Sunshine

[00:00:00] 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's the name of the show, it's Blank Check.

[00:00:19] At the end of time, a moment will come when just one man remains. Then the moment will pass. Man will be gone. There will be nothing to show that we were ever here but podcasts. Why is he doing, as far as I can tell, a South African accent?

[00:00:39] I don't know. Because that's pretty, I'm pretty sure that's the accent he's selected. I think so too. I had forgotten the accent. Yeah. Because this was, when I saw this movie, Mark Strung was not a guy on my radar yet. No? He wasn't on your old radar?

[00:00:52] No, and the times I re-watched it, I was like, oh Mark Strung, that guy is starting to pop up. I, we'll talk about all of this, I don't think I'd seen this movie in a decade. What?! It has been 15 years since this movie came out, right?

[00:01:04] That's fucked up. I probably watched it five or six times within those first five years, and then just hadn't seen it in a decade. Yeah. And obviously Mark Strung became like omnipresent for a couple of years in that decade. He became a real rent-a-villain. Yes.

[00:01:19] I don't say that negatively. The man does good work. He's a good actor, but he played a lot of villains very quickly. Yeah. Hard man. Yes. As the Brits would say. Right. So I don't think I had a sense. Hard man? Hard man.

[00:01:32] You and odd men. You know, hard man. You and odd man? Odd Man Studios? You know, it's like, you know, a guy where you're like, I probably shouldn't like fuck with this guy at the bar.

[00:01:45] You know what I mean? Like, you just sort of see someone and you're like, if I like, you know, cut in front of this guy, he would have no compunction about just like curb stomping me.

[00:01:57] It's not like this is always the case, but it's funny when you watch interviews with real Mark Strung. He is like such a lovely, quiet, soft-spoken man. Unsurprisingly, lovely actor man, like thoughtful, right?

[00:02:09] But also when like, it's not like he looks intense and then has this lovely energy about him. You know where it's like some of these guys are like, surprisingly, he's very low key.

[00:02:20] When you watch interviews with him talking, you're like, how could you ever cast this guy as a villain? And it does feel like there's some switch he flips. Right. And then becomes an odd man.

[00:02:30] What were you going to say, Ben? You look like you were burning to make a point. The Brits really own head butts. And I know it's because of soccer. Yes. Or sorry, football. Perfectly pronounced. Well done.

[00:02:44] But they really, to me, I'm like, that's a move that like Brits own. And Mark Strung has a head that looks designed for a head butt. He does. He's got a bullet shaped head. A Glasgow kiss. Have you ever heard that expression? No.

[00:03:00] That's a head butt to the nose. Yeah, to try and get you to bleed, you know, classic football hooligan sort of thing. And do you know what a Glasgow French kiss is? No. A head butt to the nose and then they lick you.

[00:03:15] This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who experience massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

[00:03:30] And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce right into the sun, baby. Mmm. Mmm. See, I thought you were going to say spit into their mouth instead of lick. Oh, oh. French kiss, I think more of the tongue than the spit. Yeah.

[00:03:46] The spit's already happening in any version of the kiss unless you're doing fucking airhead, airhead, warheads. Sure. Pucker, sour face. Look, I'll talk about this in a second, but I'll get into this. Don't worry. A whole sidebar coming. It's a miniseries on the films of Danny Boyle. Right.

[00:04:04] It is called Train Spodcasting. Train Spodcasting. And today we are talking about one of our great promised outstanding dream board episodes. Mm-hmm. From the very beginning of this show. Someone was trying to pin the first time we said we should do a Sunshine episode. Probably really early.

[00:04:23] It was, I believe, episode one of Attack of the Podcast. Okay. So like episode 11 or whatever. Because we were doing, when we were in the Star Wars days, the original version of this show where we just talked about the Star Wars prequels,

[00:04:36] the first episode of each miniseries would just be the opening five minutes of the movie. Mm-hmm. And the opening five minutes of Attack of the Clones is Rose Byrne dying. Oh, yeah. She's one of the fake Padme's. Fake Padme. And then she's like, I'm so sorry.

[00:04:51] You know, she has like a little monologue. Someone found the clip and we were both like not a great performance and we were like, which is bizarre because she's become one of the best actors we have right now.

[00:05:00] And then we were talking about Rose Byrne performances we liked. We both went like Sunshine and we were like, that movie's a fucking masterpiece. We should do an episode on Sunshine. We had just done Judging the Judge.

[00:05:12] So we had established this model of like we do Star Wars movies and then we did a weird one off. Yeah, so we were like, we'll do a Sunshine. Right. This was this point where we were like, I don't know,

[00:05:19] maybe we occasionally do like, we thought we were going to do like a one off Hulk episode, a one off Sunshine episode. We had these couple of like one offs we wanted to do before we landed on the miniseries thing, the director thing.

[00:05:31] So this has been talked about since 2015. And now we're doing... It's an eight year promise. Sunshine. It's why one reason we're doing Danny Boyle, obviously. Huge reason. You haven't seen this movie in 10 years though? It's been a while and I watched it so many times.

[00:05:49] Like I probably watched it three or four times in 2007. And then I kept watching it like once a year. And I truly think it may be been a decade since I saw it. Maybe a little less, but it had been a while. Sunshine, a 2007 film. Ben! Yes?

[00:06:06] Have you seen this movie? Yeah. Okay. Yep. Someone recommended it to me. Or you know what actually? Fuck. Maybe Griffin and David? Who was it? It was you two fuckers. Yeah, right. Probably us. Someone. And I finally came across it and just was like,

[00:06:23] all right, I'm going to put this on. And it was like a fantastic space movie. Yes. I love a space mystery. That's one of my favorite kinds of space genres. Yes. A space mystery. Yeah.

[00:06:37] I mean, you know, an interesting thing about this movie is I think it's straddling a couple different genres at the same time. Yeah. And it's doing them pretty seamlessly. Obviously the controversial element of this movie is whether the last 30 minutes work for you or not.

[00:06:49] And a lot of people, it's a breaking point, but we will get into this at length. Here's what I want to say. I have nothing to say to those people. This episode, an eight year promise to our listeners, to ourselves. Right. Finally talk sunshine, right? Yep.

[00:07:00] There is an unfortunate runner on this show, blank check with Griffin and David. What? The biggest episode. It's the one I'm most excited for. I'm fucking sick. Oh, you're sick. Okay, sure. Yeah. Here's my state right now. Okay.

[00:07:14] I have a sinus infection, which makes me feel like I'm inside of the sun suit from this movie. I feel like completely like enclosed in that like gold suit with the tiny slit where I can like barely breathe.

[00:07:26] And then also I went to the dermatologist yesterday to get stuff removed and I'm like blistering all over. So I feel like fucking pinbacker. I feel like my skin is like molting and I'm in the suit. Yeah. Gross.

[00:07:40] All this to say, Sunshine, a masterpiece from 2007 by Danny Boyle. Edward Yang only three points ahead of David Lean right now. First post race. Interesting. Just launched. Very interesting. Sunshine, a great film by Danny Boyle. One of my favorites. It feels...

[00:07:59] Seen it a dozen times, if not more. It feels what? No, I was going to say in a certain way, this is one of his biggest blank checks. And it's weird that it's coming off of an unsuccessful movie. But I guess the 28 Days Later effect was just huge.

[00:08:14] Yeah. Yeah. Millions doesn't even... People didn't even know that existed. No. And him going to Fox Searchlight and being like, I want to work with the same guy and do another elevated genre movie like 28 Days Later, I think was just a strong pitch to them. What same guy?

[00:08:30] Alex Garland and Cillian Murphy. Oh, sure. Both of them. Yeah. Right. He's like same screenwriter, same lead actor. Right. What I did for 28 Days Later, the zombie movie. Can I do something for the space movie? Well... Well... I guess we could talk about how this movie came together.

[00:08:44] Yeah, because it's interesting. Danny Boyle was attached to make a film called 3000 Degrees. Mm. Warner Brothers. That's hot. Super hot. About a real life 1999 Massachusetts fire that had killed six firefighters. So he's in a hot place. He's in a hot mindset in terms of his next film.

[00:09:02] That's true. It's based obviously on like a nonfiction book. It sort of sounds like a... It's based on a fire. It's based on a real fire. Based on a real fire. But it sort of sounds like The Perfect Storm or whatever. Sure.

[00:09:13] There's a nonfiction book about this unusual disaster. I think it was going to be like Ed Harris, Woody Harrelson. You know, it's going to be this cast of kind of like gritty guys. Chromedomes. Gritty chromedomes.

[00:09:25] And it ran into like protests from the real life surviving family members and stuff. Mm-hmm. And I guess Warner Brothers just kind of backed off. You know, they were like, all right, forget it.

[00:09:39] One thing he says though is, you know, it's an extraordinary true story. I tried to cast this actor for the main part and I went to meet him. He said, I don't want to play it. And I said, why not? Because it was a really good part. Mm-hmm.

[00:09:52] And this actor, who he won't name, I'd love to know who it is, said, yeah, but no one remembers anyone who dies in films. And Danny Boyle was just like, okay. Anyway, that's just a little fact.

[00:10:05] Yeah, I'm like, how many people have won Oscars for Donny on screen? Danny Boyle was trying to be like, maybe he had a point. And I'm like, I don't think he had a point, Danny.

[00:10:13] I think that's the kind of thing someone says where you're supposed to be like, huh, oh, interesting. But it's not actually real. It's always funny when you hear those stories about actors who turn down parts and they're just like, audiences always hate a character who does this.

[00:10:25] You can never play something like this. There's like a fucking million movies, man. There's definitely examples of that not being true. Right. And I'm also just like, that sounds like a you problem.

[00:10:34] You can say, I don't know how to play this. I don't think I can make this character work. But when they're like, audiences always hate anyone who dies. Or forget about them.

[00:10:46] Obviously, the other space movie, Danny Boyle, we mentioned this on earlier episodes, Consider Making was Alien Resurrection. Yes. He was attached to that and then he dropped out. It was earlier in his career and he was like, I'm not ready to do like a big CG movie.

[00:11:00] But it's sort of interesting to think about that. He does obviously, Alien Love Triangle, which we talked about. That's small scale. Small scale sci-fi comedy. Alex Garland obviously had worked with him on 28 Days Later.

[00:11:15] And he was like, I have this idea for a Mission to the Sun movie. We'll do like a classic meditative sci-fi movie like 2001 or Solaris or whatever. But nobody ever thinks of the sun. We're always going that away. What about that away? Towards it.

[00:11:34] And they both in interviews, both Garland and Boyle keep talking about it like a mountaineering movie. Which I kind of like that idea. Interesting. Of like trying to climb something gets harder and harder the closer and closer you get to the top.

[00:11:46] Yeah. No, I mean, that's what I like about the structure of this movie. I also read some quote from them where they were saying like, it was exciting to us to have an apocalyptic threat that was basically the opposite of our environmental concerns.

[00:12:04] Sure. Right. Rather than global warming, global chilly. Right. Like if you're making a sci-fi movie about the thing that probably will eventually kill us all. Too much of a bummer. Right. It would be funny, though, if that was what it was about. Yes.

[00:12:18] And they had to go to the sun and like throw a big bucket of water on it. Cool. That would be too hot. Cool it down. Cool it down! They're just gonna big hose and they're like, will you cool down? You crazy old sun.

[00:12:28] I just think it's such a good like starting point choice for this movie. That it's a thing where you're like, that sounds like a really scary threat.

[00:12:37] I could see how that would make it difficult for us to live, but it's not a thing that we're actually worried about right now. It's not a real thing, but it is a good concept. Our sun is dying. Everyone knows that suns eventually kind of die out.

[00:12:49] Sure, our sun is about four and a half billion years from doing that, but whatever. What if it was just doing that? Early retirement. Then the idea of like, well, how would we fix that?

[00:12:59] Like, would we shoot a giant bomb into it to kind of like, you know? Yeah. Well, it's like when the Wi-Fi isn't working. Yeah, it's like hitting the side of the TV. You gotta unplug it and plug it back in.

[00:13:11] I don't know if I'm getting ahead in the dossier here, but like the other element of this movie that finally crystallized for me here. And maybe I'm an idiot and you've always picked up on this.

[00:13:20] But I was reading some interview with Cillian Murphy where he was talking about the prep work he did with Danny Boyle. And Danny Boyle was like, watch Wages of Fear. Yes, right. Huge, huge. Great.

[00:13:31] In terms of actors having to sell tension and stakes and intensity and trying to solve a problem. And I'm like, oh, right. That's the genius of this movie is he's basically combining Alien with Wages of Fear. Wages of Fear, Ben, if you haven't seen it. Yeah.

[00:13:46] An incredible French film by Clouseau that was remade as Sorcerer. The great William Friedkin, Roy Scheider movie that you would love. But both movies are about tough men, hard men, if you will. Who have to transport like a truck of nitroglycerin across the jungle, like awful terrain.

[00:14:11] And so the whole thing is just these guys, like these tough guys who are constantly like at each other's throats have this incredibly sensitive payload. They're trying to get from one to the other. Can't let it blow up. Right. But that sort of thing of like, careful.

[00:14:25] We got this bomb. We have to get it to this place. Right. Garland meets Danny Boyle at a pub on Tottenham Court Road. Gives him a 90 page script. Boyle says the original script was more small scale.

[00:14:41] The end of the film, there were two guys left playing chess as they were going into the sun. So it's kind of like, you know, probably more thinky movie. And Boyle is like, I want this to be more gargantuan. Whatever. Like, I want to keep the psychological element.

[00:15:00] Right. But, you know, he boils it up. I mean, you know, it's a Danny Boyle movie. He wants to make it function as a genre movie. And yes, and I think Alex Garland's script did have the function that the script, that the movie has.

[00:15:15] The slasher thing of like every 20 minutes someone dies. Or even 10 minutes. You know, in some new and inventive way. But the way Boyle puts it is, I'm not like Tim Burton or Luke Besson who can do flamboyant sci-fi. I like realism and then I try to disfigure it.

[00:15:31] This was science possible, not science impossible. He takes the script to Brian Cox. Not. Not. Not. Fuck off. Not that guy because he would have said, fuck off. Michael Caine's a piece of shit. I'm not doing that. Fuck off, son. Everyone's a bad actor but me. Fuck off.

[00:15:52] Why does the ship have an actor? Like he's just there playing himself. NASA decided there had to be an actor on board. Fuck you. Not Brian Cox, the actor. The great actor. Don't come for me.

[00:16:06] But Brian Cox, the kind of like cool hip physicist who used to be in a band. Like, you know, do you know Brian Cox? I do. This guy. You know, he's very cool. I'm now just, I'm sorry. I went off thinking about Brian Cox coming at you.

[00:16:20] Come here, Sims! I can't do him. He likes kissing too much. Fuck off! I wonder how he feels about kissing. I read his book. He definitely did some kissing. Kissing's for losers. Fuck off! So wait, the other Brian Cox. Takes it to the reals. The physicist Brian Cox.

[00:16:35] Oh, what band was he in? It was, wasn't he in D-Ream? Like he was in like 90s. Oh God, it keeps giving me the actor. Come on, the physicist! Fuck off! Google's telling you to fuck off.

[00:16:44] Yeah, he was in D-Ream, which I, you probably don't know about them, but they were a British band. Things can only get better. Big 80s, early 90s kind of like synthy pop rock. I just like that Danny Boyle found the most Danny Boyle physicists possible. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:17:05] I mean this guy, he's like. Oh wow, so it's like Dream. Dream, but D-colon-ream. Best known because Tony Blair used their song as his like campaign song in Britain. Things can only get better, you understand? I get it, I get it. You know what I say to that?

[00:17:20] What? Fuck off! Fuck off! You know, he's one of those Brian Cox, it's just, you know, those scientists who break through because they can explain. He's very heady concepts to you in a somewhat pedestrian way.

[00:17:33] And they're not like weirdos if you sit them in front of a TV camera. But I'm not saying he's stupid, I mean he's clearly smart. You're Bill Nye's. I know it's not a perfect analogy, but this thing of like, the guy's a broadcaster.

[00:17:49] These guys who kind of like break through in some funny way. Carl Sagan. Well sure, he's the king. Beaker. Well, Honeydew's the one explaining. That's true. Beaker doesn't really talk. I couldn't think of the other ones. Dr. Bunsen, Honeydew. Sort of some respect to top tier Muppet.

[00:18:08] The script went through many revisions. And Boyle was sort of like the whole time trying to be like, let's just try to keep the sets contained. He had this sort of budget, he's like, I don't want the beach again.

[00:18:23] I don't want some kind of production that spirals out of control. I do want something manageable in terms of setting. This movie cost $40 million in 2005 when they filmed it. So it would be, you know, 50 some odd million today.

[00:18:38] But it is in this weird like, to make this movie for $40 million is a shoestring budget. 100%. You know, even though this budget is close to the beach. The beach obviously so much of that budget was DiCaprio and the rest of the movie. Getting shit to this location.

[00:18:54] Got inflated, right. This is an incredible use of money, but it also made this film exist in a weird in-between space from the get go. Because you hear all these stories, I mean they're all here in the dossier about him.

[00:19:06] Everyone questioning, is this a Fox movie or is this a Fox Searchlight movie? Right? And they were like, it's either like far and away the biggest Fox Searchlight movie we've made. Or it's like the smallest Fox release.

[00:19:21] And it was straddling this line of him wanting to do like psychologically grounded sci-fi but still have it function as a slasher. And as a thriller and all of this. Where I think this movie was just like stuck between two poles for a very long time.

[00:19:35] Well, let me tell you. I mean, I know what their biggest mistake was. They shouldn't have called it Sunshine. It's a bad title. I'm sorry. It's not a sellable title. Not a sellable title. Does not sound like an action movie. Doesn't sound like a space movie.

[00:19:50] Doesn't sound like a movie with like, you know, high octane. Sunshine! No. We love the title. I don't mind the title. Okay, I love it then. I'll speak for myself. I like the title. But I agree with you. I think it's hard to sell.

[00:20:03] I don't know what you're supposed to call it. There was that fucking also that this had Oscar buzz movie Sunshine with Ray Fiennes. There was a big Oscar buzzed Sunshine movie eight years prior. Right. And like we're the only fucker to even remember that thing existing.

[00:20:18] But it does feel like that's the kind of movie you think would be called Sunshine. I agree. And again, I don't know what the movie should be called. But I'm just saying. Icarus 2 or whatever. Project Icarus. Mission 2. See, all these kind of do sound bad. They're generic titles.

[00:20:35] That's the problem. Look, he used storyboards pretty much for the first time. Boyle doesn't like storyboarding. But for this one, he was like, well, it's completely essential. Yeah. That's also that's the way you make this movie on a budget is you figure out every single

[00:20:48] thing perfectly years in advance. 20th Century Fox is the first person they reach out to because they had worked on various Boyle movies, but they were wary because of the disaster that Solaris had been for them. Yes. The Steven Soderbergh masterpiece. Right.

[00:21:03] That was a hugely expensive cost twice as much as this movie and bombed. Right. So they're like the second someone comes in with any heady ideas in space. Yeah, exactly. They're scared. So they start getting some British funding, lottery funding, ingenious film partners,

[00:21:22] which is some kind of, you know, whatever, you know, European investor. And then Fox Searchlight, as you say, brings in the rest. They did want to change the title too. They didn't say they just thought the title sounded like the title of the musical.

[00:21:42] But they did basically say because we're Fox Searchlight and we're not mean old Fox, you're allowed to have whatever cast you want. You can shoot it in London. Yeah. You can shoot it in London and you can like have total creative control.

[00:21:56] The one thing I read was that... And the cast of this movie is insane, but at the time they are not names. No. Michelle Yeoh is probably the biggest name in this cast. Correct.

[00:22:05] She's the biggest name in this cast and this is arguably in a slight lull in her career. She's just also just always been an actor who in Hollywood just does movies. Yeah. She doesn't open movies. No, it's a little taken for granted.

[00:22:19] She's an ensemble player in a big way, but not in a... Like she's into Mummy 3. But she is. She is the biggest star in this movie. Yeah. Almost by default. And then it's a lot of people that they're trying to launch.

[00:22:31] I mean, I guess Chris Evans had already done Fantastic Four. So maybe he's similar. We're going to do a whole Evans thing. I feel like that was one of those things where... I mean, this comes out the same year as the second Fantastic Four movie.

[00:22:46] I think that's a total example of like this guy was in a big hit and he was one of the stars and he was the performance that everyone liked in relative to the rest of that. Right. He's the one who came close to poppin'.

[00:22:58] He's got some life in those movies. Yeah. But like he was not automatically made a star by that. He's the kind of name where a studio calms down a little bit because you're like,

[00:23:06] you're giving us a name of a handsome guy who was in a film that was a hit. But no one thinks he's drawing an audience at this point. He's just kind of a little bit of a safety net.

[00:23:16] And then Kelly Murphy, you're like, OK, he was the villain in Batman. Yeah. And 20 days later. We'll talk about all these people. The one thing I saw that Fox... I keep saying the one thing I saw. I saw many things. I have read many things about this movie.

[00:23:30] Fox Searchlight's big ask was, you can put together this cast that is very international with a lot of people who are not yet bankable stars. Please have as many of them speak with American accents as possible. That was apparently their one demand. I mean, OK.

[00:23:47] We just were so worried about people can take up a multinational cast. But they all need to sound American. Now, this is the last Danny Boyle, Alex Garland collaboration. Which is wild. It feels like they kept working together. Garland starts doing his own thing pretty much after this.

[00:24:07] They basically agreed on everything. Sort of unlike 20 days later, he says, like, basically, like, you know, they had the same inspirations. And they respect each other very much. They do speak highly of each other. But Garland does kind of complain, sort of complain in this interview.

[00:24:29] I've interviewed him. He's grumpy guts. And I love him. Hey, grumpy guts. We stand for grumpy guts. What he says here, which is, Danny has a terrific instinct towards viscerality and compulsion. If you're making 20 Days Later, then you're in perfect sync.

[00:24:42] Sunshine, in my mind, was closer to Ex Machina. Tonally more reflective. Sometimes viscerality and reflection are fighting for space on that movie. It's a balance issue. But Garland is still mostly like, but Danny is a good director. And he's making good choices.

[00:24:59] But he clearly is like, I envisioned a more meditative film than this. I think the emotionality is key to this film. I agree. I just think you should get over it. I like Alex Garland's movies. Me too.

[00:25:14] As a director, and I like his whole vibe as a director. But this is a movie that needs a bit of the earnest lifeblood. Yeah, look, I love Alex Garland's movies. What people mean to each other, sort of Danny Boyle energy.

[00:25:26] This movie has energy, and I love Alex Garland's movies. But also, Ex Machina is like a chamber piece. That works totally. I like Annihilation a lot. And I like the ending of it. Yeah, Min is the least successful of them, obviously.

[00:25:40] But Annihilation, like, you know, there are directors who might have come in there and been like, this needs a third act. This can't actually just be this quiet the whole time. I'm not sure if that would have been the right call, but I can...

[00:25:52] Anyway, Boyle and Garland both think the third act of this movie could have been executed better. Now, again, I think they just need to get over it. Yeah, I mean, this is one of those... They should just shut up. I think they should shut up.

[00:26:07] They should be respectful. They made a movie that we love. Show a little respect. It circulates a lot on the internet, but there was... I don't know, 2009, 2010, Tarantino did a series of introductions for some British film channel.

[00:26:25] He was curating a series of his favorite movies of the last decade. And he did video introductions for all of them. And he, I feel like he kind of crystallized the complaint of this movie.

[00:26:34] Where he's like, the first two thirds of this movie, I think, are maybe the best film of the decade. And the last third of this movie is so apocalyptic. It makes me furious. I think it's like a disaster. I have rarely seen a movie self-sabotage itself this hard.

[00:26:49] But the first two thirds are so good, it's still in spite of that, makes my 10. What is the... Where is this last third? Like, what's the point? It is the moment you find out basically that Pinbacker is still alive and that he is on the ship. Okay.

[00:27:04] That is when people flip on this movie. As I... I remember... When it starts to feel a little supernatural, heightened... I remember talking to a friend, Normie friend of mine, Josh. Shout out Josh. Shout out Josh. Around the time this movie came out.

[00:27:19] There's nothing wrong with being normal. I've known him most of my life. 20 years. I agree, Ben, but I also don't believe that you think that. Look, I was talking to my friend Josh and I was like, I love sunshine.

[00:27:30] And he was like, oh yeah, I like that. I didn't like the last act. And I was like, I kind of stick up for the last act. And he's like, really? Like when it's just like this guy being like, I am God.

[00:27:41] Yeah. And I was like, well, when you put it that way, like, yeah, sure. Kind of body slamming. Give an impression it's silly. Yeah. I mean, look, I love it unabashedly and I think it's perfect and I wouldn't want this movie any other way.

[00:27:55] On this rewatch, it was the first time where I could even almost as an intellectual exercise understand what people don't like about it. I think they're dumb and I think they should shut the fuck up as you said.

[00:28:06] But every other time I watched, they're going to come for you now. Yeah. Well, great. Come at me. Okay. I don't want to get too caught up on this. This is like so nitpicky. But if you're going to the sun, I don't see them once put on sunscreen.

[00:28:21] What? Not once. This is part of the movie. They're all fucking obsessed with this thing. They're all like obsessed with toeing this line and being like, how much sun can I give me? 3.1%. That's just the one guy. Look, back to the Dossi. They're all starting to...

[00:28:36] Pinbacker could stand up moisturize. There's no question about that. Pinbacker could use some cocoa butter. Alien in 2001. Obvious two influences if you're going to make a space movie. Pretty much anybody. But what's one thing that Boyle likes about those movies? Ensemble films with not big stars.

[00:28:54] And with Alien in particular, the feeling of this being a workplace. Workplace. You've got this kind of cast of character actors and up-and-comers. And you really try and make it feel very level playing field. Because of course, the magic of seeing Alien the first time...

[00:29:13] We don't get to have this magic because we know who Sigourney Weaver is. But you really don't know who the final person is going to be. No. It really feels like it could be anyone. What's wild about this film...

[00:29:24] Almost everyone in it has gotten so much more famous since then. Since! That even still watching it today, you're like, I don't know who makes it. Because it's not like now retroactively I understand that one of these people popped. No!

[00:29:38] And the others didn't. Troy Garrity is, I would argue, unfairly, right? Like we've maybe... We have not done him right as a culture. You think so? I like him a lot. What do you like him in? Bandits. He's incredibly good in Bandits.

[00:29:56] Is he? I don't remember him in Bandits. That was his... Look, I remember when Troy Garrity was a big deal. I remember those two years. It's these three movies. It's Sunshine, The Two Barbershops, and Bandits. You're forgetting Soldier's Girl. That was his big thing. Oh, thank you.

[00:30:12] Which he won a Golden Globe for, I believe, or he's nominated. He's the communications officer? Yes. And obviously he's Jane Fonda's son. So he's a nippo baby. And his father is Tom Hayden of the Chicago Seven.

[00:30:26] His father is not Tom Hayden. It's Eddie Redmayne in the Chicago Seven. I'm sorry. His father's Eddie Redmayne. Wait, how does that work? What do you mean? No, I'm joking. Did you see the Chicago Seven?

[00:30:35] Eddie Redmayne became that part so thoroughly that in fact they checked his DNA and somehow Eddie Redmayne came into the film. That's commitment! I've heard of method. But the weirdest parents for that guy I have. But it was like Barbershop, Soldier's Girl. He's a good looking guy.

[00:30:52] Everyone was like, well, and he's Hollywood royalty. This must be a new star. He works. He's working to this day. He did like six seasons of Ballers. He was on Ballers? Where did he go? And it was like, oh, he was on all of Ballers.

[00:31:05] Oh yeah, Ballers. A show that had six seasons. He was kind of the Ari Gold body. He's like an agent. He's like the big agent on that show. It's not like he doesn't work, but he certainly didn't whatever pan out as a superstar.

[00:31:19] Pretty much everyone else in this movie is well known or as you say, like just only got more famous. Does Icarus work? Burned up at the end of the movie. Yeah, that's too bad. Burned so bright. Yeah, exactly. That's how you go out.

[00:31:35] Someone like Hiroyuki Tsunada, who was obviously a huge star in Japan already by the time this movie came out. This is basically his second English language film after Last Samurai. And then after this, he becomes a guy who's in everything. He's a guy who'll pop in.

[00:31:50] Benedict Wong, we know him. We love him. Michelle Yeoh, Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Chris Evans. Let me give you actually, they got Michelle Yeoh first. She was the first cast. They wanted her to play the Tsunada role originally. Everyone. No. Well, he says everyone was written.

[00:32:07] Every character, much like Alien. It's like no gender, no ethnicity. No. So maybe they kind of wanted her to be the captain, but she picked Corazon. The quote I read was that he had her in mind as the elder statesman, the leader.

[00:32:21] And she said, I don't think I've aged into that part yet. Sure. Well, OK, Michelle. In terms of intensity. Not literal age. Yeah. Cillian, obviously, 28 days later. Rose Byrne's casting off of Troy. She's very pretty in Troy. Yes. And then he throws her into 28 weeks after this.

[00:32:39] That's true. Also tired in that one. Cliff Curtis had recently done Whale Rider. He's in training days for pops in that thing. I guess Chris Evans and Troy Garity are a little more just kind of like, well, these are these are guys.

[00:32:53] These are guys. These are some guys you can get. Seven. Certainly everyone wanted him to be. He's a guy on paper. You're just like, well, this is an obvious leading man. And then, you know, Benny Wong, of course. Is sort of notorious for like not having an agent.

[00:33:09] He's like one of those guys. So I'm not sure how they get him. His first movie that I saw him in, not maybe not his first film, the film I saw him in, he was in this movie called On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.

[00:33:20] That's a Peter Mullen trying to swim the English Channel movie. I never saw it. It's a cute movie, but he's in that and he's got such a distinctive look and energy that I was just like, well, I remember this Poonam. And then this comes out a year later.

[00:33:34] Yeah. He really does. They hadn't thought of Killian initially, he says. They saw that character's American, but then they saw him in Batman Begins. Yes. And they thought he did a great job and his American accent was impeccable. And they thought, why not Killian? It is incredible.

[00:33:52] His accent work in this movie is excellent. You know what else I have to say about him? Good looking. It is. Look, anytime him and Rose Byrne are on screen together, they're these two like angelic looking, saucer eyed, round faced. Their eyes are huge.

[00:34:13] They both look so delicate and sad at all times that just have the two of them be tired sitting around a darkly lit table being like, I hope the sun doesn't die. Chris Evans, Fantastic Four. Yes.

[00:34:28] The casting director said, you should see this guy. They loved him. Said he can do anything great. They put them into space camp. Yes. Boyles was like, we're going to go method on this movie as much as we can.

[00:34:44] I want these performances to be so lived in in terms of them feeling the weight of the passage of time, how long they've been on this mission, all being stuck together. He was like, obviously we can't send them into space,

[00:34:56] but I'm going to do everything I can to create the circumstances for this to be lived in. And I think he kept telling him, watch how Brian Cox talks about things because they're with Brian Cox, who's this young, sexy scientist.

[00:35:07] And the way Boyle talks about it, he's so resolute. He's so firm in his scientific thought. And that's how the actors are in this, the characters are in this movie, right? Like the way everyone talks in this movie, passions get inflamed at times,

[00:35:23] but like the end of the day are like diagnosticians. Like that is how they approach problems. It is one of the things I love so much about this movie. And I'm not taking body blows to a film that we both love, David. Okay. Which film?

[00:35:39] But there's the scene that people mock in Interstellar where Romilly takes out the paper and the pen and does the complete illustration of how time works. Right? And they're like, obviously it makes sense within the movie. This character was not an astronaut, whatever. Right?

[00:35:54] Or McConaughey's character is not a scientist, I mean. But it's one of those things where like the movie understands that it now needs to explain to the audience how the thing works. This movie somehow threads this needle of when they are all speaking to each other,

[00:36:10] there is like no importance put on it. It is a workplace conversation. Even when the stakes are high, the way they speak about these things are just like, this is their knowledge base. This is their job. This is what you do.

[00:36:22] This is how you like solve a printer jam or whatever. But yet, every concept is communicated so clearly to the audience. There's no moment where they go into scientific mumbo-jumbo and you start zoning out. No, no. I don't think there's... Right. There's not really...

[00:36:36] I think this movie is incredible in its sort of efficiency at communicating complicated concepts without hand-holding them for the audience. And that you just know the entire time what their mission is, what they need to do, how they need to do it, how it needs to work.

[00:36:48] Like it's almost set up like a heist movie. Even in terms of just setting up the different rooms of the ship and what everyone's function is, where it's just like all of this, you understand the entire ecosystem of this film.

[00:37:01] What could go wrong, how it goes wrong, what the possible solutions are, what your end point is. And I read like Cox in particular was like, Killian Murphy nailed it. This is exactly how physicists talk. Yeah, he says that physicists to this day speak highly of that performance.

[00:37:18] Like they're like, he got it right. There's something about how natural it is. He doesn't put too much importance on it. But you also believe that he actually knows what he's saying. And he's hot. Ryan Cox is kind of hot. Killian's hot.

[00:37:32] Killian in this character Kappa also is kind of this weird anti-Ripley. Sure. I would say Chris Evans is kind of the Ripley in this movie. And everything he says is correct. Yes. They don't listen to him. Right. But the whole thing of like Alien, right?

[00:37:49] Is OK, here's Tom Skerritt. He's the biggest star. He's the one acting most like a movie hero. Sure. Who's Ripley. She's sort of the quiet. She's the warrant officer. Steely, more sensitive one in the corner. Right.

[00:38:01] And then over the course of the movie, she slowly reveals herself to be the protagonist. Right. But like part of the arc and obviously the arc of Ripley across the four movies is like, who would have pegged this character to become the badass?

[00:38:13] From the starting point of Alien, you don't think she's going to become an action hero. Sure. Right. And Kappa is almost resolutely refusing to be an action hero the entire movie. He is the guy placed at the center of the story who remains like the intellectual, emotionally sensitive.

[00:38:28] I think it's so key that his introduction in this movie is him doing the message to his family. And he's so corny, you know, in a sweet way. He's a little awkward.

[00:38:37] But it's like, you know, and Chris Evans interaction, his introduction in the film is beating the shit out of Killian Murphy. They're like feuding brothers. And Chris Evans is like, I should be the star of this film. His character is like, I'm clearly I'm right about everything.

[00:38:51] I have the movie star charisma. I have the swagger. I walk in. Sure. And Kappa just sits there the whole time. And everyone has to keep pointing at him and being like, but at the end of the day,

[00:39:01] he is the only one of us who is truly indispensable. Well, but he has to. Chris Evans does that. He has that moment. He's like, well, he's the one we actually.

[00:39:09] That's what I like that for all their frustrations with him, they're like, at the end of the day, he's the only person we can't lose. And by default, he has to be the center of this movie. He can work the bomb. He can work the bomb. The payload.

[00:39:23] They did the plane, the vomit comet. They did the deep sea diving. You know about the vomit comet, right Ben? They take you up on a plane that goes like this. Oh, yeah. So you can experience weightlessness.

[00:39:34] That's how they do all the like zero gravity stuff in Apollo 13. Much like train spotting, he had them all live together for two weeks so they could get to know each other. Or shallow grave. I think shallow grave did that.

[00:39:45] You know, he wanted them to have the camaraderie, but also kind of the weird sense of like boredom that they've been like sort of stuck living in a boring flat for two years. The fucking weariness of this movie. No one wearing makeup.

[00:39:59] Eating Dippin' Dots. He had them do that. Yeah, he had them. They had to eat Dippin' Dots. Of course. They didn't shoot it at Pinewood, which is sort of one of London's big studios. They filmed it somewhere smaller. I don't know where.

[00:40:14] In the UK. And whatever. It's called Three Mills Studios. Where is that? Let's look it up. Which apparently is like a ridiculous place. It's in Stratford. Sure, it's East London. Ridiculous place to make a big sci-fi movie because I think it's quite small.

[00:40:30] But he wanted, you know, let's have the crew as small as possible. Let's have everything as tiny as possible so we stretch every dollar. And, you know, they have this production design approach that I think is very clever

[00:40:48] that is very real world. Everything in this movie basically looks like something we would have now. Maybe just a little zhuzhed up, right? Danny Boyle's argument is like, if you went 50 years ago in London, you'd see red buses.

[00:41:07] They don't look the same as our red buses, but they look pretty similar. Like I don't want there to be new things. I just want everything to be a little, you know, futuristic within reach.

[00:41:17] And even just you don't have them on the ship eating weird, like future food pills. And like everything feels recognizable in their day to day life. I mean, look, so the first I love everything about this movie.

[00:41:31] But the first 20 minutes of this movie, which is the most like we're all just living on this ship together, chatting, figuring things out. There's no chaos yet. It's like some just some my favorite shit. So you have the communications booth, which is like, you know,

[00:41:49] it's like the reality show Big Brother. You go sit in a chair and talk to a screen. You have the weird kind of like hologram chamber where you can kind of watch 3D movies. Love that. Love the way that looks.

[00:42:01] Got Benedict Wong just like making a stir fry for everybody. Right? He's like, it's chicken today. He's like, yeah, you know, like that's real food. Very alien to me. Alien the movie. Well, yeah. I mean, you know, Alien has the cryo sleep thing. Right?

[00:42:17] So our characters are waking up and they're still pretty fresh to this thing. Whereas this movie starts and it's like everyone is just kind of like has been worn down to a nub. As you say, Griff, Kelly Murphy and Chris Evans fight. They fight twice in this movie.

[00:42:32] Both times the same way. Yes. This like boyish headlock. Both times, Michelle Yeoh and Rose Byrne are like, are you done? You know, which I love their reaction to it. All you've done is waste our oxygen with your nonsense.

[00:42:46] The hologram room, right, is all this like this sense you get from the beginning of this movie of they really factored psychology into this mission. There are so many things set up on the ship in the chain of command

[00:43:01] to make sure that these people aren't losing their minds. Right. Because that's the greatest thing. I saw this movie in Paris, France. OK. La la. I know. But it came out in Paris in March of 2007. I was in Paris. Is that true? It came out before anywhere else.

[00:43:25] I'm looking this up. I'm telling you dead to rights. It came out March 2007. I was walking around Paris. I see these giant posters that say, Parlerie is a tour. Do 28 days later. And have Watto is there. Waddle was reading. He did the voiceover narration.

[00:43:46] Most French trailers at that time has this cast on it. Right. I think I had not heard of this movie. OK. I didn't know this one was in development or production. You hadn't seen the trailer. It's March 2007. OK. The trailer was not out.

[00:44:01] Well, OK. I don't know what's going on with you. But certainly I lived in Britain. You lived in Britain as we all know. This came out in April 2007 in Britain. And like it was pushed down my throat. It has it has a great trailer.

[00:44:13] This came out in Paris in March 2007. Maybe it was the first week. It was. It was April. OK. Then it was the first week of April. My friend. OK. It was the second. But yeah. Early April. I'm just looking at. Well, I think you're a liar.

[00:44:25] OK. All right. It was supposed to come out in November in the US. Yes. It ends up coming out in July. Yes. But so there was no more. It might have been better to do. November. It would've been better. Yeah.

[00:44:41] There was no marketing in the US at this point in time. I don't think I knew that this movie existed. I started seeing all these posters with this cast on the streets. I was like, what the fuck is this?

[00:44:49] I went to see it. I saw it in a giant screen on like the Champs-Élysées. One of those multiplexes there. No one else was in the theater. I saw the first showing and I was like, this thing's a fucking masterpiece.

[00:45:00] And then went back to New York and told everyone I was like, get ready for this fucking movie. Right? Right. Right. Right. And then, you know, it comes out. It ends up coming out four months later in 10 theaters and bombs and disappears.

[00:45:13] Bombed so hard in America. Just made no money here. But there were like a few people who were like, I just made no money here. But there were like five or six months.

[00:45:21] I thought at first it was going to be longer because it wasn't going to be until November. Right? Where I was just hyping this movie up to people. And one of the things I would say to my friends and telling them why this movie was good

[00:45:30] was it's the one movie that actually gets right what it's like to be in space for that long. Right. Right. Right. And my friends would say, what do you mean like you have any personal knowledge of that? Yeah. What do you know about being in space?

[00:45:44] The fuck are you talking about? And I was like, I don't know how to put it, but I watched this movie. And from the first scene of them all sitting around the table, you just feel the energy of these people have been here for years.

[00:45:56] They will be here for years beyond that. They basically are all like, you know, outside of little tensions. They're all basically on the level. They're friends or whatever. They respect each other. They pretty much warn through every conversation they can possibly have.

[00:46:10] You know, originally Rose, Bernie, Kelly and Murphy were supposed to have a romance in this movie, which I wish they had shot and sent the footage only to me. But Danny Boyle was like, I think they're past sex at this point. Yeah. Which I can imagine.

[00:46:23] I think it works against the energy of the movie of the boardroom. Look, I think they all jerk off in the hologram room. But I think if you're on this mission, the idea of even with all the hotties looking around and being like, should I sleep with them?

[00:46:36] It's just like, what am I doing here? Like everyone is just kind of like clocking it, you know? Getting it done. Yes. OK. Here's some things. Please. Design choices. No white suits for the astronauts, obviously. Gold samurai armor. I was going to say. The samurai armor.

[00:46:59] Brilliant choice by them. But samurai armor that meets like a diving suit. Right. Like the hurt locker, like bomb disposal. Yes, absolutely. The fact that they're in a diving belt. Those things were insane. I think like they were hard to make.

[00:47:16] It was brutal to be inside of them at one point. You know, Hiro Yuki Sonoda basically just like freaked out and they had to like get him out of there. Like, you know, it sounds like it was a nightmare. The way he shoots inside of those.

[00:47:27] Oh, it's so good. And then you see them like sucking on the straw. There's like some water in there. Yeah. Adam Savage of Mythbusters, who now does YouTube videos where he mostly shows off film props

[00:47:36] and either his own collection or goes to other people who have the original costumes or props. Complete coincidence. Just like a week ago, posted a video of this suit.

[00:47:45] He went to the guy who owns this suit and it's just sort of studying it and the make of it and all of that. And it's a fascinating video. I recommend that people watch. Sure. Yeah. There's only two of them that they made, I think.

[00:47:56] Like there may be three total. The reflective gold. I mean, the whole that aesthetic of this movie of like they need to deflect and reflect the energy of the sun in other directions as much as possible.

[00:48:09] When you're in the ship inside the ship, obviously when you're outside, there's yon sun, which is big, bright and yellow inside to school. This is sunglasses. Everything is painted blue, gray, green. There's nothing orange, yellow or red. There's no straw. There's nothing in that color at all.

[00:48:26] You wanted you to be in this like blue, gray, steel, blue world. So when you go outside, you flush the audience with this color palette of the sun. It's like a man dying of thirst and you drown him in cold water is how he puts it.

[00:48:38] Very colorful language. Here's a take for me. I think this movie is almost as good at using color to convey temperature as do the right thing. It's the trick that he just described. Incredible. Yes.

[00:48:52] This is a movie where you actually feel when things are hot and when things are cold and when things are neutral, which is kind of the most important thing he needs to sell in terms of the tension of the thing.

[00:49:02] The way he talks about making this movie is that everyone hated everyone at the end of it. Perfect. It was a nightmare to make. Great. The way Danny Boyle puts it is like he has this quote where he says, Ang Lee,

[00:49:13] the great Ang Lee, says directors aren't particularly nice people. I know what he means now. I'm not an unpleasant person, but you have to be merciless and push people very hard. Then later he says like, I fell out with everybody. You have to be so uncompromising.

[00:49:24] I would never make a sequel to this movie. You know, basically just like awful. I have no interest in ever doing sci-fi again. It's funny. He never works with any of these people again. Right now, of course. Now he would.

[00:49:37] Now he and Kelly Anderson are like, oh, we'll do another 20 minutes. But yeah, does he not work with another Garland movie? He doesn't work with any of this cast again. Right? Geez. I mean, but he eventually. He recommends Rose Burton for the movie he's producing.

[00:49:48] My big question is, did he didn't even really work with Andrew McDonald for a long time? No, no until transporting to this is like it feels like everyone needs. Okay. I don't want to look at you for a while. That's the fucking internet.

[00:50:02] I'm not going to look at you for a while. I'm not going to look at you for a while. I don't want to look at you for a while. That's the fucking energy in the movie.

[00:50:10] It's the dynamic between the characters that like there's that great story with fucking Nashville. That Robert Altman put the entire cast, which, you know, is 80 people all in the same like shitty motel by the side of the road.

[00:50:26] Okay. And was like, everyone gets paid the same amount of money. Everyone is here every day for the entire run of show because I want to be able to in the moment decide who gets added to a scene or removed from a scene.

[00:50:38] So everyone was just like kind of crappy accommodations there for three or four months filming. And then Karen Black, they let shoot out all of her stuff in like four days and paid her more money and put her in the nice hotel in downtown Nashville.

[00:50:50] And it was like, because I want all of them to hate her. Yeah. I mean, you always hear about those tricks like Matt Damon not doing boot camp with the guys in same parents. They all just like fuck you. You didn't have to suffer like we did.

[00:51:01] And it doesn't feel like it was a conscious thing, but the tensions that arose in making this film, the difficulty making this film just seeps into the DNA. The sweatiness, this like, yeah, the exhaustion. It's all on screen. Some clever just final. We'll do the pot and cycle.

[00:51:18] Clever little tidbits when they're in the sun room looking at the sun. That's a real rig that they built. That's like fucking shooting so much light at them because he was like, I want this to feel real.

[00:51:28] I don't want it to be CGI. Like, I want them to really like, you know, be dealing with that. When Chris Evans is in like the forest, they went to a forest and shot it. He was like, I don't want to like CG this shit.

[00:51:41] I want it to look like proper. There's a lot of practical effects in this movie. There's a lot of using non-digital processes to get some of the light qualities and all of that. There's a lot of model work.

[00:51:53] But the other thing is, and I just once again, not having seen this film in a while after having seen so many times in a short number of years.

[00:52:02] It is crazy to me how much you can feel the influence of this film on the last 10 years of space movies. Considering that this movie was such a flop where I'm just like, I see things in gravity, Prometheus, interstellar, like all of these, the Martian.

[00:52:18] It feels like this kind of reinvigorated the serious space movie for another generation, which then became this run of very successful films. There are some huge hits. Martian, Interstellar, Gravity, Arrival, you know, is ground based. But you know, that's like sort of smart sci-fi. Prometheus and Covenant.

[00:52:42] Ad Astra does way better than this movie. It wasn't like a massive hit, but it made over $100 million worldwide. And all these sort of major directors. Lucy in the Sky! No, I'm kidding.

[00:52:53] Prometheus obviously is after this. You know, I feel like there's life, like even trash like that. The moment he's making this movie. The Midnight Sun, Sky, what was that thing called?

[00:53:03] The moment he's making this film, you're pretty much in the fallout of like Red Planet, Mission to Mars, Sphere. Yeah, there's early late 90s, early 2000s that don't work. Mission to Mars is probably... I mean, Star Trek Abrams is a year after this. Two, it's 2009.

[00:53:23] It's two years after this. I can't remember. Yes. And that's the opposite of this movie. I love that movie. Fun, poppy. But it's fun and glossy. Apple Store. Apple Store, exactly. WALL-E, you know, there's stuff like that.

[00:53:35] But you're right, like there is the a few years later you start to see... And I'm sure if I fucking talk to Christopher Nolan, and I'd like to, and he can call me. My number is this. Just put my number in Alex.

[00:53:46] And I said, like, you see Sunshine? You know, because Killian, that's one of your guys. I'm sure Nolan likes this movie. What if he doesn't? I would punch him in the dick if he said he didn't like this movie.

[00:53:59] For how much this film is clearly indebted to Alien, I feel like there's a lot in Prometheus and Covenant that comes from this. There might be. I don't know. It felt like... Fuck off! Fuck off!

[00:54:14] This movie feels like Danny Boyle shaking up the space movie and resetting it for the next 15 years. Yeah. To some degree. He's a really good director. He's a really good director. People should take him more seriously. My point I was going to make specifically is... In my opinion.

[00:54:30] His whole thing of, like, I don't want them reacting to nothing, right? When Prometheus is being made, people were like, this is genius. Ridley Scott has revolutionized the filmmaking game. You watch interviews with Fassbender and Theron and they talk about this.

[00:54:47] He, like, did all the visual effects in advance so that when they are in the ship, they're surrounded by screens. So that rather than looking at a blue screen and having to imagine it, it's like, that's what it looks like.

[00:55:01] Outside the window, that's what it's going to look like. And Danny Boyle is like the first one I know of to basically do a version of that on this film. They didn't have the budget to be able to do, like, fully rendered CGI.

[00:55:12] But what you're talking about of, like, we're going to put a really bright light here. We're going to go to the forest. I want to, like, deprive this movie of people having to look at nothing.

[00:55:20] There will be something that is at least a reasonable facsimile of what they should be seeing. And he would create practical effects or project images or whatever it was where it's just like there's that tangibility to this fucking thing. It doesn't feel like anyone is having to imagine.

[00:55:37] The film is set in 2057. The sun is dying. The sun is dying. Earth is freezing. One mission to restart the sun didn't work. We don't know why. Here's the sequel, Icarus 2. So, last shot, Icarus 2. Now. An ironic name. I was going to say.

[00:55:52] Much like calling this film Sunshine is a mistake. Maybe don't call your plane, your spaceship Icarus. Icarus, you know, he didn't make it. The sun got his ass. He in fact then, the legend is, flew too close to the sun.

[00:56:04] Right. So maybe you just call it something else. You know, whatever. Sun Slayer. That's good. That's pretty good. I don't know. It is a good question if this movie was released under the title Icarus and the mission was Project Sunshine or whatever. Sure. That makes sense. The sunshine.

[00:56:23] Yeah. USS Sunshine. Right. It would make sense for them to call the ship the sunshine or the mission sunshine. That would make more sense. Yes. But, no. It's the Icarus 2. It is a giant solar shield made of gold.

[00:56:37] Behind that, a bomb the size of the fucking island of Manhattan or whatever they say. And then behind that, this long spindly ship that's just like the International Space Station. It's just a bunch of modules, right? Bedrooms. Hologram room. It's a railroad apartment. It's a great... Exactly.

[00:56:57] It's got the oxygen room. The garden. What else do you think they got in there? I don't know. Planet fitness. Basketball court. Just look at how quickly this movie sets up everything. You have truly two sentences from Cillian Murphy voiceover. A little bit of voiceover.

[00:57:15] Right. Which a lot of these movies would do that for the first 10 minutes. Basically, what's the bare minimum he needs to say to you? Our sun was dying. And how did I end up in this situation? I bet you're wondering. When he said that. Bet you're wondering. Yeah.

[00:57:27] There's only one physicist who knows how to work the bomb. Freeze frame. Oh, it's like the sun is dying. Our mission was to drop a bomb off and restart it. Great. Done. And then just very quickly, you're like, meet everyone.

[00:57:39] Everyone has a distinct vibe. Everyone has a distinct job. Here are all the different rooms on the ship. It does such a good job of setting up. You don't need the spatial geography of where the rooms are in relation to each other that much,

[00:57:51] but you need to know what every room is. You got Kappa played by Cillian Murphy, the physicist. Bright blue eyes. Mace played by Chris Evans, the engineer. Badass. But he's scrawny. Yeah, I mean, he's got an alright body. Of course, but I'm saying compared to now,

[00:58:09] compared to fucking what he looks like now, he's like a goddamn lung. Especially before they get him that haircut. Stanley Tucci hadn't gotten his hands on him yet. No super soldier to him. Cassie played by Rose Byrne, the pilot. Bossy round face. Tired round face. So tired.

[00:58:26] The hottest performer. But she's so beautiful. So tired. Corazon played by Michelle Yeoh, the biologist. Love a biologist. Searle played by Cliff Curtis, the psychologist. Ben thumbs up. Slash doctor. If there's ever been a Ben character. I love this guy.

[00:58:42] I mean, I love him as an actor so much. Cliff of course was Tanawari in Avatar The Way of Water. He was the head of the Makaina tribe. He's very good. In that film. Told them not to communicate with a Paiakan.

[00:58:53] I don't know if you've heard of Paiakan, the outcast tolkoon. You know, I mean, he broke their natural laws, but you know, there's a reason for it. I'm sorry, I was bringing this up apropos of nothing. Okay. I was doing some Rose Byrne Wikipedia checking.

[00:59:05] Rose Byrne, of course, now married to Bobby Cannavale, the hottest in the game. Yeah, they're a hot couple. Unbelievable couple. But I saw there was like someone Rose Byrne was previously listed as being in a relationship with for six years, I think from 2004 to 2010.

[00:59:22] And I was like, who is this? And they were like Australian actor. And I was like, who's this Australian actor that she was with for six years? Lee Scoresby himself from Avatar The Way of Water. Rose Byrne used to date the shitty whaler

[00:59:36] who gets his fucking arm chopped off by Paiakan. Lee Scoresby is the cowboy from his dark materials. God damn it. His name is Scoresby. His name is Scoresby. Mick Scoresby, apparently. Although I don't remember anyone saying his first name in that movie.

[00:59:50] He's the one who's always like, I've got a quote. I've got quotes, baby. Isn't that funny to just imagine that couple made up of these two sci-fi characters? Just tired Rose Byrne being like, please don't kill him. And be like, let's get that fucking whale juice.

[01:00:03] Yeah, I mean, yeah, there's tons of pictures if you want to see them. Yeah, they dated for years. Look, you've got Troy Garrity as Harvey, the communications officer. He's the wet blanket. We're not supposed to like him. And then Hiroyuki Sanada as Kaneda, the captain,

[01:00:21] who just is fucking radiating captain energy. He's so good at it. And then Benedict Wong as Trey, who's listed here as the navigator. Yeah, he's the navigator. Yeah, he's the one who does all the, he has one job. He's got one job and he fucks it up.

[01:00:38] He doesn't do a good job. There, that's it. Doesn't feel like there's anyone missing here. Right? You're not like, why don't they have an ex? And no one's doubled up. It's a good breadth of jobs. No one feels like a redundancy, you know?

[01:00:53] Well, who's in charge of fun? Who's the captain of fun? Who do you think the most fun person? No one is that fun. As we've said, everyone feels very worn out. I think Evans thinks he's fun, but he's so aggro. He's the only one who's still got energy.

[01:01:11] But when I appre... he has energy, but he doesn't make stupid jokes. There's no point at which he's doing dumb, look to the camera kind of jokes. And Chris Evans had just done tons of that. Obviously in Fantastic Four, he's in another teen movie,

[01:01:23] where he had done that kind of stuff. So can I throw this out? You could see him doing some witticisms. Can I throw this out? No! You can't! Absolute conjecture on my part. Supported by nothing. I think this is the performance that got him Captain America.

[01:01:42] I have to believe that someone at some chain of Marvel, this is the one. Because everything he was doing up until this point, as you said, was very jokey. It was hot shot, little shit, quip a minute, right? He was sort of like baby Ryan Reynolds-ing.

[01:01:58] That's Johnny Storm's whole thing, but as you said, not another teen movie. Of a handsome guy. He was on this Fox sitcom I used to watch with Milo Ventimiglia called Opposite Sex, where he was an all-girls school. That was his whole thing, was being like, sort of like,

[01:02:16] a smug Lothario thing. When they announced that he was the frontrunner for Captain America, and this was probably the year after this, in 2008 or 2009, that he's being shortlisted for the part, everyone's response was, well that's weird because he already played human toys. He's already played a Marvel character.

[01:02:33] This guy's too jokey, too smug, too sarcastic. Captain America is supposed to be this square. Really earnest. There's that self-seriousness to Captain America that this guy can't sell. And I immediately went, that's great casting because I've seen fucking Sunshine.

[01:02:48] And Sunshine was, even though I think he is the bright spot of those Fantastic Four movies, when I saw this movie, basically from the moment he enters on screen. He does have more of the energy that he will do in the, you know, in the Captain America movies.

[01:03:00] He's sort of like solid, you know, resolute guy. Yes. I didn't, it's not like he came on screen and I went, oh this guy's going to play Captain America. But he came on screen and I went, holy shit, this guy's a movie star.

[01:03:13] I thought this guy was charismatic and funny. Do you prefer him with the long hair? Or are you sad when he cuts it? It's a bad wig. Are you sad when he cuts it? I think I would like him with actual long hair.

[01:03:25] I think the wig's a little crummy. I like the idea of the long hair though, that like, they've just been kind of like goofing off because it's like, you know, but now that it's like we're close to the sun, it's like, all right, all right,

[01:03:35] I'll get a haircut. Right? Let's, you know. And you need the reset of this guy coming in with like kind of renewed, lean vigor. But yeah, I just remember watching this and like, his stoicism, he's so good in the silent moments

[01:03:49] of this film. Just the sort of like energy he's got bottled the entire time. For a guy who was being such a fucking like, line, rapid fire delivery dude in all these movies being so smug and glib and doing it well.

[01:04:01] I was like, oh, this guy's got like a basement. This guy's got actual depth as an actor. And I think, yeah, the whole modern Chris Evans run doesn't happen unless someone gives him a part like this. Uh, I agree with that. Maybe that is Kevin Feige's.

[01:04:20] Maybe if I sat him down, maybe he would say, well, you know what? I loved him. Maybe it was Sarah Haley Finn. Maybe it was Joe Johnson. I don't know whom, but I just have to imagine someone watched this movie and went, hear me out.

[01:04:31] There's a movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Evans. Um, Icarus two is going towards the sun. There's an observation deck. Searle has gotten a little obsessed with pumping up the volume in the observation deck. Great idea. You have your opening narration.

[01:04:49] Then you cut to this great establishing shot of the ship. And then the first character you're actually seeing is Searle. I love that it's your introduction to actual humanity in this movie. Is Searle sitting in the observation deck? Like you've set up the conflict of this movie

[01:05:02] and then he's not your main character, but the first thing we're seeing is how fucking insane the sun is. The observation deck is where is it on the ship? I'm not exactly. Is it the front? Is it the front most of the ship?

[01:05:16] Yeah, I think so. Don't worry about it. Okay. I mean, you see it, you see their shots of like this one little window, you know, you see it from the exterior. It's like there's the shield, there's the bomb. And then the first module is, I guess,

[01:05:31] the observation deck. I almost question if it's within the shield. I think it has to be within the shield. It's like a tiny window within that shield. You have to just accept that this thing exists because it doesn't make sense. Yes. Because like, well,

[01:05:43] why didn't they build the whole fucking ship out of whatever this thing is? You know, like, but I think you just kind of have to be like, well, there's just one panel of the shield that is transparent somehow.

[01:05:53] Such a good dynamic to set up from the very beginning of like, right. The power of this thing is truly awesome. Right? This is an awe inspiring thing. If you were this close to the sun, if you were on this mission,

[01:06:07] you would be so captivated by getting closer to the sun than anyone had before and just setting it up with this edging. Sun is big. This guy just sits here every day with his fucking aviator sunglasses on and toes the line with a computer voice and goes like,

[01:06:20] can you show me a little bit more? And the fact that she's immediately like, if I gave you four, what's the level right now? It's 2%. Give me 4%. If I give you 4%, you die. I can give you 3.1 for 30 seconds. Yeah, I can give you 3.1 for 30 seconds.

[01:06:35] What a good starting point to just be like, holy shit, right? The sun is intense. Don't look at it. But this guy is like addicted. Yeah, well I would probably like to do that as well. Here he is with his sunglasses and you're like,

[01:06:46] I'm going to look at fucking Benedict Wong all day. He's a handsome guy, but come on. Is this guy the wild man on ship? No, he walks out of this room and you're like, he's the psychologist.

[01:06:56] He's the one who's supposed to be making sure that no one else is going crazy. I think it's sort of like Cliff Curtis talks about it. I also should say there's this commentary you can listen to on the DVD of Brian Cox, The Physicist.

[01:07:07] And they might, I listened to it long ago. I haven't in a while. They might talk about stuff like that. Like, where's this room supposed to be? How would that, you know, they try to talk through the science. Boyle also talks a lot about, he was like,

[01:07:19] as much as it's science possible, I'm going to make the concessions that work for the stylization of the movie. They all move in slow motion when they're in space, even though that's not really realistic because it looks wrong to audiences if they move too fast. Right?

[01:07:34] I'll do the whooshing sounds when the ships are flying by, even though there's a vacuum of sound in space. Like, some of the stuff you have to do, even if it goes against the science. There's certain leaps that you just have to accept.

[01:07:49] No one floated, though, and squirted liquid into their mouth. No. There's no floating. There's gravity. Drinking juice in the air, what you're saying. That's a huge thing for me. I'm sorry. Obviously, a movie like Gravity, we're going to make this in the real strictures of,

[01:08:11] that's how it is in space. They shot it in space, right? They had to spend a lot of money making everyone float around in that fucking room. In this movie, it's like, yep, there's technology that makes you not float anymore. Okay? They're going to the sun.

[01:08:27] Yes, Sorrel is getting a little addicted to looking at it. Yes, Chris Evans and Kelly Murphy are a little... They got brothers there. Testosterone, yeah. There's this sort of like, they're about to cross this sort of barrier

[01:08:41] where they're so suffused by the sun's radiation that they can't send communication. It's kind of like that weird, if you got a message you want to send, you might want to do it now because... Another great setup. They are sensibly supposed to be coming back,

[01:08:55] but everyone clearly is fairly resigned to like, look, we may not. And the first mission failed. The first mission failed and they don't know why. And like, you know, there's this sort of... And if they failed this mission, there's no there to go back to.

[01:09:08] There's like, you know, this is one of those movies where Boyle had everyone sit down and write out character biographies for themselves and stuff. And the idea is supposed to be that they were picked because they don't have, you know, a yearning for home.

[01:09:21] Like, they don't have family connections that they're too worried about or whatever. And Troy Garrity's character is supposed to be the one who actually, they kind of fucked up and he kind of does. Because he's the only one who's like, what do you mean we can't get home?

[01:09:30] I love that it's unspoken. It's unspoken, but like, it's there. Like, he's the only one who's kind of nervy about it. You keep waiting for him to have the scene where he's like, you don't understand my daughter. He's like stroking a picture.

[01:09:40] It's so great that it's just, it's kind of just fundamental in his being. But just another piece of like such fucking efficient character building, right? That it's like our introduction to Cillian Murphy is him doing the video message.

[01:09:54] Basically, the thing that like Interstellar takes like an hour and a half to build to. You're leading with the emotion of this guy and who he misses, but also the emotional intelligence of him saying like, look, I don't have a lot of time.

[01:10:06] You're not going to send me another message, but don't worry. I know everything you want to say. Right? In this very empathetic way, he's like, it can be unspoken. I get it. I understand. I can imagine what you would be saying to me.

[01:10:16] And this guy gets caught up in the emotion of the thing. This is now the first track of the score that gets reused a lot. This movie is notorious for its score being reused in other things.

[01:10:25] But this opening sort of very dreamy, emotional theme that plays under Cillian Murphy's video message. And then you basically cut to Chris Evans has him in a headlock. Cillian Murphy took too long. Took too long. I'd be mad. Yeah, I'd be fucking mad.

[01:10:43] It just says so much about like the sensitivity of Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans only knowing how to vent his frustration through violence when his frustration is you didn't let me tell my mom how much I love her or whatever. You know?

[01:10:57] Right. Um, so they're going to the sun. They're passing through the radiation barrier or whatever. They're losing communication. And then they start hearing... Well, first they see Mercury, which is a scene I love. Where they're actually having fun. They all sit down at the observation deck.

[01:11:18] And Canada's like, look, Mercury. Because Mercury is this tiny little planet that's very close to the sun. Revolving around it. Weird little place. And Mercury, you see it. You see the surface. Mercury's this kind of metallic planet. It's got like a metal surface.

[01:11:32] It's got this dense metal core. And the surface is probably rocks. They put the filter on it. Yeah, they put the... And Orson Welles is there doing Mercury theater. I don't know. What are some other Mercury things?

[01:11:45] And that is the like sort of internal antenna that amplifies things for them. And they start hearing this creepy noise. Please, I now ask, put the noise in right here. The distress beacon noise. It's a good noise.

[01:12:01] I think it is one of the most effective little pieces of sound design. 100% agree. You hear it so many times while they're sort of like pondering, what do we do? What do we do? And it's like this abstract like cry. It sounds like a whale noise or something.

[01:12:24] But it feels like... You know how there's like different ambulance sounds from across the world. There's different like emergency broadcast noises. There's something about this alarm that it's just like, I've never heard this in another movie before. It's so unique to this.

[01:12:38] And once again, this is a trope of these types of films. We have seen this beat so many times. This is the inciting incident of so many of these types of films, especially as we said,

[01:12:47] so many of these movies that have come out in the 15 years since this film of like they're on a mission. They get a weird broadcast. The question becomes, do you follow the broadcast? And roll the dice? Or do you stick to the original plan?

[01:12:59] Now, here's my only complaint about this movie. They just shouldn't do it. They shouldn't do it. And everything that goes wrong is because they do it. Of course. But I love that. But it's tempting. The classic, you make one mistake that cannot be undone.

[01:13:13] And the rest of the movie is you trying to dig yourself out of a hole that keeps on getting deeper and deeper and deeper. This is the other area in which I think gravity must have had some influence

[01:13:20] on this movie, although I know that film was in development for a long time. But the build of this movie and the fact that so much of it is taking place in close to real time, you know, it's not actually presenting real time the same way gravity is.

[01:13:33] But it does feel like the events happen in a very condensed period. How would gravity have an impact on this film? I'm saying the opposite. Oh, oh, OK. All right. OK. Yes. Yeah. Go ahead. Gravity has that Rube Goldberg machine effect of everything that goes wrong

[01:13:46] affects the next. She tries to fix this and it leads to another problem, whatever. And I think this movie just has a similar tightness while not trying to be like this is just you're so frustrated because you're like, ah, you shouldn't have done that.

[01:13:57] And then Chris Evans is always there being like, shouldn't have done that. Well, and I love that they you know, it's Chris Evans wants to make it a vote. Right. And Clinton clip Curtis is like, this isn't a democracy

[01:14:08] where scientists will figure it out. Right. He's the main scientist. He's the physicist. He's the one who gets the choice to pick. Right. Canada. Canada gives the choice to Kappa. Kappa is like, don't make me choose. Right. What's your answer? It's a coin toss. Right.

[01:14:20] So if you flip the coin, what would you say? And you can see in real time him making this decision that he knows. Like the fact that it's not a decision made in confidence. He's not being punished for his hubris. Right.

[01:14:31] It was it was truly a coin. They're not trying to save anyone. No, there's no like, well, what happened to those guys? They want to know the logic is they're not like we got to help them. The logic is really simple, which is the first team failed.

[01:14:44] They have a bomb that wasn't used. Right. We have one bomb. I guess there's that element of like, maybe if we go over there, we'll also see what went wrong for them. So whatever, you know, whatever happened. Of course, that gives us two bites at the apple.

[01:14:58] That gives us a backup plan. I don't know. That's what they say. That's what they say. Which we could use versus stay the course. Just stay the course. So then a question is, is like Cyril starting to get a little possessed by the sun?

[01:15:14] Yes. Like the idea is that he's like, he's the mirror image of PIN backer is how Cliff Curtis kind of puts it in interviews. Like, you know, obviously PIN backer, Mark Strong's villain, he got consumed by the sun in some crazy way and he becomes a son

[01:15:27] fundamentalist, a fundamentalist, a fundamentalist. And yeah, maybe Cyril's not going to kill everyone on the ship, but he similarly is kind of getting obsessed with there's a mania kicking in. Yeah. I mean, this is, you talk about the third act turn, right?

[01:15:41] And boil, what was the third act turn? Right. And boil, what was, let me find the exact phrasing he used here, but he was basically like, he likes having these elements in his movies that disrupt the reality. Sure. Right. And usually boil is a very, um, uh,

[01:15:58] impressionistic filmmaker. He's not trying to present reality as it is. He's using very loud cinematic language. He's using very visible editing and cinematography and music to like evoke a feeling rather than making his craft invisible, you know,

[01:16:16] in service of just the story. I think in a lot of ways, this is his most muted and grounded film in that the only time he starts using cinematic language in that way is basically when PIN backer comes in.

[01:16:27] And PIN backer is basically, I know I'm jumping ahead here, but it's like this thing that cannot be filmed. Yeah. Which I love. The camera can't even look at him. And I think, I think, you know, it's like...

[01:16:37] I don't think you can call this film muted. I got it. I got it. Within the boil cannon, I'm saying only it's not muted. Yeah. Within the boil cannon. I'm saying that's what's wild about it is his,

[01:16:49] his style is so much more extreme in most of his films. The point I want to make here is that he's like PIN backer is the thing for me, the equivalent of like the baby and train spotting. Right. Sure. And I think train spotting does the baby.

[01:17:03] It does going through the toilet at like minute five. Yeah. Whereas this movie sets you into reality and then shakes it up. But it is set up from the very beginning, as you said, with Cliff Curtis's character,

[01:17:14] because I don't think he believes that the sun is actually supernatural. But I do think he's getting at this thing of like, here are scientists in the future who think that they can combat the way of nature.

[01:17:27] Right. That they can correct... The way of nature, the way of the universe. Yes. This is like, maybe we're just supposed to die now. This is the universe running its course. And they're like, we have advanced to a point where we could actually make this a choice

[01:17:40] and we can reverse this. And the closer they get to the sun, the more it starts to warp their brains, not on a supernatural level, but on the level of like, it is impossible to comprehend this thing. You know, like the closer they get,

[01:17:55] the more you're the guy who sits in the observation room with the sunglasses and just looks at it, the less reality makes sense to you. The less your small life makes sense. The more you start feeling like there's things I just don't understand.

[01:18:08] There's this moment where Cap is trying to figure it out. What should I do? And the computer is basically saying, like at a certain point, I can't guess anymore. You know, you get this close to the sun and then like, the probability is too insane.

[01:18:22] Right. And that's what's happening to them. They're all getting crazier and less predictable. Especially because they're scientists. They're so like logical. They're so like analytical. And this is something that is just like, yeah, completely out of comprehension. Yes. A great computer voice in this movie.

[01:18:42] Incredible. It shows a perfect line between having some personality but not feeling like... Chi-Po Chung is the name of the actress. This is her first film? Yes. She's done a lot of stuff since. She's done some stuff since. A lot of TV.

[01:18:58] So they decide to go to the Icarus one. But Benedict Wong's character, Trey, does all the calculations right and plots their course correctly but forgets to adjust the sun shield. It's like one tiny fucking mistake. And it's the sun shield. I wouldn't call it tiny. Yeah, it's like...

[01:19:21] I would say it's a huge... There's some debate in this movie. I would argue it has some negative consequences. And there's some debate in the movie later over whether Pimbacker killed him. And I was like, last night, I was kind of sort of clicking around reading articles.

[01:19:37] Because Pimbacker at that point is on a rampage anyway. And one guy was like, yeah, but remember, this guy made it a fuck up so bad that he doomed humanity forever. That might weigh on you. That might be enough to just make you...

[01:19:51] Especially after two years or four years, how long they've been in this fucking mission going completely crazy, getting so stressed out about it. Yeah, that might cause you to crack. This whole dynamic is so good. And it's one of those things where you're like,

[01:20:04] I can't believe a sci-fi movie hasn't used this before. Of like, the guy makes the fucking error. He doesn't carry the one, right? He dooms them. He is now in a catatonic state of depression. And very quickly you set up this thing of like,

[01:20:17] we don't have enough oxygen. If he died, it would help us. We don't want to kill him. Maybe we don't need to do anything to stop him from killing himself. Just the weird hushed tones with which they talk about it almost immediately where they're like,

[01:20:32] well, we're all furious at this guy. There's some sympathy. There's some empathy, but also like, hard not to be furious. Hard not to feel a little bit vindictive. They only have one job. All their lives are expendable. That's how they're thinking about things.

[01:20:44] So they're inhumane in a way about all this stuff. Benny Wong plays that moment so well, his breakdown in the explanation. I forgot! I forgot! He forgot to adjust the sunshade. Irreversible mistake. So it burns out a couple things, right? Fucks them up.

[01:21:00] They have to go out to adjust manually. Which I mean... It's never a good sign. But I just love a spacewalk. And obviously these suits are great. So the score is by Underworld, you know, the band. With John Murphy. Well, but first Underworld watched the movie

[01:21:16] and improvised music over it. Then John Murphy comes in, he does the orchestral stuff. The theme that got ripped off. And then there's this Underworld, like, crunchy electronic music that's playing while they're trying to fix the shield. The weird little lights that pop up. I love those things.

[01:21:32] Like balloon light. They're like an octopus-looking kind of thing. Yes. All that is great. And this is, I guess, this is the first... Kaneda is the first guy to die. Because it's so effective. While they're doing this, what, the communications tower burns up and that burns up,

[01:21:52] and they start to go crazy. Right? Yeah. There's the moment, because Evans... Why am I forgetting Evans' character's name? Mace. Mace. I keep on wanting to say Cage, because Cage doesn't need the MCU. Mace volunteers Kappa. Yes, he does. He's like, if someone has to go fix it,

[01:22:16] it needs to be Kappa, because Kappa... I'm not letting go of Kappa being the problem here. Yeah, it's kind of a dick move. So he volunteers him, but then... Sonata is like, oh, I'm... No, I understand I need to make the sacrifice here.

[01:22:30] He's not going out alone. It has to be two of us. I'm the captain. It's my responsibility. And then one of us is going to have to stay behind to hold this down. Once again, Kappa is the one who needs to stay alive.

[01:22:40] We need to make sure he is the one still standing at the time when the payload has to be dropped. Yeah, because basically, the Icarus starts to move the shield back towards its original alignment, and he's like, well, let's just turn that off.

[01:22:54] And Mace is the one who's like, we can't do that. We have to fix the shield. We have to protect the ship and all that. And you're like, you say, yeah, Kaneda can die. He doesn't have any purpose. He's just the captain. Who cares?

[01:23:06] They're all getting emotional and worked up, and Mace is like, no, this is what needs to... He's got that sort of resolve of like, you guys don't get it. None of us matter. We just are shooting this goddamn thing into the sun. That's the whole plan.

[01:23:20] We cannot make calculations based on human emotions. It's all about Kaneda dying, where the fire is going up the shield. And he's like, pow! The number one moment is Cliff Curtis getting in his ear. What do you see? It's so good. He's so jealous that this guy's

[01:23:36] gonna get to see it at full blast. The one thing he wants to hear is what it feels like. What does it look like? It bright! Bright! And Cliff Curtis has started peeling at this point. They've now started putting prosthetic

[01:23:48] gold member flakes that he's taking off his face. It's like an unfortunate smelting accident. Right. But he's in stage one of full pinbacker. He is like, going turkey. He's going turkey mode. It's such a good sequence. I just think it's... You said, David, the score that everyone

[01:24:08] rips off in this movie, right? So often there are bits of film score that get reused a lot in trailers or in movies. They work as good shorthand, but you very quickly hear, especially in final films, like, oh, they must have used this as a temp track

[01:24:23] and then they hired someone to rewrite it and do something similar. And then we just kind of did the same thing. What's so unique about the Sunshine score is people actually just license the track. Like in Wonder Woman 1984 when she flies

[01:24:35] for the first time, they just use the track. Right. They just will license a track from another score because they nailed it so fucking hard. All the moments in this where it's sort of like the sun slowly coming closer, them in the suits moving slowly,

[01:24:49] the time and everything just swelling. It's like, it's just become part of the language of film music now. It's very good. I feel like there are like three movies that have just licensed... No, I think you're right. It gets used a lot with Wonder Woman.

[01:25:07] It's a lot like the Hans Zimmer Thin Red Line track Journey to the Line, which is well used in that movie, but then got just reused over and over and over. All right, so now they're all fucked up. Canada's dead. They're running out of oxygen

[01:25:19] and they're like, we're not an asshole, but we would have enough oxygen if more people died. Well, yeah, they're also kind of like, we've gotten off on oxygen to make it there. This is where Triggerity starts to get itchy

[01:25:30] because they're like, well, at least we can make it there. Well, we should point out that the plant room gets burned down. I called it their fucking thing. Was that not clear? No, no, no. So they make it to Icarus one. Yes. I saw this film.

[01:25:47] Yeah, in London. Congratulations. And I was excited for this film. I like Danny Boyle. I love space movies, but it did arrive with only so much fanfare. Yeah. And I loved the first half hour of this movie. I love the environmental, just like the atmosphere.

[01:26:05] But then when they dock with the Icarus one, it's all dusty, dark. Yeah. And they've got that trick where anytime the light flashes over the lens of the camera, you see one of the faces from the photo of the original frame. For just a split second.

[01:26:21] And then finally, when they finally find them all dead in the observation deck, they do it one more time and you see the whole photo. And I was just, I remember just being like, this is the best shit I've ever seen. I'm fucking losing my mind right now.

[01:26:33] I'm 21 years old. I need sunshine all day. Yeah. How do we feel about the Icarus one? It's creepy. At one point, Triggerity says that 80% of the world is made up of human skin, which is just not true. It's just like made up fact. I'll say this, though.

[01:26:53] It's one of those things that has stuck with me ever since I saw this movie. And I think about it all. I know it's not true, but I just accept it. It might be. Here's my defense of that line. OK. Maybe in a spaceship where there's less stuff.

[01:27:09] Sure. And there's only people. Yeah. And they're basically in this tomb. They don't know it yet, but it doesn't have like an alive vibe in there. No. And they do such a good job of once again, not having the big info dump scene where they're like, look,

[01:27:29] we don't know exactly what happened to Pinbacker. We don't know why Icarus one failed. It's just kind of unspoken that it's like there's a little bit of a mystery around that thing. Yeah. There's the lost communication. They have the video of Pinbacker that you see Searle watching.

[01:27:45] The sun's pretty crazy. I mean, you've ever think about it like wild stuff, right? That sun keep it's in my. It's sticking in the. Yeah, it's in the noodle. Yeah, it's around in there. And then, of course, they load up this ship

[01:27:59] and he's like one more video for you. Hello. I'm a vampire now. I love the sun. And it's all distorted. You can't really see him. Yeah. Do you think he's living off of the sun? Like, is he feeding off of that? That's what I kind of imagine.

[01:28:17] I mean, I don't he doesn't seem like he's cooking and taking care of himself. There's no throwaway line. They say like dust. They had enough food for, you know, eight people for three years and you can kind of do the math

[01:28:29] of like, okay, one person could probably survive on that. Yeah. So maybe he's like grabbing some, you know, kind bars and going once in a while. I know he's the villain of the film. Yeah, the villain of the piece.

[01:28:41] And we are not supposed to be rooting for him because he's not the villain. I still think what you call it, the weathering with you. Sure. Is the only other movie I've seen that has a character to this length sort of make the argument of like,

[01:28:55] who are we to fight environmental disaster? Yeah. Let's just give it up. Sure. Then that's its will. We're we're meaningless. And it is just an interesting thing to think about. There's also well, I don't agree with there. There's a lot of like, era Farmiga in Godzilla,

[01:29:13] King of the Monsters. Oh, a sensitive nuance performance. Right. But I feel like her take is also that where she's like, look, these guys have shown up. I think maybe we hand the earth to them. You know, and it's sort of that.

[01:29:25] It's a similar kind of pro environment, like, you know, radical environmental take a like, look, maybe we just let it all wash over us and like wipe us out. Obviously with Godzilla, you're dealing more with metaphor and Godzilla is always about

[01:29:37] the balance between like the natural order of things and like, you know, atomic weapons and like, you know, weathering with you and sunshine are the two movies that do it with actual weather. Yeah. That do it with the forces of the universe

[01:29:50] where it's like if our planet is becoming unlivable, then maybe we shouldn't be alive. Pinbacker is basically, yeah, his take seems to be, look, the sun decided to kill us all. And I say we do what the sun says. Right. It doesn't go beyond that.

[01:30:04] It's just like I now have seen this thing up close. And I'm awesome. Everything. Yeah. I'm like, I'm stupid and petty. He's selfish, though, because he wants to be the last man. Sort of. That's I think a big part of his motivation

[01:30:20] as much as he's like initially presenting it as like, who are we? I think it's really more like I am the one the last one who will be standing. Well, yes, he's got he's got a bit of I was it doesn't have a God complex

[01:30:32] because he thinks the sun is God. But he's got he's got a he's got a son of son of God. He's sort of whatever the acolyte of the sun, I guess like. He's the DJ Khaled of the sun. Mm. I don't know if that's something that

[01:30:47] will leave in the episode. No, he points to the sun and he's like, good work. Another one. Keep shining. He here's my question. You're like, you get your name on the track. There's no answer to this major key. The film is very much like he went

[01:31:07] crazy, which I do like that. But my question is sort of like the answer to your question is the sun. The answer your question is you got so close to the sun that X happened. Yeah. Right. But obviously he's still alive. He's a little sunburned a little bit

[01:31:25] and he's very into look, Christopher son. Everyone else on the ship is dead. They all went to the observation deck and burn themselves up. Right. You see them all sitting there. Yes. Do you think they were with him like that? He got them on board with that and

[01:31:45] they went crazy, too. And then one day they just did that. Or do you think he kind of like trapped them in there and cooked them? It's a good question. Cooked. You think he cooked them? Oh, really? Definitely. I mean, it's just never answered.

[01:32:00] No idea about we don't know what the other because he's the captain. And I think he overrided the system and just like boosted it up. Right. And then he went to the observatory at nine. Yeah. And then and cooked them all. I always think they were all just

[01:32:14] on board with him. No, I read it as or I have read it as they all were starting to get their brain broken by the sun a little bit. But he to the greatest degree. Right. So the rest of them were just kind

[01:32:26] of like we failed this mission. You know, he like broke the ship. Right. The ship is like functional but he has like broken the computer which is why it's just like standing. Right. We feel this mission and we're starting to see this argument.

[01:32:37] We're like, we're too foolish to fight it. Right. So they're like this is kind of the noble way to kill ourselves is to get the full Cliff Curtis moment of like full sun. Obviously it's incredibly effective and that he's the one who feels like he's serving a higher

[01:32:50] purpose where he's like I can't die because I have to continue serving the sun basically. But it's all good. Everything is. And it's all very Alex Garland. Yes. That kind of like at a certain point something our minds just break in the face. Yeah. Unfettered nature.

[01:33:07] You know you get on Icarus 1 the ship's decouple. Yes. This is when Pim Becker has walked onto Acres 2. A weird amount of people in my life have not understood that that's what how he got on. Yes. I get that question I don't know if

[01:33:21] you guys probably don't feel a lot of sunshine questions but I just get that question a lot where there are people like I don't get how did he get on the ship. He literally just walked over. I sit like fucking Neal Crowder at

[01:33:30] a table with a sign that says ask me questions about sunshine and the fucking cup of coffee. He just walks onto Acres 2 Crowder, what the fuck am I talking about? You're Steven Crowder? It's louder with Crowder. Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on.

[01:33:44] And so now you've got, it's Capa, Searle, Mace, and Troy Garrity. I refuse to say his name because I don't remember it. Yeah. Harvey. Harvey, Harvey of course. Yes, there's one space suit. Yes. How do we get across? And...

[01:34:01] Well, Mace and Rose Byrne are back in the main ship. Mace and Rose, no, no, no, Mace is on the ship. Rose Byrne and Michelle Yoko is on. They're still on the main ship. Trey's... Trey's sedated, essentially. And the other four are on the Akurus One.

[01:34:17] And Harvey immediately is like, well maybe I should go over because communications are very important. We're talking. I'm the captain. Yeah, and he's now officially captain because he's second in command. It's kind of funny too because his equipment got cooked. Yeah, he has like no purpose.

[01:34:32] So he has truly no purpose. Not really. And I guess being like a senior ranking officer. That's his argument. His whole argument is chain of command. They're like, you're meaningless. Yeah. And Mace is like, like literally they're like putting the suit on Kappa. Yeah.

[01:34:45] And Harvey's like, well wait a second. And Mace is like, yeah, whatever. He's going over. It's just such a good detail that for how much Mace kind of hates Kappa, he never fights the notion that Kappa is the most important. Never fights that, exactly. He hates it.

[01:35:00] No, no. But he's so mission based. He's the whole, we have one purpose and he is the center of it. And then this plan is so cool of him being like, we can fucking rip up the lining of the ship, hug him, bear hug him

[01:35:15] and use the force of the ejection to get inside. And one of them has to stay behind. Harvey immediately starts going, oh, and it's gonna be me, huh? And Cliff Curtis is like, no, it'll be me, which is a great line the way he delivers it.

[01:35:29] But I do think Cliff Curtis is also kind of like, I kind of wanna go back to the room. Oh, absolutely. Right, he just took a look at that and he's like. Like an attic. Yes. Like an attic. It's not like a nobility thing.

[01:35:42] He's not an attic to be clear. He's not an attic. You can't store coats in him or whatever. No, no, no. Cliff Curtis has no upstairs. He's all one level. There's no trap door, you pull a string and he opens up. No, no, okay?

[01:35:55] Can I correct this quickly? For so long, I have heard these scariless rumors that for 11 months out of the year, Christmas ornaments are stored within Cliff Curtis. And they are not. They are not. And you see people, they come towards him and they're looking, they're opening his mouth.

[01:36:14] If you're a little boy and you discover millions of dollars, you can't go and hide in Cliff Curtis. And let's also make this clear. If you're Christopher Eccleston, do not climb on top of Cliff Curtis. Oh, and drill holes in his head.

[01:36:26] And use him to look up and spy down. No, you can't do that either. That's a rude thing to do. And he tried, which is, I've heard that story. He's one of our finest actors. So, so, Searle is, yeah, Searle's basically like,

[01:36:40] oh, one of us has to die. I guess I'll do it anyway. Can you guys get out of here so I can get back to the crazy sub room? I love that he doesn't play the moment you're used to in these movies of the grand sacrifice,

[01:36:50] the heroic sacrifice. Because he's just like, yeah, no, I'll do it. I just, feels like it makes sense. But he really just, he's Jonesing for that fucking son. The fact that I think Kaneda got to see it is the thing that finally breaks him.

[01:37:06] That's like burning his buns. Right, now the notion that someone he knows got firsthand exposure and then he sees all of the dead bodies on the observation deck. Now he's like really thinking about what 100% would look like. And then his death is so great.

[01:37:22] It's getting all burned up. But they do this ejection. There's the, I think just very satisfying dramatic irony of Troy Garrity missing. I'm sorry, you kind of are just sort of like, yeah. Oh, absolutely. And the terrifying fate of, you see they're off by like 2%.

[01:37:42] He hits a wall, his trajectory is thrown off by like 15 degrees. They can't get him, they don't even try. No, Kappa grabs Chris Evans and tosses him in. Fucking airlock. Like a sack of potatoes, yeah. And then you just see him there.

[01:37:57] He thinks I must be inside now. That's how I've always read it. Because he like pulls off the face. Right, the tape, yeah. And I just imagine it's one of those things where it's like, well, you're all bundled up. You thought this was gonna last five seconds.

[01:38:13] You have no sense of really where you are. He assumes I must be back indoors now. Right, right. And he rips his face off and then just immediately frees it. Yeah. Yeah. And does the sort of like, takes one breath. Yeah, icy eyes.

[01:38:28] Oh man, when his leg shatters and you see the like crystallized blood. Oh man. And they hold it for a while. Like you, they give you two or three shots of his body, his frozen body just floating. Knowing like he's gonna fucking hit an object and shatter.

[01:38:42] It's nasty. But they make you wait for it. And then they have like, it's almost like a cartoon a little bit of having him get to the edge of the shield and just cook up like a little tiny spot. Yes. Yeah. But I just-

[01:38:56] It's probably the most effective death in the film. Yeah. Even though all the films death scenes are quite effective. And he's the character you like the least. And he's the character you like and know the least and he's played by kind of the least important actor. Yeah.

[01:39:09] And no offense to Troy Garrity. Yeah, but this energy now, they're back in the ship, right? Chris Evans is like hypothermic. Yeah, he's got like some freezer burn, you know. Evans plays all this stuff really well. He does, he does a very good job with the physical stuff.

[01:39:24] Because McGregor, Boyle always talked about how McGregor's secret skill as an actor, at least in the Boyle movies was how good he was at playing pain. He was like, he's bizarrely good at playing physical pain on screen. Right.

[01:39:37] And you have the early setup of Evans dropping the wrench into the water cooler, the cooling. Yeah, picks it up and goes, ha! Right. And there's that incredible like camera shift where the camera shifts with his body as he flops onto the ground.

[01:39:50] And then like his hand is right there and it's icy frozen. But he just, he plays all the temperature really, really well. And now it's like, okay, they're safe. But suddenly it's like, we've lost four guys in like 12 hours. That's true.

[01:40:03] They're down to Killian, Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, that's it, right? And then the Trey question. And right, and then they have this sort of debate over Trey where it's basically implied that Chris Evans is about to go kill him and then he just finds him dead.

[01:40:17] They've lost three guys, I guess. But they've lost three guys in such quick. Yeah, it's three guys, yeah, sure. And then Trey is dead. Yeah. And so they're down to four and they're like, okay, well, you know, here we go. But there's the conversation about Trey.

[01:40:31] Yeah, I said that. There's the line I want to call out. Oh, okay. What's the line? They're all saying like, look, there's the thing we can do. We've thought he's probably gonna kill himself and we don't have to discourage him. But now it's time is of the essence.

[01:40:44] Maybe we push this along. There's a penance that needs to be paid. If he already wants to do it, we're helping him out, all this sort of shit. And then they go to Rose Byrne and she goes, I understand what you're saying. I understand the calculation,

[01:40:58] but if you're asking for my vote, I can't give it to you. Basically saying like, I'm not fighting your logic, but I do not have it within me to out loud say you should kill him. It is a thing I cannot verbalize.

[01:41:11] Which no one really ever says out loud because they don't want to. Right, and she just says, if you're asking for my vote, I cannot give it. And Evans just sort of says like, this is happening regardless.

[01:41:24] And she takes this moment and she looks at him and says, try to find a kindness in it. No, she says make it easy for him. And then she says, try to find some kindness. Oh, here it is. I found the line.

[01:41:36] You make it easy for him somehow, find a kindness. I just think that's a profound line. It is a profound line, although I gotta be honest, if I'm Chris Evans, I'd be like, what, I'm gonna give him a Kit Kat? What are you talking about?

[01:41:47] You see this ship? But like big, big sad eyed Rose Byrne, tired Rose Byrne. You want Rose Byrne to say that to you? I do. I just think that's it. When she's telling you to kill someone. The situation's got so bad. And you would do it.

[01:41:59] So for her, absolutely. Situation's gotten so bad so quickly and she's just barely trying to hold on to any sense of humanity they still have. I cannot argue logically. I'm not gonna be this bleeding heart like Kumbaya. We can do it person.

[01:42:15] I understand we're fucked, but try to find some kindness. That just hits me really hard. Yeah, well, and who are you? Tag yourself. So you're saying you're the Rose Byrne, you're Rose Byrne, tag yourself? Yeah. Or are you Pinnbacker? I'm less smart sometimes. At my worst, I'm Pinnbacker.

[01:42:33] When I'm on Twitter for too long, I'm Pinnbacker. Twitter's my son. Why am I looking at this? Stop. Yeah, you're Cliff Curtis actually. You're like 3%. Your computer's like, I don't recommend. You're like, no, no, no, no, I can do it. David, that's very kind of you to say.

[01:42:48] I think recently I've been practicing Cliff Curtis to try to make sure I don't go full Pinnbacker. 30 seconds, 30 seconds. Yeah, 30 seconds. Who are you, Ben? I think I'm Rose Byrne. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who am I? I kinda think I wanna say Corazon. That I'm just like kinda chill

[01:43:07] and I'm on my own little tip, my own little, I'm having my own moment. Just what is steady? She's down to earth. There's just disaster all around me. There's like a tinge of spirituality to her. Her death hurts, even though she's not

[01:43:20] that crucial a character at that point. The oxygen garden is gone. The point is that she's finding a little bit of life left in it, but still. Oh man, the little. The little sapling, yeah. But her death still hurts because it's Michelle Yeoh.

[01:43:37] Like her getting beamed with the, not beamed, but you know, jabbed with the scalp balls. Insane automatic scalp balls. It's so crazy. It's why casting is so important in a movie like this, where you just need to form really strong connections to people immediately.

[01:43:52] You could do that because there- But a lot of big actors would be afraid to take apart that sort of small. Because a lot of it, it gets into behavioral stuff. It's not having huge scenes to play, but you need some combination of actors

[01:44:02] who the audience has some prior relationship to, like Michelle Yeoh, where they're coming in with a built-in shorthand, and people who are just distinctive, who look distinct, who sound distinct, who act distinct, who are gonna stand out from each other. You also like, because Kaneda dies so early,

[01:44:18] she becomes the elder statesman. A little bit. She's a generation above. As much as Michelle Yeoh doesn't wanna be, yes. Of course, but I think that all works. The fact that in real life, she didn't want that part, and then her character is the one who sort of,

[01:44:29] even though Harvey will not stop reminding them that he is now the captain, you're like, everyone else is in a different age class. Right? You're saying Harvey is back on Optium? A little bit. I'm the captain now. He's smacking the table saying, I'm the captain now.

[01:44:44] No, but like, Kaneda and Yeoh are like a decade older than everyone else in the cast. At least, right? Oh, at least. I mean, Michelle Yeoh at this point would have been like sort of almost 50. Yeah. No, like 45, right? No wait, 62. It's like Evans, Burns, Evans, Burns, Murphy

[01:45:05] are all like late 20s. Cliff Curtis, Troy Garrity, 30s. Sonata and Yeoh are like the same age, practically. They were both born in the early 60s. How old's Cliff Curtis? He's one of those, he's actually closer in age to those guys. That's what I'm saying. He's younger.

[01:45:20] He just has adult face. No, but I'm saying, no, he's 68. He was born in 1968. He's closer, he's secretly older than you think he is because he's, you know, good looking. He just basically always looked the same. Yes. But yeah, he goes in to try to electric scalpel him,

[01:45:39] sees that he's already slit his wrists. And then there's that brutal move where Chris Evans takes the blood from Trey's wrists and puts them on Cillian Murphy. Yeah, which I mean, relax, mate. This is on your hands. This is where this belongs. Yeah, maybe don't do that.

[01:45:56] It's a little blunt. It's fucking English 101 over here. Yeah, also, right, it's a little cheesy. It's like we gave him blood on the scene. Yeah, but I like that he's- They're mad. The character, like, I don't think that's cheesy on the part of the movie.

[01:46:08] Mace is such an over cranked guy. If I'm Kappa, I'm like, look, I just threw your ass back into an airlock. I didn't have to do that, you know? Save, you know, come on. Some, you win some, you lose some, buddy.

[01:46:23] So now they're on their way to the sun. Everything's gonna be okay. And then you have the wonderful scare tactic to kick off the final act of the film of Kappa just chatting to the computer. Computer being like, you're all gonna die soon, FYI.

[01:46:37] And he's like, no, what do you mean? There's only four of us. No, there's a fifth one. Well, who is it? I regret to inform you, Trey has actually passed. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Sorry, computer. I just, and then where he's like,

[01:46:48] who's the fifth member of the ship? And the computer's just like, unknown. And you just see him standing there in the observation deck. It's so good. No, and I just, I already talked about it, but I love this choice of like, pinbacker cannot be filmed.

[01:47:02] Cameras cannot capture him. The film just distorts around him. You see him for just seconds at a time. It's kind of a crazy choice because- It's blown out and it gets stretched out and everything. Mark Strong is covered in makeup. They definitely like did work. Absolute full body.

[01:47:17] Right, and yet you barely ever can see him. He said he based the makeup on Nicky Lotta. Yes, who got burned up. Yes, the real Formula One racer. But yes, no, it's one of these incredible things where you're like, this must have been

[01:47:29] an unbelievable top to body, fully caked in, fucking six hours a day makeup job that they never give you a clear view of. Right. You barely see his face in this movie. You only see her a couple times. Even in the videos, it's often obscured.

[01:47:43] What I wonder too is, cause I keep thinking like, is he eating the sun? Part of me is like- You're really focused on what is his food? Sun chips, sun chips, Ben. Exactly, Ben, sun chips. Capri Sun, Capri Sun? All right, now we're starting to make more sense.

[01:47:59] Sunny D. He turns around and he's just sucking on one of those Capri Suns. He like puts the straw in really aggressively. From the bottom though, of course. I worship. Yeah, Hurt Locker style. Yeah. I feel like he's emanating radiation. Yes, definitely.

[01:48:14] Like that's part of the idea of why they're- It's literally tough to be in the same room as him. Yes. But you know what I'm saying? Where he, like Boyle chooses to basically like break the fourth wall and be like, the way I'm conveying his energy

[01:48:28] and how hard it is for them to perceive him in real time is I'm basically treating it like the cameras are not capable. Right. Yeah, right. I'm acknowledging the framework of this movie to a certain degree. I love this, now where we're gonna spend a lot

[01:48:44] of this final act of the movie too, the sort of, the bomb room, the payload room where it's almost like a Borg cube. Yes, it doesn't seem to have conventional like sort of rules of physics. Like you seems like you can kind of just like

[01:49:00] fall from one side to another side and just kind of like reorient back up. And it's not explained. It's this weird, like almost MCS- It's a big cube, yes. Yeah, it's like the box he's in at the end of Interstellar when he's trapped in like the-

[01:49:14] In the library. Yeah, in the loop. Yeah, it reminds me of that. And the other way, I mean, he's on the outside. But now, yes, now the movie takes this shift where, right. Now it's underworld music cranked up. It's a scary man with- Into broadened flesh.

[01:49:30] The screams are going, like any time like he's anywhere near and he's just like gonna kill them all. Kill him or if he's trying to save his two friends and save the bomb. He slashes Kappa, right? He like- Yes.

[01:49:41] Because Kappa is the one who finds him in the observation and he kind of slashes at him. And locks the door behind him. Right, and then it's just a lot of running around. He kills Garzon by stabbing her. Yeah.

[01:49:50] And so then it's really just Kappa, Cassie and him. Yes. Oh, because, right, because the other one is Mace has to go to the engine room. Yes. He's like lifted everything and Mace has to put everything back in.

[01:50:01] And Mace cuts his leg doing it, freezes, bleeds to death. Yes. And there's that tragic shot of his Tiva. He's wearing the sandal. Oh, sure. Soaked in blood. No? Nobody? I just love it. No, it's a great hero's death. I also just, I mean, it's like,

[01:50:18] it's the aliens thing, right? Where like you need at the beginning of the movie to show other people operating the power layer. Yeah, sure. To understand how it works. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This movie just sets up everything so well where it's just like, without feeling like foreshadowing.

[01:50:33] That's what I like. It just feels like this is all world building and then of course, of course, it's gonna come down to Chris Evans having to go put his entire body in this thing. And then just be like, do it. Yeah. Do it while he's dying. Yeah.

[01:50:48] Because there's nothing left to do. No, and the Kelly Murphy nightmare situation, trying his hardest to get through to his friends to tell him, hey, crazy sun man on board. Stabbing up a storm. I don't know what the warning is. Yeah. Like what you blast out there.

[01:51:02] Go into those motor scalpel, scalpels. Jesus, look out. Look out. Look out. Now, are you aware of the bullet that was dodged at the end of this film? I don't know, tell me. Because obviously at the end of the movie they're all on the bomb.

[01:51:16] There's that Rose Byrne rips off like some of Pimbacker's skin. That's fun. That's so sick. His like whole, right. She tries to grab onto his arm and basically the arm just goes with her. Yes, which is great. But you know, at the end of the day,

[01:51:32] Capa turns on the bomb. The bomb works. Yes. We assume. We see the sun getting brighter. He has his mind. And there's this moment where this like wall of fire approaches him. And he's smiling. Yeah. You have the earlier conversation

[01:51:45] where he wakes up in the middle of the night and they compare their dreams too. Where he talks, he's constantly having. Falling into the sun. Right, falling into the sun. Yeah. You know what would have been a good needle drop? Steal my sunshine by the land.

[01:51:56] Okay, so well that's what I'm talking about here. Oh really? Not that of course. That would have been great. That would have been good. I don't know. Does she like butter tarts? Danny Boyle initially wanted to use the song Fix You by Coldplay. Oh Jesus Christ.

[01:52:15] Over this moment. God. Now he says, he says it. Yeah. It was too cheesy. Yeah. He, you know, admits it. A Coldplay song. It was his idea and he was the one to kill it. Correct. Like putting Coldplay over this did not work.

[01:52:30] However, he does say, boy did it make me cry. Oh God. But he will admit it was too cheesy. If they had done that, this, and I don't even dislike Coldplay in the way that, I don't know. Coldplay's got some alright stuff. I don't care.

[01:52:43] But it's giving me a look. Yes. But you know at this point I had kind of gone off them. Ben thinks, they stink. Yeah. But if this movie ended with Coldplay. This is actually kind of a good album. The first two albums are pretty good.

[01:52:53] The one they did with Brian Eno was alright. And you know, who cares? Yeah. But if this ended with Coldplay, it would be a zero out of 10 F minus. Truly, the way people talk about. The last act of this film. Right, I'm like, they're insane.

[01:53:04] If Fix You was played over this, despite thinking every moment up until this point is perfect, I would think this movie was garbage. It would retroactively kill everything I liked about it. Somebody could easily on YouTube now go and just like layer Fix You over the footage.

[01:53:17] Right now our listeners are racing to Final Cut to see which one of them can upload this to Twitter or Reddit first. And maybe like Danny Boyle, you will be moved watching that. But I doubt it. I think instead you'll just want to throw

[01:53:27] your laptop in the garbage. Yeah. But that was the initial plan. Imagine. Instead we just have beautiful underworld score. Like shimmery weird score. Iconic score. This movie's lasting legacy is the score they play at this moment. I mean the main theme is the thing

[01:53:43] when Capa puts on the suit at the end and the main character is trying to make it back. Which is such a good, the seconds count down. You feeling the pressure of how hard it is to walk in that thing. How slow he's moving.

[01:53:55] The forces he's up against. What a good movie. It is a great film. And the final shot of course is the brilliant trick of they shot it in like fucking Norway or whatever. Big frozen tundra. They just put the Sydney Opera House in the background. Yes.

[01:54:12] Did you pick up on that Ben? No. When it's Capa's sister and she sees the video clip. Yeah. In the background is the Sydney Opera House. So it's supposed to be that the sun dying has made it so that Australia is frozen. It's so damn cold.

[01:54:25] Oh no I did not realize that at all. Right. I was just. It's subtle. I was just assuming it was some kind of structure buried in snow. Yeah. Okay. But. Yeah that's the state of Sydney. Yeah. But then the sun kinda goes like whoop.

[01:54:40] Not the state of, I wasn't saying, I'm saying that's the current state of Sydney. Yeah it's the state of Sydney. I don't want people correcting me. I know it's not a state, it's a city. Listen, it feels like we've talked about this

[01:54:50] being the era where Boyle takes the hard turn to sentimentality that turns a lot of people off. Sure, some talk millionaires the next year. Right, it's 20 days later to millions is when suddenly he starts being a little more open hearted after early films are so nasty

[01:55:05] and misanthropic in a lot of ways. Right? This I think is a totally earned ending and I think it's understated and I find it very emotionally impactful. I agree, it's a great ending. This is Alex Garland's real wife playing Cap's sister. Yeah, sure.

[01:55:22] I believe he's an animator and a filmmaker in her own right. That's cool. But yeah, it's just a perfect full circle. She's now receiving the video and of course his promise he made at the beginning of like it's gonna take eight minutes to come back. Right.

[01:55:34] So if we've succeeded you'll find out eight minutes later and you see the sun starting to hit again. There's a future, there's a promise. It was not in vain. It was all worth it. Masterpiece, 10 out of 10. Yeah, pretty much. I think so. David, I like Prometheus. So good.

[01:55:52] I know you love Prometheus. Love it. And I'm a Prometheus defender. Sure. I do think re-watching this movie now maybe for the first time post Prometheus I was like, oh, this is the reason I'm a little underwhelmed by Prometheus isn't because I'm negatively comparing it to Alien.

[01:56:09] It's because I think Boyle did the modern Alien. Sunshine is unbeatable. Yeah. I can't deny that. Yeah, and it's just so funny for that run of like all those other movies we're talking about Arrival, Interstellar, Gravity, Prometheus, Covenant what have you, all of which I like.

[01:56:25] I'm like, I still think this is the best. I think this is the best space movie of the 21st century. Sort of hard space movie, you know? Interstellar is the one where I would struggle with the, I don't know. I love them both.

[01:56:38] It's a movie that I obviously love as well. You don't like him, you don't like him, I don't like him. I know, they're just, yeah. But I mean, but I won't hear a thing against Sunshine except maybe they should just call it something else. Fireball!

[01:56:50] I like it being the title even if it played against it but this movie was- Hot! Such a Thomas- Just that noise. Bomb in theaters. It was a bomb certainly especially in the United States. The night this episode comes out

[01:57:06] we will be screening this movie at the Metrograph which is very cool that they were able to track down a 35 millimeter print. Cool! I feel like this movie does not get rep screenings ever. Do you think they're gonna take my note

[01:57:18] of turning up the temperature in the theater? They're gonna crank it. They're gonna make it hot. Hell yeah. Get ready to sweat if you're going to that. And you gotta wear sunglasses in the theater. Yep. But watching this movie again last night on Blu-ray

[01:57:32] and you notoriously cursed Blu-ray. Yeah, it's like broken. At least if you play it on certain devices like it insists on doing picture in picture commentary or something. The early days of Blu-ray Ben when they were trying to be

[01:57:43] like we're doing shit you could never do with DVD. One of their big selling points that very quickly got abandoned because people were like this was annoying was that you could do sort of like picture in picture window stuff instead of-

[01:57:54] Jerry Maguire has a picture in picture commentary. Rather than having- Tom Cruise is like sitting like this. Pure audio commentary basically over your movie little boxes and screens will appear with like little making of featurettes and things like that. And the sunshine Blu-ray has an error on it

[01:58:12] where it automatically does that and you can't turn it off. Yeah, that's annoying. There's a way to fix it I believe. You could like send your disc out. There was a replacement program where you could send in your disc and they would update it with the new one

[01:58:22] but they shipped out so many of the faulty discs that is basically unplayable to watch the movie in its actual just pure form. And this movie is not very popular or well known. So like the vast majority of discs that exist out there

[01:58:37] in the ether are from that first run. And even when people are like on a Reddit where like the disc is out of print now because Disney owns Fox and they haven't re-released this on Blu-ray, right? And people who are like looking to buy discs

[01:58:49] are like buyer beware if you're buying a used copy of this movie nine times out of 10 it's the one that's unplayable. It's just a weird legacy thing of this movie that already barely has a legacy that like it was kind of fucked on home video.

[01:59:04] But what was I gonna say? What is Boyle man? He in physical media. The boy in physical media. He's so cursed. And it's bizarre considering most of his films are at the one distributor that Fox has done him dirty that hard. And even before Disney buying them

[01:59:19] Fox was already doing him dirty on physical media. But watching this at home last night in my corrected updated post mail in Blu-ray I was like, I just fucking can't wait to see this in a theater again. Can't wait to see this in a big screen.

[01:59:33] I definitely haven't seen it in a theater since 2007. So few people ever got to see. And I even think still when I talk about this movie to people, they're like, when did that happen? Like this movie still doesn't have the cult

[01:59:45] you imagine it would have built by now. When you say like Danny Boyle in between 28 Days Later and Slumdog Millionaire made a space movie with this cast and it costs $40 million and it has some of like the best visual effects of its decade. It looks incredible.

[02:00:03] It does look incredible. The visual effects are perfect. There's like nothing wrong with them. Yeah, basically there's a lot of practical stuff. They were really smart about when they could actually just put a thing in front of a camera. But the other thing with this movie was

[02:00:14] they spent a year on the visual effects. The way you get this level of effect done on a $40 million budget is that you don't rush. Like there's the story I'm always fascinated by because it feels like more people should follow this lesson but Paul, A Movie You Hate.

[02:00:33] Awful movie. The Greg Mottola Alien movie where they have this main CGI character but it was done at like a $25 million budget. And I read some interview with Mottola where they were like, how did you get it done at that budget?

[02:00:45] And he was like, the answer was we shot the film. We went to a good effects house and they were like, we can do this at the budget you're asking for. It will take two years because you're gonna be our lowest priority project.

[02:00:56] And I think similarly with this movie, they shot this film in like 2005. They shot this film in 2005. It's why this movie comes out only like basically a year before Slumdog. Which seems crazy because Slumdog is like a fairly complicated movie. But yeah, they shot it long ago.

[02:01:09] It has a very long post-production process and then they sit on it even for a little while after that. With Paul, now of course in both of the circumstances we're citing, these movies came out and did poorly. And with Sunshine, it may have just been,

[02:01:22] it was a tough movie to market. It didn't have like a huge star, blah, blah, blah, blah. With Paul, I do remember the feeling of like, we were kind of like, aren't we kind of done with this? Oh, absolutely. Like genre of comedy, you know,

[02:01:34] like it just felt a little late. I agree, I'm no Paul Defender. I'm not beefing it. I'm not a beefing person. The only reason I bring this up is I do think it's interesting as there's an ongoing dialogue about like VFX crunch and how unsustainable the Marvel model

[02:01:48] and all these places that are being rushed to like change 30% of the effects six weeks before the movie comes out. And you watch a film like this that looks incredible and you're like, oh, they got it done

[02:01:57] at one fifth of the budget and they just took their time. Took their time. That's all they did. But you know what you gotta get? This looks God awful. Paul sucks. Yeah. Oh, Paul, oh, it's the worst. Paul literally been- And Greg directed- Confess Flash.

[02:02:14] Yeah, no, he's directed other good movies. There's no question. What other good movies? You know, he had just done Superbad. Adventureland. Yeah, Adventureland's good. Like exactly. Paul was the beginning of a bad run for him. Dang. Then he does Keeping Up With The Joneses.

[02:02:27] Well, in between he did Clear History on HBO, which I think is pretty fun. It's really just Paul and Keeping Up With The Joneses where it's like, your vibe is not action comedy. Like, you know, you really just should just do these kind of low key comedies, right?

[02:02:41] Can I say this thing about Paul quickly? And then we're gonna move on from Paul. It was the same, like Work and Title Hood produced the two Edgar Wright, Hot Fuzz movies, right? Yeah. Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. Yeah.

[02:02:56] And they were like, what's your third movie? And Edgar Wright was like, I'm gonna go off and do Scott Pilgrim. Right. Which took him a long time to do. Right, so Simon Pegg and Nick Frost were like, at some point Edgar Wright's gonna come back,

[02:03:06] we're gonna make the third film in our trilogy. Right. We sort of want to do a third movie together. And also probably just agents were like, guys, what do you got? You guys are hot stuff! Like, come on, let's do it.

[02:03:16] The story with Paul, I swear to God, is near a park. The producer at Work and Title was like, come on, come up with something. What's the third movie? What's the third movie for you two guys? And Simon Pegg, like as a joke,

[02:03:29] drew the dumbest thing he could think of, which was cartoon stick figures of the two of them, round almanide alien, and then he just wrote Paul and had to arrow point to it. And he's like, I don't know, it's a movie, it's the two of us, Paul.

[02:03:40] Like he was joking, like, what would be the dumbest movie poster I could come up with? And she was like, yeah, we'll green light this. Yeah. Truly the origin of that movie is him being like, oh, what if we just had an alien named Paul?

[02:03:52] Like he was creating like a fake funny people poster. Well, he should've. That he doodled. And I've seen the actual drawing, it's terrible. Sure. And she was like, I'm serious, we should make Paul. They shouldn't, she was wrong. She was incredibly wrong.

[02:04:05] And Nearpark has produced a lot of good movies. Yeah, and that's why Trump got elected. Box office. This one came out in America on July 20th, 2007. It comes out like the same weekend as Transformers. Well, it. On 10 screens. It comes out on 10 screens. It's not Transformers.

[02:04:23] It's not? Okay. I mean, Transformers is out. Look, you just said number four, which was Transformers. Okay. Oh, Transformers was 4th of July that week. They had big Willy weekend. But yeah, it comes out on 10 screens. Not sure why that was the move. Just heat of the summer,

[02:04:37] they're giving this sci-fi action film. Well, they're giving it a Fox Searchlight platform release. Right. Which is something you do in the fall. You could have released this film in September on like a thousand screens. And it probably would have done okay with no competition.

[02:04:49] Look, almost anything would have done better because what they do the next week is they beef it up to 460 screens. That doesn't go very well because that weekend it's against like, I mean, you know, like the Simpsons movie. Sure. You know. This was a big ass summer. Yeah.

[02:05:05] And then they just pretty quickly are like, forget it. And it just, you know, by three weeks later, it's in like 40 screens. What's the final total on this domestically? 3.6 million dollars. It's even higher than I thought it was. And made 32 worldwide.

[02:05:19] It made more in the UK and other places. Still lost money overall. Didn't do great. No. Number one at the box office this weekend. July 20th. Is new, it's a comedy. It's a new comedy, 2007, July. Superbad isn't until August. Superbad has not come out yet. Yeah.

[02:05:43] This is a movie star comedy. Uh-huh. I would say it's one of his worst. It's not a Will Ferrell. Nope. It's not Jim Carrey. Nope. But of that tier of guy, it's on a black, this is pre-Apatow takeover. It is. It's one of his worst.

[02:06:02] Oh, I think I know what it is. Is it a film I rewatched recently? I think it is. Is it, I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry? The gay firefighters, but they're not gay. No. Maybe it's okay to be gay. I'm not gay.

[02:06:13] It's good for other people, but not me. I did it for benefits. Yeah. Adam Sandler, Kevin James. A Dugan picture. A Dugan picture. It's opening to $34 million on its way to $119. This is when- A perfectly healthy run. Just Sandler was invincible.

[02:06:31] It didn't matter what the fuck it was. It would always make $130 million domestic basically. Correct. What happens at the end of that movie? Do they both marry like Salma Hayek or something? He marries Jessica Biel. Right, Jessica Biel. She's the lawyer, right?

[02:06:45] She's like the, you guys have a good case here. Yes, and her brother's gay, so she's an ally. Kevin James remains a sad widow. What happens? They kiss on the, no, they don't kiss. They kiss at an earlier point. They have to appeal in front of Congress

[02:06:58] and they, oh God, you know how that fucking movie ends, David? I've seen the ending and I forget. They get called out for faking it. And all their other firemen buddies who have turned on them and become really homophobic do a, I am Spartacus. I'm gay.

[02:07:14] No, I'm gay. God. And they all pretend to be gay in the courtroom so that they're basically like you would have to fire all of them. We have to stop talking about this. Terrible. I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry. Good Ving Rhames performance, that's all I'll say.

[02:07:27] Number two at the box office. Do they pronounce him though Chuck and Larry? Some of those. No, what's weird is they pronounce it Chook and Lurie. Weird. Ben didn't like that. Number two in the box office. They pronounce it Chook and Lurie. Oh, you're doubling down.

[02:07:41] Number two at the box office. Like pronounce, because they're saying I now pronounce you like man and wife. And I made it a joke about the way you pronounce words. Just cut it out. Chook and Lurie. Number two at the box office.

[02:07:51] It's a double meaning kind of thing. A major franchise film. Okay. Live Free or Die Hard. No, that is number six. Okay. So, you know, that's out there. It's the second weekend of it. It's already made $207 million. Wow. I think it's one of the better entries

[02:08:11] in this eight film franchise. Eight. Yes, it's also the first in this franchise directed by this director who becomes kind of a mainstay. Interesting, but so it's not Justin Lin. No. It's an eight film franchise. Can you tell me what number it is? Five. That give it away.

[02:08:27] This is five out of eight. And this guy stays on. Oh, it's the Potter. It's Order of the Phoenix. Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter. Order of the Phoenix. You're a phoenix. It's Order of the Phoenix, isn't it? The worst. I wish it was Order of the Phoenix.

[02:08:46] Order of the Phoenix is David Yates taking over after the quite, it's terrible. It's terrible. What you're doing is terrible. I'm not pronouncing it correctly. All right, that's better. And like, I feel like that book is this like very,

[02:09:02] like that's where JK Rowling starts to go kind of insane. And that book is like loaded with all kinds of weird axe grinding that she has about various things. Which is weird because that's what it's to be. She never like just sort of like digs a hole

[02:09:15] and refuses to get out of it. I mean, it's not, there's interesting stuff. And I feel like he seizes on that and he's like, let's make this a little more real world, a little more tactile, a little more political. And it's a beautiful looking movie. It looks incredible.

[02:09:30] I mostly like that movie a lot. Is that Felipe Russo? I don't know. I don't know, whatever. Yeah, I like that movie. Nobody else shot the sixth one. I don't remember who shot the film. Oh, maybe it was Bruno shot that one as well. Is Dobby in it?

[02:09:42] Dobby's not in that. They cut Dobby out of a lot of the films. Zlatomir Idziak, another great cinematographer shot it. They would get really like top of the line crew guys for all those movies basically. Anyway, so that movie is doing great,

[02:09:55] but it was one of those weird, they did it in the summer. Potter usually better as a winter franchise, but they dropped a few of them in the summer. That was the year where it was, no, I'm getting this wrong. This was the 2009 thing. What?

[02:10:09] Potter was supposed to come out in Thanksgiving. You're talking about 2006. Potter six, yes. Which they also dropped in the best part. And it was the cover of Entertainment Weekly as the fall movie preview. And the week the cover came out,

[02:10:20] they were like, we're pushing it to next summer. And the reason was because Dark Knight was so successful if they had released Dark Knight and Harry Potter in the same year. There was like some tax problem. It was like next year we're gonna take a loss.

[02:10:35] The drop off will be so steep if we have Harry Potter and Batman in the same year, we need to separate them. What you're hearing here is that Hollywood has always been well run. Always well run. And then my brain is broken. Why do I remember these things?

[02:10:46] Yeah, why do you remember that? Number three at the box office is a musical. It's opening, if the film is Hairspray, it's opening to $27 million, which is solid. But then it multiplies. Like a motherfucker. Yeah, it was a big hit. Great film in my opinion. I agree.

[02:11:01] I agree, the best Adam Shankman movie. And I say that as someone who is in an Adam Shankman movie. You are in an Adam Shankman movie, but Hairspray is better. Far and away, that's his best film. It is his best film. And it has universally incredible performances. Yeah.

[02:11:13] But one. But one. It's a shame, because everyone else in that movie is fucking. I think Travolta just does not work in that movie. I think it's calamitous. I mean, I get what they were thinking. Travolta's performance in that movie feels like Pinbacker.

[02:11:24] I get what they were thinking. It feels like the camera can't capture what he's doing. And obviously like they're trying to do the Broadway thing, but it just doesn't work. No, and I think. In the original movie. I think he makes this catastrophic decision of like,

[02:11:36] oh, I'm not going to do it like a drag performance. I want to try to play it like a real woman. Yeah, I'm going to try and play this like sort of sensitive lady. Right, and I think it's a. It's like you're fucking Josh Travolta.

[02:11:45] This was a John Waters thing. The makeup is terrifying. It's like, you need to go camp with that performance. And his attempt at making it a sensitive, realistic thing is a failure. But everyone else in that movie is amazing. Marston's amazing. Queen Latifah's amazing.

[02:11:59] Everyone else is Zach Efron. They all work. I found so good in that movie. Elijah Kelly Jr. is so good in that movie. Yeah, Michelle Pfeiffer. You know, even Bynes. The whole thing. In this sort of brief period where Bynes is like,

[02:12:09] kind of possibly going to be a big movie star. Yeah, that's the end of that period. Pretty much right there. That is the end. When's One of Girl Want? Before. What did a girl want? To start her own film above the title. Sorry. What? I said meth.

[02:12:24] Okay, Ben. That was mean. Number four. I take it back. Take it back. Keep it in triple. No, don't do that. No, no. Don't do that. Listen to me, Alex. Don't do that. Stop saying that because he does it.

[02:12:37] You have to stop saying it because he does it. I forgot that he actually does it. He does it. He did it the last time and he's going to do it again if we don't stop him. Number four, as you said, is Transformers, which is a huge hit.

[02:12:50] Yeah, it's kind of the breakout of the summer. It's not the highest grossing, but it's the one that... It did so well. And it was, yeah, you're right. It was somewhat of a... Is that going to work? It's an unquote original film

[02:13:01] that performs at the level of the three quotes. And people wonder why Hollywood's gone mad. Number five at the box office is a film we've covered on this podcast. Okay, 2007. It is a perfect masterpiece. It is. One of the best films of the year. It's an animated film.

[02:13:15] Oh, Ratatouille. It's Ratatouille. Now, David, question for you. The little rat opens a restaurant. He's chef. This is week three or four? It's week four of Ratatouille. What's it up to? $165 million out of 206. It's, you know, mostly done. Yeah. No, no, it was a good one.

[02:13:34] Because people were worried that was going to be their first flop. And it opened to 50 and it did over 200. It did four times its opening weekend. It did. It did very well. And it's obviously... And he's a good rat. Right. And we've put it into Fort Knox.

[02:13:46] Like, everyone has agreed that it's one of the crowning achievements of humanity. David, my question for you is, 2007, I think is thought of as like the last... It's a great year for him. Humongous movie year, right? It was the 99 of the 2000s.

[02:14:01] We maybe didn't have a year that clearly big in the 2010s. It's the year with Zodiac, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, Ratatouille, Michael Clayton. What else? Knocked Up, fucking Juno, Into the Wild, Assassination of Jesse James. What else? A lot more, you know.

[02:14:19] Much like 1999, it's a year where you have a lot of big directors all making one of their biggest films. Yeah, yeah, sure. And a lot of big kind of cultural seismic movies. Beowulf, Charlie Wilson's worth, The Bucket List. I mean, hit after hit. So we've covered a fair...

[02:14:36] Norbitz. We've covered a fair number of 2007 films, as you've said. We have. I'm just curious, because I know you have this spreadsheet fucking locked in. Where does Sunshine factor in your spreadsheet in a very competitive year? You want to know what nominations it got? Yeah. Picture.

[02:14:51] Put it in your 10. In my top 10 of this year? Yeah. Don't yell at me. No, I have. I have it fifth. Okay, no. Behind Zodiac, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, and Ratatouille. No, I think-

[02:15:02] Which are four movies I adore as much as this movie. I think it's probably five for me after some combination of Zodiac, No Country, Ratatouille, and Michael Clayton. Clayton, I have sixth. Right, I put this ahead of There Will Be Blood,

[02:15:16] but I like There Will Be Blood less than other PTAs. Milkshake. Do you know that he drinks the milkshake? He drinks it up. I drink it up! Fuck off! No, I won't! Now they're fighting? I drink your milkshake. Fuck off! That would be good if Succession season four,

[02:15:32] they're like, there's a new investor on the horizon. Daniel Plainview. I'm an oil man. Right. God, remember when that was just- We got to pivot to technology. I like oil. Streaming is the future. Well, what about oil? Yeah, my top 10 of that year is Zodiac, Blood, Men,

[02:15:50] Rat, Son, Clayton, Knocked Up, We Own the Night, Eastern Promises, and The Host, the Bong movie. Just an embarrassment of riches. An embarrassment of riches are movies I adore that are outside the top 10, such as Paprika, the Satoshi Kon movie. Jesse James, I think is great.

[02:16:06] James firmly in my 10. Juno, I love. I do too. Lost Caution, I love. Death Proof, 310 to Yuma, these are movies I really like. Just fun, yeah. Red Road, Into the Wild, Ocean's 13. Transformers is a masterpiece. The first Transformers is a masterpiece.

[02:16:21] No, I'm seeing here that I have it between National Treasure Book of Secrets and Reign Over Me, down in 48. You have it between six and seven. But this is also- It's 6.5. A year of some big swings that miss, like Spider-Man 3, My Blueberry Nights,

[02:16:37] which is the only one caught in my movie that didn't work for me ever, pretty much. The Golden Compass, God Bless You, Chris, but that movie swings and misses. Yeah, it's a weird year. It's a weird year, but it's a big year.

[02:16:50] It just feels like a good microcosm of everything that was happening in film. What other nominations do you give it? Oh, Jesus, sorry. Sunshine, well, I don't give it an acting nomination. I don't know who I would give an acting nomination from this movie

[02:17:07] because it's such an ensemble where I think everyone's functioning so well, but is there a standout you pick? I don't know. I mean, and it's a pretty loaded year. Like Rose Byrne, she's not gonna displace this five. But then you do director screenplay

[02:17:24] all the tech categories, I assume. Exactly, it's all over my texts. I mean, Jesus, you wanna see- Score. That score. That score. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the production design of this movie is incredible. The sets are very beautiful. Visual effects, cinematography, editing. No, I love this movie.

[02:17:41] But it is, as you say, a great year for movies. Yeah, I just think it's, you know, Jesse James is a movie that was a little ignored in its moment, but yet still got two Oscar nominations. And I think now has grown the reputation

[02:17:56] it deserved at the time. Sunshine is the movie of 2007 that I think is still kind of simmering below the surface. Little bit, obviously. Less caution than the other one. Those are the two films I feel like deserve to be talked about. Norbit? I should give Norbit another rewatch.

[02:18:16] I gotta say, after that Jack and Jill screening at Nighthawk, I'm like, am I wrong about every movie I've ever disliked? No, Jack and Jill is good. Jack and Jill's a masterpiece. Norbit has some funny moments, but Norbit is fundamentally lacks what Jack and Jill has,

[02:18:28] which is like the emotion of Norbit is fucking nonsense. I remember Norbit feeling a little evil too. Exactly, like, and yeah- It's Brian Robbins, there's this weird cynical core. Yeah, like Norbit himself is not a real character. No. Like, you're just like, eh, this guy sucks.

[02:18:43] Have you seen Norbit? No. Okay, fine. You want us to be done, huh? Rasputia? No, I just, I've never seen Norbit. I'm joking, Ben, I'm joking! Yeah. Ben's gotta go to the dentist. I do. Yeah. I gotta get cleaned up. I've heard of David after dentist,

[02:18:56] but Ben before dentist? The thing that I have heard of in the past- What on earth is he talking about? Is David after dentist. Now that's like an indie film or something? It was a YouTube video where the kid is, they give him-

[02:19:11] Oh yeah, the kid's like in the car and he's like, uh, right. Anesthesia, is it gonna be this forever? That's like an early viral video. Right, so the joke was that your name is David. That video's called David after dentist.

[02:19:21] Look, I mean, on paper it's a good joke, and yet, you know? This has been, in fact- Yet it's just a little sticker for the file. Look, I'm the Icarus One, I tried to drop the payload. I went insane. Oh boy! I got crispy.

[02:19:35] Yeah, you have a video where you're like, David after, it makes sense. David after dentist. It's the title of a video? One of the hosts is David? They're like, why is his face scarred? I'm gonna win the Mark Twain Prize in Humor this year.

[02:19:48] This is it, this is my moment. This is one of those episodes that we just immediately decide the second we finally commit to doing Boyle. No fucking guest. Every once in a while there's one, like fucking Miami Vice or Hulk or whatever.

[02:20:00] We're like, we have so much goddamn shit to say. Like, Ben before dentist. How dare we cede mic time to anyone else? Everyone go watch Sunshine, it's a great film. Next week on Blank Check, Slumdog Millionaire, the film he won Best Picture for.

[02:20:18] Mostly as an apology for this film. Yeah, kind of, but not even like. People love Slumdog, but to me I was like, wow, the guy made Sunshine. Yeah, no. He won his Oscar. No, I feel like when Benjamin Button gets the Best Picture nomination

[02:20:33] the same year as Slumdog, that felt like it was an apology for ignoring Zodiac. Oh, totally. Whereas Sunshine, I think people were still like, what? When did he make that? Yeah, well he sure did. I mean it didn't come out in this country practically. No, it barely did.

[02:20:47] It's, yeah, got a limited release. Ben, any final thoughts? Sun Hot. Hot. Yeah. Crispy. Yeah. You gonna keep it crispy? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Laser accuracy! Remember him? Who's that? Pete Holmes. He said laser accuracy? He used to say it all the time. I forgot that part of it.

[02:21:11] Keep it crispy, I obviously remember. He would say that every week. Do you know what Rom does? He used to say... Oh my God. I just remember at the end of the episodes of those podcasts, he'd be like, do you want to say keep it crispy?

[02:21:20] And usually they'd be like, yeah. And then someone like Jessel Nick is like, no. And then he goes, ah! Right, that would always be the moment. Where he'd be like, Liam Neeson, can you say keep it crispy? Keep it crispy. Of course you should be keeping it crispy.

[02:21:33] You would always, Pete Holmes would just cackle. Crazy cackling. Podcast baby. Podcast. I'm just gonna go on and say, the podcast is a thing of history. Yep. Three Podbros right here. God, Marie sent me a fucking New York Times article. So mad about it.

[02:21:46] The dating hazard of Podbros or something like that. What was the headline? Yeah, something like that. Something like that. Yeah, and I was just like, this is the last thing I need right now in my personal life. I don't need the New York Times. Too bad, Podbro!

[02:21:58] So I've decided to, and I did this in the text, and I just want to clearly announce it now to our listeners. I'm officially branding myself as a PodGentleman. Ah, very good. I am no Podbro. I'm a PodGentleman. Thank you, David. He doffs the cap to me,

[02:22:10] and I doff the cap right back to you. Right, gilded age over here. Tune in next week for Some Dog Millionaire. Still on. Accidental Best Picture winner. There, you made it weird. Of course, who was the last person to make it weird at the time of this recording?

[02:22:22] Joe... Rogan. No, Joe Lo... Joe LaTrujillo. Oh! Who of course played Paul physically when they shot Paul. Did he really? He did, that poor guy had to be on set pretending to be an alien. He did the Sean guy on his knees.

[02:22:36] And they were like, by the way, Seth Rogen's voice in this alien. Cause he's in the movie as the... Yeah, he gets to, you know. You know what? I'm sorry folks, I'm getting breaking news here. Tune in next week for Paul? Nope. Nope. Paul episode? Nope. Paul cast?

[02:22:51] Nope. Should we have Pete on the show? Yeah. I would happily have Pete. I used to really love him. I mean, is it gonna make it too weird? No! I can't have it weird! Is it gonna make it too weird? I won't. This is an aggressively normal show.

[02:23:05] Thank you all for listening to us talk about sunshine in an episode we've been waiting eight years to do. And it worked. Yeah. We saved the sun. Thank you to Marie Barty for... I was not in that episode! That's how it's gonna end the episode! God damn it!

[02:23:23] All right, well do it again. No, I'm not gonna do it again. Thank you to Marie Barty for her social media and helping to produce this show. Thank you to Alex Barron and AJ McKeon for our editing and playing things three times in a row.

[02:23:34] Playing things three times in a row. Playing things three times in a row. Playing things three times in a row. Thank you to Joe Bone and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. Thank you to Lane Montgomery and the Great American Elle for our theme song.

[02:23:47] JJ Birch for our research. You can go to BlankCheckPod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon Blank Check special features where you do franchise commentaries. Right now we're still in the Men in Black? Probably, I don't know.

[02:24:01] Men in Black International, I think coming up next. Yeah, Men in Black 3 coming up next. But a reminder that every 10 days we unlock another episode from 2020 on our Patreon. Free to anyone, patreon.com slash blankcheck. All right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, sure, sure.

[02:24:16] All right, come on, we're done. Toy Story commentary is coming up. Sure, great. Yeah, tune in next week for Slumdog Millionaire. And as always. I was lying on the grass of Sunday morning of last week. I know! It's not for me! Still my sunshine.