K-19: The Widowmaker with Richard Lawson

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check

[00:00:20] For the courage, I nominated these men for the title of hero of the Soviet Union But the committee ruled that because it was not wartime and because it was merely an accident, they were not worthy of the title hero

[00:00:34] What good are honors from such people? These men sacrificed not for a medal but because when the time came, it was their duty Not to the Navy or to the state, but to us, their podcasts and so to podcasts! To podcasts! Hey everybody! Oh no.

[00:00:53] I was zoning out when he said all that at the end of the movie again. Why is it so engaging? The movie, I mean you're so on the hook by that point.

[00:01:01] That's where Harrison Ford's character is like, you know what? I think the Soviet Union might not totally be on the level. I think I'm coming around in this way. Harrison, hey Catherine right now over the megaphone. Great! Could we do another take? More stoic? Is that possible?

[00:01:20] Can you give me a little less to latch on to? Okay, I'll give it a shot. Hi everybody my name is Griffin Newman. I'm David Sims. Welcome to Blank Check with Griffin and David. This is a podcast that is hosted by Griffin and David.

[00:01:36] That's the two of us. We're hashtag the two friends, competitive advance that we have going for us and no other movie podcasts. Sure. We're concerts of context here. You're all over the place. Go on, go on.

[00:01:51] This is a podcast about from our director to a massive success early on in their career. We're granted a series of blank checks and sometimes those checks are cleared and sometimes they bounce. Baby. Baby. I don't know. What's the submarine noise? No, I think that's it. Do. Yeah.

[00:02:09] That's so noise or whatever. Sorry, it appears that it's bouncing. Check is bouncing. But we are connoisseurs of context. Even if I said it at the wrong time, it's sure. Sure. Yeah. Which is why we're talking about.

[00:02:22] It just feels like something you like blurred out in bed now. Like, you know, like you just say it at the weirdest times. Well, spoilers.

[00:02:28] Or someone's like, you're just like sitting in a chair with like a glass of whiskey in your old age and someone's like, how are you doing? And he's like, we're connoisseurs of context. This is my series about the films of Catherine Bigelow. Sure. Big Time Bigelow. Yeah, right.

[00:02:45] Bam, bam, bigelow. Big Daddy Bigelow. Yeah. And we've gotten to that moment that everyone waits for when we get to the titular. Sure. Episode, the movie that inspired the name of our miniseries titled Pod 19, The Widowcaster. Great title. Hold for applause. Right. Yep. Order of Lenin is awarded.

[00:03:07] And today we're talking about K-19, The Widowmaker, the film that almost destroyed Catherine Bigelow's career. Sure. Irreparably. I think destroyed her career. Not irreparably, but you know, whatever.

[00:03:18] And the movie that gave awful, awful Hollywood an excuse to not hire women directors for their blockbusters for a decade and a half. I think that's true. This became the one that they went like, well look, we gave Bigelow $100 million and it wasn't good.

[00:03:32] So clearly women can't make money. I guess so, but you know this was an independent movie. We'll get into that. Yes. Which I think is the root of the problem with this movie. Is where the money came from. Yes. But yeah. I would argue.

[00:03:46] But God, do we have a guest today? Yep. He's neck and neck. We have three guests who are beloved by our fans, by our blankies. Yep. Who have done the same number of episodes. Is that right? Are you keeping track? Yeah. Okay.

[00:04:01] And fans wait, they pray, they hope that these guests will be coming back. Each mini-series please let them in. They found out what you're doing and they started posting about it on Reddit.

[00:04:09] Do you know there was a Reddit thread where they surmised from our Twitter exchanges that you were doing this episode and people upvoted it 25 times. Excitement that you were talking about this movie. Well they know I love little sailor boys. I did the Army Boys last time.

[00:04:22] That's true. We got to think of an Air Force movie to complete each movie. Fly boys, come on. Yes, of course. You're going to do an Alice in the series right? Yeah, absolutely. You know I'm best from the Late in the Water episode. The Savin' Private Ryan episode.

[00:04:38] And what was it? Fuck, what's the other one? Vanilla Sky. Vanilla Sky. Vanilla Sky. Vanilla Sky. But of course. An Air Force movie in its own way. Yes. Well it was about the Air Force movie. Well it is about the Sky. Yes.

[00:04:55] And also, this is writing for Vandy Farrow and the podcast local man, the great Richard Lawson. Hey guys. Thank you for having me. Thank you very much. I'm really excited to talk about this one. I love Jim Blushee. I love dogs. I love comedy.

[00:05:10] It's a rare comedy for Catherine Bigelow which I think is interesting. I didn't really get what you guys were going with the Harrison Ford thing because he's not in K9. Oh boy, I love dogs. Are you pitching that? Is that new movie starring Richard Lawson?

[00:05:22] Yeah, I'm doing it with different podcasts network though. Oh sure. My friend Jordan Fish, my old friend who's a listener at the show, so he'll appreciate the shout out, has this movie idea that we always like bat back and forth called Must Love Amores Peros. It's funny.

[00:05:41] And it's a movie about two people who like it's like a before sunrise kind of movie, two people who go on a date to see Amores Peros the first date and then spend the rest

[00:05:51] of the date arguing over whether or not the movie had value and whether or not Interog2 would end up being a substantial director. And you're into Wood Direct that movie. Yes, he's that self-regarded. DJ comedy.

[00:06:02] Did you know K9 is kind of like a deep impact Armageddon or like Bugs Life ants? You know one of those? With Turner and Hooch. With Turner and Hooch they came out within three months of each other. Yeah. Top and dog movies.

[00:06:14] Like why is it that this happens? I don't know. The coin between Belush and Hanks for who would capture America's heart is our great leading man of the next decade. We all know how that turned out. Oh, there it is. They are. David's showing us how to start.

[00:06:29] She had like a astonishing number of like leading vehicles. I sometimes forget. Her Curly Sue, right? Mr. Destiny. Mr. Destiny Russo, I believe is in that. Sure. And Michael Cain's in that one. Red Heat with Schwarzenegger at the two hand. Yeah, right. Right, Red Heat. Yeah, yeah.

[00:06:47] Michael Cain's in canine. He was Jerry Lee the dog. That's Michael Cain nine. Homer and Eddie with Whoopi. Whoopi? Yeah. I don't know what this movie is, but it's about a homicidal escape mental patient with a brain tumor who meets a child like mentally challenged

[00:07:03] man as a traveling companion. That's a movie that came out. So Jim Belich has been in more movies than like Dangle Day Lewis. Right. He's been like he's been a lot of this. Intense amount of movies. He's still making. I mean he was fantastic in Twin Peaks.

[00:07:15] I know you guys haven't watched. He has become a really good character actor in his older age. I thought he was great and call me a hero. Like he's, I think he rules now, but it's weird how long they kept on being like

[00:07:26] he's going to make him a leading man. Sure. They really wanted to. Yeah, they did. Like 10 straight years where like John Belushi died and they were like we got, we need a Belushi top line in pictures.

[00:07:37] But who was famous in the Belushi vein that they were trying to model him after because like he had, he wasn't an original idea, right? Like he's not that handsome. He's sort of like got this. Right. He was like a shlubby kind of. Yeah.

[00:07:48] I guess there were other actors doing that, but. It's a good question though. Yeah. Who is the, who is the every man? Right. You go like like Goodman's at one pillar. He's not as like shlubby and blue collar. Goodman's never been like a box office.

[00:08:01] Well, I guess in the King Ralf era. Tom Arnold wasn't around yet. No. I guess maybe he was a little bit. But he's trying to, yeah. That's definitely what he sees. But it's almost like they wanted him equidistant between Goodman and Hanks.

[00:08:12] In a spot that didn't really exist. You have to like pick a lane, you know? He's a little, yeah. I guess Boulushi could be like as a little butcher than Tom Hanks. Right. And a little bit skinnier than Chad Goodman. Yeah. You're not wrong.

[00:08:25] In terms of like temperament, it was like he's not surly enough, but he's also not like charming enough. Yeah. So this is a master's about the films of Jim Boulushi. Yeah. So I watched K9 by mistake. So I'm going to go watch K19 now. Oh yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:38] Ben, stop the podcast. Yeah. Okay. So it's about submarines. Okay. I stopped it. Oh, Lord, you stop the podcast. Okay. Piper, stop the podcast. All right. I'm stopping it. Are you a finest film critic? Uh, sure. Then prove it by stopping the podcast. Okay. I did.

[00:08:57] And we're back. You know, I heard a rumor you graduate to certain titles over the course of different many series. That's true. Like producer Ben Kenobi. Mm-hmm. Caller Ben. Say Ben anything. Ailey Ben's with the dollars sign. Ben, I trauma one. Ben say it. Warhaw's. Two men. Pudurbane.

[00:09:14] Two million. I did like a third of them. I know you did a great job. Thank you. I'm not even mad at you. I'm just mad at us for doing this to ourselves. Do you have one for this yet? Uh, no. I mean the, the,

[00:09:25] Let we should say. Leading the fan. Like the fans are all demanding. They want us to call you. There are two varietals of the same joke. I don't think it's funny. I don't think it's funny either, but I do think all us having to say it every week.

[00:09:40] I get the joke of that. Asama Ben Hosley is what has been heavily. There's some variations on that. Asama Ben Laden, Asama Ben Hosley, Usama versus Osama. But that's the main joke that everyone's anglin at. Yeah. I don't know why that's what they've latched onto, but they,

[00:10:03] there's definitely a drum beat for that one. Yeah. So, so if you have any other ideas, please let us know. They didn't like like police mentality or something. Hotel Ben J. Oh, Jesus. All right. Yeah. All right. Cut that out. All of it. Everything that's ever happened.

[00:10:27] Ben, keep it in. Double it. Great. Sure. Point then. Yeah. You know, You know, Benny Utah. I don't know. Sure. The Hurt Hauser. Hurt Hauser. That's not bad. That's actually okay. Hurt Hauser. That's not the worst thing I've ever heard. Yeah.

[00:10:46] They definitely think we're safer if we go towards the early Bigelow films and name their Ben, Right. Rather than the ones that are. Well. Dier. This is serious. That would be my argument about K-19 though, is that this is the fulcrum, right? Yes.

[00:10:59] Between her reputation is like a genre director and her reputation is like a master of war realism. She has process and, yeah. She has definitively turned a corner. She stopped being fun, But she hasn't figured out how to become engaging yet. Yes. You know,

[00:11:18] At least engaging in this vein. I mean, My joke on Letterbox or Twitter, wherever I post it was like, She's like, I made with Point Break the most fun movie, right? Yeah. So why not try to make the least fun movie, right?

[00:11:34] Like let's see if I can do the other. I would argue it's always like, She succeeded. Yeah. Dang on target. Well done, Catherine. The Asian poisoning isn't fun. Well, it's interesting in the monologue that you did at the top of the show, Griffin, where the line about like,

[00:11:48] because it wasn't wartime and it was just an accident, it was like, right, so why did you make the movie? You're right. That's what I feel like. I mean, I went to the Wikipedia page, I like cracked it open as I started the movie

[00:11:58] and boy, did I struggle to get through this movie. Like this was, I will admit I did a little scrubbing at some parts. Uh-huh. Because I was just like, Jesus fucking Christ. So I had a show last night and then went out for drinks afterwards and got home.

[00:12:11] But I'm an insomniac as you guys know. So I like got home pretty late, but I was like, I can watch this movie. I'm not going to fall asleep early, right? Sure. Fall asleep within like 15 minutes. So just like fucking no dose, right?

[00:12:20] This movie or the opposite of no dose, the night quilt, right? Right. Fucking out. Got a full eight hours, woke up, put the movie on immediately fell asleep again within five minutes. Okay. So what I ended up having to do was I literally set my phone

[00:12:35] with an alarm for five minutes from that moment and every five minutes I'd have to turn off the snooze button because I was so worried I was going to continue falling asleep and a couple of times I did. Wow. That's the ideal movie watching experience, I feel like.

[00:12:47] Yeah. Well, so A, you know, a big running thread in this podcast has been my inability to sleep. I think I finally found the solution. That's true. I just need to buy K-19 The Widowmaker and put it on. Harrison Ford ordering endless drills. Yeah. And enunciating so well.

[00:13:02] Sure. I started the journal as a feeling of happiness. You were talking about the Wikipedia. I was reading the Wikipedia and the guy that Liam Neeson plays was the one vote that didn't... He was the one vote against launching a nuclear weapon during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[00:13:18] Oh, wow. And it's like, that sounds like an interesting movie. He's a hero. Right. Yes. This is what I was going to say. Damn, look at this guy. That guy is awesome. Yeah. I love this guy. It is crazy how much the real guy looks like Harrison Ford.

[00:13:29] Yeah. It is pretty cool. They got lucky with that one in a sense that they had a bankable iconic movie star. Well, except that the real guy was 35 years old when the thing happened. Well, but you know, Russians, they age like pairs. Yeah, true. City miles.

[00:13:42] They age like pairs. No, the thing I was going to say about the Wikipedia entry was I opened it up to start watching the movie and I see immediately it goes, a film depicting the first of many disasters involving K-19. You're right. It's sort of a cursed sub,

[00:13:55] but we don't see the rest of the curse. We just see this incident. But what's weird is the movie starts and they're like, hey, there's been some bad shit going on in the making of this sub. Sure. Which is depicted. Right, no, no, no.

[00:14:06] Then you see the first incident that happens before war time and then they don't decommission. The K-19 was not decommissioned until 1991. Right, it went through the entirety of the rest of the Soviet Union. And like 20 more awful things happen. It's like if they ripped the Titanic out

[00:14:20] of the bottom of the ocean and just put it back on water. And it just kept on happening over and over again. Like the K-19 Wikipedia page. You just gave James Cameron an idea. Yeah. The K-19 Wikipedia page for the actual sub reads like Groundhog Day.

[00:14:33] Yeah, well the one that really... The women gluing something onto something who six women died from fumes while making it. It is a pretty crazy story, but I just feel like she focuses on... Right, and the guy getting hit by the car at the beginning of that.

[00:14:46] But people were dying in and out of the sub. Well, subs are... This recipe for disaster. There's no windows. You can't air them out. No. Only in Polish submarines. That's the joke. Or no, screen door. That's the screen door. Sorry. Sure. Yeah, great. K-19, the widowmaker.

[00:15:04] No, but it is one of those things where you just go like, it's weird to make a movie out of this story and only make it this part of the story. Like because it's not wartime, because it's like someone just making a bad decision and getting them fucked.

[00:15:17] And then there's no real solution or resolution to it. It's just like, well that was awful. Yeah, which actually... It's kind of like Detroit in that way. I mean it's less urgent obviously. But it's like, here's a terrible thing and then the movie ends.

[00:15:31] Yes, and it's like there's no ambiguity to the terribleness of the thing. It's depicted as with sort of like care for making it look like it actually probably happened. They're trying to be journalistic about it. But yeah, so this is basically like, yeah, the thingy broke.

[00:15:49] A bunch of people went in there to fix it. That was bad for them. Are you horrible for them? No good. And then they surfaced. And they got out of the sub. Yeah, because it was shitty. A lot of them died and the other ones who didn't,

[00:16:04] they had to keep quiet about it because, well we'll just tell you that in a post script though. So you won't see that. And that's it. But like it takes an hour plus for the thingy to break. The first hour of the movie is drills,

[00:16:16] which nothing is more dramatically engaging than watching drills. Then scene scenes that innately have zero stakes because it's a forced simulation. And they keep saying this is drill. Well, the first scene tries to set up that it's not

[00:16:28] or the first drill, but then you're like, oh wait, no, it's just taken. And then you go like, right, fool me once, cool, let's move on, let's get to real stuff. And they do like six more drills. Drills are such a classic part of any submarine movie, right?

[00:16:38] There has to be some drill that's dramatic, but it's just one, exactly. Not eight. Isn't it weird that the submarine... I love submarine movies by the way. I was so bummed out about how bad this movie was. I'm not crazy about submarine movies. Like I'm fairly claustrophobic.

[00:16:52] It's one of my few kind of triggers. And I understand in a good submarine movie, that's what's being weaponized. Something like DOS Boot is like making a meal out of how uncomfortable it's going to make you feel and being in that thing.

[00:17:03] It is weird though that like the submarine movie is such or was such a prominent subgenre for a while. That there was like this amazing run of submarine movies because it feels very specific. It is. What do you guys think of Crimson Tide?

[00:17:17] I haven't seen it in ages. I remember really liking it and that score is sort of... Score is great. Never seen it. People love it. I highly recommend Crimson Tide. What do you think about Down Parasco? Well, which is now the second time I've mentioned that on...

[00:17:28] On this very podcast. I believe last time you said that I wrote and directed it, which I did. And so, you know, Truth 10. You just said the truth. So I love Down Parasco. You don't movie I like, I think it's underrated as U571.

[00:17:41] I think that's a good movie. That's Moss. That was it. A Moss down movie with McConahan. And Bon Jovi and Bill Paxton. Yeah, you know, just the classic trio. There are three Amigos. I remember walking out of that movie when I was 12

[00:17:54] because I was just like, I don't like submarine movies. I went to see it because it was getting good reviews. I like that movie. Yeah, it's very claustrophobic. It's very sound oriented. But it has stakes to it. Obviously there's Russian guys who died trying to save their comrades

[00:18:09] and maybe the world, I don't know. Yes, of course we should respect that, but there's no plot. That movie is kind of ticking clock through there. Yeah. Whereas K-19 is like they're fucked and then they spend the movie like ringing their hands over

[00:18:21] which of two bad options they should go with. Yeah, let the Americans save us. Right. And it's this movie where the crucial thing is that he finally ignores his duty to the country, you know, to whatever, to the motherland, right? Right. To save his men. Right.

[00:18:39] And then gets fucked for it. And I think there's something interesting there, but it's like almost so dramatically inert as like a viewer. The last 10 minutes or so when it flashes ahead to 1989 was the one section of the movie I found very engaging

[00:18:54] and reminded me the most of what Bigelow becomes in the next three movies. Yeah. Where it is really dealing with these men in this situation. Yeah. Whereas, I mean, I think we should start from the beginning. I know we're getting into these like larger overview kind of things.

[00:19:11] Dun dun dun. But I think for like the thing that Bigelow likes doing what she's sort of become now of this like fact-based kind of like docudrama, you know, the grayness of morality and high-stakes situations kind of filmmaker and very detail-oriented.

[00:19:31] What's best for her is when she finds a really clean character arc in the middle of it. And she's able to tell one person's story in the center with a good performance. Like you mean like Renner, Hurtlocker, Chastain and Zeroduck30.

[00:19:43] I argue the biggest issue with Detroit is she didn't pick one. That you have four friends that could have been. She sort of picked one but then she didn't quite commit to it. Right. I think if she committed to one that movie would work 25% better.

[00:19:53] We'll get to that in a future episode. Yeah, we all can't wait to record. Everyone's looking forward to it. It's going to be a part 10. You want to come back? I'll bring the drinks. Yeah. But this movie you're dealing with stoic Russian men

[00:20:08] who are afraid to show any level of emotion. And there's no effort with the young sailors to... There's no follow car for us. Like there's no in. Which you think that's what they're setting up Starsgard to be. When he shows up and I hadn't seen this movie

[00:20:21] and I go, oh man, a fresh face, young Starsgard, full of life. That feels like what he's going to be. And it's like, no, he's just a plot function. But then... He's barely a character. He's just like the Donald Sumter character where it's like,

[00:20:34] you are a nuclear technician. And he's like, oh yeah, well I've never actually worked on one before. And Donald Sumter is the doctor who's like, I've never been in a boat. I get seasick. Like we're supposed to fall about laughing. His job is just to... Oh no! Right.

[00:20:48] Like he's the rat guy in the abyss. That's going to be important. But Starsgard's job is just to explain how things are fucked. Like he's the translator going, this is why we're all going to die. I guess Belushi has kind of a good character in this.

[00:21:01] He does really love that dog. But that's all... Right, it's a two-hander. You can't give him all the credit because the performance is... I mean he's kind of Ginger Rogers, you know? Yeah, that's right. I've always thought that. You've always thought that the dog character just does a...

[00:21:15] Is the astair. Exactly, yeah. Right, right, right. And Belushi makes it look easy but really backwards and then heals. Ken Kinsey's in this movie from Madman. Oh, and also Kinsey from Kinsey. The two Kinsey's are in this one. Oh wow. Hashtag the two Kinsey's.

[00:21:31] There's a young actor who has a few lines. He's one of the people who goes into the repair. I think James Ginti is his name. And he is a colleague. He's a teacher at Chapin and my friend knows him. They're on the faculty together.

[00:21:44] James, you know this guy? He's quite handsome. Yeah, he was in Sturgats. He was a big role in that with Bruce Willis and Rosamund Pike. Which is a weird fucking movie. So he was speaking of Chastain. And you know who directed Sturgats by the way? Jonathan Mosta.

[00:22:00] Oh wow. But he was at Juilliard in Chastain's class and he left Juilliard to do this movie. To do K-19. To do K-19? Yep. And Chastain was like, now I'm going to chill. She'll come to me. Give her 10 years. She's going to watch Chastain.

[00:22:17] But the thing I was going to say, I think one of the disastrous elements of this movie is, A, not suited for Bigelow's approach because her stripped down, like brass tacks kind of approach doesn't work when you don't have an emotional center which this story doesn't provide.

[00:22:33] And B, having Harrison Ford play this part is a nightmare because this is when he was starting to get in his like, Mr. Wilson, like I don't want to have any fun on screen. You know? What was going on with him? This is the beginning of the end.

[00:22:48] Well, that really... I guess they're already starting to... Let's do the fourth. No, I think this is the beginning because he basically has... He's done one bad move. Random Hearts, I would argue. Random Hearts, oh wait, this is the selected filmography. Let me get to the real filmography.

[00:22:59] Yeah, because this is the main thing I want to talk about with this movie. All right, so here we... It is a really interesting... Here's Ford. So yeah, in the early 90s he's got the fugitive and he's got the two Jack Ryan movies. He's still like Harrison Ford

[00:23:11] and he's transitioning nicely into Salt and Pepper Harrison Ford. I also think he was in Star Wars, right? Phantom Menace, I don't think so. No, the... One of the later episodes. The sequel trilogy. Yeah, I guess so. Han Solo.

[00:23:27] But that's the crazy thing is, like, in this day and age, you look at Jennifer Lawrence's career, right? She's got two huge franchises and then more and more her movies outside those franchises aren't really working. The Russell ones did for a while, right? She's picking some bad projects.

[00:23:41] Right, and she remains kind of the biggest star we have today. Is she gonna do Bad Russian next on an ant? Same as Harrison. They should retell that movie Bad Russian and make it part of the loose, like Bad Grandpa. Bad Judge, Bad Teacher. Bad Judge.

[00:23:59] Where do we go like Bad Garbage Man? Like, you know, how far do we have to go in this ranch? Bad person. I don't argue. I'm seeing a sitcom on CNN every night called Bad President. Have you heard of anything though? Bad President. But it's Felicia in there?

[00:24:17] Is that Jimmy... Oh, fuck, I forgot what the name of the dog is already. It's named after the great ball Jerry Lee, that's what he's called. Is the name of the dog in K-19? Yeah, Jerry Lee. No, K-9.

[00:24:28] No, the name of the dog in cop and a half. Jim Belouche probably would do a good job. So that was Bert Randall. That was Sally Field. No, that's our short stop. What was I fucking saying? Harrison Ford.

[00:24:42] Oh, what I was saying is we have people like that. Or like Downey Jr., Hugh Stumongous, but doesn't really do movies outside of Marvel. You know, we have all these conditional movie stars like Vin Diesel who like writes his own check with Fast and Furious

[00:24:51] and then when he makes like Last Witch Hunter, I'm the only one who sees it three times in theaters. You saw it three times in theaters? I did, I saw it once, I was exaggerating, but it's really good. Is it okay? It's fun. That movie's fun.

[00:25:02] I'd say it's the best movie ever based off of anyone's Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Well, yeah, it's between that and Regarding Henry, which was a Harrison Ford picture. That was based on a net Bennings Dungeons and Dragons. Few people know. Five comedies. But Ford, I was like...

[00:25:21] Did Ford really have like that many hit movies or was it really like Star Wars and... No, he's got hit movies. That's the thing. He's got three Star Wars, he's got three Indiana Jones, and then he's got like seven or eight other huge movies

[00:25:33] and like four or five other good doubles or triplets. I'm going to give you his 90s because now you're disrespecting Harrison Ford. No, I'm saying I went back through today and realized how much I had been disrespecting him.

[00:25:43] I now have paid penance and realized dude had a fucking unbelievable amount. Yeah, because Regarding Henry is a bomb. Okay, fine. But like Presumed Innocent was a big hit. That's 1990. Regarding Henry, that's a bit of a bomb. But then Patriot Games is a nice solid double.

[00:25:57] Now he's got his third franchise. Right. And then the Fugitive is a sensation. That's a big major hit. Clear and Temp-Present Danger does better than Patriot Games. That makes $122 million in 94. Then you got Sabrina the Remake, which is like a terrible movie.

[00:26:12] And it's loathed. People hate that movie. It's so bad and even that made $50 million. Like, you know, like even that didn't totally come. You got two flops there. His two flops are working with Mike Nichols and Sidney Pollock. Right, yeah. It's not like a weird show.

[00:26:24] I mean, remaking Sabrina was an odd choice. I agree. But you got like three hits in between each flop and the flops are commendable flops. And it was huge for Melissa John Hart. So it wasn't a complete failure. I love that talking cat. You're right, exactly.

[00:26:38] That was a big breakthrough for Greg Keneer playing Salem. He went from talk suit to Salem. That's right. Yeah, Julia Ormond was Zelda. Then he made the Devil's Zone, which is a bomb. I mean, let's not talk about the Devil's Zone.

[00:26:51] But then in 1997 Air Force One, which is the greatest movie ever. Wasn't there some scandal with Devil's Zone? No, because it's about the IRA. It was very controversial in Britain. I can't remember why. And that's a really tortured production, I think or something.

[00:27:04] The Dracula died during post-production, right? Was it Pakula? I think that was Pakula. Yeah, it's Alan Pakula. I think he died in post-production. He had one of those freak deaths where he was behind like a truck with rebar on the back

[00:27:15] and it came loose and like impaled him. You mean like fucking Femme Faital or Baby Driver? Yeah, like Jesus. He literally got killed by like the cargo of the truck in front of him while parked.

[00:27:28] I'm trying to find out if this is true because that just stopped the podcast from me really. Well, I don't think he died during the Devil's Zone because it's not on the Devil's Zone page. You'd think they bring that up.

[00:27:37] But yes, that is how he died not long after. He was impaled by rebar, right? He was in a car accident on the LIE, yeah, a metal pipe. A whole place to die. Struck him in the head. Yeah.

[00:27:49] Anyway, so Devil's Zone and then Air Force One huge hit, right? Great, get off my plane. That's such a good movie. It's a great movie. That's the other movie I've thought about doing for the sibling episode. Actually, keep me to talk about that with you.

[00:28:02] That's the other movie that you meet Joey and I are obsessed with. And we've seen a million times. Then Six Days, Seven Nights. You guys are such big Wendy Croson fans. Great poll. We're big Liesl Matthews fans. Six Days, Seven Nights is like a double or triple.

[00:28:15] It made $74 million. Right. It's quite bad. Right. It may be a minor disappointment, but like... But here's my argument. That's a offer for BAKE FOR SCHWEMMER. But here's... Now let's think about the Six Days, Seven Nights trailer. Okay. I'm just trying.

[00:28:33] I want to talk about Harrison Ford's persona like you're talking about. Do you remember the big line from the trailer? No. They're plane crashed on an island. I don't even know what they're. They're plane crashed on an island, right? Right.

[00:28:47] It's been Six Days, Seven Nights upon an island. And she's like, can't we fix it? Can't we fix the plane? Like the wing has been sheared off and he's like, sure, we'll just glue it back on. And it's like, all right, look.

[00:28:56] He did a plane crash movie in a row. He did. He loves a plane crash. But that's... And like, so it's like, why are you so mad, Harrison? Like he's so grumpy all of a sudden. When people try to recreate Harrison Ford,

[00:29:06] I think the thing they always forget when they prime someone is like, this is the new Harrison Ford, which I think they mostly stopped doing now, but it certainly used to happen a lot. The thing they forget is that Harrison Ford used to be really funny.

[00:29:16] Like what worked is that he had a sort of easygoing humor in these larger spectacles, you know? And it came from him being a little bit more like, and it came from him being a bit of a crank. But when that crank becomes a curmudgeon...

[00:29:34] Right, I mean, because you're, it's a fine line. Because of course like fugitive, the Jack Ryan movies, yes. He's always been a stoic guy. Yeah, and then going back to like pre-Star Wars, like post-American graffiti, like he was gonna quit and be just be a carpenter.

[00:29:45] I feel like he's always hated acting and he never wanted to do it. But then when Indiana Jones came along and that worked and other things worked, you can tell that he lightens up. But when he was 36 and doing that, it was kind of funny

[00:29:57] because it was like, why is this old guy so over it? This young guy, rather. It's so over it. Why doesn't he want to be in a Star Wars movie? And then it gets to the point where like,

[00:30:04] well, if you don't want to be in it, just don't be in it because I was trying to enjoy the movie. Which I think is what he quickly decides after K-19. He's like, you know what, maybe I should just not be in race for a while.

[00:30:15] Clearly, no, who's getting anything out of it? Because after is Random Hearts, which you clearly want to talk about, another Sidney Pollock movie. Well, I just just simply remember... Another plane crash movie. I remember walking by a random heart's billboard on the street with my dad.

[00:30:30] And my dad saying like, that's going to be a big hit. I went like, really? Why is that going to be a big hit? He went because it's Harrison Ford. And I was like, I don't even know what's about. No one wants to see that.

[00:30:38] And he's like, it's Harrison Ford. All Harrison Ford movies do well. Sure. Yeah, Tom Hanks' reputation. Right. Occasionally there's a misstep, but it's probably like autopilot. It's going to make like 70. And then he was very surprised when it didn't do well and it was like, huh.

[00:30:52] And then the bloom was kind of off the rose at that point. Like that was the moment where I just felt like... Random Hearts? He never really rebuilt it after that. Now, I think everyone kind of just shrugged it off.

[00:31:01] And then K-19 because it was him in such a big high-stakes summer release, that's when everyone really started to like... And what Liesbeneath came in between those two and that was a modest little hit. That was a rebound. But he played a murderer in it. Right.

[00:31:12] You know, and then he went right into K-19 and then it was like, oh, he's just dark and grim all the time now. Right. But yeah, what Liesbeneath was a big hit. And then... But I feel like that wasn't really about him. Do you know what I mean?

[00:31:23] I agree. I think that was Effective Trailers and Michelle Pfeiffer was big at the time, as the Maccas was big so... Like no one thinks of that as a Harrison Ford movie. Which is weird because every other Harrison Ford movie is definitely a Harrison Ford movie. Sure.

[00:31:35] That's like a movie he's in. Random Hearts? I mean, Morning Glory? Absolutely. A Harrison Ford movie. I have argued before. I need an egg from a chicken. And we'll continue to argue on this podcast you should be nominated for an Oscar for Morning Farm. All right.

[00:31:46] Well, it's like my Kate Hudson and something borrowed. I will never give up that fight. I think it's a good argument. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. What Liesbeneath comes after Random Hearts? Just FYI, that's a big hit. We were just saying? Yeah. But then K-19, then... Hollywood Homicide?

[00:32:01] Hollywood Homicide and Firewall. I know what actually forget Firewall because that's like... Hollywood Homicide, he steps away for three years. Yeah, Hollywood Homicide is a three-firewall is 06. And Hollywood Homicide is a really like repugnant movie. I don't know if you've ever seen it. Yes.

[00:32:14] I've never seen it but I remember that reputation. Why is it gross? It's kind of racist and it's just like... It's just like really unpleasant. It's like two white guys investigating the rap world of L.A., right? Yeah, it's fucking Ron Shelton, right?

[00:32:24] I mean like there's nothing good there. No. Yeah, then he takes three years away and it was like is he ever going to come back? Is he ever going to make a movie? Right. Then when he came back with Firewall everyone was like, forge back

[00:32:33] but that movie was such a flop that it was like, oh, forget it. And wasn't Firewall like Virginia Madsen's Big Post sideways follow up? Yeah, that was her big paycheck. Yeah, that was her big paycheck. But I remember people being like... My dad again being like,

[00:32:45] that's going to automatically make $100 million just because there's a Harrison Ford nostalgia. It's going to sleepwalk to 100 and then everyone just went like, I don't know, we don't need this guy anymore. Then he brings back old Jonesy. Right, he brings back Jonesy

[00:32:59] and that movie is a huge hit. Yeah. I mean no question, right? But everyone's like, it feels like he doesn't want to be doing it anymore. It's true. Yeah, I don't know. He's a hard one to figure out because we've talked about it.

[00:33:12] He obviously likes playing Indiana Jones. He's always like, I'll do another one. He also loves money and has a massive stake in that franchise. He loves money. The man fucking loves money. And he just... He's a businessman who hates what he does for a living.

[00:33:27] But the money is so good. He's just on the Metro North, heading into the city. Gotta do it today. Then he goes home and he smokes a bunch of pot and crashes another plane into a mountain. He just feels alive or whatever it is he's doing.

[00:33:39] That clickhole series about him is so mis-apps is so good. But what's funny is then when he comes back after Indiana Jones, then he's just like, I'll be in your movie. Extraordinary measures. Extraordinary measures. Crossing over. The one with Hemsworth. The one with Hemsworth. The one with Hemsworth.

[00:33:55] Paranoia. Is it a paranoia? It's called paranoia with him and Hemsworth. It's the younger Hemsworth. And Gary Oldman's in that one, right? Yeah, Liam Hemsworth and Amber Heard. Right, from the director of Legally Blonde. And in paranoia, he throws Gary Oldman out of an airplane

[00:34:09] just for old times sake. Yeah, we got to do this again. But paranoia like, I think opened outside of the top 10. Yeah, I mean that movie was buried. Like suddenly he doesn't mean anything. He did do Cowboys and Aliens,

[00:34:19] which was I guess more of like him being the star of a big genre picture, but that was a disaster. But it felt like he hated that movie and his shit talked its sins in the press. Yeah, 42 Ender's Game. He's in an expendable.

[00:34:30] 42, he got sort of like decent notices for it. He's okay in that. I think he's doing a rough thing. He's a little ham sandwichy in that. He's a little hammy. That movie is not great. Sure. You know, it's that movie is a real by the numbers.

[00:34:42] But that movie like really helped Bozeman. Like Bozeman popped hard out of that and everyone was just like, okay, Harrison. Good job. Then he was in a movie that I believe only one of us at this table is seen. You know what I'm talking about.

[00:34:54] About talking about Age of Adeline? Yeah. You guys haven't seen Age of Adeline? No, and I keep meaning to. So good. I went to the premiere. Blake Lively is actually magic, to be hold. I mean, I don't even, I don't think she's great actress, but she is stunning.

[00:35:06] He's good in it. He's really good in it actually. I assume he's only in some of it, right? Cause he's like an older version of whatever. Right. He's the older version of a lover she had when she was younger, but she's Age of Scenar.

[00:35:16] But he's actually really good in it and he's really committed to it and it's a really bizarre role for him to do. And he looks from the trailers. You haven't seen it, right? I was right. I kind of always want to see it. So it's worth seeing.

[00:35:26] It's a weird movie. He looked really earnest in the trailer, which I liked. It felt like his wall was kind of down. It's complete. It's this open romantic. Like it's some emotional thing. So I like Lee Tolan Craig or a lot.

[00:35:39] I think he's good and doesn't get credit. It's a really sincere movie and it's so rare to see and he's part of that. So I don't know. I think it's worth seeing. Why do you like Lee Tolan? Do you like Celestin Jesse forever?

[00:35:50] I think Celestin Jesse is very good and the other one he did the vicious kind I think is really good with Adam Scott. Oh yeah, I never saw that in there. He's got style and he's really good with actors. Yeah.

[00:35:58] He was hired to make the fourth Diversion movie. Right. But that is a TBA. Yeah. That's not gonna happen. I don't know. I saw Shailene on my TV just last night. I didn't see her on hers because she doesn't have one. She doesn't have one.

[00:36:09] She just watches a lot of power. Although someone pointed, was it you pointing out that like most people at age don't have television? I know. So it's actually not that big of a deal. That doesn't mean anything. This is post-Amys. Right. Yeah.

[00:36:19] She doesn't have a TV but she has six tablets. What do you mean? She does have a microchip in her head. She has FX now. She is the one who eats dirt all day, right? Clay, it's Clay. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Yeah. All right.

[00:36:32] She's a gummy bear. You know the gummy bears? She drinks. She lives underground and just pops up. Yeah. But yeah, I mean that's like the weird Harrison Ford thing. You know you and I both argue that he is re-engaged in Force Awakened.

[00:36:45] Some people think he isn't but I think he's in it. No, I think he totally is. I think he's really excited to be in that movie because he feels like he has a handle on Han Solo's arc in that movie.

[00:36:53] And I think he's funny again in that movie. He's got a light comedic touch in that movie. I think he just, you can tell, I mean he always complained about in Return of the Jedi.

[00:37:01] He felt like he didn't know what the fuck the point of Han Solo was anymore. Like what's he even doing in this movie? He's just like helping some e-woks. Like what am I doing? Right.

[00:37:09] And like then later it's funny to hear him in these interviews where he's like, I was probably being a dick asking George Lucas to kill me off. Like I get now that maybe that was rude of me. But I just wanted something that, you know,

[00:37:20] I wanted to have something to hold on to. So obviously with Force Awakened he was like, yeah now I know what I'm building this towards. But I know, I mean he's one of those guys for me who like,

[00:37:29] is Cable being so great and is Cable being so lazy? Like Bruce Willis falls in this category too where I'm always just like pulling for them to just like get it back and jump back in the pocket even if it's only for a movie or two.

[00:37:40] And it would like, you know, you just wonder like... You look at his guys they're gone. Like Sidney Pollock doesn't make movies anymore. You know like I think Harrison... Well yeah. Yeah. Still I think he can maybe make an effort. You know? Yeah right.

[00:37:54] He's got a couple things in development but I don't know if they're going. They're in turnaround. I just, I feel like all his favorite directors, Akula who could really get something out of him right. Wolfgang Peterson. Hey man, he's great in Air Force One. He's great.

[00:38:07] I love that movie. Nichols. Yeah right. I mean some of these people are dead. Look we're gonna let's be honest. So and like Abrams figured it out with him but he had to like crush his leg first. So maybe that jolted him away. I don't know.

[00:38:22] And I feel like he and Spielberg are just so locked into that one world. Yes. It's not like, I don't think they would do a different thing than the other. Yeah Spielberg's never put him in anything else right? He's never been.

[00:38:32] I wonder if they just have a very like business relationship and maybe socially just don't. Yeah maybe they don't get along cause Harrison Ford seems like a creepier though. Yeah right who just like wants to cut wood in the forest. He gets along with Plistoflock artists.

[00:38:43] He gets along with Plistoflock artists. Sure. I'm happy for him. If Harrison Ford were in Lincoln. You know? Sure. God damn it Lincoln. Get off my wagon. God damn it. That would be his line. God damn it Lincoln. But in a Russian accent for some reason.

[00:39:00] God damn it. What's his accent here? What's he doing? What does anyone's accent? Some of them are doing like thicker ones. Right. It's very confusing. It also, it does not help that a lot of the like miscellaneous crewmen on the submarine are really Russian. Right. Very Russian faces.

[00:39:14] Right. And very easy Russian accents. And then you have Sarsgard, Nisen and Ford. Three people with very distinct voices that are very tied to their own like dialects and lils and do not mask easily. No. So this is a movie about a nuclear submarine called K-19. The Widowmaker.

[00:39:35] It was the first nuclear submarine. And it was never actually called the Widowmaker. They made that up. They made that up. It was called Hiroshima because as a hilarious joke about how it melted people's faces off. I'm saying negative five comedy points for that. Look, the Soviets. Ha-Zashima?

[00:39:50] Yeah. Let's get him in there. No. You want to say that every week? You want to reject all of a sudden? I retract that. I'm sticking with... Osama bin Hazar. Herdhauser. Herdhauser, yes. K-19. Yeah. It's a time, look. There's a race to... The titles tell us right.

[00:40:14] There's a race to get nuclear submarines to the U.S. as ahead of them in the Cold War. Nuclear submarines are thought to be the sort of front lines of this tension. So the Russians are like, are we got to get one out?

[00:40:24] We got to get it tested. We got to make sure that we can fire a missile from one of these things. That's what the movie is essentially about until things go wrong. And it's 1961. And then it comes not about that because they're too busy dealing with other stuff.

[00:40:34] It's like the height of the Cuban... I mean, the Cuban Missile Crisis around the corner. It's like a heated point in the Cold War. On many sides. Nissan is a captain beloved by his crew. Then Ford comes in because the suggestion is he married someone in the Politburo's

[00:40:49] daughter. And so he has more status. Doesn't Nissan fuck something up right at the beginning? I'm trying to remember now. Yeah, but the way he's fucking stuff up is that he cares too much about his crew. Yeah, he's just like nice.

[00:41:00] And they're like, you have to serve the country. Work them like dogs. And they're kind of setting up a Washington versus Hackman thing. Yes. Right. Like that's going to be the central tension in the movie except then it's not. No. Both of them are so stoic.

[00:41:13] Like Nissan is so stoic and they're setting up like he's the softy. He can't get his humanity out of the way. And he's like, I care about these men. You know, and it just like, well, these are just two boring dudes fighting for the whole film.

[00:41:26] But we've skipped over the moment where I just went, oh fuck, like I am not going to enjoy watching this, which happens even before when they're like your partner is a dog. Even before the like opening sort of like a crawl that we just explained. Right. Yeah.

[00:41:42] In the opening credits of the movie, even before that, the National Geographic logo comes up and I go, oh fuck, that's what this movie is. Right. And that's the weird anomalous thing about this movie was this was National Geographic trying to make a blockbuster.

[00:41:55] And so it was independently financed largely through them and foreign companies at a budget that is rumored to be between 90 million and 100 million. At the time they were really spreading around that 100 million word because they wanted the brownie points of we gave a woman $100 million.

[00:42:09] We're the first ones. Right. Ura Ura. And now the legend has kind of gone like maybe it was like 92. Like maybe it was like a hair under. Sure. But this movie feels like even from the moment those like inner titles start,

[00:42:22] like, oh shit, this is just the most expensive like National Geographic. Special. Special ever. Yeah. Like it feels like really, really high production value reenactments. Yeah. That should have been intercut with a talking head going like the men didn't know what to do.

[00:42:40] Some like grizzled old Russian just being right. Right. Yeah. And I think the only way this thing would be emotionally engaging is if you had a historian explaining to you at certain points, how they felt because dramatically it's so inert. Right.

[00:42:54] Because it's set in a very rigid command structure that is largely obeyed. Right. Two men who are different shades of rigid. And a political ideology that in some ways, you know, denies individualism. Yes. You know, like people have pointed this out. It's just like.

[00:43:13] They all call each other comrade. Right. Like we're all the same and we have one motivation shared between us. It's just like, okay. And it's about a machine that breaks essentially. Right. And then they try to fix it for communism. And like.

[00:43:26] It's a problem that can be solved. There's definitely a metaphorical thing where it's like, yeah, they're throwing their bodies like they're sacrificing themselves for this idea. And then at the end, it's clear like the ideal will fail them. Like there is nothing for them. Okay.

[00:43:41] I mean, I've never cared about anything as much as these guys love their sub. They do love their sub. They're throwing their bodies on nuclear wastes to save this fucking ship. I just, I could not get on board. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:43:56] No, I, I, I felt much the same way. I just couldn't, I didn't feel the, the pull of like why, I mean, I understand why we should care because they were real people and you know, whatever, but. Sure. But it's like, why'd you make this movie?

[00:44:06] Look, you know, here. I don't understand how this movie was made. Right. It's the movie, but it's also, I mean, that's the movie suffers from being like a bottle episode where like 95% of it takes place within the submarine.

[00:44:18] And you're given so little context for these people other than just saying like, they say this man is this, they say he is that. Right. Where it's just like there, there is no effort put into exploring the sort of

[00:44:29] psychology of living happily, you know, or, or so it seems within like a communist society. Right. And feeling that selfless, you know, in the name of this greater ideal. So you just have to take it for granted that all these men like appreciate the

[00:44:43] submarine more than their lives. But it's a shitty submarine. They had to build it fast. Yeah. Like, right? I mean, isn't that sort of. It's fucked from the get go. The champagne doesn't even crash like the whole movie. It's true.

[00:44:54] Actually, yeah, that's an early scene where the champagne doesn't break and they're like, we are cursed. And that really happened. And that really happened. And then you, there's this sort of, there's this Paul over the movie. I mean, not just because of that, it's already there, but that's

[00:45:04] sort of part of it. And then you're like, yeah, this and the Paul never lived. The movie opens with a bad drill and they go like, well, this crew sucks. And it's like, well, but the good news is the submarine is also poorly built.

[00:45:15] So then they try to fix the crew, but it's like, well, let's swap out a piece of shit for a pile of diarrhea. Right? Sure. Like they keep on like getting these like wacky fucking like bad news bears crew members.

[00:45:27] Because the head of the reactor core or unit, whatever is found drunk by Harrison Ford. And he fires him on the spot and Lisa's like, well, no, wait, wait, this guy actually knows what he's doing. And they're like, nope, no, get the kid in.

[00:45:39] So Sarsgard comes in, he's like just graduated from school. Right. And you're like, but the sub is broken. Like that's not good. That doesn't make any sense to me because like, yeah, Harrison Ford's like, who is, what is this? He's literally drunk asleep, slumped over.

[00:45:54] And like, to me, I'm watching the movie. I'm like, yeah, no, I mean, you know, maybe fire that. That's pretty bad. He does seem pretty bad. And Liam Neeson's like, he's never done anything like this before.

[00:46:02] And I'm like, he went from nothing to a sleep in the basically in the nuclear reactor with like a comically large bottle of vodka in his hand. He's just having a bad day. And like, no, this is what happened in real life. This is history.

[00:46:17] So it's not like, oh, you should have written that differently. But also why would you choose to like dramatize this? Because it's like the Titanic, everyone was like, this ship's going to fucking rule. And then they were like, well, we were wrong.

[00:46:26] And in this, they were like, this ship sucks. And they were like, let's just keep on sticking with it. Right. And that's the plot over and over again. There's no twist. Everyone knows it's bad and they keep on doubling down, even though it only gets worse.

[00:46:37] They keep being like, hey, maybe we should not do this. And Titanic. And he's like, no, we will do it. Titanic is set up in such a way that like there's an accumulation of it sort of like, oh, and then this happened.

[00:46:48] And then that, you know, and where, and I suppose there isn't in K-19 as well, but it all feels pretty arbitrary. It's like some, there's a moment of kind of triumph. And then all of a sudden, oh, the thing ruptures. And now everyone's fucked. Yeah.

[00:47:00] That's the thing, when it breaks, it's just like, well, it's just like, well now it's, now everything's bad. There's not a sense of build toward that at all. No, that's like the genius of Titanic. Because the first half of the movie is like a romance

[00:47:09] and is like, you know, this kind of comedy in manners before like the sinking shit happens and you're on the hook at that point. And this movie is just about a fuck submarine that everyone keeps on committing to. Yeah. But also it's a broken boat.

[00:47:21] Titanic has like levels and it takes you up and down through the ship and it's where as the submarine is just, it's a tube. It's oppressive. Like it's, which I know is the idea. But if you don't care about the people in the submarine

[00:47:32] that's just like, this is a slog. The good boat movies get you into like the life on the boat like Master and Commander, the greatest boat movie ever made. But also like Crimson Tide, like the movies that are like, here's how everything works here.

[00:47:44] And K-19 is like, no, it's a machine. It's just a shooting machine. Right. It's white squall. It's a good boat movie. I've never seen white squall. Yeah. Well, it's got some boys. I like that movie in high school. Bridges Boys. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know.

[00:48:00] It's like, it's also long. Also the scenes where so when the reactor ruptures or whatever the hell it is, the coolant thing, they have to go in and try to fix it. Those scenes are just cruciating. It's just a group of people after a group of people

[00:48:14] going in and just having your skin burned off and like a nagging and then throwing up and then passing out. And it's that for 25 minutes. Which is again, like Biggler is probably thinking like, well, this is what happened.

[00:48:25] Cause I get the feeling with her, you know, you wonder like, I didn't see it on Wikipedia, like inception wise with this movie, like so National Geographic is putting together all this funding, $100 million, whatever. So what do you think?

[00:48:36] They just put an offer out to her and she's like, well, the money's good and I'm interested to see if I can do it because I don't really feel any sense of passion. No. She was definitely in a rough point in her career

[00:48:45] cause she had strange days which was not a hit and then the rate of water, which was a bomb. So like maybe she's like, sure, Harrison Ford, like that'll work, right? I think she was on the back of her heels.

[00:48:57] I think being able to break through that glass ceiling and make something of that scale, I think was like appealing to her, you don't feel much attachment to the material. You do feel like her starting to develop this like obsessive meticulous detail kind of thing

[00:49:12] which I mean, I just imagine she really liked researching this movie and didn't love directing this movie. Yeah, I think that's fair. Well, I also just think like who, why did they think there was an American audience for this movie? Yeah, like, I mean we still have,

[00:49:26] obviously have hangouts with the Russians and now we're going to spend two hours with, you know, I just, I don't know, it just feels like an odd financial gamble. Wait, within a story that has no emotional center and also has no sense of victory,

[00:49:39] doesn't even have that much allegorical power. Where brave, helpful Americans are mooned craftily. How dare they? They just came to lend a hand and but they got a couple cheeks. Yeah, they got a couple cheeks, but I think there was some appeal

[00:49:56] to the fact that this story had like recently been uncovered, right? Like it only comes in the 90s. That was right. And I feel like there's a, 2002 is a little late for this, but still there's like, ooh, we're still learning

[00:50:08] all the secrets of all these weird Soviet stories of like nuclear missiles that almost went off and God knows what else. And also like how close we came. It's similar to Victoria Namdoulin that way. Have you seen that recently uncovered story? No, it is. It's true.

[00:50:22] No one knew about it. Have you seen it? Yeah. This will post a long time. Can I ask Richard? Is it? I mean, it has its moments. It looks like it has its moments. You know, it's Stephen first directing

[00:50:35] an old lady like he's good at that these days or whatever. Watching a colonial subject, a colonized subject, literally kiss the feet of his colonizer and be really happy about it. It's not like the best optics, but you know. Sure. Sure. She's not getting an Oscar nomination.

[00:50:51] No, no, no. That's not going anywhere, right? No, I don't think so. I didn't hear a peep about it out of Toronto. I know we were in Toronto and no one even like bothered to see it. I saw women walks ahead for crying out loud. How was that?

[00:51:02] It's not great. You know what I was sad that didn't get a lot of traction out of Toronto was stronger. It's so great. I think it's a great movie. I think it's a great movie. It's fucking Griffin. You're gonna like it.

[00:51:12] It'll be out by the time this podcast comes out. Oh yeah, it looks like my kind of thing. It's out next week, I think. Oh really? Oh really? Yeah. It's really good, but I don't think it's gonna... We're recording this episode in 2013 by the way.

[00:51:23] What doesn't kill you makes you strong. Does he sing that in the movie? Of course. It's the whole movie. Exactly. Just does it over and over again. And by the end people are like, Stop! No more! It's great. No, but I think those were the things.

[00:51:37] I think for whatever reason, and I couldn't find, I was like trying to research and figure out what was this initiative where National Geographic decided they were going to make tent poles. Like what was that? You know?

[00:51:46] Did they just have a lot of money all of a sudden? What happened? What the fuck happened? Yeah, where they... I don't know. And this is it. And they never did it again? This was like it, I think. Yeah. This movie was a bomb. You mungust fluff.

[00:51:59] Yeah, this is... But this is a weird first story other than that thing of like this is a recently uncovered thing. And you can imagine people rushing to try to figure out... Russian? Russian. They were rushing along. To try to figure out an angle on it, right?

[00:52:09] But the fact that it was developed by people who didn't have experience making movies before knowing what audiences would like, but you also have to imagine there was this run of like, from whatever it was, like 89 to like 2001, you have like Crimson Tide, U571. Red October?

[00:52:24] And Red October, which are like three really successful. You know, like U571 was like a surprise like spring smash. True. And the other two were like full stop blockbusters. But... I think it felt like virile territory to do a submarine movie, but the story isn't good.

[00:52:38] The number four movie on Box Office Mojas, Submarine is this movie. It is a fall off. Right, they looked at the three and were like... Down Parascope is number five. Hey. Dastboud is number six. I know, hey, I made the top five. But it's like they thought like,

[00:52:50] I guess what people like is submarines. Right. And it's like, no, what people liked were the people in those submarines. Right. In the same way that like people, I mean, you know, a friend of mine has a question. She's like, would you rather be underwater in submarine

[00:53:03] or be in space in a spaceship? Because both to me are fucking terrifying. Sure. But like that's kind of the appeal of a lot of space movies too. Is that like these people are contained and trapped. It's not about how the goddamn thing works really.

[00:53:15] I mean, maybe that is partly like Sunshine or something, but you know what I mean? This is a movie about how the thing works. Yeah. And the answer is it doesn't work. Right. It doesn't work. Both the movie and the ship. The movie is like a pretty good...

[00:53:26] The submarine and the issues with the submarine in the film are a pretty good metaphor for the movie. Yeah. Right. Where it's... I mean, also what we should note, they paid Harrison $20 million to be in this movie, which is not like outrageous. I mean, he was...

[00:53:39] How much did they pay Nisen? Do we know? That's a good question. Where was he at at this point? You know what? Let's actually dig into Liam Nisen. He's post-Phantom NS. I would guess he got like 10. I think they overpaid everyone in this movie is my guess.

[00:53:51] So Liam Nisen, you know, he's got his after Shinler's list. Oh, yeah. And this was a few years after Klaigangin. Right. So after Shinler's list, he got Nell... Rob Roy. Rob Roy. Michael Collins. Right. Big prestige pictures, even if none of them are like... Really going anywhere.

[00:54:09] ...home runs. Yeah. Before and after. Oh boy, with Meryl Streep. People really do not talk about that one. I saw that in the theater. Then Les Miserables, where he's John Beljohn, very sort of serious sort of boring... That's the Bill August one.

[00:54:25] Bill August, how would you say his name? This is his real like kind of historical like hero... I think that after Shinler's list, right, that's what they pigeonhole him as. And then the haunting, which is him trying, I think, Buster Move and have some fun,

[00:54:39] but that movie is torture to watch. But that was also like clearly one of those things where he had shot Phantom Menace. They knew he was the lead of the New Star Wars movie and were like, let's put him in some blockbusters. Yeah, Yandabunt. Yandabunt baby.

[00:54:51] I killed Yandabunt's career. Right. And then this movie is that midpoint before... I want to get to it though, because then he goes Phantom Menace 99. Obviously that's a big hit. In 2000, there's Gunshy, which is one of the weirdest movies ever made. The Sandra Bullock. Sandra Bullock, Oliver Platt,

[00:55:05] where Liam Neeson plays like a hitman with IBS. Oh, sure. It sounds like my kind of moose. I know. Have you never seen Gunshy? No. It is weird. Okay. Huge bomb. And then, I mean, it... Attack of the Clones, he's not in that.

[00:55:19] So it's a movie about pooping or not? Or it... Yeah, interesting. Pooping and killing. I would love this. Yeah, it was a huge bomb when it came out. People hated it. It barely came out. Then in 2002, it barely came out. It popped the tent up.

[00:55:34] K-19 and Gangster New York. Sure. Which he's so... I think he's so good in Gangster New York. I agree with that. And, you know, just a... Small part though. Small part. But that's what I feel like Scorsese is like.

[00:55:44] And obviously that was supposed to come out of here earlier. But people have always wanted to work with him. Right? Yeah, I think he's a good guy. He doesn't seem to suffer from that. No. And then, you know, only a few years later, he got Batman Begins.

[00:55:56] Chronicles of Narnia. He becomes like a sort of steady hand at the side of a big blockbuster. And then we get like the niece and we know now, which is basically like the workaholic who's in a zillion action movies. Right.

[00:56:08] And does some middling dramas off to the side. Right. He's pretty reliable. Seems to have a sense of humor about himself. He did just say... I'm done. Recently that he... Yeah, he's like, I'm 65 fucking years old. I mean, he's old. How much more of this can you do?

[00:56:19] I think I've said this before in the podcast. But Leemniesen's like the same age as my father, I believe, and anytime I see a Leemniesen action movie, I imagine my dad going through the same action. And like my dad like barely like walks more than two blocks

[00:56:32] to get lunch, you know? Right. Yeah. He's also not built like an action story. So fucking big. He's very big. He's Frankenstein's monster. I just saw him. Richard, did you see him at the dinner? And he's so tall, but very skinny. Right.

[00:56:46] I saw it because he was in Mark Felt, which he's okay with. He's just got like huge hands on like a big head. Yeah. He's not graceful in a sort of fighting way. He's kind of a fighting way. He's got a Mondo dong.

[00:56:59] I mean, so they all say that's what they say. Have you guys ever seen third person? No. That's the Paul Haggis movie, right? Yeah. That's a vanity project if there was one. You know, I really think Paul Haggis, he's going to bring it back.

[00:57:12] Well, show me heroes really fucking good. It is, but I mean, he didn't write that. But that's what I probably forgot. He's a decent director. It's also the best directing I think he's ever done. Show me heroes. I was being kind of. Yeah.

[00:57:25] But what I was going to say is the key to, I think both his work in the bigger blockbusters, right? Like in Narnia, the Phantom Menace and Batman Begins. And then also in his later like Charles Brownson action hero phase is that there's this weird like wounded sadness

[00:57:42] to him when he's doing this exposition. But in this, he's so bland. Yeah, he is. I find one of those actors who I almost always find compelling even if the movie is bad because there's so much humanity to him. Yeah.

[00:57:54] See, for me, I had until his kind of more recent iterations, I had always been like, oh, Liam Neeson, like boring, like, you know, not that 90s. So start with Michael Collins. Isn't that really boring? It's gonna be summers being that's Richard Geer.

[00:58:06] Yeah, there's some of my mom really liked to leave me was in and I was like, oh, he was like a mom crush guy. He was kind of like sure. So him and in this one, I remember when I was

[00:58:14] a teenager and seeing the trailers for K-19 and Harrison Ford hadn't done anything, you know, like egregious. Yeah. Neeson, I was just like, ugh, like, you know, I don't, I didn't care. So it's weird casting because it's big name casting, but both actors were at weird spots.

[00:58:31] You know, it just didn't. They both get above, you know, above the title casting, but then the poster makes it clear like who this movie is. It's a big red Ford head. Yeah, it's just Ford and a submarine. Neeson is nowhere to be seen.

[00:58:44] And in the movie with the Ford's character, I was really, I mean, I was paying as close attention as I could being that I was also bored. And also just like bummed out. This weird turn where it's setting him up to be

[00:58:57] this oppositional villain sort of like this megalomaniac maniacal captain and then no, then they sort of agree and then he gets ground down and he's like. And then everyone's like on his team again. I don't know. There's no arc. I don't know. There isn't much of an arc.

[00:59:12] The relationship that's at work here really is Ford's character and the Soviet Union, right? Right. The motherland. And he finally breaks with, but there's no Ford does nothing to show you any progression. No at all. But that's why I kind of like the end of the movie.

[00:59:27] It just goes from being gruff about one thing to being gruff about another thing. The last sort of coda stuff after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I think the two of them are pretty dialed in and watching them sort of try to sort through

[00:59:37] these emotions that they've repressed for like decades. They've got some old age makeup, which I think is well done. Which is funny because they're almost the age. Yes. The actual real thing. Which is why I think it's so well done is they just

[00:59:49] took some of the young age makeup off of that. You're right. Because Ford is about 60 when he makes this movie. He's playing a man in his 30s, as you say. And Nisen was probably 50. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Nisen's about 50. Exactly.

[01:00:04] And both of them are supposed to be playing like 35. Sure. But they give them the Joe Paterno classes. Like I just thought like... The Tufts of Hair. It's good. But I felt like watching these two men struggle to figure out how to like acknowledge what they went through

[01:00:15] and all that sort of stuff, I was like, man the movie could almost work if it was going back and forth between the two timelines. You know, if it was more about them processing what happened than it was about the actual thing.

[01:00:26] Because to watch like two hours and 15 minutes of the thing just gets really repetitive. I mean, if I just laid out the plot of the movie, he gets put on the sub, he does a bunch of drills. That takes a long time. A lot of drills, right?

[01:00:39] A lot of drills. Drill, drill, drill and... Drill baby drill. Drill baby drill. Sarah Palin's there. She can see them. Because it's all over her house. She's waving. Hey, who are they? Daniel Plainview? Because they won't stop drilling. And they never hit oil. Noor Milk Shake.

[01:00:56] They drill a lot. Every drill somebody like dies. Harrison Ford's like, do this drill now. Yeah, there's one scene where some guy gets his hand caught in a chain and then they're trying to fix him and then the other guy gets knocked over

[01:01:07] and hits his head and it's just like what? That's enough of that. Only three more drills. And Donald Sumter keeps like putting like cotton balls on a plate and he's like, ah finally all my cotton balls and then some of them like knock him over.

[01:01:20] It's like a Marx Brothers routine. There's a lot of weird slapstick with like food in the galleys flying around and then Ford has a little bit where his like coffee or tea or whatever it is is sliding off and he just catches it seamlessly. Sure.

[01:01:31] Like to show that he's like a salty pro or whatever. So I don't know, it's weird. And then finally after all the drills they submerge all the way down to crush depth. Yeah. And Liam Neeson's like, this is a bad idea too and he's like no crush depth.

[01:01:45] So they do that and that's boring because it's just watching like a meter tick along. And then there's some CGI denting. Yeah, like they survive the crush depth but Liam Neeson throws a hissy fit about it. They go back up, they shoot the missile

[01:01:58] like a test and that works. And they'll pat themselves on the back and they're like we did this unnecessary thing. Right, we did all that like an hour and 15 minutes if not longer to build up to a successful test launch of a missile. That's it.

[01:02:12] And then they do... And then immediately later they do the one thing that always happens in movies about foreign cultures is it to prove the characters humanity they have them play soccer? Yeah, I just feel like that's such a true... Oh God, it's true.

[01:02:27] You know, like in some improbable place in this case on top of an iceberg. Right. But yeah, and then they take a photo that comes back later in the movie. But you know, that's the weirdest thing about Big Lo doing that.

[01:02:37] And like once again I totally get why she did because it's like okay, you know I've had some setbacks I want to get back into the studio fold even if this isn't independently produced it's like a big summer blockbuster with a huge movie star

[01:02:48] and a massive budget and all of that but the thing she built such a reputation for being good at is like clean economic action like she's an amazing action filmmaker and this is not an action movie at all. No. It's a crisis management movie

[01:03:00] in which they're fucked from the setup and then they just debate how to deal with it and every decision gets worse. So like she's also good at tension but this isn't really a tension that you can engage with. I mean, yes, I mean it's good, you know

[01:03:12] there are wonderful shots of them walking down these narrow, you know, hallways or whatever what is the term for, is it insert where you're filming something that's just practical it's not like an actor Yeah. You know, like you're filming a dial or something denting.

[01:03:26] Right, right, yeah, insert shots. There's so much of that in this movie and it's like why get this really kinetic director to do that? I know it doesn't make any sense but... It's a really poor fit but I mean...

[01:03:36] I mean, I hate to say it but like Peter Berg did with Deepwater Horizon like that's fucking like exhilarating that. That's a pretty good movie. That's the thing, like you need someone who can make it overly kinetic you need someone with too much style.

[01:03:49] I think Katherine Bigel is a better director than Peter Berg, let me say that. I think so too But Peter Berg would have been a better fit for something like this. Probably, but also Deepwater Horizon has a bunch of actors who have very different, very big characters

[01:04:00] they're playing like Kurt Russell, John Malkovich who are like each doing their own thing and it has a massive explosion. It has a big explosion. Walberg's in the middle of it and he's the one who like... He's the guy we're supposed to identify with him

[01:04:13] he thinks this is gonna... It's a problem, right? And it's very muscular flashy interface story which works for that story. Whereas this is we're supposed to identify with Harrison Ford I guess and he's just like a big jerk who gets on a boat and is a big meanie.

[01:04:26] He's mean, mean, mean and then the reactor breaks he remains mean although less mean. But the reactor breaking also has nothing to do with him. No, it's just... It's not because they dive to that depth it's not because they launch them it's just completely arbitrary.

[01:04:40] Whereas like Deepwater Horizon has a moral dilemma at the center of it which is like dramatized through the characters who you care about. She's weirdly like two... What's the word I'm looking for? She's like a two... Kind of austere to make this movie interesting.

[01:05:02] Like she's too much legitimacy as a filmmaker and a storyteller to make this movie engaging because the way you would make it engaging is by getting a bunch of character actors to ham it up. Right, yes. That's what I want her approaches to like

[01:05:16] literal or sort of like... There's too much integrity. That's what I'm saying. And I think that commitment to realism fucks her over into Troy in a totally different way where that movie is highly suspenseful obviously because it's about an absolutely... It totally works on that level.

[01:05:30] But we'll get into it. We'll save it for the Troy episode. But yeah, this... She's got the score by Klaus Bedelt that's like going wild with all kinds of organs and nonsense and you're like, yeah sure but then like none of the actors are rising to this.

[01:05:43] Like I want big push broom mustaches. I just want to... And like I want Sarsgard to be going for something. I want the old guy to do one last mission. I want the tropes. I want the stock.

[01:05:55] And this is a movie where you want the actors to have blenders. Do you know what I'm saying? Like you want all the characters to have like here's my weird little... And they give Sarsgard, like... Sarsgard he has like a picture of a girl.

[01:06:06] We see her in one scene. But like that's not enough. I mean I kind of like... Also is he the only one on the boat who like... Yes, he's the only one who has a woman. Otherwise it's a movie full of virgins. So what's the tragedy? The incels.

[01:06:19] It's a bunch of incels. No, but I... The word I was scrambling to look for is integrity. Like she treats this material with too much integrity which strangles the baby in the crib. She does the job. Yes. I understood the mechanics of what was happening to the most...

[01:06:32] For the most part and I'm like that seems bad. But that was it. But then the beauty of this movie is this... Rob served the ability to do something like this again on this level and she has to go down to basics and like figure out

[01:06:44] the bare essentials of what she wants to do as a filmmaker. The problem is they also use this as like a red herring to be like, well you can't give women blockbusters and it doesn't happen again until Wonder Woman. Why did that happen to Mimi Lieder? Pay forward.

[01:06:59] Pay for a real disaster. It's peace maker does okay. Then deep impact is huge. Yeah, it does well. Although it does get beaten by Armageddon. But everyone kind of went... Wasn't deep impact first? Or I don't remember. That was second. It's peace maker then...

[01:07:12] Deep impact and then pay it forward which is not enough of a calamity to kill someone's career. Like it shouldn't have... No, it's not. It's a bad fucking movie. It's one for her. She'd done the two for you.

[01:07:24] So who cares if the little art project doesn't do it? They should have let her do like the Sum of all Fears or whatever after that. She should have been able to do some stock role. Pay it forward was the first big movie for Kevin Spacey and Tellemount

[01:07:36] after the Oscar. And Taylor Joel. So it cost $40 million to make. It was three people who had just been anointed. They took a real life black person and cast him as a white guy which is an insane thing to do. Really? Yeah.

[01:07:49] The Kevin Spacey character, like the real guy was black. I didn't know it was based on a true story. Wait, you didn't... I can't tell if you're doing that. No, I'm not kidding. Really? That's the whole fucking gimmick I pay for.

[01:07:58] It's like this kid really wanted everyone to pay it forward. Well okay, so then I feel a little less bad for me, maybe later if she let that happen. She figured it out eventually and she's doing such great work on the leftover shit again.

[01:08:10] But for a moment there was a moment there with her and with Bigelow I guess with this where it was like, oh okay, like proof. And Bigelow had always worked at a lower tier than even leader got to go up to.

[01:08:22] She was always doing like $40-50 million movie tops. And she came rocketing out of television. Sure, she was from ER and she made a splash. But it was like there was this zone where it was like before this and after this

[01:08:36] no woman was getting above $60 million as a budget. And you get a couple people who like in the years after K-19 where it's like oh they give Karen Kasama like $60 to do Eon Flux right after Monster and then that like crashes, you know?

[01:08:49] You get those attempts and then now, you know, it took like Warner Brothers was backed against a wall and couldn't not hire a woman. Like they knew how much public shaming they were going to get and I also think they gave Patty Jenkins a lot of freedom

[01:09:02] because they thought Suicide Squad was more important. They thought that men vs Superman was more important. They had their eye on other balls and they also felt like, well, you know, we can't oppress her in her creativity

[01:09:14] because then we'll look bad so let her fail on her own terms. So they already had the fuss with Michelle McLaren. Exactly. And Patty Jenkins had been signed on for a Thor movie right? Yes, Thor 2.

[01:09:27] But you look at like, okay, so Thor 2 ends up hiring Alan Taylor, right? Who's like a total meme-y leader, like a guy who did a bunch of Game of Thrones, like a good TV director. And he apparently did not work well with Marvel

[01:09:39] even after they had fired Patty Jenkins and they mostly fired him from the movie and reshot a lot of stuff and recut a lot of stuff and Fyghe really kind of like directed that film, right? And what does he get after that? He gets to do Terminator Genesis.

[01:09:50] Like he gets to do another huge... He wins the Oscar. Right, and then he wins Best of the Act. Yeah, that won the big five, right? Yeah, they had... Jai Courtney. Jai Courtney, Emilia Clarke. Is it Jai Courtney? I think it's right.

[01:10:04] I should make fun of him because I did see the exception that little Nazi thriller that he was in last year, that's really good and he's good at it. I like him and Jack Reacher. He's a big sack of potatoes. Oh, sure, yeah.

[01:10:15] He's got a big potato head. But yeah, that's... I mean, it's a great example of like... Do you think that Wonder Woman changes anything now? I think it will. I mean, this is what I think is frustrating. Not just Wonder Woman but also her getting the big paycheck

[01:10:28] for Wonder Woman 2, you know, her like... Right, yeah. Negotiating like that awesome deal and all that stuff. The thing that helps her so much is that the other DC movies have been so bad that it's so cut and dry that the only reason that movie works

[01:10:40] is because of Patty Jenkins. Like, it's so clear like everything that's good about this movie is the opposite of all the movies they were micromanaging. Right, right. So you have to give her full credit. You can't spread it around anywhere else. I think now it becomes a trend

[01:10:52] and the shitty thing in Hollywood is progress only happens if it feels like a fad if they think they can make money a quick buck off of it. I think they're going to be a lot more blockbusters directed by women.

[01:11:03] The annoying thing is if a couple of those don't work then they'll go back to blaming them again. So you hope that these next batch like work pretty well, you know? Yeah. You want to get to a point where it's like Alan Taylor

[01:11:16] and it doesn't matter and they don't go like, well white guys can't direct blockbusters. Like it doesn't represent anything greater. But I think Bigelow, you know, got into this territory where like our friend past guest Mike Ryan, I was having a conversation with him where he was saying

[01:11:31] like the thing that's going to happen with Patti Jenkins now is what happened after Bigelow won the Oscar where anytime there's a big blockbuster they say like we went out to Catherine Bigelow and offered her the job and she said no. So you can't blame us.

[01:11:43] We tried to hire a woman. Like that's the one woman will hire, you know, offer these movies to. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. And in ranch respect, I mean K-19, I don't think its failures are really her fault. At all.

[01:11:56] I think it just shouldn't have been made. Yeah, it's a bad product from start to finish. I mean, and that's not to disrespect the store, you know, whatever, but like it's just like it's not. It should have been in National Geographic. Yeah, it's not compelling fiction narrative film.

[01:12:08] No, it's not. And she tries, you know, she tries to kind of amp it up. There's some power to the ending and you know, just to how screwed over they get. But I feel like she should have either hit it harder or just not made the movie.

[01:12:26] I don't really have like a fixed. But if you're in her shoes also like and someone offers you that amount of money post, you know, No, I mean sure. Okay, sure. I'll make the best of it. I would have made it a sub two hour movie.

[01:12:37] Yeah, sub two hour. No pun intended. Down Paris. I would have made it a sub two hour movie in which the first half is the disaster and the second half is all the Coda stuff. Right. With them trying to emotional process it. Coda? Fanning? Dakota Fanning.

[01:12:50] Oh, she's in this one now? Dakota. She played the torpedo. Yeah, this is I am saying. Ben, did you even watch this movie? I did. Wow, I really sorry. I ran into Ben on the street yesterday afternoon and he was like, have you watched it yet?

[01:13:03] And I was like, no. And he was like, you're going to hate it. It was awful. It felt like torture. Earlier on the podcast, Bill Gubberry called it a masterpiece. Was he being facetious? No, he likes it. And I hadn't seen it when he said that.

[01:13:16] And when he said it, I was like, Oh, maybe there's like a bit of a gem here. I was kind of excited. And then now I want to say like, what's what, you know, what is it that you like about this movie? Because I don't really get it.

[01:13:29] Maybe he likes to test drills. Hey man, test drills, drills. Drills, drills, drills. I'm not a smoker. Drill movies. Where does it go? Yeah, let's see what other categories it's on. Deepwater Horizons probably. Well, Armageddon's technically a drill movie. Yeah, that drill movie. Summer, it's the only,

[01:13:45] submarine is the only category it gets apart from the regular ones. Right. Let's do the box office game because this is, I mean, this is a huge belly flop. I don't even know what time it just came out. Middle summer. This was like July. Summer picture.

[01:13:58] That's very strange. So wait a second. Let me find the... Oh, two, which was a big summer. It came out July 19th, 2002. Nice that it was July 19. Go ahead. J19? You know the two guys that Lee, Nisen and Harrison Ford play died within nine days of each other

[01:14:20] in 1998. Well, yeah. Lot of nines. And that might, I think that's going to happen with Harrison and Liam. Yeah, they're holding on like this. It debuted number four at the box office with $12.7 million. That is catastrophic. On a reported $100 million budget, it grosses 35 domestic. Nightmare.

[01:14:42] 30 foreign for a 65 worldwide total. Yeah, I mean 35 would have been the lowest opening weekend they were comfortable with. And that was the final total. Adjusted it made $53 million. Not good. But adjusted it would have cost $160 million. No, I know. Right.

[01:15:01] So it's sort of a, it's a weird weekend. It's 2002. This is a wild weekend. 2002. You know, Spider-Man opens like two months earlier. The blockbuster game changes. We have $100 million openers now. Yes, Spider-Man has made $402 million in 12 weeks. He's sitting at number 22. So number one at this box office.

[01:15:24] I have a guess. Okay. But I want to hear how you set it up. It came out the week before. Debuting at number two. On less screens and they up the screen count week two. No, yes, yes. They have the screen count a little bit. Road to Perdition.

[01:15:37] Although not much. Yes, road to perdition. It rose to number one. Road to Perdition. A summer movie. Yeah. Like for like a movie where it rains all the time. Tom Hanks murders a bunch of people. A summer blockbuster. That he named after himself.

[01:15:51] I made my grandparents come and pick me up at summer camp, sleep boy camp so they could take me into town and go see Road to Perdition. Oh yeah. I love that. I thought that was my dad. I feel like that's a good, yeah.

[01:16:04] I think it's a terrific movie. I think it's a terrific movie. I do too. My favorite same movie. Jude Law is really good. The kid from Teen Wolf. Tyler Hodge. Everybody wants him.

[01:16:13] I watched everybody wants him on a plane when I was flying to Telluride and I went to Telluride. Oh my gosh, wow. And... Up beyond mountains? And I had seen it already but I was, I had, I kept covering the screen. You were getting riled.

[01:16:28] I was just embarrassed. I was like, I thought like it was like a little too like raunchy for a plane ride. It's a raunchy movie considering like there's not a lot of sex. I love that movie. I think it's a great movie. I think it's good too.

[01:16:38] Do you remember there was like a big thing, I think someone like Variety of the New York Times wrote a big trend piece on how, because Rodeo Perdition really like it out and crossed $100 million and kept on playing well like weeks into its release.

[01:16:50] And it was because older women were really attracted to Tyler Halklin or whatever his name is. Yeah. Heckling. But he was like very young. But he's got this weird man face in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there was this whole big thing. Someone wrote a piece.

[01:17:03] I will try to find it and post it to our Reddit about how like 50 plus year old women were like that boy is so handsome and we're going to see it like he was their little Leo that they had to keep on seeing. Okay. Yeah, I got that.

[01:17:16] I guess a good movie, a weird summer block. I felt the same about Paul Newman. So I was sure he's creating that movie. Craig is also so good in that movie. Craig. I said Craig. That was the first time I took note of Craig. Yeah. For sure.

[01:17:29] And that was Mendes drawing from the British theater. Who is he? Who the fuck is this guy? Jennifer Jason Lee is good. He's good. And you get a touch of the Tooch. And there's that little boy. The other brother. Yeah. Who's in this series? Liam Aiken.

[01:17:40] Series of unfortunate events that one. That one's got killer. Brad Silverling movie. Killer cast. I mean, Jesus, they were murderers. I don't know. All right. I have no idea. Hanks it goes dark. I really do think that movie is good.

[01:17:52] I just think it's crazy that it opened in the summer. Insane. Because it's such a fall or winter movie. It's an autumnal movie. Really is. Yeah. Number two. So Road to Perdition is second weekend May 15.4 million dollars.

[01:18:05] And then you get just FY, which is more, no less than it made the weekend before. But that's that thing that used to do. They boosted its theaters. They used to do that and they don't do it much anymore.

[01:18:14] I remember doing the exact same thing with Bridget Jones' Diary where you open it the first weekend fairly wide. Like 1500 screens. Right. And you open it two or three and then you get some good word of mouth and then the

[01:18:25] second weekend you push it over 2000 and then you hit number one. And people, ain't nobody got time for that. No, they just opened one. Well, they do platform releases though. Usually you start real small, right? Like it's rare that you would start basically wide and then go wide.

[01:18:39] Not that kind of studio platform. Right. Yeah, it's weird. It is a weird approach, but it worked. Was this his first movie after American Beauty? Yeah. And then Jarhead was after. Yes. Road to Perdition was so hyped as an Oscar movie obviously. Because it was like, you know...

[01:18:53] Is he a blank check guy? Yeah. I just hate two of his movies so much. But... I probably hate the same two that you know. Revolutionary Road and Away From Her. Away We Go. Away From Her is a good movie. Away We Go is terrible. Yeah.

[01:19:07] Away We Go makes me want to like throw myself into the Hudson River. It is a relic of its time in the way that like singles is or empire records is. It's just like that movie would never be made a month earlier or a month later.

[01:19:18] It's just like... So true. Revolutionary Road is just a movie I think that it's just a total misfire. Like I like the book it's based on. It's completely dead on the right level. Yeah. I agree. And Spectre is one of the most expensive shrugs in history.

[01:19:31] Well, Spectre is bad. Yeah. Spectre is more just bad though. Boring. Like yeah it's like I mean there's even some good set pieces in it or whatever. It's just like that's obviously movie the studio fucked with a lot and like you know whatever.

[01:19:41] This is a podway from cast or many series on the film. I would do it. I mean he's a funny guy because I never have been able to figure out if he has a real point of view.

[01:19:52] Or if he's just like a good actress director who like hires great DPs. That's the big thing with him is everyone was like... He works with such great DPs. Like Conrad Hall and then Deacons and like you know he likes like setting these things up.

[01:20:06] A Romney Newman, passing on future guest, a long time sister of mine. She watched... First time long time. First time long time. She just watched American Beauty for the first time and was like what the fuck was that? I mean that's a movie.

[01:20:20] I can't even imagine what it would be like for you to watch that movie now without any context of how it was recieved at the time. That was a Tiff, considering we were just that. It blew up. That was like the first big Tiff last picture.

[01:20:36] I was like even jealous about that movie after I saw it. I was telling everyone I took a group of friends to see it from and I was just like I watched it recently and like this is a bad movie. It's quite bad although it's really...

[01:20:48] It is kind of fascinating to watch it. Like it's not like a bad movie where you're just like oh what are we thinking? This is shitty. You're like what is this? But Romney was like one when that movie came out so she doesn't even like understand what

[01:20:59] it's commenting on it. It just feels like why the fuck would you make this? It's also, it is to me like such a monument to like Gen X thinking in general but all like pre-nin... America pre-911. It's the ultimate pre-911 movie in its own way.

[01:21:12] Imagine making a movie about that after 9-11. It's like oh god I have this house and I jerk off in the shower like whoa is me right? Right. And it felt profound. Right. And she... She's up like fucking back.

[01:21:23] And Romney like literally grew up in the shadow of 9-11 so it's just like why would any human being make this? And I was like it won Best Picture and Director. I remember my friend show me the movie and I was very like blown away. Of course.

[01:21:38] I thought it was so smart. Yeah I did too. It had like footage at the end of like old ladies hands and a net bending on a fucking you know amusement park ride. I was like that's not like what the rest of the movie looked like.

[01:21:50] Everything about it I was just like stunned by... After a movie from that time I remember being like wow this is so profound and then I rewatched Donnie Darko recently. Yeah that's a tougher one to come back to. That's not good.

[01:22:02] In college I was like I thought that was the most brilliant thing ever seen. I had that problem also as well recently on Netflix with Regrets in Paris the movie. Because that was a big one for me when it came out.

[01:22:12] And now I just felt like the metaphors are sloppy. Well you know what? I mean that's not number two at the box. You know what does hold up as K-9 though? Yeah it does. They really sank that stuff. You think the dog's dead? Yes.

[01:22:24] I mean I don't mean to be a jerk but that movie is like 27 years old. If that dog is dead we gotta call the Guinness World Record. Beg a law I got your next picture.

[01:22:35] You think Belushi just like sort of like transported his consciousness into the dog or something? That would make sense. That's the kind of thing he usually does. Rage of perdition number one. Number two is a sequel to a family movie.

[01:22:47] And I think the family movie had been sort of like... Live action animated. Mixed. And I think the monkey bone. No. The sequel. I think the family movie had been... Monkey bones? The first one had been such a hit that this to me is wild.

[01:23:08] This movie cost $120 million to make which is too much money when you hear what this movie is. How limited the audience base is. This movie's running time is 70 minutes long, 7-0. It's just about as long as like the Academy considers a feature length movie to be. Yeah.

[01:23:27] It's following length. Yeah exactly. $120 million. And what did it end up at? It ends up grossing 64 mil. It opened number two to 15 mil. Yeah he found out what it is and he's left with it. What did the first one end up doing?

[01:23:43] That's a good question let me find it. Is there a phraser in it? No but you know he could have been. Okay so it's that kind of movie.

[01:23:49] The first one made $140 million was a big hit but you know these are expensive movies because they're these mixes of live action animation. Traditional animation or like modern CGI kind of stuff. CG animation. If you need another hint I can give you one.

[01:24:04] Is it based off of a pre-existing property? That was my hint yes. It's based on a book. It's based on a book. Oh oh oh I know exactly what it is. It's Stuart Little 2. Stuart Little 2. $120 million they spent. A Gina Davis picture. 70.

[01:24:21] I mean what even happens in Stuart Little 2? Okay he shreds. I don't know if you remember this but the marketing campaign for Stuart Little 2 is him on a skateboard. The first movie is pretty austere. So they poochied him basically. Yeah they poochied him.

[01:24:32] Because the first movie is about like what if your first day at school was really hard and also you were a mouse right? Right that's what it's about. That's an M9 Shonlon wrote it's essentially why to wake with a mouse. It's a mouse looking for meaning.

[01:24:44] M9 Shonlon did write it. The little family just got bigger. That scene where Betty Buckley kills herself in the first Stuart Little is so starring. But also the first Stuart Little is like... I thought it was sensitively handled.

[01:24:55] The first Stuart Little is like pretty stylish, like very designed but he's the main CGI element in most of its live action. And it's a robust 84 minutes. Right. It's an epic.

[01:25:06] Stuart Little 2 is like mostly animals which is why it was that expensive because it's like him fighting a hawk. Like he spends most of the movie in the woods on a skateboard. Like it's got action sequences. I remember watching it on planes, a bad fucking movie.

[01:25:19] Lipnicki's in it right? He plays Stuart's brother. And is Michael J Fox doing the play? Michael J Fox's Stuart and then Melanie Griffith plays a canary. Right and James Woods is a hawk. And then James Woods is a cat. Sorry who's this? James Woods?

[01:25:33] Am I right about that? No. I'm sorry. That's why I was confused. I was looking for hawk. And Steve Zon is of course surprising my role in the alley cat. My favorite actor and political thinker James Woods. Of course never been wrong about anything.

[01:25:44] And then you got Hugh Laurie and Gina Davis putting in their time, getting their paycheck. Hugh Laurie high on house money. He's about to get high on house money. He used Stuart Little 2 to spray off his house.

[01:25:57] It is number three in the mouse slash rat box office mojo category behind Ratatouille and Stuart Little. Okay. And mouse hunts four? Mouse hunts five flushed away is for my friends. Where's Noah Taylor on that one? Noah Taylor, the hero. One step. Tim at this point.

[01:26:21] So that's number two. Okay. Number three is a sequel to a big blockbuster that was number one the week before. Like a huge blockbuster. Huge blockbuster. It's a, it's number two in the series. The live action series.

[01:26:37] It opened the week before it tops out at 190, which is pretty bad. Like kind of kind of a disappointment. This movie is a huge disappointment. We've discussed it a lot. Man in black two. Correct. Correct. And Man in black two. Who wants to think about that?

[01:26:53] If only they had brought us on script doctors. Is that the one with Lara Flynn Boyle? Yeah. Yeah. It was supposed to, and Johnny Knoxville. Right. And I've told this story before. Very Josephson producer on the Men in Black movies, producer on the tech.

[01:27:05] I told him the pitch that David and I came up with for men in black two where we fixed men in black two. And he said, that's what it should have been. Wow. There you go. We had our pitch. That was like the Rosetta stone of our friendship.

[01:27:16] I feel like we were friends. Well, those early. And then when we cracked men in black two, we were like, we're going to be in each other's lives for a very long time. I agree. I'm glad to be in your life. Nailed it. K-19 is number four. Okay.

[01:27:28] Number five under the K-19 make it open to 12 right? It tops out of 35. Not great. No. Number five is a movie. I remember being very hyped to see another flop of this, this summer that's it's like a fantasy action movie, but it's kind of set in the future.

[01:27:49] It's set in London. Rain of Fire? Oh. Rain of Fire. Rain of Fire was very excited because what's her name from Golden Eyes on it? Isabella Scor. Yeah, I was like, oh good for her. She's working and then who's the other woman in it? I don't know.

[01:28:05] Let's find out. It's not like Safran Burroughs or something. You know, she was in a lot of movies right around then. Do you know the famous test screening story about her? Is that what you were about to do? No, what's that story?

[01:28:15] About Deep Blue Sea was that they were like, we have to reshoot your... We're going to reshoot the ending of Deep Blue Sea so you die. And she was like, oh okay, I mean sure, let's do it. And then she's like, so why?

[01:28:25] And they were like in the test screenings, the audiences were literally going like, die, die, die. Like they told her that. They wanted you dead. So we're going to kill you. I'm trying to find the other woman in this movie. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's just her.

[01:28:39] I mean Gerard Butler is the fourth lead. He's by his own dragon? Yeah, of course. Alice cried, she's in it. But there's no other women. It's a boy movie. I was going to say Disney had very high hopes for that movie.

[01:28:50] It got pushed back a while but they thought it was going to be like a big blockbuster for them. Yeah, I think it got pushed back because they needed like tons of visual effects. Is it the weirdest thing that Matthew McConaughey has ever done?

[01:28:59] Just in terms of who he is and... Well, it's a really weird thing for him. And I'm about to tell you the weirder thing about it. Because that's him like going as far away from McConaughey as possible.

[01:29:07] And everyone thought he was cooked and then he comes back with how to lose a guy in 10 days. And he's in rom-com mode before the McConaughey. But in that movie, he's like all torso and he's like really dialed up. Shaved head. Yeah. So here's the crazy alternate history.

[01:29:20] Disney was so bullish on that movie that at the time they were filming it and getting Daley's back and being like, fucking McConaughey, he's an action hero. We finally cracked McConaughey, that's what it is.

[01:29:29] They were developing Pirates of the Caribbean and he was their original choice to play Jack Sparrow. That would have been a good attempt. They were conceptualizing the role for Matthew McConaughey. I'd see that movie, but I don't think America would have seen it for sure.

[01:29:42] They were like writing it and Disney was like can you try to make this a McConaughey part? And then Rain of Fire bombs and they're like forget it, don't worry about it. And I think they didn't think Johnny Depp would ever want to do it.

[01:29:51] Then they had him in the Kieran Knightley part and then they got it wrong. The other part of the story is that Johnny Depp went in for a general meeting at Disney because he said I want to do a movie that my kids would want to see.

[01:29:59] What do you have in production? And they threw everything out at him and they were like we're doing a movie based off the ride but you wouldn't want to do that. And he was like oh no I'd love to play a pirate.

[01:30:08] They threw everything out at him because was he worth any money at that point? He was still... Wait, Johnny Depp? Yeah. He hadn't... Yeah, Sleepy Hollow was like his first 100 million dollar movie. He was doing Tim Burton stuff.

[01:30:20] But the other thing was he had such an air of legitimacy at that point in time. He was like such an actor's actor. That they were excited about that. I think they liked the idea of classing up a Disney movie

[01:30:29] especially with those theme park movies by being like this will make it look substantive rather than looking like the country bears. Yeah, well I mean that's true. Making a pirate to the Caribbean movie on paper was an awful idea

[01:30:39] because it's going to be super expensive because you needed all these boats which is like so expensive. And it's based on the lamest Disney ride that exists. Right, and they made three of those and the other two bombed. Pirates? Three of those ride movies.

[01:30:53] Country bears in which they have one. Contamansion. Oh yeah. Well McConaughey did do country bears. Yes. Of course he played all of them. In the suits but didn't do the voiceover. Right. He just wanted to get physical. Yeah, he did a clump style.

[01:31:04] They filmed one suit at a time. Other movies. Mr. Deeds which is grossed $107 million. Mr. Deeds which is like putting Catherine Bigelow to shame and dragons. It's just like Adam Sandler's rich. Very sneaky. Mr. Deeds was for me the canary in the Winona Ride of Colmine

[01:31:21] where I was like oh this is not going well. That was also the first post shoplifting release for her. Yeah. So she like went and did her press form was trying to be like jokie and self aware. Right, yeah.

[01:31:31] Eight legged freaks which opened number seven which is a bad movie that people pretended was like a fun B movie. But I don't think it actually is. It's a shitty movie. It's a poor man's martial tax. I don't think David Arquette has really ever done anything

[01:31:42] that's like what you first described. Like a bad movie that's like I should cut. Yeah, I mean he's in Scream which is a great movie that is sort of like that but that's nothing to do with David Arquette. Right. I'm trying, yeah what is David Arquette?

[01:31:54] Like when does he get to come back or are we not letting him? I think we're good. Well it's because like he's good and never been kissed. Yeah, he is. He's cute in that. That's true. It's just like you know because like fucking Matthew Lillard

[01:32:05] got to come back. But he's a good actor. I know he is but I mean maybe David Arquette's a good actor. I don't know. I think even if you watch like the early Lillard performances there's a weird funny energy there.

[01:32:15] I forgot that he's in Bone Tomahawk which is gross. Yeah. Pretty racist movie. Yeah, but he gets eaten out. Well and interesting to see what that filmmaker has gone direct and with which people he has chosen to continue working with. I skipped it a tiff.

[01:32:32] Did you see Brawl and Cellblock 99? No, I don't even know anything about it. It's a movie where Vince Vaughn smashes people's heads in in a prison for two hours. And he's already shot his follow up to that which is a police brutality movie with Mel Gibson,

[01:32:44] Vince Vaughn playing the cops. Oh, I think so. So I think we know who Eskwik Sailor is now. Yeah, no. I hear that Brawl and Cellblock 99 is violent. Yeah. I think that's the word out of the screenings on that one. Halloween Resurrection is in there.

[01:33:02] That's the one where they throw Jamie Lee Curtis off a cliff but now she's coming back. She's back. You can't fucking kill her. Yeah. Is Coolio in that movie or Buster Rhymes? It's Buster Rhymes. But Coolio is in a Halloween movie or is he in a leprechaun movie?

[01:33:13] He's in a leprechaun movie. You were Coolio for Halloween once. That's what you're thinking about. Yeah. He's in leprechaun back to the hood which is the second hood mode. Is the second? He didn't even make the cut for leprechaun in the hood. No.

[01:33:28] Leprechaun is a franchise where there actually is like leprechaun 4-2. Right. I mean, I've seen leprechaun. They do a sequel to a sequel. Right. I've seen leprechaun 4 is leprechaun 4 in space. Right. Three is in the hood. No, five is in the hood. Are you sure about that?

[01:33:48] Oh my god. I think space happens between... In my life. No, no, no. Are the hood movies back to back? Yeah. The hood movies they were like, we got a hit here. We're going to ring this dead. I thought they went to space and then they were like,

[01:34:00] sorry, sorry, back to the hood. We're going back. Which one did National Geographic produce? So leprechaun origins. The Whittle Make It Right. So there's leprechaun 2 which is just a sequel to leprechaun. Right. Leprechaun 3 which seems to be set in Vegas. Is that the one with Jennifer Aniston?

[01:34:19] No, she's in one. She's in one. Yeah. And then leprechaun 4 in space. Okay. Which I've seen and is tremendous. And then leprechaun in the hood, leprechaun back to the hood. Right. And then more recently we have... The Horned Swaggle reboot. Yes. Leprechaun origins starring a horned swaggle.

[01:34:38] He's not joking. W-E-E wrestler horned swaggle. Yes. Plays leprechaun but they redesigned leprechaun to look like a gremlin. This film was given to select theaters on August 22, 2014. I'm sure they were very select about the theaters. Please Google what the horned swaggle leprechaun looks like. Okay.

[01:34:55] Because I'm sure you're imagining right now... Who played leprechaun? Was it a...? Mark Davis. Okay. Right. It's work Davis and he's just got a wrinkly face and he wears a nice little green suit. Oh no. Right? Oh, I don't like this at all.

[01:35:07] Horned swaggle is like a very big little person wrestler. It's loading. And they hired him and made... Oh no. He looks like a monster. He's not a leprechaun. He's not wearing a nice little suit. Whereas like this is the leprechaun I'm looking for. He's a nice man.

[01:35:20] He's a nice man. Mark Davis smoking a bong with somebody. Why does he kill because they... He just trying to get his gold back? I guess so. I mean, why is he in space? Did the rainbow go to space? I don't really know what the...

[01:35:36] I'm not a master of business, David. I don't know. I mean, I think he just has an Irish accent and he does like jokes. He just tells jokes and then kills people. The leprechaun for in space is the one where he comes out of someone's pants.

[01:35:51] Like when the guy's like, let's have sex, then he comes out of his pants somehow, like through his fly. And he goes, you're going to need a prophylactic or something like that. It's very weird. Well, I'm glad with how much we covered on this episode.

[01:36:04] Like I feel like we got a lot of mini series down just that we've covered the leprechaun series record K-19, the Widowmaker. I just want to mention also, Krakadel Hunter Collision Course is number 10 at the box office that week. RIP.

[01:36:17] You want to know what the tagline for that movie was? What? Crikey! Do you know The New York Times big block letter? No, that's how it was. Do you know The New York Times gave that movie a really good review? Krakadel Hunter Collision Course? Really? Who was it?

[01:36:31] I think it was Scott. I loved it. Bindi Irwin before she left. Geez. Richard. Bindi Irwin. If you ever do a mini series about that, Bindi Irwin. What if we just made that Ben's big alone? What have we got? Divine secrets of the Yahya's sisterhoods.

[01:36:50] We don't need to cover all of them. Like Mike, were you sick of this? How long has this episode been? Been five hours? Now 40. We're doing great. Okay. Yeah. How are you doing, Ben? I don't, I just don't get how you could talk. It's like boggling.

[01:37:04] He's a cop and the little guy's a dog. That's a dog, not a person. I don't get it. How do they communicate to each other? My language. Just that Belushi magic. I'm so confused. That Belushi charisma. I always called Jim Belushi the great communicator.

[01:37:18] I remember seeing Jim Belushi on like Fallon, I think, like a handful of years ago when he was on Broadway and Fallon in probably the most pointed interview question he's ever asked. The hardest piece of journalism has ever done. Why are you here?

[01:37:33] Oh, he said, so was it tough for you going on Saturday Night Live after your brother had been such a huge star on SNL and passed this big shadow and he had passed away by that point in time.

[01:37:42] And I was like, wow, that's like a hard hitting question. It is kind of the question of Jim Belushi. It's the question. I feel like everyone's always out of sensitivity ducked away from actually asking them him that head on. That's what we talk about behind Jim's back.

[01:37:54] And Belushi went like, no, you know what? I felt like I got there on my own merits. And honestly, I feel like critics have been very, very kind to me my entire career. Oh, that's the secret Jim Belushi has never read a review of a Jim Belushi movie.

[01:38:09] Clearly. That's where his confidence comes from. Some producer on according to Jim just like made a fake Peabody award and was like, here, look what we won. Yeah. Boy, Jim Jimbo. He really I know you guys haven't watched Twin Peaks, but he's so fucking good.

[01:38:25] I think it's become a really good character. He's also really good in the ghost writer, the Plansky movie. Yeah, he's pretty good in that. Yeah. He was in that movie that I saw called the whole truth. Oh, yeah. I knew that is a disaster. Yeah. He's fine.

[01:38:40] I mean, he's not the problem with that movie. He's become a good kind of like bureaucratic heavy. There was going to be some director. I mean, I guess maybe it's Lynch like who like is like, okay, I know what to do with you now.

[01:38:49] You know, I mean, I might be Lin. I mean, Lynch, Lynch is it. I mean, Sizemore gave this interview where he talked about ad-libbing on the set and David Lynch immediately just came over the PA.

[01:39:02] And he was like, Tom, do I have to send you to the back of the class or whatever? And Tom says, oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So clearly like David Lynch wants you to say his weird shit in his weird order. And that is that. Yeah.

[01:39:14] No ad-libbing on Twin Peaks. That was a pretty good David Lynch. God, he was subtle. I wish I could do him. Yeah. The whole truth though, that was that you never, you never saw that. But you know, it's from the director of Frozen River, Courtney Hunt.

[01:39:25] I think that's who it was. I'm confused with the Kate Beckinsale. Right. The Valerie Plain movie? Yeah, that's nothing but the truth. Right. Nothing but the truth. It's this movie with Keanu. Oh, sure. And they're like RSVP to the screening and I'm like, I don't know. Yeah.

[01:39:39] Like Keanu, like Frozen River. Steady hand. And it's just you get to Magno, you sit down near like, uh-oh. Like I just know this is, oh, this movie will never see the light of day. Yeah. I have to go see Kingsman 2 after this.

[01:39:50] I don't think that movie is going to get released or they're going to bury that. They're like, oh, fuck it. That movie sounds aggro. That's what I'm saying. Oh, the embargo just went up today. And the reviews aren't bad. They're just kind of like, it's a Kingsman movie.

[01:40:02] I'm sort of dreading it. I find his aggro more interesting than other people's aggro. I agree. I just don't think when I see Kingsman, I don't think I'd like to see this guy with less studio restraint, you know, making this movie.

[01:40:15] Like I'm fine with the restraint on display in Kingsman. I like Kingsman. I do think I'd benefit from being a little reigned in although I'd rather see like whether or not it turns out well, I'd rather see Matthew Vaughn be given that much freedom

[01:40:28] because at least he's going to do something weird. I guess so. I'm worried this is just to watch how far he's going to spill out. Big set pieces. I don't know. The villain is like Julianne more playing Rachel Ray. Like they're just strange. I know. Yeah, I know.

[01:40:41] Could be good. It could be. I don't know. Kingsman's weird. I did enjoy it a lot, but I had such low expectations for it. I remember just coming out being like, I had a good time. Weird ending. Like that was sort of like. See, I, hot take.

[01:40:54] I like the ending because I think that's the point. I like the ending because of how tasteless it is. I can see that. I think it's kind of calling out the like casual misogyny of other movies by making it explicit and underlining how gross it is.

[01:41:07] I think that's cool. Yeah, I can see that. I think the point is to make you want to fall in. And the ending super cool. That's what I'm trying to say. He's an aggro dude. He's an aggro dude. It's an aggro movie. Yeah. I don't know.

[01:41:19] Anyway, I like the ending of Kingsman. Yeah. And why I defended Todd Phillips in the previous episode because I like movies that are like, this is despicable when I am now doing. That didn't come off great. It was really sweet. I know. I really listened.

[01:41:34] I was like, whew. You're like, no, I think you should get a blank check. And I'm like, what? I think he's interesting, but it's the same thing where it's like even when the movies are bad, there's a level of self-hatred and self-analysis there that I think

[01:41:44] is compelling to watch whether or not it's for the intended reasons. Right. Like when you order like a really gross meal and you're sitting on the couch and as you're eating it, you start to just feel really sad.

[01:41:52] And when I order dino's and you're just like, right, you're just repeating the whole truth and really start crying while eating sandwich. Yeah. I know I can start crying, but... Well, like almost.

[01:42:01] No, but like the seamless guy arrives, you pull the lid off and you're like, why did I do this? Right. I did that in a hotel room in Colorado. I, well, I forgot how big the portions were.

[01:42:09] I was coming back from Telluride on my way to Toronto and I just was like feeling lonely and self-hitting and I ordered like $40 worth of Mexican food and like opened it on my hotel. I hampt it in bed and like two bites in. It's just like so pathetic.

[01:42:23] I've literally had the thing where I ordered dominoes and the second the order finishes, I start spontaneously crying like Holly Hunter in broadcast news. And then when the pizza shows up, I'm so happy. And I think Todd Phillips and Matthew Vaughn have that similar thing where there's like

[01:42:36] a level of technical craft there used for like bad means, but like in the same way that dominoes is designed to make you happy while you're chewing on it. Like it's like they chemically found the right balance of salt. Right, right.

[01:42:49] But you think the minute they lock picture Todd Phillips just goes in the parking lot and just like. Yeah, just subsidize it. I think so. But that's why if I ever get a Griff's Choice, I think I would spend it on

[01:43:00] due date because I think due date is the one movie where he like lays his soul bare and is like, I hate myself. Like this is the hangover for people who like the hangover to tell them why they're bad for liking the hangover. All right, well.

[01:43:14] Please come back against me Richard. Dos vidan, yeah. My Russian friends. Oh God, what did I just see that had good Russian shit? I love Russians. Oh, Deffas Stalin actually. That's it. Yeah. But you know, I love Russian shit when you lean into the sort of the

[01:43:30] pomp and circumstance. Sure. This doesn't do that. It does not. No. No, no, no. No, no. No, no. Could have done with a little leperty. Little comedy manners there would have been nice. Richard, thank you so much for being on the show. It's always such a fun.

[01:43:46] I always have fun. Thanks for having me in this lovely new studio. It's bigger. Yeah. It feels it feels like legit. It doesn't feel like the walls are closing in. Right. Yeah. And I'm not dying of heat. Ben can afford shoes.

[01:43:57] I don't feel like I'm in the reactor room. You know, that is what our old studio used to feel like K19, the widowmaker and some early Stephen and I'm. Sarsgard was always in there. Yeah. It's kind of in the corner crying, which was I always thought was strange.

[01:44:11] I never commented on it. But still like weirdly made like one or two million dollars for just being there on the corner. I swear all of our budget had to go. Yeah. Also much like K19, the widowmaker, many people died just constructing that studio.

[01:44:24] Like it never should have been recorded. Someone got run over by a car just as we were walking into it. Do you guys remember the last couple of times I recorded with you? I threw a champagne bottle at you and it didn't break.

[01:44:34] And then we would just look at the ground and go first. Also Ben was always falling asleep at the ones and zeros when we kept it on because we told me he was a good guy. Yeah. We didn't fucking forward him. We nisened him. We nisened him.

[01:44:46] Thanks guys. Yeah. All right. That's been our episode in K19, the widowmaker. The widowmaker. Richard People should follow you on Twitter. Check out Little World Men. Yeah. All that. Book coming out in February. Oh yeah. Yeah. I made that book.

[01:45:01] You know, I feel like your listeners are really into like Weebie, Gay adjacent YA fiction. Sure. I mean, I fucking am. Well, then there you go. Have you guys seen Beatgrass? Yeah. See what? Into that movie. From the opening shots of Beatgrass, I was like, yep.

[01:45:15] I mean, I really like Beatgrass. That was a divisive movie. People were kind of all over it. Well, people thought that, I guess it like various Q&As and stuff like that. Who was she? You know, people were like, why do you as a woman

[01:45:26] like feel like you could tell the story or whatever. She told it well. Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I think it's like. She's from Flatbush, you know? She doesn't, yeah. It's also very of a piece with her first movie, which is clearly like very literally autobiographical.

[01:45:39] But this is a very adjacent story. Like it's the emotional world she understands. Right, exactly. Yeah. And she's interested in sexual exploration and awakening and all of that. I think she's very good director. I'm very excited to see the rest of her. So please pre-order my novelization

[01:45:52] of the film Beatrance now available on Amazon. It's Beatrance, the junior novelization. Yeah. Yeah, it's a picture book. Hey, right. And it has, I was going to make this. It has 12 pages of color stills in the middle. Yeah. I lovingly drew all the apps.

[01:46:05] Do you remember when that was a thing like you'd buy a novelization of Space Jam and as we all did. And the selling point was like in the middle there were 12 pages of color pictures. I remember when they made a black beauty movie

[01:46:15] in the 80s, I had one for black beauty where I would skip the text and just go to like the because I wanted to see the pretty pictures of the horses in the desert. It was like a collage of production stills with little captions.

[01:46:24] I had one of those for Star Wars. I had a few of those. Junior novelization, so we're good. I have one of those for Victoria and Abdul. Oh God, the focusing. So good. I tried to think of another Victoria and Abdul joke. That's it.

[01:46:36] Do you know what my favorite book is? Like if I'm being honest, like my favorite book of all time the book I've probably read the most. Shoot. The Muppet Treasure Island, choose your own adventure. Wait, so there's like are there adventures where like

[01:46:49] Ganza becomes the captain or whatever? Yeah, you are Jim Hawkins teamed up with Ganza and Rizzo getting on that ship. But you know, the power dynamics. Can you like die? Definitely. Really? I think so. I think they go like you see black. Oh Jesus. I remember getting grim.

[01:47:06] Very grim for a movie with Polly the Talking Parrot. Right. Was actually a lobster. Were there like dutiful kids who if they picked an adventure would they die? They're just like well and just close the book and put it back on the shelf.

[01:47:17] They put it in the fireplace. Yeah, well that's it. Good luck. You gotta go see Kingsman Richard. We should let you go. Yeah, okay. Enjoy Kingsman. People can go see Kingsman out now in theaters. He's probably hanging out. Right, I don't know. It's been out for two months.

[01:47:32] He's probably got like four in the screen. 16 at the box office by now, yeah. Is that movie gonna hit? I guess people want to see it right? And like there's just nothing right now. I think it'll make an easy hundred million.

[01:47:44] I think it'll do less than the first one. It'll do well worldwide. Yeah, yeah and they'll make a third one. Well you said that about random hearts too. I did. No my dad said that and I told him that it wasn't gonna work.

[01:47:54] I thought pay at four was gonna work. So you know. Okay, goodbye. Goodbye. Thank you for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Go to blankies.reddit.com for some real nerdy shit. Thanks to Andrew for social media, lane link, every 13 songs,

[01:48:11] Robo and Pat Reynolds for our artwork and as always, get off my submarine.