Blank Check with Griffin & David - Hulk

Episode Date: August 19, 2018

This week is all about 2003’s Hulk. The origins of this project. How Ang Lee played the Hulk on set. Our hosts favorite film genre: the bad dad Nick Nolte. The juxtaposition of serious and comic books in the filmmaking. How the hulk hands kid’s toy comes from a somber, meditative family drama about the way our fathers damage us. And the careers of Jennifer Connelly and Eric Bana. This episode is sponsored by [Brooklinen](https://www.brooklinen.com/) CODE: CHECK and WeTransfer. Music courtesy of "Night Court Theme" by Jack Elliott

Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, Here is Nick Nolte. He's my dad. Hulk. He messed with my jeans. Now I turn green. He also fights in the clouds and he made some Hulk dogs. Hulking the Hulk. You're making me podcast. Okay. You wouldn't like me when I i podcast i figured you'd do nolte well i'm gonna do a lot more nolte as we get into this because it's like your thing go with

the most iconic does he say you wouldn't like me does he say that right at the end yes because he only says you're making me angry that first time. It's a towel bit and at the end he says it in Spanish. You know. I took some creative license. No, I'm not criticizing you. I'm criticizing the movie. Impossible. You can't criticize this movie. True, true.

It's an American masterpiece. It's just, can I just, this is sort of a tangent rant. Let's just begin with it. Right off the bat. You know what I mean where movies feel obligated to say a line, right? You know, sometimes this happens. Yes. It's sort of like, oh, it's the iconic line. bad okay you know what i mean where movies feel obligated to say a line right you know sometimes this happens yeah it's sort of like oh it's the iconic line and they try and find like a cute way to do it yeah sometimes it's just a little too cute like oh we'll have him say it in spanish like

bb8 like oh he'll say i'm a bad i have a bad feeling about this we slipped it in there and you're like uh-huh but the first time he says it even even though he doesn't finish it, it's pretty earned. It is. Yes. Yes. Hello, everybody. My name is Griffin Newman. David Sims. This Blank Check with Griffin and David is a podcast about filmography. Directors who have massive success early on in their career and are given a series of

blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. Right. And sometimes they clear and then bounce with this one. Yeah. Sometimes they leap. This one looked like it had cleared. then it was like oh oh oh yes but sometimes your checks bounce through the desert long yep and a cluster bomb harking bounces your eyes close the wind pushing against your green face this is this is the first big blank check movie.

No, no, because I'd say Ride with the Devil. Ride with the Devil, sort of, but that's like a small blank check. Right. But it's a funny one because it's like also, like when he signed on, so many people were like, oh, what has become of cinema

that like this great director is going to do a superhero movie. Like it was a real thing. Yeah. So is it a blank check? um so is it a blank check it's a hundred percent i mean it is the product is yes right yes especially when you read what this movie had been in the previous stages of development for the decade leading up to this agreed but i'm i guess my counter argument is like after spider-man or no i guess spider-man no spider-man yeah was going to be a hit.

They started before Spider-Man. We know that. We talked about it. But still, I guess after X-Men and stuff, like, a studio, you know, giving you money to make a Hulk movie is, you know, like, they do that, right? I got anecdotes. We're going to get into it. Oh, I know.

I know. I know. The movie we're talking about today, it's got a one-word title. Don't you mistitle this movie, because people do, and I hate it. I'm not looking at you, Producer Rachel. Yeah, that's right. She doesn't have a mic, so she can just shrug. We got Producer Rachel here, the queen of the shrugs.

Because Ben is late. Ben is late. He forgot when we were recording in a real griff move. Yeah, really? It was a nice send-off to you. And we got Rachel, who takes none of our bullshit. That is true. Rachel is the Hulk of Audioboom.

We make her angry. She's wearing sort of a greenish hoodie. She is. And drinking out of a purple bottle. Green and purple. The Hulk colors. Don't you feel like you have to be more well-behaved? I guess this applies more for me than you.

When Rachel's here. We're just sitting up straight. I know this applies more for me than you. When Rachel's here. We're just sitting up straight. I know, we're sitting up straight. Let's have a discussion. We're serious men. Of course, we're hashtag the two friends. The two serious men. Hashtag the two serious men is a competitive advantage.

No podcast feature. Self-serious young white men. This film we're talking about, well, no, you were setting up the title and then we went on a long tangent. Yeah. Title of this movie is Hulk.

It is Hulk. Hulk. Which is, now that I never thought about it, but it is odd that it's just called Hulk. Because it was announced as The Hulk and then they were like,

na, na, na, na, na. Lose the the. Yeah. It's cleaner. Cleaner. Yeah. Sean Parker was a producer on this movie. Yeah, of course.

Doing a miniseries on the films of Ang Lee. It's called Broke Pod Mountcast. Right. Yeah. Every time I'm preparing to say the title of the miniseries. You always forget if it's Pod Broke Mount, Podcast Mount. No, I just worry I'm going to fuck it up and it feels like i've just noticed a deer in the middle of the road like i'm trying to slow down or swerve around it broke pot mount

cast you did it i did it um this is my favorite angley film by a nautical mile that's that's interesting it's not my favorite angley film no no but you know i love this film i i don't know i know it's a favorite of yours i don't know if i'd argue it's his best sure like you know i love this film i i don't know i know it's a favorite of yours i don't know if i'd argue it's his best sure like you know qualitatively but i i he's made so many good movies he's made a lot this podcast has been huge for me in terms of like realizing re-watching all those movies exactly and just being like wow like he's not like a an eight out of ten director he's like a consistent nine or 10 out of 10 director. He throws fastballs. He really does.

Yeah. I mean, the latter half is a little mixed. Gets a little gamey. But up to here, it really has been. And we might go against the popular consensus on some of the later half stuff. Maybe. You think so?

Are you thinking of Life of Pi? Yeah. I think that's the only one where there is a popular... I mean, unless you hate Brokeback Mountain. Maybe you've been nursing that. I think there are certain types of people who hate Brokeback Mountain. Okay.

I don't know. Brokeback haters? No, I mean, you remember at the time, all the people were like, John Wayne would be spitting in his grave. Fakely. I hated those people. A bunch of David Banners, they were... A bunch of David Banners, they were...

The Hulk. The David Banner. Yeah, he's the dad. Bad dad. He's the absorbing man? I don't know. Kind of. And he's kind of Zizax. he's the absorbing man i don't know he's kind of and he's kind of

yeah he's um i don't know he's a little bit maestro yeah yeah he's not a villain in the they didn't choose one of the hulk's villains i guess thunderbolt ross but apart from that like they didn't dip into the hulk's like pool really. No, I think at the comics, his name is Brian Banner. Yes. Uh, David Banner was the name of the alter ego in the Bill Bixby show. Yes.

He wasn't Bruce. I know because of some weird. Yeah. I can't remember what the reason for it was. It a copyright reason or did they just think like Bruce is a bad name? Sounds like a hippie. Exactly. I need a good strong man like David.

Yeah. I don't know. Well, hey, you ask me, David sounds pretty weak. Yep, you're right. But they combined the name with the old character arc and then gave him sort of powers of a different character. Yeah. Which would never happen.

That wouldn't fly now. You know what kind of weirdly is similar? of a different character. Yeah. Which would never happen. That wouldn't fly now. Weirdly, you know what kind of weirdly is similar? Iron Man 2 Whiplash is kind of Crimson Dynamo. Yes. They kind of mash those two up.

100%, they did. Yes. No, they've done it in Marvel, but the only time they did it to a major character was the Mandarin thing. Yeah. And that,

the people were mad about that, even though that was like the right call yeah yeah i'm like like dorky like action figure message boards people talk about buying the mandarin toys and then being like but i'm gonna pretend it's the real guy when i put it on my shelf i'm gonna pretend it's the real guy and it's like whatever helps you sleep at night but shut the fuck up i i'm just letting you sit in your my action figure message boards that's monologue that that is the 15th least embarrassing thing i've said this hour i know yes yeah and you you like you know got coffee this morning

probably and said six embarrassing things yeah i said extra raspberry, please. Hulk. Hulk. 2003. Hulk, Hulk, Hulk. We were going to do Hulking the Hulk way back when. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, this was going to be one of our first one-offs when we were still in the Star Wars days.

Yeah. Because I think this is like... It's a fascinating movie. We both think this is like a totally fascinating movie. And such a quintessential... And it's only gotten more fascinating as the superhero genre emerged after it. Right. And I think this is exactly the kind of movie you only get to make when industry's in a weird transitional state.

Sure. Right? Trying to figure out what these movies even are. Exactly. You haven't really cast the die yet or set the mold for these things. But also, this is the kind of movie you get to make when you direct a foreign language film that makes $120 million.

For sure. Right. Exactly. And that's like the blank check phenomenon that you and I talk about, which isn't just like, oh, I made a hit. It's like, how did that work?

Right. You did something that on paper would never go right so the studio just has to give you money because they can't rip you off they're like they've figured something out we need to give them another at bat and beyond that it's like they can they'll even give you a property like this one a beloved comic book character right and you're gonna say like i'm gonna do these five things that right a lesser director would just get slapped down for us and this is a movie that was in development hell for decades right so it's not like people had come with takes and the studio would always

be like no i don't think so you know like so and angley is like yeah i want it to look like a comic book and it's gonna be about like boiling fre Freudian rage and like I'll play the Hulk and they're like, yeah, do it. That's like what's fascinating about this movie is he like plays both extremes where it's like you have these dramatic scenes that you would never see in a comic book movie ever again, but then

he visually designs those scenes to look like a comic book. It's crazy. It's a crazy movie to watch. So much of this movie is Jennifer Connelly talking to her father. Yeah, a lot of it. Yeah. Like, I was watching this time

and realizing... I forgot how quickly it all goes down in this movie. I love, but then also it takes 45 minutes for the Hulk to show up. That's the thing.

It's a long-ass movie. 220. But you don't get much time with Bruce before the accident. You know what I mean? You get five minutes with him. And then post-accident...

And one of them is a bit about his bike helmet. Post-accident, you get a lot of Betty time. A lot of Betty and not much Bruce. Bruce is kind of a cipher. He's hard to understand. Betty's kind of the lead of this movie. Kind of, but she gets a little... I mean, it's a thankless role in every version of this movie. Kind of, but she is, you know, she gets a little I mean, it's

a thankless role in every version of the Hulk. It's a tough role. Kills it though. She's good. She's good. Coming off an Oscar herself. Yes. This was like her immediate follow up. Pretty much. So a little bit of context because I don't know if you know this, but we're kind of

sewers. Pow. In the but we're connoisseurs. In the late 80s, early 90s, more the 90s, when Marvel was in dire financial straits, the big thing that happens at Marvel is they had been mismanaged by Ron Perlman, not Hellboyboy the other one right the one

P-E-R-L P-E-R-L is the good one I think are they both I think our actor friend has an A in his name he does not Rachel shaking her head we're idiots

Rachel has such contempt for us Yeah as she should It's the one spelled like You know the thing From the ocean I don't fucking know There's also Lou Pearlman There's a lot of bad Pearlmans

He buys Marvel Nearly runs it into the ground You know what It's spelled the same way okay well let's talk about this for 15 more minutes he nearly runs the company into the ground you know what it's spelled Perilman I finally figured it out

it's just hard to figure out P-E-R-E-L is he the one who owns like the toy company well that's like pearl mutter yeah thank you right okay right right right ike pearl mutter aviara right our toy guys are they the ones who rescue marvel this is what i'm telling you okay yes yeah so pearlman nearly runs marvel into the ground that's in the the mid 90s like after the speculation boom when

comics are hot in the early 90s so they're like, let's make so many comics! Like, this will go forever! Darkhawk! They're just throwing shit out there. But they're even getting into trouble like early 90s. You know? The speculation boom is... It's a bubble that collapses. You think of X-Men

issue 1, which I think is 91, where they had like 12 covers and you gotta buy them all. And your first printing was like 15 million issues. Toy Biz is the company that has the Marvel rights and the X-Men toys are so humongous at the time of the cartoon

that they make such an insane amount of money that when Marvel is on the brink of bankruptcy they buy out Marvel. Which is insane. The company that licensed the properties managed their money from selling the characters

so much more successfully that then Ike Perlmutter takes care. That's in 1997. 98, sorry. Right. And Avi Arad, who also comes from

the toy industry, they're both Israeli toy men. Yep. He gets put in charge of trying to make money by selling off the intellectual property into different mediums. No one has that idea of let's do our

own movies. It's just like hey someone wants to pay us X for the Hulk. Great. Avi Rod essentially becomes a used car salesman. But I mean this is also it's back in the day where that idea is so silly that there would be a linked universe. make a hulk movie who cares but he would do these interviews when he was like promoting spider-man and he'd be like yes and we have dr strange set up at lion's gate yeah right iron fisted artisan pictures like they had sold every there was like

a death lock movie like none of these but but they had death lock every single like vaguely valuable property they had was set up somewhere death lock was so good because it was like what if he was a cyborg but he's also like an assassin he's like an it was like all of the 90s shit right even though he's from back in the day ryan reynolds was supposed to do death lock in like 2001 i think it was at lions gate or artisan they sold off a bunch of the cheap ones to Lionsgate and Artisan before they merged. Right.

Paramount was going to do Iron Man with Tom Cruise. There were all these different ones set up in different places. Hulk was one that Universal had for a bit. I believe they bought it in the early 90s. Yeah.

Yeah. It was sort of on the edge of the sword, the tip of the spear, because of how big the TV show had been. Yes. It was so much a part of the sort of cultural iconography. It's true. I think it's why the Hulk and Spider-Man lingered for the public in ways

more than the fantastic for the X-Men or the other Iron Man. It's like, right. They had like live action network shows. Yeah. Especially the Hulk, which was like a real show. I mean,

it's like, it was a beloved show. It was super lame, but it was, it was on network TV. They essentially made it a procedural. Um, here's a homeless wanderer.

Right. I mean, a procedural combined with like a Clint Eastwood western where it's like he rolls into town, he finds the problem, he tries to avoid turning into the Hulk, and then he has to turn into the Hulk and throw a bunch of people. And it was like very cheap looking, and it always ended with him hitchhiking and his thumb out. Right, he rides off into another town.

It was sort of quantum leapy. Yes. You know. But that show was beloved, played syndication forever, and they kept on making TV movies until 1990. Okay. I mean, the show ends early 80s. The final TV movie is The Death of the Incredible Hulk in 1990. So, like, right after that, that's when they start getting serious about trying to make a film. Yes. So, like, right after that, that's when they start getting serious about trying to make a film.

Yes. In 1992, Avi Arad and Galen Hurd, Galen Hurd of Terminator fame and others, set this up at Universal. Yeah. And this is going to be a serious movie. And she's, at the time, I believe, married to Jonathan Hensley. Yeah. Who later goes on to do the Punisher film. That was, like, the Mea Culpa project they threw his way. Sure, sure, for kicking him off this one.

Right. But they were developing with a lot of different people. Michael France. Michael France, who wrote Cliffhanger and GoldenEye. He writes a script, Universal wanted, a script where the Hulk fights terrorists. Yeah. Michael France didn't like that,

so someone else comes in john turman and he writes more of like a classic like hulk versus the military you know thunderbolt ross thunderbolt ross and i think leader is involved so and then i think they don't like that very much they don't like it but i guess that that becomes like the absolute baseline like it's sort of like weirdly that script is still in the ether. Right, because he gets credit on this film. The credit for this film is crazy. Yeah.

But it was very much a time where if you're buying a superhero property and then the writer comes in and goes like, so he's going to fight the leader. They'd be like, why are you using characters from the comics? We bought the Hulk. Let's just have him fight whatever we feel like fighting. Because then when Hensley takes over the project as the main writer, and he was supposed to direct it for a while.

He was going to direct it. They had worked up. He had never directed a film. Gale Lanhart pushed really hard for him and got him the job. And that movie was going to be Hulk fights mutant bug people. He was going to fight some mutant bug people. There's some concept art out there of mutant bug people. There you go, Rachel.

That's a mutant bug. Hulk was going to be an animatronic. Mutant bug, Rachel. You can find the YouTube videos of the giant 15-foot robot they had for the Hulk. Amazingly enough, Jonathan Hensley convinced the studio with his work writing Jumanji. Yeah, that was the thing. But then... Joe Johnston was going to do it.

Then they bring in Joe Johnston. I think that's how he gets on is because of Jumanji. Joe Johnston wanted Hensley. Joe Johnston leaves to do October Sky. Hensley takes over the director's chair. Yes. Turman comes back to write two more drafts. So I think that's why he gets the credit because he kept coming back yeah and like changing his original script that had already been changed

beyond recognition zach penn uh-huh wrote a script in which hulk fights sharks yeah see it's all the shit where it's like just have him fight scary things uh he also wrote a scene where hulk is kicked out of a helicopter and turns into the Hulk which eventually made it all the way to the Marvel movie like later. Which also Marvel does that beat four times? They do it a lot. Oh look who it is. Oh look who walked in.

Oh my lord. Here he is. Isn't the Ben Deuccer himself. Ben Mad. Ben Mad. Producer Ben Green with rage over here.

Poet Laurent. Tiebreaker. Haas. Mr. Positive. Mr. Housative. Birthday Benny. So can wet Benny. Peeper.

I'm going to do this until Ben can successfully get to his seat. He's a fart detective. He's a meat lover. Thank you, Rachel. Finest film critic. Thank you, Rachel. Rachel's now... She's bursting through the wall.

Oh, my God. She's picked up a tank, and she's throwing it around the office. She says she hates blank check. Must be destroyed. Goodbye, fennel, Rachel. Hey, Ben. So where did we...

He's the fuckmaster. He's not Professor Crispy. He's graduated to certain titles over the course of his career, such as Kylo Ben, Producer Ben Kenobi, Ben Sate, Ben Night Shyamalan,

Save Anything, dot, dot, dot, Ailey Ben's with a dollar sign, Warhaz, Purdue Urbane, Ben 19, the Fennel Maker, Robohaz, Benglish, Mr. Ben Credible.

Sure. Oh, I like that. Yes. So I'm here. I forgot we rescheduled. I was watching The Hulk. And so Rachel was nice enough to step in. Yes.

And I'm here now. Now you're here. So what the fuck? Okay, so we're talking about the development process What the fuck? of this movie. They pulled the plug.

They were like casting actors. They were an act of pre-production. They pulled the plug. Wait, which one is this? On the Hensley Directed. Yeah, right, right. And they... It was set to...

Right, they had Arizona location scouted. And then they pulled the plug. Right, because they just went 100 million dollars too high never directed a film untested all of this Abrams Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski all come in to like rewrite the script they're like starting over let's find something new

new angle but they're kind of like in a rut right now this whole thing with the Beatles is so dumb thank god we're here with the bug people yeah but also can you and they were gonna do a whole hulk movie where he fights bugs like giant bugs i guess men in black could come out yeah yeah is that a thing that was in the comic no no they were just like what's the thing you could fight i was like i don't bugs this was a point in time where people

had such contempt for comic books on a studio level that if you bought the rights to a superhero they'd be like so which of the characters from this 60 year history should he fight? And you'd be like, none of those. Those are for fucking losers. You should fight a bug guy. What are the kids like now? Make up some bugs. But that plug is pulled. Yeah, so Hensley

finally drops out, basically saying, like, I wasted a year of my life on this fucking movie, and it's never gonna happen. Right, and like, 20 million dollars had been spent in pre-production developing the robot Hulk, like, I wasted a year of my life on this fucking movie. Right. And it's never going to happen. Right. And, like, $20 million had been spent in pre-production, developing the robot Hulk, like, all these things. X-Men comes out, is big. Yes. Spider-Man is in production.

Yes. Looks like a game changer, right? Yes. And then Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon comes out. Just in between these things, Michael France writes one final script, Jesus Christ

that is lighter and more comical with Bruce Banner as an amiable genius with Jim Carrey in La Mind as sort of like the person. Or Sandler I knew they threw out as well. They thought about doing a comical sort of almost self-parody kind of yeah i mean because you could obviously sandler

anger management i mean yeah there's a comic take i suppose angry guy um but this script includes weirdly and god knows how it's funny yeah the element of his father being abusive the element of the regenerative cells right which comes from the comics the black ops and all this and the gamma sphere that is in this movie so it's sort of like weirdly a lot of the dna of that script that obviously they tossed like is still there was in there so i think that's why he because he gets a credit too yes yeah it's franson turman who wrote worked on this these movies that never happened they get the credits along with james shamus but the weird thing is they all three get credits as writers yes shamus

gets sole story by credit right so they're admitting that like the movie is shamus's but i guess they're just also saying like but the script it overlaps with these other drafts but that also feels backwards from how it should be you know it's like Seamus is the one who sat down by himself and sort of got to write it that is true yeah Michael Tolkien and David Hader right like it's an insane list of people uh Hader's draft had the leader, Zazax, and the Absorbing Man

just threw all the villains in there. Too much for people to say. And they were all created in the same accident so I guess the idea was four guys all, yeah.

Ang Lee come involved, as you say, after Crouching Tiger. Before we get on to Ang, or Buddy Ang, just because

we were on this tangent before someone walked in, I won't say who. Okay, the guy who's been like two hours late. Never! To a record. I did say you were pulling a Griff. I can't keep them apart! He lunged across the table!

We looked exactly the same. I do love that Marvel has done that bit of the hero jumping out of the aircraft carrier four times now. Right, right. Yes, yes, yes. Because it happens... In Incredible Hulk.

It happens in Incredible Hulk. It happens in Age of Ultron when Black Widow kicks Banner. Oh, maybe it happens five times then because it certainly happens in Iron Man 2 where he kisses Pepper before he jumps out. That's true. Happens in Black Panther. Yes. Believe it happens in Winter Soldier as well. I know that Winter Soldier

posters him in the aircraft carrier with his back turned looking like he's about to jump out. Yeah, he might. They love that fucking image of the guy jumping out from a high altitude. I guess it's fun. And landing on the ground safe. Yeah, yeah. Strong. Hulk's strong. Sure, he's strong so no but they're literally she kicks him out in ultron to make him into hulk right it's the line where

she's like sorry but i need the other guy right now or whatever you know but what happens here is a phenomenon that i find really interesting which is kind of akin to the the paul feig ghostbuster situation. Where it's like, they have this property they're trying so hard to reboot. It's never working that they take such a crazy swing. And it's like, Couching Tiger comes out.

It's an action movie. But it's also very meditative and sad. And in Chinese. Indeed. Right. And then it starts doing really well. They offered it to him in January. So it hasn't even crossed a hundred million at that point.

Okay. They don't know exactly how big Crouching Tiger is. But it's like in line for Oscars. And they just offer it to him and go like, what would you want to do? You can start from square one.

Make it whatever you want. They offered him in January 2001. So I don't think even the Oscar nominations had come out but like they're about to you know it's like right then

and Ang Lee comes in and he doesn't like the script obviously because it's probably this mutant script right and he brings in his buddy Jimmy

I have referenced things that his buddy Jim Seamus has said to me yes over the course of this mini series because when you talk to Jim Seamus

you basically like we're like I love the Hulk right I want to make this clear I'm not friends with James Seamus he wouldn't recognize me on I love the Hulk! I want to make this clear. I'm not friends with James Seamus. He wouldn't recognize me on the street.

I was at a New York Film Festival party, and I just fucking zoned in on him and was like, I need to tell you I love the Hulk. And then he proceeded to talk to me for like an hour and a half, because I think he likes being able to talk about the Hulk as a character, because I, of course, know that this movie is called Hulk with no definite articles but he said that

when they got assigned to it they went through and read every draft and were going through every permutation of the thing and the thing they latched onto was the father stuff the Brian Banner stuff also went through and read the comics and found that arc onto was the father stuff, the Brian Banner stuff.

It also went through Red the Comics and found that arc. Yes, they went through the comics. That arc, I believe, is in the Peter David part. Right, it's later. I think the Peter David Hulk is sort of the definitive. That's sort of the apex. And that is where I think

Ang Lee sees like, oh, this is like a Greek tragedy with all these psychological elements. It's like a monster movie with all these psychological elements. Which is what he... It's like a monster movie. Latches onto it. Those are the two things they go. We want to make a Greek tragedy. Right.

We want to get real actors. Right. Write real human drama and have them play it straight, totally separate from this monster movie. And then the other half of the movie is, we want to make a Universal Studios monster movie. Yes.

We're not viewing this as a superhero film because there barely is a template for what a superhero film is right we're viewing this as the wolfman and you have to remember like x-men which is the sort of proto superhero film is not like that i don't know like it's not copyable it's yeah exactly it's pretty reserved doesn't have big, crazy, wild action stuff. It's a lot of human drama and I don't know. The set pieces are usually very emotional. Does that make sense? Yeah.

It's been a little while since I've seen it. There's not a template from that movie that's easy to follow. Yeah. And no one knew what Spider-Man was yet, as past guest Peter Labuzza said. They didn't know what was going on concurrent with their sort of development. Right, and then there's that, right, Seamus sees Spider-Man and is terrified. Right, he walks out of the theater, opening day, the audience cheers, seeing Spidey on the American flag. And he calls up Ang Lee, who's in the middle of filming, and goes, we're fucked.

Right. We are absolutely fucked, which is incredible. But this movie is, you know, the universal monsters, which I'm a big fan of. Sure, you mean your wolfman and your mummy and your Dracula. The original cinematic universe.

Yes, indeed. You know, those films were horror films in a very different sense than we consider horror films today, because they're not jump-s scare movies. They're movies that more scare people by the ideas within them.

You know, like there aren't scary moments in those movies. The characters look scary. Yeah, I mean, I've seen most of those movies. They're not scary.

No. That's the thing about the Hammer Horror movies that are sort of like recycling them 20 years later. Those are scary. Right. Like those are going for

like gore and atmosphere. The Universal movies are more like mind-boggling and oh, those are scary. Those are going for gore and atmosphere. The Universal movies are more like mind-boggling and strange to consider. That's also the origins of Marvel Comics. It was like, Tales to Astonish.

You read Amazing Fantasy, which is where Spider-Man came out of. Amazing Fantasy! Amazing Fantasy, which was called Amazing Adult Fantasy, which literally sounds like a porn title until they dropped it. It's always just like, oh, a moon man discovered an ancient key, but then at the end, he's cursed to live in a box. It's always got some dumb, weird Twilight Zone ending.

Right, and they always start with this, like, this is Jim Johnson, a normal man by day, buying milk. By night, a deep sea diver. What people don't know is that when it's exactly 40 degrees, he turns into... But it's never superhero shit. It's always just some weird Twilight Zone shit. But that's the thing. They always felt Twilight Zone

and they always felt monster movies. It's always like, he dead, curse, the mummy's curse. That was the thing because those movies aren't scary on a scene-by-scene basis as much as they are just like, ooh, what a scary circumstance. How chilling to ponder. But Hulk comes out of that. As does Spider-Man.

Right, but certainly Hulk the comic comes out of that. The early Hulk comes out of that sort of mold. Yeah, it's a Jekyll Hyde thing, right? Was there ever a universal Jekyll Hyde? Obviously there's the old Jekyll Hyde movie. I just forget if it's universal. I think the best universal weirdly the most

canonical universal Jekyll and Hyde is from Abbott and Costello meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which is played by Boris Karloff, I believe. I'm going to look that up, because I know Lon Chaney played him one time. You know, like, it's one of those roles that, like, you are correct, Boris Karloff plays

in the movie. The Frederick March one is the most famous one. Right, the Frederick March one. There's just so many, though. If you look at the... I think it's also one of those things where, like, the rights were just never owned so people would just make them over and over again but yes the frederick march one that's the 1931

and he i believe he won the oscar which is sort of nuts um but anyway yes hulk classic jekyll hide right by day mild-mannered scientist uh by night monster and the way those comics would be written is like you know you have a title like Tales to Astonish. Your goal is every issue come up with a tale that will astonish. Oh, I'm astonished right now.

If one character popped, then they'd spin them off. Sure. But they were always kind of self-contained stories in which it was like, here's an unassuming person. Here's the tragic accident.

Here's the weird condition they have. And then it sort of resolves itself with the person like wandering back in the woods and it's like what will become of them also I believe in the

first six issues of the Hulk it's a day night thing like the rage the anger thing comes later that the anger transforms him he's gray and then he's sort of like I don't know he's not green for a while like the whole Hulk mythos comes later right sometimes he like talks a lot yeah he's not green for a while. Like the whole Hulk mythos comes later. Right. Um,

sometimes he like talks a lot. Yeah. He's like, fuck you. Like, are you like, aren't you a monster? Isn't this for kids?

He's like, don't be rude. Watch your mouth. Um, but, but in that way, this feels like one of the weirdly most faithful comic book adaptations, because I feel like it so perfectly captures that sort of early marvel comic right um but but that's like the weird sort of diametrically

opposed thing this movie is doing which is like simultaneously like he wants to make the most comic book bookie movie ever right and also make like who'sraid of Virginia Woolf with dads. Yeah. And he did. He did. They filmed it in Arizona and San Francisco.

The most expensive movie Universal had made up until that point in time. That's nuts. Which is nuts. They also did some stuff in the Utah deserts, obviously.

You see them here. They had most of the movie filmed, I think, wrapped by 2001, and it was pretty much like two years of post-production. Yeah, ILM work. Which they only finished like a month before the movie came out.

Eric Bana said that the shoot was ridiculously serious, a silent, morbid set. Yeah. Yeah, well, that's the thing. And I remember at the time, because the first Super Bowl trailer had very little it didn't really show you the hulk it just showed you like his eye and people were like they don't they haven't figured out what he's gonna look like

that was and the rap on the movie was like they never figured it out that wasn't the super bowl trailer that was the first teaser they had before spider-man sure that which was him in the mirror yeah him in the mirror and then you just like... It ends on the eye. Well, no. I think it ended on his house and you see a smashing but you don't see the Hulk. Yes. That's correct. The Super Bowl one was the first time they

actually showed the Hulk. That was that January. They spent like $2 million for a 30 second ad where they showed him for the first time. Yes. And people were kind of like, he looks crappy. Because even on the poster, it was like his hand is covering his face. It's him like reaching out. Yes, yes, yes.

So his face is obscured. But they like, Ang Lee was very big on like, they've done CGI characters before. There's been some amount of mocap. Right, because there's Gollum. Right. Apart from that, there's not a lot. I mean, there's Blarp, obviously. Blarp changed the game. We all remember Blarp.

Of course I remember Blarp. Hulk is like Blarp 2, right? If you think about it. I guess Gollum is Blarp 2, Hulk is Blarp 3. Yeah, that's correct. The Blarp trilogy. Hulk is the same wireframe as Blarp, but they've just sort of mangled it. It's like the Blarp trilogy it's like Hulk is the the same wireframe as Blarp but they've just sort of

you know mangled it it's three colors Blarp Blarp is yellow yeah right I am Blarp yellow I am Blarp gray yeah sickly gray

I am Blarp green unite the Blarps unite the Blarps you have to unite the Blarps hashtag unite the Blarps all the Blarps um he was really big

on trying to get and I guess you know Gollum's kind of concurrent with this sure yeah that's true because Two Towers doesn't come out until 2002 I think sharing a lot of technology but he hadn't been able to see those results yet his big thing was I want a real kind of

nuanced performance he worked a lot with them to try to get he did a lot of the motion capture himself he did almost all of it which is, at the time they downplayed that, and now everyone goes like, you know, Ang Lee played the Hulk for the entire movie. Which is unbelievable. And there are some behind-the-scenes featurettes

you can find now where you see Ang Lee in the bodysuit, watching the modern, going, okay, another take, another take. And then he goes and just hulks out. And he's really fucking good. He's great. Like, he's tiny and he looks really solemn, and then he's like, okay, new Right. And he's really fucking good. He's great. Like he's tiny and he looks really solemn and then he's like,

okay, new take. And then he goes like, and then just starts like slamming walls. It looks furious. Like he's got like spittle flying out of his mouth. I mean, good for him.

Ang Lee, he made this movie. I just, the other thing is I remember at the time the narrative was also like, ILM, they're like being left in the dust they're shitty because i think the scorpion king thing had

happened like a few years earlier you know what i mean like emerged as being and weta that's it they they've reinvented special effects the code and that's and then i feel like that reverses again like you know like it's it's like weta kind of becomes a little cheesy like but anyway it doesn't matter uh yeah i mean it goes back and forth but like i mean ilm had always been like the the king of the industry you know right uh in terms of digital stuff and weta was like peter jackson's like using the people that he set up in like a cabin in new zealand to make the lord of the rings right like it seemed really rinky-dink because it was like the best special effects artist in New Zealand?

But everyone was crazy about Gollum. So then when the Hulk thing comes out, I think people were like, oh man, imagine what the fucking Hulk's going to look like. And the answer is the Hulk looks really cartoony. Yeah, he looks like a big green person.

I think he looks fine. I think he looks good. I think he looks good. I have always argued that he looks good. He looks way better than... The Edward Norton Hulk is terrible. He looks way better than the Edward Norton Hulk. I do think the Ruffalo Hulk is leaps and bounds better. But that's 10 years on, essentially.

But I also think... The Edward Norton Hulk is terrible. He doesn't look big or scary. No, it's really bad. It isn't composited well. He never looks... His hair is off. The mask is never really in place.

I mean, that movie had a greatly diminished budget in relation to this. And, you know, this movie is thought of as a flop, and those two movies made the exact same amount of money. Yes, but this movie was pricier, right? It was pricier. Yes. But, you know, but this movie was pricier, right? It was pricier. Yes. But, you know, I mean,

I think they essentially, in terms of profit, ended up about the same. That's possibly true. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the Louis Leterrier movie made $263. This made $245 worldwide. And, you know, inflation. And I also think home video.

The DVD market was a lot stronger in 2003 than it was in 2008. So they were able to make up some of that. He makes a couple choices here that I think fucked him in terms of the perception of the general public, but I like. One is that the Hulk is really fucking green in this movie. He's very green. He's pea green. He's pea green. He's bright, bright, vivid, Crayola green,

which makes him look unreal. He looks unreal. The other thing that makes him look unreal is that he's often covered in oil or something, so he sort of looks like he's been in MS Paint. I don't know. The other thing is, this is a technical limitation thing. The thing they had not really conquered at this time

was how to get flesh right in terms of the translucency of flesh. So he just kind of looks like a big green sponge, if that makes sense. Right. He's just one. His skin is the same everywhere. Right.

He's just one thing. You look at the Ruffalo Hulk, and it's like... Well, the Ruffalo Hulk and it's like Well the Ruffalo Hulk's very right. Has hairs and like goosebumps. They now are able to build

these things where they actually like build your vein system before they put the flesh on top of it. Right. And they build the flesh with a certain translucency so it reacts to the light

in certain ways. The Ed Norton Hulk is like covered in veins but it just looks goofy. Like look at that. Yeah. It looks so nasty. Like the Ed Norton Hulk is like covered in veins but it just looks goofy. Like look at that. It looks so nasty. The Ed Norton Hulk looks like a toxic Avenger. Yeah it does look like

a toxic Avenger. It looks to me like what would come up in like an augmented reality app. He looks sick. Yeah he looks really sick. It's dumb. That movie fucking sucks. Sick Hulk. It does. It really sucks. I knew it sucked and then I rewatched it. It's so banal. He makes him bright bright green he makes him uh he gives him the purple pants which the other permutations stray away from age of ultron gets it back a little bit a little bit but i i will

admit the purple pants look bad they just don't look like pants they look like they're cgi like they look worse than the hulk you'd think they'd be better at pants look really bad like was the guy on the pants like the bad like you know was he like this or like oh Jimbo let's put him on pants and he's like hey guys I made some pants like show guys yeah it's so no he

phoned in it because he's like oh great I'm the pants guy right he's like we can't fire him he's Jerry ILM air to the ILM for shit meanwhile like in the other studio Ang he's like we can't fire him he's jerry ilm heir to the ilm for shit meanwhile like in the other studio ang lee's like and everyone's like this is so fun and the guy's like someone's just modeling pants for him fucking pants bullshit do you want another angle on the pants no the other the other big stylistic choice he makes, which I think freaks people out, is they give Hulk a baby face.

Yeah, that's the, I was about to say, if you didn't say that, yes, that is the real thing. He's got a sad baby face. This is kind of hot Hulk, too. He's a handsome Hulk. Are you saying you like,

you're like babies? Well, okay. Yeah, Ben, what, you want to fuck Hulk babies? You said baby face. No, you're right. People can have baby faces. He has this sort of squishy,

kind of like wounded look at all times. Like he rarely looks angry unless he's like really like full rage. And even when he's in full rage, he kind of looks like an angry baby. Like, you know what I mean? Like when a toddler gets angry and then he starts crying and

getting upset about the fact that he's been angry. He squishes his face up and They make it like a child. Yes. Okay, and... Right. Yeah. They make it like a child. Yes. Okay, well now I feel weird. They make it like an infant child. He's not hot.

I take it all back. Exactly like the kind of character that Ben would want to follow. No, stop. No, but you're right. He looks... Cut this all out. He looks a little babyish

and I think that really turned people off. Really turned people off. They thought of the Hulk as this because of the like Lou Ferrigno image of this like masculine brute. Turned me off for sure. You want to be clear?

Yeah. Yeah. Come on, Ben. Why is the table rising right now? Oh my God. It's the most powerful boner I've ever seen. You guys are the worst. The best thing is that I can actually lift the table.

So, the Hulk, he casts Eric Bana. Well, no, he casts Billy Crudup. Yeah, what happened there? They model the Hulk after Billy Crudup. Yeah, he looks like Billy Crudup. They start designing it after Billy Crudup,

and then Billy Crudup's like, actually, I don't think I can be in a superhero movie. I don't want to be part of a big blockbuster. He bows out pretty late. Isn't that when Billy Crudup does his weird thing where he dumps Mary Louise Parker right around then? I don't know. Maybe he's going through some shit.

But they cast Jennifer Connelly right off the Oscar. Yeah, she has just won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind. She plays Betty Ross. Yes. And Eric Bana who he's in Black Hawk Down the year they're casting and that was his

Chopper had been his like emerging role and Black Hawk Down was like wow he's very handsome he's very magnetic he comes to Hollywood

everyone's trying him out he almost did Triple X do you know that? I didn't know that before Fast and Furious was so huge and then Rob Cohen could go,

hey, let's take our shirt off and make a Vin Diesel movie. They were thinking it was going to be Eric Bana. Like, every studio was like, Eric Bana, interesting. And he had been an Australian comedy star. He was a sketch comedy sitcom guy.

He had a sketch comedy show, the Eric Bana show. Right. But then he does Chopper where he plays this larger than life, very gregarious, sort of dangerous, a very Ben movie. I fucking love that movie. It's a good movie. He's good in it. He shows his dick at bars.

Past and future guest Sam Rogal's great joke is that Chopper's about the most lethal serial killer in the history of Australia. And he killed like three people. We've made that joke on the podcast. I can't remember when it is,

but yeah, probably the Munich episode. Yeah. That was not Mark. Mark chopper read, uh, who now like writes children's books. So,

you know, Australia is weird place. Weird place. Um, so, but this is his, and then, you know,

he's got Troy next year in the Munich the year after that. So this is his little run of like Eric Bana, A-list, movie star. And then after that, that's the end of that. Then he becomes weird, Eric Bana and Eric Bana. Like he's the villain in Star Trek. He's the husband of funny people. Which he's great in both of those movies. He is great in both of those movies.

He's really great in both of those movies. He really got fucked over because Lucky You was his follow-up to munich and that got like pushed and pushed and pushed years yeah and then like the other belen girl where he plays henry the eighth which is like a straight up embarrassing performance but like you know could have been a good i mean in theory that's a fine choice like costume drama you play a king but it sort of just never totally worked he's really good in hannah as well good in hannah i mean i think he's pretty good in the time traveler's wife which made money you know like but that one was famous for like they had to do reshoots but he'd shaved his head for the star trek so like that took forever to get off the ground he's and

now it's like he's just like i'll be in your tv show you know what i mean it's it's a little sad i still think he's a good actor I do too he can be hammy yeah like in something like the finest hours he sticks out a little bit he's like hitting things a little too hard but like I like Eric Banner I've always liked Eric Banner he's sort of become

that now like he's sort of become weirdly like the guy giving you the information across the desk you're right that he's and Eric Banner cause like in King Arthur that's his role where it's like let's give him 10 minutes at the top and that's that. You know like he's still big enough that he can make a little bit of an impact like

If you've been above the title in the way that he was where they were really trying to push him as a leading man you always have some value but the value is pretty much now if he's above the title proper it's a very small movie a foreign movie right it's like him doing special correspondence with the dravace for netflix oh well that was just a mistake or it's like lone survivor and eric banna finest hours and eric

banna you know hannah and eric bannal king arthur, Star Trek. He's in some TV show coming up. I just... Roseanne, right? Dirty John. That's it. Dirty John. He got cast as Dirty John. I just listened to Dirty John.

Ben Penn was talking to me about that. Very good. That could be cool, actually. Sure. I mean, but it is sort of the sad thing, fact of life now, where it's just like, I guess I'll do a TV show for a streaming company. But, you know, whatever. Eric. Eric Bana, he's in this. Maybe that's the best thing an actor

could possibly achieve. David, yeah. For me, you know what though? No, I'll say this. This is getting awkward. I'll say this. If you're doing a TV show for a streaming company, yeah,

that's a little over. If you're doing a TV show for a streaming company, yeah, that's a little low brand. If you're doing a TV show for a streaming company that also is an online store. Oh. That sounds like some... And has never done anything wrong. Never done anything wrong. It is true that I often buy batteries from the company

that also pays you to pull them off. You ever think about that? You know the first thing... You know you can go to amazon and find the first thing you ever bought like they have your whole history and i went back and it was the special edition dvd of memento in like 2001 you can also go back and see all the credit cards you've run up oh totally yeah where they're like do you want us to use this one and i'm like i know who doesn't want me to use that one. It's the good folks at MasterCard. A lot of people.

No, there's a, it's just, remember that special edition of Memento where they're like, it's going to be such a great DVD where it's like a bunch of slides. It looks like his case file. And then you put it in and you're like, I just want to watch the movie. And it's like, no, no, we've thought this through. You have to decode. Like, isn't the menu like obtuse yes the menu is impossible to navigate you have to like google like how do i watch the movie again they're like up left left right you know that's great

though that's what people were still like yeah well they're like this could be a game well i i just remember when uh when uh christopher n Nolan came up to me at the post production house and said I'm going to do a jazz DVD where is my Hulk blu-ray which I own it's basically like you want to watch the movie yeah

they have like a commentary they have special features but the menu is basically like welcome to Hulk play uh i don't know and the weird thing is it's you saying that it's me it's david just looking tired even i'm not into this yeah and i like the movie um they're not paying me enough to be excited have we talked about dvd menus how falling asleep oh yeah right. It just plays on loop. Right. That must like, like just drive you crazy.

I feel like there's some weird osmosis in the brain. My friend, Jessalyn, great comedian, her Twitter bio, I believe used to be sex stuff during DVD menus, which I think is just such a good evocation of, it's so good.

Yeah. It's funny. Cause it is that thing of like pre-Netflix and chill like you want to come over and watch a movie. Let's move the laptop over. Exactly. It's pre-Netflix and chill.

And then there's still like a loop of someone going like wow! Like every two seconds. If you're watching A Spy Who Shagged Me it's still like do-do-do-do.

Right. And like choose an option, baby. Yeah, they have clips of the movie sometimes. One million special features. Like they have clips of the movie 1 million special features like they have those little like sound bites I remember the

Spice Shag Me one specifically is like Austin dancing and he's like pointing to the different menu options and just Soulboss and over and over again the weirdest dreams I will say this though the ride with the devil blu-ray I think that score is so good that I kept it on

because I liked the ambient looping Criterion does a good job of like let's make sure even the looping menu is sort of serene and atmospheric like not like I mean it'd be weird if that was ride with the devil

where it's like Skeet Ulrich pointing a gun at the various options choose an option, baby. No, but they sort of have very meditative visuals that are on a loop, and then they pick long soundtracks. But hey, it's been an hour. Let's talk about my favorite Ang Lee movie. Now we can get into the meat of the film.

The opening I love because he sets right off the bat this sort of visual, sort of how visually indebted this movie is to classic Marvel comics. Absolutely. This opening credit sequence is applying the sort of philosophy of like, make every panel as dynamic as possible. You know?

Especially in those early, like Tales to Astonish type things, Strange Tales, what have you where um a lot of those stories were set up as one shots right and even when you move on to ongoing titles they didn't very often do multi-issue arcs they never basically did and sometimes they would do two stories per issue like 11 page stories and like i mean that's what i love like i've been spider-man i've been reading old spider-man's where it's just like like there's one really early one where dr

octopus who like three issues ago like hijacked a nuclear sub or something and they're like he's being let out of prison for good behavior and you're like i guess they just had to like they had to move this along those things just Like, they move so fucking fast. I love it. And this whole opening credit sequence of, like, David Banner with all his experiments. Yes, yes, yes. They're using these great angles, these extreme close-ups. Paul Kersey.

Yeah. Like, he's not doing, like, fucking Joel Schumacher, but he's very subtly, like, getting the colors and the sort of angles, making them look real world. But that's sort of like dinosaur dynamic sort of visual style. I mean, I think it's never been done before since practically. I mean, like you,

you mentioned Schumacher, but Schumacher was like by comic book. Do we mean just sort of over the top? Cause I shoot it like an 80s movie music video, like a lot of dry ice, a lot of like neon, like he's approaching this, like Roy Lichtenstein, where he's like, what makes a good comic book panel exactly you know like what's

the composition everything is composition it's like should his face be like you know can we do these weird deep focus shots like all these faces sort of like right in the right in the foreground and right furrowed brow and i forgot like because you i obviously remember the panels which they don't do that much. They do it more towards the end. They do it a lot at the beginning and a lot at the end. It kind of, they do do it a lot at the beginning. It feels like he really wants to do it

during the action sequences at the end, and he does it a bunch at the beginning just to acclimate people. Exactly. And then he sort of throttles down. Yeah. But this movie also does all the, like, overlapping sort of image stuff that then Speed Racer really takes to the next level where it's like

someone walks into someone else's frame. I love that shit. You know what else does it? What? A movie called Draft Day. Yep. A movie called Draft Day. Yep. What's that about? It's about a very ambitious intern who on his

first day of work is saddled with four cups of coffee and a broken laptop. No, so is saddled with an unsightly tan, in fact. Let's talk about it. Let's not talk about it.

Gryffindor is all. The thing I love about this opening credit sequence is all griffindol is all uh the thing i love about this opening credit sequence is that it feels like this is the opening of an issue that would have a bunch of stanley narrative blocks above it where it's like by night scientist david banner works on experiments that would shock you to your core and it's like the shot of him like cutting open the starfish you know uh yes yes yes that starship starfish thing like it's funny because the heat really leans on it and then it doesn't come back

for two hours and then it finally does yeah um but but you see all this experimentation this danny elfman score i love they heikel they they heikled jesus christ they katherine heigled it you're right katherine heigled it She edited this movie. They hired Michael Dania who had worked on Ang Lee's past couple movies. Yeah, he scores The Ice Storm. He scores Ride with the Devil.

I can't remember if he did any before. I think that's it because Patrick Doyle did Sense of Will. Right, and he was like But he'll work with Ang Lee again.

Life is Pie. He scores Life of Pie. He does the score and Universal's like this is too sad. This is too weird. let's hire a normal superhero guy Danny Elfman

right and it is at the time where it's like oh well Danny Elfman did the Batman theme he did the Spider-Man theme he is

you know the premier superhero score writer right so they hire him and at that point they're like

we hired the guy that's fine we won't look at yeah sure we're gonna go get coffee I'm sure it's all gonna be great and he listens he's like so what was the problem with the old score and they play on the michael daniel score and he's like it's pretty good yeah i'm gonna do something like yeah maybe i'll just sort of like spruce this up like 10 like you know just light a little lighter but like yeah but it's like one of the

least triumphant superhero scores it's so good but it's very like eerie it's it's sad you know elfman's fascinating because what happened to him he now is he's a bit of a sort of fucking work for hire mode yeah boingo boingo like what's the last interesting score he did let's look at the discography right i'm gonna guess it's like a burton movie but i don't even know i can't tell you what like he did Burton score is. Like he did the Justice League score and I don't remember anything except when he reused the Batman theme. Quotes his own stuff. Right. Uh

I mean remember that he worked on the Avengers Age of Ultron score. Which is. Which is fine. Less good than the Sylvester score from the first movie. That is true. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I'm kind of going back and I'm not seeing anything. Because even his last good Burton is probably Big Fish. You know what his last great score is, is Milk. That's a

phenomenal score. But that's like 10 years ago. Yeah, 10 years ago. That's a phenomenal score. A phenomenal score. Since then, he's kind of sucked. This is one of my favorite scores of his. And then the movie goes from that open credit sequence to starts jumping around in time so aggressively. Yeah, my favorite

thing is that five different children play young Bruce Banner because it's like two year old, four year old, eight year old. Like, you know, like it's so weird, but that's like the old Marvel thing of like,

you got 30 pages. You got to set this up. You can't spend more than two panels on any given plot point. But the plot that they're setting up is that David Banner was going to make super soldiers using modified DNA to strengthen like... Jellyfish. To make us rebuild our wounds and all that. Stronger skin.

Thaddeus Ross, who comes off in this movie as a pretty reasonable dude. Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt Ross denies him the permission to use human subjects. So he just does it on himself and then has a child who he has like cursed with this genetic abnormality right is a sins of the father movie it is um and it is a it is a trauma movie it's a repressed it's a movie about repressed trauma and freudian hatred and uh spousal abuse uh and but but that's in this opening sequence illness the genius who puts uh his work before his family yes sure for sure but but i like that

the movie just so he's like crazy starfish man right it'd be very easy to make him just the bad wishing himself right now he just had a shot from midcourt. Come on. Go on, Griffin. Come on. Oh, my God. Griffin's me. This is his favorite move. I'm the goof.

I'm late. I'm like... You're griffing it pretty hard this episode. I am. All right. Sorry. Sorry. A shittier version of this movie... I have to go throw up. Yeah. Don't. Sorry. Sorry. A shitty version of this movie.

I have to go throw up. Yeah. Don't even joke about that. Don't even joke. Oh, my God. Thank you. It's bringing my high five. The shitty version of this movie would just be like, the dad cares too much about his job, which is essentially what Ross is.

That's his relationship with Betty is that he's kind of emotionally distant. In this movie and in general. Doesn't know how to reach out to her. Right. And instead it's like the trauma of Bruce's very, very young childhood. Is like real fucking trauma. Is buried. And they dance around it for a while. Because it's so horrifying.

But we for so long have this lingering shot they keep on coming back to of him standing outside the door where he hears his parents screaming from the other side. Right. And it's like... Spoiler alert. David stabbed the mommy. Yeah.

He was trying to kill baby Bruce. Right. And in the process... Monster. Right. Killed his mother in front of Bruce's eyes. Yes. Now...

But also was a drunk, was irascible, was violent before that. Yes, but I think there's some implication that experimenting on himself sort of drove him mad right you know right like there's i it's it's all so like unspoken and there's no narration which is funny to think about because you're talking about these old comics and you're right right they did pack but you know the marvel method was like stan lee would sit jack curvy down or whatever and be like it's this this, this idea is like a scientist. He turns into the Hulk, go draw it. And the guy would draw it. And then Lee would write everything around the art and he would just fucking

go on crazy tangents. Like, you know, which if you read early Marvel, they don't have a lot of dialogue. No, it's just a lot of boxes. It's Lee boxes.

Right. Very verbose, sort of incredibly verbose, like over explaining things that make like maybe like dick co had drawn some panel and lee's like why is spider-man doing this i don't i don't think i'll think of some weird thing you know like and it's i love it and we got these little vignette scenes that feel like that except with dialogue the casting on both young sam elliott and young molte is really good in this movie.

They get their energies down so right and especially with Sam Elliott, you look at the actor playing young Thunderbolt Ross and you're just like, God, that upper lip is jonesing for a mustache. You gotta push broom on that fucker. You gotta push broom on that fucker. So we cut ahead

to Bruce Krenzler, who's a scientist, knows nothing of his past. Right. And the one thing you get in between to sort of bridge it, your first like sort of longer dialogue scene is Celia Weston with Teenage Bruce. Right. It's not even that long. No, but it's like a minute.

At this point, we're like six minutes into the movie and we've seen like 18 scenes. It's true. You know, because it's a bunch of like one panel. And there was, you know, like the credits were over it, like in dramatic fashion. Yeah.

Right. And they use like the Marvel font, the classic Marvel font. They do, which I love. Bring that back, baby. Bring it back.

Um, so yeah, Bruce is a scientist. He's dating Betty Ross. Well, they just broke up at the beginning of the film. They just broke up. I guess so.

Because, uh, what's his name uh who now only plays creeps kevin rankin kevin rankin yes who now plays like methie neo-nazi creeps on like breaking bad he does i mean he was in like justified and he was in breaking bad and he was in uh but he was in like friday night lights around now he's a great actor i just love that in this he plays like a griffin newman type friend right yeah, right. Right. Who's like, hey, how you doing, bud? Right.

Were you wearing that helmet when she broke up with you? This thing where he's wearing the fucking helmet. Love it. Ding dong. Ding dong. Ding dong. Don't worry. I'll get it.

I'll get it, Ben. Okay. Nemo. Nemo. I'm looking for Nemo. Nemo. Have you seen Nemo? No. It's me albert brooks

oh actor filmmaker comedian writer sure i'm a huge fan of you thank you i'm looking for nemo have you seen nemo i know i have not seen a a fish it's not a fish it's oh boy this is kind of embarrassing so you know i've been involved in some very famous film projects. Yeah, of course. Well, I'm very proud of my work, not boastful, but proud. So I like to name my personal belongings after my greatest film works. Oh, I see. Okay, so what are you looking for in particular?

My microwave, I call it Lost in America. Okay. You know, my dresser, I call it Broadcast News. Sure. And my linens, I call Nemo. They sure and my linens i call nemo they're my brooks linens oh i okay brooks's linens are called nemo and i can't find them anywhere um that's that's terrible because nemo you think you can do these things but you can't okay brooklinen brookslinens no no brooklinen Yes. Okay. Non-possessive. They're not my linens. But they are going to be a great replacement for your missing linens because here's the deal.

All right. Brook Linen Sheets were named the winner of the best online betting category by Good Housekeeping. Okay. They get rave reviews from Business Insider. Everybody's talking about it. The way I got rave reviews for my supporting performance and drive. You're good in that. Thank you. Very proud. It's just nice

to be part of a good project. So let me just tell you some stuff about it. Try to get you excited. Alright, so this is the deal. Doesn't take much to get Albert Brooks excited. Yeah. Okay. I'll just make a quick adjustment. That's fine.

So here's the deal with Brooklyn. All right. It was founded in 2014 by a husband and wife team named Vicky and Rich Fullop. And their mission was to make five-star hotel quality sheets for everyday life, but without the luxury markup. I mean, I'm on board so far. Sounds great. And these sheets don't just feel great,

but they look great too. And there's different colors and materials to choose from. Like Meryl Streep in Defending Her Life. Not just a great performance, but she looks great. Not to be, you know, not to objectify her, but... Well, yeah. We all kind of wore linens in that movie. I don't know if you've seen it.

It's a heaven-set picture. I haven't seen it. are you i don't take it personal no it's a good film i mean i'd not to pat myself on the back go on you are patting yourself on the back well okay uh so albert uh i think that you and our listeners will benefit from this deal today that we're offering okay so the bro the Brooklyn sheets that David, myself and Griffin all use. Hey, I'm Griffin by the way. I was right here.

Oh yeah. I'm sorry. This is Albert Brooks. This is Griffin Newman. Big fan. Oh, thank you. Thank you.

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Now, Ben, let me ask you a question. Yes. What if needy was sexy? Needy? That's a quote in broadcast news. You know what? You're right. I am maybe a little too boastful of my own work.

Just proud of my career. You should be proud of your career. Dory! What is that? I'm testing out. I think I would name these new sheets Dory. So I'm seeing how that sounds. Dory!

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I see what you did there. That's a film I'll do. It's a rare failure for me. Can I pitch you an idea? No, absolutely not. So, the idea is, and Betty pretty much calls this out, it's like she falls for men like her father. She falls for men who she can't really know.

And Bruce is very distant. Right, right. So he's not exactly the same in terms of temperament as her father, but he's just sort of inaccessible. Agreed. And she has this longing to reach for these men who you need to sort of dig out.

Now, how do you feel about the character of Bruce Banner in this movie? Just Bruce. So, I love that he is so thoroughly boring. He's very boring. Very boring. Because I do feel like,

and I don't like the Louis Leterrier movie. I don't either. The Edward Norton movie. But I do feel like that movie clearly saw this movie and was like, we need Bruce to be like

a character who we spend a lot of time with. You want to make him a protagonist who you care about. Right, because that movie is about Bruce trying to control his rage and Bruce doesn't turn into the Hulk for a long time and all that. You know what I mean? Whereas this movie is like, meet Bruce Banner.

He's totally boring. Anyway, let's move on. Yeah, I mean, it's like the key to this movie in terms of what Ang Lee wants to say is that Bruce has to be completely vacant as a human being. Right. Because it's like... He's buried it all down. It's all bottled trauma.

But he is kind of hot, so I guess that's a great... Yeah, and I think Banner's good in it. Like, he's very... He's good. I think he's got a good intensity. I think he's really good at the hulking out moments.

Yeah. Because especially, like, with the technology where it was at this point in time where a full transformation is hard to show, the moments where he's building the rage. And sort of banging the floor maybe.

Yeah, that shit's really good. Yeah, it's good. By design, it's sort of the workhorse character that is the least glamorous and the least rewarding to play. Right. So they very quickly get into... They're doing these tests Very quickly They're doing gamma radiation tests

To rebuild cells Just like his dad was But they keep on exploding frogs Yeah they do They blow up a frog Which is gross Now he was adopted by Celia Western Foster parents

He doesn't know his real parents Yes She keeps on asking him Don't you want to know And he goes like Don't care Don't care Don't want to look into he goes like don't care. Don't care. Don't want to look into it.

And meanwhile Betty's leaving the office one night and a lowly janitor is cleaning the floor. And they shoot him from behind so you'll have no idea

who the janitor is. Exactly. Who are you? I'm the phantom. I'm no one. Don't worry about it. I'm the actor you should recognize

at this point in time. I'm the actor you should recognize I'm gonna matter later I'm your father Brendan yeah it's a total chameleon performance my favorite genre film is bad bad Nick Nolte yes please now Nick I'll do anything warrior Hulk that's my triple feature Nick Nolte I have a question

for you yeah what's his middle name Lawrence King That's my triple feature. Nick Nolte. I have a question for you. Yeah. What's his middle name? Lawrence? King! What? Nicholas King Nolte! The king of acting! Exactly.

So, King Nolte here. My friend Doug Rosenberg made a joke that I think about every time I watch a Nick Nolte performance. And it's funnier to me than most things I've ever heard in my life. We were watching The Thin Red Line together. Great movie. And he's good in it. He's amazing. He should have been nominated for that. Yeah, arguably. 100%. The only problem is there's like 400

men in that movie that are like a lot of them are really good. The best performance in that movie. I would argue. And he's got the most showcasing kind of scenes. He's right up there. I mean, I think Caviezel's very good in that. Anyway, go on. But he's got one of the scenes where he's like screaming like, I said launch the missiles now. Yeah.

Doug turns to me and he goes, more like neck Nolte. And I said, what? Why neck Nolte? And he said, because his veins are popping out of his neck. Yeah, I got it. I got it. I do think it's interesting. Like, you go from I'll do anything Nick Nolte.

He's always had the voice which is 1994 right so nine years previous the idea that there are nine years between these two films then one film Nick Nolte is like

the well-meaning sort of hunky he's hunky he's big father of a four year old and in this it's like Hulk's degenerate

hobo like yeah he is literally like, I've been living under another man's testicles for 25 years. Oh, my God. Like, his poodles are like his spirit animal, where he's like, you ever seen a poodle that looks like it wants to eat you?

I thought he was voted People's Sexiest Man Alive in 94, I believe. No, no, no. It was in 91, I think. It was for The Prince of Tides. Okay. Even still. Yes. Well, I was about to say, you know, even in like, so you've got like Mulholland Falls,

Afterglow, U-Turn, Affliction. These are like, he's still a leading man. Like Mulholland Falls, he like has a love scene with Jennifer Connelly. Who's in this movie? I know, but I'm saying like in that time. I know, I know. It's like, and then in this, it's like, he's like a ghoul who's haunting jennifer connelly well this is what i'm trying to get to it's like thin red line 98 even then like you say maybe he's neck naughty yeah he's not like a person yeah uh

the golden bowl yeah that's right he was like a lead in a fucking merchant ivory uh yeah and then in 2002 he's in the good thief which uh you know people barely remember a neil jordan movie and he's playing like a man who is made of vodka right and you're like it's not like you saw the movie and you're like wow what a transformation by nick nolte but you are kind of like wow he's a real wreck in this movie. And he just is a wreck from then on. And the other thing is, when this movie is being shot, he has his DUI. He does. He's got the famous image of him in the Hawaiian shirt.

Where he is shooting this, and he looks like this. And everyone's like, oh, Nick Nolte has fucking fallen on hard times. Which, on one hand, I think Nick Nolte was starting to crumble. On the other hand, he had grown his hair out for a role

to play a guy who was starting to crumble. That's not to, you know, defend drunk driving or whatever, you know, and also apparently had like a lot of GHB in his system. So like, all right,

Nick. He wasn't doing great. Sometimes daddy likes to have a little bit too much sauce. Sure. He's got to get, got to get home somehow. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Tropic Thunder is five years after this. Yeah. And that's like, at that point, it's just sort of like a stereotype that that's what Nick Nolte is.

He's like a comedic reference point. What did you just do on the computer, Ben? No, his phone made a noise. I'm griffing out He's just griffing the fuck out and we were just laughing about it.

Anyway, Nolte, phenomenal in this movie. I am new. What happened to Gary? He died. I just love that he's the worst janitor. He's like, being a janitor is just,

you mop one circle in the floor, right? Like in a corner. We've been talking about how bad 2003 was for supporting actor. I would have slid him in so fucking hard for this movie. I think I'd? Like in a corner. We've been talking about how bad 2003 was for supporting actor. I would have slid him in so fucking hard for this movie.

I think I'd slide him in. Yeah. Especially at the end. But so, that's the basic dynamic you have going on. Bruce is doing his testing. He and Betty are broken up,

but still on personable terms. I like that it's just sort of like, look, Bruce, I can't date you anymore. And they're like still working together with no animosity

and he's kind of trying to get her back, but he isn't really... He's a bit of a cipher, and then there's an accident. Right. Does Ross call Betty before or after that? There's the scene where they get lunch that I love. I think it's...

I can't remember exactly. Ross might be on the scene. Because the two things that happen are Talbot has been sniffing around them. Josh Lucas playing a real heel. Yes, Josh Lucas coming right off of like Sweet Home Alabama. But yeah, Talbot who's like a classic villain of the early

early early Hulk comics. Like, you know, sort of a Ross stooge. Well, he's like in the military. He's like a major, but yes. But he wants to sort of buy out their technology wants in technology and then ross is kind of sniffing around which betty thinks is her father trying to connect with her but then she realizes and you look at that scene where they get lunch together and it's

like this will never exist in a superhero movie ever shoot tell me why because it's a scene that is about the character who is ostensibly the romantic interest of the film. Right. And her fractured relationship with her father, who is the villain, but played with zero histrionics. Yeah. Well, the thing is, I remember when Elliot was cast. Yeah. And I was a big comic book fan. I was like, oh, my God, of course.

Nailed it. He basically looks like the drawn ross like which is this sort of like stone face guy with a big mustache yeah and remember we were soldiers had just come out yes and in the trailer there's that line at the end where mel gibson's like what about custer like custer's last stand or something and he's like custer was a pussy you're like right okay he's gonna do that doesn really do that. It's one of his sadder performances. It is. It's a very quiet performance

that he never freaks out, really. I guess he yells a little bit. Yeah, I love that. I think he plays this with- Very controlled. And with a knowledge of how shitty he is as a dad. Yes, he knows he's not a great dad.

It's like his frustration at the fact that he can't just figure out how to relate to her. And yeah, there's that early thing, and I can't remember if it's like his frustration at the fact that he can't just figure out how to relate to her but and like yeah there's that early thing and I can't remember if it's right I think it's I think it is right before because she's like what are we what is it that we're sniffing around here and he's like classified

and she's like of course classified that's what I love about the scene is it's like an incredible show don't tell scene where it's like okay the movie just slows down the love interest goes to meet up with the villain and immediately he starts talking about other

stuff and it tells you everything you need to know about their relationship and Jennifer Connelly plays this everyone in this movie plays it like Inglis said I mean going to like the solemn tone on set he was like I constantly want to tell them don't play it like you're in a Hulk movie. Right.

Like Greek tragedy, this is an adult drama, I'll take care of the Hulk movie in post. I know. And again, we're only a few years removed from like the Schumacher type Batman and Robin movie

where Schumacher was like, more, more, like this is silly, this is fun. But these are like real scenes of adults talking. Yes. And even when you get to like

the Nolan Batman movies that have that sort of maturity to them, the scenes of adult talking are still pretty much plot scenes. They're all plot scenes. They're all shoe leather. They're shoe leather with good dialogue and fun performances. But this movie has just

emotional relationship scenes. And those emotions are always bottled. Jennifer Connelly is one of the best actors at starting to cry or holding in tears. She's good actress i love her can we talk about her for a second i fucking love so she just won the oscar and like she'd been around she's a kid star she's in labyrinth right you know and then in the 90s she's sort of like a like sex pot like it's like oh jennifer connelly she's soventing the Abbots the hot spot all these like kind of like

temptress like right exactly slightly sort of like trashy movies and then Beautiful Mind was like kind of

out of nowhere game changer all of a sudden well no no no because there's Waking the Dead and Requiem for a Dream and Pollock

all in 2000 which are all these like good serious performances Waking the Dead's an underrated movie I agree with that and then yeah Requiem for a Dream she goes through a lot of shit in that movie but she's good right 2000, which are all these good, serious performances. Waking the Dead's an underrated movie. I agree with that. Speaking of Billy Corp.

Requiem for a Dream, she goes through a lot of shit in that movie, but she's good. This year, she also has House of Sand and Fog, which she gets an Oscar nomination. Doesn't get an Oscar nomination for. She should have. That movie's rough. I don't love that movie. She's great in it. Yeah, but that movie's rough.

Yeah. I think she's the third best though I think like because they nominate Kingsley and Agadashlu who are both I think all three of them should have been nominated anyway and so she's still like at this point like a prestige actress and she's kind of like now the queen of cinematic suffering

like she's the long suffering she can be the long suffering wife emotionally or she can be like Requiem for a Dream where it's literally like throw everything at her because in 05 you got Dark Water

which is a decent little horror movie I think in 06 you have Little Children where she like has such an uninteresting character

nothing to do yeah that's like Winslet's movie that's Winslet's movie and it's so weird you go like okay so now it's 2006

Jennifer Connelly's five years on from winning an Oscar and we don't know what to do with her like she's already in a rut I also think she's one of those beautiful actresses she's very pretty I don't know I don't know what it is like I don't know why it is that maybe it's just because she plays a lot of like dark characters like she rarely got it like she by the time she's in he's just nothing into you which is 09 which she's also really fucking good in i i

don't remember honestly that movie is bad and it's another one of those things where every time they cut to the jennifer connelly plot line you're like jennifer you don't have to work this hard i know but she treats it like she's in house of sand and fall right but it felt like one of those things where she's like finally i get to play like a not suicidal character and she plays it really sad yeah and then it's just it's just over for her. Like I mean obviously she's in so she's in like

the dilemma. She's in Noah. Which is like thankless dilemma. With her former Requiem director. Which like she's solid

in all these things but you feel like she doesn't really get God I forgot the fucking dilemma. Weird man. Yeah. But anyway

she's good in this. This is her big post-oscar lap yeah she's good and she's a rough role betty ross is a rough role because it's basically like a certain point you just want to be to betty ross like why the fuck are you doing this like get out of here but i think what helps this movie is making it so much about her relationship with her father and sort of giving her the reins of the story because yeah very shortly after this Bruce gets into the accident gamma accident

the in the lab he pushes Rankin out of the way and stands in front of the stands in front of a big metal ball and everything turns green yeah because like you know the classic Hulk accidents like a nuclear test accident and I guess they just which we keep on seeing

the flashbacks the mushroom clouds that's what I'm saying they decide to link it through that like dual thing of like yes in the past

there was a nuclear test and then this is what unlocks it I guess just deciding like no one tests nuclear bombs in 2003 so let's not do that

I guess that's the idea which like here's the thing I love in this movie like Amazing Spider-Man 2, a garbage film made by garbage people, tries to do the thing where it's like,

oh, but he was destined to be Spider-Man all along because his father experimented on him. I hate that. So the spider bite just unlocked it. He was always going to be Spider-Man. Why? Who cares? Exactly. Who cares? What the fuck? this movie is actually saying something which is the whole heroism of spider-man is that he gets the powers and

realizes they're for good right like and it could be takes in learning a very tragic lesson but like you know what i mean like it's not as much fun if he's been groomed for the role the key to spider-man is that he was not a likely superhero and he chooses to do the right thing. Thank God it was a spider and not like another kind of bug. Nat. Nat. The amazing Nat. But it's just like they make it this whole fucking thing. In this movie it's like I think a pretty good

sort of analog for like he's got this repressed trauma and the gamma radiation is like the triggering incident. You know? Exactly. Right. It's like, it's not the thing that turns him into the Hulk. That's been inside of him the whole time. Exactly. That's always, right.

That's the damage of his father. The Hulk's no fun if it's just a monster. Right. It's not. It's him. It's his worst or whatever. Most angry. But that's also what happens to people who experience great trauma is it's like they usually don't break down immediately afterward. Especially if it's childhood trauma. Yeah, that's fair.

Like very often you have people like Bruce Banner who seem really boring and really together and then just have a complete psychotic break at some point, you know? And yeah, I just think he, you know, I think there's some angry visuals. We go into his bloodstream. Love it.

You see some of the shit and then it pretty quickly goes to him in the hospital and he's like I feel better than I've ever felt he wakes up and they're like you should be dead you should be melted like that frog he's like crying at his deathbed and he's like no I'm good my bad knee's my good knee now I'm killing it

right I don't need a bike helmet anymore yeah I'm not a loser and then which is what I kind of forget, is like, then Nick Nolte's like, oh great, my chance to shine. Like, I thought he lurked for longer. He kind of just sort of butts in almost immediately. He only really lurks once and then shows up at the hospital.

The only other scene I feel like we skipped over is you mentioned, and I just love the visual, because this is like the most Speed Racer-y moment, is when we're already trucking through that opening and Bruce like goes back home and takes the Kodak photo envelope out of his desk,

which is such a great like, oh right, you used to have like a wallet of photos from like the photo developer. And he takes out the Betty photo and then it goes into the Betty photo.

Oh, I love that. I love any of those transitions. They're so great. They're so comic book-y. Yeah. And he, she talks about her nightmare she keeps on having. Right. Which is, it starts with her earliest memory,

which is like presumably one of the few times that her and her father seem to have an emotional moment when he took her out for ice cream. Right. The explosion goes on in the test site. And then seeing him. And then it turns into Bruce choking her. So these two guys being very linked in her mind

despite the fact that they seem very different. This is true. Yeah. So Bruce is visited by a homeless grindle man who claims to be his father. I know I can see that you know it's true. Yeah. This made me think like this is like a scam or something.

Right. Just like people could just go to hospitals and do this. Yeah. And that's kind of terrifying. Well, sure. You need to hit on an orphan though, right? Or whatever. I don't know.

I guess he's not even an orphan. He's like, what are you talking about? I was raised by these people. They're my family. He knows they weren't his biological parents, but he also doesn't care. Right. My parents died in an accident or whatever. This isn't your last name.

Your last name is... Hulk Doctor. Audio Boomer. Yeah. Doctor. Your last name is Doctor? Yeah, come on. David Doctor.

So he starts... Yeah, he just goes right in he's just like I'm your dad DNA experiments right so preposterous but then he leaves him right yeah

I feel like he also has an early combo with Betty around there doesn't he he does I think it's in the lab isn't it when they're at the lab late one night? Yeah. And he's like, I can see what he sees in you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Falling into those eyes. And she's like, I'm sorry, you're the new janitor, right? No, I'm your ex-boyfriend's father. I might be a mad scientist. And what's going on? So...

You up? Bruce... Bruce turns into the Hulk pretty quickly after this. Yeah, I mean, there's sort of, like, Bruce is having the nightmares. The first time you see the Hulk is, like, 30 minutes in. There's that one shot of him standing in the shadowy doorway. Yes. And then at minute 40,

it's like he's at the lab, and I think that's when... It is that Nolte starts needling him, right? Because Nolte's there when he hulks out for the first time. Is he there? I feel like he then leaves and then Bruce hulks out smashes some stuff and then wakes up

at home. It's all himself. But Nolte's there because there's the moment where Nolte comes face to face with him and he goes like it's beautiful my son. Yeah. That's the first one? Okay. Obviously Nolte comes face to face with him and he goes like, it's beautiful, my son. Yeah. That's the first one? Okay, yeah. With the laugh.

I mean, obviously Nolte is trying to see like, is there something, like, you know, was I right? Like, is this the monster I thought? Like, right? He's like, looking to see if he can harness Bruce's mutation.

Right, right. And it is like, it's an upsetting sequence. Like, I think the key to the Hulk dramatically and the reason why I contend, like, everyone always talks about wanting a Ruffalo solo Hulk. I love the Ruffalo Hulk. It's really fun.

It works really well. They got the characterization down pat. The reason he keeps on working is because they're not making him the lead of his movies. The problem with the Hulk, narratively, is that you don't want to see him turn into the Hulk. If the Hulk is told well, you want to

be upset when Bruce Banner loses control. Which is antithetical to the fact that you've shown up to see the Hulk Hulk out and smash them. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that's always true, but I think that is the best version. I think if you care about Bruce as a character... No, I understand what you're saying like you know there's hulk stories where and these are usually cheesier ones where you're kind of like oh i really would love the hulk to smash all these

evil people you know like where bruce is being bothered in some way i also like like the and it's a classic peter david type story where it's like bruce is like you know what no i've cracked the code i figured it out and i'm gonna get rid of the hulk i'm gonna it's like Bruce is like, you know what? No. I've cracked the code. I've figured it out. I'm going to get rid of the Hulk. I'm going to do it. And you're like, no you won't. The Hulk is you, bitch. And so you kind of want him to turn into the Hulk. You want him to go crazy, but

that's years into a Hulk myth. The difficult balancing act is I think it's counterintuitive. I think dramatically you both do and don't want him to turn to the Hulk. You as an audience member want to see the Hulk crack skulls. Yeah. And you as an audience member,

you want to care enough about Bruce that you feel bad for him every time Hulk takes control. If that makes sense. Yeah. It's got to be a Wolfman thing. I mean, that's really, that's the character this is closest to because the Wolfman,

all the universal monsters were rooted in sort of basic psychological fears and the wolfman one is what if I don't know what's inside of me what if I can't control myself and also that classic nightmare of waking up in the morning and you're like how did I get here and what did I do right it's alcoholism, it's any sort of addiction

it's any sort of mental illness it's that loss of control I wonder if they'll do a Hulk i wonder when they'll if they'll do a hulk story like a mcu like if they'll ever do it so apparently universal still has solo rights no they have to be they have like right of first refusal or something i think it's something like that but again it would be like a linked uh deal you know it would be sort of the right spider-man thing i think it's even less intense than that but yes universal has be sort of like the Sony Spider-Man thing. I think it's even less intense than that. But yes, Universal has

some kind of... They released The Incredible Hulk. But that was before Marvel was bought by Disney. Right, because Marvel at that point... They would contract with the studio for one release. So do you know... Not to get back to this thing, but I just think this is a fascinating thing. So like early 90s,

Toy Biz has to buy Marvel to save Marvel and place save Marvel I'm sorry and place their heads at the top of the

Marvel pyramid right in 2005 when Feige was like I think we can make the movies ourselves and went and made that

pitch to like Perlmutter the way they got the money to do that. Yeah. They A, took out a massive loan from Merrill Lynch. They take the giant Merrill Lynch loan. It's like a financing plan basically.

If the first two movies had flopped, Merrill Lynch would have owned those characters. We've talked about it on this very podcast. But you know the other thing they did was. What? Toy Biz, which still owned Marvel right lost the rights to make marvel toys because they went to hasbro who they knew could give them a bigger upfront payment right right so marvel made greater profits yearly from making the toys themselves but they could go to hasbro and hasbro could give them 500 million dollars could buy the rights for a long time right Right. So then Toy Biz no longer exists because

it was like Marvel needed to sell the thing that bought it in order to save themselves. Yes. Full circle. Anyway. Anyway. Anyway. He wakes up in bed, doesn't know what happened, knows something's up. Right.

Well, Betty finds him. I think like that's a big point is that it's not the moment of Bruce waking up and where am I? This is when the movie really starts to recenter around Betty's point of view. She's the one driving the story.

Yeah. So she comes to go, you know, goes to come, whatever. Whatever the hell. Checks in on him. Marvo.

Marvo. And she sees him shredded, purple pants passed out in his bed and then there's a great cut to like a plate of greasy chicken and him eating it with his fingers. I like that.

I forgot about that. Yeah. And she's kind of just looking at him like a feral animal. Yeah. Which very quickly like the fucking SWAT team comes in. The police come in.

Yeah. So, you know. They find his wallet at the lab. Ross is on his ass. I think Ross thinks initially he's collaborating with a hobo banner. Yes, he does. Because it keeps on going like,

it's impossible that he's doing the exact same experiments as his father. Why am I doing Nolte? Yeah, you're doing Nolte. It's impossible that he's doing the exact same experiments. Foster was a pussy. God. Fucking, Sam Elliott's mustache is so clean in this movie.

I can never get over how sharply it's trimmed. Right, because in like Lebowski, it's sort of inched all the way over his lip. He's got the cowboy mustache. Right, right. And in this,

it's like the straightest mustache line. Yeah. But that's, they find his wallet at the lab. I love the lab sequence because it is just like kind of upsetting. It's just like a monster sequence,

you know? Yeah. And they bring him in for questioning. Right. Is this when they lock him in the water tank? Or is that,

that's after, that's after second whole game. Right. Ross refuses to believe that he's this ignorant, that he's this naive. He figures it out eventually. But he's sort of prodding him

and saying like, it's impossible, you don't remember, you were four years old. You were right there. Yeah. He mentions the test, like the bomb test. Right.

And clearly also mentions like the mother thing. He's like prodding that as well. Yeah. And I love, he says, there's the conversation he has with Betty where he goes, you're telling me he's following in his father's footsteps, doing the exact same thing in the exact same space. You know, either they're in on it or, and she goes, what? You think it's, you know, it's predestined?

And he goes, I was going to say damned. And she goes, of course you would. But I love that notion of just like, either way we're dealing with a big problem. Like he's like, either this is like the gods are trying to destroy us through this family or they are in on it together right um so it becomes this thing with like the government now trying to figure out how to get a handle on but i like that the government in this

you're you're on their side apart from talbot talbot's just sort of like straightforward asshole uh who's like what if i could make money off the hulk where you're like okay yeah good good move that'll work yeah this is obviously something to replicate but i like like ross i don't know i feel like sometimes in these movies when they're like bring in the helicopters and shoot missiles at them you're like godzilla's not gonna be killed by missiles like you guys should know that here you get every escalation 100 you're you're with them and this is also weirdly coming out right when the iraq war has started and all those scenes will get to them with the cluster bombs and stuff

yeah i remember it were very chilling for me as a 17 year old in the theater yeah where you've been watching like us blow up baghdad all right like right as we're going into war you have all these like military scenes that take place in the desert which is like i know it's the american desert it's intense all the big set pieces at the end take place in like just big open like sandy plains and mountains and stuff like that uh which is very bizarre it's kind of cool and it's also the opposite of like now every marvel movie is like shot in a parking lot in atlanta yeah i know you know with like green screens And it's also the opposite of like now every Marvel movie is like shot in a parking lot in Atlanta. Yeah, I know. You know, with like green screens or it's like a generic type of set they have.

You know, you're at an airplane like fucking landing field or whatever it is. And this is just like these like a big Western vistas where they like CGI in the Hulk. Yeah. Jumping around. I wish they did more. Yeah. Yeah. But the thing I love is, yeah, I think

Ross never becomes mustache twirly. He always is a character, even if you are concerned about what he wants to do to the Hulk, you get where he's coming from. And as I said, I think Sam Elliott really smartly plays the limitations of his

empathy. Yes. Like, it's not that he's cruel, it's that he knows that he's not very good at connecting to these things emotionally. Now can we talk about those Hulkhounds? Yeah. So Nolte's also from the comic right like that's a comic book idea. But like they took a lot of very sort of like

small threads from the comic book. Because we've met Banner's dogs already. Right. Where he's like shush they're beautiful like you know it's like a weird poodle who looks like it just ate a homeless person and he's taken one of bruce's hairs from the bicycle helmet man it sounds right uh and you see him like chopping it up but now that he's seen that bruce like he's triggered bruce successfully yeah the beautiful i just love that moment where it's like nolte stroking hulk's face yeah it's my son like

because it's like you know you're my son of here and he points to his like heart and he's like but also of here right because he created this thing right it's like it is like you're my experiment but you know when he did it in the 60s or whatever he felt bad about it like he's he's bummed out that he did that he wanted to murder bruce as a mercy killer like i burdened my son and now he's just like he's so far gone i guess i don't know yeah yeah i think that's it yeah it's like 25 years in jail you know uh everyone you know discrediting his work abandoning his mission like he needs the validation to think that he was actually on he thought he'd be fulfilled by janitor work but like he just wasn't doing it for him.

He didn't know how to mop. Yeah. So once he sees Bruce fully successfully Hulk out, then he's like, I'm going to make some dogs. It's that poodle land. So I remember when I was... Careful they don't bite.

When I saw this in theaters in 2003, I was 17, and the movie had a terrible reputation. Awful. By the time it, I think, even reached Britain. Especially with teenage boys. Like, this movie was hated by teenage boys. It was. Because I saw it early, went to all my friends, and was like, get ready.

The Hulk fucks. Like, this movie rules. You saw, like, a screening or something? I saw an early screening and the level of vitriol I got it actually People were mad at you. It significantly hurt my social standing. How much I sold the Hulk to everyone.

They were like, you're a fucking nerd and a loser. You're beyond saving. You lied to us. Liar! Because this movie came out a month later in britain which especially back then is not that unusual it came out july here i came out june and july and so it had already had the notorious yeah uh second weekend drop off like i was already aware of that unprecedented exactly so i was like basically like this movie's gonna be shitty

then i saw it yeah and was surprised by one how much i liked it yeah two how weird it was three all those conflict transitions ruled yeah but i do remember at 17 being like the fucking scene with the dogs though was that was rough i love the dog scene i love it i think the dogs look great they look weird i love how fucking they look. I love the audacity of him being like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to make a fucking Hulk poodle. He makes a Hulk poodle and like a Hulk. What do you call that?

It's like the sort of pit bully. What is this? You know what I mean? This thing. Smokey. A pit bull sounds right. Maybe. No,

not Rottweiler. It's like a weird looking fucking dog. I don't know. But I love that. They almost look like rat finky. Like they're so weird and they're sort of like lumpy muscles and they're like exaggerated features. And his idea is to like draw the Hulk out by attacking Betty with the Hulkhounds, right?

He's using Betty as bait. Why does he just like point a gun at her? Seems like a lot of work. Because it's a movie and this is cool. I know, I know, I know. Also, he might not be able to afford a gun. He's got a lot of science equipment.

He's also looking for a good avenue to premiere these dogs. He's proud of his new work. So the Hulk kills those dogs. P.S. He can't do an Apple keynote presentation where he's like and now I present the Hulk dog. Yeah, he can't do a TED talk. And then hits the next slide.

But yeah, she's in the car the dogs attack present the Hulk dog. Yeah, he can't do a TED Talk. And then hits the next slide. But yeah, she's in the car, the dogs attack, and the Hulk comes out. I love this movie setting up the idea of the Hulk getting bigger, the angrier he gets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This scene also is,

you saying the purple pants look dumb, which I agree they do, although I love how purple he makes them. I like how purple they are. They just do look like CGI. I wish they could look a little more fabric- he makes them. I like how purple they are. They just do look like CGI. I wish they could look a little more fabric-y. What I have heard is that Ang Lee wanted the Hulk to be naked the whole movie.

And in this scene, after his final growth, his pants rip off and they use shadows. Because when he walks away at the end, you see Hulk's butt. And the idea was that his pants hit a breaking point. He wanted to do the entire movie like that, where it was like through shadows, through camera angles, through objects. You just covered up the Hulk's genitals. That would be dumb.

Right. And that was the thing. They were just like, this is too silly. Like it starts straining credibility. Like Beowulf has that scene where like, it's like he's fighting Grendel and like, there's a fucking candle in front of his dick.

And you're like, enough. It's the opening credits of Spy Who Shagged Me. It feels like a comedy routine. No, it's never good. No. never good no i mean and like honestly and then watchmen was like yeah we're just gonna have you see his dick and we're like i don't think that's really better like then it's just sort of like you're kind of like no you're like it's twisted it's a little twisted his dick yeah they had to straighten that thing out. And again, I remember being like, Dr. Manhattan is circumcised?

He's a radiation being. Like, what did he like? Hey, don't push your politics on me, buddy. Anyway, so... I love how brutal the Hulk dog fight is. Because it's like... He squishes their necks. He's like gripping them in half.

I love that it's terrifying. It's very dark, though. It is a little hard to see some of the action. Like it's nighttime. Right. But it lends that like horror movie feel to it. Like we don't, none of these Hulk out sequences are exciting.

You know, like I remember the audience like, oh, like it's some of the dog stuff just because of how brutal it was. But it's like watching like a UFC match or something. Like there's a lot of blood. And then there's the great moment where he just looks like a sad little boy at the end of a tantrum where he tries to pick her up

out of the tree. It's good. I like the Hulk as character. I think the performance is good. I think they make the Hulk a tangible sort of character. I think he make the Hulk a tangible sort of character. I think he's well composited into the

world. Watching this movie on Blu-ray, it makes me miss when you had to print CGI on film. Like when you would shoot a 35mm movie, do the digital effects, and then have to print that back onto film. Because it lends a sort of viscerality and it kind of unites

the elements as opposed to when everything's digital. It gets that color forms thing I've talked about which the Norton movie has hardcore. Right. In this,

it's like he never looks like a real thing because of how stylized he is and the limitations of the technology but I think he always feels tangible. Like I always buy him as a real character,

if that makes sense. Yes. Which is more important to me. Yeah. But after that one, you know... He unhulks. Right. They catch him.

That's when they put him in the water tank. She calls Ross. Yeah. They show up, sleep dart him, put him in the tank, bring him over to the desert. They weirdly do the sleep dart him, put him in the tank, bring him over to the desert. They weirdly do the Black Hawk

down Middle Eastern. They do. Aren't you in New Mexico? Why do they do that? It's like the California desert or something, right? Yeah, it's like Utah or whatever. I don't know. It's ridiculous. It's like the American plains. I literally made a joke. We've talked about this on the pod. Yeah, it's ridiculous. It's like the American Plains. I mean, I literally made a

joke. We've talked about this on the pod, but yeah, it is always so funny. Any movie set in the Middle East, it's just and it's always like some helicopter shot. It's like and then you hear in the distance Remember Heroes, the TV show was on right now. Yeah, and that was like they made

some decision where they were like, that's going to be the whole score. It's just some lady yodeling. Yeah. Well, that's like, that's apparently the stuff that Michael Dania did. Like his whole score was like Japanese drumming and that sort of like choral chanting. And then he saw the movie and he's like, that's what they kept of my work?

And he was like, yeah, yeah Daniel Hoffman just liked it that he didn't even redo it he just kept it in as is and he's like that stuff made the cut but they bring him down there and then like Talbot sort of is able to wrestle control of the case

and he at this point oh well we missed the Talbot Hulk out scene that's before the dogs, right? Well, he makes him Hulk out. Right. And because he gets the information from his father on the phone that he's like, let these dogs loose. Right. Exactly.

That's what it is. Talbot basically makes him Hulk out. They have that like fight scene. And then goes to the dogs. That's the same hulking. Yeah. But in the process, he fucking pwns talbot uh yes so then i love like talbot coming back as this like comic like right he's got like the um the crutch and the neck brace he's got like all the stuff if you want to like uh file like a claim against someone like If you're an ambulance chasing lawyer

where you're like, your honor, as you can see, I was very injured. The perfect amount of cuts on his face. When that mail truck rolled over my foot. He's like, look, if I get you to Hulk out, they give me permission to kill you,

I dissect you, we figure out how to make more of you. And I make money. If you don't Hulk out, then I just get to fuck with you. I dissect you. We figure out how to make more of you. Right. And I make money. Right. If you don't Hulk out then I just get to fuck with you. Yeah. So either way I win. And at this point yeah he's like um right at first he's just in

I'm trying to remember the order of the thing. Cause there's in the water tank. Oh that's what happens first. They're trying to drill him. No no no no. I'm sorry. First he tries to fuck with him just like in the weird steel cylinder room. Yes. And then he's like, fine, you can't do it consciously. Let's see if you can do it unconsciously. So then they get him in the

water tank and try to like prod him psychologically. Yeah. He starts having his nightmares. You're having these recurring dreams of, yes, exactly. And that's when he remembers, right? No, no, because it's no because david is the one who explains that he actually killed the mother yeah like by mistake right it was like

they just became one it's quite a line yeah yeah um again and it's like that line which i guess is a little later but like that's a line when 80 of the theater is like, get the fuck out of here. You're really like, come on. They became one. David, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to interrupt the flow of the show. I just have to call something out. Ben? Yes. You're kind of creeping me out today. What?

It feels like you're leaning a little heavy on the peeper thing, and it feels like you're creeping me out, and I would like it if you could give me some space and give me some privacy, okay? I'm doing my my job can you just give me privacy for like 60 seconds yeah all i'm asking for is 60 seconds of privacy okay all right i'll leave the room okay thank you okay okay listen guys now the pen is gone we've all heard a lot about privacy policies in the past month or so right right? But have you heard about a company being proud of their privacy policy?

Bet you haven't, but guess what? We transfer. They are. They're all about making file sharing easier for everyone. Worrying about your privacy is the opposite of that. I know because I've been dealing with Ben all week.

So they don't sell... You want me to... Ben! Please, 60 seconds of privacy privacy it's not about you okay listen the folks that we transfer they don't sell user data the way that ben does they don't snoop or spy on your files the way that ben does sometimes i walk into the office and ben's just adjusting the levels on our files editing our episodes i go what are you doing you snoop you spy and guess

what they don't want to know your shoe size they don't want to know your soft drink preference your shopping history questions ben pesters me with constantly he's sliding into my dms like gift field asking me if i like sprite or fanta okay this is this is the headline, okay? And I say this in confidence to you, my friends, the blankies. We transfer serves ads to keep their service free, but never, never in that creepy, I was just talking about blenders 20 minutes ago, and now I'm seeing ads for blenders kind of way. And that's a problem we have in our podcast

because we talk about blenders a lot. Shout out to Alex Ross Perry. In fact, they reserve 30% of their ad space to showcase the work of artists like directors who are given blank checks sometimes they clear and sometimes they bounce baby from around the world it's their way of making the internet a nicer simpler more beautiful place so start sending files and see what they stand for at we.tl backslash not creepy you make we transfer to try to remember the name of that website it's we.tl backslash and then just think the opposite of ben okay ben you can come back in here all right god wait a second. What's that empty glass you're holding? Were you holding a glass up

to the other side of the door and listening to our conversation? No. Okay, fair enough. But I'm not creepy. A thing I love about this movie, and I love almost everything about this movie, but a thing I love about it is it is so small and focused in terms of the dramatics.

You don't have superfluous characters. It really kind of just is these five people. And most of it, it's just the four of them. It's like this quartet of two kids and their bad dads. You know? And there are so so few like even like Daniel Dae Kim is like

the eighth lead of this movie because he has three exposition lines. Right. You know like you could do this movie as like a black box play

save for the Hulk sequences. Yeah and like honestly it is a little bit of that you know in the final act. Which I love. Well we're getting to that. I mean that's the best part. Right.

That's when this movie becomes like transcendent but that is also when like the 20% of people left in the theater who are not off they're like okay alright goodbye like you know like the theater's now empty and it's just Griffin being like so they prod Hulk

they sort of are drilling him he has the dream he started to unlock some of the stuff and then he hulks out. Hulks out, starts smashing things. Totally lose control. And I love that Ross is like, the fuck?

Like he's mad that Talbot's been like off the leash here. And he's also like complained to Betty about the fact that it's out of his control now that he doesn't know what to do.

And Talbot has those frosted tips. You just know he's bad. Yeah, which only 2000 kids will remember. So they do the foam thing. The foam thing is great. Love that foam. Doesn't work. Yeah, Talbot has those frosted tips. You just know he's bad. Yeah, which only 2000 kids will remember. So they do the foam thing. The foam thing is great. Love that foam.

Doesn't work. Yeah, Talbot's like, give me the comically oversized drill. Yeah, but I feel like the foam, because with science fiction, like sometimes predicts real technology. I feel like that could be a thing. Oh, it's a thing.

That's a thing, right? It's like the Incredibles goo balls too. It's just like, you just got to slow them down. You can't really stop them. It's like the Incredibles goo balls, too. It's just like you just got to slow them down. You can't really stop them. It's like the new rubber bullet or something. But I love how Talbot's like, hmm, big drill won't work. I know what I'll do. I'll shoot a grenade at his face.

Yeah. Like in an enclosed space. He's an idiot. And then his most audacious visual moment is the explosion. Yeah. Where Talbot goes flying. He freeze frames, and then you zoom out, and you see like the whole page of all the different panels so here's the thing

and like also I feel like they hadn't done a frame trick in a while and he's like remember like cause yeah that's still going on cause they'll use it for transitions they use it a little bit when he's being transported from the helicopter but like a couple of times early in the movie it's just for dialogue

scenes like when Talbot sees Betty from the helicopter. But like a couple of times early in the movie, it's just for dialogue scenes. Like when Talbot sees Betty. And in comics, because it's like we got to keep the kids' attention, you don't want to do the equivalent of like shot, reverse shot coverage. Sure. Like A, you don't want to have that much just sort of straight dialogue.

You don't want to stay in any scene for that long. And B, if you're going back and forth between characters, if you start here at a medium close-up, the next time you go back to that character, you want an extreme close-up with their teeth gritted, or now they're purple. Yeah, no, no, I get you, I get you. So when he breaks it down like that,

A, it's like a deconstruction of how similar comics and film are in terms of us just accepting accepting these weird pushy like visual storytelling styles but B it's like this is a way to make kind of generic not generic but like kind of stayed adult conversation

scenes as pulpy as and you know comic books are like that sometimes yeah 100% they have to make stayed conversation scenes pulpy. Right. Which is what you have to do. I know. Like, come out with crazy angles and all of that. Anglies. Yes. More like crazy Anglies. Crazy Anglies. So,

he's hulking out now, losing control, breaks out of the facility. Yep. Kills Talbot. I mean, Talbot kills himself. And he starts leaping across the desert. Which, again, is something that the Leterrier movie never thought to do, which is weird because that's the most

classic Hulk thing, is the leaping. He bounds around. For him, it's like a weird there's a serenity to it. There's that moment where he's flying through the sky and the wind is blowing against his face and he just closes his eyes. I love this stuff. This is where the movie is like just

singing for me and like I love that part and then I love that there's like weird creepy cluster bombs that like suck the air out of the room and you know out of the space. And I think these Hulk fights are really good. Yeah, this part's good. This part's just good. Yeah, and it's just like really spare like broad daylight Hulk

in the desert fighting tanks but then there's also that moment where he's like contemplative and he looks at the rock and it keeps on fading, like cross fading from his face to like closer looks at like the moss on the rock where he's just like considering the elements. It's like no one will ever let anyone make this again. Ever. We should say that cross cutting with this. David Banner's like maybe i'll do something else and he turns himself into the absorbing man right where if like he touches like a boom box like his hand turns into a boom box yeah right and i love that like the bit of his hand getting stuck in the

metal yeah that's cool share shake his hand off um but that going to make going to the bathroom pretty awkward. His whole body turns into a penis when he touches it. I was thinking he sits on the toilet and becomes the toilet butt. It's just funny because the absorbing man who he sort of is just in terms of power. He's mostly a Thor villain.

He's one of the dumbest in terms of IQ Marvel villains. He's like an idiot and his thing is like I'll turn dumbest like I literally like in terms of IQ Marvel villains. Yeah, he's like an idiot and his thing is like I'll turn into metal. That'll kill Thor. He's like a prison inmate.

FYI. Fuck you. You seem to have forgotten this. His name is like Crusher Creel. He's like a And he looks like it. Yeah, he's got like a big bony like caveman head.

He is visually based off of Michael Berryman, who's the character who plays the mutant freak guy from that film. So Hulk, military, Ross is like, we got to take everything we got out on him. And Betty's reasoning with her father to not do this. And he's like, this isn't an emotional thing. This isn't a thunderbolt thing.

This is like a human casual an emotional thing this isn't like a thunderbolt thing this is like a human casualty civilian thing yeah they call the president they're like what are you casualties they're gonna be casualties because of this fucking thing while the president's fly fishing so they like you know give him permission to send in the jet send

in everything yeah they cluster bomb him right and it's Hulk just trying to get everyone off his back and And so quickly, it gets to like San Francisco because he's able to like just like bound. I like that you have the moment where he saves the people

on the bridge because you just have a little bit of like, okay, this is where they could have gone in sequels with the Hulk learning how to save people because otherwise,

this is not a superhero movie in any way. And then they finally are able to drop the real bomb, which is Betty, who calms him down. He banners back and submits himself. Yeah, Thunderbolt at this point is like, you need to die. Right. Like, unfortunately. But also at this point, David Banner has gone to Betty. Nick Nolte Betty and is like, look, I know I'm doomed.

You can get him down. All I ask is that you let me see my son before they kill him. Now, you need this scene because otherwise the idea that they'd be executed facing each other is stupid. Right. But I guess they pull it off. It's comic book-y. I don't know. They literally shoot it

like a black box theater like they're in this big hangar under like one spotlight what are they gonna do to them like are they gonna electrocute them or like what's the plan like how are they actually gonna kill them i don't know are they gonna gas them maybe i don't know if it's clarified yeah yeah um but they're in this incredibly dramatic looking set but also really sparse and it's like the two of them up against like just black abyss. Yes. And then Nick Nolte like does a monologue from secret honor. He starts ranting and raving.

And then there's the great moment when like Banna starts hulking out, but doesn't actually turn green. And then Nolte mocks him and is like, I mean, Nolte is so phenomenal in this scene at this moment in the theater the whole theater is exiting the rose this is like fucking irreversible right now

but like 14 year old Griffin sitting in the theater going like oh that's crazy the best supporting actor's locked up this early like I was sitting there and I was like slam dunk Nolte's taking it cakewalk yeah yeah and he's trying to get banner to like fucking you know

you know to hook out but i mean he it's this very like verbose monologue with all this like insane like biblical insults like right what does he say i wish i could and he talks a lot about he he explains killing the mother um yes yes that's when he explains killing the mother yes yes that's when he explains killing the mother but it's not working and he goes like fine I'll just take care of it myself the rubber off of an electric cable and let's talk about

this he literally choose the scenery and Ross is like no let him do it yeah which by the way no headshot at this point. But I guess they don't know that he has the powers. Yeah. But yeah, right.

He's like, all right. All right. That's not going to work. I'll just turn into electricity. Now, the thing I forgot as I was watching this last night is this happens two hours and two minutes into the movie. There's still 20 minutes. They don't even get to that point until two hours in. Yeah.

And now it becomes this fight that is almost non-literal. It's an abstract fight sequence. Is this the part that you miss, Ben? Because you had to rush over here? I mean, he fights his dad, but it's like, no, he's actually just fighting his father issues. Yeah, it's a Freudian finale. They literally go through the clouds. That's the thing that's the best.

Where it's like these flashes of him in the clouds. Right and the idea is supposed to be that it's like the lightning illuminating him but it also feels like they're fighting through their entire history. Yes. It's so good. And whatever he tries to do he can't escape his father. Like his father becomes the water

and becomes the air and electricity and like rock nolte. It's the fucking best and everyone is watching this and thinking like i can't follow this this is visually weird like right because he really takes a very solid form that's easy to track no and then they turn into ice they start absorbing all the elements he turns into a jellyfish cloud of energy you also i guess and i guess if you want to be fair about the criticisms,

you don't really know what the dad even wants at this point. What is he looking for? I don't know what his motivations are. That's why he keeps on saying, he's going to suck the Hulk up, right? He wants to be unstoppable. He wants to be proven correct

in everything he committed his life to doing. Right? Yeah. And in that quest, he has also now become obsessed with what that power feels like for him. Yeah. And the one thing he realizes is he has all this power, but his body cannot contain it. He needs the stability of the

Hulk genes, which he can only get from his son. Right. So he wants to absorb his son. He wants to fully swallow his son. But then he does, and that kills him. Yes, 100%. So, you know. Right. Fuck you, Dad. Yeah, I mean, he's like a, you know know he's like a mad scientist character he's like wrong right yeah um but massive explosion i mean they literally turn to this jellyfish yeah and then everyone presumes that bruce is dead right and it cuts to a year later

uh betty and ross having a conversation on the phone i mean like for so much of this movie it's like betty is the emotional track for all of this. You're right. I mean, I didn't think about that so much when I was re-watching it, but you're right. Like, it does its best with Betty. Yeah. Like, rather than marginalizing her

like the Leterrier movie does. Right. Yeah. And they have this conversation about, like, if there's been any sign of him, you know? Yeah, so this isn't the only thing i just don't like the ending yeah the ending is very like it's very the tv show i guess or something where it's like and now he's decided after like obviously being like a monster that

should be like thrown into fucking space yeah he's, I'll just go to the South American jungle and fight a militia. Like, right. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. Okay. Well, is he going to smash Venezuela?

Like, what's his plan? He's going to do humanitarian work. He's got to live somewhere, David. No, him doing humanitarian work would be him, like,

just literally going to live on the moon. Yeah. Staying away from humanity. Well, that's what like Ruffalo Hulk tries to do. Well, yeah, no, it no it's i mean that's a classic comic book trope but like ruffalo hulk tries to do it because he doesn't want to hurt a person he loves right but in in that movie the hulk is scary yeah he smashes things but there is some concept of like well he's sort of aware of it and like there's like there's a balance between these two people but in this movie the hulk's like

an environmental disaster there's no like we don't think he's gonna figure it out like after the after the fight with his dad now here's the thing i do you think universal was just like you know leave some room for a sequel maybe this will be a big hit 100 right yeah and they hire zach penn to write a sequel before the movies even come out. And he writes a sequel that picks up with Bruce in Nicaragua. That featured him fighting the Abomination. Sure. Classic Hulk villain. What is that villain? He's basically just

like what is an asshole sort of had Hulk powers. He's like Hulk Venom or whatever. He's like a more twisted version. But he's just a big he's a guy who morphs into a big. But also I think at least in the comics he's Soviet. He's like a more twisted version. But he's just a big... He's a guy who morphs into a big... But also, I think, at least in the comics, he's Soviet. He's like a Cold War villain.

So it's sort of right. What if the Soviets recreated the Hulk experiment? But that was a film that was always like, well, the movie made a profit, but everyone hated it, so maybe we'll make it someday. I don't think we'd bring Ang Lee back, but maybe we'd make a straight sequel with Eric think we'd bring Ang Lee back but maybe we'd make a straight sequel

with Eric Bana like it was always kind of a consideration then Marvel gets the rights back goes to Universal says we'd love to make a Hulk movie

folded into this thing and they still pretty much use the Zach Penn script yeah they do they rewrite it a little bit and not only do they use

the Zach Penn script which Edward Norton does a lot of rewriting on and demands a credit and doesn't get it they do they rewrite it a little bit not only do they use the zach penn script which and edward norton does a lot of rewriting on um and demands a credit and doesn't get it and it's very fraught which is why he gets pushed off of the avengers because they had so much difficulty working with him but not only that zach penn's hired to write an avengers movie yeah which apparently joss whedon had like has publicly said like it was bad oh it was very bad and i threw it away yeah you know like but he has like a story credit

on that film. Because he went in to me just to direct it and he was like, first of all, I'm not directing this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like this is terrible.

But the thing I love is that like nothing in the Norton Hulk really negates the Ang Lee Hulk. It's pretty much a sequel. The Norton Hulk is weirdly a sequel to this movie. Which is impossible. Yes. Like, and it's not like in the Norton Hulk is weirdly a sequel to this movie. Right. Which is impossible. Yes.

Like, and it's not like in the Norton Hulk, they're like, it was crazy how my dad turned into a cloud. They forget that stuff. But the basic concept of like, I was a scientist. I used to date Betty Ross. Thunderbolt Ross is a military guy. You know what I mean? That's all kept.

It picks up in the same country that the first movie ends in. No, I think it, I think it picks up in Brazil. Really? Yes. I just rewatched it, and I don't even quite remember, but I think it's Brazil. But anyway, you know.

Yeah, it is Brazil, because there's like favela stuff. South America. He's going around. There's like a sort of vague parkour scene, which was a demand in the late 2000s where they were like, bring parkour back.

Ben wants par more. Yeah. Oh boy. But I love that like as much as Incredible Hulk is the one they fold into the MCU the least. Yeah. You can kind of act like Ang Lee's Hulk is part of the MCU. You can. Kind of.

You kind of can. Kind of. You kind of can. It's as connected as Norton is. They never ever reference it directly. No. The only thing, and like they barely reference

the fucking, the Terrier movie. Yeah, right. But the only reference to that is he mentions like I smashed Harlem one time. And you have Thunderbolt Ross. You have Thunderbolt Ross.

Right. I mean, he's easy. But it feels handshaky. But this feels like the last point in time where like, you know what I'm saying? Like the Ghostbusters 5 thing

is a similar thing where it's like this property we can't get off the ground let's just take someone fuck it we've done so many like overly sort of strategic takes at this movie trying to think through it logically let's just take someone who's successful and let them do whatever the

fuck they want at this sort of scale that will never happen again and for his impulse to be, I'm going to go to the polar extremes of like, I'm going to make it as adult, serious, dialogue-based as possible, and as

comic book-y, and sort of like pulpy and monster movie at the same time, is just like a jarring thing that audiences are not ready for. They kind of want one or the other and they let him make this movie and the movie feels totally of a piece to me.

Like that's the thing. It doesn't feel like some misbegotten like, you know, it feels like Robert Altman's Popeye where it's like if you hire a guy to make a popular thing, you still let them do what they do. You don't go, but come on, it's got to be this. I agree with you completely.

I do just want to point out there is batman begins after this which is a similar concept of like let's let the director run with it right you know that is a little obviously trying a little harder his concept is less insane it's less insane but i mean that's fine like i do think like there's batman begins there's constantine well whatever you know i love that movie but that's that's a but there wait there's one other one that was obvious too oh Hellboy oh yes you know so there are some where again it's sort of like the director has a pitch he'll do it but you're right

those movies have a far they all have a far more conventional sort of dramatic structure though in terms of a classic superhero movie arc which this doesn't have because it's a monster movie I mean this is the closest anyone's come to doing a successful Dark Universe reboot. Like, this is the template, in a way.

Because they've always said our problem is, how do we make the monsters like the protagonists? How do you do big budget horror films? I get what you're saying. But, yes. Finish your point, if you want. No, I think this is kind of what you do. I agree. To make them tragic, which all those monster movies are.

The thing to me and it's like why I'm ranting about the ending of the movie is like there's just nothing in this movie really says like sequels, universes like what I love about the movie is that that's just not there. It just wasn't concerned. I think he wouldn't have done the sequel anyway. They wanted that

and they just were like Ang Lee's a genius everyone loved Crouching Tiger no one seemed to question this while it was going on Barry Norman who in Britain was sort of like Britain's closest answer to Roger Ebert he was never like in my opinion the critic that Ebert was but he hosted this very famous show on the BBC that was called

like film and he was the guy who was like an interesting film blah blah blah on the BBC that was called like film, you know? And he was the guy who was like, you know, an interesting film, blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah, you know, right. Yeah. And he retired right around now, like right around when Hulk was in production. And in his retirement statement said, I am so despondent at the idea that Ang Lee, who made the wonderful crouching tiger is making a superhero movie.

The Hulk that like that to me, cinema has died. And I remember everyone was like, oh, well, you know, Barry, he's old. He's become a grump. Right. But that was a prevailing notion among the older critical class. But that's also like, by doing it, he became the last person to be able to do it in that way.

Yes. Except for my favorite thing is that Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is totally a remake of this, except fun. Yeah, Guardians of the Galaxy is a nice, I mean, you know. It's another father issue movie. It is. And it also ends, like, the final battle is fucking.

I know, which I love. It's like the same as this. It's him turning into Rox and shit. And turning into different forms and like fighting their issues out. I know. I mean, Hulk's better, but Guardians 2 is a lot of fun. But I just sat there and I went, holy shit, James Gunn figured out how to make American

audiences like everything Ang Lee was interested in thematically. Now. Tonally, it's totally different. Stylistically, it's totally different. I want to play the box office game. Yeah. So this movie had a bunch of bad records. The most expensive movie Universal had made up until that point

was the only movie to open this high and not make $150 million. Interesting. And never before in history had a movie opened above 20 and dropped... 70%. It dropped 70%. Because usually if a thing drops 70%, it opened poorly. Or it was like a horror movie that opened to like 18. I don't know.

Nothing had ever opened this big and dropped that hard that fast. Hulk. Opens to 62. June 20th, 2003, $62 million. He knows. And it just doubles it, $130. It doubles, yeah, $132. Yeah.

Number two at the box office is an animated film. Number two at the box office is an animated film. Number two at the box office is an animated film. 2003 Funny Nemo? I just figured you'd get it from that. Highest grossing film of that year. Which in its fourth week is making $21 million. Yeah. Pretty impressive.

A juggernaut. Which was the film that beat the Lion King's animated film record. Correct. Yes. It was like the number six movie of all time. It was a colossal hit. Right. That was the big

Entertainment Weekly headline was how Nemo beat Neo because everyone assumed The Matrix was going to be the bulldozer that summer. Great movie. 2003. What a year.

Reloaded. Yes. Number three is a sequel. The second film in a long-running franchise that you adore and that I adore

2003 second film long running oh oh oh is it Too Fast Too Furious Too Fast

Too Furious a John Singleton film starring Paul Walker Tyrese Ludacris Ludacris Devin Aoki Devin Aoki

and Eva Mendes they gotta bring Eva Mendes back that's so overdue is she in 5 for a second she's in the credit singer for 5 she reveals that Letty's still alive Ludacris. Devon Aoki. Devon Aoki. And Eva Mendes. They got to bring Eva Mendes back. That's so overdue. Is she in five for a second? She's in the credit stinger for five. Yeah. She reveals that Letty's still alive.

Yeah, I think that would be great to have her back. Time to bring her back. Which in three weeks has made $102 million. And even though it was seen, I think, as a bit of a franchise killer, was kind of a hit. Huge hit. It opened a 50 or 60. Opened a 50, made 127.

So, you know, it fell off. Yeah, that's a huge opening for that in 2003 yeah number four is a comedy film uh very like expensive sort of high special effects massive massive hit one of those movies that no one remembers that like just made a shit ton of money in 2003 is it a big Oh, I know exactly what it is. Yes. Bruce Almighty. It's Bruce Almighty.

An objectively, reprehensively bad film. That made like half a billion dollars. Yes. I can't remember one joke from it. It's not good. Yeah. Huge.

Like nothing to say about it. I mean, Carrie's doing his thing. Because it's like it hit Christians or something. No, no, no, no, no.

It's just like where he's like, I'm God, I'm going to make her tits bigger. You know, like he just like doesn't have any bits. It was like the last of like the big high concept comedies where you could sell it that quickly

in a trailer with like, oh, here are six funny images. Yeah, but also, and then Carrie just going like, she also hadn't done a comedy in like four years.

That was the big thing was like outside of the Grinch, he had been doing like Truman Show, Man on the Moon. Like it was just. Right. Everyone was so excited that Carrie was in a big dumb comedy again that that's why it blew up. I mean, well, you know what? Fun with Dick and Jane and Ness Man both made money.

So it wasn't like his last hit comedy. But that made like $250 million. Yes, it did. Insane. Nuts. made money so it wasn't like his last hit comedy but that made like 250 million dollars yes it did nuts number 5 is a remake that like I feel like at the time people were like why the fuck would you

remake this movie with these people but it was like a solid hit and it's like not a bad movie why would you remake this one with these people I mean you know what I grew up in Britain and the movie is so beloved in Britain that maybe there was more of a backlash in Britain I've brought it up several times we have a hard out but I just in Britain and the movie is so beloved in Britain that maybe there was more of a backlash in Britain.

I've brought it up several times. We have a hard out, but I just, God, I could dig into this for two hours. 2003, beloved film. Oh, Italian Job. Italian Job, an F. Gary Gray joint with Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, and Edward Norton, who famously dissed this

film before it came out in like some interview. He had a three picture deal. He was like, it's a piece of shit. Paramount. And they forced him to be in the movie and he hated it and refused to do press. And then shit talked it while doing press for other movies.

And then the movie came out and like, people were like, it's kind of fun. And it did well. Like he looked like an asshole. He shot himself in the foot on that one. Yeah. And like,

that was the movie that kind of made a Statham happen. It was kind of the movie that made most deaf happen. Like as an actor, like it's, it that kind of made Statham happen. It was kind of the movie that made most deaf happen. Like as an actor, like it's, it's kind of fun. I just remember in Britain, it was like Italian job in Britain is one of those movies where like, they don't even know that it's just okay.

Yeah. They're just like, what are you talking about? Like the three greatest movies are the Godfather, Citizen Kane and the Italian job. Right. The idea of replacing. You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.

Yes. Yes. Is that number five? That's number five. Okay. So that's the box office game. Rugrats Go Wild. The weakest of the

Rugrats trilogy. Alex and Emma opening this weekend. Yeah. Hollywood Homicide Dumb and Dumber When Harry Met Lloyd. I saw that in theaters.

From Justin to Kelly opens at number 11. $2.7 million dollars you're fine I think for your heart out not really but okay merchandise spotlight

this movie did create one of the greatest pieces of merchandise of all time which we all know okay we all know it's one of the few pieces of merchandise that went

mainstream and has stayed in production since the release of this film I think you're having a laugh I'm not no what are you talking about? Hulk hands. Oh, really?

They came from this? They came from this, which is so funny that they come from this movie. Why did they come from, like, was it just, I guess, someone was like, there should be Hulk hands? Avi Arad, because he was a toy guy,

was so big on licensing and still running toy biz and everything that their big thing was there had to be a big Marvel movie every year that could be like a toy licensing bonanza. Which is why the Tim Story Fantastic Four got rushed into production. Something else got pushed back and it was like

fuck, X-Men, Spider-Man, Hulk, Spider-Man 2, fuck, we need a new... So they just made so much Hulk shit. They thought it was going to be like a Jurassic Park level, like every kid's going to want a Hulk. And they made made so much Hulk shit. They thought it was going to be like a Jurassic Park level, like every kid's going to want a Hulk. And they made every type of thing,

and it didn't sell super well. Except for the Hulk hands. The Hulk hands were humongous. And it was this like... They are. They're very big. Right. And it was also like...

He has big hands. It was essentially like a new type of toy. Like it created like a whole new category because then there was a Bonanza, and none of them ever worked as well of making hands for other characters. There were King Kong hands when that came out. They made thing hands

and feet for Fantastic Four. For Shrek, they made ogre hands that were literally pull my finger. Where it farted instead of smashing. The idea of that's every kid's perfect toy is just big foam hands that you can hit things with. And over time, they've made Hulk hands shittier.

They became plush at a certain point. Then they became smaller. They took the electronics out of them. The original Hulk hands, which are just like big, green, foam fists with sound boxes in them. And there's like a plastic bar inside so you get a good grip. And you just punch it and it just goes hall of fame fucking hang it from the

rafters retire it best merchandise ever and they came from a somber meditative family drama about the way our fathers damage us and us fighting to try to remove that damage from ourselves and make ourselves better people

in their wake. I love how the next movie he makes is Brokeback Mountain. He was like, oh, you didn't like Hulk? I guess I'll just make a blockbuster gay cowboy movie and win an Oscar. Huge. I love the Hulk. I hope people have

rewatched it because of this. It's a genuine esoteric film we're never going to get the likes of again. And even if you don't love it, you know, I think people have come around to it more recently. Give it a watch, guys. You've got to admire this thing.

Oh, yeah. You know, there's a singularity of vision that is totally unfiltered, that is like what our podcast is about. It really, you know. It was one of the first movies we wanted to do. Hulking the Hulk. That was the thing we were always going to do. It's my ultimate go-to answer for

what's the textbook blank check movie. Absolutely. You only get to do that if you're in a blank check position. Absolutely. And no one questions what you're doing. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Ben, you got something to say? I think it might be too dumb.

Oh, wait. There's a dumb thing you want to do. Don't forget. We'll do it later. Yeah. Okay. So we were talking about the monster universe

and I had a pitch for our, you know, blank check production company. Sure. Blank check picture. So this is, yeah, of course. The slate. So I was thinking,

what if they took all the monsters and put them in one movie unite the monsters and you could have like mummy right working at and his lab on his bones computer and he's fine you know he was out and then you said bones computer and then he sees like you know the invisible man robbing a bank, and then he brings them all together, I guess, to fight the ultimate monster? What are you talking about? You know that the original Universal movies build to that. They have House of Frankenstein.

Did they have a Bones computer, though? No, they didn't have a Bones computer. But they do have those movies where it's like all of them are haunting one house at the same time. Really? Yeah. That's fun. You never get it from

like their perspective uniting to fight a bigger monster but those movies are great. Yeah. Yeah I say why make one movie about one monster where you can

have all of them together. No that's what they when all those franchises died out they put them all in each other's movies. That's great.

Yeah. Frankenstein meets the Wolfman, House of Dracula like they were all just these like giant fucking mashup. Make it like. That's great. Yeah. Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, House of Dracula. Like, they were all just these, like, giant fucking mashup. Make it like an Ocean's Eleven type thing.

Now you got a stew. Thanks to Ange for Goodo for her social media. Wait, what's the thing you're gonna do? I'll tell you later! Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds

for our artwork. Thank you to Lee Montgomery for our theme song. Go to blankiesoutright.com for some real nerdy shit. Yeah.

And as always, Hulk getting the Hulk.