Mars Attacks! with Paul F. Tompkins

[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] I want the people to know that they still have two out of three branches of the podcast working for them And that ain't bad That's a good line It's a really good line Hello everybody my name is Griffin Newman David Sims This is a podcast Go ahead

[00:00:35] We still have one of the branches of the podcast working for us Sure It's called Blank Check with Griffin and David He's doing flourishes, he doesn't usually do flourishes I get fancy, we got a fancy guest so we gotta do fancy things

[00:00:49] He's the mayor of podcasting and we need to let him know that everything's on the up and up in this studio I wore a tie Ben wore a tie Ben is tied up He's dressed, he's looking pretty nady today Ben isn't a fashion That looks good

[00:01:01] Our guest today has walked in dressed impeccably Wow I mean Is your hat deliberately color coordinated to the spontaneous nation logo? Yes it is Amazing Unbelievable I will not say who our guest is and they will not be able to guess from the question I just asked

[00:01:17] He's a very well dressed man with some connection to spontaneous nation There's also gonna be this subtle clue in the app will tell you the name of the movie and the guest Sure But that you know take that as you will Eagle-eyed listeners Right right

[00:01:30] You have to both listen closely and read closely Sure We're not gonna say our guest You were explaining the concept of our podcast Right the concept of the podcast is of course that we are hashtag the two friends

[00:01:44] We're two friends, we asked the podcast again, it's a competitive advantage, no one else has gone for them Right We're the two friends What do we talk about? Kind of irrelevant, I mean honestly at that point

[00:01:52] Well right, well we decided to talk about something but we are the two friends We could have talked about anything and we would be running the game Right, we have a utility patent on that It's proprietary Uh huh

[00:02:02] And we could honestly just license that concept out and let the dollars roll in Right But we decide to talk about filmographies Directors who have massive success early on in their career Give them a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want

[00:02:14] And sometimes those checks clear And sometimes they are incinerated into a green skeleton Very disturbingly And they alarm ten year old David in the theater This movie freaked me the fuck out I was not ready to see this movie, you can talk about it

[00:02:29] This is one of the first movies I consciously chose to see even though I knew it would scare me I'm a little baby boy in every sense Sure It was young when this movie came out Sure And my dad wanted to see it

[00:02:44] He was looking to win me over because he wanted to see it And he knew like two birds with one stone, take care of my kids and see this movie Sure So he was trying to convince me to go see it

[00:02:54] And he had his friend who had seen the movie call me up on the phone and describe all the scariest moments So I also knew all the disturbing imagery That sounds worse Yeah If someone called you up, how old were you? I was seven years old

[00:03:07] It's like so, a guy is going to turn into a scout and 40 minutes in A 42 year old friend of my father's picked up the phone, talked to a seven year old I don't mean to alarm you but Glenn Close is crushed by a chandelier

[00:03:20] Truly described every death like that So what does it look like when they die? It's like they turn into a skeleton and see the green or red Sure What are the other deaths? A chandelier The hand comes off, it rips through his chest Punches through his heart

[00:03:33] All these things were described to me and all of them sounded terrifying but they also sounded so bizarre That I then became drawn to see the movie because I couldn't imagine what they looked like Yeah, right, right, right

[00:03:44] Having that described does not sound like, oh yeah, of course, skeleton, like most movies When they get shot they turn into red skeleton When you're like a kid and they read spooky Halloween stories in school And most of them are just like, it was a ghost

[00:03:57] And then every once in a while there's the one about the woman with the handkerchief around the neck And you're like, this is too much Still not introducing our guest Would you like to say something? It was a velvet rip, Jesus Christ Handkerchief

[00:04:09] It'd be weird if it was a handkerchief because then someone would literally be like Can I borrow your handkerchief? I don't think this story would be nearly as enduring if it had been a handkerchief You don't think so I don't think so

[00:04:20] Well then the rudeness would just be like, it's rude to ask like What's up with the velvet ribbon around your neck? But it's not rude to ask like It's a stylistic choice You'd be like, why are you wearing that? A handkerchief Can I borrow your handkerchief please?

[00:04:33] And I'm like, no! But if this story was set during Christmas time Everyone would be asking to borrow the velvet ribbon as well Just being like, I got this wrapped up That's true Where's my bow? Can I just borrow that for one second?

[00:04:46] For one week until the gift is open and then I'll return it back Giving this gift to someone who always saves the wrapping I can retrieve this and get it back

[00:04:54] Don't you find it to be like a burden when someone gives you something that is too well wrapped And you don't want to just like rip into it You feel like you have to show some respect for the like the artistry of the wrapping

[00:05:05] Yeah, it is sort of It's sort of a power move It is a power move It's like, I want you to know how much time I put into this And how little consideration you're going to put into taking it off Yeah

[00:05:16] Yeah, I have a sister who does the double wrapping Half my half sister does the double wrapping You have a half sister? Yeah This has never come up Wait, we've never heard of her sister who does double wrapping?

[00:05:26] She does double wrapping to make up I guess for the... That evens out to one full sister Right, if it's a half sister with double wrapping She's double wrapping She's one full What is double wrapping? Like so You've got a beautifully wrapped present

[00:05:39] She's very artful with the wrapping You open the wrapping What is beneath like a box wrapped in tissue paper? Like it's like there's another... Now there is a new layer of wrapping for you to contend with Before you will see What? Yeah, I don't know

[00:05:51] And it's always the same like perfect colored tissue paper You know every gift is the same Like it's always very very arranged It's very nice But it's a lot of wrapping I don't know It's wasteful I can't believe you have a sister and this has never

[00:06:04] Half sister, yes But double wrapping What is again what she evens out to one full sister? There's a reason I don't bring her up Why? She lives in England So Paul doesn't know And we're not introducing him yet But Paul doesn't know that I grew up in England

[00:06:19] I spent most of my young life in England I moved there when I was nine You moved there when you were nine Nine years old Yep It comes up a lot And I left when I was 22 It comes up a lot because of my formative years

[00:06:31] We're spent there Paul, our guest who I haven't introduced Who is connected to Spontane Nation and dresses well Sure You're a comedian Yeah You understand a great bit I understand it Beware if you said no I get why we have them Yeah Yes Absolutely

[00:06:50] But the key, the thing that makes That separates the bit amateurs From the great bits men And bits women of the world Is knowing when to leave the bit Knowing when to hang it up from the Raptors Or retire it Crucial You hit it

[00:07:04] I don't know, 47 to 68 times And then quit it Clean Right Hit it 47 to 68 times and then quit it You're wrapping in tissue paper You're wrapping in a second layer of wrapping That's right So David has this very convoluted bit That he moved to England when he was nine

[00:07:19] And lived there for a number of years And constantly wants to reference everything Through the prism of the fact that he did it When he was in England Like I saw that movie in England Or I met that person in England Oh, I see, I see

[00:07:29] I don't even know this But I'm from England We gracefully hit this bit For three years Everyone loved it And we said let's get out while the get-ins good While this hasn't gotten old We retired it And David continues to bring it up Every single episode

[00:07:42] Right, they retired it Because literally people in my life Who don't even listen to this stupid podcast Well now when I say something about Like, oh in England They'll be like England, you grew up in England So they retired it I thought out of compassion

[00:07:55] Now to be fair To David He tried not to That's true He did his name And you were raking me over the coals For having a relative But to be fair to Griffin You could have mentioned the sister Way earlier He's He's weird to me though

[00:08:11] We've been doing this for such a long time For such a long time Like four years? Like four years Jesus Christ We've been friends for five years You never mentioned your sister Alright Well, I'm sure I have Maybe not I don't know Half-sister Double-wrapping Wow

[00:08:26] The movie's Mars attacks Our guest today is Paul and Tompkins Hi The great Paul F. Tompkins is here Yeah Paul not only Not gonna water over This is of course amazing It's about the films of Tim Burton As you know from everything We've been talking about this episode

[00:08:41] Right It's called Podward Scissor Cast Of course And this is the episode on Mars attacks Yep Now you had not seen this film before No But also said you thought it was Maybe the only film for you had in scene Yeah, I'm a Tim Burton fan

[00:08:56] And I've liked pretty much All of his movies that I have seen With the exception of That Planet of the Apes movie I really didn't like at all No one ever speaks up for that one I wasn't that crazy about big fish either It has its fans

[00:09:12] Sure, it has its fans But did you see the Wonderland picture? I saw it on a plate Yeah That one I knew was like Well this isn't really for me Correct And there were some parts in it That I enjoyed

[00:09:23] But this seems like a film that would be for you This is sort of the last of his like Your comedies Yes I don't know why I didn't see this when it came out But I watched it today And I must say I straight up loved this movie

[00:09:37] I think this movie is the best It really surprised me It really surprised me For some reason I thought I guess because it didn't do that well It was kind of a flop Yeah And I thought well this is probably not good And I really enjoyed it

[00:09:49] Well I think watching this movie now Also is just a trip where you're like Geez everyone in this movie is Like so famous Like there's that sort of like delightful Like here's Danny DeVito for two scenes here Right Well and there's a weird balance of like

[00:10:03] People in the movie who Hadn't reached their peak level of fame yet Right, right, you got your Jack Blacks Natalie Portman was just sort of starting out Even Christina Applegate is like Married with children but she's not as much Of a movie star back then

[00:10:14] Then you have the people who are like On the other side of it where you have like Paul Winfield and Rod Steiger Rod Steiger especially Jack Nicholson playing two roles For no particular reason No reason No reason They don't meet They don't meet, it's not like

[00:10:30] Oh so is he gonna end up Impersonating the president at some point There's no like thematic Completely skeptical all the time Do you want the full story? Here's the full story on why Jack Nicholson played two roles I would love to We are connoisseurs of context

[00:10:41] We're connoisseurs of context I guess Timmy and Jack, old friends From the Bart man days Which I completely forgot about Because I remember when the movie Started thinking how did Jack Nicholson agree to do this And he's like oh that's right Batman If he agreed to do that

[00:10:57] Yes He did agree to do that I think for a sizable sum of money I believe he was the highest paid actor All the time But I mean he still agreed He showed up for it though He did not He did not like just He didn't jor-rel it

[00:11:09] You know what I mean right I'm going to work for this money Don't worry He definitely has more screen time Than Michael Keaton I mean that's one of those movies Where like they knew the villain Was played by such a colossal Megastar that they give

[00:11:20] So much villain backstory There's so much of him in his office Planning his next attack But he's in it a lot But I always kind of Forget that they work together Because the first Batman feels like There's a Tim Burton movie And then there's a Jack Nicholson movie

[00:11:36] Like it's a movie that's switching between Like when Jack Nicholson is in a scene It's a Jack Nicholson movie That he's like owning He's the auteur of those things The first Batman feels like his movie a little bit Yeah Batman Returns That's the Bertany Batman movie

[00:11:48] A little more maybe But he, you know, wants to make this movie Knows it's going to be really expensive Knows that they need to fill the cast with big stars Like if I can get a mega mega A-list legend At the top of the call sheet

[00:11:59] That helps things a lot So he sends the script to Jack Nicholson And he goes Any of these characters jump out to you Are there any of these that you want to play? And Nicholson's response is I want to play all of them And they're like

[00:12:12] We'll give you two Why not let him do more So that was the honest joke He wanted to play like as many As they would let him play He wanted to do like a Peter Sellers Yeah, he was like I'll do six, seven

[00:12:22] I mean there's a Doctor Strange Love vibe I guess he's making us on that But two is almost the weirdest number Cause Doctor Strange Love's Sellers does like five No, it's just three He does three? Yeah He's the president He's the president He's Doctor Strange Love

[00:12:37] And then there's the guy And he's the other guy The other guy The famous other guy Wait, he does Wait, alright Now I gotta look it up He's the president He's Doctor Strange Love He's the military guy Yeah, he's like The assistant to the reaper

[00:12:52] He is the title card that says the end At the end of the movie And torments his body to do Lionel Mandrake That's when he's just being Peter Sellers He's got the accent Everyone does their Lionel Mandrake impressions At parties and just kills Imagine like

[00:13:07] Let's do a three person costume I'll be Doctor Strange Love He'll be the president You could be Lionel Mandrake I feel like three That's not a bad idea Three I feel like is the number Like when Eddie Murphy does a comedy Where he plays multiple characters It's three

[00:13:20] Well, and if it's more than three You might be watching the wrong Eddie Murphy movie Like the clumps you did an entire family right? When he's getting to clump scale Maybe Eddie should have like Should have pared it down That scene is a master word

[00:13:34] That one dinner table scene In the first movie In the first movie? Yeah, oh yes The thing I trip out on all the time With that movie which I have never seen by the way You've never seen any clump I think I saw the first nutty professor movie

[00:13:49] Is the fact that he would commit to All of that makeup Multiple times Like that's a drag That's a real drag That's a drag That seems so annoying Like to do it once He'll be like, ah I can't wait till this is over But the other thing

[00:14:06] An entire family And also none of those are easy Like something like Norbit Where he's playing like a couple characters Like one of them is just him with a wig And glasses Yeah Like he's got his home base Where like Norbit is just kind of him

[00:14:17] And then he's got two that require more time But like his normal guy in nutty professor Also requires a fat suit Do you think he loves it? Like is it possible? Because he did it so many times Like he's got a latex fetish Right

[00:14:30] Like the first time they put those cheeks on Those jowls Can't wait till that goop poured on my face Put those straws in my nose Like Rick Baker will talk about him a lot And it sounds like Rick Baker's like the one good Working relationship he has

[00:14:43] Because he's working with Eddie Murphy They still can't shoot the shit He's just been like, he's a lot But he makes it sound like Eddie Murphy is like Lawn Chaney Where he like loves the artistry of the whole thing Like lives for it Eddie does Yeah

[00:14:57] Have you ever done that? Have I ever done that? Got in the goop on your face Yeah, yeah, yeah You did the goop for what? I liked it I did it for You got goop? A sketch on a show Called the Stephanie Miller show Okay

[00:15:10] This is so long ago Looking this up And I played Richard Nixon Sure So they made a mask of my Yeah, wow They took a mold on my face to make To make prosthetics Like the jowls and stuff And it was

[00:15:26] I thought I was going to be freaked out by it And I loved it Yes Because Do you any time that that is happening You are free from all responsibilities There's no You can't be rude Even like small talk Like you just like

[00:15:42] You're shut out from the world And it's like a weird little vacation It feels kind of like a spa Yeah, it was meditative Yeah, absolutely I could see that Absolutely People talk to you in every soothing way You know they're like Here's what we're going to do Yeah

[00:15:54] They're left channel I'm leaving the room for one second I have to get something I'm gonna come back It's so There's something that's very reassuring about it They just do the Maybe that's Eddie Murphy's comp Yeah maybe Zero They just do the scan now

[00:16:06] I think they almost never do the The floor to get the motion Wow Because I had to get it done for the tick For all the stuff They have to build around my head The helmet and everything And I've done two or three times And it's just

[00:16:16] It's very tedious But it's like they put you on like a lazy Susan Yeah And some guy sits on the floor And rotates you Like an MRI kind of situation Yeah And you're just like sitting there And they're like staying neutral And the guy's holding like

[00:16:28] A bone density scanner type thing Like a hand scanner Wow And you see your face form In a computer And on one hand I'm like Oh I guess I, you know I'm lucky I miss the window of having to do the face Goop But on the other hand

[00:16:40] I don't really feel like an actor Without having lived through one face Goop I just Like I imagine you had this thing as a kid Where you're just like Well there's certain things that like Signify like I'm a real show biz professional Oh yeah

[00:16:51] I got squibbed for the first time recently That feels like a real show busy thing Honestly that was my first The overriding feeling Was like this feels like Hollywood to me Right And when I did watching behind the scenes stuff Yeah This feels really cool

[00:17:05] And like to get the compliment from the stuntman Oh like oh yeah Who is like you really, you really acted that That was great You know because they Their thing is And I gathered this from Like I've been around stuntman Very few times in my career

[00:17:19] It's like comedy there's not a You know it's There's every once in a while There's some like weird thing That you have to do But Very rarely does someone make An 80 million dollar alien invasion comedy With tons of stunts and effects

[00:17:30] You never have to do any of the physical that That ever gets That Involved where they're like It's dangerous Yeah Where they're like you can't do this I also think it's easier when it's like Comedy stunt stuff Because it requires a little less precision

[00:17:45] Like if you're trying to make things look cool Yeah Powerful or impressive Exactly The sort of What's the word I'm looking for I don't know it becomes Very similar to No it's like the The math of it becomes like Very precise I see I see

[00:18:02] You're gonna need to choreograph it right Whereas if you're just jumping out of like A sugar glass one If you know how to be funny You can just sort of Cross your eyes You make a fart You know whatever it is And it works

[00:18:12] But for this the guy You know I had to I had to get Shot and You know fall to my Knees and then die And I had to The first I get shot a couple times The first bullet Hits me in my shoulder And turns me around

[00:18:30] To face the camera And then I get shot in the chest And then I collapse And I was so pleased that I got The approval of the stunt guy Because I think they think Actors can't act this stuff Right They haven't been shot Like we have

[00:18:48] They can act crying and stuff But they can't do this sort of thing This is where we come in I would be afraid to do that Every time I like Get a stuntman's approval Like the recognition thumbs up It feels like the jocks on the football team

[00:19:03] Were telling me I'm pretty funny 100% You could like hang with us Yeah yeah Absolutely You know like For someone who doesn't know what they're doing You did a pretty good job I just like I melt It's like my father saying That I caught a ball well you know

[00:19:18] Did your father never say that you caught balls? There was one time I scored a goal in soccer And my dad talked about it for eight years And I was like I've done a ton of school plays Sure Many many and you came to them

[00:19:33] And your only company would be like You remembered your lines It's a lot of lines Important to do Yeah Good to note that you did that Yes true And he was following along with the script The whole time He was Alright so Mars attack So Burton in general

[00:19:50] You like Tim Burton Yeah yeah yeah You were just Since Peewee's big adventure I've always been a fan Yeah But so Have you stuck with Burton's You know did you see like big eyes Did you see Miss Peregrine That one I haven't seen Sure

[00:20:07] But your tour is a lot You're traveling a lot You're on a plane There's a Burton you haven't seen You might catch it there Oh for sure But I usually like Screeners like I watched Sweeney Todd On a screener when that came out

[00:20:19] There's so much good stuff in Sweeney Todd I mean I think that I think that I like Sleepy Hollow A lot of people didn't like that We like Sleepy Hollow I really enjoyed that movie I thought it was a lot of fun That movie is very fun Yeah

[00:20:32] And it's like a slasher movie For British character actors Yeah yeah yeah Which is hilarious I think that movie is special This does feel like This movie is kind of like that too Where you're kind of like No one would ever make this now

[00:20:41] Like oh my god no No Jesus like I can't believe they made this thing No and I feel like when people talk about What a Tim Burton movie is today A lot of times it's reduced to the surface elements Of like here's a loner The suburbs are weird

[00:20:54] Sure The aesthetics The spirals and the stripes And all that sort of stuff But this is the last movie that like In the mode of what put him on the map With like Pee Wee and Beetlejuice Feels like a full Tim Burton movie

[00:21:06] Where it's like here's all the elements Here's everything in together It's like a comedy But it's also a high genre thing It's all the influences All the pop culture he like absorbed Right it's very very like 60s sort of Gen XC kind of Fun ensemble cast

[00:21:21] Like you know Balancing all these different tones of performance There is an underlying like emotional Sincerity to it Like the thing I found I was going back and reading reviews of this movie And everyone Not everyone But this movie's like pretty trashed when it came out

[00:21:38] I think yeah And most of the reviews said like It just feels like he doesn't even give a shit Like they were like This movie feels really snarky Like he's just riffing on these things And he doesn't care Cause it I find that very surprising

[00:21:50] I think it's a very sincere film Me too There's a flippancy to it But mostly in like the destruction But I don't think it's insincere Like it's very sincere And there is There's a weird like I like that he makes the Martians Like weird nihilists

[00:22:06] Like they're like punk kids throwing like Rocks at cops Right Where it's just like They get so much joy at destroying stuff And that's the only thing that's driving them They have no right They have no other motivation You never learn anything about them They're humanoid

[00:22:19] And they're speaking in dialogue And they're emoting So you get the sense of like Unlike the aliens and like Independence Day Or like these are just creatures And I can't connect to what they're doing What their reason is I did I did turn on the The subtitles

[00:22:32] Cause I was curious How it would be represented Right And it's just Which made me laugh But they The idea that That the movie is about It's about Lay it down for us The people of Earth Continuing to trust These Yes Monsters Like horrifying things

[00:22:57] It was making that When I When I realized that Cause there was a point where I was like I think this is what's going to happen And I hope this is what's going to happen It never stops And then it happened And I was like

[00:23:09] Oh, I am fucking in Yeah Completely This is great The amount of time they spend going Like, okay The dove was the problem This time now I think we figured out So this is going to be great So your favorite gag in the movie

[00:23:23] Is the French president calling Being like it's fine Oh We're eating with them now So good And Nicholson on the phone Just genuinely worried All it takes Jock Get out of there All it takes is one cut away from Jock You see him in the boardroom

[00:23:39] Everything's very civil They cut back to Nicholson And when they cut back Everyone's incinerated And they have like Like devil towers on fire That they would go to the trouble Of making them think That they were going to have a peace conference

[00:23:52] That they would sit at little tables And stuff like that And then kill them It's hilarious Well, and that's the thing I really like about this movie Is And I know you and I disagree On this thing But the thing that this kind of reminds me of

[00:24:04] Is like Sean of the Dead Where it's like What I find funny about this movie But also weirdly scary about this movie This is how I believe real people Would actually act in these circumstances In the Dead it just I mean, which I don't

[00:24:15] It's not like I dislike the movie But it just It's too I get too upset It's too upset Like when Shit gets real Yeah And they're stuck in the bar The two biggest jokes in this movie That I think are so effective And I think

[00:24:28] Do show a kind of keen insight Into the human condition I mean this is when he's still Making movies about human behavior And not just his own quirks Right One That the humans keep on trying to rationalize What's happening Right Like they're in a movie Yeah

[00:24:46] And they can solve this narratively Yeah And two, that everyone makes it about themselves That it's like a movie about an ensemble cast Of narcissists Yeah When we're so used to these like Ensemble alien invasion movies Where it's like slowly but surely The skeleton crew is assembled

[00:24:59] From all these different satellite plot lines Right And they become the six people who can stop it Right And it's everyone trying to go like I think I know what's going on Yeah And I think this is about me Yeah And I can fix this

[00:25:11] All along the whole movie Yeah Pretty much And Lucas Haas who's like the one who saves the day Is like I don't know I feel like a lot of people did more than I did Because he hasn't been watching the movie

[00:25:21] And doesn't realize that he's the only person Who's done like selfless things The entire film But he's got like no sort of like Delusions of being a hero He just kind of likes his grandma Like Who's a great lady Juno from Beetlejuice

[00:25:34] I do also think this is kind of The best cast of all time It's amazing I look at the ensemble cast The diversity of it The breath of it Yeah There's people that are doing some fun Against type casting Michael J. Fox Yeah Playing a creep

[00:25:47] He never ever did it Never This is the only time right And he's like Definitely And he's great And he's enjoying it And you know And he commits to it And he dies Like Imagine sitting him down I mean like So early You're gonna be an asshole

[00:26:03] You got three scenes He's in the first 30 minutes Like a lot proportionately And then you die And she like has your hand That's it Maybe it's like After Oh he did Bright Lights Big City too Yeah But maybe it's like But even that He's still being charming

[00:26:16] Yeah that's true You know like He's the protagonist Yeah But maybe it was like Okay I'll be this jerk That'll be fun But When do I get killed Right right If I get killed early on Then it won't stick Yeah right

[00:26:30] And I won't get stuck playing jerks forever It is also one of these movies Where they set up so many characters And there's so many big people From like Massive movie stars at the moment To people who are on the rise

[00:26:38] To people who are just kind of recognizable As like Oh that guy Or her kind of character actors That I do feel like It's one of the movies like this Where you're like I genuinely can't put my chips down On who's gonna make it at the end

[00:26:48] No right Yeah Like you could just as likely See Michael J Fox writing it through Absolutely You know Especially because Like it throws out any notion Of like Well this character is Is presented as a dick This character is presented as sympathetic Right

[00:27:03] You know they're gonna be the hero Here's the other thing though Danny DeVito Look I like billing I like to think about billing Above the title Posters Things like this It's fun to think about And Danny DeVito He's above the poster Yeah With Nicholson and Glenn Close

[00:27:17] And Annette Benning and Pierce Brosnan Danny DeVito He plays a character called Rude Gambler Doesn't have a name He's in two scenes They set him up so early Where you're like Well this is a thread We're gonna keep on coming back to Rude Gambler

[00:27:32] Is the neighbor of the character And like You know they didn't put like Sarah Jessica Parker Or Michael J. Fox Or You've been that baby's character Out of name and network Yes Yes I mean like Rude network boss Yelling man You're a man who's worked as a

[00:27:51] Character actor for a number of years I'm sure you've had your auditions And booked your roles with names like that Rude Gambler Shirley Bartender And you're like And I'm fifth billed Yes I'm above the poster You're gonna have a guarantee That I'm above the title

[00:28:04] You know like Jim Brown is A very famous athlete Who's kind of the main character He's kind of the hero of the picture But Rude Gambler has to be a big gambler And I also like I'm seeing this as a seven year old Right

[00:28:19] So for me the people I know are famous Are people like Dan DeVito Where Dan DeVito in the 90s Was just omnipresent He was like Robin Williams Where he was like a type of a person Doesn't matter if you've never seen Dan DeVito movie

[00:28:30] Or you've never seen episode of taxi You know Dan DeVito Everyone makes jokes about Dan DeVito He looks so great Right He's just like he's fun I agree I love Danny to be clear I think he's great as Rude Gambler But I just remember

[00:28:42] You know Papa needs a new pair of shoes He rolls the dice I turn to my dad and I go Like now we're in business I'm watching a Dan DeVito picture But like lines of dialogue under 10 Right Barely six Five Gives Tom Jones a compliment

[00:28:55] Before he dies I think And he is fully not in the movie For 90 minutes Oh yeah You completely forget about it First five He shows up 90 minutes later And then dies in the 10 minutes You think it's a cameo You absolutely think it's a cameo

[00:29:06] Oh it's Danny's Tim's friend He's gonna be in Dumbo later But he's like above the title And it was also one of those posters Where it was like the main artwork Was the aliens But then it had the little boxes Of the actors Where it was just like

[00:29:18] Here are some familiar faces And Danny's up there With his hat He's in there with his hat It's wearing a hat The role of Rude Gambler The head of a Rude Gambler This guy won't take his hat off This piece of shit Rude Gambler

[00:29:29] You feel like he just as easily Could have played the second Nicholson role Like he could have played the casino owner That's like a total d'andavido part Sure I'm glad Nicholson played it though It's really funny It's crazy that he did that

[00:29:43] And he was like make me up a little I don't know Do you think it was his idea To have the hair attached to the hat Yes 100% that's a Nicholson joke Very funny He's going like hog wild in this movie And he was coming out of

[00:29:57] A somewhat austere period A bit of a slump Because he'd been in things like Wolf was his last big movie The crossing guard was before Right like he's making like serious So you want to have some fun Yeah I think he wanted to like Yeah Let me right

[00:30:12] Let me shake out the sillies And I was like going through your reading And then next year is because it gets Right Jack is back Which was as good as it ever got Sure For America But I was going back and reading like That was it

[00:30:23] No you don't agree It's an interesting theory Yeah Hear me out on this one Pre-white water You know it was a different time It was an innocent time White water Pre-white water That was the best it ever got That was when everything turned The innocence died White water

[00:30:38] America was 100% innocent Until white water We're really getting white water Yes Okay Okay What are you going to say No I was going back and reading So much press for when this movie came out Because it was hyped up as like

[00:30:50] This is one of the big movies of the year Warner Brothers has let Tim Burton Make a like 80 million dollar Star driven Sci-fi action movie Right Yeah And especially Right And it's based on Topps trading cards Which box office guarantee In a time where people didn't

[00:31:08] Cravenly make movies off of every Non-narrated piece of IP It's true right now Warner Brothers is like Remember those trading cards It's like five movies we're going to do Doesn't it even say Like there's a weird It's worded weirdly in the opening credit Yes It says tops

[00:31:23] It says tops Inspired by the trading card line Created by I think it's like it says property I swear It might say property It might It might be in there I know the Transformers movies Have that where they go Inspired by the toy line Manufactured by Hasbro

[00:31:40] Which is always so You got to give it up to the Manufacturers You gotta But yes Here's the weird incubation of this movie This Trading card line I think was sort of a formative thing For a lot of people of that generation Because it was really upsetting

[00:31:57] Because the iconography was really upsetting And a lot of the creepiest imagery In this movie How old is that? It's like that 70s Let me look it up You can find them online and read them all There were only so many of them They're beautiful They're cool

[00:32:12] It's essentially a story told in trading cards Yeah, it's like Martian's attack Here's what they do It's not a really strong narrative It doesn't have human protect I don't want to burst anyone's bubble here 1962 Wow But you know, they're cool They're cool

[00:32:26] The design of the Martians is incredible And you have your sort of generic ones like this But things like the burning cows That come straight from the cards And I think a lot of people grew up with them Had these images burn in their mind

[00:32:39] Of like these were really upsetting That is upsetting For trading cards They were eventually like Like a lot of people were like Trading cards They were eventually like Tops recalled them because they were like too gross Right And it predated sort of wacky packages

[00:32:54] And garbage pill kids and all those things That then became bigger in the age And they were not supposed to be funny They were supposed to be kind of cool Right They're cool It was like a comic book in card form Exactly And like Martians are creepy

[00:33:07] They're big brain skeleton things The character design is so good It is It's perfect But I think it was You know, they're sort of riffing off The 60s B sci-fi movies of the time But because it wasn't a movie

[00:33:20] And they didn't have to like abide by the MPAA They got really intense the cards You know, so I think people had these Sort of like burned into their brain Nightmare images of it In the 80s Alex Cox Tries to make a movie of this

[00:33:33] Like post repo man Coming off repo man Really? Yeah, Sid and Nancy He's like I've wanted to make A Mars attacks movie Here you go It's based upon Mars attacks A property of the tops company Here you go And everyone's like Yeah That's when the theater

[00:33:49] I just wore a set That is screening just for lawyers Well described That is one of those things I guarantee you The lawyer for tops turned his wife In the premiere He was like that was my work We spent seven months On the wording of the title card

[00:34:06] No one could agree Yeah, boy Yeah, so Alex Cox tried to make it I think you're right With that point is like a pretty like Sort of like subversive transgressive filmmaker Isn't trying to make like a big studio Like But he I think has like

[00:34:21] You know has been haunted by these cards for a while He tries to make it for a while He can't crack the script They bring in Martin Amos Famed British Novelist No, British British Novelist British Hello Do you want Should I say this

[00:34:34] He went to the same school that I went to I just literally should I don't know what to tell you He actually did So did his dad Kingsley Amos So to switch back So Because at that point it's set up at Orion That's right Which makes sense

[00:34:53] And they're like We're not gonna make a fucking Mars attacks movie This is like Sonic cause What were we thinking Jesus They give up the rights Now two weird things happened One is that When Jurassic Park The The manuscript Starts circling around Hollywood

[00:35:08] The thing has been published yet But he's with What's his name Mr. CAA Michael Iver No King of Avens Ovitz Ovitz, right Cause Ovitz represented Crichton Sherman Crichton Crichton who was so prolific Had like writer's block for three years And Ovitz was like

[00:35:27] He's working on something really big It's taking a while But it's gonna be worth it It's about a sphere So he was hyping it up for so long And then Crichton called him up one day And was like I finally conquered writer's block

[00:35:37] Here's the premise they make dinosaurs And he was like I can sell this tomorrow to everybody And Crichton then like wrote it in a week And they immediately went to studios And they were like Here you go Here's your blockbuster So they got into a competitive bidding war

[00:35:50] Where every studio had their like Top in-house filmmaker Presented as their option to make it And Warner Brothers was like We can get Tim Burton to do Jurassic Park Warner Brothers was universal with Spielberg And someone else had Zemeckis, right? Right

[00:36:03] And I think maybe Joe Dante was in the mix somewhere And when Spielberg was interested All the other directors were like Fuck, I'm not even gonna try to keep it But Burton got kind of the idea Into the idea of doing a dinosaur movie

[00:36:13] Yeah, like a sci-fi B movie with dinos And there was another Top's trading card series At the same time called Dinosaur's Attack Similar to Mars Attack, I believe So I think Jonathan Jems Who had not gotten a produced credit On a Burton film

[00:36:27] But was a guy who was rewriting a lot of Burton's movies Had written Beetlejuice Girls Hawaiian, the unproduced Beetlejuice sequel That's right Came to him and was like Look, Orion Sony just gave this thing up It's in turn around Here's the property They also have a dinosaur thing

[00:36:43] This is your chance to make a dinosaur movie I have a real take on how to do Mars Attack We take this iconography, the imagery of the cards And we put it through the prism Of like an Erwin Allen disaster movie Right It's towering Inferno It's airport It's...

[00:36:57] Here's an ensemble cast of great movie stars Satellite Plot lines Everyone reacting to this disaster And they set it up as like We're gonna do two of these We're gonna do a dinosaur movie And we're gonna do Mars Attack And very quickly, Jurassic Park becomes such a monolith

[00:37:11] That's like, I shouldn't even try to touch this Let's just do the Mars Attack movie So Jonathan Jems writes a script And Warner Brothers budgets it at $260 million It had 60 primary characters And took place in 12 cities So it was like shortcuts basically

[00:37:28] Right, but shortcuts where every scene costs $40 million Wow Was that just them saying like We could never make this Like it would cost this much money I think he wrote... Right, they were just like This is impossible So Warner Brothers is very committed to doing it

[00:37:43] Tim Burton is pretty much set up at Warner Brothers At that point he occasionally makes a movie somewhere else He goes off to do Ed Wood And he's like, look, I'm into doing this I'd love to do it after Ed Wood

[00:37:52] Because I'm gonna be studying all the movies of that era That I'd sort of be referencing Right, give me a movie... Trink this thing down By the time I'm done with Ed Wood To come back, I'm ready to make this thing

[00:38:01] But so the thing's been development for a while They bring on Schalaxander, Larry Kosuzki They rewrite it Everyone comes back, Jonathan Jems It's like I wrote like 60 drafts of it It kept on being like shrink it down Trink it down, shrink it down

[00:38:14] They finally get it to like $100 million And the final cost is that he wants to do All the Martian stop motion Which would have cost a ton of money Because of the time it would have taken To do that many characters Because they're person-sized

[00:38:28] It would be a nightmare And he's like, I like stop motion I like the handmade feel Retro I mean, probably it would have been pretty cool Right, and one of these like famous last words They were like Tim Burton How about you meet CGI? Right, welcome

[00:38:42] One day you could make some peculiar children with it Perhaps or a dark shadow You barely have to use humans at all You barely have to show up It's like genuinely like introducing Like Kurt Cobain, D'Cordign Love I guess this is okay CGI

[00:39:01] But that cuts the budget down to 80 Which is still incredibly high They get all these big stars attached Because everyone wants to work with Tim Burton And they finally go and start working on this movie Unaware of the fact that independence day

[00:39:13] Is being set up at the exact same time So they think, oh we're doing a sort of throwback parody To this type of movie We're combining 60 sci-fi movies And we're combining 70s disaster movies And those are the two reference points It's a big broad star driven comedy

[00:39:28] And at the same time They're making a super earnest attempt To modernize that type of film So everyone can take it at face value again It's like now the special effects are amazing And it's patriotic And you believe in the heroism of humanity

[00:39:42] And it comes out like four months before this And it fucks this movie No, it does Really? It comes out four months before, right? It was July and October No, this movie comes out in December It was supposed to come out earlier

[00:39:56] It was scheduled as a summer movie But it took too long The effects The effects took too long So they push it to Christmas Which is a horrible time to release the movie like this Like it should be coming out in like January or March

[00:40:08] Or something, you know, it's a silly movie And everyone wrote it off as like Oh, it's like an insincere snarky parody Of Independence Day A movie that was made in a vacuum from this show Sure But it is crazy to watch this and think

[00:40:20] This is not responding to Independence Day In any way, this is its own thing Came out the same year Yeah, it was a huge flop Wow Yeah Yeah, they spent $80 million Can you make all of my money? $20 million to promote it It did 37 in the US

[00:40:34] It did weirdly well overseas And I feel like it has a better reputation now But all the critics just like fucking butchered it And they were like, I don't get it What's the joke? He's just making fun of everything Sure What's there to grab on to? Right

[00:40:46] I don't know But I think it's a movie that's about like, you know I think there's so many things I latch onto this film where I'm like That actually feels like the keenest sort of projection of how society would respond to this thing Yeah

[00:41:04] I mean, even I find the end pretty touching not to skip all the way but when Taffy is handing out the Congressional Metals of Honor And it's like the monuments are broken Right And they have a mariachi band playing the national anthem and this idea of like

[00:41:19] I guess we kind of got to keep up appearances Right Like it feels like this is how society would react And the fact that Lucas Haase's speech is so terrible The worst Maybe we should go back to T-Piece

[00:41:31] Yeah, a guy who never in his life would be called upon to give a speech to give a speech and it's like I don't know, I gotta say something profound Like yes T-Piece You compare this movie to Independence Day We have to rebuild like our houses and stuff

[00:41:45] Not society Right Independence Day is about like ordinary Americans rising to the occasion Yeah And this movie, everyone who rises to the occasion is like Who me? Yeah Can I share with you my big grievance with Independence Day

[00:41:59] Which I get this out as many times as I can Please So you have Randy Quaid's character Sure He flies the crop duster Right And so when they are looking for you know volunteers to fly planes to combat the aliens which we have established the aliens

[00:42:17] at this point mean us harm Right They have destroyed They keep blowing up cities They keep blowing up a bunch of recognizable landmarks I think by the way I never get tired of I love that I don't know why that's so enjoyable What's it gonna be? Yeah

[00:42:32] Whoever did that first was really onto something Because they knew like people will like this A famous thing that everyone knows being destroyed King Kong, right? People will like this Maybe it's like him on the Empire Symphony Yeah It's right over there So okay

[00:42:49] So Randy Quaid is volunteering to help you know combat the aliens And so they're talking to everybody All the pilots are there They give him a big pep talk And Randy Quaid is saying Yeah, because when those aliens abducted me and they probe to me

[00:43:04] and all that stuff like I can't wait to get my revenge on them or whatever Right And everyone around him is like Okay Weirdo It's like There lies and ruins There are aliens Why is his story unbelievable or weird? This old Alki

[00:43:21] There are aliens who mean us harm Why is this crazy? Fair point, they're not Is it just that he's Randy Quaid? Is it just like Randy Quaid's talk? Well he's not playing himself Well Because Paulie does come after that big monologue about the Hollywood Starwackers What?

[00:43:39] His line about the probing comes right after his monologue about the Hollywood Starwackers He does do 10 minutes on that Right And then he records a sex tape wearing a Rupert Murdoch mask This is you guys This was the DVD Yeah It's not the theatrical

[00:43:53] No, they put that in Extended edition Too hot for theaters aren't rated out of control No, they're not nice to him They should be saying like Crop dusters and fighter jets very different are you sure? Like it should just be that It should be a very reasonable questionnaire

[00:44:07] You know these things they're jet planes That is more to the point For sure And he's like the aliens probing They're like That's fine The alien blew up the city I don't doubt it These aliens are bad news I don't like the media

[00:44:21] Do you know how to fly one of these planes? I lived in New York Do you know about that? It's a flame It's just a fiery circle Have you ever seen It's online But the way they wrote and shot the movie before they were like

[00:44:35] This is too fucking much Because once they're like Does anyone here know how to fly a plane And he rides up Suddenly he like sobers up totally He's up to the occasion He's in the proper like top gear Like sort of fighter plane All that

[00:44:47] And he does his heroic move The original way they shot You can find it on YouTube Is he takes his like Old beaten up like 30 year old Bomber plane Right And he like duck tapes Like a missile to it Wait really? And he's like I'm going in

[00:45:02] Like he's essentially Like slim pickins in Like he never gets heroic He's just the ridiculous guy Who happens to solve He's the same person willing to kill himself Is that the movie has no like Sympathy form Even though It's about aliens who Destroy the earth Yeah

[00:45:18] Well they kind of Then give him the heroic mind And then there's that thing Where they go and like Your dad was a hero You know In the control room But like that character You know when there's been so much They only do it after he's dead

[00:45:29] I know They're like he's dead Anyway your dad was a hero You watched that movie And that's like such like Precision like Fucking studio filmmaking Story telling that you're like This guy's going to get redeemed in some way There's been so much time On this like drunk Butterball

[00:45:44] But that's what It's so weird that Marzatek Comes out the same year because In Marzatek they cut to like A trailer park and you're like Oh this is going to be important And it's not important No and it is like They are not You know the grandma's important

[00:45:56] I also think not to get too lofty About it but I feel like This movie is kind of about like The meaningless of death Sure Like just all these deaths Are like totally random It doesn't matter how much backstory Someone's given Or how famous you are

[00:46:08] How much wind up you get For the famous you are It's just like This thing's coming for people And they're all trying to fight it Yeah And some of them get a big ending And some of them are just like collateral damage They can't accept it

[00:46:18] They're just like I know they look Like walking skeletons with big brains But they must be nice Like they have a spaceship I mean you saying that you When you were like If the joke of this movie is That they keep on trusting them I'm in

[00:46:30] The other fact The more detailed thing that They keep on just doing The sneak attack of pulling the guns out from them Right, yes They keep on doing Like Congress He literally doesn't even sort of Wraps the podium He's like It's constantly just reaching under their armpit

[00:46:47] And that great The great Pierce Brosnan line That is repeated a couple times You know that While they're more advanced So They must be peaceful Obviously they must be peaceful There's Why wouldn't they be Right We are the barbaric ones They're right Right This translation machine

[00:47:04] That everyone keeps on going to And then they end up taking it And just fucking snarkily using it To repeat We come in peace The translation Stop running They're just like shitty teenagers We are your friends It's so funny They're like The Martians in this movie

[00:47:18] Are the people that Ben Hung out with in high school Yeah Like they're just like New Jersey scumbums Ben's a ditch person from New Jersey Yeah A ditch person Yeah His first language was ditch language He's growing up in New Jersey

[00:47:30] So these are a lot like my friends Yeah Did you see this movie in person? Like did you Oh for sure Yeah Multiple times Multiple times Yeah It was a little stinker growing up I really related to the aliens You were sort of like a rude gambler type

[00:47:45] Or I'm on my way Okay Sure Did you take the witch Mars attacks character quiz? I got the aliens This movie feels like It could be like Like Ben's identity Where every character is actually just a part of his personality In his head But it's crazy

[00:48:04] When you think about it That James Bond is in this movie James Bond? The current James Bond Like right after This is like his immediate He's in the middle of being James Bond And he's like Yeah I'll be a pipe-spoking weirdo There's so many weird interesting uses

[00:48:17] Of like movie stars And their persona in this movie Like shitty at flirting Right But he like There's a balance of like Him telling certain people to play it So fucking straight Yeah And like Nicholson just going hog wild Well

[00:48:30] He's playing it more straight as the president though Like It's a very funny and kind of nuanced Like comedy performance It's one of his most likeable characters Where like when they are being You know hustled out of the White House Right And they lose Natalie Portman

[00:48:47] He actually says we lost Taffy at one point Which you don't You kind of I think what you're so used to Jack Nicholson And in this movie He asked him to give a shit You know that his daughter Has been separated from that But he actually does

[00:49:00] And it's like I don't know I was struck by that His wife does He likes his wife Yeah Trying to get him out of there Even though his wife is like Glenn Close Being like I'm gonna make fun of like the Nancy Reagan type Housewife In chief

[00:49:14] Like thing Right But Nicholson Still likes her when she's dead He said that she got smushed With a chandelier And Ben and I were saying before we were recorded How weird it is like this that like fictionalize a president. We're like, right, the stereotype for presidents

[00:49:28] forever used to be like they're very good performers. They're very good at making it seem like they care so much. Sure, sure, sure. This is, it's a Gen X movie. I mean, this is Tim Burton's a Gen XC guy, right? And this movie is quietly kind of like,

[00:49:43] it's all more shit. You know, those guys are stupid. Like, right? Like, and like all the generals are bad. Like Paul Winfield is just as dumb as Rod Steiger. That's a thing I love about this movie is like,

[00:49:54] I feel like you know, if you look at like Edward Scissorhands and this gets heightened as you get into later films where it's like there are the weird like circle-eyed like paper white pale, Tim Burton weirdos and then there are the happy suburban people

[00:50:06] and there are odds with each other. Little automatons. Right, why don't they realize everyone should be this dark and weird and haunted, right? These people pretending to be happy. But because this gets away with those like stereotypes and it depicts like 80 different types of people,

[00:50:20] the big thing I think he's getting at is just like, everyone's kind of putting on airs. Like everyone's sort of trying to make it seem like they know what they're doing and that they're happy and everyone's kind of putting on a show

[00:50:30] and the few people who come out heroically in the movie are the people who just are like naturally themselves like Taffy and Lucas Haas, Pam Grier, Jim Brown like these people who are just kind of like, I don't know, I am what I am.

[00:50:41] But even the Ben and character I think like he doesn't- She doesn't survive. Yeah, I have to guess some sympathy for her is so much about her like trying to find meaning in the universe. Can I address one thing though? I don't, for me those movies,

[00:50:54] the Tim Burton suburbia movies are not necessarily saying everyone should be more like this weirdo. It's more like this is, what I always took it as is the weird like you, if you are in a place like that and you're a little different, you might as well feel,

[00:51:13] you feel like you might as well be- Yeah, you feel like Edward Cisran is right. Right, yes. Everyone is constantly talking about how you're weird, you don't fit in and all that stuff. Right. And it's not, I never took it as,

[00:51:24] you know, hey we're supposed to be like this but it's like if you feel like this, Yes. This is how people treat you. I agree with that. I think it's just one of those things where- I knew you would, you cuck- Bada-mail. Nailed it. Nailed it. Yes, Paul.

[00:51:39] Yes, Paul. Whatever you say, Paul. No, you're right, you're right, you're right. Everyone feels like everybody's sister hand. Yes. That's correct. Jesus. I do feel like- I just did not expect that. You had that one locked and loaded all up, I saw you had your trigger finger.

[00:52:00] I did, I was ready. It's like when will it be my opening? Yeah. When are I just going to poem this new- Send him away in the ambulance? No, I think it's just that it gets reduced to people feeling like, when the divide is that stark,

[00:52:17] when he's dealing with such extreme stereotypes of like, there are only two types of people. Happy suburban people and haunted ghost children. Right, I totally understand. That it can be misinterpreted as that's the message. And then when you get to some of the later films

[00:52:28] where there isn't really a message behind it, in lack of any sort of social commentary, that's what it feels like it's like- Dark Shadows is the shittier version where he's just going like, this weird vampire family's normal and everyone else is shitty.

[00:52:42] Which is like, hey, that was the monsters. Right, right. We've seen the Addams family 10 minutes. I thought it was a strange choice with Dark Shadows to make it a straight up comedy. Right. But kind of, like we re-watched it recently

[00:52:55] and it's like, it works well when it's just a straight up comedy, which was a weird choice. Yeah. But just going like, it's a fish out of water comedy. He's an old school vampire. He doesn't know how things work. It works fine. I guess not like, outstanding.

[00:53:06] It's tough with a movie like that where if you have in your head an idea of what it could be, what it could have been or what you expected it to be. Yes. Like I knew it was going to be a comedy when I saw it,

[00:53:18] but I kept thinking because the, I had never seen the original Dark Shadows, but I'd read a bunch about it for whatever reason. It was another Mars attacks like object that people sort of obsessed over. It's such a strange thing. It is.

[00:53:32] And I kind of, I guess I couldn't get past the idea of wanting to see a dramatic movie, you know, that you know, actually so be it. More in the dramatic vein of Tim Burton. Yeah. And what that would have been. Which he could have done.

[00:53:45] Which he could have done. Yeah. And maybe I don't know who convinced him like, wow, now you got to keep it Adam's family. Yes. It might have been as I mean, like I get the instinct to make it a comedy because it's just soap opera. It's, you know,

[00:53:56] we were also saying like, you know, especially in a pre what we do in the shadows era where they hadn't been done yet. Yeah. You almost feel like start from scratch. Yeah. Don't use this property that has a really tangled mythology and just go the premises.

[00:54:08] Johnny Depp wakes up 400 years later. Yeah. Maybe don't use the right. I don't know. Yeah, that's another thing. The premises, someone wakes up from a coffin. He doesn't understand our modern ways and it's like, you know, no Swarovic to in like suburbia.

[00:54:21] That's like a good high concept premise. He's a weirdly formal vampire. I know we'll talk about this for its own two hour episode. The touch is just weird. But I mean, it is like this where like the tops trading card

[00:54:33] frickin Mars attacks thing was like people would look at him be like, who let them make this? Yes. This is too weird. This never gets past the net usually. Right. And like that's what dark like they were just letting them do it like because they were like,

[00:54:43] whatever it's three o'clock in the afternoon. I don't care what you do. Like just make sure you fill the time like Warner Brothers had the confidence of like this is a four quadrant slam dunk right? Like they made this movie. Sure.

[00:54:54] Because especially because Burton's weird shit had become so big where they're like the director of Beetlejuice doing a sci-fi movie like everyone's going to love that. Yeah. And then people were just like, no fuck you. We're going to talk about the box office later, but like, you know,

[00:55:08] it came out of Christmas. No one wants to see this Christmas. I saw this film. And they also didn't want to be embarrassed for liking Independence Day. Sure. Maybe that's part of it. Right? Like there's been this switch flipped. No one wanted to admit like,

[00:55:19] oh, he was kind of dumb. Yeah. But I was into it when he gave the big speech and then Randy Quaid. There was famously that year Time Magazine did a cover story that was just the weird bio exoskeleton Independence Day suit. Sure. Right.

[00:55:34] And it just said sci-fi is back. And they were like after years of it being a story. It was the cover story. And it was this big narrative of like sci-fi used to be for fucking nerds. And now it's cool and mainstream again. Cool.

[00:55:46] And you got like strong guys like it. But like X files is like, you know, humongous independence day was huge. Yeah. And then you go the next year, the Star Wars movies get re-released men in black comes out like it's this run of sci-fi becoming very yes.

[00:56:00] You want to look aliens have landed. But this the subtitle is sci-fi makes a comeback. You know, you're correct. It's not even a good. They don't it doesn't look good. I don't know why he's in like a forest. I don't know why the background is green. Yeah.

[00:56:13] It's not like we're like independence day famously set in a forest. It's also never went away. No, no, no. They never stopped making sci-fi movie. No, it's very hard. Hollywood pressed a button. Yeah. No more sci-fi. But it was like they sort of acted like,

[00:56:26] okay, this is the dominant genre now. Like the way we all treat Marvel movies. And I think it was too soon to like, because then independence day comes out in July. Sure. This comes out in December. And then the following July men in black comes out. Yeah. Right.

[00:56:39] And by that point everyone's like, we're ready to have the piss. But I'm a kid and I'm like, I want him in black because I was like, where is my major sci-fi summer movie? Like I want that aliens and goop and guns. Like I give it to me.

[00:56:52] I mean, I was the same guy who did the serious alien movie a year before where I saw this movie in theaters and like I didn't like that the nice general who has like a phone call with his wife

[00:57:05] like going to meet the aliens and he's like happy about it and I don't get when I'm 10 that that phone call he sounds like kind of, you know, sounds a little silly. He's like, see, I just, I didn't ask any questions that I got this job.

[00:57:16] And then he gets shot and turned into a skeleton. Right. And the movie's like yelling at you like life is a joke. Everything is meaningless. Just try to survive. Like this is horrible. Everyone's a bullshit artist and we're all going to die. What was the nice alien movie?

[00:57:30] The nice alien movie? Starman. Kaku. E.T.? No, no, no, you said he made the nice alien movie the year before. Oh, Will Smith. I was saying between Men in Black and Independence Day. Oh, okay. That like he's the same guy who gave you the nice

[00:57:44] alien movie is now taking a piss out of it. Right. And that movie isn't as sort of like. Fabio's an alien. Yes. Right. And that movie isn't a cynical, you know? Yeah. The threat of danger is never as high.

[00:57:57] But like Sonnenfeld at that point is very kind of analogous to Burton. He's like a less esoteric Burton. Sure. You know, it was a similar kind of like comedic sensibility. It works with Bo Welch. Yeah, yeah.

[00:58:09] I just, you know, I'm seven years old when this movie comes out. I'm a child who is like terrified of death. And if I find out that characters die in a movie, I don't want to see it. Right.

[00:58:19] And like I didn't see Lion King when that was like the biggest family film of all time because I was like, but the inciting incident that the dad dies, right? I mean, I said inciting incident. I said the inciting incident is that the dad dies.

[00:58:29] And like kids would come back to school the next year at the Timon and Pumba backpack. And I was like, don't you know that movie's about death? How well, how dare you flippantly wear a backpack where Timon is eating bugs? You know, this is not funny.

[00:58:41] Death is a serious matter. Backpack would be very skinny if it was in the shape of Timon. It wasn't the shape of Timon. It was like, it was like, it never occurred to me that the back pack was in my shape of the character.

[00:58:51] Yeah, you fucking beta cock. Hey, right? Paul Pie. Yeah. We're pawning you now, David. I'm now a jock. It's the first time poning has been said so like in the years. So hard to Paul and I are best friends and we're

[00:59:06] pawning you and we're cool and men respect us. I'm such a backpack. Yeah, you don't even know an NPC. It's all you tweeting. That is crap. All those insults fucking crack. And PC is the funniest thing in the world. It's so funny. Yeah. No, that was a thing.

[00:59:24] It's it's relatively new. It's great. Like they keep so you're basically saying like you're like the shopkeeper in that video. Yeah, exactly. You've only got four dialogue. Yeah, your program to support my narrative. Yeah. I'm the only one who has agency in this game. Yeah.

[00:59:39] You don't even realize you're not making choices. All right. It's the new version of like you sheeple. Yeah, sure. But by calling someone an NPC you're outing yourself. Major Dorcas. Big Dorcas. Dorcas Prime. The backpack for the record I think had a sort of basic

[01:00:04] like kind of thank you. It was like a leaf like a sort of flora and fauna sort of jungle pattern but then a big patch in the center that said like to Monim Pumba weed bugs or something like that. It was like yeah.

[01:00:18] And there were like bugs all the time truly. That's what I remember and I was like I cannot believe you're wearing such a morbid backpack and this kid was like Pumba he's fat. He eats bugs. What are you talking about?

[01:00:30] Wouldn't see it weird conversation was terrified this movie because I knew it was going to be filled with death. Sure. I didn't like any movie that has these sorts of stakes in them. I didn't like any sort of invasion movie or anything like this.

[01:00:41] I was like it's a comedy is Tim Burton. He's like a cartoon guy. Sure. And this guy calls me up on the phone. Dead friend describes all the death scenes to me and I remember sitting there watching it and I like loved

[01:00:52] it was so on its wavelength comedically and started to get like thrilled by how much it scared me. Like it felt like. Wow. Roller coaster or something. Yeah. It was like you're kind of white knuckling. All this is upsetting like any story that had like

[01:01:04] Frankenstein elements anything supernatural anything where people were dying and the shit like Pierce Brosnan's decapitated head. That's pretty weird not just that but he surrounded by his own organs. The fact that he's the neck is still dripping blood even though it's kind of a.

[01:01:21] It's kind of weird that he can have a. But like the visible stitching on like the weird Sarah Jessica Parker dog hybrid like this was the movie where I was sort of like I'm kind of learning to own everything that scares me.

[01:01:35] What was was that a reference to the cards because no it that's not in the car. It does not need to be in the movie at all. So it's so weird. It's so crazy and just for crazy there are certain

[01:01:47] things like the burning cows like that are right out of the cards like a big sort of robot. They're in but no no no point to the fashion TV. That was the moment when my dad's friend Ira speaking

[01:02:01] to me on the phone describes that and I go well fuck it this sounds scary but I need to see this where he's like and at the end the two decapitated heads kiss as they're sinking into the bottom of the ocean and I'm like fuck it.

[01:02:12] I can't imagine what that looks like. How can you be not on board with a movie that features that scene again right? You know what I mean? That killed me that has a rolling back and forth and they eventually kiss. I'm like yes this is hilarious.

[01:02:28] It's a very good mockery of that like Titanic ship is going down and great. It's so good. And I so good. I think there is a weird artistness like he takes it very seriously. They're very cute kind of rooting for them.

[01:02:43] I was flirting with you and I hoped that you would like it. She's kind of good at her job. She's sort of scooping her dumb boyfriend with his newspaper like Michael J Fox is an asshole because he doesn't see that she's good at what she does

[01:03:00] because it's not quote unquote serious. In fact, the Pierce Brosnan is like the chief of science for the United States of America. This might be like a nanny British man and also he's stupid. I mean I love the guy but he really thinks

[01:03:14] these merchants are on the level. He also sees like game recognized game. You're very good at your job. Sure. Yeah. Here's like a big difference between like the way this film was marketed in America and the way it was marketed overseas where it does significantly

[01:03:28] better is the poster here is just all the weird alien brightens right and the one Martian's poking up and it's got all the names and it says nice planet will take it. I think people don't know what to make of this

[01:03:38] right and then the European poster where it did really well. They were just like here's all the weird imagery. It's Sarah Parker's head on dog. It's the spy girl. Wow. That's a much better post and it did well there and it was like here's the Gonzo like fucking

[01:03:53] like insane throw it at I don't know how you don't include that Sarah Jessica Parker will be on top of a Chihuahua like that or like that's you should put that in your post. That gets you in the theater going to do that

[01:04:04] right like you're to spend the money. Yeah, they actually did it of course as we all know of course yes put her on a Chihuahua. They took her off right. So you know and Sir Jessica Parker was a local hire and they made her pay for the operation.

[01:04:16] That's right. Yeah, but she did get some money back because he was dry ice a couple times. That's correct. And then the Lisa Marie thing right. Yeah, weird creature right and that's like right apex timber and we're like he's like Lisa Marie is his weirdly silent girlfriend who

[01:04:32] appears in like nonverbal roles and all of his movies other than Ed Wood where she just speaks in a flat like sarcastic monotone. She's like this weird piece of art dressing in his films and then she's always on the red

[01:04:43] carpet with him and like these insane proto lady Gaga outfits. Right, I've always liked her. I always have to always like she seems really cool. Yeah, yeah, she seems very cool. Also apparently Rebecca Broussard who was Nicholson's girlfriend plays one of the hookers. Yes, yes.

[01:04:59] Barbette Schroeder plays the president of France. There's so many weird cast. I know that is crazy. Yeah, everyone wanted to work with Bert. Right and then you get like Joe Don Baker who is like the original Buford Pusser walking tall like it's like all these people like

[01:05:16] Land Jones who is like one of Burton's favorite stock company character actors. Yeah, and it's right after Ed Wood was his previous which which I one of my favorites. My favorite movie. Yes, and I remember that being really especially with I think Hollywood people that

[01:05:34] movie was very resonant. I think it's the best film about filmmaking ever. Yeah, and I feel like most people I know who are in the industry go like that and Bowfinger are the two that sum it up but Bowfinger makes

[01:05:44] me kind of hate the industry and Ed Wood makes me kind of love it. Right, and also I don't know LA that well but I've always felt like a very good LA movie like just about like living in a little house

[01:05:53] in LA like you know what I mean? I think it was the first time I saw Hollywood movie because I saw it when I was whatever a teenager you know where it's like oh yeah they're not they're just they're just people

[01:06:03] they just live in little houses and cars and shit living like job to job like get to get. Exactly, I love that they're so out of place. That's certainly my favorite Burton. It's his most like humane and wonderful movie. But it was like his least successful film ever.

[01:06:16] Right, but it did really one Oscar. One Oscars but didn't work commercially. Certainly was respected for and people were like maybe like Burton's growing up like maybe this is the start of him like you know. He shouldn't be surprised that it was his least successful film.

[01:06:28] Yeah, this black and white movie about the friendship between a cross dresser and a heroin addict. A washed up mean Hungarian heroin addict. Yeah, the tagline for the movie is his films are bad. And nobody is crazy if you actually take a close

[01:06:46] look at the numbers you have to do a deep reading. It did not outgrow Batman. Right, Hollywood accountants poured over the air months. Look we're just trying to have fun. But I think that was another thing was like all the critics who kind of like you know

[01:07:05] to a certain degree Tim Burton was treated not exactly the same but I think a little bit like early Spielberg where they were like why does he keep on making these infantile movies? Right. Why is he so cut up with this genre stuff?

[01:07:15] Why is it always about the suburbs? You know like all this sort of shit. What are the suburbs duty of Tim? Right. Leave him alone. Right and like on a very, very small scale I think they were like oh they made like a black

[01:07:26] and white like kind of artsy human like adult movie. Yeah. This is sort of a Schindler's list. Like what's he gonna be like now? And then he makes like his most insane cartoon. It's true. It is a funny reaction to Edward. Yeah.

[01:07:41] I mean it's hard to talk about the plot of this movie because it is so fractured but I do think of films with sort of ensemble, satellite storytelling like this. It is one of the most balanced. Like I feel like this film is very well structured

[01:07:53] in terms of even like the people who don't appear for 40 minutes you feel like you're keeping abreast of all the threads. Everyone feels very well characterized. It takes a good half hour before the Martians start killing everyone so it's like you know

[01:08:06] by that point you've been introduced to everyone. They're very easy to get to know. And really good efficient characterization. The performances are really good but you get all the little details of like everyone's sort of behavioral quirks. Yeah. I mean just like watching everyone watch the first televised

[01:08:24] speech by the Martians. Did the international sign of the donut. That's the funniest sign in the movie. That kills me. The other one I like is when Lucas Haas is later with his coworker at the donut shop and he goes why are they doing this?

[01:08:35] Because maybe they don't like humans. It's also good. And she's still like that delivery is perfect because it's like this might be an idea. I don't know. I'm not saying this is what I think. I'm saying that this is a possibility.

[01:08:53] They do keep mowing us down like yeah. This movie is just like he's so in control of like the sense of comedic contrast. And there are also so many like incredibly funny edits in this movie. Oh yeah. Like these perfect like I mean where you see his animation

[01:09:11] background coming in of like this is the exact timing to cut to this reaction shot of this face. Where like you're watching General Casey with the dove and everyone and then it turning to chaos on TV and the first cut back to Nicholson.

[01:09:23] And they're like watching on the couch with like their TV dinner trays. And the animation is really funny. It's really funny. It's really funny. It's 22 years old. It looks pretty amazing. It looks great. It looks great. And it's end I feel like it's aged into the equivalent

[01:09:41] of stop motion. You know what I mean? Like the way they move when they're carrying people up the little ramp to the spaceship. But their reactions to things when Nicholson does that speech and the alien gets choked up and everything.

[01:09:57] It's like every it's tiny little details that are so well rendered. The performance is really good. That's the other places animation background comes in as a real strong suit. I really get when they're in the ship being goofy too

[01:10:09] and they're kind of like you know one of them is banging on a console or they're like laughing around. That's also the ultimate joke of the movie is the humans still can't figure out how to read them and we're all like we got these guys figured out.

[01:10:18] Like as an audience I understand them behaviorally. They are malevolent children. And all the weird rules that are like sort of established of their lives visually of like okay on the ship they all walk around in speedos. Then this weird like sort of factory press machine

[01:10:37] that gets on the suits. All their communications, their ticker tape machine looks like a roll of condoms. They look like a roll of condoms. They're horny too. They're really horny. They like these sort of experiments just for kicks. Everything's just for goofs for them.

[01:10:53] Things like the little factory thing or the weird balloon that sucks up the nuclear bomb. There's like pure loony tunes that's like Chuck Jones. And then like the whole fucking Lisa Marie section is just like such good physical comedy.

[01:11:06] That is the best part because I like that their idea of walking is that that's sort of weird swaying hand motion. Right, but then there'll be that bit where like he looks away then she turns into like... She creeps.

[01:11:17] Like Elmer Fudd puts it like her hands come up like claws and the second he looks over she's like back into elegant. This movie is so bizarre. It's so weird. It's like oxygen chewing gum, the fact that her purse is clearly shaped like a ray gun.

[01:11:33] Like all that stuff that I just found so fucking funny as a child and like demystified death for me in its own weird way where I was just like I moved from like being like terrified by the specter of like I will die 80 years from now.

[01:11:46] Like I wake my parents up in the middle of the night and be like but you're telling me in like six decades I'll be dead. Oh no. And they'd be like don't worry about it. They'd be like you're worried about this shit. Like seriously, I'm worried about this.

[01:12:00] And this movie for the first time I was just like I don't know what are you going to do? It's all meaningless. That's fantastic. It like shifted my entire world view this film. Wow. Yeah, truly. That's amazing. This was the one where I stopped having like death nightmares

[01:12:13] and I was like what are you going to do about it? Glad I was here. And you learned about Tom Jones. Right? I was introduced to Tom Jones through this movie. Huge for me. I referred to him as my favorite musician for a year after this film.

[01:12:24] I made my parents buy Tom Jones albums. Oh my God. Like no cultural context. I didn't get who he was. The last shot of the movie is him singing to a bunch of animals. Thought it was the funniest thing in the world. The last shot.

[01:12:36] I was wondering if he was going to sing. It stops right before he sings. Right, right. It's him sort of gathering the animals around him. I love that they made him so noble that he runs off stage and then he's telling everyone else to leave.

[01:12:47] Like you have to get out of here. Instead of just running over himself. Tom Jones. Where is like why is Tom Jones a... Is he like a punchline at this point? Is that why they're doing it? He's just like a Vegas guy.

[01:13:01] I think it was because of Vegas. Yeah, I think it was because of Vegas. But also like Jonathan Jem said that like Tim Burton really... And a good get too. A good get. Yeah. A good great. Jem said that Tim Burton really like co-wrote this movie

[01:13:11] and didn't ask for credit. And I think he was a little more hands on in the script. Actually at the type where he has in some of his other films. And a lot of those influences feel like, well these are the guys he grew up watching.

[01:13:21] Like he watched a ton of like Pam Grier, Jim Brown movies. And that's why I put him in the film... Right, Pam Grier is so much fun in this movie. Right, and have them sort of playing... ...for Jackie Brown. Yeah, right.

[01:13:30] Like this is like the beginning of her like comeback. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Another weird thing I found in the credits that one of the little kids, one of Pam Grier's sons... Ray J. ...is Ray J. For the love of Ray J. Are you serious? Yes.

[01:13:43] The littler one than the bigger one. You can tell because half that height is penis. Get out of here. Good God. It's a lurching story. I'm sorry that you had to hear that, Paul. Oh, I mean what are you going to say? Yeah, no, you're right.

[01:13:55] Of course it's Ray J. Yes, of course. I mean look at him. There he is. Well, it never occurred to me as I was watching the movie. No, I know. Well that's Ray J. Me neither. Well yeah, you might feel a little weird being like,

[01:14:05] what is that kid like, Ray J or something? What's weird is when I saw this movie, I didn't know who Jack Nicholson was. And I was like, oh, Ray J's in this picture. Like when his name came up... This picture.

[01:14:13] And he opened the credits, I was like, oh, Ray J. He appears on Nickelodeon game shows with some frequency. Oh, see, I don't know. I didn't know Ray J until the sex tape. Like I had no idea who he was. Look, Ray J is Brandy's little brother, right?

[01:14:27] Yes, he's in Moisha. Was that the show? So all this stuff would be like after my time. Right, and then they sort of positioned him as a rapper. But sex tapes are timeless. Of course. They're for all of us. Trans-engineeration. Yeah, exactly.

[01:14:40] Like he was like, they were trying to make Ray J happen. Yeah, sure. So Brandy doing all of her stuff would be like, and here I am with my brother Ray J. It's like, I know what to do. It's not the only thing you took in a minute.

[01:14:52] All right, here we go. No, those are the people who like jumped out to me watching this film. It's like, oh, Ray J. All right. Anyone else in the... Yeah, I mean Sylvia Sidney as the grandma, just I liked seeing her because we did Beatlejuice very recently.

[01:15:08] And she rules. She's so funny in this. I like it when she's like, not that old. I bet you remember the invention of the tree. Well, because they play this bit of like, oh, she's like a scene all Lay does know what she's doing.

[01:15:20] And every time anyone treats her that way, she's like, you fucking asshole. Shut up. Yeah, Barbette from Schroeder did not notice that credit the first time. Like early Jack Black as one of the first deaths. He's funny. Yeah. That's a funny scene that, you know,

[01:15:38] when he's right, we picked up the flag. But it is, I do think it is a movie that is pointedly like, you know, poking fun at the pomp and circumstance of the White House. And like, you know, You got the Stiger character in the Paul Wainfeld character

[01:15:52] where he's like this great sort of diplomat, this band of keys and Rod Stucker's like, blow them up like the whole movie. And both of them are wrong. And your cross cutting from that to Vegas. I'm sure Burton thought that was like the perfect mirror image, right?

[01:16:04] It's just like this absurd cowboy man. And he wanted, you know, that big thing they blow up. That's a real demolition. Oh, that's real hotel. That was a real hotel in Vegas, like some weird old hotel that Burton, I guess, thought was so terrific because it looks

[01:16:19] like a space needle. Yeah. And they were going to blow it up anyway. And he was like, we got to put that in March attacks. I know. I just love the first time he's like on the phone when he is seeing out of his like peripheral vision that

[01:16:31] aliens are being announced on television. He's just coincidentally been developing this hotel. And the guy just immediately goes like, well, this is going to be a big boom for business. Right. Like aliens are invading. Like you see the hotel get finished as the movie goes on.

[01:16:44] And it doesn't go on for very long in terms of the timeline, but that he's still in like the investor meeting with like these Saudi Arabian princes. Exactly. They're like, oh, it's always funny. Look behind you is always funny. Right.

[01:16:57] Like it's just like, you know, a net bending is going like this is the message that like the universe is trying to tell us something. Jack Nelson's like, this is going to be huge for business. And I'm just seeing as like this is like the thing that

[01:17:06] makes me a great canonical. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's got to be the speech has got to be real good. Right. And the only people who come out of it looking heroic are the people who just like look after one person, you know,

[01:17:15] like Jim Brown's trying to get back to his kids. Lucas Haas is trying to take care of his grandmother. Yeah. I mean, I remember the reveal of Jim Brown at the end of the film was like fucking pumping fists. Absolutely.

[01:17:27] Like the most excited I ever been in a movie theater. Was anyone else excited in the movie theater? I remember the theater cheering and my dad was like, that's one of the great moments in film. We would talk about it all the time.

[01:17:38] Yeah, yeah, he was like, he's quite a marker to throw down. I think the line my dad said was it doesn't get better than that. He would like describe it to people like my dad's friends at Covert Dinner and he'd be like, and you

[01:17:51] think Jim Brown's dead and the planes flying over head. We got it. I mean, this is not the first time a movie ever did that visual language of that sequencing shots where it's like, OK, you see them pushing the Martians out of their apartment.

[01:18:04] He's got the Faro outfit on. Yeah. Right. No, but first you see like Ray J and Pam Grieher and the other boy who's young Michael Jordan from Space Jam is weirdly an actor we've covered like four times on this podcast.

[01:18:17] There's another movie he's in, but you see them pushing the aliens out. Then the camera pulls back to see like, oh, the entire half of the building is gone and now they're dealing with a wreckage, which is a kind of a fun reveal.

[01:18:27] And then that fucking like fist pumping moment of like Egyptian sandal comes down, squishes the brain. I mean, it's like watching your son score goal in soccer. That's what it feels like. It was the only two things my dad ever talked about.

[01:18:39] I was so proud of you and I was so proud of Jim Brown. See him do a play and remember all their lines. Nope. No. Not like that. Right. And I said to my dad, I was like, he's an athlete and you liked him doing some acting.

[01:18:51] He was like, I'm a griffin. He was a good actor. Is there anything else you want to talk about about some of this movie? I really enjoyed an up-bending in this movie. Yeah, I've never seen her. She's so rarely a high comedy. Yeah.

[01:19:02] I've never seen her do a character like that before. Like a character character. You know? It was, I loved the voice that she was doing and it was, it was fun. It was really fun to watch. And she's sort of like, I like all the sort

[01:19:12] of broken people being set up. I mean, they do such a nice setup of Jim Brown with like him needing the money, the divorce. He hasn't fully accepted. Turning down the Jack Nicholson offer to be like a shakedown artist, like muscle guy, implying that he'd done it before.

[01:19:28] Right. And then just all the little pieces of Yannette Benning of like, she's in this awful marriage. She kind of loves the luxury of it. She likes gambling. She's recovering alcoholic. She falls straight to me. Yeah, she was over for three months.

[01:19:42] That was such a crazy detail to me. Like, because when we first see her, she's like, do you have to drink in front of me? To find out she's only, it's only three months in and all this shit happens.

[01:19:52] But the Tahoe thing when Jim Brown's like, can we go DC? And she's like, no, why DC? Tahoe. They're a cute little team. She never really done a comedy before. She was supposed to be Catwoman. And then she got pregnant with their first child. That's right.

[01:20:08] She dropped out very late in the game. And that's when Sean Young made her like aggressive. Her famous video. Right. But I think she'd wanted to work with Bert. I mean, all these actors like love working with him. Sean Young would have been a good Catwoman.

[01:20:23] I think she would have done a good job. Well, she was supposed to be Vicki Vale. She had an injury for back riding. Right. And then was forced to drop out. And then she felt like that was, I missed the window.

[01:20:36] I need to get back into Batman some half. Right. Here's what I know. I got to be in a Batman movie. That's where it all went. Look, I need that sense of completion. They're only going to make like two of these. I have very limited opportunities.

[01:20:50] Never making one of these fucking things. He's returning. That's it. They got one actor playing Batman when he's done the whole franchise is going to be over. The second Keaton walks, they're closing the book. All right. So Griffin with the box office game. We've done this box office.

[01:21:06] So Paul, the box office, Griffin, he can guess. Do we have to do it? You don't seem into it. No, I'm going to explain in a second. But the box office game is I just look at the opening weekend of the movie and

[01:21:16] Griffin usually because he's a little computer boy can remember literally with the other movies in the top five word. But we've done this box office before. Okay. What else came out this week? Because it came out at the same day as Jerry Maguire. Oh, Jerry Maguire.

[01:21:36] The same day as Jerry Maguire. One movie that feels like it's tailor made for people to see during the Christmas season appropriately scheduled. Okay. So but we could do the next week. I don't know. That's all I got for you. Let's do this weekend.

[01:21:50] It's been a little while. Yeah, it's been a while. All right. So number one, Sierra Maguire gave it away. Okay. Number two, 17 million dollars, which was like genuinely a huge opening at that time. Sure. For a two and a half hour romantic drama about a sports agent.

[01:22:03] That's a contract negotiation. Rated R. Yeah. In a pre ballers era. Exactly. They had no idea what was on the horizon. What are they going to start the BCU? Because we know when Walberg makes a TV show, it's really just a

[01:22:21] set up for the major film franchise that will come later. Is he in ballers? I'm sure he's in ballers. I'm sure he's in ballers. I'm sure. Remember when he was in entourage and like the first episode he's like, Hey, Phineas Chase, how you doing?

[01:22:33] And then it walks off and like you're like, Oh, he's passing. I weirdly watching. I give this my blessing. Yes. I weirdly watched him doing an interview. I forget what movie it was promoting, but they had just gotten the green light on the entourage film. Okay.

[01:22:48] Because it was some clip that someone was recirculating of him talking about the fake penis and boogie nights. So it still has some virality. Right. And he was like, you know, He's like, who knows if it's fake or real? No one will ever know. Right.

[01:23:01] He's trying to make it into murky and mysterious. If I'd been on that plan 9-11 with that penis. All right. I'm sorry. Go ahead. If he and Ray J were on the same flight. Right? No, that would have happened. Who just told us that they canceled their 9-11?

[01:23:18] James Sheamus told us that. James Sheamus. We interviewed James Sheamus. The screenwriter of Crouch and Tiger Hidden Dragon canceled his United 93. He used to take flight 93 all the time. Anyway. He took it once a week because he was like going back and forth between LA and New York.

[01:23:32] He teach at Columbia and he'd work in LA and he was like, I pretty much had a weekly reservation on that flight night. Jesus Christ. I remember specifically canceling. The amount of spamos who didn't get on one of those planes. It's weird. Mark Wahlberg. Mark Wahlberg's fake penis.

[01:23:47] Oh wait. Mark Wahlberg wasn't supposed to be on one of the planes, was he? He just opined that had he been. He just wanted to go. He wished he had booked the ticket. The only person who doesn't say, thank God I didn't go. The person went, Jesus Christ.

[01:24:00] I'll never forgive myself for not booking that flight. Oh boy. Also Brian from the Backstreet Boys' wife. Brian La Trove. Yes, he was supposed to be on one of them. So I'm glad that I could tell you that. I mean just think about the butterfly effect,

[01:24:16] how different our world would be. Okay. What was Mark Wahlberg saying in the video clip? No American dad. What was he saying? Help me. He was saying, now I have to actually remember. Oh, he was talking with such confidence like,

[01:24:28] it took a long time to get all the contracts lined up and I'm so happy we're finally making Yonthra's movie and I'm telling you, you're not going to have to wait that long for the second one. He's like, we're going to keep this ball in the air.

[01:24:40] Right, right. Like now that we got it, this is a full rebirth. I always wanted to be a film franchise. You wanted to make on two rods. Right, that's what he was saying. He was like, we have to make a TV show

[01:24:48] to test the concept, to show people it was viable. No one wanted to do the series. But now it's going to be a major fucking film franchise. Did anyone here see the Yonthra's movie? I did. I had to review it for my job because a film critic.

[01:25:00] I have not seen it. It's alright. I can't imagine seeing it. I read the script because I auditioned 24. Oh, that's right. Griffin auditioned for that movie. There was a brief moment where they had serious interest in me. I don't know why and I auditioned seriously

[01:25:13] for two roles in the film, the two people who got the parts I auditioned for. Of course, look at me, Paul. Who are the two other actors I'm always going up against for roles? Probably... Drift for a event. Who? Come on. Academy Award nominee, Haley Joel Osment. Yep.

[01:25:30] And Kid Cuddy. Yep. Kid Cuddy. Sometimes they went, this is a total Griffin new mineral. I saw Antwerp. I don't remember anything. Did you see it? Yeah, I did not see it. I read the script. Cover cover. What did Turtle do? He fights Rhonda Rousey. Cool.

[01:25:47] That sounds really cool. I think... I remember Haley Joel Osment is pretty funny. Kid Cuddy, I think he's just like Ari's assistant. Yes, correct. He's the new assistant. He's serious. He's just playing his... What happened to Lloyd? He gets promoted. Lloyd's like president at this point or something.

[01:26:02] I saw the first season and one episode of the second season of Entourage before I was like, why am I doing this? Right, but you still unfortunately know what it is. I know too much about it. Paul, the names of the characters. Absolutely.

[01:26:13] You know about the Murphy group? Yeah. No, and it makes sense. Paul, it makes sense that you didn't see the movie because if you'd only seen the first season and jumped to the movie, you would not understand. I would have been lost, right? The plot was so complex.

[01:26:25] The same. You know, often comes with a little bit of complication. It might be on a yacht, but then Emily Redikowski's there and you want to hit on her. Sometimes you get two job offers. Definitely something after the movie. You have to pick one. That's right.

[01:26:40] And the effect it has on the rest of your life is microscopic. I did not see the finale, the TV finale, but I heard that... I remember that it aired on 9-11 and the last shot was two planes taking off from Los Angeles for New York.

[01:26:58] Oh my God. I also... I just realized what entourage is. Entourage is a choose your own adventure book where whatever you choose, it still sends you to the same page. Yeah. Like there's no consequence for any action. Slap, Werner Herzog in the face of the picture.

[01:27:12] You win an Oscar. Oh my God. It's the same outcome as if you go on a date with Jamie King. It's the exact same thing. Number three at the box office. Number six is two. Yeah.

[01:27:24] Is a Disney live action remake before they did them three times a year. Flummer? No. 101 Dalmatians? 96. There we go. So Glenn Close. Yeah, Glenn Close is all over the box office. We get Glenn Close. That's true. Absolutely. Now that was a hit. Big hit. Yeah, puppies. Yeah.

[01:27:45] Because Martin's attacks... Martin's attacks opened above 101 Dalmatians. But 101 Dalmatians has been in theaters for three weeks. It's already been around. It's doing great. It's going to make like a hundred million dollars. It's number four, however, I believe I struggled. You struggled with this one.

[01:28:02] Wait, did 101 Dalmatians top out at 100? And what? No, 136. Oh, okay. I was going to say if it was only at 100. It's 101 in Disney's like, yank it. Take it out of theaters. This is too perfect. Got to look some money on this page. Oh boy.

[01:28:18] Number four is also a remake. It stars like a huge star and another like huge celebrity. Oh, so one of the people you would say is not an actor? Not an actor first and foremost. It's a remake. It is a remake. It's a family movie. A huge celebrity.

[01:28:36] Were they a musician? Yes. The other person is a musician. Is it the preacher's wife? Preacher's wife. Denzel Washington. Remake of the pastor's wife? The bishop's wife. Denzel Whitney Houston. Directed by Penny Marshall? Yup. Number five is a action film, kind of a disaster movie.

[01:28:57] The big action star who's like on the wane. Seriously on the wane. Stallone? He knows immediately. He's on the wane. It's a disaster movie? It's a daybreak? Is it daybreak? You're close. Daylight? What's it called? Daylight. What was that one again? It was a tunnel.

[01:29:16] It was a tunnel, it blew up and there were like 12 people in there. It's not in the tunnel. Stallone's got to go get them. A major stage. Sly in a tunnel. It is fun to think about. 12 people. Rather than like, there's a virus, everyone dies.

[01:29:28] So it's like the whole tunnel, there's like a few people he has to go. Doesn't sound that hard to figure out, right? I think he like leaves him up on the stairs. I'm not trying to be here or anything. I've built a special. Right. A tunnel.

[01:29:43] So that's our fun. Do you think that was the entire pitch was just Sly in a tunnel? I don't know. I saw them at theaters. What are trying to get out of something? You were trying to get into something.

[01:29:53] It's also weird that it's called daylight because I get the ideas that they want to see day, like they want to get out of the tunnel. It feels a little mocking. It's like, hold your breath. Daylight. Stallone's Daylight. It sounds like a vampire movie or something.

[01:30:09] I don't know. People like trapped. Why am I asking? It's just like the cars ball up so it collapses. So they're in the tunnel. He's got to go through some big fans. There's a fan sequence. Big whirling fans.

[01:30:22] Paul, the reason why you're asking is because David of course was an executive producer on the film day. That's right. I thought it was great to have a fan sequence. I staged it in the board room and they were all into it. Was that Rob Cohen?

[01:30:34] Yeah, I think it sounds like it. Rob Cohen. Rob. I just saw a skyscraper for how did this get made? That other movie? That one with three people, not two friends. Exactly. And they're not friends. Two of them are married. I think we all know.

[01:30:52] A long walk from friendship. They might say I married my best friend but that's a lot. And that movie is mainly the rock trying to get into a building as opposed to trying to get out of it. It's die hard on the outside. Is it any good? No.

[01:31:10] It's not... It's dull, you know. There's a bunch of set pieces but it's not fun and it's not interesting. And he's not interesting. He has one leg, right? That's his bit. That's a specific thing.

[01:31:23] But it kind of doesn't come into play until the very end of the movie. You kind of... I completely forgot. They establish it and then I completely forgot about it for a long time. One other complaint I want to make about Mars attacks before we're done.

[01:31:36] Oscar nominees that year for visual effects. Oh yeah. There were three. The winner was Independence Day, sure. Big movie. Big hit. It's got aliens. You're mad about it, I agree. But like, you know, it can be in there. Another nominee is Twister. Sure. Tornadoes. Big hit.

[01:31:52] The biggest fucking movie. The third nominee was Dragonheart. Like Dennis Quaid Dragon movie. And let me tell you this. And they snubbed this for Dragonheart? The dragon and Dragonheart looked terrible. Looks awful. Wait, was it nominated or not nominated? It wasn't nominated. Mars attacks wasn't nominated. Wow.

[01:32:10] It was snubbed for, I think, Dragonheart. Yeah, that sucks. Independence Day and Twister, they're getting it. I mean, as much stock as you place in these kind of things, I think... I always feel like the technical awards mean more than the acting awards.

[01:32:25] Do you know what I mean? Like it's certainly... It's great to see when those guys win and they get up and they're on national TV. Yeah, exactly. And they never get recognition ever. Yeah. And it's also... It's like the husbands in the audience looking all happy or whatever.

[01:32:40] I think it's also, it's more provably excellent. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it's about the acting which is so subjective. You're just like, yeah, it's up to you whether... Right, right. Look at these things that they built. Shitty dragon. That's what I saw.

[01:32:52] It looks like a screen saver. It looks like a screen saver. It looks like a screen saver. It looks like a crappy dragon. Do they have green bones in this movie? Yeah, exactly. That's right. The Dragon and Dragon Heart.

[01:33:01] And I'm not just saying this because it's easy to dunk on something that's 22 years old now. We're talking about a movie that still holds up, right? Yeah. The Dragon and Dragon Heart looks like he's from like a pinball CD-ROM that comes with your gateway computer.

[01:33:12] And who directed Dragon Heart? Rob Cohen. That's right. That's why I called him that. Dragon Voice by Sean Connery. That's right. That's right. I'm a dragon. I don't know what he does. I remember him saying from the trailer, I am the last one.

[01:33:25] He's like, I think he's the last dragon. Isn't it his contract that he always has to be the last of something? Is it like Highlander or whatever? Yeah. He's like, no, no. There can be only one. There can be only one. So there's two in Highlander. You're right.

[01:33:38] Dumb with me. With drawn. Sorry. No, the effects of Dragon Heart are terrible. The effects on Mars attacks are great. And also there was like, especially the stuff where they're inside the ship. Yeah. You're like, this is 100% CGI, which is not a thing that people were doing.

[01:33:54] Yeah, that's true. It's not an integrating CGI element, a couple of CGI characters. But you have these long sequences that are like it's CGI characters in a CGI environment holding CGI props. Yeah. Like it's fully animated. It's terrific. The quantity of the thing alone should have like, yeah.

[01:34:09] Absolutely. Absolutely. Like all those scenes of the alien armies, you know, lined up in formation and everything, it's so much fun to look at. It is. It looks terrific. It's invented. Like the person turning into a skeleton. It looks like nothing you've ever seen since. Yes, yes, yes.

[01:34:27] No one ever did that effect again. And I also think a thing that no one else was able to pull off at that time period where the technology kind of wasn't there. But and part of it's the sound effects, which I think are really good in the movie.

[01:34:37] They're great. You get a real sense of texture and material in this movie. Yeah. Like you're like, I know what kind of rubber their suits are made out of. Yeah. I know the squishiness of their brains, you know? Yeah. Like the sequined sort of texture of their capes.

[01:34:50] You get a sense of like the different sort of textures there. It's very visceral for how cartoony they are. What a weird movie. I love it. It's a weird great movie. Yeah. I don't know if you do this on the show? Yeah. I highly recommend this film.

[01:35:02] Oh, I highly recommend it. I'm glad we got you to see it. Yeah, thank you. Nice to see you. Thank you. We did a service. Right. Because I saw you were doing shows in New York City. I slid near DMs. It's true. He slid.

[01:35:14] And I said, do you by any chance have any hot takes on Mars attacks? Because I knew we didn't have a guest for that one. Pulled a Jerry O'Connell. But then the risk was you said, I haven't even seen it. I'd love, I'd love. Sorry. Jesus. I apologize.

[01:35:26] He follows me on Twitter. I can slide into his DMs and see if he likes the joke. What have you slid into his DMs? They like sorry to be a Carrie War. You get that of course. And of course, Carrie War follows Ben on Twitter.

[01:35:43] So then Ben can slide into Carrie War. We can keep it on show. Sorry to be a Jonathan Reese Davies. Was that his name? Right. Yeah. Okay. Wait, is there a, no he's John Reese Davies, right? And then there's Jonathan Reese Meyers. Yes, you're right.

[01:35:58] But you know what? The drug actor. The drug actor. You know what? He is just John. He wasn't Jonathan the Reese Davies. So yeah, yeah. There we go. He wouldn't get the tattoo. The, the, uh, I know how it's done with that too. Fuck that. Not doing it.

[01:36:11] That is kind of weird. It is weird, right? Ian McKellen did it. Yeah. Everybody except him. Like the queen knighted Ian McKellen. Because very famous. And you're John Reese Davies, your most famous for being the dwarf. On salad. On salad. That's the thing.

[01:36:28] The reason why he didn't get the tattoo. He's inked off. Like his real body is solid. No room. No room. Spielberg insists. What if every other film he had done, he'd gotten a tattoo for? And he's like, I'm literally just out of real estate.

[01:36:41] Maybe the bottom of my foot. Nope. Shit. I'm just going to put my hands. Cute idea guys. Can't do that because of acting. Yeah. They have to cover up with makeup or CGI it out.

[01:36:50] You know the flip side of that story is that the, uh, the whole main cast of Suicide Squad all got matching Suicide Squad tattoos and they gave them to each other to be like, this is like a bonding exercise. And Will Smith was like, ha ha, pass.

[01:37:03] And they were all like, yeah, Will wouldn't like, they tried to present it like the John Reese Davies thing where they were like, yeah, Will wasn't really a team player. But like now Academy Award nominee Margot Robbie has a misspelled Suicide Squad tattoo.

[01:37:15] It was probably inked by Jai Courtney. Like they all did them for each other. I'm sorry. This, this is a sick name story. I've never heard this before. Paul is just looking on in astonishment. 100% true. They gave each other. They inked each other.

[01:37:30] I believe it was SKWAD and their director. Oh no. Could you at least say like make it very small? No. They're large. I mean, no because Like you're writing it on a grain of rice? Exactly. Well here's the great thing.

[01:37:44] They weren't professional tattoo artists so they definitely couldn't control. Squad. SKWAD. That was a horrible idea says Joel Kinnerman. That's a quote. Wait, is he in the movie when he plays? He plays like the guy who's like, you're Suicide Squad. You're driving me crazy. I hate it.

[01:38:03] Oh, so he's not a member of the squad? He is. He's a babysitter. He's the Emilio S. Okay, did he get one? He got one. He got one. And now agrees that it was, realizes it was a dark light.

[01:38:14] Everyone but Will Smith who's technically in the squad got one. Here's the weird thing. Will Smith gave him the tattoo. Kinnerman. So he'll give you a tattoo. That looks terrible. He just literally wrote the word SKWAD spelled wrong. No. On his arm. Why? In like regular print.

[01:38:32] I wish that that hadn't happened. I just love like Jonathan Reese-Davies being, Jonathan Reese-Davies doing the same thing. John Reese-Davies being like, I don't know, this movie's probably going to be embarrassing, right?

[01:38:43] I don't want to have Lord of the Rings on my body for the rest of time. It doesn't matter if I agree to do three back to back. I can't believe it. My whole life is going to be this.

[01:38:50] 17 years later, the entire cast of Suicide Squad at like a Hilton in like Toronto is like, we're going to want to remember this forever, right? Oh no. I'm trying to find who did others but I can't. That's really astonishing and upsetting.

[01:39:04] It's really bad too and they all like tell the stories about like, we were drinking tequila and we're like, hey, do you know how to work that thing? Probably heard a lot. The penmanship is awful. Because like decent reputable tattoo artists will not tattoo you if you're drunk.

[01:39:17] Correct. That's what I've heard. Yes. They'll say go home and think about this when you're sober. Yeah, they don't want to deal with you tomorrow being like, what the fuck is this? Like they don't want to handle that.

[01:39:25] I just love Will Smith being like, this isn't my first fucking movie. Right. I've done 12 months sheets before. Whose idea do you think this was? Do you think it was Jared Leto's idea? Probably. I don't know.

[01:39:37] Maybe he was like, you know, didn't talk to anyone though and like lived in a broom closet and would only like scream in Esperanto. I think David Ayer recommended it as a bonding exercise. His whole thing is like, you got to be in a cage together.

[01:39:48] You got to like, like, you know, I would just love it if it was like Adam Beach's idea. If it was like some guy who's in the movie for five minutes, he was like, no we've got to do it.

[01:39:57] You're just saying names of people you went to school with. I don't know who any of these people who's Adam Beach. That is vaguely familiar. He plays Slipknot. You know, Slipknot from Zuzik. Right, right he does. Master of ropes. Master of ropes. Is that his thing?

[01:40:14] He's a rope guy. He's a master of ropes in court. I'm not even trying to be comic book snobby. I've read comic books. It's like I know comics but that I love. Slipknot is one of the most beloved characters in the history of DC Comics.

[01:40:27] Here's the thing that sucks about comics, right? Is that even if you're into them, if you hear them described, it sounds like the stupidest thing in the world. This movie is so embarrassed of Slipknot that everyone gets an intro

[01:40:38] but Slipknot they're just like, and Slipknot, here he is. Slipknot you're too. Yeah, right. They literally don't even bother. The three minutes of Suicide Squad is like musical montage of everyone's case files set to like the worst things ever done. Slipknot's the only character they don't introduce.

[01:40:51] He comes in 45 minutes in, he punches a woman in the face and then dies. He has a tattoo. And then he's like, I'm going to slipknot out of here and he tries to rope away and his head explodes. He takes a bomb in his brain.

[01:41:06] Truly, he takes out like a grappling gun that uses ropes to escape and they execute a hammer. Right, like a computer hammer. That's how they control the squad. He's a plot point. I hope he got the fucking tattoo. I hope Killer Croc gave it to him or whatever.

[01:41:24] It's just like that sounds like the most committed film shoot where it's like Jared Leto sending you diseases in the mail. Yeah, fuck you dude. Jared Leto revived Sam. Did you get my rat? I'm crazy. And then it like comes out everyone's like it doesn't really make sense.

[01:41:45] The movie comes out like, it's hard to follow. Well, this is a great time to announce that Paul, of course, are directing Suicide Squad 2. That's right. Now this time, slipknot comes back. I don't want to spoil how.

[01:42:03] That seems like a spoiler but we need to see how it happens. Of course it involves ropes. He robs his way out of hell. His brain was made of ropes. So the hammer couldn't kill him. He just reforms his brain. Yeah, he just got some more ropes.

[01:42:17] He stuffed a mech in there. Uh-huh. That's it. That's your old bitch? That's my old bitch. So they were like, Fire Mel Gibson. They were like this again. Mel Gibson. Mel Gibson was in talks to direct Suicide Squad 2. They've gone through three different directors.

[01:42:35] Is that movie Do Well? Suicide Squad 1? Yeah, I did well. Did it really? It made like $800 million worldwide or whatever. But I also, I believe strongly it's one of those Fool Me Once movies. They got everyone to go see it.

[01:42:48] And they're like, but we made so much money. It's like you're not going to get them back a second time. Don't do it guys. Guys, guys. I know they've already been tattooed by Gikordi once. You're not going to get them a second time.

[01:42:58] I was so turned off by the second Matrix movie that I did not see the third one. Paul, this is... God, for you to bring that up this late in the episode. I remember being in line for the second one at the Chinese theater in Hollywood.

[01:43:08] And somebody saying a guy, a friend of mine was in line with me and said, yeah, here there's a 20 minute car chase in this movie. I was like, what? Is that a selling point? I don't want to see a 20 minute car chase.

[01:43:22] Paul, do you know that you are currently sitting across from a man who for almost 20 years has held the elected position as like 15 years. I love the Matrix sequels. I love them. You can listen to the episode. The world's biggest champion of Matrix sequels.

[01:43:38] I'm the one who explains that a certain character is actually a login screen. It's a great moment in the podcast. That's right. Now, is this a theory or this? You know the story of this. I know this. I know this. You watch this thing like once a week.

[01:43:50] What happens in the third one? Maybe I did see it. Third one's like... You get stuck in a subway station. Truly they're like, you're stuck. Yeah. The squids invade the big city and they're in these big mech suits and they're shooting the squids.

[01:44:02] Oh, I don't think I did see that. And like, Nio and Smith have a big fight there. Stuck in a subway station with a little girl who's like a bug. She's like vanilla being wrecked Ralph. The girl is two computer programs have mated and created a new program

[01:44:14] that serves no purpose. And they're like, what is this thing? He could do this all day. I fucking love the Matrix. He could do this all day. Then I have not seen that. No, that and... You're like a lot of people. That movie made way less than Reload.

[01:44:25] Right. The third Star Wars prequel I have not seen. Revenge of the Sith. Revenge of the Sith. Worst one. Is it the worst one? It is the worst one. In our opinion. Is it really? A lot of people think it's... Moly don't think that's true, but it is.

[01:44:36] And those people are wrong. Every single one of them is wrong. Wow. This is the best prequel. They get worse. Each one is worse than the last. I've almost seen it so many times and then at the last minute I'm like, I know I'm not

[01:44:46] going to like this. No, you won't like it. Attack of the Clones is a mess, but it's at least idiosyncratic. Revenge of the Sith is him doing everything he thinks he should be doing. Right. It's him tying it all up. It feels kind of like this.

[01:44:58] And he's like in scene now it all makes sense and you're like... Buddy, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Nally Portman dies of a broken heart during childbirth. She does. That's true. She does. So it was a childbirth that killed her. It was a broken heart.

[01:45:11] And there's a scene where he's... The robot doctor makes that very clear. There's a scene where he's force choking her and you're like, oh this is how it happens. This is the first time he's learned the force choke. No, no, no. He kills her.

[01:45:21] That's what sort of haunts him in his soul. Right. And it's like, no she recovered from that but her heart did not. She's losing the will to live. I didn't realize he was a domestic abuser. Yeah. That happened in that movie. Oh boy. Okay. Darth Vader.

[01:45:35] He's a jerk. Yeah. He's a big jerk. God, the alt-right's going to go after you online. We should cut that out. Everyone should listen to Spontanean Nation. Thank you. Everyone should listen to Freedom. Freedom is the best. Oh wait. Spontanean Nation is over by this point. Really?

[01:45:50] Full way over forever? Full by this... Wow. I never say forever on anything but I tend to not be the best. So you're saying the Pod F Tomcast is coming back. I've maintained that. I've been refreshing my feed for six hours.

[01:46:00] I still got the weird little iPod man with the mustache. Absolutely. But Freedom, yes. Is there going to be more Freedom? Will there be a second season of 3 Gets? Yes, there will be. We're trying to figure out now when to get together but we love doing the show.

[01:46:14] Freedom is so much fun. Thank you. It's really... It's been a joy in my life to do. Yeah. To hang out with those guys and just talk. And just talk. Yeah. And it's weird to have known, especially Scott for as long as I've known him, and

[01:46:27] still learning things. Well because it's like he doesn't get to be a regular person. That's true. But I spend a lot of time with him. I spend more time with him than podcast listeners. Yeah, but it really is like...

[01:46:38] It's a real treat and I'm glad that people have responded to it so much. It's a throwback podcast in many ways. Right. But I'm glad that people are enjoying it. It is also weird that... Wait, you don't solve any crimes? None. Not on purpose. Not on purpose.

[01:46:52] We did that. But Green River Killer has been captured. We in our first couple episodes... I'll look it up. In our first couple episodes, totally by mistake, we solved the serial murder. Yeah, we did that.

[01:47:04] And these other fools are going out about like they don't know who did it. And not in JTogether. Have you talked to the serial people? Not them directly. You should tell them. Send them a link to the episode. Yeah, that's what I'll do to Serial at NPR.

[01:47:19] I think Sir Canig's gonna do our Alice in Wonderland episode. Sure. Let's have her on. Yeah. Great flat ending for the episode. There we go. And... Seracaning joke? It's like we had to get there. We had to get to just a dead stop. It's a force water landing.

[01:47:38] We floored it within a couple times. We had a couple real high points we could have gone out on. Alright, thank you for doing the show. Thank you so much for doing it. Thank you for... Can I do a plug? Of course. Yes, order away.

[01:47:50] Is the date you told me? Is that a real date? February of 2019. I can give you the exact date if you want to. I hope you're gonna plug my birthday. I hope your plug is my birthday. No, February 10th. Surprise is ruined?

[01:48:01] It's like a week away from my birthday. Don't forget that in one week's time, Griffin celebrates another year on planet Earth. And you can come see at the Vancouver Just for Laughs Festival. Sure. I will be doing another two-man improv show with Mark Evan Jackson.

[01:48:21] Mr. Jackson and Mr. Tompkins. We did it. This will be our third time doing it. Wow. This will be our third time doing it. We did it the first time in Toronto last year, and then we just did it in Detroit in January.

[01:48:34] And now we're going back to Canada, Vancouver. That is happening. I know when it's happening. We all know when it's happening. I'm not looking it up. We all know. I'm building the suspense by letting you know exactly the date. Don't you want to know?

[01:48:49] Very close to my birthday. I know you do. It's sort of in that neighborhood. Wait till you find out what the date is. It's February 17th. February 17th. You have one week to get your ass to Vancouver. You have one week to get your tickets, get everything together,

[01:49:04] and do come out and see that show. It's going to be a lot of fun. I promise. That sounds lovely. And you're always we're seeing live in any form. Absolutely. Any type of performance. You're on the best in the best. Thanks, man.

[01:49:16] It's a real honor and a privilege to have you on the show. Thank you for having me, guys. It was really a thrill to be here. I hope you had fun. Yes. I had a ball. I just extended my arms. Backing the microphone away.

[01:49:27] I can tell you I do that a lot. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Thanks to Ang for Guto for our social media. Joe Bo and Pat Rounds for our artwork. Thanks to Lingi and Montgomery for our theme song.

[01:49:39] Go to blankies.radit.com for some real nerdy shit. Tee public for some real nerdy merchandise. And as always, never get a Suicide Squad, Pat, too.