Blank Check with Griffin & David - Alice in Wonderland with Emily St. James

Episode Date: March 31, 2019

Griffin and David welcome back Emily St. James (Vox) to discuss 2010's CGI fantasy Alice in Wonderland! Together they examine Burton's greatest failure. 

I try to believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast. Count them, Alice. One, there are drinks that make you shrink. One, there are drinks that make you shrink. Two, there are foods that make you grow. Three, animals can talk. Four, cats can disappear. Five, there's a place called Underland. Six, I can slay the podcast.

Yeah, this is the one. This is going to kill us. Right? Right? This is it. This is the one we'll be remembered for because it ends in a murder-suicide. How many is this for you guys? How many Burtons?

At this point. 21 in total? You fucking say it's that many? Jesus, why did I ever let you make me do it? Maybe it's 17? This is the one where I was like, what? Fucked it? He's not good. He's bad director. And then he made four more movies. One, two, three, four, five.

This is like third to last. We've done almost all of them. All right. We've been going pretty out of order because of guests and such. I believe it's 20 with Dumbo. Okay, so it'll be 20. We haven't done Dumbo. Jesus.

I would argue we have a couple good ones left. Okay. We've saved two of the only good late period ones. Oh, you mean, right, because we have a couple good ones left. Okay. We've saved two of the only good late period ones. Oh, you mean, right, because we have not yet recorded Sweeney even though we're ahead of it now. Right. And Big Eyes you like less than me, but I'm going to fight for it. Yeah, you're going to lose. I will not fight for this. Fighting for Big Eyes is like bringing

like an eye to a gunfight. Okay. Here, counterpoint, the eyes are big. Big guns. Big guns. I'm going to bring my big guns. Okay. Maybe I'll like it this time. I don't know. I think you will. It's a great movie. I don't think so. Yes, it is. the eyes are big. Big guns. Big guns. I'm going to bring my big guns. Okay. Maybe I'll like it this time. I don't know. I think you will. It's a great movie.

I don't think so. Yes, it is. It's a masterpiece. This film is not good. What's the film? What's the podcast? What's your name? This is kind of a key crux point.

I'm getting to it. I'm just saying this is kind of maybe this is the one that breaks us, as you said. Maybe this is the one that breaks us. But you go, this is why I never want to cover Tim Burton. And I go, this is why we maybe this is the one that breaks us as you said maybe this is the one that breaks us but you go this is why i never want to cover tim burton and i go this is why we have to cover tim honestly i don't think i said that because like i figured this would be the fun episode where we're all yelling and stuff right like this would be you know so bad it's good and our guest today is is the screaming jay hawkins of podcasts and get ready for the yelling a man with a fiery temper. He's about to go

Tucker Carlson on this studio. He's got a bone in his nose. I want to be introduced first. I think that's only appropriate. Okay, that's the correct order. Ladies and gentlemen, our very special guest, Todd Vanderwerf. Hello, hello, hello. From Vox. From Vox.

Sure. A host of I Think You're Interesting. Yes, which is soon to become another thing. It's being rebranded. At this point, it's probably very soon. It's relaunching April 11th. It's in like a chrysalis. Like Absalom. Yes, exactly.

That was my shout out. No, we were going to originally kind of come up with a new focus for I Think You're Interesting because when we talked to people about the title, they were confused by the title. They were like, when did I record a podcast? They thought that they were the I in I Think You're Interesting. Oh, interesting. Clearly, I stated that I was the I in I Think You're Interesting. They thought it was a show in which very famous people interviewed Todd Vandiver.

Yeah, I guess. I guess. But yeah, so we were like, we're going to do a bunch of different interview formats. We're going to do that. And then we kind of came up with this idea. It's called Primetime. It's for podcast fans. It's you must remember this, but for television, it's stories from the history of television,

things like that. That's good. Is that going to be its own show? Is this a part of the... Yeah, I think it's going to take over the feed. We're figuring that out now as we speak. Now that it's March when you're listening to this, we know it already, so

you'll probably know by now. We got so excited about that idea we were like, well, we can't do both at the same time. My hope is that we'll bring back I think are interesting, but as a limited series type thing. Do a couple a year, low-main series. I'll say when you posted,

Mahershala was your final episode, right? Before the rebranding, which was an incredible episode. And then you did like sort of, not a greatest hits, but you were like, here are some of my favorite moments. You are such a fucking good interviewer. Thank you. I was like listening to it, like taken aback. Like you genuinely, I've been on both sides of this thing now i've interviewed people sure i've been interviewed

i'm bad at asking questions i find that often people ask the same stupid questions when i listen someone on your show you ask at least three questions that's clear they have never been asked before and you actually hear like your guests go like wow that's actually a good question and they have to stop and consider it because you're not asking them the same thing that everyone else does sure sure i'm so bad what did i ask you that you were you didn't get because you've both been on the show that's true yeah i famously called mission impossible ghost protocol a summer movie right and that was your key question you asked dave in response to that was why are you such a fucking idiot? Of course it came out of Christmas.

You know, I don't remember how you phrased the question, but I feel like when we were talking about performance stuff, I somehow was able to verbalize things in a cleaner way than I ever have before. Which I think must have been the way you pointed because usually I'm a mess when people ask me how acting works. How does acting work? Don't get me started. I have

no idea. I'm a mess. Who are your guys? Who are my guys? That I can answer. Michael Keaton. Someone's calling. Turn your phone off. I thought I put it on silence. Why is it still ringing? I don't really understand Griffin's relationship with his phone. It's very antagonistic. It really is. I think

there needs to be some kind of intervention between you and your phone. Yeah, I throw it into the river and then people can't complain about me not responding because there's not even a passageway. Todd, back onto the point. You're a very good interviewer. So there will,

you still will be interviewing people on Mike and so on. So the thing about it is that each episode is going to have interviews in it. And my hope is that we'll run the most interesting of those interviews as like a bonus that you'll get. Gotcha. Like you'll get the main episode, which is the,

you must remember this episode on Thursdays. And then the next Monday you'll get like, here's our hour long chat with Aaron Sorkin. Your oral history. Yeah. That sounds great. Uh, well,

of course, we're going to walk and talk with Aaron. Yeah. That's the plan. We got it. Yeah. We're just going to walk and talk. Wilshire Boulevard.

At least roll and stroll. I mean, yeah, exactly. Yeah. What if he's like, I'mshire Boulevard. At least roll and stroll. I mean, yeah. What if he's like, I'm rebranding. I'm Aaron Strollin. From now on, it's all strolls. And he has a stroller line.

I used to be all about sorkin' and torkin'. Then it became walk and talkin'. What's he wearing? Strollin' and rollin'. Ben is loving this. Is he directing a movie? He's directing a Chicago 7 movie? Yeah. Okay. At least his game wasn't bad.

Seth Rogen? Sacha Baron Cohen? Wait, that's who's in it? Yep. All right. Anyway, my guest today, Griffin Newman, Dave Sims.

There we go. Producer Ben Hosley. We finally have a pro in the show. And tell me what this show is because I forget. The name of the show is Blank Check with Griffin and David. Interested in directors. Filmographies. The name of the show is Blank Check with Griffin and David. Hells yeah. Interested in directors

filmographies. The crazy passion projects they get to make after they have massive success early on. Sometimes those checks clear. Sometimes they bounce. Baby.

He's so good at this, David. It's true. We should just quit. Also, like Todd, like your voice is like calming. Good voice, yes.

I'm in good hands when you're speaking. That's right. I really try to be mellifluous, if you will. Well, speaking of wonderful voices, today we're talking about Alice in Wonderland. I hate you, Tim. A film that is the equivalent of someone screaming straight into your eyeballs for two hours. And then just dumping lemons in them or something.

You know, I was really, the last time I was on, I was on about Munich. Munich is one of my favorite movies of all time. So I was like, I told David, I'm coming to New York.

And he was like, Oh, you got to do Alice in Wonderland. He knows this is one of my least favorite movies. He said, you have no idea how much Todd hates this film. I remember you a few years back, just ranting online, I think, about the Futterwacken scene.

Yes. And just how insane it is to think that that was a scene. A movie. Not only a scene. A sort of climactic, fulfilling scene. That is the point where this movie crosses the threshold into actual felony. Right. That's the point at which...

The FBI issues their warrants. We've seen enough. Bring it back. In a movie that was successful. If you watch that and you saw the Futterwacken scene and someone would be like, and this is why the film, of course, was a flop. You'd be like, of course. As you can see from the evidence on screen. The Futterwacken happens in the last this is why the film, of course, was a flop. You'd be like, of course, I mean, as you can see from the evidence on screen.

The Futterwacken happens in the last 10 minutes of this film, but I think legally, theaters had to issue refunds if people came and complained post-Futterwacken. Here,

I found it. Okay, so there's an Alice in Wonderland wiki that he linked to. A specific Burton Alice in Wonderland wiki? Wow. Futterwack. It's a dance in the Alice in Wonderland movie.

This is not like some Lewis Carroll thing. No. Because he's taken, not he, but I mean, this film is taking like the Jabberwock,

it's taking elements from other Lewis Carroll books. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Futterwacken is fully off the dome from Linda Wolverkin. Alice in Wonderland star Johnny Depp

injured him on the set of his new movie by doing the Futterwack apparently so someone else did it I don't know

a stunt double here's a tasteless question I'm gonna ask not a lot else on this Wikipedia page I gotta tell ya it does happen on the Frabjous J

I'm going to ask a tasteless question did the Futterwack ruin Johnny Depp is that the moment where his brain breaks cause I feel like this is the moment where we all go, maybe I'm getting tired of this guy's performances.

But maybe he literally breaks himself physically doing the Futterwacken. And then his mind breaks along with him. I think it's demonic. That's what I'm saying. I think he channeled some ancient ghost that haunts him now. Did he somehow conjure Pinhead by doing the Futterwacken? This is sort of just not in terms of Johnny Depp

as a person and his abuse for treatment of his wife and other various, you know, public shame. Which I'm going to say, I don't like at all.

Right. I think it's tremendously bad. I will say the year after this is Rango, which is a film I enjoy and I like Johnny Depp in it. I don't know when he shot that thing.

Helps that you don't have to see his face. Right, exactly. So I guess you could say in Rango, which is a film I enjoy and I like Johnny Depp in it. I don't know when he shot that thing. Helps that you don't have to see his face. Right, exactly. So I guess you could say in Rango, he's sort of trying. Right. Taurus is the year after this or two years after this? Taurus is the same year as this. He was nominated for two Golden Globes this year. They nominated him in drama and comedy?

I believe that's right. I'm going to double check. Or they nominated him twice in comedy. Did he get two comedy nominations? Because I know they put tourist as a comedy and I can't imagine them

classifying this as a drama. This was a comedy. Let's see. Did he have two out of the five best actor nominations? He did.

Right. So this is the moment I think everyone just goes like we have let this go on too long. I was going to say in 2009 he's in

Public Enemies, which I know is not a movie that everyone likes, but I will say I like that movie. And we're never going to talk let this go on too long. I was going to say, in 2009, he's in Public Enemies, which I know is not a movie that everyone likes, but I will say, I like that movie. And it's one of the last times he's making an effort,

some effort. Yes. I mean, famously, Michael Mann did walk up to him on set and said like, I know your problem. I figured it out.

You can't act. You're a terrible actor. Do you know that story? That's a real story. Yes. And Johnny Depp was like, I will not speak to this man again. And there was like four months of production left

yeah which is sort of i think michael man's like one of those old nba coaches who's like well you gotta you know break them down and then build them back up right you know and like johnny depp was like why is this man saying i can't act there is that weird thing though like there are so many incredibly successful actors and not just people who are movie stars but people who are taken seriously as actors who on a fundamental technical level cannot really act

and somehow they work. They don't have the sort of formal skills one might associate with the job. Right and there's just some magic thing and they have an understanding of that specific medium. I can't wait to read you the five Golden Globe nominees. But they know how to like get it in the camera and they know how to work around editing and all that sort of stuff. There are also tons of people I've worked with where it's just like you're a really good actor.

And then you watch the footage and you're like, this does not translate at all. Like there's great actors who cannot make it work on camera. On the other hand, if Michael Mann told me I was a bad actor, I, someone who doesn't even try to act, would throw myself into a river. You would. I would just be like, yes, sir. Yes, sir. I'm sorry.

But Jack Depp's a guy with no formal training. He was a rocker. Nicolas Cage was like, you should do movies. They give you a lot of money. That's truly the story. The 80s, baby. Right. They were like L.A. rock club brats.

And he was like, honestly, you're good looking. They'll probably give you a million. Johnny Depp was like, how much wine could I buy with a million dollars? Right. Then he became like a teen heartthrob. He hated being a teen heartthrob. And he defined himself by making weird choices. Right.

And the Tim Burton films were seen as somewhat of a high point for those. But up until his point, it was like he makes weird choices, but they always seem correct. He's always in line with the movie. And this is the movie where the Tim Burton Johnny Depp weirdness becomes like gold member. Where it's like, I don't know what the angle is here. And also, it's sort of like where do you begin and

it ends? Are you a person even? We have already recorded Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at this point. Whether or not you like that movie I think he's making like coherent choices in that performance yeah it's good in that movie I think so too right he's kind of like amazingly funny well we'll talk

we'll have litigated it at that point right I know some people don't like it and a lot of that is just oh it's disrespectful it's crazy he's creepy but I think he's funny and it's weird and the character makes sense internally like it tracks it may not be your Willy Wonka or your image of Willy Wonka it's in sync with the movie and there's weird and the character makes sense internally like it's right it may not be your willy wonka or your image of willy wonka it's in sync with the movie and there's a consistent psychology right this you're just like this actually feels like the supermarket sweeps challenge where they're like okay you have two minutes to raid this prop closet and come up

with expectations my girlfriend kept just being like why does he look like that like what does it mean and i was sort of like, he's like a mad hatter. Right, but he's literally like two minutes like pulling the eyelashes off the wall, taking a card that says Scottish brogue. They sort of play it like he's got borderline personality disorder because sometimes he kind of becomes violent. Yeah, this is a real realistic movie in that regard. I feel like a lot of like there's like a contest where you got to make a short film in 24 hours. Yes. It feels like that as a performance

I think you're giving him too much credit to say he had 24 hours to come 24 minutes The five nominees for best actor The film is Alice in Wonderland The five nominees, can you tell me You can tell me two of the nominees

2010 It's 2010 So we're talking Black Swan Can you tell me? You can tell me two of the nominees. It's 2010. It's 2010. So we're talking Black Swan. Think about it, man. We're talking Inception. I'm trying to think of the films of that year. Here's a hint I'm going to give you.

King's Speech? Is this the King's Speech year? Yeah, but that's in drama. Right. No, but I'm just trying to give myself a year of film. But just to give you a couple hints, and these are not big hints. One, you know two of the nominees. Two of the five.

Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp for Alice in Wonderland and Johnny Depp for The Tourist. Two performances we're still laughing at today. That's what's so crazy

to think about. The Green Book won best comedy. Yes. Comedy. Yes. Anyway. Although when you talk to old people

who love Green Book that's their note they go it's so funny yeah i mean when i saw when i saw in a theater it it was like laugh a minute i will say like not for me so much but like it feels weird to classify it that way but when people defend that movie that's italian for pretty good is is a great laugh line there is some laugh lines anyway okay i will just warn you the three movies, two of them basically were not released. The third one was released and was a flop. Don't cast around

thinking of the big movies of 2010. Two of them are equivalent to The Leisure Seeker. Exactly. Do you remember when Helen Mirren got nominated for Best Actress eight months before the movie was released? For Leisure Seeking? Yeah. I have a guess. Is Ewan McGregor and Simon Fisher the Yemen?

Incorrect. I think that's the year before. Is Ewan McGregor and Simon Fisher the Yemen? Incorrect. I think that's like the year before or something. You know, it's somewhere in there. What, is it that type of zone? Or do they exist even less than that? One of them I really thought this movie went unreleased. The winner, I know this movie was released, and in fact, we were just talking about it.

Barney's Version. Paul Giamatti wins Best Actor for Barney's Version. Correct. And it was one of those things when he won, when people were like, what's this movie? And it was so like, I guess he has to win of these five. It's the only

one that people even agreed was a good performance. I remember it being that way, but that was one of those things where Sony was like, we're going to do a quick qualifying release and then we'll release it wide later and then they never released it wide later. What is Barney's version about? Well, you know, he's Jewish and his stomach hurts and he sleeps with all these ladies. Don't ask David. You want to get Barney's

version of the story. Barney, get in here. I think that's literally it's by the Canadian Philip Roth. Yeah, Mordecai Rickler I think his name is. Right, and he's like an angsty, neurotic

Jew writer about the perils of masculinity. And it's a story about how many times he loved and lost. You know, it's a movie about if you always

went like I don't see Paul Giamatti dating enough beautiful women on screen. Brian's version is like, we can give you like 12 in one movie. Oh, okay. It's like Rosamund Pike. Is Rachel Weisz in it?

Who else is in it? I don't fucking know. It's got a good cast of actresses. So he like used up his quota on that movie. He did. Yeah, okay. He did. All right.

It's like Paul Giamatti doing his version of an Adam Sandler movie. You got Minnie Driver. David Cronenberg's in it. I can't go through this cast. All right. Two others. And do they exist more or less than Barney's group?

One exists more, one less. One exists more. Was one actually released wide? Yeah, it was released wide. I saw it in theaters. It's a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit, but did we laugh? David, did we laugh?

As a nation, did we laugh? Calling this movie a comedy is somewhat outrageous. I guess it's a romantic comedy, sort of. It was a prestige play in a way. It's from a prestige director, but like a bad one. He's a hot young star. There's a lot of sex in this movie. Does it even exist?

I don't think it exists. No, no, no, no. Is it Jake Gyllenhaal, Love and Other Drugs? Jake Gyllenhaal. And then I have a guess about the other one. I might be totally off, but if I'm right, this is a good poll. Dustin Hoffman, Good Luck, Charlie? No.

Although, oh my God. Right? The other person has been fully canceled. One of the most canceled men in Hollywood. One of the most. I would say. Top of the heap. Yeah.

Brett Ratner? No, actor. Once again, I'm going to restate. Brett Ratner for Tower Heist. It's got to be Spacey, right? Spacey. Spacey was in a comedy? She's not beyond the sea here.

Not nine lives. Not beyond the sea, not nine lives. I mean, really, I don don't think this was released it has one of those posters where you're like oh someone made this at home and he's the lead let me give you the other four actors above the title on this poster okay barry pepper kelly preston john loitz, Rochelle Lefevre. Well, okay, this is Casino Jack. There it is. It's about Jack Abramoff, right?

The final film of George Hickenloop. Uh-huh, but like, talk about, I don't think that movie was really released. I don't think so, yeah. You know, I'm sure it had like a limited release. You know who did a lot of press for that movie? Hit me. John Lovitz. Okay. He was ready for it to be his, like, Albert Brooks and Drive. Right.

I love how we both knew exactly what movie we were thinking of. It made $1.0 million at the box office, though. Wow. Which is less than its $12 million budget, I will admit. It also made a grand total of $40,000 overseas. People overseas. That's one of those final indignity movies. Just one of the wildest indictments of the Golden Globes

is comedy category, where people are always like, no, it's good that they have a comedy category because it's good to recognize comedies. And I'm like, oh yeah, all those comedies they recognize. Oh, oh, oh, chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. I seem to remember the early 2010s were really bad for them being able to find movies that were actually good to put in the comedy category. I don't know.

They kind of overlooked a lot of the Apatows. They overlooked a lot of other stuff that was actually funny. When American theatrical comedy was still robust, they were choosing to nominate like, oh, we're going to pretend that Helen Mirren and Hitchcock is a comedy. Sure. oh we're gonna pretend that like Helen Mirren and Hitchcock is a comedy sure yeah I bet you if I just took a comedy category from like any year we could probably like rip on it for five minutes

like you know what I mean like that's how the clothes are save one in the chamber for later in the episode oh sure fine alright so Alice in Wonderland Last Chance Harvey was the year before by the way oh I said good luck Harvey yeah right that's what it's called I mean it's called last chance harvey's the right one yeah okay

alice in wonderland guys what i was thinking about and i wanted to say this on mike uh-huh is this is 2010 yeah in 2011 you've got thor and captain america and it feels like there's a real divide between like what holly Hollywood's cooking up there. You know what I mean? Sure. Well, here's the other thing. I know this is the start of the remake, the Disney remake trend.

Except it isn't. That's what's fascinating about this movie. That is the one thing that is thoroughly fascinating about this movie culturally. The second thing I would say is this is one of the few movies in history where it's like its success is largely attributable to another movie.

Which is this comes out four months after Avatar and they just really sold it's in 3D and it's a world you've never seen before. That's why I saw it. I was like I can't wait to join Wonderland. The power of my real D glasses. And it was post-converted. Of course. It looks like shit.

It's the ugliest movie ever made. This is my opinion not one frame of this movie looks good except the real world stuff looks fine like that's fine

before she's in Wonderland here's a take I feel like you guys are gonna drag me for I like all the real world stuff in this movie no I agree with you I'm totally locked into the first 20 minutes

of this film 10 it's not that long really? fuck I want to pretend it was longer it's not it's 10 minutes.

I'm like. First 10 minutes are fine. This is kind of interesting seeing Tim Burton do a British period drama. First 10 minutes, Mia Wesikowska has stuff to do. She's really good in the first 10 minutes. It's shot very flatly. It's a little flat. There's a couple interests, like the shot of all the people looking at her.

That's the shot. That's the good shot. But yeah, a lot of the rest of it's like very boring reaction shot. But I think there's some good character development there. I like go all right now you're revving it too high it's just fine a little no no no no rev down here's here's the thing i like about it okay keep that in double it ben yeah we've talked about how tim burton gets into an interesting place where it's like man maybe the guy has made every personal movie he could make. Like, maybe he said everything on the subject. And was

another thing where Hollywood was just like, make another thing, anything you want. He's like, okay, okay. And then there came some point, right, where he was like, I'm out. I'm out. And they were like, okay, Alice in Wonderland then? Like... And then the other thing is, he becomes so successful that it's like, he can't really make outsider movies in the same

kind of way well he's trying though with this right but i'm saying whereas like something like edward scissorhands you're like this is palpable this is a guy still recovering from feeling completely removed from society sure now you're like i don't know he can't really like make it sing anymore but what he's getting at in the first ten minutes of this movie i was like this is a way that tim burton could evolve is just making movies about like weird societal structures like you know like oh oh England manners

like this is a kind of world that like he can come at with a similar kind of confusion and a satirical edge without him having to make a movie that's about like a little scissor boy right and I was like into it and then it's literally the moment she falls down the hole into shit land right I'm like why it. And then it's literally the moment she falls down the hole. Into shit land.

Right. I'm like, why do I now hate this movie suddenly and dramatically? It's a color of dirty dishwater. Literally. Right. It's a brown. Glorious 3D. There's also this weird thing where like, if like you don't know how to make a shot look good, especially in like TV or something, they're like, let's add some Atmos, which is they just run a bunch of smoke on set.

Right. Because it at least adds a little texture. And this movie does the CGI version of that. There's CGI Atmos. It just looks like distance fog. Right. It just looks like shitty effects. But I think they were just like, this just looks like Candyland in hell.

And they were like, add some Atmos. What the fuck? Make it tactile. Do it right. Yeah. Well, because this is, like, this movie costs $200 million. Correct. And it's kind of all there on the screen in that I'm sure this was expensive to make.

Like, it's not like you're looking at this and it's not how do you know. I understand they had to render a whole world here. The super. But where is the talent? The special effects supervisors who worked on this movie said, like, far and away the most difficult job we've ever done. Right. most difficult job we've ever done right and i think part of that was like everyone got cocky when like people were starting to do this like digital backlog these doing you know these green screen movies totally right and it's like robert rodriguez like kind of figured out how to do it

himself and was also doing all of it himself right and he's a maniac and he works like too hard and he writes and cuts and edits and produces and everything. And he was working off a comic where he could copy specific panels and all this shit. And like Cameron is- The world of Sin City is very simple. Right, exactly.

It's like rooms. Cameron is like Cameron. Sure. And I think everyone's like, Tim Burton's creative. He could do something like this. And you watch this movie and it's like, people still fucking drag us for being like,

and on top of it all, the two of them like Avatar. Watch this movie and try to not like Avatar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go watch Avatar. No, you don't even have to re-watch Avatar. Yeah, you do. I'm saying watch Awesome Wonderland the whole time.

You'll be like, you're right. Avatar is like an 8 out of 10 right now. No, you have to go watch it. They drag you for liking Avatar? Oh, yeah. All the time. So hard. Avatar is a good movie.

They act like it's our favorite movie of all time. Sure. Well, I mean, it is your favorite movie of all time. It is my favorite movie of all time. Of course. David texts me every morning, Avatar is my favorite movie that's good i text you every morning just i send you a voice memo of myself going boy oh boy i wonder where you block my number um yes this is one of those movies where like

they said like why would we shoot it in 3d it's like cumbersome yeah and james can do that later right openly was like that is incredibly dumb right and we to this day you've got alita coming out shot in 3d the rare movie the shot in 3d you know oh what surprise surprise the 3d is good yeah i feel like this movie killed 3d in a way it both like obviously 3d is still around, but a lot of people paid for the 3D and were like, what the fuck? That sucked.

I'm not paying five bucks. Does Clash of the Titans come out a month after this? Clash of the Titans came out before this, I think. Really? Well, I can look it up.

I'll look it up. I think this is definitely a bloom off the rose moment where people went like, oh, that was a one in a million thing, the Avatar thing. Like, people are just going to be sloppy about this.

But also, the insane thing is like Linda Wolverton who wrote or had writing credits on most of the Disney Renaissance movies, which are sort of very tight in their plot. You're right. College of the Titans is the next month. That's what I thought. That was another one. I feel like that's the final

where people were like, it's literally like the arm and the head are in different dimensions. And the problem with most of these movies is the post-conversion process makes them dark. So then like most theaters in America under project their movies. So you're just walking into a situation where everything looks like it's in silhouette or something. And also the post-conversion process is essentially handing special effects people a live-action film that is locked and saying, can you animate a movie under this? Right.

Like they then have to create three-dimensional CGI models to wrap the image around. And more and more, they like don't understand what that pipeline is. Yeah. And they're like, we can just shoot any footage and hand it to you and you'll turn it into 3D. pipeline is. And they were like, we can just shoot any footage and hand it to you and you'll turn it into 3D. And they're like, yeah, but it'll look like the feature on like 2009 era televisions where you hit the

3D button. And it's like Larry King's eyes are popping out of his head. It's like a 3DS. Right. It's like a 3DS, essentially. Yes. Linda Wolverton, she wrote the Beauty and the Beast screen. Which are, like, these are like tight movies.

She took these big like, big... She wrote The Lion King screenplay. Right, right. She wrote a little film called Alice in Wonderland, a 2010 film by Tim Burton. Right, but she's on, like, the story team for all these Disney renaissance movies. She's on the story team for Aladdin and Mulan. Right. And she also wrote the Maleficent screenplay.

Yes. She also wrote the screenplay for a film that, and I'm saying this on the air right now, is better than Alice in Wonderland. And that film is called Alice Through the Looking Glass. Oh, I...

I'm team Through the Looking Glass. I agree. It's better. I mean, it's only better in that this is the worst movie. Yeah, it's a little better. It's a little better.

It's a little better. I agree with that. It has, weirdly, it sort of like has a narrative. Like, it's not little better. It's a little better. It's a little better. I agree with that. It has, weirdly, it sort of has a narrative. It's sort of a stupid narrative, but at least it has sort of like, there's sort of a task to accomplish. It's like pondering the age-old philosophical

question, should you kill baby Hitler? It's that, right? And, you know, I mean like... Sashbrown Cone's fun in it. He's fun. He plays the concept of time as a person. It has, like, 20% practical sets, which that improvement... And it's also just made six years later, so just, like, you know, the money, I don't know, can be spent better. It looks a little cleaner.

But what is so crazy is this movie is so sold on the visuals, the wonder, the 3D. It's Tim Burton. His imagination's unfettered. It's a full 3D, you 3D Tim Burton CGI Fantasia. And we were still at the tail end of people being like, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is going to be twisted. Like, genuinely. Yes.

When this came out, the Hatter poster. All the posters looked bad. People were like, wow, he looks like a demon. Like, whoa, he's going to spook kids with this shit. I mean, this is his highest grossing film. I'm sure. By a good margin. This feels like the first movie where tim burton realized he could get residuals from hot topic if he tried hard enough well i was gonna say so here i think if you adjust batman

would beat this movie but that's adjusted yes but um uh talk about like cultural things with this movie right okay so like the the rise and fall like the the high point and the low point simultaneously of uh 3d filmmaking, right? But the other thing is, I think this is this weird threshold moment where Disney starts to become cool. Disney had always been nerdy or childish. Yeah, you're right. The sort of Kingdom Hearts moment where Disney is a brand. It's like you can buy an edgy Lion King shirt now.

Whereas like Disney's brand throughout my childhood was more like. Babies. Well, no, it was also like parents know that they can trust Disney. Right. To entertain their child without being too fucking weird. Right. Or political. It's going to be just a Disney movie.

And you're going to buy the white clamshell VHS. Right. Before. And then when you like got old, you were like, I don't want those fucking sanitized, the Disney-fied versions of things. Sure. Like, that's the Gen X. Like, you get old, and then you go, like, man, Disney, they whitewash everything, and do you know he was a Nazi? Sure.

And I feel like this generation that's cusping right with Alice in Wonderland are like, wait, we can just buy ironic Disney shirts? Like, we can still like Disney but seem above it because we because we're like reowning it in a postmodern way. Except those shirts are still manufactured by Disney and Disney's coffers like start doubling in these years. Yeah. This is when they're also like buying every brand in sight. Cause right. Is this when they buy Marvel?

They buy Marvel. I think maybe the year after, like, you know, cause, cause we, we've talked about it. Like Star Wars is 2012.

They buy Star Wars in 2012 they buy I think they buy Marvel this year I think they buy it 2010 because I work at the Disney store in 2011

and they've had Marvel for a year in fact they bought it in 2009 did you have to dress as Johnny Depp's Matt Hatter while you worked

at the Disney store no because the blooms off the rose a little bit I think they're moving on to they're so topical there but I'll tell you like when I worked what was the hot? No, because the blooms off the rose a little bit. I think they were moving on. They're so topical there. But I'll tell you, when I worked... What was the hot shit then?

Cars 2 fever. Is that a fever? It's more of a low... Kids could not stop talking about Sidley the Spy Jet. Excuse me? Sidley the Spy Jet! Are you having a stroke? They still haven't stopped talking about it jason isaac's playing

the role of sidley the spy what if there's like one kid who just still has not stopped talking about the fucking spy jet sidley do you know there's a moment in cars 2 where they're having a car chase in an airport and sidley gets on the runway and he goes climb inside me no i didn't and his ramp comes down and the cars drive inside his butt and then there's a scene that takes place inside Sidley. He then becomes a location. He's a plane. Did you know this? I wasn't aware.

But he's like living and they're just like I just want to imagine he was like a senator who's like, are the good people of Missouri aware that there's a scene in Cars 2 where Sidley, I'm reading from the record here, Sidley the space jet. Who are Sidley... I'm reading from the record here. Sidley the Space Jet.

It says Sidley the Spy Jet is both a character and a location. Is that right, Senator? Just try to break this down. So this is also when Disney loses its old reputation and gains a reputation for weird perverted shit going on in all its movies. Is that right? Because of the Spy Jet. Right, right.

Yes, yes. That was the same guy who made, like, put a penis in Little Mermaid or whatever. He came back for Sidley the spy jet and they were like, Alan! Sex in the clouds and a lion thing. What if it turned out that those were Linda Wolverton's contribution? She was just

like, can you make one of the spires of King Triton's castle look like a peen? No, but I remember, like, can you make one of the spires of King Triton's castle look like a peen? No, but I remember like at this time, Disney was in this like rebuilding stage, right? They're buying out all these properties. They've been taking these big swings of like we were not popular with boys. Sure. So it's like let's make a $200 million Tron movie.

Can Alice in Wonderland kind of be a tweener because we really centralized the Mad Hatter and boys like Johnny Depp? Pirates is their one boy franchise. Of course, their solution to this ends up being just buy Star Wars and Marvel. But at this point, they're trying to make in-house big boy franchises. And what's weird about this movie is it's never positioned as this is Tim Burton doing a new version of Disney's Alice in Wonderland. This movie has no relation to Disney's Alice in Wonderland. This movie is a weird sequel to an Alice in Wonderland that was never made.

It has sort of winks at Disney's Alice in Wonderland. Little wink. When they do the flashback, the girl is wearing a very similar outfit. She's wearing the brighter blue dress and she is of course a child rather than a 20 year old. But none of the designs

really match the Disney characters. It doesn't have any of the songs or music. No. It's an entirely different plot. Right.

You're saying it's not like the Jungle Book or something where it's like trying to cue pretty closely to the plot of the Disney animated movie The Jungle Book.

That's the other weird thing because you go like Disney animation is starting to get back up on its feet at this point. Right. Like Tangled had

come out the year before. The same year. Oh, it's 2010. I think you're right. Yeah. 2010. Here are Disney's 2010 movies.

Yeah. Obviously their big hit is Toy Story 3. Right. T.S. Twa. T.S. Twa. Yeah.

And then Alice. They all said Tangled. Right. They all said Tron Legacy. Right. Those were their only hits. Yeah. See, this is a weird turning point here.

They had two giant flops. Yeah. The Prince of Persia movie. Right. Humongous only hits. Yeah, see, this is a weird turning point there. They had two giant flops. Yeah. The Prince of Persia movie. Right, humongous flop. We're trying to get boys. And The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Gigantic flop, trying to get boys.

They also released some movies like Secretariat and When in Rome, You Again. These are Disney movies. When I was- Now Disney is basically like, every movie,

Captain America's in it. Every single one. Wait, Secretarian, the BoJack movie? Captain America's in it. Every single one. Wait, Secretarian, the BoJack movie? Yep. It was the BoJack movie. Oh, wow. I didn't realize that was real. Old Dogs.

I didn't realize Old Dogs was Disney. Oh, yes, it is. Because he had made Wild Hogs, which was Disney. I think at that point it was Touchstone. And by this point. Todd's the one with the Wild Hogs story. That's the one where your dad was like we're seeing that movie. Yeah exactly.

Exactly. That was like right down the middle to my dad. We went and saw it. What do you think? He loved it. Wild Hogs

Down Periscope Gail Vandewerf's favorite movies. Are those his one and two? Down Periscope. Loves those movies. That dirty submarine movie from the 90s.

That movie's good. Is that Kelsey Grammer? That should be a Ben's choice. Oh, yeah. I love that movie. I always get Down Periscope and Mikhail's Navy. I just remember it has a lot of dick jokes. Oh, yeah. Of course. Yeah, Mikhail's Navy is... Is Tom Arnold? Tom Arnold, right. Which one is Roberto Schneider in? Is he in Mikhail

or Down Periscope? Are you talking about Rob Schneider? Senior Roberto. You mean upside down exclamation point Rob? Oh, he's in Mikhail's. Down Periscope? Are you talking about Rob Schneider? Senior Roberto. You mean upside down exclamation point Rob? Oh, he's in McHale's. Down Periscope is obviously one of those movies they made for $5 million

back when you were trying to see if a TV star carried a movie. Excuse me, I hate to tell you this, but the budget of Down Periscope was $31 million.

Todd, please eat this crow pie. It does have Rob Schneider. It has Lauren Holly, apparently Harry Dean Stanton, and Rip Torn, and Bruce Dern, and William H. Macy. This thing's loaded with character actors. What is this, the USS character actor?

Can you quickly run down how many Academy Award nominations the cast have? Well, Schneider has 14. Macy has one. Torn has one. Torn only has one, right? Does Dern have two? Maybe one? I think he has two. I think has one. Yeah, Torn only has one, right? Does Dern have two? Maybe one? I think he has two.

I think Dern has two, yeah. Supporting for Coming Home, lead for Nebraska. Is that it? I think. Yeah, that's it. Wow. Kelsey Grammer, I don't know. How many has he got?

Oh, well, they nominated him for Beast. Hank McCoy. Right, right, right. Best Beast. Yeah. Best Beast in a supporting role. Best Beast in a supporting role role my father doesn't trust fiction he thinks it's all based on lies

which technically it is but down Periscope and Wild Hogs like so what he likes is the verisimilitude of those two yeah exactly

he thinks those are the only two American films to tell it like it is Periscopes do go down they do you gotta bring them down sometimes and look and those hogs are wild.

True. You gotta admit, David. You gotta admit. Two Macy's. Your dad is a Macy fan, I guess. Is Bill Macy his favorite star? It might be. You know,

I always thought it was Tim Allen because he loved, you know, he loved on Home Improvement when he'd go, rah, rah, rah, rah. Another truth teller. Maybe it's Bill Macy.

Tim Allen really was. He had the courage to tell the truth when the rest of us didn't. Is that thing still on? Your favorite show? The one with the girl puts on the... Yes, it is. They've replaced two of his daughters now,

so it's about a white man who doesn't realize his daughters are changing into different people underneath his nose. Do you know that Caitlin Deaver was one of the daughters on that show? Of course I know that. She was still on it like five seasons. She's the one who's still there? She's the one. She's off to college now.

So she comes in every five episodes and is like, dad. But the other two left? The other two left. Did you know that there is a federal law that any film set in the Appalachian Mountains has to have Caitlin Dever in it? Did you know that? I saw this movie at Sundance where I was like, where is she? Where is she? And then 10 minutes in, I was like, here she is.

She's such a good actor. I love her. I love her. Caitlin Dever. It's just like uh yeah does your movie have moonshine and or like snake handling in it caitlin deaver is involved uh he now has a chinese exchange student living with him that's that's now part of the premise of last night oh you know what he doesn't he's real quiet yep he keeps it to himself does he he say things like, tell me more about your culture? He really does. He's respectful and quiet.

And then he just, you know, he vlogs later. He's like, I learned so many fascinating things about China. He vlogs? Is vlogging part of his business? The premise of the show is that he vlogs, David. Now he's made me mad. It's like a sex in the city with vlogging. Yeah.

Is he vlogging like, hey, this is the last man standing with my daily report like is it like he's in an apocalyptic movie no he has like access to like visual effects and like avid and all this stuff it's like he once did a thing where he was in a car driving and ran into an iceberg it's great what but the only thing i remember is the episode where the girl wears the Garfield hat. Is that ever? That's, that's, uh, the first, uh, that's Molly Ephraim, who was the first Mandy.

Uh, yeah. Have you seen every episode? Uh, no, I haven't seen every episode. I've seen most of them. Yes.

Okay. That's man standing. It's not a good show, but it's an interesting show. Sure. Is this season six now? Seven. Yeah.

And they're probably going to run two, three more. Right. Yeah. Cause now it's like, it's bumping. Sure. Is this season six now? Seven. Yeah. And they're probably going to run two, three more. Right. Yeah. Because now it's like, it's bumping. Sure. Yeah. Elizondo's in it. Earning that check.

Nancy Travis. Love Nancy Travis. God. Hector. Yeah. I mean, in a post-Gary Marshall world, I think Hector needs that thing to run for another seven, right? Shit.

Maybe he should just start making the movies. Elizondo should make arbor day or whatever it's hector day that's it my new movie hector day every part played by me using computers i'm uh what's it uh the fedex line and runaway bride where he's like remember she gets on a fedex truck and uh someone's like where's she going? And Elizondo's like, I don't know, but she'll get there tomorrow by 11 or whatever, right? He has,

I've never seen a theater erupt more than at that line. That is the most killer line reading I've ever seen in my life. I have to find out the exact line. Talk about a pro. FedEx is the company in Castaway, right? They were like really good there

in the late 90s at like doing product placement that you were like, okay, I buy it. It's great. The whole first act of Castaway is just describing to you how FedEx's mail cargo system works. It's like Tom Hanks with a clipboard.

You got Tom Hanks working the docs for them? Yeah, one documentary short subject with the Oscars. The first 30 minutes alone. I wish people would do that. Zemeckis gets up there and he's like what the fuck is going on? In my head

he's so grumpy. Zemeckis? I interviewed him once and he was very grumpy. Not with me. Just with like the movie industry. You didn't interview him

for Marwen. I interviewed him for Allied. A master. And I was like you know talking to him about he was just like

I just think Hollywood makes bad movies and I just wanted to make like a war movie that's like an old fashioned movie. And they just don't make those anymore. It is fascinating how all those guys who were like the biggest blockbuster directors and got to make everything they wanted to make. That's the time. Where's she going? I don't know, but she'll be there by 1030 tomorrow.

That's good. Like the audience, literally, it was basically like they were like, pay this man anything. I'll do anything for Elizondo. Elizondo for president. It also got funnier when it becomes 1030 and not tomorrow. I mean, the specific really helps there. I was saying something about Hector Elizondo. This is the Hector Elizondo podcast.

I don't remember what I was going to say. All those guys with the blockbusters. Oh, all those guys. Thank you. What a pro. All those guys with the blockbusters love to now complain about how the industry is terrible. Like James Cameron and George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and Zemeckis. All these guys who got to make every movie they wanted to make and were showered with Oscars and billions are just like, this industry is terrible.

Everyone's making movies for children. Right. What are they doing remaking comic book movies? Who ever thought of that? Yeah. Yeah. Did you get welcomed to Marwen? Oh, of course.

We were cordially welcomed. Oh, yeah. Reformally welcomed. A movie with a lot of weird similarities to this one. Yes, in that it's a nightmare. Yeah, that's the primary one. Welcome to Marwen was basically like Robert Zemeckis had been listening to Blank Check

and we were sort of like, yeah, we might do Zemeckis and he was like, you're doing it. Watch this. You see how expensive this thing is? David's pointing to the wall. He's like showing us. Excuse me.

I convinced a major studio to let me make this. He has a foot fetish. My point is, Disney is at the early stages. My point I was starting to make 20 minutes ago. Disney's at the early stages of being like, we're silos. We're franchises. We don't want to make movies like Secretariats

or Old Dogs anymore. Every Disney movie is a fucking event. It's an atomic bomb. The schedule clears to get out of the way. No one wants to deal with a Disney movie. But what they weren't doing yet were exploiting their own IP in the same way. They're using public domain stuff.

They're buying other things. They're using weird cult IP, but they're not touching the Disney classics because I think they seemed like we have to keep those behind glass. Disney Animation is finally starting to get a little groove

going on. Pixar is doing the first sequel that they were forced to do as part of the Disney buyout. Toy Story 3? Yes. That was the first, like, okay, here you go, $5 billion. Now, of course, you're making Toy Story 3.

Here are six other sequels we want, right? Right, right. But this is the start. Like, it's after the WALL-E, Ratatouille uprun. Yeah. And then Toy Story 3 is, like, you know, now we're in sequel town. Right. Marvel, they haven't started flexing creative power on.

Star Wars is still a couple years away. And so they're just like, what do we buy into? Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. So they're like, we're doubling down on Johnny Depp. What does Johnny Depp want to do? Lone Ranger? We're doing Lone Ranger. What does Tim Burton want to do?

And the big thing was they announced in one go. Tim Burton wanted to do Dark Shadows, I assume, right? Was that his plan? No, go ahead. What did they announce? Go on, go on, go the big thing was they announced in one go. Tim Burton wanted to do Dark Shadows, I assume, right? Was that his plan? No, go ahead. What did they announce? Go on, go on, go on. No, they announced in one go. They were like, we're bringing Tim Burton back into the Disney fold where he belongs.

He's going to make two movies in Disney Digital 3D. Do you remember when they would use that as a marketing point? They were like, it's not just 3D. They had their own proprietary 3D. Right. And they were like, he's going to make two Disney Digital 3D movies. They announced this in 2008, so it's before Avatar

when everyone's just rumbling about, man, Cameron's going to change the game. What are they? And it was, he's going to make a stop motion film.

His favorite thing, they're going to bring stop motion back. Laika hasn't, you know, hit at this point. And they're going to, or Laika,

no, Coraline comes out the year before. What did they announce? Frank and Weenie and Alice in Wonderland. Right, right, okay. And it felt a little bit like, he wants to make Frank and Weenie. Sure. and Alice in Wonderland. Right, right, okay. And it felt a little bit like he wants to make Frank and Weenie.

Sure. And Alice in Wonderland is them being like, here's a classic piece of like public domain. Do whatever you want with it. Sure. And his big announcement he makes is like, I always had a hard time relating to Alice in Wonderland because it felt like a series of events. It's just meeting a bunch of crazy people. Yeah, that's what it is. Weird little chapters.

It's a children's book. And he said, I want to see if I could add an emotional spine to it. What is insane about this movie. Ben's mad. Is it literally feels like he went into it with the opposite intent. Where he was just like, I don't know. I just want stuff to happen. That's certainly how the movie is.

Right. Because it's just a random series of shit happening. Well, he gives it the spine of the you know vorpal sword and the no no no no just of the of the real world of the she's escaping her married life and it's a a feminist quest to dethrone one uh landed aristocrat and replace her with a second she's not just fighting the jabberwocky she's fighting the gender binary yes right it is doesn't feel like where's But it is, doesn't it feel like... Where's that again?

The beginning and the end feel like they're an entirely different film, because once she lands in Underland, one of the many dumb things this movie does where it's like, she was a kid, she misheard it, it's actually called Underland. But this is where Tim Burton's like, let's do 5% of Jan Svankmajer and 5% of Hot Topic or where it's like let's make it a little weird. Well that was the other thing I was going to say and this is

why I think Dick Cook who's running Disney films at that point in time goes all in on Tim Burton as like anything you want to make just like please come here is like this is the point where like Hot Topic Nightmare Before Christmas sales are becoming like a billion dollar industry in and of themselves.

He's trying to make Disney a little cooler for teenagers. Tim Burton seems to be the key to that. And you have this movie that like starts like that but I feel like aesthetically design wise

this movie does not really look like a Tim Burton movie. No. Which is odd because Robert Stromberg who then directs Maleficent like this becomes

a blank check for him to direct a $200 million Linda Wolverton revisionist feminist quote unquote Disney adaptation.

I kind of like Maleficent. Yeah, Maleficent's way better than that. I think Maleficent has a good script. I think it's poorly directed. Sure. It's a little anonymously directed. But Maleficent has Angelina making an effort.

She's doing a good job. Whereas this has Depp. I mean, I don't know. He's making something. Sometimes he's Scottish. Making a poop. Sometimes he's Scottish. Sometimes he's angry.

Sometimes he's like a child. Sometimes he's pooping. It's a commentary on mental health. No, Maleficent has like a... Gender binary and mental health. Came under siege from the Vorpal Sword. And fucking Alice just cuts it all in half and everything's great now. I just think it's such a bizarre choice to go like, okay, the technology exists.

3D exists. We can make a live action Alice in Wonderland like people have never seen before. Sure. First of all, the movie is 98% animated. Sure. That's our first take. Second of all, we're not going to make Alice in Wonderland. We're going to make a sequel to Alice in Wonderland in which she's appearing for the second time.

Everyone tells her that she's wrong and she's not the same person. She suddenly forgets everything about when she was there for the first time. And then most of the events play out in the same order as the book. I love that. Sort of.

I love that. Sort of. So good. It's kind of like everyone having deja vu for a movie. No, but then it does the second book for no good reason. Which is so weird. Rather than end on the first book, it ends on the second book for no good reason. Which is so weird. Rather than end on the first book, it ends on the second

book, the battle between the Red and White Queen. The first book is the Queen of Hearts. Yes. They get rid of the Queen of Hearts. They make the Red Queen the Queen of Hearts. Right. And instead they do the second book and then they add a Jabberwocky. Now. I guess for like an ending. Can I add some context here? Yes. Please.

Which is in the early 2000s, I'm a big context here? Yes. Please. Which is in the early 2000s I'm a big Wizard of Oz fan. Okay. I love Oz stuff. In the early 2000s Tim Burton gonna do a pilot

called Lost in Oz I think for the WB. Sure. And like somebody sent me the script online. I don't know if it's the real script

but from what I remember of reading it when I was 18 it's very similar to this. Interesting. It's a lot of these kids go to Oz and like I think one of them is Dorothy's descendant she finds out and like they have to like work their way toward fighting with whoever's in charge it's probably Mambi or somebody like that and a lot of like really unnecessary mythology yeah but it's also like it's a tv show pilot so you accept a little bit of that right um and it's also like set in like kind of a weird dark underland type place like it really i think

this is he brought some of those ideas forward yeah yeah this does kind of feel like the world's longest tv pilot yes because it just feels like it's introducing you to a bunch of shit it's definitely introducing you to shit like it introduces you to the white queen what do we know about the white queen well she's white yes she's real white really white she's got a lot of white going on she holds her hands up yes by her shoulders it's a fun performance no it is not no it is not no it is not no it is not it's a bad performance i, but what the fuck? She's making some kind of fucking choice. She made one choice to hold her hands right here. And that's good.

I think, I just want to test, because I want to believe, knowing the three of you, that we're all going to be in agreement here. I think there is one performance in this film that is thoroughly excellent. I know who you're going to say, and I don't agree. Who do you think I'm going to say? Crispin Glover.

No. Okay. No, I think it's a bad performance I agree and I like him a lot no the one good performance is Helena Bonham Carter I think she's pretty good

she's good she'd be my pick she's locked in I think Wasikowska's doing a really good job especially when you consider what she's up against she's fine but she's lost

the second she's in Wonderland like the movie just gives her nothing I was like the reason I went the reason I went and saw this movie all my doubts is

I was a big Mia Wasikowska fan right and I was like, the reason I went and saw this movie, all my doubts is I was a big Mia Wazikowska fan. Right. And I was like, I want to see her be the next great actress. I loved her in Entreatment and I was like,

can't wait to see what she gets to do. She also wasn't one of those people who was like on Hollywood shortlist. Like it was like, she was like a critic's favorite for a show that was like

pretty culty. Yeah. And then suddenly Tim Burton cast her in this and it felt like, oh, that's like a big anointment. And since then, she's run as far away from this kind of movie as she can. And has had an excellent career. Except for Alice in the Looking Glass. Right.

Which like you just have to imagine she couldn't turn down that paycheck. She's like great. I assume she was obliged. She's actually much better in Through the Looking Glass. She's got a little more to do. She's figured out how to act. And also she's the active where it's like, what's going on? Well, the Mad Hatter's

not feeling so good, which is... The Hatter's the matter. What you're saying is that the Hatter's the matter. And she has to kind of march around and sort of be like... That was the tagline, Ben. The actual tagline for the movie was the Hatter's the matter. She also, remember, she has weird sort of multicolored pajamas because she's been... She just came back from China.

Yeah. I think. Another film where I like the first 10, 15 minutes of that movie the best. I like the Sacha Baron Cohen stuff. The rest of it, I could sort of take or leave. I think the stuff with her on the ship is fun. I think the way Burton shoots Wazikowska, especially in Underland, is kind of creepy throughout.

She feels very fetishistic. Yeah. In how, yeah. All the dress stuff. Now, Alice in Wonderland is a fetishy book written by a pervert. Sure. Obviously, it's in the text. You don't need to summon it out of the text, but it is in there.

But this movie is like, it's weirdly kinky in the places you don't want it to be. And then it removes the kink from the places where it actually could have been interesting. You guys have talked a lot about how Burton is not a particularly sexual. She's a little afraid of sex. Certainly depicting it on screen. That scene when she's very large

and there's like small men who come up to her. I'm like, okay, yeah, that's Tim Burton's thing. A pale woman crushing him between her hands. That's what he wants. She is so pale in this way. I know be everything a pale woman crushing him between her hands right that's what he wants right she is so pale in this movie I know she's a pale woman I was gonna say she's a very pale person

this was the first time I'd ever seen her in a movie and looking back at this now I'm like you're telling me you didn't see Amelia apparently she's in Amelia I don't know

watching this now having spent a decade watching excellent work from Mia Wasikowska I was like oh shit I didn't realize it at the time because I didn't have a frame of reference.

He actually made her more pale in this movie. He did. Oh, for sure. And he puts the dark makeup around her eyes. Everyone's pale in this one. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what he did to Anne Hathaway, but he like coated her in chalk. And it's also, it's impossible to do these fucking movies where like, here's an insane thing.

The shooting schedule for this movie was apparently 30 days all in. They spent like two weeks shooting the live action stuff. I guess that makes sense because like how much screen time does Johnny Depp actually have? Not that much. Like it's mostly just like a few monologues where he's like, oh, I'm Scottish now. On one hand, it's weird that the Mad Hatter is in this much of the movie because like the Mad Hatter, I feel like, is a character that everyone remembers and likes. But he's not like an integral part. He's in one scene.

Why is there even like a writing there? It's just the fucking tea party. Like the queen is like a big thing. It goes back in the second book. Right. The queen's a little more, but they've fucked with the queen. But when they announced this movie. They're mashing the queen's up. When they announced this movie, they were like Tim Burton's going to make a big 3D Alice in Wonderland.

People were like, oh, what is Johnny Depp going to play the Mad Hatter? And I remember being like, that wouldn't make sense. It's like too small of a role for him. And then of course this movie becomes Johnny Depp above the title his face is the poster Alice in Wonderland watch me drink tea yeah and like the Alice character poster is her little

yeah by the teacup whereas like the Johnny Depp poster is like his fucking face yeah yeah yeah and then you had the um I remember when they dropped the Helena look yeah you were kind of like oh oh, that's fun. They're using CG to make her, to like warp her. And like, I haven't seen a lot like this before.

That is one of the things I like in this movie. And you go like, I would like this movie more if he was shooting practically and augmenting with CGI. For sure. Because that effect still plays kind of fun. I think it's great. And it feels like the kind of loopiness you want out of a live action Alice in Wonderland movie where it's like

these are tangible tactile things but you've distorted the perspective of them. Yes. The White Queen. There she is. There's the White Queen. Anne Hathaway

it's sort of a big moment for her too, right? She's sort of a big star at this point. She's got her first Oscar nomination. She's a proven box office thing. Crispin Glover though. Yes.

He's also being CG augmented, right? To sort of stretch him out. So this is another example of just like them being like that stuff's easy, right? It's not even that he's CGI augmented. His body is fully animated. It's just fake, right?

It's not motion captured. No, it's just like, but like, is it just to elongate him? Is that the idea? And you go, what's the fucking point here? But he's only a little elongated. Correct. So it's one of those things that the whole time he's

on screen you're like what's up with him like is there something up with him and you're also like why does his head feel disconnected from his body because no it's just insane they shot him on live action sets and then we're just like cool and let's erase his body and then hire animators to do whatever they want with his physical positions kind He kind of looks like the Fred Claus version of Slender Man. He kind of does. He kind of does. I think Fred Claus would have been a worthy addition to this movie, and I think it's time for us to talk about it. It's weird that no one has revived the Fred Claus brand.

That's 20 minutes from now. Oh, okay. We'll get to that. I'm going to actually set a timer. So there's shit like that where you're just like, what's the point, right? It only makes the thing feel uncomfortable to have CGI, noodle body, Crispin Glover in a way that's so subtle that you can't even tell what they're gaining from doing it. Whereas Helena Bonham Carter, you're like, I get it. I get it.

And this is worth the money, and it looks kind of cool. Right. So it's sort of like you're like, I get it. I get it. And this is worth the money, and it looks kind of cool. Right. So it's sort of like, you see the good and the bad. They do it, it's less effective, but they do that to make Johnny Depp's eyes bigger in this movie. Ugh. But you're like, that type of principle is the kind of thing I'd like them doing building sets. I don't know if you noticed this, but the hatter in this movie?

He's mad. He's a little mad. You know where that comes from, right? Yeah, the mercury. Every English person knows that that because it's like, grew up in England, Jesus fucking Christ. The look he gives me. Okay, David, that's kind of cruel that you didn't give me the chance. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that I didn't give you the chance to torment me like a cat with a mouse. It's totally fine. Let's reset. Reset. Todd, reset. Okay. You guys know the thing about the Mad Hatter, right? Where that comes from?

Oh, yeah. It's hat makers. They used to use mercury to stiffen their brims. David, do you... No, not brims, but like the... Made them a little crazy. Right. Yeah. Right, so you guys know that definitely. David, you're being quiet. Do you know that? Yeah, it's something

every English person knows. It's like a commonly recited... Okay, why are you saying that? Why do you know that? Wow! Did you know he's so committed to this bit? He's a fine actor. That when I first knew him, he would stay up in the

middle of the night and pretend to be from England online. No one has this level of I would be up at like 4 in the morning. He would have to change his IP address to mask it to make it seem like he was typing

from straight in Big Ben. God, I used to stay up so late just to be on fucking Oscar watch. That's why I have the bag. That's what you say

is that the bags under your eyes are a permanent effect of you spending time on the Oscar watch. Of me sleeping for four hours like a night for like four years or whatever

i was just that goddamn entertaining and when i got to college there was that moment where it's like oh i can just sleep until 1 p.m you know like i don't know what's making me wake up anymore like and then then i got back into the old full sleep situation love that my thing was like i mean i spent a lot of time message person my thing was like tv when it was like oh I mean, I spent a lot of time message boards, but my thing was like TV. When it was like, oh, Adult Swim exists, Comedy Central, there's weird things after midnight, Conan doesn't start until 1230, and then I just never slept a normal time. I realized the other day the only Flame War I've ever gotten to online

was about the TV show Party of Five in the late 90s when I was a teenager, so that was on a message board. Okay. Good memories. We've all had a Flame War or two. Ben, were you ever a message board guy? No. Never? No. you lived the message boards you're you live in a tactile analog world i was i was burning uh boards of the abandoned house planks of wood yeah um so the take on this movie is alice doesn't want to get married she's a girl. Her father tells her it's okay to be unusual.

Martin Sokos. I think that seems kind of sweet. Yeah, that seems fine. Lindsay Duncan's good in this. Francis Delatorre's good in this. Oh, you know what?

I did get an anarchist cookbook PDF on a message board one time. Well, thank you. You went to message boards to ask for the PDF? Yeah.

Because you didn't want to buy the book. Well, yeah, I tracked it down. It rules. She doesn't want to getDA. Yeah. Because you didn't want to buy the book. Well, yeah. I tracked it down. Yeah. It rules. She doesn't want to get married. Yes. She sees the white rabbit.

Yes. So she runs off. Who's the guy who plays Hamish? Tony Bill. Great, great, great. He's fun in this. Great face. Leo Bill.

Good performance. Oh, sorry. Yeah. I'm enjoying all the performances in this for the first 10 plus minutes. I think you got Tim Piggott Smith is the step, you know, father-in-law. All of this a lot. And I'm watching this and I'm like, oh, maybe Tim Burton should have made Jane Eyre, but like a straight laced version. You know, but I'm at it.

Like maybe you should have taken like a gothic kind of like, you know, book and not done a Tim Burton version of it, but tried to like, maybe that's how he could have grown if he's out of personal statements maybe he has to apply his vision to other worlds you know but not the the tim burton take on that world uh uh but but then because what it's true because like what you said and it's in here it's like burton developed the story because he never felt an emotional tie to the original book maybe let someone develop it who has an emotional tie to the original book. Maybe they've got some emotion that they'll pour into the movie. But the first 10 minutes, I'm like, this is a decent setup of like, okay, she keeps on, since she was

a little girl, she has what everyone tells her are nightmares about Wonderland. They tell her that was a weird dream, but she's never really gotten over it. Now it's like 10 years later, 6 years later, whatever. She's trying, you know, they're trying to force her into polite society. She never fits. There's that moment when she's dancing with Leo

Bill and he says like, where are you? Like, where's your head right now? And she's like, I was thinking about clouds. Isn't it bizarre? Yeah, she's thinking about painting roses red. Right, and I'm like, this is kind of a fun character. I like the mom talking about blockages. Yeah, and everyone's like told her that she's crazy and that this like the mom talking about blockages. Yeah, and everyone's

like told her that she's crazy and that this thing that she remembers isn't true. No, we get it. I gotta say though, Alice's stand-up set,

what if men wore dresses and what if people could fly, just doesn't really work for me. She's gotta work on it. For me also, it just feels like a little rigid. She should have loosened it up,

made it a jazz set. I think that's what would have really made it sing. But then what drives me crazy, this is when I start to go like, what the fuck is this movie doing? She falls down the hole. The hole looks like a butthole. It's CGI

butthole. Yeah, and she's like, yeah, that whole thing sucks. Right, and then immediately she goes, oh, this isn't real. I'm dreaming again. Sure. So it's one of those things where you set up for the first 10 minutes a character who believes what happened to her and everyone tells her she's crazy. And you want to see that character be vindicated by returning to Wonderland, getting the affirmation that it's real and and being able to

save the place that she once lived right instead this movie goes we don't need you no you're she goes this is a dream sure and they go there's vaguely a war happening but with very little urgency you you're exactly you're you're demanding a story the movie once she falls down the hole there's no story i'm demanding they pick a lane because i am totally fine with them making a live action awesome wonderland where it's here's a series of vignettes you're totally fine with this yes if they own that it's a vignette thing and every vignette doesn't end with you must claim the sword yeah it doesn't aim with the fake posturing of we're creating a lord of the ring style battle what's weird is that every attempt to give this more of a story ends with like,

well, Alice has got to fight the Jabberwocky and get the Vorpal Swords to do that. Right. I get why you do that, but like, what the fuck, you know? This movie vaguely tries to pin a like chosen one narrative,

a like prodigal daughter. They show her like a scroll where she's killing the Jabberwocky. But then it's also like everyone has amnesia. I think the idea, this is barely a defense, but of them rejecting her is like, I guess, to add an element of mystery to that scroll. Because otherwise it would just be like, that's you. You're going to kill the Jabberwocky. But I also hate that she immediately goes. And they're like, is that you?

And she's like, I don't know. I hate that she immediately goes, oh, this is just a dream. So none of this matters. It robs the movie of all suspense. And all agency. Of all intrigue. Then the character has nothing going on. She's just like, I'm going to ride this out. She just wanders from scene to scene. She gets shuttled around by script provision. She's denying the movie the whole time.

In the book, it is a dream. Right. And at the end of Through the Looking Glass, she wakes up and she realizes that one of the cats was the Red Queen and the other one was the White Queen. And, like, it's supposed to be, like, a reverie, you know. And I guess they're sort of paying homage.

Again, I'm doing the thing where I'm like, is this a defense? I guess that's the defense. But this is where I get into, like, my biggest gripe with this movie, which is, like, it's a sequel that also kind of wants to just repeat everything. You've mentioned this. Because here's a take, and I'm not saying any of us would like this movie, but here's a cleaner version of the movie they're trying to make.

Alice never gets over this bad dream. Everyone tells her she's crazy. She spends six years feeling disconnected from polite European society, right? She falls down the hole again. It's a post-apocalyptic wasteland. They go, we've been waiting for you. Why didn't you come back? Sure.

And they're all huddled together and she has to like lead them on a rebellion instead this movie is I'm going to very slowly wander around meet everyone one at a time everyone's going to go no I don't think you're Alice she's going to go cool well it doesn't matter because I'm dreaming and in the last 30 minutes she gets the sword and she fights I do want to ask was Tim Burton one of the

people who tried to adapt the Lucky McKee game Alice in the late 90s? Okay, so that's the other thing I was thinking of. Everyone kept on saying that he was, and I think Lucky McKee kept on saying, I want to try to do it as a movie. I want Tim Burton to do it. I think Wes Craven was going to do it for a while. Okay, all right. But this movie has a lot of similarities with that game, and the whole like Allison to become a warrior and defeat the Jabberwock comes straight out

of that game. Yeah. Which feels like one of the six things they're pulling from. Right. Right. American McGee. Ah, yes.

Lucky McKee is, um, may. Oh, that movie may. I was, I was, that was,

I just had to look it up. I'm sorry. Um, I remember that game though. Question answer, which is what is a classic twisted Alice in Wonderland. And one of the first, like, this video game's made by an auteur. Right.

Like, he put his name on it. Like Sid Mayer. Because this guy's vision. Except Sid Mayer's thing was like, what if you could have a railroad? Not a story to a Sid Mayer. Chugga-chugga. Choo-choo. Here's my question.

I never got answered. What is the only capital G great performance in this movie I think Helena Bonham Carter is very good but there's one performance that is immaculate in this film

Francis de la Tour I don't know The Pig Timothy Spall as Bayard the dog alright well I have he is so in the pocket in this movie

I have one thing to say to you Bayard rules he's the Sidley the spy jet of Alice in Wonderland. Now, you saying this jet. America had Bayard fever. I'm doing my congressman again.

This jet, his butt opens up and the cause can go inside. Does he feel pain, I ask you, Senator? No. Does Sidley have a rumbly in his tummy when the characters are speaking? I have no problem with Timothy Spall's voice work as the fucking dog. His name is Baird the dog and show some respect. Here's my problem. That dog looks like shit. Even by the visual

effect standards of this movie, he looks unfinished. All of it looks like the scorpion king. Bad. No, no. This looks worse. He has no hair that moves. He's just like, he's smooth even though he has hair on his body. This is one of those movies where it's just like, they don't though he like has hair on his body one of those movies where it's just like they don't worse him worse i'm not can't look at it i'm not denying

that what i'm saying is this is one of those movies where they were just like this is too much for any one movie to render like there's too much shit and the special effects people were apparently having just nervous breakdowns all the time look at this look at this shit yeah but remember what he sounds like look at this shit. Yeah, but remember what he sounds like. Look at this shit. He looks like a dog who's being made into a glove.

Yes, exactly. He looks like he's been vulcanized. The whole movie looks bad. Hey, Ben, did you watch this movie? Yeah, it fucking sucks. I hated this movie. I stayed up last night watching this. Did you watch it when it came out?

No. No, I took one look at it and i could tell it was a piece of trash it is filth this movie is pure disgusting toxic waste i my this is what i think i think tim burton sold his soul to the devil and this is the devil like knocking on his door being like yeah it's time to pay. This is bad. And Burt was like, do I have to do the sequel? And he was like, no, I wouldn't make you do the sequel, Jesus. Even I have limits.

I know most people choose Planet of the Apes. I think this is his worst movie. Oh, this is 100% his worst movie. Do you think this is worse than Planet of the Apes? Yes. Of course. Planet of the Apes is at least super weird. This is maybe the worst film we've ever discussed on this podcast. And it's also one of the five most successful movies we've ever discussed on this podcast.

Sure. Right. Right. And it's certainly his number one. So number two is How Do You Know? Right? No. How Do You Know is nowhere near the bottom.

What's the one that was- Elizabeth Towne. No. No. No. The one you're thinking of is- Nolte singing. You are the best.

Yeah. That one's low. I Are The Best. That one's low. I'll do anything. That one's low. But you hated that one because you were stressed out that day. I was having a moment. There was a moment. You kicked us out of the studio furiously

after that episode. And we had to record two episodes on that movie. And then we had to watch a longer, hard to watch both dramatically and literally the visuals. Reminder, but I had said Brooks deserves to go to jail for that movie.

Tim Burton should be sent to space. He should be spaced? He should be spaced. Should he be sent to space in a pod that he can breathe in or it's like an airlocking? He's just frozen, floating around. Like a Pericles pod. He's tucked in there in a monkey Pericles pod he's like tucked in there

in a monkey sized pod Todd can I mean I wanna I wanna hear you get off the leash David the Dog style far far far

Bayard style Bayard style woof woof Bayard style what are the things that make you irate in this film like give me your

your fire and brimstone oh god well you know the only thing that really makes me mad is when people don't understand that the main character of Last Man Standing is a vlogger.

Yep. But. Important. You don't know this, but Todd aimed a magnum at my head when I didn't know that. And he cocked it. And it's still there. Yeah, right. And Griffin talked him into uncocking it, but he's still pointing it at me.

Right. There's an indent on David's forehead from the pressure. Now, when I watched this movie, I was watching it on the plane here, which you guys so generously paid for. Blank check air. And I was sitting next to someone, and I kept angling away from them like I was watching porn

because I was so embarrassed to be watching this movie in the year 2019. It is crazy to think about if I saw someone watching this movie on a year 2019? It is crazy to think about if I saw someone watching this movie on a plane now, I would be like, are they in? They might have escorted you off the plane. I would literally be like, this person must be

sick and it's the only movie they can watch. Also, maybe the worst place to watch this movie. Sure. And they were watching 13 Going on 30 on their little monitor. And I was like, boy, Jennifer Garner's good in that movie. And I had to keep forcing myself to watch it. It is an ugly ass movie to look at.

The story is literally just sitting in a studio notes meeting and having an executive be like, I don't know, what if the white queen had a sword? What if the crown could float around because the Cheshire cat? That explains it cat every decision is contradicted

by a different decision sure every scene sets new story goals uh alice has no character arc despite the fact that it's supposed to be about like her feminist realization of herself it does truly feel like exquisite corpse style the live action bookends and the animated stuff in the middle were made by different people who were in no communication with each other. Like different scripts, different production teams. Yeah. And to top it all off, when I saw this movie, I was trying to

make friends with some people that I worked with. Tim Burton, Johnny Depp. I worked at the census at the time and they were like, let's go see Alice in Wonderland. And we went and saw it and we came out of it and I was like, boy, that was a piece of shit. And they were like let's go see Alice in Wonderland and we went and saw it and we came out of it and I was like boy that was a piece of shit and they were like we all really liked it and then like I didn't get to have friends because of this movie because I preemptively was like what a bad movie but I did get the fudder whacking out of it I used to just send that to people I worked

with in the middle of conversations and uh yeah so my sister Amelie uh you know much younger than me sure so when she was growing up I was like I'm gonna in date her with all the things that I love And yeah. So my sister, Romley, you know, much younger than me. Sure. So when she was growing up, I was like, I'm going to in date her with all the things that I love the most. Right. And she because she grew up in a household that was that I strong armed my way into being the third parent of. Yeah. Grew up a big Tim Burton fan.

Right. She called him Tim Burton. It would be an event when I would take Romley to see a Tim Burton movie. She saw this one with friends at a sleepover. And I said, how is it? And she said, it's okay. There's one thing at the end that's maybe the worst thing I've ever seen in a movie.

And for 10-year-old Romley to say that, I went, oh, fuck. Even her critical faculties were like, this is no good. She wasn't saying it in a snarky way. She was just like, there's one thing at the end where I don't understand why they would do that. I didn't like it, and it's the worst thing i've ever seen in a movie and immediately when it happens you just go like what the fuck

is this but it's also the weirdest checkoff gun in the world because it takes maybe like 30 40 minutes to get to mad hatter right sure then they get there then what's fun about the mad hatter is oh these people are like no nothing nothing i'm sorry what's fun about the mad hatter in the original text is crazy right why is it raven like a writing guy right he's bouncing off the walls sure right and the the the dormouse and the mad hair and all them are throwing shit march hair they're all wacky and johnny depp's take on the mad hatter is either he seems like a traumatized child or he becomes weirdly violent he's never fun no and he never feels like wacky like he either feels like victim either melancholy victimized or like he's going to victimize someone else right when he goes into those weird like joker voice like the jabberwocky

right so uh they uh uh immediately what was the fucking point I was going to make? Oh, they offhand reference the Futterwacken. Right. They go like, remember, he used to be fun. He's lost his will to live. He doesn't even do the Futterwacken anymore. And she's like, what the fuck is the Futterwacken? She's rubbing her temples and she's like, get out with it. What's the Futterwacken?

Right. It's like it's the celebratory dance you can only do when peace is restored to the kingdom then they just leave that thing on the table for an hour and a half all of us forget about it because we want to forget it is the only narrative thread

they track in this fucking movie they occasionally will be like the Cheshire Cat has the thing that's like I love to see you photo-whack it but they make it seem

like that's going to be the great victory of the film sure and then he does like CGI crumping for like 20 seconds yeah he's sort of like it feels like an eternity it does uh it's sort of like the ring like once you look on it like your brain gets like lesions that can't be removed um and like this is supposed to

be like a victory yeah the script i Yeah. The score kind of goes like... It's sort of like half-hearted. Nothing like the rest of the score at all. It just breaks into a modern pop. Because Elfman is otherwise doing a totally serviceable, generic... Incredibly generic. Is that the dance for kids, though? Do kids like that?

That's one of those things where you're like, I don't know. This feels like it's out of like a wiggles video or something well also you're cutting to you're cutting from him fudderwackening uh-huh to like alice who has like a wan smile and the white queen who sort of like has her arms lifted and she's sort of like vaguely kind of like you know sort of moving back and forth probably reacting to nothing i bet she never met johnny right right and like the tweedledum and tweedledee kind of go like hey look he's you know like that Mia Vostokowska is probably reacting to nothing. I bet she never met Johnny Depp. Right. And like, the Tweedledum and Tweedledee kind of go like, hey, look, he's,

you know, it's not like everyone's like, yay! Or there's some like crowd of people cheering. Just kind of like, oh, he's funny. They should have just cut to Yub Nub from the Return of the Jedi.

They should have done Yub Nub. Of course. Here's another crazy thing. Do you know that for this movie, they put Matt Lucas in a green, like, fat suit to have the egg-shaped body, then put him on stilts

in the green screen space with Mia Wasikowska, but didn't use it as motion capture reference. They just had him in that extremely physically uncomfortable state, shoot all of his scenes, and then they were like, cool, and here's just raw assets of his face,

stretch it onto the most horrifying looking creature ever imaginable and then copy paste it and place it next to himself just do two right there's all this shit where they had the actors act all the shit out and then like look at her dancing look at this shit look at her look at the laziest fucking dancing i've ever seen how bad his dancing is he He twists around. That's what it is, right? It's like he can twist around. And this weird gray bleak. What is this? This fucking mist background.

It looks like a Mortal Kombat level. The wiki that I linked to, did it still have the name of the actual dancer in an entirely different font from the rest of the page? It did, yes, but I have to alert everyone. What's his name? David Bernal. Mikhail Baryshnikov? I have to alert everyone. Yeah. Oh, it's time for us to talk

about Fred Klaus. So Paul Giamatti's fucking locked in in Fred Klaus. He is. But it's a weird performance because of course, like, Paul Giamatti is Catholic, but he reads so Jew culturally that it feels like this Santa is too nebbishy. That having been said, he's the one person who's finding the right comedic wavelength for the movie.

Right. His makeup is very strange. Yes. Because they don't make his face rounder. They just make his beard huge, but then his hands are very chubby. Like he's got like pointedly fat fingers in it. I watched it recently. Why?

I watched it this Christmas. I've been fighting a lot of insomnia recently. And I just go down a rabbit hole of like, no pun intended, what's the worst thing I could watch that might make me surrender and my body will just fall asleep. Why don't you watch like some kind of like sort of very sleepy art movie like

a Kiarostami movie or something. I do that sometimes. It doesn't work. And then I go like opposite end like let the pendulum swing. Watch Fred Claus. A couple of days before Christmas my wife and and i both very busy people finally had a night off together and i spent that flipping between fred claus and the family man and anyway we're getting a divorce now the end of that story had you ever seen fred claus in its entirety uh i had not i had seen the family man in its entirety yes yeah fred demented. I have never seen Fred Claus. Fred Claus is peak Vince Vaughn thinking,

I can just do whatever I want. People love me. He got a $20 million pair play contract off the concept Vince Vaughn is Santa Claus's brother. He and David Dobkin walked in and were like, Vince Vaughn is Santa Claus's brother. They're like, cool, here's $20 million now. Whether or not

we make the movie, we just need to pay you a kindness for giving us this gift. Thank you. Thank you. Rachel Weisz is in it. Kathy Bates is in it. Miranda Richardson is in it. America's favorite funny man, Kevin Spacey is in it.

Ludacris is in it. Elizabeth Banks is in it. John Michael Higgins is in it. I have never seen the motion picture of Fred Claus. Alright, now back to Alice in Wonderland. Do you know that Fred Claus has a scene in which Fred has to go to a meeting of Brothers Anonymous which is brothers

of legendary creatures like Frank Stallone Oh fucking hell. Alright. Stephen Baldwin. Alright. Roger Clinton and Fred Claus Sure. And everyone is like going on their spiels about But how did they get Roger Clinton, and Fred Claus. Sure. And everyone is like going on their spiels about like. But how did they get Roger Clinton to do it?

That was all over the marketing, right? All over the marketing. Right. And then. Stallone was free? Stallone was free. He had space in his schedule? Well, you know, it used to be good. You know, things were fine.

We were on the same level. And then Rocky comes around. Like they never have any of them identify themselves by name sure they just make references to the big credits that their brothers had then my brother was elected truly truly that's like the joke they did and they're like fred you've never spoken before and he's like well you know my brother's a santa claus and then everyone gets irate at him they're like you're making fun of us fucking santa claus isn't real i gotta deal with real alec baldwin there is an intense mythology about how fred claus is immortal in fred claus okay he's an immortal man who's always been like a 40 something chicago schlub

they have to justify why he's the same age as santa claus and didn't get any magical abilities and what's the reason it's something to do with like they both were like fred was cursed and santa was blessed something like that and uh yeah but at the end he has to deliver all the toys because it's a santa claus curse with a silver tongue gift to the gab as a motor mouth what's the movie that i just said oh yeah no it was true detective true detective was the one that bled vince vaughn of motor mouth. It's gone now. Yes, he talks slowly. He can't reclaim it anymore. Alice in Wonderland.

She goes to the tea party. I don't fucking know. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, it is a series of events. Here's the plot. She shows up. They're like, you're Alice. I'm not Alice. Much like in the original book, she wanders through the forest. She comes across another person. They talk for two minutes. They go, well, yeah, don't forget it. You're not Alice. And then she wanders and finds another. She comes across another person. They talk for two minutes. They go, well, yeah, don't forget it.

You're not Alice. And then she wanders and finds another. Right. She's the caterpillar. Alan Rickman. He's like, meh. Moves on. She ends up at the tea party.

She moves on. Okay, the tea party. Everyone's crazy. Hatter's like, you're definitely Alice, which is unusual. Hypothetically. Everyone else is just denying that she's Alice. Hypothetically isn't the fun of this concept of doing a sequel that she doesn't have to meet everyone again and she can just live in a world where all of them communicate with each other. You're on the record that you don't like it's a sequel.

We got it. We have that. It's been written into the record. But they all start helping each other. There's the dumb thing where the treasure cat steals the hat. And when the hat starts flying at the guillotine, I was like, oh,

fuck, is the hat magical now? Are they going to make the hat a character? Um, Mad Hatter walks her over to a castle and sort of flings her over

on the hat. She does a hat flight. And there's some castle business. She gets too big. We've got the Red Queen. The Queen likes her because the Queen likes things

that are disproportionate. I kind of like the Red Queen stuff The Queen likes her because the Queen likes things that are disproportionate. I kind of like the Red Queen stuff. I like that everyone is elongating themselves in some way to match her head. That's a good performance. That's actually kind of subtle. They have one thing.

Then they do explain it later. She likes to put her feet on a pig. The castle's an eyesore. Her whole kingdom's an eyesore, but her performance is fun, and you're at least watching two actors who are both locked in, talking to each other. Yeah, kind of. Right, and then it becomes about the

fucking... Then it's like, if you defeat the Jabberwocky, the White Queen will be in charge. You restore the kingdom. But they predict the ending because it's on that fucking scroll. So who cares? It's a chosen one. And also, is the white queen good? She seems like a white supremacist to me. She's in like a white kingdom

with white people. She's also like a necromancer. I don't like her. Yeah, she's frightening. That weird flashback scene. She can't move her hands. She's like John McCain where he couldn't

bend his shoulders or whatever. She's just got her hands up. One of them is wearing a MAGA hat in the background in the kingdom. I swear to God. There is.

That's the post-credits scene is the Mad Hatter just making MAGA hats. He's in the kingdom I swear to God there is that's the post-credits scene is the Mad Hatter just making MAGA hats he's over the mill you're right these will sell um uh

and then she finds the I guess there's the execution scene right cause they're gonna kill the Mad Hatter he's gonna make some hats

at one point right he wins over the favor of the queen because he says he can make hats for her, but then she doesn't like the hats, so then she wants to execute him. Well, she also realizes that he's in league with Alice.

Right. Yeah. Every so often, people just start speaking nonsense languages, which is in keeping with Lewis Carroll. Sure. Nonsense. But the thing I hate about this is

Alice just like is friends with people immediately because everyone kind of tolerates read the book but also they're both antagonistic to each other like she's like you're not real this is a dream and they're like fuck you you're a phony and she's really like oh I gotta save the Mad Hatter because he's played by Johnny Depp

right why do you care about any of these people why does anyone care about anyone in this universe right um she fights Right. Why do you care about any of these people? Why does anyone care about anyone in this universe? Right. She puts on a suit of armor. Right. She puts on the Kristen Stewart suit of armor from Snow White and the Huntsman. I forget. That might have come after this.

I can't remember. Yeah, but they look exactly the same. Is Christopher Lee, is this his last performance ever? God, what a depressing thought. Because this is one of those where it kind of sounds like he's on oxygen. Didn't he pop up in the Hobbit movies? Did he? He did. He isn't one of them, I think, sounds like he's on oxygen. Didn't he pop up in the Hobbit movies? Did he? He did. He isn't one of them, I think, actually.

At the beginning of the first one? Where he's like, I'm Saruman, but right now I'm fine. Later, I'm going to be a real pain. Saruman the okay. Yeah, he's actually in two Hobbits. He's in the first and third. He's also in Dark Shadows and Hugo. He had like another 10 years in it.

He's fucking unkillable. He died at like 96, right? He was very old. Also very tall. Famously tall. He died at the age of 93. Wow. I think his last non-posthumous release is Battle of the Five Armies.

The last Hobbit movie. Thank God he didn't end on this. He did end on the Battle of the Five Armies the five armies the last hobbit movie thank god he didn't end on this he did end on the battle of the five armies though the last hobbit movie you like those movies yeah i do i kind of like them okay i'm i'm a little bit of a fan they're distressed assets you know what i mean like it's one of those things where it's like no one's speaking up for hobbit so i'm like i'll speak up i'm only i'm on the record i've only seen the first one i saw it and in high frame rate i thought it was a fucking nightmare i want to do jackson's specifically to be able to see all three of them but the high frame rate is um a barrier like you should not watch it in high frame rate it's one of those things where like ignore the director i saw it with my father who had never seen or read any to and was like, what the fuck is this? Well, also, it's the

first third of a children's book is the movie, so it's like, you know, it does have to stretch a little. That first one is my favorite because it's basically just like a three-hour episode of Cougar Town starring hobbits. Like, they just hang out and, like, drink together. It's great. And then a couple of Del Toro

monsters show up. It really is. It's a bottomless mimosa movie. It is. I mean, the first hour is breakfast and then dishes. That's why I show up it really is it's a bottomless mimosa movie it is I mean the first hour is breakfast and then dishes that's why I think my dad was like what the fuck is this

the scene where the extended dishwashing scene is wild he was like isn't this supposed to have like sword fighting

and shit they're like throwing frittatas at each other like the end of the movie is them being like so I guess

the mountain's that way like basically i went with my father we went to this screening that was like one of the first high frame rate screenings and i remember we're walking in and there's a new line like pr person standing outside the theater and she's like okay first screening down we only had 15 people walk out because of the high frame rate so i think we're on a pretty good start oh Oh my God. And they were doing a Q&A afterwards with Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson.

Wow, all three. And I forget who was moderating it, but like the movie ends and the theater is kind of like silent and the person conducting the Q&A had to be like, so how did the three of you write? Do you- Is it like kind of like one page at a time?

And then there were two laugh lines. Someone does the typing. Two laugh lines in the movie. And he was like, so that joke. Who wrote that joke? How did you come up with that joke? Like he couldn't find things to ask. Well, what's there to ask?

Exactly. I don't know. Yeah. Go on, Tom. I just was going to say it's an interesting comparison point because Lord of the Rings, there's so much influence of Lord of the Rings on this movie. Right. But there shouldn't be.

No, this feels right. Like they redesigned the playing cards for no discernible reason. Yes. So that they look more like orcs or something. Yeah, they're more like armored. Yeah. No, that's what's weird about this because like Snow White and the Huntsman is not very good.

No. But you're like, at least that's a better shitty movie. It's just kind of dumb, and it's a bad approximation of Lord of the Rings and whatever who gives a shit. Also, Snow White is a fairy tale. It's very, very simple, so you can really spin it as many ways as you like.

Alice is this odd work of literature. It's a little more specific. It's hard to fuck with it. I guess people have. There's the video game. There's a little more specific. Yeah. It's hard to fuck with it. I guess people have, there's the video game, there's the things we've talked about, but like,

you know, it's not a fairy tale in the same way. Disney got its claws on it, but you know, the movie's good though, the original. I agree.

I love that movie. And even like the old Disney Alice shorts are like some of the first shit Disney ever did. You know, he did like the live Alice shorts are like great.

I mean, there's this history of Alice within the Disney company that I think they want to latch on to. But after this, it becomes, oh, wait a second. What we should do is tie these closer to. I mean, Maleficent becomes the blank check of this movie, except Burton doesn't cash it. They really wanted Burton to direct Maleficent. He was in talks and then dropped out.

So, they hand it to Stromberg, who secretly feels like the person driving this movie. Well, okay. This is my larger question. Yeah. What it to Stromberg who secretly feels like the person driving this movie. Well, okay. This is my larger question. Yeah. What happened to Tim Burton? I don't know. This is the one where you're like, what happened?

There's no, there's nothing going on. This is when I finally kind of turned on it. Yeah. This is the last one I saw in theaters. But you say,

like going into this at post-Awesome Wonderland, you go like, did the guy just get lucky for 10 years and we all fell for it? Rewatching his movies over a short period of time do you feel like you have to give him credit

for what he did well in the first decade of his career? Right. Right? I feel like you've come around to being like, you know what this isn't like a fluke. He did some interesting work. There's clearly a brain there. I basically really like everything from Pee Wee to Sleepy. Right. I don't like Planet of the Apes. Yeah.

I'm mixed on Big Fish. Right. Or more mixed than you. I like everything from Pee Wee to Sleepy. Right. I don't like Planet of the Apes. Yeah. I'm mixed on Big Fish. Right. Or more mixed than you. I like it okay. Yeah. I guess I'm mixed on Charlie. Don't like Corpse Bribe. Sweeney.

I like Sweeney. Me too. I love Sweeney. Sweeney. Is this the first one after Sweeney? That's right. Fuck. Ah, lovely.

I'm a barber. I'll pull your tooth. This movie just becomes, like, confounding. Come here, Fred Claus. You need to shave. What if you mashed up Sweeney and Fred? Yeah. Fred V. Sweeney.

Fred Todd? He's his brother. He's like, I don't know what's up with my brother. My brother's crazy. The dawn of shaving. Oh, boy. Londonon what a filthy town the point is maleficent is i think the wolverton blank check of like i would like to make a maleficent movie sure and then when that's like let's really recast this in an entirely different light it's a take on exactly this is sort of halfway

because maleficent is such a disney character And then after that they went like, wait a second, what if we just do the animated films again? And now we're moving to this like nexus point where like the films have essentially become like AI, like they become self-conscious, where it's just like they re-render the old movie shot for shot. There will be a Hunchback of Notre Dame movie

and they're like, there will? And it's like, yes. Yes, we will make it. Right, like Deep Blue is like making these movies now can you name for me the three live action remakes from before this one in the Disney canon correct 101 Dalmatians correct there's a there's a jungle book from correct Stephen Summers is the jungle book which was a Disney production yes and is more off the the Rudyard Kipling kind of original. Yeah, and it has animals. It has like live animals. Right.

It's a scary movie because you're like, don't let Jason Lott's Scott Lee that close to that bear. Exactly. And then the third one, it's a sequel. It doesn't really count. You're not, 102? 102. Yeah.

They did do a direct-to-video sequel to the Jungle Book. They did a Mowgli story. Sure, but that doesn't count. Come on. Anyway, Allison won Atlanta. It's a piece of shit. She slays the Jabberwocky. It makes a billion dollars.

She goes back and she's made a billion dollars. Yeah, it makes a billion dollars. She's like, I'm not fucking marrying you. Right, and the dad's like, you've humiliated my son

in front of all these people. Yeah. Maybe, do you want to run like a shipping route for me? And she's like, uh-huh. And he's like, shake on it. But this is the beginning of the end of disney trying to create

their own blockbusters like despite the fact that this is like a legacy project based off a public domain thing that disney has a history yeah yeah this is trying to make something new and after this they're like cool like live action disney is just doing nostalgia buttons right but also that's what we're doing nostalgia buttons right but also that's what we're doing nostalgia machines but also after this Tim Burton only makes

movies that are flops and critical flops right both don't make money and don't get good reviews right this is the movie that

made money but didn't get good reviews and Disney is kind of just like and so what does he do nine years later he does Dumbo he remakes another

Disney movie and by the way they have offered him every single one of these in between Alice and Dumbo. He remakes another Disney movie. And by the way, they have offered him every single one of these in between Alice and Dumbo. And this is the one where he's clearly like, I guess I should do that. Right. Like rather than like, who cares?

Fuck them. I'll make whatever I want. They want him to do Through the Looking Glass. They want him to do Maleficent. They offer him all of these. They wanted him to do their Pinocchio movie. Like they keep on offering him these things. But this is the one where now it feels like maybe even Burton smells blood in the water water and it's like yeah no dumbo i'll do dumbo and it'll hit

hopefully they hope god i hope it's just nice i hope it's just like a movie he should just finally do his oz movie like he he's clearly got an aesthetic and everyone's forgotten the ramey one like it's not like anyone's worried about that which is the other weird relic of this time like a movie that makes like $220 million and they're like, we know we can't make a sequel to this.

We know we can't trick people again. I think Tim Burton should get weird again. He should make a movie about adults or like teens and it's like,

maybe it's like rave culture about goths or just like, he should get back to what he's good at. Have you read the graphic novel

Black, is it called Black Hole? I think that's right. Yes. Oh my god. Tim Burton would be great for that. Which David Fincher was gonna do for a while. It's about teens who when they have sex, they start growing extra eyes and horns and shit. You've never read Black Hole? You'd have a good time.

I'll make a note. I'm actually gonna buy a few. Because I want you to think of me when you're reading it. It's so good. Right, exactly. It's so good. You're right. That is a perfect thing for him to adapt.

There are so many interesting graphic novels that Tim Burton could be making right now. There's so many weird genre films from his childhood. Like, he wanted to make, like, X the Man with the X-Ray Eyes for a while, you know? There are, like, weird Corman movies that he could be, like, making. And when this movie came out, I was like, okay, this thing fucking sucks, but he had a billion dollar hit. At least his next film is going to be something straight from the heart. Like he has such a big blank check.

And instead he kind of shrugs and goes to Johnny Depp and is like, I don't know, what do you want to do? And Johnny Depp's like already putting on his fucking Dark Shadows cosplay. Like that's the real bummer of this movie. Sure. It breaks them all. What if this was means to an end

to get him making a personal film on a grand canvas again and instead he's like I don't know I don't really have anything left to say um Alice in Wonderland yeah

came out on March 5th 2010 gross an absurd amount of money a day that will live in infamy 116 million dollars that's correct the biggest non-sequel ever.

Coming up on its 10th anniversary. Although it is kind of a sequel. Right. But kind of to a movie that didn't exist. Number two at the box office was also a new film. A crime drama. A crime drama. Set in one of the five

boroughs. One of the five boroughs. Now think of the movie Gotti if you forget what the five boroughs are. Yeah. Because they're named in it. He welcomes us to the five Boroughs one of the five Now think of the movie Gotti if you forget what the five Boroughs are yeah because they're named in it He welcomes us to the five boroughs Um but uh wait have you seen Gotti I forget you know there's a scene where Stacy Just names the five boroughs yes I do You got all five boroughs

Brooklyn Queens Manhattan Staten Island and the Bronx you close them makes a fist yeah that's what he says he literally

he cites off the boroughs right to John Gotti who's a New Yorker right in the way that like they have to explain to Alice in this movie

like the Vorpal Sword holds all the power does he pull up list of boroughs of New York City on Wikipedia yeah he does

what do we got here alphabetical order Brooklyn but he recites them with the deliberate and like laser focused slow pace of New York City on Wikipedia. Yeah, he does. What do we got here? Alphabetical order. Brooklyn. But he recites them with the deliberate and laser-focused slow pace of someone who has to unload

dense mythology onto the viewer. Right. In the beginning there was darkness and out of the darkness came the Bronx. Well, this one's not set

in the Bronx. Okay. Where is it set? Brooklyn. Brooklyn. Is it Brooklyn's finest? That's right. Anton Fuqua, baby.

One of the 15 Anton Fuqua movies. Movies will surprise you where you're like, who directed that? And Fuqua will sort of burst through the room and be like, I did. You can't believe it, but I directed that one too. King Arthur, that was me. The other weird thing is Fuqua's been on kind of like a hot streak. He makes money. This was this mid-period where he was kind of dipping.

And you're like, I guess Fuqua's out. But then like Olympus has fallen, makes 100. Equalizer, hit. Southpaw, he directed it. Not a hit. Magnificent Seven, did okay. Equalizer 2, 102 million dollars.

Equalized again in that one. He equalized. The odds were in his favor. He equalized. This time he equalized for the second time. The odds were in his favor. Equalizer too. Yeah, he made Shooter. Right. He's made so many movies.

He's made so many movies. Okay. What did that open to? $13 million. Was that like Sidney Kimmel Entertainment? That was a now defunct distributor. I know that much. Overture films. Now defunct.

Number three. What a great movie. What a great movie. It's been in theaters for three weeks. It's been in theaters for three weeks. I saw it twice in theaters. You saw it twice in theaters? I cry at the end of this movie.

You cry at the end of this movie? What a great ending it has. Some people don't like the ending. They're wrong. It's an early 2010 it was a holdover from 2009 it was positioned as an awards film and then they were like

fuck it let's release it in February and it made a ton of money in my opinion the best performance given by this actor with one other movie as competition when you said you cry I knew what it was

instantly interesting so it was originally awards contender then they were like fuck it we're giving up a director big director and it didn't get like a limited release they just straight up pushed it it was weird they were just like it's coming out in february and everyone was like what but like that wasn't gonna be an awards movie and they were just kind of like no but everywhere but it was kind of good it feels like maybe the distributor didn't get it you know i'd love to know what the actual reasoning is maybe it was unfinished i have

no idea maybe the distributor didn't have faith the studio big studio the ending makes you cry i love that ending is it like a pointedly emotional ending that some people think is manipulative it's a twist ending big twist right. Right, Todd? Oh my God. A big sad twist? Yep. I think it's sad. Yep. I think it's moving. Do you know what it is?

Or you're looking at it? It's more how can you not? I mean, I can't. And it becomes a surprise hit. I'll spoil it if I say anything. It becomes a surprise hit. I don't know if it was a surprise hit because it had a big star and it was from a big director, but it was a hit.

It made $ million dollars. Wow. 300 worldwide. People expected it to flop and then it didn't. Yeah, I think because of the February thing people were like

is this thing a mess? Yeah. And then it came out. It just wasn't an Oscar player is what it was. Exactly. Is it kind of genre? Very genre.

Very genre. We like to quote this movie, you and I. Oh, oh, oh! That's right. What are we? You and I are duly appointed federal marshals. Hell yeah. No, Miz.

Shut a island. Shut a island. Hey, we gotta go to this island here. Right. You're right. In its third week, $13 million. A twist that angers people but you find deeply emotional should have given it away.

They did this for him. It was for him. And did it work? Probably not. David, do you want us to do that for you? Put me on Shutter Island? What if this podcast was your Shutter Island? I mean, you know Jackie O'Haley. You could get him in for five minutes

and be like, lighting a big match I got a lot of scores on my face what a great movie he told me some good stories about making that film really?

yeah do you know why it was dumped in February? no I think it was that thing where they just went this is a genre movie just dump it

not dump it but like forget Oscar season yeah I think so. No, he told me that was the first movie where he had the courage to ask for more takes. Oh, wow. Sure, sure. Where he's like, I've got another thing I want to try.

He gave a performance, and Scorsese is so intuitive that if he likes it, he doesn't need more. He's not a guy who needs a ton of coverage. Right. And he was happy with it and was moving on, and he was like, fuck, I just kind of have come back after my career was like, you know, I was on the down and outs and I'm working with this massive director

and he built up the confidence to be like, can I do one more? I think I'm not doing what I want to do and what I can't do. Sure. Because he's really good in that scene.

Great in that scene. Yeah. You know Marty too so we can get him. My two best friends, Marty and Jackie? Yeah. I nosh with them. We get him my two best friends Marty and Jackie I nosh with them we get bagels every Sunday

Marty and Jackie and I okay well that's number three it's a big hit number four oh boy saw this one in theaters comedy kind of an action comedy

lazily directed I would say cop out you damn tootin a movie in which i remember like willis literally has guns pointed at him at all times right where he's just like you want me to read the lines okay i'll read the lines right yes correct he's got to come back by the way way. Oh, no question. He was a hit. It's too bad he died. He can never come back. Tracy is just being, Tracy,

he's just being silly, right? It is also a movie so lazily constructed that they kept in the clapboards at the beginning and end of every take. Cop out, scene three,

take two. But what I remember from the movie is that Sean William Scott is pretty dialed in and he's having a lot of fun. He's like, come on guys, this is fun. And Willis is just like,

who are you again? You're the American Pie guy? He has a very fun, coked out 10 minutes. Sean William Scott has gotten really good at being the best thing in utter catastrophes. Totally. He just, you know, he's a professional. He's a professional silly man.

How is he on Lethal Weapon? Have you been watching The Weapon? Have you been loading The Weapon? I don't watch it regularly, but when I tune in, he's the best thing. He seems like a good cast. They should have hired him the first time. And, you know, the goon movies are like one of those things that, like, in the 90s were common. Those sort of almost straight-to-video franchises.

But, like, he's kind of got one. And he deserves one. It is one of those things. There's two goons uh kevin smith always talks about what a nightmare bruce willis was on cop out and how uncooperative it was he was and it's like maybe because he hated being in the movie he didn't like you because of your personality number five is a film we've talked about that uh does 3d better than alice in wonderland

number five is a film we've talked about that uh does 3d better than alice in wonderland it does 3d better than alice yeah currently uh in its 12th week it has grossed 720 million dollars at the u.s box office that could be any movie now i mean here's some movies it could be the crazies valentine's day percy jackson and the olympians the lightning thieves is percy jackson no it's number seven fuck it's tough because all of these movies did over 700 domestic. Exactly. The Wolfman, The Ghost Rider, The Blindside. Well, that one is actually hit. Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Squeakwell's in there at number 18.

Holden Fast, it's still on 562 screens. Let me ask you, did this movie inspire a very expensive theme park attraction? It did, but you know what else it inspired? What? It's really well-written, witty Cirque du Soleil show with some sharp humor. You're saying kind of like a subtle drive, a bone drive, a razor sharp wit. Exactly. A cutting kind of wit.

My favorite thing is always to look at the bottom movie in the box office, which is The Cove this week. You remember The Cove? Yeah. Which has made $88 this week on two screens. So a per screen average of $44. So it inspired a Swifty and Cirque du Soleil show, a very expensive theme park attraction.

It made over 700 million domestic. It's in 3D. It could only be one movie. Alvin the Chipmunk's The Squeakquel. No, it's Avatar. Oh, okay. James Cameron's Avatar. Where is Squeakquel, though?

18. Number 18. That's all in there. I knew they came out the same month. Yeah, and Avatar's at number five and has grossed $8 million in its 12th week. Yeah. So a little better. A little better.

There you go. Todd, any further things you want to uh yell about in relation to this movie i want to discuss how this film has two oscars uh which uh it won over uh films like inception uh-huh uh the king's speech which say what you will great costumes and sets uh what are some of the other ones that were nominated i mean art direction feels like the most egregious award to give this movie so yeah let's talk are some of the other ones that were nominated? I mean, Art Direction feels like the most egregious award to give this movie. Let's talk about some of the movies it beat. Because it won production design

and costume design. Here's who it beat for Art Direction. It was nominated for visual effects as well. Yeah, and it lost to something. It lost to Inception. Thank God. A good movie. The Art Direction one is outrageous because literally every other movie should have won

versus it, right? Like, it's number five. Yeah. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One, which is a very well-designed movie. Yeah. Oh, all those are. Stuart Craig, great. No, no.

We both think Half-Blood Prince is the one that's the prettiest. That's my favorite. That's beautifully shot. Inception, which probably should have won. Which has all kinds of insane production design right incredible speech which has like really great subtle production design the room that they do the sessions in is really interesting you remember that yeah uh but you know like you know a little more of a um tony period drama but still better better, better, better integrated, better,

right? True Grit. Incredible looking movie. It is incredible. The other nominees in this category are all Best Picture nominees as well.

Good point. Well, not Harry Potter. Oh, oh, fuck, right. I forgot.

I mean, maybe it should have been. Who knows? That is crazy that Alice wins. Crazy that, I mean, it's winning because it's most production design. I guess we would all agree, right?

And then he, off that Oscar, gets to become one of those people who makes a $200 million debut film. Yeah, exactly. And the production design of this movie, as we've already said, is abhorrent. It looks bad. The sets are lame. The concept art, like the weird plants, the buildings and shit, lame. Yeah.

The Futterwacken, as we noted, is done in front of like a fucking arch. Like that's it. Like some kind of like rocks. I noticed it's all supposed to echo stuff in the real world, but. Kind of, but it's so sloppy. I mean, they don't really even ride that out well. Yeah. This movie doesn't commit to anything.

I feel like the costume wins a little more defensible but also a little more defensible but that's like i mean you know my girl colleen's done much better work than that colleen atwood defeated i am love a great costume nominee yes uh the king's speech which has wonderful costume the tempest sandy powell if you're gonna give that wild ass costume right anything give it and true, which has beautiful Mary Zofries, the Coen's regular collaborator. Those great costumes. You're mad about it. You think True Grit went 0 for 10? Ben made a little cookie catcher.

0 for 10? I know. 0 for 10. Outrageous. 0 for 10. What a masterpiece. It's also weird what a huge hit that movie was. Not Coen's.

Yeah. Just Grit. Can you believe that, though, that there is a cohen brothers movie that grossed 180 million domestic yes because it's great yeah but it's all their movies are great no i agree no it is weird that one of their films overperforms so that movie you think it's like oh yeah it'll make 70 it'll be like a yeah like a and that would have been for them exactly yeah it'll be sort of no country money right but it was like number one for like four weeks yeah um it's that was like the the winter that was jeff ridge's king of the box office it was like tron and true grit were one and two for weeks on it and now they're doing

a combo sequel called tron grit true tron i do want to ask if you i fight for users i do want to ask if you guys think this movie has had any cultural impact because I say no but like I feel like I see that Mad Hatter a lot like when I had to go to Comic Con many years in a row I think it's dissipated now though

I literally saw an ad for the app TikTok the other day that featured a guy who dresses up as the Mad Hatter and performs his TikTok. I feel like there was still a good amount of it somehow, inexplicably, through like 2015. Okay. I feel like I don't see it that much anymore.

Like, I went to both of the Disney parks, the North American Disney parks in the last year, and it's fully just Jack Skellington land again. Good. It is that weird thing where we talk about what happened to Tim Burton, and there's this thing of just like, Jack Skellington land again. Good. It is that weird thing where we talk about what happened to Tim Burton, and there's this thing of just, like, Jack Skellington, the movie he didn't direct,

but, like, his, like, you know, pure brainchild kind of thing, has become such an overpowering mascot of, like, what he represents that it feels like Disney just backs up the brain trunk to his house and goes, like, can you just try to make something like that again, please? Right. Please. There's a rumor that they're gonna do a fucking live action

night before christmas now which is just like a that's so stupid so stupid it's like reverse idiocy i think that's a better concept than movie i don't think it's a bad movie i just think the concept is so much better but the key also is that that movie is like 71 minutes long and that henry selick's a genius. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess right where they're just thinking like, well, now the tech has caught up that we can do it live action. But the songs are so gorgeous. Like that movie is closer to the old Disney animated films that are super short, straight to the point. It will be one of those things, too, where it's like Beauty and the Beast, where they're like, remember that like 90 minute movie?

Well, this adaptation is two and a half hours long. Do you know that Tim Burton and Linda Woolf have been threatening to do a Broadway musical of this? Really? Yes. If they do, I'll come back. She said she's working on it. Is that part of ISIS negotiations or something where we're like, we'll take that off

the table if you stop gassing people. There's that weird threat. Tim Burton was going to direct the what's his name? Jim Shaman Batman musical in the early 2000s. Do you remember that? Bad Outta Hell, Jim Shaman. I know him. Wrote an entire book for a Batman musical.

Batman Outta Hell. That's what it was going to be called. Are you serious? No. But he wrote an entire Batman musical that Tim Burton was going to direct on Broadway. They announced it in the trades, and some of the songs have leaked out. He repurposed some of them for like Bad Out of Hell 3.

But the one that I like is called I Work the Graveyard Shift. And it's Batman talking about working late nights. I'm seeing it. It sounds kind of good. I work the graveyard shift. You've also got songs called

In the Land of the Pig, The Butcher is King. Uh-huh. Which sounds like a Jim Steinman song. Yep. We're Still the Children We Once Were. What's going on? I don't know.

Wait, are we done, Ben? I got to edit Snooki's fucking podcast. All right. We got to do ads. You got to do ads. Where do you get all those wonderful toys? I think that's one of the songs. The Joker's song.

Anyway, if he comes a knock on Broadway's door, we'll bring you back, Todd. Wonderful. And if not, we'd love to have you on for a movie you don't despise down to its core. We can alternate. That's my plan. Some of your least favorites.

Gem and Poop. I can just stick around and give you some throwaway lines to stick into the ads that are going to go on this episode. So I can be like, wow, that's great what you had to say about Robin Hood, Chancellor Angela Merkel. You want to give us some throwaway lines to stick into the ads that are going to go on this episode so i can be like wow that's what great we had to say about robin hood chancellor angela merkel you want to give us a quick four no specifics talk about products without without saying we should give um ben work to do yeah todd give us three quick ad reads personal experience ad reads okay without naming the product i really use this product and it's a thing that I brought into my apartment

and my cats all loved it and my wife loved it and now they all love me more and I'm not getting divorced anymore. Okay. One, Ben, mark that as a select. Two. The second is,

wow, this product cured my scoliosis. Okay, mark that as a select. Three. This product made me feel good about the state of the world today. And third select, and I think that's a select three this product made me feel good about the state of the world today and third select and I think that's

a wrap on Todd um I'm sorry I gotta plug shit I'm sorry no no I was gonna say I'm gonna plug please

the new podcast is called Primetime it's coming to your podcatcher of choice on April 11th

hell yeah I've also got another podcast called arden i'm not in it but i wrote it and people seem to like fiction podcast fiction podcast your dad thinks it's a scripted podcast my dad thinks it's a lie he won't speak to me anymore but uh you could find that first season's out on podcatchers i also have a book uh monsters of the Week. X-Files. X-Files Companion. It is in bookstores now, and you can find me on Vox and at Twitter, T-V-O-T-I,

to vote each. And I also... TV on the internet. I know you're driving people to the news stuff, but I recommend, if you got time, go back through the archives

if I think you're interested. So it was a wonderful show. I'm excited we'll still be continuing in some form or another. Yes. Listen to Griffin and David's episodes. They're great. I do have a famous goof on

mine, though. Don't like that goof. What else to say here? Oh, Merchandise Spotlight. Tragically, embarrassingly, the last three things ever released for Disney Infinity, my beloved video game, were Alice and the

Mad Hatter. Yeah, you told me that. After they had cancelled it, they were like, fuck, we already made these. Mia Wasikowska did the voice. Yes. For Alice. Yes. I'm sure she was compensated. They made a time one too. Sacha Baron Cohen and Johnny Depp didn't do their voices, but I have

fucking Alice in Wonderland and Mad Hatter figures that are in a box that I'll never open ever again. Not like still in their packaging. Like I opened them and then blood started seeping down my walls and I locked them up in a crate and threw them in the bottom of an ocean. Your house 1408-ed? Yes, it's 1408-ed. I had a full blast 1408-ed.

That is a 1408-er. Yes, it is. Todd, thank you so much for being here. It was great to be here. King amongst men. Next week, Dark Shadows. Oh my God, Todd standing up doing the flutter whacking? Next week, Dark Shadows with Jamie Loftus.

That's right. We're getting dark, baby. And I'll tell you, after re-watching Mrs. Peregrine and Alice in Wonderland, I like Dark Shadows a lot more now. It's got some energy. It's got some energy. It's got a little bit. Because we recorded that episode

when we were more in the actually good Burton zone. We recorded that right after recording Beetlejuice. We were like, what's this thing? And now you're like, a rare return to form for Timothy Burton. He appears to have given instructions to the actors. When we were recording the episode, I was like, why did I stand up for this movie at the time? And I'm like, I should have fought for it harder on the actors. Like now, when we were recording the episode, I was like,

why did I stand up for this movie at the time? And I'm like, I should have fought for it harder. Anyway, thank you all for listening. Please remember

to rate, review, subscribe. Go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit. Go to TeePublic for some real nerdy shirts. Go to Patreon for some real nerdy bonus content.

And I want to thank Pat Reynolds and Joe Bowen for their artwork. And for Godot for social media. Lane Montgomery for his theme song. And as always, keep futtering that whacking. Gross. Ugh, gross.