Blank Check with Griffin & David - Castle in the Sky with Emily Yoshida

Episode Date: August 25, 2019

Emily Yoshida returns to discuss 1986's Castle in the Sky! But what is the appeal of a Miyazaki film? Is 'chaotic good' a Miyazaki character type? A kind moss robot we stan? Together with the #thetwofriends they examine large adult sky pirate sons, going ham and eggs, Angus the movie, the Studio Ghibli theme park and more! Music selection by: "Digital Mk. 2" by Tri-Tachyon. Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

The podcast speaks to all of us. And if we listen, we can understand. All right. Okay. But, I mean, I don't... These are tough to do. The foreign films are always tough to do. It's true.

And I couldn't find a catchphrase, a tagline. I mean... No. No. Unaware of a tagline. I feel like our guest spirits just died immediately upon me reciting that. You mean when she grows up, she's going to be like podcast? That's pretty good.

I'm trying to see if there was ever. I mean, this. Is that a line from the dub? Are y'all watching the dubs for this? No, I was watching sub-tab. This was saying it's an Uncle Pom line where he says the earth speaks to all of us and if we listen we can understand.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good line. Uncle Pom's a cool guy. Uncle Pom fucks. Yeah. He's a cool guy. He kind of just shows up. Yeah, he kind of

just rolls in. He kind of just leaves. He reacts really strongly to things. Really strong. I have seen the dub of this once and it's I think

the worst It's pretty unlistenable. And it's, I watched this on the DVD that I have of it that I've had since, I don't know, since the first time Disney put it on DVD. And so I was like struggling with the menu because

it's still that like thing where you're toggling through all these different audio tracks and stuff like live while it's going on. Every time it would accidentally toggle to the English audio I would go like, ah! Because it's like James Van Der Beek and Mark Hamill. And Anna Paquin and Cloris Leach.

They age up the kids. Which is very strange. Obviously being able to age up how they look. It's just off. But I think there are subtle dialogue changes to reference the fact that they're older. I was reading through on the Wikipedia. I mean,

there are like a lot of changes. They like, they made 90 minutes of score rather than the 60 minutes. That's the other thing. They changed the score to make it less electronic because they thought it should have more

of like a classic symphonic sort of score. But also they were like, there's too much silence in this movie. We need more. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That happens for sure. And also they, what what they do this is the other thing i was like oh how did dvds used to work i was like struggling through it and they had the track they had the the first i was watching with japanese japanese dialogue but the closed

captioning you can't because it'll fuck you up immediately and then you realize like for all those moments of silence especially in the beginning where, like, Pazu is just running around, they add in all this stuff where he's like, whoa, whoa. Like, all this, like, dumb noises. Whoa, another hill. I guess I'll run over it. Instead of just letting you watch a kid run over a hill, it's just very, very silly.

This was the other thing I read was they added a lot of background dialogue. They have a lot of like loop group like what is it? Look at that girl. Where is she going? Bees and carrots. I was trying to figure out what the difference was on the subtitle options between English for the hearing impaired

and English. You gotta go to the second English. Because the first one is a transcript of the English duff. And this is true one is a transcript of the English dub. Of the dub. And this is true on any of the blue rays or whatever. And I've made that mistake. And you're like, the subtitle's way out of sync.

And then you realize, like, oh, it's just a dub. But there's other shit. Like, they took out, like, the Jonathan Swift references. Really? Kids won't get that. Yeah. And this was the dub that they prepared, like, part and parcel with Mononoke. Yeah, it was around that time.

And they were like, Mononoke didn't make enough money. And they kept it on a shelf until, like, 2004. No, they released it on video, I believe. Because I remember seeing it at the grocery store in Iowa when I was like- That might have been the old one you were seeing. There was an older American dub. Maybe.

What I was reading was that Disney didn't release the James Van Der Beek dub until long after Dawson's Creek had been canceled. So you have- 2003. His youthful timbre

professionally preserved. Because there's another American dub that wasn't supervised by Disney that I think is more of just a straight dub without all the futson. Right. That is apparently, quote, adequate but clumsy.

That's, yeah, about right. Which was produced for Japan Airlines. Oh, yeah. For like international flights. Yeah. I love this movie, you guys. Hey! Yeah. I love this movie, you guys. Hey! Yeah.

I'll say this. Five seconds into this movie, I think it was literally five, I went, oh, I get why Emily likes Mortal Engine so much. Yeah! Guys, guys, what do we have here? Straight line.

Morty and Jeeves. And Jeeves. Prepare to ingest. And Jeeves. It truly took me five seconds. And then I, you know, because I'm admittedly a Miyazaki neophyte. I'm watching almost all of these for the first time ever. Right.

But I now retroactively appreciate that Mortal Engines, a movie that I already fully accept fucks, is the closest anyone's come to making a live action Miyazaki movie. It kind of does have that feeling to it. And that wonder to it. And also the size of it. Like, Mortal Engines, when we were watching it the whole time, I was like, I can't believe how fucking big this movie is. Yeah. And they keep inventing a new thing.

It's like, oh, there's a new kind of little aircraft. Right. There's a new kind of vehicle or town or something like that. It's so fun. This guy totally does that. Yeah. And the fact that it like at 30-40 minutes it gets to the thing

that I thought it would take two hours to get to and you're like so just what is the movie now and it's like just more shit it just keeps on pile it on

right it's so good I love it it's also got a sad robot who I love it's got many sad robots here's the thing it's like

you got Aquaman you got Sea Crime Sea Crime this movie's got Sky Crime. It's got so many Sky Crimes. I love this. Excuse me, this movie has Sky Pirates.

Yes. Oh, God. That's what I was, you know, I was watching it again, and I was like, these two are gonna love this movie. Yeah. Be into it. You got Vehicles. Yeah.

You got Sky Pirates. You got Mossy Robits. Mossy Robits. So I think that Miyazaki probably dips into this every now and then but i think this is this is probably his only full-throated steampunk movie yes and i love it so uh i am uh wait i made up i i have to go find this because i tweeted this once um because i feel like i always get into arguments with Molly Lambert, my co-host on Night Call about steampunk and Victoriana and how she thinks that you can't differentiate between

the two of them. You can fully differentiate. You can fully differentiate. That's nonsense. Yes. And Victoriana is the worst of it. But I had a thing that was like- Find it while Griffin introduces this podcast and you.

Okay. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and give a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

And sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce. Baby. This is a mini-series about the films of Hayao Miyazaki. That's right. It's called Howl's Moving Podcastle, which we can now debate with our guest, who's going to have a lot of opinions on that

from Night Call, Emily Yoshida the great Emily Yoshida, mother of blankies thank you, wait Howl's Moving Pod Castle what about Howl's Podding Castle? Well this was discussed or Pod's Moving Castle I just like taking advantage of

or Pod Castle in the sky we put it to the listeners. Because there's three castle titles. There's three castle titles. Cagliostro. Podcastle Cagliostro. Podcastle in the Sky. Oh, Podcastle in Cagliostro is so cute. I love it. It sounds like a fun place.

What if you got there and he's like, this is the greatest podcast studio on earth. That was the castle. Do you remember, I think Kevin Smith at one point got a venue that he called the Kevin Smith Pod Castle. Sounds good. Sounds like a great place. Place I want to be.

For his smodcasts. Yeah, smodcasts. That doesn't even work that cleanly. Because his name is Smith. Right, I don't think, like, oh, smod, like Smith. You know? Nope. Neither do I. And yet. And yet. They are a

plague upon the land. I'm sure they're fine. I've never listened to them. People love them. You couldn't find that tweet, Emily? I couldn't. I'm really bummed, but I know that the rule was if there's an airship, it's steampunk. If there's an airship, it's steampunk. If there's a seance, it's Victoriana. Yeah. Yes.

It can be both, obviously. That's a great answer, though. Steampunk goes to the skies. Yeah. It takes to the skies. The Victorian stuff is just, it's like a subgenre. It's within steampunk. Steampunk is an umbrella.

It's a setting, yeah. Like, you can, I think, obviously, steam is involved. I was trying to figure out if the car that Dola and her sons, her large adult sons, drive around, if that's a steam car, which would be pretty cool. I mean, goggles, obviously. Goggles. In this movie, it's goggle crazy.

Crazy for goggles. It's Google for goggles. It's good if people are dressed in leather stuff, you know? Yeah. A guy in a bowler hat. Sunglasses. Yes, yes. Yeah, we love it all. It's great.

Canes. We all agree. Yeah, canes. A lot of people have canes. Petticoats. Petticoats that convert into jumpsuits, which are very on trend right now. Yeah, fairy fleabag. Yeah. Fairy fleabag.

I saw that. I forget the other ones. I was looking through the Wikipedia of the Disney dub. One of the adult sons, played by Andy Dick. Yes. I imagine that was not distracting at all. Yeah, he's like one of the minor ones too. There's two famous

sons and I can't remember who the other one is. Andy Patinkin. Just one of the sons? I'm not sure. Is he beard two famous sons and I can't remember who the other one is. Mandy Patinkin. She's one of the sons? I'm not sure. Is he beardy? Yeah, I don't remember their names. Right, because Mark Hamill is...

Mark Hamill's the colonel. He's Muska. From my memory in the dub, he is one of the less offensive parts. Right. He's just like hamming it up.

He's hamming it up. You put a microphone in front of that guy. Yeah. You can't spell Hamill without ham. I think I... It's true. It's hamming it up. You put a microphone in front of that guy. Yeah. You can't spell Hamel without ham. I think I It's true. It's true. I think I saw or maybe I saw the

like behind the scenes of this featurette or something on the DVD where he's talking about like getting into character for Muska even though I don't I think I probably watched his performances that all at once before I was like okay I'm never gonna do this again. Right. But I remember him talking about like trying to have this like

it was the first time I think I remember hearing anybody talk about like the Atlantic accent the mid-Atlantic accent mid-Atlantic accent and I was like

oh yes that's what that is but yeah apparently that's what he's doing on the dub on Esmusca I don't remember

because I probably last watched that when I was about 14 I think there's a couple of dubs that are okay that were obviously very well supervised and I think the movies

that are for kids the dubs are more acceptable. I think Ponyo is about the best dub. Ponyo is the best up there. Those are the later ones where the Pixar guys were more hands on

in those dubs and sort of protecting them. Yes. I think Totoro has like a newer dub that's fine. The one with the Fanning sisters?

Right. Yeah, that one's fine. There's a Totoro with both fannings in it? yeah they've employed the fannings and the cyruses all the cyruses because Noah is Ponyo? she's good she says ham

yeah wait there was something I was gonna say about shoot never mind cut this then cut it then cut it I lost my entire oh oh do you want to start over the show or no you're good to go okay no I well I do want to start over the show because I'd like to say folks I'm Emily Yoshida oh yeah you're about to watch blankank Check. Blank Check is one of many podcasts, but it happens to be one of my... Who am I? Who am I?

Who am I? I don't know. Who is this? It's very familiar. By my good friends, David Sims and Griffin Newman. You could be listening to any number of podcasts right now, but you've chosen Blank Check. That's what's sticking in my brain. What is that?

Could be listening to any number of podcasts. I don't know if it's on the Blu-ray, but it's on the DVD. That's what's sticking in my brain. What is that? What's she doing? I don't know if it's on the Blu-ray, but it's on the DVD. It is the fucking god-awful John Lasseter intro that is before all the Disney releases. Lots of hugging Lasseter. Starting with at least, I think, Spirited Away.

Yeah, the Spirited Away one, I've seen that one and this one is are the two that i'm most familiar with the blu-rays thank god yeah but you have to like they are when you press play on the movie to perform this function yeah you can't it's like the fbi warning you gotta sit through this but they're like they're not it's like all he says is like all the only reason those exist is to remind everybody that he is friends with Hayao Miyazaki, which I am doing scare quotes right now, heavy scare quotes,

which is always just a picture of him putting his arm around him and Miyazaki looking kind of bewildered. And then to tell everybody that it's okay to watch the Japanese cartoon. That's it. It's so annoying. I hate them. But I love this movie. Does he reach out during the introduction

and put his hand on your leg? Does he break out of the screen and invade your personal space? I don't know, but let's all give money to his company and see Toy Story 4 this summer. Hey, he's out of the company. He's out of the company.

He probably still gets money. He was fired from the movie he was he was he works at Paramount now is that right he works at Paramount he works at Skydance Animation Skydance

you know who dances across the sky in a movie is the people in Castle in the Sky they do some skydancing here you lost your confidence there I'm not really sure which one to say. You know. The cast of this film.

Sheeta. Yes. So I was, not an expert here, don't know anything. Sure. But I knew Nausicaa was based on a manga,

so I was like, oh, this is his, well, that's what I didn't know. I thought like, oh, this is his first whole cloth. Right. Whole cloth.

But it's, no. Nausicaa, he's adapting himself. Yeah. this is his first whole cloth. Right. Whole cloth. But it's no. Nausicaa, he's adapting himself. Yeah. This is his first whole cloth movie. In the sense that it's not solely directly based on anything. Right. Although it is borrowing,

I believe from what's it called? Future Boy Conan, right? His like, right. Right. His old TV show. Yeah.

Future Boy, the boy detective Conan. This is my question. Is Future Boy Conan connected to Detective Conan? I don't know. I've not watched. Detective Conan is a little boy who solves mysteries, and Conan O'Brien is always doing bits about him now.

Because there's an entire city. I'm actually kind of not educated on the boy Detective Future Boy Conan. No, they're not connected. They're not connected. They are not connected, although they are both little boys named Conan. Plucky boys. They, they're not connected. They're not connected. They are not connected although they are both little boys named Conan. Plucky boys.

They are both plucky boys. No, Castle in the Sky is the first Ghibli movie. Right, that's the other thing. Yes. It's the first full-fledged like they're now their own thing

Ghibli movie. So when these when Nausicaa and Nausicaa was what, independently produced just before he had started a studio?

Was it... What's it? Toei. Toei, yeah. And same with Lupin. So are they sort of just licensing these movies when they put them in the box sets? Because I feel like also Lupin's never part of

the Ghibli Fest thing. No. Nausicaa is. Yeah. He owns them. Lupin's the only one that's available on streaming. I think it's because Lupin is a part of this vast franchise that he does not own. He just did an entry in it.

Which I'm getting really into. Oh, it's... I'm loving Lupin. Nausicaa was produced by Topcraft. I'm sure we discussed this on the previous week's episode. Which is a defunct studio. So I assume Miyazaki just has the rights to it now. Toei distributed that.

They also distributed this. Toei was the distributor. They've got the mechanism to push it out onto the screen. But this is the beginning of Ghibli. I think that Grave of the Fireflies, when is that? Grave of the Fireflies is Ghibli as well. No, I know it's... I'm just trying to remember the year.

Because this is 88. 88. So this is fully the first. They're all doing their first film. Yeah, they're all hard at work. Yeah. And this film was not a success. Really?

It came out. But now is, right? Now is like a cultural touchstone. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But when it came out, it was like... Well, nobody knew that it was... The brand did not have the loyalty that it does now. And that was part of it.

I think I was reading something where he was talking about how the kid, the boy in it, didn't appear to have any powers or anything. And at the time, everybody wanted... If it was going to be a thing about a kid, the kid had to have some kind of special... Powerful boy. Yeah, like a little superhero or whatever. So people didn't really know what to make make of that i don't know but it's like it's funny because like now you look at it and it's clearly i feel like it's just his most straightforward fun and like

purely entertaining it is a full-on like an action adventure movie which he usually avoids right yeah and it's also only one of the only ones I think what makes it feel that way also is it's one of the only ones where the villain does not like repent or become good at the end. Like we just like get rid of the villain.

He just dies. Bricks fall on him. Yeah. It's also a movie with a very simple plot. It's got a lot of story but the plot is incredibly straightforward

of just like find that castle on this guy. It is long for a kids movie. Pretty long. Yeah. It is long for a kid's movie. Pretty long, yeah. It's pretty long. 205.

And I guess, you know, it's like, maybe kids won't get, yeah, the Gulliver's Travels reference. I don't know. Well, here's a question for you folks. I mean, Totoro is the one that launches Ghibli as like a barnstorming. Right, yeah.

A proven family acceptable brand. This is my question for the two of you. Sure. Was Nausicaa popular as a manga? Like, did people know those characters before the movie? I think it was pretty popular. I mean, I think it was like reasonably popular. I don't know.

Yeah. I don't think it was like, um. No, you know what? It was pretty popular. Yeah. Yeah. Because this. Animage's most popular feature. It was, you know what? It was pretty popular. Animage's most popular feature.

It was, you know. Right. This, outside of it being from the director of those two movies, doesn't have any characters that the public knows at this point. And most animated... It does have a castle in the sky. Sure. But a large majority of Japanese feature animation

is either based off of a manga or based off of a TV series at this point, right? David's pointing to the sky. There's a castle in the sky. Big old castles in the sky. But is there at this point in time not a tremendous amount of fully original Japanese animated films?

I am not expert enough to weigh it on. It's based on a song from Les Mis. Oh, it is. Exactly. It is called the first modern steampunk classic by the Steampunk Bible. Really? That's right. All right.

Hell yeah. That's right. What's the second modern steampunk? Mortal Engines. Mortal Engines. I don't know. The gap in between. Dark Materials.

Dark Materials. That's a huge steampunk. Yeah. Like adjacent.. Dark Materials. That's a huge steampunk. Adjacent. And I think I was into both of those things at the same time. I was really into Dark Materials and this movie at the same time. And like, I don't know, watching this movie again, which I probably hadn't watched for a few years.

I own it, but you know, I probably watch it every couple years. But I think of it as a foundational Emily movie. Yeah, for sure. Like, when I just see the texture of things and just like

some of the just the background paintings and stuff it's just like this was the texture of the stuff that I was into and like Final Fantasy

games too like all that stuff Final Fantasy is definitely influenced by this movie that is all yes all the airships

and all that shit totally yeah I'll say too I'm very much a Final Fantasy neophyte, but I've been playing through the Kingdom Hearts games, and I feel that connection.

I've never played Kingdom Hearts. It's Disney Final Fantasy. But it's so, from the music to the rhythms of it to the landscapes and the vehicles and all of that. Yeah, the music, for sure. all of that. Yeah, the music for sure. Music definitely.

The music on, this is probably one of my favorite themes of any Miyazaki film too. Just like musical motifs. The main theme of this one. So pretty and sad. I love it. There was a thing on the Wikipedia,

which I don't know if this record still stands, but they said the most tweeted moment in the history of Twitter. Yeah. That sounds like some weird bullshit. But yeah. Can you look this up though? There's one.

Yeah. Wait, what? In August 2013, fans tweeted the word balsa at the exact time it played in the movie. There was a global peak of 143,000 tweets in one second. Really? I did not know about this.

Some sort of Japanese flash mob. Now, I have no idea if that record has been broken in the subsequent six years. I have no idea. But it was part of... What were they trying to do? What were they trying to destroy? The previous record was 33,000. So they were in the garbage.

Maybe they just wanted to see the world burn. The old record was set when the clock struck midnight in Tokyo. And everyone, I guess, tweeted, Happy New Year. I was going to say, that record is very specific to everyone tweeting one word at the same second. Right.

But it does speak to, I guess, how much this film has become canonical. I think in Japan, absolutely. Yeah. I feel like here it has still always been a little more of a curio, right? It's a little more. It's one little more.

It's one of those ones, for any of my friends that have ever gotten into Miyazaki films, it's like, this is the one that they're not aware of. And they're like, really? That one? That's your favorite? And then they watch it and they're like, why doesn't everybody know about this movie? It's so fun and great. It's pretty cool. It's niche, but I'm not sure why other than the fact that it wasn't maybe one of the earlier ones that made it over here but like now they're they've all been here for

long enough that it feels like you should have i don't know it should be a little more mainstreamy i feel like it was just stuck in that old thing where they like you know they didn't really do a proper dub they didn't really bother to release it. They were just like, eh, Americans won't get this. Forget it. So it became like a little cult object. It's so Euro, though. It is quite Euro. It's very Euro, and you feel the influence of it

on five billion things, as people already discussed. Castle in the Sky. Castle in the Sky. It opens on an airship. Sad girl looking out a window yep she's got a pendant what's she doing in that ship? she got a crystal

how's she getting that ship? she got a crystal she wanna be in that ship? no she's been abducted she's been abducted um sorry go on

Emily you were gonna say something I was just gonna say she has a crystal she does have a crystal well I just I love I feel like

if I did a dub of this I would just have whoever is dola every time because in the first third of it anytime she sees it she's just always like i gotta have that crystal it does gotta have that crystal yeah that's the villain who gets redeemed is dola yes i mean she's she's not that villainous but yeah right like she turns out to be okay. She's like chaotic good. Right. She's chaotic good, which is a classic Miyazaki, especially the female villainess. The Yubaba type. Yeah, the Yubaba type. Exactly. But that's more of a misperception thing than it is her redeeming herself thing.

Right? But she's a pirate. She runs through a party with a giant gun. I mean, like all villain things to do. Very, very watch the world burn of her. That was the other big sort of influence I started picking up on watching this movie because it's not aesthetic. But I feel that the Laika films all are very inspired by the Ghibli movies, by the sort of general distrust of adult ruling class.

Right, right, right. There's that sort of like, don't trust the- Anyone who's fancy. Right. Who's like a king or a colonel or a, right, yeah. And they're all sort of lying to kids.

Yeah. And they're all sort of operating out of like fear and insecurity. I mean, you're thinking of the box trolls, which is very Ghibli. And with the new one. And Paranorman. Paranorman, Missing Link. Missing Link, right. And that the thing that looks to be scary you're thinking of the box trolls which is very me very ghibli yeah and uh with the new one and paranormal missing link missing link right and that the thing that looks to be scary ends up

being the nice thing yeah the other thing i read um before uh it was like excerpts from this interview but it was him talking about like how so many of his characters or at least early on are orphans and it was some like classically dark Miyazaki quote where it was like yeah children like the only

everybody worries about corrupting children but the only thing that corrupt children are their parents so in order to have a truly good hearted child they need to be an orphan

gotta be an orphan get those parents out of the way right oh we love him yeah that's very dark yeah I mean it is true it's kind of true yeah Get those parents out of the way. Right. Oh, we love him. Yeah, that's very dark. Yeah.

I mean, it is true. It's kind of true. Yeah. Kind of true. You're saying your parents fucked you up? Well, I mean, obviously, look, it doesn't apply to me because I'm a perfect person with zero problems. Right. I have no sort of noticeable neuroses.

No, not at all. Yeah, or complexes that were pushed upon me They fuck you up Your mom and dad Which is funny because Miyazaki had By all accounts Nice enough parents Yeah he had a sick mom He had the sick mom but then she recovered

And she lived I think a very long time His dad was the plane man. Yes. He was in the plane. I don't know. No, but I mean. Garden variety corruption. Garden variety childhood cynicism.

Sometimes I wonder if he's talking about himself. Yeah. He does. He does. Sometimes it's like point the mirror at himself. Right. Like bad dad. Why are you at work all the time?

Yeah. Hey, you. God. Someday after he's gone gone which i don't look forward to mind you but like we're gonna get the story of that's like the big blank spot and um i think goro has talked about it though where he's like yeah i realized the only way to connect with my father was to do his job yeah to become an animator myself that's a lot of the like jim henson that's his relationship with his children where they were like well we could either go into there would be to do his job. To become an animator myself. That's a lot of the, like Jim Henson,

that's his relationship with Estrella Moore. They were like, well, we could either go into puppetry or not know our father. There are a lot of those. Donald Trump, famously a great artist whose children had to go into his line of work in order to know him. Being a con artist.

The greatest of all artists. It's on Garo Miyazaki's wikipedia and it's that after he screened tales of earth sea his which his dad attended yeah his dad sent him a message saying the film was made honestly and was good which seems like him being like yep you're fine yeah made honestly is pretty incredible yeah um but this is younger miyazaki this is neophyte me not neophyte but like this is miyazaki. This is Miyazaki getting to do his own thing still. Dark hair, no beard Miyazaki.

Yeah, right. And he went to a Welsh mining town. Which I love. And this is the 80s. So this is when the British mining industry is collapsing into ruins. The unions are being busted. The little town was in ruins that he was in. And this is the 80s. So this is when like the British mining industry is collapsing into ruins. This is.

Oh, I was. The unions are being busted. The little town was like in ruins that he was in or something. Yeah. Like nobody was there. Everyone lost their job. You know, it's what Billy Elliot set in the north. But it's the same time and the same thing. It's just like the mining industry.

Britain was just like, we can't. Sorry. Everything's collapsing. And all these little towns, towns you know were ruined by it and he was said he was sort of like the indomitable spirit of the miners and this like thing that had been taken away from them was like incredibly resonant for him i admired these men that's what he said a dying breed of fighting men now they are gone bunch of palms right so so that and i think that probably is influencing his sort of like steampunky, right?

Like old-fashioned aesthetic. What else? Did you read anything in your big leather-bound book of Miyazaki? What? I'll do it every time. I bought these Miyazaki books. They're good. Oh, cool.

They're like anything he's ever written, collected. Oh, nice. Or any interview he he's ever written, collected. Oh, nice. Or any interview he ever did. Where do you get that? It's like a leather volume with a clasp, and it has a sort of symbol of a lion with a scepter. A cuneiform. No, they're on Amazon.

David opens a green fog, comes out of it. A green fog flies out. Yeah. You scream and go unconscious. There's two of them. You can find them on Amazon. I'll show them to you. Two copies ever made?

Yeah. Two volumes. I want that. I would like to have that. Yeah. No. Okay. So the thing about the beginning of this film,

and this is also, I like this about, I was happy to recently watch Cagliostro with David. Cool movie. Cool, fun movie that also just starts. Yeah, that movie just starts. It just goes, like you are in it. They got money in the car.

Yeah, they're doing a robbery and they drive away and they dump all the money out and it's so fun. Yes. And then you do the credit sequence. I think that there's something so fun about that. The same thing here. You get a good little action scene. Pretty cool action scene. And then she falls through the clouds.

You don't know what's going on. What's this airship? Who are these pirates? Why does everybody have to do this girl? Pretty captivating, though. No, I'm saying it's good. Yeah, cool stuff. A lot of questions are put to you, and you're like, I'd love to see them answered.

She falls. And then you get this lovely credit sequence with this lovely score, this lovely Joeski-Sashie score. Lovely painted. Yeah. These are etchings. They go into this, like,

etch style for flashbacks a couple times also throughout the movie, which is really nice. I don't know. It's all lovely. Do you think, I mean, do you feel like his first movie being an adaptation of a series that people had already watched based off the comic that everyone had already read the second film in a franchise that he had the leeway to just sort of start presuming the audience knew everything then kind of inspired him to be like why why shouldn't all

movies start this way maybe yeah i mean yeah it does feel like you can operate thinking like okay what if there was already like 10 volumes of a manga of this right we're just gonna do the adaptation of it you can kind of just like let people catch up or something right um which is so much more fun i think how much an audience can get through context clues without having to start didactically explaining how everything started. Well, this is the thing about Engies that I liked so much. It's just like, I don't know what any of this is,

but it's interesting enough that I want to stick it out. But that's why five seconds in, my Engies alarm was going off like crazy because I was like, this has that same feel. And this has that same opening where it's a little town on wheels. And you're like, what the fuck is going on? And a big giant automobile of some sort. Prepare to ingest. Prepare to ingest.

But also, I mean, I feel like I've gotten in this, now that Game of Thrones is over, but I feel like at the peak of our last large-scale cultural dialogue around Game of Thrones, it was the same thing. I was just like, look, it's, it's,

it's, it's serviceable enough and it's in a genre that I don't hate. So even though I'm totally confused watching the first one, I am going to like watch it over and over again, look up the wiki and try to figure out who these people are. Cause I want to figure it out. I want to be able to watch it and see what's going on. And I think that some of that has to do with just like, I a genre like I like steampunk shit so help me god uh and then

also you know like just having that the ability to drop those those little hints of like there's a bigger world here we're gonna get to this later don't worry that um that I think maybe some some people get impatient and are just like wait wait, but why haven't we explained what this is? But I don't know. I enjoy it. Of course. Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, I'm just thinking, but especially with Game of Thrones, it feels like a pretty solid rebuke to the traditional

notion of mainstream storytelling that you have to spoon feed everything to your audiences. Because Game of Thrones is a great example of something where the audience proved that they were willing to do the work. You weren't all book readers. No, they're not book readers.

I was not a book reader. No, no. And Game of Thrones, people are talking about shit that is either never going to be explained or only be like tangentially explained. Right. You know. Yeah. But even to a lesser degree, I mean, like the MCU movies and like new Star Wars and all these things where people like have to like put work into like keeping up with the thing.

But the thing with Thrones that I always think of is like in that pilot episode, when you see Arya shoot an arrow, you're just immediately like, I get this. I know what she's going to do. This is an archetype I fully understand. Like she's the little tomboy. She wants to be a warrior like her brother. Like, you know what I mean? Like every time they throw a character at you or a setting, you're kind of like, I get it.

I get the general idea. That person. Right. It's this type of thing. So you show me air pirates. I get it. Air pirates. Oh, yeah.

It's a thing. This movie does really fucking well. Reminds me of my childhood. I mean. But you're like, this is a stuffy colonel. This is a crazy air pirate lady with her large adult sons. Even if you don't understand what they're going after. That's lady with her large adult sons like you under even if you don't understand what they're going after that's why we love large adult sons because like cartoons

are filled with them yes like bluto is a large adult son yeah right like you know we grew up with large adult sons yes yeah it's really good when they're constantly just being like mama it's kind of it's kind of crazy that this and goonies come out within like a year of each other. Because they're both like mama with a trio, a knuckleheaded, not trio in this one. A brood. Yeah. A whole flock, a murder. A murder of a son.

A murder of a son. Our adult sons. A parliament of sons. A parliament of sons. Oh, boy. Oh, I love those sons. But we also, we love Shida. She's cool, right?

Yeah. Yeah. She's like one of the more passive Miyazaki heroines. She is. I would say the most passive, right? But I don't know. I like her. She's figuring it out.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, Nausicaa is like out of the gate. She's like a great heroine. She's like an amazing heroine. Like in that very much sets the tone. Like Blackheart. Like Blackheart.

I feel like, I feel like they're like a lot of the miyazaki films feel like they have partners it like like there's a there's another one that's sort of like on the same it's like the thing about the nine stories or whatever like it's like they're they're miyazaki films that basically operate on the same skeleton you know what i'm talking about like um but like nasa is like the girls are the mononoke one and and like this one i actually think is like ponyo like i feel like they're similar and it's about like a boy-girl partnership that's sort of forged within this much larger like fantasy universe that they barely understand yeah and like through the it's it is it is a platonic magical girlfriend story

right that where the girl comes you know from this this from a special magic place and like special magic position and the place that she's from is like determines the fate of the boy's world and all that like they but their connection is what right yeah because her passivity her relative passivity is due to the fact that she doesn't know what the fuck is going on. She doesn't know what's going on. She barely understands her, like, princess-dom. Right. Yeah.

She was just a mountain kid. She's got great eyesight. She's got good eyesight. She knows some songs that may or may not be spells. Yeah. Yeah. Good ones, bad ones. And then the boy, boy Patsu is a classic

little Miyazaki boy in that he has like little short pants and he like he loves to run up like run up the side of something and then fall down

like I mean he's kind of like a classic Dawson Leary type like you can picture him he wants to be a filmmaker he loves Spielberg right

but he keeps the always poster in the In the closet Climbs through the window Yeah Shida climbs through the window I guess he doesn't have short pants In my head any Miyazaki boy character has short pants

And like a patch on their butt And a little patch right and a little dumb hat Short pants are relative If you wore them they'd look shorter Right that's a fair point. They're fairly short pants. The boy in Kiki, they're always just like, they're just ready for this girl to boss them around.

Sometimes they have glasses. He has goggles, so I guess that kind of counts. He's got goggles. Griff, you're going to flip for all these movies. I'm so excited for you. It's actually one of the best through lines we've had that you like haven't seen these things

I think so I think it's interesting every week we just get to what do you think of this one you're like god it's pretty good why haven't I been watching this why was I dumb you love animation that's the thing that's boggling to me but I think your love of animation might have made like Japanese animation tougher

for you to access. I think so. Because you were so used to the tropes of American animation. Yeah, here's the thing that no longer bugs me, but I used to not be able to get over. That Japanese animation is far... Frame rate? The frame rate thing? Yes.

And connected to that, the lack of focus on mouth sync. Right. Which American animation, even when it's super fucking simple, even when it's really shitty like flash animation, like South Park, for example, is like always has super fucking detailed mouths.

Right. And like the basic like fundamentals of American animation are like you're going to develop a mouth set for every single mouth shape, for every single sound

in the alphabet, and you're going to place those in and you always know that the mouth has to be perfectly in sync. And Japanese animation doesn't really care about that. And even like Hanna-Barbera, which was like so shitty, so cheap. That was the one thing they would like kind of

put money into. Like Hanna-Barbera notoriously would be like oh, like all of Yogi Bear is one still image and they're only replacing the mouth and where the eyes are looking. Yeah. Do you know this crazy thing?

The reason why like almost all Hanna-Barbera characters have like a dicky collar and a tie is so that they could more easily replace the head without moving the body. Yeah. So there's like that kind of shot. Like Top Cat or Yogi Berra. They could have chosen any kind of collar.

I know, but it was always a collar with a tie. They were fully naked, a little collar with a tie. It's just some fun business too. Yeah, that's true. A little business. Breaking up the lines of the body. I grew up watching Hanna-Rabera.

Hanna-Rabera has no detail. It's super fucking cheap. It's super shitty. Even as a child, you'd be like, why aren't his arms moving? Right. But the mouths always match. And so i think that was just as a young child for me a thing i couldn't get over you got brainwashed by it or whatever right where it's

like this is a different frame rate it's more expressive but also they'll hold a pose for longer the facial expressions will be more exaggerated and they're not really interested in you know making like a perfect O shape, you know, randomizing the tongue or any of these things. I think one thing that if like, like David doesn't watch that much. She's not talking about me. I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about David R.

David R. But, uh, Davey R. But, uh. Past and future guest. Yeah, past and future guest. Har's talk post. Davey R. Mm-hmm.

Um, he he we've been I mean I'm I'm just always watching usually at some point watching an anime or a movie or something like that and so he's kind of

watched a lot of that stuff for the first time with me and one thing that I think he's he's sort of coming up against is like the the tonal shift

that happens a lot in in anime just as far as like you can go from a really reflective or kind of like pastoral feeling and then go straight to like full-on slapstick over the top like totally unrealistic body proportions like that kind of thing um and it's not just the style of animation it's just like the style like the tone of of the script and this and like how you can veer from one thing to another in like really quick succession.

I think that's another thing I used to be very rigid about when I was younger was I wanted movies to pick a lane. And even if you were a hybrid of genres, I wanted that you find the one tone that fits both those genres and you stay in that the whole time. And there are tons of movies where I would get really angry if one moment was like uncharacteristically serious or uncharacteristically goofy or whatever and now I kind of

it's the most exciting thing for me if I see a movie that has that sort of range like it's I will get that perverse pleasure

out of movies that are bad just because they are so loose with their control over their tone that I'm like I like that all these things

are coexisting wacky right like now I just want movies to like represent everything interesting yeah well

does this movie represent everything yeah I mean this is kind of everything I like it has slapstick I think this is one of those more somber movies

but certainly it has all kinds of wild stuff in it I mean like if we fast forward a little bit but like the fist fight in the town is like one of those more somber movies, but certainly it has all kinds of wild stuff in it. I mean, if we fast forward a little bit, but the fist fight in the town is one of the best things. They super slowly, it's like in comical, syrupy slow motion.

They flex. One of the pirates and then the dad that's taking care of Pazu, they flex and all the buttons pop off their shirts. It is the most detailed, full animation in the entire movie. Yeah, it's amazing. That's otherwise full of Pazu. They like flex and all the buttons pop off of their shirts. It is like the most detailed full animation in the entire movie. Yeah. It's amazing. It's otherwise full of like action chasing. But that's like just a taste. It's like look

we can shred a man's shirt on his muscles but later we'll like have an entire kingdom fall apart brick by brick. And each of those bricks will be individually animated which is insane. Yeah I mean that's crazy. And that's the kind of shit you never see in American hand drawn animation. Right. animated which is insane it's crazy and that's the kind of shit you never see in american uh

hand-drawn animation right right like there's so much large scale stuff yeah and even like expensive disney stuff they're they're never gonna have a shot like that right and uh this is another thing just like me getting very used to like disney and hannah barbara as a kid but like if disney is like the expensive epic version it, they will find one level of detail that they can match for the entire movie so that it is consistent. And something like Miyazaki, there are certain moments where you're going to be a lot more

static and certain moments where you're going to have a lot more detail and a lot more motion. And that weird trade-off from when a background is just a background painting versus when it is an active kinetic animated thing i think that just like fucking threw me off sure that's fine yeah here you are no i think it's interesting because i'm trying to come to terms with why i didn't like these movies

sure and admittedly didn't even really try right right you had a couple experiences with them and you're sort of like it's not for me kind of dismiss out of hand yeah um Also that time that like a girl fell down from the sky and you didn't catch her. So you just couldn't relate. A big regret in my life. Admittedly, one of my big whoopsies. And one time you were, you know, on an airship of your own with an old fashioned, old timey camera. And you saw a cast on the sky and you took one of those old timey photos of it where you move it. Yeah, you expose the plate.

David, I told you that in confidence. I asked her not to talk about that in the podcast. It's happened to all of us. I'm going to get dragged online for that. Hey, you like those old timey cameras? Just stop it. Hey kids,

you like daguerreotypes? I got a thin type for you. Oh, geez. I just love, I love it. Old timey. I love it.

It's the best. Yeah. you. Oh, jeez. I just love it. Old timey. I love it. It's the best. Oh, God. The amount of work people used to put into doing fucking anything. To doing anything. That's what's so fun about Steampunk. Yeah. Yeah. There's some cranks.

He does some. We see a little bit of his life. Yes. He turns some cranks. Yes, he does. Some men come out of a cave. They're getting their rocks. Well, yeah. So we have this opening cold open action sequence

where you don't really know what's going on and all these warring factions are flying up trying to steal this girl. And the girl falls from the sky. We go to the etching and then the girl lands in this farmhouse. Well, her necklace is glowing. With the help of her necklace, she doesn't die.

Like the D&D spell, feather fall. There we go. Retired bet. necklaces glow with the help of her necklace she doesn't die it's like the dnd spell featherfall there we go retired bit it's a good story retired bit um retired bit uh and like little patsu who is a little mining boy he is literally the definition of a brave boy yeah I just don't know what else to describe. Nice little cat. He's so cute. He's brave. He's cute and brave. He's got gogs. He's got a great attitude at all times.

He's a real pause. And his dad took a tintype of a freaking castle in the sky one time. So he's real interested in that. The poodle. Sure. He wants to design an airplane. He's making an airplane. He is like the airplane. He is

like the kid. You guys have seen Booksmart, right? Yes. He just wants to fucking design airplanes. Booksmart's so good. I want to see it again. I've seen it twice. You saw it twice? I think it's a good movie. Good times? I saw it two times. One too? It's so good. The one that destroys

me is when he says enough with the revivals. I mean, this generation deserves original musicals. I think he's really fucking good in that way. Ben is leaving because he doesn't want books for Smoyla. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry, Benny.

Yeah, I mean, my favorite character is the one where you're just like, what's the deal with this kid? And what's his fucking name? I don't remember his name. No. The kid from Santa Clarita Diet. Skylar Gazzana. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's his name. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just him. Yeah, he's such a good performer. Everything he does really amuses me. And that's one of those performances too where you're like,

this could be a nightmare. This character should be a nightmare. Right, right. The rich kid who's like, should I do this? Yeah. Should I do this? But also in most actors' hands,

I think they would push it so far over the edge that he would just be intolerable. You could never redeem him. He's a sweet boy, though. He's a sweet boy. Everyone in Booksmart is sweet. No one's really a boy. That's the moral of Booksmart, is that everybody is a little sweetie, which is

not true, but nice to watch in a movie. But I think you just get sick of it like i mean i talked about in our peregrine episode like the one character who's like i don't like you it's like what's your problem he's like i gotta be what i do in this right it's not like you there's that character in pacific rim uprising yeah and what's your problem right there's like no payoff yeah yeah i mean yeah maybe the most you're gonna get out of him at the end is sort of like a okay right that's i guess you pulled it off in out of him at the end is sort of like a, okay.

Right, that's what gets you pulled it off in the end. That's the thing with book smarts. Either that's going to be exactly what you like about it or exactly what you hate about it. Right. Because I saw it with ARP and he was like there's no social structure. There's no hierarchy. And I was like, that's kind of what's nice about it. Yeah, see I found

that realistic because that's how my high school was. My high school was like that too. But I know I went to a weirdo high Yeah. See, I found that realistic because that's how my high school was. My high school was like that, too. Yeah. But I know I went to a weirdo high school. Well, I didn't go to a weirdo high school. I went to a public high school in Iowa. But like everybody just hung out with everybody. And it wasn't even like a super small school.

But I just thought like that kind of anarchy. Because I think a lot of times like there's like a weird cycle in teen movies where it's like, oh, we have to be mean. Like we have to make our experience look like mean girls now because we saw that in a movie and that's what high school is like. But I think high school can be much more of just a primordial soup if you just let people be who they're going to be. I also think it's becoming more and more that way. I feel like culturally, because of the internet, people don't feel.

It's an equalizer. Yeah, because it's like, well, this isn't everything. I can go home and then troll the libs. Thank God for trolling the libs. All right. All right. Hatsu. Hatsu.

Fine, cute boy. He's a cute boy. He's a good scamp. Catches a boy. I think we're talking about it. Catches a girl. A lot of these scamps have to be taught to be good. He's innately a good scamp.

Well, he plays the trumpet for his town to wake them up, and it's so beautiful. He does do that, which is great. And he keeps a bunch of doves in a little house, and then he lets them go, and he lets the doves fly all over the valley, and the sun comes through the mountains, and it casts its light upon the town while he plays the trumpet. Where is the lie? It's great quality of life. It's past its light upon the town while he plays the trumpet. Where is the lie? It's great quality of life.

It's fantastic. I don't care if you're an orphan. You're doing great. Let me say two things about Patsy. You're doing amazing, sweetie. You're doing amazing, Patsy. I want to say two things about Patsy. One, he gets it.

He gets it. He really gets it. Two, he can kind of get it. He's a child. He really gets it. Two, he can kind of get it. He's a child. He's a child. I'm saying in a world where he's James Van Der Beek. Yeah, right. Did you think Vandy could get it in his prime?

I have to say, that's a guy. I never got it. You never got it with Vandy? I never got it. I never got the people who thought that he could get it. He registered as so old when that was on. He did. He looked like so old when that was on. He did. He looked like he was in his 30s.

He also was on a show with Pacey, like Josh Jackson. He was just sort of like outclassed him in every category. And he didn't look like a film nerd. I'm sorry. Like he looks like some kind of nerd. He looked like a lacrosse fucking nerd. If he had looked like, what's his face? Seth Cohen.

Then like, sure. Yeah, I'd be there. That's right. That's why the OC was so like unusual when it seems normal now but right where it's like this kid looks

kind of like a dork right you know he's hot like yeah they styled him right and he was just like awkward and hunched over and he sounds like a dork

he's got a dorky voice which is what's appealing about him like with Seth Cohen you were like guys it was that friend that you have

where you're like shut up just people can hear us talking about Magic the Gathering right now and also that he's guys, it was that friend that you have where you're like, shut up, because people can hear us talking about Magic the Gathering right now. And also that he's, that Seth Cohen

was actually Jewish, not like a Jewish acting guy whose name is like Johnson. Right, the 90s curse was like, they were like, he's Jewish, but he's coded Jewish.

Right. How everyone in Seinfeld is Jewish. I do like how we are evaluating every boy whoever was as a means of talking about Pazoo.

number one. He's great. Best boy. There's another thing evaluating every boy whoever was as a means of talking about Pazoo. Number one. He's great. Best boy. Here's another thing with Van Der Beek. Pazoo is best boy. Varsity Blues Yeah. Right?

Plays football jock. He does. In Angus, a movie I love, he plays jock bully. In what? Angus? Have you never seen Angus?

Have you never seen Angus? Have you never seen Angus? Oh my God. Have you seen Angus? have you never seen Angus? have you never seen Angus? oh my god have you seen Angus? oh sure Angus is so good David I would rewatch Angus

like now I've never heard of this movie David you gotta see Angus I mean I'm seeing it's uh we got some kids here it's got the Shermanator

it's got I think George C. Scott in his final performance of course it's got Rita Moreno in it right got, I think, George C. Scott in his final performance. Of course. It's got Rita Moreno in it. Right. We love her. We stan.

Kathy Bates, apparently? Yup. Apparently the BBC helped produce it. Kathy Bates plays his mom. It feels very Degrassi. Yes. It's so good. Love Degrassi.

The plot of the film is, Angus is a fat nerd who loves science, and James Van Der Beek, as a prank, gets him elected prom king. Sure, right. It's like She's All That, but for boys. Interesting. And he knows that he's going to have one dance with the prom queen, who is the beautiful girl who he's never had the courage to talk to.

But the reason why Angus is so good is in the way It's got an amazing soundtrack. It writes that character. Good soundtrack. The unattainable. I'm looking at this soundtrack. And it's, what's her name? Ash.

Lulu Dolls. Is ween on the angus soundtrack not seeing a ween there's um i think there's a weezer velouria weezer one of the greatest weezer songs of all time please name it's a great title um uh it is um oh god which one is it it's got a great moog line what is you... You gave your love to me. You gave your love to... Yeah. Uh-huh. So good. I love it.

What were you going to say? No, Angus fucking rules. Okay. And it's... What's her name? Ariana... Huffington? No.

What's her name? Richards. Richards. Richards, who is Lex, the greatest hacker ever. Remember when she turned them lights on in the cyber system in Jurassic Park? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Lex rules.

Fucking love Lex. That's like the one fucking teen movie like five years ago that's about like a boy having a crush on an unattainable girl when he meets the girl. She's a person. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Not like an angel or a devil. No. Like that's the whole point of the movie. He's like, oh, wait a second. You're a human being. You're not just someone on a pedestal. Angus rules. That's her next miniseries.

Just Angus? Angus for 10 weeks in order. Let's get back to these doves in the valley. The doves flying through the valley and they eat eggs. Yeah, Sheeta wakes up and they eat some eggs and it looks really nice. The eggs are great yeah there's multiple egg scenes in this movie

because there's also toast and eggs the toast and eggs where they pull the egg off cave eggs yeah not a fan night eggs

cave eggs I'm into that alright I love a damp egg I mean eggs are a crucial part of I know you hate eggs you don't have an egg

but they are a crucial part of Miyazaki I was gonna say this remains my biggest hurdle to cross with Miyazaki films is how much I have to watch lovingly animated egg eating. Yeah. It's nice. So then very shortly after that, the pirates show up again. Yes.

Yes, they do. Yeah, they show up at the door. They show up. You got the guy in the white suit and they sneak her out they sneak her out in boy clothing and they run away to the town and then you got the town stuff and you got the fucking railroad

at this point where they destroy so much infrastructure yes they do they destroy an entire track that is probably the only their only connection to the outside world. What were you going to say? No, at this point in the movie, my worry is like,

oh, is this now going to be a movie of 90 minutes of them running away from people on land? Oh, sure, sure. Before you get to the castle in the sky. And I was so excited by how quickly they're like, nope, going back up into the sky. I mean, it's not this guy. I was like, nope, going back up into the sky. I was like, oh, it's going to be down on the run.

First they fall into that mine. Wait, is it Grandpa Pom or Uncle Pom? Uncle Pom. The local eccentric Uncle Pom. He knows how to talk to rocks. He knows how to listen to rocks. I've been talking to rocks all my life. Actually, that should have been the opening. I've been talking to podcasts all my life. I've been talking to Rocks all my life. Actually, that should have been the opening.

I've been talking to podcasts all my life. You've been talking to podcasts all my life. I've been podcasting with Rocks all my life. Because Uncle Pom does have a podcast network now. Yeah. That is established. Yeah. What does he say? Does he say the Rocks are trembling or something?

I don't know. But, yeah. Or he says they're like, yeah. I think he says trembling. Yeah. You can try and find it. They're restless. So the Rocks are restless. He. You can try and find it. They're restless, so the rocks are restless.

He's like the one true rock ally because he's the one man who's willing to step off his pedestal of privilege and listen to rocks. Listen to the rocks. You gotta listen to the rocks. Yeah, can't find this trembling line, but he is cool.

Yeah. Uncle Tom rolls. And they blow out the candle and then they see all the they see all the glowing rocks they eat the yucky eggs but the other thing is

that Uncle Tom is the one guy that's so much egg porn he loves eggs I hate eggs he love eggs really he hates eggs

nothing grosses me out more than eggs you should watch the Bon Appetit video of like 32 ways to cook an egg it might turn you around on eggs or it might put you off of them forever either or.

Yeah, that seems like shock therapy. I couldn't watch it. When people talk about how much sort of like incredibly sort of like emotional, profound, upsetting imagery there is in Roma. I was like, oh, you mean that unbroken take of the woman preparing eggs? That was the moment on screen where I was like, I turned to TC-14, I was like,

cover my eyes, cover my eyes. I can't, I can't fucking watch this. Why isn't he cutting? Why am I looking at this? She picked up her tea tray and put it over your eyes. I hate everything about eggs.

That's so crazy. I love eggs. That's insane. I think I love everything about eggs. One of my favorite foods and then they go in so many other things I like. They go so well.

I've been eating just eggs on noodles. Just like I'll do a sunny side up egg and I'll plop it on a hot bed of noodles, like soma noodles. And then it cooks the rest of the egg when I stir it. Oh, it's so good. Sounds great. I live in a neighborhood now with a lot of very good Japanese restaurants. Yes, you do.

And a lot of very authentic Japanese restaurants. Yes, you do. And a lot of very authentic Japanese restaurants. Yes, you do. Where the menus don't hold your hands. Right. And where I would read the four-word description of an item and go, that sounds like what I want to eat. Sure. And then it would come out. With an egg on it.

With an egg in it. With an egg spread about distributed. Oh, my God. And I just have to, like, fucking spoon around. Yeah, tough to avoid an egg once it's in there, especially in a broth. I now know which places I can go to and which items I can order.

We could probably say like no egg. Yeah, you can ask no egg. They'll not do an egg. They'll think you're crazy because an egg is the best part of the ramen or whatever it is you're eating. I do it all the time. I eat a lot of ramen without egg. But the other thing is sometimes I think I go like, oh, this doesn't sound like it would have an egg in it. Like I'm not I don't I think I go like oh this doesn't sound like it would have an egg in it.

Like I'm not getting a ramen I'm getting like a meat dish and then it turns out Put an egg on it man. Put an egg on it. You know like a pork chop and then you just put an egg on it like Vietnamese.

Yeah I love that. Well can I talk about the other thing that's going to come up later in this miniseries? I don't like ham. Ham. Ham.

You I mean Ponyo might turn you around on ham like the national ham council should fucking buy ponyo as its mascot this is jumping ahead slightly but like dola love ham too you know what she's got what else they have in common red hair ponyo is Dola growing up it takes place all in one universe um you know cause Uncle Pom

also kinda looks like the guy from Spirited Away who runs the engine it's got the same sort of crazy toughie mustache

the dad no Dola's husband the little guy who works in the yeah that's what I'm talking about yes he does

um you know he borrows yeah there's a I'm talking about yes he does you know he borrows yeah there's a lot of prototypes for later later characters but yes Dola

there's that scene where Dola's like eating a whole like she's just tearing bits about yeah see I like other like I like

other preparation of pork but something about like ham I don't like ham I like ham is never't like ham I like ham is never my top choice I mean I love going ham

you know I go her as a motherfucker for anything other than ham or egg or egg I like just ham and eggs is my nightmare like if someone

like for breakfast goes like one order of ham and eggs please I'd burn the place down I don't mind like really good ham. It's sort of like white wine, where you're like, oh, I see that this is good. Like an aged ham? Yeah, you know, like, but like.

Virginia, like, ham. But like, right, just the sort of, the slimy ham you pull out of like the, you know. No, no, no. Water, waterlogged ham. I don't love the consistency. It just looks like fucking, like a rubber insole. But like, I don't really like a honey baked ham either. It's so salty and sweet. It just looks like fucking like a rubber insole. I don't really like a honey baked ham either. It's so salty and sweet.

It just feels like you're eating like jerky. It's very one flavor. You really need to like put some shit on it. Yeah. You know, like, you know, I assume you also don't like like a baked ham. No. Like a big baked ham. No.

This is also very not Jewish. I mean, yeah. Ham is, you know, no good. Very true. Yeah. Very true. Well. I guess I hide behind that. I love baked yeah. Ham is, you know, no good. Very true. Yeah. Very true. Well. I guess I hide behind that.

I love bacon. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't eat bacon until like maybe six or seven years ago. That's wild. Because I was like, ham. It's ham-aging. Wow. Too much like ham.

Would you consider it ham-aging? I find it a little ham-aging. I eat so much bacon now because of that fucking stat where it's like, oh, each strip of bacon takes whatever seconds off of your life. I'm like, I didn't eat it for like 24 years. I can go hog wild now. Literally. You can go ham. I can go ham.

Okay. Guys. So. Sorry. Just love the Uncle Pom stuff. Love all the mines. Yeah. It's a beautiful.

Very evocative. If they get sensitive, rock man. Love all the minds. Yeah. He's a beautiful, very evocative, sensitive rock man. Basically, as soon as they get out

is when they get caught by the army. Yes, by the colonel. Yeah, they get kidnapped. And the colonel tries to sort of well actually her.

Yeah, come on. Well, Uncle Pom also reveals that her amulet, her, right, he recognizes,

he sees. Is that when she tells him like I have a secret family name yes okay her actual name is Lucita

Toel or Laputa yeah and I mean they're obsessed with that thing they love it yes

then he well actually sir all right what were you gonna say what is he well actually everything he's like look you don't understand this we We're the good guys. We're here to help.

And he shows her the first robot. Right. With the little arms cut off. Yes. We meet finally the main character of the story. My favorite little guy. I mean this is my favorite well no I love Mossbot more but I love like kind of Brokenbot like trying

to figure out what to do. And he's scary. He doesn't understand that he's scary. And she's so freaked out of him. And then she realizes that he's trying to help her escape. It's so nice. They look great.

But it is scary. It is scary. This whole sequence is pretty frightening. Yeah, that's the great thing about the about the design of the robot is that it can turn from being menacing to adorable from one shot to the next. Do you know what I'm going to say?

Iron Drain, of course. Very Brad Bird-y. It feels like he was drawing for us. But it's interesting that this rabbit has even less of a face. He's got sort of a couple of asymmetrical eyes. He's got sort of the couple of asymmetrical eyes. He's got the asymmetrical eyes, which rule.

He's so cute. I love him so much. He is a chunky boy. He's so chunky. He thick. He's a metal chongus. Yes, he is. He wide.

I love that thing, too, where his arms, you think they're turning into blades and their little wings? Yeah. Little wings. He's got those sort of sp into blades and they're little wings yeah little wings he's got those sort of spines yeah webbing in between them and I love that the arms

go all the way to his feet yeah an underrated design decision to make him look kind of cute yeah right

like sort of lanky weird arms yeah have you guys seen oh my good guy oh he's so good looking have you guys seen it's not the last Takashi Miy good guy. Oh, he's so good looking. Have you guys seen...

It's not the last Takashi Miyake film because it was like two years ago and he's probably made five more in the meantime. He just made one. And you're saying that sentence. Yeah. The one about the immortal guy who he just keeps fusing himself back together

after every time he gets hit. What was it called? Blade of the immortal. That's what it's called. Oh, I actually know, but I actually want to watch that one. It's pretty good.

That's the last one that made it overseas. And he's got like, he's got scars everywhere. Right. Cause he's always just putting himself back. Cause he drank a potion that has worms in it. That pulls your body back together. Like it mends your body.

And there, I saw it at Cannes. And I saw it. It was like a midnight show or something of it. And I swear to God, there's the most amazing cut in it. And then I realized maybe it was taken from Castle in the Sky

where his hand is severed and it's like lying over there and he's on the ground. And then it's the first time you see the thing happen and you see the little worms come out and then go and the audience

lost it. They all just screamed. It was so fun. But yeah, that's totally what happens to our robot friend. He pulls the little wires

in his arm can find each other and pull themselves back together. He's just the best. Like, let's, yeah,

let's give him credit. Yeah, let's give him credit yeah well let's give him i think we're standing a legend yeah yeah absolutely we properly stand this legend he goes beat bomb uh he just always looks like he's going like yeah david's like like i'm trying to like widen one eye one eye and tilting his head he's got kind of like yeah yeah he's looking at you askance yeah right well he's also got that Godzilla energy where it's like,

you don't really believe him as being like evil, but as soon as he's provoked, then he just burns everything. He atomic breaths everything to shit. And then you're like, why are you doing this? I love you. He's got so much destructive force within him.

Yeah. Yeah. And she has to like throw her body over his face so that he won't, he won't shoot anything. Right, because he won't shoot her. Yeah. Yeah. And she has to like throw her body over his face so that he won't he won't shoot anything. Because he won't shoot her. Yeah. Because she's like

bound to her because she's this ancestor. She's royalty. Yeah. And it's such a good escape sequence. It's so exciting.

Like the whole fort that they're in is burning because the robot is just tearing it to shreds. Right. And then Pazu and the pirates come and rescue her.

And it's very daring and wonderful. I love the colonel trying to buy off Pazu though. Oh right, with like the three coins. Right, he's like, come on, kid, take the coins and leave. He's got a somewhat patronizing view of life in the mines, I think. He's like, this is all you need.

This will tide you over, right? Right. You don't care about other people. You care about money, right? Right. Yeah. And then he threatens to kill him, doesn't he? Yeah.

Yeah. But now we get to Mama and her large adult sky pirates. Yes. Yeah. Which is like when this movie clicks into like a whole other gear for me the best gear right yeah he comes home and then they're waiting there for him and that's when the ham meeting happens also yeah yeah they got ham they go ham but i do i love this thing that's not like oh secretly we were the good guys right it's just like no we're just not the bad guys yeah we're still kind of scum we just want treasure we just want treasure of course right who doesn't we're gonna like take

advantage of shit we're pirates they're pirates but we're not the villains here right they they're as you say they're certain maybe chaotic neutral yeah right yeah they have a moral code they do have a moral code which would make them chaotic in my opinion in the indian linemen i guess they're chaotic good i think if you're chaotic good, it means that you actively want to do good. You just don't want to do it within the rules. Right. Chaotic neutral is more like, you know what?

I'm out for me and I'm figuring it out. I'm not trying to hurt people exactly, but I'm kind of just in it for myself. So I think they're probably chaotic good. Because they have like... They certainly become chaotic good. Well, and they like they're loyal to their family and they have like a they have they have an ethics yeah we shall say and

they're like we're gonna protect this girl she needs protection but also this is a really clear pathway for us to not have to peel potatoes anymore which i love that their priority is just like this is gonna be incredible no more potato, chaotic good, you really just need to follow your conscience, I guess. Like, that's sort of the core thing. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Like Han Solo is your classic.

Yes. Right. Starts out chaotic neutral, becomes chaotic. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah.

And she scolds him. Dola scolds Pazza because she's like, why did you leave her alone? Like, so it's like very, like, it's like, there is a way to behave according to her. Also that she recognizes like, I get this. I was a young girl. I remember what it was like. And tries to tell her sons like,

I understand her. Just trust me and listen to me. And they're like, wait a second. She's gonna turn into a mom? The only way they understand women is through their mother right but they never get over that they're like so how many years left until like she becomes mom yeah and like our mom or they're just fascinated yeah right also i mean like he's a mean richie and you got to take down the mean oh yeah right yeah that's important yeah he's a mean richies. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. That's important. Yeah. He's a mean richie. These are our values.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. While Sheeta is with the mean richies, he's with the fun pirates. And then they all go into the sky and go to find... Oh, yeah. Because this crystal becomes a compass that will point to... It's pointing.

It's got a light. Yeah. And she loses it at one point. So she doesn't have it anymore, but she remembers where the castle is or where it was pointing. And then they all head there. But the best thing about this movie is that it lets the kids be on the castle for a while by themselves. Yes. You know, just like quiet.

Well, before we get to that, though, there's a thing called an ornicopter, which I don't think is named in the movie. But when I looked it up, it's called the ornicopter. Are those the dragonfly sort of? Oh, well, no. Those guys are great. Okay. Yeah, that's one of the best vehicles ever in a fictional world, I think. Yeah, they roll.

And I love that they can sort of centipede together into a chain. Do you mean this thing? Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no. That thing's cool, though. No, it's the tandem glider that pops up at the top of the pirate ship that lets them fly up above the clouds. Yeah, I'm trying to find it. You know what?

Maybe it's called something else. I don't remember. No. It totally looks like, I looked it up and I'm not finding images of it. Do you mean this thing? Yes. Yeah. Yes. Oh, interesting. I love't remember. No. It totally looks like, I looked it up and I'm not finding an image of that. Do you mean this thing? Yes. Yeah.

Yes. Oh, interesting. I love that thing. It's so great. It's sort of like the basket from a hot air balloon with wings. Cool.

It's very cool and they, yeah, so they're flying up in that and they fly through a storm. They fly through like basically a hurricane. Cool.

Yeah. It's cool. Just look at it. Cool shit. Okay, so here's another influence I saw immediately. Once you actually see the castle in the sky, and especially once it's crumbling and all the roots are visible underneath.

Yeah. Very, very floating mountains of Pandora. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, definitely. Is that an Avatar thing? Yeah. I feel like Avatar's driven a lot. Have you never seen Avatar?

I've never seen Avatar. That's crazy. You'd love it. Tar. You should come on Talk Tar with us. Talk Tar. Talkin' Tar. We love talkin' Tar.

The Hallelujah Mountains. Right? I mean, doesn't it? It's so fucking cool. But even like compositionally and the coloring, it's very similar. Right. They are also based on a real thing. The Flying Mountains of Pandora? Yeah. Yeah, they're also based on a real thing. The Floating Mountains of Pandora?

Yeah. Yeah, they're also based off of several Rush album covers. It's like all of Avatar's visual design. Because people now flock to them. The Huangshan Mountains. Okay. Which kind of look like that and are amazing. I mean, obviously, they're not actually floating

well there are the actual floating mountains in Walt Disney World Orlando Florida but you know they're like these weird like blocky outcropping mountains and I guess James Cameron was just like the fog they love remove the under

Joanna's been there she says they're cool I believe it I'm retired but Move the under. Joanna's been there. She says they're cool. I believe it. I'm a retired vet. There's a really good moment before they get to the... Are you really still thinking that every single time you talked about Joanna? I kind of am. He just programs himself. That's the problem.

It's really hard for me to unprogram myself. It's not like I'm feeling the feelings. There's the problem. It's really hard for me to unprogram myself. It's not like I'm feeling the feelings. There's the time. If that makes sense. That we were together. It was just you and me. We were sitting waiting for Detective Pikachu to begin. That's hard, Beth.

And it was like an empty theater. And Henry Jackman's excellent score was playing on a loop. Beautiful score. And I mentioned my girlfriend at one point and uh you don't you can say that as a regular person i'm biting my lip but then i also mentioned growing up in england what that came out of nowhere and griffin i'm stunned griffin looked at me and went like for a second said said nothing. And then went like, but how did you? And I was just like, really?

There's nobody here. There's nobody here. It's just the two of us. So you just sort of can't help. You don't want to get out of practice, though. If you let one slip, then, you know, they might slip in the future when you're actually on air. I mean, yeah. And I sort of train myself how to do things like a Pavlovian dog.

And this applies for the important things in my life. I mean, for work and whatever, but also just remembering to brush my teeth and shit. And if I just commit to a thing like this, it's very hard for me to stop doing it. Well, don't stop brushing your teeth. I won't. Brush those teeth.

I'm doing it a ton. It's a good thing to remember to do. Okay, I'm getting us back on track. They go through this storm. You guys skipped over this. It's wonderful once they get to the castle, but the storm is a really cool sequence. The lightning looks like dragons and snakes that's trying to bite them.

Also, he sees his dad. Right. And I get goosebumps. It's great. I mean, it's his dad. Right. And I get goosebumps. It's great. I mean, it's like the most classic. I was thinking this while I was watching it, and I was like, this movie is so basic, like, in a good way. I mean that in a good way.

It's simple. It's just like a big story about an adventure. When did you first see this movie, Emily? I think I would have been. Like, was it your first Miyazaki? No. My first Miyazaki was totoro um i had and i watched it many many times a friend of my mom's in japan sent it to me recorded off of japanese television so it came with commercials and no subtitles uh i watched i wore that tape

down um and then i i'm trying to think what my second one was this was probably pretty early because i think i saw the trailer for this when they were first going to bring it to the state around mononoke time yeah and i think i think i must have seen it after mononoke because i remember seeing this and being like i want to see that right now this looks like the best and then having to wait and i think maybe i saw it um i had i later had a japanese teacher who had bootlegs of like everything and she would lend them to me because i was really cool um that is cool remember those days when like getting to see a movie was kind of hard maybe and it would be so weird and special yeah um when there were so many things too where you're like

it might never ever be possible to watch this thing. Yeah, totally. But yeah, I think I must have seen it in like early high school, like maybe my sophomore year of high school or something like that. Sure. That probably makes sense. But I mean, this is the only one. No, it's not the only. It's the first one I owned on DVD, I think.

I got it as soon as it was available on DVD. I remember that was like a thing where I knew the date and I went it as soon as it was available on DVD I remember that was like a thing where I knew the date and I went out to go get it and so I've just watched a bunch because I had it Castle in the Sky but yeah the storm's cool the big cloud what were you going to say? No the storm is also

like this is the power of Miyazaki's use of silence is that when something like this happens that is very loud, it has more impact because you've had these sort of pastoral sort of scenic. I mean, he's so good to, even in the silent sequences, that you

hear the wind or you hear birds or you hear these sort of faint sort of environmental sounds in the background. But then when you get to a sequence like this where it's totally chaotic, it actually upsets you. Yeah. Because rather than being a movie that's like

loud and in your face the whole freaking time. Right. I think one of the best like one of my best or my favorite moments that's not like a character moment or something in any Miyazaki film is when the little flyer thing pops out of the storm. I was thinking this while I was

watching it last night that movement is like something that's like imprinted in my brain just the way it kind of like goes and then kind of kind of goes like veers to the side a little bit and goes down and like he I don't know he I remember it's not for this movie but I think it's for Spirited Away or something where he's like teaching his animators how to do something like i think it's they're animating the dragon in spirited away when it's when it's been wounded and it's flopping around and he um i forget what he shows them maybe he's like having them play with a dog or something like that but it's one of these things where the movement is just like so perfect and like has characters somehow even though it's like an inanimate object, just like flying through the sky.

It's so nice. Yeah, I love that. And like just that kind of, they do it when they go into the storm and then out. It's just like, like everything, like the entire color palette changes, everything. You go into one world

and then you pop out on the other side and it's great. It's so fun. I love it. I love that too. I'm a sucker for any scene with a palette change. Yeah. Like the fucking Red Room in Last Jedi and this getting all blue.

Anything where it's just like for this sequence because of this environment or whatever's going on environmentally everything's going to be like one color. And something animation can do better than anything. Yeah. And it feels like the real like it's like the spiritual

climax of the movie because you know obviously all they have to do is get through the storm it's not as complicated as the whole battle where the islands falling apart and everything

but it's just like but this is like what they want. Like this the story that they think they're in for which is just like we just want to get

to this castle and I want to see this thing that my dad saw like this is the build up to that so it just feels like this thing it's like pushing through until you get to the end or something uh and the lightning's going

through their hair and everything there's also something once they get to this like actively trying to find the castle in the sky uh you're like it would be really hard to like find it like it's not like trying to find a thing on land or in the sea. Sky's really big. Sky big. Clouds cover a lot of it. Cloud thick. Cloud thick. And high. And it's high. This is the kind of fucking insight that people come to this podcast for.

This sort of diamond cut. What is the appeal of Miyazaki movies in the end? I thought you were going to say, what is the appeal of Blank Check in the end? Yeah. Plain go high, higher than me. Yeah, sky big, plain go high. Me go low. Plain go way high.

Can I just make that the description for this episode? Yes, please. Okay, great, great. It's sponsored by. Yeah. It's sponsored by. The sky. This is another movie about the sky.

This is a movie about the sky. And the castle. But there's so many good wind like not just sky scenes but like wind scenes in Miyazaki like he's so plane obsessed

well he's plane obsessed he's also I mean the studio is literally named after a kind of wind hell yeah is it really yeah

it's like a Saharan wind because they wanted to be like the winds of change in the animation landscape. Blown through Tokyo. Did you folks see that they fully announced that the theme park is happening? Yes.

I don't know about this. They're opening a Miyazaki Studio Ghibli theme park. A Ghibli world. Yes. Where? It's in... Is it in Tokyo proper? Because I feel like there's a thing

where in Japan the theme parks are all spread out. Well it might be like an hour outside of Tokyo. I mean so the Ghibli park and museum

is like about it takes about an hour to get there outside Tokyo. Is it cool? It is wonderful.

It is great. There is one of our good boys on top of the museum mossy rabbit yeah mossy rabbit lives on the top of it you can get a picture taken i have a picture of me with it somewhere um and he just lives up there and i think there is actual moss like growing on him uh everything is just like it's it's like the at dis a Disneyland level of like detail and design in every corner. I'm trying to think of what, like, I mean, they have the big cat bus, which is probably the thing that gets photographed the most there. Because it's always just like crawling with adorable Japanese children. But it moves?

No, it's just a big stuffed thing that you can like crawl in. It's like soft and furry. And it's just like kids will just crawl all over it. I mean, it's not like a theme park, though. They have a lot of, they'll do different exhibits of cells and artwork and stuff from some of the movies. I can't remember what was there when I went. It's been a long time since I was there. But now they're building the actual theme park. Yeah.

It is not in Tokyo. Right. See, that's what I thought. Because Universal Studios isn't in Tokyo. It's in Osaka. Sure. Disneyland Tokyo is in Tokyo proper. But they're all spread out. It's near Nagoya in some place called Nagakute.

Oh, Nagoya? Nagoya is the big city nearby. It's like four hours from Tokyo. Yeah. I don't know. When's it open? 2022. Can we put it on the box?

sure when are you guys going to Star Wars land? I'd love to go to that thing I have no idea of the logistics of attending it also we should wait for it to be finished we just have to have like a million dollars yeah I think we just have to wait for the second ride to open right

I feel like we can do it by like the end of this year beginning of next year yeah sometime next year. I honestly think as soon as they announce when the second ride's going to be open, I will take the initiative to figure out how to do it in the most cost-effective way for us to go record it. The only thing, because you can just go, right? I'm so confused by how it all works. Because I know there was a line, but that was only for the very initial bookings, right?

Where you had a time window. Right, and you could only get the window if you had a reservation at one of the hotels. But like that was only for the first few weeks for like the super freaks, right? Yeah, and they're changing to a different system now, which has been explained on my favorite podcast, The Ride, but I don't remember what the new system is.

But they're going to keep on evolving it as demand sort of, you know, I mean, it's never going to be uh i think uh uh chill no sure no it's going to be incredibly popular for a decade right right right um but there are things now here's another thing like right now because uh there's only one ride open things like the cantina have like a three-hour wait because there aren't enough things to distribute lines across and these things i don't like waiting see i love theme parks i don't like waiting. See, I love theme parks. I don't like waiting for things. No, I hate waiting.

Why would you like waiting? No, who likes that? Some people get the weird, or I guess tolerate it more than I do. Sure, I understand. I don't tolerate it. Okay. I don't know. I was such a, like, when I lived in LA last and I worked for a company that was owned

by Disney and so I had the Silver Pass and I just delighted in going, like, after work, like, zipping down to Anaheim and like going on some rides that like just checking the fast pass thing and being like oh I can just like zip through the line right now and go on Indiana Jones or whatever well how much does that cost is my thing is like I'm like what does it cost I'll pay it I don't care like that's always my thing with these things like inconvenience is what I want to avoid yeah right yeah I always do that too. Right. So like what is the fucking suck my dick

pass cost? Hey! Sorry. Language. Sorry. TC-14 pass. Yeah. Right this way sir.

Yeah. I always have her with a tea tray. Oh my god. TC-14. I mean she's not there now. I would have heard about it by now.

Apparently there's a lot of Watto sure really? yeah oh wow there's like a Toydarian toy shop do they talk?

or does he just go like I don't I don't think for the listener at home Emily did something wonderful I can't really describe it I don't think there is like a Watto

she just kind of bopped around like Watto like a character at the theme park I don't think there is like a Watto but I think there's a lot of, like, touches of Watto. There are Toydarian. He just goes. Emily's making a haggle motion.

There's a toy shop which is owned by a Toydarian relative of Watto. Sure. And I think there are a lot of little, like, sort of, like, nods to Watto around the place. Watto's ghost. A towel. Right. But, like, that But like that character, they're like,

they're on vacation. Now the store is just being run by the human employees. There's another store run by a hammerhead alien. Cool. Where there is a fucking animatronic hammerhead alien

like sitting in the corner of the shop. Oh my God. Making sure you're not stealing shit. Yeah. Oh. I want to go. I want to go. I want to go. It's like someone who has no interest in theme parks,

them being like, it looks like it's got like cantinas and shit. I'm like, yes, yes. What cost? And like the bathrooms are themed. Sure. Of course. Love it.

Like when you read about like the food shit, it sounds unbelievable. Right. Like how much thought they've put into it. Yeah. Which, you know, the blue milk is not a dairy product it better be soy or almond or something

I've heard it's very surprising oat milk? I've heard it's very surprising is that an oat milk? is it bananas? I don't know cause Emily you don't like dairy I don't but if I could have the well yeah I mean it's actually a little bit I actually at this point know all the things that I can eat in Disney parks.

But like the Star Wars menu is like there's like a lot of like sort of vegan gluten-free options. Better be, yeah. We're in space. Yeah. Like there's no milk in space. They go to the castle in the sky and there's cool robots on it. Robots have moss on their shoulders. Can we talk about that?

And those little fox creatures. What are they called? They're fucking cool is what they are. They're like the same from Nausicaa too, yeah? Aren't they the same as well? Little yellow foxes. Or very, very similar to the little guy that she has.

Yes. Yeah. They're little Pokemon types. They're so cute. They look kind of like Eevees. Yeah. They are little Eevees. Stripey Eevees.

They are, according to the Miyazaki wiki, the same. Wow. They are the same as Taito, who's the fox in Nausicaa. I do like that there's like a bestiary,

a Miyazaki bestiary that carries over from different... Oh, they're so good looking. They're very handsome. They got little like emerald eyes. They are very Pokemon though, right? Yeah, totally. Like it looks like a little eevee yeah um yeah because there's that those guys and the like soot sprites show up in a couple different movies there's like a there's some carryover sure um but yeah uh that that part yeah that part is like the best

it is kind of the best part of the movie. Them getting there. Just so quiet. There's another, there's another thing in this article I read where it was like, some journalist was like, I guess a Japanese journalist, like when the film came out was like,

why didn't they kiss when they landed on the, when they landed on the, on the castle? And he's like, he's like,'s like i think his response was hollywood has poisoned your mind i mean he says that when he's like ordering breakfast to be fair um but yeah i mean but i i do like i i think i think it's nice that it's like they it's like it's like a it's like a it's not a non-romantic relationship, but it's like a kid's romantic relationship.

It's like when you have a boyfriend when you're in elementary school or whatever. And like when they hit that beat, they just laugh. And it's the most joyous thing in the world. Like they're just really happy to be there. They love that you can see the sky from the castle in the sky. Yeah. Kazoo was so excited. He said, look, the sky. Right. Yeah. I've had a lot of sky the castle in the sky. Yeah. Kazoo was so excited. He said, look! The sky!

Right. Yeah. I was like, I've had a lot of sky the last couple days. That's not the main draw here for me. But they wander around. They see that, like, they're still scared of the robots, I guess, and then they realize, like, oh, here, like, all they do is

garden. They're gardening bots. They just maintain the landscape oh that beautiful thing where they think he's gonna throw out the ship and instead yeah he's fixing it yeah oh yeah he's yeah yeah he's making sure the eggs aren't hurt oh it's the only kind of guy i like an unhurt egg yeah right your opinion on eggs is never hurt them never hurt them yeah that's that's why yeah um they're just such just a kind robot like i love golems of any yes any form and he goes beep boom and then she's like i think he wants us to follow him like yes of course that's that's what that means and just that fantasy when you're a kid of like what if i

found a place that was only for kids or whatever, and we got to explore it ourselves? It's Atlantis, though, too, right? Sure. I mean, that's the obvious. It's any lost, right, sort of ancient kingdom. I'm so glad you said the word Atlantis. You know what other movie I was into about the time that I was into this movie?

Atlantis, The Lost Empire? Fuck yeah. It's a good movie. Which I think they openly acknowledge. Yes. Oh, no, no, no. Atlantis, The Lost Empire? Fuck yeah! It's a good movie. Which I think they openly acknowledge as very influential. Much like, what was it? Grey Mouse Detective is openly inspired by The Castle of Cagliostro.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But yes, this one. It was also, Atlantis was also inspired by I think a kind of semi-contemporary movie with this which was a Hideaki Anno film, Nadia, The Secret of the Blue Water. Ooh, Sounds good. I think the last thing that he did before Evangelion.

That's like an early 90s anime. I thought you were going to say Atlantis was influenced by Atlantis being real. Oh, boy. Is this one of your pet causes? Oh, cool. Plato has

a writing. There's a real Plato passage you can read about him visiting Atlantis. I did an independent research project on Atlantis when I was 12. We're like the biggest Atlantis super fans in the world. It's like Plato having a dialogue

about Atlantis. Y'all fuck with Moo? Lost Continent of Moo? No. I have gone down like a Wikipedia hole about the Lost Continent of Moo. Moo is like Japanese Atlantis. Right. What?

I feel like so many cultures have that myth of the Lost World. I'm sure it kind of has the Atlantis thing, too. It's like the Roman city. It does. It does have the crazy Roman city. Right. The Land of Moo. Is it a water city? has the Atlantis thing too. It's like the Roman city. It does. It does have the crazy Roman city. The land of Mu. Is it a water,

is it a water city? Well, it's like a water, it's like a continent. It's like a big old, you know, that was just off the coast, you know,

in this Pacific Ocean, right? Like it's, it's Pacificus space, right? I feel like we went down the Mu rabbit hole on Night Call because ofcall because of

because of Mew on the ancient Mew we stan have you seen that fucking interview where Bill Nighy keeps saying the ancient Mew in like reverential tone he loves it

I've really gotten into Pokemon and you know this character the ancient character, the Ancient Mew. The Ancient Mew. Just says it so perfectly. Oh, that's great. What a great movie that was. Yeah. So there's this.

Yeah. They have a nice little interlude there before the grown-ups show up. Which I love. Because when the grown-ups come, they start fucking everything up and stealing all the treasure. Yeah. It gets much more madcap then. But there's a nice moment where they go and find the grave that the robots have been taking care of. Of all the last remaining people in Laputa.

And then I guess the guys show up. The Goliath shows up. And they have the guys show up. The Goliath shows up. And they have the pirate's prisoner captive. And they, I don't know. Then it just gets like very. It's just when it gets crazy. Yeah, it just gets crazy. The amulet is going, you know, trading hands.

And there's the spells that are sort of. We've sort of forgotten to mention. But anytime she says one of these sort of like old nursery rhymes, she remembers something fucking crazy happened she's got a bad spell she has to learn the bad spells to make the good spells stronger which is good

and that way the bad spells are set up as a sort of like don't cross the streams thing of like you know she knows how to do it but they've said the whole movie that it's not an option yeah they walk through some walls I know she knows how to do it. But it's no good. They've said the whole movie that it's not an option. Yeah. Yeah.

They walk through some walls. Oh, yeah. So the thing about the castle is that, like, or the city in the sky is that it's, like, very technologically advanced. And they, like, you can be indoors and it looks like you're outdoors. There's a thing where they, like, have all the little outlines of windows, but they're inside, and it's all, like, jungly and stuff. It's so cool. It's like a biodome.

It's a biodome. Palshore is there. There are all these doors that they can just, like, say spells at and open them, and it's very cool. Very D&D. Very D&D, yeah.

Love it. But they're trying to, Muska's trying to find the big crystal that like when the jewel's out Ben's cool Muska's looking for

that jewel well he's trying to find yeah he needs a crystal the power is jewel yeah yeah what if that was his ultimistic I just

doesn't get to me quick enough honestly then a check out I'm like okay he does look like a I get it yeah what get to me quick enough honestly then a check out he does look like a a jewel lord what if we added to the blank track pictures slate an animated adventure about Ben looking for

a jewel looking for a pod no like a jewel that will power his jewel like he wants a better vape and he has to like go I love it. Sounds like one of those direct-to-video DuckTales movies that I watched a lot of when I was a kid. The crystal of the vape.

I swim in jewel pods. I have a big tank of jewel pods. But I need to get a crystal or a diamond jewel pod. I just want to make sure that we have a Ben movie that is accessible for children. Because we're going to have some harder edged R-rated Ben films. Parents are going to have to explain to their kids like, I know it's Ben, you love Ben, but you can't see this one yet.

This is Todd Phillips Ben. This is an out of continuity, twisted Ben movie. You can watch the one about the jewel pods. The jewel pods. The jewel pods. Jewel pods. One thing that happens is that Pazu has to rescue pirates. And so he finds a way. And the castle's crumbling every single time they try to walk anywhere in it. And he's crawling his way up a column and then finds his way under the bricks that are right underneath where Dola is sitting cross-legged.

And he blows like a grenade in there and it makes a little poot. And she's like, oh, it wasn't me. I didn't fart. And that's a line. That's a line from the movie. Really good job. But then the brick loosens and he gives her the information of where they have to do their escape and sets her free.

There's that idea. This thing is over. It is over. That's why it's okay to destroy it, because it's like, it's time has passed. Right, yeah. It's like a weird floating relic. Right, but I do like that after that, he says that he became a man.

That was his moment. That was his bar mitzvah. That was his moment. Can I say about Flying Fortresses it's I hate heights and it's very stressful when he is like

about to fall I feel like throughout the movie characters relationship to heights is like so different than ours

right and it's just like oh what an annoyance I'm hanging over like you know 20,000 feet up from the ocean yeah that's so stuck out to what an annoyance. I'm hanging over like 20,000 feet up from the ocean. Yeah.

That's so stuck out to me. Like our psychology. I'm like, ah, he's going to fall. Like even when all the soldiers are falling, like I really feel it. That's another thing that makes this movie just feel so fucking big in a way that's very difficult to do in live action

because of expenses, where it's just like any time they're in or on such a large thing and you're aware of how high above the ground they are and how much they're like empty space there's around them or how many enemies there are around or any of those things like the scale of the thing is always very daunting. When it starts to blow because she says the magic word. They do it together.

They do it together. Holding hands. It's sort of like it sheds all of this sort of corruptible part I guess of the castle. Because obviously there's a civilization that was here and they had the power to like destroy worlds. They do like a test of it to like it has nukes basically.

Like they can blow up the world with it if they want, which is why the military wants it. But, you know, if they don't exist anymore, like, something went wrong in that society. Which is the best kind of myth. Like, right, that there were, like, advanced people, like, long ago. And something happened to them. That's what the Atlantis myth is. Like, that's why it went down, right? It's like they did something.

It's not this thing of, like, we must discover it. Like, something went wrong, but, like, we should try to bring it. Sorry. Sorry. I wish I could just say vals and twitter would disappear that would be amazing um but uh yeah it's it's it's not this thing of like oh we've got to find this magical place because it's it's a utopia it's the best place it's like no it does represent something that doesn't work that it exists yeah it shouldn't exist right we have to figure this out yeah we have to get back there or live there but i mean you know obviously the pirates are like it's got jewels and uh muska is like it's got nukes or

whatever it's got jewels yeah right yeah uh he's one of the only characters to die like you said it's rarer than Miyazaki villain he is also royalty he reveals this to her they're like cousins or something like that so he wants to go back because he wants to own it and rule it so it's just that old Miyazaki thing

you can't get too big for your britches power corrupts. Absolutely. And yeah. And then they destroy it. And they I needed to look this up. I mean, the animation of it falling apart and all the soldiers falling off it and all those bricks falling down one by one was like one of famously one of the most painstaking and time-consuming beats of animation at the time it's crazy um insane yeah god so that's animation is weird um i've already talked about this just

seems very painstaking and annoying to me yeah it's uh nuts yeah it's bad for your body right doing anything over and over and over and over and over again is bad for your body. You know what I mean? Yeah. It basically just ends. It does end. After that, all the army scurries back onto their thing and the rest of them fall into the ocean from a great height. Pirates leave.

The pirates leave, but they say goodbye. They part ways. Pazzo and Sheena go off on their little glider and they wave. And the guys are in their bug ship and it's chained together and they all wave and that's it. And everybody agrees

it was a great adventure. But the credits is just like still floating. Yeah. Because it's just a tree then with like the crystal holding it up. Another giant tree also. Yeah. Fucking cool. Another giant tree also. We love giant trees.

Very, very good and fun movie. You think so? Yeah. There's no problem with this movie. No, I agree with that. I agree with that too. Right. What can you say?

I mean. Right. They did it. They fucking went to the cast list. Yeah. Everyone's good. All the characters are good. They fucking went to the cast list. Everyone's good. All the characters are good. They're great.

They're sky pirates. Let's not forget that they're sky pirates. People forget that all the time. I guess it's less funny than some music, but it's still funny. It's still got some funny stuff. It's funny. Well, whatever.

I think that it's funny enough in the places that it's funny. I agree. I like that it's just like a straightforward, like, earnest adventure. Yeah. I mean, all of them are straightforward, earnest adventures, but this one is just like, what if it was just like a great yarn or something? And I don't know why, like, I mean, i don't know why it is one of my favorites because it is it's like i i said to you david it's like my classic favorite um which is the only way i

can really put it because i feel like i i always have you know a rotating hierarchy of what ones i'm i'm i'm digging more than others i mean like he is this one's just always in there right yeah this one is usually one or two this is the crystal around which the others might revolve. Yeah. I mean, like, I do like Spirited Away a lot. Yeah. This one feels, it's like that thing where it's like, Spirited Away belongs to everybody, and this one I kind of feel like belongs to me a little bit.

I mean, not in a possessive way at all. No, I'm not a bad fan. Spirited Away is obviously. It's more in the culture and everything. The sort of canonical, like, yeah, right. That's the one, right? But that is the one. The merch that I was going to bring.

It's great. There's so many different ways you can evaluate how good each one of them is. Sure. And I think that one is probably the best at like all three of those things, whatever they are. Right. I really want to re-watch The Wind Rises

because I think that might be like The thing is incredible. one of the best. That's one I just don't want to look upon too much because it's so devastating and amazing. It's so different. What an ending it's going to be for us. Oh my God.

I mean, obviously, he has his next movie that will probably come out next year. Yeah. Supposedly, it's coming out around the time of the Olympics. It's going to be synced up for that. Right. And it's Ice Age 7. It's called How Do You Live. How Do You Live, which is a good title.

Yep. That's a good one to go out on if that's truly what you're going out on. Is there a plot or story? It's a novel. It's based on a book. It's based on a book, and it's about a book called How Do You Live? So is it like his Think Like a Man? Yeah, right.

Yes. Miyazaki's like, have you tried frying an egg? Toshio Suzuki revealed looking to spice up in the bedroom try planes Toshio, this is crazy Toshio Suzuki who's like the long time executive

revealed that Miyazaki is working on the film for his grandson as a way of saying, quote, Grandpa is moving on into the next world soon, but he's leaving this film behind because he loves you. Wow. Wow. I mean, like, almost any detail about Miyazaki will sort of fuck you up. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like, you know, just. I mean, you've seen the documentary where they show him the CGI and he says that it's an insult to life itself. Yeah. Which I just always think of. Have you seen that? I've got to show it to you, Griffin. Oh, man. There's a documentary on the lastest of the box set we have, right?

So is that the one you're talking about? I think that's the earlier one. There's two. I didn't know that that was from a documentary. Oh. There's two documentaries. There's the one. There's the Kingdom of...

Kingdom of Dreams, right. Dreams and Madness. Madness, yeah. Which is so good and it makes me ball. Yeah. It is so good. It's the one where it ends

where he's like kind of looking out and he's like, how beautiful. Like, Ghibli, it doesn't mean anything. Ghibli was just a name. I can't remember.

I got a point. No, but it really... One of the last moments of it, which is great and I think I feel like I had this little clip that they put together in my head before I even saw it. It was just like how

I thought of his films. He's about to give his announcement that he's at a press conference to just announce his retirement or that he's like made his last film or that Ghibli is shutting down one of those three um and he's like waiting to go out and he's looking out of this window across Tokyo and just like the rooftops and he's he's just like musing to himself like um oh like look at those roofs like if um if I if I was if this is a movie

I could jump from that little rooftop over there, that corner to this other one. I don't want to like, I won't do it justice. But he like imagines himself like hopping over the roofs and then they cut in like this wonderful short little sequence of like all the different, I'm going to like choke up, all the different like Ghibli characters just like running over roofs and stuff like that. It's like so beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's so good. I'm like, I've never cried on my truck before. I love it. Hey, man.

You got to work those tears for Blank Chick and the Blankies. Well, now that you're already crying, what was the merch spotlight? Oh, my God. The merch spotlight. No, the merch spotlight is also very goopy of me. Not goop like Gwyneth Paltrow. Or Gooigi.

Recently announced Goo version of Luigi. Gooigi? The new Luigi game is going to have a character made of Goo who looks like Luigi called Gooigi and that's all that I have to tell you about that. I just think it's pretty cool. I just like the idea of Goo versions of ourselves. I have to cry some more now.

I just want to say it's a little similar to the tick cartoon where the tick gets sick and there's a mucus tick who's a green gooey mucus version of himself. A perfect mucus clump. That sounds funny. Oh my god. No, the merch spotlight was just a little music box. It's not

a music box. With the mossy robot? No, it's of the castle. And it rotates and it has Shida and Patsu where he's holding her up. You know? And it plays the theme and it rotates. It's like a ceramic thing. And my high school boyfriend gave it to me!

Wow. Retired bit. I don't know what else to say about that. See, I was looking because after we did Cagliostro, I went and bought a Lupin action figure. And then watching this, I was like, that's a good mossy rubbit stuff. You want that mossy rubbit.

And this looked really nice, which it says it's a music box tray of the rubbit. But it's like a nice little sculpture. Oh, that is cool. Yeah, I like that. Did you guys look up the- There are a bunch of these online. Yeah, there's a lot of robots.

You can look for them. I know. I'm going to get some sort of mousey rubbit friend. Did you look up the one on the roof, though? No. Oh, you got to look it up. Real-time reaction. This is from, okay.

What, the museum? Yeah, just like Robot Ghibli Museum. Okay. Real time reaction. This is from, okay. What, the museum? Yeah, just like robot Ghibli museum. Okay. You need to have a person next to it to really. Museum, rub it. Oh my God. I also want to go to the. Wow.

I just got. Oh, it's so big. He's really big. He's made of metal. He's a big boy. I also, I want to see that caterpillar thing that only plays at the museum that he made

it's like a little short film Borrow the Caterpillar that little caterpillar yeah they play all the shorts no it sounds like blank check is

going to Japan it's the place that I've always wanted to go that my fear of flying has always like been the biggest that's why I'm doing

all this research on how far he looks he looks very cool. He kind of reminds me of the little guys in Castle in the Sky. There's the funny little like, ronin guys that jump into the water. There's some funny

creatures. So good at creatures. He's so good with the creatures. The second documentary is about him making that. Where he's basically retired and he's so obsessive about the details of the Caterpillar's movement. Yeah. But then also, I mean, there's that Spirited Away special feature where he makes ramen for the whole crew. That's one of the best things of all time.

It's one of the great works of cinema. I watched that video. Where they're all so scared. They're like, Mr. Miyazaki is making lunch today. And he calls it like poor man's ramen when he drops all these eggs in it you would love it um and what else does he put in it it's like this big vat and then everybody is like we were we were really like tired and losing hope because we like we're up against this deadline but now we're strong and

we can go back to work for another 12 hours i mean and make like obviously i didn't mention before but we talked about you know like apatsu in this movie he's a hard worker like we're introducing he's got a work ethic like spirit away which is my favorite miyazaki movie is about like a girl learning a work ethic like that is her spiritual transformation she learns the value of work she can't she can't doesn't have an identity until she has her work. I have never seen a more inspirational mopping sequence than in fucking Spirited Away.

Where you're like, she's fucking mopping, that's it. It's gonna be clean. There's not really a box office game we can do for this. Excuse me.

What? Let's do the Turkish box office from 2007 when this movie finally came out in Turkey. I mean, I love this. Okay, great. I will say that I have not been

rushing you guys along too aggressively because now I feel a sense of competition with Alex Ross Perry. Oh, boy, I knew this was going to happen. Oh, you want the longest step? It's going to be this arms race between JD and you. No, let's talk about Booksmart.

Like, let's just get into it. What are we at now? We're at two hours. Turkish box office. Turkish box office. And this is 2007. I just like, you know, there's a re-release of Castle in the Sky on box office mojo that came out last year. No fun.

No fun. But this one is Julyuly 13th 2007 and i want to point out to you that at this time the exchange rate was one dollar to 1.2 turkish lira that's big just want to point that out to you and i feel like this is just one one dollar to 1.2 turkish lira okay this is just around the time that studios are starting to go more day and date but these might not totally sync up with what was playing in the States in July. Right. These are 2070 movies, but I don't know about. Right.

Okay. I love that. So Castle in the Sky opened number 45. It made $589 on one screen. Because this is a pure guesswork. I have no memory of these box office charts, obviously. The Turkish box office? I don't.

You're not finally acquainted with? No. Okay. Number one is a big old fucking movie that- How much did you talk about it? We had never talked about it. I suppose we could. It's Turkish gross to date after two weeks is $1.4 million.

Okay. It's worldwide gross total if you take it all together maybe don't tell me that maybe I just want to go off the Turkish number it's an American movie you feel like we could talk about it at some point we could it would be one of our more trying miniseries in my opinion it's been floated

is it part of a franchise it's the beginning of a franchise that now numbers 5 movies and 1 spin off Michael Bay's Transformers. Michael Bay's Transformers. Have you seen it? Yes. Emily. Saw it in theaters. With Shia. Saw it with Shia.

Did you see Honey Boy at Sundance? I did. That opening shot of this movie that's not out yet, but will come out this year, where it's Lucas Hedges on the set of Transformers, and he's in a rig, and he gets blown. And I was just like, is this movie going to be about them making Transformers? Because I'm all in., where it's Lucas Hedges on the set of Transformers and he's in a rig and he gets blown. And I was just like, is this movie going to be about the making of Transformers? Because I'm all in.

I mean, it basically kind of is. It kind of is, but I wanted it. I was like, just do that. I don't care about your childhood. I want a Michael Bay character. I want this to be about Transformers. I want Megan Fox. His childhood was really weird.

Having seen Honey Boy, agree. Agree. The concept of Honey Boy is, Shia LaBeouf's childhood was really weird. Having seen Honey Boy? Agree. Agree. The concept of Honey Boy is Shia LaBeouf's childhood was really weird. Yeah, that's right. That's about what you can take away from it.

And he plays his own weird dad. Yes, he does. What a weird movie. It will come out. It will. Do you remember that Vanity Fair cover from this summer

that was like a new star has landed and it was Shia LaBeouf the next Tom Hanks and it was Shia LaBeouf the next Tom Hanks and it was Shia LaBeouf in a in a space suit holding a helmet in the middle of the desert I do yes and it was just like I remember that here you go you have no say in the matter here's your new Tom Hanks and he's the captain yeah he was the captain it is kind of crazy he was the eagle I know his run was so strong for a little while there. It's just a little while, but it's three or four years of people being like, I guess they like him.

Because the movies keep doing well. And then it kind of quickly became clear, like, they never really liked him. Well, you know the one that was kind of. He's just in such a huge movie. He was in big movies. Yeah. But the one that was weird to me was Eagle Eye. Eagle Eye, where it's like

nobody wants to watch this shit and it like grossed a hundred million yeah it came out in September and made a hundred million dollars and then I was like I guess he is the guy

but that's one of those phantom hundred million dollar grossers where you're like no if I cornered the director of it I'd be like remember Eagle Eye

he'd be like what? it's a silent majority a hundred million dollar grosser yeah exactly and Disturbia had

come out before Transformers well Disturbia is good Disturbia is kind of fun yeah Disturbia is a good movie yeah but. And Disturbia had come out before Transformers. Well, Disturbia is good. Disturbia is a good movie. Disturbia is good because Rear Window but X is always going to be pretty good. It's pretty much the best premise of a movie.

You know what movie fucks? Rear Window? Yeah, the best. Rear Window is great. I think that's the best Hitchcock. And I'm always surprised that Vertigo has the reputation that I think Rear Window would have. But I think Rear Window once was sort of atop the heap, and Vertigo became the cool choice like 50 or so years ago.

It was more like the film kid's choice. Because Vertigo is a... Twisted. It is twisted. I remember my mom saying to me when I was a kid, like, it's the scariest movie of all time Rear Window?

Really? Vertigo Oh Vertigo? And then right and then when I she showed it to me I was like well this isn't what I expected

because I had a different concept of scary movies but then when he's like shaking her you know and he's lost it at the end she was like it's so scary and I was like

I mean she's right it's very scary I had seen Rear Window like you Window on DVD on my TV in my bedroom. And then when I went for my one semester and change of film school, the classic

film history professor was going to screen Rear Window. And he was like, have you seen Rear Window before? And I was like, yeah, yeah, I've seen it. I've watched it on DVD. And he was like, you haven't seen it in a theater? And I was like, no. And he was like, have you seen Roy Windham before? And I was like, yeah, yeah, I've seen it. I've watched it on DVD. And he was like, you haven't seen it in a theater?

And I was like, no. And he's like, then you haven't really seen Roy Windham. And I was like, what's this smoke

that's blowing up my eyes? But it is one of those movies where I saw it in a theater where he asked everyone in the audience that same question and like,

I'd say 90% of the people in the room rose their hands and when it got to the shot where Raymond Burr slowly turns around and makes direct

eye contact with you the audience member pretty great the entire audience gasped and I was like that's incredible that 90% of this audience

has seen it before but they've never right but that movie is so keyed into the psychology of watching a movie that watching it

in a theater where you're like stuck with it, sitting in a chair in the dark like Jimmy Stewart, it just pays out like a fucking slot machine. It does. I get so jealous of those audiences. They were just like, well, let's go see Jimmy Stewart. He sees a murder or something. Right. Sounds great. And when people were like, ah, it's some dumb popcorn trash.

Yeah, right, right. I mean, Man for All Seasons, that's my number one of the year, but let's see this weird window. Right. Yeah. It's no, the great Ziegfeld. That's like 30 years. I know, I'm just talking about movies that won Best Picture and were seen as serious films.

Right. Alright, number two at the box office is the third in a franchise. So, like, Transformers is like a day and date. I guess so, yeah. It's been in theaters for five weeks. It's made $3.3 million in Turkey. Is it Spidey 3? Nope.

Is it Pirates 3? Nope. This was the summer of all the three worlds. It's Shrek the third. It's Shrek the third. Oh my God. May 2007 was Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Shrek 3. And people were like, can the box office handle three movies this big?

All these threes. I think it's a month. Threes company. That was the headline in the Variety article. Oh my God. I don't know. I think that's a month that kind of ruined Hollywood. Because people were like,

one of these movies is going to bomb. Not all three of them could do well. And then all three of them made a billion dollars. And everyone was like, hmm. Forever? Shrek the Third I have not seen not seen as my last year in college i did see spidey 3 and pirates 3 but i did not see shrek i kind of half watched shrek 3 on dvd once and it is really hard to watch sure i'm sure like really unengaging it's the dark phoenix of the shrek saga where you're right you're like your eye can't even focus on

the images i'm probably not gonna see dark phoenix you guys you really don't there's no reason it's too bad though i mean i've seen every single x-men movie that's come out i am weirdly faithful to them even when i know they're going to be terrible but i mean like you can't you can watch it on hbo or whatever right like some point right i don't know I don't know. I don't know. I like going to the theater and seeing an X-Men. If you like going to the theater and seeing an X-Men, Dark Phoenix will fulfill that very basic promise. See, I'm going to argue you on that point. You think it doesn't even do that?

Because I like, the X-Men movies were so fucking pivotal for me. Yeah, they were super important for me. They're really what got me into comic books and superheroes in general. I wasn't much of a comics reader until I saw the first movie. Right.

And so even the shitty ones, I feel some like nostalgia activation. Yeah, yeah. This is like a franchise that's like carried me through and I felt fucking nothing save for maybe one sequence

watching this. That's such a bummer. The first sequence was the one where I was like, oh, X-Men. There's one good space action sequence where you're like, oh, great. They got powers. Space action sequence though. I don't was like, oh, X-Men. There's one good space action sequence where you're like, oh, great.

They got powers. Space action sequence, though. I don't know. No, it's great. Stay in space. All right, yeah. I am feeling like this is the summer where I might just not see a lot of the big movies. Why would you see these movies?

That's my point, is I usually feel some sort of weird, perverse obligation to go see them all. And I'm like, what if I just don't see Aladdin? What if I don't see Men in Black? Have you seen Aladdin? I haven't seen either of them. I'm not going to see Aladdin. I'm not going to go see them on. I'm like, what if I just don't see Aladdin? What if I don't see Men in Black? Have you seen Aladdin? I haven't seen either of them. I'm not going to see Aladdin. I'm not going to see The Lion King. The only reason I saw Beauty and the Beast

is because I had to for work. But guess who doesn't have a job now? Hey, let's high five on that. Unemployed boys. Yeah. How the tables have turned. I'm very cancelled now I've been cancelled

yeah your time was was nigh my time was nigh yeah well I saw all the films you guys just mentioned

and they're all pretty bad yeah so there you have it Aladdin is the one I would see of the garbage plate you just mentioned but I feel like

I'll fucking watch it on a plane yes you will or I'll watch it on Disney Plus I'm not saying you have to. But I feel like I'll fucking watch it on a plane. Yes, you will. I'm not saying you have to. I'm just saying, point a gun at me, which would you pick? At least that movie has Will Smith in it. I do like Will Smith.

I don't know. I'm always making a disgusted face. I mean, I like Will Smith. Yeah, yeah. It is still the millennium. It is still. We've got another 900 odd years of this millennium to deal with. We are living in the millennium.

Number three of the box office is a fourth. It's a fourth? People complain about sequels now, my friend. I know, 12 years ago. It's a fourth. But it's been a while. I think it's been. Shrek the fourth.

Yeah, that's right. They did them simultaneously. They were like, who fucking cares? Do you know what the original title for... Because it's called Shrek 4 Ever After. Wasn't it Shrek Goes Forth? Yeah, which I really like because then I wanted Shrek 5 to be Shrek Pleads the Fifth.

That was my huge joke at the time. I was dining out on that joke. A huge joke. 2007. How much money were people giving you for that joke? He was dining out on Ritz crackers. I would go to restaurants and then I'd clink my glass. I'd go, excuse me?

And they'd go, sir, your meal is on the house. No one was paying me money, but I was dining out on the joke. Yay. Oh, boy. This is the fourth. Okay. I recently read an interview with the guy who plays the villain in this movie where he was like

Timothy Oliphant live here die hard it was so good did you read that interview it's a great interview it's the Zoller Seitz interview I've been reading all the Oliphant interviews where he was just like I bought a house and then they cancelled Deadwood and so I was just like to my agent like

look whatever's out there I just bought a house and they were like you want to be Die Hard guy? He's like, yeah, whatever, whatever. I'll be Die Hard guy. Right. And then he talks about, like, I did the bald video game movie, which he means Hitman. Right. And he was like, look, it's a bad movie.

I didn't like making it, but I learned a lot about, like, being a star and, like, you have to carry this fucking thing. You know what I mean? He's the best. Yeah, I love that when he talks about these things, it sounds like he can't remember the titles of them. He just remembers the experience. But the other thing is, he said he's like,

I have no sort of pretension of being too good for movies like that. Yeah, right. And I have no desire to need to be the sexy leading man. I love playing villain roles. I love being in big things. He's like, those two, I didn't figure them out. He's like, I didn't come up with anything interesting for Die Hard.

He's like, I admit I look at that, it's really fucking boring. It's not an interesting performance. He's good in Scream 2. He's a great villain in that. Yeah, but that's like a real... No, I know. I'm just thinking of Olyphant. What do you think of Olyphant?

My perfect Cyclops. I don't know. I haven't watched any of the shows he's in. He'd love the shows. He'd love the shows. I mean, I'm told. Emily, you should. Wait, nobody's ever told me to watch Deadwood.

Weird. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not talking. I mean, you should watch Deadwood. It's a good show. Justified. I'm re-watching Justified. Yeah, no, people told me to watch Justified, too.

Because after I saw Booksmart, I was so hyped up about Caitlin Dever. She's on Justified, too? Yeah, man. And, like, that was where I first saw her in something. And so I was like, Joanna, we're watching Justified because she'd never seen it. And like, we're going to get to

Caitlin Dever in season two. Is Jeremy Davies on it too? Yeah. Oh, I gotta watch it. It's so good. You know what Oliphant performance would have gotten

a Griffey nomination? Would have made the five? Made the five. Tough to make the five. Supporting actor? Cynthia Oliphant, Girl Next Door oh yeah he's great

that's an incredible performance he's so good in that okay number three the box office so that's number three Live Free or Die Hard number four is a

was it released there as because I know in a lot of foreign countries it was released under the title Die Hard 4.0 oh you know what it doesn't specify that on box office mojo

but it may have been 4.0 because Live Free or Die Hard is not a good title anyway, but it's a very American reference to the state motto of New Hampshire. A state in which that film does not take place.

But as we all know, Live Free or Die Hard was actually based on a script that was just called www3.com. Yep. Because that's how they made3.com. Yep. Because that's how they made Die Hard movies. Someone just wrote a movie about cyber terrorism or whatever,

and they were like, John McClane's in this. With a Vengeance was a script called Simon Says, and they were like, I'm going to buy that, make it a Die Hard. That's the magic of Die Hard, that Die Hard was such a thing that people would be like, it's Die Hard, but this, and then they would just be a Die Hard movie. Wait a second, as for Deadline, Die Hard 6 announced adapted from Night Eggs by Ben Huss. He's not looking at anything on this phone. There's nothing on his phone right now.

I just want to clarify. That's real. Come on. I was trying to. A little theater. A little theater I was doing there. Number four at the box office is another sequel. It's a second.

This game. It's a second. This game. This is a particularly dire. It's really rough. 2007 is, even though there are a lot of good movies. Why don't we figure out something else that we can do for box office? We're almost done.

We're almost done. We're almost done. You want to do something else? She wants to hit the time. What? You want to hit that run time. Hey, you're nowhere near. Yeah.

Emily's just like, so yeah, what's up with you guys? Favorite sandwiches? Number five is another sequel another number four is a sequel number four that there's never been a third movie but much like you were talking about Shrek

has this has a fun naming convention that I'd love to see them just keep going oh man it's the naming convention is so good think like a man

too good call but no yeah also you think like a man as well but also is so good. Think Like a Man. Two. Good call. But no. Yeah, also. Think Like a Man as well. But also. Think Like a Man.

No, it's a movie about Zombs. Zombs. It's a movie about Zombs? Zombs. Z-O-M-B-Z. Is that a good naming convention? Hell yeah. There's only two of them.

They never made a third. They talked about making a third. They only made two of yeah. There's only two of them. They never made a third. They talked about making a third. They only made two of them. They only made two of them. They're by different directors. Yeah, I know what it is. What is it? It's, uh... Oh, no, I was almost going to say...

My brain's broken now. I was going to say it was the day after tomorrow. But it's that idea. Oh, it's 28 weeks later. 28 weeks later. I've always wanted to see 28 months later. And then 28 years later. And then hell, if you want to go crazy, like 28 fucking centuries.

28 millenniums later. Like, it's just such a good idea. That's kind of weird they never made a third one. They talked about it. I think 28 weeks later never made quite enough money. But it was one of those things where I feel like it made the exact same amount of money as 28 Days Later, but 28 Days Later was seen as a surprise. Well, it was a surprise.

Right. Which meant that 28 Weeks had probably a bigger budget. Higher expectations. Yeah. But no, 28 Days Later made $45.82 worldwide, and 28 Weeks only made $28. Really? $64 worldwide. Anyway, number five is a movie called Whisper

directed by Stuart Hendler starring Josh Holloway, Joel Edgerton, Michael Rooker. You are mistaken because that movie doesn't exist. I'll say this, like movie stars and even people who you would think are below the status of

movie stars carry a lot more weight in foreign countries. Right. Right. Right. Like I remember hearing, uh, uh,

uh, Michael Barker showing pictures. Classics had, okay. Uh, talk once. Okay. And he was talking about the Kenneth Branagh,

uh, uh, whatchamacallit, um, uh, sleuth movie. Uh, yes.

Which bombed so fucking hard indeed and they were like Rana and Kane and Jude Law and Michael Caine right

and uh they were like well like that was a misstep for you right and he was like no because I did the math and I knew the five countries

in which Michael Caine has never had a flop wow and he was just like in like Turkey Bulgaria like South Korea like he was like these are five countries in which no Michael Caine has never had a flop. Wow. And he was just like, in like Turkey. Bulgaria. Like South Korea. Like he was like,

these are five countries in which no Michael Caine movie has ever made under this amount of money and I made it back and it didn't even matter that it didn't make any money in the States.

Fair enough. Sleuth. Sleuth. You're sleuthing it. Yeah, I guess Michael Rooker's huge into it. Are you sleuthing me? Get the sleuth out of here.

Do you remember that poster that was like Law, Kane, Branagh, Pinter. Because Harold Pinter adapted the screenplay. And I remember there not being graphics on the poster. It was just the four names. Hell yeah. We didn't do well here in the United States of America. In Britain people were like treating that movie like it was

like the next Avengers movie. Sleuth. The original which is Olivier and Kane is a lot of fun. And then Kane jumped to the senior position. That was the period of time where business was booming for Kane remakes. What else did we have? Oh, Alfie. Alfie.

Alfie. You know it, boy. The weird thing about Alfie is that they just remade Alfie. Yeah. So it has the same story structure as this movie about like a 1960s cat. It doesn't really work. It doesn't work. It doesn't work at all.

It used to be, I'll tell you, Jude Law and Alfie, that's how I wanted to look. When that movie came out. They were really taking advantage. He was handsome. I wore scarves all the time

after that movie came out. Right. Oh, like a scarf, like a long knit scarf. Not like a Johnny Depp scarf, but like a winter. He's always wearing like winter scarves, but like tied sort of like necktie.

Like Ascotty. Yeah, I did that all the time indoors in high school. Cool. One time someone told me I look like Jude Law and I was like, cool, I'm doubling down on this.

You got the cheekbones. Whoa, baby. You do. I'll take that. I'll take that right to the bank. I'm canceled. you got the cheekbones whoa baby you do I'll take that I'll take that right to the bank I'm cancelled Emily thank you for being here I'm cancelled too guys

look I'm happy to stay here for another hour because I too I am cancelled yeah weird weird just having nothing huh really weird feeling

well you know what I gotta do what I gotta go see toy story 4 motherfucker see i was going to that today i was going to go to it because i was uh supposed to do something about it write something about it and uh they wouldn't let me go really well it really does seem to be like a pack because you know who's another person they won't let go? Down, down, Griffey. Interesting. I told them I had an assignment and everything. I'm sorry. Ben's provoking me.

Sorry, finish your story. You told them you had an assignment. No, yeah. I told them I had an assignment. I told them what outlet I was going to be at and everything. And they're like, we can't help you. And I was like, man, I remember the days when you're like, I think we're full, but let's boot out some people who are less important and get you in there.

Right, right. And those days are over now. And so I'm out. I'm out. You know, however, a few hundred dollars, that piece would be. Wow. It's a rough life out here. They're not screening it one more time?

They are screening it one more time, but I'm not going to have enough turnaround time. Yeah. It's next Tuesday, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is all months past by the time, but I've been. Do you want me to bootleg it for you? Mm hmm.

Mm hmm. I'll shoot on my phone. Please get arrested a Toy Story 4. That would be great for the show. For copyright infringement. I worked so hard on that. On trying to get in? Yeah.

Yeah. Fair enough. Not only to this screening. I, the amount of people I was like, because sometimes Disney will give random people a plus one. I was like, got one? You got one? Yeah.

Hey, you got a plus one for my friend Griffin over here? Like, you know, but nobody. Because I'm reviewing it for FilmSpotting, and they couldn't get me in. Right. No one I know could get a plus one. Right. I hired a publicist and asked her to get me into the premiere.

Right. I've not heard from her in months. I think the premiere is today. Okay. That shit may have sailed. That castle might have skied away. I was just texting TC14 photos from the premiere with frowny emojis.

The shit she's gotta put up with. Do you know what her background on her phone is? Mr. Forky. It's Forky. Are you excited for Forky? No, I told you guys before we started recording, I have no fucking clue what this movie is about. I think you mean no forking clue. I have no forking clue what this movie's about.

The trailer is inscrutable to me. I do not understand why it is. I don't understand what I am supposed to care about at this point with vis-a-vis Toy Story and Woody and Buzz and the whole gang who are back, I hear, but... The toys are back in town. That is confirmed at this point. I've been avoiding spoilers, but it has been confirmed that the toys are back in town.

I just, between that and Lion King, I agree with you. I'm out this summer. I'm done. Hobbs and Shaw. Hobbs and Shaw. Once upon a time in Hollywood. I'm also out on The Rock, yo. Like, I don't even like The Rock.

I fucking hate the rock now. Sorry, everybody, but I think he's a fascist. Your piece on Rampage I thought isolated a lot of the problems I've been having with the rock, and you verbalized it all very well, but Hobbs and Shaw feels like more what I want him to be doing, and him moving

away from the stuff that's grossing me out, and working with Colette Sarah feels like a similar move. I'm hoping he's moving away from being. And working with Colette Sarah feels like a similar move. Sure. I'm hoping he's moving away from being... Him working with Colette Sarah feels like a correct move. Right. And that's encouraging.

It's a good union of us. Yeah. To have real directors and not be the only author behind his films because he hires fucking special effects supervisors. This is a fucking ongoing problem

where it's like, I mean, I saw Men in Black International and that thing doesn't feel like anyone but the studios movie. Right. I mean, F. Gary Gray is just sort of like a competent guy who can... He's a guy who used to, I mean, make... Men in Black International, and that thing doesn't feel like anyone but the studios movie. I mean, F. Gary Gray is just sort of like a competent guy who can. It's a guy who used to, I mean, make.

Yeah, but you know what someone pointed out to me that I didn't even realize? This is the second time F. Gary Gray is rebooting a Barry Sonnenfeld movie. Because he made Be Cool. That's crazy. Yeah. Wow. Do you think Barry Sonnenfeld, like, hates him or something? I don't know.

I hope F. Gary Gray does like an Addams Family movie. He should do a fucking Big Trouble remake. Big Trouble 2. I would watch this version of All About Eve. It's Sonnenfeld and F. Gary Gray on opposite sides of the banquet hall staring daggers at each other. It is crazy. It feels like

when he wins his award for Men in Black International. Yes, right. Exactly. Everyone listen to Nightcall. It's good. It's a for Men in Black International. Yes. Right. Exactly. Everyone listen to Night Call. It's good. It's a good thing in this world. There's a Patreon. If you've made it this far,

then please listen to Night Call. Do you have a name for your patrons? I'm a patron. Is there like a fun name for them? No, we... Oh, I'm a seeker. Yeah, we have different names for the tiers

for like how committed you are, basically, to the Nightcall self-improvement model. But somebody suggested the called, but that feels too much like a... feels like stained or some kind of... Like an early 2000s new metal band. Yeah, new metal band. But actually, that would be kind of on brand for us.

I was going to say. But yeah, we are every Monday with me and Molly and Tess Lynch taking calls, talking about weird stuff, occasionally watching movies like

Simone, which is the last movie that we watched for the podcast. So you guys should do Andrew Nichols sometime. Why not? Get a cast. I don't know. I believe, I didn't hear, you were talking about Sim 1

0 Ne. Simulation 1. Al Pacino's in that movie. Al Pacino is the star of that movie. Winona Ryder is also in that movie. Playing an actress named Nicola Andrews.

Okay. And Evan Rachel Wood plays his daughter? Yes. Yeah. I'm sorry, chicken was overcooked. Sim 1 was malfunctioning again. I'm sorry. That's basically it. Made of computer lady. These ones and zeros gotta win an Oscar.

That's essentially the movie. That's a computer lady. These ones and zeros got to win an Oscar. That's essentially the movie. That's a broad comedy. It's a satire on show business and what really goes on behind the scenes. They like a computer now. Little do they know she's a computer. I could just do this all day. This is over. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a prequel to this movie.

Can I just call out what I've now identified as your new bit? Right. Where you say something, you're proud of it, and then you take a sip of the soda cup that you ostensibly should have finished two hours earlier. It's like soggy with what was once in it. You can hear there's nothing in it. It's just you making a slurping sound on

Mike. It's like you're waiting for a laugh. Keep the whistle wet. What in the whistle? Doing a Letterman pen throw? Yeah. It's your pen throw. It's you sipping

on your lemonade okay cast on the sky Emily you're the greatest thank you for having me the mother of blankies I am the mother of blankies

don't let them forget why we never don't you forget well now you guys have all these commentaries and stuff and I feel like they're forgetting

their mother you don't want to come on for what you call a baby book movie I hate to talk about the baby books with my children are you going to do the keep RPG with us though

the keep RPG I emailed you about this a zillion years ago maybe I sent it to the wrong email check your email did you send it to the email to my job that I no longer have I've hit a nerve. Yeah,

we're done. We're done. Bye, everybody. Thank you for listening to our podcast. Hopefully, everyone will have heard you on the Keep RPG episode

two months ago. Yes. And you'll come on when we do Star Wars commentaries. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, sure. Do a Star Wars.

Do a Star. Do a war. Do a war do a war do both yeah alright thank you all for listening please remember to rate, review, subscribe

thanks to Anne for Goodo for her social media Elaine Montgomery for her theme song Jo Bon Pat rounds for artwork go to tpublic.com for some real nerdy shirts and blankies.red.com

for some real nerdy shit and go to our Patreon for content like the RPG episode that hopefully we've already recorded and Emily is a part of uh yes and as always

it's always about the sky