[00:00:00] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know all you eat and know is that the name of the show is Blank Check You just don't get it, do you? Podcasts are the saviours of the world! What word are you replacing there? Women
[00:00:31] Of course, women David, how did you forget the crystal clear moral of this film? If this film exists for any reason it is to remind us that women are the saviour of the world and it is laser, laser locked on that being its message
[00:00:48] You should have said Mar-Women And then looked at the camera I just gave that a toast, I agree I agree Mark, I agree Mark Hogan camp
[00:01:02] Most of the other quotes on this page I just feel gross to try to turn into a joke because of the real world trauma Podcasts won't be invented until 1954 Fuck, that's a good one Emily, yeah no that's a really good one
[00:01:20] The tagline for this movie is you can't put this hero in a box You should have got down on one knee Griffin I should have got down on one knee
[00:01:29] I should be doing this entire podcast on one knee in silence after my opening and just sit there in one knee in what might be the most uncomfortable moment in the history of major studio filmmaking It's a tough moment, it's a tough moment Yes, yes
[00:01:45] But like here are the other quotes No, no don't read from the quotes page because all the other IMDB quotes are just about his assault Like there's only like six on there Like it's not even Really? Emily no one has paid any attention to this movie
[00:02:00] Like no one has gone into the IMDB page and been like I should add some goofs Like you know no one's done it This sounds like you are creating, this is sounds like a make work for the blankies out there
[00:02:14] There's a pretty blank canvas if you want to give it a shot Like Marwin there's a lot of room to play around with on that IMDB page If you want to start your own Angel Fire Marwin fan page
[00:02:26] You could pretty quickly become the definitive Marwin fan source online Don't tempt me I have too many things to do that sounds really fun Here's the other one I didn't want to it's too much back and forth dialogue
[00:02:38] But this is the only other one I thought I could do Hogi says I like to wear heels sometimes I don't know why but they somehow connect me the essence of Dames Does it bother you?
[00:02:48] And Nicole says it doesn't bother me in the least and his response is good I love Dames He loves Dames He loves Dames Right he's Hogi, right he's in character when he's in the Hogi Yeah
[00:03:04] Man what a fucking movie do you guys know I feel like often we joke about movies that don't exist This is a movie that so thoroughly exists It does really exist I was gonna say
[00:03:17] It really exists but it's daring you every moment to go like just try to fucking process what you're watching right now I dare you to keep this in your brain Oh I think it's wholly memorable But I think that when I think of a movie that doesn't exist
[00:03:33] And when you guys classify something like that I'm largely thinking of movies that had a Usually they're movies that have an advertising campaign that I remember really clearly Because that's all that I remember I remember the standee and the lobby of the movie that are nothing else
[00:03:50] Like X vs. Sever I would put in that category But this one is one of those two but I actually remember the movie Because for the longest time I think it was at the AMC on 34th
[00:04:07] They had the huge huge standee like a room size standee of all of the women of Marwan like size And I'd seen the documentary and I was like I don't know what this is Yep Yeah I rewatched the documentary before this
[00:04:24] The documentary is one of my favorite documentaries the last 10 years unsurprisingly It's so good Very good documentary I also rewatched yes Cannot recommend it enough and I will even say if you're someone who has not seen the documentary And watched this movie in preparation for the podcast
[00:04:41] I'd maybe even advise you to go watch the documentary before listening to this It's an interesting thing to keep in your head as you're sort of listening to both It's on movie right now, it's streaming on movie, it's a fucking great movie It's a great movie
[00:04:56] You know what else is a great movie David takes a sip of beer Open the Marwan Baby Okay That's a great movie He's toasting the beer to camera He's calling it right now He's calling it Good movie David's taking a fucking hot It's a good movie man Yes
[00:05:12] What both of you like this movie now? I just watched it before we started recording and I got teary eyed I really got affected by this movie I liked how much Steve Carell embodied like a down and out
[00:05:31] Or just like a kind of character you don't see enough It makes you realize how Michael Scott is just two inches to the left of being an outsider artist Yes Yes Look I want to make this very clear David is speaking with an earnest clear eyed passion
[00:05:52] The likes of which we perhaps have not seen since the Spanglish episode And David's taking back in his chair Drinking a fucking cream lager With a smug shit eating grin on his face Like he's ready to fucking go to bat for Marwan He's just, he's provocative now
[00:06:11] He's fucking Hollywood Hogan He's kind of villain He's holding a pinky to his mouth Dr. Evil style You've been fucking teeing this up all week You posted a letterbox score saying it was good You've been tweeting about this movie being good I've been dreading this episode all week
[00:06:29] Dreading? He's been dreading it I guess because he doesn't like Welcome to Marwan Which is a pretty good movie You don't like the movie Welcome to Marwan Griffin Why everybody loves it, haven't you heard? The hottest movie of 2018 baby Is it because you're a toy boy?
[00:06:43] Is that what it is? You're too close to it? I got a lot of thoughts I got a lot of thoughts Oh boy, okay But let me just say this I wish I had never crossed city limits
[00:06:54] I wish I'd never even given them the chance to welcome me to Marwan Um Let alone twice You should introduce the podcast though I'm realizing we haven't done that No Welcome to Marwan Welcome to Marwan This is a podcast called Marwan
[00:07:13] It's a podcast called Blank Check the Griffin David I'm Griffin I'm David It could be called like Degre Griffid Griffid? You know if we like did a Portmanteau Right? Like you know Dave Dave and it would have to work Ben in there And maybe Emily
[00:07:34] Because the whole thing is it's like three names It's so clunky Marwan Right in the movie Not in the documentary Right But yes, yes Well, but no Yeah, I mean I will get into this But this is a podcast about filmographies
[00:07:48] Directors who have massive success early on in their careers And are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want To the degree that even 20 years after winning Best Picture You're allowed to make this and release it Christmas Day Sometimes those checks clear
[00:08:04] And sometimes they They're allowed to make a big deal of a bounce A baby Because this is a big ass bounce Yeah This is solid bounce I mean Classic bounce Yeah A valiant bounce David you had said in the past
[00:08:20] Like we had always been wishy washy at the idea of doing Zemeckis And then Marwan is like him daring us not to cover him on the podcast You did your impression on some episode of Zemeckis going like Like slapping the screen and going like
[00:08:34] You guys really aren't gonna dig into this You're gonna tell me there's not a ton of shit going on here You know it's like how Rob Reiner Not that he ever was at Zemeckis level But he was a big deal director And he's like for the last 15 years
[00:08:50] I don't know It'll just be a movie It'll be about some guys they hang out Like it's just like He's just winding down He's just relaxing And Zemeckis is like No, no, no, no, no I'm putting it all up on the screen Guys I saw a documentary
[00:09:06] Let me tell you about this documentary What I like about this documentary is how horny this guy is I went to South by guys I just, I mean this is as we're saying A mini series on the film Sir Robert Zemeckis It's called Podcast Away We're almost done
[00:09:20] But I think it's important I was just sort of clocking So you go like The walk And welcome to Marwan Two documentary adaptations With Allied, a fully original script In between Then after this He directs an adaptation Of a book that's already been adapted well
[00:09:43] By an esteemed filmmaker Right? In the witch's Flights and original script And then before flight He does Christmas Carol Which is one of the most adapted works In history And then after witches He's doing Pinocchio Which is also one of the most adapted works In history
[00:10:02] There is something kind of hubristic About him being like I should tell this story again Like he just keeps saying Like no, I really need to be the one Who tells this again It's all true Allied is the weird outlier and all that
[00:10:18] But that's what we're talking about Allied and flight are the two splits Well it seems with this one especially He doesn't He can't tell the difference between A curator's instinct And a creator's instinct Because if you were programming a film series And you saw Marwan call
[00:10:37] You'd be like, oh hell yeah Put that in, I love it But his instinct is like No, I love it How can I show my love for it I need to make it again Which I think is a common thing I think that's very common Right, it's this
[00:10:52] The classic sort of like Upper echelons of Hollywood arrogance Of like I saw something I think is great The ultimate tribute I can pay to it Is to make it broader And more accessible To share it with other people Rather than promoting the original thing Yeah
[00:11:08] Can I just say David to correct you Our guest today of course is Emily Yoshida The great, the mother of Blankey I was hoping you would never say it I was hoping we could get through this whole thing That's the Our guest is anonymous
[00:11:23] I could just disappear into the background Of the Marwan bar The ruined stocking Thank you Emily, the ruined stocking What I wouldn't give to sit at a Marwan bar right now But if I can just correct you David IMDB Welcome to Marwan Goofs Revealing mistakes
[00:11:46] Mark tells Nicole, dolls cannot close their eyes Yet there are some instances later on where Nicole Has her eyes closed A goof Wow In many close shots On Mark Hogan camp's hands The hands are not those of Steve Carell Goof
[00:12:03] Wait, wait, I don't know if that's a goof Is it just a common filmmaking thing? Revealing mistake Well now the movie is ruined Let's just all go home Folks, I don't want to alarm you But this next one up is a character error Boom
[00:12:26] The Nazis speak broken English? Fuck, I fucked it up It's the Nazi speak broken German with heavy English accent But it's not even written correctly Yeah also, I don't look Look, the Goofs page is a nightmare Someone's got to get in here
[00:12:44] We need, it's like a super fun site Like the federal government has to step in The Marwin Goofs page is no good at all It's mad about using light years as a unit of distance Rather than a unit of time or something Like chill out Welcome to Marwin
[00:13:01] Welcome to Marwin Emily Welcome back on the show Welcome to Emily who demanded this episode I just demanded it early I guess I violently demanded it Yeah, I would have taken so many I was hardcore on the Bob Beasley campaign also But I would have taken honestly anything
[00:13:23] This one's fun because I was pretty sure nobody else was going to want this one It is depressing to me I'm very happy to have you back Emily, of course I'm happy to be back I mean this is now my third thing in quarantine with you guys
[00:13:41] Quarantine's really working out well for me Well, it's the second It's the second but the Mad Max episode came out when we were in quarantine But we recorded it That's what I was going to say The thing I find depressing
[00:13:59] Very happy to have you back on the show I find it depressing that we've been in this long enough That you've now made two appearances recorded during quarantine When we try to not have people on two consecutive miniseries
[00:14:13] And you're doing the second to last episode on one of our longest miniseries ever Yeah, this thing has gone on for a long time it seems Seems bad Seems like it's... Seems like we're all sick of it Wish we could record podcasts in person
[00:14:32] But then you watch a movie like this And you remember that we're all just humans and we have emotions And life is hard Man, I like this movie If you're bringing it back to the film, Ben Ben who loved this movie so much Find yourself in Marwyn
[00:14:50] Griffin, when are we getting a steel book on Marwyn? Marwyn was one of the first movies to just have its 4K Physical media release cancelled This period Yeah, where they were just like, you know what? Is anyone gonna buy this? It was like the beginning of studios saying
[00:15:11] Like maybe not every movie needs to get released physically You know what I have to say about that Griffin? What? Cancel culture is out of control Cancel culture is out of control And he took a sip of his cream ale by the way
[00:15:25] It's not a cream ale for crying out loud It's a Bell's light hearted ale It is a low calorie beer that I feel light hearted He's doing so much fucking smug prop comedy with this He's using it to like fucking punctuate his sentences
[00:15:42] When he's like holding it up and shaking it right Cheersing his monitor Yeah, we see you Like the hoagie cheers in his coffee cup at the bar At the ruined stocking I have to warn you guys that this might be
[00:15:58] I mean, I don't know how many times I've been on this podcast now I forget, like you know I have the privilege of forgetting how many times I've been on this podcast Well, this is a privilege, I'm glad you acknowledge your privilege
[00:16:10] Actually, this is your 10th main feed appearance If we're counting Titanic as one episode, which we should We are, we're not counting bonus episodes No, so if we're including bonuses you've got more But this is your 10th main feed Double digit baby Dang, I've done that
[00:16:31] You're the first double digit Yeah, well yeah, so everybody can eat my dust But the other thing I was going to say is that Like this might be the 10th appearance of me, Emily On this podcast, but it is probably only the second appearance
[00:16:50] Including the special features of Drunk Emily On this podcast Hey, we love to see it I'm gonna go again, you're lightly toasted, Emily You're not drunk But this is good, we haven't even started talking about this movie yet
[00:17:08] And this is a two hour podcast and we're about 15 minutes in Fantastic Thank you for saying it's a two hour podcast I'd love to aspire to that, that's just great to hear That's very flattering Aspire to it, it's what it's been
[00:17:24] No, I'm saying two hours is a good limit That we usually break through Sure, sure, sure, yeah We're cutting ourselves off after that point Okay Griffin is gone, he's unwelcome from our win apparently Now we can only look at Mark and Wendy's nuptials
[00:17:42] In front of a gallery of hanged men I like that Emily is being upfront and emotional Because it feels right for this movie I am gonna defend the hell out of this Because it made me really feel a lot of stuff And I can't stop defending it
[00:18:01] I really can't, I think it's fucking awesome I think it's fucking awesome I think it's a fascinating movie It's a fascinating movie And a lot of it works very well Okay, so Griffin isn't here yet But I'm just gonna talk about this
[00:18:20] Since you saw this for the first time Ben and we're so into it So I, as I mentioned to David over text I knew I had to watch this I'm staying with my mom right now There's one TV in The Living Room
[00:18:32] And I was like, I have to watch this movie For our podcast, I've seen it already It's not that good, you don't need to watch it with me She's like, oh, I wanna watch the movie with you And I was like, oh, don't worry
[00:18:42] But I'll just watch it when you're busy Or doing something But then, you know, I was watching it this morning Inevitably she came through And ended up watching the whole thing with me And she's like, that wasn't as bad As you said it was
[00:18:53] And I was like, you know what? You're right It wasn't as bad as I said it was That's in my exact experience They were dunking on this The whole mini series They were like, Marwyn this, bad that But I think it deserves to be Marwyn this, bad that
[00:19:09] I do think it deserves, it's Oh a cat Pig, you're in the way, come on Wow, Pig is just Wow, Pig is in the conversation Pig has entered the discourse Oh, cat bite I'm sorry But I was gonna say that I do think it deserves
[00:19:29] This is not a qualitative evaluation But like it should be this Lumean thing on the horizon of Eurasia Mecca's journey It is the thing by which all else is Measured including like back to the future Yeah, it's almost annoying That he made the witches
[00:19:46] Like I'm sure the witches will be fun To dunk on or like dissect But like this would have been A great capper Like this would have just been quite Griff has arrived, he's opening Something, alright he's back I got an entire bottle of wine
[00:20:00] I'm not gonna be the only sober one On a fucking Marwyn episode Where I'm the minority opinion That this movie is demented I need to be drunk It's a busy night at the ruin stocking We're all tying one on Oh my god, he's sipping out of the bottle
[00:20:15] What are you doing? I just straight up open a bottle of The fucking white wine I'm not saying the movie's not demented It's not like I'm like oh this is A carefully and sensitively made Quietly, you know this is a crazy movie This movie is insane
[00:20:31] I just, you know It gelled much more for me On my second viewing If I'm being actually just Some sober about it For sure, yeah Now you're gonna be sober I just open a bottle of wine You know what, I think I should be Stone cold sober now
[00:20:49] What? No joking, come on, come on But that's exactly what I was saying Griffin when you were out I heard it I had my Bluetooth headphones on I could hear what you were saying I thought you were gonna bring Toys over Oh yeah, here's Here's Harry Dean Stanton
[00:21:08] Hey, I love it That's a cool idea That looks amazing Yeah, it's great That actually looks really good What a good toy Griffin, the action The figures look so much Like the actors and actors It's so good The combo has been Seeing Marwan and seeing that action figure
[00:21:31] Gets Ben really into toys Yeah, now he's all He's gonna co-host the merch spotlight What about this guy? Oh, wow I'm just grabbing the three action figures Closest to my desk at this moment Those are good ones though If anyone wants to know how my apartment
[00:21:51] Works at any moment I can reach out And without extending anything other than My arm, grab three action figures I've been looking for specific action figures For a present for somebody that I should Actually discuss with you guys once we're not recording
[00:22:04] But I've never gone into this world at all And it's obscene to me It's so... It's crazy Like how much stuff costs makes me want to die But I'm glad everybody's having a fun time Oh, I love this guy I don't know who he is
[00:22:19] No, that cowboy, the little people cowboy Yeah, it's like a fish and purse little person Like a round lego It's a little cowboy Yeah, they're little pegas Little people that they don't have little people in the ditch, Ben No, they...no, we did not Isn't he cute?
[00:22:37] People know what I'm talking about Who can't see this on the Zoom They're like those little peg people He's got a little peg if you wanted to put on a set We didn't even have Legos, we just had wood and nails We just hammered stuff together
[00:22:51] Two by fours That's right Anyway Look, there's not a lot of context on this movie getting made I think most of the context is the real story verse of this movie Which I do feel like...there...
[00:23:06] I try to avoid, I feel like my tendency to do too much of the sort of one-to-one like This is the movie we're talking about And this is what the thing it's based off of was like And here's what they changed
[00:23:16] But I think in this case it is so fucking telling Because for good or ill, regardless of what you think of the movie It is a very Zemeckis adaptation of the material In terms of what elements he chose to take from the real story
[00:23:32] And what he completely ignores or revises And it's very similar to Forrest Gump where he said like My goal was just to take away everything on savory about this guy You know, to just make Forrest Gump charming and aspirational
[00:23:47] And as weird as this movie ends, this character R It does feel like almost every story decision he made Was to try to take away everything kind of unsavory about this guy Which is perhaps a fool's errand When the material is so fundamentally strange
[00:24:05] The idea that at some point he could break this character into being Like a very, very relatable audience surrogate Is bizarre because he's a very, very specific man In very, very specific circumstances who operate in a very specific way
[00:24:21] I don't know if Mark Hogan can't be the real guy Is he unsavory exactly? Like obviously he's... Well he's not a PG figure He's not at all He's got a porn collection, I mean come on So does any movie Yes, they include that No shame
[00:24:40] I mean I understand what you're getting at Griffin Like I do think it's a very Zemeckified version But that's actually the thing that I find Kind of at the same time admirable And completely doesn't work about this film
[00:24:53] Is that he does actually include a lot of this stuff It's just through this Zemeckis lens With an Alan Sylvesterie score going over it And you're just like... The cognitive dissonance is insane Watching this movie Alan Sylvesterie, what did he talk about with Alan Sylvesterie
[00:25:11] When they were deciding how to score him Like at home watching porn Like has Alan Sylvesterie ever scored a scene of a guy Watching porn at home? Wait, did they... At one point during the porn stuff Did they have the drumming? Like the military drumming?
[00:25:26] Was that part of that? No I feel like that's like a Deja thing Like anytime Deja is around There's like the snare drum I don't know if that was during the porn scene But yeah I just... I find it fascinating that like Looking at this source material
[00:25:41] He was like Oh, I should go the walk forced gump route on this Rather than the flight route You know? Because of as you said Emily The innate cognitive dissonance That comes from so many of these story beats Being done in like the house
[00:25:58] Zemeckis sort of amblin adjacent style It is so fucking bizarre Look, I will admit I disliked this movie less than I did in theaters I don't know if I can say I like it There is more that I respect about it now
[00:26:15] When I saw in theaters I was pretty irate Which I think also has to do with my love of The documentary, of the real story Of Mark Hogan Camp's work Is all obviously very much in my wheelhouse So I think I was just sort of like so frustrated
[00:26:32] With how he warped the story in the way And then as you said Emily Like the bizarreness of like You cut that out but you kept that in Like at a certain point if you're going to try to Wash it that much
[00:26:45] Then maybe go even further away from reality You know? Name names, come on let's get into it Well I guess first we should just set up The very, I mean people probably know But yeah the real Mark Hogan camp Was attacked outside of a bar
[00:27:03] Let me unpack this Cause I could talk about what's changed by doing this Okay Well welcome to Marwan Welcome to Marwan everybody Welcome to Marwan But from the moment he comes out of MoCap land Zemeckis is at any point in time Loosely circling four or five scripts Right?
[00:27:27] Like I feel like he's just perpetually been in this state Where every four or five months there's another Announcement where it's like Zemeckis considering blank And then one project finally goes And I feel like I heard this one rumored for a couple years Before it finally happened
[00:27:42] And that it was going to happen with DiCaprio Playing Hogan camp And then he went and did Outlight instead Which was very much like a fast track project Can you imagine DiCaprio? Cannot Cannot Would have been interesting No it would not, oh my god Okay anyway that's fascinating
[00:27:59] I didn't know that, that's amazing I mean what's weird is I went That's a weird casting choice When they announced Carell I went Oh that actually makes sense But we're going to have to talk about The weird state of Steve Carell's current career Within this podcast
[00:28:14] But this is the real Mar Cogan camp story And then we'll get into sort of like What the movie changes to it Okay? And the documentary one of the many things I like about it Is it is kind of elusive It's structured a little bit like a mystery
[00:28:30] Without any answers because The guy is really not Does not have a lot of clarity on himself So as the documentary goes on you start to find out More and more about the guy in his past And all of this sort of shit
[00:28:45] But he still really can't explain a lot of things And there are a lot of question marks in his life So there's something more elusive about the movie Which I think benefits the story And when I say that he's unsavory
[00:28:57] I think the thing that I like so much About the documentary Which is easy to do in documentary where it's a real person And it's harder to judge a real person As a character versus a fictional character Being written by Hollywood screenwriters And played by a movie star
[00:29:11] But he's got this weird rage within him Right? Which the movie character is very sort of wet blankety It's this kind of Carell wounded puppy dog thing That I feel like he's been doing in dramas For the last five or six years
[00:29:25] Right, I would say there's less of an edge to him You also cast Steve Carell So that might just be what you're going to get Right All of it is off-late into the intense Mostly machine gun violence in this film Which I think is actually just as interesting
[00:29:42] It's like you have this wet blanket guy And then you see his inner world And it's filled with gunfire The violence in this movie is part of what turned me on to it And you can just extract that sound bite
[00:29:54] That I just said and use it against me And I don't really know that I'm going to be able to combat that When did they reveal that he doesn't remember anything From before the attack? Because it's sort of a late reveal In Welcome to Marowin
[00:30:12] I feel like that's pretty early in the documentary I feel like Yeah Because it's in the trailer I'll wipe that out for a second What was the question? Basically like when his amnesia His sort of total amnesia is revealed in the documentary
[00:30:27] But I think it's right at the start When he's kind of laying it out Almost immediately I was going to say That's such a big thing And that's so much of what I find kind of confounding About his adaptation choices
[00:30:39] Is what part of the story Zemeckis chooses to represent Right? The documentary is obviously At the mercy of They can only start telling the story At the moment the documentary filmmaker finds out about him He pretty early on in the movie recounts
[00:30:55] I was beaten up outside of a bar By five guys within an inch of my life And I had total amnesia I remember nothing about my life And I had to relearn how to walk How to talk But also relearn who I was
[00:31:12] Which I think is such a fundamentally fascinating thing That this movie doesn't really deal with There's the thing at the beginning Where he's looking at the book With all the photos, the scrapbook And it's sort of done in this sort of cute way
[00:31:25] Until he turns to the page that is 18 newspaper clippings Are the most traumatic thing that ever happened to him That he just looks at fondly But also he was a drunkard and homeless On and off for a while And they kind of are just like, that happened
[00:31:39] Yeah, they skim over the part Where it's like, oh, he was probably an alcoholic Before all this, like That's the fundamental intrigue Of the guy for me in the documentary Which is he wakes up He doesn't remember anything He learns how to walk He learns how to talk
[00:31:54] He starts learning about who he was And he realizes he doesn't really like that guy Right? He barely feels a connection to the person Right And there's this part in the documentary That's so profound where he talks to his friends And he's like, was I like an asshole?
[00:32:09] And they're like, you weren't like an asshole But you were like a violent drunk It was like scary to be around you A nasty drunk, yeah Right, and it's like, was I mean to you? And it's like, no, but it was like tough
[00:32:21] You know, and he does have this sort of fear Of who he was as like an impartial observer Trying to piece together this man That he used to be That he has no memory of But that he feels some sort of guilt over
[00:32:35] Right, it's like a reverse kind of Robocop thing Which is probably why I like it so much And there's that fascinating thing Of like, he works at the bar And he's like, well, it can be like Sam alone Just won't drink
[00:32:47] And just you're watching him next to all these bottles And you sort of have that thought of like Is, you know, what if this guy Who doesn't even remember being an alcoholic Had a drink and it just like, you know
[00:32:59] Turned away, you know, like there's that weird tension To that that's very compelling Is it Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thing? Yeah Go ahead, Emma But I think the inverse of that That's really fascinating about it Is the stuff that does stick around
[00:33:14] Like he was an artist and a pretty talented drawer Like just illustrator before all that And he lost his motor skills Or the ability to both write and draw But then he still has this like fundamental creative urge Which kind of leads him to do the Marwan project
[00:33:34] Which is one of those kind of inexplicable Like Oliver Sacks's type Like what is the brain? How does it work? Like how does the shoe thing carry over? Like that's just a rem- Like that hung on and like other major aspects of his life Didn't
[00:33:50] And I think that a big miscalculation of this film Is that it introduces the It introduces the Marwan project upfront And that this is a guy who has a little village In his backyard where he has this sort of World War II Fantasia That's like very strangely kinky
[00:34:11] But he's just one of these guys who has A village in his backyard You know everybody, every town has one of these Everyone's like, oh hey, my town had one of these I wouldn't surprise that all But then what it tries to execute
[00:34:28] Then is the third act thing of like So you know that guy right in your life But this is why he's like that And does the reveal of the amnesia Which is completely unnecessary Like I think it's such a specific pursuit It's such a specific situation
[00:34:46] That if you don't lead with why it happened You lose all the... That's like missed opportunity for gravity for that For the entire two thirds of the film, I think Hard to agree and this is my second major gripe The other thing I find so interesting
[00:35:01] About the story itself And to your point David, I mean what you said about him Wanting to be this like Sam Malone, T-Totaler and a bar It's another one of these fascinating Oliver Sacks things
[00:35:12] Where he's like I woke up and I just had no impulse to drink ever again There's no part of me that wants to drink I don't feel tempted by it It's not just that he's like haunted by the stories he hears About what a drunk used to be
[00:35:25] But he's still an addict though He's still an addict Sure But Zemeckis makes this movie ultimately About the guy needing to cut his pill habit Which is not something that is in the real story at all Right, that's the thing that is a very unusual change
[00:35:45] And when I saw Melk in the Marwan I was like I don't remember the pill thing Is that in the documentary? And so I went back to the documentary and I was like You know, I guess he just like wanted to make Cause Deja, the Belgian witch
[00:36:00] Is in it She's not a representation of his meds She's not the addiction But that's because again, he's not as clear Anyway really except that it's like yeah That's like my friend and they'll hold up their doll In the documentary This is major point two for me
[00:36:20] And it's building off of what you said Emily The thing I find so fascinating and so tragic about the story And a thing I think they set up so well from the beginning Is that like this is a story of triumph
[00:36:30] In the face of our ghoulish inherently fucked Healthcare system in America, right? Right, he was abandoned by his You know, he couldn't do much therapy because it ran out He's a vet who was beaten in a hate crime And then was told essentially like
[00:36:51] You're off the plan after like two weeks of rehab You're on your own But you can't afford this anymore He was essentially one of these guys who should have just fallen In between the cracks, right? Should have ended up just a complete victim
[00:37:06] Of the gaping marvel of fucked society And instead he found this weird outlet As you said Emily, he was this amazing visual artist He lost those motor skills You look at his drawings in the documentary And they're like horrifying violent things
[00:37:23] Like they look like the fucking band appetite For destruction album cover Like they're like really like clearly the product of a tortured psyche And he comes out of it and he wants to draw He wants some way to express what he's feeling
[00:37:35] He still has that creative thing you can't knock out of him But he loses that and he finds an entirely new medium This weird outsider art thing That comes through like I need a hobby The people at the hobby shop take pity on him
[00:37:47] They start giving him stuff for free He starts building stuff He gets a broken camera His camera doesn't have a light meter that works So it's just trial and error He shoots a bunch of pictures He sends them off, they come back He goes that role didn't work
[00:37:59] He does the whole thing again He is not making art for anyone else And it is not as much what this movie tries to present Of like oh the guy cannot differentiate Between his fantasy and his reality It is he is using this medium
[00:38:14] As means to process his trauma Right? He is very conscious about the fact Despite the fact as you said David That it's hard for him to fully explain the narrative Even though it is clearly like in his head He understands what he's doing
[00:38:29] That it's like this is my art rehabilitation That I was not given I had to find a way to heal myself He's a more child-like figure in the movie Yes, he's an innocent in this There's no question However Right Yes That's all true
[00:38:46] And Marwan Call is a great and interesting film And his is a great story That's all like worthy of acknowledgement But at the same time Robert Zemeckis saw that I assume saw the documentary, right? I mean Yes I assume that was what sparked his interest, right? Yeah
[00:39:04] And thought like Huh, this guy is you know His little his action figures His photography is World War II centric It's like this very old fashioned iconography Right? Like that he's kind of Messing with and you know Maybe inadvertently Maybe inadvertently But like
[00:39:24] That's a sandbox that you could just see Zemeckis salivating at Right Wouldn't it be crazy to use the power of movies To represent his trauma To make like an adventure movie But also one that where like The war is both like pretend
[00:39:40] And also like this insane mental battle It's fascinating Oh, Ben's coming in hot But also his trash mo-cap movies Did he go well I can make the toys Right, classic Oh, it's a perfect outlet for that I just doesn't have to look real Right I mean
[00:40:04] Kind of like heightened And like over the top But it's supposed to Like it works for him I remember being at a bar with our Our buddy Rachel Lang friend of the show Past and future guest And her wife Alex Pitts friend of the show
[00:40:21] And I think while we were drinking This story came up on deadline Like Zemeckis sets next movie At the time it was called The Women of Marwyn With Carell And I went like oh shit And they went what And I went like this is a documentary I love
[00:40:35] This is how wild the story is And they kind of went like that's a fascinating story Why would he make Like why would he remake that And I said like well what immediately comes to mind Is Zemeckis wants to actually Cinematically realize the narratives That this guy's created
[00:40:49] Right, that's like obvious That's the story potential of doing this As a big budget studio film Is you get to actually tell the story in his brain And in my foolishness I was like I guess he'll do it Like stop motion with like the dolls
[00:41:03] Or you'll just see him acting it out And then I saw the trailer and I was like You fucking moron It was just an excuse for him To have a mo-cap shit off the shelf How did you not see That he looked at this fucking documentary
[00:41:15] And went like oh it's weird plastic-y toys And he like sculpts them to look like his people In his life so I can cast human actors In the double cast We got ourselves a tap from Sims A light hearted tap You did a little bit of tap
[00:41:32] I just I think A cheers from the Davy Dog There are a few times I've been more ashamed Of myself watching a trailer than that moment When the first mo-cap shot came up And I went you fucking moron
[00:41:44] How did you not see that this was the plan all along Yeah I will say right I mean the man had made three movies Where people were criticized for looking like action fakers So yeah These are the two other beats I want to hit quickly
[00:41:59] And then we can get into what Welcome Tomorrow in does But the two major differences I think he takes from The real story One He becomes this sort of like Outside art figure He is spotted by a local photographer
[00:42:15] Who recommends him to a friend who runs a Brooklyn art magazine Which ends up with him getting the gallery open That you see at the end of the movie He spotted dragging toys Along the highway And as that sticks out I mean that's noticeable
[00:42:32] Right and in this he says it's like To get the treads with enough damage I believe in the documentary he says it's because he's trying to get the Spidometer up to the right number No I Am I wrong about that?
[00:42:45] It's the same reason, he wants the treads to look worn He talks about counting steps though Like methodically how many steps he has to take per day I guess so but he specifically explains like This car now has X miles on it
[00:42:58] And if you like this car is like a one sixth scale Like if you extract you know he has like a whole thing on his head That's what threw me off You're correct But there's so much of the documentary that I find fascinating
[00:43:11] Because it gets into this like What I think is a really good match for Zemeckis With this material which is like What is the human impulse to tell stories right? Here's this guy who's essentially an outsider artist Who started creating this work as means of like
[00:43:26] Therapy and processing That then has this value to other people And he is incredibly uncomfortable at the idea of sharing it With other people Of having to be judged on a serious level Of having to expose his personal things to people in that kind of way
[00:43:42] There's a lot of tension in like the last act of the documentary And it also is this idea of like Oh my god an art opening in New York City I'll be like I'll be normal in New York City Like he keeps on talking about like Greenwich Village
[00:43:56] Like everyone there is a freak like me I won't feel so weird anymore The most heartbreaking moment in the documentary Is he goes to Greenwich Village and it's a bunch of like Fucking people who look like us And he's like And I thought it'd be weirder
[00:44:09] Like he goes to Greenwich Village expecting it to be like He reads New York Right Like that whole thing which ties into the fourth major change they make Which is this movie goes out of its way to be like
[00:44:21] No no no don't worry it's just the shoe thing Down to the line where he says When the guys threaten him at the bar It's just shoes In the documentary in real life he is a full cross dresser And it is not as much cleanly defined as like
[00:44:37] I don't know I just have this shoe thing Whatever the shoe thing it's a weird eccentricity Because if you make it a shoe thing It can become a Zemeckis toy That can be eventually sick in somebody's throat or whatever Exactly Like it can become a device
[00:44:53] Instead of this very amorphous sort of Right Like clock tower or whatever it becomes like one key piece Of visual iconography that he can repeat At key story points yes Well yeah there's a moment in the documentary where he shows you
[00:45:07] The closet full of shoes which is like replicated In Welcome to Marwin and like I'm sure right Zemeckis was like right well there you go That's a perfect image like you know there's stuff like that Where he's like yes well you're right
[00:45:20] Mark Hogancamp is there's a whole transformation thing Going on with him in so many Which specs which is fascinating Like I love it I love Marwin Cole I love it it's deeper it's more complicated And I was watching there's a really good Blu-ray release They re-release the movie
[00:45:41] The documentary When Welcome to Marwin came out With a bunch of like extra footage they shot of him And there were two scenes I was watching on the Blu-ray That really jumped out to me There's one where he's talking about like His like trauma and his anger
[00:45:55] And being alone with his thoughts and like stewing on things And the guy says like do you enjoy that Like being alone with your thoughts and he's like no not at all And he's like do you wish that you didn't obsess over things like that
[00:46:09] And he goes not at all And then he stares out the window and he goes look at me What am I doing here talking to you like some kind of woman And there's this weird like this gets into the unsavory nature of the guy
[00:46:19] He has this very weird relationship to women Right he like very much objectifies them and sexualizes them But then also he's obsessed with like the comfort of the emotional Access that he believes women have And the freedom they have to live an emotional life
[00:46:36] Which he feels like he cannot as a fucking man in society And the closest this movie gets to getting it that is that proposal scene Which I think before we started recording We were saying that's like one of the most awkward scenes ever in a studio film
[00:46:50] Which is true but it is that thing and it's the only And then but then Nicole kind of disappears after that scene Like this whole thing where it's like you mean like you bought that for the doll
[00:47:03] Not for me like trying to delineate and him kind of running up against that Is like that's the only time the movie addresses that As being you know problematic feels like an overused word at this point But at least like not easy, not easy
[00:47:20] I would say the other way the movie addresses that Is in its many scenes of women annihilating Nazis with big guns While they're basically in their underwear in themed costumes Which are the craziest fucking things And they're all over this movie and they cannot be ignored
[00:47:40] That is what this movie is doing No, no, David Crazy, yes David it's about the power of storytelling It's about how we all wish that we could make movies That's what it's about That's all that it's about That's the weirdest and meccest thing is you're just like
[00:47:55] That clearly must jump out to this guy The idea of like oh my god we tell ourselves stories in order to live Even someone who doesn't think of themselves as storytellers And natively drawn to using stories and fiction to make sense of their own life
[00:48:09] You know, like and the stories we tell ourselves and how people process them And all this sort of shit Like that's the fucking zemeckis thing of just like why do we make movies Why do we do this?
[00:48:19] And it's literally a guy manipulating little dolls in front of a camera This is right in my wheelhouse He's one of us, he's one of me Like it's just so presumptuous But then it's weird that he makes this choice where it's like
[00:48:33] Oh no he doesn't have that much agency over the act of creation Because he cannot distinguish between art he's making He's lost in the world Right, it becomes more this sort of Pan's labyrinth thing But why not get lost in the world? Yeah I totally understand it
[00:48:52] Why not have a thing? Good for him What are you gonna do? Especially in his position he's got brain damage He's gonna just like work at a grocery store And his life is watching terrible television Like he's got an art form He's got an outlet, good for him
[00:49:08] I'm gonna just end this movie I love the art You don't have to sell me on the fucking art Let me say my thing I'm watching it Griffin, Griffin, do we see my movies here? Oh my god Love movies We love movies I'm gonna lose the thought
[00:49:22] I fucking lost it God damn it Alright, don't worry about it I wasn't saying anything Okay, I just want to Okay, so I'll say one thing Just jumping off of what Griffin was saying earlier Because this is one of the takes that I wanted to get out
[00:49:37] About this film Which is that I was listening to your guys' episode about Polar Express A movie that I've still never seen Probably will never see But whatever I knew enough about it I could listen to you guys talk about it And you guys were talking about
[00:49:51] The idea of Christmas in that movie And it being this sort of Like what's Christmas? Like what is the thing that they're supposed to believe in Obviously, me not having seen this film It was like, well it's the power of cinema
[00:50:03] Like that's what you're supposed to believe in The idea of like, oh you get on a train It doesn't matter where it's going It's just that you get on It's like, ah you sit down in a movie theater You just watch the thing go
[00:50:13] That seems like a very obvious I guess analogy And this is what brings me back To the Speed Race or episode Where I feel like we Arrived at this conclusion In that film that felt like a real Kind of Eureka moment Where we're like, it's about the movies
[00:50:35] It's about making art It's about being dedicated to a craft And I think the Wachowskis talk about that stuff In a much different way than Zemeckis does For them it's all about integrity And sticking to your guns and stuff For Zemeck it's about belief
[00:50:50] The suspension of disbelief and all that And believing in the magic and all that And making, you know, cobbling together A world and all that stuff I just think that, but I think that this movie I think this movie's fundamental fault
[00:51:04] And this is a movie that I think is interesting It has its merits and like Is at least like a very interesting curio If nothing else Absolutely But it is, it falls into this trap Of I think any director of a certain age
[00:51:19] In a certain level of success Where that's the only story they know how to tell Is the movie-ish Like they don't know what else is interesting About the world They see the story of Mark Hogan camp And they're like, he's a...
[00:51:34] Oh, I can see how I like him He's a filmmaker It's like, well, yes, but... If I can respond Because I think the thing that you guys Are not considering is that this movie Is set before the documentary Marwyn Call You know what I mean?
[00:51:50] If that documentary is going to be made About this guy It's going to be made in a few years This is about the guy who hasn't yet testified At the trial Like it's, he's still in it But the trial is not part of the documentary At all
[00:52:04] I understand that That's what I'm saying The documentary is it's like Oh wow, this guy went through this thing And is now like deeply embarking On this fascinating thing And like has a little bit of distance From the trauma and can talk about it
[00:52:19] You know like whereas this movie is more about Like he's going to become the guy Who gets an art show Right, like that happens at the end of the movie Like you know, it's going to be a little bit ahead Like you know so the trauma
[00:52:33] Getting over the trauma is a little more part Of the narrative spine That's all I'm not saying like that makes That excuses or that explains everything But I think it's not enough about the narrative spine Because I think that this movie is set
[00:52:45] Like a few years too late Like I think it should be about Creating the world about realizing That this is going to be how you do it Like coming up with the idea I remember feeling such a distinct Balloon deflation moment in the theater
[00:53:01] When it cuts from the first fantasy sequence To him setting up the photo and I'm like Oh the movie starts and he's set up The whole world perfectly Like isn't that the potential in doing A dramatic version of this story Is this is what a documentary filmmaker
[00:53:15] Couldn't capture, show the guy Rehabilitating, learning Finding this, discovering this Maybe I'm just so resistant Because of Netflix and all that too Anything that will end at the start Like maybe I'm just like No it's fine, like it's fine that he's already built it
[00:53:31] But I know what you mean There would be, there would be That would be an interesting spine To him creating the world Him creating the world is the extraordinary thing About him The extraordinary thing about him is not Him connecting with the woman Which becomes
[00:53:49] The real narrative driving force of the film Like the show is this weird thing That's sort of abstract, that's hanging in the background It's mostly like What's going to happen with him and Nicole Kind of taking for granted You have this whole fascinating Extremely unique thing
[00:54:07] To get into Which obviously they depict it That's what I was saying, if they depict it Like I don't think they're taking it for granted I don't know I feel like I agree with what you're saying David fundamentally about Like end of Netflix season one is
[00:54:23] What should have been the first ten minutes of the thing And now he started on the road And I'm like yeah okay, sure great But this movie could have spanned multiple years I'm not saying it takes two hours To get to the point where
[00:54:35] He takes a photo for the first time I'm saying you don't have to show The moment in real time, but why not start At the discovery of the thing The movie was originally Titled The Women of Marwyn And to Emily's point
[00:54:49] The marketing campaign was very much centered around The women and like theaters had Giant standees that were the women And separate character posters The women, and you have a lot of big actresses Right, it was like that kind of thing And most of the women
[00:55:03] In this movie are Fictional creations And they don't even have direct analogs There is a waitress character Who in real life is an analog to the Issa Gonzalez character Yeah, in the movie she's Mediterranean In the documentary Mediterranean Whatever her name is She's somewhat similar
[00:55:23] The Russian is there But it's not based on a real person The Russian is not a real person He doesn't have a caretaker like that He has male friends in real life He has a former roommate Who feels the least real But that one, he has that doll
[00:55:39] Like that doll is one of his dolls But it's just not a real real world But Gwendolyn Christy doesn't bust into his house Of the horrible Russian accent In the documentary Horrible Right, I mean he obviously had A physical therapist But is not a character that is shown
[00:55:57] In the documentary at all She was not Janelle Monet with a metal leg Being super cool, yes The documentary does have the character Of Colleen, his friendly neighbor Who moves out Before the movie starts Nicole is an entirely different character Yes, because I think the movie did not
[00:56:15] Want to subject the real person To a romantic plot So they actually acknowledge her They say, right wasn't she so nice But they do not They create a new character because Whatever, they're giving it this romantic arc And the thing with Colleen Was she's married
[00:56:33] With three children and he is Hyper fixated on the idea Of being with her romantically And there are these interviews with her That are very fascinating where she talks about Like you know, I understand he's a guy In a lot of pain and I want to be supportive
[00:56:47] And I think this project is amazing But my husband would always just say to me Like be careful, like be careful With this guy's interpretation Of your interactions with him And it's a very interesting dynamic This film somehow neuters and also Makes more disturbing In the Nicole relationship
[00:57:05] It's pretty weird in this movie but it's Both threatening exactly But it's uncomfortable Leslie's good though I will say as the one As the one woman On this podcast right now The one woman of my life But it is like the most familiar Dynamic in the world
[00:57:25] Like it is, any single Woman knows what that feels like When you realize oh shit this guy's Gonna make his for whatever Be my mommy friend Girlfriend please And it's horrible because You have to do the stupid thing Of being like we're gonna be friends
[00:57:43] And it sounds horrible but I got you a Nazi toy Right Hey, I don't want to marry you But stay right there I'm gonna get you a Nazi That's happened to me so many times Everyone in this movie Keeps pushing that one Nazi doll
[00:58:05] And Merit Weaver won't stop trying To sell it to him, Leslie Mann brings it To his door, everyone's like you gotta own this Nazi It's so weird I think It's true I don't know, I mean the guy's got a World War II City outside his house
[00:58:19] You don't want a Nazi, you're like come on Want an enemy buddy All he's got is Deja the Belgian witch Another weird choice they make Is that the guys who beat him up in real life Weren't At least for what I know, Nazis They were just
[00:58:35] There's nothing in the documentary that mentions Them having any sort of Nazi leanings It doesn't but I'm not sure I don't know anything about it That just feels like a tidy That feels like it's a mech It's a mech Give him the flyer that says when the lightning
[00:58:51] Is gonna hit kind of shit Like you can have the tattoo on their arm Yeah but it's also he wants everything To relate to them To the action figure world Which obviously the documentary isn't concerned with So there's that too
[00:59:05] He's trying to do the Oz thing with it That's like an example of just So little faith in the audience Of like I think we'll get That the Nazis in the world of Marwyn Relate to the assholes Who like beat an other Person
[00:59:21] And Zemeckis is like no give them swastika tattoos Griffin no no This movie is more complicated than that It is not pandering to the audience It is one of the most insane hostile things On the one hand And then also a super treakly
[00:59:35] No that's what I'm saying and also a super Treakly Hollywood Inspirational story and it's all being Mashed together in front of you at the same time There's nothing like it like it's not like A pay-by-numbers thing But it does pander, that's the strange thing about it
[00:59:49] It's crazy, it pander It's a nice big picture that it's not It doesn't matter And the minute beat to beat Things, it is pander It panders but also Leslie Bann Is like looking at a picture of her With her tits out that he drew
[01:00:07] And it's like oh that's interesting At the same time it's like playing soft You know Alan Sylvester piano music I'm saying this movie is discordant It's crazy It's an insane film We can't just be like He just Hollywood-ified it No, no this thing is bananas
[01:00:28] I remember in my Review of this I did make sure to point out Because I do think that Steve Carell is excellent In this movie And I did call out The fact that I didn't think he was doing Any of the kind of forest-gumpy
[01:00:44] Type ticks about being a special Strange man It was kind of a Like yes on the bad side Kind of just too soft of a performance Too cuddly of a performance But it felt Interesting and there are moments Where he does kind of take
[01:01:02] Like some of Mark Hogan Kamp's Actual enunciation in a way Selectively, like he's not doing a full On impression but like there's one moment At the end where he's like saying what Happened and he says something about like The Nazis were eliminated
[01:01:16] He says it like that which is totally Something that Mark Hogan Kamp does in the dock And it's just like these little It's a very Kind of dynamic and interesting performance But I remember saying this and being like Look, this movie is weird as hell
[01:01:30] I think this is a good performance And people being like I don't know It seems like he's just doing this You know Like the whole I don't know What's the name of the Hunter thing Simple Jack And I was like no
[01:01:50] I don't think that's the case at all But I'm wondering what you guys think about it I have issues with the performance I want to make something very clear David I am not trying to argue the problem with this movie Is that he whitewashed everything
[01:02:02] The problem with this movie Is it's completely At odds with itself On a moment to moment basis Like it's a very weird oscillation between This full banana's cuckoo pants And when he goes like I think I can make this play at a mall in Peoria And it's like
[01:02:20] This weird dance between the two That is how I felt when I saw the film in theaters And that was I didn't even review it It was honestly The movie just came and went Like you know it was so ignored
[01:02:34] When it came out because there were other big movies And it just didn't work it was out of theaters in a month But I can remember you seeing it Early and telling me it's the weirdest Movie of the year and I was like
[01:02:44] Is it good? Cause I was excited about it And you were like I don't even know It's impossible to quantify this thing It's so bizarre And when I watched it this time More was like I was surprised at how coherent I found it
[01:02:58] Considering I remembered in the theater Being bored and wanting to crawl out of my skin Like you know that was sort of my theater experience How are you bored by this movie How on earth I think I was bored by how
[01:03:12] When I saw it in theaters I think I was bored by Like being like where is this going And The scenes of like he goes to the courtroom And then there's a delay And the judge is like Well it seems like this guy
[01:03:26] Is a bit of a you know a bit of a problem I'm gonna postpone this sentencing And I was just like what are you fucking No people are in jail you don't postpone sentencing Like that's cruel and in you make This guy who suffered a horrible assault
[01:03:38] Seems to be a little shaken up right now That's the thing she's just like They have swastika tactics Right yeah like so I was just like I think I was annoyed at that kind of Like whatever you know that typical
[01:03:50] Like we have to wait to get to the thing Have you even been to court David You don't know Yes I have been to court yes plenty of times As a reporter Yeah as a reporter And you've been defended You were fucking We're in the
[01:04:10] The frilly judge robes weren't you Judging everybody around you Who's the judge David I do have to reluctantly agree with you I did find this movie A lot more coherent watching right now Than I did in theaters I was not bored in theaters
[01:04:24] But I was perplexed and I could Feel the whiplash from a scene to scene Basis and in this weird way I'm not even necessarily saying this as An endorsement but I have found very often When we were visiting a movie for this podcast
[01:04:36] That I only saw in theaters And thought was a calamity The second time I'm watching it I'm like Well yes of course that's how a low haul works That is the shape of the movie Right The book of Henry I think I sort of drilled down more
[01:04:52] Like okay he wants to explore The guy's trauma and the Insane fantasy Stuff is his Way of representing it and I I mean also right the first time I'm just like what are these action sequences Like is this allowed Universal was showing me the movie
[01:05:10] Really early and they were like You gotta be up front with us about What you think about this You can't lie like you can't just give us Like oh it was interesting like you can't just give us To be clear they were
[01:05:22] Showing it to you because they were like Shrug we don't know We need to get someone else's eyes on this Can you just look at this and tell us if this is Walked out and you were like I don't know I was like uh
[01:05:34] Boy I don't think it should come out At Christmas like that was That was my biggest note It was supposed to come out Thanksgiving And then they pushed it and they were like we understand We understand it's not a holiday season movie We're releasing at Christmas day
[01:05:48] What time of year did Edward come out I feel like October Cause that's the closest corollary To this I feel like And Edward also bombed Yeah it didn't do well It came out at the end of September It was like an early awards
[01:06:04] First awards movie of the season type Were the gunshots Really loud In theater Because I will say home Experience I felt like I had to go up and down Because those sequences Were so over the top and crazy Yeah I remember it being very loud
[01:06:26] It's like a sound mix guy Yeah And there was that tension Of like you were always like the scene In the courtroom when suddenly There's a life size Nazi action figure Shooting it right you know like the tension That it was about to switch
[01:06:42] Was sort of the primary tension Like where you're like oh is something About to blow up or someone about to shoot A gun like out of nowhere that kind of stuff Yeah it works in a theater It's interesting I mean Correll's performance is literally Very quiet
[01:06:58] And the scenes that take place entirely in Reality are in a very quiet key And there's obviously the trickly Sylvesterie score but there are a lot of long Sequences that are just like Revealing in silence Where it's just like extended uncomfortable silence We should talk
[01:07:14] About Correll this is his post Foxcatcher run which is Just a lot of movies Obviously Foxcatcher being where he gets An Oscar nomination right like that Supposedly He's leveled up right like not only When was Foxcatcher You could tell me that was in 2003
[01:07:34] You could tell me that okay yeah I was It was 14 14 2014 See that's example for me I feel like you and I have talked about this I'm a big Steve Correll fan I always think he never got enough credit as An actor I both agree
[01:07:52] He arguably should have won the Oscar For Little Miss Sunshine over Alan Arkin that year I think that's an insanely good Performance I don't even like that movie but I think he's Excellent at it yes I think he's unreal in that and then obviously
[01:08:06] Right after he makes that movie Before it comes out he becomes this major Comedy star he becomes an A-list movie Star we've discussed this a lot with J.D In our text threads about how he has Like the weirdest leading man He's the major of any A-list movie
[01:08:20] Star where he almost exclusively plays assholes Creeps and like Oblivious losers Right I mean if we're gonna go back You know right I mean 40 year old virgin obviously it is crazy Right like he stakes out territory With 40 year old virgin and I guess the office Concurrently
[01:08:38] Where it's like right this guy plays Creeps And weirdos And his saving grace Well yeah I mean he's a toy boy And we have to stand we have no choice But first six episodes of the office They're going full like smug asshole Ricky Gervais stuff
[01:08:54] 40 year old virgin comes out and when the greatest Creative Hail Mary passes they're like Oh 40 year old virgin people find this guy charming Let's split the difference let's give him Some redeemable humanity Which is probably what keeps that show on the air And makes it now
[01:09:08] 20 years later the most successful TV show of all time I guess I guess the office is The biggest show in history As a hardcore British office fan when the American one came Out I was like no well this doesn't work
[01:09:22] And then right in season two when he makes that shift Towards he's more childlike Than he is Whatever Actively irritating you're like right okay He's kind of guileless Okay so post that He's got like They give him comedies have an almighty Daniel Lowe A quiet comedy Get smart
[01:09:46] $100 million Despicable me These movies do not exist What are these doing I feel like I saw somebody do a Halloween costume once Of the poster for Dan and Real Life With his head between the pancake That's unbelievable The one that truly doesn't exist
[01:10:06] Is dinner for schmucks that's the one where you're like Holy shit $80 million The point I want to make is that These movies don't really have cultural staying power It's about a dinner For how would I describe it These guys who are sort of like Kind of schmucky
[01:10:24] Okay sure Schmuck playing But my point is Obviously like Evan Almighty is a giant flop Because it's the most expensive comedy ever made But most of these movies End up between 80 And $130 million Like he pretty much only makes Whether the budgets are too high or not
[01:10:44] He is a high gross and consistent Box office performer As an A-list leading man until Burt Wunderstone Well so Through all this he's also making the office Then you have crazy stupid love Another sort of Seeking a friend for the end of the world
[01:11:00] That's not right bomb but whatever Hope springs But also focus release Yeah he's so bad in Hope Springs Kind of a hit TLG rocks the house So hard TLJ in that movie The weirdly terrible in that film And I like that one He's too much
[01:11:22] If he's too much he can really ruin it Like if he's just Incorrect Hope Springs is the harbinger He's nothing He's doing nothing He is so clearly in his head about not being Michael Scott That he has just drained himself of any energy Okay Then you have Wunderstone
[01:11:40] Like you say that's just not it That's bad He wants to do a goofball character movie It doesn't work You've got Alexander Don't forget Alexander the terrible Horrible no good very bad day So this is when he's knocked down a pet This is the thing I find fascinating
[01:11:58] Is like he has these films that all do well When he's on the office And it's just like Jesus Christ This guy is working fucking hard He's burning the candle on both ends And he's like I'm ready to leave the office
[01:12:10] I want to focus on my movie career And then all the comedies he makes after he leaves the office Don't do particularly well Oh my god I just realized I saw Burt Wunderstone And you said the title And I was like that sounds familiar
[01:12:24] That's how unmemorable that movie is That's an ultimate movie that doesn't exist Holy shit that doesn't exist Alright sorry Then he That's the year of fox catcher So he gets an Oscar nomination I think that's a pretty silly performance I don't hate the movie
[01:12:42] But he's not what I like about it I dislike that performance Right And then so after that The next year he has the big short An undeniable hit But now it's like hard pivot Oh I love him in that movie I agree with both of you
[01:13:00] I think he's doing a lot But I still like it Yeah I like that version of Corell It does a lot for me He's very emotional He's yelling He's sort of the pulsing nerve of that movie Like Bale and Pitt are playing these Kind of really quiet weirdos
[01:13:20] Gosling is doing his Hey I'm Ryan Gosling I was born in Cranquon Cross Avenue Come on let me get a Frank Futter Coney Island dog Oh what I love is Brooklyn And the Bronx Staten Island Queens Manhattan form They can cast them off one by one Alright
[01:13:42] Apparently he's in Cafe Society Which I have not seen Nobody knows Unfortunately I have seen that movie I will say not only is he in that movie Not that I love spotlighting I love the movie But worth noting He is in that movie Playing a tough mob like
[01:14:02] Studiohead It is the role that Bruce Willis was cast In and Bruce Willis wouldn't learn his lines They fired him two days in And Steve Corell is playing a role That was built for Bruce Willis It is so bizarre Attention must be paid It is so bizarre
[01:14:20] Bruce Willis showed up on set About two days they dropped him And they were like who's like the next Bruce Willis Steve Corell So in 2017 He has two movies He also is Despicable Me 3 But let's set that aside He has
[01:14:38] Battle of the Sexes where he plays Bobby Riggs It's a big broad performance I like him in that I think it's a good movie and he's good in it Yup I agree Thank you Emily I'm just doing what is asked of him In that movie
[01:14:54] He's very much a supporting character He doesn't need to carry Narrative weight His job is to be a show boater Emma Stone is great in that movie I feel like that's a movie that has been Andrea Riesborough I think I nominated both of them
[01:15:10] That year at the Blankies Or maybe I'm misremembering The strain of that movie That is just their romance I think it's about tennis I'm less into And then he's also in Last Flag Flying The Richard Linklater movie Which is the opposite It's the just nothing He's just
[01:15:32] He's so sad He's so quiet It's like he's trying not to do Anything Michael Scottie And then the next year He kind of does the same thing He's a beautiful boy Which is He's going into the negatives He yells a lot in Beautiful Boy
[01:15:54] But he is playing Sad Man again But yeah These weird empty Ghost Sad Man performances That he falls into Which I find fascinating that it happens Right Marwyn, beautiful boy Last Flag Flying That all these performances happen at the moment When the office is having the second wind
[01:16:14] Like every 12 year old is like Michael Scott's The funniest character in history Right and he's like no fuck you I want to make Richard Linklater's least fun movie Like I want to make the Harrowing movie But he is also Invite a terrible movie Awful
[01:16:30] I think he is actually Good in it I think he playing Donald Rumsfeld Is more what the movie should have been The movie is not on his level Really like it's trying too hard To be serious and about stuff I think it should have been more cartoon
[01:16:46] Which is what he's doing More prosthetics and impressions You've made this argument in the past David I think his opening In the movie is great The scene where Chaney sees him Speaking and he's so charismatic And you're like oh these guys are like Revival Tent preachers
[01:17:04] That's their whole appeal Right and then I feel like as the movie goes on He deflates into That man again Like I think of the end of his arc as him getting hired Right and he's just nothing It's whisper performances And then since then
[01:17:20] He's only been in one movie Irresistible, the John Stewart comedy That let's be honest Turned the world in its head It asked a question that no one dared ask David you had one of the most All time savage Compliments in response to Irresistible After you saw it
[01:17:38] You texted me and you said Steve Carell has weirdly become More hot than he is funny My god that is so rude of me I know but I think about that a lot It is truly It has these last nine months In quarantine
[01:17:56] It rattles in my head on a daily basis Cause I just think about it Right cause I go like it's so fascinating That this guy who was so beloved as a comedy star Makes the transition to drama That a lot of these guys do
[01:18:08] I think he's fundamentally haunted By the fact that he never won the Emmy That he was never taken seriously On the office Losing to fucking Shalub for the eighth time And fucking Parsons for the third time Never won the Emmy Should have won the Emmy
[01:18:24] So he goes into this mode of I'm gonna completely strip myself Of all the Michael Scott shit At Foxcatcher nomination And be as dry as possible And it's weird that He becomes so lacking in humor And be that he becomes really hot He's become this fucking Silver Fox
[01:18:44] And even you and I were watching A couple episodes of Space Force Which is plagued with the same problem Of like, Karel why don't you want to be funny But we both had to admit He's looking pretty good on that show He looks incredible right now
[01:18:58] The salt and pepper Close cut hair I was also probably so bored During Irresistible that I was probably like Yeah, Karel's half a snack in this I just had nothing else to focus on Full snack, honestly He looks good without a beer
[01:19:14] Another movie I think he's good in And weirdly hot in But also is very much playing against Type is the way way back Where he's just playing an asshole alpha male Here's the thing He has such an interesting dramatic career
[01:19:28] I was thinking about it while I was watching this Movie where it's like I feel like And this is not a knock But I think that it was one of these things where it's like Okay, he really I think he realized himself
[01:19:44] I would imagine that he had one essential Thing that he was doing comedically That he could kind of modulate But it wasn't a transformation It wasn't different modes of being funny Which is like, I mean not To say that lots of people haven't built careers off of that
[01:19:58] That's not abnormal I think Dramatically though it's like Unlike a lot of people, like I would say Robin Williams Didn't suffer from this, I think like dramatically He's also kind of More or less doing the same thing in every film But I really like that thing
[01:20:16] A lot and that thing works For me more than it doesn't work for me Even in movies that I don't think are good And I think it's this weird thing of like the kind of Julia Roberts of like kind of always playing yourself
[01:20:26] Or whatever but I think that Whatever that note is that he hits Which is usually the sort of dramatic version Of Michael Scott, like exasperated Sort of desperate And hungry for approval And like you know always on the short end of things
[01:20:40] Like it always, he's really good at it And it works For this movie and it's worked for I think yeah I think like from Whatever that was like Yeah around Battle of the Sex is onward I think Yeah So Improvised our guy Yeah He was Colbert's understudy
[01:21:02] At Second City And he was just that guy that everyone was like This dude is so sharp, why hasn't it happened For him It took a long time for him to get his break He was on the Dana Carvey show Dana Carvey show Which I mean it's truly
[01:21:18] Yeah some of the best Sketch comedy acting I have ever seen Is from Carell on the Dana Carvey show The waiters who are nauseated by food Is an incredible non-verbal performance And he was on the daily show Yes was on the daily show But it definitely feel like
[01:21:34] I think the perception was Oh this guy was so talented I guess that's sort of the rut he found himself in And then he like leaves the daily show Which I think was seen as like Why would you leave that
[01:21:46] He was one of the first of that wave to like Leave at his prime and be like I want to pursue other stuff And then he becomes an art Which leads to him getting 40 year old virgin As a Hail Mary pass
[01:21:58] And then he becomes an overnight movie star at 40 And the office is shot before 40 year old virgin, premieres before Second season comes after all that sort of stuff It's like a perfect storm But it also speaks to this sense Like if you compare him to other A-list
[01:22:12] Comedy stars He hit late Like despite the fact that he was working His breakout movie was calling out And he was like He's already 30 years old That he's too old to be doing this So he had like a weird narrow window Where it's like
[01:22:30] A lot of these guys start out and they're the young edgy dude And then they have to settle into like The dad role in family films And he started out being America's dad But also To your point Emily Like Carrie and Williams
[01:22:44] And so many other guys like that Who like have the breakout But there is in their worst performances This strain of Mockishness, right? The sad clown feeling of like Please look at my pathos And perhaps Despite not finding his dramatic Performances overall as successful As you do
[01:23:06] I do respect the fact that there's none Of that sort of pleading Please like me That he's just like I am a fundamentally Sad person in traumas Like me like on it's in the text It's not subtext Like that's what he gets cast as More often than not
[01:23:24] I believe it seems like none of us Including me have seen The Morning Show Which is a show that I'm going to catch up on Because Emily you've seen it Guys Guys I watched all of The Morning Show Okay It's called The Emily Show He's playing a very
[01:23:44] Unsympathetic character in that show Is he not playing It's a slightly softer It's not quite as bad as Matt Lauer right like he His deeds were not as Extreme I don't like The Morning Show I'll have to watch it I'll have to give it 10 episodes
[01:24:02] Or I'm really fucking long it was I do think that That it's I'm glad you brought That up because I think that piece of casting is like A huge deviance in this Narrative It is a bit interesting It's like the one correll thing
[01:24:18] I haven't watched that we bring up While we're on this podcast Where three out of four of us are saying That welcome to Morrowind Slabs I'm gonna just like Fully go out and say like I think The Morning Show kind of slaps That's the thing was When people
[01:24:36] When it hit you know when it You know the first few episodes dropped people were like The thing just doesn't work by the end of it Anyone who's stuck with it was kind of like There's something happening here You know so I've been meaning to get around
[01:24:48] To it we should probably Swerve back to Morrowind because there are Probably scenes we want to dissect So we start on Creepy Guy Is the yard I'll say I actually Fully love The opening of this film I think Opening cold open Adventure sequence is the most
[01:25:12] Successful and then I really like The juxtaposition of the hard cut to this guy Just silently In his backyard doing this I felt like I was such a fan of the story Was very dismayed when I saw the trailers Sit there in the theater
[01:25:28] Hoping I like this thing The first ten minutes I was like fuck Is this actually gonna pull it off for me And rewatching it I was like god damn it Is Sim's gonna sell me on this being a master piece
[01:25:38] That's good. Well no way I'm not trying to say it's a Master piece I just Went from like a two to a six You know like it's fascinating Anyway sorry carry on It's a rich six though it's a very rich six
[01:25:50] Very rich the richest six oh my god Cheese cake like six Yeah thick It is a thing I like Thick six Corral getting to play Hogi is it feels like Him giving this sort of like Second city sketch comedy Performance version Of like
[01:26:12] Pulp World War two movie hero You know I really feel that Comedic energy from it He's good as Hogi he's like funny He's really good as Hogi Yeah he's good As somebody eating a Hogi I watched the documentary And I watched it with my girlfriend Nelly
[01:26:30] We are like Shout out Oh he's doing this CG Bullshit but oh wait actually This is Working This is working It looks like trash but it's supposed to Like trash Oh I'm into this movie Holy shit wait this is emotional And this is like a great story
[01:26:54] And this character is so unique And fucking different holy shit What the hell is happening and now You're into the fucking movie This movie was made for like 30 some odd million dollars Somewhere between 30 and 40 Yeah it was about 40 right yeah At that budget with this much motion capture
[01:27:12] It's impressive I will say If I can just petty gripe here I think of a thing You're all gonna boo me when I say this It is the most predictable cliche Fucking griffin action figure Nerd thing in the world I think the thing this movie succeeds wildly at
[01:27:30] For the first time in Samakas's motion capture Career is you actually Feel like they are successfully capturing The facial performances of the actors Right you watch this and there's like Nuances in their micro expressions And you're like it's making it through The pipeline unlike polar express
[01:27:46] Where it's being fucking dulled Like you get it you really feel Like you're watching these actors you see The choices they're making If I can gripe for a second And I understand some budget Limitation I do feel like this movie does not Quite capture the
[01:28:04] Tactility of the toys themselves I think it has a very odd Relationship To the physics of the action figures Emily's leaving In protest Yeah but they I think that's okay Because they're sort of half real Right because he's putting himself Into these things
[01:28:26] That's the argument is how much I get into this territory Where I feel like Obviously just talking about shit I love The toy story franchise but also The Lego movies I think are very good at owning The physical limitations Of how that toy was constructed To give characterization
[01:28:46] To The characters through their body language And to find creative Outlets for gesture of Expression Because of the design of these 12 inch action figures You have Visible joints And fabric that's bunching up In a weird way because it's on a small scale And all that sort of stuff
[01:29:10] And the movie very often chooses I'm just going to get all the shit out of the way while Emily's in the bathroom Very often chooses To rather than have them conform To the articulation points on the doll that are visible
[01:29:20] Have them just move like a normal human being And I think if you look at the Lego movie Where they're like There are only four points where they can move And you even look at something like Fucking robot chicken which is animated
[01:29:32] With like meego dolls which is our slightly smaller Scale but have clothing Like this. I do think They play pretty fast and loose with Like how much can they bend And then they'll sometimes choose Their moments where it's like oh his neck turns
[01:29:46] All the way around. Are we really talking about this stuff? I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. That was the timer Griffin The timer was Emily in the bathroom I got it But the other thing is he's not playing With the dolls in the way that the movies
[01:30:02] Are described like Lego movies which is actually about kids I understand No, I'm just saying like he's He's pouring himself into These things and so Because it's not just that the toys move to There's explosions You know there's blood You know there's all these ways in which
[01:30:20] They behave abnormally But then he does, he picks his comedy moments Where it's like oh the head turns around Like 100 degrees they fall off And they split in half. Sometimes they have Blood and viscera and skeleton Sometimes their arm just goes Poop. Yeah. Right. I kind of
[01:30:36] Love it. I love it I'm sure that you said this while I was out But anytime they just get knocked over And they're dead and then they are just a toy That's like the greatest effect I didn't say that. I like that
[01:30:48] I wish there was a little more of that Because I do think there is value to owning The limitations of them Yeah, because that makes it like Lego movie That's that kind of fun thing of like These are toys. This is why it's fun to play with toys
[01:31:00] Emily you're repeating his points We're done with those points there They're in there in the past I should never have gone to that I love it. It's okay It's acceptable Okay so just to shout out Just to name them all Run them down
[01:31:18] I announce them as if they're the 97 Chicago Bulls They all accept him In a way where you're like Like Ben speak They all accept him In a way where you're like Okay they know his deal But It's crazy Sure
[01:31:42] Everyone is just like, hey, this guy has a fantasy and I'm, I bought into it and I'd like to hear updates about it. Here's a segment I'm going to force to happen right now. Name a woman of Marwyn and I want to get Ben's reaction to that woman.
[01:31:56] Okay, so you got Leslie Mann as Nicole, his new neighbor, she's a redhead action figure in the Marwyn universe, the Marwyn verse. She's the newcomer. She's so nice. Almost too nice. Oh, boy. Leslie's doing a great job, boy. Oh, boy. It's hard. Leslie Mann.
[01:32:22] She's the first personal friend of Leslie Mann. She rarely plays that character in those scenes because I'm like, she's smiling so hard and I like it, but man, is it tough to watch.
[01:32:36] I feel like it's what you said, Emily. It's a very standard dynamic of man with poor understanding of emotional boundaries, misinterpreting base and kindness and a woman trying to figure out how to assess the risk level of the guy.
[01:32:51] What's the risk of not being an asshole to this person? Right, while also drawing boundaries. Yeah. Also her ex-boyfriend, that shit's crazy. Oh my God. But he is a cop. He's a kiling on the guy's fucking porch. A cop as hell.
[01:33:06] Okay, next we've got Merit Weaver as Roberta who in real life is the hobby shop employee and in the fantasy world. But let's, in real life, the hobby shop is owned by an elderly couple. Right. This character does not exist.
[01:33:22] Yes, I know, but in the movie, in the movie, we're going to be in the movie now. In the movie she's the hobby shop owner. I understand wanting to replace almost any character or duo of characters with Merit Weaver. It's totally fine.
[01:33:33] So Mech is should make a Mo Cat Merit Weaver movie where she plays every part. She's the best in this movie. She's so good in this movie. She's always good. Has she ever not been good? But is she into him? Well, yeah, absolutely.
[01:33:51] She plays that pretty genuinely for minute one I would say. Emily said no. I can't tell. You guys are psycho. No, she's not. She's just his friend, right? Yeah, I think so. She's very emotionally invested in him. She's emotionally invested. She doesn't want to go home with him.
[01:34:11] Okay, yes, I agree 100%. Steve's coming home. I was like, he's half a snack. I'm just saying. No, he's not a snack. I have viewed that as a failing of the movie. He's in a backyard playing with toys, David. But I haven't considered, hey,
[01:34:29] I haven't considered the possibility that maybe the movie doesn't want me to think that she views him in a romantic light. Because in theaters, I was like, how dare they try to sell me this bill of goods? You mean that they're going to get together at the end?
[01:34:43] Yeah, yeah, I was pretty pissed off at that. I think that the note that they hit on the end is the only acceptable note to hit, which is if everybody's being honest in that scene, I know we're skipping to the end of the movie now,
[01:34:59] but we're just like, we can try it and we might like it or we might not. Which I think is very in keeping with how that character would handle that proposal of a dinner date. Like sure, hey, yeah, maybe who's to say? I might enjoy it.
[01:35:15] There might be something there, but clearly in the moment, not feeling that anything's there. In the Marwyn verse, she has a big shotgun. She deals with her topless moment in a very funny way, where she's like, I have no shirt on, what's going on?
[01:35:34] That's the weird Zemeckis-y-ness of this movie where he's like, no, I want several scenes where they litigate how uncomfortable they are about the fact that he undresses their dolls. Where are you guys in general at this point on Zemeckis' feelings on sexuality? I'll say this.
[01:35:51] Is Boob obsession? The man likes boobs. I cannot figure out Zemeckis in general. I have rarely gotten to the end of a miniseries or near the end of a miniseries and felt like I have this little of a read on a guy.
[01:36:04] He's so slippery, but the sexuality is the element that eludes me the most. The guy is horny. I feel like two or three episodes into this miniseries. Someone on the Blankcheck subreddit summed it up perfectly where it was like that one horny moment in every Zemeckis movie
[01:36:24] and it was like a cartoon of someone hitting a dog with a rolled up newspaper and going like, down boy. It was just like there's always one moment where he just goes way too fucking hard.
[01:36:34] And I just want to say about his sexuality, look, the man is a boomer. He makes boomer movies about boomer people and he likes big jugs. It's like the most basic ass boomer opinion. He literally would go to a store and buy like a big jugs magazine.
[01:36:50] That's how I perceive Robert Zemeckis' feelings about sexuality. But that's an aesthetic that he likes. I don't know anything about how his blood runs, you know? Well, I've seen his wife and I've seen the roles he gives her in his movies. That's a lot of where I'm...
[01:37:07] But anyway, we're getting to his wife. Especially in his digital movies. He likes the backdoor bodacious babes as Mark Hogan Camp would say. Exactly. Next we have Janelle Meney underserved, I would say in this film, as Julie, his physical therapist who has a metal leg.
[01:37:26] Is this the year after Moonlight or late? Yes. Moonlight and Hidden Figures. Two years after? Yeah, but this is her first film appearance since that year, right? Yeah, that's 2016, right? Yes, this is her first film. This is 2018. Yeah, but this is her first.
[01:37:41] And she shows up just to talk about rocket fuel. Ironically, she would then be an ugly doll. Another movie about dolls. But these... Wait, you're telling me these dolls are hot and those dolls are ugly? Just saying. What do we think of Janelle Meney as Julie?
[01:37:58] There's not much to say. There's nothing to say. I love Janelle Meney. I'm so into her. Sure. I love her as an actress. I love her as a musician. She's probably the last concert I will ever go to in my life.
[01:38:12] But I just felt so much excitement out of that Moonlight Hidden Figures year. And this was like the immediate follow-up. And I was like, I'm just excited to get any glimpse of Janelle Meney on screen again
[01:38:25] since she's announced that she's apparently America's hidden movie star and character actress. And it's just kind of frustrating that she just sort of is there. Like she's got 15 seconds on camera live action and just a lot of mocap sort of group scenes. Yeah.
[01:38:41] You have Isa Gonzalez, an actress I gotta say I always like. And we just kind of started popping up in stuff a few years ago. And I always like her as Carlala, the fellow meatball crafter at the bar.
[01:38:58] A person who would never work at that bar ever in the... It's certainly not in the kitchen. In the back. No, it's impossible. It's so weird. You see and you're like, that's your... You're also an action figure in this kitchen right now.
[01:39:13] They would make her a mascot of the restaurant. They would install like a fucking Lard Lad donut sign of her outside the top. But I do like her. I think my design gets to her in this movie. And I do, I generally like her too a lot.
[01:39:32] But this is like the most unfortunate part, I think of any of the women of Marwyn. Apart from maybe Leslie Zemeckis, but we're getting to her. I would say that Gwendolyn Christie is the other close one. Yes, that's another contender.
[01:39:47] But this is the one where I feel bad for Isa Gonzalez in it because I think she's like much better than this. And I think this is well whatever. We should go through all the rest of them. I think she's putting a lot into it though.
[01:40:00] Like I do kind of commend the sheer force of will she is trying to apply to this underwritten very thankless role. She wants to be Mark's fun friend at the bar. Like she definitely is trying to invest as much reality into that as she can, right?
[01:40:14] A genuine finger of unconditional support and empathy. Listen though, like I'm just going to say again, like playing this note of humoring somebody just to like keep them harmless. Around you or something that I think like, oh wow, like women in Hollywood are good at playing that.
[01:40:32] Like it's just like a very like it's a very familiar dynamic and I think they all do it well. And I think like she does particularly but yeah. Great point.
[01:40:43] This is a thing I particularly like about the documentary is that you get to watch Mark Hogan camp like tell his perception of their relationship and then cut to the woman and be like, uh, sure.
[01:40:54] And this movie does not grant narrative agency to these women in real life but whatever. No, maybe Leslie Man slightly that's about it right. None of them else. None of the others have like scenes on their own.
[01:41:05] Well I do think though, like I'll just say this in brief though. I do think that by the time you get to the scene with with Carlala. Come on. Carlala. Uh, yeah.
[01:41:18] When you when you get to the scene with her and she's sort of like, oh, and then what happened and then what happened? Like, you know, like asking him about everything.
[01:41:25] You kind of get past the feeling the sneaking feeling that you might have at one point like, oh, is he trying to do this like a kind of
[01:41:32] Is this like a turbo psycho king of Queens type thing where all these hot women are like so fascinated with this guy. But then by the time you get to her, you're just like it's almost weirdly a it's like what if that.
[01:41:46] Times is a thousand like it's just like this. It feels like almost like commentary on that kind of dynamic. Sure, it's just like, no, all his friends. Right are these hot women who he could turn into Barbie dolls with machine guns. Yeah.
[01:42:01] Also this whole town treats him in his eccentricities the way that like Pee Wee Hermans town treats him and Pee Wee's big adventure. There's that. Oh, the local eccentric who we all find equally harmless despite the fact that he's got some weird on sort of observed undercurrents.
[01:42:17] He has full on SNM tableaus going on in a church. You have Gwendolyn Christie is Anna and his Russian caretaker who bustles into his house once a month to bring him groceries I guess and That's a medicine for him.
[01:42:36] They seem like there that's been going on for a while. That's some Russia. Hand deliver an oversized bottle of pills and then immediately tell him not to take those pills. Don't talk too many of those. Okay, I gotta go like you know, yeah.
[01:42:49] So she's there obviously Gwendolyn Christie a statue-esque woman. Maybe that's why Britsy Mechus was drawn to including her. I don't know. But she just looks regular in doll form. She doesn't look like Gwendolyn Christie. They should have made her a bigger doll. Right.
[01:43:07] Diane Kruger, who I will say looks a lot like the real Deja, the real Hogan camp which I may just be that Diane Kruger has this angular striking face. I don't know. But like when you see the Marvin call thing, you're like, oh, that's wild.
[01:43:23] Anyway, Diane Kruger no real life comparison. She is simply Deja Thoris named after the, you know, villainous character from John Carter of Mars. The Belgian witch of Marvin who is a time traveling Nazi spy who represents. Yeah, medication. And also isolation. His inability to depression.
[01:43:47] Like she is the dark figure right who ruins things and shows up at the worst time and kills anyone nice who comes to Marvin. Right. Like I don't know. Yeah.
[01:44:00] Can I say there's the weird thing in this movie where like he goes to the store and he's like, I need a redhead doll. And the Mayor Weaver recommends a doll that already looks exactly like Leslie Mann.
[01:44:09] There's the fun angle to his real artwork that he's using dolls of like other famous movie characters. So in the documentary, his mom is a big figure. Right. Steve McQueen is like another guy in town.
[01:44:22] But his mom is a big figure who's not a figure at all in this movie, a big like support figure in his life. And he's like, I gave my mom the pussy galore doll. I know it sounds weird, but it looks like her.
[01:44:32] And then the other women of Marwin are like Drew Barrymore from Charlie's Angels and Kate Beckinsale from Van Helsing. I of course was able to identify all of them. Right. You were more on that than me right?
[01:44:44] I definitely, but there is that funny moment in the documentary where the waitress, the Mediterranean waitress. Yeah. Demands the chief. She's like I'm a hot boyfriend. Right. She dumps one of the dolls. She's like, yeah, be with that guy, but there's a Steve McQueen.
[01:44:57] I want to be with Steve McQueen in your fictional universe. So she has given Steve McQueen as a boyfriend. Yeah. Anyway. The Hogi doll by the way is Nicholas Cage and Wind Talkers. Sure. Right. Right. Right. Cage could have done this. That would be interesting. Yeah.
[01:45:15] I mean Cage would have done a lot. Yeah. Leslie Zemeckis as Susette, the French lady who in the world of Welcome to Marwin is a porn star that Mark likes to crank it to. That's who she is. Like she's not a person that we meet.
[01:45:38] He doesn't know her in real life. You see him watching the video. He cast his wife as the fake porn star that Mark likes that Mark then transposes into Marwin Call. Video. Yes. That's who she is. Yeah. And that's Zemeckis' wife. Yeah. That's fine, right?
[01:45:54] And this is Abra Leslie Zemeckis played. Who also plays the barmaid in Baywif. Oh, how can I forget? And the burlesque puppet and polar express. That's so weird. Yep. It's crazy. Respect. Big jugs. And let's just say, Leslie Zemeckis, filmmaker on our right has directed, I believe,
[01:46:16] two feature length documentaries about like the history of burlesque arts. Absolutely. This is clearly an actual field of interest and expertise for her. It's just crazy how he leverages her. Yes, exactly. Thank you. Yes. It is weird the way he inserts her into the films. Yes.
[01:46:33] But maybe they're both into it. I have no idea. Maybe she's like, I want to play, you know, a fake porn star. Oh, I'm sure they're both. It seems like a tap in enough times now. Right. She's done three documentaries, Griffin. Wow.
[01:46:47] Behind the burley queue, bound by flesh and Mabel Mabel Tiger trainer, which that one might not be about the world of Bolasque. That might be about a tiger train. But the first two definitely are. And they're good titles. Good titles. So that's the women of Marwan.
[01:47:02] They're all over this movie. You gotta love them. You gotta love them. They got machine guns. They murder Nazis. They're kind of invincible. They like to hang out at the ruin stocking. Am I missing anything here?
[01:47:17] Well, that's so your whole sort of take and it is the thing I really kind of keyed in on watching it again this time, you know, having an understanding of what the movie was going to be being able to like sort of burrow into some of the weird
[01:47:29] pockets of it. The weird hyper violence of all the Marwan fantasy sequence does feel like as you said is tied to some sort of like dominant submissive, you know, give power to the women kind of thing.
[01:47:45] I feel like in his original work, in his Marwan call work and how it's presented in the documentary, it's very much my read on it is that he feels very threatened and judged by other men and by the expectation
[01:48:01] of how he needs to believe as a behave rather as a male in front of other men. And there's a quote in one of the deleted scenes I watched that like really jumped out to me where he talks about wearing more thorough drag, not just
[01:48:18] like the shoes and one of his friends, his male friends who's in the documentary is talking about like, oh yeah, like he wears drag in front of me the first time I was kind of surprised, but now I'm just used to it.
[01:48:28] And then they cut to him and he is talking about like the second I get home when no one's around. I put on the stockings, I put on a skirt, I put on the shoes. Like that's my default.
[01:48:38] And he said, I get all chilled out like women do. I can think deeper like the more logical species. And it is like he has this like weird reverential thing of just like women are serene. They are like warrior angels. They are completely balanced and powerful.
[01:48:58] It is unhealthy in its own way, but it is fascinating. It's a kind of objectification still though. That's the whole thing. Absolutely. Absolutely. Which I think the documentary I found out. I think the documentary reckons with the weirdness of his reverential objectification in a way this movie doesn't.
[01:49:19] But David your argument obviously is that the movie scenes are where that's happening. Right. The film is not textually commenting on it in dialogue amongst characters. It is just presenting this absurd over cranked thing to you.
[01:49:36] And I hate to do this more than once on a movie because I just hate this in general as a form of criticism like I never want to say like what the movie should be other than what it is.
[01:49:47] But I came away from this movie the first time and I still feel this feeling like my ideal welcome to Marwin adaptation if Robert Zemeckis wanted to do it would just be to let Mark Hogan camp write a screenplay and then maybe put your Zemeckis
[01:50:03] touch on it or whatever. But I would just want to see if he's given a budget, what is the story that he would want to tell? Give us the straight, uncut, completely kinky, hyperviolent type shit. I want to see that movie very much.
[01:50:20] Ironically, that's a Crispin Glover movie. That's Crispin Glover being like take the camera. We're going to do this together. I should say this movie written by Zemeckis and Caroline Thompson who of course was a big Tim Burton collaborator. Right but is like a family film person. Yes. Yeah.
[01:50:42] Wrote Edward Cisnerhan. She wrote The First Adams Family. You know, she's Corpse Bride. Name of her Christmas Corpse Bride but then she also directed Black Beauty. She directed and wrote Black Beauty and And Buddy as well. She also directed and wrote Buddy. Right.
[01:50:58] So she was a burden person and then went on her own did animal family films but is largely family film person, did City of Ember. It is an odd choice for Zemeckis to bring her into co-adapt this work with him. It is. It's fascinating.
[01:51:13] And it's her first screenplay in 10 years. I have no idea what the story is there, how they knew each other or whatever but it's fascinating. Yeah. I just wanted to mention her. Emily, I think that's an incredible angle. I mean that sounds fascinating. Now angry at the movie.
[01:51:31] Right. I mean obviously because he's so compelling. Yeah. And I want to see you know, it's like you come away from watching Edward. Do you want to watch an Edward movie? You know? Yes. Like you just want to see like, okay I got an artist,
[01:51:45] another artist's interpretation of how this guy, what makes this guy tick but like I want to see now the uncut thing. I want to see the primary source of... Yeah, you know Edward is an interesting thing because it's obviously he did not go through
[01:51:58] the same extreme point in like this crazy traumatic incident but that's another movie that is Hollywood-ifying and sort of sanding off the edges of a... A strange person. Yeah, it's like the most obvious comparison for me because otherwise this movie is without comparison. Right.
[01:52:19] But how often do you see Hollywood deal with weird people? Never. I just like... It's so refreshing to me to just see a fucking... And not be the butt of the joke and to be the sympathetic central figure of the film. Yes. Right.
[01:52:34] They're not the comedic foil or like the punchline. They're just... That's who you're following. I don't know. It just... No, I agree with you Ben. It was really refreshing and I enjoyed it a lot. That's what I like about the movie, Ben.
[01:52:47] I mean, I do not disagree with you for a moment there but that also gets to what I like about him as a figure. You know? But like... It's interesting because of course this movie was pitched in its advertising as being from the director of Forrest Gump, right?
[01:52:59] Like they were very much trying to be like... You haven't seen the world until you've seen the world through the eyes of Mark Hogan camp. Yeah. Exactly. He invites you to meet another incredibly unusual person. Which I believe much more than that line about Forrest Gump honestly.
[01:53:14] That's the thing. Forrest for me, much more. I might argue, I find this movie a little more dramatically compelling and less mocking than Forrest Gump. Many would probably not agree with that but yeah. I was mocking up my rankings and it's a real squeaker, David. Isn't it?
[01:53:32] I was also mocking up my rankings and I was like, Oh yeah, the back half of this is interesting. Like there's a lot of decisions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think even that... I mean it's interesting. I didn't realize that the co-writer of it wrote
[01:53:48] on Adams family because I think that, you know... I would say Ben that I think that most movies are about weird people actually but it's just like how they treat them. That's the thing that's important and I think that... Yeah, like a war hero like Captain America.
[01:54:03] Such a weirdo. He is pretty weird that guy. He did try to get frozen. That guy's doing something's going on with that guy. Something weird happened to him. But also, no one loves America that much. The Hulk is very strange. Caroline Thompson wrote Edward Sister Hands
[01:54:21] which is the kind of ultimate modern weirdo as heroes move. He's just a man. But I think that Adams family and I say this also somebody who has watched both the Adams family movies like maybe three times in lockdown. Too perfect for that. That's too perfect though.
[01:54:40] Of course. You're a smart person. You're a smart fucking person. I think I've watched each of them twice over the last night. The last time I watched Adams family values while coming down off of acid and it was great. But I do think that Adams family is like...
[01:54:56] It's interesting to know that just because I think that those movies are about deviance in a way that is a very Hollywood treatment of deviance but they are fundamentally about being not just a little weird but being outright offensive to most people's sensibilities and finding your people.
[01:55:16] What's so successful about the Adams family movies is that it has fun with it. We have to do Son and Feld. Oh, we have to. But it has fun with it. And they're fun, sympathetic people but it also the door is open to anything. Oh yeah.
[01:55:33] And you are allowed to imagine anything. To like child murder. They're into all of it. Exactly. They like it all and they can joke about it and you're like, how another funny joke? And the movie's like, yes it was a funny joke but it's also what they think
[01:55:45] and both of those things could be true and you're gonna have a good time and it just pulls that off. It's been possible. It pulls it off. But also we can't go into a full Adams family tangent here
[01:55:55] but it has to be noted the masterstroke of those two films is that they're a great family. Like they really are loyal and supportive of each other. I feel like I've seen so many people tweeting recently about the fact that Gomez and Morticia were the first time
[01:56:10] they saw an adult couple on screen and realized that married people could still be attracted to each other. That's a little gag at them. They're like, it's all opposite day and the Adams family up to it including like, what if a husband and wife really liked each other?
[01:56:25] Like that would be the craziest thing in the world. They had lost zero flame. Yeah. They're so good. Those movies are so perfect. They are masterpieces. They are masterpieces, especially values which is just perfect. Values are incredible. It is the airplane of its decade.
[01:56:40] Values is the Rosetta Stone for our entire... We watched that together I think when I was... We did. When you were at my place I was like, I'm throwing it on and we watched it and we laughed every minute. Every single joke gets a laugh. It's so perfect.
[01:56:55] It's the only live action movie that feels like peak Simpsons, that feels like season five Simpsons where there's actual emotional underpinning and also just fucking joke density and creativity. You tweeted this recently David but when we finally do the Adams family values episode
[01:57:10] it's going to be delivered off a balcony of Vita style. At this point... It is going to be our grand gesture to the people. Yes. Yes, exactly. Oh my God. I believe I once treated like my ultimate fear.
[01:57:30] I know they did the cartoon so the cartoon kind of blunted this because the cartoon can exist without me worrying about it. And there's a sequel coming out next year. Right but one day there will just be some deadline article that's like, Zach Efron circling Adams family?
[01:57:47] Like just like someone will get their claws in it where I'm like, no, no, don't do it. Don't bring it back. You can't be comas. You won't pull it off. Am I misremembering? I mean my brain is soup at this point.
[01:57:58] Was it not announced that Tim Burton is going to do a live action Adams Family TV series? Wait, what? Oh God. Good. I feel like that was a deadline announcement two months ago that he's doing a TV show for the first time
[01:58:09] and he's going to be the show runner, which is a horrible idea in every regard. Yes, am I wrong? This is, you are correct. Thank you. This is a, you know, whatever, in development who knows.
[01:58:20] And the worst part of this is if you ever were to do it in live action again, the two actors you should cast are the people they've already burned in the animated movie. Oscar Isaac and Charlie's Theron. Interesting, Charlie's Theron. Huh, yeah, right.
[01:58:35] Impossible to top Julia and Houston. You can't. The teaser trailer for Adams Family 2, which is tentatively scheduled to come out next Halloween 2021, is just like a thing crawls onto screen, snap, snap, and then it says next year, things return to normal.
[01:58:56] And then thing like pushes the letter A on it, says abnormal, snap, snap, the Adams Family 2. I just want to say for our listeners, I'm not sure if you can see the zoom. So Griffin is doing this with his hand, but he has the background.
[01:59:12] So he's doing the thing hand, but because of the zoom background, it is actually severing his hand from his arm. So it's really like good VFX right now. That's true. I'm actually keying out my hand, but I just, I was like blown away by that word.
[01:59:26] It's like, oh, this is the first teaser trailer that is not just trying to hype audiences up at the prospect of a new movie, but to hype them up at the prospect of a pandemic being defeated. Yeah, right. That's fine. That's like the next year.
[01:59:41] That's like the next marketing strategy. Right. Next year you might be able to see a movie again, snap, snap. Yeah. Do we have anything else we want to say about Marwyn and being welcomed to it? I took truly two pages of notes. I'm looking through them now.
[01:59:58] I had so many thoughts while I was watching this. I appreciate it. Jeez. I'm running through this. I know, I've been doing it more recently just because my brain has become fucking jello nine months in and I cannot retain a thought for more than five seconds.
[02:00:13] Can I do a quick shout out to the documentary that Gels Malmberg and who's the other director? Oh yes. That movie rules. Spectacolo. Yeah. Yeah. It's fantastic if you like Marwyn Call, I would check it out.
[02:00:31] It's about a town in Italy that does a play about itself every year. So it's similar to the sort of like self-reflexive art project and the way like it kind of scratches that same itch, but it's like this huge ensemble
[02:00:44] and this like decades long story about this town and it's like it moves me to tears that documentaries. They're great. Yeah, they do a good job. Malmberg also edited Won't You Be My Neighbor? I didn't realize until I said it.
[02:00:58] He does a lot of documentary editing, I think. Yeah. Whatever. But he rules. Marwyn Call is great. I always get the title wrong, but Topicolo is great. Watch both of his films. This is, I think the only note I didn't really cover in this.
[02:01:14] I mean, A, I'll just recite this verbatim. When he shows the shoes to Leslie Mann and she goes, so is it like a shoe fetish? And he goes, it's not a fetish. And his clarification is, I collect women's essence, helps me understand dames and her responses.
[02:01:30] Hmm, I get that. I get that. I'm sorry. Is Jody Foster about to burst in here? Are you going to put on night vision goggles? Am I about to go in a well? Okay, I don't get it, but also come on guys.
[02:01:47] I had to do the silence of the lambs bit. I have no problem with a foot fetish or a shoe thing. If you want to be into that, that is A okay. It's okay to be weird. Only the issue of the way he says it to her.
[02:01:59] That's the only problem here. I know that she reacts. It's just weird energy between them in the scene. Correct. Bohemian like you to Mark Hogan camp, waking up in a fever sweat and then this weird morph edit to him running into the bar to get the lava lamp.
[02:02:16] We haven't watched witches yet, but I would argue the single weirdest needle drop in the entire Zemeckis filmography. How did I not notice that? It's great. I love it. So bizarre. He's going dandy war holes. It's when it's when Deja says, you must build me a time machine.
[02:02:34] And he goes to the store and it goes, do do do do do do do do. Come over to your pad and something nice. My God. Is that the most recent song that you think that Robert Zemeckis has ever heard? Because we don't watch all these movies.
[02:02:51] And it's like, flight. The most recent song is from 1979. That's incredible. Pull up a dandy war holes. So bizarre. Griff, there are needle drops in the film flight. What are you talking about? The score is not totally dietic in that film.
[02:03:06] Like just the sounds of the universe that we're hearing. You might not know this, but John Goodman's character in the film has sympathy for the devil. But what about like when he does cocaine? Like, is there anything up with that scene? Like, David, I know.
[02:03:20] There's no songs about cocaine. So I hate to tell you this. I hate to tell you this. It hurts me to share this. But in those moments, one could argue that Denzel's character, Whip Whitaker is feeling all right. You're right. I'm feeling all right guys.
[02:03:38] Last thing I want to share. And this is just like the fundamental, my frustrations and to sound degree. I'm just hung up because I love the documentary so much. It's hard for me to view this movie on its own merits.
[02:03:50] But I talked about the documentary when the end, the denomine of the film is him going to the opening in New York City being terrified about having his art judged when it's never meant to be something consumed by the public.
[02:04:02] And he's like trying to hype himself up here like, I'm gonna be in Grinch Village. Everyone's weird. They're gonna have feathers in their hair. And then he goes there and he's like, this is boring. This is so unusual. And there's this shot of him wearing like leather men's
[02:04:14] shoes. And he's like, I hate that I'm wearing these shoes. They look nice, but I chickened out. I'm such a coward. I should have worn them. And then you see him at the opening when people are starting to leave and he goes up to one of the women
[02:04:26] who's organizing it. And he says, I'm so ashamed of myself. I chickened out. And she's like, it's not too late. Put on the heels. And then there's this beautiful cut to him wearing the heels and his stockings. Yeah. And he's like, I did it. And they're like, see?
[02:04:40] And he's like, it does feel pretty good. And that's like the big point of the movie is like, even though he's disappointed that like New York isn't the haven for like acceptance that he thought it was going to be. He had the courage to like be himself,
[02:04:53] which is the thing he keeps on talking about in the documentary. And in this movie, the day new mon is he wears his uniform to the fucking art opening and he accepts a pasta dinner invitation from era weaver. Yeah. It just feels like that's pretty fundamental dinner.
[02:05:06] But sushi, sorry. Right there. They're going to try sushi together. They're going to, it's going to be a fun new thing for them or whatever. Yeah. I just dislike that the shoe thing is treated as a quirk in this movie rather than a sort of
[02:05:23] multifaceted reckoning with his very complicated sort of sexual identity in real life. And it feels, it just feels a little gross to me that is simplified that much because I think that's such a corse on the guy and is the reason that these fucking assholes beat
[02:05:39] the shit out of him, you know? Yeah. That's just a big sticking point for me, but that's the end of my fucking two pages of notes. I don't need to read the rest of them. It's much more, it's easier for this film
[02:05:51] to spend time on him navigating relationships with women than the fun night details of his, you know, what clothes he does and doesn't want to wear and how he identifies and all of that. Like that's, I don't think that Zemeckis is a filmmaker equipped to deal with that.
[02:06:10] He's equipped to deal with, well, does Leslie man like him or not? Like, yeah. Oh, that's the final note I wanted to share. I'll just read this verbatim is proposing with the purple heart the most uncomfortable scene in the history of popular cinema.
[02:06:26] Why is it shot like the chicken scene from Cache? It is crazy how far away the camera is. I guess because it's so uncomfortable that it's almost like we just have, we can't be near this. It's too intense to see.
[02:06:43] They shoot her house like one of the doll houses in this part too. So you're kind of on doll scale with them there. It doesn't cut. It lingers for so long past her walking out a frame and him just standing like kneeling their motionless.
[02:07:00] And my additional note was it's the opposite of that shot in Taxi Driver where the camera hands away from him on the phone because it's too embarrassing. Like that's Scorsese is like this is so emotionally uncomfortable. I don't even want to capture it.
[02:07:15] And Zemeckis is like, I'm going to force you to watch this for 98 seconds. Sounds like it's an interesting and weird movie that's really sort of compelling to watch in its screen. It is. It's compelling. I could have ended up like this guy
[02:07:32] if I did acid a couple more times. That's what I was thinking too. I was like, oh boy, four or five more drops and I would have been in my backyard of my parents house in New Jersey. Anyway, burying jeans.
[02:07:47] Yeah, God, I mean it was so close to getting there. Can you imagine? Anyway, their first sale 2021. No, Ben, to mirror what you're saying, I'm so grateful in the year 2020 to not be a guy who's just largely home bread and meticulously rearranging action figures in his thomasis.
[02:08:07] Just to point out it is 2021 when this episode comes out. Right, so that's my point. Oh my God. I mean, Emily, it's December. I mean, congrats. Congratulations. I'll be posting about it. Check out my stuff. I've got hats. Buried jeans. Can I?
[02:08:32] Do you think there's any people who listen to this podcast that think it's like buried jeans, like they're stained with the juices of berries? Buried jeans. I like that. You're just giving him another idea. That's a whole different concept, Emily. You're welcome.
[02:08:50] You beat the jeans with big bunches of grapes or something, right? Yeah, you crush them with your bare feet. There's something like mulberries that really stain. You just smack a branch of mulberries right on them. What about buried jeans? Like a bear attacked them? I don't know.
[02:09:10] Let me play the box office game. Or what about if you like sort of like airspray a picture of a berry from HBO on the jeans? I'm sorry. I apologize for saying you could do it. I'm sorry. What's the word I'm looking for? Not airspray.
[02:09:34] I know what you're talking about. Airbrush. I'm thinking of the Bernie Mac Def Comedy Jam jeans where he has his own face painted on them. That was the joke I made. I drank half a bottle of wine during this episode.
[02:09:48] I was watching them out of the bottle no less. David, play the box office. Play the box office. After a half a bottle of wine, you're still at a five. I'm still just at a five. This film came out December 21st, 2018. It made just over a black hat.
[02:10:06] It topped out at 10 domestic. 12 worldwide? Am I correct? 13 worldwide. 13 worldwide. I wasn't looking up this opening weekend, but in looking up things around this movie, you saw like reporting on the final totals and like analysis of a flop and stuff. And they pointed out
[02:10:26] that this movie came out the week after our beloved Mortal Engies, two big budget universal auteur passion projects back to back that both barely flopped. This was the period where people were like, Universal. Yeah, Mortal engines has already fallen to 13 in its second weekend.
[02:10:46] It's not even in our top 10. No, it opened at five and fell to 13 on weekend two. No respect for strike. A 77% drop. That is extraordinary. Someday I don't have any time frame for it, but we must do an NGs pod. Oh, we'll get to the NGs one day.
[02:11:08] We'll do Peter Jackson. We'll do Mortal Engines as a bonus. You're the guest. I do want to point out. I found it in the same message board that the same week the welcome to Marwin 4K release was canceled and the Mortal Engines 3D Blu-ray release were canceled.
[02:11:26] Those were like the first two victims. So rude. Oh my God. Well, I still have my screener. I actually have a physical copy of NGs because I'm not positive that it will ever be available on streaming. It's probably a peacock, right? Much like the characters
[02:11:42] of Mortal Engines, you need to hold onto the relics of the past as we move on to Traction Cities. You need to have that disc and place it next to the statue of a minion. Um, absolutely. Thank you Emily. Anyway, all right.
[02:11:58] Okay, number one of the box office is a film we've discussed on this show. We discussed it on this weekend. It was a huge surprising mega hit. I know what it is because I also love this movie very much. Great movie. It's a comic book movie.
[02:12:18] This is really one of my favorite Hollywood movies. Oh Aquaman. Movie seasons. Yeah. It's a great movie. Aquaman. It is bizarre how big that movie was considering how weird it was and I don't say that as any sort of strike against it. Sea crime.
[02:12:36] You gotta watch out for those underwater lasers. I think that's the biggest hit of all time. Number two is I think the movie that most people probably would have predicted would be number one. It's also a very popular term. Yes.
[02:12:52] It just felt like that was going to be the big Christmas family movie that Aquaman was going to be too nerdy and they totally flip. That movie is a dry fart. People have tried to convince me like, oh no, it's not so bad. It is so bad.
[02:13:10] It's so bad. So bad. It's not Marshall. The songs are just like... The thing that's going for it is that Emily Blunt and Ben Wyshaw are professionals and they do their best. But that's about it. Which one song were you about to say? Me?
[02:13:32] I was good to defend a single song. I was good to defend the scene where Ben Wyshaw breaks down and he's like, oh, I'm so pathetic. That's the scene where you reported back to me. You were out of nowhere. Ben Wyshaw is like, I got this. Oh god.
[02:13:46] But any time Rob Marshall is like, I've arranged all these dancers for you. They're going to dance. It's going to be a big musical number. You're like, oh, all right. And he's like, I decided to cut 100 times. I'm only going to show you
[02:14:00] one fifteenth of this at a time. Why? I feel like on topsy watching that movie. Everything's upside down with all these cuts. What's number three at the box? Number three at the box office. Another disappointment. A pretty watchable, solid movie considering its background. It's sort of
[02:14:24] like a side equal in a franchise that's trying to figure itself out. Oh, Bumblebee? Yeah, solid movie. That's a pleasant movie. That's an ultimate like gentlemen's six and a half to seven. Right. It's just the iron giant worse, but you're like, hey, rip off a good movie
[02:14:44] and get kind of close to it. I'll watch that. And Hailey Steinfeld's in it. And she's just kind of like Bumblebee. Yeah. Well, Emily, you know what? That's okay. But you know, it's going to Smith's on the soundtrack. So that's fine. I was going to say,
[02:15:02] I think it'd probably be your favorite Transformers movie, Emily. Yeah, possibly by not that that's a big honor, but yes. Number four. I like a lot of the Transformers. Maybe we're in. We're all friends here. Number four, it's an animated film. It's a big movie that has only,
[02:15:20] I feel like grown in influence even in the last couple of years. Milana? No. No. It's grown in influence. It's been out for two weeks. Not a Disney. But it did win the Academy Award for animated film this year. In 2018, the Academy Award
[02:15:40] for animated... It's not about a baby who is a boss. Baby who is is boss? I can't believe I'm not getting this immediately because this is probably a movie I've watched many, many times at iTunes at three o'clock in the morning, right? We saw it together.
[02:15:56] Oh, it's Into the Spider-Verse. That's right. Yes, it's genuinely a film that feels like... What a great movie. A great movie, but also a kind of organic phenomenon in the likes of which we rarely see where I feel like people were kind of
[02:16:12] cynical about the idea of it. It came out, exceeded expectations, grew, played like a sleeper hit, and I feel like two years later has now been kind of accepted as a classic. Like it only becomes more and more prevalent in conversation, I think is a reference point
[02:16:26] both in terms of what movies can do well and in terms of just as like a cultural meme, it just feels like, oh, that's like clearly just kind of one of the classics now. In terms of animation, like it's such... It's so often referenced now. It's like,
[02:16:38] oh, you can do a computer animated movie that doesn't have to look like a fucking Pixar movie and like... Right, doesn't feel like shit. Right, it's like redefined, like CGI. It redefined sort of superhero narratives that can look like Beowulf, like in just like great like...
[02:16:58] I always say Beowulf is into the spider-wool. What if Beowulf shows up, he's just like, I am spider-wolf from the Zemeckis universe! That'd be great. They should do that. Remember there's Zemeckis Cube in Ready Player One, another great movie. New York Film Critic Circle that year.
[02:17:18] We were... I remember, and Emily, was there for that voting. Right, and I remember like we had beforehand been like, let's try and get animated feature to Spider-Verse. I know it's going to be hard to sell people. It felt like a radical idea at the time.
[02:17:34] I remember the two of you telling me about this is our weird... The competition was like... I love dogs! Yeah, I love... That was it. I love dogs, which was literally... Exactly, I was kind of... Saying to me, David, it's autopilot.
[02:17:50] They're going to give it to West just as a career thing as default. And there was also Incredibles 2 that year. There were big quote-unquote movies that could have... We were just like, I know people will be resistant to the comic book thing.
[02:18:06] We give it to it and we were really happy that we did and then everyone else also gave it... It totally swept. Anyway, that's all. Give it to I Love Dogs. That would have been terrible. Number 5 in the movie is a great masterpiece about a great man.
[02:18:24] Weird. I mean, Sully didn't come out in 2018. I'm trying to get another film that could be describing. It's not the mule. It is the mule! It is the mule! Mule! Oh, God. What a great one. Thank God that was number 5 and not what's number 6, the Grinch. Bleh.
[02:18:50] We should acknowledge... The mule. The day we're recording this podcast is the day that AT&T announced that all 2021 Warner Brothers releases are going day in date on HBO Max and buried in that I feel like it's not discussed. People are talking about Dune.
[02:19:06] They're talking about Suicide Squad. They're not talking about the fact that Clint Eastwood's Cry Macho is now going straight to HBO Max. And the idea that I won't get the pleasure of watching Cry Macho, it's 6 week in release a Tuesday 3pm showing that is weirdly 90% full of geriatrics.
[02:19:28] Hell yeah. Is that how you saw the mule? Do you like my new background? And how I saw Sully. Yeah, it's the Grinch. I hate it. That's how I feel about this new Warner Brothers. Oh! It's Matthew Morrison. David is scratching
[02:19:46] the top of his head like he's thinking hard. David, you quote tweeted the news story with just emoji thumbs down and then someone responded I'm dying to hear Griff Lighting's thoughts on this. And I was like come on! Here's my one word response. Guess.
[02:20:04] Yeah, get out of here. How do you think I'm a gross person only like going to movie theaters? It is the only activity I enjoy. How do you think I feel about this? It's bad. It's really bad. Whatever. We'll figure it out.
[02:20:22] Look, we're gonna be, I mean we've been talking about David, we're gonna be like those like fanatical season pass holders who go to every game and people are like you go to every fucking Mets game and you're like I gotta!
[02:20:34] Gotta be there for my team and that's how we're paying some probably like $400 a month AMC diamond pass to be able to see the music here. You're gonna be like Mets season ticket holders. Yes. The Mets. We're gonna be like patrons of the art. Yeah. Yeah.
[02:20:50] Well, whatever. Whatever works. They better give you champagne in the lobby as all I'm saying if that's what movies become. I'm now three fourths through with my life. Or like yeah, let me buy a toy. Or something. Griffin chugging out of the wine bottle.
[02:21:04] Chugging out of the wine bottle. Final thoughts. I like this movie. I give it two thumbs up. Ben, Ben I have full respect for your respect of this film. I would implore you to watch the documentary. I'm not saying because I think it will make you
[02:21:20] like this film. Yes. I just think is due diligence to anyone who has not watched the documentary it is truly a great film. I look forward to it. I know it's the new year but in case anyone hasn't checked it out I have a slow Christmas album.
[02:21:36] It's not too late. It's only been a month so I'll look that up and do you know about this Emily? He promised this in the polar express episode and I think people assumed it was a bit and he has played it for us now
[02:21:48] and it is frighteningly real. It's slow. It's not just chopped and screwed. This thing is slow. It's really, really slow. It's not just chopped and screwed but it is chopped and screwed. The cops would hold this thing over and be like, you can't drive this slow.
[02:22:04] It's not allowed. This thing is fucking glacial. You don't understand how slow this album is. Okay. So it's like it is like an inception slow. Yeah, true. Four levels in. At least. This is limbo. This album is going to function as many kicks to come in the future.
[02:22:32] Emily, congratulations on joining the Double Digits Club. You're the best. You're the mother of blankies. I put in the work and I reap my reward. My reward is having been on this podcast 10 times so... But also I feel like I've been getting increasingly sappy
[02:22:50] because of this fucking year when we have our friends on the show but you're such a keystone for this podcast existing in the first place. You are. That's undeniably true. It's undeniably true. It's not just a glib title. It's not just that you named our
[02:23:08] listenership but you literally helped define what the show was going to be when we transitioned out of that fucking Star Wars bit. Well, I'm very glad to be here. I'm very glad to have some sort of holiday season pod so I can get to hang out
[02:23:26] into the wee hours, talk about movies. It's my favorite thing. I love it. I wish we were doing it in a person. Damn it. Someday. One of my favorites. I mean, it is like... I was saying this sort of glibly but truly that season of Holiday Movies
[02:23:42] 2018 when this came out I loved and part of it was because of my NJs but going out with you guys to see it probably the last week could be in theaters and going to the bar at a time. It was great. It was so fun. Miss you guys.
[02:24:00] The four of us saw NJs together. I saw Spider-Verse the first time with David, the second time with Ben. I saw the Mule with ARP like almost every movie in that top 10 is a movie I saw. Of course he did. Right, so it's like almost every movie
[02:24:18] in that list is something I saw with like a key blank check figure. Which just makes me all the more nostalgic for movie going. Emily, night call has ended at this point but people should listen to the back Yeah, night call, the archives live forever.
[02:24:34] I'm not sure if this will be up or not but we're... I think we're gonna put all of our bonus episodes public so there might be new to you night call out there which is cool. That's about it for now. And you've gone Hollywood and you're making
[02:24:50] major moves and there's things you can't talk about but there are many exciting Emily Yashida projects coming with Yashida. Yeah, hopefully fingers crossed 2021 will be have more going on in 2020 where I mostly I don't know pretended to do my taxes. Don't talk about taxes on this show.
[02:25:12] I already made that mistake. I'm playing that one hard Emily still that's my main go to is like I wish I'm so busy with the taxes. In December. So much income to figure out. I just can't the taxes. There are three pay stubs
[02:25:32] for two dollars that I haven't reconciled yet. I'm not in the world of residuals yet so that'll be a whole other. They shoot blood of blue bloods in my neighborhood. Hey baby, look I'm telling you the two dollar checks never stop coming in on that show.
[02:25:56] I'm buying M&Ms I'm buying peanut butter M&Ms I'm buying P not M&Ms. Oh my god when they reopen the movie theaters. I'm gonna come over. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate review subscribe. Thank you to Lame on Gunry for our theme song
[02:26:16] Jeb Bonaparte Rounds for our artwork. Go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit. Go to our Shopify store where the talk in the walk 2020 shirts are now available should be shipping out along with the pins and the restock of comedy point coins more merch to come
[02:26:34] soon. Tune in next week we're closing it out we're ending the book of Bobby we're talking the witches a movie I have avoided watching up until this point to make it special have you seen to get David nope we're getting bewitched by those rascally witches
[02:26:52] with friend of the show Richard Lawson trying desperately to keep up pace with you Emily but I don't think he's hit 10 yet. No that'll be his ninth. Oh my god. Yeah neck and neck. Alright wrap it up. That's the end of the show.
[02:27:14] That's the end of the show. Unfortunately now I have to ask all of you to leave Marwan. I won't go. Exile for Marwan.