Blank Check with Griffin & David - Planet of the Apes with Matt Singer

Episode Date: March 3, 2019

Film critic, Matt Singer (ScreenCrush.com), joins Griffin and David to discuss 2001's universally maligned franchise reboot, Planet of the Apes. Together they examine Burton's missteps, Wahlberg's distain for being in this movie, the legacy of the original series and the devastation of a young Griffin Newman. 

blank check with griffin and david blank check with griffin and david don't know what to say or to expect all you need to know is that the name of the show is blank check get your stinking hands off me you you damn dirty podcast. That was bad. I don't know who that was supposed to be. Get your dirty stinking hands. Michael Clark Duncan. I don't think I'm capable of going to that register. Good.

You're good. You're stinking good. I'm not taking the bait. It's a beautiful voice. He had such a great voice. He did. Kilowog. Kilowog himself.

Kilowog and Colonel Attar himself. Colonel Attar. Those are the two roles I'm sure he would like to be known for. Kilowog and Attar. Yeah, the top of his resume. Yeah, because he also had a real pretty face. We're citing the two performances where you don't see it. That's true too.

I feel like they tried to sell Attar like he was going to be the darth maul of this movie i attar was like front and center in the marketing partially i think because his armor is cool the makeup's incredible makeup's incredible everyone was all in on mcd i think it's more that yeah it was like we were buying in yeah we we were we were he was an oscar a recent oscar nominee right this is like his first post-Oscar performance. Yes. Right? Well, he'd been in- First thing shot after.

Probably, because he'd been in the whole nine yards. Right. But that comes out like a week after he's nominated. I'm saying this is like, here's my first big career decision. And everyone's like, oh my God, he's going to play an ape, which now I think those headlines would get a little shaky. A little. A little?

A little shaky. A little? A little? A little shaky. Uh-huh. Or it's just the idea of like, oh my God, he's like such a physical, imposing, put him in a big block. Twisted mind of Tim Burton. Gave us a bowl of diarrhea. Just was leaving this to you.

Here's a hot take. I think this is the only movie he's made that doesn't feel like he directed it. There's very little Burton in this movie. Right? Because even like Alice in Wonderland, which is the other movie of his that I hate. Right. These are the only two that I hate, right?

Right. That movie is like, fuck, this is like too much Burton. Right. Without any sort of center. Whereas this is just like, I don't know, this is like too much Burton. Right. Without any sort of center. Whereas this is just like, I don't know what this is. There's one scene where I feel like, oh, this is a Tim Burton movie. Which one? Was the scene with all the apes sitting around the dinner table.

Which is like the Beetlejuice scene with apes. And you literally have Otho. You have ape Otho. Yeah. Or orangutan Otho. But other than that scene. That stuff is the only stuff that feels Burton-y is where he's like,

let's get into ape high society. Right. Yeah. Because, you know, I mean, we've been going through

of course, the podcast is Blank Champ. And the cutesy chimpanzee stuff, I guess, the actual chimpanzee. Oh, you're talking about

Pericles? Pericles. The real chimp. Real chimp. You're talking about Pericles, one of my top five movie friends? Maybe the only thing I like about this movie? It know, Pericles. The real chimp. Real chimp. You're talking about Pericles, one of my top five movie friends? Maybe the only thing I like about this movie?

He's cool. He's a cool chimp. I mean, look. Pericles. Fox. This podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. It's about podcasts. It's not.

It's about filmographies. I did not sleep much last night. Nope. It's about filmographies. Directors who had massive success early on in their career are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear,

and sometimes they bounce. Maybe. This is a miniseries on the films of Tim Burton. Okay. And this is when we're fully getting into sort of the key transition point where things start to go bad. This is it.

The transition from good. Yes. Too bad. But the transition from, as you're saying, like, well, but Tim Burton, you know, like he's there and he made the movie. Maybe it's not your favorite. Yes. Like Sleepy Hollow is a fully defensible movie. This is an indefensible movie.

Correct. I mean, the main series is, of course, called Podward Scissorcast. Yeah. Our guest today is, of course, Matt Singer. Long awaited. Of course. Long awaited. Of course.

The only person who was willing to sit through Planet of the Apes. No, we said, please, come save us from the Planet of the Apes. I can offhand think of so many people who, unfortunately, would have been like, let me have that movie. I think we threw to you way in advance. Well, you like the apes. Yeah, I do like the apes. You like the apes. Well, the good ones, yes. Sure. And we were like,

this is such a tough movie to talk about. You like the good ones, like General Krull. That's a good ape character in this movie. I like the good ones, like Limbo. Limbo. No, he's not good. He's bad. He's great. He's a slave trader. One bad thing about him. One. Participates in the slave trade. Two bad things about him. Doesn He's great. He's a slave trader. There's one bad thing about him. One.

Participates in the slave trade. Two bad things about him. Doesn't dress great. Three. His teeth are not outstanding. Sure. Dental hygiene could use work. I'm going to get to the big question right off the bat.

Which is the better performance in this, Giamatti or Roth? Oh, I think Giamatti by leaps and bounds. I unfortunately agree. I think Roth, the makeup is given a great performance. But I think Roth's performance is just like over and over and over again. Who's Roth in this? He's the main bad guy. Fade.

General Fade. General Fade. You don't remember General Fade. Bernie, you don't remember General Fade. I think he channeled all of his obvious fury at having to sit in a freaking makeup chair for eight hours a day or whatever he had to do. He also suffered many injuries in the film like in this movie. And also like the thing where they were like, we know you hate Charlton Heston and guns. You have this big scene where he talks to you about a gun for a while. You're just going to have to do that. Use it. Yeah.

It's weird. I always, I just dug into that, all the stories about him not wanting to shoot that scene, not wanting to work with Charlton Heston. I remember reading about that at the time, like in Empire Magazine. I read that scene at the time and still read it today as a strongly anti-gun scene.

I look at that scene as pretty subversive in that they got Charlton Heston to say like guns were the downfall of our society. Right, right, right. Tim Roth interpreted that scene as pro-gun. I guess maybe he just didn't want to be in the same room as Charlton Heston and a gun. And a gun. Yeah. It's a very strange scene. It's an odd scene.

God. I'll give it that. Dying Charlton Heston. In ape makeup look over there I put a gun inside a vase that red thing

there's no way it could have ever fit inside that unless I hewned it a blood teardrop yeah like how did they get it

inside it that's what I was wondering there's no way to get it inside hewn is a good pull is a hewn is that how you make a vase it sounds right

they literally had to make the vase around that gun to get it inside. Hewn is a good pull. Is a hewn? Is that how you make a vase? It sounds right. They literally had to make the vase around that gun to get it inside it. Correct. And it didn't stick to the walls somehow. It was baffling. This is the kind of crap I was thinking about watching this movie. How soon after this film does Charlton Heston die? Oh, wait.

Oh, you mean like the actor? Yes. Charlton H Heston the man. The gun-loving man. He died in 2008, so he had a few years to go. But still, you go like, that's pretty mean to ask a 75-year-old to sit through six hours of makeup. Right. You know? Yeah.

Do you think he just did it once? I was going to say, he must have done it one time. One time. That's one day. They filmed that one day, and that was it. And maybe it was one of those things must have done it one time. One time. That's one day. He filmed that one day and that was it. And maybe it was one of those things where they put it on him in the bed. It's like a half job. Like they just sort of laid it on top of him.

Even still, the face stuff. I know. Yeah. The makeup in this is incredible. It's incredible. It's awesome. It's an argument for that you never should have stopped. Like if this is what you could do in 2001, imagine what you could do now.

I know. Yeah. I know because this still looks better than any CGI stuff. 100%. And you look at the original like Plan of the Apes, a franchise that I love, Matt,

that you love. Absolutely. David, I think you like. You've heard of. I like, but I have not seen all five. Okay. Definitely not. I've seen the first two.

That might be it. Those movies, there's literally like one application piece and it doesn't have a lot of range or flexibility. It's a mask. Everyone has the same thing.

They painted different colors. Right, right, right. This, they're like really expressive and distinct and unique and he's got different species and he's working

with each actor's face so well. Sure. Like, Rick Baker does all these interviews where he talked about like getting the cast

and he was like, Tim Roth is going to be a nightmare because his nose is so big Giamatti is going to be great his nose is also being insulted he talks about it so much how he was like approaching all the different faces and then this kind of becomes the last

like makeup movie of this size do you think Rick Baker just wishes people had like no features like no nose at all no lips no ears like they could just like our faces

were just blank skeletons literal blank canvases but also I mean the reason why he is like the best is that he was a guy who like really understood actors

studied their faces understood what they needed to do in order to express which features are most important for them as actors. Sure. Like his makeup works really well with performances.

That's true. Everyone in this movie under delivers except him. He over delivers. Correct. Like he's doing so much for this movie that's giving him like nothing back. Right. He let them give great performances with the makeup, but then no one bothered to give a good performance.

Right. And then essentially within 10 years of this movie, he retires. Sure. I think Men in Black 3 is like his last major movie. And he was just like, no one wants to do makeup anymore. It's not fun. When I do get a job, they underbid it and they don't give me time. Right.

I'm just done. And he like sold off his archives. That's sad. And you just go like, I mean, look, he had an incredible career. Maleficent was his last incredible career was that 2012? 2014 okay nothing in between

that and Men in Black so yeah and even Men in Black he was like I was so excited they told me we were going to do a bunch of practical stuff

he made all these suits and you barely see them in the movie like they don't even cover them well it seemed like he was doing more and more like crappy movies too

yeah like the wolf man that wolf man movie or this which i think he cared a lot about eddie he liked working with all of these movies is amazing but it's like the only good thing they like well we've got rick baker we don't have to do any literally nothing else and he won for the wolfman though that was his last oscar win yeah yeah and that was a big one he wanted to do a wolfman movie yeah but like benicio didn't want to play the Wolfman at all. It's almost entirely Stuntman when it's in the thing, which bummed him out.

Like he just seems so disenfranchised. What a stupid movie. It's so bad. Yeah. Will we do Johnston? Yeah, maybe someday. Yeah. 2075.

Yeah, sounds good. No, this movie just feels like like you know, this is a breakthrough in makeup and then it ends up being sort of the end of like large scale special effects makeup in this way. Yeah. Which is a bummer. It's the best thing the movie is going for. Why was this movie not nominated for a makeup Oscar? That's what I was going to say.

That's a good question. What was nominated? I feel like the... I gotta find out. The aftertaste of this movie was so toxic that everyone threw the whole thing out. But that's, I mean, like, that's crazy. But at the time, everyone was saying, like, God, that speaks to how much people hated this movie was they didn't even nominate for makeup. Because they just didn't want to think about it. If the Wolfman could get nominated and win.

Yeah. Right. Do you think it was just like, they were like, apes, that's been done. Like, there's already been an apes movie. But like, what? Here were the nominees. This is fucking embarrassing. The winner was Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Rings.

Okay, fine. It's the new hotness. It's got great makeup. Gimli. If something's going to win, over Planet of the Apes, I can see that. Fucking Gimli. Hairy feet. Another nominee was Moulin Rouge, which has incredible makeup and hair. The whole thing.

The third nominee. In the bedroom. Wait, I want to try to guess this. It's really embarrassing? It's so embarrassing because the makeup in this movie is like embarrassing, bad, and is not prominent except in like one scene. Interesting.

So it's like, oh, is it A Beautiful Mind? It's A Beautiful Mind. Which has terrible, terrible. Which is mostly obviously just set in, you know, younger Russell Crowe. And then there's the one thing where he's old and he's like, I'm an old man. Yes. I, old Russell Crowe. And Jennifer Connelly looks like she's aged like seven years and has a gray wig.

No, but she also looks like a wax statue. She like can't move her face. She looks so weird. Oh, God. Nominating that for best makeup over this movie is kind of insane. I feel like when people cite bad old age makeup, that's the example of like you don't want to do a beautiful one. It's the classic terrible old age makeup. That and Jay Edgar are the two where I'm just like these are nightmares to look at.

That's kind of crazy. I'm trying to find old Jennifer Connelly now. I want to find her. It looks so bad. You're forgetting how bad it was. This is an audio podcast, but we're all looking at this picture. Oh, boy. God, she looks bizarre.

But it doesn't look like there's any life there. Yeah. Yeah. It should have been nominated for that. Yeah. Nothing else. Right. But give it a makeup nod.

Yeah, this was outstanding makeup. Anyway, weird. Now that we've said one nice thing about it. Right, let's... This movie fucking sucks. It's so boring. It's awful. It's just one of the least engaging movies

we've ever covered on this show. It's truly hard to pay attention to. It's hard to pay attention to. You have to make yourself keep your eyes on it. The thing that it's most similar to in that sense, and it doesn't quite hit that depth, but it's the last time I remember feeling this way watching a movie for this podcast was

Last Airbender. Yeah, where it's like this genre exercise based on something else that is soulless. Auteur director who doesn't even seem like he's present. Has no personality. Director who's lost in the project maybe at one point

was intrigued by it but it's like obviously this has been done well before other people have told this story incredibly well yeah and you're just like i can't pay attention to it i mean i was saying to you guys like i put it on when i was like trying to go to sleep it was giving me such a headache that i turned it off then i hadomnia. And when my alarm went off this morning, I had this sense of dread. Like I had woken up the day of a test. I was like, oh, fuck. Now I have to watch the remaining one hour and 15 minutes.

This movie also gets worse. Yes. Which is hard to do. It really does. It's not like it starts well. But it's building and almost like racking my brain. It's like, how does this end again? And it's like, Vega's like, are they just like in a desert? An hour in the desert. They get to the abandoned spaceship like an hour and five minutes in.

What's the remaining hour of this movie? I was sitting there going the same thing. I was like, they're here already. What are they going to do for the next 45 minutes? Nothing. That's the answer. Not a lot. Do you like Estella Warren's acting though?

Because there'll be a little of that. This is the area where I just, this movie doesn't make sense to me. Okay, because even when you get into

the later Tim Burton movies where people can argue maybe his heart isn't in it, maybe he's just, you know, sort of doing half work, maybe it's whatever. I just cannot imagine

a universe in which Tim Burton watches Estella Warren's audition and goes, I'm excited about this. And I don't want to sound overly mean, just cannot imagine a universe in which tim burton watches stella warren's audition and goes right i'm excited about this and i don't want to sound overly mean but he's always a guy where at the very least you're like he cast the actors he loves sure you know like you look at his films like alice in wonderland it's like oh you can see that he was getting excited about having crispin

glover in his movie you know he was getting excited about Mia Wasikowska as like a perfect Burton girl. And you just look at Estella Warren and Mark Wahlberg and you're just like, I cannot imagine him being excited by any of the acting choices there. That's a good point. I think that she is there

or was originally intended to be almost like a parody of Nova. Yes. Where you're supposed... I think ideally, she's almost supposed to be so blank that it makes sense for Mark Wahlberg's character

to be into Hell in the Bottom Carters. Like, that's the way that he sort of, I think we're, to make a reason for him to be like, yeah, maybe this ape lady is for me. I think Tim Burton had a total of two ideas for this movie. Go ahead.

One was, I want the apes to be scary. Sure. Right? Which I don't think they execute well, but you understand the idea of. In the original, they're kind of intellectual. The apes monologue a lot. Right.

Even when there's battle scenes. They should be primal and animalistic. Right. And you watch it and you go like, I don't know if that was the right choice. It also just feels like it gets a little samey. It gets a little samey.

The wire work in this film is atrocious. God, the wire work. Fade just needs to go like, just push someone in the shoulder. They're like lifting 18 feet in the air.

And he's not big enough to be that powerful. It's crazy. It's absurd. Every time they jump, it has the physics of like a kid lifting a Hot Wheels car in between the two tables.

It just has no... I remember, this was maybe, I would say, one of two movies in my lifetime I was most excited for. I was going to say. Peak griff, movie nerd fanaticism. You like the apes. I love the apes. I love Tim Burton. I was like, there is no way this can go wrong.

And the only other movie I was ever this excited for was Toy Story 2, which became my favorite movie of all time. And my parents, when I was like in the years between Toy Story 1 and 2, were like, you got to set your expectations at a reasonable level. Sequels often diminish. Right. And it so greatly exceeded my expectations. I was like, no one's ever going to tell me how to think ever again.

Well, you only had to wait like one year, right? One and a half. I was at sleepaway summer camp. Every day I would confiscate the newspapers from the counselors and cut out the ads for Planet of the Apes

and tape them to my bunk wall. Wow. Just imagine the counselor sitting around being like, he really likes Planet of the Apes. That Griffin kid is very excited for the Tim Burton. Yeah. Being a Mark Wahlberg fan.

Yeah, huge. He loved the big hit. I can't wait to see what Marky Mark does next. The big hit's pretty good. I mean, compared to this. I know which I'd rather watch. So I had all the action figures before the movie came out. I had all the newspaper ads taped up to my book. How many action figures were there? I'll tell you'd rather watch. So I had all the action figures before the movie came out. I had all the newspaper ads taped up to my phone.

How many action figures were there? I'll tell you who I had. I had Limbo. I had Ari. I had Captain Leo Davidson. I had General Atta. Wait, who the fuck is Captain? Oh, that's Mark Wahlberg.

I confess I forgot his name. There's probably no worse thing you could say about this movie is that you have no idea the name of the main character and only human character. You're like, who is that? I literally think I had every action figure other than

Estella Warren. That was the one bridge too far. I had Pericles. They made a Pericles figure? They made a Pericles. Was he to scale? Was he tiny?

Yeah, he's tiny. He came with the spaceship. It was maybe better than the movie. I feel so bad for Pericles. He didn't ask to be in this movie. He gets a good performance. Chris Christopherson.

No, they didn't make him. Oh, you're right. There's an important human character. Huge on the poster. I guess Chris Christopherson could have played Captain Leo Davidson. It would have been weird

if he was a captain, that character. I'm just trying to think how you were like, Leo Davidson? No, no, no. I could have thought about it for one second.

He is huge on the poster. And gets pretty high billing. On the poster? What poster? I'm going to show you. The poster I'm looking at here has all apes. That's the one that's all them on the horses. That's the one I remember.

Maybe this is just the one from the newspaper. You don't remember a poster for this movie. I do because I too, this poster is the one i remember i mean maybe this is just the one from the newspaper poster for this i do because i too this poster is the one i remember yeah i too was like wow i was 15 years old and i was at that phase where i was like i know who directors are i'm super smart and so i was like tim burton you know he's good like and assumed this would be a big deal it was also a big Empire magazine movie, which I was a dedicated Empire reader, and they had been hyping it for six months or whatever. They had pictures of the costumes.

How could it go bad? Exactly. So I was like, no, it's going to be good. I liked Michael Clarke Duncan. I'd been in on him since Armageddon or whatever. It is one of those weird things where like you look at the trailer now and you're like this is obviously a bad trailer. We all should have known what was coming.

And I remember the hype leading up to this movie was just like yeah Tim Burton's gonna do something weird again. Right. Even if the story doesn't work it'll be visually engaging. There has to be something some twist to it. I don't think anyone considered the fact that this movie could be terrible until it came out.

I think there was also a lot of talk of like, what will the ending be? Because like, how do you top that ending? And especially in a post-sense. They definitely had a lot of the like, the ending was shot

in total secrecy with armed guards. Right. Or yeah, you know. And this was the first movie where it was the big thing of like, it's not a remake, it's a re-imagine.

Yeah. Which then studios ran with for years. Right. Like we're trying to re-imagine it And this was the first movie where it was the big thing of like, it's not a remake, it's a reimagining. Which then studios ran with for years. Like we're trying to reimagine it, but he said that in some interview. I don't like the word remake. I want to try to reimagine the thing. And everyone was like, so he's not selling out. Like his imagination? What if he reimagines it?

He deimagined it, unfortunately. He deimagined it. That's right i just have this very distinct memory of uh i i wake up uh the morning that my father is gonna come sign me out of camp to take me to see plan of the apes at the local new milford theater right new milford connecticut and i went to breakfast and one of the counselors was there and he was like uh griffin we need to talk oh god and i was like there and he was like Griffin we need to talk and I was like what and he was like a bunch of us last night after

put to bed Kong saw Planet of the Apes and I was like oh my god and he was like Griffin it's really really bad because talk about a movie that people left the theater with the worst taste in their mouth. They didn't like it anyway.

And then the ending is kind of a final like, now get out. The ultimate FU. And I just remember them talking to me like it was like they were like hungover. Like they were like rubbing their heads like a cup of coffee. Like trying to make sense of what happened the night before. And I literally was like, who else was in the group with you who saw the movie? And went one by one to the counselors because I was like someone has to like this thing

and I finally got to one person who was like I don't know it's like stupid it's funny I like that they jump around a lot and I was like oh fuck I'll take it they were like it's not good but it's like ridiculous like I like it there's like an ape smoking a hookah and I was like oh fuck and my dad

that was the rave yeah my dad signed me. That was the rave. Yeah. My dad signed me out and it was one of those things where I sat there and tried to explain to myself why I was enjoying it. Right.

Like, while I was watching. You had phantom menace syndrome. Full phantom menace syndrome, full denial. Yeah. By the time it came out on DVD, I bought it, put it in my DVD player,

watched two minutes of it and was like, right, I hate this movie. Like, I accepted it pretty soon after. Have not seen it since. Sure. I bought it on Blu-ray because it was like $3. For this? For this.

Okay, alright. Not just like on a whim. That's permissible. The only Planet of the Apes movie I don't own. I own it forever now. I've heard the commentary is funny because there's a lot of Tim Burton being like yeah I don't know what this is

I think there's like a commentary there is a commentary he has commentaries in almost all of his movies and they're really they're kind of boring unenlightened

yeah he's as checked out as you would think he would be watching it I mean there's also the incredible thing with this movie

which is this is where he meets Albon Carter yep like who he's with because Lisa Marie thing with this movie, which is this is where he meets Helen Bonham Carter. Yep. Like who he's with for 15 plus years. Because Lisa Marie is in this movie. Right. And this is the last one she's in.

That was a big deal. Like after this movie came out, paparazzi saw him and Helen Bonham Carter kissing on a bench near the Eiffel Tower in Paris. And my dad woke me up and he was like, Griffin, I have some bad news for you. Are you serious? Yeah, I swear to God, this was such a difficult time for me. You were invested in his dating life? I was so invested in the Lisa Marie thing. And he was like, Griffin, I want you to know that sometimes our heroes do bad things.

Wow. You have such an intense relationship with the 2001 Planet of the Apes. So intense. And it's literally a movie that everyone else on the planet of the humans doesn't remember even exists. Barely. Right. And I have just thought about it since then as one of my least favorite movies. Have not watched it since.

And I watch it now and I was like, I can't even imagine getting that worked up about this movie to hate it that much. Yeah, that's the thing. It's just a thing. It's not like a movie where, right, where you're just, you're furious. It's competent. Right. But that's the best you it's a it's a three out of ten right but at the time it was like this was his 10th movie i loved all nine leading up

right okay so this was right this is your loss of innocence this is your this is the first time where i was like that we can fail you know as a species yeah i'm a little i'm a slightly older and for me that movie was like Godzilla where I was like, this movie is going to be amazing. It's going to be incredible. That is an early one for me too where I was like, you know, opening night in the theater and I was like, this is terrible. Like I didn't even convince

myself. I was like, oh, this is fully awful. And it was the first time one of those movies I was like old enough to recognize, oh, this thing that I was sold as being everything I need in my life is actually terrible. I was telling me that the advertising agencies were lying. I'm afraid so. Size does not matter, actually.

But yeah, I remember that moment when I was like 11 or 12 when I started coming home from the movie theater. And my mom was like, how was it? And I wasn't just always like, it was great. Yeah, right. It wasn't just always like, it was great. Yeah, right. Like, you know. It wasn't great. But this was also, like, such a big hype machine movie. Like, this movie had, like, one of the biggest marketing campaigns of any studio film at that point in time. Sure.

Like, there were, like, giant New York City billboards that were the apes wearing Reeboks. Do you remember this? Definitely don't. Again, no one remembers anything about this movie but you. It's all seared into my memory because this truly is like a traumatic period in my life. You know, I was ready

for September 11th because I had lived through the Burton Planet of the Apes. Really glad I hadn't taken the swig of water I was about to take before you said that. What does that mean? I'd say it happens a couple months after and I said, look, already innocence has died. Oh, I see.

Okay. Alright. I know now that the world is a cruel and unfair place where horrible people commit terrible atrocities. No, no, keep digging. Won't stop digging until I find oil, Ben. Planet of the...

You know, like, what if there was a planet? Go on. Rule the planet. Of? Of? Rule the planet. We all know our planet.

A lot of humans, right? A lot of humans. Humans are in charge. Yeah, planet of the man. So far, your story checks out. What if you got in a little, you know, whirly gig up there

and went through a big purple cloud? Imagine being in a boardroom. Who's playing the scientist? Don't worry about that. Crashland on a new planet. Yeah. Apes.

The three kinds we all know. Gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans. They're mayors, carpenters. But do the apes fuck? Sure. Yeah. Cool. Cool.

You see the scene where Lee Sparrow is. Yeah, who's the producer? He's like, can there be like a foreplay scene? Oh, no, no. Definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Noted, noted. Well, so that's the only other thing, the idea I think that Tim Burton had very strongly

was he wanted to make a love story between an ape and a human. And the studio was like, absolutely yes. No way. We ran the numbers on that one and it's not gonna happen. Right. So the Arya character was supposed to be a princess. It was supposed to be explicit. That was the setup. And they were like, no. And he's like,

what if it's subtext? And they were like, no. So I think the Estella Warren thing What if it's subtext? What if it's sub subtext? But you can tell watching it in every scene, he's like, he wishes he could do it. Like any time that Humblebond Carter and Mark Wahlberg are talking. Because she's the only character that the movie is kind of alive for.

She's the only character who's dynamic. Has any in her life. Because Wahlberg is just dead in this movie. Just inert. Has no interest in anything. In anything. He is the worst action hero. Maybe in any movie ever.

It's very possible. But I mean that both within the movie. His actions in the movie. He causes the planet of the apes. Yes. True. He helps no one. Right.

He goes to the planet. Right. Accidentally because he's trying to rescue his monkey friend. Yeah. And then. he goes to the planet accidentally because he's trying to rescue his monkey friend and then acquaintance, monkey acquaintance he doesn't even like the monkey that much he goes to save the monkey

who he's mean to this is one of those movies where it's like, this is the beginning of studio filmmaking at this level lacking basic story competency. Right. Where it's like

Godzilla sucks. Yes. But at least it's structured like a movie. Sure. You know they understand like here is the very cliched

underwritten arc that this character is supposed to have. Right. This movie starts off with Mark Wahlberg being too cool for school. Yeah he's a

he's a total asshole. He thinks everyone on this spaceship is a fucking loser. He hates his co-workers and all the apes. Right. This movie starts off with Mark Wahlberg being too cool for school. Yeah, he's a total asshole. He thinks everyone on this spaceship is a fucking loser. He hates his co-workers and all the apes. Right. His main co-worker is the woman from Mad About You who loves the apes, and he keeps on making fun of her for caring too much about the apes. Then they send the ape out on a fact-finding mission, and they lose him in a purple cloud. Yes. He goes—

In five seconds, by the way. Right, instantly. Disaster. He goes, how dare you that's my ape i need to go back and find him sure they go since when do you care about apes you were just dunking on her for like he really just wants to go in the purple cloud so then he gets in the ship and immediately sacrifices himself to try to save the ape then lands on the planet immediately goes i always hated apes well the other thing is he goes his whole purpose for leaving the ship is to save the ape.

He's trying to find Pericles. Then what does he do at the end of the movie? He takes his ship and leaves him behind. He leaves Pericles behind. Take care of this ape for me. There's room in that ship for a little monkey. To be fair, it's a whole planet of apes.

He might like it on the ape planet. The only reason he went there was to get back Pericles! And then literally... This is what I'm saying. But they worship him as a god. But the Roland Emmerich version of this movie... The Roland Emmerich version of this movie would at least, in the first ten minutes,

set up that he was the Jane Goodall of astronauts. Yes, and he loved Pericles, and they had this incredible bond. And the whole movie is, I can't lose him. I gotta find him. Right. Right. They don't even get that right.

No, they don't even get that right. And this movie feels like, Mark Wahlberg's performance in this movie feels like he wants to beat up this movie for being a nerd. Yes. Right? He has such utter contempt for the movie. It's the happening syndrome times a thousand. Times a billion.

Right. Because the happening, you can tell he wants to beat up his own character. But at least the things around him are like real people things. He's like, I don't like this dorky shit with like helmets and fucking laser guns and this bullshit. But I mean, also the only choice he makes as an actor is, I'm not going to take my shirt off, okay? Because like the other guy did and I do that all the time, so I won't do it.

The thing is, to me, the character is clearly written sort of in the Heston character mold because the Charlton Heston character in the original movie is also a dick. Yes. But the thing is, the difference is in that movie, he gets to explain why he hates humanity

and why he's on this thing. And he has like a perspective. Like there's a reason. And that's sort of his folly like his his rage his arrogance right

right exactly and in this movie there's no reason for it he's just above everything he just hates everyone right

yeah and is just a dick and that's what's interesting is Heston did have that sort of like fiery anger of course what's it called

gravitas I believe movie star qualities yes but like we should do a little marky mark career context sure because his thing is so fucking weird you go like okay he's like a rapper and an underwear model right he's a shirtless underwear model with three nipples his brother is in um the new kids on the block so. For a while, he's the less famous brother. He's like Aaron Carter. Sure, exactly. Right.

And then he's in Renaissance Man and Basketball Diaries. Penny Marshall discovers him. His episode of Inside the Actor's Studio says, I went to the Penny Marshall School of Acting. She hired me. What a phrase. I love her, but Jesus. Of course, our next miniseries subject, Penny Marshall. He said, she hired me and immediately said, you can't act. I'm going to break you and teach you how to act. next mini series subject Penny Marshall. He said she hired me and immediately said you can't

act. I'm going to break you and teach you how to act. And he claims that Penny Marshall. Imagine Penny Marshall saying that to you. You can't act. You can't act. You got no charisma. You seem like you're asleep on screen. R.I.P. Penny Marshall. So he's like she broke me.

She taught me everything I knew. Sure. And then immediately he has this chip on his. So he's like, she broke me. She taught me everything I knew. Sure. And then immediately he has this chip on his shoulder and he's like fighting for parts like things like Basketball Diaries. Basketball Diaries. I want to prove like I'm a real actor. Everyone thinks I'm a pretty boy. I'm like a novelty rapper. I'm this and that.

And he starts like making a mark for himself. He's this sort of angry young man. Make a mark. He starts making a mark. Here are the things that he's in. He's in 96. He's in Fear, which I feel like is his first very compelling performance. And all of these he says, like, I had to fight so hard.

They thought I was a joke. They didn't want to hire me. But he's good in that. And that's probably the first time he makes an impression on a wider audience. And that's also like a character performance for the first time. Then he's in something called Traveler. I've never heard of it. Never even heard of it.

What is that? Bill Paxton. Whatever. He's in Boogie Nights. I've never heard of it. Never even heard of it. What is that? Bill Paxton. Whatever. He's in Boogie Nights. Obviously quite a famous film. Right. So this is the huge thing because like, you know, whatchamacallit, PTA was like, well, I'm Boy Genius.

I wrote the best script of all time. I'm going to hire Leonardo DiCaprio and Warren Beatty. Right. Right. And both of them were like, no fucking way. Right. Warren Beatty thought he was being hired to play Dirk Dinkler. Right, right. And both of them were like, no fucking way. Right. Warren Beatty thought he was being hired to play Dirk Dinkler.

Right. Right? Isn't that the story? Correct. He couldn't imagine that he wouldn't be playing the young lead who everyone wants to fuck. Yeah. But he like moves down the chain of things

and Burt Reynolds is pretty like dinged at that point and Marky Mark hasn't really got credibility. Sure. And it's viewed as this amazing like thing, like, oh my God, who knew Marky Mark had this in got credibility and it's viewed as this amazing like thing like oh my god who knew Marky Mark had this in him and especially as

like a leading man I think he's so good in Boogie Nights he's amazing I love him in that movie he's incredible but Marky Mark is one of those

I am gonna be a star he's wonderful in it that's not the first line that comes to mind for me but I'd rather not go into it here fair enough but I think he gets

a couple years after that where everyone's like, okay, cool. So now he's fully formed. Where's Mark? Yeah, come on. Where's his first Oscar nom? You can put him in anything. He's going to kill it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, I think, PTA latched onto something sooner than everyone else that Marky Mark himself didn't figure out for a while, which is- And still only sporadically figures out even now. He had a couple years where he was really locked into it and then started making bad choices again. But the key is his movie star quality is like the run to the litter anger trying to prove himself.

Like he has the chip on his shoulder and he has to prove to everyone else. He's not good when he plays a high status person. He is better at playing a low status person. He's better at playing low status. He's so hard. We talked about this in the Ridley Scott, what do you call it?

All the Money in the World. Where he's like, hey, listen to me. I run the show. And I'm like you call it? All the Money in the World. Oh, yes. Where he's like cool and collected. Hey, listen to me. I run this show and I'm like, Marky, you don't run this show. You don't know. You are not a rich person. Like, I want you to be, right, the cop who's like, get one of these rich guys. No, that's who I want you to be. His movie star

quality is irritability. Like, he's really good at being annoyed at things. Right. And having that sort of, like, righteous anger about stuff. He's also good like when he could like if Planet of the Apes this planet was a comedy

and he was playing this character but funny because this is like not that far removed from like the other guys to me like this kind of guy.

But it's just that here he's playing it like actually like he's serious. He's just angry. That's the thing. He learns how to lean into the bravado of those characters

and make it self-aware. I do. David O. Russell gets that in him. To keep going through his... I do think he's good in The Big Hit, which is a fun movie. He's okay in that. Obviously, then he's in 90s and 90s and Three Kings. David O. Russell.

He's terrific in that. It's a great movie. Horrible shooting experience, according to everyone. Except for Marky Mark. He loves David O. Russell. I think Waldo exactly has the best

takeaway from it. He's in The Yards, the James Gray movie, which he's excellent in. also great in. Another great director knowing how to use him. He's in The Perfect Storm,

which I think is more just him sort of going like, hey, Boston, look, I don't know if you know this, but, oh,

that fucking wave. He's not bad in it, but it's not particularly notable. And then he is in this, which he just feels, he has this run now where it's not particularly notable and then he is in this which he just feels he has this run now where it's like this rock star

truth about Charlie Italian job where he's like vanishing into these lead roles that have to be all charisma just put generic

just generic leading man roles rock star right what if there was a rock star they sound generic too like even Italian job which is like

pretty fun exceeded all expectations did very well. He is not what you like about him. I feel like no one ever thinks about him being in that movie. You like like you know

Mos Def and Statham Seth Green and Cars Cars There were cars in that movie. And it's like and then in 2004

when he has I Heart Huckabees Which he's phenomenal. You're like oh yeah this guy's an actor. Right. Like you know like as long as you're, he's so good. That's his best performance ever. I think so too.

I would give him the Oscar for that. And obviously, like, a couple years after that, he had The Departed and, you know, he sort of gets his Oscar nomination. Right. And then there's a run of years where he's not making great movies, but he's making consistently successful movies post-Fighter where he becomes like one of the most consistently bankable actors where he's getting into his like Peter Berg cycle where Ted is huge

where Lone Survivor is huge you know Daddy's Home it's weird how big Daddy's Home is I like Deep Water Horizon that's my Wahlberg movie I think he's good not a bad movie I like a movie where Wahlberg's like hey listen to me why don't anyone this thing's gonna blow you know like that's what I want's my Wahlberg movie. I think he's good. Not a bad movie. I like a movie where Wahlberg's like, hey, listen to me. Why don't

anyone know this thing's gonna blow? You know, like that's what I want out of Wahlberg. My favorite's Patriot's Day. Or is it Patriot's Day? Oh, God. But the problem is, I didn't know until after I saw the movie that Patriot's Day he's playing like a character that didn't exist. He's playing six characters that have been strung together into one character. So it makes no sense that he

keeps on showing up at the right place. Right. But hey, let's ask this patrolman what he thinks. He says, like, the mayor? And then Matt has already pulled up his next pictures moment. Like, just the picture of, I pulled up the gambler, and just, like, just the photo of the poster. You're just like, oh, this movie is awful. He's flying too close to the sun again. Like, he does

that, he does all the money in the world. Like, once again, he's trying to play, like, very high status, calm intellectuals. Your high status, low status thing. Like, this is no good no high status and then his next thing is that he's remaking spencer to spencer for hire with peter berg it's like a detective novel that was turned into uh like a big show in the 80s um spencer forire, I've never heard of him. No. Wow. With Avery Brooks was the famously hawk, you know,

the sidekick. Spencer was played by Robert Urich. Yeah. Yeah, that Wonderland, that's his big movie this year. Okay.

Guess who directed it? Peter Berg? Peter Berg. Yeah. He loves working with Peter Berg. He does. It says it's like, you know,

the only friend he's made in his adult life. Yeah. He's the star of Peter Berg's last five movies, I think. Yeah. He loves working with Peter Berg. He does. It's like the only friend he's made in his adult life. Yeah. He's the star of Peter Berg's last five movies, I think. But he was like, you rarely make a friend that good when you're in your 40s. Yeah. You know, like I think other than Turtle and E and Vinny and all his friends who he grew up with. Turtle. That's the other weird Mark Wahlberg thing.

I know. Is he goes to HBO he turned his life into a terrible TV show that dominated all pop culture we get a drunken fuck people that should be a TV show and everyone's like worst idea

well like HBO says yes everyone's like I can't believe HBO gave him the money to do that and then everyone hate watches it and becomes a hit and also

he has another TV show about his family making burgers yeah and he's a producer on Boardwalk, right? Boardwalk Empire? Yeah.

He is? What a weird career. Right, he saves David O. Russell's career. Wait, he's involved with Ballers? Of course. I think Ballers was him being like, hey, remember Entourage? And they were like, yeah. Other people have friends.

Yeah, a little bit like sports, Entourage. And they were like, you gotta produce your credit. Rock, you gotta do a TV show. Do a TV show about how you make money and your credit. Rock, you gotta do a TV show. Do a TV show about how you make money and fuck people. Rock, you gotta do it. I'm a movie star. I do a TV show.

Truly one of the most devastating SNL impersonations of all time. Like, I really think so. And stunning because until the moment he uttered the first syllable, you went, well, there's no way to do

a Mark Wahlberg impression, right? Or like, why would a Mark Wahlberg impression be that interesting? There's nothing distinctive enough about him. He doesn't have a clear movie star. I argue, actually, that impression is what sets him off to have such a good run of like five or six years. And then he realizes what his movie star persona is because it's defined so thoroughly. And he starts being self-aware about it. He's not self-aware here.

He's very far from self-aware. So he says, he's like when Pluto is furthest from the sun. He's taking a purple cloud as far away from self-aware as he can possibly get. His only choice he makes is, is this a cool movie, Starwalk? He's got a real,

he's got a saunter. Yeah, yes. He didn't want to be shirtless because he had done too many shirtless ads. Right. He also has a third nipple that I think he corrects shortly after this. Sure.

But if you look in the original underwear ads, he's got a little third guy. I never knew that. Yeah, yeah. He's one of the most famous third nipple havers in American history. He's a witch. Of course, we should burn him. Yeah, he's one of the most famous third nipple havers in American history. He's a witch.

Of course, we should burn him. No, but this movie has a crazy development process because in the early 90s, Fox was like, you know, we're starting to become franchise driven in Hollywood. We have this huge, it was sort of the original massive franchise. Sure. Plan B was like the first franchise that got really merchandised and turned into TV shows and five films and all of this. It's overdue for a modern reboot. Imagine what the makeup would be like today. And I think the original original was Ridley Scott and Arnold Schwarzenegger. And no, Adam Rifkin.

Right, Adam fucking Rifkin. Director of Never on Tuesday. And Detroit Rock City. Yep, yep, yep, that Rifkin. Right, Adam fucking Rifkin. Director of Never on Tuesday. And Detroit Rock City. Yep, yep, yep, that's right. He pitches them on a Planet of the Apes movie after Never on a Tuesday comes out or whatever. Right, they said, we like your movie, what would you want to do next?

And he says, you have the Apes franchise, I can't believe you're sitting on it, I'm a huge fan, here's what I would do. And it was going to be called Return to the Planet of the Apes. And it's like a continuation of the original chronology. And they wanted to hire like Tom Cruise or Charlie Sheen. But I feel like any movie from that era, from the late 80s,

wanted to hire one of those two guys. And then Peter Jackson pitched his take where it was like a renaissance. It was the apes through the renaissance. Yes. Because that's the other thing with the original trilogy is it's this original trilogy. The original series is this Oros Boros

that covers different points in the... Arubros, I think. Right? Isn't that what your choice is? I mispronounce every word, David. I'm just correcting you. Are we going to start correcting now? Carry on, carry on.

Yes, they keep going back and forward, right? Right, and covering different parts in the evolution of society. Partly because they blew up the planet halfway through the series so they had to go back yeah the coolest thing any franchise has ever done which is uh end existence on movie two right uh yes you want to make his renaissance the the age of thinking he got roddy mcdowell on board apparently he excitedly told an executive this and they were were like, who's Roddy McDowell? He was like, you may not be the people I want to work with on this. Yeah, that's not a good sign.

So he went back to heavenly creatures. Right. Then, Raimi and Stone are circled for like an early 90s. Jesus. Oliver Stone said, it has the discovery of chronologically frozen Vedic apes who hold the secret

numeric codes to the Bible that foretold the end of civilizations? Sure. The apes, like, wrote the Bible? Yeah, absolutely.

Apparently that script is supposed to be great. They paid Oliver Stone like a million or two. A million bucks, I think. To be a producer and co-writer, I think hoping

he would eventually direct it. Yeah. And they get Arnold on board. And Schwarzenegger gets on board. Pending his approval of director. Right. So now the film's stuck in this thing where they know they have Schwarzenegger, and they know they want to do a new Planet of the Apes, and they're trying to find the right director

and the right script for that combination. Which kind of sounds like a home run in like 1993. For sure. Cameron considers it. Philip Noyce goes pretty far on it. Ridley Scott considered it at one point. He decides to go make The Saint. Right.

Ridley Scott, yeah. But it was one of those things where Cameron was thinking about doing it before Titanic, then when he thought Titanic was going to bomb, he was getting into it, then when Titanic did so well. than when he thought Titanic was going to bomb, he was getting into it, than when Titanic did so well. A Fox executive called Dylan Sellers apparently felt the script could be more comedic,

and he pitched something where, like, the apes are playing baseball, but they don't have a picture. Right. It was one of those things where he was like, they're apes, put them in human clothes. Why aren't they doing funny stuff? If you want to remake just Ed,

I was just about to say, is this how we wound up with Ed Ed. I was just about to say, is this how we wound up with Ed? I literally was just about to say, tell me that this man greenlit Ed. The business member says smoking cigars or smoking bananas. Come on, I can write this shit myself. Then Sellers was the main development executive on it. He's in a car crash. Killed another man in a drunk driving accident.

And he like went to jail. Yes. Yeah. He killed both the other driver and another Fox exec who was in his And he like went to jail. Yes. He killed both the other driver and another Fox exec who was in his passenger seat. Went to jail. Production sort of got halted. Everything that he had been pushing forward. So I think now

they're at like 99 and it's been like 10 years of trying to make a Plan of the Apes movie. Donald Schwarzenegger seems like that's slipping away. One of my favorite things is they brought on Chris Columbus and did a test of ape skiing. No one knows why. That was the crazy

thing is like every time they brought in a new director and these were like a big, big, the biggest directors of the 90s in different genres, there would always be a Fox executive who was like, can you have them do a ballet? Like they like come up with all these ideas about like it's about the dawn of like the computer

you know like everyone was coming in with these like big theological ideas and they'd be like cool cool cool what if the ape hosted a talk show right and it feels like every version of the movie is getting halted at that gap between like a heady director wanting to say something about human like society and a fox executive wanting to have an ape do something an ape shouldn't do well based on the finished product here it's pretty clear who eventually won out right it was the executive 100%

because there's so much shit in this movie that just feels like Tim Burton like threw his hands up just generic it's like someone eventually said let's make the matrix with apes yes it is crazy though it's like columbus drops out to make jingle all the way like even being involved with this was a bad idea it would curse your later project i mean this is a true monkey pause schwarzenegger goes

to make uh eraser michael bay turns down the job the hughes brothers want to make it but they're busy making from hell peter jackson's is getting famous and is still not interested yeah william broils jr writes the script that we now know uh which then gets uh you know um polished by connor and rosenthal who have the other credit um and uh how they wrote burton in I really have no fucking idea. Like, I don't know why Burton gets to be, like, the 14th director involved. We had, I want to see if I can find the username

so I can credit him properly, but someone, one of our Blinkies on the Reddit, wrote a really, really good piece in the Batman Returns thread about how, like, and it made me think about this in a different way, about, like, we all, like, sit around thread about how like, and it made me think about this in a different way, about like,

we all like sit around and go like, what happened to Tim Burton? Like, where's the moment? Why did it all sort of turn off? Why do these films start to feel less and less like sort of adept or, you know, passionate, personal, any of that?

Right. And he made this argument that like, Edward, Edward Scissorhands, and Batman Returns are, like, this perfect triptych of everything that guy sort of has to say in his heart about, like, how he feels, how he views society, how we treat others. And that after that, he's just sort of like,

what more do I have to say? Right. So people offer me things, and he's like, yeah, I don't know, I guess monkeys, that sounds cool. He's like the Rolling Stones doing the endless tours. They've done all their material and now it's just like I'm going to play the hits. Right, but for him it just becomes like, oh, there's an element I haven't done before. Monkeys are cool.

I liked that book growing up. Makeup's going to be fun. Right, but then when he signs on, I think everyone just goes like, well, it's Tim Burton. He must know what he's doing. He must have a take on this. So they were saying like no actor they could get to sign on would – once they read the script, no actor would want to do this movie. And Mark Wahlberg pointedly didn't read the script, went to a meeting with Tim Burton, and after five minutes said, look, I just want to work with you. I'll do whatever you want to do.

Sure, which is not unfair for him to do at the time, right? No, and certainly, like, Mark Wahlberg finds success when he works with strong directors. You can see him going, like, I trust you. You know how to use people. You'll know how to use me. Right. But it's clear that I think everyone through to Burton, like, there must be some sort of guiding principle.

There must be some take he's got on this. Right. And also the execs came in with a bunch of notes, and he's just like, I just got totally lost in the thing. We started production like nine months before it was going to come out. The whole thing was rushed. I didn't have time to figure it out. Right.

There was something where it had to come out whenever it came. This is one of the first, like, we've marked out these release dates. We can't give it up. It was being rewritten while they were building the sets. It's everything you don't want to do in a movie. The sets in this movie make no sense. Until they get to the desert. Excuse me, I think this world is very plausible.

What are you talking about? Until they get to the desert, you're just like, I don't understand the layout of the city. I don't understand if we're indoors or outdoors. How many of them are there? They totally invert the original movie where the original understand if we're indoors or outdoors. How many of them are there? Right. Are they? They totally invert the original movie where the original movie starts in the middle of nowhere.

Correct. And you get a sense, you feel like you're on a weird planet. Right. And then this one starts in like a really ridiculous looking set with like lots of green leaves and you're just like, I'm not on a planet of the apes. I'm on a set of the apes. I'm on a back lot of the Fox studio. Like it has no, until like the second half of the movie where they go outside. Some stage of the apes.'m on a set i'm on a back lot of of the fox studio like it has no until like the

second half of the movie where they go outside right yeah it looks totally fake you say like until they go outside like all the stuff that's shot on sound stages they build the sets in a way and light them so that they look like interiors yeah so you're just like are is this ostensibly the town square am i seeing the outside of buildings or is this like the inside of an anthill like are they all living like inside super super unclear but yeah the original plan of the apes i don't think you see an ape until like 48 minutes in like you start in the spaceship he crashed lands he wakes up he's out of sorts there's a lot of tarleton heston just like

in the desert trying to figure out where he is that score is so good in that movie yeah and it's sort of like this weird like cast away like you know like robinson caruso on mars like survivor movie until the apes come in and this it's like it gets to the ape shit really fast sure you have no understanding of how their society works and never receive any right and Tim Burton at this point is like you know if there's one thing you could say his films are really about it's like him trying to make sense of like uh human behavior right this anthropological thing of like he doesn't understand people who are like confident and feel comfortable acting normal living living in their like controlled, acceptable

ways, you know, normal jobs and polite conversation and all of that. And so you go like, I guess maybe like that's what's attracting him here is making a movie that's like really looking at society, anthropological way. But then there's no real take to like. Well, they're in the city for about 20, 25 minutes. And you just get this one shitty dinner party yeah the the one scene that did kind of feel like a tim burton movie but he's also so at odds with the tone of everything else in this movie right but then it just becomes like a chase

movie where they're just they're just wandering around and people are chasing them right so all the stuff that people love about planet of the apes which is like the satire the you know the commentary on society. There's almost none of it in this movie. None of it. This movie has no commentary, which is the thing above all else you would expect Tim Burton to have.

Right. So that's what I'm saying. The thing that you're looking for in this movie, and I'm going, yeah, that does sound like a Tim Burton movie. It's not in the movie. Right, because even like Dark Shadows, it's like, well, he still is coming from that perspective

of like, I don't understand behavior. People are weird. Not one goth ape. Not one goth ape. You have those teens who look like they're smoking an ape bong. Yes, true. And they're wearing leather jackets and scrumptious dancing. Yeah, that's true. On a street corner, there's Rick Baker

plays that hookah ape, you know when they roll the cart and he's taking a big fall. That's the other thing, it's like every background ape in this movie is giving a performance that feels like it would fit in like a theme park stunt show like is just like jockeying you're like a dark ride right right and they're just going so huge like trying to be the one who stands out in the shot there's no sort of cohesion to like what the language is of the apes because they're stuck in this weird nether zone of like,

so are we making them like really feral? Right. Are they like all fours crawling around and they just have like verbal intelligence? And like Roman armor. Right. Because in the originals, they're like totally bipedal, normal, like anthropomorphic people with ape faces. You really believed apes could have meetings. That's the Black Books joke.

Yes. It's such a, it's a, yeah, well, it's a quieter, talkier movie, but of course it was the 60s.

Right. Now we're in the 2000s, baby. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry, Ben. So it's like he wants to make this like vicious,

violent thing, but it's not an action movie. Not a successful one. No. No way. I mean, as we were talking about more gently in the Batman Returns episode, violent thing but it's not an action movie not a successful one I mean as we were talking about more gently in the Batman Returns episode Burton's skill is not with action

itself it's not a particularly thrilling action director the action in this movie is that people jump up and down that's the thing is there any other? It's a lot of jumping. And it's so much jumping.

And people, like you said before, people giving someone a glancing blow and they fly 40 feet into the air. And I don't think Tim Roth climbs a horse normally one time in the movie. He only gets on a horse, which he does like 12 times in the movie with a wire work jump

where he goes like, ah! Literally, that's which he does like 12 times in the movie. He does a lot. With like a wire work jump where he goes like, ah! Yes. Like literally, that's how he does it every time. Ah! He is the worst. I mean,

not Tim Roth. I mean, I like Tim Roth. Thade is a character. Thade is bad. Like worst dinner party guest. Terrible. You know,

like the senator has him over. Very rude. He's rude. He's mean. He's like, I love you, Ari. He's a creep.

He's a soul in it. That's what I'm saying like like his characterization is so different every actor is in their own movie in this thing that's true yeah where it's just like you know right because it's like are the apes sort of have do they have like a sort of samurai culture because there's some sort of asian influence to some of the design and stuff and then it's like no are they like Rome? Is this like ancient Rome? And they're just sort of like, I think the production. Sometimes it feels like they're like Pacific Islanders.

Call them A, right. Like they're in this sort of like Caribbean sort of like. Right. It doesn't make any sense. I mean, the original movie, the one other big difference we haven't really talked about is that in this movie, the humans can talk. Right. Which is another thing that I think could be interesting and it could almost make the

sort of the racial metaphors more like interesting and overt because then it's like in the first movie the humans are like they're like animals in the first movie and they're all mute and it's a big deal they're totally like devolved and so like treating them like pets you can sort of wrap your mind around that

but in this movie they're like literally saying like, oh, they don't have like the apes are like they these they don't have souls. The humans. But you're like, oh, they're talking in there. Like you have to be like fully racist to think like that, which I think, again, could be interesting. And the movie is not making any point. It has no insight into like systemic racism.

Right. That's what I'm saying. Right. Inhuman. Like you're just like, yeah, they suck. Or you're Ari and you're like, the humans should live. Tim Burton isn't equipped to say anything

about that. Sure. Right. He might be a bad director for what you're talking about. Perhaps he's the wrong director for that Planet of the Apes movie. Yeah, exactly. But also he is like the right director to make a movie about like being an outsider, like being cast out from society. Like he's not good at viewing that through a racial lens

but Mark Wahlberg is not his avatar of the outsider he's the worst fucking avatar for a Tim Burton movie ever so then you go like I think he's kind of relating more to the Helena Bonham Carter character sure well he's definitely related to Helena Bonham Carter let me tell you

did anyone else did anyone feel like they were fucking with Pericles when they gave him a full space suit, but no gloves? Yeah. Like, what's the point of that? And there's also the point where like Mark Wahlberg lifts his helmet on and you're like, aren't those things supposed to be like screwed down? Like it's supposed to be an airlock.

Like he takes it off like it's a propeller cap. That's like a, it's like a Halloween costume. It's not doing anything for him. It's not doing anything for him. Like who decides? You know what would be funny? It makes him feel like a big boy pilot just for us let's put him in the little costume

and I also love that he like pilots the ship I get putting like an animal in a ship if you don't want to put a human inside it and you need a I don't know he's like pulling levers who let the ape who thought that was a good idea

like we trained him it's okay guys he's been training to go into the purple cloud we trained him this fucking just remote control it i don't understand remote control it they put him into the purple cloud he vanishes within one second walbrook's reaction to this is not like, that purple cloud seems dangerous. That's a force set. Oh, well. Right. He's just sort of as cocky as going like,

here we go. And then, into the purple cloud. What happens? Immediately gets sucked into a time warp and he's like, hey, what's happening?

I don't know. Maybe the experiment you just witnessed could have given you some clues. All the people who were like, do not leave the ship were correct.

You've made a tactical error. Oh, God. Right, and he doesn't want to be shirtless, so his, like, his spacesuit catches on fire, and then he just wears, like, artfully distressed. It's artfully distressed. It's a tattered inner lining,

which looks like a fucking Urban Outfitters raglan. It has a very, like, Urban Outfitters quality to it. It really does. As you were saying, Matt, the original, there is this interesting yin-yang thing where he's looking at them as an outsider being like, I can't believe apes can talk.

And they're looking at him the same way. Exactly. They've never seen a human speaking before. Right. So there's not, I wouldn't say uneasy alliance, but even Dr. Zaius, who's, like, more of an antagonist character,

isn't, like, trying to hunt him down and kill him. Like, society is trying to make sense of this guy. Right. And this guy's just trying to find answers. And this is, like,

just this weird, like, slave master situation that's also, like, verging on a civil war. Mm-hmm. Where they just keep on, like, but then there's also the thing. I mean, war uh where where they just keep on like but then there's also the thing i mean you have like the sort of like the house humans right which is just like that right it's uh it's a lot to be playing around a lot to be playing around and to play

around with it so briefly and sort of so brief so like half-heartedly and like then they just hand wave it away and never bring it up ever again. Never bring it up. And then there's that point where. Eric Ibarri, I believe. Right, where Mark Wahlberg is like, wow, all these people, where'd they come from? And it's like, they've heard about you. And it's like, wait, they just left the house? I thought they were all in cages.

Like, how were they all able to just like freely come and meet Mark Wahlberg? He's also very nonplussed about the whole talking apes thing. Like, he's not that phased. He's not that phased. He's also very nonplussed about the whole talking apes thing. Like, he's not that phased. He's not that phased. He's like... At all. He is the one live. I mean, I knew a monkey

that could pilot a spaceship, so I guess this is fine. Not a big deal. Right. It just feels like he doesn't want to engage... It's almost like he's seen Planet of the Apes.

Yes. And he's like, this is, like, different, but kind of the same. I think I'm in that movie. But it has the contempt of, like, him being like, yeah, no, I know.

It's one of those fucking nerdy situations, right? What is it? Some fucking time bubble or some shit? I don't want to ask too many fucking questions. Where's my ship? Fuel cells, okay. Okay, let's get out of here. I'm trying.

No, what I said before, I was watching this and I was trying to think of, find another hero in an action movie that's not like Big Trouble Little China where that's part of the joke, right? Like who's less effective and causes more problems. Like he literally causes the planet of the apes,

right? We find out later he is the reason it exists. Yeah. And then it's a total time, like causal thing. Yes. Which I don't really have a problem with that, but it's like,

he doesn't help anyone. And like literally at the end of the movie, they say, please stay. You could do so much good if you stay. And he's like, I am getting the fuck out of here. Which way is space? And you're watching my friend Pericles.

I'm leaving him behind. But that's the thing. Pericles arriving, which he does by himself through his competent piloting of the spaceship. He can control the ship, so it's no big deal. He lands the spaceship effectively. Wahlberg crashes it into a lake. That's the one joke in the movie that works, is that Wahlberg always crashes the ship,

and he can actually land the thing, which is pretty funny. It is good. Okay, so the weird time loop with this movie is, there's this one purple cloud that distorts space and time. This purple cloud's no good, by the way. But then it seems like it's a specific two-way, it's a link between-way link between just

these two planets, right? But time distorts when you go through it. So Mark Wahlberg, Pericles goes through it first. Then Mark Wahlberg goes through it. He lands. Then a day later, Pericles lands. Something like that.

A day or two later. Of course, but they're landing in the year 2050. Right. But my point is they both land within 48 hours of each other within a future year. Yes. But they find that the mothership has also gone through the cloud and landed hundreds of years. Thousands. They say thousands.

So the time, don't even think about the year. But yes, they say thousands. Thousands of years. Thousands. They say thousands. So the time, don't even think about the year. But yes, they say thousands. Thousands of years. What are the odds that Pericles and Mark Wahlberg land so closely within each other? And that he lands like in the middle of the big climactic battle? But this cloud is purple. So it's prediction. You know, it's hard to figure out what it's doing, you know?

But then he goes back through the cloud. Yeah. Spoilers. And somehow Thade got his own spaceship. Look, the ending will get to the end. Yeah. Spoilers. And somehow Thade got his own spaceship. Look, the ending will get to the end. That's going to require further thought. That's going to be its own separate episode.

But I just want to point out, as I was like, Pericles lands, he lands all by himself. Perfectly. He's like a big boy. Yeah. Good boy, Pericles.

Good boy. The Olympic judges all give him fives. Perfect landing. When he lands, literally the sight of him heals all tensions between man and ape on the planet of the apes. They think he's their original god. But he's not. The actual god was one of the other apes.

But he's one of them. So just his arrival solves all the problems. Solves every problem. It's like a Braveheart full-on battle scene and it all just instantly stops. solves all the problems. Yeah. Right. Solves like every problem that there has been. It's like a brave heart full on battle scene and it all just instantly stops.

Right. At the Kalima. Right. Isn't that what it's called? The Kalima. The Kalima. The Kalima. Right.

If Mark Wahlberg had just crashed his ship and like a tree had gone through his head and he was just dead and not in the movie and then one day later Pericles had landed.

Would have made no difference. All would have been solved. Less people would have died. There wouldn't have been a stupid war in the desert. Yeah. Right? Chris Christopherson's totally alive.

Exactly. So there's no answer to this question. Sure. I know there's no good answer to this question, right? But this is what I ask. When Eric Ivaria is like, they all came here to see you. Yeah. And you're going like, wait, were they all slaves?

Did they all individually escape or were they all free? Because it feels like Estella Warren, the boy, and Chris Christopherson are representing like human survivors. Like they're like the leave no trace. We're like we're living off the grid. Are there tribes of humans who are just independently like traveling around the forest looking for freedom? Or are all humans enslaved or about to be enslaved? You know? These are good questions.

They're very good. I would love to see a movie that answered these questions. Because in the original, it's clear that it's just like, there are no independent humans. Right. Humans in the originals are just animals. And you get in this that Giamatti's like going around with his big net, like trying to catch him constantly.

His big net and his H&M blue blazer. Right. I like that Giamatti makes a strong choice, which is like, this guy sucks. And he said that he and Burton read the script, and there was supposed to be a third act. He learns to be good. And they were like, that sucks.

He should just still be a piece of shit. Why would he be good? He should sell kids aspirin, Yeah. Which is the only good joke in the movie. Yeah, that's a nice note. He's unrepentant, which is fun. I mean, yeah, he is, he really is, he's the one person who really looks like he's having fun. It's a great performance. In stark

contrast to Mark Wahlberg, who looks so miserable, he is just chewing up the scenery, having a grand old time. And he is working that makeup so well. You can tell he's got the sort of discipline to like spend every day looking in the mirror and testing out how to get his expressions through.

The teeth. He's got the incredible bad teeth. He's working it. Terrific. His voice is perfect coming out of an ape. He was the only person from the cast who said he wanted to do a sequel. But he wanted a sequel, you can tell. He wanted like the Fox executive thing. He's like, yeah, of course we should make a sequel. I don't know. I want to see like apes in

like an office meeting or something. Let me find the exact quote. Like apes having like a business lunch. Yeah. Kalima. I can't not think of Temple of Doom every time they say it in this movie. Every single time.

Had they never seen Temple of Doom? Apes driving cars and smoking cigars. Wearing glasses. Sitting in a boardroom. Stuff like that. Again, I would totally see that movie. Sure. It sounds like a much better movie than this movie. There was a

series of live action shorts that they would play before movies in the 30s and 40s called Dogville. Okay. Unrelated to the Lars Van Trier thing. Right. That is just like horrible animal abuse but is incredible to watch where the entire thing

is we make dogs do human things. So they're like, it's a big day at the dog restaurant. And they're all these dogs who are in costumes, like tied to chairs, sitting at like a dinner table. And then they've trained a dog to like carry a tray and walk and pretend he is a waiter. And it feels like Fox just wanted to make that. Right, right, right. Like, can we just have apes do things like that will be interesting to people. Well, if there was a planet of the apes, you know.

They'd be doing those things. Yeah, they'd be doing those things. They'd be doing those things. So maybe they were right and Tim Burton was wrong. I don't know. I don't think he was wrong because I don't think he made a choice. Right. In the absence of the goofy shit you're talking about, they have substituted kind of nothing.

Absolutely nothing. Generic Matrix-y action. They ride horses. They have kind of like cone helmets. Cone head helmets. There's some wire work. So bad. Some swords.

The moment I wanted to talk about was when Wahlberg gets the gun. Uh-huh. And then the movie, like, that's like a moment where now, like, he's got power. Yes. Right. And then the monkey just breaks it. Instantly destroys it. And then they just move on.

Yes. And it made me so mad seeing it again now because I haven't watched it since it was in theaters. No, you don't re-watch it annually? No. I hate it. I hate this movie. I hate hearing you guys talk about it. I don't like talking about it. But that sucks.

That is like such an obvious moment to let Mark Wahlberg character now have some power against the monkeys but they're just like nope we're gonna take that away it's why i think the charlton hesson scene is kind of interesting because it's almost an idea and it's almost an idea that's original to this movie because in the original series all the apes have guns right yeah they have they're more advanced in general yeah but they have like rifles and they have pistols they also have nets

and like you know like billy clubs like they have all types of weapons but firearms are not a thing that they have not figured out okay this movie is saying like humans have guns right it's saying that apes kind of their ceiling is like ancient rome like that's as bad as they can have like a civilization but it's ancient right and that's the deep, dark secret. They figured out that humans have guns. They took the guns away from the humans and tried to rewrite history so that guns don't exist and that humans have always been

a lesser species because they know if humans get access to guns, the whole thing is over. Which is kind of an interesting idea. Again, if you want to dig into it. Right, if you want to explore that, that is a thing you could do. Right, and it almost then gets into it. Right, if you want to explore that, that is a thing you could do. Right, and it almost then gets into this thing of like, were the apes right? Like, they created

a new society because they knew humans were too reliant on a destructive technology. Exactly. It's no good. It's no good, but you're like that's almost a hook for a screenplay. Sure, right, but their society sucks. Apes evolve, they see that guns are actually the primitive thing

and so they like you know enslave humans hide guns inside like very well-made artisanal fire drops where no one would look yeah where no one was looking because it couldn't physically be inside it yeah um but then yeah no what's the ape ape society? It's like David Warner is like an old senator. Yeah. You don't really see like what he is, right, what the government is. I mean, and the- Fade is like in charge, but all his decisions are just like him going like, kill the humans!

Like, I mean, he doesn't like have a lot of like tactics. No. Right? No, just beating on people. And jumping onto his horse very dramatically weee and you're also like

is like is they viewed as like the Charles Manson of like this ape society in the way that he's just like constantly like hunched over and like

sort of talking to himself about like stinking humans dirty humans no he's the Abraham Lincoln of well he becomes

Abraham Lincoln as another indicator of the uh badness of Captain Leo Davidson, he doesn't defeat him or kill him. He leaves him there. Right. Just literally, just like when he leaves the planet. Right. Yeah.

Because he just feels like it. He leaves him in a cell. He leaves Thade behind. Right. Totally fine. Thade somehow gets access to another spaceship. That's the only way to explain the ending, right? Is that Thade behind totally fine. Thade somehow gets access to another spaceship. That's the only way to explain the ending, right? Is that Thade beat him there?

Yes. He found a spaceship. I mean, the ending still makes no sense to be clear. Now, there's some sort of DVD insert. Who was telling me about this? I was telling you about this. We talked about it in one of the commentary episodes. The DVD literally came with a paper insert that explains this because the movie does not.

Has a timeline and shows like wormhole like physics. Well, explain it. I cannot tell you. I mean, David, if you want to look it up. Try to find it. Yeah. Supposedly like first one in, last one out is the idea. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, because you have to believe that the purple cloud itself has some sort of governing law. Right. That it's not a random. You know what I'm saying? Because it sends people out at different times, but the times are close enough in relation to each other. And it's only a link between two different planets. So if it was just Thade who got onto Earth, how did he make all the monkeys? Well, we don't. That's one part of about 3,000 parts.

That makes no sense. There's one. All right. So there's one thing. Some people think that he doesn't make it to Earth. Who's he? Wahlberg. Okay.

He just goes in the purple cloud and then goes into the future of this planet. Of the same planet. The same planet. Except we see... I know. When he left, they were all like, we'll never fight again. And Fade sucks. I'm pretty sure in that...

At the end of the movie, though, they show Saturn and they show him flying to Earth. And the screen on his computer says Earth. Like you have to willfully ignore actual evidence on screen to buy that theory. That's a fair point. And I know. I mean, Burton's thing is mostly just like, I don't know, like there needed to be room for a sequel. He was like, whoever made the next one is going to let them figure that out. That's truly how he talks about it.

A friend of the show, Alex Ross Perry, has pointed out, he texted both of us knowing we were going to do this episode. Yes. In fact, the original book ends in a way that's very similar to this. The original book is very different. I believe it's a postulatory. Sure. The epistolary. You mean the letters?

Another word I mispronounced. Right. It's very different from the original film. Pierre Boulle. Pierre Boulle. Yes. Let's see. They fly back to Earth

and they are greeted by a field officer who is a gorilla. Yeah. Is at the end of the book. They should throw this movie out. Yeah, they should. But I mean, they should drag it into the garbage

on their desktop and delete forever. Even if you sort of accept, okay, well, if you go into the cloud first, that doesn't mean you're going to come out first or yada, yada, yada. It doesn't really explain how Thade would get so far back in time. But let's just accept that he does.

Like, even if Thade is able to find a spaceship inside the desiccated thousand-year-old ruins of this thing, that they also explode at one point. Yeah. Like, let's say he finds a spaceship. It works. He uses it. He goes back to the past he creates this this alternate timeline where apes are now in charge of earth uh-huh that still

requires mark walberg when he comes there of all the places on earth to let crash land yes he he literally lands at the at the lincoln memorial right which is now the Thade Memorial. Yes. Just so they can have a riff on the Statue of Liberty. I call it the Thade Memorial to this day. I'd call it the Thade Memorial if I'm there.

That's the Thade Memorial. You mean in our world? Yeah, it's the Thade Memorial. That's fair. Here's an explanation. Time on Earth okay time on earth and time on ape's planet move in opposite

directions David's using his hands okay his hands are moving because the storm moves in opposite directions you know what I'm saying

wow so that's why the Oberyn lands the space station lands like first and then Leo and then Pericles. So the more time that passes in between the people who go through the cloud, the further it sends them apart from each other. Exactly.

So it's like even if Leo technically goes through the cloud first, like some other apes go through the cloud later, but they land earlier, like, because of... The Tino Nisi, it's opposite. Oh, Ben's leaving? If Walberg goes into the cloud... He's tapping out! He's tapping out!

Has this ever happened? Yes, definitely. Many times. We're very tired. He wants the show to end in general. If Wahlberg goes into the cloud five minutes after Pericles does, in the law of ape time lasting longer, ape time is slower and backwards. The ape time continuum.

Right, means that he lands 48 hours earlier, so you go by transitive property. If the mothership goes in like a day or two after Wahlberg, that would be thousands of years. Right. And if somehow, like, the only way they could kind of explain it is if in the sequel, Wahlberg goes back to the original planet and then Thade takes his spaceship. Yeah. Sure. But that's still asking another movie to clean up your mess. Right. Yeah. Sure. But that's still asking another movie

to clean up your mess. Right. Yeah. I'm still trying to find this DVD insert. It's kind of like, you know, it is a little, it is sort of evocative of like the part of Back to the Future 2

where he shows up in evil 1985. Right. If you didn't like explain how any of it worked or you showed Biff in the time machine or you did any of that stuff and you just stopped the movie right there. And also to Ben's point,

when the mothership lands on the eighth planet- The DVD insert is doing what I'm describing, which is it's showing how the later you leave on one end, the earlier you arrive on the other because as this DVD insert boldly proclaims, time does not travel in a straight line through an electromagnetic storm.

Could you imagine just... Mark Wahlberg wants to take this thing's lunch money, this insert's lunch money. Maybe I misunderstood though. Doesn't the Oberon or the spaceship that we're somehow going to have in 10 years because the human part of the movie is set in 2029. Yeah, can't wait.

Doesn't that ship go in as a result of Wahlberg's? Yes, they're trying to find Wahlberg. So how did they wind up – if they only went in, I'm going to assume, at best, days or weeks after he goes in. How did they wind up thousands of years ago? Well, that's the idea is that time moves so much slower that if Wahlberg goes in five minutes after Pericles, that results in him being two days earlier. All right. It's my transitive property.

I'm going to pretend I understand what you're saying. I think that's the idea. But to Ben's point, the Oberon goes in and they have all the apes that they've been like experimenting on. Sure. So that's enough of a species that if it lands over thousands of years can evolve into an entire race.

Yes. But, but. And learn how to talk? Right. Sure. You go over time if they, you know, whatever. Yeah. But then you go, how did they get, I don't know.

This is, this is futile. Well, no, but what do you mean? Because like clearly, yeah, as long as you landed on earth at a specific moment, you would have Jeeps and Lincoln Memorials and Washington Malls. Everything would be the same except for apes. That's the thing, because the ape culture is so radically different. Yeah, right. Right. Why would all of a sudden the ape culture that was firmly developed on ape planets.

You know what it's like. Go ahead. Bear City. Do you remember Bear City? No. Bear City was an SNL sketch. It was like a pre-digital short thing in the early 2000s. I think it was made T. Sean Shannon. And it

was Bear City was like their riff on Planet of the Apes where the bears got smart and they decided to kill all the humans. But they just took over doing what humans were doing. They didn't rebuild society. They just put on humans clothes and then just started doing their best impressions

of how humans act. Because it seems like apes have different enough brains that they wouldn't be like, and of course this is what a police uniform looks like. No, it's just like they kept the National Mall by and large. I just feel like it's so instructive

to... The Washington Monument's still there. It looks exactly the same. I feel like it's very instructive, though, to compare this movie with the original one when you're comparing the endings, which they very clearly were like, well, that one has the Statue of Liberty, so this one, we gotta have some kind of monument. And we gotta have something crazy happen at the end.

Right, it's gotta be a shocking moment. But the end of Planet of the Apes explains everything. That is the moment that makes it all make sense. That's why it's got to be a shocking moment. But the end of Planet of the Apes explains everything. That is the moment that makes it all make sense. That's why it's a well-regarded ending. And this movie

is the moment where you're like, what the fuck? Like, what? And they start explaining it earlier because you have the little girl doll which he's trying to make sense of and Zaius is like, you're not going to like the answer.

Sure, it's not... Right. It's not like it comes out of nowhere. You might think that we should all be damned to hell. Honestly. You may just yet damn us all to hell. That's the other thing, too.

It ends with Heston having his moment of like, Oh, no! Right, but you need that rather than Wahlberg just looking like... That's what I'm saying. Wahlberg's like, what's going on? What's going on? What do you mean you're out of Sam Adams? It's that level of like

confusion at the fact that apes have rebuilt the Abraham Lincoln memorial yeah it's not even like shock it's more just like kind of it's just like I didn't know it was that late it's that sort of like I think I got it you got it you figured it out you went to the bathroom and you cracked

this movie I cracked it what made you crack it taking a shit taking a piss okay um he goes to the planet right he's on earth it's all mark walberg's now it's planted on the walberg this is your re your rewrite that should be planted that's the better ending oh i see and then he's just like oh this is rule this rules and then they're just like, oh, yeah. He high-fives the cop. Wahlburgers for all. Yeah.

America is just an endless line of Wahlburgers. The United States of Wahlburg. I don't know. I mean, you and I have both talked about, David, how weird this phenomenon is because this is one of the last times where a movie made a ton of money and the studio was like, we probably shouldn't make a sequel. The studio was wisely like, we got out of this with our hides. We got out of this thing, made a profit. There's nothing to complain about. We can't fool them twice.

B- Cinema score, which is pretty bad for a big blockbuster. Literally, like probably, I mean, got a B- cinema score, which is pretty bad for a big blockbuster. And like, it's just obviously no one wants, you know, whatever. Other than Paul Giamatti. Right. Nobody else wants a sequel. Meetings of the Planet of the Apes. They let it rest 10 years and then came with the most different interpretation possible. And when they released that one, I was like, what are they thinking?

Like, this thing looks like a disaster. They picked a nobody director for it. They picked James Franco as their top liner. And yeah, Frida Pinto, John Lithgow. Like, and then it did pretty well. Yeah. It wasn't like a sensation, but did pretty well.

But like for a late August movie, and then it got really good reviews. Because they weren't screening until the last second. Everyone's like, this is going to be a fucking disaster. And then I remember like the embargo going up like 12 hours before the movie came out. People being like, this thing's actually really well directed. Right. It's, you know, whatever happened to Rupert Wyatt?

He did The Gambler with Mark Wahlberg. He made The Gambler. He took a big gamble on Wyatt. He sure did. And then, like, it's just interesting to me because it's like,

you don't automatically make a sequel to that one either. No. It grossed less than The Burton. Yeah. But they were,

that movie was good enough, I guess, that they were like, now we can probably get a good sequel out of this and they were right. They were right. They were correct.

And sometimes Fox executives are right, I guess. I don't know how else to put it. I mean, like, Batman Begins is a similar thing. When you actually look at the numbers, that movie was not very profitable because it cost a lot, and it didn't make a ton because I think there was still the post-Batman and Robin sting. Yeah. But they just knew, like, we're onto something here,

double down, and then, like, Dark Knight explodes. Right. But this was the opposite. And, like, you hear now, like, really, like, James Gunn is, like, gonna do Suicide Squad? Right. Like, they feel that focused on trying to make another Suicide Squad movie? Bizarre.

Right. When they're already making a Harley Quinn movie? Like, who wants this? Right. Like, why do you need another one again it's like you got out of suicide squad alive right reviews were terrible but you made some money movie made no sense at all you got margot robbie out of it and right you know maybe you can build something better out of that but i go like the same thing with like you're

gonna make fantastic beast three like you're that's different yeah that thing's still i think they're just sort of like they they're locked in like they're like we's different yeah that thing's still I think they're just sort of like they're locked in like they're like we cannot not make Wizarding World so much exactly

if you were a Warner Brothers executive wouldn't you go to JK Rowling and be like you got any other ideas we'll make any we'll green light any other idea you have

that takes place in this universe I would more be interested like more be going to her and being like I know you pitched us five but can we make this three movies like can we wrap

this up now can we leave it on the dance floor yeah like cause and can't that Broadway show can't we do that as a thing maybe they must be begging to do that my god but um like cause I believe it was a five movie pitch for Fantastic Beasts right it's supposed to be five

I believe and as far as I know Fantastic Beasts 2 was set and still set in the 20s or whatever, right? I didn't see it. You were the only one at this table who committed the crimes of Grindelwald, I think, right? Did you see it, Matt? I did. I could not tell you when it was set off.

I'm going to look it up now because, yeah, 1927. I've read the Harry Potter books. Grindelwald is defeated in 1945. That's definitely a problem for our theory that they're going to just make one more. This is what I'm saying. He's got a lot more crimes to commit. Are we putting the pedal to the metal over here? Grindelwald's done some crimes.

Okay. Yeah. But the first one was set in 1926. So I was thinking this one would be set in like 32. No, 27. Maybe the movies are about how like frustrating the legal system is that they still can't find something

to pin. Like Grindelwald's the Jeffrey Epstein of his time. He just keeps on somehow slipping through the cracks. I don't know. I mean yeah it is a weird thing like you know because people were like oh that movie's a big bomb. And Fox was always like, no, it was like very profitable.

It was like one of our biggest hits. Right. It's Burton's fourth highest grossing movie ever, I believe. Yeah, but we just knew like there wasn't a demand for a sequel. And now if they've like committed to a thing being a franchise, they will push it uphill by hook or by crook. Right. It made, let's play the box office game, $180 million domestic.

It's more than you would think by a lot. $362 worldwide. Because it even multiplied well. Like it had a huge opening weekend. For its time, it was one of the biggest opening weekends ever. $68 million opening weekend. I think that was maybe the number two opening weekend of all time after this.

Because I previously said Rush Hour was the number two, but Rush Hour 2 comes out after this and does a million less sure these two movies do like 69 million back to back right right this does opens to 69 right right i remember because i was in 12 and i thought that was fun i was 68.5 oh so okay i thought the estimates were funny. The early estimates. And let's talk about its opening weekend. It opens number one. Okay. 68. Number two is the third film.

Sorry, this is July 27, 2001. Right. The third film in a big franchise. The third film? Yes. Is it the final film in a big franchise? No, but for a while it looked like it could have been. There's a long gap between the three and four.

Jurassic Park 3? That's correct. Joe Johnson's underrated, rip-roaring, what is it, like 92-minute dinosaur movie. Where he's just like, can't they just go to a fucking island and there's a bunch of dinosaurs and they run around

and then they leave yeah not a perfect film but an example of a movie that just like does the basics that it needs to do is a tight little thriller gets in gets out

yeah and then you know now we're besieged with the opposite of that kind of a movie right where it's like

it needs to be like a haunted house movie but also about human cloning and also there needs to be like a volcano that goes off. I'm not going to invoke I'm not going to invoke

the captain but did you read in interviews that he said that what inspired him to make his screenplay for Fallen Kingdom that way was Bridge of Spies? What? What? What? What does that mean? What would that mean? He said that he liked that Bridge of Spies was What? What? What? What does that mean?

What would that mean? He said that he liked that Bridge of Spies was like two different movies. Like each half was a different movie and he was like, I want to try to do that.

So one half is a volcano adventure and the other half is a haunted house auction. Yeah. Anyway. Okay. Number three

is it was like a big it was pitched as a big comedy of the summer because of its like huge cast. It was kind of underwhelming. America's Sweethearts? America's Sweethearts. Oh my gosh. Joe Roth's America's Sweethearts.

Because this is the first year of Revolution, right? Revolution starts. Sure. It's around then anyway. Tom Katz is the first film that Revolution ever releases. Tom Katz. I believe that's Revolution ever releases. Tom Katz. I believe that's 2001, and it was a big deal that Joe Roth is starting a new studio. Right.

And the big thing was he made a couple people's careers, so he's going to get big movie stars to make their films show up. One time. They're going to show up. Sandler did it like three or four times because he gave Sandler Waterboy. Right. And Julia, I I think did the no because Mona Lisa's smile I want to say was Revolution 2

anyway let's see it was him directing him directing mistake number one of many yeah and then getting Billy Crystal wrote it Billy Crystal wrote it Catherine J Jones was like really on the up and up. Sure.

That I think weirdly is still I was going to say it's John Cusack's highest grossing film but I think 2012 outgrossed. Sure. I'm not a sweetheart. But up until that point it was his only

hundred million dollar movie. Did not make a hundred million dollars. 99? 93. Not that not that more more than you would have thought.

Not a memorable movie. No it's not. No. No. I have seen movie. No, it's not. I have seen it, but I do not really remember. I remember Christopher Walken's at the end of there. It's like a junket, right? Stack supporting cast.

It's like a press junket. It's a junket. I remember Billy Crystal explaining his idea for the movie, which was so convoluted, which he was like, is that the one... Is Julia Roberts

like the ugly sister in it? Yes, she used to be fat, I think. They literally cast Julia Roberts as like the ugly sister in it? She used to be fat, I think. They literally cast Julia Roberts as like the ugly sister. Yeah. But she's not the lead. Like, she's kind of

a supporting part. No, she's the lead. But she's not in it. The movie's pretty ensemble-y. It's ensemble-y. She ends up being the romantic. She's the romantic lead. Yeah, yeah.

Because it's about Cusack falling in love. You know, when he's being positioned as like Catherine Zeta-Jones. He's the movie star. He's in the movie with Catherine Zeta-Jones. He's's being positioned as like he's the movie star he's in the movie

with Catherine Zeta-Jones she's like Tom Hanks' sister she's her assistant maybe this is the first movie why do I remember these things

hey man the first movie to come out post breakup for them but it's a movie that thinks that American audiences

are going to be very interested in the inner workings of a junket planning yes right right right because Seth Green is trying to figure out like what to put on like the buffet anyway to be very interested in the inner workings of a junket planning. Yes, right, right, right. Because Seth Green is trying to figure out what to put on the buffet.

Anyway, I don't know. Go on. Number four is a winning and popular comedy of the year. Scary Movie 2? No.

That's number nine. Okay. 2001. It's a winning and popular comedy of the year. A surprise hit. Oh, Legally Blonde.

Legally Blonde. Nice. A good one, Legally Blonde. Legally Blonde. Nice. A good one. Robert Luketich's Legally Blonde. Yeah. What should have been Reese Witherspoon's second Oscar? Win? Yeah. Wow. Who wins that year? Halle Berry? 2001 is Halle Berry, right?

Or is that 2002? I think that's 2001. I said give it to Reese that year. That was kind of a stacked year though We had Sissy Spacek You know and That's 2001 you're right Halle Berry, Sissy Spacek What I mean Jennifer Connelly went supporting

You have Judi Dench as Iris You have Nicole for Moulin Rouge And you have Renee for Bridget Jones I stand by my statement I stand by my statement Reese Witherspoon of comedy slot. I stand by my statement. Reese Witherspoon should have won Best Actress. Number five is a film we've talked about on this podcast for its famed production process.

It's a heist movie. A heist movie. With major stars. Oh, it is a film. Ocean's Eleven? Nope. No, it is a film called The Score in which Robert De Niro directed Marlon Brando through your piece because Marlon Brando didn't want to listen to Miss Pig.

And when Marlon Brando also did scenes pantless because you want to force Frank Oz to use clips. And yeah, you're Brando oppression. I.e. the film that taught me how to become an actor. Tricks I still employ to this day. They still work, huh? Yeah, they still work. David, you know, here on Blank Check

we like to look back a lot because we're conscious there's a context. Retrospective folks. Right? Hindsight. Right, but what do you want to do? What do you listen to

if you're looking for the context of what's happening right now? You want people to address the big wheelings and dealings and news items of the film world of today. I'm totally adrift. I don't know what and news items of the film world of today. I'm totally adrift.

I don't know what to do. Slash film cast, baby. Of course. You got to check in. Our friends at the slash film cast. Yes. David Chen. Yeah.

Devendra Hardwar. I mean, they're going to address everything that's going on. All the rumors, all the hot takes, all the reactions. You know? It's context in progress it's history in the making David I mean I also just like because it's like intelligent people

talking about movies you seem to be saying that it's some sort of like history defining thing where they're like writing opinions in stone well to each their own I do think podcasts are written in stone as they should be they're recorded each onto a stone tablet. Do we do that with our podcasts?

We do. Do we have a stone library? Yeah. Okay, cool, cool. But Slash Filmcast, it's like the Ten Commandments. These stones, I tells ya. So, well, give her a listen. You don't have to yell.

You should listen to Slash Filmcast! It's a great podcast. It's weekly or even more, maybe. Sometimes they do a little daily guy. Yeah. And you got great minds. You got great discussion. And check it out.

Yeah, check it out wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, you also got Dr. Dolittle 2. Sure. Remember a big farting sub piece? Cats and Dogs. Yeah. In which cats and dogs go to war. A weirdly successful film.

The Fast and the Furious. There's a sequel to that. They did. They did. The Fast and what? What is it? The Furious. I'm not familiar with that one.

I don't think that one ever went anywhere. Yeah, too bad. God. You know what I'm not into? I'm sorry, guys. Hobbs and Shaw. I'm not into it. sorry guys I'm not into it here's my

I don't like that trailer it feels too like pleased with itself you know what I mean if it wasn't called Fast and Furious would you be alright with it I mean

that's my take if it was called Tango and Cash if it was called Tango and Cash like if they just straight up were like we're just doing

Tango and Cash I think I'd maybe be slightly more interested I would be interested in Statham because I'm enjoying this part of Statham. I'm sick of The Rock.

I'm sick of him. You're turning heel on The Rock. A little bit. I'm a little sick of him. I'm not like furious with him or anything, but it's just like... What? I'll say this. You know, he's kind of doing... He's got like two things. He's doing one or the other. He's sort of

narrowed in on something and he's just doing it over and over. He doesn't even, I mean, people have pointed that out. He doesn't even change the costume at this point. No. It's just like, get me a khaki button down. It should have zips. Yeah. You're right.

I've said this before. Cargo pockets, khaki button down with cargoes and I'm ready to go. I've said this before, but he brags about the fact that he only sleeps like 80 minutes a night. And I look at him in one of his four movies that he makes per year now, and I go, you look tired. Right, right. You look a little disengaged, buddy. He seems exhausted.

I will say this, though. I agree with you. I've been in a similar position with The Rock, but I'm a little encouraged because for the first time in a long time, he's actually working with good genre directors. Right. Like David Leitch is good.

He's doing a Jamie Collitzer film. I haven I like David Leitch. He's doing a Jamie Collitzer film. I haven't loved a David Leitch yet, but he can make an action sequence cut together. Atomic Blonde was one of those movies where I walked out and before I even crossed the threshold of the theater, I was like,

wait, what was happening in there? And Deadpool 2 is horrible, like fucking horrible, but it's got some okay action. I'm waiting for the PG cut. Like, fucking horrible. But, you know, it's got some okay action. I'm waiting for the PG cut. Yeah, sure. Maybe they'll just keep going until they hit G. Did you see how many screens

whatever Deadpool Christmas or whatever was opened on in China? How many? Did you see how many screens opened on in China? What, 5,000? 32,000 screens. What? Did you see that? Does opened on in China? What? 5,000? 32,000 screens. What? Did you see that?

Does that cut exist because the regular Deadpool couldn't get approved in China? Possibly. That might make sense. It was like, there was this thing where like the Chinese boxers

was like, oh, it made $21 million opening weekend in China. And I was like, oh, that's a lot. And then it was like

on 32,000 screens. It's a $600 per screen average. There was basically no one there, but they opened it in 32,000 screens. That seems high. 32,000. They were putting screens up in other

places, like at supermarkets. Is there like a 40 screen multiplex that's just like, it's only the Deadpool movie. Every classroom in China pulled down the screen and the projector started playing. Like China has, I think, about five times our population.

It's not like the multiplier is not enough. It's about five times our population and a hundred times our once upon a Deadpool screens. Just crazy. Anyway. No, Jamie Collette's hair doing Jungle Cruise has me a little excited. My biggest problem with The Rock has been him

working with Rasta Marshall Thurber and Brad Payton, who is the man who directed the Cats and Dogs sequel. He found these kind of journeyman guys who clearly they were beholden to him. I like him working with people who are actual stylists. It's a big difference between The Rock and Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger is willing to give himself over to directors. Totally. Well, you got the Schwarzenegger expert in you.ger is willing to give himself over to directors. Totally. Well,

you got the Schwarzenegger expert in you. He's an artist. Right. He is. And Vin's an artist. I think also, and The Rock has talked so much about how much he was spooked by Southland Tales flopping, and I feel like that scared him off anything too

freaky or, you know, risky. It makes sense. You look at the movies he makes now and that makes perfect sense he also it's just like he's so much like a businessman you know where I just now more and more start to see the sort of machinations behind everything he does very calculated I wish he would just do an Instagram video where he's like

I'm excited for Hobbs and Shaw I made it because I got in a fight with Vin Diesel and I like money you know what I mean like it's like this is something I did because I enjoy making money and it's kind of just like a movie to come out in the summer. It's not going to be very good. Okay. Is everyone excited? Every time he has to be like this is it

my culture like is intersecting with my action hero stardom and like, you know, it's like it's just the fucking, you know, billionth movie you made where you drive a car into someone like it doesn't have to be so weighty? He posted, especially because the movies are so lacking in any sort of like thematic weight. When he was shooting Rampage, he posted one of those things where it was like, I remember being a five-year-old.

My father bringing me to the zoo and pointing at the animals and going, you can trust animals in a way you can't trust humans because animals always show you what they think what i'm talking about right i want to make a movie about that and it's like it was like a fucking like a fucking ulysses he wrote as like his instagram comment like it was like 5 000 words long um uh there was something else i was gonna say about him oh a thing on his Instagram is that he has been more and more talking about tequila and how much he loves tequila and doing tequila shots on set so he's going to do a Clooney? yeah 100% but it's so mechanical

because tequila never used to be part of his brand and now everything's like you know my regular breakfast tequila and my oatmeal are you okay? please give me help seeing like he's an alcoholic tequila in my oatmeal. Are you okay? Blink if you need help, Dwayne Johnson. Seem like he's an alcoholic because he wants to launch a tequila brand

because he clearly got jealous of how much money Clooney made making tequila. Well, I hope he finds... He's not physically capable of making more movies, so he has to do something else at the same time. Yeah, maybe he needs to make more Ballers? What if Ballers suddenly was like on a days of our lives schedule and there was like 40 episodes of ballers per year he'd find a way

like he house of pains that he makes a hundred episodes a year oh god and now i'm just looking at his fucking uhs. It's just, look, I love The Rock. I've been with him for 20 years. Of course, he's the best. I've known him since I was a boy. I love him when I love him. Yeah. You know, I watched wrestling when I was a kid.

You know, all that shit. Like, I've enjoyed his rise to stardom. I just, yeah, I'm getting a little tired of the exact same movie. Yeah, he needs to make a different movie. Yes. I'm a little hopeful for Jungle Cruise. You got a good cast around him.

It could be good. It is also another movie where he plays a guy with a khaki shirt. Correct. What are you talking about? Isn't Jungle Cruise just like the African queen? Sure, but it's going to be... It's directed by our weirdest... I love Jean-Claude Serra. Yeah, yeah.

I love the guy. But it's going to be like the Planet of the Apes of this kind of movie, because it's going to be all... It's not going to be the African... It's going to be like the African Queen if it was all an action movie. Right, right. Exactly. And I have no idea what the third Jumanji movie is going to be, but I can't imagine that thing

rushed to production with whatever script they could find is going to be a really justified sequel. All the cast additions are really weird too isn't like aquafina danny glover and danny devito i believe that's yes i'm just looking for one cast those names are listed here on the imdb uh nick jonas is not involved which is uh great nick jonas it's nick jonas right is it nick jonas yeah that's the worst performance I've ever seen in a film I'm sorry I wish I was like

I was aghast I remember I kept turning to you Mark Wahlberg from Planet of the Apes just went we saw that together it was crazy

right you turned to me your best line was you turned to me and just said like during his second scene when your blood was already in a boil you turned to me and just said, like during his second scene, when your blood was already in a boil, you turned to me and said, there are other actors.

Why did they hire him? It's crazy. It's a crazy performance. There are other actors. It makes no sense. Oh my God. That, yeah. All right.

Great job, guys. What a great podcast by all of us. What a good time. Ben's ready. Okay. that yeah alright great job guys what a great podcast by all of us Ben's ready to write Matt I'm gonna pimp you out oh hell yeah wait is that a good thing or a bad thing I think it's a good thing you of course

are a connoisseur of movie tie-in meals now this film had a lot of marketing, promotional partners. There was a big thing where this movie, they did geocaching. Do you remember when that was a thing? Vaguely. There's a Variety article

about how they were like, we've planted Planet of the Apes props in seven different locations around the world. You have to get what we're calling a GPS device. It was a $100 device that was just a GPS to try to locate these props. And they were like, the world is going to engage in like a Planet of the Apes scavenger hunt. They had Reebok ads.

They had all this shit, but they didn't have any food tie-ins. Right. And the Caesar trilogy later didn't have any food tie-ins. Do you feel like there are now, especially with Denny's, who are kind of running the table on tie-in menu items, do you have an idea of what you think would be a good... I mean, bananas, obviously. Bananas is, yeah, the obvious thing.

Right. Smoothies. Smoothies. Kong Skull Island, it was just like bigger versions. It was gigantic burgers. But Kong is huge. Right. That kind of worked.

Yeah. Boy, you're really putting me on the spot what's the worst one you ever had to do of those fucking things that you have to do that I forced myself to do I have to do it but you know what I'm saying what's the one at the end where you were like like Jesus

I think the Independence Day one Independence Day resurgence that one had a lot of syrup it had like a hundred items and it was all bacon for some reason they decided that was a Denny's they were like the theme of this movie

and how it connects to us is bacon it is crazy how much more work Denny's is doing than any of their competitors these days. Because like when Aquaman came out, I was like, oh, there's like an Aquaman tie in a Burger King. I'm going to like get the Aquaman sandwich and bring it in and we'll eat it on Mike. And there was no Aquaman sandwich. And I was like, there has to be some dumb like fish with bacon that they call like the curry burger or something.

Right, right, right. Or maybe it's fish with curry sauce or whatever. I don't know. I think Cold Stone Creamery had some sort of special Aquaman ice cream. Burger King had a time, but they didn't have any items. Cold Stone and Pinkberry each had their own like ocean blueberry. Yeah. I don't know.

IHOP, I mean, IHOP is the one other person in this, or person, entity in this space. They've been shown up to play? Yeah, they had everything green for the Grinch that was the last one oh how was that green pancakes were the flavors different

or were they just it tasted well they were like incredibly sweet it was like a green pancake with like literally like icing on top ugh

and little red candy hearts yeah yeah it was a lot because his heart is timing. Exactly. You got it.

Okay. I mean, that's better than bacon for Independence Day. At least it makes some sense. Bacon's pretty American. That's true. Matt,

thank you so much for being on the show. It was really my pleasure. I love this movie so much it was so great to revisit it you begged and begged and begged I've been waiting for 18 years for a legitimate excuse to rewatch it oh one thing I want to say the Elfman score

the opening theme when you're on the credits you're like whoa this is crazy and then like the score the rest of the time is just boring I thought the same exact thing I was watching I was like whoa the score is actually pretty fun. Danging theme. Like, all the weird percussion.

Totally forgets it. Knock, knock, knock. I think he just worked so hard on that, and then, I don't know, like, maybe he, like, hurt his leg or something. I just forgot to do the rest. But also, the opening credits sequence. Or saw the rest and was like, this is not worth it. Right.

Why am I using the A material here? Right. The opening credits sequence is like if they had like a temporary exhibit at the Museum of Moving Image and you got to see the costumes up close and you're like,

I guess there was some good craft in this movie. Right. Like when they're doing those detail shots of the helmets and stuff in the opening credits,

you're like, some of this looks cool. Feels very Saul Bass to me. Yes. If Saul Bass had done the original Planet of the Apes opening titles,

which he did not. No. So I'm not sure why. He did the poster, right? I feel like there's a poster that looks very Saul Bassi. Who knows someone? I'm not going to look it up now. Matt, thank you for being here.

Sure. David, thank you for being here. Anything you want to plug, Matt? No. Okay. All right. Are there any tie-in meals on the

horizon? I don't know. You tend to not get much of a heads up. No, they just kind of emerge. People, they do them very quietly.

I guess, yeah, you can just follow me on Twitter at Matt Singers. If there is one, you'll find it there. A smart follow. And all the good

anything good worth that's worth sharing, I'll just post there anyway. Right. Yeah, I guess that would be about it. Right. Thank you all for listening is the thing I'll say. And the thing I'll just post there anyway. Right. Yeah, I guess that would be about it. Right.

Thank you all for listening is the thing I'll say. And the thing I'll say is please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Right. If I can add to that, I would say thanks to Leigh Montgomery

for her theme song. Addendum to my last note, thanks to Andrew Agudo for her social media. Yeah, drag this out. Postscript. Thanks to Joe Fonabar. Ben is taking a nap.

Thanks to General Thade, too. Thanks to General Thade. For whom he saved the planet. Atta. Ari. The memory of General Thade. Paraclete. In Shrine Forever.

Dana. Captain Leo Davidson. Love him. Thanks to Dirty Chris Christopherson. He's so dirty. Dana Captain Leo Davidson love him thanks to big ups to Captain Leo dirty Chris Christopherson he's so dirty built though arms on that guy

he's got some guns he really does we didn't talk about the fact that he exists in this movie to die yeah I don't know to kind of look like

Hestany sort of like he's got like a Hestany vibe he does yeah I don't know what to say. I mean, it's kind of a,

you know, look, maybe this is like a fizzle out ending, but this at least replicates how I felt walking out of the theater going like,

no, dad, it was good, right? I mean, there were some scenes that we liked. It should be an exasperating experience if you're going to

really nail this movie. We left it that aspirin joke, right? Yeah. And then, yeah, and then after this, he makes a makes a big big fash we're gonna talk about next week yes okay do you have anything else to say i don't know no no it's been great

great episode another great episode put it in the hall of fame yep uh well as and as always i literally i can't even think about anything else. I've exhausted every single thing I could possibly say around this movie. So what's the end as always? Is it just us throwing up our hands and our feet? Sure. Purple cloud. Okay, so maybe we just say purple cloud.

Pericles. So I'm just going to say both of them. Pericles Fox. Okay, ready? This is what I'm going to do. Here we go. go we're showing the process now people know how the sausage is made ready? this is not usually how it's made to be clear no this is always how it's made we cut this part out and this time we're leaving it in

it's usually a tense negotiation at the end of the episode to settle what the end as always is Ben keep it in and doubling it and as always Pericles fucks a purple clown