Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance with David Ehrlich

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check I know you're a good podcast, but you know why I have to kill you.

[00:00:26] I mean, I mean, there you go. Yeah. Not a lot of options. No. I mean, I know you guys are coming off a Buster Keaton series, but I think that notwithstanding, this is about as limited as it gets.

[00:00:35] There's a saying, is a boiled podcast afraid of boiling water? Yeah. It is a famous saying. Sure. Trying to see if there's a... Revenge Was Never This Sweet was the US tagline, which I think is not a good tagline. Yeah.

[00:00:51] Like, I don't think that's, that's the vibe of the movie. Slightly mischaracterizes what happens in the film. It's not like he's like, ah, this is sweet when it's happening. Yeah. Licking his lips. I waited, but it's worth the wait. Hmm. It's definitely satisfying my emotions.

[00:01:09] Revenge is a dish best served with disposable ice cream cake. Revenge Was Never This Sweet, that's the tagline for Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and it's a limited American release. Quietly might be one of the best titles we've ever covered. It's a very cool title.

[00:01:24] In Korean, it's just called Vengeance Is Mine. Oh, interesting. Right. So it's a less exciting title. Yeah. There have been other notable films with that title. Yes.

[00:01:36] And I would have loved to have been in the meeting that I assume was happening with the, at the offices of like Tartan Asia Extreme. We're talking a lot of Tartan. There's been some Tartan. Yeah. It's a pretty Scottish miniseries. Someone came in.

[00:01:49] Someone came in with a full ass kilt and was like, I've got, I can't, oh my God. I almost lost you. You actually were. Extreme. Were better than that, for example. My Scottish is very bad. You thought you were done after you and Hector Boyle.

[00:02:04] I know, I thought I'd never have to do a Ewan McGregor impression of it. The Scrooge McDuck of Tartan came in about to dive into his pile of Asian extreme money and was like, I've got it. And Park Jae-Wook, he liked the title well enough. Yeah.

[00:02:15] No, it's a good. But what a weird choice. It's a good ass title. But I do think, I do think it applies. Like, I'm a cyborg, but that's okay. I just think perfect title. Should have been in parentheses. I would have put parentheses around, but that's okay.

[00:02:28] There are a lot of, look, they made a lot of choices. That title gives you a lot of options in terms of what are you capitalizing? What aren't you? What's the punctuation? But, but I watched this movie and I'm like, this is kind of describing the dynamic here.

[00:02:42] I do weirdly have sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. I mean, I think what's most appropriate about it is the sort of like cockeyed sense of humor that overlays to everything. I mean, that sardonic black humor is appropriate.

[00:02:53] You do feel kind of bad for the people in this movie, even as they're all doing bad things. Yes, I felt bad for them. I didn't think they were having a good time. Sympathy is the right word. You do have sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Mr. Vengeance.

[00:03:05] Yes, it's sort of like a title that gets passed. Sort of. Well, not really. One guy's mostly wearing the Mr. Vengeance hat, I guess. But there's a little bit of vengeance from the other guy. People wear the hat.

[00:03:15] There are portions of the movie where I'd say there are Mr.'s vengeance and they would have to share the sash. Anyone can wear the hat. And then, of course, someone asked, is there a Mrs. Vengeance? Is he going to do Enter the Vengeance Verse ever?

[00:03:27] Anyone can wear the hat. All the vengeful characters in art assemble. His three… Count of Monte Cristo fucking rides in at the end into the lake. Right. It's like his three protagonists but then also Count of Monte Crisco. Count of Monte Crisco.

[00:03:47] I'm adding him to the list along with Monte Cristo. A con. What about a Monte Cristo sandwich? Does that count? That's what I was saying. The Count of Monte Cristo is… Is just a sandwich? Yeah.

[00:04:01] Like if you did a Monte Cristo verse, you could have Guy Pearce and Jim Caviezel. Yeah. But you could also have like the sandwich. It would all be public domain including the sandwich which is… Is that one of those public… Yeah. I think it's all the more reason.

[00:04:12] The sandwich wants vengeance for being eaten. Let's get a good start to this episode. We've started it. I don't know what you're talking about. This is what Mark Chamberlain would have wanted us to be talking about. Are you saying good start? It's a good start. Okay.

[00:04:24] What about Enigio Montoya? Yeah. I'm prepared to die. He could be in the gang. Ben, did you Google characters who need vengeance? No. I wrote my name and you killed my father because I couldn't remember his name. Right. But you remembered the line. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:39] That would be good. Vengeance verse could go very deep. Yeah. The bride. Sure. She's out for vengeance. Yes. Was there ever a comic book character like called vengeance? Oh, well, you know… There was the BJ Novak movie Vengeance. That one's actually out.

[00:04:54] I actually checked and that one's not allowed. BJ Novak knocking at the door of the Vengeance movie. He might be the supervillain. He might be the Thanos. I'm going to record five podcasts. You know Pattinson Batman. He's going around calling himself Vengeance for the whole movie.

[00:05:08] Should have called himself Mr. Vengeance. Until that other guy's like, I'm Vengeance. And Batman's like, hmm, maybe Batman instead. Rings better. Yeah. Wait, there must be a character. I checked and I couldn't find one. There has to be. Marvel 90s three issue character.

[00:05:25] I mean do the Avengers count? Ghost Rider is the spirit of Vengeance. Oh, sure. I think you can put him in there. What about Metal Gear Solid Revengeance or whatever the fuck that game's called? No, I don't think so. No, not Raiden. I think we're actually hitting fire.

[00:05:42] The kids from Big Fat Liar. Yeah, they did it. So it's what Bynes and Munez? Both doing perfect. Right now good. Yes. So the deal with Bynes is she's suffered in public greatly and she's dealing with that.

[00:05:59] Munez, I read some interview where he's like, I have no memory of my life as a child star. He's a race car driver now mostly. He's like a pregnant, like post pregnancy where your brain kind of just like papers over and he's like, it's all gone.

[00:06:10] He says he had a series of strokes and I don't remember anything about coming out in the middle. Doesn't he tweet about like dreaming of murder? Sounds like a perfect addition to the Vengeance. Is he in the fucking precog tank? Murder, like that's him?

[00:06:23] He might be the lead of our movie. It might be time for a comeback. Munez? Getting revenge on the Hollywood that's burned him. You're going to keep him on the bench. You're going to keep him, he's part of the Vengeance. You're a real gatekeeper to the Vengeance society.

[00:06:34] It's just anytime there's a sort of a small little white guy, I assume you don't want to get in the Munez, Novak. Hey, wait a second. What about your podcasting partner? Have you ever played a character in a movie that sought vengeance? Great question. No.

[00:06:53] Horny Rob sought vengeance on his virginity. He had to get one over on his virginity. Of course we speak of Horny Rob Becker. Yes, who comes up a lot. Yes, he's come up a lot recently. I don't think I have. Gavin in Search Party?

[00:07:08] I wouldn't say it was Vengeance. Arthur's looking for vengeance because his dad died. He's trying to solve the mystery of his father's death. He's looking for closure. He's also trying to get revenge on the terror.

[00:07:19] Yes, I have to confess that throwing Becker onto the Horny Rob moniker did not clarify for me what you're talking about. Maybe he was going to make it part of the Beckerverse. Oh, we could do a Beckerverse. So Get Dancing Back. And all those guys.

[00:07:34] But also all the other Becker guys. Who else is in it? Alex Dessert. Is that his name? You're saying the whole cast of... Yeah, Terry Farrell. Shawnee Smith. Of course. You ever watch Becker?

[00:07:47] I'm just blown away by how many cast members of Becker both of you can name. Jorge Garcia did a season. The guy who played... You remember the Curb Revenge coffee shop? Oh, Mocha Joe. So Larry David's part of the Vengeanceverse. But Mocha Joe, he was in Becker.

[00:08:05] What's that guy's name? Mocha Joe. Mocha Joseph. Saverio Guerra. That's his name. Horny Rob Becker. Oh, and Nancy Travis, obviously. Horny Rob Becker, part of Beware the Gonzo, a motion picture in which I play the horny... Zero listeners for this episode. How can you tell already?

[00:08:27] I have a vision to the future. Wow. You're a precog in this one. Zero. It weirdly might have been our star 80s. Worst precog ever. I can tell you, future podcast listenership. You're in a different pool. It's like the murder pool. It's kind of like Piss Yellow.

[00:08:47] It's a really bad pool. It just predicts podcast ratings. We really can't find a better use for it. I don't know. He's a mutant. He can't live in society. He has to live here. We weirdly went on an extended Becker tangent in our star 80 episode with Julie Klausner.

[00:09:04] That was my main take away from the star 80 episode. Yes. And then I was like, fuck, I should watch Becker. And Becker's on something. Maybe on Tubi or something. There's not a Pluto TV Becker channel? A crackle. It's on something.

[00:09:19] It's on one of the less shiny streaming services. But I started watching Becker because I was like, maybe I'm gonna fucking... It's on Pluto. There we go. Becker's good. I know you're about to say something, but I stick up for Becker. Is there a Becker channel? There's not.

[00:09:34] Just Becker on demand. I'm not a BOD. But I put on episode one of Becker. I know the whole thing is that he's a grump. He's from 1998 and of course he's a grump. But I was like texting Marie and Ben and David. 9-11 hadn't even happened yet.

[00:09:47] Becker's a firmly pre-9-11 show. But I was texting Ben, Marie and David and I was like, I'm doing it. I'm starting Becker. Cold open of Becker as Becker walks into the diner and he's like, what's up with these fucking gay people? Are you serious?

[00:10:00] He doesn't say fucking obviously. He's grumpy about everyone. He's basically isn't a joke. He just comes in and he's like, gay people are uncomfortable. Huh? It was very harsh language. I'm starting to understand why Becker has not been rebooted on Peacocker. Yeah.

[00:10:16] I mean, look, I just think of Becker as just this interesting little way station between dance and like biggest hits. But I watch Becker every week. But also lasted like six seasons. Six seasons.

[00:10:27] This is the other thing I was texting you guys about was they kept on being like the show is a failure. But we're going to try to give it another year to retool it a little bit. And that failure year, it was getting like 20 million viewers. Oh, totally.

[00:10:38] Right. And its final season, they were like, this thing is just like bleeding out. We have to put it out of its misery. 17 million viewers.

[00:10:45] So there was a time when you could just like turn to the person next to you on the subway and be like, hey, what do you feel about last night's Becker? And reasonably expect them to have an informed opinion. Someone in your subway car has watched Becker.

[00:10:54] Well, but Becker wasn't one of those shows where you're like, what a great Becker that week. It was more just sort of like, oh, I'm going to watch Becker. It was more just sort of like Becker continued to be a grump. Correct.

[00:11:01] He was a community doctor in the Bronx who was always like, I'll tell you what your problem is. Stop eating burgers. Right. And the guy would be like, all right, Becker. Can I share my thoughts on the homosexual community?

[00:11:11] Then he would go to the diner where there was only Alex Dessert. Sure. Is that his name? Alex Dessert? Yes. Who now plays Dr. Hibbert on Simpsons. Oh, does he? Yes. Did the Hibbert actor die? No, the Hibbert actor is Harry Shearer.

[00:11:25] I saw that also Carl is now voiced by a black actor. Yes. They've finally... Maybe he plays both? He might. I could see that. But yes, no, they've decided that... Yes, he's also doing Carl. Yes. White actors are only allowed to play yellow characters on The Simpsons now.

[00:11:40] He's also playing Lou, the black police officer. Oh, wow. So he's... Okay, I think they added one at a time. They've been sort of piecemealing those characters. I was reading Jesse David Fox's piece today about how The Simpsons is good again. Yes.

[00:11:53] And he mentioned that there's this episode where Carl goes to the black neighborhood in Springfield, which we've never seen before. And they mention it in a side, and Carl's also voiced by a black actor now. I was like, right, right, right. I think Apu is just benched.

[00:12:03] Is Apu just not in it? I think Apu's just not in it. He's the one that they just don't even use anymore. Right. And everyone else they've started easing back in. Does Apu need revenge? Yeah, he hasn't appeared since season 29. To the vengeance first. Oh, yeah. Apu's back.

[00:12:21] Yeah. I think Apu's just not in it. Becker. Patty Winston, that's the other actor I didn't mention. Do you know what this is? She was always telling Becker, you know, what for. Giving him what for, yeah. Because she was the only one who could talk back to Becker.

[00:12:37] Actually, everyone talks back to Becker. Yeah. He just lights a cigarette and says, like, God is dead. And CBS is like, up next! Fucking more of this shit. Why can't we get 50 million people to watch this thing? It was a hit! This is what I'm saying!

[00:12:53] Bring back sitcoms where the opening credits are an out of focus shot of a New York City street and the theme song is just a saxophone going like... Or just someone going like... That means that more people watched a down season of Becker than watched the Oscars.

[00:13:05] Right, like the NBA Finals now. Correct. The lowest rated episode of Becker in live viewing did more than every episode of Succession combined. The episode where Becker stubs his toe and he's just complaining at the office. Goddamn women with their periods! I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

[00:13:23] I'm so sorry. Yeah, I mean, you're like two kids or whatever. Meanwhile, Les Moonves is like pounding his fist on a desk and goes, how do I explain this to people? The colossal failure of Becker. I go to my country club and people avert my gaze. Embarrassing.

[00:13:37] Anyway, this is a blank back, a podcast about Becker. Exclusively about Becker. Don't give Lights, Camera, Jackson any ideas. No. I'm gonna start shopping. iHeartRadio, I've got a show for you. David watches Becker. Becker is definitely too... old boy. It's like this is the most transgressive. Right.

[00:13:56] Well there was that episode where Becker unknowingly had sex with his daughter which you know I think is a parallel. Gouges his eyes out. Yeah. Yeah. Spoilers for next week's episode. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

[00:14:09] I'm David. So fast. But what's your last name? Simms. Come back to that in a second. 129 episodes of Becker. The whole thing with it was that Nancy Travis came in and sees at the end of season four because they fired Terry Farrell. Oh.

[00:14:27] A.K.A. Dax from Deep Space Nine. Yes. And because they were like your characters too mean Becker's already mean we're going to bring in Nancy Travis and the deal is she's nice. Right. And that's like the new dynamic. The minute they did that the show tanks.

[00:14:39] I got to say something to you that I've never said to another human being and hope to never have to. You know too much about Becker. Well you know what that's actually been said to me before and also about many other things that I know about.

[00:14:52] This feels like a great moment to announce our first ever official Blank Check spin off. Every episode. I just said I'm shopping that. Two and a half years. You could do it. Come on. Is the theme song to Becker just It's Your Thing? Kind of.

[00:15:16] He's so mean. You know this guy's mean. He hates it all. I like the idea that once a year we do an extended Becker tangent. It's the last dancing without gray hair. Correct. After Becker he's on damages with gray hair and everyone was like who's this

[00:15:32] fucking senator? Like wait how do I suck this guy's dick? This is the coolest guy on the planet. The hair color was also unnatural in Becker. He's dying his hair because he thinks people can't handle the gray hair. He was always a partial tooth guy.

[00:15:46] I mean obviously his cheers hair is iconic in its own way. But partial tooth. He of course takes it off in a late season episode. No no man could have that hair. No absolutely not. Somehow. And I've got decent head hair. Yes. No absolutely not.

[00:15:59] But then but then yes on Becker he's like dying it orange. That thing where people are trying to counteract the gray so much that they pick a color that doesn't exist in nature. Yes. Where he's like Hershey chocolate brown.

[00:16:11] The 90s hair dye was always a little you know. It's the two things basically after that he lets the hair go white. He puts on a pair of glasses. Puts on those glasses. That was his last pre-glasses performance.

[00:16:23] I think he has really bad eyesight and was always a contacts guy. Damage was one of those shows where it was like Glenn Close Rose Byrne and then seven with this right. Everyone else was some special guest.

[00:16:32] John Goodman Martin Short Ted did all these people were on this season and Zelko Ivenek is the one who wins. Oh he was good. Sure. Listen this is a podcast. Do you know there's another show that I've never even thought about this show. I did.

[00:16:47] We're just talking back. It's costing me money. Every second you talk about Becker. I'm getting more pay. Yeah but we probably pay below babysitter rates. Ain't cheap. Yeah. Look it's a podcast about filmographies directors who have massive success early on in their careers.

[00:17:02] They're given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want and sometimes those checks clear. Sometimes they bounce baby. Although you've never profiled the filmmaker who has failed and sunk lower before their

[00:17:15] check cleared than Park Chan-wook who of course I'm talking about becoming a film critic for the second time. It's embarrassing. Yeah it's embarrassing. There is you know there's a good little canon of film critic to director but we you're right this is the first one we've covered.

[00:17:31] We haven't done Traitor. But he also is one of those few who went from being a film critic to a director. Yeah. Back to being a film critic. That is the embarrassing part. Because his films bomb so hard. Yes. Yes. I mean that is low.

[00:17:43] That is really it's really hard to pick yourself off the mat after that kind of denigration. It's like human worm film critic. And then JSA just sort of dropped into his lap.

[00:17:54] And I'm sure you guys have talked about by now and he was like I'm back on top. Look I'm assuming you've talked about it. On top for the first time. That episode is the most touch and go episode in blank check history right now.

[00:18:01] We've had a hard time with that one. I've had some good recommendations. If that episode hasn't come out yet something's gone horribly right. Yeah that's true. If we're starting to release these out of order. That would be the first time we're just sort of like

[00:18:14] this one will come eventually guys sorry. No it's not gonna happen. We had a really good guest booked. Yeah. And he's unavailable for very legitimate reasons and we're scrambling. Yeah. It'd be easier if it was fucking you know a Becker episode.

[00:18:27] Then people would be banging down the door. They are. We're getting unsolicited letters being like can I please do. God there was like a half second. 208. Ransom. Is that why people were protesting out front? Absolutely. That science is a do Becker. Do Becker. Everyone wearing brown toupees.

[00:18:44] I'm just mourning that the half second window I had to make a great Kim Jong-un joke is him being the guest of your JSA episode. It closed very quickly. We're long past it but I just wanted to mark the occasion. But you're not just. It's not a joke.

[00:18:56] Oh yeah. We had him booked and he bailed. Oh yeah you're trying to bring it back around. I appreciate that. I mean Becker is now in the intellectual dark web. That's the only problem. So he is mixing with a bad crowd.

[00:19:06] Becker would be like fucking the guy who cries all the time. Jordan Peterson. Oh that guy. Right. No he's not that bad. Come on. Could Jordan Peterson have this as a theme song? The Bronx. He's a doctor but he's not happy. He's always walking around.

[00:19:33] But surely he must be nice to his patients David. No. Is he nice to the one guy who serves him food? No. Park Chan-wook is going to listen to this episode one day because someone's going to be like this show at Blank Check. Very popular.

[00:19:46] They paid you this great honor. Their fans voted for you. This is going to pop on the Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance episode because that's where he really feels his career began. And he's going to be like what the fuck is this? I love Becker.

[00:19:57] This is a problem sometimes as people dip in to one episode never having heard our show before and it's like why are they being this disrespectful of this filmmaker talking about bullshit for 20 minutes and we're like we're equal opportunity. Yeah we'll do that with everybody. Right. Of course.

[00:20:13] Much like Becker was an equal opportunity offense. He was an asshole to everybody. This is a miniseries on the films of Park Chan-wook. We haven't even said that. It's called I'm a Podcast but That's Okay.

[00:20:23] And we're rolling with the Western pronunciation because it would cause an international incident if we tried to say Park Chan-wook. Yeah. Park Chan-wook is a great example of why we're not doing this. Exactly. That's why we're not doing it.

[00:20:35] And we are here to talk about his fourth film. This is the thing. Our public voted for Sympathy for Mr. Podcast. They did but they didn't get it. But that is the movie we're talking about today and our guest today is a different David

[00:20:47] which is why I made you say your last name. Of course. From IndieWire from the Village episode. He's still there. From the Indiana Jones and the Crystal Spill episode. You must really be feeling vindicated right about now.

[00:20:59] You know I was going to save this for the end of the show. Wait, we're vindicated about what? About talking about how Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a very, very interesting movie. Oh sure.

[00:21:11] The fact that the consensus on Dial of Destiny has basically been like maybe they should have stopped it for. At the time we're recording this I saw the film in Cannes. I haven't seen it yet either.

[00:21:21] By the time this episode comes out there will be a wider reaction to it. It'll be out. I think we've got a reverse Crystal Skull happening here because Crystal Skull premiered to like relatively warm reviews out of Cannes and then when the fans got a hold of it,

[00:21:33] it was it was absolutely desecrated. It may actually play better. Yes. Dial of Destiny will play better to people who want the fucking Force Awakens treatment given to every franchise movie. That was your review basically.

[00:21:49] It was just like it is competently made and I dislike that this is what we're doing with movies now. Before we move off the topic, something I was going to say at the very end of this

[00:21:57] episode using this opportunity because I did just have this rather eye opening experience at Cannes as the world premiere humblebrag of this fucking awful movie that I then had to stay up all night writing about. You were turning the dial. I was.

[00:22:13] I wish I could have turned that dial. Let me tell you. And before the movie began they showed a very, some would say overlong career tribute to Harrison Ford. Right. He gave a speech. A very, very moved. It was entirely just Morning Glory. Right.

[00:22:30] Just the scene where he does the eggs. The first 30 minutes of Morning Glory. No, no, no. It was the omelet and he says fluffy. And yeah, a very moved Harrison Ford comes to the stage and gives, you know, a

[00:22:41] characteristically brief and terse speech, but all the more powerful because you could tell how raw the emotion was. And he said something that I found very obvious but affecting. But he was like, this, you know, you have been such a big part of a part of my life.

[00:22:52] Nodding to Calista Flockhart in the audience talking about the richness of his existence beyond just being an actor. A really enduring relationship. How long have they been together? A hot minute. But he, you know, he was, it was very humanizing.

[00:23:06] He was very much like, this is just something I do. It's something I love and I love the response that I get. Sure. And I, as someone who listeners to this podcast may remember, is famously sort of not

[00:23:15] a, I don't feel a deep personal connection to Harrison Ford. You're a huge Ford guy. I believe your quote was. Well, we're going to get there. Okay. So I, I was very moved by this and that feeling evaporated, you know, over the first

[00:23:28] half an hour of the film that followed. Sure. But yeah, so I, something that has haunted me on and off for like eight years now, whenever I was first on this podcast was. I think it was your first episode, right? We recorded The Village. Yeah. And I.

[00:23:44] I think it was a half an hour. Yeah. And I think that episode. My question was, was it that or was it on the Crystal Skull episode? No, I think it was The Village because, and the reason I know is because what had

[00:23:56] happened and we don't have to get too heavy about it was that it was a six weeks after my dad died and all these celebrities were dying and it was like David Bowie had just died. Sure. Like someone else died in the same span.

[00:24:09] I think Abhis Kaurstami died that day. I think that's what spurred the conversation. I think that's what spurred the film festival when it happened. Some filmmaker died that day and you were talking about how impactful that was

[00:24:18] on you and saying, and I'm not someone who usually gives a fuck on celebrities. Sure. Abhis Kaurstami died on July 4th. Yeah. Landed free. And I made a sort of offhanded comment about how I wouldn't be sad when Harrison Ford died.

[00:24:30] It was partially me just fishing for an example. You were being a stinker. You basically said, I will feel nothing when he dies. Yes. And I challenged you right away, I believe. Where I was coming from.

[00:24:40] I was like, I think you and Harrison Ford are kind of two competing Beckers. Two people putting up steely fronts. Oh, this is the perfect music for me talking about my dead dad. Keep going. Sorry.

[00:24:51] This is what Becker would be hearing when he was talking about his grief. But I was coming from the space where I was kind of like defensive and all of these like public and performative protestations were happening around these dead people. Are you apologizing for a blank check?

[00:25:05] I am, goddammit. Have we gotten big enough that we have to do this now? No, because what's going to happen is Harrison Ford will die one day. Maybe he's the first to not do it.

[00:25:12] One of those fucking weirdos, you know, god love him, who listens to this show is going to come for me with a knife out. Sure, sure. You have to get ahead of this. You will feel bad.

[00:25:21] I will feel bad because not only will I feel bad just because, you know, it was an offhand and irreverent remark to say when I was really just trying to process the fact that, you know, the collective mourning felt very divorced from where I

[00:25:29] was emotionally at the time. Right. But I had now developed something of a newfound appreciation for Harrison Ford of all people. Well, he's also had a whole thing in his 70s. Like he's been kind of, you know, he took 10, 15 years off as an A-list guy. He did.

[00:25:44] And then this whole like revival, obviously mostly centered around all his legacy projects or whatever, but like just a lot of Harrison Ford. Just more of him. Yeah. And also like Doobie Haunt. Oh my god.

[00:25:56] You guys will all know this by the time this episode comes out, but he has a shirtless scene in The Dial of Destiny. He's 80 years old. He looks better than I ever will or ever have. He's fixing Rick Dalton's roof and he like, takes his shirt off.

[00:26:07] It is, it is, it was deeply hurtful to see how fucking hot he still is. He once heard the call of the wild. He did. We can't forget that. He picked up the phone. Ring ring! Hello? The wild!

[00:26:24] Regrettably, I think one of the, one of the big flaws of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, no Harrison Ford. No Harrison Ford. Hmm. Where would he fit in? I don't really see a Harrison Ford part. I think he's made a vengeance movie. I'm coming to get you.

[00:26:39] I mean, Air Force One becomes a vengeance movie. Get off my plane! The Fugitive! Yeah, yeah, well, yeah. But that's more him trying to clear his name than get revenge. Although I guess he wants to find the one armed man.

[00:26:50] Yeah, but he's not, it's not really, it's, he's clearing his name in The Fugitive. I didn't kill my wife. Presumed innocent. You know, he's vengeance against the idea, vengeance, that's not a word. Sure. He's trying to clear his name out of his guilt.

[00:27:05] Right, I guess there's that thing of him just trying. He's played some aggrieved guys. Yeah. Generally seems like a pretty aggrieved guy. Yeah. But when it came to 19, the Widowmaker, he hated that sub. You saying that he was crying during the tribute and the standing ovation and everything.

[00:27:20] Right, and I called him a big baby. I was trying to remember. I booed from the stands. I was trying to remember what movie it is. I think it's Oz the Great and Powerful where when Mila Kunis cries, it burns her cheeks. Yes, that's right.

[00:27:33] I imagine Harrison Ford cries so infrequently that when it happens, it creates new lines in his face. His skin is like, what is this moisture? Are you swimming?

[00:27:43] It was just a very clear indication of how much he gives a shit, which is something that under his sort of gruff demeanor can be lost. I think I've said this before, but his Inside the Actor Studio is amazing.

[00:27:54] And James Lipton kind of prods him on like, you care a lot more than people think you do. Right. And he just kind of like grits his teeth and nods. Catechize as God made her. Sorry, James Lipton.

[00:28:04] Anyway, and here's a great new photo that I assume you guys have all seen. Nude? No, new. Oh, him on the set of Times of America. Marvel dropped a picture today of him and Anthony Mackie having an exchange of ideas. It's not called New World Order anymore.

[00:28:20] What's it called? It's called Brave New World. Is it really? Never been the title of anything before? I bet you they were like, New World Order is a little too QAnon-y. We need to change it. I bet you that's what happened. I think so.

[00:28:31] David, is he eating something in the picture? Is that a fork in his hand? No. Why? What are you saying? I don't know. I just was wondering if he was chomping down on something. He and Mackie are just like shooting the shit.

[00:28:45] Mackie's just got a Captain America shield on his back. Eating the scenery. That's all they're doing. And he will do it. They're fucking chewing up their lines. Erlich, we should start talking about the subject at hand about Park Chamberwick and his revenge.

[00:29:00] But I do just while we're on the subject of Harrison Ford, before we close this book, I do want to say, I don't know if you've noticed yet, but since the last time you've been here,

[00:29:09] since the last time I'd imagine you've seen him, Ben now has something in common with late stage Harrison Ford. Abs? Yeah, right. No. What if he got yoked, Ben? I've been thinking about it. I'm going to give you a little hint on that. A small plea.

[00:29:31] You know, the older you get, the harder that is to do. So maybe maybe shorten that time. The way that's a Stuart Wellington. The plan I've devised is the only way that that could happen is someone I'd need to be walking down the street. Right.

[00:29:43] A van pulls up, throws a sheet over my head, pulls me into the van, holds me captive in a basement for three days. And is now putting, like counting this on his fingers. Uh huh.

[00:29:52] And then once I've lost all hope from escaping, they then forced me to exercise for the next two to three months. Oh, I'm saying they need to break your spirit before you begin exercising. I agree. I can't start. I need to be just like totally broken down. Yeah.

[00:30:08] And then I'll get yoked. Yeah. I don't do CrossFit. I do Abu Kray. Um, Ehrlich. There is something. Ben Hosley. What do you think Mr. Hosley has in common with Mr. Ford? He's got a earring. Oh, an earring. He got the Harrison Ford.

[00:30:29] This room is not well lit. It's actually kind of hard to see. It is very hard to see from here. But the issue is that you would need. So now this is another change that's happened in the six months since I've been here.

[00:30:39] Now there are illustrations of all the host faces on their desks. Yeah. And they're rather large and distracting. And Ben's needs an earring. And their mouths move without them. Oh, you're right. What if we send. No, we just get a thumbtack and. Joe Bowen made these for us.

[00:30:57] The great Joe Bowen also got into woodworking and made them. We have them hanging in the hooks so you know whose desk it is. But yes, Ben's does need an earring now. Um, but yeah. Weeks before turning 38 years old, I got my ears pierced for the first time.

[00:31:09] Hell yeah. And Ben is calling it? No. What are you calling this era? Oh, it's um, it's my bad boy era 2.0. I'm coming back around to being a bad boy. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Yes. Uh, 2003 film from, uh, 2002. Sorry. Film from Park Chomuk.

[00:31:29] It is released in the United States. Follow up 2005. Barely released. I'm still just thinking about what the other incarnations of Ben's bad boy 2.0. No, no, no, no. We're not doing tangents anymore. Uh, Griff, it got a minuscule release in the US in 2005. And yes, I do think.

[00:31:45] After Old Boy, right? Around. Yeah. And it was clearly just to kind of like, you're like that guy. Because I remember being like. You think this is fucked up? I remember. Peter Griffin was running Tardane Extreme at the time. Makes as much sense as anyone else.

[00:32:02] You think that's bad? Remember the time I kidnapped my old boss's daughter? I'm losing that accent fast. Um, uh, no, I remember it coming out very shortly after and being like, already this guy's fucking churning him out. It's an old one. But of course Old Boy had been,

[00:32:18] I think it took three years to get released in the States. Uh, two, two years to get released in the States. This took three years. This took three. Right. And then Lady Vengeance. Of course, the follow up to Old Boy, which came out in Korea in 2005.

[00:32:32] Is actually shot around this time when these movies are coming out. That premiered at the US, at the New York Film Festival in 2005. So it was a Park Chan-wook year. That's the thing, right? All three.

[00:32:44] I always forget that Old Boy's the middle one because the release in the States was so bizarre. I'm a big dumb dumb. I'm a big dumb dumb. That's fair. That is fair. Um, David, what is your, um, uh, relationship to Mr.

[00:32:58] Director Park and his films, especially the Vengeance trilogy? This one of which you selected as your film. I sure did. This, this could be, I mean, we might have to have a little story time corner here. It's going to be, it's going to be a story.

[00:33:12] I promise it's a long walk worth taking because there is no other filmmaker about which I have this, this kind of story that I can tell. But, uh, I mean, the symphony for Mr. Director Park, uh, it starts with, uh, our nation's finest film critic pre Ben Hosley.

[00:33:22] And of course I'm talking about Harold Knowles. Uh, and, and you know, is, uh, I am someone who has sort of a rule. I do not like to speak ill of other film critics in public. Love to do it privately, but in public, I, you know,

[00:33:32] I just feel like one, I've been on the other end of that way too often to, uh, we all work in a marginal field. No, uh, yeah. Universally beloved. Uh, we were all working in marginal field. None of us are fucking. Yeah.

[00:33:46] What do you want to say about Harry Knight? I'm not a big fan of Harry Knowles. Anyway, uh, don't like him. Yeah. But the one and truly maybe the only one good thing that he ever sort of meaningfully contributed to my

[00:33:58] life was, uh, an article he wrote that I think brought a lot of, you know, white teenagers in around 2002 to the table, which was his top 10 list of the year. Yes. Uh, the number one pick on that was sympathy for Mr.

[00:34:08] Vengeance, a movie that he was very well aware. None of his readers had heard of. And his entire blurb is all about how you haven't heard about this movie because you've never seen it. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to go with it.

[00:34:18] And he's like, you are not as dedicated a cinephile as he is. Uh, men should feel like shit. And he discovered it and it's like this really gross blurb about how he like turned to his father halfway through the movie and was like, this could be number

[00:34:30] three on my list of the 10 best films of the year. And then would like update him over the course of the running time. Just truly absurd behavior. What did father geek say in response to that? Father geek side of the story is not well

[00:34:42] represented in the blurb I have to say. But at the time, uh. You took it seriously enough. I said, yes, Asia. I'm going to go to YesAsia.com and I will import this region. You said yes to Asia. And it was, it was a illuminating for me.

[00:34:58] It was quite a visceral experience. So you saw this before? I did. So I was, uh. You had not seen Joint Security Area. I saw Joint Security Area about six weeks after, which is how long it took that DVD to come from YesAsia.com.

[00:35:14] And these were, you said region free discs. You didn't have a region. I didn't have a region. And I. Was Creech there? Did Wado sell the team? Hey. He took up in jokes. Same vibe. It will play Eureka Entertainment discs. They are better commentary.

[00:35:36] You know, Wado famously worked at Kim's for a few years. But he only accepted hyperdrive parts. He also held a lot of opinions on porn. Too many. So when Oldboy was a big part of that, he was all over that. And when it won an award,

[00:35:54] I was very excited. But my real interesting story with Park Chan-wook, and I'll get to this as close and fast as I can. Go fast. Maybe a story you've heard before. Pour some molasses on it. It all starts in Newton, Massachusetts in 1939 where my dad was born.

[00:36:16] Big Dad heavy episode. And it burned up his, it burned his grits, whatever you want to say, that he could never afford to travel. And when he had kids, he was hellbent on allowing us to travel in a way that he was never able to.

[00:36:33] And when each of his kids were college age, he took all of them on a trip. And I decided based purely on the strength of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, and imagine how fucked up that was. I was like, Seoul is where I want to go.

[00:36:52] That's the place for me. It was like at the end of Universal movies where it says, come visit the movies Universal Studios Hollywood. It was like, come visit the abandoned unfinished building where his kidney was taken out of his body. And so I said, I mean,

[00:37:17] we'll get to that part of the story. But there's an asterisk there. I hope there's Noblix as well where that came from. Asterisk Noblix Mission Korea? Uh oh. I'm seeing your France has issued an apology. A cousin of mine who did not in any way shape or form

[00:37:37] work in the film industry and is kind of estranged said to me when I told him about this trip and we visit the DMZ, you know, the site of JSA. We stepped across the foot of the border. So you were like Mike Pence

[00:37:54] when he went to the border and looked all grumpy. I mean literally it's like the Disneyland quadrant of North Korea. Just so you can have the purposes of saying I've been to North Korea when somebody asked you on a podcast this morning. Do you know this story, sir?

[00:38:17] I do. And I was like what? I was very confusing because I was and still am not anyone of any significance and certainly true of my father and my cousin and it was all very confusing. Dozens of people hate you online. You were very significant.

[00:38:39] But back then no one even hated me. I mean, I was a friend to you. Right. We were actual friends before we had to fucking live online. I like to think a world of hatred delusionally or not because of my actual behavior affecting you on a day-to-day basis.

[00:39:04] I like to think delusionally or not that the only people who hate me are those who don't know me. I'm a writer, a playwright, a playwright, a music translator and another producer and we get into Limo and it is incredibly confusing for everybody because I am like

[00:39:21] why is any of this happening? And they are like there's just like this 19-year-old white kid here with his 70-year-old father. Like what is happening? We like made small talk. They took us up about a 40-minute car ride to the highest mountain the highest restaurant

[00:39:39] and they of course I mean it was so over the top I cannot remember what we talked about. All I know is that my social anxiety was going absolutely through the roof as my dad was like just being it was a very very strange scenario

[00:39:52] and I still couldn't figure out what was happening. And speaking totally through a translator which is also its own experience. Who could do who was completely incapable of explaining to me what any of us were doing there. Someone had said some kid is here and there I was

[00:40:08] and they took us to Park Chimook's office. Did you guys pick up the check? Yeah we did. It was like 13 dollars. We absolutely did not. I mean it would have been as expensive as the rest of our trip combined. And they brought us to Park Chimook's

[00:40:24] office where he was essentially doing a victory lap right after Lady Vengeance had come out. Okay so he's completed the trilogy. He had but I was it was in the period of time between when Lady Vengeance was released and the New York Film Festival. And he brought me

[00:40:41] into his office and he sat down and he came in and I was like hi. He was like hi I'm Park Chimook and I was like hi I'm David. That was basically all I had. And we talked for an hour mostly about Robert Aldrich because he was

[00:40:56] really high. He had just seen a Lee Marvin Robert Aldrich Western and was like super high on it and we thought we were talking about like Quentin Tarantino and I never really got a clear answer as to what we were doing there or how we had gotten

[00:41:11] through the door. I think the best explanation I have is that he the idea that his movies were sort of permeating beyond Korea's borders in a meaningful way that like young film nerds were that excited about meeting him. Yeah. I think was enough to sort of open

[00:41:28] the door and just like pick my brain about how I was watching his movies and how they're being received but he was also a big fan of about movies and he was delightful and I spent time with his like wife and daughter who were there and

[00:41:43] then yeah and I became friendly with with Jo Young Wook and then I went on my way. That's fine. And I interviewed him as a as a film critic for Stoker a few years later and made absolute made sure not to mention this because it would

[00:41:58] have been more boring. And he didn't remember? Of course not. No. I was a terrible interviewer but I was a good film critic because I just kept telling him what I thought of his movies rather than asking questions because I'd never done it and that was my

[00:42:14] Park Chen Wook story. It was delightful. Anyway, that was the longest monologue I think anyone has probably ever given. No, no, it was great. I had to get out. We've had some monologues this far. My RoboCop episode is basically one unbroken monologue. Should I just keep doing this?

[00:42:30] I called it my RoboCop episode. It is your RoboCop episode. I'm trying to fucking dissolve into a monologue. I've never been so mortified in my life. As someone who hates putting people out, and my dad loves putting people out, I was just there being like, don't you

[00:42:45] have better things to do? Don't you shouldn't be working on the subtitles for this movie I'm dying to see? To your question, Erlich, you're saying he maybe was just kind of so excited that his movies were crossing over into different countries. The idea that he

[00:43:01] had a fantasy almost. Yeah, but I also, when I was young, I mean, around the same ages, I feel like I had experiences like that of like people I idolized who I either found on Friendster and sent messages to or went up to after like readings or screenings

[00:43:13] or whatever. Friends. Who would actually, I'm pulling out the Friendster, who would actually like give me the fucking time of day and like talk to me about this shit. And I was always like, why the fuck are they doing this? Right? Like, why? And with distance,

[00:43:28] I was like, I don't know. I don't know. But with distance and a little bit of maturity, I truly think it is if you're at that stage in your career, you are so fucking tired of the industry at large and the amount of conversations you're

[00:43:41] having by people who are like trying to get something out of you or really like gaming themselves around you that I do think there's some point where it's like, I just want to talk to like some 15 year old who just has a very earnest excitement about this.

[00:43:53] And he fucking loves movies. Yeah. And he like, he will famously race to finish production days so he can go catch right before he finishes production days so he can go catch repertory screenings. It's fucking cool. You know, whatever's playing, you know, in local theaters.

[00:44:08] And that weighs on him more heavily than getting the shot right like in certain times. So he really just loves talking about it. I think he was curious about how those Hollywood filmmakers from the 70s and 60s are faring in like contemporary estimation. He just wanted to talk

[00:44:21] about that stuff. And it was a little break for him. It's like, you know, when Hideo Kojima has every single person you've ever heard of come into his office for a selfie these days, it's sort of the equivalent of that. We need to start doing that.

[00:44:34] We need to like find our own version of the Criterion Closet that's a reason for people to visit here and take a picture. Yeah. Should we just get a photo booth? I feel like we can do better than that. Maybe we get our arcade cabinet and

[00:44:47] you play X-Men with us or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And you take a picture. Not really. Like the draft house that just has NBA Jam. Well, NBA Jam would be fun. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure. I don't know. I mean, I do. We've had ten

[00:45:05] conversations about this. Well, excuse me. You're often the instigator. I am. I'm not the instigator. I'm giving you information. Who's the Becker? Who's the Terry Farrell? That's the question. In every friendship there is a Becker and it's Terry Farrell as if I know what that means. Anyway.

[00:45:21] Terry Farrell, you know, she was Dax. George Shepard? Yes. The original armchair expert. I mean, I ride or die for Park Chan-Wook. We go way back. This is a very pivotal moment for you. Because I feel like for most Western viewers, yeah. Old Boy was probably

[00:45:37] the entry point but not for thee. Right. Drive back around to Mr. Vengeance. Is there a... Sorry. I keep making that joke. Yeah. Mr. Vengeance is my father. That's the other joke to make. I think he should do Uncle Vengeance though. Go back. Go back to the well.

[00:45:54] Uncle Vengeance. Baby Vengeance. Baby Vengeance is fun. Baby Vengeance is fun. Oh, and I'm seeing here that Park Chan-Wook's pitch for Baby Vengeance would not be fun actually at all. It's just that scene from Under the Skin for two hours. It is wild how different

[00:46:07] these two movies are. I mean, I know the whole thing is that these first two, right? I know the whole thing is that they were not designed to be like companion pieces and then at the press conference people were like, so any reason you're making two Vengeance

[00:46:20] movies in a row? You seem very Vengeance focused, bro. And he was like, it's a trilogy. He pulled a Vin Diesel on the red carpet of Fast X being like, actually people are telling me it's three. Universal's begging me for a third. That was him saying,

[00:46:35] that was him, that's him trying to cover for the Hobbes thing in my opinion now. I think that's what that is. He knew about that. I think that's part of it and I think part of it He's trying to be like, even though I won't be

[00:46:47] in this because it's contractually I'm not allowed to be on set, it's part of my trilogy. Can we do one minute sidebar on this? Sure. That's about three Becker themes if you want me to play it. For the listeners to understand, this is a minute sidebar

[00:47:03] on top of the 30 minute sidebar we did before we started recording on this very subject. I think Universal and Vin Diesel have a very complicated marriage in which they kind of can't exist without each other and it is their most valuable franchise ever. Right, it's kind of like

[00:47:20] that movie fucking with Ingmar Bergman. Ingmar Bergman. Ingrid Bergman, not Ingmar Bergman. Carry on. Sorry, go on. What's that movie called? Gaslight? No, keep going. I missed the context. Yeah, complicated marriage. Like they don't actually want to break up but they hate being together

[00:47:36] but where would they be without each other? But increasingly, making these movies with Vin Diesel is logistically impossible, right? Yes. And he had always been like 10, 10, 10. The goal is 10. Which is, sure. On 5 and 6 and people were like, how many of these are you gonna make?

[00:47:52] And so this is like a movie saga has been the idea. Then they get close to 10 and he's like, what if 10's a two-parter? Right, right. Suddenly... You can't let it go. It's like Tarantino's retirement. It's like you start going like, I'm not gonna retire when I'm 50,

[00:48:04] I'm gonna retire when I hit 10 movies. Yeah, right, right. And then 10 becomes a two-parter and things start not counting and now he's suddenly like looking down the barrel of only one movie left and he's like, well I said I would stop at 10

[00:48:15] so the only thing I could do is spread out how many films 10 is. Yes, yeah. And he's doing the DiCaprio Wolf of Wall Street I'm not leaving. I'm not going anywhere. We haven't even gotten Cypher's origin story yet. No, no. There's a lot to do.

[00:48:28] But that'll be its own. I don't want that. I mean she, I mean I could do a whole fucking thing about Cypher. Joint security area. Big ass hit. It was a big hit and one might call it in the parlance of our stupid podcast that you fools

[00:48:41] are still listening to. Yes. A guarantor. Even this episode. Yes. Something of a guarantor. Something of a guarantor. A breakthrough film. Yes. The most successful Korean film of all time. Yeah. At that moment. That's basically as big of a guarantor as you can get. Exactly.

[00:48:58] So does he make tri-security area? No. Does he rest on his laurels? No. He decides to make Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance which in my opinion is a bit of an edgy film. Yeah. With some dark themes. Yes. If you were a Tartan executive you might even call it

[00:49:16] Asian extreme. Yeah. I mean he had wanted to make this before Joint Security Area. And not Scenes from Marriage although that's another good example. Ben texting that. Ben just texted Scenes from Marriage. That's Ingmar Bergman which I know. Yes. But did not have the juice

[00:49:32] to pull this one off before JSA. Didn't have the juice to get it made and also I don't think he had the filmmaking craft. Sure. Yes. The chops. Yeah. I could see that. He, you know, was very happy that JSA had done well

[00:49:48] but he said he was also quite scared. It's tough to follow up a hit like that. And JSA was, as we've talked about, sort of that M. Night Shyamalan six cents thing of like I'm going to design a movie that cannot fail. Sure.

[00:50:00] That will get finance and will be a hit. And now he's in the position of like what do I want to do? Now I'm going to design a movie that cannot succeed. Right. He said he wanted, you know, JSA obviously is about the literal and political divides

[00:50:13] between North and South Korea. Sympathy, Misadventures. He wanted to deal with the social and economic divisions in South Korea. Okay? So this film does have a lot of social commentary. It also is an incredibly bleak, strange, funny thing Yes. that subverts audience expectations

[00:50:32] quite a lot I would say. I was trying to Whenever you're like I now know what this movie is about the movie changes or just, you know, kills someone or does something crazy. This is what he is trying to do.

[00:50:43] This is what he is trying to do in Trio. But Trio feels kind of callous and flip about it and doesn't have the same He doesn't have the chops. tonal control. But this has that weird remove, that odd feeling of like am I going to laugh?

[00:50:55] Am I going to scream? Am I going to squirm? Am I going to cry? I am mad at our viewers for picking this director. A director I like a lot. Uh huh. And making me watch this movie again. I forgot how distressing this film is.

[00:51:08] See this is what's interesting and we'll talk all about this fucking next week in an episode we've already recorded. I have such a tough time with Oldboy. Oldboy is not a picnic. I'm not putting out the gingham towel there. I was watching this and I was like

[00:51:21] what a relief. Well, it's mostly, you know, that a child dies in this film. That's mostly what I'm talking about. But, um, Sympathy for Mr. Vega. I was just trying to think of like a modern analog for what it would be like

[00:51:33] for the director of JSA to pivot to something like this. And it was like if Denis Villeneuve had made Prisoners after Arrival or if Tom Hooper more accurately had followed the King's speech with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. That's funny, the second thing you did.

[00:51:49] But the first thing you did is actually a good call. Like right, Prisoners was your follow up. Yeah. Where it's like I want to go as dark as possible. Right. Yeah, I mean it'd be a very agreeable film that really brought everybody in. Prisoners is funny.

[00:52:01] I mean that's, you know, just a hilarious movie. I think I once called it the least funny movie ever made. You did. I may have relayed that phrase to one of the stars of Prisoners at a certain point. I can guess which one.

[00:52:13] And then he built a prison for you in his shower, right? He put you in a wood box with a tiny hole. No comment. Anyway, Journey to Italy was the film I was thinking. Oh, sure. That marriage is fucked up. Okay, here's Parks talking about himself.

[00:52:30] I don't make genre films. Okay, buddy. But I don't completely escape from them either. This film, viewed from a broad perspective, is a hard-boiled noir. If you keep narrowing it down, though, there's nowhere to escape. So he likes to play around.

[00:52:43] He likes to go into the cracks of the genre and go somewhere different. Okay. What suits my taste is a movie that excites curiosity about genre and takes the viewer to an unexpected place, he says. Yeah, I mean I think he and a number of his contemporaries,

[00:52:56] Bong Joon-ho being the most famous of them, sort of came up at a time where the South Korean film industry was booming. It didn't last for particularly long. Because with the economic collapse, the big companies became a lot more restrictive. But whenever great filmmakers arrive en masse,

[00:53:11] it's usually because there are these periods of flexibility. But they were able to make movies because they found opportunities to insert their own peculiarities and eccentricities and personalities into the soft parts between genre. And that is what they do so well is they take these genre stories

[00:53:29] and inject into the marrow between the parts that we expect from a movie like this, their own material. And one of the great tensions in this movie is that between genre and expectation. And it's like one of the, yeah,

[00:53:44] we'll talk about it as some of the themes around the movie, the tensions between objectivity and subjectivity. I found there was a lot of tension between Song Kang-ho and then the guy who kidnapped his daughter. Yeah, there is some of that by the end.

[00:53:54] I detected a little tension there too. I found, I picked up, and it was pretty subtle, but I noticed a little bit of tension between any two characters in this movie. Well, I mean, I'd say, you know, there is not a lot of tension for a while

[00:54:08] in this movie in its way. It's what I kind of like about it, but it gets there. It certainly gets there. I do think it's also like, you know, we talk a lot about how much David, you and I, Sims, like the Video Archives podcast. Yes.

[00:54:25] And so much of what Tarantino and Avery choose to cover on that podcast are these like completely forgotten B-revenge-o-matic movies. Totally. Often non-American versions, right? Sometimes. And just like hearing them describe these movies that I have never seen, will probably never see, maybe is illegal to watch.

[00:54:42] Right, Jim Bob's shotgun or whatever. Right. And they're like, Warren Oates is really good in it. I'm like, I'm sure he is! I bet he is. Yeah. But it makes me realize, like it's such a weirdly durable genre of just, you see someone get wronged

[00:54:56] in the first act of a movie and then the audience just goes, I give them permission to do anything to balance the scales, right? And sometimes you make the version of that movie that's a little haunted, that's got a little bit of blood on its hands

[00:55:09] and like guilt on its conscience and whatever. Right. But it still is this thing of like, if they kill John Wick's dog, we are now all on board to watch four movies of him murdering everyone. Mm-hmm. You know? And beyond that, what Tarantino, did you read Cinema Speculation?

[00:55:24] No, I need to read it. It's very good. Yeah. I thought it was fun. Did you read Cinema Speculation? I did. He loves those movies that just have one moment. In Rolling Thunder, it's Tommy Lee Jones being like, you know, I'll get the guns, right? Yeah.

[00:55:37] You know, like just that, like where the whole audience is gonna go like, yeah! Yeah. And obviously John Wick has that with Michael McPherson saying, oh, right, right. You know, like we, Tarantino loves those little kind of like explosive moments.

[00:55:51] There's basically no point in the history of film where that is not a financeable concept. Right. If you just have a lean, clean revenge plot, people go like, I can get my hands around that. I understand what that is. Put the right star at the center,

[00:56:05] you have a movie, right? Right. And it exists in every country. Every decade has its own versions of it. There are their own versions of it within sub-genres and everything. Yeah. And I think Park is so like interested, the whole thing with the Vengeance trilogy is like,

[00:56:18] no, but what is this like actually removed from the movie of it all? And this is a movie that like places you at a weird remove from everything, right? Has this sort of control. This thing seems weird to me. This distance.

[00:56:31] And throws a lot of very odd character elements into it. I mean, it's a direct reaction to what you were just describing. Exactly. Where like from the very first scene of the movie, which is this like parodically warm and fuzzy, like what could be more over the top

[00:56:44] and cartoonish than someone calling into a radio show like Dear Delilah? Yeah. Like my sister needs surgery and like I need the, you know, and it's immediately setting you up for a fall. And that is more interesting and nuanced than just the idea of getting you to sympathize

[00:56:59] with this one character before transplating your sympathies, pun intended, to another one. And he's not going to give you a single fuck yeah moment. There is not one. There's not anything approaching. No, instead you're gonna go, what is going on? Right.

[00:57:11] Like when the guy is trying to kill himself Yeah. And you're like, if you haven't been paying attention, you truly won't know what's going on. Right. If you have been paying attention, you don't really understand what's going on. No, and even if you like don't have empathy

[00:57:24] for these characters, like sympathy is the word. Thank you Tartan Extreme or whatever who threw it on there where you're just watching it and you're like, everyone's just fucking up here. You know? Like no one looks cool. They're making like kind of unforced errors. Juniper looks pretty cool.

[00:57:39] I mean she, She's pretty fucking cool. She looks insane as well. Hot communist. She fucking rules in this movie. She is incredible in everything. I absolutely need listeners of this podcast who may know her from things like Cloud Atlas and maybe to a lesser extent the,

[00:57:57] She's in the host. She's in a lot of stuff. But like the Hirokazu Koreida film Air Doll which only I think is a masterpiece. Well we had our little end of the Wachowski series Duna Bay trilogy of Cloud Atlas, Jupiter, Sen and Sensate.

[00:58:09] The words that I need to say on this podcast in order to feel like I've done my job are Linda, Linda, Linda. Yeah. Look into it. It's a Japanese movie, right? It sure is. Never seen it. Man is it good. They're a band, right? They're a band.

[00:58:22] They're a high school band. She I believe is a Korean exchange student who's come in and she's like becomes a part of their friend group and they play this song by the Blue Hearts called Linda, Linda. It's amazing. I was obsessed with that movie for like 10 years.

[00:58:33] Here's what I have to say. Duna is bae. She is. She sure is. So Park Chan-wook writes this film. He said he was giggling from start to finish as he wrote it. What a little stinker. If I want to give one keyword for this movie,

[00:58:47] it would be irony. He says I don't think audiences are going to laugh out loud or anything as they watch it. For sure. But I do. He does voice yes, the film is grotesque. It's also comical. These characters are nice people or they believe they are nice people.

[00:59:02] They don't know what they're doing is going to turn out badly and they don't think that, you know, including the kidnapping and all that. Well, that's, you know. They're caught up in destiny and social structure Sure. and all this stuff, you know, before they commit.

[00:59:15] He's basically like, they don't, they commit evil acts without thinking, you know, without committing to an evil act. Well, it's a lot of Coen Brothers movies stew on the same sort of thing, right? The kind of like a nepticed, you know, the people who pull a crime off

[00:59:29] without really understanding the way things work and get in deep over their heads and continue to fucking trip over themselves. All this for a little bit of money kind of thing. But this one I feel like you have people doing confusing things that are kind of funny

[00:59:44] and then immediately the air is released from the balloon when something deeply upsetting happens. You never get to really laugh at them for too long. No, because I mean you laugh at the idea of someone having a screwdriver jammed into their neck and then you stop

[00:59:58] and you maybe laugh when the blood comes guising out. Yeah. But then the scene immediately resets to, oh, there's someone being raped in the corner and this heroin addict mother is watching her son die and it's complicated. But I think like the real tension in the movie

[01:00:12] is summed up perfectly for me. The one shot that really epitomizes this movie is the shot after the scene where Song Kang-ho's daughter's ghost visits him and like five or ten minutes later, there's just a shot of water, the water that her ghost left behind

[01:00:29] trickling along the floor and something that Park says on the director's commentary is like the actual reality and the reality in a person's mind are coexisting in this world and that's really the big tension in this movie is between the subjective and objective realities of what's happening.

[01:00:43] And obviously that plays into the account of like how they feel about their own choices, if they feel righteous about what they're doing, moral or not. But yeah, I mean, the way this movie is shot, it's all about emphasizing this angular, you know, widescreen objectivity

[01:01:00] versus, you know, these very human heightened but resolutely indivisibly human characters moving through it. I think that's the thing he's incredibly good at and does throughout his entire career is the, um, I'm not going to spell out for you when we're in reality

[01:01:18] and when we're in someone's subjective, uh... It would be cool if it was like a doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, you know. But I like that, that you don't, you tiptoe in and out of these things very quietly and softly. And it lets you have that sort of unsettled moment

[01:01:33] where you're like, is his daughter back? Like, could this be true? Like, you know, which is such a sad thought. There's another thing I love. I forget who said it, but there's that old saying of like, give an audience one plus one

[01:01:47] and allow them to add it together and they'll love you forever. Wow. Which is basically like... You could teach a man to fish. That's the principle, right? But it's like, if your movie is just dumping exposition on people and over explaining everything, people start to get passive

[01:02:01] and they sit back and they're not engaged, right? And it's not like you need to give them a difficult equation to solve. But you give them the two pieces and allow them to put it together, they suddenly, they lean in. They're like doing the work on this thing.

[01:02:13] It's like I'm teaching my son to spell right now. And every time you try and like sound out a word, he goes, don't sound it up! He screams at you. But then when you watch him spell like, you know, he's obsessed with spelling streets,

[01:02:25] so he'll spell like Vanderbilt. And you see him putting it together and the light on his face is transformative. That's the same. It's why people love like fucking mystery movies and shit, you know? Because it's like I'm involved trying to get ahead of this thing.

[01:02:39] But he does, you know, it's such an easy thing to do, but I find so effective in this movie of like he basically always gets into scenes late and gets out of them early. So you're always a little displaced when you cut into a new scene

[01:02:53] where you have to go, yeah, I need to figure this out because he's not easing me in an obvious way. He's not going to let me sit in it for too long. Right. JJ's assembled a lot of quotes that Park has about vengeance.

[01:03:05] I'm not going to do them all. Read some. Revenge is something that makes you happy and invigorates you only when it is in your imagination. When it comes to actually realizing it, it's never happy and never gives you pleasure because it's an act of total stupidity.

[01:03:19] That's one thought. Certainly very applicable to this film. Vengeance has never tasted so sweet. The act of vengeance is a meaningless one. Yes, he says here it's a dish best served cold and he's attributing that to Klingons. A profound quote. And, you know, it's very human, right?

[01:03:36] It does become a dish in Lady Vengeance. It is a literal dish in that film in a way. Vengeance and salvation. You guys think these two movies are weird. Lady Vengeance is also weird. I just got put on record. That's the masterpiece. That is his masterpiece.

[01:03:50] That's my favorite of these three. This movie is so... I think this movie is really, really good. Yeah. I prefer it to Old Boy. I do too. Oh, do you? Interesting. I think... I think I do. I find this movie sort of lingers with me

[01:04:07] and is more disturbing than Old Boy even though Old Boy is more like nakedly transgressive or whatever. And I think Song King's more... I think that's why it's more effective for me. I think the three leads in this movie are so, like, bananas good.

[01:04:21] I'm not saying Old Boy is try-hard but it's putting effort into being transgressive whereas this feels like it's just presenting a very bizarre reality to me. I'm sticking out Old Boy and if he wants to, you know... If he wants to imprison you in a room for 15 years,

[01:04:33] that's his will. Old Boy versus Becker? Yep. Just think on that. Did you hear that Taylor Swift is dating Old Boy online? She took a copy of the Tartan Extreme disc out. She's dating the DVD. She brings it out on stage. A lot of vengeance...

[01:04:48] There are too many vengeance... JJ, you say in this document that you know you have too many vengeance quotes. Too many vengeance quotes. If you don't read all the quotes, JJ, there's no revenge on us. This is the problem. It feels like a test.

[01:04:59] I got so many quotes about vengeance! But, you know, this movie certainly is about the limited closure or the limited, you know, happiness one will get achieving vengeance even if it's the purest, most just... You know, like, of course, Song Kang-ho wants revenge.

[01:05:21] The worst thing in the world happened to him. And it wasn't his fault. Like, at least not in any direct way. But also, endless spiral. Yes, exactly. And any action you take will hurt someone else in a way that could make them want to get revenge on you.

[01:05:37] Um, okay, so... Whether or not you're aware of it. The two main actors in this film are both in JSA, right? Song Kang-ho and... I struggle with his name, but Shin Hak-yoon, I think is the guy from Ryu. Why are you looking at me?

[01:05:52] That's as close as I would get. Hey, you! Yo! So he's got them coming back. And then Bae Doona, Doona Bae, had made her debut in The Ring Virus, which is the Korean remake of Ringu. Oh, wow. Okay. And then she's in Barking Dogs Never Bite,

[01:06:08] the not very good first Bong Joon-ho movie. Yeah, but it's a pretty good start. Definitely. And obviously, she is a blank check favorite in that she has been in three Wachowski projects. And yeah, she's also in The Host. She's amazing in The Host.

[01:06:24] She is amazing in Air Doll. Is that what it's called? The koreata movie. Do I know... Is she in anything else? She's in so many things. She's had such a diverse career. Yeah. She was in Broker, another koreata film. Yeah, which I liked. So she's new.

[01:06:45] Park says all three of them are geniuses. He does not overnote in his opinion. He doesn't want like, you know, whatever, like particular requests for them. But he does say he hates needless movement. Well, he talks about that being his big mistake on his first two films

[01:07:05] that he tried to treat his actors like models. Like action figures. Right. I think he just doesn't like actors who maybe do a lot of hand stuff or fiddle with a cigarette or any of that. Weird, he's never cast me. I hate business and I'm famously still...

[01:07:20] Yeah, I guess this is through translation. He's basically saying like, I hate business. Yes. No, but it makes sense. His films are so controlled and there was such meaning behind any movement, gesture, image, sound. You don't want people throwing out errant signals.

[01:07:39] You know, he's trying to keep the frequency pure. Yeah, this is why I've always felt a twinge of regret whenever he makes television, which he's doing again, because I feel like his particular skill set, his virtuosity as a visual storyteller is not suited to the scheduling demands

[01:07:58] of a television show. That's the biggest fucking thing. When people talk about the difference between TV and film, it's like scheduling's the real thing that fucks you over in TV. You can't make all six hours of The Little Drummer Girl look like a Park Chan-wook movie

[01:08:10] because you do not have time. No. And I am very skeptical about it. I mean, I'm sure The Sympathizer, you know, is Robert Downey Jr. show, among other people. An actor who's fucking famous for business. I'm now realizing how weird it is.

[01:08:22] No, but it looks like the characters he's playing in that are very normal and regular. Yes. But I just feel like he operates better and more naturally in the limited confines, limited canvas of a feature-length film. It's easier to exert greater control of a canvas this size

[01:08:42] versus making a TV show if you're directing the whole fucking thing as like paying the Sistine Chapel or something. Yeah, Sims, I don't know if you got this. It was part of like the swag this and out last year, but they sent out this massive book

[01:08:52] of his storyboards for Decision to Leave. Does he draw them himself? I think he might or must. A lot of that stuff goes on the street, I gotta be honest. Yeah, I mean, this one, it's only in Korean, all the annotations, which is all the more reason why

[01:09:05] it's difficult for me to get much value out of it, but it's like so immaculate. Cool. It's so, I mean, he's not as famous a storyboarder as maybe like Bong Joon-ho, but it's still like... No, no, he's a pretty famous... His shots are very complex. Like...

[01:09:19] But he looks for... And this movie is filled with crazy, crazy stuff. But he's very, and I'm not saying Bong Joon-ho's not, but he's extremely attuned to the surprises you get on the day from his actors and from the location. Like he has a plan,

[01:09:30] but he is extremely responsive to what someone like Song Kang-ho is gonna do. Sims is new things. Sims is sticking me with a tape measure. He loves playing with the fucking tape measure. Six feet away. This has become his desk toy. A little fact for ya.

[01:09:44] He's stretched it all the way out and is tickling a relic with it, and now it's just collapsed. A little fact for ya. Song Kang-ho, obviously in JSA. Yes. Worked with Park. Works with him again after this. Sure. Thirst. Thirst. What movie? Incredible movie. Really an incredible movie.

[01:10:01] I mean, probably the best Ebola-related movie ever made. Outbreak. Didn't want to be in this movie. Declined it three times, he says. Why? Script seemed a little fucked up to him. Thought it might not be the most commercial of projects.

[01:10:18] But after doing this, he must have been like, oh, I love fucked up shit. Yeah. He said basically that he was terrified of this movie, and I guess eventually they sort of talked him around. As time passed, I realized the reason I must take the part

[01:10:31] was because it was so anti-commercial and so shocking. Would a film like this even be possible? It was scary and anxiety-inducing, but it became the reason why I wanted to do it. So, I mean, good for him doing it. He is so fucking good as an actor.

[01:10:43] And Park Chan-wook was then like, by the way, I'm writing a vampire movie. This movie looks like fucking Disney. So just wait. As a human being, as a father. I don't know, but he is just, what a presence. He's the most incredible actor.

[01:10:57] He has so much emotional control in all his movies, and he can play such a goofball, right? And such a dummy, such a lovable dummy in a movie that doesn't need a dummy, and he doesn't feel out of place. Now, that's not what he's doing here.

[01:11:12] He has the same virtuosity within his own instrument as an actor that Bong Joon-ho will apply to his cross-genre pollinations in the whole films. He can do seven genres in one shot, in a way, in what he's giving an actor.

[01:11:27] It is the thing that makes the host so effective is Bong Joon-ho was like, what if I have him play all of that in the same movie? What if I frame him where the audience is going to constantly change their relationship to what kind of character he is?

[01:11:39] Right, he's introduced you're like, oh, this is the dumb side character, and then he's going to become the hero of the movie. But as you were saying earlier, his range in that sense allows the movies to change genres on a scene-to-scene basis because his control of the dial,

[01:11:55] the dial of destiny... The run he was on. ...is so precise. That dial of destiny. He can make Harrison Ford 20 years old in a second. Cheery, which is this huge hit in 1999, joint security area in 2000, this in 2002, Memories of Murder in 2003, Lady Vengeance in 2005,

[01:12:10] the host, he's a cameo in that, but the host in 2006. And let's not forget, let's not forget that he is the voice of the lion in the Korean dub of Madagascar as well. Never would. Wow. Huge. He's the stiller. But he also,

[01:12:26] something that I appreciated re-watching this movie... And then like Secret Sunshine, and then Good, Bad, Weird, and then Thirst, his IMDb is jaw dropping. Madagascar, Escape to Africa, Madagascar, Europe's Most Wanted. I'm not seeing future ones, maybe he got fired. Fuck.

[01:12:38] Secret Sunshine is one of the greatest movies I've ever seen in my entire life. Secret Sunshine is a very special movie. That is fucked up in a way that I don't think Park Chan-wook's movies even try to approach. Like, I cannot watch the movie again.

[01:12:48] No, that's like reading this really disturbing poem and then having a nightmare three days later. But he, something that Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook really keyed into around this time was that Song Kang-ho has different sized eyes, which he wears really well.

[01:13:02] I, who also have different sized eyes, do not. It just makes me look like I'm fucking deranged. You're a freak. Gaston Newton. I am, but I was like looking at the close-ups that they give him in this movie and it just allows that same sort of protean quality

[01:13:14] that impossibility to place it down in the same close-up. Some of the most famous close-ups in recent, like the end of Memories of Murder, the shots in here, and the parasite, him fucking driving the car, has become one of the most iconic shots

[01:13:27] of recent, you know, him doing the bad, you know, he's smelling a fart, you know, in that scene. You know, and the guy's... And also, the end of the birthday party. Sort of right before he snaps. Yeah, just like make that guy look at a camera. I'm shivering.

[01:13:40] It's pretty effective. Memories of Murder, yeah. But obviously he's not even in the beginning of this movie at all, really. No, it takes him a while to come in. Takes him a while to show up. Anyway, Park loves him. With good reason. Thinks he's good.

[01:13:54] He's a good dude. But, you know, so we're introduced to Ryu, a deaf-mute factory worker with green hair, trying to pay his sister's hospital bills. Yes, very aunt-like. Park Chan-wook loves his aunts. Yeah. Loves the feeling of controlling characters like the Fates themselves and God.

[01:14:16] But also, like, you know, Stoker is about a woman who has, like, acute sensitivity, right? Like, literally her senses are heightened in a way where it's like, oh, great, so the whole movie can be in Park Chan-wook vision because she sees and hears everything

[01:14:32] like a Park Chan-wook movie. And I think similarly, it helps that, like, you have a character who is so, it so thoroughly struggles to take control of his environment, right? You're basically, like, putting him so often in the same position as the audience member

[01:14:51] where you're like, he's in the middle of a scene where he can't really affect change. He doesn't totally understand what's going on and he can't express himself. Right, and he's also, you know, hell-bent on saving his sister and yet in that one shot that scarred me,

[01:15:04] which is very, you know, it's a very heightened bit of business with the masturbation to like those four guys who are all up-and-coming directors. That is so fucking funny. Can we talk about that for 20 minutes? It's so funny. I always forget the gag.

[01:15:20] I've seen this movie three or four times. Always forget that gag. It's incredible. They live in the worst apartment complex in the world. Yeah, and she's in agony with her kidney disease and he is obliviously eating in the extreme foreground at the end of that shot.

[01:15:36] And so, like, even though he cares about nothing on this earth so much as saving his sister, he is in that moment, you're completely oblivious to it and sort of heartbreaking in a fable-like way. Well, and you think you're hearing people having sex. Yes.

[01:15:48] It does sound like it. And then you find out it is four guys who are all lying on a bed together, hands on each other's shoulders. Now, have you guys ever done that at the Blank Check Studios? No, we haven't done a Porky's chain. No. And then, right,

[01:16:00] the one guy has a picture of a naked lady taped to the back of his head when he tilts his head over, the other guy, like, readjusts it. And then the camera pans, like, across the wall and it's her writing.

[01:16:11] It's been difficult because ever since seeing this movie when I was, what, 18, I can only masturbate with my hand on the back of a friend. And there needs to be two friends in front of that. Exactly. We've been on vacation together. I have to be in the back.

[01:16:22] David knows from experience. Yes. So, okay, so what else is going on? Well, I mean, you know, the early thing in the movie is he's going to get swindled out of a kidney. Correct. But yeah, is there anything else in this sort of early?

[01:16:34] You haven't been there, all right? Stop saying all the things that this very strange movie happened to you because I don't think it's true. Most of these incidents are quite implausible. You're gonna come back on in five years and apologize for everything you said in this episode?

[01:16:47] But the shots of- If someone's a kidney dealer, not trustworthy. No. It's just not a trustworthy position. Not all of them, David, and that's not fair. I know. You're painting with a broad brush. Ben knows a couple of different-

[01:16:58] You gotta read the Yelp reviews before you sign up for that shit. Okay, well, what if your kidney dealer office is in an abandoned room? Terrible. Well, maybe they're going for a certain design concept, David. Windy? Yeah, open. The aesthetics up there, I mean, the acoustics are amazing.

[01:17:14] And he's there to see the guy slap the sticker advertising the firm, whatever the fuck you call it, the outfit in the bathroom. Yeah, Tunkers does work for this company. He does. And Trump's a big fan of the Trumps. He does.

[01:17:25] And Trump's a big fan of the Trumps. He's like, something's up with this place. But I love the shots of that series of silhouette shots of them climbing the stairs. I mean, it's- You know, you could argue that it's a bit fatphobic

[01:17:36] because the whole focus of it is on the guy in the back who is a heavy set guy and he's laboring, but it does sort of call attention to the physical comedy and just the emphasis on human foibles and just basic humanity that you get throughout this movie

[01:17:53] about the fates and about uncontrollable destiny. Even in the most elaborate and cartoonish and heightened scenarios, the focus is on the minutia of the human experience, like the comic minutia of what it is to be a person. Well, I just love a good people keep making

[01:18:08] the exact wrong decision movie, you know? Sure. And that is, yes, right. The changing lanes. Right. And just sort of like what you were saying, the cosmic cruelty of like, he goes to try to sell... Right. He can't give her his liver because...

[01:18:24] He has the wrong blood type. He's got a bad old blood type. There's a lot of, you don't have A, you have B. Right. And everyone talks to him like he's an idiot. Yes. There's a lot of point of view shots

[01:18:33] where you're in his head and you can tell. Which I think is what's so effective about placing him at the center of the movie and making us, the audience, feel like him where you're like, this is so frustrating that you can't express to this person what's going on.

[01:18:45] But it sells, it tries to sell... Is it kidney or liver? Sorry. Kidney. Kidney. It tries to sell the kidney, wakes up, they've taken away from him, they've robbed him of life. You can live without a kidney. You need your liver. Of course.

[01:18:57] Now some people take some of their liver out and then you put it in someone and it kind of grows, which is crazy. Sure. But I think that's more complicated. Sometimes you eat it with a nice Chianti. Fab of beans. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:19:08] The same off-draft for shave you wore at the trial. Whatever, go on. Go on. Can't do Hannibal lines all day. But of course, it's like he goes to see the doctor first. The doctor's like really long waiting list. I don't know if you're going to get a kidney

[01:19:20] to match your sister anytime soon. And then of course right after he gets up, the kidney doctor's like, I've never seen anything like it. This is the fastest this has ever happened. Now of course you have $2 million to get me, right? Or what's the...

[01:19:30] What is the conversion rate? Classic John Q situation. I'm not sure because I'm not sure what the Juan was worth. Like 20 years ago, I do think there's been more fluctuation in that currency, but it's about a thousand Juan to $1. Okay.

[01:19:43] So, you know, they need like tens of thousands of dollars at least, maybe hundreds of thousands. You know, like a lot of money. Yeah. So now, yes, now he's fucked. He's down a kidney. Because he took a kidney, but then he also had to pay money. Correct.

[01:20:00] Yeah, it's a real double whammy. Right. So he's down a kidney and cash. He's down all his available kidneys. It's like that time when I had to pay money to listen to Becker talk for half an hour. It's a very similar situation. I mean, Becker is the doctor.

[01:20:12] Yeah, he's not. I don't know why I said that. I think Becker went to Wondery, that it was like a paywall podcast. I regret this already. I have to apologize for that time on the podcast when I brought the conversation back to Becker.

[01:20:22] You brought it back to Becker. Back to Beck, baby. So he now, they now need money. Now you need money. He's got a girlfriend played by Duna Bay, who is a hot anarchist. And she's like, well, how about we kidnap the, well, how about we get some money?

[01:20:41] I think pretty much right away. Has he already been fired at this point? Yes, she's basically like, let's get vengeance on the executive of the company that laid you off, right? Yeah. And I guess they want to kidnap the older daughter, right?

[01:20:52] Like they kind of get diverted to the younger daughters. Yes. Right. But like, why don't we, you know, kidnap someone and get money for it? Now, he works at a factory. That's a bad idea. Yes. He works at a factory. You see, there's those scenes where like

[01:21:03] you can hear the noise of the factory in like that kind of clanging distant way. And it's nothing for him. What do they make, bullets? Metal. Depression? Yeah. They turn metal into other metal. It does just look like, yeah, they're just pouring stuff into different things

[01:21:16] and pushing it around to different places. You want this kind of metal? Uh-uh, we make this kind of metal. It was Bong Joon-ho who advised Park to focus more on the factory and like make it more of a character. Interesting.

[01:21:27] I feel like Bong Joon-ho is always so attuned to the sort of like social commentary of these movies. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And the Song Kang-ho character, you know, he grew up as not particularly wealthy. Like he was, you know, someone who became an engineer

[01:21:41] and like worked his way up the company and then sort of developed into the unfeeling, you know, corporate boss. Right, he is not some landed aristocrat, but he has become the man. He has. And Doona Bae doesn't like the man.

[01:21:53] They go to try to kidnap his older daughter and when they get there, he's already... There's a different... This is the scene that is just the most inexplicable. I think it's great. No, I think it's maybe the best scene in the movie.

[01:22:05] A man in an act of protest over the same sort of thing... Right. ...has decided to commit hara-kiri in front of him, essentially. Yes. Has not done a good job of it. No. And has instead just kind of done sort of like

[01:22:16] a half of a cube, you know, on his chest. He kind of cubed himself and he couldn't get all the way. He takes out like a box cutter, he lifts up his shirt. It's in a real, real long distance wide shot, right? Right, at first, yes.

[01:22:27] And it seems like he like misses or is like air cutting himself. That's what I love about it. He's like crisscrossing and you're ready for there to be some Tom Savini immediate blood spurt. Right. And it's like, no, that's not how it happens.

[01:22:37] So at first you think, is this guy such like an idiot? Is the joke here that he fucked up, that the knife wasn't like, you know, was retracted or whatever it is? And then you close up on it and you see the lines like start to form. Yeah.

[01:22:49] You see the thing start to split open. In a very beautiful Park Chan-wook way. Then he throws his shirt down and the blood starts seeping through the shirt and then everything's just like fucked. And their whole plan is so fucked up by a different guy

[01:23:00] having a different method for how he wants to punish this guy for firing him. To be clear, I don't think their plan was good to begin with. It's not like without this guy, things are going to go seamlessly for them. We've got to work out contingencies.

[01:23:10] But her group, because it turns out, in one of the sort of running question marks of the movie is how serious is she about this whole like terrorist anarchy business? Turns out pretty fucking serious. Yeah. It's kind of a dark punchline at the end there.

[01:23:23] But yeah, she called, wait, he had a name for them. Sorry, Karen. She just, she doesn't seem, you know, she's just will go to kidnapping the first opportunity. She doesn't really feel obligated to think it through. He calls them the chain smoker squad, which I think is funny.

[01:23:34] You know, and that was what the inspiration for the chain smokers were. They were the terrorists of our age. I'm seeing here that's not true. But the musical terrorists. The scene is why I am afraid of ever having employees.

[01:23:47] And at this rate, it seems like that may be an unfounded fear in my life. Or early kink isn't how you mean? I would just be constantly worried about how I was wrong. And those people are like consumer products.

[01:23:59] It is wild for like how fucking mogul manufactured bad tape. Obsessed our world is I'm like, this seems like the most stressful shit in the world. Being a mogul. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. It's probably pluses and minuses. JJ is coming for you guys.

[01:24:12] I'm telling you. The second, the second you make a ton of money, fucking retire. Sure. People were like, I want to start more businesses. And you're just like, everyone's going to hate you. I don't know. Yeah.

[01:24:24] But you can just kind of build enough compounds that people hating you doesn't get through. It all comes crumbling down eventually. No, just stay offline. That's the Elon mistake. I'm like, bro, you got money. Why are you offline? That's the biggest mistake. I still think people should retire.

[01:24:40] I agree. People should retire, bitch. Retire, bitch. So, okay. So, they kidnap this little girl and they bring her home and Ryu's sister thinks they're just like babysitting her or whatever. They really fudge that plot point. She's just like, yeah, we're babysitting her.

[01:24:57] And she's like, all right, that makes sense. We often babysit small children for long periods of time. Of course, you're a great babysitter. You do it all the time. When you're not working at the factory where I assume you are still employed.

[01:25:06] They demand lots of money from Song Kang-ho and then Ryu comes home to find that his sister has realized what's going on and killed herself in despair. Yes. And that's sad. Right. And all this was for nothing and now he's got a kid to take care of. Right.

[01:25:27] I think it's the scene where Doona Bae pitches the idea of kidnapping the daughter just to go back for a second. When they're in the van or whatever. Yeah. So the scene with the two of them in bed, I guess, is sort of post-coital with a mirror

[01:25:39] between the two of them, which I think is so clever. You start that sequence off where the mirror's dead center at the middle of the frame. So you're only seeing their legs basically come out from either side and then you come

[01:25:48] around the other way and you realize like, oh, well, he's like he's mutant deaf, right? Right. He's not going to be able to speak. Whenever he does speak, rather than just like subtitles under the film, it just goes full screen black with white text, which I like.

[01:26:02] It really puts like an emphasis on the few times he is even signing anything. Right. Because a lot of the movie, he just doesn't even attempt to. But you're like, well, he wants this kind of perfect composition of both of them lying

[01:26:16] back in bed looking forward, not looking at each other. But of course, if he's not looking at her, how could he know what she's saying? Because he reads lips and it's like there's a mirror directly in front of them. Yeah. That's how they do pillow talk. Yeah.

[01:26:29] I just think it's clever. And this leads up to what is, you know, Park has claimed to be and I have no evidence to refute this. The first sign language sex scene in the movie. Yeah. Hot. What was the one?

[01:26:42] There was a movie a couple of years ago that was a lot of sign language sex. Coda. Yes. Wonderstruck. No, I have no idea. Oh boy. It's even worse. It's not called The Tribe? Was that what it was called? Yes. Oh, that's right. Yes.

[01:26:56] That film didn't really take off. It felt like it was about to for a moment. It is a very interesting movie. The abortion school for the deaf. Yeah, I do like that movie. Coda does have a weird about it. Coda has all the fucking things.

[01:27:07] Coda has a lot of horniness. Well, Marlee Maitland and fucking. They are fucking constantly in that movie. They keep talking about how, right where it's like you have jock itch, you can't fuck for 48 hours. And he's like, I'm going to kill myself.

[01:27:18] I'm running this fishing boat into a cliff. But also she'll bring like fucking cute Sing Street boy over and her parents will just be having sex really loudly. And also they're like, ah. At first they're making the noises and she's like, they don't know that they're allowed.

[01:27:34] And then they come out and they're like, by the way, we were fucking and they do the finger and whole thing. Can't even work for best picture. One best picture. One best picture.

[01:27:43] But there is, I mean, there is a, there is a very like childlike quality to the entire nature of the plot. Not obviously what happens in it, but the way a lot of this information is communicated.

[01:27:55] There is that great scene where they're trying to make the little girl who they take otherwise such good care of to look upset so they can take a ransom photo. Yes. And it's so hard for you to like run around the apartment and make her cry again, beating

[01:28:10] the beating the drum of it. Like how sweet and nice these people are. This is not their natural state. What they're doing. Yes. Yeah. It's really setting you up for fall, which comes soon. So you're like, well, most movies would maybe just do on this for a while.

[01:28:27] Oh fuck. No, he was doing this all. He's going to bury his sister and while doing that, the, his, his kidnapping. It's just like the problems multiply at such an aggressive speed. Yeah. And obviously he's burying his sister because that place has emotional significance to them. Right?

[01:28:44] Like that's where they would go as children. Gonna have some more emotional significance to him for too long. That whole scene I actually, as I confessed with a train spotting, I skipped. I've seen it before. You, you now can't watch it. Yeah. Avoid watching scenes.

[01:28:57] I actually watched this with my daughter. Uh, four months old. She loved it. The weirdest thing is I watched all three vengeance movies cause I guess I think part criterion put them up a couple of years ago. They're on movie as well.

[01:29:09] They were like last month on the criterion channel. They're still on criterion. This is their last month. Okay. And we're recording right now. I watched them all with my infant daughter too. I was like, you're just so crazy in the first six months. Like your brain doesn't work.

[01:29:24] You know, you're just kind of, yeah, I remember having, I'm just being like, this is funny. I'm watching these fucked up movies with my little potato daughter. You also like, you play like last of us with your son. Yeah. You're worse than me.

[01:29:36] We don't need to out my, I don't want like the fucking, I was gonna say the CDC. That's not right. Child protective customer services. Sure. Yeah. They are already on my case for playing.

[01:29:44] It might, I mean, it's so cute when my son says Diablo when he wants to play Diablo four and he does play and he like sits on my lap and he plays it. What does he say when he wants to watch Pablo Pascal though? Pedro Pascal. Oh fuck.

[01:29:56] God damn it. Wow. It's not like anyone talks about that guy or anything. Pablo Shriver. Yeah, he loves him. He likes the live action Halo series.

[01:30:05] Just to clarify, when Ace is listening back to this and I've done this several episodes later, down the line apologizing for talking about showing my son these horrible things. Uh, he is not aware there is a last of us television show. He's really, really hooked on the game.

[01:30:18] Then we got some Star Wars, right? And we have the Star Wars survivor and I'm really trying hard to be a good dad and sell him on Zelda, but he has no fucking interest. If you say the word Zelda, it's funny. Right? No, I don't want Zelda.

[01:30:30] Zelda is colorful and filled with cute monsters and stuff. You build stuff. The Bloblo. Maybe if Zelda had more levels that were about what time it is. Yeah. Well, your son's favorite. Two fixations ago. You got to keep up.

[01:30:44] I ran to guys on the street the other day and asked him what time it was. He was pretty excited to read off the watch. He still got his watch. He still got that watch. It's true. He was mostly excited to see Uncle Griff.

[01:30:54] He's all about streets these days. Yeah. Kid of the streets. So, you know, the little girl dies. And then we sort of, that's at the point at which we're sort of shifting more to Zonk Halo's character. That is sort of the time pass.

[01:31:11] How do you guys feel about the character with cerebral palsy who is played by Ryu Seungbum, who is the director of another major film that came out right after this called Crying Fist, which I highly recommend.

[01:31:22] It's like the pre-Warrior version of that story about two boxers who are both the main character and like who's going to win. Sounds great. Will there be another episode recently? We were talking about it. But like that for me is, it always sort of throws me.

[01:31:37] It's definitely an expression of like the forces of fate that are coming in here and intervening. But it's very over the top how he behaves. It is a lot. I feel like there's a lot of that in these 2000s, like, I don't know, genre films.

[01:31:52] They wanted to cast an actor with cerebral palsy, but it was unsafe around the water for the actor that they hired. So they pivoted away from that. Whether or not that's worth keeping the character, I don't know.

[01:32:03] It is obviously like jarring to just that that's happening at the same time as this like completely horrifying thing. Like because initially, obviously, it's happening in the background. You don't even. It does feel like it's a little just sort of like it's a narrative.

[01:32:19] It's a movie that has to have someone who is going to pin themselves in your mind without really having time to develop them as a character. Why doesn't he just have a loud pair of sneakers?

[01:32:31] Well, it's used as a device, I think, to return us to this place so that you get, you know, you're back and you're looking at shots of stones an hour later. And that guy ambles into view. It needs to be like shorthand, but it's like there's a little.

[01:32:46] I think it's also, you know, deliberately knocking this movie out of one plane of reality and into this higher sort of echelon of we're in a different poetic abstract kind of space. Sure. Fine.

[01:32:59] Which goes hand in hand with like there's a tension between that attitude and the grimy reality of this crime story. Yeah. But yeah, it's always a it's a big choice. It's a bit of a big choice. I do think it is mostly there. So right.

[01:33:12] So you immediately clock like, yes, that's the same guy. Right. I don't think it's necessary particular, but it is kind of, you know, whatever nightmarish or adds to the nightmarishness. And the Spike Lee remake, they cut that character.

[01:33:25] There was some consideration of a remake of this movie in Hollywood. I don't understand what that would be insane to remake because they remade old boy and kept the twist. And that legit I'm like, yes, the movie didn't work or didn't succeed.

[01:33:40] But I could see a version of that movie making 30 million dollars in the US, but not this. It'd be like James Mangold sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. That's who they'd get. Turn back the dial. Look, I like Mangy more than you do.

[01:33:53] I'm just saying they'd get like a down the middle, you know, Hollywood journeyman type who would deliver a movie that would be really straightforward. And I mean, it's look, yes, at that point, why are you buying the rights to this as opposed to just writing a new revenge?

[01:34:05] It's too good. Well, that is true. But like it isn't. Yes, this is a tangled web we weave type thing. Sure. But, you know, it's so it's so like disrupt. You keep talking about the reality of the movie. I think that's right.

[01:34:25] And then that happening like this movie has been so over the top. The violence that we've seen has been over the top. The sort of, you know, twists of fate like him losing a kidney. Yes. Horrifying. Yes.

[01:34:40] You don't want that to happen to you, but it still feels very bad. Cartoonish. Giving a kidney can be nice, but having one taken from you. Yes. Or eating one with a nice canteen. You know, do you think Hannibal and Becker? No, I can't do that. Hannibal Bechter?

[01:34:54] When you murdered that guy, did you ever escape the cycle of violence that followed? Oh, I'm still in it. Or are you still trapped to it today? Monkey on my back. No, you would not believe how much he complains about it. It's like enough already.

[01:35:06] Still in the cycle of violence. Checks his email. He goes. Send to spam. Murder, shit. Remember that murder? No, the kid falling in, you're just sort of like, oh, we're not in, like, you know, funny playtime anymore. I feel at least.

[01:35:22] I know there is a sort of absurdity to what's going on that, you know, one could find kind of grotesquely funny or darkly ironic. But that's the kind of moment that Park seizes on is like, now I'm going to be funny. Like, just now.

[01:35:38] God bless him for being such a lunatic. I'm not complaining, but it was hard for me to watch. Like, that's the scene that follows with Song Kang-ho in the police van. And he's not in frame. He's framed out by the door.

[01:35:49] And the cop is just like repeatedly getting out of the van to take a completely unrelated phone call as it just sort of goes on and on and on is because of the horror we just witnessed. Especially funny. Yeah.

[01:36:01] We were saying before we were recording, like, the more times you see this movie, the more the horror of the plot itself, the easier it is to sort of appreciate the dark humor. I agree with that. Sure.

[01:36:12] Look, what happens in the movie is everyone goes on vengeance runs. Yeah. They're kind of multiple vengeance runs happening simultaneously. Ryu kills the organ gang with a baseball bat. Yes. Um, gets stabbed. And then he's like, oh, that's not a bad idea. So that's his journey.

[01:36:31] Dong Jin, Song Kang-ho's character, grabs Jun-bae and hooks her up to the electricity. Yeah. And covers her in a bag and tortures her with it. Kills her. And eventually kills her, but not before torturing her for a while and eating her lunch.

[01:36:47] And then he's like, oh, I'm so sorry. And then he's like, oh, I'm so sorry. And then he's like, oh, I'm so sorry. And then he's like, oh, I'm so sorry. And eating her lunch. The grievous sin of all. Lunch theft! And then he kills—

[01:37:03] Seven days. Pride. You know, avarice. Lunch theft! Not only does he eat her lunch, he kills the delivery guy. He does. He's really—I mean, there's the—right at the end of the movie where he gets the phone call being like,

[01:37:16] is this this person? Like, come claim your daughter's body. And he's like, it's not me. Because he's just like not a person anymore. Right. He's increasingly not a person. He only identifies as Mr. Vengeance now. Well, it's his dad.

[01:37:28] It's someone else, separate, when they call to see if he can claim his body. Isn't it— Is that what's going on? I'm pretty sure, yeah. Am I not picking up on that? Am I wrong? I'm trying to remember.

[01:37:38] Well, at the end of the movie, he gets the phone call on the cell phone. Yeah. Telling him to come claim his daughter's body, no? I think so. Right. A lot's going on at that point. Yeah. I'm sure this would be easily resolved. Yeah. No, I mean, he—

[01:37:52] And that scene, the— I mean, both those scenes. But the scene where Ryu beats the smugglers, the organ traffickers with a baseball bat is, I think, as clear a preview of what's to come in Park Chan-wook's body of work as anything else here.

[01:38:05] Just like the kineticism of it. Right. And how it's framed for both, like, maximum spectacle and visceral thrill and also sickening grossness. Yes. It is fascinating reading, like, reviews, especially the American reviews from when this movie came out where people are like,

[01:38:23] this is just, like, so perversely grotesque and violent. And you're just like, he's barely warm. Right. He ain't even bubbling yet. Yeah. And I mean, yeah. It's—I think, again, I mean, I'm beating a dead horse here, but, like, I feel like it all serves a purpose

[01:38:44] that in discrete examples, in a vacuum, each of these things feel sort of like a hat on a hat and overdone. But when you contrast the cartoon violence and the operatic savagery of what's happening with the very, very human reactions to each of these moments, you get something.

[01:39:02] You also have the attention to the capitalists and the labor, which we talked about a little bit. But these two guys sort of circling around each other in a mutually assured destruction. This is from the dossier, but I do think it's interesting.

[01:39:11] Park said, like, he wanted the sort of working-class house to be incredibly, you know, colorful and filled with, you know, lots of, like, sort of character-y objects and, like, not wanting to fall into the cliche of, like, a gloomy, drab environment.

[01:39:27] Whereas Song Kang Ho's house is, like, fairly boring, kind of like, you know, sort of, quote unquote, tastefully done, but, like, without a lot of atmosphere. Very modern and cold. Right. And, yeah, like, I do, you know, I do think, like...

[01:39:46] I mean, he's a very florid approach to violence and also to, like, anything that would seem depressing or negative. I mean, it is always in his films draped in color. It's always ornate. I remember, you know, the purple box famously from Oldboy.

[01:40:01] And you could buy at the time, this was, like, my most coveted possession that I also ordered from, like, yesasia.com, whatever, one of those websites. Jesus, you get fucking points from that place? Do they still exist?

[01:40:11] I mean, if they must, but the DVD market has taken a hit. But it would come... It was a four-disc set of Oldboy. In the purple box. And it would come in the purple box with a bow on it. But, like, and that is, you know,

[01:40:21] the most upsetting thing in that movie, and it comes in this beautiful gift wrap box. I mean, that is Park Jim to a T. Much like the Amazing Spider-Man 2 and the Electrohead that Matt Singer bought. Exactly, it's just like that. Yeah.

[01:40:32] I found the review I was looking for. It's from San Francisco Gate by J... I'm sorry, G. Allen Johnson. So this is when it gets its North American release. He has already seen Oldboy and is very pro-Oldboy. Sure. Which I think makes these criticisms feel more...

[01:40:49] But I will say, I assume what you're about to read is sort of similar in the tone of what a lot of the reviews of this movie were like in America, basically. Yes. Unless his review is, like, I don't know,

[01:40:59] reminded me too much of my, you know, wedding. Like Oldboy... Yeah. Go on, go on. Like Oldboy, it features stomach-churning gore but sympathy degenerates in the second half. As Park's apparently ugly contempt for humanity kills off the goodwill he has built up from his irresistible plot,

[01:41:16] which hints at a Korean cultural divide for real visual flair. He says, um, sympathy by contrast is so bloody, scatologically violent and consistently shocking it seems to have no larger purpose than itself, which is pretty grim. What a waste. I... I feel like a lot of the reviews...

[01:41:34] Yeah. Were along those lines, and I do sympathize with being a critic and being confronted with a movie... I sympathize with Mr. Vengeance. I sympathize first and foremost with Mr. Vengeance. Sympathy for Mr. Movie? But then sympathy for Mr. Critic,

[01:41:48] who has to watch a movie in which a child dies somewhat callously and like, you know, then all this horrible sort of like meaningless what is it all for? Yeah. And like, it's tough to walk out of one of those and be like, oh, it was good,

[01:42:01] I liked that. Absolutely, but I'm also like... But I think he's off. This is coming like two months after Oldboy comes out, and he's like, where's the joy and wit of Oldboy? The joygasm of Oldboy's last half hour. Right. There's a quote that I have failed to source.

[01:42:15] I think it was from a book about Park Jim, but I can't remember if he said it or someone else said it, but it says, the film is too funny to be reality and too cruel to be a joke. And I think like in that middle ground,

[01:42:24] a lot of people get lost. I do think one of the reasons why I prefer the later films of the trilogy is because they do more novel things with retribution and violence and vengeance and all of that. I particularly am fascinated by the end of Lady Vengeance

[01:42:42] when it becomes more of a collective act. That's why Lady Vengeance is fucking incredible. And she diffuses the idea of this guilt and violence. And you have tried to lock some of your enemies in a hotel room for 14 years.

[01:42:51] You said that I shouldn't talk about my own personal experience in regards to this trilogy, but yeah, if you want to put me on blast like that, I do that from time to time. Vengeance trilogies have been done upon you and you have done vengeance trilogies upon others.

[01:43:01] What is having a child, if not taking a person and locking them in a space for the better part of 18 years? That's true. And you lent us your baby jail, literally, is what he refers to it as. You have sentenced both of your children

[01:43:14] to living in a walk-up. That's true. That is, yeah. It's true. They're going to see Oldboy and be like, it's just like my life. This is. They're trying to poke their way out and they're like, ah, we're so high up. Every night I just open the door

[01:43:27] and throw in some dumplings, which I always thought would be pretty sweet. If someone just popped open the door. That looks nice. If you're going to lock me in a hotel room, and this is obviously addressed more next week, and feed me the same food every time,

[01:43:38] dumplings, I would like that more than a lot. Free dumplings. You can exercise. You don't have to know about 9-11. Shadow boxing allowed. I would get swole as hell. You don't have to see Transformers. You get gassed every night to sleep. Which I also said on that episode.

[01:43:53] You say on the news. I was kind of into the idea. Shitting gas to sleep. Do you not get to see any of the Transformers movies? I mean, I think eventually you come out and maybe start with fucking Dark Side of the Moon,

[01:44:06] which is pretty good, all things considered. If you're going to start somewhere. Although obviously you don't have any of the context required. Also correction, it's called Dark of the Moon. It's called Dark of the Moon. The side was copyrighted. I see, I see.

[01:44:18] It's really annoying that it's called Dark of the Moon. Incredibly annoying. That is the most and only annoying thing about the Transformers film trilogy. Dark of the Moon rules. It does. Wow. That last hour in IMAX 3D, Jesus. Yes, I remember it well. I was hooting and hollering.

[01:44:32] And you know, now the beasts have risen. Everything's changed. It's true. Do you know about the end? I do know about the end, but I am strategically on paternity leave this month to avoid both Tribeca and the Beastmasters. You're a ninja. A ninja dancing between the raindrops

[01:44:48] of early shitty summer scheduling. It's like the first scene of the Grandmaster, but with movie releases. Wasn't your daughter born six months ago? Yeah, but the leaves now. Pretty much. Yeah, that is pretty much what he did. So, Park Jenwick says, shooting this film,

[01:45:03] a really fun harmonious experience. Cool. But, he admits the film came out quite vicious. Did we hit the very ending just... Yeah, we got to. That the Doona Bay's anarchist group comes back. Oh, well, that's fair point. Well, no, no, no, no, we should really hit the ending

[01:45:18] because yes, he kills Doona Bay. Was not going to be the end. The ending was originally going to end with him on that phone call. Right, which is, I get that as an ending. Like, you can imagine what happens next sort of thing. But you can't,

[01:45:30] because no one sees what happens coming. The actual ending, yes. But no, but also we should, of course, he gets Ryu, knocks him out, brings him to the riverbed, drags him into the water, slashes his Achilles tendon. Because he doesn't want to have to see... Watches him die.

[01:45:47] But he doesn't want to have to see him die. He wants to feel like, I cut his legs and that's all. Sure, it's kind of a... I'm just going to bite the air and move forward if I eat a pie, you know, it's the Homer Simpson thing.

[01:46:00] And come on. If he had made that reference in the moment, it would have been great. This movie could use more Simpsons quotes from characters to each other. I think it should do more just literally than just being, remember this episode of The Simpsons?

[01:46:12] In the millennial remake of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, that's how it plays out. Slowly back up into the bushes. Love when the New York Times pops up with an alert that's, Chris Christie's running for president. Guys, I don't care. This is the most exciting thing

[01:46:26] since they announced The Matrix 4 in that episode I was on. That was a good episode. Which episode was that? Mononoke. No, House Movie Castland. Dude, can you believe, this is the most baller shit of all time. The Miyazaki releasing his movie. Yeah, he's just like,

[01:46:42] it has a date, show up if you want. Fuck film festivals. I did like the joke that I saw on some website that was like, he's not releasing a trailer because he's accidentally just made Morbius. He's really embarrassed. But it's like he saw, Shit, he's fucking Morbius!

[01:46:56] Word for word! But he saw the campaign for the whale and Killers of the Flower Moon and he's like, they're giving away too much. He saw that as the trailer for Cast Away and he's like, they're giving away the whole game.

[01:47:07] When that still drops in Flower Moon 20 minutes in, you're like, thank God. Okay, they're not going to make us wait too long for him sitting at the table. It's like when the drums kick in and I'm in the air tonight. But it's the last shot in that scene

[01:47:18] and they go every possible setup in that kitchen before they finally land on that one. Sorry, I was just doing various camera angles. When there finally was the news story of like, he's bypassing all festivals, he's putting it in theaters,

[01:47:33] it will be out in Asia in a couple of months and rest of the world sometime later. The first person to rush, when there's like some news story, especially relevant. And the poster of the film is just like a bird or something.

[01:47:47] We don't even know if the movie's about birds. They just said that it's actually not based on the book that we all thought it was based on. He loves to do that. It's based on this book, but not in any way. It could be about birds.

[01:47:57] It's based on the power broker? It's actually just Sully. He's remade Sully. No, but whenever there's any news story connected to one of the directors we've covered in the past, I feel like there's this mad rush from blankies to be the first to post the thread

[01:48:16] with the new news tidbit so they can get all the upvotes and the comments on their thread when there are going to be five copycat threads. So the person who rushed to post that, How Do You Live? erroneously said, Miyazaki film will come out this summer, 12 minutes long,

[01:48:35] runtime confirmed, because it was 120 minutes. And they were so quick to type it out that they put in 12 and I was like, Are you fucking kidding me? These things are short? We've been waiting five goddamn years and it's a fucking short? We drew it with one finger.

[01:48:51] We just daubed some paint. It's done by AI. He actually revisited that AI tech demo that we showed. That's pretty good. Yeah, put it out. It's just an episode of Bluey. I saw this, it was funny. He went on the Japanese version of Blank Check

[01:49:06] and he was like, You know that one time that I said that AI animation was a sin against humanity? I'm very sorry about that. And I will be very sad when Harrison Ford dies. Yeah, whatever. All the movies are long this year. Why not go short?

[01:49:20] Do Nabe and his friends kill? They do. After he has committed, after he has finally achieved his vengeance, which has not really done much for him, he is killed by the chain smoking gang. There's always someone else. Do Nabe told him

[01:49:32] that's going to happen if you kill him. And the guy who stabs him has that look where he's sitting there kneeling down and smoking and he's clearly never stabbed anyone before and he's just sort of being like, I just stabbed a guy. Like that's fucking wild.

[01:49:43] It's the opposite of what you would expect in a movie like this where he's like walking away as the car explodes behind him. He's just like fascinated by the decision that he just made. Now this film, Joint Security Area made about $30 million in Korea,

[01:49:58] which was the most successful Korean filmmaker. This film made $2 million. Is that less or more? This is sandwiched in between two fat-titted hits, right? Yeah. I mean, Old Boy I think made, yes, more. Not as much as maybe JSA, but a lot. Was successful. Park, people felt betrayed.

[01:50:23] But the person who really felt betrayed was me, he says. Because people didn't like the movie. Took out his vengeance on the audience. And he doubled down by being like, fuck it, I'm making a trilogy. I'm not fucking going. He thinks that the audience

[01:50:37] maybe did not love the idea of having to identify with the perpetrator of a crime and then the victim of the crime. He thought that was interesting, the structure of the film. But he says perhaps audiences didn't necessarily like to do that. A very funny joke

[01:50:51] to follow this up with a more traditional hero's journey where you sympathize with one character the entire way. And then at the end, they're like, surprise, you've been rooting for a guy who's been committing incest in front of your eyes. Yes. Good joke. But, but, you know,

[01:51:09] it is one of those movies I think that yes, bombed initially, but highly influential, very respected by other career directors. You know, kind of begins whatever sits in motion. The fucking informal vengeance trilogy that defines his career. That's what I was going to say.

[01:51:25] Oh boy, being so big immediately puts more retroactive shine on this movie where it's like, now you're telling me these are of a piece. I got to go back and watch the first one. So, the writers of The Last Jedi's movie into Cannes and were rejected.

[01:51:38] Oh boy, obviously played in Cannes. This feels like a classic director's fortnight or in certain regard. Anyway. Warner Brothers acquired the rights to remake it. They brought in Lasse Hallström. That's a joke. That second thing was a joke. That's who I was reaching for when I said

[01:51:50] I wanted James Mangold. There is a script. The writer of Broken City wrote a script. That's the fucking Wahlberg, Russell Crowe, Hughes. Something's up at City Hall. Whichever Hughes brother. Yeah, one of the Hughes. Quentin Tarantino. Thought it was good. Big shot Harry Knowles, as you say.

[01:52:09] Put it number one. Film didn't come out for three years. It was going to be number three into those last 30 minutes and then he leaned to the whole father geek. I'm glad he keyed us into his process. But it did not get particularly good reviews from American critics

[01:52:23] on release when it was finally released. Yeah. Yes. You can suck my nuts. But maybe releasing it that shortly after Oldboy was an incredibly bad decision. I mean, look, I don't think there was a pocket where this movie was going to make a ton of money.

[01:52:39] But 45 grand definitely wasn't what they were aiming for. Very low gross. This has to be one of the lowest grosses, North American grosses we've ever covered on this show. I don't know. What did fucking Alice in Wonderland make? Although it says something that Lady Vengeance, which came along

[01:52:55] just a few short years after Mr. Vengeance came out in the United States, was a very low gross. Mr. Vengeance came out in the United States one year later, played at the very prestigious and relatively high brow New York Film Festival in the night slate.

[01:53:06] So it's like they, as far as his reputation was concerned, people hadn't written him off purely as this torture porn. Well, there's that weird thing. It is in an era of a lot of horror that is extreme for extremity's sake. Yes. But I do think

[01:53:22] it's just the being released here out of order. You know? It's one thing if it's not. It's being released as an afterthought. Right. If it's like, oh, Criterion is putting out his early less-seen film, people are viewing that in the context of, oh, I'm filling in a gap

[01:53:37] versus if you've just seen Old Boy after all this hype and they're like, here's another one. And dare I say the tartan Asian extreme branding, which even then makes you wince a little bit, just to say at least those last two words together in that way,

[01:53:52] probably didn't help in terms of positioning this movie in a way where people would take it seriously. You're not getting perverse thrills from this movie. You know, Simms, you know where I saw Old Boy in theaters was in the Odeon? Like a shoebox. Little Odeon theater.

[01:54:07] You mean in London? In London Town. It's the Odeon, not Odeon. It is what I fucking say it is. Odeon, of course, is London, Britain's biggest theater chain. Do you know which one? You said it was a shoebox? It was the tiny theater in a big building

[01:54:21] in like Leicester Square. It's on Panton Street. Yeah. Cool. So that's cool. The weirdest thing about Leicester Square, there are three Odeons that are like basically all looking at each other. There used to be four, I think. And the big one is just one screen.

[01:54:34] That's where you like premiere your movies, the Leicester Square Odeon. What if I made the bit I now think that Ehrlich grew up in London? No. And then there's the West End Odeon, which is sort of like a normal multi-plus. What, you went there after school? Yeah.

[01:54:48] And then the Panton Street Odeon where you saw, that was the weird one. There should be a plaque out there. That's where you see some weird movies. And then the big one is the West End Odeon. And it's like a little digital projection and the screen

[01:55:00] had all those dots on them. And it was really ugly and I was just seeing it as a novelty because I'd seen Oldboy about 15 times on DVD and I was like, I wonder what this looks like on the big screen before it came out in the United States.

[01:55:11] And I made it in about 30 minutes and I was like, alright, I got the five. Well, but, well, I walked out. Guess you don't like Coldplay that much. Never went back to London again. Do you want to play the box office game? I desperately want to play it.

[01:55:25] Me too. It's freshman year of college in the bag. Summer internship in Boston happening. Where were you interning? The Boston Phoenix. Okay. And number one at the box office, it's a comedy. It's the launch of a career, I would say, a filmmaking career. It is The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

[01:55:44] It is Yawn 40-Year-Old Virgin. Yeah. Which opens to a healthy $21 million but then holds exceptionally well and goes over 100. Hits 100. And just a month earlier, Wedding Crashers comes out. Yes, that's right. It makes a metric shit ton of money. Wow, they crashed all those weddings.

[01:56:02] And they got paid for each wedding. That's right. Audiences pay them back for each wedding. Yeah, the ticket was actually like so much more and they're like, it's per wedding. It made like 205 crash weddings domestic which is insane. It wasn't a big hit. But I think it was

[01:56:17] sort of like, well, that's obviously the comedy hit of the summer and then 40-Year-Old Virgin comes out later, does incredibly well. It makes less money. I mean, Wedding Crashers made more money. Absolutely. But it was sort of like, oh, there's room for two

[01:56:30] and obviously this is the one that's going to have the longer tail both as a movie itself and also this is going to spawn the entire epitaph wedding crashers discussed to this day constantly. Yes, constantly. A sequel is still threatened. That's like a hurricane. They were about

[01:56:44] to film it for HBO Max and then Owen Wilson bagged it at the last minute. Good for him. They were like set up. He was like, oh, that's a bad, can you do a mater for me? Wow. I was like, wow, this is a terrible idea. HBO Max?

[01:56:56] Wow. Yes, those movies could not be less similar. What's the place for HBO? What's the what? The place for HBO. Where do I watch it? Oh, Max is the one to watch when you want to watch HBO. Okay, so number one is the 40-Year-Old Virgin.

[01:57:08] Obviously, it's that sort of weird thing of like, Carell is the star but the office is hitting the bottom of the list and then there's the wedding crashers and then the wedding crashers and then the wedding crashers and then the wedding crashers and then the wedding crashers

[01:57:19] and then the office is hitting after they make it but before it comes out. They've done six episodes. And so it's like... The six-episode midseason replacement before this. Suddenly this guy is going to be hot, all that stuff. Right. They kind of, I mean, renewed the office

[01:57:33] on the promise of this is testing well, not knowing the thing was going to be that big. Right. And then that transforms everything. And then he spent the rest of his career being a movie star while making the office. They had no idea

[01:57:45] that he was going to scream the words Kelly Clarkson as someone ripped off a movie star. I mean, it's a funny thing, but it's like... Rudd is the funniest part. Romney Malka's incredible. The whole crew is fucking incredible. That movie is astonishingly funny. And it is brilliant.

[01:57:57] But that thing that I think still basically exists of like, people don't really release major things the last two weeks of August. Totally. So if you're the big movie, the last big movie through the door the first or second week of August, you probably just run the table

[01:58:09] until like mid-September. But! But? Another film's coming out this week. And it's a big movie. It's a big movie. It's a big movie. It's a big movie. It's a movie that's coming out this week. A film that I assume was kind of thinking it would be number one,

[01:58:21] R-rated thriller, Red Eye. Yes. Now, David's crush on Rachel McAdams, post-wedding crashers, is already at 1,000. Have you ever considered kidnapping her aboard a commercial airliner and threatening her father's life whose played by Brian Cox? And then there's also a grenade launcher or rocket launcher at the end?

[01:58:43] If she doesn't move somebody's hotel room? Jama Mays is in that one too. Everyone's having fun. Red Eye is great. Obviously, Cillian Murphy playing the crazy guy. I want to put Craven on a bracket sometime. I would love to put Craven on a bracket. It's a long career.

[01:58:56] It is, but then I— And there's some, you know, kind of fallow periods. I was looking through it and I was like, it's more consistent than I remembered it being. It's a very interesting person to talk about.

[01:59:04] The bit where Rachel McAdams stabs Cillian Murphy in the neck with a pen is probably the Mr. Vengeance-iest moment of Rachel McAdams' career, I would venture to say. That movie's kind of like Vengeance Airlines. I mean, that was pretty good. Oh no, he died. Oh no, he died.

[01:59:21] It's still the funniest line reading. She is on— People post that clip on Twitter once a week. I always watch it. I always laugh. She's the fucking best. Oh no, he died!

[01:59:32] She's on this season of Dave, the FX original series Dave, where the whole bit is that she's his ultimate celebrity crush and then he actually has to meet her. And the whole thing is like, oh, she's actually everything he wanted her to be. Sure.

[01:59:45] Because she actually probably is. Right. She's the total package. Right, and it's kind of an astonishing performance where it's just like, your job is to just be the most charming, funny person in the world. She's like, shouldn't even know she was on that show. Exactly.

[01:59:56] Have any of you guys seen Jury Duty? Not the Pauly Shore movie, but the show. Yes, I've seen the Pauly Shore movie. Both great, but I'd say the television show even better. I don't know why I'm thinking about that. Marsden playing himself.

[02:00:07] So fucking funny. Also, there's a role that Griffin would have killed him. All right, well don't make me feel bad. Well, the guy with the girlfriend or the tech guy? Either one. Take your pick.

[02:00:17] The tech guy, I think that's the most astonishing comedic performance I've seen in a little while. That guy I'm blown away by. Pretty special. And no disrespect to the girlfriend guy, but I did have that thought of why it was I put out for this.

[02:00:26] David, what's number three at the box office? It's a film we covered on this podcast. It is a, it was out last week. It's the second week coming down from number one. Lady in the Water? Nope. It is a sort of an action thriller drama.

[02:00:42] 2005, first week of August. Previous number one. Action thriller. Sure. Well, you're saying sure like it's not really. I mean, action's maybe a little strong. It's a thriller, sort of a good drama thriller. Insomnia. No. No, 2004. What studio? Paramount Pictures. Paramount Pictures.

[02:01:03] It's a picture of a bunch of stars dancing across the water. Skipping stones. And then, whoo, in a circle. They encircle a mountain. Paramount Pictures. You know what I bet is atop that mountain? What? America's worst streaming service. How dare you? Peacock's probably worse. Have I talked about.

[02:01:22] Peacock has Summer House. Paramount Plus doesn't let you deactivate devices. Paramount Plus is not very good at being an app. It's not. Which I think it should improve at doing that because that is, of course, its job. Right. But Paramount Plus does have things I want to watch.

[02:01:37] Let me be vindictive and not allow my exes to watch my Paramount Plus. I'm not allowed to kick them off? Really? Every other app fucking offers this. Aren't you looking for any opportunity to stay connected with them in some way? Yeah, but it doesn't work.

[02:01:51] See them log in, you know, Star Trek Picard or whatever. Anyway. They're all Picard-ing it up. Third season, good. Come on, what is this hot film that we've covered? We've covered it during the. We've covered it? Oh, it's collateral. No, it's not. Thus, that's 2004. Yes. 2005. This is 2005.

[02:02:08] It's a Paramount. We've covered it. Think about it, George Bush in office. One of our directors. A mentoring candidate? No. Fuck. That's 2004 as well. Damn it. Fuck. 2005 is kind of a fallow time. I know, but both of those are Paramount. Is it a star vehicle?

[02:02:21] Yes, but it is also an ensemble and that is referenced in the title of this film and the premise. Oh, the ensemble. What if you had some of these? A couple guys. More than a couple. A hundred guys. Less than a hundred. Two guys. Two guys.

[02:02:39] It is four brothers. Four of them. A Friday night special. One, two, three, four. Yes. Not a movie. It's a hard movie to sort of tee up because it's like, you know, what if there were four brothers? Yeah, but it's kind of a revenge dramatic.

[02:02:51] Yeah, it's not really an action movie. I mean, it has some gun play or whatever, but it's more like. It's got Garrett Hedlund taking a shit. It's got everyone taking a shit. I enjoyed those three seconds where I thought there was a movie called Two Brothers.

[02:03:03] I thought there was a movie called Two Guys and it did really well at the box office. There was two guns. Now, remind me, did they jerk off together in that one? Yeah, they were hands on back. I actually remember all the things. Right.

[02:03:12] They fuck Sofia Vergara on top of a washing machine. They were all fuck right in the making. Jesus Christ. The four brothers of course are Mark Wahlberg, Terry Skipson, Garrett Hedlund and Andre Benet. Garrett Hedlund. Yes.

[02:03:25] Number four at the box office, it's the biggest comedy of the year. We already mentioned it. Wedding Crashers. It's hanging around. Yeah. Crashing more weddings by the day. Number five at the box office is a horror film that is reverse get out.

[02:03:37] I once called it underrated on one of my lists that The Atlantic made me write during the pandemic and someone made fun of me for that. Skeleton Kid. I think it was Olivia. Yes, Skeleton Kid. Which you and I both like. A good movie. Good movie.

[02:03:48] Ian Softly directed it? Correct. Not to spoil it, but it's literally just reverse get out. I mean, as if I have not seen Skeleton Kid on a daily basis for the last 15 years. Probably in like Kate Hudson's top five movies. Oh yeah.

[02:03:58] No, I know that's, you know, she's got a top Emmy list. Well, number one, music. Yeah. Good, good fucking late Jenna Rollins performance. Yeah, no, no, it is. I think it's just a fun, effective programmer with a pretty decent like swampy vibe. I agree. Yes.

[02:04:14] Those August horror movies used to be credible, even as recently as 2005. They had a little bit more credibility than they do now. I'm getting a post. Yeah. You've also got March of the Penguins. Them penguins be marching!

[02:04:24] I think it's because horror has become so big now though that if you have a good horror movie, you're not dumping it in August. Yeah, but Barbarian was an August release. That's a weird exception to the rule where no one... September 9th, I want to say.

[02:04:35] Do you know that movie still does not have a physical release? Uh, that's fucked up. Isn't that fucked up? Come on Disney. Is it on Disney plus? Yeah, it's on Disney plus in the kids section. I have no fucking idea. I think it's on Hulu. Probably.

[02:04:53] Yeah, those penguins be marching all the way to 77 domestic. Oh baby. Number seven at the box office. One of the most instant fucking relic movies. Like, just like, let's never speak of this again. The Dukes of Hazzard. Oh yes.

[02:05:11] It's just like two years later, everyone I think was just like, why did we do that? I was going to guess where it was because it opened pretty big. It dropped like a fucking stone. Yes. People a week later were like... It did make 80 million dollars.

[02:05:22] But it like opened to almost 40. It opened to 30. 30. Not bad. Jessica Simpson, not a movie star, it turns out. Not a movie star driving around in a confederate flag car. Probably not advisable in the 21st century. But the Dukes of Hazzard was there for a year.

[02:05:37] It was there. Number eight at the box office. A new film. Oh boy. Oh boy. Animated. Oh boy. I just wanted you to guess this one. 2005. I know we don't usually guess those. Animated, what studio? The studio, of course, is... What distributor? Weirdly, it was distributed by Disney.

[02:05:58] But it's a British film. Is it Valiant? Valiant. Right. That was some output. They didn't make that. Ealing or something. It was one of those, you know, fucking Tony Blair cuts through. It's like, Britain's going to make animated movies again. It's Valiant.

[02:06:12] I was going to say, it's about a pigeon. What was the fucking movie that you guys were obsessed with? The trailer with the birds? Will Smith's The Bird. Spies in Disguise. Spies in Disguise. It was that before that. Or like Chicken Rambo Chitty.

[02:06:23] You've also got Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Another film we've covered. And your favorite film of all time, Sky High. What a fucking masterpiece. Have you ever seen Sky High, Erlich? I mean, I saw Sky High in theaters the day that it opened.

[02:06:34] Standing for Nicholas Braun, day one. Same. I bet so big on that guy so early where I was like... You gotta bet big. He's tall. He's incredibly... And he was that tall at 15. Rangy. You've seen that movie, right? I have. It's very fun. Sky High is adorable.

[02:06:49] And perfect live action original teenage fair that we... Deprived the Zoomers of. And you're also still better than most superhero movies? Oh, yeah. How much better? We were talking about... You were saying Sims post-Spider-Verse.

[02:07:02] You were like, maybe all fucking MCU movies should have been animated to begin with. Yeah, why not? Where I'm like, you watch Sky High and you're like, all superhero movies should be this silly. Did you guys see that fucking Spider-Verse? Alright, enough. Enough.

[02:07:12] Another film I want to shout out in the top ten. We already talked about Spider-Verse. Off mic. That was amazing. Ben, did you see Deuce Bigalow, European Gigolo? No. The Tower of Pisa was coming out of his crotch! Oh my God. No, I didn't stick with it.

[02:07:25] To be fair... Assume you saw the first one. I did see the first one. To be fair, Ben wanted to go see it, but he had forgotten to renew his passport. Wouldn't let him into the theater? Mmm. There he is.

[02:07:38] Right, so the poster makes it look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa is his weakness. I think that's just an accident. I think that was a coincidence. You think that's a coincidence? They were actually doing a whole other thing.

[02:07:51] They were just trying to take a nice photo of Rob Schneider. They saw that in post and they were like, uh oh, we can work with this. Will he ever complete the trilogy? Will he ever? Deuce Bigalow what, goes to Antarctica? Benjen Gigolo. Deuce Bigalow, Benjen Gigolo.

[02:08:08] Deuce Bigalow Legacy. Oh boy. They don't make him like that anymore. They don't. It was before Rob Schneider discovered Twitter. His real art form. That was the end of the Bigalowverse. Spiderverse. Deuce Bigalow related to Catherine Bigalow? Yes. And they address that in the film.

[02:08:32] He watches The Loveless. I came into this recording session floating 48 hours after seeing Across the Spiderverse. Yeah, I saw it last night. Still half drunk off my Margarita de Alamo. Fucking rolls. Just so, like it was completely levitational. Just so fucking good.

[02:08:46] Well, just you watch it and you're just like what you want to yell at every other movie. Like what's your fucking excuse? Just do this. Try this hard. I had never seen this reaction before to a movie where the moment it cuts you to be continued.

[02:09:01] The entire audience groan loudly and then immediately as soon as the groan ended began cheering as loud as they could. Can I say incredibly smart decision that they backed off of this being Across the Spiderverse part one and instead went this is Across the next one's being.

[02:09:16] The part one part two shit has to die. It kind of has died and so I was alarmed that they were bringing it back and I'm happy they did. And you know they did that with Infinity War 2. Remember that was going to be Infinity War parts 1 and 2?

[02:09:30] People are like my only beef is that. But Dead Reckoning is doing it. Well, Dead Reckoning is going to be a masterpiece. But I'm also just like call it Dead Reckoning and Deader Reckoning or something. Give them different fucking titles. Just Dead Reckoning reloaded. Paramount's on the phone.

[02:09:42] Dead Reckoning. People are like you know it's annoying to me that Across the Spiderverse is only half a movie. And I was like that could not be more of a movie. There are 300 movies in that movie. I think it's a full meal.

[02:09:52] I think it's setting up a lot of stuff for the next movie and there are larger unresolved things. I think it is a full movie. I mean whether it is or not. Yeah, sure it leaves you hanging.

[02:10:01] But I was like who could need more movie out of that? It's giving you so fucking much. My brain is bleeding movie and I'm loving it. So two hours 20 minutes longest American animated film. Yeah, it's long. Longer than Hayao Mizuki's How Do You Know?

[02:10:13] If the next one is two hours, I wouldn't be like mad about that. No, look I like things being shorter. I just think they use their run time well. There's certainly a lot of fucking shit there. I agree. I was never unhappy to be watching Across the Spiderverse.

[02:10:26] The last 90 minutes of that movie could just be Miles Morales like kicking rocks and I already would have been like this was the best time I had at the movies this year. Here's my gripe. Didn't even release it in 3D. No. Well, I don't need that.

[02:10:40] The animated films always get released in 3D. Spiderverse, unsurprisingly, first Spiderverse in 3D is really good. This movie in 3D would have killed you. Imagine watching this in your new Apple Vision Pro. And I would have died happy. I just moved my 3D TV into my new apartment.

[02:10:55] 3D TV survives. And I got my fucking original Spiderverse steelbook with the 3D disc and I threw it on. I went oh baby. Can't wait to watch this new one. You moved. Wait, did you move to Brooklyn? Downtown Brooklyn. Hey! You had downtown Brooklyn nooms.

[02:11:12] I had to keep the brand strong so I moved to downtown Brooklyn. Enough! Wrap it up. I'm peeing. Yes. Not right now. Erlich, anything you want to plug? Paternity leave? I like that you clarified, David, that you weren't actively peeing on Mike just in your pants.

[02:11:30] He's choosing to do it now. I would love to plug Sony Animations Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse. A film that should be rewarded. I think it hasn't been getting enough press. Very, very good. I don't know. I'm currently on leave.

[02:11:46] By the time this comes out I will be back at work ready and braced for Barbenheimer and Mission Impossible, Dead Reckoning and all the joy that July should hopefully bring. My podcast cohorts at Fighting in the War Room will kill me.

[02:11:58] They will slice my Achilles tendons and leave me to drown in a river in South Korea if I do not mention that podcast. I already mentioned its name once. That's enough. Do you have a Spider-Verse episode? I guess we're talking about it tonight. I don't know.

[02:12:15] It's a matter of just being BB and like, the movie fucking ruled. You already got the good stuff here. Yeah, I don't know. That's it. Great. Well, thank you all for listening. That was a great review and subscribe.

[02:12:29] Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media helping to produce the show. Thank you to Joe Bowen, Pat Rounds for our artwork. Thank you to Becker. I was waiting for this. I hope Harrison Ford lives forever. Yep, of course. Long live Harrison Ford.

[02:12:45] Thank you Joe Bowen for the aforementioned wooden carve-outs of our faces. That's mine. Don't fucking drink that. That's mine. I put that in the fridge for myself. I just saw you eyeballing it and I don't want you to drink it. It's an Ollie Pop Cola.

[02:13:01] Put the Becker theme on again, bud. Thank you to Lane Montgomery and the Great American Owl for our theme song. Thank you to AJ McKeon, Alex Barron for our editing, JJ Birch for our research.

[02:13:12] You can go to BlankCheckPod.com for links to some real nerdy shit including our Patreon, Blank Check, special features. Do commentaries on film series. Yeah. Crossing some oceans. Yeah, I think it's oceans, right? Let me check. This episode is coming out July 2.

[02:13:29] We'll do the aforementioned low-drama girl coming up. We just did Oceans 1-1. Check into that episode for two hours of us asleep snoring with no dialogue. And then a special surprise at the end that we did not predict.

[02:13:42] There will be an unannounced surprise guest for the last 30 minutes of the episode that is fun. It's a good guest. Someone who's never been on the show before. Daniel Ocean. Himself? Yes. He stole the podcast. Tune in next week for Old Boy with Allison Walmart.

[02:14:02] Our friend Allison Walmart returning to the show from New York Magazine. Honk honk. Honk honk. I don't know. And as always. Are you guys doing an Oceans 8 commentary? Yeah. Is that the first time you've done a commentary on a movie that Griffin is ostensibly in?

[02:14:17] My arm is in it. I guess the answer is yes, right? You guys are going across the Griffinverse. Yeah, and I'm warning people in advance. We're going to pause for 30 minutes when my arm is on screen and really dissect like every inch of the frame.

[02:14:33] Anyway, and as always. This podcast is blank Becker now. It's a Becker podcast. It's a Becker rewatch podcast.