Blank Check with Griffin & David - Lady in the Water with Richard Lawson

Episode Date: March 7, 2016

Richard Lawson (Vanity Fair) joins Griffin and David to examine 2006’s egotistical bedtime martyr tale, Lady in the Water. Is M. Night trying to say something subtly about his film’s critics? Why is the lady never seen in the water? How is this a movie? Seriously. Together, the BC crew examines Giamatti’s stuttering, the cookbook misdirect payoff, the Disney controversy, and explore deep Lorax cuts. Plus, new segment the Burger Report, and the return of 'What If Al Pacino Was In This?'

There's a podcast in the water. Good. Strong. Simple. So I've been having a panic attack for the last 48 hours. And I just, I didn't even, I have a lot to say about this episode, but I didn't want to put time into planning out the opening. I just thought, let's go. Let's go.

Occam's Razor. Let's go straight the fuck into it. Great. My name is Griffin Newman. David Sims. This is... Pod Night Shyamacast. Blank Check.

Blank Check with Griffin and David. This is a podcast where we discuss filmographies and one-offs of people. Of wacko directors. Wacko directors. Boom. Let's keep going. I like this. I like this idea that we're just going to go fast.

Yeah. This guy's name is M. Night Shyamalan. Right. This is his seventh movie? It is. It is. Lucky Number Slevin for M. Night. Yeah.

It's called Lady in the Water. He would have done a better job with Lucky Number 11 than whoever directed it. Yeah, Paul McGuigan. Paul McGuigan. Yeah. Lucky Number 11, not terrible. Not great. No. You know who's good in it? Lucy Liu. Yeah. When's she bad? Exactly.

When's she bad? She's never bad. I agree. And that, ladies and gentlemen, weighing in with the voice of reason on Lucy Liu never being bad is, of course, our good friend. You might know his work from Vanity Fair. Ooh. Vanity Fair? He's Vanity Fair's film critic.

What? Is that correct? Chief? Head? What's the term? Vanity Fair's head. I'm Graydon Carter's wig. Ladies and gentlemen gentlemen Richard Lawson Hey guys Hey Richard

Thanks for having me Long time First time? Oh yeah I was telling Ben before we started that when I listened to your first episode ever

about Phantom Menace I was like this is a mess what are they doing but then like 30 minutes and I was like oh I'm in love with them

The first 30 minutes of the first episode of this podcast are they're not great. They're Phantom Menace-esque. Yeah, they are. Yeah.

They are slow out of the gate, I would say. Yeah. But then we pulled a reverse George. We pulled a reverse Lucas. Yeah. Yeah. We just got better as we went along. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. Okay. All right. Let's not talk about George Lucas. Let's talk about M. Night Shyamalan. You know who would have done a better job with Lady in the Water? George Lucas. Yeah.

You know who would have done a better job with the Star Wars prequels? M. Night Shyamalan? Yeah, maybe. Perchance. He can't direct action. Okay, so let's talk about someone who can direct action. He's the fourth man in the studio today. And he's directing us all into the booth, directing our levels

to the right balance. He's here in the room with us again. In the room. Because I know this is the plot thread. Everyone hangs on. Where's Ben? Yeah, this is a new feature

every week. But here's the twist. There's also a walkie-talkie in the room. Oh, yes. For some reason. And he said that perhaps he might have to leave

at some point during the recording. This is great top of podcast stuff. I love it. Yeah. It's keeping them interested and engaged. But wait, who's this guy we're talking about? Well, it goes by a few names.

Producer Ben. Produer Ben. The Ben-dooser. The Haas. The Poet Laureate. Yeah. The Tiebreaker. That's true.

Birthday Benny. Mr. Positive. Oh, Mr. Positive. He's doing it off the top of his head. Yep. Amazing. Sometimes they call him the peeper. Oh, yeah.

That's my favorite, I think. The peeper's good. Ladies and gentlemen, I swear to God, if you call him Professor Crispy, you will have something to reckon for. That is true. Not a nickname. He's got his fans, though, Professor Crispy. Oh, yeah.

The Hoss Hogs. They tweeted us. Yeah, yeah. The Hoss Hogs you're talking about. Do you have a new name for him now? People call him Producer Ben Kenobi. They call him Kylo Ben. Kylo Ben. I think we hit all the big ones, right? Yeah, probably.

There's probably other. Hello, Fennel, you got that one? No, no. Hello, Fennel. Can't forget that one. Well, I always try to end with that one. Oh, sure. And let's grant a hearty Hello, Fennel. You've literally never done that. I've done it once before I always try to do it his name's Ben Hosley and I love him

Ben's here it's nice to have you Ben it's much better than last time when we did the village and you were silent until like 90 minutes in when you just screamed end this wasn't David Ehrlichly sort of alarmed he was quite alarmed understandably

David you have your laptop open it was good. Understandably. David, you have your laptop open. It was like 9 p.m. too, you know. It was our first ever late night recording. Blank Check Nights, we call it. It's our new saucier spinoff. Chelsea Nights. We're in Chelsea. Chelsea Nights, yeah.

My laptop is open. What do you want? Will you go to the iTunes reviews? Because there are a couple of recent ones I want to read. I trust your judgment to pick out which ones they are. But there are a couple of short ones that I think are of import. your judgment to pick out which ones they are, but there are a couple short ones that I think are of import. I'm opening iTunes, so within an hour and an hour and a half, I'll have those ready for you.

I'm going to vamp with some other housekeeping as you do that. Of course, we are part of the UCB Comedy Network, which has recently gotten a big push on iTunes. Guess what? Help the family help us. Please. Subscribe to some of our other shows. We were on the front page of iTunes.

We were on the front page of iTunes. We were on the front page of iTunes. I think we still are. Hey, what? Hey, what? Comedy is also going to be a feature provider, I believe, when this episode comes out. Oh, my Lord. So, fun stuff happening. Yeah.

But yeah, check out all our shows. You don't even have to listen to them. Just subscribe and then rate and review. Just update. My iTunes is freaked out that I unsubscribed from Apple Music and is currently crashing. So just keep giving me an update on how iTunes is working. Love iTunes. Great.

You know what? We'll get to the reviews later. Yeah, we'll get to that. I'm trying to think if there are any other pieces of housekeeping. Not for now. I might remember something later. I feel like there were one or two things relevant to the franchise at large. Maybe. I'll get to them later. I feel like there were one or two things relevant to the franchise at large. I'll get to them later. Today we're here to talk about a film

called The Lady in the Water. Oh, there's no the. I'm sorry. I fucked up and I stopped myself because I remembered what the housekeeping business was. There's a new segment. There are two new segments I want to introduce on this episode. One of them I think is long overdue and one of them was

we're forced to add this segment because of two big occurrences in the last week David that happened to two of us hashtag the two friends the two friends hashtag

we are the two friends we didn't mention that this is a new segment called do do do do do do do do do do do the burger report oh oh I see so this is a segment

this is the one that's inspired by me also inspired by me oh and also inspired by you right I saw your one that's inspired by me. Also inspired by me. Oh, and also inspired by you. Right, I saw your tweets. Two things happen in one week. I've got to start a segment.

This segment's going to open up every week. We'll check in at the Burger Report. There might be no news. Yeah, probably. But if either of us, our guest, or Producer Ben, a.k.a. Producer Ben, a.k.a. the Ben Dooser, Don't do that. Go on. If you have any updates about people,

cool people they've gotten to see eat a burger. This is the segment where that update will go. Yeah. So, David, would you like to lead with the first do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do burger report? Sure. I'm going to request that you cancel the theme music. Maybe we get new theme music?

I'll ask Lane Montgomery, of course, since our theme song. Yes. Yeah, last night I was at Moo Burger on Court Street in Carroll Gardens. Humble brag? Court Street? I was eating a 6 p.m. dinner. Were you a judge? Could you have popped a ball or something? I was in my robes.

Yeah, Moo Burger, by the way, located within the Princeton Club. I don't know if, no. Yeah, I was eating a 6 p.m. dinner, so it was clogged with infants, this Moo Burger, by the way, located within the Princeton Club. I don't know if... No. Jesus Christ. Yeah, I was eating a 6 p.m. dinner, so it was clogged with infants, this Moo Burger. And next to me was Michael Shannon, Oscar nominee Michael Shannon, eating with a bunch of kids and a couple of adults, eating his own burger. Does he look really serious when he's eating a hamburger? He looked serious all the time. Very handsome, in my opinion.

Very tall. Craggy. Yeah, a little craggy. He had some facial hair. He looked great. And obviously, my girlfriend was with me, and I was like, Michael Shannon, Michael Shannon. And she's just like, nope. And then she's like, sorority?

The sorority letter. And I'm like, what are you talking? I don't know what she's, I'm like, that's not a movie. I don't know. And then, of course, I remember he did that Funny or Die video where he reads that angry sorority letter that went around the internet last year. I don't usually like those, like, people read things. No, I rewatched it and I was like, this is fantastic.

That was good. It's a very well-acted speech. Yeah, that's why, because he's a great actor. Yeah. You should have just told your girlfriend that he was the recipient of this year's Griffin Blank Check Award for Best Supporting Actor. I did mention his performance and your love for it in the night before to her. And she has seen Man of Steel. So, I mean.

Has Joanna ever listened to the podcast? I shouldn't name her. Yeah, yeah. She usually listens. Okay, she does. Okay. I want to know. I wasn't leading anything with that.

I'm just always curious. She doesn't listen to every episode. But if she's seen the movie, she listens. Okay. Okay. So, now time for the next installment of the Burger Report. Uh-huh. I was in, humble brag, Hollywood, California.

Hollywood! I went to a place called Apple Pan in Los Angeles. That's my favorite place in all of LA. It's a little overwhelming, I find, but the whole process of getting a seat and stuff, but I do like it. I went there and it was pretty empty, which was really nice. It was a weekday probably.

I went on a Saturday afternoon. Very quiet. It really feels like a time machine walking into that place. It doesn't feel retro kitschy. It's in a weird part of town that's kind of fun. Very weird part of town that was within walking distance of my hotel, which is all I look for as someone who doesn't know how to drive a car. Where is it in-

Oh, I have no idea. It just felt weird. I've definitely heard of the Apple Pen. Century City? Yeah, I think it's, but it's not like the big buildings that you think of when you think of Century City. It's more just like, it's just, I don't know. No, it's sort of in between Century City and West LA and it's near a mall that's not very

popular. Yeah, sure. Okay. It's a great place. They serve you soda in like a paper, like triangle. Okay. With crushed ice and a metal holder. They serve you soda in a paper triangle. Okay. With crushed ice and a metal holder.

What happened at the Apple Pan? Well, here I am just eating my steak burger. Sounds good. Medium rare. Cheese. I also got my burger medium rare with cheese. This is why the burger report's important. The two friends. Because you've got to find these things out.

We don't know how Michael Shannon got his. Well, I looked him up and he's a vegetarian, so I think he was eating a veggie burger. Oh, and you don't want to eat those rare. That's good detective work. Cook those suckers. I'm down in the Sprite. I'm chomping at my burger. I'm salting and peppering my fries.

Yeah. I take a look over my shoulder and who is there but three-time, yes, recent, three-time, a historic and historic three-time Academy Award winner for best cinematography, consecutive awards, Emmanuel Lebesgue. Chivo himself. Wow. That's a good one. I didn't call him that because I'm not his friend.

Okay, fine. And this is a pet peeve of mine. Known as Chivo. We do it ironically. Do you call him Marty? I call him Marty, yes. Okay. I call him Marty Lebesgue.

He was there with his parents. Okay. Eating a burger. Well, that's nice. It was really nice. With his parents? Yeah, his parents. Okay.

I mean, they might have just been two old people. They were speaking Spanish. I might be racist. Racist against Spaniards. But he was hanging out with two old Spaniards. Is he Mexican? I actually have no idea. He's Mexican.

I don't know. He was speaking with two old Mexicans. And they looked very proud. Sure. Did he have no idea. He's Mexican. I don't know. He was speaking with two old Mexicans, and they looked very proud. Sure. Did he have his Oscars out? No, you texted me and asked me that. My joke I made was that he was using all three at once to apply condiments to his burger. Sure, yeah.

Ketchup, mustard, and mayo. A funny off-the-cuff text. I felt pretty good within the circumstances. What? Any further questions, Ben or Richard, about either of these burgers that we witnessed? No, I just feel sad that I don't have one. You have no burgers for us. I mean, I've seen famous people eat hamburgers, just not this week. Well, if you want to toss out a famous person eating a hamburger from your past, that's okay.

I saw at Toronto Film Festival, I saw a lot of celebrities eating little tiny hamburgers because they were past hors d'oeuvres. But I can't specifically remember. I think I ate Rachel McAdams. Good one. Good one. I'll also say, Richard, you have an open invitation anytime you have a burger scoop. Yeah, call in. Can I send it over?

Text in. Yes. Just Uber, Uber over. Anything you want to do. Oh, it could be like on Radiolab. I could leave you a message and you could play it. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. We should have a 24-hour, seven days a week phone line that people can call into and leave us messages on. It's a worthy expense. I think days a week phone line that people can call into and leave us messages on. It's a worthy expense. I think that you should look into that, Ben. Just setting that up for us. And then you can say, just call my answering service. Or Ben could just be the answering service.

Yeah, I'll just give out my personal cell phone number. Hello, Fennel. I do have a couple reviews, or should we just get into Lady in the Water? These reviews are very short. I got a burger. I got burger stories for days. Sorry, we just get into Lady in the Water? These reviews are very short. I got a burger. I got burger stories for days. Sorry, Ben. Now, here's the thing.

But you have to pick one. That's the point. Well, I just want to say, I used to work at the Spotted Pig. So I've got a lot of burger stories. What a good segment. We've got an infinite well of burger stories. I can dive in any time, but I'll say top one, I had Kanye West. Oh, that's pretty fun.

He's quite famous. The VIP section. He never looked at me once, but he ordered a couple of drinks. Wow. He ordered a burger. He did this all without. He sent the burger back. He never actually looked at me once.

What was his problem with the burger? He said he wanted it more. He was well done. He was like he wanted it more well done. That tracks. That's the kind of annoying weird thing that he would do. And he was so upset that we only offered blue cheese as the cheese option. I'm like, I don't know, man.

I'm just like some dumb waiter. What do you want from me? Wait, you're saying that you were a dumb waiter? Like the Thomas Jefferson's elevator waiter invention? That was my job. That was my job, yeah. I want it more well done. That was my review of Life of Pablo.

More well done, please. Life of Pablo. I haven't slept in a while. That's been a running theme on the show. Okay, quick reviews, and then we're going to jump straight into the water. Here's one review from TC14. The review is titled, Good Show. Cool.

It says, Could use more bits. Look, we hear your complaints. We're giving you bits right now. Jeffrey Malone, brother to Rob Malone, I believe. Friend of the show. Gives us five stars and says, I like it when Griffin gives out comedy points. So Griffin, keep doing that.

I'm going to start doing that regularly. That's a thing that was... That's a bit. My friends and I invented that. Sam Rogal, Patrick May, and Alejandro Collini. We created that, and I'll keep it going on this show. Here's my favorite one. This is by Bob

Duval, spelt D-U-V-A-L. Fine actor. Well, alright. The title of the review is, I'm Bob Duval, and the review is, and I'm the judge. Good. Good. Good review. Yeah, so I'm the judge. Good, good. Good review.

Yeah, so I think we should leave it there because that's really good. I think there was one more review. I'm not going to make you search for it. There's one more review where the line I remember was, I don't get the TC-14 thing. To which I say, fuck you, drink a cup of diarrhea. So now on to today's film. Wow. Strong words.

What's not to get? What are's film. What's not to get? What are you talking about what's not to get? I think they just think you're a gross dude who pervs on a robot too much. Well, you're allowed to say that. And I will accept that. And I will agree. Alright. But don't say you don't get TC-14. That's offensive to her. The year is 2006.

Great time. Big year. Yeah, what's going on in 2006? I moved to New York City. You moved to New York City. Congratulations. America's really starting to feel George W. Bush's suckiness. I feel like that's when it all... We were headed for a very good midterm election. We were headed for that very exciting, yes. The Democrats retook the House

and the Senate, I believe. What else is happening? I was still in college. You were probably in high school. were probably in high school. 9-11 happened five years ago. Yes, technically yes. I believe at the time of this film's release, I was in an animation program.

I was doing a summer animation intensive at NYU because I thought I wanted to be an animator. Sure, this film came out in July 2006. Yes, I was at NYU attempting to be an animator. Sure. This film came out in July 2006. Yes. I was at NYU attempting to be an animator. They still haven't found any weapons of mass destruction. Sure. We were embroiled in the Middle East. Had Petraeus reared his head yet?

Had the surge happened yet? I don't think so. I think Hurricane Katrina was the year prior. I moved to New York City in July 2006. So basically me and Lady in the Water have a real strong connection. Did you see it in New York City in July 2006, so basically me and Lady and the Water have a real strong connection. Did you see it in New York City? No, I'd never seen it. I had also never seen this film.

Really? Yeah. I had thought that I had seen this film, but there is no way I saw this movie. I think I saw the first ten minutes and it was like, absolutely not. I might have caught some of it on TV. I was in this animation program that was at NYU. I grew up like three blocks away from where this program was happening, right?

And they had like, it was run like a prison. Like we had to be escorted to the bathroom and everything. That sounds weird. I guess because you were little kitties. I was 17. No, but whatever. Anyway, go on. Yeah.

But I found out later as I went on that there had been a problem in the past of children being abducted by their parents from the program. By their parents? Yes. Like parents who are going through a divorce and the dad like came as featured in one of this year's Academy Award film nominees. Everything will be okay. Yes.

Parents going through a divorce. The father thinks he's going to lose the custody. He goes to visit his child and then just snatches them away takes her in a car and goes missing like Rockefeller a Rockefeller did that of Rockefeller Records

and then there was a kid more bits I'm giving everyone bits I'm just trying to do bits zero comedy points Griffin there was another incident in which a girl did something stupid and got arrested while on the program, and her parents sued NYU because they said she was never a bad kid before NYU ruined her. It has ruined a lot of people, to be fair. That is true.

Are we just going to rag on NYU? Is this the NYU feelings coming out? Bunch of jerks. My father works there. Get out of the village! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go on. Sorry.

Anyway, so I was in this program where we weren't allowed to leave at all Everything was in a group It was like being in a preschool And I had curfew hours And I remember one of the things I was really stressed about was We made one trip to see a movie the whole month that I was there And I was missing all these fucking movies I couldn't see movies

That's my thing And I'm a huge M. Night guy And I had hated the Village at the time. Liked The Village more on this recent rewatch. But you, like most of America, had been very disappointed by The Village. Almost angry, I would say. And I was so ready for, like, reinvention. He's doing something different here.

The movie's in theaters right now. You've got The Devil Wears Prada, Superman Returns. My super ex-girlfriend. Okay. Cars is still going strong. Cars. You've got The Devil Wears Prada, Superman Returns. My super ex-girlfriend. Okay. Cars is still going strong. Cars. You've got Click. Yeah, people are clicking.

America's clicking. You've got Pirates of the Caribbean, the second one. Dead Man's Chest. Yeah. That was the one movie we went to go fucking see,

which I hate that franchise. You've got Little Man. Oh, of course. Yeah, Little Man. Got you, me, and Dupree. Is Little Man the one with Cynthia Nixon? Or am I imagining things?

Well, Little Man is the- You're thinking of Sex and the City. Speaking of Burger. The movie you're thinking of. Little Man's the movie where Marlon Wayans is a little guy. He's a little man. And he pretends to be a baby. Oh, I think there's a movie.

I think it's called Little Manhattan. Yes. Oh, yes. With Cynthia Nixon. Yes, indeed. And you got a little boy in love. I was just frantic. I was like, is Cynthia Nixon in that weird Wayans Brothers movie

where Marlon Wayans' face is superimposed onto a baby? If she plays the police captain, I could see her doing that. Do you know who I think is the little boy in Little Manhattan? I'm not 100% correct about this. You? Joss Hutcherson. Oh, no, you're right. But if I'm wrong, it's me.

I was my second choice. I'm pretty sure you're right about that, actually. I was the little girl in Little Manhattan. But anyway, so you didn't get to see any movies. I saw Parts of the Caribbean, which I hated. And I spent a month arguing to people that didn't even fucking make sense as a movie. Not a big sense maker, that one. And people would be like, no, the plot makes sense.

And I was like, they literally never explained that. And then I realized two years later when I saw it on cable that I'd fallen asleep for 15 minutes and didn't know. And a lot of the scenes I argued didn't happen and the movie did in fact happen. I see. So you were in the wrong. Yeah, but the movie also blows. You were the Max Landis of that situation. Correct. And I take my hits. I'll take my lumps

on that one, okay? But so one of the other groups and one of the other concentrations everyone got to vote for what movie they fucking went to go see. And one group voted for Lady in the Water and I was so jealous of them. And they came back and the cafeteria the next day, it was the photography department or whatever it was, this Tish summer

program, was like, oh my god, it's the fucking worst. Snarf, snarf, snarf, snarf. Look at me, I'm Story. Oh no, it's Grunt. They were really ripping in. They remembered it though. Yeah. They kept on yelling at the cafeteria. They were going, snarf, snarf, snarf, snarf. And I was like, these idiots,

they don't even deserve an M. Night picture. Who do they think they are? So I didn't see the movie until like two months later when it was already almost out of theaters. I went to see it by myself at Times Square, the AMC 25, maybe two other people in the audience. That's my background for how I came into the film. Everyone had told me it was stupid and I was angry and I hated his last movie. And how did you feel about the movie?

But do you still kind of like it? Well, I want to hear your opinions first. I walk out of the film and I go, this movie obviously has fundamental issues. Sure. The largest issues are the ones in which M. Night Shyamalan presents himself as the one person who can write the stories that can save the world. You know what? I think

that's one of the better parts of this movie. Really? I don't think it's good. I think almost everything in this movie is mind-boggling. Like, bad. Awful. I agree that it is awful. I also agree that it is so discombobulatingly bad that there is, I suppose, something sort of special about it.

It's not like you're watching some run-of-the-mill crappy movie, but it's bad. I'm going to let you two steer the ship for a little while. It is emotionally defunct, in my opinion. Like, and it has to not be to work, if that makes sense. That's, like, the biggest problem with this movie. Right. It's supposed to be this very sweet tale of, like, personal redemption, right?

Yeah. Like, you know, it know it's like very character focused it's pretty small it only takes place in an apartment block and it's got lots of cute little characters and it's got this it's like it's got this idea of itself is like oh there's a fun ensemble with like and he hired great actors to to play the ensemble as he usually does yeah he's a good hirer i mean it's interesting that then i guess he was still people still wanted to work with him then i mean people want to work with him then. I mean, people want to work with him now, but. No, no, but yeah,

absolutely. I mean, even off of The Village, like The Village for its flaws had made Bryce Dallas Howard a thing and you know, like, had a great cast and. You know what's interesting? I wrote some notes when I was watching it. Yeah, sure. And in all caps, I wrote, this is the plot of Manchester

by the Sea. sea oh is it which ken kendler nergan's new movie spoil anything but there's a family tragedy in the past where a guy loses his family and then becomes the super of a building right that is the plot of manchester so do you think ken caught this movie and was like yeah i can do better i think there's a pair of parallels but it's a very strange parallel, but it's there. Is there any overlapping cast? Because some of these actors seem like people that Lonergan would work with. I mean, let's... Yeah, no, you're right,

but no, there isn't any, sadly. Can we go through this cast quickly, just because it really is a murderous role of some of my favorite character actors. I'm going to say the cast, and I'm going to try and think of at least one of their stupid idiosyncrasies. So you've got Paul Giamatti as a stuttering janitor. Handyman.

Stutter, I mean, he essentially plays the role as if he's a cartoon jalopy. His stutter is, it's Paul Giamatti. He's Archie's car. And they start the stutter at line two. Like the film opens with him working at a sink, underneath a sink, and he goes, ma'am, it looks like you're... I know.

Tiles are broken. Now, you're an actor, Griffin. Is the stutter something that you aspire to do? Because I feel like it's like some actors like Everest. They really want to do some weird take like that. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. In fact, I feel like when I get auditions that say that there's a stutter required,

I usually say, nope. I feel like it's kind of a thankless task because it's a real condition that it's hard to dramatize and audiences find infuriating because like you even you have even let i mean stutters are a little difficult to deal with even in real life because obviously it's like a little awkward to interact with someone with a stutter but you know you're you know you're an empathetic human being when you're watching a fucking movie you you're like, oh, for crying out loud, does he have to have a stutter? I have to suffer through this?

Yeah, and it's also, it always feels kind of insensitive. Yeah. They're almost always unrealistic. And it's always a sign of weakness. Right, some obvious point is being made. I think pretty much, I mean, the dominant, 90% of the reason why Colin Firth won the Oscars, it was kind of the only stutter in film history that felt like, oh, that seems pretty accurate. Yeah.

Right. It felt like he pitched that perfectly right. And it was like, yeah, we understand all the roots of this. I mean, it was a whole movie about his stutter, like medically. But it was also on a performance level kind of unprecedented that someone got it just right in like the Goldilocks way. Like they landed in just the right bed. You're talking about Colin Firth in the Amanda Bynes movie, right? Yeah.

In What I Go Once. The movie in which where she doesn't get into Harvard, but then at the end of the movie she's like, but I got into Oxford, so it's okay. I'll never forget that. He goes, I am your father. He put her father in that movie. Have you ever met Besser doing the King's Speech thing on Comedy Bang Bang? And it's like he has Tourette's.

You just got to see it. It's not that he has Tourette's. You just gotta see it. It's not that he has Tourette's. They just do the bit where he has to swear to try and get over it, and he says the most horrible things. Well, frankly, I won't listen to it because it's not on the UCB Comedy Network. All right.

Bryce Dallas Howard as Story, a C-name. M. Night's muse. Yeah, the muse. The film's muse, right? Who he never worked with ever again after two films established as his muse. I wonder if he blames her. I wonder if she blames him.

They should both blame each other. I want to see that movie. A lot of blame to go around. You want to see that movie, M. Night versus Bryce? Instead of Batman versus Superman? Just like deep held resentments and then like maybe a coming together at the end. They're the Sid and Nancy of $75 million studio pictures. Yeah, this film cost $70 million, I believe.

Why? How? I got some fun facts. These questions will be answered in Griffin's next new segment later in the episode. Going through the cast. Bob Balaban is Harry Farber, a mercurial film critic, a feet little fool. I don't know. His defining characteristic is that he is

the least sympathetic character ever portrayed in a film. I have seen... I found him quite sympathetic. I have seen... He's a child's drawing of a film critic. It's great.

An angry, resentful child. He hates everything, including movies, especially movies. He hates life. He hates his job. He hates interacting with people. He seems to hate happiness

I've seen Nazis who were portrayed on film in a more even-handed manner than this character Jeffrey Wright as Mr. Dury

a crossword obsessed guy that's it he has a son he has a son he likes puzzles Sarita Chowdhury he's also doing

the crossword in like the Philadelphia newspaper I don't think it's that hard oh boy right it's's also doing the crossword in like the Philadelphia newspaper I don't think it's that hard Oh boy It's not the Saturday Times crossword Maybe he buys the New York Times just for the crossword

Shots fired Sarita Chowdhury who is a good actress I like her a lot It's one of her weirdest performances ever If not the weirdest It's odd But she's a great actress She doesn't really have any tics sister. It's one of her weirdest performances ever if not the weirdest. It's very strange. It's odd. I like it.

But she's a great actress. We all agree. She doesn't really have any tics. She's just very passionate. She's very outspoken in this film, right? She doesn't have a tic. I didn't realize until the end of the movie that she was his sister and not his wife. I thought she was his wife too. It took me way too long to figure out.

Because there's even that conversation where they talk about how many kids she's going to have and I thought that was where they talk about how many kids she's going to have. And I thought that was them bantering about how many kids they were going to have. Tracked perfectly. Well, I mean, I always am like flirtily playing with laundry in the laundry room with my sister. You know, it's just what people do. Right, you're always just tossing panties at each other. Yeah.

Living together. Cindy Chung as, what's her name, Young Soon Choi, a local girl at the apartment building who serves as a translator for her grandma. Her tick is that she speaks perfect English with a horrible accent. Yeah, her tick is that she's Chinese. And she wears hot pants and is like is always like in like she's in school. She has like studies. There's this sort of vague like book reading she has to do. She speaks immaculately.

Yeah. But with a Mickey Rooney voice. Yeah. Yeah. M. Night Shyamalan as Vic Ran. Oh, he's in this? Yeah, he's in this film. You'd argue he's about like the fourth lead, third, fourth lead in this film.

I'd almost argue he's the third. He lead third fourth lead in this film I'd almost argue he's the third he is the inciting event for the whole thing the movie is the movie which has two main characters is centered around him

right kind of the lady is in the water because of him she's in the water because of him and I'd also argue he's kind of

like the strongest emotional empathy character him and Giamatti are the two characters that actually have like emotional arcs I think the audience is supposed to relate to yes story is more of a plot device uh he is uh an aspiring novelist who is writing a book called the cookbook which is about his ideas about leaders and stuff it never really seems to be a novel it sounds like it's just him. It sounds more like a, you know, Mein Kampf type manifesto.

Right? Okay, so we'll get back to him. Why is it called The Cookbook? We never find out. Just for some weird sort of mistake that is immediately cleared up. One misdirect that lasts for 15 seconds. Right, yeah. Or it's like, oh, is it just The Cookbook? And he's like, no, no. No, it's a book called The Cookbook. I mean, that's actually the whole whole movie is sort of defined by weird things that are then

resolved 10 minutes later. Right, by just an explanation. Like a person just speaks an explanation out loud. I want to get this out now before we go on with the cast. The next one's real good. Yeah, I used to say that this film was one of the M. Night films without a twist. This is actually his twistiest movie. There's a twist every 35 seconds. That's true. Well, but there are twists where it's like, he's not the protector. He's the M. Night films without a twist. This is actually his twistiest movie. There's a twist every 35 seconds.

That's true. Well, but there are twists where it's like, he's not the protector, he's the angel. I already forgot all the names. And you're like, oh, okay. You don't even understand what they were trying to make you believe until after the twist is revealed. It feels like he wrote this immense tome

of this sort of legendary, the legendaria, whatever, of this world, these worlds. But then he gave us one page of it. Yeah. But he's got it all in his head. Definitely. Maybe.

And let's remember, there was a supplemental book that was released. There was a fully illustrated children's book. There was. Because this was billed as a bedtime story from M. Night Shyamalan. Yes, it was inspired by... Top billed as a bedtime story. And he, like, supposedly,

this is what he told his daughter, I think. And so I kind of think he was just making this shit up. Yeah, unfortunately. And was like, oh, I'll just make a movie. And he said it was inspired by she was like, what happens in our swimming pool at night? Which is a fair question from a young girl who lives in a mansion in LA. Right, we've all been there. And so he came up with this thing of like, I don't know, like a sea nymph comes out of there.

And then she meets like a weird stuttering janitor. All right, all right, this is good. We're cooking now. I'm the savior of humanity. So, Freddy Rodriguez plays Reggie, a bodybuilder who's only building one side of his body. Yep. Let's get more specific though.

It feels like it's just one arm because it doesn't even look like he's got pecs on one side. It looks like he's just got the arm. He's like, yeah, I mean he doesn't even say like, oh I'm practicing to one side. It looks like he's just got the arm. He's like, yeah. I mean, he doesn't even say like, oh, I'm practicing to be in like an arm wrestling competition. He's just like, I just want to do this. He says at one point, it's like an experiment. He looks like a tertiary The Goon character,

Joey the Ball, for those of you who read the comic book The Goon. Nope. Yeah, sorry. But yeah, he's got one huge, muscly, prosthetic arm, and then that is his entire character. It's bizarrely cartoony. It's weird.

Yeah, it's... And Freddy Rodriguez, at this point, is like Emmy-nominated actor from Six Feet Under, like recognizable. So far, by the way, we're just saying, like, good cast. Great cast. A lot of good actors. Bill Irwin as Mr. Leeds.

What a great actor. Don't really remember him in the movie that much. I had just seen him a year prior as in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Kathleen Turner. And he was very good. Like in 2005. Or late 2004.

His characteristic in this is that he's very serious. Yeah. He sits in his room watching the news. Immaculately designed room. It's not a bad performance. Oh yeah, that's the thing. The news is always on the TV in the background and it's a war.

And he's always judging everything but in a calm and steady, metered way. He and Paul Giamatti's character share some sort of tragic understanding. Appreciation for each other. Jared Harris as

Goatee Smoker. What a fine actor. Great actor and one of the where I was yeah. Right. Jared Harris as Goatee Smoker. What a fun actor. Great actor. And one of the, where I was like, oh, Jared Harris. I didn't realize that he was doing American things that long ago. I know, it's crazy. He's been around for a very long time. He had been around for a long time, though. He'd been in that Beatles movie like years before Dan.

He just didn't pop forever, but he's always great. Mary Beth Hurt as Mrs. Bell, the butterfly lady. Noah Gray Cabay, who was on Heroes, as Jeffrey Wright's son. Who loves cereal boxes. That's his character trait. Tova Feldscher, who's still around. She was just a zombie. She was just not zombie and then a zombie on The Walking Dead.

Oh, God, that was so good. As Mrs. Bubchick. Tova Feldscher's character trait in this movie is that her husband's always shitting. Yes, that's right. And she has a lot to say about him. All of these character traits are introduced

one by one in very sort of dutiful fashion sort of at the beginning of the movie, right? That's the first 20 minutes of the movie. Yeah.

Sort of in the same way that The Village works except The Village is involving. But this is, I'm withholding my opinions until later in the episode. I'm not enjoying this bit.

This is like it's like a series of vignettes like it almost the beginning of the film almost feels like it's just like an omnibus story where it's like look at all these little lives

but everyone has like this big cartoonish characteristic yeah we've done all of them now it's the set up to a TV series it's a pilot episode it's not a movie yeah right

it's like these crazy apartment people like yeah that'll be great for a show which is great, right? It just rolls right off the tongue. Yeah, David Ogden Stiers is the narrator

who narrates the little animated sequence. Oh, is that who that is? That opens the film, yeah. And you've got, I mean, Doug Jones is one of the Tartuics. Sure. Or whatever they're called. You've got Ethan Cohn. He was kind of like a chubby guy for a while.

I loved his movie, Hail Caesar. You know the guy with blonde hair and glasses? No, no, no. You're thinking the other one. It's the guy who wrote Garfield. That's what I'm thinking. Right, right, right. Sorry.

Tova is the last big name in this cast. There's a bunch of other people. Yes. There's a whole family that's, I think, Mexican. There's a whole band. Five sisters. There's a band. It's all sisters.

There's a band. I feel like there's something else that we're sisters uh yeah it's all sisters there's a band uh i feel like there's something else that we're missing some other like there's a pool all right and me and richard were talking there's a bunch of scrunts in this movie yep sure me and richard were talking about this okay she's not really in the water that much very little and like we don't even really see her we don't see her swimming no we don't see her swimming i thought that she was gonna have to go back into the water to get to the blue world where she's from. Story.

Yeah. But instead, an eagle has to get her? What's going on here? Yeah, where the fuck is the eagle going? Guys, we got to slow down. We got to back way the fuck up. So this film starts with an animated introduction narrated by- That I drew.

Yep. Or someone of my equivalent skill. It's stick figures with a lot of swirly lines around them. It is cave painting. It looks like the Coco Pelly thing, you know, this god that they have

at Mexican restaurants, you know, who's like playing a flute and has squiggly hair. That looks sort of like the Qdoba logo. Yeah, yeah. There, yeah.

It's all accent marks. And everything is said in a manner of great portent. Yeah, but I want to say that this is setting up a lot of stuff, and I couldn't tell you one thing that it says. It completely does not sink in. Whatever it is. It was improv. Yeah.

And it was live drawn for the improv. On our months-long, almost year-long deep dive into the Phantom Menace trilogy, we talked about there was a phenomenon that would occur in that movie, in those movies, where a stretch of dialogue is so much fucking nonsense information. Exposition. Yeah, yeah, right. Exposition with terms that don't even make any sense. Character names, planets, technologies.

Right. And it's just exposition. And I just go blank and none of it processes it. Yeah, yeah. And we're watching the same film week after week. And was like week nine i was like i think i get what they're saying in this scene we made a lot of mistakes on this podcast simply because it just that never was communicated to us like the information i was watching this movie on a plane while having a panic attack great um i will say the film did calm me down sort of weirdly i

mean it's it's a quaalude energy for the whole movie. Yeah, it did its job in that sense. The stakes seem very low, even when there's monsters and grassy dogs and God knows what else. The stakes feel low. M. Night Shyamalan has to write the book that will save humanity. The cookbook did! He has to write the book that will inspire Obama and or Trump. A kid's going to read Trump. It might be Trump.

They never clarify. They say someone's going to do a lot of stuff. Okay, so I, on the plane, rewound. I downloaded this film off of Amazon because you can now download movies for 24-hour rental. Great. And I watched it. Wait, it wasn't just playing on the plane? Okay, so I sent in a request to American Airlines and and I said, hey, I'm taking an overnight-

You're really having trouble with corporate bodies right now. We'll get to the Sony thing at the end of the episode. Will we? Yeah. But that's called Griffin's Petition Corner. So I watched this on the plane. I was a little tired, right? I'm having a panic attack, whatever.

And I started up, and the fucking, like, the opening narration just goes right, right over my'm having a panic attack, whatever. And I started up and the fucking, like, the opening narration just goes right, right over my head, past my ears. Absolutely. And I was like, okay, Griffin, stress out. This is your job. You gotta watch this. You gotta understand this. This is the key to figuring out the movie. Start it over. Yeah. Watch it a second

time. Sure. Made less sense. No, I did the same thing. I rewound it and I was like, nope, don't have it. I mean, the crux is sort of like our world, blue world. People in blue world come to our world? No? Yes? But here's a policy. I want to throw out a rule, okay?

New rule. New no-nos. No, this is a yes-yes. Yeah, okay. New rule. Okay? If you are making a film that ostensibly is in English, right, not in a foreign language, more than every other word has to be a word that we already know before we sat down in this film. That's in the dictionary. That's fair. But Narf, scrunt, what was that other word I already...

Tumeric. Tartuic. Yeah. Tur-tumeric. Tartuic. Yeah, turmeric. Yeah. I mean, and things like blue world, it's like, okay, those two words exist independently,

but when you hyphenate them, then I no longer know what it means. It sounds like a movie you'd see at the science museum. Yes. Yes. Yeah, but it's fucking stuff that didn't happen. Narrated by, I don't know. So, David Alden Steyer. The dad from Better Off Dead. So, I watched this three times in a row and then just

threw up my hands and went I don't know just watch the rest of the movie you've seen it before you were able to track it enough without the introduction I forgot that the introduction was in there

yeah sure after the film was over I was like so now that you've just watched it go back and watch the introduction it made even less sense to me so we don't need to discuss this any further

it's nonsense you want 20 more minutes? okay so so it's a very complicated bedtime story that adults can't understand. Right. So I don't know that children can. I've never heard of a child liking this movie. It is ostensibly for children.

To be fair, you probably haven't been asking a lot of children. I've been asking. But I've interacted with children in my life and they've said I like X movies such as Frozen. Yeah, right. We're on Court Street. Apparently you and Michael Shannon are just fucking chilling with kids all the time. He was with like eight kids.

Boo Burger's the kind of place where it's like, that you go in there and you're like, are there this many children in the world? This must be all of them, right? I mean, he's got a lot of young fans now after 99 Homes. Do you see how many fucking Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award nominations that movie got i love the yeah michael shannon with the big surfboard that's the teen choice we're talking about the blimp sorry richard we're here for bits by request of listeners but let's make it clear when a bit so you're not doing your bit are you

gonna do your bit richard pitched a bit i pitched a bit but i don't think i'm gonna do it no i think i think it might be too late for Richard. I was going to just only refer to Bryce Dallas Howard as Jessica Chastain for the whole episode. Would have been good. Would have been good. It's about a Philadelphia apartment complex.

It doesn't look like Philadelphia. I'm sure it was filmed there, but it looks like Florida. It really does. It was shot in Levittown, Pennsylvania. I'm going to introduce this segment because I think it's going to be spread out. But the segment that I talked about I want to introduce now is because I watched it on Amazon, right? And Amazon has this feature for selected movies they're trying.

If you watch things on Amazon X-Ray, on Amazon Video, it's called Amazon X-Ray. And what it's supposed to be- Are we not sponsored by Amazon? Go on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, because I think this feature gave me some real scoops on this movie, okay? Amazon X-Ray is supposed to be like at any point you're watching the movie

you can tap or you can pause. It tells you which actors are in that scene. Oh, interesting. It tells you what music track is playing. And it integrates IMDb trivia into the film. Wow. Like pop-up video. Yes. The hallowed, unimpeachably always correct

IMDb trivia. Well that's the new segment it's IMDb trivia corner okay so I have this saved here there's some facts that have come up already from where we are in the film that I think are relevant because at this point I'm just withholding information. I have the inside scoop now I know what's going on from these trivia facts okay

and it's not here's the introduction again um it's they don't throw them at you it's if And it's not, here's the introduction again. They don't throw them at you. It's if you pause the film, it tells you the trivia fact. Okay, ready? Here's one. Kevin Costner was considered for the role of Heep, or Paul Giamatti accepted the part before they contacted him. Imagine Kevin Costner doing a stutter.

And then it says in parentheses, Giamatti really was the first option. Okay, all right. But someone just at some point was like... He was hot off sideways. Yeah, he was. This was his big casting off of sideways. I remember where it was like, oh, maybe Paul Giamatti gets to be the star of a

movie, and this was that movie. I think this was the first thing he booked after sideways. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. In between he had made Cinderella Man and gotten his Oscar nomination. The 100% forgettable Cinderella Man. Yep. So here are two facts that are questions that the two of you have asked that I now hold the answers to.

Go ahead. Okay. Director trademark, Pennsylvania. Okay. So that's a trademark. Uh-huh. Shyamalan demanded that the set be within 45 minutes of his Pennsylvania home. He timed the trip, which took 43 minutes.

Wow. Okay, good job. It was all worth it. They say the film takes place in Philadelphia, but as you said, it looks nothing like it. It really looks like Florida, but I guess we're- It's this high-rise apartment building that seems to be in the middle of nowhere because right in the backyard, it's like- It's a forest.

It's a forest, yeah. And everyone seems to be dressed as if it's really hot right like everyone's always hanging out by the pool everyone's wearing like tank tops and shorts and shit and like this is not a pennsylvania climate well that brings me to my next pack the reason for the film's shockingly high budget 75 million dollars did they build this whole apartment building this is being said in one location

is because the apartment complex and the pool were built for the film wow oh my god do you think they're still in use again it was all worth it

let me if this film provided some housing for people for sure then you know what some kids got to go swimming it's good

some of this film was shot in Levittown, Pennsylvania at Jacobson Logistics warehouse site M. Night Shyamalan has committed to Levittown, Pennsylvania at Jacobson Logistics warehouse site. M. Night Shyamalan has committed to using film sites in PA. The set built on a

warehouse site includes the apartment complex and a half city block of row houses. Occasional footage was shot inside the overflow area of the warehouse.

Most of the film was completed after Jacobson workout. Okay. Well thanks for all that info. Anyway let's get to the movie.

Character error. Given the length of the words mentioned nine across cannot touch 27 down in a crossword puzzle. As Mr. Dury says, interpreting the puzzle while story is in the shower. It would have to be at least 19 letters long to do so. Before our listeners, I want to get ahead of that fact before people get thrown off. Yeah.

The purists. Yeah. All right. So it's an apartment complex in Philadelphia area. 43 minutes outside of it, to be exact. Uh-huh. Paul Giamatti plays... No, 43 minutes from M. Night Shyamalan's house.

Yeah, we don't know where he lives. Not from the city center of Philadelphia. He lives in the Liberty Bell. That man bleeds Philadelphia. Is the happenings... Well, we'll get to it next week. So, Paul Giamatti is Cleveland Heap Great name Great name

What a name What a heap Do you think Paul Giamatti was like Got the phone call and was like Oh M. Night Shyamalan Yeah absolutely The lead in your movie What's he called?

Cleveland Heap We thought of you Paul He's not like Lance Braxton. He's Cleveland deep. It's sad. He is a stuttering, sad handyman at this apartment complex who everyone's kind of nice to. Yeah, but they don't seem to respect that much. They're nice in a way where it's like, oh, we feel bad for that guy.

Right. They obviously feel bad for him. And pretty much immediately, a pale, naked, 24-ish year old red haired lady appears in his apartment. Yeah. First 15 minutes of the film are all these introductions. Yeah. He's meeting characters. And like Bob Balaban's moving in. Stuff like that.

So you meet people through him. He says he's a film critic. Yeah. But he hates all movies. They're all predictable. He understands how all of them are going to work. They never surprise him. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which is some sort of weird Shyamalan saying, I know you were annoyed at the twist in The Village or whatever. Right? He's doing it like a Ina Ritu thing where he's like mad. There's some axe grinding. Ina Ritu's portrayal of a film critic in Birdman is sensitive and three-dimensional compared to Bob Balaban in this, right?

Yes. The Lindsay Duncan role in Birdman. The ranking of directors creating film critic characters to shit on film critics in response to last film. Yeah. I'd go, in terms of sympathy, right? I'd go, the number one is probably Mayor Ebert and Ade Siskel in Roland Emmerich's Godzilla. Oh, yeah.

Played by Michael Lerner and somebody else I can't remember who it was. Yeah the guy who plays Siskel at a certain point he quits and he goes thumbs down two

thumbs down. Yeah and Ebert constantly wants like candy. He's like constantly eating candy because he's fat. Oh funny.

He also dies of cancer at the end of the movie which was really. Griffin. That's not my joke that's Roland Emmerich he's a fucking asshole.

It doesn't happen. We saw Stonewall you think that guy wouldn't do that? Well it's funny that Roland Emmerich chose 1998 to be fucking asshole. It doesn't happen. We saw Stonewall. You think that guy wouldn't do that? Well, it's funny that Roland Emmerich chose 1998 to be Mad at Critics. It's like, no, just wait, Roland. It's going to get a whole lot worse. This is going to bite you. I go Godzilla, then Birdman,

or The Unexpected Virtue of Victory. Then Lady in the Water. A bedtime story by Dan Nysha. That's not in the title. So, yeah, so pretty quickly, though, let's talk about it. Oh, but there are a couple of these little interludes where it's like, no, because it's important that he's building mystery. He's building an air of aura.

You go, maybe he's going to tease this out for a long time. Yeah. Oh, there's hair in the drain. Beautiful crimson hair. Where's this from? Oh, there's a thing on a chair and it disappears. Oh, who took it? And then back to three more introductions, right?

Yeah. And 15 minutes, pretty early into the film, he's in his apartment. He sees a movement behind him. His lovely little separate shack. But it's a beautiful little house. It's off-site. It is kind of nice. Beautifully filmed by

Christopher Doyle. Christopher Doyle is the cinematographer on this, and he doesn't make a lot of American movies. One of very few. Wong Kar-wai's regular cinematographer. One and he doesn't make a lot of American movies. One of very few. Wong Kar Wai's regular cinematographer. One of the great DPs for sure. Yeah. A man who has said that you cannot make a movie unless you've slept with a black woman and spent a night in jail.

That's a real quote from him. Yeah. I mean, he seems like a character. David Ehrlich said some stuff on Mike about him last week. He said even more stuff about him off Mike that I'll tell you if you didn't hear it. Yeah.

And, but anyway, great, great DP. Great DP. Bad human being probably. So in the background, out of focus,

you see this movement and then suddenly she just appears. Right. And so. Well, no, you see an arm

reach up and grab a necklace or something, right? And then Giamatti, we see him looking at her. Right. We don't see her. There's a lot of that in this movie of weird perspective. Right, right. And then Giamatti, we see him looking at her. Right. We don't see her. There's a lot of that in this movie

of weird perspective. Right, right. And then he falls in the pool and then, so we first, we first see her in his little house. We never see her in the fucking water. We see her arm in the water.

That's right. He walks into his house and she's there. Because she's dragged him to safety. He wakes up and she's sitting there. Um, yeah.

She spends the whole movie frail and weak but she had the strength to drag Paul Giamatti out of a pool to his death. Joel Piamatti. Joel Piamatti. That's our new name for him. And it should be pointed out that she did this while nude. While nude, yes.

And there is that weird sequence, yeah, that thing where it sort of cuts to them just on the couch together. Four honesty points, Ben. Yeah. Just for the listener at home, Ben was tapping me on the back holding up his hands like, come on, give me some credit. Ben was really proud that he pointed out that she was naked. I want to point out that I think we've been talking for an hour and we're on

the first act of this movie. This episode is going to be seven hours. There's so much to discuss. But yes. But what's special about her? One, she's naked. Two, she's played by Brace Dallas Howard, a great actress. Three, he's not stuttering. One, she's naked. Two, she's playing by Brace Dallas Howard. Three, he's not stuttering. Yeah, immediately. Immediately.

Four, she's a nerf. She's a nerf. We didn't mention that. She is a nerf. She's a nerf. Of all the made-up names in the world, for a beautiful secreture, he came up with nerf. Yes, he came up with the refrain that Pinky does in Pinky and the Brains. Five years after that show went off the air. Everyone knows that term. It's true. That's what you think of when you think of nerf. Yes, he came up with the refrain that Pinky does in Pinky and the Brains. Like five years after that show went off the air. Everyone knows that term. It's true. That's what you think of

when you think of Narf. I can just see him being interviewed about this movie like, I don't know, it just came to me. Meanwhile, that's playing in the background. Yeah, cut to. Even Thundercats. Snarf. That's right. This film is a direct sequel to Thundercats. We should make that clear.

From the orange hair on down. I found online an early draft of the script and there were some We should make that clear. From the orange hair on down. I mean, it's just... I do think I read, I found online an early draft of the script and there were some alts for that name. Did you really? Reptar was one of them.

All right. Zoinks. Was another one? I'm a Zoinks. Scooby. She was originally going to self-identify as a Scooby snack.

It's a Velma in the water. Yeah, so he is a little surprised but pretty quickly accepts this whole movie is people quickly accepting that

this crazy thing is happening in their swimming pool but there's not even a lot of movies do the thing where someone freaks out for a second

and then accepts it quickly he never freaks out he just goes like and I think the shorthand Shyamalan's trying to do is the stutter thing. And it kind of works. It's like the one thing in this movie

I kind of bought where he's like, I'm not stuttering. When she's around, he no longer sounds like Speed Buggy. Yes, that works. But also, he doesn't go like, what are you? No, no, no. There's not a lot. She's an ARF. There's a scrunt outside, which is a wolf. But we learn

about these things. A grassy wolf. I forget if we learn them first from her. So conveniently, the Chinese mother and daughter. We should talk about the Chinese mother and daughter. Conveniently, they know this mythology. Is it her grandma? I think it's her grandma. Is it her grandmother?

I think so. Well, they know the mythology. Or the grandmother knows the mythology that M. Night Shyamalan has cooked up somehow. So she becomes this font of exposition and explanation. Yes, but in translation only. Right. But I don't remember if Bryce Dallas Howard, if Story is her name.

She tells very little. She doesn't say much. She barely speaks in this film. It's true. She must have been quite perplexed by this whole process. And she seems like someone who really throws herself into whatever she's doing. Right, you guys were talking about Manderley last week. We were talking about Manderley.

This is off of Manderley, isn't it? She'd done Manderley between this and The Village? Yes, yes, yes. I think Manderley came out earlier this year. She'd spent some time in Denmark. Being abused. Yep. Yeah, and I'm correct.

And she'd also made As You Like It, the Kenneth Branagh flop that aired on HBO. Yeah. Because it was, yeah. Here are three relevant INDB trivia facts. One. And I think she booked Spider-Man 3 before this came out. I believe so as well. Anyway.

One. M. Night Shyamalan, delighted after he discovered unknown Cindy Chung, who is either the third or fourth lead depending on where you rank Shyamalan, I would say, was shocked to hear that her agent demanded $1 million for her role in the film. Good for that agent. If my client is going to be so debased throughout this film, it's worth it. That is audacious. Do you think she got it? Night was prepared to pay the SAG minimum, $65,000. Sure.

News to me that that's the minimum. Five bucks and a sandwich has been what HBO paid you every week. That's the Griffin Newman wage. Yeah, that's my quote, is a handshake. And someone telling that they're proud of me in the voice of my father. They settled for $100,000. Well, I mean, Shyamalan got the best of that one. That's more than I make in a week.

That's pretty good. Just about. Fact two. M. Night Shyamalan's wish list for his various male supporting roles included names such as... De Niro. Pacino. Well, you think you're joking. Pacino, though, in this.

Any role. Especially the Narf. I must grunt! Crossword puzzles! That's a segment we should bring back which is Pacino playing Darkest. He plays the Chinese granddaughter. And grandmother.

It's called Pacino Plays It is the segment. It's a bedtime story. Oh no. No, no, no. No, no, no. You're cutting that out. You're cutting that out. That is unacceptable. Bedtime story.

Oh, boy. M. Night Shyamalan's wish list for his various mouth-supporting roles. So you're alleging that Al Pacino is a racist. That is what you're doing. You don't have the cover

of George Lucas' shitty racism. I do. That's how fucking Pacino would play it. It's not my choice. That's how Pacino would play the segment. Dictates it. He plays the part as written and that's how it I do. That's how fucking Pacino would play it. It's not my choice. That's how Pacino would play the segment. Dictates it. He plays the part as written

and that's how it's written. That's how Pacino talks all the fucking time. Anyway, go on. I am a Pacino. Okay. Okay. Included names such as no bits from here on out, okay? Yeah. I didn't like that bit. I want to be on the record.

Not a bit. All right, go on. William Hurt. The big Hurt. Sure. He'd just been in The Village. Sidney Poitier. Okay.

Not making a lot of movies at that point in his career. Chris Cooper. All right. Gene Wilder. Who had not made a film in 15 years at that point. But has red hair. Has red hair. He's going to be the lady.

That's the joke I was going to make. Congratulations. Five comedy points for getting it before me. Thanks. Terrence Howard. Okay. Sort of right around hustle and flow time. That was 05, right?

Yep. Alec Baldwin. He would have been good. Vince Vaughn. I'm noticing something about all these names. They're all men. Oh! It did say his various male supporting roles.

Oh, okay. I think Bryce Hallad had the part from the gecko. Bryce Hallad? Bryce Hallad. She Hallad the pot. Yeah. I think she had the part from the gecko, and all the other female roles in this film are grossly underwritten.

She lived in the apartment building. They built it around her. Yeah, yeah. She was like the Lorax She was living in a stump of a tree She woke up one morning and she was in an M. Night Shyamalan movie

And then at the end she kicked herself in the behind and flew into the sky She was also voiced by Danny DeVito That was a deep Lorax cut right there. Okay, all right, all right, guys. We're being a little silly today. There are weird amount of truffle trees in that film.

Did I get through the rest of the list? Forrest Whitaker and Don Cheadle. All right. Okay, well, it's a diverse list. Yeah, that's good, but that didn't pan out. Not really. I mean, Jeffrey Wright, he got Jeffrey Wright in this movie, and we've noted before that he hadn't had a lot of diversity in his films up until this point.

This is his most diverse film. Yeah, to its discredits. Yeah. It doesn't work out for him, really. To the glaring two stereotypes, yeah. Yeah. You know what? I mean, nothing's great.

Even the characters like this. Nothing's great. That's right. Yeah, yeah. All right. Anyway, let's go on. I have one more short fact. This one's great, that's right.

Yeah, yeah, all right. Anyway, let's go on. I have one more short fact. M. Night Shyamalan was in talks with Philip Seymour Hoffman for an unspecified role. Hoffman, despite the fact, get ready to cry, that he, quote, loved the script, liked the role, had scheduling conflict. What would that have been, I wonder? He was going to take a shit that day instead. No, Hoffman was going to be the guy in the bathroom.

The whole movie, yeah. In all seriousness, he's probably Balaban, right? That's possible, I suppose. I mean, Hoffman won an Oscar the previous year. Yeah, but Sean Wynn was clearly aiming high. He was trying to get Gene Wilder out of retirement. Like, he didn't think any role. Orson Welles.

Laurence Olivier. All right. Chocolat. Okay, so this lady shows up from the water, though we don't see her in the water. The titular lady in the water. Let it be said. If that wasn't clear, we're listening. Her name is Story.

Interesting. Very subtle. Well, it's interesting to know that in the blue world, they're just pretentious. They're basically like, they give their kids celebrity kids names. Yeah, it's all Paltros in the blue world. Her siblings are Pilot Inspector, Audio Science Sosomon. Have I ever told you that I met Pilot Inspector? No, that's amazing.

Good kid. Good kid? Oh, that's cool. It was such a bummer. Bad roll. That's why you spin off podcasts as good kid, bad role. I talk about good kids and bad movies. Yeah.

And I get put on a watchdog list. So, come to my podcast about kids. What happens? Kids I like. Guys, I have a question. I have a question for you. I have a question. Griffin's kids I like.

Kids I got my eye on. Griffin, enough about the kids. Today, we're talking about boys. God damn it. I have a question. Yes. What happens in the rest of this movie? After she shows up.

Well, so basically he turns on the- Yeah, no idea. Ben is shrugging his shoulders. What happens? He turns on the old Chinese lady and she starts spouting the story. She does. In dribs and drabs. And we should talk about halfway through the movie because the Chinese lady is like, oh, yeah, like there's a.

She seems a little reticent at first to divulge this myth. And then the granddaughter is like, well, you need to appear more innocent to my grandmother because she's used to telling this story to children. Paul Giamatti then just starts like gets milk all over his beard and rolls around on a couch in front of her. He's got a milk mustache. Like kids do. I believe I have a screenshot of it because I was so horrified. I'll dig that up. And that was an idea to be a trivia fact that the amount of

milk on his mustache changes every time they cut. Right. Which I think is notable because it's like they didn't even try to keep up continuity. It felt like every new take M. Night was like let's throw some more milk on there. There wasn't enough. Not enough milk. Really play with the space.

The space on your upper lip. But if the guy with one big arm was not an indication enough, this scene with the milk is the indication that this movie is off the rails bonkers. Guys, it's a bedtime story. Okay. It's a bad bedtime story. Bedtime stories is usually very clear

One singular narrative You know no B story It's just kind of like a very simple arc It's just Tova Feltsha They should have cut everything around her Like this should have been the Tova Feltsha story Start to finish I'll say my father used to tell bedtime stories to my brother and I

We shared a bedroom until we were like 11 or something Same with me and my brother Bunk beds and my father used to come and tell a my brother and I we shared a bedroom until we were like 11 or something same with me and my brother bunk beds and my father used to come and tell a bedtime story my brother was only interested in sports and I liked cartoons

and comedy and stuff so my father would come in every night and off the dome M. Night Style you didn't see him getting a fucking picture deal off of this

but M. Night Style he'd come and he'd sit on the floor and he'd try to tell a story that weaved together our two interests and he had a really good formula

which is let me pick an athlete and And he had a really good formula, which is let me pick an athlete and then let me pick a really cartoonish characteristic. So it'd be like, Harry the hot dog. And it'd be a guy who'd look like a hot dog. And he wore a jacket

and everyone thought it was a bun and they made fun of him. And it turned out he was good at wrestling because his body was so skinny that he could wiggle out anything.

Sure. It was always something like that. Okay. Like Big Ears or Eric. Okay, Griffin. And then he was good at hockey. Yeah. This movie is like M. Night bought the rights to every story my father ever told and told them simultaneously it's like people who have one weird tick and one thing they're good at doing right

and they're not necessarily connected no they just have a weird characteristic and one skill right that comes in play perfectly right but but actually in a way they don't come, I mean I guess they figure it out by the end like how they're all supposed to be. 75% of them don't work at all. Like Mary Beth Hurd spends the second half of the movie thinking she's the healer and then she's just some old lady. She's like, oh it turns, anyway.

Right, so I guess the next major thing that happens is story is like, I'm here to find a specific writer who's going to write a really important book right and paul giamatti then goes around just crashing into people's apartments going like uh you're writing a book or something you know like just asking everyone sort of randomly like you're writing anything there are these characters who are the smokers and they're like a weird age range of men who all live together and just smoke cigarettes there's like a beat generation guy there's like a flower guy there's

like you know there's someone from every award nominee jared harris yeah it's m night shamalan imagining what it was like to hang out with the cool kids in college that you maybe never got to hang out with i don't know but it's like this weird conception of like they're like music posters and cigarettes right you know but they are they do range in age from like 18 to 55. And at one point he just straight up is like, do you guys write? Have you written

anything lately? Right. With having never established that they were writers before. But they got ideas, man. And then it turns out

that his friendly Indian tenant who's a Vic, Vic Ran. Right. Played by M. Night Shyamalan in his largest role apart from

Praying with Anger to date. Yeah. Whoalan in his largest role, apart from praying with anger, to date. Yeah. Who lives with his sister. He doesn't get cast a lot outside of M. Night Shyamalan films. This would be his second largest role. You're right. I was trying to think of other movies that M. Night Shyamalan appears in as an actor,

and I think this is the second largest role. He's writing a book called The Cookbook. Right. Yeah. Which, here's the thing. Cleveland Heap sees the book and goes, ah, fuck, it's a cookbook. It's the weirdest moment in the movie. Yeah. But then five minutes later, it's the thing. Cleveland Heap sees the book and goes, ah, fuck, it's a cookbook. It's the weirdest moment in the movie. Yeah.

But then five minutes later, it's not. The immediate following scene. And I think the idea is he's supposed to be like, oh, how am I going to ask now? Because he's sort of secretly sneaking a look at this book that Vic is sort of like, ah, nobody read my book. It's a piece of shit. Right.

And then he's like, oh, it's called the cookbook. Now I have to clarify whether or not this is a cookbook. How am I going to do that? I don't know what to do. Hey, is it a cookbook? No? Great. I was using my ladder, and then the ladder knocked into the book, and the book opened up.

And I saw that it was called The Cookbook. Is that? Which, once again, we're not making fun of people with stutters. We're making fun of Cleveland Heath. Yeah, but you still, your Al Pacino thing is still a great shame to this podcast. Also, I feel like if you were the super... You think it's all great. I did not want you to do more of that.

If you were the super of a building, wouldn't you kind, if you were as involved as he is, you would kind of know if someone was fucking making a cookbook, right? Because they'd be cooking all the time. It's true. You might have heard a complaint about exotic smells. Right. Right. There you go.

I don't know. That doesn't track for me. But the reason he's seeking this writer out is the writer's going to change the world, but the story is there. Her job as someone from an emissary from the blue world is to be in the presence of that person,

basically infuse them with inspiration and meaning, described as pins and needles feeling. And then she can go home. But she's being... She can go home on the wings of a giant eagle. But unfortunately there's a scrunt in the backyard which is a grassy wolf that you can't look at

unless you are a specific person. The guardian. The guardian. And then all you can do is look at them. Then you gotta look at them. And she assumes that Paul Giamatti, that Cleveland is this figure. Of course. And there's a tense sequence in which it appears he is and then it turns out he isn't.

And she's like, oh, run away! He's moving forward! The scrunch motivation is never established, right? Not so much. They're just bad. And there are also weird monkey creatures that supposedly can help her out, but they can't show up until later. I don't know why the weird monkey creatures are even involved.

Look cool. These creatures were designed by Crash McCreary, who also did all the monster pirates in the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. The fishy monsters. Like Davy Jones and everyone. He's good at designing. Davy Jones, very cool character design. Like the fishy monster. Like Bill Nye. Like Davy Jones and everyone. He's good at designing. Yeah, Davy Jones very cool character design. Like Octopus Man. And

Stellan Skarsgård is like a lobster. I believe you're talking about Bootstrap Bill. I have a good skill at remembering names of things I don't like. Okay. So re-watching the introduction for the fourth time after watching the whole movie, this was the one idea I was able to get across clearly,

was they say that, like, in the past, there was a very clear channel between the blue world and the green world, I guess. You know, or whatever our fucking world is called. The brown world. Our world of doodoo. And the blue world, when they were able to communicate with us, the stream of conversation led to a better society. Oh, I see.

And that's been cut off. We became more obsessed with the land. We started building things. That's right. We closed ourselves off. So there's this very vague environmental message. Well, it used to be like it was just a constant back and forth. And now that it's become so disjointed,

a guy needs to write a book that can change everything in one fell swoop. And apparently a Midwestern orator will read this book. It will be on the bookshelf of a boy. And they'll tell him. They'll be like, hey, this book's pretty good. They say a book he keeps on hearing about. Right. And he's going to, not to spoil anything, but he's going to read that book.

But then also someone's going to assassinate M. Night Shyamalan over this? Because story can see the future. Sure. Sort of, somehow. She can't see herself being carried away by the eagle or how that happens. Yeah, and she can't explain why these monkeys who are her protectors are apparently just not doing that.

Right. But Emmett says, he keeps on saying, this book's just like all the thoughts I have, leaders and stuff. And then later in the film... Oh yeah, I wrote that line down. Oh, please, please read the dramatic reading. Hold on. I mean, I don't think I wrote the whole thing down, but... Oh fuck mean I don't think I wrote the whole thing down but oh fuck I can't find. Oh yeah. Just my thoughts on

all the cultural problems. Thoughts on leaders and stuff. Yeah I believe that is the whole. All the cultural problems. All the cultural problems. And this is 2006 so a lot of cultural problems. Yeah. You know we're in the midst of the sort of W. Bush culture wars. And right before that I wrote he can't cook cook, question mark, question mark, exclamation point,

because the way that Cleveland figures out that it's not a cookbook is he mentions, like, oh, I can't, you know, I can't make anything. And he's like, and then, like, Paul Giamatti slowly turns around and is like, it's not a cookbook. Right, that's right. I forgot about that. I mean, it's a twist. Like you say, this film is loaded with twists.

That happens 85 seconds after the idea was set up. So she tries to leave. She meets M. Night pretty quickly. Yeah. Like they introduce her. Can I just put out one thing before? No, because I think- What?

Just say it. M. Night has this layer of line where he says to her, he's like, you know, I got to say, like, you mentioned things happening in the future. And then I, you know, or you you said the boy that's what he goes this fucking boy who would change the world why wouldn't he come out and try to meet me if he read the book I'm not alive when the kid reads the book huh and she's like

silent and he's like you know I say a lot of stuff in this book things I don't know how people are going to react a lot of stuff about Jews he never even begins to explain what he says in the book just that it's a lot of ideas and that people are going to react. A lot of stuff about Jews. He never even begins to explain what he says in the book, just that it's a lot of ideas and that people are going to react strongly to it. There is no clear point that he's not just an anti-Semite.

The book could just be kill all the Jews. There's no point in which he explains where he falls. I guarantee you it's men's rights. Absolutely. One hundred percent. Listen to me now. This book is read by the Return of Kings guy 10 years later and an eagle flies

out of the sky and drops a fedora on his head he predicts in the book in 2006 this book is I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

and he is playing Tucker Manning he predicts in the book that 10 years hence Ghostbusters will be remade with an all female cast that's the inciting

incident this is not my Ghostbusters that's like the Treaty of Versailles you're like yeah okay so then she tries to leave she gets attacked by the scrunk only attack her legs

uh yeah rips her legs you know she's her she seems to be weakening throughout and it's unclear i thought they just had to throw her in the pool and she would be revived no toss her in the pool doesn't happen and she's going from like a brace dallas howard color palette to like a mia vasik house get colored she starts getting like drained by the end she's going from like a Brace Dallas Howard color palette to like a Mia Vasekowska color palette. That's exactly right. She starts getting drained. By the end, she's Tilda Swinton

in Narnia. Yes. So she explains, oh, problem with the scrunt? Easy. We just need a symbologist,

a guardian, a guild, and a healer. Wait, can we talk for a second about this when he goes swimming in the pool?

Sure, yeah. What does he have to do? He has to go, I totally forgot about this sequence. What does he have to do? He has to go. I totally forgot about this sequence. He has to get her sand. He has to get her like a magic item. She has a healing clay. He swims into the pool.

And I wrote down Shelly Winters in Poseidon Adventure. Absolutely. He goes a long way. Because he holds his breath for a good long time. He holds his breath for a champion diver, like a pearl diver level. And he figures that he's a super of a building. What was his profession before his family tragedy?

He was a doctor. A doctor. He was a doctor. So he figures out this crazy breathing technique underwater where he like finds an air pocket and it's kind of MacGyver-y. Right. I'm sorry. We have to talk about this.

Yeah. Cleveland Heap used to be a doctor. One night when he was working. Dr. Heap. Someone broke into his house and murdered his wife and children. Correct. Much like the crime in Unbreakable. Yes, yeah.

Yeah. And like every other Night Shyamalan film, because you think he's avoiding it up until the point of this reveal, is about a man who spends too much time in his career and lets his relationship to his wife and or children fall away in some sort of fashion. Yeah. And this was so bad. Yeah. This is the one film where he lost his family entirely and it was his fault.

Right. Right? He thinks. He thinks. If he had been there, if he hadn't been working. He bl it was his fault. Right. Right. He thinks. He thinks. If he had been there, if he hadn't been working. He blames himself, sure. Right. And after that, he developed a stutter and decided to run a building. Yeah.

Like anyone would. None of the characteristics of a doctor. You know what's definitely like not a stressful job is being the only super at like a 16 story apartment building. And a fucking job where you have to communicate with people all the time even though words are fucking impossible for you to get out of your mouth. Like a 350 unit building. Like a fucking job where you have to communicate with people all the time, even though words are fucking impossible for you to get out of your mouth. Like a 350 unit building.

Like, it's absolutely demented. Full of crazy people. And truffle of trees. And Tova Felchessy. And the swimming pool is a portal to another world. Yes! So... Oh, right, that too, yeah. They mentioned that in the Corcoran listing. Okay, so she...

Blue world adjacent. He gets the clay, he unscrews the drain at the bottom of the poolcoran listing. Okay, so she... Blue world adjacent. He gets the clay. He unscrews the drain at the bottom of the pool. He dives underneath. He finds clay on a shelf. Yeah, he rubs it on her legs. And let's not forget also that they consult Grandma to figure out how to heal her, too.

Because, you know, she provides all that information. That's a crazy scene where he's on the phone with the granddaughter while she's at the club. Oh, yeah. And she's like, hold on, let me call my grandmother. And then she relates the story. It's very bizarre. I don't know why he chose to write this thing where it's all

third hand. It all has to be in translation. It's very strange. It's like the scene in The Last of the Mohicans where Daniel Day-Lewis has to have the British guy speak French to the Native Americans who only speak French. I recently watched The Last of the Mohicans. I'd like to say, though, the choice of having them always yell at each other really

really cements the sort of dimensionality and thought that went into portraying these people as not stereotypes at all. Right. No. Gruff's Rewrite Station. Here's a quick fix I

would do on this movie okay rather than have it be it'd be funny if your quick fix was all white people oh god this is the one movie where anyway no go on

Pacino plays everyone yeah um quick rewrite corner uh rather than have it be a old bedtime story

that apparently is only passed along one family line why not have it be like a fucking Hans Christian Andersen like some sort of tale that we all sort of know and everyone's trying to remember together. I guess so. And rather than use all these different terms that make it confusing to follow, why not

just go like in the story, there's always one who protects. Are you kidding me? One who understands. Rather than going like the symbologist. You just have to learn Narf, scrunt, tartuix, symbologist, guardian, guild, healer. What is so hard about this? Blue world. The guild.

Odgen sires. Well, I think. You symbologist, guardian, guild, healer. What is so hard about this? Blue world? The guild? Odgen-Sires? Well, I think- You have to learn Odgen-Sires. Yeah. He was just like, oh, J.K. Rowling did it. I can do it. People will learn this, right? And he wanted to direct a Harry Potter movie.

He always talked about it. He always said he wanted to do it. With Haley Joel Osment. Yeah. He was kept away from it. Yeah. And that would have been something. Yeah.

It would have been something. Well, he got to his kids franchise later two entries to go guys wait for that one he tried to do two kids franchises back to back sure but anyway so they set up all these different roles so there needs to be all these different people

Bryce House Howard tells him that they exist but cannot explain who they are. This is an order for the for the fucking eagle to come. Is that what it is? It's let me see that. It's really unclear why they're doing this process of like finding the. How'd she get in the pool in the first place? I thought it was like through the cave.

Right. So can't you go back through the cave to the door close? No, you have to fly back to the water. You can't swim. Because water's in the sky. That makes perfect sense. So anyway, a giant eagle carries you back to the water. You can't swim back to the water. Oh, right, because water's in the sky. That makes perfect sense. So, anyway, when a giant eagle carries you back to the water, what is that clear about? The crux of the movie

is he goes to Bob Balaban and says, like, you know all about movies and stories. And stories, yeah. So, who do you think, like, the symbologist would be, for example? Of course I do. Movies are predictable. I've never seen anything that surprises me. I hate all films. He's like, I just saw a rom-com. It sucked. They kissed in the rain. Who likes these movies? You know, he has like a lot of axes to grind. I guess you could say it just saw a rom-com. It sucked. They kissed in the rain. Who likes these movies?

You know, he has like a lot of axes to grind. I guess you could say it's about a spiritual rebirth. Giamatti says, like, what if it's like the rain is a metaphor to represent their cleansing? And he goes like, no, absolutely not. Like, he's a film critic who doesn't believe in reading into films, which means he is not any film critic in history. Right. Other than Lou Liminick. He's Lou Liminick.

He's no Action Jackson. Likes Camera Action Jackson? Likes Camera Jackson. Thank you. Likes Camera Jackson. What is his action? His name is Jackson, right? That's his first name.

His first name is Action, but it's spelled A-X-Q-R-T-U-N. The toast of Albany. Action Jackson. So Balaban says, it's probably someone who likes puzzles. By the way, that's perfectly good advice. It's not like some film critic asshole thing to say. It's like, who do you think the symbologist might be? Right.

Which he's supposed to say, like... Robert Langdon. Well, you know, you should watch out for a kid who looks at cereal boxes. Also, the way he poses the question is, like, he doesn't go like, hey, you watch a lot of movies. You understand how stories work. If there was someone who needed to solve something, who do you think, how do you think you could figure out? And he says, like, the character would usually be set up at the beginning of the film with innocuous dialogue so they plant your brain which is like what he does in the first 15

minutes but he goes like if there needed to be a symbologist who do you think it would be like he presents them to balaban with the proper titles that were given to him he goes right oh a symbologist is in the scrunt story uh probably jeffrey wright down the hall he's a big enough actor that you wouldn't hire him to only do that one scene at the beginning. He, a skeptical film critic, accepts the premises of the movie as immediately as anyone else. The character makes no fucking sense

because he's everything he hates. I think Balaban's pretty good in the role. I do too. I think Balaban's really good. He's always good. He's very good at just pursing his lips and not talking. He communicates a lot.

There's an irony also to Bob Balaban playing a film critic, which is the filmmaker trying to get back at film critics. When Bob Balaban is like the ultimate film critics actor. Like he's the kind of actor that all critics are like, God, I always loved Balaban. Yeah, more Balaban, if anything. He's always like an audience surrogate for film critics. Because it's like, that guy looks smart and he's observing his surroundings. So.

Like that's the Balaban type. Right. So they assemble these people. So the potheads are the guild. Yeah, they got to have a battle band type. Right. But like, so they assemble this, these people. So the potheads are the guild. Yeah. They got to have a lot of them. Jeffrey writes the symbologist. The butterfly lady played by Mary, not Kay, Mary Beth Hurd, is the healer.

Correct. And the guardian she thinks is Giamatti. Cleveland Heap. Right. Dr. Heap. This doesn't work out. Absolutely not. It's in fact a calamity. But what doesn't work out. Absolutely not. It's in fact a calamity.

But what doesn't work out? That's what I'm... The scrunt charges! The scrunt charges, the eagle doesn't come. That's the problem? That's the problem. And then they all kind of gather and they try to do like a practice? Well, there's a bizarre scene where they throw up part...

By the way, she's mostly in the shower for the whole movie. Just sitting in the shower. Giving sort of blinking instructions. I wanted to say, like, if you came into that out of context, that scene where it's just a group of people standing around a woman crouched in the shower, it doesn't look good. It's so fucking creepy. It does not look good. It's bizarre.

It's the dynamic between Giamatti and- It is the preview image on Amazon. Oh, when you start with the video, the preview image is her in a shower looking like she's about to be attacked. It's horrifying. It's horrifying. The dynamic between Giamatti and Howard is always creepy. There's never any, like, I suppose she's about to be attacked. It's horrifying. The dynamic between Giamatti and Howard is always creepy. There's never

any, like, I suppose it's supposed to be kind of paternal, but it doesn't work. But it's also sexual. It is. She's naked the whole fucking movie. She's naked. She's a grown-up. Like, it doesn't work at all, whatever he's going for. That's Ronnie Howard's kid we're talking about. This is fucking, this is Hollywood royalty. Ronnie Howard's kid. So it doesn't work, and they all

figure out that they actually should be something else. But yes, there's a big party. So they throw a party ostensibly to welcome the new film critic to the apartment, right? Yes, right.

And he's overjoyed by the way. In the party scene you get the impression that M. Night Shyamalan has never been to a party because I have no idea what that is.

He's always missing on the list for his own premiere parties. Yeah. We've got a Minaj list for his own premiere parties. Yeah. We've got a Minaj shaman on, but no M Night because that's not a real name. But no, what's in this party? What do we got? There's balloons.

There's some balloons. There's a DJ set indoors. Silvertide's playing. Everyone's favorite band, Silvertide. Let's check in with Strong Arm Guy. Yeah, he's lifting on one side. Right, right. Which is the second time

we've seen him in 45 minutes. He has the opening line of the film and then he comes back at the 45 minute part. Yeah, I mean, Freddy... To lift a drink to his mouth.

We all live in New York City. We live in apartment buildings. When you move into a new apartment building, they have a party for you. Always. I mean, that's just the... And like, you know,

everyone comes. On a joyously warm environment. The super, of all people, organizes the party. Of course. Of course. The super is always like a really personable guy who knows everyone and gets along with everyone.

A beautiful house full of West Elm furniture by the swimming pool. And let's not give the super all the credit for throwing the party because, of course, he has to enlist a guild. And the guild's going to be a bunch of judgmental people who scoff at everyone else who walks around them. Who smoke cigarettes and like rock music. Right. They love throwing parties for their neighbors.

Yeah. So there's a party. Yeah. Essentially to sort of smuggle her out away from the scrunt. So the scrunt doesn't see her. They get some cool Silver Tide tracks on the soundtrack. The scrunt sneaks into the apartment building and savages and murders Bob Balaban. But not before Bob Balaban has weirdly torn down the movie.

Yeah. So this is the moment where it gets very meta. He has a monologue where he's like, oh, I see, you're trying to scare me with this scary scene. Well, you're pointing at me, Griffin. Because this is my favorite detail in the entire film. He goes, but in a film where there has been no cursing or explicit content up until this point,

a family film, they will not actually let someone be murdered on camera. So they will come close to his death, but manage to close the door just the right second. Yeah, I mean, this is the kind of stuff that kids love. Let's be honest. And pointing out that you're watching a kid's movie. Bob Bellman giving a Kevin Williamson style monologue.

It's an outtake from Scream. And I want to say, he's saying like, yeah, huh, this is like a PG-13 movie. Do you know why? Because someone is ripped to pieces by a wolf. Like, even though it's off screen. It's a scrunt, David. That's fucking offensive. Can I say something?

I'm still upset about it. Yeah, I'm on your case. I'm upset. You think all fucking scrunts are wolves and vice versa? He makes it very clear they're not wolves. Does he? He explains it to the fucking EPA guy, and he goes like,

sounds like no wolf I've ever seen. I forgot about that guy. He's got grass fur. That's why I didn't like the revenant because in real life Hugh Glass was attacked by a scrunt. I know. It's true. That is true. And I just feel like that was a weird detail.

Well, Matt Judge thinks he was raped by a scrunt. Right, right. But Hugh Glass did not have a mirror which you need to see the scrunts? Yeah. Is that right? You can only look at them through a mirror unless they're the guardian and then you can look them in the eyes and make them back off. There is that great scene in The Revenant where Hugh Glass goes,

I'm a good character in a film with an R rating who's been kind to his son so far, which means the worst you could do is just pat me on the back. You couldn't fully beast me. And then Tova Felch just shoots an arrow at him. That's great. And that's it. Thank you, guys. We're going to get an iTunes review asking for less bits.

Lady in the van. Is that what we're talking about? Welcome back to Lady in the Van Chat. That's a terrible movie, by the way. I haven't seen it. Oh, it's so bad. I won't see these movies after I saw My Old Lady. Lady in the Van is almost as hard to follow as Lady in the Water.

You won't watch any film with Lady in the title and Maggie Smith in the title role. Correct. You won't. Did anyone else see My Old Lady? No, it was terrible. The Kevin Kline one? I advise you to not watch it because I value your sanity, but if you ever do watch it, be

prepared for the most poisonously mean, toxic, horrible drama when you were expecting a hilarious like comedy about an old lady who lives in an apartment. I don't know. I can't. I would need an hour to tell you what happens to my old lady. It was like being punched repeatedly

in the stomach. Just David alone. Just monologuing on my old lady. So he assigns all the people in the roles, and then it doesn't work, and he realizes that they're all wrong, and it's suddenly other people. Yeah, and then it turns out, it's like, oh,

the guild isn't the stoners, it's these five Mexican sisters. And a couple other people. Right? They don't have to be sisters with each other. There's seven people who are sisters. Sarita Shara. She's a sister.

She's a sister. And that's, by the way, when I found out that she was M. Night's sister in the movie. That's lunacy. That was clear. It's not lunacy. And, oh, by the way, that's all discerned from cereal boxes. Oh, right, because he's not the symbologist. So basically their initial ideas about who was who are all wrong. And there's a line or two in there where one of the characters gets angry at the critics

because his textual read was wrong. Yeah, and everyone in the room is like, I can't believe it. And he dared to presume he knew the mind of someone else. And it's like, oh, so this is M. Night Shyamalan being like, don't tell me what my motivations were for making The Village. You fuckerer or whatever they act like they just said like oh yeah it's because that film

critic has been chopping up babies in his apartment for years like that's the level of their revulsion when they hear that he guessed maybe Jeffrey Wright was the symbologist it also feels a little like if you guys would stop guessing why I'm making the movies the way I'm making them then maybe I'd settle down and make a movie you wanted to see well right exactly nope wrong again so he realizes everything's wrong there's the little why I'm making the movies the way I'm making them then maybe I'd settle down and make a movie you wanted to see. Well, right,

exactly. Nope. Wrong again. So he realizes everything's wrong. There's the little boy. Turns out the kid's the symbologist, not Jeffrey Wright.

Because early in the film when the father was doing the puzzle and we were distracted to look at the charisma of Jeffrey Wright, he's looking at a cereal box and going,

I don't understand why this mascot looks sad. Which is how I behaved as a child and instead people went, oh, this kid has depression issues. He's not a symbologist.

But in the movie, you'd be the symbologist. Yes. And then my depression would go unchecked for years and they just put a lot of pressure on me. Now, the guardian turns out to be who? The guy with the big arm. Oh, of course. Ready to read you guys.

Of course, because he's got one big arm. What else would he be? And the healer is Paul Giamatti. Yes. Because, you know, he's got to get to his own healing as well. She's all scratched up by the scrunk. Guys, this is all

in the film. But you're forgetting my favorite detail. Details from the film. Mama and Grandma say, she said that sometimes, not all the time, but in certain tellings of the story there are two bonus characters. Sometimes, but not all times.

Two bonus characters. One is a man who will have great judgment, and one is a man with no secrets. But that's not canon, so I don't accept it. It's not canon. It's EU, right? It's Lady in the Water Legends, right? Right. Yeah.

By the way, Disney's about to buy the Lady in the Water franchise for $2 billion. No, they aren't, as we'll talk about. Narf, the motion picture. Narf Origins. A Lady in the Water story. All right, go on. I don't even remember what you're talking about right now. Yeah, two bonus characters.

A Man of Great Judgment. Who is it? Bill Irwin. Bill Irwin saw that Paul Giamatti was grieving and called him out on it and was like, it's a tough world we live in.

We've got to keep our head up. So he calls in a man. He says, I respect you greatly. And Bill Irwin stoically nods, right? And they go, a man with no secrets. Who has no secrets? Tova Feldscher's husband because he's constantly shitting.

And having his secrets told. He doesn't know that people are on the other side of the door listening to him shit talking. That is the most well-insulated bathroom door in the world, by the way. It's a one-way door. Because Don Valencia is loudly screaming all of his secrets right outside of it. No, but he also yells stuff back at her.

He does. He does. So it's a one-way door. He doesn't know that other people are in the apartment. It's a one-way door. Right. So they bring the two of them in, and their job is just to stand there and go, come on, you can do it.

Right. And then they do it. So she's all banged up up and then Paul Giamatti hugs her and starts saying like I'm sorry I don't want you to die but he's really talking to his wife and children Now this is something I want to say that in previous M. Night Shyamalan films

would have worked. Even if it would have been cheesy that's how all his other movies work and he sells it like Mel Gibson's character has got to get over this thing and you get it at the end like oh that oh, that's what everything was geared towards. Not in this movie. It's barely a plot point. Because we only find out the shit about his family like an hour through into the movie,

and it's only through Bryce Dallas Howard sort of chatting to him about it. And they drop it really fast. There's so much going on in this film that you can't remember a detail like that. Because this film is exposition on exposition on exposition. It's like everyone is telling their own personal stories and their legendary stories. It's also, I think... And it's a legendary picture we should mention. This film was produced by a legendary

picture. Correct. I think it's filmed in a way that's entirely illegible. Like that party scene, aside from the fact that M. Night Shyamalan's never been to a party, is like bogglingly filmed. It's like what, you don't know what you're looking at. Things start happening.

No. Does someone get murdered at some point? I don't know. She gets dragged off by a scrunt at some point, but you don't see that happen. You just see her kind of get dragged away. Okay. Like, you don't. But in his defense, the reason it's so hard to follow is because Christopher Doyle was

having sex with a black woman and being arrested while they were following. That's right. That's right. You can't make a movie per his quote. Any movie. He has to do it per movie. I meet these young filmmakers and I go, have you slept with a black woman? Have you gotten arrested?

Anyway. If so, you don't have a story to tell. If not. Okay. But we should talk about how there's the party. There's all the people. They all figure out their roles. They hug her.

And then the eagle comes and the movie's over the people, they all figure out their roles, they hug her, and then the eagle comes and the movie's over. Like, bam. That's exactly right. It's like, and then the eagle comes and we see the, what are they called?

Tartuics? Yeah. For like two seconds. One second. They look cool. I guess so. I like the creature design in this movie a lot.

They look like the Ents from Lord of the Rings. They look like little Ents. Grass people. I don't think the creature design is good in this movie. Oh, the scrunt is really good. I think the scrunt looks terrible.

I love the scrunt. The scrunt looks like a creature from a Buffy episode. It's a crappy CGI wolf with grass fur. I did watch it on a phone, but I think the scrunt looks good, and I in fact think that he addresses, makes good on some of the sins of the alien and signs in this film. I think the scrunt, he shoots better, designs better, does signs in this film. I think the scrunt, he shoots better,

designs better, does the reflection thing better. I like the scrunt. I'm going to start making a line of scrunt shirts. Scrunt couture. But look out for that in our store. Coming soon.

Coming soon. A lot of merchandise coming soon. We're developing a whole line. So that's the end of the movie. Yeah. So here's a theory I'd like to present. People like to rag on M. Night for doing twists all the time. I think if he doesn't have a twist

at the end of his movie, he doesn't understand how to end a movie. Sure. Because Signs does the same thing where it just ends. At least Signs has the jump forward like it's very badly done, but it has that time jump. But the jump forward lasts all of 15 seconds. It's one shot. And it's the same thing where someone holds onto a body,

heals them through the power of prayer, and then the movie gives you one image, and it's done. And then it's written and directed and produced. The final image is rather pretty. The shot of Giamatti through the water. Oh, yeah. That's the final image.

There's some pretty shots in this movie. And I think, I will say, in the movie's defense, the scenes, despite all the clunky, like, what the fuck is a symbologist, all the terms are horrible. But the scenes where they're like a bunch of grownups basically doing what kids do, which is sort of like play act and make believe. And assigning each other. And like organized in that way. I think that's thrilling.

And I think that a movie that was actually about that and done well would be really cool to watch. Simplified. If that's the thing he was trying to say and he focused it on that idea. There's a couple scenes like done well would be really cool to watch. Simplified. If that's the thing he was trying to say and he focused it onto that idea. There's a couple scenes like that that work. Like adult make-believe. It's cool. Guys like Jeffrey Wright are good at that. They're good at kind of spouting stuff about the source code

and you're just like, okay, sure, I buy it. We've talked a lot about Sean Millan, whether or not the scenes work on a dramatic level. His sort of mise-en-scene is really good where he has these great environments, he puts great actors in them. I would say it's usually, I don't think it's as good in this movie, though. Like, I didn't have as good a sense of the apartment building. But even in this

film, there are these moments where he just has a fucking one-er, he doesn't care if you're seeing the back of one actor's head, and you get to watch eight good actors in a room play off each other without cuts, and there's, like, an energy there. Sure. Whether or not that energy is being applied to something that we appreciate. It's like Guy

is a confident director in a way that is assuring to watch. It's just like I'm sure the experience of making the movie is much different than watching it. I don't know. They probably shot it out of sequence. It probably made sense to them in the way that those games make sense to kids.

I'm sure it was like, yeah, we're going to do this. There's art there. There's intent and effort. The final product, I think it's a really, really bad movie. I agree. It's in service of a story that is not like, all right, Griffin, you're smiling. I like this movie a lot. What do you actually like about it?

I cannot argue that this movie is good. I will not attempt to. And I admit that I have a near sexual fetish for super ambitious misguided failure.

I don't think this film is that ambitious. I think what he's trying to do in this film is insane. Really? He's trying to build

a whole mythology. He is but I mean very half-heartedly and like it's a very simple mythology. Well and he's also putting the mythology in a film that otherwise doesn't feel build a whole mythology. He is, but very half-heartedly. It's a very simple mythology. He's also putting the mythology in a film that otherwise doesn't feel like a mythology movie. I guess so.

I also think... These are my two big reads on this movie. One is, all of my Shyamalan films are crisis of faith movies. We realize that at this point, which is fascinating. I think it's fascinating that all of my Shyamalan films are about family, home life, relationships, being fucked up. You know, men who are weighed down by too many things and don't appreciate their wife enough. And crisis of faith movies that are almost always Catholic, if not heavily Christian in bed. Right.

M. Night Shyamalan is Hindu. Yeah. But he went to a Catholic school. So he absorbed all that. Is it married to the same woman since he was 20 years old? Sure. So unless their marriage is very contentious, it feels like he's picked this as his story themes without them being the things he relates to because he seems to be pretty centered

spiritually. You're balabanding right now. You're ascribing a lot of motivation. Well, I find this fascinating, right? Yeah, sure. I don't know, but I find it fascinating that it doesn't feel like- I don't think this is a very Catholic movie. I agree with you.

Yeah. I agree with you. I agree with you. This is the one where spirituality becomes a lot more abstract. He gets a pieta in there, though. He does. It's true. It's true. No, but the thing that...

Giamatti pieta. This is the thing I think is really ambitious about this movie. I'm not saying it works. I would argue that most of this movie doesn't work. I think there are two things in this film that work. I don't think anything works. But somehow, the ambitious of it, and the fucking lunacy of it. I mean, I like a movie that's this crazy, that fundamentally should not work.

I'm not surprised when it doesn't work because I'm like, yeah, but you swung for the fences. He swung away, you know? Go on, go on. The spirituality I think he's into in this film is he felt so wounded by everyone starting to hate his movies that he made a movie to try to rather than make a film about the character reclaiming his own sense of faith get the audience to believe in him again as a storyteller.

I'm not saying this is a sympathetic mission but it's a crazy idea for a fucking movie. Is he made a movie that's like everyone calm down, act like a child and just love a story. Just sit down, drink a glass of milk and love a story. But it's love a story with me at the center, which is weird. Which is lunacy. I don't think it's lunacy.

I think it's stupid. I'm not commending him for this. I'm saying I find it fascinating. But you are commending him. I'm saying I enjoy watching it. All right. I'm not attributing any positive or negative qualities to it. I give this movie one star.

I give this movie 27 stars. But I'm curious, because your great project here is not just about Lady Noir. It's about his in the Water. It's about his oeuvre. It's true. Figuring out him. You guys have said in previous episodes, I am a dedicated listener, that The Village marks something of a turning point because it's when the bloom fell off the rose really for him, right? People didn't like that movie.

It's the first real serious backlash he's faced, right? So this movie, Lady in the Water, is what solidified his downfall? Dynamited his career into smithereens. This is when his movies start feeling scared. They stop being scary and they start feeling like films of a man who's trying to hold on to what he has. Let's also remember, this is not only the film that dynamites his career in terms of like, it is a bad movie that everyone

hates. It's a film that ruins his industry reputation because of his well-publicized freakout at Disney for not buying the movie. And then it didn't do well. It is where M. Night Shyamalan, who is top-billed in this movie on the poster, as he had always been, is really

torn down at every sort of angle. And it's the movie where he is martyring himself in the movie. It is the perfect conflagration. I can't think of a more spectacular like director blow up.

Right. I want to read a novel like Vincent Gallo. I want to read a nonfiction novel about the making of this movie. There is one. There is one.

There is. Yes. It's called The Man Who Heard Voices. This is for our listeners. This is the brief backstory on this. I have never read it.

But it's about Lady in the Water. Yes. Yes. I mean I think it's about M. Night but it's sort of centered on Lady in the Water. Who wrote it? Some journalist. M. Night. So he at this point. Night Water. Yes. I mean, I think it's about M. Night, but it's sort of centered on Lady in the Water. Who wrote it? Some journalist.

So he at this point- Night M- Dr. Heap. The movie before this, he commissioned The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan, which was a mockumentary about people trying to investigate him. That was my first acting job that was almost entirely cut out of. We will watch it some later date. I have bought it on DVD. I have never seen it in my life.

Okay. But I did cash that check for $150, which I was told at the time was SAG minimum. Great. Not $65,000? You didn't get $65,000? I was told. No, go on, go on. But he at this time was trying to mythologize himself,

you know, in this real way. And so rather than make an artificial thing, he hired someone and said, I'm starting a new film. I have my script. I'm going to hire you to follow me around and write the entire process of how an M. Wright film gets made. Sports Illustrated writer Michael Bamberger.

That's the author. Do you think he was so distracted by that that that's how he lost his, like, I don't know. I think from the moment he handed in the script, he had this writer on hand, right? Right. And he thought the book was just going to be, here's a look into the process of America's most successful and beloved filmmaker. Right? Right. Who will save humanity from itself someday.

Yeah, exactly. Are you going to read about what happened with this movie? Yeah, there's a really good succinct quote here on the Amazon X-Ray. I'm behind to be tripping. But he...

Okay, according to the book, The Man Who Heard Voices or How M. Night Shyamalan Wrist His Career on a Fairy Tale, one of the reasons why Shyamalan decided to part with Disney

was because Disney's president of development, Nina Jacobson, took her son to a party instead of staying home to read the script for Lady in the Water. Shyamalan had it personally couriered to her, and to add insult to injury, she didn't like it anyway. Shyamalan went off in a huff, and the creative

differences he purportedly had with Disney was that he simply felt there was nothing creative about Disney anymore. Because he at the time said, I'm leaving them for creative differences. And they're saying that it was just him shit-talking Disney. He took the script to Warner Brothers instead, but without the usual marketing campaign that Disney promoted his other films with, Lady in the Water, was a box office flop.

That's bullshit. Because Warner Brothers marketed the shit out of this movie. It did 18 million opening weekend, which is not terrible for a film that had horrible reviews and two actors who are not box office draws and was a director working outside of this movie. Yeah. It did 18 million opening weekend which is not terrible for a film that had horrible reviews and two actors who are not box office draws and was a director working outside of his genre.

Right. And the insult was taking her son to a birthday party? That she didn't immediately sit home and bowing to him. How dare she?

Now not like it. What I had always heard the legend I have heard is that she just said okay M. Night I think it's an interesting idea here are my notes. Yeah.

She spoke to him about the storyline. And he said fuck you on M. Night I think it's an interesting idea here are my notes. She spoke to him about the storyline. And he said fuck you on M. Night Shyamalan I don't get notes. I'm paraphrasing. According to Wikipedia also Dick Cook who is Nina Jacobson's boss literally said to her like I do not understand what this movie is. I get M. Night I get him and I

want to make his movie but I don't know you I don't know what this is. Now what I've heard is that they were all sort of supportive and said, like, we want to make an M.I. show. They still said they would make the movie. They still said they'd make it, and he took it away. Yeah. No. And so now he said to this guy who's writing the book, like, great, you get to write a book about me reinventing

myself. Right. And the book ended up sort of, I mean, really... It's a hit job. Yeah. Yeah. And he hated it. And who released this movie? Warner Brothers. So he, Tova Felch's style, kicked himself in the behind and soared over to Warner Brothers. Yes. Yeah. He loraxed himself over there.

Legendary Pictures, who at this point had made Batman Begins, was becoming Warner Brothers financiers for all their biggest tentpole movies. Right. And it makes 18 million opening weekend, a competitive weekend. Yeah. Do you want to tell me some of the... Can you guess? I looked it up recently. All right.

I know my super ex-girlfriend was number three that weekend. No, it was number seven. Jesus Christ. Lady in the Water was number three. Number one was tell me some of the, can you guess? I looked it up recently. I know my super ex-girlfriend was number three that weekend. No, it was number seven. Jesus Christ. Lady in the Water was number three. Number one was still Pirates of the Caribbean. 35 mil and it's third weekend. Number two would have been, Cars was 11. Cars is a 10.

Okay. I was- Number two is an animated film nominated for an Oscar. Written by Dan Harmon. Yes. Monster House was number two. The charming Monster House. I never saw it.

It's a good movie. That opened to 22 Harmon. Oh, Monster House. Yes. Monster House was number two. The charming Monster House. I never saw it. It's a good movie. That opened to 22 and Lady opened to 18 mil. And made in total 40? It ended up with a grand total of $42 million. 72 worldwide. And it cost 70 to make. 70. 75. So that's a horrible result.

A terrible multiplier. I mean, it was like immediately audiences. Other movies in there, You Mean Dupree, Little Man, Clerks 2, Little Manhattan, Super Ex-Girlfriend, Superman Returns, Devil Wears Prada, Click Cars. Yeah. Good year for film.

Yeah. So I think we're pretty much getting there, huh? Wouldn't you say towards the end of the episode? I know you have your segment that you want to set up. I did want to throw something out to you guys if you're interested. My thought was, why did this have to take place in a shitty apartment complex? So I wrote a list of other places that it could have been set in. I like this. Here we go.

Good segment. So off the top, I was thinking, what about a golf course? With a pool or a little truck? A lake. Oh, sure, a water feature. Lady and a lake. Oh, sure, a water feature. Lady and the Lake. The lady, she comes a caddy for a golf player who's having trouble with his game. So it's Tin Cup, basically.

Yeah. Sort of. And she's like the Rene Russo. Or like Bagger Vance. The legend of Bagger Vance. Yeah, yeah. Do you guys know what the villain's name played by Don Johnson in Tin Cup is? A scrum.

David Sims. Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, go on. Okay. No one's really into that one. Ben, I feel like you're not selling these

as much as you usually do. Yeah, you're kind of... You're usually excited when you throw these ideas out. I got a good one. How about on a pirate ship? Yeah. Big that summer,

Pirates of the Caribbean was huge. Yeah, Pirates of the Caribbean. You know, like a time made in the past. It's made in the past or it's set in the past? It's in the past. And then this could be the root of the mermaid legend angle. You know, that's how you set that up. Origin story.

This movie might work better as like a sea shanty. Right? As Fathoms Below at the beginning of Little Mermaid. I mean, right? Like, just lean into it. I mean, I get the idea of like, oh, what if you're- A sea shanty from M. Night Shyamalan. Based on an original

sea shanty. So, this movie sucks. Fuck this movie. This is what I'm gonna say. I can't defend this movie as being good, right?

No. But I find it fascinating to watch. And I enjoy watching it. It's a bit of a blank check. You know, fascinating. I enjoy watching it

more than most movies. I totally disagree. I watched it on a plane and was like, I would watch this again. Like, I'm just, I can,

I'm so engaged by this movie and trying to figure out what the fuck is going on not in any way that's a credit to him but in the way that like film

is interesting because J.D. Amato past guest said that all films he believes are in some way are about their director right

well okay but one of them this movie has its director in it but go on that's the thing it's so naked and it's so transparent

but also so unselfaware at the same time that I'm like fascinated by I want to dive into the bottom and's so naked and it's so transparent but also so unselfaware at the same time that I'm like fascinated by it I want to dive into the bottom and get the clay and rub it on my legs okay

well I mean as a study of ego it's fascinating and it is a naked and vulnerable movie in those terms but to watch it I mean I'm a Luddite

and so I've never downloaded a movie from iTunes before for this oh wow yeah and so I did I paid four dollars

you told me very excitedly that you were going to do this and I was like alright Richard I've never done it before I've never ordered anything tunes before for this. Oh wow. Yeah. And so I did. I paid four dollars. You told me very excitedly that you're going to do this and I was like all right Richard. I've never done it before. I've never ordered anything from Amazon either. But I thought that I had

done something wrong and the movie was skipping scenes because I could not follow it. I was like is the download wrong. You were like the people watching the last episode

of The Sopranos and you're like should I call my cable company. Which I almost did in 2008 or whatever that was. Seven? Yeah. Can I make my one final point that I find interesting?

And I'm not trying to win you over, but this is the read of this film that I think makes it fascinating, okay? Popular theory, I think he confirmed it, that Inception was Christopher Nolan's film about filmmaking. Did he ever confirm that? I do like that idea. Sure. Or at least that's one angle on Inception. And that's another movie with a lot of stupid titles of people who have specific jobs. And Nolan's a blank check filmmaker who we should cover one day.

But the idea is that DiCaprio's the director and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's the producer and Tom Hardy's the actor. Well, that's where it's at. Ken Watanabe is the producer. Marion Cotillard is M. Night Shyamalan. Ken Watanabe was the studio. He was the financier. Okay, he's the studio. Fine.

All right. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's the muscle who fights for his things alright and Ellen Page is the writer Ellen Page is the writer Tom Hardy's the actor Mary Ann Cotter

is what though she's the inspiration she's the muse she's the muse she's art she's a film's fatal flaws she's the cookbook yeah she's the cookbook

le cookbook ok le livre de cookbook that's not French oh I kept on looking up how to say Lady in the Water in French. It's because it's easy.

It's like... Femme de l'eau. De l'eau. So there's probably another word for in the water. Water is L-E-A-U. Right, yes.

Is the water. Anyway, continue. Anyway. I think this film with Shyamalan trying to make that film as well. This argument he's making

to people being like, stop being so cynical to fucking enjoy a story. I'm trying to tell a story for you. He's also trying to make a movie about how. This argument he's making to people being like, stop being so cynical, just fucking enjoy a story. I'm trying to tell a story for you. He's also trying to make a movie about how stories get told, right? Right. Which is very, very, like, clunkingly,

you know. Down, down, slow. Down, low. There we go. Oh, cool. This is a movie in which a woman whose name is Story is like,

has to be saved and protected and carried off into the skies. Very true. By a whole team of people who all have very, very specific positions, you know? And roles they have to do in the collaborative process of filmmaking and how a story gets translated to the people. What I find fascinating about that is there's a movie in which a guy,

anytime anyone told him, gave him any constructive criticism, he was like, fuck you, I'm M. Night Shyamalan. I know exactly what I'm doing. I don't need any help from anybody. But everyone does turn out to be wrong. Yes, as he did as well. He turned out to be wrong for thinking he could do it in his own way. Do you have anything else?

Because I think we're approaching two hours on this one. I think this movie's fascinating. It is fascinating. I just don't think it's good. In that context, it is, but it's a horror to watch. Right, I agree. It's awful. I like Scrantz.

Where you lose me is the idea that this is a watchable film. I find it very unwatchable. I'm gay, and I just don't see the appeal of scrunt. I want to officially come out as a scrunt homosexual. No, you know, yes, as I said, I have this near sexual fetish for films that are this sort of disastrous and ambitious and this naked, right? And so watchability is a thing that I don't link to quality. Okay, but as a critic, you got to think about watchability, I guess. Maybe that's why.

I don't know. I find boring movies watchable sometimes. I don't know. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else, but I'm just telling you to be honest. I'm not style. Nakedly honest. I can watch this movie like a thousand times. I dare you to watch this movie.

I will never watch it again. Me neither. I've seen Old Dogs 40 times for the same reason. I can't figure it out Old Dogs is funny it's trying to entertain you this movie is weirdly not trying to entertain you

it's so somber there's no whimsy and a bedtime story I don't know I agree with that and this is a filmmaker who before this has always tried to entertain

he's been very Spielberg-y he's been entertainment first even when he's telling his stories and he completely forgets to do that in this movie because he's so wrapped up in his own

fucking drama that we don't care about. In his own cookbook. His ideas on cultural problems. Yeah. In his own cookbook. And I'll say this too. M. Night Shyamalan

had made good movies up until now and he's made this angry movie as if he'd made bad movies. Yeah. He's very defensive. Insecure.

Relax buddy. You're like a fucking success. You're like a 20 million dollar in picture guy. He's telling himself a bedtime story. That're like a fucking success. You're like a $20 million picture guy. He's telling himself a bedtime story. That's what he's doing. And he's also like 32 by the time this movie's made, right? Is he that young?

He's so really fucking young. Really? We looked it up the other day because he's, what, 21 when Praying with Anger is made? Yeah, but that's 92. He's 45 now. He was born in 1970. So he was 35. Good job, M. Night.

Yeah. Lady in the Water. A film by M. Night Shyamalan. A bedtime story. Anything else? If I'm going to shit on it, I have to agree with you guys. I was watching it on a plane.

I was trying to fall asleep and it didn't do its job. I didn't fall asleep after watching it. I didn't sleep a wink on the plane. Did you have another bit you wanted to do? No, the second segment I wanted to do was the trivia thing, which I interspersed throughout the episode. That's a new trivia thing.

I think you were also going to talk about PlayStation. I'm not going to talk about it. It'll make me too angry. Sony PlayStation, someone hacked into my account when I was on an overnight flight, and now they've suspended the account. Twitter not. Go on to Twitter, read it.

It's called Griffin's Newman's The Cookbook. It's my cookbook. I no longer can watch fucking Hulu or play Disney Infinity because someone hacked into my account and Sony has blamed me for that. Even though I have an alibi. Yeah, but it was a little weird that your password was, I don't know. Sprunt69. Some improv joke. Whatever you want to say.

Tova Kelch. Whatever. Tova Lorax. Tova Lorax. 21. My password was placecallback here. Thank you all for listening. Thank you, Richard. I want to say thank you for having me.

This was so much fun. I get very excited every time there's a new episode up. So thanks. I'm glad that I switched from the village to this. Yeah. Had you seen the village? The village? I believe I saw that in the theater with my sister.

You got to see a new movie instead. Yeah, I did. We're glad you came, Richard. It was great to see you. Well, thanks. It's very hot in here. It is. It's getting quite balmy.

Next time I show him on film is The Happening. Correct. And we are going to, I might ask to cut this out. I don't think so, just because I haven't confirmed with him. You should probably confirm with him. Keep it in if I then tell you that we've confirmed. Griffin, we're releasing this in like a day. I know. Okay. Our guest, I believe

on the episode, will be James Urbaniak, the great actor. Very exciting. The great actor, James Urbaniak, will be our guest for The Happening, which is the one that he special requested as well. Well, I've never seen The Happening in full. I think I watched about an hour plus of it on TV once. Get ready. All right. I'll say it's my least

favorite one. It's his first R-rated, right? It is, say it's my least favorite one. It's your first R-rated, right? It is, and that's how it was advertised. I haven't seen The Last Airbender. We should talk about how, yeah, this movie was such a colossal bum, and of course he leans right back to it. Did you see The First Airbender? Yes, I did see that one.

I just want to end the show now. We're not going to top that. All right, thanks for listening, everybody. Yes, and as always, keep on sprouting after your dream. I just want to end my show now. We're not going to top that. All right. Thanks for listening, everybody. And as always, keep on sprouting after your dream.