Wonder Woman 1984

[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 they're able to shine with Blank Check Nothing good is born from podcasts and greatness is not what you think Who says that? Is it Wonder Woman?

[00:00:28] Yeah, guess who says that? What do you think of doing a Chris Pine impression? I don't, well I thought maybe, I don't know Pascal I suppose It wasn't due to your impression, I was more like, oh boy do I not remember this movie that well already

[00:00:42] My podcast hasn't been what you think it has, we all have our podcasts She's got that whole group of lines that are all like real kind of These, these rueful, I keep using rueful, is 2021 the year of rueful?

[00:00:57] I think so, I think rueful is for some future episode Your patina Yeah, I feel like I also said rueful in one episode and you were like taking it back and you went rueful

[00:01:08] And it's like you kind of rediscover the word and now you've been running with it No but you had this moment of just like rueful nice to see you again Old ruefy Yeah, well hey, no she's got all these lines that like are prominent in the trailer

[00:01:26] And I guess she says them in the movie but I can't remember even when she says them that all feel like Inspirational quotes on Drift Word that someone sells on Etsy, right? Yes, right, yes they are rueful They are rueful, they are rueful Folks It's 2021 Oh

[00:01:51] And can I say 2020, you don't need to rest in peace I don't mind if you rest in discomfort Because man, 2020 Not good Yeah, more like 2020, see ya wouldn't want to be ya Right, yeah definitely more like rest in pieces

[00:02:16] Yeah, right that's definitely what I should have said the first time It is no longer 2020, is that a good thing? I mean by the standards of how years have gone recently, no Look it's They tend to only get worse

[00:02:35] It's a good thing in the way that like sometimes you need to get rid of some stuff after a breakup You know it's like Right Symbolically it's good to kind of close the door and be like I should get this out of my house

[00:02:49] There are too many memories involved in this thing It's not like I have particularly high hopes about 2021 But I certainly like symbolically closing the door on a year that objectively drank duck piss You know As a real duck piss drink of a year Yes, duck piss, what?

[00:03:11] Rude to ducks, do they have bad? The corkscrew dick That's I think just what I think It makes me feel like their piss would be sour, the corkscrew The corkscrew dick Right right right, you ever had a duck egg? Or like dark No David, I hate eggs

[00:03:25] Oh right you hate eggs, sorry sorry This is an incredible Incredible start to a fresh year of podcasting with us covering a massive new release movie I really feel like I've set us off on an incredible foot Griffin was like You know what let's do Wonder Woman first

[00:03:43] It'll kick off the new year, the discourse on that one is raging Like what better time And then we're like so ducks have weird dicks right? 2020 LMAO Minute four is how sour do you think duck piss tastes? Should we just start over?

[00:04:01] No no this is all in, this is all in I mean do you feel like this is going to hurt us Ben? Do you think people who are going Huh I've been looking for a Wonder Woman podcast Are going to turn it off at this point

[00:04:15] Can I be honest? Yes I don't think it's gonna help Hey I like a challenge We'll find out Look let me tell folks what this is okay This podcast isn't duck piss talk It's blank check with Griffin and David, I'm Griffin

[00:04:33] I'm David, we could rename it bad I guess This is something to consider but we'll see Yeah we'll see let's leave it open to a vote A legally binding vote Look this is a podcast about filmographies Directors who have massive success early on in their careers

[00:04:51] And are given a series of blank checks Make whatever crazy passion products they want And sometimes those checks clear And sometimes they lasso the lightning and ride on it Baby Sure Baby Now Yes that's true this is not really part of that But

[00:05:10] This is absolutely a blank check movie This is the little bit of table set And I want to do for people who don't remember That's a good point Or jumping on on this hot fresh very welcoming new episode Which is this podcast is usually Freshest duck piss

[00:05:25] Well yeah we should just double down on it We should just keep on invoking it nonstop throughout this entire episode Usually This podcast is about filmographies as we said And director driven and we'll pick a director And we'll cover all of their movies

[00:05:41] In order in a little mini series But a couple years ago We felt like we needed to do Batman vs Superman Don of Justice I'm sorry I said the title wrong Batman V Superman Don of Justice And It's a movie

[00:06:00] It just felt like such a blank checky thing That even though we were like I don't know if we ever want to cover Zack Snyder This seems like such a colossal sort of like Bizarre, otordriven blockbuster We recorded it We lost a lot of the audio

[00:06:17] We released a truncated version First and only time we've ever had tech problems It's never been a thing since that time Never come up 2020 perfect year In terms of tech Yeah Yeah absolutely And we're not resting pieces I mean you are always pristine

[00:06:33] People have started calling me producer griff Because they're just like I assume you've been handling everyone's audio Recently, right? You just fully Are engineering and editing every episode Because you're just so on top of this stuff Yeah Yeah This is the point that I was trying to make

[00:06:53] Was that after the success of the MCU Warner Brothers wanted to play Ketchup And they made this very bizarre decision To pretty much put one filmmaker In control of the whole extended universe And sort of overseeing it And have everyone else have to fit their movies

[00:07:09] Into his vision We have to talk about this Okay and we're going to Right, right This is all important Right Right And then they've sort of backed off from that But then it's become a weird sort of sideways thing

[00:07:21] And we've gone back and forth on whether or not We still feel obligated to cover these movies Now this one felt important to cover For a couple of reasons A, because we love the first Wonder Woman And B, because Patty Jenkins has only made three films

[00:07:38] She's one of these people where we very easily could do Like a monster fill-in episode on Patreon And just say like Patty Jenkins is a filmmaker We cover every time there's a new movie And I think that would be fair I think she's an interesting enough filmmaker

[00:07:52] Doing blank check projects on a huge scale She's a good person to sort of put in our back pocket In that way But yes Let's talk about the larger sort of state of the DC thing So this is the thing And yes, and because the right

[00:08:07] Because Patty Jenkins as you say Is now absolutely a blank check filmmaker I would say Yeah But when she gets Wonder Woman Is the absolute opposite Someone who made a film that should Sensibly have gotten her a lot more work And then struggled for

[00:08:22] You know, ten plus years to even get A job in movie making But right, the DC extended universe Launched in 2013 With Man of Steel A movie we've never covered and should No We're putting a lot of things on our plate That we might have to throw on Patreon

[00:08:41] At some point in the near future I mean I guess maybe we do Snyder one day But God that just feels like a nightmare Snike it Yeah, the snike it And Yes, of course Well, he's just a bunch of things to say

[00:08:56] So when Man of Steel comes out It's a year after the Avengers So it's a year after the MCU thing Has gone from experiment To juggernaut And you know has gone from Oh what are they doing over there to like

[00:09:10] Oh we should try what they're doing over there Right and there was this thing of like You know, oh we're very carefully Just trying to relaunch Superman Superman is a crown jewel We're just trying to relaunch that And then like six weeks after

[00:09:24] Man of Steel comes out there like The next movie is Batman vs Superman We're building the whole universe out We're going to a hundred This is the problem It's the dual problem of And people I guess maybe forget it But like while the Marvel thing

[00:09:40] Is kicking off DC Or Warner Brothers is having this Great success with these critically acclaimed Christopher Nolan Batman movies So you know they're not about to They're not about to completely unconcerned With larger world building Outside of those movies Right like Kevin Feige is making

[00:09:58] Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans And so on sign these seven picture deals With these balloon salary Like you can't do that with Christian Bale You're not going to say like hey so you've done two Or these, do you want to sign on Maybe do like six more

[00:10:12] Or you do some cameos and shit Like we do you know like So Man of Steel comes out That's Nolan produced You know and he Identifies Snyder as he thinks He'll make a cool Superman movie Snyder has this you know Iron Rand fucking I am an alien among

[00:10:32] Humans and I Like he has a pitch at least He's got pitches let me just say a couple quick things Just butt in with a couple quick Fine points here One is there were a long list Of actors who were apparently in talks Like Darren Aronofsky

[00:10:48] And Matt Reeves who later goes on to do Batman And even Affleck met with them Right Aronofsky one of those guys Who circled so many comic book movies And it was always everyone would always Get excited and then it would never come together

[00:11:00] But apparently really wanted to do this And it was like Goyer and Nolan Had a pitch they had to take On how to redo Superman and the pitch Was very much we can do for Superman What we did for Dark Knight The plan was not

[00:11:14] Build out a whole thing out of this Right it was like redefine Superman and there was also The looming specter Of the lawsuit from the Shuster Estate where they Thought they were going to lose a bunch of the rights

[00:11:30] They had to do it and Zack Snyder by a lot of accounts Became the choice because they were like We know he can handle a movie of this size We know he will be able To get this up and running quickly Yes

[00:11:42] But then they're in bed with him and they double down And they're like do you want to be our grand architect Well I guess It's like they green light the sequel Right away even though the movie Disappointed but it did okay You know it still did good

[00:11:58] It was very successful I think public perception Was split but you also Announced a sequel that Isn't Man of Steel 2 as pointedly Now we're going huge But I think they didn't they initially Announce That's what I can't remember didn't they

[00:12:14] Just initially announced like there will be a sequel Yes and then it was a I remember A Comic Con Snyder presented The logo with like Batman behind It and it was like Everyone freaking out And so Maybe initially they were like

[00:12:30] And then who what if one of the brothers gets involved They're like we need a universe now boys You're going to introduce Wonder Woman We're going to happen The Comic Con thing was six weeks after that movie came Out that's the thing I think people forget

[00:12:42] By all accounts it was like a scramble Internally because As you said it's like 2008 is Iron Man And the Dark Knight right And then 2012 Is Dark Knight Rises And The Avengers So like one year DC is the dominant force And Marvel has an outside hit

[00:13:06] Experimenting with a weird thing And then four years later DC closes the book on their most Successful franchise And Marvel just super charges And so the next year they're scrambling And by all accounts their plan Was Man of Steel 2

[00:13:22] And then they sort of did the Hail Mary pass Like the week or two before Comic Con and went like what if we just Fucking go for it And And they were legends As we keep talking About this whole enterprise Obviously one of the original

[00:13:40] Sins is just them Doing it all So quickly Trying to launch everything In one movie That's a Superman sequel Suicide Squad holds up But that's like to this day Suicide Squad which is bad And also has all this extended Universe crap that's also Separately bad

[00:14:04] And not helping matters But it's also fast like we had no intention Of covering Suicide Squad And then you saw and you were like You don't understand how weird this thing was And I was like I guess we gotta do it

[00:14:16] And then at that point we sort of backed into it Where we're like it's not just the Snyder Strain we're interested in I guess it's this whole enterprise Excuse me But I do step back from it Felt a little burden We've gotten ourselves trapped in this expectation

[00:14:32] That we have to cover every DC movie Then we skipped Shazam because we were like Who gives a shit? And then that ended up being one of the best ones And one of our favorite superhero movies The last ten years So we feel like idiots

[00:14:44] And we told Ang like you should do Birds of Prey Because we're just sort of over this But then we both definitely liked Birds of Prey More than most of these movies I mean Ang liked it more than us And I think she was absolutely

[00:14:56] I don't like that movie Fair enough But the point is I think we've had this uneasy relationship With how much we want to be in bed With like the commitment of needing To do every DC movie And for two things One, we should never commit Because

[00:15:16] Every six months there's an article And there was just one of the New York Times Where they're like yeah we're gonna do 50 movies a week And he's gonna be in a sitcom That's on HBO Max where his dick is out And it's gonna be great

[00:15:30] We're doing six different TV shows on HBO Max That all interconnect And each one is based on one item on Batman's utility belt That's our propellant On HBO Max So we will never commit We're not gonna put a ring on it Now that you're saying it yes

[00:15:50] We have covered every single DC Universe film except for Shazam And Man of Steel And Man of Steel And Shazam is Possibly my favorite Of my good boy Aquaman And I do enjoy the Adventures of Wonder Woman But no, I think Shazam's my favorite You know

[00:16:10] The James Gunn Suicide Squad movies coming up I'd like to do talk about that Maybe we wait I don't know But it's also another thing where Gunn's a guy Who's featured both Guardians on Patreon And he's only made two movies outside of that

[00:16:24] So you're like, and he's certainly a blank check guy This is the thing I butt up against I was thinking about this a lot while watching Wonder Woman 1984 Which is what this episode's about But I do think to some degree No, I've said it, I think

[00:16:36] I don't know, maybe I haven't I don't know, this podcast is bad It's worse than Duck Piss I think All of this table setting Is necessary To some degree this is such This movie represents such a zoom out moment Of just like

[00:16:54] What is the state of blockbuster filmmaking Right now? This movie has become such a weird fulcrum point Of so many different things Not just DC, not just Warner Brothers And how they're run under AT&T But also streaming Versus theatrical And also just like superhero franchise Building

[00:17:14] And also I think The online discourse of round movies Because I cannot remember the last time People have gotten this kind of Apoplectic at large About a film It feels like different, the way that people are angry On this one Yes it does And I don't really

[00:17:34] Get it, but we can talk about that I have thoughts and theories And they're simply just that Look, I have thoughts and theories Not just about this movie But about the other movies that came out Really close together that were much hyped

[00:17:48] After a year that, in my opinion Wasn't much to write home about Talk about 2020 over here Yeah, really will But let Mank, Tenet and this All came out Within six weeks of each other Basically And all got very different reactions But all basically like

[00:18:08] Was sort of a fairly common Thread I would say And It's perfectly reasonable To not like any of those movies But it did also just kind of feel like everyone was like AHHHHH Which I understand, I think it's bad Right and Look

[00:18:28] I went on this whole sort of thing In the old guard episode And people really pushed back at it Because they felt like I was being sort of like A judgmental Or gatekeep-y about the way that people watch movies Which is not my intent

[00:18:42] It is more that I feel like I've spent a lot of this year And it's, we're too in it It's impossible to fucking Come up with the thesis here But sociologically There is a major shift going on In how people consume entertainment And talk about it

[00:18:58] Right? And it's been super charged By everyone being Stuck at home watching everything On their couch and nonstop trying to distract Themself and then also spending More time online But the shift has been happening gradually For a while That having been said, like

[00:19:16] You said Soul, Mank and Wonder Woman were the three you listed? No Mank, Tenet and Wonder Woman I don't think Soul falls in that bucket Soul has gotten maybe You know there's always going to be discourse But you know it's fairly positive

[00:19:30] I think those three you threw out Completely correct and fair I think the Soul thing was also Fascinating to watch where it was like Soul and Wonder Woman both go up On their streaming platforms Christmas Day, it feels like Overwhelmingly, especially in the first 24 hours, Wonder Woman

[00:19:48] Won the battle of the eyeballs Everyone was watching that thing right away Yeah, it was for the whole family Everyone could watch You know Wonder Woman who doesn't Like Wonder Woman, right? You know Soul it's like Some people don't want to watch a kids movie

[00:20:02] They don't know what it's about It's like a connected sequel to a beloved movie Like one of the more well regarded Films In one of the most dominant Genre at popular cinema And also it was like this big budget Sort of spectacularly movie

[00:20:18] The idea of people getting to watch it at home I think felt like a Christmas present to people Like finally, here's a real movie In this year where the things we've been Getting on streaming have felt like Kind of damaged goods You know? Like right off sort of

[00:20:32] By and large And Everyone was just going wild Buckwild about Wonder Woman flipping out But it was also just astounding to watch How loud the discourse was By like noon On Christmas day And not just among film Twitter people But like the people I specifically

[00:20:52] Follow in order to follow people Who don't talk about movies all the time Like Piece of shit, flame Worst movie I've seen the last 30 years And I'm like you write for political And you watched it within two hours Of waking up on Christmas morning Like

[00:21:10] Well, Santa came and he brought us one of those But then I feel like By the end of Christmas night Or maybe the following day I saw the sentiment of like why is everyone Watching Wonder Woman Soul is on Disney Plus and it's good

[00:21:24] Don't watch the movie that makes you mad Watch Soul Like this is the alternative This is actually the good studio film And then like 24 hours after that The Soul Backlash started I totally understand all of the Soul Backlash. I think it's a flawed movie

[00:21:40] That I do like a lot But it's just the cycle is so fucking Quick these days And you speak about how It's all available at our fingertips Not for free, for free But obviously with the click of a button And It's out there and people are bored

[00:21:58] It's a boring time in general the holidays And more boring right now A lot of people are alone Or haven't traveled or just with their whatever So yeah These are all things But also people just kind of think this movie is dog shit So I can't really argue

[00:22:16] With them. I mean there's a lot to it I wouldn't say it's more dog piss But How dare you fuck up the dog piss joke It was so clean up until this point And then you tripped on the world It was perfect. We had a perfect run

[00:22:30] Of everyone loving this Perfectly executed bit I want to say one thing On the onset here Because I fall into this trap Sometimes where I'll like I'll say something People are like why is Griffin projecting What he thinks other people think Or why they don't like a thing

[00:22:50] Or this kind of thing And I feel like it's like More people listen to our podcast now Right? We have a podcast that's Casual and conversational by design But now more people listen to it And they take more stock in it And so when I throw out

[00:23:06] Some sort of like half baked thesis I have it sometimes hits people Like I'm trying to pass legislature You know? Like I'm making Some sort of sweeping judgment Because I love coming up with theses And I think about like I had this exact thought while

[00:23:22] Watching Wonder Woman weirdly But when I was in like middle school And we had to write like a formal essay For the first time And it was on like Romeo and Juliet And I handed in some like Four page essay that was filled With dumb jokes and puns

[00:23:38] And also every sentence began with Like I think or I don't know Or I kind of feel like And my teacher pulled me aside and she was like This is unacceptable complete rewrite start over Like not even an F Like not applicable like this is not an essay

[00:23:52] And I was like what's the problem She's like first of all you can't make fucking jokes Second of all You can't start your sentences off With I think or I feel or maybe And I said why and she was like Part of like writing an essay

[00:24:06] Is you're really selling an argument Like you're absolutely certain that this is the case You don't want to hedge at the start Of a sentence with like I don't know Maybe you want to write And I have this very distinct memory Of saying but I'm 13 years old

[00:24:20] I don't know what I'm talking about Why would I assume that I have The right take on Romeo and Juliet And she just sort of was silent when I don't know because that's how essays work But I think about that

[00:24:32] Because anytime I- I can tell you make it Anytime I say anything on this show That rubbed someone the wrong way in terms of Like I think people don't like this because of this Or this is why this is good and everyone has it wrong

[00:24:42] I do want to frame That I always think of myself as that 13 year old boy In a class that's like why is anyone taking my opinion Seriously I'm just saying what I think Right? But I- I bring this up Because to some degree

[00:24:54] Digging into this movie and what works In it and what doesn't work in it And why people are so angry about it Is going to get into a lot of conjecture Right? Because it's difficult to try To parse to a certain degree even What this movie is trying

[00:25:08] To do in certain areas I want to hear what you guys think Like I- I forget the discourse People don't like it, that's fine That does seem to be where the chips have fallen For old Diana and company But um But you know I- I don't know

[00:25:24] What you guys thought of it because we haven't talked about it Because you've been keeping your opinion a secret I have. You saw it as a professional Critic, you were sent a screener Early and you were part Of sort of that second wave of critics

[00:25:36] That's the other thing was like First wave of early tweet reactions Very positive. Then there's the second Wave of critics writing long form reviews And you were on the upper end Of those. Those started to get A little more mixed. Me, Dana Stevens Justin Chang

[00:25:52] Where the Wonder Woman crew. Joe Robinson Loves it. A lot of our friends love it And then the movie drops and people are Really negative. Yeah I- I- You know there was some dissection Of the sort of way that Warner Brothers You know rolled it out where people

[00:26:06] Who work for whatever Where some people saw it first and like They'll tweet a reaction And it's a very positive reaction And they were like, you know this is the sort of The game they play. That's an old Game. That's not new. No.

[00:26:20] Marvel does that. Like that's been happening for years Like there's nothing new about that at all Yeah, like Who cares? Like whatever. That's just how it Works if you- You know I wouldn't take Early tweet reactions too seriously

[00:26:34] You know maybe there's sort of some fun in trying to Parse enthusiasm but usually they're going to Be enthusiastic. But even as you said Like I mean Walter- Walter Chaw Had a really good thread on twitter The other day about like You know a practice that's

[00:26:48] Probably going to fall by the wayside Now because of how much everything is changing But how especially For like big populous blockbuster Movies critics usually Saw them at screenings that were filled Otherwise with like people Who won a radio contest. Like

[00:27:04] Even just to make sure- They do do that Critics would see a movie with a crowd That's more excited. That's Something that's fallen out of fashion But that was very much like the way the studio Is operated in like the 90s and the early

[00:27:16] 2000s. Yeah I would say If you're going to what is called a voucher Screening now, that's a bad sign That's usually a sign That a studio does not have A lot of Faith in the movie or it's a Sign that you're seeing the movie later because

[00:27:32] You know there's always preview screenings that You into if you like miss the screen But Walter's point was just That like the entire Psychological attack There is like Critics see it with people who are very Excited to see it and are reacting positively

[00:27:48] To the movies so they sit back and go I don't know, I guess it works Even if I don't like it Studios are going to try and sell you on their movie They always fucking do this There's always shit like that

[00:28:00] That's always been true. And the most crucial thing Is that you want to see it in a theater and That's true for the smallest indie You know if you want to this is again pre-COVID If you want to fight them and say like

[00:28:10] Hey can you just send me a link I'm busy I can't make the Screening whatever they really don't Like to do that because they want you to see in a theater Because they know theaters are better But I didn't see this in a theater

[00:28:20] I saw this on my television No, no can I throw What it has did most people although it did okay The box office and we will talk about it Being a relative term The most successful pandemic movie Can I throw out like Take number one

[00:28:36] Because you're saying we've been playing our opinions close To the vest we haven't really told you what we thought of it We definitely I don't want to speak for Ben I definitely like it less than You do. I think it's A mess. I like it more

[00:28:50] Than most people And a lot of that is me falling into my Gryphon trap of I cannot help but give a movie A lot of points for being For being this Compellably weird. Right Even if I think it is unsuccessful I'm so fascinated by so much

[00:29:08] Of what she was trying to do That it's like I prefer This movie missing the mark By a lot to a movie That succeeds at far more Modest ambitions Especially in a genre That has become so Cookie cutter and on rails In so many ways

[00:29:28] This is such a compellingly Gonzo series of Decisions made in a completely Overstuffed movie That feels very That feels very Individualistic to me In certain ways Hell yeah. I agree But I don't think it's a good movie I'm compelled by it. I don't think it's a good movie

[00:29:52] I don't get that But again, like People really hate it And I When watching it was not Thinking like this isn't like When I saw the last Jedi At the big press screening And the crowd's going wild and I'm like Damn this thing fucking annihilated

[00:30:12] This thing is gonna rule Everyone's gonna love it There will be no disagreement On that one. When I saw it I was like man this movie is The only thing I did not expect at all And You know, I'm sort of impressed By the intentionality

[00:30:30] I was not sure how it would go over In general And it also felt kind of lacking in How to put this In a nice way Just kind of like Cheesy girl power crap Which I don't think is a Patty Jenkins At all. But it can be a

[00:30:52] MCU or it's a comic book movie It's a corporate movie problem Where the person Looks at the camera and is like Whatever but anyway Maybe I'm wrong about that too It's weird, like I feel like the movie Is Is and isn't I saw some on Twitter call it

[00:31:12] Kind of like the ultimate tote bag Feminism movie That's a weird thing to say I don't like that at all That feels like a criticism of Wonder Woman Of what I'm talking about A thing that's annoying that's only been Building up for years This movie is bananas

[00:31:32] That's not what this movie is That's so much of my thing I mean like You know, this is A gripe of mine that I go back to Very very often But like I like big eyes I understand that is not A loved movie Right? But what

[00:31:52] Continues to piss me off is that Like Very critics, very few critics Stood up for that movie in any kind of way It made no dent At the box office and then people Were so fucking like cynical And outraged when they announced That Tim Burton was doing Dumbo

[00:32:10] And I was kind of like what do you fucking Expect he made the exact Movie you've been asking him to make For ten years The small little indie movie without special effects And no one gave a shit about it Why wouldn't he just take his ball

[00:32:24] And leave and go back But that's my point So I bring up this example For that exact reason David Where I just there's a part of me That wants to say to everyone who is Outraged about Wonder Woman 1984 I completely understand If you despise this movie

[00:32:42] Even particularly like it But I do worry that the viciousness Of the response is going to Discourage anyone from being this Weird I will push back Slightly against that by being Like at the end of the day it is a superhero Movie there's gonna be billions

[00:33:00] Of them like I know what you mean Though I know the fear is like Whatever Like a person like Jenkins Doesn't get to write her own check as much Even though these movies make money Right like that Warner Brothers That is the last Jedi thing

[00:33:16] An unambiguous success obviously But at the same time One that caused a corporation To panic and be like Ah is that too weird should we Just like do like Luke Skywalker like ah you know Like just that vibe Yeah that's my fear

[00:33:34] At the end of the day they're all Fucking superhero movies there's too damn many of them Okay Whatever Wish logic is A weird thing to explore In a movie It's definitely like playground Kind of like remind me of like Yeah well I get ultimate Wishes plus four

[00:33:56] Right and infinity plus One situation yeah I mean Look Katie rich Texted me halfway through this Movie she was like I don't get it he wished To be the rock And I'm like Katie it's a wishing for Infinite wishes thing he's just

[00:34:12] He's just doing the six year old Like well if I got a lamp From a genie that's what I would do If he became the character monkey paw Then I could be like oh Okay this guy is a villain He's got a name he's got a costume

[00:34:28] Animal fists He became a little crumpled Of fist Another example of where I'm just sort of so confused By the state of like Blockbuster superhero discourse Where as many have pointed out Like anyone complaining About the fact that I cannot believe This movie is about a wishing stone

[00:34:50] Is conveniently forgetting that the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe Is about a guy who builds a glove to fit Five wishing stones Yeah this is like the silliest thing In the world which no one Like the Russo brothers aren't going to sit down

[00:35:04] And be like oh the infinity stones Are real and they're metaphor for No they're going to be like yeah they're magic fucking rocks One's a power rock, one's a space rock That one gets you to space Like come on Right and David what has always been my biggest

[00:35:18] Complaint about how the MCU handled Thanos That he wasn't in love with death And like that's the kind of thing They took out all the operatic superhero Goofiness where I go like If we can't get to that point Then what the fuck are we doing here

[00:35:34] And to that degree I love that this movie Is unabashedly just about a magical wishing stone I love how goofy that is I agree with Ben though that the problem Is not that it's about a wishing stone I think the rules of the stone are So incoherent

[00:35:48] Look I'm going to come out and say it Because I know this is against This is like when Ben went from Being a wet boy to a sandy boy But I don't give a shit about the rules Be careful what you wish for We get it

[00:36:02] It's bad you're going to get something good But it's not going to work out I think the movie Fails at even making that Point clearly like I am not asking For internal logic This is a movie about a world where Gods exist and they made a cursed stone

[00:36:18] I get it I don't need to understand The chemical properties of the stone I don't need fucking like You know a bill Of instructions with the stone But I do feel like Watching this film every 20 minutes I was confused Trying to recalibrate

[00:36:36] How the stone works even just to the Degree to jump way ahead There's the whole stretch of the movie After Pedro Pascal becomes the stone Where it feels like in order For a wish to happen He needs to talk someone into Saying the wish for him

[00:36:52] They need to say I wish But even if it's something that He wants It feels like oh he's the stone Which means he can't make the wishes himself And then he starts making the wishes Himself again No he doesn't he only can make the wishes

[00:37:08] Himself once he is connected to everybody By satellite Before then Before then he's cursed that's why there's that Ridiculous even I will Cannot defend Where there's a power point Explaining the satellite Where it's like yeah technically it's touching people And like it's like okay alright

[00:37:29] I guess that you know that's how we're going to make This third act scale Versus him just walking around And touching people But David it feels like he's Granting people wishes and getting Something out of it But then at some point he's like going to his driver

[00:37:45] He's like boy wouldn't you Wish that traffic would part Like the red sea and the guys like yes Wish that and then it's like he's kind of getting His way so Yes there's a lot of mixed Messaging around How the mechanics of it work

[00:38:01] It's the dual he thinks that if he becomes The stone that it's it's the It is we're going to talk about this movie So but Jafar Wanting to be a genie where he's like Oh the genies are the most powerful I should be that and it's like no

[00:38:15] If you're a genie you can only do what someone Asks you to do yes because You have omnipotent power You are bound by laws of genie hood He's like I should just be the wishing stone No no no not only

[00:38:27] Are you going to need other people to make wishes That you want to have happen But you are going to have an insatiable Need to grant wishes because that is Your purpose Yes it's great it's a banana so silly Love it he's a stone

[00:38:41] He shouldn't have become the stone David this movie silliness is The main thing it has going for me in its eyes You don't have to sell me on the silliness That is my entire defense for the portion Of this movie that I like Is the silliness

[00:38:55] But I do feel like the movie Does not even like I'm not saying I didn't get it obviously I understood but I feel Like the movie does not Clearly set up The monkey paw aspect In terms of just like when you get Montages of all the

[00:39:13] Wishes happening they focus On wishes that are bad in the first place Right And I've seen so many people saying like Well I don't understand the movie's all about How everyone has to give up their wish As if no one wished for something that was Actually like positive

[00:39:29] And then the response to that is Well the entire idea is That if you wish for something positive It's a monkey paw it would get cursed It would somehow fuck with you But when the movie But you're seeing people who are like Patty wagons like

[00:39:45] The movie's so front lines bad Selfish wishes Because it's a movie about selfishness I understand but I just think It's one of these things where it's like A movie even if you're Able to infer what a movie is trying to say Sometimes especially With like populist

[00:40:05] You know entertainment If a movie doesn't say the thing clearly It is hard to process it Emotionally You understand intellectually I guess this is what they were trying to do But it makes it hard to actually engage with it And that's like a perfect example of it

[00:40:21] Where it's like you need to show some good wishes And then people getting the fucking Bad end of the stick You can't just show people who are like I'm a racist I wish I had more nuclear weapons Well I would reply And I already feel ridiculous how much

[00:40:37] I'm defending this movie That we've been watching The opposite for The whole movie because Cursed Pine is here And we know that he's here in this cursed way And she can't think about it No one's thinking about, you know, the bad stuff But that's what

[00:40:53] The Cursed Pine wishes It's this wonderful thing that's happening to her That we immediately know is Terrible because he's not Just back, he's in the body of someone else And I think that's a very crucial Decision the movie is making to communicate What a terrible thing this is

[00:41:11] But other people are like Why the fuck is that happening But this is my issue with it David They don't treat that As the bad end of the monkey paw Right? They treat She's losing her power As the repercussion They do, which I don't think Is necessary because

[00:41:31] Two reasons, one what you're saying And two, we've been there There's so many of the, and I know There's so many superhero movies now That it's hard not to go back to the same wells But like, haven't like Obviously Spider-Man

[00:41:45] Did that, I feel like there's just a lot of movies It almost always happens On the two, it's like Spider-Man 2 Superman 2 And like happens on the second act For 20 to 30 minutes And there's that moment where it's like Oh wait, what I'm wounded You know, and just

[00:42:03] What's going on man? My vision isn't working And then you're like Yeah, well can we just fucking Get to your powers working again When the score is gonna kick in and you're gonna kick some ass Right? You know what I mean? Like we just know

[00:42:15] It's delaying the inevitable I also feel like so much of what They got right in the first Movie is like You know on paper everyone being like How are you ever gonna make a fucking wonder one movie Right? And for so many years this movie

[00:42:29] Was in development hell because it was just like How do you fucking execute this character In like a post-Gen X landscape Everyone struggled to do Superman Since Christopher Reeve That was a more innocent time at least in terms of Like the tone of movies and whatever

[00:42:43] And here's this character who's a literal god And is perfect And is statuesque and all this sort of shit Like how do you do it, right? And how do you make there be Any sort of tension or conflict With someone who's really kind of The Superman issue, right

[00:42:59] And I think what was so smart about the first Movie is she really approaches the character On an ideological level Right? She's fighting Ideological battles It's not the tension of whether or not she will Successfully be able to beat this guy Because she's fucking Wonder Woman

[00:43:15] It's a question about whether or not she can win moral Arguments And I think an issue with This movie is that When you get to that shit of like The weird body swap nature Of like being in some other dude's Human shell You cannot tell

[00:43:33] Because they tie it so much To her losing her powers Whether that's just A riff on I like 80s body swap movies I'm making a weird 80s comedy Or If there's supposed to be some moral reckoning There because it feels like they Truly spend so little time

[00:43:51] Being concerned about who the fuck this guy was Which is why I think it makes People so uncomfortable It was not a thing that made me uncomfortable And like the extrapolations that people Have made about like the inhumanity Of how the Christopher Paloha Character is treated is like

[00:44:07] I would never go that far But I understand why people are spiraling on it Because the movie's attitude to it is very strange That's fair Like as it being John Malkovich Is he inside but then He doesn't recognize her later in the movie

[00:44:21] He seems to have just been like I lost a portion of my life He's shut down Right, he's I also think there might be Like A kind of general like that was a mania That we all forget You know like right because like the whole world

[00:44:39] Just goes insane for a week So maybe everyone's just like I don't know I mean I look Another idea I like a lot On paper and I even like A little bit in execution is Making one of these superhero movies Where I mean Someone tweeted yesterday

[00:44:57] I'm gonna keep citing tweets and not Giving credit because there's been too many tweets about this Movie and I can't remember who said what But someone tweeted something like What kind of superhero movie is this Is it one of those we need to close the gates

[00:45:09] Or one of those we need to get the port The orb, right? Right Absolutely, like a portal in the sky Right, these movies tend to fall into Is there an opening that we need to close Or is there an object we need to reclaim

[00:45:23] Or is it both of them at the same time And I do like that this movie The threat is essentially Is society gonna eat itself alive Right, I like that The third act of this movie is like strange days Where it's just like

[00:45:37] Everything is just going to shit And we're all just like tearing each other apart I think that is compelling I mean these are the reasons I cannot throw This movie out with the bath water Because it's just like there's shit going on there

[00:45:49] In the ways in which I think she's so successfully Patty Jenkins analyzed in the first movie What are all the things that are getting Tiring about superhero movies And what are the fundamental tenets that we've moved away from That are the only reasons to be telling these stories

[00:46:01] In the first place And I think she isn't as well calibrated On this one But I am so compelled by how much She is clearly trying To answer these questions I mean your biggest take is that like The movie is her doing a Richard Donner riff And

[00:46:19] People need to view it through the prism Of recognizing how goofy those movies were And how much latitude those movies had By not being invested in reality And owning that they're based on baby books Where silly things happen I mean Like, you know as everyone knows

[00:46:35] Superman ends with Superman flying Around the earth backwards so fast That he turns back time A thing that doesn't seem to be a big deal When you're six You're like Why would the earth going backwards For first time Wouldn't it just make tidal waves Something terrible

[00:46:55] But you're just like Whatever, I get it And when Superman and Lois Lane fly for the first time She has an internal monologue poem Set to music Like all this stuff where It's very easy to clown on But also isn't that what we should be doing

[00:47:11] That's the vibe Right And like of course Donner Was kind of inventing a genre that didn't exist And I think Was you know even though comic books Right around when Superman came out Were starting to get darker and Gwen Stacy Was dying and still

[00:47:29] Like he's more tapped into Like these are silly Fun operatic Like that's what the tone should be This is Superman here I love the under Superman What do you mean? That's an old well For Ben to return to The opera Malapropa The Malapropa Anyway

[00:47:55] So yeah, so that's part of my vibe But also I really liked The interview she gave with The Times Which I was talking to you about Where she said she wanted to end A superhero movie Where nobody dies and she wins with a conversation She wanted to have

[00:48:11] This villain who's this Obviously Trumpy 80s businessman But also he's an Immigrant who's pretending to You know imitate he's imitating Success that he's seen and he's frosting his Hair he's trying to look like he's white Like but beyond That the thing you said about ideologically

[00:48:29] Like how the first Wonder Woman movie Is very much like you say Like she is fighting war And she is fighting man's Cynical nature right and she is An icon of goodness In that right? You know it's the same thing Rather than do a World War 2

[00:48:47] Movie which I imagine plenty of people Expected from her Right She's like yeah I'll set it in this other Time of great cynicism And I'm going to Try and directly Say like this is the Tidal wave that's crashing on our shores

[00:49:05] Now like this is where it's building up Like this is the sort of sinful Time like These are all interesting ideas I love all this stuff I'm like for the first time in a while Taking notes now because I have so many

[00:49:19] Specific things done pack that I want to make sure I don't forget them. Here's the thing I'll say Fair enough. I think it was in the New York Times interview she said That she Like That people always criticize The first movie and it bums her out because

[00:49:35] She wasn't happy with the first movie Either and that was like the one big thing That Warner Brothers made her change That she didn't want it to be that much of a CGI Fire and brimstone fight thing But I always This thing can't lack that

[00:49:49] We're going to need a showdown It can't end with a conversation and she really wanted To. What I really like about the ending Of the first Wonder Woman and why I've always defended It is I feel like she threaded The needle. I feel like

[00:50:01] She did both at once If you look at that final sequence despite the fact That it's got dodgy CGI Peter Thule list and all this Right, but She's barely fighting him It is still fundamentally a conversation I think people just get so turned off by

[00:50:17] The fact that the visuals are aping What they've seen in 8000 of these movies Even though dramatically what's happening Texturally is exactly what she was Trying to do. I just want to say the entire problem Is just the visuals and The weirdly sort of low stakesy

[00:50:35] Which is because it's crowbar did I would assume But what I love is what you're talking about And the pine sacrifice stuff That is I think very effective And beautifully done Which is happening at the same time I'm going to try to organize my thoughts here

[00:50:49] Let's talk about the pine thing Right now, okay? This movie was shot 2.5 years ago Right? That's another weird thing with this movie Is that it was shot summer 2018 It was supposed to come out Christmas 2019 They pushed it back because

[00:51:05] They thought they would need more time for the effects And then like November 2019 Patty Jenkins was kind of like Oh, we finished it early. I guess we could Have released it Christmas too bad Well at least people get it in the summer And then the world ended

[00:51:19] So then it's this weird movie that's now been finished for so long That's sitting on a shelf that keeps on getting pushed back Two months at a time yada yada yada It's had a lot of time for people to think about it

[00:51:27] And build up expectations in their mind Including like a trailer that played for so long That people were so fucking jazzed about Right? Like I feel like overall People love that fucking trailer and like Oh my god, blew Monday car this Fucking rules

[00:51:41] But I was thinking back to the moment When the sequel gets announced The title gets announced The supporting cast gets announced The villains get announced A lot of those details get announced The Chris Pine thing did not get announced until Because I specifically remember

[00:51:57] It was like Patty Jenkins Tweeted a picture of him on set In the outfit Like with the fanny pack and said Look who's back and the internet went like What? Wait he's back How are they handling this? What is this movie about?

[00:52:13] And then there was so much time where that answer Was not clear because the movie was sitting on a shelf Right? Correct, they wanted to keep it a secret And then once you see the trailer It's not explicit but there is Maxwell Lord sort of going

[00:52:27] Like you can have whatever you want And there's him kind of just appearing And you're like okay so it's not like I mean this is mystical And this isn't like I don't know like a wormhole opening And it's also not like I'm his grandson

[00:52:41] Or whatever that would be Now here's my issue I feel like The first Wonder Woman movie In a way that these films Rarely do successfully Set up And landed the execution of Steve Trevor kind of being her uncle Ben Of that being like the really Impactful dad

[00:53:05] Right and it kind of like it guides Her compass for the rest of her life As a superhero as a human being Or she's not a human being, she's a god But I feel like you know more so Than You know most Spider-Man adaptations

[00:53:19] Certainly more so than I think Marvel ever handled the Bucky thing I think that worked so well And his sacrifice as you said Was so meaningful that the moment That picture went up And it was clear he was in the movie I got really nervous right

[00:53:35] And I've remained excited about this movie But that was always the element that was really nerve wracking to me My hope was like Please tell me he's going to be like Gusto and Ratatouille You get to have Pine B in the movie

[00:53:47] And then you have the scenes together But it's just a projection of her mind I don't want him to be undead Because I think his death Being permanent is kind of Important And then I sit there watching this movie And every single Scene that he was on screen

[00:54:05] I became more and more convinced Of how disastrous bringing him back Was But wait, but they did Gusto That's what they do That's what he is Well, I disagree with you His death is permanent He's a vision He's not real She summons him out of her mind

[00:54:27] And then he goes away But in Ratatouille You literally have Exactly, Gusto But I'm saying he's not undead He's not back He's not returned to the universe for good He is this phantom I don't know I'm defending this because I liked it And nobody else liked it

[00:54:49] Not nobody, but lots of people didn't like it But I found it to be this very powerful Be careful what you wish for Fantasy of a person you lost Like, not like I wasn't crying tears But I'm like, yeah man, that's what I'd wish for

[00:55:03] I get it, and you know what It wouldn't work out That's what grief is If you're going to make three movies I get that as the second movie That's the temptation That's her humanity Presenting itself in physical form That's what she craves

[00:55:21] Being human, I think it's this great metaphor For like, she wants to Be a normal person Which is to me the classic superhero It's the Superman thing The superhero dilemma I wish I could be normal But it's not going to be normal And he's dead

[00:55:39] Here's my hot pitch Okay? Yes, you said you had, you told me this That you had one of your classic Rewrites where you think It would help the movie Like overall And I ran this by Ben as well And was like workshopping it With him, okay? Yes

[00:56:01] I think one of the main assets Of The First Wonder Woman Is that it is so focused in what it's Saying, right? To a degree that some people Clown on it for being like, oh it's sort of Corny and simple, but it's like she understands

[00:56:13] You've got to just have a really clean Spine to these things You want the hero's mantra to be like a Sentence, you know? You want that to be the thing that's guiding Every one of their decisions And you understand the ideological battle That she's fighting

[00:56:29] And this movie I just feel like There's such an overabundance of ideas That it's very hard to keep track Of what the villain internally is Which is a complaint I've seen from a lot of people Is to a large degree Diana feels

[00:56:41] Kind of lost for a large chunk Of this movie She gets caught in weird narrative cul-de-sacs She doesn't get a ton to do I think part of that is sort of like The Batman Returns ambition Of like can you have this sort of

[00:56:55] Three-way narrative, can you give the Villains kind of complete arcs I think both of the villain arcs work better Than Diana's arc works in the movie If you say classic superhero Dark Knight has that problem Totally, totally He has the exact same dilemma for its hero

[00:57:11] He wants to be a regular person Right and I think with Batman That's often a sequel thing because You do all the psychological heavy lifting In the first movie and in the second movie I guess we've kind of solved this guy It has to be more about

[00:57:25] I have to stop you there I still don't know what's up with Batman Did something happen to him? Was there like an issue early that made him Into you know being a bat guy Like was there something sad You don't have to answer this now Yeah, what's up?

[00:57:41] No I can't answer it now because you're going to be so Devastated you won't be able to record The rest of this episode You're going to be shocked when you hear what happened I can't imagine I wouldn't be devastated at all Unless of course involved

[00:57:53] Maybe a Zara movie or something But apart from that I don't have a lot of emotional buttons That can be practical Pearls get to me Oh David I don't even have to tell you this Not only might it involve a Zora movie But in server interpretations

[00:58:09] It involves an ironic use of bats through art I don't even know how to Oh David God this sounds so sad Sounds like something that you should definitely just portray Every five years on screen Wait wait wait You're building to your big fix I'm sorry

[00:58:27] You're not going to be in the same situation Your first movie He doesn't become a cipher But he sort of becomes like A detective in a procedural Like the movie is just watching High functioning Batman solve the thing It's a lot of what do you think Batman

[00:58:43] He's like we should do this He's like alright well he's here Whereas Wonder Woman and Superman Are characters who are so elemental And are so godlike That they need to represent shit What's the morality of them and all this sort of shit And this movie

[00:58:59] I think it's like At the end of it Oh I guess these were all the different things that we're trying to say But when she gives her big impassioned Speech at the end of the movie And she tells everyone you have to renounce your Wishes It feels like

[00:59:15] An odd sort of thing To frame because We've only focused on the negative wishes And she's telling everyone Which is a weird thing coming from someone Who pretty much has all the power in the world Is it vulnerable and all this sort of shit

[00:59:29] No but she does it because she wants to be A regular person with a nice Guy on a ranch And let's be on, I'll say it Chris Pine quite handsome She'd like to look on that face Every once in a while but you know what

[00:59:43] She can't have it instead she has to be An icy museum employee Who also Occasionally maybe fights crime as in malls Who knows Well this is another fundamental problem with the movie For me This is the bigger problem, perhaps an unavoidable problem Because of the whole extended universe

[01:00:01] I'm assuming what you're going to say Yes, first of all You realize oh there's a very good reason Why no one has ever made a sequel With the same lead character set 70 years After the first movie Because it is just Such a gulf to gap in your mind

[01:00:17] Of like what has happened to this character Right And especially when because As I think we're both in agreement on When you're kind of fucked By the bricks laid out by the extended universe You have Batman vs Superman Which I know petty jinks to some degrees

[01:00:33] In a bubble and ignores a lot of the Snyder brick laying but also she's A little reigned in, you have that movie Where Diana it's so hard for Batman To find the world's greatest detective To find one picture of her Because she's been laying so low

[01:00:47] For the better part of a century That you now are stuck making these Sequels where the great thing is They're free because they're prequels They're set before, you don't touch these movies The bad thing is Wonder Woman can have so little Impact on the world at large

[01:01:01] She's a DC hero who Has to basically be like a famous blur Like she can't even be Wonder Woman She's like a used car salesman Doing local TV commercials Yeah This is the whole thing though The extended universe with everything about their approach Everyone mocks the sort of

[01:01:19] Same-ness of the MCU and the Dictatorial status of Kevin Feige But he's the one who's gonna be like Well, if you do that You're gonna have this problem ten years from now And no one In fucking Batman land is like Well wait, what's Wonder Woman been doing

[01:01:35] For a hundred years if we're saying That she was in World War One It's like oh I don't know Just clearly everyone's like ah whatever Who cares? Like Now you just have this problem where you like So she was really on board with stopping World War One

[01:01:49] Right at the end Of World War One and then she what Like got really into pressurbanation She ate dinner by herself all the time He ate dinner with the rudest ass Waiter who's like Are you alone? And she's like yeah I'm alone and he's like

[01:02:05] I guess I'll clear your plate away The noisily fucking I'll pick up every plate And bash it together just to make it clear I don't think And to some degree this is bumping up against Perhaps The limitations of Gal Gadot as an actress

[01:02:19] Who I think is very effective when used Properly I don't think the movie accurately Convays the Weight of that existential loneliness It just feels like Oh she's having a bad month Right, like that's the problem All that stuff is frank She's not great at An-Wi Gal Gadot

[01:02:41] That's just really not her And I don't know if this movie needs some fucking Up married life sequence Where you like do a montage of 70 years of her watching everyone she loves Dies Like there's the only moment where you get A glint of it kind of working

[01:02:57] And it's so quick Is the photo of her with old Edda Candy on the nightstand And I'm like I need more of that I need more of the fill in of Maybe like a fucking Cullen family Vampire life where every 10 years People realize she's not aging

[01:03:13] She picks up, she abandons everything And starts fresh I need that emotional weight It's a good pitch and honestly They should have done it and I have no idea If this was a problem but again That kind of sounds like Captain America

[01:03:27] Which of course you can repeat it Like it's fine but like it is crazy Where I'm like is there a certain point Warner Brothers when you're announcing That you might want to start thinking about The fact that a lot of comic book stories

[01:03:39] Have been put on screen at this point Like there might not be too many New angles here Outside of the marvel thing of We've got this world that you love And we're going to bounce new characters Off each other, we're going to bring

[01:03:53] Someone in who kind of you know like Because they have the world But DC doesn't have the world They've kind of avoided the world which is fine You know like that's an approach But anyway, that's a large Yeah if anything DC's Largest issue is that they are not

[01:04:09] Holy embracing Treat everything as a stand alone Make it a fucking multiverse Make it whatever It feels like they're doing it in some ways But in other ways it gets really Fuzzy Yes Your big pitch So this is my big pitch all that was important

[01:04:29] Set up for what I think emotionally doesn't work And what I think Actually would Execute The intent of the film better So much of it as you said is also Like oh here's the 80s Like you know This fulcrum point In American culture where things went from

[01:04:51] Being bad to horrific and we're Still feeling like you know The ripple effects of Today not I make it very clear Not saying that things weren't horrific before the 80s But so many of our Specific modern cultural issues Start from Reagan era America right And this sort of

[01:05:11] Dramatic reformation The me obsession all this sort of shit That she's trying to do with this Very sort of broad perception of What the 80s represented But so much of the movie as you said should be This kind of thing of like Diana Just being done Dead inside

[01:05:29] Not knowing what to do And also questioning like How fucked is humanity innately Like is there a thing worth saving here In world war one it's literally the idea Of a war In Wonder Woman 1984 I am completely On board with it being People making shitty wishes

[01:05:47] And like attacking each other in the streets And not needing to be something that literal Right It does feel like There's gonna be about her making A selfish monkey paw wish At the expense of humanity Because she feels like She needs something for herself

[01:06:07] And especially with the way This movie starts It feels like what organically The story should be Is her wishing to bring Themyscara back Okay like bring the whole thing back Yeah because you have this gift The universe which is the island was destroyed

[01:06:25] Everyone she grew up with was destroyed Her family was destroyed She's from this idyllic place And then she came to the land of man And tried to fight against the innate Shitiness of our species Right and by the end of Wonder Woman One she kind of wins

[01:06:41] But if you're making a movie that's 70 years later And she's beaten down and she's miserable And especially when the movie starts With like oh here she was In the competition There were morals here There were rules here There were lessons here There was a structure here that worked

[01:06:59] It feels like the movie should be Like I regret ever coming To the world I regret ever coming to the mainland I should have stayed on Themyscara I miss my mother, I miss everybody I wanna go back there Feel like shit just wanna go back there

[01:07:17] And the movie is her abandoning humanity And give up on it When did Themyscara get blown up? I literally forgot that When did that happen? I was trying to pinpoint when it happened And I also can't remember if it happens in Justice League Or it happens

[01:07:33] In Wonder Woman It doesn't happen in Wonder Woman There's no way, I don't remember Justice League at all Apart from That Steppenwolf Is In, I don't know, like Themyscara at some point, getting a box I remember that he gets a box But definitely

[01:07:53] In Wonder Woman she just leaves Themyscara It's not blown up Robin Wright dies, doesn't she? Or someone dies Is it That they tell her that she can't go back If she leaves Am I misremembering? Is that what it is? I should have rewatched the first one

[01:08:13] But I just distinctly remember Like a rule set up in that movie About why she's never going to be able to see her mother again That's the thing I don't remember Right, and it's been a while since I thought Since I saw the first one But right, like

[01:08:27] I was wondering at watching 84 Where I'm like Yeah, is she not allowed to go back? I forgot what the rules are What are the rules of her leaving? She clearly has not gone back Right, and there's a reason why Themyscara is only a flashback In Justice League

[01:08:43] Wait, I feel like I'm sorry Once again, it's like Wonder Woman I haven't rewatched Justice League I will probably never rewatch again In that cut We're going to watch a different cut Unfortunately we will be watching The Snyder Cut, we have to We are legally beholden

[01:09:03] But I feel like There's a scene in Justice League And I'm sure people are yelling at the podcast right now In which you see Connie Nielsen Like Mounting the army to fight against Steppenwolf and he comes in and fucking slays everybody No, he doesn't kill everybody

[01:09:19] I think you're transposing something here He gets them on their box but then He leaves because he's always fucking leaving Steppenwolf's whole thing He loves to leave He gets out of there, he does it in Aquaville, Atlantis But he does it in Themyscara

[01:09:37] People would have lost their damn minds If he killed all the fucking Amazons I might be misremembering something But I want to make something incredibly clear I hate to see Steppenwolf leave But I love to watch him go He's thick Space elevator He's absolutely in it

[01:09:59] He's going to look different in The Snyder Cut Right? He's going to be Shiner or something Excited for that Movie to come out and fucking blow I This is my throwing my marker down I'm like nothing's going to stink This is getting weird, everyone's excited for it

[01:10:17] Yeah, I mean I don't think It's going to be good That guy is not my tempo But I am excited to watch it It's just such a bizarre, plot-full occurrence It's going to be four hours long Right? Is that true? Yeah, it's four one hour episodes

[01:10:33] It's being treated like roots the mini series My My point is I've clearly fucked this up And I can't remember the details But I still think I just remember that conclusively There's some reason why the door is closed to her And I feel like the movie would work

[01:10:49] If it was about her choosing Themyscara Over the world of man Rather than it being I want to spend more time with my dead boyfriend Of one week from 70 years ago Your point is well taken I think Themyscara and her sisterhood And her people Is not

[01:11:09] Addressed in this movie at all And I don't really know why There's the sort of opening sequence Because Patty Jenkins said like we needed to see it Yeah You know, especially because some people maybe haven't even seen Wonder Woman 1 You need at least some

[01:11:23] A reminder that this is where she's from But that sequence Is very much a kind of Like you need to be selfless It's a moral lesson that she's learning Not any Wider universe shit But that's the weird thing for me just in terms of like

[01:11:39] What is the story trying to be It does feel like this is a movie about her Becoming increasingly disenfranchised with the modern world And her isolation Loneliness within it It just feels like the movie wants to be about her Missing home more Than it's about

[01:11:55] I can't meet a guy And I know that's reductive for me to frame it that way The movie presents it ends up feeling A little bit reductive I think that The reductiveness Right is like The scenes where it's like oh you're alone You're walking home alone

[01:12:13] Like a lot of that stuff But you know the movie is There's the loving pans Over the you know the pictures Of the ranch and the watch and all that stuff You know I see it more And people were like why isn't she over

[01:12:27] Like she's an immortal fucking person Like 70 years is like you know 15 minutes She's still sad about it To give her credit I would never get over Chris Pine Neither would I Especially not Chris Pine in Wonder Woman That is like Primo QD Chris Pine

[01:12:41] That's like Chris Pine with all the dials To 10 Very very charming Look visually I agree with you 100% But when he re-enters this movie And I realize how they're setting him up And I got that on a easy pit in my stomach

[01:12:55] Well but their chemistry is going to be so good It will relay my fears Okay so this I will allow They don't have the same energy they have in the first movie And I think a lot of that is just Script issues I'm not blaming either of them

[01:13:07] As performers That's so much of what makes the first movie work Is just that shit you can't bottle And you can't fucking pay for Of just like they're back and forth Actually just crackles for me In my opinion and in this movie It feels a little more boilerplate

[01:13:23] Most love interest Dynamic scenes are like in these movies I think you are right I think they're perfectly cute And he's got some fun scenes or whatever They don't have crackling chemistry Partly because there's just the weird Kind of like what is this Like you know

[01:13:41] Chunk of them reuniting And then He becomes like Helper Boy And the whole audience knows He can't stick around like that's been set up For minute one anyway And also it's just hard to do a Me cute twice like I don't mind his thematic purpose

[01:13:59] I'm more defensive about that But I can't disagree That you know they're not as fun to I mean I don't think Goodo is utterly lost in this movie Like I think she does a good job With the big final Speech like there are moments Where I'm into her

[01:14:17] She's also just a very striking Star type figure Even though Maybe limited as an actress You know my whole take She's got a kind of magic It's that same thing where it's like She's got this limited strike zone But within it she's so fucking effective on screen

[01:14:39] But there are moments Where I don't know if she feels a little Lost like you say Or just unable to play Whatever On-Wee she's supposed to be playing And That sort of translates as bored Or just detached I guess the character is detached

[01:14:59] But like you know at a certain point how compelling is that It was such an asset For the first movie The sort of like single minded focus Of Wonder Woman It plays to Goodo's strengths As an actress of just being in the moment Being sort of objective based

[01:15:15] Having to play introspection And inner sort of struggle And whatever Cause it's just that movie is like Oh I need to find Ari's Or I want to eat this ice cream right now Like everything is so experiential for her Right and it's like those are both ends

[01:15:31] Of the spectrum whether it's like the big stakes Of the movie or the little character moments There's so much about her living in that moment And I think Yes it is not perhaps The best thing to put this character through

[01:15:43] The best thing to ask this actor to do The fish out of water stuff Also cliched but just A cliche that works and that she Leans into because Gal Gadot is kind of other world She's just like again very striking Very beautiful, very put together

[01:15:59] So she does kind of seem Like a bit of an alien walking through These you know new places And so that's fun And everything is They use all that really well A capable issue of well you can't replicate That now like you know you can do

[01:16:15] Two scenes of Chris Pine not understanding How 80s clothes works but It's not the same thing right It's funny cause I'm thinking about Marvel And like I compare these movies to Marvel Because that's what Warner Brothers Has in its head you know not that

[01:16:29] I think Parody Jenkins has it In her head but as much It's funny how Marvel also Initially sort of struggled with the sequels Iron Man 2 is bad Or sequel People are wrong about the dark world Yeah Exactly there's another obvious one That I'm forgetting Griffin help me out

[01:16:49] Sort of slightly disappointing Second movies maybe not Cause like Winter Soldier is kind Of where it starts to turn around I feel like they do But then beyond you know It's like just after that I feel like Then they kind of crack The second movie and again

[01:17:07] Everything in Marvel Everything in Marvel is Formula to some extent That's why I said Marmula But like you know what like Guardians 2 Ant-Man and the Wasp these movies are just Avengers Age of Ultron is the other disappointing Of course Broadly seen But It's just like yeah just plus

[01:17:29] More of what people liked Similar stakes And then some nice university table setting stuff You know like that they just sort of figured that Formula out and it's a tough formula And to be very clear when You read interviews with like Chloe Zhao talking about

[01:17:45] Working on the Eternals Who fucking knows But it does sound like perhaps She has been able to make a movie That's a little bit different Very excited When we talked to Nia Dacosta Off Mike the thing she told us about working With Marvel were very exciting

[01:18:03] Genuinely exciting and it sounds like They really are hiring her for the right reason And bringing her in to do the right sort of shit If there was ever a time where Marvel Was going to enter a period of a little more Experimentation

[01:18:15] With the flexibility of their world It would certainly feel like it would be now Post-end game Where they don't really have anything to prove Right? Right. That's the part of it They can try, they can be weird That's the hope, that's the hope

[01:18:29] Excited by you know some of their hires This isn't all that sort of stuff Genuinely optimistic, want to see it happen Because I want to see that level Of flexibility within the genre The problem that plagues Marvel so often Is the fast food thing

[01:18:43] Where it's like they got the quality control down It's going to taste the same wherever you go It's never going to be awful It might be better but it's never going to be You know a five star restaurant or whatever Right?

[01:18:55] Even though obviously there are movies in that franchise That we love and movies that taste very much Like mediocre burger Um I will always prefer watching a movie Like this where it's like She's making unsafe choices Even if those choices are Ultimately proven to be unsafe because

[01:19:13] Uh that's not how a story works You shouldn't do that, it will lose the audience I like that sense Of just like let's Let's fuck with this right And you talk about the tonal thing I go into this, I watch this Movie and

[01:19:29] I know that you liked it And you're curious to hear what I think Right? Then the public Opinion comes out and people are vicious About it. I prioritize watching Soul, I don't see Wonder Woman until The 26th so I've seen a day Of like the fucking echo chamber

[01:19:45] Before I watch this movie And I'm very much like I really want To like this and also on paper Everything that I see people complaining About sounds like the kind of shit That they usually defend This sounds like some fucking Ang Lee Hulk Weirdness or whatever right?

[01:20:01] Not that they're the same movie but the same sort of Like a flagrant disregard Of commercial expectations for how These movies should operate The opening I'm so fucking On board, I'm not even talking about the Themyscara thing but the mall I was just like this is the exact

[01:20:17] Movie I'm ready to defend to the End of the earth is her doing Like you were saying it's a Donner thing Like it's even more like a Richard Fleischer Superman thing You mean Lester right? Yes, I think there's that There's fully that element too

[01:20:33] I didn't want to say to anyone Like kind of get ready for Almost a Superman 3 vibe partly Because Superman 3 also has magic rocks But like yeah little bit of that Right? You know. And hiring a Comedian to be the villain and

[01:20:47] Like all this sort of shit. Yeah. Definitely. For me I'm just like I like the Movie starts and everything about What she's doing It feels to me totally In control of its Tone. That whole mall Opening. I'd say even maybe like The first like 25 minutes In general

[01:21:07] Right, you can dislike that Tone but like you look at Cues like you have Hans Zimmer Doing a score that sounds Far closer to as good as it Gets than the first Wonder Woman Right? It's not Unintentional. It's not like she's lost Control of the wheel. She's decided

[01:21:25] I think this movie should be A goofy comedy, right? I think this Movie should have the vibe of a police Academy sequel. I am so On board with that partially because I think these movies are now increasingly plagued With a sense of self seriousness That is exhausting

[01:21:41] You also just look at The extras, the background actors In the mall and it's just like Tones on the exact same pitch. Tonally The movie is a complete perfect Conversation with itself. Whether or not you like that Tone, she's not fucking up

[01:21:55] She's doing what she's trying to do I agree and it's like Yeah, it's like commando or whatever Everyone's like wearing the right clothes Every you know there's just like Just it's also just Like cutesy and low stakes Which I like It's like a bunch of goofs

[01:22:13] Robbing a store and it goes Like idiots but she's essentially going to Clunk their heads together. Great Just not enough of Stopping a guy wearing like a mask Holding a bag with a dollar sign on it Like saving a kid from getting shot

[01:22:27] Like all these movies should have these Scenes, right? It's like These things where we're getting away from what these characters are supposed to represent And I don't mean like Based on the fucking material But I mean like culturally why we even care About telling these stories

[01:22:41] I will say though Like you know Justice League has that sequence That feels very smushed in Where she rescues people in the museum Or whatever you know and she like Does all the Wonder Woman things And it feels lazy And undercooked because it kind of feels like

[01:22:57] Zack Snyder is not that interested in it He's like, ah, she'll do a thing He's got a very cynical take on superheroes I mean that's the weird thing with Zack Snyder With how much people read the randy And stuff into his work He also makes these superhero movies

[01:23:11] Superheroes are like these fucked up fascistic Nightmares and we shouldn't trust them Right. So that stuff always plays in sincere with him Whereas you watch Patty Jenkins do this Moll's sequence and you're like she believes In this, you can think it's corny

[01:23:25] But she believes in this and it's something That she actually finds fun Right. Okay So you like that? Yes. But then I love the early Development of Barbara And I think I think there was that question Truly doing Jim Carrey from Batman Forever down to like frizzy hair

[01:23:47] Glasses Like, oh, I don't know I'm nervous over here I mean there's the meme that's been circulating Of like pre-conversion Edward Nygma Pre-conversion, pre-electrification Jamie Foxx and Amazing Spider There's like the great of five of them That all have like the same Glasses, Guy Pearson, Iron Man 3

[01:24:09] Yes, yes They're all styled so similarly But guess what? I think that trope is potent It pretty much always works for me I also find it especially potent when you hire Someone who's a comedian and they can play up the comedy Of that rather than playing it

[01:24:23] To fucking happy But people hate this. This is another thing That people don't like right? It's too goofy Or too silly, I don't know I like it. I know a lot of people don't like it Because they feel like that's not who Barbara

[01:24:35] In the comics, I am admittedly someone who Like doesn't read Wonder Woman at all Is not very envious in the history of the character Cannot speak to that at all I'm just thinking on the level of how it works within this movie

[01:24:45] And I feel like when Wig was announced And people were like, how is Wig going to fit Into the tone of a serious Comic book movie? I was excited When I realized no, the challenge Of this movie is can Wonder Woman fit

[01:24:57] Into the tone of a Kristen Wig movie That was exciting. That moment where I had That breakthrough. I think she's genuinely Funny, especially in the early sections of the movie Can we do just like Yeah? Like a two minute sidebar On how weird Wig's career is

[01:25:12] If you look at her ten years as a movie star It's a weird career because I feel like She just Mostly rejected The path she could have taken But then there are the occasional moments You know what I mean? Yeah Like where she was like, okay fine

[01:25:30] I'll do a blockbuster and it rarely works Yeah. Alright so let me take Let's do two minutes. Two minutes Right, so obviously Big SNL star She has two scenes in Knocked Up that hit So hard that Judd Apatow goes Write whatever script you want I think you're clearly

[01:25:44] A movie star. She spends five years writing this screenplay Bridesmaids comes out in 2011? Is that correct? 2011. 21. That's right. Insane that it's almost ten years ago now And is the seismic cultural thing And it feels like, okay she's got the keys to the kingdom Yeah and like just

[01:26:00] It is also just though That crazy cottage Industry of supporting roles For SNL players, especially that Really dynamite cast, you know Samberg, Hader, you know all those folks Like so like Knocked Up Is essentially her first movie She's a non-accompanied minors before then

[01:26:18] You know, Fiek, but that's a tiny role And she is really funny in it Like I'm just going to read you Everything before Bridesmaids Yeah please, it's a weird list There's Solomon, Walk Hard DemiPro, some of these are One-Scene roles, you know, for getting Sarah Marshall

[01:26:34] She's a yoga instructor Something called Pretty Bird, Ghost Town She's a surgeon in that, Adventure Land Which she's really good in Ice Age, Dawn of the Dinosaurs Apparently she's a beaver Absolutely Whip it, Key Supporting Role Really good Like a lot of really good supporting roles here

[01:26:54] And then a lot of movies that don't exist But I remember kind of enjoying How to Train Your Dragon Which she's in all of those Date Night, McGroober, Despicable Me She's in all of those I think Yeah, she's in all of them All Good Things

[01:27:10] The Ryan Gosling, Andrew Jerrecky movie Fred Durst movie Fred Durst, what am I saying Robert Durst, whatever his name is Paul And then Bridesmaids Just like four movies a year Also, Jerrecky should do A five part HBO miniseries investigating Fred Durst, I just want to say that

[01:27:30] But yes, she was doing so many movies They were mostly small parts, they were a lot of her Working with her same collaborators And then Bridesmaids, it's like you're a movie star You played like a realistic Human character

[01:27:42] Because a lot of those movies are obviously a lot broader Or her playing more like extreme character types But she was like a sympathetic lead She was a romantic lead She drove the movie, she's got good She's got good comic scenes, she wrote the movie

[01:27:54] She gets an Oscar nomination Kristen Wiig is going to do whatever the fuck she wants And then she seemingly starts turning most big things down Melissa McCarthy takes the movie star gauntlet Is like I'm ready to run with this I'm ready to make my own cottage industry

[01:28:06] Of what a Melissa McCarthy movie is And Kristen Wiig, it feels like Completely Rejects the temptation to define The Kristen Wiig vehicle 100% She does a Jennifer Westfeld movie She does movies that truly She becomes really like a Sundance star Hatship, love ship, girl most likely to

[01:28:28] Like all these Sundance movies that don't really Make a mark, yeah Don't make a mark at all In 2014 she has the skeleton twins And welcomed to me Neither of which in my opinion are good But neither of which are bad bad They're both worthy And interesting Sundancey movies

[01:28:46] That don't hit She's good She's usually good I question why she takes on certain Projects but I rarely question Her acting choices Yeah, I agree with that The only thing I'd question is that she just does not Want to play sympathetic characters She's playing usually really tough

[01:29:06] Brittle, interesting Naughty, like mean people Like she, which is like In Bridesmaids obviously She's playing a fuck up but she is She's not here with her If you had to deny what the Wig movie star persona is Or at least what it seemed to present itself

[01:29:24] To be before she sort of backed away from it It is Like incredibly fragile insecure person Spiraling Deeper and deeper into trouble Trying to cover up And project a sense of confidence Absolutely And sometimes it's really interesting She essentially does that in a big budget

[01:29:44] Film or rather let's say A mainstream film Three times over the course of a decade She does it in Bridesmaids Ghostbusters and Wonder Woman 1984 When she does a big movie in the other years Outside of this it's usually weird supporting Parts where she's playing weird character things

[01:30:02] Like Zoolander 2 or Anchorman 2 Or fucking Walter Middy She's not funny She's the girl he wants to be with I'm assuming She's the object of affection Almost no comedy to play She's not bad in it but it's her playing an entirely Normal straight level person

[01:30:20] I think she's very good in the diary Of a teenage girl Which is a real role that she sells really well Griffey nomination for me She's great in that movie I think she's in The Martian Which everyone is in And you know

[01:30:36] It does what she's supposed to do And everyone in that movie is a total pro But not to kill her She's in nothing masterminds That came out five years after they shot it She's downsizing what she's funny in But it's a tiny part She's in Mother

[01:30:52] Which she kind of rules in She whips growth in that movie She's like the weird neighbor And where'd you go burn it down That's the kind of role where I'm like There is no way you need to be doing No and one of those things where

[01:31:08] You just wanted to work with Kate Blanchett Or Richard Linklater I get it but like You're playing an annoying neighbor You could have played that twenty years ago practically The other thing that's so bizarre about it Is you go like Even if you didn't want to be a

[01:31:22] Like mainstream comedy star You should be finding your own Where did you go burn a debt Where you play burn a debt Like you could absolutely be doing Like a dramedy of that size With a good director based on a best selling book It's odd

[01:31:38] To some degree I respect Like her seemingly just being like Sure I'd love to work with Richard Linklater I don't care I don't have any ego Which I think she doesn't And that's just fine but Look she's got this movie coming up next year

[01:31:52] Called Barb and Star God of Vistadelma Which I'm excited for It's her and Momolo writing together For the first time since Bridesmaids And seemingly her first time trying to create a real comedy Around herself since Bridesmaids As well that's her writing partner as you say

[01:32:06] Like so you know Cool Cool that's great And I will forever contend That she's great in Ghostbusters Which obviously somehow became the single most Loaded movie of all time But that felt like her This one is it now This one's taking the reins

[01:32:26] Last year I took it from Ghostbusters And then now Wonder Woman took it from Everyone's gonna fucking yell at me Whatever whatever I liked it But Wig it's a weird career You seem to like her performance in this I think she's fine I think she's fun

[01:32:42] I like her a lot I like the vibes She too gets a little lost when the movie Asked her to suddenly become the Terminator Yeah exactly But I think she does everything She has to do really well and it was just exciting For me the first

[01:32:58] Third of the movie watching her Be this kind of funny in a movie Again because it happens so rarely I genuinely like Found her performance very funny I also Like the way the cheetah looks at the end of the Movie I'm totally in favor of that

[01:33:14] I think that final battle is completely lackluster And stupid I think that's an issue this Movie has overall The thing I value so much About the first Wonder Woman is like The action sequences are so clean And have such good character story beats

[01:33:28] And in this it absolutely feels Like sort of second unit generic Just like the claws explosions Especially that one That one is yeah The two sequences that really just kind of have nothing Yeah Are that one the cheetah fight Which is like happening at night

[01:33:46] There's not a lot of stakes because it's kind of obvious Wonder Woman is going to beat the shit out of her Like there's not really a sense of danger It's also one of those weird things Where like the cheetah makeup is almost entirely practical

[01:33:56] And yet it looks like it's bad CGI Because there's so much bad CGI going on around it Right because the way she moves Is not practical And then also that The car chase Thing in the middle It's not like it's like a parent But it's very boring

[01:34:14] I couldn't tell you anything We obviously Don't want to dig into this too deeply But it just feels like such a colossal misjudgment To send Gal Gadot to the Middle East In a sequence I agree I was annoyed about that Just in general

[01:34:32] And in general the treatment of the Middle East In this movie is like so fucking hot shots Part d'uh That's the thing I sort of was like Oh are they trying to do more 80s movie Thing like fucking commando Like any like you know

[01:34:46] Schwarzenegger movie of that era Where like half the time it's either a Latin American bag guy or a Middle Eastern bag You know But like you know Come on dodge that shit I don't know I guess there's this oil subplot That's how they get throwing

[01:35:04] But like I just feel like there's other ways To do this It's just like none of that should be in the movie For 5000 reasons It's also just like I don't want her I don't need this character In this movie franchise As been set up to be tied to

[01:35:20] Actually complicated heavy issues World War I is so long ago And so cut and dry in terms of who the good guys And the bad guys were And also that whole movie is operating more as a genre riff On war movies

[01:35:32] Rather than dealing with war in a realistic Bent I had the exact same thought as you where I was like This movie is so into Being a riff on 80s comedies down to Questionable geopolitical aspects And weird sexual politics Like it feels like it's an 80s comedy

[01:35:50] Down to all the weird problematic Blind spots that 80s comedies have If you rewatch them now And I can't tell if that was intentional or just was Like we don't give a shit the movie's not about That we're not gonna dig into it But then the Reagan stuff

[01:36:04] The Cold War stuff She's now said it's pointedly Not supposed to be Reagan I was gonna say It's not Reagan but I guess I was Like this isn't Reagan This is I guess just the president What comic book movies always used to do Like X-Men

[01:36:22] There's always just some white guy with glasses It's always just like well I'm the president of course You know and like But right of course he looks enough like Reagan I guess That people are like oh it must be Reagan

[01:36:34] He doesn't sound like him but he's got a haircut You know like It's sort of emblematic of the problem With this movie overall for me where it's just like It's hard to parse what Your intent was here And you're like well this is either the worst

[01:36:48] Reagan impression or You're trying to not have it be Reagan But if that's the case then get someone to look Even less like Reagan than you did You know He's just close enough that it's Confusing but also far enough Away that it's confusing I mean

[01:37:06] He's not Reagan he's 80s president I guess that's the defense right And it's like 80s president you know Is gonna have a Reagan vibe but he's Yeah So look the villain of this movie Who we haven't talked about We're not going through the plot like

[01:37:22] We do not need to We've covered lots of things that are important But we haven't talked about Maxwell Lord Much And he is the driver of the thing along with The fucking rock So Pedro Pascal Who rules I really enjoy him I just I love him so much

[01:37:42] I'm only gaining respect for him Every single new project I see him Do he's kind of my favorite sort of Actor where he's like Sort of almost backwards Stepped into being a star But it seems to just be completely selfless As a performer where it's just like

[01:37:58] What do you need me to do for this I don't care what size the role is What the energy is I'm gonna match whatever This project needs me to be He can do fucking anything He fits into anything in any size

[01:38:10] And you know what I haven't seen yet Is the Equalizer 2 A movie I've been meaning to watch Which he is the second, I think he's the villain I can't remember But he's like the second lead The second build or whatever But when you think of Pascal

[01:38:26] You think of like No one talks about this movie But he's kind of fun in the great wall Like being the silly European guy He's in a brief If Bill Street could talk Uncredited I believe And he's terrific He's in triple frontier As like the fifth guy

[01:38:48] Like not one of the top three It's Affleck, Isaac, Hunnam Are kind of the biggest three And then like Headland and Pascal Are kind of the like all their guys Who are like eugh And he's like shaggy and weird He has kind of messy hair and a mustache

[01:39:04] And like Like he's doing the movie Like not trying to take it over He always knows exactly what movie he's in Which is like the greatest compliment I can give an actor You never feel like he's not on the same page as the project

[01:39:18] And not only that, it sometimes feels like He gets the project more than everyone else Around him I agree with that And I think that's true in this movie He's dubbed the only other one thing I wanted to say I um Also he wasn't even Grace Land

[01:39:34] He was on Grace Land Really a 10 episode run on Grace Land I did not I was on one episode of that show I worked with the fucking Mary Jane's friend From the play in Spider-Man 2 That sounds great Yeah it was an incredible grace on it

[01:39:50] Peter Pascal was in Was in Narcos for 3 seasons Which is a show I fell off of quickly And I know that's a big show Much like Jason Momoa It does kind of feel this crazy thing He's famous from Game of Thrones He's in like It's 7

[01:40:08] He was in one season And he wasn't even in every episode But it was kind of one of those performances Where you're just like I'll buy whatever this guy is fucking selling He shows up 2 minutes in You're just like this is great He's talking about his paramour

[01:40:24] He's wearing a robe This is the best Who is this guy? Give me everything He's also one of these guys where he's like He's 45 He's like a New York actor Who's just been like a sort of Anonymous character actor for a long time

[01:40:40] And then you have that breakout kind of late And he has run with it in the best Possible way Like the most interesting way Such an odd body You know, varied body of work Rather And when I see him in interviews

[01:40:56] He just seems like a normal interesting person Interesting Right, so all in on him And this I just was like He's in the best version of this movie And also his character From minute one he's high energy Right away Yes, and also his character is the most interesting

[01:41:14] Sort of idea this movie has Because it's so different Than the samey fucking types of villains We usually get in these films You know? Yeah Another thing I want obviously he is The Mandalorian as we all know That is the way It is the way, right

[01:41:34] And obviously you know That's a performance that is being done In conjunction with a stuntman And even he will talk about it really And he's not always in the soup Season two was more him than season one I believe that is true But the episode

[01:41:50] That I really loved The penultimate episode with Bill Burr I liked all the episodes Which I thought that episode was very good anyway But he also played So there's a whole extended sequence Where he has his helmet off Because he has to pretend to be an Imperial guy

[01:42:06] And he's playing it as a guy Who doesn't know how to use his face To interact with people It should not be possible To pull that off How do you do that without seeming like a bad actor? Right, how do you make it clear

[01:42:20] That the character doesn't know how to use their face Not that you as an actor don't have control of your face He's incredible Even if you just look at it as a vocal performance It is astounding how much Depth he gets out of Mando who barely speaks

[01:42:34] And says everything almost in a monotone Right, it's true But sorry, back to this movie Yes, so Maxwell Lord He's the opposite of that Full energy, no monotone from Maxwell Right And obviously people make the Trump comparison But there's also I think a lot of Max Trek here

[01:42:54] Right, I mean Batman Returns has more and more Become a weird Touchstone that directors now aspire to When they make these movies Because despite it being hated at the time Or at least you know, controversial Everyone's kind of come around to like Oh wow, this thing actually

[01:43:10] They used to let personality into these movies And so much of that idea In Batman Returns that's so compelling Is the like You have these two villains, this one who's so sexy And this one who's so monstrous

[01:43:22] But the real villain in the movie is just this shitty guy In an office who doesn't value human life I always complain about how villains You're like What are they doing For the rest of the day When they're not doing their villain Right, you know

[01:43:38] What are they eating? Are they like Hanging out reading a magazine Like The samey Marvel thing of just like Malachi, what is he doing the rest of the day And this guy you're like I get exactly who this guy is What he's trying to do

[01:43:54] What his failings are And I can imagine every minute that he's not on screen 100% Great point and Malachi The greatest example Where he's just like Okay, okay, I gave the big speech I haven't read that pile of New Yorkers But I don't want to

[01:44:12] Like he's like walking around I'm gonna make the time for that I guess I'll just play video games Like what does he do I also think this is another Really potent idea in the movie Is you deal with Wonder Woman being a literal God, right This odd status

[01:44:30] Of I guess her being like the Jersey Devil Where she appears every once in a while And beats up a bunch of crooks and then disappears Right No one can ever get confirmation Right, but as you said These questions of why was she stopping other shit

[01:44:44] And what is she doing and how has it never been leaked And why does no one ever get her on camera And all this other shit, whatever But there's something to the fact that you Deal with a literal God Right, this figure of worship

[01:44:56] In this genre that's about us Like turning to more powerful people And asking them to solve all of our problems And counter pointing that with An entirely human person Whose giant failing is that he wants to be seen That way I can give you everything

[01:45:12] And that he himself is hollow Is unhappy and unsuccessful And is just trying to perpetuate the idea That he should be idolized and trusted That's good shit, that's good shit on paper Like that's compelling Shit to build this movie around Good shit on paper, good shit on screen

[01:45:30] I think almost every time he's on screen The movie pretty much Works through any outside of questions About internal logic of the wishing stuff This has been this weird year Without superhero movies Right, after like Two decades of them controlling Like The populist discourse Right, overrunning everything else

[01:45:52] Right, and this idea of People feeling so Either burdened by them Or singularly obsessed with them There's so many people who are just like Yeah, I only go see Marvel movies in theaters And I go like, are you a big Marvel fan?

[01:46:06] Just like those feel like the only movies that you need to go see In theaters, like they go like it's Redoing their passport And they're sort of like on the hook for it But they don't even love it and then you have people who love it

[01:46:16] And dislike anything else All this sort of weird complicated shit Right, and then we have this odd year Where after Endgame Which very much feels like the culmination Of whatever this shit has been for the last 20 years Suddenly all these movies get put on ice

[01:46:30] Right, the like endless churn Of this shit is just stopped You have a moment to step back and reflect And you have people doubling down And going more like Hyper into the Rumor mill of everything Including like spreading these insane bizarre fake rumors

[01:46:46] That are now constantly being combated And you have people who are like Now that we've gone six months without having to like You know, the government mandate That we have to go see one of these movies Like I'm actually more angry about these movies Than I usually was

[01:47:00] Like I see that response too That's the first thing of like reassessing these movies Place in our culture And how far they've gone Then you have this movie that is so unconcerned With how these movies are usually supposed to work And is like messy and misshapen

[01:47:14] It comes out on a streaming platform The last like big You know, holiday Of the year that everyone's hated And people are just like Just make me feel good I want to sit down And I want you to make me feel good

[01:47:30] And I want to get this movie that's kind of like Cinematically got the vibe of a sitcom Has a magical fairy tale plot And feels like six episodes Of a Wonder Woman streaming TV show put together Hell, yeah But I think to a certain degree

[01:47:46] That's the other thing as people are so excited about Like I get to bring The big screen home And I don't think this films feels as cinematic As the first one I think this movie feels a little bit more Like the shit we see on streaming

[01:48:02] And I think that's a point of disappointment for people too I'm not saying that people's gripes with the movie aren't valid I'm just like trying to analyze why There is such a level of anger As opposed to just this is bad And it feels like the last time

[01:48:14] I remember this level Of anger at a movie like this Outside of things like Ghostbusters and Last Jedi Where there's like the contentious back and forth But this kind of thing where it's just like 99% Of people are just furiously Dunking on it with Spider-Man 3 And Spider-Man 3

[01:48:32] Is a movie that similarly Is just this director being like I don't know I'm sort of tired of this genre Is there other things I can do with it But that movie also has 40% Shit the studio made him do At gunpoint that feels so dispassionate

[01:48:46] I don't feel that with this movie That's the problem I was going to say the problem with Spider-Man 3 is partly right The studio is like well but wait a second You can't go crazy Because that movie is probably Better if they just let Remy go nuts

[01:49:02] It's probably not It's probably still alienating Because Peter Parker dancing around And all that that's Remy stuff But if you let him just do what he wants And you don't have to like Do a whole Green Goblin subplot And do a whole Samman subplot

[01:49:20] And do a whole Venom subplot all in the same Maybe it's a more coherent movie And yes I don't think Look as much as people might be like Well come on Wonder Woman didn't It didn't even gross as much as Aquaman There's just a cultural

[01:49:34] Phenomenon thing with it That's beyond any other Of these DC movies The Snyder thing being its own separate Kind of more insane thing But like The fact that it was the first Wonder Woman Movie the fact that it was just kind of Well

[01:49:52] Liked by everyone that she just kind of nailed it Yeah And that it played Not like a superhero movie that it like held Well at the box office Had good word of mouth kind of became A growing phenomenon Like you get to do whatever you want

[01:50:08] And that's what this is She got to do whatever she wanted Blank check status and if we go back around To this whole conversation we have at the beginning Of like why are we covering these DC movies And then we're going to do something

[01:50:20] You do step back and it is like We were doing DC movies because It felt like this weird case of the blank check Was Snyder trying to build The cinematic universe and everyone Trying to do it under his shadow And now it has very much not become that

[01:50:34] But in a weird way DC has Become significantly more Director driven than the Marvel movies On mass They are for how misshapen many of them Are very much movies that are Defined by their filmmakers And all have very different vibes And interests and sensibilities

[01:50:54] By and large and I also think It's that thing that I kind of wanted A comic book movie which is just like You go to a comic book store You can have three different books With the same character That all have wildly different art styles

[01:51:08] And different sensibilities and the DC movies For good or ill because They don't have that quality control have that Thing and this is an Ultimate blank check movie Because it is that weird case Like sort of I mean Coogler with Black Panther Is another example where you're like

[01:51:24] Everything that works about this movie You kind of have to give credit to this one person This isn't machinery working This movie should not have been this successful On paper she tapped Into something and then She was uninterested In trying to give people Just the same thing

[01:51:42] As a second course you know Which is always going to sort of Piss people off I think to a degree But I'll always Sort of Fight for the right for people To fucking fail on this scale And I fight for the right To party That oh!

[01:52:04] Absolutely it also is just like You know people want to talk about Like you know her as An emblem of You know gender In Filmmaking and proving Right the women Suddenly Getting more opportunities as directors And you're like the most Like progressive thing

[01:52:28] Is that people hate this movie And she's got three humongous movies lined up The thing that used to be unfathomable Is that a woman Could direct a movie that was a flop And Be able to bounce back like They were Brad Ratner you know

[01:52:44] I love that she's got three major Movies lined up and she's going to make a Fucking sequel to this And that she's got good will Which studios never used to extend To women in these positions It's true it's beyond the fact Because like obviously

[01:53:00] In the sort of downtime between Warner Brothers Announcing that this is coming out And then announcing the HBO Max Plan The larger plan And the movie coming out There's that Jenkins interview where she's Critical of Warner Brothers, she doesn't like The HBO Max plan

[01:53:21] People are saying like well she took The money like no her agents Negotiated her a proper payout For a movie that wasn't going to get released in theaters Like that's not she didn't take a buy out Yeah she also said like I never would have agreed under other

[01:53:35] Senses these are very very bizarre Specific times we're living Agreed and like they You know they They did that release They figured that out in what Quote unquote the right way where they're like hey we might Need to put it on streaming

[01:53:51] Okay then pay us the residuals we would have gotten From a blockbuster release Yeah let's okay sure you'll get this Like yada yada yada Whereas with the other movies They were just kind of like we're going to do it yay Excited like you know without

[01:54:05] Right now seeing it to anybody anyway So there was that The interview kind of gave the vibe of like oh there's Bad blood here and then you know Disney's Announced that she's doing a Star Wars Movie yeah okay maybe She's just kind of be like you know what

[01:54:19] I'm getting out of this mess And then when they announced day of This movie's released that they're going to do three With her that feels like them being Like we whatever We were in and we Wanted whatever that might be right like Yeah whatever the story

[01:54:35] She wants to tell is or what you write like They they they pony'd up I also think it's like She's you know Saying that she's going to do Cleopatra with Gal Gadot Which I now wonder if that's the Movie that's going to fall off the map

[01:54:49] The the Rogue Squadron thing Definitely yes right I don't think that movie's going to happen And no one should make a Cleopatra Movie it's cursed But but also Rogue Squadron is so far off she has admitted that there's like Nothing there that just that she wants to make

[01:55:04] A fighter pilot movie they don't even have the beginnings of a script It's going to be years before that thing happens And I think well they're claiming 2023 but it does seem Vig to me but that's them trying to work on hyperdrive

[01:55:15] I mean they're you know I think that deal was Signed like four days Before the fucking Disney investor thing And I think they have nothing Outside of her saying I'd like to do a movie about people You know X-wings It's an obvious Rogue Squadron Yes that makes sense

[01:55:32] Yeah right why not I think Warner Brothers sensed If we don't lock her down We stand the position of having to wait Eight or nine years for her to make Another movie If she lets both of these movies come first Right And they sense maybe the vulnerability

[01:55:47] In the Cleopatra thing and the fact that Star Wars was further off And it's like you could make this her top priority Right now I also think And this speaks to fucking AT&T Wanting to turn Warner Brothers into Netflix There is that aspect of just like

[01:56:01] Any publicity is good publicity They don't care if people hate this movie They like that fucking 50% Of people who have HBO Max Watched it within 24 hours That's the thing they've been trying to make happen Is just people watching it

[01:56:15] Right because they don't care if it's Emily in Paris They don't care if people are watching shit Just to come up with fucking Twitter jokes They just care that they got the eyeballs What if Emily was in Paris Well it's a huge question

[01:56:25] And we're still dealing with the ripple effects of it We are I mean they really are There's gonna be a second to the whole season She's still gonna be in Paris I assume Also please it's called Emily in Paris Emily in Paris

[01:56:40] Are there things we haven't talked about I guess there's just the big showdown That is Lord giving this increasingly Demented speech With a wind machine blowing in his face Which I really enjoyed I enjoyed partly because As you say there was no portal open There was no

[01:56:58] Knockdown drag out fight That she needed to have with him I don't know But I think the flaws you're pointing out here Are Well I acknowledge that There's a logic Problem That the movie can overcome A lot of the time But for your big story finale

[01:57:20] You probably need people to be dialed into Exactly what the fuck is happening And I don't know if they are Right I think it's just a little too Scattered at that point I like her sort of Making this plea to the world

[01:57:34] I like the idea of her sort of like weaponizing The media in order To reach out to people It does raise that question of I guess what you said Are we just supposed to treat it like everyone wakes up the next day

[01:57:44] And goes like man I can't remember Last Tuesday There were those five days where I was in the outer commission Possibly yes But I'm not sure They keep it vague I also like the Pedro Pascal flashback Like I like Love that

[01:58:02] The specificity of showing how much this guy Is a fucking act And an act that comes out of Self loathing And a feeling of discomfort Within society right The sense of otherness Like him arranging the candy And a sign on the door When he's got the little office

[01:58:22] Like that shit I find very emotionally impactful It is weird that that's the character you end up Feeling most for the entire Movie And it gets to this problem for me Like so I'm sitting there I'm really trying to like it I'm finding the things I like

[01:58:36] I'm going like maybe this execution isn't there But I get what she's trying to do and I'm with it And for me it's like when you get to the scene Where Steve is saying to her Using your powers People are killing each other

[01:58:50] And it's just because I'm here You need to renounce your wish And she has her sort of like You know Teenager like I never get anything I want this is the one thing that makes me happy Why won't anyone let me be happy Sure yes

[01:59:08] It is a tough scene To swallow and it is that kind of Thing of like the balance of how you Make these godlike characters feel Vulnerable Emotionally but at that point You're sort of like this is sort of like a Radical entitlement Thing where then when you

[01:59:26] You mirror that with at the end her saying Like I get it but I'm sorry None of us can have good things I gave up my Good thing even though I had my good thing For longer than all of you have had your good things

[01:59:36] Everyone give up their good things right now There's this element of the movie That feels like it's Kapping into the same exact Things that are frustrating About gal Gadot doing the imagine video That video is great no problems Definitely wasn't So incredibly Horrifyingly boring and cringe worthy

[01:59:59] And totally had to turn it off Well in tune too Everybody was hitting the notes Yeah I mean The immense look No we can know I'm sorry We can't get into the imagine video There's too much insanity We just can't do it you agree

[02:00:17] It's too much too much That comparison genuinely came to me In that moment the thing of Just like everyone needs to be happy And make these sacrifices I say as I film this video From my poolside whatever right Nice nice right there's that kind

[02:00:33] Of energy which is a thing that's been driving People understandably I rate throughout the pandemic And I also think that's another reason Why this movie is so much anger Against it is like gal Gadot didn't really Do a movie in between Wonder Woman And Wonder Woman 2

[02:00:49] She became such a big cultural figure after that And I feel like there's now a sort of Reckoning with the things that annoy people About her That's possible there is a weird I won't say weird there is a venom To help people talk the movie she did

[02:01:05] By the way that you're forgetting is Justice League but Right But uh and of course But Griffon soon there will be a death on the Nile It'll happen one day And we cannot forget that she was Shank in Ralph Breaks the Internet She is she is

[02:01:23] As a live action actor She's Shank she's Shank Shank rules We have no choice but to stand But Justice League is the only movie She had released with her face in it In between these two films and people write Justice League off and they just go like

[02:01:37] She's actually one of the better things about it But um yeah people definitely Have a lot of problems with her And that's fine and uh there's a lot Of good reasons and Some you know that maybe Are less fair I have no idea I like her

[02:01:55] I'm like her as Wonder Woman though Like I well you know I love her as She's amazing in this movie She's great in those And that was where when she popped where you're like Oh this is like This is someone who is over-qualified

[02:02:09] For this role like this someone this person Seemed even though I've never heard of her And I don't know who she is like this person just Kind of has a lot more presence Than you might expect from this kind Of this character who's like oh she's like

[02:02:21] The hot lady who runs the races you know like And that's part Of the magic of fast and furious in general Is that it gives you know these characters More to do and more depth And more you know they're High quality blockbusters That I love but yeah

[02:02:37] Apart from that like you know like her as Wonder Woman I don't want to get a cup of coffee with her I mean I was No I think she's certainly got her issues as a human being And she's got her limitation I don't know but But guess what

[02:02:51] Everyone has their issues everyone's complicated The world is terrible all people are awful This is a movie podcast I can't weigh in on actors As people because it's just As we know it's like We're just you're just going to be disappointed Most likely

[02:03:07] I agree I'm going to let you down I mean look I tend To holster my nihilism to some degree On this podcast and as you know all too well When we're not recording I completely Stress you out with how negative I am about everything

[02:03:19] At all times especially in regards to My faith in humanity at large But it is a thing that I think When like a celebrity backlash shit happens And I don't get it You know save for things like Kevin Spacey Or whatever right where it's like

[02:03:33] There was a little more than a backlash Shit Maybe let's cancel that man Let me be frank the guy's a fucking psychopath But I Come from a baseline of just thinking That everyone's a bad person You know I just I think with Rich famous people

[02:03:55] That's the other thing and fame breaks people's Brain and they stop being normal people Not The tangent we want to go on in this podcast This is the final thing I want to say Really no yeah Although People have corrected me a lot in the past

[02:04:11] That in our original Wonder Woman episode I said that Gal Gadot erroneously was An ex-missade agent Which of course was me Confusing a fast and furious with real life A problem I have on a day to day basis She was like an instructor

[02:04:25] She was like a Pilates instructor Right I don't know Obviously stuff we don't want to fucking get into Because it is impossible to discuss Keep going keep going what's your point Here's what I want to say When I've been trying to fend the weirdness of this movie

[02:04:41] While still saying I don't really think it's good But I admire its weirdness Some friends of mine have pushed back And gone like but don't you feel like there's all this stuff That feels like studio notes and box checking And this and that Is look who knows right

[02:04:55] We don't know what fucking went on behind the scenes But I do think there's two things going on Okay one of them is I think Patty Jenkins is Innately a populist I think she wants to make Big colorful movies I think she is someone who understands

[02:05:11] The value of making something that is done In broad strokes with bright colors That hits very elemental themes in an unsubtle way It's a thing Like what Her director is Pedro Motivar She likes color She likes boldness, vibrancy That's absolutely what she likes to do

[02:05:29] And she's talked about that Superman the movie Is the movie that made her want to be a director That was her Star Wars when she was a kid That's like the primal text for her You know I think about My insane experience working on

[02:05:43] The Mulaney pilot for NBC And when NBC passed on it and people said to him Why aren't you just doing this at Hulu Why aren't you doing this at Comedy Central Any of those places would give you The money, you know a smaller budget To do this

[02:05:57] And he said like part of the idea for me Is being able to do this on network television Like part of the challenge for him was Can you do Seinfeld Can you do it with content restrictions And the ability to Sell car ads

[02:06:11] And all that sort of shit And I think Patty Jenkins has that thing innately In her that she wants the challenge of making this type of movie Rit large And I think if a lot of the things that people think are weird

[02:06:21] In this movie or sort of check boxy Where studio notes They would be executed in a way that was far less bizarre Right Like if it was a studio note that you have to bring Chris Pine back to life It would not have been done as a body

[02:06:35] Swap thing No, there's no way that was a studio note This feels like a movie where she very much got to do What she wants to do I don't know this for sure but like The studio might have been like are you sure

[02:06:47] Cause like Pine probably didn't have a sequel clause No Fuck we're gonna have to pay him, you want Pine back I think this was a movie where they kind of couldn't push back on her And you also imagine that Like if they were trying to mitigate risk

[02:06:59] On this movie and it was on the shelf For a year before it came out They would have made her cut half an hour Out of this movie Like if they had any control over her Right they wouldn't have let it be two and a half

[02:07:11] Hours long and this bizarre The final thing I want to say And I teased to you that I was going to make this A longer spiel but I just want to throw it out as a threat I think there is an interesting

[02:07:21] Throughline when you look at the DC movies Excluding The Nolan Batman films but Including Green Lantern I think there is an interesting throughline Of how high Jeff John's credit is on the film And what the public perception of the movie is And you were saying to me

[02:07:41] It feels like he's a guy that Warner Brothers Kind of went can you be our faggot But Jeff John's is a dude who Like his first job was working as Richard Donner's assistant He's always wanted to be a movie guy

[02:07:52] And it does feel like to some degree he's used comics To try to break into movies And there is this thing of just like He was not really involved in Wonder Woman And that movie was so big and suddenly He's the co-writer and has a co-story credit

[02:08:04] And he wants to make himself part of it He was like the main writer along with Greg Berlanti Who obviously has gone on to do better DC stuff On Green Lantern He was very involved in all the Joss Whedon drama On Justice League you know

[02:08:18] In the rehiring and all that sort of shit And Aquaman which is the other one The one exception where he has a big credit on it He has a story credit He doesn't have a screen Just a story credit But I think you and I can both agree

[02:08:31] The strong suit of Aquaman is one Is the visuals is the world building It's not the script The script is fucking bananas It's a fucking mess Right and it's like It works The script you're like Okay I guess I'll go along with this But you're like Shazam

[02:08:46] And the first Wonder Woman Feel like the movies that Jeff Johns was like I don't need to bother myself with that Those are the smaller ones To some degree Yeah I mean obviously he was not as involved With the Snyder movies in general The Man of Steel

[02:09:03] But no he was involved in BVS He was involved in BVS in a bit He's an executive producer But he's also an executive producer on Wonder Woman On the first one I mean you know like That's when he was in his sort of Hancho role

[02:09:18] That is ill defined Right like you're there Whatever he is He's the fike-esque figure Sure Now I'm looking at it It is funny that he This is actually Griffin This is his first screenplay credit Weird Ever This is his first ever screenplay credit

[02:09:38] He's not screenplay credited on Green Lantern Weird okay But he's got a producer credit on him Yeah I mean he was obviously And that movie is I mean he was the Green Lantern guy Like his Green Lantern run in the 2000s Was this like hot run

[02:09:53] He was kind of running corner back on that movie I mean he was very involved with that The only movies he has a producer Not an executive A proper producer credit on Just this league and Green Lantern Which I think are two movies That are unsuccessful

[02:10:09] There are the two that he was the most hands on with One could say The executive credits he has are on He has one on Shazam as well But like that's his role As DC Hancho And then Wonder Woman 1984 He co-wrote with Patty Jenkins

[02:10:23] And someone called Dave Callaham Who's like become the hardest working Man of show business now Right but now is like What's the name of the movie The Shankshi movie Yeah he did the new Mortal Kombat movie Right This guy is also Is writing the Disney Hercules

[02:10:44] Live action movie Something that doesn't relate to this podcast at all I was about to say couldn't say He's only in Mortal Kombat This will be the third He's writing Spiderverse 2 Like Callum is now writing everything He was brought on late Johns and Jenkins Developed it Wrote it

[02:11:06] And then Callum came on later And Jenkins doesn't even have a screenwriting credit On the first movie even though clearly she did a lot in shaping that I just think Johns might be a little bit of an issue And there does seem to be a thing where

[02:11:16] The more hands on he gets with these movies The more muddled they become I got nothing against like I personally I like a lot of his comic book work I've started to do him as a little bit of a red flag When it comes to the movies

[02:11:28] Goyer used to be the great villain Right, like people would say like oh he's the one Who messes up like even though He has credits on movies people like But and now it seems to maybe be Shifting to Johns those are both Comic book nerds

[02:11:42] And Johns is obviously a very Accomplished comic book writer like beyond He really his flash stuff His Green Lantern stuff is yada yada yada And his other Thing that he I would say Is had more success is in The TV world in Those CW show the flash

[02:12:00] Being his creation A lot of those shows he's worked on Which is Those are good I would say those are successful And fun I usually Fall off with them but I have No beef with them and they've got their whole sort of thing going

[02:12:14] And Burlanti is viewed as the Outdoor of those even though Obviously is sometimes I mean some of those shows he's very hands on And some of those shows he just sort of put his stamp on To help them get made but Burlanti gets the credit for those shows

[02:12:28] I think Johns is probably better At episodic Comic book you know Issue level storytelling Right yes you know This movie I like it a lot more than You do but it's got like you say Kind of a weird episodic vibe to it And it's quite long and

[02:12:48] It's oddly structured and I'm not going to throw all the blame At Jeff Johns because I like again I like the movie and for God's sake maybe it's all Patty Jenkins' fault I don't know but I think you're right to To cock an eyebrow Perhaps At

[02:13:06] His stewardship of this whole ridiculous Enterprise I don't know I don't know I don't know David you put it perfectly All it is is a cocked eyebrow And I look at Aquaman and Green Lantern In this movie and I see certain through lines You know

[02:13:22] And Shazam and Wonder Woman Are like the ideals of what I want Out of this universe I put Burlanti's Pray number three after that and those are The movies that by all accounts he was Not really touching I agree I also love Aquaman I can't wait to see

[02:13:40] The trench can't wait to see Aquaman 2 By whole thing with these DC Movies is I think the whole thing is a Fucking ridiculous disaster but I kind Of like some of these movies Kind of You know what am I supposed to say

[02:13:54] Am I just a sucker for this stuff Do I just like it when they kind of take the weird Swings I don't know Is it exhausting that we have to keep coming back to this Well a little bit Not so much right now just because

[02:14:08] Like you said it's been kind of a weird year No superheroes anyway so I guess Like it's a little more fun but like You know are we going to talk about Matt Reeves Batman movie I don't know I mean it's like that's another question

[02:14:20] Where you're just like do we need to I'm excited for that movie I like Matt Reeves Is it better to just pull it off and maybe try to Do Matt Reeves someday but then like At what point does Matt Reeves have enough

[02:14:30] Films under his belt that it feels like There's a real thing to talk about there At this point I don't know I don't know Yeah I mean what else is Going to do the gun movie obviously The flash movie with the machete Is doing that is happening

[02:14:44] I believe we don't want to do That one it's got like Michael Keaton in it And Affleck Crazy and here's the other cynical thing People like to hear us talk about these Movies because they're new big release movies And people want to hear takes and episodes

[02:14:58] Always do well for us but there's some degree Of like we feel Somewhat captive to covering These movies sometimes we don't feel Like it and then sometimes we fuck up And we skip Shazam and it's the best Right so that's That should be the lesson learned for us

[02:15:14] The lesson is we can't skip Cyborg When it comes out eventually Yeah and let me look this up Cyborg is, what are you talking about Cyborg is dated for 2018 It came out two years ago I guess It was dated for I believe it was once officially

[02:15:30] Given the release date of April 3rd 2020 which As far as I know it didn't come out then I mean I'd have to check It was kind of a hectic time I want to say there was even an earlier release date

[02:15:42] Because there was a point where they were championing That they were going to come out before Black Panther There might have been And I just am now Imagining a scenario where one of brothers is like We released Cyborg 2020 You know the pandemic it was a hectic time

[02:15:56] It came out April April 2020 it was good You might have seen it it was good He, okay He was announced April 2014 and on They announced April 2020 as the release date So you're right They gave themselves six years and instead Ray Fisher has been starring in

[02:16:18] A lawsuit against Warner Brothers I was about to say That didn't really work out I feel like there's some Subtension in that relationship Which he tweets constantly Awaiting further results From investigators It's all so wild All that movie in my takeaway was like

[02:16:38] He's probably the best performance in it You liked him Like they threw out every scene I shot Right Yeah I think he's good it's a shame I want to see him do more shit I found him really engaging in that movie

[02:16:52] He's like the one performance that kind of worked for me He's something new You know I like But yeah he's something new Yeah We got it So this movie opened on Christmas day To 16.7 million dollars I guess people are going to theaters It's also a little bit

[02:17:12] Higher than ever I was gonna say all the way Middle of winter on a holiday And the movie is available To watch at home and yet It had a bigger opening weekend than Tenant there it shows that there perhaps Is some future today It's encouraging and depressing

[02:17:30] In that pent up way of people just Being like I want to do something And obviously The argument is like when it's safe Lots of people are gonna want to do something People aren't gonna be like you know what I love What experience I've really settled into

[02:17:44] Being on my couch why would I leave Like I you know So it opened number one There it is there was a And I remember variety breaking down Like there were a lot of private rentals Like a huge amount Which is become obviously a bit of a model

[02:18:00] For theaters trying to stay alive A very large size Number two at the box office is another new movie It's only 40% of theaters that are Actually open right now Something like that and obviously a lot of major markets Are not Number two opening to 2.2 million dollars

[02:18:18] Griffin it's a new movie It's a movie I liked I bet you haven't seen it yet But I think you will like it Is it news of the world? I'm very excited to watch it Yes I just I'm ready to be in the warm hands of Hanks

[02:18:32] Yeah not a masterpiece But like just a good solid Tom Hanks Is you know Trying to keep the world From crumbling you know just through Decency movie right David frankly that's all I need right now Exactly I think it's pretty good And it's an interesting Departure for Greengrass

[02:18:54] Which I appreciated And it's a reunion I mean Greengrass got one of Hanks's greatest performances In Captain Phillips And this is a good movie It's good you'll like it It's out Number three is a family film It has almost made 100 million dollars At the box office Worldwide

[02:19:16] Oh it's the crew is a new beginning It's a new age Okay I keep on getting titles wrong Yeah crew is a new age Oh wait I'm sorry you got that incredibly Like vague ass Basic title wrong Everyone got that title wrong

[02:19:34] But there's also like a COVID brain fog Thing where I feel like I fucked up Bill and Ted In the game recently The 10th episode coming next week And there was some other movie That I totally misremembered the title of I don't remember Yeah anyway

[02:19:52] Number four is a movie that You Ben and I have you know semi-seriously Discussed just renting a theater to go see Monster Hunter we want to go hunting It's hunting season It looks like fucking badass Yeah it looks like the best movie in our name It really does

[02:20:10] And if this was just a normal time It's just ah god It's like NGs or whatever it should just be the movie Where we go to the Kips Bay to see it And we're like why is it in the smallest theater What's going on

[02:20:22] We get drunk at that pizza parlor Forehand it'd be the fucking best night of my life God is that place still open Absolutely our delivery from them all the time Fuck yeah that's great that place rules There's a pizzeria I love it's a little secret

[02:20:36] And it's got kind of a secret bar in the back And I've been ordering delivery from them constantly A because their pizza is good but B also Because I don't want it to close I want to be able to go to that bar eight years from now

[02:20:46] Hell yeah Absolutely we gotta go back there Number five at the box office It's a new release It's a movie that I think is going to get much discussed The more people see it But right now it's really just in theaters

[02:21:00] I think it's going to be on VOD very soon It made $700,000 What's the movie It's a Mmm It's not Netflix movie right? It's a studio movie This is only it's a It's a Focus I believe Promising Young Woman Promising Young Woman Which is a movie that I

[02:21:22] Like a lot of things about I had some problems with it Especially the ending But I also saw it at Sundance in January And like I was talking about it with Fran Who just saw it and she's like You know this and I'm like oh right

[02:21:36] Like I want to see it again It's been a year But I feel you know it's interesting It's worth seeing I will watch it yes absolutely The next three months are going to be me just Watching everything For the Blankey Awards that I haven't watched

[02:21:52] For the last nine months when I've only been watching The Simpsons and Mary Tyler Moore Right You've also got Fatal Which one is that Oh that's Deon Taylor Deon Taylor is kind of secretly An interesting filmmaker I need to dig into him a little deeper

[02:22:10] But there's something going on with that guy People say that movie is crazy Which is not necessarily a bad thing But he made black and blue With time I actually Like even more He made the intruder Which is kind of a mess Is the intruder the Quaid one?

[02:22:30] But it's like a dungeon He's turning him out He may meet the blacks With Mike Epps Which is the purge parody Right he made something called Supremacy with I don't know Danny Glover There's something with that guy I don't know what it is yet

[02:22:50] But I'm building a notor narrative Around him slowly but surely I'm going to watch Fatal That's cool You've also got Pinocchio That's the new Matteo Garone Pinocchio that's dark You couldn't keep Benini away Benini just keeps on needing Part of Pinocchio movies Absolutely We should do Benini

[02:23:14] You've got Elf Christmas Vacation War with Grandpa Still holding on 18 18 In four months And in 11 I just want to shout it out The Polar Express It is funny to see those Like oh, like Top 10 Polar Express Number 8 Made like $300,000 And then you look at Box Office Total $180

[02:23:46] There are numbers that don't make sense Because they're logging them as if it's One continuous release It's so weird What a weird time May it end Hey David, you know I don't know If you've heard anyone say this before My saying about 2020 is Rest in Pieces What?

[02:24:10] You want that thing in pieces? Yeah, this year's suck duck piss I wish 2021 is better Ben's eyes are bleeding Ah fuck Ben's the stone That's our new plot development Why were you touching Pedro Pascal? We decided we needed to shake up the podcast

[02:24:34] So Ben's become the stone now That's the new bit Speaking of 2021 And slight changes Want to say Our artwork has changed a little bit on the podcast And we want to thank our buddy Joe Bowen for doing that And we got some other new artwork changes

[02:24:52] Coming soon to Patreon And also perhaps some new merch designs But Joe has been such a great friend And collaborated the show We should just say also Because we didn't really talk about this publicly When it was happening But we have gone independent with our show

[02:25:08] Hence the artwork Changed For a number of reasons We decided we wanted to take on Doing the show ourselves So we also want to thank Audio Boom Who kept us alive For years Took a chance on us honestly Absolutely And we're still doing this

[02:25:30] Still doing work for them But yes Blank Check is now a Blank Check production And speaking of 2021 glow up Lea Montgomery another dear friend And close ally of the show Has done a new recording of the theme song People don't know I like texted him

[02:25:50] To write a theme song On like the Tuesday before The Saturday our episode was going to come out Wait you're saying you left something to the last minute A communication I don't want to talk about it But that wonderful theme song Was done very quickly

[02:26:06] And scrappily on GarageBand He's actually gone into a studio with his band The Great American Novel And re-recorded the theme song for them And we love it and we love him for it And people should check out The Great American Novel in general

[02:26:20] Go to his band camp buy his music at Rural So if you like the Blank Check theme song Check it out it's both are listed in the description Yes absolutely Spotify and band camp But folks thank you for listening And please remember to rate, review And subscribe

[02:26:36] Go to Blankies.red.com For some real nerdy shit And go to our Shopify page Where the talk and the walk Gossip Man's shirt Is available Along with coming imminently A restock of the comedy points And pins We got pins coming soon and some more stuff

[02:26:56] To come in the future Tune in next week for Tenet We're finally ready to perform A temporal pincer Movement. We were gonna do Tenet first But then we decided to invert The release schedule Yeah we inverted, we rolled it one might say So Tenet next week

[02:27:14] Then we're doing the final threes of Mackesses That closes out January And first episode February Barkling new miniseries No palette cleansers in between Because we're doing these two little new releases here Yeah they had the palette cleanser kind of thing Just early, early cleansers Yeah And early clients

[02:27:34] And as always Magical wishing stone innocent