Oz the Great and Powerful with Dana Schwartz

[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 I'm many things but a good podcast is not one of them.

[00:00:25] But you could be if you wanted to. That's just it, I don't want to. See, Kansas is full of good podcasts. Church-going podcasts that get married and raise family. Podcasts like John Gale.

[00:00:38] Podcasts like my father, who spent his whole life trilling the dirt just to die face down there. I don't want that, Annie. I don't want to be a good podcast. I want to be a great one. Trilling the dirt?

[00:00:52] See, you already messed up in your impression of James Franco in this movie by giving us even a little bit of energy. I know, I was trying to pull it back as much as possible.

[00:01:02] Yeah, you were giving me City by the Sea James Franco and I need Oscars 2011 James Franco. Do you want an astounding fact? I do. I do want that. He was paid $7 million for his performance in this film.

[00:01:18] Now, I don't find that astounding relative to where he was in his career at the time because this was peak James Franco fame, arguably. And this is the moment that tests his box office drawing power, but it is arguably the peak of his fame.

[00:01:31] The only argument I have against it being the peak of his fame is that he's already hosted the Oscars, right? And that is where people are like, hmm, are we sick of this guy? But did you see the thing?

[00:01:42] He hosts the Oscars like a week before they close the deal on this. That makes sense. And there was the thing where it was like they asked Disney, like, are you having any trepidations?

[00:01:51] And they're like, no, we believe he is a leading man capable of holding his own within a $200 million temple. Next to an attractive female actress trying her best. Right. The problem with the Oscars was he only had one theatery actress next to him.

[00:02:05] What if we give him three? My point is just I believe that they would pay him $7 million. Yeah, I cannot believe he would give this performance and go, yep, feels about right and deposit that check. And that's for me. And thank you.

[00:02:21] Well, you know, the problem is that he was in one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine movies in 2013. Maybe that's why he looks so tired. David also, he was what? He was enrolled full time in two colleges teaching classes at a different three. He was wait.

[00:02:39] He was technically the president of the Maldives. I've seen here. The man kept taking job. He wrote 1046 poetry chap books. Oh, he was astral projecting into the body of William Faulkner. That that took up a lot of time. He was texting with 18 of his students as well.

[00:02:57] Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's true. No, very true. This is the other thing. When you hear these like Franco sex stories, you're like, where does he have the fucking time to be a pervert? A creep on top of everything else. Look, James Franco.

[00:03:14] So I think I was going to say this on a previous episode, Griff. Probably a Spider-Man episode. So the peak of his talent to me is 2008 post Spider-Man 3. Yeah, he has pineapple express and milk in the same year.

[00:03:29] Yeah, and you're kind of like, wow, this guy can give this like incredibly textured sensitive performance and he can give this like kind of unusual goofy performance and both of them really work. When you said unusually textured.

[00:03:42] The height of his powers has to be 2010 in 127 hours when they're like one guy on screen for the whole movie. That's the thing that might be the height of his stardom, right? Because that's also the year he gets the Oscar gig. I know he it's early 2011, right?

[00:03:59] But this is the problem. It's like that movie bombs at the box office, but he totally 127 hours. Well, yeah, because no one wants to see that shit. Of course, but as my mom, as my mom has joked multiple times felt like real time.

[00:04:14] Oh boy, more like the weeks. That funny thing with that movie where they started leaning into the fact that people were like fainting at press screenings and they like Fox Searchlight was making t-shirts. That was like I survived 127 hours and promoting like William Castle style.

[00:04:31] How many faintings there were Toronto? And then it completely backfire. Everyone's like, yeah, I don't want to watch this. It's on stress. Right? And it's actually not quite as bad as that sounds like it's a pretty good movie.

[00:04:43] It is talk about it one day on this podcast, right? But they like oversold the intensity of it. And it didn't do well, but it did get Oscar nominate gets him the Oscar nomination totally proves himself as a leading man. Like that's his best performance probably.

[00:04:57] And then the night when he supposed to be sort of like relishing in I'm an Oscar nominated actor. He's fucking bombing the job of hosting the show. Like it feels like that night in a microcosm is the moment. He kind of loses it.

[00:05:11] Yeah, but then he has spring breakers a year later. I always forget about spring breakers. That's his best performance and he's like, wait, I'm not a leading man. I'm a character actor and we're like, wait, yes. Yes, you are.

[00:05:22] And then he's back to Oz and we're like, no, no, no. And he's like, sorry. Now I suck forever. He has a handful of performances that I like so much. And then when I Easter famine, I keep saying it.

[00:05:34] But when I did, when I dislike him, I it makes me like angry. Not only is he terrible, but I get irate and when he's bad and something like this you go like, yeah, no shit. You're bad.

[00:05:44] You were doing fucking 87 things at the same time and then doing some interview about how like the fact that you were in Oz was some meta commentary on movie stardom or whatever. Shut the fuck up. Go to sleep. Wake up. Do one job. Go back to sleep.

[00:06:02] There's a looker. If there's just a whole generation and our guests can weigh in on this as well of actors like him, Shia LaBeouf, you know, who there's a there's another obvious one. That's not occurring to me right now.

[00:06:13] Who like, you know, started out in the Hollywood machine started on television, maybe and as they drifted further and further into like madness, they started being like, yeah, everything I'm doing is actually kind of an art project commentary on stardom.

[00:06:31] And I'm like, no, I think you just do too many drugs and or are insane or whatever. Or just like you have a job. Go just do your job. Right? And and like we all with Franco.

[00:06:44] It was the kind of thing where I'm like, man, I had money on you. I saw you in Freaks and Geeks when I was 13 years old and I bought property on Franco Island and it keeps getting hit with tsunamis.

[00:06:55] Then like gold will rain from the sky one summer, but then there's a fucking tornado like a tornado in Kansas. More like this movie.

[00:07:05] I also have to say in light of like the allegations that he was like, I don't know, like the details, but I do know like the rumors where he was like skeezy with his students when he was a professor and in light of that, the opening scene of him manipulating female employees so he could have sex with her is disastrous.

[00:07:22] It is. Why can't he be charming? Why is he incapable of being charming in this role? It is so strange. It is so fucking strange how bad he is. We got to reset. Introduce the podcast. Franco's made us too mad already.

[00:07:38] You cannot help but be enraged while watching this movie. And he's not the only problem, obviously, but you do feel like if someone was giving a performance in the center role who was at least engaging the movie would be passable. It would be passable uninspired entertainment.

[00:07:59] No, I actually can't agree with that. This movie is terrible, but it would be better. We'll talk about it would be better. It would be better. It's a good movie. Make it clear.

[00:08:07] I don't think it's a good movie, but this is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin the Great and Powerful. I'm David the Porcelain Man. The China Girl. Top of the Lake. China Girl. Catch me top of the lake running away from flying beast.

[00:08:25] What if Jane Campion announced I'm doing a third season? It's top of the Lake colon China girl 2 and this time it's about the China girl played by Joey King and Oz the Great and Powerful.

[00:08:34] I would do everything in my power to get in contact with her personally to tell her not to do that. I would pull every like connection. I have being like, can I just get on the phone with her for 10 minutes? Why is she doing this?

[00:08:46] Producer Ben rude China girl innocent. Don't come for her. She's sweet. I'm not coming for her. She's delicate. Don't come. We gotta get glued back together. That's fine. That's fine. I like the bed likes the China girl. She got me good. She's delicate.

[00:09:09] Has anything ever been less surprising than Ben liking a delicate little thing? I was a little surprised. I was a little surprised. Yeah, no, she's she's a sweetie. We'll talk about her more and we'll talk about podcast. She's a little porcelain sweetie.

[00:09:22] This is a podcast about filmographies directors who are experienced a series of massive success early on in their career and are given a series of blank checks make whatever crazy passion products they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they follow the yellow pick road by bouncing.

[00:09:37] They bounce on the yellow. I don't know baby. Listen, it's a miniseries on the films of Sam Raimi. It's called podcast be the hell. It's not called pod the cast and powerful. No, not bad. Yeah, that way.

[00:09:51] The only reason we didn't do that is because no one's ever heard of this movie. Absolutely. There are there are they'd be like what's that in reference to? This is a fundamental example of a movie that doesn't exist.

[00:10:00] I feel like sometimes people try to like throw out like oh an obscure film and act like it's a movie that doesn't exist. I'm like no it has to be something like this that made 200 million dollars domestically the paradox.

[00:10:11] I could be in like the home of a powerful Disney executive who worked on this movie right who who the money from this successful film paid for the house right and be like remember Oz the great and powerful they'd be like, huh? Yes. What are you talking about?

[00:10:25] I'd be like, you know the movie. It's a Wizard of Oz prequel. You produced it. Your name is Sam Raimi. You directed it. He'd be like, I don't think I did anything like that. That sounds very silly. I wouldn't do that. And I'm like,

[00:10:35] what are you talking about? James Franco. Milla Cutis. He'd be like, get out of here. Zach Braff. No, no, no, that didn't happen. No, come on. Get it. Could you shut up? Every element of this people would say if that happened, I would have remembered it.

[00:10:46] That's a movie that doesn't exist. That sounds crazy. I definitely know about that. Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay a bear wrote the screenplay. Now I know you're pulling my leg.

[00:10:56] It's Oz the great and powerful and joining us again returning to the show from the podcast Noble blood anatomy a love story Dana Schwartz. Thank you for having me Dana. I'm realizing this is the second movie that doesn't exist in a row for you and second night,

[00:11:11] which movie that doesn't exist and second like piece of IP that shouldn't be adapted. Right? That's that's the thing that both even though they're very different films. They both have that energy of like surely we can cram this into a box that people will want to open right?

[00:11:28] Like overblown kids started. Right? Dana actually tell me what your fiance said. You have to like repeat it on you told me what your fiance said while you were watching.

[00:11:38] Yeah, so I was thrown this movie on and my fiance doesn't like horror movies and doesn't watch superhero movies. So has no connection to Sam Raimi and Dana by the way,

[00:11:47] you've been texting me that this miniseries is what got you to watch the Evil Dead movies for the first time that you never watched any of them because you don't love horror films either. And so you're really kind of like discovering Ramy on a new level recently.

[00:11:59] No, the weird thing is I like horror movies like as an adult. I watch horror movies. It was like, okay. No, no, it was like when I was a kid girl,

[00:12:07] like I was born in 1993 and I felt too young and it felt like all like the cool older kids had this like scary, you know, I remember the VHS Evil Dead box and just as a child at my video rental store.

[00:12:21] I clocked in like that's not for me and then scary. Sorry. Your text was that you had never seen it because you liked horror movies, but that looked too scary. Yeah, I just remember like I had it in my head that like,

[00:12:35] oh, this is something like real fucked up. Like this isn't even a horror movie. Like this is just real scary. And so I was like, all right. Well, that's not for me. And then it took sort of like listening to the these episodes to be like, no,

[00:12:47] I'm going to watch it and they're great. It helps that my non horror watching fiance has been like, you know on shoots for work. And so like whenever I'm home alone, I just like throw on the next Ramy movie. It's been a wonderful experience and a great education.

[00:13:02] Okay, but what did he say about Oz the Great and Powerful? So if you can believe it, he did not want to watch this movie and I had it on and he was like sort of half cooking half watching

[00:13:14] and about half an hour in he was like, this is not a good movie and I was like, no, it's not and 40 minutes in he goes wait. Is this a movie for kids? I was like great question.

[00:13:27] I don't know sort of it's certainly intended that way, right Griffin. It's a PG film. Yes from the Walt Disney Corporation. Yeah, would kids like this? I don't think so. I think people who are on drugs would like this. I don't know Ben.

[00:13:48] Don't you think this would fucking bum you out if you were on drugs? Yeah, my depends on flat and boring. Well great Ben like if you're on drugs so powerful that you're just watching a different movie with this is on or whatever like that's right.

[00:14:04] That's what I'm saying. Then you would really enjoy it. Right the one thing I feel like have watching a bunch of Sam Raimi movies in pretty quick succession is like this is a guy who is tight like he

[00:14:15] is in and out minimal exposition sets up things the way we need and it's like this movie is all bloat. It's it's yes, it is truly all bloat. It's funny. I in my mind's eye.

[00:14:29] I saw this in theaters when it came out in 3d or 2d in 3d and by the way, Dana, I rewatched it in 3d on my 3d television at home. I bought this movie on 3d Blu-ray something David said would put me on a watch list. Yes, exactly.

[00:14:48] That's like whatever a siren goes off like there's only 10 of those in the world. Also, this was like the moment when all the studios realized the 3d TV thing wasn't going to work. So they started pulling back Disney up until that point when they

[00:15:03] released movies on 3d would do a combo back where it was like every format of the movie in one box for Oz the Great and Powerful is just one disc with no special features. That's just the movie on 3d and they're like take this you fucking pigs.

[00:15:16] Yeah, you want you want this fine? Assume you have a humiliation fetish if you're buying it. We're not making an effort. No, no, there's like a Blu-ray DVD digital copy compact and then there's just some fucking dirty disgusting illicit 3d disc that they

[00:15:31] throw at you chucking your head. This movie was shot in 3d. I mean you can tell like there are moments where you fully expect him to like pull out like a paddle and like the ball to be at that like

[00:15:44] the 3d is like very obvious and I will say I do think it works. It obviously does not save the movie but I was as an experiment watching some of this movie last night in 2d and then woke up and

[00:15:56] put this on in 3d and it does make a humongous difference in that it gives you anything compelling happening on screen. Like it's the one place where I do sort of feel the Ramy and that he

[00:16:08] seems a little charged by the idea of what he can do in 3d, but otherwise it is like an obvious analog for this movie is Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which is inarguably a worse film and more successful film and I assume a film whose success prompted the

[00:16:25] production of this movie. Directly. This movie is such a shadow of that in so many ways, but I find it fascinating that like that's a worse film. I think you and I both agree that that's maybe the worst movie we've ever covered on the podcast.

[00:16:39] That's the thing that is not to say that Oz is at all good. I don't really think it is. Although in the first 15 minutes, I was like, is everyone wrong about this movie? Which you might agree. I think the first 20 minutes are good, which speaks to how

[00:16:52] catastrophically it falls off a cliff the moment gets to Oz that the fact that your fiance Dana 30 minutes and was like, this is bad because he had just seen everything good. This movie had to share. Yeah, and then it's not it's not good.

[00:17:04] Like there were I was like trying to get like my notes. I'm like, it's so condescending. I'm like, this is good. This is like, oh, they're trying. Yes, but Alice is Alice is worse. Alice is more grading. Alice is yeah, it is.

[00:17:20] It is my point is that Alice feels like a terrible horrendous Tim Burton movie like as much as it is a nightmare and a disaster. You're like, this is absolutely Tim Burton fucking up out of control and it is a bummer watching this and just how fucking

[00:17:38] journeyman like it feels in most regards. We're going to talk about Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness next week and that is a film that is a lot better than this film in my opinion, but beyond that, you know, I've seen

[00:17:52] some takes out there that are basically like, you know, Sam's trying but he can barely make himself, you know, visible in that thing and I'm like go watch Oz the great and powerful. That is Sam Raimi being drowned out entirely.

[00:18:07] Like that is what you are talking about then watch Doctor Strange and then go eat a sandwich or take a walk around the block or just don't speak to me. You know, I'd prefer that you just don't speak to me whoever

[00:18:17] and the tragedy of this movie is he's being drowned out by nothing like a noise on the screen. There's not a competing interest that you're like, oh, I can identify what's going on here. It's more just like that. That is that noise a good griff? Yeah.

[00:18:36] Yeah, that's a great noise this thing. I mean the most interesting thing about this movie is just the development process and the weird history of Disney trying to make an Oz film. No, it's the lore of the witches the various witches of Oz the consistent rules of magic.

[00:18:55] Yes. Yes. It is bizarre how much Oz there is that is untapped and unadapted and every time someone tries to come back to it. They essentially don't really use the box. Well, like Griffin we are getting two wicked movies. This is true.

[00:19:10] That's and Dana and I talked about that too. Yes, that may maybe there will be a bit of an Oz boom, but you know, we always are. This is the thing though. I feel like people are always saying that yeah in probably

[00:19:21] at development meetings and such and they're having great ideas like we should split wicked into two and they're not ringing David Sims on the phone which every studio executive should do anytime they do anything and saying like do you

[00:19:34] think we could should be two movies and I would be like no absolutely not one movie but David in their defense your pitch would be I think wicked should be 40 quibbies. Of course. Nom nom nom nom nom.

[00:19:49] I like wicked as a musical because I was a preteen girl when it came out so right you were the perfect musical theater girl. I will say my theory with Oz is it's kind of like Arthurian legend where I think studio executives think people like the

[00:20:09] world because we've heard of it more than they do. Yeah, right the same right same way every 10 years is a King Arthur movie people are like Lancelot's back and everyone's like we don't come on. We've heard of King Arthur, but we have no emotional connection to that world.

[00:20:24] And that's I think kind of how Oz is. It's just odd for how much everyone's obsessed with mythology and lore and franchise now that there's like fucking 20 of these books that go in so many different directions and everyone is just like there's gold in those Hills every 10 years.

[00:20:43] There's some new sort of feeding frenzy and wickets like kind of the only one to work but still everyone seems to be so focused on the same four or five things. Right? Well, because they because they want to inform that they want

[00:21:00] what they're doing to tie into the very famous children's film that everyone on Earth is see right and they're afraid if they tap the sequels that they'll have a situation on their hands or people will be like, where's the Wicked Witch where it's

[00:21:13] returned to Oz which is a situation right a fucking great movie that terrified people and that lost a continents worth of money. Yeah continents were to speak to Wicked for a second Dana. I'm you may or may not agree with me.

[00:21:28] Yeah, I can see the mistake they're making in my opinion. Maybe they'll prove me wrong like I'm willing for John true to prove me wrong. He's he's a good director but like one assumes if you're splitting Wicked into two parts then part one ends with Defying Gravity, right?

[00:21:43] Like it will act one of the play and so part one is them at Wizard School or which I like yeah, and the ends with this like absolute slam-dunk number. I can see them being like damn part one is just going to own and

[00:21:57] then part two is a lot of fucking nonsense. Yeah, it's like it's like Fiddler on the Roof like the second act there are no good songs in it, right? There's no good songs in the second act of Wicked don't don't tell me other way.

[00:22:10] Well, it's no no good deed. They had this one good song maybe for but it's like it's a it's a downer like you need the first act to balance you need popular to balance out. No good deed. I agree.

[00:22:21] So I just feel like people are not going to be happy about Wicked 2 but maybe they're just sort of like well, who cares we already got their money. Here's where I will say I mean again, I haven't read Wicked since

[00:22:32] I was a preteen and I haven't seen Wicked since I was a preteen when I was like great. I love it. It's my memory at least with the book that like there is a world that they build unlike the book rules in my yeah.

[00:22:44] Yeah, have you read the book Griffin? I have you read the Gregory Maguire books? But there are yeah, they're good sequels to the book, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Does it not feel like the smarter thing to do is just make this

[00:22:56] movie as well as you can and if it's successful then you can write original musicals based on the other books. I understand them wanting this to be a franchise but doing this as a two-parter is insane. Yes.

[00:23:08] I mean the Wicked thing was like so hyped up so expensive. It was like out of town tryouts of people were like this is a disaster bomb incoming with all this high-tier talent. Everyone was like the show is a fucking like embarrassment and

[00:23:23] then they sort of like salvaged it just in time that critics were like, yeah, it's functional but we still think it's going to lose a lot of money and then it blew up then it was a huge hit. Although it did lose to Avenue Q.

[00:23:34] Yes, but I remember seeing it and going like yeah, this thing basically works like barely by the skin of its teeth the things it latches on to are strong enough to carry you through a lot of shoe leather.

[00:23:48] No one more a lot of sweaty mythology that I don't really care about why why would they even need to split it into two parts when they could just cut the goats not they can cut something bad and then we're already under two and a half hours.

[00:24:01] There's like 30 minutes at you can cut from that show. There's a lot of fat on Wicked and even though it does cut a lot of good stuff out of the book, but whatever the book of the Gregor McGuire book, but we're not talking wicked.

[00:24:13] No, but that's another thing that absolutely in like I think pushes this movie to the front of Disney's interest. Yes, but I also would argue that that's the tragic mistake of this movie is like Wicked was such a cultural phenomenon

[00:24:28] where even people who haven't seen it have heard the songs and are familiar with it and like we don't want another Wicked Witch origin story. No, no, that that's maybe the single biggest mistake this movie makes is that okay.

[00:24:42] Well as a counter what if the origin was really clear and well, well done sense and they said yeah. Yeah, and it's like a real two-hour arc not like she randomly eats an apple because someone tells her to so I just cannot

[00:24:57] believe it's like fucking like jilted scorned woman shit. You cannot believe that's the take this movie has is he spends a day with her. She has a crush on him then he likes her sister more. So she turns into an evil witch and like he barely likes

[00:25:13] it's like he shows the same amount of interest every pretty woman. Yeah, every pretty woman. There's a shot of him being like seemingly attracted to her and it's the same. This is what I'm saying Franco's inability to even conjure

[00:25:28] up sexual tension with any of the three women in this movie very beautiful women. Yes, very beautiful and charming women. You're right, but but he has more tension with Zach Braff far more in fact Finley the monk.

[00:25:43] Well, no, no actually real Zach Braff at the start of the movie, but sure. Yeah, yeah, brats got some fucking life in this thing. I agree. I perhaps it's Braff MVP. It's insane. But that is my exact opinion.

[00:25:58] It was my opinion when I saw this movie in theaters and I was like eight nine years ago. You've matured since then you're just not going to still think Braff is MVP. I'm watching him like I think I think Raph is the one guy

[00:26:08] who's who's in the right pitch for this movie. I think Zach Braff. I think Rachel Weisz gets closest in terms of tone because she's the most she's like, I'm a cartoon. Great, right? She's she knows what to do. Yeah, yes.

[00:26:23] Yes, I would say and then the the best performance for me. I think it's Ted Raimi who shouts that's a wire. He has a wire and that nails it. He's great nails it. Yeah, he I mean Ted always bats cleanup in a Sam Raimi movie.

[00:26:36] He always you know is given the perfect thing to do and he and he knocks out of the park. Oz the great and powerful Griffin a Sam Raimi film written as you say by Mitchell Kaepner and David Lindsay a bear the

[00:26:50] writer of rabbit hole a play that he nakedly has admitted. He basically just wrote to win a Pulitzer Prize which he did which by the way right after rabbit hole he gets hired to write Spider-Man 4. He was the main writer on Sam Raimi Spider-Man 4 that didn't happen.

[00:27:07] So they seemingly had a good relationship and this is the movie that Raimi signs on to right after Spider-Man 4 falls apart. Yes. So as we have briefly discussed right Raimi thought about doing a Terry Pratchett adaptation of the we free men that fell apart

[00:27:22] Raimi wanted to work on The Hobbit when that was spooling up that fell apart then the shadow he bought the shadow rights one point while he still got them. I think I'm right like yeah other things of course as we discussed

[00:27:37] Spider-Man 4 we got into that in our last episode right Griff. We don't need to go back. No, I don't think we need to touch it again. Yeah, then Jack Ryan. He was briefly considered for a Jack Ryan relight.

[00:27:50] I'm a sort of casino Royale type thing that I assume is eventually morphs into the Chris Pine movie, right? Yes, right there. There was also evil dead for was like there was a question of I guess I mean drag me to hell kind of took that spot.

[00:28:06] Yeah, I don't see that here. He signed on to direct Warcraft. Did you know that I did? I did know that David. I'm just looking here in 2007. They announced in 2008. He said an interview that he was writing evil dead for with

[00:28:21] Ivan, but that's pre drag me to hell or post drag fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Exactly. Yes Warcraft. He was fully signed on for fully signed on Robert Rodat. The writer is saving private Ryan was writing it and then Ramy

[00:28:34] didn't really like the script and then Blizzard vetoed whatever Ramy wanted to do to it or something like that, you know, like he got in anyway Blizzard, of course eventually produced a very competent movie that makes tons of sense that everybody like

[00:28:48] that is still an astonishing fact that was recently I was reminded of on the get played podcast still the highest grossing video game adaptation of all time worldwide because it made so much money in China. Yeah, yeah, isn't the worst but it's not good.

[00:29:05] Also, it's similar to this while being less annoying and that you're just sort of like your eyes have a hard time staying glued on the screen a little bit a little bit lot of a lot of

[00:29:15] visual information to take in and then I we don't need to talk about Warcraft. That's too big a too big. I don't know. All right, let's talk about work up. No. All right. So Mitchell Kapner Griff who wrote Mike a movie that I feel

[00:29:27] like you liked when you were a kid the whole nine yards. Am I right? Am I crazy? That wasn't my favorite. I guess you weren't really a friend's kids. He weren't really rooting for like the friends cast maybe man.

[00:29:39] I don't know that was just it was like you love the no, I don't think I've ever seen all of that movie. I think I've seen like 50 minutes of it on cable. Okay. I don't think I ever read like I don't know Amanda Pete's in it, right?

[00:29:52] Yeah, I'm never seen that. I'm rooting for anyone the studio 60 on the sunset strip cast. So that's why I was a big well, of course, of course. Yeah, I forgot that Perry pre 60 was a whole nine yards reunion.

[00:30:11] Kapner claims that he actually would pitch an Oz musical to people when he would like have Broadway meetings and that like he thinks wicked, you know, whatever like stole his Thunder on that sort of sort of weird but he finally sits down with

[00:30:27] Joe Roth who produced this movie but also produced Alice in Wonderland and also produce Snow White and the Huntsman another Maleficent. I think he's a producer as well. I think so. He was sort of leading the charge on this the early wave

[00:30:43] of the big live-action fairytale Disney movie remakes, right? And well, which is a cash cow for a while. Obviously. Yes, and after every after Roth shoots down every pitch Roth is basically like, what are you reading right now? Roth says like I felt sorry for the guy.

[00:31:00] I kept shooting everything down and Kepner's like I'm reading the Oz books to my kids and Roth is like, what do you mean Oz books and Kepner's like there's like 14 Oz books. Like what do you know?

[00:31:12] I'm reading over all these Roth did not know this and say so. I don't know though. What happens here? I guess someone else owns Oz rights. Is that is that the problem? No, no, no, no, no, no one does.

[00:31:26] They're like basically someone owns the Wizard of Oz the movie The Wizard of Oz. I can clarify this a little bit that the books are public domain but you Warner Brothers through purchasing the original film from MGM still has copyrights on proprietary elements

[00:31:43] in their movie such as the Wicked Witch. Almost all the visual designs. The way things look. They have copyrights on The Look of the Yellow Brick Road, Dorothy's Slippers because in the book they're not Ruby, you know, the

[00:31:57] witch designs like when that movie became so huge and continued to last and copyright laws were going to put the books back into public domain. Warner Brothers started copywriting like every individual visual element of the movie that was not described as such in the books.

[00:32:16] The other part of this is that Joe Roth said that he was constantly trying to solve this problem of there are no fairy tales for boys. What's a fairy tale with a boy? No, no fairy tale with male protagonists.

[00:32:30] They truly Hollywood just knows how to find an answer to a question. No one needs right. This insane shit though. It's where they always go. It's what you we've said this so many times on the Musker

[00:32:43] It's like a script for Disney's like, so we just made a billion dollars on Beauty and the Beast. But what if there was a boy? Can we have a boy? More boy shit. And they're rolling in money.

[00:32:55] I've told this a thousand and one times but I'm working at the Disney Store in Times Square in 2011 and as part of like the employee training because that company is so all about like you have to be vertically invested in everything going on in every

[00:33:11] of the company even if you're a part-time cast member at a fucking Times Square store. They were like Disney's really been struggling to get boys in like I remember our manager saying that to us as part of some

[00:33:21] like fucking, you know, but major I don't know the fucking annual quarterly whatever and he was like, that's why we just bought Marvel and Star Wars and that's the new initiative. But this is coming off of like Tron Legacy not totally working

[00:33:36] The Pirates movies are each making less than the last and then cars is like their biggest thing for boys. So they end up solving this problem by just buying Marvel and Lucasfilm, but there's this period of like John Carter Tron

[00:33:51] Legacy Oz the Great and Powerful Prince of Persia where they're just like we need a fucking thing that little boys like And yes, Joe Roth. I think just was like dollar signs like oh you could make a movie about Oz. Yeah, but this is his mistake.

[00:34:09] He's like, that's a man and it's like what was it? No, no, no, no, that's not interesting. Simply that he is a man also who likes grown men. No, no, grown men suck. So they take the pitch to Sony. Sony says no.

[00:34:26] They take it to Disney who have been apparently trying to figure out an Oz movie. Disney says yes, and the directors interested are Sam Mendes and there's another one apart from Remy. Wait, I could have said there is.

[00:34:42] Mendes was fully on board developing this thing for like a year or two. Adam Shankman was also my favorite director. Yeah, absolutely. But no Sam Mendes right was going to make this movie but Skyfall took it away from him essentially the whole complicated process

[00:34:58] And it was going to be him and Downey Jr. This is the period of time where Downey Jr. Is trying to stretch out his movie star status and does not end up making any of the things but he's close to doing this. He's close to doing Inherent Vice.

[00:35:13] He's close to Gravity. I like Clooney and Gravity, but he would have been better than anyone in those movies. Yeah, he would have been leaps and bounds better than Franco and this. He would bring this movie up a full star like even if he was giving

[00:35:28] a Dolittle-esque performance. Yeah, it would be something. He would have like pathos. He would root for him a little bit. And also I think you would buy that he could actually con these people like the thing that's so astounding about Franco's performance

[00:35:44] is that like the root of this character is he's a guy struggling to convince people right? Like he's this fucking con artist who's like trying to sell people on this idea that he's actually a wizard and James Franco cannot convincingly

[00:35:57] sell the idea that he's a con artist despite being somewhat of a con artist. Right? He the thing he lacks the energy to do is convince you that he's trying to convince you. Yeah, he doesn't he you know who else would be good in this role.

[00:36:10] I realized would be Hugh Jackman. He doesn't have showman energy would have done very well. Hugh Jackman would work for this. Yes, he's good at the you know, you feel Hugh Jackman sweating like he's good at making you feel himself sweating James Franco doesn't want to sweat.

[00:36:27] I guess in this movie is entirely about effort which makes Franco is the choice astounding David just I won't go too deep into this but the other sidebar necessary. This is after Snow White Disney's designs are to do Oz as an animated

[00:36:43] movie next and he starts sort of talking up in interviews that he would like to do an Oz film and that's when Sam Goldwyn takes the rights preemptively away from Disney and sets up the MGM movie and

[00:36:59] then in the 50s or 60s Disney bought the rights to the books when he wanted to make his transition into live-action and he was going to make a movie. It was the original cast of the Mickey Mouse Club who were now aging

[00:37:13] out and he wanted a pipeline for them to do something so he announced he was going to a film called the Rainbow Road to Oz and he had the Sherman Brothers write songs and set on Rainbow Road and told was going

[00:37:27] to be there and Bowser and Wario and all that. Absolutely. Yes, it was a thrill ride. It was a it was a tournament race and they did like Wonderful World of Disney specials that were like him previewing Rainbow Road to Oz and

[00:37:43] they sort of like put it up on his feet and he was like this thing sucks. So they make Babes in Toyland instead and that's like his his live-action musical and it goes by the wayside again and then obviously in the 80s

[00:37:56] or the 70s Walter Murch has a general meeting with Disney and he mentions that he's always want to make an Oz movie and Roy Disney at that point in time is like fuck the Oz thing. Walt always wanted to do the Oz thing.

[00:38:06] So then they make that attempt at doing it when Disney is like can't get anything to hit and that's also a big flop. So there's this like weird decades-long history of Disney wishing they had gotten to Oz first and constantly asking themselves.

[00:38:21] Why aren't we able to make an Oz thing work? Oz should be owned by Disney that fits into the brand so well, that's the Oz story. But the problem like you say is that everyone keeps trying to tie it back to the main film.

[00:38:36] And this script comes to Sam Raimi who I guess is right across the lot from Joe Roth at the time and Sam Raimi says absolutely not. I love the Wizard of Oz. I'm not touching the Wizard of Oz and Joe Roth is like, oh, this is a

[00:38:51] prequel read the story screenplay and according to Joe Roth Sam reads the screenplay and says God, I'd love this. I'd love to do this. Maybe he just been hitting the head with something very hard. Do you think maybe like an anvil or something? No, he loved the screenplay.

[00:39:06] That was what convinced him. Do you think he was actually reading the screenplay to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? You think that's what it was? Yes. Yes. But this is great and then they swapped it out and night while he was sleeping. He showed up on set.

[00:39:17] He said, what are these munchkins doing here? There's a special feature on this movie on the digital edition because the 3D doesn't have any special features, the disc itself. That is fucking Franco did one of his documentaries, right?

[00:39:35] It's like a film by James Franco called like my journey to Oz or whatever the fuck it's called where it's sort of like Verite interviews with Braff and he pretty much gets everyone other than Rachel Weisz who is not anywhere to be seen in this thing.

[00:39:49] But it's it's a dumb Franco thing with with color filters on it. It's one of those things like him being the one guy who was given Permission to make a fucking Saturday Night Live documentary and you're like they never let anyone do this.

[00:40:03] You were the one who weaseled your way in and you somehow made the least interesting movie about a week at SNL possible like the star of a movie having a camera and being given access to interview everyone

[00:40:13] on the set of a 200 million dollar blockbuster like this is interesting and what he gets is largely boring but the Ramy interviews in it are really good and a thing that Ramy says is Ramy fucking loved magic as a kid. He was a little junior magician.

[00:40:30] That was his whole fucking jam and his older brother who died tragically when he was young and whose death kind of haunted him. Yes was the one who like got him into magic got him into movies and

[00:40:44] as he got older he transitioned more into being interested in the illusions but not need to perform them himself and then that becomes filmmaking and all that sort of stuff when Ramy talks about that connection and that background it feels so fucking personal to him

[00:40:57] in these like shitty Franco couch interviews where I totally in that moment understand why he signed on for this movie where he's like the thing I like is that I've always considered myself a showman and a

[00:41:09] trickster and I like playing with the audience and I like that sort of journey and I like this is a character who's trying to stay one step ahead of people but also not be caught for a phony and then he Says like he's he literally says to Franco.

[00:41:22] I mean, I might ask you to cut this out because I don't know who's even going to see this anyway, but like I still don't feel like I'm a director. I feel like I'm an actor playing a director and Franco's like what are you talking about?

[00:41:37] You like are the old you wear a suit and you walk out and you're like let's roll on this picture and you say all these old-timey things. It's like right but I feel like I'm an actor saying lines like I'm acting

[00:41:47] like my notion of an old-timey Hollywood director and I still think I'm going to be caught at any time and you're like so the fucking root of this thing. Ramy is like so connected to this character, but this script is so

[00:41:59] lacking in any specificity that I understand him going like, oh, I see an arc I could connect to here. But how is this what you end up with Griffin that like makes me sad hearing it because it sounds like a seed of what could have been an

[00:42:17] Interesting movie. I was like if this character was a magician and like liked the show and that was played up like him wanting to trick people and like the difference between a trick in a show and performance like those are

[00:42:29] interesting themes and like the moment that I think is maybe most interesting in this entire film is when he's doing his fucking routine in Kansas and Joey King is the girl who yells out from the audience. Can you make me walk?

[00:42:41] And this guy who just sort of glides through life and charms everyone fucks whoever he wants and does these tricks and makes his money and goes to the next town and doesn't feel any guilt about it realizes like

[00:42:53] is there something to the fact that I'm now letting an innocent person believe that there is a cure for her right? Well, that yeah is Joey King is one of the better performances in this movie. I guess she's also the China girl.

[00:43:07] So yeah, so that that that's that's that's a point in her favorite according to Ben Hosley. But the fact that that remains the main theme of the movie and get it never works. Yeah, Remy, you know, he's someone I just he's a good pitchman like

[00:43:24] anytime he's interviewed for a movie. He says all the right stuff, you know, everything he's saying in here sounds perfectly clever about like, oh, you know, it's a movie that pays homage to Oz and I fell in love with that movie but this is a love

[00:43:41] poem to it and all that and where I'm like, yeah, kind of I guess so not really but like I guess like there could be a version of this movie that would work that way like any of these prequels do right in

[00:43:51] that slightly kind of glowing way when he signs on Griffin he eliminates he starts revising the screenplay. He eliminates a tribe of humanoid knives and forks from the screenplay. Why do you do that? That sounds good. Sounds rad. That sounds way better.

[00:44:08] There were a few moments where you could see that something was cut where you're like, oh this would have more impact because I could tell a scene was cut like he has a thing with a knife where I'm like the

[00:44:18] knife didn't really do anything and I feel like it's Jack knife, right? Yeah, the jackknife where I could almost see that like there was a thread with this that you lost the jackknife is yeah. It's a lot like that's the stupid necklace and evil dead or whatever.

[00:44:32] It's like a totem. Yeah. No, what we going to say? No, I was gonna say it sounds like Ben's pitch for Crocodile Dundee three like a giant talking walking knives. No knife son knife son knife son. Ramy introduces munchkin knock played by Tony Cox in the film.

[00:44:49] He brings in David Lindsay a bear to to make it more of a selfish guy learning to be selfless kind of character arc thing, right? You know, that's very Ramy. Yeah, he wanted a character who wasn't innocent because Oz is an innocent movie. It's a story of innocence.

[00:45:09] Alice is a story of innocence. I wanted this guy to be Caddish a womanizer a heel a cheat, you know, find his heart. That'd be a really interesting journey and then in reading hearing quoted as saying and then I decided to cast James Franco to make my

[00:45:22] work even harder for me. No, he doesn't say that part. But that's right on its face. You understand Ramy seeing in his mind's eye a version of this movie that works with like an ash type, right? Yeah, if he is full fucking army of darkness arrogant ash bullshitting

[00:45:43] his way through every situation. That would be better and the problem is even though James Franco even though Oz at this point like in this movie, they frame it as like a pretty girl. You meet her. He's like I guess charming and she immediately falls in love with

[00:45:57] him like even though that's how they present this movie is like meet a girl meet a girl meet a girl like he has no nothing with any of them to the point where you're like, is he supposed to be a cat or is this all like?

[00:46:10] What a bunch of women in like a make-a-wish program trying to be nice to this boy, but it truly just every single thing about his performance feels like first take cold reading of scene. Yep. It does very great words like he doesn't have energy chemistry

[00:46:27] with any of the women and he is working with three of the most beautiful and charismatic women in Hollywood. He does not feel like he's really committing to the magic axe whenever he has to do the showman thing whenever it's him just reacting to things happening around him.

[00:46:42] It doesn't feel like specific. It's just kind of it's so nothing and I do think I mean because the other guy who got close to doing it was death and it didn't happen because of Lone Ranger. He dodged one bullet for a different worse bullet, but Joe

[00:46:58] Roth tried really hard to get depth to do this when Downey Jr. Dropped out and the movie he want to keep it in the air. It does feel a little telling that they were looking at that age range where it does feel like this would work a little

[00:47:13] better if the guy's a little bit older and it's a little more desperate and pathetic in that sense, but also if it's Downey Jr. And the guy has a little more menace, you know, I will

[00:47:24] say my I think I texted this to David but like you I think you've said this on the podcast too. It's like James Franco for a good third of the movie has the energy of a hot boy in a school play laughing with his friends

[00:47:38] in the front row being like no guys guys. I'm doing it and then he delivers the line, but you think at any moment he could be like snickering with his like hot jock friends like he's the hot guy. Yeah. Yeah, I know. I know.

[00:47:51] Oh, no, it's so the wizard. No guys. No, we gotta go. But the crazy thing is this is his fourth movie with Ramy like when I watch him be this kind of bland in something like Rise

[00:48:04] of the Planet of the Apes where I'd argue he's as sleepy in that but the movie is movies a little better. So it's at a smaller tone and the movies better. So his performance sticks out less in this where he's just

[00:48:16] like not maturing the chaos around him at all this. He's like I signed on because I love Sam Sam's the director. I've worked with the most of my career. We have such a good relationship. He's so fun.

[00:48:27] I love our language and Sam was like, you know, I mean we always worked well together, but this is a whole different thing because he's the whole movie for me. It's on shoulders like they talk about each other with such fondness.

[00:48:39] Yeah, which makes sense that they have a good working relationship. They've worked together so many times. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if Sam looks at this movie and is like James like screwed me over on this.

[00:48:50] I don't I have no idea what Dana is talking about the you know, what you're talking about the high school quarterback mocking the school play kind of energy makes more sense to me if he is doing this film with almost any other director.

[00:49:02] Yeah, it is surprising to me that he can't commit himself more and that Ramy can't get more out of him and I do wonder if it is truly just a thing. He did his long-form interview recently, which was like his

[00:49:13] first thing in three years where he was sort of trying to talk about the accusations of sexual misconduct for the first time and one of the things he talks out for a long time is just like that it took him years to recognize that

[00:49:25] he was doing too much right that he was just like it's insane. Why was I doing fucking 15 things a day at any given point in time and none of it was good. I was telling myself that I was doing all this well and I

[00:49:35] wasn't and this is just so emblematic of that thing where he's just like well if I have time in the day to do three takes then I will do them. Well versus like no, it's about your headspace. It's about the energy you're putting into it the focus the

[00:49:50] thought well, he was busy adapting Faulkner. So a huge problem they have Griffin is that as you mentioned the United States 8th Court Circuit of Appeal 8th Circuit Court of Appeals rules right when they're in pre-production on what you're talking about, which is essentially that the

[00:50:09] MGM library now owned by Warner Brothers does own the rights to images essentially from these movies like, you know, like not just the Wizard of Oz but like gone with the wind like they find their like look Rhett Butler looking like Clark Gable.

[00:50:25] They own that like you can't it was because people were selling pictures like promotional pictures like a merchandising company was you could just buy like a Wizard of Oz still from them or whatever and then Warner Brothers is like no, no,

[00:50:38] no, we own like these images as much as these things are in the public domain. They agree with that and that's a huge problem for Sam Raimi who was planning on a movie that was wildly reverential to

[00:50:49] The Wizard of Oz like how it looks yellow brick roads and such like by all accounts that sort of happened like five or six months before they started filming like they had to totally redesign everything like this is not a good quote

[00:51:05] from him legally were unable to recreate the images from the film, which is a shame because it's really all about honoring that film and the books but more the film in my opinion. I'm like Sam doesn't sound good. If that was your whole game plan with the movie.

[00:51:22] They quit other movies. Yeah, and then their choice of like since we can't use these specific images will instead just fill this movie with no memorable imagery at all and we have to talk about Robert Stromberg for a second.

[00:51:34] I think Robert Stromberg is the guy who is the production designer. Yes on Alice in Wonderland and is makes Maleficent. He does he does Avatar. He does Alice in Wonderland. He does this he directs Maleficent. He I would argue has a bizarrely large impact for those

[00:51:51] five years on blockbuster cinema and you know, I'll say those movies are mostly colorful, which I do feel like is part of his thing. Yes people complain about you know movies being so colorless, you know, the other movie he's the production designer on Griff what the BFG?

[00:52:08] Oh, yes. Yeah, which I'm sorry. That's also color one in this movement, but they all have The same kind of look and you know, we just saw the Avatar trailer in 3G. It just came out and that thing trailer pops. Yes, the way water pops up on screen.

[00:52:27] We're wearing 3D glasses and you're just immediately like right back in Pandora color colors, right bright colors, right? And but but but Pandora does have restraint like there is that Cameron thing where he's so fucking obsessed with like

[00:52:43] the logic of the flora and the fauna and the ecosystem and how it works in tandem and all this stuff that like nothing is like design II for design II say and I feel like BFG Alice in Wonderland this and Maleficent all of the similar

[00:52:56] thing where there's just like they're so saturated. There's so much fucking going on in every single frame. Like it's just so loud. There's so much detail. There's so much movement. There's so much color and it like short-circuits my brain a little bit. There's no there's no Tarar.

[00:53:14] There's no like anchoring in the world like he that that feels like the worst way to put it but you know, I didn't like there's no grounding. It doesn't feel real and he has like really impressive work early in his career and then avatars obviously like this

[00:53:27] like huge achievement. He wins an Oscar and then after this this is like his blank check period where movies all start to have the Stromberg look he does the ones I mentioned but also it starts becoming thing. I think everyone else is following a little bit and then

[00:53:42] now maybe people have started pulling back again, but it does feel like oh now for the first time we have the budget and the technology and the time to make movies look like concept paintings every still image of this movie looks

[00:53:56] like something you would see in the wall of a production office and go like wow that looks great. And then Remy would say like well, that's not really the shot. That's more of a tonal setting of what we're going for and

[00:54:05] then every single image in this looks like something from an art of blank book that is just overwhelming. So while they're making this movie girl Disney has lawyers on set people there are lawyers on set that are making

[00:54:19] sure this film does not infringe upon the Wizard of Oz copyright sounds like so fun chill environment that is conducive to creativity exactly. So the yellow brick road no skipping down it. It doesn't spiral. Okay, there's no munchkin land because the 1939 film

[00:54:38] actually invented munchkin land whole cloth that I feel like this is the most cited thing about this movie the shade of green skin for the wicked witch is different. They tested numerous types. It's not quite as bright green as Margaret Hamilton's they couldn't do the mole.

[00:54:57] I think it's one of the reasons why you're the mole. She still gets a big old nose, which is I don't like I don't love that. Yeah, the nose is very is very prominent but different shape and yeah, and the wide eyes I was gonna say the

[00:55:10] face shape is so bizarre in this. I mean they cast to like heart face actresses to play the two evil e witches and then they intensify that face shape so much with the makeup which I wonder is them going against how long Margaret Hamilton's face was.

[00:55:26] Yeah, maybe I don't like where they ended up. I don't like the look for me like you know, so much thing about it is that it looks bad. It doesn't look correct. That's the issue. I don't like looking at it. They are supposedly blending the original wicked witch

[00:55:43] with the Frankenstein skin color and they called the shade of green Theostein for whatever reason perfect. The Emerald City looks different. They make it look a little more art deco a little more less not rounded edges, right? It's got kind of blocky. Yes, no ruby red slippers.

[00:56:01] Of course this did not bother Rachel Weisz who said quote gemstone shoes aren't really my style. I'm more of a black leather kind of person step on me Rachel Weisz. Yeah, that is a quote JJ put in the dossier and said that quote should be illegal.

[00:56:17] He calls it very powerful one thing one thing that I did read that the lawyers made them do specifically is they did say that James Franco had to fuck Dorothy's mom right they said that yeah, and and they also made sure that it couldn't be fun at all.

[00:56:35] Right? It was a guy there was a guy on set who had like little square glasses and he was dressed like a 1950s school teacher and anytime anyone was having fun. He would be like, right? Everyone would stop having fun. They were like, actually no fun.

[00:56:48] Frank Morgan was very charismatic in his role of the wizard in the original film and Warner Brothers has copyrighted Charisma. Yeah. No, what would the Wizard of Oz is famously fun. So this can't be bad. An enjoyable movie for children. Yeah, this guy has to suck.

[00:57:03] But I mean the other irony of the lawsuit stuff or rather this sort of IP tiptoeing stuff is like most of those laws and their stringency is based on a century of Disney battering down. It's that this is this is true to help them. Yes.

[00:57:21] Yes, Disney had its weapons turned on on itself or whatever especially with all that shit of like the amount of Disney films that are based on public domain stories where they have really strong rights at copyrights on specific visual elements or what was their creation like

[00:57:37] if they're actually absolutely getting hoisted by their own petard here. They are okay. Robert Downey Jr. Is the first choice an office told stories that Ramey gifted him a bean plant, but then it withered and died. That's so sweetie.

[00:57:54] It is it is it is according to the Los Angeles Times. He left the project because he had he wanted to improvise this. The story is even more depressing than that. He had a meeting with him. Donny Jr. Was on the fence.

[00:58:05] He was like, can I come back and can we take another meeting goes back to his home four months later sees the dead plant in the corner. Look, I can't keep a plant alive either. I sympathize Robert but this makes sense like that Robert Downey Jr.

[00:58:19] The first thing he wants to do is improvise right? That's his whole thing. I want to just like Sam Raimi does not want to do that. Sam Raimi is a meticulous guy. He is not interested in that kind of stuff, which by the

[00:58:31] way, the exact same reason Downey Jr. Doesn't do gravity is quran is like we there's too much shit going on around me. You have to have specific movements and he's like I can't do this. You gotta let me do whatever the fuck I want.

[00:58:42] This is the whole thing with Downey Jr. Where he needs to be making small movies, but he doesn't want to do that anymore for reasons plot, you know that are that make sense and also whatever, you know, he could

[00:58:52] get into maybe chill out a little bit but right so instead he tries to crowbar this into massive productions and you know with Marvel it basically works and with something like doodle you're like, what is he doing?

[00:59:04] You know, like what why is no one stopping this but Marvel has also essentially built their entire pipeline reverse engineered from how he works right is it is the it's true. It's kind of the reason why so often the Marvel movies don't

[00:59:19] have distinctive style behind them is because they make them in this very malleable way that I think is truly reverse engineered from him. Yeah, he's he's like an auteur on this right MCU even even now that he's gone from them and but but I on these other

[00:59:35] movies if he says, okay, I want to move my head two inches that way they go like that cost an additional five million dollars. Okay, they try to learn Johnny Depp as you say it doesn't work. They bring in James Franco because things are so crunched

[00:59:50] his agent gets him a salary of seven million dollars. Ramey quote. I knew that James had a real heart inside of him. I think at first if he was too close for me to see, okay, I thought he was he basically sort of saying like I used to

[01:00:05] think he was a little smug but now he's come more out of his shell and it's like okay all of this just feels if you was if you was smug in this movie that would have been good that would have been something insane all of Ramey's quotes

[01:00:18] are just like I hired him for his kindness his generosity of spirit a perfect fit for a family film and you're like no make him. I don't know just this character needs to be somewhat salacious. He is sleepwalking through different women telling him

[01:00:36] different things and he just believes what the last woman tells him. Yeah, Franco loves the Oz books. He claims he's very into all of this. He read them all one afternoon while he was piloting a plane while he was lecturing at Yale University on particle physics.

[01:00:53] Yeah, Mila Kunis comes in. She's right off of Black Swan and Ted. Yeah, so she she is I guess right, right and like forgetting Sarah Marshall. Yeah, it's only a few years ago. This is Pete Kunis, right? Am I wrong?

[01:01:08] No, this is the moment where like her and Franco in this movie are very much Hollywood testing out to people and saying you've been around for a while, but the last couple of years you really connected. Are you ready to be a Lister's and Mila's two big swings

[01:01:23] are this and Jupiter ascending and then arguably friends with benefits in the middle. Yeah. Yeah, which isn't good. I don't know. Do you have Kunis takes Dana? I like forgetting Sarah Marshall. Yes. I don't think I think she's good in Black Swan.

[01:01:42] I mean, I guess I don't like her in this but it's not really her fault. I never watched that 70 show. So I like don't have any feelings for her one way or the other. I watched this stupid fucking Franco doc interview thing

[01:01:58] and she's in full makeup in full costume in her trailer when he's interviewing her. So she's giving really interesting answers in this horrible unfortunate get up right that looks even worse in like trailer lighting than it does in the finished film.

[01:02:13] If you can imagine and she's talking so honestly and handedly about like they offered this to me and I said absolutely not that is a death sentence that is like a playing a witch is always like a whole fucking can of worms.

[01:02:29] Then you're also playing the most famous which in the history of movies and you can't get too close to what she did before but if you go too far away the people won't accept it and there's the wicked thing and that like she took a meeting

[01:02:40] with Rami because she liked him but she was just like there's no way I can do this. This is like just impossible ask and then when she met with him they talked about the character for four hours and she

[01:02:49] was like, I really found my in and I like found the heart of her and all this sort of stuff and it's it bums me out so much to watch this performance not work because I do think it is not for lack of trying.

[01:03:01] I think she's really giving it her all and it fundamentally does not work. It's a terribly written role like all the women in this movie are for everyone is poorly written but the women are tragic. They're all bad.

[01:03:12] She ends up I think being the most embarrassed by this movie just because this movie asked the most of her but but like both halves of the character equally don't work before and after transformation, you know, it's interesting after this

[01:03:26] she's you know, she's in a couple things that don't exist like third person and being greatest man in Brooklyn, but you know, she does have Jupiter ascending which we all are very fond of a perfect film, right? And I think she's great in it.

[01:03:37] Yeah, but she's really charming in that movie but but like dings her career that was this and it dings her career a little bit are the two big budget. Yeah, she had bad moms which was a surprise hit.

[01:03:47] Yes, and then she did bad moms Christmas which didn't do as well, but still made money hit. Yeah, and then she did the spy who dumped me which didn't do as well, but still made money but we're on a downward slope of I think that movie is fun.

[01:04:00] But yeah, you've said it's pretty fun. Yeah. Yeah, and then yeah, they're great. Yeah, a couple of yes, he's in a photo already. Yeah, and David Erickson right for good days, which was the Sundance movie from right here Garcia where she plays

[01:04:15] someone who's going into detox and Glenn Close plays her mother which got a weird Oscar nomination for a song that thing is as much of a bummer as it sounds breaking news in Yuba County. That's the other I don't know what that is.

[01:04:29] That is Taylor Taylor movie starring Allison Janney Regina Hall Mila Kunis Awkwafina Wanda Sykes Ellen Barkin big cast. Well, it's made a hundred eighty thousand dollars and it got terrible reviews. I just she just hasn't done much. I guess is what I'm trying to say.

[01:04:49] She seems to she had kids. She seems to just sort of pick her project. She's in a Cheetos commercial at the moment. It seems like that's cool. I love Cheetos. They're delicious delicious. She continues to be in every episode of family guy, which is money upon money.

[01:05:05] I mean that is so much so that's a good right. So you just have to worry about anything but like much like Channing Tatum of Jupiter Ascending. I could see her having a comeback. I you know, I feel like everyone's still pro Mila Kunis.

[01:05:19] They're making that 90s show. Have you heard about that? Yeah, I don't think that's the right choice. No, I don't either but I think she's coming back for that. I mean they're because the show is the grandparents raising the kids but then all the legacy cameras and everyone

[01:05:35] else can do cameos like Kerwood Smith is the lead of that show. I see he should be the lead of all shows. Yeah, I just don't need it to be that 90 show just called the Kerwood Smith show. What if it was called the Kerwood Smith show?

[01:05:48] That's what I want her her character in this movie when she meets the wild thing that they ask her to do is when she's the Theodora. Yeah, she's like a simpleton. She's like a simple child. She like calls her sister like sister and she like basically

[01:06:08] Rachel Weisz is at the top of the stairs like cackling and she's like my good kind sister. Rachel Weisz all in black. Draped in spider webs. Right. Dana. Have you seen Maleficent? No, I haven't. So Maleficent's the year after this at Stromberg. David, have you seen it?

[01:06:30] Yeah, I've seen both Maleficents. Right. Oh, yes. Well, The Mistress of Evil. Mistress of Evil pretty wild movie. I don't love the first Maleficent but it is fascinating how much it sort of works to try to earn the biggest thing

[01:06:47] this movie throws away which is like that whole movie is based around the Maleficent escormed woman thing but really forming an actual relationship of intimacy and time and depth where the betrayal is so grand where she is cast out and then the whole movie is arguing.

[01:07:05] She is actually not bad. She was framed that way and this movie is like she talked to a guy for an hour. Then she saw him talking to someone else and got so angry. She turned into a witch and threatened to eat children. She met one man.

[01:07:21] Yeah, she met one man but and treated it like it was the first man she'd ever met in her life. That's it is. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. I remembered this movie largely being her and Franco on

[01:07:32] the road until she goes bad and I forgot that it's like no that chunk is like 15 minutes then a lot of the movie is him with Michelle Williams while Rachel Weisz is whispering Michelle Mila Kunis is here be evil.

[01:07:45] The other thing about Maleficent is I know and this I mean no offense to any of the actors in Oz but Angelina Jolie as much as people like to malign her is an insanely compelling screen presence who is really putting it on the line in that movie.

[01:07:59] Yeah, that movie is stupid. Yes undeniably, but she's got so much presence that you kind of just buy it. Also, it's set in an even vaguer world than Oz. It's just sent in like Fantasyland right? And that almost is good because then you don't even care

[01:08:15] at all about like what is any of this whereas this has a little too much like trying to sell you on like, oh the land of Oz and you're like, can you explain the rules of the land of Oz and they're like the land of Oz like that's

[01:08:27] all they've got for you. They don't and you're like so I can carry over the rules. I know from the old Oz movie right there like shut up. New rules. Don't talk about that. We're not going to tell you. Along with the lacunas we've got Michelle Williams.

[01:08:43] It is interesting tidbit Griffin Michelle Williams had never worked on a movie with a production longer than 10 weeks before this movie. Wow. She truly this is like this is like her first big budget movie ever and she's like what the fuck is all this like

[01:08:57] she's used to small movies where everyone feels like a family on set. I guess there was that crazy stat when the all the money in the world reshoots happened and Michelle Williams did them for scale and Mark got like an additional $1,000,000 or something like that.

[01:09:14] Yeah, right whatever it was it came out that Michelle Williams had never been paid over a million dollars for a movie ever very rude. Right? We're just like you're like how much they pay her for this how much they pay her for venom.

[01:09:28] Well, no venom venom is after I know is the one where she's no venom is the one where she's finally like I got mine but this is the one where you're like why wasn't she paid a reasonable salary for this?

[01:09:39] She's all over this movie the fact that she got less than a seventh of what James Franco got right that that's that seems weird to me like but I don't know. I mean Michelle Williams at this point Griffin. Where are we with Michelle Williams apart from that?

[01:09:54] She rules blue Valentine maybe right? She's gotten her third Oscar nomination now. Yeah, cuz it's broke back. She gets a blue Valentine nom and then Marilyn Marilyn. Yeah, so she's a highly established actress. In fact post this she really does nothing until Manchester by the sea.

[01:10:13] Yeah, this is actually where her kind of break begins and then Manchester by the sea. She comes back and she's like that that's her attack in the rim. She slams it down. Yeah, man. She's in the Fableman's that's gonna fucking rock anyways. She loves Sam Raimi.

[01:10:33] Yeah, she talks about how sweet he was with her kid Matilda how they would see he Sam and Matilda was stand behind the monitor together and hold hands whenever I have to do press with Sam Matilda sighs and says I love Sam like so very pro

[01:10:51] Sam the thing she says in this Franco documentary thing is that a she never done a movie that daughter could see before but be she wanted to do a movie that would be fun for her daughter to hang around because I think her which probably was well enough.

[01:11:06] She's a single parent. She's like and she was like it has so wildly exceeded those expectations. She comes to set every single day Sam always calls her our most cherished guest on set. She like loves it. She loves everybody. So it's like good good sounds good. Nice.

[01:11:24] That's nice. Her performance in this is fine. It's fine. It's a you know, Glinda is never the most interesting except in the wicked where she's kind of the best character actually but like yes, usually glint is pretty one-dimensional. She's the nice lady.

[01:11:39] I haven't read the books is she bored. She's very powerful. The problem with her and one of the many problems with this character in this movie is because she's like at this point like the fifth pretty lady that Oz has met and interacted

[01:11:57] with and his performance is exactly the same with every new pretty woman. He meets like I don't understand if we're being asked to buy that this is like his great love like the fact that he ends up with her.

[01:12:08] I'm like, all right, I guess she was the last one on this game of musical chairs. She's nice. Yeah, and you do this weird thing. I mean he does the Wizard of Oz trick right of double casting people.

[01:12:22] Yes in the opening Kansas chunk, so you got Braff and you got Joey King is that it? I'm sure and Michelle is not which she doesn't have makeup like unlike the Wizard of Oz, you know a trio of layer and

[01:12:39] Haley and Bulger where when they show up in Oz they look entirely different and in this movie Braff and Joey King are CGI. You just have Michelle Williams playing two identical women. One of whom is Dorothy's mom and the other of whom is Glinda the Good Witch.

[01:12:53] Yeah, and it's just sort of like well, of course he's going to fuck the woman who looks like the one he's fucked before but also he has no chemistry with her. He doesn't have a ton of chemistry with her and he doesn't seem that interested clearly.

[01:13:06] He's not hung up on Mrs. Gayle because he was trying to have sex with Abigail Spencer mere moments before Abigail Spencer is kind of fun in this. I love Abigail Spencer. I am always here for Abigail Spencer. I don't there's not enough Abigail Spencer in my life.

[01:13:23] What's it called? What was that show that she was on? It was rectify. No, not suits. I never watched suits. She was at Meghan Markle's wedding. Hey, I mean, it's pretty cool. She got that invite. That's pretty cool. Abigail Spencer love Abigail.

[01:13:41] She was on the time travel show right timeless, right? She was on timeless and she played Sally's teacher on Mad Venture. You had that really good art. Oh, yeah, love her. Love her. She's the coolest. I think this opening trunk is kind of nice.

[01:13:56] It just fits Ramy tonally and it's the one time he's being visually interesting. Like I love the Academy ratio in the black and white and all that and how it's going to switch. That's cool. That's a good idea thing has good energy like Ramy being at

[01:14:11] a fucking circus is fun. It looks nice. It helps that he has real sets that he can frame around him then cutting the wires with the machete is fun. Yes, and then I think my two favorite like shot sequences

[01:14:30] in this movie is one the opening credits because it's a good opening credit really good. And then when it's still Academy ratio and he's in the hot air balloon and things are sort of flying at him and he's dodging like would like that's a fun Ramy like cartoonish

[01:14:44] shot. It is just wild though the second he pokes his head out of the basket and the frame widens out and it goes to color and you're like very cool. Ramy has found a way to with CGI and 3D and modern do the

[01:15:00] Oz transition thing and then from that moment on all the air out of the balloon. It feels like it's his one really clever pitch and then I guess he just maybe was hamstrung by the fact that he couldn't do Oz how he wanted to do Oz.

[01:15:13] I don't know but I also think like Burton has talked about this too and how difficult it is and how few directors have the right sort of mindset to be able to shoot movies like this that are 90% green screen where it's just like composing

[01:15:31] shots is so fucking difficult when there is like nothing to anchor your eye to to frame around and you know, it's hard to know how to give the actors what they need to react off of and all that sort of shit and they talked about Joe

[01:15:47] Roth and this was like we're building more sets than we did on Alice because you need more grounding but it's still you can feel like oh the ground beneath them is real, but then everything behind them is painted.

[01:15:58] You know, the room is real up until this point and then it from then on it's whatever I do think it just the whole thing has that weird hermetic feel to it. Like it has that sky captain in the world of tomorrow feel

[01:16:10] where you're just like this movie feels like it was made in one room as you're telling me to believe in these expansive landscapes even there like I fully agree with you. I think visually it sort of has that flubbery feel but there's

[01:16:24] also that weird sense with the script where they just like scripts problems like the rules aren't consistent. They're asking us to that to believe that all the people in Oz are impressed by this guy right bringing out glue and bringing out a projector when actual magic exists.

[01:16:43] How can you be wowed by glue? I know in a world that magic exists. It just I that is an incredible point that is that is it's the whole thing. It's the whole problem. Lightning out of their hands in this movie and he does like

[01:16:56] a smoke show and they're like, ah, like what we don't know what to do. They literally flew in on bubbles right magic bubbles. He is levitated by witches and they're like but this guy this guy knows what you know, it is funny how with less rules

[01:17:15] and less explanation army of darkness totally pulls this off though, even though that is a world in which supernatural things do exist like there are wizards of actual magic and dancing skeletons and yet ash is able to stand up with like

[01:17:29] a boomstick and have people go like holy shit. Who the fuck is this guy? Yes. I mean army of darkness you saying that does kind of it is a good point. Ramy as meticulous as he can be visually and all that his

[01:17:42] movies rarely are too invested in world building like the evil dead movies. It's all very vague and loose and it kind of window whatever fits really whatever we want to do right like and the spider head movies are so much less lore heavy than any modern

[01:17:55] superhero film incredibly light on all of that stuff. This movie seems so in all it has is lore by the time he gets to Oz. That's all we're hanging our hats on but he doesn't he doesn't care about any of that.

[01:18:07] He doesn't he cares about the movie like he loves the magic of the wizard of Oz, but I don't think he cares about like the you know, the various wicked witches of Oz and all that stuff, you know, no you look at the three evil dead films

[01:18:22] and the lore there is whatever it needs to be to make that scene work, you know, how did the dead action whatever will make for the most interesting sequence now same with drag me to hell where people like oh, what's this inspired by

[01:18:33] is like I don't know nothing like what a very shit. Imagine of an old lady gummed your chin that's yeah, it is kind of a perfect metaphor though for like the gender relations in this movie that like James Franco's being paid 7 million

[01:18:49] dollars to sleepwalk through when it's like these witches are doing actual magic and it's like a guy doing a finger trick that everyone's like, yeah, he shall be our king. Right? You're like Michelle Williams is getting 250,000 for this or whatever.

[01:19:03] Like shooting lightning out of her hands and flying but but this is the other problem is I mean even by the time this movie comes out. Ramy is like I'm not making a sequel in there under any circumstances.

[01:19:13] I know Disney wants to good luck to whoever takes it on next they were so in on the idea that this was going to launch their own proprietary Oz series. There was going to be a Disney trademarked Oz that they could run with it.

[01:19:27] They could build shit in the theme parks and make more movies and whatever. This is such a weird starting point if that's what you want to do exactly what is the sequel? I mean, I guess it's just witch battles or whatever but like you can't do Dorothy.

[01:19:42] No, I can't do Dorothy how you think or whatever, you know, I like you'd have to do all this nonsense and you've also cut yourself off from the books like by the fact that it's not asthma who's right the King's daughter like you can't

[01:19:53] even do the book stop. You can't go back to the well anymore. He's not interesting as a main character, even if it was Downey jr. Even if you had someone who was in the pocket giving a Crackerjack performance.

[01:20:05] We still know the end landing place for this character is kind of pathetic old man who puts on a fucking hologram show who's a good gift giver who's really good at giving you that is true thing. That's Oz's thing because a lot of people when they give

[01:20:19] gifts, it feels like they want you to see that they're doing the nice thing but he actually or they just went to your Amazon wish list or whatever, but no, no Oz thinks about it. His is like thoughtful like you just started working together

[01:20:33] as a co-worker, but yet he's paying attention to and also like how did you know like this is exactly what I needed. I do need courage. I've been saying about this for days some other characters in this movie. Yeah, obviously Rachel vice basically that that's like

[01:20:50] calling Daniel Brule to play a Nazi where it's like, hey Rachel. Can you play like a sort of sexy witch lady? Who's very imperious and Rachel Weisz is like, yeah in she's like, oh you want a number for yeah, do you want

[01:21:03] ha or like she's done this rodeo so many times in heels or without she knows all this stuff right, right. You've got Zach Braff where we went Zach Braff in 2013 a weird place. I mean this is like because Scrubs ends in 2010 and of

[01:21:21] course he's sort of wound down doesn't even show up and barely shows up in season 9 after everything Scrubs did for him, but then right when does a wish I was here or whatever come out. How do you not remember that that the important release

[01:21:38] date of wish I I was here the most bizarrely grammatically the worst wish I was here comes out the next year 2014. So he must have done it right after this is so that's the kickstarter career, right? Is that like Scrubs is big.

[01:21:54] He stays on it for too long, but also stays on doing less which does not give him any goodwill. He takes so long to make the Garden State follow-up and then he's never really tested as a movie star successfully.

[01:22:09] There's like weird shit like the last kiss and the X the X. Oh, I saw that in the theater. I saw the last kiss in the theater might be one of the worst films. I ever saw in a theater that movie sucks. Yeah, Tony Goldwyn picture.

[01:22:22] Yeah, but this is this is that zone where people are like so what is he is he not a leading man? Is he an auteur? Is he making his own indie films? He's not a comedy guy. Like what where does he fit in?

[01:22:34] It's sort of bizarre that he does this but then also like he's not just doing voiceover. He was on set every fucking day puppeteering this thing. Yeah, so I can read you the quote which is yes. Sometimes he's doing the puppet which he would operate and

[01:22:48] act out not even mocap the puppet the puppet but sometimes he would wear a blue screen onesie and sit on his butt because they realize that he's 36 inches tall if he sits on his butt and hunches over so he would be sort of monkey

[01:23:02] size and the third thing was called puppet cam if he was like flying or whatever they would put a monitor on the stick and I'd be in the video booth and they would do it via the monitor which sounds crazy, but that's what they did. Yeah.

[01:23:18] I mean I saw footage of him in the VO booth where they were just filming his facial reactions as well. I don't know. I mean he was like he worked really fucking apart on this. There's so many interviews with Franco where he's like

[01:23:31] really being thoughtful about this and like the process of it whatever and talking about how he's just constantly looking for the funniest jokes. Ramy was trying to keep it tied to story and whatever he's good in the I mean interviews with breath rather not for

[01:23:43] interviews with breath in the Franco doc. He's talking about his relationship with Ramy and that was the main reason he did the movie is he want to work with Ramy despite his face barely being on screen. I couldn't find it but I remember an article from when this

[01:23:58] movie came out because the other weird thing about this movie not just what we're talking about of like the this being the changeover period the last film of this run of Disney trying to make their own boy branded IP before they

[01:24:11] just gobbled everything else up, but there's like the quick succession of what's his name? It was Dick Cook was the head of Disney films and then he got fired and they replaced him with the guy whose name wasn't

[01:24:27] Rick Ross, but was something like that and he did cook developed this then that guy greenlit this movie and then when it came out Alan Horn was the head of Disney. There were like three different heads within a four-year period who all touched this movie at different points.

[01:24:44] And I remember this article about how Alan Horn was like landing at Disney and immediately getting his his feet dirty or whatever saying that he was very hands-on with trying to save this movie and like demanded reshoots like six months

[01:24:57] before it came out to amplify the role of Finley the monkey because Finley was like the only thing that was working. This Finley work. He works. Okay, he works better than anything else. Yeah. Yeah, he works better than anything else. Unless I'm like a little China girl.

[01:25:13] I mean some people might argue trying to go works, right? He sort of has a Jar Jar Binks arc, right? It's like yeah, he saves his life and he's like I'm your I'm not going to do a voice but like me say your humble servant

[01:25:25] the smart thinking the the best the funniest line this movie. I think the only joke that actually works for me is when a prank offers him a banana. He's like, oh that's a fact what just because I'm a monkey you think I like bananas.

[01:25:38] What could you be any more simplistic? He's like so you don't want to be there. It's like of course. I want a banana. I'm a monkey. That's funny. Class. That's funny. I don't know Ben. Did you like the monkey?

[01:25:48] How do you where do you come down on the monkey talk about family Ben? The monkey hmm. I didn't like the monkey. Wow. The monkeys out. Wow. Wow. No, it's not that the monkeys out. I mean braf is fine.

[01:26:05] I'm just maybe I'm tired of that kind of character in kids movies or something. I don't know. It just felt generic. It's it's a quiet lock in on the monkey at all to be honest. Yeah, I mean it is required Griffin you would agree any

[01:26:18] children's film even one barely attempting to appeal to children like this one needs a funny sidekick who's maybe an animal right? I would agree. I'd argue in fact, it's probably the most important element any live-action Disney hybrid movie.

[01:26:32] It can make or break the performance of the live of the animated sidekick really does make or break the Disney fairy tale movie. Yeah, and I would imagine if you're someone who's like working in that capacity on a movie like this, you're probably racked

[01:26:46] with anxiety on a daily basis because you're like if I'm annoying in this role parents are going to have to hear this 8,000 times like people aren't going to dislike this. It's going to drive them insane, right? It'll be the neck the name of Lucifer, right?

[01:27:01] You're like, how do I actually make this funny but also appealing to children. I don't know. I can't even imagine being in that position. You know what it is Griff. I'm because you know, I hear you and I think what it comes

[01:27:11] down to is I was distracted by porcelain girl. That's okay. Just what was going on for me. Then China girl corner. Let's talk about China girl. Please so China girl they meet her in the middle of the movie.

[01:27:22] She's in some sort of ruined land some sort of ruined land. Yeah, a tiny porcelain town. No, she's in a like the most depressing looking house though. Why did even aura break? Why would she break her porcelain town when she's mean not to be evil at this point.

[01:27:42] Yeah, she's doing a lot of logic of that. None of it. I don't know. Right this movie was like trying so hard to sort of do the misdirect of like even or is going to be the Wicked Witch

[01:27:52] and not me Lacuna's and then it gives it up like 30 minutes in and I she turns evil so much earlier than I remembered then you saw like 40 fucking minutes of the movie left. Yes, she turns evil and then just kind of sits there for a while.

[01:28:06] She doesn't like kind of do anything about it. Yeah, I will say have you read have you seen the a chorus line documentary? No, I have not know a pretty good documentary that's like, you know talking about bringing the musical to Broadway and

[01:28:21] the one thing that stuck out to me is they talked about how in early drafts of the musical it was like every character gets their song and that they would just sort of go down the line and they said like four people in audience people

[01:28:34] were like checking their playbill because you could see what's happening and no matter how good the songs are you just get bored by the structure and so when he meets China girl and like helps her that's when I was like, because I

[01:28:48] could see that the 10 other beats right down the line of like, all right, they assemble the team they go. It's Glenda like that was the point where I was just like I this is so such a slog. It is a slog.

[01:29:02] I agree with that China girl did nothing for me. I'm sorry Ben. Yeah, Ben. Sorry. We keep on interrupting your China girl corner. I like trying to girl. I defend you on this. I just want you to explain a little bit.

[01:29:14] I mean, it's just there's something so striking to me about her being broken in this home by herself. It made me so sad immediately and I wasn't paying attention to the movie. I mean, I was looking at my phone for most of this movie.

[01:29:28] I have to be honest. It was hard to pay attention some boring ass shit. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah, truly but I just that that and then her, you know, obviously yeah glue isn't magic. It's lame, you know, it's just simple things we have everyday object.

[01:29:44] Why couldn't Glenda just use magic? Do you know it was the thing I kept on the kept happening when I was watching this movie. I would think to myself, huh? You know, this isn't as bad as I remembered it being it's

[01:29:55] fine. And then I would stop and realize I had not looked up at the screen in three minutes. This is actually pretty good. Oh, sorry. I mean that the Disney emoji Blitz that play that truly happened.

[01:30:09] I would be like this is like, okay, and then I'd go you're reading the dossier. You haven't looked at the screen in a scene. Ian was so mad when I looked at my tweets like a third of the way through.

[01:30:22] He's like you can't know your you put this on the TV for your phone away. Yeah, fucking Franco was looking as twits mid take. He's fucking tweeting out things on camera. I thought that was a weird performance choice that there's

[01:30:35] several scenes where they cut to Franco and he goes he holds up a finger just goes is Sam. Just give me one second here. Give me one second. Hey at least porcelain girl or I keep seeing porcelain China girl. We said something new. I agree.

[01:30:49] Yeah, I was a character and I liked all the little cracks like you could you know, I think she is a well-realized character visually. Yeah. Yeah, she's just doesn't she's a little one note, you know, she's a she's a little fragile right?

[01:31:05] Like she's not a lot of fun. I don't mean this as a joke. That's so alpha of you to say David. She's not fun because she's too fragile. No, she's annoying when she's like, well someone took me in. I'm like you're annoying. She's a little girl. Come on.

[01:31:21] Sometimes they want to be tucked kids like to be tucked. That's true. I truly think also Franco has better chemistry with China girl than anyone else in the movie. Sure. He's actually a little sweet with her. That's true. He has more chemistry with the virtual characters in general.

[01:31:38] I would say weirdly like he's got a little bit of banter with the monkey. I guess yeah, this is true grabbing at straws though. Yeah. Yes. Yes. No, absolutely. Yeah, you guys want some more context? They shot it in a giant rally Michigan Studios a giant complex

[01:31:57] in in Pontiac, Michigan huge tax benefits. So that's great. Obviously Sam Raimi is from Michigan. So I like that. That's nice. Can we can we talk about the comedy? Like what do we think of the style of comedy of this movie bad? Yeah, bad.

[01:32:17] What what comedy remind me? I don't know. I don't know what it what the Danny Elfman score is really Edward Scissorhands like it's very went back to like his his trash and was like, what did I not use for Edward Scissorhands?

[01:32:30] No, and this is like their big reunion after like 10 years of fighting or whatever five whatever five years. Yeah, right five five. Yeah, they figured almost 10 nine years. I don't know. It's in between the spider-man three is oh, yeah. I guess never even worked on it.

[01:32:47] So yeah, yeah. No 10 years. Yeah, I didn't as I was listening to it. I was like, oh this score is not bad and like the music box sort of has a motif that repeats and then in my head afterward.

[01:32:59] I was just imagining the Edward Scissorhands score when I played it back when I was like, oh, that's not bad and I would remember it. I realized I was remembering Elfman. He's like Horner. He's like a lot of these guys where it's like, you know, a

[01:33:10] phoned-in Elfman score is pretty likable and then you realize like, oh, he's just right. He's just doing what he usually does right, you know, and then when he does something different you're like, oh that's exciting. But yeah, he'll often just do Elfman.

[01:33:23] Can I read an amazing quote from the INDB trivia? You can JJ will be mad at you but you know, I know I know look when I quote a Wikipedia thing or a trivia thing in a post JJ professional researcher error.

[01:33:36] I want to make it clear that what I'm saying is unsubstantiated and I just am reading it for what it is. But this one I think is pretty hard to argue with David. Okay, the taxpayers of the state of Michigan population 9.6

[01:33:48] million reimbursed Disney 40 million dollars of this film's budget but have no equity in the film now you can't argue with that. What if they did? What if everyone from Michigan got like a check for 80 cents every week or whatever that is?

[01:34:04] So I have never seen someone write something like that in INDB trivia page. They're obviously most cities and angry Michiganer is right angry Michiganer one guy running for City Council. That is absolutely someone in Michigan went to see this movie with I fucking paid for this bullshit twice.

[01:34:22] I did I paid for a ticket and I fucking pay for Franco's like catering or whatever. But Sam Raimi got to go home. Aren't you? Aren't you happy about that? Listen to him. I like that. I think that's sweet. Listen to him.

[01:34:40] I had to move to Los Angeles for the film business, but I love the trees in the fall the rain the gray skies and I like the cold, you know, like he misses the seasons. He misses the reality of Michigan.

[01:34:54] God Olivia Wilde AM's Blake Lively Kate Beckinsale Keira Knightley Rebecca Hall and Kristen Stewart were considered for the roles of the witches. I mean once again insubstantiated but like a bunch of ladies but I'm sure that fucking wish list was just the 20 most

[01:35:07] prominent actresses in Hollywood at that moment for those three roles. Oh boy, this film obviously is 70% CGI. So mostly acting in front of blue screens. But as you noted Griff Stromberg to build some sets, you know, there is a little bit of tactility there at least standing

[01:35:24] on something like you said like, you know, yeah kind of a little tiny bit of that is is tinkers a race or an occupation. Is that like an ethnic group of people? There's a patient. Are they teamsters?

[01:35:38] Right cuz Bill Cobb is supposed to be the guy who builds the tin man. Yes, Bill Cobb is the tinker and he is not small. He's a tinker. He's you know, I believe he's called master tinker and he's

[01:35:50] like a leader of the tinkers and right and he'll eventually build a tin woodsman but all of the people playing munchkins or whatever are little people like they just they just asked little people right? You know, they didn't do any CGI stuff, but I'm saying we

[01:36:06] Come to Glinda's. I mean they do do they do like CGI flips a bunch. Yeah, but I'm saying when we when we get to Glinda's like kingdom and she's like there's you know farmers that are you know, and then there's tinkers who all kind of look alike and

[01:36:25] there's you know munchkins and quad quadlings tinkers and munchkins are the tinkers like an ethnic race of people. I don't think anyone should say the word ethnic about anything in Oz. It feels like Pandora's box. I just don't want to dig into what any of this is supposed

[01:36:44] to represent. I don't want to take it to what any of these people are supposed to look like. I just think it's very tricky territory. I don't want to know. I don't want to know but yes, I look no, I I I think you're right.

[01:37:00] I think I think yeah, they are they are a group in the world of Oz that seem to be organized in some way. The tinkers are like a people of sorts. I guess right? I'm just like the the setup of Oz in this movie is wildly

[01:37:17] unclear and makes me just like feel I don't know what you're talking about. It's very clear. Okay, wait there like what's Fraggle Rock? What's the um, all right? The workers. No, no, Griffin correct me if I'm wrong. Griffin is all very simple. Sure.

[01:37:38] Oz is a magical land Emerald City is its capital. The King recently died under mysterious circumstances. It was definitely the fault of the really nice lady who wears pink and white and floats around on bubbles and not the fault

[01:37:50] of the lady in the black dress who shoots lightning out of her hands. Okay. Yeah, it was his nice daughter who clearly everyone loves and Asgard is a people not a place. Yes, right various kinds of things live in Oz porcelain people munchkins tinkers blah blah blah.

[01:38:07] Sometimes the munchkins will stand on each other's shoulders and they'll be really tall. That's fun. Anyway, if the King shows up he gets to be king of Oz. He gets to sit on a throne and he gets to have a giant pool of money that is David David.

[01:38:21] Mm-hmm. Yeah, old scepter. You're forgetting the most important part. Of course, of course. Very very very important anyway. And there are various witches who are kind of just hanging out waiting for something to do. Yeah, very very very clear world lots to understand all make sense.

[01:38:36] Oh, they're flying monkeys and then there's a separate kingdom under a bubble that only if you're pure of heart. Can you get in travel through bubbles? Yeah, you want to have fun fact. Here's another fun fact, you know the scene where Jim Franco's rolling around the gold.

[01:38:49] Yeah, that was his salary for this movie. Oh boy. Yeah, he actually asks for his salary in Scrooge McDuck Banks that he gets to swim around and well, well, but look you thought it was interesting statement on capitalism and

[01:39:05] he was doing that right not because he's a money grubber. But yeah, he made a movie called dollar sign that was on Vimeo or whatever played upside down in an art gallery or some shit. I rewatched the original film last night because I hadn't

[01:39:19] watched it in a while. Wizard of Oz the wizard of Oz the Victor Fleming joint. Yeah, sure. Have you folks ever seen it? Yes. Yeah, you know what else is fun about that movie is it's a musical. Yeah. Yeah, it's got songs.

[01:39:31] This is like one song which we talked about fucking Spider Man 3 has three musical numbers in it, right? And and like I was saying that episode that people are commenting at the time like it feels like he wants to make

[01:39:43] a musical and you wish he could go full bore the other part of the development this movie. So when what's his name the the whole nine-yard guy Kepner when he pitches this to Disney they develop this under the title brick.

[01:40:00] And he was like I was only allowed to tell two people in my life that I was working on this because Disney was so terrified that other people would like try to get an Oz movie made before them. They were so terrified of the Wicked movie happening before

[01:40:12] them. They were terrified of other studios want to make their own rival Snow White and the Huntsman style Oz movies one could say they were cowardly. They were cowardly but it but it is bizarre to not lean into

[01:40:27] the musical aspect of this especially if your goal is to beat Wicked to the punch. Why not put fucking songs in this that having been said Alice in Wonderland has zero songs Maleficent has zero songs Jungle Book like tiptoes around to sign it does songs, right?

[01:40:45] But I never learned their lesson like Mulan doesn't have any saw that live-action Mulan had no songs but it truly took until Beauty and the Beast where they were like fine fine. You want the musical numbers and it was like Disney.

[01:40:55] Why are you fucking tentative about putting your song? You've got a bit of a proven formula actually right lean into it. It actually people quite like it. Yeah, right. I'm confused though because I thought you were supposed to immediately fast forward when the song started and did you

[01:41:13] guys not immediately have to get just get past it. Is that really what you did Ben? That makes so much sense as a kid. You'd be like boring. Oh wait. No, I'm talking about the fucking movie and I watched this goddamn episode.

[01:41:28] Yeah, one fucking song that's in the movie. I'm not talking about the original even a song Jesus. You all looked at me like I was a monster, right? I thought you were saying like you fast forwarded through like somewhere over the rainbow. Jesus, I cry at dogs.

[01:41:45] This movie you should hit play right hit play on the movie and then immediately hit the fast-forward button all the way up all the way when the movie ends. That's it. That's how you should have good. You can go normal. Yeah, slow down slow down. Bring it back.

[01:42:04] Yeah. Okay. So you watch The Wizard of Oz the 1939 film director by Victor Fleming starring Judy Garland. Did you like it? How many stars? Five stars perfect film. It is one of those things. Pretty good. It's just kind of inexplicable how well that thing works, but

[01:42:19] it does sort of just prove the fool's errand of ever trying to make another Oz movie unless you're doing something so fucking radically different. I mean like I love a return to Oz. I'm one of the world's greatest defenders of Sidney Lumet's

[01:42:35] The Wiz, but you know both of those movies got dinged for being weirdly dark and sad and then anytime because there was like that weird CGI Oz movie that came out a couple years ago. That was called like Dorothy's Oz or something.

[01:42:50] I believe Warner Brothers is now making an animated film called Toto that's trying to use the iconography that they legally own to retell Oz from their viewpoint. It just feels like one of those things were like, I mean Wizard

[01:43:04] of Oz is notoriously was like a not only a flop when it came out, but was like a difficult production went through multiple directors all this sort of shit. It's like that movie is just some weird Miracle every design element. They landed on ended up being perfect.

[01:43:17] Every performance is perfect. Judy Garland was on four hours of sleep and weight loss drugs the whole time. On methamphetamine. Right. Well, yeah, right, right. It's like a fucking sweatshop like performance like for all the weird drama and darkness around that movie.

[01:43:34] It's just everything about that movie just crystallizes correctly and you're never going to get better than that. Yeah, you the Wizard of Oz is a tough act to follow and Sam Raimi's initial instinct to stay away from this movie was the right one

[01:43:48] could then of course he read the script which I assume is he was presented with a bag of money, but maybe I'm wrong like maybe he talked himself into there's a way to pay homage to the Wizard of Oz through this. Maybe I don't know.

[01:44:02] I think that was half of it and that thing about the connection to the magician and the showman and that thing thing, but you know what the other thing is? Yeah, the other thing is Griffin and this isn't true of all

[01:44:12] directors, but it's true of a lot and it's true of a Sam Raimi type. I think it's like what if I could make a top-shelf Disney movie like some people are kind of like, oh the magic of like a perfect family Disney movie like that special.

[01:44:24] Maybe you want that like on your resume. Also look that Alan Horn piece that I cannot find where he took credit for adding more Finley to the film also made it sound like they reshot 40% of the movie like six months before

[01:44:39] it came out and I when all the stories are coming out about Doctor Strange and how many reshoots there were I was worried that this was exactly what it was going to feel like where it was just like this whole movie has been smoothed over and

[01:44:52] sanded off and is just sort of like generic goop and you know, Doctor Strange I think is a half a movie that feels like that and half a full bore completely recognizable Sam Raimi shit. And I wonder if he just got lost in the machinery of making a

[01:45:10] movie like this if the he couldn't recover from the copyright shit if the reshoots just totally erased whatever personality was there, but I just got so fucking bummed out watching that interview with Franco where I saw it for the first time.

[01:45:28] I fucking saw on an emotional level why he did this movie and then it is so depressing to watch this film and recognize the thing there and have it not connect at all. Here's what I think happened Griffin. You want to listen up?

[01:45:40] Yeah, maybe get some behind-the-scenes scoop from me. I think he was given an apple by an evil witch and he ate it and it turned into a bad director for six months. Her tears are acid. They burn her. She she melts with water.

[01:45:54] Well, yeah, that's a reference to her being oh, that's because you know, they can't they can't be out in front of that but this is the first time she's ever cried in her life and she does it twice in one day over the least charismatic man in

[01:46:12] the world is showing her a tiny bit of affection for 11 minutes Griffin. She was clearly born yesterday. So I don't know what you mean like it does not appear. Like this person has been alive for a very long time.

[01:46:24] You folks have seen that interview where she's doing a press junket and they send like a college student to interview her from some British station. Yes. Yes. Good. Good. JJ had this in the it was sort of a viral thing that it was incredible. What is it?

[01:46:40] Yeah, you've you might have seen it data. You might remember it if you saw it. He's like asking her questions about like going out drinking with his friends and shit. He's just like so sort of like innocent and just like sort

[01:46:52] of like my friends all think you're really hot. You did have a fun time. She came at her but he's like not being like sleazy with her. Yeah, and she's like this is incredible. This is the best thing I've ever done.

[01:47:01] You're the only person in days who's talked to me like a real person and then he's like great. He's like, I'm sorry. I'm like an intern. They sent me. I'm fucking this up. I should ask you questions about the movie and she's like,

[01:47:11] I don't want to talk about this movie ever again. And then she does this thing where she's like here. Here's every answer. I have about the movie and she speed runs it for like 30 seconds and she's like, I play a woman who's very innocent.

[01:47:22] She gets her emotions abused by this man, but I found interesting that the character was the duality. I did try to find the humanity in the root of what she was this is that anyway go on where do you and your friends go out

[01:47:30] drinking and she just has yeah, he's like going to a wedding baby and he like ropes her into that. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, but but it's like the answer where she just says like here all the bullet points of what I would say in a fucking

[01:47:42] junket interview for about this character in the arc this whole movie just feels like that. I mean, that's that's charming. I'm going to go watch that interview. I think Mila Kunis is cool. I think she's cool. She's a Ukrainian Jew, you know, she's from Ukraine.

[01:47:56] She's been doing a lot of really fucking good work. Yeah, like raising money during the crisis. Yeah, it's very to Ashton Kutcher which is you know, kind of weird but I remember I think she was on the Conan podcast. Was that right? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[01:48:11] And then Ashton Kutcher like showed up in the middle and it was one of those things where you're like, you know, you have the cynical thought like is this like something they staged or ever like it truly just seems like he's coming home

[01:48:23] from work or whatever and they're all chatting. That's very nice. Yeah, she seems like a nice lady. I've always liked her and she does just have a very unique energy like it was this that moment in the early 2010s when everyone thought suddenly.

[01:48:40] Oh, is she a movie star? It was kind of exciting because she is unique. She doesn't look like anybody. She doesn't sound like anybody. Yeah, she's a little unique. It's true. Yeah, she's got a very interesting vibe and there was like an interesting range of like, huh?

[01:48:51] She's very different in Black Swan than she is in this than she is in that and I don't know. I think it comes back. Yeah, she's funny. I remember when forgetting Sarah Marshall came together like I was so excited for it because it was like one the Apatow

[01:49:05] thing was still like barely new and two it was like I was like, oh my God, the guy like a most from Freaks and Geeks is making a movie and then like Veronica Mars is in it. Right? Oh and Russell Brand. That's interesting.

[01:49:17] And then I was like, oh, I'm Mila Kunis who cares? I had no interest. I was like, oh sure from that 70 show and then she's like one of the best things about the movie like that was where I was like, oh, she's so charismatic. Yeah, I don't know.

[01:49:30] Kuna's Kuna sans, but this is where we're yeah, Kuna sans, please, but this is this is when we are clearly we have nothing good to say about this movie where we're just like, well, Mila Kunis seems nice. Yeah, like we're out where we like there's nothing to say

[01:49:46] about Oz the Great and powerful. They have a big battle at the end. It makes no sense. He uses magic. It's not sense. It's funny. He's a stage magic to win a battle. He faked his own death in a way that you're like you didn't

[01:49:56] for whose benefit he didn't and he gets to be the king but in a good way sort of I guess he's not doing it for profit. He gives everyone a gift and then he's like in your gift Glinda is behind this curtain and it was it was him.

[01:50:14] It's going. There's a Katie Waldman reviewer piece about this movie when it came out from slate and the headline just really kind of sums it up where it's in Rami's odds male frauds are heroes and female frauds are pathetic. Oh, yeah. Wow.

[01:50:31] Yeah, not to underline too hard but like it just that is the thing where just this movie keeps on trying to tell us like, you know, you should like this guy. Yeah, and that it did not work. I mean from the beginning when I'm like he literally is

[01:50:45] like there's a sock on the door because he's trying to like hook up with this girl. He's tricking and like then he's kind of mean to Michelle Williams who's like I want to be with you and he's like

[01:50:54] shove it and but he doesn't do in a funny or charming way. You know what this performance feels like, you know, when you watch like documentaries about things like fire festival and everyone who's talking is like Billy McFarlane was the most charismatic person I've ever met.

[01:51:08] You don't understand it that guy got you in a room and you were just throwing money at him. Yeah, right. And then you watch the interview and you're like I see through this guy. This guy's got nothing going on. What am I missing here?

[01:51:18] It feels like everyone in the movie is telling you like God when Oscar digs looks in your eyes, you'll follow him anywhere. You believe he is the great and powerful as and I'm watching like who the fuck is this guy makes everyone seem really stupid.

[01:51:31] That's the problem and it makes the girls the women seem pathetic because they're why are you even devoting any energy to this idiot except for vice who sees through right away and yeah, no, I mean good. Look what you're saying.

[01:51:46] I've what everyone is saying and then let's just play the box office game is like, you know, obviously if I'm Sam Raimi and I'm looking at the script, I am like, yeah, this guy needs to turn from villain to hero.

[01:51:56] He needs to turn from CAD to heartwarming, you know, dad, right? Like that makes sense from so the script. Yeah. So the script has that arc in it. It's just that his performance doesn't change much and it doesn't so so at the end where everyone's like, oh, you're

[01:52:13] so great. I'm like he is the movie happens on a green screen conveyor belt behind him while he's exactly in the same place. It's pretty much, you know, kind of the same. Yeah, he's not cattish enough and then he's not charming enough Griffin.

[01:52:28] Oh, you know what we should talk about before we end that we get the backstory on the broomstick. He teaches her that witches are supposed to have broomsticks, but she does come up with pointy hat on her own. She independently comes up with pointy hat.

[01:52:46] Well, she goes from floppy hat to pointy hat. Yeah, it's a huge. It's a big character arc. It's a huge important thing that we need to learn. Yeah, it is funny that at the end of the movie, she's like,

[01:52:55] I'm wicked and he's like, well, if you ever wanted to not be wicked, we would forgive you and she's like, no, it leaves like this. Like, why even do that? If you ever want to not be wicked, you know where I am here in the kingdom of Oz.

[01:53:09] Right? She's like, no, goodbye. You're like, right. She can't turn good again. She's the wicked witch. Like, this is what you set up. Look on the point of the box office game, a transition here. I remember when the one of the later trailers came out and

[01:53:23] it included that they never showed the witch design in the trailers, right? They tried really hard to hide. Yes, she was becoming the wicked witch. Yes, she's on the poster in the floppy hat. They're trying to keep you guessing.

[01:53:37] And one trailer had the end sort of money shot was the green hand with the nail scraping across the claws. Yeah, right. And then the other trailer, the money shot at the end was when the fire starts to swirl and you see the silhouette of the witch design.

[01:53:53] And I remember on, you know, slash film or whatever when that trailer posted someone in the comments saying that final shot just got them a hundred million dollar opening and it almost did. It almost did this film opened March 8, 2013.

[01:54:08] So pretty much the Alice in Wonderland spot to 79 million dollars. Pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty good for a movie that no one remembers or cares about and for a bad movie, a movie that is boring and long, but

[01:54:24] it truly was one of those things where I feel like it wasn't tracking incredibly well and then they put the witch teases in the trailer and then it like went up. I buy that. Yes, it made 234 million dollars domestically one of the 10 highest grossing films that year. Yep.

[01:54:41] It made 490 million dollars worldwide. So it was quite successful and I think it maybe does not make the top 10 yet worldwide. No, it doesn't know but it makes it domestic which is insane. Number one, I was getting powerful.

[01:54:57] Number two is an even more ill-advised quasi family movie set in the world of children's fantasy. Huh? Even more ill-advised. Yes, set in the world of children's. Is it opening this weekend? No, it opened last weekend. It was a bomb and it's made 43 million dollars in two weeks.

[01:55:19] Huh? Is it based on it's based on a pre-existing children's fantasy. It's based on a fairy tale. Is it pan? No. Huh? If Oz does not exist, this is like, you know, doesn't exist on the quantum levels like physicists could not find traces of it in anyone's atoms.

[01:55:41] Okay, it's not Mirror Mirror. No, it is but I'm on the right zone. It's like one of those canonical fairy tale. It's a canonical. It's a Rick. Tina, do you have any instinct on this? I have no idea. Okay, it's directed by a canceled person.

[01:55:58] It's directed by a canceled person. It's not Brett Ratner's Hercules. No, is it? I love you, daddy. Yeah, I mean 43 million dollars. It's it was why why met very delayed? Oh, yeah. Okay. Well then say it Jack the Giant Slayer correct.

[01:56:22] You had to struggle to think of the title. Yes. Yes, it is Brian Singers Jack the Giant Slayer starring Nicholas Holt and Ewan McGregor among other people. So live action or animated live action. Oh no live action like this is live action.

[01:56:37] The most I can't believe these movies came out and back-to-back weekend. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Ridiculous. That's like a two-car pileup. The most insane thing about that movie is that Brian Singer really want to direct X-Men first class and had signed up for this and

[01:56:54] he asked Warner Brothers to let him push back Jack the Giant Slayer in order to do first class and they were like no and if you quit will sue you they were so adamant about making that movie making it with singer right away that they were like don't

[01:57:10] you dare fucking quit this movie? This is a go. We're not stopping this for anything. I know we're in the box office game, but I feel like we'd be one more Oz great and powerful detail that we didn't mention at all is Bruce Campbell's in it briefly.

[01:57:24] Oh yeah, God, he's so depressing. We can't even conjure up the energy to discuss the Bruce cameo. I know but he's there and I just wanted you know, he showed up he put on the fake mustache. He's a Winkle guard or fucking. Yes, he is. He's fine.

[01:57:40] A winky dinky guard or some shit. I'll throw this movie in the trash. Should have played Oz. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'm at imagine if Robert Downey Jr. Dropped out and Sam Raimi was like look we're two weeks away from filming you got it.

[01:57:55] You gotta hire Bruce Campbell or I'm quitting. What's number three at the box office? It's a comedy. It's a comedy launching a new star. She's she's breaking out as the star of this film. Huh? She's up. She's she's being paired with a guy.

[01:58:12] Oh, I did a lot of comedies. It's identity. Yeah, Jason Bateman a big guy and Melissa McCarthy is the thief of his identity. Yeah, I guess not a good movie. Not a good movie. Big hit agree with those things.

[01:58:27] Number four is a new movie this week mostly forgotten. I feel like you invoked it recently Griffin. It's like a crime thriller starring one of my favorite actors Colin Farrell. Yep, it's it's the one I invoked it because it was weirdly

[01:58:44] produced by the WWE is it what's it called dead man down? It's called dead man down. It is a Colin Farrell film that I've never seen Vince McMahon the guy who directed the Swedish girl with a dragon tattoo. Oh, right. Yes.

[01:58:58] And so new era paces in it and Dominic Cooper and Aaron's Howard dead man down. It's kind of incredible. You haven't seen that. Yeah, I mean, yeah, but it's opening number four at five million dollars. So I don't know. No one's really seeing it.

[01:59:16] Number five is an action thriller that I feel like you have said is not bad Griffin. It's kind of one of the last movies starring this guy before he just becomes a four quadrant guy. Huh? Oh, it's a contraband. It's not contraband.

[01:59:34] That's Mark Wahlberg, which is another good choice for what I'm describing similar guy used to make movies like this the rock the rock Dwayne Johnson himself and this is one I like is it snitch its snitch. Do you like snitch? Am I wrong?

[01:59:49] I can't remember snitch low-key good. Yeah, right snitch is one you sort of stick up for snitch. I stick up for and not only that if this was before our podcast existed, but I would have given Bernthal supporting Oscar nomination for snitch.

[02:00:03] I would have given him a supporting blankie. Yeah, you can give me support anytime Bernthal like snitches the shit out of that movie. No snitch low-key good, but right? Isn't that the end of Dwayne doing, you know, yeah, like walking tall ask movies, right?

[02:00:20] I think it's the last one and snitch is like much more of a sort of meat and potatoes drama as well. It's kind of exactly he's acting. Oh, it's a Rick Roman walk. Yeah, it's this year. He has snitch. He has pain and gain.

[02:00:35] He's fast and furious 6 obviously, but it's like next year's Hercules and then it's furious 7 San Andreas Central Intelligence Moana fate of the Furious Baywatch Jumanji Rampage skyscraper. It's all big movies that are rock-centric and fucking snitch Dwayne Johnson Barry Pepper Benjamin Bratt Harold Perrineau Susan Sarandon

[02:00:55] John Bernthal Michael K Williams David Harbor sounds good. That's good. Good cast snitch low-key good. That's the box office. We've also got what the fuck is this 21 and over. Oh, that's the Miles Teller fake ID beer run movie.

[02:01:10] I feel like that was a movie that had a lot of different names at certain points. I think so. That's that's one of that run of super bad post super bad are rated teen boy movies that I auditioned for there was another one just like

[02:01:27] this but with Zac Efron, right? Well, that's a 17 again that awkward moment that awkward moment. That's a little more dating is tough. Oh 21 and over is in the Project X. This one is like they're 21 now. So they're going to do it all kids fucking go crazy.

[02:01:49] Just look I just saw speaking of miles teller just saw Top Gun Maverick in which he is behaving himself is the best way to put that performance interest. You know what I mean? Not not a bad way, but that just feels like Tom Cruise took him aside

[02:02:01] and was like look you got one more shot. You got one. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like just fucking give a normal performance in this like I know you're a pretty good actor and he's like, yeah, right sure fine. Is he good at weird? Yeah.

[02:02:12] Yeah, he's totally good. He's fine. But like he's also not particularly interesting like it's fine. I know he's he's a Kaczynski guy. I know so it's not just Tom Cruise like he did only the brave he did he's in the new Kaczynski movie as well.

[02:02:25] So like obviously Kaczynski likes him but yeah, just kind of feels like someone sat him down and was like how many more blockbusters are you looking to be in is it if it's more than one? 21 and over is Justin Chon miles teller Skylar Aston.

[02:02:43] It's it's a real snapshot. They really tried they were spreading it wide to see what would happen directed by the writers of hangover. That was the other thing with John Lucas got more right right right

[02:02:55] you speaking of Zac Efron he's not in this but he might as well have been safe Haven remember that do a male right? Oh, yeah, safely and Huff safe Haven has a like a quietly insane twist ending. We can't talk about that. No, I know.

[02:03:12] I saw safe Haven with Bobby Finger look at the safe Haven Wikipedia page. That's all I'm telling people. I feel like we have mentioned this on a different episode Griffin it rings a bell that there's some wild probably a Bobby episode,

[02:03:24] but that's a loss of house for a movie isn't it? Yeah, insane. Insane. Insane. Then you've got silver linings playbook hanging around. Uh-huh. You got something called escape from planet Earth. Don't really remember that seems to be a Weinstein movie. Yeah. Yeah.

[02:03:39] That's a Brennan Fraser CGI movie that doesn't exist. Yeah, and then you have of course the lax as last exorcism part two. They should have sued. They said the last one was the last exorcism. I know they should have gone.

[02:03:53] They should have called it the second to last exorcist. This is like what they did the never-ending story part two. Come on. You said the last one was that's it. Yeah, so it goes on to be a hit it makes enough money to justify

[02:04:07] a sequel and to justify another Sam Raimi movie quickly we get neither because everyone smelled that this thing was a rotting corpse. Yeah, like that's really what it is. It is one of those things were like they had like mapped up

[02:04:19] plans of like if this movie works we build a whole Ausland at Disney will keep this going will stay in the world of Oz for decades us us us us right and then just everyone was like there's no energy for this.

[02:04:31] No actor seemed like they wanted to be in this. No, it's like you're gonna do sequels and they're like, well, we're contractually obligated. But like they pushed through on Maleficent 2 and on Alice 2 many years too late when the energy was clearly gone and both

[02:04:48] of those movies flatlined and this it just felt like within three months of it coming out. They were like, yeah, we're probably not going to do that. Melissa into low-key made half a billion dollars. It's insane half a billion dollars head screen is the main villain in it.

[02:05:02] Wow. Ed screen. He's a dark Fae. Of course. Yeah. All right. We're done. We're all we're very yeah with Oz forever and thank God one reason we never did Sam Raimi was we didn't want this to be the last movie in his fucking filmography for the entire run

[02:05:23] of our podcast. This had been his last film and now we don't have to end on the note of like, well, it would be nice if he made another movie now the note can be. Yeah, he had another movie and we'll talk about it next week. Yeah.

[02:05:35] And you know what? It's nice that whatever you think of multiverse of madness. It is definitively not this and he seems energized to make something new soon and people are giving him credit. Like I feel like people are largely giving him credit for

[02:05:52] that movie and reacting positively to the stuff that he contributes and hopefully it means that the next person who hire Sam Raimi to make a movie will let him be Sam Raimi. Yeah, Dana. Thank you so much for coming back on the show.

[02:06:05] Thank you so much for having me. What a pleasure. I hope it was you'll get a better movie eventually. I'm sorry. I had fun. Yeah, Dana. Don't worry. Don't worry. You'll get a better movie in about six to eight months when

[02:06:18] we cover another movie about a bad witch. I want both parts of the wicked movie. Witches with bad ex-boyfriends. Perfect. Your book? Yeah, Anatomy, a love story buy it wherever books are sold. New York Times bestseller. New York Times bestseller.

[02:06:38] Yeah, you can buy it almost anywhere in the world. Reese Witherspoon likes it. My close personal friend Reese Witherspoon likes the book. Yeah, and listen to the podcast Noble Blood if you want the exact opposite vibe of this podcast. Perfect. Hell yeah. Yeah.

[02:06:56] Slightly more hangs together a little tighter than Blank Check I would say. Also then Oz the Great and Powerful The Ultimate Complement. It's a little tighter than Oz the Great and Powerful. Just a little tighter every script of my every episode script is a little tighter than this.

[02:07:12] Little bit tighter than Oz the Great and Powerful. Thank you so much for being here Dana, and thank you all so much for listening. Please remember to rate review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping to produce the show.

[02:07:27] Thank you to AJ McKee and Alex Barron for our editing. JJ Birch for our research. Leigh Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song. Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. You can go to BlankCheckPod.com for links to all sorts of nerdy shit.

[02:07:43] Go to patreon.com slash blank check for blank check special features. We're doing commentaries on the Batman movies we haven't covered before. Hashtag not all bat men. Tune in next week for the end of this yellow brick road. The Road of Ramy with Dr.

[02:08:01] Strange and the Multiverse of Badness. Ha ha ha ha. And as always China Girl innocent.