Blank Check with Griffin & David - A Life Less Ordinary with Janet Varney

Episode Date: February 5, 2023

After the smashing success of TRAINSPOTTING, Danny Boyle reteamed with star Ewan McGregor and writer John Hodge to…make a movie where Dan Hedaya plays the Archangel Gabriel, Stanley Tucci plays a cuck dentist, and Ewan has one of the worst haircuts in the history of cinema? Shockingly, 1997’s A LIFE LESS ORDINARY was not a hit. Actress and comedian Janet Varney (The Legend of Korra, “The JV Club”) joins us as we attempt to make sense of this bizarro road trip romance. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com or at teepublic.com/stores/blank-check

So you're telling me that successful podcasts are made in heaven? Okay, I watched this movie this morning. Yeah. I already don't really remember what you're talking about. Basically the last line of the film. It is the thing that is my virtual background on the Zoom right now. When Cameron Diaz and Ewan McGregor are litigating whether it makes life more or less romantic that love is a bureaucratic act commanded by dan adea in a white office the whole car you

tell me that successful relationships are made in heaven not found on the daily practicality of two people being prepared to tolerate the imperfections of one another and he responds it's not successful relationships celine it's love and it comes from a strange and wonderful place that we don't know about and that place is an office can i confess i was i was feeling a little exhausted at that point in the movie just a little bit worn out a little bit by this film you're also this is also the top quote on IMDb. I'm just going to call you out right now. Oh, absolutely. I opened up the... You know what? I didn't even open up the quotes page.

I scrolled down to IMDb where it always gives you the preview of the first quote, and I went, why dig deeper? Why not? David, this is arguably one of the first examples of the modern wave of slow cinema, right? I would say this is kind of... Yeah, right.

This is like watching a train go through Norway for 12 hours, definitely. Yeah. I was surprised that James Benning didn't direct this. I have to say, I think it was too slow. Too slow. And that's coming from me. Yeah. I also just wish he would have made some choices.

There's nothing about this... You don't feel Danny Boyle's fingerprints anywhere. It's like he's asleep at the wheel the thing's on autopilot throw a little style into this thing yeah it's just it's real four quadrant stuff just trying to be everything to everyone you know personality that's the number one thing i'd say it's lacking in is any sort of distinct, esoteric personality. I mean, even the soundtrack is just so typical. Was there a soundtrack? I don't even remember hearing a single song in this movie.

I guess you're right, yeah. It's like in one ear, out the other. Guys, a sparse soundscape. Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor. You know, that's what they always say. Just going to point that out. Oh, is it really, David? Oh, is it really?

That's the kind of thing someone would say in the 90s huh uh-huh do people say that huh really interesting could i be podcasting anymore right now what what david no i don't know i don't know introduce our podcast please i'm waiting for a guest just our guest obviously has permission to interject at any point oh that's right i don't know i don't know why i thought i had house rules introduced i know people always think they have to be quiet but you don't you don't have to be you don't yeah just burst well you know there's just so many podcasts where there's 10 to 15 minutes of just catching up and then the sort of stumbling into remembering there was a guest so So I was ready for that.

I'm actually appalled that you haven't gone on and on more. No, no, no. We do the opposite, which is 30 to 45 minutes of stumbling into remembering that this is a podcast, but we do that with the guest. I'm so glad to be along for this ride, just like the ride. We forget what we're doing. Yeah. What the point of the show is. what we're doing yeah what the point of the show is but i'll tell you what the show is it's uh blank check with griffin and david i'm

griffin i'm david um i want to do something i want to reveal yeah i want to reveal that recently um a friend of mine watched rachel getting married and then texted me that she was listening to our episode about it and said well yeah you haven't really talked about the movie much yet. And I was like, oh, well, you know, I mean, how far in are you? And she's like an hour and 25 minutes. I was like, well, well, maybe we're about to start talking about the movie. I don't really remember that one. But so I felt a little embarrassed. Yeah, no, that's horrifying. I do feel like we talked about that movie. Maybe that episode was eight hours long. Listen.

I think the episode might be pretty long. I think so, too. It's Iowan Live, right? Yes, sorry, it's a podcast, yeah. It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who experience massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want,

and sometimes those checks clear clear and sometimes they bounce baby this is a mini series on the films of danny boyle it is called train spod casting that's right it sure is today we're talking his first bounce without question yes a pretty a pretty classic bounce i think this was a real sort of 90s blueprint bounce of you are like uh an indie breakout director or a foreign director who gets the siren call from hollywood and they go just do your thing but with bigger stars and more money and then everyone goes never mind we hate your thing and the question sort of becomes was that person a one-trick pony did they get swallowed up by the studio system do they need to get back to the core of what they were doing or are they done look this guy has one of the most classic

early arcs like for us right yes the only the only thing i'll say is it's weird that he bounced into a bigger bounce right yes but then also you could say the beach actually which is his next movie was actually less of a bounce because it actually didn't make money like it was it was not well regarded but it actually it did kind of it did okay money wise so maybe it wasn't as, you know. Yeah, you're forgetting one thing, though. Yes, you are right, that technically, that movie was profitable. It was also the first Leonardo DiCaprio movie to be released after Titanic.

I know, I'm aware of the stakes that were surrounding the beach. All time. Well, no, The Man in the Iron Mask was, right? Man in the Iron Mask comes out six weeks after titanic yeah yeah well no it comes out but yeah it's beaten at the box office by titanic it is successful but it's also like you are what this is box office 101 we all know this if i ever talk about this next week we'll talk about next week the point is i'm just saying the only way, of course, isn't really a bounce is that it actually didn't cost that much money.

It just cost more money for him. Right. But it like made it back. It made it back plus like a dollar or something. Right. Yeah. You know what? And they probably, you know, they shorted Hawaiian, you know know shirt futures and they probably made some money on

that or you know hollywood's always up to no good but um i would be surprised if you found out this movie was 50 percent uh funded by tommy bahamas or exactly a hundred percent or just the state of utah just sponsored by the state of utah tourism bureau look at all the places there are in utah exactly have fun with this, guys. Doors open. But you are correct, especially in that sort of thing of like, buddy, we love your thing. Come do your thing. Just do your thing. Come on.

Canvas is blank. You want to do some weird? Oh, yeah, sure. All of it. Angels in an office. Yeah. It's like the same power trio. It's not even like like buddy no you do your

thing but you know what bring in some new blood we don't care it's like oh no you you're gonna bring the same powerhouse that gave us these other two movies like you guys know what you're doing you're a well-oiled machine they were the three musketeers it was a proven like sort of machine uh i i also just watched it this morning for the first time david ben and i all only watched it this morning for the first time uh i in my in my sort of like mind had thought this must have been some movie where the siren call of hollywood comes for danny boyle and they go here's the script we have. You can do whatever you want with it. I did not think for whatever reason. Or at least here's the classic 90s thing.

Here's an indie comic book we found. Or here's some random property. Right. No. Yeah. You know, squirrelly Scottish Dr. John Hodge just cooked this up all on his own. I was just like, this was their failed studio movie where they were asked to take over something

that had been in development for a while. Not, this was their fully generated thing. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely thought there's no, like my memory of it, I had invented a memory when I started watching and I did see it.

I have seen it before. And by the way, I just want everyone to know that I was asked to do this movie after I listed all of the other Danny Boyle movies that I wanted to do. I'm just going to pause you for one second to say, of course, our guest today is Janet Varney from Legend of Korra and JV Club. The great Janet Varney. Hi, everybody. Who you told me how much you love Danny Boyle.

Then you punished me. Yeah, I did. If you love him so much, why don't you do A Life Less Ordinary? Why don't you do that then? That was the dare. If you love him so much, why don't you do A Life Less Ordinary? Why don't you do that then? That was the dare. If you love him so much, why don't you marry this movie? Yep. I said pretty, pretty please, but I did say I triple buggy dare you.

You did. And I had not seen it in long enough that I definitely thought, like, you know what, maybe my voice in my head got very, like, in my head my voice was that shrill. Maybe I love this movie. Maybe it's good. I don't think I do, but maybe I do love it. Maybe it's a secret masterpiece. and i started watching it i was like i really had that moment where he's like oh of course yes this was a this was a novel and they there's a lot going on in

the novel that makes sense and then of course you know they had to cut down the movie for time and it's all there to compress and then so i was like hmm let me just do a little research and i was like oh oh no there's a novel and an indie comic that comes after the movie after it was adapted to both but i think both of those things were in the works before the movie came out right like i feel like like david bishop right was like oh i got i got my hands on this thing that hasn't come out yet like i'm gonna make a serialized comic just like, you know. Yes. No, that was also them being like, oh, the train spotting.

The soundtrack was so big. Everyone had the poster. Let's have shit ready to go. Urban Outfitters shelves are going to be stocked. Everyone's holding their scissors ready to give the Ewan McGregor haircut. They're ready. They're poised. I mean, look, we've just done two hot young Ewan movies in a row where my takeaway was

what great hair this guy has. Both like perfect feather. Shallow grave and transpotting. It's true. And the buzz cut. And then this, I'm like, he looks so fucking annoying. I want to punch him in the face. It's weird.

And when you see it early on, I do feel like you see it from the back to a degree that you're like I gotta pause this and have a conversation with myself about whether this is a wig like I need to have this conversation and I started out confident that it was and then as the movie went on I was like I wonder if they shot the first part last and that was a wig because the rest of the time it feels like it's his hair and somehow that's worse yeah i has his hair ever looked bad in another movie no i think it's kind of hard to mess that guy's hair up i can't think he's got good hair like that's part of his 30-year career right even like fargo where they try to make his hair look bad on purpose it looks better than this yeah well it's still like kind of dorky

chic if memory serves but this is like no this is tough and this is and then i also had to have that conversation with myself like what was that what we were doing then like cameron diaz's hair is very familiar to me i had that sort of pixie cut that's like a little over styled and you tell yourself you've got all this like good stuff going on it It's reminiscent of, I think there's might be a cranberry song in this. No, it's a cardigans, the cardigans, similar, similar. But we're like, you know, there is the, that sort of short pixie kind of edgy, like this was definitely my hair for a period of time. Although I don't think I ever curled it into that sort of weird bouffant that they give her early on. But yeah, so that felt familiar. But his hair was like, I really had to ask myself, like, was that what was going on in like Edinburgh or like where all the cool movie, like music video directors had?

Did they have that hair? It feels like a butchered version of Oasis. Yes. That was my thought the whole time. Which maybe that's the idea of the character, right? Is that he's this sort of, they needed to make him a schmuck, but he still had to be like a cool Danny Boyle schmuck. So he'd have schmucky Oasis hair.

Yeah. All right. I just, one, I want to defend Oasis because their hair was never that bad. I sort of know what you mean because I guess they had these kinds of, you know, 90s mop tops. I guess Liam's hair did get that long.

And mullet, it's mullety also. Yeah, yeah. So I guess that's the closest. But really it more feels like theyullet, it's mullety also. Yeah, yeah. So I guess that's the closest. But really, it more feels like they're like, let's try this. Maybe this'll be, everyone's gonna want this in a year. It's gonna catch on. You know, there were zero people

walking into the barbershop being like, can I have Ewan McGregor in A Life Less Ordinary? Like, that happened zero times. They're trying to create the Rachel for men. Like, you're right. I think it was an aspiration to create a haircut yes there's a lot of layers it was like a mini rachel yeah it's complicated that the sort of a dance uh dream karaoke sequence he like slicks his hair back and in this final

direct address of the camera that's my background right now and you're like well i could watch this movie if he looked like this the entire time this film would be 15 easier to watch immediately 15 generous okay but all right easier to watch i'm not even saying better yeah i'm saying yeah easier to watch the hair is so much of the annoyance for me what about the shirt that i read that i guess is actually gucci but yet it's on him the character of that was the other thing is that i had very early on i was like i know it's a book because they're really shoehorning in this charming adorable scotsman as a janitor in a large american like skyscraper like this was written for someone else this wasn't written for a scottish guy that you're like john hodge wrote it huh so i guess it

probably was written for ewan mccracker yeah it kind of wasn't kind of what it honestly and we can i got this in the dossier they kind he tried out an American accent and they were just sort of like, eh, why don't you just be Scottish and we're just not going to worry about it. That seems to be how it went, which I get. Yeah. That's one of the better things about it. If he had had an American accent, I mean, we've heard him do it. He can do okay. But the Scott, the Scott, like, let me ask you this.

do okay but the scott the scott almost like let me ask you this griff what if he had the right hair that you like but he was american would that negate that 15 for you i think i would i think i would take that trade off okay i would and we've said it is no go he is mcgregor tends to oversell american accents yeah that's my his american accents make my teeth hurt. It would be annoying, especially in this era. At this point in his career, it would be an annoying accent, but I still think I'd take that trade off. The hair hurts my teeth. Well, I mean, to be fair, the hair also hurts my teeth. I can't deny that. I'm pretty sure this is, yes, 1997 is the same year that E mcgregor was also in an iconic episode of er where he plays a guy who holds up a convenience store that nurse hassel hathaway is in and it's

like wow you're in the store the whole hour do you guys not know about this god iconic episode no where he also has this haircut oh don't he also has this haircut and Oh, don't say that to David. He also has this haircut. Don't say that to David. Janet, you should watch it. You'll love it. You'll love it. It's the best. And he also is like doing a Scottish accent, I'm pretty sure, for no reason. So like maybe whatever. He just loved this hair for a year.

Is everyone doing a Scottish accent if he's Scottish? Yeah, he's just talking. But that's what I mean. He's just talking oh he's that's what i mean he's right he's just not uh he's but like it's in chicago but it's just sort of like well you know he's scottish for some reason don't worry about it they get all just like the australians and the kiwis they get all over you're gonna run into scots people everywhere you know as as in this there's no scene of him being like, and that's when I left Scotland for here.

And that's why I did that. And that's why we go back to Scotland. At the end, I wear a kilt and we buy an old Scottish castle. Which, you know, go off. Nice work if you can get it.

Sure. I'm pulling uh photos from this er episode and the hair style is very similar but somehow it doesn't upset me in the same way it doesn't you're right it's better styled even though he only had you know whatever the the the t one one week of tv filming to get it right or i don't know It feels like the exact same cut but whatever product they're putting in it in the Life Less Ordinary set is like Satan's cum. It is like some unholy goo. It also manages to make it

puffy and dry though. I guess that is what Satan's cum would be, puffy and dry. It's both too flat and too fluffy. It's sad that Ewan doesn't have an Oscar nomination nomination it's kind of wild this could have been it yeah well i don't know about that this could have been the one this could have been the one he's only got the one i remember feeling rude at the closest yeah that's probably the closest he came that she just sort of got all the attention on that and and it felt like everyone kind of took him for granted when he's really really good in that

yeah he's good he has a good and he's a great singing voice just like cameron diaz just like cameron diaz it's the same might be might be the cutest part of this movie what is adorably charming to me is that you know there was a conversation where cameron was like can someone else sing for me, please? And he was like, no. You're going to do it, and it's going to be adorable. You're awful. And that's one of the most relatable, charming things about you because, you know, you're

very beautiful, and it's a very unlikable character. So let's, you know what? Be yourself. It's also funny because they dub her in The Mask, and that's her introduction as a movie star. She sings in The Mask. It's one of the most iconic movie instant movie star moments and she's dubbed there yeah does she does she sing in my best friend's wedding and sing badly uh yes there's a lot of singing yeah right there's the wedding karaoke isn't that also is that 97 i think that's 97 that's the same year she's duo bad singing at events in movies and janet it is the exact thing that you just said

except it works in that movie they talk about it where the whole bit is she signs her up for karaoke to embarrass her she does the song she's horrible that's it that's the scene and then the bit is dirt mulrooney is more charmed by the fact that she's. That's right. Right. It like it works in that movie. I think it works in this movie. Kind of. They don't make as much of a beat out of it. It works for me because it is it's it's there's very little to hold on to with her. And whether it's incidental that she's a bad singer or not, like I grab for it. Do you know what I mean? I grab for him. I'm like, oh, oh, look at that.

How lovable. How non-psychotic. This character's a little bit of a disaster. She does also, I want to acknowledge, sing in The Sweetest Thing, where she does the penis song. Of course there's the penis song in The Sweetest Thing, but, which is well done,

and kind of the highlight of the movie. Janet's looking off to the middle distance, trying to recall. I really am. I'm stroking my... The sweetest thing, is that the one with... No, that's not it.

You're going to get it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, he gave it away. Yeah, where they do the thing, the thing. This was a very famous thing. Like, oh, look at my arms, look at my arms.

Yeah, that was another... You know what? I'll say this. Not unlike Trainspotting, that was a movie that was just sketches stitched together that sort of you're like,

well, you found a bunch of funny moments kind of and you know you slapped them together and put a loose plot around it obviously it didn't have the benefit of having been written as a book by you know welch but um there's there's a parallel to be drawn there there's there's but i don't remember the penis song i don't know how i don't remember it but the penis song is is definitely the moment to remember, so you should check out the sweetest thing again from the director of Cruel Intentions. But no, my final Cameron singing question, sorry. Does she sing in Annie?

Surely. Or does Miss Hannigan not sing in Annie? Miss Hannigan sings in Annie. Excuse me. Yeah, exactly. So what the hell? I have not seen the modern remake of Annie. I don't know.

Does she sing? Okay. No one's good luck filling Carol Burnett's. Yeah, you can't don't even, they should have just, they should have retired that role. If they're going to make a movie,

I understand that it's a successful musical and goes on everywhere, all over the world. However, it would be funny to remake Annie and just not have Miss Hannigan. That, that would be a pretty big hole in the movie she's so carol burnett should have won an oscar for that did she no she didn't win an oscar for that she should movie was that movie was a bounce in its era but it's an amazing movie in my opinion uh cameron diaz is credited on the soundtrack that having been said i know that movie is uh very auto-tuned i remember that

i remember them posting a number that's very auto-tuney yes yeah right basically everyone but jamie foxx sounds like t-pain in that movie cool we all know exactly what we all know what that means and we all heard it yep yep absolutely t. T-Pain actually plays FDR in that movie. He does. I don't know. I know FDR is not in it. I know it's set in modern times, but still. It'd be funny if he just showed up and he was like,

I'm Franklin Roosevelt. What do you want from me? This is a good segue, though. I have a quick question for you guys. Because you say you know when Annie takes place. When is heaven in this movie? Like, what era is heaven? And what era do our angels, played by Alejandro Ado or Adelaide Lindo, where are they from?

Because I don't feel like where they come from. Like, do they return to Earth in the form that they best remember because they lived in the 40s, but Heaven is like the 60s? You're asking more questions than some people who worked on this movie asked Janet Varney. That's all I want to say. They were living. They were human at one point.

I believe so. That's sort of the idea, right? Double Lindo says that. Yeah. Yeah, right. And you know how Heaven has that hierarchy and has police precincts and thieves and sex workers that get a bad rap. Gabriel's got the corner office. We all agree.

That's what heaven's like, for sure. who in the Bible carries a flaming sword and announces God's will to men, then made this lateral move over to guy who's in charge of people falling in love. Like, that was his second act in the celestial world. He was like, you know what, I'm sick of being the damn boss who's yelling at everyone. Yeah, yeah, fuck off, Cupid. It's so bizarre.

I texted David, like, this movie is insane. And he went off cupid uh it's so bizarre i i texted david like this movie is insane and he went to the degree it's one of those things where for the first five minutes i thought i had put on the wrong the wrong movie yeah 100 because the last thing you expect is for this movie to open in heaven no i throw this movie on and i think i just was not paying i assume ewan and cameron's credits appear over a black screen or something or i missed them or whatever because the second i started watching i just saw this footage of heaven which is a white yeah you know 60s office building police precinct whatever everything is white and the credits are rolling like holly hunter delroy lindo ian holm and i'm like is this just like another movie did like itunes break like they

just start a different movie because that sounds like a cast from a movie like that sounds like it sounds like a cast from a movie you know what i mean it's just like it's like who's in that holly hunter ian holm delroy lindo i'm just like yeah okay that's how yeah you don't those could be the stars that's fine like in the canon of movies in which heaven is represented in some way as bureaucratic while everyone is wearing white have you talked about any of those yet i can't remember like have you talked about defending your life you know or like stay is is is there's like a is heaven can wait i can't remember which ones involve Heaven Can Wait. Defending Your Life, everybody wears white, beautiful robes.

Down to Earth. The Heaven Can Wait remake sort of turns it more into a nightclub, is my memory. Hot, great. More Beetlejuice, great. Got it. But it's Chaz Palmintero and Eugene Levy. It's a little similar to this vibe it is it is funny how it is always like you know what sort of 40 something 50 something nervy character actor because that's funny right oh chas palmin

terry is god even more oh it's so running this place jill it's exhausting have a night easy yeah for the easy so you know dan Hedaya is the Archangel Gabriel. I, you know, looking at files going like, divorce, divorce. You know, like I was into that. I was briefly intrigued. Have I ever said this on mic that I realized during the pandemic that Dan Hedaya lives like in my neighborhood, like a block away from me. And there's like a local place I go to and I was eating outside and he like walked up to get takeout.

I saw him walk out of his building, grab takeout, walk back to his building. And it was like early-ish lockdown, like summer 2020. And I immediately knew it was Dan Hedaya fully masked because of the eyebrows. Yeah. And the full fur collar of hair sticking around his t-shirt. Yep. Yeah. It was just no question that's who it was.

It's funny that you recognize him so quickly because he disappears into roles. He disappears. I don't know what you're saying, David. He is unrecognizable. How many times do you watch a movie and suddenly you realize halfway through, I've been watching Dan Hedaya. Man of a thousand voices. I didn't even realize it.

What a chameleon. And yet somehow, Griff, you were able to see him in a mask. You're like, no, that's savant stuff right there. You should not have been able to recognize him because he's unrecognizable most of the time. Who even knows what the real Dan Hedaya looks looks like off screen he's always in such deep disguise uh this is this is one year after clueless right or two two years after clueless but this is yeah wouldn't you say this is prime in fact you know what griffin hidea is not just in this movie he's in another movie

that came out in 1997 that Danny Boyle was supposed to make And dropped out to make this Alien Resurrection Did you know that Janet? I did not know that I did not know that It makes so much sense That they wanted Danny Boyle to do Alien Resurrection

It makes the most sense in the world That yeah when they were like We're queuing up alien four and they're like who should we hire the guy who made train spotting there you go like that's exactly you know like uh you know he's he's just they always would hire because it was fincher and then before that james cameron you know they'd hire like the guy who's about to happen yeah who's like very visual and uh like who whatever had just made something exciting like i guess is the easiest way to put it i'd love to have heard the hipster soundtrack if if resurrection hit that daddy boy out like that is a good point

yeah you're yeah you're lucky if sneaker pimps are like part of the tearing rendering tearing of flesh like yeah yeah i mean griff obviously he was going to make alien resurrection right like he was going to direct that script it's the same movie yes so i would i like to see that his take on that movie like Like, kind of. But, like, I mean, I do feel like he probably was right to sort of smell disaster there, right? It's just funny that he then jumped to this. But I think it would have been a better movie. Yes.

I got a soft spot for that movie. I got a soft spot for that movie. Me too. Yeah, and I got a soft spot for The Beach, as long as we're talking about movies that followed or right around the same era and the people we're talking about. Well, let me say this. I have a soft spot for the first three quarters of The Beach and then zero tolerance for the rest of it. Like as soon as he starts to go crazy, quote unquote, go crazy.

I'm like, I'm good. Which is really just one part of the movie. And I don't I'm not saying that movie is good, but it's so watchable to me. It's so watchable. You know, that's a movie where I've never really understood why people call it like shit on it as much as they do the beach. David's a big defender. I have yet to see it. I'm excited to watch it for this podcast. I think you're going to like it. I don't you think big defender. I have yet to see it. I'm excited to watch it for this podcast. I think you're going to like it. Don't you think, David,

that he's going to like it? I think you're going to like it. I think you will like it. It's a flawed movie, but it's interesting. And it's honestly the same for Alien Resurrection, which we watched

during the pandemic on this podcast. And I said to Griffin before it started, and you'd seen it before, Griffin. And I hated it when I saw it. Huge Alien fan. I had only seen it once maybe and i hated it i said to you even though this movie is like an early cgi you know gore fest it has so many sets and enough puppets i think you're

gonna just like kind of like it and that was exactly your reaction yes yes i like it i like it and i like i like the i like that that they like, you know what? We're going to try to make this monster. Like, we're actually going to try to make you feel about this monster the way that Sigourney Weaver feels about it. And I felt it. I felt it. That was my big thing. I was like, I love you. I love you, you little slimy baby.

I like the newborn alien. Yeah. I like the newborn, too. But anyway, yes. No, but Janet, that's a good segue or whatever. You know, you love Danny Boyle. You apparently adore most of his movies. So what's your relationship to Boyle?

Like what's, when are you first watching a Boyle? Well, I mean, the thing, I mean, I definitely was, like Trainspotting was very, was a very well time for me because I was like I had, you know, some friends who were super into kind of Brit pop, like Brit DJs and Brit pop. And the sort of like beginning of that kind of ravey stuff that was that started to happen in the late 90s and early 2000s. And friends who were into heroin, hopefully not not friends who were. There might have been there might have been a friend or two who was into heroin but uh and so i i think it i found it at a time and i don't think i saw i mean i didn't see in the theater i was too young but i mean i could have seen it but i i i feel like i wasn't that cool but like it definitely

kind of crusted in with the wave of me you know going to see like Jod Digweed and stuff and living in San Francisco and being like I totally get this like I really get this and and so I thought it was very cool and great in the way that when you're younger you think movies where you're like oh you can make movies like this kind of works. But but through his career, I've I've always loved his sort of like, I mean, it's kind of Soderbergh in the like, I don't know, maybe I'll do this kind of movie now. Like, let's try this. Like, no, no, my work might not. I enjoy the sort of like casualness of that, that they're like, I buy into it. I'm like, hey, you know what? Maybe it's not a big deal if this doesn't succeed because he was trying something or whatever. But I think throughout the movies, even as disparate as they can be from one another, I feel like he finds heart and sensitivity amid chaos in a way that I really like. And I think this movie does not have very much of that at all, if any. And that bums me out.

That bums me out. The biggest problem with this movie is that the characters are annoying. And in doing our episodes on Trainspotting and Shallow Grave and reading all the things he said about both of those movies at the time, he talked about how little he cared about the idea of characters being likable.

Yeah. And that he didn't feel the need to conform them to classic sort of like Hollywood, mainstream film archetypes and arcs and all that and he was right and he's right in those two movies he is so right yes they're characters who are pretty despicable who do awful things on screen and they are engaging yeah you are compelled by them you want to watch them endlessly and this movie starts and the second we get to mcgreg and Diaz, because the Hedaya, Lindo, Hunter opening is so bizarre. And all three actors are like in the pocket enough. You're like, I don't know where this is going, but OK. And then the introductions to both McGregor and Diaz, you're like they are off putting.

Something has been miscalibrated here. Yeah, I am already annoyed by these characters. I don't want to spend time with them. It's flat. Like, just so, like, how can you be so, how can you be, like, shooting an apple off of Stanley Tucci's head and then shooting Stanley Tucci, as we come to understand, and still feel, like, just sort of empty and, like, and the same with Ewan. It's like, yeah, it just doesn't, there's nothing about it that, there's nothing to hold on to, even though you're supposedly seeing all this stuff. And I also a thing that came up for me to watching the beginning where you sort of just have this like then this happens and this happens and this happens. Then his girlfriend's leaving him for an aerobics instructor and all of that kind of stuff. I felt like there was this sort of like desire to have the whimsy of like Savage Steve Holland, you know, like a little better off dead kind of like, whoa, this is just crazy. What's going on? But once again, those characters in his films, you're like, I love you, buddy. You're such a wasteoid, but I love you.

Like you're on their side. Somehow you love them. And it just there's you're really having to fight against, like, I got nothing. You're not giving me anything. Even Ewan McGregor, who's supposed to be a lovable loser, he makes the choice to pull a gun on people

so fast that you're like, ugh, you know? I do know. Yes, these guys are pretty bad. They're kind of bad people, which is fine or can be fine. Griffin, what is the movie that this movie is aping? Obviously, this movie is incredibly indebted

to the Coen brothers, and Danny Boyle is first to admit that, but that's more kind of like aesthetically and the sort of, you know, oh, criminals who don't have a plan thing but like what is the 90s disaffected gen xe 20 something i guess it's just that mindset is it looking further back is it looking at like after hours or like something wild or some kind of like something wild is a good one what about true romance i guess that's yeah you know i mean

obviously those are more unsympathetic characters. They're more lovable with that movie's even further dialed up. But something like that where it's like, you know, you're so along for the ride, you're not even going to worry about how crazy these guys are. Right. Like, what's that? This thing is so much goofier, too. Like, he's doing sillier stuff consciously.

And then you add in the like the supernatural, magical elements of the movie. It is kind of unique. I don't know. I mean, watching this, I kept on like the thing that is hard to process is that this is his third movie. And Janet, as you're saying, like a thing that's cool about Boyle's career, arguably starting on the next movie, is that he begins to become a bit of a like genre hermit crab and he wants to try and make one of everything and this is like the third and final time it feels like Danny Boyle is a genre the like Boyle Hodge McDonald thing is like yeah all of our movies are like this right yeah and this is the one where they hit the end of the

road and they're like okay time to reinvent time to like griffin griffin i hate to tell you that is not true because the beach is very much part four of the vibe okay then it's i'm wrong it's it 20 days later is the let's go back to basic true shape everything out of the car like you know that kind of thing you definitely yeah yeah i agree with you david i mean there's that but but the beach still has like because it's, you know, like having Robert Carlyle sort of be he's like the mascot of like the old school. That trio in the beach is sort of he's like pulling that along for you in a lot of ways. But there's also like a lot of just very sort of slick music video like feel to that movie that but that isn't as choppy, you know. like feel to that movie that but that isn't as choppy you know the beaches boil hodge and mcdonald and the decision they make fair or not is to cut ewan out and take leo because obviously leo is where he is at that point and that's the decision that makes like boiling you and hate each

other for years or whatever and it's like interesting to think about that movie with ewan but if that movie had ewan then it would really kind of feel like man do you guys not have anything new in the tank you know it would be kind of like okay ewan mcgregor is like going crazy on drugs again like you know how many times we get till the swinton we get till the swinton oh no there's get till the swinton then you're like wait a minute like there's something happening here that's very like she's the head of an island film. I'm excited to listen

to your episode about that. I'm excited to do it. The thing that just surprises me is this movie feels like, when you're talking about trying to distill what is the sensibility of this thing,

what is it aiming to be, I just think this film feels of a piece with like a handful of 90s movies that were breakout music video directors and or commercial directors where people would go like this guy's shit is so fucking kinetic and exciting imagine if you let them do a whole movie like this yes and then you watch it

the movie feels like a collection of music videos yes or commercials where like every scene has 87 ideas narratively comedically visually musically and it's only imagine how annoying it was on set where the guy's like all right everyone stand still i have to do this next setup like you know you know everything has to be like a special shot and then you watch this and you're like he has told a story successfully two times before this he's done it this feels like someone who has no substance in the tank when this is a guy who came out of theater there's yeah there's a little bit of like a like a it's not it's not like little kid uh logic where it's like and then um and then a dragon um comes out and but the dragon's wearing pants. Like, it's not that, you know,

it's not that disjointed, but it is kind of like the teenage version of that. It is kind of the teenage version of that. And then I've always loved so-and-so. Like, let's throw some of that in. Like, you know, it's going to be so much fun. It'll make sense. Don't worry about it.

It does feel like a movie I would have written as a teenager. It certainly feels like a movie. If I saw it, I was 11 when it came out, so I was too young to about it. It does feel like a movie I would have written as a teenager. It certainly feels like a movie. If I saw it, I was 11 when it came out, so I was too young to see it. But if I saw it at the age of 12 or 13, I might have been like, no, man, that movie is really interesting. Like, you know, heaven is an office. You know, like I would be. Right.

And then at the same time, if I was to say i'm a disaffected 25 year old gen xer when it comes out and i see it i would have been like i i'm i'm out i i can't watch this is like you know this is this is it my whole culture is is ruined like and now it just kind of feels like this sort of cute little artifact it's you know kind of a failure there's a little bit of stuff in it but i really it to me it just the problem with the dossier griff and we're gonna read is that i think danny boyle is very quick to criticize himself so i'm not sure if there's more blame to pass around because he's mostly putting the blame on himself for what doesn't work about this movie but uh it just

kind of feels like no one was like hey buddy this doesn't make sense like hey hey yeah hey can we can we not you know like we got to talk about this more it feels like they were kind of being given a little bit of rope and you know whatever it was just it doesn't hang together at all i'm interested just to hear you talk more about what he said about it because i stumbled on his sort of defense of it which was like very much a defense that seemed to be taken out of the context of him like apologizing for it, apologizing for it, apologizing for it. And then the quote I read kind of like, but if it does have a redeeming quality, it's which he, you know, which he was like, it isn't. But isn't this kind of the way falling in love feels, though, kind of like in a way, guys, who's with me? Doesn't this kind of have that energy?

It has never felt that way to me. And I think if falling in love felt like this, I would be happy being single forever. Correct. That is the correct answer. I don't think it captures anything there, but I do agree with you, David. This is the kind of film where if I had seen it

when I was 12, I would have defended it on the grounds of it being different. It's different. It's got stuff going on it's doing a little griff it's a little less ordinary it's this movie is so much less ordinary nope um no no okay all right so uh obviously it's a very the other thing toow Grave comes out in theaters in the UK in 1995. Trainspotting came out in 1996. This movie comes out in 1997. So this guy is working all the time. Wasting no time.

And it's a real rocket fuel career thing. And that's why it feels even crazier that once Trainspotting is out, Hollywood is like, Alien 4, sign on the dotted line. You're doing this, right? We have a Joss Whedon script. As Boyle said, he met Sigourney Weaver, you know, and she's like, all right. You know, so everything is happening.

And the way he puts it is like. Excuse me. That's not what he said. He said he met Sigourney Weaver, which was absolutely a buzz such a good danny boyle quote really you're right what a buzz i'm sure he said to her and she was what a buzz but uh yes the way he puts it it is he realized the franchise was transitioning between old school physical stuff and effects and stuff to CG. And in retrospect, he's like, maybe I could have been the guy who's like, let's not do CG. Let's try and keep this as practical as possible.

But certainly he couldn't throw his weight around back then. But certainly he couldn't throw his weight around back then. And also, I think back then he didn't know how to really direct either CG or complicated puppetry visual effects stuff. So he's kind of like, what am I doing here? But it is funny that all of his quotes about why he left the movie just broke down to the technical stuff. He was like, I don't do effects. And I don't know how to do the puppets. And I don't know how to do the CGI.

And they want the CGI. I probably would want the puppets. I wouldn't know how to do the cgi and they want the cgi i probably would want the puppets i wouldn't know how to do that either there's nothing he like talks about on any story level he's basically like i pulled myself out because i didn't think i was experienced enough in that area which you know june obviously had been working with really interesting practical effects from the start it's like june does make more sense on that level it's just that everyone who made alien resurrection is like that guy didn't speak english so i didn't know what he was telling me so that's the problem i'm great with it i'm glad i'm glad that's what was happening because somehow i enjoy the results i i don't hate that movie i do not hate that movie but i don't either

and it definitely does feel like a movie where movie where the people who made it were not able to speak to each other. That is the best way to explain. I'm great with it. You should feel as weirdly alienated, pun intended, as just the stark insanity of that movie demanded. Successful in that regard yeah but this i'm like with john hodge and and i this is a sincere question like do you think it like it made sense to him the idea of like gabriel and heaven and you know what i mean because there's i don't i i'm like wondering if the original screenplay had more or something if there was some if or really was just like, I don't know, like I had a weird dream that heaven, you know, I had just watched Stairway to Heaven or whatever and like I had a dream that this and then, but it was this and that.

Well, they definitely like that movie. Yeah. Stairway to Heaven is influenced there. There's no doubt, which makes sense, obviously. Also known as a matter of life and death. But the weirdest thing is that that stuff Was not originally in the script at all What?

Which is when you learn that That's the framing device they felt would save this It just feels like a weird thing To sprinkle in But it basically seems like that's what they did I didn't say anything Wait so Holly Hunter and Delroyroy linda weren't there like they were like weirdly showing takes out his typewriter page one where does this film come

from so here's the thing okay so while danny boyle is weighing should i do alien for john hodge is like here i've written a new script it's called a life less ordinary danny reads it and it's like well this is more my cup of tea this is more these you know this is andrew and john who i've worked with so i'm more comfortable with that and he just hops right over to that and uh that's fine right john hodge had been working on this script apparently since he started writing um and so he sort of picks it back up after train spotting he was noodling with pre-train spotting and then he comes back around to yeah yes um initially the script was set in scotland right much like his other scripts okay like what i'm

hearing it was more straightforward the way boyle puts it it was uh more graphically violent and the holly hunter and Delroy Lindo characters were not angels, but human bounty hunters or detectives. And I'm going to complete this Boyle quote here. Moving the location to America, toning down the violence and introducing the angels made it into a completely different film. We made changes to it that were in retrospect a mistake. Because otherwise people might be saying it was a scottish fargo like people might be saying that today they might be like it was a scottish true romance or a scottish exact it was it was a coen brothers movie it was you know that it was like him writing like uh a scottish set

inept criminal romance thing you know like it was very it sounds like it was kind of riffing on he is you know raising arizona and all that stuff you know he's right very it sounds like it was kind of riffing on he is you know raising arizona and all that stuff you know he's right that that did make it into an entirely different film yes yeah i would have liked to have seen that movie because we're so you know what i mean like we don't mind if if somebody from a different country sort of interprets their you know spits back out their fandom of something and like it succeeds. We like that. We're not going to say it's too derivative. We're going to say, you know, it's a fresh take on a certain vibe. I would like to see that movie. It's funny. My like mind's eye perception of this

movie, not having seen it, but probably, you know, half remembering trailers and TV ads from when it came out. I always got this confused with Excess Baggage, which is the same year and feel incredibly similar to me, where it's like sort of popping stars on the cusp. I feel like I can't even think of it. It's also a kidnapping movie, right? It's Benicio Del Toro and Alicia Silverstone. Benicio is the dirtbag. Alicia is the brat bratty rich teenager

okay right and i think that one is she pretends to kidnap herself and then he actually kidnaps her for real okay something like that yes yes exactly everybody was super into kidnapping yes 1997 kidnapping got to get a couple sexy stars tangled up in a kidnap yeah and they're both like them with cars and hip soundtracks and shit um and i absolutely was certain that delroy lindo and holly hunter were just bounty hunters in this movie right but um no instead they took a script that existed and i guess i don't that myle does not explain who came up with this. But clearly someone was like, what if they're angels sent on a mission from God?

I guess, right? Like, you know, like, because I don't know how else you would describe it. Like you have to point at those characters. The stakes are their boss, Gabriel, is so angry about the amount of divorces that they need to make these two random people fall in love or else they are cursed to be mortal and sent back to Earth. But don't worry.

There's a literal deus ex machina at the end. Like maybe that's where it started. Oh, what if that's what happened where they're like, we don't love the ending to this. We really need like a deus ex machina. And they're like, wait, what if we just did literally that and God made it so that a bullet could go through? You would like, how was it supposed to end otherwise? In this case, there's a hole of light. There's a hole of light.

Constructed. And Danny Bowles is like, but if God god is involved maybe then the ending feels less ridiculous right maybe that's it right maybe they're just like well we can't really square this third act unless literal celestial bodies are making it happen but the other thing of course is they decide to move the action from america scotland to america uh danny boyle says that's the home of road movies we probably should have stuck with Scotland and France. Apparently there was some stuff in France, but we'd done two films set in Scotland.

We wanted to branch out. And apparently the original script had lots of severed heads and crazy violence. Seven heads in a duffel bag. Maybe. And then they found out there were eight coming soon. Embarrassing. The way, the way boyle puts it uh i am very proud of ewan and cameron's work in a lifeless ordinary but it's

bedeviled by the coen brothers the shadow they cast is so colossal they mix violence and comedy in a way that's really unpalatable but they engineer it so it's effective and i think boyle is basically just like i couldn't pull it off I tried and failed he's not he never this tone does not leave him obviously he makes very comic and zippy movies but it does kind of feel like he's like yeah I took

the swing at their thing and I realized that's their thing and I can't do it I don't know right I don't know if I can commend Cameron Diaz for performance I'm not sure i can get there but can't either i we're gonna have we're gonna have a cameron diaz conversation we're gonna have a whole cameron talk there's a big cameron sidebar coming up but but i don't i also don't think that like that's the problem agree with this movie is no well i tried for the coen brothers and i didn't

get the tone right and it's like you were adding eight other tones to the mix yes and you were over complicating the script to the high heavens including to the high heavens like including literally literally the highest of heavens uh this is uh this is from okay here's another thing apparently danny boyle had basically never been to america he his only concept of the US was from movies so he went on a 10 day solitary drive across the country stopping in small towns to chat with locals he would hang out I want to see this movie

I kind of would like to see it, baby Danny Boyle just popping into local stores being like, hello you were all Americans then apparently You were all Americans then Apparently They would hang out At Salt Lake City pub Called Spanky's

While they were shooting this movie Because they shot this movie in Utah And Danny and Ewan would shoot pool You know around Just with the locals and all that. They had a lot of fun. Basically, they went on a nice vacation to Utah.

Kind of the thing. And then, of course, the other influences you might spot in this movie, Danny Boyle's two big other influences, Stairway to Heaven, aka A Matter of Life and Death, is one, and It Happened One Night is the other another famous road trip movie obviously you know with bang bang quick fire dialogue that's where the

some of the mad cap comes from like yeah sure all that stuff um but you know i never know what to make of it when someone when i talk to a filmmaker and they're like yeah i was thinking of you know two of the most totemic movies ever made you know if you say matter of life and death and and it happened one night i'm like okay yeah sure we'd all love to make those yeah great okay like you know like what happens if you know it's the same thing like you know i'm going for a blade runner vibe with this okay good look at you let me know how that works out for you you know it just i just i get i get you know you want to acknowledge your influences or whatever but it's it's tough to

compare yourself to these things especially if it's the same one movie that everyone tries and fails to make like it happens one night remains it retains its status because it is so deceptively hard to pull off. Right. Yes. But didn't I also read that Stairway to Heaven was directed by McDonald's grandfather? So there's an actual familial connection from that movie to this movie. Yes. Andrew McDonald is the grandson of America Pressburger.

Uh, Danny Boyle says he never brings that up. So we do it for him, which is funny. Um, and, uh, you know,

one, one last lovely quote from Andrew McDonald is one lesson I learned from my grandfather and Michael, Michael Powell's work is that they had this core group of people they worked with over and over. Uh, and he's saying this in the context of like you know ewan and danny can be like deniro and scorsese or mestriani and felini so sad and it's like it is sad because they do lose that connection obviously they eventually made t2 together but like it is it's sad to think of the alternate universe where they just keep making

movies together because god bless ewan mcgregor he's had a great career but he made a lot of shit you know in the in the 2000s as well like it might have been good to have danny boyle to go to every three years right do something new i don't know it definitely it makes sense or it makes more sense now why ewan took getting bounced from the beach so hard yeah because it was not like oh this is one movie where they went with the bigger stars like i thought we were in this together right for the we were all doing this together right you know they were young they're making these movies so quickly like i said like it's hard um anyway so a life less ordinary is uh opens in heaven uh and the the doesn't close in heaven don't worry it closes in claymation uh that's true and not five seconds of it a good couple minutes um in heaven angels are in charge of making sure

that mortals find love now look i look, I know that Cupid... I hear a symphony by Diana Ross in the Supremes plays. Good song. As we go through... Right. As we said, angel precinct, basically. No title card, by the way. It's just white.

And so we're able to kind of surmise it's heaven. Yeah. Right. Yeah, but you're saying it's not like heaven comma 1995 you know angels i don't think of angels as being in charge of people falling in love are they no that's not a thing that once again we have a figure his name is cupid yeah there is a mythology he's a little fat greek baby that's who cupid is right and he he's there but like angels are supposed to like protect you maybe right it's

kind of like uh you know you're wobbling on a bridge it's the guardian angel even if in this reality we're accepting that angels get people together like this is happening in a police precinct like there's nothing about what they are tasked with doing that fits or makes any kind of sense in any kind of context with what we see as we're tracking them coming through what we see looks like a police department where everything's white there truly is like a scantily clad lovely young woman with like pearls and lace that's white you know and you're like to understand you're meant to understand like okay she's maybe in the sex work trade um so something going on there like you know there's people i feel like there's people being booked for stuff so it's not like there's

not that that doesn't then allow you to go. Oh, I get it. Angels are responsible for people falling in love. Like that doesn't help us. Absolutely. They have nothing to do with one another. It doesn't make any goddamn sense. They don't help. Dan Hedaya yelling is not going to be enough to get me over the line on this concept.

No. But also Gabriel is like the don't shoot the messenger angel. Right. Like he's sort of the go-between between God and humans. But in this, no, he's like the middle manager between God and other angels. Are we in the romance wing of heaven? Is every office here dealing with some different petty bureaucratic? This is starting to make sense.

I like where you're going with this. You know what I'm saying? Is this just the love division or is this every room would be a different thing to take care of? Again, you're asking more questions than I think people asked while making this movie.

I just think there's more in this movie, there's more just thinking like, what do you mean? They're magic. What do you want from me? They're magic. I mean, look, Griff, Michael, the Nora Eph effron film that's around the same time as this and uh that kind of has the same idea right he's kind of he needs to make people fall in love

right uh yeah there's a quote here where he said uh they were concerned that michael and uh the preacher's wife were coming out so close together a lot of angel movies 90s wave of angel movies right and then he was like our movie has sex and guns so i think we'll be fine you're fine you're fine yes i mean that that definitely is not the thing they had to worry about. That's for sure. At the time of filming, both Michael and Preacher's wife were causes for concern, but our film is less pleasant than either of those. Plus, we have gun sex and swearing. It's a McDonald quote. He is right that this film is less pleasant than those.

Yeah, sure. Do you think Touched by an Angel also was... Because that was a big thing, right? People were kind of obsessed with that. It was down to Roma Downey and People were kind of obsessed with that. It was also... It was down to Roma Downey and Dan Hedaya for that part. They were testing against each other. They should have been...

No, the worry with Michael was... Are people going to think back and conflate that and Phenomenon and think that the angel Michael learned Portuguese in like a day? Because that's what happened to me. We covered Michael on the show, and anytime I bring it up to people, they go, oh, the one where John Travolta becomes smart and dies of being too smart.

Yeah, yeah. Too dang smart. And his brain gets too big. A couple of adorable magic guys all in one, John Travolta, yeah. Okay, so I would not even, I mean, I really wouldn't have even worried about that like that that's the least of your worries the least of your worries is that you're afraid that this

movie is going to be compared to those other two angel movies yes don't even worry about it don't even worry about it but then i want just like i'm i'm actually pulling up my apple tv window to scrub through this movie to make sure i remember the order in which things are established we go from heaven to cameron Diaz in the pool. Yes. Wanting to do her William Tell practice. Right. The whole the whole idea is that he's like, you've got to get some people to fall in love or else you're in trouble.

And then he opens a file and he's clearly kind of like, oh, boy, only the worst possible file I could be giving you. the worst possible file I could be giving you. Because from up top, somebody did say at some point, like, how much free will, how much control is there? Like, there is somebody above him who's like, That's why it doesn't make any sense. How much magic are they allowed to use? Are they causing the kidnapping?

What control do Delroy and Lendro, what are they in charge of? Thank you. What have they manifested here? That is my number one biggest question, is like, this trajectory is set and all they're doing is nudging a little bit because the construction of, oh, she accidentally shoots a guy,

her father is yelling at her. He's angry because he's being replaced by a robot. So he storms into the office at the same time. Like if you told me, well, this is so manufactured. Angels, of course, forced this into happening. This non-meat cute. I would believe it. But it almost feels like they're like, okay, good start.

Thank God that happened of its own will all gonna for sure happen yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah how do we nudge it along we're going to be we're gonna evict this is where it needs where these guys need help right gotta get him evicted from his apartment that is a must for this romance to work out and it may not happen if we don't come in and evict him and take all of his stuff so that he then goes crazy was always gonna bring these two together but they were going to hate each other so now they have to make them like each other while they're together i am i am more pro like i like the michael thing of like andy mcdowell william hurt both just kind of like cynics right they don't believe in

love anymore right and so if this movie is starting with you and being like no i don't believe any of that crap like you know i i'm never gonna fall in love and i'm like okay i understand the challenge here instead it's like ewan mcgregor is quite romantic he's writing fucking novels or whatever yes um but he's just i I guess, an impulsive fool. And then Cameron Diaz is a spoiled psychopath. Like, is that supposed to be the challenge? That they're just kind of awful? Like, they're two awful people?

Let's set up very quickly, okay? So Stanley Tucci is one of her many suitors who is a dentist who gave her her great smile. I think he's an orthodontist, but I could be wrong. They call him a dentist several times. Out of respect to the industry. They call him a dentist, but they, Janet, you are correct that they say that he won't be doing orthodonty anymore. So maybe that's just like they just consider that a specialty.

I don't know. It's the only thing in the script that doesn't make sense. That's very rude. They're not the same at all, I bet. It's the one thing that doesn't track consistently. It's the one thing that doesn't track. Yeah, everything else in this movie hangs together perfectly. The Stanley Tucci thing is a disaster and that's why it flopped to the box office. It just

wasn't clear what kind of dentistry he practiced. Cameron Diaz is practicing apple shooting off her butler's head. After a swim, as we all do. You know your routine. Also, techno music is playing. We're essentially starting now in a jam sketch, the British sketch show by Chris Morris.

It's like so specifically that kind of era music. Absolutely. Danny Boyle, baby. That's what you signed up for. Absolutely. Danny Boyle, baby. That's what you signed up for. You put Danny Boyle, the helm of this baby. You're going to get that techno music in right away. The soundtrack is getting three volumes at the least. Yes.

But then, so, yeah. Tucci shows up. Her butler is like, how many times? Oh, sorry. Who plays the butler? The great Ian McNeese. I just want to shout him out. I love that guy.

Still with us. And yes. the butler the great ian mcneese i just want to shout him out i love that guy still with us um and yes and stanley tucci is playing a whatever cuck dentist how many times do i have to propose to you she's really rich obviously is absurdly rich and and like and yet ian home is kind of like god you know how hard it is to find you a good husband i'm like this is like a random dentist you couldn't there's surely other suitors for the hands of a stunningly beautiful blonde millionaire like would that really be tough staley tucci is basically like openly like i want you as a status symbol yeah she's like i have this house i don't need you i don't need anything yeah i got a butler to shoot this was another moment and again this happened so quickly after like so for the for

the heaven part i was like oh okay this was a book this was a book and then when that sort of disproved itself then during that little piece that comes right after, I was like, oh, this is like a Jane Eyre, like a Shakespeare. It's a modern retelling. That's what this is. It's a modern retelling of an old classic. And then you're like, no, no, no, no. That's also not the case at all. So don't try to be linear and don't try to find a map. Don't try to map this on anything ever. But that's not an achievement. It's not an

achievement. The first five scenes of this movie arguably each set up a different movie. And feel like a different movie made by a different person. Almost. I like where you're going with this because I'm immediately feeling like Ewan McGregor is setting up a Jim Carrey movie in which like his girlfriend who looks like a love child of Sandra Bullock and Barry Lewis Parker leaves him for an aerobics instructor. And like, what is he going to do with his life? That's that movie, right? Maybe like a Jim Carrey movie. But also, yeah.

And maybe like a nice girl like Cameron Diaz will walk into his life and there will be some kind of enchanted mask that they have to deal with. I don't like that kind of magic. I need grounded like a life less ordinary i do not want realist a kitchen sink drama like a life less ordinary but cameron diaz basically says to tucci if you want to hold my attention you'll put the apple on your head let me shoot off of you he flinches at the last second which throws off her aim and thus she shoots him in the head in the head in the noggin yeah in the noggin it is his fault again it is his fault we're told that it hit his frontal lobe which is good apparently thank god they sort of say it with the energy of like a flesh wound and i'm like isn't the frontal lobe in your brain? It might make him a better mate for her though.

Cause I think that's where some psychopathy can come from. After the fact, if you get a frontal lobe injury, he's going to care as little about human life as she does. So that might've been a match made in heaven. His problem is definitely that he cares too much. But then we cut to Ewan McGregor. Ewan McGregor is in a basement janitor closet with two other janitors, and he is talking to them about the secret child of Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy, who then discovers Nazi gold hidden in a secret spot only she has the map to and with the way the film is cutting i was like cameron diaz's

character is that explains why she has this mansion see so the setup of this movie is that she is the daughter of john f kennedy and marilyn monroe who uncovered some conspiracy and now lives off of nazi gold yes that is what he wants that's's, I think, an adorable bait and switch that they thought they were doing that everyone was going to be like, what a moment. When you realize that that's just an idea that Ewan McGregor's character had. His bad novel idea that he won't stop pitching, which everyone is confused by. And then like knock, knock, knock at the door. You're fired. We're replacing you all with robots.

With cleaning robots, which are adorable, I want to say. Those robots are cute. This is a movie about post-industrial replacing of blue collar jobs. It's all there. It's in the subtext. But if you watch the movie again, you'll see that that exists throughout. And that is what this movie is about. He is ahead of the curve on this one thing.

Like, for him to be expressing this concern in 1997 as a filmmaker, our job's going to be replaced by robots, feels a little still far off, right? And then you're waiting for, like, well, when they say robot, we're obviously not going to see the robot. And if we saw the robot, it'd be some proto-Roomba thing. No, it's like a little, like, beep-boop-boop kind of yeah it looks like it's a walking trash can with brushes yeah i mean it looks like a piece of shit it looks like a piece of shit but it's he's both he's both ahead

of and behind the times because that's also very 60s, right? Yes. In the same way that Doctor Who. Rosie. It's like, I'm going to be replaced by what our idea of a robot was in 1960. Which is just a sort of human-shaped thing with eyes that goes beep-boop, but then cleans the room. But Griff, what's the movie where this works? Because we're really concentrating on the first 10 minutes of the movie because the first 10 minutes of the movie are so busy with ideas. The heaven thing.

Cameron Diaz is this insane. Ewan McGregor, robots, novels. What's the zany movie where it's cutting to this every two minutes and you're like, oh my God, I can't believe this is working. Or whatever. Sure, yeah, Falling Down.

Very lively. This is the funny, romantic version of Falling Down. More likable characters. And, like, here's my question. After all of that, you have this confrontation where the two plot lines meet. So Cameron Diaz is getting yelled at by her dad mean oldie in home uh about you know shooting about shooting a man in the head what does he do what's his job what is what does he own like why is he so rich do we it doesn't matter do they ever say a company he's a big he's a big muckety

muck got it right he's a rich man in a skyscraper we cut we tie the threads together he's yelling at her for shooting the dentist and then ewan mcgregor comes in with the robot but he's yelling at her in this way that the movie's like this fucking guy and i'm like no he's saying why'd you shoot someone yeah don't shoot he's yelling be normal and then ewan comes in with the robot you're not gonna hey buddy and a gun and saying you're not gonna replace me points a gun at him and shoots him by mistake. And we're off to this zany adventure. He's going to have to take her hostage and they're going to go on a road trip. In fairness, I think he takes the guard's gun.

He takes the guard's gun. That's right. That's where he gets the gun. He was just going to make an explosive statement. He was going to throw the robot out the window. By throwing the robot through the window. And then when he gets tackled, it kicks up a notch because he gets his hands on the gun, which then he loses, which then Cameron Diaz gives back to him. And that's how the kidnapping idea is born.

And my point is, at this point, the movie actually slows down quite a lot yes and is that better i mean she still learns how to drive within 30 seconds yeah you've got like stuff going on but then it's really it's the two of them stuck together and bickering and you know in a better version of this movie falling in love in an incredibly charming way. And in the movie, I would say that's less successful, but a little bit of that. The movie is at its most annoying when the two of them are only talking to each other. It helps when there are other characters thrown in. You know, I'm just I'm stewing on your question of like, what is the successful version of this movie? What is the thing he is aiming for and i

think the problem is he's kind of aiming for four different types of movies that are similar that he's grouping into the same pot but actually have distinct differences where it's like to a certain degree he's doing like an elmore leonard right to a certain degree he's doing raising arizona to a certain degree he's doing pulp fiction yeah Arizona. To a certain degree, he's doing Pulp Fiction, you know? And he's just like, well, you know, these like wacky ensemble, sort of like hyper-violent crime comedies. Yeah. And it's like, no, but they're- Like a crime spree, but there's no spree. It doesn't stay, it's not the two of them on the road together. No.

Under the auspices of him having kidnapped her. Like, it doesn't consistently, It's not that it's not the two of them on the road together. No. Under the auspices of him having kidnapped her. Like it doesn't consistently. It's not that they rob a bank. Right. They rob a bank. So there's that feels like that movie sort of starts and then doesn't exist and then maybe comes back for a second and then is gone. I agree with you. And he's he's doing amped up versions of each of those movies separately and swinging between them yeah okay so they're they're in a car now I mean it's and their dynamic is immediately him being panicked and her being like you fucking idiot you suck at kidnapping people right her immediate go-to is I going to tell someone else how bad they are at being alive. Yeah, guess what? You're bad at not shooting people in the head.

Yeah. You have your own problems, too. She also seems like she's about to—I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I know we're having Cameron Diaz section, so I keep— No, no, go ahead. Let's do it now. I think now's the time.

This is it. This is it. We're talking about the appeal of these two actors right now yes and i think cameron diaz obviously can be an incredibly appealing actor i'm not like i'm not about to debut some take that's like cameron diaz never been good like i like cameron diaz no no i agree oh absolutely but certainly i would say griffin you would i'm sure you would agree with this she probably over the course of her career found like I tend to do better or my movies tend to hit more when I'm playing more of

a lovable ditz bubbly yeah you know right a sort of fun energetic character and not kind of a flinty mean you know sort of scary you know character which is what she's doing here also like she's coming out of retirement now annie is the last movie she made 2014 and then she's doing the movie back in action with jamie foxx now uh she apparently only does jamie foxx movies now but she has not been in a film in nine years right and she basically was just like i got tired of doing it i just i needed a break i didn't really want to do it anymore. I enjoyed my life. I had kids, whatever. That last run of her movies, she did start

doing the kind of flinty, angry thing, where she had the run of Bad Teacher. Bad Teacher was a good, yes. A good reinvention. Great version. She did get to this point where she was like, I understand I'm not a 20-something anymore. I need to age into something else. And she basically started playing like the woman who is bitter that she's not a bubbly 20 something anymore.

Yes, that's well better. It's so fascinating that this and My Best Friend's Wedding are the same year. And I feel people talk about when there's the constant conversation of like, why don't we have movie stars anymore? And so much of the answer is we don't have the pipeline that develops movie stars. People get sucked into franchises and they play one character and their identity is tied to the one character. And the ability to like intentionally build a career step by step doesn't really exist for people at least in movies anymore and i feel like i always will see people cite like cameron diaz is someone who did it right where she has this huge like plucked from obscurity as a model breakout in the mask she gets offered all these big studio movies and then for like

three years she went to indies she She was like, I'm turning down all these studio films. I want to learn how to act. I want to do a bunch of small Sundance movies. I want to figure my shit out before I'm like thrust into being Julia Roberts. She has The Last Supper. She's the one. Feeling Minnesota. Head Above Water. Keys to Tulsa. Most of these movies don't exist, right? But it was like, here's a little quiet sort of ground for you to figure out what your thing is before you get chewed up and spit out by this system. And then 97 is her being like, I'm back to doing

studio movies. I'm doing a Danny Boyle movie. Makes a ton of sense. And I'm playing the foil in a Julia Roberts rom-com. And then that's the one where I feel people are like, she got it. She figured it out. She is relatable. She is fun. She's so good in this movie.

She's kind of like the key to it working. The choice to make it like, no, she is likable. She's not the villain. Julia Roberts is the villain. Yeah. Is like kind of brilliant. And then the year after this, she does something about Mary. And it's like, well, now it's locked.

Superstar. Done. You figured it out. You're like star of a generation. Your thing is branded. But this is like the last movie she does before she figures her shit out, even though this comes out after my best friend's wedding. And we and it's not her fault because because the character is a disaster and is a psychopath. And I think like my compliment to her is that I don't buy her in this character at all my compliment to her is that there were several moments in the movie

where I had to pause it because I was like she is about to laugh like at her most supposed to be despicable, there is she is trying so hard not to break. And that's my perception of it. And so it makes everything even more utterly unbelievable. Like, I'm sure she's not proud of, like, not sticking to being a character or whatever, perhaps, if she has, you know, a sense of this performance. But for me, I was like, good for you. Like, good for you that you're like, I can't like you guys know I can't commit to this fully. Right. Like I'm a likable person. Right. That's the thing. She's like fighting to suppress her natural effervescence, which is the thing everyone else at this point in time is identifying. That's her movie star superpower. Yeah, that's the quality like i re-watched something about mary again recently which i do basically once a year and

that's like a performance that should not work a character that should not work the entire premise of the movie is hinged on her being a construction of a dream woman written by a bunch of broey straight comedy good dudes right she's not a real person And yet somehow she makes that feel like a real person. And the key to it is at the end when they do the build me up buttercup and there's all the sort of B-roll footage and bloopers and stuff, you're like, oh, this actually just seems to be her energy at all times. Yeah. That's just what she's like.

Yeah. 100%. And that's what she did in Charlie's Angels. And obviously in Charlie's Angels, they do a good job balancing that out with two other actors who are doing different you know things um and then after that i guess is when she swerves into meaner mode because she does vanilla sky gangs in new york charlie's angels to you know leave that aside but in her shoes is probably the the most like sort of in her shoes in the holiday uh which is sort of the mid-2000s for her like she's playing like spiky characters in those movies right like in the shoes she's very in her shoes she's like a real

fuck up it's a good performance i like really good performance yeah um and uh and in the holiday it's kind of that nancy myers thing where you're like on paper this character is supposed to be you know abrasive because this is nancy myers she's just coming off as like she just like is breathing nitrogen instead of oxygen or whatever you know she seems addled because like in that movie she's just like i don't know how to have sex and you're like you've just met you i someone i really like really like and really respect recently was like and then my girlfriend you know and i watched the holiday and like it's surprisingly good and i said i don't think i've seen it and they were like you know what you should see it it's a lot better than you might think and i put it on i was like this is the worst thing I've ever seen. I can't watch it.

I can't get through it. Janet, question for you. We've covered it on this show. I just have a question for you before we reveal our opinions of the movie. This is the great divide. This is a great debate we've had on this show going on for years and whenever this movie comes up, I pose this question to our guests. Janet, which

half of that movie, i.e. which romance do you think works better? So your choices are Cameron and Jude or Kate and Jack. Even if you dislike the movie overall, which do you think is the more successful? You have to remember that I couldn't get through it. So I think I might have made it through half. That's going to be tough for Kate and jack who barely interact in the first half she's mostly having eli wallach explain script construction i remember that i definitely remember that i remember thinking that jack

black was not playing a human a real human being um so that was off also very off-putting and i like jack black um but i i remember thinking that he i think that he it felt like he and cameron diaz were in the same movie in that they were not there was no nothing real happening it felt very both of those things felt like i'm this character everyone like i'm on a stage and you're very far away from me and I'm being this person. But if I so if I had to guess, I would say probably Cameron Diaz and Jude Law. But I don't know what I'm like. I'm not basing that on the whole. You're on David's side. I'm right. You're on David's side. I'm on the right David's side. OK, crack of the bat. Got it. That's right. Got it. Got it. Got it.

Cameron thing I was going to say, because you're putting Vanilla Sky into the spiky territory. But I think what's so interesting about that performance, a performance we like, is that she's basically playing the like non-comedy version of the Cameron Diaz archetype. Right. Where she's like seems kind of like amazing cool girl hottie. And then you're like, oh, this person has like borderline personality disorder. And then you're like, oh, this person has like borderline personality disorder. You know, it's like the trick to that performance is that when she rolls into the party, she seems like fun, impossible movie star. Yes. And so Tom Cruise treats her like a prop rather than a person.

And then she comes back and is like, I have feelings. You have broken me. But yes, it is odd. It does feel like she kept on trying to figure out how to play the spikier type. And then she kind of gets there by the mid 2000s. But the time she would try it earlier didn't work as well. And again, this is this is a perfect storm of also having nothing to work with. Just nothing. having nothing to work with. Just nothing. I've been watching a lot of Lubitsch movies again recently,

probably just because it was that time of the year and everything. Right. But watching them, I was just like, right, this is the thing that people forget when they try to make these types of movies is the dialogue is funny. Like people constantly try to do the shop around the corner thing where they fight for the whole movie. And then at the end realize they love each other. then they're like why do people think this is like mean and unpleasant it's like because they're not jokes you're just writing two people yelling at

each other right like there's nothing funny that the either of them say to each other really no the the moments that i that i thought were that i was like like suddenly having a great time. Like the one that stood out to me for sure was like just the bit of Delroy Lindo having her tied up and like not accepting. I mean, it's so goofy, but like him not accepting that she doesn't want to hit on that blackjack game is so funny. And then the poem is like very funny. And you get to the point where you're like i wait hold on maybe i've been missing this movie has this been has this been the movie the whole time like maybe this is you know ben you're you're ben you're gesticulating how are you feeling

who barks that's the one time i laughed also another different movie maybe my favorite performance in the movie ma Maury Chaikin. Yes. Oh, Maury Chaikin, he's so great. He is great. Them bringing him back is, it works. You know what I mean? But what are all the examples we're talking about here?

There is another- I have nothing to do with those two characters. There's another character entering in between the two of them, wedging in between, and then something that is circumstantially funny happens. There is no moment where their banter back and forth, which needs to be the lifeblood of this movie. You need the it happened one night. Oh, my God.

I could hear the two of them throw zingers back and forth at each other all day thing. Because the other secret with those kinds of movies where like the burns that people are throwing at each other are funny is you believe that the characters would be charmed by each other because they are being objectively funny yes you're like even if they're pretending to hate each other and fighting the things they're saying are funny they will be amused by each other's wit whereas in this it's just like two kids fighting in the back seat during a road trip yeah yeah hey can i ask you a cool question um what's timothy oliphant doing in this like what's great question what happened there he's uh playing a little yokel it's his uh second movie did you know that what's going on and what and what's the name of hiker there's there's the timothy oliphant coming and then he comes right after Christopher Gorham, who was a guy back then.

You know, Christopher Gorham, you know, he was in TV shows and stuff, who's the sweet gas station guy that Ewan yells at. And then Cameron correctly is like, why are you being mean to him? He didn't do anything to you. Both of those scenes have nothing to do with anything and inform nothing and aren't very interesting. And even are more confusing for the character where you're like, wait, she's suddenly like

down with the blue collar dude like sticking up for him. Like, I haven't seen that person show up. And this is a short movie. Oh, it's 144? Yeah. An hour, yeah.

And like, yet both of those scenes, I was like, there's a lot of fat I would trim here. You know what I mean? Well, and also and train spotting are both 90 minutes in and out the extra 14 minutes on this film are felt they are felt they feel padded um no you were we were texting while we were watching the movie this morning and you texted david this thing is character actor city i did which is a great way of putting it there was this

golden age of the 90s where there was just an incredible bench of like hollywood approved character actors who would cycle in and out of these movies and these films would just every role would be filled with someone interesting and engaging adding a little flavor on top of everyone else that we've mentioned there's also tony shalhoub pops up. This is the one I want to bring up. Tony Shalhoub, so after he finds out he's being replaced by the robot, Ewan McGregor goes to the bar where his girlfriend works,

where her boss is Tony Shalhoub, and she then tells him that she's leaving him for an aerobics instructor. Tony Shalhoub maybe says one thing in that scene, speaks for half a second, and then doesn't come back until the very end so when I'm like 90 minutes into this movie I'm like did they really burn Shalhoub just handing a beer yeah is this movie showing off so thoroughly that it doesn't

even feel the need to give Shalhoub a thing to do because it's you have Shalhoub Gorham Oliphant like in a row not really serving any function and then Shalhoub, Gorham, Oliphant in a row not really serving any function. And then Shalhoub comes back at the end. But you're throwing a lot of actors at us. Yeah, he's got a fun... He definitely has... I mean, yeah, he has a great line, I guess. He has what I feel is presented as the best line of the movie.

I'm not sure I feel that that's the best line of the movie. I'm not sure I feel that that's the best line of the movie, but I feel like it's handed to us by the film as like, and here, are you ready for it? This is the best moment of the movie. It's good. It's good. And then he tips of the speech and is like, she's, no, she's your type. You blah, blah, blah.

Like that, you know, but he does a great job with it. He does? And I love the fact that it's Stanley. I will say for as crazy as the whole Stanley Tucci character thing is, I do love that it's him. Because I feel like they could have cast someone. I mean, it's such a weird choice that I like it. I'm always happy to see Stanley Tucci. Everybody's always happy to see the Tucci.

We all love a touch of the Tucci. We're all happy to see the Tucci. Yeah. Yeah. And this is the year after Big Night. He's, you know, he's a guy, but he's probably a few years from being stanley tucci still maybe i don't know like when when is stanley tucci stanley tucci big night was like was all about the excitement of them making that movie right and him being a huge part of that

but like just wanting to see him in everything i think was a couple of still a couple of years away i think you're right weirdly slowly yeah it's i guess it's devil wears prada is when it goes from you know stanley tucci is a really reliable actor too is stanley tucci someone we should put on american money right like yes we're like wait a second have we been sitting on a diamond i want to want to go to Italy with him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's right. I think that's right.

And that's not surprising that it's that movie. I think that's right. Because even a couple years before that is like the terminal and he's the mean boss. And you're like, yeah, Stan E. Tucci's the mean boss. Sure.

I see it all the time. It's fine. He is inarguably the most interesting version of this character you could possibly put in this movie. That's what I'm saying.

Yes. And when he comes back, you're like thrilled because you're somewhere like, you burn him just to get shot in the head? Which again, it's like, what? No. What? She's shot him in the head.

I mean, I guess, I guess we've sort of established that they have the kind of relationship where if she's on the lam and her current whatever gets shot that she would go to him i guess we've established that well like cameron diaz is basically coaching ewan mcgregor through how to hold her hostage yes and then meanwhile holly hunter and delroy lindo have gone down to earth and have presented themselves to ian holm as bounty hunters in 1940s attire saying

they will find his daughter but they're bad at this too they say every wrong thing to ian holm that's kind of funny it's kind of linda is is saying he'll prorate them if she comes back missing body parts right if you lose an ear we'll knock off 20 grand. It's kind of funny. But guys, this movie has Holly Hunter and Delroy Lindo. This movie's in 1997. Holly Hunter's an Oscar winner. Delroy Lindo, wonderful, wonderful character actor.

It's kind of in like a huge hot streak. This is Delroy Lindo like running the 90s. Yes. A hundred percent. They're playing, you know, angelic. Well, and you've got,

that's an actual representation of like i want this uh elmore leonard feeling i want don't worry yes and then i want the coen brothers i have holly hunter together they're the the power team that's gonna always remind you of those two filmmakers like or sorry elmore leonard's not those two f. Like, or, sorry, Elmore Letters, not, but you know what I mean. You have those two fives. No, you're absolutely right. But you want to be like, Danny, those are two different things. That is true. That's one thing. This is what I'm saying.

I'm like, how does this movie have two actors I adore? Like, forget Ewan and Cameron, who I'm very fond of both of them. This movie has Holly Hunter and

Jal Roy Lindo playing angel bounty hunters. Yes. And she's doing a different accent. Like you don't see her stray too far from her natural accent. She does like five different voices in this movie.

Well, yeah. And I say this with all due respect to them and I love them. They don't really have a lot of chemistry. They're not very funny and their scenes are a little flat. Like it just feels like such a waste like of such an incredible casting coup and yet you're relieved every time the movie cuts to them and you're like finally i can relax from this fucking hostile car ride and i'm sure

both of those actors were like the guy who made train spotting uh yeah like i'll play whatever role he wants like uh you know what i'd love to work with that guy. And it just kind of it. Yes, yes. Right? Everything about this movie is you just imagine every direction he's giving to an actor, every pitch he's making to the studios. They're like, I bet Trainspotting also sounded crazy in the room. Who would want to see that movie? Who wants the baby

crawling on the ceiling? Don't ask too many questions. We don't want to get our fingers in this one. This is one where we're just gonna we know what to do and we're just gonna back off and let you do your thing he's operating on a wavelength we can't even understand so you just have to trust him you're in his hands you're in safe hands yeah so i don't we don't even really need to go through everything here but there's we certainly should talk about uh the the karaoke scene which danny boyle talks about as like the film sex scene that's what he says like

you know like uh these kinds of movies yeah yeah both of you guys kind of groaned there uh which is this is a quote from danny boyle that i is quite charming but i made me raise my eyebrow a little bit he says the dance of the karaoke is the sex scene this is supposed to be some kind of romance we can't do a sex scene because then you'd have to have tissues and condoms and things oh danny it doesn't seem right for this particular kind of film so we thought we'd have this dance instead which is very old-fashioned that's the way they used to do it in the old days isn't it i get what he's saying i get that he's like look in a frank capra movie they dance and you get it you know you read everything into that in a danny boyle movie you always need to see the rubber is his

not all sex scenes need tissues like there doesn't need to be a like, hey, can you reach over? You know how people shit themselves every time they have sex. Throw the blanket on the girl's parents, you know. Like, I just, and it does feel off. This movie was rated R, right? Or was it not? No, it has to be rated R, right? It has to be, yes.

Right? Yes. It feels weird that this movie that like danny boyle basically i was rated r that he's talking about like yeah you know we cut the violence down and i didn't want anyone to fuck in it and i'm like why why not why don't you want some like verve here i mean the quote includes him saying with this particular kind of film so the follow-up question from the interviewer would have been and what particular kind of film is that? Please define to me this type of film you're acting like exists.

Yeah. Has any proven model. He's talked so much about what a like moral victory the condom moment in Trainspotting was. Which I love. Which that moment is great. But that he was like this was a thing that Haja McDonald and I talked about. That you never see the removal or the application of the condom because you don't want to show an erect penis in a movie. You can't do it with the sensors.

So you leave out this important part of like casual sex in these movies with 20-somethings. And he's like, we figured out the way to do it in silhouette. And it's after sex, so he's flaccid. We were so excited that we did it. And then for his takeaway from that to be, any sex scene i ever do has to involve condoms and if i can't figure out a way to shoot it then i guess there's no sex this movie has angels in it yeah what are you talking about danny i you can it's just odd how there's the karaoke dance scene and then we just cut to the morning after,

and Ewan McGregor is like, what happened? And she's like, you were great. And you're just kind of like, oh, okay. So that's happened now, and I guess they like each other now. And they're like celebrating that, oh my God, they slept together. Things seem good. And then Cameron Diaz is like, you don't think I like you do you yeah and then he's like

I was going to propose marriage they might be falling in love otherwise you got to remind everyone that there has to be X amount more of movie so it can't be we have to keep putting up the roadblocks of like it starts to seem like we're getting somewhere but Holly and Delroy ring ring ring

the movie essentially diffuses two central tensions 45 minutes in. It has Cameron Diaz, you and McGregor basically go, you're free, and she go, well, so let's do this together and we'll both make money.

And so you're like, okay, so now there's not a hostage situation anymore. They are willing partners. She's coaching him on how to be a scarier negotiator she's writing ransom notes in her own blood yes which is a fairly intense thing for her to be doing right um and uh you know they're doing these phone calls right you know she's basically like come on he asked for half a million dollars and she's annoyed. She's like, I'm worth more than that. Like, you know, don't make me out like some cheap prize.

Fully collaborating to fleece her father now, though. She is not in any danger from him. And then they sleep together and she's like, but don't think anything of it. So like sexual tension diffused. Tension of the hostage situation diffused and then the people who are out there chasing them are delroy lindo and holly hunter who want them to fall in love so you're like well what happens when they catch up with the two of them they just have a negotiation they gotta keep trying to kill them it has to they they constantly have to flash mortality

in front of both of these characters because that's the only way for you to fall in love with someone you have to trauma bond you can only only real love comes out of a extraordinary and terrifying circumstance that will never repeat itself again and you're just going to have to face the reality that your life is going to be ordinary unless you're a psychopath who continues to put yourself into life threatening situations so that there's some sort of zest to your marriage. I know. I mean, it's not setting you up very well.

It's not setting you up very well. Is it wrong to want a life less ordinary? Just a life a little less ordinary? But that scene where Delroy Lindo forces Ewan McGregor to dig his own grave yeah yeah that's a weird scene that's intense they suck at this so holly hunter and delroy lindo are bad at this they keep saying to each other that like the drama will be part of the romance right that seems to be their modus operandi they're like ah you know you got to put some stakes on this or else they're just not going to be into it. But that doesn't really track. No.

And Den Hedaya is like, I'm frustrated with your results. Everyone ends up getting divorced. It doesn't last. And I'm like, how did they ever get any two people together in the first place? Well, we never, yeah, we've never seen, we don't have, because that scene is meaningless and is at the beginning of the movie we don't have anything to compare it to we don't have any idea what they've done wrong what their work has been like up to this point what that even meant why this exists at all as a device so there's nothing you're you're starting with nothing so you don't know you don't know what they what they mean or why what they're why they're bad at what they're. Or we know that like the temperature is too cold and I guess the clothes are

too scratchy or something on earth. And that's why you want to make sure you don't, you want to go back to the place where everything is white, I guess. Yeah. You know, why do they want to go back there? It seems boring,

but whatever. I mean, they do, they want to be immortal. I guess that's cool. Um, what are some other things that happened? Uh,

there's the whole Road scenario Right With Holly Hunter Where they think they've run over Holly Hunter Oh she's like Terminator And she goes Terminator She goes full Terminator

And you said she didn't have much to do Riff how shame on you She's got stuff to do I mean Holly Hunter's Career is weird cause I am saying Like you've got stuff to do you mean holly hunter's career is weird because i am saying like you've got holly hunter and you're blowing blowing it there are other movies from this era that she would pop up and that you would like copycat or whatever you would similarly kind of be like this is holly hunter we're working with you know like what do we you know i get that she's a specific actor or whatever but you know she doesn't actually make a lot of movies good for her i'm looking at this that's why it's so weird that she was a specific actor or whatever, but, you know, she doesn't actually make a lot of movies.

Good for her. I'm looking at this. That's why it's so weird that she was in, like, Little Black Book. Right. I mean, we ran through her piano career, how odd her career is after piano, after she wins the Oscar,

and what she chooses to do and doesn't do. Do you know Timothy Oliphant basically says that, like, his one day working with her inspired him to keep acting. That he was feeling very broken down by the industry and was thinking about walking away from it because he found it creatively soul-crushing and stifling. And he was watching her creative process and the choices she made on set, and she kind of took me under her wing. On this movie? On this movie.

She was an angel. And I'm glad she kept Timothy Olyphant in the business because I love that man. He's a good man. We love it. Yeah. 100%. You know, I love Justified and I love, you know, even, I don't know, Scream 2. This is the real story of this movie.

The real story is she was an angel. She was sent down from... Now, hear me out. God wanted this movie to get made because he needed to make sure that Timothy Oliphant had the career he has had. Right. So he needed to create a movie about God putting people in situations so that he would continue to stay in the business, had to put Holly Hunter in it, she had to play an angel because she's actually in real life an angel for God, for show business,

keeping Timothy Olafont in. We have cracked this wide open. The movie makes this all sense now. That's why he's so inexplicable in this film. That's why when he appears, you're like, wait, why is he even here? There was only one reason he needed that day with Holly. I want to read this.

This answers a couple of questions, but it's also just pretty good in and of itself. So he said, this is a Timothy Olyphant radio interview from 2017. KPCC 89.3 FM, Southern California. Shout out to KPCC. He says, I did a scene that basically got cut out of a Danny Boyle movie, A Life Less Ordinary, where I was working with Holly Hunter for the days. Those are moments Danny Boyle, there was just a way in which he works, enthusiasm,

he makes me feel like everything is wonderful. But here's the important part of the story. Watching Holly Hunter was pretty life-changing. I hadn't seen that before. We were doing a take

and the camera's on her. The wind picked up and she turned her face into the wind. Some noise would happen off camera and she'd turn and look at it and then look back at me.

She had this monologue and at first I keep thinking she's screwing up the shot but then i realized no she's not she's actually just completely dialed into the entire experience and everything that's happening and she's not concerned with getting it right she's not even trying to get it right she's interested in the moment whatever was happening at the moment it felt fearless and unconscious and i remember flagging that moment that day and thinking well that, that's where you want to go. That's where you want to get to. Okay. That's nice.

None of that feels reflected in the performance we see on screen. No. And maybe, like he says, most of it just got cut out and that's that. You know, that happens. But I'm glad he had that transcendent moment. And I'm also glad that, like almost any actor, he seems to talk very fondly about Danny Boyle as an on set guy. He seems like a super fun person to work with. There's no, I don't question that even in movies like that don't succeed for sure.

No. It seems like he'd be a pleasure to work with. Yes. He seems quite well regarded in that sense. How does this movie resolve itself you know uh what happens is eventually they get in fights and uh they decide to rob a bank right uh which goes well until the security guard shoots at them well he takes a bullet for her he gets a flash of her getting shot in the stomach and then like nich Cage in Next,

he takes the bullet to prevent that from happening. Yeah. And he gets operated on by Stanley Tucci. Right. And he like falls, you know, he like, you know, goes unconscious, wakes up to see them essentially doing some kind of sexual role play. Tucci's doing like a cheesecake shoot with her.

We're meant to understand for sure that she's way not into it and that this for some reason for her is part of her manipulation. She's like, whatever. This is what she, you know, she promised Stanley Tucci, I'll, you know, do that with you for a night

if you save my friend. Right. Right. Yeah. Also super bloody fucking like prosthetic surgery yeah yeah um and then well basically they they split up but then delroy lindo writes a poem in ewan's handwriting sends it celine to celine to says camera diaz she is moved comes and finds him recites it to Selene, to Camaradias. She is moved, comes and finds him, recites it to him and says,

I'm so charmed by this, you've won me back over. And Ewan McGregor's like, I don't write poetry. What? That's not a thing. I didn't do that. What was the plan here? I don't know. They didn't seem to anticipate that he would be like, I have not written poems any time recently.

This will fall apart immediately they did buy all the spy gear they could get their hands on a lot of spy gear a lot of spy gear yeah the the them parting ways for being such a sort of random chaotic movie that is for movies suddenly you are like in the middle of save the cat in the most bland like all of a sudden you're like oh third act like it's it feels so forced that it suddenly becomes the most pat movie you've ever seen because it's like oh this is oh what's happening here oh this this is where they have to hate each other now god it got it got it I guess I should time my watch by that. The fallout.

Oh, no. Yeah. And then you're right. Tony Shalhoub gets the big scene, but it's the best friend in the most generic rom-com being like, go to her. Run through the airport. Get there in time before she boards the flight. Traffic's terrible. You're going to have to go on foot.

Hail a cab, but then after 10 minutes get frustrated. Check your but make sure give the cabbie time to also give you a gem let the cabbie give you a little nugget and then and then just start running correct none of this none of this i'll just say that like we're probably there's probably 15 20 minutes of the movie left when all this is happening and i was definitely like, I have found a hidden gem, but I was kind of like, look, this movie is kind of wacky and I'll give it, it's,

you know, give it a little credit for at least it's just weird. And that it happened. And I, I haven't hated watching this, but then the final chunk of like the angels now resigned to their mortality, decide to kidnap Cameron Dia diaz again yes and take her hostage and he has to rescue her and then the butler shoots the angels and like you know all

this stuff where they're like i'm like why have you crammed all of this i that's when i was really kind of like guys i'm i'm sick of this i i am sick of this i i am now a little annoyed right i went from being like look it doesn't work but i'm charmed by the by the attempt and to by the end i was like can you guys shut up please like you mcgregor gets shot in the heart and you cut to dan hidea frantically answering the phone like he's howie mendel on deal or no deal talking to the dealer i had the same thought yes deal or no deal energy you want me to you think had the same thought. Yes, deal or no deal energy. You want me to... You think he's a good player?

Ewan McGregor's dream, describing his own dream about being on a game show, was enough information for Cameron Diaz to realize that what that eventually was going to mean was that she would shoot him in the heart, but that that bullet would pass through him without harming him to then penetrate the person that's holding onto him. Like that's the takeaway from the dream. Like, oh, the dream makes sense now.

It makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense. That half described dream that sounded annoying. You mentioned the declamation at the end, Jay. And I don't know if you know this. This was because they forgot to shoot or write anything explaining where the money went. And only after they cut the movie together, they realized that scene was missing. Fox was like, do you need money for reshoots?

And Danny was like, no, we'll do it in stop motion. We'll do it in claymation. But of course, you are right that that scene is missing. And I, of course, will pull out my plasticine and make it for you right now oh my god they forgot they forgot uh let me let me see if there's any all right i'm gonna just give you guys uh any other dossier thing so i told you right newton gager had just made the movie night watch kind of a forgotten 90s thriller uh and he does an american accent in that and he showed that movie to boyle and mcdonald being like here's my american accent if you want me to do one

and they watch it and they were like you should just be scottish and he to this day is like i don't know if they just felt it'd be better for the movie or if they didn't like my accent but whatever they cast him so he didn't um obviously cameron diaz uh is basically getting cast off of the mask here as as she was for all these little movies she did like feeling minnesota right and the last supper and all that she's the one um and uh you know as as boyle it, he wanted someone mythically American. That's his take on Cameron Diaz. She is very American, certainly. Holly Hunter, like, you know, they love Joel Cohen and Ethan Cohen. Those two guys, also known as the Cohen brothers.

So they're into that. They did consider having God appear in the film. Sean Connery, Orson Welles, Whoopi Goldberg were some names that got tossed around. Each one of those lost roles to each other. So countless times, countless times. They went with Whoopi again, says Sean Connery. I wanted to be Eddie. Yeah.

Always get those three confused. I wanted to be Eddie. Yeah. Always get those three confused. I wanted to be Jumpin' Jack Flash. I could have gotten back in the habit. Thank you. Thank you. I don't think you're going to get cast in the sequel, Sean. Come on.

Why not? She already had played that role. No one would see it coming. She originated it, Sean. I don't think it's a game ball, Sean. I think it's hers. Ian Holm. Apparently on set, Ian Holm told Danny Boyle

that he had been deeply in talks with Stanley Kubrick about making Napoleon for a long time. And then one day, Stanley Kubrick just top docked to him and that was the end of that. But that makes sense, right? Ian Holm being in Napoleon. I don't know if he was going to play Napoleon. Did he never play Napoleon in anything? He did that movie

The Emperor's New Clothes where he plays Napoleon. Yes, that's right. Wait, what was he in? It's called The Emperor's New Clothes. Yeah. Because I too feel like I've seen him with his hand in a jacket. Absolutely, and the little hat. He played Napoleon, guys, three times. He played him in a British TV series

called Napoleon and Love. He played him in Time Bandits. That's what I'm thinking of. You're thinking of Time Bandits. I'm definitely thinking of Time Bandits. Yes. Okay, all right. There is, I went to the Wikipedia page

for The Emperor's New Clothes, and there's a subsection, Ian Holmes Napoleon. Right. Listing the two times he's done on television twice in film uh twice in literature i don't know what the fuck they're talking about he did it twice in literature griffin don't ask questions okay um okay this is interesting okay the film had a small budget 12 million dollars so fox mostly left them alone because the budget was so small their two big notes were one they should

kiss more often they wanted a kiss in the movie every 10 minutes was david sims the chief executive i was about to say uh and then the other one which they listened to is that initially in the bank robbery scene so in the bank robbery scene cameron diaz points a gun at the teller ewan mcgregor says i thought we agreed no cliches and instead she points a gun at a like a teenage girl and and like it's like give me the money right that's the sort of like whatever joke in the original script it was a tiny girl it was a seven-year-old girl and fox was like look if you absolutely want to do this we're not going to put our foot down. But we don't think that's a good idea. And Danny Boyle was like, you're right.

You're right. She probably shouldn't do that. We are kindly asking you not to do that. But it still is. That moment stands out, I think, just in terms of what ages well and doesn't, even in movies that make no sense and aren't great. terms of what ages well and doesn't even in movies that make no sense and aren't great that move that that move sort of stands out to me as like people today going i don't think we do that do we do that do we have the the the heroine character and i think it gets excused by the term black comedy but this is not i think that's this movie's been described as a black comedy i don't

think that it is at all no so it's weird because you're like, oh, there's like four or five black comedy moments. So this is going to be a black comedy. And that's like kind of how you get away with your, you know, your leading lady pointing a loaded gun at a child who is still very much a child. That's one of the problems is it does feel like he's trying to make a frothy comedy on top of a dark story right yeah right yeah like the comedy in this movie is not dark at all there are dark circumstances and all of them are played silly right but then something like that happens you're like no i've i just played out of my mind what could have happened in that scenario it's really bad really it's like really bad but i will say for the, maybe you're going to bring this up, David. I apologize if I'm jumping on it.

That authentic spit string that comes from between them right after the bank robbery. I hate that I'm interested enough in filmmaking that I can't just appreciate the reality of that. And instead of my mind, I was imagining Danny Boyle being like, this is it. That's the one that's going in the can. That's real. And I love it. And it's a spit string. I hate that. It pulls me out instead of putting putting me back in. I have to put in reinsert myself into the movie. But but I did. But, you know, you don't see a lot of tongue and a lot of spit strings in movie kisses these days or in television kisses. And I appreciate that they went for it. There's your viscera. There's your condom. There's your condom. It's a there's your condom absolutely um the other thing i wanted to mention which i do think is quite cute is that apparently

you know they shot this movie in utah and apparently ewan mcgregor really stuck out in 90s utah with his weird hair and his funky clothes and all that uh so apparently he had a bit of a hard time being i don't know the the lonely scottish boy in in utah um okay yeah that's all i don't know i think i think they had a good time making this movie like i think you're absolutely it seems like everyone's very fond of each other and is like talking about it's not like danny boyle is like oh my god you could tell from week one we were screwed you know it's more just kind of like i think we kind of just like didn't have a tone that we totally figured out and we shouldn't have turned it into angels oops this is one of those movies where the cast dinners must have been incredible i'm sure exactly everyone's in their 20s too. They're all saucy, right?

And you're in like Utah. You're just owning whatever town you're filming in, you know? Salt Lake City, you're making a trip to the temple. I can't see what that's all about. Maybe you catch

a Morbin Tabernacle Choir show. Danny Boyle says he saw Notting Hill, which comes out a couple years later but still he says when he saw that he was like this is a good romantic comedy okay yes and that is true

and there is nothing about this movie that is like that movie in any way shape or form he's clearly like I don't think I ever could have made a movie like this but this is a right this is the tone I don't know how to do or don't want to do or whatever that does now preemptively explain why he makes yesterday makes yesterday 20 years later yeah i i now get that that was his sights were set on that yeah

okay after all this you know criticism he does say i like the film i'm affectionate about it uh it's a film nobody likes and everyone's forgotten but there are elements about falling in love that are really good it's very dizzy and not rational i don't know he seems like he's like oh that's my little misfit toy right like that's uh-huh yeah you know especially if you had a great time making it like we you know he's he's he's now he's it's all mixed up in one thing now. It's like the making of that movie and where he was in his life and like them having fun and being an enjoyable experience. That's hard to tease apart from something that that maybe doesn't succeed at all. So and I want him to have that. I want him to for this to be a super positive, fun memory.

And, you know, for him to feel like, oh, the lightheartedness, mad camp adventure of being in love. Right, and, you know, if Leo wanted to work with him right after that, it can't have dinged him that badly. Yeah, or that was already in the works. I don't know how that works. So do we want to play the box office game? Yeah, just, Janet, because we did,

as you said, force you to take the poison pill on this movie i'll just say in in booking guests for this mini series we we are usually going about things as we reach out to people or people have reached out to us uh you know if it's a first-time guest like you or someone we've had before on we go hey here's the next two things we're doing here the next two directors here are all the movies that are up for grabs. Do you have feelings about any of them? And basically everyone came back to us with the exact same three Danny Boyle picks.

It was this real thing where like everyone basically picked the same three movies. What did they pick? Everyone basically said I would do train spotting. That did not feel that important to me. I mean, I gave you a lot. You gave me a lot of options. If you're going to tell me that a bunch of people said I want to do millions, then I'm going to end this call. You know what? I'm sorry. Millions is one of the only ones we had booked early, though.

We did book it early. Someone called in. I see. I see. I see. And everyone said Slumdog Millionaire and train spotting. no one wants to do slumdog millionaire but yes anyway really i assume that people would just be like i know what a danny boyle movie is it's that one right well you wrote this email that where you're saying how like important he was to you yeah and then i was like well even i don't know if we're going to find anyone who really wants to stand up for a life less ordinary but if there's someone who has like a really strong passion for Danny Boyle at that period, that you'll be able to speak well about this to any degree. But I want to give you the platform to if there are any other general Danny Boyle thoughts you want to say about his career, about this era, his 90s, these movies for you.

I know we talked about a little bit, but I want to give you the platform. I feel like i said it i feel like i i said the the sort of like he's figuring it all out and he yeah and he and he represents a whole sort of like slew of other things culturally that you know became important to me around the same time i think that's true for a lot of people um but you know i i love him. I love him. I would love to work with him. It would be amazing to work with Danny Boyle. Absolutely, 100%.

Seems like a really cool guy to work with. Even if they could go back and reinsert me into this experience and I had to say the only Danny Boyle movie I was in and was allowed to be in was A Life Less Ordinary, I would absolutely do it. Hmm, I want you to do a Boyle now.

I mean, I don't know, man. I want Danny Boyyle to do another movie more than anything uh i know it hasn't even been that long and he got hung up on bond and then made a couple tv shows or whatever you know like i i get that he's not like in hiding or whatever but i'd like to make a movie you know basically the last thing that was like seriously announced coming from him was him supposed to he's supposed to do a Methuselah action movie with Michael B. Jordan. That is one of those projects that he's been attached to for so long. So it must be a script he loves because it is hilarious.

I think it's Simon and Pufoy, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, a lot of people have been attached to it over the years. I love the idea of Michael have been attached to it over the years i love you know the idea of michael b jordan doing it it's basically like what if a guy lived to be a thousand years old but it's like an action movie he could also kick yeah he could kick he could do a kick right um he has a kick that he does so make that that's fine i'm i'm all for it no i know that's one of those like development hell movies but then whenever it was early 2020,

they were like, this now has heat behind it again. Boyle and Jordan together, there's excitement. And then I feel like there's been no development, but you also haven't heard about him working on anything new. When did Yesterday come out? 2019. I put forward the theory that it's the movie that caused the pandemic. We'll get back to this at the end of our miniseries.

But I have at certain points suggested that it might be, if a movie can be patient zero, it might have been yesterday. A lot of crowd scenes. A lot of crowd scenes. That's true. That's true. They got to hear him do all the songs. Yeah. See, because no one knows the Beatles.

What? They cut Ana de Armas out of the trailer, which is illegal. It has been agreed by the Supreme Court that it was illegal. Yeah. I think he actually served time in the can for that a little bit. I think it may be. It's coming. Yeah.

People are talking about now there's a new film coming out called Plane, right? It's about planes. Yes. Good. But actually the movie is mostly set on an island, right? The plane lands on an island. Sure. And then most of it is set on an island.

And someone tried to tell me like, well, that's false advertising. And I was like, do you think there are people who are like, a movie has a plane in it? I'm there? Like, or they're like, wait a second. This movie's got planes?

I feel like there was an era where that was true. I feel like there was an era where that was true I feel like there was an era 1920s to be clear no I feel like wasn't there an era where it was like we got snakes on a plane we got the president on a plane we got Jodie Foster on a flight plan she had a flight plan she had a whole plan

she had a plan it went awry but the element there Janet is that the pitch was you won't believe what we put on this plane whereas plane is just selling you what if there was a plane that movie that title is going to change that title is going to change no it's not playing no no it's out tomorrow or next week all right all right plane i can just see it much much like ewan mcgurk can see camera diaz getting shot in the gut, I can see a year from now

Jack Nicholson out of retirement, back in the public eye, on stage opening the envelope and going, the best picture goes to plane, and then holding up the two fingers like he did after Crash. He knows how surprised everyone is by what he just said. Pl right griffin this movie came out

october 24th 1997 just what you just what you think when you watch this movie halloween people i guess it is supernatural so unsurprisingly uh it opens number nine with $2 million. Okay. So, obviously, it legs it out to four. Oh. So, not a great run for Life Less Ordinary. It's basically out of theaters after two weeks. Okay. But, unsurprisingly, number one at the box office is a horror film.

Sure. It's in its second week, and it's got an iconic title it's got an iconic title is it uh is it i know what you did last summer i know what you did last pretty phenomenal title yeah yeah based on a book based on a book based on a book i know what you did last summer it is based on lois Duncan's book. That's correct. Yes. I think it's loosely based on that book. Sure. And of course, it was followed by I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, I think, went to direct video, right?

Yeah. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, though, is arguably an even better title. The audacity of it. It is audacious. It's because it knows that it's sort of, you know, making fun of itself. Yeah, but there's also this... In the way that you want, yeah. There's a nice tension to the title, of the title yelling at you, this is not resolved. Yeah.

Don't think you're in the clear. I still fucking know what you did last summer. Yeah, I know. Oh, I know. I know i know i haven't and you have the immediate context that there another summer has not passed okay you immediately get a lot of clues right the timeline is this might be right back up yeah i do i do there's two things one i do want to say sarah michelle geller's character and i know you did last summer do you guys remember what she's called?

She has one of the great horror movie names ever Her name is Helen Shivers I think about it all the time It is such a good name I remember that movie being fun I have not seen it in many many years I've never seen it You've never seen it? I know what you did last summer

I don't think I've ever seen it and I think I confuse it with Final Destination Well it's very different from final destination i think in my mind there's a lot of like funny awful crazy things that happen but yeah there's a little bit of that it's very it's one of those classic um you know it's like a beachy slasher there's a lot of beachy a lot of rain and water. There's crabs. A hook-handed fisherman, right? A hook-handed fisherman. He's no good.

Anyway, so I Know What You Did Last Summer is doing great at the box office. Obviously, that starred the six-named two-actor Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar. You know, one-two punch. Plus Freddie Prinze Jr. and Ryan Phillippe. Two. Ryan, no, it's Ryan Phillippe and then E is his last, just the initial E. Ryan Phillippe, E. The very end is his last. Yes.

You've also got a young Anne Heche, Johnny Galecki, a lot of good people in that movie. Nice. Number two at the box office, Griff, is also hmm. It's a horror... It's a legal film with horror elements. Is it The Devil's Advocate? How do you describe

The Devil's Advocate? Yeah, that's the only way to describe it. You're always so freaking good at this. No other movie that could be describing. Not really, right? There's no other movie where it's like, I'm an attorney. Who's the devil? Like, that never happened again. Isn't Angel Heart, does that have, is someone a lawyer in that?

Never mind. I don't think they're lawyers. I think he's like a PI in Angel Heart, right? That's devil crime, you can say. Yeah, it is devil crime. I think it just features maybe someone in a suit. And in my mind, I was like was like oh they're a lawyer it is the same twist of this guy in a suit played by one of the actors from heat is the devil thank you thank you it might be you're right though it

might be the only satanic courtroom thriller i mean in angel heart i will say it is supposed to be a twist that robert de niro is devil, whereas the devil's advocate, they're not really hiding it, right? Al Pacino basically walks in wearing horns. Yeah. Isn't De Niro's character name in Angel Heart Lou Cipher, though? Correct. Oh, hell yeah. His name is Louis Cipher.

What a well-hidden twist. Yes. All right. Number three at the box office, Griff, is another crime movie, an adult detective thriller. I think I know. Do you have a guess? Is it L.A. Confidential? No, that is too good a movie.

That movie is good. That movie, however, is in the top ten. L.A. Confidential is number 10 okay uh it's been out for six weeks but you have to say that's an adult crime movie if there ever was one of one of my favorite movies of the 90s uh no this is more airport you know novel is this kiss the girl it's kiss the girls and which one's that that's is that one of several Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman movies? Yes Well, it's one of several Ashley Judd R-rated thrillers

Okay And then it's one of two Morgan Freeman as Alex Cross Alex Cross Don't cross Alex Cross Don't cross Alex Cross Gotcha, gotcha Who is then, of course, later played by Tyler Perry Correct

Is there someone else? That's just Tyler Perry in the reboot There's a TV show now maybe happening? Oh, with aldous hodge that they're gonna do yes okay okay yes uh but the james patterson books uh kiss the girls you know they're all named after um nursery rhymes so kiss the girls long came a spider jack and jill you know there's a lot of he did like he did a lot of them humpty dumptypty. Yes, oh, totally. Yeah, yeah. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

James, how are you going to, I'll figure it out. Don't worry. I'm looking at actual titles here. Jack and Jill, Four Blind Mice, Mary, Mary, Cross, Double Cross, and Cross Country. Well, that's the thing. He started going cross. He started doing crosses after a while. Yeah. He did Cross My you know a lot of those

yeah pop goes the weasel two of them back to back were called roses are red and violets are blue those are two separate titles have you griff have you seen kiss the girls no i haven't it's one of those things we're like is it a good movie? Not particularly, but Morgan Freeman is so like above the level that movie needs. And he's so good in it. Like, because he, you know, I just,

I'm so fascinated by that nineties. Morgan Freeman is an A-list movie star thing. Like this guy in his fifties is now someone who opens movies and like, he's, you know, he, it is just, there's just not,'s good it's good stuff

a steady presence in a movie is made for grown-ups yeah yeah a lot of good actors in that movie Brian Cox Bill Nunn Cary Elwes he's definitely not the murderer couldn't be Cary Elwes he's playing the character name of John T

Innocent Man Nick Q Suspicious He's playing the character name of John T. Innocent Man? Nick Q. Suspicious? Number four at the box office is a big epic movie that is a flop. Very controversial at the time, not in America, but in another country for existing. Condon? No, but correct area and country that's mad about it. Yes.

What's the other Tibet movie that China was mad about? Oh. Jean-Jacques Anod's Seven Years in Tibet. Well done, Janet. That's right. Yes. Which I've never seen because it always seemed kind of boring. Yeah. Well, that was in my hardcore anti-Brad Pitt phase

where I was like, I won't watch him do anything serious. Janet! I don't believe him. No, I really was like, I took a stand. That is fair. That was his most boring era.

No, 100%. Of course. That's his era where he, I think, is realizing, like, I can't do that. Like, I can't do the stoic. Saintly, beautiful, stoic beautiful yeah yeah because like he's bad in interview with a vampire legends of the fall that meet joe black like and devil's own like he

did tons of movies where it's like don't don't do this like yeah do weird shit and fight club is when he's like okay right yes yeah yes it was fight club when he when he won you back over janet oh absolutely absolutely it is funny that he does seven and people are like huh brad pitt can kind of act and then he does 12 monkeys and like he gets his oscar nomination and they were like great you've proven to us what a good scuzzy character actor you are with visionary directors how about we make you some boring guy again they just immediately throw him back into the old shit yeah seven years in the bet so not a hit obviously and you know it was a whole okay number five is new this week okay it's a film we all watched in science class

griffin what is it it's a film we all watched in science class it's a good flubber no no no no no what why would we watch flubber in science he's a professor let's retcon the history of everything so that that's true oh kids are always watching flubber in school david he discovered flubber it's that's a that's unique chemical to be fair fair, Jerry Lewis... What are you saying? We watched it in science class. I am mystified by this. Flubber.

Jerry Lewis discovered flubber years ago, didn't he? No. It was Fred McMurray was the... You're right, it's Fred McMurray. It's not Jerry Lewis. Jerry Lewis was the naughty professor. Right. Look.

Wildly different professors. No, no. It's a serious, very different. It's a serious science film different It's a serious science film It's a serious science film Kind of a flop on release But quickly well regarded Science

Very like visually Science but not space Like science Not space Like Not space Grounded One of the characters

Really wants to go to space One of the characters Really wants to go to space 1997 Kind of a flop redeemed shown in science class stars mystifying main character is a hottie the female lead also a hottie but then the supporting character is is uh you know white that's the money yeah this is where he's in breakout mode maybe you haven't seen this film

oh he knows what it is it's not flatliners although everyone in flatliners is hot so you're not wrong about that jen it's gattaca it's gattaca it's gattaca i wish i would have watched that in science class same it's a movie that i remember in biology class they were like so this movie is about genes and stuff let's just watch it i'm gonna put my head down on a desk um you know but uh jude jude law so so hot yes yes absolutely yep great yeah yep cool architecture if memory serves yeah very cool aesthetically all that stuff right exactly um cool movie that is number five this week weird week at the box office mostly grown-up movies i would say right like you know r-rated stuff possibly until now based on what you're saying uh and then yeah well i'll just give you

the others and number six was fairy tale of a true story which is uh oh sure that's like a true story well obviously that's a movie based on there was that scam where the guy it's like the guy who took pictures of fairies like in like and they published in the newspaper his his the daughters with fairies and people thought they proved the existence of fairy harvey kytel plays harry houdini in it he sure does it's an odd film and peter o'doul plays Arthur Conan Doyle. And Mel Gibson plays a father.

No one's heard of that movie. Only freaks like us know that movie. I saw it twice in theaters. It's one of those movies where it's called Fairy Tale, A True Story, but the true story is that what happened was faked and the movie treats it as if it were real. So the title's a lie.

Much like Plane. Okay, number seven of it were real. So the title's a lie. Confusing. Yeah, much like Plane. Okay, number seven of the box office, In and Out. Very fun. Very of its time. Kevin Kline moment, sure. Number eight, Griffin. We were just talking about him, the creator of Puppy Dog Pals. Harland Williams. The film is Rocketman. Yes.

Not Rocketman with Elton John. No. The other one. I've never seen it. Have you seen Rocketman. Yes. Not Rocketman with Elton John. No. The other one. I've never seen it. Have you seen Rocketman? You're asking me if I have seen Rocketman? Yeah. Rocketman, possibly my mother's favorite comedy of the last 30 years. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen Rocketman.

Pretty good tagline. Can you tell me the tagline? There he blows. I don't know. What is it? He's just taking up space. Oh, yeah. It's good.

Pretty good. And the poster, of course, is his suit inflated because he can't stop farting in it. Janet, my mother, for perspective, is a very pretentious French woman. But in that way, the French people love Jerry Lewis.

Jerry Lewis loves Rocket Man. He sees this farting guy. Yep. That's where you unwind. That's where you let your hair down is in watching movies if you're uptight and French. Well, no, that's when she's most uptight. But she just loves Rocketman. It's just very well directed. Well, I don't know if that's true because I haven't seen it.

Have you seen Rocketman? No. No. Did you know? Janet, have you heard of the animated children's show show puppy dog pals yes the rocket man he's the creator of that movie that of that show that's that's really weird david's daughter recently discovered it and he he decried that the show is a pox against humanity my daughter is less than two years old But has found Rocketman I mean Puppy Dog Pals She's not found Rocketman

Found Puppy Dog Pals on the Disney Plus carousel Pointed to it and said puppy And when I decided to try and play something else She stomped her feet until I played it Because I don't know how to deal with that And so I put it on it It's not very good in my opinion I'm sorry if you know anyone involved

We can't all be Bluey. We can't all. Well, that's what I was trying to play was Bluey. And she was like, no, other puppies. You've also got a little film called A Life Less Ordinary. Oh, yeah. We talked about that one. And then LA Confidential, Bringing Up the Rear, has been out for a couple months.

But LA Confidential, look, Griff, it's been out for a couple months. It's made $29 million and it's going to leg it out to $64 because of the Oscar bounce afterwards. So that's cool. Also, Boogie Nights is new and expanding in theaters. That's been out for a couple weeks

and has like 100 screens. So that's kind of cool. So you could go see Boogie Nights. Very cool. There's so many good movies in theaters right now. It's crazy. Just a variety. A real variety.

It is. A real variety. Okay, we're done. We gotta stop wasting Janet's time. Come on. We gotta. This has been so much fun. Okay, good.

Janet, you're the best. Is there anything you want to plug? Boo. I don't know. When does this come out? I know you guys record a little bit far out, don't you? That's a good question. This comes out on February 5th, so not that far away. So I just want to plug hoping you all had a great time

at Sketchfest, which is now closed as of, I guess maybe today. Future Me is very, very tired indeed, but Future Me enjoyed seeing at least one of the gentlemen here on this podcast. I will be there. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, it's going to be great.

If you're a fan of Avatar The Last Airbender, I do a very fun podcast for Nickelodeon iHeart with Dante Bosco. It is not just a rewatch podcast, but it does include conversations about episodes and a bunch of other stuff called Braving the Elements. And we'll leave it at that. I watched all of Avatar and Korra in lockdown in 2020. It was a great help to me and my wife.

Yeah, those shows, they came out on Netflix at a really good time for where everyone's emotional frailty was in terms of needing something like that. I mean, I definitely told my wife like today. She was like, what's the podcast today? I said, I don't even need to tell you about the movie. Don't worry about it. But Cora is on it. And she was like, Cora. And so we were very excited.

Tell her I said hi. I will. But yes, thank you for coming on, Janet. Oh, my God. I'm absolutely going to invite myself back you will come back and we will make good we will give you we always feel bad when we give people a bad movie

it's just as fun talking about stinkers especially when it's like you know someone you care about and you whose work you love and a bunch of people you like you know there's a lot to talk about so this is great and this is kind of the definition of a movie that's more fun to talk about than to watch talking about it is really fun absolutely couldn't agree more uh and i hope you all liked listening to it please remember to rate review and subscribe thank you

to marie bardy for our social media and helping to produce the show. Thank you to Alex Barron, AJ McKeon for our editing, JJ Birch for our research, Joe Bone, Pat Reynolds for our artwork, Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon blank check special features, where

we do franchise commentaries. We are, of course, finishing up. We just finished up the Kotze trilogy. February bonus. We haven't of course, finishing up. We just finished up the Kotze trilogy. February bonus. We haven't quite figured out at this moment. Coming up next, Men in Black, long demanded. That's right. We're doing the four Men in Black films and commentaries

starting February 21st with the original Men in Black, the best movie ever made, number one. Three other movies. Yep. And then three other movies that happened uh tune in next week for the beach that's right we're going to the beach yeah we won't tell you where it is though it's a secret nope it's it's in a secret place don't get hurt do not get hurt on the beach after your head chops off yes uh and as Dan Hedaya is a chameleon.