War of the Worlds with J.D. Amato

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check

[00:00:20] No one would have believed in the early years of the 21st century that our world was being watched by intelligence as greater than our own

[00:00:28] That as men busied themselves about their various concerns, they observed and studied the way a man with a microscope might scrutinize the creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water

[00:00:40] With infinite complacency, men went to and fro about the globe confident of our empire over this world Yet across the Gulf of space, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded our planet with envious eyes And slowly and surely drew their podcasts against us Hi I'm Morgan Freeman

[00:01:04] I'm David Sim And I'm Griffin Newman Welcome to Blank Check with Griffin and David I think the through line of this miniseries is me doing a consistently horrible impressions of people that everyone can impersonate Who have we done right now? We've done walking And I'm not sure that

[00:01:22] Right, who have you swung and missed on walking? I think there's one other big one that I missed on, I can't remember now because we're recording all these out of order We're also recording like 17 episodes a day Yes we are, 17 a day Yeah

[00:01:34] We're sucking up movies, is Red Goo, and then we're spraying them out everywhere Yeah, and then we become grey dusty tentacles that evaporate into the wind What podcast is this that we're recording so much of that's sucking us dry? Why it's Blank Check with Griffin and David True

[00:01:52] We are hashtag the two friends Yes we are Two friends who host a podcast together, what's that podcast about? Well, it's about filmographies, it's about directors who have massive success early on And Hollywood gives them a blank check to make their own crazy projects All true

[00:02:11] Based on their own whims, they get a series of get out of jail free cards And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby Is that Morgan coming back? I don't know, I can't decide Okay

[00:02:26] We're talking about Stevie Spielberg, little Stevie Spielberg, that nice kid from down the street In the DreamWorks era He's won two Oscars, he owns his own studio, he can do whatever the fuck he wants Yes

[00:02:38] This main series is called Pogme if you cast, and we are up to his first of two 2005 pictures Yes, in his third triptych, like in his third two and threes, three and twos even Yes, David's three and twos theory

[00:02:53] Yeah, my three and two theory, it's you know, he made three movies in two years over and over Then he takes a break and then I'll make another, da-da-da, a break, da-da-da That's his rhythm, that's his drumbeat Is he rushing or dragging?

[00:03:06] You'll have to ask J.K. Simmons to find out He's not in this movie No, he's our guest next week on our Munich episode Now, now Now, now, Brown Cat This movie we're talking about today is War of the Worlds War of the Worlds 2005

[00:03:25] Yeah, that's the theme, the famous War of the Worlds theme 2005 sci-fi disaster movie I'd say it's a survival horror film A little bit Within the sci-fi But it's a disaster movie though Yes, 100% It has all the hallmarks of the disaster film Yes

[00:03:49] Rather than an alien invasion movie that's usually more of an action film or a triumphant film This is a disaster movie, this is things falling apart With us today is a very special guest He is now throwing his hat into The rapidly competitive arms race Yeah, for

[00:04:15] To join the Five Timers Club on our show Yeah, yeah, yeah This is your third Stop by? This is my third stop by in this I was on the way here, I was trying to figure out if it was my third

[00:04:25] Or it feels like it's more but that's because I think we've done other projects together Sure, correct But no, it's the third This is the third Speed racer Clone Wars No, not the Clone Wars Attack of the Clones Digital Filmmaker And now this

[00:04:39] I think you're one of four people who have done three episodes now Is that right? So it's like the question of who's gonna hit five first I mean, I'm gonna do it for number one We're gonna jump into Legend

[00:04:48] We're just gonna do the Legend episode at some point You know, we did talk about Legend way back on the day In the Attack of the Bargass And we're gonna do Toys for sure Yes And right now by saying it aloud I've inserted myself into both of those

[00:05:01] Pods Oh my god, I wanna talk all day about Toys I'd love to talk about it I weirdly like taped that movie off a TV when I was a kid So I watched it like a bunch of weird movies to watch a bunch When you're a kid

[00:05:12] That's a great movie, it's a weird movie It is the ultimate blank chat It's a great movie David David Take that back No I refuse to take that back It's a fascinating movie Our guest is JD Amato Hey guys, somebody stop me

[00:05:29] The only guy that Jim Carrey had been in this movie That's my impression of Jim Carrey He's our James Carrey Yes Our resident James Carrey, JD Amato James Carrey is kind of a lanky guy, right? He's sort of a... Yeah, you have similar builds

[00:05:39] Yeah, and I pull faces that you guys at home can't hear But right now I'm doing a really good Richard Nixon face The voice I don't have yet But look at this JD much like the first incarnation of Batman villain play face

[00:05:54] Is literally molding his face into a perfect sculpture of Richard Nixon How did Batman ever beat play face? That's made of clay Do you know that though the first version of clay face isn't like a big clay mount? Right, he's just like

[00:06:06] He's just a dude in a suit who's an actor And he's like hold on let me work on this He's like Spider-Man's chameleon Yeah Except he has to literally sculpt his face Hey man How did Batman beat anyone though is really the question here That's a fair point

[00:06:18] Well, he's the world's greatest detective What? Really? Because it seems like he's the world's greatest ninja with otherworldly gadgets Calls himself the world's greatest detective Yeah and let's remember that ninjas are nature's detectives Not nature's pet detectives When nature calls like Jim Carrey bringing it all back

[00:06:39] Gotham City do not go in there Thank you this has been our episode on world world Jim Carrey could be an interesting Batman Oh my gosh He was the Riddler of course He'd be a better Batman Oh my gosh I think then That's the dream casting Yeah

[00:06:55] He'd be an interesting Batman because he's a maniac Okay Jim Carrey as Batman Jacob Tremblay as the butler Alfred Alfred Sure I don't know why Jacob You guys have some hard on for Jacob You guys have some hard on for Jacob

[00:07:10] So let's get this out of the way Okay Okay Oh yeah this has to Yeah The third wheel of our tricycle Prusa Ben Oh sure Okay Prusa Ben Okay the Ben Deucer Okay the Poet Laureate Okay the Haas Okay Mr. Haasitive Okay the Fart Detective

[00:07:28] Okay the Meat Lover Okay the Poet Laureate I say that already Okay the Peeper Okay our finest film critic Okay a Birthday Benny Okay the Tiebreaker Okay a dirt bike Benny Okay soaking wet Benny He's graduated to certain tells over the course of different miniseries

[00:07:46] Such as producer Ben Kanobe Kylo Ben Ben Aitramalan Ben Sey Say Benny thing and Ailey Ben's with a dollar sign at the end of it Is not here today He's not bye-bye Bye-bye Benny He's sick The bye-bye man He's deathly ill He is quite ill

[00:08:04] You guys might have heard four or so months ago His appearance on the Star Wars Episode 2 Best of the Attack on the Podcast Best of Right Which he sounded like you know death was taking him Narratively that was ten episodes ago If not more

[00:08:18] But this was two days before we're recording right now He's in he's in death's grip right now And so we have intern Will with us here today Man in the ones and zeros Hey guys Now intern Will what he's gonna do is in post Yes

[00:08:32] He's gonna hand this file to Ben Right This is JD's random idea It's a great idea though When Ben is better he will be given the file And then Ben is gonna ADR Everything Will says in his own voice over it

[00:08:46] So Will you don't have to do this work But Ben as we've trusted you before to do edits What a bunch of shit work we're handing Benny Wait wait here let's do this real quick as well too It's like for example listener

[00:08:57] Right now in our headphones you're about to hear We're about to hear intern Podcast intern Will But you're gonna hear producer Ben saying the same things that Will says to us right now Will say something crazy Will tell us a little bit about yourself your actual life

[00:09:10] Yeah please say give us like a little synopsis of your life And then we'll re-record it in his voice Or maybe he won't let's be clear Hey guys so I'm 26 I'm from San Francisco Cool place Yeah I study psychology in college Okay Whoa I can speak French Wow

[00:09:27] Hey why don't you do a little bit of that real quick Yeah speak a little French Yeah I'll speak a little French Okay Bonjour Jay Matt the Will Jim Jim Pauble Francais Hey Nice to speak French That's great So hopefully Ben likes to speak French

[00:09:43] Hopefully listen to something Heavily congested Ben Got that one out Hopefully Ben will not be congested come like March or whenever he has to release this Also eagle-eared listeners will realize that anytime I've been on the podcast Ben has been very sick It's true

[00:09:58] So JD, Ben they're like opposite extremes of something like they can't you know One can't be in balance with the other They say if we ever touch the world will implode Mmm hope it doesn't Well how about the world that goes to war Yes

[00:10:13] In Steven Spielberg's 2005 sci-fi thriller war of the world Bum bum bum Okay Right I was getting us in track Yeah So I remember the development process of this movie being weird It was like this That's what the development process is like

[00:10:30] I spent like an hour last night combing through Yeah Variety pieces because I wanted to get the timeline of this Sure sure Because it was odd now Spielberg Well Spielberg and Cruz make Minority Report Right that's 2002 That comes out in 2002 Okay

[00:10:44] It's well reviewed could have made more money but Generally I think well regarded And those boys loved working with each other Had a good time Now Cruz goes and visits Spielberg on the set of Catch Me If You Can Right So the immediate film after Minority Report

[00:10:58] And goes look I'm really happy with that movie we made together You have to presume this is maybe right around Right before Minority Report actually comes out Makes sense He's in production And he goes I'm really happy with that movie made together I want to do something else

[00:11:11] Here are some things Yes it was during the filming of Catch Me If You Can Right He says here are some things that I have the rights to He's got his company Cruz Wagner And he goes He brings really three movies Three movies

[00:11:22] I don't think we know what the other two were Unfortunately not I would love to know what the other two were Me too I would love like you know what was it like It doesn't matter carry on And he goes Spielberg take your pick

[00:11:31] Here are three Cruz vehicles I'm ready to make these If you want anyone I give you creative freedom to make what you will of it And one of them was He had bought the rights to war the worlds Earlier I think like year 2000 Yes they had it

[00:11:42] At Paramount They hired a writer And he said I love to make a war the worlds movie Right And so he throws out the script that they have And hires David kept to write it No first they hire JJ Abrams Yes And he refuses or whatever

[00:11:57] He has he can't do it because of lost Lost yes he's about to He's developing one Which is too bad because I would love To see the JJ Abrams script here I would love to see the three of those Those guys make this movie

[00:12:09] Now Spielberg has a hard on for JJ Abrams As Tom Crude As does America Right Well America is at least about to But here's some interesting timeline stuff okay So around this same time JJ Abrams is hired to write A Superman reboot Yes

[00:12:26] He writes a script that was carried by Anna Kool Very controversially Is this was it called I believe it was called Superman fly by Which is a weird fucking title And Mick G was supposed to direct it And then he dropped out

[00:12:38] Because they wanted to film it in Australia To save money and Mick G is afraid of planes What does Mick G do now? Makes movies What's what was his most recent? His most recent movie was Wasn't three days to kill right That Costner action movie

[00:12:53] I think he did one after that The babysitter is coming up Three days to kill was his most recent movie Okay Did you ever see Mostly TV now though right He doesn't allow the TV He should not be as successful And continue to get the kind of projects

[00:13:08] That he does He's had a lot of chances He's had a lot of chances But we live in a society That enables this sort of behavior From white guys who call themselves Mick G Yes also Make movies like this means war He made the most 90s thing

[00:13:21] The most 90s thing that exists The pretty fly for a white guy music video No Smash mouth all star music video Yes right Which is directed by Nick G And stars clips and lookalikes Of the mystery men Right yes of course Because it was that song

[00:13:38] Was initially attached to mystery men Everyone fucking thinks it's a Shrek song It was a mystery men song It was a mystery men song Hey now they were all stars All star could have been nominated For an Oscar for best original song Is that right

[00:13:51] Or mystery men I think I was trying to do this research To that because I rewatched mystery men Like two weeks ago What did you think of it I really like it Here's the thing about mystery men Yeah what a cast Fantastic cast Yeah Concept whatever

[00:14:02] But like the designs The hero a lot of the heroes are really good A couple of the heroes are not so good But a lot of them are really good I like all the characters I think I like all of them They should have had a better director

[00:14:13] Like it just lacks like A little bit of like the panache you want Like they hired some ad guy right Well see I would argue the opposite I'd argue he's throwing too much panache On but the wrong kind of panache Yeah it right it just has

[00:14:24] It's the look is all off And the set pieces are not great They hired a commercial director Who came from the sensibility of like Every single Kinka Usher It's the only movie he ever made And apparently on the set

[00:14:36] He went fuck this I'm going back to doing commercials But he directs it with the like Overzealousness of a commercial director Who's like I got 30 seconds to stick in your craw So every shot is the most extreme shot It could be Well let's get into it

[00:14:50] So the first scene of mystery men Jesus Christ This is pod street cast McG I just want to say The podcast He's gone down such a Yeah we really have Nathan Raybin in his My Year of Flops entry On Mystery Men Said that Mystery Men

[00:15:05] Is far better than any movie that looks this much Like Batman and Robin has any right to be That's my review of it It has that aesthetic The cast is so good And I think the script's really good I think the script's very funny

[00:15:15] Apparently a lot of it was like Rewritten by the cast on set But I think that movie works in spite Of the fact that it's horribly directed It is pretty badly directed It has some just great stuff It has some great stuff Can I throw my hot take

[00:15:27] Before we get back to McG And then get back to World of Worlds Yeah, Willie Macy's fantastic man Also my number one Ben Stiller performance I think his best comedic performance in a movie I mean I'd have to pour over that

[00:15:39] I would also need to see Mystery Men again It's been a long time Okay so let's Then you need to see Heavyweights again So let's go back Let me just run free We'll get off McG right after this Let me run down this motherfucker Here's what he's done

[00:15:53] Charlie's Angels David It opens with Charlie's Angels The movie is a big hit It has this like MTV You know videos, direction style Everyone's like great Makes Charlie's Angels full throttle It's not a hit His magnum opus though It is an impressive movie It's insane

[00:16:07] Then he makes We Are Marshall A disaster on every level Wait he did We Are Marshall? Yeah, his bid for serious cred That's him trying to be serious Oh my god I had no idea Cause I just did a TV show In Huntington, West Virginia Where Marshall is

[00:16:19] And the whole Everything we did Was in the shadow of We Are Marshall Like every The only other big Russian movie was here Was We Are Marshall Can I throw something for you? That's so interesting I was walking in the footsteps of McG

[00:16:31] When does that show premiere JD? February 23rd So it'll premiere right? Yeah, so by the time this episode comes out That show will premiere two months earlier I think Oh really? Yeah something like that Well go check out my brother My brother me on C-Soul Oh yeah

[00:16:46] The hottest podcast Is now the hottest show Of 2017 David is saying this with a smile On his face that indicates a certain level of David has already expressed to me That he does not like television Yeah I'm a little out on television We're a little burnt out

[00:17:02] Alright I need to finish this McG We are Marshall Critical failure, box office failure Disaster Yeah Right like such an easy movie to make And they fuck it up And then his fourth movie is what I think it is This means war No Terminator Salvation comes before that

[00:17:16] Oh right this right right Terminator Salvation Which was him forgot he did Terminator Salvation Being like I'm gonna be James Cameron I'm gonna do blockbusters But I'm gonna do high-minded blockbusters There's a reason I forgot about that movie And that we don't talk about that movie

[00:17:26] Although we've talked about it a lot on this podcast Inspired the most omnipresent arcade game In modern history Every movie theater has that thing Every like multiplex Every little one has Terminator Salvation It does Looks pretty good It's got those big guns It replaced time crisis too

[00:17:41] Someone made some deal that Can't go back now A grand folly Maybe that's like how the machines will take over Like those machines are the first Those are K-Cuts Skynet created the Terminator Salvation Arcade Terminator Salvation Let's be clear Another box office failure Correct Like

[00:17:57] He's been giving the keys to things he keeps fucking up So far he has one successful movie It's 2000 This means war comes out in 2012 That movie is a calamity Huge It's a huge disaster It was a huge budgeted movie Three hot stars Yeah

[00:18:11] A lot of money behind it You know like in retrospect you're like Maybe they weren't quite hot stars yet Here's what I'll say though Is that And then three days to kill The size of the budget Barely came out The size of the budgets and action stuff

[00:18:23] Very few people can wrangle something that huge That's the thing It's a skill you That's why he keeps getting jobs But he's not good at it But he can actually do it on a day-to-day basis Which is what the bottom line guys look at Right

[00:18:36] And honestly studio should be taking more chances On people that have Like a big creative vision Instead of people that they just know Have done it before Can run the factory one But it's still impressive You know who can It's still impressive if he's made these big films

[00:18:48] I'm not impressed Okay so Superman fly by McGy drops out because he doesn't want to fly to Australia Because he's afraid of planes I had no idea Yes that's why it's really weird Cause he was all ready to go they had

[00:18:58] Like they were ready to green light him And they were like But it's just one flight Like I do is get on a plane Are there any planes in any McGy movies There must be Charlie's Angels starts on a plane The top of Charlie's Angels

[00:19:08] Is fucking Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz Like parachuteing out of a plane Dressed like LL Cool J Guys enough this is actually bad We have to come on let's get back to the track This is actually great But McGy drops out I'm getting a little mad

[00:19:20] I'm about to tie this all together Alright go ahead McGy drops out J.J. Abrams makes a big play To direct Superman fly by Yes And they were like You can't give a big franchise to J.J. Abrams You can't give the creator of alias a movie

[00:19:34] An untested first time director Can't do it right So then they attach Brett Ratner And that movie later falls apart for He wants He leaves to go do something else And then Singer comes in and pitches Hey let's make a sequel to Superman 2 Wasn't it? Yeah right

[00:19:50] I mean wasn't it Ratner and Singer Essentially switch places Yes You know because Ratner ends up making X-Men 3 Right right that's exactly what happened Okay great So after the last thing you just heard me say About Ratner directing X3 Fascinating stuff Yes we recorded another 5 to 10 minutes

[00:20:09] And then We realized that the computer had not Actually recorded those 5 to 10 minutes And I'd like to point out that during those 5 to 10 minutes David got visibly distressed And frustrated that Griffin was going down Such a rabbit hole of scheduling

[00:20:23] Honestly this sounds like a bit this is not No It was like return of the Jedi level Me getting stressed out For listeners of our show it's probably hard for you to imagine David getting frustrated with me Going down a weird corridor But it happened

[00:20:36] But here's the thing that's distinctive about it I was getting frustrated because I knew the time The timeline wasn't matching up for me So it was two things It was one oh shit we're off track And two wait a second Like that doesn't make sense

[00:20:48] I know it doesn't matter Okay so in like a Groundhog Day Ask moment now This means that David gets to Get another chance at this day Alright Okay and I get another chance to Recite the timeline in a way that is coherent And doesn't

[00:21:01] I'm putting 60 seconds on the clock Bill break David's brain Okay 60 seconds so we want to start Start 2002 Minority Report And it goes well Tom Cruise and Spielberg Want to do another film together They meet up on the set of Catch Me If You Can

[00:21:14] He goes here are three projects I have War of the Worlds is the one he wants They hire He reaches out to JJ Abrams to write the script JJ Abrams goes ah I'm too busy Trying to make this show lost So they hire David Kep

[00:21:24] David Kep's working on the script They think he's going to hand it to them in 2005 They'll start filming that fall for a 2006 release Tom Cruise's next film is going to be Mission Impossible 3 With Frank Darabont writing And Joe Carnahan directing

[00:21:36] Joe Carnahan gets in a fight with the studio And the film is going to be released until a month Before filming leaves it in disarray Tom Cruise wants a film to be released in 2005 He's got this gap on his schedule

[00:21:46] He hires JJ Abrams who is now done with loss To take over Mission Impossible 3 And start it from square one But now that means the film is pushed back At least a year so what does he do now in 2005 He goes to Spielberg who is an active

[00:21:59] Pre-production on Munich which he's going to release In 2005 and goes hey I have a hole Can you push back Munich for like six months And make War of the Worlds with me I just got this first draft from David Kapp

[00:22:10] And I love it and so Tom Cruise and Steven Swellberg Commit to making War of the Worlds In the summer of 2004 Starting filming in November of 2004 To be released the following July Which is a crazy timetable Jim Good job that was about 75 seconds

[00:22:26] That was not bad right? It was not 10 minutes No it was not 10 to 20 minutes And you didn't lose your mind No it was great And this time you did not mention Griffin maybe we should always do this Like record the whole podcast listen back

[00:22:39] And be like let's squeeze this into 10 minutes Yeah That was very concise and very on point And that is what happened with War of the Worlds Is pre-production Whatever melodrama right? That was like the That's basically why it happened so quickly Now

[00:22:56] And as we were talking about in the bit that we lost That we can now talk about again Cruise's passion for the script Yes Was one of the propulsive things here They had decided to do it David Kep had written it and Cruise loved the script

[00:23:09] And Cruise and Seelberg had both said like Well we thought it was going to take longer to develop the script But this kept draft was so good It was ready to go right away Which is crazy Which In my opinion Yes Like too

[00:23:21] I think you need a little more time in the oven Yeah and maybe like a new oven Not the David Kep oven Yeah maybe you move from Maybe you get a new oven David Kep's toaster oven to putting it like Okay it's warm but it's not crispy yet

[00:23:32] Let's put it in a real gas oven I also think And we'll talk about this later I think there is This sounds like this is a joke But I truly believe that there is a Post 9-11 rush Of people trying to tap into the emotions

[00:23:44] That are being felt 100% And I think for My guess is a total assumption Which I hate assuming stuff But it feels like Right after 9-11 Going war the world Is a story that needs to be told again And it feels like that might have had some sort of

[00:24:00] Relationship I was for a certain David Kep also Talked about when he wrote it Like he wanted to be like about Like life on the ground During the invasion He wanted it to be about regular people Who are experiencing Like you know this chaos

[00:24:12] Not to be zoomed out And how could he not Have been inspired by The characters are just trying to Survive The characters you're following Are not power players They're on the run They're not gonna I mean arguably one of the Bad things in the movie is

[00:24:27] When they do kind of like Take it to the aliens Because largely they do not Take it to the aliens The aliens are not I mean we don't even see The force fields around the Tripods until way late in the movie We're told about them early on

[00:24:39] But like we don't even Tom Cruise isn't even gonna Like shoot a gun at these guys Like he's just running away It's not an action movie until The last third Which is when I start Losing my My zest for it Would definitely agree I think I texted Griffin

[00:24:52] As I was watching this last night You're like this is so great I was like this is a good Movie and I think I was like Kai you sent him a name One of the best films of the decade Yeah they loved it Yeah it was hugely popular

[00:25:02] With European critics especially For me it's a half and a half thing Like I was watching it And looking at the time bar And it almost at the exact Midway point falls apart for me That's probably right It's got some scenes and moments That are just like

[00:25:16] Top of his games at Ylber The first half is unbelievable It is Yes it is But Bar for some cutesy David Kep you know Writing shorthand shit Like you know like kind of Father son shit Like it's perfect But I think even that stuff

[00:25:29] In the first half is done pretty I think it's done fine What I like is that it's done quickly Yes I agree with that Very economical Totally agree with that The lightning storm happens Like five minutes into the movie And we can get into it

[00:25:42] We'll get to that But it's so much quicker than you think It's 10 minutes in and the first Two minutes are Morgan Freeman Narration There's essentially eight minutes Of character shit before the Tax starts Agreed Agreed Agreed We should also mention As we I believe we're about to mention

[00:25:59] When we got cut off That Tom Cruise was in the middle Of some sort of a personal Crisis Yeah transformation Yes and we didn't mention that In the short version of things But before this movie This was the height of Tom Cruise He was super star as Griffin

[00:26:16] Mentioned in the part that you Didn't hear like vanilla sky Just his existence in that I mean if I can get into my phases You know I like my phases You know you've got 80's Cruise Right is like he's a cutie pie

[00:26:29] And he's in he's a hot guy movie And I think this is important to note We talked about this in the journey of the prior episode The dominant narrative is Tom Cruise is someone who's the fucking best Right People around him doubt him

[00:26:41] And tell him to be less confident And at the end he proves everyone wrong And reasserts that he is the fucking best And had no reason to doubt him You're talking risky business You're talking Top Gun You're talking cocktail You're talking like So after that he's like

[00:26:54] Great I'm Tom Cruise I'm a big star Let me work with serious directors He makes Rain Man He makes color money He makes porn on the 4th of July You know like makes These serious movies These films are Tom Cruise Mixed in with some of the sillier stuff

[00:27:09] Like Days of Thunder or Far and Away or whatever Tom Cruise thinks he's the fucking best Then he starts a question whether or not He's a shell of a man And then he rebuilds himself Continues to be as good at the thing he always did

[00:27:18] But now with more humanity Yeah That's phase two Cruise The vampire being the apex of that Right And then phase three is like I'm Tom Cruise I have a production company Yeah And I want to work with like You know the cream of the crop

[00:27:29] Like Brian De Palma Cameron Crowe Steven Sandler Kubrick Steven Spielberg Tom Thomas Anderson Michael Mann Michael Mann And this is kind of Tom Cruise And this movie's the year after collateral right Correct What a great movie He went straight from collateral press Into War of the Worlds

[00:27:45] And that phase is Tom Cruise Testing himself Going like A what happens if I give The ingredient that is Tom Cruise And the star power that is Tom Cruise And the budget that comes with it Two O tours And trust them to Mangle, not mangle but

[00:28:01] You know rework my persona Right Try to approach You know Their own themes through me as a prism And during this film Is when he Went through the famous like Manic public breakdown thing Where he's jumping on the couch on a hope For this movie Like Matt Lauer

[00:28:19] Your glib bat interview Happens in front of big banners That say war of the world And apparently Spielberg was not happy about that No, that was the end of there Because it's the things like You'd think like Oh what a fruitful partnership This is they make Minority Report

[00:28:33] They make war of the world It's like in rap Pretty quickly Like this is Like Spielberg found like You know maybe he did too much Tom Hanks Now it's Tom Cruise Right And then after this That's it Yeah there is a version where

[00:28:45] All the Spielberg movies to come That are Hanks movies Could have been Cruise movies I don't know And the alternate question is If he had kept up the Cruise partnership What kind of projects would he have chosen Right You know Totally Like does he pick something like

[00:28:59] Bridge of Spies because he's like This would be a great Hanks movie Right What happens if his mind is This is my new collaborator How do I find things for him You know there's When Shia LaBeouf talks about his Like relationship with Spielberg and the Falling Out

[00:29:12] Which I'm sure will cover a lot more In the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull episode He said like when Shia LaBeouf was like Shit talking Transformers 2 During Press or Transformers 3 Or whatever He said like You know LaBeouf has Betraying his confidence said this publicly

[00:29:27] He's like Spielberg said to me There are times where you're an artist And there are times where you just have to Get out there and sell the fucking car Sure And he said like LaBeouf said that was a moment That kind of freaked them out

[00:29:37] Was like I don't like this like Bite your tongue and just sell the movie We gotta make money kind of thing Sure Well Shia LaBeouf should shut the fuck up Right And the Tom Cruise thing It feels like Tom Cruise jumping on the couch

[00:29:49] Making everything about Katie Holmes You know The premiere of this film Was the first time that they were publicly together And he kind of co-opted the press tour That's the thing For his own personal narrative Tom Cruise has obviously decided Because he divorces Nicole Kerman In what 2000, 2001

[00:30:03] She divorced him I'm sorry if you're fair enough They get divorced And Penelope Cruz happens for a little while But that fizzles out And then he has that relationship With the non-person The non-person David The not famous person Who is like a Scientologist And then they do her

[00:30:17] The one who's on How I Make Your Mother And Ben her Yeah I forget her name I do too But also we need not just Dissociate her with being Tom Cruise's brief girlfriend Because as David said She's a non-person She's not famous She's actually a good actress

[00:30:29] That's good I'm glad for you Scarlett Johansson obviously Is like there's that story That she was like scouted For Scientology You must have heard that story She like walked into a room With like a bunch of people And she was like oh my god And like ran away

[00:30:40] I've heard multiple versions Of that story I've heard that story also Happening with Jessica Alba Happening with I believe Rachel McAdams Happening with Pearson Dunst This is all a legend Open call audition That open call This is a legend A series of screen tests

[00:30:55] Sure they were sort of like You know whatever This is a legend A legend a legend Anyway Tom Cruise I say all these things On the podcast that aren't real Don't take anything I say seriously Tom Cruise I say Also if Tom make a Scientology you want to

[00:31:08] Make a start if anyone Griffin Newman he's here ready I'm ready Tom Cruise is obviously Ready himself to Embark on the next phase Of his public life And he decides that the war Of the world's press door Is the place to do this And brand refresh

[00:31:24] To refresh his brand Here's Katie Holmes I love her I love her Jumping on the couch She's a nice midwestern girl I'm an average Joe We got a real new coke situation here Yeah it's I think it's remarked I've read somewhere You know that Steamsville

[00:31:38] We're supposed to be At the Oprah interview as well And he had to drop out because I think he was making New Nicaraguanis Oh my gosh Would that not have been One of the greatest cultural items Of all time Exactly there's some Stealberg was just sitting there

[00:31:50] With his hand over his mouth But there's some like Alternate reality where it's like Maybe Cruise is chill Cause Spielberg is there And like maybe everything Goes differently Like who knows Or maybe we just have this Insert shot of Steamsville Berg like bouncing slightly On the couch as

[00:32:04] Tom Cruise is jumping on it Just losing his mind But yeah like Spielberg is really angry That Cruise doesn't just get Out there and sell the car You know He's supposed to be out there Selling the car And instead he starts Like talking about his time share Yes

[00:32:18] And uh yeah He's trying to sell Cruise Tom Cruise The long term narrative here Right And of course everyone Remarks like Well that really fucks over War of the World No it doesn't War of the Worlds is a big hit What it fucks over Is Mission Impossible 3

[00:32:33] The next year That movie really suffered It takes a little while For the box office effect to Happen But I feel like The longer the Katie Home things Home things goes on The worse it is You know it's like The initial burst is bad But then you know

[00:32:46] They're still weird Like no one's ever into that Yeah and I also There's a lot of it I think it has hurt The reputation of this movie Like everyone wants to see it Like it made a crazy amount of Money Everyone wants to see it

[00:33:00] But I feel like It does have some association With those days It did not have to Spielberg And gravitas Usually comes with like Ooh Spielberg Like I feel like it became This like media circus thing Yes Which I think what There's all these things talking

[00:33:12] About how Spielberg was not Happy about it And I think it's because Like oh he had a reputation Of being this like The filmmaker And then certainly He's wrapped up in all of this Gossip Yeah it's like Spielberg makes A Spielberg movie And I feel like audiences

[00:33:24] Walked out and mostly made Tom Cruise jokes You know like I felt like that was the Cultural It's not his best performance No and here's another thing This movie does something Talking about different Outdoors using Tom Cruise You know Different aspects of his Movie star persona

[00:33:40] To get at different themes Yes This movie asks Something of Tom Cruise That I think is too big of a Reach One thing he cannot Which is Pull off Just be an average guy Yeah I agree with you I think he does A pretty good dirt bag

[00:33:55] Job at certain points He's an okay dirt bag Especially at the beginning At the beginning one of My notes was Good dirt bag Tom Cruise But Imagine this movie with I mean Yes Mark Wahlberg Mark Wahlberg I have rain You know it's like Yes Not Mark Not Mark

[00:34:14] I mean the problem Mark obviously is the Pitchy voice When he's yelling at people But I think There's a war in the world Tim Robbins shut up Yeah Butcher Wahlberg actually That would be a good third You're pretty good at Wahlberg But um No just Because like The

[00:34:32] Humor I guess Of like the first hour Especially Is that he's the worst dad Like he's not good At reassuring his children at all Like he keeps being like You know everything's Everything's fine Everything's fine If we go back We're gonna die You know like he doesn't

[00:34:46] He can't modulate I think Tom Cruise has Two really strong modes Right And I think any great Tom Cruise performance Is tapping into one of These two or both One is A guy who's great At doing stuff Right Tom Cruise is great At just exuding

[00:35:00] One could say a top gun Right I think the second mode That Tom Cruise is even better at Is someone who is sort of Losing their mind over Their lack of control Desperately becoming manic As they try to hold on To a situation That's like the interview

[00:35:13] Seen in Magnolia Jeremy McGuire Minority report Right Like you know And then there's the third Category which is Legend Which is just next level Tom Cruise as Dissolving into a character That you cannot even see The actor behind it Because it's Such a great performer Full immersion

[00:35:31] Love me some legend This movie is weird Because the whole take on it is Average Joe Street level Not fighting the aliens He has no control over the situation But also he's not Freaking out about his lack of control No Yeah He doesn't have much of a character

[00:35:48] He doesn't And he doesn't have much of a character I think that's the thing that It's why I don't get Why he was so hot for the script Same here I don't get what he sees In this script and it's like

[00:35:58] I cannot wait to sink my teeth into this Because it's the opposite of what he usually likes playing And even the way it's set up of like Here's a dude Who barely sees his children He gets a weekend with them In the aliens attack

[00:36:07] And the whole movie is like You see If someone pitched that to you And said Stephen Spielberg is going to direct a movie Where Tom Cruise has to Hold onto his relationship With his estranged children During an alien attack You go

[00:36:19] I know exactly what that movie's going to be Right And then the movie doesn't really care about that As an emotional through line Which is almost in the movie's favor It does at points And then doesn't it At other points Sure I would agree

[00:36:30] It's generally in the movie's favor That it doesn't make it too cute Of a like metaphorical Like The aliens May have destroyed Earth But he Like bonded with his son Or whatever I think what I was excited Watching it Like what What you sort of want

[00:36:44] Is at the beginning of the film Tom Cruise puts himself Before his kids and his family And that's the whole thing And then by the end You're like Okay he's going to have a big moment Where he Puts them first And makes some big sacrifice

[00:36:56] And we see that change happen And you don't really get that And so The film feels like You're left hanging And in fact At the end The grand gesture is That he returns his kids to his wife In a way that It feels like

[00:37:10] The opposite of what you're sort of hoping Yes And it is You know There isn't much of a character As written Right But you look at Like You compare his performance To the Kodak and Fanning's performance The Kodak and Fanning's performance Is amazing

[00:37:24] I believe all of these people In my opinion The last great Dakota Fanning performance After this she grows up And I think she's become An okay Like grown up actress She's okay But that weird precocious Like brilliance she has In these kid movies

[00:37:38] But she's just a great job Of just being like A vulnerable kid And not in a precocious way I think No but she is precocious But I don't mean that Not in a way that is like I'm a child actor Trying to do like

[00:37:50] It feels like a precocious Genuine precocious kid Yes But like that's the same energy That she brought to I Am Sam Yes Like you know the movies Where you're just like There's something kind I know this is a stagie kid Like I know that this is a kid

[00:38:03] Who you call cut And she's like a perfect little child Actress But there is something like You know real to this character That she's created Yeah there are some vulnerable moments I shed tears twice last night Watching this She's good in

[00:38:18] I'm saying she's good in Man on Fire And she's good in this Like she's not great In like uptown girls Or cat in the hat Cat in the hat Like the ones where it's more Like a cutesy movie Yeah who's the best in cat in the hat

[00:38:27] Who's the best in cat in the hat Alec Baldwin I never saw cat in the hat Alec Baldwin's good in cat in the hat That movie is a fucking nightmare though That movie is a real blank check movie You created two points You were gonna say

[00:38:37] Yes both of them I think Were her performances I'm trying to think what they were Oh The first chaos In the car Yeah in the car And she like has a panning The long shot The like the crane shot Where it goes around and around again

[00:38:51] And the big gun shot Yes maybe in the car The one she has like a panic attack Yes yeah yeah And she does a great job Yeah Of presenting that like Out of control kid feeling Where it's like I don't know what's going on

[00:39:02] I'm just stressed because my The person that I'm relying on For any sort of semblance Doesn't know what's going on Doesn't know what's going on And won't communicate And then the And that got me emotional I was like oh I remember That feeling as a kid

[00:39:14] And then the other one was The boat scene similar Where The dad has that moment where he's like He's like just follow me do this And then you can tell she's like Oh this is out of control Yeah And both times it was her performance

[00:39:28] That triggered me that got Got things misty and I was like damn I want to speak to him I feel like I did Dakota Fanning wrong I think she's very nice in the Coraline Oh she rules in Coraline She's great in Coraline

[00:39:37] I mean obviously it's a vocal performance It's a little different Right and obviously Coraline's The best use of 3D in any movie Yes and Coraline Oh my gosh you guys Man I love me talking about The voice of Coraline Man I love me talking about that

[00:39:49] For just 2 seconds You guys did me dirty I didn't do your dirty I'm on your fucking side I did JD dirty I called him a dumb anime fan Or what I didn't call him You called him a dumb weird animation freak Yeah cause you guys are

[00:39:59] Dumb weird animation freak He said that about both of us Right right I was literally like I was having like A long day Working on a show Eating lunch You know we're like having a bad time Trying to relax Listening to some blank check I was eating lunch

[00:40:12] In like our post facility Listening to blank check And then all I hear is like No no no you and JD are idiots You're dumb animation freak Dumb weird animation freak I think I texted Griffin I was like What the No you texted both of us

[00:40:24] Yeah I was like Come on guys But I was on your fucking side I was getting persecuted Right along with you Anyway if you guys were Coraline is the strongest Visual thematic use Of stereoscopic film That has ever been created Avatar looks cooler in 3D

[00:40:41] And is more immersive Yes thematically Doesn't mean anything Coraline's a good movie Doesn't mean anything Coraline's the one film that uses Three dimensional depth Thematically within the narrative As a piece of the language of film Fascinating guys A bunch of dorks I'm talking to right now

[00:40:56] JD and I high fives For those of you who are home JD and I high fives Coraline Ben put a big high five sound effect in there Got it Okay and Ben and also Dub over Will saying got it War of the world War of the world

[00:41:08] The thing that's most impressive To me about Dakota Fang's performance Is And both those moments you just talked about Have this She plays a shock and trauma better As well as any adult actor I've ever seen Because she's not playing She's not playing shock and trauma

[00:41:27] She's playing the like child confusion Wants information Handle the information She's not done for a forward brow She's like just looking around You see her observing everyone And then seeing her try to do The math and her head of what's going on And that's exactly how you feel

[00:41:45] In those moments of chaos And any time you cut to Dakota Fang Having one of those reactions in the movie It pulls you into the movie so deeply Because it feels like VR It's like okay I see how she's reacting to this

[00:41:56] That's how I would react to this You feel like you're there in the moment Agree with you guys Counterpoint I'm not just obsessing over this I'm using this as a counterpoint Counterpoint Tom Cruise is like A fucking trained ballet dancer And he hits his moves so precisely

[00:42:11] And any time he's running away from the aliens He's doing the Tom Cruise run And when he's playing shock It's Tom Cruise action star shock It's okay Right So none of the characters in this film Have character arcs, right? And by design this movie because it's street level

[00:42:25] Because it's all of that It's like I appreciate the fact That it doesn't do pat narrative Character growth kind of shit But I do think Whether or not Mark Wahlberg is the right choice You want someone in this role Who because there's not much of a character there

[00:42:40] Can just exude the same sort of like Blue collar, worry and grime-ness And all of that So that you have the same reaction Every time you cut to that guy That you do every time you cut to Dakota Fanning Where it's like

[00:42:52] I don't know who this guy is But I understand how he's reacting And I relate to it Yes I think To me what it speaks to is maybe Almost the issue of Tom Cruise Especially at that point in his career And where he is and stuff

[00:43:04] Is that when you look at him You see Tom Cruise Yes always You don't see I can't even think of what his name is in this Ray Oh yeah it's Ray Ray Farrier Ray Farrier Because his kids call him Ray Ray Like you see Tom Cruise Always

[00:43:20] And I agree And I think one of the joys Of a script like this would be You see these characters And you don't know what will happen Because chaos and falling around them They could live, they could die They could this When you see Tom Cruise

[00:43:30] You don't feel scared That he's going to be in trouble Or get hurt Because you know Tom Cruise Is the underlying capital T Hero of American cinema He's going to make it out He's going to beat the bad guys So it just I think it hurts the cause

[00:43:43] No matter how good his performance is You can't overcome that It's too distracting Well I also think that The movie's pivotal moment for him Which is killing Tim Robbins Feels like such an afterthought Like when it should have You know But Yeah

[00:43:59] Because if he has an arc at all It's that I guess Is that he's you know Driven, you know He understands that the Sort of like Anomalistic protection Of his children Extends to this But the problem I think the problem The reason, not the problem

[00:44:12] It's not a problem The reason that That didn't hit us hard for me Is because that comes after The moment that I still don't understand That doesn't totally click for me Of when his son Oh Joins the military Wait wait wait I'm sorry The arc of his son

[00:44:28] Didn't click for you I thought that was all very clear And well acted By Justin Chatwin Goku himself Love Justin Chatwin Yes In a Spielberg movie Second build One nice third build America had chatwin fever Justin Chatwin But it's like that moment Sort of undercuts that next moment

[00:44:44] Which is really a cool Could be a powerful scene But instead you're sort of like Like what? Why? He just Drawing the mill at Like what? Well it's also Justin Chatwin It's also from that point on The movie starts to feel like What you would imagine

[00:45:01] As the worst version of a Tom Cruise War the world's movie Right Like all the sort of like You are there Realism The chaos of just like I don't know what the fuck is going on You know I mean this movie Is so good at

[00:45:14] In the first half especially Showing the kind of Days reaction Yes Of just like The world is crumbling around me And I don't even have time to process it Right like The moment when the Lightning first happens I really love When he's outside He's like look at this

[00:45:30] It's so cool And then the daughter gets scared And then he gets scared And then he gets really scared And then the daughter gets really scared Because he's gotten really scared And then suddenly he's like Oh this thing that I thought was this cool

[00:45:42] Daring fun thing to show My daughter is now out of control Yeah well he's doing the dad thing at first So he's like no don't worry about it Check it out check it out Come on I know it's scary But you know He also has a classic

[00:45:52] Tom Cruise Young Tom Cruise scream When the giant lightning strike happens Screams like he did when he was like younger I feel like the older Tom Cruise scream Is like a masculine manly thing He does like He has this weird moment of performance Where you're like

[00:46:07] Oh that's like That's super young Tom Cruise He's good in the early part of the movie Like you know in that first half hour So he's okay Yeah I wish he was doing grimey But yeah But I think it's because That's the strongest part of the movie

[00:46:18] And that's Alright the movie Shut up we're gonna talk about the movie Rather than like jumping around Alright the movie opens Being a guest on your podcast It's such a pleasure to do it Shut up Thank you deity It's a great pleasure to be on my podcast

[00:46:31] I love you deity I'm a little hungry I'm realizing that it's happening I love you too deity I really do I do too Yeah it's great No seriously I know we've known each other for a while Guys I'm here too Also one of my favorite things is talking

[00:46:44] Movies and TV with you guys We've had so much fun over the years Talking movies and TV Also like before we recorded this We talked for like maybe an hour Yeah Yeah because Ben was dead Benny overslept Yeah Benny and the Jets more like Benny overslept

[00:46:57] Yeah Benny and the Z's Benny overslept The movie is set in Bayonne New Jersey Not Patterson New Jersey The opening he's working in Brooklyn I found out The construction site's supposed to be built And a lot of this movie was shot in Brooklyn

[00:47:12] And that final scene when he's in Boston Like that was shot like on my block Yeah So he's a real He's a guy man He's a real blue collar guy This guy is really a guy He's got like a car heart jacket Yeah

[00:47:28] He works at an old shipping container thing Real good He's the best there is They have a little shot where they have a close With his hand and it gives a little Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap Oh yeah

[00:47:37] And it's like oh this guy knows what he's doing Um you know just He's the guy that the judge from the wire Who's in that opening scene Judge Fahy or whatever he's called in the wire He's like Guy you know you gotta work the next shift

[00:47:48] Only you can do all the shipping container stuff He's like ah Yeah I gotta go home See my kids The one line he has which is such like a Want want line is like He's like You know what your problem is And then Tom Cruise goes like Huh

[00:48:01] I know a lot of women who could tell me The guy goes ah Doesn't even finish this thing Yes Things that normal human men say David Kep That's what that is right there That really I mean like that's I really think that's

[00:48:14] That's the kind of shit he brings to the table Yeah You know he's got such a sort of Robert McKee Like we're gonna do it We're gonna set everyone up Well so he said But he did He's set up He's set up there

[00:48:24] That's the only thing I'll say for it Happens fast and he's set up I feel like David Kep's a guy You hire to adapt something Give you the bones of it So then you can like rewrite it And add some personality to it Absolutely

[00:48:35] Like the best David Kep scripts You feel like then someone else With some finesse came in And like put a nice coat of paint Over the phone To be fair Josh Friedman is also credited here But I think Only because he wrote the first draft

[00:48:47] I believe he had written the first draft Before Spielberg came on The one that they tossed out Yes You know what he's working on right now What? Avatar 2 Avatar 2 To Vitar So Av-Av-To-Tar To Vitar the second to last airbender So um, Lord of the Worlds Uh yeah

[00:49:05] So his kids are home for the weekend Yeah In Banu Jersey Yeah In his shitty little like place Both of his kids call him Ray Both of his kids call him Ray They don't know him that well There was a car engine in his living room There is

[00:49:17] Which I like I like his places Appreciably shitty I also like That he has like a decent bedroom set He's got like kind of a nice Like he's got some good stuff Yeah And then also like a bunch of random crap Yeah

[00:49:29] I like when he takes his shirt off And lies down in bed Because usually You look at Tom Cruise's shirtless Weird chest And he's got a funny chest Too many muscles Too many muscles and you're like Man this isn't a real person With this guy I'm like

[00:49:41] You know what? He probably works out a lot Yeah You know, fucks around Doesn't do much I can buy it You know? He's also done something Where he goes His kids annoy him So he goes to take a nap And then they go We're hungry and he goes

[00:49:55] Well then order something out He says order I don't think he even says order He's just like Like what do we do? And he's like order Yeah And then So he lays down And has that nap There was a moment also That to me

[00:50:07] Is the part of this film That aged the most The hummus stroke? Yeah I agree The thing where he's like Hummus What is this shit? It's like a joke that someone would eat hummus He's like Hummus Hummus As if like As if I wanted to order real food

[00:50:23] Yeah, she goes You told me to order And he went Yeah, I meant order food Yeah, right I think if that movie came out today That would be quinoa Would be that Yes Even that would feel a little hacky Quinoa But now it's like hummus is so ubiquitous

[00:50:36] Hummus I mean Jesus Christ That's so funny that it's like Who would eat hummus? It's the way that late 80s, 90s movies Have late 80s, early 90s movies Have the same jokes about sushi Right You know where it's like raw fish Yeah Can you send this back?

[00:50:52] I think it's under cooked You know like those jokes Hummus But let's mention because this is important to the setup Wife is going to go visit the in-laws in Boston And Kevin or whatever his name is Fuckin' Fuckboy Kevin Yeah, who plays that guy?

[00:51:08] We see him for like one hot sec His name is Richard T. Fuckboy Miranda Otto Who had just come off of The Lord of the Ring Playing Eowyn Where she plays Eowyn who kind of sucks in my opinion I like that character

[00:51:23] Yeah, I think it's a super overrated character I think she's a cool character Well Kevin which I don't know if that's a character name I'm gonna call him Kevin Yeah His performance is that What is his name? It's not Kevin It's Kevin from Tencent Pharmacy

[00:51:33] His performance is that he wears a black turtle neck Correct Yeah, good job on that But there I believe his name is Tim Wait for it Tim Yeah David Allen Batch David Allen Greer Yeah, David Allen Greer Jack David Allen Greer

[00:51:50] Might be good in the lead role this time He'd be great He'd be great He would Underrated as a dramatic actor Agreed Yeah My dad saw him play Jackie Robinson on Broadway Do you know what's that? Was it Jackie Robinson musical? David Allen Greer Musical Yeah

[00:52:03] David Allen Greer started out in musical theater No I'm fine with that It's more Jackie Robinson musical I think it was called the first maybe I don't know Anyway Anyway He's so great on Carmichael's show So great Unbelievable in the NBC production of The Wiz

[00:52:17] Um, I didn't watch that Oh he's fucking Who was he? Who was he? The Wiz He was the line I just saw him on set Shooting the big sick The movie, the aptile produced movie That's coming out Oh he's in the show right Michael Gould Walker movie Yeah

[00:52:32] And he was funny I watched him do the same scene Like four times So you know that's You really get an appreciation He's great at He's also really good at match game I don't know if you folks Watch a match I mean I've watched a couple of episodes

[00:52:42] On your recommendation You guys watch Big Fan? The You mean the The Pat Nozzle movie? No, it's a new TV show Is it based on the Pat Nozzle movie? Because that's not something I'd really base a movie on So this I mean a TV show

[00:52:54] Please tell me it's about An actual giant man This came on after the bachelor This past Okay Whatever And it's They get a celebrity And then they get They're Three super fans Okay And they do a trivia contest In front of that celebrity On the set Hosted by

[00:53:10] What's his name Conan's Andy Richter And then at the end Whoever wins Does a trivia competition Between the celebrity Of trivia about the celebrity And the first episode was Our friend Our writer, writer, writer Matthew McConaughey Oh, our friend Maddie And it was a really bizarre show

[00:53:29] But ABC Fun and Games ABC likes the fun and games Fun and games But yeah There's this thing in the film And stuff Where they're driving to Boston Which is why he has the kids He's got a He's got a They're driving to Boston

[00:53:41] Which is why he has the kids He takes a nap Of Indeterminate time Which gives The wife and Tim Some sort of head start Where they know they're far away Yeah And when shit starts going bad First there's the lightning strike Right He wakes up The sun's missing

[00:53:55] You've missed one of the biggest moments in the film What is it? One of the greatest moments The baseball? Tom Cruise coughs He coughs in one of the scenes I don't know what he's talking about There is a scene Where Tom Cruise is talking And then he stops

[00:54:08] And goes And coughs into his hand Like an old human does And then he keeps talking To set up the fact of how humans are to defeat the aliens In the end Oh, he's sick He's sick He's coughing And they put that in And they like highlight it

[00:54:23] And it's like a moment And you're like Sure If you didn't know what the world's about You'd be like Tom Cruise is gonna die But instead you're like I get what you're doing here I get it We should also Yeah, he does have the aggressive baseball

[00:54:36] The aggressive scene of playing catch With the sun Where they're essentially Whipping a baseball each other At 80 miles an hour The sun hates him The daughter He wears that Boston Red Sox hat To fuck with him And then he turns it around backwards He does it

[00:54:48] Justin Chatman is abysmal in this film It's one of the worst performances In any Steven Spielberg film I've ever seen It's one of the worst performances He's ever directed And Spielberg generally A good director of actors Well, it's just The character is so surfacing

[00:55:02] And the performance isn't adding Any layers to it The performance feels like A guest star on a TV show About a rebellious teen Like say by the bell Like the bad kid in school I am racking my brains Trying to think of an equally Harmful Spielberg film performance

[00:55:18] Well, because I think any other Spielberg movie with a bad performance Is at least bad in weird ambitious ways Maybe Katherine Zeta-Jones In the terminal Which we have talked about Or I was gonna say Julia Robertson-Huck But that's at least bad She's trying shit that really isn't working

[00:55:33] I would say that performance Almost underrated because of its Reputation is like one of the worst things That's ever happened What about Harrison Ford and Crystal Skull? I'm now, come on, he's our... Guys, I'm trying to be a culture critic here Oh, sure

[00:55:49] Okay, so they're on route to Boston I'm like lost in the weeds I'm like trying to think of... Yes, Miranda Otto and Timmy Kevin Are on the route to Boston He wakes up from the nap Kevin make love to me in that turtle neck

[00:56:02] As I do every night He wakes up, Justin Chatman's gone Right? Where the fuck did he go? Then the lightning starts happening Which is... I mean, I love that So much of the action in this movie Is just noise Yes Maybe some light off-screen Love it

[00:56:19] It's so scary, the lightning storm And all it is is a bunch of flashes You could basically stage that in the 1950s Yeah, and what I love is This section of the movie Starts really milking The terror of watching A bunch of strangers

[00:56:36] All reacting to the same thing in confusion Yes, because this is One of the first Big budget disaster films post-911 Right And so... This is, I mean to me, the definitive Blockbuster 9-11 movie This is what 9-11... This is what New York City felt like On September 12th

[00:56:54] There's a lot of imagery of people on the streets Looking up at the sky It's actually like a haunting and creepy movie to watch It's really effective though It is It realizes it's better than any other movie I've seen That tries to weaponize the 9-11 imagery

[00:57:08] And a lot of good misinformation stuff Of just like people being like, what's going on? I have no idea I think it's terrorists that get put in Yeah, they shot, is it the terrorists? And like, he's like Some things attacking us, like, you know Also worth noting

[00:57:20] The first shot of this film Aside from the... More infreement stuff Is a shot of New York City No Tower Yeah, yeah It's the first shot is just like that part of New York In a way that feels very intentional Yeah, no, no, that... Like it's Southport

[00:57:36] Spielberg has at this point talked about it Right? Like I mean, he made it with that intention Yeah, 100% But there's like The storm's the first thing to happen The overwhelmingly terrifying cloud Up in the sky, right? The weird cloud and the storm Amy Ryan next door

[00:57:51] With her toddler All these sort of parallel backyards A lot of wire alarms in this one But all these... This row of houses that all have these tiny Gated, you know Backyards Yes And you see everyone Under the bayon bridge

[00:58:04] Right, stepping out and looking up at the sky And it's that great thing That I don't see other movies do But that gets at what it actually feels Like when this shit's going down No one knows what it is yet Which is people trying to decide

[00:58:14] Whether or not to be scared yet Right, yeah Like the first instinct isn't fear It's like It's sort of confusion and Intrass I mean because he goes there You got Rick Gonzalez who I think is A wonderful little actor I love it when he pops up

[00:58:26] He's really, he really is a great character I don't know what happened Because at this period of time He was on a roll and then he started It's when he starts showing up And so if he was in Reaper Which he's great in Oh yeah

[00:58:35] Talk about TV that time forgot Yeah Tyler Labine baby That was seven Tyler Labine shows ago Yeah, there's a lot of Tyler Labine shows out there They go to look at this Like the lightning strike And they're all gathered around it

[00:58:47] And the cops are kind of doing that thing We're like I don't think anyone should be around here I don't know what this is though Like you know No one really knows how to react I'm saying like back up But I'm not really enforcing it That image

[00:58:57] I mean sorry Just that thought of that That it's cold is really cool I also, Cruz plays that kind of well Where he's like sort of tossing The rubble between his hands Oh it's so creepy But even just the thing Where all the cars are stopped

[00:59:10] And you just see the screen There's also been like an EMP blast And people are doing the thing Where there's a couple moments Where it's like everyone Like takes a couple steps back And then takes a couple steps forward Like they're like

[00:59:20] At one point they're hiding behind a wall And then they step forward It's like no one knows And then One of the moments That I think they do really well Is I So we're in a period of like action movies Right Where everything is like This giant thing

[00:59:36] The entire planet The entire world A thing the size of this It always doesn't feel that scale No right Yeah yeah When the ground buckles Oh yeah Oh god That whole thing And the church gets taken down Like yeah But like when the ground bubbles Yeah yeah

[00:59:51] And then there's a speed And a simplicity That makes it feel that size And that scary Whereas like You know in transformers Things like that Like it feels fake It feels like It feels like toy cities And here it's like Oh no This thing's giant

[01:00:07] That's coming out of the ground And it's scary And you're only getting the perspective Of what these people can see So you don't get those Establishing shots That are hard to swallow Where it's like And now we zoom out to Exactly Outer space Where you see the thing

[01:00:20] That's like Is kind of like In the future Right And then you see That something that we're Not in any way Like in the last few years That's been on the internet But with that Like that The front is like The other side Is a bit more

[01:00:36] Like the The low end Is more Like more Like a lot more Like it's not just That little fly That's gonna be Spright And then Right Yeah, brown level shaky camera dust everywhere. Oh, you know my man, you knew let's talk you news

[01:00:56] He talked about it everything in this film shot at eye level He did not want to do much like you know like especially in those scenes he likes to shoot at eye level And he's doing his bleach by prayer by what are you go by singing stuff?

[01:01:08] He's got the lens net He's got his classic soft and his promiss on it's super fucking grainy this is so grainy like it's weird now to watch a Big-budget studio film that isn't insanely crisp like now now that's what

[01:01:26] You know, what's off digital now, right? Well, that's right, but it's all this life not Stevie though Yeah But this is like such a film move But they do like so Yannis commences famous for his lens netting

[01:01:40] Which is where you literally put like a net over the front or back which get I mean he did on Bridger spies He still does it with that he gets that weird sort of I don't know how to describe it

[01:01:47] You can probably describe a word basically just bleeding well the highlights start blooming Right so like anything that's bright and like this is what classic soft does or promise do similar but And So classic softs and promiss will give you more of a

[01:02:06] Radial bloom and the netting you'll you pick up this sort of There's a word for I can't think of right now But it's like it picks up the netting and then it starts the highlights start to bleed and here they do it so much

[01:02:18] So especially in those early and the early seems in a big time but what it does that it it takes away some of the like It it takes away some of the realism and makes it more fantastical

[01:02:31] But without any effects aside from that so that it still feels grounded right It doesn't feel like you're watching a news reel exactly, but you're right. It does

[01:02:41] Just looked over to Griffin. He's got the mic in his lap. He looks like Paul G. Amati and fucking Barney's version He looks like this like disgruntled Jewish academic all of a sudden JD talking lenses my dick gets hard man. It's the best well

[01:02:57] We can we can get into all the lens talk we can talk, you know how let's talk about the lenses in the other movies Tiffin promiss are Originally they're based on Whatever they're called that were like the plastic versions the plastic versions with scratch

[01:03:11] And so then they make the glass version Tiffin made the glass version because they and then Schneider has their classic softs But then you get similar you listen we can get into all the

[01:03:21] ASMR podcast where you just talk lenses. You mean just get into lenses and filters, dude You know he does like comedy shit right? He didn't do some shit with like the funny people Did funny people he did a pineapple express and stuff. No, he didn't that's Tim Moore

[01:03:35] All right, you're right. You're right of course, but but he did little he did another weird I'm like like jokie sketch with Seth Rogen one time right like you know, I guess

[01:03:44] How hard would it be to get Janusz Kaminski like in this pocket? You know what I mean? Like I feel like Well, he's definitely a listener. He's a blanky. Yeah, he could talk about how the Wilson super frosts his preference to

[01:03:57] All right to get us back on track as much as I don't want to The tripod emerges tripod emerges and he shot how do you know as well? So funny so weird. That's the other one. Okay, and start blasting people with its heat ray

[01:04:11] Which is is depicted pretty faithfully to the HD Wells, you know like it's a heat ray yeah in the issue and like that is the idea that it's just like no blood No gore it just turns people into soot. It's just like poofs

[01:04:26] But their clothes are fine and they poof away right which is kind of amazing Can I talk about the image that that kind of unnerves me the most as like someone who was a kid in New York?

[01:04:37] Sure on September 11th and today's following it's moving back a second But it's when we're introduced to Rick Gonzales JD is now getting into my Barney's version position with the mic on the lap sitting back It's when

[01:04:51] He first runs into Rick Gonzales and Yolvazquez and they're the two like dudes He knows and it's like the long tracking shot with them walking down the street Mm-hmm, and in the foreground and the background

[01:05:02] You just see all these people getting out of their car and all walking in the same direction Right yeah, and it's very unnerving to see in like a Populated city area everyone doing that in the same way not in panic not running

[01:05:16] But just in curiosity like all you just see more and more people. It's scary to watch That many people coordinated. Do you ever have a moment walking down the street in New York? We're like it might only be three people

[01:05:27] Look up at the same thing and like you freeze and are like what are they looking at right because it's very rare in New York Where everyone kind of just is like move out of the way

[01:05:36] I'm going where I need to go yeah that people all start doing the same thing like strangers on the streets start doing the Same thing and if that happens The phenomenon where it happens to me them because that's unusual in the city

[01:05:45] But in the subway in the subway right all the time especially because I always have my headphones on this happened to me just yesterday Where it's like suddenly you notice that everyone is sort of moving towards the doors and kind of peeking out the door

[01:05:56] Yeah, right. Yes, your train is stuck in a station And then you like look and then you realize like Fucking thing it's happening right now And people are either kind of migrating over there or at least like looking craning their necks and looking

[01:06:08] It's an alarming does that incredibly well, but so zapping starts happening Tom Cruise Runs back right it's covered in ash Essentially right he does a Tom Cruise run and he does a Tom Cruise run But I really like that

[01:06:21] No, it's when they're driving that has the the highway shot right yeah This is when the church starts like getting in the ground, but this is also really well done It is it's wonderfully done and yes. He does a Tom Cruise run, but

[01:06:33] There's just something so at the time I felt it and watching it now It's something so alarming and weird about the effect of people getting Sootified essentially yes because also they do a thing where like Tom Cruise interacts or we see the person

[01:06:47] And then they disappear so it's like Larry Veneto especially that you know which happens a little like a second later But the the car mechanic guy is often not a nobody It's often someone that like you're introduced to for a second

[01:06:59] Yeah, and they get disappeared so that you're like like that person yeah And the difference between this and Independence Day which is a film That's obviously incredibly indebted to war the world's you know, especially the novel

[01:07:09] Is that in Independence Day things get blown up. We don't see any people die We just see like engulfing flames, you know take down the city And that's the buildings

[01:07:22] Exactly buildings are kind of being hit in the collateral II but they're not really like it's people are being blasted I would say the scariest moment of the film also has nothing to do with the aliens which is the river bodies

[01:07:33] Carson the river bodies is fucking scary. What would the car scene? Car scene Before the diner oh you mean you mean like those swarm of people But we're gonna get to that yeah, but so yeah he gets the kids

[01:07:48] He goes to Larry Veneto who he had told to put a solenoid in the car engine You know cuz he's a car mechanic which I listen I don't want to be this guy cuz I hate this guy But like please don't be this guy think about it

[01:07:59] Tom Cruise is the only one in the entire country that had knows how to fix this car Yeah, well my guess is that other people because you do see the things are working eventually right like so other people

[01:08:12] Eventually have this idea but Tom Cruise. He's right there. He's just the right perfect time The guy wants him to get out of the car he's like what the fuck you doing Oh, that is it that is the first okay

[01:08:26] So though there's a couple moments that happen one He takes the kids and they're like what's going on and then he has moment where he's

[01:08:32] Totally totally like out of his mind and he's like just you have 60 seconds to grab anything and getting like he's not telling the kids And that's when they first start panicking right and you're like oh, you're a bad dad

[01:08:43] Kids are freaked out and then he walks them over to this car That is not his that he taught told the guy how to change the engine right and they get inside This is the first moment that is like some good Spielberg intention

[01:08:56] Yep, the guy that owns the shop comes up very many no, but I've already know he's like what are you doing? Let's get it. He was like we got to go we got to go you can get in if you want like that's the only thing he

[01:09:05] Concession he gives like getting right now or all gonna die He's like get it now or you're going to die and then they got screams that right kids start freaking out Obviously, and the kids don't really like the dad what's going like freaking out and then

[01:09:17] Finally Tom Cruise like closed the door and it's like that's a scary moment when the Sun has to close the door on this guy And the guy starts guys like it's not your car like what do you know?

[01:09:25] Yeah, it starts off like funny and cordial like what are you doing man? And then it gets to like get out of the car. He's like not it gets so stressful intense and then Bam in the rear view mirror. Yeah

[01:09:37] Yeah, we should say that that noise the tripod's make is great Yeah, and I want to say that that noise the tripod's make I believe this is the first time I think it's probably happened. It's the first time like the modern zeitgeist of action

[01:09:48] We have that noise and everything now. Yeah, this sort of the inception braum. Yeah, whatever Yeah, but you're saying this is the initial time when it was you might be right I'd be interested to delve into the history of the sort of reverby like bassy noise as a

[01:10:05] Signifier something terrifying you should write that piece history of the brawn I just wanted to write about the history of the braum and the history of girls Who jump onto men's necks with their legs and snap the neck and then like fall

[01:10:17] That is a move that was not a thing and I think like Hansen in Iron Man 2 is the first one to do it and then it's like four films a year There's some girl who knows the move of like oh, I snapped your neck with my legs like

[01:10:31] It's not as if it presented like it's like. Oh, well, you know if you study this The other one that there's a quick digression that I've been trying to figure out actually and maybe you guys can help me as well is the trope of the

[01:10:45] Abandoned children that are left to form the society on their own and are like half children half whatever Because I was watching like Mad Max Like the war boys

[01:10:59] Yeah, okay, so wait what what tangent are we on here because we are barely into this I know I know Okay, so hook hook the lost boys and hook sure Skateboarding wearing stuff made of wood and sticks and twigs

[01:11:10] A language and a thing that's built on childhood ideas. Yeah similar in the fucking the Mad Max I think it's Thunderdome. That's not thunder. Yeah, it's Thunderdome a road warrior with the feral kid No, it's Thunderdome when he meets the people like crash the plane

[01:11:23] It's all kids and they wear twigs and all this stuff And then like the Swiss family runs like in the Ewoks I think are a similar thing this idea of like like primitive childlike

[01:11:33] Cons like where did that come from? Isn't Lord of the flies the original error that I think it might be but I'm trying as it's depicted. It's like this like weird aesthetic that has now become like it's not steampunk It's like nature punk

[01:11:46] But that's why I think it comes from Lord of the flies because it's like the island You know it is but it it grew into like this weird techie anyways

[01:11:53] What are we talking about right now? Okay, you you want to think about women who snap men's next with their thighs I'm the host and I go on tangent a co-host All right, I'm all host all right, so David just we are both David

[01:12:06] Oh, how's David just put his feminine thighs around the neck of this tangent Shapely certainly okay, so we're back. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just I had lost the Okay, so they're in the car for the history of the brawl

[01:12:24] David's idea right but the brawl shifts interesting because it moves from what had previously been like just Bombastic like what's the most noise you can make to like what's the most ominous unsettling noise you can make it's not about blowing out your eardrums

[01:12:37] It's about like just throwing you off center. Yes Which this movie does very effectively. I mean just like all you're just uncomfortable the whole time and in relation and comparison to something like Independence Day none of the destruction looks cool. It's all upsetting

[01:12:51] I yeah apart from apart from maybe that one shot of the highway getting turned over while they're driving out Which I think is an extraordinarily like well realized piece of special effect. I think it's awesome

[01:13:02] And I also think it's terrifying and really upsetting to watch but it is it's kind of cool It's well, there's me another You know, yeah The other moment that I think portrays that idea also is right after right before this moment when he runs back to his home

[01:13:16] He's right past this Yeah, explosion everything's falling away and then he gets to his house and his kids are like What's up? What's going on? If Tom Cruise just ran from those explosions like you could take kids you could hear that's true

[01:13:28] The internal logic of these things are but whatever it's very fluid I'm not worried about it. It doesn't hurt the car We talked about having a panic we talked about Dakota's work in that scene

[01:13:38] It's wonderful. It's that long shot and that's very good. And you know chat winds okay when he's with her I would say yes, I think I think he's good with this also weirdly. I think she's a strong performer and so she helps him

[01:13:50] Ground himself. I agree. I also think it's just not what you expect from the movie right then So it's it's just like sort of a heartening and interesting thing to see

[01:13:57] Yes, like and he's got a language through that he cares about her exactly and then the movie is kind of like Giving you a sort of like look like they know their dad They they because like the scene where chavin wants to leave where she says like

[01:14:10] Who's gonna keep me safe like right who's the movie doesn't even cut to cruise going like Oh, I'm hurt by this. Yeah, that that's an assumed like we get why she would say that

[01:14:20] That's not like we get why she would think I need just and chat when with me. Yeah, because this tom cruise guy so far C-minus, you know, not so good. Yeah, he had the solenoid idea. Yes No dad. No, thank you. No dad. No, thank you

[01:14:37] There's a t-shirt Okay, so it's no dad. No, thank you. It's a The no, thank you is the legs of a woman snapping the neck of the no dad So the car brings him to the the most disturbing scene which is when they hit the crowd, right?

[01:14:53] Yes, okay, so well, yeah, is there anything in between those? Yes. So they drive first Yeah, and they're driving through all of the There's conveniently a perfect car size path between all of the stop cars, right

[01:15:05] Like all the car drives up the highway, right? It's true. Yeah, of course It would just be it would be gridlock bumper to bumper. Yeah, but it's fine. It's fine. I'm not worried There's not a criticism. It's just a funny. Yeah

[01:15:14] Then they have a moment that is the moment that you talked about as being one of the most unsettling moments where the daughter's like, I gotta pee All right. Yeah, that happens right then right? She's like, I gotta pee and he's like, okay

[01:15:24] So they pull over that's like farm I also like this because the audience of course is going like, oh, no, this is a terrible idea Especially alien's aliens are gonna come grab her and she's like the amount of tension is crazy The amount of tension is crazy

[01:15:36] She's stressed out but she's not at his level of stressed out because he's stressed out from her What's exactly what's going on? And so he's like just pee right here and she's like, I'm not peeing in front of you Like that is not gonna happen

[01:15:48] Yeah, and so she's like walking like an uncomfortably long way to like the nearest bush and it's great tension because Tom cruise He's going stop right there Yeah, and she's like no and she doesn't get how serious this is and he's like you're getting too far away

[01:15:59] And it's like a really good moment of tension Tom cruise performance is great Tom cruise is good and also but at the same time. He is so wonderfully ineffectual I think that's the scene where he goes

[01:16:09] I'm making a list of all the times you're not listening to me and I'm gonna tell your mother like he has nothing He has no barren power, but also it's A crazy wide shot right? Yes that holds for a while

[01:16:20] So you just see Dakota Fanning running further and further off in the distance becoming smaller and smaller And almost every other time the movie has gone this wide It's to show A crazy ominous force in relation to our character and Tom cruise sets up

[01:16:34] He says a thing that makes you nervous. He's like he's like someone's gonna try to steal our car Right, and so he's got to stay with the car right and then the farther she gets away

[01:16:42] You're like god if someone comes or grabs her like where's he gonna go? Like how is he gonna deal with this and it gets scary then we cut to Dakota Fanning

[01:16:48] She's gone to the woods area walks down the water where she's gonna like ostensibly go pee in the river Whatever hold on her face and her reaction for a while before we cut to what she's seeing Right because then she goes from happy gonna go pee to uh-oh

[01:17:02] Oh god. Oh god. Is that a body in the water? Is that a body in the water? We see a body come down the river and we cut to a reverse shot behind her where she's in the foreground

[01:17:10] Rivers in the back and we see this body. It's ominous. It's scary the music hits But then Spielberg and his infinite Spielbergian touch Like hundreds of bodies then come down the river And it's like

[01:17:26] That's not the plane when's the plane that's so they go from here then they drive to the house Yeah, right. I'm trying to piece it all together. Kevin and the mom aren't there, right? Yeah So then the explosion happens like this isn't lightning. This is something else

[01:17:39] Right in the morning they walk out crashing But so those people right so those people aren't from the plane. They're just the reporters who went to cover the plane

[01:17:46] No, no, no, no, I'm sorry. I meant the body's floating down the river. That's just body floating down the river Who knows right? No because that happens next The plane's still flying The plane's still flying. Yeah, the plane crashes. That's when crashes when they're in the house

[01:17:59] Remember because there's all of that. Oh, right. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes But so then the moment that happens right after this water scene, which is a great moment This is handled perfectly

[01:18:07] It's like that's it's like a short film when they say like the best scenes are things that themselves are a film Sure Girl at the water a body. Oh my god, then hundreds of body like it's just like this makes overwhelming like oh, you have no

[01:18:18] You're out of control They come back then they set the seed for The story arc That I don't need or want for this movie that I would if I could edit anything out I would

[01:18:31] The military drives by oh right. Yeah, I mean the yeah, I agree suddenly the sun starts going take me Take me in a way. That's like Now what now? I want to speak now

[01:18:42] I think there's an interesting thing here and it plays into the whole 9 11 narrative where he has this sort of Unfocused rage. He's a teenager. I've heard this wants to direct it

[01:18:51] You know against the enemies and of course, that's what America was doing right then when this movie is being written and made We got I think it's not a bad idea But it's it's undercooked. Yeah chat one certainly doesn't sell it

[01:19:02] Like when he's like let me go with the military The audience is certainly my reaction is like what they don't need you or want and it's also like wait What are you gonna do? You're gonna go you're gonna jump inside the military still looks professional

[01:19:13] You know, they don't look like some ragtag group. They would be like sure kid. Here's a gun Come on. This is also the first time the entire film up until this point

[01:19:21] We've seen him be proactive in any way. Yes. He's mostly like I don't want to fucking do it. I'll write my paper later Yeah, it's a weird turn for him and the daughter

[01:19:29] It's like him dealing with with the coat of fanning just feels like him just relating in one moment rather than him having any Burning anger or desire to fix the situation or whatever and then it's not picked up again Until the fucking moment where the movie falls apart

[01:19:43] It would almost work better for me if he was like Dad, it's getting the car. Let's follow them. Let's help them But he's trying to lead the charge before this instead. He's like at the side of the road trying to

[01:19:53] Convince that soldiers driving by to let him on there. It's like the logic doesn't make sense at all It doesn't make sense and his performance doesn't seem to exist Like you say just to plant the seed for him doing it later Right

[01:20:04] That's the scene where she says who's gonna take care of me Then you go to then they drive that's when they then drive the car to the ferry And I will say the Hudson ferry Dakota Fanning's performance there

[01:20:13] Grounds that because that scene did not work for me, but then when she's like like but who's gonna take care of me It's like oof. It gets you in the gut again, but here I want to keep us moving

[01:20:22] Okay, so plane crash which you can see if you do the universal Yeah, you can go to that set right? Is it cool? They bring you through on the tram. It's awesome It's fucking I mean it's an incredible set. Did you see that that look up the thing?

[01:20:33] And they go to Kevin's house Kevin and mom Tim. Yes, but yes Let's call him Kevin Kevin Tim they go to Kevin and Tim's house. Yeah, and they sleep there And Tom Cruise is still a bad dad. He doesn't have any food. They make peanut butter sandwiches. She's

[01:20:49] She throws the peanut butter sandwich in the window. I like that because she's been allergic since birth Since when since birth. Okay, but that to me is it's a that's a good family

[01:20:59] Well, I like that the frustration of the fucking kids need to eat. They don't want to eat Yes, they're using that like tiny power they have which is to refuse eating I also I like this movie's use of sleep and naps in order to jump ahead in time

[01:21:14] Yes So then they sleep and then suddenly the lightning starts happening again. Okay, so you think yeah, it's the plane crash We talked about it guys. Oh right. I guess well, I guess also that's where the news crew the news people They give them some information

[01:21:26] So the first time Tom Cruise has a slightly larger sense of what's going on Yeah, and she has that fucking zinger about like were you in the crash now? Would have been a great storm

[01:21:35] But we have to point out about this and I don't love that. I don't either But this plane it bleeds it leads Tom Cruise walks up from the basement. We think we're inside the house camera pulls out the house destroyed We don't know what it is

[01:21:46] We go to a wide shot where we see a giant like 747 strewn up about That shot cost them like So there's a detail in there that I've read that was um Just getting the old out of commission 747 and transporting it just to transport cost them $2 million

[01:22:06] That's amazing that makes sense though. I mean like think about it and then they separated it themselves and then Wherever it was and then built houses around it because that's the 747 is so gigantic

[01:22:18] And this film had a very long shoot. I think it was like a 70 day shoot or something Yeah It was like Spielberg always says like Because he hates the idea that this was a rushed movie like the sort of press idea the pre-production was rushed

[01:22:31] Exactly. The shoot was look it was my long shoot three months of pre-production But uh an interesting thing about this movie is this the first movie where he embraced uh, George Lucas's pre-vis Yes tech

[01:22:41] You know rather than storyboards. I think I had to exactly there was no other choice I think Spielberg who had was making revenge of the sith was finally like look it's faster You know like so that's one reason this could all happen

[01:22:50] I think also the fact that Spielberg was able to do it and deliver a movie that felt Fully realized from an effect standpoint was cohesive Set a really bad standard in Hollywood where they're like oh we can green light this and have it out in nine months

[01:23:04] Which is like Spielberg could do it because he like fucking good cause ready for it I think you start to see more and more rush blockbusters after this where it's like pre-visit and we'll figure it out later

[01:23:12] Yeah, right, right, right and what is it without a script essentially right what I like is that it's a set piece so large And not action driven. No not at all. You don't even see the plane crash And then the studio had to go like listen

[01:23:23] We promise we'll use this for something else later and they like turned it into its own exhibit And it's like it's a fucking like the centerpiece of the tram ride

[01:23:30] I imagine making a movie with a set piece so big that like the studio was like this has to turn into a theme park ride Or else it's not a good idea

[01:23:36] I think it's also helped the false notion that this is the most expensive film ever made when it came out There was this idea that it cost $250 million when it didn't it caused a half that they were also very secretive

[01:23:46] It cost 125 million and the big thing was that Both both cruise And spielberg They took points or whatever. Yeah, no no upfront salary. Well, they made a lot of money a lot of money Okay, so now they're on the road. They end up in this town

[01:24:03] So anyways the the the sun's driving this is one of the best ones to film the sun goes like uh-oh dad wakes up And he's like okay keep your foot on the gas and let's switch they switched drivers

[01:24:13] So Tom cruise is now driving right? Yeah, it's a cool moment because Tom It's one of the first moments where Tom cruise is like I'm gonna be in charge of this moment. Why don't you drive me? I don't have a license never stopped you before hard cut to

[01:24:24] Seats are flipped from the same angle at stark outside Tom cruise is sleeping Right, so now they're driving in and we see that there's like people everywhere And it's the way they shoot this is so good and so great and there's like a zombie attack

[01:24:36] There's a cool thing that I was reading about how yannis kaminsky they used like tons of different types of light so that it felt like Chaotic and they felt like they have like flashlight lights incandescent fluorescent

[01:24:49] So like you have all these mixtures of light so just feels unsettling and like chaos is And as people are walking and you're seeing Tom cruise's face to coat of fan It's like everyone's face of just like This is about to be really bad

[01:24:59] But you can tell yeah Tom cruise knows the most that it's going to be really bad The kids aren't as aware of how bad it's going to be but I also like that thing where it's like

[01:25:07] No one is fucking with the car for a while even though there are lots of people around the car Yes, and then some people start mildly fucking with the car and then you see you just sort of see the very slow

[01:25:19] Like mob reaction where it's taking over right? It like the more people start to mess with them the more people are emboldened to mess with them And then when he fires the gun everybody snaps out of it for a second

[01:25:29] Remember when like cruise fires the gun everyone's like yeah, whatever You know like it's weird that you would have the shame or whatever like sort of knocked back into you for a second Because they become like animals and it's such a good performance

[01:25:41] Because Tom cruise has had that moment at the beginning he's like sorry, sorry. No, no room. No room. Sorry She's saying like can't we take them and you know like and he's like no no no lock the door

[01:25:49] And then yeah, the guy's you could fit 10 people in there like 20. I think he says yeah, remember 20 And then I had like 20. Yeah I was thinking about I was like You know anyway

[01:25:58] And then there's a moment where someone gets on the hood of the car and then Tom cruise guns it And then suddenly it gets more physical and then people start pounding in the car And then someone throwing glass and then it like gets fucking crazy

[01:26:07] The guy is trying to Hands are bleeding. There's a guy grabbing under the broken glass cutting his hands of trying to get inside Yeah, it's really it's really alarming and then Dakota fanny is inside the car while the brother and Tom cruise are fighting

[01:26:21] And then people start piling into the car Like crushing her right and Tom cruise has seen this happen and that's when he takes the gun out and shoots it Yeah, he shoots the gun to get her not to get the car

[01:26:31] Yeah, and then the guy puts the gun to his head and it's like drop the gun Tom cruise does it I'm taking the car. I'm taking the car and Tom cruise is like give me my daughter

[01:26:38] I need my daughter. I just want my daughter. I just want my daughter. We're just like that's one of the best moments Because character change stuff happens. He's putting his family first

[01:26:46] He's like he is but I mean also I do think it's one of the things where he realizes like yeah Yes, can't I'm not gonna win. I'm not gonna win and then you see the car being consumed basically by the mob

[01:26:56] And then the scariest moment is that they go inside this diner The mob consumes the car and then you just see this like this actor gives one of best performances He's like some weird

[01:27:05] Dumpy looking dude that like walks up sees the gun Tom cruise drop picks it up looks at it And has this moment and we cut back to the diner And then in the background while talking to the windows of the diner either windows the diner

[01:27:16] You see like the mob of people on the car the car starts pulling away And then all of a sudden you see that guy wearing the yellow jacket that we know just picked up the gun Walks towards the car Bam bam bam

[01:27:27] You see the person the car die and then everyone and then turns into chaos and you're like oh my god Society is falling apart. This is it. This is it. This is the end times

[01:27:37] It's great. It is great. Yeah, and then we move to like an orderly boarding of the I think fairy to me. This is the line. Yes in the movie because I was gonna say like it's an odd

[01:27:49] Shift I agree because after that you feel like great like chaos Right has taken hold and then we cut to runs into is it jody benson? Yeah, I believe that is jody benson

[01:27:59] We said aerial the little mermaid really says next door neighbor. I believe that's it's either jody benson or julie warner I get both them confused. I think it's jody benson

[01:28:06] Anyway, carry on but to me this is the moment where it feels like we hopped the tracks from this grounded film about People observing society collapsing in the wake of disaster right into an action movie. Yeah, so I mean I think that the

[01:28:20] Um, and there's a couple other moments later on I think return back But this is the line to me where it's like a plot we got we and we gotta move forward because we're running out of time

[01:28:27] But I think that the um the harbor that the fairy scene is good. The first is good really It's it's intense and well done and like I like the escalation of it

[01:28:37] It's neither of the two actresses. I thought it was it's lisa and walter who looks like jody benson Okay, all right, but to me what what what's different about it is that now tom they're the main characters again

[01:28:47] So like sure if they first have this movie they wouldn't have made it onto the fairy But here it's like oh, they're the last ones to make it and you're like, okay now So it's getting a little fantastical a little bit like tom cruise is the hero

[01:28:58] He becomes mark wallberg and patriot state where it's like how do you make one fictitional character fictitious character? Who's at the right place at the right time experience all these things? Yeah, so anyways, patriot say shout out Four months after yeah, so then anyway

[01:29:12] Anyways fast forward they get they get on the ferry they get across they get across this I mean I think the fairy scene is impressive because it's that thing where the soldiers then have to it just the

[01:29:21] Site of the tripod. Yes makes everyone go from orderly boarding of the ferry to madness The soldiers have to keep them back and you're thinking like but these soldiers are gonna die

[01:29:31] Like if I was a soldier, I just get on the ferry, but it feels like fucking titan Exactly. Yes, it's a titan moment and they have an awesome shot where it's the ferry and everyone looking up And then on top of the hill the tripod

[01:29:40] Yes, like so well great shot. It's so cool But then they take down the ferry anyway, they take down the ferry the thing comes from the water Which is sort of cool. It is cool And then they're in the water establish that the news reporter

[01:29:53] Shows him the tape and shows him specifically that the things are coming down through the lightning Yeah, and going into the ground to awaken ships transportation to get to the ship

[01:30:01] I don't think we needed any of that no apparently that was literally just Steven Spielberg being like it's boring to do an alien invasion I want it to be that they were already here. He wants to flip the visual iconography and not have them come from it makes

[01:30:13] Not much sense except for so convoluted You can have some idea of like an ancient aliens kind of idea where it's like they seeded the earth Yeah, and they left these things there which I like that to turn us and you know to breed us to be food

[01:30:24] We were like a food farm, you know sort of like the jupiter ascending or way It's not it's not completely They were waiting until there were enough of us that it was worth coming back

[01:30:31] What we learn is all they're doing is harvesting our bodies and turning us into red weeds and drinking blood I just don't think we need to still image of like the alien waving at us in the lightning to be like Hey, this is how he got

[01:30:42] Well, I don't think you need the news reporter scene at all It is interesting that Yannis Kaminsky who's famous for like his fucking pools of light and everything This is the one movie where they use light as a signifier for like danger

[01:30:53] Where it's like the flashes of the lightning even when they're in the car like it's like anytime there's a bright flash of light It's not stylistic flourish. Yeah, it's like this is something bad happening. Yes. The darkness is a safe in this movie so anyways

[01:31:06] They end up on a hill and then The tripods are fighting the military and then there's this moment where the sun Ops to join the military sort of a drag dad. Let me do this then dakota stay by yourself

[01:31:19] Right the idea is that cruise has his hands on chat when You can't do code is like 50 paces behind him And these other people are gonna take her because they're afraid that she's been abandoned

[01:31:28] You can't be alone and he makes this like spielberg like really, you know concentrates on him letting go of chat When as the army crawls away. It's a very It's odd performance is a little it's it doesn't match. It's a

[01:31:40] Visually cool that there's like something happening over this hill and we can't see it the tanks are rolling in There's like missiles being fired. We don't know what it is Or just see light and flashes and noise now famously they were really secretive about this movie

[01:31:54] Like it was a top secret everyone was like is there some crazy twist and then show the aliens no one knew anything about it The poster was just like an old-fashioned like ben hur like war of the world block letters

[01:32:05] Like like it's a statue right so everyone thought like are there some weird surprising elements the movie's pretty straightforward in terms of plotting Right, it's very similar to it's g wells novel the war of the world

[01:32:15] Yes, it just uh made contemporary and set in americans death. Yeah a couple characters get merged into one character That's about it um, but famously at the uh press junket

[01:32:27] When they would usually show the full movie and this was another movie that was sort of a turning point of like don't even let the press see it We don't want anything leaking out. Yeah, it's the actors only get their scene

[01:32:36] Spielberg was obsessed with this for this movie alone Which is like marvel uses all of that shit now. Anyway, what's the closer point? At the press junket? They only showed this scene which is a weird scene to lead with right

[01:32:45] They showed this later that feels very Spielberg if you only saw this scene you'd be like I guess this is the whole movie It's the father struggling with the sun right it's the vague threat over the hill

[01:32:55] But it's like then you watch the movie and the first time I have a huge amount of bearing on the overall film No, no, and it doesn't doesn't feel earned. It's just to kind of get chat went out of the action

[01:33:04] Like it doesn't even really have a huge emotional beat not at all That problem is also the logic doesn't make sense because like what are you gonna do? You're gonna run unarmed behind these tanks like that are clearly losing like I don't get what the kids

[01:33:18] Again, if it was like there was some ragtag group people that are like grab a gun help us But instead it's like tanks driving and he's like trying to run after them like a dog in a way It's like I don't get what his idea of what was

[01:33:30] It's this one scene that like suddenly becomes a lot more like allegorical and like impressionistic Yeah, whereas the rest of the movie up until this point has been like very literal very visceral Very hyper real. Yes. I agree and um, this is where the movie gets not that

[01:33:46] He chooses to put a fanning and and with that decision I feel like the film also starts becoming visually much more straightforward Like say for some of the basement stuff. I think it starts getting a lot less washed out

[01:33:57] The colors become like a lot more conventional the grain structure. I think even well goes away here You want to know why that is I think? Because we enter cg world. Yes Okay, all right, you know what I mean the

[01:34:09] From here on out, there's a lot more cg a lot of ships a lot of aliens a lot of probes Okay, so anyways This next part I think the plot stuff to me doesn't matter as much

[01:34:20] Well, the next part is ogle v right the next part's tim robbins Right They get in a basement and for 20 minutes were in the same place after this movie's been moving so great when the movie came out

[01:34:28] Yeah, I feel like already the prevailing narrative on spielberg was like he really struggles with his final thirds right He doesn't stick to the land people were really saying like hey man I thought ai minority port and catch if you can all had bad final thirds

[01:34:41] Disagree with them on those agree. I agree with them on this one. I agree. Yeah, uh bad I was just coming off his ill deserved oscar for mystic river That's another factor at play is like he's given his mystic river performance like times two or whatever

[01:34:54] And he was a runaway train throughout the entire season It was like robbins is just cleaning up and he got all the awards And then I feel like two months after he won everyone was like wait is that performance back everyone was like

[01:35:04] He's the worst actor in mystic river. It was like an immediate backlash The worst performance in the film and he's not bad at season like uncontested with good competition He won every single award and then the backlash was immediate

[01:35:16] So by the time this came out people were like, oh, fuck. He's doing the same thing and you get the sense that He was just like oh, it's a tom cruise steven spielberg wore the world Assumed it would be played at hook or close encounters level

[01:35:29] And then just gave that performance without any awareness of what the rest of the movie was Spielberg turning him down. What is this character? This character is essentially someone who's decided that

[01:35:39] Like, you know, I mean it's sort of again like a very vague 9 11 or war on terror mentality where he's like, you know They they may have gotten us but we're gonna get them like we're not gonna let this happen Like they're occupying us and we have to resist

[01:35:51] He's a guy in a wife beater With a shotgun just a hood in a ruined Basement like this is not a this is not a guy. It doesn't make any fucking sense except that quote

[01:36:02] He's crazy and quote okay leave. Yeah, but he's not crazy in a way that's scary to watch It's just like just get away from this problem And I think the logic maybe of what was on the page versus how it was

[01:36:15] Executed is a little different because the idea is that they take refuge in the sky's basement And then they think that this guy's trying to get to safety And they'll learn now that no this guy's trying to camp out here to fight them from the inside

[01:36:27] He's like tom cruise you and me let's fight together But the problem is he's like digging a tunnel Yeah, the problem is it's not like it says shawshank right it's not like a bunker that you would feel safe in

[01:36:34] It's just no the bottom floor of a house right and it doesn't it feels like the kind of thing where it's like Tom cruise wouldn't you just keep running like why would you think that you're safe?

[01:36:43] This is in the book. It doesn't feel at least in some form. They combine two characters But there is the sort of and there's the book in the book and the original movie I think has the whole scene with the eye

[01:36:52] Yeah snake thing which I think is fun Him hitting one of his greatest hits like it's yeah, it's him playing You know the hit single of like the raptors in the kitchen, you know my no report with the spiders

[01:37:04] Yes, which is a much better version. Um, but I think this here's when it starts getting into like Okay, we're no longer in this like Hyper real look at what it's like like there's a moment when like

[01:37:14] The hiding behind a mirror right and then the coat of fanning slips and the thing sees her foot Yeah, and then it goes on the corner and then it's just the boot and they're gone It's like wait. So now they're doing like mad cap like it's Spielberg lever

[01:37:27] I'm gonna speak up for this scene Okay for something about the scene and I like the aliens which I know JD doesn't like I don't know what your take on the aliens is because we see the alien We see the alien maybe between the two of you

[01:37:37] I would rather you didn't see the aliens that haven't been said. I like the way the aliens are executed um, I love how inquisitive and Playful they are I like the thing with the bicycle. I like the thing with the bicycle

[01:37:50] I like the way that the eye moves. I like the sort of weird like Just reversal of them where it's like no, yeah when they're in their ships

[01:37:57] They're just you know an occupying like brutal force, but like yeah, there is something it's not even like likable. It's just It's creepy. They're like, you know weird little fish people that come out and they're like, hmm interesting, you know I don't yeah, and it goes like

[01:38:13] Clock off get back in the tribe Better suck up some more human blood. Yeah Um, I like that. It it it unnerves me. I think that they are fine I don't like cg aliens. I don't like seeing the

[01:38:27] Motion of cg aliens. I don't like when it's like oh, they have to have like four legs and walk like this and be really Slender and slimy three legs right whatever tripods their tripod creature right of course

[01:38:39] But like I don't like the like slender shiny cg aliens sure I wish we had seen them last I really like their faces because I think a lot of them There are sometimes where they had some practical faces But I just for the most part don't

[01:38:52] I don't need to I don't need you to show off how these things move and walk In cg especially when it's like shiny body full It just feels like you're not gonna land it so don't do it my two favorite

[01:39:05] Executions of an alien species in recent cinema history And I would just say like 21st century as recent cinema history are arrival and Edge of tomorrow Which I both think make the smart decision to like move as far away from humanoid as possible

[01:39:22] Not give them faces so you can't read a motion onto them and they're just weird interesting organisms I would say I love the alien design in edge of tomorrow so much. I think that is so brightening when you see them Yeah

[01:39:35] Attack the block. I that's the third one. I said two and then immediately thought actually there's three That's the block you don't see them and when you do it's hard to see them

[01:39:43] Yes, great movie that is but I think all three of those movies are such a good movie in edge of tomorrow They move so fast. It's hard to see them in arrival. They're usually behind fog

[01:39:51] And attack the block they're mostly in at night in the darkness right like and all three They totally avoid any sort of recognizable face humanoid forms You notice so it just becomes like a weird force and I think the other one is paul That's the fourth one

[01:40:07] One of the worst films ever made one of like quietly the worst films ever made Hey that guy's got a weird career. Greg Metola Greg Metola, yeah But the alien loves smoking weed and has a lot of funny jokes about inappropriate Yeah, David. He's chill

[01:40:20] But he's a chill alien But David, he's a chill alien There are a few moments in this basement scene that are cool and rad Isolated moments The moment when Tom Cruise is like

[01:40:30] If you have anything to say you can say it to me and never speak to my daughter Good little moment It implies a lot more without being sinister because that could have been a very pedophily whatever

[01:40:40] It implies all of that with just a line and a performance by tom cruise I think the shot the pov shot of him putting the blindfold on her. Yes. I think that's good Is good, even though I don't

[01:40:52] Again what happens right after that totally earns the the murder thing No, it just doesn't feel like it has much of an effect on tom cruise But I like that moment in and of itself because there's a hard cut to you're looking at dakota looking straight at you

[01:41:04] And you hear the voice saying like okay. Yes and then What happens? I mean next they kill him and murder him and then they just leave Then no, there's just one more set piece, which is you know them getting kidnapped by the tripod

[01:41:20] The moment when dakota fanting is missing though Is pretty good. I guess so I like it. He runs outside and it's like oh This thing the person that the person that he chose protect He's lost her. Yeah, I think it's good

[01:41:33] I mean and the visual the studio like obviously they shot this part in a studio where it's like the red everywhere And it's like it's just that is great It's so he exits the house and it's another quiet the veins are another nice like you know

[01:41:46] Way for them to advance time a little bit. Yeah, so it's like when he comes out the world is just covered in this These red weeds Uh, and it's so quiet and it's just like so creepy

[01:41:55] It's the end of the world. It feels like the oh it feels like and now I'm realizing something that they uh, stranger things the Whatever other universe thing the upside down upside down. Yeah where it's like

[01:42:10] More like lamar things. Okay. Is it more like lamar things? Yes. Okay yes, um yeah, it's It's Interesting, but then we get to then we get to my least favorite part of them. They're both caught in the net

[01:42:23] They're in this like cage underneath the ship. It feels very similar to uh, teddy and uh, David in the Net under the moon ship in a I Yeah, there's a similar thing where the ship collects robots in all this cage

[01:42:38] I do like dakota fanny has shut down. Yes like her brain. No working no more Like she's just catatonic and that is a cool moment of attention where you see A person gets sucked up into this like very organic like yeah a butthole

[01:42:51] It's a but it's rose budding. What I like what I like is that it feels organic and it feels like oh You don't want to be pulled in there because then you just get

[01:42:58] Drain. Yeah, I'm fine with it. I guess I just this set piece just yes. I Don't like the set piece. I also don't like that. They're in a vest full of grenades I don't like that that they're inside a cage outside of it

[01:43:10] Yeah, because also the bars are wide enough that you can slip through it easily and I'm like Wouldn't I mean? I don't want to is I don't mean this in a crass. I'm not doing a bit But like if you're trying to

[01:43:21] A 9-11 11 thing right don't you have them jumping out wouldn't you if you're in this thing you're seeing people get pulled up to be Like people would be jumping out of this thing It feels like the movie has dropped that at this point

[01:43:30] It feels like it makes a second act shift into trying to represent the chaos of like should we go to war? Should we fight but it doesn't do it well But the thing is it's like yeah, maybe it's kept maybe it's built over someone

[01:43:39] But essentially it's like no we need we need a punch the air moment here We need a hero moment And then what I don't like we've decided to stick with the ending which is just and then they got sick and That was that you know like you know

[01:43:51] Tom cruise defeats this ship, but he didn't defeat the whole race the rest of races died But at least you got like a hey, you know right and that's what happens He turns into a superhero here as he finds grenades

[01:44:00] Yeah, and then the army guys like I got your back And then he gets the attention of the thing the thing sucks them up What I don't like again is we see someone get sucked up into the machine and get turned into blood

[01:44:10] And then Tom cruise gets sucked up and then everyone tries to save him It's a group effort in the cage, and I'm like Yo, how come you guys didn't try to save the first guy? Well, Tom cruise guys starpill. I think it's yeah true

[01:44:22] But also he the military guy sees that Tom cruise has the grenade not until after I don't think I think he does But it's a little confusing. It doesn't matter. I mean, I think that's the implication

[01:44:31] He gets also if you saw he had the grenade wouldn't you be like oh good This guy's gonna while he dies. He's gonna save the rest of us suicide. You wouldn't be like Let's save this guy. You'd be like you'd be like get that guy in there

[01:44:41] Let's make sure he gets the grenade push him in it's a good little here when he has the The pins sure it's right, but it's a different movie. I agree. Yeah, I agree And then the thing explodes and then we don't talk you don't go to Boston

[01:44:54] But then you don't sell me on like the thing collapsing It's like uh, you guys all fell from a hundred feet in a matter of a day. You're being nitpicky And then also

[01:45:00] No, the movie is so real for the first time and then it turns into like no no no We have been forgiving the movie. Don't wag your finger at me David

[01:45:10] Oh boy, we have been forgiving the movie for the first half like you know, the van just drives up the highway Sure, sure, you can forgive that shit. I don't care about them surviving when the tripod falls down I just don't need the tripod thing at all

[01:45:22] That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I'm just saying so many aspects of it to me are like just don't do it I agree. I mean, I don't like that him pulling off his hero moment of like making the butthole swallow the grenades

[01:45:33] Is simultaneous with the aliens also catching a cold and dying That's like here's your victory and also your victory was the last victory we needed because everything else has been solved by itself

[01:45:42] I almost just want because I think it's good that tom cruise gets the tiny hero moment of noticing that the birds are landing on the Tripods later. Oh, right where he's like the force fields down. Look the birds shoot that's

[01:45:55] A believable hero moment for a blue collar guy and then the army You know actually does their stuff He just noticed and I think the ending of the movie is actually nice I just think this movie would be a goddamn masterpiece if that middle

[01:46:10] You know bit that we've just discussed was just different in some way. I don't like the ending with the brownstone Here's I like the ending with the brownstone If tom cruise is pretty ruined And you know, I don't think he sells no

[01:46:23] That's that's the problem better saying if you change that this bit that we're talking about then maybe it would work Right. I agree and am I other adjustment the brownstone moment

[01:46:33] Sun is not there. Yeah 100% the sun being there just becomes like I think it's of course. Are you fucking crazy? Nobody on earth 100 bajillion people would watch this movie every single one shortly would come out and be like

[01:46:44] Why is the sun there? David calm down the worst thing in the world. Yeah, david's hand motions there You didn't bring it up Muppet ass You're acting angry at us you're bringing it up. No, no, I'm not mad at you guys. You guys are great

[01:46:57] Oh, I love you I'm mad at the movie for doing that. It's like Who does it help? Nobody who is happy about it. Justin chat wins agent Even is even he happy is even Justin chat wins agent happy because his agent wants two war two worlds

[01:47:17] They're back they were even deeper underground. No, it's Like who walks down there and is like good movie. You know what I really loved was that the sun Didn't die or whatever that has never explained to us why the sun is somehow fine. It's to boston before them

[01:47:37] They were down there like can we drop you off at a brownstone? He walks over the hill into like the apocalypse Let's be clear. Right. Like it's not like, uh, you know like a battle. Yeah, and there's no ambiguity of the world

[01:47:50] And when we you know cruises in that basement for like a couple days So it's not like the aliens are getting sick Okay, so I don't like what is fieldberg trying to do in this ending? I believe he's trying to do the searchers

[01:48:02] I think this is his homage to the searchers where it's like this guy's been on this crazy mission To retrieve the daughter and he brings him home and then nothing's better He's alone and you mirror the same shot in the searchers where john wane walks out

[01:48:16] And you know goes off into the distance. Right. There's this lonely guy. He made restored someone else's family, right? Um, and there's the whole thing in the searchers the sort of subtext that perhaps he's the biological father of nallywood Right

[01:48:29] I think in this it's the idea of like this movie has been him trying to reconnect with his children And learn to protect them and at the end he's still not their dominant parent

[01:48:36] They're more comfortable with kevin and maranda auto they're home and tom cruise doesn't walk into the building He doesn't that's what I like about it. Like and I want him to be Yeah, I think they need to do three things one is just to chat when isn't there

[01:48:49] He died right died in the mass of explosion or not just who knows He won his his battered body. I think the number two is the last shot is his gravestone

[01:49:01] Then they go to his crystal which has somehow been already it fades into old private ryan at the gravestone looking at uh, just and chat one's uh Burial site a number two is I nailed that one

[01:49:14] Number two is I think you don't just end the movie with tom cruise standing outside of the brown sun You end the movie with tom cruise walking away That's probably fair. I would do that too, but I mean and right and I feel like

[01:49:26] In number three as you sell that arc more up until that point There's a movie where when he kills tim robbins. Yes It's the right thing to do But his daughter can't look at him the same way

[01:49:36] The movie and he's that emotional beat and he's been ruined by it too Yeah, and like so when you do that, you know, you could even have it where it's like that happens they exit The aliens are getting sick. Yeah, and you know, you know

[01:49:48] You have that moment where it's finally like, you know, you see the tripod go down and the it coughs I do like when it coughs up all the orange soda and the But uh and but yeah, but the idea is at this point she can't you know

[01:50:01] Yeah, they've been ruined as the world has I think it's essentially two movies The first half is just this like almost like docu drama Like this is just what it would feel like if you were in the middle of this and you had no power

[01:50:11] And you were just anybody and then halfway through it starts acting Like it's paying off an emotional Like distant father It's it's the you know the spielberg divorce kind of cloud hangs over everything

[01:50:26] Except from the perspective of the father who's desperately trying to hold on to his family Right. Yeah, except the first half the movie wasn't that yeah and aesthetically what was interesting was just the Set pieces in the moment. What did Tom Cruise see in there?

[01:50:37] I have no idea well because like again if the movie ends that way, maybe I can see Tom Cruise being fired up about it, right? Well, the last line should have been Tom Cruise walking away and then he stops So he just gives a laugh

[01:50:49] Looks just just left the camera as he says I guess they're wrong when they said this was a mission impossible That would be good And then he pulls off his mask and he's Ethan Hunt. He's billy-pillipine. Yes

[01:51:02] No, I would like it if he went like look to them and he was like Then he was like Justin Chatman, how did you get here? Tell me everything. I was waiting for that too of like what's the story man?

[01:51:13] Can we get 20 minutes? Yeah, what kind of a fucking crazy time did you have getting here? And also like him being like did he tell you that I had to fight these and and she oh my it was I mean I killed Tim Robbins

[01:51:24] He's like this this could be a movie what I just went through could be a movie This could be a movie and Justin Chatman's like hey I wanted to kill Tim Robbins after he won that Oscar

[01:51:31] He does say that because Justin Chatman was very vocal at the time about that But I do think it would be good if every movie ended with the person who's the star of the movie saying this could be a movie

[01:51:40] Yeah, just yeah, just sitting down. This is a really crazy thing. We should sell this as a movie Hey guys JD Amato from the future here Uh, the benduser was kind enough to edit this audio file into the episode because I just needed to come clean about something

[01:51:55] Coming up you're going to hear me read a list of the notes that I took during the movie And one of them that I mentioned offhandedly is Tim Robbins great I believe and immediately Griffin and David jump on me to talk say that he wasn't great

[01:52:08] And in a pretty cowardly way, I immediately like roll over and I think I even claim that like I misspoke about my note or like my note was written in a way that actually means the opposite thing

[01:52:20] And it's been weighing heavily on my conscience. So I just needed to come clean here to you guys I thought Tim Robbins was great in this movie I get why people might not like him because it's tonal shift

[01:52:31] But I don't think it was performance. I think his performance is appropriately creepy and weird and out there and I think there are some story things that are wonky about this sort of character and all this stuff, but I don't think that's on tim robbins

[01:52:45] And to be honest, I let the peer pressure get to me Sometimes david and griffin can be so sure about things about movies that me even though I work in This industry and adjacent industry

[01:52:58] I can be convinced that I don't know what I'm talking about and I just wanted to agree with them But uh, I'm taking a stand. I'm not letting the peer pressure get to me

[01:53:06] I was a coward and we recorded this and I I let I let everyone jump on tim robbins I should have defended him. I thought tim robbins was fun in this movie

[01:53:17] I get if you're not into the performance, but I thought it was fun. I think this movie's fun And I just had to come clean David and griffin probably will never hear this because I don't think they'll listen back to the episode

[01:53:28] So as far as they know, I agreed with them, but I'm here to tell you guys That I don't agree and that I'm here to defend tim robbins And I'm embarrassed about my cowardly behavior coming up, but um, I wanted you guys to know the truth

[01:53:44] anyways, thanks ben dooser for putting that in there and Listen guys We can also come to peer pressure But we all have a chance to make it right Now back to the episode

[01:54:00] JD brought notes. So do you have anything? Yes. Yes. You want to cover on your note sheet? There's one big I mean my notes are cried at first chaos cried at boat cg aliens bad tim robbins is great What's that tim robbins is great

[01:54:16] Not in this movie to me it was oh you just like tim my note was tim robbins is great when he comes on screen and then that Sure, then it all goes away. Yeah, I mean

[01:54:25] This is the thing most of my tim robbins my big no one else is one of those performances that decade So great in shoshing so great in hud circle proxy

[01:54:32] Oh, yes, wonderful in the player like so many great tom tim robbins performance. Uh, yeah, I mean boulder mother fucker Uh, tucker a man in his dream Uh, he's not in that no jeff bridges isn't that my high fidelity?

[01:54:44] He's on what we want my final very good at that, but julie stink get it out of his store My final note, but I wonder if you guys agree. I have a whole theory that I want to get into okay

[01:54:55] Bad credit agreed odd credit really bad. That's what those what's the movie ends They cut to it and it is a silver glimmering font over a starry background It says written and directed by steven spielberg or like directed by steven

[01:55:11] Yeah, yeah, no this movie's book ended by fucking morgan freeman freeman Literally reading from like orc and wells' text cells and water. Yeah, right. I think it's from the book Yeah, it is but then If they just cut to almost like a more subtle spielbergian cut to black

[01:55:27] Yeah, directed by but instead it's like this like 2005 era spider-man style Ending credits thing or even like the opening credits of like the richard donner superman where it's like starry night And he's big like shiny letters that are like flying towards you

[01:55:41] Yeah, because I have one of my big theories about I wonder if I'd mention it on this Potty's form sure I have is that one of the most important moments in any movie the first credit The moment it cuts to black. Yeah, there was those five seconds

[01:55:54] Yes, where those five seconds determined if it was a good or bad movie And that's why I think netflix agree netflix is one of the Basically like done one of the greatest crimes against film

[01:56:12] Yeah, and then it cuts it. It's like don't you want to watch the ridiculous six No, it would be like if you want to watch I want to see what the key grip was It'd be like if you just romanced your love and then the moment

[01:56:24] Wow, jd tells more the post-coital the first post-coital moment It was someone being like hey, do you want to uh, do you want to do that again? Or do you want to do something else? What do you want to do right now?

[01:56:34] No, let me sit in this moment for just a moment That's I love that moment after sex where it's like who's gonna say the first thing You said sex in a really

[01:56:43] Because I don't like talking about sex nobody wants to hear us talk about this on this part I know that's why let's get the metaphor out of the way That's why I said it in that voice because I started saying it. I was like wait

[01:56:52] No, I don't want to describe myself having sex in any way. We're not gonna we've been on mic for a while You gotta play the box office game. Do you have anything else that we want to talk about? I think you're

[01:57:01] A hundred and look the worst crime this film perpetuates is just in chatman's a lot at the end of the movie Second worst crime probably the credits I just third tim robert netflix just have a feature where you can delay it the amount of time that you want

[01:57:12] But maybe tim robbins being bad on this movie was good because everyone agreed he was bad And then weirdly that was the end of his career Yeah, like am I wrong

[01:57:21] I mean obviously some solid supporting performances. I I I wanted to come back and well this is good form Maybe I guess it was the end of That sure thing he's doing in there. Oh, yeah, I also read something about this film that the costume team created

[01:57:36] 60 different versions of his leather jacket. Yeah. Yeah, I read that too. That's fucking insane What are they? Yeah, they also said there's this thing where dakota fanning's character has like a unicorn purse that's tied to her jackets That's the one semblance of like comfort for her

[01:57:50] But like she holds on to it or all this cast and I don't think you ever clearly see the unicorn remember that thing at all But I read two paragraphs of the costume designer talking about that as a decision

[01:57:58] Well, I mean good for that costume that same as the purse. So was uh, justin jowen's jungle jeans. Yes Okay box office game this movie came out the independence day weekend of 2005 july 1st 2005 it was a four day weekend. I was living in boston that summer

[01:58:16] I was interning at the boston phoenix And uh, I would see a lot of movies by myself this 2005 2005 that summer I saw like every movie released that summer by myself at the amc fenway and uh, this was one of them I was working as a counselor in training

[01:58:31] At box rock performing arts camp and I had to be taken out by someone else's parent to go see this movie at the new mullford Theater did you see it by yourself or just with the parents all the group of people

[01:58:42] I think the parent dropped us off and then when we got lunch somewhere else and then we saw the movie I was 19 you're probably like 16. I would have been 16. Yeah. What about you jd? Um, that was before my senior year of high school

[01:58:53] And I was at probably I think that was probably the summer where I was at the new york university Summer high school filmmakers workshop. Hey meeting people who would become my friends and collaborators for the rest of my life

[01:59:05] You know, I did that program the following summer. Yes, I did it in the animation side And did you mean the animation side? Yeah, really? Yeah, that's when I thought I was gonna be an animator Did you know I was an animator in my U

[01:59:16] Yeah, I know that who's your professor in that? Uh, uh matt what's his last name enough enough enough Basta basta, uh, did you meet your friends and collaborators forever at this summer workshop?

[01:59:26] No, but I did meet uh chris cooks and who's a very loyal banky has written into our show before avid listener Great guy, but other than that. I've never talked to anyone else. I like david brushing this off

[01:59:37] How about how about we have another reference to when you lived in england david? Why do you uh? Oh, why don't you humble brag some more? I didn't mention living in england once this episode. I know I'm just saying that's that's a

[01:59:47] That was I was living in boston when this film came out David's always bragging about living in england and one of the elements of this podcast is you describe the

[01:59:55] Exactly where in england something was an element of my damn life. I mean that is uh, anyway box office game I believe this film makes just about 100 million in the four days. It made 112 million dollars in its opening weekend 250 total

[02:00:08] Yeah, I can sorry it got a 250 total at no, sorry 234 total. Oh 591 worldwide so it essentially did 50 of its domestic in the first four days Yeah, opened huge. Yeah, that's a good point because in the next weekend fantastic four comes out. Yep

[02:00:23] Oh my god, I forgot about that world actually. It's a fair drop 53 drop It's not like a terrible drop. No makes 30 million, you know, that July 4th corridor was its main area at the shy

[02:00:34] For sure and it did its job. I mean, it's a nice big opening 112 mil now because of uh, both uh, spielberg and cruise Uh Giving up their upfront salary, right? I believe cruise makes 100 million dollars off this movie

[02:00:49] Yeah, I think this was the apex of him making. Whoa, yeah Ridiculous amounts of money entertainment weekly and this is at the height of the cruise like wait Is this guy fucking weird backlash runs a cover story?

[02:00:59] That's a picture of tom cruise smiling and it says is this guy worth 100 million dollars And I think like that's sort of the final brick in the jenga tower Is like wait, he made that much money after like acting this weird and like being kind of miscast

[02:01:12] Isn't this when he then like his sister is his like Published sister or something. He like Paramount like yes in paramount kind of uh Severs ties with him right after we should say this is actually it's only a quasi dream's work movie dream works

[02:01:25] Maybe because paramount releases at the after play dream works and paramount did almost all of cruises films So, okay, okay number one war of the worlds number two Uh, it is a sequel and sorry. Sorry. It's a reboot

[02:01:38] Of a franchise that had been number one for the previous two weeks at the box up It's a reboot of a franchise. Yes, it has made 154 million dollars Batman begins correct I saw it like three times in theaters cruise and homes. I saw like three times up here

[02:01:53] It might stole my favorite of the Nolan films the Nolan Batman films. I'll say I saw that way late Interesting. I meant I miss movies and never I just I just forget it right right right right Uh Batman begins somewhat of a

[02:02:07] Well remembered 2005 movie. I like war of the worlds right feel like they're from different eras of cinema Personally, well one's probably at the tail end of one and one's at the start of another

[02:02:17] Transition it's like their same year, but man it feels like Batman begins the beginning of a new Style passing of the I would say so although it's you know, it's feeding off Yes, definitely

[02:02:27] But Nolan kind of becomes the blockbuster filmmaker that everyone else is trying to copy rather than Spielberg for sure Because Spielberg's now transitioning into like maybe I want to make more dramas Spielberg's like yeah, I'm I'm just gonna do my own thing over here. No one bother me

[02:02:38] Right everything's haunted and if I make a bad movie like don't worry about you know, I'd like a lot of movies to take place in Europe

[02:02:44] Yeah, and like I don't really care about Oscars. So give me one if you want, you know, I'm not gonna campaign number three the box Uh, it's a uh much discussed It's a film that is in my opinion truly bad

[02:02:56] But it was a huge box office hit not only because it's an action film starring two famous people But because of the mr. Mrs. Smith offscreen drama Mr. Mrs. Smith Madame Smith Doug Lyman

[02:03:11] Lymania. Yeah, Doug Lyman probably his most successful film and probably his worst in my opinion I think that movie is god awful Doug Lyman who recently beat JD in a game of table tennis. Is that right?

[02:03:21] Is he a nice guy? Yes. He's very nice. That's good. He's really good at ping pong, right? Uh, I don't I don't think it's telling you in tale of school

[02:03:29] We were sharing at a facility together and he's been there working on his newest film for a long time Which is with Tom Cruise, I believe correct. Yeah American May made yes and the wall they were just doing as well

[02:03:41] But he's got two movies that he's like posting on and another one Um, and so he brought in personally at ping pong table And then a member of my staff told the member of his staff that we should play each other And that

[02:03:59] Spiled out of control and then it became this big game between us And I think that I'm pretty good at ping pong table tennis So I was like not sweating it. Um, and then he comes to the table They like squeeze in a time in a schedule

[02:04:13] And his one of his members of his team brings him he goes Uh, do you think I'll need Excalibur? Like I hear he's good referring to me Yeah, which was just the hearsay of the people that had challenged him legend has he goes get Excalibur

[02:04:29] This woman brings out a box A black like nicely crafted box that went open has a foam cut out with a Custom paddle inside boy. Oh boy that she had to remove and hand to him

[02:04:40] And then we did a series of casual back and forth and then when the game began He unleashed a skill and finesse that he had not displayed in the warm-up

[02:04:49] So you were saying he was he was sort of vaguely hustling you in the warm-up. Yes. Oh big time I think he went up like 15 to 0 and I think I ended 21 to 17 so made a big run. Oh, that's good, but he definitely beat me handily

[02:05:02] He made you think you were gonna play against jumper when you actually played against edge of tomorrow I mean it was he was he really Did you say that you were fair game Number four the box office one of the big bombs of the year

[02:05:17] A film I saw in theaters alone at the amc fenway a comedy Uh, it's starting to mismatch stars of the moment Our boy are they mismatched? They were mismatched. They were of the legendary director of romantic comedy

[02:05:33] Legendary director of romantic comedies is a Gary Marshall. No, it's a lady Uh, oh It's it's not nor afron is it it is nor afron. It's nor afron. It's 2005 I believe this is her penultimate film. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It is will ferrell and nicole kidman in

[02:05:50] Bewitched what a what an idea that was A film in which posits that the film the tv show bewitched Start a real witch right and that in remaking it They will also cast another witch played by nicole kidman

[02:06:05] Yeah, which is almost the identical plot to like child's play Or You mean bride of chuckie. Yeah bride of chuckie Yeah, right. Isn't that the exact same plot?

[02:06:16] Yeah, or is it the next one whichever one that takes place in the set of a chuckie movie. I believe that's bride of chuckie. Okay Yeah, um Yes insane the most uh, which is crazy

[02:06:25] I mean, but bride of chuckie leases is a schlocky little horror movie like but which was like one of the big tent poles of the summer Wolf harrell was hot. Wolf harrell was hot and this was the whole kidman was hot

[02:06:33] This was the first of like three consecutive bombs for wolf harrell Where he then went back to basic. This is the year where he had the producers as well, you know and kicking and screaming

[02:06:40] Yeah, and then he's like adamak a let's get back. Screaming is not bad. I think people will look back on a lot of those movies and they will People will enjoy them

[02:06:50] Because I think the movies we just mentioned not but we're not but here's what I think even colbert's in it I think that's a corral too Yes, well plays paul in right how plays the paul in character. It's not good

[02:07:02] I think people I think not they're not gonna be regarded as great movies But I think people who find will ferrell will be like, huh, these are fun Have you ever seen bewitch? I have not. No, no one will think that bewitched is insane

[02:07:14] It's also like a hollywood satire in which will ferrell plays a star It's every decision that's made in that film is it's one of the most over thought adaptations of

[02:07:23] Incredibly simple material line that it tried to hit in the trailers was where she goes i'm a witch because that's okay I'm a clippers fan. That was what it thought was like the line to land

[02:07:32] They treat like when hollywood was trying to make will ferrell kind of like This guy can be like a rom-com leading man, right? He's he's a plugger rather than like the creative force behind his movie Right. Is he jim carrey rather than like woody allen right?

[02:07:47] Um not that he's woody allen but like will ferrell has to have a voice in his movie agreed Uh, that's when his films are best and number five film at the box office is uh children's film another sort of reboot Of a children's series

[02:08:01] Starring uh the teen idol a teen Star of the moment and michael keaton Oh herbie fully herbie fully loaded my gosh Herbie fully loaded a movie for children directed by

[02:08:16] Angela robinson. Yes, and um starring lindsay lohan which the title refers to her large breasts. Yep. Wait. Is that true? I mean No, yes Also was like they cut her off right below the breast like it was like her breasts hanging over the car

[02:08:32] Fully loaded supposed to be I guess also written by Gowan Miller. Yeah, no little uh lennon and uh Oh, well they wrote the second pass or whatever right? Yeah, but also the small little guys wrote it. Yeah, um, but yes, you're right

[02:08:45] Weird movie made 66 million dollars. It's not a bomb Of course that was before that was before cinema started falling apart at the scene It was a simpler time And so other movies up there. You've got madagascar. Oh

[02:08:57] The original he's got long it's so great. Aren't they still making madagascar movies? Yeah, they'll never stop. Are they? Yeah, I think they are it's crazy Well, it's a thing with animation where they they kind of get the ball rolling on a movie and then no one cares

[02:09:09] But it's too late. I could rant about madagascar. Don't get me started And I don't want actors don't age you can just keep making it. Um, uh, also in that movie rebound Who remembers rebound martin lorence has rebound martin lorence

[02:09:21] Uh coaches like a girls like high school team or something. No, it's mixed It's boys and girls. Good. It's not even the ladybug premise. You know what good. It's progressive crazy Also in there, you've got a little film called star wars episode three revenge of the sith

[02:09:36] Which I have still never seen they made a third apparently they did I forgot about that the longest yard Land of the dead Oh, yeah, yeah, did you guys remember when this podcast was about you guys having never?

[02:09:49] I remember when I just made that reference to it uh, cinderella man To derella 2005 kind of a kind of a crappy year. Yeah, it was a bad year a couple good movies come out the end of the year

[02:10:00] But the summer would oh well, there's a movie in this uh in number 14 of the box office called crash I feel like that amounts into something Weird crash. This is a weird year, huh me and you and everyone we know. Oh my gosh

[02:10:13] Remember that that's like the most 2005 movie in a way boy is it? Yeah Uh pooping back and forth forever right well jady. What a bad movie. Thank you so much for being on the podcast Thanks, and now we're gonna talk about terrace house, right? Yes

[02:10:27] This is so okay, so episode No, no, no, no, we're totally out of time jady check out my brother on me on ciso. I was promised time for terrace house

[02:10:36] Oh, oh right. That was uh, that was just our way of luring you back in here. Listen. Oh you want? Yes, thank you my brother more than me 12 hour day Uh get there show every episode available on youtube. Yeah, check out new york story on netflix season two

[02:10:48] Get there. Yes new york story on netflix. I need to watch that phenomenal. Thank you um Season two of get there man. It was great. Thank you so much. Uh should be watched by all season three We'll see we'll see what the future holds

[02:11:01] Never know. I mean probably we'll know the point this drops just google by the time this episode drops It'll be four months from now. Yeah, probably jd. He'll be like at the helm of fucking, you know moon night for marvel Yeah, or something Moon night your guy

[02:11:17] Griffin will be filming the tick. Yeah deep into it. Uh producer ben any final thoughts? Uh, no guys You sound sick. Oh no, okay, and ben dub that over with your sick voice Uh, thank you for listening. Please remember to rate review subscribe. Yes. Uh next week

[02:11:34] We'll be talking about the film munich. Yeah, that's right with todd van der worf with todd van der worf We can promise a guest because we've already recorded every other time i've called a guest they've Steven Spielberg man. What a moody little bastard he is

[02:11:47] He's using blue here in the world and munich back to by blue period. I mean milky gray period Sure, um Uh, but yes, uh, thank you, uh Listening rate review subscribe go to the reddit what have you and as always

[02:12:03] Can you talk about lenses a little more jd? Yeah jd. Just give us a couple more lens Is there another Spielberg movie where you like the lenses? I mean you can So we can get into the lens talk about Spielberg but also his use of motion

[02:12:15] Ben puts them easily listening music under this use of motion keep talking shady so janis kaminsky when he uh, when he thinks about cameras and talk about the point of view of what you're watching so

[02:12:26] When you're thinking about lens choices, right? I want to figure out lens. You want to figure out if you want Something that matches the human eye or something that gives you sort of more of a dynamic approach that is selecting So that's why when you do non

[02:12:42] Non-digital intermediate work because you know this film actually where the world was a film Where he didn't want to do a digital intermediate pass You want to do all of it through actual leech bypress?

[02:12:53] Right, right with sharpen it a little bit. All right, please. I don't get a little sharpened I think I mentioned the uh, please pipe it. Yeah, exactly

[02:13:00] But then so then he does things like the in-camera netting which gives that bloom that a lot of people will now do via di Which isn't as good in your vision is good. Yeah, you miss the tactile fabric of human nature

[02:13:13] And if you do so the difference is you can put a net on the back of the lens or on the front of the lens Now the fear is the front of the lens that light can catch the net and then you get no more artifacts

[02:13:22] The net showing up in your image whereas the one doesn't give the nets on the back Fades in a little bit. You don't notice so you like it on the back. Well, it's a little choice

[02:13:30] It's a choice that you can everything's a choice make a choice and yonus But he'll put it up on the front sometimes because he's not scared of that That's right. If you go back and you in this first little thing this movie

[02:13:41] I'm not mobile in this movie. There's a moment when the first we think he is mobile When the tripod makes a big explosion noise when in front of the church in the beginning You can see the net, baby

[02:13:53] You can see the net. All right. I'm gonna cut you off there, jv I could do this all day and then i'm hungry. Okay, i'm gonna go on No, no, I don't have anything else to say Okay. Bye everybody

[02:14:05] Okay, so here's the question before we start like I know you're recording now, but yeah, it's fine But here's the question before we start like doing it in earnest

[02:14:15] We involve banalot in the podcast. Yeah, do you want to not be invoked? I am happy to be invoked guys Will right will is my name. Okay, cool and will okay or or

[02:14:29] Um, what can happen to is you can respond and those will just be the lines that ben has to adr And put in later of himself. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, you could just have him overdone what I say Okay, cool Right ben it's like

[02:14:44] Yeah, I could do my ben impression Uh, let's let's try all of the options. Let's see what works best. Okay Um, I think it's sort of like a singing in the rain thing where it's like you fill in and then ben over

[02:14:55] Court over exactly what you say but in a voice that is more befitting of the exact tone. Yes, right Okay, and then and then the note here is To place this whole conversation at the end of the episode Right as is tradition. All right, let's go. Okay ready

[02:15:14] This has been a ucb comedy production check out our other shows on the ucb comedy podcast network