Spirited Away with David Rees

[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 Listen, Haku, I don't remember it but my mom told me

[00:00:25] Once when I was little, I fell into a podcast They said they'd ended it and re-recorded things on top but I just remembered The podcast was called Its name was the Kaku Podcast Your real name is Kaku Podcast! Kaku Podcast? It's in the river, I don't know

[00:00:48] You'll find out at the end of this episode the adversity I had to overcome in order to start this podcast Okay, okay, okay Now we were talking about something very serious Talking about Shrek

[00:00:59] We were talking tunes and of course we were contrasting Spirited Away to Shrek with our guest Who's never seen Shrek? Nope And I made a joke about how Shrek opens and you said that is not actually how Shrek starts, is it?

[00:01:13] And then I showed you the opening of Shrek and you are real Now I am broken You are broken What did you think Shrek was? Like you knew he was a green ogre

[00:01:24] And that it's like a fairy tale world and I knew that Eddie Murphy was in it It's donkey Donkey I assumed it was like probably kind of knowing and cynical in the way that all contemporary kids culture is Which is so disgusting

[00:01:41] I didn't know it was going to open with him literally like ripping a page out of a fairy tale book and wiping his butt with it And then also flushing an outhouse Flushing an outhouse toilet It's like okay, I guess this is a fantasy world but whatever

[00:01:55] Right, there's a flushing sound and he walks out of a wooden outhouse I don't know You're saying like And then I'll start playing Right And that's a pop song But that's already being played ironically No No kind of What year did it come out? 2001 Okay

[00:02:16] So this is two years after All Star comes out as the single from the Mystery Men soundtrack That's right, it had been part of another movie A song that originates in another movie Right, it was sort of The video for it has like clips from Mystery Men

[00:02:30] Right and then two years later it's like Mystery Men bombed All Star was a hit They're sort of taking a hit song two years late Right It has nothing to do with Shrek though No, it's like if a I guess he's an All Star?

[00:02:45] I don't know, it doesn't The lyrics have no real relation This is another song movie It's almost like if an animated film started with like Shake it off Or I really really like you today Like this was like a legitimate hit song

[00:02:57] But the other thing is that Rat Race came out the same year And also Ends with All Star End with them arriving at a Smash Mouth concert And dancing to All Star What's Rat Race? Another cartoon? No, it was a comedy with like a big on sound

[00:03:11] Sort of like what's like Cannonball Runner It was like a loose Batman World movie That was the idea They've all got to find the money They're in a rat race like around the country It's a Fallen from Grace Jerry Zucker Yeah, it's Zucker one of the three

[00:03:27] But just the one Zucker It's like John Cleese and Dave Thomas run a casino And they offer like a hundred million dollars to the first person Who can get to whatever the location is Got it It's like Whoopi Goldberg, John Lovitz, Rowan Atkinson Yeah Seth Green

[00:03:43] John Cleese, Cuba Gooding Jr Cuba Gooding Jr, the biggest comedy stars of 2000 Why wasn't this the hugest hit movie ever? They, sounds good I think it did okay actually Rat is called Rat Race Rat Race, never heard of it John Cleese is like the evil billionaire

[00:03:56] Who's organized the Rat Race And all are Yeah, that's the poster The poster had this sort of big heads Big head, Amy Smart Wow Amy Smart There's a lot of, because there's also like Brecken Mayer isn't it? Right, there's a lot of other people

[00:04:10] A stensibly the romantic lead It's kind of cheap And it's also one of those things where you're like It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world Outside of the main cast When they go to a cameo You're like Holy shit Right It's the three Stooges Sir John Gilgood Right

[00:04:24] Taylor Swift And the first on-screen pairing In this, the biggest stars are the people who are the main characters When they go to a cameo it's like Dean Cain Yeah, or Smash Mouth Right, is that supposed to be like a big like aha moment?

[00:04:39] Right, it ends with Smash Mouth Trek starts with Smash Mouth The point is you were saying like This is like everything I hate about children's films today And you'd have the pop song, the cynical stuff Trek is the moment when all of that becomes like

[00:04:51] Oh this is good This can be taken seriously Well I always associated that with Aladdin Which I've also never seen Because isn't Aladdin the one where Robin Williams is the genie And he's like we'll turn to the camera and be like

[00:05:04] I know you parents think this movie sucks I do too, haha wink wink It's not like that but Aladdin is like the seed being planted It has the elements of that Right, it's the first time that that's happening Right, Katzenberg comes off of that

[00:05:15] And goes like this is what we should be doing And there are all these stories Stars above the title Like in a kid's cartoon We're gonna put Mike Myers's name above the title But there are all the stories about when they were doing Toy Story

[00:05:28] When they were like doing story reels on Toy Story That Katzenberg kept on pushing them to be like The characters should really be assholes Like it should be really cynical and more pop culture references Like he was taking all the wrong lessons from Aladdin

[00:05:39] And they almost shut down Toy Story Because they were like this is unwatchable This is like a Todd Solon's movie Right, why is Woody Isn't he supposed to be the hero? Why is he so mean? And all the directors at Disney were like fighting against him

[00:05:53] Like pushing for that And then he goes over to Dreamworks And he's like I can do whatever the fuck I want And Shrek is like the culmination moment And it wins best animated film The first ever best animated film with the Oscars

[00:06:04] And it gets nominated for the Pom Door And it is taken so seriously as a movie That then culture just completely warps around it Because Aladdin like those elements were popular But they only Is a stirring old fashioned adventure movie

[00:06:20] With songs that are beautiful and it looks nice That's like 15% of the movie Because it's only this one character And then like Robin Williams is in there And he's not turning to the camera But he's doing like a Carson routine But he's also

[00:06:32] Takes 40 minutes for him to enter Then Shrek everything is like fucked No one's fucking lovable in Shrek They're all jerks But at the time everyone loved it Well everyone loved it because they were sick at Disney It's 2001 The sort of Disney renaissance is kind of sputtering out

[00:06:48] It just made tarzan People are kind of like We get this formula, we're bored of it And Shrek's like I get the formula too Like all the sort of like Gen X-y Like Disney's actually like fucked Like if you read the real stories They're so dark

[00:07:02] That whole take had become so mainstream That like any like six year old at a mall Could get what Shrek was like hitting on And then the weird thing is for a generation The versions, the parody versions of The fairy tale characters in Shrek Canonically become those characters

[00:07:22] Like there's a generation like my sister Who didn't grow up watching the Disney films She grew up watching the fucking She's watching the ironic commentary on the source code And that is the new canon The new source code With creepy like fucking seven dwarves

[00:07:39] And an old glassy CG Pathological liar and like all these things Fairy tales man they're just like You know that's all made up Those are fairy tales man The real world like we're in Bosnia What's going on there Why does it all add in talk about Bosnia

[00:07:56] But as you said the movie was known for best screenplay Like people were like oh this is fantastic They were like animation has finally become adult Like finally there's like a serious animated film Also people thought it looked good And now you watch it and you're like

[00:08:08] Oh this looks dreadful It was like them trying to go photo realistic That's the weird thing She looks like a little person And Shrek's got like stubble and shit Like they were like trying to get all the gross details down But another The villain looks like creepy Yeah

[00:08:27] Right Yeah Anyway Do you think it was good for the culture? I think it was terrible for the culture Really? Yeah I think it actually caused The kind of cynicism or the Yeah This is the kind of stuff I talk about all the time Like

[00:08:42] Danny McBride is why Trump got elected South Park is why Trump got elected Shrek is like Why Trump got elected You keep standing on that street corner I love it, it's a lonely street corner But someday Someday people will stop And stop honking their horns

[00:08:56] And take my pamphlets For a second I processed the first thing you said as Danny Boyle is why Trump got elected I mean he probably is too fucking I was trying to do the calculus He was beef with Steve Jobs Yeah No I think Shrek is really bad

[00:09:10] For the culture And I think A thing that it did Which I resent Is People then start to feel like They're hip to the things that Stories are doing You know Like did you notice this is like a trope Like this always happens This is something I wanted

[00:09:29] And then we get like Deadpool Or whatever It just keeps going further down Another one of my little hobby horses That I'll delight you with later Which is about people Being clued into like story structure and stuff That's what I think all this stuff is keyed

[00:09:42] Which it's like Story telling tropes existed Because they were field tested for centuries And we figured out these are the most effective ways To tell emotional stories And now I feel like people are scared off Of doing functional storytelling Because they're like

[00:09:57] Oh but this is like that cliche Yeah but I do think sincerity is now kind of back It's coming back There's two heads to the dragon now But I do think that's a problem Is that everyone thinks they're smart To how stories work Like plot, whole culture

[00:10:12] Oh yeah that's true Like all this sort of like honest trailers Or everything wrong with X movie In 10 seconds I think I'm talking more about something Iron man get there With like There's that But I also think there's this like I think it's part of a broader phenomenon

[00:10:28] Which I associate with the popularity Of entertainment weekly magazine Which was like Another sort of early 90s event Which was kind of like now everybody understands What a tent pole movie is And wants to talk about The opening box office And everyone is like an industry insider

[00:10:45] I'm not saying like that knowledge should be held By a secret cabal of power players Or not worthy of it Why are you handing me a list Of power players underlined But I think the other side of that Is this idea of people being like

[00:11:01] Oh my god Pixar really knows story Like they can really crack a story The structure of this Pixar movie Is so amazing But they wouldn't be able to like expand on that Well right exactly and I don't know I mean it's I guess it's not Pixar's fault

[00:11:17] And it's the knowingness It's all part of a culture I guess of Knowingness I don't know how else to say it Whether it's a movie that is being self-referential About its source material Or whether it's people not responding To the story as a story

[00:11:35] But responding to it as a story As an instantiation of a structure You know that can be built more or less elegantly I think that is also the success Of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Is it's a thing that's like letting the audience

[00:11:50] In on the act of franchise building That they're doing They're like your investors with us In this like ongoing narrative Right and so much of the Marvel culture Is people speculating about what's going to Happen in the next movie And then going and having their theories

[00:12:05] Confirmed or denied And then walking out of that and being like Wow but look at what it sets up going forward Like there are like two Marvel movies That end with any sense of finality Because most Marvel movies end with A scene that negates whatever

[00:12:19] The emotional ending of the movie was Time out and they put like a secret scene Into the trailer and then Sometimes it's in the movie Literally the ending where it's like Whatever sense of emotional closure Narrative closure we came to on this Two hour narrative is upended by

[00:12:34] Needing to point your head towards What's happening next So you can start speculating And the idea of how they're growing everything out And the fact that like everyone knows How many movies Marvel actors Have left on their contract Right things like that where they're like

[00:12:48] It's weird that she died but I know That she's optioned for a 2021 And I and I are people who obviously Were forged in the fires of knowing these things Right here's the W thing you're talking about And I understand the appeal of knowing it

[00:12:59] Because it's fun because then you feel like You are on the inside Right You have inside information or it's kind of Like I can see the strings of the puppets Totally But I was obsessed with trying to figure this stuff out

[00:13:10] Because I wanted to be making this stuff And David was obsessed with trying to figure this stuff out Because he wanted to like be critically Like analyzing this stuff I guess I am And it's weird that like people who are like You know I'm like

[00:13:23] I am trying to think of any job And then I'm getting caught in the web Of being like well any job I say Now sound backhanded you know But like someone who's like an Brain surgeon Brain surgeon The world's greatest brain surgeon The world's greatest brain surgeon

[00:13:37] Also being like well they're definitely Killing Chris Evans off in this movie Because I heard he's fulfilled his movie contract Right Like that's weird that he feels like He needs to know that It is weird that Brent Carson was a brain surgeon Who was good at his job

[00:13:49] He was incredibly good at his job He was like really good at it He was so good that Cuba Gooding Jr. played him Yeah Cuba Gooding Jr. got to play him A thing we can only aspire to But you know what Hayami Izaki would say To this generation

[00:14:01] This is all kind of relevant Do you know what he would say Oh absolutely You need to like get a job and scrub some floors Like that'll build your care I just think it's fascinating That Shrek inspired it away The movie that we're talking about today

[00:14:13] Come out in the same year Spirited away as a release in United States A year later They are both 2001 Right But in America it wins the second ever Best animated Oscar Shrek won the first And when best animated like feature Was established people were like

[00:14:28] This is the Pixar category Like Pixar movies have become respective enough They will surely dominate Right And in fact the first two years It's Dreamworks The first year Shrek beats Monsters Inc Because Monsters Inc was sort of I guess seen as like

[00:14:41] Oh well that's like a soft Pixar movie And Shrek is here to like tear up the system Everyone was like yeah Monsters Inc Is like a pleasant like But obviously a very light It's not a serious film Right And now like Monsters Inc

[00:14:52] Is like a paragon of storytelling Uh huh And Shrek no one likes Like even the kids who grew up with Shrek Now just make Shrek dank memes Yeah I mean it doesn't help They made like four more Shrek Shrek is not aged well Shrek is aged very badly

[00:15:07] I don't think there are like Parents showing their kids Shrek Right The bell of the ball Exactly Oh turned into a pumpkin That sounds like a joke Shrek would make Really? Fuck my life So I've even Through Osmosis been influenced by Shrek Am I incorrect in thinking that

[00:15:23] In Shrek that they turn An onion into a carriage That sounds right I think they do that There's some joke about onions A lot of Joe Ogres are like onions They have layers Right And this is a podcast of course About filmographies Directors who have massive success

[00:15:36] Early on in their career And give a series of blank checks Make whatever crazy passion project Say what Our producer is tilting his head back And looking at the ceiling As if to say what am I doing here Uh it's called blank check Griffin David I'm Griffin

[00:15:48] Hi I'm David Sometimes those checks Crusted Sometimes they bounce baby There's a main series on the films Of Hayao Miyazaki It's called Howl's Moving Podcast That's right And our guest today A returning guest Long time aspirational Returning guest David Reyes Hi thanks for having me back

[00:16:07] Excited to be here Now we wanted you on the show When we started the show And you said I'll come on If you talk about AI And it was one of the reasons We decided to do late period Spielberg That's right Because we were like

[00:16:17] We can get Reyes on the show And then very shortly after that We'd like We'd love to have you back And you were like I'd come on to talk about Miami Vicer's period in a way And it's one of the reasons We did Michael Mann

[00:16:27] Miyazaki back to back Because we were like We'll get him on one of them Yeah Here I am Here you are Wait you don't seem excited I'm just bummed about The Miami Vice one man I was so amped But I'll let it go I already yelled at you

[00:16:41] At a dinner party about it You've yelled at me At multiple dinner parties Anyway You're here for the You're here for what I brought my special folder He's got a manila folder He's got a folder You're here to talk about What might be the best movie Ever made

[00:16:54] Well, I'm so excited now To hear you say that I got a little goose bumps On my arm because I'm Well, what's up? Every time I watch it I'm like Really? I'm kind of like Well, I mean I don't know that You could do something better Than this

[00:17:08] I'm sure you don't agree With me completely No, I was going to say So I I saw this movie Griffin's more of a Nia fight to Miyazaki Is the sort of archivist This is my exposure therapy This mini series I even shown Totoro when I was a child

[00:17:20] Didn't get it And didn't try to engage With the other Miyazaki movies And then when this came out in the states It was such a big sensation That I was like Gotta see it And I was also an Oscar junkie At that point

[00:17:32] I think that unified David and I That we were 13-year-old Oscars Industry insiders Reading entertaining weekly magazines Complaining about the fact Baphobio for Miyazaki's Latest tentpole We were real insiders And we hate the fact that everyone's an insider now I know God, everyone's trying to tell me how

[00:17:47] Oscar season works I've been What did the Star Wars guy say? I've been born in this trade I've been busted in my ass Star Wars five years Yeah But Saw this when it came out in the states The dub version And went, yeah

[00:18:01] I just totally don't get this I was 14 at the time Maybe 13 Really? Or that Yeah, okay 13 It comes out of two? Yeah, I was 13 And I was like Don't get this And just Don't get it in a Bad way, I guess you're saying? Yeah, I was like

[00:18:19] I don't understand what people are connecting to here You're not like I don't understand it and it's so wonderful I feel overwhelmed No, I was like I don't understand what the thing is Right, yeah And clearly I'm in the minority I have a lot of the same

[00:18:32] I mean I saw it as a Full adult And I also But Well, we'll get into it Right, but so This may scare me being like I want to I want to watch all of these And see if I can Crack this

[00:18:45] And it's all sort of been building up to this Being like, can I revisit this movie for the first time In almost 20 years Right And make sense of it So you haven't seen it since you saw it in Oh, too Wow Yeah Okay And I saw it dubbed

[00:18:59] And I watched it subbed to it last night And I was watching it And I was like This is kind of Undeniably powerful object Yeah Like I was kind of stunned that there was ever a time Where I wasn't connecting with it

[00:19:12] Like even if this isn't my favorite movie And I wouldn't put it on my personal top 10 Great films of all time list Certainly would I was like watching it It was no question Right, I was like This is like the Sistine Chapel or something

[00:19:22] This is like some undeniable Accomplishment in humanity Right I fully came to the thing Right Is now the time Take it out Okay He's opened the folder And Eclipse A yellow piece of news paper Well, it's It's yellow Because it's the financial time Which is salmon colored Famously

[00:19:42] Right, so he's got a locked piece of news paper The reason that I really wanted to do Spirited Away Is because it is I think undeniably The work of a total genius Even if it's Somewhat inaccessible For cultural reasons Or psychological reasons Or whatever I agree fully

[00:19:57] But for me I think the thing That I've thought about Almost as much as I've thought about Spirited Away is a review A Spirited Away that I read And then clipped As you can see from the financial times September 2003 And by the way

[00:20:12] When we were recording our AI episode You invoked this I did? Did you? I'm not on mic But it was either before or after the recording And he said Do you guys remember that review? So this is stuck in your head Yeah, so Yes Back, here's some context

[00:20:27] When Spirited Away came out I was at the time of political cartoonist And I had all these file folders Where I would keep track of like Afghan atrocities Iraqi atrocities Just like all these horrible file folders That we're depressing to look at

[00:20:39] And then I had this other file folder I just called Great Writing And there was just stuff in here That I really enjoyed Like this is a list of all of Cool Keith's personas That's cool Dr. Octagon, Flyrickie the wine taster Mr. Gerbick

[00:20:52] It always just made me happy To have this And then This is a This is an academic article Written by my godfather Called treatment of hernia In the later middle ages Surgical correction and social construction My godfather is a Historian of medicine This is a very intense article

[00:21:09] About how they performed hernias in 1300s But it's well written Then I have this invoice For these incredibly dangerous magnets That I bought That almost tore my Marriage apart But Like through magnet force Like physically You were wearing just one opposing magnet They're called Galsboy's super magnets

[00:21:30] They were these magnets that were so powerful They were dangerous I could not believe I was legally allowed To order these magnets Because I mean they could go through You had to keep them away from credit cards And pacemakers They were so powerful

[00:21:44] And one time I was trying to I was doing what you're not supposed to do Which is like Similar polarities But it flipped around And part of the magnet flew A shard of the magnet flew Across the kitchen and Almost took out my ex wife's eye Anyway

[00:22:00] Can I do you mind I won't say it on mic Can I look at the invoice I'm curious You saying that you shouldn't have been able to buy these I'm curious Wow That is cheap Right? Can I see? That is And you got a discount

[00:22:13] You got a price break discount Wow I can't believe something this dangerous Could cost this little money Right Okay so Right Even in 2002 or whatever Yeah We will not say how You sold it down there Was it nice down there It was a time of transition down there

[00:22:30] I was going to say Yeah It was a time of transition Anyway so I bet you're really cheap to live down there back then Cheaper I will say I'll probably never live In as nice an apartment As I lived in down there Wow I will say too

[00:22:42] I mean David had primed me with Live down there I was not expecting this far down And we will not say how far down you live It was pretty far down man These days people live down there Yeah Oh yeah Back then it was like

[00:22:53] Urban primers living down there Yeah Okay anyway Financial times Spirit away review Okay The author Is Nigel Andrews Who I think is still the final In fact I believe you're right He is because I have since Been in touch with him In anticipation of this podcast Why?

[00:23:09] He's 72 years old Yep He's sort of Emeritus Yeah yeah totally So I I love this review I'm not going to read the entire review But you're going to have to indulge me And let me read Certain sections of this review Yes 100% I noticed that

[00:23:24] I can't remember if I Read this review Before or after I saw Spirit it away But the date Were you a frequent reader Of the Financial Times? Was it just Oh well I was a political cartoonist I was a subscriber Sure I subscribed to the Financial Times

[00:23:37] And the New York Times In 100 million policy journals Right And I liked Nigel Andrews Reviews Like he reviewed a lot Of international movies and stuff Right Absolutely So the thing to know About this review Is that Nigel Andrews Grades movies On a star system One through five stars

[00:23:55] And the first thing that I noticed about this review Was It's six stars He broke his own star system So when I first picked it up I was like There's a printing error Like with six stars Mr. Andrews only goes to Five stars First sense of his review

[00:24:12] Yes that's right Six stars So he's like I know Get ready Exactly I know exactly This review gets me so fucking amped Okay listen to this This is when it's like Oh shit Oh shit Somebody liked a movie My adrenaline is really high Totally totally Yes that's right

[00:24:38] Six stars Exception must be made For the exceptional Spirited away is A feast of wonderment A movie classic And a joy That will enrich your existence Until you too are Spirited away Rush now While life lasts It is pretty crazy to Say like

[00:24:55] Not only is this great movie That you should see But this might be a thing You remember until you die Which you will Oh oh yeah But more importantly You do not want to risk Dying before you see this film Totally Do not leave Yeah right exactly Exactly

[00:25:12] Death is inevitable Seeing spirited away Is up to you So yeah I can't imagine anyone Was like See Shrek now While life lasts You know what I mean But for Spirited away it's like This is part of the core Curriculum y'all You might get hit by a boss

[00:25:29] Here I think Yeah here's I think this is the Core of the entire review Okay He's summarizing everything Putting it in the context Princess Mononoke and all this stuff What is the film about? It's about 122 minutes And 12 billion years 10 comedy points It sums up all existence

[00:25:48] And gives us a mythology That's good for every society Amiable animal or human That ever lived And then the other thing he says is When he's talking about the final act Of the film I love this He says Miyazaki supplies a kota Really a whole last act

[00:26:07] That's so ravishing and imaginative That Keetsian Lee We want to give up And expire on the spot He wanted this movie to kill him Do you know what I mean? It's just that thing of like I don't think I can do better than this

[00:26:19] Like maybe this should be the moment I think that's why he gave it 6 out of 5 stars And the reason that I've always found this review So just like exciting And also moving is I think this is a record Of someone having an encounter with the sublime Yes right

[00:26:36] Which I think this movie Even like there's a lot about this movie I don't understand And there's a lot about this movie That's opaque to me But I understand how someone could watch this movie And just feel like this is on a whole different level

[00:26:51] You know there's something about it That is just I don't know if it's the dream logic Or just some of those incredible images You know but it's just like This is 6 out of 5 stars Yeah I also think the key difference is I have had encounters with the sublime

[00:27:07] That I completely understand Would not connect for most people Right But I watched Spirit Away And I'm like this movie is Capturing the sublime for 2 hours Yeah yeah Even if I am not as in on it As perhaps Nigel is Which let me say

[00:27:22] I think this movie is great I think it's a masterpiece I love it I feel like I need to watch it 8 more times It was weird to me Not having seen it since 2002 When I would run at my head

[00:27:33] I'd be like I barely remember any of that movie And as I watched it Everything was there You're like oh I do actually remember this Like every element Suddenly I was like Wait I know the score I know the images Yeah yeah pretty much the greatest score

[00:27:44] The score is pretty incredible Yeah But I was like I had no sort of replay Recall in my head Before rewatching it And all unfolded like This experience of I feel like very often I wake up and I don't remember my own dreams Right And then something happens

[00:28:01] Over the course of the day And you go back Yeah totally And suddenly The entire dream comes Flooding back to me And it's very emotionally overwhelming Right In my dream someone held my hand And now that someone has held my hand in real life

[00:28:15] I'm remembering this dream where I was in Like the fires of hell In your hand hell Sorry retired bit Whatever the thing is right And watching this felt like that Where I'm like emotionally overwhelmed With the idea of This thing that was sort of like

[00:28:28] Buried deep in my unconscious Which I had not connected with before Had no emotional connection to The last time I saw it Now suddenly having this like Tremendous weight and feeling like It was like this unspoken thing That had been laying dormant

[00:28:42] I think that's why this movie is so powerful And I think And I mean I preface all this by saying like I don't know enough about Japanese culture To really understand everything that's going on In this movie but we can talk about it in a minute

[00:28:55] But what I wanted to say was I think one of the reasons this movie is so powerful Is because it always does At least to me feel a little bit beyond My ken so to speak There's always a reaching quality And so when you come back to it

[00:29:09] It does have that same kind of Strange surreal authority That a dream can have over you Which is again almost like The same notion of the sublime This is just a little beyond What you'll ever be able to understand And when you watch it again

[00:29:25] It's like oh my god I'm back in that Dream space You know what I mean I think that's what I think that's why the movie can be so powerful Yeah I was thinking while watching this last night Not to get to like college dorm room Philosophical

[00:29:40] But it is this thing I love about movies That they are these fixed objects And that like we come to them at different points In our lives with different things And there are the movies obviously that you like Re-watch more That you think about more

[00:29:52] That are your favorites That you connected with the first time It may be on further viewings Like oh well now I have a better understanding Of this or I notice this But things like this where it's like You know you watch it like years apart And you've changed

[00:30:07] Or your understanding of the world has changed And some movies like don't benefit from that But some movies remain these fixed objects Where like because of how sort of Elusive they are Wherever you are in your life Wherever the world is at that moment

[00:30:23] You're gonna be able to bring something new to it And it's gonna like unlock new stuff for you Right and that's probably in the end The difference between a movie like this And a movie like Shrek And that's probably why Shrek is not aging well

[00:30:35] Even though objectively they're equally good Because they both won best animated feature Right back to back So that puts them one to one But this also won the It was the one the Berlin Film Festival And the Golden Bear After its release Which is hard to you know

[00:30:49] Come out in Japan Then it played at the Berlin Film Festival It won the festival Then it comes out in America So it did that So it was the highest grossing And remains the highest grossing film in Japanese history It is Isn't your name Your name got close

[00:31:05] But I think it's number two Oh really? Yeah I think Your name surpassed it Which is another incredible Your name I feel like is Is easier to wrap your head around Even though it's pretty trippy Yeah it is trippy But it's more like

[00:31:19] But Spirit of the Way is a film that You can think about forever Right Well I think there's that Every time I see it I have new understanding About the world that this is Your name you can solve Right I think it's a difference

[00:31:33] I think all interesting movies Are either puzzles or dreams And your name is a puzzle That's an incredible one It's true And Spirit of the Way is a dream Yes Yes 100% And that's why You'll be able to think about it Which I think is what

[00:31:48] Nigel Andrews is getting at In this amazing review Where he's like First of all See this movie while life lasts Second of all You will want to die Because it's so sublime And third of all It is about 12 billion years In all every conceivable society

[00:32:04] And the sum of all existence ever Yeah It's inexhaustible Yes I agree Yeah It is that thing I love dreams But when you do remember A dream vividly That sense of like I'm trying to pull apart Why these elements came together Like why did my brain construct this

[00:32:27] And why did I react to it this way And the best movies I think do have that kind of quality Where they can be a dream And a puzzle at the same time Which I think this movie weirdly does Like it's more a dream than a puzzle

[00:32:40] You know Right, yeah But you're trying to figure out Why it has that sort of Impact that it does And it's playing in a zone Of like It's a very like Alice in Wonderland Style story You know A story structure A little bit of Pinocchio in there Yes

[00:33:00] The kid goes on the magical journey That may or may not be a dream And seems to reflect their internal life But it's like also about that like Penumbra between being a kid And being a grown up Where you're still You can accept this world Liminal states

[00:33:15] The best kind of states Right But like you are Getting ready to move beyond it Like and to grow up And all the fears Of being boring And being you know Set in your ways Like you know And being bourgeois Like basically right

[00:33:32] That are going to come with being a grown up You know And like all you know But like Whereas Disney movies are often about Like childlike innocence Right Fantasy world Right This is about like a fantasy world That still requires you to Build your character And work

[00:33:50] And like be part of a collective And like a society Right Yeah Where there are rules And it's often incredibly unfair Or frightening Like you know what I mean The world of adulthood And as with every Miyazaki movie There are no like out and out villains Particularly

[00:34:10] Like Yubaba is Not a villain Well it's I mean She's a boss She has to deal with being a boss Right but at the end She's like She hero's waving goodbye to Yubaba Along with everybody else And it's like yeah Well and also at the end

[00:34:24] Yubaba does this thing that seems cruel Like I will test you You have to pass my test And I think that this The dub ignores this But in the original version She's like You know the baby's like You can't do this this is mean Like let her go

[00:34:38] And Yubaba's like These are the rules I have to give her a test It's in the contract Yeah Like the only way she gets her name back Is if she passes the test And it's like Yubaba's being like She has to have grown up Like a little bit

[00:34:49] Right If this place hasn't changed her Like she's not here You know like you know She's only allowed to be free If she realizes something about herself Just like haku It's a hollow Right Right And so like it's not like Yubaba's like I'm doing this because I'm

[00:35:02] Embittered in me Right I'm doing it because I'm in charge of this thing Right I know you're the one Who usually reads the Miyazaki No, Reap and read the Miyazaki quotes But there were a lot Of interesting ones here In the Wikipedia Yeah Which is also in your

[00:35:15] Mystical Leatherbound book It's fine But it said I created a heroine Who is an ordinary girl Who is a very empathize It's not a story in which The characters grow up But a story in which They draw on something Already inside them Brought out by the particular Circumstances

[00:35:29] Like that's a really Interesting thing about the movie Sure Is that it's not like She sort of Grows It's that she sort of Comes to a greater sense Of understanding with Who she is Sure You know I'm just going to be in How the world is going to

[00:35:50] Work for her And work for everybody And she's also in a context In the bath house And dealing with particular Circumstances that are I would say Simultaneously allowing And demanding more of her Yes Whereas when we When we meet your hero In the back seat of the car

[00:36:07] She's with these kind of Like pretty lame parents Her parents are kind of Lame Distracted, kind of unresponsive But like She's not a bad girl No She's just kind of Like You know A little whiny And sort of like What do I get Like you know

[00:36:23] A little demanding But what I wonder One of the ten billion things I love about this movie Is that she is not some Special creature Who is selected For the magic world Because of her specialness She's not Harry Potter She doesn't arrive In spirit In the spirit land

[00:36:37] And they're like It's you The one who's been For told We've been waiting For you She arrives and they're like Well, you can scrub floors If you want And also you smell bad You seem pretty useless Like honestly And it also is a movie where Unlike

[00:36:53] Those other types of narratives Like Wizard of Oz Or Alice in Wonderland Or whatever There's not the moment like Things get fantastical While she's still with her parents And awake There's no moment Where she falls asleep Where you can go Well maybe that's The deniability point

[00:37:10] Or there's no moment Where she falls down a hole And you're like Well now who knows what Happened? She conked her head And they go into a magical portal You know They go into the mysterious tunnel Right But she does it with her parents Right

[00:37:23] And her parents are like Yeah this is like some old amusement park Like that's what this must be I think the opening of this movie Is so unsettling And one thing that I was It's very frightening This is the I couldn't show this movie

[00:37:32] To a little kid I think I think it's a little too intense I think so The opening What happens to the parents That whole concept Well there's that But I was thinking of something A really specific moment That I had forgotten

[00:37:42] It's kind of like what you were talking about When you see something again And you have like I forgot about that It's a really quick moment But it's before they've even Reached the tunnel And There Oh there's the breeze Are you talking about the breeze?

[00:37:54] I'm talking about when her father's On the dirt road And he's going fast And they pass a He brags about his four wheel drive Oh I know what you're talking about They pass a stone svelteure And that And it's CG So it stylistically looks different It's smoother

[00:38:07] And you track her Yes Turning her head I think To watch it as it passes And it's moving at a very different speed Yeah there's something so Portentous about that About that moment So it's right It's not like The tornado picked the house up And then flew away

[00:38:23] And then everything was different It is more It's like more gradual What you're talking about though Is when I saw this film In theaters In London, England Camden Town, Notion Grew up in England Why because Was it released earlier there Did you get on a plane

[00:38:39] In order to see it earlier Pretty sure it was released later Nigel Smith's review The first stage from 2003 So what had you missed it Yeah September 2003 Yeah I think it came out a lot later What were you saying So had you missed it in theaters

[00:38:51] In the United States No I grew up in England I was a high schooler You knew about this Well I Is this the new bit that Ben knows Yeah I feel like It's come up I'm like remembering Not on this podcast No yeah What on night cheese

[00:39:06] No no It's come up before It has not come up on this podcast I was like revisiting a favorite dream It's like oh my god I'm back in my dream world It comes back And I remember Not knowing what I was in for

[00:39:18] I'd never seen a Miyazaki movie before I was aware of him Sure I was aware of Mononoke Which had had a release here You know like I was aware That he was this Respected creature And then that moment where you see I'm like oh And it's like sent

[00:39:30] Like a little chill up my spine Yeah it's really unsettling And I was like wait So that's what's gonna happen here I think I expected Probably just something more bonkers Right like something like trippy Quote unquote Right Like what an American remake of Alice in Wonderland

[00:39:43] Might be like Directed by someone like Tim Burton Sure Twisted I also like I feel like weirdly A lot of the weight I was putting on this movie When I saw it Was like Well A everyone saying this is this Masterpiece that's gonna win the Oscar Sure

[00:39:59] And B this is the highest grossing film In the history of Japan Right This is their blockbuster Yeah they had this Titanic Slayer reputation Right And very often the highest grossing film Of any country Is incredibly accessible Sure And sort of like Stripped down fundamental

[00:40:17] Like story basics audience satisfying Oh totally Yeah To see this movie and be like Wait what the entire Like country is You're like Japanese people Think this is normal Right Right But like this is like the most accessible Like in the middle Everyone can come to this movie

[00:40:33] Right this is this is the four quadrant hit Right And that's the thing Not that like you know The level of quality Like this is something that everyone Is able to get in on Right Was very odd because yes It starts with two boring parents in a car

[00:40:48] Spends very little time before it gets to them Finding an abandoned amusement park Yes And then her parents become grotesque So we can't stop eating And there's no And the food looks so good too You fully understand There's no moment of reality break

[00:41:02] You know which is the scariest thing I feel like if you're a child Talking about not wanting to show this To an actual young child Like to a very young child Right the scariest thing is just like My parents will stop paying attention to me

[00:41:12] And then you'll be alone I will end up in a world that's indifferent to me That asks me That sort of build too Where it's like First her parents are just sort of ignoring her And she's in a bad mood She's moving And kids often will know

[00:41:25] I knew that I had moved when I was nine Like shut up Where That sort of You think I'm pretty sure Really? I'm pretty sure That kind of That pain of like I've been like ripped from my school And it's so traumatic You know right

[00:41:43] And then like the parents turn into pigs That's bad Really bad Now she's alone in this place Right All these like weird ghosts And creatures start showing up And walking around The lights come on Which is kind of wonderful But also she starts to literally disappear

[00:41:57] She starts to literally disappear Then a kid shows at Hakku Another boy A boy her age shows up And you're like okay Alright here's her friend And he does the thing where he blows the little petals Right And you're like Like that's where I would get so frightened

[00:42:10] Like what are the rules of this What did he just do? Never explain Right Whatever that is Right It's presented as this very pivotal Thing that he's doing And you expect him later to be like Well because of the petal spell You'll be safe now

[00:42:24] I think that's where a literal minded 13 year old Griffin is just like I don't get this movie Yeah what are the rules of this Yeah explain Well no one ever says like So this is the spirit world Right It's where you go and you die

[00:42:36] Or it's where the creatures of elemental being You know elemental existence are Right No one says anything like that The only thing you Baba says is like This is where spirits come to fucking relax Right That's it It is also such an unnerving thing to be like

[00:42:51] Oh it's an abandoned amusement park Yeah I hear there are a lot of these Yeah I mean as a westerner You have almost like a double displacement Actually it's a triple displacement Because think about it First of all you're watching a movie That's from a pretty different culture

[00:43:06] Like for a modern society Japanese culture is like really different From American culture And a culture Even though it had become so westernized Right But it's still I mean this stuff goes back Thousands of years So first of all you're watching a Japanese movie Right

[00:43:21] A culture where the basic relationship to life And death is so fundamentally different Than how we perceive it Right So you interpret the relationship Between the spiritual world and then And the natural world All that stuff So already you have that Then within that culture

[00:43:37] You are in an amusement park Which is a kind of weird Like a facsimile A weird space within a town Right Oh and also it's not just an amusement park It's an abandoned amusement park So now there's a third displacement And that's even before You cross the river

[00:43:53] And now you're in a bath house for gods and spirits So I mean like even the baseline Of where we as westerners Enter this movie is like The ground is shifting under our feet like Like I saw what happened to KISS Yeah It wasn't good Yeah

[00:44:07] Alright I'm making my way in Japan Oh I guess I'm in an amusement park in Japan Like this is a lot As far as I know Japan had this Incredibly crippling recession in the early 90's Which I feel like that's sort of in reference too

[00:44:19] That's what the amusement parks are Yeah it's like a ghost town Like the lost decade they call it And like so maybe that's sort of in reference to that Is like yeah our country kind of Had this frenzy of construction And like innovation and stuff

[00:44:33] Well right so that whole opening thing And what's our connection to the actual Country we're part of That's what setting all that stuff is Right I mean this is actually Like one of the most accessible parts Of the movie because it's political Which is Miyazaki being like

[00:44:49] Japan guys like what happened Like here you're driving around in your Audi car You're wearing your golf shirt bragging about your credit cards That's four wheel drive right You don't care about your kids You're alienated from your own children now Because you're moving for a new job

[00:45:03] You're stuffing your face You're turning into a pig And the context in which this is happening Is this place This artificial world that was built Before a bubble collapsed And now it's just been left to ruin Oh and they also destroyed a beautiful river

[00:45:19] And that's the fact that like an amusement park Is like here is an incredibly controlled Artificial environment That has been created just to make children happy Right for no like Sort of betterment or Right like an amusement park For like a child is like

[00:45:35] This is a world with like bumpers everywhere Everything is made to like entertain you For your enjoyment And it's completely safe and controlled And secure That said that would be like this is like What about Huska in an amusement park Where there is no joy, nothing is operating

[00:45:51] Right It's like watching like Looking at a physical manifestation of a dead child Well that's why Abandoned amusement parks are That's why they're creepy And I always think of Chernobyl too Pripyat or where the abandoned Paris wheel there Oh and also there's all these shadows

[00:46:11] That are like starting to show up in the stalls around I mean it's a lot Second chill out my spine moment is the weird statue Second chill out my spine moment is when she's Standing in the tunnel And her parents are going forward and she's like

[00:46:23] She has that childish thing of like I'm not moving What this is just not good I don't like what you're doing and so I'm gonna Fucking plant my feet right here And then there's that wind that blows behind her And she has that other childish feeling

[00:46:37] You have where you're like Something ain't right My parents tell me that ghosts don't exist They're not a threat And She's not mean to anyone She doesn't take someone's toys But Miyazaki is just kind of communicating Like this is a person who

[00:46:55] This is an adolescent who is just not ready For anything And who can't really like Spoiled She's not a bad girl who needs to learn How to be a good girl She's not the one who turned into a pig because of her selfishness

[00:47:09] She doesn't turn into a pig Because of herself It's weirded away Hakubo's petals on her face No, into the air, not on her face And then tries to sneak her in Over the bridge by having her hold her breath

[00:47:25] But then she takes a breath because she sees a frogman Of a frog says like Hey Aku, what's up So Haku like turns him into a bubble And then like runs And suddenly like the colors are all running And he's got to sneak her in

[00:47:39] She apologizes profusely and he's like It's fine, you did a good job You held on for pretty Pretty long Right, there's no conflict But Haku is this changeable creature Which I think is supposed to Refer, I mean for one he's been enslaved

[00:47:55] He's got like a black slug inside A black slug inside his body But he's like a river, he should be Exactly, we really do But like he's supposed to be kind of changeable And unpredictable and moody and like He's like a strong point and sort of strong

[00:48:09] He's a river Spoiler alert, he's a river And as you say I think the idea is that Right they sort of paved over a river Or dammed a river Well her dad says this used to be a river Right, that energy had to go somewhere

[00:48:23] Right and she lost her shoe In it a long time ago Which is sort of what like maybe bonds them together I mean that's pretty good I'm getting really emotional just thinking about I mean the seeming She's in his back and she realizes His expression

[00:48:39] And the scales literally fall off his eyes Yeah, it's so intense And then they're falling together And then they land in absolute silence They're falling together and she says Like she's crying, I mean we're getting to the end here But we might as well just talk about it

[00:48:53] It's incredible, it's so incredible He I believe says or is it her One of them says I'm so happy Like you know that's the final line Of their conversation Like hacking sobs Even if I haven't been emotional for the rest of the movie Right, right Every single time

[00:49:11] It is somewhat pebble over and I think because I've seen it so many times I see this with my mother when I'm 13 And when that happens I go he's a fucking river What is this movie? That was the moment for me that I remember being like

[00:49:21] I have no way into this Like I don't understand what's going on here You brought it up in the past is sort of like that was Your Miyazaki barrier I'm done, I'm not gonna try to fight this But last night I was like

[00:49:33] Well this is the most obvious A native organic Thing, like of course Of course he's the river, you know And just even hearing you Just recount him Yeah, yeah I got chills Well it's, I mean Again it can depend on where you're at in your life

[00:49:51] Or it can depend on where you're at in your head in the moment But these things that are just like You can be in a mood Where you're like that doesn't make any sense Or you can be in a mood of ecstasy

[00:50:01] Like I'm having an ecstatic experience right now This is, this is Profound, right? Like this kid is the spirit of the river Like they met a long time ago And now he's gonna stop being a dragon They're just gonna float down together You know what I mean though

[00:50:17] And that's the kind of thing where as a westerner Again I'm like Is this like Just another day in the life of Japanese Pop culture Or is this like something true Or is this the Sistine Chapel You know, like a total out of the park Home run

[00:50:35] Where people are just like how did he do that How did he access that How did he create this thing that feels so Specific and so universal at the same time Which I think is a tension that runs Throughout the movie the entire run of the movie

[00:50:47] Which is why the whole thing is so exciting It also speaks to though How almost all Movies could afford to explain Less Absolutely This much of a product of a culture that you don't understand And you surrender yourself to

[00:51:03] There are things I'm not gonna get because I grew up In fucking New York City You enjoy it in a totally different level Like even like a movie that is not anywhere near as dense But the farewell What fantastic wonderful beautiful movie

[00:51:15] Right, I sit there watching the film And trying to understand the relation Of the family Yeah sure, right, there's a little of that That's what I was allowed is like you No one that just sits down and is like I am his brother and I moved to Japan

[00:51:29] And these are my children There's an uncle and there's a cousin There's a grandmother And they all live in different places You kind of have to context clue piece together Over the course of an hour and a half Like okay she's the mother of the two of them

[00:51:43] Right And that's what happened here And it's so much more satisfying To have a movie force you to sort of And with it in that kind of way Well the feeling I remember Most specifically and most strongly About seeing Spirit of the Way for the first time

[00:51:59] Which I think I saw in the theater Because I'd seen Princess Mononoke on videotape And heard about this new one And was like we'll go see it I remember just the The procession It's one of the greatest music you too One of the many great

[00:52:15] Just locked off side shots In this movie In the masks are floating Well there's that but then There's just the side view of the bridge And this procession of all these different spirits And gods coming to the bath house And then it's just like

[00:52:31] You're like okay what are Are these Known religious Icons or are these just goofy cartoon Character and then that feeling continues Because then when you're down in the boiler room And you see the soot balls You're like well Miyazaki must have made this

[00:52:47] Too cute like this can't be some Realth you know Throughout the movie You have Miyazaki's own creations Then you have Obviously There's probably all different types of visualizations But you have actual spirits that are part of a millennia old Full culture And religious culture

[00:53:07] And then you have original characters Like Ubaaba Or the frog Oh and then you got three green bouncing heads And as an assistant to Ubaaba The way they open doors Is how it always gets They're my favorite character Watching it, it's so exciting and overwhelming

[00:53:25] Not only because there's just so much going on Visually but because it does feel like A pastiche of And I don't know if this is true or not But it feels like a pastiche of things that are thousands Of years old

[00:53:37] Things that were made up two years ago at Studio Ghibli Standard Human characters But you have no For us it would be like You go to see a new cartoon And the main characters are Santa Claus Jesus Christ Beyonce And a coffee grinder

[00:54:01] And they all live in this world and interact with each other And we would be like There's a lot going on here There's a lot to wrap my head around So that's how you feel watching it When you're talking about not knowing Exactly like Like Superman and Moses

[00:54:19] It's kind of like that And that's what makes it kind of I think what contributes to this feeling Of just feeling overwhelmed You know? And also serves that Kind of dream logic that it has Because in a dream You can A dream can be populated with

[00:54:39] Reachers or stuff that would have no business interacting In the real world They're from separate worlds Whether it's a dream where you're like I was with my uncle but he was also My High school teacher Absolutely And I was in my house but it had other rooms

[00:54:57] Other places that I've accessed in my life And sometimes your memory is a vibe It's a feeling It's not actually contextual stuff It's an emotion maybe For me also it is like The thing I was thinking about And I was like

[00:55:14] That's the reason this has endured for so long Because it taps into this quality And they have over decades Not been able to recapture this The first fucking 20 minutes of Star Wars When you're starting in media res With R2D2 and C3PO These two low status characters

[00:55:32] One of whom can't talk And the movie is throwing so much shit at you And all you understand is that these characters are vulnerable But you can't understand the power structures You don't understand the rules of the universe And it keeps on throwing more stuff at you

[00:55:44] And some of this stuff Is understandable as like These are archetypes Right? Oh, these things are behaving Like this I can sort of map on this behavior But watching that first chunk Of the movie which then That film becomes plottier And the other films become plottier

[00:56:02] And the prequels become super didactic And the Disney films become about trying to Re-capture that feeling But in a more controlled way That feeling watching the opening of Star Wars Where you're just like This guy's got this whole thing figured out And he's only telling me 2% of it

[00:56:18] And he's just trusting that I'll understand And there's such a fine line And I guess it helps you decide Whether someone is a great artist or not Which is that The feeling of You want to feel You want to be led somewhere

[00:56:34] And you want to be led by somebody who knows where they're going Right? You don't want it to feel Unconfident Or something like that It does break down into confidence But I think sometimes confidence these days Maybe this gets back to my thesis about

[00:56:48] Entertainment Weekly and story structure So many times now We associate confidence With a storyteller saying I know exactly what's going on Here is what's going on I need to hit these marks Hit, hit, hit, boom I have achieved total storytelling competence Thank you for this journey

[00:57:08] It's not confidence, it's a knowingness It's like a self-awareness Rather than that confidence of I think people will understand this Which is like you associate With David Lynch's Better Works Where he's like, I'm not telling you shit But I know what's going on Right, that's the thing

[00:57:26] You can tell when the person who's made something Goes the answers The Twin Peaks show did have that quality The third season, I mean all of Twin Peaks But the third season where it's like She's entering a mystical boiler room And I was just very much like

[00:57:40] I cannot imagine trying to Logically map what's going on I understand the emotions of what's happening You know what I mean? I don't want to think about who the boiler represents I know that he has answers I also think all the best actors Have that quality

[00:57:56] They're kind of only giving me 10% Of what they could possibly do But it's not because they're being lazy It's because they want you to work for being like Why aren't they giving me the rest? And also that's how humans are

[00:58:08] Humans are only going to give you so much But De Niro is like an incredibly bottled actor Because this whole thing is like watching him And being like there's something else Something he's not telling me Maybe I'd tell you What do you think, Trump? That's the secret

[00:58:27] She's at the bathroom Haku sneaks her in And is like you have to ask for a job They can't turn you down The rules of this place is that you must be given employment And we've already been given so many rules That she's been...

[00:58:41] Well, I guess the first rule was Get across the river before the sun goes down Hold your breath going across the bridge So you're already thinking like Is that a known thing? Is that like a trope In Japanese folklore? Is it like not stepping on a crack?

[00:58:55] So go see Kamaji Go get her Shana Nob advice Get her a job, that's right And Kamaji is A yokai Which is A sort of Phantom I don't know how else to describe it Like he's got four arms, like he's unusual looking Yeah, he's a spider guy

[00:59:17] He's pretty cool Spider-Man with a walrus mustache He lives in the Water He's animated the soot to do work He feeds them with little starfish Cookies Yeah, we're again you're like Little star cookies Is this candy that came in a plastic bag?

[00:59:37] Like what is this? It looks so bright Is this children's cereal or is this like ancient He has four arms And they're clerks Like real taut muscles He can stretch them as much as he can To the infinite shelves of herbs that he has And he

[00:59:53] I mean this I think is when I was Just like, I think this, I love this Like right, like when you're watching it the first time We're like, I understand I understand the logic of everything even though I've never seen anything like this before

[01:00:05] Like the logic of her being like, see I can help And she only hurts She's like, I'll do what the soot creature is doing He's like, this isn't your zone Well also he says But he also says something really interesting

[01:00:17] Which is like, it's inappropriate to take someone's job He's like, the soot creatures do this And also like her trying to enter The soot's ecosystem Leads to them all Going on a weird little strike where they Suddenly drop the coal on She's a disruptor

[01:00:33] But she's bad at it She can't pick up the coal It's really heavy, surprisingly heavy for her I feel like the soot scene is like Are you in or are you out? Like this is it right? Like come on guys talk about the soot scene

[01:00:47] Last night I was a thousand percent in Good, great Honestly just from the emergence of Mr. Arms Right, Komaji And seeing a character who gets back to the same thing That this character is very confident That he's so confident understanding The rules of the world

[01:01:05] How he needs to operate, what she needs to do What everyone needs to do There's something kind of infectious about Like as opposed to like who Who's been like, fuck Okay let's try this, hold your breath And who's a human whereas Komaji seems like

[01:01:19] A piece of machinery that is Animate, you know I mean like he performs A serve it like But then you find out later what he's doing The reveal of then how he is Like setting up the bath Like the tags come down He's running the bath

[01:01:35] He's the CPU for the bathhouse Right But also that he is in perpetual motion Like he is trying to help her Trying to discern what she can do He's grinding, he's turning He never stops doing his job And it's like you know it's so

[01:01:51] The confidence of him being like I can keep doing what I need to do And also take care of this Taking care of these sub-creatures Taking care of this little girl Get in work done, get in paid Right And then Lynn shows up

[01:02:07] Lynn who is like the friend You know what's interesting I've probably seen this movie almost as many times As any other movie I've ever seen Which is to say four times Because I don't really re-watch movies And I hadn't seen it The last time I saw it was

[01:02:23] With an ex-girlfriend and her two children One of whom was too young and really freaked the fuck out But I had completely Forgotten about the character of Lynn Oh really? It was actually a really charming Great, specific Thing to hold on to

[01:02:39] But in my memory of the movie I mean I remembered All the other principal characters Except for Lynn, maybe because she's the only Is she human? She's not right Nope She doesn't look as sluggish as the other slug women She is not human Because she hero is human

[01:02:59] And they all remark on that she smells like a human She's humanoid She is the most human She looks human And she is, I have to assume A person who died If I wanted to delve into the logic Of what this spirit world is

[01:03:15] Where you're dealing with these elemental creatures Because like He's drawing from all these shinto beliefs Of spirits everywhere in the world Spirits in the air, plants So that's who some of these things are But then the humans Are these people who died

[01:03:31] And have moved into the spirit world Are they always in the spirit world? They are frog men They're little men Female attendants are slugs Right But Lynn and some There are some human people But Lynn is very clear You're a human, you stink And she eats a newt

[01:03:53] One of the first things she does is Eat a fried newt Which is not something that I would do Where she's really into it That's true She's not human But she does read as She is humanoid Like I said, what are you reading?

[01:04:11] I'm going to read something that only makes this more confusing This is from the Jeebly Wiki But they're quoting the art of spirited away book Sure Lynn is portrayed as a human being in the film In the Japanese picture book Lynn is described as Bayako A white tiger

[01:04:27] Okay Cool That's all you got? Yeah, but they identify her as just spirit As species here She is a spirit That's the key distinction Perhaps she's a human spirit Whereas the others are not I don't know We see a couple other humans Where she sleeps

[01:04:53] Where they have their aprons But she is certainly the most normal Central character in this film We fully understand She's like the older sister who's like If you drag her around But in the end it's nice But she is helpful And Kamaji kind of bribes her

[01:05:11] To take this new Take her to f**king UBaba And again, they're like You cannot back down You must ask for work Get a job You have to become part of the economy And there is this weird economy That leads to escape childhood

[01:05:29] You must become a productive member of this economy Right You have to scrub The free ride's over You gotta be contributing something You can't just bum around in here Which is one thing that I feel like We'll get to No Face But why he's so disruptive

[01:05:47] Like No Face is not part of How all the capitalist Sort of collective balances It work here I think I'm gonna rewatch this movie again I highly recommend it It's pretty much always kind of rewarding Even if you don't Even if you want to just have it

[01:06:05] On and sort of soak in it Not think about it too hard It's rewarding in every way It's rewarding and sort of really concentrating And thinking about every single choice That's being made When she enters the bath house It's so beautiful, it's so scary

[01:06:21] It is that kid feeling of All these grown ups and all these But they're just also like frogs And a radish spirit This was his most... Can't even talk about that shot of her Squeezed up inside of the elevator The radish spirit has those tendrils

[01:06:37] Coming off his breasts and it's just like So uncomfortable But also he's nice You know that thing when you're so afraid When he like bouts to her And she's like The spirits aren't like monsters By and large they are But never mind, they're nice

[01:06:55] What were we going to say, Graf? No I was going to say a couple things The radish spirit has BBE Definitely big Ben energy Feels like a real Ben character But also This I think was his most expensive film At the time I mean Mononoke had been

[01:07:13] A game changing sensation He had a bit of a blank check And because his stature had He knew he was going to have to use more CGI for the film He knew it was going to be a production He said his original script was three hours long

[01:07:25] And so he was like This is insane, okay His quote was In order to get to a manageable length I had to cut out all the eye candy In his mind this is a version of the movie Why it looks so boring

[01:07:39] I'm sorry the film is so flat and colorless Show me something I haven't seen a million times Why don't you? A radish spirit on an elevator Stock shit we've seen a thousand times before I mean that's just act two You got your radish spirit

[01:07:55] Building box of Hollywood story There you go Hollywood insider Meeting with the goddess, fat vegetable in an elevator And you're watching Lynn Again like same thing with Haku Like antagonistic to you sometimes But then you watch them be altruistic In your She eats the

[01:08:15] She eats her through with a new What I was going to say is there are so many characters In this film primary characters Who are so detailed And the more detail you have in a basic character Obviously The more of a nightmare it is to animate

[01:08:29] In multiple scenes, especially in extreme Motion It's the reason why most cartoon designs are very simplistic You know Charlie Brown Is sort of like a platonic ideal For a cartoonist Because it's like it's just a ball And it's got a couple dots and lines on it

[01:08:45] And it's easy to draw him from any angle But like I keep on wanting to say Baba Yaga because I'm a moron Yababa is just like The first moment she appears on screen And you're like he's going to really he's going to Challenge himself to keep animating

[01:08:59] This character for the next 90 minutes With that wrinkle Structure on her face There's that one scene very late in the film with Zaniba Where just her nose is sort of hovering And then she's in the frame

[01:09:11] And you're like right there's no logical way to not have that nose Because it's so hard But also the work you have to do to be like I need to fully figure out how this nose Looks in three dimensions Here are all the wrinkles and like lines

[01:09:23] Of this nose And I need to know how to animate it within space And movement Also just so it's not too easy let's give her a ton of jewelry Right, like everything about her And her proportions are Completely illogical So this was the first one where they sold

[01:09:39] The rights to Disney before production In order to get financing To help complete the movie Oh really? Yeah that was like a big thing where once he Cracked it it was like this is going to be really expensive We're going to need some more money

[01:09:51] We need outside funding so I think they sold to other countries as well But that Lasseter Lots of Hug and Lasseter Went to Disney and said like can we please Right Lasseter, Lots of Hug and Lasseter Down Lasseter who's recently been disgraced Oh is that the Pixar guy

[01:10:05] He was such a fan of Mizake And many people were As I said I think Clements and Musker Were heavily inspired by Kagliostro For the great mouse detective Things like that, right? He's like you don't understand This is like this is the guy Like we have to like

[01:10:21] And I think he sold to them the idea that Like every other country Is starting to get really into this guys movies There should be a breakthrough moment Where he connects with American audiences as well And when the movie came out and it got

[01:10:33] Sort of a half hearted release Disney's defense was well we didn't get Merchandising rights so we were really limited In what we could do with the film Like their whole thing was that They could only make money off of releasing The movie and theaters

[01:10:47] And the fact that they didn't retain the intellectual property Of the film gave them so little incentive To do anything with it Oh I see because they couldn't make Like no face dolls or something Right because he had those rights It's all right

[01:11:01] And there's this Disney thing with how vertically integrated Disney is Especially now that they buy like more and more brands And just go like we can work everything Into every tendril of our company Where they were like so what's the deal here

[01:11:11] We put it in theaters and we just Make money from people buying tickets You mean that like successful business model That existed for a hundred years We can't put it on Broadway Nice skating show Oh my god the spirit of the way Broadway show The musical

[01:11:27] Kills everyone who attends And they enter the spirit world And they're all acting monsters Coming closer and closer Cover your nose I just know I just like I feel like Honestly a reason why he had to put He had to go to Disney to get money

[01:11:43] To make the film because It's how incredibly hard it would be to create a character like U-Babu And how many characters there are like that There are like multiple that are just like Absurdly detailed Right U-Babu has a sister though okay Jesus

[01:11:57] What does she look like? She looks like U-Babu There was one pretty cool cost saving measure Which is they're just going to look exactly the same It's not even a mirror U-Babu Shows up to U-Babu I think we, I don't know what

[01:12:11] Another thing right where I've never seen anything look like this What an incredible looking creature this is Right She's living in a European aesthetic Yes 100% right yes very gothic Very you know Crannulated And she looks like a political cartoon Like you're like this is a caricature

[01:12:31] Of a government official that I don't know But it's I totally get that but it's also like How when you're a kid you're kind of afraid Of old people Because they just don't look right They look different to the regular humans

[01:12:45] That big war in the middle of her head Yeah right where these things you focus on You get fixated on your great aunt's Mole or something She's kind of like your grandma that you're afraid of And she's like get out of here How'd you get up here

[01:12:59] And she's like I need a job get out of here I need a job you know and then the baby Shows up Which is just like I mean at this point You know I don't know how many For me that's my boiler room where it's like

[01:13:11] I guess we're doing this Like a giant baby Shows a door down And she really shifts from being scary grandma To being like oh calm down baby It's okay you know It's such an interesting choice to like Set up this character's ostensibly

[01:13:27] Sort of if not the villain the conflict Right sure the antagonist And within like two minutes be like But she's like a really really doting parent To this giant baby She's you know her flaw is maybe a little too hard On the workers a little too easy

[01:13:41] On the kid you know what I mean Like maybe she could find some balance in both But there's that thing that even as a 14 year old or however old it was When I saw this movie 16 Shites shihiro's name on the contract That's so dope

[01:13:55] And then lifts three of the kanji off There's only one remaining and she has a totally Different sounding name And I think I looked up the meanings Of these words shihiro means Ah fuck I have to look it up again Because I want to send means a thousand

[01:14:09] Right And shihiro means something like A thousand somethings Let's find it Shihiro Oguino And she changed her name to a number essentially Right exactly A thousand fathoms is what shihiro means Pretty cool And everyone's like shihiro that's a good name

[01:14:29] Anytime they hear the name or her real name They're like oh yeah but just that concept That like she has your name now So you cannot escape it's gone It's not even like she like changed your name legally It's like that belongs to her

[01:14:41] There's nothing you can do with that And she starts to forget it Which is another really unsettling After where Haku is like okay great you got a job Eat this human food And you'll remember your name and not disappear

[01:14:53] That other thing they set up does it happen after the Seem where they go back to her parents And she sees the pigs? Yes first Haku takes her to the pigs I think Because then there's the scene where she's eating the bun And tears just starts pouring down

[01:15:05] Her face She's eating the rice balls that gets you Yeah that gets me a lot It also just that feeling of like food nourishing You The sort of basic desires that you would forget About the spirit world David's like grabbing his face and he's ripping his

[01:15:21] Skin off his skull That is a good moment It's great And it's nice Haku, like we've seen mean Haku Because Haku shows up with you Bob and he's like Fine I'll take her whatever That thing they set up of like you need to be able

[01:15:35] To identify which ones were your parents And you need to remember this These are your parents don't forget I feel like as a kid I used to have so many Things around like forgetting things Or not being able to understand things anymore You know especially like

[01:15:49] I feel like when you're a child And you're being very emotionally affected by something And someone around you Doesn't understand You know why are you scared Why are you sad, why are you angry Versus like the comfort you get in your parents

[01:16:03] Being like I understand this is that thing You're afraid of bats or whatever When someone's like what's the deal Some like sort of indifferent adult I feel like I always had this fear of like I don't want to become like that

[01:16:15] Where I can't pick up on what other people are going through You know where I'm not attuned to things anymore Where I don't remember what things Feel like When I was a kid I was very afraid of my voice changing

[01:16:27] Because I knew that was a passage into adulthood Your voice gets deeper And I was like what about my current voice That can't be lost to time Like I was very afraid of that Yeah sure And I was like there's videos and stuff

[01:16:41] Like I was like okay there's like a record of my old voice Now I don't think about these things I was very afraid of it when I was like 10 years old The polar express thing of like There are things you fundamentally will not be able

[01:16:51] To connect with anymore once you are grown You know I think like between like the name And like remembering her parents Like all that stuff in the movie is just like There's a point where she can fall too deep into this Where there's no going back

[01:17:05] Where her childhood is fully over She never goes back to that place of security With her boring parents You know it's just done She will completely lose any sense of who she used to be And any ability to To return to that life Yeah that's true but what's

[01:17:21] Terrifying One of the things that's interesting is that We haven't seen her human childhood Has not been idealized It's not obvious to us why she should Other than the fact that she's just a kid Who has parents and it's good to have your parents

[01:17:35] It's obvious to us why she would Be So concerned about Saving her parents and leaving the bath house I mean she has kind of a rough job But she's making friends It's fulfilling I like the middle of this movie a lot Yeah it's not but

[01:17:53] I know what you're saying She's going to get sucked into adulthood As a perpetually sad and scared child Who was not greatly enjoying my childhood I was also more than anything terrified Of becoming an adult Really? Yeah it scared me so much I get that

[01:18:09] I remember I would do that thing where I would go Like right now I'm 6 Next year I'll be 7, the year after that I'll be 8 And then I'm going to be 20 And it's over and that would terrify me And I'd run to my mom and I'd be like

[01:18:21] I'm only 13 years away From not being a kid anymore I'm only like 6 years until I become A teenager or whatever you know But what were you afraid of I think I was afraid of Losing the status quo Even if the status quo wasn't always Comfortable for me

[01:18:39] It was the security of that's what I knew So it wasn't anything inherent to You being a child That's what you happen to be and you don't like change There was that but there also was Certain concepts of being a child Or like you have to make money

[01:18:53] Like you have to be able to Earn for yourself, you have to live on your own Scrub the tub And I was like I like that I don't have to do any of this I don't have to worry about any of this

[01:19:03] But I feel like the appeal of what's happening To her in spirit of the way is that even though She has been drafted into service She's part of a community now There's Yubaba who's so Frightening in that first scene In the scene where they're scrubbing the tub

[01:19:17] Which is the sort of next big thing When the you know the stink spirit arrives Like Yubaba is not Really very mean in that She's kind of like there's the part Where she like produces the fans and starts like

[01:19:29] That's amazing, no that's one of the best scenes in the movie It's one of the right And you feel like yeah they're all in this together Right And Yubaba is annoyed like a Stink spirit but she's also good at her job She's like I know stink

[01:19:43] Spirits I got nose Nose nose And this isn't a regular like there's something up with this This is like I mean like the first major Set piece in the movie Which is how do you give a mud monster a bath I love this guy The stink spirit?

[01:19:59] I love the stink spirit but then There's a lot to relate to with that character And then I also love when he turns out to be a river And is floating skeleton Head attached to like a water serpent Again it's another uncanny moment Of computer animation Yes yes

[01:20:15] That feels just a little bit off It feels off and unsettled In a way that's very effective But that feeling of just you're so dirty and tired And traveling and it's almost like Getting to the hotel finally And showering

[01:20:29] But all that taking all the metal out of your garbage Like she pulls Bicycles and things out of him Yeah it's incredible Pretty good movie guys And how hard it is Like getting the Thing to drop down Everything is hard And all scrubbing She is Getting through

[01:20:53] Getting back to Shrek She's waiting through what could be Fecal matter Like a tub of diarrhea You're getting into some pretty Primal stuff With anal expulsion You know what I mean This very well might be Shrek's shit It's very possible We know Shrek's shit

[01:21:15] It's there in the beginning of the film He flushed the outhouse They weren't at their counties over DreamWorks DreamWorks apparently bid very competitively For this movie Which is a weird thing to think about if Katzenberg had this And Shrek

[01:21:29] But that makes sense because it was this Titanic slayer It was this sort of like this has got to be a phenomenon And that's how DreamWorks is trying to defeat Disney Was going like what if we have a deal with Artemon Like what if we have

[01:21:39] Right, we're pulling all the rival animating You're talking about Wallace and Gromit Yeah They're still around Really? I think so Didn't he do a relatively recent Wallace and Gromit He did but also Wallace He did, Peter Salas

[01:21:55] He was very old because he was old when he started voicing Like he was a TV guy from Britain He was 102 in a Grand Day Out They did some TV shorts I think like five years ago was the last thing they did

[01:22:07] And the last proper short was like 2011 Maybe Yeah, I mean they were still doing stuff right up until They died pretty much Do you think the stink spirit is the best Part of the movie? Set piece No, because does the train count?

[01:22:25] Because to me the train is like Cinema It's like Nigel Andrews Is this when he says like you just want to pull the John Keats And just die I mean that's the train And the one thing I knew going into this movie

[01:22:39] Is people were like there's like a sort of an emotional Climb, like you know it kind of comes to a head And I was like I don't want to train And I was like I love trains This sounds great And then I watched the movie and I'm like

[01:22:51] She just sort of sits there and like life kind of rolls by I was like it's a little underwhelming Or is it the most well named I know why is it so heavy Why is that scene So fucking heavy And emotional Because it's being quiet

[01:23:07] The movie is being quiet Movies aren't quiet Everyone's got a life that they're living But it's It's something about the train Going over the shallow water Is also very dreamlike And you like neon signs are going by And you see cities in the distance

[01:23:25] And you have those shadow commuters Frumpy shadow commuters And then the little girl shadow on the platform And she's made her peace With no face and I don't Alright so back to into the fun That's the best scene In like a movie I such an existential moment

[01:23:43] And just encapsulated It's amazing And again you're watching a girl Progress emotionally And learn things about herself But there's not moments where she says that Right So here she's learning Like sort of like she gets a little Vomit dumpling from the river spirit Which is pretty cool

[01:24:05] You would expect her to get like a sword And she gives her a vomit dumpling But it is useful, she gets a prize So she's learning the value of like teamwork And like collective spirit Right, right There's that thing where they're like They're going to bed

[01:24:21] Afterwards they're like oh god that was a day That's also a great scene It's a great scene She's with Lynn and they're eating Because they got extra rounds of dinner And more sake And they're sitting on their little porch And they're like what a day You know

[01:24:39] It's incredible And that's when No Face shows up in the middle of this She lets her in by mistake Because he seems nice Also just like us She's like how was I not supposed to know He was a spirit, he's just as freaky as everyone else

[01:24:53] Like why shouldn't I let him in It should be like With an X through This guy and his money's no good No one's giving me a visual glossary Like I'm riffing here Yeah totally Kaonashi's Faceless Is his name I'm trying to figure out Like what he's based on

[01:25:15] You know what I mean He doesn't exist in Japanese Yeah I thought this was just a Miyazaki Right Thing he came up with His face design is taken from a silkworm Like the sort of The pattern on his face But he is just a sort of black cloak

[01:25:33] With a mask He's spooky He's the most iconic Miyazaki character other than Totoro I would say absolutely And what again this is like I don't know if the analysis is Cultural, psychological Or something deeper But like Why is this character so fucking iconic And intriguing

[01:25:59] This is a quiet thing Obviously he's going to turn into a monster And eat people and barf gold But I mean When he's just Why is he so transfixing Like wait wait yeah For most of the film he has the shape Of your water bottle sitting here

[01:26:17] For most of the film he does not have any limbs He is just sort of like A big mound Yeah but if he walks like a little foot might appear You know what I mean Very slender Like surprisingly slender limbs I will say Yeah, somewhat feminine

[01:26:35] And he's, I don't know what does he represent Like loneliness That's the thing though So I think if you're thinking about all this It's a huge economic parable He is this thing that doesn't make sense Within the cogs of the background He's an angel investor

[01:26:51] He's just someone who can make money appear out of But it's all bullshit He's modeling other, he's modeling that behavior of Anyone he ingests Anyone he's around I like I was going to say like He has no face, he has no identity He eats the frog

[01:27:09] And he becomes greedy because the frog is greedy And starts talking Like the frog Well he's kind of a sociopath in a way that is scary Where you cannot figure out why someone is operating The way they're operating Which like that's what happens when you remove

[01:27:23] Someone's face and you can't read You know their emotions Yeah it's like very unnerving Think about, by the time we meet No Face we've met a lot of Unusual characters But they all have Recognizably More or less human personalities Yubaba is just Contankerous, grumpy, bossy Terranical

[01:27:47] We've all met Lady Elaine Fairchild And What's his name Boiler Room man Crust, crotchety Nice guy but Hard of gold, right Lin, bossy older sister Mean boy That maybe you like What is this feeling Right, like Mr. Cool That's interesting Is he cool?

[01:28:15] I mean he definitely is like He seems hard to startle You know what I mean? I think he's very relaxed Right, yeah But No Face Is the most obviously enigmatic Yeah And I think you're right What's a little disturbing about him Is there's no real sense of motivation

[01:28:35] I guess other than just Fathomless loneliness And emptiness I think a thing that is terrifying for a child Your greatest fear is to Be away And everyone in the bath house Exists in this sort of system Like this kind of greedy system

[01:28:53] You want to hoard what you can get There's all the tags, there's the better tags And the worst, you know all that stuff So when he shows up and he's like I'll pay whatever for whatever you could provide They're all like This is a bonanza

[01:29:07] But Sen is still a child Does not have thoughts of Monetary gain And she's not a character yet So that's why she can totally defeat No Face Because he's like I can give you limitless gold And she's like What am I going to do with that

[01:29:23] She's kind of incorruptible I'm here to rescue my parents And probably learn some valuable life lessons About the spirit of work and the collective And all that But if this is Miyazaki's Story about Contemporary Japanese culture And the emptiness of Industrial capitalism Which it probably is

[01:29:45] And so we see everyone at their worst When No Face shows up with free unlimited money Because they're all debasing themselves in front of No Face Exactly But Do you think in Miyazaki's mind No Face Represents an actual Economic condition In Japan or a personality Of Japanese

[01:30:09] I don't know Remember what's interesting about No Face Is No Face isn't really greedy No Face just wants attention Right? Okay 100% I just can't imagine somebody who would throw around a lot of money In service of seeking Validation from others No it makes zero sense

[01:30:29] And how far could that person possibly go Right, exactly And the idea of also that kind of person Who is so hollow and vacant Motivations you can never figure out Because there's nothing really going on there That people would just fall over themselves Giving him anything he wanted

[01:30:45] Right That they would totally debase themselves That they would surrender all their values So I'm saying this movie is hard to follow Right, just at the fear of him devouring them So here's something He says it's more about the pigs But you know it's

[01:31:01] Chihiro's parents turning into pigs symbolizes how humans have become greedy At the very moment Chihiro says There's something odd about the town Her parents turned into pigs There are people that turned into pigs during Japan's bubble economy In the 1980s And these people hadn't realized they'd become pigs

[01:31:17] Once someone becomes a pig They don't return to being human They just gradually start to have the body and soul of a pig These people are the ones saying We're in a recession and we don't have enough to eat This doesn't apply to a fantasy world

[01:31:29] This isn't just, perhaps it isn't a coincidence That the food isn't actually a trap That's lost humans So like I think he probably is talking About what happened to his country That metaphor is a little easier to read than no face It is, no it is, I know

[01:31:43] But I'm just saying like you know Do you know what I find very unnerving about The parent pig thing in particular The transformation doesn't happen on screen They don't give us like a Pinocchio thing where suddenly They're ears But when you see them hunched over

[01:31:57] They are sort of pig-like When they're eating They stop eating They can't hear their daughter That's the thing, that like some switch Goes off where they're like this food is good And then it becomes so thoroughly consumed by the food That they cannot hear her

[01:32:13] And they cannot stop Moving things into their mouth That it's just like that they're gone 100% Spirited away Pigs, no face, oh yeah right So the medic dumpling Half of it is used to cure No face, right? She puts it inside him, he just like

[01:32:33] He just emits, he voids Like just goo comes out of him basically Right? It's another really satisfying moment of Expulsion and Purification through vomiting Oh yeah This is a temple-popping movie This movie is simultaneously extremely Spiritually esoteric And very grounded with body horror And like real Fundamental like

[01:32:59] Substances being secreted from orifices I don't like human beings are disgusting What we call full spectrum dominance Right, and then you know With Haku, Haku is the It's the other half of the dumpling and like there's that moment Where like he's shaking in the blood

[01:33:13] Suddenly he's like swaps against the wall Yeah Has there ever been An American Children's film with this much Body Stuff What's it called Yeah It's interesting Animated, like has Pixar ever made a movie where people throw up And go to the bathroom? Absolutely not Pixar kind of skates

[01:33:39] Far away from that kind of stuff Really? It has scenes in a bathroom Where they go to the bathroom No, it's more like There's a lot of antics in about those They hide the little girl in the bathroom Doesn't count, I'm talking about

[01:33:55] But there's no actual sort of bathroom talk Right, like no kind of like Pee-pee-pooh-pooh You know, I understand Throw up, spit Because the thing I remember most in Monsters Inc Which is burdened to my brain forever Is Steve Buscemi, whatever he's called He goes like

[01:34:15] Every time and bang, knocks open a bathroom door Bang does it again That's the image in Monsters Inc And the toilet though No, it's like their job I'm trying to think, I mean I feel like When I would watch animated movies as a child

[01:34:29] That would give me this same sort of discomfort In like body horror It would not be films that were intentionally trying To trap in, it's something they'd be movies That were bad And accidentally were upsetting Like there are things like The weird Felix the Cat animated movie Sure

[01:34:47] Or like the weird like Raggedy N and Andy musical I don't know that These are like bad animated films That were like failures and were disliked By children that I would watch a lot Because my mother was so over protective

[01:34:59] That they were the things playing on the few channels That she let me watch And those movies I remember having Physical things that made me uncomfortable The Japanese little Nemo and Slumberland movie But Those movies are often not dealing with Very biological Things like

[01:35:19] Like Ren and Stimpy and Rock was Modern Life Those are TV shows but those come to mind They have like Puss and Buggers Oh really? It was way more about that But in this sort of like fetishistic Can you believe how like amazingly drawn This booger is

[01:35:35] You know where there's like painted shots Where they're zooming in on a nose Right, you see their pores I guess what I mean What's interesting about Spirited Away Is that it's like It's pretty gruesome But it's not done obviously For humor or shock It's thematic After this scene

[01:35:57] Is when everything has to calm down And everyone needs to chill out Like it's very violent And sort of everything's been Obsciterveying After he bluffs everywhere They need to take it easy Like the movie has to be very calm now I mean I guess there's

[01:36:15] What's the point with the baby The point with the baby? When is she with the baby? That's before she goes on the train Right, like this is all happening After this she gets summoned to Yubaaba's office Yubaaba's yelling at her

[01:36:29] There's the pile of gold that turns into mush But like there's the thing where she heroes With the baby in the baby's padded room And scares the baby With her hand Her dirty hand The baby lives in this totally hermetic world The baby's a bit of a germaphobe

[01:36:45] Well the mother has convinced the baby That outside the world is terrible Because And right this In haku is it being attacked by the fucking paper Creatures That rules You see haku in the distance And then it's right on you And it's really visceral and horrible

[01:37:05] But when Zeneva arrives And she transforms everyone Right? Well you should explain that Zeneva Has Transferred herself via hologram Into being one of these paper She sort of astrally projected herself And attached herself To the back of Chihiro unbeknownst to her So that she can gain access To

[01:37:29] Yubaaba's apartment And look around Where she suddenly creates mayhem She turns the heads into the baby Into a mouse She turns the harpy creature into a little fly Like a total cartoon This is another moment where it's like I've given up Trying to understand What

[01:37:51] Mythological world we're in But it's also like What kind of cartooning are we doing here This looks like a Disney Not even Disney, this just looks like A Saturday morning cartoon bird A little mouse especially Right, but it's so crushing When Yubaaba sees the mouse And is like

[01:38:11] Get that out of here It's a mouse, it's disgusting And Chihiro's like You don't recognize that And then just tails off and the mouse looks so sad Then they just leave You know what, when you're asking

[01:38:25] Are there other animated films that deal with that sort of body horror I think the thing that I feel Like would affect me as a child I can't think of other things that are that visceral But it was always the When people's bodies Change You know

[01:38:41] So anything where someone gets stuck inside another person's body But also anything where like Their body gets morphed in any sort of way Gets mutated Gets affected Where there's some sort of like corruption from the outside Pinocchio when they all turn into Freaks me to fuck out

[01:38:57] Well yeah, because you're a kid You know what's coming Your body is going to Go through changes But this movie's got like a ton of that Most of these characters have At least one transformation Yeah, she's in a liminal space Between childhood and adulthood

[01:39:15] So she's gonna have some Crazy changes coming on I think that's that thing I mean once again speaking just as Someone who was an incredibly terrified child I think it was just like This is already so overwhelming I don't want anything to change Right, right

[01:39:33] I just got a footing on this I'm gonna lose my voice I'm gonna have to shave Hair coming out every which way All of that, get it out of here Yeah, let me just stay here And also the adult world is mean And hard to figure out

[01:39:49] And you gotta like Just be strong My parents seem tired I've told this I've told this before on the podcast It's a thing that probably like Kind of broke me as a human being In many ways you could look to my current Lifestyle and extrapolate

[01:40:07] How this affected me When my mom was Pregnant with my sister So I was 8 going on 9 And my brother and I had shared a room And now we were gonna get separate bedrooms For the first time Because we had a third kid

[01:40:25] And we were in a different space So my mom Asked me what color I wanted my walls to be And I said I wanted the cloud wallpaper From Toy Story And my mom said she would not let me do that

[01:40:37] Because I wouldn't like Toy Story for much longer Whoa That is crazy That she said that to you I know you like it right now Wallpapers is an investment It was probably a lot of money to buy that wallpaper Sure, but she did break it down

[01:40:53] What do you mean? She went look I know you love Toy Story now But you're 8 And soon you're gonna be 9 And maybe you'll still like it when you're 10 or 11 But when you're 13 you're not gonna want to live in Toy Story

[01:41:03] You're gonna be embarrassed, she's worried that you're gonna be embarrassed as a teenager I kind of side with your mom on that I broke down crying And I live in an apartment that's 90% Toy Story You remember that Really? Is Toy Story good? It's my favorite

[01:41:19] He's wearing a 4K hat Toy Story is a masterpiece You should watch it I don't know man, I don't want to go dumping on Pixar I know you don't like Pixar It's kind of my wife's job Emily is like speed back With the Pixar movies

[01:41:35] That's kind of what I'm talking about The entertainment weekly thing of like God Toy Story is just such a satisfying Instanciation of the art of storytelling This is a flawless machine Delivering emotions Okay, but here's my whole take

[01:41:51] I'm not gonna get into this because I do this in every episode But that the Toy Story Movies are about existential meaningless They sometimes are I think the Toy Story movies are pretty good I think they are

[01:42:03] I think these characters have a direct view of the fact that they have no reason to be alive There's stuff to talk about with Toy Story I don't like them as much as him though But the point is

[01:42:11] In some ways I think my mother saying that to me probably caused me to out of defiance Yeah, I see what you're saying I'll never let go of Toy Story Right, and I can empirically

[01:42:19] Like as an adult rationalize why I still value them as movies and all of this But I also think that concept Terrified me so much Her telling me fundamentally There are things that mean the most to you in the world right now Yeah

[01:42:33] That you will not only not care about later You won't like them That was a heavy lesson It freaked the fuck out of me Yeah And I think that kind of thing of like Things you care about will change

[01:42:47] Your name will change, you know all these sorts of things I had the same thing with starting fires They told you You would grow out of starting fires And I never did So He gathers All of the sort of broken creatures Right Island of misfit toys Mouse baby

[01:43:12] Fly harpy No face No one likes that Your classic pussy posse And wait there's five people on the train Right, isn't it? Or just four Yeah She goes down to Kamaji She feeds Like she retrieves Hakus curse And squishes it I love that moment where he's like

[01:43:38] Make a circle I have to break the curse She's like And Kamaji's like Go take the train Go figure it out This is one of She Hero's great Initiatives where it's her idea Like I'm gonna make this right I'm gonna apologize on behalf of Haku

[01:43:58] He didn't know what he was doing I'm gonna go make this right Right It is She Hero accepting Responsibility Accepting responsibility But not accepting Accepting responsibility almost doubly so Because she's actually Doing the ultimate responsible thing Which is accepting responsibility On behalf of someone who's not in condition

[01:44:22] To accept responsibility You know what I mean? It feels a little even more Interesting and Loving I think that's why Zaniba is so moved by it One thing Your love broke the curse She's so amused to hear She's like Youbaba's the one with the contracts And the curses

[01:44:44] I own your life forever But it is so Miyazaki as well That's like you're gonna exit Urban environment You're gonna go to the countryside Where things are lived simply And you make what you use You find your own new sense of security I mean obviously

[01:45:02] We talked about the train ride Whatever you wanna say about the train We talked about it It's iconic It's just one of those things that just feels Like Name a more iconic train ride I dare you Yeah, I don't know There's just something and but again

[01:45:22] You can't help but wonder like Why is this doing this to my mind What is this? It's dusk So it's Again we keep talking about That shot of her walking on the water We keep talking about liminal spaces And more piled up because now we're in

[01:45:40] We're in twilight The lighting is like a twilight The sun is setting and it turns tonight You're on a train track that's In shallow water Also is just kind of weird And we've been seeing the train the whole movie It goes past you Yeah, it's an old train

[01:45:58] That moment also where Lynn kind of takes her In the little bathtub to the station And then she's like watching she hear a go And you see her realize like This is a good person that I know And she's like I'm sorry I called you a klutz

[01:46:10] You're not a klutz Charles that kind of gets me It gets this idea of this movie being kind of undeniable Unless you have like deliberately constructed A wall between you and it Like I did as a 13 year old Is that it's almost like this movie has Identified

[01:46:26] Certain tones that like Evoke a physiological response From humans, you know Like it's like cracked into something You understand why all these story elements These single images, these plot points Are like affecting you in this way Right Yeah because you never feel It never feels cloying or exploitive

[01:46:46] Or manipulative the way That type of move Can feel And so often it is so unexplained too Where you're like I can't even make sense Of what's going on on screen let alone why It's affecting me I was like trying to see like About the film

[01:47:04] To see what he thinks the movie's about Or how he talks about it And obviously you know I think he likes to be a little bit elusive And not over explain stuff And also that it shifts sometimes But there was this thing of like

[01:47:16] This is something we could pay a page Every summer Hayao Miyazaki spent his vacation In a mountain cabin with his family And five girls who were friends of the family The idea from Spirit Away came about When he wanted to make a film for these friends

[01:47:28] Miyazaki had previously directed films For teenagers such as My Neighbor Totoro And Kiki's Delivery Service But he had not created a film for Ten year old girls Which is such a weird But that moment of adolescence is what he's writing

[01:47:42] But also the great thing about that story is He kind of thought these girls were idiots These are the girls who were just like They really need to learn about scrubbing He said for inspiration he read Sojo manga magazines like Naokashi and Rebaan

[01:47:54] The girls left at the cabin But felt that they only offered subjects on crushes And looking at his young friends Miyazaki felt this was Not what they quote held dear in their hearts And decided to produce the film about

[01:48:04] A girl hero in whom they could look up to instead And then like the movie then generates Out of the fact like he wanted to produce A film for two years, he had two previous proposals One of them was based on a book He had a third proposal

[01:48:16] That was about A bath house, he was interested in the bath house Because he was always curious about What happened behind the door That was making the bath house run This crazy line here And sometimes I wonder when they attribute quotes To Miyazaki if they're like

[01:48:32] Simplifying what he said Because they make it sound like he's a man who only ever says Five words a week Right, Miyazaki did not want to make the hero Quote At the beginning he was frustrated How she looked, quote, dull And thought, quote, she isn't cute

[01:48:48] Isn't there something we can do As the film neared the end However, he was relieved to feel Quote, she will be a charming woman Squad goals What a weird thing to say Yes, I am relieved She will be a charming woman

[01:49:06] But that is, when you watch the documentaries about him It is sort of him staring at an image And being like, no, I'm not Life is not being evoked here Like it's just not, it needs to move differently There's something wrong The eyes need to be different

[01:49:20] That's his obsessive Blank-checky Right, but that he was sort of like I need to figure out how to make a movie About the inner lives Of these girls And these magazines can't explain it to me And these girls can't explain it to me

[01:49:36] It can't be about having crushes Right I don't know But then also his insistence on She can't be too adorable But I also don't want her to be unappealing That he's like going for this Weird dog whistle Tone in the middle She's pretty adorable She's one of my

[01:50:00] Charactery But especially, as I said The train that it's like You're seeing her be quiet, sitting her thoughts These are not things the teenagers do really So you're younger than te... Contemplate the world around her But also just sort of be quiet It's just weird to see

[01:50:20] A lead character be quiet And also she's comfortable in a space She's literally surrounded by these incredible But with no faces like Okay, I'll sit down with you And then the two The mouse and the Bird They get to the train station Almost everyone's gone

[01:50:40] There's the lantern with the foot But then when they get to Zeneva She's like please can you change the back Whenever they want That curse is over They're sitting in it too I don't think I'm ready to be a baby yet

[01:50:54] I need to run on a little spinning wheel For a while And make a magical hair tie To strengthen the bonds between us That's what she gets from Zeneva Why is Zeneva also living in a western style Kind of fairy tale cottage

[01:51:10] Why are you Bob and Zeneva both Kind of westernized British or European That's a good point She has Let's see She is stylistically different From everything else Which I guess is maybe just I love that her phone is a skull as well Don't forget about that

[01:51:33] She grips a skull Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah It's pretty great That's one of those things where you're like oh yeah it's pretty great Like you remember that there's just a shot in spirit And they have like seven giant chicks You know in a bath

[01:51:47] That's just a shot for like one second You just see the big chicks Taking a bath The heads were the thing I couldn't get over There's a movie where this happens Right Yeah, I just like I mean whatever

[01:52:03] I love this movie, you know I like that it just calms down And then Haku is there to fly her home The shot of him In all majestic Japanese sea dragon glory Waiting outside the The cabin It's a real glow up And she remembers

[01:52:21] As they're flying she's like right He was the podcast And the scales fall from We already talked about that After that it feels like she's indestructible That's why like the climax is That's the climax Like the peak thing is like Just a little coda like you know

[01:52:39] There's no problem She has the answer She's fully confident Yubaba's whole intimidation thing is kind of over Right Well I think part of that is because in that moment She's in remembering something about herself She's answering a question about herself

[01:52:55] She's one step closer to understanding who she is Right She is like firmly two feet Like one in each world That's sort of her magic path She's a ghost rider Right she's a day walker Yeah She realizes the entire test is bullshit She rejects your premise

[01:53:15] None of those things are prepared They all turn into guys who are like you did it So here's my question And then she walks away and everyone cheers But here's my question The end of the movie I want to dig into this too You know what I'm about

[01:53:31] The moment in the tunnel They're walking back out You can't look behind you Sort of Orpheus style It's got her salvaged her parents Cause suddenly she's just back in the field Back in the... And time has passed It's not like one of those childish fantasies

[01:53:49] Where it's like a lickety-split I don't want to talk about that But I love that the car is overgrown It's been a minute They go from saying like I wonder if the movers We can still beat the movers To them being like What is vegetation doing

[01:54:05] Around our car Okay but here's my thing They're walking back out through the tunnel And we see the exact same We see the exact same moment they had When they entered the tunnel Which is Chihiro grabbing onto her mom And her mom saying Stop squeezing me so hard

[01:54:23] Or I'm on a trip, something like that Now in most movies Where a child has crossed through a tunnel And gained understanding And confidence and identity By working in a bath house for spirits Has saved her parents And is walking back out through the same tunnel

[01:54:39] To begin her new life She would not still be holding on to her mom For dear life She would be walking independently Comfortable Loving her parents But feeling safe and secure Without having to hold onto them The way I interpret this is that

[01:54:57] Her relationship with her parents is entire Like that's why she's grabbing on It's not out of fear, it's out of like You're here, like you're real I think there's another thing too Which is that Her journey has given her An understanding of the adult world

[01:55:13] It has not fundamentally changed How she is going to behave It is just her understanding of what is Inevitable and what she will become This movie, her experience in the bath house Is like your experience When your parents have a cocktail party

[01:55:27] To be in bed and then you come out and listen at the door And you listen to what adults are really like Right, right And you're like I now understand it It doesn't mean I'm an adult I'm going to continue being a child

[01:55:39] And I think she comes out of this fully deciding I certainly see the value in being a kid Like I'm in no rush to get there But at least I understand it now And it scares me less And like with Haku

[01:55:51] She's like will I ever see you again? He's like definitely And you're like don't know what that means But sure You have these Does she keep her memories? Like is it gone? Is it sort of part of her but she can't remember all the

[01:56:03] I don't know, you know They don't explain that and they don't explain the passage of time And I love their parents are like what is this Some kind of prank The kids put leaves and dirt and dust on your car We're going to go leave that guy's car

[01:56:15] Yeah And then they just drive away like the movie is over With all these questions of like how long were they in there And then there's one of those great songs where it's like But I love I mean I love that it doesn't answer this

[01:56:27] But I also love thinking about like do they arrive at their home And it's like You know The movers are like we've been trying you every day for the past two weeks We reported you dead You didn't show up eight months ago This building is condemned But honestly

[01:56:43] Even within the Chronology of life at the bath house It couldn't have been more than a few days was it? No I think it's been months I think you're right We're not seeing everything Like you know like she's been working there for a while

[01:56:57] I think it's been a while So David What What is it About this movie Solve it for us David Solve it David For you I just mean for you This is one of your favorite movies right Yes it is Top sound There's just no question

[01:57:21] So what is it Well I mean we were talking about that About liminal spaces Put in each world So maybe it's that that it partly sort of evokes that for me Like that sensation of being a child That sensation of growing up Of like things being unknown

[01:57:37] And discovering the unknown I don't know I don't know putting me on the spot We've just been talking two hours about what I love about this movie I know but now it's like Like What is it I don't know I don't mean to like

[01:57:55] Make this movie like a mystical artifact But it does just feel like It's one of those movies where it's just like It's like lightning in a ball And I love all the other I basically love any movie he's ever made Right

[01:58:09] But they're not like I've seen a lot of them And a lot of them are great but it's like This is like on a different level Weird power retained in this movie And unlike the other movies that I think I have seen that have that sort of like

[01:58:21] Magic Lightning in a bottle quality Those movies are less Elusive In their meaning Like films you watch like Like the original Wizard of Oz Where you're like something just works here There's something they bottled How much you've heard about how disastrous this production was

[01:58:41] It works better than any other adaptation There's some quality that movie has That the books don't have not to say it's better or worse But there's some power there But that as a similar type of Story is a far more Literal version of a fantastical movie

[01:58:57] And so this movie has That weird artist lightning in a bottle thing Which is then intensified By the fact that it's animated So that there are no mistakes Nothing is by chance Nothing is happened on camera This didn't work Everything is the conscious decision making process

[01:59:15] Of people's hands and their brains And their thoughts and feelings And all of that And then you add on to that That lightning in a bottle is happening on a movie That is by its very design Kind of obtuse Right, it is obtuse

[01:59:31] And dealing on sort of a subconscious Unconscious level But also when I feel it I have a very profound emotional reaction to it Like one that I can't explain One that feels like it's coming from the bottom of me That's what I mean

[01:59:45] I'm not joking when I say I literally was like hacking Sobs Like a switch it been Watching it again, it wasn't last night It was a couple days ago And I just had Anytime I put this on I feel incredibly happy And serene and involved

[02:00:03] And then I'm like oh and this is the moment where I cry I mean I probably I'm gonna cry this time But there's something almost like the movie is existing Like an ASMR video Like it's like triggering something That's what you're saying, like the brainwave thing

[02:00:17] It somehow has found some biometric frequency For you that you didn't You know what I mean It's permeated your consciousness There's something about the combination of the story And the images and the sounds And the music and all of that That just hits you in some weird place

[02:00:33] In your spine I guess my question is Because it does feel so extraordinary And just so different From all of his other movies I wonder If Miyazaki himself was kind of surprised Like Whoa, like This is incredible Like that, I kind of nailed this one

[02:00:55] You know what I mean? Even the creator would be Because you know if you create something Sometimes you can be like I don't know where that came from I guess I just had a hot streak You know or I wonder if it's the same

[02:01:09] But the thing about this movie is Animation takes so much planning Everything has to be accounted for Just like there's no mistakes Because you're not shooting on film There's also no mistakes Accidents don't happen in the same kind of way And this production was so

[02:01:25] Over budget, totally panicking Changing everything at the last minute Like the whole story, the production is really wild And it wasn't like Post-Princess Mononoke, he's like cool I have my blank check now, I can do whatever I want Time for me to make my masterpiece After Mononoke

[02:01:41] He was like well I think that's the best I can do And then when he came back He was like I don't know should I adapt a book I'm interested in bath house doors What about these girls I vacation with Like he was pulling from

[02:01:53] This has been inside me forever And it's time for it to come out Mononoke was kind of that I've been working on this for 25 years I've never been able to tell this mythic story Of Japan And like our relationship with the world

[02:02:07] That movie is the culmination of all of his artistic Interests. And I made an epic, my longest Movie, my most sensational movie And then spirited away, it's like right him being like What's behind that bath house door And the thing you're talking about With a mustache going

[02:02:21] Six arms, the thing you're talking about Where sometimes people are like I have no idea where that song came from I am asked the plex by that song Existing as you are And I'm the person who wrote and performed it Yeah I remember the process of doing it

[02:02:35] I don't know why it came to me I don't know how it came out in the way it did But I'm kind of, it's just sort of As I said, this sort of undeniable object Yeah Now let's talk about the money it made Oh sure, I mean

[02:02:49] We were going to have a real box office game Because it did come out in America But in Japan obviously it was In a previous episode, whichever one we did The like top movies in Japan ever Was that Percoroso You know it was

[02:03:03] An indestructible force, it made $229 million Uh huh Which translates to like 50 billion yen I think A number that sounds insane So obviously Most of its money overseas is also highly successful In China Where it only came out this year It had made $200 million

[02:03:23] Before it was released in the US Or China Right, which was like unheard of It was kind of the first movie to be so huge Internationally That it was one of the top grossing films of its year Having not been released in the United States

[02:03:37] It also did really well in places like Korea and Hong Kong It did really well in France It did really well in, you know It made about $10 million in America Which was significant It was significant The UK had really not It had been treated like this sort of

[02:03:55] Like art house film by Miramax This was distributed by Disney Uh huh And it did make some money It had a DVD release that I bought That was like pretty well done The dub, I think Especially close to Oscars, that was huge

[02:04:11] The dub is solid, it's not my favorite I don't think DeVay Chase is particularly good As Jihiro She's kind of shrill Sam Fushet plays Zubaba She's great Some of them are good, you know Jason Marsden who plays Haku is like one of those guys

[02:04:29] Who has the voice on everything and I remember finding it very Distracting Because you're watching it the whole time going like Which cartoon shows he's from He's like very recognizable So there's that I'm trying to think, yeah it's an okay

[02:04:43] The first time I saw it was actually in Japanese With subtitles in the cinema In the town of Nodian But I've seen the dub because it was on TV all the time too Anyway Here is a not that surprising stat Obviously the only Not obviously

[02:04:59] But unsurprisingly the only foreign language Film to win the best animated film Oscar Also now to date The only hand drawn film to win Really? It's depressing Because Wallace and Granville won that was stop motion Everything else has been CG Or like Rango is kind of like mocap-y

[02:05:19] CG Into the spider Verse kind of has elements of all kinds of animation It's all made in computers I mean the most generous thing you could say about it Is a CG film in which they Like did hand drawn 2D animation On top of the CG

[02:05:35] Right and then this movie wins best animated feature It was up against movies that represent Sort of all sorts of moments In animation so you've got treasure planet Which is like the dying of Disney tradition Yeah it's like a sci-fi treasure island

[02:05:49] Oh we need to have you on for our treasure planet episode Sounds amazing Spirit stallion of the Simran Which is this very painterly pretty Horse movie 2D This is a year with 5 nominees which very often it's only 3 Now it's always 5 But in the past it had been usually 3

[02:06:05] In the past there was some sort of There had to be enough animated features released in a year There's a file finding number It was the first 5 year though right It was the only 5 year until 2009 Oh crazy So you had Ice Age which is like the early

[02:06:19] Dreamworks kind of like I don't know It was not Dreamworks it was Blue Sky It's a totally Functional pleasant movie And I remember people being afraid it was going to win Because it was a massive hit

[02:06:31] And this was a non-pixar year so it was like there isn't an obvious thing To dominate There was Lilo and Stitch which is a lovely Disney movie One of the better Disney movies Have you seen that movie?

[02:06:41] That movie is the closest Disney has ever come to doing me It's a pretty cute movie It's not a little Hawaiian girl meets an alien They have a But it is a film about like childhood loneliness Since a mother child being raised by her older sister

[02:06:53] After the parents die I remember it was the first award of the night Cameron Diaz presented it As the sort of standing in for Shrek I think she has presented best animated film 3 times She does it a lot Is she in Shrek? Fiona!

[02:07:09] I'm a rescue dream from the tower Like they do in Disney movies Smell my farts I remember she presented it And I was like Spirited away one There was sort of claps Miyazaki obviously was not there And she was like okay and you were sort of like

[02:07:25] Something significant just happened It's just sort of like we're just going to move on Especially after Shrek wins the first year It's like oh we've honored like the totemic figure Of animation with an award for his great film The stats that people always throw out

[02:07:37] Like well you know Hitchcock never won an Oscar Kubrick never won an Oscar So like all the great legends of cinema It shows you how meaningless this award is And then you look at best animated film And they kind of have given it to

[02:07:49] Most of the most important living Right even debating You know The most important alive canonical Feature animators have all sort of won the Oscar now And then you throw in a couple people Like Fucking George Miller You know and like Gore Verbinski

[02:08:07] And people who are kind of overlooked in live action You know like most of Tim Burton And Wes Anderson Tim Burton's only Oscar nominations come from animated Even though those two films aren't very good Most of Wes Anderson's nominations come from his Animated films It's an odd phenomenon

[02:08:23] That category has kind of mostly gotten it fairly right Here are the five films though September 20th 2002 2002 for the box office game To a good box office game Spirit Away opens in 18th position On 26th screen Number one Is a comedy that was kind of a phenomenon

[02:08:41] In September of 2002 do you remember this movie No But it felt like a movie where you were kind of like We kind of have to go see that It was kind of a crossover moment for this kind of moment September 2002 I'm sorry I was thinking Shadow of 9-11

[02:08:57] This is September 2002 And it felt like a watershed thing And it Is it a big star No It's not It has big actors in it It is an ensemble comedy about Life in the community It's like a big broad kind of You know talky Goofy comedy

[02:09:23] There were a bunch of sequels and spin-offs Okay this is the first one Is this its first weekend What's it doing this weekend 12 20 20 75 75 Oh is it Barbershop Barbershop is a great movie Barbershop is a great movie It rules When it came out everyone was kind of like

[02:09:51] This is kind of A big deal This kind of a movie hasn't come around in a while It kind of had buzz Kind of might have something special here It does have buzz cuts I watched it again on TV recently The sequels are mostly kind of

[02:10:07] I think two is pretty good Two's got some bullshit in it Two's pretty good we know where I stand on beauty shop unfortunately Beauty shop is pretty good Barbershop 3 even is watchable Malcolm D Lee The first one rolled some Tim Story directed it Number 2 Number 2

[02:10:27] The kind of movie that would be on Netflix now It would go straight to Netflix 100% It's a comedy about two older Actresses who are both big stars It's kind of like one of those The Banger sisters Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon Right Are like two former

[02:10:47] Kind of groupies Right like they were like Wild in the 60s What were those? I know what you're talking about But the idea is now Susan Sarandon Sort of sold out and become domestic She's suburban Like Lamo and Goldie She's like we got a

[02:11:07] Don't you remember when we used to party And have sex Yeah their tattoos form a heart Right But aren't they like Their last names aren't Banger I don't think so But that movie is kind of a flop And then Goldie Hawn doesn't make another movie Until Snatched

[02:11:27] Is that right? Maybe Goldie Hawn never makes a movie Ever again and she's done one since then Really? Three years ago and has not worked since that movie No she played Mrs. Claus in the Christmas Chronicles It's a cameo role Yeah because Kurt Russell is Mr. Claus

[02:11:43] I know but I didn't know she was in it It's a cameo Wait are they married in real life? Anyway I remember that being kind of hyped at the time With like hey Goldie Hawn Like respect and it came out and everyone was like

[02:11:55] It was supposed to be like a comeback for her Like remember Goldie we all loved her And then she just disappeared Number three is a phenomenon Of 2002 Number three Just probably one of the craziest phenomenon My big fat requiting In its 23rd week 23rd week

[02:12:15] In its 23rd week It is the most absurd phenomenon of all time We don't talk about it A TV sitcom movie About like a Greek lady Marries a non-Greek guy and her Greek family Why wasn't there one go so crazy for it

[02:12:29] It was just one of those things where it came out Everyone was kind of like reviews If they were reviews they were like it's cute You know and then just week after week Just built up Buzz Nothing will happen like that ever again

[02:12:43] It's the box office equivalent of lightning in a bottle Like we were talking about spirited away being the artistic Lightning in a bottle But there was something about it where it's like Because my dad and I would read the box office together

[02:12:53] When it came out and we were looking at The long box office list and variety And he was like whoa Why is my big fat Greek wedding per screen average so high Right Like in its first weekend when it came out

[02:13:05] He was like that movie is overperforming for what looks like A very banal sitcom pilot And then seven months later It ran in theaters for a full year It was grossed really 52 weeks Is it good? It's perfectly termed Is it the funniest comedy ever made yes or no

[02:13:23] Unfortunately The wedding is big and fat No it's fine I remember seeing it on a plane And laughing I don't know That movie would not have a chance to perform that long No Especially old people were going out and seeing it multiple Fucking times

[02:13:39] And taking their kids or taking their friends I think saw it twice in theaters Its highest grossing weekend was its 20th weekend You know what I mean It never hit number one at the box office That's the way to do it

[02:13:51] But I remember the way that Entertainment Weekly Talked about it was it came out the same weekend As the Scorpion King The first Dwayne Johnson vehicle And the Scorpion King in its first weekend makes 40 something 36 And big fat Greek wedding in its first weekend Opened at 20th $190,000

[02:14:11] The big story was how well Scorpion King Had opened And by the end of its run Had quadrupled It made $240 million In America it made 368 Worldwide So the only films that beat it that year are Lord of the Rings, Star Wars And Spider-Man Is that correct?

[02:14:33] And Harry Potter It was the fifth highest And then the Greek wedding And then the Greek wedding And what if a 35 year old lady married A non-Greek guy It's not that ludicrous The crazy thing she did was married A non-Irish guy And the Greek family is like

[02:14:53] Was her family freaking out? He's a vegetarian They don't know how to deal with that I can see this movie making a truant I didn't know he was a vegetarian It was kind of one of those movies where Relatives were like They're kind of like us

[02:15:09] They're sort of like our people These Greeks I guess we're not so different after all But the other crazy thing is She never is able to replicate it She never has another hit She finally after 15 years is like And it performs the exact way

[02:15:25] You expect that movie to perform Like it does what you expected The first movie would have done Which is like oh it held on pretty well It made 60 It made 60? That's kind of nuts The crazier phenomenon with Big Fat Greek Wedding is the movie comes out

[02:15:41] The movie happened because Tom Hanks is married to Rita Wilson who's Greek And it was like a one woman Show that she did She came out of the Brownlings Theatre And it was her one woman storytelling show And Rita Wilson wanted to see it

[02:15:55] They saw it and he was like Oh this is fine, let's hire her to Right adapt it He was the sitcom director To make The movie And it was just like Tom Hanks' little He was throwing someone a bone He had enough clout to give someone

[02:16:13] It's because his wife was Greek And she brought him to the show And he was like yeah why not I'll let this woman direct a movie He didn't even direct it They hired a sitcom director Joel's WIC Not Ed's WIC But when it just seemed like

[02:16:31] Oh this will be a solid little indie programmer I'll make a million, couple million And you know end up maybe if it's a really big hit It ends up at like Nine or ten or whatever It was at least what I think IFC

[02:16:43] It was like fun did IFC for a year So within like two months of the movie coming out Maybe even less CBS was like you know what This could be potential for a good sitcom So they bought the rights to make it into a sitcom

[02:16:55] Because they were like well the movie's not going to do great But the value is You could adapt this into a real sustainable And then a year later The movie was one of the highest It remains the highest grossing romantic comedy of all time Really?

[02:17:11] And suddenly CBS was sitting on the rights To make a TV show out of it And they did a TV show where everyone Except for the husband returned Like the biggest movie John Corbett was like no thanks But every other cast member was on it

[02:17:25] The biggest movie was now suddenly on television Every week a new 30 minutes Yeah but it got cancelled right away The first week the ratings were humongous It was like the MASH finale And they were like no show has premiered this huge 23 million viewers What?

[02:17:41] And then by six weeks later it was cancelled Yeah People saw and they were like oh it's just the movie again Don't worry about it But even a year later people were done with it People were like never has there been a more sure thing

[02:17:53] That it premieres bigger than their expectations She follows me on Twitter should we get her on Let's get in the air for a dole Oh my gosh yeah are you kidding She might not well maybe I don't know Maybe it's tough to talk about

[02:18:05] I don't know it's fascinating She hosted SNL she got nominated for an Oscar She made five more movies And none of them ever had that kind of impact She's probably you know set forever Yeah Anyway that's the story of the third movie

[02:18:19] The fourth movie is about what if like Antonio Banderas And Nancy Lou faced off We're talking about ballistic X versus sever And I wish you'd give me fewer clues I just feel like after all that we kind of need to Also I don't know how do you

[02:18:31] Define ballistic X versus sever It's based on a Game Boy Advance game Wait is that phrase you're saying The name of the movie Ballistic colon X versus sever It is based on a Game Boy Advance game I mean I had to process that as language

[02:18:45] I believe the movie came out before The game did But like they had optioned they were like This game is going to be so fucking huge We got to beat it to the punch of the movie This is going to be my big fat Greek wedding of games

[02:18:57] Ballistic X versus sever Oh I remember that poster And it's one of those things where it's like That's right they're finally going against each other Antonio Banderas Lucy Lou We've waited for them to clash But also one of those posters where people looked at the title

[02:19:13] And they were like am I supposed to know what any of those were That's how I kind of feel like huh But it's like I mean watching it's like It's not like it's terrible It's only that no one loved it Right It was directed by someone called chaos

[02:19:29] With a K I know Do you really? You know the director of Ballistic X versus sever He never told me he directed that movie He also directed Tekken 2 Wow Number five I don't know I don't want some crazy streamers to get started

[02:19:49] I was totally ready to believe that He's a tie director I can't post it up in Brooklyn Number five it's opening weekend $7 million Cost 70 I don't know why it was funded Warner Brothers like a major studio Number five big epic Big oscarie kind of epic but obviously bad

[02:20:07] Because it's getting dumped in September Lord of the Rings The Four Feathers What's that one? It's a classic story Kate Hudson, Heath Ledger Famous British adventure novel that's been adapted into like Seven movie There's a corda film right? Yeah there's multiple silent films

[02:20:27] This was them doing it again Heath Ledger, Wes Bentley A couple years off of American beauty And Kate Hudson The point is those three were like These are the next three major movie stars And it's you know they get the feathers And they go to the towers

[02:20:43] So they go to war I believe it's set during The war in Sudan In like the late 1800s But that is the movie that like slows all three of them down Yeah It was just like a big bloated disaster It was from the director of Elizabeth

[02:20:59] So he, Chakar Kapur So he was also seen as like Oh this guy can do you a period You know yeah But I think everyone thought like these are three They're going to be classical movie stars You know they're gonna be box office draws In like prestige films

[02:21:15] To intelligent work And it just like is like a poof Poof? So there you go Yeah open to six million dollars That's huge disaster Yeah colossal disaster You've got one hour photo You've got signs You've got swim fan That sounds familiar Yeah

[02:21:39] You have trapped where Kevin Bacon traps Charlie's therein Is that movie not directed by someone weird I feel like it Yeah it's crazy Big fat Greek wedding almost pulled off the thing Which as a child who Tracked the box office with my father

[02:21:57] Was the most exciting thing I'd ever seen Oh boy here we go Cause this was happening the same summer As the Sammy Sosa Mark McGuire Home run thing Where every day my dad and my brother No it wasn't, not this wasn't 98

[02:22:13] It was like my dad and my brother Would look at the newspaper and go like fuck They're both coming up on the record And then we'd flip to the back page And my dad would go like look at this thing that's happening Which was something about Mary

[02:22:25] Opened at number six at the box office And every week went up one position And it was perfect It went like six Surprises movie didn't open better And then like the word of mouth was good and it was like five

[02:22:37] And my dad and I going to see it And being like this gotta be number one next weekend right No it was four You're talking all this stuff about how you had such a Sounds like you had a kind of fun childhood There were parts

[02:22:49] Tracking box office receipts with your dad Every day that sounds kind of fun That was the cornerstone of my childhood That's all there was No no no I had a fine enough childhood I was just a very sad and scared child I got it

[02:23:03] I felt an internal turmoil But My big factory wedding almost pulled it off And the thing that That fucked it over was swim fan It wasn't as clean It wasn't as clean but once it broke into the top ten

[02:23:17] It kept on moving up and then there was the series of like Now it's four, now it's three Now it's two and everyone's like this It's finally gonna be the weekend of big factory wedding Six months later is number one

[02:23:27] And swim fan beat it by like a million dollars I got swim fan What a great episode Yeah we're done Wait hold on, we're not quite done I have a coda Okay, okay Ben's been pointing at his watch That doesn't exist This will be quick Okay

[02:23:45] So I wanted to At the end of his review In 2003 remember Nigel Andrew said I can't imagine ever loving a movie more So in preparation for this episode I decided to contact him And find out if he has ever loved a movie more He is not online

[02:24:01] He has no social media preference No twitter, no right So in order to send a letter to the editor of the financial times I had to sign up for a subscription to the financial times Which is one dollar for four weeks

[02:24:11] And then sixty five dollars for every month thereafter So I've set an alarm to cancel the subscription You can put it on the blank check expense So I wrote to the editor of the financial Times and said please forward this to Nigel Andrews

[02:24:21] Did not expect to hear back But let's see what happens My email said Dear Mr. Andrews in your 2003 review Spirited away you wrote I don't expect ever to love a movie more But then again maybe I shall I've always loved this line

[02:24:37] Indeed I still have a clipping of your original review From the FT But now I have to know it's been 16 years Right Have you found a movie You love more than Miyazaki's Best regards David Reis I got an email from the letter's editor

[02:24:53] Said please find Nigel's answer below Best wishes Nikola His answer No That's still the best Pure magic For grownups and children alike At the same time like so many I wouldn't want to be stranded on a desert island Without vertigo and citizen cane Fair, wow

[02:25:15] So there you go But you know what the real profundity of that review And his star rating is What's that I'm officially saying I can only do this one time Oh totally I can only break the rules one time

[02:25:29] And I have, I'm going into this review as a professional critic Who has not only been seeing movies on the job For probably decades at this point But also has like Delved back into film history I'm thinking about citizen cane

[02:25:41] I'm thinking about vertigo films I never got the chance to review But my entire star rating system Is essentially based on those movies Being the best of them can be They're the hypothetical five I'm going to say that only one time in history I hope I'm correct

[02:25:55] A movie will warrant the sixth star I mean that's why it's so awesome It's unbelievable What a great way to end And look at what we would have missed Ben if we listen to the rap tap tap In of your watch That's not true at all

[02:26:11] It was just a reminder, a friendly reminder That we've been recording for two hours and 30 minutes Yeah Great job I feel like I didn't say anything smart There's one thing I wanted to say If this is a critique of Japan's current economy And what's the word Acquisitiveness

[02:26:31] It's ironic that she has to prove her worth by going to work In a service economy Yeah, well, that's how it goes How it goes? David thank you for being here Thanks for having me Do you have anything you want to plug? What is Dictown coming out?

[02:26:47] I can't say it Well when The fall, but they haven't made it official Well this episode Is coming out in the fall We will communicate with you And either by the time this episode comes out You will hear the thing I said and you'll know when it's released

[02:27:03] This will come out September 29 Hopefully it will be out by then Griffin and I Were on a cartoon together It's your cartoon It's your cartoon With fellow friend of the podcast John Hodgman And I am on one episode making fun of your drip people Exactly

[02:27:23] It was an honor privilege that you let me make fun of your drip people Was it a puzzle or a dream? Both, I had to solve the puzzle In order To achieve a dream state To live the dream And a perpetual plug

[02:27:37] If you have any way to watch going deeper Remains one of my favorite shows of the decade Is it any easier to find? No I feel like sometimes it cycles in and out of Affailability I kind of just want to dump it all on Vimeo

[02:27:51] You kind of think they shut up Networks don't remember they made that I'm not just saying this because you're here Maybe I'll just put it all on Vimeo It's one of the shows that does give me such Leaves me in such a state of relaxation

[02:28:07] That I find really comforting and reassuring While also being informative I wish there were 800 episodes I wish I was able to watch it all the time So do I It was really fun, but thank you for your support of it

[02:28:19] It's a great show and people should seek it out And they should seek out the other show Which maybe has been bleeped at this point Right Thank you all for listening Please remember to rate, review, subscribe Thanks to Andrew Friguda for our social media

[02:28:33] Joe Bonaparte Rounds for artwork Lea Monk coming for our theme song Go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit Go to patriots.com for our Blank Check special features Where right now We're up to What Marvel movie? We just did Black Panther

[02:28:51] So I guess Ant-Man is next Or whatever the fuck Sure, that one Infinity War Get ready for an Infinity War commentary I'll be grumpy Can't wait Don't like that movie He doesn't like it Next week The titular episode Howl's Moving Castle That's right With early He's ready

[02:29:19] And as always Shrek, flushed and out half-time Flushing sound Holy fuck And he pulls his wedgie out That is the early 2000s like defined But this is such a great contrast to the movie That's why I wanted to show you Right before we started recording

[02:29:47] But you know what I mean When Shrek became a meme again I wrote an article where I was trying to be like Why is Shrek funny now Everyone I talked to We all grew up We were all 13 then Or younger We're recording?

[02:30:05] Let me do the introduction and I want to get back into this Okay We can't believe that this is actually How Shrek The famous movie opens Yes So everyone of a certain age That's like a foundational Moment of this is what humor is The combination

[02:30:25] Of a CG animated film Right Referential family guy style humor Hold on for one second Smash Mouth's Hallstar What are you trying to do? We're starting the podcast Are you forgetting how the podcast usually starts? Usually you do the intro like five minutes in

[02:30:43] There's something that happens before that Starts with him taking a huge dump In an outhouse Okay, so do the quote Then put this all at the end of the episode Now the episode is going to start