Blank Check with Griffin & David - Perfect Blue with Bowen Yang

Episode Date: May 5, 2024

Welcome to the filmography of Satoshi Kon - a thrilling series of funhouse mirrors and puzzlebox narratives that proved what is possible in the animation form. The icon, the legend, the culturista himself Bowen Yang joins us to talk about Kon’s feature debut, the shocking and influential pop-idol thriller PERFECT BLUE. We’re talking about famous “bad girl” transitions in pop history. We’re talking about Digimon villains. We’re talking about obsessive fandoms. And, most crucially, we learn a new piece of Ben lore that involves a famous reality tv star. Listen to Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang This episode is sponsored by: MUBI (mubi.com/blankcheck) AuraFrames.com (CODE: CHECK) Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram

Blackjack with Griffin and David Blackjack with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blackjack Well, how do you know that you know that person you were a second ago is the same person you are now? A continuous stream of memories given only that we all create illusions within ourselves saying that we each other have only one fixed podcast. Great.

Identity? Persona. What's the word? Persona. Okay. That's a P word. I'll say a lot of the quotes page is things like, oh no. Sure.

Like I love this movie, but a lot of the quotes don't work out of context. It's like a frightening humming. That's just the quotes page. Like here's my favorite dialogue exchange in the movie, but out of context it means nothing. I'm really sorry. Oh no, it's all right. I think that's the best written exchange in the film, but it only makes sense when you

read out that the character name is actor playing rapist. Oh, and that guy, that character I was like, see, pre-Intimacy Coordinator, he's doing it right. He's doing it right. He's about as good as you can get in the 90s. Yes, in 90s Japanese sex film, like, you know, B movie territory. Yeah, this movie's about a lot of things, but I think one of the things it is about

is a theory I've held true for a long time, which is that acting is inherently sociopathic, which is not to say that all actors are sociopaths. Yeah. I think some are empaths and some are just good at faking shit. But the action itself, the process is sociopathic. So sociopathic.

And so it's so bizarre when you have a moment like that, where someone like breaks the reality, even if it's in the opposite direction towards kindness and awareness of like, hey, I'm sorry about this. And she's just like, no, it's all right. It's the job we signed up for. But the moment you say that, it becomes OK. Is it OK? Because he's still raping her. I mean, I don't think let me make this clear. I do not endorse the actions of the film within the film. Yes.

Or the TV show. Absolutely not. I don't think that is good. No. But I do think. Right. It's like the situation is bad. Neither one of them is at fault. No. But you move a hair in the wrong direction

and then it becomes a situation that is more psychologically damaging in terms of actions towards each other. This is what this whole fucking movie's about. Amongst other things. And I appreciate that it is a very legible movie about... There's a reason why this poster is hanging in every college dorm. Sure. You know?

Like, it's a very, some would say heavy-handed thing on like reality and dreams. It's direct. It's a direct film. Like, his later films are more indirect. This is his most like blunt film. But here's the other thing. All of his movies are under 90 minutes. No, no, for sure.

We stan his running times. It's part of his power, where it's like... You can be this blunt and aggressive and hallucinatory if you're like, by the way, I'm getting you out if you're in 82 minutes. I'm so grateful. And can I tell you guys something? Still watch it on 1.5 speed. -♪ POP ROCK MUSIC PLAYING -♪ This movie would be the scary...

It's already kind of really frightening. At 1.5 speed, I would be so unsettled. I love it. I love it. It really sings at 1.5. That humming really bores into your skull. I met someone recently who listens to the podcast, who I'd never met before. And was like, I was talking to them. Yeah, it's brag. I met someone who listens to this well it's really nice you hadn't met I hadn't met before right someone who's not in my immediate

friend circle and uh he was like looking at me strangely while I was talking and I was like what he's like your voice is so much deeper in real life I can't get over it oh wow I have a very high voice I'm always self-conscious I was like I think I talk at a slightly higher pitch on the podcast for, like, legibility, so I'm not mumbling. And I have a bit of a sore throat right now, so that's maybe dropping it down a little bit. And then, like, five minutes later, he was like, I listen at 2X speed. That's what it is.

I don't think that pitches you up, though. 2X is... 2X speed, like, pitches me up to like this. 2X is crazy. If you're listening at 2x speed you might have a problem I might be an actor you might be socio That's where we're entering like you're programming your brain in a way that it might be unprogrammable Might not be able to undo this. Yeah, if you're just walking around this

Brain melting in real time as I was like hello nice to meet you He's like, why do you sound like this? Oh You just have to stay at 2x speed with him all the time shit monks. Yeah, I'm David. Oh wait What's our podcast? I'm good podcast about homographies directors who have massive success early on their careers and given a series of blank checks Make whatever crazy passion products they want. Sometimes those checks checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby. Wow. So for him, that's going to be you guys are, I always feel like you guys are reading that off of, oh no, he just does that. And you know why it's because someone at ear, Wolf,

a million years ago told us like, you need a summary of your podcast. Oh, that, but I thought, Oh, I think you were going to say that as someone at ear, you need a script. No, no, you don't know. That's not, But like, he was just like, what's your show? And we talked for like 15 minutes. He was like, you need to maybe like get that pitch honed. Right. The other thing I hate that. The other thing he said was like,

your show needs to be 45 minutes tops. No! That was the other thing he said. This was. We were like, mm, mm, that would be shorter. He gave us four pieces of advice that actually were helpful that we use going forward. He's a perfectly nice man. A bunch of other people at EarWolf were like, mm-hmm. That would be shorter He gave us four pieces of advice that actually were helpful that we use going for perfectly nice A bunch of other people at earwolf were like you should meet with them. This is a good show

And then he went in he was like, so what's your show? We were like, um, and we like explained it to him and he was like that I don't understand why anyone would listen to that He was so wrong you guys really thrive in the 2.5 plus hour span? That's very kind of you. People have met us there. Like some guys who started short, they got long too. There's a lot of long podcasts out there.

Anyway. You guys are very good, compelling listeners. Oh, shush. I mean, we could say the same about you. No, no, no. Yes. And you actually have, in my opinion, a much more good length. Nice 90-minute-ish. You think shorter, longer?

You want to go longer? Sometimes you go longer. I wish we could really lean it down to 45, but I don't think that can ever happen. The old earwolf. The old earwolf. But this is after like almost eight years of doing it and being like, but it's too late.

We're locked in. Well, I'm also the asshole when I'm on another podcast that's long. I'm like, you guys, this is too long. And I'm like, how? I don't have a foot to stand on. No, no, absolutely not. Look, this is a mini series on the films of Satoshi Kon, a short runtime king and sadly a short filmography king. Yes. Like one of the most tragic filmographies, I think quietly, for someone who just like made four masterpieces and died.

Right. A pretty perfect filmography. Which is, and which is being, you know, discovered to this day. Which is great. This is in that rare tier of like, masterpiece first films we've covered. Most people don't have that. Most people have a little bit of sort of warming up to do. Totally. And he just hit the ground running. It's called Podprecast. You happy about that? Thank you. I love it. Thank you.

Our guests say return to the show for the first time in a while. Yes. Welcome back. First time solo. First time solo. Last time pre-pandemic. About Aang. About Aang. About Aang, that's right. We went up to Brookback Mountain. And today we're going perfect blue. I need to listen to you guys' wedding banquet episode. You should.

We did. We did. I mean, whenever it was, yeah. Can we leave this off, Mike? But we're shooting, we're redoing it. We're redoing it and we're shooting it in June. That rules. Anyway, sorry, I'll tell you guys.

Yeah, we'll talk about that after. That movie rocks. It fucking rocks. Yeah. Bo and Yang. Hi. SNL, Les Culturistas. Hello.

Eight million things. A lot of movies. Some movies. Some. I think there's been a drop off. I think we were definitely. There's been a drop off? We were definitely both at the Tiff party for

Dick's Musical. Dick's Musical at Hooters. Would you play God? I had just flown in that day, dude. I'm so sorry if I was out of sorts, if I wasn't like, I'm so bad at just like being like, oh my God, hi, like I am so in my tunnel. It's quite all right.

A normal party for one of those is a little bit of a tunnel. And then we were all at Hooters and like, I think the Zone of Interest had just played. Like we weren't like Dix had not played yet. Dix was after the party. After the party. And Zone of Interest had tried to book the Hooters. And so people kept being like starting conversations about Zone of Interest and then being kind of like, I don't think we should talk about this right now.

Time and a place. Yeah. Oh my God. That was a fun party though. Very fun party. I had long told A24 like someone should do the Hooters. There's a Hooters right there. Yeah.

Right there. It's right next to every venue. You're trying to impress. Yeah, exactly. What do we all actually want out of this? Right. And guess what? The wings were good. The wings were great. This is the thing with Hooters.

I mean, this came up on Doughboys recently that Hooters has now opened a new chain, like a new... Like a non-booby version of Hooters. I mean, no offense to boobs. There's a wing-focused concept where they're just like, we want to just clean the wings off of the boobs. That's their only calling card at this point, is the boobs. So what's the non-boom suiters called?

What's it called? All right, whatever, it doesn't matter. Look, Bowen is here. Bowen, Tina Fey was on your podcast. A very famous person. Yeah. And did a, I don't think so honey, that went fairly viral.

And that we're still kind of like reckoning with. Yeah. It really rocked us. I think it was a moment for many of us. Sort of an atom bomb for celebrities going on podcasts. Is that what you mean? Yeah.

Coming after the the I.O. the I.O. situation. The friend of Blank Check passed and future guests. Yeah. Let's call it. We'll get her back.

But but that moment happens. And then Teen on Your Show happens. And I texted David and I was like, guess Bowen and I are never coming back on BlakeChat. And it wasn't anything against or projected against two of you, but there was a feeling of like, is this a Red Scare moment? Oh my God!

Across the industry. Not the podcast Red Scare, but you just mean like an actual scare. No, not a Red Scare moment. Of course. Although I do want to talk to you about Christianity off mic. I have some thoughts on the good Lord.

Yes, yes. No, but is there going to be like a terror that's going to settle in on like, should none of us ever share opinions on anything? I listen. What I've learned is that people just forget. People forget. People just forget. I agree.

Unless you're IO and you're like the most famous actor of the moment. The single most famous person in America? I think so. Kind of? The people's princess of the internet. This is true. I also think, my stance is, I mean, you have a podcast

where you talk so much about pop culture and celebrities and figures and it's so wide ranging. There's so much that falls into your net. You've been doing it for a very long time. In real time, you and Matt have both had your profiles rise exponentially. And then suddenly it's like, you meet some of these people, you work with some of these people, some of these people come on the show. I've always felt like, and I feel like you guys take a similar approach to this,

when you are enthusiastic about something, you are so enthusiastic about it and can really explain why you think it is good. But it comes off as like kind of cloying sometimes, I think. I don't think that's true. Okay, well thank you, but... I think there's some people who build their brand off of just like, I shit on stuff. I call bullshit on this. I don't think we're that.

Absolutely not. So I'm like, anytime we come across anyone who we've talked about on the podcast, and I'm like, fuck, what's the worst thing we've ever said about them? I'm like, we've across anyone who we've talked about on the podcast and I'm like fuck What's the worst thing we've ever said about them on my we've been doing it for nine years We've covered so many movies if someone's at me we said something rude. It's true certain level at some point They probably caught a stray of course This is what I think we should be doing going forward. Yeah Someone has said something disparaging about you on some recorded format.

Assume it. Just assume it, and it's okay. And they didn't have hate in their heart, probably. They were just being annoying or whatever. And they've done it to us and we do it to them. And I'm also just like, whatever the worst thing I've said is, I probably have also said something incredibly complimentary about them on a different episode.

Of course. Of course. I think this is just very episode. Of course. Yeah. Of course. I think this is just very relevant to this movie. Yes. What like? Fandoms. Internet culture. Being online.

All of it. This movie is very pressing in a lot of ways. Yes. And I really, really, really told Matt to, Matt had never seen it. And I was like, and he has been, he will, and he wouldn't mind me saying this, he was trolling the Reddit, the subreddit for LostCultury. Sure, I wouldn't know about that. We've never done a thing like that. I don't even know if we have a Reddit.

You guys have a great sub, by the way. Well, don't go into that. Well, I'm just gonna say, generally speaking, these are very smart people, good citizens of the internet. I do think some stinkers, of course. I think you are right. And I would say the same for ours. I don't try, I try not to check it as much.

Matt has really sort of sworn it off, I think through the help of this movie, honestly. Really? Because I was like, you, because this movie helped me in a moment where I was like trying you... Because this movie helped me in a moment, where I was like, trying to like, square like me into who I am and what I know about myself against like, what like, the internet says about me. Sure.

And this is true, I don't think this is exclusive to whatever, quote unquote, like, public-facing people. I think this is just like, whatever. Everything being... It's an identity movie. In a way, in certain ways, it speaks very specifically to the nature of fame and of performing and all of that.

This isn't even about a very famous person. This is about a lightly famous. It's one of my favorite details that she lives in a very tiny apartment. Right. That you're like, she's at a level where she is more famous than successful.

Yes. Which is an interesting thing that people don't talk about. That's well put and it's very present Current yeah, right. There's only a small amount of people who really give a shit about her But then they really care because she's special to the gun active bread it or it's like if I see Nick like Nick does Nicole Kidman have an active subreddit? Like, probably not, right? Maybe she does, actually. Let's find out. No, she doesn't. She doesn't. And there should be just a group of people all the time

being like, Nicole Kidman. Like, I love her. That's right. Let's talk about fur today. Like, let's think about, like... Let's talk about fur. This movie is about people who have subreddits. Yes. Yes. Wow. So that's us. It's... Wow.

The Blue is about us? I'm transitioning from pop music to acting, guys. I told Mandy Moore about this movie when she was on our podcast. Really? Because I heard you. So I messaged you. I'd remember you logging and writing about Cone movies on your letterboxed. Yes.

Which is now secreted. Which I have, yes, yes. Yes. And I messaged you and I said, like, I know Tina Fey just told you to never talk about a movie on a podcast ever again, but what do you want to do this? And your response was, I very much have college kid brain when it comes to Perfect Blue, of course. Yes, yes.

Absolutely. When did you comes to Perfect Blue, of course. Yes, yes, absolutely. When did you first see Perfect Blue? This was probably, yeah, it was in college, sophomore year. Thought it was fine. I was mostly just like zeroing in on Paprika being like, this is fucking amazing. Christopher Nolan stole this. Being that, and then Perfect Blue,

I didn't put the Black Swan comparison in my brain until much later. Actually feels more stolen in a way. Right, yeah, right. Kind of undeniably, right. More spoken of as well. In my cursory research for this film, leading up to today,

I didn't know that Darren Aronofsky wrote a eulogy for Satoshi Kon. Right, this is the difference between, we talk about the Nolan thing on the previous episode, I think. But like, you know, Aronofsky's very upfront about how much he loves this guy. Like, yes. Whereas Nolan has never spoken about Satoshi Kon. Uh-huh. Right. Yeah.

Right. But Aronofsky's still... He's like, no, I didn't... I didn't cop anything. Which, I guess I... But then, like, why are you... But then why are you obsessed with him? Which he is, which he is openly.

He was like interviewing him in like 2001. There've always been rumors that at some point he acquired the rights to one of the movies. We can talk, I bet you it's in the research. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, because he definitely, yeah, we'll talk about it. But it's been exciting to hear you like bring up Perfect Blue over the last like month or two on Las Culturistas.

Yes. As it's been in sort of your brain soup since we put this episode on the chart. Did you maybe see Paprika first and then you go back and then that's it? Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And then had a moment with Perfect Blue two Christmases ago where I was like depressed. Nothing particularly bad was happening in my life. The world.

It was just the world. Yeah, two Christmases ago wasn't like the best time. Like, you know. I barely even remember. It's just not good. It's not good. Yeah. I think I was just having a bad moment

of like vanity searching on like Twitter and being like, what are people saying about me? Which watching this movie really helped flip a switch where I was like, oh, like the whole point of this is that like there's this lethal thing going on with this person, this character, where the idea of what she should be

is sort of trying to kill her, you know? Like she is trying to just be herself and not have to negotiate that with anyone else's idea of it. And like, that's the college kid's brain thing. But I think it is very pertinent now for everyone because we are all kind of presenting a version of ourselves, you know what I mean? Like, guess that.

Yes, 100%. Even if you literally are just posting about the lunches you eat on Twitter or whatever, there's a persona that's building up. Lunch guy. Lunch guy. Yeah, check out lunch guy. Yeah. Turkey on rye on Tuesday? We usually do Thursdays. I'm keeping track. Son of its building up lunch guy lunch guy. Yeah, check out lunch.

Turkey on Ryan Tuesday. Usually do Thursdays. I'm keeping track. No, but there's like so few people who are not actively putting out a framed version of themselves in some way. And even the people who are like entirely off of social media, it's like you still might be a quote unquote background character in someone else's fucking TikTok prank at any moment. Oh, my God. How have I avoided this? I have you guys been in these like, no crosshairs. Jesus. I mean, but I did like yesterday in New York.

It was like 70 degrees for the first time of the year. And it's gorgeous out. And my office is in Soho. I exit the R train on Prince Street. And the prankers were running wild. It wasn't prankers, but the amount of models doing like impromptu shoots with like a ring light and a guy, you know, on Prince Street. I was just like, everyone's out, like New York,

like everyone's making their viral videos. Like... It has never happened to me, but there is this part of me now that is perpetually paranoid about like, am I gonna be the weird reaction in someone's video? Yes! Just where something weird happens on the street and I look over the shoulder. Oh my god, I'm never going to Water Street in Brooklyn.

Ever. Can't do it. Can't do it, cause that's where all the people go. That's where they do it? The great prank way. The great prank way but between like pranks or like people who are doing their like fashion runway videos right on the streets or just like random weird New Yorker corn occurrences that get filmed by 40 people and then some of them catch on and it's like you're the

Guy who walks past pizza rat or whatever the fuck it is, you know Like there's a version that we just live in a reality where anyone might become content at any point in time, even if you are actively avoiding it or trying to control exactly what you do. All right, perfect blue. Griff, when did you see perfect blue? I'm just taking people down memory lane. I think I only saw it a couple years ago

for the first time. Sure. Yeah. I think I saw it around pandemic. I saw it at a rep screening years ago, completely unprepared for what it was. I think I knew the director, obviously. I knew this was his first film. I did not know I was going to walk out, like really rattled by it.

It's a disturbing movie, obviously. We all know this. I saw it alone at Metrograph, like noon or whatever. It's a great Metrograph. And just walked out with my brain feeling a little scrambled. But I think we all came to it later. I was too young for this movie when it was a thing. If it was really a thing in America in the late 90s, probably only a little bit.

Yeah. And we've already acknowledged it, but this is a movie that like kept on getting boosted by first Requiem for a Dream. Yes. And then Black Swan. Yep. Just like both movies created conversation of people being like,

do you know what this was taken from? And I feel like those guys have only gotten louder and louder on the internet as time has gone on. And then Paprika joined the chorus, but it's so much of Satoshi Kon's weird legacy in the United States is like- Tied to these other directors, you think? Mostly after he died, him getting signal boosted

by people saying, you know, this is the real shit. You know that movie you love. This is the real thing. And I guess that's like unfair to everyone involved. It's a little unfair to everybody involved, I would say. That's how I feel about it. I think it gets reductive when you're just like, these guys carbon copied him, which I don't think is quite the case

and also diminishes his work as its own thing. Yeah, or just it could just like, these guys carbon copied him, which I don't think is quite the case and also diminishes his work as its own thing. Yeah, or just it could be like, what I like about Perfect Blue is I don't like Black Swan. And I'm just like, okay, well, that's the guy I hate. Yeah. Right, I don't know what to do with you then. Like, you know. It's not dear to some.

Yes. Also, Black Swan's pretty good. I think Black Swan rules. I have not seen it in years. Maybe I should check out Black Swan. It It is one nice normal movie to sit down with Yeah, I'm not like worried about rewatching it But I do wonder it hit me like a ton of bricks when it came out and I saw a couple times cool Yeah, it's cool. It's gotten. It's got lipstick on a mirror. What more could you want?

Straight door finally what that's like one of the great Twitter images of all, like just using any content. It's so funny. It's so funny. What I think, and I think this is like so letterbox-coded, what I'm about to say. Oh please. The gorgeous thing about this movie is that

people with wide-set eyes are evil. It is true. The main villainess and the sort of manipulated sub-villainess have beady little eyes that are on the... Two miles away from each other. That is sort of a tell. They got an E.T. head. You're so right about that being... That is like my letterbox from just like, here's one fragmentary thought I had about a movie.

That's all I'm going to give you. David, you have great letterbox reviews. I am blushing. Oh, you've been told this many times. I'm blushing. Okay. But your reviews are also like, you know, Conair, John Cusack and flip flops go off. It's something like that.

Right. Exactly. It's perfect. Okay, Griffin, shut up for a second because I need to tell you about a special thing that only I know about. Now, you know this. This episode is brought to you by MUBI, a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe. From iconic directors to emerging artisans are something you do discover on MUBI. They've got great hand selected streaming choices on movie all the time. We talk about it all the time. We love the good folks at movie,

but this month on movie US you can catch gasoline rainbow, which is the new film from the Ross brothers, Bill Ross, the fourth and Turner Ross, which is in US theaters from May 10th and it's streaming on BOOBEE from May 31st. So these guys are the directors of Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets was their last movie and they mostly work in documentary. This is their first fiction film, but it's got kind of a hybrid realism to it. It's about this group of teenagers, five kids in Inland, Oregon, who are trying to drive in a van across the state to the coast, you know, in

this kind of ramshackle situation, they're just having fun. And it is a very sort of experiential, cool, vibey movie about teens, you know, partying and having one last hurrah. It's very chill. It's very fun. It's very sort of atmospheric. It was the South by Southwest. It was a Venice. It's an expansive portrait of this new generation told in their own words. New York magazine loved it. Indowire loved it. It opens in US theaters on May 10th. It's streaming on movie from May 31st. You've also got do not expect too much from the end of the world. The Radu's Jude movie, a Romanian great, very cool Romanian filmmaker. That's streaming on Movie US from May 3rd. Very wild and provocative and interesting, dark, comic, vulgar film.

Won the special jury award at Locarno last year. It's got Nina Haas, it's got Uwe Boll, it's got all kinds of stuff. Anyway, check all that out because for a limited time, you can try Movie Free for 30 days at movie.com slash blank check. That's mubi.com slash blank check for a month of great cinema for free. Bye bye. OK, so let me give you some backstory on him. This is our first episode on him and it's his debut.

He was born in 1963, Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan. JJ mentioned, I just want to point out in our research, that he was born 10 years after JJ's father, which I'm so glad he included that information. Thank you for including that, JJ. Really would have disoriented me if I didn't know when JJ's father was born in relation to Satoshi Kon. I have never been to Japan. I've never visited Japan. I would love to visit Hokkaido.

Whenever you see it in movies, it is always like, it's like the more pastoral, it's like lots of fishing, it's colder, it seems like... I just watched when Marnie was there, the Ghibli movie, which is based on a British novel, much like Ariety. And like, it transposes like British countryside to Hokkaido. Like, it's like she has to move up there for her asthma or whatever. Anyway, Satoshi Kon says, as a child, like like hunting bugs, watching cartoons, living in a fishing town.

Like that's his, that's how he grew up, basically. Attended a very strict school. Apparently he was kind of an annoying kid who would provoke teachers. He says he was kind of cocky, was more friends with girls than boys. Okay. All right. Joined the art club, got into like Gundam and like, you know, whatever, you know,

hot manga and anime of the time. Goes to art school in Tokyo, build up his art. God, I could never do this. This is, I... Yeah. The whole thing with animation, anytime we cover it on the show, the idea of them sitting down and being like, God, I could never do this. This is, I... The whole thing with animation, anytime we cover it on the show,

the idea of then sitting down and being like, I'm gonna fucking draw. Like, for the rest of my life. I thought I wanted to be an animator, Bowen. Me too, growing up. And I like, I did like an intensive pre-college course that I thought was my like, oh, and this is what I'll do to then apply to animation schools.

And I did, and I was like, I, my brain cannot withstand this. I was like, I to some degree have some ability of technical skill. Yes. That with time, I could probably refine into doing this professionally. Right. My brain will melt. What, what like was the heat source? Like it was like you were like frame by frame.

Like that was the, yeah. Yeah. It was sitting down and just drawing things over and over and over again. And the like meticulous precision of it and the isolation of it. Is that the panacea though to like our times right now? Like is that what would like cure all of us?

It all became animators. It just were so painstaking. Methodical discipline. Yes, possibly. It's certainly, there is so much joy. animators were so painstaking. Methodical discipline. Yes. Possibly. Certainly, there is so much joy, and this is just the 30 something in me talking as well though, in just like, you know, making something, working hard on it. And like, you know, like, it's true, right? All my friends at the same time are like, I'm getting into this.

And I'm like, yes, you are. Yeah, I'm getting into this, which is the same version of that. You know, like it's all, we're all just crafting over here. But there's this kind of guy and everything I read from Satoshi Kon seems to be the same deal where it becomes this weird Zen state for them. Yeah, right. Everything I found stressful about it,

they're like, it's a release. No, that relaxes me, right, doing it. Yes, but basically he always loved drawing. He thought it'd be a good job for him. He wants to make art, right? It's not like he just wants to be like a graphic designer or whatever. As long as art and drawings were involved in my work, regardless of genre, I was satisfied, he said.

So, you know, he's obsessed with early Miyazaki stuff. He's obsessed with manga. But then in college, he says he starts to get more into like live action films. And he names like a ton of like Japanese action films and things like that. And I do feel like that is crucial to him. I think it's the key turning point that basically,

and he says part of it is the like, Terry Gilliam is a huge inspiration for him, he says. Part of it I think is the like, if you love food, never work in a kitchen thing, where he basically said from the moment he was pursuing it professionally and really getting into the nuts and bolts of it, he couldn't kind of get joy watching other animated works. Oh, really? He got too gummed up in the like, the technique and like, thinking about the actual production. But the other part was he was like, I don't want to be making animated films

Riffing off of other animated films. I want to put different input in my head Yeah, and then sort of express it out as animation, which I do think it's why This movie in particular but his whole career comes like as a total shock to the industry of just like well This is not what anyone else is using animation for. This guy's thinking about it in a different area. Absolutely. He's very self-deprecating about it, which is like in all these episodes

where we talk about him, that's what he's like. He's always just down on himself and just like, oh, you know, I'm not that important. And like the stuff I do isn't that interesting. Like that's just his personality in every single interview. But he starts working on Kai Kisen, Kai Kisen, I'm sorry. I don't know. Some sort of long running manga series. And then he works on another manga series and then he hops to

anime rights, hops to like, you know, television. He works on Jojo's bizarre adventures. That's the big one for him. That's the one that breaks him. That does kind of break him out. As well as Runmellos, and which was written and directed by Oshi, the Ghost in the Shell guy. Oh. And then those two collaborated on a manga together

called Seraphim, 266 million wings. I just, what a world. What a world. Are you an anime or manga book? Because I'm really not. I'm really not. And it's a thing that I hope to correct. It's so deep. It's just like, I can't.

I find it very daunting. Haste did a thing recently where they were like, these are the, start here. Like, start here. And I think, and I really like did like bookmark that. It's like, oh, let me, this is going to be my little. Yeah. I've been trying to push myself to watch more anime films start here. And I think I really did like bookmark that as like, oh, let me this is gonna be my little yeah I've been trying to push myself to watch more anime films with the TV stuff just feels so

daunting but it does kind of It is already pre-digested for you where it's like 22 minutes, right? It's true. Okay I can do that pop one on and I'm not above an English dub You know, I will say the English dub. No, I'm not either. You know? I will say the English dub on this one is weak. Yes. I watched the Japanese language version. I have checked in with the dub and I have not found it to be good. Yeah.

There's probably a better dub to be done. It's across this miniseries what I did was try the dub on my disc and then if the dub was not good I'd go like okay sub time like if the performances aren't good I will respect the integrity of the original work I just sometimes my brain is easier to process it for the first time if I'm not also bringing the subtiles and films that are this hyper visual yes yes yes yeah, yes, yes. Yeah, exactly. All right. But this dub sucks. In 1991, author Yoshikazu Takeuchi writes Perfect Blue, Kansan Hantai. It's a novel.

Yes. It's originally gonna be turned into a live action film. After the great Kovia earthquake of 1995, for whatever reason, it then gets turned into an animated project, goes to Madhouse, who are obviously the people who made it. They start prepping it as an OVA,

which is basically a straight to video, not even a TV film, like straight, you know, straight to DVD. It was anime's equivalent of like Return of Jafar. It was like they suddenly built a very successful model of like there are TV shows, there are movies, and then there are like sixty five to seventy minute straight to video, lower quality. Yes. Because reference Return of Jafar as like...

Oh, we did an episode. Yes, that's right. And it has become a bit of a term for us. Yes, no, and thank you for indexing it like that. Because it is like, it is the straight to video sequel. Like the per... Like that is the thing. It was the one. Have you watched it recently? No. Oh, yeah, I did watch it recently.

Because I had to play Jafar on SNL once. Yes, you did. Beautifully. And I was just like, I know, like, the original Aladdin Jafar, like, the back of my hand, but there was some, I think the early sexual awakening for me was them, like, was Jafar staying in genie state for most of Return of Jafar and the abs and the pecs just kind of, like, bulging out the whole time.

Jafar is... Did you check out, like, Broadway Jafar too? I feel like that's a whole world. That's a whole world. Not quite as gay. No, sure. More arch. But Broadway Jafar was the same... Was the voice actor? Am I wrong about that? It was. At least at some point. He originated.

And that is one of our great gay men, John Freeman. I do think... I just think the gag in Aladdin, where he says he could marry Jasmine, and Yagra says, like, you could marry... And he just goes, what? It's still just the funniest, like, gay-coded Disney villain moment ever. It's funny. It's not, like, derisive. It's still just the funniest like gay coded Disney villain moment ever. It's funny. It's not like derisive It's truly funny. Like that the two of them are like

We we talked about this on our patreon return Jafar is one of those ultimate you go back and watch it and you're like In my memory I was improving the quality of this thing Was made in 20 minutes. Yeah, it does seem like it. It's just like for 40 blocks. It's just crazy that like 40 million people have seen a movie that was made in 20 minutes. It was like, is that roughly the number? I don't know, I just feel like everyone saw that movie.

Everyone thought it, like at a certain age. It was insane, it was like quietly one of the most watched movies of the 90s. Because it was a VHS that was in every household for people our age. And it was like, it was the first one where they were like, what if we make a shittier thing and we just let people buy it?

And then it like, they sold like $300 million worth of VHSes or something insane. But like, I think that's, OVA is kind of seen similarly where it's like, this is a lucrative business, it is not high art. Totally. I'm sorry for taking this on a return of Jafar. Very good that you did.

And you truly played Jafar. You have inhabited Jafar. Yes, you have become Jafar. I have become one. I am one with Jafar. You looked in the mirror and you saw you as Jafar with a bloody knife. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Wearing like a toot. What does she wear? Like a big pink. I love her pop star look in this. It's really good. Oh yeah, her pop star, yeah,

this sort of like frilly pink dress. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so he gets basically recommended to direct this movie because he'd worked with like a project advisor on it or what, you know, and I feel like it is kind of also just a vibe. And his work on JoJo was very strong and that show was very big.

And this is like a great opportunity for you to dabble, like to start off, right? You know, do an OVA. Stakes are so low. Right. They're like, we have the rights to this book. A pulpy book, apparently. Yeah, like a pulpy trashy book.

He reads this, he's given a script which the novelist had written. He's like, I don't really have any interest in this, but. And he never read the book. He only read that. And I never read the book. He only read that adaptation. But if you let me fuck with it, and I will still give you a movie about an idol who's being stalked, and it'll be like a horror movie...

I'll hit the themes. ...then, like, can I make the movie? And they're like, yeah, fine. He says he never read it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The book is, by all accounts, more of a kind of pulpy slasher type thing, which he said, like, I'm not really interested in straight horror. I don't want to make a movie that's just straight up, like, killing after killing after killing. Right, like, he actually doesn't know why it's called Perfect Blue,

but he was like, but I like the title, so I'll stick with it. He brings in another writer, Satoyuki Murai, who'd also worked on TV and had worked in publicity, and he liked that he would basically just sort of like know the frame of like this kind of celebrity, like this sort of nascent celebrity. And Marai came up with the idea of Double Blind, the creepy show that she's in. That's cool. And Cohn is like, I brought in like the internet. I needed that to be like a place where the more authentic version

of her appears, closer to the public image than the real person or the website. Which in 97 is still daring. Yeah, very daring. It's still interesting, I feel like, right? I mean, it's crazy that like 97 to 2007, his first and last movie, both are really rooted in the internet. The internet changes so much within those ten years.

And in both moments it felt like he was ten years ahead of where the internet was. Like Perfect Blue is a movie in 97 that feels like it's about the late 2000s internet. And Paprika feels like it's about the late 2010s internet. Right. Totally. But I feel like he treats the internet in this in a very, like, spare way. Where it's all you see is the meme is Runeblog. Yeah. Right? It's like that's your she's like he could have very easily been like,

and what else is there to explore? And like he kept it very focused on that. Everything's very focused in this movie, I feel like. But at the same time, you can watch this movie and transition to a new scene and be like, did I miss something? Like, which is great. Like, it's unsettling. It's not-

It's also what he's playing with. Uh, yes. A hundred percent. Right. If I jump ahead, is that because I'm using cinematic language to just sort of yada yada yada over stuff? Or are you supposed to be confused and disoriented because this is an unnatural jump? This is a thing that isn't happening or shouldn't happen or whatever?

Yeah. Yeah, so, you know, while he's making the movie, he's doing a good job and Madhouse is like, okay, this is going to get a theatrical release. Weirdly, that means it has to be reduced in running time. It's why it's so short. I think maybe as an OVA it would have been longer. Okay, this is gonna get a theatrical release. Weirdly, that means it has to be reduced in running time. It's why it's so short. I think maybe as an OVA, it would have been longer.

He says he had to throw out 100 scenes. Cinema running time is limited. I don't know if it's like a sort of back-to-back consideration or like just like a cramming in the show times, but like basically he had to make it after 90 minutes. Anyway, we should talk about that movie. And they had to like reformat it. I mean, it was originally going to be like designed for four by three VHS.

Right. You know? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. But I did not know the OVA part. It's it's a classic, you know, like Diamond in the Rough kind of thing. Right. Like several of the directors we've covered on the show before, American directors who got started with Roger Corman, where part of the model was like, this doesn't fucking matter. Mm-hmm.

We have like sold a space for your movie to fit into, and what your movie is is almost irrelevant, and here's X amount of money and X amount of time. And like Roger Corman's line was always, if you make this movie well enough, you'll never have to work for me ever again. Right? But he'll take a flyer on a kid who's got some gumption, half a credit under his belt or whatever. And this is a case of like the circumstances of this movie are similarly

like who gives a shit? Why not try this? And then he over delivers so wildly with lines like, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. Oh no, it's all right. I do feel like for his Stoosh, Codes Big Thing is like all on a man in the 90s was just about like robot girls. Like, yeah, and I just didn't want to do that. Like, and this is a movie that could be a live action movie.

He's making it like a live action movie in a lot of ways, like like the cinematic language of it, the jump cuts and the you know, like I feel like is but obviously because the only one that on paper doesn't feel like, obviously this could just be a live action movie. And that's ironically the one that Hollywood studios have tried to literally remake. To crack it open, right. But also this end Millennium Actress, both open with scenes that feel like they're out of a more traditional anime where it feels like he's using, like to try to acclimate

people. We're like a Power Rangers thing. like they're out of a more traditional anime where it feels like he's using like to try to acclimate people We're like a Power Rangers thing right this starts with like a shonen jump like sort of thing And then right then kids walk out and are like I'm bored and you're into human life, and it's like he's trying to like Resettle you into like animation doesn't have to be this we can follow other people Millennium Actress also starts with a spaceship Launching yeah, yeah, yes We can follow other people. Millennium Actress also starts with a spaceship launching. Right. Yeah. Yes. I love that scene though. It's great. But it's so telling that his first two movies feel the need to contextualize.

I know this is what you think this is. It's not going to be that. I'm going to walk you over to this other. Right. Yeah. That's so cool. So the film, should we just, yeah, should we just talk about the movie? I mean, there's so much in the research here, which is interesting, but I feel like

I'm just going to be be lecturing you guys. You're just gonna fire JJ? I'm not! Oh, he does a wonderful job. Yes, that would work! David! Don't fire JJ! Uh, like, I think, as will be true in all his movies, the power of animation is that he can just have her change shape

Yes at the end of the movie right like her be both herself and her stalker Yeah, like seamlessly and you can feel like you're losing your mind Yeah, just like she's losing her mind and in a movie. That's just gonna be a little more like Telegraph like you know, it's just gonna feel a little more fake Which is I think the black swan does it about as well as any live-action movie ever seen why I like that movie I think he uses effects in a way where it does sort of feel like it takes a moment for you to clock that an Effect has happened But this has the benefit

I think he uses this in all of his films of like reality can change so subtly and sneak up on you Because you're starting out buying into a fake reality. You're already seeing an abstraction of reality that then when that gets stretched, it takes longer for your brain to adjust to it, which does have quite an effect on you. Like you don't realize what the filter of the procedural show is until like the third time they do that, like he does that, where it's like, oh, you were actually watching a scene from the show, you know?

Yes. Like it does take a minute visually or aesthetically for that to like be encoded. He also lingers in the fake reality for a minute longer than you think he's going to. Every time. Every time. Right. Like you're like, where, when are we? You know, you want the relief of of the zoom out to their cameras. And especially as crimes are happening in both realities, it becomes harder and harder to differentiate

when a scene starts with people talking about a crime scene. In an animated movie, if you stab someone, all this blood can come out of them. In a way that's completely unrealistic and is so frightening. I was gonna say how that is a scarier sort of violence than anything... Than anything like with actually human. You know, like that happens a scarier sort of violence than anything. Anything like actually human. Right, you know, like that happens a couple times in this movie, where it's just something like a geyser of blood. Another thing I think he does very well,

and this is probably the movie where he does it, where he uses it the most to his advantage, but that because of animation, you can make characters look as similar or different as you want to. Uh-huh. Like sometimes it is to his benefit that characters are vaguely indistinguishable from each other. Like the members of Cham, the band, the group. Yeah, they all kind of have the same.

Yeah, that there's that disorientation. And other times it's like, someone can have, like, the widest eyes imaginable, and they're gonna be pinned in your head of, like, no other character looks like this. Right. She should just stick with Cham. Cham seems fun. Cham seems fun.

Cham seems fun. Cham turned into a duo, right? You see them on posters for the rest of the movie. Like, they're just like chugging along. They start hosting a podcast. They start hosting a podcast! And then there's an active subreddit about it. Yeah.

They sing songs. I love that their song as a duo is about wearing more modest clothes or something. Is that what it... I was like trying to read the lyrics, I was like, what is this about? I think you're right. This year I'll wear more, more like everyday clothing. This year I'll button up. I'll button up.

Yeah, right. The Angel of Love, I think is their big banger. That's a hit. Yeah, they're like Atomic Kitten or whatever. Like any of these, I tried like British pop girl bands where they were just kind of like, yeah, we dropped, you know, Katie, we're adding Carrie. Like, don't worry about it. Like, it's always going to be Atomic Kitten.

Like, that's what's important. But you start the movie with these kids leaving this sort of like live action stunt show version of a Power Rangers type thing, talking about how fake it looked and that they should go see a movie instead. Yes. Which it's also just nice that like there is this weird full circle of Paprika ending with a man walking into a movie theater.

That his whole career is kind of framed in this way. But then you go to the sort of surrounding area where this concert's happening and you see like they are not the Spice Girls, they are not infinitely mobbed, but there is an intensity around them to an extent that there is black market trading of their materials. Because they're being presented in this weird sexual way, too, there's a creepiness to the marketing of them.

Right? Yeah, and these awkward guys trading each other, posters and concert recordings and talking about, were you there for that one? Right. Right. But everyone in the audience, I think for both of those like little concert scenes is male. Yeah. Is like a guy. Yeah. And I love I love that anime

thing of like erasing everyone's faces. Have you like like they do that in video games sometimes, like Persona 5. It's just like the only faces you're seeing in the crowd are the ones of the main characters. The ones that matter. Should I play Persona 5? Yes, absolutely yes.

Subreddit go off. Is that the one? Like if I was gonna play a Persona game. That's the one. That's the one. And the three, they just came out with a remake of three, which is really good. But I think five is the one that got me.

That was my first one. And I've played it twice and I fucking love it. David's been all in a Baldur's Gate. He's been in Baldur's Gate all day and all that. Yeah, I mean, I fell in love with Baldur's Gate. I don't know if you did Baldur's Gate. I tried. I couldn't do the radial menus on a console.

No, I'm playing it on a PC. And I don't have a good enough gaming PC. When I moved, that was my present to me. I'm buying a gaming PC and I'm I'm playing Baldur's Game 3 at night after I put my child to bed. Oh, yeah. But I had to actually take a break from it was like kind of overheating. Really? Yeah. Like I got to Act 3 and you get to like Baldur's the city.

And suddenly everyone around you is talking all the time. And you're like, Jesus. Like, and I just needed like I was like, I need to play a game about, like, shooting an alien for a minute. Like, just, I need to, like, chill out. Go back to the Robocop game. I might, yeah, yeah, yeah. You should try that out.

It's something you just walk around real slow with. There's like a re-re-recent, it's called Rogue City, right? Robocop Rogue City? You're Robocop. Oh, uh-huh. You, like, waste hippies. I haven't really discovered any depth to it. Like, I'm not sure if there is much. I don't know if I need depth.

No, I know, there might not be. Just because it's Robocop, I was like, is there gonna be like a satire element to this? Instead it's like, I have a gun and I waste hippies. Yeah, but the thing that's fun about it is that it's the world's slowest first-person shooter because they do hold you to the physics of Robocop. Right, you're not running.

This guy can't fucking move. That's amazing. Yeah, it's fun. Rogue City? Rogue City. I'm gonna play this. Yeah, okay. When I beat Seven Rebirth,

and I'm 120 hours in, and I still have not beaten it. These games are long. And isn't Seven Rebirth... You're grownups. Just half of the game, right? A third of it. Right, there's three. Jesus, man. It's ridiculous. Yeah, we are grownups. Just half of the game, right? A third of it. Right, there's three.

Jesus, man. It's ridiculous. Yeah, we are grownups. We're grownups. What's up? David. Yes? I'm so stressed out. Okay.

I got something to prove. I got shit on my shoulder. What's going on? Last year I lost Mother's Day. You loser. I know. I came in bronze out of the three Newman children. At least you made podium. There was no fourth kid. There's no lower I could have ranked. Oh boy. Yeah. Well are you ready to win Mother's Day and cement your reputation as the best gift giver in the family? Yeah absolutely because I gave her a blank check t-shirt last year and she wasn't that amused. Well, give the mom in your life

an Aura digital picture frame preloaded with decades of family photos. That's what will win me the gold. She'll love looking back on your childhood memories and seeing what you're up to today. Even better with unlimited storage and an easy to use app, you can keep updating mom's frame with new photos so it's the gift that keeps on giving, okay?

Although you could also just give an Aura frame to anyone else in your life and put in any kind of photos you want in there. That's true. But right now Aura has a great deal for Mother's Day. Listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get $30 off plus free shipping on their best-selling frame. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com. Use code CHECK at checkout to save. Terms

and conditions apply. David, Mother's Day isn't the only major holiday coming up. There's also David's Day. Okay. And what if I got you an aura frame filled with photos of Colin Farrell? That's lovely. And you can sort of chart his rise and fall, fresh face. Oh, in the rebound. Come on Oscar nominee. Well, I'm sorry, Rise and Fall and Rise.

Right. Okay, so. Sorry, what were we? Perfect Blue. Okay, well, sorry. She announces at this concert that it's her final show. That she's leaving the group. That she's ready for a rebrand.

This makes Mimania very furious, who's sort of like the avatar of her creepy stalkers, this person. Her physical reply guy. Yes. Right. Her most obsessive. And it's not just that, like, it's like she's changing from, I guess, like, a very clean-cut image, although I find it maybe a little creepy, but she's supposed to be like a good school girl, right? Yes. To like a grown-up sexual image of like an actress who's in like lurid stuff.

Yeah. And is doing photo shoots that are like raunchy, right? Like, you know, like that's the vibe, right? It happens to a lot of teen star. I mean, now I feel like there's a slightly different model where you, it feels like young stars go through this era of like, I want to claim my sexuality and take control of it. But for so long, it was like, you're on a WB show

and then you do Maxim magazine. Right? You said Mandy Moore, right? Like, she's someone who went through that, I assume. She went through that, but I think she... She seems normal-ish. I think she seems normal. I think she is normal-ish. I just, and Seem, I corrected the word Seem there

because having met her, I think she is normal-ish. And Seem, I corrected the word Seem there because having met her, I think she is very much like, and she says this, she's like, I'm just a mom living in the valley. Like, nobody bothered me. Like, I'm normal. And I'm like, that is remarkable. That's sort of like a miracle. It's a miracle.

Oh my God, and she just like listens to our podcast. She's a podcast lady. She's like, let me listen. Like, it's... Come on, play Czech, Mandy. Love Mandy more. Mandy? Go on, play Czech. Candy is a banger. Candy's a banger.

Fucking pangol's a banger. You guys should do Adam Shankman. You guys should. Have you guys done Adam Shankman? We have not. I worked with him. You're in an Adam Shankman movie. I was the chipmunk in disenchanted. I spent a lot of time with the good sir. Adam Shankman would be all killer no filler though. Like even if I don't like his movies, we're not gonna be like bored talking about these movies.

And of course we did discuss what men want on our Patreon. We did. We did that. Which is a forgotten Adam Shankman joint. Wow. Yeah, so we felt like we had to cover the remake. People forget that movie, Lowkey made like $75 million. Yeah, he directed in Nora Rowe? No. He directed the remake, I'm sorry, not Nora, Nancy.

Nancy, right. Nancy did one. He did one. What men want, the Taraji P. Henson gender-flipped remake. Right, she can hear what men think. Right, and the joke is sort of like, yeah, it's right. Gender-flipped remake of course. Right, she can hear what men think. Right, and the joke is sort of like, yeah, it's called being a woman.

Right, but it isn't also a joke that's like, every man is just like, boners, like, I can't really. We saw it. We saw it, we saw it in theaters. I was drunk. We were drunk. I should have been. We were collectively drunk.

But I mean, the whole thing with Shankren is the hairspray is so good. He's made movies I think are excellent. He's also made like, you know, The Pacifier or whatever. I don't like, despite loving Vin Diesel more than any... Vin Diesel is the one that I go perfect glue for. Wow! You're the memania for them. A little bit. And I like kind of can't stand The Pacifier. The thing that is's fasting about Franklin

I hope I I'm not betraying anything by saying this love out of but I would like talk to him so much in like I worked On that movie for like a year and a half and it was like spread out But every couple of months I'd spend like several hours like Rerecording everything right favorite your favorite my favorite. I do love it, but it was exhausting and Like but talk about how great hairspray is. You would talk to him about how great. Yeah, I love it.

I'm like, I think that's like the best of the last 15 years and sort of like musical comedy and film. And he would like talk about everything he put into it and why he tried and, you know, this and that and like that registered and how hands on he was. He's got a real director brain because

he even reached out after our Mandy Moore episode and was like, because we talked about A Walk to Remember, and he still remembers like, on day 15, this is what happened. And I was like, Jesus, I would never be able to organize my thoughts that way. I guess it's a good brain to have for a filmmaker. The flip side of this is I have rarely heard anyone talk more critically about any movie that they have seen as much as he talked critically of Rock of Ages. Oh!

Where he was just like humongous mistake in every... Oh, that's fine. Where he has like a real perspective on his stuff in that way. Of course. Anyway, Shankman Mesa is confirmed 2025. Yes, Mandy Moore is guest. Let's do him. I mean, I mean, Walk to Remember, pretty good. Pretty good. But yes, this model where like for so long,

it was like, if you're a child and you want to transition to being seen as an adult, the only way to do that is to hand yourself over to like the sexualization machine. To like some degree, hand over your persona, dehumanize yourself, and let them run you through the filter. That no matter how much you are claiming your sexuality as your own,

it is always meal and gaze-y, you know? Right. Right, this is independent of her. And she sort of wants to do it, but right, the product is... But it's a calculation. Think of it this way. In our era, the one... The thing that Miley Cyrus has successfully done, that I feel like has become the model of, that's how you go from being a child to being an adult

and doing it on your own terms and your audience is growing with you and it feels like she has control and autonomy. The person who came closest to trying to do it that way was Christina Aguilera. And there were six years of everyone making slut jokes. Yes. Right?

Versus when Britney would dance with the snake in the bikini, people would be like, yes, good. We love it. Right. And Christina Aguilera is like, why is she pushing this on us? Why is she owning this so hard? But she's in she's in that transitional stage. And part of it is like not that she wants to be seen as sexier, but that she wants to like experience some artistic growth, evolution, maturation. And part of that is now she's going to have to like leave the comfort of her pop stardom, like experience some artistic growth, evolution, maturation.

And part of that is now she's gonna have to like leave the comfort of her pop stardom, throw herself into something greater to prove herself to get to the point of where she wants to be. Well then like the weird creepy irony of like she gets a bit part on a TV show and then they're like, no, we're gonna get you a better part, rape fiction. Yes.

I'm sorry to laugh, but like, they're like, oh, you've lobbied successfully for this dramatic part where you're gonna get to act, but it's you being attacked on screen. Right. And that is, that scene, since Cohn says he thinks he went a little too hard in that scene.

In that rape scene? I think he did. Yeah, like, he's like, in retrospect, I think I went too far. Like, we didn't know this movie was gonna be released in theaters, we thought we had to make it stand out. And so I thought we should have a very graphic scene, but like, I think it's like, when I saw it blown up on a big screen,

I ended up looking down, which is an interesting little... It's very upsetting. And it's like, of course, the beginning of her mental unraveling, so it should be upsetting. Yes. And it's not the thing that is the most upsetting in a way is that afterwards, she's just like, okay, I guess I'll go home. Like, yeah.

It is the argument I will make in defense of how upsetting it is, is I do think it gains power then in the contrast of the moments when it stops. Where the moment is, it goes, it cuts from the rape, the rape scene being filmed to her getting into her car home and being like, ah, so tired. Like, she, like, which is, like, very, like, real. I was gonna say, it is so spot on to me. I have never had to do a scene of this intensity. But any time you are witnessing someone else do this,

or you're doing some variation of this, the moment where they call cut and they're like, we're going to need like five seconds to adjust the light or whatever is the weirdest energy in the world. And the moment where you're like, let me just go to the bathroom. You know, when you're like, even if you're not living in it and you're Methody about it, but it's like your body's holding on to some shit. The POV shot of her, of just the ceiling of Yeah. Of like what she's seeing in between the take. Yes, that shit is so good. And I do think to some degree, it needs the contrast of the intensity

for those moments to register as kind of specifically as they did. Yes, yes. Yeah. Let's also acknowledge this is one of those sequences where you're like, there are direct shots here that feel like they're basically photocopied into Requiem for a Dream. And that is a sequence where I feel like those images are used for only really for salaciousness and depravity. And true like

manipulation. Yeah, it's and I don't dislike Aronofsky at all. No, no, no, no. But like that's a where it's just like, this is the depths of depravity in humanity. This is the lowest low you can possibly imagine. Versus he is trying to find a way to dramatize and visualize this very specific feeling of the weird intensity of acting on set and the stop and starting of it. And the needing to manipulate your own emotions, create circumstances that feel real, have people do horrible things to you.

In these agreed upon terms is why I think that dialogue segment is so good. Truly. Where it's just like the fact that there's like 30 seconds, it feels like 30 seconds, probably 10 or whatever. It was you too for my 1.5 speed. I just have to remind everybody. They like call cut and he's just still lying on top of her. And they're silent for a long time and you're like, is this guy going to do something creepy? And then he says the like thoughtful thing very meekly. And it's a relief.

It's a relief. But you're also like, you could feel in his head him being like, is it worse if I say something or if I just sit here silently or like. All that stuff he gets really well. I know. And I think it works so well as the midpoint of the film. And then at that point, she starts to see these hallucinations of herself. Right.

She finds out there's this sort of online diary written in her voice. Mima's room. Mima's room. Yes. That is very specific and accurate. Right. It's weirdly accurate. It's written in the first person, like you say, and it's almost like

she's writing a diary without knowing she's doing it. And what I told Mandy Moore on our episode, it reminded me of Perfect Blue was I in 2002 was obsessively reading her Zanga page. Fuck. Which was like, just got off set today, like literally from the fucking movie. Yeah. And then asked her, was that your Zanga page? It wasn't.

No. Someone else was doing it. She had her own Mimania. This is exactly the plot of Perfect Blue. And like, was that even organized or was someone just doing it for fun? I think someone was just doing it for fun. Yeah, because that was before anyone would even bother to do something like that. No blue checks.

At the corporate level. Right. Right. Yeah, no blue checks. And now, now of course we know who everyone is on the internet all the time My When I when I dropped out of college my roommate at the time Was a bunch of us like four of us in a a two bedroom apartment, all working like shitty jobs. And my one roommate, the job he got, this is 2008, he was running the MySpace page for one of the other singers in LaBelle, not Padding. Whoa!

And basically at that point, most of that job was like responding to messages or like wall posts and being like, no, you are my inspiration. You know, like he was just sort of writing in this voice of this like woman decades older than him, who was like a weird tier of celebrity. And I was just like, that is so weird that she doesn't do that herself. Who hires someone to write their social media? And now you're like, everyone. Everyone. Everyone. Everyone. At that point in time, the fact that it was one of the other people in LaBelle was a funny aspect of it. But I was like, and can you believe this woman has someone write fake correspondences with her fans?

And then you bring up this Mandy Moore thing and David's question is, well, was that someone working for her or a stranger? I don't think that concept existed at the time. Totally not. In early, like, Web 1.0 days, like, no. But now you just kind of assume. Yeah. Very often, and it's, like, cited as this, like, currency of, like, I think they write their own posts.

Oh. Their voice feels like it's actually the who would actually they wouldn't send that photo to someone else. Right. That was taken in the moment. They posted it right away. Like the first refraction of reality is that it's like, no, that's not them. Right. Like that is kind of upset. And now there's two people.

And it's a two way refraction. Like you as the audience are going like, am I dealing with a real person or not? And this isn't me dealing with them on stage or them on screen. This is ostensibly supposed to be the window into the real them. And it's probably not. And then if you as a person are hiring someone to do that, you're like, I give you authorial voice over me. Like, that's why I think this movie has not necessarily...

Like, it still has something very important to say about, like, technology and the internet. I don't think it's totally outdated. No, no, I don't think it's really very outdated at all. Kind of shocking. I think the simplification of just like, like you said, the internet is like a blog, that's it. Like, there's this one thing that's kind of creepy, and that's the conduit, but we don't think about like 90s internet in any other way. And so this can be transposed onto anything. Like, it both feels like a De Palma movie from 20 years

prior and it feels like you could basically make this today. Yeah, yeah. And it helps that like, even if the internet he is depicting is in like a certain infancy compared to what we know today, the intensity of what happens out of it feels reflective of our relationship to the internet still, in sort of an expressionistic way. I mean, we'll dig into it in future episodes, but they're like, he was so interested in the internet sociologically in a way that I think other people weren't at that time, where they were just thinking about the technological possibilities. And he was like, this is like this weird device for loneliness.

That like in some ways people are presenting this as like it's going to solve it. And I think it's going to cause greater refraction. Yeah. Totally. What do you think about celebrities who have, like, a different name from their actual name? Just like, is that the first division of, like, personalities where it's like, you start going by your professional name, maybe, and then everyone starts calling you that, and maybe only your family still calls you your older name?

I don't know. Like, just like weird shit like that. Interestingly, right before Stars is Born came out, there was talk of her being Vilda Stephanie Gervanada and not Lady Gaga. Like, that was gonna be a decisive move. The Dwayne Johnson move. Exactly, the Dwayne Johnson move. And people, and he did transitional stages, right?

He's like went through like, I'm the rock. I'm Dwayne the Rock Johnson. I'm Dwayne Johnson. And now he uses the rock when he wants it. When he goes back on. Right. That was the moment for Lady Gaga. I'm the Rock Johnson. I'm Dwayne Johnson. And now he uses the Rock when he wants it. When he's wrestling. Right. That was the moment for Lady Gaga. And when that poster came out, it was Gaga on it. I think all of us were like, oh, interesting.

That's a move. And now you're like several movies into her career. And she's like, I am Lady Gaga as an actress. Yes. And I don't think it was the right or wrong move. No, me neither. But it's interesting because that was an inflection point for her. Yes.

She could have made a change. She did. She's Academy Award nominee Lady Gaga. Oh. Academy Award winner. Oh, sure. Winner. She has an Oscar.

First singing, first song, writing. But she was a Schrodinger's Gaga before that poster came out. She was both Stephanie and Gaga. Who will she be? Yeah. But now she's chosen. We've opened the box and now she is forever quantum Lee Gaga. And I've talked about this before, but like.

Quantum Lee. Quantum Lee, that's not a real word, but you know what I mean? I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. When I joined SAG, and I've mentioned this before, I was astonished by how informal the process was, where they just go, and by the way, if your name's taken, please write down five additional names.

Yes! Right. And anytime a celebrity has explained their fake name. Oh, I picked a middle name or I picked my mother's name. And you're like, put that little thought into it. Right. It's like, no, they really do catch you off guard. And they're like, by the way, we'll get back to you in six weeks and tell you what your

name is. Right. Oh my God. That is crazy. And some of those people, it's like that becomes their name forever. And some of those people you hear that like, no, to their friends, they go by something entire. Like Michael Keaton still says that everyone who knows him calls him Michael

Douglas. Oh, wow. That's his name. His real name is Michael Douglas. What's his problem calling himself Michael Douglas? What does he think? Well, they wouldn't let him. I know, I know, I know. Cause someone else was already roaming the streets of San Francisco. Michael Keaton is such, he really hit a home run with his fake name.

That's really good He was like Buster Diane two great movie stars. I'll be the third that was his that was his thinking really Oh, my favorite movie stars have Keaton. That's a good last name for a movie star Keaton. It's I mean, yeah Okay, so she's making this show it's starting to make her crazy meanwhile The only thing in Perfect Blue that maybe hits my ear a little badly. Sure, the anti-Keaton. There's a letter bomb attack,

and then a member of the crew is murdered, or the cat, like crew. It's the screenwriter. Yeah, the writer is murdered. And she's basically told, like, but don't worry about it. Right, right. And I'm just like, this kind of thing doesn't happen all the time. Like a sort of Phantom of the

Opera situation. Someone's like moving around this particular project, killing people or trying to kill people. Yeah. But as we already said, I think this movie captures so well is that like she is not rich. As much as she had this rabid fandom, there's this question of like, is any of the currency going to translate? She's fighting to get a small part. And even when it's expanded to like, the prime position of a rape victim in a murder show, it's still like, this doesn't immediately lead to anything else, you know?

So there's this like, weird contrast between the intensity of her life in certain quarters and how much she still feels like she's needing to prove herself and get any foothold. The only control she has in her life, the only arena of control she has in her life is to feed her fish. Right, and she keeps questioning whether it was a bad move to leave the band because there was a sense of stability

in that, as suffocated as she was maybe starting to feel within it. She's seeing herself in mirrors in her old idol outfit. And her reflection is talking to her and basically saying, like, I'm the real Mima. You are basically an imposter slash, you know, you're corrupting Mima. The persona is now greater than you are. What you created is the dominant personality.

And the plot of this 81 minute movie is pretty straightforward. It's just like, and yet this movie is so disorienting, but it's just like she's continuing in her career, but these murders are happening and is she doing the murders or not? Like, and like not knowing about it. Like, is she like disassociating and like also a serial killer? And how much of that is her unraveling around this real crime that is happening around her and how much of it is the fake, the bleeding in of the work she's

doing and her trying to get in the headspace of this part and live through these traumatic things cone compares his himself to Slaughterhouse five, not in the ways of, you know, not like I've created a masterpiece, although he did a good job, but just like where he a masterpiece, although he did. Good job. Yeah. But just like where he's like, I just wanted to cut out anything ordinary. So you're just cutting between like insane things. Basically, like with no transition whatsoever to make it all the more disorienting. But then the feeding the fish is interesting because he basically makes that

the one sort of like anchor thing. He builds it up is the way he talks about like initially it's slower and then by the like latter half of the film Like you feel like she never has a moment where she's being calm like yeah, right But the fish at the end or like the tell that she's not in her. Yeah, right there the spinning top I never I didn't know that he compared this to Compared this to Slaughterhouse 5 or like the influence of Slaughterhouse 5 is basically like, the human brain is mysterious, I'm quoting him here. For example, when we remember an impressive event that happened 20 years ago, that memory might follow something

that happened yesterday. I think everyone has that experience. Like, so I wanted to express how her stage job in her ordinary life are like, indivisible. She's struggling to distinguish between them. Which is what he does in his animation over and over again. He can just like, bleed into a completely new reality without having to signify it some way. It's interesting that he cites Terry Gilliam so much

because I like many of Terry Gilliam's films a lot. But like Gilliam I think, you know, some people bump on this and if you like his work, you buy into this, but it's like, he starts out in a kooky world and things are gonna get kookier, right? And there are a couple of his films like Fisher King, which feels like it had more of a direct influence on Satoshi Kon, where that's one where you're like

bleeding in and out of reality. But Brazil is a movie that's built around dream sequences, and the reality in that movie is also insane. A lot of his films have no sort of, like, baseline reality for him to jump off from. Versus Satoshi Kon is, like, really kind of, like... Exploring liminal states. Where some of his films start out with, like,

an acknowledgement of, this is... This is artifice, like, where that is... You're saying, I've never seen a Terry Gilman film, so I. They're like, you know, they're very cartoonish. Yes, I think he's. They have a lot of business. He's putting more of a frame around it. He's setting more rules in place.

Cone is or Terry? Cone, I think. And then even when he's playing the game of like, I'm never gonna let you know what's totally real or totally fake, that's only doable because there is a baseline sense of what reality is in his universe. And he's doing it for a reason too. It's like he's speaking to very specific psychological states.

This movie's helped by its smallness. Yeah. Which I'm sure is like frustrating when, I mean, you know, any director hears me say, like, I love that, like, they got a zillion studio notes and like had to spend every penny like Because I'm sure that sucks, but the fact that he can only tell so wide a scope you're trapped with her Like it's good like it's like it's the perfect amount of intimacy like you kind of you kind of want to tell this character Like just go have like lunch with your friends like or something like just like get out of this loop And that it's like so focused on one gig, right? Yeah, like how many days is she working in title and in total on this show like five maybe?

You know like but but it's the intensity of this period. Yep. Yep. Yep Beyond the lights a movie we've covered on this show that I adore that movie. I have not seen it You would like young lines. Oh, and that movie? I have not seen it. You would like Beyond the Lines. Oh, you gotta see Beyond the Lines. I think you would like Beyond the Lines. It is, it is, uh, in a positive way, it is like the melodrama romance version of a lot of the same material of like a pop star in a transitional stage trying to figure out her sense of self. But that's a movie where it's like there is constantly so much energy around her, so much happening.

Her life is like... Big entourage. Right. She's trying to quiet it all down. And it's like, no, no, no. There's like a real... There is a weird simplicity to her life outside of when she's doing her work in this. You know?

I mean, okay, yes, yes, yes. Like she goes back to her apartment and it's like she's a normal person. She has a small social circle. She doesn't have a ton of handlers. There aren't a ton of people managing her career But if she's on stage, it's a lot if she's on set. It's a lot You're so right and that's where like the smallness of the movie definitely helps it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm Compared to his other stuff, which is so just so great Maybe I I've never seen Tokyo Godfathers.

You'd like it. Check it out. No, I see, I was supposed to watch it this past Christmas. Missed my window. Next Christmas. It is an excellent Christmas movie. Of course. Yes, highly recommend as a Christmas movie.

Heartwarming, and that actually has a good dub. Oh great, that one has a really great dub. Yeah, the new dub. And the new Millennium Actress dub is good as well. Yes. I agree. I like that new dub. Yeah, Millennium Actress is so beautiful. This Mactress dub is good as well. I agree. I like that new dub. Milena Mactress is so beautiful.

This movie, I feel like there's, you know, what we're talking about is happening for a while, and then we see this murder scene with the photographer, where there's no buildup to it, basically. Like, it's just happening. And you're also not seeing it from her perspective. She's not an eyewitness there. Right. And you that's one of those moments where I'm like, did I, should I like flip back? Like, did I, is there something setting this up?

Yeah. And. You know, like it's what he's talking about. Like then we just, we cut to her waking up over and over and over again, to the point that we lose track of like what are days, right? Like when is she in and out of a dream? Like, what is any of that? You know, like Mulholland Drive starts

with someone's head hitting a pillow. Yeah. And you're like, you can do what you want with that movie and we will talk about it when we do him. And like, you know, but like, it does start with someone's head hitting a pillow. Right. And you're like, okay, so maybe this is a dream.

He's only got plans to get in your head as a strong possibility. Like this movie, she wakes up a million times or she snaps out of it while filming a million times. And so you have no grasp of the rope. Because even the head hitting the pillow version and this is just her like, kind of just turning into like the frame or something.

It's not even totally legible what's happening. No, and they're not doing the like the classics. I do love that. I love that. Oh, you're all sweaty. And if you're like Patrick Wilson or something, you're shirtless and you're looking great. Like, you know what I mean?

What are you referencing? Nothing. I'm just trying to think of like a toned actor. You know, like Patrick Wilson is one of those guys where like he can play like a regular guy, but you're like Patrick Wilson is like, you know, the most beautiful man alive. Yeah, like. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I was just suddenly like, what's the canonical Patrick Wilson wakes up movie that I'm forgetting?

I my brain was just like, what if there was a man in bed and for some reason it settled on Patrick Wilson? He would be a great candidate for a scene like that. Bowen, did you venture to the Lost Kingdom with Aquaman this last Christmas? Speaking of great Christmas movies. I was going to say, I was like, wait, that seems like a movie where he would wake up and... Or in a sweat. He's definitely... You see his chest in that film much. He looks about as good as any person has ever looked in a movie in that.

It's insane. His girls episode is, I think, the most attractive person has ever looked in a movie in that. It's insane. His girls' episode is, I think, the most attractive anyone has ever looked on film. Yes. And then it created this, like, horrible discourse cycle. And Lena, to her defense, was like, -"No one's attractive enough for Patrick Wilson." -"Right!" That's the point. Like, the point of that episode, by the end,

is you realize that, like, what are these two people doing together? Right. Oh, I don't miss the girls' discourse at all. Because if you go back and watch, now I'm so glad there's, like, a rewatch. Yes, everyone's rewatching Girls. And you just go, like, oh, this is excellent. This is good. It's great that it exists. Right, exactly. Yes.

And it's a great time capsule, but it's also great right now. It's great right now. Halfway through the movie, I would say, Mimania basically attacks her on set and we seem to be entering like, you know, reality. Right? Like this is like a big crux point in the movie. Yes.

Mimania, the scariest looking person in the world, as we mentioned, to the point that you're like, could this be like a red hair? He's too scary looking. He looks a little like Momo. Yeah, a little be like a red hair? He's too scary looking. He looks a little like a Momo. Yeah, a little Momo, a little... Oh, did you guys ever, were you guys Digimon kids? Oh yeah, sure, sure, hit me.

Mummymon's human form in season two. Mummymon's season. Mummymon, human guy. Oh no, there was the villain in season two of Digimon. Long haired guy, gray skin. Yeah, because Mami-mon is like the sort of like cannonball guy, right? Like, Arukenymon. Arukenymon is the late spider lady.

Yes, okay. She has a human form. Not the Digimon emperor. Not the Digimon emperor. It looks cool. He does kind of like his vibe. We have to drop this. I'm so sorry. Is it Yukio?

This kind of looks like what you're describing. Can I look at the screen please? It's him. Yeah, he is creepy. He's, again, too creepy. The hair over the face. His face looks strange, but you're also like, there's the mystery of what's going on under there, right? And he's got that intensity of him always kind of like smiling. Oh his teeth the teeth

The the the phonated breath and you can't tell like is this guy? Developmentally challenged no right you yeah, you're not supposed to know. Is he just unwound? Is he like dangerous or is he, yeah. He is dangerous, right? Like obviously like he is not the true villain of the film in a way. He's being manipulated, but he does attack her. And she kills him with a hammer.

And I feel like the rest of the movie is like in real time, like an hour, right? Like at this point, the time like shrinks. Yeah. Right. Like she's not now going back to work after that. Like she gets taken back to Rumi's home and Rumi is of course like the real villain. Right. You have the great sequence that's the cover of the steel book, where she is doing the murder in front of the screen of herself. Yes. And you're not sure if that is a nightmare, if that is right, a projection, or what's going on there. But yeah, you're just getting into the state where it's like,

she's just abstracting into so many different forms of herself. Right. Yeah. Rumi of course we haven't really talked about it. She's like a former idol. She's her manager. Right. Like that sort of seems like her closest friend. Like this is someone. Her confidant if she has one. Yes. Who does not seem to have any social circle outside of the people she works with. And is that because of her past? Is that like an occupational thing where like because she was a pop girlie in her and her youth, like so isolated, did not ever build out her own support?

Right. Possibly. Right. Yeah. You're always sort of stuck with that. Right. And Rumi, of course, is revealed to be the writer of Mima's Room, the murderer, but also basically does think she's the real Mima. It's not like she's just doing this. It's sort of like a Selena situation. When was Selena?

That was a little before this, right? Yeah, because the movie is 97. Yeah, she died in 95. So it is very Selena. I know Selena, it was her fan club president, right? Or like, right. She didn't work for her in the same way as intimately. But yes, there's a similar kind of like... I never made the Selena connection.

I... That's... David? That's why you write for the Atlantic. Oh boy, yeah. No, right. Just like that. I do feel like, yeah, that's a very like 90s thing. It was like when fan clubs were were like were these kind of indie Unsupervised things I remember my parents explaining like you're Olivia Rodrigo You have like there's like a corporate structure to your fans. I assume right there has to be there has to be yeah

I just remember right when when like to diss Olivia. I love Olivia Right. When like... Not to diss Olivia Drigo. I love Olivia Drigo. She's great. We love Olivia Drigo. She's great. I remember asking my parents to explain the Selena thing to me at the time. Right. Like, what is this? And being so deeply unnerved by the concept where I was like, wait, but why did the person

who was her biggest fan kill her? I don't get that. You're telling me she loves her in terms of her action, then she murdered her. And my dad just started being like, well, some people are like crazy. I mean, but they're really trying to dig into that. Like, well, what is this weird line where someone could be so fanatical about something that it goes all the way around? The fact that there are multiple examples of that.

Yes. Like, you know, John Lennon. That was the first one I processed. And I was like, no, you murder someone because you hate them. You hate them But when I intend to murder people they will be the people I hate them. Of course. Yes Not the people you love. No. I hope you don't murder anyone you love. My greatest hope is that I never murder anyone I love And I hope I die a hundred years from now with this episode as a document. He he stood by his word Griffin Newman went to the grave not murdering a single person He was on the road, please like whatever this is, you know, you know, you gotta say about Griffin

Well never murdered anyone he loved Haven't done it today. No plans to change it I'm just making dead eye contact with Ben daring him to not cut this out of the episode Ben. Don't cut it Wait, can we can I can I find out now? I'm sorry making dead eye contact with Ben, daring him to not cut this out of the episode. Ben, don't cut it. Wait, can we, can I find out now? I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Oh yeah, Ben. Oh, please. Okay, so when Bone came in,

we hadn't seen each other in a while. And I mistakenly said, nice to meet you. No, no worries at all. My worst, greatest fear. But I wanted to wait until we were recording the episode to remind you, because we, of course, had recorded a blank check episode, but we had recorded another podcast together. Yes, please remind me.

It was, of course, with one Snooki. Oh, yes, it was the same studio! Snooki and her friend. Of course. Who was she? Joey, Joey, Joey. Does that show still exist? It sure does. Really? Yeah. It friend, Joey. Who was Joey? Joey, Joey, Joey. Does that show still exist? It sure does.

Really? Yeah. Wow. It's all happening or it's happening? It's happening. It's happening. Is it still like 95% Joey? I think so.

Okay. Yeah. But did you retain the locket of hair that she gave to you? I did not retain it. What I retain is Joey and Snooki really trying to tease out of Matt that he had a... that he was well endowed. Yes. And I was slightly uncomfortable.

They were wasted, and I'm so sorry that I put you into that situation. They were lovely. Oh, my God, Ben, that's so funny. Ben was her producer for many years. But I mean, I had truly forgotten about this. That was like a brief little moment in my career. But I got a... Totally brief. Like it was a year or two.

Guys, it was brief unless not dwell on that. Well, their last episode was called We All Survived the Eclipse. I kind of want to listen. All right. Wow. All right. It's all happening.

It's all happening. It looks like they just do it on Zoom now. I think they might be listen. All right. Wow. All right. It's all happening. It's all right. It looks like they just do it on Zoom now. I think they might be phoning this in. Oh, no. I think literally. No, no, no. Which is fine. It's fine.

I'm not judging. I'm not judging. But I had one of those like notifications from my photo app that was like a memory from what... Exactly. I was like, oh my God. Wow. Yeah. The Snuckster. my God. Wow. Yeah.

The snuckster. The snuckster. Yeah. That's so funny. Yeah, Snooki, she's just still out there. She's just still being Snooki. It is a thing I've kind of memory hold that for a while we'd like come into records

and you'd be like, hey guys, I'm sorry. It's just like tough with Nicole today. Not that you were ever saying anything bad about her. No, she was very lovely. You always called her Nicole. But it was just so saying anything bad about. No, you did. Very lovely. I always called her Nicole. But it was just so funny when you'd like talk about like the grind of work and just casually mention Snooki. This is this is what we do.

This is what we do. Speaking of, though, just idols who had weird celebrity arcs. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah. Yeah. I mean, anyone asked me what it was like to work with her. I'm like, can you imagine being in your early 20s, becoming world famous? For like, punched in the face. For like a year.

For being punched in the face and kind of being a drunken mess. Yeah. Right. Right. I think she turned out great and is such a great mom and a great person. That show had run for whatever, had been on for like four or five episodes, I think, when the punch happened. Yes. And my friend Derek and I, my roommate at the time, we were like, have you heard that apparently Snooki gets punched on Jersey Shore?

We got to watch this tonight. And we sit down and watched it. We had not watched any of the previous episodes, but it had the energy of the Sunday night where people were like, I think Obama's going to announce that they got Osama bin Laden. Right. It was the same time. But it was that feeling of like, the the rumors that she gets punched on the show

tonight. I guess we have to watch this. And it was the only episode I ever watched. And you're right. It's like the show was big. The show was huge. And then her getting punched was like the moon landing. Where it was like all of culture has stopped. It was really like one of the first huge realities. Yes. Yes. Of that of that sort of framework or whatever. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like there's first is the real world and then and then there's like sort of big brother and I don't know. We could talk about this. We live in this fucking era now where like reality TV is such a big part of our culture and it is television with characters and narratives and season-long plots that are now more and more moving away from any sort of classic documentary framing. Really, that was the thing when The Hills started, right?

Where people were like, oh, they're just shooting it and cutting it like it's a scripted show. They're not giving you the conventions. It's not like these are stationary cameras in a house and they're moving around them. Yeah, no, for sure. Right, you watch this and you're like, is this the lowest budget TV drama of all time

or are these real people? And now we're like deep into like 20 years into narratives of people like Snooki or Real Housewives, where you're like, they have been characters for more than a decade now. And you're trying to hold the difference between like, what are the plot lines on the shows they've been on and how much of that is massage versus who they are as a real person?

Well, yeah, because I think at least for Housewives, I don't know. That's like my one little area of knowledge that I have with reality TV. And it's like, these are people who, like a lot of the pathology in their minds has to do with them believing that they are the people that are being shown on TV. Which is, yeah. Yes, right. That's a good way of putting it.

Yeah, like, which is, kind of makes your brain wrinkle, like the more you think about it. It's not good for anybody. Right. But it reflects onto culture. Like it's all the stuff this movie is sort of talking about too. Like you're lucky if you have a moment like this in the movie where you break and you go, I need to claim myself back from this like crazy apparatus that it's trying to consume.

Right. The thing that's... A lot of people get too far in they can never pull out. The many things that are pressure about Perfect Glue. One of them is like, right, her ultimate motivation as a fan is like, she's like, I own your image more than you do. Right. Like, I think you should be like this.

You should be a dress wearing idol. You shouldn't be doing like cheesecakey photo shoots. Right. Like, and so that, I mean, the Scream movie where that is the ultimate real, you know, like it's basically like a Redditor villain, right? Like a sort of like, no, I'm the fan and I'm in control of what you're supposed to be like. It feels so ahead of its time. But it is like, yeah, like a kind of a classic Hollywood story, too, I guess.

Like there's like lots of versions of like the fan gone mad in like pop culture history. Right. Like, right. That's a good that's a good trope. Would your manager try to kill you? Would mine? Yeah. When I don't respond to emails, I try to go, are you passing on this or not? The whole sequence with Rumi slash real Mima. Yeah. Where it's like this like,

ersatz room that she's created. She's in the dress. You see her as she is, but you also see the kind of project, her projection of herself. It's so skillfully done. Right. Because at first you're like,

why has her body changed, but her face is the same, so you think it's some sort of hallucination, and then you see the different face, and then you've seen the same shot the mirror right it's just very elegant We done then there's just a chase really like through the city and it ends with this It's on the nose, but it's great a mirror it saves her like she pushes her onto a mirror No, she falls you yeah, you're right. She falls herself. While reaching. Yeah.

What does she drop? The wig. Yes, the wig. She has to be herself. It is, right. She gets so freaked out by losing the illusion of the character that she basically impales herself on a mirror rather than reveal her real self.

Right, Tripp's, like, sees her reflection with the hair gone, and then is completely, like, literally destabilized by that. And then goes into the street, has re-assumed the wig, sees the truck lights coming at her, and like, shifts into, like, has the butt on her face, like, there's a spotlight on her. I love that shot. It's so, it's so good. It is.

That's like one of the classic images of this movie. Right. It's on letterbox. It's the header image. Oh, yeah. As it should be. Can we talk about the poster, though? Like, what do we think the poster's about?

Because it is not really an image from the actual movie. It is not, no. You mean the sort of classic, like you say, college poster of her, like, lying on her back, right? Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, what does perfect blue mean to you? I mean, right?

Question number one. Coe doesn't even know. No, he doesn't really know. I mean, like, I don't think. Except that it's, like, just sort of that... that vague notion of, like, oh, you know, fandom is perfect blue, like, you know. The poster is interesting.

I'm just like looking now. Sounds significant and mysterious, like I said. Because then there's like... There's like plants and flowers and stuff. There's this one which looks like it's the French poster where the fish are sort of inside her body and that feels a little more reflective. There's the one that was used for the American release

of her stabbing in front of the... That one's more direct. Right. But like American release of her stabbing in front of the... That one's more direct. Right. But like this image of her kind of like blending into the wall, like because it's like... It looks like melancholia. Oh, it's a wall. Like it looks like...

Well, but I don't know if it is a wall. Like, because it's kind of like this assortment of like you say, like plants and toys. There's dimension. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. There's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, like, so it's kind of like she's like blurring into this, like, you know, fantasy, like, imagery or of like her collected life. I don't know. It's a cool image.

There's a part of me that wonders. And she's got like, she's got like a bra strap down and like, it's like sort of a sexy picture. And like, that's like the image she's seeking. And, you know, it's also like kind of eye catching. Also, how much of it is if you're making an anime film at this point in time that doesn't have girl robots or monsters,

then the thing you need to sell is look at this pretty lady. Yeah, right. And that is weirdly the image that is, does have a mood and a tone, but doesn't totally indicate how psychological the movie is. Because you read a lot of the reviews and people like, especially the American critics of the time are like, well, it sure is weird that they decide to make an animated psychological horror movie.

Sure. Right. They're like, why? Why isn't it? Right. They just kind of can't get over this being the thing. Right. Right. Yeah.

That's not what a cartoon's supposed to be. But now like a horror animated movie seems so, not pedestrian, but it seems so like, oh yeah, like easily- Go off. Go off, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and even in Japan where you had a culture where animation was seen as a far more like versatile thing and a thing that was not just for children,

there still were entire genres that people were not touching yeah at all totally there wasn't the same sort of like cultural infantilization about it but there still was this kind of like these walls put up yes yeah totally there is a happy ending yeah like a pretty straightforward one like kind of almost like the end of Psycho, whatever. It's like, here we are, time later, Rumi is now in a mental institution. She's got disassociative identity, something. She thinks she's a pop idol. And Mima is like, I am the real Mima, like as she leaves basically, because people are like, is this a double or something?

It is not ending with her like looking in a mirror and seeing the wrong image, which is an easy way for a movie like this to end where it's like, it's not over. You know, half these movies would end that way. The last line is no, I'm the real thing, hard cut to black. It's like a finite, she's got a sense of self. The film came out,

we can talk about sort of Darren in a second, because that's the last thing. But the film came out, was a show at a film festivals in 1997, Darren in a second, because that's like the last thing. So the film came out, was shown at film festivals in 1997, released in Japan February 1998, did premiere in American theaters August 1999, only made about $100,000, was not a huge success anywhere.

Even in Japan. Even in Japan, but had to steam though. And Cone said, like, look, I was hesitant about even being shown in theaters, it was not supposed to be, that. And Cone said, like, look, I was hesitant about it even being shown in theaters. It was not supposed to be, you know, that was not the concept of the movie. But I was perplexed to find that people really liked it, essentially. Like, he feels embarrassed by it a little bit. He's kind of like, this is my amateurish first effort.

Like, you know, there's a lot of stuff I wouldn't do. But, you know, it's obviously a masterpiece. Yeah, it was also, it was so cheap and was built into this like OVA model where it was basically designed where it could not lose money. So even though it wasn't highly successful, the fact that it was so well regarded immediately gave him like, well, people want to keep giving you money. I was going to say BlinkCheck, but it wasn't quite a BlinkCheck status. But it was like, we're writing checks for you.

And I think even there are quotes in the dossier from his producers who were just like, the mere fact that this thing was getting into festivals was very bizarre. Because this was not the track it was ever intended for. So even if it's not winning huge awards or really crossing over with the public, the fact that it was just taken seriously. That was starting to write the checks a little made everyone have to take him seriously as a filmmaker. Yeah, right. I was I was curious. You guys don't think he is playing check status.

I think he did get there. I think Paprika is pretty blank. Checky. That's the one pretty. Yeah, I mean, and he would have only had to be able to do more had he not died young. We've certainly got over time elastic with our definition of blank check in order to broaden the types of people we can cover on the show,

different types of careers and everything. I think he is, he's blank checking in the sense that every movie he made feels like exactly what he wanted to make. Yeah. And I think the literal part of the check of how much money they're giving you is often the least interesting part, because even within a very small budget level,

at something designed to go straight to video, they let him throw out the original script, not really concern himself with the book, and make the thing he wanted to make. For sure. Yeah, he has a lot of esteem, like we said, like that helped. Darren Aronofsky. Aronofsky? Aronofsky? I will never know.

Loved this movie, watched it fresh off of Making Pie. There's lots of internet rumors that he optioned this film, but it appears he never actually did. But Requiem for a Dream, he does basically recreate a couple shots. Yeah, the bathtub. Right, the bathtub scream is like the big thing. Right. The assault scene in the show within the show becomes the

businessman show at the end for Requiem. Yes. Do they say that in that scene? I don't remember. Does someone say it like really quietly? With a gentle tone? Cone remarked on this. He said, look, he's supposedly a real fan of the movie, With a gentle tone. Cone remarked on this. He said, look, he's supposedly a real fan of the movie.

And I got to talk to him when he came here for Reckoning for a Dream. And I asked him about the the the bathtub scream, like the him, him basically using this. And he said it was an homage. And I think Cone was it's hard to discern his tone in this interview. He's laughing like where he's like, oh, an homage to me. Like, and you know, Jennifer Connelly is doing that scene, you know, and when I asked him, he said, it's all an homage. I learned a lot from now on.

I'm not going to call it adaptation. It's an homage. It's full of homages. But whenever I make a film, I do find myself paying homage to films I really like. So there's like a sarcastic edge to that. Sure. Where he's kind of sarcastic edge to that. Sure. Where he's kind of like, okay buddy, thanks for the homage.

Like, he basically just... But like, I don't... It also doesn't seem like too venomous. Like, he's kind of like ribbing him. I think that's always irked me that I do think flattens the discourse is when I'll see people try to frame it this and then also with Paprika and Inception as like,

it is plagiarism. These guys stole it. And it's like, there are similar rules. There are direct echoes and like homages, but it's not like Darren Aronofsky changed like the wording of four things. He took elements from it and he reused them pretty directly in his own films in different contexts,

which a lot of filmmakers do, Many people who were valorized. I think it has stuck more as a conversation point with Cone because it's like at the time that these movies were getting a lot of attention, these American films, these Western films that were like blowing up and using echoes of his work, his movies were still like kind of underseen. He's a foreign filmmaker. Like it was like, it's not Tarantino riffing on a 70s movie he loves. It's like, this is two years later

and is a guy taking a thing that most people wouldn't know and repurposing it in a way where people can assume it's his own. Like I do not ascribe any malicious intent to it. I don't either now. But like back in like, Rytus Inception came out, it was like, I was one of those people who was like, this is my break. Yeah.

But now, right. Right. With the passage of time, I've kind of softened on that. Yeah. That's the play of Xbox. I don't know. Is there anything else to say about Perfect Blue? It's pretty great. It's pretty great. And it's direct, as we've said.

Yes, it's short and blunt and beautifully done, but it is, you know, it just happens to be like feels like we feel like one of the most influential films ever made. Yeah, it's another it's another one of these first film things of like sometimes someone just makes a first movie that is like the cleanest simplest version of their preoccupations and

They're never right expanding in these territories like for the rest of his career in great ways The perfect blues the simplest thing of like reality and fantasy bleeding together Yeah, right and like reality and media rallying technology like all these right. What is it to be famous? What is it to have a public persona? Right. I mean Millennium Actress is such We'll talk about that next week But like it's such a crazy kind of part to this movie because it really feels like him making the nice version of this movie Yes, like yeah, like like these sort of gentle, but it's not trying to torture you know

No, and like who are you talking to about that? Our friend... Hoi Tran boy. Yes, our friend Hoi Tran was on that episode and was great. We've got great guests on this miniseries generally. It's a short miniseries, but it's a good one. Yeah, it's four movies. Well, then we're doing Paranoia Agents.

That's true. Which I've never seen. Check it out, man. I'm watching it right now. Griffin, are you watching it? I'm watching it. How many episodes? I think 13, like 25-minute now. Griffin, are you watching it? I'm watching it. How many episodes? I think 13, like 25 minute episodes.

Oh, perfect. It's not too overwhelming. This is what I love about TV anime, is that it's great. You can just get it all done in a week. I'm just popping one in a night. Nice. Like a little allergy pop.

Darn it, it's piping. Popping. Popping. Like a little disc or something. How do you, this is a thing. Nice. Like a little allergy pill. David is miming popping. Popping. Like a little disc or something. How do you, this is a thing. How do I consume? Or no, sorry. We're gonna.

Someone came up to me at the Atlantic once and was like, David, how do you take pills? And I was like, take one out. Yeah. Right, put it on the tongue. I would say that's how I do it. Okay, so what David mimed was pulling with two fingers out of a bottle.

Pulling a pill out. Sticking your tongue out and then placing it on the tongue. He was like, that's right. That's how half of people take pills. The other half of people just sort of put it in their mouth. That's what I do. Right. And he was like, and yet in movies, 100% of the time, people throw a pill into their mouth.

Which is not something... Cock their head back. Yes. Which is not something that anyone does in real life. Do you agree with me that this is how it's Yes, and he was like I'm writing a story about how insane this is and he did you can read it It's really funny never thought about it was one of those classic things where he was like, how do you take me? I was like Daniel, please like what a boring question Yeah, and he was like, uh-huh. Then why does no one in movies know how to do this? Wow you know the I think even the subtler variation of what he's talking about because we you just do this like

Right palm poured on there and then like smack your mouth I assume the reason for this is partly like you don't actually want to swallow pills like actual pills I think it's also just actors want to put mustard on it If you get a shot like that where you're like and this set up, what do I do in this setup? Like, follow pills, like, actual pills. I think it's all such as actors want to put mustard on it. If you get a shot like that where you're like, and this set up, what do I do in this set up? You just take a pill, and you have to do it 13 times. At some point you start doing it in a slightly different way to make it interesting.

Right. You're like, what's a little more visual? I guess, I guess so. But then, but then the glass of water, but then the water drinking is sort of in the same range of motion where it's like they throw their, they toss it back. I also feel like most actors play it like it's like, oh, it's hard to get down.

Right. It's a struggle. Where it's like, yeah, I don't know. I remember in Angels in America, the HBO miniseries version of it, Justin Kirk puts all his pills on his tongue when he's like taking this like giant, you know, sym version of it. Justin Kirk puts all his pills on his tongue when he's like taking this like giant, you know, symphony of medicine. And you watch him do it and then you're like,

God, that looks so annoying. And like, that's the point of the scene. But it's like one of the only times I could think of like, yes, that's actually how people might take pills. Well, that's Mike Nichols for you. That's right. He would drill it. As we all read in that book.

Mark Harris' great book. I loved that book so much. Mike Nichols' infamous pill workshops. We'll do them one day on Blank Check. We will. That's a long series. That's the whole thing. He's one of those guys where like, what a classic arc.

But anytime someone requires us to carve out half a year. That's the whole thing. He's one of those guys who are like what a classic arc But anytime someone requires us to carve out half a year a lot. Yeah, that is like yeah, that is like literally 20 plus Yeah, it's a 22 ends up being like close to six months. I think I think he got up there, right? It's it's 18 plus guild alive. Okay, so it's doable. It's a fight. All right, so Griffin this film did come out in August 1999. August 20th, 1999. In America. This is a month we've talked about so much. We have. A big box. Obviously, it's opening on like one screen for like $9,000.

So it's not in our top five. What is number one, obviously? You know what number one is. Still the Sixth Sense. The Sixth Sense. The King of August 1999. The reason we do the box office game. Right. So is this the weekend after Thomas Crown comes out or two?

This is two weeks after the Thomas Crown affair comes out. Okay, is Thomas Crown still in the five? No! It's dropped to number six. Number two at the box office. Sixth Sense number one in its third week of release. Number two is a comedy, great comedy. Something about Mary, great comedy. Something about Mary. Hollywood comedy. It's both fingers.

Bowfinger. Bowfinger was that late or is this week two? Week two of Bowfinger. Do you like Bowfinger? I've never seen Bowfinger. Bowen? Put it on the list. Bowen Finger.

You might be calling yourself Bowen Finger. Bowfinger's funny. Bowfinger's great. Yeah, very acidic, obviously. Number three. I was just listening to the big picture. I was just listening to the big picture. I was just listening to the big picture. I was just listening to the big picture. I was just listening to the big picture. I was just listening to the big picture. I was just listening right next to me. Bofinger's funny. Bofinger's great. Yeah, very acidic, obviously.

Number three. Just listening to the big picture, Steve Martin Hall of Fame, where I feel like they were like, I have Bofinger, and I'm like, I think Bofinger's top tier. Maybe let's have five minutes on Bofinger, please. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Especially since he wrote it. Yeah, he wrote it. It's like his last Otorist comedy. And I contend it's Eddie Murphy's best performance ever. And I don't say that lightly. Eddie Murphy's so funny in it. Got you, suckers. Yeah.

Also, the funniest Scientology parody is in Bo Finger. Yeah. Yes. It makes fun of Mindhead. Bo Finger's also like Christine Baranski. Yeah, Baranski, had Bram, Terrence Stamp. Jamie Kennedy. Wow. Our finest. All of our finest. Jewels. Yeah, Baranski, Bram, Terrence Stamp, a lot of... Jamie Kennedy.

Wow. Our finest. All of our finest. Joel! Robert Downey Jr. Yeah, for like five minutes. Yeah, he's very good. Number three, New This Week, is a film we will one day cover on this podcast, Griffin.

It's another comedy. Much like Bowfinger. I'm saying this. A film we will cover on this podcast. Oh, sure, we'll cover it. Because it's a Frank Oz film. We'll do Frank Oz one day. Yeah. It's another comedy. Much like Bowfinger. I'm saying this. Exactly. A film we will cover on this podcast. Oh, sure, we'll cover, yes, because it's a Frank Oz film. We'll do Frank Oz one day.

This is another comedy. It's new this week. Now, I've only seen this film once. My memory is not very good. But we're gonna cover it because an actor is in it. Yes. Yeah. Mickey Blue Eyes. Have you seen Mickey Blue Eyes, Bowie?

I've never seen Mickey Blue Eyes. Now, you see Hugh Grant, he's English. But what if he met a mafia gangster? Yes. Yes. Because he's marrying the mafia gangster's daughter. Right. That's the plot.

Gene Triple Horn, of course, who just reeks Italian American. Gene Triple Horn, the most South Brooklyn lady in Hollywood. Now, Bowen, we- I believe she's from Tulsa. We are obsessed. And of course, James Cahn is Jewish.

But Joe Vitarelli- We're obsessed with Joe Vitarelli, who you might remember the role of jelly and analyzed this and analyzed that. I've never seen Analyzed. Okay, Joe Vitarelli is this guy. He's gonna show you the picture. Here he is. Here he is a real wrinkle face He's one of these guys who became like an overnight success Hollywood character actor at like 45 Some guy. And people were like, what were you doing before that? And he's like, nothing I can tell you. Now.

Hey, don't have to wait. Hey, get off my back. How are you? That feds. And then has like a run of like 10 years of being like incredible character actor with that face and that vibe. But Analyze This and That are like the pinnacle of that.

Yes. To the point where in the trailer for Analyze That, we've said this so many times, they do the actor like call, Deniro, Crystal, Kudro, Jelly. Oh, they call him Jelly! They name his character. Because they're like, everyone loves this character. But he's played across different films. No, he's only in the Analyze, but he's also in Mickey blue eyes is basically the same guy basically the same character. Yeah. Yeah. So at one point

David and I decided to codify the jelly trilogy, right? Blue eyes and analyze that where we're like in our galaxy brown take that's also a jelly film, right? So we're gonna talk about that sometime. Oh my god They've created a mobster have you seen Mickey blue eyes, I don't think I ever saw it. Yeah in my memory It's pretty bad, but maybe it'll charm the hell. I went I Should save the story for the Mickey blue eyes episode Okay, no before at the box office is another comedy It came up on to my check episodes in a row because I like a particular joke in it

It's runaway bride runaway bride It's Runaway Bride. Oh, what a joke. Surely you have seen Runaway Bride. I've seen Runaway Bride. Can you deliver the joke again? When she runs away from his wedding, she runs away. She's the Runaway. The titular act. She does it.

Yeah. She jumps on a FedEx truck to get away. Richard Gere's running after her. Hector Elizondo and Rita Wilson. Not Jolie Fisher, who I usually say it is. And then I wrote her notes, Rita Wilson. Lovely Rita. Rita Wilson says, where's she going?

And Hector Elizondo says, I don't know, but wherever it is, she'll be there by 10 a.m. tomorrow or whatever. And everyone went crazy in my theater, because it's funny. In 1999, you remember? 1999, I remember it so well. Dave remembers it as the greatest response he has ever heard to anything right you cited as like it was like

Stone Cold Steve Austin at WrestleMania like the pop in the audience Do you like runaway bride not a film I've seen since it's not if yeah not a film. I've seen since childhood Yeah, he's a runaway bride Not our best putting sneakers on right I've seen since childhood. Yeah, she's a runaway bride Putting sneakers on right He is notting hill the same and is there anything else in the span of 12 months Notting Hill runaway bride Aaron Brock and Aaron Brock of it all come out. Yeah, it's 99 to 2000. Yeah, that's pretty Pretty impressive right? It's a cuz I made a ton of money Yeah

Number five the box office Griffin. It's the box office success story of the year even more so than the sixth sense What is it stores episode one? No, that's number 16. Oh, oh, oh not the highest scorers The most interesting story is the Blair Witch project player which is now announced to be rebooted yet again. Thank God Jason Blum has snatched those rights. Do you like the Blair Witch project bone? guys Never seen my thing. I am one of the most film illiterate people you are not I've seen but that's like my one little Outlier. Yeah, I really haven't seen most films.

He hasn't seen the Jelly Trilogy. I haven't seen the Jelly Trilogy, and I have not seen Blair Witch Project. That movie freaks me out more than anything to this day. I remember MadTV did a parody of the Oscars where someone... Someone was singing one of the... It was an Oscars where someone was singing the song

from Book of Shadows, Blair Witch 2. And I think that's one of their very... That sounds funny. It's very funny. Book of Shadows, Blair Witch 2 is one of the craziest premises for a horror sequel ever. I assume you don't know this premise of the film, but it is literally people, the characters saw the Blair Witch project, thought it was real, so they went to the place they think it's set in, and then some crazy

shit happens to them. But it's like a film that acknowledges that their Blair Witch project is a movie. And it's also a traditional narrative scripted film, a traditional film language directed by a documentary filmmaker Oh! Right. who had made true crime documentaries had done the like Westman Pitcher Joe Perlinger, of course, yeah. So it doesn't, but it doesn't work.

It doesn't. It's one of those things that on paper you're like, this has to be interesting and you watch it and you're like, this is weirdly not interesting. But it speaks so much to like, mainstream filmmaking thought at the time. Yeah. Because it's even like artisan.

Well, it's like an independent studio. Yeah. They were like, there's this found footage of movie that felt so real. People thought it was real and it created a cultural phenomenon. We have to make a sequel. Well, obviously we're going to make it a normal movie this time. We can't do that weird shit again. But I also just feel like the fact that this pitch got through the door rather

than just like, yeah, it's a got through the door rather than just like yeah It's a movie about the Blair Witch terrorizing some people right is that like they had to make it so fast Right like oh, this is hot. Let's or because the movie comes out a year later. Yes, you know that They're like the guy comes he's like well, what about this and they're like, um, yeah This is the camera and you can go to Blair Witch land anytime. And just, can you be, can you be done by May? Ten years later, Jason Blum with Paranormal Activity. Similarly those movies, they turn out the sequels. Each one comes out like a year later to the date.

And he was like, you know what we're going to do? We're going to set up a camera in a different fucking couple's bedroom. There is a language to these movies. We know what they bought. We're going to do it again. They sure did Yeah for them. We're not changing the handle my activity 3v best one is that in the 80s It has to have so much dialogue of people being like, I know it's crazy. We have so many cameras That movie rocks I run a small business that films kids birthday parties and you were like That movie rocks. I run a small business that films kids birthday parties and you were like,

God, justification! Way better than the fifth one that's like, the Xbox Kinect is haunted and you're like, okay guys. Right, that's the fifth one. Yeah. There's one where the Xbox keeps turning on and you're like, guys. Oh my God. This activity is not paranormal enough.

No. And they're like, okay, we got it, we got it. We're only going to make four more. Okay, okay, okay. it. We got we're only gonna make four All right, number six is the Thomas crown affair uh-huh number seven is universal soldier to the return new this week That's the one with Van Damme and Goldberg Goldberg, but no Dolph No, Dolph no, Dolph. No, Dolph. No, Dolph. No, Dolph. No Dolph. No Dolph. No Dolph. No Dolph. Maybe Michael J. White? I believe so.

I think, yeah. Never seen. We'll do it one day when we cover the like eight Universal Soldier movies. Number eight, Inspector Gadget. Oh my God, with Matt Broderick? Correct. Which I've always said they should have rebooted with Griffin Newman. He's been saying this for a while.

Griff, you would be so good. Imagine that guy go-going Gadget. Look, I could go-go catch it with the best of them I do believe I don't know the status of it, but I believe several years ago It was announced your co-workers Mikey day and Streeter Seidel. We're gonna do we're doing it. Yes. It was announced Yes, they were writing it. I don't know what the status. I'm not angling to get in there I'm just curious no, and I know you you aren't angling, but I will I will vouch for you. I just look I'm I'm just curious. No, and I know you aren't angling, but I will vouch for you. I'm just, look, I'm a Gadget fan.

I'd love to see Gadget back on the big screen where he belongs. He would be so good. Doesn't have to be me. You, Mikey, and Streeter, that's a good trio of boys. See, I, when David, David's been pushing this for almost a decade. I just was kind of like, if I'm like your manager and I've got like a slinky in my hands, and I'm like, what would Griffin, like what project do we need for him? Because there was Gadget Boy, who existed later,

who was like the Muppet Baby version. I was like, you want me to play Gadget Boy? And he was like, no, I think you can grow into the inspector. Mr. Inspector. Mr. Inspector. Do all managers have slinkies to you, David? I think it's that Simpsons gag, where Brian Glazer has the slinky.

I think that's what I'm thinking of, right? Yeah. Where he's like, eh. I've talked about slinky. I think that's what I'm thinking of, right? Yeah. Where he's like, eh. I've talked about this before, I think, because when it comes up in the box office game. I want a slinky. The Inspector Gadget trailer is like 60% footage that's not in the movie. Right.

And that is a movie that is like 62 minutes long with like extended credit outtakes. It is, sure. And you're like. It's 78 minutes long. That is so funny. Like a Disney movie that was in theaters. Yeah. There's like a it makes Perfect Blue look like Satan's.

And you watch this trailer and you're like, did they cut 40? Like, did they do it once upon a time in America on this movie? I don't think there's a secret miracle cut of that film. But you're like, there are entire plot lines that clearly have just been lifted. I know and then I recently Joined the inspector Gadget gadget subreddit. Okay. I was like, let's let's spend less time looking at the podcast subreddit Let's find healthier. So I had it so healthy every fucking day some guy posts more uncovered inspector gadget concept art They got like all the people who worked on their lead runner just dumping it right? One day some guy posts more uncovered Inspector Gadget concept art. They got like all the people who worked on Blade Runner. Just dumping it. Right.

Yeah. That's amazing. And you're like, this is the best looking shit I've ever seen. And they cut all of it. They cut all of it. And I'm like, what happened in the development of the Inspector Gadget movie? Oh, wow. I don't know. Very interesting. Now we'll check it out.

20 part investigative series. Yeah. Mikey and Streeter announced in 2019. So like, I feel like, well, whatever. Like TikTok guys. There's a draft somewhere. And I will not... I'm just curious. You'll surface it. I will surface it.

All right. Number nine of the box office is Deep Blue Sea. Ben. My hat is like a shark's fin. Right. That was LL Cool J's song from the film. Does that spark anything for you? No. Ella Cool J. It was the song at the end of the movie.

My hat is like a shark's fin. Yeah, that's what he argues. And the hat's a Kangol? We don't actually know. What is that hat? I don't know if he's even wearing a hat. Does he even say, like, I'm wearing this kind of hat by the way, and that's why it's like a shark's fin?

I was gonna say, Ella Cool J had some hat versatility. I feel like he had a bucket hat era, he had a kangol era. Yeah, he was good in the hat. Yeah. Or without. But none of them are particularly shark's fin-ass. I was getting, yeah. I don't know why, it's just any time LL Cool J comes up,

I think of that lyric in particular, because it doesn't really make sense. No. No. Number 10 at the box office is opening this weekend, bombing hard, the Katie Holmes, Helen Mirren two-hander, teaching Mrs. Tingle. Teaching Mrs. Tingle.

Sort of forgotten. Is it a camp classic? That was a post-Columbine movie that they had to edit. I remember that. Like any movie with like violence against teachers, there was a lot of controversy about. It was going to be called Killing Mrsrs. Tangle and they retitled it And then I think she now doesn't die at the end of the movie when it was released

Yes, she just gets fired apparently boring and they they neutered a lot of the violence Barry Watson That's a good question. No, Jeffery Tambor. Is that a movie that has been reclaimed? I don't know I don't know if anyone's checking in with it. I started to see some like internet discourse of people saying like, we can't reclaim every movie. No. Every single film is getting a, the case for why it was slept on. No, no, no. Let some movies be bad.

Teaching Miss Tingle might be a movie that everyone is letting just be bad. Yes! And that's beautiful. Some movies should just be bad. For sure. That's The Box Office Game. That's the box office game. That's our podcast. I think. Right. We're done. Yeah. Get out of here.

Thank you so much for having me back. What a true honor. Thank you. Everyone should listen for coming on the show. But who who isn't already listening? That's right. I will shout out the sub. Please. You two, please do not check it. OK.

But every now and then I'll go on there Just to see what everyone's saying and it's a good group of people. You're saying ours yours mine mine It's a bunch of sweet people. Yeah, sometimes they will They'll be a little out of a little out of pocket, but Yeah, you know on the grand scale of things our sub is a lot healthier than most corners of the internet. And that speaks to you too. We have tried to curate a... to set a tone. Yes, and I think you've done that successfully. I love you too very much. You're very kind.

Love you too, Bowen. Thank you so much. Yeah, is there anything else? No, not really. No shout outs? No shout outs. Okay, great. Have Matt Rogers back on.

We will. We will. Both of you overdo... there was an episode we tried to have both of you on a couple years ago I'm gonna work in line. I think maybe we're gonna have you do portrait of a lady There were some like that, oh my god, and then this came up and now we have to find out a solo episode I got half a month. We'll do any kind of movie, but we would love like a lesbian period drama for sure. Okay All right. Yeah, we'll rustle something like that up. Yeah, maybe a patreon series. I do love lesbian period dramas Could we like period period?

Do we do a Patreon series on lesbian period dramas where people didn't get Oscar nominations on lesbian period dramas where people didn't get Oscar nominations. Yes, of course we have to do that. That sounds great. Just pull together a list for me. Cool. Bye. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Bardi for helping to produce the show. JoBoe and Pat Rounds for our artwork.

Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song. JJ Birch for our research, AJ McKeon, Alex Barron for editing, AJ McKeon is also the production coordinator. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon, blank check special features where we are not yet doing lesbian period dramas, but we are doing the Ninja Turtles movies, which are very similar. And we'll be doing Paranoia Agent, as we said, coming up on that feed. Tune in next week for Millennium Actress, and as always, I will never murder someone I love.

Good for you. I'm keeping it all in though. I guess so.