The Lion King

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to express All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check Paracas-ya, Paracas-ya 什麼 from Enhias reals Alright, I'm cutting you off.

[00:00:50] From the pod we cast on this planet And blinking pod into the cast There's more to pod than cast ever be seen Okay, get out More to pod than can ever be cast Yeah, we get it that you use the words pod and cast

[00:01:11] There's far too much to pod in cast More to pod than can ever be cast But the pod roll and cast through the sapphire podcast Keeps pod and cast on the endless round is the pod of the cast Shut the fuck up Be quiet

[00:01:34] And it moves us all It started out that I was enjoying it more than the movie Now we're about equal There's despair in podcast There's despair, mostly despair Good song though POD I mean, I'll say that was the most emotionally activated I felt by the entire movie

[00:01:54] Is just that needle drop is unbelievable It is The moment that kicks in and you just see the sun The sun, yeah I was like, what if I like this? Interesting, I was For like half a second I was like, what if this gets me? Right You know?

[00:02:10] It is good, I mean, but then I just immediately think of the... I'm just watching it right now It looks so much better Hiiii I got done I cast Is there, yeah What? Is there any Disney movie that begins as like boldly as that?

[00:02:29] No, you know what's cool too Because a lot of them have that mood setting opening number You know what I'm talking about But I feel like This one it's like, yeah Here's the other thing

[00:02:37] I feel like the other mood setting opening numbers are kind of more like story songs Yeah, yeah, like These are the doctors of Tractor Like that one And I feel like this one The fact that it takes until The end of the song

[00:02:49] Until we see our main characters Right That's what I like about it I don't think the other ones have a mood setting song like this Yeah, but they're sort of like Right, we're easing you into the world Here we are, right?

[00:03:01] But it's like the fucking like Notre Dame starts with like Show passing like the tales of Notre Dame And he's a cloakman, I'm sorry And he's like literally like How does Pocahontas begin? Because I'm remembering their good ones But yeah, how does that...

[00:03:14] So you and I disagree on the Pocahontas soundtrack Because I think the Pocahontas soundtrack slaps Oh, you know what? Pocahontas begins with steady as the beating drum Which is good That's one of the better songs in Pocahontas Are you playing steady as the beat?

[00:03:28] This is one they'll never touch, right? I'm sorry You know what? It doesn't start with this Because I think the opening of Pocahontas is the best thing Pocahontas cold opens with Virginia Sailing Company And you start on the boat And then it's the hard cut to this

[00:03:44] And that's the first time you see America I think that's like incredible But they'll never remake that one, right? I wouldn't put it past them You wouldn't put it past them? I wouldn't put it past them That is some tricky territory I guarantee you they have like

[00:04:00] You know, the way like any proper Like sort of a medical lab Has like a wing that's just trying to crack cancer 24-7 I guarantee you Disney has like A whole story wing that's just being like Is there any way we can do it?

[00:04:17] There's gotta be a way What are the remaining other films they have not How about The Way is that they make the movie And all the proceeds go to Native Americans Yeah, well that's not gonna work for them Okay Okay For Disney? Alright

[00:04:34] I mean, there were all these stories about How they've been underpaying the employees Of their theme parks so much The theme parks are the biggest money Getter for them That's like the cornstone of their company It's just like pure profit And employees who work at the theme parks

[00:04:51] Were like living in cars Because they couldn't afford to live on the Full-time salary There was like a woman who died of a heat stroke In her car who had worked as a Like a janitor at Disney World For like 10 years Welcome to our Lion King episode

[00:05:05] Yeah, of course Terrible stuff And this summer Disney attendance is down at both parks Way down from the usual summer standards When they expected that they would be breaking attendance records Because of Star Wars And what happened is I believe this is not my theory alone

[00:05:23] But I truly think this is the thing They spent so much time Hyping up how Bad shit crowded it was gonna be Exactly, the people, you know what I'll take that summer off They scared everyone off And that coupled with the fact that they were like

[00:05:36] Only one of the two rides is gonna be open The other one opens in six months I think people, like myself Were like, I'm not getting on a fucking plane until December Which I should be someone who's gonna be there Fucking opening week

[00:05:48] They had done this once before They like made these places like Disney We're here to talk to Lion King Don't get into Deep Lore We're getting into Park Lore now Hey, you know what's the Disney head? Snooki Really? Yeah Have her on the pod

[00:06:04] If we ever do Musker at Clownmans Which we've been talking about more and more It's gonna be kind of cool to do Because it's like the rise and fall We just want to talk about that great She was just talking about it in a recent episode

[00:06:14] Like just getting back to Disney Oh sure What's the other Disney park they did this They overhyped that then People stayed away They tried to make their own Like sort of discovery zone Like kid Like Chuck E. Cheese style And they overhyped how popular They were gonna be

[00:06:31] And the attendance was so fucking low And Disney Quest was them trying to do a more High tech interact of our kid And everything happened They've done this before But they were previously always eyes on her mistakes And Iger hasn't made this mistake before

[00:06:43] But they were spending so much time Announcing to the press How they were gonna handle crowds And being like we got this figured out That even someone like me was like I'm not touching it for six months What's Snooki's favorite Disney movie? That's a good question

[00:06:56] I don't know offhand But let's just start the conversation See where it goes Yeah, I'll find out I'll find out Throw the ball at her Here's an interesting thing Okay It feels more and more now Like the Disney live action remakes

[00:07:11] That work at the level that they want These movies to work Are the Renaissance movies Box office wise, yes Yes, and it's a narrow pool That's gonna get more and more shallow I'm gonna read you the list This is what I wanted to do Alright, so Snow White

[00:07:25] They have not remade No, there were the two other ones There had been other Right, Snow White and the Huntsman mirror But those weren't Disney They have now announced That they're working on it That they're developing it That they hired a writer or whatever Sounds tricky

[00:07:38] I could imagine that they perhaps I will say this I think if the Maleficent sequel Underperforms Everything pre-1988 Will get Slowed Yes Alright, there's Pinocchio Which they are actively working on And has not yet Like been in like Got into production

[00:07:57] But they've been hammering away at that one Paul King was very close to making it Chris White's has been writing on it That's public knowledge It's pretty cool when you're in a whale Yes True Alright, there's Fantasia They did Fantasia 2000

[00:08:10] I mean I don't know if they're working on Fantasia And they did the source That's right The definitive live-action adaptation There's Dumbo They did Dumbo Didn't do that great Good movie There's Bambi Kind of a good movie There's Bambi That feels like a nightmare for them

[00:08:24] I don't know how they would possibly approach that Cinderella They did that Alice in Wonderland They did that Peter Pan They're not gonna do that I mean there's been other Peter Pan's Cause that's like public domain I don't know if I should say this on my Alright then

[00:08:40] I know people have been trying to do Peter Pan at Disney Do the proper Peter Pan at Disney Sure Okay Yeah I think they're fighting the uphill battle on it Because of There's been a lot of Peter Pan's That's the whole thing Cause there's been like straight forward

[00:08:54] Peter Pan's And then there's been like finding Neverland Like there's been so many But you had Pan and Peter Pan Both bombed Yes Oh Pan I forgot about Pan Yeah So I think those two things scared them off

[00:09:07] Although you know hooked nostalgia is at an all time high But I think there are people who Want to make a Peter Pan movie And Disney is skittish about the idea of putting another one out there Right There's Lady and the Tramp Which is gonna be Disney Plus

[00:09:21] Correct Done in the can They're Sleeping Beauty Which Maleficent is the take on that There's 101 Dalmatians When they did that with Unko's And they're redoing Cruella Craig Gillespie is doing the Cruella movie The Sword and the Stone is also Disney Plus headed Is that right?

[00:09:35] I think that was announced I don't know if they've 100% confirmed it But I believe that's the idea I'm pretty sure that has been 100% Hey look that's one for me Where it's like you can do a fucking cool movie Off of that Yeah Jungle Book they did Aristocats

[00:09:49] I don't know Yeah I mean look We'll get to cats Yeah I don't know I mean is there an Aristocats remake To be done? I don't think so I think there is one to be done I think in a world where the cats Movie wasn't made

[00:10:04] I think now they wouldn't dare No they should make a filthy version Like the joke Like the joke The Aristocrats is what he's saying I also think that Aristocats is not popular enough To put that much money into it I don't think it has that kind of legacy

[00:10:21] I agree with you I don't like that movie Robin Hood I think it's weird because Give it a shot I mean here's what's tough about it They're taking a human story And putting animals in it Which would necessitate them doing A weird inhuman Lion King style thing

[00:10:40] Except all the animals in Robin Hood are fully anthropomorphized They don't behave like animals at all So it'd be needlessly expensive And there have been other Unsuccessful Robin Hood movies lately That's also true I don't think they do it Well if you bring in Taren Edgerton

[00:10:54] And make it a sequel to his movie Then yes I love Taren Edgerton Love him too Robin Hood unfortunately Not playing to anyone's strengths Sure The rescuers They're not gonna fucking do that Fox and the Hounds Is that one? Disney plus I don't think they've announced it

[00:11:07] But I wouldn't be surprised if they do it Fox and the Hounds I weirdly like a lot Black ca... I don't like that movie It's so dark I like how dark it is I like it's really sad Black cauldron If they announce a live action remake

[00:11:17] Of the Black cauldron All bets are off Then we know Disney is truly like I don't know That's the one that they like Just kind of hide even more Than song of the south Like that one has to be on Disney plus though right?

[00:11:28] I'm kind of pumped for that Yeah I mean they've like I've got to re-watch that I released it on Blu-ray and stuff Yeah I remember when they released it from the Disney vault I thought it was a new movie Because it was never included in like

[00:11:38] Disney legacy stuff Right And I was a kid who was So deep on Disney legacy stuff I was like how did I never hear This movie Uh yeah It was never on any of the posters That were like the history of Anyway go on Right

[00:11:52] Well I really just knew it As like Disney's dark mistake Or whatever you know Right Uh and then after Black cauldron You've got Great Mouse Detective They could do that Mice? Yeah I don't know Olive Young Company Disney just shut down The Mouse guard movie Yeah At Fox

[00:12:10] Yeah but what if we just detect Yeah I mean look The photo real thing What if it was on the case Little mermaid is in the works Beauty and the Beast Aladdin, Lion King done Pocahontas probably never going to happen Hunchback Are they doing that? No

[00:12:24] They keep on trying to do it For the stage It has played in Germany Sure It has played in Europe They've done out of town tryouts James Levine So the next Not James Levine James Le-Pine Yeah The next wave for them would be Hunchback Hercules Tarzan

[00:12:40] That would be them being like I don't know Like Those ones are really tricky To pull off Hey We got a pizza pipe Ladies and gentlemen Hercules I think is kind of unadaptable Cause it's so specific in its tone And it being a weird comedy

[00:12:57] That feels so of its time Like that's a very 90s comedy It is And Tate Donovan's in it Most 90s performer ever Hercules is kind of the proto-shrek I feel like people don't talk about that Dunke That's what Shrek used to say Dunke But he's got his little

[00:13:14] Dan Avido sidekick And I feel like Hercules is the movie That's like yeah but we're making fun of Disney movies Like Hercules has all the jokes about Like the meta-ness And the Calling out how much merchandise there is If we do Clements and Musker We can talk Hercules

[00:13:27] It's got an interesting style Visual style Here's something radical I will tell you What the fuck Jesus Christ This is a blank checkbox We need to know what we're doing We're doing this is important Okay We said this episode was going to be short

[00:13:38] But we're kind of source of context Go ahead We promised Ben it would be 15 minutes long What I was going to say Is when Hercules came out I said that is Tied from my number one favorite movie of all time That's interesting

[00:13:52] How old would you have been like 9? The original Toy Story So when Hercules you were like They did it They finally can't put something It doesn't surpass Toy Story But it's equal to Toy Story And Toy Story I still think is one of the greatest movies ever made

[00:14:05] And I don't even like Hercules anymore I have twice in the last 5 years Tried to go back to him and been like Yeah I thought it was so fucking funny I thought it was a laugh riot Loved the songs Was all about it

[00:14:19] That was my favorite of the Disney Granite songs Anyway Fair enough? Yeah I mean this is the other problem though These ones like Hercules Two recent live action movies That's true Tarzan A recent live action movie Was it Hit? Yeah America loved it

[00:14:36] Right and the songs aren't as sort of legendary As they are with like Beauty and the Beast And Aladdin And Lion King And such Maybe the remake Bolt Can't wait for another remake Bolt A photo reel bolt John Travolta But then yeah Then there's this other weird thing

[00:14:53] Where now there's this rumor going around That they want to do fucking Atlantis Great sounds good That Gimbal's like for a denied But didn't Gimbal shoot it down or whatever right What he denied was that he was doing it Which I'm sure

[00:15:04] And then like all the sources were like We doubled down on this story We trust our sources I guarantee you this is on everyone's fucking wish list Apparently the thing they're into is that Disney wants to make a Tom Holland vehicle Yeah

[00:15:15] And they were like Tom Holland would be good for the guy in Atlantis Tom Holland is attached to everything Yeah Atlantis also lost a ton of money Um but it was about a lost empire I kind of Lost an empire Like Atlantis

[00:15:26] And I would like to see them make a live action movie Just because It's something that is not like fucking Religiously like beloved Right exactly And it's a cool premise And you could actually pull off a live action now And the whole movie is designed by Mike Mignola

[00:15:40] It looks really cool All the devices and everything whatever But I think they're gonna run out And I've heard things from people who are like Around the Disney company that there is that internal panic of like We've been riding this money train these live action remakes But like

[00:15:55] What do we do when it's over Yeah it's not gonna last forever And especially with Disney Plus Where the ones that aren't sustainable enough for theatrical are gonna go there They're gonna burn through anyone they could possibly do Remake Toy Story With real toys

[00:16:06] So here's the thing that a lot of people have said Why don't they just remaster Toy Story 1 and 2 The way you remaster a video Yeah make them look nice Right And the thing that people don't understand is

[00:16:17] To remake Toy Story is essentially the same kind of undertaking as remaking the Lion King You would have to do it all You would have to redo the entire thing Even if you wanted to You could copy it from frame for frame

[00:16:28] But you'd have to make every frame But the data I mean you could not reuse the data from the original movie You can't just like upload the original movie And be like okay now let's turn up the resolution It's incompatible file types

[00:16:38] They talked about when they did Toy Story 3 They had to rebuild all the characters from scratch It's essentially new actors You'd have to build the characters again Or even if you use the model from Toy Story 4 You'd have to reanimate the performance frame by frame Yeah

[00:16:50] Because they made the first Toy Story in DOS Yeah But they re-released it And David's shrugging What are they thinking? They're really sitting like 4K Like they've done their like up conversion thing Does it look good? Yeah it looks very good

[00:17:03] I mean it's like the colors are good And the details good and whatever But they're not trying to pretend it's something It's not Is it still got toys? It does still have the toys in it I remember they were in that one

[00:17:14] I can confirm that the toys are back in town But yeah They'd have to make the movie from scratch Just in order to have more realistic textures And stuff Which I don't think is worth the money for them Because you know No, people don't want these things No

[00:17:32] Now this is my check With Griffin and David I'm Griffin You're David And Ben has given himself a slice of pizza The meat lover was Weirdly against getting the meat lover pie today I know we should have gotten the meat lover pie The dog wanted one

[00:17:48] He was off the leash, bark bark, meat lovers Or should I say for this episode Meow meow Because we're going to be talking about some big cats And some little cats I could call this episode The Lion King parentheses 2019 V Cats parentheses 2019 First theatrical trailer Colin

[00:18:09] Dawn of digital for technology Yeah, that's what we should call it I could call it that Or I'd have Because this is usually a podcast about mini-series This is usually a podcast about filmographies Directors, keep it in Ben He's not keeping it

[00:18:26] He marked it and I demand that you keep it in Don't cut that shit out Alright I want to live a transparent life I love it, less work for me I want to go home to my children and tell them I live honestly How are your kids?

[00:18:39] They're terrible They hate me I got no respect for me I tell you Ben, I got no respect Yes dad I got no respect Ben, my wife asked me Did you go to your doctor of any boom bots? Yeah My wife asked me

[00:18:53] She goes, you want to be on top or on bottom I go bottom Slide under the bed I butchered Rodney Daner's guilt job There's a reason that Rodney was better at that than everyone else Yeah, Rodney was the best I think joke for joke Once a week

[00:19:08] I watch a Rodney Dangerfield YouTube Same year Like all the fucking time I watch his specials all the time Oh, god No one was better at jokes No one was better at writing and delivering a joke Than Rodney Dangerfield But Rodney Dangerfield is also someone who

[00:19:21] The simple act of him sitting down is hysterical It's like just me watching Rodney Dangerfield Sit in a chair I'm like this is kind of the best thing I've ever seen Yeah Everything about him is funny God He and Carson, him on Carson

[00:19:38] He is the perfect match for Carson Because Carson is best when he's not doing anything You know when he's just like, oh sure Yeah, of course And that's just the perfect fall for him Johnny, I tell ya I tell ya go see my doctor, but he boom bots

[00:19:52] Boom bot But he boom bot But we usually talk about directors who have massive success Or along their career Given that there's a blank cheque to make whatever Creates a passion project they want Sometimes those cheques clear and sometimes they bounce baby And we usually pick a miniseries

[00:20:05] We pick a director's career We go through them one by one And once in a while there's a new film That we just gotta talk about And this is certainly a blank cheque film in a lot of ways It's a blank cheque for this notion

[00:20:15] Of the live action Disney films The director certainly has blank cheque status And Favreau is an interesting one Because I think despite the fact That he has had a run of successes His blank cheque also increases Because of the increasing success Of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

[00:20:30] Oh, I thought you were going to say Chef And Chef and The Chef Cinematic Universe The CCU The MCU and the CC We all stand a legend His name is Chef Casper You gotta try this, Kuban Yeah, you gotta try this, Bibiana

[00:20:45] You remember that famous line from Chef? Is he Martin Scorsese in that movie? Yeah, you gotta try this, Bibiana But don't you feel like that's happening? The Marvel Universe becomes the all-consuming thing. The more everyone's like, that favro, he was ahead of the curve. He was onto it.

[00:21:05] He was involved great. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's fair. So coming off the Lion King, coming off all the Marvel movies, he goes, I just feel like we're getting warmed up. We just cracked this technology. I want to take it to the next level. It's the problem though.

[00:21:20] And they announce it as a new Lion King, and everyone goes, oh my god, they're making a live action Lion King. They did? Or not. What are you talking about? They did. It took them three years to figure out a way to refer to it.

[00:21:31] For three years, they kept on like, Robert Eiger would do interviews and be like, I don't know because it's like not live action, but it doesn't really look like an animated movie. And they finally, like three weeks ago, were like going on the talk shows and tell

[00:21:42] everyone it's photo-real. Photo-realistic. You don't like that? And that's the pitch. And then the next thing we do is what if we did the Lion King and tried as much as possible to make it look like a nature documentary?

[00:21:53] Yes, the animals will just look like what those animals look like. And we will try to hold them to the actual physical limitations of how much animals can emote. Fully. And move around. So here's some things that lions can do. Walk, run. Yeah. Oh, that's it. Eat. Sure.

[00:22:14] Sleep. They can kind of like, like crouch down. Pounce, you know. They are very survival based creatures, right? Yeah. There's not a lot of emotion that goes into their decision. It's survival based. They have their needs. Pack hunters. Right. They live in prides.

[00:22:31] And there's this thing that's interesting about watching animals behaviorally where because they aren't rash, they're not run by emotions. You just see it sort of the like. Clockwork brain. Clockwork brain of like, what do I need to do at this moment? When do I conserve my energy?

[00:22:46] When do I use it? What's the geometry of this attack? Any of that sort of stuff, right? Yeah. And when you watch nature documentaries and the animals sort of like look blankly and are like twitching and you're sort of projecting onto them like, what is that animal doing?

[00:22:59] What is it trying to do? That's kind of fascinating. Right. When John Favre wrote, did the Jungle Book. I thought I liked that movie a little more than you do. I think it's like a gentleman's six, 6.5. Right. But I think he nails that element.

[00:23:15] I think you have one of each type of animal. I think generally those types of animals were more expressive and bears, panther, tiger, snake, multiple wolves. Yeah, but really one. Just sort of one main wolf in that one. Mother, father, cubs. Mother, father. Mother, father. I don't know.

[00:23:33] Mother. But also he seemed a lot more comfortable having animals do things that animals couldn't do in real life in that movie. That is true. Even though there isn't singing and dancing, the animals like just sticking. Well, there's a little singing. No dance.

[00:23:50] I'm just saying no dancing with the musical numbers, but there is rhythmic moving. There is intentionality in their actions. I was saying this to you before we saw the movie. We saw the movie together last night. We did. Retired bit. Bears and monkeys, apes, whatever, was it chimpanzee?

[00:24:07] Yes. They are more expressive and human to begin with anyway. So you got that advantage. But do you remember how fucking well Cher Khan works in the jungle? That was the performance everyone liked. He works better. Yeah, it's not bad. I mean he's only really got this.

[00:24:26] He's scary. Yeah. Which helps because tigers are scary. But is Scar ever as successfully scary in this movie? Scar is the biggest problem with this movie. This is a movie where pretty much everything is a problem. I think Scar is the biggest disaster in the entire movie. Wow.

[00:24:43] Yeah. But I think if you're going to try and highlight what went wrong here, I think Scar is probably the best example and also probably the story of Disney's failure with these remakes in general. Is the villain?

[00:24:59] Like is Scar and the villains and their whole thing where they're like, well, we can't have them be as sort of flamboyant as they were because that kind of seems offensive now and it's like make another fucking movie. Yeah. Then why are we doing this?

[00:25:13] Have you seen Lion King recently? Scar is like every word is like, well, it's like Jeremy Irons is in the river. And the performance, the character animation on Scar is so much fun. The shallow end of the gene pool. Every word is enunciated in this.

[00:25:31] And then like, Chewatel's like, yeah, I'll play him just sort of like, is this kind of moody guy? Like who's sort of like, you know, I don't know. It's monotonal. He's not bad. I think he gives a good performance. Good is.

[00:25:47] I think he gives a good period performance. But anyway, back to the Lion King, I mean the Jungle Book. This was the thing that kind of, but like they have, you know, blue sitting, eating honey

[00:26:02] with his hand, making eye contact with the person he's talking to when he's talking to them, like gesticulating with his paw. Talking to a person as well. Right. Another advantage that movie has that there is a person.

[00:26:14] But I think that movie like actually allows the characters to behave like characters. And in this movie, I kept on being like, what's the weird thing that's going on? There are a lot of weird things.

[00:26:24] And then also just the other point I made too that you agreed with is like, at least in the Jungle Book, everyone's a different kind of animal so you can like each they have their own personalities. This one has like, you know, eight or nine lion characters.

[00:26:36] They all look like lions. Yeah. They're three hyenas. They all kind of look the same. They all look the same. One of them has like a fucked up ear. A little bit. Yeah. Right. I had to do a lot of dog scenes on the tech, right?

[00:26:52] Because we had the dog midnight in season one and dog acting is very difficult. And here are a couple of reasons why. Because they're so fucking devious. They're devious. Their riders are insane. Oh my God.

[00:27:04] But there is a basic thing that we are just used to as an audience because so much of the language of cinema is based on eye lines, you know? Not even just the spatial geometry of how you set up a room but like where characters

[00:27:17] are looking in direction in relation to where you cut before or after they look. All that sort of stuff that if you watch like the Michael Cain acting masterclass videos, which are incredible, the ones he did for like the BBC in the 80s, he talks so much

[00:27:36] about like the qualities of stillness that you need as an actor, even when you're playing a jittery character that you have to maintain some sort of stillness and why people don't

[00:27:44] move a lot in close ups and why they try to keep their eye contact fixed and not blink as much even though it's unrealistic. And if you're watching it on set, you're like, this is bizarre. This is the thing I feel like I struggle with.

[00:27:56] I always like to play antsy people. Sure. And I'm always trying to find this like zone. And when I dislike my performances, I'm like, it feels too unfocused because I'm doing too much in a way that's distracting for the audience. Right.

[00:28:07] You need to find a way to like thread that needle, right? Right. Animals are only distracted. If anything comes into an animal's range of sight, it looks over at it. An animal can't stand still unless it's like sleeping, right? Sure. There are these weird and voluntary twitches.

[00:28:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're all these sorts of things that are distracting to watch because you, it distracts from whatever the intentionality of what an actor or character is trying to convey to you. Yeah, he's saying I'm like, who's shitty actors?

[00:28:32] Jungle Book, he got most of that out of the way. And very once in a while, he'd maybe throw a little touch in that end so he'd be like, wow, it looks like a real tiger.

[00:28:39] This movie, he is like so slavishly committed to like, I want this to look like planet Earth. But when the characters are talking to each other, they keep on looking around. They keep on having little twitches or like walking off to some corner so that it looks

[00:28:53] like nature. Like nature documentary, yeah. And it doesn't, it's like he's actively not letting their body language. Yeah, well they can't look human at all. Right. Because then, you know, you wouldn't fucking believe what was happening on screen. It would ruin the movie.

[00:29:10] I don't know what you're talking about. They got to look like real lions. No, I mean they got to look like real lions. And I just kept on doing this test. I think it's pretty obvious. Aside from the fact that their faces aren't expressive enough. Right.

[00:29:19] Aside from the fact that they all look the same. Yes. Aside from the fact that I don't think it makes any sense to go this photo realistic. Sure. There were a bunch of scenes where I was like, if they had just had Simba sitting, right? Sure.

[00:29:30] And while he's sitting, his focus is fixed on another person and maybe once he gesticulates with his paw a little bit. No, they don't really talk. They mostly just are looking off in various directions when they're talking to each other. That's the fucking thing!

[00:29:41] I know, I know, it's true. And you're like, wow, I guess this does look like real lions. Yeah. Also I... And that's why I thought it was great. Five stars. I feel like a lot of people in talking about this movie have used the like,

[00:29:53] they were so busy thinking about if they could, they didn't even stop. Yes, that is what it is. Because I mean one assumes that there was that conversation of like, wow, Jungle Book was a hit. We have this tech. Yes. And someone was just like Lion King.

[00:30:06] That's the animal movie. That's the other one. Right. Let's fucking do it. And apparently I... Everyone was like, you know, bam, great, do it! You know, right? I mean, I can't imagine the worst. I had a hard sell.

[00:30:15] It was something that Favreau like wanted to do post Jungle Book. Sure. But apparently they were already sort of stewing on that and Favreau was like, I want to win this job. Right. Weird. Yeah. I don't think he was met with much resistance.

[00:30:30] But it was like a thing he like pursued within, you know, the lineup of potential Disney movies he could grab. Yeah, he beat out Malik. And my joke at the time... My joke at the time was like, I did this both ways was like,

[00:30:45] because that same day they announced that Justin Lin was attached to direct a Hot Wheels movie. Sure. And I said, John Favreau agreeing to make the Lion King is like if Justin Lin agreed to do a Hot Wheels movie.

[00:30:59] And then I did the opposite joke of like Justin Lin agreeing to do it. I agree. But it's like, if you've already kind of done this thing... Why do it again? What's the difference? What do you need to prove? This time the wheels are hot. Right.

[00:31:10] And that would have been here. Flamin' Wheels. Everyone, like their trailer would have been like, here's a car. Everyone knows cars. But I was like, what is he think he can add to this movie?

[00:31:20] And the answer is apparently just that thing that we've talked about a lot on this podcast because it happens to blind check directors, but they just become so obsessed with the tech. Yes. And the idea that the process of making the movie can change Hollywood forever,

[00:31:33] that they just go so deep up their own butt. And sometimes the guys get out, sometimes like Cameron and Spidey themselves, the things sort of work. And sometimes they don't baby. Yeah. You know? Yeah man. I mean, they have the... And then this,

[00:31:48] they have the additional problem where it's like, they're just, they have the animated film playing and they're like, yeah okay let's, you know, okay no, it's a branch that he's on, let's have him hanging in the same way. Right? Like, oh they did a zoom here,

[00:32:03] so we'll zoom even though like we barely zoom at any other point in the movie. You know what I mean? Like shit like that. Was Stefanski the one who was telling you the spirit story? Yeah, the spirit stallion of the Simran,

[00:32:13] also known as Simran stallion of the spirit, or stallion spirit of the Simran. You can just, your joke is that you can just change the names no matter what. Which is a horsey animated movie from, I want to say 2002, maybe one. I think it's two. You know,

[00:32:27] there are about a bunch of horses, 2002 that's right. The horses do not speak in the movie. It is a movie about horses, Matt Damon plays a narrator. Yeah, Matt Damon plays spirit but as a narrator. Internal monologue sort of thing. James Cromwell I think played a colonel

[00:32:42] that's sort of like Custer. That's interesting. So it's just It's a very all-marriagey movie. And all physicality. Essentially. And it's a movie that tries to have the horses communicate and behave like real horses. Rather than making them That was the whole idea. Don't make them cartoon horses,

[00:32:59] make it an animated film about real horses. And it is a pretty movie. I think of it mostly as just being pretty. Yeah. But the animators said the one concession they had to make you know, to us, like outside of reality, was they had to give them eyebrows.

[00:33:14] Human eyebrows. That makes a lot of sense. Just because otherwise there's no emotion. That's like simple acclamation, right? Exactly. Everything. Exactly. Everything. And as you look at the trailer, I mean the poster, it's like, yeah, you can see that just got a couple of brows on there. 100%. Yes.

[00:33:32] And John Traverot is not an animator. He has no background in animation. No, he was a sandwich maker. He was a sandwich maker. I tried this gubano. And even though the Jungle Book, it was like 90% CGI. It's reverse engineered from

[00:33:48] here's a kid we're putting in front of a physical camera. He was on a set with a kid and the kid was acting and he was directing the kid, you know, like a director does. They built physical on all fours? Sometimes. The kid was playing Mowgli. Yeah.

[00:34:01] Oh, sorry. But sometimes Mowgli walks in all fours. Traverot notably would usually play the animals with the kid. Where his acting experience comes into play is like Traverot would play Baloo, and I'm sure he was good as Baloo on set. He killed it as Baloo.

[00:34:15] Like he probably was really good. He was actually probably greatest Baloo. Actually, let's find those fucking dailies. I mean, like as Ka was he great? Who knows? But it's Baloo? I don't know. You got an Oscar for that. But I was like, Ka in that movie,

[00:34:27] they turn into Scarlett Johansson as like a weird hypnotic seductress. And I'm like, that is a scene that so fully embraces the unreality of what's going on here. Yeah, I know. And it felt like that snake gave an emotional performance in a one-scene role, right?

[00:34:41] And this movie, he's like, no eyebrows. No. It's not motion capture. No. So you don't have actors who are able to put emotions into the performance physically. We're not like Don, all Glover's face is not being mapped onto Simba's face. This is keyframe animated. Keyframe. He records voices

[00:34:57] and then he hands it over to animators. Most of those animators, I believe in this instance, are special effects artists. Exactly. They're not what you would call animators. Now very often these days, if people don't want to have to pay the overhead to have an animation studio

[00:35:09] going on all the time, something like Rango for example hired ILM to be the animation studio. Right. But they will hire a lot of animation experts to work on it because the visual effects people are usually trying to replicate something or create something that can fit

[00:35:26] into what already exists. And character animation is its own school of sort of art that you need to learn because a good animator is a good director and a good actor. In that sense, you go, fabric could be a good fit both the director and an actor. Yeah.

[00:35:41] But the difference is that animators have to learn how to act from the outside. Interesting. They have to understand how to give a performance but it's not about I'm feeling really connected in the scene. I'm listening to my partner. Sure.

[00:35:53] All the things that they tell you to do as an actor. Don't be outside of your head. Don't think about it. Don't try to get this resolved. Don't talk with your hand. All this sort of shit. Animation is the exact opposite. And then you're trying to find

[00:36:06] the specific inner life in that gesture, in that movement. And you have a movie that is like special effects teams being directed by a very naturalistic, conversational, behavioral actor director. A guy who's best... No, his best movie is probably Iron Man? What's that for his best movie? Elf.

[00:36:24] Elf or Iron Man, right? His best movie is Elf. Elf is pretty good. I love Elf. I think Elf is a masterpiece. Masterpiece is strong. I think Elf is a masterpiece. Okay. I will say that. I think Elf is a masterpiece. Okay. That's good. He's an elf.

[00:36:39] Jungle Book was kind of a good fit for him because Jungle Book's got this jazzy hangout vibe. Yeah. I was saying to you last night, Jungle Book's my favorite. You loved Jungle Book. Right. I didn't realize this. That's your number one. First movie I ever saw? Sure.

[00:36:52] Saw to the quad? Remember Vivit Lee even though you called me a liar? You are a liar. I'm not a liar. Known liar. Remember Vivit Lee. But that movie is this sort of shambling like you're all these weird bachelors in the jungle hanging out with this kid

[00:37:04] having these conversations just sort of like bumping around singing songs and shit like that. Unsurprisingly, this movie hits like a 10 minute window of joy and joy ability at like the peak Timon and Pumba section in the middle where you're like, well this is why you hire Favreau to

[00:37:20] do this. Yeah. Because this feels like the kind of thing he knows how to do. Sure. When you're watching Favreau do slavish recreations of what were previously either fully dramatic or fully musical scenes. Yup. Because otherwise Lion King does not have a lot of overt humor. No.

[00:37:34] The humor is mostly Timon and Pumba, right? Right. Like a little bit of Scar. Right. Scar's got some humor. And then the hyena. All of his humor, all of his sort of like human rhythm, sort of interest and dialogue. This is true. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:37:50] You're like this is a weird stilted match of material to him. Sure. Whereas someone like Julie Tim or someone who had always been like I'm going to pick a folklore tale or like this like Greek tragedy or like something, you know, and sort of like work these

[00:38:04] mythic stories into these more like expressionistic things. I work with these sort of like weird texts. Right. And then she does a Rackney and it does her in, right? Right. Right. But that was like she was like That was your concept. I'm trying to view Spider-Man as this.

[00:38:20] This is a mythic. Right. Right. But he's making this movie in which he's so obsessed with, as I said, the fact that he could, that he didn't think about whether or not he should. Sure. Now everyone's been saying that and that's sort of the fundamental

[00:38:32] line everyone's using Summit Up. Yes. It's always kind of bug me because I've been like that doesn't feel totally right because I feel like the origins of them are always tied to catastrophic acts against humanity. And as bad as this movie is it's not a malicious act. No.

[00:38:47] No, it's not malicious. So I'm sitting there watching it. It feels deeply cynical even though I don't think Favreau is cynical? No, I think it feels super cynical from a studio perspective. Yeah. I think he was coming at it very earnestly. I think all the people who worked

[00:39:02] on it were very earnestly trying to do something with it. Sure. But I'm sitting there watching it and I'm going like what is the analogy for what this feels like to me? Because I think you and I agree like when when Acyania hits and the sun hits

[00:39:16] it feels kind of fun. Hey, love it. When you're watching Circle of Life even though it's less effective than the original you're like if I saw someone upload this to YouTube and they were like this special effects are to spend a year recreating it. Sure.

[00:39:27] Like those people who like are like I made Obi-Wan and Darth Vader fight. Right. Or the guy who did like the entire like Battle of Normandy from same part of Ryan on his computer. Right. You're like well hey the craft is well done. It's impressive.

[00:39:39] What an interesting thought experiment. Right. So we're both watching that and I'm like you know recognize the. OK, but say when I laugh are you getting to when I laughed during the Recreation of Circle of Life? There is a rack focus. Which is a great shot in

[00:39:52] the original. Yeah. The rack focus from the ants to the I mean I can probably find the exact animals. But you know in the original in the 1994 movie. Yeah. It's a nice little visual suggestion of like yeah like everyone's coming. You know like to this

[00:40:11] ceremony from the tiniest of the ants. You know this Ben to the zebra. And it's like it's always kind of cool when Disney 2D animation like has stuff like a rack focus where you're like oh like it's like a movie like even though they just drew that

[00:40:29] and and the live action movie literally has the exact same shot. And they do that a lot. I mean they do a lot of those like recreations. Some more I mean the circle of life I have to imagine is like you could put it like Gus Vance Hanseiko.

[00:40:41] Most of each other. It feel it felt that way that the Mufasa death I'm trying like the most sort of iconic visual sequences from this movie. It felt like they were like let's just try and replicate them. Yes. And then others like say like I just can't

[00:40:56] wait to be king which is obviously it's like big sort of Busby Berkeley musical number in the actively avoiding getting the image. Yeah. Well we can't do that so I guess they just walk around the watering hole and there are other animals there to which I

[00:41:07] say and I will continue yelling this for the rest of the episode. Why can't you what weird rule that doesn't exist? Are you trying to abide by? Well I think it's just if you've got these animals these planet Earth animals and you had them dancing

[00:41:25] it would just look stupid. So instead they went for boring. You know what I mean they just were like well if it's boring no one can call it stupid. Now I want to say I didn't see the movie. But Griffin's probably going to call it stupid.

[00:41:37] But my thinking with just this line of conversation is like okay so what about the rule of almost like when humans aren't around animals act differently. That's like a really simple thing I've seen done in stories before. Yes. Humans are gone all of a sudden animals communicate to

[00:41:53] each other. Simple, easy. Like who cares? You literally you give them 10% more human characteristics in their movement. Yeah. And this movie becomes 75% better. I'm glad it's like you get 10% more intentionality. It's like we just sat there watching it and like for the first I said to this to

[00:42:10] Griffin like the first half of the movie I was eating dinner because I was at the Alamo so like that was okay. I had like food. There is one part. There's one part where we got like really genuinely enjoyed the team on a Pumba

[00:42:23] stuff really good and we'll get to that in a second. There's one part where we got like really sort of on our edge of our seats. Okay. So I'm going to go back to the first part which is when they accidentally brought me Buffalo wings but I had

[00:42:33] loaded loaded fries. I mean that was fucking tense and it definitely happened during the Elf and Graveyard sequence and we were a lot more focused on. Sorry. No, sorry. It's an Elf and Poop yard in this movie. It's a poop yard. Just looks like shit.

[00:42:46] I mean the whole movie looks like yeah they should they should actually we should clarify that. So like here's how the movie began. John Pever got a bowl and he farted into it a bunch and then killed Dasha now. Killed Dasha now film that

[00:42:57] shit and then here we go. It's going to make two billion dollars. Now I do think it's wild that this movie was it's a 50 rotten tomatoes is what it is but it's a 55 on rotten tomatoes which is like you'd think like usually with rotten

[00:43:12] tomatoes or the movie like this you can kind of just coast on the style. Don't get a lot of three out of five. You know get a lot of like mildly positive reviews and just sort of coast your way to like an 80 percent favorite movie.

[00:43:22] So I'm going to go back to the first part and then we're going to get to the second part. So like I said, I think it's a 50 percent favorable kind of view. Like people are kind of like they fucked it up. Like even right.

[00:43:32] I think most people are just like now sorry. Like I was bored. Well and we sat there and we'll get to the high light of the audience reaction later in the episode but when the circle of life ended and it does the smash boom Lion King

[00:43:42] as a title and you know obviously that was the trailer for the original. It was the trailer for this remake. I think it's a good thing to do. I think it's a good thing to do. I think it's a good thing to do.

[00:43:53] I think it's a good thing to do. I like this remake. It's fantastic, because I want to rewatch the movie, which is sadly stolen The Disney Vault until Disney Plus happens. Sure. So you could only buy it on iTunes. Sure. But I really watched

[00:44:07] the trailer and do you remember that the trailer which is just the circle of life starts with three title cards? Yes. That say like in 1994 while Disney Pictures were released it's 33rd animated film an original story about lions in the Sahara Desert. This is the opening song.

[00:44:22] Is such a baller move For me, that's on the level with Michael Jordan, I'm back. To just say this is the opening song, we're calling it a year in advance. And famously within Disney, Michael Eisner and Katzenberg were so obsessed with the idea of getting

[00:44:40] an animated film to win Best Picture. They got nominated with Beauty and the Beast. Because they had snuck up on it with Beauty and the Beast. And that was after they did a full-court press. They campaigned really hard for that movie. And they got that nomination.

[00:44:52] Everyone was like, hey, wow. History made. Right. And they thought Pocahontas was going to be the one. Right. The whole time during the development of these, because those two movies are happening basically parallel, they're like, Pocahontas is going to be huge. Lion King, I don't know.

[00:45:08] We don't know. And people were trying to get themselves off of Lion King to get on Pocahontas. Lion King, I feel like, I think that Climates of Musker turned it down. I believe so. And it's directed by, what's their pants? A Rob Minkoff.

[00:45:24] Minkoff and fucking the other guys. The other one. Like it's not even Trousedale and Wise who are the other sort of big directors that who made Beauty and the Beast. No. Ollers and Minkoff. Yes. And like what, you know, Minkoff went on to make the Stuart Little movies.

[00:45:40] Uh-huh. Haunted Mansion. Yeah. And Mr. Peabody and Sherman. Yeah. You know, it's not like these guys were. Did he do 102 Dalmatians? And then Disputed Geniuses, no? No, okay. He did Stuart Little. Yes. Kevin Lima did it. Oh, of course. Goofy movie. Yes. David's looking at me knowingly.

[00:46:01] One of the goofier movies. I'm just- It is. I just wanted to talk about it was a fucking goofy movie. Well, yes, but I mean, I can think of a goofier movie. An extremely goofy movie. Extremely goofy. I can think of a goofier movie.

[00:46:15] That's right, Son of Saul. I'm trying to make this most serious. David. You're right, it was only somewhat goofy. David, how dare you? Unbelievable. So on. God, I'm in such a bad mood. How are we gonna get back on track after this?

[00:46:31] Okay, so here's what I wanna say. Griffin, you were real quiet during that. It was an awe. I mean, look, we know here in the podcast I'm a little bit of a roast master general. If I said something, I was just gonna brutally roast this guy

[00:46:44] for looking like Goofy. Right. They call you Dr. Byrne. I operate on lights, camera, jacks and rules. Okay. Don't have anything nice to say. You don't say anything at all. Fair. I forgot about that video. That is one of the most chilling pieces

[00:47:00] of film art I've ever seen. You're speaking of the best film of 2018? Yeah, I think it was the official title was Children of the Corned Six, right? Booksmart Review Edition. Have you seen this video? No. I mean. I don't know if it's better to let you see it

[00:47:18] or hide it from you. Play it, play it because 90% of it is silent so Ben can watch it while we're talking. Oh God. Okay. There's only talking at the beginning part. And I wanna say I've been loving the Back to You podcast.

[00:47:31] I've literally listened to all of it. I think that's great. Let's camera Jackson. Playing his standard clip. One of his rapid reviews. Is there a sign for the film's critic that made you think back to that famous thing? Maybe your mother wanted to hear. And I really say.

[00:47:49] Don't say anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. All right, and now we can keep talking while this fucking clown show continues. Oh, I'm letting him go. Best to look at it, but let's give it a try.

[00:48:01] You're like I'm staring into like just the deepest darkest bit of just commentary. Sure, entitlement. I don't know. It's. At the back you. Is it? Is it good? What is some stuff you've learned recently? It calms me down. What a fousty situation we're like.

[00:48:27] I found the one thing that calms me down. Unfortunately, it's a podcast hosted by Jackson from Lights, Cameraj, Jackson. From Lights, Jackson. I couldn't remember his last name. Jackson, he of the famous ongoing narrative. Lights, Cameraj, Jackson. Someone, this is gonna be a short episode.

[00:48:46] We haven't even fucking talked about cats yet. I know, we gotta get to cats. Folks, this is the first time we've recorded two episodes in a row in a long time. That's right, since probably since Book of Henry. And we're feeling it.

[00:48:57] A thing I learned from the Back to You podcast is in the last four episodes of Back to You, they changed the character who was playing the daughter of Patricia Heaton and Kelsa Graham. I knew that. A very late recasting from Laura Marrano to what's her name?

[00:49:09] Lily Jackson. I think they were thinking they were still gonna get that season two pickup. They thought they were. They just didn't have. Their ratings were higher than Till Death. This is another thing I learned, but Till Death was less expensive to produce.

[00:49:19] Till Death was right, but you know what happened with Till Death, right? That became one of the weirdest sitcoms of all time. You should read Emily's article on that. I have read it. That's incredible. Yes. Just but that hard cut to black

[00:49:28] is what we were talking about here. Yeah, this moment is incredible. With a like, yeah? Dun dun dun bum boom. Kels. The audience erupts. The audience at the Alamo Draft House where we saw this movie last night. Really good loaded fries. With good loaded fries and all that.

[00:49:45] Nice Moscow mule. I was drinking a couple Moscow mules. Just applause. And I think it's almost Pavlovian. It's like, oh my God, right? Of course, you know? But it felt like people were satisfied and it's like you showed us the tech demo. I'm on board.

[00:49:58] And David said, let's watch how it dwindles. Yeah, which it did. Because they continued Pavlovian style. Responded. After I just can't wait to be king, one person was like, yeah. There was that sort of like, oh, we're still cl- Oh, we're not clapping anymore?

[00:50:12] It was more than that. It dwindled. It dwindled. And a couple, at the end it was light applause. The one that I remember was really light is in Hakuna Matata when they make the transition where suddenly he's adult Simba.

[00:50:25] And that was the one where it was like three people thought it was gonna happen and pulled back. I just can't wait to be king. I feel like they were still doing polite. Because that's the second song. So people are like, oh, they did another one

[00:50:36] of the songs, right? There's only, I guess, because they kind of cut Be Prepared apart from- They make Be Prepared into like Rex Harris. Be Prepared into like Rex Harris. Be Prepared into like Rex Harris. A dramatic monologue. Monologue set to music.

[00:50:47] Now my question, because we're talking visuals, how's the music? Is it at least- Music's fine. Is it good? I mean, because- The score is good. It's Simba's back. It's like you have amazing vocalists. We'll get to Beyonce. I mean, Beyonce's a good singer. Yeah.

[00:51:00] Look, these songs are good. They hire people who are good at singing. Right. You know, like even like Billy Eichner turns out to be a better singer than Nathan Lane. Nathan Lane, one of our finest, you know- While Nathan Lane's always been going

[00:51:12] to this kind of singer, you know- Nathan Lane's got pipes. He can obviously like really sing, but it turns out that like Billy Eichner has the voice of an angel. And he sings the shit out of these songs. That's amazing. Rogan cannot sing at all. Not surprising.

[00:51:24] They push him a little more than they should. I think they embarrass him a little bit. Not his fault, their fault, right? Right. How about Glover? Glover voice of an angel. Beyonce? Phenomenal. Like all these people, it's like- Turns out this Beyonce? Can sing. Talented. Talented.

[00:51:41] And even at the very end of like the spoken word like slam poetry be prepared they do, Chouetel like holds the tune for a little bit and I'm like nice voice. Like sounds like, of course he's a classically trained man. Of course he has some basic perfunctory

[00:51:56] like singing abilities, you know? He's royally trained or whatever. Oh yeah. But yes, a little bit like what the fuck is going on here? I was looking back, because I've seen all these conflicting reports about how much Beyonce was paid to do the movie

[00:52:10] and I think they're all based on hypotheticals that have now been sourced and re-quoted. No one knows. No one knows. But there was the rumor at the time that was they were gonna pay her $25 million because the big key was she was gonna produce the entire soundtrack. Right.

[00:52:25] And she did, didn't she? Pharrell gets a credit. I didn't see her get any credits other than that she co-wrote and produced the new song. But Pharrell gets a song. But there's the Lion King The Gift, you know what I mean? What's the Lion King The Gift?

[00:52:40] It's this soundtrack she made. She produced a curated soundtrack which counts as her seventh studio album. Right, I think that's sort of part of the deal but it's under her own label. Yeah, sure. The credit that Pharrell gets which is songs produced by Pharrell Williams,

[00:52:57] I feel like at the time the perception was she was gonna do that. She was gonna be hands on, she was gonna bring in the musicians, she was gonna figure out how to re-orbitrate these songs. And I was watching it every time I did one of these songs

[00:53:09] and the songs themselves on a musical level totally work. They're fun. I was just like, I would have rather seen someone try something different here because all the actors are singing them well but you could have approached them differently from instrumentation. But you're just talking.

[00:53:24] From mixing, from the... They're just not doing them. They're just not... They're doing the lion. Doing it. It is money being printed on screen. Right? And that's what I'm... That's what I'm... The more you talk about it. But do you guys know what the most successful piece

[00:53:36] of entertainment in history is? One single piece of entertainment in history is. The original Lion King? The Broadway musical. Oh, sure. Yeah. Nothing has ever made more money than the Broadway musical and is very interesting how this movie doesn't take anything from the Broadway musical.

[00:53:50] Right, right, right, right. Like it is purely just an adaptation of the live action or the original animated film and not the one other time that they tried to sort of bring the Lion King into real life. It's kind of fascinating. Aside from the fact that like,

[00:54:06] Julie Tamor has talked about how she wanted to do this movie, how she would have done it, how she thought doing it hyper realistic was not gonna pay out. Right. There are even story changes that the musical makes that would have benefited this movie.

[00:54:21] Cause this film was inexplicably half an hour longer. Aside from one scene that was when I went to the bathroom, doesn't seem to add anything. It is from what I could tell, 15 minutes longer with incredibly long credits.

[00:54:35] It adds that one, did they hold on the full of parts for longer? They did, I mean they did. They did, okay. They did a tracking dolly shot on. I mean there's a couple, there's a scene where Nala and, no sorry not. It's Nala and Scar.

[00:54:49] Yeah, Nala and Scar kind of tussle. Yeah. And there's this. And I came back in the bathroom and you went, well that was kind of interesting. And I said what? They tried something. Yeah, it was another scene. Scar was trying to hunt Nala.

[00:55:00] They extend, cause she's trying to like sneak out. They extend the sequence of Simba's fur flying over to Rafiki where it's like, oh a giraffe eats it and then it poops it. And then like a termite rolls it into a poop ball. There is a dumb beetle sequence

[00:55:15] which is almost a direct copy of not something from The Lion King but something from Microcosmos. Do you remember Microcosmos? Microcosmos. Good movie. There was a documentary about bugs where they had like, we cracked the micro lenses. It was all zoomed in. We can do bug photography better

[00:55:32] than anyone's ever done before. And I think it was like French documentary filmmakers. French movie early, mid 90s, whatever. And it was like a weird art house crossover sensation where it made like a couple million dollars because kids kind of liked it.

[00:55:45] It was like a good planet earth style nature documentary. I remember thinking it was kind of boring. The poster was a praying mantis wearing sunglasses and I kept on trying my mom and going when's he showing up? Because he seemed like a fun Joe Campbell type.

[00:55:57] And instead it was like, no, Miramax was just trying to make it look like the movie was fun. But there's one sequence that rules which is watching this dumb beetle trying to push a ball of dung up like an ant hill.

[00:56:09] And it's got like these stakes that you understand where even if the thing can't emote he's like trying and struggling to push up and he keeps on falling back. And I remember that thing just like fucking killing seeing that as like a child at the film forum.

[00:56:19] Hey man, I mean, you know, it's a ball of poop. And then he does that in this and it's like I have to imagine for a guy who's talked so much in the press about like, I'm trying to make it look like a nature documentary

[00:56:29] that he fucking was like, this is my micro cosmos homage. And so it's a close up of poop. Yeah, for a while. It's a couple minutes. Yeah. Did he get no- It's on the poop. At certain point the poop ball splits open. Yeah. Oh, fur comes out.

[00:56:47] And the fur comes out and then you're just tracking That's disgusting. This poop fur flying around and Rafiki catches it and you're like, Rafiki, what's your fucking hands? And then he does. And he does. And that's an extended sequence. There's a long sequence where Rafiki

[00:57:00] purrles his entire body. There's a long sequence where Rafiki installs a plumbing system in his tree. So I'm- This is, wow. This is colossal. It's like fascinating. So I'm watching this movie and I'm going like, what's the analogy here? I don't want to use the could should thing

[00:57:19] because it's what they're doing is so much more innocuous where it's really like, why spend the time doing this? You know, it's not malicious but it just feels like such a waste of time and energy. Anytime I was sort of like visually taken by something in the movie

[00:57:32] it would be like, man, look at how good that grass is. And then I would think, why did someone have to spend that much time accurately replicating the imperfections of a thing that I could film on my cell phone right now? You know? Yeah.

[00:57:49] Like the way the light hits the thing, you know? This and that. I think that it's all 100% CGI and that stuff is more impressive than the animal stuff, the environmental stuff, the water, what have you. And you go like, there's no reason

[00:58:00] any of this needs to be replicated. I understand you can't get lions to do things like this. And even if you want to do a babe style it's really dangerous and it'd be hard to get the performance out of them whatever, right?

[00:58:10] And they don't want to do what Dinosaur did which I kind of would have preferred Disney's Dinosaur where they shot live action backgrounds and then just animated the characters into them. Okay. Because that movie then has to abide by the physics of what a real camera can do.

[00:58:25] Which when this movie is replicating certain famous shots like the sweeping shot where you're on like Zazu's back as you fly towards Pride Rock, works in animation because an animation animators are drawing a thing and then they have certain technologies

[00:58:39] like a multi-plane camera or CGI later for Lion King and stuff like that. They can use to simulate a camera movement but your brain is not rejecting it because you know there's not a real camera in the same kind of way.

[00:58:50] In this movie when they have Caleb DeChanel sitting in a room as a visual consultant the D given the D in VR wearing this headset with two like Oculus Rift controllers placing his digital camera somewhere and picking his digital lens and all of it.

[00:59:07] That's the whole thing they talked about you watch behind the scenes photos of this movie and it is 10 guys sitting in office chairs with Oculus Rift controllers and headsets and one guy's like the gaffer and they were like we digitally created a way

[00:59:20] where someone can light a set and it's like there's also an analog way to do it. You have a guy and he brings lights and he turns them on and it's an artistry. It's like a trap. But they had to do a photo real CGI.

[00:59:35] So when the Zazu fly thing's going on you're like there's no way you could get a camera to do this in real life and it makes everything look more fake but this is the point I want to make okay?

[00:59:44] Cause I was really proud when I landed on it. I'm not watching that board. I'm not emotionally engaged. I'm not hating it but I'm just like it's weird how much I don't feel anything. I'm thinking about having your loaded fries, where are they?

[00:59:55] That was when there was really some tension and things like a scar that used to be scary. I'm just like I don't feel any threat. I don't feel any danger. I don't really think they fucked up how he looks. I hate it.

[01:00:06] The design of the scar is terrible. He's just skinny. Like he just looks like a rag. He's just like a mangy looking lion. He looks like a meth lion. He looks so bad. Right? He looks meth. It's so disappointing. I'll find a picture for you.

[01:00:19] I go why spend this much time and energy for something you can so simply just do? Replicating things that you could already just film. Replicating the way that a camera or light would work. Right? That's so bad. And then I said what is this movie?

[01:00:33] This movie is the cinematic equivalent of the Juicero machine. Oh, okay so if I can remember right, it was that thing where they were like, Silicon Valley has cracked juicing. People are so into juicing we need technology to disrupt the juicing industry.

[01:00:52] Right, people you know, how do you make juice usually? You have to buy fresh fruit, put it in a juicer. It's whisper quiet. No, it barely makes any juice. What a pain in the ass. Not with the juicero, it's a machine

[01:01:08] where you put it on your kitchen counter. You buy juicero packs. They ship them to you. You put a juicer or a pack in it, they're trying to do like the Nespresso coffee but for juice. Right, oh it's so easy just put the little pot in.

[01:01:21] And then someone figured out that you could just take the juice pack and just squeeze it with your hands into a glass. You're like you didn't need the machine. The only thing the machine was doing was squeezing the juice pack. Was squeezing the juice. And they were like,

[01:01:33] But the force, you don't understand, the torque of the squeeze in the machine and the machine syncs with wifi. So it knows what day it is and what time you like your juice. And that way also, there's a barcode reader in the machine

[01:01:48] that scans the date on the packet. So if the packet's expired, it won't squeeze it for you. That's right. And it costs. Because humans can't read. It costs several hundred dollars plus the juice packets. And everyone was like, they were saying like this video,

[01:02:08] people are posting where they cut it and they squeeze it themselves. And we're telling you the juice isn't gonna taste as good. No, it's not gonna be good for your juice. Look, listen to me, I'm an expert here. And they had raised so much money. 120 million dollars.

[01:02:22] 120 million dollars. From companies like Google. Right. They were like, yeah, sure, sounds great. And people were just like, there's no need to make this. If you've made, if you figured out a packet system where you can ship me a packet of juice and I can squeeze it,

[01:02:37] maybe that's a business. But their business was like the $600 tabletop machine. Right. The appliance. Right. And it just went under unsurprisingly. And I'm sitting there watching Lion King and I'm like, I feel the same way. In a certain way, if I had a juice remachine

[01:02:54] and I hadn't made me a glass of juice, I'd be like, this is juice. I'm drinking this. This is satisfying. What about the QR code? Right. Come on. And the more they tell me like the code, the nomadic press. You can set a lard for your juice.

[01:03:10] I'm like, I also can go down to my local bodega and they just like put some shit in a blender and I drink it. And it's 100 times cheaper. Right. It's like the same quality. Yeah. Or I could learn how to do it perfectly, make my own artisanal juices,

[01:03:23] like, you know, I don't know, hand animating the Lion King. Like if I really care about getting this thing right? It is just, you know, but it's like Ben said, it's like, because like if they had just re-released the great movie, the Lion King from 1994 in theaters,

[01:03:40] they probably would have made a lot of money for a re-release. They've done it and it made like close to $200 million. Right. And you know, if they'd re-released it again, they probably would have got a little more juice. Yeah. A row.

[01:03:52] A little more juice a row out of it. The nomadic press? Yeah. Or make a new movie. Sure. In the universe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Whatever. Like there's a million other things. The Lion Queen. Oh.

[01:04:05] I'm seeing David is being given the key to the city. Robert De Niro is fucking us. Mayor Bill de Blasio, what are you doing here? Shaking David's hand. Go fucking run the city, maniac! Bill de Blasio, I used to know him.

[01:04:27] Back when I was on the border, I did. He was a co-host on Night Cheese, right? As he went Sonya and de Blasio. I used to cover, he was a city councilman for the general way of working. Remember when that was a bit that I was jealous

[01:04:39] that you had another podcast? Four years ago. And who won? I guess Griffin did. Congratulations. Here's the key. Thank you. It's de Blasio shaking my hand. But the simple fact that they spent $250 million making a fucking faithful, free CGI, rendering of this movie means that they unfortunately

[01:05:06] will make billions in profits. By the end of this weekend, they will have likely made close to a half a billion dollars. It's already been in China for like 10 days. It's made over 100, whatever. It's gonna make 200 in this weekend in America alone.

[01:05:18] Now is it gonna be the most successful movie ever made? No. No. And here were the two cornerstones of my argument for why I thought it could end up being the most successful movie ever made. How was your argument? It was my argument.

[01:05:32] Where you were like, Lion King hit plus Beyonce. The musical, look at how well Jungle Book did. Look how well the release is dead. It feels like they have this technology down. And as I consistently pointed out to you, even if you like tripled the amount of money

[01:05:49] that these other things made, it would not come close. And look, I'm not gonna engage in a hypothetical scenario here. But I think if this movie... And I also think that Beyonce's impact on things is overrated at this point. Although I have tweeted that and gotten yelled at,

[01:06:03] but her last couple of albums have not sold that well. I think the Beyonce thing is not quite the phenomenon. It was five years ago. David, people can hear you. Fuck. I literally just got shot in the face with a gun. But he'll de-blas you.

[01:06:19] You're in league with the Bayhive! No one will care on the subway. His name was Bay Deblasio all along. That tall motherfucker. He's tall. He's really tall. That's crazy. Yeah, he's very tall. I thought you were the number one followup.

[01:06:36] No, that was the rare person I'd have to interview where I would have to hold my microphone up. That's why Nicheas didn't last. Your arm got tired. Yeah, right. He had a whole one up and one down. You're all set. You're in a physical humor on this podcast.

[01:06:57] What were you gonna say? Come on. More physicality than The Lion King. Yes. I think if this movie had been just hit the backboard. Yeah, it was okay. I think if this movie was executed at the level of The Jungle Book, it would have had a real run

[01:07:13] at being the highest grossing movie of all time. I don't even think it needed to be exception. You ain't right. And I also think if Beyoncé actually felt like she had any impact on this movie. When she starts speaking, which takes an hour and a half.

[01:07:24] Yeah, well, this is the thing. She's got less than 10 lines. She's playing Nala and I'm like, have you seen The Lion King? Adult Nala has two lines. And I gave them way too much credit. Adult Nala's fucking role is she's just like, Simba come back to Pride Rock.

[01:07:36] And he's like, no. It's Moira Kelly? Is that who plays? Moira Kelly plays Serabi. Oh right. Who does play Nala? Am I right? Or maybe it is Moira Kelly. Yeah, I always forget who plays. No, it's Moira Kelly. It's Moira Kelly. Yeah, it's someone else plays Serabi. Okay.

[01:07:56] Sorry. When they announced that Beyoncé was gonna do it, I thought there's zero chance they're hiring Beyoncé to do as little as Nala had to do in the original film. I gave them way too much credit. You're thinking about it the wrong way.

[01:08:09] Their pitch to Beyoncé was like, honestly, the whole thing will take fucking two days. It's like, we'll do it in your car. Yeah. Just be like, Simba, what the heck? Yeah. And she was like, okay, Simba, what the heck? And they were like, great, here's 20 million.

[01:08:21] I thought she was going to really hands on produce the soundtrack. She did make this thing that she made a soundtrack. It's like a curated sound. It's an album. She did a companion album. Kendrick Lamar did that with Black Panther where there was the score,

[01:08:36] but then there was also this curated sound track. Jay-Z did it with American Gangster. Yeah, that's true. Yes. That's true. She copied that model. I'm sure it will sell very well and everyone will be happy with it. I thought she was gonna...

[01:08:46] Or really, like, ever since it was been down recently if you check her last couple of months. Oh, I've been shot again! Filled the Vlazy. Sorry, go on. I'm like, buckshot, Filled the Vlazy. I thought they would give that character board to do.

[01:09:02] I thought they would find, especially because, you know, I think people, the common accepted stance is that the young Simba stuff is the best stuff. Yeah. The movie kind of peaks with Timon and Pumba. Can you feel the love tonight's a jam?

[01:09:16] The Mufasa in the clouds seem people love, but the end of The Lion King is a little perfunctory in terms of just like getting through the stuff. The end of The Lion King is not very good. The movie certainly probably peaks with the stampede. Yeah.

[01:09:29] That's like the emotional and visual peak, and then the Timon and Pumba stuff is fun, and then the last half hour is pretty boring. But I think the movie is... The Pumba is good. Despite not being a movie that I love

[01:09:39] or have an immense amount of nostalgia for, watching this and even just like running over the story beats in my head, I'm like, it is kind of a perfect object. It's a film with like such narrative power and economy. It looks great.

[01:09:51] I think it's a great looking movie. You just look at that as a text and how well it works on stage and how well it works film. Yeah, sure. It's just like it's a really classical clean story. It has every type of element in it. It has thrills.

[01:10:03] It has romance. It has comedy. She's shouting here. I'm roaring for this Lion King, and I ain't lying. I'm telling the truth, but I liked it. To pause up. I think Timon is cool. Timon is very cool. And Billy Eichner kills him. That's my opinion. It's two things.

[01:10:21] It's weird how hard he kills. It's two things. It's one, he's doing a good job and he's funny and I think it's a pretty committed performance, but two, it's also just like you've been wandering in the fucking desert and then he shows up like what 45 minutes in whatever.

[01:10:36] I think like an hour. And is like doing new material and you're like, oh my God. Oh, you wrote this for this movie. Oh, give me more. You know, Rogan's funny too. I think Rogan's funny. Rogan's very good. He knows his role. He's playing off him really well.

[01:10:51] They have really good banter. The two of them recorded together clearly. And I imagine the two of them sat together and worked out bits. Weren't just improvising stuff, but came in with shit. And there's some like, I genuinely think the line where Simba's like,

[01:11:03] oh you know the circle of life. And they're like, I don't know where you got circle from. As like people who are lower on the food chain. I think that's funny. Yeah. And they talk about how life is meaningless. It's like a meaningless line. That's good.

[01:11:17] Everyone's trying to get everyone else. There's no circle. Right. More on that. That was funny. They're really funny together. It feels like they have slightly different takes on the characters while fading into the role to bring their own energy to it. Their own personas to it.

[01:11:31] Anytime Rogan laughs that wonderful laugh of his, it's kind of amazing because you're like, look. Now these are some hugs. These are like, this is like one of the best duos. Like all time. I mean, look. I love. They're just classic comedy.

[01:11:46] Like you get a. Tango and cash. A little guy. Timon and Pumper. Little guy and a big guy. You got a high status guy and a low status guy. You have the boss you want. I mean, they're like an animal, like odd couple, you know?

[01:11:58] Like literally they're like Felix and Oscar. Like you have the slobby one and the kind of personicity you want them to have you. Yeah, that's true. And but the thing that's nice about Timon and Pumper is they're an odd couple really like each other. They don't fight much.

[01:12:10] No, they're a good couple. Everyone's level of know each other. But they're like really united which I think is what pushes them over the edge. So David's putting him. The clip of the new movie. And it looks like a video game like in between like scene cut scene.

[01:12:25] I mean, the other problem is that the, I find the environments in the new movie pretty boring. Yep. It's often looks just washed out. Yeah. I mean this is a desert scene. Looks very real. The original lighting has a very expressive use of color and light.

[01:12:39] Yes it does. And this movie does not. Safer at the end when the fire is going. Something like be prepared which like gets like very sort of well it's got the green mists and fires and things like that. This movie mostly takes place in just like broad harsh

[01:12:55] unsparing daylight. Like just Sahara sun. And this is one of two moments where I started to flip out and go like what the fuck is going on here is when they get to, can you feel the love tonight? Ooh! Entire song takes place around 1pm. That's right.

[01:13:18] And Eichner is singing his heart out. Can you feel the love tonight? And they are in like horrible oppressive heat. It's underneath a wide open. The middle of the day. A violent sun. Now here I am, I'm reloading. And then they cut, they do a time lapse cut

[01:13:34] and you're like finally we're gonna get tonight. We're gonna get tonight. That's like 130. Yeah right, they had lunch. I'm watching the original movies version and right it's like it said it's sunset. It's hot, you wanna see these lions fly. The sun's going down and then right,

[01:13:47] the sun sets and there's that moment where Nala licks Simba and then kind of gives him bedroom eyes and as a kid you're like what's going on here? And then this happens and you're just like animals are weird, why do animals do that? Like it just seems like,

[01:14:04] I don't know, it doesn't have any personality behind it. But the Timonopoompa section was like if everyone involved in this movie had taken the job the same way that the two of them are taking it, where it's like cool, we know what the thing is,

[01:14:17] now we're gonna try to make our own thing that doesn't portray what people like about it. Like start over from square one. Cause I'd say Timonopoompa 90% new material in this movie? In terms of dialogue? I think some of the classic jokes mostly not.

[01:14:29] Whereas James Earl Jones had to rerecord his entire role. The poor man's 88 years old. As the only actor reprising his character from the original. And I swear to God there's not one thing, without knowing the movie encyclopedically, there's not one thing he says that I don't remember

[01:14:42] being said word for word in the original. Largely I believe yours. They don't add scenes, they don't add meaningful new character dimensions. Someone else? You're like he could have died, they could have pulled the audio files and it would have been the exact same performance.

[01:14:55] Someone else who's doing new material that I was less enamored of is John Oliver Zazu. Yeah. His stuff is just not that fun. Our audience was really into it. I think it's because he's the one who's doing jokes and then a little of a boring fucking movie.

[01:15:07] I didn't hate it, but the Timon and Pumba stuff's got life to it. It's got a plot. Rowan Atkinson is almost underrated in Liking. He's so fucking funny. He's really good. And yeah Oliver, I forgot that they cut to a crying Timon. It's good.

[01:15:22] The original one's pretty good. I'll say this too. Good movie. Timon and Pumba, they anthropomorphize a little bit more. It helps that a meerkat can stand on its hind legs. But there's even timing stuff with like, there's that scene where Timon keeps popping his head

[01:15:39] up and behind the rock because he's afraid of Simba. And there's like shit where they add like recognizable physical behavior into it. And like that section's kind of jamming. And at that point, we weren't gonna love this movie but we were both laughing a lot.

[01:15:54] And we were like, this is pleasant to watch. Yeah. It's a couple guys. I'm watching a thing that's engaging, right? Then the can you feel the love tonight thing happens. We get adult Simba who becomes immediately less expressive.

[01:16:08] Yeah, and I think Donald Glover pretty much phoned this one in. I'm sorry. It wasn't very good. He's not very good. I agree. I don't think he's bad. It just feels like he's kind of doing the basics. But he looks almost identical to Mufasa

[01:16:22] which I know is supposed to sort of be a plot point but you literally can't tell them apart. And the other thing is at least when he's a baby lion, baby animals have larger, more expressive features. They are cute. So that they don't get eaten by predators. Right.

[01:16:38] And even during I Just Can't Wait to Be King which is just them slowly walking past the animals that used to do exciting things in the previous version of the film. Yep. I was just like, even if they're not gonna dance,

[01:16:52] have him stand on a fucking giraffe's back. You know? Sure. Like even if you're gonna keep them slightly to the rules of how these animals move, have the flamingos all move at the same time. Even if it doesn't look like fucking Busby Berkeley.

[01:17:07] Or instead of them just grazing, have them working, digging with Flintstone style. Have them doing stuff. I mean, it's a living. Yeah, they should all say it's a living. Yes! But I was saying, it's like all the musical numbers

[01:17:19] in this are shot like an Aaron Sorkin walk and talk. Yes. They walk around. It's just them sort of slowly walking in the camera like, you know, like steady cam, like backwards tracking with them as they walk through the Sahara. And not even walking like,

[01:17:35] it's not like their paws are hitting the ground on the beat. They're sort of just like stepping at the wrong pace. They're out of the room. Guys, this movie is draining. It's so fucking boring. I hate Scar. I'm so mad about Scar.

[01:17:46] Can you feel the love sign happens? We're like, what the fuck? Oh, Rayo, you wanna get to your final rate? Yeah, you should. Who cares? This is so stupid. At this point, I'm just disconnected from the move. Me too. It's drawing no real ire from me.

[01:17:56] I'm just like, this is so silly. What a fucking waste of time. What a juice row machine. And then we get to the scene. Remember who you are. Right. That's the cloud scene. You know, like, you know. You got Rafiki played by legendary South African playwright John Connie.

[01:18:12] I wanna say one. And his like fourth appearance in a Disney movie in recent years, third. One of my favorite things about the Lion King is Rafiki. I think Rafiki is my favorite character. Sure. The Broadway musical does great shit with Rafiki,

[01:18:24] expands that role, always has a play by a woman. Sure. Opens the show with Rafiki. Yes. She kind of sings circle of it. Yes. But there's this beautiful thing with Rafiki where Rafiki is like a reverse Yoda. Yeah. Where at the beginning of the movie,

[01:18:38] you're not hearing a lot from Rafiki, but you're seeing a lot of Rafiki and he just seems unbelievably noble and stoic and powerful and wise. And then at the end when he comes to Simba, he's like fucking insane goofball lunatic person.

[01:18:53] Like the way Yoda tricks Luke at first. And he's like doing bits and he's like, you know all that sort of shit, which is so much fun. Rabak Yom's doing it, he's killing it. Benson. John Connie in this movie is doing a very respectable restrained performance.

[01:19:10] It's a lot more respect for, it just feels like they wanna avoid any kind of stereotype. Yeah. And I understand that. It's the same thing they did with Scar. It's the same thing they did with Jafar in Aladdin. The same thing they did with the hyenas in S2

[01:19:23] where they're all like, Eric Andre gets a couple half jokes in. Kigimako Kipe plays one of them and it's unclear what his bit is because they don't want him to actually be scary. He's also not really funny. Eric Andre's playing the equivalent of Ed,

[01:19:38] the one who always just laughed and now he's just the dumb one. Yeah, that was not real funny. And then what's your influence, Kisamba? Yeah, she plays the main one. And it's like, Whoopi Goldberg's kind of amazing in the line king. And this is where,

[01:19:51] but she's sort of like half funny, half serious. This is just, she's just serious. She's just scary. Right, and it's this weird, like she's got this weird specific thing with Nala at the end of the movie. She's like, I'm gonna eat you.

[01:20:02] I've been waiting for this my whole life. That just felt like them being like, let's give the female voice characters a little more of an arc. But you have the Rafiki thing. Fail! All right, so the Rafiki thing is whatever. And I said to you,

[01:20:15] who should have played Rafiki? Dana Glover. I love it, but I love Glove. You love to put on the glove? As you said. Glove fits and I quit. Always. Always. Fully canceled. So he does the like, no he's- You got shot again. He's still alive. He's still alive.

[01:20:34] Look, he lives in you. And he points up to the clouds and I go, okay at least this is gonna be this sort of transcendent moment. You know? Of like emotional sort of a static truth. I can't wait to see how the cloud, they pull it off.

[01:20:50] Guess what they do? They don't put his face in the fucking cloud. No. What do they put? They show you a cloud. It's a cloud. They show you a sky filled with clouds. It's a cloud. It's stormy. The lightning strikes. And when the lightning flashes,

[01:21:03] looks like a little face for a second there. Oh, what? What? Oh, Griffin's taking it back and he's realizing it was truly majestic. Ben, no exaggeration. Yeah, so I'm just sitting there being- There will be an infinitesimal, a millisecond long lightning flash

[01:21:17] in which you can see 5% of his face. Just the vague sense of maybe that's a cheekbone. Is this a prank? It felt like it. And I just went, what the fuck are they doing? Now at this point when I'm watching the movie,

[01:21:31] I'm sitting next to Griffin and I'm just like, I don't care. Boring and this is happening. I'm like yep, boring too. And Griffin suddenly feels like whatever, the straw that broke the camel's back. Suddenly he just won't tolerate this. He's like, he's sort of gesticulating.

[01:21:44] I'm like, what is this? What is it? And I'm like, it's not always fucking faces in the cloud. What do I care? And I was like, buddy, it's not. Remember who you are. What the fuck are you doing?

[01:21:54] Why don't you show up if you're not ready to play? Why make a fucking Lion King movie if you're not gonna? As you said, they fucking, everyone parodies the father's face in the clouds. This is his joke when he's like, this is CNN. It's funny.

[01:22:07] It's one of the most iconic visuals of the last 30 years of film. It's the dad's face in the cloud. And that shot of Simba going like, remember they use that in like memes all the time. I feel like. And they just are like, it's kind of unrealistic.

[01:22:22] Remember when Fiki beats up all the hyenas? I mean in real life, a real Lion's face wouldn't appear in the clouds. I don't give a shit! That's actually a great point not for the realistic. So they didn't do that. They did a storm and it was great.

[01:22:33] And then saw Simba goes back to Pride Rock and they fuck up Scar, hyenas eat him. I also, I mean, there's a problem with the original cartoon too. It's like the whole thing where it's like Scar is like, your dark secret is you killed your father.

[01:22:47] And it's like, he was there during a stampede. Like I mean, how is even childish Simba gonna be like, yeah, I'm responsible. Yeah, I should probably. I've never loved that. And then people are always like, oh the Lion King is like Hamlet. No, it's not. No, it's not.

[01:23:03] It'd be like a prequel to Hamlet. Hamlet begins with the dad is dead. Yeah, it's just the uncle stuff. Yeah, it's just that there's an uncle who killed a dad and they're like, oh, we're really inspired by Hamlet. No, you're not. Fuck off. Okay.

[01:23:16] It's not, it's a rip off of that Japanese cartoon. Yeah, Kimba. Yeah, Kimba, Kimba the White Lion. Kimba the White Lion. And Disney was like, no, no, no, no, it's not. It's not a cartoon. Not a rip off. What are you talking about?

[01:23:26] And you watch Kimba the White Lion has like the same rock, you know, like. And it was originally Simba the White Lion and then they made him yellow and then they called it the Lion King. Yeah, and, you know, I mean like every Japanese person

[01:23:38] apparently who saw the White Lion King was like, hey, is this Kimba? And they were like, no, it isn't. And Japanese people were like, oh, I think it is. I remember Kimba the White Lion was like this, yellow and Disney was like, no, it's not.

[01:23:50] We're not talking about it again. Fully original. Hey, fuck the Lion King, whatever. I like the first one. It's okay. I saw it when I was eight years old. My mom had to take me. My dad was living in England at the time. Two director video sequels.

[01:24:04] I feel like the second one didn't have- It started at the low as 84. Oh, congrats. Thanks. Unlike Return to Jafar, which made like a big cultural impact, I feel like no one has any memories of Lion King 2, Simba's Pride. I know some people who are nostalgic for that.

[01:24:18] Really? Yeah, because the little kid is cute. It's the new kid. And then there's Lion King 1 1 1 1 2. No, I feel like more people like that one. Which is like Roos and Grants and Guild and Stern with like Timon and Pumbaa. There's a Timon and Pumbaa movie

[01:24:28] that is Lion King told solely from Timon and Pumbaa's perspective. I like that. It's supposed to be really good. Is it? Yeah, I know people who say it's really good. You do? The one direct-to-video sequel from that era that's supposed to be interesting.

[01:24:41] It's funny too, because on the cover, what's now Pumbaa? And he's big. Pumbaa's the bigger one. And he's struggling. They try to make the fucking empowerment thing with Pumbaa in this movie that they're fat shaming him. And that's how he gets the courage to stand up

[01:24:56] because even though he's cowardly, he hates bullies. The thing I kept thinking about was like, imagine the person who's like, fuck, honey, I'm gonna miss dinner. I'm gonna miss the next three years of dinner. I can't get the lighting right on this rock.

[01:25:11] You know, like you watch that and you're like, there are individual people who care about what they're doing in this movie. Of course, of course. I'm sure it was worked on very hard. It looks like lions in a desert and stuff

[01:25:22] and like I can't believe we're at that point where we can do this. It's very impressive that they can replicate this. Why do I need a machine to make me the fucking juice? I can squeeze it myself.

[01:25:33] Why do you need a machine to make you the fucking juice? But what if like Jeff Nathanson, who wrote this film did a great job, did a great job washing the lion king. Screenwriter, catch me if you can.

[01:25:44] Yeah, what if he came in and he was like, Griffin, look, I was having a hard time and like, you know, I made a couple million dollars in this movie and now I'm doing okay. Would you be like, all right. Listen, I could copy and paste the screenplay

[01:25:54] and like add yourself. I just want someone to give me reason to like be like, all right, well whatever. Like someone comes in, my kid was sick and I'm a lot of money and then my kid's better. I'm like, all right, cool. Glad you made it.

[01:26:06] Donald Glover went on Jimmy Kimmel to promote it, wearing a full lion costume, which was kind of fun. Kind of funny. And he seemed a little embarrassed to talk about the movie, but he had one really good anecdote, which they were like, so it was your son excited

[01:26:20] and he was like, my son like weirdly loves the lion king. I don't show him a lot. We don't like have screens in the house. We don't watch TV. David's rolling his eyes because David shows his kid's screens all the time.

[01:26:30] When I have a kid, I'll be like, yeah, like two when they're two years old. All right, so the NYPD blue is kind of the midpoint between Hill Street Blues and like the modern cop show like the shield. Tape an iPad to your child's hand.

[01:26:42] So like let's do, we'll do seasons one to six or seven, we'll see. And then we'll work on more milk. I'm full. Daddy, I wanna watch Peppa Pig and I'm like, yeah, but David Bilch is really foundational. Peppa Pig has a lot to do with David Bilch.

[01:26:57] Peppa Pig has no integrity. But he was like, my son weirdly loves the lion king. That's like one of the ones he watches and I wasn't telling him that I was in it because I didn't think he could grasp the concept.

[01:27:12] And I was like, do you know how movies get made? And I thought it would be a nice surprise just take him to see it and then afterwards try to explain it to him. And so I was like, hey, do you wanna go see the new lion king?

[01:27:24] Sure, that's what I'm in. No, he didn't say that. That's the joke. As he says, like, do you wanna go see the new lion king and his child who's like three years old goes, oh yeah, Beyonce's in there. Yeah, that's pretty funny. That's pretty funny.

[01:27:38] And he was like, and Glover was like, I guess she's in there. Yeah, that was his choice. You know, daddy's in there. I don't know how you know who Beyonce is. What if the kid was like, oh, I hear John Connie's.

[01:27:54] John Oliver is kind of an interesting choice. Oh yeah, I can see how John Oliver is kind of this generation's Roanak. And so, sure. It's weird just like the game now and we're going through it with Little Mermaid where it's just like,

[01:28:08] it's like a fucking Buzzfeed community article every time where it's just like, okay, so who is our generation's buddy hacket? Aquafina? Who plays a flounder? I don't know, Trumblay? He's good casting. Yeah, he's good casting. Trumblay is basically a living flounder. He's good casting.

[01:28:29] All right, let's never talk in this movie again. I hope it fucking gets forgotten immediately. It's gonna make you a man. Doesn't he have to like, cause he missed the bet, doesn't like something happen to him? We never set the terms of the bet.

[01:28:39] Well, I was gonna say, I'll go get a couple. You get my news? I was gonna say, I'll go get a cup of milk. Oh no. I'm not gonna make him bring milk. Oh no, don't make me. No, I get to do a Batman Forever episode or whatever.

[01:28:52] I don't know, we'll figure it out. Yeah, we'll figure it out. Okay, we'll figure it out. You get to do something stupid. I mean, unless it breaks the record. Well, boy. How awful it would be to be proven right. Be right, exactly. What a horror show.

[01:29:06] At this point. It becomes a country. It makes so much money, they just own countries now. Yeah, the nation of like. But what I said I read is that Disney now controls 33% of the domestic box office. And that's pre-Fox acquisition. Yeah.

[01:29:23] And they now have seven of the top 10 movies of all time. Yeah. It's my thing. The same thing I've always had, everyone's freaking out, but wait till 2020, baby. I think movies are gonna die in 2020. Sure. We're all gonna die. No! No, that's gonna be 2021.

[01:29:38] And we're gonna live forever. But if Lion King is 100 on the scale of how realistic we wanna make our computers work to replicate things that we could just film. Right. What's the most literal minded, stripped of any sort of interesting creative choices? There's another movie

[01:29:58] that in terms of digital fur technology is going the exact opposite direction. Oh, what are you talking about? Jumping head first into the uncanny valley and going like, let's creatively, fur, fur, fur, fur, fur, fur, fur, make the weirdest series of decisions

[01:30:16] to adapt a thing that most people think doesn't really hold up is not this immaculate work. And that is the film cat. Fur, fur, fur, fur, fur, fur, fur, fur. I don't know. I'm Rumble Teaser! I'm a cat. Are you?

[01:30:38] Now, all right, I wanna come out of the gates with my hottest take. I already said it on our Kiki's Delivery Service episode, but you ain't gettin' that for two months. So you're gettin' this now. Jennifer Hudson, who was playing Grisabella in Cats.

[01:30:52] Am I correct that she's playing Grisabella? Yes. Looks like Salazar. She's played by Javier Bardem. Hola, Dackbarrow. Pirates of the Caribbean. Dead Men Tell No Tales, aka Pirates of the Caribbean Salazar Surveillance. Where her face just kinda looks like half of a face. Yes. Just sorta half face.

[01:31:15] And they just kinda put her human face in the middle of it. You know what I mean? And then they're like, yeah, put some whiskers on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah! Yeah, okay! Like, you know what I mean? It just looks like she's not filled in.

[01:31:29] It makes me kind of like nauseous a little bit. And I love it. Now, I saw this trailer. This trailer hits the world. The world explains. While I'm commuting on a subway. We were blessed with this trailer playing before the Lion King last night.

[01:31:44] It did get the biggest response to anything. We'll get to that. It got the biggest response of anything I've ever seen in the history of films. I've never seen an audience track to anything the way I saw it. We did get a genuinely fascinating reaction,

[01:31:53] we will talk about it. I saw it on a subway. So I just loaded it on my phone. It was all grainy. And I was like, well, that looks fucking terrible. That looks demented. Then I get home. Joanna said, I just put it on with absolutely no warning.

[01:32:06] I was like, I'm putting something on immediately. Watch it in high def. And I'm like, okay! I mean, okay! It looks like something. Yes. It does look like something. Yup. I don't think they're too small maybe or something. I don't know what this world is.

[01:32:23] But it does look like something. Yes. I still think that it's possible we will be judged as a species. Like this will be the final feather on the scales. Well because there's been all this news about actual UFOs. Yeah right. Like I think that they're gonna be like,

[01:32:43] eh, are we on hope? Cause they're slowly getting us comfortable with aliens. At this point, The New York Times is running another UFO story every two months. Every week they're like, yeah, Trump said a racist thing. And also there's another trove of Navy videos of aliens.

[01:32:58] So here that is. You can watch it anytime. And everyone's like, Trump did what now? Yeah. You know what I mean? It's just one of those Air Force videos. It's like, guys are like, what's that? Wow, aliens. Crazy. That's nuts.

[01:33:12] Well he's like, he's moving like an alien spacecraft. He just tweeted Kovethy. And then the ship crashed. What does Kovethy- Ah! Now, but before we talk cats. Yeah. Before we talk about Tom Hooper's cats. Which is probably gonna be one of the films of 2019. So the cast trailer.

[01:33:34] Is that the opposite end of the spectrum? Where even if it looks like another crime against humanity, it's the kind of crime I respect. Do you know what I'm saying? I do. It's the difference between like a quadruple homicide and like an insane like robbery. Okay. Sure.

[01:33:52] Does that make sense? Yeah, I get what you're saying. Like one of them is kind of dehumanizing. It's a crime but at least it's sort of creative. You're like, oh my God. And they had to like hide out in the walls

[01:34:02] or like go undercover as this or whatever, you know? Yeah. And I'm sort of like, you know, in an era in which things are, I feel like getting very safe. Or weird in just boring ways. Sure. So I think that's the movie that's fucking swinging left and right.

[01:34:22] I, and I also think. I've never seen anything that looks like this. I don't like it necessarily but I can't look away. I watched the trailer 12 times. I've watched it so many times. I can't look away. So you've got these, these,

[01:34:33] all right so the thing is that fundamentally cats is an absolutely bonkers work of art anyway. Right. Andrew Lloyd Webber was charmed by these old T.S.L.A. children's poems about cats. With no narrative. With no narrative to them. He put them all to music.

[01:34:48] And they are weird. Right. And then he wrote one other song, memory that's like kind of a banger. Yeah. That ends the show and is, you know, like a classical ballad. Yeah. The plot is that it's a bunch of fucking cats who live in a garbage dump. Macavity.

[01:35:04] And they argue over which of them gets to go to heaven. All did around. And be reborn as a new cat. Have you seen cats? No. No. It sounds batch of crazy. It's batch of crazy. It's one of those things that's kinda like

[01:35:15] probably best when it was on Broadway. Like it was probably. Yeah, sure. Keep going. No, I don't want to interrupt you. Okay. You know, it was probably best for cats. But some weird sort of cult following where people would see it over and over again. Rom Tom Tugger.

[01:35:31] Rom Tom Tugger is kinda. Tan Amow. It's so weird anyway. So I feel like it's just that a cat's film will be weird. Grittlebone. It should be weird. Rumpel Teaser. You know what I mean? Because cats is weird. Shimbleshanks. Are you done?

[01:35:47] And now so they wear leotards and they have like hair. Mongo Jerry. Right, that's their look. And they have painted faces in the Broadway play. Jelly Loram. Yeah, they wear leotards with sort of patterns on them. They've got some makeup. They got some fur. Some of a.

[01:36:02] Now in this version, are you supposed to want to fuck the cats? For a copat. There's definitely gonna be some new or existing subculture that has that concept. Correct. I don't know. Correct. So it's like the cats kind of look like humans,

[01:36:18] but if the humans were covered in fur. The fur is digital. It's not makeup. They filmed it on set. This is your fur technology, I want to be honest. But that's what I find fascinating is it's not like these are like photo real mocap versions of these actors.

[01:36:30] These actors gave these performances and then they like digitally painted fur on top of them. Yeah. Like Andy Serkis always says like motion capture you should think of it like digital makeup. This is the first time anyone's actually just done digital makeup. To this extent.

[01:36:45] It's directed by Tom Hooper who is at this point just a garbage man. Right? I mean, I don't know. I actually kind of like the King's speech. I like that they're united. But I mean, Les Mis is awful and the Danish girl can go fuck himself. Sinful. Yeah.

[01:36:59] Not because it's about a trans person realizing that Danish girl was about a trans person. It's sinful. No, it's just a hard piece of movie making. Yeah. Cats. I guess cats is bad. I just like it's bad anyway. What are you gonna do?

[01:37:18] Fuck it up in a world. A right. What do you get to do? You fuck it up. It's not a sacred text, right? And B in a world where Favreau is too afraid to put Mufasa's face in the clouds. Here's a movie that is seemingly unafraid.

[01:37:30] We'll put a face on anything. Thank you. We'll put boobs on him too. You will. Yeah. You want to have a nice ass and a tail? We'll do that. Here's a great point that the tail could kind of be like going into the ads

[01:37:42] in a weird kind of a way. Do you like that? Yeah, you do. You dirty viewer. I don't like that. Like yes, you do. Yeah. David's whipping the table. You know, tails usually kind of above the bottom. That's true.

[01:37:57] What if this tail looked like you were pooping it out? It suddenly got kind of hot and sweaty in here. So we see this trailer, we go sit down in front of a lion king where we're like, fuck this bullshit.

[01:38:10] And I say, I hope they play the cat. And I'm like, oh, it just premiered. You think so? The thing we're excited about. And then, yeah, we see a trailer for, what were some other trailers for something? We saw the Mulan trailer, which we both agree.

[01:38:23] Mulan trailer got a good reaction. People are angered with Mulan trailer online because it looks, quote, disrespectful to the original Disney film. I don't know if you're quoting there. Unquote. I did a little Twitter search in Mulan when it came out and the response was overwhelmingly negative.

[01:38:37] People said, why did they make this? Why does everything look different? Why isn't Mushu in it? Why not use the songs? This is disrespectful. Why bother? These are the exact people who are gonna push the lion king to 650 million demands. Right. Whether or not they really enjoy it,

[01:38:53] that's what they think they want to see. Yes. Mulan looks awesome. Mulan looks good. I'm trying to think what other trailers we saw but I can't remember. It doesn't matter. Because it's something I already self-defense at Elm Island. Like they showed the Star Wars trailer. Really?

[01:39:06] And it's weird that they didn't in front of a lion king. There was a moment where I thought it, there was like a false alarm. I thought it was maybe the cat's trailer but now I can't remember what the, oh they played the Down Abbey trailer

[01:39:15] which is also incredible. That's it, Barker's in its own way. I'll be there in the morning. But cats, the trailer plays. The second the trailer begins, the audience is like, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Like the first couple chords.

[01:39:28] I don't understand, wait, cats in a movie? No, they're kind of like, I've heard. You know, it's sort of like, it's like the emperor is coming out naked and everyone's like, what's he doing? Excuse me. The Universal logo. Dun, dun, dun, dun.

[01:39:40] When they cut to the image of, Francesca Hayward, who's playing Victoria. Right. The audience simultaneously applauds and laughs. Like people were like, yes, we got it. They spend the whole trailer kind of laughing derisively but also kind of into it. Like stun, like cheer.

[01:39:58] And then the title comes up and they applaud it because it was sort of like, look, what can I tell you? This is my reaction. It's like, I'll see it. I can only imagine it's similar to the response you would get from the audience

[01:40:10] at like a Tijuana sex show. It's one of those- Where people are grossed out, they're entertained, they're turned on. Like every sound was being made. It's one of those things where like, I feel like in a couple months, everyone will be like, well yeah,

[01:40:25] cause that's what cats looks like. We know, we saw the trailer. We're used to it at this point and we can't let that happen. We've got to hold on to what's happening right now where we're just like, nothing looks like this. It was amazing to come home

[01:40:41] and 12 hours later, after the trailer had premiered, after I'd seen it in the theater, still my feed was just 32 seconds ago, 45 seconds ago, one minute ago, five minutes ago. Fucking cats man. We're all talking like Martin Sheen and apocalypse now where we're like,

[01:40:57] God, those cats, I can't escape them. They haunt me. It was unbelievable but I will pick that any day. Jibuki Young-White, the comedian who's on the Daily Show, he changed his Twitter account to at cats movie. Or no I'm sorry, he kept his username the same

[01:41:20] but the display name was cats movie and he changed the logo and he tweeted, do you have it here David? No, no. Okay. He tweeted, this is Twitter website that is overrun with Nazis, harassment of all sorts. Jibuki Young-White was immediately banned from Twitter

[01:41:39] for posting because he's also verified, he's got the check mark, right? So it's at Jibuki but it says cats movie, check mark and his tweet is, the tweet is, the cats in cats 2019. We'll have realistic spiked penises. That's what they'll have. Got little spines on their dick.

[01:42:10] He was scraped the semen out from other competitors. He was, his account was a suspect. It's a 70 hour. Oh boy. It kind of feels nice to have something that like everyone can agree on which is just like this is fucking weird. What the fuck is this trailer?

[01:42:32] But I was like, the trailer comes up, we're getting ready to watch The Lion King and I say to you if Lion King is 100 in terms of trying to replicate the natural world. And cats is a zero in terms of going as unnatural

[01:42:45] like hell world as we possibly can. Cats is even a zero, it's like a series of like hieroglyphics that are red, you know, that mean like the world is ending. I think I want Lion King more in the cat zone than what we got.

[01:42:59] Right, you'd like Lion King to be more like going for 20. Yeah, 30, 40 even, even if it was 49%. Hell, give me 60. Yeah. Cats. I'll say this. I'll say this about cats. I'd love a fishbone. You keep coming back to this. I'd love a fishbone. They're street cats.

[01:43:20] The problem, give me some trash. The problem is now they've made them so humongous there's that shot of her with the knife and the fork. Very weird. Where the knife and the fork each look five times the size of her entire body. The perspective though seems solid.

[01:43:35] Well, you know what they did? They built fucking humongous sets, which I love. That was the other thing. It's like the Gallagher special. Universal, they fucking set this joke up so well because they released the video 24 hours in advance that was like the famous Les Mis,

[01:43:51] let's brag about shooting everything on set, doing the songs live and Eddie Redmayne talking about the fragility of the performance three times in a row, right? Uses the word fragility. They did another one of these videos but it was just the cast in like their movement close.

[01:44:09] Either on set or in rehearsal spaces, not like motion capture suits, but seeing how big the fucking sets are, which is pretty impressive. They rarely do that anymore. They rarely make full fucking insane sets like that. This is my favorite Chibuki tweet.

[01:44:26] Twilight, Moon, Kicking Citizen Kane in the chest. Good tweet. And then the poster came out, we're from behind the one Victoria. Yeah, the ballerina cap. And people were like, oh that's weird how to find her butt when womanly curves are. And then they released the trailer

[01:44:48] and the world went blind. It was fucking bird box all over again. Now here's what I love about it. We'll call out our eyes out. Someone tweeted this and I realized, oh this is among all the other things, one of the elements that makes this so unnerving.

[01:45:01] They didn't give them cat noses. No, they human. They spent so much time and energy putting cat faces on human bodies and then giving human bodies cat fur. But the one thing they could have done is just give everyone a little pink at the end of their nose.

[01:45:19] Because they do have whiskers. They have whiskers, they have whiskers coming out of their face. They have tails coming out of their butts. Their noses, the exact same color as the rest of them. I do think, and the fun that fucking video

[01:45:30] behind the scenes video is so funny because they're like, you know we're like people but we're also cats and I'm like, don't know what that means. They were like, do you see? Tom Huck was signed on like three years ago

[01:45:40] and when they announced that he was doing it and Spielberg was producing it, they were like they will now establish a committee to decide whether the film should be live action, fully animated, motion capture. Like they were like, we don't know.

[01:45:55] And then a guy comes in, a visual consultant who I think was worth every penny they spent on him. He came in and he was like, doh, hola Tom Hooper, do you see my face? Salazar. See, it's like the sprite commercial. The listener said home, it's Salazar.

[01:46:16] It's like, do you see the grating face? Jacksonville. Hola Steven Spielberg. Our old friend Salazar. I need a co-producer credit. I don't know, I mean those are, like you said in the Kiki episode that we just recorded that the Jumanja movie that it's coming out. That's it.

[01:46:43] That's the bellwether for the future of Missouri in a presidential election. Outside of like four silos that Disney has, right? That seemed like ensemble. If that one hits then Hollywood's like, okay. The rest of us. We have some idea of how this works, right?

[01:46:58] And if that, like what, but here's the thing, if that hits and cats fails, I think people will be like, all right, I wouldn't have predicted that, but okay. If that misses and cats hits, it's like, okay, there's still money to be made,

[01:47:10] but I don't know how we make it. Like, I don't know what to do. At that point you need like, you know, mad men running the whole, right? You know, like we made a horse the CEO of Disney now. He'll make the decisions.

[01:47:22] Be clumps twice, we green light it. Who knows? I just think the joy I felt watching that cat's trailer and the audience response to it, it was then like after the Mulan trailer they applauded but it felt like them being like, well now we look like assholes

[01:47:38] if we don't applaud at the thing that actually looks good. And then the Lion King applause felt more like, as you said, this Pavlovian thing that disintegrated as the movie went on and it was like, look, you can say it works or it doesn't

[01:47:51] but there was a genuine energy happening in the theater during that cat's trailer that I've been missing. It was electric. I've been missing in my life. It was like being electrocuted. It was. Cats! I'm dying to see it now. The inner's always in it.

[01:48:05] It's like one of my most anticipated movies because I'm just like, I don't know what to make of this fucking thing. Cats. It's about cats. Now and forever. Do you know that scene that I'm referring to in Angels of America? It's an iconic scene.

[01:48:17] Early on, Pacino Roy Cohn is on the phone with his, with some like, you know, Republican's wife and he's like trying to get her tickets to like a Broadway show and they're talking about like, and he's like, LeCage now you wouldn't like LeCage.

[01:48:32] And like then he puts the, you know, his hand over the microphone. He's like, have you seen LeCage? It's fabulous, you know. And then he's like, let's try and get us something and he just calls back and it's like cats. And he's like cats. Cats, it's about cats.

[01:48:44] You'll love it, singing cats. I honestly think probably 95% of the success of cats was just that it was called cats. It's about cats. Like don't you think- You know what else? What? Has a fantastic poster. One of the greatest posters. The poster is incredible with the eyes.

[01:48:59] With the eyes and like the eyes are kind of dancing and you're kind of like, ooh this looks like dark and mysterious. And then you sit down and someone's like, Rum tum tum, there is a curious cat. And you're like, what the fuck is this?

[01:49:13] I remember my dad saw it alone and like he came back and went home. He's like, why did you see it? And he was like, I just kind of like- Wanted to see what the deal was. And she was like, did you like it?

[01:49:24] And he was like, no. I didn't. Didn't like it. I was saying to you last night, never seen a production of cats. Didn't see it on Broadway. Never seen it at a, you know, a school or anything. There's like a pretty definitive

[01:49:36] like sort of filmed version of it that you can watch. Right, none of that. None of that, none of that. I never stopped finding cats jokes fun. Anytime anything or anyone references cats, I find it hilarious. Anytime anyone says the name of any character from cats. Rumble teaser.

[01:49:51] No. I mean come on. Buster for jokes. Come on. I'm not faking this. Isabella. Like it's like, this is like auto-photomies. Mordecai, that's one of the cats. Is one of the cats actually in Mordecai? Okay. That'd be funny. I'm so excited.

[01:50:13] Okay, so I want to ask it now. Okay, we're wrapping up here I assume. Yeah. What do you be willing to see cats in 40X? Do you think it'll be available in 40X? I don't get what...

[01:50:24] Sure, I mean I assume I'm going to go to a press screening of it that will not be in 40X, but if cats is in 40X, and I have a feeling it won't be because Star Wars will probably be taking its, the 40X space.

[01:50:37] Sure, I'll see cats in 40X. Okay. So the entire time it would just smell like garbage. Yeah. You're in a dump, pump more garbage! Cat piss. They spray cat piss on your face. Well we did it. We did it, we did your Lion King,

[01:50:55] your blessed Lion King episode. It's probably gonna be huge. Probably gonna be huge, probably gonna be the biggest podcast of all time. Much like the Lion King. An inexplicable success. Oh boy. I feel like we haven't talked about it for so long, especially because of the... The bat.

[01:51:11] The bat and also, you know, it feels like really representative of where we are in those days, the film industry now. I'm telling you this cat. Every time they do one of these fucking things, but like you won't believe this technology they developed. You know what looks good?

[01:51:26] What? Top, top cat. Top cat Maverick. I was telling you this. I'm sorry, what? Top cat, top cat Maverick. Oh, it sounds like you said doca. Doca. You know what looks good, doca. I like that. Dex protects people from this country. Yeah. No, no, no. Top cat Maverick.

[01:51:42] See I don't know if I think it looks good. I think the trailer. Isn't the plane you're flying around looks cool. I like it when people fly in planes that I'm not involved. I guess Ad Astra is your most anticipated movie the rest of the year, right? Yeah.

[01:51:56] That thing. Dad Astra, we got that trailer. Have you seen the new trailer? I saw the new trailer. Pretty good, huh? It looks great. Looks pretty good. You know what? I didn't realize how much I miss Brad Pitt. Oh, I agree. Seeing those two trailers, playing in theaters.

[01:52:10] Especially because even the Brad Pitt we've gotten like big short Brad Pitt is him being like, can I just be weird? Yeah. You know what I mean? I've missed like, I think that Dad Astra's going to be really serious Brad Pitt locked up Brad Pitt

[01:52:21] like sort of closed off. And then once upon a time in Hollywood it's more like fun Brad Pitt, you know kind of sandwich eating Brad Pitt. Not trying to get, because he hasn't his last movie. It was War Machine. We've had this conversation on the podcast.

[01:52:32] I know, but what I want to see is like the last pure, right. Allied is the last sort of, even that was him sort of buttoned down. He's real buttoned down. Then big short and by the sea aren't good examples. Hey Fury, yeah, God, what a weird.

[01:52:44] Man I love Brad Pitt. Me too. That's when it really snuck up on me. I never could have predicted he would have become someone I valued as much as I do now. I was so fond of him when I was younger

[01:52:53] because 12 Monkeys was like an early favorite movie for me like when I was like 13 years old. And I love him in that movie. Now when I watch 12 Monkeys I'm kind of like Brad's a little much of this. I agree.

[01:53:05] I don't mind it because it's a very wacky movie but like he's kind of one dimensional in that. And Bruce Willis is kind of the great performer. And I think that's Brad Pitt really just trying to prove to everyone what he could do,

[01:53:18] which he did and now he gets far more interesting performance. Exactly. He should have won the Oscar for Moneyball. Yes, he should have. God is he good in that? The greatest performer to ever go. I think he's aging really well.

[01:53:29] In terms of him accepting what both Ad Astra and Once Upon a Hollow would feel like they're tapping into which is like this like golden boy who's like on the other side the wrong side of 50. And has this sort of like heaviness to him.

[01:53:44] This weird sort of suppressed anger. Yeah, I don't think he's ever gonna be better than Moneyball. I think Moneyball is like the most perfect role he could ever have. He knocked out of the park so hard that movie rules and instead he hit a home run.

[01:53:57] He hit a home run. And then Jean DeJar and Dan won the Oscar. I'm watching. That was a baseball reference, yeah. Moneyball also looks so good. Incredible looking look. Who shot that? Wally Fister. Good DP. One of his few non-Oleans. Okay we're done.

[01:54:16] Okay thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Thanks to Antrigun for our social media. Pat Reynolds and Joe Bowen for our artwork. Lame on coming for our theme song. Ben's looking at a screen is everything okay?

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