The Beach with Emily Yoshida

[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 And me? I still believe in podcasts.

[00:00:25] But now at least I know it's not some place you can look for. Because it's not where you go, it's how you feel for a moment in your life when you're part of something. And if you find that moment, it lasts forever.

[00:00:36] Like, 2 hours 40 minutes, 3.20, something in that range. Wait, what was that last thing you said there? I made a joke about our podcast being long. That's what I was trying to do. He was ad-lipping.

[00:00:50] I wanted to sub in podcasts for paradise. That felt clean, but the line starts with it. Emily was right. You do do a good Leonardo DiCaprio circa 2000. Yeah, she was right. It's baby Leo trying to sound serious.

[00:01:08] Which I would argue is his entire career, but we can get to that later. But when does he shift from baby to big boy? Because I feel like the hit on everyone, the hit on Gangs of New York was that he's still baby.

[00:01:23] He's trying to be big boy, but he's still baby. Was it the aviator in The Departed? Or are those just kind of using his babiness correctly? David, your question is when does it take? When do people finally accept it? Is that your question?

[00:01:38] I think by inception in Shutter Island it has taken and he's a bit different. Yes. I'm going to say I'm in the extreme minority that says he's still baby. He's still baby. He's still baby. Well, I think his best performances still come from him leaning into baby.

[00:01:56] I think Departed for me is the first time. I think he's great in the aviator, but it works because that role is partially baby.

[00:02:07] And I think Departed is the time where it kind of starts to cross over because that guy is trying so hard in the movie to prove that he's not baby.

[00:02:23] Right. That movie begins with him being summoned into an office where Wahlberg and Sheen are like, so you're a baby, right? You're a big baby. And he's like, no, I'm not. And they're like, I hear you're a fucking baby. It's on this sheet.

[00:02:35] Yeah. Gaga, Google, let me give you a milk bottle. I just love the listeners cannot see right now that David's background is a moment from the beach where I would say he's especially baby. And to me is the greatest part of his performance in this movie.

[00:02:54] So I think when he leans into baby, it works. Is it Donkey Kong Country? Is that the Crash Bandicoot? I got a real Crash Bandicoot vibe from it. Excuse me. I believe Danny Boyle has said he was primarily influenced by Banjo-Kazooie.

[00:03:11] I mean, Banjo-Kazooie doesn't look like that and Crash Bandicoot kind of does. But I won't mess with Danny's vision. I mean, maybe Danny said, hey, can you do like a Banjo-Kazooie thing? And the VFX guy was like, what's he fucking talking about? Banjo? I'm not looking that up.

[00:03:27] Banjo-Kazooie? Is that some group he saw? Coachella? God, he's high on goofballs again. Coachella 97. Oh man, Banjo-Kazooie did lay it down at Coachella. And they're coming back, right? But yeah, they're doing a big nostalgia tour now. It's a total cash grab.

[00:03:50] Their Coachella set was acoustic, which was kind of cool of them. Yeah, Banjo-Kazooie unplugged. It's just banjos, no Kazooie. I think Kazooie's second solo record is actually interesting. I think there's like five good tracks on that. Yes.

[00:04:06] Kazooie's kind of the George Harrison, where no one kind of like takes him seriously as a solo artist. But if you actually stack up... You're like, oh, there's a lot of good songs and records there. What is everybody's... and then introduce the podcast.

[00:04:23] I just want to do this right now, like lightning round. What is everybody's favorite Leonardo DiCaprio performance? Just say it. Just say your favorite Leonardo DiCaprio performance. Catch me if you can. That's a good answer. It's probably Romeo and Juliet because he's the most baby.

[00:04:42] And I don't like Leonardo DiCaprio. I think he's a bad actor. Leo, if you're listening to this, this is what I think of you. And I'm not afraid to say it. I think he's a good actor personally. A lot of people think that. That's a widely held opinion.

[00:05:00] But I don't like him. I think this movie kind of works despite of and because of... I don't know what to call this performance exactly. It's not to me an ideal performance, but in a way it makes a second movie happen that is interesting to me.

[00:05:22] But yeah, I would say when he's at his baby-est and wettest in Romeo and Juliet, I like him. This is a huge take coming out at the beginning of the episode. David, do you have a pick for your favorite?

[00:05:36] My favorite has always been and probably always will be Shutter Island. I think that's his best performance ever. I love that movie so much. Ben, do you have a favorite Leo? Wolf of Wall Street. That's me pointing at the movie. Yeah, that is such a great performance.

[00:05:55] But no, Shutter Island is my favorite. Anyway, yeah, I don't know. We got the whole spectrum of Leo in there. We're going to have a great Leo debate. No, actually it's Don't Look Up. I take it back. Oh, he's so funny in that.

[00:06:07] Sorry. Yeah. I totally forgot, but I love that movie. How did you forget? I don't know. I'm thinking about Don't Look Up every day. It's a top-of-mind thing. In fact, I'm never looking up as a result. Right. And any time you do, you're like, ah, fuck!

[00:06:27] McCain, you got me again. It's embarrassing, Ben, how much you forgot the extent to which you care about climate change. And thus by proxy, how funny you find that movie. Yeah, yep. It was a laugh, right? Says a lot. Telling.

[00:06:45] Look, obviously this episode, now the gauntlet's been thrown. This episode's going to be a great Leo debate. Before we get into that, Emily, you mentioned David's background. Can you just say what my Zoom background is? Your Zoom background is of the great actor Adam Beach. The Beach.

[00:07:04] Slipknot himself. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want.

[00:07:19] And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. Were you doing that in Richard voice? That sounded very Richard-y. Which Richard? She means Richard from The Beach. Leo in The Beach. Oh, a little bit, I guess. Now maybe I'm just in it. Maybe I'm just in...

[00:07:38] His famous character, Richard. I think you're just in it now, which is cool. You should stay there. Anyway, sorry to interrupt the intro. No, no, no. I've maybe... I've gotten beach-pilled. I've gone to the beach and I haven't come back yet. You're sandy. Yeah, I'm sandy. I'm sunburned.

[00:07:57] I'm maybe the palest I've ever been right now. Listen, this is a miniseries on the films of Danny Boyle. Oh, Danny Boyle, The Pipes, The Pipes are calling. It's called Train Spotcasting. Yep. Today we are talking about... His second bounce in a row. Now you say...

[00:08:20] Yeah, but his more profound bounce. Right. Bigger scale bounce. Yeah, because Lifeless Ordinary, what, that cost $10 million or whatever? You can get away with that. The beach, this is serious. How many beaches did they destroy in A Life Less Ordinary?

[00:08:38] Yes, how many beaches have been permanently ruined by A Life Less Ordinary? Well, yeah, it's a not zero sum in this movie, so that's something. Not only that, but this is a rare case where a filmmaker is basically handed a lottery ticket.

[00:08:54] Yes, but it's a lottery ticket that could explode. Yes. Yes, like it's sort of, yes, it's a dangerous package you're being handed here. But at this moment, he must have been the envy of everyone in Hollywood. Leo has not made a movie for two years.

[00:09:12] He has not signed on to a film since Titanic came out. Right. Man in the Iron Mask comes out like two months after Titanic. He's got a cameo in Celebrity that comes out the following year, but he has not been on screen.

[00:09:25] He filmed both of those things pre-Titanic and he's not been on screen. So not only is this the star of the highest grossing film of all time, but he is in and of himself a legit cultural phenomenon. His very existence.

[00:09:38] And everyone's waiting to see what he's going to do with that. He's got to blank check himself. For a teenage girl who loves Leonardo DiCaprio, which I was not one, but I still feel like I can speak with some, you know, informed experience about that.

[00:09:52] A year with that little Leonardo DiCaprio content when you're like 16 is a long time. Yeah. You could really, you could really lose people. Yeah. Right. Titanic, December 97. Man in the Iron Mask, February 98. And then basically this is two full years later. Yeah, that's crazy.

[00:10:15] And that was the peak of Leo mania. The peak. That was the peak of it. The peak. And he was nowhere to be found. Crazy. No. Well, you can find him. You can find him. He did have a posse.

[00:10:28] Yeah. You just had to check in with the posse. This is the number one thing we have to discuss in this episode. There's going to be a lot of posse talk in this episode. Because I think it's important to this film. We can do a little posse talk.

[00:10:42] You mean the insane clown posse? What are you guys talking about? Yeah, we're talking ICP. Leo was just pounding Faygo. Listen, today we're talking Da Beach. Da Beach. Da Beach. Our guests return to the show after too long of a gap. I didn't realize how long it was.

[00:11:01] A Leo-like hiatus, I would say. A Leo-like hiatus. Maybe you forgot about me. The fans have grown up. The fans have lived a thousand lives. I guess it's been like a year and a half. Damn. Was Dark Star the last one? Dark Star was the last one.

[00:11:17] Yeah, like a year and a half. Babies are walking now that were not walking. Maybe even Boss Baby wasn't walking at that time and is walking now. Boss Baby was not walking at that time. No, she was a lump. Adorable little lump.

[00:11:32] That's kind of rude of you to say. That she was a lump? Body shaming. She's still my little lump. And you made that body. You're almost shaming yourself. Nothing wrong with lumps. But yeah, now she's running, obviously. Running around like a maniac. Emily Yoshida, mother of Blankies.

[00:11:54] The epic anticipated return. Hi, everybody. Time number? I think we're on 12 now. I don't know if it's counting bonus episodes or not. I think we're at the dirty dozen right now. If we're talking just main feed and if we count Titanic as one. Then this is 12.

[00:12:15] This is the dozen. And then obviously you also did a Babe episode with us, which is basically a full episode. It was a full episode. We all cried in that episode. I love Babe. I cried now in three different Blank Check episodes. Wait, what are the others?

[00:12:38] It's going to be a fourth time today, guys. Wow. What are the other ones you cried during? When did you cry, Marvin? I cried during the Castle in the Sky episode. That whole miniseries was a tearjerker. Yeah. Lasseter's introduction of the movie, right?

[00:13:01] That's when you cried when you did your dramatic reading of Lasseter's DVD introduction. Yeah. It's just from that point on, the waterworks start and they don't turn off. No, there's got to be something. Did I cry during the Speed Racer episode? It's possible. No, it was The Keep.

[00:13:22] I remember you were just really moved by the RPG game. Right. If you aren't subscribed to the Patreon already, go subscribe and listen to me cry while playing The Keep RPG tabletop game. Out of frustration? Not joy. I was the one crying out of frustration.

[00:13:42] There was only one frustrated Dungeon Master there. I mean, relevant to today's topic. Recently, David Ehrlich, the great David Ehrlich, friend of the show, hosted a little weekend get-together to play the official Titanic board game. The James Cameron's Titanic board game.

[00:14:07] And Marie and I played that with David and some of his other friends. I described it as less fun than doing taxes. It was the most...

[00:14:18] We spent two hours trying to read through the instructions and then went like, maybe if we just start playing, it'll make more sense. And then it made less sense. I can't believe you guys didn't record this. Sounds like gold. I wasn't there.

[00:14:34] I decided to go on a date with my wife instead of doing that. Huge mistake by me, obviously. I am really good at understanding the stupid rules of complicated board games, so maybe I could have helped. But maybe, you know, some of these things are just bad.

[00:14:50] Yeah, this one was so annoying and complicated. And you're right, Emily, we should have recorded it. It would have made for a good episode. The problem is we can't recreate it because I, out of frustration, went and burned every single copy of the game that exists.

[00:15:06] You put them all in a ditch somewhere. Yeah, I buried them like the fucking E.T. game. Yeah. If that game was remotely good, people would know about it. If there was a good game based on that movie, people would play it.

[00:15:22] But if you get the emulator of the, not based on the movie, but the Titanic computer game, which I know I brought up on that episode, which is my second most powerful touchpoint for Titanic, Adventure Out of Time.

[00:15:34] and do a play along with that, that would rule. Adventure Out of Time? Oh my god. I believe now you can just buy it on Steam for $6 if you want. I don't think you even really need an emulator. It just exists. Is it on Switch?

[00:15:49] I'm not sure anyone's made the effort to port that sucker over to the Switch. But yeah, I'm looking at it. It's a lot of dialogue, right? A lot of like, hey, I see the wireless room. Yeah. And you kind of choose your responses underneath it.

[00:16:07] But it is very dependent on how you respond to people. Like they're real. It's not linear at all. So it's pretty fun to play. I mean, speaking of things that we were all doing in the year 2000,

[00:16:19] I've been playing Final Fantasy 8 on the Switch right now, which I didn't realize was on there. And that's, man, what a slow game. Those games are boring. Shut up. You said it. Yes. Okay, Da Beach. Emily. Da Beach. Emily, a question I have for you.

[00:16:40] So this is your second Leo movie you've covered on the podcast now. Your second movie from peak Leomania Leo. Yeah. You come out of the gate swinging with the take that he is a bad actor and you don't like him at all. This movie is.

[00:16:57] You hope he's listening. Yes. And you hope he's listening. And you want him to cry. You said I right before we start recording, you said, I'm not going to cry on this fucking episode. It's time for him to cry. Listen, it's time for him to cry.

[00:17:11] Right. I hope he puts on headphones, listens to this episode while having sex and vaping. And then sends sends the way file to Ben and he's like, I'm not going to cry. And then sends the way file to Ben and he can play it as a new track.

[00:17:30] That's paywall. That's a paywall. No, I yeah, I was thinking of this last night while I was watching the beach. I was like, you know, these are and I actually I I'm staying in a hotel right now.

[00:17:45] So I was watching whatever Showtime just watching Showtime on television as you as one does when you're around cable. I never am anymore. And I saw like the last few. Do you mean Paramount Plus plus Showtime?

[00:17:59] Yeah, I had to get the Paramount Plus add on package on top of the Showtime add on package on my. Apparently they don't exist independently anymore. Right. Yeah. But yeah, I was watching the last 10 minutes of that. So I got to see a little bit of.

[00:18:15] Yeah, the icy, icy Leo and then Leo at the very, very end of that movie, which I still like, you know, maintain is like one of the best endings of anything. Any movie, the final sequence of Titanic.

[00:18:28] And it's very much reliant on you being like, oh, I'm so happy to see Leonardo DiCaprio. And then I was watching this movie, which is just like, I think we can get into it.

[00:18:38] I have a lot of really complicated feelings about this performance, but I still think this is like a what's the word that's not problematic that we can use now? That doesn't mean problematic. It's like a, it's a fraught movie.

[00:18:57] But and including and because of this Leonardo DiCaprio performance, but it's still super compelling to me. And it was a reason why I, you know, requested it. I think I had a couple Boyle movies that I was interested in, but this was definitely one of them.

[00:19:14] Well, that was going to be my question. Were there any other Boyles? Where are you on Mr. Danny Boyle? Any other Boyles you love? Well, this is the thing for Boyle. Like I saw this in a theater.

[00:19:27] I really don't have a memory of my experience of seeing it in a theater, I think because it was disappointing to me.

[00:19:34] I think to me it felt kind of like the epitome of somebody that I like, which and this was a still new experience for me at this time, kind of quote unquote selling out.

[00:19:44] And it feeling like a kind of big American-y misfire for somebody that, you know, I was just like, oh, they're so cool and British and Ewan McGregor and all this shit.

[00:19:56] And then this movie doesn't notably doesn't have Ewan McGregor in it, was going to have Ewan McGregor in it. We'll talk about that. We're going to talk about all that. Don't worry. I mean, would this movie have worked better if Ewan McGregor was in it?

[00:20:11] We're going to talk about it. What Danny Boyle movies do you like? Okay, so what I'm saying is I really, really liked Danny Boyle up to this point.

[00:20:19] Like I saw this because of Danny Boyle when I saw it because I was a huge Ewan McGregor fan and, you know, got into those movies because of that.

[00:20:31] You went to the box office and said, I just want you to know I'm not buying a ticket for Leonardo DiCaprio. I'm buying a ticket for Danny Boyle. I want to make it very clear to you. At the Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville, Iowa. I certainly did.

[00:20:46] I think I saw Man in the Iron Mask too there. I don't know. I just saw everything. You know, you just see this. This is the age where you're just seeing everything. But yeah.

[00:20:56] And then since then, I think, you know, I kind of I think since then I'm just sort of totally okay. Like if he hits, he hits. If he misses, I don't really care.

[00:21:05] You know, I think the last movie of his that I saw that I was really into and didn't see for a while because I was sure I was going to hate it and then really liked it a lot with Steve Jobs.

[00:21:15] And then what are the what's the last one he did? Yesterday. Oh yeah. I'm not going to see. What am I going to do? See yesterday? Yeah.

[00:21:26] So it's not he's no longer an essential viewing director for me, but for you know, like early, early in my watching movies and being into movies. He was so yeah. Did you like what do you have a strong life less ordinary take?

[00:21:40] Because that's obviously the I haven't seen that in a long time. But I saw that, you know, like multiple times as a horny teen. Wow. So you're probably at least a couple of times strong. Strong. Yeah, I think I had it on VHS.

[00:21:57] I think like it was in a bargain bin for good reason at like the grocery store and I got it because that's what it that's what it is exactly what it is. And it's like cool.

[00:22:09] I can own a Ewan McGregor performance on VHS that I can keep in my house. Absolutely. Let's do it. I guess we fear to be fair. It is like a very normal watchable movie. Like it's a real easy light. Just pop it in. Yeah, yeah.

[00:22:28] Yeah, I would I'd be interested to rewatch that again. I did rewatch Shallow Grave before we saw you like yesterday. Yeah, because I hadn't watched that in God knows how long and, you know, enjoyed it. That movie is fun. That movie is a lot of fun.

[00:22:46] I the music is so good as it like that's the one consistent thing I think about Danny Boyle movies up to this point is amazing soundtracks.

[00:22:57] I think going forward, I think he pretty much always hits it on the music, be it soundtrack or if he's avoiding a soundtrack, like getting a good score. Like he he's at least always consistent on that until yesterday. Of course. Yeah, the songs in yesterday's suck. They suck.

[00:23:16] Famously uncatchy. I don't think that there is a director that you guys have covered, though, that is where the soundtrack with music from other artists like not the or not the original score is such a big part of their identity, at least at the outset.

[00:23:33] Because, I mean, there was something that I mean, that was the cool that was like the Danny Boyle brand was like and you get to like buy the CD that has I mean, for me at the time, I was like all this like cool dance music and British shit that you've never heard of before.

[00:23:47] And it was yeah, it felt like a kind of gateway to stuff. And yeah, who are you like? We haven't covered Tarantino or Wes Anderson or Scorsese who are like I feel like the three other big record drop auteurs needle drop auteurs, you know?

[00:24:06] Yeah, we haven't covered the OC season one. No. Oh, but Boz. I mean, when you guys do Boz, that'll be. Boz, sure. And I said when, when you do Boz. We do Braff. I feel like Garden State. That was a big soundtrack. Huge.

[00:24:24] Well, you know, he sent it out with the script because he thought people wouldn't understand if they weren't listening along. I mean, we did do a commentary on a movie with a great soundtrack. You might have heard of it's called Queen on a Scotsy. Pretty banging soundtrack. Yeah.

[00:24:38] Happy birthday, Philip Glass. It's his 86th birthday today. Today? On the day we're recording? Today. Yes, on the day we're recording. But I do think I was listening to the beach soundtrack yesterday, by the way. Having a great time. Yeah. Oh my God. It rolls so hard.

[00:24:54] If there's anything you can say unimpeachably about this movie is that the soundtrack still fucking rips. It's so good. I've been listening to Porcelain a lot today since I watched the movie. Hell yeah. I love that album. Is Moby? Are we back in on Moby? Play? Yeah, play.

[00:25:13] I've been sort of seeding it. I'm like, can we? Is Moby good again? Yeah, I don't know. Or is he canceled? I can't remember. What did he do? Well, he was weird about Natalie Portman famously. Like super weird.

[00:25:28] I think she was barely 18, but it wasn't that he was like, we had a relationship and she was like, we just did not. And I don't know what that man is talking about. It's that it's not that there was any actual behavior that was uncomfortable.

[00:25:40] It's that he had a whole fantasy that had no relation to reality, which is creepy in its own way. But yeah, I think that was like the main thing. He got a bunch of face tattoos as well. Did he not? I was looking him up when I was.

[00:25:59] Yeah, he did. He's got vegan for life on his neck, but he also has like things. He has a cross with LRSC, which stands for love, reason, service and compassion. Okay. That also sounds like a licensing for a therapist. Like LRMC, like Love Angel Music Baby.

[00:26:23] I remember his crib so well. Remember his weird little crib? Oh my God. Wait, did you see the arm tattoos? Yeah, he's got animal on one arm and rights on the other arm. But it's like Helvetica font. Helvetica running straight down from like bicep to fist.

[00:26:44] You just don't want to have the thing where you're like this. You know, you have a bad thing. And then another tattoo that says is wrong. But then people only see the one half. Anyway, great soundtrack on the beach.

[00:27:00] Yeah, so what I was going to say is that I have sort of been dipping my toe into like, can we play Moby and Polite Company again? Because and this is sort of a sideways way to get into it. So I started playing the soundtrack.

[00:27:15] The soundtrack went in heavy rotation again for me a couple years ago when I was working on the still life. Still not yet made, but currently still a development TV adaptation of the beach with Alex Garland. So we can talk about this. I can mention it.

[00:27:36] I'm not going to get into like what I mean, obviously, I'm not going to get into what we wrote. And I genuinely don't know anything about the status of that project.

[00:27:44] But I did spend a long time writing and thinking about the beach and playing the beach soundtrack a lot. And just, you know, and occasionally being in the car with friends being like, oh, that's good. Right. That's good. So, yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:02] Yeah. I like Moby's music and I've been bumping it in my ears as well. So, Emily, you you were writing on the proposed beach TV adaptation that Alex Garland and Amy Simons were doing.

[00:28:28] That much like all of TV now seems to be in a state of flux, much like every single series, be it completed, have it already been released? The Sopranos might be canceled tomorrow. What kind of world are we living in?

[00:28:44] No, I mean, the nice thing about Covid was that, you know, if you were lucky, of course, you could theoretically still have work as a TV writer.

[00:28:54] The downside of it is that there's maybe a 5 percent chance that the things you wrote in Covid would get made because everybody was just generating scripts. So the people kind of went back into production. We're like, well, we're not going to do that.

[00:29:06] Or I think people just lose interest or blah, blah, blah. I'm not saying any of those were the things that happened with the beach. I think it's still kind of alive in some way there.

[00:29:14] But our we had like a room with it and it was sort of the second attempt at it after the Simons version. So that was yeah, I mean, I was in a room with with Alex and a few other writers for like five months.

[00:29:30] And OK, so the Simons version then gave way to a version that that Garland was leading himself. And that was the one that you were involved in.

[00:29:40] Yeah. So you had you read the book before seeing the movie slash had you read the book before getting hired to work on the show? No, I'd never read the book. I read I read the I read the book for the show.

[00:29:55] I'd seen the movie and and I knew that people really liked the book, but it wasn't a part of my like, you know, formative reading as a teeter, 20 something, which it was for so many people.

[00:30:06] So you didn't. And then I was like in London there, you weren't part of a youth culture in the country. Oh, my God. Be careful. Should I say it or not? Danger zone. I read this book. I read this book like every other British teenager.

[00:30:20] Of course, I read that. I knew that. And I was waiting for you to say it because I knew that I held the knowledge and I had nothing funny to say about it.

[00:30:28] My cover, I think the first edition cover of the novel is so good. That weird kind of like clip art. Yeah. You know, Beach with the Daffy. But mine was the much more boring. It's like a beach.

[00:30:42] But then it actually is there's an eye. A guy's face is the beach. I don't know. That was my cover.

[00:30:49] But I did read the beach. We all read the beach. I think this is clear in the dossier, Griff. I don't know if you saw this, but like that the book was a colossal success in Britain and a sort of minor success in America.

[00:31:01] Sort of the shallow grave of books. Oh, sure. Yeah, exactly. What's your question, Griffin? No, my neighbor across the street is fully naked. This is a rare. I don't think I've seen this.

[00:31:12] He's going around friends, full naked guy in the window across from me. He's standing at an angle where he can't see that I can see him. But now he's moving around. It's like a new recurring character for our show.

[00:31:24] Well, no, I'm going to say I don't want to set up any recurring characters that only exist in Zoom records. So I would agree with that. Let's commit to the idea that he will never appear ever again.

[00:31:34] No, what I what what I was going to say, God, I just remembered I was going to say it's a terrible joke and it got distracted by a naked guy. And now I have nothing to reset back to. No, I was going to try to make some fucking.

[00:31:47] I wasn't even sure I didn't even landed on how to make the job to make some joke about being a beach read. Sure. Yeah, I was going to try to make some fucking joke about the book, the beach being a beach read.

[00:31:59] I don't know this guy to fucking his pubes threw me off. Good for him. You know, Bush out. How old were you when you read this and where you did you did you backpack? OK, I backpack. I've only ever backpacked in Europe.

[00:32:18] I've never been to Asia and I've never done, you know, this sort of thing. Right. You know, but I've never found a secret island where there's a sort of I've done that. You can do that anywhere. No, I know. I've never done anything like that.

[00:32:39] But and I've never had backpacking. Not my vibe. I don't I don't I want to be very comfortable. I love to be comfortable. You're more of a mess. Right. Bad guy. Yeah. But I did read this book in 1999 because every boy in my school read this book.

[00:32:54] Not everybody, but like lots. And we would then the word would spread of how gnarly the book was. It was like, yeah, oh, you have to read the beach. There's this scene where, you know, like, you know, it's like we were all,

[00:33:07] I guess, sort of it the allure of substances and danger and weed farmers and guns and like just the darkness of the book was what we were into.

[00:33:20] And then I was actually scared to see the movie for this reason, because I thought it would be as gnarly as the book. It is not nearly as gnarly as the book. Yeah. Probably, you know, somewhat understandably just because it would be tough.

[00:33:36] Well, we can. But I did read the beach at the time and I have never read Alex's other books. I never read the Tesseract or the Coma, but I did whatever. I mean, I like Alex Garland. I mean, you know, Emily, you worked with him.

[00:33:56] I interviewed him once and he is the he was the saddest sack I ever interviewed. Not in a bad way at all. But he was just so like, oh, you know, no one's going to like this. Was it was this for Annihilation? It was. This is for men.

[00:34:10] Which, you know, he wasn't he wasn't like I watched a very, very early cut of that as well. And he was like, you know, exactly like he was just like, I know everybody's gonna hate this, which whatever.

[00:34:21] I mean, you got to make a movie in covid like, you know, also he was actually shooting that while we were in the room, which made for a really like, you know, peaceful, normal working process.

[00:34:32] So, yeah, I might correct in believing that man was a situation where like that was an older script he had in his drawer and people came to him and they were like, do you have anything that is contained that you can shoot during covid?

[00:34:47] No, I don't think so. He pushed back very strongly against the idea that it was a covid movie when I mentioned when I floated that to him.

[00:34:56] Yeah, it was an old script or whatever. It was a script he'd long been working on. But I think he has a lot of those. Right. Yeah. A lot of sort of, you know, I love Alex so much.

[00:35:07] He is a big old grump, but I like big old grumps. And, you know, he was he was like a very I'm not a very, very cool person to work with.

[00:35:16] A and I think, you know, I was trying to think back to stuff that we had talked about when we were, you know, because it was just sort of weird.

[00:35:25] Like we were doing this adaptation of a book that he wrote when he was in his 20s. And so he's going back and revisiting this material with, you know, with an adult, you know, I mean, whatever, an older adults eye and and also just like the what what that scene is, what the tourism industry, what the backpacker scene is now there is also changed a lot.

[00:35:52] And, you know, shockingly, he's super cynical about it. But yeah, it was it was I just think that that's an interesting process to go through of like if you could imagine trying to like rework something that you wrote at such a different point in your life like that.

[00:36:10] What's also crazy that like here's this guy who makes this novel that's a big generational cultural thing. It gets adapted into a movie that's seen as a disappointment, but it starts his relationship with the guy who he then makes two movies with.

[00:36:27] Like this is sort of an odd handoff movie between the Hodge era of Boyle and the Garland era of Boyle, which then leads to Garland being more of a film guy, a film and TV guy, you know?

[00:36:42] Yeah, it is so interesting that Garland did not write this screenplay. Yeah. But then takes the baton and writes well to screenplays right for for Boyle, right? He writes 20 Days Later in Sunshine. I think that's it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And then I guess after that he's off to making his own movies pretty much like but um, but yeah, it's it's a funny sort of and then Hodge doesn't write for Boyle again until

[00:37:12] T2, right? Yeah. But this is I mean, it's why you know, he wrote Trance. Sorry, I always forget he wrote Trance. Well, I think he forgot he wrote Trance too. I think he forgot to write Trance is what I meant to say. Oh, wow. Yeah.

[00:38:26] But yeah, I think that obviously must have been a big bummer. Yeah, it's just funny that like, they have their falling out over not doing this movie together, but then also Hodge and Boyle kind of like drift away.

[00:38:39] They do. And I wonder, I mean, after this movie, it was clear. I'm sure you know, it's obvious the Boyle and we'll talk about it next time. But like, perceived the need for a big reboot for himself, right? Like, you know, yes. I can't keep doing these sort of cutting edge of cool movies about Gen Xers in their 20s fucking, you know, like, you know, like, right?

[00:39:02] Like, he drops the house style. He drops the sort of the thematic interests and starts moving around in different directions. Yeah. No more Helvetica. Tell that to Moby.

[00:39:15] Look, if this movie comes out, let's just put this movie and then I'll crack open the dossier because we have to talk about, you know, all that drama and everything else.

[00:39:24] But if you put this movie in you and McGregor's career, right? Just plop it in and assume no other changes. Then it's basically just like in 99 he does Star Wars. In 2000, he does The Beach. In 2001, he does Moulin Rouge and Black Hawk Down.

[00:39:39] Like, it probably would just have been a net positive for him. There obviously would have been a lot less hype around the movie. Sure. Would not have had the sort of, you know, massive weight of expectation on it. So, yeah, it probably wouldn't have been a problem.

[00:39:54] I think it would make him cooler. I think it would have an effect of him getting to be cooler for longer. Obviously, he's very cool in Trainspotting. He's very cool in Velvet Goldmine. But like those are, you know, still kind of cult films at the time.

[00:40:09] But if he got to be in like a film the size of The Beach in that kind of sexy role, I think that maybe he doesn't do Down with Love and then has a completely different career trajectory.

[00:40:21] Because I do think that like Down with Love, well, I don't know, for him feels like a turning point. Moulin Rouge gives him Down with Love. He's in Down with Love because of Moulin Rouge. Like, that could still happen. You know, you're the pretty boy angel face.

[00:40:43] Those are both Fox movies. And I think they're both trying to capitalize on this guy being one of the leads of Star Wars.

[00:40:52] Like it's this rare thing of not just, oh, he booked a huge movie, but it's like one of the biggest movies of all time in terms of anticipation. And one of the only roles that we know the character beforehand, you know?

[00:41:06] Yes. Right. So from the announcement, it's humongous. And you're also guaranteed that he's going to be one of the leads of all three movies. Yeah. It's just a huge, huge ass deal.

[00:41:18] And little Emily Yoshida in Iowa sees him on the cover of Premiere magazine and is like, oh, it's my husband. I'm going to go watch Velvet Goldmine now.

[00:41:28] As one does. Yeah, no, I don't want to make this a Ewan McGregor podcast when he's not even in this movie.

[00:41:37] His ghost obviously looms large over it. But I just before you get into the dossier, I just wanted to pick a boat about, you know, comments that Griffin may or may not have made. Oh boy. Yeah. About Ewan McGregor's attractiveness.

[00:41:57] Marie also yelled at me about this. She said she spit out her salsa. That was expensive salsa. OK. Yeah, that hurts too if it comes out your nose. It does. Yeah. I said that I thought he was not conventionally attractive. He was kind of goofy, handsome. Drag him.

[00:42:18] Wait, are you talking about me? Drag my belt or Griffin dragging you in both. I didn't think I was dragging him. It's a train. It's a train.

[00:42:28] First of all, this was set in the framework of when I was young, I did not I could not see physical attractiveness in men who didn't look like Ken dolls. I don't think I've ever seen anyone who wasn't like super cartoonishly like defined features.

[00:42:46] And I do think he's got kind of like a goofy smile and a big nose and whatever. And it was me talking about in that episode how insane it is that I didn't used to understand women finding him attractive, which I now do.

[00:43:01] Why through the eyes of a fucking 10 year old or 12 year old, I wouldn't get that. It's why I mean, this is this is why we need a bunch of different perspectives on a podcast.

[00:43:13] You know, it's just different lived experiences because, you know, well, I've told you my lived experience vis-a-vis McGregor. But yeah, look, it's it's it's too big and dreamy. And it's I understand it's goofy looking that he's that attractive.

[00:43:28] It is one of the most heterosexual things I have ever said on this podcast. It is disgusting. I know you're going to do like a try guys apology. You're going to look at the floor and be like, it's fucked up. I mean, I shouldn't have done it.

[00:43:41] It's fucked up. Yeah. No, I when I was when I started doing stand up and the only people who liked me in the comedy scene were gay male stand ups, basically. And they sort of like took me into their scene.

[00:43:57] I was hanging out with them a lot and it felt like they were always like, is he gay? And he's sort of like testing this. Is he sort of like one foot in one foot out on this?

[00:44:07] And I remember one night being with one of these gay stand ups who was had sort of take me under his wing.

[00:44:12] And he was trying to get me to say, like, but like if you if you had to fuck like one guy who was the one guy you would fuck, like what celebrity would you fuck? And my answer was Paul Rudd.

[00:44:22] And he sat back and he went, oh, wow, you are straight. That's so funny. Oh, my God. It is so funny. He was like, that's that's the straightest answer you possibly. He was like doing like a Voight-Kampff test on you and you said Paul Rudd.

[00:44:36] And he's like, yeah, that you can be lying. Yeah. Okay. Oh, God. So there's no chance here. I have no in. The conversation's over. Right. It's over. And the McGregor moment felt similar to me. I recorded that in an episode with Charles and David.

[00:44:54] And neither of them called me out in the moment. And then now every every woman who has listened to the episode has attacked me and they're right to do so. And I deserve to be dragged. And this is my free to step back and listen. Right.

[00:45:07] Step back and take take stock. And, you know, you'll be making a donation to the hot boy charity or whatever. Hey, you and McGregor boy access fund to society. Exactly. The Society for Hot Boys. Oh, wait a second. This doesn't sound good at all.

[00:45:25] I'll bring young Adam twice. And yeah, the hotline. Young Adam is that's you and McGregor being like, can I make a Danny Boyle movie, please? Oh, fuck. We're not friends anymore. Like, I do feel like that's him being like, can I get back there?

[00:45:39] Anyway, let let me let me read you the dossier. As Emily mentioned, the beach novel comes out in 96. Alex Garland was only 26 years old when it came out. And it gets in the hands of Danny Boyle, who is working on the post production of A Life Less Ordinary.

[00:45:55] And he is immediately like, you know, he feels the same way about it that he felt about the train spotting book. Right. He like calls Andrew McDonald. Let's let's meet this guy right away. And the book was a huge hit in Britain very quickly.

[00:46:13] And Garland, which is funny, like said initially he was like, I don't know, I kind of want like Steven Spielberg to make it like he admits that he was like in a complete like pipe dream world.

[00:46:27] But then, you know, they sold it to Figment, which is Boyle's company and Fox, who made A Life Less Ordinary, even though that movie was a hit. The movie flopped is still basically like we want to be in the Danny Boyle business.

[00:46:42] And then there's probably a little bit of a, OK, Danny, you got that out of your system. Now are you ready to play the game? You know, right.

[00:46:50] The other interesting thing is that Boyle and McDonald had bought the rights to the beach themselves using their own salaries from A Life Less Ordinary. So they actually had more creative control than say if Fox owned the book and was like, we're going to bring you aboard. Sure.

[00:47:06] Yeah. And so and then so what is what do Andrew, John, Hodge and Danny Boyle decide to do? They start backpacking all around to try and get into the mindset, I guess. And did you guys know this that they did this? No, unsurprising. But yeah, didn't know that.

[00:47:27] When they found out Princess Diana died in 1997, they were backpacking. He describes everyone getting phone calls at the same time, essentially, which is kind of cool.

[00:47:39] The big change John Hodge made, obviously we sort of discussed this already, is that the ending, which is much darker and more bloody. How can you describe it? They are going to talk about it. Can we spoil the the oh, did they shoot it? I didn't. I don't.

[00:48:01] I was reading that the DVD has the alternate ending and and a Danny Boyle commentary explaining it had multiple deleted scenes. I mean, where was there's a there's a scene where Sal kills herself. She turns the gun on herself. But it's not like that's not a good thing.

[00:48:22] The ending of the book is basically like the gunmen show up. They throw the bodies of the dead tourists down and everyone's already going crazy because Richard has spiked their feast with drugs because he's trying to escape.

[00:48:40] And they all go fucking insane and start tearing the bodies to pieces. Like it's very Lord of the Flies. I think that, yeah, I think that the escape group is like Katie, who's like who's like the black guy who likes cricket. Patterson, Joseph and and then who else?

[00:48:58] I think Francoise is the other like it's a trio. It's like but it's not it's not Etienne and Francoise. It's like, yeah, it's Katie and maybe one other person. I can't remember now. But yeah, that's it. That's it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:49:14] And then they that's their escape plan is that they are trying to get off the island and they just yeah, like spike spike the feast with weed. And yeah, then there's this total massacre. And then they leave. And like the interesting sorry about my dog.

[00:49:30] The interesting the key difference to me, aside from like gory violent frenzy part of it is that like they don't talk to each other after it. Like that's sort of the last part of the book is him saying like this was such an insane experience.

[00:49:47] We will never talk about it or see each other again. Like we just cannot acknowledge it. And he says like, I don't know if Sal's alive or dead. But, you know, I really hope you know, I hope I never have to see her again.

[00:49:59] It's just like and it's treated much more. The whole thing is treated as like a huge traumatic incident rather than like, oh, that was fun until everybody died.

[00:50:08] Waiting 20 minutes for a photo to lead load at an Internet cafe that says never forget is a picture of them having the best time of their lives. The ending, the final that that is it lands with a real thought.

[00:50:21] We can talk about it later, in my opinion, at least in the movie. It's crazy. Yeah. The Internet. Did anybody buy that at the time? Like, would any? I don't know. My wife was laughing. She did not like that ending. She was she was like, wait a second.

[00:50:34] But anyway, Garland says, I love bloody bleak apocalyptic endings. You know, basically he's like, I didn't want there to be any redemption in particular. Boyle's responses. I think our ending is superior to the book. It's an amazing book.

[00:50:48] It's a modern parable, but it depends on this Lord of the Flies, Danumont, this terrible primitivism. But this is a sophisticated society they've built up.

[00:50:56] You know, he just he I guess he just did not like the idea of them just turning into like violent animals at the end of the movie. OK, I get that that would be hard to pull off.

[00:51:06] Like, you know, it is funny that Garland has succeeded in ending all three of the movies he directed basically that way, though. The equivalent for those bloody massacres. Right. And look, we'll get to it.

[00:51:19] But that's everyone's complaint about Sunshine for the people who have the complaints about it is that it veers into an Alex Garland sort of tonal genre shift final act. I love it, though. That is bloody apocalypse. Yeah. Yeah. Sunshine rules. The ending is good.

[00:51:39] Yeah. The whole movie is good. Five out of five masterpiece.

[00:51:43] I agree. So now the big thing, obviously, is it's kind of a Watergate ask who knew what when on whether or not Ewan McGregor was ever like, you know, offered the role like, you know, when did they switch and who made the switch? Was it an assumption?

[00:52:00] Was it Fox or was it Boyle? Yes. You know, like, what's the deal? Because obviously they had given, I think, the book to Ewan McGregor. Maybe, you know, it's not like they had never mentioned this to him.

[00:52:15] They gave him a copy of the book and Boyle's recollection, as he says it, is that they essentially realized we're going to need a lot of money to make this movie.

[00:52:24] We're going to have to go to Thailand. We're going to need huge cast and crew, like 30 plus million dollars. I think the movie ends up costing more like 50. Right. Well, because someone's salary is 20 million dollars. Right.

[00:52:37] I think that's the difference between the early number and the final number. And obviously Ewan has not made Star Wars yet. He is not an A-list movie star. And so, you know, that's why they make that decision is really budgetary.

[00:52:55] And I really, everyone kind of talks around it, even in recollection. You know what I mean? Like no one just sort of says like we had a meeting with a Fox honcho who was like Ewan McGregor can't be the star of this movie.

[00:53:09] But that does kind of feel like what happened, right? Like that someone was just sort of sitting with them and was like you need a movie star if you want to make something this big.

[00:53:18] Well, yeah. I mean, a couple other things going on. You know, Emily and David, the two of you were saying like how does it affect you and McGregor's career if he does this movie in the middle of that run? Right.

[00:53:33] And the problem is like Life Less Ordinary has bombed. It has made like no impact at the box office and critics didn't like it. Right.

[00:53:43] So there's already that thing of like, oh, fuck. Are they not going to be able to translate their thing to the American studio system? This movie, as this story reveals, was never going to be able to be made on a reasonable budget. Right.

[00:53:57] No matter what, it was going to end up costing 30 million dollars, which is a big step up from the budgets he had been working with. And I think the version of it with you and McGregor probably makes 10 million dollars. I think it's maybe 20. It's a similarly niche thing.

[00:54:18] Right. For how off putting this movie is, the only reason it was even vaguely profitable was just because of Leo mania. Yeah. And there being a dearth in the marketplace of anything where people could see him.

[00:54:29] Yeah. And it was like a hot book, but it wasn't a hot book here. So it's like, I'd have another thing that would be bigger in the UK than it was here.

[00:54:36] And, you know, make that kind of money. It's so double edged. All your success and hype comes from Leo. But then all the pressure and snarkiness comes from having him in the movie. Obviously, it's some movie had to take this bullet.

[00:54:51] Some movie had to be like Leo's follow up. And this is what it was. And it's just like it's completely obliterated by that, you know, for better or worse.

[00:55:00] And so I don't think there would have been obviously there wouldn't have been that same pressure on this movie if it were you in. But it also would have been big enough to flops in a row for you and Boyle together.

[00:55:10] Even having Star Wars, I think people would have gone like this guy's prospects as a leading man might be limited. He might not do the run of Big Fish and Down with Love and Moulin Rouge if this movie bombs with him in the lead.

[00:55:25] Yeah, whether that means he goes back to doing more UK indie stuff. Is that better or worse? You know, different question. But the whole thing circling this is that like Leo is being very tentative in committing to his post Titanic thing.

[00:55:40] He's got the world by the balls, but there's also this whole thing of like his dad being this is sort of mentor figure who's guiding his career.

[00:55:49] And that he from a very young age is like, I don't want to be a flash in the pan. I want to build a career like De Niro, you know.

[00:55:56] And the thing he's so close to doing is American Psycho, which would have been fascinating as an even more extreme test of like how can you punish the young girls who are desperate to see heartthrob Leo?

[00:56:10] I mean, I think that movie is so much worse with him in it. And I like Leo. Yes. But it's interesting to think about without, you know, obviously what tanks that is that he wants $20 million.

[00:56:24] In a way, this is his I literally thought of American Psycho, though, as I was watching this last night in terms of like an unintentionally but movies where you're just introduced to a lead character.

[00:56:38] And you're like, this guy sucks. And like, this entire thing is going to kind of feel like a satire around this guy sucking and like his his sort of sort of very willfully ignorant naivety about, you know, adventure or being like a rebel or whatever is is very, you know, kind of a version of the the upy aspirations and in American Psycho.

[00:57:02] And like, I yeah, I don't think he would be bad in American Psycho. But I think this is like a maybe a better use of his vibe.

[00:57:12] Everyone in this movie spends the whole time being like, what is this guy good for exactly? Like, what do you bring it to the table, buddy? You know, which is funny.

[00:57:21] But it is the whole thing. I mean, he clearly was in this place where he desperately wanted to kill baby Leo, right? Like, of course, he's he's in that knowing how much he revered those 70s guys and studied their careers.

[00:57:43] Someone was relaying this story the other day of him like goofing around and like, you know, being a party boy when they were filming this boy's life. And there was a point where De Niro and Ellen Barkin pulled him aside and said, like, look, if you want to have a serious career and you have the talent and you have the ability, but you want to have the kind of movie career that we had, you need to get serious and just start taking this as a job.

[00:58:10] And Leo's response was apparently some version of like.

[00:58:15] The kind of career we had, let me take stock quickly. OK, you have been in Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Mean Streets, and you have been in Switch, the movie where you and Jimmy Smith's like switch bodies, the Blake Edwards come and was like just slamming on Ellen Barkin. Right.

[00:58:33] Was like little Mr. Hotshot where he's like, I don't want your career. I want De Niro's career. That's the one I want, you know? And like you think about Dustin Hoffman in his postgraduate phase where he's like now the kind of like glib young man, you know, face of a generation. And then he's like, cool, I'm gonna do Midnight Cowboy. I'm going to do Straw Dogs. I want to kill like cutesy Dustin Hoffman.

[00:58:57] I think Leo wants to kill baby Leo and everything he's considering doing at this point is something that's going to blow up and sort of turn off the audience that he kind of resents, that he would like to shake off and develop a new audience for.

[00:59:11] And American Psycho weirdly is so much more arch and the character so much more extreme that I think it would have done it less successfully, even if the movie would have been worse. People would have accepted it as like, well, he's playing this character that's like so unlike him versus in the beach.

[00:59:35] There's this weird quality to watching this and being like, this feels pretty similar to the way people talk about Leo hitting the New York nightclubs in the 90s. Like the energy of him just coming in and like starting shit and being Mr. Like Hot Shit, you know?

[00:59:51] Yeah. And you can feel him trying to kill baby Leo in the performance because Richard is trying to kill baby Richard and whoever baby Richard was. Which is why I like this.

[01:00:06] I know, but that's the way it works. Even though I find him so annoying. I find him and I think it's a big problem that he is so unlikable in this. But he's unlikable in a movie where he, I think, are supposed to like him.

[01:00:22] I don't know if we're supposed to like him. I just don't know.

[01:00:24] Well, in the book, you definitely, I mean, the book it's on the, you know, it's up for debate, I think. But I feel like in the movie, especially the way it ends, that kind of gives it away and that we were supposed to like be rooting for him.

[01:00:39] Well, look, the Ewan of it all, again, Boyle has made three films about three very unlikable protagonists played by Ewan McGregor and you like them every time. So, yes, he is good usually at translating that and he probably doesn't do as good a job here.

[01:00:55] Well, also, he would be using his American accent in this because... No, no, that was the big shift to make the character American. Right? Yeah.

[01:01:07] Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's no way. Because he's supposed to be an analog for Garland, right? Garland said this is based on rumors he heard when he was backpacking in the Philippines and stuff that people like, oh, there's like a magic beach community, you know, and he never found it. Or did he?

[01:01:23] Obviously, the upshot is that Ewan and Danny do not speak for many years, which is sad. We will bid goodbye to Ewan McGregor now on this miniseries until Trainspotting 2.

[01:01:40] You know, Ewan has said it was a waste. Right? Like he's expressed a lot of regret over it. But at the same time, maybe it was good for both of them, especially Danny Boyle to just do different things. I don't know. You know, maybe they needed to break up. Like, it's tough.

[01:02:00] Leonardo DiCaprio, obviously, is in the middle of Leomania. He can't fucking go outside without people chasing him. Right? It really was that. There's that photo where he's like surrounded by a crowd and he looks like he wants to die. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? No.

[01:02:18] It's like a famous press photo. I can probably find it. But like, just kind of summing up like how insane the post-Titanic experience was for him.

[01:02:31] I mean, I was trying to like, you know, for for listeners of the show who are younger and did not live through this or were not old enough to have memories of this. Pattinson was like briefly the only thing that even came close to this. Right?

[01:02:49] In terms of like a guy in a movie and specifically like his performance in that movie, the ideal of what the character represents, especially Romeo and Juliet and Titanic back to back. Right? Just became like a rock star level thing.

[01:03:07] Not just, oh, here's an actor that people have crushes on, but that he like became like this mythical figure. And then that's added to the whole thing of like you're constantly hearing stories about how he's like painting the town red.

[01:03:22] Right. Yeah. And those both of those roles are like where he is. I mean, I think I I think I said this all the time. It was like what, five years ago that I did the Titanic podcast with you guys? 27. How long? 27 years. Yeah. OK.

[01:03:37] Yeah, it was probably seven years ago. I mean, for real, that's insane. Yes. Stupid. But yeah, I mean, he is and I was reminded of this even watching his final moments dying on that door in Titanic when I caught the tail end of it on TV.

[01:03:58] He is a Manic Pixie Dream Boy in both of those movies. And he is an object to be projected upon for, you know, tragic teen girl fantasies. And that's why it works so well.

[01:04:12] And it like in a way, it doesn't matter that he's painting the town red or like not being this tragic, like tragic dying boy in in real life because that that mythology is so powerful. And those movies were just seen by everybody. So that was him.

[01:04:28] And he was so damp. So damp. The disconnect between what he represented on screen and and the gossip about him in real life only like it was this weird electric charge that each one helped boost the other, even though they were so diametrically opposed.

[01:04:48] But I do think there is there's something that I had never seen this movie before. And so much of what I knew about this movie was just the lore of the fallout between McGregor and Boyle and the like, would this have been a better movie with McGregor?

[01:05:07] And for me, this is kind of like Barry Lyndon. Where it's like the better actor giving the better performance would not have necessarily made this movie any better. There's something about casting the guy who is a little bit too close to this. Yeah.

[01:05:27] Who is maybe in a bit of a self-destructive spiral. 100 percent.

[01:05:31] And doesn't know has no self-awareness about his approach to this role. I think that's the thing. I don't think he his image of himself matches like, you know, how how he should approach this role at this point in his career.

[01:05:46] No, but also just so fully handing himself over to a director and being like, do you know how to use me? What do you want from me? You know, the marching in the video game sequence, the Banjo Kazooie thing. It's just like it's astonishing because you just question who he would put that amount of faith and trust into, you know?

[01:06:08] And you can like talk about like what are the funniest or weirdest or oddest or most shocking things that like Scorsese or Tarantino have gotten him to do. But there's something about like really you're this. You're not more protective of your screen image at this point where you're cool with just being like part of Boyle stylistic experiments and looking like a fucking goober in the process.

[01:06:35] But there's something he's revealing in himself here that he could not consciously give up, you know, but that he's sort of like volunteering that he's sacrificing at the altar. The idea of this movie and what he thinks Boyle can do for him.

[01:06:50] And it is like you talk about the shark story and it's so similar to you read the what is it, the New Yorker pieces, the Leo Prince of the City. But all the accounts of like, you know, they talk to club owners and they're like, yeah, he comes in, he starts fist fights and they're like, he starts fist fights.

[01:07:06] And they're like, yeah, but no one's upset about it. You can tell he's just kind of having fun. Even the people he's fist fights aren't like upset with him. And that just stops after a while because no one's actually upset about anything. And there's that weird thing where you're like, why is this guy getting away with this? Yeah. Why is like everyone kind of cool with this? Not only like playing his game like. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:07:26] I don't know. There's something very, um, there's some, I mean, in general, I think this is true, but there's something very cruisy about like this, this stage of Leo, I think. But in a way that is less successful than I think Tom Cruise is. Because it's the same thing. It's like, put me in your hands. I've researched what director I want to work with. And like, I'm committed to this. I'm going to give you 110%.

[01:07:52] But I think Tom Cruise pulls it off way, way more, especially in this kind of time period than Leo does. Well, Leo also was good at a certain kind of like tortured intensity thing. And like... Yeah. Basketball Diaries. Absolutely. Romeo and Juliet. That was his whole thing.

[01:08:10] Right. And, you know, it came out so much more in the way of Waterpress, but how much he didn't want to do Titanic, how much he didn't even want to read for it. That he was like, I don't want to be a movie star. I want to be a serious actor. And that it was the challenge to Cameron of like, this is harder to do than the things that you think are more impressive.

[01:08:32] There are fewer people who can do this, which has sort of been the central conflict of Leo and everything post-Titanic is him running away from the thing he can do that so few people can to try to prove he's the type of serious actor that is a lot more common.

[01:08:51] But I think he threaded that needle. He finally did.

[01:08:56] Yeah, I think he fully figured that out. But the thing... Alright, so here's... Look, the hugest mistake in my opinion, and it's one they're aware of because Andrew McDonald says this, is Andrew McDonald is, this is a movie that's clearly going to be marketed towards young men.

[01:09:09] And they are going to be scared of Leonardo DiCaprio because that is the audience that's like, well, that guy's for girls, right? Like that guy's, you know, from romance movies, essentially. And I don't think they ever figured that out. They're aware of it.

[01:09:25] If young women like something, all straight men in America become violently opposed to it. They're supposed to be scared of that.

[01:09:33] Yeah, I mean, Pattinson is like a similar thing. I mean, I was thinking it was like when you're talking about him as being the only comparable thing, it's like who... If you're doing an SNL sketch at the time, who's going to be the person that you bring up as like somebody that a teenage girl is freaking out over?

[01:09:46] And it was Pattinson for a long time. We don't really have one other than like maybe Timmy Chalamet right now. It may be Harry Styles. I was gonna say, it's a little Timmy, it's a little Harry, but it's like you have to combine the two of them almost.

[01:09:59] Yeah, but like both of those, both of them are going to have an interesting second phase of their career because like Robert Pattinson ended up circumventing this by going underground essentially.

[01:10:08] And like Leo never did that. Leo could have actually gone quite small here and then rebuilt his reputation as whatever the serious actor he wanted to be, but he only chose high profile pictures. And I think that wasn't going to work out for him for those exact reasons.

[01:10:25] But that is how he does. He's like, okay, forget it. I'll work with Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese.

[01:10:30] And then that's it. That's how he rebuilt it. Then he just did four movies in four years, three directed by Scorsese and one directed by Spielberg. That was the creation of his modern star persona.

[01:10:42] He did those movies, but we are all saying he was dinged even for Gangs of New York as still being a baby. Yeah, he was. He was still a baby then.

[01:10:52] Yeah, he gets to do these big movies and work with these people that he admires and that everybody admires and would consider the pinnacle of what an actor could be involved in at that time.

[01:11:01] But like, is he respected on the level of a De Niro then? I don't think so. No. It takes a long time. He kind of is now. He got his Oscar finally.

[01:11:16] He got his Oscar and he's a big major star, but De Niro is just kind of whatever. That's sort of special. There's nobody that's quite like that anymore.

[01:11:27] But this is also like, you know, if we're playing this comparison game, right? The patents in comparison falls apart immediately because his Titanic is a franchise. He has to do it five times. Right? Yeah, which that hurts. He's stuck in it. Yeah.

[01:12:12] You got a bunch of tween girls to see a really weird movie just because his face was on the poster. Well, if Pattinson's not losing his shirt on it, then there's your problem.

[01:12:20] Hey, that's the problem. But the other thing is that like, as you're saying, Pattinson then went small, right? He like found his arthouse directors. He took his supporting parts. He like slashed his quote.

[01:12:35] The whole reason American Psycho falls apart, despite the fact that he really wants to do it, that he wants to do with Stone, that's a major director he wants to work with. It's getting close to coming together. And then Leo goes, it's $20 million. Right.

[01:12:49] I need to be made $20 million. It may not just be Leo. I'm sure Leo's team is like, by the way, this is Leonardo DiCaprio. So it will be costing $20 million.

[01:12:58] The Leo machine is now saying $20 million and that's an artisan movie and they're not going to be able to pull that money. And so that's the moment where Fox senses like there's an opportunity here. They go to Boyle, you know, as we said, the timeline of this is all confusing. Right?

[01:13:15] Right. It's just not clear who has the idea.

[01:13:18] But he did basically said there was that sense of if you're going to be working on a bigger budget, you might need someone who's a little more proven. And then at some point the word crosses that like Leo's in play. Right. Leo's available and he would be interested in this and we would be willing to pay him $20 million.

[01:13:35] And if we Fox pony up the money, we get Leo. But that's part of the thing that Leo refuses to. He's going to do his weird movie on a big scale and get paid massive money for it rather than frame it as a one for me.

[01:13:50] So the way Boyle puts it is, look, if he's going to do American Psycho, that's burning his star in his romantic star image down completely. And I think it's better to try and exploit that. Right. This is a movie that's trying to lure you into this beautiful secret island. We figured let's leverage his persona, you know, just sort of get the audience into it and then we can kind of mess with it.

[01:14:14] So Boyle himself is like, I did not want to do anything as extreme as American Psycho where it's like, oh, this pretty man, you know, he's actually chopping off Reese Witherspoon's head and putting it in the fridge. Yes.

[01:14:26] And that's where Andrew McDonald's sort of self-awareness comes as well. I think it's also once you're on the roller coaster, it's like, OK, let's do it. Right. You know, it's like, OK, we signed him up.

[01:14:38] You know, we have the money. I guess now it's time to go to Thailand and fucking try and make this movie and then trying to make this movie. They have a really hard time. This movie was really hard to make. And it seems like it was kind of a nightmare just because of the shooting on location and all that stuff.

[01:14:59] And like, it's just sort of it's just funny that like you get Leo to get all the money right. You get Leo partly to be able to make this movie. But then it's fucking awful making this movie. Like, this is Danny Boyle's Apocalypse Now, except he doesn't get a masterpiece out of it.

[01:15:18] Yeah, well, and this movie obviously like directly calls it shot with Apocalypse Now. I was listening to James Gray's WTF and he just talked about how Apocalypse Now was his activation movie. That was the thing that made him realize that like cinema was an art form. Coppola was his god. It's so much a while. He single mindedly was so obsessed with doing Lost City of Z for so long.

[01:15:41] And then basically the second he got to the jungle, he was like, What the fuck am I doing here? Why? Why? It's horrible here. Don't go to the jungle. Don't go to the jungle.

[01:15:51] Do you realize how complicated it is to get any piece of equipment here? Okay. Now that for a whole movie set, like that's what we have to do. We have to take it on a boat.

[01:16:03] It's so stupidly complicated to shoot a movie in an apartment, let alone a controlled soundstage. Yeah, and there's bugs. It can rain for days on end and fuck you up your schedule in a major way. You have no control of the weather.

[01:16:22] Yeah, I did that. The Larry Fessenden movie Beneath that was like Jaws but with a bunch of high schoolers and a prehistoric fish in the water. And we filmed that in like a reservoir in Connecticut.

[01:16:35] And basically they built a barge in the middle of this reservoir with like a camera jib.

[01:16:40] And the whole crew was on this barge and they had multiple boats, each on a different side that was like hidden by a rope underwater at a different length so they could get shots of us at different lengths.

[01:16:52] But basically we would get into that boat. We'd be in that boat the whole day regardless of camera setups because they couldn't like pull us back in over and over again. And it was like a four minute motorboat ride from land to the barge.

[01:17:08] And it was impossible and everything went wrong and everything sank. And that was like a far less extreme situation than that. But it was one of those things where like the adage is you don't shoot on water, never shoot on water, never work with children or animals.

[01:17:23] And even if this movie isn't shot on water, you're shooting it on an island surrounded by water where the whole point is like let's find like beautiful untouched land and then fuck with it. And then bring a whole company in to make their movie on top of it.

[01:17:38] Yes. Obviously this film was tagged for the incredible amount of damage that was supposedly done to the locations that they shot on and all that. And the many accidents that occurred while making the movie.

[01:17:55] Now there's such a spotlight on this movie that's probably part of what's going on, but it does just seem like it was a nightmare. Boyle says they have been misrepresented.

[01:18:06] He thinks they behaved as well as they could have and they tried their best not to like fuck anything up with the acknowledgement of movies having an effect on the environment and all that. Garland's quotes are so salty. I just love it. Every single quote from Alex Garland.

[01:18:25] He says there's something completely patronizing about painting Thailand as a virginal innocent place that's about to be raped by the Western beast. You know, like tourism exists. It's not a bad thing. It's an income. Anyway, so Garland very salty about that.

[01:18:39] But I think the craziest thing that happened obviously is this giant boat accident where they were in these two giant boats bringing... No, they were shooting.

[01:18:52] I think they were going to shoot a scene with DiCaprio and Swinton leaving the island to go get the rice and all that. And there's a giant storm kicks up and capsizes the boats and they have to abandon ship.

[01:19:06] We're talking like Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton, Darius Kanji, Danny Boyle, like the major people involved in this movie. And they have to float around in the water waiting to get picked up by speedboats. And there's a crazy storm going on.

[01:19:22] And Danny Boyle basically says like it was really frightening. These grown men who are like grips and gaffers who are really heavy guys were crying. We're really lucky nobody died. Like, you know, and he said like Leo was there. He's a good swimmer.

[01:19:37] He helped people who weren't good swimmer. Like it was not a flippant event. Like it was very intense. It's very interesting to read just how sort of straightforward Danny Boyle is so open. He really talks about all the bad stuff in every one of these dossiers.

[01:19:53] And he really, really makes it sound like a nightmare. I'm kind of fascinated and I was thinking this watching this film, but Danny Boyle seems like a distinctly unhaunted person. Sure. Yes. Right, right. So cheerful. For a guy whose movies can often have this sort of nihilistic attitude.

[01:20:20] Yeah. He's always so sunny about everything and it doesn't feel performative. And even just the beginning of this movie feels so that the Gen X-y is all of this fucking bullshit meaningless, you know? Yeah. It feels the sentiment feels honest in the films.

[01:20:45] And then even when I was watching the behind the scenes sort of like footage from train spotting, he's so up the whole time and he's like, you know, I mean, heroin is a lovely drug. There's a reason people do it. It's great.

[01:20:57] Yeah. I mean, well, it seems like there's something if you are able to acknowledge things like, for example, a shoot being a nightmare or like which a lot of people would be, you know, prideful about or want to be like, no, nothing goes wrong on my sets.

[01:21:13] Like I was so prepared. Yeah. If you can acknowledge that, if you can acknowledge your own shortcomings, it's sort of like, you know, and you're not poisoned by this, you know, this idea of infallibility that you need to have as a director.

[01:21:28] Yeah. I think then you are more you're more able to depict like that kind of short sightedness and ego, egomania and and and, you know, vice and stuff in a way. Like, I don't know. I feel like he has clear eyes about that stuff.

[01:21:44] He has more of a perspective. Yeah, he does seem pretty devoid of ego as well. I mean, when you hear him talk about his films, it really feels like this is a collaborative process. This is a creative process. I'm not some genius with some perfect vision of the thing that I'm yelling at other people to execute.

[01:22:02] Well, like you can't and talking about this movie specifically, like you can't be this guy like Richard and make this movie. It just doesn't work. And I don't think that Danny Boyle is. I don't think Alex is all like for the for the book. I can't speak to John Hodge. I don't know. I don't know anything about him. But but, you know, I think that that jury's out on on Leah, like Leo might be that guy.

[01:22:29] And so I think like I think everybody needs to have like a little bit of distance from that guy in order for this whole thing to work. And I think almost everybody does.

[01:22:37] Speaking to this, this is Boyle's recollection. He says, It's my least enjoyable personal experience on a film that has nothing to do with the actors, but the lack of empathy I felt with the characters and the situation they created for themselves.

[01:22:49] I think he just in retrospect, he's just like, I was not as connected to that material as I maybe hoped to be. Right. You know what I mean? Like it's so fascinating when his first movie was about murderers and his whole pitch was, I don't think we need to make these characters sympathetic. We should own it.

[01:23:05] But that's the thing is that they don't own it in this movie. There's no real criticism. I like. Well, there's right. There's maybe no credit, but like they certainly are not self-aware. Any of the characters in this show are very lacking in that.

[01:23:22] And the idea of a commune full of, you know, tourists on this island shared with a weed farm is really taken at face value as like a cool thing. And it kind of leaves these open, you know, these kind of untied up things as far as Bugs and Sal and their motivations because they're the kind of only people who have a sort of sinister aspect to them.

[01:23:50] But everything else is kind of like, wouldn't this be sick? And if he had owned the fact that maybe there would be some things about it that weren't sick, I mean sick in a positive way, then I think he might have had a film he could have plugged into more. And honestly, that's the book. Is that version of that film.

[01:24:12] This is why this movie should have what you know, the bad ending. You kind of want them all to be punished by the end of the book. I mean, yeah, I think the movie. Yeah, it feels like the movie gets there in the sort of standoff scene.

[01:24:29] Right. And then it gets why it feels so disappointing when it sort of cops out of it because it does get sort of exciting where you go like, oh, fuck, this movie is now starting to reckon and sort of revisit all of its everything that's presented to us through a different lens.

[01:24:45] And the whole Christo shark thing too. I mean, in the book, that's one of the most interesting kind of sequences because it really is like how this unfortunate event is like this poison to the whole group and like everybody's instinct is like, well, I will pretend I do not see it. And it's sort of this really the way it's written is really, really feels like this like sociological study.

[01:25:11] And I mean, I think it's pulled off pretty well in that whole thing is pulled off pretty well in the books. But again, you're talking about some pretty dark shit there as far as like group think and like, you know, a collective, you know, I don't know, like everybody's being very stubborn about this culture that they're trying to create and maintain. But then, yeah, it kind of walks away from it.

[01:25:36] But also the fact that so much of this movie basically hinges on him wanting to steal this guy's girlfriend. Right. I mean, that's so much of the motivation of this film, which is so similar to all the Elizabeth Berkeley stories you read from like peak Leomania.

[01:25:50] I mean, just the fact that monogamy is a major issue on this beach at all. Yeah. Kind of annoys me that like that. It's like, is this not supposed to be some sort of like free flowing utopian semi new paradise? And then everyone's like, but wait, did you check with your girlfriend that I could? You know, it's like, what are we talking about here? Yeah. Yeah. It'll be fucking the boys and the girls all together.

[01:26:13] It's almost the single most shocking and surprising thing in the movie when he has told us when what what is this? And she's like, well, we're having sex. It's fun. You shouldn't take it seriously. By the way, never mention this to anyone on the island. Society will collapse. Right.

[01:26:29] Yeah. And anytime you like, you're getting into stuff where he's like hallucinating. He's like, question reality and stuff. And then it's like, oh, Sal told everybody that she fucked you. And then she's like, oh, no. Like, yeah. Like high school shit. I mean, I will say like, to the degree I will talk about anything that we did on the on our version of the beach. That was not an issue.

[01:26:53] Right. You threw that you threw that rule in the garden. Everyone was fucking. Yeah. So let's talk about the script to the story to some extent. Let's let's move through the plot. I just want to say as a way into this, I had not seen this before last night.

[01:27:09] You would never seen it. Never seen it. And I sort of like half remembered the marketing campaign, which I remember being pretty vague. And so much of the selling of the movie was just Leo's back. This will be a hit because Leo is back. He's looking up his face up at the sky. He's on a poster. I remember the trailer just being the soundtrack and the shots of the beach and being kind of vague about what happened. Maybe the trailers were more direct than than I remember.

[01:27:38] And I think between that and just sort of retroactively applying what I now know about Garland and his work, I had it in my head. This movie was more supernatural. I thought there was a supernatural kind of Twilight Zoney thing going on.

[01:27:57] There's like a smoke monster, maybe like a beach that makes you older or something. Yeah. No, but I was almost kind of like I was I was, you know, queuing this movie up last night and I was like, oh, it's kind of cool. I've gone all these years and I still haven't had ruined for me what the twist is in the beach.

[01:28:15] And I was ready for like the sci fi hook. And it wasn't like I was still waiting for it at the end of the movie. But a certain point I went on the Wikipedia and I was just like, oh, I've just completely invented that this is what this movie is about, is about this actual tangible attempt at a new type of society.

[01:28:34] Yeah. But I mean, if it's pulled off and I think it is in the book, it's like the the supernatural monster that you feel like is lurking because I agree, like it feels like something like that could happen in a moment. It ends up just being people, which is totally a Garland thing. But like like and that and that feels like it satisfies that that need for some, you know, kind of spooky ineffable thing.

[01:29:01] I, yeah, I didn't feel disappointed by it at all. But like, you know, to ease into the beginning of the movie itself, the setup feels like it is potentially teeing up that kind of movie when you start with the sort of chaos of Leo roaming the streets and especially when you get to Robert Carlyle like that's such a fucking treasure island. Like there's a map.

[01:29:27] Yeah, I tell you, Robert. Robert Carlyle is like half demon in this movie. And he does not seem like a real person.

[01:29:34] And the fact that there's sort of all this lore about it, you know, it feels so mythical what they're talking about, whether or not it even exists. If it does exist, is it something where there's a giant frozen tundra wheel at the center and it's only available on certain lunar eclipse days or whatever? But yes, you start you start with with Leo roaming the streets looking for a good time.

[01:29:58] Yeah, Leo's in Bangkok. He meets a cute French couple, Francoise and Etienne. Francoise is played by Virgin Léodène Léodoyen, who is so pretty, in my opinion. Yeah, she's unbelievably pretty, I would say.

[01:30:18] She's really amazing in the ACS movie Cold Water if anyone's ever seen that. Yes, and I would say Guillaume Canet is kind of annoyingly handsome in this. Yeah, you know, French, you want to punch him. Exactly.

[01:30:35] Now that guy obviously he's an actor, but obviously he directs as well, Guillaume Canet, and now he is the new Asterix, which Griffin, I forgot to tell you this, but maybe Asterix should go on the Patreon.

[01:30:49] David, I'm glad you said it because I was going to. It was part of my big pitch. I think those movies like Start Okay get really bad and then there's one that everyone likes that seems to be the sort of yeah anyway.

[01:31:04] Yeah, but the other wild thing is this one is basically them readapting one of the stories they've already made into a movie. This is the Dark Phoenix of them.

[01:31:12] But now it's Canet who was 10 years ago supposed to be the edgy adult director and now he's given into franchise shit and he's playing the guy and he got Coutillard to play Cleopatra. Right, his wife or partner or whatever.

[01:31:29] Anyway, meets them, meets Daffy. Daffy's like, listen, there's this fucking crazy island, this uninhabited beach that a bunch of people live on and then he kills himself.

[01:31:45] I'm surprised you could even make all of that out, David, that that's what he was saying because it's a very quiet performance. It's sort of hushed tones. I love this performance. I think Robert Carlyle is one of the best things in this movie. I agree.

[01:32:01] And even though Daffy's in a very limited way, he's so important to the mythology of why everybody's doing it. I like that he gets sprinkled back in. I like any time Daffy pops up being like Hugo Weaving in Cloud Atlas basically.

[01:32:16] Carlyle, one of those guys for me who I think basically can't go over the top. Like the bigger he gets, the more... Yeah, and it feels like when he goes this big, you're tapping into a genuine mania. This doesn't feel like someone eating a ham sandwich.

[01:32:37] It feels like you have unlocked some horrible chamber in your mind. But yes, his energy is just incredible. And this is the thing also, like, yeah, he's crazy, whatever. He's a lunatic. But I just find him so much more likable than Leo, especially in this opening.

[01:32:54] When Leo does the thing where he's like, you're fucked in the head, right? I'm just like, fuck you, man. This guy's trying to tell you a story. Have some respect.

[01:33:04] It's a good fucking story. It's a better story than your dumb ass shark story you're going to tell us. Exactly.

[01:33:10] Also, coming off of Carlyle playing Begby, the worst hang of all time. I'm like, I'm down to spend a night with Daffy. I want to see where this goes. Yeah.

[01:33:21] I just think it's wild to see someone have stabbed themselves a bunch of times and be like, dude, I gotta go to that island. It seems like a really good time. I gotta go.

[01:33:35] A guy whose energy to begin with was not chilled out. It's not like that. I love this island. It made me the man I am. Island's so good, it makes you stab yourself when you leave. Damn, I gotta get that.

[01:33:50] But again, I think this is the thing that should make the movie a satire on this, but it kind of misses being a satire.

[01:33:59] To see that and then to have that character be like, yeah, exactly. I gotta see this island. It's funny. It's funny and it should be funny.

[01:34:07] It should be funny and that's the kind of thing that people call the Gen X classic or something. I do want to get into this later, why it has that reputation. But there's this tunnel vision for this character.

[01:34:24] It has that reputation because it's like many a right before 9-11 movie where you're like, the fuck is this guy? What's he even worried about?

[01:34:32] He's like, you don't even want to know about my mom and dad. Anyway, I had to go to Thailand and then go to the secret murder beach because it's the only way for me to experience anything because I don't understand what I'm supposed to do with myself.

[01:34:44] It's the perfect end of history thing where it's just like, I don't know, there's no Cold War. America's won. Do I just buy things or do I seek authenticity? Which probably is not available to me.

[01:34:58] It's the seeking authenticity thing though and that the whole thing is this metaphor for trying to get into the band before everybody else gets into the band. 100% right. The beach is only good because it's secret.

[01:35:11] Yeah, yeah. And I can't have this great thing that is beautiful and amazing be seen by anybody, heaven forbid. And then it just becomes this toxic self-defeating cycle. Let me throw something out. Is the beach that good? Is it that good?

[01:35:31] It doesn't actually seem that good. It seems too boring. David, I didn't think you would go there because you're a big beach guy. I don't like the beach.

[01:35:40] The beach. I was watching this movie and I was thinking, this beach looks pretty nice. Now, was I at any point thinking I want to be there? No. But have I ever thought that about a beach?

[01:35:54] You as a mild connoisseur of beaches, you feel like this beach isn't worth, say, the risk of murder?

[01:36:03] It's fine. It seems like a nice place. And if someone could just open a door and be like, hey, do you want to spend the day on this beach? I'd be like, that sounds incredible.

[01:36:14] But he's there and he's like, my God, a whole new world. We can play volleyball. We eat fish that we get out of the water. And then we play more volleyball. And then we sit on the beach. And then it's time for fish. And then we play volleyball. It's like they don't do anything. It's fine. It's a little boring.

[01:36:32] This is the thing about the beach. It doesn't need to be good because it has the most incredible marketing campaign in the world. He could not get there and be disappointed by it because he's just like fucking swam across a channel and dodged dudes with AKs and stuff.

[01:36:50] The journey is part of the appeal. If you got there and you were like, you couldn't admit it. You could never admit it to yourself that you did all that for that. The weed grows on the beach. Let's not forget that. Okay, that's kind of a big thing.

[01:37:06] But you can't have the weed because I guess they get some of the weed.

[01:37:09] Yeah, they get a bit of weed. No, what I was going to say is that you guys were talking about it from the lens of his search for authenticity. But so much of it too is the like, this world is too fucking safe. I need to experience danger.

[01:37:24] But it has to be danger with an escape hatch. It's the amount of danger I want to take before I get on a plane and then resume my life on rails. You know, this is you say pre 9-11 movie. I think also fundamentally a pre jackass movie when when in the 2000s men finally figured out the healthy way to work through their lust for danger.

[01:37:51] Tape yourself to a giant rocket, wear a silly costume, film it, put it on MTV or in theaters.

[01:37:58] Well, importantly, film it. You know, like a lot of this is scratched if you can if you can share with other people the crazy shit that you did. Like I'm sure that a lot of the sort of lingering dissatisfaction that he's had with every single experience he's had thus far is like, well, but nobody knows how cool I am for having, you know, drank the snake blood or whatever. I haven't shared it on my TikTok or whatever.

[01:38:24] I mean, but there's you know, there's there's a bit of the into the wild thing where it's like all of this is fake. All of you are lying. I want to be in touch with what's real. I want to have actual challenges. But this is coming from a much more aggro guy whose attitude is a lot more about domination in some way.

[01:38:44] But when you're that age, you don't want to go to a resort. Right. That's right. You want to go and experience something that like not everyone else can see. So I do understand a little bit of. I don't know. But like resorts have like bathrooms. Yeah, I love bathrooms.

[01:39:01] No, I get what you're saying, Ben. I'm just I am I am the opposite. I was like, I want to go to a place that is air conditioned. Yeah. Well, there's a point when they're like hacking their way through the fucking rainforest after they have like like before they jump off the cliff and finally get there where you're just like, guys, are you on vacation still? Because it doesn't look like you're on vacation anymore.

[01:39:25] It looks like you're exhausted and hungry. And you're you're bare feet in the fucking jungle. Like, does it seem fun to me? But yeah, I was lying about who they are or are not fucking. Yeah. Yeah. On top of all your other problems, you have a triangle.

[01:39:47] Look, they get to the beach. It's run by Tilda Swinton in basically her first performance in a studio film. So she's kind of like a casting coup at this point. You know, she may I say is the coolest. Go ahead. Is this the hottest she's ever been in a movie? No. Orlando. She's very hot in Orlando. She's very hot in this. I usually find her hot. I will. Yeah.

[01:40:14] I don't. It's like too tough a question in a way. She's incredible in Orlando. But did you knew she was in it, Griffin? Right. I didn't know she was. I thought she was going to be whatever mythical. I think I thought she was going to have a similar role to Vanilla Sky. I thought she would come out and maybe have like hooves or wings or something. Yeah. Right. Right. Or she'd be some AI mermaid.

[01:40:35] Yeah. She'd be her role in Constantine. She's just being the same. That's what I was hoping. She doesn't do that enough. She hasn't played the fallen angel Gabriel enough. Yeah. Bring it back. She will in Constantine two. Right. Yes. Let me write Constantine two. Yeah. You know what? Yes. Yes. Have they announced a fucking writer for Constantine two? And if they have, why isn't it Emily Yoshida? Can we announce it right here now? Like I got to call my shot. I'm going to write Constantine two.

[01:41:05] Constantine two. You heard it here first, folks. Constantine two has to be clean of the James Gunn DC stuff. Right. Or is that going to get fucked up? Not my problem as the writer of Constantine two. Not my problem. Yeah. You know what? In fact, Emily, why don't you as the writer of Constantine two formally announce now that it is clean of the James Gunniverse? It's DC Elseworlds. It's in Elseworlds.

[01:41:35] Who's who? Okay. All right. Patterson Joseph, speaking of hotties who plays Katie, just rocking the most incredible body. I love Patterson Joseph. This is early in his career. He's great. He's got fun energy. He loves cricket. You know, he's cheerful. You've got unhygienic. The chef, the fishmonger, essentially.

[01:41:59] The thing about Katie in this version of things is when you're like, when you were going to keep coming back to this shark speech because it is the crux of like what makes him obnoxious and what's supposed to be a proof of his charisma or something. But like, Katie is already so charismatic and fun and like is doing church and shit and playing cricket with people and he's hot. And and like it's like, why did you have to wait for this guy to like you already have Katie here?

[01:42:29] He seems like a great hang. He seems like a cool, like, you know, mascot person to get behind is your like spiritual leader. If Sal's going to be the spooky leader, you know, I don't know. This island isn't in need of a party, dude. It's very true. Party dudes coming out the wazoo.

[01:42:46] He brings nothing to the island. I think that works as part of the sort of quiet satire of the movie of like this is almost like a playground that's been set up for him, but it's true. He doesn't really do much apart from have sex with Francoise in the ocean and then yes, supposedly kill a shark plankton glowing plankton sex.

[01:43:11] Yes. And then he kills a shark and brags about it and everyone cheers and it's this monologue and it's horrible and it just doesn't work. They love it. Yeah, I mean, am I wrong? Did you guys like that sequence where he does that monologue?

[01:43:23] What are you asking here? Do I don't mean the reality of this movie like the monologue or do I think the scene works? The latter. I know you don't like the monologue in the reality of the movie, but like because I don't even find that. And like, hey, this is Leo. He's given great bombastic, you know, sort of speeches and other movie. He figures that out. Yeah, but I just don't quite get his energy here. Like he feels like a phony.

[01:43:53] Right. It feels like this is an audience full of plants who were told to laugh and clap for him. It's just like it's so funny. Paradise Sim. Yeah, yeah. They're like it's like Truman Show. It's like everybody's like waiting there watching him approach and be like, okay, guys, places like we're going to make this guy feel so special. It really does feel like that, though.

[01:44:54] There's no one like him at this moment for this movie. No. So there's yeah, there's just something unique about watching that. But Richard himself, I don't know if I were like, you know, like if the island brought in a consultant, right, to be like, hey, can you sort of streamline some processes here? I'd be like this guy, get him out next boat.

[01:45:18] I'm sorry. Here was a thought I had while watching this movie. Looks fun to be unbelievably hot. You mean in temperature or in attractiveness? Attractiveness. I run hot. I don't have a problem in that area. I'll sweat at the drop of a hat. But it's pretty good.

[01:45:42] Okay, Ben. Okay, Ben. Don't fucking big dog the rest of us. Hot throttle. Everyone in this movie is basically wearing an open Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts and Tevas, and they all look super hot. So all of their hair has been sun bleached the same color. Right, right, right.

[01:46:05] I just like these are my least favorite kind of people, like in real life. So I don't like they can be super hot, but I'm still like, these people are the reason I will largely avoid the beach and vacation spots.

[01:46:21] It's not that I was like getting horned up watching all of them. There's just sort of the moment where it's like this love triangle. All three of them are incredibly pretty. Right. And then the moment when the sort of island opens up and they go inside the little hut, you know, their meeting space or whatever. You just see that everyone looks like that.

[01:46:39] I'm like, oh, it is like a United Colors of Benton ad. Everyone here is just genetically has that weird glow to them. I don't specifically envy any of them visually, but I'm also like, what do you feel like to be on that fucking set when everyone looks like that? Yeah, that was probably fun. Although it seems like everyone was mostly stressed out.

[01:47:01] I'm trying not to. I guess. So nothing really happens except for ocean sex and fishing. And then Sal, Tilda Swinton's character decides to go to the mainland with Richard, you know, in a move that feels kind of like, you know, her picking her new favorite. Right? Yeah. She wants to. She wants to fuck him.

[01:47:28] I do want to just briefly call out a supply run and have sex. Yes, go ahead. A boil flourish that I think is particularly effective in this movie. The the weird sort of like ghosting effect when Leo is looking at Virginia Ladeon. Leo, I always get her name.

[01:47:44] Yeah, but you know what I'm saying? Where she's sort of like smearing across the sky as he's looking at her in the beach at night. Hell yeah. I do think I don't even know how to explain why, but it does feel like a good visualization of what it feels like when you're just sort of like entranced by someone.

[01:48:03] Yeah. Yeah. You know, all that's cool. The sex is fun.

[01:48:37] Yeah. They go to the they go back to Kofeng Yan. Yes. And and they run into the. Yeah. The the the tourist that he slipped the map to in a moment of what we call that hubris? Him him giving the map for them. What like what do we make of this?

[01:48:58] Well, when he does it, he also he probably doesn't really totally get what he's doing. Right. Because he's kind of like he hasn't been to the beach yet. No. He's sort of bragging. And even if it is real, he has no idea it's anything like this.

[01:49:13] But it's also kind of what you said about him on and I think this is what is literally said in the film. Like it's like he kind of wants the escape hatch. He wants some people to be coming after him in case it is like you get there and you're all by yourself.

[01:49:28] Yeah. In the book, it's clearer that Daffy basically could not handle being at the beach anymore, but also did not want to return to society. And that like what he's doing is destructive. He's like trying to spread word of the beach because he's like that will destroy it. Right.

[01:49:48] That's sort of less, you know, really clear in this. Right. Yeah. And instead it's more. Yeah. It's just like Salom now has something on Richard. She's like you told someone. Well, I won't tell anyone. But you now you're in my debt essentially. Right.

[01:50:07] Yeah, I can't believe we've made it this far in the episode without calling out the fact that this film has characters named Bugs and Daffy.

[01:50:14] It's true. And Sal is supposed to be like short for Sylvester the cat. Yeah. Yeah. They're all supposed to be looney tunes. Yeah. Yeah. So. So are you know, I'm not I'm going up to the limit of probably what I should say about like our our show is about those three. It's like a kind of prequel of sorts. So are you adding any new characters like Porky or Tweety or Barnyard Dog or.

[01:50:41] That I can't say. Marvin the Martian. My lips are sealed. So that makes sense. Sal, Sal Bugs and Daffy and they are the founders one assumes of the community. Right. Like so. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's a cool. That's that's that's how I do it.

[01:51:00] I guess you could do the sort of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern version of the movie that's just about like impoverished Thai weed farmers who are like, oh, there's some more fucking tourists. Can you can you get them?

[01:51:11] Yeah. Yeah. Don't say anything. I mean, don't spoil. I won't say I won't say anything. But yeah, I will. But I will say like a lot more time is spent on Kofin Yang and a little bit of time on Koh Samui, which are like supposed to be the two closest islands to the beach.

[01:51:27] And I do like the rice run part of the movie just like for where it falls in the movie, because like he you have to have it's like the time when you need to have the reminder of what you're doing there, because you're right. It does feel kind of pointless. It feels a little bit anticlimactic to show up there.

[01:51:44] And then all we do is play volleyball like and things are nice. The end. And then to go back and be like, oh, but I'm the important thing is that I'm not like these people because this sucks. Like the whole Kofin Yang scene, the party, the beach parties and all that. Like you got to remember, we're better than these people. You have to have the periodic reminder of your superiority over these people.

[01:52:08] Yeah. And the it seems increasingly hard for like to imagine like going back and just being regular again. So that's part of what's trapping them.

[01:52:19] Don't you think aside from the fact that, you know, she's he's her new favorite and that she wants to fuck him and all of that, that the other reason she's bringing him back to the land is to sort of she senses in him the the restless shit stirrer.

[01:52:38] Even if he's not getting tired of the beach yet, it's like you need to fucking remind this guy how much this shit sucks so that he doesn't start getting any ideas.

[01:52:47] Right. Maybe she sees a daffy replacement here, but she needs to write like, yeah, give him that experience. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah.

[01:52:55] Instead, what happens is essentially she turns on him because he's a little weird about the sex and it turned out he gave them out to someone else.

[01:53:04] And so when they get back, she's like, you are now basic sort of exiled. You have to like send away these tourists whenever they arrive. And eventually she reveals their deep dark secret that they had sex with each other to.

[01:53:21] I know. I know. And Francoise is horrified. Yeah. And they both get fired from the Today show. Good morning, America. God damn. They fucked up the joke.

[01:53:32] So then there is a large chunk of movie, probably about half an hour. That is sort of Richard Leo going insane while isolated and having various kind of visions and panicked feverish sort of delusions that I am sure is when most of the ticket buying audience in 2000 was just like, OK, that's enough.

[01:53:55] I'm done with this. Right. Like that. That's when people were just like, forget it. I think I think you can hear crushes dying in real time in the theater. Like it's him being unsavory is one thing. But him being this silly. It's like you're killing my dreams.

[01:54:12] Yeah. Yeah. And like, yeah, doing the full Dennis Hopper type routine and the headband and everything. And he's not even on anything, though. That's what's crazy. He's not. Well, this is a big he eats a caterpillar. He's high on life. He's high on life and caterpillar. That's bullshit. At least make him trip on.

[01:54:34] This is something. This is an insane thing, though, is how drug free this movie is aside from the weed field like my God, this is not a drug free scene. Like it's like everything just off screen is. Yeah, they should be rolling face all the time.

[01:54:48] Yeah, they should. They should be fucking eating CBD dog bones left and right. Also, like a ton of them would just be doing heroin because it's there.

[01:54:58] Also, because like you're on a beach, you can just chill out. It's a perfect space to be doing heroin. Right. Yeah. You just take a nap. Lie there and get old on the beach doing heroin.

[01:55:12] Instead, it's like you get there and they're like, here's your job. And, you know, you get three hours of volleyball a day and here's your spare set of Tevas. But apart from that, it's like regular life. It should be like this orgyastic thing.

[01:55:28] I'm not doing shit. It's like too bad you are doing shit. You know how to hunt for fish with a spear. Well, get ready. You're going to learn. I had a great idea. Here's my job on the island. Heroin tester. Let me test all the heroin first. Make sure it's safe. Yeah.

[01:55:47] To quote Boyle about all of this, he says, Apocalypse Now hovers over the book. It hovers over me and my whole career. We made the mistake of allowing the Coen brothers to influence us too much with Lifeless Ordinary. And we allowed the beach to be too Coppola-esque. Much as you might want it to be. It's no flattery to him.

[01:56:06] It's funny, though, because it's like the Boyle style is so pervasive that when he's getting influenced by these other people, it doesn't feel like he's doing a poor impression of them. It feels like he's struggling to match what they did well in their respective style to his own style.

[01:56:34] It feels just aware of them, even as he tries to do his own style. But the fact that it is aware of them kind of deflates it a little bit. I mean, one thing about this sequence that I think it kind of pulls off, but obviously, yeah, I think a lot of people are shooting out at this point, is like the idea that this is sort of the next step beyond the beach.

[01:56:55] Oh, like so the beach is too, like it's played out now. There's too many people there. How about just going into the jungle and being insane on your own? Is that the most extreme thing? And then you kind of get the sense that's where Daffy went. That's sort of this, that's where the terminus is. If this is all you're chasing is the thrill of being different and the most extreme person in the world.

[01:57:22] And, you know, I think there are probably multiple reasons that the sequence doesn't work. But yeah. Well, the Banjo-Kazooie screen is the peak of that. But his whole like sentiment and the voiceover is like, I'm not fucking owned. I actually like this. Yeah, yeah. I love it.

[01:57:40] I think this is actually better and it's a game now and I'm good at it. But I mean, the Banjo-Kazooie is so like with the blur playing. I mean, what? Like, is there a more Gen X moment? Don't answer that. No, it's in the conversation. It's a semi-finalist.

[01:58:02] It's also crazy he goes to the weed growers like base and is like messing with them while they're sleeping. Yeah, it is. In a completely purposeless way. He's not even doing anything. He's just getting the thrill of being that close to dying, essentially.

[01:58:20] Like, okay, a little glass of water, put one of their fingers in. I'm on board. I get it. Now I'm like, okay, you're pranking him. Shaving cream on the hand, feather under the nose. Yeah, exactly. Griff, you're with me.

[01:58:34] I'm with you. Draw a penis on the cheek. Take out a Sharpie. I don't know the translation in Thai, but we could figure it out.

[01:58:42] You don't have to write out the word. I was just going to say you draw the, you know, just do the little. Thank you. That's a universal language. That's the universal language. It's a dong on the face. Dung and balls. We've all got them. Hey, hey.

[01:58:59] I mean, you know, not I, but like they're universally, you know, people have them everywhere. That's what I mean. Important correction. You were going to get canceled so hard. Yes, I'm sorry.

[01:59:12] One thing that's funny, the dope field, as Boyle puts it, he's like, they actually offered to give us real dope fields to film in, but the government burns them if they discover them. So we weren't sure if we'd be able to use any field they gave us.

[01:59:28] So they grew their own field of hemp, not marijuana. And people then started stealing the hemp because they thought it was real drugs. It's got some TH or it's got some CBD in it. People could, you know, make some tinctures.

[01:59:44] Yes. He said you'd have to smoke about 20 kilograms to get a hit, he says. So if you can just imagine the most gigantic, spliff imaginable, 20 kilogram a car size. I'll spliff you say. Yes. Come on. It's the 90s, baby.

[02:00:00] The other. Yeah, I really like the video game thing, even though it doesn't really mean anything within the plot of it. I just like the vibes of it. I like how it looks. I like the goofiness of Leo's stride.

[02:00:14] It's the best part of his performance in this movie. It might be. It's great. But there is, to me, there's just kind of this element of like, I kind of want to see things go completely insane. The farmers shooting the invading tourists is kind of nasty and upsetting.

[02:00:36] It's not like there's nothing there. But I do appreciate, I do like the final showdown where the farmer shows up and is basically saying to Tilda, like, look, you've let people in. We had a deal. This is over. You got to leave. And she's like, I'm not leaving.

[02:00:51] And the farmer just reads the room and he's like, this entire place is built on vibes. Like, I just have to disrupt the vibes. Like, this whole Jenga tower could come down with one bad vibe.

[02:01:02] Yeah. And he presents his case as like, look, I got to grow this weed so I could feed my family. What the fuck are you fuckers do? You can't eat vibes. It's a really good movie.

[02:01:16] It's like a little too late, you know, not for the character, obviously, but for the movie. Like, I want that raised sooner because I think it's such a good part of the film. Yeah, and also just like this isn't a game for us. We don't have options.

[02:01:35] Right. Yeah. And the fact that all of this is on the same island. You have just like a very functional weed farm where they're not fucking around. They will shoot you if you come toward the weed.

[02:01:46] And then, you know, a hot person beach where, you know, you're just not supposed to care about anything anymore. And you can play your game boy all day, like get eaten by a shark.

[02:01:58] A hundred percent. I think if the movie ended with this confrontation and Tilda attempting to kill Leo and failing and that being the end of that, that would be fine.

[02:02:09] It is bizarre to then cut to an internet cafe where Francoise sends an email that's essentially like, you know, that feeling when you're on the beach with a photo of everyone like, love you like a sister. Haggis.

[02:02:22] We got I just I have no idea who thought that was a good idea. Like, I don't know if Boyle was like, well, we got to have an up note here or if the studio was like, you know, come on, guys, send them out of the theater happy.

[02:02:37] But it's it's it's silly. Well, but Emily, it's it's what you invoked already in this episode. It's like the magic trick of the Titanic episode, the Titanic ending rather of like the fact that that movie has a happy ending. Yeah. Is astonishing. I love that. Right.

[02:02:56] You have to wonder if they're just like, is there any way to leave people on a good note? Coming out of this film. It's Leo. We're already going to have lost probably half the audience somewhere along the way. Can we leave them like a little bit up?

[02:03:14] Yeah, because I mean, you know, the story of the beach and the story of the Titanic, it's just you replace a few of the proper nouns. It's basically the same story, right? The same thing. You know, with it. It's yeah.

[02:03:24] Yeah. I mean, it just reeks of somebody who just didn't read the book, you know, like like a studio person who just didn't read the book and was like, this seems dark. Yeah, I'm sure I couldn't find the alternate shot ending online.

[02:03:36] But they said the DVD has nine deleted scenes, including an alternate opening and an alternate ending. And there's commentary or introduction from Boyle explaining what he was trying to do and why it didn't work in his estimation.

[02:03:52] The worst part of the ending, truly, though, is just when you see his mouse go over to the email with the paperclip next to it and watching it, you know, 23 years in the future and just going like.

[02:04:07] Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, it's going to take two minutes to load. I'm going to have to watch this load one line at a time. I love seeing all those IMAX, those beautiful, colorful IMAX, those big bubbly boys.

[02:04:19] I love seeing the IMAX. The second he clicks that email, I just like groan because I'm like Boyle has enough integrity that he's not going to make it an immediate pop up image.

[02:04:30] He's going to want to play it real. And that means we're not getting out of here for another like five.

[02:04:35] Well, I think there's like a little more like like in insult to injury in this too, which is like, you know, you're in this Internet cafe, got all these shiny new IMAX there.

[02:04:46] And there is this moment where he's maybe probably in the two minutes while he's waiting for the image to load that he looks around at the other people in the cafe and they are presented to us as losers.

[02:04:59] They're like, you know, a fucking like you're slave to your computer. You're just like staring like a zombie into the screen. And like, you know, but remember me and my cool friends? We escaped. We did something cool.

[02:05:11] And I it is also very funny that he has an email from and the sender is just listed as mom and dad. Right. The subject line is, where are you? Funny. It's so funny. And then it's like, yeah, my parents suck. They don't care about me.

[02:05:30] They have a joint email account. Losers. But the tone being like, we'll never forget our summer at the beach. Like it's basically the fucking ending of Amsterdam where like Christian Bale always says, like, we'll always have Amsterdam, that beautiful place where the three of us briefly connected.

[02:05:50] It was like you were all you interpersonally. The three of you had a specifically bad time. I feel like I don't know that anybody in the world can look back on their time at Amsterdam because I don't think that's a universally shared experience.

[02:06:07] Well, tell that to David O. Russell. I can't I can't rag on anybody who's like a like an Amsterdam stand because I'm a Babylon stand. So, yeah. Emily, here's the difference. Babylon is a masterpiece. Babylon. Babylon rocks and rolls. It's a killer movie.

[02:06:27] Speaking of Looney Tunes, that movie is Looney Tunes. Three hours of Looney Tunes. So fun. Yeah. You know what sucks? What? Subtlety. Yeah. Fuck that. Get it out of here. I'm sorry that Babylon was too silly for you.

[02:06:44] I'm supposed to think about your feelings like and how they're quietly developing over the boring. Who gives a shit? Honk, shoo, honk, shoo. Honk, shoo. Before we play the box office game, just to talk, the film's reception was poor. Sure.

[02:07:02] Critics. Critics said no. They said no to this one. They in fact maybe even said absolutely not. Yeah, that's a no for me. I mean, the thing with Boyle is he was so even forget the Leo part of it.

[02:07:15] It's just like when you are the cool director who's new on the scene, everyone's going to be like, all right, buddy. When are you not going to be cool? Right. You know, when does it curdle? So he's got a target on his back.

[02:07:29] A lot of those guys are wiping out. Like this is the exact period where a lot of the 90s like Fresh Breath, Breath of Fresh Air, exciting new live wire directors are like, oh, you can't sustain this thing.

[02:07:45] Or you're repeating yourself or you haven't figured out how to stretch outside of your one gimmick or whatever the fuck it is. So I think everyone's like just Adam to the pile of all these wannabes. Listening to video archives, it's so interesting.

[02:08:04] I feel like hearing Tarantino talk with a little bit of perspective on like, it's crazy that I have kept it up.

[02:08:13] And he's not saying it like that. I keep killing it, but he's just like, I just kind of assumed like everyone else that like I they were I was going to go out of favor at some point.

[02:08:24] It was just all going to come. They were going to come collect and take it away from me, you know? And then you end up being a journeyman director doing TV and whatever.

[02:08:33] And look, that's what's happening to Boyle here. And he's like, that's fine. I'm going to retreat, go back underground and do something radical. And that's a smart move by him rather than like, OK, what's a safe Hollywood project I can get myself attached to or something like that.

[02:08:54] Yeah, it's an incredibly, incredibly savvy move that I think in certain ways even provides a template for other directors over the next 20 years of how to sort of pull their career out of a tailspin.

[02:09:10] And like, and like kind of relatively low budget horror being your escape hatch from like certain doom. That's the thing. Yeah, totally. Can you make your limitations an aesthetic? Yeah. Yeah.

[02:09:22] I want to shout out the soundtrack a little bit more, just mostly Pure Shores, obviously, which is like the greatest pop song of all time by all saints.

[02:09:31] You got Underworld's 8-Ball is a really good number. And then the Moby thing, the way Boyle talks about it is like no one had picked up on him.

[02:09:43] We put Porcelain on the soundtrack and by the time the movie was out, like he was basically the guy in the commercials. Like, yeah.

[02:09:50] But he also said that he told Pete Tong, who's a famous UK DJ about Moby and Pete Tong returned the favor and told him about Godspeed You Black Emperor, which is a big band that's used for 28 Days Later.

[02:10:09] All right. So the movie got bad reviews. It actually made money, not enough, maybe, but it still made like 144 worldwide. I don't think anyone lost money on this movie. But it was not a smash hit.

[02:10:21] Yeah. And just one of those things where it just especially because you had two years of waiting, any Leo movie was going to be seen as a disappointment, basically. But it was also probably going to make money.

[02:10:35] Yeah. So this is Valentine's Day weekend, Griffin. This is February 11th, 2000. The Beach is opening at number two. It cannot crack number one.

[02:10:48] Do you think there were a lot of like high school Valentine's Day dates where the girlfriend drags the boyfriend? He's like, I want to see the stupid fucking Leo movie. And then halfway through, she's like furious and he's like, this is kind of cool.

[02:11:01] What's going to happen with the weed farmers? Do you think Tilda Swinton is like, you know, ethically non monogamous or do you think Bugs doesn't know about what's going on?

[02:11:14] Yeah. No, I'm sure it was released in February to appeal to the youngsters on their dates. And in fact, what's number one at the box office is another film that's pitched at youngsters, a horror film. This opening at number two is crazy.

[02:11:33] Not only that it's opening number two, but number one is not even new. It came out the week before. Came out the week before. It's not Scream 2, is it? You're close. Close. Is it? I still know what you did last summer. No, it's Scream 3.

[02:11:49] That's how fast the screams came. Scream 3, a great film. I will say it. I'm a huge fan of Scream 3. Wait, so the succession of the Scream movies, what are the years of the Scream movies? 96, 97 and then this is 2000. Okay, so there's a little bit of a gap.

[02:12:07] This is when everyone's like, if I'm going to do another Scream, Cuanto Dinero for me. But Scream 3, people don't like Scream 3 that much. I think it is an incredible movie and I think it is 100% Wes Craven's burn Hollywood burn movie about Harvey Weinstein. I think it's great. Interesting.

[02:12:32] Still have never seen any of the Scream sequels, an argument to maybe do them on Patreon. Right. Emily, what do you think of Scream 3 or do you not care?

[02:12:38] I haven't seen it. I'm the same. I've never seen any Scream other than Scream. It's not my jam at the time. Jay and Silent Bob are in Scream 3, right? Yes.

[02:12:51] 3 is the one that's like the Hollywood satire, right? I don't really know much about her. They're making a movie. They're making Stabbed 2.

[02:12:59] There are all these scenes that are set on the set of essentially Scream. They recreate the Scream sound stages and then there are characters playing the act. Parker Posey is playing Courtney Cox's character in the movie.

[02:13:15] Matt Kessler is playing Dewey Cox and is like, why are you so stupid? It's their original Paul T. Goldman. It's a great movie. People don't like it. Alright, Beaches number 2. Number 3, Griffin, is a family film that I am sure you saw. Okay, February. A kids movie.

[02:13:38] 2000. Oh, oh, oh. I saw this film multiple times in theaters. Snow Day? Yes! Bam! What is it called? It's called Snow Day, in which a bunch of kids get revenge on Chris Elliott, who's a mean snowplow operator. Is that right?

[02:13:57] This is a very reductive telling of the story. I mean, it's sort of an Altman-esque narrative. You're following four or five different threads. It all takes place on the one snow day.

[02:14:07] Chevy Chase is a disgraced meteorologist, number 2 in the county, who tries to break the big story about the snow day that no one believes is coming.

[02:14:17] Pam Greer is his boss. Then Gene Smart is his wife, who's stuck at home with the youngest kid, who's the half man from Two and a Half Men, trying to do a work conference, an early Zoom meeting. Her co-worker is Chili from TLC. Uh, sure.

[02:14:34] And then the younger generation of kids are all trying to defeat Chris Elliott, who's Snowplow Man, the man who threatens to plow all the snow in one day so that school will reopen tomorrow. This sounds like a really cynical ripoff of the ice storm.

[02:14:51] Oh! The fucking insane thing about Snow Day! David, do you not know this? I don't know. You tell me. I mean, I know you don't know this, Emily, because you didn't know this movie existed until this moment. Snow Day was written to be the Pete and Pete movie.

[02:15:04] Oh, wow. Oh, that's right. Yes. So tonally it's very similar to that, but Snow Day was written as the Pete and Pete movie, and then the show got canceled and they rewrote it.

[02:15:16] So the main two characters are a younger and older sibling who are the ages of Big Pete and Little Pete, but they turn the younger one into a girl. But at the end of the movie, they stop Snowplow Man right before he plows the final street.

[02:15:30] And Chris Elliott says, what are you going to do? It's too late. I already plowed 95% of the neighborhood. And the one kid goes, then I guess we'll have to do some unplowing. And I have thought about that a lot. The implications of that line. Unplowing.

[02:15:46] Snow Day may open to basically the same amount of money as The Beach, and it made $20 million more than it at the box office. Wow. And it won Best Picture, too, a year later, which is crazy that it lingered in the conversation for that long.

[02:16:02] Yes. The other number four, Griffin, is another children's film. It's an animated film, and it's also new this week, and it also outgrosses The Beach. Not this weekend, but in total. Is it a Disney movie? Yes. Based on a TV show? No. Is it the Tigger movie?

[02:16:25] Sort of. It's the Tigger movie. Okay, we got there. I mean, there's a sort of based on a TV show in a way, right? They're kind of based on the Winnie the Pooh show.

[02:16:35] This was the run where they started putting the direct to video movies in theaters, and half of them were based on the TV shows. Because this was that movie like 59 movies long. 59 movies long.

[02:16:45] I think its official running time is 78, but I think it also has some pretty expansive credits. Yeah, they include trailers in the running time. I think that movie's trailer had Semi-Charmed Life as the song in it, which is really funny. Yep. Absolutely.

[02:17:06] The most recent theatrical Winnie the Pooh movie, I believe, was 61 Minutes. And then they put a short in front of it. That's what I'm thinking of. God bless. That movie's fucking good, though. We should have more 61-minute movies. Jesus. That's the best thing about that film.

[02:17:24] Number five at the box office is a holdover from Oscar season. Okay. 99. American Beauty? Biopic. No. Oh. Not The Hurricane. It is The Hurricane. Okay, well. Shouldn't have out-thought myself. Well, that's the answer. Yeah. I know. I got it. Other films. The Green Mile, another Oscar holdover.

[02:17:48] Next Friday, the first in the Friday sequels, right? I have seen that one. I have not seen Friday after Next. No, that's the Christmas one. Stuart Little about a little mouse who shreds hard. Shyamalan.

[02:18:07] Oh, yeah. That's what I recently looked up is that that movie was at the top of the box office for Y2K. Stuart Little was the top grocer that ushered us into the new millennium. He was the millennium bug.

[02:18:26] Can we just quickly circle back to Ben quietly saying, hell yeah, to Stuart Little? I loved that. No, I thought that was good. He was nice and fun. I just didn't know you were a fan. He's small. He's tiny, literally. But the world seems big around him.

[02:18:43] Yeah. Something to think about. Something to think about. You've also got Galaxy Quest, obviously. A masterpiece. And you have the Ewan McGregor starring mystery thriller Eye of the Beholder. Oh my god, Eye of the Beholder.

[02:19:05] David, when I was Marie was ripping me a new one over saying that Ewan McGregor was goofy, handsome. David said, I guess you could say beauty is in the dot dot dot Eye of the Beholder.

[02:19:20] And then Marie continued ripping into me and David said, can we circle back and give me some credit for my Eye of the Beholder joke? I would not be surprised if even as a strident Ewan defender, Marie forgot about Eye of the Beholder.

[02:19:37] I wouldn't hold it against her. I don't think anyone remembers Eye of the Beholder. Does he play the creep in that one? David L. Simms, yes, he's the creep. He's the serial killer or something.

[02:19:49] Just back in the day when Ashley Judd had to make two of those a year by law, by congressional mandate, she had to appear in two R-rated thrillers about serial killers or something. And everyone went to see them. They worked. We all liked them.

[02:20:04] I mean, a lot of them did work. This was not one of them. But usually her movies made money. That is the beach. We made it. We made it to the beach. We made it to the beach.

[02:20:18] This kind of feels like the end of the first act of your Royal series. I feel like this marks the end of it. 100%. And then the second act is him being like, let me try all kinds of different things and then almost by mistake winning Best Picture.

[02:20:37] Yes. And then the final act is how do you follow up winning Best Picture by accident? Exactly. Like, wait, how do we recreate the alchemy of that? But yeah, that is absolutely. He's a three act career for sure. It's a long third act though. Well, we'll see.

[02:20:56] Yes. Yes. I mean, it does feel like we have to be on the precipice of Act Four. It does feel like when he comes back with a new movie, there's going to be some shift again.

[02:21:08] Given how he is, I would imagine he has some self-awareness about like, I need to do something new or drastic. I can't just keep fucking around. Yeah. And yeah, the other thing about his third act is like he does a Sorkin script and a Richard Curtis script.

[02:21:26] You know what I mean? Like he took on these scripts by and Simon Beaufort. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. It will be both here. It will be later. It'll be here and there later. Yes. On this very feed. Emily. Bless up, Emily.

[02:21:42] Good to be back. Good to be back. Thanks for going to the beach with me, guys. No problem. Good to see you, Mama. I like to think of myself as the Sal of this podcast. Right? Yeah. I'm the healthy dynamic. I'm the cricket guy.

[02:22:03] Yeah. And this podcast is the beach and nothing will ever go wrong. It'll last forever and be normal. I saw David's tweet where he was like, if it was up to me, the beach would go down totally different. And I'm like.

[02:22:16] I did the Wahlberg tweet. If I went to the beach from the beach, it wouldn't have gone down like that. Which is also at this point almost become the Ben Hosley. Yeah. Right. Right.

[02:22:25] The only thing is I think if I was at the beach, it would still go wrong. Unfortunately. You're right. You couldn't fix this. Yeah. I don't think you plus the beach would be a good combo. Definitely not.

[02:22:36] But but any thriller where someone takes the money and it fucks them over, you're convinced it does end with you on a beach. That's true. On an island, a private island. Yes. That I don't have to share with anyone. No, you wouldn't fuck it up. No.

[02:22:52] Emily, people can watch your breakout turn in Poker Face. Oh, yeah. My first public viewable work in, I don't know, four years, three years. Yeah. Check me out on Poker Face on Peacock. Everybody. Everybody get Peacock rules. Podcaster. Yeah, I'm a podcaster. It's very it's very meta.

[02:23:12] Peacock lowkey good. Yeah, I think Peacock is good. I'm not even I'm not even paid to say this. I think Peacock is fine. They've got good stuff on there. But anyway, I'm on for about four seconds of screen time. But yeah, it's a good four, though.

[02:23:27] And people I saw people on the Reddit excited to see you pop up and then asking, why has it been so long? And I hope they're all happy that. Well, this is what I was working on the entire time I was trying to remember.

[02:23:40] Working on the beach episode. Oh, well, the beach episode, too, but also my role in Poker Face. That was just really a long, long time in the making. It was a little touch and go there for a second.

[02:23:50] I might, you know, look like it was going to go to Akira Knightley. But yeah, got in the end. I got it. People also don't realize you actually recorded like 50 episodes of a murder podcast effort to be released just to have the sort of like the muscle.

[02:24:05] It was like Ryan Gosling needed to know how to build the car and drive. You don't like this bit, David? We should wrap. OK, thank you for being here, Emily. Thank you. Great to see you, Emily. See you soon. Come on. Yeah. Come on. Next time.

[02:24:27] Next time at Foxwoods, you know, we're going to we're going to go. We're going to go have a night sometime. I would love nothing more. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.

[02:24:40] Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping to produce the show. Joe Bowen, Pat Reynolds for our artwork. Lee Montgomery in the Great American Novel for our theme song. AJ McKee and Alex Baron for our editing. JJ Birch for our research.

[02:24:57] You can go to Blank Check Pod dot com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon blank check special features. We do commentaries on franchises and other bonus stuff. We're doing 28 weeks later on Patreon, which will be coming out around the same time as 28 days later.

[02:25:16] Episode I shall also mention, as we're trying to remind people this year, we unlock every Patreon episode after three years.

[02:25:23] So the whole first year of Patreon, the Marvel commentaries and the New Jersey weekend experience all now available for free for anyone who wants to go to our Patreon page.

[02:25:32] We're unlocking new episodes every 10 days, such as the Rise of Skywalker or the Last Jedi episode where I clogged your toilet. That one I think is now unlocked. Please, please, please. I gotta go. I gotta go.

[02:25:47] Tune in next week for 28 Days Later. And as always, I'm not kidding. It is just the timing now. The naked guy has returned. He is once again naked and the lights are now on in his apartment. Down, down, down, down, down, down.

[02:26:12] This guy's just fucking just flapping around. And he sees you. He's fully aware of you. We have not made eye contact, but like my setup is facing the window. There is a lamp in front of my face illuminating my face. I'm staring straight ahead. He's now walked off.

[02:26:31] But he was just he was just fucking flipping a faucet around. He's never gonna meet you. Why does he give a fuck?