Blank Check with Griffin & David - Oz the Great and Powerful with Dana Schwartz

Episode Date: June 19, 2022

Ah, yes - we’ve arrived at the reason why we held off on covering Sam Raimi for so long…because we didn’t want to end our series on such a dismal note! “Oz the Great and Powerful” - Raimi’s last feature until the recent “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” - features James Franco in a performance that guest Dana Schwartz (“Noble Blood”) characterizes as “having the energy of a hot boy in a school play who’s laughing with his friends in the front row.” It doesn’t have the tactile, zippy cinematic language of Raimi’s best work, instead opting for the popular hyper-saturated, entirely digital look of Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” (a clear influence). But it *does* have a little girl made of porcelain who almost made Ben cry. Topics discussed include our desire for a Mila Kunissance, Zach Braff being the surprise MVP in this movie, whether “Tinkers” are a specific ethnicity or a class or workers, and the Disney IP lawyers who had to be on set making sure nothing infringed on MGM’s copyright of the classic Oz visuals. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

I'm many things but a good podcast is not one of them. But you could be if you wanted to. That's just it. I don't want to. See, Kansas is full of good podcasts, church-going podcasts that get married and raise family. Podcasts like John Gale, podcasts like my father, who spent his whole life trilling the dirt just to die face down in it. I don't want that, Annie. I don't want to be a good podcast. I want to be a great one.

Trilling the dirt? See, you already messed up in your impression of James Franco in this movie by giving us even a little bit of energy. I know. I was trying to pull it back as much as possible. Yeah, you were giving me City by the Sea James Franco, and I need Oscars 2011 James Franco. Do you want an astounding fact?

I do. I do want that. He was paid $7 million for his performance in this film. Now, I don't find that astounding relative to where he was in his career at the time, because this was peak James Franco fame, arguably, and this is the moment that tests his box office drawing power. But it is arguably the peak of his fame. The only argument I have against it being the peak of his fame is that he's already hosted the Oscars. Right. And that is where people are like, hmm, are we sick of this guy? Did you see the thing? He hosts the Oscars like a week before they closed the deal on this.

That makes sense. And there was the thing where it was like they asked Disney, like, are you having any trepidations? And they're like, no, we believe he is a leading man capable of holding his own within a $200 million temple. Next to an attractive female actress trying her best. Right. The problem with the Oscars was he only had one theatery actress next to him. What if we give him three? My point is just, I believe that they would pay him $7 million. I cannot believe he would give this performance and go, yep, feels about right, and deposit that check. thank you um well you know the problem is that he was in one two three four five six seven eight nine movies in 2013 maybe that's why he looks so tired well david also he was uh what he was enrolled full-time in two colleges teaching classes at a different three he was wait he

was technically the president of the maldives i'm seeing here the man kept taking job he wrote 1046 poetry chap books oh he was astral projecting into the body of william faulkner that that took up a lot of time he was texting with 18 of his students well yeah no it's true. This is the other thing. When you hear these, like, Franco sex stories, you're like, where does he have the fucking time to be a pervert, a creep, on top of everything else? Look, James Franco... I was going to say this on a previous episode, Griff, probably a Spider-Man episode.

So the peak of his talent to me is 2008, post-Spider-Man 3 3 and he has pineapple express and milk in the same year yeah and you're kind of like wow this guy can give this like incredibly textured sensitive performance and he can give this like kind of unusual goofy performance and both of them really work okay when you said unusually uh uh textured uh sensitive the height of his powers has to be 2010 in 127 hours when they're like one guy on screen for the whole movie that's the thing that might be the height of his stardom right because that's also the year he gets the oscar gig i know he it's early 2011 right but but this is the problem it's like that movie bombs at the box office, but he totally-

127 hours. Well, yeah, because no one wants to see that shit. Of course. As my mom has joked multiple times, felt like real time.

Oh, boy. More like the weeks. That funny thing with that movie where they started leaning into the fact that people were like fainting at press screenings

and they like Fox Searchlight was making t-shirts that was like i survived 127 hours and promoting like william castle style how many faintings there were toronto and then it completely backfired everyone's like yeah i don't want to watch this it sounds stressful right and it's actually not quite as bad as that sounds like uh it's a pretty good movie it is talk about it one day on this podcast right but they like oversold the intensity of it yeah and it didn't do well but it did get oscar nominated gets him the oscar nomination totally proves himself as a leading man like that's his best performance probably and then the night when he's supposed to be sort of like relishing in i'm an oscar nominated actor he's fucking bombing the job of hosting the show.

It feels like that night in a microcosm is the moment he kind of loses it. Yeah, but then he has Spring Breakers a year later. I always forget about Spring Breakers. That's his best performance. And he's like, wait, I'm not a leading man. I'm a character actor. And we're like, wait, yes.

Yes, you are. And then he's back to Oz, and we're like no no no and he's like sorry now i suck forever he has a handful of performances that i like so much and then when i feast or famine i keep saying it but when i did when i dislike him it makes me like angry not only is he terrible but i get irate and when he's bad and something like this you go like yeah no shit you're bad you were doing fucking 87 things at the same time and then doing some interview about how

like the fact that you were in Oz was some meta commentary on movie stardom or whatever shut the fuck up go to sleep wake up do one job go back to sleep there's a look Griff there's just a whole generation and our guests can weigh in on

this as well of actors like him shia labeouf you know who there's a there's another obvious one that's not occurring to me right now who like you know started out in the hollywood machine started on television maybe and as they drifted further and further into like madness they started being like yeah everything i'm doing is actually kind of an art project commentary on startup and i'm like no i think you just do too many drugs and or are insane or whatever or just like you have a job go just do your job right and and like we all with franco it was the kind of thing where i'm like man i had money on you i saw you in freaks and geeks yeah when i was 13 years old and i bought property on franco island and it keeps getting hit with tsunamis but then like gold will rain from the sky one summer

but then there's a fucking tornado like i had a tornado in Kansas. More like this movie. I also have to say in light of like the allegations that he was like, I don't know like the details, but I do know like the rumors where he was like skeezy with his students when he was a professor. And in light of that, the opening scene of him manipulating female employees so he could have sex with her is disastrous.

It is. Why can't he be charming? Why is he incapable of being charming in this role? It is so strange. It is so fucking strange how bad he is. We got to reset. Introduce the podcast. Franco's made us too mad already.

You cannot help but be enraged while watching this movie. And he's not the only problem, obviously. But you do feel like if someone was giving a performance in the center role who was at least engaging, the movie would be passable entertainment. It would be passable, uninspired entertainment. No, I actually can't agree with that. This movie is terrible. It would be better. We'll talk about it.

It would be better. I don't think it's a good movie. Make it clear. I don't agree with that. This movie is terrible, but it would be better. We'll talk about it. It would be better. I don't think it's a good movie. Make it clear. I don't think it's a good movie, but this is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin, the great and powerful. I'm David, the porcelain man. The China girl.

Top of the lake. China girl. You know, catch me top of the lake, running away from flying beasts. What if Jane Campion announced, I'm doing a third season. It's Top of the Lake colon China Girl 2. And this time it's about the China Girl played by Joey King and Oz the Great and Powerful. I would do everything in my power to get in contact with her personally to tell her not to do that.

I would pull every connection I have being like, can I just get on the phone with her for 10 minutes? Why is she doing this? Producer Ben. Rude. China girl, innocent. Don't come for her. She's sweet.

I'm not, I'm not coming for her. She's delicate. Don't come. We got to get glued back together. That's fine. That's fine. I like the Ben likes the China girl. She got me together. That's fine. That's fine. I like that Ben likes the China girl.

She got me good. She's delicate. Has anything ever been less surprising than Ben liking a delicate little thing that people are nice to? I was a little surprised. Yeah, no, she's a sweetie. We'll talk about her more in the podcast.

She's a little porcelain sweetie. This is a podcast about filmographies. Directors who experience a series of massive success early on in their career and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they follow the yellow brick road by bouncing. They bounce on the yellow brick road. I don't know, baby.

Listen, it's a miniseries on the films of Sam Raimi. It's called Podcast Me to Hell. It's not called Pod the Cast and Powerful. No. Not bad. Yeah. The only reason we didn't do that is because no one's ever heard of this movie. Absolutely.

There are. They'd be like, what's that in reference to? This is a fundamental example of a movie that doesn't exist. I feel like sometimes people try to like throw out like, oh, an obscure film and act like it's a movie that doesn't exist i feel like sometimes people try to like throw out like oh an obscure film and act like it's a movie that doesn't exist i'm like no it has to be something like this that made 200 million dollars domestically the paradox i could be in like the home of a powerful disney executive who worked on this movie right who who the money from this successful film paid for the house right and be like remember i was the great and powerful they'd be like huh yes what are you talking about and i'd be like you know the movie it's a wizard of oz prequel you produced it your name is sam ramey you directed it you'd be like i don't think i did

anything like that that sounds very silly i wouldn't do that what are you talking about james franco millicutis get out of here zach braff no no no that didn't happen no no come on shut up every element of this people would say that happened, I would have remembered it. That's a movie that doesn't exist. That sounds crazy. I definitely know about that. Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay, a bear wrote the screenplay.

Now I know you're pulling my leg. It's Oz the Great and Powerful. And joining us again, returning to the show from the podcast, Noble Blood, Anatomy, a love story, Dana Schwartz. Thank you for having me dana i'm realizing this is the second movie that doesn't exist in a row for you and second which movie that doesn't exist and second like a piece of ip that shouldn't be adapted right that's that's

the thing they're both even though they're very different films they both have that energy of like surely we can cram this into a box that people will want to open, right? Like, come on. Kids like this. Dana, actually tell me what your fiance said. You have to repeat it. You told me what your fiance said

while you were watching this. Yeah, so I was throwing this movie on and my fiance doesn't like horror movies and doesn't watch superhero movies, so has no connection to Sam Raimi at all. Dana, by the way, you've been texting me that this miniseries is what got you to watch the Evil Dead movies for the first time. You never watched any of them because you don't love horror films either. And so you're really kind of like discovering Raimi on a new level recently. No, the the weird thing is I like horror movies. Like as an adult,

I watch horror movies. It was like, no, no. It was like when I was a kid, like I was born in 1993 and I felt too young and it felt like all like the cool older kids had this like scary, you know, I remember the VHS Evil Dead box. And just as a child at my video rental store, I clocked in like, that's not for me. And then. Scary. Sorry. Your text was that you had never seen it because you liked horror movies, but that looked too scary. Yeah.

I just remember like I had it in my head that like, oh, this is something like real fucked up. Like this isn't even a horror movie. This is just real scary. And so I was like, all right, well, that's not for me. And then it took sort of like listening to the, these episodes to be like, no, I'm going to watch it. And they're great. It helps that my non horror watching fiance has been like, you know, on shoots for work. And so like whenever I'm home alone, I just like throw on the next Raimi movie. It's been a, a wonderful experience and a great education. Okay. But what, what did he say about oz the great and powerful so if you could believe it he did not want to watch this movie and uh i had it on and he was like sort of half cooking half watching and about half an hour in he was like this is not a

good movie and i was like no it's not and 40 minutes in he wait, is this a movie for kids? And I was like, great question. I don't know. Sort of. It's certainly intended that way. Right, Griffin? It's a PG film. Yes.

From the Walt Disney Corporation. Yeah. Would kids like this? I don't think so. I think people who are on drugs would like this. I don't think so. I think people who are on drugs would like this. I don't know, Ben. Don't you think this would fucking bum you out if you were on drugs?

Yeah, it might be a little too flat and boring. Well, Ben, if you're on drugs so powerful that you're just watching a different movie when this is on or whatever, then that's fine. Right, that's what i'm saying then you would really enjoy it right the one thing i feel like have watching a bunch of sam raimi movies in pretty quick succession is like this is a guy who is tight like he is in and out minimal exposition sets up things the way we need and it's like this movie is all bloat. It's it's yes, it is truly all bloat.

It's funny. I in my mind's eye, I saw this in theaters when it came out in 3D or 2D in 3D. And by the way, Dana, I rewatched it in 3D on my 3D television at home. I bought this movie on 3D Blu-ray, something David said would put me on a watch list. Yes, exactly. That's like a whatever, a siren goes off. Like there's only 10 of those in the world. Yeah.

Also, this was like the moment when all the studios realized the 3D TV thing wasn't going to work. So they started pulling back Disney up until that point when they released movies on 3D would do a combo back where it was like every format of the movie in one box for Oz, the great and powerful. It's just one disc with no special features. That's just the movie on 3d.

And they're like, take this. You fucking pigs. Yeah. You want, you want this fun. Assume you have a humiliation fetish. If you're buying it,

we're not making an effort. No, no. There's like a blu-ray DVD, digital're not making an effort no no there's like a blu-ray dvd digital copy comic pack and then there's just some fucking dirty disgusting illicit 3d disc that they throw at you chuck at your head um this movie was shot in 3d i mean you can tell like there are moments where you fully expect him to like pull out like a paddle and like the ball to be at that like the 3D is like very obvious.

And I will say, I do think it works well. It obviously does not save the movie. But I was as an experiment watching some of this movie last night in 2D and then woke up and put this on in 3D. And it does make a humongous difference in that it gives you anything compelling happening on screen. Like it's the one place where I do sort of feel the Raimi in that he seems a little charged by the idea of what he can do in 3D.

But otherwise, it is like... An obvious analog for this movie is Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which is, inarguably, a worse film. A worse and more successful film, and I assume a film whose success prompted the production of this movie. Directly. This movie is such a shadow of that in so many ways. But I find it fascinating that, like, that's a worse film.

I think you and I both agree that that's maybe the worst movie we've ever covered on the podcast. That's the thing. That is not to say that Oz is at all good. I don't really think it is although in the first 15 minutes I was like is everyone wrong about this movie which you might agree I think the first 20 minutes are good which speaks to how catastrophically it falls off a cliff the moment he gets to Oz that the fact that your fiance Dana 30 minutes in was like this is bad because he had just seen everything good this movie had to share yeah and then it it's not good. I was trying to,

my notes, I'm like, it's so condescending. I'm like, this is good. My notes are sad. Oh, they're trying. Yes, but Alice is worse. Alice is more grating. Alice is, yeah, it is.

My point is that Alice feels like a terrible, horrendous Tim Burton movie. Like as much as it is a nightmare and a disaster, you're like, this is absolutely Tim Burton fucking up out of control. And it is a bummer watching this and just how fucking journeyman like it feels in most regards. We're going to talk about Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness next week. And that is a film that is a lot better

than this film, in my opinion. But beyond that, you know, I've seen some takes out there that are basically like, you know,

Sam's trying, but he can barely make himself, you know, visible in that thing. And I'm like, go watch Oz the Great and Powerful. That is Sam Raimi

being drowned out entirely. Like powerful that is sam raimi being drowned out entirely like that is what you are talking about then watch dr strange and then go eat a sandwich or take a walk around the block or just don't speak to me you know i'd prefer that you just don't speak to me whoever and the tragedy of this movie is he's being drowned out by nothing like it's white noise on the screen. There is nothing in this movie. There's not a competing interest that you're like, oh, I can identify what's going on here. It's more just like, bleh.

Is that noise a good riff? Do you like that noise? Yeah, that's a great noise. This thing. I mean, the most interesting thing about this movie is just the development process and the weird history of Disney trying to make an Oz film. No, it's the lore

of the witches, the various witches of Oz. The consistent rules of magic. Yes, yes, exactly. It is bizarre how much Oz there is that is untapped and unadapted

and every time someone tries to come back to it, they essentially don't really use the books well Griffin we are getting two wicked movies this is true well that's and Dana and I talked about that too yes that may maybe there will be a bit of an Oz boom

but you know we always are this is the thing though I feel like people are always saying that yeah in probably development meetings and such they're having great ideas like we should split Wicked into two. And they're not ringing David Sims on the phone, which every studio executive should do anytime they do anything. And saying like, do you think Wicked should be two movies? And I would be like, no, absolutely not.

One movie. But David, in their defense, your pitch would be I think Wicked should be 40 Quibbies. Of course. Num, num, num, num, num. In their defense, your pitch would be, I think Wicked should be 40 Quibbies. Of course. Num, num, num, num, num. We taking bites. I like Wicked as a musical because I was a preteen girl when it came out. So I'm a musical theater girl. I will say my theory with Oz is it's kind of like Arthurian legend where I think studio executives think people like the world because we've heard of it more than they do.

Yeah. Right. The same way every 10 years is a King Arthur movie. People are like, Lancelot's back. And everyone's like, we don't. Come on. We've heard of King Arthur, but we have no emotional connection to that world. And that's, I think, kind of how Oz is.

It's just odd for how much everyone's obsessed with mythology and lore and franchise now that there's like fucking 20 of these books that go in so many different directions. And everyone is just like there's gold in those hills. Every 10 years, there's some new sort of feeding frenzy. And Wicked's like kind of the only one to work. But still, everyone seems to be so focused on the same four or five things. Right. Because they want to inform, they want what they're doing to tie into the very famous children's film that everyone on Earth has seen. Right.

And they're afraid if they tap the sequels that they'll have a situation on their hands where people will be like, where's the Wicked Witch? Where's Dorothy? It's Return to Oz. It'll be a Return to Oz situation. A fucking great movie that terrified people and that lost a continent's worth of money. Yeah. Continent's worth. To speak to Wicked for a second, Dana, you may or may not agree of money. Yeah. Continent's worth. To speak to Wicked for a second,

Dana, you may or may not agree with me. Yeah. I can see the mistake they're making in my opinion. Maybe they'll prove me wrong. Like, I'm willing for John True

to prove me wrong. He's a good director. But like, one assumes if you're splitting Wicked into two parts, then part one ends with Defying Gravity, right? Like, it will be act one of the play

and so part one is them at wizard school or which you know like wizard college yeah and it ends with this like absolute slam dunk number i can see them being like damn part one is just gonna own and then part two is a lot of fucking nonsense yeah it's like it's like fiddler on the roof like the second act there are no good songs in it right there's no good songs in the second act of wicked don't don't tell me other way well it's no no good deed there's one good song maybe for good it's like it's a it's a downer like you need the first act to to balance you need popular to balance out no good deed i agree so i just feel like people are not going to be happy about Wicked 2,

but maybe they're just sort of like, well, who cares? We already got their money. Here's where I will say, I mean, again, I haven't read Wicked since I was a preteen, and I haven't seen Wicked since I was a preteen, when I was like, great, I love it. It's my memory, at least with the book, that there is a world that they build.

The book rules, my. Yeah. Yeah. Have you read the book, Griffin? I have not. But there are sequels to the book, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Does it not feel like the smarter thing to do is just make this movie as well as you can?

And if it's successful, then you can write original musicals based on the other books. I understand them wanting this to be a franchise, but doing this as a two-parter is insane. Yes. I mean, the Wicked thing was like so hyped up, so expensive. It was like out of town tryouts where people were like, this is a disaster bomb incoming with all this high tier talent. Everyone was like, the show is a fucking like embarrassment. And then they sort of like salvaged it just in

time that critics were like eh it's functional but we still think it's gonna lose a lot of money and then it blew up then it was a huge hit although it did lose to avenue q yes but i remember seeing it and going like yeah this thing basically works like barely by the skin of its teeth the things it latches on onto are strong enough to carry you through a lot of shoe leather. No one mourns the Wicked. A lot of sweaty mythology that I don't really care about. Why would they even need to split it into two parts

when they can just cut the goat, they can cut something bad and then we're already under two and a half hours. There's like 30 minutes you can cut from that show. There's a lot of fat on Wicked. And even though it does cut a lot of good stuff out of the book, but whatever.

The book, the Gregory Maguire book. But we're not talking Wicked. No, but that's another thing that absolutely, like, I think pushes this movie to the front of Disney's interest. Yes.

But I also would argue that that's the tragic mistake of this movie is like wicked was such a cultural phenomenon where even people who haven't seen it have heard the songs and are familiar with it and like we don't want another wicked witch origin story no no that that's maybe the single biggest mistake this movie makes is that okay well as a counter what if the origin was really clear and well well made sense and the magic was yeah yeah and it's like a real two-hour arc not like she randomly eats an apple because someone tells her to so i just cannot believe it's like fucking like

jilted scorned woman shit you cannot believe that's the take this movie has is he spends a day with her, she has a crush on him, then he likes her sister more so she turns into an evil witch. And like he barely likes, it's like he shows the same amount of interest to every pretty woman.

Every pretty woman, there's a shot of him being like seemingly attracted to her and it's the same. This is what I'm saying. Franco's inability to even conjure up sexual tension with any of the three women in this movie.

Very beautiful women. Yes. Very beautiful and charming women. You're right. But he has more tension with Zach Braff. Far more, in fact. Finley the monk. Well, no, no. Actually, real Zach Braff at the start of the movie but sure yeah yeah braff's got some fucking life in this thing i i agree i braff's braff mvp

it's insane but that is my exact opinion it was my opinion when i saw this movie in theaters and i was like nine years ago you've matured since then you're just not gonna still think braff is mvp i'm watching i'm like i think i think braff is the one guy who's who's in the right pitch for this movie i think zach braff i think rachel vice gets closest in terms of tone because she's the the most she's like i'm a cartoon great right she's she knows what to do yeah like yes yes i would say and then the the best performance for me, I think it's Ted Raimi who shouts, that's a wire. He has a wire. And that nails it.

He's great. Nails it. Yeah. I mean, Ted always bats cleanup in a Sam Raimi movie. He always, you know, is given the perfect thing to do. And he knocks it out of the park. You know, we have a saying in our family. Use sports.

Don't let sports use you. Hi, it's Jeff Merrick from 32 Thoughts to Podcast. Are you a sports parent, rep sports, travel sports, whatever you call it? If you're like me, you know that one of the great joys of having your kid or kids play sports is travel. You know, our families use sports to see different parts of the world,

meet new people, and stay use sports to see different parts of the world, meet new people, and stay in a number of different places. Recently, we've started using Airbnb. The kids love it because it feels like a sleepover at a new friend's house, while my wife and I enjoy more space, a proper bed, and mostly a washing machine. That really comes in handy for baseball trips. Trust me. In fact, it was on a baseball trip last summer when my wife sent me a text after the first night saying, do you think we could do this? Look, if you've ever stayed at an Airbnb, you've probably wondered the same thing. Could our place be an Airbnb? And now that our kids have also discovered the joys of skiing, in addition to travel hockey and travel baseball, we're on the move even more. Well, our house just sits there.

Why not make a little extra money to cover some costs, right? We have friends who travel south every winter and they Airbnb their place. Why not? Look, if you want to make a little extra cash, and who doesn't need that these days, maybe your home could be the way to make it happen. Find out how at Airbnb.com. Oz the Great and Powerful Griffin. A Sam Raimi film, written as you say, by Mitchell Kavner and David

Lindsay-Aber, the writer of Rabbit Hole. A play that he nakedly has admitted he basically just wrote to win a Pulitzer Prize, which he did. Which, by the way, right after Rabbit Hole, he gets hired to write Spider-Man 4. He was the main writer on Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4 that didn't happen. So they seemingly had a good relationship. And this is the movie that Raimi signs on to right after Spider-Man 4 falls apart.

Yes. So as we have briefly discussed, right, Raimi thought about doing a Terry Pratchett adaptation of the We Free Men. That fell apart. Raimi wanted to work on The Hobbit. When that was spooling up, that fell apart. And of course...

He bought the Shadow Rites at one point. Well, he still got them, I think. Right? Like, other things, of course, as we've discussed, Spider-Man 4, we got into that in our last episode, right, Griff? We don't need to go back to that. No, I don't think we need to touch it again. Yeah.

Then Jack Ryan, he was briefly considered for a Jack Ryan relaunch. A sort of Casino Royale type thing that I assume is eventually morphs into the Chris Pine movie, right? Yes. Right? There was also Evil Dead 4 was like there was a question of, I guess, I mean, Drag Me to Hell kind of took that spot. Yeah, I don't see that here. He signed on to direct Warcraft. Did you know that?

I did. I did know that. David, I'm just looking here. um did you know that i did i did know that david i'm just looking here in 2007 they announced in 2008 he said in an interview that he was writing evil dead 4 with ivan but that's pre drag me to hell or i'm talking fine fine fine fine fine fine exactly yes warcraft he was fully signed on for it's fully signed on robert rodat the writer of saving private ryan was writing it uh and then raimi didn't really like the script and then Blizzard vetoed whatever Raimi wanted to do to it

or something like that. Anyway, Blizzard, of course, eventually produced a very competent movie that makes tons of sense that everybody liked. That is still an astonishing fact that was recently, I was reminded of on the Get Played podcast, still

the highest grossing video game adaptation of all time worldwide because it made so much money in china yeah yeah the movie isn't the worst but it's not good um also it's similar to this while being less annoying and that you're just sort of like your eyes have a hard time staying glued on the screen a little bit a little bit a lot a lot of visual information to take in. We don't need to talk about Warcraft. We could, though. I don't know. Alright, let's talk about Warcraft.

Alright, so Mitchell Kaffner, Griff, who wrote a movie that I feel like you liked when you were a kid, The Whole Nine Yards. Am I right? Am I crazy? That wasn't my favorite. I guess you weren't really a Friends kid, so you weren't really rooting for the Friends cast Maybe, I don't know

Maybe you loved the whole nine yards I don't think I've ever seen all of that movie I think I've seen like 50 minutes of it on cable I don't think I ever I don't know, Amanda Peet's in it, right? Michael Clarke Duncan Yeah, I've never seen that I'm rooting for anyone in the studio

60 on the Sunset Stripcast So that's why I was a big fan of Pete's Of course And Pete and Perry Yeah I forgot that 60 was A whole nine yards reunion Kappner Claims that he actually would pitch

An Oz Musical to people When he would like have broadway meetings and that like he thinks wicked you know whatever like stole his thunder on that sort of sort of weird but he finally sits down with joe roth who produced this movie but also produced alice in wonderland and also produced snow white and the Huntsman, another film in this zone. I think so. He was sort of leading the charge on this. The early wave of the

big live-action fairytale Disney movie remakes. Right. Which was a cash cow for a while, obviously. Yes. After Roth shoots down every pitch, Roth is basically like, what are you reading right now roth says like i felt sorry for the guy i kept shooting everything down and cappner's like i'm

reading the oz books to my kids and roth is like what do you mean oz books and cappner's like there's like 14 oz books like what do you you know i'm reading all these. Roth did not know this. Insane. So I don't know, though, what happens here. I guess someone else owns Oz rights. Is that the problem? No, no, no, no, no. No, no one does. Because they're like, basically, someone owns the Wizard of Oz, the movie The Wizard of Oz. I can clarify this a little bit.

The books are public domain but you uh warner brothers through purchasing the original film from mgm still has copyrights on proprietary elements in their movie such as the wicked witch right almost all the visual designs the way they have copyrights on the look of the yellow brick road dorothy's slippers because in the book they're not Ruby, you know, the witch designs. Like when that movie became so huge and continued to last and copyright laws were going to put the books back into public domain, Warner Brothers started copywriting like every individual visual element of the movie that was not described as such in the books. The other part of this is that Joe Roth said

that he was constantly trying to solve this problem of there are no fairy tales for boys. What's a fairy tale with a boy in it? No fairy tale with male protagonists. Truly, Hollywood just knows how to find an answer to a question no one needs to answer.

What about Aladdin or Hercules? This insane shit, though. It's where they always go. We've said this so many times on the Musker Clements podcast, Griff, where Disney's like, huh, so we just made a billion dollars on Beauty and the Beast, but what if there was a boy? Can we have a boy?

More boy shit. They're rolling in money. I've told this a thousand and one times, but I'm working at the Disney store in Times Square in 2011. And as part of like the employee training, because that company is so all about like, you have to be vertically invested in everything going on in every tier of the company. Even if you're a part-time cast member at a fucking Times Square store,

they were like, Disney's really been struggling to get boys in. Like, I remember our manager saying that to us as part of some, like, fucking, you know, major, I don't know, fucking annual quarterly whatever. And he was like, that's why we just bought Marvel and Star Wars. And that's the new initiative. But this is coming off of like Tron Legacy not totally working. The Pirates movies are each making less than the last. And then Cars is like their biggest thing for boys. So they end up solving this problem by just buying Marvel and Lucasfilm. But there's this period of like John Carter, Tron Legacy, Oz the Great and Powerful, Prince of Persia, where they're just like, we need a fucking thing that little boys like. And yes, Joe Roth, I think, just was like dollar signs like, oh, you could make a movie about Oz. Right. But this is his mistake. He's like, oh, that's a man. And it's like, well, no, no, no, no, no.

That's that's not interesting. Simply that he is a man. Also, who likes grown men? like, no, no, no, no, no. That's not interesting. Simply that he is a man. Also, who likes grown men? Nobody. No, grown men suck. So they take the pitch to Sony. Sony says no. They take it to Disney,

who have been apparently trying to figure out an Oz movie. Disney says yes. And the directors interested are Sam Mendes and there's another one apart from Raimi. Wait, I could have said there's... Yes, there is. Mendes was fully on board developing this thing for like a year or two.

Adam Shankman was also considered. Oh, my favorite director. Absolutely. But no, Sam Mendes was going to make this movie but Skyfall took it away from him. Essentially, the whole complicated process of making that. And it was going to make this movie, but Skyfall took it away from him, essentially. The whole complicated process of making that. And it was going to be him and Downey Jr. This is the period of time where Downey Jr. is trying to stretch out his movie star status and does not end up making any of the things. But he's close to doing this.

He's close to doing Inherent Vice. He's close to Gravity. Yeah, I like Clooney and Gravity, but he would have been better than anyone in those movies. Yeah. He would have been leaps and bounds better than Franco in this. I mean, he would bring this movie up a full star.

Like, even if he was giving a Doolittle-esque performance, yeah, it would be something. He would have, like, pathos. He would root for him a little bit. And also, I think you would buy that he could have like pathos he would root for him a little bit and also i think you would buy that he could actually con these people like the thing that's so astounding about franco's performance is that like the root of this character is he's a guy struggling to convince people right like he's this fucking con artist who's like trying to sell people on this idea

that he's actually a wizard and james fr Franco cannot convincingly sell the idea that he's a con artist. Despite being somewhat of a con artist. Right. The thing he lacks the energy to do is convince you that he's trying to convince you. Yeah, he doesn't. You know who else would be good in this role, I realize, would be Hugh Jackman. He doesn't have showman energy. I would have done very well.

Hugh Jackman would work doesn't have showman energy. Hugh Jackman would have done very well. Hugh Jackman would work for this. Yes. And he's good at the, you know, you feel Hugh Jackman sweating, like he's good at making you feel himself sweating. James Franco

doesn't want to sweat, I guess, in this movie. This role is entirely about effort, which makes Franco as the choice astounding.

David, just, I won't go too deep into this, but the other sidebar necessary to this is after Snow White, Disney's designs are to do Oz as an animated movie next. And he starts sort of talking up in interviews that he would like to do an Oz film. And that's when Sam Goldwyn takes the rights preemptively away from Disney and sets up the MGM movie. And then in

the 50s or 60s, Disney bought the rights to the books when he wanted to make his transition into live action. And he was going to make a movie. It was the original cast of the Mickey Mouse Club who were now aging out and he wanted a pipeline for them

to do something. So he announced he was going to do a film called the rainbow road to Oz. Uh, and he had the, um, the Sherman brothers write songs. Right. And we set on rainbow road and Toad was going to be there and Bowser and Wario and all that.

Absolutely. Yes. It was a, uh, thrill ride. It was a, it was a tournament, a race.

Uh, and, um, they did like Wonderful World of Disney specials that were like him previewing Rainbow Road to Oz. And then they sort of like put it up on his feet and he was like, this thing sucks. So they make Babes in Toyland

instead. And that's like his live action musical. And it goes by the wayside again. And then obviously in the 80s or the 70s walter merch has a general meeting with disney and he mentions that he's always wanted to make an oz movie and roy disney at that point in time is like fuck the oz thing we'll always want to do the oz thing so then they make that attempt at doing it when disney is like can't get anything to hit

and that's also a big flop so there's this this like weird decades long history of Disney wishing they had gotten to Oz first and constantly asking themselves, why aren't we able to make an Oz thing work? Oz should be owned by Disney. That fits into the brand so well. That's the Oz story. But the problem, like you say, is that everyone keeps trying to tie it back

to the main film. And this script comes to sam ramey who i guess is right across the lot from joe roth at the time and sam ramey says absolutely not i love the wizard of oz i'm not touching the wizard of oz and joe roth is like oh this is a prequel read the story screenplay and according to joe roth sam reads the screenplay and says, God, I'd love this. I'd love to do this. Maybe he'd just been hit in the head with something very hard, do you think, maybe? Like an anvil or something?

No. He loved the screenplay? That was what convinced him? Do you think he was actually reading the screenplay to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Do you think that's what it was? Yes, yes. But this is great. And then they swapped it out at night while he was sleeping. He showed up on set on set he said what are these munchkins doing here um there's a special feature uh on this movie uh on the digital edition because the 3d doesn't

have any special features the disc itself um that is fucking franco did one of his documentaries right it's like a film by j Franco called, like, My Journey to Oz or whatever the fuck it's called, where it's sort of like Verite interviews with Braff and he pretty much gets everyone other than Rachel Weisz, who is not anywhere to be seen in this thing.

But it's a dumb Franco thing with color filters on it. It's one of those things, like, him being the one guy who was given permission to make a fucking saturday night live documentary and you're like they never let anyone do this you were the one who weaseled your way in and you somehow made the least interesting movie about a week at snl possible like the star of a movie having a camera and being given access to interview everyone on the set of a 200 million dollar blockbuster like this

is interesting and what he gets is largely boring but uh the ramey interviews in it are really good and a thing that ramey says is ramey fucking loved magic as a kid he was a little junior magician that was his whole fucking jam and uh his older brother uh who died tragically when he was young and whose death kind of haunted him yes was the one who like got him into magic got him into movies and uh as he got older he transitioned more into being interested in the illusions but not needing to perform them himself and then that becomes filmmaking and all that sort of stuff when ramey talks about that connection and that background it feels so fucking personal to him in these like

shitty Franco couch interviews where I totally, in that moment, understand why he signed on for this movie, where he's like, the thing I like is that

I've always considered myself a showman and a trickster and I like playing with the audience and I like that sort of journey and I like that this is a character who's trying to

stay one step ahead of people but also not be caught for a phony. And then he says, like, he literally says to Franco, I mean, I might ask you to cut this out because I don't know who's even going to see this anyway. But like, I still don't feel like I'm a director. I feel like I'm an actor playing a director. playing a director oh and Franco's like what are you syndrome right Franco's like what are you talking about you like are the ultimate you wear a suit and you walk out and you're like let's roll on this picture and you say all these old-timey things he's like right but I feel like I'm an actor saying lines like I'm acting like my notion of an old-timey Hollywood director and I still think I'm gonna be caught at any time and you're like so the fucking root of this thing, Raimi is like so connected to this character, but this script is so lacking in any specificity that I understand him going like, oh, I see an arc I could connect to here. But how is this what you end up with? Griffin, that like makes me sad hearing it because it sounds like a seed of what could have been an interesting movie. Absolutely.

If this character was a magician and liked the show and that was played up, like him wanting to trick people and the difference between a trick and a show and performance, those are interesting themes. And the moment that I think is maybe most interesting in this entire film is when he's doing his fucking routine in Kansas. And Joey King is the girl who yells out from the audience, can you make me walk? And this guy who just sort of glides through life and charms everyone and fucks whoever he wants and does these tricks and makes his money and goes to the next town and doesn't feel any guilt about it realizes, like, is there something to the fact that I'm now letting an innocent person believe that there is a cure for her

right well that yeah is Jo King is one of the better performances in this movie I guess she's also the China girl so yeah so that that that's that's that's a point in her favorite according to Ben Hosley but the fact that that remains the

main theme of the movie and yet it never works. Yeah. Raimi, you know, he's someone, I just, he's a good pitchman. Like, anytime he's interviewed for a movie, he says all the right stuff. You know, everything he's saying in here

sounds perfectly clever about, like, oh, you know, it's a movie that pays homage to us and i fell in love with that movie but this is a love poem to it and all that and where i'm like yeah kind of i guess so not really but like i guess like there could be a version of this movie that would work that way like any of these prequels do right in that slightly kind of cloying way um when he signs on, Griffin, he eliminates, he starts revising the screenplay.

He eliminates a tribe of humanoid knives and forks from the screenplay. Why did he do that? That sounds good. Sounds rad. That sounds way better. There were a few moments where you could see that something was cut where you're like,

oh, this would have more impact because I could tell a scene was cut. He has a thing with a knife where I'm like the knife didn't really do anything and i feel like his jackknife right yeah the jackknife where i could almost see that like there was a thread with this that you you lost the jackknife is yeah it's a lot like that's the stupid necklace and evil dead or whatever it's like a totem yeah no what were you gonna say grip no i was gonna say it sounds like ben's pitch for crocodile dundee three like giant talking walking knives no knife son knife son knife son ramey introduces munchkin knuck uh played by tony cox in the film he brings in david lindsey a bear uh to to make it more of a selfish guy learning to be selfless kind of character arc thing, right?

You know, that's very Raimi. Yeah. He wanted a character who wasn't innocent because Oz is an innocent movie. It's a story of innocence. Alice is a story of innocence. I wanted this guy to be caddish, a womanizer, a heel, a cheat. You know, find his heart.

That'd be a really interesting journey. And then I'm reading here and quoted as saying, and then I decided to cast James Franco to make my work even harder for me. No, he doesn't. But that's right on its face. You understand Ramey seeing in his mind's eye a version of this movie that works with like an ash type right yeah if he is full fucking army of darkness arrogant ash bullshitting his way through every situation that would be better and the problem is even though james franco even though oz at this point like in this movie they frame it as like a pretty girl he meets her he's like i guess charming and

she immediately falls in love with him. Like, even though that's how they present this movie is like, meet a girl, meet a girl, meet a girl. Like, he has no nothing with any of them to the point where you're like, is he supposed to be a cat? Or is this all like a bunch of women in like a Make-A-Wish program

trying to be nice to this boy? But it truly just every single thing about his performance feels like first take cold reading of scene yep it does very cold energy yes he he doesn't have energy chemistry with any of the women and he is working with three of the most beautiful and charismatic women in hollywood he does not feel like he's really committing to the magic acts whenever he has to do the showman thing, whenever it's him just reacting to things happening around him. It doesn't feel like specific.

It's just kind of, it's so nothing. And I do think, I mean, because the other guy who got close to doing it was Depp. And it didn't happen because of Lone Ranger. He dodged one bullet for a different, worse bullet. But Joe Roth tried really hard to get Depp to do this

when Downey Jr. dropped out in the movie. He wanted to keep it in the air. It does feel a little telling that they were looking at that age range where it does feel like this would work a little better if the guy's a little bit older and it's a little more desperate and pathetic in that sense. But also if it's Downey Jr. and the guy has a little more menace,

you know? I will say my I think I texted this to David, but like you, I think you've said this on the podcast, too. It's like James Franco for a good third of the movie has the energy of a hot boy in a school play laughing with his friends in the front row being like, no, guys, guys, I'm doing it. And then he delivers the line. But you think at any moment he could be like snickering with his like hot jock friends. Like he's the hot guy. Yeah. Yeah.

Perfectly said. I know. I know. Oh, no. It's the wizard. No, guys. No, we got to go. But the crazy thing is this is his fourth movie with Raimi.

Like when I watch him be this kind of bland in something like Rise of the Planet of the Apes, where I'd argue he's as sleepy in that. But the movie is. The movie's a little better. It's at a smaller tone and the movie's better. So his performance sticks out less in this where he's like, not mastering the chaos around him at all. This, he's like, I signed on because I love Sam. Sam's the director I've worked with the most in my career. We have such a good relationship.

He's so fun. I love our language. And Sam was like, you know, I mean, we always worked well together, but this is a whole different thing, because he's the whole movie for me. It's on our shoulders. Like, they talk about each other with such fondness.

Yeah, which makes sense that they have a good working relationship. They've worked together so many times. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if Sam looks at this movie and is like, James, like, screwed me over on this. I don't I have no idea. What Dana's talking about the, you know, what you're talking about, the high school quarterback mocking the school play kind of energy makes more sense to me if he is doing this film with almost

any other director. Yeah. It is surprising to me that he can't commit himself more and that Ramey can't get more out of him. And I do wonder if it is truly just a thing. He did his long form interview recently, which was like his first thing in three years where he was sort of trying to talk about the accusations of sexual misconduct for the first time. And one of the things he talks about for a long time is just like that it took him years to recognize that he was doing too much. Right. That he was just like, it's insane. Why was I doing fucking 15 things a day at any given point in time? And none of it was good. I was telling myself that I was doing all this well and I wasn't. And this is just so emblematic of that thing where he's just like, well, if I have time

in the day to do three takes, then I will do them well versus like, no, it's about your headspace. It's about the energy you're putting into it, the focus, the thought. Well, he was busy adapting Faulkner. You know, we have a saying in our family, use sports, don't let sports use you. Hi, it's Jeff Merrick from 32 Thoughts to Podcast. Are you a sports parent, rep sports, travel sports, whatever you call it? If you're like me, you know that one of the great joys of having your kid or kids play sports is travel. You know, our families use sports to see different

parts of the world, meet new people, and stay in a number of different places. Recently, we've started using Airbnb. The kids love it because it feels like a sleepover at a new friend's house, while my wife and I enjoy more space, a proper bed, and mostly a washing machine. That really comes in handy for baseball trips. Trust me. In fact, it was on a baseball trip last summer when my wife sent me a text after the first night saying, do you think we could do this? Look, if you've ever stayed at an Airbnb, you've probably wondered the same thing. Could our place be an Airbnb? And now that our kids have also discovered the joys of skiing, in addition to travel hockey and travel baseball,

we're on the move even more. Well, our house just sits there. Why not make a little extra money to cover some costs, right? We have friends who travel south every winter and they Airbnb their place. Why not? Look, if you want to make a little extra cash and who doesn't need that these days maybe your home could be the way to make it happen find out how at airbnb.com so a huge problem they have griffin is that as you mentioned the united states eighth court circuit of appeal eighth circuit court

of appeals rules right when they're in pre-production on what you're talking about which is essentially that the mgm library now owned by warner brothers does own the rights to images essentially from these movies like you know like not just the wizard of oz but like gone with the wind like they find they're like look ret butler looking like clark gable they own that like you can't it was because people were selling pictures, promotional pictures. A merchandising company, you could just buy a Wizard of Oz still from them or whatever. And Warner Brothers was like,

no, no, no. We own these images as much as these things are in the public domain. They agree with that. And that's a huge problem for Sam Raimi who was planning on a movie that was wildly reverential to the Wizard of us like how it looks yellow brick roads and such all that like by all accounts that sort of happened like five or six months before they started filming like they had to totally redesign everything uh like this is not a good quote from him legally we're unable to

recreate the images from the film which is a shame because it's really all about honoring that film and the books but more the film in my opinion i'm like sam that doesn't sound good if that was your whole game plan quit the movie you quit other movies yeah and then their choice of like since we can't use these specific images we'll instead just fill this movie with no memorable imagery at all. We have to talk about Robert Stromberg for a second, I think. Robert Stromberg is the guy who is the production designer on Alice in Wonderland and makes Maleficent. He does Avatar. He does Alice in Wonderland.

He does this. He directs Maleficent. He, I would argue, has a bizarrely large impact for those five years on blockbuster cinema. And you know, those movies are mostly colorful,

which I do feel like is part of his thing. Yes. People complain about movies being so colorless. You know the other movie he's the production designer on, Griff? What?

The BFG. Oh, yes. Yes. Which, I'm sorry, that's the final designer on, Griff? What? The BFG! Oh, yes! Yes! Which, I'm sorry, that's the final one in this movement, but they all have the same kind of look. And, uh, you know, we just saw the Avatar trailer in 3D. It just came

out. And that thing pops, yes, the way water, uh, pops up on screen. We're wearing 3D glasses, and you're just immediately like right back in pandora color colors right bright colors right and but but but pandora does have restraint like there is that cameron thing where he's so fucking obsessed with like the logic of the flora and the fauna and the ecosystem and how it works in tandem and all this stuff that like nothing is like designy for designy sake. And I feel like BFG, Alice in

Wonderland, this and Maleficent, all of this similar thing where there's just like, they're so saturated. There's so much fucking going on in every single frame. Like it's just so loud. There's so much detail. There's so much movement. There's so much color. And it, like, short circuits my brain a little bit. There's no, there's no tarar. There's no, like, anchoring in the world. Like, that feels like the worst way to put it. But, you know, like, there's no grounding.

It doesn't feel real. And he has, like, really impressive work early in his career. And then Avatar is obviously like this like huge achievement. He wins an Oscar. And then after this, this is like his blank check period where movies all start to have the Stromberg look. He does the ones I mentioned. But also it starts to become a thing I think everyone else is following a little bit. And then now maybe people have started pulling back again. But it does feel like, oh, now for the first time we have the budget and the technology

and the time to make movies look like concept paintings. Every still image of this movie looks like something you would see in the wall of a production office and go like, wow, that looks great. And then Remy would say like, well, that's not really the shot. That's more of a tonal setting of what we're going for. And then every single image in this looks like something from an art of blank book that is just overwhelming. So while they're making this movie, Disney has lawyers on set. There are lawyers

on set that are making sure this film does not infringe upon the Wizard of Oz copyright. Sounds like a fun, chill environment that is conducive to creativity. Exactly. So the yellow brick road, no skipping down it. It doesn't spiral.

Okay. There's no munchkin land because the 1939 film actually invented munchkin land whole cloth. I feel like this is the most cited thing about this movie. The shade of green skin for the Wicked Witch is different. They tested numerous types. It's not quite as bright green as Margaret Hamilton's. They couldn't do the mole.

I think it's one of the reasons why. She still gets a big old nose, which is, I don't like. I don't love that. Yeah, the nose is very prominent, but different shape. Yeah, and the face. Wide eyes. I was going to say, the different shape. Yeah, and the face. Wide eyes.

I was going to say, the face shape is so bizarre in this. I mean, they cast two like heart face actresses to play the two evilly witches. And then they intensify that face shape so much with the makeup,

which I wonder is them going against how long Margaret Hamilton's face was. Yeah, maybe. I don't like where they ended up. I don't like the look for Mila Kunis much at all. The thing about it is that it looks bad. It doesn't look bad.

That's correct. That's the issue. I don't like looking at it. They are supposedly blending the original Wicked Witch with the Frankenstein skin color, and they called the shade of green Theostein for whatever reason. Perfect. The Emerald City looks different.

They make it look a little more Art Deco. A little more, less not rounded edges, right? It's got kind of blocky. Yes. No ruby red slippers, of course. This did not bother Rachel Weisz, who said, quote,

gemstone shoes aren't really my style. I'm more of a black leather kind of person. Step on me, Rachel Weisz. Yeah said, quote, Gemstone shoes aren't really my style. I'm more of a black leather kind of person. Step on me, Rachel Weisz. Yeah, that is a quote JJ put in the dossier and said that quote should be illegal. He calls it very powerful. One thing that I did read that the lawyers made them do specifically

is they did say that James Franco had to fuck Dorothy's's mom right they said that yeah and and they also made sure that uh it couldn't be fun at all right it was a guy there was a guy on set who had like little square glasses and he was dressed like a 1950s school teacher and anytime anyone was having fun he would be like everyone would stop having fun they were like the movie's no fun. Frank Morgan was very charismatic in his role of the wizard in the original film, and Warner Brothers has copyrighted charisma.

Yeah, The Wizard of Oz is famously fun, so this can't be bad. An enjoyable movie for children. Yeah, this guy has to suck butt. I mean, the other irony of the lawsuit stuff, or rather the sort of IP tiptoeing stuff is like most of those laws and their stringency is based on a century of Disney battering down. This is this is true to help them. Yes.

Yes. Disney had its weapons turned on on itself or whatever. Especially with all that shit of like the amount of Disney films that are based on public domain stories where they have really strong rights, copyrights on specific visual elements or what was their creation. Like they're actually absolutely getting hoisted by their own petard here. They are.

Okay. Robert Downey Jr. is the first choice. An oft told story is that Raimi gifted him a bean plant, but then it withered and died. That's so sweetie. It is, it is, it is. According to the Los Angeles Times, he left the project because he wanted to improvise.

The story is even more depressing than that. He had a meeting with him. Downey Jr. was on the fence. He was like, can I come back? Can we take another meeting? Goes back to his home four months later. Seey Jr. was on the fence. He was like, can I come back? And can we take another meeting? Goes back to his home four months later, sees the dead plant in the corner. Ooh, look, I can't keep a plant alive either. I sympathize, Robert.

But this makes sense. Like that Robert Downey Jr., the first thing he wants to do is improvise, right? That's his whole thing. I want to just like blah, blah, blah, blah. Sam Raimi does not want to do that. Sam Raimi is a meticulous guy. he is not interested in that kind of stuff which by the way the exact same reason downy junior doesn't do gravity is quran is like we there's too much shit going on around me you have to have these specific movements and he's like i can't do this you gotta let me do whatever the

fuck i want this is the whole thing with downy junior where he needs to be making small movies but he doesn't want to do that anymore for reasons plus you know that are that makes sense and also whatever you know he could stand to maybe chill out a little bit but right so instead he tries to crowbar this into massive productions and you know with marvel it basically works and with something like do little you're like what is he doing you know like what why is no one stopping this but marvel has also essentially built their entire pipeline reverse engineered from how he works right it is it is the it's true it's kind of the reason why so often the marvel movies don't have distinctive style behind them is because they make them in this very malleable way that i think is truly reverse engineered from him. Yeah, he's like an auteur

on this MCU. Even now that he's gone from them. But on these other movies, if he says, okay, I want to move my head two inches that way, they go like, that costs an additional $5 million. Okay. They try to lure Johnny Depp, as you say, it doesn't work.

They bring in James Franco because things are so crunched. His agent gets him a salary of $7 million. Uh, Ramey quote, I knew that James had a real heart inside of him. I think at first he was too close for me to see. Okay. Uh, I thought he was, he basically sort of saying like, I used to think he was a little smug, but now he's come more out of his shell. And it's like, OK, all of this just feels if he was if he was smug in this movie, that would

have been good. That would have been something insane. All of Rami's quotes are just like, I hired him for his kindness, his generosity of spirit, a perfect fit for a family film. And you're like, no, make him i i don't know just this character needs to be somewhat salacious he is sleepwalking through different women telling him different things and he just believes what the last woman tells him yeah franco loves the oz books he claims he's very into all of this uh he read them all one afternoon while he was piloting a plane. While he was lecturing at Yale University

on particle physics. Yeah. Mila Kunis comes in. She's right off of Black Swan and Ted. Yeah. So she is, I guess, right, right.

And like, forgetting Sarah Marshall is only a few years ago. This is Pete Kunis, right? Am I wrong? No, this is the moment where, like, her and Franco in this movie are very much Hollywood testing out two people and saying, you've been around for a while,

but the last couple of years you really connected. Are you ready to be A-listers? And Mila's two big swings are this and Jupiter Ascending. And then arguably Friends with Bene benefits in the middle yeah yeah which isn't good i don't know do you have cunist takes dana i like forgetting sarah marshall yes i don't think i think she's good in black swan i mean i guess i don't like her in this but it's not really her fault i never watched that 70s show so i like don't have her in this, but it's not really her fault. I never watched that 70s show, so I, like, don't have any feelings for her one way or the other.

I watched this stupid fucking Franco doc interview thing, and she's in full makeup, in full costume, in her trailer when he's interviewing her. So she's giving really interesting answers in this horrible, unfortunate getup, right? That looks even worse in this horrible, unfortunate getup, right? That looks even worse in like trailer lighting than it does in the finished film, if you can imagine. And she's talking so honestly and candidly about like, they offered this to me and I

said, absolutely not. That is a death sentence. That is like, A, playing a witch is always like a whole fucking can of worms then you're also playing the most famous witch in the history of movies and you can't get too close to what she did before but if you go too far away then people won't accept it and there's the wicked thing and that like she took a meeting with ramey because she liked him but she was just like there's no way i can do this this is like just impossible ask and then when she met with him they talked about the character for four hours and she was like, I really found my in and I like found the heart of

her and all this sort of stuff. And it's it bums me out so much to watch this performance not work because I do think it is not for lack of trying. I think she's really giving it her all and it fundamentally does not work. It's a terribly written role. Like, all the women in this movie are, or everyone is poorly written, but the women are tragic. They're all bad. She ends up I think being the most embarrassed by this movie just because this movie asks the most of her. But both halves of the character

equally don't work. Before and after transformation. You know, it's interesting. After this, she's in a couple of things that don't exist, like third person and being the angriest man in Brooklyn. But you know, she in a couple things that don't exist like third person and the angriest man in brooklyn but you know she does have jupiter ascending which we all are very fond of a perfect film right and i think she's great in it yeah i think she's really charming in that movie but but like dings her career that was this and it dings her career a

little bit are the two big budget then she had bad moms which was was a huge hit And then she did Bad Moms Christmas Which didn't do as well but still made money Still a hit And then she did The Spy Who Dumped Me Which didn't do as well but still made money But we're on a downward slope I think that movie's fun Yeah you've said it's pretty fun

Yeah they're great Yeah A couple of Yeah Susanna Fogel wrote it Yeah, and David Erickson Right Four Good Days Which was this Sundance movie

Right From Rodrigo Garcia Where she plays someone who's Going into detox And Glenn Close plays her mother Which got a weird Oscar nomination for a song That thing is as much of a bummer as it sounds Breaking News in Yuba County

That's the other I don't know what that is. I gotta be honest with you. That is a Taylor movie. Taylor movie, starring Allison Janney, Regina Hall, Mila Kunis,

Awkwafina, Wanda Sykes, Ellen Barkin. Big cast. Well, it's made $180,000, and it got terrible reviews. I just, she just hasn't done much,

I guess is what I'm trying to say. She seems to, she had kids. She seems to just sort of pick her projects. She's in a Cheetos commercial at the moment, it seems like. That's cool. I love Cheetos. They're delicious.

Delicious. She continues to be in every episode of Family Guy. Which is money upon money. I mean, that is so much. So that's a good, right. So she doesn't have to worry about anything. But like, much like Channing Tatum of Jupiter Ascending,

I could see her having a comeback. I could too. You know, I feel like everyone's still pro Mila Kunis. They're making that 90s show. Have you heard about that? Yeah, I don't think that's the right choice. No, I don't either.

But I think she's coming back for that. I mean, they're, because the show is the grandparents raising the kids, the right choice no i don't either but i think she's coming back for that i mean they're because the show is the grandparents raising the kids but then all the legacy and then everyone else can do cameos like kirkwood smith is the lead of that show i think he should be the lead of all shows yeah i just don't need it to be that 90s show just call it the kirkwood smith show what if it was called the kirkwood Smith show? That's what I want. Her character in this movie, when she meets,

the wild thing that they ask her to do is when she's Theodora, she's like a simpleton. Is she like a simple child? She's very naive. I don't know how else to put it. She calls her sister, like, sister. And she basically, Rachel Weisz is at the top of the stairs like cackling. And she's like, my good kind sister.

Rachel Weisz all in black. Draped in spider webs. Right. Dana, have you seen Maleficent? No, I haven't. So Maleficent's the year after this. It's Stromberg. David, have you seen it? Yeah, I've seen both Maleficents. No, I haven't. So Maleficent's the year after this. It's Stromberg. David, have you seen it? Yeah, I've seen both

Maleficents. Right. Oh, yes. Well, the Mistress of Evil? Mistress of Evil. Pretty wild movie. I don't love the first Maleficent, but it is fascinating how much it sort of works to try to earn the biggest thing this

movie throws away, which is like that whole movie is based around the Maleficent escorned woman thing. But really forming an actual relationship of intimacy and time and depth where the betrayal is so grand, where she is cast out. And then the whole movie is arguing she is actually not bad. She was framed that way. And this movie is arguing she is actually not bad she was framed that way and this movie is like she talked to a guy for an hour then she saw him talking to someone else and got so angry she turned into a witch and threatened to eat children she met one man

yeah she met one man but and treated it like it was the first man she'd ever met in her life maybe it is i mean i don't know. Yeah. I remembered this movie largely being her and Franco on the road until she goes bad. And I forgot that it's like, no, that chunk is like 15 minutes. Then a lot of the movie is him with Michelle Williams. While Rachel Weisz is whispering in Mila Kunis' ear, be evil. The other thing about Maleficent is, I know, and this, I mean, no offense to any of the actors in Oz, but Angelina Jolie,

as much as people like to malign her, is an insanely compelling screen presence who is really putting it on the line in that movie. That movie is stupid. Yes. Undeniably. But she's got so much presence that you kind of just buy it.

Also, it's set in an even vaguer world than Oz. It's just set in like fantasy land. Right. And that almost is good because then you don't even care at all about like, what is any of this? Whereas this has a little too much like trying to sell you on like, oh, the land of Oz. And you're like, can you explain the rules of the land of Oz? And they're like, the land of Oz. Like, that's all they've got for you.

They don't. and you can't explain and you're like so I can carry over the rules I know from the old Oz movie right and they're like shut up not legally new rules don't talk about that be quiet what are the rules we're not gonna tell you uh along with Mila Kunis we've got Michelle Williams

it is an interesting tidbit Griffin Michelle Williams had never worked on a movie with a production longer than 10 weeks Before this movie This is like her first big Budget movie ever And she's like, what the fuck is all this? She's used to small movies

Where everyone feels like a family on set There was that crazy stat When All the Money in the World reshoots happened And Michelle Williams did them for scale and Mark Wahlberg got an additional million dollars or something like that. Right, whatever it was.

It came out that Michelle Williams had never been paid over a million dollars for a movie ever. Very rude. Rude. Where just like, you're like, how much did they pay her for this? How much did they pay her for Venom?

Well, no, Venom is after. Venom is the one where she's, no, Venom is the one where she's just like, you're like, how much did they pay her for this? How much did they pay her for Venom? Well, no, Venom is after. Venom is the one where she's, no, Venom is the one where she's finally like, I got mine. But this is the one where you're like, why wasn't she paid a reasonable salary for this? She's all over this movie. The fact that she got less than a seventh of what James Franco got. Right. That seems weird to me. Like, but I don't know. I mean, Michelle Williams at this

point, Griffin, where are we with Michelle Williams apart from that she rules? Blue Valentine, maybe. Right. She's gotten her third Oscar nomination now. Yeah, because it's broke back. She gets a Blue Valentine nom and then Marilyn. Yeah. So she's a highly established actress. In fact, post this, she really does nothing until Manchester by the Sea. Yeah. This is actually where her kind of break begins. And then Manchester by the Sea, she comes back and she's like, Bam!

That's her attack in the rim. She slams it down. She takes it to the face. She's so good. Yeah. Oh, man. She's in the Fablemans. That's going gonna fucking rock

She loves Sam Raimi She talks about how sweet he was With her kid Matilda How they would Sam and Matilda would stand behind the monitor Together and hold hands Whenever I have to do press With Sam

Matilda sighs and says, I love Sam. Like, so very pro Sam. The thing she says in this Franco documentary thing is that, A, she had never done a movie that her daughter could see before. But B, she wanted to do a movie that would be fun for her daughter to hang around. Right. Because I think her kid was old enough. She's a single parent. She's like, and she was like

it has so wildly exceeded those expectations. She comes to set every single day. Sam always calls her our most cherished guest on set. She like loves it. She loves everybody. So it's like good. Good. Sounds good. Nice. That's

nice. Her performance in this is fine. It's fine. Her performance in this is fine. It's fine. It's a, you know, Glinda is never the most interesting, except in Wicked, where she's kind of the best character, actually. But like, usually Glinda's pretty one dimensional. She's the nice lady. That's her vibe. I haven't read the books.

Is she more interesting in the books? I don't know. I mean, she's very powerful. The problem with her and one of the many problems with this character in this movie is because she's like at this point, like the fifth pretty lady that Oz has met and interacted with. And his performance is exactly the same with every new pretty woman he meets. Like, I don't understand if we're being asked to buy that this is like his great love, like the fact that he ends up with her, I'm like, all right, I guess.

She was the last one on this game of musical chairs. She's the last one. She's nice. Yeah. And you do this weird thing. I mean, he does the Wizard of Oz trick, right, of double casting people.

Yes. In the opening Kansas chunk. So you got Braff, and you got Joey King. Is that it? And Michelle Williams. And it? And Michelle Williams. And her. And Michelle Williams.

Right. Which she doesn't have makeup. Like, unlike the Wizard of Oz, you know, a trio of Lair and Haley and Bulger, where when they show up in Oz, they look entirely different. And in this movie, Braff and Joey King are CGI. You just have Michelle Williams playing two identical women, one of whom is Dorothy's mom and the other of whom is Glinda the Good Witch. Yeah. And it's just sort of like, well, of course he's going to fuck the woman who looks like the woman he's fucked before.

But also he has no chemistry with her. He doesn't have a ton of chemistry with her. And he doesn't seem that interested. Clearly he's not hung up on Mrs. Gale because he was trying to have sex with Abigail Spencer mere moments before. Abigail Spencer's kind of fun in this. I love Abigail Spencer.

I am always here for Abigail Spencer. There's not enough Abigail Spencer in my life. Agreed. What's it called? What was that show that she was on? Suits? Rectify. No, not Suits.

I never watched Suits. Suits is one of those things. She was at Meghan Markle's wedding. Hey. I mean, it's pretty cool. She got that invite. That's pretty cool. Abigail Spencer.

Love Abigail. She was on the time travel show, right? Timeless, right? She was on Timeless. And she played Sally's teacher on Mad Men. She had that really good art. Oh, yeah. So good.

Love her. Love her. She's the coolest. I think this opening chunk is kind of nice. It just fits Raimi tonally. And it's the one time he's being visually interesting. Like, I love the Academy ratio and the black and white and all that and how it's going to switch. That's cool.

That's a good idea. And this thing has good energy. Like, Raimi being at a fucking circus is fun. It looks nice. It helps that he has real sets that he can frame around. Him then cutting the wires with the machete is fun. Yes. And that's really good.

I think my two favorite shot sequences in in this movie is one, the opening credits because it's a good opening credit. Really good. And then when it's still Academy ratio and he's in the hot air balloon and things are sort of flying at him and he's dodging like wood like that's a fun, rainy, like cartoonish shot. It is just wild, though. like cartoonish shot.

It is just wild though the second he pokes his head out of the basket and the frame widens out and it goes to color and you're like, very cool, Raimi has found a way to with CGI and 3D and modern

do the Oz transition thing and then from that moment on all the air out of the balloon. It feels like it's his one really clever pitch and then I guess he just maybe was hamstrung by the fact that he couldn't do oz how he wanted to do oz i don't know but i also think like burton

has talked about this too and how difficult it is and how few directors have the right sort of mindset to be able to shoot movies like this that are 90% green screen, where it's just like composing shots is so fucking difficult when there is like nothing to anchor your eye to, to frame around. And, you know, it's hard to know how to give the actors what they need to react off of and all that sort of shit. And they talked about Joe Roth and this was like, we're building more sets than we did on Alice because you need more grounding. But it's still, you can

feel like, oh, the ground beneath them is real, but then everything behind them is painted. You know, the room is real up until this point and then from then on it's whatever. I do think it just the whole thing has that weird hermetic feel to it. Like it has that Sky Captain in the World of Tomorrow feel where you're just like, this movie feels like it was made in one room.

As you're telling me to believe in these expansive landscapes. Even there, like I fully agree with you. I think visually it sort of has that flubbery feel. But there's also that weird sense with the script where they're just like script problems like the rules aren't consistent they're asking us to that to believe that all the people in oz are impressed by this guy right bringing out glue and bringing out a projector when actual magic exists how can you be wowed by glue i know world that magic exists? It just, I- That is an incredible point.

That is, that is- It's, it's, it's the whole thing. It's the whole problem. People shoot lightning out of their hands in this movie and he does like a smoke show and they're like, ah, like we don't know what to do. They literally flew in on bubbles. Right.

Magic bubbles. He is levitated by witches. And they're like, but this guy, this guy knows what, you know. It is funny how with less rules and less explanation, Army of Darkness totally pulls this off, though, even though that is a world in which supernatural things do exist. Like there are wizards of actual magic and dancing skeletons. And yet Ash is able to stand up with like a boomstick and have people go like holy shit who the fuck is this guy yes i mean army of darkness you saying that does kind of it is a good point ramey as meticulous as he can be visually and all that his movies rarely are too invested in world building like the evil dead movies it's all very

vague and loose and it kind of you know whatever fits really whatever we want to do right like and the spider-man movies are so much less lore heavy than any modern superhero film incredibly light on all of that stuff this movie seems so in all it has is lore by the time he gets to oz that's all we're hanging our hats on but he doesn't he doesn't care about any of that. He doesn't. He cares about the movie like he loves the magic of the Wizard of Oz. But I don't think he cares about like the, you know, the various wicked witches of Oz and all that stuff, you know. No, you look at the three evil dead films and the lore there is whatever it needs to be to make that scene work. You know, how did the dead eyes function? Whatever will make for the most interesting sequence now.

Same with Drag Me to Hell, where people are like, oh, what's this inspired by? He's like, I don't know, nothing. Scary shit. Imagine if an old lady gummed your chin. That's fucked up. The chin gumming. It is kind of a perfect metaphor, though,

for the gender relations in this movie, that James Franco's being paid $ million dollars to sleepwalk through when it's like these witches are doing actual magic and it's like a guy doing a finger trick that everyone's like yay he shall be our king right you're like michelle williams is getting 250 000 for this or whatever like shooting lightning out of her hands and flying but But this is the other problem is, I mean, even by the time this movie comes out, Raimi is like, I'm not making a sequel under any circumstances. I know Disney wants to. Good luck to whoever takes it on next.

They were so in on the idea that this was going to launch their own proprietary Oz series. There was going to be a Disney trademarked Oz that they could run with, they could build shit in the theme parks and make more movies and whatever this is such a weird starting point if that's what you want to do exactly what is the sequel i mean i guess it's just witch battles or whatever but like you can't do dorothy no you can't do dorothy how you think or whatever you know like you'd have to do all this nonsense And you've also cut yourself off from the books, like, by the fact that it's not Asma

who's the king's daughter. Like, you can't even do the book stuff anymore. You can't go back to the well anymore. He's not interesting as a main character. Even if it was

Downey Jr., even if you had someone who was in the pocket giving a Cracker Jack performance, we still know the end landing place for this character is

kind of pathetic old man who puts on a fucking hologram show. Who's a good gift giver. Who's really good at giving.

That is true. That's Oz's thing. Because a lot of people when they give gifts it feels like they want you to see that they're doing the nice thing. But he actually.

Or they just went to your Amazon wish list or whatever. But no no. Oz thinks about it. His is like thoughtful. Like you just went to your Amazon wish list or whatever. But no, no. Oz thinks about it. His is like thoughtful. Like you just started working together as a co-worker, but yet he's paying attention to you. And also like, how did you know?

Like, this is exactly what I needed. I do need courage. I've been singing about this for days. Some other characters in this movie. Yeah, obviously Rachel Weisz. Basically, that's like calling Daniel Brühl to play a Nazi Where it's like hey Rachel can you play like a sort of Sexy witch lady who's very

Imperious and Rachel Weisz is like yeah In my sleep Oh you want a number four Absolutely Yeah do you want Like she's done this rodeo so many times Unlike Michelle Williams She knows all this stuff right

right uh you've got zach braff uh where are we with zach braff in 2013 uh a weird place i mean this is like because scrubs ends in 2010 and of course he's sort of wound down doesn't even show up and barely shows up in season nine after After everything Scrubs did for him. But then, right, when does Wish I Was Here or whatever come out? How do you not remember that the important release date of Wish I Was Here, the most bizarrely grammatically titled, Wish I Was Here comes out the next year, 2014, so he must have done it right after this, essentially. So that's the weird

thing with his career, right, is that, like, Scrubs is big, he stays on it for too long, but also stays on doing less, which does not give him any goodwill. He takes so long to make the Garden State follow-up, and then he's never really tested as a movie

star successfully. There like weird shit like the last kiss and the x the x oh i saw that in the theater i i saw the last kiss in the theater might be one of the worst films i ever saw in a theater that movie sucks yeah a tony goldwyn picture yeah but this is this is that zone where people are like so what is he is he not a leading man is he an auteur is he making his own indie films? He's not a comedy guy. Like what, where does he fit in?

It's sort of bizarre that he does this, but then also like, he's not just doing voiceover. He was on set every fucking day puppeteering this thing. Yeah. So I can read you the quote, which is, yes,

sometimes he's doing the puppet, which he would operate and act out not even mocap the puppet the puppet but sometimes he would wear a blue screen onesie and sit on his butt uh because they realize that he's 36 inches tall if he sits on his butt and hunches over so he would be sort of monkey size uh and the third thing was called puppet cam if he was like flying or whatever they would put a monitor on the end of the stick and I'd be in the video booth and they would do it via the monitor,

which sounds crazy. But that's what they did. Yeah. I mean, I saw footage of him in the VO booth where they were just filming his facial reactions as well. I don't know. I mean, he worked really fucking hard on this. There's so many interviews with Franco

where he's like really being thoughtful about this and like the process of it and whatever and talking about how he's just constantly looking for the funniest jokes. Raimi was trying to keep it tied to story and whatever. He's good in the- Wait, you mean interviews with Braff, rather, not Franco?

Interviews with Braff in the Franco doc where he's talking about his relationship with Raimi. And that was the main reason he did the movie, is he wanted to work with Raimi, despite his face barely being on screen. I couldn't find it, but I remember an article from when this movie came out. Because the other weird thing about this movie,

not just what we're talking about of like the, this being the changeover period, the last film of this run of Disney trying to make their own boy-branded IP before they just gobbled everything else up. But there's like the quick succession of, what's his name? It was Dick Cook was the head of Disney Films

and then he got fired and they replaced him with a guy whose name wasn't Rick Ross, but was something like that. And he Dick Cook developed this. Then that guy greenlit this movie. And then when it came out, Alan Horn was the head of Disney. There were like three different heads within a four year period who all touched this movie at different points.

different points. And I remember this article about how Alan Horn was like landing at Disney and immediately getting his feet dirty or whatever. Saying that he was very hands-on with trying to save this movie and like demanded reshoots like six months before it came out to amplify the role of Finley the monkey. Because Finley

was like the only thing that was working. Does Finley work? He works okay. He works better than anything else. Yeah. Yeah. He works better than anything else. Yeah. Yeah, he works better than anything else. Unless, unlike, well, China Girl. I mean, some people might argue China Girl works, right? He sort of has a Jar Jar Binks arc, right? It's like he saves his life and he's like,

I'm not going to do a voice, but like, Misa, your humble servant. The smart thinking. The best, the funniest line in this movie, I think the only joke that actually works for me, is when Franco offers him a banana. He's like, oh, that's a fan. What, just because I'm a monkey, you think I like bananas?

Could you be any more simplistic? And he's like, so you don't want a banana? He's like, of course I want a banana. I'm a monkey. That's pretty funny. That's funny. I don't know. Ben, did you like the monkey?

Where do you come down on The Monkey? Talk about family, Ben. The Monkey. Hmm. I didn't like The Monkey. Wow. The Monkey's out. Wow.

Wow. No, it's not that The Monkey's out. I mean, Braff is fine. I'm just maybe I'm tired of that kind of character in kids' movies or something. I don't know. It just felt generic. I didn't want to lock in on the monkey at all,

to be honest. Yeah. I mean, it is required, Griffin. You would agree. Any children's film, even one barely attempting to appeal to children like this one, needs a funny sidekick who's maybe an animal, right?

I would agree. I'd argue, in fact, it's probably the most important element of any live action Disney hybrid movie. It can make or break. The performance of the animated sidekick really does make or break the Disney fairy tale movie. Yeah. And I would imagine if you're someone who's working in that capacity on a movie like this,

you're probably wracked with anxiety on a daily basis because you're like, if I'm annoying in this role, parents are going to have to hear this 8,000 times. Like, people aren't going to dislike this. It's going to drive them insane. Right. It'll be the name of Lucifer. Right. You're like, how do I actually make this funny but also appealing to children?

I don't know. I can't even imagine being in that position. You know what it is, Griff? Because, you know, I hear you, and I think what it comes down to is I was distracted by Porcelain Girl. That's really just what was going on for me. Ben, China Girl corner. Let's talk about China Girl.

Please. So, China Girl, they meet her in the middle of the movie. She's in some sort of ruined land. Some sort of ruined land? Yeah. A tiny porcelain town no she's in like the most depressing looking house though why did even aura break why would she break her porcelain town when she's mean but she's pretending not to be evil at this point yeah she's doing a lot of false

right this movie was like trying so hard to sort of do the misdirect of like, even Nora's gonna be the Wicked Witch and not Mila Kunis. And then it gives it up like 30 minutes in.

And she turns evil so much earlier than I remembered. Then you still have like 40 fucking minutes of the movie left. Yeah, she turns evil and then just kind of

sits there for a while. She doesn't like kind of do anything about it yeah i will say have you read have you seen the uh a chorus line documentary no i have not no a pretty good documentary that's like you know talking about bringing the musical to broadway and the one thing that stuck out to me is they talked about how in early drafts of the musical it was like every character gets their song and that they would just sort of go down the line and they said like four people in audience people were like

checking their playbill because you could see what's happening and no matter how good the songs are you just get bored by the structure and so when he meets china girl and like helps her that's when i was like because I could see that the 10 other beats right down the line of like, all right, they assemble the team. They go. It's Glenda. Like that was the point where I was just like, I, this is so such a slog. It is a slog. I agree with that. China girl did nothing for me. I'm sorry, Ben. Yeah, Ben. Sorry. We keep on interrupting your China girl corner. I like China girl. I i defend you on this i just want you to explain a little bit i mean it's just there's something so striking to me about her being broken in this home by herself

it made me so sad immediately and i wasn't paying attention to the movie i mean i was looking at my phone for most of this movie. I have to be honest. It was hard to pay attention. Some boring ass shit. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah, truly. But I just, that, that, and then, you know, obviously, yeah, glue isn't magic.

It's lame. You know, it's just simple things we have, everyday object. Why couldn't Glinda just use magic? Do you know what was the thing i kept on uh that kept happening when i was watching this movie i would think to myself huh you know this isn't as bad as i remembered it being it's fine and then i would stop and realize i had not looked up at the screen in three minutes oh this is actually pretty good oh sorry i i mean the the disney emoji blitz that truly happened.

I would be like, this is like, OK. And then I'd go, you're reading the dossier. You haven't looked at the screen in a scene. Ian was so mad when I looked at my tweets like a third of the way through. He's like, you can't. No, you're you put this on the TV. Put your phone away. Yeah.

Fucking Franco was looking at his tweets mid take he's fucking tweeting out things on camera I thought that was a weird performance choice that there's several scenes where they cut to Franco

and he goes he holds up a finger he just goes Sam just give me one second here give me one second I'm just mid for something hey at least

porcelain girl or I keep seeing porcelain china girl at least it's something new I agree as far as the character and i liked all the little cracks like you could you know i think she is a well-realized character visually yeah yeah she she's just doesn't she's a little one note you know she's a she's a little fragile right like she's not a lot of fun i don't mean this as a joke that's so alpha of you to say dav, she's not a lot of fun. I don't mean this as a joke. That's so alpha of you to say, David.

She's not fun because she's too fragile. No, she's annoying. When she's like, well, someone took me in. I'm like, you're annoying. She's a little girl. Come on. Sometimes they want to be tucked. Kids like to be tucked.

That's true. I truly think also Franco has better chemistry with China Girl than anyone else in the movie. Sure. He's actually a little sweet with her. That's true. He has more chemistry with the virtual characters in general, I would say, weirdly. Like, he's got a little bit of banter with the monkey, I guess. Yeah.

This is true grabbing at straws, though. Yeah. Yes. Yes. No, absolutely. Yeah. You guys want some more context They shot it in a giant Raleigh Michigan Studios

A giant complex in Pontiac Michigan Huge tax benefits So that's great Obviously Sam Raimi is from Michigan Yeah I like that Can we talk about the comedy? Like, what do we think of the style of comedy of this movie?

Bad? Yeah, bad. What? What comedy? Remind me. I don't know. I don't know. The Danny Elfman score is really Edward Scissorhands.

Like, it felt like he went back to his trash and was like, what did I not use for Edward Scissorhands like it felt like he went back to like his his trash and was like what did i not use for edward scissorhands i know and this is like their big reunion after like 10 years of fighting or whatever five whatever five years yeah right five five yeah they figured it almost 10 nine years i don't know it's in between uh spider-man three is oh well yeah he never even works right he never really worked on it so yeah yeah no 10 years yeah i didn't as i was listening to it i was like oh this score is not bad and like the music box sort of has a a motif that repeats and then in my head afterward i was just imagining the edward

scissorhands score when i played it back when i was like oh that's not bad and i would remember it i realized i was remembering elfman he's like hor. He's like a lot of these guys where it's like, you know, a phoned in Elfman score is pretty likable. And then you realize like, oh, he's just right. He's just doing what he usually does.

Right. You know? And then when he does something different, you're like, oh, that's exciting. But yeah, he'll often just do Elfman.

Can I read an amazing quote from the INDB trivia? You can. JJ will be mad at you, but you know, I know. I know. Look, when I quote a Wikipedia thing or a trivia thing, Can I read an amazing quote from the INDB trivia? You can. JJ will be mad at you, but you can. No, I know. I know. Look, when I quote a Wikipedia thing or a trivia thing in a post-JJ professional researcher era, I want to make it clear that what I'm saying is unsubstantiated, and I just am reading it for what it is.

But this one I think is pretty hard to argue with, David, okay? The taxpayers of the state of Michigan, population 9.6 million reimbursed disney 40 million dollars of this film's budget but have no equity in the film now you can't argue with that now what if they did what if everyone from michigan got like a check for 80 cents every week or whatever that is so i have never seen someone write something like that in an IMDb trivia page. Obviously, most cities and states. An angry Michigander is writing that. One angry Michigander. One guy running for city council.

That is absolutely someone in Michigan went to see this movie. I fucking paid for this bullshit. Twice. You did. I paid for a ticket and I fucking paid for Franco's catering or whatever. What was I going gonna say about michigan all right but but sam ramey got to go home aren't you aren't you happy about that listen to him i like that i think that's sweet listen to him i had to move to los angeles for the film business but i love the trees in the fall the rain the gray skies and i like the cold you know like he he misses the the seasons

he misses the reality of michigan god olivia wild amm's blake lively kate beckinsale kira nightly rebecca hall and kristen stewart were considered for the roles of the witches i mean once again insubstantiated but like a bunch of ladies but i'm sure that that fucking wish list was just the 20 most prominent actresses in holly Hollywood at that moment for those three roles. Oh, boy. This film obviously is 70 percent CGI. So mostly acting in front of blue screens. But as you noted, Griff Stromberg did build some sets.

You know, there is a little bit of tactility there, at least standing on something like you said, you know, there's kind of a little tiny bit of that. Is Tinker's a race or an occupation? Is that like an ethnic group of people? They're an occupation. Are they teamsters? Right, because Bill Cobb is supposed to be the guy who builds the Tin Man. Yes, Bill Cobb is the Tinker and he is not small. Well, he's not Bill Tinker, he's a Tinker.

I believe he's called master tinker and he's the leader of the tinkers uh and right and he'll eventually build the tin woodsman but all of the people playing uh munchkins or whatever are are little people like they just they just cast little people right you know they didn't do any cgi stuff but i'm saying we come to Glinda's, I mean, they do do, they do like CGI flips a bunch. Yeah. They do a lot of flips. Sure. CGI flips, man.

They do. Yeah. Zach Cherry would love this movie. But I'm saying when we, when we get to Glinda's like kingdom and she's like, there's, you know, farmers that are,

you know, and then there's tinkers who all kind of look alike and there's, you know, munchkins and quadlings, tinkers and munchkins. Are the tinkers like a kind of look alike. And there's, you know, munchkins and quadlings, tinkers and munchkins. Are the tinkers like an ethnic race of people? I don't think anyone should say the word ethnic about anything in Oz.

It feels like Pandora's box. Yeah, I'm so sorry. I just don't want to dig into what any of this is supposed to represent. I don't want to dig into what any of these people are supposed to look like. I just think it's very tricky territory. I don't want to know. I don't want to know. But yes,

look, no, I, I, I think you're right. I think, I think, yeah,

they are, they are a group in the world of Oz that seem to be organized in some way. The Tinkers are like a people of sorts, I guess, right? The setup of Oz in this movie is wildly unclear and makes me just like feel disoriented. I don't know what you're talking about.

It's very clear. Okay, wait. They're like, um, what's Fraggle Rock? What's the, um, the workers? The doozers. The doozers. The doozers. Yeah.

No, Griff, and correct me if I'm wrong, Griff. This is all very simple. Sure. Oz is a magical land. Emerald City is its capital. The king recently died under mysterious circumstances. It was definitely the fault of the really nice lady who wears pink and white and floats around in bubbles and not the fault of the lady in the black dress who shoots lightning out of her hands. Okay. Yeah. It was his nice daughter who clearly everyone loves.

And Asgard is a people, not a place. Yes. Right. Uh, various kinds of things live in Oz, porcelain people, munchkins, tinkers,ah blah blah Sometimes the munchkins will stand on each other's shoulders And they'll be really tall That's fun Anyway, if the king shows up He gets to be king of Oz He gets to sit on a throne And he gets to have a giant pool of money

That is gold David, gold scepter, you're forgetting the most important part Of course, of course Very, very, very important Anyway, and there are various witches Who are kind of just hanging out waiting for something to do. Yeah.

Very, very, very clear world. Lots to understand. All makes sense. Oh, there are flying monkeys. And then there's a separate kingdom under a bubble that only if you're pure of heart can you get in.

Travel through bubbles. You want to know a fun fact? Here's another fun fact. You know the scene where James Franco's rolling around the gold? Yeah. That was his salary for this movie. Oh, boy!

Yeah, he actually asks for his salary in Scrooge McDuck banks that he gets to swim around in. Well, look, he thought it was an interesting statement on capitalism. I mean, he was doing that. Right. Not because he's a money grubber,

but because... Yeah, he made a movie called dollar sign that was on vimeo or whatever played upside down in an art gallery or some shit uh i re-watched the original film last night because i hadn't watched it in a while the wizard of oz the wizard of oz the victor fleming joint yeah sure you folks ever seen it yeah it's good yeah you know what else is fun about that movie is it's a musical yeah yeah it's got songs this has like one song which we talk about fucking spider-man three has three musical numbers in it right and and like i was saying that episode that people were commenting at the time like it feels like he wants to make a musical and you wish he could go full bore the other part of the development this movie mean, so when, what's his name?

The whole nine yard guy, Kappner. When he pitches this to Disney, they developed this under the title Brick. And he was like, I was only allowed to tell two people in my life that I was working on this because Disney was so terrified that other people would like

try to get an Oz movie made before them. They were so terrified of the Wicked movie happening before them. They were terrified of other studios wanting to make their own rival Snow White and the Huntsman style Oz movies. One could say they were cowardly. They were cowardly. But but it is bizarre to not lean into the musical aspect of this, especially if your goal is to beat wicked to the punch why not put fucking songs in this that having been said alice in wonderland has zero songs maleficent has zero songs jungle book like tiptoes around two songs it does songs right but they never learned their lesson like mulan doesn't have any song that live action mulan had no songs but it truly took until beauty and the beast where they were

like fine fine you want the musical numbers and it was like disney why are you fucking tentative about putting your song you've got a bit of a proven formula actually right if you lean into it it actually people quite like it yeah right I'm confused though because I thought you were supposed to immediately fast forward when the song started. Ben. Wow, Ben. Did you guys not immediately have to

just get past it? Is that really what you did, Ben? That makes so much sense. Yeah. As a kid, you'd be like, boring. Oh, wait, no.

I'm talking about the fucking movie that I watched for this goddamn episode. Yeah, whatever the one fucking song that's in the movie. I'm not talking about the original. Barely even a song. Jesus, you all looked at me like I was a monster.

Right. I thought you were saying, like, you fast forwarded through, like, somewhere over the rainbow. Right. Jesus. Yeah, boring. No, I'm such a, I cry at dogs. No, no, no. no This movie you should hit play Hit play on the movie And then immediately hit the fast forward button

All the way up And then when the movie ends That's it that's how you should absorb this movie Well the end credits are good you can go normal speed Slow down slow down Bring it back to that Yeah okay so you watched The Wizard of Oz The 1939 film directed by Victor Fleming

starring Judy Garland. Did you like it? How many stars? Five stars, perfect film. It is one of those things. It's pretty good. It's just kind of inexplicable how well that thing works.

But it does sort of just prove the fool's errand of ever trying to make another Oz movie unless you're doing something so fucking radically different. I mean, like, I love Return to Oz.

I'm one of the world's greatest defenders of Sidney Lumet's The Wiz. But, you know, both of those movies got dinged for being weirdly dark and sad. And then anytime, because there was like that weird CGI Oz movie that came out a couple years ago that was called like Dorothy's Oz or something. I believe Warner Brothers is now making an animated film called Toto that's trying to use the iconography that they legally own to retell Oz from their viewpoint. It just feels like one of those things where like, I mean, Wizard of Oz is notoriously was like a not only a flop when it came out, but was like a difficult production, went through multiple directors, all this sort of shit. It's like that movie is just some weird miracle. Every design element they landed on ended up being perfect. Every performance is perfect. Judy Garland was on four hours of sleep and weight loss drugs on methamphetamine.

Right. Right. Right. It's like a fucking sweatshop like performance uh like for all the weird drama and darkness around that movie it's just everything about that movie just crystallizes correctly and you're never going to get better than that yeah the wizard of oz is a tough act to follow and sam raimi's initial instinct to stay away from this movie was the right one. But then of course he

read the script, which I assume is he was presented with a bag of money. But maybe I'm wrong. Like maybe he talked himself into there's a way to pay homage to the Wizard of Oz through this. Maybe. I don't know. I think that was half of it and that thing about the connection

to the magician and the showman and the charlatan thing. That gets lost. you know what the other thing is you know the other thing is griffin and this isn't true of all directors but it's true of a lot and it's true of a sam raimi type i think it's like what if i could make a top shelf disney movie like some people are kind of like oh the magic of like a perfect family disney movie like that's special maybe you want that like on your resume i don, look, that Alan Horn piece that I cannot find where he took credit for adding more Finley to the

film also made it sound like they reshot 40% of the movie like six months before it came out. And when all the stories are coming out about Doctor Strange and how many reshoots there were, I was worried that this was exactly what it was going to feel like,

where it was just like, this whole movie has been smoothed over and sanded off and is just sort of like generic goop. And, you know, Doctor Strange, I think is half a movie that feels like that and half a full bore, completely recognizable Sam Raimi shit. And I wonder if he just got lost in the machinery of

making a movie like this if the he couldn't recover from the copyright shit if the reshoots just totally erased whatever personality was there but i just got so fucking bummed out watching that interview with franco where i saw it for the time. I fucking saw on an emotional level why he did this movie. And then it is so depressing to watch this film and recognize the thing there and have it not connect at all. Here's what I think happened, Griffin. You want to listen up? Yeah, maybe get some behind the scenes scoop from me.

I think he was given an apple by an evil witch and he ate it and it turned into a bad director for six months. Her tears are acid. They burn her cheeks. She melts with water. Well, yeah, that's a reference to her being vulnerable to water. That's because, you know, they can't be out in front of that, but she can't time. Yes, any water.

This is the first time she's ever cried in her life and she does it twice in one day. Over the least charismatic man in the world showing her a tiny bit of affection for 11 minutes. Griffin, she was clearly born yesterday. So I don't know what you mean. Like, it does not appear like this person has been alive for a very long time. You folks have seen that interview where she's doing a press junket and they send like a college student to interview her from some british station yes yes jj had this in the it was sort of a viral thing that it was what is it yeah you've you might have

seen it data you might remember it if you saw it he's like asking her questions about like going out drinking with his friends and shit he's just like so sort of like innocent and just like sort of like my friends all think you're really hot you did have a fun time if you came out but he's like not being like sleazy with her yeah and she's like this is incredible this is the best interview i've ever done you're the only person in days who's talked to me like a real person and then he's like great he's like i'm sorry I'm like an intern. They sent me. I'm fucking this up.

I should ask you questions about the movie. And she's like, I don't want to talk about this movie ever again. And then she does this thing where she's like, here, here's every answer I have about the movie. And she speed runs it for like 30 seconds. And she's like,

I play a woman who's very innocent. She gets her emotions abused by this man. But I found interesting that the character was the duality. I did try to find the humanity in the root of what she was. This and that. Anyway, go on.

Where do you and your friends go out drinking? And she just has this- Yeah, he's like going to a wedding, maybe? Right. And he like ropes her into that. Yeah, yeah.

Yes. But it's like the answer where she just says like, here are all the bullet points of what I would say in a fucking junket interview about this character in the arc. This whole movie

just feels like that. I mean, that's charming. I'm going to go watch that interview. I think Mila Kunis is cool. I think she's cool. She's a Ukrainian Jew. You know, she's from Ukraine. She's been doing a lot of really fucking good work.

Yeah. Like raising money during the crisis. Yeah. She's married to Ashton Kutcher, which is, you know, kind of weird. But I remember, I think she was on the conan podcast was that right yes yes yes yes and then ashton kutcher like showed up in the middle oh and it was one of

those things where you're like you know you have the cynical thought like is this like something they staged or whatever like it truly just seems like he's coming home from work or whatever and they're all chatting that's very nice yeah It's very nice. Yeah, that's sweet. She seems like a nice lady. I've always liked her, and she does just have a very unique energy. Like, it was that moment in the early 2010s when everyone thought suddenly, oh, is she a movie star?

It was kind of exciting because she is unique. She doesn't look like anybody. She doesn't sound like anybody. Yeah, she's a little unique. It's true. She's got a very interesting vibe, there was like an interesting range of like huh she's very different black swan than she is in this than she is in that and uh i don't know yeah she's funny i remember when forgetting sarah marshall came together like i was so excited for

it because it was like one the apatow thing was still like barely new and two it was like I was like oh my god the guy I like most from Freaks and Geeks is making a movie and then like Veronica Mars is in it oh and Russell Brand that's interesting and then I was like oh and Mila Kunis who cares I had no interest I was like yeah sure from that 70s show

and then she's like one of the best things about the movie like that was where I was like oh she's so charismatic yeah the best things about the movie. That was where I was like, oh, she's so charismatic. Yeah. I don't know. Cunis. Cunis. But this is where we're.

Yeah. Cunis. Please. But this is this is when we are clearly we have nothing good to say about this movie where we're just like, well, Mila Cunis seems nice. Yeah. Like we're out. We're like, there's nothing to say about Oz the Great and Powerful.

They have a big battle at the end. It makes no sense. He uses magic. It makes no sense. He uses stage magic to win a battle. He faked his own death in a way that you're like, you didn't, for whose benefit? Then he gets to be the king, but in a good way, sort of, I guess.

He's not doing it for profit. He gives everyone a gift gift and then he's like and your gift glinda is behind this curtain and it was it was him it's him going there's a katie waldman review or piece about this movie when it came out from slate and the headline just really kind of sums it up where it's in rame's odds, male frauds are heroes and female frauds are pathetic. Oh, yeah. Wow. Yeah. Not to underline too hard, but like it just that is the thing where just this movie keeps on trying to tell us like, you know, you should like this guy. Yeah. And that it did not work. I mean, from the beginning when I'm like, he literally is like, there's a sock on

the door because he's trying to like hook up with this girl he's tricking. And like, then he's kind of mean to Michelle Williams, who's like, I want to be with you. And he's like, shove it. But he doesn't do it in a funny or charming way. You know what this performance feels like? You know when you watch like documentaries about things like Fyre Festival and everyone who's talking is like, Billy McFarlane was the most charismatic person I've ever met. You don't understand it.

That guy got you in a room and you were just throwing money at him. Right. And then you watch the interview and you're like, I see through this guy. This guy's got nothing going on. What am I missing here?

It feels like everyone in the movie is telling you like, God, when Oscar Diggs looks in your eyes, you'll follow him anywhere. You believe he is the great and powerful Oz. And I'm watching, I'm like, who the fuck is this guy?

It makes everyone seem really stupid. That's the problem. And it makes the girls, the women seem pathetic because they're, why are you even devoting any energy to this idiot? Except for Vice, who sees through him right away. And yeah, no, I mean, look what you're saying, what everyone is saying,

and then let's just play the box office game it's like you know obviously if I'm Sam Raimi and I'm looking at the script I am like yeah this guy needs to turn from villain to hero he needs to turn from cad to heartwarming you know dad right like that makes sense

yeah so the script has that arc in it it's just that his performance doesn't change much and it doesn't so so at the end where everyone's like oh you're so great i'm like he is the movie happens on a green screen conveyor belt behind him while he's right exactly in the same place he's pretty much you know kind of the same yeah he's not caddish enough and then he's not charming enough. Griffin.

Oh, you know what we should talk about before we end? That we get the backstory on the broomstick. Oh boy. He teaches her that witches are supposed to have broomsticks, but she does come up

with pointy hat on her own. She independently comes up with pointy hat. Well, she goes from floppy hat to pointy hat. Yeah. It's a huge, it's a big character arc. It's a huge important thing that we need to learn.

Yeah. It is funny that at the end of the movie, she's like, I'm wicked. And he's like, well, if you ever wanted to not be wicked, we would forgive you. And she's like, no! And leaves. Like, why even do that?

If you ever want to not be wicked, you know where I am here in the kingdom of Oz. Right. She's like, no, goodbye. You're like, right. She can't turn good again. She's the Wicked Witch. Like, this is what you set up.

Look, on the point of the box office game, a transition here. I remember when one of the later trailers came out and it included, they never showed the witch design in the trailers, right? Well, they tried really hard to hide that she was becoming the Wicked Witch. Right. Yes.

She's on the poster in the floppy hat. They're trying to keep you guessing. And one trailer had the end sort of money shot was the green hand with the nails scraping across. The claws. Right. And then the other trailer, the money shot at the end was when the fire starts to swirl and you see the silhouette

of the witch design. And I remember on, you know, Slash Film or whatever, when that trailer posted, someone in the comments saying, that final shot just got them

a hundred million dollar opening. And it almost did. It almost did. This film opened March 8th, 2013. So pretty much the Alice in Wonderland spot to $79 million. Pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty good.

For a movie that no one remembers or cares about. And for a bad movie. Bad. For a movie that is boring and long. But it truly was one of those things where I feel like it wasn't tracking incredibly well. And then they put the witch teases in the trailer and then it like went up. I buy that. Yes. It made $234

million domestically. One of the 10 highest grossing films of that year. Yep. It made $490 million worldwide. So it was quite successful. And I think it maybe does not make the top 10 yet worldwide. No, it doesn't. No. But it was quite successful. And I think it maybe does not make the top 10 yet worldwide.

No, it doesn't. No. But it makes it domestic. Which is insane. Number one, Oz the Great and Powerful. Number two is an even more ill-advised quasi-family movie set in the world of children's fantasy. Huh.

Even more ill-advised. Yes. Set in the world of children's fantasy. Huh. Even more ill-advised. Yes. Set in the world of children's fantasy. Is it opening this weekend? No. It opened last weekend. It was a bomb, and it's made $43 million in two weeks.

Huh. Is it based on... It's based on a pre-existing children's fantasy? It's based on a fairy tale. Is it Pan? No. Huh. If Oz does not exist, pre-existing children's fantasy? It's based on a fairy tale. Is it Pan? No. Huh.

If Oz does not exist, this is like, you know, doesn't exist on the quantum levels. Right. Like physicists could not find traces of it in anyone's atoms. Okay. It's not Mirror Mirror. No.

It is. But I'm on the right zone. It's like one of those canonical fairy tale. Yeah, it's a canonical fairy tale. It's a rip. Dana, do you have any instinct on this? I have no idea. Okay, it's directed by a canceled person.

It's directed by a canceled person. Highly canceled. It's not Brett Ratner's Hercules. No. Is it I Love You, Daddy? Yeah, open to,, I made $43 million It was very delayed It came out like a year after it was supposed to

Yeah, okay, well then say it Jack the Giant Slayer? Correct, you had to struggle to think of the title Yes It is Bryan Singer's Jack the Giant Slayer starring Nicholas Holt and Ewan McGregor among other people.

Is that live action or animated? Live action. Oh, no. Live action like this is live action. The most... I can't believe

these movies came out back-to-back weekends. Yes. Yes, isn't that ridiculous? That's like a two-car pileup. The most insane thing about that movie is that Bryan Singer really wanted to direct X-Men First Class

and had signed up for this. And he asked Warner Brothers to let him push back Jack the Giant Slayer in order to do First Class. And they were like, no, and if you quit, we'll sue you. They were so adamant about making that movie, making it with Singer right away, that they were like, don't you dare fucking quit this movie. This is a go. We're not stopping this for anything.

I know we're in the box office game, but I feel like we'd be one more Oz great and powerful detail that we didn't mention at all is Bruce Campbell's in it briefly. Oh, yeah. God, a movie so depressing we can't even conjure up the energy to discuss the Bruce cameo. I know, but he's there, and I just want to let him, you know, he showed up, he put on the fake mustache. He's a Winkle guard or fucking what? Yes, he is.

He's fine. A Winky Dinky guard or some shit. Throw this movie in the trash. He should have played Oz. Yeah, sure. Yeah, he'd be good. Imagine if Robert Downey Jr. dropped out and Sam Raimi was like, look, we're two weeks away from filming.

You gotta hire Bruce Campbell or I'm quitting. What's number three at the box office? It's a comedy. It's a comedy launching a new star. She's breaking out as the star of this film. Huh. She's being paired with a guy who's in a lot of comedies. It's Identity Feat.

Yeah. Jason Bateman is a guy. And Melissa McCarthy is the thief of his identity, I guess. Not a good movie, Big Hit. Not a good movie, Big Hit. Agree with both of those things. Number four is a new movie this week. Mostly forgotten.

I feel like you invoked it recently, Griffin. Huh. It's like a crime thriller starring one of my favorite actors. Colin Farrell? Yep. It's the one I invoked it because it was weirdly produced by the WWE. Is it what's it called? Dead Man Down?

It's called dead man down it is a colin farrell film that i've never seen it's from the guy who directed the swedish uh girl with a dragon tattoo oh right yes uh and so numi rapace is in it and dominic cooper and erin's howard sounds like a fun time actually Man Down. It's kind of incredible you haven't seen that. Yeah. I mean, yeah. But it's opening number four at five million dollars, so I don't know. No one's really seeing it. Number five

is an action thriller that I feel like you have said is not bad, Griffin. It's kind of one of the last movies starring this guy before he just becomes a four quadrant guy. Huh? Oh, is it Contraband?

It's not Contraband. That's Mark Wahlberg, which is another good choice for what I'm describing. Similar guy. Used to make movies like this. The Rock? The Rock. Dwayne Johnson himself.

And this is one I like. Is it Snitch? It's Snitch. Do you like Snitch? Am I wrong? I can't remember. Snitch, low-key good. Yeah, right? Snitch is one you sort of stick up for. Snitch I stick up for, and not only that, if

this was before our podcast existed, I would have given Bernthal a supporting Oscar nomination for Snitch. I would have given him a supporting blankie. Yeah, he can give me support Anytime Bernthal like snitches the shit out of that movie

No snitch Loki good But right isn't that the end of Dwayne Doing you know Like walking tall-esque movies right I think it's the last one and snitch is like much more Of a sort of meat and potatoes drama As well It's kind of impressively

He's acting It's a of impressively... He's acting. Oh, it's a Rick Roman walk. Yeah. This year he has Snitch. He has Pain and Gain. He's Fast and Furious 6, obviously. But it's like next year is Hercules and then it's Furious 7, San Andreas,

Central Intelligence, Moana, Fate of the Furious, Baywatch, Jumanji, Rampage, Skyscraper. It's all big movies that are rock centric. And fucking snitch. Dwayne Johnson, Barry Pepper, Benjamin Bratt, Harold Perrano, Susan Sarandon, John Bernthal, Michael K. Williams, David Harbour. Sounds good.

That's good. Good cast. Snitch a little Kika. That's the box office. We've also got what the fuck is this? 21 and over. Oh, that's the Miles Teller fake ID beer run movie. I feel like that was a movie that had a lot of different names at certain points.

I think so. So that's one of that run of super bad, post super bad, R-rated teen boy movies that I auditioned for. There was another one just like this, but with Zac Efron, right? Well, that's... 17 again? That awkward moment. That awkward moment. Oh, that awkward moment.

That's a little more... Dating is tough. Oh. 21 and over is in the Project X. This one is like, they're 21 now, so they're gonna do it. Oh, oh.

Kids fucking go crazy. Look, I just saw, speaking of Miles Teller, I just saw Top Gun Maverick, in which he is behaving himself, is the best way to put that performance. You know what I mean? Not in a bad way, but that just feels like Tom Cruise took him aside and was like, look, you got one more shot.

You got one? You know what I mean? Like, just fucking give a normal performance in this. Like, I know you're a pretty good actor. And he's like, all right, sure, fine. Is he good in it? Yeah. Yeah, he's totally good. He's fine. But, like, he's also not particularly interesting. Like, it's fine. I know he's

a Kaczynski guy, I know. So it's not just Tom Cruise. Like, he did only The Brave. He's in the new Kaczynski movie as well. So, like, obviously, Kaczynski likes him. But, yeah. Just kind of feels like someone sat him down and was like, how many more blockbusters are you looking to be in? he did he's in the new kazinsky movie as well so like obviously kazinsky likes him but uh yeah just kind of feels like someone sat him down and was like how many more blockbusters are you looking to be in is it if it's more than one god 21 and over is justin chan miles teller skylar astin it's it's uh it's a real snapshot they really. They were spreading it wide to see what would happen.

Directed by the writers of Hangover. That was the other big thing. Yes, John Lucas Scott Moore. Right, right, right. Speaking of Zac Efron, he's not in this, but he might as well have been. Safe Haven, remember that? Oh.

It's Duhamel, right? Oh, yeah. Julianne Hough. Safe Haven has a quietly insane twist ending twist ending right we can't talk about that no i can't i saw safe haven with bobby finger look at the safe haven wikipedia page that's all i'm telling people i feel like we have mentioned this on a different episode griffin it rings a bell that there's some wild probably a bobby episode but that's a loss of house for a movie isn't it yeah insane insane insane then you've

got silver linings playbook hanging around uh-huh uh you've got something called escape from planet earth don't really remember that seems to be a weinstein movie yeah yeah that's a brennan fraser cgi movie that doesn't exist yeah uh and then you have of course the lax as last exorcism part two they should have sued they said the last one was the last exorcism part two. They should have sued. They said the last one was the last exorcism. I know. They should have called it the second to last exorcism. This is like when they did the never ending story part two. Come on.

What are you talking about? You said the last one was. That's it. Yeah. So it goes on to be a hit. It makes enough money to justify a sequel and to justify another Sam Raimi movie quickly. We get neither because everyone smelled that this thing was a rotting corpse. Yeah.

Like that's really what it is. It is one of those things where like they had like mapped up plans of like, if this movie works, we build a whole Oz land at Disney. We'll keep this going. We'll stay in the world of Oz for decades. Oz, Oz, Oz, Oz. Right. and then just everyone was like there's no energy for this no actors seemed like they wanted to be in this no it's like you're gonna do sequels and they're like well we're contractually obligated but like

they pushed through on maleficent 2 and on alice 2 many years too late when the energy was clearly gone and both of those movies flatlined. And this, it just felt like within three months of it coming out, they were like, yeah, we're probably not going to do that. Melissa and two low key made half a billion dollars.

It's insane. Half a billion dollars. Head screen is the main villain in it. Wow. Ed screen. He's a dark Faye, of course. Yeah.

All right. We're done.'re all we're Very yeah with Oz forever and thank god One reason We never did Sam Raimi Was we didn't want this to be the last Yeah movie in his

Fucking filmography for the entire Run of our podcast this had been His last film and now We don't have to end on the note of like, well it would be nice if he made another movie. Now the note can be, yep, he had another movie and we'll talk about it next week. Yeah, and you know what? It's nice that whatever you

think of Multiverse of Madness, it is definitively not this. And he seems energized to make something new soon. And people are giving him credit. Like, I feel like people are largely giving him credit for that movie and reacting positively to the stuff that he contributes.

And hopefully it means that the next person who hires Sam Raimi to make a movie will let him be Sam Raimi. Yeah. Dana, thank you so much for coming back on the show. Thank you so much for having me. What a pleasure. I hope it was. You'll get much for having me. What a pleasure. I hope it was.

You'll get a better movie eventually. I'm sorry. I had fun. Yeah, Dana, don't worry. Don't worry. You'll get a better movie in about six to eight months when we cover another movie about a bad witch. I want both parts of the Wicked movie.

Witches with bad ex-boyfriends. Perfect. Your book? Yeah, Anatomy, a love story. Buy it wherever books are sold. New York Times bestseller. New York Times bestseller. Yeah.

You can buy it almost anywhere in the world. Reese Witherspoon likes it. My close personal friend, Reese Witherspoon, likes the book. Yeah, and listen to the podcast noble blood if you want the exact opposite vibe of this podcast perfect oh yeah yeah slightly more hangs together a little tighter than than blank check I would say also then Oz the Great and Powerful the ultimate compliment it's a little tighter than Oz the Great and

Powerful just a little tighter every script of my every episode script's a little tighter than Oz the Great and Powerful. Just a little tighter. Every script of my every episode script is a little tighter than this. A little bit tighter than Oz the Great and Powerful. Thank you so much for being here, Dana. And thank you all so much for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping to produce the show. Thank you to AJ McKee and Alex Barron for our editing.

JJ Birch for our research. Leigh Montgomery and the Great American Doll for our theme song. Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. You can go to BlankCheckPod.com for links to all sorts of nerdy shit. Go to Patreon.com slash BlankCheck for BlankCheck special features. We're doing commentaries on the Batman movies we haven't covered before. Hashtag not all bat men. Tune in next week for the end of this yellow brick road, the road of Raimi with Dr. Stranger

and the Multiverse of Madness. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Indeed. And as always, China Girl innocent.