Blank Check with Griffin & David - A Master Builder with John Hodgman

Episode Date: March 8, 2020

David, Griffin, and self-made man of letters John Hodgman have to deal with Ragnar in this weird weird weird adaptation of a Henrik Ibsen play - and by adaptation, we mean they just took the play and filmed it in a house in Nyack. But instead of talking about the not so great film, get ready for more rants about Cars 2 (WHAT IS MONEY HOW DOES THIS WORK?) and the explanation of how Playmobil the Movie happened without anyone noticing. Also, in no way was this episode accidentally deleted and hastily re-recorded at the last minute. SFX: "Sizzling" by JasonElrod. Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check Come in to the podcast Just play the clip out of your phone right now This movie has no quote page, has no tagline Come in to the podcast. Just play the clip out of your phone right now. This movie has no quote page, has no tagline.

This is the thing that I found funniest in the entire movie. I filmed it and sent it to David. Come in. It's also the clip starts with him seemingly looking straight at the lens as if waiting for Demi to give him action. Right. And then he refocuses his energy towards the door. Well, yeah. And that's when the energy of the movie flips. Entirely.

On purpose. Yes. So look, we're not going to preserve the quote unquote reveal. Spoiler. He's dying the whole movie and it's a fever dream. It was all a dream. It was all a dream. We're spoiling it right away.

I apologize to all the people who have and it's a fever dream. It was all a dream. It was all a dream. We're spoiling it right away. I apologize to all the people who have not yet watched a Master Build. Which is all of the people. Yes. I believe if you read the Criterion booklet, it spoils it. I mean, it's in there. By Michael Sregow. Correct. Yeah, I saw Sregow's byline.

I saw Sregow on the street. Called him out. He used to write for the Boston Phoenix. And I read him then when I was growing up. Sure. And Brookline, Mass. Brookline, Massachusetts. Wearing the hat.

You're wearing the hat right now. I'm wearing the hat of a different town that looks like Brookline. Oh, really? Yeah. Did you know that? That I used to write for the Boston Phoenix? You used to write for the Boston Phoenix? I had a summer internship at the Boston Phoenix in 2005.

So were you on the Master Builder beat or what were you mostly? It was just, I mean, it was nine years before the movie was coming out. I was pounding the pavement. You were in development. I was camped outside on Gregory's house. Will Demi and Sean and Gregory ever get to make their passion proj? Right. I mean, Sean, of course, was constantly being spotted on top of buildings, walking around,

getting ready for the role. I'm climbing to the pyre. What does he say? I don't know. All right, to the top. Right to the top. As if I remember anything from this movie I watched last night. David and I had the exact same response.

We were almost texting it to each other at the exact same time while watching this movie. We were pretty much watching it in unison, in sync, over text, checking in with each other. And we were like, how is it possible? We were in unison because I caught up with you because you had to keep pausing it from boredom. I started watching it. No offense to a master builder. Some offense.

Spoiler, this movie's very boring. I started watching it an hour and a half before David and he caught up to me. Because Griffin, I guess you just had to keep going to make a pot of tea or whatever, just like whatever's going to get me through this. I said, well, no, this is the honest answer. Do another line.

By 30 minutes, we were caught up with each other. Yeah, right. No, the honest answer was I kept on pausing every two minutes to read more articles about how the Playmobil movie got financed. That's true. I think it's so hard with it. Can we just talk about that?

We're definitely going to have a good 20 minutes on the Playmobil movie. There's a lot you probably don't know. A lot we should get into. I don't know anything about it until this moment. So deep into this. You know the toys Playmobil. I'm assuming that's probably where your knowledge ends. That there are toys Playmobil.

I mean, this is the real beat David and I have been on. We've been doing some research, and this episode's going to be hard-hitting journalism breaking down the Playmobil movie. Playmobil was the weird European surreal version of minifigs. Of Lego minifigs. Right, because they were taller. Yes. And there's some strange playsets.

Yeah, because a lot of, look, we're going to get to the Playmobil movie. It's going to take up at least 40 minutes. We just doubled it. The prediction of time is taking up. Can we set a strict time limit about how long we're going to talk about the Master Builder so that the

listeners can just skip it? Find it in the timeline. Let's cap it at 2.30. That's right. It's a Master Builder. What a difference an A makes. That's how the criterion essay begins. I really read that criterion essay. Oh, come on.

Straight up. I'm not kidding. That is the opening line is what a difference an A makes. Look, he's trying to write. Because I was like, who was handed the unfortunate? Obviously, writing an essay in a criterion collection booklet could be a nice little laurel for a critic. And it's like, we'd love you to write about Jonathan Demme's

a master builder. There's something so apt to that because the play is a meditation on an older man realizing that his career is coming to an end. And life. And life as well. Spoiler alert.

But that's, you know, I mean, it's pretty obvious at the beginning the dude's going to die. He's in a hospital bed. Well, he's in a hospital bed in his house. I spoiled a lot. I didn't spoil that much. Come in!

Like, how apt is it? Like, Michael Sragos, like, how will I know when my career as a critic is coming to an end? Right, exactly. Ring, ring. There's a knock on the door. Yeah. Come in! Yeah, hi, it's us from Criterion.

Oh, I'm still relevant. Thank you. Your assignment is a master builder. We want you to write the essay for Jonathan Demme's You Had Me at Demme, A Master Builder. Wait a second. Wait a second. He's what now?

Let me climb up this fire and throw myself off. That's how Michael Srego died. Look, look, I always enjoyed his writing. I'm sure he's still a terrific writer. I think he's still a terrific writer. Plenty of good work ahead of him. I think the essay is more engaging than the film. Honestly, yes.

What was the line that you texted me from it? Oh, he called it a lucid fantasia. The exact phrase that was rattling around in my old noggin the entire time I was writing. I was gripping the seats of my chair. It was such a fantasia. The exact phrase that was rattling around in my old noggin the entire time I was laughing. I was gripping the seats of my chair. It was such a Fantasia. This thing's dancing off the screen. Well, I wanted to spoil the fact that

you guys saw it yesterday. Yes. Right. I saw it this morning. Okay. Oh, so you're super fresh. I considered rolling the dice on a morning viewing. I did too. Yeah. But I decided to punch it out last night. My big thing was, I thought, like, do I watch it now or do I wake up early

and watch it tomorrow? And I was like, if I wake up and watch this, I will fall back asleep. Yeah. That's one fear. I was, I was, my wife stayed home sick today. She teaches high school. Yes. Congratulations. Everyone's sick right now. Yeah. It's a real sick time. I got a little sniffles as well, and I apologize to all of us.

And what a coincidence, too, because I know we've talked about this off mic, but David's fiance, of course, is also a teacher. Forky, star of the new Disney series Forky, asks a question in which Forky teaches the audience. Forky teaches the world about life and money. I never run out of parallels. I know, I know. You never do.

Between Forky and your real life fiance, Forky. No, I watched it this morning. I did not know this morning that my wife would be staying home sick. I did not know that I would have had the option to spend a day with my wife. Oh, that you could have instead. I feel like any time you're doing this podcast, we are distracting you from your family more than usual. I think you keep pulling me back in. Yes, we do.

Come in! I want to say I apologize because we had you do the commentary for Infinity War recently. Don't I? Why apologize? That was a great afternoon. Well, thank you. We had a great time. That was a great afternoon. Well, thank you. We had a great time. It was a pleasure having you

at Big Nice, my home. Griffin keeps inviting people to my home. Please, come in. Come in. Fine. No, but Infinity War

is one of your favorite movies. And we asked you if you'd be on it. You said, look, I've already talked about another podcast. And I failed to properly communicate to you that it was

a commentary episode so you watched it the night before. Right. Recording and then came in and watched it with us for a second time within 12 hours.

Yeah, I didn't realize that it was a talk-along. And I similarly feel bad that we made you watch A Master Builder again for this podcast because I assume

you're watching it at least once, twice a week. Oh, it's a holiday tradition. I mean, we're recording this now in December. Tis the season. It's like after Charlie Brown Christmas.

Oh, a master builder. And Die Hard, we just roll into A Master Builder. One Bravo every Christmas does its 24 hours of A Master Builder. But I mean, it was, again, also apt. Because, like, all right, so first of all, I'm angry because the first thing that comes up when I search a master builder is a reality show called Treehouse Masters. Oh, boy. Which I would have liked to watch. Sounds fun.

Dig into the wild world of treehouse building. Let's put that in the Criterion Collection. Instead, I had to watch this airless folly of Wallace Sean's, you know, God or whatever, bless him. Yes. I mean nothing I'm going to say can be construed as saying anything against

Wallace Sean. Right. Except this is a terrible movie. I know, we're going to go so hard into the paint. I love Wallace Sean so much. I do too. For this movie which is like designed to offend no one, was not crammed down anyone's throat. It's just them being like, well, we had our own take on an Ibsen play. You know, we turned some digital cameras on. It was four days of our life.

We rented an Airbnb in Nyack. Fuck this movie. There's nothing wrong with this except that nobody asked for it. That is the problem. Except for literally Andre Gregory. And when offered, no one said yes. But the problem is that we

quote unquote had to watch this movie. Which I think made us feel mad. Because of the premise of your podcast. The premise of the podcast, which of course is a podcast called Blank Check. With Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. He's engaged to Forky. And this is a podcast about filmographies.

Directors who have massive success early on in their careers are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy fashion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they come in, baby. Come in. I started giggling in the middle of that sentence. Because you knew where you were going. I knew where I was going. I had the idea. You could see that one down the long hallway.

Yes. You could see that at the top of the spire. That was the wreath you were going to put at the top of the spire. I'm so glad this is just immediately, obviously, going to be one of our best episodes of the year. No question. Considering what a flop this movie is. Well, this is amazing. He's on the phones with Jonathan Demme, of course.

It's called Stop Making Podcast, and we are... It's his penultimate feature film. I'm crazy. Like, I mean, it's very sad, because, you know, he could have lived longer. He died in his early 70s. He was a master filmmaker. He was a master filmmaker,

and it's just a weird little bit of punctuation at the end of his career. I feel like he did this as a favor to Walsh. No, 100%. We were saying this just before you walked in. I was like he did this as a favor to Walsh. No, 100%. Right? We were saying this just before you walked in. I was saying, he is one of the only directors

with multiple favors in his film. Very magnanimous director. He's just like, sure, of course, I'd love to participate. Yeah, why not? Rather than like,

I am the man who will make the movie. Like, he seems much more like, yeah, yeah. What are the other faves? I'm sorry if I've missed them. Beloved. Beloved is very much, he has, in interviews, he's like, that, yeah. What are the other faves? I'm sorry if I've missed them. Beloved? Beloved is very much, he has

in interviews, he's like, that was Oprah's movie and I was there to serve her. Right. Like, passionate bringing it to the screen. You can't say nope to Ope. You can't say nope to Ope. I think... Make it. Make the joke, Davey. I'm sorry, Oprah, though. No, what's the joke?

You seemed like you were ramping up for a joke. Okay. I think, honestly, Swimming to Cambodia was something of a favor. That's what I was going to say. That's more Spalding Gray's project. Those are his people. You know? These are his people. The same spirit that made him such a good filmmaker of performance films.

He made three Neil Young documentaries. That's what I was going to say. I'm sure he loves Neil Young, but by the third, do you think? No, but that's the same thing that made him make so many concert documentaries and the Spalding Gray movie and all this sort of stuff. I think he similarly said when like someone has packaged a thing together and they're passionate about it. Right. And if I'm sort of aligned with the cause or I like the people, I'm happy to extend my abilities and like lend the hand. Right.

And help take this thing to the finish line. In an interesting inversion of your podcast premise. Yes. His passion project is not a particular passion project. It's his passion for being a nice dude filming stuff that other people want to make. Yeah. And he's not too big to do it.

And he's a passionate guy. But I'd say the major difference with this film and literally every other Jonathan Demme film I have ever seen is you do not feel any of his fingerprints on this. It is kind of astonishing because even, I mean, like you watch Swim to Cambodia and Stop Making Sense, which are two pretty, you know, unimpeachable movies.

Unassailable. Right. Like perfect films. And important films. And both are cases where it's like, here is already a pretty transcendent performance. And he is adding so much as a director without calling too much attention to himself. In service of the material, he is contributing so much to help translate it, to help package it, to present it to people on a screen in a way that really showed his genius as a filmmaker. Because most people would have either overdone it

or just done the bare minimum. And he really, his creativity shines through in those kinds of things. And this feels like fucking anyone could have done this. They could have just assembled a couple of mini DV cameras and shot in a house, you know? I see very few touches of his work in this. What would you consider to be the demi-touch?

Because, I mean, there are definitely directorial decisions being made. He famously loves a close-up. As we've talked about. And this film has close-ups, but not his famous kind of close-up, the sort of looking down the lens. I think a very expressive camera. Hannibal Lecter staring into the lens. Yes, right. An expressive camera that is never style for style's sake, but he is willing to put the camera in an interesting place or a weird place or do a weird move in order to get at a sort of a static truth, a human connection.

He has a lot of sort of color and vibrancy in his films. I'd say that energy, that messiness, you know, that usually comes through in performance. Music is sort of like very much a part of... Sister Carol and Something Wild. And his use of environments, the sort of kinetic energy of a space. You didn't find that using... Now technically

this is... You didn't find that this barely furnished empty Airbnb Victorian home in Nyack didn't have energy? Am I wrong in thinking that he home in Nyack, who didn't have energy. Am I wrong in thinking that he lived in Nyack? It's possible. He's a Rockford County guy because he was involved with the Jacob Burns Film Center. Which produced this film.

Did you see that credit? Sure. The movie was produced by a center. By a center, I know. Brush and Pen or something. But also the Jacob Burns Film Center. Oh, okay. It has a producer credit on this film. It's not even like, you know, made with the association of— It's for a museum.

It's not for an audience. Right. It's more for posterity's sake than anything else. We're talking about a master builder. Of course. And our guest today, of course, is Judge John Hodgman. John Hodgman of the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Also, Medallion Status is

my new book available. Of course. Anywhere that there are shelves or earbuds or screens. Pit.ly slash Medallion Status. All capital letters. M-E-D-A-L-L-I-O-N S-T-A-T-U-S Hashtag always be plugging. I mean, the best

salesman in the business. Gotta plug. Gotta plug. You gotta plug. You gotta plug. Do you think they went on a 50-state tour plugging Master Builder when it came out? No. They went on a road show.

I think they put the lens cap on the camera. Did they even do that, or did they just throw it in the bag? And then they went to brunch. You know what I mean? That's why they got together. So Wallace Shawn, who's an actor. An actor, a playwright, an essayist.

Sort of started out as more of a writer, more of a playwright. A smarty pants. He's the son of William Shawn, the famed editor. The son of famous New Yorker editor, William Shawn. I also looked at the Wikipedia page. You didn't know? Yeah, but I don't have it open in front of me. You're ragging on me for a second main series appearance.

Second laptop tirade. Forky buy that for you with his Disney Plus money? I don't know. On that T? How much do you think Forky's making on Disney Plus? I don't understand this Forky joke at all, but I'm enjoying it. You don't need to. There was, of course, a bat placed.

Of course. Where David was claiming that Forky was a war criminal. In advance of the release of Toy Story 4, I made sport of Forky so that I could annoy Griffin Newman. Said that Forky founded ISIS, that he was a cop. I would make outlandish claims that he did 9-11, for example. And I made a bet with David, which was he could badmouth Forky as long as he wanted until he saw the film. But if he, in fact, liked Forky, that he would have to marry him. And so David, who had spent years in a very loving relationship with a wonderful woman,

unfortunately now is instead engaged to Forky. And they are actively planning their wedding. Of course. So anytime we reference David planning his wedding, it is, of course, canonically to Forky. Oh, you're so right. It would not be to anyone else. I'm actually now interested in Wallace Shawn's Wikipedia page, now that we've been ragging on me so hard.

Can I make a comparison, though? A thing that kind of hit me as I was doing the Shawn research? I feel like Wallace Shawn, in certain ways, has a career that's a little parallel to yours. Oh, if only. I would love that. Well, hey, I mean, you're still 40 years away

from your master builder. You have time to get there. I think he was 76 when he filmed this. Okay, so 50 years away? Yes, keep going. 67? So, no, I'm closing in on Wallace Shawn fast. No, you're not.

I would love, I always loved Wallace Shawn. Like that, truly, when I was a young weirdo watching movies, that was my representation. That's where I saw me. Right, because he was a guy who was like a man of letters. Yes. You know, came from this very literary background, was this playwright and would be in his own plays, but was not, I think, thought of primarily as an actor.

I did not come from a literary background, by the way. But you are a man of letters. Yeah, but self-made. Yes. Not like him. From the dirt of Brookline, Mass. Yeah, that's right.

From the hard streets of Brookline, Massachusetts. I mean, the thing about Wallace Shawn, though, is like- I fought my way up to McSweeney's. When you Google, like, young Wallace Shawn, you see a bald man. Like, I can't find a picture of him with hair on his head.

Well, and that's also what I saw in him was someone who was old from the moment he was young, which is how I felt. Right. But the thing that's crazy, and then you can speak more Never saw My Dinner with Andre,

though. I've never seen it. Really? Never seen it. That is good. I presume this was a sequel. It's a spiritual companion. Criterion packaged it

as a box set. Yes. With this and Vanya on 42nd Street. Oh, okay. They're like, that's the list. So the Andre Gregory ones, right? Three Walsh, Andre Gregory collaborations. Right. With this and Vanya on 42nd Street. Oh, okay. They're like, that's the list. So the Andre Gregory ones, right?

Three Wallace Shawn, Andre Gregory collaborations. Right. The first two of which were directed by Louis Malle and felt like he was the important sort of third piece in their dynamic

and then he had passed obviously by the point that Demi directed this. So Wallace Shawn translated Henrik Ibsen's Master Builder. He claims he knows Norwegian, or at least... You would have to make that claim

if you were going to claim he translated it. At least has an understanding of Norwegian. He worked through Google Translate and added a little Sean Gloss. Babelfish did have a screenwriting credit on this one, which is kind of weird. Okay, sorry. Before we get into this,

we're going to... Yes, we should talk about... Yes, well, Sean, man of letters, wrote these plays that were like in the 70s, controversial, right? You know, he was like a transgressive player. Am I getting ahead of our conversation by trying to give

the listener something to hang on to? I just want to also acknowledge some basic background of what we're talking about. In the 1990s, when I am a young boy watching pop culture, Wallace Shawn is, he's the dinosaur in Toy Story. Mr. Rats. He's the nice teacher in Clueless.

Yes. And he is the Grand Nagus Zek in Deep Space Nine. He's in like three pop culture things that are very crucial for me. I forgot that he was a Deep Space Nine-y. And even as a young boy,

I think pretty quickly I realized like, oh, this is awesome. Can we just have a moment for Rene El Bougienois? Oh, the great. I mean, really the great the great I mean really the great from the cast of my favorite movie of all time

Bruce McLeod Bruce McLeod he's in that he's in many a great movie he's the angry chef in The Little Mermaid yes like there's so many things

where you're like oh that's him too he and Carol Spinney died on the same day they did wow and both two of my favorite Birdmen.

Because in Bruce McCloud, he plays a lecturer who slowly turns into a bird. That's true. I'm just shouting out my favorite part of Birdmen. Also, something I happen to know, a great dad. Really? I worked with his son, Remy Abagino. Right, right, right. Another great actor in his own right.

Who's also a terrific actor and a great guy. But he spoke highly of his parenting. Yeah, like, that's great. He seemed like a decent dude. He did seem like and a great guy. But he spoke highly of his parenting. Yeah. Like, that's great. He seemed like a decent dude. He did seem like a really sweet guy. I know a couple of people who had interviewed him and said that he was above and beyond Gentleman Lee and all that. All right.

But anyway. But it's just funny to think about Wallace Shawn. Wallace Shawn was on Deep Space Nine. But like, Toy Story and Clueless. Three very big things for me when I was like right in that mid-90s zone. Right. But then, yeah, also, and The Princess Bride. The Princess Bride. story and Clueless. Three very big things for me when I was like right in that mid 90s zone. Right. And but then again also and The Princess Bride. The Princess Bride.

Another children's, young person's classic. But this is the thing that I find interesting is that he was like you know this very like intellectual man who like on his Wikipedia was like he considered being a diplomat. Like he was like not sure what he wanted to do in his career. Ended up becoming a playwright. Was in like very heady sort of like New York theater communities. what he wanted to do in his career. Ended up becoming a playwright. Was in very heady

New York theater communities. Then started appearing in his own plays. His plays were much contested where people thought he was brilliant or a fraud. His thought in three parts was debated in Parliament over pornographic content in the 70s. The United Kingdom's Parliament.

How did you even know that? Well, one, Wikipedia. Two, of course, as an Englishman, I know all of parliament's debates. You have to memorize them, right, for your A levels? Every single one, they're like, we began in 1205. Do they give you text updates? Is it like Amber Alerts on your phone? Oh, my God. But yes, by the time you get to the 90s, he is just like, oh, one of those completely reliable comedic character actors in mass appeal studio franchises.

And here's why. He looks funny and he sounds funny. He looks like a Muppet who fell into a magic bag of dust and got turned into a person. That's what David was saying last night over text. When are they going to just get someone to admit he was an experiment gone wrong? Because it is unbelievable that that man is lucky enough to both look like that and sound like that. You have one or the other and you're probably set for life as a character actor. To have both.

The guy just fucking was born having hit a home run. And you don't ever get the sense, this movie existing notwithstanding as evidence. Yes. That he begrudged his mainstream career. Which is a fascinating thing. Right. He never went like full Eugene Levy and started just like, you know, pounding out clueless direct-to-video sequels or whatever. But he was always happy it seemed to take any role.

Yeah. Right? Yes. And I'm struggling to think of a good example of this right now. Maybe one will come to me later, but I feel like there are other people like him who did not consider themselves

to be actors, ended up carving out a weird career in mainstream pop culture as like a character performer. Right. And kind of always talked shit about that stuff.

And then lost it and then had to write a book about it called Medallion Status. Remember? His scene. No, but you're sort of, I feel like, a very similar example in that you were like, you came scene. No, but you're sort of, I feel like, a very similar example

in that you were like, you came from the literary world, you were a writer, and then you started becoming more and more of a performer and then started appearing in things as a character actor, but you sort of like

jumped into it with the same sort of relish that Wallace Shawn did. Yeah, right. Well, because I have the example of Wallace Shawn and also George Plimpton was a hero of mine too.

It's another great example. Also was like, you know, my doing these in television commercials, not slumming. Right. Like this is paying the bills

for my weird literary magazine and living the life that I want to lead. And that, you know, there's an equal balance of like, you get to work with people

you really respect and really heady things and you get to like voice the cartoon characters. Yeah, and guess what? You're also working with people that you really respect. Right, of course.

It's fun. Yeah. It's fun. But I feel like there are other people like Wallace Shaw. You know who I'm against? Who? Snobs. I hate snobs. Hate them. How about slobs? Pro. You gotta be pro slobs. Yeah. Three slobs in this studio. If it's a snobs versus slobs showdown. It is. Yeah, you want

to take the slobs. This is a snobs versus slobs show. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. We talk about a master builder based on Ibsen. Yeah, how many people would do that? We're here. Right. We showed up to talk master builder for 20-ish minutes and then we got some Playmobil business. I feel that Wallace Shawn has been driven in his life through an appreciation of fun.

Yes. And for him, this is fun. Yes. He likes- He wanted to get together with his friends. And for him, this is fun. Yes. He likes- 100%. He wanted to get together with his friends. Let's dig into this great work. Yeah.

Let's, you know, explore this Airbnb space. Yeah. Let's make a movie about the topic that is on the tip of everyone's tongue that no one is discussing, which is the innate fuckability of Wallace Shawn. And whether or not he has inception powers, which is sort of

what a master builder is about. That was incredible. Even bedridden in a fucking Nike jumpsuit, women cannot stop kissing him.

So, Master Builder, Yes. written in 1892 by Henry Gibson, Of course. is about a master builder.

Yes. He makes buildings. He's an architect. He makes the buildings. They could have called it The Architect. It's called

The Master Builder or in Norwegian Big Master Solness. Correct. Master Builder Solness. What a difference in A makes. That was their whole idea was like we're going to put

our own spin on it. This is not The Master Builder. This is A Master Builder. Right. Which to me, presented the kind of idea of like, oh, this is going to be a pretty loose adaptation. And I've never read the play or

seen a production. I have read it. This feels like it is just translating it into a different language and putting it in a house and not that. I thought it was going to be inspired by the Ibsen play. Same here. But it is the Ibsen play. It's just straight up Ibsen play. It is mostly... It's Sean's translation. It is. Yes. But it is, you know, the bones are there. It's Ibsen play. It's just straight up the Ibsen play. It is mostly... It's Sean's translation. It is. But it is, you know,

the bones are there. It's Ibsen. You know that it's the Ibsen play because although this would seem to take place in the present day, somewhere in the United States,

probably Nyack, in English, everyone's referring to this architect as Master Builder. Yes. A term that has never been used in the United States.

And there is a weird formality to all the language. Very, very formal. And they also cannot stop trying to solve the Ragnar problem. They say Ragnar a lot. Right. Master builder Solness

is an architect who is nearing the end of his life. He's really sick at the beginning. He's got at least one nurse that you might meet later. Who knows? That's the thing that is more their addition.

That he's publicly sick. That's not in the play. Oh, okay. Because in the play at the end, he falls off the tower. Right. As they keep sort of hinting, they're like,

what if you went up there? Yeah, right. Whereas in this movie, it's just a dream. In Chekhov plays, you got guns on mantelpieces. Ibsen's tower. In Ibsen plays,

you got wreaths on tops of towers. And this is very important because the master builder's nearing the end of his life. He is no longer interested or capable in making his most famous architectural detail, which is to add phallic towers to everything. He literally can't get an erection anymore. He also doesn't want to cede control to anyone else. He's like, I hate doing this. I no longer get excited.

I don't think it's worth giving them my art. And Ragnar's like, I can step up. And he's like, fuck you. Inconceivable. Come in. Go away. It is a play. It is, you know, a play about many things.

Watching this, I'd never read the play. Yeah. And I'm like, you know what? I'd never read the play. Yeah. And I'm like, you know what? This is a goddamn English class. Yep. But it's kind of interesting. Yeah. I mean, I'm glad to have been introduced to this play.

I'm glad that through watching this movie, I never need to read or see a production of this play. And I can act as if I know Henrik Ebsen, a master builder. I feel like if we saw, the three of us rolled up to a Broadway, or off-Broadway production of a master builder, we'd probably get a lot more out of it. Well, I think so too. Theater belongs in theaters,

and it's far more engaging when you're really locked in with it, and when people call things stagey, sometimes they're being a little harsh, and they just mean that something's intimate, but this is the definition of a stagey film. Yeah, it is filmed theater. Pure filmed theater.

I mean, you even feel, you know when those act breaks are happening. Totally. Because they cut to a hedge. Yeah. And then come back to the house. So anytime, so it's a play, I guess in three acts, maybe four. I detected three acts where it was like, oh, clearly this is when. Yeah.

They're cutting to a hedge. Clearly this is when they were on stage. They'd be resetting the set. Demarcated by the set changes. That's right. Exactly. Right. Yeah.

They moved to that back office for like act two. And Master Builder Solness is anxious about ceding his career to his assistant Ragnar. Of course. Who is the son of his best friend. Ragnar who is played and no offense to this actor whose name is

Jeff Beal but played with the energy of someone pitching like a sprint product. You know what I mean? Like he comes in in a suit.

It's a good thing that you made a point looking up his name. No offense to this actor. Hang on. Let me get his name. But there's like a scene where he comes in late

and I'm like Ragnar's here again. Like this is gonna be a showdown. And so he's just like I thought you wanted me to be the master builder and I'm like, Ragnar's here again. This is going to be a showdown. And so he's just like, I thought you wanted me to be the master builder. I'm like, Ragnar, come on. You got to bring it. He has this deer in the headlights look at his face the entire time.

I swear he's about to say, well, with Verizon, you have more coverage than any other. I just want to say, out of respect, I looked him up as well because I was like, who the fuck is this guy? He is at the time of this recording or earlier this year nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Best Lead Actor in a Play. I forget what play it is. What if it was like a play? Maybe. I mean, he is a respected and legitimate theater actor who is drowning in this film. Right.

And most of the performances in this film. Maybe they wanted him to be drowning? I don't know. I think that it was probably very hard to figure out takes. I think so, too. To how to perform this material. I think there is a— And I don't think that Wallace Shawn was giving a clear idea of what the other people should—

I don't either. Like a model for how you're going to perform this very now highly stylized formal language in a natural setting. That's the big thing. It doesn't feel like Demi was doing much other than figuring out how to film the thing. Right. I do not feel his fingerprints as an actor's director in this. It feels like that was certainly more Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory's territory perhaps. Watching this movie, I kept on Googling to be like,

I know last time I Googled five minutes ago, the last time I paused this movie, the results were zero, but I has to have been wrong. It feels like this was a production that ran at BAM for two weeks and then they filled it. Except there was no production. No. But everything about this feels like it is adapted.

I thought I saw that there was a production. I couldn't find any evidence of a production. Who knows? There was certainly production. No. But everything about this feels like it is adapted. I thought I saw that there was a production. I couldn't find any evidence of a production. Who knows? There was certainly not a major. There's no way anyone could know. There's no way anyone could. No one will ever know. It's impossible.

No one has a computer here. Yes. Oh, wait a minute, David. Wait a second. Would you, what's the- Laptop Sims. Look at the, hey, Laptop-y. It's hard to search for master builder stage production.

There have been many. That's the problem. No, but what a difference it makes. The Wikipedia page for the movie, I felt like, in the section about the translation. No, the only thing. Oh, you know what? Maybe it was the Wikipedia page for. I think it might be the criterion essay.

Oh, no, go ahead. Sorry. Okay. Because the movie's Wikipedia page is sparse. It's sparse. It's mostly just that Demi really liked the performance given by Lisa Joyce. We have a lot to talk about with Lisa Joyce.

First of all, the Wikipedia page for the play, Big Mester Soulness. 2013 film, A Master Builder, was directed by Jonathan Demi and stars Wallace Shawn, who previously had translated and adapted it for the stage in collaboration with Andre Grigger.

The stage adaptation is the basis for the film. But the adaptation might just be a script. No, but he adapted it for the stage. The stage adaptation was the basis.

I guess I don't know. I don't know. It also feels like... This is the kind of ambiguity that really gives this movie a big energy. This is what it seemed like to me. Like, he staged this adaptation, his

translation at some point. Yeah. But this movie feels like they were coming off of a six week run and just said, hey, can we just film this thing? It feels like something that was filmed for posterity, for the historical record. Which it feels like this cast was not doing a production of this play in the time before this movie was shot.

If he staged this, it feels like it happened ten plus years earlier. Well, who knows? Can I jump in that side that the variety review implies that this was 14 years in the making? Right. Right. That's exactly what we're talking about. Why didn't they have the tagline be an epic adventure 14 years in the making?

Back when you were covering the development of a master builder at the Boston Phoenix. Of course. Exactly. Right. When I was on the building. 14 years in the making. This Master Builder at the Boston Phoenix. Of course, exactly. Right. When I was on the Builder beat. This was a passion project for Wallace Shawn. Yes. Obviously, and Andre Gregory.

That is the most important context for this film, which is My Dinner with Andre was kind of this landmark arthouse film. Yes. And that it was here are these two like dramaturgical guys who are no one's idea of conventional movie stars. Wallace Shawn has started developing more of a character actor career. In 81, not really. Yeah, I feel like this was his breakout. Yes. People were like, let's make that guy the voice of a dinosaur.

He had been in a couple of Woody Allen movies. He had made tiny appearances in things. He was a New York intellectual type. Right. And they wrote a script based off of the conversations that they would have. Right. What on paper sounds like the most self-indulgent and least dramatic. Right, right.

You know, dramatically engaging sort of text possibly. Yeah, Superman, you'll believe a man can fly. You know, my dinner with Andre, you'll believe two people can eat. But they go to Louis Malle, a very respected filmmaker. Right. And he liked the challenge of how can you take this thing that is inherently uncinematic, just two guys having intellectual conversation around a table and try to make a movie out of it and it becomes a bit

of a punchline but not only does it work but it becomes a bit of a crossover success. Right. Yeah. And people are like you won't believe this.

It's actually exciting. Yeah. It was like the intellectual equivalent of Deep Throat in the 70s where people were like I don't usually see stuff like this but I guess I

gotta. Right. Everyone's talking about how much these guys talk. Even the slobs were like I guess the snobs got something. Yeah.

I'm biased thisased this time. You got to love that conversation because there's a funny-looking, funny-sounding guy in it. I think that's the X factor is that Wallace Shawn is so innately kind of engaging to watch and likable and funny that he makes the film a little more accessible than it would be otherwise. Yeah. And then kind of off of that his character actor career really takes off and Princess Bride is the real turning point where once you've put him in a different context

Right. you're no longer just having him play a New York intellectual but you're going oh you could apply this energy to different characters and different genres Yes.

Then like the doors are off the hinges. Right. Right. Stellar career peaks in the 90s you know all of that stuff. I think so.

Right. Yeah. But you know about 10 years He's still doing great. Yeah. 10 years later are off the hinges. Stellar career peaks in the 90s. I think so. But, you know, about 10 years... He's still doing great. Yeah, 10 years later, Gregory... Did your fiancé get to work with him in Toy Story 4? Well, they record all the dialogue separately, you know. Took me a second. Yeah, but there might have been a table read.

Does Forky have a scene with Rex? Forky has many scenes with Rex. They're in the RV together. He's in Bonnie's room. What are you talking about? I've not has many scenes with Rex. I don't remember. They're in the RV together. He's in Bonnie's room. What are you talking about? I've not seen Toy Story 4, so I don't even know. I've only seen Toy Story 4 once. It's good.

Yeah, that's crazy. So you still have to see it three more times. I do? Is that the rule? Well, yeah, of course. Everyone has to watch Toy Story 4 four times. Four for four. Four for four.

Three for three, two for two, one for one. I've only ever seen Toy Story 1 once. Yes. You have not seen Toy Story 2 no I've seen them all except for the 4 oh oh oh you're making a joke

you scared me for a moment no of course I've seen Toy Story 2 my blood ran cold when that movie ended I was like that was the

perfect sequel no more of these ever need to be made very accurate it is the perfect sequel Toy Story 3 is an incredible achievement

in that there was absolutely zero reason for it to be made and it made space for itself and I would say the same about Toy Story 4 yeah an incredible achievement in that there was absolutely zero reason for it to be made. And it made space for itself. And I would say the same about Toy Story 4. Yeah. I've not seen it, but I've heard. A movie that conceptually I believe has no reason to be made and I think justifies its own existence.

Why are we talking about other movies? I mean we're here with a master builder. We cannot go off on tangents here. What I love about this is like, you know, the X Factor that made Sn achievement super plus A plus number one, My Dinner with Andre, so appealing is that Wallace Shawn is wonderfully appealing. Yes. So here he is playing the least likable human being ever. He's literally playing like if Oscar the Grouch also was like a serial cheater on his wife. Right.

A serial philanderer. He's such a grouch. Right. He also can't shut the fuck up. Sometimes I was just like, Master Builder, quiet. I'm bored of you talking. Well, that's what's weird. This is such a portrait of toxic masculinity.

It's almost essential viewing. Which is one of Sean's specialties. He likes digging into that right I mean I was like this sort of arrogance of yes yeah like his doctor

comes to see him and he's like maybe you should step down and let Ragnar go and he's like how dare they ask me to step aside out

I'm 76 years old in a hospital bed and dying and this is visibly dying and I literally am about to die. It's like, yeah, okay, boomer. That's what's also weird is it doesn't feel like he...

See you, boomer. That's the thing, because this movie is about a midlife crisis. It is much more plausible and much more accessible if Master Builder is in his 50s. The play, I believe, that is the

idea. The idea of the play is not that he's about to die. Right. The vision of, you know, grayed out Wallace Shawn, who's being filmed barely grasping for life at the end. Yes. Actually grasping for life just makes it sad and perverse.

Totally. And there is equally, I mean, the other reason that he's awful is that once he gets some privacy, a new house guest

comes to town. A stranger comes to town. Yes. And that's Hilda, who's this 22-year-old that he immediately falls in super-duper love with.

Because he promised her when she was like 12 that he would make her a princess someday? Yes, that he would give her a kingdom. Right, that he had met 10 years before when she was like 12 that he would make her a princess someday. Yes, that he would give her a kingdom. Right, that he had met 10 years before when she was 12. In the play, she's supposed to have like a short skirt.

You know, she's supposed to sort of be wearing like provocative clothing. And so here they give her white shorts, like these short shorts. Yeah. To be like, oh my. She comes in and looks like if the Midsommar community shopped at Land's End. But we've already at this point in the film seen Wally Sean smooching Ragnar's wife. Right. Who's his secretary.

He's having an affair with Ragnar's wife and said, I cannot live without you. But as he's smooching her, she's like, oh, God. Oh, no. It's not the hottest smooch you ever did see. No, but she is in a consensual affair with him. Yes, yes, yes. She's just ashamed or whatever. Worried she'll get caught.

Right, but it is awful to begin with if he is 56 years old. If he is 76 years old. It's horrific. It's horrific to consider and it's horrific to watch. The first 35, I believe I counted, minutes are him in that bed. Oh my God, that's so boring. Ranting, people are him in that bed. Oh my god. Ranting. People are coming in and out. Yeah. And then he says come in. And Dave and I are texting. Come in! Dave and I are texting

each other at this point. And we're like oh there's a little energy because he gets up. Right. But we're like first 30 minutes we're texting each other and we're like this is one of the least engaging things I've ever watched. Right. But I'm like the one thing I find kind of interesting is Wallace Shawn playing so much against his type. Even if I find this character repellent,

there is something kind of interesting trying to, you know, grasp for any silver linings here to watching him play so quiet and so angry because that's not usually the energy he is asked to contribute to films, right? And then at the 30-minute mark, he says, come in, and suddenly starts playing like full big Wallace Shawn. Yeah, he suddenly dialed up. But then—

While lusting after a 22-year-old. Yes, but then he goes and sits down with her, and they have another 30-minute conversation. And all that energy is quickly gone. Yeah. The comedy of that moment. Yes. Like, Wallace Shawn just can't help it. No.

And, you know, when— He coughed like this. Which I mean, Wallace Shun just can't help it. No. And, you know, when... He talks like this! Which I mean, like, fundamentally. The first 30 minutes, it's like he's working as hard as he can. Fundamentally, I'm still incredibly powerful and smart. And I will not have Ragnar taking over my job! It's literally what the whole thing sounds like! And the thing that I...

It's insane that he's like a theater luminaire, even though he is good! The thing that I fear the most is that the younger generation will someday knock on my door. Knock, knock, knock. Come in. But it is openly comic. I don't think it's intentional, but it's hilarious. The first 30 minutes, it's like this, like, he's like a literal knock on the door.

Right. And a 22-year-old woman comes in and goes, I'm here now. In the sixth sense plotting of this movie, that is when we are entering the dream state. That is when he's going on to life support. Right. Because there's an immediate – and this is definitely a directorial choice because it immediately goes from absolutely cold zero colors to literally every time she walks into a room, he talks about her as a ray of light. There's sunshine. There's sunshine! There's sunshine beaming into his face directly from her. And also he takes off his white canvas jacket

and he's wearing this weird tracksuit. It feels like a stage decision. It feels like a theater-like decision more than it feels like because the vocabulary of the filmmaking itself doesn't change at all, which is a thing that Demi would usually do. But it is.

The first 30 minutes, he's like Sisyphus trying to fight against everything that makes him innately funny. Right. Where he's talking slower and quieter. So he's not as innately comical. And the second he says, come in, the dam breaks. And for the rest of the movie, everything he does is goofy. Every face he makes is goofy. Even when he's gone into his head now.

Yes. Right? Right. I mean, I'm not saying that this is a successful transition. Yeah. But if anything, it's unnerving that all of a sudden Wallace Shawn is leaping out of bed and ogling this young woman. The reason I couldn't find the Variety review was that when this premiered at the Rome Film Festival where it premiered, it was called Fear of Falling. Yes. And then I guess they were like,

we need the box office dollars that come with really identifying the master builder connection. The instant heads got really mad on the line. What a difference in aim. Right, exactly. And it didn't come out until like a year after it played at the festival. Yeah, I mean, not that unusual for an indie movie. And it barely came out.

I mean, I remember it playing... I'm looking at the box office here, and, oh wait that unusual for an indie movie. And it barely came out. I mean, I remember it playing— I'm looking at the box office here. And, oh, wait, I have to go further down. And it opened at number 69 to $12,000, so you're embarrassed right now. On one screen? On one screen. Yeah, so it played at the Film Forum. That's the only theater I know of that actually showed this film theatrically.

That's what the Film Forum does. Totally. And I remember at the time being like, there's a Jonathan Demme movie that I haven't heard of that is per me. That is technically his follow-up, his fiction follow-up to Rachel Getting Married. Like one of his great achievements. Like one of the best films of the decade. Right. And I was like, how do I not know about this film?

And when I— And Walsh was outside going, come in. He was there. But when we like—when Demme won, we knew— Are we retiring that bit now? No, absolutely not. I feel like. When Demme won and we were like strategizing? no absolutely not I feel like when Demi won

and we were like strategizing how you know to get through because it's a lot of films and most of them are very exciting I mean this has actually been I think one of our best ever series

I agree but this was like one where we were like what do we do about the fucking Master Builder episode we immediately were like let's abuse our friendship with Hodgman

sure this feels like a thing he might have good takes on and when I burdened you with the idea that you appear on this episode for a film you had never even heard of.

Yeah. The thing that finally got you excited was I was, you were like, I haven't even heard of this. And I was like, John,

this movie has no cultural footprint whatsoever. And you were like, now I'm in. I like the idea that this movie has made no impression

whatsoever on the culture at large. It was not made for anyone other than the people who were in that house. And for like the third film in ostensibly like a trilogy of the Andre Gregory, Wallace Sean films, of which the first two are very revered, Vanya on 42nd Street, which is a much more. That's a good movie. I haven't seen it in years. And is a looser, more creative adaptation.

Yes, and is really... Yes, and is cinematically interesting. Is Louis Moll again? Is Julianne Moore? Wallace Shawn has more of a supporting role. With those two films, it sets a table for what you imagine the third one would be, especially as it's these two guys

nearing the winter of their life, you know? Right. The whole thing they said was they were drawn to the play because they felt like coming to terms with your reputation, your legacy, your mortality at the end of your life was a thing that they—that was really speaking to them at this point, and they thought it would be a good third film to round out their trilogy. It's basically a movie about a man who refuses to accept that no one wants to listen to him talk and talk and talk and talk anymore.

And the original manic pixie dream girl who enters his life to prove to him that he can still maybe get laid with a 22-year-old. Which it's kind of an interesting counterpoint to My Dinner with Andre being a movie about a guy who needs to shut the fuck up. Right. But it's also weird that My Dinner with Andre is like,

Wally Sean, this guy's innately interesting. Let's make a movie that's just him talking the way he talks in conversation. Funny on 42nd Street is a little bit more him being the greater collaborator

in the larger thing and him like fitting in as an actor, you know, but it's not like a vehicle for him. And this is very much like, here's a vehicle

to give Wallace Shawn the performance of his career. Like, it kind of feels like we're going to do like full main course Wallace Shawn giving a balls-to-the-wall performance as you've never seen him before. Yeah.

But that was what this was teed up to be. Yeah. It was basically Wallace Shawn like the master builder saying, I still got it. There's this cognitive dissonance that we were sort of starting to talk about. There's a lot of cognitive dissonance. That word. The language and the performances do not gel with the fact that this movie is visually taking place present day in Nyack.

Right. You just cannot ever reconcile the two. It is so disorienting. And especially because it's shot like a little bit documentary style, digital video, handheld camera. Like all of that stuff feels very modern and present. Zooms! Yes. It is so stilted.

The way everyone reacts to each other culturally does not make sense in present day America. Right. You know? Well, the doctor comes to make a house call, first of all. And then they say, and of course you'll be staying to supper. I'm like, not my doctor. What's your health insurance?

That's incredible. The Hilda character. Blue Cross pays for six dinners a year. To be fair, my personal physician, Dr. Bruce Yaffe, does have a political discussion dinner once a month that I've been consistently invited to and I've never had a chance to go. So I guess there are people who do socialize with their physicians. Do you guys know that Wallace Shawn's on Young Sheldon? I did know that. 21 episodes.

I did know that. He plays a professor, a college professor. He's probably not like a mechanic who's like, Sheldon, you're such a nerd. I am a redneck. He plays a master builder in town. Elderly, but still vibrant and respected and sexy master builder.

He promised a 12-year-old young Sheldon that someday he would make him a prince. Yeah, speaking of that. In the kingdom. So, in comes Hilda. Out of nowhere. And this was the thing I was going to say that very much speaks to the cultural clash of this movie. Right.

Of it not making sense in the time that it is visually set in. Right. She comes in. She literally wanders into the house. Right. Well, no, she does knock. Yes. She is the younger generation knocking at the door.

Knock, knock. Right. Basically, it's like, I don't want the younger generation knocking at the door unless she's hot. Then, yes, come in. Live here. Does not reveal that they have met until 15 minutes in, at which point she essentially tests him to go, like, you don't remember meeting. Right, which is always great to do to someone. Right.

And then finally explains, 10 years ago when I was 12 years old, you made a promise to me that at some point you'd build a kingdom for me. I held on to that for 10 years to the date. Right. a kingdom for me. I held on to that for 10 years to the date. Right. And then without

any further communication in the last decade, without any forewarning showed up at your front door and have come here expecting the palace is a thing that only makes sense in the 1800s

where there is no ability to follow up with people. Right. Where a 12-year-old would literally just memorize a date and go remember. In 10 years,

I'm going to get a kingdom and a palace. Right. Trek across the country. From this person who sexually assaulted me as a child. Because that's the other part of the story. Yeah. She's like, you don't remember how you grabbed me and kissed me when I was 12? And he's like, no. He's like, I would have

remembered doing that. You probably are picking up on the fact that I wanted to do that. It's his defense. You remember the energy of me wanting to do that. Well's his defense. You remember the energy of me wanting to do that. Well, he has already claimed that he has mental powers, right? The reason that he's been hugging and kissing with, what's her name, Kaya?

Sure. Ragnar's wife? Why not? It's because one day he thought to himself. Julie Agarty. Right. One day he thought to himself, I would like her to work here because I want to have sex with her. Yes. And the next day she showed up and goes, I'm here for work and sex. Yes. And it's like, I think that I have the power to make the, to change, to change reality

with my mind, which is also kind of the worst. He thinks he has inception power. He thinks he has inception power. There's no other way to put it, right? He's like, he's too, he's too important to give up his job. He is, he is literally a God on earth. Julie Haggerty is the best performance in this film. I agree.

I also just really like Julie Haggerty. I do too. I enjoyed seeing her in Marriage Story, which Wallace Shawn is also in. It's a reunion. Marriage Story is really an homage to a master builder. He was going to call it a marriage story. It was real. I mean, what Wallace Shawn wanted for this performance, Julie Haggerty got.

Because Julie Haggerty got. Because Julie Haggerty, it was very jarring to see Julie Haggerty who's always so just, you know. And like bubbly and like. A lovable, ditzy, but smart secretly. Yes. Nice person. And for the last. Play so hard and angry. For the last 10 or 15 years, she has pretty much been in this zone of just total pro, always killing it, playing mother or grandmother in studio comedies.

Right. And even Marriage Story, which is like a pricklier film made by a more auteurist filmmaker, her performance in that, while excellent and with better material, is still not that far off from how she plays the grandmother in Instant Family or the Disney Plus original film, Noelle. You have now named all of her credits from this decade. I know because I watched those three movies in three consecutive days. How is Noelle?

It's a mess. But I weirdly watched Instant Family on Hulu when I couldn't sleep, saw Marriage Story in theaters, and then watched Noelle on Disney Plus when I couldn't sleep three consecutive nights. And I was like, fucking Haggerty, like burning it up. But those three are essentially the same performance because she's a pro and she clearly shows up and she does the work. And she's better in Marriage Story because she's given better shit to work with.

And that makes me think, oh, this is the thing that Julie Haggerty does. And then you watch her in this and the pitch of her voice is entirely different. She's at a very, very different frequency. She's far more naturalistic. I think she's the only actor who succeeds in making this feel behaviorally current, if that makes sense. It's fun. There is a moment where she goes, and the house that you're building for us will make everything better. And she does a little Diane Keaton wave.

Yes. Like there. But see, I found – all right. Let's get into it. Hot takes. I found the relatively naturalistic Nyack 2014 style acting to be really – The Nyack school. The Nyack 2014 style acting to be really – The Nyack school. The Nyack school.

Right, right. I felt the acting – like no one in this is a bad actor. Agreed. A lot of the acting choices that they're making are strange. They're not good before, yeah. And thank God or whatever that I understood going into this that as soon as she knocks on the door and the film's temperature switches so completely. Something goofy is happening. That this is not reality.

Right. That it can't be. That it can't be because so many of the choices are so strange. Including, you know, and I'm, what is the name of the actor who plays? Lisa Joyce. Lisa Joyce. Like Lisa Joyce is so all over the place emotionally. She is clearly a very skilled, intelligent actor whose only way to make sense of playing this material in this day and age, in this kind of setting, on film, is to play it like a woman in the midst of a complete mental breakdown.

Yeah. Because, I mean, she is just every five seconds wildly oscillating to a different emotion. There's so much of her, like, on the verge of tears, then turning into hysterical laughter, then getting angry, then getting seductive. Right. And it makes sense if you go,

this is a young actor who is hungry, who is fresh out of drama school, who's got the brains and is looking at the script and going, well, this behavior makes no fucking sense. This is written by an old man with probably a pretty poor opinion of young women, you know, in a very, very different time. And the only way to make this consistent is to make her act like a crazy person. I mean, the whole conceit of the play is deeply offensive. Totally. Deeply, deeply offensive. Right. So the whole conceit of the play is deeply offensive. Totally. Deeply, deeply offensive. Right, so the only way to make... But I don't think that these

performances undid that. I don't. Or even, I'm not, one of the so there are two major ambiguities, right? Yes. One is she tells a story about how when she was a little girl age of 12, she saw him climb the spire of the church that he had built and put the wreath

on top of it which is a thing that happens and what an erotic act I mean imagine being a 12 year old seeing Wallace Shawn climb the spire

seeing a 60 something Wallace Shawn that would imprint on you sexually for the rest of your life a fetish develops in that very moment she watched him

climb his own erection and give him a little hat and put and put a wreath around it. Right, right. You know what I mean? Yes, yes.

And then he meets her at lunch after when they're alone and he sexually assaults her and promises her the world. Yeah. And that's what she remembers and she comes back 10 years later and he has no memory of it. Yes. And the question, I mean, this goes to the Ibsen, not to this production,

because you don't know whether this happened or not. Yes. Right? You don't know whether, because he claims to have no memory of it and then decides

he does have a memory of it. Yeah. Because she's sort of, because once he figures out, she's like, yeah, you remember how 10 years ago you sexually assaulted me?

Well, guess what? I'm back. And by the way, I don't want revenge. I actually love you. I just like my kingdom. Right. Because you, yeah, I just want my kingdom, please.? I'm back. And by the way, I don't want revenge. I actually love you. I just like my kingdom. Right. Because you, because you, yeah, I just want my kingdom, please. And I'm going to be here

and spend the next hour or so seducing you, making you feel sexual potent, forgiving you for the horrible things you've done. And, and then, and then demanding that you have a bit, a bigger and better conscience. So I'm going to be this, this young woman who's going to basically fillet you and also do all your emotional labor for you for the next hour until you can finally die in peace. Right, until then it'll turn out right. And the other ambiguity of the last seconds of your life. And the other ambiguity,

the one that I find more disturbing, is I don't know how much this movie is aware of this. I don't know whether Wallace Shawn, as an actor or as a translator, is aware of the fact that he is a monster that is irredeemable and not sympathetic in any way. Most of Wallace Shawn's plays, non-translation, are about disgusting men.

And like their sort of darkest sides and they're about sort of like running at that. Right. I think it is. It's his specialty. He loves to roll up his sleeves and think about his id. I mean, look, you're the one with the laptop. You have the database of knowledge on your hands. All I can go with is my gut feeling.

While it's Sean Toxic. My gut feeling watching this morning as snow fell outside and my own wife didn't speak to me across the room because she was silently grading papers. It was a very Ibsen-y way of seeing a movie. I'm feeling like I don't know whether this movie gets it. Yeah. I'm feeling like I don't know whether this movie gets it. And part of the reason is that the performances are so odd.

Agreed. Yeah. A quote I found that stuck in my craw while reading Wallace Shawn's Wikipedia last night for context. Just the late, awful John Simon, recently departed critic and a horrible person who was famous for criticizing the physical appearance of actors. Sure. No, I'm familiar with that. Relentlessly for decades had the line, Wallace Shawn is one of the unsightliest actors in the city at the time, which is particularly cutting, but the line that stuck in my crowd was Wallace Shawn describing when people interviewed him at the time about this seeming weird juxtaposition between his appearance and his temperament and how transgressive his plays were.

He said that the plays were depicting his interior life as a raging beast. Yes. And it is part of this thing and part of this sort of tradition that goes back even further than Ibsen. But it feels like it is finally being slaughtered now of sort of intellectual giants, quote unquote, making drama about their own power and how sort of compelling and charismatic and magnetic they are. Their greatness.

Right. How that translates into a raw sexuality. Right. Their intellectual sort of supremacy, all that sort of stuff. These shows that even if they were about, you know, a complicated, unseemly man who have made mistakes and committed great sin in their life, always came back around to the fact that it's like – but it's undeniable that this is a great man. A master builder. Attention must be paid to this master builder, this man of such superior intellect and wit. And building skill.

Right. And it translates into – AKA the fountainhead. Everyone wanted to fuck them. Right. Right. Yeah. And building skill. Right. And it translates into AKA the fountainhead. Everyone wanted to fuck them. Right. Right. Right. And this feels

it feels odd for a man who otherwise seems to be such a just sort of pro of give me the script Yeah. I'll play the role. And even in his own

passion projects is like I will do the unseemly thing I have no need to position myself Right. as high status to make myself look good.

I don't think this material reflects who Wallace Shawna is in real life, but it's weird of him to pick as the piece through which to filter his feelings at the end of his life reflecting on his career and his legacy

this piece of material. It's somewhat master- Buildatory. Thank you. And with that, someone was going to get there first. Let's close the book on Master Build. You officially want to definitively close the book? I'm happy to do it because I think- I'm sick of talking about this movie.

How long have we been talking about this movie? An hour. Wow. I think- But here's something I want to say. Okay. One, I mean, but here's something I want to say. Okay. One. Mm-hmm.

I mean, first of all, Ibsen is really insightful into psychology. Mm-hmm. And obviously this was written more than 100 years ago. 18-something. But it is very contemporary feeling. Sure. And it really does feel like, oh. He was one of the first, like, contemporary, right?

Right. He's like a modernist. The birth of modernism. Right. And the birth of interior. And a dabbler we love. We love the glass house. Sure.

Psychological realism. I believe those are all the answers. Psychological realism. Brought to the forefront with him. And particular psychological realism being expressed through an upper middle class bourgeois society that puts a real privilege on Victorian manners and reticence. So the fact that some of the things that these characters are saying to each other, a lot of the stuff they just dance around, some of the stuff that they're saying to each other is rather candid for its time and explosively so. Sure. That doesn't work in a contemporary setting because we talk about shit like this all the time.

Right. Doesn't work in a contemporary setting because we talk about shit like this all the time. And you can't – to me, the acting was so contemporary and naturalistic that I felt like, oh, I'm – you're doing the play a disservice. You need to play this as though this is a repressed period of time. Well, and Hedda Gabler – I don't mind if you dress it up as Nyack today, but your performances cannot be, I don't think, as wildly contemporary. And like, you know, I think Lisa Joyce is a very talented actor. But her all over the mapness and the laughing and stuff like that, to me, I'm like, play it. Be smaller. Be smaller in this.

You're not supposed to know how this person feels. It needs to pick a lane. Like it either needs to double down on the sort of the manners and the formality and the repression of the time period in which it was written or needs to find a way to fully modernize the ideas. Because the lines are all about psychological subtext. Yes.

But their faces, all of their faces are all about psychological text. It's all written on their faces in a way that to me I think was not good. And Hedda Gabler is – Not satisfying. Agreed. Let me put it that way.

Not satisfying to me. Hedda Gabler is a play that keeps on getting sort of revisited. It's a great role for like a leading lady of Broadway. But so many times in the last 10 or 15 years people have come up with radical sort of reinterpretations of – I mean there was Hedda Tron, which was Liz Merriweather's big, like, sort of breakthrough as a writer. Right, right. But, you know, putting spins on it to realize, like, look, take it literally. There have been 19 Broadway productions of Hedda Gabler.

That's pretty crazy. Right. For everything that is important about Ibsen and the, you know, by all accounts, he is the second most produced playwright in history behind Shakespeare. After Shakespeare, yes. Very often when people put up Ibsen shows. They're very easy to mount because they just take place in one house. Yes.

When people put up Ibsen shows. One master builder. They usually reinterpret them in a major way. At this point in time, in the last 10, 15 years, I feel like there are big creative sort of swings taken. Right. Like there are big creative sort of swings taken to figure out how to make what Ibsen was saying at that time period equally impactful today rather than just restaging what he intended back then because that usually doesn't really land. I will say that this is – I am glad to be introduced to this play. I'm glad it has a cultural footprint if this film does not. This episode might gross more than Master Builder.

I think... By the way, we're charging $10. It's a one-week film for a month. So, we need five listeners to match the opening weekend. I think the opening weekend was $7,000. It was $12,000. $12,000. Oh, I'm sorry. But, like,

I will say one thing about it that was good. Julie Haggerty and Lisa Joyce's scene together on the window seat. Oh, agreed. Wonderful. They're both amazing. Yeah. In part because, I mean, A, it's a very small scene. It's the only scene that Wallace Shawn isn't completely.

I didn't think about that. I love Wallace Shawn so much. But this character. And I feel bad for criticizing Lisa Joyce's choices as an actor specifically because everyone's making weird choices. Everyone's trying to figure out what this is all about. But only do I feel like Julie Haggerty really figures out what this is about when she says the thing. Yeah, my twin children died after this fire. My house burned down that I grew up in.

Yeah. My twin children died. But that's not what bothers me. Yeah. What bothers me is the loss of all of the dresses that my mothers and grandmothers made, all this silent secret work that women do that never gets celebrated by putting a wreath on a phallic symbol or whatever in the middle of town. Yes. And two, these dolls that I had, these nine dolls. Yeah.

That I could, and you know, Lisa Joyce is amazing in this, Julie Haggard is amazing. She teases out that like, oh, you played with these dolls when you were a grown up. She said, yeah. And when my husband wasn't around, I would still play with these dolls. She had a secret in her life that got burned up by her husband's ambition. A doll's house. It is. It was just – that was the moment where I felt like, oh, this could be a – you could redo this play and it would be revolutionary to see today.

It was revolutionary for its time and it would be really important to see today. This is not my favorite. And the reason why ultimately – sorry to go on about this. I know that – No, I love it. I know that Mr. Forkey doesn't want me to keep talking about this movie. Please. Mrs. Forky doesn't want me to keep talking about this movie. Please, Mrs. Forky.

For all of the decision to make the strangeness of the situation of Hilda arriving at this house, a fever dream in the mind of a dying man is interesting, but ultimately completely erases that character. That character is now not only highly problematic by acting both as his accuser and his seducer and his conscience and everything else, but also not even human.

Like there's not even a person there. It's the reason why it was all a dream is thrown out as the least satisfying way anything can end. Right. By and large,

people always go like, you know, that's the standard I feel like people go like, this ending was so bad it's almost as if it was all a dream in the end. There's that weird choice, and then I promise we'll stop talking about this, David. There's that weird— I'm just like doing my taxes at this point.

I can tell. I can tell. Wow! Wow. There's that weird choice at the end when he's like flatlining that there's a shot of Lisa Joyce standing in the vestibule with her back turned. It's another Joyce choice. Everyone around his bed. Right.

Which up until that point, you're like, well, maybe the entire Lisa Joyce character is imagined because— No, but it's clearly he—it's this buried thing he doesn't want to acknowledge. Right. That he did this terrible thing to a pre-teen girl. But has she truly shown up at the house or is he just projecting her at that moment as he does? In the play, he's just projecting her. In this movie.

In the final moment when he's dying. Isn't she the same actor who was his nurse at the beginning? A different actor who looks very similar which is also confusing. I got confused there. I thought that was part of the M thug. It's like Inception. It's the top spinning, you know, do with it what you will. Yeah. So anyway, perfect movie 10 out of 10.

It's like Inception, quote David Sims on the Master of the World. You know what? I'm going to – Rachel, you watch this movie. I can't believe producer Rachel watched this one. I'm not anywhere near what these actors can do. Yeah. I'm not anywhere near what these actors can do, but I'm age appropriate for this role. Uh-huh. 48 years old. Uh-huh. I've been master building my whole life. Yeah. I'm not anywhere near what these actors can do, but I'm age appropriate for this role.

Uh-huh. 48 years old. Uh-huh. I've been master building my whole life. Yeah. Maybe my passion project is to do a master builder. Another master builder. Another master builder.

Wow. To mount a production of this. Yeah. That would be great if your takeaway from this episode is, I need to get my hand on builder. I'm a white man. I'm still important. I need to make master hand on Builder. I'm a white man. I'm still important. I need to make Master Builder. I've got to replace Wallace Shawn.

What if I go as Master Builder Wholeness for Halloween? Hey, Wallace Shawn, here comes Hodgman. Knock, knock, knock. I'm coming in. You invited me. Okay, box office game, and then we'll talk about Playmobil movie for an hour. That's fine. Let's play the box office game for A Master Builder.

A Master Builder. Which came out, obviously, this is a summer film. Yeah. July 25th, 2014. That's right. Reviewing at number 69, nice, at the box office. Do you think they retitled it and added the A at the beginning so that it would come up earlier in VOD listings? What was Srego's take on why A makes a difference?

What a difference. Just a funny line. I have a quick question. So the original title was Fear of Falling. Does that make the movie better or worse if it was called that? Worse. Fear of Falling is a worse title. It's a worse title.

It sounds like a TV episode title. You know what I mean? It's just... And then you watch the movie and you're like, it's just a master building. Get the fuck out of here. And he doesn't even fall. Right. I would be so mad if I got tricked into watching this movie. Yes.

Not realizing that it was the adaptation of a famous play. I was thinking it was Wallace Shawn's Taken, that he was going to have his Euro revenge thriller. Fear of falling. You know that trick where like movies that have played at festivals and no one likes and take two years to get distribution. The distributors will often retitle it with an A at the beginning of the title. So it will show up earlier on airplanes and hotel VOD. And in like a programming book.

It will just be A blank whatever. I genuinely wonder if they retitled it for that reason. Well, like, I don't know if this is a movie where they're like, we need that, like, SEO traffic, baby. Yeah, I don't think they necessarily cared if anyone ever, I mean, obviously they didn't make it to put it in a museum. They wanted people to watch it. It is weird this film cost $120 million. I don't see it on screen. Well, there's just like

one room that's entirely filled with Faberge eggs. That was the issue. Also, when he says to her, Wallace Shawn has a Will Smith style trailer. I got all my eggs. There they are anyway.

My eggs. I'll give Wallace Shawn the scene where he says to her, I can't let Ragnar, I can't let Ragnar become his own man. I can't let Ragnar, I can't let Ragnar become his own man. I can't, I can't let the sun rise.

I can't let Ragnar rise. Hodgman, you are analyzing this film like I explicitly was trying to- I gave up my morning with my wife. This is like British Parliament. I'm like trying to be like,

no more discourse. We must file into the corridors now. Oh, damn. Yeah, the payment for your success is that you are unhappy. And I am the agent of your unhappiness. Oh, boy. But when he says, I can't let Ragnar rise, because then he will destroy me the same way I destroyed his father,

with the implication being like, I believe the world is only a reflection of me. The only way of thinking about this world is that everyone is just like me, which is also an incredible expression of toxic masculinity. Like that's like everyone's a monster. So I can't let anyone win because they're all monsters. Oh, it's great. There's a lot in this thing.

There's little things. Good job, Ibsen. You wrote a good play. Here's one final thing I want to say. Yeah. The thing that I find most frustrating about this movie, especially viewed as I do because I bought

the fucking Criterion box set. Nice to know. That is my dinner with Andre, Vanya on 42nd Street, and this, and a nice little slip case. We love a slip. They are presenting this to me

as these are three films that are of a piece in some kind of way. Is that Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn have so little screen time together. Yeah. He's got this one scene at the beginning

which even though it's not fucking riveting as like these two men who have had this legendary partnership that's lasted for decades, there's a little juice to the fact that you're watching them as old men talking about their own mortality. And I was like, okay, this is kind of interesting for them to choose this material.

And then Andre Gregory is gone for the remaining one hour and 45 minutes. He dies off screen. Dies off screen. Yes. Anyway, box office game. Box office game. Okay.

Okay. One more thing I want to say. No. July 25th, 2014. Okay. I was recently, I was pretty new to The Atlantic. I saw the number one film on this list at a screening. I remember I brought Shirley Lee

did you review it? yes I did and I remember Shirley was a fairly new she was a fellow the great Shirley Lee she was a fellow at the Atlantic Wire and I was like I had a plus one

I was like hey you wanna come see Lucy and we went to see Lucy probably one of the first times I hung out with her so that's the number one film on this list but you just told me what the number one film was oh fuck right I just said it sorry whatever oh boy

Lucy! yeah but can you told me what the number one film was? Oh, fuck. Right. I just said it. Sorry. Whatever. Oh, boy. Lucy. Yeah. But can you tell me what Lucy opened to? And this is his first weekend. 45? 43. Yeah.

And what was its final domestic total? 115? 126. And it's worldwide? 460? 457. I mean, you're very close on all three but also Lucy yeah

it was a hit it was an unambiguous massive success it was a big hit a very silly movie about a lady whose brain gets so smart

she can stop time made by a notorious creep yes that has a great car chase and at the end she turns into spoiler alert end of Master Builder

he dies end of Lucy she turns into a USB drive that movie Builder he dies end of Lucy she turns into a USB drive that movie is have you seen that movie much enough she literally turns into

a USB drive she becomes the internet in that movie that movie is so bizarre right because it's like a Scarlett Johansson like high concept

action movie right where it's like what if a woman kept on getting smarter every 10 minutes right and her smartness

translated into her being able to physically warp reality. Anyone in the world. She becomes a master builder. She's got super mental brain powers. Right. Set her own house on fire. It goes from her being like Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes smart where she can like beat anyone in a fight because she can anticipate what they're going to do

to her becoming like Neo where she can like warp the reality around them in order to beat them without even touching them. She can like fling people through the air just by doing this. And then the last 20 minutes of the movie are like the end of 2001. It's like her sitting

in a chair being like, I'm turning into a USB drive. This is wild. There's almost no dialogue. It's like abstract like sound and visuals. It's insane. Good movie.

Yeah, made by a horrible person. Who directed it? Luc Besson. Luc Besson. There are a lot of creepy master builders out there. A lot of them. Yes, there are.

Luc Besson, France's favorite master builder. You know who is and what's so interesting about it? Luc Besson. Luc Besson. There are a lot of creepy master builders out there. A lot of them. Yes, there are. Luc Besson, France's favorite master builder. You know who isn't? This is what's so interesting about it. Jonathan Demme. No. A mensch. He's a total mensch. A rare, generous, thoughtful.

Total mensch. You never hear about it. It's so weird that he made this movie as a favor, but it seems to be his entire creative worldview. Correct. All right, good. Yeah, I agree. Put a little bow on that. Number two at the box office seems to be his entire creative worldview. Correct. All right, good. Yeah, I agree.

Put a little bow on that. Number two at the box office. Good job. We did it. Also directed by a Hollywood creep. Oh. It's opening this weekend, a fully forgotten film, an action film. Is it a Ratner?

It's a Brett Ratner. Is it Hercules? It's Hercules. Hercules. Dwayne The Rock Johnson as Hercules. Five years ago, there was a movie in which The Rock played Hercules

directed by Brett Ratner that no one remembers ever existed. No one would ever admit to it. No. Ian McShane is in it. Joseph Fiennes.

Yeah. Rebecca Ferguson is in it. Really? She is. Wow. It made $243 million at the worldwide box office. Not great,

but you know, not nothing. Yeah, so weird. Not great, but, you know, not nothing. Yeah, so weird. But its budget was what? Well, because of the— Is there any way to find out? There is. There is.

It's just because now Box Office Mojo. Its budget apparently is listed as $100 million. Fair chunk of change. I feel like this was like the next rock movie after this is San Andreas, where he finally becomes like a fully in his own right box office draw. And he's finally bald. Yes. Like an only going to be bald.

He's got a long wig and a beard. He's got long hair. He's got a full beard. Yeah. Number three at the box office is a huge hit of the year. It's the middle in a trilogy. This is July. This is July. Okay. Middle film in a trilogy, This is July. This is July.

Okay. Middle film in a trilogy, but it's part of a much larger, more unwieldy series. It's been rebooted a couple times. So it's a sub-trilogy. Oh, I think. Go ahead. Is it Planet of the Apes? Dawn.

Correct. Yeah, right. That's correct. One of those. Nat Reeves' Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. A movie that I think. That's the really good one. Is a masterpiece. I've never seen the Reeves' Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. A movie that I think is a masterpiece. That's the really good one.

I've never seen the last one. War for the Planet of the Apes. The last one I think is. That was the one everyone liked. Okay. The boy. And I'm a big fan of that franchise, and I was very surprised by the responses to that one, which I thought the second one deserved.

The second one got. Oh, wait, what? The third one, War, which also the titles are flipped. It 100%... The titles are bizarre because it's Rise and then Dawn. That's what's flipped. Right. The first one should be Dawn and the second one should be Rise.

Dawn is a silly title. And the third one should be War, whatever. It should be Dawn, Noon, Twilight. Yes. Yeah, Shanghai Nights, The Planets of the Apes. I don't think we need to name anything Twilight. No, okay, sorry about that. What about Magic Hour of the Planets of the Apes? Dawn, Night, Gloets of the Apes. I don't think we need to name anything Twilight. No, okay. Sorry about that. What about Magic Hour of the Planets of the Apes?

Dawn Night Gloaming of the Apes. What I was going to say is I feel like the second one got respect, and then the third one people overreacted to. Some people overreacted to it, but it also slightly underperformed. It did. And it did get – I feel like there was a little more of a sort of like, why is this movie so crushingly depressing? Yeah.

I think the second one's got a perfect balance. I'm a big Matt Reeves fan. Me too. Jason Clarke, I think works really well. Gary Oldman, I think works really well. It's got the best human characters of the three. Yeah, I agree. Kerry Russell is very good in it.

Sure, she's in it. Yeah, I like it a lot. Yeah. You've seen that one. You just didn't see War. That's the only one that I've seen. I've not seen Rise, nor have I seen War. I think that's the only one that I've seen I've not seen Rise nor have I seen War I think that's the great one and when I recommend

people those films I recommend that one because I think the first one's got a big James Franco problem and I think the third one's a little too heavy handed the James Franco problem beyond his own he is pretty detached in that movie oh that's my problem personal politics aside

I think that is very much him and his performance are a stage up. Isn't it weird that I'm in a blockbuster? I know. He's just a little out of it. That movie is not bad.

It's involving. It's not bad. It's well made. The rest of the cast is fairly good. He and Frida Pinto are very boring. Pinto.

Yeah. But Lithgow's great in it. Yellow was good in it. Lithgow's fine. He's doing his thing. I think he's pretty great in it. Right. Oh, I'm just an old man sitting over here now.

Like, it's just like that phase of his career. You're forgetting that he's, like, told Dementia Zone in that movie. I know. I think he's very good. He's doing his fucking thing. Anyway. Love him. I'll always love him.

I love him, too, to be clear. Doesn't sound like it. Yeah. Well, fair enough. I can't believe I burned all my bridges with Wallace Shawn. If he hears this, he's going to be so mad at me. Can we, will you stay on a legend? Love Wallace.

All three of us? That clears it. Yeah, we cleared the book. Okay. Number four at the box office is a horror sequel. It's a horror sequel. It's Conjuring 2? No.

Is it a second film or is it later? I'm trying to remember where this is. I believe it's the second. It's not a, you know, there's no number in the title. It is the second installment in a, I believe, ongoing horror franchise. It's the second installment. The film made a total of 71 domestic, 111 worldwide. It's more of an American franchise. Yeah.

I believe it's a Blumhouse. I believe it's a Blumhouse. Yes, it's a Blumhouse. Is it Insidious? Nope. Huh. And is it a Purge? Yes. So the second one would be Anarchy.

Correct. The first really good one, I would say. The first Grillo. Maybe my favorite. Yeah. One time... That's a good franchise. One time I stayed up late, and out of sheer self-punishing curiosity, I decided to watch Atlas Shrugged.

Oh, the like strange like libertarian indie thing. Yeah. Yeah. There's at least two? Are there more? They ended up making three. Three? Yeah, but they get – they did progressively worse.

The market did not reward these movies. And the budget gets cut and they lose cast members. The first one's got Taylor Schilling. The first one is Taylor Schilling. Who is John Galt? Yeah, good question. We never got to the end? No, I think it's like Christopher Polo.

Yeah, so it's this big libertarian movie, and I fell asleep in the middle of it. And then I woke up and I watched the second half of The Purge. And I was like, that's a good movie. Yeah. That combined. Those two together make sense. Right. Sure.

Right. Exactly. One would follow on from the other. Totally. I resent how many times Anne Rand has come up in this episode. She's come up a couple times, old Randy. Randy. Fascinating with her.

Anne Randy Newman. Yeah, she's a very fascinating figure. My old roommate once dated somebody who made her read The Fountainhead. Oh, my God. And we were like, I dump him. It's a great sign. Yeah, she's a very fascinating figure. My old roommate once dated somebody who made her read The Fountainhead and we were like, I dump him. It's a great sign.

Yeah. Anytime. I've never read The Fountainhead. You don't. I've read most of Atlas Shrugged. I felt like after page She could write a monologue. After page 419

I got the gist. Yeah. You don't want to get to 420, but is it? No. Read you loud and clear. Can you imagine how awful Anne Rand's podcast would be? Her fucking YouTube channel.

She'd be on the Joe Rogan network. It would be wild. She'd be smoking pot with Rogan, right? She would have one of those Elon Musk cyber trucks. She'd be like, this is architecture. If you actually want, if you, if you. What if you made a master builder with Elon Musk, but it's about the cyber truck? Are you telling me how to, how to build my masterpiece?

Sorry, go ahead, John. I just, look up, someday look up on YouTube any of Ayn Rand's appearances on the Phil Donahue show. Oh, good call. It's great. She's hilarious. And she knows exactly what she's doing. Her Twitter threads. Yeah.

Can you imagine her fucking ant replies? Her debate me cowards. She was really funny. Obviously, I'm not a fan of the work or the philosophy necessarily. But she was a great comedian. She had real time. She knew what she was doing. She was also like a Hollywood rewrite person for many years.

So weird. Anyway. Everything's weird. Number five is a film from the Walt Disney Corporation. Oh. An animated film. I will give you no further clues because I want to see how far this goes. July.

Yeah, 2014. Animated film. Animated film. Was it produced by Walt Disney Studios Animation? Yeah. He's back. They got the head out for this one. They got the head out of the freezer. They got the head out of the freezer.

They woke him up. Let me look that up. I'm wondering if it is that or if it is one of the sub-labels or whatever. I don't want to tell you. I'm not going to tell you. Is it Planes? Yes, but which? Fire and Rescue?

Correct. I was just hoping we could drag that out for a second. It's Planes, Fire, and Rescue. The sequel to Planes, correct? Correct. Which was sort of a spinoff of Cars. I would say definitely a spinoff of Cars. There's no interconnected universe there, right?

There is. There is? Is Lightning McQueen in there? It's the philosophically unsupportable Cars-iverse. Who is building the planes? I think I've told this anecdote before. Why are there planes? Where do they need to go? I believe I've told.

They can drive everywhere. I believe I've told this on the show before. But when I worked at the Disney store, humble brag. Yeah. One time I was in the employee break room eating lunch. Humble brag. And there were all these Disney employee magazines around, which they would leave these magazines around that were all the like selling points of upcoming Disney projects in the hopes that you would parrot them back to customers. Oh, OK.

It's the Pravda of Disney, right? Right. So I was like in the break room with a co-worker who had the magazine, which was the Cars 2 issue. And she was like, have you seen these movies? And I was like, yeah. And then I went off on the spiel of – the spiel that we all love to go on. So weird that it's a world of cars. All the weird questions.

So what is this? Where did the humans go? And she genuinely – The only life on earth is a technology designed to service a different kind of life that doesn't exist. Right. She genuinely leaned into me and in a hushed conspiratorial tone said you shouldn't talk about that too loudly around here ah ah

ah I'd be careful we're cool but I'd be careful who you share those opinions around right and look

yeah just as just as we got clear of criticizing Wallace Shawn by saying we stan a legend Disney I stan you stan you Lightning McQueen

I stan a legend please don't please don't please don't fire me from culture. I would like to work in a thing. Absolutely. But it was kind of incredible. I hear Lightning McQueen has been canceled.

He ka-chowed one time too many? Wow, Mater, indeed. Planes, there is no character overlap, but it is clearly established it's taking place in the same universe. Right. It's the same concept of what if we put eyes in the windows of a vehicle. Planes Fire and Rescue came out nine months after the first planes, which is insane. Other planes? Land vehicles?

Land vehicles. Because they're not rescuing humans. His name is Dusty. What are humans? Okay. Can I say this? Now that we're in this corridor Actually, I have something to say about Frozen

Whenever you're done Just remind me, talk about Olaf 100% Because I assume I'm the only person in this room Who has seen Cars 2 Correct Thank you for waiting Thank you, producer Rachel

The crux of Cars 2 Is Eddie Izzard as a scam artist Sort of Richard Branson style of Cars 2 is Eddie Izzard as a scam artist sort of Richard Branson style rebel billionaire who claims that he has come up

But what is money? How did he make his money? What is money? Did he buy fuel? Is that their food? Well he claims that he has come up with a better fuel.

Okay. Alright. That he has come up with a more ecologically friendly fuel. Is that Soylent That he has come up with a more ecologically friendly fuel. Is that Soylent? This is where the shit gets so messy. It would be interesting if it were an Elon Musk, if there was a car based on Elon Musk

that looked like Tesla saying, I'm going to change the way cars are made. Correct. That would be interesting. This is a little pre-rise of Elon Musk. So Richard Branson was like the type they were going after. Sure. The character styled like that. It feels like an Andy Izzard.

A clean impression of Richard Branson. He's like, I'm after. The character styled like that. It feels like an Andy Izzard, a clean impression of Richard Branson. It's like, I'm crazy. I like to do things different ways. And he's explaining. There's a scene in which the movie grinds to a halt and he presses play with his little wheel on a video. What? That is selling like a pitch reel on, I forget what it's called, but it's called like Eco Fuel or whatever, right?

His new green fuel alternative. That's the whole idea. The movie is centered around this conspiracy. Right. This false sort of solution to the fuel shortage that is crippling the world of cars. And in the video, they explain to the, it's clearly to make this clear to the children that fuel as we know it is fossil fuel which comes

from dinosaur bones and in the video they show animation of dinosaurs them dying, the dinosaur skeletons being buried in the ground and extracting the fuel from that sure, millennia later so they are clearly saying—

It's an alternate universe. There's a split in the timeline. Because it is not— After the mass extinction event, instead of primates evolving, proto-cars? They make a very clear choice. Because at this point in the movie, when there are vehicles swarming around— I'm sorry, when there are insects swarming around the vehicles, the camera will zoom in, and the insects are little cars with wings.

Really? Everything in this universe is some sort of fucking vehicle. And they show an organic dinosaur and explain that its bones have led to the fuel that they run off of. Wouldn't it have been awesome if the dinosaur was Trecosaurus? That's the thing they could have so cleanly yeah

showed a monster truck can I can I just swerve us out of the Carsiverse Dusty Crop Hopper is the lead character in Planes he is

a fucking crop dusting plane Dinkook of course he plays a crop dusting plane who wants to become a plane racer. Am I dying? Is this my fever dream?

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. But then, Planes Fire and Rescue, released only nine months after the first Planes, is him reverting back to what he was built to do, which is extinguish fires. Of course. Just to shout out something,

I want to talk about Olaf. Some of the other top tens. Put a pin in Olaf. Although it's hard to put a pin in him. Sex tape, number six. I believe Cameron Diaz's last film? Annie comes after that. Same year.

Transformers, Age of Extinction, the fourth one. The worst? We always argue this. Two is unambiguously the worst. I think you're right. Four is really fucking bad. Four is really bad, but it has the moment where the transformer turns into a dinosaur and Ken Watanabe says, I thought it would be a huge car.

It's just incredible. Ken Watanabe, of course, playing a samurai transformer. And so it goes. What's that one again? Is that Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman? Michael Douglas. Ken Watanabe, of course, playing a samurai transformer. And So It Goes? What's that one again? Is that Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman? Michael Douglas. And it's Rob Reiner? And that's just one of those where the title sounds like someone just letting air out of a balloon. And so it goes.

Like, who's going to? One, two, and so it goes, please. Fear of falling. And so it goes. The perfect explanation for why we will never do A Rob Reiner miniseries Because the last decade He has made ten of those

Yeah which is why we Well we can talk about it Tammy Is in the top ten Tammy A very bizarre film Very strange film And then a most

A high concept comedy With no concept And then a most wanted man I don't remember what that was It was the Melissa McCarthy follow up to To like her You know her Run to success It was the Melissa McCarthy follow-up to— To like her, you know, her run of success.

It's the first film that her husband directed. It's her blank check. It's the beginning of the McCarthy-verse. And New Line was like, whatever you want to make, you're clearly the next star. Right. Write us a script. Your husband can direct it. Whatever the fuck you want.

And all the other Falcone movies, which not good have a very clean high concept premise. Like, she goes back to college. It's this kind of person in this sort of setting. And that one has no premise whatsoever. It's very bizarre.

I will not see it. Susan Sarandon plays her grandmother. And Allison Janney plays her mother. A Most Wanted Man. All three actresses are within 10 years of each other.

It's just a Philip Seymour Hoffman. His final real performance. His first posthumous performance, I think, came out right after he died. An incredible performance. It's a good performance. What movie is that? John le Carre. A Most Wanted Man.

A Most Wanted Man. John le Carre adaptation directed by Anton Corbin. That sounds good. It's a good film. You'd like it. I like it. Defoe. John le Carre. Robin Wright.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Olaf. Olaf. Olaf is a snowman. Yes. He comes to life when Elsa's powers activate. They wanted to build him.

Correct. They did what? They sang a whole song about it. She's capable of creating life. Okay. That's like question three that I have. Yeah. Recently, now that Disney Plus exists, of course,

all these movies are accessible with the touch of a button, Forky put on Frozen. Okay, but say it like you mean it. Shut the fuck up! Imbue that name with love! Oh my god. Forky is taking a... Look, Jesus Christ. Forky put on Frozen. Forky had a reason. I don't want to reveal too much about my fiance, who is, taking a, look, Jesus Christ. Forky put on Frozen. Forky had a reason.

I don't want to reveal too much about my fiance, who is of course a spork. Put on Frozen. We're watching Frozen. This relationship is doomed. And if you remember, there's a scene in Frozen where after Anna gets like blasted with ice powers, the trolls specifically say like,

an act of love will heal you. Right. And then the interpreter is, oh, I must mean a true love's kiss. And of course, in Frozen, the twist is like, no, I must mean a true love's kiss. And of course, in Frozen, the twist is like,

no, no kissing needed. No famous princess needed. This is about sisterly love. Right, yeah. Which is fine. That's one of the nice things about Frozen. And nice sisters are doing it for themselves. Exactly.

Very true. However, before all that goes down, Anna is locked in a room by her mean, you know, fiance, and she's dying Olaf rescues her Olaf

a snowman brought to life through Elsa's ice magic yes and he is starting to melt he's about to die

by rescuing her and Joanne Forky asked isn't this kind of an act of love that should count

like doesn't this kind of count and I was like That should count. Like, doesn't this kind of count? And I was like, I understand. Olaf is sentient. Is he alive? Does he have a soul? Well, this is like the premise of Ted 2. And then you get to the next question, which is, wait,

can Elsa create full life and we're not really going to talk about it? She creates that big monster. She creates the big monster, too, who's really kind of just a sentry. I mean, he doesn't sing any songs. Olaf sings a whole song. There's a Frozen short film in which she creates a race of little snow babies named Snowgies who were created solely to push merchandise. You're kidding me.

Disney would never make such a decision. The Snowgies. But, like, it's not addressed. And, obviously, the climax of the movie has to be the sisters. Yeah. But, like, it's a fair question. Like, where does Olaf fall on the fully alive

scale? You want to know if it's okay to hunt an Olaf? The most dangerous game of all. Is it morally acceptable? The tattoo question. To kidnap an Olaf and bring it to your country estate and hunt it? There's a great scene. The Olaf joke that actually

makes me laugh is I can't remember what they're talking about after they fall down and they're like, oh, he didn't break anything. And Olaf says, I don't have a skull or bones. And like it's Gad delivers it funny. And it's like a laugh line. Olaf is weird in the first movie. He's good in the first one. Yeah.

Better. His song is kind of annoying, but he's better. I think that song slaps. But but like it's another where you're like, right, you are just snow, but you have feelings. Yes. Where does life begin? I think that you're correct. Is he animate or alive?

The philosophical implications of this movie have not been explored. And in both? But you don't feel bad about that when it's under the Disney banner. Right. No. But you do feel bad about it when it's under the Pixar banner. I see No. But you do feel bad about it when it's under the Pixar banner. I see. Because the Pixar banner

is all about the rules of the universe. They are very rule-oriented. They're very into the rules. That's true. Whereas the Disney movies are fairy tales and fairy tales. Yeah, that's right.

It's just fairy tales are fairy tales. Governed by their own internal logic. Pixar, of course, famously run by Jeremy Strong's character from Surrendered. Exactly. The rules.

Who is the rules? Yeah. No, it's weird. And also in both Frozen and Frozen 2, Olaf dies. And the film ends with Elsa being like, don't worry, I can bring him back to life. He is reconstituted from new snow in a different place with all of his memories. Like in the first one, in both of them, he melts and fully disappears.

But is she bringing him back to life with his memories? I don't think he remembers shit. He fully disappears in the first one he melts but is there is still really

yes in the second one he fully disappears in the second one he dies in her arms he fully dies there's a death scene

which feels like I mean I was just like yawn can this movie be over but like I feel like if you're some parent with like a four year old child it's just like

why do they insert this scene it's just very it brings anguish and I have to have like a conversation with him inold child. It's just like, why do they insert this scene? It's just very. It just brings anguish and I have to have like a conversation with them in the middle of a film. Very right. Olaf will be okay. Yes.

Like this is, right, you know, I don't know. I'm sure I would resent that if I had a young child. A hundred percent. Don't look at me.

I don't have young children. No, I assume your kids, their Disney movie was, their totemic Disney movie was not Frozen. It was some earlier. That's a good question.

That's a good question. That's a good question. Was there like one in regular rotation in the Hodgman household? Household Hodgmans? There was a weird one that my son got into was Meet the Robinsons. That makes a lot of sense. Oh, really? I have met your son. Yeah.

He is a lovely young man. Oh, thank? I have met your son. Yeah. He is a lovely young man. Oh, thank you. I think that movie's pretty charming and pretty underrated. When he was 12, when you came over to my house for lunch after building that church? Look, all I did was innocently promise

your son that one day I would make him a prince. Sorry. Okay, I did nothing on tour. It was terrible on every level. I never make him a prince. Sorry. Okay, I did nothing on tour. It was terrible on every level. I never loved Disney classic animation. Sure, sure. It was not something that I would necessarily choose to put on other than maybe like this. And so now I realize that the reason my son didn't really get into Disney movies was he and I were too busy watching iClaudius.

But that period is like Bolt, Meet the Robinsons, Home on the Range, Chicken Little. Bolt's fun. Meet the Robinsons is definitely the best of that era. I think Bolt's fun. It's got a dog. I think Bolt's kind of crappy. Bolt is Buzz Lightyear with a dog. That's fine.

My name is John Hodgman. I've got a book out called Medallion Status and a podcast called Judge John Hodgman. This episode is not over because we've got to talk about the Playmion Status and a podcast called Judge John Hodgman this episode is not over because we've got to talk about the Playmobil movie you're just replugging I'm replugging because I feel like

people are starting to go I think I've heard everything here get ready because this episode has been kicked back up Elliot Kalin and I Elliot Kalin have a Flophouse podcast

and I have recorded a 12 episode miniseries about the iClaudius BBC 1976 miniseries called iPodius that will be dropping soon for maximum fun

Elliot very exciting Kaylin who uh if all has gone according to plan will have already been a guest

on this very miniseries oh great yes well I hope everything goes according to plan I hope so too

wait what is this now Elliot Kaylin will have been our guest on the Manchurian Canada episode unless everything goes catastrophically wrong maybe it'll everything goes catastrophically wrong. Maybe it'll all go catastrophically wrong.

That sounds like a movie I might have wanted to watch. All right. So Playmobil. Playmobil. Playmobil is great. The toys. The toys are great. That was definitely a huge part of both of my children's growing up.

A German building toy. Well, this is what's interesting about Playmobil. It's like sets that come unassembled but are not sold as a building toy. Well, this is what's interesting about Playmobil. It's like sets that come unassembled but are not sold as a building toy. They are like snapped into place. It's not a ton of pieces. The only reason they're unassembled is to get them in the box. It's not part of the fun. The fun isn't like putting it together.

The fun is having it be put together. It is not a construction toy. It cannot be rebuilt in any other way. And what makes Playmobil kind of fascinating is while there are fantastical themes, while there are castles and dragons and things and the like, a lot of Playmobil is very banal. It's like a Playmobil gas station. That's right. And very European. Very much so.

Do you know what I mean? Like very banal and dull. Here's a beach house. And functional. Yes. No, it's true. They're at the seaside. Yeah. Sitting by an umbrella. Yes. Here's a beach house. And functional. Yes. No, it's true. They're at the seaside. Yeah.

Sitting by an umbrella. Yes. Drinking a lemonade. And you're like, and they're so, and these characters are so untroubled. You're like, I think they probably have universal health care. Right. Right. But you're like, they probably have good health care.

They probably get a lot of vacation time. There's something very serene and sort of undramatic and dare I say it, unimaginative about the world of Playmobil. Yeah. The only one that's complicated at all is the Playmobil play set that's based on the Ibsen Play Master Builder. I was going to make the same joke. But that is what a Playmobil set looks like is this – the Nyack house from a master builder. The fun part of Playmobil is that the humans, first of all, you get them as pirates. You get them as Vikings. You get them as knights.

You get them as just regular European nine weeks of vacation people. Sometimes you get like an Easter set, right? And all the humans have bunny heads, which are horrifying. Right. And you don't construct the sets, but you can deconstruct the humans. Yes. And create weird combinations of wardrobe and human body parts that are really awesome. A weird unintended modularity.

You can change their hair. Their hair pops off. You can put a ghost sheet over one of them. They make a very satisfying sort of clicky sound when you bend them at the waist. I had a big dream probably going back to 2007 or so that I was going to do like a – I think it wasn't even – Instagram wasn't a thing. It was like Flickr. I was going to create a Flickr account that was just photographs of wildly weirded, modded out Playmobiles in the most surreal and disturbing tableaus. That's a great idea. Like one Playmobile human surrounded by a hundred Playmobile rabbit heads.

Yes. Or something. And I've never done it, and now I'm going to do it. Now you're just going to do it. I have two projects now. Yeah. Mount Ibsen. And I've never done it, and now I'm going to do it. Now you're just going to do it. I have two projects now. Yeah. Mount Ibsen's Master Builder and film it. Yes.

Another Master Builder. And get Ted Demme to direct it. Dead, unfortunately. Oh, whoops. Sorry, I'm not fast enough. And this Playmobil project. But now I can't because it's going to be turning into a movie. Well, they did.

So right after the release of the Lego movie, a film that everyone scoffed at when it was announced. Sure. How can they make a movie out of Lego? Right. Lord and Miller, who are very smart about getting to the core of the material they're asked to adapt. Yeah. Really tapped into the heart of what is the relationship that people have with Lego? What does it get out of you when you build a set?

Your imagination. What does it speak to if you are you build a set? Your imagination. What does it speak to if you are someone who follows the instructions versus not? Yeah. And the sort of expansive world

and how wild the Lego themes are and the iconography you can deal with with that and also the fact that Lego at that point covered a bunch of intellectual properties. Right.

There were a lot of licensed properties they could get into. A lot of backdoor Batman stuff you could get in there secretly. Playmobil only started doing licensed properties in the last like two years.

What did they license? How to Train Your Dragon and Ghostbusters. I believe are the only two. Right. And now they're about to do Back to the Future. But it does not have that sort of expansive world building. It does not have the same sort of like, oh, we all know what Lego astronauts look like and what those spaceships look like.

Right. They're not iconic to the same world. There's not as clear of a sensibility. You can do a Google search for the weirdest Playmobil play sets that exist. And the thing that's weird about them is their banality. Why would any kid want to play with this? There is. Playmobil the movie is about the banality of evil.

Well, there is. There are. I mean, they discontinue the play. These are more for middle aged men than for children because there's a collectability issue. I think so. But they're discontinued play sets. Yes. That you can get online.

Yes. Including the one that I've been chasing, which is the German police officer rousting a hobo. Exactly. Off a park bench. That's like a perfect— Identification, please. That is a perfect example. Where are your papers?

Of the Playmobil sense of. You know that game papers, please? Yeah. Anyway. Please do not leave outside the law. All right. Anyway, we have lots of treatment centers for your addiction. Playmobil the movie.

So like the week after, even that, two days after the Lego movie opens huge and becomes this like critically beloved film, a German or European film company announces that they are going to self-finance a $75 million animated Playmobil film. How could you not feel that temptation? Which had some weird title at the time like Playmobil's Spies and Robbers. It had some subtitle. It had more action-packed sounding title. I can't believe. I believe the concept was a trilogy initially, a Playmobiles, Spies and Robbers. It had some subtitle. It had more action-packed sounding title. I can't believe. I believe the concept was a trilogy initially. A Playmobil trilogy.

I can't believe that this missed me. I should. You should. I should have known. You should have been asked to participate, I think. Well, I agree with that about everything. Bob Perscietti. Is originally attached to writing.

Perscietti, I think. Yes. To write and direct this film. He is just a consummate pro in the animation world. is originally attached to write... Pershietti, I think. Yes. To write and direct this film. He is just a consummate pro in the animation world, has worked a thousand jobs on a thousand different projects, and this is going to be his first time really stepping onto the plate. It would be his directorial debut. He had worked on many of the Shrek films, things like that.

So he's writing and directing this film. At this point in time, Sony is considering acquiring this film, which is only in pre-production developmental stages. Sure. Because Lego Movie was such a hit.

Sony is trying to look for more licensed animated properties. They end up making the Emoji Movie instead but I think that was sort of the coin toss this was in. Sony can't come to terms.

The movie falls apart but Sony is impressed with Bob Pershetti enough that they go look look, let's be honest, the plan boat thing might not actually make it to the finish

line. Do you want to come over here and work on a film we have over at Sony Animation? He said, what do you have in the hopper? They said, well, we're

trying to make a Spider-Man animated film. Bob Perschetti becomes one of the Academy Award winning directors of Into the Spider-Verse. Oh.

Yes. One of the best career decisions. An Oscar. One of the craziest swings in jobse. Oh! One of the best career decisions that anyone has ever made. One of the craziest swings in job prospects. Yes, the great Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman. Rodney Rothman was one of my McSweeney's pals. Yes.

Back in the day. But he's the first director attached on Spider-Verse. Yeah. Which only happened because of him pitching Sony on Playmobil. And for him to leave Playmobil, which at the time seemed to be moving ahead, ended up being the greatest sliding doors decision in anyone's career ever. I think that if I were in Bob Perscietti's head, I might be able to make an argument if Sony came to me and said, I know you're making a movie about this esoteric European toy brand. Yes.

That's probably going to be as big as the movie about Asterix. I mean, that's what the kind of possibility is. They're hoping for those European big bucks. That's what I, I remember those Playmobil play sets with cops and robbers in them. And my favorite part was the European money the robbers were obviously stealing.

All different colors. Look, yes. But Spider-Man is more enticing. Think about this. Would you rather work on Spider-Man? Yes. But let's say at this point in time, the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies have not started their run. No, no.

We're three years from, three years off. So it seems like Sony is fucking just completely torpedoing that ship. Yeah. You know, you're coming post-Garfield. The idea of them making an animated film seemed like, what are they doing with this property? It made no sense when I heard about it. Totally. Ended up, much like the Lego movie, being a wild surprise.

But. In terms of how awesome it is. And by the way, it's better than any other movie pretty much. It's one of the best movies. Great decision on Proscietti's part. They hire a man whose name I forget, Tony. No, it's not Tony. But who was the supervising animator on Frozen. They were like, get us someone who was involved in a big hit. Oh, this is to replace Bob on Playmobil.

Correct. Right. And so the film develops over the last four years. The rights are originally sold to Open Road, the distributor that was a collaboration between

AMC and Regal. Correct. I'm so glad I got my plugs in before this. Open Road goes out of business. Oh, no. The film is completely abandoned. STX, which has been waffling around bankruptcy for the last year, gets the rights for almost nothing, for like a song.

Right. And the whole deal is like we need someone to release this in over 2,000 screens. We'll sell it to you for almost no money. I hope you're pitching the story as a book. It might. Well, no. Buy it. I don you're pitching the story as a book. It might. Well, no. I don't know what happened. I don't know the outcome.

According to Deadline, they spend about a million dollars on marketing all in. Mostly in theater cardboard standees. Sure. And the film comes out on 2,300 screens nationwide. Yeah. The week after Frozen 2 opens. True. Oh, it just happened. Yes, this behemoth of American animation.

By the time this episode comes out, it'll be a couple months old. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we cannot stop talking about it, okay? So they release it the week after Frozen 2. And in its opening weekend on 2,300 screens, the Playmobil movie, or as it's called, Playmobil The Movie, which has been pushed back five times, makes $600,000. Is it that much that it made?

Yes. Was it $600? Which averages out to $34 a screen. That was on day one. I believe it pushed its per screen average to $200. This is sad. So we're like, adult tickets cost how much? Kids tickets cost how much?

We're doing the math. Oh yeah, well that's one thing. We are trying to do the math. And Dave and I are breaking it down and we're like, the amount of screenings

mathematically of the Playmobil movie that over the course of these three days have been completely empty is astonishing. Yeah. I mean,

mathematically, there has to have been hundreds, if not thousands of showtimes that zero people showed up to. Oh. So sad. It drops off even further. By Monday, it's making $13 per screen.

So that is every theater that is playing that movie multiple times a day is making a grand total of $13. One person goes a day. Right. One person goes a day. $13. Right. But then we find out the thing that completely blows our mind, which is Playmobil is the first time a distributor has successfully sold to the exhibitors, the movie theaters, the idea of variable pricing. Yes.

What if to make a movie more appetizing? In fact, there's no variable pricing. There's one price. It's just not the usual price. Nationwide. This is the big deal. Nationwide. In every theater in North America, bar for like one chain that exempted but probably isn't playing it anyway. 90% of, 97% of theaters, something like that.

Even in New York City where movie tickets cost $500. Yes. Right? Every showing of the Planned Bail movie for adults, seniors, and children alike is $5. Wow. This is no joke. No matter where you saw it, the Playmobil movie cost $5. Wow.

And the movie is making $13 a day per theater across multiple showtimes. Despite the involvement of Daniel Radcliffe, Jim Gaffigan, Anya Taylor-Joy, Megan Trainor, because Deadline will always do when it's box office report, dot box office report, like what was the social impact? And Deadline was like, the cast didn't acknowledge the film on their Twitter feed.

Megan Trainor had one tweet. That was the extent of it. Yes. on their Twitter feed. Megan Trainor had one tweet. That was the extent of it. This may be the only movie or television product that I do not resent not being in. So this is the first one. Yeah. Anything else? David asked me last night.

He said when we were texting about the Planoville movie while attempting to watch a Master Builder, he asked me, do you think if you asked Daniel Radcliffe at gunpoint if he was in the Playmobil movie, he would admit that he was? He wouldn't acknowledge it. I said no. He would take the bullet because at least then he could die with pride. That was my analysis. He would rather die. Now, the biggest question we posed was, we're guys who are tapped in. We're paying attention to weird trends in the industry and box office and such.

I mean, you're probably the most tapped in guys that I know. We did not know that this movie cost $5. I don't care if their marketing campaign was that limited. If their marketing campaign was that limited, the posters for this movie should have just been white paper in the right dimensions with a Sharpie saying, this movie costs $5. They should have retitled it that. You don't even say the name of the movie. You just say like, this is what I was saying to Griffin. Theaters have seats that are very comfortable. You can sit in one for two hours. It should be called free heat or air conditioning. They have roofs. They have seats that are very comfortable. You can sit in one for two hours.

It should be called free heat or air conditioning. They have roofs. They have walls. Do you want to sit in a room? Probably alone. And then they could add the disclaimer. If you're alone in there, we'll turn the volume down. You want the movie to be quiet?

They should have taken out the seats and put in desktops. Turn it into an internet cafe. We'll turn the movie off entirely if that's what you want. This is just a shared workspace. All we need from you is our $5. Playmobil by WeWork. They should have pitched the Playmobil movie as the new communal workspace. The film has 17% of Rotten Tomatoes,

which shocked me. Shockingly high. Shockingly high. Most of the 17% positive reviews seem to be from... Ormon loved it, right? Yeah, sure. Seem to be from Spanish language reviewers. Which leads me to believe

that maybe the Spanish dub of this movie is just a little crisp. Like, the dialogue is funnier or something. I can't imagine there's a lot of sync up you need to do with their little mouth so you can probably might have a completely different script like i don't know um but it just is one of those things where you're like can we have a conversation over whether or not this is like a money laundering operation like whether everyone going to see that movie is actually laundering money. That struck my, I thought.

I'm going to pay cash for my Playmobil ticket. Here you go. Five dollars. Hands over bag of money. Because the one thing that was made clear was like STX barely had to pay for the movie. STX, this is literally STX just doing a distribution job. And usually with those distribution jobs, part of it is even if we're not going to charge you much for the film, you have to guarantee us you will spend $10 million advertising it. Correct.

And apparently it was like just throw a million at it. Just throw one million at it all in and you got the movie. But it had to be released on over 2,000 screens contractually. The movie has already opened almost everywhere else in the rest of the world, which I think they thought was going to be their moneymaker. I think it's been more of a moneymaker. It has made in total,

I believe, $13 million overseas. It's more than 300 grand or whatever. It cost 75. No, it didn't. It cost 40. Really? Yes.

I believe that its budget was downscaled after, I don't know, someone had a conversation with someone about what was going on. Magically transported to the fantastical world of Playmobil, a teen joins forces with a bumbling secret agent and an adventurous truck driver to save her captive brother from an evil emperor. Sounds good. Emperor? Whatever.

Fine. Sounds good. Here's the other thing that's fascinating about this movie. It should be like a bureaucrat in Playmobil, right? Like save from an evil, you know, defense minister. This is another thing. I don't know. It should just be a parliamentarian debate.

Exactly. You're saying the Playmobil movie should be like state of play. Yeah, exactly. It should have been a huge metaphor for Brexit. I mean. Boy. Anyway, it made Oogie Loves Money. It made Oogie Loves Money.

It's going to end up well under a million. The final thing I want to say about it that's kind of fascinating is that when the Lego movie was first announced, before Lord and Miller came on and, by all accounts, rewrote it from the ground up, the original script that Warner Brothers had developed that was largely thrown out script that Warner Brothers had developed that was largely thrown out was about a father who plays Legos with his children and then is transported magically

into the Lego world. Sure. That sort of the Lord Business character and Chris Pratt's character were supposed to be one and the same and the live action dad who was originally announced to be Chris Pratt was gonna get sucked in and be a Lego figure for the rest of the movie. Which they very quickly realized Getting sucked into the world?

Tiresome. Who gives a shit? Fuckers tired. Worse than a dream sequence. Everyone is sick of that. It's very 80s. The Plan Bille movie ended up on the concept that the Lego movie threw out after the Lego franchise had completely milked itself dry with three entries in four years and ran out of all their goodwill.

Five dollars. Anyway, that's the Playmobil movie. I'm glad we got that plug in early. What if when the – me too, for your sake. I wish we could chart in real time the listenership of this episode. I think we could. I think we have – I think you actually can.

Really? See when people tap out. Yeah. Rachel, please send me that data. Sure. In three months. I think we turned this podcast into an almost empty communal workspace. Can I just make a prediction?

Is that a Playmobil set? Yeah, exactly. There surely is a Playmobil set in this communal workspace. No question. Can I make a prediction? Can I have a little Adam Neumann Playmobil figure? Yes, go ahead. Because this episode is going to come out in several months,

the Playmobil movie has just been released in theaters the day we're recording this, which means it's probably one day away from being removed from theaters. Yeah. By the time this episode comes out, it will presumably be on digital platforms. Yeah.

Do you think that they are going to make a similar sort of strategic move to make the Playmobil movie seem like a better value on digital platforms? Oh, then it'll be available for like 99 cents? Or do you think day one they will pay you a dollar if you download the Playmobil movie? Do you think there is some weird performance

data where the money laundering is more successful if they can sell the idea that more people are seeing it? No, they're going to swing the other way. They'll be like, only real Playboy heads understand 99 bucks for Playmobil. It's going to be like the Bambino. It's going to cost $80,000 to get a Playmobil movie on iTunes. Do we crunch the numbers?

There's 70 of you. When are we doing the Playmobil episode? Soads, my friend. Oh, you're still on that? Yeah, that sounds like a 2020 Patreon goal. Okay, Hodgson just held up the photo. This is the police accosting a tramp, a wino on a bench, Playmobil set.

So you have to understand, it's it's clearly like, you know, like early 20th century. He has like a little German spiked helmet. He's got like a little saber too. He has a German spiked helmet and saber. He's like a Napoleonic Wars era. The homeless man's very cute. He's got

a little flower in his hat. He's a classic early 20th century caricature of the hobo. He has a Napoleonic Wars era. The homeless man's very cute. He's got a little flower in his hat. He's a classic early 20th century caricature of the hobo. He has a bindle. He doesn't have a wine bottle. And he's on a bench. That's the whole set. We should buy that. And then, yes, in Patreon

I don't know, 6,000 patrons, we do a Playmobil episode with John Hodgman. We should figure out the math. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What do I get out of that Patreon? Why are you roping me into this? I can get the set for $55.

$55? Yeah, right now. How much are you paying me for this? $56, right? Yeah, I got two sets. Come out. Come out a buck ahead. Here's a promise I'm going to make right now, okay?

The Playmobil number is going to be really easy to break down because we just have to take the final gross and divide it by five, right? Right. And we'll find out how many people paid to see that movie in theaters with no price fluctuation. If our Patreon count exceeds the number of people who saw the Playmobil movie in theaters, we will do a Playmobil movie episode. Okay. Yeah, whatever you say. I'm just looking at weird Playmobil online.

You can crunch the numbers on that one. So it's like 125,000. One of the things about Playmobil being European is that there's a lot more drinking in Playmobil sets. Yes. There's a lot more wine and beer. Right, right, right, right. So this episode's definitely past its expiration point.

Thank you very much for listening. Hey, thank you very much for having me by again. Oh, what a pleasure. I mean, if this turns out to just be my fever dream before death, I'll die happy. Kind of feels like it at this point. I know. It feels like the temperature in the room has shifted. I can't believe this episode has hit two hours.

Right on the nugget? I mean, a little over. I'm sure there'll be some editing. No, maybe we should bump it up, try to make it 2.30. Find some other stuff to add. Enough! Hodgman, just because this episode hasn't come out for a couple months, if you are sprung up in the middle

of the night with some more burning thoughts on Master Builder, please self-record them and send them to producer Rachel so she can place them into the... I had another idea, and I am definitely going to and everyone needs to hear my ideas. Griffin, David, it's me again. Voicemail.

Another thing about the movie is— And, hey, next week we're going to announce what the following miniseries is, which I think is an exciting one. Yeah. We'll tell you off mic. All right. Tell me now and bleep it out. What? What?

Rachel. I thought you said... Two beeps there. I truly thought that I was having a stroke. No. Yeah, that's great. Well, three beeps because you have to cut out what he thought I said. Cut out the malapropism, right?

Yes. Thank you all for listening. Please remember. By the way, that theme sounds incredible. I can't wait to listen. Right? I think there'll be a good one. It's going to be great.

Yeah. It'll be a great one. And people haven't been guessing it. No. They haven't. People guessed our original plans, which we then changed. We did have to change some plans. Not because of the guests, because of other cultural forces.

Correct. Oh. Which I'll talk about off mic. Sure. Hodgman, thanks for being here. Thank you as always. You're a gentleman and a scholar. Oh.

The Wallace Shawn of our time. First I have to kill that man. No, no, no. I don't kill him. No, no. I'm just knocking on his door. Yeah. You just need him.

Come in. You need him to write something on your drawings. Just write something on my drawings. Just write something on my drawings. Just write something on your drawings. Just write something on my drawings so my father can die knowing that I accomplished something, that I got Wallace Shawn's autograph. And that's a joke for the heads. Medallion status. Yeah, that's my book of funny true stories about me.

Yeah. And you should try to plug it more. Bit.ly slash medallion status. Cool. And you should just you should try to plug it more. Bit.ly slash MedallionStatus Judge John Hodgman available every week at MaximumFun.org and keep an eye out

for iPodius. Yes. The 12 part very special mini series of podcasts about the very special mini series from 1976

called iClaudius. Yes. Yeah. And thank all of you for listening. And please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Thanks to Andrew Gouda for our social media. Here's the thing I should have been saying for years now.

Okay. Follow Blank Check Pod. Sure. On Twitter and Instagram. That's true. She's doing great work on this. She's doing it all by herself. She's doing it.

Imagine the meme she's going to come up with for this episode. Yeah. The amount of Master Builder gifts. We do love a meme. We love a meme. A master meme she's going to come up with for this episode. Yeah. The amount of master builder gifts. We do love a meme. We love a meme. A master meme. Yes. A master memer.

Thanks to Lane Montgomery for our theme song. Thanks to Joe Bone and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. I feel sweaty and delusional right now. Go to blankcheck. Blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit. Yes. Next week, Ricky and the Flash. Yes.

Which, barring another catastrophe, will be joined by Lindsay Webber and Bobby Finger. That's correct. Of Who Weekly. Yes. It is on the books. It's on the spreadsheet. It should happen. Jumping Jack, Ricky and the Flash.

Exactly. That's exactly right. Exactly. And as always, come in! I like that they become famous in New York only. Correct. Because it's sort of like, there's so many New York celebrities who are like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Zismore's in New York. Exactly. Right, right, right. So now that we're in some fucking farm and it's sort of like, everyone will be like, well, you remember the Ghostbusters? It's like, no, that should only be in New York. Yeah. Outside of New York, people should be like, I don't know.

What? The premise, the fucking. So yeah, well, they want to put the Ghostbusters in the heartland, so. That seems to be the vibe of this trailer. It's like, you know, you've got like fields of wheat. You don't want it to be appealing to the elites. No. Coastal elites. The premise is apparently that Paul Rudd grew up in New York.

Sure. For sure. And experienced what they've now come up with. They've come up with a new name. They're calling it like the Cross Rip or something. Great. It's like the name for like the original Stay Puft incident. Oh, yeah.

Does Ghostbusters 2 exist in this universe? Yes. 2 exists. This film is being treated as Ghostbusters 3. So Answer the Call does not exist. Answer the Call does not exist, but Answer the Call always set itself up as an alternate universe. Right, right, right. What was Answer the Call?

That's the ladies. Right. The one with the ladies why is it called answer the call it was initially just called Ghostbusters and then they got

so panicked by people freaking out that they gave it a subtitle that they sort of admit as part of it it was one of those things

Ghostbusters ATC yeah yeah well you know you gotta answer the call right well who are you gonna call bring bring that was the idea

right I got you the idea originally was like it was just Ghostbusters same same title, you know, brackets 2016 on like IMDB or whatever. And an answer to the call was the tagline. And then suddenly a like colon appeared between the title and the tagline. And everyone was like, is that the subtitle?

And people were like, that must just be for marketing materials. And then the end of the movie, it says Ghostbusters answer the call. We're not rolling, right? No. We are ready to go, but I understand if you want to talk about Ghostbusters instead of A Master Builder. Well, we're going to talk about a lot of stuff.

I assume it's not.