[00:00:00] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check That's how you want to play? We'll play the podcast way!
[00:00:26] I don't know, right? What the f***in... That was great. What does this character say? What does she sound like? I don't know. It's hard because the accent is so specific that she's doing, so it's really hard to yell it.
[00:00:38] I don't have months to hammer it out like she did. She spent so much time watching half of a James Bond movie and Angelina Jolie's scenes from Alexander to prep for that accent. There's just so much that went into it.
[00:00:53] Wait, was that not Angelina Jolie in the movie? Well, she... I mean, Anne Hathaway ingested Angelina Jolie, so she's inside her, but you can't really see her. What if Bob Zemeckis had just reused naked gold Angelina Jolie from Beowulf?
[00:01:08] Someone pointed out in the reddit recently how much of a pattern there is in Bobby C's filmography of using people's likeness against their will. It's really like... The numbers really add up. From the Beatles to Bill Clinton to Angelina Jolie. To Crispin Glover. Yes. To Humphrey Bogart.
[00:01:30] Humphrey Bogart in The Cales from the Crick. Four former presidents? Yeah, that's true. Right, one in Contact 3 and Gump? Yes, no, absolutely. I mean only one living president, but you're right. You're right.
[00:01:43] Yeah, I'm just saying maybe at some point Zemeckis should announce a movie where that's his cast. Gold Angelina Jolie, reused footage of Crispin Glover for presidents Humphrey Bogart. He technically stole Christopher Lloyd's image to make Back to the Future. Christopher Lloyd didn't agree to be in that.
[00:02:00] No, he doesn't have any idea that he was in those movies. If you bring it up to him now, he's like, huh? Kid, I was in the Adams family. I don't know what you're talking about. I created Frazier. Wait, no, that's a different one.
[00:02:11] One of my all-time favorite film Twitter jokes. I liked Pete's Dragon a lot, but it was kind of rude of the crew to not tell Robert Redford that he was in a movie.
[00:02:21] I was watching Songbird, the quarantine movie with Hot Archie, and Peter Stormair is like the bad guy in it. And it's very much one of those things is like, when did they tell Peter Stormair that they were making a movie?
[00:02:36] They just found him wandering around Los Angeles knocking on people's door. It was just a break in. You know what? I'm sorry. The quote opening was kind of weak, David. I'm sorry, I know you want to get the show started, but let me just try it again.
[00:02:50] Let me do it with the tagline for this movie, okay? Oh, please. This Halloween bring the big podcast home. Yes, the big podcast. The biggest podcast there is. Because of course, the tagline for this movie is just this Halloween bring the big screen home.
[00:03:10] Yeah, well, you know, this is a Max original. Okay? And that means it's from my friend Max from second grade who I used to play soccer with. That's what I assume that means, right? That branding. This film is a Max original. David, what were you going to say?
[00:03:29] What was I going to say when? Before I cut you off with that stupid tagline thing. Oh, I can't remember. I literally can't remember and that was a minute ago.
[00:03:37] I mean, you know, anytime I'm thinking about this movie, it just seems like things just kind of leave my mind really, really quickly. Oh, here's what I was going to say. Here's what I was going to say.
[00:03:52] Is this the first movie we've ever covered where the top three build actors are Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer and Stanley Tucci? Or I'm trying to remember. Is that inception? I'm trying to, you know, what else had those three? I mean, obviously Hathaway and Tucci have worked together before.
[00:04:08] Yes, obviously they're in Prada. And then I keep on feeling like the other two sides of that triangle have worked together before, but is that just in my imagination? Octavia and Tucci? Tucci played all the math and hidden figures. Of course. Octavia Tucci, Octavia Hathaway.
[00:04:28] Have neither of those happened before? Well, you know, what's the easy way to look this up these days? Because the problem is now if you Google these combinations, they're just like the witches. I heard you were interested in a max original. Yeah, everyone's interested in a max original.
[00:04:46] Look throughout quarantine, I've had days where I am just a slug, a depressive slug and I cannot function. And I have days where I'm like manic and I'm over focused. It's hyper obsessive on different things. I have too much energy in an unhealthy way.
[00:05:01] And then I have days like today where I just wake up and I just go like, I just, I just don't want to. I just fucking don't give a shit about anything. And then I watched the witches and I watched the Disney investor share conference fucking shit.
[00:05:16] And then I text you guys, I was like, can we push back 30 minutes? I just my brain just doesn't want to fucking do this. I just can't strain together cochlear and thought. I assumed you just started the movie late. Cause I was watching the Disney thing.
[00:05:29] I was watching the Disney thing after, but I just didn't feel, I just like was like, and you said right before we started recording, don't worry, we'll only do 40 minutes on the movie.
[00:05:40] But it does feel like one of these things where it's like, what do we even say about this thing? Which I don't feel like I dislike as much as most people. It's just kind of like impossible to really form a strong opinion about.
[00:05:54] Do you know how many, I have seen this movie three times now. What? Yeah, because I watched it when it was first available for critics and then I had to review it like two weeks later and I was like, I don't really remember it.
[00:06:07] I have to watch it for like the details. I watched it a second time and was like, oh there aren't details. And then I forgot that there weren't details and I watched it a third time for this podcast.
[00:06:16] And I was like, I got everything I needed from the first viewing. He keeps bringing you back though. You think you're out, Bobby pulls you back in. Here's the thing and you can introduce this podcast and our guest after this.
[00:06:28] But look, if this movie had come out in March, maybe I would have gotten a little more out of it. This movie had come out in theaters and I had sat down in a big room with a nice popcorn and soda combo to watch it.
[00:06:43] Maybe I would have gotten lit out of the camera moves and costumes and you know, like, oh there's some stuff going on.
[00:06:49] Like nine to 10 months into quarantine on HBO Max, like on a Tuesday night, an adaptation of a book I know backwards and forwards and like a movie that's already been made. I was just like, I know, I'm sorry. I just don't have the like emotional.
[00:07:10] I don't have the sympathy for this. Like I'm just, this is getting some of my attention and I'm just going to kind of stare at the wall sometimes. Maybe it's not the movie's fault. Maybe it's the world's fault, but like this one's just not going to break through.
[00:07:24] That's all. I couldn't agree more.
[00:07:28] It is also fascinating that this is one of those movies where like, I feel like a lot of the things that have gotten punted straight to streaming recently, you watch them and you go, wait, how is this ever going to come out in theaters? Right? Like Artemis Fallon.
[00:07:42] And you watch this and you're like, this is a movie that could only exist in theaters. It somehow makes less sense on a streaming service. Like all of its strengths and weaknesses only really make sense if you're held captive in a theater for an hour and 45 minutes.
[00:07:57] And that's been the big realization during this whole year is like what movies cannot survive any kind of distraction.
[00:08:04] You know, like this isn't a great movie no matter where you see it, but like a dog barks on the street outside or the wind goes through a tree and I'm like, huh? And I just lose this movie instantly.
[00:08:15] Or just, you know, devoid of the shame of looking at your phone, you know, sitting on your couch where you're like, I could just up my Disney emoji blitz score now. There's almost nothing holding you back. Right. Who's watching? No one knows.
[00:08:31] I mean, here's the most damning backhanded praise I thought of at the points I enjoyed in this movie. Okay. This is like a pretty good late period Tim Burton movie.
[00:08:43] Well, that's the thing though when you're watching it, you're like every 10 minutes you got to be like, remember this is not a Tim Burton film and you're like, what? No, it is. What are you talking about?
[00:08:54] And then you have to like look check on to be, oh, Zemeckis. That's weird. Everything about this just screams Burton like, but okay. I guess Eva Green isn't in it. Yeah. It's very misparagrant. Like obviously as people know, my favorite Tim Burton movie ever.
[00:09:09] Of course. You're the king of peregrines. Yeah, but it definitely exists in the same universe as Mr. Green. But I'll say for me like Dumbo edges out witches by a good margin because it has like it feels personal in many ways. It has ideas in it.
[00:09:31] There are moments of genuine inspiration. Like, you know, there are things in it. Right. It's a lopsided movie that we have heartedly defend, but I prefer that. But this I prefer probably to like to peregrine certainly to Alice in Wonderland.
[00:09:48] It feels more coherent than those sorts of movies. I mean like Zemeckis innately has a better story sense than Burton. He's able to make a script kind of just at least be coherent with regards to itself, like on its own terms.
[00:10:04] And it feels a little less obnoxious than something like Alice, which is just throwing shit at you against the walls. This is like a little more focused in its main. Well, because the source material is, you know, a classic obviously depending on solid. Yeah.
[00:10:20] But the thing is three things happen in the story. He meets a witch, they go to the hotel, you know, it's so simple and you can't really judge that up too much. I mean, Nicholas Rogue didn't do it. Zemeckis doesn't do it.
[00:10:34] Whereas something with peregrine would has a more modern sense of storytelling sensibility or an Alice movie that they can just do whatever the fuck they want. Then then you have too much room for embellishment.
[00:10:44] It's also nice to watch a movie like this where unlike peregrine or Alice, there aren't like franchise ambitions. There's all the weird Raldol branding on the film, including that weird logo that happens in the middle of the credits. I hate that.
[00:11:02] Where clearly Raldol is like the estate is trying to really monetize the library a lot more and brand it. But like this is just a self-contained story. It's just a movie. The exact kind of thing that is maybe most in danger of falling by the wayside.
[00:11:17] Like it is bizarre, I should say reluctantly. I should admit that this is blank check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. Oh, I'm David. I'm so sorry. Every episode. I was thinking about Robert Zemeckis as the witches. Your cue time is getting...
[00:11:35] I'm sometimes more on it than others. It's not getting worse. It's variable. All the things Griffin does incorrectly, but maybe we found a thing that David does incorrectly. I'm so sorry. So the score is 47 Griffin won David. The podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David.
[00:11:54] It's about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their career and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce darling. I don't... Is that fair? There's something...
[00:12:12] I watched this movie hours ago and I cannot remember, is it like an Eastern European thing? What is the voice? She's like Russian. It's Russian meets Scandinavian. Right. It's the border of Finland and Russia, I guess. It's a choice. I'll say that.
[00:12:32] And I don't mean that in a bet. You know how people are like, well, that was a choice. I'm like, look, she made a choice. I guess we can talk about the rogue film, which... But like, no matter what you think of the rogue film,
[00:12:46] the Angelica Houston performance is the thing that sticks out the most, I guess, outside of like the horrifying makeup effects and, you know, the fact that it traumatized children. So I guess it's a tough act to live up to, right? It's a challenge sort of.
[00:13:01] This is very paint praise. I want to say this, like... Accent ragging out of the way. I genuinely enjoy this movie whenever Hathaway or Octavia are on screen. I enjoy it more. I don't love it, but I'm like entertained.
[00:13:19] I find that they're both innately engaging and I think they're both having fun here. The mice shit just 100% losing. I was about to say, but like right, yeah. You enjoy it when Anne Hathaway and Octavia Spencer are on screen
[00:13:31] and you love it with all of your heart when there's little mice running around, right? That's what you're about to say. That's what you're going for, right? You just love it so much. It is bizarre how much the mouse shit loses me. I mean they suck.
[00:13:47] Like it was just automatic turn off. I told a story recently. I didn't tell this story, but it was on Twitter. People were doing the meme of like, what's the best movie-going experience you ever had.
[00:13:57] And I shared a story of when my grandfather and I went to see the Jude Law Alfie remake. Like six weeks after it came out and bombed. And the only other people in the theater were like an ancient looking man,
[00:14:09] like older than my grandfather who was probably nearing 90 at the time and his handler and the guy looked like just kind of mentally incapacitated. Okay. And so there's just this guy who's like sitting there like frozen and they play the trailers and he's just sitting there frozen.
[00:14:28] I keep on looking back to the guy because he's the only other guy in the theater. I'm kind of curious, right? And then the trailer for the SpongeBob movie comes up and the guy suddenly like comes to life, leans forward in his seat and just goes, boo. Wow.
[00:14:43] Boo. And just keeps booing for the entirety of the trailer. Then the trailer stops. He stops. He goes back to the sunken place. The other trailers play. And then right before the movie starts, there's like a branded SpongeBob, you know,
[00:15:00] don't forget to get your popcorn and turn off your cell phones thing. And he's back on it. He turns on again. He leans in and goes boo. And I felt like that old guy every time the mice came on screen. And that's how you met Rex Reed?
[00:15:14] That's how I met Rex Reed. And he voted Alfie for Best Picture that year. I thought you were going to say that your best movie going experience was the time you and your grandpa had a war. But I guess that's just mine.
[00:15:24] Well, no, that's my worst movie going experience because I had to watch my grandfather's story butchered on screen. It was not treated with the weight that I think it deserved. Comedy is about war really shouldn't exist. Comedy is about, oh no absolutely not. It's no laughing matter.
[00:15:42] Comedy is about death, comedy is about war. Only the crypt keeper would present something so twisted. Folks, this is the end of our mini series on the infamous Bobby Z. Robert Zemeckis. It's been called podcast away. Today we're talking about The Witches,
[00:15:57] and I mean what a kind of way. Not his last. Not his last, not his last. I mean look just today Disney made it clear to us he's got another story book adaptation coming to a streaming service soon. That's I guess this period of his career.
[00:16:12] And our guest? And our guest of course from Vanity Fair from Little Gold Man from so many episodes of our show and you know him best as the director of Trolls. Ladies and gentlemen Richard Lawson. Hello, thanks for having me back. Is this eight or nine?
[00:16:30] This is nine. I stopped keeping up with Yoshida because like that's... It's tough, it's tough. She's tough. Yoshida is currently at ten. Yoshida has hit ten. You are at nine. You also did a Patreon episode of course. You experienced some trolls with us.
[00:16:50] I don't know if you remember this. Four thousand years ago. It was a thing that we did in the year 2020 which by the time this episode is coming out has now passed but we are still in it right now.
[00:17:03] Nothing feels more emblematic of the before times as a concept of we just walked into a space as three adult men some strangers painted glitter noses on our face then we stepped into a wind tunnel filled with confetti and tried to catch it in plastic bags.
[00:17:20] Did we spread it to New York? Is it our fault? I know. I think it's branches fault. Yeah, I was going to say it's not our fault. You have to blame the government. Queen Poppy is the one who failed to contain this thing at the earliest stages. Absolutely.
[00:17:39] Here we are. We've all gathered here today on Zoom to discuss the witches, roll dolls the witches. It seems to be irritatingly branded like on IMDb and Letterbox and so on. I don't like that. That's what I'm saying though. There's some weird roll doll brand initiative
[00:17:59] and now they signed some big Netflix deal, right? I think they had a Warner Brothers deal where they were going to try to make a lot of them and now Netflix just signed an eight year deal and fucking Taiko Waititi is going to do a 28 part
[00:18:10] prequel wonka and... Are they going to brand the anti-Semitism too or are they going to leave that out? Well, did you see this? Just this week striking while the iron's hot, nipping the controversy in the bud, the roll doll official website was updated
[00:18:26] with an apology for his anti-Semitism. Oh, well that does it. It was the most bizarre timing. Like just two months after the witches, what, 30 years after his death? Sure. They were just like, look, look, we got it. We cannot let this thing get out of control.
[00:18:44] Wait, yeah, maybe we should. It was like they were like looking at the post-its on there. I'm like, oh, God, someone get on the phone. Apologize for Roll Dahl's anti-Semitism. He was a virulent anti-Semi. Right, right, right. I mean, he may have enchanted David Sims
[00:18:59] and millions of other children through his literature, but he forgot to apologize. Yeah. Roll Dahl, yes, died in 1990 at the age of 74. But he did see the Rogan film, right? Yeah, like he does. Yes, I think he did and he approved of it. Although he hated the ending,
[00:19:16] which this movie does not, you know, repeat this movie actually honors the original ending of the Rogan film, even though the Rogan film is totally much more in line, I would say, with what Dahl was going for than this. This is more sunshiny in a lot of ways.
[00:19:30] But I think it's got the inherent Dahl sort of eeriness and cynicism. It does not feel like a whitewashed film to me. You're shaking your head. You disagree strongly. I disagree in that this movie has a lot of antics. It does. And that's fine.
[00:19:50] It's allowed to have antics, but it's antique heavy. And then at the end, it just sort of cheerfully is like, yeah, and I'll die. And like the book has that whiplash ending and you're like, oh, you know, when you're a kid, you're just like,
[00:20:01] well, that's how the book ends. Okay, like that's fine. I guess I just read that book. It's especially weird because this movie, the new version walks up toward a lot of sinister stuff that the 90 movie and the book doesn't even do with
[00:20:15] like its setting and its lead characters. Yes, and then it doesn't approach. And then it doesn't do anything with that. But then I rewatched the rogue version and you're like, oh, Houston's a Nazi in this. Right. And so I don't know, they're both dark but in different ways
[00:20:29] and I just think this one is a little too playful. I agree, but I also think once again, it's the mouth shit. It's like so much of Zemeckis as we've covered, especially the second half of Zemeckis, is him just getting tempted by bad sirens in certain areas.
[00:20:44] And it just feels like he cannot resist turning half of this movie into fucking Tom and Jerry antics. Starring Chloe Grace Moranze? I mean, who else? Part of the Jerry verse, I'm assuming. Now does Kristen did, okay, here's a question.
[00:20:59] Did Kristen Chenoweth know she was in a movie? Absolutely not. She got turned into a mouse for reasons that we can't get into right now. Six months ago, completely different, you know, just, and then they just sort of made the movie around her.
[00:21:12] I mean, she's dealing with the wrong thing right now. It did have something to do with Aaron Sorgan, though. Yeah. No, well, we can't say that. We're not, we're legally not allowed to weigh in on that, Richard. Sorry.
[00:21:24] David, you were talking about how this movie does kind of retain the more faithful ending to the book. And I haven't read the book in a while. I don't think it was as much of a standby for me, my childhood, as it sounds like it was for you.
[00:21:37] I was a big doll kid, but this wasn't my big doll book. Can you remind me? It does end with the characters wishing everyone a very merry Christmas, right? I believe it's have a mice Christmas. It's both. Richard, it's both. Oh, it is? Oh, okay.
[00:21:59] I don't remember the details. I've seen it three times. They hit the joke eight different times, eight very similar ways. Their show, eight different postcards. So, Roald Dahl actually wrote the song We Are Family.
[00:22:10] But it was presented as something of a poem at the end of The Witches. It was like the Oompa Loopa songs where it's just kind of like a limerick. Octavia Spencer is 15 years old, right? This is the only problem with the ending of this movie,
[00:22:24] even though the ending is trying to be more faithful. Octavia Spencer is 50. It is plausible that she could have a grandson, of course. But at the end of the book, the grandma is in her late 80s. And so when she says like, look, you're a mouse,
[00:22:37] you're going to live for a few more years, maybe a little longer because you're a magic mouse and we'll die together because I'm old too. It's just a little weird where Octavia Spencer is like, yeah, I'll probably die in six years. I'm like, you will? You seem fine.
[00:22:49] You're the one you're going to die in your mid 50s? It's also bizarre because you're like that. That is a battle-worn mouse at the end of this movie. He sounds like Chris Rock now. He's flecked with gray. He's got some city miles on him.
[00:23:04] He's aged way more than she has. Octavia Spencer looks great. She hasn't missed a beat. She looks fine. She's so good. But all that Chris Rock stuff is just they borrowed it from Holly, you know, Holly from Fargo, right?
[00:23:17] He was like, this actually doesn't work in season four. Why is Chris Rock in this movie? What was that to say? He's also in a new Saw movie coming up, right? A spiral from the book of Saw yet? Yeah, it's from the book of Saw. Let's be honest.
[00:23:32] The film is from the book of Saw. Chris Rock, look, go ahead. No, David, we're both rushing to get to our bits. You make yours and I'll make mine. I just wanted to say, I mean, like, I guess it's sort of like one of those things
[00:23:44] people don't talk about, but it is. It's sort of public knowledge. Roald Dahl was the Jigsaw killer. We know that, right? That peach that everyone's trapped in. Yeah, but he only went after Jews. That was slightly modified. That's where they modified it.
[00:24:01] I'll tell you what Jewy went after this Jew. He had my affection. I loved his book so much. And then I remember not liking the 90 movie because it didn't fit what was in my head. But then I went back and rewatched it because of the new one.
[00:24:14] And I was like, oh, that movie is kind of weirdly great. Yeah, I liked that movie. I watched it when I was a kid in it. Absolutely horrified me, which I think is normal. Like I think a lot of kids were scarred by that move, right?
[00:24:25] Their parents would rent it being like, oh, they're like the book. And then they put it on and go make dinner and you would just come, you know, never be the same again. But that's what I feel like I liked about Roald Dahl books.
[00:24:36] It's the same for you guys. We're both weird, sensy boys. And those books touch real nerves of childhood fears with a kind of startling clarity and a dark humor. And I enjoy most Roald Dahl adaptations. It's like one of those things where I'm just sort of a sucker,
[00:24:57] I think to some degree for even a bad Roald Dahl adaptation. Like even though this movie is not good, there are times where it was sort of humming for me just because it's, you know, it's like dollar pizza or whatever.
[00:25:11] It's still a watered down version of a thing I inherently like a lot. What I was going to say, Richard, and I'm sorry, and this is something I have to say, just I'm sorry, drag the podcast down to a serious note for a moment.
[00:25:24] But I just want you to show a little bit of respect because you were being kind of flippant earlier. And I just think you should know that when Chris Rock came to Lion's Gate and described in chilling detail his fantastic vision that reimagines
[00:25:38] and spins off the world of the notorious Jigsaw killer they were all in. Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I've been having a lot of wrestling with like aughtourship recently. So I guess that's probably why I wasn't as reverent to that.
[00:25:51] Sure. Well, I'll clear this up for you. I'll clear this up for you, Richard. Chris conceived this idea and it will be completely reverential to the legacy of the material while reinvigorating the brand with his wit, creative vision and passion for this classic horror franchise.
[00:26:02] No, I'm hearing that Mank actually wrote the book of saw. I'm sorry. So I think someone's... I've got to write a 50,000 word essay on this. That deadline story is almost two years old now and it has stuck in my head.
[00:26:19] I pulled it up. I didn't know it verbatim but I pretty much knew it. There's something about the description when Chris Rock came to us and described in chilling detail. Unsolicited. He just showed up to the offices.
[00:26:33] He wheeled his own whiteboard in and they were like, Chris Rock, it's nice to see, wait, what is that? But he had the long microphone cord like it is stand up. I just imagined four o'clock in the morning,
[00:26:44] Lionsgate motion picture group chairman Joe Drake wakes up, startles awake, deep breaths, cold sweat turns on the light. His wife shakes, comes to, goes, Joe, Joe, honey, what is it? He goes, I'm sorry Nancy, I just...
[00:26:59] Chris Rock came to us today and described in chilling detail as fantastic vision that reimagined that spins off the world than Tories jigsaw killer. I'm all in at this point. We just all went silent. Yeah, I want to see how long it would last. And I'm David.
[00:27:19] There we go. It's weird that this movie is kind of quietly groundbreaking and that it was the first kind of damn break movie between Warner Brothers and HBO Max, right? Yes. I'm trying to think what had anything gone to a streaming service earlier.
[00:27:39] I'm trying to remember the timeline now of like what movies... Well, I mean specifically with the HBO Max thing, but Artemis foul, Artemis foul, Artemis most foul. Of course, Artemis foul, yes. Mulan was before this, right?
[00:27:53] Mulan was right before this I think, but that was once again sort of a premium VOD thing. There was a lot of that happening. Sort of high end rental or purchase. Artemis foul goes straight to Disney Plus.
[00:28:10] And then there's stuff obviously like what you might call it, Palm Springs, but that's more a case of just like, oh, it's independent movie and they got shifted over to a different distributor. Right, but that was always right. That was always going to end up on Hulu anyway.
[00:28:27] Yeah, no, that's great. I mean, that's great. I love 2020. It's just great. Especially with the HBO Max thing, this was like we thought, oh, Zemeckis has one March Madness. This movie is supposed to come out in theaters in October. It won't line up properly, but we'll cover it.
[00:28:46] And then when the pandemic hit and Dave was clear it was not going to end anytime soon, we were like, okay, so what? Movie going will probably return early 2021. End of 2020 everything will be normal again.
[00:29:00] This movie will probably come out early 2021 and then we'll be able to cover it then. And instead, like on October 5th they announced, hey, here's a trailer. It's going up on HBO Max in 10 days. Like it felt very sudden. And HBO Max had just debuted, right? Yes.
[00:29:18] Because I remember watching this, even the screening site, I was like, oh, this is kind of a new experience. Like what's an HBO Max screener like? Like it was all very new.
[00:29:25] You remember because the deafening cheers around the planet that greeted the launch of HBO Max had not yet died out. Like it was still, if you opened a window, just screams of joy. It was like when they called Pennsylvania for Biden.
[00:29:36] I mean, it was just, I'll never forget it. Just horrid like people had Vuvuzela's and you're like, ah, is that pandemic appropriate? But like, I guess HBO Max is that awesome? I mean, the funny thing is HBO Max is pretty good. Yeah. Like as a library.
[00:29:57] And they have Let Them All Talk, which I love and they have. Their library is great. And I think their interface is decent, but they certainly had a launch worthy of the Challenger. I'll say this.
[00:30:09] Perhaps my favorite feature of HBO Max is I love the little clicking sounds it makes when you select things. Solid, solid clicks. Nice little click. I find the color palette pleasing. And I do like that they have sort of little curated sections.
[00:30:24] I mean, people, I feel like don't talk enough about how good the TCM section is. Yeah, it's really good. It's very solid. You know, it's not quite as good as film strict was obviously, but you know, they did not like, you know, half acid.
[00:30:40] They put some great stuff on there. I mean, we were talking about this on our podcast, Little Golden Men, like, and it's an obvious point.
[00:30:47] I'm sure you guys have made before, but like just the idea that they were like Warner Brothers films have as much brand recognition as Disney films, right? Like I really feel like some institutionally they kind of thought that was true, maybe. Yes.
[00:31:02] And people don't, I mean, most people don't know and don't need to know what it was. It was a silly bit of math. Right. Disney's the only studio where people, I mean, obviously if you ask people on the street, have you heard of Warner Brothers?
[00:31:13] They have, but like they couldn't tell you what properties they own. They would say Bugs Bunny. Yeah, they might say Looney Tunes exactly. That's about the one thing where the Warner Brothers logo matches with a thing in your head.
[00:31:26] But that's sort of, I mean, the key is that Disney is the only studio that has that kind of clear brand identity because they have kept such tight restrictions on the types of things they make.
[00:31:38] Like Warner Brothers doesn't have a clear what is a Warner Brothers movie identity because they're a multifaceted studio that's existed for over 100 years or whatever, you know? And has made a wide array of different genre films in different decades.
[00:31:56] And Disney has a very clear sort of modus operandi, which now has shifted to them buying other brands and those brands have their own clear identities. And so everyone knows exactly what the different silos of a Disney movie are.
[00:32:08] I do think it's a thing I see a lot though with like, it makes sense from an AT&T perspective where these people are just like, people love Disney, right? So they must love Warner Brothers? Yeah.
[00:32:19] I mean, I could maybe make, I could believe an argument that said a certain generation of now young adults to people my age, which is I'm 86. I'm in a dive probably in a few years like Octavius Carrack. Do you have any mouse friends?
[00:32:35] They might associate the Warner Brothers logo with the Harry Potter movies. That's the one I was about to say. But even then... But like even that, that's a stretch.
[00:32:44] I feel like if I went up to someone and was like, you know that Warner Brothers did Harry Potter, they'd be like, oh yeah, sure. I'd be like, no it was universal. They'd be like, oh yeah, I guess so. That's where the theme park is at Universal Studios.
[00:32:57] Right. And there's also like the fact that the prelude of the Harry Potter theme always plays over the Warner Brothers shield. Like I feel like people, there's so much a casual sort of pairing in people's minds between the 20th century Fox drumroll and the opening of Star Wars.
[00:33:17] Because it wasn't interrupted, you know? But Warner Brothers are people they're just already in Harry Potter land at that point. Look this is all just a great plug for our Talking Fanfare episode available on Patreon now.
[00:33:29] Which we spend a good half hour talking about Warner Brothers variants and it's just a great old time. So you should listen to that. I listened to it.
[00:33:40] I didn't even have visual cues, I was like walking and I was like, I don't know how you're not but sure. I hadn't seen you guys in a long time. It's been a while. We haven't experienced trolls in many months now.
[00:33:51] My point was just that this film got announced being hunted to streaming and everyone was like, yeah, I mean that makes sense right? I mean, come on. There wasn't a ton of excitement for that thing. It doesn't seem like it was going to be a huge hit anyway.
[00:34:05] All movies are getting pushed back. Warner Brothers is going to have a backlog. Why not just put it on there for Halloween? Give like some mid-level studio film straight to streaming to boost subscribers. We could not have known where things were trending.
[00:34:20] And I feel like just the last 10 days before we recorded this, the entire industry has broken in half. And this episode won't come out for another month. And I have no idea what things are going to look like in a month.
[00:34:30] I will say, I can't think of an example. Like every movie that went to streaming, Mulan was the closest and soul I guess sort of the end Wonder Woman. Those were the ones where it changed.
[00:34:43] But before then it was like if a movie got shunted to streaming you were like, it must be kind of bad. And then when you saw it, you're like, yeah, it's kind of bad. Mulan was the one where it was like, oh, but that looked good.
[00:34:51] And then you watch it and you're like, oh, it's kind of bad. And it's kind of bad. So I assume that I've seen Soul and Soul is good. Oh yeah, yeah, it's cute. I like Soul.
[00:35:05] I don't know if I'd like to know what you think of it, Griff. There are things I didn't like about it, but I liked Soul. It's a movie. That's a proper movie that was made with thought.
[00:35:13] I mean this episode is coming out in January so I probably will have seen it 27 times by then. Yeah. And Wonder Woman, I don't know. Whatever, Buzz is pretty solid on that.
[00:35:27] But before then it was like, yeah, if they're putting it on streaming they just kind of know it's lame. So whatever. Right and now all movies have become the Costco hot dog. It's the lost leader to just get people in the store.
[00:35:38] And then they'll be in the store I guess? Right. I love the Costco hot dog and I loved the movies. My fear is that at some point they're going to go, why are we spending money on these fucking hot dogs? I'm not small.
[00:35:52] It's the pictures that became hot dogs. Yeah, I mean that's the issue. Nora Desmond would never survive in a hot dog culture. I would love to see Nora Desmond just rip HBO Max a new one.
[00:36:01] Like Denny Villeneuve going for it, fine, that's great but you know, come on, come on, Nora. Norma, geez. Can you just imagine like the AT&T assholes watching this movie and going like, I don't get it, why isn't it eight one hour installments?
[00:36:18] Like to them this just must seem like why did we ever make this? The only value this would have is in several 22 minute installments or whatever. Right. You know, I said to Neville Nov, I know his name is Villeneuve because there was the Formula One racer, Jacques Villeneuve.
[00:36:35] I don't know why I always say his name wrong anyway. So it's really embarrassing. Hey Richard, hey Griffin, how you doing? This movie was written by Robertson Mechus, Kenya Barris and Guillermo del Toro. The three best friends. We're hashtag the two friends. They're hashtag the three best friends.
[00:36:53] They're closer than you guys. So much closer. This film was produced by Alfonso Corón. I guess I can tell you why. I guess we might as well do some context.
[00:37:03] I assume you know this Griffin but this was initially planned as a stop motion film that was going to be directed by Guillermo del Toro and produced by Alfonso Corón.
[00:37:13] And then I guess it got put down and never picked up again until Zemeckis picked, I guess like some remnant of that project up because del Toro and Corón's name are on it. When did Zemeckis become involved?
[00:37:27] Because I'm just curious about like how much of a long term passion project this was for him if it was just like something to do. No, no. The del Toro plans were in 2008, which was back when he had like 40 movies spinning right? Like post-Penslabyrinth.
[00:37:43] Do you ever read that New Yorker article about that? Yes, it's so good. It's fascinating because like every project he mentions never came to fruition pretty much. And the Zemeckis was announced that he was going to write and direct in 2018. So you know, he just whatever.
[00:37:58] And much like all the Zemeckis projects, Griff we've covered recently, it's like right before his movie is about to come out. So this is before Mara Wind is coming. It's like anyway, Zemeckis has set up his next thing.
[00:38:10] It's this thing you've heard of and he's going to work on it and it's going to have a star and blah, blah, blah. Right. He's just announcing this right. It's going right away. He's launching straight into the next one.
[00:38:21] I feel like around that same time was the story that Warner Brothers wanted him to direct Flash and he was like, fuck no, get that out of my face. He said that about Ezra Miller? Yeah. Get that out of my face.
[00:38:34] But he it did seem like perhaps Warner Brothers was actively courting him. You know that they wanted him to make something for them. And so maybe after he passed on Flash, they were like, here are properties we have that have just sat on a shelf for 10 years.
[00:38:49] Right. Do you have any interest? Because Marwen is universal, Allied is paramount. The walk was Sony. Flight was paramount as well. He had kind of been dancing around Christmas Carol is Disney, right? Bay of Wolf is Warner Brothers and Paramount together maybe? Yeah, Paramount, domestic Warner Brothers International.
[00:39:10] He has no loyalty to any particular shop. He's just sort of moving around, getting stuff going, bouncing, not making total bombs but not also making hits. He's just, he's Robert Zemeckis. But I feel like Disney and Warner's have in particular been courting him
[00:39:31] for the better part of the last decade. I mean, Disney pushed him away through an old regime with the stop motion, the motion capture stuff. But I feel like they've been trying to lure him back into the fold because they are the big budget miracle weaver people.
[00:39:49] So there's an obvious fit there. And Warner Brothers, I think just up until two weeks ago, was viewed as the most filmmaker friendly of the major studios. It made sense that they saw value and sort of a blue chip, big budget filmmaker like that.
[00:40:10] But yeah, it's kind of weird that this movie was greenlit. It's one of these things where now, isn't it bizarre how just nine months of the pandemic, the growing sort of just acceptance that most things are going to end up being made for or ultimately going to streaming
[00:40:31] has changed the way we perceive most movies. Where I just watched this now and I'm like, I can't believe they ever thought this was a thing they were going to put in theaters and people were going to see.
[00:40:41] But then I also think if this had come out a year ago, I guess it would have made like $50 million. Yes, it would have made money because it was a thing in theaters. It's rated PG like almost surprisingly, not in tone it is a PG,
[00:40:58] but it is on the edge there. And people would have taken their kids, right? I've been like, yeah, sure. Roll doll, I've heard of that. Everything is just rendered a little flimsier. And I know it's like a trite thing to say,
[00:41:13] but because we have to get used to it, I'm just not fully... I mean certain things, it depends on the movie, but this one is just like, it just loses, I hate to use this overused term,
[00:41:25] it just loses all of its clout being just at home whenever you want to watch it. And that's kind of all this movie has going for it, right? I mean you watch it and you're just like, this thing does have high production value.
[00:41:40] You're watching someone who does understand the craft of filmmaking, hiring like top below-the-line people with money applied to the right places and a cast of very capable actors, at least three leads who are very game,
[00:41:57] but then you watch this at home and it's just all of that is like sucked out. By the fact that the movie in and of itself does not have a ton of interest, but you know the joy you get from it would just be watching,
[00:42:09] I guess I don't know these sets on a big screen. Yeah, also you got to remember that this film band had collaborated with Roblox, the iPad game, to include a boss battle which the Grand High Witch, so that was also a big thing, big innovation for this movie.
[00:42:31] It was a little depressing and I know that in Griffin and I's dynamic, he's the more of the doomsayer and I'm more of the things will be all right. And we did just, the thing is the Disney thing,
[00:42:45] I didn't even watch it but I sat through the waves of it. And I was texting you all the stories. And like the thing, I was having this experience with it like and we're proud to announce that yes, you're with the wait is over
[00:42:59] and finally it's going to happen. We're going back to Atlantis, the Lost Empire Atlantis. You know like we're just everything you're just like, uh-huh it's a sequel or a remake or okay. But then they're like but it's in theaters and I'm like,
[00:43:12] well it's good that they're putting things in theaters. Like I have to have the kind of the low bar like okay, well that's something I guess that'll be good. Can I ask you guys a question about the Disney presentation? Because I didn't see it.
[00:43:26] Is the Buzz Light movie going to be about the toy? Great question. Jesus, Richard. You really fucked up here asking a question like that. You really showed your ass. I got it. I just don't know. I just really don't know.
[00:43:44] Okay Richard, listen how do I even put this? The toy Buzz Light, your fun toy story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No we understand, we understand Richard. I don't even have the words. Okay so let me just put it this way okay.
[00:43:56] I guess you can put it in your pocket and I guess you can. This isn't Buzz Light Year, the toy. This is the origin story of the human Buzz Light Year that the toy is based on Richard. Get that through your head.
[00:44:15] Anyway, I am, it's like I just discovered witches are real. I'm so blown away. Can we unpack that though? What the hell does that, in the world of Andy, the child from Toy Story, there are like, adventuring space men, oh there he is. I assume so.
[00:44:36] What if like, it turns out Toy Story is set like 2022, or 2222, you know it's like, all been happening in the far future and Andy lives in some fucking- Andy's been on the holodeck the whole time. Right. Buzz Light Year from Star Command. Obviously.
[00:44:58] Cause it's not like there's a Neil Armstrong from Star Command toy. That's not a thing. We didn't license the actual human and then put him in a sci-fi universe branding thing, go ahead. Can we unpack this for a second? Richard asked.
[00:45:14] I promise I won't stay on this for too long. Sure. I had a friend with an inside scoop text me, get ready, there's one thing during the Disney Investor Day that's gonna break your brain. This was Chris Evans texting you? It was Chris Evans and he said,
[00:45:30] I have no words just to be clear, one thing during this Investor Day will break your brain. No but my friend said like, I don't know if you're going to be very happy or very angry. And I immediately said it has to be some weird Pixar thing.
[00:45:44] Right, it has to be some weird Pixar thing. But my brain was sort of like processing it and I was like, I don't think it would just be them doing another sequel to something. It has to be some odd approach they're taking.
[00:45:55] Is there gonna be some weird TV show version of something? What am I not considering here? And then it came up on the screen and the reason I hadn't considered it is because they've done this already. Oh, because you mean are you referring to the cartoon show?
[00:46:10] Buzz Lightyear's Star Command was the starting morning cartoon show after the release of Toy Story 2 that purported to be this is the cartoon show that Andy watches. The toy that Andy owns is a piece of tie-in merchandise to this cartoon show. It was an enjoyable cartoon show.
[00:46:26] Pixar had no involvement. It was very much in the days of Disney being like, Yunk, thank you for making that movie. We'll do with this. What would please? It was two dimensional, but it did not really address the fact
[00:46:40] that we all knew because we all went to school that yeah, Buzz Lightyear was a real person who also had space adventures. This is what I cannot figure out. The way they said it in the Disney press conference
[00:46:54] just made it sound like, I mean, Pete Doctor was saying like when we created Toy Story, we established that Buzz Lightyear was a character in that universe that the toy was based off of. That's not true though, right? They're saying what he's saying is internally. Oh, sure.
[00:47:10] They always had that. You don't know, it lived in Canada. You've never met this idea that we have always secretly had. David, we do know that because the opening of Toy Story 2 is the video game that you can see that obviously Buzz Lightyear exists
[00:47:22] in other mediums and the opening of Toy Story 1 that was deleted was supposed to be a similar opening with Andy watching the cartoon show. No, I have no problem with him being, of course he's a toy that's based on, I can understand that, but they are now saying
[00:47:35] he's a real person. This is my point. Let me say this, David. Okay, okay. So my point is Pete Doctor said it in a way that sounds like what we're saying. On the stream, he was like when we created the World of Toy Story, we all always believed
[00:47:51] that Buzz Lightyear was a character that existed that the toy is based off of. It felt like he was framing it as this is like the movie that Andy would see. And then Chris Evans comes out with his tweet where he's like, the real guy.
[00:48:06] And I can't tell if that's just weird wording choice because they're trying to make it clear like no, no, no, we're not being rude to Tim Allen. It's a different character. Right. Or if this movie is going to be like a first man.
[00:48:24] Or if Chris Evans has broken with reality and really does not know, like Kristen Chenoweth does not know what a movie is. Because I'll be honest, I don't want to see a hyper realistic Buzz Lightyear movie. I'm down to see them do some wacky fucking sci-fi movie
[00:48:40] that is sort of straight faced and earnest and the idea is that it's like, this is the thing that Andy likes. But I don't want to see anything gritty, which I can't imagine that's what they're doing and implying that this is like a real American hero
[00:48:54] rather than some sort of like, you know, square jawed, you know, matinee serial icon is the question for me. It is the question. It's a question that of course will be answered in on June 17th, 2022. When Lightyear hits theaters. Who's directing Lightyear? You told me.
[00:49:17] Angus McClain, who's the guy within the Pixar house who I've most been waiting to see direct a film. He did Toy Story of Terror and Small Fry and he did Bernie, which is very good short. And I think he's a good director.
[00:49:29] I'm excited that he gets to make a movie. Beyond that, I don't even know what to think of this or what to think of anything anymore. What were you going to say, Richard? Oh, I was just going to say that we're going to find out that Infinity
[00:49:41] was the name of his sled as a child. That's how he went to Infinity and beyond. And now I changed my background to Lightyear as well. Yeah, Mank. Now it's both. So it's two Buzz Lightyears and then my extra room in my apartment.
[00:49:57] So I don't have the background capabilities. That's all right. I'll switch back to the stupid witches. There he is of course, the Grand High Witch. You know when this airs, when this podcast goes out we will have seen maybe the Matthew Morrison Grinch.
[00:50:13] I mean, we could all be gone. Didn't it air last night? Am I wrong? Oh, did it? I think it aired last night and no one watched it. Oh dear. I feel like I saw that headline today. That was like the Grinch watched by literally zero people.
[00:50:29] If I said that Matthew Morrison is the Grinch looks like Joanna Kearns from Growing Pains, would you know what I meant? Absolutely. Can I say also when the story hit that Matthew Morrison was going to do a live TV version of the Grinch,
[00:50:41] I read the headline very quickly as Matthew McConaughey to play the Grinch and I got so amped. The idea of Matthew McConaughey doing like a live TV musical Grinch. That's a curve ball. That's fun. Exactly. Matthew McConaughey's Grinch telling Cindy Luhu that the left has gone too far.
[00:50:59] Right. Your background is from Future Blank Check subject, Oz the Great and Powerful, right? Yeah, of course. My background is the witches. It's Mila Cunis and Michelle Williams. I forgot that movie existed. Wasn't Rachel Vise a witch in that one as well? Do you don't acknowledge her?
[00:51:19] She's the third way she doesn't really do that much in the movie. Cool. Sounds like a cool movie. Can't wait to talk about it. Also, I couldn't find a good picture of all three of them. Have you not seen it, David?
[00:51:29] I've never seen Oz the Great and Powerful, though, because of a binding legal arrangement. I don't know what the joke is there. The witches, here's the thing about the witches. Roald Dahl's book, The Witches is pretty weird. It's about a little boy, as you say,
[00:51:46] who encounters these witches, who are real, who are bald, who have chicken hands, who have square, toeless feet, who think children smell disgusting, and want to turn them into mice. And you have to recognize them by the fact that they wear lots of jewelry
[00:52:07] and gloves and fancy shoes. And even as a kid, when I read it, I was like, this book's kind of fucked up about women. Seems kind of mad at women. What is that? What's his problem with these women? Are they Jews or something? That's just something that every...
[00:52:30] And as you say, I feel like Rogue is like, yeah, right, this is about the evil that lurks within little England. These are Nazis. These are terrible. I get that. In this one, I guess they're... The choice that this movie makes,
[00:52:49] that we talked about but it is hard to dig into because the movie doesn't really want to dig into it, is that it's set in Alabama. Yes. In the 50s or the 60s? In 1968. It's made the lead, the story is set in Britain.
[00:53:11] It's made the lead character black. It's made the grandma black. And that's kind of all it has decided to do with that. There is one line where the grandmother books the hotel and she's like, well, I know the cook at the hotel and we got a room there.
[00:53:28] And he's like, why would we go there? And she's like, because it's full of rich white people and the witches only prey upon children who are poor or otherwise kind of forgotten about. No one will miss if they're gone. So there is a statement of political intent.
[00:53:42] I would have to imagine, that was like carefully talked about in the writing of the movie. But then nothing is done with that for the rest of the movie. It also is bizarre when the first witch our character encounters in the movie is also black.
[00:53:58] Right. This is the other thing. I was like, oh, is there like something where right, you know, there's the witches are these kind of like nice, genteel white ladies who are but like no, the witches themselves in the movies are,
[00:54:13] you know, there's there are all kinds of people of color and like there's nothing going on there. Then that's not that again, if they wanted to go there, they did. There's a little of the like more female guards at Guantanamo
[00:54:27] kind of thing there where it's like, it's like, right. What is the representation doing? And and and I just I think that like, I don't know, it's tricky because the movie isn't really making any political points,
[00:54:42] but it kind of sets up maybe that it will and then it doesn't. But you're right. It's like the I mean, it's it's one of those cases where you're like the movie is more effective of all the witches are white to a certain degree because then
[00:54:58] there's a statement of intent, you know, about race relations in the 60s. Right. It would be a very clanging statement. It's not like it would be but like right, then it would at least be something. It's funny. The screenplay is credited to Robert Zemeckis, Ampersand,
[00:55:14] Kenya Barris and Guillermo del Toro. So I think del Toro's influence is barely right. Like that's just whatever lingered from the original script. It's Zemeckis and he brings in Kenya Barris and he's like, I assume they're the ones like let's transpose this to
[00:55:31] Alabama. Let's have the lead character be black. But but do you have that confirmed that he brought Kenya Barris in? Because that was my question was obviously there's the lingering Koran del Toro of the whole thing. Warner still has the rights.
[00:55:44] My question was does at some point, Kenya Barris get hired on to take a pass at the witches and that's what gets Zemeckis on board? Or does Zemeckis sign up just for the idea of do you want to make a witches movie and then Kenya Barris is hired?
[00:55:58] All I know is that they are credited as working on it together. And when the film was announced, it was very much announced as Kenya Barris is on board to co-write the script with Zemeckis. So it wasn't announced as
[00:56:12] like Zemeckis is making a movie of this Kenya Barris script and then Zemeckis is named gets added later. So yeah, so I assume like either they wrote a thing and then eventually just sort of got watered down and here's the result or I don't know maybe they
[00:56:31] thought that that was kind of interesting enough just to sort of change the setting and it just wasn't interesting enough because the themes of the witches are interesting but the plot of the witches like you guys said is pretty simple. So if you're going to
[00:56:47] mess with it, you would need to mess with it and they don't. It's also fascinating. I mean I remember when we were talking about even the idea of doing Zemeckis like a year or two ago when they announced this movie pre-March Madness, we were like he's doing the
[00:57:00] witches now and it's like voodoo inspired and you and I turned to each other and we were like what's he doing there? And then you watch it and you're like he's not really doing anything. There are like these little glimpses of like that's almost a take
[00:57:14] off of like he almost wants to turn it into like a civil rights movie. He almost wants to turn it into like more of a class thing. He almost wants to turn it into this or that and you'll just get like the
[00:57:26] vestiges of one scene where sort of lip service is paid to something. Which makes me wonder and maybe you guys have more insight into this than I do probably you do is why then does Zemeckis want to do this because the social message gets
[00:57:41] muddled and not really addressed. Special effects wise which has seemed to seems to have been his major preoccupation of the last 20 years. Like sure there's some stuff with Hathaway and the mice but like that's pretty pedestrian stuff at this point. So it just feels confusing about why
[00:57:59] he's there at all. I agree. It's not like anything else in his filmography really and it's not like he gets to push any sort of technological boundaries. It doesn't feel like he's breaking any new ground here and even though Pinocchio is a little bit lateral to this
[00:58:17] you're like well I get thematically what Zemeckis likes about Pinocchio. Maybe it's one of those things where you just someone just gets to think of a one image fixated in their head and like I have to see that too. Fruish or something like
[00:58:32] the arms extending down the air shaft or something. I don't know but like there's just so little that feels even in this like late stage of his life. I don't know. But I also feel like to some degree he is a guy who wants to keep making
[00:58:47] movies and to some degree it feels like they send him up pile of scripts. He's still got enough juice and maybe that's about to run out to if he signs on to something they go sure here's between 30 and 60 or 80 million dollars to make your thing
[00:59:06] until just pick the thing that maybe seems to be a bullet that moment. Like it's odd. We've talked about how the Tim Burton selection process feels kind of so dispassionate at this point. It really just feels like what's the most recent thing that was sent to me.
[00:59:27] And then you have someone like Spielberg who runs different calculus for each project it seems like but is very aware of like I get a Spielberg movie a year and I'm going to make it count and what's the Spielberg movie going to be.
[00:59:44] What's a thing I haven't done before people I haven't worked with before whatever it is. And then the Zemeckis stuff is is odd. I mean all the post mo cap choices are weird. Yeah. I don't disagree. I'm just noticing also that
[01:00:00] the Matthew Morrison Grinch looks a little bit like Kate Mulgrew track. Oh my God. This is the thing I find interesting. I would say other than Pinocchio obviously flight. The walk allied Marwyn witches. The thing that unifies them all is they probably
[01:00:22] were never going to get green lit unless Robert Zemeckis signed on to do them. Right. By and large. Yes. The witches may be the closest but yes exactly. Like we talk about the Burton process is very complexing only because you look at those movies
[01:00:35] and you're like dude anyone could make those like let a fucking special effects supervisor direct these movies. But the Zemeckis movies are like other projects that are a little less obvious but they're they're getting to see the light of day solely through the
[01:00:53] share will of Zemeckis anointing it. OK so now that you guys are at the end of the series what has been the most recent film that you've ever made? I mean why does he still keep getting the blank checks. I mean this is the thing it's literally
[01:01:10] polar express I would say is the last movie he made that surpassed expectations. That's the last one that didn't lose money right. I mean well I flight flight made money but that's the last one that was a real hit and that was a
[01:01:24] while ago now wasn't it that was like over 10 years ago with 16 years ago. Yeah but I mean if you think about the fact that you're asking a question Richard I don't even think I think you know Disney was making the Christmas
[01:01:38] Carol movie because they were like what if he gave us another polar express. I think polar express isn't in anyone's minds anymore despite the fact that that movie somehow illogically continues to make money year after year seems to be an infinitely profitable movie for Warner
[01:01:56] Brothers. I don't think anyone hires him with the expectation that he's going to do that because he's going to be like you know maybe that's why he's going more into children's films now because that was his last blockbuster but it
[01:02:11] does just feel to some degree that it's back to the future Roger Rabbit and Forrest Gump. It's like those three movies have given him a lifetime pass that short of the theatrical exhibition business going under made it difficult for him to ever stop having green
[01:02:29] life power. And there's probably I would say that you know that he and Spielberg and a couple other people were really like invented the economy of Hollywood for so many years like or help to do it you know. Absolutely they're
[01:02:44] always going to be huge actors who want to work with him he's always going to be able to get some sort of A-list movie star and I think another factor is you have the executives you know maybe not the people at the very
[01:02:59] top of the studios but the people who are like Robert Zemeckis and I think they go oh my god Robert Zemeckis wants to make a movie I like I'm the junior whatever at whatever fucking studios and I'm 40 years old and those
[01:03:14] movies like were my childhood you know. It's like why I mean it's why we have such a particular brand of nostalgia online it's because well it's all the people in their mid-30s who are on the internet now and that's
[01:03:29] their culture so yeah it really is a generational thing. The internet is run by children of the 90s and is now starting to slip into being children of the early 2000s right. Not if I can help it. Hey hey now and but the studios are
[01:03:44] still pretty much the high level decision making is being done by children of the 80s and so these 80s guys even if some of them seem like dinosaurs now still hold a lot of sway with the people who ultimately have the rubber
[01:03:59] stamps. But I wonder like does the witches feel like they're going to slow that moment. I mean time itself will slow it for him but like I don't think the witches feels like a little bit value neutral right it doesn't feel like it was absolutely value neutral.
[01:04:16] Especially because it came out on HBO Max. I think even if you come out in theaters it would have performed like a lot of these Zemeckis movies where it's like oh that's sort of disappointed but I guess wasn't a total bomb
[01:04:30] you know it's on HBO Max it's like whatever Pinocchio is going to be on Disney Plus again whatever. Well and which leads and I'm sorry to keep digressing but like which leads me to another question that I've been meaning to ask
[01:04:45] you guys is I know in certain cases it was really just and going forward it's going to be more of that where it's like there just aren't theaters open we have to put things on streaming is how many movies do you think
[01:05:00] will we have to put on a lot of TV movies as well. So, I think it's going to be a real failure you know like bombs yeah like you can kind of launder the movie and be like well we don't have to report on any box
[01:05:15] office so like Mulan did really well you know or whatever. It's weird Richard I feel like now we're experiencing the flip I feel like the recent HBO go HBO Max announcement which at this point when you folks are listening
[01:05:30] to streaming and write it off as a success based on whatever metric we've just created. And now it feels like it's shifting to, we put our biggest movies on streaming as like a loss leader to boost streaming. To get people to streaming. Right. Right.
[01:05:47] And to some degree the stuff that's middling is like you give that a new mutants release. You know? People are going to start getting vaccinated. You put it in 500 theaters. It makes $10 million. No one talks about it.
[01:05:57] You know, it's like somehow if you want a movie to quietly die you put it in theaters. If you wanted to actually be in a pole position, you put it on your streaming service.
[01:06:06] New Mutants which I traveled to another state and stayed in a hotel to see before labor day or after labor day. I don't remember. But I was really going to Boston to see Tenet but like I also saw New Mutants at a very
[01:06:21] completely empty AMC in downtown Boston. Did you like it? New Mutants is very bad. It's no, no, no. It's too bad. But the mutants they're so new. They're very new. We can also talk by the way because this will be out later is I just watched some screeners
[01:06:36] of speaking of Josh Boone of The Stand, the CBS All Access. It is a turkey. It is very bad. That guy's got a weird career. I was, I'm not surprised it's not like that thing had like you know big buzz but
[01:06:54] I'd love someone to do The Stand right someday. It's certainly not an easy one to do. Yeah, I don't know. I mean it's like to some degree talking about this movie at the moment we're talking about
[01:07:06] it just becomes an excuse to talk about the state of what movies even are these days. Right? Because this movie is weirdly at this big, it's in and of itself a transition point
[01:07:18] this film and a story you know as the tea leaves have been like sort of like coming out on the on the HBO Max thing. One of the scoops that came out recently is that they offered at least half the way
[01:07:35] and Zemeckis a big buyout to put this up on streaming right? Like people this a list have big back end deals based on theatrical release and also they contractually don't want to be seen as being in a movie or having made a movie
[01:07:51] that's getting punted straight to video so that it's a contractually you have to put the movie in theaters. So they wanted to put this on streaming. It's clear theaters were not going to be healthy anytime soon. They paid Zemeckis and Hathaway a lot of money.
[01:08:04] I would imagine they probably paid Octavia Spencer as well. Chris Rock probably got $15 million. And then Wonder Woman got a similar deal sounds like even more lucrative. Big deal. Ten million bucks to each of Jenkins and Godot. Yeah.
[01:08:20] But but I mean Zemeckis and Hathaway got millions of dollars. They got more than what this movie's value probably was. Right. And then a big part of the new announcement for all the twenty twenty
[01:08:30] one movies is that that's not happening or if it is happening, it was not negotiated. It was not told to any of these people. And you know they have this weird strategy now where it's the movies are going on
[01:08:43] HBO Max and in theaters on the same day, then it will play on HBO Max for 30 days. Then they take it off HBO Max and then they put it on like premium rental and whatever. And it's maybe still lingering in theaters depending on if it's been hit. Right.
[01:09:01] And then it will eventually come back to HBO Max like a year later. And someone who understands the industry better than I do, you know, off the record said to me that their theory on why they're structuring it this way is if
[01:09:17] they do that, if you send it just straight to streaming, you have to offer these people who made a movie under the understanding that it was going to go theatrical a buyout. Right. You have to offer them compensation for not leaving them the potential to make profits. Exactly.
[01:09:32] You have to buy out their profit participation. And if you do it this way, you can be like, what do you mean? The movies and theaters, but the thing that they didn't think was that it was ridiculous
[01:09:43] not to tell these people that they were going to do this without. Yeah. But even crazier than that to then say like, look, I mean, I'm sorry, we put it up on iTunes. It's only made $15 in rentals. There's no money to share.
[01:09:54] And it's like $15 of rentals because it was on HBO Max for a month. Why would anyone rent it? Look, Warner Brothers was run by people who got scammed in public. We reported crazy blackmail things.
[01:10:11] It's now run by a telephone company that every article you write about it was like, essentially like, you know, someone was like, well, here's what we should do. And the other guy was like, yeah, but what about Netflix? That thing's got so much fucking shit on it.
[01:10:22] We need to go now. Like, you know, like they were just sort of like, Netflix. So I just don't think any of these decisions are being made with like expert strategy. It's just panic. And what can we get away with to what extent?
[01:10:38] Right. Like that seems to be what's happening now. And again, that's not what happened with the witches. The witches, they are more like, oh, this is a good situation to put this on. Well, well, well, well, pay everyone out.
[01:10:47] Yeah. It's all short term and it's all just like there are only two numbers they care about seeing go up, which are their subscriber growth and their share price. And those two things are like intrinsically linked to them.
[01:11:01] And AT&T sees the a symbiotic relationship between, oh, people are paying for AT&T Internet and they're watching HBO Max. And we give them one for free for getting the other one or whatever it is. But we're controlling the pipe and we're controlling the water
[01:11:16] that runs through the pipe or whatever. But it's not very. Big picture thinking and they're probably going to 18 months from now go like, why are we making movies and TV shows? This is stupid. We could just make cell phones for the rest of our life.
[01:11:32] There probably was some shrewd calculus, though, in that like if they'll come for Anne Hathaway, they'll stay for Anna Kendrick. It's true. Do you know what I mean? Now, this leads me to my next question, guys, because again, we're not talking about the plot of the witches.
[01:11:46] Look, he turns into a mouse, there's witches. You know, they kind of sneak like in this one. That covers it, right? Yeah. Anne Hathaway. Post Oscar. One of the most covered actors on this show. We talked about her plenty.
[01:12:04] She's worked with more blank check filmmakers than she hasn't, I think. Right, because we've done Brokeback Mountain, Devil Wears Prada, Rachel Getting Married, Alice in Wonderland, Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar. The Intern. And The Intern. And your next season is a 10 episode series about Ella Enchanted. Correct. That's right.
[01:12:25] It's called Gryffin, Gryff, Dave Gryff Enchanted. Dance and the Dancy. But yes, the last five years of her career have essentially been disastrous. So right, this is the thing. So it's gone from, oh, to what's going on. So she wins the Oscar for Les Mis. That's 2012 film.
[01:12:44] At that point there's that sort of backlash. We've discussed it. What, you know, a lot of it unfair, but that's the, you know, that was the, and she hosts the, anyway. Okay. She takes a little bit of a break and then in 2014, she does Interstellar,
[01:12:59] which I think is one of her better performances, you know, working with a big director makes sense. And then 2015, she does The Intern, which again we've talked about, working with a major female director. Pretty solid hit, right? Yeah, and a masterpiece and a modern American masterpiece. Good movie.
[01:13:17] She's good in it. You know, that movie has its thing, but yeah, right? Richard, I don't know where you are on the intern, Richard. Oh yeah. No, I mean, I like the intern. I've told on this podcast the story of Bobby Finkler meeting Nancy Myers
[01:13:27] at the intern premiere party that no, that was good for Anne Hathaway without a doubt. Yes. Even though people were going for DeNiro, but she was, you know. But then this is the turning point. Right. So so far post Oscar, you're like, OK, she's she's picking projects and
[01:13:43] all right. So 2016, she has Alice through the looking glass. She's barely in that, but she is, I suppose, obligated to be in that. We can't really hold that against her. She's like above the title. I mean, you know, she's second build.
[01:13:56] Like the movie is being sold partially on her shoulders, even if it's not her fault. Right. But you know, but whatever. Then she's also in Colossal, which is not a movie I loved, but I thought it was pretty good. I really like that movie. I like that movie.
[01:14:09] Some people really loved it. Yes. I think she's very good in it. Yes. Fun choice. She's good in it. Like, you know, interesting little movie. So even then you're like, OK, and then two year break. And then she's in Oceans 8, which I think is a not good movie.
[01:14:23] But she was kind of the by consensus, the best liked part of it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. She has one really great scene very improbably with James Corden. Yes. I mean, which, which only makes the scene more impressive. Exactly. But yes. So she's very good in that.
[01:14:42] She's arguably the best performance in the movie. Aquafina is obviously the only person who kind of pops from that movie just because she was having such a moment. And it was like the groundswell of several things happening at the same time.
[01:14:54] I don't know that the woman who played the computer hacker, I'd be interested to see what her career is going to be like, you know, if like maybe music or something. Yeah. I think she's good in that movie. Yeah. No, I mean, I like her better in battleship.
[01:15:04] She's great in battleship. Battleship's like a real character, though. I mean, it's not. I mean, Mahalo, Motherfucker. It's, you know. Yeah. So 2019 she has three films. One of them is Dark Waters, which is one of the best movies of that year.
[01:15:16] I think her role in it is what it is, but you know. She did it to work with Tadeens. Yeah. And also clearly being in that movie makes you tax exempt or something. There had to be some. Well, it gets the movie made for one thing.
[01:15:31] It helps get the movie made. And so that was like a noble act. Yeah. That's a generosity of her extending her movie stardom to a worthy cause to work with good people on a good subject. This is a great movie.
[01:15:41] She was paying Mark Ruffalo back for all the fracking she'd done. But, but we all agree that is a thankless role performed to the best of her ability. I think she's actually good in it. I do too. It's not the most exciting role. Yeah.
[01:15:55] Bill Camp is the star of that movie, though. Absolutely. Putters and murmur. Oh God, he's so good. He's, he's in. And I tweeted this, but I have to say it in the Queen's Gambit. Bill's, Bill Camp plays a big part of the Queen's Gambit.
[01:16:06] And in the first, and I had no idea he was in it. And in one of the first scenes of the show, you see him out of focus, not his head, just his body. Like he's a janitor and he's like mopping a floor.
[01:16:18] And I was like, that's Bill Camp. I know Bill Camp is like shambling figure when I see it. And that's Bill Camp. I can't wait for more camp. That's how that's what the greatest character. You recognize his gate. You recognize the gate.
[01:16:34] Like you were the fucking, you were the security system in Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol, recognizing his posture. And it's one of those things where like, you know, the show has been running for five minutes. It's got kind of an air of Bill Camp to it.
[01:16:48] I'm like, this is the kind of thing Bill Camp might be in. I mean, like these sort of, anyway. She's in The Hustle, which I think is one of those movies that was made a while ago, right? Like it was sort of on the shelf for a second.
[01:17:02] Yeah. We should also mention the two year gap where she doesn't make a movie is birth of her first child. Right. In between Colossal and Ocean's Aid. Yeah. Here's the thing. The Hustle, I think technically was a hit.
[01:17:14] I think it was fairly cheap to make and it made money. I assumed that movie was made by Delta Airlines to play on the plane. I have not seen it. I watched it on a flight. Remember flights? Yeah. It's like it's fun because it's a con.
[01:17:35] It's a con game and that's a fun movie to watch, you know? And she's fine in it. No, she's better than fine in it. She's playing the Michael King character, right? Yes. She's playing like the suave kind of Slickster to Rebel Wilson's like
[01:17:53] wink, wink, naive, ruby, you know, who's also in on the con. But like Anne Hathaway is the pro in the movie and she, you know, like kind of like her character in Ocean's Aid. Like she can pull that kind of suave thing off, even though she's so often
[01:18:09] associated with being like the earnest theater kid. Now I'm just wondering, I'm like, is Delta Airlines going to become our major movie studio? Like are they going to be one of the few businesses that sees the value in making movies? I mean, they, the airlines or the
[01:18:26] business that's going to keep the mid-budget movie alive because that's where everyone watches them. But also their business is so fucked now, I could imagine them being like, look, we made like a fifty million dollar romantic comedy. It's playing exclusively on planes.
[01:18:41] You have to ride a plane to see it. So people are just like flying to Nashville to like. We finally let Nancy Meyers make another movie. It's Jennifer Lawrence and fucking Shalemay. And you have to book a two hour flight to Bosch. Yeah, you have to.
[01:18:56] But don't worry, we've got flights that just take off and circle the airport for 90 minutes and then land. Hallie Meyershire bought Whiz Air. So it'll be interesting to see what happens with that. She did, she did. To wrap up her other 2019 film was Serenity,
[01:19:13] which I think is whatever you think of that movie, a film that does not treat her with a lot of respect. No, and it certainly is a movie that the world clowned on with great glee. They did. And it's wild to think that that movie
[01:19:28] stars two Academy Award winning actors from that decade. It's not like it stars Oscar winners. It's not like Louise Fletcher's in it, no offense to her. Those people won Oscars in that decade. Two fresh winners, two fresh win.
[01:19:45] Two people who had won Oscars in the last three years. I will say, though, that like half of like half of me and McConaughey both as much as that movie is kind of like a cult
[01:19:55] fascination of how weird and bad it is and what a mess it was. They are lucky that it didn't. It had like they're lucky it was buried, you know, because I feel like I feel like certain people know about that movie, but a lot of people don't.
[01:20:07] So it wasn't some huge public fiasco for them. But Richard, do you know? I mean, there was that there was that whole thing where it was like Avron Pictures, which has already gone under and seemed to be some weird tax scheme. And then I believe,
[01:20:19] are you going to say what I think you're going to say, David, what I was about to say? Go ahead, say what you're going to say. I want to hear you say it. No, I don't think I'm going to say what you're going to say.
[01:20:27] Say what you're going to say. I believe Hathaway and McConaughey's reps sued Avron Pictures for making their stars look bad by not putting enough promotional support behind the movie. I see. OK. I believe it's the exact opposite. You're right. That should be their takeaway. We got away clean.
[01:20:46] We escaped that one from the skin of our teeth. I believe they were like we were promised this movie was going to be given a golden birth. You've damaged our stars images by not drawing all of the world's eyes to
[01:20:59] serenity. But then that's tricy and affecting because I think that most people in America don't know what that movie is. And if you bring attention to it with a lot of smooth, it's like people didn't know this movie existed.
[01:21:09] Well, look, I just I can't discuss ongoing lawsuits that I'm a part of. That's all I wanted. Of course. That's anyway. It was the head of Avron Pictures before he transitioned to Quibi. Right. Exactly. Really, if you actually check the files, same company.
[01:21:21] Yeah, Griffin, have you looked at the at the bank account for this podcast? For a while, because it's slippery. It's slippery. I'm just looking. I'm just confirming it here. McConaughey, Hathaway, Steven Knight together all sued Avron Pictures. I do believe they genuinely got screwed there.
[01:21:39] You know, in movies quality aside, it was a weird situation where you would email Avron Pictures being like, hey, are there screenings available? And they would be like, no Espanol. Like, you know, like you just like, hello, aren't you a movie studio? Do you have a press screening?
[01:21:54] Like I weird. I know it's not Avron, but the movie After, which actually ended up doing really well, that was Avron. Yes. Oh, that was. Avron. OK, so it was then. So I was assigned by an editor at work to cover that movie.
[01:22:09] And I was like, you don't have to ask me twice. Harry Styles fanfic becomes a movie. Yes, please. I try to find an email. I couldn't find anything. It ended with me calling the production offices and a receptionist answered. And I was like, hi, I'm from Vanity Fair.
[01:22:22] I'm trying to track down a screening or a screener link of After because I have to review it. And the young woman on the phone was like, what where are you from? Oh, OK. Hold on one second.
[01:22:35] And then there was like a long, like I was on hold for maybe a minute, which is a long time. And then a kind of gruff man picked up the phone and was like, why are you calling? What? Why do you want to know about that movie?
[01:22:46] And he just like and like basically hung up the phone. It was like I had called like the mobs, like the Russian mob's like laundering company, like, you know, it was like so crazy and I just I've never seen that movie because of it.
[01:22:58] But like after now has gotten a like foreign produced sequel that's hard r rated that did very well overseas. Well, because the first after did amazingly well in the UK. Right. Bombs here because of Avron. Yeah. Yeah, the new one's called After We Collided.
[01:23:16] Right. And it's made a bunch of money overseas and it is a hard R, right? It's a hard R now. I have no idea. That's that's that's more information that I could give you right now about the after universe. I'm sorry. You've taxed me.
[01:23:31] You found you found my weakness. I know nothing more. But they already greenlit the next two. To wrap Ann's career. Sure. This year she was in The Witches, which is a bad movie that I give two stars.
[01:23:45] And she was in D Reese's, the last thing he wanted, which is on Netflix now, if you want to watch it, which is a snowman level. Did they forget to finish the movie? Object. It's not even bad in a boring way. You're just like, I'm not sure I'm
[01:24:02] seeing and like are there scenes missing? Like what happened? Did they drop it on Netflix by mistake? Did they not upload the final? You know, there's just something so weird about that thing.
[01:24:12] Well, the issue with that is I had to read the novella that it's based on the Joan Diddy and because we were going to do it as like a book club thing for our podcast and then the release got pushed and everything.
[01:24:23] And the book, I mean, much like democracy, a lot of her other fiction, it's really hard to parse what's happening in the book, let alone translate that into not only just like a straightforward thriller, but like something a little
[01:24:36] more artful, which I assumed D.Reeves was trying to do. And it's just like, yeah, none of that works. But if you tell people like there was a big budget Netflix adaptation of a Joan Diddy in work by the writer and director of Mudbound
[01:24:52] starring Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck and Willem Dafoe that came out before the pandemic, like not part of this soup of just things disappearing into the ether. Got like a proper plate at the Paris Theater. It was at Sundance. Yes, it was.
[01:25:07] Right. It like it got like a proper normal before times launch. And and it's just like it has not registered at all because everyone who sees it cannot calculate its existence. But here's my point if I have one about Hathaway sort of post-intern, I guess, career.
[01:25:27] All of those decisions that I'd all those movies, like they basically make sense, I would not say she's made great choices. Things like the hustle and serenity. You know, come on. Ocean's 11 that makes more sense. Dark waters, even the witches, this big director, right?
[01:25:42] I don't know if I can find fault though and be like, this is a train wreck five years. But the collective thing when you look at it, it's like, oh, this is bad, she needs like a well, the problem is she's wandering
[01:25:55] perilously close to Naomi Watts syndrome, which is picked the right thing. You know, there was the right people, the right pedigree. It's just like the project after the one that worked or, you know, it's like the
[01:26:06] Game of Thrones pilot that doesn't go, you know, and and that is a trap that so many actors can fall into. I was never sure that Naomi Watts had like, you know, broken some old Crohn's dream catcher until the Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones thing.
[01:26:21] That was the one where it was like, this is rude. The Game of Thrones show not going was like because, you know, everyone she works with Naomi, I know it's been rough with movies. This is a fucking sure bet.
[01:26:31] Look at the Casper assembling, you're the lead of it. It's HBO. They so rarely don't take a pilot to series like and then. They want to do 10 Game of Thrones spin-offs. This is the first one. There's never been more of a sure thing.
[01:26:44] And they deliver the pilot and they're like, well, wait for the next one. I will say she had a movie that was at Toronto called Penguin Bloom, which is about a magpie, not a penguin. They just name it Penguin.
[01:26:56] That's actually a nice little movie that Netflix picked up and I think it'll be good for her. So I think that movie is going to not exist, Richard. I hate to tell you.
[01:27:05] No, I don't think it's going to exist, but it's not going to be like yet another like, uh-oh for her. No, it won't be a stain. Although I well, I shouldn't say this, but
[01:27:13] I was emailing with a publicist and I said, I think it's really good for her. And I got a very terse response back to that. I don't know what do you mean? What do you mean? Naomi. I love Naomi Watts. I don't mean to clown on Naomi Watts.
[01:27:27] It's just we all are in the same boat with her where we're going, come on. What's going on? But it's a real trap that actors can fall into. I think unfortunately it happens a lot more often to female like, you know,
[01:27:37] female actors at a certain, you know, like late 30s where the projects just get thinner and thinner and so they have to pick the stuff that seems the best. But like you're not guaranteed that as a mechist movie is going to be good.
[01:27:49] You're not guaranteed that, you know, a Joan Diddy and D Reese movie is going to be good. And it's just been a really bad run of bad luck for her. I'll say a couple of things about Hathaway. You know, what do you say?
[01:27:59] I have a longer thing to unpack about Hathaway, who now most give me a Hathaway thing because then I want to pivot to Octavia for a second. Gladly. So Hathaway, I feel like is a particularly good interview.
[01:28:12] I think she's very kind of sober when she talks about her place in the industry and her career, especially for someone who's had great success. Right. Yeah. She's had great success, but had weird ups and downs.
[01:28:22] And she's not self-pitying, you know, but she really sees things, I think, for what they are. And I feel like a couple of years ago, she started in a lot of interviews, not in this boohoo kind of way, saying like, I'm very aware of the fact
[01:28:36] that I'm not the hot young thing anymore, you know? Like that when I started out my career and I was in my early 20s and I was getting roles that were originally written for women in their 30s, that I
[01:28:48] would get stink eye from these actresses who I was now sniping parts out from. And I'm very aware, like that I'm not Jennifer Lawrence, you know, that she's now in that position that I was in and I'm in another point of the
[01:29:01] bell curve that I need to figure out my career is now. So she's in that opposition where it's like, OK, right. So she's not like the spring chicken anymore, but also she's 38 years old. Like she has had so much career for someone who is still incredibly young,
[01:29:15] right? And still looks very young and plays very young. But I think she's aware of that thing that is not just the ages of in Hollywood, but the sort of like, what have you done for me lately? Who's the shiniest object?
[01:29:27] Who is that excitement over kind of thing where then if she still wants to be the lead of a movie, she has to sort of go a little bit sideways to redefine what an Anne Hathaway movie is maybe, you know?
[01:29:39] Which is why I thought Colossal was such an interesting thing for her because it was like it was with Neon. It was this brand new company like and it just didn't pan out. I think the movie deserve better, you know?
[01:29:51] Yeah, I think if she does a few more things like that, maybe some great glossy miniseries, you know, in the vein of Sharp Objects or something like that, she'll be she'll be right back. Like it'll be fine. But like, right.
[01:30:02] The D.Ree's thing makes perfect paper in that way. Makes perfect sense on paper, I should say. It doesn't make perfect paper. It actually makes really bad paper. Yeah, don't try and write on the last thing she wanted. It's not going to.
[01:30:13] No, no, it's like writing on duct tape. But I you see the appeal of something like The Witch is where it's sort of like, well, this is a role that is age agnostic. This sets me up for a different type of career in a certain way.
[01:30:30] I could enter a different era. I can enter an era of more theatricality, more sort of character performances where maybe I can still be the star, the above the title person. But I don't have to be the protagonist anymore in that sort of way.
[01:30:45] Her big movie that she's supposed to do is The Sesame Street Movie, which Jonathan Kressel wrote and is directing who did Moon Base 8 and Baskets and Portlandia is like one of the best comedy directors in television and has not made a feature yet.
[01:31:02] And they twice have been two months away from starting production. The first time it got pulled because she got pregnant again. And the second time it got pulled because the pandemic happened. And that very much feels like her trying to do a like
[01:31:16] she's the main human character, she's the human who's with all the muppets trying to help them get back to Sesame Street, the entire movie. And she'll get to sing and dance and be funny. And she's filming a movie during the about the pandemic, right?
[01:31:30] She's doing she's in lockdown, the Steven Knight movie, which we just talked about on another episode, Griffin. And now I can't remember which one of them. I believe joked about it maybe on three consecutive episodes. Are you sure you guys didn't talk about that
[01:31:41] in a production meeting for with Steven? Well, David is in the movie. We should mention that David is in the film lockdown. I'm the thing they're stealing. She's also in the James Gray movie. She's in the James Gray coming of age, Bronx in the 60s,
[01:31:57] Queens in the 60s movie, which is Sutherland, Oscar Isaac, Hathaway, Robert De Niro, Cape Lancet, which is pretty stacked. There's no way that thing's a nothing. Hathaway and Gray are a good fit. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, it's it's going to be interesting.
[01:32:09] But I think she's trying to figure out she was never really an ingenue, but I think she's trying to find a space for herself as an actress that is not tied to this sort of value of shininess, you know, in this in this stupid industry.
[01:32:25] I hope she gets. Yeah, right. I hope she does some cool stuff soon. Now, Octavia Spencer, who won an Academy Award in 2012, 2011 for the help, you know. And has now been nominated three times or four times? Three time nominee. And I would say is an incredibly reliable actress.
[01:32:42] Like, you know, like doesn't miss and has a really high like Q score, I would think. Yeah, has a high. Right. Is is well liked. Ma is like a meme like ma ma fucking ma's great.
[01:32:55] I just think she has so much good will and she's she's actually the huge and levy example of like, when is she bad? Like, when have you ever seen her be bad? Even if she's been cast in some
[01:33:06] phone in role or what, you know, like she's not really being given much to do. Right. She's solid. She's worked with like Bong Joon-ho, Guillermo del Toro, right? Like, you know, Zemeckis now, like she's worked with interesting directors. Kugler obviously in for Vale Station.
[01:33:25] She was in the Diablo Cody movie. And it has done comedy, drama, horror, has done animated movies. Right. Yeah. Just it's just sort of like a lot of these movies aren't what are not movies that I love. So I you know, she's in a few divergence apparently.
[01:33:42] That's one of those series is that people were in. I think Naomi Watts is in one of those. Well, Naomi Watts is in one of them and Kate Winslet kills her. Or Naomi Watts kills Kate Winslet.
[01:33:55] I forget who knows who can say that's the franchise that was never finished. Right. They just never made a final movie. It was going to go on. It was going to go on to Amazon and then they just said, actually, you know what?
[01:34:05] We're not going to make it at all. Because the idea of legitimate movie stars having to do something that goes straight to a streaming platform was the world's greatest insult four years ago to Shailene Woodley like it was not even right. Ansel Elgort. Yeah. Who?
[01:34:19] And like I did not exactly who indeed. I did not like loose. I did truly own a film, but some people liked it. I think she's pretty interesting in that.
[01:34:32] Ma is a movie that is just made to be a meme made to be kind of like a fun trashy horror movie they should make another Ma, I think. But you know, I liked Ma. Have you seen Ma Grif? Yeah, yeah, I've seen Ma.
[01:34:49] Ma is real good. Ma was fun. Yeah, I saw Ma with some friends back when you could go to like friends houses and stuff. And we went then went to a bar, which is like a kind of a room in public where you would drink and stuff.
[01:35:02] And I something in my brain like just really shut down and I couldn't stop making Ma puns for well, well, well past where it was funny at all. And people were genuinely getting annoyed at me, but I couldn't. Any time there was an a sound in a
[01:35:19] sentence I was saying, I would have to replace it with Ma. It was that movie is potent. That's what I'll say. Yeah, absolutely. Isn't that thing Ava, the latest Tate Taylor movie right with Jessica Chastain and Colin Farrell and fuck? That's just on Netflix.
[01:35:35] Yeah, well, yeah, because it was on Red Box or something. It was on Direct TV or Direct TV, Direct TV. Right. And now it's on Netflix and it's like doing well. And I hovered over it the other day, you know,
[01:35:48] like when on show, like a little autoplay a preview scene of the movie. And it was just Gina Davis in a wheelchair talking to Jessica Chastain about her hair. And I was like, isn't this an action movie? It was a very strange choice. I just I'm just
[01:36:04] Tate Taylor's career. I don't I genuinely like two of the movies he made and I really can't stand one of them. And the one that I can't stand is the one that was nominated for Best Picture. But like I think Get On Up is pretty great.
[01:36:19] Yeah, I think Ma was a lot of fun. I never saw the girl on the train. I assume that is bad. Like that was always my it's bad except that like there are good performances in it. But the guy works right?
[01:36:31] He'll get a good performance out of someone and he's got a sort of trashy feel that is now feeling like it's like, oh, this is like his thing, not just sort of what he samples into. The trashiness is what I like.
[01:36:47] I wish he'd go whole hog into that. Octavia's just got such an interesting career because it's like she was a casting associate, right? She's like the reader. Three Tate Taylor movies. Sorry, four Tate Taylor movies just to be clear. That's why I believe they did the groundlings together.
[01:37:04] Am I mistaken about that? Old, old friends. They're old because she's in his movie that no one's ever heard of. It's called like Chicken Party or whatever. You know, she's like in math. We should also mention that Octavia Spencer produced Green Book. She did. Yes.
[01:37:16] Yes, she's been working a lot. Yeah. No, but my point here was Octavia Spencer started out, I believe, is either a casting associate or a reader or both. But she worked in casting for a long time and was one of those people where like
[01:37:30] they would occasionally give her a small part, right? Because they were like, she's really good. You should give her like an under five. Just to be clear, Kate Winslet is the reader. But yes, everything else you're saying is true. Thank you for the clarification.
[01:37:45] But you know, and she's way back if you watch like being Jean-Malekovic, she has one scene in that. You know, before she started getting bigger roles, I knew her as just one of those people we were like, you knew her face? Yeah.
[01:37:57] That's a fun one scene character actor presence. But like isn't she in like Dinner First Mux or something? Absolutely. Her first credit is 1996, A Time to Kill Rourke's nurse, right? She's the woman in the elevator in Malcovich. She's in like Big Mom. You know, she's in Spider-Man.
[01:38:15] Right, right. Big, big Santa when it was had Hamilton. Like she's just in all these fucking movies. And then excuse me, when she got the help, I think it was very much seen as one of those like here's someone who's just been like doing the work for years.
[01:38:31] It never was a given that she was ever going to get a part this good. She stepped up to the plate. This movie's dog shit. It's a shit pie. But like I'm all in favor of giving her the Oscar because when is she going to get
[01:38:43] another chance like this? And then surprisingly, like in a positive turn in this bullshit world, she's gotten two other Oscar nominations and has not only kept a robust career working on like really interesting projects of different directors,
[01:38:57] but is also like kind of willed herself into becoming a movie star. Like I thought she was just going to be at best a sort of like high level character actress like that's a big and Octavia Spencer or whatever. But she's kind of done it all now.
[01:39:11] She's done her own fucking TV shows. She's starred in things. She's played supporting things. So you said she's done voice over. She ran a fowl of Angel Lansbury, which is a huge career landmark for anyone. Wait, did she?
[01:39:23] Well, because she was going to star in a remake of Murder. She wrote. She was. That sounds good. Like a great idea after the help. That was going to be her huge TV thing. And then Angel Lansbury like issued.
[01:39:34] Did some interview and was like, I don't understand the sense bad or something. And and then the show didn't the show didn't happen not because of Angel Lansbury, but it they coincided. But that's something if Octavia wants to come back to that 15 years from now,
[01:39:48] I'm game like that project only gets better. The older she gets exactly. It can last. That's true. Well, I mean, according to the witches, she's 90 years old. So I guess the witches is to create her. What I like about that narrative you just laid out Griffin about like
[01:40:01] the you know, this kind of not fluke because she's good in the movie, but like come out of nowhere Oscar win and then the subsequent two nominations to prove that it wasn't at all a fluke is it's kind of a it's a condensed version of
[01:40:14] the Marissa Tomei narrative where it's like Marissa Tomei got two other Oscar nominations after her deserved win. But she's still kind of staying people saw well. Right. Yes. Right. Whereas Octavia is fully seen as like, oh, one of our great actors.
[01:40:29] A movie star in the span of, you know, six years. Yeah. Right. Right. Because even you look like her run in between help and hidden figures is not as strong as her run from hidden figures to now. You know, we're even just like she does red band
[01:40:46] society, which gets canceled on Fox like she after winning an Oscar just does a Fox show that doesn't really connect. I think her Apple TV show did OK too. Yeah. And we're also we're not even talking about her single biggest accomplishment. What? Which is David.
[01:41:02] What? She's dab, dab the duck in too little. I know she is. She sure is dab, dab the duck in my scene. That's the film I've seen twice. But do you know how that happened Griffin? She went to the studio and presented her chilling vision in chilling detail.
[01:41:20] She opened the book of dab, dab from the book itself. I think we just also have to acknowledge that Angela Lance re played balloon lady and Mary Poppins returns. That's a thing that happened. It was committed to film, but does she know she did? I don't know.
[01:41:36] No, no, she just said it get apart with balloon. You know, that's also that that part was designed for Julie Andrews. She was like hard pass. I believe younger, like 10 years younger than Angela. Absolutely. Angela is 95 years old. Right. Right. And it's like the Angela Lansbury.
[01:41:55] It's like the connection there is like, OK, she was the star of Bednobs and Broomsticks, which is the movie that everyone confuses with Mary Poppins. I just like that they were like, OK, there's this clear chain of succession where we can have Dick Van Dijk come back
[01:42:09] and play the son of the banker from the last movie that works. And no one else is playing Bert, but we've replaced Mary Poppins. So we should give her some role to pay tribute. Julie Andrews sees it and she's like, this would be rude.
[01:42:23] Let Emily Blunt do her thing. I don't need to be in this movie. And they were like, OK, so I don't know, some other legendary broad. Who's some other like classy bag of bones we can put in this movie for one scene? Hand bent windshield balloon.
[01:42:36] It was going to be Sean Connery. Balloons. I love the balloons. There's that 15 years of roles in movies where you're like, what is this part? And they're like, they were really trying to coax Connery out of retirement.
[01:42:51] This exists in the movie because they thought they were going to get to him in the last second. He said I'd rather golf. All right. Do we have any more thoughts on the witches? Because I want to play the box office game and yes,
[01:43:02] we will be playing the box office game. That's right. I don't know how you're going to do this. I will say this, I think is can now go down in history as the least we've ever talked about a movie on this show.
[01:43:15] I mean, what am I supposed to say? I like the costume design. But it's like I said at the top of the show, three things happen in the story. Like there's not a lot to really go through. I don't know. He moves the camera around a bit.
[01:43:27] I hated the mouse shit. Yeah, here's what I'll say. I think the mouse shit sucks. I can't figure out what's wrong with it. Aside from, as you said, it's too anticky. But also I think they have the wrong approach to animating the mice. There's a weird like.
[01:43:41] The mice are all wrong. Yeah, the whole vibe of them is wrong. Their performances are just like they move like little people, but it's also not mo capped. It's clearly like key framed animated and they're really cartoon.
[01:43:54] Either out of a different movie, they look worse than Stuart Little. It's very odd, especially because I feel like so much of the eeriness of the witches when you read the book and you would see the images in your brain.
[01:44:05] But also watching the rogue movie is that it's like, oh, that looks like a real mouse and a kid's voice is coming out of it. There's that existential like Kafkaesque terror of there's a kid trapped
[01:44:15] in the mouse's body that is somehow taken away when the mouse is just like walking around on two feet and going like, hey, how you doing, lady? Like this very expressive bipedal mouse. You know, there's also the problem of Kristen Chenoweth sounds like a kid for an adult.
[01:44:32] She doesn't actually sound like a child. And yet she's acting as a child against two actual children. And it just like it makes no sense whatsoever. But I'd heard everyone shit on this movie and I will say the first whatever it was 30 minutes until they get turned
[01:44:48] into mice, I was like, I'm surprised by how much I'm liking this. I thought there was genuine feeling to the stuff with Octavia Spencer and the grandson scene where she dances and so good to get him to cheer up. And that whole sequence is wonderful.
[01:45:00] That all that stuff is great. Right. And that's a lot of that's Octavia. But it feels like there's some feeling and specificity there to that. And I actually like the first grand meeting scene. Until the witch it's fun turns him into a fucking mouse.
[01:45:16] I like it. And here's the thing I'll say I like about it, because I think this is going to be a slightly controversial opinion before we stop talking about this movie and never talk about it ever again in the history
[01:45:24] of this podcast. I do like he's not pushing any boundaries here technologically, but I do like that in its best moments. I do think he is using CGI in a way that I prefer, which is he is just trying to create nightmare imagery, right?
[01:45:43] Like there's shit like the weird growing of the witch arms that I kind of like because it feels aggressively disturbing and completely unconcerned with realism. And it feels like a modern evocation of I feel like a lot of the children's
[01:45:58] movies that our generation talk about that kind of scarred us where you're just like that weird thing that's seen upset me, like shit like the rogue, the witches or lost in Oz or whatever, you know? Oh, well, that's really what I like
[01:46:11] premised my review on when I when I wrote the review of the witches is like this kind of like belabored intro about like maybe it's just my age, but it just feels like when I was a kid,
[01:46:21] movies were genuinely scary and for me for children like return to us like the witches. And what I appreciated to some mild extent in this is that like that scene with the arms, if I were seven years old, eight years old,
[01:46:34] nine years old watching that, I would actually be scared. Right. It's it's it's a faint praise award. But as opposed to a lot of these movies, which seem to be sanitized from top to bottom, there are moments where I feel like this film actually
[01:46:48] succeeds in achieving a kind of Raw Dolls scariness. None of the I mean, Nicholas Rowe directs that movie like a horror movie. It looks like to Syria, but like the rules. But this, you know, I think that they're losing a bit of like the
[01:47:03] the particular shabby kind of whimsy of Raw Doll. I agree. But but yeah, I think that like where it counts in terms of little kids seeing the movie and and actually having some sort of I mean, I think it's good that scary things should imprint on kids
[01:47:18] if they're actually, you know, if they're harmless, you know, that's the thing I like about. I liked that it's a little bit scary. The mice suck. That's my review. I guess I give it what did you give it, David? Oh, two out of five.
[01:47:31] OK, so I'm trying to think if I give it another but I'm trying to think which I would give it. I guess I give it I give it half a cheek. Yeah, half a cheek. All right, there you go. Somewhere between half a cheek and a P. Can.
[01:47:44] Let's play the box office game. We're going to do the box office week that this movie came out and was always supposed to come out October 23rd to any 20. Can you tell me what the number one movie at the box office was that week Griffin?
[01:47:55] It was a film with a major movie star. Can I just point out the biggest thing I think we've lost this year is the box office. Right. And the box office game. Yes.
[01:48:07] But but but also it's just kind of never going to come back in the same way. Like I think this is the opportunity that studios have always been looking for to start hiding their finances a little bit and only having to report things during investor days.
[01:48:20] And I think you're going to see a lot, especially with movies that are being released day in date. There's there's going to be a lot less transparency with this stuff. It's going to be a lot harder for us to play this game.
[01:48:31] Let's keep on talking about the past. OK, so give me it's October 23rd, 2020. Is Hocus Pocus the number one movie at the box office? Hocus Pocus is number six at the box office. Thank you for bringing it up, though. But it is doing very well and it's
[01:48:46] fourteen hundred and twenty fourth week making a robust five hundred and thirty thousand. But no, number one, it was number one last week. It's holding very well this week to two point three million dollars. That's right. Number one at the box office.
[01:49:00] It's an action movie. Action for a lot of honest thief. Honest thief never steal a man's second chance. OK, yeah. OK, Liam Neeson is the honest thief. What if there was an honest thief?
[01:49:14] OK, does it just feel weird to like talk about a movie like this and have none of us gone to see it in theaters? I mean, to be fair, I'm not sure any of us would have seen honest thief.
[01:49:23] Maybe I would have seen honest thief in theater even by my fandom of crappy Liam Neeson movies. I would have been their opening night. I would have brought my cauldron. Oh, God, no, no, thank you. Liam Neeson, he plays the In-N-Out Bandit in that movie. That's his nickname.
[01:49:40] The In-N-Out Bandit? Yeah, I don't think he robs In-N-Out. I think he's just In-N-Out quickly. But no, he steals people's copies of In-N-Out on DVD. The real In-N-Out Bandit is Joan Cusack because she stole that movie. She steals that movie, Richard.
[01:49:58] Next year, he's in a movie called The Marksman. Liam Neeson is going to make these things until he is forcibly arrested and put in prison. What if he's the last theatrical movie star? That's fine, I guess, whatever.
[01:50:11] Number two at the box office has been out for three weeks. It's made nine million dollars. War with grandpa. It's the war with grandpa. I mean, it's still in pickings here, David. I'm trying to remember here. I mean, I still do check the box office every week.
[01:50:25] I feel like it's not sinking in, but clearly it is. Hocus Pocus, I feel like peaked earlier. Right? Because there was the week where suddenly Hocus Pocus outgrows Tenet, but I think that was earlier in October. It was the week where I'm not sure it ever
[01:50:39] quite outgrows Tenet, but there was a week. No, but it was close in on October 9th. It was within October 2nd and October 9th. It was within a million dollars of Tenet both times. But it never quite caught it. But the war with grandpa, though.
[01:50:57] So obviously salute the veterans of the war with grandpa. Oaks, Fegli, Wee Stan. I don't know. I mean, that movie was shot, I think, 2016. It was shot pre-Winstein Me Too. Yeah, it was produced by Weinstein in the Obama administration. Right.
[01:51:18] It is truly incredible to look at the poster for War with Grandpa and then look up a photo of what Oaks, Fegli looks like today. There was a Twitter meme going around or like a prompt like this week or last week about like
[01:51:31] you're one of your favorite movies in just four stills and not, you know, no text or whatever. Yes. And I was like, Google image search war with grandpa. And I found two stills from the movie from different scenes where it's just
[01:51:50] Robert De Niro looking, you know, kindly down at Oaks, Fegli with his hand on his shoulder, different sweaters, different points in the movie. I just I really, you know, you can tell what that movie is about from those cells. It sounds like it's about the love with grandpa.
[01:52:04] Yeah, yeah, seriously. That movie also has eight names above the title. Uma Thurman, Rob Riggle, Harvey Cytel, Christopher Walken. Angel Lansbury, balloon lady. Cheech Marin, Cheech Marin, yeah, De Niro, Thurman, Riggle, Fegli, Nora Morano with Cheech Marin. Wait, I have to get this right.
[01:52:27] With Cheech Marin, with Jane Seymour and Christopher Walken. Wow. Is Cytel not in it? I'm trying to remember if he bowed out or I just added him in my mind. Cytel is not in it as far as I know.
[01:52:41] You're in a war with Harvey Cytel, but it's not has nothing to do with it. I'm in a war with Cytel. I should also just mention we should pay some respect as you listed the cast there. Laura Morano of the War with Grandpa, of course,
[01:52:54] we know her best for being in the Back to You sitcom. And if you want to see Laura Morano on the Back to You sitcom, you got to watch that Back to You season one DVD box set. I feel dirty. You know, he signed that
[01:53:08] The Texas lawsuit against the election. I'm saying Dan Crenshaw lights camera Jackson. He signed it lights camera Jackson. And the weird thing is he does have standing. Yeah, the Supreme Court will hear his argument. Yeah.
[01:53:26] Number four at the box office is the most successful film released post pandemic. Tenet Tenet, which made fifty seven million dollars domestically and is still in theaters. So I guess it can keep adding to that total.
[01:53:44] And you have to wonder when a movie will next surpass that number. Yes, and three hundred and sixty million dollars worldwide. Tenet, we talked about it recently. Number five at the box office is a a Halloween classic. It was re-released. It's not hook his, hook his. No.
[01:54:08] Is it a horror movie or is it like a family Halloween movie? It's a family film. Is it Nightmare? Yes, Nightmare Before Christmas, which I guess comes out every year, right? Well, they were doing the 3D re-releases every year and then I feel like they
[01:54:22] stopped them and then I think that they've been doing a robust business this year because it also, I mean, that Disney just fucking cracked the code on that movie, which is just like we make money from Halloween to Christmas.
[01:54:32] That movie just runs the table for the last three months of the year. I'm sorry, I'm forgot. I'm realizing I forgot to ask you with the number three movies. The only new film at the box office this week is making one million dollars. It's number three.
[01:54:47] There's a reason I forgot it if you if you consider it's title. This is one of those movies. It's a horror film that was like literally released under cover of darkness. Halebiliology? If only. So wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. I'm sorry.
[01:55:06] Honest Thief is number one. Worth Grandpa's number two. Yes, you're saying Tenant is number four and Nightmare is number five. OK, yes, that's right. Over the century. I irresponsible. The score is now 27 Griffin to David. OK, it's it's not the it's not the amblin one, right?
[01:55:27] It's not come play or whatever that's called. The ghillie jigs one. The most insane title ever given to you. Listen to comedy bang bang where he kept calling it come play. Yes, I did. Yes, I just kept saying come play.
[01:55:42] That's that's a fun realization saying that movie out loud for the first time. But that's like that's another movie where you're like, I don't know. I guess that made eleven million dollars. I guess that's the fifth highest grossing film of twenty twenty. Yeah, it's sticking around.
[01:55:54] I guess you're right. Unhinged Do Well. Unhinged Did I think about as well as it would have done not in a pandemic? It made twenty million dollars. That's huge for a documentary. Rich. That movie, that movie. Oh, I have some things to say about that movie.
[01:56:17] Have you seen it? Mm hmm. Wow. Yeah, I saw it. I had to write about it. So did I. Yep. No, come on Griffin. It stars an actor we both like. We were talking about him with Nia Dacosta. Hmm. James Badgedale. James Badgedale, it was another one.
[01:56:35] It was filmed in twenty seventeen and it was a Fox movie that just sat while the Disney movie sort of went on. Right. It's called The Something Man, right? The Empty Man. Yeah. And it was one of those things where even by the standards of a pandemic
[01:56:55] release, it got dumped. This is what I'm talking about though, Richard. It's like that's where they fucking hide the movies now in theaters. Streaming all eyes on streaming. That's where you put your big money propositions. Anyway, that's it. That's our episode. This is the Anna Samakis.
[01:57:12] Oh, but we have to do our rankings. Oh, boy, Jesus. I totally forgot about that. Let me see if I have my up-to-date rankings here. I'm going to stall for a moment. It's not like that's ever happened on the end of an episode, end of a miniseries before.
[01:57:26] Ha, ha, ha. I think I do have this, but I might shift a couple of things. So why don't you read your list first? Richard, I assume you want to do yours now. Yeah, my ranking, it's actually just an acrostic that spells out Beowulf. Is that?
[01:57:43] Richard, what is your favorite Zemeckis movie? I guess that's an easier question. Well, I mean, our friend Jamie was talking about my favorite contact on this podcast. Yes. I put Castaway on the BBC poll of best of the decade or best of the 21st century so
[01:58:02] far or something. I love, love, love Castaway. I know it's a polarizing movie. But I think it's contact and Castaway that were the two because I liked Forest Gump. You know, I was like 11 when it came out or whatever. I saw Back to the Future.
[01:58:16] I liked those fine. But but contact and Castaway just felt like grown up cinema that I was like finally as a teenager ready to like claim as my own. You know, and so I've always been like excited about
[01:58:32] Zemeckis movie, even though he has let us down as you guys have extensively covered some less than fruitful avenues in recent years. OK, I have my list. It's 20 in total. 20. I just I did my rearranging while Richard was talking and I want to say it now
[01:58:52] because if I let you read it first, I'm going to change my list more times. OK, ready? Number one, Back to the Future. Yes, sure. Number two, Who Framed the Roger Rabbit? Number three, Castaway. Nice. Number four, David and Richard.
[01:59:12] Don't At Me, Back to the Future Part Two. Sure. Sure. What Robert Zemeckis calls perhaps the weirdest film I will ever make in my entire career. It's a weird but that's about the human Back to the Future, not the toy. The real Back to the Future too.
[01:59:28] Number five, I want to hold your hand. Number six, Allied. What? Six. Good God, that's ridiculous. All right, keep it going, keep it going. Griffin just became Matthew Morrison as the Grinch, like not in background. David, you don't want to know how high it was originally.
[01:59:50] I only changed it recently. That's ridiculous. OK, number seven, Contact. You have it over Contact. All right, keep going. I mean, I could maybe flip those two. You do what you want. Number eight, Death Becomes Her. Yeah. Number nine, Back to the Future, Part Three. Mm hmm.
[02:00:08] Number 10, Remancing the Stone. Yep. Number 11, Used Cars. Yep. A fun comedy with bad gender politics. Sure. Twelve, Beowulf. OK. I'm sorry. I mean, take that again. Twelve. Beowulf! Yeah, it's all right. OK, sorry. Sorry, I didn't give that the right energy for the first time.
[02:00:35] Keep going, keep going. Number 13, What Lies Beneath? Yes. Number 14, I'm going to roll it. Flight. Yeah, feeling all right. Number 15, Forest Gump. Yeah, we both have it low. Number 16, The Witches. Wow, OK. The Forest Gump just barely edging out a movie
[02:00:58] that I will never think about ever again for the rest of my life. Uh huh. And then this is where I go into like, what do I value more or less in movies I don't like? Right, like which qualities irritate me more versus which qualities do I
[02:01:14] have to respect begrudgingly more? So these four, the ranking is tough, but this is what I came up with. Number 17, The Walk. Ultimately, The Walk itself puts it above the other three. I think The Walk itself is just such a good sequence,
[02:01:31] even if the rest of that movie is annoying. Number 18, Welcome to Marwyn. Was very confident that was going to be dead last for me. You fuckers, knock it up two positions on my list. And then number 19, Polar Express.
[02:01:47] And number 20, just through sheer, I have almost never seen a less engaging film with nothing of interest going on a Christmas Carol. All right. Here's, I mean, well, there's some divergence, but you know, we luck. All right. OK.
[02:02:06] Number one for me, Roger Rabbit, as I think I've talked about. Which I've never seen. You'd like it. It's a good movie. I was not allowed to see it. My mom had very selective rules and that was one for her brother was killed by a tune. Right.
[02:02:21] Well, no, but that was in Cool World. So I don't know what the what the Roger Rabbit issue was, but. You'd like it. Number one rabbit, number two, Back to the Future. Number three, Contact. Yeah. Number four, Cast Away. Yeah. Number five, I want to hold your hand.
[02:02:40] That's my five. Number six, Death Becomes Her. Number seven, Back to the Future. Part three, number eight, Used Cars. Number nine, Back to the Future. Part two, number 10, Romancing the Stone. Part two higher than I thought you'd put it. I'm pleased.
[02:02:58] I have a real old and new divide with him, though. It's undeniable, but I guess it's not so crazy. Number 11, Flight. Feeling all right. Number 12, Allied. Number 13, What Lies Beneath. Those two are pretty close for me. Like flawed, interesting, star driven. I don't know.
[02:03:18] You know that one's very flippable. Fourteen, I am Beowulf. Fifteen, Welcome to Marwin. Sixteen, Gump. That might be trolley of me. I might have to think about that. I mean, I like it. Seventeen, The Walk. Eighteen, The Polar Express. I've got the witches down at nineteen.
[02:03:40] There's nothing for me there. I can't believe. Christmas Carol is your obvious basement dweller. Right. I thought, I thought because you and I were debating like a week or two ago about whether to put Polar Express or Christmas Carol in last position.
[02:03:53] And the fact for me is like Polar Express is aggressively bad, but that makes it intriguing. It's interesting. It's interesting. It gets to eighteen by being by sheer force of mania. Christmas Carol just sucks. Fuck that movie.
[02:04:10] If if Mars needs moms had counted, where would that have raged? One, obviously. Yeah, we're going to contact could have been called Earth needs dad. Yes. We're not topping that. That's the end of Zemeckis. Twenty weeks with some interludes.
[02:04:28] Can I just say because, you know, trying to, you know, with distance now figure out ultimately who is Robert Zemeckis, right? Who is he as a filmmaker? I'm not pretending this is as much of a serial parody as it used to be.
[02:04:41] But to some degree, that's always the thing we're trying to answer on this show when we spend this month this much time covering one filmmaker, right? And I feel like a lot of what we've discussed. You know, not just the man,
[02:04:54] the siren song of technology luring him away from some of his best story instincts, but also this question of how much of Zemeckis' work is satirical, right? How much of it should you take at face value?
[02:05:06] What is his intent, especially someone who started out as a sort of comedic anarchist? And I think there's a moment in the witches, ironically, despite not being very good film that does kind of show what a sort of sly
[02:05:23] filmmaker he is and how he's able to use the different elements of filmmaking as a medium in order to convey a really complex message. And so I just want to spotlight this before we finish our Robert Zemeckis mini
[02:05:38] series, there is a point in the witches in which Octavia Spencer says, we are family and then it cuts to her dropping the needle on a record player and then we are family plays. Be good to yourselves and each other.
[02:06:02] Have you guys been doing this for five months? That's not your longest that was Burton longer. Burton's twenty one or twenty two. It's right at the same period as Burton and him or similar chunks. Were you announced this season? Oh, my God, what? Here, thank you.
[02:06:19] I'm segueing for you so much. Folks, now that I've made my final Zemeckis does a bad needle drop in the most on the nose way possible joke is time to announce our next too many series. That's right. That's right.
[02:06:32] We're announcing too many series at once because one of the mini series is about as easy to watch as anything we've ever covered. And one of them is a little bit tricky, so we want to announce them both in one go. Our next mini series, much discussed.
[02:06:45] We I think we kind of just, you know, test drove the idea by talking about it in a bunch of episodes and then lately have been teasing it, but we're doing John Musker, Ron Clements. Or did I mix their names up? Is it Ron Clements and John Musker?
[02:07:01] It's John Musker and Ron Clements. You had it right. OK, we're doing Musker and Clements. Good job. Legendary, modern Disney animation directors. This mini series allows us to cover the Disney Renaissance. So we're talking Great Mouse Detective, Little Mermaid. We're talking Aladdin. We're talking Hercules.
[02:07:20] We're talking Treasure Planet. Princess and the Frog. We are Moana. All those movies streaming now on Disney Plus. The only entertainment company that will exist probably in five years. And after that. Because that mini series is going to take us until, I don't know, David,
[02:07:39] I guess right about the end of March, right? Feels like that end of March. Yes, we will. We will also have the blankies there to, you know, as a palette cleanser right at the end of March. We'll have the blankies there, but we're we're saving a Ben's choice
[02:07:53] for later in the summer. So there won't be a Ben's choice between now and starting Musker Clements. And there won't be a Ben's choice after because, well, things lined up pretty nicely. So why not make April May this year, David? Well, whatever you mean, Griffin is May.
[02:08:15] That's really good. Four weeks of April for Elaine May movies. A new leaf, Heartbreak Kid, Mikey and Nikki Ishtar. Easy to see. If you wanted to make it a five week thing, you could I could find video of the Elaine May play I was in in high school.
[02:08:33] You were in an Elaine May play in high school. It's called adaptation. It's like loaded with seventies references like Khalil Gibran and stuff like that, and we as high schoolers in 2000 did it, not understanding a single joke.
[02:08:45] But we went to semifinals in the Massachusetts High School drama guild. So one air comedy, Casas for People. Well, we had a cast of about 18. I mean, that sounds like some good picture and content to me. Just saying. Yes, we're doing Elaine May, the so far
[02:09:03] formed film career supposedly she might make a fifth maybe. Who knows? She's not a young woman, but hopefully. Yeah. A true original. She's been on the bracket a few times. She made an absolutely huge blank check movie in Ishtar that was a legendary bounce and roll.
[02:09:25] She shot a million fucking feet of film on the night. Mikey and Nikki, you know, like she's in our home. She's one of a kind. She's the one of one. Right. She rules and we're going to cover her and I'm excited. So yeah, Musker Clements, Elaine May.
[02:09:38] That's what you need to know. Heartbreak in particular, very hard to see. So you might want to start trying to track that one down now. Yes. Heartbreak. It's impossible impossible to say. Weirdly. It's a Fox movie. I found out no.
[02:09:53] I found out why and we'll talk about it when we get to that episode. Whatever. Fair enough. From now. Richard, thank you so much for being on the show. Always a pleasure. Yeah, thanks for having me. You're alien Patreon as a plug to subscribe to the Patreon.
[02:10:07] I've been really enjoying your alien series and it caused me late at night to rent Alien Covenant, which was a mistake because I had very bad dreams. Yeah, not a good late night movie, but a good movie. And Richard, if you love those, then you will probably enjoy
[02:10:22] the logical next step for our Patreon. Our series of commentaries on the Crocodile Dundee movies currently happening over at patreon.com slash blank check. That is real. That is a thing we've decided to commit our time to doing. And hopefully people do not unsubscribe. Well, I just did.
[02:10:40] But everyone else, I'm sure everyone else, please stay on. And thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate review and subscribe, not unsubscribe. Thanks to Lea Montgomery for our theme song or shiny new theme song. Hell, yeah. Remastered twenty twenty one version.
[02:10:57] Blank check theme brackets twenty twenty one. Thanks to Joe, Bo and Pat rounds for our artwork. Go to our Shopify page for some nerdy merch, including restock of the Comedy Points coins and the talk in the walk twenty twenty shirt.
[02:11:15] Go to blanks.com for some real nerdy shit. Tune in next week. We're going straight into Great Mouse Detective, right? That's right. Well, screw Clemens, baby. So fire up that Disney Plus. We're talking radigan, baby. And as always, I'm David. Yep.
[02:11:34] Now, I was doing the joke about how long it takes you to say I'm David at the beginning, so I did it again at the end. But I I'm the one who said I'm David even though I'm grifting. Yeah, it was really weird.
[02:11:42] But, you know, I sort of got what you were going for.