James and the Giant Peach with Emma Stefansky

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, don't know what to say or to expect, but we'll shout it with Blank Check. What are they? Crocodile tongues. Tongues? Long, slimy crocodile tongues, boiled in the skull of a dead witch for 40 days and 40 nights.

[00:00:30] And, the gizzard of a pig, the fingers of a young monkey, the beak of a parrot, and three spoonfuls of sugar. And then, let the podcast do the rest. Good. Good job. Only took two takes. Very, very good. It only took two takes? I'm sick!

[00:00:45] You're the magic man! I'm the magic man. I have a head cold. Okay, he's got a head cold. Jesus Christ. I, I, I, because I usually, if we do a musical, I try to butcher one of the songs. Oh, sure.

[00:00:56] I felt like I couldn't do it. I couldn't do justice to what I think are... What songs as memorable as these? Yes, which are what you think are what?

[00:01:02] This is what's wild. I will admit, this is a movie, I watched a lot as a child, so the songs are just baked into my skull. But, we had this argument on the Princess and the Frog episode. I love Randy Newman. I do too.

[00:01:15] He is one of my favorite... He's the best. ...musicians of all time. I mean, look... One of my all-time favorite songwriters. Exactly. I love him. I'll admit, he's written a lot of songs over the years.

[00:01:24] And, you know, some might call him, his movie work these days, you know, a little bit of a paycheck thing. But, I love him. I love him. Princess and the Frog songs, save for Almost There, pretty forgettable.

[00:01:34] And this, for me, is an example of good Randy Newman story songs, and you seem to have the exact opposite opinion. Look, I haven't seen this film since theaters. So, I haven't seen it in, you know, what is that? 1996. It's almost 20 years. 20... 14, 16 years. Yeah, sure.

[00:01:50] And, I fired this up, and I'm watching it, and then I was like, damn, this is a musical? I had forgotten. Not only that... I had no memory of the songs.

[00:01:58] The structure of this movie is pretty much alternating between musical number and action sequence for the middle 40 minutes. It's got a very odd structure. It's a 70-minute movie. I mean... There's 40 minutes of stop motion. I was doing the stopwatch on it.

[00:02:10] He goes into the Peach Bin at 20, and then at one hour, they land in New York City and he becomes human again. That sounds right. And it's really over at 70 minutes, and then there's long credits. 75, and then very long credits. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:02:25] It's just funny. It's like 20 minutes, 15 minutes, 40 minutes, stop motion in the middle, long end credits. Just didn't remember the songs. I'm sorry. With like six musical notes. Five I'm seeing here? Here are the five. Oh, I guess there's the one that Randy sings over the end credits.

[00:02:38] Which is called Good News. I got good news for you in the paper, gotta read that news. The other songs I'm seeing listed here are My Name Is James, That's The Life For Me, Eating The Peach, and Family.

[00:02:53] I can sing all of these songs by heart, word for word, perfect. We believe you. Didn't get an Oscar nomination for any of these songs. It got an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score, Musical or Comedy. Did it?

[00:03:06] Yes. And it weirdly, when they still were splitting score into genres, which they did only for a couple years. They should do again. But it weirdly didn't get a song nomination. This is the year after Toy Story.

[00:03:18] Can you imagine how hot I was on Randy Newman at this moment in time? I can only imagine. Yeah. Listen, here are the five song nominees this year. It's actually pretty good. Okay, 1996. Yeah, I mean the movie. Well, you know what?

[00:03:31] Introduce the podcast and introduce our guests and then we can. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers

[00:03:40] and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce like a giant peach on a hill, baby. This is a miniseries on the films of Henry Selick.

[00:03:55] It is called Ben Hosley's The Podmare Before Castmas. Correct. Producer gets top billing on this one. Correct. People will think, did Ben Hosley host every episode? Was he the only one on mic? And you're like, no, actually it was Griffin and David and they never got credit.

[00:04:07] That's right. The residuals are pretty good, but they're still bitter about it. Never shut up about it. Never shut up about it. This is the second film that Tim Burton produced for Henry Selick. It was obviously less hands on than this film, even less than Nightmare.

[00:04:22] But this movie was certainly pushed as once again from producer Tim Burton. They're back. And when this film was released on Blu-ray about 10 years ago, the Blu-ray disc that I popped into my player to watch this last night,

[00:04:35] it very proudly states on the top of the Blu-ray case, from the director of Alice in Wonderland, that's where we were at that point in time, that the greatest selling point of this movie was...

[00:04:46] That it was from, in some vague sense, the guy who made Alice in Wonderland. I don't even remember if they mentioned Nightmare Before Christmas on the box. And it certainly was very big at that point. But this film is called James and the Giant Peach.

[00:04:59] It has five certifiable bangers. Five rip-snorting pop hits. Of Randy the Manly Newman. Clogging up the runtime. I fucking love them. I love these songs. But this, yes, this lost best original or comedy score to Emma, Rachel Portman classic. Yeah, yeah.

[00:05:16] You've also got Mark Shaman for The First Wives Club, Alan Menken for Hunchback, and Helen Zimmer for The Preacher's Wife. Those are the kinds of nominations we lost! And they stopped splitting up the categories. Men in Black got a score nomination. Remember that? I mean there's that clip.

[00:05:28] Choreographed number. So good. Bring it back. Okay, so I assume that one of the Hunchback songs got nominated? No. Fuck. Which is also rude, because that's got a great... You can talk, by the way. You forgot to introduce our guest. I haven't forgotten to introduce our guest.

[00:05:43] I'm waiting for her to talk. Speak on mic, come on. I was laughing before. You were laughing. I was giving a little chuckle. Let people know that you approve of what's happening. Wait a second. Wait a second, what? It is fucked up that Hercules didn't get.

[00:05:55] David is slowly unfurling the fingers. I wish I had the smoking jacket I could give her. This is five times main feed. Main feed. One time paywall? Correct. Okay, so let's count them. The weight. Avatar, the weight of water.

[00:06:13] David is weighing his own sweet green hibiscus berry and clover tea. The weight of water. Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. A movie that absolutely exists. It's a classic. I can prove it. Yes. Sorry, I just kicked her. That's fine. Now this is the sneaky one.

[00:06:33] People forget about this episode. We're not on it. Oh, Birds of Prey. That's right. Girl gang episode. And then I would say fourth is maybe her most iconic appearance. This is the best day of my life.

[00:06:45] Yeah, and we finally let her be on a good movie, a movie she loves. Which is, it was in the pandemic, animated film, Treasure Planet. Oh, of course. Of course, and Emma's being there. Ben knows, Ben remembers. And here we go, big five. Big five for our guest.

[00:07:02] Emma Stefanski. There you go. The queen of books and bugs. Books and bugs. Discussing. Bugs with a Z. James and the Giant Peach. It was one of these things when we slap Selick on the spreadsheet, we were like, well, obviously it was Stefanski.

[00:07:15] Her name just auto-filled in the spreadsheet. Did you mean to type? Yeah, right, exactly. Clippy showed up and threw it in there. Books and bugs. Yeah, I mean, geez, I honestly shocked. Good point by you that Hunchback was ignored because I think Hunchback's got some lovely songs.

[00:07:34] Do you think they pushed Someday, the big ballad? Right. And it was kind of like, eh, we're sick of those Disney ballads. Although I do think that one's good. I think it's fine. The problem is the best song in the movie is Hellfire,

[00:07:45] which they were never going to nominate. But imagine someone performing that at the Oscars. Imagine there'd be some sexual repression. That movie is so good. But that must—because Out There and Someday are kind of like the big ballady, I guess. But what's it called?

[00:08:02] King of Fools is a good song? Topsy Turvy. Topsy Turvy. I mean, look, whatever. I guess it's just a sign of Disney fatigue that it doesn't get nominated. Because they used to get like three nominations per category. 100%? In those early 90s? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They would write.

[00:08:19] They'd get the ballad, the funny song, and the banger. You know, all three. So now we've got— The winner that year was You Must Love Me from Evita, which is sort of a stinker. Okay. But it was kind of like Andrew Lloyd Webber, fucking Madonna, you know, whatever.

[00:08:33] I remember Andrew Lloyd Webber got on stage and said, I'm glad the English patient didn't have a song. And when I was 10, I thought that was funny. Because the English patient was cleaning up. Still funny. Then you have—it's just ballad central. Okay, wait. Fuck.

[00:08:50] Is this the year with the One Fine Day song? Correct. By Kenny Loggins. You know why I remember this, right? For the first time in— One fine day. What is? I was just singing For the First Time in Forever from Frozen

[00:09:03] in ballad form, which is not what the— The song is called For the First Time. Let it go! Do you want to build a snowman? Why? Tell me, remember what— I forget who performs it live on stage.

[00:09:17] You talked about this on The Pockets, but I don't remember what it is. Whoever performs it. Oh, it was that they had Luke and Leia as an example of romance. They do a montage of the greatest movie couples,

[00:09:25] and they show like Bogie and Bacall or Casablanca or whatever, right? Their love story and all these things, the way we were. And then they show Luke and Leia smiling at each other at the end of Star Wars. And the special edition re-release had just happened.

[00:09:37] It was like burning up the box office. And it was like collective amnesia. Because maybe, I mean, Return of the Jedi had not yet been re-released or whatever. I don't know. It was very odd. It was very odd. I think about that all the time.

[00:09:49] Okay, so One Fine Day of Yeeta. There's no English patient song. No, but you do have I Finally Found Somewhere from the Mirror Has Two Faces, so that's Barbara. Sure. Is there a Preacher's Wife song? No, but the Barbara song was written by Barbara Streisand,

[00:10:05] Marvin Hamblish, and Bryan Adams. They all came together. Wow. Their rings glowed. Their powers combined. For the first time from One Fine Day, which is a James Newton Howard song that was performed by Kenny Loggins, Because You Loved Me from Up Close and Personal,

[00:10:23] which is a Diane Warren song that's a Celine Dion banger. That was a real… So fucking good. Yeah, that's kind of pinnacle. Because you loved me. But that's like peak Diane Warren ballad. You were my strength when I was weak. We sung that middle school chorus.

[00:10:40] You were my voice when I couldn't speak. You were my eyes when I couldn't see. That should have won because Diane Warren's never won. The way you love me. But it's in such a nothing movie, like the Robert Redford Ritchie Pfeiffer movie.

[00:10:52] And then this actually should have won. Okay. That Thing You Do. That is so good. Spot by Adam Slicinger, maybe Rest in Peace of Fountains of Wayne. That song is so fun. The best fake songwriter of all time. And the movie hinges.

[00:11:08] That song needs to be a disposable but really catchy pop hit. And that song has lasted. Yeah. You know what? I will say though, do you remember when Lose Yourself won and people were astounded because it was just like, no, it's an Oscar type of song wins.

[00:11:24] Right, right. It doesn't matter if the song is good. It doesn't matter if it was a hit. Like Ghostbusters will never win the Oscar. Shaft was seen as a surprise when that won, but it always goes to the ballot by the pre-established insider in Hollywood.

[00:11:36] Well, so Big Facts Machine was against Ghostbusters. They didn't want people. I'm just saying. Since that, there's been the run of like Three 6 Mafia, Jai Ho winning, like a lot of winners that are like, that's just the best song in a movie this year

[00:11:53] rather than the song that feels most like an Oscar winner. You were my strength when I was weak. The thing you do should have won. Yeah. So Wild at 90's got nominated, five certifiable bangers. I love them all. Emma, do you remember when you first saw this film?

[00:12:09] James and the Giant Peach. James and the Giant Peach. I do remember when I first saw this movie. I saw it. We didn't have it. But you won't tell us. Yeah, no, that's the secret. Patreon, pay well. I was at one of my childhood friends homes

[00:12:25] and I don't remember which one because it would have had to be them because we did not have this movie at my house. And I think it was the first time I had ever seen a stop motion movie. Plausible. If you hadn't seen Nightmare,

[00:12:39] I don't know what other stop motion would have crossed your path. And I don't think I knew what to make of it. I mean, I liked it. Did you know the book? Had you read the book? Not at that point. I was really young.

[00:12:52] I was probably like five. I saw this film in theaters. It was 1996. I was 10 years old. I was seven. I loved the book James and the Giant Peach. It was announced that there was a filmed adaptation of it by the guy who did Nightmare Before Christmas.

[00:13:12] I was like, I'm there. I saw it at the Barbican in London. Interesting. Go on. Might circle back to that later. Which is where I saw most movies back then because the Barbican was very good. They had a kids day or I don't know.

[00:13:28] And I thought it was great. Filed away my thumbs up review of it and weirdly just never revisited it. I think I never watched it again. So I'll say this. I think I was 10. It's like a certain point I'm getting there. No, I'll say this.

[00:13:41] A big Roald Dahl household. Same. So we had read this book. We'd read all the books we were deep in. B, I'm a big animation nerd. I'm already invested in the idea of who Henry Selick is. Tim Burton's name being attached to this movie. All of that.

[00:13:57] Another big element for me is that all the characters I know from this movie is Lane Smith. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who at this point is fucking killing the game with John Sieska is doing the Stinky Cheese Man. Hell yeah. Three Little Wolves Untold Story. I fucking...

[00:14:12] Those books are unbelievable. They're so good. I was thinking this watching the movie last night. You were talking about your daughter's favorite books. Yeah, Brown by Brown, what do you say? Right. Which is a little dramatically inert.

[00:14:26] How excited are you going to be when you get to read Stinky Cheese Man? Shit that's fucking got some juice to it. Well, the whole thing with Stinky Cheese Man was it was like, Jack and the Beanstalk, what a load of crap.

[00:14:37] And you were like, can he say that? Red Riding Hood sucks! And you're like, oh my God. But they are actually wonderfully drawn and clever and funny. Lane Smith has this incredible design style. He also did the Time Warp Trio.

[00:14:51] So he's a big figure in my life at this point. But most importantly, the big thing is my brother's name is James. This movie was fucking huge in our household for that reason. A, we read the book early because it was like,

[00:15:04] James, that book has your name in it. If there was just a movie with James in it, it was like, we're there. I cannot tell you how much this seemed to resonate. And it's like, his name is James. It's a very common name.

[00:15:12] It's not like I found a movie with Griffin in the title. But he was just like, that's my movie. We saw it in theaters. We loved it. We had the soundtrack. We listened to it all the time. Perfect film for kids too. It's short. It's simple.

[00:15:25] It looks really cool. It's got animals in it. But this movie was big for me. And it apparently has the best soundtrack of all time. Yeah, it's got the five best songs ever written for a movie. But yeah, I still, I'll watch this movie every couple of years

[00:15:37] just to test it, just to check. Just to test it, just to check. I'll go, still good? Keep the channel open. Still good? I love it. Yeah, I think it's like an incredible technical achievement, obviously. But I also think this film is,

[00:15:49] it's interesting in a lot of ways. It is like an interesting sort of semi-first check bounce for him. Yes. And I think for a lot of people, this movie is like too dark and unpleasant. Huh, interesting. That's why we didn't have it at our house.

[00:16:06] You read the reviews from the time. You think it was too nasty? My parents were probably just like, absolutely not, no, this is creepy. But I think in a certain way, he's the only person to adapt Roald Dahl and get that totally right. Yeah. But he's, and yet,

[00:16:18] but I would say he still is chilling it out a little bit. Because the thing in the Roald Dahl book, which I've read a million times, was one of my favorites. I read them all a lot. Yeah, same. Is that like the craziest part

[00:16:28] is when the peach rolls over Mrs. Spike and Mrs. Sponge and Ann Spiker. And they're like, boom. And they're like, hell yeah, she's dead. And then there's another bump and they're like, her too, two dead bodies. Yes. And then we just move on. Yeah.

[00:16:45] And at the time I was just like, god damn, they're dead. But they're so mean and grotesque looking. I was cheering for it. But in this movie, they live. You read reviews from the time that this movie came out and people are like,

[00:16:57] the first 20 minutes of this film are so repellent. I cannot believe anyone would show this to children. Well, because I guess it is the Roald Dahl thing of like he does love freaks. Right. Mean freaks. This is so grotesque and mean. Right. It is torturous. That's funny.

[00:17:13] Don't remember feeling that way. I guess, yeah. No, I was so into it. But it does, it's the fairy tale thing. Like it does, it feels like Grimm's Fairy Tales. It feels like all the Roald Dahl books where it's like you start from a place of real sorrow,

[00:17:25] real ugliness. There's something you have to escape. When did you first read the book? What do you think of Roald Dahl? I was so, yeah, I was 100% yeah. Hate his books, love his personal opinions. I don't really think he has said anything or done anything wrong. No, whatever.

[00:17:43] The woke mafia has come for him now. Look, he's one of my favorite anti-Semites. If I have to rate them as someone who just... Sure, like you're pointing a gun at me. Come on, do you like a few? I'm like, yeah. One of my favorite guys.

[00:17:54] I thought some of them were pretty good. I don't like the anti-Semitism. I hate me by my birth. Right. I feel like, because James and the Giant Peach is his first real book. Yeah. Like he'd written a couple before that. Wow, I always forgot that.

[00:18:03] But that is his hit. Right. That I established. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory follows that. Because Stefanski, you were pulling up the illustrations from the original book. Oh, yes. And I forgot that this is one of the ones before his, what's his usual guy's name? Quentin Blake.

[00:18:16] Quentin Blake comes in later. Yes. Who is great. I love that guy. Yeah. Also very grotesque. He's got a great inimitable style. Yes, a perfect fit. Right, this is before that. It's illustrated by someone else. Nancy Burkert? The illustrations you showed us are a terrible fit.

[00:18:36] They are really, I mean, well. And I remembered that, like when you showed me, I was like, right, yes, I remember looking at that. The first image is really frightening, which is of James holding a cat. And you see his head, his head is very skull-like

[00:18:48] and his eyes are completely black. I don't know if this is just the transfer of this into a PDF or if that's actually what it looks like. I think he looks like the Renesmee robot that was cut out of Twilight. He did eventually draw an edition.

[00:19:01] Yes, right, this is the thing. Which looks cool. I had that edition. You know, it looks nice. But it is not his OG. The Quentin Blake fit was just such a good, his style was such a good fit for Roald Dahl that I think retroactively they went back

[00:19:13] and they were like, you have to convert every one of these books. You are the visualization of Roald Dahl. I wonder what his first was where he actually. Right, because when I'm reading these in the 90s, the Quentin Blake versions are the versions

[00:19:24] that are in widest circulation at that point. Yeah. I definitely didn't have the edition with these illustrations in it that I'm looking at now. I think I did. Okay, wait, I'm trying to find. Okay, the first book he worked on with him was The Enormous Crocodile in 1978.

[00:19:38] Oh, sure. A minor work. A minor work and then Uncle Oswald and then The Twits. Oh, The Twits. It's one of my favorites. I love The Twits. I loved The Twits so much. The Twits is. That's grotesque. That's horrifying. Truly grotesque. Yes.

[00:19:51] Right, I remember that's the one where Dahl, that's like, fuck, what's a good filmic example of this? Like, you know, Von Trier doing Antichrist or something where he's just like, there's nothing for, there's no fun in this one. It's like I spit on your grave.

[00:20:02] Yes, it's like it's just two disgusting freaks at war. There's no sympathetic characters entering this narrative. Usually the main character would be the child who is the ward of The Twits and at some point the child escapes them and they get their comeuppance.

[00:20:15] And so The Twits is just them being miserable to each other and there's no child. Well, they get, the animals get them in the end. Right. Yes. I was looking this up because I was thinking, I was, you know, pretty, probably pretty sure

[00:20:26] that the books would come up at some point. Yes. And I was obsessed with this book. I think because I had never ever read anything like this. This specific one. The Twits. They keep on trying to adapt The Twits.

[00:20:36] I know John Cleese was trying to do it for a long time and then he chose to become a twit. And then the woke mob came for him and he is truly a twit, yes. Right. But then even like a year or two ago

[00:20:45] I got an email about a Twits animated voiceover audition which I think now got canceled in the recent wave of Netflix animation cancellations. But Netflix bought the Roald Dahl library. Right. And is now all in on that as a book. The Twits is legit 87 pages long. Yes.

[00:21:02] It's in and it's out. Yes. After that George is marvelous medicine. Okay. And then that late run of like Dahl's kind of like masterpieces, BFG, Witches, Matilda, like you know. When does he do Great Glass Elevator? That's earlier, that's before. Okay. That book is absolutely bananas. Wow.

[00:21:22] That book doesn't make a single lick of sense. It's so funny that Wonka is so huge and that everyone's like we can remake it, we can do it on Broadway. Keep doing Choco Factory, Choco Factory, Choco Factory. We can do a prequel. Right, prequel fine, yeah, musical whatever.

[00:21:35] We are never going in that fucking elevator. I heard he went to a great, no he didn't. No he didn't. He didn't go in any elevators. Nope, nope, he didn't go to space, he didn't meet any vermicious nids. And both the Burton and the Mel Stewart

[00:21:46] and in the Great Glass Elevator and there has never been a discussion about continuing either of those stories. Yes, but so that is one couldn't like picture. In the middle, but then he eventually went back and he did. The early ones it goes,

[00:22:00] Peach, Charlie and the Choco Factory, The Magic Finger, this is cute. Yeah. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Great Glass Elevator, Danny the Champion of the World, which was a huge one for me. I was obsessed with that book as a kid. What about Boy? When does Boy come out?

[00:22:13] Well okay, so Boy I've got to switch over to a different one. His memoir? Boy I'm also obsessed with. Boy was amazing, that's 84, so that's pretty late. Yeah. That's in between Witches and the Giraffe and the Pallan. Yeah, it is, it's, that's another one I love. Giraffe.

[00:22:27] It's wild how hot he was at the end. That's the thing, he had kind of a late in life like masterpiece. But Boy I was obsessed with all the boarding school stuff and like I don't know. Why would you relate to that? I didn't go to boarding school.

[00:22:43] I think I just found boarding school to be, like a lot of kids, it's the Harry Potter thing right? It's so enchanting to imagine going to some, even though in Boy he's like, it was fucking tough. Like it was hard to go to boarding school.

[00:22:55] The fucking Matilda movie by the way. Which one? The new Matilda musical film. On Netflix, right? Right, which is being released theatrically everywhere else. I just found out. Yeah. It's like a Sony film that Netflix only bought in the States. Sorry. It just sucks. Yeah.

[00:23:15] It's like going wide in the UK I think this week when we're recording. And it will come out on Netflix six weeks from now and be talked about for five minutes. I completely forgot about this. Yeah, I mean Netflix emailed me being like,

[00:23:27] hey are you going to London Film Festival? And I was like, no what? And they were like, we have Matilda there. And I was like, oh okay well let me know when I can watch that I guess. I didn't know you had that.

[00:23:37] It's about to get a wide theatrical release there. It got good reviews. Yeah, Netflix has bought into the Roald Dahl library which is funny because the majority of the Roald Dahl adaptations have struggled. He's tough to do. He's very tough to do.

[00:23:53] And yet I like most of the movies. I do as well. I love The Witches, the rogue movie. And I love this Max movie. One of his best. I really like the DeVito Matilda. Incredible. All of these movies are slightly sanded down from the books.

[00:24:09] They always, you know, like the rogue movie is absolute freak show ship but then has the happy ending. We both like Burton Blanca more than most. Yeah, although I'm not like, whatever. That's a mixed bag. Fantastic Mr. Fox is lovely. The Wes Anderson. BFG, you know. B! Emma?

[00:24:30] F! Leigh-Anne? G! Yep. Actually I don't think I ever saw it. Liz Spielberg BFG? No, I never saw them. Do you remember falling into a deep sleep in a movie theater once? Because that might have been when you saw it. You might have watched it every night.

[00:24:45] I did. But what dolls do you like? What doll movies do you like, if any? Oh, I mean, I was just going to say I did a school project on the BFG because everyone was like, you have to do it because you're tall. Oh, Emma Kirst being tall.

[00:24:56] She was a tall child. Tall girl. She's Netflix's tall girl. Netflix bought your rights. You were once Netflix's tall girl to a Halloween party at my suggestion. I was. I won credit for that. You did that.

[00:25:06] I was in a last minute costume and I was like, bitch, just print out Netflix on a piece of paper hanging around your neck. You're Netflix's tall girl. You did it. This joke is good for two weeks. You really timed out on the window on that one. Yeah.

[00:25:18] Some people did get it. I didn't have to explain it to every single person at the party. Did they make like three of those? Tall girl. They did two. They made a sequel. I did not watch the second one. Sorry. You did watch the first one though.

[00:25:31] I did. She was like, some people are normal. Not me. I'm tall. I wrote a thing about it, which was basically like this movie drove me crazy because she's like bullied for being tall. But what happens to you when you're a tall girl is everyone's like,

[00:25:47] oh, I wish I was tall. And meanwhile, you're like in hell. Right. It's not like people are like, hey, nice job being tall over there. I don't mean to bully a tall person. You can't. You've got long legs. Do you have to duck to get through a doorway?

[00:26:02] I was just jealous. I mean, I never mean to a tall person. I mean, I, you know, I of course believe that tall lives matter. Thank you. Thank you very much. Stance. I mean, pants shopping. Oh my God. Don't even get me started.

[00:26:15] I mean, I could do a whole this blank check length episode. Well, hold on. Let's save that for a spin off show. We don't want to give that away for a podcast. Wait a second. Wait a second. David, where did you get that name? Hold on. It's funny.

[00:26:36] I mean, I have to make sure that isn't copyright. The big friendly giant is tall, but he's better known for being big. He's not the tall friendly. No, he's not. Even though he is tall. Yeah, he's tall and he is slender. Okay. Unfortunately, there is a tall pod.

[00:26:51] Is there really? God damn it. They're always one step ahead. Maybe we can buy them out. Off the cuff ramblings from a copywriter in Eastern Europe. He got there. That sounds juicy as fuck. Is the guy's name tall? He's the tall writer. Genre is marketing.

[00:27:11] He must have been so thrilled. I think we can maneuver around this. He must have been ecstatic. It's so quick to jump on that. But yes, this book was very big in my household because we loved Droll Doll and James liked hearing his own name.

[00:27:25] And then we saw the movie and we were amped. And this is one of those movies when I got really into box office a couple years later. And box office mojo existed and I could scan through the history of every weekend and whatever.

[00:27:37] I was like, that movie was a huge hit, right? You were like Emma with Treasure Planet. Truly. $100 million opening weekend. I thought everyone knew these stories. Everyone saw it. Right. They were like under the sea level earworms.

[00:27:49] I'm flummoxed by the fact that the three of you don't care for the music. Oh, I like the music. Yeah, Emma likes the music. I'm with you. That's all I find me. Love it. I love it. I think all these songs are great.

[00:28:03] But yes, I thought this movie was a bigger hit. I guess I must have known at some point, well, they stopped letting Henry Selick do this. Right. I mean, I feel like a few years later, this would have been a bigger hit.

[00:28:12] I think it is a good sign of like there actually was only so much space for a movie this odd in the kids zone in the 90s. Nightmare did better than this. Yeah. I mean, Nightmare was not like some colossal sensation initially.

[00:28:27] No, and I think there are two things going on, right? One, this is coming out like three years, even a little bit less after Nightmare. Yeah. So Nightmare has come out sort of like was an okay hit.

[00:28:41] But the second wave of like Nightmare Mania has not fully taken off yet. That was like late 90s, right? Right. Yes. Where like Corpse Bride did bizarrely well for how nothing that movie is. Do you like Corpse Bride? I do. Do you love it? No. It's fine.

[00:28:57] It's fine. It's fine. Yeah. But it looks beautiful. It was a big hit because at that point, it was like 10, 15 years out from Nightmare and people were like, yeah, we should have fucking been there when Nightmare came out.

[00:29:07] I saw Corpse Bride in college and me and my friends were all exactly like, well, it's fucking Nightmare 2, this thing. Yeah. That's why we got to see it. I even think Peach like coming out in like 98 might have been picking up a little bit more of that heat.

[00:29:19] The other thing is this comes out fucking three, four months after Toy Story. Yeah. There is that thing where it's like Disney Renaissance is going huge. Then they're like, we should branch out and do other stuff. Let's make a stop motion film. Let's make a CGI film.

[00:29:35] And Nightmare does OK. And Toy Story is a phenomenon. Right. And at the same time, the Disney Renaissance movies are starting to peter out a little bit. Right. So they're just all in on Pixar.

[00:29:45] If you're them, if you're Eisner, especially, you're like, why are we going to make a third one of these? They take forever and they seem a little niche. Yeah. Whereas we've cracked the code with Pixar. It makes sense. And it's like, look, it's not like CGI is easy.

[00:29:59] No. But stop motion is so involved and so complicated. And this movie. Like you can feel the limitation, like you can feel like I'm trying to save money everywhere. Right. Like in all the live. There's 40 minutes of stop motion.

[00:30:16] That is the thing that's really clever about this movie. Because to a certain degree, I was surprised that he was able to get a film out in two and a half years after Nightmare. Right. Just because usually animation with development cycle, everything is four years.

[00:30:30] And this is the most laborious process. And the answer is he essentially had to make a 40 minute short film and then do live action around it. I forgot how much of this movie is live action. Yeah. I was kind of waiting for the beginning part to end.

[00:30:44] I was like, all right, it's got to get in. It's 20 full minutes. It's quite long. Yeah. And I had forgotten that there was a kid in this movie. Yeah. I'd really forgotten everything about this movie. I remember there was a giant peach shirt. So give me some credit.

[00:30:59] Partial credit. We can dig into the dossier, but the genesis of this movie is really Joe Ramth. We talked about a lot in the Nightmare episode and was just a sort of legend of 90s animation across the Pixar films,

[00:31:13] the Disney animated films and these stop motion Salick films among others. He's just sort of like he was the best animation story artist of his generation, who everyone thought was going to eventually become a great director. It was also the voice of Heimlich.

[00:31:27] Voice of Heimlich, voice of, I'm forgetting some of the other characters, voice of Wheezy, the penguin, in Toy Story 2. I believe he's the clown in one of my favorite movies of all time when I was a little kid, The Brave Little Toaster. Yes.

[00:31:40] Which is a movie he worked on. That was a big, he was a big guy behind Brave Little Toaster. That movie's fucked up. Yeah, that movie's fucked up. Have you seen Brave Little Toaster? Oh yeah. I think around Brave Little Toaster time.

[00:31:50] One of the scariest movies I've ever seen. Scary. Around Brave Little Toaster time, he goes to Disney and says, I think there's good movie potential in James the Giant Peach. Which like, no shit buddy.

[00:32:00] This is what's so weird to me, that they had to sell people on like, hey, that bestseller from the most famous children's author who ever lived, think we should make a movie of it?

[00:32:10] It used to be so hard to convince studios to make movies based on intellectual property. But I feel like at Disney also, it was like, is it a thousand year old fairy tale? Right. Like, cause it's like, if I say Cinderella, everyone on earth has heard of Cinderella.

[00:32:25] Yes. Right? James the Giant Peach, they're like, what did it sell, 100 million copies? I don't know. Flash in the pan. You're right. That fad might be over by the time the movie hits. Truly, it felt like, even like Batman, they're like, Batman's only been around for 60 years.

[00:32:38] He might not last by the time we get that film in multiplexes. But Joe Ranft is the one who pushes this really hard. Roald Dahl. Okay. Let me give you some, let me give you some dots. Hated Jews. Thought they were worried. Um.

[00:32:51] I say this because I'm Jewish. Just look it up guys. And I hate that he. It's unfortunate. Would have hated me. Um. He's a bestselling author. Mm hmm. He's a relatively successful screenwriter. He wrote You Only Live Twice. Yes.

[00:33:05] He wrote a bunch of like Hitchcock presents episodes, I think. Does he get a credit on the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Or the Wonka movie? You mean the Gene Rauder? Yes. He gets a screenplay credit on it. Although I think he largely did not like that movie.

[00:33:22] And of course famously wanted Spike Milligan. Yes. Who is like a legendary British comedian but was not exactly like the kind of Hollywood A-lister. No, he wanted it nastier. I mean and people still, so much of that movie's legacy is wow, Gene Rauder is so much darker

[00:33:36] in that movie and scarier than I thought, than I remembered. Have you ever seen that clip of Spike Milligan getting like a message from Prince Charles? No. It's in like one of, have you heard, you know who Spike Milligan is, right? Yeah, yeah.

[00:33:48] He's a very famous old British comedian. Um. And Prince Charles loved him. Okay. Right? And so it's one of these like. Is he a part of the Goon's Comedy Partners with Dudley Moore? Yes.

[00:33:56] He's part of the Goon's, you know, so not Dudley Moore, you know, what's it called? Peter Sellers. Right. The Goon Show. Right? Isn't that what it's called? Yeah, The Goon Show. So it's Peter Sellers and Harry Seacombe. Okay.

[00:34:08] And so it's one of these old fucking salutes to Spike Milligan things. It's in the 90s. He's old as shit. Sure. And Jonathan Ross is like, and Spike, we've got a message for you from, you know, the Prince of Wales himself.

[00:34:18] And he starts reading this letter that the Prince of Wales sent in. That's like, I always used to love listening to you on the wireless. You're so funny. And Spike Milligan goes, oh, that groveling bastard. And everyone loses their minds. Wow. It's so funny. Wow.

[00:34:35] The whole British audience is clearly just like melting. And Jonathan Ross is like, I don't know what to do. Like, I'm literally reading something like the Royal Seal. That's incredible. It's so fucking good. Anyway, Google that if you ever want to watch something funny.

[00:34:50] But anyway, Roald Dahl had just not been adapted for film. Right? Apart from Willy Wonka. Yeah. I guess The Witches. Yeah. But apart from that, it's mostly like, there's like that Danny Champion of the World TV movie. There's that BFG TV movie. But yeah, there is The Witches.

[00:35:08] But that's it. Yeah. And Joe Ranft, as you say, was championing this within Disney, but Disney thought it was too weird. Yeah. It's a very, it's a very picker-esque narrative. There's not an obvious movie shape to it. This is true. And one might say that about the film.

[00:35:26] I like the solution they came up with. Sure. But sure. Yes. It's disconnected. Here's Selleck. It's episodic. It's disconnected. It's got a dreamlike quality. Disney just thought it was too weird. Yeah. I don't, I think that's so dumb. Listen to this, Emma. I'm listening. There's a giant peach.

[00:35:43] Yeah. A boy goes inside it. Yeah. There's a bunch of magic animals. And they're just like, I'm just going to walk around and they have adventures. I'm just like, sold! Sounds good! He's a sad boy with mean aunts and he meets nice friends who are big bugs.

[00:35:54] They travel. It'd be one thing if he goes into the peach and who's in there and it's like famous British philosophers. I'd be like, okay, tough sell. It's like, no, it's magic bugs! Cool! And all of them have like a bit. They all have a thing!

[00:36:08] They all have a little thing that they love. Much like actual bugs. And then like, yeah. So Selleck, you know, has made Nightmare. Sure. He's got a proof of concept here. Right? But at this point, basically the thing has just sort of kicked around Disney for like

[00:36:22] five or so years, never really gaining traction. At some point they hired someone to write a screenplay and they weren't sure if they were going to do it hand drawn or live action, I think. Yes.

[00:36:32] And like, I'm sure there's a hand drawn version of this movie that's cool as well. But it is, it does make sense for stop motion. Bugs make sense for stop motion. I love the bugs in stop motion. You love the bugs? I love them! You love the bugs?

[00:36:45] This is going to be 30 minutes of the episode. We're getting to this. We've got to talk about the bugs. That's all I'm waiting for. Just sitting here waiting for you guys to be done with this.

[00:36:51] But they go through even, at some point they go, the whole thing is stop motion. It's live action all the way. It's live action, only the bugs are stop motion. He's live action inside the peach.

[00:37:02] They finally get to the solution of the easiest and cheapest way to make this movie is it's 40 solid minutes of stop motion in the middle. The boy has to become stop motion. You do live action bookends.

[00:37:13] But another thing for Selick I think is like, he doesn't want his studio to close up. They're wrapping on Nightmare and he's just like, I need something. I need to pitch something so that we're just continuing on with work and we're continuing everyone together.

[00:37:28] Did you read Bilga's Lilo and Stitch piece that came out this week? Yes. That was excellent for Vulture. Very good. If people want a carbon date when this episode was reported. Doing oral histories of early 2000s underrated Disney movies. Yes.

[00:37:40] Bilga has the exact same movies that I do. But they're saying in that piece that like the magic sauce of that movie was that it was the brief period of time where they set up a satellite animation studio in Florida.

[00:37:53] And they largely did that so that there would be a functioning animation studio that Disney world attendees could see and feel like they were visiting where the movies were made. Right. But the main movies are still getting made in Hollywood.

[00:38:06] And some of the smaller projects got punted to Florida. And that was like the last Florida project basically before they shut it down. And they're talking to a lot of the artists who worked on the movie and like where it

[00:38:15] came out of and the sense of collaboration, camaraderie, all this sort of stuff and asking like, will there ever be a hand-drawn movie like this? And they're like, the problem is like at that point that movie's coming out of people who've been working together for 10 years.

[00:38:27] There was like a sensibility. There was a studio. It's like a cast iron pan that's been seasoned, you know? And they're like, Netflix can invest in one of these movies. But the way you get to Lilo and Stitch is it's the fifth one you keep generating.

[00:38:40] And so it's the Pixar thing. I think, you know, it becomes a simple business proposition as much as Selleck says, please don't shut down my studio to Disney. It's like you've put the money into building this thing.

[00:38:51] It's kind of a waste if you only have those costs amortized across one film. It's cheaper now that you've hired the people, you've rented the studios, you built the equipment to keep this going, especially if the hope is, and I think this is that period where

[00:39:05] it's like we got to find a new satellite studio. We got to find another branch of animation. Pixar ends up being it. But like, could we just have them working continuously and giving us a new stop motion film every three years?

[00:39:16] The other thing, of course, that Selleck has going for him is that Tim Burton is still involved. He's interested in the doll book. Slapping his name. Right. So Selleck is hoping the exact same thing will happen where because Burton's involved, Disney won't mess with him.

[00:39:30] Burton will be the force field because Disney wants to be in the Burton business. Yes. And so maybe that will happen. Now, what ended up happening was Burton was not really involved in this movie at all and Selleck felt like, you know, ignored by him.

[00:39:41] It was truly a name slap. Right. And nothing past that point. Right. And I think Disney was starting to count the beans. There was a Selleck interview he did just recently talking about Wendell Wilde, but also he gets into Shadow King.

[00:39:56] I mean, stuff we'll talk about in future episodes. But was saying, you know, the thing with stop motion is it's expensive, but it's actually on average less expensive than a lot of other forms of animation, partially because they keep the scale of them down. Right.

[00:40:11] But he's like, the whole thing is they end up costing less than most of the other animated films and they just basically make back their budget when they come out. But they remain profitable for a long time. They have a long tail.

[00:40:23] You need to sort of have a big picture vision of them. Right. Because I even think the Laika films have performed similarly. Coraline's the only one that was like a proper hit when it came out. But I think all those films have done well over the years.

[00:40:36] They do well. So I think they're just like, will you give us $40 million to make another one of these? That's half or a third of what your other animated films cost. Steven Spielberg and Danny DeVito are trying to get the rights to James and the Giant Peach. Right.

[00:40:49] They get defended off by Selick. And of course, DeVito goes on to do Matilda instead. Right. And I mean, Spielberg ends up doing BFG 20 years later, but had wanted to do it for so long. He ended up doing what? The BF... The BFJ! Thank you.

[00:41:05] So basically, Burton helps Selick get this and then fucks off. Yeah. Selick's quote, Tim helped set up the film and after that had nothing more to do with it. He took a huge amount of money, gave me no protection. I don't think he even read the script.

[00:41:21] Tim's not the reading kind of guy. Usually watches some old Mexican horror films or Curse of the Bigfoot and gets inspired by that. So it starts off with him being like, look, he helped me get it. And he's like, the fucker can't even read.

[00:41:33] He's just watching garbage on television. I will say this. Henry Selick's a prickly fella. As we do this mini series... He's a bit of a prickly peach. Well, yes. As we do this mini series and we dig into why there have been such long gaps in Henry

[00:41:48] Selick's career, the big thing I keep on hearing from people, people who want to tell me things off mic without citing them directly, is the man just has zero bedside manner whatsoever. Not much of a filter. It's the number one thing I hear.

[00:42:02] It's not like, oh, secretly there's this horrible thing about him that's never spoken. There's not like some horrible traumatic monstrous thing. It's like the guy truly only knows how to speak in terms of art and is not someone who

[00:42:16] knows how to deal with people in a friendly way whatsoever. Is very blunt about everything. It's what you said we were talking about. Animators are either living cartoon characters. Yes. Or they are these weird clockwork people who are like not very good at interacting socially. Right.

[00:42:34] And like, I think someone like Pete Docter is like that. Like clockwork man? No, is quiet like he's internalized. Yes, clockwork man. Yes. But in a way that is clearly like sweet, attentive, sensitive. He's not a brazen. You have to pull it out.

[00:42:48] And someone like Lasseter is more human cartoon. Big cartoon. Right. Selick is like a quiet, intense man. He's like the Stanley Kubrick of animation. He looks like a Selick puppet. He does. He's this like thin wizened guy with a beard. Now he's got this very long goatee. Yeah.

[00:43:04] Yeah. So Selick basically as you say, they have this idea of like we're going to do sort of live action around the stop motion. But the live action can have this very stylized set. Yes. So it kind of preps you for the stop motion. Yes.

[00:43:21] Like you're kind of already in the sort of visual head space. This is wildly stylized live action. It's like, yes, it's very strange and expressionistic. Which is good. Once again, it is the only movie to me, the live action segment.

[00:43:34] I think it would suck if it was like set in a fucking regular ass neighborhood and then he goes in the peach and all that shit's happening. It's better this way.

[00:43:40] The live action section of this movie for me is the only doll adaptation that looks like doll to me. Which isn't to say it looks like Quentin Blake. It looks like how the books feel in your mind's eye when you're reading them.

[00:43:54] More successfully for me than any other doll adaptation. And I think the stop motion stuff is good as well, but because it's Lane Smith and his design sensibility becomes like a slightly different artist. Is this the best doll adaptation? I think there's an argument that it might be.

[00:44:07] Is it? Emma? I think, I would say that. Would you take it over the Gene Wilder? I mean, you like Gene Wilder less than I do. Right. I like that movie a lot. But I think in terms of just actually putting Roald Dahl's spirit on screen.

[00:44:21] I'm not even a huge Wes Anderson person. I might take Fantastic Mr. Fox. I prefer this to Fantastic Mr. Fox. He prefers it. But I think I rank Fantastic Mr. Fox lower in the Wes canon than a lot of people. I don't know. There's an argument.

[00:44:39] That's another one. Selick was going to direct Mr. Fox with Wes. And it became a Life's Too Short thing. Yeah. For who? Wes. Sort of a Justin Lin, Vin Diesel kind of situation. Yeah. I just can't do this again.

[00:44:58] There was some notion of the kid always being live action. And I like this quote from David Vogel, who's head of production at Disney, where he's like, The little boy would have to act the entire second act of the movie by himself.

[00:45:13] He would never have animated characters there. He would just be making believe. And it wasn't a matter of money. It was that you don't do that to an eight-year-old. Which is interesting. It's just like, yeah, that's just going to be too much of a nightmare for everybody.

[00:45:23] And I'll say a thing I like about this movie. The kid they picked very much does not feel like an actor to me. And I don't think he ever acted again. No, he feels like a real kid. Paul Terry.

[00:45:33] Like his performance feels like a kid playing pretend, like to entertain his parents at dinner. Yeah, he's cute. And I like him a lot. I think it would have been incredibly difficult for him to do that. It also works.

[00:45:48] It's like the kind of movie logic thing I love. I love how unexplained it is. Like he starts crawling through the peach. Little glow sparks fly around him. His head gets bigger. His head got big. Yeah. Why does he transform?

[00:46:02] I don't know, because he's in the peach now. Yeah, peach is this now. Yeah. They really don't. I was kind of expecting a little bit of explanation there. But they were just like, you're different too. Yeah, you're different too.

[00:46:12] It's sort of Wizard of Oz rules, but it transforms him as well. You're going to a different place and everything's going to be different now. It's the gator tongues. It's the gator. It's the crocodile tongues. Whatever. Croc tongue, gator tongue. Ben's out.

[00:46:24] He's mad at the movie all of a sudden. Come on. I'd crunch down on some glowing tongues. What would you hope would happen to you? Turn into a sick ass bug. Which bug would you be? Asked and answered. Yeah, what's your bug? What's your bug avatar?

[00:46:43] Because I like, of course, fucking centipedes. He's got an attitude. He's a wise guy. But I don't know, body wise. Not which one of these characters. Like if you could be any bug in the animal kingdom. Oh shit. We're going. Dang. Fucking praying mantis. Wow. Okay.

[00:47:07] I always think of them as classy. Yeah. Because they're kind of like. It's Jonathan Harris in a bug's life. Right. Manny the Magnificent. That's right. He's funny. He's really good. Emma bug? I was thinking about this. Emma, you don't have like a locked and loaded answer for this.

[00:47:23] Okay. I was actually thinking about this because I figured we'd talk about this. And I think I want to be a dragonfly. Wow. Because they're fucking cool. They, whenever you see a dragonfly, you're like, how does this exist? Yeah. They seem very powerful.

[00:47:39] Like if I was a little bug and one of those things showed up, I would not want to deal with it. They have like. By some metric, they have like the highest catch rate, like predator catch rate of any creature on the planet. They're unfair. They're like helicopters.

[00:47:54] Yeah. And that's a good answer. Vietnam shit. They're just swooping. Yeah. Well, what bug are you going to be? I don't know. I don't know. I was just in an Airbnb last weekend. Humblebird. Thank you.

[00:48:05] You were waiting for it, but I didn't think I was going to do it. Okay, fine. Well, you didn't have to do it. We can cut it out if you want. No, keep it in double. Alex actually does that. I can't say it anymore. Humblebird?

[00:48:17] And this Airbnb, which I've encountered once before in my life, a ladybug infestation. Oh, yeah. Where there's just hundreds of them and it's the most benign because they're harmless. They don't do anything. Sure. But it was just crazy to see them all. Fucking ladybugs. Yeah.

[00:48:32] I mean, ladybug was the answer that popped into my head first. Isn't it cool? I don't know how much because I like the fucking Francis in Bugs Life. I mean, one of Dennis Leary's finest performances. It's way up there. There's a ladybug in this movie.

[00:48:43] I know, she rules. She's cool. Yeah. I don't know what bugs were. I like all these characters. Yeah, because worms are kind of cool too. Worms are cool. They eat dirt. Yeah. They're slimy. Yeah. You can cut them in half and then they multiply.

[00:48:58] There's a great joke actually about worms. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. He's like talking about how his cousin was attacked. Oh, no. His brother. He had a brother and now he has two half brothers. Funny. That actually is pretty funny.

[00:49:13] This movie has some really good one-liners. He's committing pesticide is funny. Yeah, it's pretty funny. I want to get into the plot of this because I want to dig into these characters. We've basically said everything we need to say about the set up.

[00:49:25] The only other interesting guy I want to mention is that Dennis Potter, who's a very famous British writer, who wrote Pennies from Heaven, the original Pennies from Heaven miniseries and all that, right? He wrote the first draft and totally swerved away from the book.

[00:49:38] It's set in World War II. Oh, weird. James' parents died in the Blitz not eaten by a rhinoceros. Was that pre-Celic just when Disney was internally developing this without knowing what to do with it? Because I think Celic comes on once they have the Kirkpatrick draft.

[00:49:50] Yeah, I think this script may have existed in Celic. It was like, this is very interesting but we can't do this. We need to, you know. And the Doll Estate had script approval and was like, no, no. Because Kerry Kirkpatrick's the main writer on this

[00:50:03] who was a huge Disney story guy. Yeah, and Jonathan Roberts who had written The Lion King. Right, and Kirkpatrick later writes Chicken Run and then becomes an in-house DreamWorks guy. And I do want to quote Michael Eisner, chairman of Disney at the time, his opinion on this project.

[00:50:18] Quote, who wants to see a film about a boy and a bunch of bugs? We can't spend $30 million on this. Two thumbs from Emma Stefanski. We, I do. But I do feel like what they eventually arrive on is a pretty faithful, as faithful as you can be,

[00:50:35] apart from the murder of the ants, you know, adaptation, right? That's really trying to contain most of the events of this book in some way. Yeah, and even if you don't crush the ants at the beginning, I think you keep them alive to give them a greater comeuppance

[00:50:50] later in the film. Like it doesn't feel like they're pulling a punch in that way as much, you know? But yes, they do land on the structure that is like the movie alternates between musical numbers and action set pieces for the whole middle section. Right.

[00:51:05] Because it's one of these things where it's like, okay, they're here. They have to get to New York. How do you kill time in between those two events? That was my favorite thing about the book. It ended in my neighborhood. It was cool.

[00:51:17] It's just he ends up in Central Park and he's like, I live here now in a peach pit. I think I saw... I'm gonna go get H&H. Right? Yeah. Not open on Sundays. Go to Barney Greengrass. Yeah. I think I saw someone on the Reddit

[00:51:30] propose that this might be the most New York movie we've covered, which there is a sideways argument for that. It gets very New York at the end. It gets so... Because there's a cop who's like, hey, what are you doing, lady? There's three journalists with hats.

[00:51:46] I love how they're like, this peach is our peach. He looks at one photo and he's like, it's their peach. What can I do? My hands are tied by the law. I'm kind of astounded he didn't get a supporting actor nomination. Mike Starr? He does take the...

[00:51:59] As New York cop. It's incredible. He just owns the last 15 minutes of the movie. He's one of those guys where you're like, you have this outfit at home, right? He's one of those guys who's like, I got a construction outfit.

[00:52:08] I got every YMCA outfit basically in my closet. You might be very surprised to hear that he was a drinking buddy of my father's during my father's gambling addict days. Was he a fun one? I think so. When he would go to Jimmy's Corner

[00:52:22] on 45th, the best bar in New York City, which is a former boxing corner man's bar, and he would sit there with a couple of guys every night and bet on games. And Mike Starr was one of those guys.

[00:52:32] When I was a kid and we'd watch movies or TV or whatever, Mike Starr would show up. My dad would walk in and he'd go like, good for Mike Starr. And I always got the sense that when you were drinking with that guy, no one would hire him.

[00:52:43] Oh sure. When that guy was mid-20s or early 30s. He aged into character actor, right? He figured it out. Right. We watched Ed religiously in my household. And he was just so thrilled when he was like, Mike Starr still on the show?

[00:52:55] And we were like, yeah, he's a regular. Good for Mike Starr. Remember Ed? We watched every, it was one of the only TV shows my mom liked. It's kind of a cute show. I'm just looking, Spider-Man, the Raimi Spider-Mans, those are New York movies. Very New York movies.

[00:53:11] Trying to think of New York movies we've covered. Sure. Bright Star, that was very New York. Hey, I'm walking here, Keats. Efron's You Got Mail. West Side Story. When Harry Met Sally. Yeah, we've actually covered a lot of New York movies.

[00:53:24] And this movie mostly takes place in a peach. Yeah, but at the end. And also, Center Beach from Brooklyn. I don't know if you know. I was astounded checking the credits that Ed Burns didn't play Center Beach. I know, he should have actually done it.

[00:53:38] He is actually going to revive Center Beach, but it's going to be about how that guy can't get laid. Sorry, just Ed Burns. So this movie starts out. By the way, I want to tell you that I Googled kinds of bugs because I was trying to find

[00:53:49] what kind of bug I want to be. I haven't decided yet. This movie starts out with like, scientific textbook illustrations of bugs. Beautiful credits. I love it. I would hang that up on my wall. Violin music. Eisner must be having an aneurysm

[00:54:04] just from the start of this thing. Where's the attitude? There's nothing hip happening. It reminded me of like, the opening of Sleeping Beauty. How it's all like medieval illumination. Which is so beautiful. And similarly chill. Similarly, right, low tone. And then when you go to live action,

[00:54:24] you realize Henry Selick is committing to the most unpleasant reality ever committed to film. Lots of kids have their parents haven't been eaten by rhinoceroses. I don't know what you're talking about. It's a normal thing. The beach looks beautiful. His parents seem lovely. It's very sweet and touching.

[00:54:43] I will say this. The transfer of this movie on the Blu-ray and the streaming qualities that exist right now is controversial. Interesting, why is that? I watched it on Disney+. There is a look to this movie that was certainly by design to Selick.

[00:54:57] It was his, you know, vision. That it seems perhaps what exists out there now digitally and on disc is a poorly preserved version of that where it is much darker. It does look darker. Even more desaturated, even grainier than what it was. When you watch like,

[00:55:18] because I was going onto YouTube and watching the trailers there isn't one of those like 4K scans of the 35mm trailer. The color palette looks different. The place where I think it becomes very apparent is when Postle Thwaite enters

[00:55:32] and you can barely see his face, it's so dark. I think all of that's a little... Yeah, you're right, this does look a little brighter. It's really washed out. And I understand the look, especially in the live action section is like pasty, Victorian, dreary.

[00:55:46] Dreary is a good word for it, yes. But the beach looks nice. His parents are very lovely. They love him, they're nice. Sure, but then they got eaten by a rhino. Then Rhino comes. This is where I just start loving this movie.

[00:56:00] Loved it as a child, love it today. Is the lack of concern needing to explain the sort of child book logic that I feel like movies get into literalizing. What do you mean they got eaten by a rhino? We can't do a rhino.

[00:56:17] Rhino's too expensive, that doesn't make sense. Where did the rhino come from? Rhinos don't eat people. This is a movie that just commits the idea that there's just a rhino in the sky formed out of clouds and he kills the parents. He's still there, he's there forever.

[00:56:31] Yeah, it's true, because in the book it's like they were at the zoo. And in this movie they're just like, I don't know. And then the rhino comes. Yeah, and then a rhino ate them, the end. Now he lives with his aunts, any questions?

[00:56:43] In the book it's sort of like it's a humorous sort of like it's a fun to like this mythical force. Yeah. The notion of the rhino in the sky. It's the fear he must conquer in order to become. Right, that needs no further explanation

[00:56:57] and he's just dumped off with these two fucking horrible aunts, Joanna Lumley, Miriam Margolis, giving phenomenal performances. So good. Two actors who feel or can feel drawn by, created by Roald Dahl. You know what I mean? They're both such exaggerated performers to begin with.

[00:57:17] And then Harrison, Miriam Margolis is sort of like short and squat and Joanna Lumley is this bizarre, exiguous tall woman. And Selick uses French and Saunders almost identically in Coraline. And the puppets are so similar to the two of them in this. I fucking love them in Coraline.

[00:57:35] Coraline Brules. It's a goddamn home run. Yeah, I love them. For people who haven't already, I highly recommend watching Miriam Margolis on Graham Norton Supercut. Oh, so funny. She's so good. She's a wild woman. Wasn't there a thing recently where she was on some show

[00:57:57] and they didn't turn her mic off and she said like fuck Prince Charles or something? She's one of these like we'll say anything people. Yes. She's like an 85 year old Australian lesbian who goes on all the British talk shows and just says whatever the fuck

[00:58:16] and Miriam Margolis flashed Martin Scorsese. Very sexual. Very, very sexual. Most outrageous moments. Yeah. 12 minutes long. Can you look up what the recent thing was? She said live on air. She was talking about Justin Jeremy Hunt who's the new chancellor of the Exchequer or something.

[00:58:40] Maybe this is brand new. This is like from last week. Is this what you're thinking of? Last year I said you've got a hell of a job. Best of luck. And what I really should have said was fucking bastard. Look, she's cool. Joanna Lumley.

[00:58:58] This is sort of like Ab Fab. Yes. Prime Ab Fab era. So she's I feel like popping up and stuff. Love her. Love Joanna Lumley. Do you like Ab Fab? You feel like you were a bunch of drunk fashionistas. I was a big fan of Comedy Central. Yeah.

[00:59:20] But I remember it was just a show and I was like these are fucked up adults. I watched Ab Fab because it was like when I was a kid living in Britain the cool thing like was Ab Fab. I guess because they were drunk.

[00:59:36] And I think I watched it I was like is this what grown ups are like? Sure. When in fact it's like they're really kind of like children. And I was like, oh my God. Bring Ab Fab back. I guess I did the fucking movie like four years ago.

[00:59:54] Never really. It's one of those things probably just belongs in the 20 years of being like would they ever make an Ab Fab movie and then they finally did and people were like OK it's exactly like we were just talking about T2 train spotting which is

[01:00:10] another one that people were like begging for. Right. Yeah. Grotesque. I like it when movies use theatricality as part of their look. I like that this fucking little house on top of a hill looks completely artificial. Everything is these bizarre like paper cut out forced perspective

[01:00:33] sets that they have like grotesque theater stage makeup on her giant teeth. The sets look teeny tiny tiny. That's another thing I love. It's like not only they forced perspective but they feel like they are humans in like little stop motion set. I think it's the right aesthetic

[01:00:51] choice because I think it does prime you for the strangeness of the stop motion. Yeah. And the transition doesn't feel that weird as a result. I also think I like a hill house where the house is like kind of like hanging off the hill.

[01:01:05] I always like that defies logic defies gravity. But I also love the you know in like Grimm's fairy tales and things the adults who are mean to the children are not funny. They're just horrible. Right. Like the wicked stepmother is just horrible.

[01:01:19] You know any of those types of characters. Right. Enrolled all care movies or books rather. Sure. The awful adults are perversely funny. Yeah. And I think he's nailing this tone from the get go of like they are horrifying to look at. They are truly terrible to him.

[01:01:37] Yeah. They're not nice. They're not good parents. They are good. Guardi perversely entertaining. Yeah. They're fun. Yeah. I mean they leave him fish heads. Yeah. Just the absurdity of like oh they truly don't feed him. They put him in a box like all the shit you know.

[01:01:54] He has a lot of grotesques in his bibliography. Yes. Yes. Like Mrs. Trunchbull in Matilda right. The aforementioned Twits. The Twits. The Twits. I'm going to bring back the super fans and they only talk about we're all doll books. Yes. Charlie the Talk Effect are obviously

[01:02:14] the old people in that are are presented mostly as gentle but they're still kind of a little weird and creepy. Weird enough that SNL does four sketches about him a season. Yes. They keep on insisting on doing sketches that start with four old people in bed together. Yeah.

[01:02:32] But I guess I guess Miss Trunchbull is sort of the biggest one. Sure. In my head. She's a similarly like sort of like exaggerated villain that you're kind of you want as much of her as they can give you. Right. The Witches is the other one. Yes. Yes.

[01:02:48] I know I was right. Yeah. Sponge and Spiker though. I don't know. I'm kind of rooting for them to go. They're so unpleasant. At a certain point I'm like I need to get out of there. No. This kid has no outside world. There's no Miss Honey.

[01:03:01] No there's no Miss Honey. I was surprised when the peach rolled down the hill that there was like a whole neighborhood. You never see them. You never know. You see when they come to visit. Yeah. When the peach is on display. But yes. What's their jobs?

[01:03:14] Showcasing the peach. Yes they do eventually do that because like you know what do they do. What do they do all day. It's like their old money. Yeah. They've got this stupid house. Why don't we get him something better than fish heads. Because they're mean.

[01:03:30] The whole point they're doing apart. It's not for lack of options. They're spiteful. They're spiteful. That's the whole thing. They're like we left something for you. They think it's funny that they left him fish heads. They're really awful to him. Yeah.

[01:03:44] OK so then he gets he meets him a magic man. Well this is the first song. Yeah which is what my name is James or whatever. Yeah. But James sadly you know sees the fish heads then sees in the garbage a fucking crisp bag with like residue inside.

[01:04:00] He's like licking the bag. Licking the residue and trying to find some happiness making this little balloon out of it to entertain himself. Right. And James has heard the grass hoppers music at night not knowing it's from the grass hopper. And this is when he sings to the

[01:04:14] spider who he does not know yet is Miss Spider. He does not know yet that she's the hottest bitch in town that she is a babe of home. Of course you're into this. OK. I've been waiting for this. I've been waiting for this. I've been waiting for this.

[01:04:27] David I'm not going to produce receipts. OK. But sometimes in the past on this podcast. We've talked about animated film and the second we finish recording you say I was never going to say this on Mike but I have a big crush on that character.

[01:04:41] Obviously the mom and Ponyo is the one you're very vocal about. Did you see the fan cams when maybe of her. Yes. So that's because mom. So it's good. So it's good. I just rewatched Ponyo. Hotter than ever. That woman that woman which is there are other ones.

[01:04:57] I'm not going to say it. What side it. We can go down to. I don't know what you're sure it's the. The frog from Princess and the Frog. The second we finish recording you said the reason I like this movie so much is because I think

[01:05:09] she's crushing her in frog form. David why have you seen this so many times and you were like I don't know. The second we finish recording she's bossy. Bossy frog face. And it's like I and it's like that she's in human form as well

[01:05:23] and I'm like oh yeah I guess she is. I don't remember that I remember the frog. You have not said anything about Tiana and human form who I think is a beautiful woman. It's very pretty. But you were all for the human form.

[01:05:34] I was like you were all fucking horn up for frog Tiana. Now my point is that it feels like sometimes when they are non-human you are reticent to admit you find them attractive on Mike. I was watching this movie last night and I said I'm going to

[01:05:46] fucking force him to admit Miss Spider is maybe one of the highest characters in the history of cinema. Miss Spider is a is a 10 out of 10 hit it Emma go for it. She is one of the like when when you always I don't know if you

[01:05:58] always do but some sometimes the like prompt goes around where it's like which you know classic like probably animated female character was sexual and you know people say like she go from Kim Possible or whoever like you know Poison Ivy. Look at her. Look at her.

[01:06:17] She is the OG. She's got a beret. She's played by Susan Sarandon doing like the breathiest foreign like you know fucking with what's her name in French lady. Yeah exactly. Yes. Yeah there you go. Who are you thinking. You know Rocky and Bullwinkle. Come on. What's Natasha.

[01:06:35] Yeah exactly. Just the thing where it's like you know how you worked on this accent for five minutes but I love it. I mean it's like the most generic accent euro accent. She's so good. I just love you mean so skis mom Lisa is still number one.

[01:06:50] Sure for you. But I just attention must be paid here. No yeah. No she's incredible. Yeah there was that thing like a couple of months ago where Susan Sarandon like broke Twitter because there was some video of her almost falling out of her dress. Susan Sarandon. Yes.

[01:07:07] And she's pretty like in her 70s. She is she in her 70s. Yes. And everyone who has spent the last six years online complaining about Susan Sarandon for political reasons. She like got Trump elected or whatever. Right. That video circulated everyone's like I give up.

[01:07:21] I can't say anything bad about the woman. I mean it's one of the best AV club headlines of all time in my opinion. What's that. Susan Sarandon masturbated to for old time's sake. Susan Sarandon's a babe. Miss Spider is a babe and one of

[01:07:36] the sexiest voices of all time. Wonderful voice. Yes. But James just sings to her in whatever. And it's a song about for me. I'm Jane. He needs to hold on to some sense of self because he's got fucking nothing as we're saying as opposed to some other

[01:07:50] Roald Dahl stories. There are no friends. There are no kind family members. There are no kind teachers. James's life is just fucking cleaning up the house for these two shitty women who are openly abusive to him. So he's got he's got to talk to bugs.

[01:08:03] Do you talk to bugs Emma all the time. Yeah. Possible. It enters as a character named the magic man. And this is absolutely the first time I'd seen peas puzzles wait on screen. That's a good question. That's a good point. Even probably was for me.

[01:08:17] The year after this and I was like oh the magic man glad to see him working. Yeah I mean like I don't think I'd seen like you know the usual suspects or you know in the name of a father. I mean I've seen a lot of

[01:08:28] people in the name of a father. Yeah. What his hairline is doing I didn't think was possible. Everything about the way he looks in this. He comes on screen and I go this is the most twisted vision yet from the visionary mind of Henry Selleck.

[01:08:43] And that's just talking about his bone structure. He's so incredible looking. I mean this isn't he's handsome. This is kicking. He is handsome. He's striking. You've got the stubble going obviously. He has the Oscar nomination in his pocket already for in the name of the father.

[01:08:57] He's been in stuff like Alien 3. Like he's been around for a bird's about to collect him for a couple. This is the thing he's are you know he's in he's incredible in distant voices still lives if anyone's you know. But this is the kickoff of him

[01:09:08] and just like peak character studio paycheck. Yeah right. Dragonheart Romeo and Juliet Brasov which he's amazing in Lost World Amistad the you know animal farm that was good. Yeah shipping news kind of evens out. He still does stuff though. He still just worked and worked and worked. Yeah.

[01:09:28] Dies too soon. I know that just that crazy year of inception in the town where he's so good in both small roles. Screening. Yeah. This is his return. Yeah. And I'm sure I've told I mentioned on this podcast that I saw him in a 90 minute one

[01:09:43] man play called Scaramouche Jones where he plays a clown who's going to die at midnight which is one of those things where it was like just watching him work was very cool. Yeah. Yeah. Is it a comedy. No it's sort of like a happy sad

[01:09:59] kind of weird thing but it was more just like it was like I think it was just like a thing he toured for his whole life like it was like his big personal that's really cool. It was cool. I'm sure if him as Scaramouche Jones. Cool.

[01:10:14] There's also he did it. He did like a documentary in which he was playing a fictional character about climate change. OK. It wasn't like a what the bleep but it was that kind of thing where it's like we know half scripted half documentary talking head interviews or

[01:10:29] whatever but it was like him playing a man from the future called The Age of Stupid. Yes. Thank you. And there's incredible it's like he's in the future trying to figure out why the world ended. Correct. There are incredible red carpet photos of him promoting

[01:10:44] The Age of Stupid or whatever film festival premiered at where he went down the red carpet with a bicycle. Can you find these. If you see them and he's like steering the bicycle up at the paparazzi line. God bless. God bless people.

[01:10:59] This is one of these things I'll never forget. How old is he when he died. He was 64. What the fuck. We had so much. He had pancreatic cancer. It's very scary stuff. Yeah. Yeah. What are you going to do. One of us.

[01:11:13] He's a great actor and you know he's well cast as the magic man. Look he doesn't have a lot of screen time and he really makes a maximum impact with what he does. And it's also like this is now you're seeing someone be kind to

[01:11:23] him and inject a little bit of hope into James's life. Can't remember who it was but it was some interview I read with some actor who worked with him early on in their career. We're doing a scene with him. It was his coverage.

[01:11:35] And they were watching him and they were like this guy is horrendous. He is the worst actor I've ever seen. This is astonishing. He is so overdoing it does he just not care anymore. Right. And then they watch the film and they're like oh my god.

[01:11:48] He's not going to care anymore. Right. And then they went behind the monitor and they watched the footage and he was perfect. And they were like he was one of these guys where he somehow knew exactly how to pitch it for the lens.

[01:12:00] He liked he liked the lens. The lens loved him. Lens loved him. Spielberg said he might be the best actor in the world. I think we talked about that on either. I'm a sort of lost world. Yeah. Yeah. Best sideburn like man he looks so good.

[01:12:16] He's got whiskers. Yeah. OK. All right. He's got whiskers. He's got whiskers. So he gives James a bag of all the things I said in the opening. These magic little glowy things. Yep. And his mean aunts spill it they knock it out of his hands.

[01:12:34] Falls into the ground. It's tough. He kind of falls in the book. It's tough though because you're like fuck that was his. That was the one I remember when they and they all like wriggle into the ground and you can't do it. Yeah.

[01:12:46] And then he grows a giant peach which then they exhibit as a tourist attraction. On a tree which I do love this big fucking thing that won't snap off. I love the look of the peach. I do too. In this form especially when it

[01:12:59] looks like it's just a giant balloon that they've dressed up. Here's my only thing. In the book Roald Dahl gets into how delicious the peaches when he like tunnels into it. He's like. Is that good for the mic? Great for the mic. And like really into so juicy

[01:13:19] and it's like the best peach you ever tasted. It doesn't feel delicious in this movie. Randy Newman wrote a whole fucking song about how delicious an entire song about the whole musical number they prepare 40 different ways. It's called eating the peach. Some fucking cigar on it.

[01:13:33] It doesn't look juicy enough because it has to be like totally. Disagree with this. I disagree. I don't like peaches and I think the peach looks good. I'm sorry. What's not my fruit. What's not my fruit. Emma where are you on peaches. Versus two or three versus.

[01:13:47] I love a peach. Peaches are good. Well you gotta get them right though if you got them bad then I'm horrified. I. Peach is my favorite fruit I will admit. Number one I eat it for raspberry with a bullet. Raspberry is a good then I

[01:14:02] probably go number two banana. My daughter likes to take the raspberry and put it on her finger. Well that's horrible. And I did probably find you a picture of her doing. Yeah. Raspberry banana apple. I mean these are all good fruits. Yeah I got a beef with these

[01:14:15] fruits. Peach doesn't move the needle for me. Do you like any stone fruit or you anti stone fruit. That's a good question. Plum the nectarine. I don't really love them. I think the peach looks delicious in this film. When I was a kid. Yes.

[01:14:31] In primary school in Britain. OK. And you guys might know that what. All right. The chips is the word for French fries in Britain. It was a talent show. There was a talent show at my primary school and people get up they sing songs they do

[01:14:44] dances one kid got up and he said I have a poem called chips. And everyone was like all right. And he said they don't have bones. They don't have pips. They don't have stones. That's why I like chips. And he sat down and he got the

[01:14:55] biggest standing ovation I've ever seen. This little seven year old kid just absolutely annihilated home. Never forgotten. Yeah. And he's right. You don't have any of those soft airtight logic. Anyway. Yeah I'm trying to find my daughter with raspberries on her finger. OK. I think each texture looks

[01:15:15] amazing. I agree. I know exactly what that would feel like if I just yes. My hand. I think it sounds great every time they show a sexual fruit of course. Call me by my name. Call me by your name whatever that. Call you by my name. It's complicated.

[01:15:32] They're like saying each other's names. I can't remember. No it's a good it's a good fruit to fuck. I don't. I don't debate that. I don't contest that but each pie my favorite pie. Oh sure. I like peaches in sort of desserts. Yeah. Peach cobbler. Oh yeah.

[01:15:50] I just never going to and they're going to eat a peach. You know who makes a great peach cobbler. Oh. They know they Lewis for a while supposedly. You know the joke that is true. Dan was a shoe man. Everyone understand. Good. What was your fucking Dan

[01:16:11] Lewis text the other day. Ben. What people know that Ben in text does not drop the bit that Dan Lewis is a close friend of his. It's not a bit. Why. What did I do. It was because the Alan Rickman diaries came out. Yeah right.

[01:16:27] And he had some. He did. You have something about a bad Dan Lewis in there. Yeah. I think he he is like me. We both know Dan. Right. He calls him Dan. Maybe. Yes. Are they in something together. Yes but I'm trying to remember what it was.

[01:16:45] What was this fucking thing. I don't know. I all I remember is that Ben called Alan Rickman Al. He's now added this to the repertoire. Let me find it. All right here it is. Oh yes. Here's the excerpt 4 p.m. Dan Day Lewis arrives to play tennis.

[01:17:02] I mean that is pretty good. Yeah. He just wrote that in his diary and that Ben said makes sense. Alan him were pretty close. All right. So it goes in the p. They were they were they were boys. Al Rickman you guys talk about the peach.

[01:17:18] Well I want to talk about they set up this show. Yeah sure. They're Hawking tickets to the peach. Right. One I think the one come on little girl like asks if she can taste it. Taste it. Your tickets revoked and they send her home.

[01:17:34] Another joke that's really funny goes Oh father I'm sorry I'm going to actually have to charge you twice. And then he goes I forget he has some line back at her but like there's a lot there's lots of little joke. It's like that. There are good jokes.

[01:17:47] They're very good jokes. I like also the bit where they do the full roll doll sort of like limerick recitation of her talking about her own body parts. Oh yes. Yes. Toes. Yeah. Yeah. And I forget how's the peach get rolling in the first place.

[01:18:06] Well it's only once claims inside. Right. He eats a little bit of it. That's what it is. And he eats one of the starts eating a little bit and he eats one of the little crocodile tongue. Yes. With the bite of the peach. Makes him stop motion boy.

[01:18:21] He becomes Tom. He goes into the tunnel. Yes. I believe it's centipede who actually disconnects the peach. He does something insane that I could not get. I had to like go back and rewatch this. Centipedes a wild man. He is the wildest of them in the character design

[01:18:36] for the movie. So when they captured the centipede they use the like jaw like chelicerae that they would have as a mouth. They just put it on the top of his head and give him like a normal little human mouth with teeth on his face. Little triangle nose.

[01:18:52] Gotta be able to see that he's smoking a cigar. Clearly. Yeah you can't do that with little. They would get in the way. Yeah. But they keep it. They keep them. Yes. Just on the top. They're like a little antenna between his antenna. Yeah right.

[01:19:06] That's how he chews the peach off Yes. Voiced by Richard Dreyfuss of course. An incredible voice. Yeah. Quite really good. He's making an effort. This is the thing about these voices. Everyone's really. It's not like they just sort of cast someone it's like I just do your thing.

[01:19:20] Like he's doing like a performance. They're all doing things and the bigger the star the more they're making an effort for something. I will say. Outside of the normal speaking voice. This is his follow up performance to Mr. Holland's Opus. You know he's an Oscar.

[01:19:34] But like this is Dreyfuss's stinker era. Yeah. You know like American president Krippendorff's tribe like he played a lot of stinkers around. But every time I listen to this I don't even hear him in the no neither do I. Doesn't sound impressive. I had to Google it.

[01:19:48] I was like who is this? He doesn't do the singing but he does everything else. Obviously the other. OK so you got Simon Cowell and Mr. Grasshopper. Perfect casting. He's wonderful. But he's like playing the most extreme version of a Simon Cowell. Yes. Not not yet.

[01:20:02] It's not Simon Cowell. He's not like it's no for me. He's not like they told you fuck what was her name. Who's the lady. Susan Boyle. Susan Boyle. They told you you couldn't do it but I'm here to tell you. Yes. The most condescending thing in

[01:20:16] the history of pop culture. That's an incredible performance and the way they all react to it in retrospect is pretty upsetting. It's I really get stuck on the Susan Boyle thing because I've watched that clip several times because it is genuinely and it's just it's good television

[01:20:33] like right like you know like the moment where everyone switches over. Yes. But at the same time right it does feel kind of like incredibly patronizing but whatever she's got a great career. She does. Yeah it worked out. But Simon Cowell. Right. Susan Sarandon as discussed

[01:20:49] can get it as Miss Spider. She can get it any day of the fucking week twice on Sunday. David Thouless. Great. Mr. Earthworm really good. Really so good. Low low key like quiet MVP. Yeah. I love Mr. Then double cast Miriam Margolis as the glowworm.

[01:21:06] Yes she's the glowworm. And then Jane Leaves. Yes. Middle of Frazier. Middle of Frazier. Hot. As the lady bug. Am I forgetting anyone. That's that's the crew. They get rid of the silkworm. There was one extra bug in the book. Yeah.

[01:21:19] Who they get rid of and they just like a lot of worms. Right. Yeah. And they let Miss Spider do the web the web swinging. But I remember that that's a whole thing in the book where they're like the silkworm makes really good silk.

[01:21:30] And that's how they connect the birds. It is pretty fucking weird that there's worms that just poop silk. Yeah. I don't know how I feel about that. Ben should collect them for your clothing line. Yeah I should. And they look like I'll make production a lot easier.

[01:21:46] Like moths right. Silkworms. Yeah. Yeah it's wild that we use bug poop and it's like expensive clothes. It's different. Go on. Comes out of a different place. Let's see. They are bred for. It's called Siriculture is the cultivation of silkworms for silk. It's been going on for

[01:22:08] five thousand years. Fascinating. It is fascinating. Emma in the Night Before Christmas episode came out last week. Ben quoted or David quoted you saying I wish I was bugs. Yeah I did say that. Right. In reference to Oogie Boogie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah we were talking about

[01:22:27] I said that it is my favorite character. And to be clear I want to two weeks in a row state that I don't like that he's bugs. I didn't at the time and I don't now. I don't like when he was it. Emma wishes that I could like

[01:22:39] pull some string on her neck and suddenly she just unravels and she's just bugs. You don't know that you can't. I don't know that I can't. I've never tried. Never tried. The reason I like bugs so much is I'm trying. It's like a gender. Sure.

[01:22:54] You're trying to get us all pretty cool. Yeah. Pretty cool. What do you guys think of bugs then like a bunch of worms fall out of her mouth. I don't know that we're onto the bug characters though I want to give you some space Emma to talk

[01:23:06] about bugs. What is like your personal bug ranking. Of these in the movie. Or I think I want to know both and then in the in the insect kingdom. Oh God. OK. Thanks. Insect kingdom is so diverse it's so different. That's why I'm asking.

[01:23:25] There's so many like types of so many types. What are your opinions on these bugs represented in the film as bugs. They're great. As we were talking about characters I'm talking as like a bug expert. Yes. No they're good. They do a good job.

[01:23:41] OK. I have a question. Do you like that bugs have a lot of legs and do you think it's funny that they would have to have many shoes. Oh I think it's hilarious. OK. Yeah. So there's a whole thing in the book with that they have to take

[01:23:52] off centipede shoes because his laces get tied together. And it takes a long time to have so many legs and so many shoes. Centipedes don't have 100 legs despite being called centipedes. They don't. They do have too many legs in my opinion. Yes. Two to four is enough.

[01:24:05] This movie turns them most of them into hands. Yes. Yeah. But I feel like so centipede that's his thing. Grasshopper what's his thing. He sings. He's smart. Yeah. He's got kind of like a snob. I love his little outfit. Yeah. I would wear that.

[01:24:23] I would look good in that. Do you think that's good though that like the grasshopper has like a monocle like that the grasshopper is the classy bug. It's funny that they made him that way. But I guess when you look at a grasshopper's face even. Yeah.

[01:24:37] First of all it looks sort of elongated face. And the music. I guess they're getting into this idea. They're sort of like violin players. That's what they latch on to. But in your opinion is that more of a blue collar bug? I mean sure. Yeah.

[01:24:51] When you get you know because when you see them there they're in the dirt. They're on the grass. They're just sort of hanging out. That's a lot of them. Yeah. Well that is a lot of them. Worker ant I feel like the ultimate blue collar. Right.

[01:25:02] Worker ant you know he's got a pickaxe. Oh I want to be a fire ant. Oh they're scary. Yeah. They'll burn ya. Like you know obviously you could imagine the lady bug is being classy because she's a lady. But here it's more like she's a little old lady.

[01:25:17] Yeah. Like with a handbag. Yes. I would say a butterfly is kind of the most elegant. Butterfly is very elegant. That's kind of like an opera singer. That's like the only one people like. Yeah. Yeah. Classic likeable bug. This does that thing that I love

[01:25:31] in animated films where like every character is very distinct as written. Right. They all have a very distinct voice. There's no joke. Any one of the bugs has a movie that could be delivered by one of the other bugs. Sure. Very rude and very specific

[01:25:46] personality types in comedic games. Right. Right. Then they all have very distinct looks that somehow feel like perfect externalization of their character game but also just completely different physiologies. Right. Like you have someone like grasshoppers like all like tiny torso centipedes just long

[01:26:05] has torso tons of little arms. Oh yeah. Right. Lady bug is like a perfect circle with tiny little arms and legs like they're all just inchworm is just fucking a line. And then the voices are like the perfect matches to the physicalizations. What bug are

[01:26:24] you happiest to see in your house. In my house. Yeah. Like there's a bug in your house. Spiders. Spider. What bug are you least happy to see in your house. That's the real cockroach. Moths. Moths. Yeah. You had a moth. I have a moth.

[01:26:38] You have an ongoing moth. I had pantry moths which said they don't eat cozy food. Those fuckers are so hard to get rid of. I feel I feel a lot of moth solidarity for Arthur reasons. Right. But but they are so fucking annoying. Yeah.

[01:26:55] I'm not someone who gets like super freaked out by like cockroaches or shit like that or ants. I'm like well I got to solve this. But moths like actively fuck with your shit. Yeah. And I like sweaters a lot. But if you think about it it's

[01:27:07] like they're customizing it for you. It's like start collecting moths as well. What if that's what you do next. You like you like have like a moth chamber and you put clothes on top. You buy silk worms and moths. You give them like a day

[01:27:24] and then like whatever happens you take the clothes out and you're like this is it's a unique object. Yeah. This is what they created. It could be a sub line called Bugs by Ben. All right I'm going to write this down. OK so they go.

[01:27:36] You know what's fucked up about moths? They don't eat. They don't eat? At all? The worms eat. Sure. The moths. And then they turn into a moth. The only purpose is to have sex. Then what the fuck Sounds good too. Can I be a moth?

[01:27:50] How do you go to moth school? The fuck. Why are there these holes in my sweaters? Because the worm the little the worm form. Oh boy. That's the one that eats. Sometimes I feel like I'm in my worm form. I'm absolutely in my worm form.

[01:28:05] You know I don't remember if I told this story on Mike. OK. Is it about your worm form? No I was like talking I was talking to a friend of the podcast Kevin T Porter. About being a sad lonely single bastard. And I was just sort of talking

[01:28:19] about how I feel. No this is a comedic story. About your worm form. Yeah. And I was just saying like the attitude I was trying to take these days and he said I think it's fine. I think you're like entitled to have like a slut period.

[01:28:31] I think you can have a slut period. You're in your slut era. Be in your slut era. And I said no Kevin I said slug era. And that I wanted to be a slug era. And I was like I'm not going to be a slug era.

[01:28:43] And that I want to just lie around and do nothing. I feel like a disgusting. No I'm pro Kevin you need to exit your slut era go into a slug era go into some sort of chrysalis. I'm trying to exit my slug era. I don't know.

[01:28:56] You want to see a moth that I like? Yes. It's called a hummingbird moth. They're really big. They're about the size of hummingbirds. Too big. They're some of the few moths that do eat. They're like butterflies. Oh that's cool. But they're moths.

[01:29:12] She does this to me a lot. Just shows you. Yeah where I'll be like I just saw a fucking spider and she's like you know what's a cool spider is the fucking Colombian jumping spider or whatever. Pretty cool. I love jumping spiders.

[01:29:22] Emma do you know that I got bit by a spider and I have a scar on my head and it caused nerve damage. What? Yes this scar right here. It was a wolf spider. It bit my head in the middle of the night.

[01:29:33] And until I started taking it in New Jersey. Oh fuck a prime territory for wolves. And it started just basically the flesh just was like slowly just melting. And so I had to take antibiotics and you know stop that whole process. And they have necrotic bites.

[01:29:53] Am I misremembering? And I have no feeling there anymore. It caused nerve damage. So you can just touch that part of your head. Yeah it just feels kind of like a phantom like like feeling. It's really fucked up. But I share it because it's kind of cool.

[01:30:07] You know what I mean? Like a little ass thing could do that. Yeah. I'm looking at there is a big Jersey dig in this movie right? Yeah. Yeah. Grasshopper will be blown off course centipede will wind up in Jersey. It's just it's just I mean it

[01:30:25] sucks but it's unfortunately just a part of like popular culture I guess. You know what's cool about wolf spiders? They carry their babies on their backs. They do. Yes I've got a picture here. And then in the summers. You can go out at night with a

[01:30:39] flashlight and you can look for them and you'll find them because their eyes reflect light in the dark. Oh David's given a big old thumbs down. I don't like them. I don't like these little spider babies at all. Oh good. So this spider's got like spikes

[01:30:53] on its legs. Those are hairs. Their hair. That's how they feel where things are. Friends voice ain't coming out of that. James has met the bugs. Sure. You're getting us back on course. Yes. I've got more facts to drop in here. You need. Oh yeah.

[01:31:10] Well we'll return to this. Well yeah that's the life for me as the first song. That's the life. Yeah I mean sure. It's sort of a cute voice. I was doing Ladybug. That's the life for me. But the song yes the song is

[01:31:27] he sells them on his vision of going to New York City. The dream he's held onto for so long. Right. They don't know what to do now that they have they're stuck in this peach. You know he's got a postcard right. Well he said the magic man told

[01:31:39] me the answer would be right here and he taps his breast and he realizes the postcard his dad gave him is right there and the postcard essentially is his dad being like New York's a cool place. We'll check it out sometime. Love dad. The Empire State.

[01:31:50] What's that Rhino. Yes. It was written. That's my favorite bit is when people like write out their death sounds gargle gargle. Oh no. Stop. I'm fucking Terry Pratchett squirrel joke or what opens a fortune cookie and it's like help I've fallen in the fortune cookie machine.

[01:32:11] Oh no I'm about to die. And the guy's like he's just aren't funny anymore. They do that in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It's like the so good. Always. Always funny. Yeah. That's sort of the I want song. Yeah. Of selling all of them on the

[01:32:26] idea of New York City which centipede is obviously hugely into because he's a Brooklyn boy from there. Centipedes such a fucking good character. We already said it but you know I agree with he's like a bullshit artist. Supremely confident in everything right.

[01:32:39] He's kind of got the attitude of like a cabbie slash you know new stand owner and never stop smoking a cigar. He's got a cigar. Chomp and he's got like a perpetual his mouth is like yeah because he's always got a cigar probably long sideways

[01:32:54] mouth and he wears like suspenders. Yes a little cabbie hat. Yeah. A shirt with many arms in it to fit his arms through. The suspenders are cool. The extra long suspenders are very cool. Yeah he's the he's my favorite although Miss Spider. They're all great. They're all great.

[01:33:11] They're all lovely. Yes. But so then the mission becomes how do we get to New York City. Right. So because that's first music group musical number then first action sequences rolling down the hill. Yes. And if he cuts the stem. Right. And then how do we take flight.

[01:33:26] Yes. Yeah. So wait so first wait do they end up in the ocean first and have to deal with the sharks. Yes. Yes. That's the first action sequence and right. Yeah. That's fun. But it's not sharks. It's OK. Mechanical pirates in the mechanical shark. Right.

[01:33:43] You know what I first first is just is hooking the birds. Right. So I couldn't remember is that is that second or first. Maybe the birds was first and then the shark comes like we have to hurry up and get the rest of the birds. Right.

[01:33:55] Because they need some time to figure out sort of overlaps. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry if you know this movie's just watched it but we actually it's episode doesn't. Yeah exactly. Yes. But James is kind of like sheepish at first like when they're trying to think of

[01:34:07] ideas he's like I'll say it though you know and it's like he has a good idea. This OK. Thank you for bringing this up. It's the thing I love about this movie. Yes. He goes like you're watching this movie and you've had the experience feeling timid in a

[01:34:20] room in a group. But he goes like we could. No never mind. And Miss Spider is like no say it James. Right. Time Spiker would have shut him down. Time Bandits is another movie that I think does this well. OK. This sort of like.

[01:34:36] I've seen in a long time. Kids should be listened to. Right. You should listen to what they say. And it's a classic kid anxiety it's like I you know I'm just going to get laughed at. No one understands. Yeah. But like Time Bandits has the

[01:34:50] crazy ending where it's like he tries to warn his parents and they don't hear him even still after he's gone on this journey. But it's this thing that's so lovely especially after he's had these fucking horrible abusive aunts that the bugs like want to

[01:35:03] hear what he has to say. Right. And are so proud of him when he comes up with anything. Right. They're very supportive. It's and it's a real collective. Yes. This is not some tale of like the bugs are at war with each other.

[01:35:16] No because like you know I'm a spider and I don't like to start shit with everyone. A little bit. They come to love him. But yes no they lie. And it leads to the I mean well the family song comes later. But yes the family song

[01:35:31] is it's after eating the peach. But when they're all like it's sort of triumphant they go like and it was all thanks to the brilliant idea from James like they just really they want to boost this kid. He's not had a lot of W's.

[01:35:47] He's been kind of in his L era one might say. So yeah it's good. He needs some wins. Yeah. What else happens. I mean Miss Sutter uses I mean her webs to hook the birds. I like that her web is just like there's a hatch on her back

[01:36:06] and a little school. Yeah. She's like mechanical. Right. I also feel like she looks like her her legs are just the armatures they use under stop motion puppets like not even dressed. That's interesting. I mean she's got these boots that are like six feet high or whatever.

[01:36:26] She's got these giant boots which are cool. But yeah her legs are sort of mechanical looking they look like corkscrew. They look like they have hinges and knees as well. Glow Glow Worm looks like Florence Foster Jenkins. She hangs out inside like the little the little lamp.

[01:36:44] She has power over light. Yeah. They're like turn the lights on the right. The whole peach gets lit. Cool. And then just the black and white aesthetic. She's got going on as cool. Yeah. But yes you get to the peach number which

[01:37:02] are we going to talk about how the shark is mechanical. Yes. Let's talk about it. Because I don't think we can ignore that. But this is the book logic shit where it's like where's the rhino in the clouds. What's the shark a robot. It's very cool

[01:37:15] design like the giant little sharks. Yeah. But the art style to the way that way it's animated looks so incredible. It really feels like the illustration has come to life sort of steam. Particular like object. It's yeah. Which becomes its downfall. Eventually.

[01:37:31] Well to me that like the other thing back. So like has made five movies in each of the movies has a different design language. Mm hmm. Like he does. A thing I like about him is he brings on different people and sort of designs a world off of

[01:37:45] their style rather than like you can't you're right. What the Henry Selleck style is because the first movie he's obviously working off a timber. Yeah. This is a movie that's this movie he's working off of Lane Smith and Roald Dahl or whatever. Right.

[01:37:58] Monkeybone I don't know who it is but you're taking this like underground cartoonist art style yeah. Coraline it's it doesn't look like the David McKee illustration. Yeah no it doesn't. I mean Coraline has its own look. It does. I mean the characters sort of

[01:38:12] have the big exaggerated heads and faces like here. They look like dolls and Coraline. Yeah. And Coraline is a little different. I mean I also feel like when a masterpiece as a kid I would read all while they'd look very different I would say. Right.

[01:38:25] I think all his films look different. I did. Well I think they all have a different design sensibility and as a kid I would read all the like art of making of books for animated films and you'd see these concept drawings character designs where you're

[01:38:39] like that's so cool. Why can't it look like that. The thing you hear so often from people who work in animation is they just end up going back to like let's do the simplest roundest cleanest version of the design. But you look through like the

[01:38:51] art of Toy Story book and there's a draft where like William Joyce designed every single character and you're like fuck that's cool. What if they all had that distinctive a look or any of those things. Selick's one of the only directors in animation where I

[01:39:03] feel like he will actually just pick one of the weirdest interpretations of one of the concept artists. Yeah. William Joyce's Buzz. Oh my God. I love that. So surprising. You can look at William Joyce's Rex. But this is what I'm saying he'll like bring on different illustrators.

[01:39:22] I think it starts it maybe stems from the fact that his first film is riffing on someone else's art style in its very inception. Right. But he'll like bring on different designers and then he'll just be like you design the aesthetics of this film.

[01:39:37] And this is a movie where every character looks like a incredibly cool rejected concept design where Disney was like that's too weird. You can't do that. You have to make it look more normal. And what I love about what he does with that is that even the

[01:39:50] most complex little bits of the designs move independently. Like I'm looking at Nightmare Before Christmas right now and I'm remembering how Jack Skellington's little collar. His bow tie. Yes. It like unfurls and furls all the time. Yes. It feels like he just gets so

[01:40:04] excited the potential of oh my God wait a second if Centipede has suspenders then we can use that he can repel himself like he's a guy who just gets so excited by the possibilities of motion with these characters. I can't find his Rex which is

[01:40:17] too bad because I want to see it but now I'm jilted. I'm thinking about Dinosaur Bob and how much I love that. It looks good. The biggest concept art thing for me was when I saw designs for Frozen and Elsa or the character that like later became

[01:40:33] Elsa had this like ermine like cloak. Yes. Like a you know like a queen would have like white fur thing. I'm going to show you right now what you're talking about. The little guys were alive. The little ermines and they would look look at them. Yeah.

[01:40:49] Look at that. Can you imagine. That was when it was going to be Elsa as a villain. And right where she was going to be stranded on the sister thing that became the most successful thing in the history of movies. A very profitable change. Let it go.

[01:41:03] Let it go. But yeah this is cool though. Look at this gif. It's so good. I mean the whole thing with Frozen to me is like even if you keep the story as it is I would just love to see it. But this is the thing.

[01:41:14] You look at things like this and you go God I wish the whole movie looked like that and Celica movies are the movies where I think the whole movie looks like that. Yeah. And not only that the idea is like what if everything

[01:41:23] moved all the time are actually seen through to completion. It's a furry drawing a person. Let me see. I don't want to see. Oh I don't like this. This sucks. Well I googled her Elsa Frozen ermine and guess what. People took it in a certain direction. OK.

[01:41:39] A thing I talked a lot about Selleck's camera movement in the nightmare episode because that was so revolutionary with stop motion that he was like I'm going to shoot this like it's a live action film. Right. And nightmare has these crazy like Max so fools like sort of

[01:41:51] sweeping endless movement shot. Yes. This has a little bit less of it mostly because it takes place in inside spaces. Right. Even when they're your outdoors you're on a peach in the middle of peach into peach. X to peach. Yeah. Those are the two main

[01:42:06] locations of the top of peach. There's a thing that happens less in this film although it does happen a little. It happens a lot in nightmare and I forgot to mention it that he does that is astonishing. What's that. Henry's second best movie. Henry Selleck will like have

[01:42:18] his characters if they just stickulate wildly out of frame especially because he has characters with such extended limbs. Right. The camera will like slightly. Pan a little bit to catch their arm extending this cool as if there is like a human cinematographer trying to catch

[01:42:37] up with what that actor is doing on that tape. People do that makes it feel less static right. It makes it feel more like a real thing you're watching some of the scenes where grasshopper is walking I know especially when he's getting in in this

[01:42:49] peach delicious peach musical number and he starts stomping in the peach like like it's a fucking wine stomping or whatever. When he walks up the stairs that are being formed by inchworm the camera is like struggling to keep up with him. There's shit like that where he

[01:43:06] just understands the logic of and it's like that that makes everything so much more difficult to not just involve camera movements but involve camera movements that feel like they are unexpected. Right. But it does ground you in a certain reality of making the thing feel real. Right.

[01:43:24] You know because you're playing with the language of what you know quote unquote real movies look like and there's that sort of choreography nightmare has the same thing where it's like he doesn't have that much dancing in his musical numbers but the choreography of the

[01:43:36] movement is so specific characters are so perfectly timed with each other we're like on the lyrics of the song inchworm is contorting himself into stairs for him to walk up perfectly at the moment he wants to step into this bucket. Oh that's great. I think every preparation of

[01:43:52] Peach looks great. The thing I think looks most delicious is the peach beer. Sure I would drink that. And I also like that this musical number gives everyone their own like little silo siloed off solo in their own style. I just wanted to though say

[01:44:11] before we get to the eating of the peach a favorite trope of all time of a young man is when a character be hungry and didn't know what he was going to say and all of a sudden he look at his friend they turn to dang rose.

[01:44:32] Someone turns into a turkey leg or whatever. It's still to me I'm like it's still the funniest. Yeah. And it's so funny in this movie too because they turn into food that they kind of look. Yes they evoke. Yes like grasshopper turns into

[01:44:46] a bottle of wine and a wedge of cheese. Right. So they like right it's not even physically shapes but also the attitude right there. There is this character's are so crystallized like they're so locked in on these different types. It's also just funny where it's

[01:45:03] like we're used to this trope of what you're talking about they're stranded at sea they're so hungry and starving. The fact that they have to be reminded that they live inside. I know. He's like the one. Right. And that the song turns into not

[01:45:16] just like oh we have this endless food supply but like we can prepare it anyway. But I remember that stressing me out especially in the book when I was a kid. Well don't eat too much. Eat the whole goddamn thing you need to live in this thing.

[01:45:26] That's another good bit too that I feel like is a very Ben bit when they need to get the attention of the birds to hook them and they use inchworm as bait. Yeah yeah yeah. We're going him out at the top. Yeah. I mean because that's mischievous. Yeah.

[01:45:43] I love inchworms. He's got like the shape changing sunglasses expression that reflect his expressions. Good. But come on. Do we talk about the pirates enough. Well that's the next thing I'm going to figure out what we're missing right. So they realize they're lost. Yeah. They need to come.

[01:46:01] Centipede falls asleep at the right. We we you know he navigates. They get frozen. They're stuck in snowy territory. They're going to end up in New Jersey. They realize there's a pirate ship at the bottom. They need to go get the compass and centipede has like pissed

[01:46:18] everyone off. Right. So he heroically jumps to the bottom even though everyone thinks it's pesticide because he has to prove his worth and we get to the sunken pirate ship manned by Jack Skellington Donald Duck. Then there's like a brute. You know there's one classic

[01:46:35] sort of like striped shirt pirate. It's a good gang. It's a good gang. It's a Viking. Yeah I guess it's kind of like the idea of like all of these different sort of. Like all these characters have ended up in this frozen land like the pirates the Vikings

[01:46:53] all sort of got stranded in the same place the ducks. Yeah like a ship graveyard right. Don Ducks a sailor right. It's different types of nautical characters right. I like that centipede literally calls him a Skellington. Yes I think they literally like

[01:47:08] I think the origin of it they literally had like jack heads. Yeah and they're just like well we can use these save us money one of the characters is Jack. Yeah. That's nice because he doesn't work that much considering how big nightmare is.

[01:47:23] These are really his only two movies. Oh wait. He OK. He wasn't in. He's in Georgia retaliation that's a small part of me too. I was trying to think of just some fucking irrelevant movie for him to be in. He's in Journey to the Mysterious Island.

[01:47:39] I think he's an only fans now. He doesn't have any fans and it's actually who are we talking to. Jack's going. I don't judge but he seems sad. That's the problem with Jack Johnson's only fans. People should do whatever they want to do. Right. He doesn't seem happy.

[01:47:54] Yeah. Look let me give you a bony dick. I mean I'd like to see it. I'm reading some Lane Smith quotes right here. OK. About how he designed these characters. He wanted the spider to be sexy so he was stumped for a long

[01:48:07] time on how to do that. Well his big big inspiration was Diana Rigg in The Avengers. Cool. Yeah. The earthworm. He was like give him sunglasses because he's blind and he's got the little collar. Yeah. Yeah. Which is cute. He he kicked the silkworm out

[01:48:26] because the silkworm is a lump in the corner that doesn't move. He just thought it was like bad. Yeah. There's this whole thing about there's this whole thing I forgot to mention that Selick is like mad that Tim had stolen a lot of artists for Mars attacks.

[01:48:40] Oh like he was kind of vacuuming up talent again. Selick sometimes sure makes things sound very bad. You know what I mean. Like he has sort of a negative view of life but he was like Tim is like vacuuming my animators to to go do Mars attack.

[01:48:55] Well that was the thing Mars attacks was going to be stop motion was right and then eventually go to Ireland in the game that they switched to CGI. You can see there are a lot of tests. Yeah which probably would have been fucking cool. Shit's like Harryhausen shit.

[01:49:07] Like it was perfect. I remember when they did the Burton exhibit at MoMA. They had the videos on a loop and they had the stop motion puppets. It was the exact same design. It looked exactly the same when they did it in CGI.

[01:49:18] They just scanned the puppet but it was going to be done in a Harryhausen style. So I think yeah he absorbed most of those people. The centipede had 20 joints in the face alone because of the cigar. That was a really hard to do in stop motion.

[01:49:32] Yeah I just like that they all have different textures too. It's it's that thing. It's a thing I like about Toy Story. Uh huh. Is that you can have characters with completely different aesthetics. Coexisting. Right because it's because it's like any toy is a toy. So right.

[01:49:48] And these toys were made by different companies so they have different styles and this movie basically even though they all come out of Lane Smith chooses to be like different design rules for each character. Yeah. And I think that's what's really cool about this movie. Yeah.

[01:50:02] Did you do like he looks spongy peach for six feet tall. Pretty cool. Very cool. What do you what do you do in there. I'm just looking at centipede pictures. He looks like the stinky cheese man. He's he's the centipede is probably the closest to the

[01:50:16] stinky cheese man. That's the kind of classic Lane Smith like sort of collage face different triangle nose. Yes. And he is crazy to think about essentially so like you know moving between like doing this live action photography and stop motion stuff there's two listed DPs on this movie.

[01:50:36] And one thing they worried about was that the peach looked too much like a butt. That's got a big ass crack. Yes it does. My favorite number is family which is the one that comes after the pirate love when they're also a triumphant.

[01:50:48] There's a little moment that I think is really nice when Ladybug compliments spider on a good job. Especially in stop motion and things like this when animation is still so expensive and films are kept to such a short running time when people choose to include moments that small.

[01:51:06] It says a lot. No I agree with you. Yes especially because right in stop motion every moment is fucking a lot of work. So and I think this number is really sweet. It's when James puts together that grasshopper was the one who played the

[01:51:17] music he heard outside his window. I sent this this number to you and JJ over text the other night because I think it's just so visually invented. You're saying we were a family when we were a family. Well yeah but JJ our researcher was saying

[01:51:32] like it bombs him out his daughter is three now. Right. And he's like watching all these movies and reading about Selick and he's like I feel like she's just a bit little young a little bit not quite ready. But then he was also like on

[01:51:43] the other hand I showed her the nightmare trailer. She saw the thing with the shrunken head and the present box was funny. We go to Walmart. Everything is Jack Skellington. If you're like walking around stores in October in October when we go to the grocery store everything is

[01:51:57] fucking nightmare for Christmas. Maybe she's not too young. And then the next day my friend Derek my oldest friend your daughter is three going on four and said to me he was like I'm not going to say his daughter's name has gotten obsessed with Jack Skellington now.

[01:52:16] And I was like really. And he was like he's a cool MF. She saw she saw it around. And then I played her a couple of the songs and I've showed her some of the images. And she's like I'm not sure what I'm watching.

[01:52:27] I'm not sure what I'm watching the movie. Now she loves this is Halloween like it is. So I was saying to JJ he was like I don't know if you can watch it yet. And James the Giant Peach is the one that is like has the

[01:52:38] scariest stuff in it. I would argue of any of the Selleck movies. I think the stuff with the aunts is incredibly bleak. The Rhino some of the shark skeleton pirate stuff is like a little more harrowing. When this movie comes out James was for my brother.

[01:52:52] So I was like comparing it against that. I was like I'm fairly scared at movies but there are things like the family number that are like genuinely sweet and tender and sort of soft and pleasant in this movie more so than the other Selleck.

[01:53:04] I think it's funny I was just talking to my friend Claire. The resting space of this movie is more pleasant than the other Selleck. Yeah the peach is such a warm happy place. And they're so nice to each other. They do be nice.

[01:53:16] I was talking to my friend Claire and she said like Coraline when she was a kid was so frightening the concept that she couldn't watch it. Right. Coraline is his most well known character. He wears her. You have to kind of remove monkey bone because that's its

[01:53:28] own thing but he like taps into pretty primal sort of fairy tales. You haven't seen Wendell and Wilde yet but Wendell and Wilde similar thing as a guy. You'll see. Do you want to see my daughter holding her Jesse bath toy. I'm sorry. Who got that for her.

[01:53:43] You did. That's what I'm showing you because she was trying to take her baby which is a doll. And I'm just like I just don't want her to do it because I'm afraid it'll get lost or whatever. She would not fucking let go of Jesse.

[01:53:54] She walked in with Jesse. Anyway. Got some future. Interesting thing about the song. Yeah. Do you know who Selick's first choice was. Huh. Not Elfman. No. Someone who usually works in movies or not. No. Pop musician a great musician Kate Bush Elvis Costello. Wow.

[01:54:19] He threw that out to Disney and Selick said their alarms went off and they said too weird. No no. Yeah. Would love to see that. Yeah. His second choice is Andy Partridge from XTC. Wow. Who actually wrote us like a demo and he said it was very

[01:54:34] beautiful but Disney couldn't make a deal with him. And so Randy Newman who is Disney's pick came in. Comfortable. And at that time he just don't know his story. You know. But he liked the Randy stuff. He wanted a British music hall music is how Selick puts it.

[01:54:49] And he said Randy like got that. I think this is very outside of his usual style. It is. Yeah. I mean the song he sings at the end is the one that sounds like a Randy Newman song. I mean it's weird that they get

[01:54:59] to New York and then they all sing I love L.A. But apart from that. Yes. Absolutely. They do this family sequence which is just lovely. I love the shot of. I mean I also just think the fucking design choice of the the fence from the peach rolling

[01:55:13] down the hill becoming the weird spiral staircase around the peach. Love it. Is such a good idea gives them so much latitude in terms of making the thing feel less claustrophobic because it's like there's more space they can explore. But that end of family where

[01:55:27] they're all like dancing up the staircase and then it turns into the mobile and they're one of the planets in the sky. They're the sun. It's cool. It's good shit. It is cool. I feel like I'm you're more into this movie because it's more rooted in your childhood.

[01:55:43] I've seen it so many times. Yeah. But like re-watching this movie I was it was exactly as I remembered. I was just like it's it's there's no foot put wrong. You know what I mean. Like there's no moment in it that feels wasted or pandering

[01:55:55] just one thing technical that's some say an artistic achievement. Yeah. It's not like a lot of Disney movies from this era the late 90s where you're starting to see like just kind of like crass sort of like kid stuff creeping in and it feels like I feel

[01:56:11] very specific. Yeah. An individualistic things like words like this or it's like a mechanical shark or a cloud rhino you're like how did they get this in. How do they like sneak this by. It's wild. Right. So that's the final thing after the family sequence is he

[01:56:26] sees the rhino. He has the final confrontation with the rhino. He has the dream. I don't know when the dream comes and we have to talk about the dream. The dream is fascinating. Right. Where it's like it's like cut out photos on puppets like a collage.

[01:56:42] Very Terry Gilliam. Yes. But it's three dimensional like they're taking photographs on top of models. Right. And he's he's a caterpillar and he's eating a peach or something. And then the ants come and they've sprayed they they're like we're going to get you. And they spray the poison.

[01:57:03] So does he wake up from that and face the rhino. The rhino is in the dream. Right. This is like between something I don't know when it was by current sponge show up in the dream too. They're like yeah. Yeah. But there is the.

[01:57:17] Oh right. When every time you say the human. Because I keep thinking do I want to be an ant. There's the final confrontation with the rhino where he yells at it in the sky and says you're not real. Yes. That's that's.

[01:57:29] Rhino is very much real and it did eat his parents. I know that's what's why. But I guess it's like maybe it's like he has to conquer his fear of that or good for him. Like it worked. But he's wrong. That rhino does.

[01:57:40] He's real and I hope it will be brought to justice because rhino shouldn't be there. People willy nilly. I don't know how fair I need it to be. Maybe it's unfair. Did they eat them or did it just trample. You know this is the thing.

[01:57:53] A doll and the movie both specify that the rhino ate them which is not something that rhinos do. People are herbivores. Look at the rhino. Is like incredible. It looks so good. Yeah. Like hippos hippos all the chompers and they don't want to swallow.

[01:58:07] Sure. They've got those big mouths. So dangerous. But I don't look at a rhino and go like what I'm afraid of from this thing is the mouth. The mouth. I'm like I don't want to get spiked. The mouth is almost hard to identify. Exactly. It's a little hidden.

[01:58:20] This thing is all spiked. I'm not really looking past the horn. He has this final confrontation with the rhino and then he he wakes up. Yeah. The lights flickering. Yeah. He magically turns back to a human boy. He sure does. He crawls out of the peep. Hold on.

[01:58:37] Hold on. We're skipping stuff. OK. We're skipping. We skipped some of the pirate stuff. But then they're like, well, we need to go in because he failed. I said that. You said that. Yeah. But then Spider and James go in after him. Yes. To save him because they're

[01:58:53] like, well, we need to help him because he's our friend. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. Come, Rodri. Sure. And then they're in a storm. Right. They get stuck in a storm. Yes. Which is where the lightning rhino end up in New Jersey. Right. That's the storm over New

[01:59:10] Jersey at the perpetual hurricane. Yeah. Dropping wolf spiders on children's heads. Yeah. And then they end up, I mean, they get speared by the Empire State Building. I mean, it's a great image. I think that all of the bugs get kind of, they...

[01:59:22] In the storm, they all get scattered. Right. James is like, I'm going to hold on to the birds. Right. They go up with the birds. Yes. He stays on the peach so they get separated. Yes. And he ends up on top of the Empire State Building. Right.

[01:59:36] And has his confrontation. Right. Right. Gets knocked out, wakes up. He's like, where's that damn building? Yeah. Am I really in New York? Yeah. Where's the Empire State Building? You're on top of it. And then the like, the... The zoom out to like weird construction paper, Empire

[01:59:55] State Building and the like most classical like... Randy Newman, New York music. Look, anytime I forget where I am, I just look around until I see the Empire State Building. I'm like, right, New York City. That's where I am. But it's another thing I love.

[02:00:09] It's like you talking about how tiny the set is for the house at the beginning in live action. This like, oh, you're in the middle of New York City. Here's the Empire State Building. The set seems six inches wide. It's like one tiny street corner.

[02:00:20] It reminded me of the Hudsucker Proxy miniatures. That's exactly the vibe. My favorite aesthetic of all time. Yeah. If a giant peach slimed me from way up above, I'd freak the fuck out. Oh, you wouldn't like that? Like an air conditioner trip. I'm like, what the fuck was

[02:00:38] that? I guess a sticky peach like syrup. As much as I love a peach, I do love a peach. But you don't, you know, when it gets all over your hand and it's all sticky. Oh my God, it would ruin my fucking day. Yeah.

[02:00:51] I could not stop thinking about that while I was watching this movie. Like they're so sticky right now. They are. They are. They do be sticky. They've been sticky the whole time. There's no water to wash themselves off. I just I love that New York City

[02:01:02] gets such a bad rap. People like to say we're a bunch of mean grumps. We got a rude dude. Right. Everyone in New York, any passerby in the street, you're going to give them the business. They're always saying we never sleep. Yes. We sleep plenty.

[02:01:16] They say our apple is big. They're always going on about our damn apple. Yeah. Talk about the peach for once. No, but I like that he lands here and everyone is really nice to him and happy and excited and wants to help him.

[02:01:28] I mean, the cop takes a second to you know, sort things out. Gotta warm up. Boy, yeah, you've never seen peach this big before in his life. That's true. He has never seen a big, big, big peach before. The little girl with the glasses

[02:01:38] and the telescope, who's the first one to notice him on top of it. Is this a Soracco Dunlap who was a writer on the tech? Oh, that's cool. J.D. mentioned to me and I didn't realize that is her as a child actor. Yeah. I mean, I how

[02:01:53] does Spiker and Spun show up? We don't care. They just they drove. They drove through the ocean. Water spills out of the car. She has crab legs. They come. They show up before the bugs show up. Right. Yeah. I'm trying to remember the order.

[02:02:09] Yes. That's the whole thing where they're like, it's our peach. And they have a picture of the beach. The cop takes that as base value. Yeah. And then James is like, they are mean. Yeah. They are bad people. And so they attack him with axes.

[02:02:24] I just I love James has the courage that moment where he starts saying, like, they were mean. Everyone's like, what? And then they're like, oh, no, they're not mean. They're like, what? How could you be mean to a child? You may. Yeah. And then they make the

[02:02:38] tactical error of trying to kill him with axes, which reveals that they are indeed. Is quick. I like Joanna Lumley when she's cracking her neck. They put such exaggerated sound effects on it. Like they've really become like these like grand gun. You'll monsters.

[02:02:54] But yes, the bugs come help him miss spider along with the crane operator. They web up Spiker and Spun Spiker and Spun. My favorite moment in the movie. Is just James saying, these are my friends who I was telling you about. And then the cops move

[02:03:13] the spotlight around the search light around and they introduce them one at a time. And the audience applauds the New Yorkers who are gathered around. It's kind of like a Lindbergh vibe where it's New York. It's like something landed in New York. Let's go check it out.

[02:03:27] Someone's here. It's been happening in real time. It's been happening in all of five minutes. And he's like, these are my friends and people are so invested in the notion of the characters. The inchworm I'm a grasshopper. I want to meet him. Wouldn't you miss spider? Mr. Centerpiece.

[02:03:42] I love I just love it that they each get a little battle. Yeah. You're right. I mean and then they all get like a New York specific job like they all get a business. Well, this is in credit them. Right. You know, like what is it?

[02:03:55] Miss Spider has like a cool sex. You're jumping ahead. You're right. Credits because they well, they prove that James is the owner of the beach that he can live with the bugs. Eat the peach. Eat the peach. Go ahead. Have a taste. Right. It's not going to last

[02:04:09] forever. And then they live in a fucking beach. My favorite thing about the book, the thing I was I think as a kid, I was just like the peaches in Central Park and I could go see it. Yes. Even though I never did and I

[02:04:21] never asked to in my head, I was like, it's there. It is true. Yeah. Yeah. He does live in the peach pit and it is in Central Park. Another nice moment is when Spider and Sponge are coming in to try and drown him out.

[02:04:33] It's the magic man in the shadows. Let the kid talk. Yes. Just gently pushing the story along. Ben's trying to get the credits queued up here. Yeah. Yeah. I want to I want to get these verbatim. There was something when you're a kid, something so liberating.

[02:04:48] Yeah. To the idea. Even though like I had a happy home life where you're just like, I just get my own fucking peach pit house. I get to do whatever I want. I got bug friends. I got bug friends. I got a family, but they're not

[02:05:00] going to ride me like parents. Exactly. They're kind of cool. Anything goes. The bugs are like kind of like hip modern Brooklyn parents who like call their children buddy. Yes. Right. Exactly. Yeah. OK. So. All right. Centipede runs for mayor. Well, I did. What?

[02:05:17] He's telling the story to the kids. Oh, sure. The magic man reintroduces himself and he says and James had all the friends in the world. Suddenly he had more friends than he knew what to do with everyone. And so he's like, I'm going to

[02:05:28] tell the story to the kids. Kids will come every day to want to hear the story. And eventually he thought he needed a way to tell the story to more people all at once. And that is exactly what you've just seen, which is how the book ends. Right.

[02:05:38] Yeah. Which is a thing that fucking is a New York. You're like you're telling me this is a book and you know that and there's a reason it exists. It makes it feel more real in that way you're talking about. We're like I believe the peach

[02:05:53] pits there because it's like you're telling me this isn't. This is truth. Right. This is in this book was to communicate a necessary truth. I just think right now with the Adams administration doing such a poor job we need someone like centipede to enter the mayoral race. OK.

[02:06:06] Let's look at these headlines centipede enters. Do the little Brooklyn boy the spinning newspaper. Brooklyn boy promises the moon and then some. OK. Next one is that's the Mercury City. That's what that paper is. The next one is Grasshopper debuts phenomenal four handed fiddling 20 minute Brahms violin concerto.

[02:06:25] The other story is Soviet achievement ahead of prediction by three years. All right. Fair enough. That's in the Daily News. It's a real newspaper. Yeah. OK. Next one. Right. Smooth move. We like smooth men. Signs on his skin cream spokesman. Very specific. OK. Next spinning paper is.

[02:06:50] OK. This is Daily News. Doctor Ladybug delivers one thousandth baby. She becomes an obstetrician. OK. Like one in each arm. Yeah I guess the idea there is just like ladybugs are nurturing. Yeah it's not that's not really been established. OK. This is my favorite publication.

[02:07:09] This paper is on the town. God I would go to her club all the time. It looks on her just her beautiful heart shaped face. It's somehow it looks like art deco. Yeah. You know it looks really like some art deco burlesque joint.

[02:07:22] I would be here every Friday night. Jazz dinner dancing. I love all those things. Gone. All right. And then we have Glowwormer Glowworm shines. I love that. The glowworm becomes the light New York's new night. Statue of Liberty. Yeah. Saves city of New York millions in power. Great.

[02:07:43] We're spending too much money on that goddamn torch. And then this is my favorite one. Daily News family celebration excuse me family celebration surprise party delights. OK look I'm not trying to be rude but was this a slow news day. Nothing going on. One kid had a birthday.

[02:08:02] The lead is he was delighted which is like fucking dog bites man. I mean he's not delighted that even as a kid I'm meeting this movie very earnestly. I remember that that feeling like that wouldn't be the front. That's at best a six. That wouldn't even if

[02:08:22] the photo was front page. Right then it's like look inside for you know it's essentially a party. But you're like no there's a full column there. Surprise party delights. James that's the last. Yeah. And like the end of the shining. Yeah it does zoom in like the

[02:08:37] surprise party the whole time. I mean they're all there. Look at their all there which is nice. And then yeah we're rolling credits. The Randy Newman song starts playing. The fifth song of course. Good news. Read your paper spin fast. James have birthday.

[02:08:54] Someone had to clock out work early. Let me see if there's anything else interesting in the dossier here. They use 24 stages. Fuck that's crazy. The peach was six feet tall. Pretty cool. Love to see that peach. Wonder if they got it anywhere.

[02:09:10] Yeah I think I got rid of it. Should be at the Academy Museum or the Little Mermaid. I think they should put it in the Louvre. Yes they should put it there you roll it to the Louvre. They should roll it all the way over to the Louvre.

[02:09:22] Selick you know did want the live action to feel phony opera set love it kind of monochromatic. That's his thing. He loves Ray Harryhausen so he was very into the sort of interplay of stop motion and live action in the end there when they're in New York.

[02:09:38] He wanted it to land. He wanted New York to feel like a Busby Berkeley musical. Yeah he didn't want them to land in like 90s New York. I think it was because they had like a really old like police cruisers yeah exactly. Cuttering down the street.

[02:09:49] And as you said the line of newspaperman in the phone booths yelling out their headlines got their little scratch pads on what are their fucking lines like Peach Pit pummels. God I wish I'd written it down like three great lines in a row. Yeah.

[02:10:04] CGI was handled by Sony Image Works. They do do some. Right. I told you that he wanted Costello first choice for grass centipede was Fisher Stevens and then Bruno Kirby to be talked into Richard Dreyfuss because Dreyfuss was like in the Disney you know

[02:10:24] stable stable because of Holland's right. I can see them want a bigger name. It's surprising though that he like Dreyfuss basically does a great Bruno Kirby in this. Yeah it's true. Right. He does. We probably would have crushed it. Yeah. Susan wasn't 100 percent behind it

[02:10:40] at first for Sarandon. Sometimes actors who haven't done voices before don't really realize that we care and it has to be great. It took her a while to take it seriously but then we started showing her the puppet and she found a way into the role like

[02:10:52] this is fucking hot. She was like I look like this Simon Callow six months went by. We hadn't finished recording recording him because he'd been off directing operas. Wow. Miriam Margoly is obviously a total pro because she was in Babe which she's amazing in that.

[02:11:09] Yes. When they were shooting the live action she was just like I can do a voice like cool have me do a voice. Cool because I'm good at that. Yeah. And obviously her voice is very different. Like she's got a completely different performance. Yeah. Film got good reviews.

[02:11:24] Roger Ebert says that it had brought stop motion to a new plateau saying the movement was so fluid he didn't understand how it was even possible. Yeah. Maslin thought it was great. A technological marvel. I do feel like this is the thing with a lot of these reviews

[02:11:42] though is it's like it's a focus on the technical side. Yeah. I mean I was even just looking here like Owen Globerman called the live action segments crude like there's that. I found a lot of that where people were just like why is this so nasty. Right. Yeah.

[02:12:00] Yeah. Well they should shut the fuck up. Any awards that year. OK. What are the big I mean hunchback obviously is the big animated movie. What was kind of fucked up if you ask me. I guess they were still working at a weird like oh it's films

[02:12:18] from this date in this year to this date in this year. It's since the last ceremony rather than within calendar year. So it loses Toy Story. Toy Story. That's weird. It loses to Toy Story. The Annie's are no good. Yeah. It loses a Toy Story which also

[02:12:34] wins directing. It wins producing. Story was kind of a big hit picture. I don't know if you've seen that film but it's actually pretty Randy Newman wins beats himself for music. I feel like it won. There was no it got it got it

[02:12:49] got trounced in all in all areas by this. But listen to this lineup here. It was Toy Story Balto whatever hunchback James the Giant Peach Ghost in the Shell. Fuck. The show made the five. Yeah. That is funny to imagine. I know the enemies are not

[02:13:06] televised but like a montage of best picture where it's like four children's films that you're cutting in fucking goes to the show. Yes. Well and this was I love that movie. It was expanded more nominees but now they have voice acting for TV and film or two

[02:13:20] different categories. Sure. This was combined. Rob Paulson wins that year as Pinky on Pinky in the Brain. That's weird. The brain is funnier than well Pinky is pretty funny though. Pinky's funny. Yeah. Paulson also just great. Yeah. Come on. Marisa Marsh. No I know.

[02:13:37] Here are the other nominees. OK. Sean Connery as Draco Dragonheart. That shit. Dreyfuss is Mr. Centipedes. The one nomination from this film. Jonathan Frakes as Xanatos on Gargoyles. The villain from Gargoyles. I don't think I knew that was Frakes. Not even David. Tom Hanks as Sheriff Woody Toy

[02:13:55] Story. Unaware of that performance. Tom Hulse as Quasimodo. Tony Jay as Judge Frollo. Possibly my winner. Yeah. Demi Moore as Esmeralda. Sure. She's fine. Three Hunchback nominations. That's just a wild spread of. Ghost in the Shell was one of those things that was such a big crossover. Yes.

[02:14:13] It was like in rental stores. Yes. And I would see it nestled among the cartoons. Yeah. And I would be like this is what is this? Yeah. What is this? I wasn't even mad about it. I was just like I can someone explain to me what this is.

[02:14:27] It's a cartoon. It's clearly not for me. Right. And like I no one could because my mother did not know much about Japanese animation. She failed. But you know what fucking rules. What? Ghost in the Shell. Box office. This movie flops. It didn't do that well.

[02:14:42] It made twenty eight million dollars. It comes out March. It came out April 12th 1996. OK. And it opens number two to seven point five million dollars. OK. And number one at the box office is a legal thriller. That was actually a huge hit.

[02:14:58] Well no actually I take that back. It was actually a solid hit. Is it a Grisham? No but it's in that style. Primal Fear. There you go. I was like I don't want to give him much. Yeah. I don't want to give him Oscar nomination.

[02:15:13] No but I was thinking I was thinking I mean. Yeah. It's a William Deal. Have you ever seen Primal Fear Emma? Do you know the twist? Nope. It is. I only watched in the last couple of years. It's a movie with a famous twist.

[02:15:26] I feel like I watch it during the pandemic. I don't know if it's the movie that I watched least well in the movie. I agree and I also think you see it coming. Fucking mile away. I actually think that film is underrated as just a solid legal thriller.

[02:15:41] And the more it gets caught up in the machinations of the thing that gave an edge at the time the less interesting it is. And the end the Norton performance does not hold up very well. Edward Norton's breakout performance and it's one of those classic Edward Norton

[02:15:53] performances where you're like God he's just doing like a thing. Yeah. That fucking motherless Brooklyn fucking what else is he you know where it's just like stop doing some thing. Yeah. Come on there's another obvious one. Well there's the bit of that in the score. The score sure.

[02:16:09] I mean I think he's amazing in Birdman which is not even a movie I like. No I hate that movie but he's incredible really good. There's like some performances really god damn. No I think he's great and all the Wes Anderson movies. He's really good.

[02:16:23] But he's good in the glass onion. He is. You saw Glass Onion. Oh yeah. What's your take on him in Glass Onion. He's good. He's he's well cast. He's being deployed correct. A fun character. Yes you can do very well. I mean I think I've said this

[02:16:37] on Mike before but like Romilly saw motherless Brooklyn and was like why the fuck would anyone let him make that movie. Her perspective is she's just like the fifth guy in every Wes Anderson movie. Because it's been so long since he was born in 1998.

[02:16:53] So I said to her like oh you're so I said to her like Romilly you need to understand at the turn of the century he was undeniably. The guy number one is the next fucking and I sent her the Vanity Fair cover story in 1999 is there is no

[02:17:07] doubt about it. Edward Norton is the actor of his generation and they're like he's done four movies. Everyone agrees that he's De Niro to the extent that when he does the score two years later and it's like Brando De Niro Norton it's like the final

[02:17:20] anointment of three generations. Anyway. Wild number one of the box office number two is James and the Giant Peach number three is a hit comedy. Ninety six. Is it a carry. It made one hundred and twenty four million dollars at the domestic box. Is it a carry. No.

[02:17:38] Big comedy star. Yes. It is. But I feel like people just forget that this movie made one hundred and twenty four million dollars in 1996. It's not Robin Williams. It is a Robin. It is a Robin Williams. In 96. So we're post doubt fire. We're pre flubber. Pat.

[02:18:00] This is an adult comedy. Patches 99. OK. This is an adult comedy. This is not a family comedy. No. It's rated R restricted age 1700 require parental whatever. And he's the main guy. He sure is. But it is an ensemble. It is an ensemble.

[02:18:18] And he's the top guy made one hundred and twenty. It's R rated. Twenty four million dollars. And you would take that. I would take it. I would take it. Absolutely. Oh the birdcage. Oh huge ass hit birdcage. That was a movie I feel like I

[02:18:37] remember my parents never do this but they watched it multiple times. That movie was like sort of a seismic cultural moment. And obviously it's got it's you know it's yeah paints with a broad brush or whatever but people kind of forget that

[02:18:50] like in the mid 90s people were like Robin Williams Nathan Lane or like a gay couple. I'm going. I got to be there. Who was like only a Broadway guy up until that point in time basically. That's like his big. Yeah. No I feel like that movie's

[02:19:02] been brought up a lot recently in relationship to Bros. And that film's underperformance at the box office. Yeah it's obviously a different thing because we have like straight. Great actors other than Nathan Lane. But but that movie was such a fucking hit. Huge ass just people.

[02:19:20] And it's again it's an R rated comedy. Yes it's not even like a family comedy. That is how I found out that homosexuality existed. Sure I think that's true for a lot of America. Wait what now. What's going on. A kid at school had seen it and

[02:19:33] I was just like tell me everything because I was so impressed they had seen an R rated movie. And I was like what's it about. And they were like well it's a gay couple. And I was like slow down. What do you mean.

[02:19:42] And they were like two guys each other. And I was like that's not a thing. I remember pushing back on the kid being like if that happened I would have heard about it by now. You're like six years old. No one told me.

[02:19:52] I live in the West Village. What are you talking about. No gay people around. I see lots of men who are very close friends. None of my uncles. Number four. Yes is new this week. My uncle's not to bring good friend to Passover. It's a thing. Yeah.

[02:20:08] It's the same friend every time for years and they live together. Yeah. Number four at the box office like Burton Ernie. Yeah. You know I've been watching a lot of the show on Disney Street and their relationship is odd. They don't share a bed.

[02:20:20] No they have two separate beds next to one of Lucy but like yeah they're like a married couple. I wouldn't want to share it with her either. Like it will pay the ass crackers and that Ernie is annoying. Yeah. No. I was just sort of you'll take

[02:20:35] the fucking. OK listen to this. Listen to Griffin listen this because I used to think like my memory of them was like oh Bert's a stick in the mud. Yeah. And he's fun. And then the episode I watched Ernie they're trying to go to bed

[02:20:47] and Ernie's like playing the trumpet. And Bert's like what are you doing. And he's like I need to play the trumpet to fall asleep. And Bert's like that's annoying and I'm like yeah like don't do that. Yeah. Well you know people have said that you're Burton I'm earning.

[02:21:03] Well yeah it fits pretty well. There was that other meme recently of the like every podcast is this. And there's obviously there was the Pixar one that was Linguini Riley's dad from inside out and Al from Toy Story 2 that got circulated for years

[02:21:20] and then people would say to me like I bet you haven't seen this yet. That one got old. There was the one recently that was every podcast is this. And it's Sully and Mike. Uh huh. Right. That's that one really feels like it nailed us two across.

[02:21:33] That one's kind of brutal. Yeah I'm definitely a Mike and I'm an Ernie and you're Bert. For sure. Number four at the box. Ernie's funny and innocent. I love him to be clear but someone's playing the trumpet. I have something to say about that. It is funny.

[02:21:51] It's a horror film. OK it's new this week. A bit of a cult sleeper hit. OK interesting. It's opening to six million it's going to make like 20. But it's sort of a launch for two actors. Huh. It's a launch for two actors.

[02:22:07] This is a classic movie you see as a teenager like at a sleepover. Huh. I'm a teenager. Do they make sequels to this. No no it's a dead end but the two actors. Yeah it's basically like X with teenagers X hit movie with teenagers.

[02:22:24] I'm sorry you're saying it's a soft remake of a different film but with teenagers. It's not a remake of Ty West X 20 years before. No that wouldn't make any sense. That's why I was confused. Thank you for the clarification. OK so it's a remake of

[02:22:39] it's not a rebuttal it's just that's the elevator pitch. This move this hit movie but right. It's not like Cruel Intentions but you're saying it's that kind of thing where it's like we're doing this type of story with teenagers. It shares a star with Cruel Intentions.

[02:22:51] I'll tell you that much. So is it a Sarah Michelle Gellar. Wrong. It's not a Reese. It is a Reese. Is it Freeway. No. What am I fucking forgetting. I don't know this movie. I'll tell you this much. Oh it's called Fear. It's called Fear.

[02:23:09] The Wahlberg talking about Inside Out Mark Wahlberg. And have you never seen Reese Witherspoon. I've never seen fear. No I have. I get fear and freeway mixed up in my mind. Have you seen Fear Emma. Never seen. OK well sorry. Fatal Attraction for teens. It's a good movie.

[02:23:24] Wahlberg's good in it. Yeah. Number five of the box office. OK. I've been waiting to get to this one. OK. It's in its second week. OK. It's a it's a comedy. Mm hmm. Yeah. Sort of like a comedy with a gun. You know what I mean.

[02:23:39] Like where someone's like got a gun on the poster. A thing you complained about recently. I did. Well I know what I hate is like a comedy where like characters do fucking martial arts now. You know what I mean. Yeah. I don't mean like martial arts stars.

[02:23:52] I mean like you like Josh Duhamel you know it's like martial arts. Very specific. I'm talking about that. What I you like movies starring a Kung Fu like you like a comedy. Oh my God. If there's a Kung Fu I'm all in. No.

[02:24:07] What I remember most about this movie is it stars like a fair he's an up and coming he's a big comedy star the 90s. The poster is in papyrus. Oh boy. And no one talks about this because no one remembers. Oh oh oh oh I know exactly what

[02:24:20] film this is. OK. Go ahead. Fuck. I know. Is it is it. It's here's the star. It's Martin Lawrence and Lynn Whitfield. Correct. The movie. Did Martin Lawrence direct this one too. Did he direct this movie. Yes he sure did. And he wrote it. OK.

[02:24:41] It's it's called the thin line between love and hate. Yes. A thin line. A thin line between love and hate. But like this was the poster that people put in theaters. People saw it. Describe it. Describe it. David describe it. The exact same thing is that

[02:24:57] graphic design is my passion. It looks the same. Describe it. It looks like a wedding invitation. A really bad. No no. Someone didn't make an effort. Yeah. A Vistaprint wedding invitation. It says Martin Lawrence and Lynn Whitfield. Lynn Whitfield is standing behind Martin Lawrence.

[02:25:12] They're both decked out in all white. They're both kind of in wedding outfits. Their bodies kind of disappearing into the background. Lynn Whitfield's got her arms around Martin Lawrence. Could be a hug or something more threatening because they're holding her arms are holding a pistol a handgun

[02:25:29] and she's making a sexy face. She's going like that. Describe Martin Lawrence's he's a little cocked. His head's cocked 15 degrees. Right. And he's going what. How else would you describe it. Yeah. He's like she's got a what. And Lawrence Whitfield and a thin

[02:25:46] line between love and hate are all in papyrus. And then what is the tagline David. While some women are waiting to exhale this one is ready to get even kind of a kind of a damp ending to that where someone waiting to

[02:25:59] exhale. I'm like OK are we going to make fun of one more movie title within this sentence. I'm also like it should be like a gun pun. It should be like it should be waiting to unload or something. You know what I'm saying.

[02:26:10] I mean you've already plus this poster right twice with that. This film was made for eight million dollars and it made 34 million dollars. It was a hit. It was a big deal. Nightclub manager Darnell White played by Martin Lawrence is a perpetual playboy and hopeless male show.

[02:26:25] He's a guy who's always in the wrong place. He's a guy who's always in the wrong place. He's a guy who's always in the wrong place. And he works at a nightclub called Chocolate City and aspires to be the owner. And Regina King plays his

[02:26:39] childhood sweetheart and Brandy Lin-Manuel field plays Brandy Webb a beautiful and wealthy woman. But she's a femme fatale. I'm always fascinated by people like that where it's like I only had one story to tell. Martin Lawrence is a filmmaker. He was like I had to write and

[02:26:55] I was never. Did he never direct again. I don't think so. Maybe one of his specials. I don't know. I don't think he directed run tell that I remember run tell that. Do you remember that year at the MTV Music Awards. Go on.

[02:27:08] No this is he's only directing credit. Thank you. Any medium whatsoever. Yeah like Eddie Murphy talks about Harlem Nights. He's like I didn't like that. I think directing sucks. I never wanted to do it. Right. Then there are people like Charles Lawton where it was like

[02:27:20] my movie was seen as a failure no one would let me do it again. Martin Lawrence just had one story he was dying to get off his chest. Some women are waiting to exhale from the pain of Martin Lawrence. Whoever was hosting the MTV Music Awards that year.

[02:27:33] It might have been Jimmy Fallon. OK. They were like the show it's not doing. Fuck there hasn't been anything funny in a while. OK. The laughs are dropping. Oh boy. And they run backstage and there's a glass case that says breaking case of emergency with a little hammer

[02:27:50] and it's Martin Lawrence inside and he's just ready to do the last and Lawrence comes out and does 10 minutes because MTV was about to release run tell that. I remember run tell that was one of those things where it was like it has the most offensive

[02:28:03] words per minute. Right. Of any movie ever. It has the most uses. Yes. Yeah. Until that rental debt. Yeah. Well. That's the top five of the box office you've also got Sergeant Bilko. Then. Funny. Really. Yeah. You're not just you're not just playing it for the bit or

[02:28:26] whatever. I mean I don't remember it. I'm like I felt like he was. Yeah. No. It was pushing back on that once. That's like the most beloved like Bilko Phil Silver show is like every comedian was like that's the best comedy writing of all time.

[02:28:43] I know I know it's like they're obsessed. I know. And then they put everyone in them. It's Phil Hartman and Dan Ackroyd and Steve Martin. I remember my mom coming back and saying I'm the biggest Steve Martin fan in the world. Chris Rock's in that movie.

[02:28:54] Everyone is in that movie. And she was just like abysmal devoid of laughter. Not good. Never seen it. I thought we were talking about see I always get it mixed up you like down Periscope and McHale Navy McHale's Navy you like Renaissance man. Yeah right. Yeah.

[02:29:12] Major pain major pain. Yeah. That's what I was like all the other military comedies of the time. Yeah because they're kind of like you know goofier. Right. And then the authority figure has to come into conflict in the army now obviously. Is that the Pauly Shore one. Absolutely.

[02:29:26] Of course. Yeah. We should do a Pauly Shore series the Pauly Shore on Patreon biodome is a fucking classic. I think I've talked about but there's the Pauly Shore on Joe Rogan interview where he's like so what happened man what happened your movie career and he's like I

[02:29:39] don't know I don't know they just took it away from me. And he's like but come on man you got to have your seven flops in a row. David David Rogan's like come on man like what happened. And he was like because I was like

[02:29:51] really big man you know I was making all these movies and stuff and he was like yeah I mean you were like one of the big comedy stars he was like no I was like the only one I was the only one who got

[02:29:59] to make movies and then he'll be like what about that other standup it was like he made some movies but I made a lot of movies and Rogan's like so then what ended your run. And he's like I don't know I have no idea.

[02:30:09] We made the first movie it was a hit. We made the next movie it made a lot less money. We made a movie after that it made less money. Movie after that didn't do so well. And then after that big drop at

[02:30:19] the box office and then at some point they stopped like let me make movies like you've acknowledged they're all on a downward track. You had like seven strikes at the plate. Rogan's like so it sounds like they stopped making money as like

[02:30:32] I don't know you tell me no one ever gave me an answer. Anyway anyway anyway we did it. We did it. Yeah that's it. Executive decision flirting with disaster Oliver and Company Oliver and Company re-release Yeah. Isn't a good movie. I mean I haven't seen it since I

[02:30:50] was six. I think it's good. Co-written by James Mangold. Huh. It's got Billy Joel in it right. Yeah. He plays Dodger. That's fun. Yeah. It's got kind of a stack. I haven't seen that since I was like negative for you. Billy Joel. Bette Midler. Cheech Marin. Yep.

[02:31:09] Dumb Deloes. Joey Lawrence from you know. Yeah. Blossom. Wow. Remember Blossom. Blossom was me. I would turn the TV off on the TV. That fucking credits would start and I'd be like all right guys dinner time for David. The intergeneration just has the autoplay thing but there was

[02:31:26] something about like knowing I like this show at this time and I always see the first 35 seconds of this show before I turn the TV off and I'll never watch it. Yeah. Anyway I don't know Emma any final thoughts on bugs. I mean how many.

[02:31:41] Do we have a few more hours. Go on Emma. Fuck it up. I mean they're they're the best aren't they. They're so fun. I love them. Where's this rank in the bug canon for you a bug films. Oh this is like in the top. Yeah. Yeah. What else.

[02:31:55] I mean you just watch Prince of Darkness bug celebration. Yeah there's a lot of bugs in that movie. I turned into bugs. Where do you say the kid is a really yeah. Yeah. Antique movie. Yeah. Where do you stand on bugs life and ants.

[02:32:07] I've actually never seen ants because I think like they say like bad words in it and I'm like oh my god. I don't know. I've never seen ants. And I'm like I don't know what they say. And then I saw the movie and I

[02:32:18] was like oh my god. And I'm like oh my god. And then I saw the movie and I was like oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. They say bad words in it. And my mom was like you can't see them. Yeah. They say bad words like therapy.

[02:32:32] My mom didn't want me to like starring Woody Allen. The English language bugs life you like them bugs like love. Yeah. But it's like I feel like has the same thing as this where it's like a great ensemble cast of long legs walking above them. Did you.

[02:32:46] You've rewatched it recently. I had a good time. The bug city stuff is so good. It is. It just doesn't look that good. The movie. You do feel like much more than Toy Story. The like they push it. Yeah. Like it's it's still primitive here.

[02:33:01] But there's stuff about it I really liked and like the plot is fun. Like the you know acting troupe thing is fun. Emma. Thank you for being here. Thank you for talking about bugs. Thank you for having me. That's not all you're here for.

[02:33:14] It's it's the first it's the first time after six appearances between me and a feature on that you've explicitly come on to talk about bugs. That's true. That's true. Yeah that's true. We'll get we'll get bugs again. Yeah. Bugs. I don't know when. David eyeballing. I don't know.

[02:33:30] I'm not seeing any bugs. Not seeing any bugs on the horizon. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate to review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media helping to produce the show. Thank you to Alex Baron AJ McKeon for our editing

[02:33:46] JJ Birch for our research Limon Gourmet and The Great American Novel for our theme song Pat Reynolds and Joe Bowen for our artwork. You can go to blank check pod dot com for links to some real nerdy shit including our Patreon blank check special features where

[02:34:02] we are doing things that we are currently deciding because we're recording this episode a little bit. No we're doing the national treasures. That's what's going on here. Yep. National Treasure one already landed and then coming up is a talk in the walk

[02:34:17] and a walk and then this book is a secret. Cracking open the book of secrets. That's right. You like that book. Absolutely. Great. It's so good. It's filled with so good. Yeah. And I think that the president of the United States doesn't

[02:34:29] know how much that movie is about conspiracy theories. He takes us into the mountain. Yep. That's true. The band it's got some real Illuminati shit going on. Oh yeah. Treasures. The president's secret book that he writes all the secrets on the back of the dollar bill.

[02:34:41] I get to know these secrets because secrets I guess does not skimp on the amount of secret material. No no no. It's not it's not some hellboy to the Golden Army shit. It's green. What's his name. The president. Bruce. Bruce. We stand.

[02:34:58] We were just talking about him on Dr. Sleep. Yeah. He's so good. OK. All right we're done. Next week. Monkeybone. Next week. Monkeybone. David's banging the table. Have you ever seen it? No. I think I remember it was so hyped. Yeah. I was like fuck.

[02:35:14] Brandon Fraser and this I'm there and then salvaged it. Right. I have always maintained that it's good. I have not watched it in 15 years. I'm very eager to rewatch. But at the time I was America's preeminent monkeybone defender. Yeah. You were a boner. I was a boner.

[02:35:30] And next week we're all going to get boned. Yeah. OK. Goodbye. And as always. Bugs. Bugs. Bugs. Bugs.