Blank Check with Griffin & David - My Neighbor Totoro with J.D. Amato

Episode Date: September 1, 2019

J.D. Amato returns to discuss the 1988's acclaimed childhood tale, My Neighbor Totoro. Together they examine subs vs dubs, collecting limited edition merchandise and J.D. calls David and Producer Ben to apologize! 

blank check with griffin and david blank check with griffin and david don't know what to say or to expect all you need to know is that the name of the show is blank check pod podcast pod podcast pod podcast pod podcast pod, pod podcast. Pod podcast, pod podcast. Pod podcast, pod podcast. I knew it. What else am I going to do? I don't know. Yell and scream and run around the room.

Yeah. It was crazy. I've seen this movie once before. This is one of the only ones you have seen prior. Correct. once before. This is one of the only ones you have seen prior. Correct. I saw it when Fox released it on home video

in a fake Disney white clamshell. Right. With a not a good dub. It was only dubs. There were no subs. All dubs, no subs. They didn't own the Japanese. David's holding up a no bits phone case.

Oh, you're in trouble. This episode, Davey Sims. There's going to be some bits phone case oh you're in trouble this episode Davey Sims there's gonna be some bits there's gonna be when J.D. Amato's in town the bits come rolling in hey blanket

thank it don't touch me I haven't puked in months oh yeah wait wait before we even talk let's go we have to do a

a health update Oh my, I was gonna say I know Ben's not feeling great Yeah I'm okay, I'm fine, I'm just like some Prescription, you had a bad night You're having a Prescription transition

You're like, you know, you're Going from one port to another port in a storm So it's a little like... Yeah, I'm getting off antidepressants, and sometimes it's not fun when you're in between pills and you feel like your head is falling off. You're not going to puke any putene? Nope. No, I wouldn't do that to you. Thank you. I appreciate it.

David, how are you feeling? Well, when I was on vacation, I hurt my back at one point, like lower back. How'd you hurt it? Who knows? Bending to pick something up. Doing dialogue? I think there's a story here David's not telling us. It was that classic

things where I'm bending to pick up a bag and then suddenly I'm like, why am I in insane amounts of pain? You have to sit down and you're like, why am I in like insane amounts of pain? Yeah. You know, and like you have to like sit down and you're like, why isn't it going away? I have no frame of reference for this. Is it better now? Yeah.

You just told something. Yeah, if it persists I will, I guess, go to an orthopedist or whatever. Have you ever gotten a good massage? Yes, not in a while. I'd love to get one. Like a good massage? Like a good massage. Ben's doing the...

Devil horns. Devil horns? Yeah. Okay. I just got a good massage, and I had not gotten a massage in 10 years. Okay. A, because I was like, it feels like, I don't know, it's too fancy. And also, I was like, I don't want anyone touching me.

Oh, you said, I'm fine with the touching. It was both things combined. It's an extravagance. Man, this is really, really a pleasant thing. Absolutely. I think you got to go for the whatever, the 80 minute, 90 minute. Oh, the true experience. Yeah, where they have the cold stones and the hot stones.

There's that one. I just do the one that's, if I get a massage. I got a cold stone creamer massage. They put mix-ins into an ice cream on my back They were like mushing the cookie dough in Yeah On my vertebrae And if you tip them they sing a song

Yeah About your body Happy birthday Happy birthday I've never been to Cold Stone Creamery Really? I've never Are you not an ice cream guy?

Not an ice cream guy So it's never I mean like I'll get, but like, I don't seek it out. Hey, slab it, dab it. Sure. You've heard Randy's bit. Slab it, dab it. JD liked that. You've heard Randy's bit about Cold Stone Creamery, right?

Randy Newman? No, Randy, the stand-up that everyone loves. Oh, you mean like from funny people, like, Randy. You know what's crazy though? Because people talk about joke theft all the time. Aziz Ansari has that exact same bit. Aziz Ansari has that exact same personality. It's weird.

It's almost like. No, but it was a parody. It was a parody of a type of a comedian. I just think it's a funny thing that Aziz had these jokes. At the time, he was a low energy comedian. Then he did Randy, which was his parody of an energy comedian yeah it's parody of dinko but he used his own material right and then people loved randy and he was like what if i deliver all my material this is my thing oh i'm so famous but instantly

he used his own jokes i know to play a comedian who's shitty yeah but don't we all don't we all sometimes take a parody of ourselves, and it's truly what we hope to be. Oh, you mean like sort of an aspirational thing. Yes, it's a way to test the waters for a version of yourself that you don't have the boldness to achieve in the moment. Yes, I found a vehicle for that. It's called Blank Check with Griffin and David. It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their career and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want, and sometimes

those checks clear, and sometimes they ride the cat bus baby. Into the woods. A breath of air. This is God. Okay, first and foremost. This is a minstrel in the films of Hayao Miyazaki.

Okay, go. It's called Howl's Moving Podcast. the films of Hayao Miyazaki. Okay, go. It's called Howl's Moving Podcast. Is it? Or PodCastle in the Sky. No, no, it's Howl's Moving Podcast. That's what the fans chose. Or PodCastle of Tagliostro. The fans chose Howl's Moving PodCastle.

I wanted PodCastle in the Sky, but they went with Howl. Or Pod's Moving Castle was the other idea. Sure, yeah. I thought PodCastle was just like, he's got three castle titles. It's nice if you can keep podcast intact. We rarely have that opportunity. Right. Yeah, I agree.

I agree too. That's why I wanted PodCastle in the sky. It's a little vague. Yeah. And our podcast is not in the sky, but it is sometimes about the sky. I also think my podcast Totoro would be good. Wouldn't it though? Is that good?

I think my podcast Tot podcast would have been excellent. Or my neighbor podcast. My podcast neighbor. Podcast. This is like a trend line on the graph. Zero dollars. Do you have more left to do your thing? The opening?

No, we're here, of course with J.D. Amato I'm J.D. Amato and I love movies Thank it Is this five or six? I mean, well, you know what? Let's get into this

because I feel that I have been tossed around like a rag doll You already did all this to me the other day. Yes, but now this is on the record. Yeah. God damn it. It's been a stressful time. Oh, really?

Yeah, really. I get put on. I've been scheduled to do. Okay, there's a secret podcast. We already talked about that. This is your eighth podcast if you include Corpse Bride. It's my eighth? No. There's my eighth? No.

There's no way. Yeah. Digital filmmaking. Okay. One. War of the Worlds. Two. Speed Racer.

Three. Starship Troopers. Four. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. Five. Talking the Walk 2018. Corpse Bride. Six.

This. Seven. Okay. Did I say eight? Yeah. All right. I was counting wrong. Okay. Okay. Corpse Bride 6 this 7 oh okay did I say 8 yeah alright I was counting wrong okay okay

does do the Patreon episodes count well I think they kinda do it's sort of nominally another show but like it kinda counts

here's what I think can I tell you my theory yeah okay when you go on to like the Wikipedia most SNL like most frequent SNL hosts

sure there's like Paul Simon up there sure and they're like most SNL, like, most frequent SNL hosts. Sure. There's, like, Paul Simon up there. Sure. And they're, like, only hosted, like,

three times, but then a musical guest like this many times. Like, I feel like it's a bracket thing where I go, like, six pure appearances plus one Patreon. Well,

I felt that I was putting a bracket in that situation because I was, I was, that situation because I was put into a golden bikini and dragged on Jabba's sail barge and forced to perform. No objections from me. Forced to perform for all of your... If someone could get on a Photoshop with that post-haste,

that'd be great. Thank you. Aristocrats. Yeah, you didn't like us... Putting you behind the paywall. And now I'm here back with the people. The real people. And there's your blank check

that you want to cash. Your sort of crazy Passion Project episode which will be coming out in 2020. It's on the spreadsheet, baby. I work for the art form. I work for no man.

And I love that. And I honestly appreciate that. When Ben says he loves that he doesn't mean it. for no man. And I love that. And I honestly appreciate that. When Ben says he loves that, he doesn't mean it. He means that he doesn't love that. For me, I love that. But I just got to say that, unfortunately, it's got to be postponed. And I did the best I could.

It's happening next year. It's going to happen next year. You know what? We're here. I'll talk to him. All right. We're here to talk about My Neighbor Totoro. Come on.

This is so arcane, guys. We knew this was. What? Already. Okay. You know what? Jesus, he's mad at me. I'm instituting a rule for this episode.

If I ever feel like David's hurrying us along, I'm going to... I'm going to record something later that Ben will have to put in to extend it. You don't have that power.

Yes, I do. What do you mean he does? He's just like, yeah, he does. And insert clip here. Why are you calling me jd what is this david i feel like i let you guys down oh jesus i've been up all night for the past several weeks just i feel like i i feel like i blew the episode david Should I have not texted you a couple weeks ago saying, oh yeah, the episode's a disaster, but don't worry about it. Any favor that I did

myself with the Billy Lynn episode, I think I've thrown in the garbage with this episode. Yeah, but that's great, isn't it? You're like Ben Affleck. It can be like sort of rise and fall, rise and fall, right? You're like U2. Yeah, but here's the thing. This is like rattling. This is your

rattling hum. But then you're going to surprise us all with an Octoon Baby. But I just love My Neighbor Toter. It's one of my favorite movies of all time. I feel like I didn't do it a service. Hey, look. Because I love it. This is the way the business goes.

For anyone listening at home, this is genuine. I know. I mean, it is a weird jd bit but it's also genuine well i just it's my one of my favorite movies of all time i'm glad you love it i love it too it's very good ben seemed really stressed out when i saw him yesterday that's always a good sign it's stressed out by the episode yeah oh man he was basically like i want to cut this this this and this referring to like four sections of the podcast and we were like oh uh sure cut some of that not all of it yeah i just i love you jd you're doing fine thank you david the fans love jd yeah i think they're not gonna love me after, I think they're not going to love me after this. I think they're going to be mad that I didn't do a service to Totoro.

Oh, don't apologize. Who cares? You're donating your time to us. This is the whole thing. People get mad at the guests sometimes. I'm like, you understand. They are putting themselves out. They are giving us their time.

They're watching a damn movie, sometimes more than one movie, and coming to the studio and putting up with our nonsense. It's a service. We thank you for your service. Well, I'm sorry, David. I'm sorry that I've done this to your Totara episode. Jesus Christ.

You've got to relax, man. You're doing great. We're all doing okay. We've just got to cling on to the people we love. It's a tough time in the world. I agree. I love you, David. Love you too, buddy.

All right. I'll talk to you soon. Thank you for this phone call. Of course. Wacko. That was me explaining. Now there's going to be a clip of me explaining my favorite Jackie Chan movies. So there. Now we're back from my favorite Jackie Chan movies. So there.

Now we're back from JD's Jackie Chan movies. All right. Should I get that police story criterion? I think so. I have it. It's great. I want to get that. All right.

We agree. I got to make a note. I got to record this Jackie Chan. You know, we talked a lot about recently. Go ahead. The live action, no CGI, no makeup Donkey Kong film we want starring Russell Crowe. Oh my God. I forgot there was no makeup as well.

He has to do it elephant man. It's elephant man. Bradley Cooper style. Wait, so this is Russell Crowe. It's Russell Crowe. He will just be Donkey Kong. He gets the tie. You know what I mean?

We give him the tie. We give him the tie. He can have a banana. He can have a barrel. He can have a barrel. He can ride a swordfish, which is something he does often in the video game. I'm trying to think of other Donkey Kong things. He can pound the ground. We're not doing this Lion King style.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. No Lion King. No mocap. No Jim Henson creature shop. But also, we're also not doing this movie style where they put makeup on. They've been doing that for about 100 years and we're like,

no! No. So here's the question to you. Is this going to be a fully naked Russell Crowe? Correct. Oh, he has to be naked? The tie is going to be very long.

And a red tie. So it's like Beowulf where it's always blocking his genitals to the extent that you're sort of like can only think about how it's blocking his genitals. It extent that you're sort of like can only think about how it's blocking

his genitals it's like the opening of Spy Who Shagged Me no it should be it should be attached to his wiener okay tied around

okay oh Jesus and who's playing Diddy Kong I forgot I forget someone will tell us Miles Teller

whoever's you know whoever's always on those lists Harry Styles Big Head Big Head yeah of course, yeah, of course. Diddy Kong's head's not that big. This is what I was going to say. What are you talking about? I mean, compared to Donkey Kong.

What the fuck are you talking about? David! Not compared to Donkey Kong, relative to the size of his body. David, Diddy Kong's got a big old head. The rule of thumb is that most people are like five or six heads tall, right? Yes. Or more? Diddy Kong is one

head tall. No. What are you talking about? Two heads tall. Two heads tall. David. Two heads tall. What the fuck are you talking about? Jesus Christ. Look at how big his head is and how little his body is. Griffin, this man's a journalist. This is insane. The Atlantic hires you. Not only

am I a journalist. A paper of record. I'm the one who is planning to do a Donkey Kong podcast on this feed. Yeah. Motherfucker. No, I'll tell you who has a big head. Oh boy. Here he comes. Baby Kong.

That's a big old man. David, I would argue Baby Kong's head is smaller than Diddy Kong's head. I would argue they have almost identical proportions than if anything. He's got big old man David, I would argue Baby Kong's head is smaller than Diddy Kong's head I would argue they have almost identical proportions And if anything He's got big arms He's got big arms and a big belly The head is bigger

It's a big head Not true, Diddy Kong has a more insane head to body ratio What I was going to say is It's crazy We've been doing this podcast for Over four years David, you and I have been friends for like five or six years now

and I didn't realize until this moment in time that you're literally the dumbest person alive number one dumb dumb this is a very hostile to David podcast so far considering it's about one of the gentler movies ever made also this is revenge for

multiple recordings where I've come in and you've been in a mood. It was just one! And you already litigated that on another appearance! Do we have to litigate it again? I think that was like the Starship Troopers episode and then like the Billy Lynn, we had to have half an hour talking about that.

You were in such a mood, you made me vomit. No, I know what made you vomit, my friend. Your mood. A certain dish of french fries and gravy that you had at a certain Brooklyn bar. Okay, this is what I was going to say. We call that the French special. The Dauphin. Police Story 2.

Hey, please, take that name out of your mouth. Police Story 2 ends with essentially a live action version of the original Donkey Kong where Jackie Chan is on like ladders and rafters avoiding barrels that are being thrown at him.

100% It's a good format. Fucking rules. It's a good visual adventure format. And here's the second thing I'm going to say now. JD, yes.

Perhaps we've taken advantage of our friendship with you, your loyalty to the podcast, your popularity with guests, and flipped you around a little bit, tossed you around a little bit. But we did say like six, seven months ago, we were like, Miyazaki's on the books. Yep. This is exclusive. No one knows this yet.

You get first crack at any Miyazaki you want. No one has put in for any Miyazaki. You get to pick anyone. Yes. And you said I can do Totoro and I said it's yours. My Neighbor Totoro I believe is the greatest animated film of

all time in my opinion. And as much as I'm doing bits in this podcast and I've got a table of contents about 10 items long to do this movie. This movie I believe is one of the most wonderful movies of all time. It is my... I have an official top 10 that I've formed.

Sure, you're top 10. It sits on my wall in my apartment like a blockbuster staff presentation. Oh, so you have it, like the DVDs or whatever, arranged? Can I see how many of them I can guess? Yeah, absolutely. Labyrinth? Okay, so I have two different lists.

Oh, you have like a favorite and a best. I have my, I mean, they're both favorites, but one is movies that I think represent cinema, and one that's like, listen, I get it if you don't like these movies. I just say favorite and best. Yes. Okay, so I think I can do the cinema list. Okay, do the cinema list. Okay, cinema list.

My Neighbor Tortoro. Okay. Playtime. Yep. Dog, do the cinema list. Okay, cinema list. My Neighbor Tortoro. Okay. Playtime. Yep. Dog Day Afternoon. Yep. Fuck, Muppet Movie is on this list, right? Yes. Right, that's taking sort of the labyrinth spot on the cinema list versus the personal list. The other ones are tough.

Here's a hint. Oh, Monica Mana. Yep. Nailed it. Okay. We saw that together. Yes. There's a hint. Oh, Monica Mana. Yep. Nailed it. Okay. We saw that together. Yes. There's another documentary. There's another documentary on the list. There's actually two documentaries right now, but one of them is going to get bumped off soon. Is it Nero Morris?

No. It's not Hoop Dreams, right? No. Although Hoop Dreams is very good. I feel like I know this. It's not a filmmaker who made almost anything else after this film. Oh, is it an American movie? No.

He made lots of movies. Right, I forgot that. Yeah. It's Hands on a Hard Body. Oh, Hands on a Hard Body. That's a favorite of yours. Of course, of course, of course, of course. Then what else is in there is The Red Shoes. Great movie.

Oh, yeah. Not my personal pal in Pressburger, but, I mean, indisputable. I love it. mine's Colonel Blimp yours is Life and Death right mine is Life and Death but I mean Colonel Blimp is also

pretty indisputable my mother's favorite movie of all time is I Know Where I'm Going so that was sort of like a big haven't seen that one it's fantastic

maybe one day we'll do David's Mom that would be the one to do for David's Mom I would love to just do them yeah you might want to put some lines.

Put some brackets on it. What are the others? Sorry, I'm sorry. Marketa Lazarova. Oh, wow. Right, right. Okay. I mean, if you watch that film, it's insane.

And then I have a Kurosawa spot that I... Oh, you guys are like... I very controversially put Kurosawa's Dreams. I was going to guess that was the one. That's not his best movie. That's a very JD movie. It's not, but it... I love that movie. I think it's... I saw it very early,

and so there's so many moments and images... I had a friend who was like that. That was an early movie. Early art movie. I understand that it's not his best work, and there's other movies that I do know. But that one I just think sums up so much of what's great and beautiful.

I don't know what my favorite Kurosawa is though. I don't know. I don't know. For me, Good Time is on my list. Good Time's on this list. So here's my thing. You made this announcement as if it was going to shock us. You made it so many times.

Yeah. So on my... JD has two pages of notes here. made this announcement as if it was going to shock us. You've made it so many times. Yeah. So, on my, JD has two pages of notes here. One of them's typed, one of them's handwritten. The typed one has a table of contents of things

that we're going to discuss today that aren't my name or Totoro. But, one of them is going to get crossed off and it's, I need you guys to tell me.

Totoro is my number three best movie of all time. Okay. What are your number three movies of all time? I don't know that I have a top three. And once again, not favorite, but if I was ranking, like, Ultimate Cinema.

Yeah, but it's all combined and intermatched. My number one is Playtime. My number two is Dog Day. Number three is Totoro. Yeah, okay. I've said my top three. Yeah, I don't have a ranking. I guess I could attempt a ranking.

You have to attempt a ranking. That's what I'm asking. Like, the second I have to attempt a ranking? Yeah. Of my favorite movies of I don't have a ranking. I guess I could attempt a ranking. You have to attempt a ranking. That's what I'm asking. The second I have to attempt a ranking? Yeah. Of my favorite movies of all time? I think so. My top three films. I know this.

Here we go then. Right. See, I know this. David's stretching. He's doing like a pitcher's warm up. Oh boy. Let's see. My top three are Toy Story 2, Bruce McCloud, and RoboCop.

Okay. So RoboCop. So I would say RoboCop. And if I were making the ultimate cinema list, I think Robocop would also take my number three slot. Wow. That's great.

I think I probably, if I'm going ultimate cinema, Nashville's my number one. Like Nashville's the gun in my head. I think this is the best movie. Yeah, I was thinking about Naltman for my number three.

That is my, like if you ask me to say what I think is the ultimate statement in the medium, I think it's Nashville. I think Robocop would be number three on both lists. Wow. I'm trying to think what my number two would be.

Because I've tried to assemble what my sight and sound list would be. Right. And much like you, it's like the difference between the two is me swapping out personal favorites from certain directors for what I think is empirically their best. Yeah. Like on my personal list, I got Labyrinth. I got an Ernest movie. Right.

I got a lot of stuff on there that I'm not going to sit here and try to defend to A.O. Scott. More like B.O. Scott. Hey. You got it in there. Guys, you promised that you would laugh. Oh, I'm sorry. This is a joke that was made before the podcast. 45 minutes ago. And we kind of went like, huh.

No, we gave it a real laugh at the time. I'm sorry we weren't on the ball. I'm just thinking about this top three question. Yeah, you've totally fucked me up. David's top three is. That's great. This is a movie podcast. Is this not?

Do we not love movies in this room? My name's Griffin Newman and I love movies. My name's JD Amato and I love movies. Blanket. I didn't say David Simms and I love movies. I feel like I've heard you say Mrs. Miller's your number one. It's up there. It's up there.

I have a letterboxd list that's like, I don't believe it's public, but it is a top. But it's sort of a loose list. But it was, I will say, number one. Loose list. A loose list.

But now I'm sort of like you know I'm looking through what I've got on here I'm spirited away on this this is a 50 film list and I'm like oh yeah some of these things I've grown to love maybe even more some of these things you know like maybe I've sort of forgotten a little bit

Yee Yee Edward Yang's Yee Yee is currently number 3 on that list so let's let's just make that official that's your three Robocop's my three Totoro's your three Ben do you have a three

I mean what comes to mind is when I saw Enter the Void that was like a really big like whoa kind of moment for me so I I don't know

that would be probably three okay Enter the Void I love it you don't even know what one and two are I don't that's fine yeah yeah but that. Okay. Enter the Void. I love it. You don't even know what one and two are. I don't. That's fine.

Yeah. Yeah. But that's a cinema experience that sticks out to me. If we're really doing an only Vulgaro tour bracket next year, Gaspar Noé's got to be on there. Yes. I mean, Ben might really have a lot of influence. We might call it the Ben bracket. Right.

Because it might be Gaspar Noé. Yeah. Michael Winterbottom. Harmony Corrine. Oh, my God. Michael Winterbottom would Harmony Corrine. Oh my God. Michael Winterbottom would be the death of this podcast because it would be like

25 unwatchable movies. This week. Imagine a winter. Imagine a world of a trickery. Okay. The takeaway here is the world is shit and you will die.

Tristan Shandy, a pod and cast. That's a good movie. He's made like eight good movies. He's also just made like 16 good movies. He's also just made like 16 other movies. Yeah. So what would his

blank check be? Like The Claim? Like he did like a The Trip, his franchise. The Trip. He's got his big franchise. He's made movies

like The Claim where you're like who gave him money for this? Yeah. Where he like made like a frontier version of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge

starring like Wes Bentley. It's like a movie. Didn't he do a sci-fi film Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, starring Wes Bentley. It's like a movie. Didn't he do a sci-fi film with Tim Robbins? Yeah, and Samantha Morton. It's one of those sci-fi movies where it's kind of like, they're in a greenhouse because it's the future. They tried their best with the sets. I also feel like his name sounds like something from one of the late

Frosty the Snowman spinoffs where it's like Mr. Heatmiser and Mr Michael Winterbottom. One of the late, like, Frosty the Snowman spinoffs where it's like Mr. Heatmiser and Mr. Winterbottom. To me, he just sounds like the stuffiest English director. Like, oh, Michael Winterbottom. He's like, yeah, I made a film that's just unsimulated sex and concerts. Like, that's a movie I made. And you're like, oh, oh, okay. All right.

So he's not like the stuffiest guy. All right, fine. What else? Come on. But, I mean, okay, we can go through the list Or we can talk about Totoro I feel like we can maybe spice some of these in Oh, okay, so you want to sort of bounce back and forth

I feel like we can back back Alright, we're here to talk Just so the audience has something to look forward to My Neighbor Totoro It's a pretty plot-light movie about a big old creature Who lives in the woods and a couple of girls Who meet him Okay, that's true Yeah, it's true. It's also

not true. But what I feel like is what's... Okay, so I truly believe that this is animation at its absolute finest of what the medium of animated storytelling... Keep talking. You laid down your marker, but now build on it. Can I give you some stakes on this episode too?

I'm so mad at you. I did that deliberately. I will admit. I wanted to make a bet. Can I give you some stakes on this episode too? He's getting so mad at me. I did that deliberately. I will admit. I wanted to make him mad. Can I give you some stakes? Also, David always gets frustrated because the way that I talk sometimes is I will like... You're like a preacher. You're kind of like... So to remind you all, the best animated movie of all time is My Neighbor Totoro. I want to establish some narrative stakes for this episode.

Oh my God. This episode seems light. You're right. Let's put something else in there. Saw this movie when I was like six or whatever. Oh, so you were a little kid. I was little. It was whenever it first came out on VHS.

I think like 95. Did your parents just be like, here's a cartoon? I feel like even twice my parents were like, this is the one everyone's talking about. This must be amazing. You like animated films. This guy is so renowned. I think I rented it and was like I don't get this

didn't finish watching it and then I remember at school it was like a rainy day or something and they were like we're gonna watch this movie and I sat there and everyone was like oh my god I love Toter because I grew up in fucking New York City you grew up you went to a hippie so everyone was like I have to show my kid like the edge like the fucking

I think for the night I mean even now it's still like, oh yeah, Disney's okay, but I make sure my kid watches Miyazaki. Okay. You're creating these characters. No, because it's me. Like that's what I'm going to be when I have a kid. No, no, no. I will say this.

My parents were not like that. The other parents at my school were definitely like that. And I was like, everyone loves Totoro. Everyone's parents. I remember my parents being like, did you show Griffin Totoro? My mom was like, yeah, he like didn't really like it. We watched the whole thing at school. I was like, I don't really get this.

I remembered it very vividly. Okay. Because like when we were doing the Michael Mann episodes, two or three times, I was like, I remembered a scene that didn't exist in the movie. Right. Right. Whereas like this, I saw it like once in full. But it was still in your head.

25 years ago. And I was like, this is in my head. I remembered the song. I remembered a bunch of images. Rewatched it. It was one of the movies where I was like, I don't think I get Miyazaki. Didn't even try to really engage with Miyazaki until we decided to do this miniseries. I've been really liking these movies. I watched this one.

I certainly like it more. I don't understand it as the top tier of Miyazaki. Oh my gosh. From what I've been watching. Wow. I got nothing bad to say about it, but I'm watching and I'm going, there's something here I'm not getting because I think this is very good, but I've been more impressed with almost every other Miyazaki movie I've watched at this point.

It's interesting because my automatic response would be, oh, well, you know, it's best to see when you're a kid. It really is made like a kid's eye view. But then you're saying, but you did see it when you were a kid. Also didn't register with you then. And here's the weird thing. I understand why it didn't register with me as a kid. Because I talked about I was very like literal minded in a certain way as a kid.

Need to understand like the story types and the structure and the genre and things like that. And so things from other cultures kind of threw me off for things that were more sort of formless or spiritual threw me off uh but the other thing is i now like one of my favorite subgenres of film is this is like sad child sure right isolated dealing with loneliness outside trauma interweave with fantasy like i love fucking Pan's Labyrinth and Spirit of the Beehive. And even I'm a sucker for the bad versions of movies that fall into this.

Stuber. Stuber, obviously. Right. I was just trying to think of the most obvious, not that. So I just feel like this is a genre that I love. So what the fuck's your problem? I have nothing negative to say about it. I could do, like, I was like, I could beat myself up for not getting it, but I also know that JD has prepared a filibuster. Well, and he's going to sell me on the idea that this is the greatest handmade film of

all time. JD just put on a seersucker suit? Yeah. And he said, I say, I say, I say. He's dabbing his head with a handkerchief. I say I say he's dabbing his head with a handkerchief. Here's the thing. You're allowed to not have this film touch and speak to you in the way that it does for me or someone else.

But to talk about why I think it is perhaps the greatest animated film. That's the argument I want to hear. I want to dial back to what I think is special and magical about animation, which actually touches on a larger conversation that is about modern films. We're talking about an animator? Good to do. When it comes to drawing and making art physically with your hands, I think the beauty of that is that you're taking the real

world and the human perception of the real world, right? And you're translating it through your own identity, through your own experiences, and then using something that is an imperfect method to transfer that to something, which is your own hands, your ideas, this thing that is inherently flawed. We're not ever going to be able to exactly replicate the real world through our sort of artistic filter, right? And here's another thing I just want to say, because sometimes the director comes up and they're like, why would these guys want to cover this person versus this person? Why doesn't this person count as a blank check director? Whatever the thing is. And I think

the biggest thing we look for, because the directors we've covered on the show are not necessarily who we think are the best, most important or favorite directors ever. Sure. Right. That's not the priority. The priority is people who have that filter. Yeah. Like the career that's interesting, but also in whatever medium they're working, however they work at whatever budget level, it's like people are like, why are you talking about Nancy Meyers? It's like because every Nancy Meyers movie is a filtration of how she sees the world. Right. And her trying through this weird, imperfect medium that is so complicated to control to like produce the world that she sees.

And animation is the most extreme version of that because you're starting with a blank page. You're not even taking given objects and modifying them. Yeah, and when you're drawing a picture, right, you're not drawing what's real. You're drawing what you feel. The colors, the choices, the size of things, and especially when you get into something as unrealistic

as a Miyazaki movie, right? And I think that's what's beautiful is that, number one, Miyazaki does a lot of the keyframing himself. It's a lot of drawings and things like that and it's a very personal story. And so when you're watching an animated film, a hand-drawn animated film, what you're seeing is a human being literally drawing things.

And it's going to be flawed and it's not going to represent reality. What it's representing is a feeling, a thing that hopefully you identify with in some human way, right? And so I think that's what's beautiful about animation is that all of the flaws and all of the things that aren't perfect about hand-drawn animation, they are to you reminding you that someone is there making this with their hand. It is a person.

It is people behind this that are doing this. It's a JD magic right there. And this is another point I want to make just tying into the thing I previously said. There are people who are technically competent who can make a live action film that doesn't have any personal filter on it like that. But

even the most technically inept animator if they tried to make something would by nature of the process of animation be telling you about how they see the world. Yeah. Even if they don't have the facility to express it. Right.

Because it's, everything is from their brain and their hand. Right, and that's why like, you know, people love like Harvey Pekar and someone like that where it's like, oh, but I feel what this guy's feeling even though this thing is such a mess.

Right. But so, with, just the modern context of this, is such a mess. But so, with, this is the modern context of this, is that like, that's why, honestly, computer generated animation

is sort of, there's great movies out there, but it feels different to me. Because when you watch it, you are not, humans are making it and helping make it. Yes, right.

But you're not feeling that feeling of like, ooh, that line moved in that small way that's almost imperceptible and I know that that was a person or those leaves

and like as Pixar gets and stop motion has the same appeal of like you had to build this thing you had to place all those individual cobblestones and I think that's what's so beautiful about it and so like when you see these beautiful Pixar rendered things where it's every leaf is perfect it's like that's great but what I also love

more is when you see like a Miyazaki mat and it's like, oh, these splotches of green and colors that aren't there but they feel like they're there. And suddenly you're transported to these feelings

that represent the world around you but aren't actually the world around you. Do you know what are weirdly the only CGI movies that I think somehow are able to get at that quality?

What's that? And I obviously love many CGI movies. I think because of their commitment to the physical reality of what they're representing, the Lego movies feel like that for me. Yeah, yeah, there's some of that, yeah. Because they, like, are committed to, like,

we're going to build the fucking models out of what would be actual bricks. Yeah. So that I feel that sense of, like, even if it's digitally rendered, look at the idea of how that would exist. I agree with that. How that would be built.

I love the look of this. How that structure would live. But so, in talking about My Neighbor Totoro and why I think it's so amazing is that that's what I think is important about animation. That context, that feeling, right? But then, in a lot of animated films,

what you have is you have story that gets put on top of it. And as someone that's trying to make movies and make TV shows and things like that, I'm constantly wrestling with this idea that the world does not fit into story, right? The way that we live our lives, the way that we grow up, age, the moments we have, they're not story.

There's almost never a villain. There's almost never a resolution. We all know that things are this morass of experiences and feelings that add up to something that feel important and feel like it has momentum to us but if you really broke it down rarely do things make this clear story and so one of my problems with a lot of it's not a problem but one of the things that is strange in a lot of movies and especially the earlier miyazaki movies before this is it's like there's bad guys

there's good guys and that's why I like things like guns and weapons and all this stuff is so prevalent is because it's a way to go okay there's this bad thing and here's this thing that can make the bad thing go and it's like it's it's these things that I don't think reflect reality necessarily they're fun and I love stories and I love this stuff and so this is not me saying I'm above this sort of but when a movie is able to convey those feelings of what it's like to be a child and those feelings

around what it's just like to live without there having to be a bad guy or a good guy or even this movie really doesn't even have any real problems in it. No their mom is sick you know. Yeah but it's not clear to what extent. From the start of the movie, it's

like she's kind of on the mend. She's getting better. They're going to release her soon. The closest thing to a conflict is a sort of false alarm. But there is the child dread of that something is not right because mom's not here and she's been sick and that's what I love.

There's not someone who's like, I've kidnapped your mother. But It's right. It's like there's not like someone who's like I've kidnapped your mother. But it's also interesting that the movie starts at the point where they're like we've moved to be closer to her and she's going to get out soon. So even if things are wrong

you're seeing the tail end of things being wrong. Presumably. The first time I watched this movie I was like oh is the mom going to die? Of course. Is this like a movie about

Probably the reason I didn't like it as a child because I hate movies about parents dying. Or I did at that age. And I think that's what's so wonderful is that all these moments

in this film that feel like they have anxiety and dread, it's not because someone said something. It's because as a kid, when you grow up, everything feels unusual

and strange. Things that are different upset you. Can I quote Hayao Miyazaki? Yes. That's right. I went back to my book! Okay, so David's got two leather-bound volumes.

They're not leather-bound. They both have a crest on them. A lion holding a scepter. Where have I seen that before? You bringing that back? I'm not sure. Interesting. Anyway, open up the book. I

recommend buying these books, by the way. There are two books that are basically collections of any interview he ever gave, any essay he ever wrote, any speech he ever gave. Trying to collect Hayao Miyazaki on the record as best as they can. Anthologies. The first one covers the first sort of anthologies. So the first one covers the first half of his career. The second one goes as far

as I think like Howl's Moving Castle or something like that. I can find the names. While he's looking, I just want to say I finally saw the clip of the animation company

showing him the zombie like thing. Yeah. And him just like being like quietly This is an insult to life itself. But then after you watch Totoro, and then you see him watching it,

you get why that person would be like, this is not... Yeah. Right. This is unacceptable. This is not why we create. This is not what I...

Right, exactly. First one's called Starting Point, the second one's called Turning Point. Is there any director we've covered who would like this podcast less? Then Hayao Miyazaki. Yeah.

Hmm. No. Right? No, Iazaki. Yeah. No. Right? No. I don't think so. No. Yeah. I don't see what the point of this is.

Why am I hearing a distant boat horn? So this is a long, there's a very long interview that we gave about Totoro to somebody. And the guy brings up one of my favorite scenes of the movie which is the early scene where they're running around the empty house. Yes.

Oh my God. It's such a beautiful sequence. Right. And here's what he says. We've all had that kind of experience. I like that scene. It's not an important one

but we would run around the house opening the door and being like that's the toilet. It's not there. Like, it's really the child's world. When your kids do that in front of you, it's noisy. But I so I didn't have to use any director's tricks in the film.

I made I made it wondering if I really was all right to use so few tricks because it was so easy to direct that. Wow. Like he like he's like, that's just like's just like you know well like like tapping right into my actual life as a child and as a parent and you just love a kid running around a big empty house and uh the oldest was running through and then may whatever she says may says whatever word she heard where she's like shower yes right car or whatever and it's just like it just is that childhood feeling that childhood feeling also when you move in, went to a new place, and it's empty,

that it's so big. You know what I mean? I've never moved in a house before. Is that a line? No, never. You stayed in the same house. He's still in the Barry Jeans house. Yeah.

I've never moved in a house before. We need to get Ben a house. A stash house. Wait, wait, wait. Ben needs two houses. in a house before. We need to get Ben a house. A stash house. Wait, wait, wait. Ben needs two houses. Were you about to set up a bit, Griffin? No, I wasn't going to set up a bit,

but as a genuine line of inquiry, you wouldn't have had that experience either because you grew up in New York City and you stayed there your entire life. In apartments, right? So you never had the experience of a house. I guess I'm the only one that's really moved. So in 1995, I moved to England. What?

Wait, what? Wait, wait. What? What? David. So we moved to Arlington Square in Islington, and we were there for two years. We were renting that.

Islington? That doesn't sound like a place. JD has thrown off his headphones. Islington, not Dizzlington. He's standing up in the corner. Islington. Islington. Dizzlington, David?

And then in 97, we were like, oh, I guess we're staying in England. What? That was my reaction at the time. Because I had been told we were going to leave soon. In Dizzlington? No. So we moved. We actually bought a house.

We moved to Camden. You left Dizzlington? We did. You know what? We got out of it. You left Dizzlington? And we lived in Camden for You left Dizzlington? We did. You know what? We got out of there. And we lived in Camden for the next 11 years. But who's in Dizzlington then?

Who's left in Dizzlington? It's Islington. Who's in Dizzlington? So no one's in Dizzlington? Dizzlington's empty now. No, there's some people there. It's a pretty hot neighborhood. So then you just stayed in Camden? In Camden?

So Camden now is you. Dizlington is no one. And then you just stay there? Yeah. Wait, what? There's a city called Camden, New Jersey. You're saying there's also a Camden elsewhere? The borough of Camden in London.

Oh my God. Wait, what? Wait a second. The neighborhood was Keneshtown. The one that you moved into was the one in New Jersey, right? Yeah. Camden, New Jersey. The one across the water from Philly. That's the one you're saying you moved into? No, the borough of Camden in London.

What? What? I can't believe this. For like an 80 minute movie. I can't believe this. Jesus Christ. Just to bring it back, I want to point out that the art director of this film

is named... It's Islington. God. What happened to Islington then? It just doesn't exist anymore. So I want to talk about the subs versus dubs situation. Because that's an often

talked about thing. I tend to believe obviously the arguments are when you have dubs you get to pay attention to the frame more actively. When you have subs

sometimes it's a more literal translation and so it's more accurate to the spirit of the film but your eye is drawn to the bottom. I think it's truly whatever you are in the mood to watch, whatever suits you in that moment. But I have some issues sometimes with how things are translated, which is an impossible task.

And there is an article that I remember years ago us talking about when The Wind out, um, that always rubbed me the wrong way a little bit and sort of summed up what I think the danger of the wind rises is the absolute worst one to see a dub. In my opinion, that's like a film set in Japan. Yeah. So like that, that's, there's no fantasy.

There was a little, but like, that's mostly just a film set in a place. So they did an article that I think posted on vulture. That was an interview with Gary Rydstrom, who was handling the dub. And the whole point of the article is to talk about how careful and good he was

at doing this thing, but there are examples. And Gary Rydstrom is like a legend. Famous. Famous. Many Oscars. Yes. And the voice of Wally. That's right.

Oh, really? Yeah. But the example's actually... Wally. Wally. Wally. Eva. I'm trying to remember the noises in Wally. I just was going to say how long we were just going to do. Seven Oscars he's got.

That is the Pixar that feels the most Miyazaki to me in it's own weird way. Like it's not literally trying to go after it. But it achieves some of the same. Yes, it's very, yeah. So, I want to read a quote from this article, because the article's louding it, but it

sort of rubbed me the wrong way. So, this is about The Wind Rises. The article says, easier massage than others. In one scene, Hiro and his engineer, a co-worker, Hanzo, discuss the lag of Japanese industrialism. They relate their frustration to Achilles in the hair, a paradoxical parable that Jones and Rydstrom

were able to rewire into a mention of the tortoise in the hair while keeping the thematic resonance intact. Those are two totally different fables. They both have hairs in them.

Yeah. But they're totally different fables that mean totally different things. Okay. I agree with you. Iables that mean totally different things. Okay. I agree with you. I think the dubs are bad.

And I think one of the, here's another one. Later in life, the two connect and fall for each other. The duo wrestled with one of Miyazaki's original lives.

I've loved you since the day you rescued my hat. Jones found the line ambiguous. Had Yoro loved Nakano before that many years? Is he projecting feelings?

We talked it over and while culturally it might be romantic to a Japanese audience, I thought an American audience it might be a little creepy. But I understood the heart behind it.

It was a matter of altering that line slightly. So, Jones ultimately changed the line to I'm in love with you and nothing is going to stop me.

What? I've never watched the dub for that. I'm never watching the dub. That is a colossally different line. Yeah.

Yeah. And there's another one where it's like He changed the line to yeah I'll have scrambled eggs and white toast. You are my wife

and we've been married for 25 years. My name is Mr. Wind Rises. There's a scene where Hiro's telling Nahoko's father that he wants to

be with a daughter and the literal Japanese translation is, please give us permission to date. That's not really romantic. Are we just going to keep reading from this article about a different movie? We have four more hours to fill. We changed it to,

I love her very much and I sincerely hope you'll approve. Okay. I think that one of the things that's important about films, especially films that are distributed internationally, is that you're bringing with it the culture and the references and the customs of that world.

And I think also— And that's how you learn about other places. I think part of what's interesting about watching movies is seeing things you don't understand. Exactly. And so when these things are changed to be more Americanized or to appear like I just think that takes away some of the magic of watching a film from someone that's part of a different culture. I've told this story I think before in the podcast but I went to see Your Name in theaters. Great movie.

Which didn't get a very wide release. Not at all. Yeah. In America. In America. In America right. Everywhere else in the world it was this fucking blockbuster. Hugely successful.

And so I went to see it and it was a theater that felt like 92 percent Japanese speak. Oh, you told the story. Right. And they like there was a reference. And the movie is this weird like body swap thing. And there's a scene where the girl is in the body of the boy for the first time. And she's trying to like play along with her friends. She doesn't know what the fuck's going on, why she's in this boy's body.

And they're asking her like what she's going to have for lunch. And her answer is, as subtitled, in brackets, says female version of fish. And then the guys go, what? And then she goes, I mean, brackets says male version of fish. Right. And the audience exploded. Right. And I loved that whoever was subtitling was like, look, there's no way to translate this.

I'm just going to explain to you what is happening. Right. Because there's no way I can put it into your language that will work. There's no equivalent thing. But I was like so appreciative that I saw that with an audience and heard the reaction. That you're like, okay, yeah, that lands. There's some perfect joke that cannot work in any other language. And I understand that and I respect that.

And I don't want them to be like, I'll have the pussy. I mean, the penis. Right. Well, that is pretty good., I mean the penis. Right. Well, that is pretty good. I was missing that in Totoro. Yeah. Okay.

Can we get back to Totoro talk? Yes, my question, Ben, how did you like watching Totoro? This is your first time. Yeah. It really got me. Oh my God.

Oh boy. I cried really hard. Kazuo Ogasan was the art director of this film. Miyazaki credits him with the look. Usually so. Especially the environment.

The artwork of the movie, essentially. It is his artwork that allows such a thorough expression of the flavor of the world. It's so beautiful. And here's the other thing, too. It would be one thing to do a film that is just about all of these feelings of being a child and what it's like to have these childhood experiences.

And to move and be in the countryside and, yeah, all that. But what I love is that Miyazaki. I don't understand why you're putting such an emphasis on this. It's almost like there's a secret you're not telling us. What? We already did the bit. What bit? Wait, what bit?

We did a bit? You have a bit? What? A bit? You've been keeping a bit from us this whole time? We just keep doing laughs the whole podcast. David's sort of checked out now mentally. He's like a soldier coming back from war.

No, let's let Sims finish. Sorry, David. No, no, you were talking. I was interrupted by Greg. He wanted to take us back to a bit we just did. Literally just did. And we did it more than we needed to. Very loud and long. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really extended

the bit. Which bit are we talking about? Oh, no. Alright. This is like we're caught in like some wizard spell where we can't escape the feedback loop. We have to keep killing ourselves before we retry this moment. We're Kelsey Grammer in that Star Trek episode.

That's didn't go Groundhog Day. Not Russian Doll, the modern. No, no. The captain of the USS Bozeman in the episode Cause and Effect. But Miyazaki takes all of his amazing ability in fantasy and imagination and harnesses it to highlight and enhance those childhood feelings. Sure.

And he does it in a way where it is not, okay, now we're in this magical world, nor is it, okay, this stuff is all a dream. It sits in the same middle ground. That is the feeling of childhood where to these characters,

these things appear to be true and they are emotionally true. As a viewer, you understand that it may not be literally true, but also it doesn't matter to you because it's all about the feelings of these experiences. And these characters and these sort of like mythologies exist to just explain how these feelings feel. And I think in doing that,

there's so many times I watch it where I just get taken back to being a child and I'm like, oh, my God. I remember, you know, holding my mom's hand in this one moment where I was nervous. You know, there's moments that just feel so – there's a moment in it where the older sister's at school. And then Mae shows up with Granny. And it's like, oh, she's been crying all day. And Mae won't say anything.

She's just crying. She's totally, right. And then finally when she sees her sister, she like buries her head in her. Such a good scene. And it's like, I remember those moments.

I remember when I moved to a new school and it was with new kids and my sister was in the same school and I was just so terrified and I just kept asking the teacher if I could see my sister

and finally the teacher, literally like that scene, brought me into the hallway and was like, Katie, here's your brother. And I just kept asking the teacher if I could see my sister, and finally the teacher, literally like that scene, brought me into the hallway and was like, Katie, here's your brother, and I just like, I didn't need, I didn't want her to do anything, I just wanted her to be there to be like, it's okay, I'm here for you. There's this thing I think about all the time,

it was some like retrospective 15th anniversary or 20th anniversary or whatever. This movie? No, no, of Dazed and Confused with Linkletter. He had done Slacker and that was the period of time where if you made one independent movie, they'd be like, well, obviously you get to make a

$7 million studio comedy. So he does Dazed and Confused and he said the day when they were shooting all the kids after the baseball game having to like sort of like apathetically do the good game good game good game the executives

were like what the fuck we don't need this right like cut this this is not important it doesn't advance the story at all and he was like this is the whole movie yeah sorry this is unfortunately what you've signed up for right but it was like his whole philosophy to the movie is that like you have to put all these things in that everyone else cuts out of the movie.

Absolutely. Right. Because it doesn't seem important. But when you see those moments and you're like, wow, that's this thing I have such a, like, physical memory of doing over and over again. over again in the same way that like just like running up and hugging somebody crying when you're a child and you can't express what's going on or like look around the house in that way, just like immediately connects you to a film. And it's like,

this is the stuff that everyone else cuts out. Yeah. Agreed. And, uh, on that note, I'd like to cross up another thing on my list and talk about an experience. It's very similar to that,

which was, um, a new experience in cinema for myself that Griffin actually was the one who introduced me to. Oh, boy. And I don't know, David, if you've had this experience or Ben, if you've had this experience. I don't know what the experience is.

But I saw Godzilla King of Monsters in 4DX. Yeah, no, fuck that. I'm not doing that. Ben, I believe, has done it. Have you yet to see a 4DX movie? I have yet to see a 4DX? Ben and I have seen two or three together I think I've seen over ten in total I go to a lot of press screenings

Oh my god if they did a 40X press screening That would be my favorite That would be an interesting move To be like a strap in David Edelstein Do you want to get wet? Or do you not want to get wet? Have you done 40X?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. You guys saw Batman V-Soups. We saw Spider-Verse and 40X together. Did you? And I feel like maybe one more. Yeah, I can't remember what it was. Okay.

We've seen a couple 40Xs. And so you guys saw Godzilla King of the Monsters. So I would like to explain my experience. Griffin and I wanted to get together as friends, as friends do. We're friends we like friending we said let's go see a movie

and Griffin said would you like to see Godzilla King of Monsters and I went we usually knowing that JD and I have diverse tastes and sometimes have

interest in a movie that no one else is interested in for one or two reasons we usually try to find a movie that's like no one else is gonna see this let's be each other's

only exactly let's go see Happy Time Murders because we both feel the obligation. Exactly. And so I was like, yeah, I'll go see Godzilla King of Monsters. The first Godzilla was actually sort of fun. It's a great movie. And Griffin's like, great. Here's the time. Here's the thing. And he's like,

also, you should know I got us 4DX tickets. Well, first I said, are you okay with doing 4DX? It's playing at 4DX and my recommendation is we do 40X. And here's my thing. I did run it past you. But here's my thought, is I thought that he was talking about RPX.

Sure. Which is just when it's like— The regal premium experience. They charge you a little more for a slightly better projector. Yeah, you have a better projector and a bigger seat. Right. Okay? This was not the case.

No. We walk into the theater. David, have you ever been in one of these 40X theaters? I would have been. There are three seats. I can, have you ever been in one of these 40X theaters? I would have been. There are three seats. I can't believe we're not seeing Lion King at 40X.

I'm so happy we're not seeing Lion King at 40X. Attached to one another on hydraulics. Yes, right. That I know. You have to put

a seatbelt on. You fucking better. You've got a control panel on your thing that lets you know, do you want the smells? Do you want the every, to ask if you want the whole thing. So I sit down, Griffin, what was the experience of, how would you describe me in this situation?

You were very worried. I mean, like, I remember when we went to see Billy Lynn together. And you were like, what is this going to feel like? And I was like, I don't know. We don't know. And then the second it started, you turned to me and you were like, I don't know. We don't know. And then the second it started, you turned to me and you were like,

I don't know if I'm going to be able to handle this. Yes. And you had that same sort of trepidation. You were like, how much is this going to be a thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It felt like sort of like I was your parent and we're about to go on your first like thrill ride or something. Yes, yeah. And you're getting buckled in. Okay.

And I'm like, I've done this a lot. It's not going to be that extreme. It moves around, but it's not relentless. Griffin's talking me off the edge. Right. Okay. Keep talking. I'm sorry. Keep talking. The first thing they do when the lights come down...

I've seen a lot of 40X movies. This is new. They now have a little pre-show thing that's like the Regal ride. But it's showing someone who feels like the 40x is so thoroughly placing them in the movie that they are in a car zooming down the highway in the middle of an action sequence and so immediately 40x is doing everything right they're like it's it's it's like the thx like let's let's show you the full power of 4DX. And the thing that,

if you've never done 4DX, here's all the features. There are smells. The seats move on hydraulics. We have talked about 4DX in this podcast. It shoots you in the face with water. It shoots you in the sky with water. It punches you in the back with little hands.

It punches you in the sky. Then it does stuff with your ankles. It's a crazy experience. It tickles you. It tickles you. Right. When it sprays you directly in the face with water, it's jarring. Yeah.

And I was like, Griffin, it just shot me in the face. And Griffin goes, yeah, they don't do it very often. But I saw the trailer of this movie. There's a lot of water in this movie. I think it's raining the whole movie, so we might be in trouble. It's either raining or they're in the ocean. They had previously always done this thing in 40X where there's just like a sprinkler above your head. Yeah.

But for Godzilla, they amped it where they were like the bar in front of you that usually releases the smells now also shoots water into your face like the Joker's flower. JD, how many of the table of contents have we done and how many were made? We have two and we have one, two, three, four, five. I literally cleared my whole schedule. Yeah. So you're saying it was eight total and we were one quarter of the way through. Yeah. I thought it was 10.

I don't know where two of them went. Griffin, what are you doing on your phone now? Well, here's the thing. Griffin what are you doing on your phone now uh I know I was well here's the thing here's I texted my manager about a job I didn't get here's what's tough

I believe My Neighbor Totoro is one of the great films I have very little funny things to say about it or content to say other than I think

it is a brilliant beautiful film well it's fine because this is a podcast known for its seriousness and its brevity right yeah exactly uh do we want to talk more Totoro beautiful film. Well, it's fine because this is a podcast known for its seriousness and its brevity. Right.

Yeah. Exactly. Do we want to talk more Totoro or do we want to do another chapter? Let's talk about Totoro. Let's get some Totoro time. Because I think we got to give the audience a little back and forth. Yeah. Totoro. This is like Nashville. We're spinning a bunch of different narratives and they're all going to come together at the end. Right. And I'm

that guy. Oh, fuck. I wish I remembered his name because that'd be fun. Michael Murphy? Yeah. No, I I'm that guy. Oh, fuck. I wish I remembered his name because that would be fun. I feel like... Michael Murphy? Yeah. No, I feel like David's the lead of... What was the Coen Brothers movie? The Tornado?

Oh, it's serious. I'm like Michael Stolbar. Yes. Griffin's the Tornado. Just everything keeps happening. David's like, I am a serious man. And the world is falling down around him.

This is David Sims of The Atlantic. Oh, boy. David Sims of TheAtlantic.com. Can I say one of my favorite things? David Sims, you're part of the New York Film Critic. I'm part of the New York Film Critic Circle, which is a huge prestigious honor for me. Yes, and David is also the film critic for The Atlantic.

That's right. Another huge prestigious honor for me. I think there is a super That's right. And this podcast. Another huge prestigious honor for me. I think there is a super cut you could make in this podcast. You've told me that you want to do this on your own time. Of just the things David has said. That would like fully cancel me?

When you go like, this movie is poop! Yes. There is some movie where I was talking. Just like me at my most juvenile. You're like, this movie is poop out my butt. And I'm like, this is a out my butt and i'm like like

this is a man who's paid to write about film this is also like this is the this is the exact not by like butt poop.com but by like an august institution that was founded by ralph waldo emerson and harriet beecher stowe and people like that. And like, they were like, yes, a journal of letters it shall be. And it's like, 150 years later,

I'm like, pfft. And I just love that it's like, this is like, exhibit A for why no serious person ever have a podcast

because once you get past like, the first real things you have to say, then you're just like, I don't know, RoboCop's a big poo-poo bot. I've never seen it by Robocop. Maybe Robocop 2.

Yeah, not a good movie. Maybe the Robocop remake. Not a good movie. Are they remaking it again? No, it's the fucking Neil Blomkamp movie. Oh, so it's like a sequel to the first? It's the sequel that Paul Verhoeven never got to make. Except Paul Verhoeven could make it.

Oh, he's alive. He keeps on saying, I keep asking myself what Paul Verhoeven never got to make. Right. Except Paul Verhoeven could make it. He's alive. He keeps on saying, like, I keep asking myself what Paul Verhoeven would do. That's my philosophy for this movie. Right. So there's just a lot of naked women. I don't know what the fuck this movie's going to be. And he says he'll only do it if Peter Weller does it. And I have a feeling Peter Weller's not going to agree to do it.

How old is Peter Weller? 800. Once you tell us Peter Weller's age, we can move on. 72. Wonderful. I don't think he's RoboCop anymore. Really?

Younger than I thought. Older than Samuel L. Jackson. Older than Samuel L. Jackson, but only by two years. Interesting. That's an interesting game. Older or younger than Samuel L. Jackson? Yeah.

Sure. Most of the country, younger. All right. So in My Neighbor Totoro, they meet fucking Totoro. He's a big old guy. Okay. So Ben. I don't feel like that.

It takes a long time to meet him. Yes, you do. 25 minutes in, you realize the mom is sick. And I would say what? Do you want to know what their inspiration was? 35 minutes in? I think you don't see Totoro on screen until after 40. Inspiration.

Well, first you see the little guy. Right. But I don't think you see him. A little Totoro. Yeah. And I can give you a Miyazaki quote, but you go ahead and tell me. Is it about the movie that inspired them

to have Totoro show up later? No, no, no, no. Oh, no, not at all. The movie that... So, originally Totoro was going to be in the first scene. Sure. As the opener to the movie. Like, here he is, Totoro, the man himself.

Yeah. But then, I believe it was, like, Takahata, Miyazaki, they're talking. Takahata, who released Scare the Fireflies, I believe, on the same day as this movie? Certainly the same year. I think so, maybe. And then, someone else, they're talking, and they're like, no, it's like E.T. Oh, sure. You don't see E.T. until like halfway through the movie.

Yeah, for at least 40 minutes in. I love that E.T. was there like, yeah, we got to do an E.T. on this. It would be funny if it was the third man. He's kind of the Orson Welles. Yeah, exactly. He's a big boy. I mean, and you get teases of him earlier, but Beetlejuice does a similar thing. Yeah. I mean, it's a thing that we've talked about in this movie, which I always find

very effective where you build up a character. Is it the same year? Beetlejuice is 88. Yeah, same year. I just always find that effective. All these examples we're talking about where it's like there's a titular character who the movie is sort of like priming you for. This whole

thing is going to shift when they enter and you hold off bringing them in for as long as you can. Here's Miyazaki on the Totoro. Yes. The Totoro are goblins of the transitional plane, where Japan hasn't become entirely modernized. Because this movie is set in the 50s-ish, but it's not really defined, right?

And it's set in this place that by the time Toro has come out, like this kind of place, these sort of farmlands by the mountains were like going extinct. And this movie kind of revived interest in like, oh yeah, that's like an environment we should protect. Like that sort of way of life is something we should like consider as like part of Japanese life.

But that's why, for example, it makes sense to me, this is him again, it makes sense to me that the cat goblin has turned into a bus, because it's like, modernity is sort of seeping into the fantasy world.

You know what I mean? So it's still a magical cat creature, but it's now this sort of industrial shape. Sure. And it behaves like a post-war kind of invention right i mean i love uh cat bus cat bus is my favorite element of the film um i was going to say oh reading the wikipedia uh he was very uh stubborn about uh this film getting uh dubbed and that he didn't want any non-exact translations. Because I guess he had gone through with Nausicaa and with Castle in the Sky, people trying to go like, well, this reference doesn't make sense culturally.

So let's find like an American version of that reference. He didn't like the music and the edits on Castle in the Sky, all these sorts of things. version of that reference. He didn't like the music and the edits on Castle on Sky, all these sorts of things. And Totoro is, as a name, a play on the notion of troll, right? I mean, it's like a thing where there's this scene

where she's explaining why she's calling him Totoro, and it doesn't work in the English language. And they were like, can we rename the character so that it makes sense? And he's like, no. Absolutely not. Yeah. When did,

when were you crying? When was the, uh, emotional? Cause this is a movie. A lot of people tell me they cry at, this is actually one of the Miyazaki's I do not cry at. Interesting.

Uh, there are a couple of Miyazaki's that just like, there's a moment every time that's like a button is pushing. I'm like, Oh, right. Uh, for some reason,

maybe cause I didn't watch this movie as a kid that doesn't but well yeah so when were you just like the whimsical moments with the kids and the spirits Ben loves that whimsy Ben Hosley you should call him Ben Wimsley sometimes Griffin looks kind of like he's concentrating on something and I'm

like oh and then that's what he was concentrating on it's Winona Ryder on the Emmy stage and I'm just doing all the whimsies's what he was concentrating on. Doing that. It's Winona Ryder on the Emmy stage, and I'm just doing all the, wait a second. The last time I watched was a long time ago. Not a long time ago, but like a year, a couple years ago. And so I grew up with two older sisters. I recently lost one of my sisters,

which has been a very hard experience for me. And watching this movie, because it tapped into those childlike feelings, did bring back a lot of those feelings of like. Had you seen it since your sister passed? No, no, no. Wow. And it was just, I don't know. Especially if you grew up with siblings or grew up as a kid around other kids or had that feeling of being alone out in the world.

Because there's so much of this movie that is maybe not even relatable to some modern kids because they're just going out of the house and no one's like even checking on them yeah like sort of running around like there's a moment when uh may tells her dad like uh do i look like a grown-up and he's like yeah and she's like all right i'm going off to do errands right he's like whatever like she's the dad who is a classic miyazaki man where he's just kind of a dope He's got glasses He's very sweet Miyazaki men are usually sweet

But they're usually kind of dopey I'll wait until you see Kiki Griffin Have you seen it yet? No There's just so much that resonates And so much that feels emotionally true And little moments that you're like Yeah I remember that feeling

I don't know i think it's a really really really special movie it's like like a movie like inside out remember like there's a big tear-jerking moment when the imaginary friend you know sacrifices himself or whatever and that's great but it's so on the nose and it's forcing that out of you where this it has moments that are expressing that that same thoughts without having to have it be this big perilous experience. I love Inside Out

Yes I love Inside Out but it's a very literal movie about very abstract things Which is the Pixar experience option where they're like right let's take an abstract thing and sort of make it a system. Right. Which I like.

Like, I mean, that appeals to me in a certain way. I love WALL-E. I think it's a masterpiece. I think it's way up there. I think it's the top non-Brad Bird Pixar movie for me. WALL-E, Sean. I love WALL-E, Sean. What if WALL-E did a Master Builder?

He is a Master Builder. WALL-E, Sean. My Dinner with WALL-E. My Dinner with WALL-E. My Dinner with WALL-E did a Master Builder? He is a Master Builder. WALL-E, Sean. My Dinner with WALL-E. My Dinner with WALL-E. My Dinner with WALL-E. All right, so you love WALL-E. What I was going to say is, I know a lot of people think like, well, then it drops way off. I agree with you.

I think the first 40 minutes of WALL-E are, for me, as good as any movie that's ever been made. Absolutely. And then the remainder of it, I think, is incredible and only fails to live up to the first 40 minutes. I would agree with that, too. I think the remainder gets a bit of a bad rap. I do, too. I think, is incredible and only fails to live up to the first 40 minutes. I would agree with that, too. I think the remainder gets a bit of a bad rap. I do, too. I think it's too hard. But it's certainly not as, you know, certainly the first half of that movie is.

But I have heard Andrew Stanton say that their goal was to keep it nonverbal. Right. And that once they got to the spaceship, that humans had devolved so much they didn't have language anymore. And they spoke to each other just in grunts and I wish they had been able to pull off that fucking movie. Why didn't they pull that off? Because that feels like,

the fact that Wally and Eve can't talk to each other makes it have that Miyazaki-esque quality and that so much of the history of it is just sort of sold through the background and being able to understand the history through the amount of wear and age and things. If they had gotten up there and no one was fucking talking, I would think it was the greatest movie ever made. Now, here's here's a fair.

Yeah. You know who's cute, though? Mo? Eva. All of them are cute. No, I know. But she's a real David. I.

What's Eva? Bossy round face. I mean, she is. David's. Her face is round. His number one crush type is bossy round face I mean she is David's her face is round his number one crush type is bossy round face okay

don't ever tell any of your crushes that oh I oh yeah yeah definitely I won't good point

won't mention it um pork you would get really upset a metric round face round face a metric that I think

separates uh incredible filmmaking to like true beautiful filmmaking from stuff that's fine is when the story is told just through the images. Yes. So the entire movie of Totoro, the inspiration for it was a drawing that Miyazaki drew, which was Totoro and the girl. At the time, it was one girl. With the umbrella?

At the bus stop. That was the image that was so burned in my head from a movie I've watched 25 years ago. It's the poster image I feel like or at least a poster image and it is such an indelible image. But I think you could also cut out all of the dialogue scenes in this and just have it be the

scenes. I like the dialogue. Oh yes, I think it's all perfect. But I'm just saying, I think it still tells the same story, just images. I think you could even take stills from this movie and put them together and it would still resonate in very similar ways and tell the same

feelings to an audience. I don't know, I just think it's so brilliant. In fact, now that I think about it, that's why I like Kurosawa's Dreams, is that there's so many shorts that have these images that are just these beautiful images, I think, tell the entire story in an image. And I think about it, that's why I like Kurosawa's dreams is that there's so many shorts that have these images that are just these beautiful images, I think, tell the entire story in an image.

And I think like, when you find a film that's really great, you can pull an image and go, this is the entire story just in one image, right there. So yeah,

as you say, there was initially one daughter. Yeah. For some reason, evolved into two. I think partly was like... The big thing was that he wanted to explore both that

childlike play and the sense of duty. It's time to grow up fast. And it was hard to do it with one kid. So he wanted May, the little girl, to meet Totoro first because he feels like she wouldn't be scared of Totoro because Totoro's kind of scary. She's amped when she meets Totoro.

She's in that area of childhood where you're still like seems cool. And that's such a beautiful moment when she comes up to him and you're expecting it to be this scary moment. Or this moment that's so played out in most cinema where it's like, ooh, they're scared at first, but it's actually a gentle beast. That's E.T. That's like the exact E.T. meeting. But instead, it's immediately she's just so comfortable and laughing. This guy rules.

She's like, it's like when a really little kid meets someone for the first time and they just give them a hug and are like, yeah, I like this person. Since he is lord of the forest, Totoro can hear the joyous voices of the plants. He would love the rain, especially if it's rain falling during a rainy season. We think of him enjoying the plop plop sound of raindrops with a leaf on his head.

And so when he gets the umbrella, apparently Miyazaki's concept is like, he thinks it's a musical instrument. Like, he doesn't understand why you would need an umbrella. Oh. You know what I mean? But he thinks it's like it's a good amplification for the raindrops. He's like, let's do some awesome shit with this. This is a good idea.

It sounds cool. Right. He doesn't mind being rained on. He's like a forest goblin. He's lord of the forest? That is what Miyazaki said. That's cool. This interview is wild where he's just like

anyway yeah they're forest goblins he's the lord of the forests he also talks a lot where he's like i don't know i don't want to get them to thought they are just what they are like he sort of waves off a lot of that stuff too where he's not like here's the rules no this he's like no he's like no they represent the whole thing is about being a kid and to the extent that he's like i don't even want it to be specific that it's a dream or not. Sure. But in a movie that is 87 minutes long with a long opening and closing credit sequence.

Which is one of my favorite parts of especially like Japanese animated films from like the 80s. It still happens now to this day in a lot of anime. I just love the opening title like animation sequence where it's like its own little short film or its own little thing. Your name does that.

It has like an opening like music video. Yes, it's a classic anime. But in a movie that's probably, you know, about 80 minutes with those two like musical credit sequences removed. I think Totoro is in 10 minutes top in terms of him being on screen. Yeah, maybe. It's kind of nuts. really only has like two set pieces and then a couple other appearances. Do you guys remember what the

video cover for the Fox VHS release was? No. Look it up. Isn't it him flying with them riding him? And it looks like he's like saving them. It's almost like a never ending story. Oh yeah. Right. Like it really makes it look like an adventure movie.

Right. And it's got like every creature they can cram in there. Yeah. Right. They're riding his belly. Right.

Yeah. And you know, the original distributor of My Neighbor Totoro was Troma Entertainment. Alma mater of J.D. Amat.

Oh, sure. Right. But so they were the first distributor. They had a different distribution arm that wasn't named Troma. It was called like 50th Street Films. Yes. They distributed through that. And then at some point, Miyazaki and Jibu were like, wait, who are these people?

Yeah. And they're like, oh, no. Yeah. No, Disney, you can do this. But so there's still these amazing posters you can get in the world that are my neighbor Totoro with a Troma logo on the corner a little Toxie there's this whole sequence where he talks

in the interview where he talks about how he animated running and the classic way was to do six frames of two frames each like spring, move land, right, like something like that and how he's like, that's not how children run. So he wanted it to look all different and much more chaotic.

Yeah. He's fucking great. Children aren't conscious of wanting to run. They just want to get somewhere quickly. That's how he puts it. That's a really, really good observation. I mean, when you watch those making ofs or any kind of document,

he's so focused on movement, reflecting character. Like he got to the point that he seems like sometimes sort of gets hung up on it, where he's like, not quite. You know what I mean? Like, he's like, no, he needs to breathe differently or whatever. Like, he really wants all the movement to be good. And then he hates things like explosions or, you know, really big, loud things. Which is why I think it's so interesting that, like, before this, he does Nausicaa and Castle in the Sky. Which are more action-adventure-y.

And Cagliostro, which are all three are action films. I mean, and they have explosions and vehicles and all these sorts of things. Nausicaa is like guns and vehicles. Yeah, exactly. I theorize, too, that when you have filmmakers who work in imagination and fantasy and such big visual things so much, oftentimes I find my favorite films of theirs are the ones where they ground it in reality. And then you see those. That's why I like Big Fish so much. I think grounding that's in reality. Creatures, like those movies where it's like here's someone who can go totally bug nuts making a movie

that's like 90% reality is always really fascinating or even 70% reality. Yeah, exactly. Should we do another chapter on your fucking list? Yeah, sure. I'll let you guys...

Just pick one. Okay. Okay. This is a big follow-up and... Big follow-up. This is a big follow-up. Whoa. Big follow-up. It's a big follow-up to news that we broke in the last episode. Oh, my God.

This is the star meter report. Only you care about this. So I just want to point out, Keiko the Whale has not been unseated as the tallest actor of all time, according to the IMDB. Topsy Elephant, still number two. Is Topsy the one? The one that Edison electrocuted to death?

Yes, Topsy. And so I wanted to follow up, though, on Topsy. Since we last recorded, Topsy has moved up about 200,000 spots on the star meter. So you think that's us? Do you think it's a blank check, Bob? No, I'm saying I think Topsy's hot. You don't think it's because of blank check? You just think it's general word on the street.

You think we're not leading the Topsy wave. We're riding it. Topsy's got buzz. He's been taking generals. Can I ask what Topsy's all-time highest rank is? Yes, I'll tell you that in just a second. Okay, sorry. We have Keiko the Whale.

Keiko is down from the last time we recorded, but up this week. So Keiko's long since dead. Long since dead. It's a bummer. Highest Topsy's ever been. The highest Keiko's ever been was in 2003, November, got up to 1,000.

Was that when Keiko died? I mean, we don't like to talk about that. On this list, does it say the highest I've ever been? It probably does. I can look you up. You're probably up there. I'm sure you're pretty high up there. Topsy's highest was

November 2014 when Topsy got a four week high of 108,000 Wow Ben Hosley, let's see where you're at Ben Hosley, right now you're 716,485 on the star meter Really?

Okay, but what's the highest Ben's ever been? The highest Ben's ever been? You hit... Ben, he's gotten real high. You hit... On the weekend? 222,064. No, he was above that, I think.

Really? Maybe that's it. In July 2018. July 2018, you were 200,000. All right, let's see Griffin. Griffin. Oh, you're not on IMDb. I'm kidding.

Oh, IMDb just is like a why bother. Can I tell you my guess? Yes. My guess is the highest I've ever been. Ooh, you're pretty high right now. Really? I mean, you're not great. Well, 9,300.

9,300, that's pretty good. Ooh. Did you see? No. What do you think your highest is? I can see the peak. I can't see any of the data. When do you think the highest you've ever been is? When do I think it was or how high

do I think it was? Both. I think it was November 20... October 2017? Yeah. Yeah-ish. Around that time. It's like between July and September 2017. Right. That's like ticked. Okay. It hit 600. Yeah. Yeah. Around that time. It's like between July and September 2017.

That's like tick. Okay. Hit six. Six hundred. Yeah. Yeah. Six hundred. Okay.

There are only 622 people more famous than you. At that point. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. All right. Can we do a different chapter? Because that was so disappointing.

No. Well, here's the other thing. So something that I found. Yeah. In the Star Media report. Also, I want to say Wilson the Volleyball down this week. Wilson the Volleyball not doing well this week. How is Donald Kaufman?

I'm trying to think of other fully fictional IMDb entries. So you can also rank the Star Meter report by special skills. So you can figure out who the most famous person is with a special skill. And one of the special skills is accents. Okay, wait. Can I try to... I want to pause this for one second. I'd like to broker a deal. Okay.

David, JD will agree to end this bit immediately if you go to 40X at 6 o'clock. I don't want to go to 40X. Okay, or I'll edit immediately. If you can guess who the most Who the most Who the biggest celebrity

right now is that can do the robot. Because I'm to be able to tell us. We'll click robot. Sort by by dance style equals robots and ranking. Okay, David, you might be able to get this. And this is a fair offer. We'll end it immediately if you can pick who the highest ranking actor is.

If not, we're doing another. I'll say this. It's like someone... Do I get like a hint or... Here, I'll give you a couple hints. I don't want to give you too many, but I'll say this. It's not like a surprising one. It's not like, that person could do the robot. You're like,

that feels like... I've seen that person do the robot. I think it's very likely you have seen this person do the robot, and there's someone who is pretty au courant. Pretty au courant. Like, it isn't like a cast member from Break-In. Like, this is someone who's like a current rising star

who, if they have not done the robot, they've probably shown enough similar skills that you're like, that's in their repertoire. I don't know. I'd say it's an emerging leading man

has been the lead of a TV show, has been the lead of a live-action film, and has been the lead of a TV show, has been the lead of a live-action film, and has been the lead of an animated film. Okay. I mean, good clue. Biggest celebrity I can do the robot right now. This week. Lead of an animated.

Lead of an animated. Lead of an independent film that was kind of a crossover. Lead of a TV series. Like this year there was an independent film that was kind of a crossover? No, no. Those are in the last couple. The order was independent film,

then TV show, then animated film. Those are the three biggest projects. And I feel like everyone's still waiting for like the huge thing. But like for people like us,

it's like this is one of the guys who's going to be with us for decades. Is there a person of color? Correct. Yeah. And don't forget, you can do the robot.

You can do the robot. This is the robot. Ben is doing the robot. Ben is doing the robot. He's doing the robot. I see, I see. That's not dance. Right, right, right. Do you want one last hint?

Yeah, sure. Do you want me to do it again? The robot? Go ahead, yeah. Give me a hint. The animated film is the biggest in all regards. The biggest in all regards? Yeah.

So Incredibles 2? No, no, no. Not biggest in all regards. So Incredibles 2. No, no, no. Not in biggest in all regards of animated films. Oh. I'm saying biggest in all regards of his career. Most critically well-received, most successful. Why is that such a good clue? And now I'm like, fuck.

It's a good clue. Yeah, now I'm like, why don't I know? Oh, he is the guy. Don't forget, he can do the robot. He can do the robot, but he is the guy in the movie. He's the guy in the movie? In the animated movie. What's his name?

God damn it. What's his name? I know his name. Fuck. I'm thinking of Spider-Verse. Am I crazy? You're not crazy. What the fuck is his name, though? If you say the name, the Star Media Report will be over. It's over.

All you gotta do is say the name. I was gonna show you the most famous person who can do a Japanese accent. The answer will surprise you. Well, I actually wanna know that. Mickey Rooney. Shameik Moore.

That's his name. All right. Star Media Report's over. Was it... Is it Dope? I was saying Dope. That's his name. Okay. Starving Report's over. Well done. Was it Dope? I was saying Dope, the Get Down. The Get Down movie?

Right. Spider-Verse. I was saying those. Spider-Verse. He is the number one robot doer? Yeah. Is that surprising to you? I think that took like five minutes.

Who does the number one Japanese though? You want to know? Yeah, why not? Okay. Let me unclick robot. My guess is still Mickey Mouse. Oh, the answer is not good for anybody. Oh dear.

That's my guess because it's not going to be someone who is Japanese. If you're looking for a Japanese accent, I understand. If you're looking for a Japanese accent, the person that you should hire the most. It's not Newt Gunray, is it? Oh, wait. Wait, wait, wait.

Okay. That wasn't the one that it was before. It changed since I the most. It's not Newt Gunray, is it? Wait, wait, wait. That wasn't the one that it was before. It changed since I last looked. It changed? I think. Who was it before and who is it now? Oh, no, that's spoken languages. I'm sorry.

Accents. Oh, my God. Jamaican would be bad, too, I bet. Okay, Japanese. I just want to be clear. None of them would be good. And once again, the segment has ended. I want to make it very clear. This is not part of the segment. This is not part of the segment.

This is the after show. This is the after show. The segment has ended. Ben's crying. This is a really, really bad result. This is like a bummer. We're just going to be bummed out. If you're going for a Japanese accent, this is who IMDb says,

this is the hottest person you could get for a Japanese accent. It's particularly bad because I cannot pull when they would have done this accent. It's not even like, oh, right. Who is it? Who is it? It is. He has starred in multiple TV shows. Now, who is it?

Disney Channel star Dylan Sprouse. Oh, that's a bummer. I don't know. Yeah. You mean one of Zack and Cody? Zack and or Cody? It's the one who isn't Jughead, right? that's a bummer I don't know yeah you mean one of Zach and Cody Zach and or Cody yeah that's it's the one who

isn't drug head right is that the one who isn't Cole is Cole is drug head yeah isn't Dylan Sprouse

like retired um I think he's kind of retired yeah IMDB he identifies as a heathen

that's so funny did you that's like the third sentence of his Wikipedia page he identifies as a heathen the star meter segment's over we're on the after after show

what does that mean when I click on it it's a heathenry a new religious movement called German neo-paganism can you do Yiddish I just saw that Yiddish is not enough this is a masterpiece of cinema Sybil Danning neo-paganism. Can you do Yiddish, J.D.? I just saw that Yiddish is not. Alright, enough!

It's the after-after show! This is a masterpiece of cinema. Sybil Danning! Okay, well that's not exciting. The segment's off. Menashe! Oh my gosh. I love a Menashe joke. What's Pizzen? I love it. Uh, alright.

Alright, what are we talking about? My Neighbor Totoro? I can't believe you forgot. Totoro. Totoro. I love this movie. Okay. I think it's fantastic. I saw it in 35.

Millimeter. Two years ago. When and where? At IFC. Okay. I believe. Was it IFC or Sunshine? Sure. IFC shows a lot of... I think it was IFC. Okay. I believe. It's IFC or Sunshine. Sure.

IFC shows a lot of... I think it was IFC. Beautiful. I just love it. And I love all the matte paintings. They're so beautiful. The nature in this movie. I mean,

one of the best shots in the entire movie is when it cuts to the frog watching Totoro. I mean, that just... Yeah. That's great. That's everything.

I also love the shot of when the youngest daughter sleeps on Totoro. Yeah mean, that just, that's great. That's everything. I also love the shot of when the youngest daughter sleeps on Totoro. Yeah. And it pulls up and it shows them in this like, just like encased

in this beautiful, lush greenery. He does look so comfy. He looks so comfy. He looks pretty tough. And when the suit's right. But I like that he has teeth. Oh, me too.

You know what I mean? Yeah. He opens his mouth and there's some big old gnashers in there. There has to have been produced. Because I was looking at the Wikipedia, how successful this movie's been. I think Totoro has grossed a billion dollars if you include all of everything.

Especially merchandise. Because they were saying in Japan, Totoro is like Winnie the Pooh. Mickey Mouse. It's like that level. Right. Absolutely. There has to have, at some point, been a Totoro beanbag chair produced. There is. Yes, there Absolutely. There has to have at some point been a Totoro

beanbag chair produced. There is. Yes, there is. There is? There is. I've seen it. That must be so pleasant. I thought you were going to say

let's get one. You're just like that's nice. I kind of would like to get one. That'll be your next birthday present. Oh, we got to do present corner.

Oh. David's got a new hobby. A new collection that he's starting. Are you talking about the soda cans? Yeah, David's got a new hobby. A new collection that he's starting. Are you talking about the soda cans? Yeah, David's got a weird hobby that he's into now. All right, so this is from a while ago. David, this is a weird hobby you have.

So can you remind me how this started? Because the three of us were texting. We have a text thread. We're friends. We have a text thread. Give it a break. One of us will throw in a subject that's like i feel like you two guys are the audience for this thing i've

been thinking exactly only this text thread can hear this thought and i think jd was the one who initiated and just said can we talk about how weird steve carell's career is as a leading man yeah so like he has been a bankable leading man. I think it was in that 2018, like, Beautiful Boy. What were the other ones? Welcome to Marwen. Welcome to Marwen. And Vice. Yeah.

Right, where it was like people, yeah, studios keep being like, well, how do we work Carell into this? But JD's argument was he has been bankable for over 10 years now. Yes. As a leading man. Yes. Almost exclusively playing arrogant creeps or sad sex. Right, right, right, right.

Which is funny because he can be lovable. Totally. And yet he seems- I forget why we were even talking about this. That's the minority of his role. I think it was just because of Marwen and stuff like that. It was just because there was a lot of corral. He had three movies come out in three months,

and he hosted SNL, so he was kind of omnipresent. And we were just talking about what a weird fucking career he had. And then we were texting each other photos of him in prosthetics from He did press for Despicable Me 2 in garish prosthetics

as Gru. But then we were saying like it's weird how big his career has been in different ways. It's also weird that now The Office is humongous. Now The Office is the most watched TV show. Ben is in the corner with his head bag vaping into the sky.

So then I was talking about like how weird it is that he did like this Get Smart movie that was a summer blockbuster that they threatened to make a sequel to for like eight years. They kept on being like they're trying to schedule it.

It like crept over a hundred million but it was hardly like I believe it made a hundred and thirty. Yes, you're crazy. A hundred thirty. It crept over 100 million. It was hardly like- I believe it made 130. Yes, you're crazy. 130. Right. Not very well overseas, unsurprisingly, because nobody knows what Get Smart is overseas. But a big hit.

Hit. And they were like, we'll keep making these. And I was like, for a guy who usually plays such odd characters and has not been a character actor, has been a movie leading man it is so weird that at the peak of this get smart thing he was like on soda bottles right because there was a limited promotional sierra mist flavor called undercover orange right because it didn't look like it was going to be orange and then you sift it and it was secretly okay so we discussed this yes we had this discussion. Yes.

The discussion ended. And then about six days later. I went about my life. Yes. Seeing movies in Brooklyn. Uh-huh. Not seeing movies in 40X. What a sad life. Yep.

And then, ding dong! Who's that at the door? Oh, the postman. Ding dong, ding dong. It's the mailman. It's the mailman. He's brought the mail. What's the, oh,

a package. I don't know this seller. Just banging the table like a child who wants dinner. I want more. And it's, you know,

when you get a package, you're usually like, oh yeah, I remember I ordered a thing. Right, you know, and you're like, hmm,

don't know what this package is. But often, I get promotional packages from TV shows or whatever, right? So maybe it's one of those. Here's another thing. Right. You know, and you're like, hmm, don't know what this package is. But often I get promotional packages from TV shows or whatever. Right. So maybe it's one of those. Here's another thing I imagine. Most times you get a package, you go, hmm, some real weight to this thing. I can feel an object.

This is a light one. Open the package. Inside is a tennis ball tube. A tube to hold tennis balls. You guys know what I'm talking about? It's a tennis ball tube inside a box so at this point i'm like 50 50 this is a bomb you know what i mean like where i'm like i did not order this i don't know what it is it's clearly not promotional director of some movie you

panned right i'm like is this something fucked up you know know, because like, why would I? And then I opened the tennis ball tube and inside are three cans of Sierra Mist undercover orange. But they are empty. No, but that's the thing. So I'm like, okay, this is JD sent the cans. He must have found them on eBay that someone was selling. Has kept them for 10 years. And they're sealed. Right.

But they're completely empty. They haven't been opened. No holes. No abrasions. You've noticed. No. Are they so old? Is that a thing that the soda just goes away?

Like, I don't know. Absorbs into the metal. So I get these. I alert you to the fact that I got them and that they are empty. I intentionally just tell you, you just paid whatever you paid for this. And believe me, it wasn't them and that they are empty. I was intentionally just telling you you just paid whatever you paid for this and believe me, it wasn't worth it because they are useless. I paid to send garbage from the UK to David.

Exactly. But you still have them, right? I think they're somewhere in my house. I believe it was international shipping to send someone else's garbage from 10 years ago. Literal garbage. From decades ago. What needs to be done to them is recycling. That's all they need. They're aluminum. They need to be recycled.

Then, months later, I get another package. JD, please take it away. I didn't know about this one. Oh, you don't know about this? I don't think I know about this one. Well, Dave, why don't you tell your experience of opening it? I got another fucking package of promotional

cans from JD Amato. More details, please! I don't you tell your experience of opening it? I got another fucking package of promotional cans from J.D. Amato. More details, please! I was hoping you remembered. I think, I mean, look it up. Yeah. I gotta figure out what I sent David. Well, because I wanted to, now that David's got a collection of movie-branded cans, I wanted to keep the collection going. It's so weird that he's become so into collecting movie cans.

Yeah. Against his own will. Oh, oh. He's obsessed. Oh, wait. Oh, wait. I remember what I said. Go on, go on.

Look at the title. Look at the title of what it says. Okay, so no spoilers, but it just says, Order delivered. Dr. Pepper, three empty cans. And they are from the Dr. Pepper tie-in with Spider-Man 2. So do you have an Alfred Molina can now? I don't remember, but yes, I remember that now that they were Spider-Man 2.

Both times I'm disappointed because the can is good enough that you're like, I'd drink this. You know what I mean? Like Dr. Pepper. I love Dr. Pepper. Three empty Dr. Pepper cans. Well, I mean, so far, 40 East 34th Street, Suite 1401, New York, New York. I was about to suggest this. If anyone wants to send, they have to be tie-ins.

They have to be movie tie-ins, and they have to be cans of soda. But you better empty them. They've got to be empty. If you find them and they're full. If they're soda, we're sending them back. If you find them, return to send them. Here's the thing. If the seller is selling them full,

then you have to have them delivered to your house. You have to find a way to tap those cans, and then you can sender. If the seller is selling them full, then you have to have them delivered to your house. You have to find a way to tap those cans, and then you can send them. But there can be no evidence that you've tapped them. If David can find any evidence that they've been opened. I'm the expert on this. And give that address one more time. Okay, the address is 40 East 34th Street, New York, New York, 10016.

And the oldest movie cans you can find, the better. But if they're new, that's fine, too. David loves them all. So just put care of David Sims. Yeah. And again, the suite number is 1401. If we can get like a sarsaparilla can with Topsy on it, that would be the oldest possible movie tie-in.

A can of old Dr. Mitchell's coca drink with Topsy Elf being on it. If we can get a can of Dr. Mitchell's coca drink with Topsy Elf and Binghamton on it. If we can get a can of Dr. Brown's Cell Ray with Fanny Bryce on it. If we can get a tab can with Keiko the Whale on it. That'd be great. Also, JD sent me a 10-foot tall vinyl banner that was the teaser poster from Ang Lee's Hulk. It's 10 feet by 6 feet, I believe. I spent three weeks trying to figure out who sent it to me because there was no heads up.

That's the thing. Both times with me the same way. No heads up. No alert. But unlike with the cans, at least I could trace it to him. I'm sort of like a Totoro of movie merchandise. Three weeks later, JD said, did you get my present? And I said, oh, fine.

I figured it out. But it's meant for giant movie theaters where they have enough ceiling height that they can hang them from the rafters. It's a legit banner. It's 10 feet tall. It is taller than my apartment. What's up, JD? How's it going, man? Oh, nothing.

I just wanted to call because I felt like I did a bad job on the episode because I was in sort of a silly mood. You didn't do a bad job. No. I think you're

overthinking it. I just, I love, My Neighbor Tutter was one of my favorite movies of all time and I felt like I came in in a goofy mood and I feel like you're probably going to have to cut a bunch of stuff and i just

i just felt bad ben and i just want to say how much i love that movie and i love your guys podcast and i like being on it and i just i'm sorry that i probably gave you extra work by being all over the place well thank you jd we love having you on the show I think you're a great funny guy and um yeah let's just like get into the episode let's just let the fans decide I just listen I love Totoro so much I mean I called you beforehand how much you did oh yeah well actually and I didn't we didn't fit that in to the episode where I was, because I was going to set up playing that clip. So,

why don't we say now that at the end of the episode, I'll play that clip. Oh, it's my voicemail? You have my voicemail? Yeah. Honestly, JB, Dizzlington is pretty funny

no that episode is good JD ok I trust you thank you Ben have a good day I'll talk to you soon bye what do you want to help in the blankies on I'd like them to help me with the

Queens jury duty challenge something that to help me with the Queen's Jury Duty Challenge. That's something that you helped me with. Both of you did. Oh, yes, yes. Oh, yeah, right. I remember this.

I had Jury Duty and the last time I was in Jury Duty for that, they played Mrs. Doubtfire for everyone. And I live in Queens, so Jury Duty is about like

600 people gathered from all walks of life who all gather and wait in a room and they play a movie for them. And the one time that I went, they chose Mrs. Doubtfire and it was a hit. Everybody loved it.

Such a quotable movie. And it just, it hits all things. So the question that I posed to the Blankie community and I posed to Griffin and David separately is what is the perfect jury duty movie? Is a movie that A, needs to entertain all ages and backgrounds B not contain anything offensive that would offend anyone. And C it cannot contain anything that would contaminate a possible juror for a case that they're about to sit on. So that is the question. Here's the answers that I got at the time. I got Inside Out.

That was David. He was pushing for that. Shrek. Father of the Bride. Catch Me If You Can. Jurassic Park. The Greatest Showman. That was Griffin.

A League of Their Own. I was proud of that one. I thought that was a really good pick. My Big Fat Greet Wedding. Captain Ron. My only beef with Showman was the real legacy of E.B. Farnham is a hot button. But I think that's what makes it the perfect jury duty movie is it's like we scrubbed everything from it. Yeah.

I think my Big Fat Greek Wedding probably held that spot for a solid eight years straight. Yeah. I think we're just out of that movie's reign of dominance. Right. The Majestic said Rob Malone and I think The Princess Bride. Yeah. Yeah. So,

think of what is the best jury duty movie. Here's the other thing I need help with. You have to send it to David. You have to send it to David. It has to be Carol David. It has to go to David.

All this has to go to David. It could be a postcard. It could be a letter. I've recently joined Letterboxd. Oh, sure. Do I follow you? I don't know. Okay. Maybe. all this has to go to David it could be a postcard it could be a letter I've recently joined Letterboxd oh sure do I follow you I don't know okay

maybe because Letterboxd I guess doesn't really alert you when like your friends join yeah exactly also I don't do the other social media so it wouldn't know

that we know each other but la-di-da okay David's lost his mind now he just made a face that was not consistent with the situation we were in what's your profile like JD Amato yeah um there you are Now he just made a face that was not consistent with the situation we were in.

What's your profile? Like JD Amato? There you are. Yeah, there I am. So there is a list that I'm trying to curate of a type of film that I... It's a good list. A film that features... Which one were you looking at?

Movies that contain hideouts with skateboarding and or arcade machines. Yes. So there is a trope in cinema that I'm trying to trace. I think it might be a dead trope, but there was a moment there in the early 90s when it was alive and breathing. Second he has here, but I would say the first. It's the second one that has it, doesn't it? You know, I've never seen Ooze, but the first one definitely has it.

I have seen both. It's been a long time. Because the Foot Clan have one with skateboarding and stuff like that. That's the first one. Is that the first oneze, but the first one definitely has it. The first one has it. I have seen both. It's been a long time. Because the Foot Clan have one with skateboarding and stuff like that. That's the first one, I believe. Is that the first one? That's the first one. I've never seen Ooze, so it has to be the first one. Maybe it's in both.

It might be in both. Double Dragon. Hook, Double Dragon, the Power Core, and the Double Dragon, they have a place with skateboarding arcade machines. Rumble in the Bronx, Jackie breaks into a place that has a bunch of arcade machines and pool tables and things like that and fights them. And then Hook obviously, the Lost Boys skateboarding. I'm looking for other movies that

contain, it's probably going to be 80s 90s, that contain clubhouses where there's skateboarding and arcade machines. And the idea is like this is like the coolest place for these either rebels or bad guys or whatever to hang out. Do you think Richie Rich has that in it?

Just by, you know. I was thinking blank check. Interesting, but is it a clubhouse or is it just the. A room in the mansion. Right. It might be. Blank check's a borderline, yeah. If there's multiple kids in it, I think it counts.

Okay. Richie Rich, doesn't he have something like that? I just said that. Oh, sorry. God, it's like you're not even listening. I think that's how I'm going to put that down, Richie Rich. I think Richie Rich? Doesn't he have something like that? I just said that. Oh, sorry. God, it's like you're not even listening. I think that's what I'm listening to. I think Richie Rich. You've been tuning out this dude?

Much like, I assume, our listeners. Once he makes human child friends, he's like, come over. I've built a room for you. I remember that he has a McDonald's. That's the thing I remember. Oh my god, you have a McDonald's in your house? That's like the whole thing. Which now seems very... Imagine being the

staff member that had to work there at that McDonald's. I mean, on the plus side, it's kind of like when you're like the fire department that's on City Island where it's like, look, there's like three fires a year. I mean, mostly we just kind of like make chili. It's like Barbra Streisand's underground shopping mall.

You know about this, right? I know. Barbara Streisand loves shopping, but she is so famous now that she can't do it anymore. So underneath her home, she has built an underground recreation of a shopping mall with employees where there are many items in multiple sizes and large quantities, and she can pick what she wants to buy. in large quantities and she can pick what she wants to buy. Weird. Well, there's that Michael Jackson thing

where they rented out the grocery store and then hired people to act like other grocers to walk around so that he could have the experience of being in a grocery store.

She just wants to be able to go into her basement. He's normal, right? MJ? Yeah, he's normal. He's dead. Yeah. Is that not normal?

Pretty abnormal. Yeah, right. I don't know. I don't like dead people. She will go into her underground shopping mall and be like, do you have this in gray? And they're like, no, sorry, we're out. And she wants that experience. And then she shakes and her head shakes and the person's eyes start bleeding.

She's like, I said, do you have this in gray? No, but that's the weird thing. Yes, ma'am. It's like Barbra Streisand's version of BDSM. in gray. No, but that's the weird thing. Yes, ma'am. It's like Barbra Streisand's version of BDSM. It's like, rather than just getting all the clothing items she wants, she wants to be able to replicate the experience of

not necessarily being able to find what she wants in her size or her color. Right. I just think that's amazing. I love it. Yeah. I love it. I was looking for a more interesting word, but I ended up on it. Amazing is a good one. Yeah.

Anything else on the old chapters? The last thing is I made a list of, because I wanted to talk NBA with David. Oh, no. Okay. But I knew Griffin wouldn't like it. Yeah. So I made a list of every current NBA player

that has ever been in a movie. Okay. Wow. Not that many. Okay. Uncle Drew. Rajon Rondo was in Just Right. Okay. Wow. Not that many. Okay. Uncle Drew. Rajan Rondo was in Just Right. Okay.

Vince Carter, like Mike. Tony Parker was an asterisk at the Olympic Games. Wow. John Wick 3, Parabellum. Yeah. Boban Marjanovic was in. Blake Griffin was in a bunch of stuff. The female brain being one of them.

Dwight Howard was in Just Right as well. Free Bird, Three Stooges. Aaron Gordon, Uncle Drew, Kyrie Irving, Uncle Drew, LeBron James, Trainwreck, and Kevin Durant in Thunderstruck. And I think that's it for NBA players that have been in movies. It's gotta be more. Current. Current? Current NBA

players. Yeah, because I was gonna say. Currently in the league. Oh, current. Is the dog's name from Air Bud? We should see what his star meter is. Buddy? Did you know IMDb won't let you search by animal? What? Do you think, okay, here's a side, here's a tangent.

First tangent of the episode. First tangent of the episode. Go on. Do you think CGI animals replacing animal actors is good or bad for the industry or for animals at large? I think it's a multifaceted question. I think it's good for animals. I think it's bad for the industry. No, I'm going to say this.

I'm going to correct this. I think it's good for animals. I think it's good for the industry. I think it's bad for the art form. Got it. And ultimately, I think on a humane level, the first two outweigh the third. But I do think movies suffer because of it. Okay. David? Griffin's take suffer because of it. Okay.

David? Griffin's take seems fine to me. I like the good old days. David's, I think, writing an article right now. Yeah, I'm like totally I like the good old days where like a lion could just scalp you on the month. Yes, that's one of the great... Ben, have you seen Roar? No. We saw that together, right? Oh yeah.

Ben, this is your movie. What's it about? Oh my gosh. Okay. Tippi Hedren, this is your movie. What's it about? Oh, my gosh. Okay, Tippi Hedren, star of The Birds. Okay. Okay? Yeah. Fell in love with a man who worked in the peripheries of the entertainment industry but was obsessed with lions.

Oh, I've heard of this. And he was like, we should make a lion movie that really captures the majesty of lions. He had lions living in the house. It was Tippi Hedren, a then-teenage Melanie Griffith, and this man whose name I'm forgetting. I forget what his name is. And they had lions living with them, and they would invite them in and do People magazine photo shoots that were them lounging in the living room with lions

and being like, look, lions are beautiful. We can coexist. And he was like, I want to make a movie about this family living with lions. So he made a very loosely scripted movie in which the three of them play the exact same roles they had within that family that shot within their house, but he brought in a real film crew, and it was

a disaster. It shot for like three years. People were mauled constantly. Jan de Bont, who later became the director of Speed, but before that was like the cinematographer of Die Hard. Like one of the most important people in the last 30 years of action filmmaking. Sure.

That was one of his first films. And he was literally scalped. What? Head off. They reattached it. Sure. Because he went on to make Speed. Yes.

He bit his head. Off. Well, first he just kept it and then sort of shook him around a bit. Wait, was he involved in Face Off? Maybe he got an idea there. No, he was involved in Scalpa. Scalpa. That's the movie

where John Travolta and Nicolas Cage swap haircuts. Guys, I am so out of it. What's wrong? I know about Roar. I don't know. Do we have more to say?

I feel like Totoro is like one of the 10 most important movies ever made and I'm worried we talked about it for about 20 minutes. All right.

I'm like genuinely worried about it. Okay 20 minutes. I'm genuinely worried about it. Okay. In the same way that Totoro is only in 10. I think it's arguably one of the 10 most important films ever made. Make your stump speech then. Even though there are Miyazakis I prefer, it just feels like maybe the most important

animated movie of all time. Make this argument. I believe it is. I don't think there's a movie that's better at capturing being a child. Right? I'm like, when I'm looking at you and staring because I'm processing, I'm like, what would the rivals be to that? I truly...

Little Fugitive, one of my favorite movies of all time. That's sort of up there. Little Vampire. Of course, Little Rascals. Sandlot. Ritchie Ratch. About the joy of being a child Ninja Turtles Jack I would say

Jack of course of course he's young at heart Insomnia of course of course you can't sleep Benjamin Button that one kind of works in a reverse

Honey I Blew Up the Kid right it's very big very big I love that Honey I Shrunk the Kid that Honey I shrunk the kid Honey I shrunk the audience Honey we shrunk ourselves

okay here's I generally believe I mean it's my number three movie of all time sure and it's

I believe the best animated film of all time right and I believe it is the high point for Miyazaki interesting I know there's other people

that love like Mononoke but I truly believe that this is the high point for Miyazaki. I know there's other people that love like Mononoke, but I truly believe that this is the exact combination of his skill as an animator and a visionary and telling a story that is relatable to all of humanity.

You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, I know this is an overall theme for this miniseries, but we haven't covered many directors who have this phenomenon. And I always find this fascinating in any sort of art form, any. I mean, I know this is an overall theme for this miniseries, but we haven't covered many directors who have this phenomenon. And I always find this fascinating. Any sort of art form, any sort of performance, any sort of creative field.

The people who seemingly are like tortured by doing the thing that they're great at. Yeah. Constantly want to leave it behind. And then every time they do realize they know nothing else. Like they seemingly have this relationship where every time they're like, know nothing else. They seemingly have this relationship where every time they're like, I can't do this any longer and then when they're away for a table for a minute, they're like, fuck, something's

calling me back. Yeah, because Miyazaki famously keeps having films that he's like, this is my last one. Sure, done. And then it's like, okay, one more. It seems like it's a very torturous process for him. Well, he did say in this interview, it's his final line in the interview,

I experienced tremendous happiness when I was making this film. So this might have been an outlier for him. Yeah. It's also interesting, something to note about Miyazaki too, is that he has a tenuous relationship with Japan as a country, as his home country.

He's constantly talking about how at certain times in his life, he's like, I hate Japan. I don't like Japan. I'm talking about post-war Japan and having all these feelings about the cinema of post-war Japan. It's very interesting. And so this is a movie where he talks about having,

falling back in love with his home country and where he grew up and that idea of land and home being this thing that's really important to him. So you think of a lot of his other movies, it's a lot about not being home. It's really important. So you think of a lot of his other movies, it's a lot about not being home. It's a lot about being out away from things. And so this one is very about like,

it centers around a home, a place that all feels comfortable and safe. And I think that's also an interesting aspect of it too, because it feels like one of the few times where he reckons with some of those feelings. Here's a Miyazaki phenomenon that I find fascinating that why not talk about it here? Yes.

Because of tensions between China and Japan, and because of China only becoming a real major film market recently, all of his films have been seeing release in China for the first time in wide theatrical releases. They're not re-releases. They're like, finally, the gates are open. And all of them have been doing crazy well. And in fact, Toy Story 4 underperformed in china a country where toy story does not have much of a cultural

legacy and was just fucking whooped by spirited away right which was like top of the box office spirited away a movie that's like 15 years old, was playing like a blockbuster in China. And it's this thing that we've been talking about a little bit in different episodes where it's like for how voracious a film market China has become and for how much American studios are trying to chase China, they have pretty wide and varied tastes. Yes. Like we talked about like Shoplifters and like Capernaum were like huge fucking hits in China. Like there are foreign films

that are being released in China that are difficult arthouse films that are playing like blockbusters. There are old Japanese animated films that are playing like blockbusters. Like they're not just like give us Whizbang, give us franchises. Right, right.

Even though the franchises do well there, there seems to be, like, at the same time that it's, like, exploding as a commercial film market, there is, like, a new appreciation for film as an art form. I wonder if I can follow that. That I'm very jealous of. Well, here's something that ties into that also is I think Totoro is specifically very interesting because I think when people think of especially people that have not seen My Neighbor Totoro like Ben, before you Yeah, we're going to do that box office weekend.

That's more interesting. The Chinese one? Okay. Because it came out like a year ago? Yeah, it was very recent. December 2018. Yeah, wow. Before you saw this movie what did you think it was about? They had mentioned that you could find a magical monster in the woods. Right.

If you left the house one day, you might just be lucky. So all I knew was that there was like a big monster. And I feel like between all- And he was a neighbor. Yeah. Well, I saw that in the title and I was like, okay, so they're friendly monsters. Sure. But through all the merchandising

and all of the depiction of Totoro, because it's become the Mickey Mouse of Studio Ghibli, is I think it gets reduced into being a Mickey Mouse, a Disney kind of thing. Yeah, a mascot. Oh, there's a mascot. It's a fun thing. But I do think this is a film that is beyond that.

And I think that's why, for some people, it's easier to take movies more seriously that are spirited away or other movies where it's like, oh, this is an adult story

told through the lens. For some people, I think it feels like it is a kid's story that is for children. But I would press you to think of it as an age group

that would watch this film and not love it, right? This is a film that I think works for everybody. But I'll say too, I mean, you speaking about sort of like the perception this movie has, I, having seen it as a six-year-old, was like, Todor is like barely in it. It's mostly the kids being sad about their mom, and Todor's only got like a few scenes,

and they're kind of quiet and melancholy. And I in my head was like, I must have been an impatient kid and I'm misremembering. There has to be a lot more Totoro, even if it takes a while for him to come in. But it never does sort of become that E.T. symbiotic, he's the key to the whole movie thing. No, he serves no real

plot function. It's not like at the end they're like, Totoro has the thing that we need to do the thing. Like, you know, the cat bus shows up and takes him around, which is great. And that the biggest conflict in the movie is like, did she run away? Yeah. And I was like, oh, is there now gonna

be some trite thing where like she has to use Totoro to find her sister? But it's so pointedly not that. No. Yeah. And I think that's what I think is important about this movie too, is it is a wildly successful film that is a beautiful film that also touches on all these things that filmmakers talk about believing in but rarely stick to, which is the idea that this is about moments and experiences. This is not a story with villains and bad guys and good guys. Because how do people talk a big game like that, myself included? And then when it comes time, it's like, well, it's like, well, we need a bad guy.

We need a prop. We need a thing. How do we keep the audience engaged? And this is a movie that it flies by and every moment you are engaged, but it's not because you're like, Oh, I agree. This is going to happen.

I, so I, I, I, that's why I think it is one of the most important films. I just think it's fascinating that like 30 years later, that can get a wide release in a new country and people are like yep 100 down and removing the cultural ubiquity of that character as an icon it's not an obvious crowd

pleasing film but then even just sort of reading and this was before miyazaki had like you know sort of had finally developed this reputation in the States when he was still this kind of like secret, like, do you know there's this guy in Japan? Yeah. Fox apparently made $60 million off of the VHS in 1994. Right.

That's insane. Or 95. Like it was like a big fucking success for them. Right. I also, I take kids. Yeah. But I mean,

think about how much kids stuff doesn't work on that level. I understand that was like a VHS boom. Yeah. And I know the moment when the Miyazaki film started coming out on DVD also totally coincided with peak DVD boom. When Disney got the rights, it was like the height of DVD sales. Right. When people were just like, I got this machine. Right.

Let me own these DVDs. But it also was this fascinating thing. How many special features? GKids, who now has all the Ghibli rights. I was talking to the guy who runs it, and he was like, that's the thing that's really fucking saved us and kept our lights on because of the fact

that he doesn't allow them on streaming, that you can't rent them digitally. They perform so much better than most physical media. Like it's like they always had their solid performance chunk and then everything else has gone down in the same way that like Weird Al Yankovic now charts number one, but he's like,

but these are the lowest album sales I've ever had. It's just that my audience has stayed consistent. It's like you can go to any Walmart, any Best Buy, like any super mass retail big box that still has a physical media section. And they will have every Ghibli movie, even if otherwise their selection has become more and more sparse. Right. Because there is this like sense of like these are fucking special and they continue to sell. I would contend that I take a little bit

of umbrage especially in these lists and this and that when people talk about the best films of all time and it's like always like Beauty and the Beast

or whatever like Always Beauty and the Beast? Always. When they talk about animated films it's always these like classic American films and Totoro

and things like that are up there but I believe those films age and I think this is a film that doesn't really age. I think so. I think that's fair about Beauty and the Beast and things like that are up there, but I believe those films age, and I think this is a film that doesn't really age. I think so. I think that's fair about Beauty and the Beast. I mean, we're going to talk about Kiki soon, Griffin,

which is a movie that came out the same year as Little Mermaid, and is like a fascinating... Talk about Kiki next week. Yes, on the Spycast, yes, and is a fascinating comparison to it, and does feel a little more like applicable to now.

Whereas The Little Mermaid, when you watch it, I love that movie, but you're like, Jesus Christ, she never even met the guy and she's fucking selling her voice. There are things where you're like, if I showed this to a kid, I'd maybe want to talk to them about gender roles and things like princesses. There's shit, and I'm sure we will have talked about this in the Lion King

episode sure after we've seen the movie in 4D action but I did I was very much a kid who was like on the Disney tip yes totally bought into the like the sales pitch of the Disney magic

you know like this is Disney's 33rd original completely animated film. Like, I would, like, be, like, selling the line. You weren't just, you didn't just want to see Disney. Yeah. You knew the Disney marketing lingo. Totally. But I have very little nostalgia for any of those movies.

And especially the Renaissance ones, which were coming out at the time that I was that target audience. I would rewatch far less than the early ones. The ones that were more out at the time that I was that target audience, I would re-watch far less than the early ones. The ones that were more sad and more slow. The new ones that came out, I would see them, I would love them, I would freak out, I'd buy the soundtrack, this and that. And then like six months later, they

would fade. And I know I'm in a minority there because most of these have had more stickiness with people. But I did like a re-watch of a bunch of them five or six years ago when netflix briefly had like the majority of the renaissance movies streaming right and the one that i think is my favorite from that renaissance run from like whatever it is 89 to uh you know 99 if you want to say you know right is hunchback of notre Dame, which is simultaneously the one that has aged the best

and aged the worst. Which I haven't seen that one in years. The best stuff in Hunchback is incredible because it has so much fucking integrity and so much commitment to what it's doing. And then the stuff that's like Disney-fied that movie stands out so hard. And there's shit like Jason Alexander

as the wisecracking womanizing gargoyle that could only happen in that one specific year that it came out. And you're just like, this holds up horribly. But Miyazaki movies, Ghibli films don't have that. They don't feel connected to that moment in which they came out in that same sort of way. And they never had the person who was like, can there be a wisecracking gargoyle in Totoro? We need to make it more like this. We need to hire this musician to do this. Can there be a wisecracking gargoyle in Totoro? We need to make it more like this. We need to hire this musician to do this. Can there be a funny dog? We have to update this from what the original story was.

Here's another thing that I think is interesting that also I think taps into some of the like not having anything controversial to say about this movie. Right. And it's changed a little bit in recent years with documentaries, but I don't think Miyazaki is someone that holds the same intrigue or drama or public persona

that a lot of the blank check directors do in the sense that... But I feel like he does now. And that's why I'm saying his personality is becoming more and more out there. But I'm less... Like, you know, when you talk about Tim Burton, it's one thing to be like, oh, and then it's this and he's this and he's making know, when you talk about Tim Burton, it's one thing to be like, oh, and then is this

and he's this and he's making this choice. With Miyazaki, it's sort of, and maybe it's, this may be an American perspective, someone that's just

away from that and does not have exposure to that, but it feels like him as a person feels like less of a presence in the culture outside of his movies

and so the films are able to stand on their own. And so I feel less of a discussion that I need to have where it's like, oh boy, here's this person making this crazy choice. And this is this point in there. But you know what's really interesting about him? He is a mogul within his own film industry, but he's a mogul who is seemingly

uninterested in business and money. Right. Like my dad was talking to this GKids guy while we ran into him at a screening, right? Yeah. My dad knew him. I didn't know him when I was talking to him because I'm a dumb animation nerd,

as David would say. I had all these questions. And my dad was, like, overhearing, and he was like, wait, he doesn't let his movies on streaming? And the guy was like, no. My dad was like, but when's he going to change on that?

Right. And he was like, he's never going to. He's not going to change. I mean, maybe when he dies. And my dad was like, what do you mean? And he was like, the GKids guy was like, he has a modest house.

Right. And he's happy with his life. And he's not the best guy. No, no. This is what I'm saying. He seems like kind of a tough guy. And also this. Not as tough as Takahata, who has the real reputation.

I guess when I was talking about these people who like the thing that they seem so naturally good at seems weirdly torturous for them I find those people also have an arc where it's like when they start out it's pure joy and then every successive time they have to do another project it takes more out of them and the joy diminishes to a weird degree like at first it's like I love this

this makes me so happy like maybe Totoro is the peak of that for him and then it starts to be like more of this weird like Faustian bargain not to make them sound tortured you know right right but that it's like it it becomes less of a um blissful organic expression and more of a sort of like surgery for them to get these things out of their system. And the fact that Miyazaki is like someone who has a complete blank check because it's his studio, because the

films have such catalog value, because they merchandise so well, that he sort of can do whatever he wants. There's no sort of career machinations of I should do this type of movie, now I should do that. Seems to totally follow his muses. I know, which is funny considering that like there's a theme park based basically

on the way he draws the world, right? You know what I mean? There are video games. There's a whole style of thinking. The balance between the ways in which he is really protective of his brand and the ways he isn't. I mean, he's kind of like Jim Henson in that

sense. Because Jim Henson had the same thing where he was like, look, there's gonna be't. I mean, he's kind of like Jim Henson in that sense. Because Jim Henson had the same thing where he was like, look, there's going to be merchandise. I have to do it. It's a necessary evil. Sure, he wasn't going to be holy about it because, like, yeah. But he talks a lot about, like, his, like, frustration with it, and then he was like, look, well, if I don't make it, someone else is going to make it.

And if making it is a way to, like, you know, endear, like, strengthen the relationship between the children and these characters then I just want to make sure that the merchandise is good and curated. I want to be high quality and I don't want to be exploitative and like stuff like that right.

It feels like Miyazaki's got that sort of relationship where it's also like this is what keeps the lights on. If I sell enough Totoro plushes and continue to sell them for 15 years I can make these other movies and I can let other people make these movies and this and that. Yeah. You need to read more about it,

about, yeah, how it all works. Very early on when we met. Yes. As friends. Yeah. We were talking about this movie. Back in the TCGS days. Exactly.

Like at a Lincoln Park, the bar named after the band. We were walking to Lincoln Park. We would always go after the show. And I said to you, you know, the thing that I love the most about Totoro, and you said, David, I don't know what you're going to say, but I do know that this is why we're becoming such good friends.

Like, you said something like, do you remember this? Do you remember what I'm talking about? No, I don't remember at all. You were like, I don't know what you're going to say, but I'm excited about the way that you asked that question, and I feel like it suggests, you know, great things ahead for us. I love that. You and I had that moment early on know great things ahead for us I love that you and I had that moment early on we were like we both

think that Jim Henson is one of the 10 most important artists who's ever yeah and you were like oh this isn't someone who likes the Muppets this is someone who is like has specific things yeah say about right you realize that right it's that way it's not like yeah it's cute and Ben and I were like he's good

Ernest is one of the greatest comedians of modern history. I'm like, the pen. That's one of the great. Ben is found as some sort of Totoro beanbag plushie. What is it? Is that full size though? Oh, but he's got the little lotus leaf. There's the Totoro beds.

Oh, man. Full size beds. David, I found a really good piece of Ghibli merchandise for you that you're going to get later in this miniseries. It's a little thing, and I think you're going to love it. It's not going to be a cumbersome, burdensome where do I put this thing. The other thing, Joanna also adores

these movies. I'll tell you. Which soda it is? I don't want to spoil it. I'll tell you off mic. Joanna also adores these movies, so I feel like it'd be less of an, like, it's less of a thing where, like, basically every day Joanna's like, when can we get rid of the forky mask? Like, you know, like, he's asking me that.

Well, of course, he's competition. Exactly. He's just setting you up for that. Yeah. All right. But, no, but also, I was going to say, I saw this thing out in the wild. I walked into a store and saw this. Oh, you saw the item.

And I went, holy shit. Would David like it if I got this for him? And then I saw an element of the item I didn't notice at first. And I went, I will be a bad friend if I don't get this for David. So you have it, you're saying, but it hasn't appeared. You have the item, but you haven't produced it yet. I haven't produced it. Griffin also got me a birthday present,

and it was the Worm from Labyrinth. One-to-one scale. Very nice. It's a highly detailed model. It's got hair, real hair. It's not the plush one, which I have two of those. Yeah, no, but it's like a polystone kind of. So anyway, the thing I was going to say to you at Lincoln Park

was that the whole thing is, I feel like, at a five-year-old's eye level, not only story-wise but visual-wise. But I feel like we've said that. But that was my big insight. As we were walking to a bar on a Tuesday night at midnight. It's hard when a movie is Wednesday night. Tuesday was trivia.

That was back when our weekend was Tuesday-Wednesday. Remember we used to say that? Yes. Like Tuesday was trivia, Wednesday was Gethard Show. It's also crazy that Gethard Show and Videology both sort of disappeared the same. Yeah, it's true.

Those were my 20s. My 20s were those two things. The friendships connected to those two things. Those trivia nights were so fun. They were great. Here's the box office game from China. I'm gonna say this because I want to hold ourselves to it I think we gotta

organize a trivia night I know we've talked about before we were gonna do one at Videology right before it closed I think we just need to like fucking do it

we can do it at Nighthawk maybe I think we've discussed that maybe yep blank check fans come out that's the idea yeah of course

right do a fun one we run it your friends come fun one fun one that we run a fun run Alex can do a guest round.

JD can do a guest round. Yeah. I know my guest round will be about. We can't commit to a weekly thing but I'd like to be like every couple of months we might do a little trivia.

We do it. See how it goes. Yeah. Number one at the Chinese box office December 14th 2018. I think it might be the biggest hit of the year.

Biggest non-Chinese hit of the year. 2014? 18 so it's an American film 2018 was it the number one American film at the box office did it over perform in China Avengers no so it's not Infinity War

and it's not Black Panther it's not a Marvel is it a Disney no it's not a Disney it's going to be. It's not Fate of the Furious. No. It is good.

It's a good movie? Yeah. Really? Yeah. You said it was such satisfaction. Is it Aquaman? Aquaman was the number one. Okay.

I was just like, that movie did so insanely well in China. Of course. Is that arguably China's biggest domestic American hit of the year? Let's find out. I still feel like the biggest American film in China is Fate of the Furious. No, but in 2018, I mean. I don't mean all time. I know, I know.

But Infinity War was actually slightly more. Aquaman was the second biggest American movie. But yeah, Aquaman. We both said this when we saw it. We were like, I don't know if this is going to do well here. It's going to do great in China. I was surprised by how well it did here. It did well everywhere.

$1.1 billion, the highest grossing DC movie of all time. Wow. I believe. Yeah. Like, right? With a bullet? When we did our Aquaman episode, we completely flipped the actual outcome in our predictions for that versus Mary Poppins. Yes, exactly.

Maddie Poppins. She returned. God, that Rob Marshall, he must be so pleasant to work for because people sure like doing it. Have you guys ever been to England? What? Number two is my neighbor Totoro. Yeah, get out of here Ben he's gotta go get the mail

a bunch of soda cans already came in number three is a Indian film so there's a lot of crossover there with Bollywood yeah

inspired by the life of a famous social entrepreneur a social entrepreneur I don't know what I mean I'm just like why would you know this movie it's called

Padman oh I knew that but then the other two you'll know this movie? It's called Padman. Oh, I knew that. But then the other two you'll know. Number four, animated film. I think Griffin refused to see it. He has various hang-ups about it. Frozen 2. No, Frozen 2 hasn't even come out yet.

It might have come out earlier in China. Real early. An adaptation. Nutcracker and the Four Realms. No, but Christmassy. Oh, oh, oh. I think you're talking about me, the Grinch. This is what the Grinch sounds like when voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch.

Why are you so mad about it? Why would you hire Benedict Cumberbatch? You ever heard him trying to say penguin? Yeah, it sounds like how the Grinch would say penguin. Have you ever heard this? Hey, did you audition for this? Is this what's going on here? No, what angers me is that they paid him probably two million dollars to

seemingly do an impression of me when I don't want the Grinch to sound like me. So you're mad that the Grinch sounded like you? Yeah, he's like, I don't know. I hate Christmas. Have you seen it? Benedict Cumberbatch could have been the Grinch. Have you're mad that the Grinch sounded like you? Yeah, he's like, I don't know. I hate Christmas. Benedict Cumberbatch could have been the Grinch. Have you seen it? No, I refuse to see it. The Grinch.

The Grinch. No, I don't. I have no interest in the Grinch. Alright, fine. Fair enough. I'm sure it's great. No one's seen the Grinch. J.D. is kind of the Grinch of Grinch movies, clearly. I'm the Grinch Grinch. The other movie in the top ten is it's an American movie i believe it had an indian director was kind of a sleeper hit of 2018 like a small movie uh very small scale i saw this movie just

on a whim with emma stefanski and she can testify that i like spent the whole time just like squirming and shrieking in my seat. Oh, oh, oh, oh. I know exactly what this is from your experience. Fair enough. This is the film Searching. Yes. I mean, I gave myself 40x watching that movie.

Yeah. That movie rules. That movie's really good. I'm actually, I'm still jealous of you for putting John Cho in your best actor ballot. Hell yeah. Incredible performance. Yeah. Very, very demanding performance. That guy's so good. He is so good. Incredible performance. Very, very demanding.

That guy's so good. He is so good. Have you seen Searching? No. It's the movie that plays out entirely on a desktop screen. Oh, I've heard of this. It's great. You'd like it. It's very inventive. It's fun. Some people don't like the twist. I think the twist is great. I didn't see the twist coming. I think it's pulpy. I think it's

really well made. I think Jon Show is like he's one of those guys who can do anything. I agree. Any genre, any size role. Did you guys know the sequel to Agent Cody Banks is Agent Cody Banks 2 Destination London? Yes, we knew that. Wait, how did you know that?

Well, I once pulled a Cody Banks of my own and made my Destination London. What? Dis-pling-zing? You already forgot? Dis-pling-zing? Dis-pling-zing What? Displing-zing? You already forgot? Displing-zing? Displing-zing? Displing-zing?

Islington. Displing-zing? Displing-zing? Displing-zing? Displing-zing? God. Displing-zing? We're playing the Chinese box office game right now

for a Japanese movie. You can't get mad at me after the shit you pulled on this episode. You maniac. Give me that piece of paper. Give it to me now. Okay. God. You're like, I love Totoro, the greatest animated movie of all time.

Great. Now let's talk about the NBA. The other thing you said was cancel all of your plans. Yeah, you did. You said you were going to get his homework, and he never did. I didn't. I had a crazy week. Fair enough.

What was the homework going to be? It was just going to be some discussion topics, some of this stuff. We got the most of it. Can I just say, just because I got to say it, and I can't talk about what it was, but I found out right before I came to record here that I didn't get a job that I thought I was going to get that would have had me in London

for two and a half months. And the bit potential... The bit potential was like half the reason you wanted this job. It's so incredible. And I'm just sitting here and this has been a nice episode and I love being here with some of my best friends. You're folding up all these bits and putting them in a suitcase.

I am! I started sort of like planning. Sorry, go on. No, I just thought it was going to be so there was so much potential. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you didn't get the gig. You guys have to do a live show in London. Do we? Yes. Alright. So you can see it for the first time.

And you can go watch a movie on the wrong side of the road. David just threw a bag of subject against the wall, picked it up, and threw it against the other wall. Crazy! Can't believe we're doing two of these tomorrow! And then you can do a segment called Big Ben, Little Ben. Where Ben stands outside Big Ben.

Right, because we were panicked about him getting this job, we scheduled a shit ton of recordings which is great we're literally recording 8 episodes within 6 days obviously this is an exclusive to the London job that I didn't get if I get any job that takes me away for a little while

this is possible but just because it seemed kind of immediate like it was going to happen I was really excited to be able to experiment with shifting from Ding Dong to Ring Rings. Do you want another ad to put in there? Ding Dong. Ring Ring.

Hi, it's me, Mickey Mouse. No! If you come to Disney and say blankies, we'll let you piss in Pirates of the Caribbean. Mickey, it sounds like you've been hanging out with Ronald McDonald a lot. You got a similar energy going on. Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm JD.

I have to leave the room. Hey, kids, it's me, Ronald McDonald. Hey, it's me, Mickey Mouse. David's waving us off. Okay. David's taking out a big vaudeville cane and he's pulling David's doing

a sandman routine and showtime at the Apollo style and we're back top ten did you do the whole spiel at the end no I'm gonna do it now

okay good I've been J.D. Amato this has been a 30 minute episode about Miami Totoro cause Ben had to cut everything. Keep the meat. The meat is like one little sliver,

one slice of ham. Yeah, it's like when people have those sandwiches from like whatever, what's the place where you get sandwiches? Subway? Yeah, no. The place where, never mind.

I'm taking too much time describing this. Pass. Next. Pret? Pret. Never mind. I'm done. I love Totoro.

Blanket. Thank it. Guys, end it. You end it. It's your podcast. He ends it. I'm a guest on this podcast. Stop yelling at me.

I'm waiting for you to give me a window, David. You want to stop talking. I'm a guest on this podcast. Stop yelling at me. I'm waiting for you to give me a window, David. You won't stop talking. I'm just like, end it, end it. I can't end it. If you keep on saying end it. Displink zing. Displink zing. I'm going to the bathroom.

No, stay. David. What's your social media? David, I'll say that. On what? Twitter. And? What. And? What about Instagram?

You can't follow me on Instagram unless I know you. It's locked. Yeah. That's why your follower counts very low. That's how I want. I used to have a lot

and Joanna one day was like, can people see these pictures? And I was like, yeah. And she was like, no. And I agreed with her. And email him some cans.

Yeah, you gotta email David some cans. And don't gotta email David some cans. And don't email them. Mail, mail, mail them. Mail, mail, mail them. Ben, you're the producer here. I'm a guest.

If you wrap this up, we can watch the Top Gun Maverick trailer. We're trying to wrap it up. JD's begging for us to wrap it up. The Top Gun Maverick trailer. I can't do it if you're talking about this trailer. Someone kill me. You gotta give me a chance talking about this trailer. Someone kill me. You gotta give me a chance to end the episode.

Someone end this. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thanks to Antrigua for our social media. Oh, let me see who this is. Kreek. Oh my god, it's Joe Bone and Pat Reynolds for our artwork.

Ding dong. Who's this? Kreek. It's Blinkies. Ding dong. Who's this? Creak. It's blinkies.reddit.com for some real nerdy shit. Ring ring. Let me pick this up. Who is it? Oh my God, it's TeePublic for some real nerdy shirts. Ding ding ding.

Let me check the telegraph here. Oh, it's Patreon where we're still doing Marvel commentaries, because that shit never ends. Tune in next week for Kiki's Delivery Service with the great Caroline Framke. Right. Framke's back, baby. Framke's back, and she's here to talk deliveries. Jesus Christ, calm down. And as always...

I love Totoro. Totoro. What up, Haas? It's J.D. Amato. I told you to call me before you watched Totoro, and I was on a call, so I missed your call. And I just want to say this, if we don't talk before you watch it.

I believe this is perhaps the best animated film of all time. It taps into a imaginative and simple and beautiful encapsulation of childhood that I think is lost in most modern media. So when you watch this movie tonight, I want you to do whatever you can do to make yourself comfortable, nostalgic, and transport yourself back to what it was like to be a kid and the thoughts and feelings and fears and ideas that you had as a kid. And go into this movie just attaching to that identity of your childhood self and letting that little kid come out.

Because I think this movie really features things that make you feel like a kid and think like a kid and depicts moments and truth and honesty from the eyes of a child in a way that I think is absolutely brilliant. So if you've got some real nostalgic weed that you have to smoke or some nostalgic edibles, hit those up. You need to watch it alone in your bed, in your PJs. Do that. Subs or dubs, whatever you want, Ben. I just think this movie is so delicate and beautiful,

and I can't wait for you to watch it, and I can't wait to talk about it tomorrow. I hope you have a good day, and I will talk to you soon. Goodbye.