they're fish people Third one, they're like Samurai pirates Yeah, yeah, sure Right, right I didn't see the fourth one Fourth one, I haven't seen either

[00:30:04] But it's zombie pirates That's the whole idea The fifth one, you watch the trailer And I've seen the trailer Like five times now I can't figure out what Bardemn is Who we're supposed to be They're like people But like, yeah Like some of them are Isn't there anymore?

[00:30:15] They're deteriorating But in slow motion in the air They look like that Drake sprite commercial Where his head opens up And all the pieces fly out Now that If Drake in the sprite commercial Was the villain of Pirates of the Caribbean Drake tells no sales We cannot

[00:30:30] We can't talk about that Because I'm currently in the middle of a class Action lawsuit With the sprite people for their drink Not actually splitting my head open Allowing me to engineer better rap music You're a hero and tort reform is made for you

[00:30:41] And I never told the story of when I finally convinced my parents to buy me Gushers from the supermarket And I thought I had Like the hot tip from the commercials You thought you were gonna Yeah, yeah, yeah And I literally like opened up the pack

[00:30:51] Turned to my parents and went Staying back But I expected that my head Was gonna turn into a water mill And I was like, stay in bed You're an impressionable idiotic child Very impressionable, very idiotic So Crystal Skull 2008 Yeah, well when this movie really starts cooking is

[00:31:07] After revenge of the Sith is done And now Lucas Lucas can devote his full attention Right, he's like, ah, finally gets a kickback And relax And he does that for approximately 15 minutes Before he's like, ah, fuck How do I meddle with something else? Right Now, Frank Darabont

[00:31:21] Had submitted a script Had been hired to write a script Called India Jones And The City of Gods Okay, okay Right That's an okay title That script was delivered to them In 2013 And Spielberg was 2013, we talking about 2003 Yes, I'm sorry, 2003 Yes, I'm sorry, I'm an idiot

[00:31:42] Yeah, you are We already established Very impressionable, very idiotic M. Night Shyamalan wrote a script as well Oh yeah We should make clear Yeah I wonder what that thing was That was the script That was in the back of Vinny Chasis Or E's car I think that he

[00:31:57] It's a great episode You know what I'm talking about Indiana Jones and the Lady in the Water I was gonna say it was just Lady in the Water And then he rewrote it to make it a handyman He made Paul Gimani get it Alright, go ahead Okay So 2003

[00:32:09] Darabont draft Yeah Spielberg looks at it He goes, hey now Big thumbs up Ford looks at it He goes, hey now Big thumbs up It had like It's set in the 50s It had like ex-Nazis It was like inspired by The like Argentinian Nazi stuff

[00:32:24] Have you read the script? No, I've never read it I have It is very easily findable On the internet Sure, sure I don't read these things But you bothered Well, I, my, in the summer of 2008 My best friend Derek Simon I believe has been

[00:32:37] Referred to previously on the podcast Uh-huh Was working at the Weinstein Company Okay, so you read the script He was a script reader And he found it on the shelf Okay, so you read the script Tell me about the script Before we get to the actual movie

[00:32:48] It's really similar to Crystal Skull Uh-huh Except Noma Williams Interesting Mary and Ravenwood is actually A part of the plot Sure Um And the bad guy is The Russian who Indiana Jones fought alongside Uh-huh So it's like what happened After World War II Right American, Russians, allies

[00:33:09] And then enemies And they split up And he sort of takes the arena Spalco role And then the Mack role is Mary and It's actually just Ray Weinstein Is Ray Weinstein The actor Uh, the Mack role is Mary and his husband Okay Who seems like a British stuffy

[00:33:25] Professor Shirt And ends up being the turncoat And once he turns He just turns And then he's like I'm not going to do the fucking Quadruple reverse Well, it's actually just a double Double reverse But the third time Right It's just a double switch And then Indiana Jones

[00:33:40] Is the one actually moving His self around Yeah A lot of the same elements But Noma Williams is the big one Right Okay But the big The big kind of hook they had was Poe Schindler's List Spielberg Didn't want to put Nazis in his room

[00:33:53] He didn't want to do Nazis He was very clear with that He said like Now that I've done the serious film Using them as just sort of like A token of evil Mm-hmm Um, so they also noted There was a passage of time Everyone had gotten older Sure

[00:34:06] So let's adjust it Let's do the Soviets Right Let's do the Cold War And then they had this sort of idea That was Well, we were making films That were set in the 40s Adventure serials You know, pulp two-fisted heroes That was the main sort of like

[00:34:20] Pop iconography of that time If we go to the 60s We should make it Be sci-fi movies 50s, but yes Sorry But yes, I guess that's the general idea If the 30s serials were these fancy adventures With, you know, jungles And savages and whips

[00:34:35] Like the 50s should be sci-fi serials With like space men and aliens And all that You know, Cold War era So the Derrubant script isn't perfect It is a much better version of what we got That is More cohesive And is dominantly A man out of time movie

[00:34:53] And weirdly features the same ending That's what we eventually used in The Mist Yes, the exact same ending Yeah, well that's a good ending in The Mist Yeah Um, but it's the man out of time thing Is the big thing But then Lucas throws it out, right?

[00:35:04] Lucas goes no Yeah He is like Hear all the things that I think are wrong with it And by accounts What I've heard is that Ford and Spielberg just went You know what, George? Fine Right Hire someone, give them the notes Have them write exactly what you want

[00:35:17] And then they pick He does that Our favorite man Hired gun David Kapp David Kapp He rewrites the script And kind of just like Takes the exact skeleton Of what Derbant did And throws weird flesh on top of it Right

[00:35:31] I want to note some of the other titles Indiana Jones and the Atomic Ants Uh-huh Was the Nathanson script David Kapp's was called Destroyer of Worlds Uh-huh Then he jokingly called it Indiana Jones and the Son of Indiana Jones Uh-huh Uh, and uh I believe Saucerman from Mars

[00:35:47] Was at one point a title Jesus Christ And then Spielberg decided It should be called Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Because it should have The word Crystal Skull on it I don't know I don't know These old guys sometimes Yeah I mean do you think Indiana Jones

[00:36:00] And the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Is a good title, David or like I mean that's like asking me if Radiohead is a good band name Like I can't think of All I think of is Radiohead The band I think Radiohead's a good band name

[00:36:10] I think it's probably a shit band name But it's the best band in my life time And so you know I just think of it Like oh that's what their band name is I mean And Crystal Skull's the Radiohead of Movies Right and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

[00:36:18] It's like I would be unable to tell you If it's a good or bad title Because it is the movie that I know and love Extremely good answer from David or like The point here though is that By all accounts Lucas supervised rewrite

[00:36:33] Now that he's got time to focus on it After Sif And they just go like fine You know what We're never gonna get it made without his approval We're more likely to bend to his wins Than he was to ours Right, Ford's getting old Let's get this done

[00:36:45] And they just fucking do it They peel it off The movie comes out It does well People dislike it It's dormant The first time I believe George Lucas publicly Steps out with his now wife Melanie Hobson Is at the premiere of the movie At the Cannes Film Festival

[00:37:01] And she's the one who by all accounts Encouraged him to sell Lucasfilm To let go To enjoy life To get back Which is why now Lucas has no part Of Indiana Jones 5 Same with Star Wars You know he doesn't have control And that's when Disney went

[00:37:14] Oh now we're doing new Indiana Jones It's Bill Bergen Ford back again But no Lucas No Lucas I'm just you No Lucas Isn't it crazy when it was The whole publicity tour Before like the Force Awakens Whatever It's just Disney being like It's great

[00:37:27] We're gonna make new movies Like huge subtext George Lucas is not here Yeah He's nowhere near any of this anymore What if they cast Alden Aeron right to play Indiana Jones Indiana Jones What if they cast him to play Mutt Williams Yeah, Shia gonna come back

[00:37:41] I don't think so Unless he can do it And the guys of one of his What's that group called That he does The art I know what you're talking about Yeah They can just be like Your new thing is You pretend to be Mutt Williams

[00:37:53] And talk to Harrison Ford I think Shia's getting there I think he's almost looped all the way back around As he runs out of money He's getting there I mean look I don't know about Shia's personal finances I do But so at this point in time

[00:38:09] Harrison Ford has been working Various periodically Years off I mean a couple of big flops in a row Where like random hearts Underperformed K-19 was a big flop Hollywood Homicide was a big flop And then he like takes some years off And it's like Firewall was his comeback

[00:38:24] And it didn't really land Yeah just to give you his two thousands Yeah What Lies Beneath Which is great That's a big hit No K-19 Yeah you're very anti-Zemeckis And I'm sort of quasi anti-Zemeckis And with you after What Lies Beneath K-19 Which is kind of a flop

[00:38:41] Huge flop Hollywood Homicide Huge flop Firewall in 06 And then this So yeah he's really He's been taking it easy Yeah After this he starts making stuff He comes back And it's less special Yeah and then it's just like Oh there's Harrison Ford in Ender's game And he's gruff

[00:38:57] Yeah He sure is gruff He starts doing Comic Con too many times It's like all that Blooms off the roof Oh yeah I was at Comic Con When they brought him out For Cowboys and Aliens And handcuffs Fucking Cowboys and Aliens And then they brought me in handcuffs

[00:39:09] To go see that fucking movie It was awful And weirdly it was also John Favreau Leading you in the handcuffs Personally escorting you into the theater Shia on the other hand You know additions or transformers Spielberg looks at the tape and goes

[00:39:22] Not only is this the guy we're hiring But I think this is the next Tom Hanks And personally like curates Shia LeBuff as the next leading man Because he also produces Eagle Eye doesn't he And Disturbia And Disturbia Which is a huge hit Right

[00:39:37] Remember Disturbia was a big hit And Eagle Eye makes 100 million dollars Disturbia Eyes Disturbia Eyes The Serbia's premise is like Why don't we just take a Hitchcock movie And then just make it dumb enough For teenagers Pretty much Like there's a winning formula DJ Caruso and Shia LeBuff

[00:39:52] Almost got the rights to Why the last man Based on Disturbia's success Yeah Well so he makes transformers first And then that would be with A long post production schedule Spielberg's like I need to get you a smaller Kind of like Be you know programmer

[00:40:06] Right so we can have another movie this year To release before transformers To sort of roll out the carpet That comes out three months earlier Does surprisingly well And transformers that summer Vandy fairs like Here's the next The next guy They have their cover where it's him

[00:40:18] In the astronaut suit And it says like The star has landed And there's this big push of like You can No wonder he went insane Yeah right Yeah it makes perfect sense And they're like LeBuff's the guy Yeah And then it's like

[00:40:30] Okay he's gonna do two more transformers He's the kid in Indiana Jones And he does Eagle Eye He does this run of DreamWorks Movies that all make over Also Wall Street 2 Let me not forget That's like the last one Well it's the same year as transformers 3

[00:40:42] Right that's what I'm saying It's that run of like Yeah The Serbia transformers 1 Indiana Jones transformers 2 Eagle Eye transformers 3 All those movies are huge hits Then Wall Street opens big Wall Street's 10 transformers 3 is 11 It doesn't matter Whatever The point is he had a thing where like

[00:41:01] Seven consecutive movies of his Open to number one Sure And everyone was like I guess Spielberg pulled it off I guess LeBuff is the guy And then LeBuff was like Fuck the world I'm losing my mind Right Right now But Matt Williams not Not widely well received

[00:41:15] I think that Agreed That probably tipped LeBuff's hand Yes In going deciding that this wasn't The path for him And very notably he like Within a year of the movie coming out While doing press for whatever his next Movie was Started shit talking the movie

[00:41:31] And the character a lot Yeah And the character and kind of Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford Yeah And they start throwing everyone Under the bus But he's like I'm not an artist anymore You know it's this thing Like I want to make stuff I really care about

[00:41:42] And he's like Yeah I looked up to those guys And meh And I love Indiana Jones And sucks to feel like I'm the fucking Jar Jar Yeah shut up Shia Nobody cares But Spielberg like flips out And him is like This is about selling cars Wait

[00:41:54] Like no one to shut up Called himself the Jar Jar I believe he did Cause that is a double A double fuck you Yes That's true cause you're getting Lucas in there as well He like burned everyone That's just efficient And Spielberg kind of pushed him out

[00:42:05] And was like You know, ungrateful And then like Shia's been in the Wilderness since then You know Wilderness of Lars von Trier I mean that's an upgrade As far as I'm concerned Well maybe not from The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull But certainly from Eagle Eye

[00:42:17] And the Transformers films Yeah the thing is I feel like after Eagle Eye It's like Shia's not really Opening any movies Obviously there's the two Transformers movies They open themselves But Eagle Eye does so weirdly well He did okay A hundred million for that movie Is pretty impressive

[00:42:32] When Michelle Monahan Is second bill Yeah That was sold on him Whatever I'm not impressed I just think it's interesting Cause that's after Crystal Skull I think it takes like Two years for everyone To start resenting him For Matt Williams Sure Like there was such a like

[00:42:47] Over exposure thing Where then it like Took some time for him to step away And be like Wait do we actually like this guy Or are we just being told That we like this guy Yeah Anyway Let's stop debating Shia the Wolf's archivist career I think once Transformers 2

[00:43:00] Comes out On top of as you're saying A year of thinking about People are like Alright Let's see something new From Shia LaBea And now we have And it's called American Honey And I love him in it And how do you feel about him In it David?

[00:43:14] I love him in it Cause we all found love In a hopeless place With him My point is just that The big shift between The Derrubon draft And the draft that Eventually got The kid in there The inclusion of the kid And that's like Lucas' big thing

[00:43:27] Is he wants the kid And then Spielberg sees it As a vehicle To like push His kid Right From being a movie An icon Well some would argue that The inclusion of the kid character Is what makes Kingdom of the Crystal Skull The special effective film

[00:43:42] That it is that completely galvanizes The narrative and bridges the Together the duality that Griffin was talking about earlier About Harrison Ford wanting to Have a role that speaks to His intellectual side And also his physical rigorous We'll get there We'll get there and do time

[00:43:57] Well let's start talking about the movie Let's start talking about the movie So the movie starts with something That's straight out of the Derrubon draft I'll keep comparing it Yeah just don't because it doesn't matter Yeah I was just gonna say

[00:44:08] I think the first 21 minutes of this film Up to and including the Fridge nuking scene Are some of the best action filmmaking Ever made I fucking love the first 20 minutes Of this movie I'll go this far I think the movie works until minute 55

[00:44:27] Oh I think the movie works until minute 100 And whatever I guess we should all keep going I just think that he is operating at a level That matches or exceeds Anything in the previous Indiana Jones role We had so much fun You know we've been doing Spielberg

[00:44:41] So we've been like Basically from saving private But certainly from AI through to this Through to war of the world Spielberg's not having no fun I guess catch me if you can But that's such a melancholy movie And then the terminal is him trying to have fun

[00:44:56] And it feels like he's trying to mix chemicals together Like it doesn't feel fun at all And that's the same thing with Lost World It falls into two camps Or it's either like How do you forget to have fun Haunted melancholy And it's him exploring shades of gray

[00:45:07] Where's the movie where like Spielberg meets a Young woman blowing through town Reminds him how to have fun In the mid-auts Oh maybe He should make a vehicle for himself as an actor Yeah no that's a hard place Spielberg in a movie In like a biopic one day

[00:45:21] You're from Newman? I wasn't gonna say myself David Sims So I just want to say Yeah I saw this movie in 2008 I did not I saw it at the AMC Lincoln Square I didn't have a job I just moved to New York City

[00:45:35] Did you see it at the Ziegfeld? Erlach? I saw it at the Ziegfeld And I ran it There used to be a guy I wish I could remember his name But if you ever went to go see a movie At an AMC Certainly an AMC in New York

[00:45:45] Around that time The pre-show guy Was like this generic white guy With brown hair And he's like I love him so far Like if you saw his face You'd be like holy shit It would touch you at like Like a pristine level

[00:45:57] Right it would be like a Madeleine Yeah And he sat in front of me At opening night at the Ziegfeld And I lost my god damn mind And I was just like You're the guy and we have like a picture It's like probably the first photo

[00:46:07] On my face Was this the guy who hosted the 20? Was it the 20? Yeah possibly It was possible I used to be a big fan of the 20 You were like dissected Before I went to like AMC first look or whatever it was The 20 I guess the AMC first look

[00:46:20] No but I think it had AMC At first look became like the brand Like now suddenly it was You couldn't escape it I liked the 20 Yeah you liked the 20 Well I now I'm remembering I went to see it I got a phone call 10 minutes

[00:46:31] In offering me a job At a chess shop in New York City I had just moved to New York So I left the theater Took the job What Yeah I literally just moved back To New York City Wow And so I did not see Indiana Jones

[00:46:42] And then I like Went back a week later And saw it It was a packed house At the AMC Lincoln Square I only remember this Because a guy came in Sat next to me Pulled his hat over his eyes Fell asleep During the trailers Slept through the long

[00:46:54] Trailers slept through the whole movie It was George Lucas I was just like What is What is Why are you doing this Like why did you do this I was just so fascinated with this man Like I couldn't tell you Just bouncing from theater to theater

[00:47:06] All day maybe Just sleeping But from the moment that Gopher pops up Okay And you have that There's just One of the things That I love about this movie And you see this also In the adventures of Tintin Some of the better parts Of War of the World

[00:47:19] Is this real fluid Sense of kineticism The way the camera moves The way that it sits just Things together Every camera shot is so Elegantly choreographed And beautifully motivated And you get that right from the start With him driving down the road And the girls and the Russians

[00:47:33] And the way that they all Flower out So that they can assassinate The people at the I love that The guy taking the need To tie his shoes You're talking about the fun I think that it is What you guys were talking about earlier Is as far as

[00:47:47] The 50s sci-fi hoakiness That's what gives him permission To have this kind of fun In a way that he had been missing For a little while I think he needed to tap into A wheelhouse that he was Really familiar with I agree Igor Gijikini Plays the Shafsky

[00:48:03] Or whatever his name is What a face What a great face That guy's got a scary Fucking face If I can just I agree with that That's the thing I love About Tintin Is I think Tintin's able To sustain that from beginning To end because Tintin's a lot

[00:48:16] More singular In what it's focusing on It's very focused and sparse In terms of what's going on With the story So it's able to just use that To make it like this Tintin is his mission impossible 3 Yeah, I agree That's a good call So what's in Neanna Jones?

[00:48:31] Nobody else has made anything On par with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull It's unto itself So would you say this is your Number 1 film of 2008? I can't imagine that's the case It's probably my Number 1 Spielberg film Of 2008 How's that? Did he make anything else?

[00:48:46] No, that was the one And this is for some reason War of the Worlds, right? So he'd taken a while It's considerably better than War of the Worlds I think As a piece of film I mean, because War of the Worlds Has the disastrous third act

[00:48:57] And so on It's been just discussed last week Oh, Munich is between the two of us Oh, right, of course Munich Munich, one of his great films This is a really underrated period In his career And as I hope you guys Rediscover through this series I totally

[00:49:11] I mean we have been, right? Yeah, absolutely So I Like a month before this movie came out Had not seen any of the Indiana Jones movies Oh, so you're just not an indie kid? It was weird I just it was not part of my childhood

[00:49:24] I mean like I was more of like A Star Wars kid or what Yeah But I'd seen them all I liked them Yeah, I think there was a point Where I just felt like I had through osmosis Absorbed everything that was Indiana Jones Sure And it wasn't like

[00:49:37] I didn't have an interest in seeing them But I was like I feel like I've seen them I know all the things Okay, so then you watched them My roommate at the time I mentioned that to him When we were talking about The new one coming out

[00:49:47] He's like you haven't seen Indiana Jones Right, and he has the box Oh, you haven't in law Yeah You live with a kid you've met Yes I was going more hot fuzz Fair enough I watched the three Indiana Jones movies The week leading up to Crystal Skull

[00:50:01] So you were amped I was amped But it also wasn't like I didn't have like a decade Or you know a lifetime Of like processing What Indiana Jones was What was Dramatarian Indiana Jones movie You had taken Indiana Jones Viagra, not a C. Alice Right, it felt like

[00:50:18] I was like binging a TV show And I was like okay What's the next episode? I think that's how those worked I'm 32 Come with some slack Yeah, look I can still get a hard on We have a couple years at least A couple years I don't know

[00:50:30] What Trump's gonna do God, nobody's gonna take Our hard on snap I interned It'd be so sad If everyone's hard on Is already taken By the time that episode comes out That'll be a real bummer If that's happening Make America hard again I interned For Relativity

[00:50:47] The company that's currently in The company that's currently in The company that's currently in Currently in like Extreme bankruptcy court Right, yeah Sharing an office with A soft core TITS website Hey man You know You get the offices you can take I don't know

[00:51:00] I'll take the offices you can get Sorry But I interned for them At the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 In their like Hotel suite And you know where they were Fucking Trying to raise money And promote their shit and what have you Yeah Very very bizarre experience

[00:51:14] But it was the year that Crystal Skull was premiering At Cannes Sure And there was all this buzz And all this hype about the movie And no one had seen it It was super top secret And even in press They were like

[00:51:24] Is it about Ali and this billboard Was like I don't know maybe Yeah, cause the trailers Were pretty light On details It was just like He swings on a whip You know like It was very basic And like yeah They'd be yeah I guess They were teacher

[00:51:38] And he goes Part time Yeah they did that They did that shit And they kept like Even Karen Allen being in it Secret for a long time Oh no she was at No cause they had that picture I was at the Comic Con panel And she was

[00:51:50] I feel like they were denying it For a bit before they revealed They gaslighted us From being at Comic Con And they certainly They tried to like Act like Matt Williams Wasn't his son They went like No Yes that is true They were like

[00:52:04] No he's a planet young Young characters John Never heard of God That fucking bull shit He's playing What was the fake name Of commerce like He's John Smith Yeah He's a new villain I think it's Harrison Yes it's John Harrison He's a new villain With the great name

[00:52:20] Of John Harrison Yeah Oh yeah He's gonna be great You guys Star Trek It has lots of Human villains who are Just guys Name John Famed God the worst fucking That's not that long From now isn't it When is that 2000 No it's like 2013 actually

[00:52:37] When that movie comes out Yeah It's a while anyway Anyway I'm at Con Where everyone's fucking flipping Out about Indiana Jones It's not a positive way or negative way But there's all this It's back 19 years Okay And it's like kind of Such a big promotional thing

[00:52:51] There's just like Indiana Jones shit everywhere And like All the critics who are there Are like Fuck this Like why is this taking up All this attention at Con Like this is supposed to be For like actual movies And then like The public is just like Seeing it

[00:53:04] But I just like I'm so excited by like All the hullabaloo I of course can't see it When I'm there Because it's like You totally stacked And I like fly back And I get back into New York The Friday night The movie comes out

[00:53:15] And I go to see it with My friends sold out at 34th street And I walk and I'm like That's fine That's like another Indiana Jones movie Because I had just Seen them all You know I was like Not great Not terrible With more time

[00:53:27] The things that are Kind of Like the real sore thumbs Of this movie stuck out To me more Downgraded this movie More in my memory Because I only remember The shitty parts But I hadn't seen it again So I watched in theaters And then my friends

[00:53:40] My friend does this thing Every Black Friday Where he He watches all four Indiana Joneses And he puts them up Against another quartet of films Okay And he watched them in alternating And that's all about Friday What? Who does this? Yeah He's a maniac So it's like

[00:53:54] He starts at like 9am And it's like Raiders And then it's like Rambo You know and then it's Alvin the Trunk No no Raiders Ria You could do it with Alvin In the chipmunk Sure Like one year Raiders is only four Unless you include Wildthorn

[00:54:07] It became a bit of a time One year he did Alien One year he did Rambo One year he did I can't remember Like he did various ones So I would keep Seeing Crystal Skull At least in pieces And in pieces I'd just be like Ah fuck this

[00:54:19] You know it's like late And I'm drunk And I don't like it You know so That was my And I just watched it now And it's a great movie I was like totally I totally turned around In that movie It has its problems Yeah I'm not Mr fucking

[00:54:32] You know like look at And like a little Tiny sliver of the Sistine Chapel When you're drunk And go like Oh what is this shit No you're right This is a A finely calibrated machine That needs to be Experienced in full Hey man So I remember reading this

[00:54:48] Hey now Interview with Spielberg Where he talked about That he studied the original Films a lot Because he was like I had to get back To a younger filmmaker And a simpler filmmaker Like I wanted these films To be consistent Douglas Slocum Who shot the first three movies

[00:55:01] Was retired at this point And so he had his buddy Yannou shoot it And Yannou was like Yanni I had to shoot I had to fucking rewatch the movies And figure out how he shot it Make it look more like that Right because he's not doing

[00:55:11] A lot of his usual fun stuff Yeah Yanni Old big J.K. And Spielberg says A lot in the press He's not putting a lot of nets On those lenses Not in those lenses Spielberg says A lot in the press Before this movie comes out

[00:55:24] Like I watched those old films And I saw how tactile they were And I really wanted to force myself To use as little CGI as possible And the opening shot of the movie is A CGI gopher coming out at the turn Hey man The Paramount logo

[00:55:38] Turns into a little gopher hill It always turns into something It's cute It's cute It's a CGI gopher Yeah and you're just like Really you could There are like There is like one thing That I don't like about this movie The gopher Which is

[00:55:52] And it's, no it's just that It's the CG really in the Chase sequence in the jungle I think that sequence is That is where the movie starts to fall I think that's where Yeah if you're maybe not Totally on board with the movie You're suddenly like

[00:56:03] I'm sick of this This doesn't, this is no fun Essentially Yeah the CG in that scene Is rough The monkeys The sword fighting All that That's where people really I think for now Yeah the swinging I mean it's a rough scene But you wonder if Spielberg had

[00:56:18] If you were George Lucas He could do a special edition Go over and smooth that over Suddenly reveal the movie To be the masterpiece That I at least know that it is But I've also It's a pretty fucking good movie I was just watching it

[00:56:28] And I was like This is so much fun Why was I ever hard on this movie It just it fucking moves It moves Like that Again And I'm sitting down thinking Like god what is this Like two hours 25 minutes It's two hours On the top

[00:56:41] I honestly think that You know and I inadvertently Got myself I fell down a Rabbit hole of finding parallels Between the plot of this film And the rise of Donald Trump But I Yeah so We'll retweet David Rowley's tweet storm I do think that The one moment that

[00:56:59] That was sort of Pre-saged the nightmare That we're all currently living in At least Circa January of 2017 Who knows what's happening in April Is that I assume America is Is that a Again as prime I mean America saw this movie And thought that the fridge

[00:57:15] New King scene rather than The beautiful apotheosis Of everything that Indiana Jones Stands for and has always been And the perfect capper to this Ridiculously entertaining Kinetic Wild opening 20 minutes Those first 20 minutes are fantastic That ends in the I mean there's this whole thing about

[00:57:31] The nuclear family that you see And represents everything that And nuclear is a pun in this case But it's also Right on the money In terms of the family that Indiana Jones Has never allowed himself to have Has never settled down for His whole character

[00:57:43] Is sort of this push and pull Between familiar obligations And the anchor that it provides Versus the freedom of being in the field The you know being tethered to academia Also the meta commentary of Steven Spielberg Nuking the suburban 50s household Yes well no but I mean like

[00:57:58] It destroys the nuclear family with a Right Because you have all the mannequins there On the couch watching TV With a nuclear bomb And Indy getting in that mega fridge And riding it through a blast It's a perfectly Spielberg In touch And seeing the reaction to it

[00:58:16] Seeing it become synonymous With almost your new language And trying to turn the fridge into a term I was like we are worth doomed We are ten years tops away from full on collapse I said that out loud to the man from the 20 In front of me

[00:58:31] And he was like hi I don't like the movie as much as the two of you I like it more than most people I do think that section is Unquestionably the best part of the movie I think the part with him in the nuke test site

[00:58:44] Is the best section of the movie It is it's clever It's funny in an unusual way And in a way that feels familiar and right For these movies I mean the thing especially that bugs me Everyone getting all high and mighty

[00:58:58] When fucking temple of doom is out there Come on man That movie is out of it's god damn gourd And like you can't go ahead And tell me something sacred And what's the word like reverent About Indiana Jones Had been disturbed by King and the Crystal Skull

[00:59:15] Like the movies have always been You know silly Very silly Spielberg and Lucas' goal with Raiders of the Lost Ark Was like what if we made a movie that was only the good parts You know that was their thing

[00:59:29] They were like what if you cut out all the like thematic You know subtext And all the sort of like plot development And you just made a movie that was only the exciting scenes Like every scene was what would be the coolest scene in another movie

[00:59:40] And so it's like they're meant as like theme park rides And you know like deeper meaning you know Sank in there it's snuck in the little corners in the wedges But you can't talk about this even Like you can't really compare Indiana Jones even to Star Wars

[00:59:54] Where Star Wars is like a much more ambitious mythology Yes Whereas Indiana Jones is like adventures Like each movie is just like here's another adventure There's very little serialization The character doesn't really change that much But that becomes the subtext

[01:00:08] I've argued that the way that Indiana Jones grapples with That structure of his life It's very isolated it is Right It's part of who he is The key to the Indiana Jones franchise is There are similar things repeating And it's about the minor differences

[01:00:24] Within that sort of repeating pattern And the sort of generational cycle that crops up Which again is why Matt Williams is so crucial to this movie But I do you know I think that it really moves from start to finish

[01:00:36] It does not slow down very much as Griffin was saying No But I mean there's just the shot choices The way that everything is cut together In that opening sequence The introduction of one of the villain

[01:00:47] That I have nothing but a deep and abiding love for in my heart And yeah I was going to say not just because she's played by Kate Blanchett Which is accurate You do like Does she like to say you're favorite living actress? No I don't know about that

[01:00:57] But she's certainly one of the better ones And she is you know I think it's great to be Spielberg and cast Incredible actors at the height of their powers In hokey fun roles like this And watch them have a field day with them

[01:01:14] And Irina Spalco a woman ahead of her time She won the Order of Linen three times Three fucking times Yeah and Kate only has one Oscar at this point Two Oh at this point At this point Excuse me Sorry Sorry

[01:01:28] And she's when you take the Blanchett out of the equation Is a pretty generic bad guy Certainly but I mean But that's a part of the appeal I think that's by design Very nice time with it It's all about the affectation

[01:01:39] I mean like that's what a lot of these movies are The part of the joy is relishing in these tried and true narrative formulas Like a black forest ham you know Sure yes Hey guys could I say what didn't work for me Uh huh

[01:01:52] Just you know I'm the voice of the people So I just you know I gotta just emphasize that He doesn't get that nickname No he doesn't No he doesn't Well I'm like saying the people like dummies like me So anyway Uh I like bits

[01:02:05] You know this about me guys You do like bits a lot yes And I would say like Comparatively you think of the original trilogy There's the classic guy Waving around the sword and then Andy shoots him right Sure

[01:02:16] That's a good example of that sort of like sense of humor Of those movies And I feel like This one has a lot of that same stuff But it's just hokey And old man-ish And just like It's not as good Um and I don't have an exact example

[01:02:29] I feel like There's like a moment even with like the quicksand You know and it's like kind of this like I love that moment That's a great scene I don't know it doesn't work for me It just like it doesn't feel the same It feels sort of like

[01:02:40] Well Seeing a comedian that you used to really love And seeing them again and they're just sort of like Uh I don't know like bland Well I think there's I would imagine that's probably how a lot of our listeners Yeah Would get I think You're welcome You watch

[01:02:56] I rewatching Raiders last night That is One of the most impressive Set up punchline movies ever Like the whole key to that movie is We're gonna set up this Either visually, either emotionally Either textually So that when it comes back You know what is supposed to happen

[01:03:13] And the subversion is interesting Right You know there's the tension Okay if the guy swings the sword around fast You think it's gonna be a fight No he's gonna shoot him Or at the beginning on the chalkboard He explains how the The staff of Ra works

[01:03:25] So you understand what needs to happen In the temple room All that sort of shit This movie doesn't really do that This movie just has shit happen For like two hours And it's a little more akin to a video game Where it's just like Here's a new level

[01:03:36] Let's enter a new environment What's the coolest stuff that could happen In this environment I guess so What are the pieces on the board I don't know man What are the levels I just think that You're less to detract from the older Indiana Jones movies

[01:03:48] And more to celebrate this one I think that the relationship between he And Mutt As annoying as Mutt can be And Mutt is off putting a shy The buff can be in the role Yeah And like every time they cut to him

[01:04:00] They have to first cut to his hand So he can flip his fucking knife Yeah he works really hard on that And it drives me crazy But He works really hard That positioning Indiana Jones In the same position that his father was In the previous film

[01:04:12] And turning this into sort of a cyclical thing And allowing him to reconcile His competing impulses Of being in the field Versus being at home Being alone Versus being weighed down By actually giving a shit about other human beings And having to deal with the burden

[01:04:26] Of them caring about him I think that every scene At least every scene that works Which is most of them Speak to that on some level And the scenes that don't What few they are Especially in the midsection Like the sort of late midsection Yeah like those

[01:04:41] The ones that get away from it a little bit Oh there's the school stuff right Where he's like Yeah you have to go to school Stuff like Oh you gotta go to school Come on And all that fun little choreography Like mutt taking the beer And Indiana like

[01:04:55] You know putting the beer back on the Waiter tray And like all silently You know just everything seems rhythmic And locked into very very specific Humor beats Not realistic I think that entire motorcycle chase Is the best set piece in the movie And I think even just

[01:05:13] Why do they dress in like Fucking Brando Just don't do that Don't do that We're not gonna go through the plot In this episode We're just keep on tackling different elements I get that it's the 50s And you're doing all these 50s hallmarks

[01:05:26] But like just don't pick Brando Can we focus on mutt for a little bit You can't do Brando His name is mutt That's the name he chose for himself Because he doesn't really know what he is I'm annoyed that he gets offended Yeah right that's a good point

[01:05:40] That's the thing He gets offended when Indiana Jones Like raises an eyebrow at mutt And he's like I picked that name for myself So don't get offended You can get offended if mutt means You know happiness in Hawaiian

[01:05:51] Like you can't get offended if you decided to call yourself mutt After a dog Can I say my problem with mutt what? Can I explain my problem with mutt what? I have a lot of problems with that guy Yeah Look knowing what we know now

[01:06:05] Don't steal a beer off of him Wait go ahead Doesn't he use like someone else's like Coca-Cola to clean off his fucking Comb in that scene At the beginning of the scene I feel like he reaches over the table Takes the comb out He does Okay

[01:06:19] He's disinfecting it with Coca-Cola It was the 50s We thought a lot of things were weird That's true We're gonna save us Stop imposing your values That's a good point Yeah Make America mud again My problem with mutt Williams is I feel like

[01:06:38] He is kind of neither here nor there In what he needs to be Which is And I blame this on Shia But I think he was in an impossible situation I don't blame it on Shia It's not a well written role at all

[01:06:49] It's not a well written role And you also Shia could not have Not have really done much better than he does here I agree I agree Yeah, it's just sandwich I don't blame it on Shia I blame it on

[01:06:59] I don't think they really committed to what they were doing And it feels like No There was an indecisiveness about what he needs to be Which is either one of two things Yeah Are you passing him the torch or not Is question A to me No

[01:07:11] It's an even more basic level for me Okay I think they're stuck between Is he actually a greaser Or is he a kid pretending to be a greaser Oh, that's a good call Yeah And I think Shia's performance is completely between the two poles

[01:07:24] Which I don't put on him I think it was an indecisiveness But what they should have done is looked at Shia LeBuff and said He's pretending to be a greaser This is a kid pretending to be a greaser No one's gonna buy him as a greaser 100%

[01:07:34] So I think that part of what What has made me So Love this movie is that I gave it the benefit of the doubt Of just assuming that he was a kid pretending to be a greaser Because I often look at Shia and think that he reads phony

[01:07:46] Yeah, right And so I thought that was part of the appeal for him Divorcing that from the fact that Spielberg just had a hard on For his entire career, you know Which is weird Yeah, but instead you get this guy who's taking the torch

[01:07:57] And he's like, yeah, I don't know, I quit school Sometimes I read Like Indiana Jones supposed to be this brilliant Motherfucker who's a badass Not like some bratty kid The movie is not actually saying like This is the next Indiana Jones

[01:08:09] No, they make him pass over the hat Well, yeah, even at the end it's still sort of conflicting You know endorsement does not equal Or depiction does not equal endorsement This is another lesson that Americans We're soon gonna have to grapple with

[01:08:21] I wish they'd grapple with that one quickly My problem with this is Look, I'm just saying Lollaland is a racist work of art About racism It's about erasing the, you know People who are not white You know what I figured out earlier this week

[01:08:36] And this is super on topic Shakespeare in Love is the Lollaland of 1998 Oh man, well I love Shakespeare in Love I think by the time this comes out I just did an episode on The Canon with Amy Nicholson Where that somehow became our central thesis

[01:08:48] And this seemed like it's good A place as any to plug that That's a good call Yeah, it is a pretty similar movie actually Now that I'm like running the two Side by side in my head A little bit because it's about two people

[01:08:57] Two artists who figure out how to be creative And then realize they can't be together if they do it I brought it up to instruct you guys of this truth Not to re-litigate it on another podcast Okay, fair enough Jesus Christ Almighty Mighty

[01:09:09] They're singing in Shakespeare in Love? Yeah Gentleman upstage ladies Downstage Ben Affleck's best performance There's also that thing in Shakespeare in Love Where he keeps on explaining to people That they don't like jazz the right way It is true Yeah Chicken on a stick I'm like, it's British

[01:09:24] Thy chicken is on a stick Two chickens on one stick Where we set our scene I agree with you that it reads to me Or I mean A, watching as an audience member Because Shia is not successfully pulling on Not successfully pulling off Brando

[01:09:39] It reads as he wants to be a greaser And he's not, right? Yeah And the kind of lines that Ben is highlighting Like I read sometimes they're like power What's the power? And he's just constantly performing his own greaserness

[01:09:49] I mean in a way that exceeds what one would do If they were nationally a greaser I think the performance needs to be even more excessive though Do you know what I'm saying? Like I think he needs to make it more of a comedic performance

[01:09:59] Not like play it over the top No, because then of course he's in the mix And he's sword fighting on top of a jeep And you find out like okay so he was raised by like a British professor Like Clare this is an intellectual kid

[01:10:11] Who's like stepping away from this as a revolt against Right, so he's being a jerk Right and he wants to seem like he's tougher And then he runs into his real dad who's like Hey I am an academic and also a world traveling action hero He realizes like

[01:10:22] So you're just a piece of shit to me Right, get you an archaeologist who can do both Yeah, that's what he said It's called pluralism you know You can be an archaeologist and be a killer Nazis You don't have to choose I think 2016 2017

[01:10:35] It straight-robs him of having more comedic tension Which is the main thing that made people like Indiana Jones in the first place Is that Indiana Jones is funny Like I think he is I think he's pretty funny

[01:10:46] I mean he's funny in this movie in a similar way to He's funny What Ford honed in Force Awakens Where he's sort of like Alright, you kids are having your fun I get it It's dad humor in the original It's grandpa humor now

[01:10:57] You know I think it's like very Well I think the key is that Except in last crusade He and his dad fuck the same lady Yeah I think the key for me is that Well I really like the wave of grown Yeah it's not into that

[01:11:11] That's a plot point in that movie I know I think Indiana Jones is circumstantially funny Like I don't think I'll play you say circumcised I think Indiana Jones is circumcised I don't know, I don't think circumcision was that That prevalent in the

[01:11:25] Like when would he have been born in the 1890s Yeah 1900s Hey fans out there weigh in on it What do you think I just think that after he killed all those Nazis And realized where he stood in history He would Just as an expression of solidarity

[01:11:40] He would cut off his own foreskin He'd do it himself Yeah just in like the Amazon It's a deleted scene at the end of Temple of Doom Yes I swear to God In that movie with Kevin Bacon The air up there He is rich really circumcised

[01:11:52] In the middle of that movie It's like a plot point No I don't think it's him I think one of the Maasai basketball players Is circumcised Maybe that's what it is He has to be there They do something to him He has to watch

[01:12:05] He does have to watch Is that right? I saw that movie Never seen Probably 20 years ago It's all movie theaters Exactly Anyway The thing I was going to say is that I think Indiana Jones is circumstantially funny I don't think he is like a quippy one-liner funny

[01:12:20] I think this movie tries to do a little too much of that But I think the whole thing is that like His balance You know the duality of who he is Always being a little out of place In either environment And also that he is super vulnerable

[01:12:32] Like he fucks up And he comes close to failing And he's always sort of in danger In a way that a lot of other 80s action heroes are not I think What Williams needs to The mask needs to drop a little more In terms of like

[01:12:46] Oh this is just some like rich kid professor son Who wants to be a greaser I think you need to see that fall And I think you need to see him trying a little more In order for him to become funny And then by proxy become relatable

[01:12:58] I don't think that's really shy as fall But did they really think You know with the intention of mutt Williams Kind of sorta Assuming the fedora In future movies That they were going to be able to put On a marquee on a movie post

[01:13:12] Or the adventures of mutt Williams And people are going to give them money In exchange for the opportunity to see that I think they did I think they Mutt Williams I think they actually thought that was going to happen

[01:13:22] I think they thought that the next movie would be like A real straight up two-hander You know? It'll be like mutt And Indiana like equal billing And then eventually they'd like They'd segue there So in the next one they fucked the same woman

[01:13:35] And then the one after that it's just mutt But this is like not a sustainable character The way they build him You know? No, agreed At all Doesn't have a huge arc And nor should he And nor do we care About his arc Yeah Alright

[01:13:50] We should get off mutt Cause we haven't done any of the part of this movie Are we gonna do the plot though? I mean I feel like Alright I like those are opening 20 minutes Which did we give them enough credit Cause they're really good

[01:14:00] Start with the 50s teen boxers in the car We talked about the Mutt the fridge What do you like about this Ehrlich? Speak up About We talked about the opening 20 minutes To begin with everything But it feels like for some This is like the crux of your

[01:14:13] This is your thesis here Well my thesis really just goes back to the The split Like the duality bits And the stuff with his family And his place in the generational cycle Of Joneses But I do think that the filmmaking Is particularly inspired and fluid

[01:14:26] In the opening 20 minutes I think there is not a Shot out of place in that I love how heightened it is How cartoonish it is in its own way I think more or less every joke lands It's very economical And how you introduce arena spalco

[01:14:41] You got Ray Winstone in there Ray Winstone you I have a moment Can we talk That's mostly when I was missing Well you have a moment Where Ray Winstone pretty much Turned to the camera And admits that they're making this movie For the money Which is

[01:14:54] Toils of money Yeah well that was good Wow What do I know about cholesterol Whoa Like group in Britain No but still So they used to do this ad Where Ray Winstone was the pitch man For I believe special K Really In Britain for a while

[01:15:08] Now Ray Winstone is very famous in Britain Okay And it was kind of funny When he was briefly famous in America Can you do the rest of the episode As Ray Winstone I wish I could He's like a pretty In Britain like It's like Michael Cain, Ray Winstone

[01:15:19] I feel like they're a very You know who are kind of like Christopher Walken's Like it's like A lot of people can do a Michael Cain Can you do a conversation Between Michael Cain and Ray Winstone Not right now Can you do Cain Not really

[01:15:31] What's like a Michael Cain thing I'm trying to My name is Michael Cain My name is Michael Cain The Earth is better than mine already Like I can do Cut rate Cain And you could be Ray Winstone But like what's the thing Michael Cain set I'm trying to

[01:15:42] I just saw Michael Cain She was only 16 years old You're only supposed to But he don't offer My name is Alzo Pennyworth Batman do you want That's later Cain Where he's like Bruce Like you know where he's How he's proud You want to pause And watch the trip

[01:15:57] And then we'll jump back Oh that's the thing We're living in our You can't do Cain because of the trip Right That's like all that keeps me going right now Is the promise of the trip to Spain Trip to Spain baby But so Winstone I think right around

[01:16:08] Man it is weird how Winstone Is weird In the 80s and 90s He's a British character actor He plays gangsters He plays like thugs He plays heavies And then like Everyone American director Start putting me in He's like It's after sexy bees It's sexy bees

[01:16:24] Which makes him cool Which is great in sexy bees And that's a great movie Did we agree I like it a lot He's in cold mountain Like he's suddenly playing Southerners but he's like You know like He's on from Mississippi It doesn't

[01:16:37] Like he's not really trying very hard He's Bayowulf He's Bayowulf But please remember that Cold Mountain is a movie Featuring Jack White That is true So they weren't really Giving all that many Jack White's in it But he doesn't play the albino That's Charlie Hunnam That's insane

[01:16:54] That movie puts Jack White on screen And goes No not him The other albino He's in the department In which he plays like a Boston gangster And he's like He's in the muscle Yeah And then he was in these Special Cards in Britain Where he's just walking

[01:17:08] He's like Whoa I know about cholesterol And you're just like Yeah you're fat Why are you bitching special Cards I love Ray Winstone I feel like it died off Like around now This is sort of the end Of his little American boom Does Ray Winstone have a

[01:17:24] Son who is substantially more Conventionally handsome than a His daughter No he's not a Gleason He can't just like Gleason about that And Rafe's fall I want a third one of those You know I want a third like Tubby British character I want like a shitty

[01:17:36] 2008 John Favreau directed Like Milk Toast comedy Starring Rafe and Timothy Spall And also Brendan Gleason And Dom Nogleson Dom Nogleson As like two sets of families Who hate each other And go on a road trip That sounds great Wouldn't be great And then they meet Ray Winstone

[01:17:52] And he is sad that he doesn't Have a son His daughter's an actress though Yeah Jamie Winstone And I swear to God She briefly dated Lindsay Lohan It was like I believe she is like I don't want to tar her though Like and I don't want to be

[01:18:06] Going out you know You know what I'm making up She dated Alfie Allen They had a child together It was Alfie Allen He's Lily Allen's brother What? You know he's in Game of Thrones Oh he's an actor He plays in various things Reek Yeah he was in Atonement

[01:18:23] He's the simple Farmhand or whatever That they accuse of rape Yeah Oh yeah In Atonement Alfie Allen I love Atonement I just blocked him out of it I don't know I swear to she did date Lindsay Lohan though I don't know Maybe I'm making up Anyway Ray Winston

[01:18:40] Is great in this movie He's having a blast I guess he's kind of playing the John Rhys Davis No no no Alfie Allen is the son from John Wick Yeah Ray he's in John Wick He should have said that I forgot he's in John Wick

[01:18:51] So well cast on that Alfie Allen is just like a punchable boy You know That's where he That's the space he occupies Okay so I'm sorry Back to Mac I feel like I just totally miss my window To do the John Wick Like yeah I guess I'm back

[01:19:05] I wish I could do Keanu That's such a good impression Can you do Ray Winston saying Yeah I'm thinking I'm Mac No god damn it I have to do it naturally I can't do it on the spot Anyway Mac is a beautiful character George Mac McHale

[01:19:24] Is his character's name Okay And you believe the history he has With Indiana Jones Does everyone think it's crucial The Nazis or whatever it is they did I can't even remember What's the backstory They talk about Berlin There was a Berlin job That went wrong a writer

[01:19:37] Because I guess the implication right Is like Indiana Jones Like was part of World War II He was like a spy I guess This is the guy he's been doing Every mission with for the last 20 years Right he was doing like clandestine Shit he'd worked with the KGB

[01:19:50] But then obviously now we hate the KGB Or something like that I don't know Help that with an alien autopsy There's that scene with the janitor From Scrubs where they're yelling at him Early on right before the nuke And Cameron with the E.B.M.

[01:20:04] And they're talking about Area 51 Is the whole implication I don't like Mac I like Ray Winstone a lot I like the camaraderie at the beginning I don't like how much focus is devoted To him in the movie Just because at a certain point

[01:20:21] I stopped caring about which side he's on You know Does he even die? Yeah oh he dies in a wonderfully terrible shot I can't remember it He gets all the jewels right And he's like Oh indeed don't worry about me Yeah right And then like

[01:20:36] He's got him on the whip And he's like I'll be fine I watched an Australian dub of the film That explained that But he Oh Andy He lets go And he's like He's supposed to be sucked up in a spaceship And it looks really janky

[01:20:52] Yeah the end thing where they're all getting sucked into Like a portal Is the space between spaces Or whatever that's lame I'm trying to remember who it is But it was in some review of the BFG I heard someone throw out a theory that Bill Bergs

[01:21:05] One of the best at compositing CGI elements Into a live environment And he's one of the worst At compositing live elements into a CGI environment Interesting That's probably fair There's like a 2575 rule with them And like The first half of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull They're CGI

[01:21:21] But it's usually like One CGI element in this Or the rooms extended a little bit Yeah sure and he's turning In you know He's making a 50s town happen Or whatever he's doing yeah The second half of the movie Especially the jungle chase It's like

[01:21:32] Okay the vehicles are real The actors are real The environments fake The monkeys are fake The weapons are fake Do we need the monkeys No No Wait but you don't like the quicksand scene I like the quicksand scene Okay but you have to vibe on a different way

[01:21:45] I like the quicksand scene But that's practical He's like in real No no I agree I just like this I wonder what through people Who were a little bit more attached To Indiana Jones Is that it's a It's not just Taking it from the serial stories

[01:21:57] Of the 40s to the sci-fi B Like you know paperbacks Of the 50s And the 50s In fact It's just like In the movie In the 40s There are a lot of people You know Like I mean And it's so You know It's really You know Like folks

[01:22:14] You know And then And then You know So The Every time I see this movie, I'm like, wow, that's a flying saucer. It's a flying saucer. Can I tell you what I think activates the revulsion in people? It's like suddenly they're now,

[01:22:41] the second half of the movie becomes like, here's the family, right? So A, it's like Marion's back in the picture, now Mutz is son, now Marion's there, the three of them are always fighting like a family. I like the part where Marion's like, yeah, I'm guessing I'm back.

[01:22:52] She's not sure, she's just guessing that she's back. I'm thinking, whatever the fuck John Wick says. Yeah, I believe he says I'm thinking. But then you also have, Mutz is the dog. It all comes together. That's where he's like cute little beagle.

[01:23:08] You have the three of them as the family. That dog gives a better performance than John Wick, than Shia LaBeouf gives him ideas. The dog's fucking amazing in John Wick. The dog's really good. You have the three of them doing a lot of family banter,

[01:23:17] and then you also have Oxley, you also have Mack, sometimes the Russians are kind of with them, sometimes they're not, and suddenly there are a lot of CGI environments where another crazy thing is happening every five seconds, and I think it starts to feel a little spike-it.

[01:23:31] Oh wow, good point. Well said, Spy Kids is the right vibe. However, unlike Spy Kids. I do too. No, I'm more of an adventurous or shark boy and lava girl fan myself, but unlike Spy Kids, the chase scene as bad as the CG is,

[01:23:46] and as bad as everything is above tree level. The stuff where Mutz is suspended between two cars, and they are sword fighting, is masterful. See, I don't like that stuff. Well, you were mistaken. I don't like it because it feels

[01:23:58] like it has no tension to me because it's just, the CGI around it is so prevalent that it feels hermetic to me. It's all for me in addition to sort of the kinetic glee of watching this fight scene, which I think is really well choreographed,

[01:24:14] and you have Cape Lancet sword fighting with Shia LaBeouf, which like, don't come at me bro, and tell me that's not a sight that you need in your life. Yeah. You have Mut Williams one foot on one car, one foot on another,

[01:24:27] bridging the gap between these two worlds as they drive in opposite directions. Indy tried to figure out who he is. So it's what my bro, Tati Haynes, would call semiotics. Oh hey. To bring the Cape Lancet business full circle. David Erlich, the ghost rider of film criticism.

[01:24:45] He's the only one who can dissect both worlds. That's great. Just don't infer that I'm the film grid hulk of film criticism, which is why I thought you were going with that. Whatever I think of semiotics. He's not writing in caps anymore. No. I just saw this.

[01:24:57] It's a luxury he can no longer afford. That's what he said. In Trump's America, yeah. Jesus. That's what I am saying. I did not come here to shit on film grid hulk. Well I've done it on this podcast before and I'll do it again, goddamn it.

[01:25:08] But it all depends on what he thought about Kingdom of the Crystal skull. I don't know what he thought about it, but I bet that he thought that it was bad and he had a lot of bullshit reasons for why it was bad.

[01:25:17] I bet he thought that there were some very story related issues that he had. But I did think that this film critic dick, film critic hulk. It's an interesting sequence because I think that half of the sequence and sometimes these elements are competing

[01:25:31] with each other in the same shots works very well and another half is so glaringly artificial in both look and feel that it's just. And then you got the fire ants that are all gooey, like gushers. Like the fire ants. I do like that.

[01:25:43] And I do like the gross, you know, what's this guy? The what Eric, Igor Gigi Kini or that guy getting eaten up by the... Yeah, that's a great shot. Don't like John Hurt. See, that's my Ray Winstone. Goofballs McGillicuddy for me. And also just sort of feels like,

[01:26:00] it just feels lazy. Like Ray Winstone is a fat, like, you know, former spy turned double agent, turned, I don't know, whatever, you know, alien. Sure. Gold miner. Gold grubber. That's great. Like they're like, oh, we need like a British academic who went crazy, like get John Hurt.

[01:26:18] That's lazy. That's lazy as shit. He's not trying. He's just gonna like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't know. See, I disagree. I think he's really going for it. Oh man. I don't like that character, but while watching it kept on saying like big ups to John Hurt,

[01:26:31] he could have phoned this in. I love John Hurt. Sometimes I'm weirdly out on John Hurt. I didn't even love him in one of David Ehrlich's favorite movies from last year. Jackie? I think he's a really good Jackie. Which I really loved Jackie. John Hurt was in Jackie.

[01:26:44] Yeah. He's the priest. Oh yeah. I haven't seen Jackie in like six months. Well you fucking loved it so much. I did love Jackie. I do think that he is, on the Indiana Jones Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Power Rankings, he is pretty low.

[01:26:58] Oh see, he's like maybe my number two. Crazy. Wow, we're all over the place. How do you feel about broadband? That feels a little porn. It's distracting. Why? What? I don't know about broadband. Do you love broadband in this? You could put broadband in fucking like Warcraft

[01:27:11] and it'd be like one of performance. One, I'd love to see Jim Brum in a Warcraft. Okay, they'd be great. That would be great. You'd like to have that foster role. He's August fighting. Okay, broadband. Okay, not great but I'm working on it. Iris! Iris!

[01:27:27] But that was a really good impression of someone else. I just can't put my finger on who it was. I'm between broadband and someone else. I'm closer to the other person. We don't know who it is. But broadband is an international treasure.

[01:27:36] When Jim broadband dies, that would be bereft. And he is wonderful in this movie. And why not be Jim broadband? Why would you cast any other random Brit in that role? I'll tell you something about Jim broadband though. He's seven years younger than Iris in four,

[01:27:50] which is actually crazy. He looks a thousand years older than him. I'm gonna repeat my favorite fact that I repeat whenever I can. Paul Giamatti and Vin Diesel, the exact same age. I believe that. Did you know John Chu was 44? Yeah, dude looks unbelievable. You don't mean John-Choe.

[01:28:07] John-Choe, John-Choe. Sorry, John-Choe. You're confusing John-Choe when you see me too is. I was just thinking about it, because when I think about the, this is a true story that's gonna sound like horseshit. John-Choe 37. In my brain, when I think about

[01:28:18] the kind of action filmmaking in this movie, one of my other reference points is the mountain fight in G.I. Joe Ninja Mountain. And that was directed by John-Choe. And that is why I had John-Choe on the brain. True, true. The mind works in mysterious ways.

[01:28:35] Yeah, John-Choe's old. John-Choe is, he's a sexy old man. He's 44. I would get an amazing December, May, November. I thought he was about 35. But John-Choe's been around forever. John-Choe was old when he shot American Pie. Yeah, it was a 30. Yeah, I said that's the thing.

[01:28:50] It's like, I love John-Choe. If John-Choe had a baby with Gabriel Union, it would be a Highlander who would live forever. That's true. He has like a wife though, right? He's married. He has a wife and a child. He has like a nice kid, yeah.

[01:29:06] Can I throw out my hot take on this movie? Sure. Erlich, I love your read. My problem with this movie is I feel like I get the glimpse of your read and I feel like it doesn't go far enough into it.

[01:29:18] And I'll tell you where it falls apart for me. I don't like that in the second half of the movie where they get to the temple and they come face to face with the quote unquote gods, and all that sort of stuff. Like real face to face,

[01:29:30] like the face in the camera. Like really close, yeah. That is buried in the aesthetics of the same kind of ancient tribal. Yeah, that's also my problem. Jungle, you know, like semiotics of the previous films. Yeah, it's not sci-fi enough for me. I want more sci-fi.

[01:29:49] But he likes the duality. He likes the... Well that wasn't even gonna bust out the D word. I was just gonna say that it's of a whole with the goofy paperback quality that you see in the Saturday morning series. I can see the argument.

[01:30:01] I like the movie enough that I'm fine with it, but I know what you're saying. It still feels like a 30s Indiana Jones movie in most way. Like aliens have a home in the Indiana Jones movie. I got no beef with aliens.

[01:30:12] What I would love is if the first half of the movie was steeped in sort of the jungle ruin ship, right? And then when they find the race, then you get to more of the Area 51. I wanna see them in a fucking flying saucer.

[01:30:25] I don't want the flying saucer to look like like temple ruins, you know? Like I kind of like a movie that is about Indiana Jones being out of place, you know? That's about him straddling two worlds, like the two jeeps in the jungle.

[01:30:38] And I wanna see a movie where it's actually more jarring in the way that the Fridge sequence is, where it's like this guy doesn't fit into this anymore. Why don't you just go home and edit what Williams and Indiana Jones relationship into War of the Worlds?

[01:30:51] That's what I'm gonna do. And there you got your aliens. Or Jupiter ascending, that's what I'd want. That's what you want. Nobody wants Jupiter ascending. No, not Jupiter ascending, but I want it to be like a fucking, like a Menzies movie, you know? I want like metallic sterile.

[01:31:04] A Menzies movie? William Cameron Menzies? Who did like the saucer man for Mars or whatever the most? I should, I will have to go home and set it up on him. I just, like I don't want it, there's my fear with any of that

[01:31:16] is when you're getting into Jurassic World Syndrome where it's like the whole fucking movies about how you made a sequel. Like, and I need you to throttle back a little bit. Like I do still want an Indiana Jones movie, you know what I mean?

[01:31:27] Like I don't want every goddamn thing to be about how, oh my God, can you believe we made a sequel to Indiana Jones 19 years later? I don't want that, I want a movie that becomes that. Do you know what I'm saying? I know what you're saying

[01:31:39] because I already said I kind of agree with you, but I also kind of get why they didn't do it. I guess is my best. Yeah, I just get a charge out of him nuking the fridge, I get a charge out of him area 51

[01:31:50] dealing with like this, you know, horn rim glasses. Yeah, I like that stuff. I mean. Like I like seeing him mashed up with different aesthetics because he's older and because that has to be recognized and because the movie's about the fact that he never fucking settled down

[01:32:05] and it's like, what are you trying to prove? Like that kind of thing. I like him sticking out more. And yeah, I just like, I want them to, the alien stuff feels like they're a little bit embarrassed by it, like they're hedging their bets a little bit

[01:32:19] which is weird because they're also going so far at the same time, you know? Like they're owning the alien shit and being really fucking silly and pulpy. It makes, it lights her eyes on fire. Right, but then they're also trying to make it look like Raider.

[01:32:33] You've made your point. I don't know, yeah. That's my point, I don't know. Spielberg had produced that miniseries taken a few years earlier, not that much earlier which is like steeped in that, he loves that 50s, paranoia, Area 51, like aesthetic. Like you know, dialed up to 10.

[01:32:49] I mean, do you know anyone's watch? I wonder if there had been like, no. I wonder if there had been like, well fuck you! Heather Donahue from the Blair Wish project was in it and it was weird. I wonder if there had been like one more set piece

[01:33:00] and I know the movie's sort of getting long in the tooth by this point anyway but maybe you can take one out from earlier but after the introduction of the aliens where the aliens are more involved. I agree with that too, because yeah,

[01:33:10] the aliens kind of come pretty quick. I mean that, which is classic Indiana Jones where it's like we finally did it and then something absolutely mind boggling happens. Yeah, but then- Like there's nothing mind boggling and then something mind boggling. The aliens just like, I'm out, like peace.

[01:33:23] I'm out of the galaxy. I've given, I've killed Cape Lanshawd. I've done too much harm. I gotta go. And I think like had there been a chase sequence or something with the aliens? I don't know. I think maybe Griffin would have been a little bit more on board.

[01:33:36] Maybe spend more time in the trophy room with all of this like ancient artifacts that are really fascinating and interesting. I'm like St. John's Aliens. Yeah, I do too. I do think there is, all the Indiana Jones movies are about this guy chasing something he doesn't believe right?

[01:33:54] Like that's kind of the major through line is that like the previous three movies are all religious artifacts. That he believes do not hold any actual power and at the end of the movie there's like, you know, the last 10, 15 minutes suddenly crazy supernatural shit starts happening

[01:34:07] and he has to come to terms with it in the way that the aliens function at the end of this movie. But they're always about him not believing in anything more than the object, not the power invested in it beyond that.

[01:34:18] And this I feel like because it's not, they try to tie in the thing where it's like, well, they thought they were gods, they were the aliens. But it seems like very quickly he's like, oh these gods must have been aliens. And he just kind of accepts it

[01:34:32] and then the movie's just trucking towards the end point. It's when he sees the Crystal Skull. Right. Yeah. And he's like, you couldn't make this thing. You look at the other thing and it's like, even at the end he's like, that's just a gold box.

[01:34:41] How fucking badass would it be in your apartment to have that Crystal Skull? That Crystal Skull. Pretty good looking skull. It's a nice skull. What do you think of skull? Yeah, that's my point. We just talked about the world aliens, you know. Yeah, I don't...

[01:34:54] You know, the skull is close enough to being a, I was gonna say xenophobic, but that's not right. Xenomorph. Xenomorph, yes. It has that elongated style. This could have just been a soft pre-world. This could have just easily segwayed it to Prometheus.

[01:35:10] Look man, I once read a comic book where Superman fought Xenomorph like by Canada Jones but Xenomorph. I like the look of the skeleton. I don't like the look as much when they get flesh. It's not that interesting. It's just kind of...

[01:35:22] It's just another example of bad CG. But it's mercifully brief. It is mercifully brief. I was just confused because there's no vodka in it. That's true. You know what? If fucking Acrewood was selling vodka out of that skull, I'd buy it.

[01:35:35] Like the skull he's got is so basic looking. It is a little basic. It's a regular skull. Yeah, who cares? It's just vodka in a skull. Give me a crystal alien skull. I think the crystal skull in this looks really cool. I think it looks great.

[01:35:47] No, I agree with you. I think the crystal skull in this looks cool. I think Acrewood's crystal skull in real life looks like. That's my take. I don't know what you're talking about. Dan Acrewood owns a vodka company. And the bottle is a crystal skull.

[01:35:59] And Dan Acrewood also believes in UFOs. Let's be clear. Dan Acrewood, our guest on the podcast next week. Oh man, that'd be probably really unfortunate and embarrassing for everybody involved. We would watch that 80s movie where it's a new Jersey and he's the judge.

[01:36:13] No, we definitely watch Dragnet. Right? You're talking about Nothing but Trouble, which Dan Acrewood directed. It's terrible. What about that movie where he dresses up in fetish clothing with Rosie O'Donnell? Ex-Ada? Yes. Do you want to play a box office game? I would love to.

[01:36:27] 2008, it comes out I believe Memorial Day weekend. Yes, May 23rd, 2008. Okay, and it opens to like 100 million? 151 million dollars. That's the four day or the five day or whatever. Four day. That's pretty crazy. Pretty crazy. I mean at the time this film was released

[01:36:42] it was in the top 20 films of all time. Yeah, it made right. Just to give you, it made a lot of money. 317 domestic, not great considering the opener there. But 800 worldwide. That's a lot. Okay, number two. It's a lot and I know we're talking about 2008

[01:36:59] but that's like less than your average installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise now. It is crazy. I can adjust for inflation and tell you that these days it made, not that much more honestly, yeah like 375 domestic. So yeah. But important to note, not that long ago

[01:37:16] but 2008 Dark Knights the number one movie of that year and that becomes only like the fourth movie in history to make a billion dollars worldwide. Like it was before the billion dollar whereas now it's like you gotta make a billion dollars

[01:37:27] for Disney to even like look up from the newspaper. You're losing money if you don't crack a bail. Daddy, I've made 800 million dollars and he's just like uh-huh, yeah, Zootopia shat that in sleep. But this was the number two worldwide grosser of the year.

[01:37:41] And that shit had very, very cute things to say about racism. What's Disney got next year? I mean this year. They got Coco's The Pixar Movie, Cars 3, they got two Pixar's this year. Gigantic, they're doing a Jack in the Beanstalk Movie.

[01:38:02] I'm very in favor of like Latino representation on animation right? Why is every fucking Latino animated movie about the day to day? Is this like am I being an asshole? I have no idea. Like is there nothing else? I mean I get that visually it's a very exciting

[01:38:17] like thing to play around with and maybe that's what it is. This one's been in development for a long time. We just had a fucking day of the day. But it's like every Japanese themed movie, animated or otherwise, that's made with Western money is about Samurai Golder

[01:38:30] and so on. This is true. This is the way of the world. But I will say as unfortunate as that may be that Gamma del Toro produced Channing Tatum, famous Latino, the book of life, was surprisingly good for what it was. Not a bad little movie. Yeah.

[01:38:48] Do you know that Disney tried to file a copyright for Day of the Dead? They wanted to legally own Day of the Dead as a holiday in preparation for Coco? I did not. That's unfortunate. Yep. All right, so number two at the box office this week. Iron Man?

[01:39:02] No. Was a film that I am amused to tell you cost more to make than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Wait, wait. Which had, Indiana Jones' listed budget is 185 million. This movie cost $225 million. I swear to God no one ever saw it.

[01:39:18] Apparently it made lots of money. Can I guess what it was? Please. I am not even... It was number one the previous movie. I'm not gonna think that hard and assume that, I don't even know what year it came out, but it just feels, no, no, no,

[01:39:30] but like I don't know what year this film came out. But it just feels right in my bones. Wolfgang Peterson's The Poseidon. I think that did come out no way, but it is not that. I think that's earlier. I think that's maybe 07 or 06.

[01:39:42] But that's a really good guess. It is 06, that movie, that that movie exists. Well, it may not. I mean, right? It's one of those movies where you're like, did it exist actually? Like, did that happen? John E. Drama. John E. Drama's in the movie.

[01:39:54] Is the film you're talking about live action or animated? It's live action, although it has animated elements. Okay, so I'm just running through this on my head. First week of May, Iron Man kicks off the summer. The next week, Speed Racer is supposed to be the big one.

[01:40:06] Speed Racer is in the top five. Right, and it's toppled by what happens in Vegas. Which is number four. Okay. Solid movie. So four and five are Speed Racer. One is in the end of Jones. Four and five are Vegas and Speed Racer. Number three is Iron Man.

[01:40:18] Okay, so number two is the one we're trying to figure out. And it had come out, it came out the same like, you know, it came out a week before that. Sure. So the week after Speed Racer. Okay, is it based on pre-existing material? Yes.

[01:40:29] And is it the first film in the franchise? No. It is a sequel? The costume. It's crazy, crazy. 200 and five. That we forgot about these. Is it the last one in the franchise? No, it's the second. In a three part franchise that they keep claiming

[01:40:42] they're gonna make another one. The Smurfs? No. 225 million dollars this thing cost them. What was the final box office gross? Tell you in one second, it grossed domestically $141 million worldwide 419. Not bad. I mean, for that budget. Wait what was it? What was the domestic gross? 141.

[01:41:03] Wow, 225 million dollar budget? Yeah, not great. That's not exceptional. It did okay worldwide. But they claim they're gonna make another one. Wait, was it, was it? No. I don't know. No, it wasn't. I think I'm thinking of like Tim's stories Heyday It's not Fantastic Four. Yeah, Fantastic Four.

[01:41:21] Based on pre-existing material. There's a reason you guys don't really remember this movie. Yeah. It has one of the stars of Westworld in it. It's an unhelpful clue. Because it's not one of the stars of Westworld that you're thinking of. Movie with no stars, 225 million dollars.

[01:41:40] And it's the third one. It's not second one. Second one, but there are three. There are three and they, apparently they're gonna make another one. It's based off a cartoon show? No. It was directed by an animator. She's a movie. Which is a pretty good clue. Yeah.

[01:41:57] That's a pretty decent clue. It's directed by- See this is why the box office game is- Oh, Ice Age. Not Ice Age. It's not an animated film. But it has a lot of CGI. It's based off something that isn't a cartoon, not a comic book. No. Book series?

[01:42:09] Yes. It's based off of books. Came out in May too. Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. What is it? Of course. Is the Chronicles of Narnia Prince Casper? Oh. That's right. With Ben Barnes of Westworld. They have green lit a purple one.

[01:42:25] That was not a helpful clue. Yeah. It was not, I liked it. That's what I liked it. That was the allegiant of its day. Yes. It really was. The first one was humongous. The first one was like inexplicably, not maybe not inexplicably, was a huge thing.

[01:42:36] The first one had Tilda Swinton as a ice- She's got a cameo in the second one. She's in a little mirror or something. Yeah. And like it was coasting off Lord of the Rings, you know? And suddenly we're like, here's another one.

[01:42:46] And it was just one of those things where audience was like, nah. Like we were fine with just the one. But I remember everyone being like, that's probably the number one movie this summer. Right? Like everyone was like, it's an arms race between Caspian and Indiana Jones. Right.

[01:42:59] And then Iron Man and Dark Knight were afterthoughts. Right. Right. Well, because people didn't take superhero shit seriously. That was the year where everyone was like, I think we've hit peak superhero. They're done now, right? And then like the two movies that define the next 10 years.

[01:43:11] Strong socket and win the primary. Yeah. Everyone was like, we've hit the end of that cycle. Spider-Man three a year before we're done with this. And then Iron Man and Dark Knight became the two movies that everyone copied for the next decade. Prince Caspian.

[01:43:22] And yet they made the voyage of the Don Treader. But Fox made it. Disney dumped it. Yes, right. Fox picked it up, slashed the budget. And who directed it? Not Adler. Michael Aptit. Michael Aptit, who made a lot of good movies. The coal miner's daughter.

[01:43:33] He made coal miner's daughter, which I recently watched off at TCM. And Tommy Lee Jones is so good in it. And I'll bring it full circle. This is, of course, the sea space. The director was originally supposed to do a voyage

[01:43:42] of the Don Treader and then left was Neil Berger, director of Divergent. And the illusionist. He was looking to make a children's. The illusionist is about how an orange can grow out of a little. The illusionist is a movie about how I thought

[01:43:57] every time I saw it on cable, it was the Sylvain Chomei movie. And every time I'm deeply disappointed. Oh, gee, I'm on it. Get me out of here. Because it was like one time it was actually the fucking Chomei movie.

[01:44:09] And every time I see it on the one I'm scrolling through I'm like, good day. Never is. Jessica Beale, baby. She's in that one right? Yes. Watch it on a plane. In the Chomei one. Rest of the top five. She is Sylvain Chomei. Right. OK.

[01:44:21] So top five is Indiana Jones, Prince Caspian, then Iron Man, then what happens to Vegas, then Speed Racer. That's right. And then six through 10, just out of curiosity. Yeah, let me, sorry. I dismissed it. What I learned from that movie is that what happens

[01:44:33] in Vegas doesn't, in fact, stay in Vegas. Oh, there are some. There are some. It follows them back home and it may be your way. There are some shit nuggets. That's why I want to hear. I'm not trying to guess. I want to hear the.

[01:44:42] Remember Maid of Honor about that great, crazy male maids of honor? Wait, what was it? Patrick Dempsey, Michelle Moynihan. I don't know who else is in it. You guys, I own the Blu-ray of Maid of Honor. It sits on top of my television.

[01:44:55] You exactly produce Maid of Honor. Oh, my God. Number seven you got Baby Mama. Oh yeah. Tina Fey. That film, Fuller Joy. Maid of Honor is a better film than Baby Mama. I agree. See, you two hate Baby Mama so much. I think that movie is entertaining.

[01:45:07] Oh boy. Now Dax Shepard's directing Chips or whatever. Yeah. Harold and Kumar escaped from Guantanamo Bay. And this is another one of my hot takes. I think the best of the three. I think it's the worst. Solid movie. I don't like that movie.

[01:45:22] Forgetting Sarah Marshall, a movie we can all agree on, surely. He likes that movie. I love that movie. I don't love that movie. What? I'm mixed on that movie. What? I know you love that movie. I'm breathing heavily. Forgetting Sarah Marshall leads to Masterpiece.

[01:45:37] I think Neighbors is Stoller's Masterpiece. I mean, those two films alone put him in the most upper echelon of artists of our time. But if I think about getting Sarah Marshall, I have to. The vampire. I mean, the Dracula musical scene. There is not. Yeah, I love that.

[01:45:55] Oh my god. There is not a single moment of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Get into the Greek is better. What? So superior. I just want brand and I want a lot of it. Get into the Greek has its moments. There's a couple moments. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I think,

[01:46:08] it's like the apartment of our day. It's some like at heart of our day. OK, maybe there is a spectrum where I'm in the middle now. No. A Masterpiece. I think her looks like running. There are seasons every year where

[01:46:21] it will come on Cinemax or whatever for a few weeks at a time. And that, my friends, is when I live. Can I quote your recent Forgetting Sarah Marshall tweet? There's one you posted this week. I don't even know what it was.

[01:46:34] It was Jason Segal was only 28 when he wrote for Gangster Marshall is the new. Orson Welles was only 28 when he directed Citizen Kane. 25. Sorry. But I think that Making Forgetting Sarah Marshall at 28 is a more impressive feat than directing Citizen Kane at 25.

[01:46:52] No, am I forgetting a scene in Citizen Kane where Orson Welles sang a musical about Dracula? Or no. Orson Welles also didn't have the courage to show his wing on film. I'm sure he would have loved to show his wing. In deep notice.

[01:47:08] There's also the visitor rounding out the top 10 from Tom McCarthy starring Richard Jenkins. Back in the time, I mean, that's to show you how far we've fallen really and not come. Not that I have anything particularly good to say about the visitor.

[01:47:20] But it was a time when that kind of movie could have cracked the top 10 in the middle of the summer movie season. I know. It's funny. That is actually true. It's been hanging around for seven weeks and it's like hanging out in the top 10. Yeah, we did well.

[01:47:32] It's not a terrible movie. I don't like it. It's kind of if that came out today, the hot takes of Richard Jenkins playing his bongo drums in the middle of wherever. Yeah. Jenkins is great in that Jenkins is great. When Jenkins bad? When Jenkins bad?

[01:47:48] He should have won his Oscar for step further. We all agree on that. That's saying you're wrong. He wanted to be a tyrannosaurus. The best supporting actor 2008 should have been Richard Jenkins. That's something that I struggle with. Existentially, spiritually. They could make like Martin Scorsese's silence about me

[01:48:03] trying to figure out whether or not stepbrothers is a better film than Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Same year, right? Yeah, 2008. Stepbrothers for me, no question. I think for me too. But it's kind of like do I want to look at a mon name?

[01:48:17] Or do I want to look at like? Because one has heart. A Picasso. And one has the pan. A pan. Like a woman's name. I'll say this. At least your dick like Kobayashi. I know the point is that I'm falling for it.

[01:48:34] But I got kind of worked up at the end of Stepbrothers when they performed. You and Marion Kotiard. No, as Marion Kotiard says, she cries every time. Do you also think that a jet fuel can't melt steel panes? Yeah, he like Kotiard in other ways. Yeah.

[01:48:47] Kuku Kotiard and I are two birds of a fellow. Some of the fucking movies in this like, you know, Horton Here's a Who, Nims Island. Horton Here's a Who was one of the top 10 highest grossing films of that year. Drillbit, Taylor, remember that?

[01:49:04] You know, when Wilson come back, that didn't happen. OK, so here's my last thought that ties into the thing I want to make sure I don't forget to say. U2 3D? This season we're talking about, right? May 2008. This is like a couple months after I've dropped out

[01:49:19] of college and I'm living in New York and being like, I'm going to be a movie star. Like yelling at everyone around me like, I'm not an idiot. I know what I'm doing. I'm going to be an actor. People must have thought you were fucking idiot.

[01:49:28] Fucking idiot, right? Like a lot of. I'd met you at the end. This probably wouldn't have happened. Um, there was a kid in Drillbit, Taylor who had a very similar haircut to me at the time and very similar glasses and everyone thought I was in Drillbit, Taylor.

[01:49:44] So they thought you was already like, wow Griffin. Amazing. He somehow shot that after dropping out of college. I swear to you. I swear to you people are that dumb. I got so many messages that were genuinely like,

[01:49:54] is that you I just saw in the new Owen Wilson movie? Who the fuck's seeing Drillbit, Taylor? No one but they'd see the TV ads. Right, okay. I just wanted to be clear. If they saw the full movie, they would have known it wasn't me.

[01:50:04] But they'd see the TV ads and one of the three kids looked like me. Sure, sure. And for like four years that was the fucking meme. Like the joke around my friends was like, oh you in the Drillbit, Taylor guys, he's still getting your parts.

[01:50:14] Like after they found it, it wasn't him. It's like how Katie Rich looks like the little girl from Moneyball. It is a lot like that. Steals all of Katie Rich's parts. The other point, when you were asking about

[01:50:25] did anyone ever think that they were actually going to make a series about Williams films? Did anyone think that was actually ever going to be a thing? I remember looking in my bathroom mirror the week before this film came out, Crystal Skull and going like, wait a second,

[01:50:37] they're going to make about Williams films. They're going to need villains his age. And I was like... Another odd assumption I got to say. I don't know if you're really going to need villains his age. But I remember distinctly looking in the mirror

[01:50:49] and being like, that's what you're going to do. You're going to be a Mutt Williams villain. You've come a long way, Griffin. I'm telling the story of a show where my head was at at this point, May 2008. I looked in the bathroom mirror and I was like,

[01:51:02] what kind of villain would I want to be for a Mutt Williams film? Yeah, but... Practice accents and fighting styles. Some would say that shitting on Mutt Williams during this podcast, you have, in a roundabout way, become a Mutt Williams. One of his greatest villains. A Mutt Williams.

[01:51:18] And that is why you have become one of our finest film critics. Not our finest film critic who is of course Ben Hosley. I don't know who that is, we're going to have to find him and kill him. Oh, that's Ben? Yeah, he was right over there.

[01:51:30] Well, I found him. You could probably get the drop on him. I'm scrappy though, you better watch out. Mr. Ehrlich, thank you so much for being here. Good time, baby. Follow you on Twitter. If you're listening to this podcast in April, please go back to January 13th

[01:51:46] when David Ehrlich tweeted his run of kids at Crystal Skull Fints. When I lost my mind in real time. Well, I should have been reviewing the Jamie Foxx movie, Sleep List. Which I'm sure by April has entered the canon. Yeah, good time had by all, Indiana Jones.

[01:52:02] Next week. I'm about to actually, as we speak, go to Broadway and see Kate Blanchett in a play. Oh, you did? Singer and the Thinger Hubby wrote. Two hours of check off. With Roxburgh. I remember when I was watching Hacksaw Ridge and I was like,

[01:52:18] I'm gonna get Richard Roxburgh too. Like, cause there's like every Australian actor and then he's like, I'm like... You wanna hear something crazy? The Ocean's Eight shoot is so long that Kate Blanchett shot a month then went into a month of rehearsals for that play

[01:52:32] has a two month run and then goes back and shoots another month on Ocean's Eight. And no matter how long that movie is going to shoot for and how much time of those actors is going to take it's still going to be directed by Gary Ross

[01:52:42] and a piece of shit. All I'll say is I'm in that movie. He's in that movie baby. I will 100% be cut out of it. That was the best possible outcome for my opinion about Ocean's Eight but I hope that in between takes

[01:52:58] you turn to the camera and say, where's Soderbergh? All I'm gonna say is... I was promised Soderbergh or at least Gregory Jacobs. Yeah. If you're a betting man or woman listen to this podcast right now. You're not in Ocean's Eight.

[01:53:12] Just put down some money right now on me not making any final cut of Ocean's Eight. Do you play Rihanna? Do you play Aquafina? No spoilers. He'll tell you right when we turn off the mic. But I play a real dupe. Next is next Tintin?

[01:53:26] The next film I believe is Tintin. Right? Tintin Warhorse. That is correct. See you next week with the Adventures of Tintin Colin the Secret of the Unicorn. Shouldn't have given it that Colin. We'll just call it Tintin. Thank you for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe.

[01:53:42] And as always, go to our Reddit. Reddit slash r slash blankies. Say some stuff. Make it nice. Yeah we good. We good. As always. And as always... Give it my best shot. Okay. Yeah! I'm thinking I'm Mack! Okay. David? Yeah. Both of you ready?

[01:54:08] It's your name too David. I'm including you in this now David. And Sims, I want you to say in your best mutt Williams impression. Which is... I don't have one but okay. I don't understand why the legend about the city of gold. Oh I have to say what?

[01:54:24] I have to say every line he goes over. Say it like you're from the 50s David. Real greaser. Imagine you're holding a knife in your hand. I don't even remember. When is he saying that? Is that during that weird conversation? You'll know when I say my line.

[01:54:36] Okay ready? What do I have to say again? I already forgot. Type it out. Ready? Open up a doc. Okay type it out. I don't understand. Period. Why the legend about the city of gold? And now in parentheses before that line type out in your best mutt Williams.

[01:54:54] I'm not typing that out. Okay are you ready? What's a mutt Williams? Give me a mutt Williams. Like I'm literally interested. I'm gonna try but I've been doing a really bad job of impression. I know well it's fine. I understand. That's pretty good. That's not bad right?

[01:55:15] Why the legend about the city of gold? What about that other line he has that's like power. So there's a power. What's the power? Wait what's the other line you want me to do? Because this is insane. The alt? Yeah what's the alt?

[01:55:27] I just understood what the alt is. I thought you said you were a t-shirt. Sure. Right. That's more of a cute line. But the problem with that one is it would sort of have to be I thought you said you were a podcaster

[01:55:39] and then I would say part. None of it's good. You're gonna like this one when you cue me. Ready? Okay.