[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 The horseman was a Hessean mercenary sent to the shores by German princes
[00:00:25] to keep Americans under the yoke of England. But unlike his compatriots who came for money, the horseman came for love of podcasts That's not Deb, right? No, that's Michael Gambon Which I was pretty off on that one too
[00:00:40] Way off, no offense, but Michael Gambon is a very, you know, he talks in a very particular way And I couldn't find it Hello everybody, my name's Griffin Newman I am David Sims I'm Michael Gambon No! He's got kind of like a...
[00:00:53] That was him talking for a while It comes from Lower, it comes from Michael Gambon It comes from like the spleen I feel like I'm getting to Ian McKelleny Sure, indeed No, because it's... I feel like he is more...
[00:01:04] Well, almost he sound like Michael Goff in this movie I sound a little like Michael Goff He's got a very particular voice too He's got a very particular haircut in this movie To mull it Yes And I don't know how else to describe it
[00:01:14] The most particular hair cut He has that old tiny mullet, right? Yes Yeah, because Michael Gambon, if I'm not mistaken, is Irish and he's got this sort of twang to his accent Yeah, it's very hard to do This was the year that Michael Gambon
[00:01:29] he had the insider a few weeks after this with a Southern accent And it was like the first time I really noticed Michael Gambon within that four week period where he was seeing two magnificent performances with two very different accents
[00:01:42] So you didn't see toys, is what you're telling me in theaters Because he's the villain He's very good in toys Very strange performance where he shoots himself in the foot trying to shoot a fly that has landed on his foot
[00:01:52] And then he shoots himself in the foot by taking on toys True Right, that one probably knocked him back a few years You're right, this is the emergence of Michael Gambon This is when he becomes a remarkable character Right And a guy
[00:02:05] Already a British theater legend or whatever Right, and respected film actor But now he becomes like you got an extra million lying around get Gambon to do a couple scenes He'll do less I'm saying for the bigger films
[00:02:16] he probably do you think he pulled down about a mil for later potters? I would eliest Right At that point Respect, he's the second lead of six But you know in five which is the great sin of the fifth Harry Potter book Dumbledore's barely in it
[00:02:33] because Dumbledore spends the whole book not talking to Harry Yeah And then at the end he's like I'm sorry, I thought that was a good idea because I was trying to not get Voldemort into your head Dumbledore's alright Harry's like, you could have mentioned something
[00:02:46] He's like I was busy reading a book four I never finished Goblet There's always a lot of you could as with with old Dumbledore Right, he always just marches in at the end He's like look this is my plan this time and you know so so 50-50 Yeah
[00:02:58] Cedric's dead but Voldemort's back Yeah Zero a hundred here Sometimes You're gay? Selectively I'm Melancholy Yeah He's a Melancholy man at Dumbledore But I think he probably was able to pull down like a million because you deal you know he's replacing Richard Harris
[00:03:16] I think people were upset at the time you know upset that the headless horseman had claimed Richard Harris but also upset Are you saying that when we all died the headless horseman comes for us? Well yeah that's what happened to my grandma Rossi right
[00:03:28] I thought she was whatever My parents recently told me the truth and they said now I understand that if a person you love goes on vacation for a long time you never see their body that they are not in fact still alive
[00:03:40] but that the headless horseman came for them a Hessian mercenary for love and part-time irrepartisements and like a great conspiracy that reaches back into the far reaches of America and now Rossi now lives in a tree a weird cool tree because of a real estate fight years ago
[00:03:56] there's a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David it's a podcast about filmographies directors who have massive success early on in their careers and give a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes heads roll B
[00:04:14] very good well played this is a new series on the films of Tim Burton I won you could have glowed every time I didn't resist I would disagree wow yeah you didn't definitely didn't resist this many series it took us three and a half years to get to
[00:04:33] we had other things to do yeah things that I prioritize lower than this it of course is called pod word scissor cast sure I'm just this one's in your hands the whole Burton caboodle and I don't even I'm happy we're doing it yeah David Skyping in
[00:04:54] we're recording this one a while in advance we're technically in the middle of our Nancy's sure we're doing some Nancy's we're doing them all we are very special guests today we wanted to get him in the studio while he was around right
[00:05:06] so me saying pod word scissor cast right now is me throwing down the gauntlet sure that's the title this is the first time we didn't even confirm it between the two of us it sounded good this is what this whole many series is going to be
[00:05:18] you go and if you want to do that that's fine right sure go for it I think it's the obvious one I looked at the titles and podcast attacks just this two right it's not specific enough to Tim Burton you know pod listen, wonder cast
[00:05:33] miss pod of greens cast for peculiar podcast he's done things like Charlie and Chuck Fechery Alice in Wonderland, Miss Peregrine where it's like Sweeney Todd these are other properties this is my argument it's not really a Burton thing right his titles have so many syllables though
[00:05:46] it feels like they would be yes there's some opportunities but then they just don't feel right they don't you know podcast big adventure pewees but you know that sounds like an I to be trivia fact for Tim Burton his film titles have many syllables
[00:05:58] people always add those kinds of things yep well Paulie still our guest today a very exciting guest is a filmmaker he has directed films such as a ghost story sure in the muddy sands sure he's your agon sure and the old man in the gun
[00:06:17] which will probably be just old news at this point more like the old news in the gun seriously David Lowery is here it's a joy to be here thank you so much for being here ridiculous that you're here very or that you like this
[00:06:28] dumb choice on your part silly thing we do sick like three months ago when I was building the frontal mandibles of the Lego Millennium Falcon right listening to the entirety of the phantom podcast you're the rare fan that we get these days
[00:06:41] who still is hooked with the Star Wars the initial gambit you know often people jump on later no that was it I mean I was it was what I listened to you while building my midlife crisis Lego set okay so I got a couple questions
[00:06:55] first of all David's right I mean it does seem to be these days people get into the new episodes and then once they're deep in maybe they fuck I'll go back to the Star Wars stuff the Malayne Falcon you were building this was was this the the ultimate
[00:07:09] yes yeah I can talk shop a little is that the one you wanted to buy me no because this was a thing David had said he kind of wanted the Lego Millennium Falcon from solo that's that's no good right which I wasn't specifically
[00:07:24] I just saw it on sale and I was like oh look at this you saw the already on sale like there's like we gotta get these things out off the shelves no one wants them you saw them announce it sure you quoted the tweet with the
[00:07:34] announcement and said I want it sure sure so then I said because I'm trying to poison David you just want me to own toys like some weird poetic triumph for you if I do correct okay I knew it was that set was being released
[00:07:48] right around his birthday so I was like I will buy that for you and then Joanna David's girlfriend sitting next to me I believe at the time during all of this right sees the ping on the phone and was like absolutely not right
[00:08:00] no way it was one of those things I think where my phone was lighting up so much that she was like what's what's happening right now and I was like at Griffin's like doing this joke where he's gonna buy me this Lego
[00:08:10] Millennium Fox not a joke it was a very expensive show of friendship like 200 bucks yeah and I was like I mean he's not going to do it and and she's like yeah I don't want to send over a list of stipulations
[00:08:22] that I would gladly buy for him have it shipped to his home right as long as it was fully constructed sure not would be the part point not thrown out by Joanna at any point in time she wouldn't throw it out
[00:08:32] and then the phone was placed in a position of display within the home for one calendar year now I said it could be any place you can pick the place and I immediately said to her well it could go and I you know mentioned
[00:08:44] a place in my apartment that is not prominent like a blind spot yeah it wouldn't be a big thing sure like it wouldn't really take and and she was just like no we're not doing no absolutely not and then it became an enjoyable
[00:08:56] discussion between the two of us my wife is like adamant that I do not take my house out of the office like yeah they say there they have to stay right so like my friend Derek Simon who writes for Supergirl his wife is it's the same deal
[00:09:08] same dynamic right if he has to get stuff shipped to his office see I don't buy toys I just buy blue rays that's my vice and so I have a lot of blue rays yes and those are tolerated obviously but like you know that that's my only
[00:09:22] but can we can we say my work around for the birthday present it's also I still hadn't come out yet and I was like I don't want to see the movie not like that Falcon as much commit that money and
[00:09:32] then joy might throw it out anyway I figure the set though isn't it just the million Falcon plus that extra bit and if you don't want to do the extra bit you don't have to colors are interesting thing when you get the ultimate masters collection
[00:09:44] edition or whatever it's called is that they go the book which is like 600 pages and this was literally like the biggest set they had ever produced right has a history a history of the Millennium Falcon Lego sets which is fascinating and this is this year's model it's also
[00:09:58] crazy to look at how rudimentary the first couple were because they kind of just look like a disc with two pieces on them yeah yeah you'd like go back and look at the early Star Wars Lego sets and you're like oh that was like six blocks
[00:10:10] and it kind of looked like a tie fighter right the last thing I'm going to say in the subject is my work around which I was very proud of and I can talk about now because it finally arrived in your mailbox it did took forever I knew so
[00:10:24] goes Joanna so goes the house right I bought for each of you an action figure of your favorite character in the history of movies sure I mean fate one of number one favorite character in the history of movie sure one of my favorite
[00:10:38] so I got Joanna Tom Hilsen Loki you asked who Joanna's favorite Marvel character I knew she's a Marvel zombie yes and and I asked her and she said let's look at your captain America and I was like I think you're more of a captain
[00:10:50] America but your favorite characters Loki yeah and she was like I think you're right so I got her Loki and then we have a month later because it was back order right so this is the thing the Loki arrives first that the penance offering comes
[00:11:02] right she's without the actual thing that is it's designed to be sort of salve for you know like yeah which gave I mean was not playing this original money fucking looks really bad right looks like a bell star galactica ship yeah yeah it doesn't look like anything no
[00:11:18] it looks like a like the early CGI renderings from like last starfighter exactly where they couldn't really afford to have too many angles yeah yeah right and then I bought you your favorite movie character of all time I do love him I do you know
[00:11:30] I love him Admiral Pete Admiral P.F. Hermes P.F. Empire Strikes Back the man caught in the in the bureaucracy of the Empire and I'm very happy that if you Google his name and the first result is David Simpson entry one is the Wikipedia
[00:11:44] entry two is the Wikipedia and then entry three is the article I wrote so you know I'm number three that's fantastic yeah my favorite my favorite Star Wars character I love him so much so this has been episode one of Toy Boys
[00:11:56] tune in next week so are you a toy boy or is it just Star Wars Lego I used to be and you know I think the last action figure I bought was probably this ties into the series is the Edward Scissorhands figure from
[00:12:10] sure sure yeah and it was right around that time that I had a bunch of McFarland toys and this was the first time I saw it and I was like I'm going to buy this one and I'll get started with that figure David
[00:12:22] I mean really high class stuff yeah and after that I stopped by seized to purchase action figures and every now and then I'll see something that I want and I think maybe I'll get that but then I don't I've stopped acquiring quite so many material possessions
[00:12:38] and I do still buy certain blue rays and now Lego kits so yeah I will say I've seen that's definitely what it's become for me because now I I keep buying them I've followed up Lenny Mthokken with Boba Fett's ship right it's like the process of doing
[00:12:52] it I think is very satisfying for people in between creative jobs that drive them crazy to be like I'm just going to sit here meticulously build a thing I know how it has to end up looking and there's like a vague hint of nostalgia
[00:13:02] yeah tied into that that is satisfying yes so this has been episode two of toy boys so uh so you're a prequel fan or I enjoy I enjoy the lore yeah exactly like and I without we could
[00:13:20] you want to break down the prequels again we could start right now like first ten minutes of Fana Menace featuring Silas Carson who I felt you gave short thrift to in your performance review I think yes he was not good as the Neimoidian but as Kia Diamundi
[00:13:36] he's great and is a pilot that is yeah and also retroactively his performance has gotten much better now that I've seen him in Phantom Thread giving an excellent performance as the that one scene he's so good in and that just I was like that's now I like
[00:13:50] even more like business interests yes exactly he's like why would I need her money I have my own yeah right and he's weirdly wearing the Kia Diamundi forehead well yeah well that she's getting married to Kia Diamundi right within Phantom Thread that's canon yes
[00:14:04] um no it is odd I do find that uh I have to design a Jedi Gow and like I'm trying to imagine Mark Bridges just like throwing up his hands into Spader trying to marry these two worlds Queen of Adolah's getting married again that's why he got that
[00:14:20] Jetski at the Oscars because he really just went to bat for that how how long do you think we have to wait until like a filmmaker in their like publicity tour says that the film is inspired by Phantom Menace that we get to a point where it's like
[00:14:32] you know I was kind of not long right not long at all soon enough whether or not they're like fans just the notion of like I think that it's ingrained in a certain like generational DNA this right because all this like the
[00:14:44] dumb like the levels to which we know all of this shit for movies we don't ostensibly like you know right it's it's sort of like American history now at this point where it's just this thing where everyone has the working base of like
[00:14:58] the elements even if you don't really care and we might be the last generation that kind of like doesn't like them kids love them yeah it's you love them and I guess right at a certain point if you grew up with it
[00:15:09] what would there be no lingering I also think all the new Disney Lucas stuff has sort of worked to retroactively make those films a little more important between rebels and clone wars and yeah there's been I feel like you were to read
[00:15:21] the story books of the prequels and then watch the series you'd have like this glowing appreciation for that lore yes yeah yes um there's lore the lore is good I mean I've always said those movies make lore pretty good with all the entries
[00:15:35] yeah right some of those Wikipedia entries are hot stuff yeah no but I do I do look back at some of the performance review things and I'm like that person got a pass that person got a fail and I think there's an element of like when we were
[00:15:47] watching them every fucking week like sometimes the movie would just hit you a different yeah you know I can see that get caught up on a thing and then the other thing was that we were we were you know sans context no bids but we're pretending they existed
[00:16:01] in a vacuum and that definitely changed like the way I judged things sure if we were following that experience right let's not bring the anger one might have as a fan of the originals right whatever like you know but this movie that
[00:16:16] we're talking about today comes out the same year and is part of Ray Park's humongous year his Hollywood takeover true where he cannot stop swinging things in studio block he brings his buddy in McDermott along for the ride that's right
[00:16:30] that's right and I believe this was shot at Shepard in so maybe you know it was not nearly after the same I mean it was shot immediately like the sets of the Naboo Palace were coming down and right you know and they were just like Ian just
[00:16:42] just hang out we're gonna give you a powdered wig thing yeah yeah just they literally push back production so they could wait for Star Wars to vacate the studios and take over crazy and McDermott was like I rolled into one after the other and he in interviews said
[00:16:56] like it was kind of great to be back in like a very physical visceral world after doing Phantom Menace where it makes your life so much easier if there are things to react to sure and you're like God what a like ominous 1999 quotes
[00:17:11] not knowing that like the entire my industry is gonna go the way of Phantom Menace and Phantom Menace is the only one that even has like 20% physical sense I know that had sets right you know yeah but he even at the time was like
[00:17:25] frustrated from doing Phantom Menace and was like it was great to be on a set where I could be scared of the thing that a person had built and just like with all of his friends like all these titans of like the British theater scene we're
[00:17:36] all just hanging out in that one room together murderers were like Griffiths Gough well this is my favorite thing about this movie is that right rather than praying on co-eds or pre-teams or what are like the headless horseman is going after British character right
[00:17:52] and then like they're all on his convicted sex offender Jeffrey Jones sure sure yeah okay well we're gonna talk about Jeffrey Jones in prior episodes they assume yeah we'll have a six-part miniseries within the miniseries do you think he will be in Deadwood
[00:18:07] the movie I think he cannot I think that's why it's soon he has not wasn't no he's in it but he was because he was in the the whole issue occurred this is this is prior to Deadwood so he was cast in it was mid-Deadwood because I remember
[00:18:21] his mugshot it has him with Deadwood facial hair which was really really unfortunate for everyone well it was 2002 when he was arrested so it's post sleepy hollow right yes he was arrested for soliciting a 14 year old boy to pose for a nude photograph he pleaded
[00:18:38] no contest he was the charges dropped so he wasn't actually convicted and he will give it my official he's a registered sex offender no good bad don't do I agree yes but um you know yeah I mean he hasn't worked much
[00:18:53] since then who's your caddy was that his last home who's your caddy how do you know that what do you mean how do I know that what other currency do I have in the society tell me who the lead in who's your caddy was wasn't fizz on
[00:19:05] love was it no he's in it though he plays a character called big big large who's your caddy well I like that character okay wait wait again large right I think he was in the danger field type and I think Jeffrey Jones was sort of the
[00:19:19] Ted Knight who's your caddy the lead was he a comedic actor or was he sort of a more of a straight was he kind of the Michael of Keith of the picture he's a musician he's a musician a singer or rapper a rapper
[00:19:31] who has acted a little but not someone I think of as like a some bow wow was it no but uh I think no bow no not bow wow is he little no he's big does he have big in big this is taking too long from a southern
[00:19:48] a big boy big boy big boy was the lead of who's your caddy yep this summer it's the street versus the elite I've never heard of this movie I don't know what this is this was in the run of like in the way like soul plane
[00:20:02] is to airplane as who's your caddy is to caddy chat where it's like an unofficial renaissance I see I see it right and that does seem like because it's a club it's a golf movie right right well I just remember Jeffrey Jones being all over the trailers of
[00:20:18] being like we're still doing this anyway let's get back on track I can't remember what the track was like a sleepy hollow right it's a it's a damp dusky track where only a carriage can pass a leafy track yes leaves lots of painted clouds in the
[00:20:34] background yeah so this movie comes out of the fallout of Superman lives it's like I mean I was trying to look at the timeline and Superman lives was like he always talks about being a year of his life so that must have started prior to
[00:20:48] Mars attacks coming out I think they were kind of concurrent because he was still at Warner Brothers yeah he had mostly done Warner's films until that point and Mars attack certainly was they were developing at the same time I think it was going with post-production
[00:21:02] and press and all of that with Mars attacks and he jumps on to this I think about a month or two after Superman collapses yeah very quickly wanted to make a movie right have you watched the documentary about the death of Superman yes it is fascinating
[00:21:20] it I need to watch it it's like the footage of the footage of them just doing the costume test is worth the price of the rental really everyone's excited about everyone like looks back and as a missed opportunity and and yet
[00:21:32] at the same time I'm just like really glad that that movie did not happen and that this movie happened the sleepy hollow happened yes I mean I think it's a far more interesting movie to think about Superman lives than it probably would have been to watch
[00:21:44] and I think he would have been destroyed for like even if like nerds like us 20 years later appreciated it I think the the general community would have hated that fucking movie and especially coming off of Mars attacks which is a profound disappointment right it would have put him
[00:22:04] well who knows what would have happened but you know we might have not gotten the sleepy hollow or the well we'll talk about where he goes from sleepy hollow but this definitely feels like a director sponsors sleepy hollow in the sense that it is mean to Superman
[00:22:18] no I'm saying I'm sorry to Mars attacks to Mars attacks in how straight laced it is it does feel like this and Sweeney Todd are the two most straightforward I mean he's never made a movie that is a totally devoid
[00:22:32] of humor no sure but I know you're saying it's like he's like I want to make a horror movie I never made a horror I want to go to a real harm setting but also digging into his aesthetic which I get right around this point was like
[00:22:42] developing into the Tim Burton aesthetic like he's always had you know that what it you know the the goth side of him and then the kitchen side those are like the two right things that define Tim Burton the goth side usually wins out right after Mars
[00:22:56] attacks he's like let's go back to the the things that people like about my films right and as a result like now that's what we think of when we think of the Tim Burton aesthetic yes is the sleepy hollow look and this movie
[00:23:08] this is going to be a running thing in this main series is probably going to drive you crazy but I do think there are separate different subcategories within the Tim Burton aesthetic sure yes and this one is fast because it's kind of isolated
[00:23:22] in of itself of being completely devoid of any catch but also that sort of humor and the sort of it certainly stylized this film right yes but I'd stylize but I think in this film he's sort of reverse engineering like okay let me
[00:23:38] take my Tim Burton drawings and try to reproduce them in reality as much as possible in a more organic way rather than something like Sweeney Todd where it's trying to make it look like a cartoon to a certain extent a little bit a little
[00:23:52] more theatrical you know not Sweeney Todd Sweeney Todd might have been kind of like a heavy hitter on that one who's only worked with once like Lubaski on this film yes it might be Darius Volsky okay I think it was Darius um this is
[00:24:10] I mean maybe just his most purely beautiful looking such a gorgeous movie it really is and there's something too he also said that he wanted to try to make a mostly practical film I think after
[00:24:24] Mars attacks where it'd been so CGI Superman was going to be so CGI I think you could see that's the way the industry was going it's just go on finish your thought no it's just such a fucking tactile movie yes it's
[00:24:34] just funny that you guys are talking about this to think about right like rather than blow his career on Superman right he goes and makes us a sleepy hollow R rated horror movie that's a huge hit like that like that his weird movie turns out to be
[00:24:48] like the safe play yes whatever and a really bizarre thing to think about now is this was at the time the first and only Johnny Depp movie to make a hundred million dollars right like they were like this is the first time he's actually led a fully
[00:25:02] successful film and it's also run is also I remember distinctly being so excited when Johnny Depp got this part because it felt like the underdog succeeding at that point you're like you know all right they're back together again for the third time
[00:25:14] when it was like okay so they do like Johnny Depp's clearly his favorite guy they do the passion projects you know sure but right they hadn't worked together since Edward right yes yes this was the third one at this point and they were going to have
[00:25:26] I think like it was like a big off between two potential Abraham Lincoln's it was like Daniel Day Lewis was like up for this part and the and Brad Pitt was the other person the studio wanted I mean it would be
[00:25:38] those guys just pass right I mean like I know the studio like demanded like meet with the I assume that those guys are just like I'm not gonna do this I also maybe not would imagine Burton tried his hardest to just wait
[00:25:50] yeah right I mean he wanted them to settle on depth which is a weird thing to think about now but there was such a notion of like well if you're making a period film it's got to be Nissan or Dave Lewis and they seemed more bankable
[00:26:02] at the time because they had been doing fucking historical epics and shit can you tell me Johnny Depp's prior excluding platoon which doesn't really count his prior highest grossing film before the nightbar in Elm Street no not Scissorhands no it is Scissorhands I take it back it is
[00:26:20] sorry yeah that's a what do you think it was? which made some money right and Scissorhands was a hit but it wasn't like a blockbuster no did very well right and the Burton films that had been really big at this time were mostly Keaton movies Batman
[00:26:36] movies right I'd call them Batman and Bealjuice out grossed you know the the Depp films right you know and when Depp was doing action movies they were like real fucking programmers like Nick of Time you know John Badham Nick of Time yeah you know things
[00:26:52] that were just kind of like solid doubles he had the astronauts wife like right before this ninth gate right before this it was a lot of like thrillers like that you know there's another obvious one oh no not really actually I mean Benny in June
[00:27:06] and Don Juan de Marcos there's other and then Deadman which it rules but obviously made money and then fear and loathing he had done the year before this but you can kind of divide it into like clear passion projects for him with directors a page where he gets
[00:27:20] to be kind of kooky here he doesn't do a lot of paycheck movies though no but he does have these now he he does have specialized of sort of program thrillers yeah like astronauts rife and stuff like that we're sort of trying to
[00:27:32] hit like I need to be the movie star that can get these Tim Burton movies right so he's like taking these right roles hopefully but they just never click yes and he's playing them very fucking straight you know but his legacy at this time I mean the excitement
[00:27:46] around him is when he goes into his weird directions and I think this was a victory for everyone that it was like okay he's doing that in a big blockbuster that is successful and he's not playing wrote he's not tampering down his thing watching it now I was
[00:28:02] surprised by how relatively restrained he is because you watch it imagine what this performance would be like he doesn't wear a single hat today no hats then I mean it's like a parody of fucking Johnny Depp but the thing I read is that he really wanted
[00:28:16] to wear prosthetics we wanted to look like the cartoon character from the Disney right he wanted to be all like sort of hook cartoonishly long nose and long fingers and like big ears and an Adams apple and shit you look like the BFG
[00:28:28] right they were like we're not paying you to not look like Johnny Depp right yeah more on we're already a little man that you look like Johnny Depp right yeah right but that was like he would be able to get on these lists because he was so fucking
[00:28:40] handsome and everyone agreed he was like a compelling screen presence but when he went weird it never worked for box office and then parts of the Caribbean was the thing that changed it but I also think this movie holds a very specific place as the last
[00:28:54] film where Burton had to fight for Depp rather than a movie that's getting made because Depp wanted to work with Burton again precisely when when was the first pirate to me was that 2001 2003 three okay yeah a couple years away still yeah because after this
[00:29:08] with the Depp stir because he does from hell which is a weird imitation of what he's doing here that's completely played straight he does blow he right he does chocolate let's not forget chocolate takes out that Spanish guitar yeah eat some chocolate that was the same
[00:29:22] years of this that's 2000 okay year after before night falls which he's actually good in not a big role the man too small the man who cried which is a bonkers the Sally Potter movie then blow in from hell and they take see her off
[00:29:36] and then he you know he's got that to one to one spot a time Mexico and parts of the Caribbean in 2003 which he's like so wonderful in those movies both of those right and it was just fucking bizarre because it was like Johnny
[00:29:50] Depp has now become like a colossal mega star doing full depth weirdness and it was felt like such a victory it felt like he's right true triumph as a depth fan at that point just to feel like everyone finally gets what I've known for so
[00:30:04] long that's the thing that's really hard to sort of like keep in mind now existing in the present day is that the time it felt like a fucking revolution yeah it was like movies are gonna get weirder now like he beat the system
[00:30:18] he snuck in from the inside he won this battle got an Oscar nomination everything about it was fucking insane yeah and you hear like the list of all the people they wanted to play that part you know like I think McConaughey was their first choice
[00:30:32] I believe you're right yes because they were so hard to reignify yes the a pod for castness yeah but it was like this time that was the thing I equated to and it didn't have the same level of cultural impact but I remember being so
[00:30:46] fucking excited David's about to scoff really hard when Taylor Hicks won American Idol I gotta say I did not imagine you were about to say I know because he was like the least fucking cool dad singer in the world right he sucked he was like
[00:31:02] spazzy he had gray hair I can't even weigh in on Taylor Hicks I was not watching pretty good like vocal like soul singer but it was like there's no way the soul patrol is that a fan base yeah the thing was he was so dorky and there
[00:31:14] was no way for him to fit into the pop culture landscape right where I was like he might have broken this show because this show can't make him a Kelly Clark son and what happened was he just didn't have any career but I remember
[00:31:26] being excited that he had like snuck into the system and I was like what are they gonna have him do do an album of standards now and instead people wrote like bad fucking pop ballads for him and he like had his fucking contract
[00:31:38] drop right but the depth thing actually like seemed to be working for a little Taylor Hicks was like a 10 percenter I'm trying to find the best expression of what he was but he was like some people loved him everyone else just had no opinion
[00:31:50] and was not interested one which was yeah but that was because he had a devoted fan base which is hard to which I consider myself a member I'm sorry not member an officer do you watch American I never zoned out that was the one
[00:32:02] season I watched because I would always find the weird guy in the first couple episodes to be like this guy's great and then he would get eliminated week to and I'd be done and the Taylor Hicks thing was like how the fuck is he winning
[00:32:12] from like 12 year olds I really can't I wouldn't even I didn't even live in the country when he won he vaguely remember his I lived in England I was in England where Sleepy Hollow was shot where Sleepy Hollow was shot Ben get the cards out yellow card
[00:32:34] it's not a yellow card it is look at the card it's yellow anyway go on um the depth the depth they got like a victory yes yeah I understand that and this was sort of the first step to that it's kind of the bridge to him being able
[00:32:48] to pull off pirates it's like if you work in a massive film he can go weird it can still connect with audiences that was sort of the you know the thing he talked about the most with his performance was like I wanted to play this part as a 13
[00:33:00] year old girl and he talked about that a lot his thing at the time was always like I would pick a couple figures in pop culture and combine them for the performance and he said his big influence for this one was uh Angela Lansberg which
[00:33:14] totally fit yeah it works and at the time like for like people who were like rooting for Dap like you and I at a time where it was still respectable to root for Dap uh it was like fucking cool like he got this through
[00:33:30] and it felt like he was kind of deconstructing they usually bland leading man in this type of movie well not just that right he's deconstructing like the vain detective you know the you know tough guy detective the CSI you know 1894 or whatever this movie takes place
[00:33:46] right and he's the one or he's figuring out what a jerk Sherlock Holmes is before like the premise Sherlock Holmes is a jerk becomes like the basis of hit TV shows that's the crazy thing is watching it now this performance
[00:33:58] is so much it feels so much less a verse of than I remember because now this is kind of the way that leading men act in blockbusters where they're kind of winky yeah and they're like I shouldn't be here right you know and they're cutting everything with humor
[00:34:12] um I mean this is like the Marvel archetype not not the cowardice but this relationship between the sort of seriousness of the people around self deprecating quality of the performance not of the character but of the performance is something that stands to this day
[00:34:26] Marvel usually does that more in the Bill Murray way where it's like I'm going to comment on how straightly everyone else around me is and he's doing it by being less brave and you know sort of conventional than everyone else
[00:34:36] around him but it's the same sort of like reactive you know subversive sort of thing right um and now it just feels like oh that's like weird that Depp was ever this not mannered yeah I that's it's also he's not a weird gravel voice kind of demon
[00:34:54] man which sort of become like anytime he pops up now how old was he when he made this that's a good question so he's gonna reach he's fucking 19 in this movie is she which is nuts and creepy yeah he's like 35 okay yeah
[00:35:08] so again he's really he has been around it's not like because yeah he's 55 now but he's the kind of movie star that existed when there was still a middle class of studio films where it was like this was an expensive move I'm saying this is what broke that
[00:35:24] the budget is listed anywhere between 70 and 100 million dollars which is a lot yes especially 99 yeah I'm just saying this is what broke that because up until that point he had succeeded making like 20 to 40 million dollar movies yeah at a studio level he was big enough to get those
[00:35:38] great hit kick in those parts investment he was handsome enough that people always were like we had depth obviously you know it was kind of in the same zone where pit wasn't consistently successful but he was handsome enough right you're talking about the the 90s
[00:35:52] hotties the 90s how they were they were yeah yeah right the cheekbone boys was he ever the sexiest man alive he must have been I think he probably was after pirates which is no I mean I think he never was really I
[00:36:06] worked at people magazine one year when I think he was still being floated and you know like I think he would never agree you know you had they have to agree to do oh to do the photo and I think he they could never entice him
[00:36:18] that was the other thing about him at the time which like I feel like you and I probably just ate up with like a fucking no he did do it I take it back thank you yeah well you're oh three so I have to pirate he
[00:36:32] at the time played the god I hate being a movie star thing right in a way that made him seem cool I think now seems very effective but like him a fucking inside the out roll over effective affected in a way that feels not just ingenuous right right
[00:36:48] it feels very ineffective now but like him on inside the actor studio like wearing his sunglasses hand rolling cigarettes being like I don't even know what makes me different than a potter lived on his you know he was like he's in France he's not part of the
[00:37:02] machine right tattoo says why no forever I mean that all that shit you know which at the time was so romantic because he seemed like a rebel against the studio system and then he becomes the guy who epitomizes like Hollywood excess and blows he also I remember just
[00:37:16] thinking like surely Johnny Depp's not a millionaire like his movies don't make any you don't think about him in terms of paychecks at that point at all this man will never be able to afford an entire French village yes that is staffed year round whether
[00:37:28] or not he's living there I know he's really like it's the Michael Jackson territory like he's in that weird like yeah well his his idol right right right a brand was the guy's like movies by an island like apparently whispered to him like you could own a
[00:37:42] sawmill while cameras were rolling on the market yeah it's got traffic lights up the highway it's good it's good civics it's good for the good for the environment it is crazy everyone to that weird like island where like Marlon Brayden lived and war like a doctor evil ass
[00:38:00] or whatever I think Depp ever went there like eight months out of the year yeah until he had his own weird island where he now dresses up like Marlon Brayden do you think you ever had like say you're like a charter plane guy and one day you get
[00:38:14] the call it's like you gotta you gotta go to Brando's creepy island and like there's all these rules like once you land put on a blindfold like what you have to dress up the plane like a car you have to keep on saying we just pulled
[00:38:28] in where can I park he's actually afraid of airplanes he can't mention them right right has to either be a dragon or a car weird and now there's like a resort there did you guys know this Brando's island because when he died he left
[00:38:44] no instructions on what to do with the island he owned yeah so it was like given to like this hotel chain that operates like Polynesian resorts now you can go to the Brando I wish it was just like a holiday in is guy beam hotel six
[00:39:02] I'm gonna make him out for a put a red roof on it okay sleepy hollah complimentary breakfast Kevin Jaeger yes we gotta talk about Kevin Jaeger this is like the best bit of origin story I love it so bizarre fucking awesome the guy who invented the two wrinkliest
[00:39:24] horror villains ready Krueger and the creep keeper like the creep keeper is him being like what about like even really rare like the king of crevices they called him that probably was an actual line he used to refer to himself I'm the king of crevices crevices
[00:39:40] in Hollywood I'm something of a king of crevices we've taken a lot of sidetracks here but can I list my one piece of trivia about my own films that I'm excited about on sidetrack the voice of Elliott and Pete's dragon is the creep keeper
[00:39:54] really really what's his name John Kassir yes and I cast him because I love the creep keeper that fucking also he's really good at doing animal voices you know he did the raccoon in Pocahontas yeah among others and what's he like up to these days
[00:40:10] because the creep keeper he does a lot of like cartoons and animation and video games anything that requires voice acting he's like because we were needed we needed a voice actor and he was like one of the top three that you know
[00:40:22] now you've said that it does make sense that there's that scene where Elliott inexplicably addresses the citizens of the town as boils and ghouls we had to cut a lot of puns out do you remember when the creep keeper had like a Saturday
[00:40:36] morning game show that was like Legends of the Hidden Temple and it was kids had to like survive obstacle course mazes in a mansion so there were kids in like color coded t-shirts who were like teams and the creep keeper would just talk to them
[00:40:50] and be like fire next challenge you must retrieve six rings but there was that brief period where they tried to turn the creep keeper into a Saturday morning cartoon and they had they made an action figure of the Saturday morning cartoon
[00:41:02] version where they got rid of a lot of the crevices yes they did because they were a lot rounder very shiny creep keeper yes and I had that action figure because I was obsessed with tales from the creep
[00:41:10] and then there was also the tales from the creep Christmas record yes which was delightful this was the tail end of that period like this was the logical end point is like now the creep keeper is Chuck Woolery and he tells kids how to
[00:41:22] win like a fucking toshiba boombox why did they go I guess you loved him so there's that evidence but like yeah I was freaked out by the creep I was terrified he scared me my parents had to like whenever it came on the TV go like
[00:41:34] he's supposed to be funny he's making jokes yeah like that's no joke I know you know and my friend I had a friend who had to poster for demon night I think oh yeah poster it's a good it's a cool poster and
[00:41:50] that freaked me out but I would like also look at it all the time and I didn't get that was the thing that tales from the creep for me is like an eight or nine year old was it was the thing yeah it was the thing
[00:42:00] that scared me cool so I wanted to look at it all the time yes it had really scary things it had violence and had lots of nudity it was all things like was about to be far more interested in but at that age I really wanted to
[00:42:12] like dig in a little further and it was also like the the uncanny valley aspect of it being an animatronic rather than a guy in makeup made it very otherworldly and where actually scarier right for that age got freaked out by like the picture
[00:42:26] Freddy Krueger in a video store box your parents be like it's a guy in makeup right you see the creep keeper and you'd be like that's not a human being I don't understand what's going on here this be witchcraft it was Kevin Yeager is great witchcraft
[00:42:38] to special effects designer Kevin Yeager teams up with Andrew Kevin Walker who at this point seven is just a spec that's gotten buzz yeah because I think this is 93 so Andrew Kevin Walker has written nothing yes he's gonna write brain scan with Edward Furlong Frank Langella
[00:42:58] saw that at a dismember the Alamo marathon your two guys seems like the spot to see it was it good I've never seen it was interesting okay long and Lang it was enjoyable it was very enjoyable long and Lang Furlong Langella exactly long and Lang yes
[00:43:14] you're talking about Shelley Long and Steven Lang well that's my film I'm pitching tomorrow don't take it from me okay and then hide away with Goldblum right yeah which I've also never seen that's seven and event horizon and the game he was like
[00:43:28] God he really was cooking in the 90s really cooking and then he makes the wolf man like he oh he's just a script doctor on a horizon in the game I take it back he's a famous script doctor I feel like yeah right yeah at this point
[00:43:38] he was like a spec script guy and like a punch up like script doctor guy I think he's done work on like most of Fincher's movies in the 90s yes yes fight club he definitely work and I think panic room he worked on
[00:43:50] maybe he's like his like a cameo seven was just so clearly like a calling card script yeah Kevin Yeager wants to make the jump to directing sure he got in like he struck while the iron was hot he was like this is a guy to have to
[00:44:04] find my directorial debut with yeah I mean it was a good introduction but then it wasn't his directorial debut right no this is the thing he so they I guess they work up a treatment where they have the idea of become a brain as detective
[00:44:16] right it's a murder mystery now it's not just him being pursued right and but he wants it I guess to be like a schlocky horror movie with like really spectacular that was his thing it's like it's a big special effect showcase in terms of practical makeup effects
[00:44:32] and he was like there's going to be a heading every ten minutes like it's going to be a nonstop thrill ride that was his big pitch a by heading every ten minutes right and I guess it just never goes anywhere
[00:44:44] well they come to it they sold it to Scott Rudin because Rudin had been a fan of Andrew Kevin Walker from seven yes you're right Rudin set up at Paramount he's like I love good to direct it but instead he directs hell razor
[00:44:56] for was it one of those things where they're like why don't you take this other movie first right maybe your sea yeah exactly right and then I think they go like we can't trust you with this movie we need a bigger budget we need a more
[00:45:08] experienced person your to me well also he Alan Smith ease himself on hell razor for thinking he got in a big fight over the direction of hell razor for which I have not seen bloodline that is bloodline space one right yes yeah but then the
[00:45:20] notion becomes like well rather than letting this guy who's like a horror dude make a fifteen million dollar movie maybe we get a more prestigious director to make like a sixty or seventy million dollar movie on board right to do all the special effects
[00:45:32] which he like you know what a eagolist thing for him to do yes it's kind of beautiful yeah true that's a good point I sort of commendable in a way that he didn't just back off also yeah right he gets a good friend sport
[00:45:47] Coppola has a producing credit which Tim Burton said he didn't know until they locked picture when the credits had been placed in I'm curious what at what point because like when I first saw that I thought oh there's an interesting lineage between this
[00:45:58] and Bramsokers Dracula's stages it feels very yeah but it has nothing to do with that it turns out no somehow American zoetrip got involved at some point and I think maybe they had the rights to the story at some point in the 80s and credit
[00:46:10] because of that association but apparently had no participation whatsoever zoetrip was involved at some point in the development but not even specifically this Burton iteration weird yeah very right Ikebod crane as a character something like that one of those and kind of weird that this is the only
[00:46:28] root in Burton movie because Rudin is known for like collecting directors you're my guy now and I'm going to get you whatever you want all your movies I'm going to keep you in here and it does seem like the kind of guy makes sense in the 90s
[00:46:40] that they would team up Rudin did the Adams family movies too didn't he wrong about that they rule yeah great is arguably the greatest movies of all time they fuck they do they fuck each other now they relax I the other
[00:46:54] day was looking at my DVD shelf and I swear to God the disc cut it out and some values had had rolled out of the case is a fucking each other happy he produced them I did thank you the DVDs were sixty nine each other so I actually
[00:47:08] don't love the first and family I like the first and family the first the second was where they take the concept and really run yes the second one is really on him I really love the first one recently and just had the best time
[00:47:20] it is really looks incredible it's so the design of it is so fantastic and first for Lloyd is phenomenal showcase yeah I do like it I just feel like you know it was just it looks shittier in comparison to values which is 10 at 10 masterpiece first
[00:47:38] is just so funny yeah where it's like the first one looks great is well performed has the right idea but it's just not quite as like hilarious right yes guys yes values has the funniest thing that any movies ever had baby with a mustache doesn't get better
[00:47:52] than shot up to an airplane and going like yeah yeah so you know whoever thought of anything better than that no one literally it has not happened since we've been waiting right we draw a line in Hollywood like that's maybe with a mustache didn't mordecai have a mustache
[00:48:08] in like a baby in my sense feels like that's like the one movie that would have had is that the joke is they see born with a mustache I believe you don't see baby mordecai I tried to watch it's literally like it's like the salt
[00:48:20] challenge it's this thing I swear to God I sat down with a group of people with a full intention of watching mordecai and we were like our systems will not allow us to process this anymore so we started skipping around and even that was hurting us it's
[00:48:36] not the worst way I've ever seen it's literally just your body starts like it's just like to get quite dull like that's the real problem it's like dull and garish at the same time which is a really bad combination like it's about
[00:48:48] an art dealer like it's not fun yes like the plot isn't that fun no no no Paul Betten he plays Jacques Strap that's correct yes a French man named Jacques let's get back to babies with mustache babies with mustaches do you know
[00:49:04] that the running bit mordecai the one thing that's funny though is that Gwyneth Paltrow his wife has been away she comes home she doesn't know that he's grown the mustache and the whole movie every time he tries to kiss her she drives
[00:49:16] I didn't know that it's kind of funny it's the one funny bit in the movie okay yeah I mean Gwyneth Paltrow is very funny and like it's good when she gets to be funny I mean she's you know not quite baby
[00:49:24] with a mustache which is cool yeah she's funny she's probably my favorite stand up sleepy hollow Burton comes aboard as you say I think because of Superman returns he's just like itching to do something right he'd been dealing with John Peters for a year yeah
[00:49:40] didn't like this isn't going to be micro-managed in the same way I also feel like he probably was like with Superman just not really like he was stretching to find a way to make it his thing why was he going to do that because at that
[00:49:52] point time he was the superhero no I know like that's a weird thing to think you'd think he'd think like I already did that sometimes like I think a good comparison it's like Paul Verhoeven where they will give him a script for
[00:50:02] you know hollow man he's like oh I can do something with this I can use this to try these other exactly and whereas Burton just thinks Oh maybe like maybe I could like with Planet the I think Planet of the Apes is like a good
[00:50:14] corollary to what Superman might have been where he's like right I can probably figure out a way to make this a Tim Burton movie because his what a Tim Burton movie I think for him is just so intrinsic to what he's doing that he can't really
[00:50:28] he's not as flexible no and so you feel the strain when they occur and it does occur especially in you know the more recent films my sense from the interviews I've seen him do and from the production the concept art
[00:50:38] all that sort of stuff is that he was going to go really hard on the sci-fi aspects of it that he essentially wanted to make like a 60s B movie alien movie with Superman in it which most people don't think about the alien
[00:50:50] aspect of Superman that much outside of whatever fucking prologue you have but you know I feel like at this time in the culture and for the next for really for like the next 10 years there's still that idea that like oh Tim Burton
[00:51:02] is going to put a spin on this like that'll be crazy and Alice in the Wonderland Alice in the Wonderland Alice in Wonderland I feel like is what kills that debt but also is his biggest hit I know but when that's announced people are
[00:51:12] like oh it'll be so twisted right like this is going to be this is going to be wild and even that that first poster with Depp all made up people like this looks and then and then it worked and everyone
[00:51:22] hated it and I feel like he's been fighting such an uphill battle since then in terms of winning people back especially when it's ever announced that it's a Tim Burton take on Blaine exactly right this was so this era is when right the idea
[00:51:34] to Tim Burton take let me add it and Sleepy Hollow is so in the fucking pocket where you just go like okay he's not going to have to bend to make this his precisely this is just him executing this better than probably anyone else could
[00:51:46] dig into things he's always talked about loving the most is it like arguably the best like match of material to Burton like probably other than stuff that he's conceived of himself like I got into his hands there's just no walk here and I also think that helps
[00:52:00] with removing the kitsch of it which it's not like I dislike Burton kitsch when I think it's well done sure but I think this movie was him trying to prove like I don't have to be tongue in cheek I'll let Depp do all the subversiveness
[00:52:12] I'm going to play this movie straight down the middle you know and really kind of invest in this is like a respectable honest world and I think also just the fact like I mean so I this movie I was 10
[00:52:26] when it came out yeah I was going to ask if you saw it in theaters this is an R I did I was so rabid about him my parents were very reticent take me to R rated movies and this was
[00:52:34] a no question of course we're going to take you to see it right because I was just fucking nuts about him how many of his films had you seen in the theater because you're young I'm young like when are you getting hooked on Burton
[00:52:46] I mean that's the thing it's like a margin actually maybe the only one I saw in the theater but I'd seen all of them on video yeah there's no way you'd seen like Edward in the theater definitely not I was not allowed
[00:52:56] to go into I was like a year or two after this right because it has methadone shits I guess it does taboo yeah oh my yeah did you see this in the theater I did I think I saw I became a Burton fan very early I was probably
[00:53:14] nine okay and my parents would not let me see Batman or Batman Returns they did let me see Edward Scissor hands so that was the first thing I saw of his in the theater right when I was I think nine years old sure and then I saw everyone
[00:53:28] after that so Batman Returns you that was after I didn't see but they didn't let me see Batman Returns why not your parents are it's strange I think they felt they just the violence was a little bit too much for me yeah I mean
[00:53:40] which it wasn't a king so I had all the trading cards I had the making of book but it took me a while to see the film itself but you saw Edward you think yeah they did
[00:53:48] take me to see Edward by that point Kikinas was okay I guess sure I would see Edward and then Mars attacks and then Mars attacks was big deal I saw like the the weak advanced screening they always would do like a Sunday afternoon
[00:53:58] advanced screening and I remember getting advanced tickets to it and and then this one this is this one I was a projectionist at this point like shortly after Mars attacks came out I got my first job at a moment I want to know the David Lowry
[00:54:12] story I don't know yeah where are you from I'm in Dallas Texas okay the first megaplex in the country is the AMC grand okay and how many screens 24 screens it was the first time that had happened wow yeah and so I was here was this that it opened
[00:54:26] it opened in 95 I think okay braveheart was the first movie I saw there okay and it appears to be closed now or sort of half closed it's closed and then it got turned into a studio movie grill which is sort of a
[00:54:40] rip off of like an album or album and then I don't know what I haven't been there in years yeah you're right it opened in 1995 and it was a big deal I saw Braveheart and then I saw Species and that was my
[00:54:52] my summer you grow right up with those two movies exactly right and then so anyway I was kind of modeling my career at that point off of Owen Wilson who also is from Dallas uh-huh Wes Anderson as well but Owen Wilson also
[00:55:05] that was sort of the path you saw yeah like bottle rocket had just come out and I was like okay that's what I'm going to do so own Wilson had been a projectionist at an AMC theater and I think okay that's the ticket gotta write a script
[00:55:18] be a projectionist go right at this one particular coffee shop that they worked at where Kumar owned yeah and so I did all those things I as soon as I turned 16 applied at the AMC grand did you know my time in the concession stand but quickly worked up
[00:55:32] to become a projectionist okay this was in the 35 millimeter era so it was a much more there's a lot more responsibility although they did in trust often one 16 year old me to run all 24 projectors once what was that even possible you just run a lot it's like
[00:55:48] the production booth is about a mile I was gonna ask why your calves are the size of my head um wait is it all in one floor or it's a yeah it's all one floor but it's like different wings yeah and like four different wings and so
[00:56:02] all the timing is staggered but then you have to like don't you have to move the it's not there platter system so they're not changeover so it's all automated once you hit start so you set the thread it up and let it go
[00:56:12] when you say it's in different wings like where the projection booths in one wing connected so that you didn't have to run in and out yes exactly so you have like you have a cluster three or four of a cluster of 10 okay oh Jesus another cluster of 10
[00:56:24] and then two smaller clusters of two for the biggest the biggest auditorium Wow um and so I I love this did this this I love this job I love being a projection yeah so I did it far longer than I should have from the time I was 16 to 24
[00:56:38] wow I around time I turned 24 I realized it was possible to make more than six dollars an hour but up until that point I felt I was a king's wage was being earned and you are free movie probably yeah yeah I ultimately was fired for
[00:56:50] sneaking too many friends in Wow after eight years I think they were just ready for me to go there's like they're like you feel like that's kind of the thing that then like pushed you into having to make your own films oh totally
[00:57:02] yeah yeah I wouldn't say I had a real like day job since then right yeah there's like a cinema parody some movie here there where it's like like you can be old owners like we gotta you know David's got to
[00:57:12] find his own yeah exactly let's find a reason to fire him during this time we're also writing submitting an equal reviews were you not yeah in fact the very first thing I ever sent in a cool was a review of the sleepy hollow trailer really
[00:57:26] yes because you were getting to see stuff early when they would do sort of exactly this is because Dallas actually was a big test screening hub sure Blade Runner show this is before my time of course but Blade Runner and BT were both like heavily test screened
[00:57:38] in Dallas but that's like those are the types of major cities that aren't industry hubs in a way that New York and LA are where like if you couldn't worry about tipping people off you're showing it five months in advance you do it there yeah
[00:57:50] so so you would be like watching things from the projector booth and writing notes and then submitting them to like or what would happen is the night before Kirk you'd build up the print and then you'd have to watch it to make sure you built it up
[00:58:04] before the event right so whether it was an advanced screening or test screening or even just Thursday night before the movie you had to run the print through yeah you have to do that at like one in the morning oh yeah so like Friday mornings in high school
[00:58:16] like I was not present because I would be up all night and I eagerly waited Thursday night it was always exciting you got to see a movie yeah and we would try to if there was like a movie that was outgoing we would try to cancel that screening
[00:58:28] so we could get started early with running the prints through and checking them but and so one time you know people I would sometimes bring friends to these like Thursday night screenings and Dark City was coming out sure and I invited a couple
[00:58:40] friends who invited a couple friends and it ended up being like 40 people showed up to see Dark City and my manager was like please ask him to leave right now anyway I was a projectionist when this opened okay and I was thrilled I'm so excited
[00:58:56] for it had been waiting for it for a long time obviously had studied the trailer and reviewed it and it was pretty cool news the trailer for this was like fucking big it was good yesterday and it's like a good trailer this was one of the early
[00:59:08] movies that like really weaponized the internet and like fan culture oddly because like their website was like huge there's a variety article David if you want to look it up okay from 1999 I know the Wikipedia links to it about how like Paramount
[00:59:22] was making like certainly for an R rated movie but also for a movie they were pushing it in ways online push right there was a big website they had merchandise on the website like nine months in advance where you could buy like head would
[00:59:34] heads will roll shot glasses right that was like a big thing and they had like PK out in there we're making a scary R rated blockbuster we have the footage here they'd have people who worked on the movies doing like live chats they had McFarlane toys toy line
[00:59:50] they did which produced I'll get to merchandise spotlight later one of the least successful action figures of the 90s came out of this movie but yeah they were like really fucking going for it in a way that feels odd to think about now
[01:00:04] for like how violent this movie is how much it is one film like designed to be a fully stand alone thing something that has name recognition but not like a built-in audience where there's ever a moment like when it did well where they're like can we make
[01:00:18] a second one like the headless horseman return or you go like do you buy another property of another weird folklore story and never right that's right it's not a spiritual right or like the huntsman winter's war kind of thing where it's like
[01:00:34] well right that one is the early years of Michael Gambon is sleepy hollow battling demons yeah actually that'd be cool if they cast my band now yeah you can get walking back you could do a prequel sleepy hollow origins walk into the most interesting aspect
[01:00:48] of this movie because this is the very last moment where he could have done this is well this is the bottom wordless role yeah yeah yeah but also after this his career rebounds but as a modern funny walk and the SNL appearances and the spy Jones videos
[01:01:02] all those sorts of things you couldn't have taken him seriously in a role like this 18 months later but like at this point he is I mean he's so far removed from success like he's you know he might be the weird
[01:01:14] character who pops up in Pulp Fiction or something but it's also interesting like this is not only is Burton operating solely in his own way but he's just bringing out all of his heavy hitters like he's just getting the rogues gallery of Burton character actors
[01:01:26] all into one like the first of his Christopher Lee run right this is sort of the end of his walk and run oh and this was this was before Christopher Lee had his renaissance yeah this is the start of our mind yeah and my my mom
[01:01:38] interviewed Christopher Lee for this movie really because he had an autobiography I think that came out right around this point right I guess he was sort of 75 he thought his career was probably over right and then he had a 10
[01:01:50] year he was he was in this you know the BBC did this adaptation of Gorman Gas the Marvin Peake novels which are so good and he was in this so right he was it was a bit of a swan song with no
[01:02:00] concept that right he was about right around the corner ten year reign as old man Christopher Lee the most bankable movie star like 15 years later who are you putting out a metal album and so I remember like my mom had to watch
[01:02:12] all these hammer horror movies which she does not like horror movies so I watched them all with her I had all this fun watching all these cool hammer horror movies that he's you know all the greats and then she interviewed him and said
[01:02:22] that he was like literally like the like most perfect British gentleman like all time like you know and he used to be like a spy like he has such an incredible like life story but right she would interview these British character actors and be like they're just literally
[01:02:36] like the nicest people in the world when Burton and that did interviews about this movie at the time they said the big thing they wanted to emulate was that sort of the hammer horrors aesthetically but the big thing they want to latch on to was the
[01:02:48] elegance that like Cushing and Lee would bring to it because those movies are like right they've got that gore and that sort of like this real shock value and then right they do have lots of dialogue scenes where everyone's sort of laying out the plot
[01:03:00] in very yes very eloquent grace to those guys you know the presence that classy right right there's a there's a touch of the poet yes and speaking of which one of the other connections to the prequel trilogy is this is episode three but that Tom
[01:03:18] Stoppard came in to do yeah the screenplay yeah yeah that's right which shows I mean you can just tell like all the the witticisms that occur between Johnny Depp and Christian A. Ritchie yes you just feel that touch through and through that that's apparently what they mostly brought
[01:03:32] him on to do is to really hone up the crane character sure and add that sort of got to it yeah you must have a bit of witch in because you have bewitched me like it's such a fancy line but it works so well
[01:03:44] in my memory that was the trailer's sort of big line right or at least one of the big lines I also remember weirdly the big image they kept on using to sell the movie was her blindfolded kissing him on the cheek it's true yeah that image was fucking
[01:03:56] everywhere when she's right on the post motion printing up it's they slow down in the trailers beyond what is in the movie right she's build on the poster like yeah she was a big part of the view she was she just wanted golden globe
[01:04:08] or whatever she's like this role isn't huge and I would argue it's a the least effective part of the movie and you kind of almost want like a little more like you know it would work if she had just a little more to do
[01:04:20] yeah it feels unbalanced because she's Christina Ritchie like you know if they had cast like some actress just at a drama school and put her in this role you would have been like that's another one of the company players right I was debating that watching because it does
[01:04:32] feel undercooked but they give her just enough to where it's acceptable like the fact that she is doing these hexes and kind of protecting a ikabod yeah is a is smart because even though she's not actively doing much on screen
[01:04:44] you still feel the character has a significant presence right but I think also people are excited because it was like and then this becomes another Burton problem is like oh he's casting someone who looks like they were made to be in a Burton
[01:04:56] looks like one of his drawings which the time was exciting and then people get to the point where it's like that's boring that he's putting like Eva green in not because he isn't good but because she looks like he drew her he becomes
[01:05:06] a slave of his own aesthetic right like that's that's that's the Burton story but this is the crux point where like he can still do it just as he wants it to look and we're all still on board I think even now like going back to an hour
[01:05:20] like I have issues with the aesthetic like it's like this movie is a breath of fresh air I think this movie works better now even then it did in its time didn't get great reviews like it wasn't like some movie
[01:05:30] where people are like you know it's a masterpiece I feel like the line on this movie when it came out was it looks great it was gorgeous but hollow is kind of what everyone said no pun intended but yeah
[01:05:40] you read the reviews at the time and they were fairly middling and they were like the screenplays wrote whatever and then the two things were like it's kind of cool that depth getting away with this and the thing looks fucking unbelievable and it got those
[01:05:52] Oscar now you got three Oscar nominate right and one best art direction deserve it should have won all three of those well it was never going to win cinematography because that's the Conrad L. Hall American beauty although Conrad
[01:06:04] Hall shot the opening scene of the movie so it's an interesting did he yeah he did the whole Martin Landau sequence what's the backstory on that do you know Chivo just wasn't available and Conrad just subbed in exactly yeah just a pinch hitter
[01:06:18] they wanted to shoot the movie black and white academy ratio right right the studio was like are you fucking I feel like our conversation did not get far at all are you aware of the budget of this film maybe in retrospect they thought
[01:06:30] oh that would have been cool if we had done that let's talk about like there's no way that ever they never actually never considered that Scott Rudin like even Rudin's gonna I'm not come on guys like that but then
[01:06:40] just make it look like a black and white thing is that it's so sort of saturated and they figured out how to use the sort of fog and the smoke and the background paintings and all that sort of stuff on set to sort of play up the starkness
[01:06:52] of the colors but the big difference is like at this point there's still a lot of tactile craft that has to go into creating that sort of image and then they push it the final 10% digitally imposed now it just feels
[01:07:04] like Burton makes a movie and then he slides the contrast all the way you know it's interesting like watching the trailer because the trailer does not have the same grading that the movie does and so you see like what it looked like before they finally
[01:07:16] it's much warmer the colors are more vibrant doesn't look as good but of course it was all done photo-chemically I'm sure it was maybe this would have been a photo-chemical grade like they would not well oh brother is the year after
[01:07:28] yes this is pre-o brother so this would have all done photo-chemically and it just looks glorious and it was all so well planned you can just tell that Cheevo and Burton had just and Reconric did the production design
[01:07:40] and that they had just like figured that out in advance everything speaks to that. The big distinction to me is that they knew everything they need to do in advance to best create that image later versus him just shooting like because you'll see the same things when
[01:07:52] like paparazzi photos or like the early production stills come out from something like Dark Shadows and it has a totally different color palette than the final movie but that's just them going into like figuring it out later. Right. So Cheevo had done he done those collaborations with Coran
[01:08:08] right like and he I think he got an honest combination for a little princess which is something. Yes, Random Hearts He does not do Random Hearts now I want to know who shot Random Hearts though. No, he's you know he's still pretty
[01:08:22] like he did like Meet Joe Black at the year before. Oh that's one thing though. He did some like elegant like movie star movie. He did The Bird Cage. Weird. He did Reality Bites. Did you know he shot
[01:08:32] Reality Bites? I did know that was his first American film. Right because before then he had done Spanish language films. He did like Water for Chocolate which is a very pretty movie. Mexican films these are Mexican films. But yeah this was Burton said he hired him
[01:08:44] off of Great Expectations. Which looks great. Yeah. Which looks great. And it's kind of disappointing that they never worked together again after this because it feels like they really crystallized something. Philly Bruce Lowe shot Random Hearts bringing him back. We were talking about it before.
[01:09:00] Right, who then becomes his guy for like 6 or 7? Did you know he shot The Cat in the Hat? Yes. No, Lubecki. Cheevo. Lubecki shot The Cat in the Hat? Yes he did. That's fucking insane. He shot Ali. I knew that. Beautifully shot.
[01:09:16] And then yeah, he becomes bright. Malik and Cuaron those are his guy. Basically just and then Yiner E2 starting with Birdman. The Cat in the Hat looks like like fucking Care Bear diarrhea. Like it doesn't even have like... I've never seen it. It's a nightmare.
[01:09:30] I mean I bet you learned a lot on that movie. Sure. Yeah. Everybody did. But yeah so with this movie they want it to be their location scout. They think about shooting this like in a real village. They went and upstate New York.
[01:09:44] They go to wear Sleepy Hollow. My wife was actually in Sleepy Hollow the other day and didn't realize it was a real place. She was like, oh I'm in a town called Sleepy Hollow. And I was like, that's it. That's the real one.
[01:09:52] My friends lived there. It used to be called North Terry Town or something. And they eventually were like let's rename ourselves Sleepy Hollow. Much cooler name and we'll get tourists to come. And that is the place. Because the Washington Irving Place the story references like Terry Town
[01:10:06] as like being adjacent to Sleepy Hollow. Yeah. It was a little Hamlet or whatever. It was a little bit of a collection of folks. But it didn't look right. No. Because it's the suburbs up there now. Yeah. Like you know, it's not some quaint English town.
[01:10:22] And they wanted that sort of American town. Brand new American town. They wanted that control grand ganyol kind of thing. Right. So they build the fucking thing. They built a huge village and then shot some of the movie on that. But then most of it I think is
[01:10:40] this movie having being in a pre let's just green screen everything. The fact that surrounding them on all these sets especially the exterior sets are just these beautiful like still backdrops of like clouds and fog. There's something very eerie about the fact that it doesn't
[01:10:58] move at all. Yeah. It's really hard to do. Yes. I've tried to do it recently and it's not easy. Especially in a film that's this dark. Exactly. And Chiva then took it like even further with a series of unfortunate events.
[01:11:12] Like that movie also I think was like the last big like soundstage exterior movie and like looking at the lighting grids for that or just like mind boggling. That movie looks unbelievable. It's incredible. But that feels like him kind of running with everything he did on this. Exactly.
[01:11:26] This was like the practice run for that and what a glorious practice run it is. And there's something about the quaintness of it too. Like they're always the head of the source was always running through the same path in the woods
[01:11:36] and I feel like they had like a very limited and Burton talks about this on the commentary track like these Spanish stallions running at full gallop on this very limited path up a hill in a soundstage. Whereas like if they made this movie tomorrow
[01:11:48] they would build the patch of the ground and a couple trees or rocks that they would rearrange and shoot different angles and they would just add all the trees would be a little bit later. There's probably like not even that much digital set extension in this because
[01:12:02] like the windmills miniature which means they're a course perspective miniature so it's probably a backdrop behind that. He said pointedly wanted to do as much in camera as possible you know. So I think the biggest CGI effect in this movie is just the headless horseman himself
[01:12:16] which is just putting a green hood over Ray Park's head. Is that what they did? Yeah. That was how they did it? Yeah. They didn't do the Casper Van D in a cloak attached to him. Which is what's in the trailer though
[01:12:28] and in the trailer you don't know that and it's still pretty effective. There's something very eerie to the way that he moves because he's not moving with that sort of like full body turn that the head on the shoulders kind of thing does you know. Yeah.
[01:12:46] And the high collar it's like I was They had problems with low ceilings as you're saying Phantom Menace all the set height was a digital extensions but here they had problems with how low the ceilings are at least which is funny
[01:13:00] so they used a lot of smoke they said. Yeah. Which works? There's that one shot where he looks off into the corn fields and like some deer run out and like deer are notoriously bad actors so I assume that those are all digital and they look real
[01:13:16] and like I've made a movie with CG deer because you can't get them to do anything so they never look good and I was like watching and I was like oh those look like real deer and they had to have been digital.
[01:13:28] And I've noticed the deer and I thought I just saw a movie with digital deer very good digital deer so you just can't It's hard it's just really hard. They're just not trained I guess. You can like yeah you can't really get them to do anything.
[01:13:40] But like what if you need like something to be like a metaphorical stand in for like a loss of innocence or something. Maybe you shoot it on a green screen and composite it in rather poorly. Yeah. The other thing is you realize which like
[01:13:54] I just fucking love now special effects houses are like yeah that's an asset we have. We know people need CGI animal doubles. Yeah we got a deer. So you're not going to have to eat a part of your budget having us render a deer for the first time.
[01:14:06] Right. You know like when I would go to like special effects houses in LA they'd be like yeah here's a pile of babies and I was like what did you make these for and they're like people always need babies. You just make some babies you have some babies.
[01:14:18] Sometimes we make them fight like you know they just doing weird little experiments. Yeah but it's like in the next house now you want to have like a good stable of life. You know livestock and shit. You did a big special effects movie
[01:14:32] of Pete's Dragon right. I mean the deer were probably like what they do is like they take the skeleton and they're like maybe like adjust it slightly and the deer probably were from some other movie. Right. The biggest asset that we used
[01:14:44] that was humorous to me was Robert Redford which we carried over in the old man the gun. Yeah. No in this one bought the rights now right to that program the Redford program. It's like that Robin Wright movie where he signed over his digital the Congress. Yes.
[01:15:00] Or Simone. Either one works. The scenes where you know the people are interacting with the dragon he's a furry dragon and so it's physical contact is really tough they've talked about that with the apes movies too where they often just end up having to replace the hands entirely
[01:15:18] and we borrowed Mowgli's hands from really from the Favreau jungle so a couple of shots that's Mowgli's hand. That also feels like weirdly very classical Disney because there's all that stuff where like Little John and Robin Hood is just completely recycling the actual animation. Other than
[01:15:36] like the mouth sync it's literally the same motions they just put different clothes and colors on it. Amen. Yeah. Make your movie. Yeah. So this movie starts with the the The Landau sequence. Yeah. Has something to do with the plot of the movie? Yes.
[01:15:57] I don't think that's the initial murder or one of the initial murders I guess. He's bringing the deed or whatever. Right. Cause there's the will the credits come over that will right or at least some other. But it works as just like a sort of statement
[01:16:11] of intent for the movie which is like we're going to chop heads off. It's going to be violent. This is going to kind of be a slasher movie we're going to build that tension around like
[01:16:19] when the guy is going to come out and you're going to see the fucking heads spinning and rolling on. And then you get the Burton Scarecrow which now is like a thing but that was the first time he had really maybe
[01:16:27] not even before Christmas had that same Scarecrow. I mean I've never seen this in the theater and people giggling when that came up and not in a mocking way of being like we're in a Burton movie. Exactly. And then you get the splash of blood just across it.
[01:16:37] It's also like the headings were really well done because so fucking well done. Because they always they're always really fast. Yeah. They don't linger on it but they always have a few frames of the actor reacting right before the blade cuts through their throat.
[01:16:51] Right. They don't do the like mission impossible where you can tell it's a fake head that's about to get shot off right there. And you cut right before the impact sort of thing and they have like they come up with different gags for each of them
[01:17:01] you know what the head does. The stuff so good and the heads themselves are so fucking good. Then the one that always gets me is when Caster Vendian gets bisected rather than beheaded like he's like one time I'm going to
[01:17:13] be on the list because he wasn't on he's not part of the plot. He has need that head. The guy's just right he's just a interference. I remember being so fucking terrified seeing this movie like I was. You were young. Yeah. And I was not going to
[01:17:25] not see it because I loved Bert and my mom was like yeah I'll take you to see that like she assumed I wanted to see it. Maybe she didn't get how because it's such a Tony like in you know an old fashioned
[01:17:35] tale like maybe she just didn't get that it was going to be so violent but even watching with her and she was like a mom who would like walk me out. We were like she was like this is like great right.
[01:17:43] It's like Bert and it's like a cartoon or whatever like she was like really fucking into it. I just remember having to act like I wasn't terrified. Right. And just the sort of like slasher movie super structure always scared me the dread of a when is someone else
[01:17:57] going to get stabbed and when you could tell a scene was the tease for that. Leading up to it. I remember being like so relaxed anytime this movie had to deal with like procedural stuff. Right. There's a lot of conversation. Right because I was like
[01:18:09] this is a scene where I can fucking breathe. You know like but anytime anyone was walking out at night I was just like Jesus fucking like grabbing the arm rest and terror. But this opening I was just like okay like it felt like the beginning of a roller
[01:18:23] coaster where it's like I got to buckle in deal with this thing now. Well he chops Martin Landers head off doesn't cut to credits them which I like goes to New York City. Sure. Bloated corpse floating up from the ground. You see a hudson docks like
[01:18:41] there was a lot in the screenplay because they published a screenplay in a nice hard bound edition and there was a lot of material there that or not a lot but a significant amount that got cut out about how Ichabod Crane was a man of science
[01:18:51] and there was like someone on trial you see him in the background of the courtroom scene with Christopher Lee someone who's like in a archaic torture machine is in like a kind of open iron maiden. Yes exactly and he's and in the script he was about
[01:19:03] to be you know subjected to the worst punishment possible but Ichabod Crane had like proof scientifically right yeah that and he's sort of like the first forensic cop exactly which I love do you think they just cut that out because the movie requires him to throw
[01:19:17] that all away halfway through you know at least like admit like okay I guess this is a supernatural event right you get it in sort of basics I mean he's kind of got the Indiana Jones arc where it's like look I'm a practical dot guy
[01:19:29] I'm dealing with these things as they are there are rules to this world and if we follow them we'll uncover the truth right whereas like Indiana Jones it's always like halfway through he's like oh
[01:19:37] fuck god kind of does exist this movie is like halfway through like oh shit Satan's real or at least some sort of hell dimension right yeah ain't a tree yeah but but also I mean obviously tied to his mother you know this whole notion of like
[01:19:52] the idea of persecuting witchcraft or anything that can't be explained or understood I like this whole notion I mean I remember at the time that was like a thing that people complained about where they were like they've ruined Ichabod Crane and turned him into
[01:20:05] like a classic Hollywood movie hero how was Ichabod Crane's so beloved that you could ruin him yeah yeah and also it's like the other bit which is like he's a coward and a school teacher who just tries to survive you know I didn't have much agency
[01:20:17] I love the the animated short I guess they probably aired it on television around Halloween maybe I don't know how I saw it they would play it a lot in TV and it was originally it was one of those half movies
[01:20:27] where like Disney didn't have a full feature in the can so they can bind that with Mr. Toad right and that would get re-released it would get released on its own separate VHS it would get aired on TV and it's great and beloved but I had no
[01:20:39] allegiance to the story so much that I was like a goof his character which is like kind of the fun of it but you can't really form a movie around that guy and have him like drive the cart you know
[01:20:51] unless Johnny Depp he got in his makeup maybe right but it's a nice balance because he still plays him as a big old frady cat yeah kind of a weird but he's got a thing a task he's got to do more than just live through this
[01:21:03] and I like that he's not he's still figuring it out like he doesn't know exactly what he's doing but he knows that he's like right in the precipice of grasping something greater scientifically and he's like yes he's determined to stick to his guns and follow that up until
[01:21:15] he finds out the hell yeah and I think they don't overplay halfway in right it's like I guess this is a portal to another dimension so okay alright that's gotta be it yeah right
[01:21:25] and they don't overplay the like something Picasso bit of like ha ha ha he knew the thing was going to be big before everyone else no because he's a weirdo he's like a weird freak and they also don't make him super powered where he's like dusting for fingerprints
[01:21:37] he's not like Dexter going in there looking at blood spatter and thinking oh well the head was cut off 30 yards from here
[01:21:41] not where you thought it was these devices aren't necessarily super effective I like every time he tries to do something he makes a fucking mess of the place right the blood spatter on his like eyeglasses always blood spatter in this movie is so good
[01:21:51] blood in this movie is fantastic but sometimes it's like the little misting sometimes it's streak sometimes it's like the whole face cover but right he arrives yeah the old english people are all like
[01:22:01] you know you got your your character actors are all in a room and they're like there's a headless horseman he's topping people's heads off
[01:22:05] right and he's a demon from hell and then he goes to the first crime scene he's like seems to be some kind of like a horseman
[01:22:11] right collects the head let me try to detect smoke a sword like he doesn't have any the only thing he gets is that that it caught the blade cauterizes that it's hot right which is cool and that's yeah it's super fucking right but I do think it's subtle
[01:22:27] I just like that he doesn't go in there and he's like oh the headless horseman must live over there because of the right my goggles knows this
[01:22:34] it's subtle but there's a weird kind of unbalancing effect to the fact that the credits come after he's sent to sleepy hollow rather than after the land out cold open
[01:22:44] because that feels like a classic movie move of like hold open with characters you're not going to see again then go to credits and then we're in the real story
[01:22:50] well I bet that the land out thing wasn't in the script originally and hence Conrad Hall having to shoot it because they went back and were like we need just
[01:22:56] we need to start this movie off with something scary related to the plot as opposed to this discovery of a corpse in a courtroom scene
[01:23:03] right otherwise you don't get the horseman for like 30 minutes and the other problem is like the mystery is hinges on these dead bodies that are dead
[01:23:11] yes where they're like oh and the widow turns out the widow was pregnant I don't know who there's so many right and they don't have heads
[01:23:17] yeah they've already been decapitated by the time they get there they're always talking about them right I have like an academy award winning beloved legend like get decapitated on reteaming with Tim Burton who has won him that Academy Award where you're just like okay so that's a person
[01:23:30] I get like people are dying but like so much of what they uncover and it they do also have the problem of the two Dutch families with similar names where
[01:23:38] they're like turns out right there she was trying to get a one over on the other Dutch family and you're like who and then you remember like oh the dead people who we never see
[01:23:47] right and land out I guess that's them I do like how much this movie is about like sort of like family wealth and like family trees and real
[01:23:56] estate and like you know old America yeah these English people just like matter at that point is my town and I'm the you know I'm the notary and that guy's the
[01:24:06] right like everyone's got their fancy positions but it's like a town of 20 people yes and more so than like watching this movie I'm sure I wasn't alone
[01:24:15] this I kept on sort of like comparing this my mind to the guy Richie Sherlock Holmes movies and I feel like this movie has more of a central mystery to be solved
[01:24:24] than the guy Richie movies where it's kind of like he's so smart that he's able to punch people wasn't it right wasn't a guy richie movie
[01:24:31] smartest puncher in the world he's so smart and so yeah well for one guy Richie never saw like premise where he wasn't like let's there are like English working class people
[01:24:41] in here let's just dig until we find them right that's what he wants he wants to get to the street right brown teeth but also isn't the premise of Sherlock Holmes is
[01:24:49] like magic doesn't exist the movie is like it sure seems like it does and then at the end it turns out it doesn't and Sherlock Holmes is like I was right
[01:24:56] you know correct right yeah yeah whereas this is the opposite right which is more interesting to watch as a character arc yeah and also this is a horror
[01:25:04] movie yeah you know yeah it's got to exist and he's not smarter than the audience right no the set pieces in this movie save for the two sort of sword fights are deaths
[01:25:14] yeah like the worry deaths this movie doesn't add in like a bunch of superfluous chases or fight scenes or any of that I wonder once once the heads start rolling
[01:25:24] how like how frequently they're like compared to Kevin Yeager's original 10 minute yeah every 10 minute vision yeah there's a lot of them there's at least like seven
[01:25:34] I think there's one every 15 minutes I mean I just remember very viscerally like as a child sitting in the theater being like another one's going to come up like I never felt super relaxed and it did feel
[01:25:45] like the roller coaster thing of like there's another loop like how many this has to be ending soon you know like I loved living in the movie but I was like let him just fucking fix the
[01:25:54] solve the case well no so yeah he chops off crane arrives and then there is this very like clearly designed open credit sequence like this long sort of travel log in the carriage which comes like
[01:26:09] leaving New York getting out to the boonies after you've had Christopher Lee send him off which is such an ominous thing to be like
[01:26:15] true Christopher Lee's telling you guys he's right with those burn amass yeah right yes and then he also a thing I love as billing nerds when an actor gets high single card billing
[01:26:28] even though their performance is already over done by the time the billing happens is anyone get a with or an end in this I think walking maybe gets an
[01:26:37] hand maybe yeah I don't know what's it going to say he arrives they explain these people are dead and it's a great like it's so much
[01:26:47] easy and make sure we're making out with someone yes as you do when you enter in your town course come to Hollywood yeah and and there's a lot of
[01:26:55] explanation to be but it's like so it's like it's delicious exposition because of the actors who are giving it and it's like I don't care I
[01:27:03] don't even now like I don't really know with what the plot of the movie is like I'm like mystery like it doesn't matter to me but I enjoy listening to them talk about it so much that
[01:27:12] that takes the place of like other movies that do this we're just like come on like I don't want to deal with the exhibition here I'm happy to sit through it because it's so
[01:27:18] enjoyably and there are two things that are fun one is that the mystery is a really good combination of like real and supernatural things it's like there's a
[01:27:28] supernatural force but these killings are tied to really gross human sort of capitalist right greed right sure so there is a web to untangle that isn't just like
[01:27:37] come from hell right right you know there's like a pattern to be figured out here yeah there's this whole and I think I you know as we were talking about the mystery is that it's
[01:27:47] only care about it so much right there's a whole thing going on like they're all like sleeping with each other's wives and when you're like you say
[01:27:54] houses how people live in this town no it's like there's some stuff running around I mean like feel bad about it like there's a lot of guilt like sort of
[01:28:02] wafting off of like Michael Gambon and you don't know that seem at the beginning but it just sets this tone of like he's walking into his first house
[01:28:10] already there are people who like are borderline fucking outside the door yeah like this town just has like weird lust in it right
[01:28:18] they're pure you know of era he shows up doesn't autopsy on a pregnant woman and they're all like the other thing that's fun in this movie is that he comes in so hot
[01:28:30] because this is big new york city dude and that scene where he's walking around them and doing his like also decapitated right
[01:28:37] remember think it was the funniest fucking thing in the world that he just thinks like I'm playing him like a fiddle it's one of the six guys in this room
[01:28:44] and then they start telling him this insane story oh no he's a demon from hell you don't know he has seen you know right even before he died he
[01:28:52] ground his teeth into claws yeah well you get that amazing flash I love so walking just going wild and then the two little girls and this twigs now I think
[01:29:01] right like that's just fun and it's fun to watch walk and do like fight coriaco like swing a bunch of axes and swords around in shit
[01:29:10] yeah but that's really good and then he comes out of it you see immediately he's lost a lot of his confidence in the case not because he assumes that's an explanation
[01:29:18] but just because this town seems fucked up completely like he realizes that he's been given the worst possible case he could like this is a test for him this is like a Beverly Hills complex
[01:29:28] right that's that's what Chris Feliz doing right then we get this guy out of my head right exactly yeah yeah um yeah and then the guy gets his head cut off
[01:29:38] with the sort of since like romance decapitation yeah a little bit mystery more romance than another decapitation like follows this pattern for a little while the reintroduction happens before anything else because that she walks in on the he walks in on the game or she's fine
[01:29:52] fantastic yeah yes the pickety witch right gets the kiss and then it's like gambon and all the old men haram from haram thing bringing him into the parlor right to explain what he doesn't know right
[01:30:04] and then the mr Phillips gets his like head chopped off and the kid joins Iqabah right you know and then we've also getting these flashbacks to Iqorah's childhood right because he's got this weird pattern on his hand
[01:30:17] scarification yes that's some wild stuff those flashbacks and well done because they're so well done the rest of the film they really are like that white
[01:30:26] white yes red door and good weird trauma and also this and the summary right I was gonna say it was more he had like add such a weird power to these movies at these times because she was often so visual
[01:30:39] yeah she's the sherry moon zombie to Tim Burton's Rob Zombie right but other than Ed Wood she doesn't really speak and it was like
[01:30:46] no I'm saying with sherry moon zombie too right I feel like she's more like a visual well now he has her do a lot but but that was the thing was like you knew that was like that was like a thumb print you know of his films that she always had this weird sort of power
[01:30:59] there was an article at that point when that movie came out the talked about how they would take photos of each other like or he would take photos of her yeah like morbid situation like crime scene photos and then there's this amazing photograph of him which I have on my phone I think
[01:31:14] like Sally is designed after her yeah where he's he's administering the blood to her in the Iron Man where he's putting an ounce of it just to me at that age at 19 or 18 when I saw this movie that was the most romantic that was like a romantic idea
[01:31:29] it just seemed like God this is so cool they found each other completely and I just was like that's what I want I want to be the I want to find my true love and douser and blood and there's something to the fact that she was just like an element of the tapestry of the Burton thing
[01:31:43] that like she only kind of like existed as like part of like their collaboration as opposed to someone like Helen and Bonham Carter where it's like oh right now she's in all his movies you know
[01:31:55] yeah well that she's gonna take that position but yeah this sort of yeah we're like suicide girls a thing at this point is that all out of the Burton aesthetic I'd say that kinda yeah
[01:32:07] a little later or at least I found out about it a little bit later I feel like that's like 2001
[01:32:11] Ben were you into this you know the sort of like kitschy slightly burlesque kind of horror goth stuff like I don't know I feel like you need to be consulted on this and I mean was this like did you hate this or was this on your radar
[01:32:27] no this is not my radar I don't think I don't think the what are the girls called again well the suicide girls 2001 so yeah I think that's a little early yeah this is this is a movie for my kind of kid in high school
[01:32:43] right which was like a druggy kid you know it seemed dark lived in an old shack down by the river yeah you had to fire a bolt action rifle collection of knives out of the furnace I'm just doing you know ah yes of course of course
[01:33:00] but yeah it's cool but you didn't see it no I did you said you were rewatching I thought you were seeing it for the first time yeah I did see it
[01:33:11] I just felt like it was I wanted it to be just kind of more like gothic and less procedural I mean that's what I remember going away from you want to like full horror yep yeah not even necessarily full horror but just
[01:33:27] I just I don't know because I remember reading the Irving story too and I just I think I wanted it to feel more like an old timey horror there's a purity to that you know it's so simple
[01:33:39] and it's just a headless horseman who wants to cut off heads there's nothing like who lives in that town if you cross the bridge you're free like it's so simple but you know the movie had to be two hours so sure not even
[01:33:52] it's kind of nice how tight the film is relatively yeah I remember watching it just to jump ahead to the you know the climactic church scene and just thinking that was the end of the movie right yes being to great being
[01:34:05] completely satisfied yeah I was very like I was like oh this is that was a good you know the mystery is solved it was them all along and completely had forgotten about Miranda Richardson
[01:34:15] right and I it delivered the goods like I was happy with that as an ending Michael Gambon getting impaled and like drug and out amazing and then the blood on that I mean the blood as we said is amazing in this movie it's got that painterly consistency
[01:34:30] which literally looks like paint yes so lush yeah and that his face where you're standing there with the fence post coming through his chest it was spectacular it's fun to shoot all of this especially for these like you know I mean Michael
[01:34:42] Gaff obviously had done the Batman movies but like if you're a Richard Griffiths or Michael Gambon you haven't done a big budget movie like this like this is an exciting new like Hollywood thing
[01:34:54] what I was gonna say is like imagine like the hotel bar where all these guys were staying right I'm talking about like scene from the movie right there all coming around the fire like Oliver Reed called me a cunt you know
[01:35:06] hey hey like probably not allowed to say Oliver Reed on this podcast uh no but that's just one of those things I think about where it's like god this must have been so much fun to like stay at that hotel right as like a grip
[01:35:18] and come downstairs and just sit at the bar next to them and listen to them like drink into the rag about like Richard Barton was a hack he owes me a hey penny it's interesting is all these actors are still alive
[01:35:31] but they don't know Richard Griffiths or both oh yes they have Richard Griffiths recently died yeah well not another few years ago and Michael Gaff only died pretty recently he lived on his long but he had retired like he came out of retirement for this
[01:35:42] he was 94 when he died yeah he right he was lured out of retirement for this role which is funny because I wonder how that conversation he probably lived down the street yeah it was like right you know
[01:35:52] like it's not like Burton was like it's a great role you're a notary I'm gonna give you a mollip he showed up on set looking like this and he was like show how do we want to style me
[01:36:04] um he also he did a voice for a corpse ride I mean it does seem like they were very close of course even when he was like physically in firm he still was willing to come out for Burton
[01:36:15] um which is another thing that like actors really like working with him uh really he's like a nice guy yeah I mean I think A he's got like his people that he uses over and over again which shows sense of loyalty
[01:36:28] but B I think like you hear a lot of actors who you would imagine wouldn't want to be part of that sort of like overblown production and I think he keys into people really well he gives them a lot of freedom
[01:36:41] there's such a tone that you know you can sort of play in going into one of his movies I've always been curious about that just I would love to sit on one of his sets you don't see it really in the behind-the-scenes footage on the DVDs
[01:36:52] but like to sit on one of his sets and watch him direct a scene because I have no idea how he does it the thing I always think about uh he says is that
[01:37:00] his least favorite part of directing movies is being on set and having people ask him questions all the time I can see that so his thing is that he paces back and forth endlessly to make it look like he's busy thinking about something else
[01:37:12] so that like studio execs won't come up and like bother him like he like mutters around and talks to himself to make them be like oh I can't bother him right now but actors seem to really like working with him
[01:37:23] you know key creative people seem to really like working with him I think he doesn't like dealing with executives you know doesn't like dealing with the money or the schedule but he's like their favorite guy now right it's a very odd thing
[01:37:36] we I have heard you know you see you here tell of this though where like the weirdest directors executives sort of just become enamored of the weirdness with like oh Tim you know it is crazy hair yeah we'll just let him do what he does
[01:37:47] and also these movies now have enormous budgets all of his movies are $200 million films at this point and so everyone like like the cinematographers have time to like light an insert shot I remember hearing that about Dark Shadows about how they spent like half a day lighting
[01:38:01] an insert shot of Civil War on the table and like what fun for a DP to finally have a time to get the fork looking just right everyone gets to do the kind of filmmaking they don't necessarily get to do in other types of projects
[01:38:11] because usually the things of this size are like so fucking overblown and like corporate yeah there's no room for that artistry or you're crunched you're small you're rushed you have a lower budget
[01:38:23] but he is I mean he is one of the few certainly of like twenty twenty first century like above the title directors you know and he you know it's always in terms of him being a blockbuster draw his name in and of itself
[01:38:37] and it's always it's never it's always like from the imagination of Tim Burton his imagination has become his trademark that's what they're selling is he's gonna do his thing on this an entire brand you know it's in book and toy form
[01:38:49] like that's that the the Jaco Lantern Scarecrow thing when you see it now you're like that's that's so hacky but it's in the book you forget right like this is where this is all coming from
[01:38:58] in the same way that like from the literal pragmatic mind of Christopher Nolan has like become like a selling point it's like you want to see his this is what we write from visionary director Zach Snyder it's always that yeah that's the line
[01:39:12] but yes for Burton its imagination yes so I'm trying to remember I mean the course of action the headless horseman chops off more heads heads roll I do like the Griffith spinning
[01:39:27] he said he said that he could not be on set when his severed head was on set it just freaked him out too much it freaked him out too much that's crazy seems alarming that might be freaked out they're really good heads yeah they are amazing heads
[01:39:37] I'll say too like on season one of the tech with the character Dr. Kermotov whose body gets shrunk with a shrink ray and so a lot of I do a lot of scenes where I have a baby carriage and they had a prosthetic head in there
[01:39:49] and it would never cease to freak me out sure I worked with that for like fucking 10 12 days and every time I turned around and saw it I would like get the jitters and it wasn't as high quality as this
[01:40:02] the other thing I love is like all these little character details where I don't know if this is like a Burton idea or that actors feel like they have the space to come up with these things and it's like kind of a blender
[01:40:13] but the idea that like Richard Griffiths keeps on seeming like sweaty with the wig yes he keeps on taking it off to sort of like pat himself down such a nice little detail who when they die their wig flies off and you see their hair
[01:40:28] I think that's Jeffrey Jones I think that's Jeffrey Jones yes that's Jeffrey Jones because his hair is the most ridiculous but Griffiths keeps on taking it off in conversation because he keeps on pulling like Ekobodkrain aside to be like let me tell you the real shit yes exactly
[01:40:40] and while he's doing it he's like pulling his wig off and dabbing sweat off his forehead and yeah I mean there's the scene where Casper Venti and does the pretend horseman bit which is the ending of the Washington Irving story yes is that they scare Ekobodkrain away and
[01:40:57] and it has the covered bridge and has all the elements of that story and then he's like perhaps my imagination got the better of me was the that was the in the original it was a it was all a ruse yes what about the Disney film
[01:41:09] no and the Disney film is real right actually yeah in the short story I'm pretty sure it's like they they freak him out with this tale of the headless horseman what's the name like Brutus von Braun or something that sounds like Balthus von Tassel but yes
[01:41:26] Brom bones van Brunt Jesus right and then and Ekobodkrain is this kind of prissy Yankee school teacher who's trying to like Mary Katrina van Tassel yeah and they get sick of him and so they freak him out with this creepy story and then as he's riding away
[01:41:47] they they he sees the headless horseman so it's a Sherlock Holmes thing right if Sherlock Holmes really sucked yeah right and then and then Katrina Mary's Casper van Dien character and the story implies that the ghost was really just Casper van Dien
[01:42:02] yeah so I think that's why you have that in the movie is like it's a little nod to yeah and by casting Casper van Dien you're sort of like drawing a fine line of like this is the not the kind of leading man
[01:42:15] like we're trying to do the opposite of this sort of like Kendall this is just like only other Hollywood role right and he got pretty good billing on this like he does not much dialogue but it was kind of like
[01:42:26] okay Casper van Dien's gonna keep on doing big working with a reputable director like he's like he's the guy that they're gonna go to for right he did like two big old tour artsy blockbuster
[01:42:35] right and then I forgot he is he plays Patrick Bateman in the role of the attraction but they delete his scenes right but there's like a scene where James Vanderbink calls and like then he's like hi I'm Patrick Bateman
[01:42:46] I'm the American psycho like I'm wearing a suit ha ha ha you know like but they cut that out and then he like married a princess like he married royalty and had a reality TV show that was him like in a in a European country as a prince
[01:42:59] yes he married a Yugoslavian princess Catherine Oksenberg I saw him at a Lincoln Center screening of Robocop the Verhoeven was doing the two with like introduction Q&A's in between and Van Dien was there and looked so fucking hot he's like 50 now yeah and I was just like
[01:43:22] who the fuck is this handsome guy yet a beard he had like a crush velvet suit sure and I was like Jesus Christ he looks great with a beard yeah he looks unbelievable movie yeah get him in a movie yeah God let's been thrown yeah exactly
[01:43:36] bring back Van Dien yeah Van Dien Van Dien so yeah I don't know whatever well then yeah and then Van Dien gets cut in half at some point around this point is the famous scene with the family that gets just all decapitated yes that's really good
[01:43:55] and that's like the big Andy Kevin Walker scene like you're just like okay that's the writer where you see the mother's head and then her eyes are looking for a man it's amazing that's fucking great
[01:44:05] I feel like there was a teaser that used that I think they would kind of use that as a the first teaser was like it started with that with like the little boy going to the room and like with the shadows on the wall for his lantern
[01:44:14] and then he just says yes and it's apropos of nothing he just says yes and all of a sudden that headless horseman burst through the door yeah which this was like a big deal trailer and one of the first times that like a studio
[01:44:25] like brought a trailer to Comic Con and was like playing it on a loop and putting up posters and shit like months before it came out like very push works like this movie being a hit does not seem like a foregone conclusion
[01:44:37] no and Hedgewell Roll felt like one of those like size does matter like everyone was fucking quoting how clever that was yeah and that image of the tree which was sort of the leading image in their
[01:44:49] like their early posters yeah they're been like I can't like is like you know hands labyrinth has a very similar image like iconic trees became a thing I feel yeah but that was like one of the early iconic trees kind of the roots of
[01:45:01] gothic tree cinema I think that is such a good post it's amazing I do like this movie yeah great Thanksgiving right it was a Thanksgiving it was Thanksgiving release does any movie ever make you want to like drink
[01:45:14] Apple cider more exactly it's just like it's like right now it's like you just like this morning I felt like the first vestiges of fall it's a little chilly yes and it's not like a movie like the thing that makes you feel like frozen
[01:45:25] but it's a movie that definitely makes you feel chilly like they have a vogue you want to wear a thick jacket yeah a quarter right yeah it's a great sweater movie all black right yeah a little accent of orange okay
[01:45:39] that's why I'm bringing in a little pumpkin quality to your sweater it is makes you want to smoke cigarettes in the parking lot you know that first time in the first night of the fall where you go outside
[01:45:50] if you smoke and you are also noticing that your breath is visible for the first time yeah right some dark poetry drink some soup I'm gonna get back to yeah more soupy okay yeah oh yeah
[01:46:04] what was I gonna say fuck I forgot it doesn't listen to the cure uh-huh you just you're just a goth oh that's what I was gonna say this movie has the same look as the nightmare before Christmas in a lot of ways like
[01:46:15] the town looks like the night before Christmas very much like it is like he finally was like we can just right we can just do this yeah live action I have the money
[01:46:23] and I think a lot of the you know that comes from the fact they shot on a soundstage in the same way they just built large versions of the sets from those weird houses
[01:46:31] yeah and it's not a comedy and he's not behold into a set of aesthetics that he has to burdenize like he can burdenize Batman but he still has to hit certain key shirts you know yeah
[01:46:43] and silhouettes and things like well like you said there's not real kits like right yeah the windmills cool well the what the witch scene we can't ignore the witch scene because that is his one like loopy like moment early on that with the eyes
[01:46:59] coming out which was in the trailer without those without the eyes like that shot isn't a trailer but they hadn't finished the effects yet or didn't want to reveal them yeah because the movie gets goofier the more crane is scared like that's
[01:47:11] the way the set goes hard on these things yeah and that scene is you just like comedic interplay of yeah I like the bit that he keeps on waking up and someone has to
[01:47:19] explain to him what he missed right because he keeps fainting at the scene of the crime right also I love the edit of that which scene where she does the eye thing and then grabs
[01:47:27] his throat and then a hard cut to him just walking quickly out of the cave we're leaving all right I love that scene and it reminds me of the witch right much much much later yeah yeah acts the way that like the comic
[01:47:40] in a big disaster movie acts where he's doing the like must go faster you know but he's like John Hannah in the mummy movies like the lead yes yeah it's just so fun it's funny the mummy came out the same year though like another weird
[01:47:52] revival of horror that I was terrified of and people can hear these two movies in reviews they were like yeah it's kind of like the mummy it's like a big dumb thing which is so weird it is amazing to read the reviews now and they're
[01:48:04] like this Hollywood schlock and you're like God people would be so happy to get this from Hollywood these days like this movie would get seven Academy Award nominations if it came out tomorrow probably truly every below the line like you know craft would be nominated for this right
[01:48:20] but yeah you know I just think the witch scene is him going full tilt this is where I'm gonna do my merchandise spotlight because the witch action figure they made a action figure of the witch which was one
[01:48:31] of the worst business decisions of all time not a great idea did they do other Miranda Richardson character too so we're okay okay so this was a time when like you looked low rent if you didn't
[01:48:42] have enough characters to fill out a line like now it's very much like if you have one cool character it's just the hero you make that one figure and you just sell it
[01:48:50] back then it was like you look unimpressive if you don't have like a cast of visually appealing characters those like Iqabah Crane comes at the bag all the little do-decks right okay headless horseman comes with a walk and head comes with a skull
[01:49:02] you can put them on right tree place it there there was a place it with the tree and the horse and everything that was like very epic at the time that one doesn't have heads
[01:49:10] the heads only came with a standalone horseman okay and it comes with the heads of the couple that he can hold in his hand right by the hair and then they were like fuck we need one more
[01:49:18] so they did the witch who's essentially just like a lump of like sort of like like muslin yeah she looks like an old tree like Yoda's right Yoda's cloak right like personified right with the shawl over her head and then she comes with like some bowls of shit
[01:49:34] and then the thing was you could take the hood off and then she had the snake eyes but was it one of those action things where you would squeeze her like it was she had
[01:49:42] a strand of hair because I owned this one I was like I better buy this before they sell out and then they existed on shelves for five years they couldn't get rid of them there was a strand of her hair that stuck out in the back
[01:49:54] and you'd push it into her skull and then the eyes and the tongue would come out and then the other sleepy hollow action figures I had Ikebot and I weirdly never got the horseman
[01:50:02] horseman's kind of the cool that was the cool yeah yeah but I got knife teeth I had the Ikebot yeah because I had like a whole like Tim Burton like he was so my guy
[01:50:10] at this time that I had like all my Tim Burton shit in my like so much nightmare stuff yeah I had the Edward Cesar hands figure I had my oyster boy book
[01:50:22] and which they now then then they made figures from that they did yeah and then in between there was a flash macro web series they did like a great show that had all his regular voice people
[01:50:34] back when I had like dial up internet and had to wait an hour every single one of those things to load but it was stain boy who was like the hero's a little boy who can make stains of things yeah and his commissioner
[01:50:46] was like Glenn Shadix voice of the mayor Otho from Beetlejuice and he was also in Planet 8 and he would assign him a case and then it would be like you have to go meet matchstick girl and then like matchstick girl would be like the new
[01:50:58] freak of the week I definitely saw Nightmare Before Christmas in theaters and I remember my dad before him being like so like this movie has a kind of an intense concept like I'm gonna try and you know like the holidays are all
[01:51:10] towns like I remember I think he had seen it to like get me ready for it yeah my mom would not let me see because that was his book and I loved it so much yeah I was freaked out by the
[01:51:22] prior to discovering Tim Burton I was just all about Lucas Spielberg and Universal Monsters I think okay so I had those and I didn't even really seen the Universal Monsters they were like these old library books I would get that just like had the stills yeah exactly
[01:51:38] so I had all of those books yeah and so all of a sudden one day my mom shows me this Newsweek article about Tim Burton around the time Batman sure
[01:51:46] comes out or maybe after Batman I can't remember what in that era yeah after he hit it really big and he just looked so cool that was yeah and his look was so striking
[01:51:54] yeah so as in I think so I would have been eight at that point and from that point forward I was like I want to be Tim Burton well that's the thing it's like for movie nerds it's like he's such a good like
[01:52:06] starter kit for the notion of Autorism completely and you get what a director is if you start getting into Tim Burton when you're like six because up until then like I remember being so confused when my parents told me that directors
[01:52:18] didn't always write their own movies sure I was like so what do they do if someone else wrote the story right and they were like they tell people where to stand and I was like what the fuck does that mean
[01:52:26] and you watch Spielberg movies and you know how they make you feel and you watch George Lucas movies and you're like okay Star Wars that's an aesthetic but then I remember like renting American Graffiti and being like
[01:52:34] this is people in cars what is this but Burton movies like have a sensibility they have a tone they have thematic concerns that they're always coming back to and then you look at a photo of Tim Burton you're like he looks like a Tim Burton movie
[01:52:46] sure literally looks like his movie but your whole thing I get what he's bringing to the table perfect for a young film fan like because his movies do all kind of have the same vibe right that's what you can do like that's the frog you understand
[01:52:58] what this guy's hand is doing in the process right and then also the notion of if you hear an announcement my dad would go like oh did you hear Tim Burton's going to do
[01:53:06] Planet of the Apes now you have an imagination in your head of what that's going to be exactly as opposed to that guy who made that movie you liked is going to adapt that book you like and you're like I hope it's good
[01:53:16] he has a template that you start applying these concepts to and it's so consistent who's going to play what exactly then again this is the same conversation we have right then the template do yeah he can't stop putting the template on everything
[01:53:28] or some end of sort of like his miracle run decade what do you think went wrong like or it went wrong is sort of I mean his movies been funny I've thought about it because you know Planet of the Apes
[01:53:40] feels like again like I said earlier that feels like that's what would have happened with Superman it's like a movie he should not have said yes to whether it was he didn't have a real take
[01:53:48] it just felt like they were like you must come up with something we need a director for this you liked it and like he you know that movie the trailer starts with the scarecrow that's about all right he's like let's add scarecrow to it
[01:54:00] and then I think it was around the same period that Nightmare Before Christmas really had a renaissance and it became a seasonal classic right like prior to that point like I watched it every year but it wasn't really started to be released in theaters again
[01:54:16] every Halloween and Christmas like I went to a Walgreens last night and the amount of Nightmare Before Christmas shit they had at Walgreens it's like because it's that time of the year now it's like you have your seasonal band aids and there were
[01:54:28] Jack Skellington dog chew toys and it's on all the food and everything like two and a half decades later at your fucking pharmacy there's so much Nightmare shit where that used to be like the back corner of a comic book
[01:54:40] story that movie kind of dooms him in a way even though he didn't make it his name is in it right and then it becomes so merchandised and everything that it becomes like oh it's that fucking thing I think that contributed to the weight of
[01:54:52] his own aesthetic that he felt I mean I would love to talk to him about it's like so I'd love to just meet him because he still is a hero of mine but I wonder what it's like to have
[01:55:04] expectations when it's because it's not like he's done that many different types of movies he has like one type of movie he makes yes and when he veers off of it a little bit
[01:55:12] they usually doesn't work too well like you guys those are my two big theories one are I one theory a is I think he sort of gets happier after this movie okay once he gets with how about Carter
[01:55:24] they have children right he starts seeming a lot more sort of content London in interviews he seems a lot like torture down the road he's a lot funnier he's a lot lighter and he seems a lot less sort of like burdened by the how dare you
[01:55:40] burdened by the sort of like stress of the career and the expectations and everything is just like yeah I don't know it seems like fun it's worth doing and I think that becomes I mean his decision making process is like sure
[01:55:52] why not which is not a good way to maintain a sense of never consistency in a career or a voice the second thing is I do think as you said that every time he's tried to veer off 15 degrees it's so flatly rejected
[01:56:08] ignored it doesn't connect in the same mainstream way whatever it is I mean like Edward was critically reviewed it was such a fucking flop right but that's earlier but that was a massive interesting thing is he but even Sweeney Todd like I think his career would have gone
[01:56:24] in a different direction if Sweeney Todd had been more well received I think he would have maybe evolved a little more and I don't think it's surprising that after Sweeney Todd he's like fuck it Alice in Wonderland you know let me do the
[01:56:36] thing I know I can get money to do they'll give me the toy box I can do what wasn't Sweeney Todd pretty well received yeah it was well received and made money I mean it was also and it got us like that was a passion
[01:56:48] project he'd been wanting to be a hundred percent decades at that point so he just was like he'd been ready to make that move it was maybe it was creatively spent interesting thing is like aside from that I mean really since
[01:57:02] Nightmare of a Christmas and then you could kind of say with Corpse Bride and Frank and Wayne he's only like processed other people's properties he takes other properties and puts them through the Burton filter he becomes a cover band
[01:57:14] exactly right and he has not made an original Tim Burton film in since the beginning of his career right now my point of clarification not to be a stickler about this but with this when you Todd thing is there were two
[01:57:28] things one is had a lot of Oscar hype before it and then before it had been screened widely he won best director from the National Board of Review and I have people going like oh fuck is this a major awards player
[01:57:40] because and Big Fish had also been a thing where I think everyone was like right this will be his Oscar movie which does pretty well but gets one Oscar nomination so then
[01:57:48] I think that was seen as a disappointment in terms of him maybe trying to evolve because that movie takes place half in a totally real world it's the only time he's ever shot like normal people you know the Billy Crud up half of the movie
[01:58:00] right and it did pretty well but it was expensive and it didn't get any Oscar nominations aside from Elfin for score right which is weird that was Elfin's first nomination ever but Big Fish was a critically not very well received correct like Sweeney Todd got you know right
[01:58:16] people kind of liked it but it didn't become a major Oscar play and the other thing was Warner Brothers did that insane marketing campaign for it where they hid that it was a musical
[01:58:24] they sold it more like Sleepy Hollow where it was like this is a Johnny Depp murderer movie and they didn't show him singing on camera and the opening day of the movie was really fucking big and then it dropped off
[01:58:36] like 60% in day two. It's like Johnny Depp walks into a close-up and starts singing and he's like what is this movie? But they were literally like there were write-ups of like people walking out the first time he sang
[01:58:48] and being like what the fuck is this? The movie is all singing. There's not a lot of talking. It's an opera. No, it's an opera. Like teenage boys who were like this is like a fucking bloody Johnny Depp movie. It is.
[01:59:00] They just try to stick with it a little. It's just one of those movies that did like almost 10 on opening day and ended up at 60. You know? Well yeah well we'll talk about it
[01:59:08] we'll talk about that one. But so I think like you know these are relative successes they're not crazy colossal failures but for a guy like Burton who when he's big he's huge I think feels dissuaded by not making a movie that goes over
[01:59:20] $100 million. Alright let's wrap it up. The movie The Sleepy Hollow just because. So he starts to track the sort of bloodline the family deed, the next to kin, the will. Who cares? I mean I
[01:59:32] can't deny that I don't really care. I love it because I love it's about shitty old people. No, that's great. I love that in theory as an abstract. I don't really know how it all
[01:59:40] intersects. Exactly the details because I think when he looks at the family tree and he's like aha and I'm like who is who again? All you need to know is that he gets it. I know.
[01:59:48] And I like that the movie doesn't bog us down with too much explaining. And then you've got the you know the final twist post church that's all been Miranda Richardson who has been kind of underused up to this point. Right.
[02:00:00] Oddly using an American accent every time I watch I'm like why don't she do that. These people just they're still English like America's very new. And this was the end of her big decade. Completely. I was like
[02:00:12] when she showed up in stronger I was like where is she? Where the fuck has she been? Because she's always so good and she was like running the table on the 90s. And then the 2000 she gets really quiet. Yeah, I mean she does English TV
[02:00:24] and stuff but she's right. She's like theater like she does lots of theater. She's in like Fred Claus. I mean she was in Rubicon. Let's not forget. Rubin back Rubicon. She was in fucking Fred Claus. She plays Paul G. Motties. Written by Dan Fogelman. Yes.
[02:00:38] Dan Fogelman has been on a tear today online. It's been it's been crazy. Really? Well, this is one of those episodes we're recording six months in advance. So on the record what do we think Dan Fogelman is tweeting about when this episode releases
[02:00:50] in February claimed the reason this movie is getting bad reviews is that white men don't like sentimental films which is like like a big reach you know in general as a way white men so fucking sentimental
[02:01:03] especially in this day and age. I love them. Yeah, it's just it's just that it was an odd play for him I guess anyway. I also just think it's always a bad look when a filmmaker goes like the reason why people don't
[02:01:15] like my movie is because of this hang up they have right where it's like I don't know maybe don't fight the critics on it just yeah the movie came out off Twitter. I'm opening a movie. Yes. Do you like engage at all
[02:01:27] when you have a new film coming out? No, I don't even I don't read reviews I don't Google search anything if I see the title in a magazine I like throw it away I throw it out the window. I just have a zero engagement policy which is good
[02:01:41] for my life. Yeah, especially because you're a dude who like came up through like online film nerds totally understand how they talk about and I love film criticism and it kind of breaks my heart that I can't I can't engage with sure part
[02:01:53] of the process of my own work but it just is better not to yeah and also the people who like go on Twitter and they're like I'm only going to read the positive things I'm just going to retweet every
[02:02:01] thing anyone nice said about sure my movie then you look like an egomaniac if you're like ignoring right right so just found a better not to know especially right if you go down that fans
[02:02:13] not critics route you know it's so easy to get sucked into like people aren't getting it but this guy does right or the opposite where you only retweet the good reviews because the fans are yelling at you
[02:02:23] or where you like try to show how magnanimous you are and and retweet the negative reviews and say you know what he has a point no one should be exactly I really learned my lesson here yeah
[02:02:33] yeah put me in my place yeah so yeah Miranda Richardson I don't know yeah she's just a twin rules she's a twin one of hers the chrome I can't tell if she enjoyed being in this movie though or not
[02:02:44] like I can't tell if she is having fun being the character who delivers that fun that and monologue feels like she's really enjoying it key for it to me is the fact that she
[02:02:54] improvise that line watch your head when they all walk into the wind yeah which five comedy yes yeah I mean she plays a lot of villains yeah you know in England she is absolutely beloved on top of her general successes of wonderful actress for playing
[02:03:10] Queen Elizabeth in black at her which is like this venerable sitcom which is really really funny and she kind of plays her as this like capricious sort of like saucy like I was going to say I
[02:03:20] mean like she gets famous in Hollywood for kind of over the top iciness yes certainly yeah but then she's so good in like spider or even stronger where she has to play this really broad like working class right and it likes a she plays like a Jennifer Tilley
[02:03:35] yeah and she like kills it amazing that way she's so good and she's great and strong dual role she's great and stronger yeah I know stronger is so good so good one of the like best movies that no one talks about it's really great
[02:03:48] that's seen outside the baseball stadium speaking of sentimental movies men accessing their sentimental feelings which is what that's about and what that movie is about they became this avatar of men being like you know I
[02:04:01] I feel sad too I mean I like the socks but I like having tears I love that movie so much stronger yeah so that I mean this final section is they put together the mystery you have the big sort of like you know villain
[02:04:21] monologue explaining how and why and all of that I like the cuts back to the things the images you've seen even just like like Christiani Ritchie like the archers and it cuts to the art like fireplace like it's really well done
[02:04:31] I just always like that device because it makes me feel like yeah you're putting together a movie even though like half those characters you haven't seen before right you haven't seen yes sister without the shawl over her face
[02:04:40] you haven't seen the slave girl Sarah or whatever yeah this is all getting dumped on you and then and yes some of the characters she's talking about where corpse is whose headless bodies you saw that's it right right
[02:04:52] but it but it's all fun stuff and it was like a clicks like it's like I assume it all makes sense it feels like it clicks and the last idea of Iqabah realizing like I just need to give the headless horseman his own freedom
[02:05:03] yeah I got I got that skull and that bloody kiss is like incredible is that that feels all burnt that was the most that's like the most noticeable CG in the movie to like when he's like his head reclaim is really assembling
[02:05:17] it's like a little large marriage cameo drops below the frame and then pops back up in large March for a second yeah and then it's like just right on the cusp of like being too much CG like like Steven summer's level but he
[02:05:28] pulls it back he pulls it back and then he never pulls it back again year before hollow man and it's the same sort of idea like let's do bones like muscles right like like build it all out step got a venom tongue
[02:05:38] right this is essentially the last time he has CGI restraint what's interesting is like I was reading about swingy Todd and he said as an initial concept for that movie was to shoot it 100% George Lucas
[02:05:49] style on green screen with no sets which it even is a lot of greens does have a lot of it does have a lot but it's still like yeah more practical now it's cool looks good it's like 5050 and it's leads well designed
[02:06:01] but there's like New York guy what's the games New York guy who builds the set Dante Spinoe yeah yeah there's a quote I read from him when they were like promoting the movie where he was like well I'm not
[02:06:14] really much of an action director so it's good that I got them to cast Johnny because he's not really much of an action star this notion that if he got in someone like Brad Pitt there might have been more
[02:06:23] expectations to have like more heroic scenes instead of like about getting knocked off the carriage by a tree but this carat race is like really fun it doesn't overstay its welcome it's kind of like a little mini like Victorian version of like
[02:06:36] you know the Raiders of the Lost Ark like SUV he didn't have Brad Pitt but he had Ray Park and Nick Gillard his other name Nick Gilland the fight choreographer from the prequels who's an amazing sword choreographer and those fight scenes are great
[02:06:50] yeah the earlier fight scene too with Kassar Mandian with the sort of two handed that's a fantastic fight and the Hethel swordsman never stops being a really eerie piece of imagery you never get over the fact that the guy's fighting
[02:07:03] and he doesn't have a head right it's got a big honking sword was this cake practical or is that CG because nowadays I would definitely nowadays I would definitely be CG but I think it was practical
[02:07:13] I think it was practical but yeah I mean you know I think it's nice that just once they have all the pieces together they don't belabor it and it's like okay he's gonna throw the skull right he's gonna turn back into venom then he's gonna
[02:07:25] you don't see the kiss coming you don't see the kiss coming that's what I love right and then also I mean all the stuff I also love anytime the horse goes in the tree there's like
[02:07:34] that sort of weird spur to blood oh just the way the tree parts and the heads kind of fall and like it's like there's like it's kind of Cronenberg it's great yeah the matter the like the the pulpy matter that's just you know dripping
[02:07:45] with blood when he's like hacking away when he's hacking right and finds a tree like 30 feet tall like it's such a crazy object they get so much value out of that tree and like the poster is just like the fucking tree yeah man
[02:07:56] but the the final you know Miranda Richardson's hand being caught on the other side trying to like lure them in yeah it's just like a fun touch and then the movie just store gets out I mean they like well it takes to New York welcome to New York
[02:08:08] the bronzes up in the batteries down Jeffy like that's a Tom Stopper line also yeah right right it's kind of an odd ending because you're like what now they just solve crimes in the winter it's got that beautiful snowfall
[02:08:19] in fact for me watching that I was like oh the movie got my one other favorite thing which is winter like it's got a beautiful snowfall in there it's a great fall movie and it's like after fall what comes winter right yeah but it feels
[02:08:31] like if this movie was made six years later it would have ended with someone rushing up to him and being like Mr. Crain have you seen the headlines and then there would have been an avaness song during the crisis right and
[02:08:41] it would have been like Santa Claus sneaking through chimneys you know whatever the whatever case he has to crack now so this movie is a big hit yeah let's talk about the box office this movie made 101 million dollars at the domestic box office which is
[02:08:55] 183 adjusted was it October 19th was that November 19 Thanksgiving weekend it was that late it was that late I know you would think this would be a Halloween at least I got the number and it opened up against the other big blockbuster of the fall
[02:09:09] like people thought like are they going to cannibalize each other because you can't release two big movies the same weekend they both make about the same amount of money which is like the number one makes 35 this made 30 world is not enough world is not enough
[02:09:21] people were surprised they got that close because a sleepy hello B&R and bond being so so beloved at this time yeah I'm actually want to look at opening weekends like was that a lot that was more than golden eye or tomorrow never dies so it was
[02:09:35] like a perfectly good progression for the Brosnan bonds world is not enough movie I have seen like so many times even though it's not that good a movie I have never seen was that the one where they're like bonds getting gritty or was that the next Brosnan one
[02:09:49] is dying of the day which sort of has the superfluous like are the he's like in prison at the beginning right where like that is the least gritty it is because then he goes surfing or whatever yeah and like the villain has a space laser
[02:10:01] all the ice mr. Diamond face we're being a big deal like we're bringing bond down to earth for this one whereas world is on earth so he can fence Madonna the world is not enough like cuz tomorrow never dies have been criticized for being too
[02:10:13] product placement II right and like not having a solid bill and or whatever right and also Christmas comes early you know no that's the world is not enough that's what I'm saying yeah okay nobody like this one is more of just like it's James Bond
[02:10:25] he's gonna go to various countries yeah there's the villain is Robert Carlisle like big actor like nuts and bolts James yeah it's just like that James Bond movie yeah you know there's nothing too fancy about this movie Christmas comes and then he got
[02:10:37] Denise Richards and Sophie Marceau and a little bit more M Judy Dench has like stuff to do in them she gets like captured and that's the first please one right it's the first please one and they did not intend for Q to die so fast right but the
[02:10:49] actor died right so it's also like the junk leases because they were like let's get John Cleese here as insurance policy so we can get people used to right before what's it what was his name Desmond are Desmond Desmond Desmond Lowe Desmond Lowe if you're in
[02:11:03] Britain he's like one of the 20 most famous people of all time they're just like of course Desmond Lowe like the Selena Gomez of the UK so fucking famous and when he died like it was like a day of mourning you died because he was the only one who's
[02:11:17] in all the box right like pretty much people left their briefcases at his grave site sure so I thought I had like I had not looked at the box office I was going to try to guess but because I mistakenly remembered it being October
[02:11:29] I'm just gonna because you think it's a Halloween release I was like I was like three Kings was the week before and but now I have no idea well now I just want to look up the weekend your thinking of to see because you're another box office junkie
[02:11:43] right I'm actually not like really okay I've always been intrigued by it and because from being a projectionist like in the 90s I usually have a pretty good idea like like from like 97 to 2004 like what we had audience when they open sure
[02:11:55] but I don't really remember how well they did yeah my mom referred to it yesterday she's been listening to the podcast more which is something I'm not happy about serious yeah but she's been listening to it a lot don't call her mom that's my mother
[02:12:07] thank you forget her name Mrs. Griffin's mom okay but she said I love when you guys do the office mojo and I said what and she went that game where you guess the numbers you know the office mojo yeah the office mode we just try to capture the
[02:12:21] magic you know that sounds like a mad TV parody where they put Austin powers in the office number three number three so worlds on up is number one sleepy haze number two number three was number one the week before it's an animated film
[02:12:37] the first in a long franchise first long set franchise 1909 uh it's not a story to you know no no no no I saw this in theaters toys to two came out the next weekend I believe you're right yeah okay no no no toy story to comes out this
[02:12:55] weekend on one limited right right right but it goes wide the next correct that's what I know okay okay okay so it's an animated film long long running franchise we're talking a 2d picture I'd imagine right it's a hand drawner
[02:13:09] it's a based off a TV show uh yeah I know what it is it is Pokemon the first that's right that's right Pokemon the first movie new versus which I'm assuming David you were too old for Pokemon I was too old for I had like siblings who are
[02:13:21] into it I'm the oldest of nine so I feel like I got all of those you know things no no my family ever really loved Pokemon that much though but they had a promotion for that movie opening week and where they would give out the limited
[02:13:33] section booth was just full of those right because that must have been worth it's waiting promotional item they stored in the booth so we just had all of those things like fucking flubber watches I had so much flubber stuff I had never had
[02:13:45] so much shit I like a little changing but I had so much flubber so much shit I wasn't objecting to you bringing up why are you crying right now I'm telling you number four is like yeah kind of make much anymore like an
[02:14:01] old-fashioned R rated like kind of thriller like flubber like star driven thriller okay kind of like a murder mystery was it Ashley Judd no but you know in that zone it's a male lead female second lead and the female actress is sort of like
[02:14:21] like a coming she's coming up she's on the rise yeah she's going to be a star pretty much right now male stars older no like maybe a little older interesting so they're kind of contemporaries it's not the in recognition it is so like I was thinking
[02:14:39] like it's like oh if she's a big star now Angelina Jolie is like surpassed big star but right that's true I mean but like this this is her Oscar winning year she's going to win an Oscar you know in a few months right this was one of her
[02:14:51] first big like studio above the title mode yeah because she had been floating around like an you know fire love is all there is or whatever 99 is when she has pushing 10 playing by heart phone collector girl interrupted impressive win an Oscar October so that was like hanging around
[02:15:09] right phone collector came out November 5th oh this is its third weekend it's pretty good hit Denzel of course yeah star yeah I've heard of Philip Noyce film right you know one of the film Noyce is one of those guys like he makes Hollywood
[02:15:25] movies I have a good experience because then she must have brought him on to salt at that point yeah who is we will never know I remember so many fucking late night hosts because she had that moment everyone decided I don't know David stop
[02:15:39] asking Angelina Jolie he texts me like four o'clock in the morning every night asking who's all sometimes just a picture of a salt shaker with a question mark like seven question marks we just don't talk about salt enough
[02:15:51] yeah well because I never got to make my spin off film pepper yeah of course there I felt I had to do it I say the thing I remember oh sure because she became like the hot person that year in the same way
[02:16:05] that like someone like Scarlett Johansson will be like the punchline if you have to like fill in the blank with someone that people find attractive I remember so many fucking late night hosts making like you can collect my bone jokes it was so like pun worthy
[02:16:17] and it was gross like it was gross when they made that pun because it was like collect your bone like a murder movie about some guy who's stealing bones she's like in the tunnels like trying to solve like every night show host now getting fired instantly
[02:16:31] instantly also like I don't want to hear Leno invoke his hard penis the last image I want in my head you disgusting fucking denim wearing old man he wasn't that old by the way J. Leno's our guest next week on the plan of the apes upset
[02:16:47] number five is a movie I bet I think we've talked about it I bet you really loved it this movie was real is it a dumb baby movie no no I thought it was really clever yeah as a comedy yeah it's like a dark comedy
[02:17:01] it's a dark it's a kind of twisted that was like made like a disgusted like fucking face like he was a bad boy kids in 1999 dark comedy is the director who mostly does comedies yeah and where was this in their arc this is like them
[02:17:19] working with a bigger budget for the first time for the first time to make a big budget comedy is a star vehicle it's got a lot of stars in it ensemble cast you say yeah yeah yeah a twisted picture from 1999 an ensemble I feel like we talked
[02:17:39] about this movie is it gothic is it is it sort of like is it like a fantasy element it's violent it's a violent but it's funny fantasy element comedy that I probably ate up with probably if you were allowed to see it
[02:17:53] it's got a big no I probably or maybe you saw it in a video later video and it was very controversial you definitely had strong opinions and you would tell your friends about how it changed right how really like opened your eyes it was a fire club
[02:18:09] oh wait it's American beauty no no both of those movies are hanging around but no yeah because I don't know if you know this but David Fincher movies are actually very funny if you know how to watch them just to give you an idea
[02:18:21] this movie is it's second week it's made 15 million dollars it's going to make 30 not not a hit no but it tripled its budget really well it's 10 million huh I I can't believe you guys aren't getting it I'm gonna give you another I probably love that
[02:18:41] he's someone that I guess we could he's an otur yeah it sounds right his fourth movie yeah this is fourth picture you're just drawing this out at this point I genuinely can't even think of what this would be I'm thinking of posters that had like a lot
[02:18:58] of people a lot of people poster is a lot of people and Ben knows that it's his fourth film yes his first three like left impressions yes oh oh oh oh oh oh did you like it oh do you think it's
[02:19:12] clever boy did I love it I thought it was so smart and people didn't get it and it was high art and low art and it should have gotten every fucking Oscar nomination and it's called dogma it's called dog my Kevin Smith's dog I
[02:19:26] loved dog that was the one I would go to the mat for her that was like the first time I ever got a screenplay in advance so like like someone like I found it on the internet and I was like so pumped so excited about that I
[02:19:38] have not thought about since no how do you I had a two disc DVD where the case looked like a Bible probably with like fucking movie on it or some shit I just I wore that thing out right you know like that poster it's a lot of folks
[02:19:52] a lot of folks get touched by an angel that's the M and that movie had so much what was the DVD that's Drew Streusen cover I guess yes that was the for the special edition but the notion that like these were cool posters the ones that had the
[02:20:04] stained glass effect one is cool but those were the British posters you would have a reference even though the other thing about that movie was that like Disney wouldn't let Miramax release it so it had such a reputation as like a bad boy totally and
[02:20:22] then people were like this is like his breakthrough for growing up he's taking on bigger themes it's a commercially it was his highest grossing film and then he just went sideways pretty much yeah he kind of retreats
[02:20:36] Kevin Smith I feel like the story with him is always like anything he does that gets kind of a rocky he like then he'll be like okay well let me just give you J.N. Simon Bob again like that's what you want right like clerks too
[02:20:46] like yeah we'll just we'll just go back to like the absolute basics it doesn't have to look good no one has to try very hard like it'll just be funny lots of dialogue there's a very interesting article to dig up from 1999 as we face the 21st
[02:21:00] century of cinema we asked 10 people who is the next Martin Scorsese who's going to be the defining director for the next like 30 years and someone picks Kevin Smith and it's very defensively like hear me out hear me out I know he seems as far from Martin Scorsese
[02:21:16] but there's so much fucking ambition and dogma that you have to imagine this guy's gonna keep on trying crazy shit and maybe it won't work but he's gonna be swinging big and then he just goes into such a comfort zone yeah well
[02:21:28] what are you gonna do? Do you know who's Scorsese picked? who? Wes Anderson cool that was they said finally we asked him the man himself and he said he picked Wes Anderson had Rushmore even come out at that point? I think it really just come out
[02:21:46] yes so yeah he saw that potential in Bottle Rocket but he puts like Bottle Rocket as like his third of the 90s he did that like after Jean Ciskill had died he sat in with Ebert to do the 10 best films of the 90s
[02:21:58] and I think Bottle Rocket was his first time being on the early champion yeah I think it was the puppet master then Eyes Wide Shut then Bottle Rocket made me and Thin Redline was in the 5th his number one is Horse Thief
[02:22:10] oh really? and his number 2 is the Thin Redline then A Borrowed Life I don't know what those movies are then Eyes Wide Shut, Bad Lieutenant, Breaking the Waves Bottle Rocket, Crash the Cronenberg Fargo, Malcolm X and Heat Tide that's a weird list sure
[02:22:28] he's a wild guy, well and crazy guy so we're done? we did Sleepy Hollow we did Sleepy Hollow, we survived the hollow heads rolled David thank you so much for being here thank you for having me thanks for liking our podcast saw a ghost story I loved it
[02:22:44] I wanted to pitch the thing I noticed anytime we get a big Hollywood player in here Ben wants to pitch the movies I'm receptacle for pitches I notice no ghouls or goblin stories you know there's room for the franchise to grow that's what I was thinking
[02:23:00] it's an expansive store you have a dark universe we created a dark universe I should mention though since this is the Tim Burton podcast series that the first frame of a ghost story is a reference to a deep cut Tim Burton joke
[02:23:18] so the LLC that we formed for the film is Scared Sheetless LLC which as Burton files will know is what he pitched to Warner Brothers when they wanted to change the title of Beetlejuice and he did it in jest and then they took him very seriously
[02:23:34] they were like that's exactly what happened and I've always loved that story I loved Beetlejuice, I looked at ghost story as a remake of Beetlejuice in many ways and wanted to just toast to that classic
[02:23:44] that's why it's good, see most filmmakers aren't smart enough to try to remake Beetlejuice but every Beetlejuice remake is good sure what are the others Moonlight Moonlight Moonlight Any trick is a remake I cannot keep this joke going well thank you so much for being here
[02:24:02] Old Man the Gun will be available on digital platforms by the time this episode comes out 6 years from now Yeah it'll be the whatever format exists at that point I think Blue Rays will have gone the way of the go-to Right it'll be on contact lens Exactly
[02:24:18] We're recording this the night of your premiere It's true I walked by the Paris Theatre earlier and saw them putting up the marquee and it was like I should take a photo of that I did and I was like I should Instagram that I did not
[02:24:34] Save it for a throwback Thursday Have you done other New York premieres? Is this your first one? I've only done one premiere We did Pete's Dragon at the El Capitan naturally because it's a Disney movie The rest of them have all just been a festival thing
[02:24:50] Have you done a tech rehearsal on Redford to make sure the program will boot up in time to be on the red carpet? That's what I've got to get out of here for Cool cool cool Well please watch David's movies Thank you for being here
[02:25:02] Not my movies I don't have any I mean I have a bunch of Blue Rays if you want to come over Come over and hang out Didn't you direct Underworld Blood Wars? I did direct the nutcracker of the four realms as we all know
[02:25:14] You only did two of the realms right? Let's do it on the record since we're recording this so far in advance I think by the time that movie comes out it will have four more directors credit If it came out Lassie Hallstrom Sure, Ida Lupino
[02:25:28] It seems like it's right for a last minute This is going to be our streaming Christmas movie of 2021 Or they have Feige take over it and reshoot it to work it into the MCU We couldn't get it out of the vault What if that's what they say?
[02:25:42] We forgot the combination Sitting right next to the song of the south I swear it's there That movie looks bonkers What if we do a mini-series and we only do one episode per realm So we'd like go back to the Star Wars days
[02:25:56] Ben is saying let's get out of here He's not angry No Ben's taking a piece of taffy and he's pulling it as far and as wide as he can Wow, Ben you have a traffic light? Oh great, you know I get it You're saying slow down
[02:26:16] Alright we're done That was just handed a death card, thank you all for listening Please remember to rate, review, subscribe Go to Blankysireride.com for some real nerdy shit Thanks to Andrew for good over social media Lane Montgomery for our theme song Joe Bonaparte-Rowlands for our artwork
[02:26:32] And as always Check out our merch on T-Public Oh check out our merch on T-Public New designs will be available That's designs we probably haven't even designed yet Sure We're still imagining them From the twisted mind of Griffin and David Our boutique label And as always
[02:26:54] Ben literally looks like he wants to murder me right now Cut your head off