Blank Check with Griffin & David - Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance with David Ehrlich

Episode Date: July 2, 2023

Park Chan-Wook kicks off his famous “Vengeance” trilogy and we kick off another episode where we talk about Ted Danson’s late 90s sitcom BECKER! Critic, friend of the pod, and Crystal Skull-apologist David Ehrlich joins us to chat about Park’s “Sympathy for Mister Vengeance” - a film that shows that revenge is not a dish best served cold, but is actually kind of sad and futile. Come for Ehrlich’s story about his teen trip to Seoul (when he had lunch with Director Park!), stay for the throwback memories of ordering imported DVDs from YesAsia-dot-com and the often misleading branding of the Tartan Asian EXTREME label. Guest Links: Read Ehrlich’s writing at IndieWire Listen to Fighting in The War Room Watch Ehrlich’s Best of Videos This episode is sponsored by:  Factor (factormeals.com/check50 CODE: CHECK50) Double Fine PsychOdyssey (doublefine.com/check) Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com or at teepublic.com/stores/blank-check

I know you're a good podcast, but you know why I have to kill you. I mean, I mean, there you go. Yeah. Not a lot of options. No. I mean, I know you guys are coming off a Buster Keaton series, but I think that notwithstanding, this is about as limited as it gets.

There's a saying, is a boiled podcast afraid of boiling water? Yeah. It is a famous saying. Sure. I'm trying to see if there's a Revenge was never this sweet Was the US tagline

Which I think is not a good tagline Yeah Like I don't think that's That's the vibe of the movie Slightly mischaracterizes what happens in film It's not like he's like Ah this is sweet When it's happening right

Yeah Licking his lips I waited but it's worth the wait It's definitely, right? Yeah. Licking his lips. I waited, but it's worth the wait. It's definitely satisfying my emotions. Revenge is a dish best served with disposable ice cream cake. Revenge is never this sweet. That's the tagline for Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.

And it's a limited American release. It quietly might be one of the best titles we've ever covered. It's a very cool title. It's a cool title title. In Korean, it's just called Vengeance is Mine. Oh, interesting. So it's a less exciting title. There have been other notable films with that title.

Yes. And I would have loved to have been in the meeting that I assume was happening at the offices of Tartan Asia Extreme. We're talking a lot of Tartan. There's been some Tartan talk. It's a pretty Scottish miniseries. Someone came in with a full ass kilt

and was like, I can't. Oh my God, I almost lodged it. You actually were better than that. Yeah, my Scottish is better. You thought you were done after you and after Boyle. I thought I'd never have to do it the scrooge mcduck of tartan came in about to dive into his pile of asian extreme money

and was like i've got it uh and part of he liked the title well enough no but what a weird choice it's a good ass time but i do think i do think it applies like i'm a cyborg but that's okay i just think perfect title should have been in parentheses i would have put parentheses around but that's okay there are a lot of it look they made a lot of choices that title gives you a lot of options in terms of what are you capitalizing what aren't you what's the punctuation um but but i watched this movie and i'm like this is kind of describing the dynamic here i do weirdly have sympathy for mr vengeance i mean i think what's most appropriate about it is the sort of like cockeyed sense of humor that overlays to

everything i mean that sardonic black humor is appropriate you do feel kind of bad for the people in this movie even as they're all doing bad things yes i felt bad for them i didn't think they were having a good time sympathy is the right word the right word. You do have sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. And Mr. Vengeance, yes, it's sort of like a title that gets passed, sort of. Well, not really. One guy's mostly wearing the Mr. Vengeance hat, I guess. But there's a little bit of vengeance from the other guy. People wear the hat. There are portions of the movie where I'd say they're Mr.'s vengeance,

and they would have to share the sash. Anyone can wear the hat. And then, of course, someone asks, is there a Mrs. Vengeance? I'm sorry. Is he going to do Enter the Vengeance verse ever? Anyone can wear the hat. And then, of course, someone asks, is there a Mrs. Vengeance? I'm sorry. Is he going to do Enter the Vengeance verse ever? Anyone can wear the hat. All the vengeful characters in art assemble. His three.

Count of Monte Cristo fucking rides in the end and into the lake. Right. It's like his three protagonists, but then also Count of Monte Crisco. Count of Monte crisco that's i'm adding him to the list along with monte cristo uh a con well what if we just what about a monte cristo sandwich does that count well that's why i was saying what the count of monte cristo is it's just a sandwich yeah like if you did a monte cristo verse you could have guy pierce and jim caviezelzel But you could also have like the sandwich It would all be public domain

Including the sandwich Is that one of those public The sandwich wants vengeance for being eaten Let's start this episode We've started it I don't know what you're talking about Are you saying good start? It's a good start

What about in Enigio Montoya? Yeah, prepare to die. He could be in the gang. Ben, did you Google characters who need vengeance? No, I wrote my name and you killed my father. Right, because he didn't remember his name. But you remembered the line. Yeah.

Yeah, that'd be good. Vengeance verse could go very deep. Yeah. The bride. Sure. She's out very deep. Yeah. The bride. Sure. She's out for vengeance. Yes. Was there ever a comic book character like called?

Oh, well, you know. There was the BJ Novak movie Vengeance. That one's actually out. I actually checked and that one's not allowed. BJ Novak is knocking at the door of the Vengeance movie. Maybe the supervillain. Maybe the Thanos. I'm going to record five podcasts.

You know, Pattinson Batman. He's going around calling himself Vengeance for the whole movie. Should have called himself Mr. Vengeance. Until that other guy's like, I'm Vengeance, and Batman's like, hmm, maybe Batman instead rings better? Wait, there must be a character. I checked and I couldn't find one. There has to be. 90s, three-issue character.

I mean, do the Avengers count Avengers There's Ghost Rider is the spirit of vengeance. Oh sure I think you can put him in there. What about Metal Gear Solid Revengeance or whatever the fuck that game's called. No I don't think so I think we're actually hitting dire hitting some kind of you know

The kids from Big Fat Liar Yeah they did it So it's what Bynes The kids from Big Fat Liar. Yeah. Yeah, they did it. So it's what, Bynes and Muniz? Yeah, both doing perfect. Right? They're both right now good. Yes.

So the deal with Bynes is she's suffered in public greatly, and she's dealing with that. Muniz, I read some interview where he's like, I have no memory of my life as a child star. He's a race car driver now mostly. But he's like a a pregnant like it's like post-pregnancy where your brain kind of just like papers over and he's like it's all gone like i had a series of strokes and i don't remember anything doesn't he tweet about like dreaming of murder sounds like a perfect pre-cog tank murder like that that's him he might be the lead of our movie. It might be time for a comeback.

Muniz? Getting revenge on the Hollywood that's burned him. I'm going to keep him on the bench. He's part of the vengeance force. You're a real gatekeeper to the vengeance society. It's just anytime there's a sort of a small little white guy, I assume you don't want to give him the Muniz, Novak. Hey, wait a second.

What about your podcasting partner? You're allowed. Have you ever played A character in a movie That sought vengeance? Great question No Horny Rob sought vengeance

On his virginity He had to get one over On his virginity Of course we speak of Horny Rob Becker Yes who comes up a lot Yes He's come up a lot recently.

I think I have. Well, Gavin in Search Party? I wouldn't say it was Vendetta. Arthur's looking for vengeance because his dad died. He's trying to solve the mystery of his father's death. He's looking for closure. Yep, he's also trying to get revenge on the terror. Yes. I have to confess that

throwing Becker onto the horny Rob moniker did not clarify for me what you're talking about. Maybe he was going to make it part of the Beckerverse. Oh, we could do a Beckerverse. Right. So get dancing back. Yeah. Horny Rob.

And all of those guys. But also all the other Becker guys, you know. Yeah. Who else is there? Alex Dessert. Dessert. Is that his name? You're saying the whole cast of.

Yeah. Terry Farrell. Shawnee Smith. Shawnee Smith. Of course. Yeah. You ever watch Becker? I'm just blown whole cast of... Yeah, Terry Farrell. Yeah. Shawnee Smith. Shawnee Smith. Of course. Yeah. You ever watch Becker? I'm just blown away by how many cast members of Becker both of you can name.

I think I can keep... Jorge Garcia did a season. Sure. The guy who played... You remember the Curb Revenge coffee shop? Oh, Moca Joe. Which is another example of vengeance. So Larry David's part of the vengeance.

But Moca Joe... Moca Joe was on it, he was in Becker. What's that guy's name? Mocha Joe. Mocha Joseph. Saverio Guerra. Sure. That's his name.

Horny Rob Becker. Oh, and Nancy Travis, obviously. Yes. Horny Rob Becker, part of Beware the Gonzo, a motion picture in which I played the horny. Zero listeners for this episode. How can you tell already? I have a vision to the future. Wow.

You're a precog in this one. Zero. It weirdly might have been our star The worst precog ever. I can tell you future podcast listenership. You're in a different pool. It's at the murder, you're Samantha Morton's in the murder pool. It's kind of like piss yellow. We're in the charitable pool. It's like the murder. You're Samantha Morton's in the murder pool. It's kind of like Piss Yellow.

It's a really bad pool. We're in the charitable pool. She predicts podcast ratings. We really can't find a better use for her. I don't know. I mean, he's a mutant. He can't live in society. He has to live here.

We weirdly went on an extended Becker tangent in our Star 80 episode with Julie Klausner. That was my main takeaway from the story um yes and then i was like fuck i should watch becker and becker's on something maybe on 2b or something it has to be there's not a pluto tv becker crackle it's on something it's on one of the less uh uh shiny streaming services but i started watching becker because i was like, maybe I'm going to fucking... There we go. Becker's good. I know you're about to say something,

but I stick up for Becker. Is there a Becker channel? There's not. No. Just Becker on demand. B-O-D. Ad-supported B-O-D. But I put on episode one of Becker.

I know the whole thing is that he's a grump. It's from 1998, and of course he's a grump. But I was like texting Marie and Ben and David. 9-11 hadn't even happened yet. 9-11 had. Becker's a firmly pre-9-11 showump But I was like texting Marie and Ben and David 9-11 hadn't even happened yet Becker's a firmly pre-9-11 show

But I was texting Ben, Marie, and David And I was like, I'm doing it, I'm starting Becker Hold open a Becker as Becker walks into the diner And he's like, what's up with these fucking gay people? Are you serious? He's grumpy about everyone He's an equal opportunity grump But there basically Isn't a joke

He just comes in and he's like Gay people are uncomfortable It was very harsh language I'm starting to understand why Becker Has not been rebooted on Peacock I mean look I just think of Becker As just this interesting little way station Between dancing's like biggest hits

But I watch Becker Every week But also lasted like six seasons between Danson's, like, biggest hits. But I watch Becker every week. But also lasted, like, six seasons. Six seasons. This is the other thing I was texting you guys about was they kept on being like, the show is a failure, but we're going to try to give it another year

to retool it a little bit. And that failure year, it was getting, like, 20 million viewers. Oh, totally. Right. And its final season, they were like, this thing is just, like, bleeding out. We have to put it out of its misery. 17 million viewers. So there was a time when you could just, like, this thing is just bleeding out. We have to put it out of its misery. 17 million viewers.

So there was a time when you could just turn to the person next to you on the subway and be like, Hey, what do you feel about last night's Becker? And reasonably expect them to have an informed opinion. Someone in your subway car has watched Becker. Well, but Becker wasn't one of those shows where you're like, what a great Becker that week. It was more just sort of like, Becker continued to be a grump. Correct. He was a community doctor in the Bronx.

He was always like, I'll tell you what your problem is. Stop eating burgers. And the guy would be like, all right, Becker continued to be a grump. Correct. He was a community doctor in the Bronx. He was always like, I'll tell you what your problem is. Stop eating burgers. Right. The guy would be like, all right, Becker. Can I share my thoughts on the homosexual community?

Then he would go to the diner. Yes. Where there was only Alex Dessert. Sure. Is that his name? Alex Dessert. Yes. Who now plays Dr. Hibbert on Simpsons.

Oh, does he? Yes. Did the Hibbert actor die? No, the Hibbert actor is Harry Shearer. I saw that also Carl is now voiced by a black actor. They've finally...

Maybe he plays both. He might. I could see that. But yes, no, they've decided that... Yes, he's also doing Carl. Yes. White actors are only allowed to play yellow characters on The Simpsons now. He's also playing Lou, the black police officer. Okay, I think they added one at a time.

They've been, they've been sort of piecemealing. I was reading, um, Jesse David Fox's piece today about how the Simpsons is good again. Yes. And, uh,

he mentioned that there's this episode where Carl goes to like the black neighborhood in Springfield, which we've never seen before. And it mentioned in a side and Carl's also voiced by a black actor. Now I was like, right, right, right.

I think a poo is just benched Is Apu just not in it? I think Apu's just not in it He's the one that they just don't even use anymore And everyone else they've started easing back in Does Apu need revenge? Yeah he hasn't appeared since season 29 To the vengeance first

Oh yeah Apu's back Yeah Becker Hattie Winston that's the other actor i didn't mention do you know what this is she was always telling becker you know what for giving them what for yeah she was the only one who could talk back to becker yeah actually everyone talks back to becker yeah he just lights a cigarette and says like god is dead cbs is like up next fucking more of this shit why can't we get 50 million people to watch this thing

it was a hit this is what i was the number 13 show on television and they were like this is just let's we're embarrassing becker i just bring back sitcoms where the opening credits are an out of focus shot of a new york city street and the theme song is just a saxophone going or does someone go like that means that more people more people watched a down season of Becker than watched the Oscars. Right, like the NBA Finals now or whatever. The lowest rated episode of Becker in live viewing did more than every episode of Succession combined. The episode where Becker stubs his toe and he's just complaining at the office. Goddamn women with their periods or whatever.

And meanwhile, Les Moonves is like pounding his fist on a desk and goes like, how do I explain this to people? The colossal failure of Becker. I go to my country club and people avert my gaze. Embarrassing. Anyway, this is a blank back, a podcast about Becker. Exclusively about Becker. Don't give Lights, Camera, Jackson any ideas. I'm going to start shopping.

iHeartRadio, I've got a show for you. David watches Becker. Becker is definitely too, it's too harsh for, for Lights, Camera, Jackson, Becker is like old boy. It's like, this is the most transgressive.

Right. Main screen, four camera, three camera, six camera. Well, there was that episode where Becker unknowingly had sex with his daughter, which, you know,

I think is a parallel. He gouges his eyes out. Yeah. Yeah. Spoilers for next week's episode. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. So fast. But what's your last name? Sims. Come back to that

in a second. 129 episodes of Becker. Yeah. The whole thing with it was that Nancy Travis came in at the end of season four. Because they fired Charlie Speck. No, they fired Terry Farrell, a.k.a. Dax from Deep Space Nine. Yes. And because they were like, your character's too mean.

Becker's already mean. We're going to bring in Nancy Travis. And the deal is she's nice. Right. And that's like the new dynamic. The minute they did that, the show tanked. Season five is the ratings in the toilet. I got to say something to you that I've never said to another human being and hope to never have to. You know too much about Becker.

Well, you know what? That's actually been said to me before and also about many other things that I know about. This feels like a great moment to announce our first ever official Blank Check spinoff. What's that? Every episode of Becker. I just said that. I'm shopping that. Two and a half years. You could do it.

Come on. Is the theme song to Becker just, it's your thing? Kind of. He's so mean. You know this guy's mean. He hates it all. I like the idea that once a year we do an extended it's the last dancing without gray hair correct after becker he's on damages with gray hair and everyone was like who's this

fucking senator like wait like how do i suck this guy's dick this is the coolest guy on the planet the hair color was also unnatural he's dying his hair because he thinks people can't handle the gray hair he was always a partial toop guy i mean obviously his cheers hair is iconic in its own way but partial toop he of course takes it off in a late season episode no no man could have that hair no absolutely not somehow absolutely not yes no absolutely not but then uh but then yes on becker he's like dyeing it orange that thing where people are trying to counteract the gray so much that they pick a color that doesn't exist in nature.

Yes, right. Where he's, like, Hershey chocolate brown. It's also, right, the 90s hair dye was always a little, you know, woof, woof. It's the two things, basically. After that, he lets the hair go white. He puts on a pair of glasses. Puts on those glasses. That was his last pre-glasses performance.

I think he has really bad eyesight and was always a contacts guy. Damage was one of those shows where it was like Glenn Close, Rose Byrne, and then Seven Withes. Right. Everyone else was some special guest. John Goodman, Martin Short, Ted Ditt. All these people were on this season. And Zilko Ivonek is the one who wins. Oh, he was good.

Sure. Listen, this is a podcast about filmography. I mean, it's another show that I have never even thought about doing. You got a babysitter to do this show. I did. I did. This show is costing me money right now. It's costing you money. Every second you talk about Becker, I'm getting poorer. We'll pay. We'll pay.

Yeah, but we probably pay below babysitter rates. Yeah, you really do. Ain't cheap. Yeah. Look, it's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers, they're given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear. Sometimes they bounce.

Baby. Although you've never profiled a filmmaker who has failed and sunk lower before their check cleared than Park Chan-wook, who, of course, I'm talking about becoming a film critic for the second time. It's embarrassing. Yeah. It's embarrassing. There is, you know, there's a good little canon of film critic to director. But we, you're right, this is the first one we've covered. But he also is one of the few who went from being a film critic to a director back to being a film critic.

That is the embarrassing part. Because his films bomb so hard. Yes. Yes. I mean, that is low. That is really, it's really hard to pick yourself off the mat after that kind of denigration. It's like human worm

film critic. And then JSA just sort of dropped into his lap. I'm sure you guys have talked about by now. And he was like, I'm back on top. Look, I'm assuming you've talked about it. That episode's the most touch and go episode in Blank Check history right now. We've had a hard time with that one. I've had some good recommendations. If that episode hasn't come out yet,

something's gone horribly awry. Yeah, that's true. If we're starting to release these out of order... That would be the first time we're just sort of like, this one will come eventually, guys. Sorry. No, it's not going to happen. We had a really good guest booked.

Yeah. And he's unavailable for very legitimate reasons and we're scrambling a little bit. We're sort of like, yeah. Yeah. It'd be easier if it was fucking, you know, a Becker episode. Then people would be banging down the door.

They are. We're getting unsolicited letters being like, can I please do... Do Becker. God, there was like a half second... 208. Ransom. Is that why people were protesting out front?

Absolutely. It's a Do Becker. Do Becker. Everyone wearing brown toupees. I'm just mourning the half-second window I had to make a great Kim Jong-un joke as him being the guest

of your JSA episode. It closed very quickly. We're long past it, but I just wanted to mark the occasion. But you're not just jamming the joke. Oh, yeah. We had him booked,

and he bailed. Oh, yeah. You're trying to bring it back around. I appreciate that. I mean, Becker is now in the intellectual dark web. That's the only problem. So he is mixing with a bad crowd.

Yeah. The Becker would be like, um, uh, fucking, uh, uh, the guy who cries all the time,

Jordan Peterson. Oh, that guy. Right. No, he would, he's not that bad. Come on.

Could Jordan Peterson have this as a theme song? Yeah. The Bronx. He's a doctor But he's not happy He's always walking around But surely he must be nice to his patients, David No Is he nice to the one guy who serves him food?

No Park Chan-wook is going to listen to this episode one day Because someone's going to be like, show a blank blank check very popular this great honor their fans voted for you just gives a pop on the sympathy for mr vengeance episode because that's where he really feels his career began yeah and what the fuck is this this is i love becker this is a problem sometimes as people dip in to one episode never having heard our show before and it's like why are they being this disrespectful this filmmaker talking about bullshit for 20 minutes?

And we're like, we're equal opportunity tangents. Yeah, we'll do that with everybody. Right. Of course. Much like Becker was an equal opportunity offense. He was an asshole to everybody. This is a miniseries on the films of Park Chan-wook. We haven't even said that.

It's called I'm a Podcast, but That's Okay. That's what it's called. And we're rolling with the Western pronunciation because it would cause an international incident if we tried to say... I think we would sound stupid and offensive trying to do that. Park Chan-wook. Yes. Park Chan-wook.

I mean, I... It's a great example of why we're not doing this. Exactly. That's why we're not doing it. Yeah. And we are here to talk about his fourth film. This is the thing. Our public voted for Sympathy for Mr. Podcast. They did, but they didn't get it. And we said, fuck you. But that is the movie we're talking about today.

And our guest today is a different David, which is why I made you say your last name. Ah, of course. It is. From IndieWire. From the Village episode. He's still there. From the Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull episode.

You must really be feeling vindicated right about now. You know, I was going to save this for the end of the show. Wait, we vindicated about what? About talking about how Kingdom of the show we've indicated about what about talking about uh how kingdom of crystal skull is a very very interesting movie oh sure yes yes i did the fact that the consensus on dial of destiny has basically been like maybe they should have stopped at four at the time we're recording this uh i saw the film i haven't seen it yet by the time this episode comes out there will be a reaction it. I do think we've got a reverse Crystal Skull happening here because Crystal Skull premiered to relatively warm reviews out of Cannes, and then when the fans got a hold of it, it was absolutely desecrated.

It may actually play better. Yes. Dial of Destiny will play better to people who want the fucking the fucking force awakens treatment given to every that was your review basically it was just like it is competently made and i i dislike that this is what we're doing with movies now right before we move off the topic something i was going to say at the very end of this episode using this opportunity because i did just have this rather eye-opening experience at can okay so the world premiere, humble brag, of this fucking awful movie that I then had to stay up

all night writing about. You were turning the dial. I was. I wish I could have turned that dial, let me tell you. And before the movie began, they showed a very,

some would say, over long career tribute to Harrison Ford. Right. This eight minute standing ovation that everyone's talked about. And he was moved.

He was crying. He gave a speech. A very, very moved. No, it was entirely just morning glory, right? Just the scene where he does the eggs. The first 30 minutes of morning glory. No, no, no. It was the omelet.

And he says, fluffy. Yeah, that's the end. And yeah, a very moved Harrison Ford comes to the stage and gives, you know, a characteristically brief and terse speech, but all the more powerful because you could tell how raw the emotion was. And he said something that I found, you know, very obvious but affecting, but he was like, this, you know,

you have been such a big, like, part of a part of my life. Nodding to Callista Flockhart in the audience, talking about the richness of his existence beyond just being an actor. A really enduring relationship. How long have they been together? A hot minute.

But he, you know, he know, it was very humanizing. He was very much like, this is just something I do. It's something I love, and I love the response that I get. And I, as someone who, listeners to this podcast may remember, is famously sort of not, I don't feel a deep personal connection. You're not a huge Ford guy. I believe your quote was. Well, we're going to get there.

Okay. I'm sorry. I was very moved by this And that feeling evaporated You know over the first half an hour Of the film that followed But yeah so I Something that has haunted me

On and off for like 8 years now Whenever I was first on this podcast I think it was your first episode right We recorded The Village Because like Star Wars was coming up, I think. Uh-huh. Yeah. Or no, it had just happened.

I think the episode I did after that was Indiana Jones. Well, my question was just, was it that or was it on the Crystal Skull episode? No, I think it was The Village. Oh, because...

And the reason I know is because what had happened, and we don't have to get too heavy about it, was that it was about six weeks after my dad died, and all these celebrities were dying.

And it was like, David Bowie had just died, and someone else died in the same span. I think Abbas Karastami died that day. I think that's what spurred the conversation. Karastami died in the summer because I was at the film festival when it happened. Some filmmaker died that day,

and you were talking about how impactful that was on you and saying, and I'm not someone who usually gives a fuck on celebrities. Sure, and Abbas Karastami died on July 4th. Yeah. Land of the free. And I made a sort of offhanded comment about how I wouldn't be sad when Harrison Ford died.

It was partially me just fishing for an example. You were being a stinker. I will feel nothing when he does. And I challenged you right away, I believe. You're being a bit of a becker, to be honest. I was being a becker. He's been my dividing rod for a long time. Ehrlich and Harrison Ford are kind of two competing beckers.

Two people putting up steely friends. Oh, this is the perfect music for me talking about my dead dad. Keep going. Keep going. Sorry, go on, go on, go on. This is what Becker would be hearing when he was talking about his grief. But I was coming from this space where I was kind of defensive, and all of these public and performative protestations were happening around these dead people.

Are you apologizing for a blank check clip? I am, goddammit. Have we gotten big enough that we have to do this now? No, because what's going to happen is Harrison Ford will die one day. And immediately, one of those fucking weirdos, God love him,

who listens to this show, is going to come for me with the knives out. Sure, sure. You have to get ahead of this. You will feel bad. I will feel bad, because not only will I feel bad just because it was an offhanded and irreverent remark to say

when I was really just trying to process the fact that, you know, the collective mourning felt very divorced from where I was emotionally at the time. Right. But I had now developed something of a newfound appreciation for Harrison Ford of all people. Well, he's also had a whole thing in his 70s. Like, he's been kind of, you know, he took 10, 15 years off as an A-list guy. He did. And then this whole

like revival obviously mostly centered around all his like legacy projects or whatever but like it's just a lot of harrison ford just more of him yeah and and also like do be hot oh my god he you guys will all know this by the time this episode comes out but he has a shirtless scene in the dial of destiny he's 80 years old he looks better than i ever will he's fixing rick dalton's roof and he like takes his shirt off it is it is it was deeply hurtful to see how fucking hot he still is he's once heard the call of the wild we can't forget that i picked up the phone anyway hello the wild regretrettably I think one of the One of the big flaws

Of sympathy for Mr. Vengeance No Harrison Ford No Harrison Ford Hmm Where would he fit in I don't really see A Harrison Ford part What's his vengeance movie

He must have made A vengeance movie I'm coming to get you I mean Air Force One becomes A vengeance movie Yeah Get off my plane

The Fugitive Well yeah Yeah Yeah Well yeah But Yeah Well Yeah But that's more him Trying to clear his name Than get revenge

Although I guess he wants To find the one armed man Yeah fugitive But he's not It's not really He's clearing his name In the fugitive I didn't kill my wife

Right Presumed innocent You know He's vengeance Against the idea Vengeance That's not a word Sure

Against the idea Of his guilt Right I guess there's that thing of him just trying. He's like some aggrieved guys. Yeah. Generally seems like a pretty aggrieved guy. Yeah. But K19 the Widowmaker hated that sub.

You saying that he was crying during the tribute and the standing ovation and everything. Right. I booed from the stands. I was trying to remember what movie it is. I think it's Oz the Great and Powerful where when Mila Kunis cries, it burns her cheeks.

Yes, that's right. That's what gives her these scars. I imagine Harrison Ford cries so infrequently that when it happens, it creates new lines in his face. His skin is like, what is this moisture? Are you swimming?

It was just a very clear indication of how much he gives a shit, which is something that under his sort of gruff demeanor can be lost. I think I've said this before, but his inside the actor's studio is amazing. And James Lipton kind of prods him on like, you care a lot more than people think you do, right? And he just kind of like grits his teeth and nods. Catechize God made her. Sorry, James Lipton.

Anyway, and here's a great new photo that I assume you guys have all seen. Nude? No, new. Oh, him on the set of... Marvel dropped a picture today of him and Anthony Mackie having an exchange of ideas.

It's not called New World Order anymore. It's called Brave New World. Is it really? Never been the title of anything before. I bet you they were like, New World Order's a little too QAnon-'s called Brave New World. Is it really? Never been the title of anything before. I bet you they were like, New World Order's a little too QAnon-y. We need to change it.

Yeah. I bet you. I bet you that's what happened. I think so. David, is he eating something in the picture? Is that a fork in his hand? No.

What? Why? What are you saying? I don't know. I just was wondering if he was chomping down on something. He and Mackie are just like

shooting the shit. Mackie's just got a Captain America shield on his back. Eating the scenery. That's all they're doing. And he will do it. They're fucking chewing up their lines. Ehrlich, we should start talking about the subject of Hannah Bopp, about Parcham,

working on Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, but I do just, while we're on the subject of Harrison Ford, before we close this book, I do want to say, I don't know if you've noticed yet but since the last time you've been here since the last time i i'd imagine you've seen him ben now has something in common with uh late stage harrison ford abs yeah right no what have you got yoked ben i've been thinking about it we've Ben and I talk about it once every six months. We go like, what if we did that?

A small plane? The older you get, the harder that is to do. So maybe shorten that time. Tell that to Stuart Wellington. The plan I've devised is the only way that that could happen is someone, I'd need to be walking down the street, a van pulls up, throws a sheet over my head pulls me into the van holds me captive in a basement for three days

Ben is now putting like counting this on his fingers and then once I've lost all hope from escaping they then force me to exercise for the next two to three months. They need to break your spirit before you begin exercising. I can't start I need to be yeah just like

totally broken down and then I'll get yoked. Yeah I don't do CrossFit to be yeah just like Totally broken down And then I'll get yoked Yeah I don't do CrossFit I do Abu Ghraib Um Erlich Ben Hosley moving on from that joke as quickly as I possibly can There is something Mr. Hosley has in common With Mr. Ford

He's got an earring He got the Harrison Ford This room is not well lit it's actually kind of hard There is something Mr. Hosley has in common with Mr. Ford. He's got an earring. Oh, an earring. He got the Harrison Ford. This room is not well lit. It's actually kind of hard to see from into this glance. It is very hard to see from here. But the issue is that you would need... So now, this is another change that's happened in the six months since I've been here.

Now there are illustrations of all the hosts' faces on their desks. And they're rather large and distracting. And Ben's needs a earring. Oh, you're right. No, we just got a thumbtack and hammer it in. Joe Bowen made these for us. The great Joe Bowen also got into woodworking and made them.

We have them hanging in the hooks so you know whose desk it is. But yes, Ben's does need an earring now. But yeah, weeks before turning 38 years old, I got my ears pierced for the first time. And Ben is calling it? No, what are you calling this era?

Oh, it's my bad boy era 2.0. I'm coming back around to being a bad boy. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Yes. 2003 film from, 2002, sorry, film from Park Chung-wook. It is released in the United States. His follow-up, 2005, barely released.

After, I'm still just thinking about what the other incarnations of Ben's bad boy. No, no, no, we're not doing tangents anymore. Griff, it got a minuscule release in the U.S. in 2005, and yes, I do think it was around, yes, it was after Old Boy. It was in the summer,S. in 2005, and yes, I do think it was around, yes, it was after

Oldboy. It was in the summer, Oldboy was in like the spring. And it was clearly just to kind of like, you're like that guy. You think this is fucked up? Peter Griffin was running Tardine Extreme at the time. I mean, it makes as much sense as anyone else. You think that's bad? Remember the time I kidnapped my old boss's

daughter? I'm losing that accent fast No, I remember it coming out Very shortly after And being like, already? This guy's fucking churning them out It's an old one But of course, Oldboy had been It took three years to get released in the States

Two years to get released in the States This took three years And then Lady Vengeance Of course the follow up to Old Boy Which came out in Korea in 2005 Is actually shot Around this time when these movies are coming out That premiered at the New York Film Festival

In 2005 So it was a Park Chan-wook year I always forget that Old Boy is the middle one Because the release in the States was so bizarre. Also because you're Big Dum Dum. I'm a Big Dum Dum. That's fact.

That's fact. That is fact. I'm a Big Dum Dum. David, what is your relationship to Mr. Director Park and his films, especially the Vengeance Trilogy, this one of which you selected as your film? I sure did. This could be, we might have to have a little story time corner

here. Do it. It's going to be a story. I promise it's a long walk worth taking because there is no other filmmaker about which I have this kind of story that I can tell. But, I mean, the sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, where I came to it part, it starts with our nation's finest film critic pre-Ben Hosley, and of course

I'm talking about Harold Knowles. know he's i i am someone who has sort of a rule i do not like to speak ill of other film critics in public love to do it privately but in public i you know i just feel like one i've been on the other end of that way too often to uh we all work in a marginal field yeah universally beloved uh we were all working a marginal field. Yeah, universally beloved. We're all working in a marginal field. None of us are fucking... Yeah, yeah, we get it, we get it. What do you want to say about Harry Knowles? Anyway, don't like him. Sure, big old creep.

Not a great critic, but the one and truly maybe the only one good thing that he ever sort of meaningfully contributed to my life was an article he wrote that I think brought a lot of, you know, white teenagers in around 2002 to the table, which was his top ten list of the year. Yes. The number one pick on that was Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, a movie that he was very well aware none of his readers had heard of.

And his entire blurb is all about how you haven't heard about this movie because you are not as dedicated a cinephile as he is. Right. Men should feel like shit. And he discovered it. And it's like this really gross blurb about how he turned to his father halfway through the movie and was like, this could be number three on my list of the ten best films of the year, and then would update

him over the course of the running time. Just truly absurd behavior. What did Father Geek say in response to that? Father Geek's side of the story is not well represented in the blurb, I have to say. But at the time... You took it seriously enough. I took it seriously enough that I was like, I will go on YesAsia.com and I will import this region.

Wow. You said yes to Asia. 3D DVD. And it was illuminating for me. It was quite a visceral experience. So you saw this before Oldboy. I did. So I was...

You had not, I assume, seen Joint Security Area. I saw Joint Security Area about six weeks after, which is how long it took that DVD to come from YesAsia.com. And you said region-free discs. Region three. Did you have a region-free player? Oh, I sure did. I got one for about $49 at a local junkyard.

Junkyard? Was Creech there? Did Watto sell it to you? Hey. Two different jokes. Same vibe. It will play Eureka Entertainment discs.

They are better commentary. You know, Wado famously worked at Kim's for a few years. But he only accepted hyperdrive parts. Very annoying. He was on porn. Too many. So when Oldboy was

programmed a competition to can, I was all over that. And when it won an award, I was very excited. But my real interesting story with Park Jin-wook, and I'll go through this as close and fast as I can. Go! Slow it down.

Maybe a story you've heard before. It all starts in Newton, Massachusetts in 1939, where my dad was born. Big dad heavy episode. I know this story. Yeah, my dad grew up very poor. And it always burned. He was the son of immigrants.

And it burned up his grits, whatever you want to say, that he could never afford to travel. And when he had kids, he was hell-bent on allowing us to travel in the way that he was never able to and uh when each of his kids were college age he took all of them on a trip and i decided based purely on the strength of sympathy for mr vengeance and imagine how fucked up this is that you watch sympathy for mr vengeance and your takeaway is i I want to go there. Yeah.

I was like, Seoul is where I want to go. That's the place for me. Duna Bay? She'll be there. It was like at the end of Universal movies where it says, like, come visit the movies, Universal Studios Hollywood. It was like, come visit the abandoned, unfinished building where, you know, his kidney was taken out of his body.

And so I said, I want to go to South Korea. And my dad said, okay. And I had a, this was in 2005. What if you said you wanted to go to North Korea? He may have drawn the line. Well, we went to North Korea. As part of the same trip? Yeah.

I mean, we'll get to that part of the story. But there's an asterisk there. But we... I hope there's an obelisk as well where that came from. Asterisk, an obelisk, Mission Korea? came from. Asterix Obelisk Mission Korea? Uh-oh. But I had a cousin of mine. I'm seeing here France has issued an apology.

Sacre bleu. A cousin of mine who did not in any way, shape, or form work in the film industry, and is kind of estranged, said to me when I told him about this trip, I know a guy. And I was like, okay. And that was the last I heard of it. So we go to Korea and we visit the DMZ, you know, the site of the JSA. We stepped across the foot of the border.

Oh, so you were like Mike Pence when you like went to the border. You looked all grumpy. I mean, literally, it's like the Disneyland quadrant of North Korea. You can have the purposes of saying I've been to North Korea when somebody asked you on a podcast facetiously like 15 years later. Move along. A little more relaxed or something. purposes of saying I've been to North Korea when somebody asked you on a podcast facetiously like 15 years later. Move along. And we got home from the DMZ and at our hotel was a note that said Park Chan-wook will meet you at your hotel at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning. And I was like... Do you know this story, Sam?

I do. And I was like, what? I was very confusing because I was and still am not anyone of any significance and it's certainly true of my father and my cousin and it was all very confusing dozens of people hate you online you're very significant but back then no one even hated me i was yeah no they were just getting ready they're warming up uh and don't you just think fondly about a time where the only people who hated you actually knew you right were your friends. Before we had to fucking live online.

I like to think... A world of hatred. Delusional because of my actual behavior affecting you on a day-to-day basis. I like to think delusional or not that the only people who hate me are those who don't know me, but that may not be true. But so at 10 a.m. the next morning, a limo rolls up to our

hotel and we get in. Park Jae-wook is not there, but his music producer and supervisor and frequent musician joe youngwook is there okay uh and a translator and another producer and we get into limo and it is incredibly confusing for everybody because i am like why is any of this happening and they are like there's just like this 19 year old white kid here with his 70 year old father. Like what is happening? Uh, and we like made small talk.

They took us up, uh, about a 40 minute car ride to the highest mountain, the highest restaurant rather in Seoul, this unbelievably extravagant, uh, place at the top of the mountain glass, Florida ceiling windows, seven course me.

I mean, it was so over the top. I cannot remember what we talked about. All I know is that my social anxiety was going absolutely through the roof as my dad was like just being i was very very strange scenario and i still couldn't totally through a translator oh totally which is also its own experience who could do right who was completely incapable of explaining to me what any of us were doing there yeah someone had said some kid here, and there I was in this car with the kid. So then after this delicious

meal, they took us to Park Chan-wook's office. Did you guys pick up the check? Yeah, we did. It was like, no, we absolutely did not. I mean, it would have been as expensive as the rest of our trip combined. And they brought us to Park Chan-wook's office

where he was essentially doing a victory lap right after Lady Vengeance had come out. Okay, so he's completed the trilogy. He had, but I was, it was in the period of time between when Lady Vengeance came out in Korea and when I was dying to see it at the New York Film Festival.

And he brought me into his office and he sat down and he came in and I was like, hi. He was like, hi, I'm Park Jae and he came in and I was like, hi. He was like, hi, I'm Park Chumuk. And I was like, hi, I'm David. And like, that was basically all I had. And we talked for an hour, mostly about Robert Aldrich. Wow.

Because he was really high. You just seen a Lee Marvin, Robert Aldrich Western and was like super high on it. And we were talking about like Quentin Tarantino. He's really dubious about the idea of his movies being remade, by karen tarantino it would be rumored to be uh and i never really got a clear answer as to what we were doing there or how we'd gotten through the door i think the best explanation i have is that uh he the idea that his movies were sort of permeating beyond korea's borders in a meaningful way of itself that's exciting enough to him that like young film nerds were that excited about meeting him

I think was enough to sort of open the door and just pick my brain about how I was watching his movies and how they were being received. But he wasn't interrogative. He really just wanted to talk about movies. And he was delightful. And I spent time with his wife and daughter

who were there. And then, yeah, I became friendly with Jo Young-wook. And then I went on my way. And I interviewed him as a film critic for Stoker a few years later and made sure not to mention this because it would have been horrifying. And he didn't remember?

Oh, of course not. No. But that was my first interview that I had done with a filmmaker. And I remember him saying that I was a terrible interviewer, but I was a good film critic because I just kept telling him what I thought of his movies rather than asking questions because I'd never done it.

And that was my Park Jung-wook story. It was delightful. Anyway, that was the longest monologue I think anyone has probably ever given on this podcast. No, no, it was great. We've had some monologues. My RoboCop episode is basically one unbroken monologue. Should I just keep doing this? I call it my RoboCop episode. It is your Rob unbroken monologue. Should I just keep doing this?

I call it my RoboCop episode. It is your RoboCop episode. But there are photos of my dad arm in arm with Park Jin-wook. That's wild. Very surreal. I am like trying to fucking like dissolve into a monologue. Yes. I've never been so mortified in my life. As someone who like hates putting people out, and my dad

loves putting people out, I was just there being like, don't you have better things to do? Like like don't you shouldn't be working on like the subtitles for this movie i'm dying to your question or like right i mean you're saying like he he maybe was just kind of so excited that this his movies are crossing over into different countries the idea he was like finally some white guy isn't harry Knowles has seen my movies. But I also, when I was young, I mean, around the same ages, I feel like I had

experiences like that of like, people I realized who I either found on Friendster and sent messages to or went up to after like,

readings or screenings or whatever. Friendster. Who would actually, I'm pulling out the Friendster, who would actually like,

give me the fucking time of day and like, talk to me about this shit. And I was always like, why the fucking time of day and like talk to me about this shit. And I was always like, why the fuck are they doing this? Right? Like why? And with distance, and a little bit of maturity, I truly think it is if you're at that stage in your career, you are so fucking tired of the industry at large and the amount of conversations you're having by

people who are like trying to get something out of you or are really like gaming themselves around you that i do think there's some point where it's like i just want to talk to like some 15 year old who just has a very earnest excitement about this and he fucking loves movies yeah and he like he will famously race to finish production days so he can go catch repertory screenings of you know whatever's playing in local theaters. And that weighs on him more heavily than getting the shot right in certain

times. So he really just loves talking about it. I think he was curious about how those Hollywood filmmakers from the 70s and 60s are faring in contemporary estimation. He just wanted to talk about that stuff and it was a little break for him. It's like when Hideo Kojima has every single person

you've ever heard of come into his office for a selfie these days. It's sort of the equivalent of that. We need to start doing that. We need to find our own version of the Criterion Closet that's a reason for people to visit here and take a picture. Yeah, come through.

Get a photo booth? I feel like we can do better than that. Maybe we get our arcade cabinet and you play X-Men with us or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And you take a picture. Like the draft house that just has NBA Jam. Well, NBA Jam would be fun.

Heating up? Huh? Heating up. Yeah, sure. Right. No, I do. We've had 10 conversations about this. Well, excuse me.

You're often the instigator. I'm not the inst't. I mean, I do. We've had 10 conversations about this. Well, excuse me. You're often the instigator. I'm not the instigator. I'm giving you information. Who's the Becker? Who's the Terry Farrell? That's the question. I think I'm the Terry Farrell. In every friendship, there is a Becker and a Terry Farrell, as if I know what that means.

Anyway. Terry Farrell, you know, she was Dax. Sure. Shepard? Yes. The original armchair expert. Yes. Dax Shepard.

No, she's Dax from Deep Space Nine Of course My long winded way of saying I ride or die for Park Jin Wook We go way back This is a very pivotal moment for you Because I feel like For most

Western Viewers Yeah All Boy was probably The entry point But not for thee Right Drive back around to

Mr. Vengeance Is there a Sorry Keep drive back around to Mr. Vengeance mm-hmm is there a sorry keep making that joke yeah that's the other joke to my I think he should do Uncle Vengeance though go back go back to the well Vengeance is fun Vengeance is fun oh I'm seeing here the park 10 looks pitch for me Vengeance would not be fun

actually at all it's just that scene. Very disturbing. That scene from Under the Skin for two hours. It is wild how different these two movies are. I mean, I know the whole thing is that these first two, right? I know the whole thing is that they were not designed to be like companion pieces. And then at the press conference, people were like, so any reason you're making two Vengeance movies in a row? You seem very Vengeance-focused, bro.

He's like, it's a trilogy. Sure. He pulled a Vin Diesel on the red carpet of Fast X being like, actually, people are telling me it's three. Universal's begging me for a third. That was him saying, that was him, that's him trying to cover for the Hobbes thing, in my opinion, now. I think that's what that is. He knew about that. I think that's part of it i he knew about that and he's sort of like it

and i think he's trying to be like even though i won't be in this because it's contractually i'm not allowed to be on set it's part of my trilogy can we do one minute sidebar on this sure this is i just for the that's that's about three becker themes if you want me to play it for the listeners to understand this is a minute sidebar on top of the 30-minute sidebar we did before we started recording on this very subject. I think Universal and Vin Diesel have a very complicated marriage

in which they kind of can't exist without each other, and it is their most valuable franchise ever. Right. It's kind of like, you know, that movie fucking with Ingmar Bergman. Ingrid Bergman, not Ingmar Bergman. Carry on.

Sorry. Go on. What's that movie called? Gaslight? No. Keep going. I missed the context. Yeah.

You know, complicated marriage. Like, they don't actually want to break up, but they hate being together. But where would they be without each other? Making these movies with Vin Diesel is logistically impossible, right? And he had always been like 10, 10 the goal is 10 when they were sure on five and six and people were like how many of these you're gonna make he's like it's always been a 10 saga has been the idea yeah then they get close to 10 and he's like what if 10's a two-parter right right suddenly you can't let it go it's like Tarantino's retirement it's like you start going like I'm not gonna retire when I'm 50 I'm gonna

retire when I hit 10 movies. And then 10 becomes a two-parter and things start not counting. And now he's suddenly like looking down the barrel of only one movie left. And he's like, well, I said I would stop at 10. So the only thing I could do is spread out how many films 10 is.

Yes. And he's doing the DiCaprio, Wolf of Wall Street. I'm not leaving. I'm not going anywhere. We haven't even gotten Cypher's origin story yet. No. No, there's a lot to do. But that'll be its own. I don't want that. I mean,

I could do a whole fucking thing about Cypher. Joint security area. Big ass hit. It was a big hit, and one might call it in the parlance of our stupid podcast that you fools are still listening to. Yes. A guarantor.

Yes. Something of a guarantor. Something of a guarantor. A breakthrough film. Yes. The most successful Korean film of all time at that moment. Yeah. That's basically as big of a guarantor

as you can get. So does he make, try security area? Very easy. Does he rest on his laurels? No. He decides to make sympathy for his vengeance which in my opinion it's a bit of an edgy film yeah with some dark themes yes if you were a tartan executive you might even call it asian extreme uh yeah i mean he had wanted to

make this before joint security area and not from Marriage, although that's another good example. Ben texting that. Ben just texted Scenes from Marriage. That's Ingmar Bergman, which I know. But did not have the juice to pull this one off before JSA. Didn't have the juice to get it made. And also, I don't think he had the filmmaking craft. Sure.

Yes. The chops. I could see that. the filmmaking craft. Sure. Yes. The chops. Yeah.

I could see that. He, you know, was very happy that JSA had done well, but he said he was also quite scared. It's tough to follow up a hit like that. And JSA was,

as we've talked about, sort of that M. Night Shyamalan sixth sense thing of like, I'm going to design a movie that cannot fail. Sure. That will get finance

and will be a hit. And now he's in the position of like, what do I want? Now I can do something I want to do. I cannot succeed. Right. He said he wanted,

you know, JSA obviously is about the literal and political divides between North and South Korea. Sympathy, Misrevengeance, he wanted to deal with the social and economic divisions in South Korea. Okay? So this film does have a lot of social commentary.

It also is an incredibly bleak, strange, funny thing. Yes. That subverts audience expectations quite a lot, I would say. I was trying to... Whenever you're like, I now know what this movie is about, the movie changes or just, you know, kills someone or does something crazy.

This is what he's trying to do in trio but trio feels kind of callous and flip about it and doesn't have the same he doesn't have the tonal control but this has that weird remove that odd feeling of like am i gonna laugh am i gonna scream am i gonna squirm am i gonna cry i am mad at our viewers for picking this director a director I like a lot, and making me watch this movie again. I forgot how distressing this film is. See, this is what's interesting, and we'll talk all about this fucking next week,

an episode we've already recorded. I have such a tough time with Oldboy. Oldboy is not a picnic. I mean, I'm not putting out the gingham towel there. I was watching this, and I was like, what a relief. Well, it's mostly, you know, that a child dies in this film.

You know, that's mostly what I'm talking about. Yes. But, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. I was just trying to think of like a modern analog

for what it would be like for the director of JSA to pivot to something like this. And it was like if Denis Villeneuve had made Prisoners after Arrival

or if Tom Hooper more accurately had followed the King's speech with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. That's funny, the second thing you did, but the first thing you did is actually a good call. Like, right, if Prisoners was your follow-up, where it's like, I want to go as dark as possible.

Yeah, I mean, it'd be a very agreeable film that really brought everybody in. Funny. I mean, that's, you know, just a hilarious movie. I think I once called it the least funny movie ever made and i think i was right i may have relayed that uh that phrase to one of the stars of prisoners at a certain point guess which one yeah and then he built a prison for you in his shower right he put you in a wood box with a tiny no comment uh anyway uh journey to italy was the film was the ross oh sure that marriage is

fucked up um okay here's parks talking about himself i don't make genre films okay buddy but i don't completely escape from them either this film viewed from a broad perspective is a hard-boiled noir if you keep narrowing it down though there's nowhere to escape so he likes to play around he likes to go into the cracks of the genre and go somewhere different okay what suits my taste is a movie that excites curiosity about genre and takes the viewer to an unexpected place he says yeah i mean i think he and a number of his contemporaries bong joon-ho being the most famous of them sort of came up at a time where the South Korean film industry was booming. It didn't last for particularly long because with the economic collapse, the big companies became a lot more restrictive. But whenever great filmmakers arrive en masse, it's usually because there are these periods of flexibility.

But they were able to make movies because they found opportunities to insert their own peculiarities and eccentricities and personalities into the soft parts between genre and like that is what they do so well as they take these these genre stories and inject into the marrow you know between the the parts that we expect from a movie like this their own material and uh one of the great tensions in this movie is that between genre and expectation and it's like one of the yeah one we'll talk about it as some of the themes around the movie the tensions between objectivity between um uh song kang ho and then the guy who kidnapped his daughter there is some of that detected a little tension i found i picked it and it's pretty subtle but i

noticed a little bit of tension between any two characters in this movie tension between any two characters in this movie? Well, I mean, I'd say, you know, there is not a lot of tension for a while in this movie in its way. It's what I kind of like about it. But it gets there. It certainly gets there. I do think it's also like, you know, we talk a lot about how much David, you and I, Sims, like the Video Archives podcast. Yes. And so much of what Tarantino and Avery choose to cover on that podcast are these like completely forgotten B revenge-o-matic movies.

Totally. Often non-American versions, right? Sometimes. And just like hearing them describe these movies that I have never seen, will probably never see, maybe is illegal to watch. Right.

Jim Bob's Shotgun or whatever. Right. And they're like, Warren Oates is really good in it. I is really good and i mean i'm like i'm sure i bet he is yeah um but it makes you realize like it's such a weirdly durable genre of just you see someone get wronged in the first act of a movie and then the audience just goes i give them permission to do anything to balance the scales right and? And sometimes you make the version of that movie that's a little haunted, that's got a little bit of blood on its hands and guilt on its conscience and whatever, but it still is this thing

of like, if they kill John Wick's dog, we are now all on board to watch four movies of him murdering everyone. You know? And beyond that, what Tarantino... Did you read Cinema Speculation? No, I need to read it. It's very good. I thought it was funino did you read cinema speculation no i need to read it it's very good yeah i thought it was fun did you read speculation um he loves those movies that just have one moment in you know the rolling thunder it's tommy lee jones being like you know i'll get

the guns right you know like he like just that like where the whole audience is gonna go like yeah right like and obviously charke john wick has that with michael nyquist saying oh right or you know like you know like we he tarantino loves those little kind of like explosive moments there's basically no point in the history of film where that is not a financeable concept right if you just have a lean clean revenge plot people go like i can get my hands around that i understand what that is Put the right star at the center, you have a movie, right? Right.

And it exists in every country. Every decade has its own versions of it. There are their own versions of it within sub-genres and everything. Yeah. And I think Park is so, like, interested, the whole thing with the Vengeance trilogy

is like, no, but what is this, like, actually removed from the movie of it all? And this is a movie that, like, places you at a weird remove from everything, right? Has this sort of control. This thing seems weird to me. This distance.

And throws a lot of very odd character elements into it. It's a direct reaction to what you were just describing. Exactly. Where, like, from the very first scene of the movie, which is this, like, parodically warm and fuzzy. Like, what could be more over-the-top and cartoonish than someone calling into a radio show, like, Dear Delilah, like, my sister needs surgery, and, like, I need the...

You know, and it's immediately setting you up for a fall that is more interesting and nuanced than just the idea of getting you to sympathize with this one character before transplanting your sympathies, pun intended, to another one. And he's not going to give you a single fuck yeah moment. There is not one. There is not anything approaching.

No, instead you're going to go, what is going on? Like, what the fuck? Like, when the guy is trying to kill himself, and you're like, if you haven't been paying attention, you truly won't know what's going on. If you have been paying attention,

you don't really understand what's going on. No, and even if you, like, don't have empathy for these characters, like, sympathy is the word. Thank you, Tartan Extreme or whatever who threw it on there, where you're just watching it and you're like, everyone's just fucking up here, you know? Like, no one looks cool.

They're making, like, kind of unforced errors. Junabe looks pretty cool. I mean, she's pretty fucking cool. She looks insane. Hot communist. She fucking rules in this movie. She looks insane. You are a hot communist. She fucking rules it in this movie. She is incredible in everything. I absolutely need listeners of this podcast

who may know her from things like Cloud Atlas and maybe to a lesser extent the... She's in The Host. She's in a lot of stuff. But like the Hirokazu Kureta film, Air Doll, which only I think is a masterpiece. But we have our little end of the Wachowski series, Dune Bay trilogy of Cloud Atlas, Jupiter, Sene, Sense8. The words that I need to say on this podcast in order to feel like I've done my job are Linda, Linda, Linda.

Yeah. Look into it. That's a Japanese movie, right? It sure is. And man, is it good. They're a band, right? They're a band. They're a high school band.

She, I believe, is a Korean exchange student who's come in, and she becomes part of their friend group, and they play this song by the Blue Hearts called Linda Linda. It's amazing. I was obsessed with that movie for like 10 years. Here's what I have to say.

Duna is bae. She is. She sure is. So Park Chan-wook writes this film. He said he was giggling from start to finish as he wrote it. What a little stinker. If I want to give one keyword for this movie,

it would be irony. He says, I don't think audiences are going to laugh out loud a lot or anything as they watch it. But I do, he does, yes, the film is grotesque. It's also comical. These characters are nice people or they believe they are nice people.

They don't know what they're doing is going to turn out badly. And they don't don't think that you know including the kidnapping and all that well that's you know they're caught up in destiny and social structure sure and all this stuff you know before they commit the he's basically like they don't they commit evil acts without thinking you know without committing to an evil act well it's a lot of coen brothers movies stew on this same sort of thing right the kind of like a neptice you know the people who pull a crime off without really understanding the way things work and get in deep over their heads and continue to fucking trip over themselves that all this for a little bit of money kind of thing but but this

one i feel like you have people doing confusing things that are kind of funny, and then immediately the air is released from the balloon when something deeply upsetting happens. You never get to really laugh at them for too long. No, because, I mean, you laugh at the idea of someone having a screwdriver jammed into their neck. Right. And then you maybe laugh when the blood comes guising out. Yeah. But then the scene immediately resets to, oh, there's someone being raped in the corner. Right.

And this heroin addict mother is watching her son die. And it's complicated. But I think, like, the real tension in the movie is summed up perfectly for me. The one shot that really epitomizes this movie is the shot after the scene where Song Kang-ho's daughter's ghost visits him. And, like, five or ten minutes later,

there's just a shot of water, the water that her ghost left behind trickling along the floor. And something that Park says on the director's commentary is like the actual reality and the reality in a person's mind are coexisting in this world. And that's really the big tension in this movie

is between the subjective and objective realities of what's happening. And obviously that plays into the account of like how they feel about their own choices, if they feel righteous about what they're doing, moral or not. But yeah, I mean, the way this movie is shot, it's all about emphasizing this angular, you know, widescreen objectivity versus, you know, these very human heightened but resolutely indivisibly human characters moving through it. I think that's a thing he's incredibly

good at and does throughout his entire career is the I'm not going to spell out for you when we're in reality and when we're in someone's subjective It would be cool if there was like a you know But i like that that

you don't you you tiptoe in and out of these things very quietly and softly it lets you have that sort of unsettled moment where you're like is his daughter back like could this be true like you know which is such a sad thought there's another thing i love i forget who who said it but there's that that old saying of like give an audience one plus one and allow them to add it together and they'll love you forever wow which is basically like teach amanda fish that's the principle right but it's like if you're if your movie is just dumping exposition on people and over explaining everything people start to get passive and they sit back and they're not engaged, right? And it's not like you need to give them

a difficult equation to solve. But you give them the two pieces and allow them to put it together, they suddenly, they lean in. They're like doing the work on this thing. It's like I'm teaching my son to spell right now. And every time you try and like sound out a word, he goes, don't sound it up.

He screams at you. But then when you watch him spell like, you know, he's obsessed with spelling streets. So watch him spell like you know he's obsessed with selling spelling streets so it's like vanderbilt and you see him putting it together and the light on his face right transformative you like people feel it's why people love like fucking mystery movies and shit you know because it's like i'm involved trying to get ahead of this thing but he does you know it's such a an easy thing to do but I find so effective in this movie of like, he basically always gets into scenes late and gets out of them early.

So you're always a little displaced when you cut into a new scene where you have to go, yeah, I need to figure this out. Because he's not easing me in an obvious way. He's not going to let me sit in it for too long. Right. JJ's assembled a lot of quotes that Park has about vengeance. Okay. I'm not going to do them all.

Read some. Revenge is something that makes you happy and invigorates you only when it is in your imagination. When it comes to actually realizing it, it's never happy and never gives you pleasure because it's an act of total stupidity. That's one thought. Okay. Certainly very applicable to this film. Vengeance has never tasted so sweet. The act of vengeance is a meaningless one.

Yes, he says here, it's a dish best served cold, and he's attributing that to Klingons. A profound quote. And, you know, it's very human, right? It does become a dish in Lady Vengeance. It is a literal dish in that film in a way.

Vengeance and salvation. If you guys think these two movies are weird, Lady Vengeance is also weird. We'll get to it i just gotta put on a record that's the mask like that is the movie so fucking good that's my favorite of these this movie is so i think this movie is really really good yeah yeah um i prefer it to old boy i do too oh do you interesting i think i do i think i find this movie sort of um lingers with me and is more disturbing than old boy even though old boy is more like nakedly uh transgressive or whatever and i think that's why it's more i think the three leads in this movie are so like bananas good i'm not saying old boy is try hard but it's putting effort into being

transgressive, whereas this feels like it's just presenting a very bizarre reality to me. I'm calling out Oldboy, and if he wants to, you know, come at me with his hammer. If he wants to present you in a room for 15 years, let's as well. Oldboy versus Becker?

Just think on that. Did you hear that Taylor Swift is dating Oldboy online? She took a copy of the Tartan Extreme disc out. She's dating Odesu. She's dating the DVD. She brings it out on stage. A lot of vengeance. There are too many vengeance.

JJ, you say in this document that you know you have too many vengeance quotes. Too many vengeance quotes. If you don't read all the quotes, JJ might get revenge on us. This is the problem. It feels like a test. I got so many quotes about vengeance. Yeah. I got so many quotes about vengeance But you know

This movie certainly is about The limited closure Or the limited you know Happiness one will get Achieving vengeance Even if it's the purest Most just you know like of course Song Kang-ho wants

Revenge the worst thing in the world Happened to him yeah and it wasn't his fault no like at least not in any direct way perhaps also you know endless spiral yes exactly and any action you take will hurt someone else in a way that could make them want to get revenge on you um okay so whether or not you're aware of it. The two main actors in this film are both in JSA. Okay. Right? Yep.

Song Kang-ho. And I struggle with his name, but Shin Hak-yoon, I think, is the guy. Why are you looking at me? That's as close as I would get. Hey, you. Yo. So he's got them coming back. And then Bae Doona, Doona Bae, had made her debut in The Ring Virus, which is the Korean

remake of Ringu. Oh, wow. Okay. And then she's in Barking Dogs Never Bite, the not very good first Bungie Mo movie. Yeah, but it's a pretty good start. Definitely. And obviously, she is a blank check favorite

in that she has been in three Wachowski projects. And yeah, she's also in The Host. She's amazing in The Host. She is amazing in Air Doll. She's also in The Host. She's amazing in The Host. She is amazing in Air Doll. Is that what it's called? The creative movie. Is she in anything else? She's in so many things.

She's had such a diverse career. She was in Broker. Another creative film. Yeah, which I liked. So she's new. Park says all three of them are geniuses. He does not overnote in his opinion. He doesn't want like, you know, whatever, like particular requests for them.

But he does say he hates needless movement. Well, he talks about that being his big mistake on his first two films that he tried to treat his actors like action figures right he said i think he just doesn't like actors who maybe like do a lot of like hand stuff or like fiddle with a cigarette or any of that weird he's never cast me i hate business and i'm famously still yeah i guess this is through translation he's basically saying like i hate business yes um no but it makes sense he his films are uh so controlled and there is such meaning behind any movement gesture image sound you don't want people throwing out errant signals you know he's trying to keep the the frequency pure yeah this is why i've always felt a twinge

of regret whenever he makes television uh which he's doing again because i feel like he his particular skill set his virtuosity as a visual storyteller is not suited to the scheduling demands of a television show that's the biggest fucking thing when people talk about the difference between tv and film it's like scheduling's the real thing that fucks you over in TV. You can't make all six hours of The Little Drama Girl look like a Park Chan-wook movie because you do not have time. No. And I am very

skeptical about it. I mean, I'm sure The Sympathizer, you know, is Robert Downey Jr.'s show, among other people, will be interesting. An actor who's fucking famous for business. I'm now realizing how weird it is. No, but it looks like the characters he's playing in that are very normal and regular. Yes.

But he, like, I just feel like he operates better and more naturally in the limited confines, limited canvas of a feature-length film. It's easier to exert greater control of a canvas this size versus, like, making a TV tv show if you're directing the whole fucking thing is like paying the sistine travel or something i don't know if you got this it was part of like the swag this and out last year but they sent out this massive book of his storyboards for decision to leave and does he draw them himself i think he might or must a lot of that

stuff goes on the street i gotta be honest yeah i mean this one and they only it's only in korean uh all the annotations um which is all the more reason why it's difficult for me to get much value out of but it's like so immaculate cool it's so i mean he he's not as famous as storyboarder as maybe like bong joon-ho no no he's a pretty favorite his his shots are very complex like but he looks and this movie is filled with crazy crazy stuff but he's very i'm not saying bong joon-ho is not but he's extremely attuned to the surprises you get on the day from his actors and from the location. Like, he has a plan,

but he is extremely responsive to what someone like Song Kang-ho is going to do. Zim's just sticking me with a tape measure. He loves playing with the fucking tape measure. This has become his desk toy. A little fact for you He stretched it all the way out And is tickling a relic with it

And now it's just collapsed A little fact for you Son Kang-ho, obviously in JSA Worked with Park, works with him again after this Thirst Incredible movie Really an incredible movie Probably the best Ebola related movie ever made

Outbreak Didn't want to be in this movie Declined it three times he says an incredible movie. I mean, probably the best Ebola related movie ever made. Outbreak? Didn't want to be in this movie. Declined it three times, he says. Why? Script seemed a little fucked up to him. Thought it might not be the most commercial of projects. But after doing this, he must have been like, oh, I love fucked up shit.

Yeah. He said basically that he was terrified of this movie, and I guess eventually they sort of talked him around uh uh as time passed i realized the reason i must take the part was because it was so anti-commercial and so shocking would a film like this even be possible it was scary and anxiety inducing but it became the reason why i wanted to do it so i mean good for him doing it so fucking good as an actor and park jamuk was then like, by the way, I'm writing a vampire movie. This movie looks like fucking Disney.

So just like, wait. As a human being, as a father. I don't know. But he is just, what a presence. He's the most incredible actor. He has so much like emotional control, like in all his movies. And he can play such a goofball yes right and such a

dummy such a like lovable dummy in a movie that doesn't need a dummy and he doesn't feel out of place now that's not what he's doing here i'm just being he has the same virtuosity within his own like instrument as an actor that bong joon-ho will apply to like his cross genre pollinations and the whole films like he can do seven genres in one shot, in a way, in, like, what he's giving an actor. It is the thing that makes the host so effective is Peng Shun-ho was like, what if I have him play all of that in the same movie?

What if I, like, frame him where the audience is going to constantly change their relationship to what kind of character he is? Right, he's introduced, you're like, oh, this is the dumb, you know, side character, and then he's going to become the hero of the movie but as you're saying we're like like his range in that sense allows the movies to change genres right on a scene-to-scene basis because his control of the dial the dial of destiny run he was on is so precise that dial of destiny he can make

harrison for 20 years old in a secondiri, which is this huge hit in 1999. Joint Security Area in 2000. This in 2002. Memories of Murder in 2003. Lady Vengeance in 2005. The Host in... He's a cameo in that. The Host in 2006.

And let's not forget, let's not forget that he is the voice of the lion in the Korean dub of Madagascar as well. Never would. Wow. Huge. He's the stiller. But he also... something that i appreciated re-watching and then like secret sunshine and then good bad weird then thirst like he his imdb is like jodhpur africa madagascar future ones maybe he got fired fuck secret sunshine is one of the greatest movies i've ever seen in my entire

life but that's a very special movie that is fucked up in a way that I don't think Park Chan-wook's movies even try to approach. Like, I cannot watch the movie again. No, that's like reading this really disturbing poem and then having a nightmare three days later. Yeah. But he, something that Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook really keyed into around this time was that Song Kang-ho has

different sized eyes, which he wears really well. I, who also have different sized eyes, do not. It just makes me look like I'm fucking deranged. You're a freak. You're a gh wears really well. I, who also have different sized eyes, do not. It just makes me look like I'm fucking deranged. You're a freak. You're a ghastly mutant. I am, but I was like,

looking at the close-ups that they give him in this movie, and it just allows that same sort of protean quality that, you know, impossibility to place it down in the same close-up. Some of the most famous close-ups

in recent, like, the end of Memories of Murder, the shots in here, and the parasite, him fucking driving the car, like, has become one of the most iconic like shots of recent you know him him doing the bad you know he's smelling a fart you know in that scene you know and the guys and also at the end of the birthday party sort of right before he snaps just like make that guy look at a camera i'm shivering it's pretty effective um murder yeah

obviously he's not even in the beginning of this movie at all, really. No, it takes a while to come in. It takes a while to show up. Anyway, Park loves him. With good reason. Thinks he's good. Yeah. He's a good dude.

But, you know, so we're introduced to Ryu, a deaf-mute factory worker with green hair, trying to pay his sister's hospital bills. Yes, very ant-like. Park Chun-wook loves his ants. Yeah. Loves the feeling of controlling characters

like the fates themselves and God. But also, like, you know, Stoker is about a woman who has, like, acute sensitivity, right? Like, literally, her senses are heightened in a way where it's like oh great so the whole movie can be in park chan wook vision because she sees and hears everything like a park chan wook movie and i think similarly it helps that like you have a character who is so uh it's so thoroughly struggles to take control of his environment

right you're basically like putting him so often the same position as the audience member where you're like he's in the middle of a scene where he can't really affect change he doesn't totally understand what's going on and he can't express himself right he's also you know hell-bent on saving his sister and yet in that one shot that scarred me uh which is very you know it's a very heightened bit of business uh with the the masturbation to like those four those four guys who are all uh up-and-coming directors so fucking funny can we talk about that for 20 minutes it's so funny i always forget the guy i've seen this probably three or four times yeah always forget that gag it's've seen this movie three or four times. Yeah. Always forget that gag. It's incredible. Oh, really?

They live in the worst apartment complex in the world. Yeah. And she's in agony with her kidney disease, and he is obliviously eating in the extreme foreground at the end of that shot. And so, like, even though he cares about nothing on this earth so much as saving his sister, he is in that moment,

you're completely oblivious to it and sort of heartbreaking in a fable-like way. Well, and you think you're hearing people having sex. Yes. It does sound like it. And then you find out it is four guys who are all lying on a bed together, hands on each other's shoulders. Now, have you guys ever done that at Blank Check Studios? Uh, no. Not yet.

We haven't done a Porky's chain. No. And then, right, the one guy has a picture of a naked lady taped to the back of his head and when he tilts his head over the other guy like readjusts it and then the camera pans like across the wall and it's her writing it's been difficult because ever since seeing this movie when i was what 18 i can only masturbate with my hand on the back of a friend yeah and there needs to be two friends in front of that exactly i have to be in the back david knows from experience yeah um so okay so what else is going on well been on vacation together. I have to be in the back. David knows from experience. But yeah. Yeah.

So, okay. So what else is going on? Well, I mean, you know, the early thing in the movie is he's going to get swindled out of a kidney. Correct. But yeah. Is there anything else in this sort of early? You haven't been there. All right.

Stop saying all the things in this very strange movie happened to you. Because I don't think it's true. Most of these incidents are quite implausible. You're going to come back on in five years and apologize for everything you said in this episode? But the shots of... If someone's a kidney dealer, not trustworthy. No.

It's just not a trustworthy position. Not all of them, David, and that's not fair. I know. You're right. I'm painting with a broad brush. Ben knows a couple good ones. You've got to read the Yelp reviews before you sign up. Okay, well, what if your kidney dealer office

is in an abandoned room? Terrible. Well, maybe they're going for a certain design concept, David. Windy? Yeah, open. The aesthetics up there. I mean, the acoustics are amazing. And he's there to see the guy slap the sticker advertising the firm.

What the fuck you call it? The outfit. Dunkers does work for this company. He does. And trust me.ers does work for this company. Yeah. And trust me, something's up with this place. But I love the, the shots of that series of silhouette shots of them climbing the stairs.

Uh, I mean, it's, you know, you could, you could argue that it's a bit fat phobic because the whole focus of it is on the guy in the back who is a heavyset guy and he's like laboring, but it does sort of call attention to the physical comedy and just

like the the emphasis on human foibles and just basic humanity that you get throughout this movie about the fates and about uh you know uncontrollable destiny even in the most elaborate and cartoonish and heightened scenarios the focus is on the minutiae of the human experience like the comic minutiae of what it is to be a person well i just love a good people keep making the exact wrong decision movie you know sure and that is yes right right the changing lanes right and just sort of like what you're saying the cosmic cruelty of like he goes to try to sell right he can't give her his liver because they...

He has the wrong blood type. He's got old blood type. There's a lot of, you don't have A, you have B. Right. And everyone talks to him like he's an idiot. Yes. And there's a lot of, like, point of view shots where you're, like, in his head and you can tell... Which I think is what's so effective about, like, placing him at the center of the movie and making us, the audience, feel like him.

Where you're like, this is so frustrating that you can't express to this person what's going on but uh sells it tries to sell is it kidney or liver sorry kidney kidney tries to sell the kidney wakes up they've taken away from him they've you can live without a kidney you need to liver now some people take some of their liver out and then you put it in someone and it kind of grows which is crazy sure. Sure. But I think that's more complicated. Sometimes you eat it with a nice Chianti. Fava beans. Yeah. Same aftershave you wore at the trial. Whatever, go on.

Go on. Can't do animal lines all day. But of course, it's like, he goes to see the doctor first. The doctor's like, really long waiting list. I don't know if you're going to get a kidney to match your sister any time soon. No chance. And then, of course, right after he gets up,

the kidney doctor's like, I've never seen anything like it. This is the fastest it's chance. And then, of course, right after he gets up, the kidney doctor's like, I've never seen anything like it. This is the fastest it's ever happened. Now, of course, you have $2 million to get me, right? Or what's the... What is the conversion? Classic John Q situation.

I'm not sure because I'm not sure what the wand was worth like 20 years ago. I do think there's been more fluctuation in that currency, but it's about $1,000 to $1. Okay.

So, you know, they need like tens of thousands of dollars at least, maybe hundreds of thousands, you know, like a lot of money. So now, yes, now he's fucked. He's down a kidney. Because he took a kidney, but then he also had to pay money. Correct. Right, okay. Yeah, it's a real double whammy. Right, so he's down a kidney and cash.

He's down all his available kidneys. It's like that time when I had to pay money to listen to Becker talk for half an hour. It's a very similar situation. I mean, Becker is the doctor. Yeah. He's not. I don't know why I said that.

Becker went to Wondery, that it was like a paywall podcast. I regret this already. I have to apologize for that time on the podcast when I brought the conversation back to Becker. You brought it back to Becker. Back to Beck, baby. So they now need money. They now need money.

Now you need money. He's got a girlfriend played by Duna Bay, who is a hot anarchist. She's like, well, how about we kidnap the... How about we get some money

pretty much right away. Has he already been fired at this point? Yes. She's basically like, let's get vengeance on the executive of the company that laid you off, right? Yeah. And I guess they want to kidnap the older daughter, right?

Correct. Like, they kind of get diverted to the younger daughter. Yes. Right. Yeah. But, like, why don't we, you know, kidnap someone and get money for it? Now, he works at a factory.

That's a bad idea. Yes. Yes, he works at a factory. You see, there's those scenes where, like, you can hear the noise of the factory in like that kind of clanging distant way. It's nothing for him. What do they make?

Bullets? Metal. Depression? Yeah. Yeah. They turn metal into other metal. It does just look like, yeah, they're just pouring stuff into different things and pushing it around.

You want this kind of metal? Uh-uh. We make this kind of metal. It was Bong Joon-ho who advised Park to focus more on the factory and make it more of a character. I feel like Bong Joon-ho is always so attuned to the social commentary of these movies. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

And the Song Kang-ho character, he grew up as not particularly wealthy. He was someone who became an engineer and worked his way up the company and then sort of developed into the unfeeling corporate boss. Right, he is not some landed aristocrat, but he has become the man. He has. And Duna Bay doesn't like the man. They go to try to kidnap his older daughter, and when they get there, he is already...

There's a different... This is the scene that is just the most inexplicable. I think it's great. No, I think it's great no i think it's maybe the best thing a man in an act of protest over the same sort of thing right has decided to commit harry carry in front of him essentially has not done a good job of it no and instead just kind of done sort of like a half of a cube you know in his chest he kind of cubed himself but he couldn't get all the way box cutter takes out, like, a box cutter. He lifts up his shirt. It's in a real, real long-distance wide shot, right?

Right, at first, yes. And it seems like he, like, misses or is, like, air-cutting himself. That's what I love about it. He's, like, crisscrossing, and you're ready for there to be some Tom Savini immediate blood spurt. Right. But it's like, no, that's not how it happens. So at first you think, is this guy such, like, an idiot? Is the joke here that he fucked up, the knife wasn't like you know was retracted

or whatever it is and then you close up on it and you see the lines like start to form yeah you see the very beautiful park chen wook right way then he throws his shirt down and the blood starts seeping through the shirt and then everything's just like fucked and their whole plan is so fucked up by a different guy having a different method for how he wants to punish to be this guy for firing him i don't think their plan was good to begin with it's not like without this guy yeah things are going to go seamlessly for them workout contingencies but sure her group because it turns out you know one of the sort of running question marks of the movie is how serious is she about this whole like terrorist anarchy business turns out pretty pretty fucking serious yeah um it's kind of a dark punch

line at the end there but yeah she called wait he had a name for them sorry she just uh she doesn't seem you know she's just will go to kidnapping the first opportunity she doesn't really feel obligated to think it through he calls them the chain smoker squad which i think is funny you know and that was uh what the inspiration for the chain smokers were they were the terrorists of our age i'm seeing here that's not true um but the musical terrorists they uh the scene is why I am afraid of ever having employees. And at this rate, it seems like that may be an unfounded fear in my life. Ehrlich Inc. isn't hiring?

Yeah, no, because I would just be constantly worried about how I was wronging these people. Ehrlich Consumer Products. It is wild for like how fucking mogul culture obsessed our world is. I'm like, this seems like the most stressful shit in the world. Being a mogul manufacture bad obsessed our world is i'm like this seems like the most stressful shit in the world being a mogul yes yeah i mean i don't know it's probably pluses and minuses jj's coming for you guys i'm telling you the second the second make a ton of money fucking retire sure people were like i want to start more businesses and you're just like everyone's gonna hate you um yeah but you can just kind of

build enough compounds that uh people hating you doesn't it all comes crumbling down eventually um no just stay offline that's the that's the elon mistake i'm like bro you got money well no that's the biggest mistake i still think people people should people should retire. I agree. People should retire, bitch. Retire, bitch. So, okay. So they kidnap this little girl and they bring her home and Ryu's sister thinks they're just like babysitting her or whatever. They really fudge that plot point. She's just like, yeah, we're babysitting her. And she's like, all right, that makes sense. We often babysit small children for long periods of time.

Of course, you're a great babysitter. You do it all the time. When you're not working at the factory where I assume you are still employed. They demand lots of money from Song Kang-ho and then Ryu comes home to find that his sister has realized what's going on and killed herself in despair.

Yes. And that's sad. And all this was for nothing and now he's got a kid to take care of right uh i just i think it's the scene where dunabay pitches the idea of kidnapping the daughter just to go back for a second when they're in the van or whatever yeah well no the the scene with the two of them in bed i guess oh sure with the mirror between the two of them which i think is so clever you start that sequence off where the mirror's dead center at the middle of the frame

so you're only seeing their legs basically come out from either side. And then you come around the other way and you realize like, oh, well, he's like, he's mutant deaf, right? Right. He's not going to be able to speak.

Whenever he does speak, rather than just like subtitles under the film, it just goes full screen black with white text, which I like. It really puts like an emphasis on the few times he is even signing anything. Right. Um, cause a lot of the movie,

he just doesn't even attempt to. Um, but you're like, well, he wants this kind of perfect composition of both of them lying back in bed, uh, looking forward, not looking at each other.

But of course, if he's not looking at her, how could he know what she's saying? Because he reads lips and it's like, there's a mirror directly in front of them. Yeah. That's how they do pillow talk. Yeah.

I just think it's clever. And this leads up to what is, you know, Park has claimed to be, and I have no evidence to refute this, the first sign language sex scene in the movie history. He has said that. Yeah. Hot.

What was the one, there was the movie a couple of years ago that was a lot of sign language sex. Coda. Yes. Wonderstruck. No, I have no idea. Oh, boy.

It's even worse. It's not called The Tribe? Was that what it was called? Yes. Oh, that's right. Yes, that film didn't really take off. It felt like it was about to for a movie. It is a very interesting movie.

Yeah, I do like that movie. Coda does have a weird about it Koda has all the fucking things Koda has a lot of horniness Marlee Maitland and then They are fucking constantly in that movie They keep talking about how Right where it's like you have jock hits you can't fuck for 48 hours And he's like I'm gonna kill myself

I'm running this fishing boat into a cliff But also she'll bring like Fucking cute sing street boy over And her parents will just be having sex really loudly And also they're like I'm running this fishing boat into a cliff. But also she'll bring like fucking cute Sing Street boy over and her parents will just be having sex really loudly. And also they're like, ah. First they're making the noises and she's like, they don't know that they're allowed.

And then they come out and they're like, by the way, we were fucking and they do the finger and hole thing. One best picture. One best picture. But there is, I mean, there is a very like childlike quality to the entire nature of the plot. Not obviously what happens in it, but the way a lot of this information is communicated. There is that great scene where they're trying to make the little girl who they take otherwise such good care of to look upset so they can take a ransom photo

yes and it's so hard for ryu to like run around the apartment and make her cry um again beating the beating the drum about like how sweet and nice these people are at least relative to their what they're doing yes um yeah it's uh really setting you up for fall which comes soon uh so you're like well most movies would maybe just stew on this for a while. Oh, fuck. No, immediately he's going to bury his sister while doing that, his kidnapping. It's just like the problems multiply at such an aggressive speed. Yeah.

And obviously he's burying his sister because that place has emotional significance to them, right? Like that's where they would go as children gonna have some more emotional six right that whole scene i uh actually as i will confess with uh train spotting i skipped i've seen it before you you now can't watch it yeah avoid watching scenes i actually watched this with my daughter uh was four months old she loved it the weirdest thing is i watched all three vengeance movies because i guess i think part criterion put them up a couple years ago they're on movie as well right now they were like last month on the criterion channel they're still on criterion

this is their last month okay we're recording right now yeah uh i watched them all with my infant daughter too i was like like you're just so crazy in the first six months like your brain doesn't work you know you're just kind of yeah i first six months. Like, your brain doesn't work. You know, you're just kind of... Yeah, I remember just being like, this is funny. I'm watching these fucked up movies with my little, you know, potato daughter. But you also, like,

you play, like, Last of Us with your son. Yeah, you're worse than me. That's true. We don't need to out my... I don't want, like, the fucking... I was going to say the CDC. That's not right. Child Protective Customs Services?

Sure, sure. Yeah, they are already on my case for playing I mean it's so cute when my son says Diablo when he wants to play Diablo 4 and he does play

and he like sits on my lap and he plays it what does he say when he wants to watch Pablo Pascal though Pedro Pascal

oh fuck god damn it wow it's not like anyone talks about that guy Pablo Shriver yeah he loves him

he likes the live-action Halo just to clarify when Ace is listening back to this and I've done the several episodes later down the line apologizing for talking about showing my son yeah these horrible things uh he is not aware there is a Last of Us television show he's oh sure really really hooked on the game then we got the Star Wars right we got the Star Wars survivor and I'm really trying hard to be a good dad and sell him on Zelda. But he has no fucking interest. If you say the word Zelda, he will say, no, I don't want Zelda.

Zelda is colorful and filled with cute monsters and stuff. You build stuff. The blah, blah. Maybe if Zelda had more levels that were about what time it is. Yeah, well. Your son's favorite activity. That's like two fixations ago. You got to keep up. I don't know. I ran into guys on the street the other day and asked them what time it is. Yeah. Well, your son's favorite activity. That's like two fixations ago. You got to keep up.

I don't know. I ran into guys on the street the other day and asked him what time it was and he was pretty excited to read off the watch. He still got his watch. He still got that watch.

It's true. He was mostly excited to see Uncle Griff. He's all about streets these days. Yeah. He's the kid of the streets. Yeah, so, you know,

the little girl dies and then we sort of that's the point at which we're sort of shifting more to Song Han-ho's character. That is sort of the Tom Pass.

How do you guys feel about the character with cerebral palsy who is played by Ryu Seung-bum who is the director of another major film that came out

right after this called Crying Fist which I highly recommend. It's like the pre-Warrior version of that story about two boxers who are both the main character

and like who's going to win. Sounds great. It's great. Wasn't there a cute episode recently? The Berlin Vial. We were talking about it. I love Warrior.

But like that for me is, it always sort of throws me. It's a little much. It's definitely an expression of like the forces of fate that are coming in here and intervening. Yes.

But it's very over it is it is a lot i feel like there's a lot of that in these 2000s like yeah like i don't know they couldn't cast they wanted to cast an actor with cerebral palsy but it was unsafe around the water for the actor that they hired and so they pivoted away from that whether or not that's worth keeping the character i don't know uh but it is it's it is obviously like jarring to just that that's happening at the same time as this like completely horrifying thing like because initially obviously it's happening in the background you don't even god it does feel like it's it's a little just sort of like it's a narrative convenience to have

someone who yes but it's going going to pin themselves in your mind without really having time to develop them as a character. Why doesn't he just have a loud pair of sneakers? Well, it's used as a device, I think, to return us to this place so that you get, you know, you're back and you're looking at

shots of stones an hour later and that guy ambles into view. It needs to be, like, shorth but it's like it's just beatboxing i think it's also you know deliberately knocking this movie out of one plane of reality and into this higher sort of echelon of of we're in a different poetic abstract kind of space sure uh fine which goes hand in hand with like there's a tension between that attitude and the grimy reality of this crime story yeah but yeah it's always a it's a big choice it's a bit of a big choice i do think it is mostly there it's so right so you immediately clock like yes that's the same guy right um i don't think it's necessary particular but it is kind of you know whatever

nightmarish yeah or adds to the nightmarishness In the Spike Lee remake They cut that character There was some Consideration of a remake Of this movie in Hollywood I don't This is the one Understand What that would be

Insane to remake Because they remade Old Boy Yeah And kept the twist And that legit I'm like Yes the movie didn't work

Or didn't succeed But I could see A version of that movie Making 30 million dollars In the US But not this It'd be like James Mangold Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance That's who they'd get or didn't succeed. But I could see a version of that movie making $30 million in the U.S. But not this. It'd be like James Mangold Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. That's who they'd get.

Turn back the dial. Look, I like Mangy more than you do. I'm just saying, they'd get like a down-the-middle Hollywood journeyman type who would deliver a movie

that would be really straightforward and you'd be like, wait, what? I mean, it's, look, yes. But at that point, why are you buying the rights to this as opposed to just writing a new revenge or live from the ground up?

The title's too good. The title is good. Well, that is true. But like, it is, yes, this is a tangled, what a tangled web we weave type thing, sure. But, you know, it's so, it's so like disrupt,

you keep talking about the reality of the movie. I think that's right and then that happening like this movie has been so over the top the violence that we've seen has been over the top the sort of um you know twists of fate like him losing a kidney yes horrifying yes you don't want that to happen to you but it still feels very bad cartoonish the people who took the kidney are kind of cartoonish. Giving a kidney can be nice, but having one taken from you,

I feel like is less. Or eating one with a nice can of beans. You know, do you think Hannibal and Becker? No, I can't do that. Now, since Hannibal and Becker... When you murdered that guy, did you ever escape the cycle of violence that followed, or are you still... Funky on my back.

Or like you would not believe how much he complains about it. It's like, enough already. Still in a cycle of violence. Checks his email. He goes, go what? Send to spam. Murder shit. Remember that murder?

No, the kid falling in, you're just sort of like, oh, we're not in like, you know, funny playtime anymore. I feel at least i know there is a sort of absurdity to what's going on that you know one could find kind of grotesquely funny or darkly but that's the kind of moment that park seizes on is like now i'm gonna be funny like just when you're like okay this shit's not funny anymore and it's like now for a laugh god bless him for being such a lunatic i'm not complaining but it was hard for me to watch like that's the scene that follows with uh with song kang ho in the police van and he's not in frame he's framed out by the door and the cop is just like repeatedly getting out of the van to take a completely unrelated phone call as it just sort of goes on and on and on is because of the

horror we just witnessed especially funny yeah we were saying before we were start recording like the more times you see this movie and the distance that you get from the reality of what you're seeing and the horror of the the plot itself the easier it is to sort of appreciate the dark humor i would agree with that sure um look what happens in the movie is everyone goes on vengeance runs. Yeah, kind of multiple vengeance runs happen simultaneously. Ryu kills the organ gang with a baseball bat.

Yes. Gets stabbed. So that's his journey. Dong Jin, Sung Hae Ho's character, grabs Joon Ah Bae and hooks her up to the electricity. Yeah.

And covers her in a bag and tortures her with it. Kills her. And eventually kills her but not before torturing her for a while. And eating her lunch. The grievous sin of all. Lunch theft. Seven days. Pride. You know, avarice. Lunch theft. Seven days. Pride.

You know, avarice. Lunch theft. Not only does he eat her lunch, he kills the delivery guy. He does. He's really... I mean, there's the... It's right at the end of the movie where he gets the phone call being like, is this this person? Like, come claim your daughter's body. And he's like, it's not me. Because he's just like

not a person anymore. He's increasingly not a person. He only identifies as Mr. Vengeance now. Well, it's his dad. It's someone else separate when they call to see if he can claim his body. Isn't it? Is that what's going on? I'm pretty sure. Am I not picking up on that?

Am I wrong? I'm trying to remember. Well, at the end of the movie, he gets the phone call on the cell phone. Yeah. Telling him to come claim his daughter's body. No? I think so. Right. A lot's going on at that point. Yeah. I. Telling him to come claim his daughter's body, no? I think so. Right.

A lot's going on at that point. Yeah. Okay. I'm sure this would be easily resolved. But, yeah, no, I mean, he, that's, and that scene, the, I mean, both those scenes,

but the scene where Ryu beats the smugglers, the organ traffickers, with that baseball bat, is, I think, as clear a preview of what's to come in Park Chan-wook's body of work as anything else here.

Just, like, the kineticism of it. Right. And how it's framed for both, like, maximum spectacle and visceral thrill and also sickening grossness. Yes.

Yes. It is fascinating reading, like, reviews, especially the American reviews from when this movie came out where people are like, this is just, like, so perversely grotesque and violent.

And you're just like, he's barely warm. Right. He ain't even bubbling yet. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, it's, I think, again, I mean, I'm beating a dead horse here, but like I feel like that all serves a purpose that in discrete examples in a vacuum, each of these things feel sort of like a hat on a hat and overdone. But when you contrast the cartoon violence and the operatic savagery of what's happening with the very, very human reactions to each of these moments, you get something. You also have the tension between the capitalist and the laborer,

which we talked about a little bit, but these two guys sort of circling around each other in a mutually assured destruction. This is from the dossier, but I do think it's interesting. Park said, like, he wanted the sort of working class house to be incredibly, you know, colorful and filled with, you know,

lots of, like, sort of character-y objects and, like, not wanting to fall into the cliche of a gloomy, drab environment, whereas Song Kang-ho's house is fairly boring, kind of sort of quote-unquote tastefully done, but without a lot of atmosphere. Very modern and cold. Right.

And yeah, I do think... you know, I do think like... I mean, he's a very florid approach to violence and also to like anything that would seem depressing or negative. I mean, it is always in his films draped in color. It's always ornate. I remember, you know, the purple box famously from Oldboy and you could buy at the time. This was like my most coveted possession that I also ordered from like YesAsia.com, whatever, one of those websites. Jesus, you get fucking points from that place? Do they still exist? I mean, they must, but the DVD market is taking a hit. But it would come, it was a four-disc set of Oldboy.

In the purple box. It would come in the purple box with a bow on it. But like, and that is, you know, the most upsetting thing in that movie. And it comes in this beautiful gift wrap box. I mean, that is Park Jam to a T. Much like the

Amazing Spider-Man 2 and the Electrohead that Matt Singer bought. Exactly. It's just like that. Yeah. I found the review I was looking for.

It's from San Francisco Gate by J, I'm sorry, G. Allen Johnson. So this is when it gets his North American release. He has already seen Oldboy

and is very pro-Oldboy. Sure. Which I think makes these criticisms feel more... I will say, I assume what you're about to read is sort of similar in the tone of what a lot of the reviews of this movie were like in America, basically. Yes. Unless his review is, I don't know,

reminded me too much of my wedding. Like Oldboy... Go on, go on. Like Oldboy, it reminded me too much of my, you know, wedding. Like Old Boy. Go on, go on. Like Old Boy, it features stomach-churning gore, but sympathy degenerates in the second half. As Park's apparently ugly contempt for humanity kills off the goodwill he has built up from his irresistible plot, which hints at a Korean cultural divide for real visual flair. He says, Sympathy, by contrast, is is so bloody scatologically violent and consistently

shocking it seems to have no larger purpose than itself which is pretty grim what a waste i i feel like a lot of the reviews yeah were along those lines and i do sympathize with being a critic and being confronted with the movie i sympathize with mr vengeance i sympathize first and foremost with mr vengeance sympathy sympathy for mr movie but then sympathy for mr critic who has to watch a movie in which a child dies somewhat callously and like you know then all this horrible sort of like meaningless what is it all for yeah and like it's tough to walk out of one of those and be like oh it's good absolutely but i'm also like but i think he's off this is coming like mr g is off after old boy comes out and he's like where's the joy yeah yeah of old boy the the joygasm of old boy's last half hour right there's a quote that i have failed to source i think it was from a book

about park jimmy book i can't remember if he said it or someone else said it but it says the film is too funny to be reality and too cruel to be a joke and i think like in that middle ground uh a lot of people get lost i do think one of the reasons why i prefer the later films of the trilogy is because they do more novel things with retribution and violence and and vengeance and all of that i particularly am fascinated by uh the end Vengeance when it becomes more of a collective act. That's why Lady Vengeance is fucking incredible. She defuses the idea of this guilt and violence. And you have tried to lock some of your enemies in a hotel room for 14 years.

You said that I shouldn't talk about my own personal experience in regards to this trilogy, but yeah, if you want to put me on blast like that, I do that from time to time. Vengeance trilogies have been done upon you. You have done vengeance trilogies upon others. What is having a child, if not taking a person

and locking them in the space for the better part of 18 years? That's true. And you lent us your baby jail, literally, is what he refers to it as. You have sentenced both of your children to living in a walk-up. That's true. That is, yeah. It's true. They're going to see Oldboy and be like, it's just

like my life. They're trying to poke their way out. They're like, ah, we're so high up. Every night I just open the door and throw in some dumplings, which I always thought would be pretty sweet. No, no, that part's nice. If you're going to lock me in a hotel room, and this is obviously dressed more next week,

and feed me the same food every time, dumplings, I would like that more than a lot. You can exercise. You don't have to know about 9-11. Shadow boxing allowed. I would get swole as exercise. You don't have to know about 9-11. Shadow boxing allowed. I would get swole as hell. You don't have to see Transformers. You get gassed every night to sleep.

Nice. Which I also said on that episode, I was kind of into the idea of getting gassed to sleep. Ambient addiction. Do you not get to see any of the Transformers movies? I mean, I think eventually you come out and maybe start with fucking Dark Side of the Moon, which, pretty good, all things considered.

If you're going to start somewhere. Although, obviously, you don't have any of the context required. Also, correction, it's called Dark of the Moon. It's called Dark of the Moon. The side was copyrighted. I see, I see. It's really annoying that it's called Dark of the Moon. Incredibly annoying.

That is the most and only annoying thing about the Transformers film trilogy. Yeah, Dark of the Moon rules. It does. Wow, that last hour only annoying thing about the Transformers film trilogy. Yeah, Dark of the Moon rules. It does. Wow, that last hour in IMAX 3D, Jesus. Yes, I remember it well. I was hooting and hollering. Yeah.

And, you know, now the beasts have risen. Everything's changed. It's true. Do you know about the end? I do know about the end, but I am strategically on paternity leave this month to avoid both Tribeca and the Beast. You're a ninja.

Dancing between the raindrops of early shitty summer scheduling. It's like the first scene of The Grandmaster, but with movie releases. Wasn't your daughter born six months ago? Yeah, but the leaves now. Pretty much. Yeah, that is pretty much what he did. So, Park Jenwick says, shooting this film,

a really fun, harmonious experience. Cool. But he admits the film came out quite vicious. Did we hit the very ending? Yeah, we got to. That Duna Bay's anarchist group comes back. Oh, well, that's fair point. Well, no, no, no.

We should really hit the ending because, yes, he kills Duna Bay. Was not going to be the ending. The ending was originally going to end with him on that phone call. Right, which is, I get that as an ending. Was not going to be the ending The ending was originally going to end with him on that phone call Which is I get that as an ending You can imagine what happens next

But you can't Because no one sees what happens coming The actual ending yes But also we should of course He gets Ryu Knocks him out brings him to the river bed Drags him into the water slashes his Achilles tendon Because he doesn't want to have to see But he doesn't want to have to see him He wants to feel like out, brings him to the riverbed, drags him into the water, slashes his Achilles tendon.

Because he doesn't want to have to see... He doesn't want to have to see him die. He wants to feel like I cut his legs, and that's all. I didn't... I'm just going to bite the air and move forward. If I eat a pie, it's the Homer Simpson thing. You should have said it.

You should have posted it. If you had made that reference in the moment it would have been great this movie could use more Simpsons quotes from characters to each other I think it should do more

just literally they're just being remember this episode of the Simpsons when in the millennial remake of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance that's how it plays out

slowly back up into the bushes love when the New York Times pops up with an alert that's Chris Christie is running for president guys come on I don't care

This is the most exciting thing since they announced The Matrix 4 In that episode I was on That was a good episode Which episode was that? I mean, House of Newcastle Dude, can you believe This is the most baller shit of all time The Miyazaki releasing his movie

It has a date, show up if you want Fuck film festivals. I did like the joke that I saw on some website that was like, he's not releasing a trailer because he's accidentally just made Morbius. He's really embarrassed. But it's like he saw... Shit, he's fucking Morbius!

Word for word! But he saw the campaign for the whale and Killers of the Flower Moon. He's like, they're giving away too much. He saw that as the trailer for Cast Away. He's like, they're giving away too much. He saw that as like the trailer for Cast Away. He's like, they're giving away the whole game. When that still drops in Flower Moon 20 minutes in, you're like, thank God. Okay, they're not going to make us wait too long for him sitting at the table.

It's like when the drums kick in and in the air tonight. But it's the last shot in that scene. And they go every possible setup in that kitchen before they finally land on that one. every possible setup in that kitchen before they finally land on that one. Sorry, I was just doing various camera angles. When there finally was the news story of he's bypassing all festivals, he's putting it in theaters, it will be out in Asia

in a couple of months, and the rest of the world sometime later. The first person to rush, when there's some news story, especially relevant... And the poster of the film is just like a bird or something yeah we don't even know if the movie's about birds they just said that it's actually not based on the book that we all thought it was based on he loves based on this book but not in any way it could be about birds based on the power broker

it's actually just sully it's about the life and times of jay oppenheimer uh no but whenever there's any news story connected to one of the directors we've covered on the past i feel like there's this mad rush from blankies to try to be the first to post the thread with the new news tidbit so they can get all the upvotes right and the comments on their thread when they're going to be five copycat threads so So the person who rushed to post that, how do you live? Yes, how do you live? Erroneously said,

Miyazaki film will come out this summer, 12 minutes long, runtime confirmed, because it was 120 minutes. And they were so quick to type it out that they put in 12. And I was like, are you fucking kidding me?

These things are short? We've been waiting five goddamn years and it's a fucking short? We drew it with one finger. Dobbs and paint. It's done by AI. He actually revisited that AI tech demo. That was pretty good.

Yeah, put it out. It's just an episode of Bluey. I thought this was funny. He went on the Japanese version of Blank Check and he was like, you know, that one time that I said that AI animation was a sin against humanity. I'm very sorry about that. And I will be very sad when Harrison Ford dies.

Yeah, whatever. All the movies are long this year. Why not go short? Do you know if Eric's friends kill? They do. After he has committed, after he has finally achieved his vengeance, which has not really done much for him, he is killed by the chain-smoking gang. There's always someone else. Doonabay told him, like,

that's going to happen if you kill him. And the guy who stabs him has that look where he's, like, sitting there kneeling down and smoking, and he's clearly never stabbed anyone before, and he's just sort of being like, I just stabbed a guy. Like, that's fucking wild. No going back from that.

It's the opposite of what you would expect in a movie like this where he's like walking away as the car explodes behind him he's just like fascinated by the decision that he just you watch um now this film joint security area made about 30 million dollars in korea which was the most successful korean film uh This film made $2 million. And Oldboy's back is way up. There's a sandwich in between two fat-tidied hits, right? Yeah, I mean, Oldboy, I think, made, yes, more. Not as much as maybe JSA, but a lot. It was successful.

Sure. Park, people felt betrayed. You know, but the person who really felt betrayed was me, he says, because people don't like the movie. Took out his vengeance on the audience. And he doubled down by being like, fuck it, I'm making a trilogy. I'm not fucking going. He thinks that the audience maybe did not love the idea of having to identify with the perpetrator of a crime and then the victim of the crime uh he thought that was interesting to the structure of the film but he says perhaps audiences didn't necessarily like to do that a very funny joke to follow this up with a more

traditional hero's journey where you sympathize with one character the entire way and then at the end they're like surprise you've been rooting for a guy who's been committing incest in front of your eyes. Yes. Again, spoilers for Oldboy. But, you know, it is one of those movies, I think, that, yes, bombed initially, but highly influential, very respected by other Korean directors. You know, kind of begins whatever sets in motion, you know, the fucking informal vengeance trilogy that defines his career. being so big

immediately puts more retroactive shine on this movie where it's like, now you're telling me these are of a piece. Yeah. I gotta go back

and watch the first one. They tried to get this movie into Cannes and were rejected. Old Boy obviously played in Cannes. This feels like a classic director's Fortnite

or in certain regard. Anyway. Warner Brothers acquired the rights to remake it. They brought in Lasse Hallström. That's a joke. or in certain regard. Anyway. Warner Brothers acquired the rights to remake it. They brought in Lasse Hallström. That's a joke. That second thing was a joke. That's who I was reaching for when I said it on James Mangold.

The writer of Broken City wrote a script. That's the fucking Wahlberg. Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe. Something's up at City Hall. Whichever Hughes brother. Yeah, one of the Hughes. Quentin Tarantino. Thought it was good.

Big Shot Harry Knowles, as you say. Put it number one. Film didn't come out for three years. It was going to be number three into those last 30 minutes, and then he leaned into the whole other key. I'm glad he keyed us into his process. But it did not get particularly good reviews

from American critics on release when it was finally released. Yes. You can suck my nuts. But maybe releasing it that shortly after Oldboy was an incredibly bad decision. I mean, look, I don't think there was a pocket where this movie was

going to make a ton of money, but $45,000 definitely wasn't what they were aiming for. Very low gross. This has to be one of the lowest grosses, North American grosses we've ever covered on this show. I don't know. What did fucking Alice in Wonderland make? Although it says something that Lady Vengeance,

which came along, you know, just a few short years after Mr. Vengeance came out in the United States, one year later, played at the very prestigious and relatively highbrow New York Film Festival. So it's like they, as far as like his reputation was concerned, people hadn't written him off purely as like torture porn. Well, there's that.

And of course, it is an era of a lot of horror that is extreme for extremity's sake. Yes. But I do think it's just the being released here out of order, you know? You know, it's being released as an afterthought. Right. If it's like, oh, Criterion is putting out his early, less-seen film,

people are viewing that in the context of, oh, I'm filling in a gap, versus if you've just seen Oldboy after all this hype, and they're like, here's another one. And dare I say, the tartan asian extreme branding which even then uh makes you wince a little bit just to say at least those last two words together uh in that way is uh probably didn't help in terms of positioning this movie in a way where people right it's putting it in a tiny box you're not getting foreigners

thrills from this movie you know sims you know where i saw old boy in theaters was in the odeon like a shoebox little odeon theater you mean in london in london town uh it's the odeon it is what i fucking say it is uh of course is um london britain's biggest theater chain do you know which one you said it was a shoebox it was the tiny theater in a big building in like lester square panton street yeah cool so uh that's cool the weirdest thing about lester It was the tiny theater in a big building in, like, Leicester Square. So, Panton Street. Yeah. Cool. So, that's cool. The weirdest thing about Leicester Square, there are three Odeons that are, like, basically all looking at each other. There used to be four, I think.

And the big one is just one screen. That's where you, like, premiere your movies, the Leicester Square Odeon. What if I made the bit I now think that Ehrlich grew up in London? No. And then there's the West End Odeon, which is sort of like a normal multiplex. What, you went there after school? Yeah. And then the

Panton Street Odeon where you saw, that was the weird one. There should be a plaque out there. That's where you see some weird movies. That's where I,

and the screen, they had just installed digital projection and the screen had all those dots on them and it was really ugly and I was just seeing it as a novelty

because I'd seen Old Boy about 15 times on DVD and I was like, I wonder what this looks like on the big screen before it'd come out in the United States and I made it about 30 minutes and I was like, all as a novelty because I'd seen Oldboy about 15 times on DVD and I was like, I wonder what this looks like on the big screen before it'd come out in the United States. And I made it about 30 minutes and I was like, alright, I got the vibe. Wow, walked out. Guess you don't like Oldboy that much. Never went back to London again.

Do you want to play the box office game? I desperately want to play the box office game. Jesus, the desperation. I'm just curious about this one. August 19th, 2005. That's a good season for Griff. It's a good season for Davey too. It's freshman good season for Davey, too. It's freshman year of college in the bag. Summer internship in Boston happening.

Where were you interning? Shears? Boston Phoenix. Okay. And number one at the box office, it's a comedy. The launch of a career, I would say, a filmmaking career. It is The 40-Year-Old Virgin.. It is The 40-Year-Old Virgin. It is Jan 40-Year-Old Virgin.

Yeah. Which opens to a healthy $21 million, but then holds exceptionally well. And goes over 100. Hits 100. And just a month earlier, Wedding Crashers comes out. Yes, that's right. Makes a metric shit ton of money.

Well, they crashed all those weddings And they got paid for each wedding That's right Audiences paid them back for each wedding Yeah, the ticket was actually like so much more And they're like, it's per wedding It made like 205 crashed weddings domestic Which is insane

It wasn't a big hit But I think it was sort of like Well, that's obviously the comedy hit of the summer And then 40-Year-Old Virgin comes out later Does incredibly well. I mean, Wedding Crashers made more money. Absolutely. But it was sort of like,

oh, there's room for two. And obviously this is the one that's going to have the longer tail, both as a movie itself and also, this is going to spawn the entire... Everyone was wrong. Apatow and Duffield complex. Wedding Crashers is discussed to this day.

Yes. Constantly. Constantly. A sequel is still threatened. That's like a hurricane. They were about to film it for HBO Max and then Owen Wilson bagged it at the last minute. Good for him.

They were set up. He was told about it and was like, oh, that's a bad... Can you do a meter for me? I was like, wow, this is a terrible idea. HBO Max? Wow. Yes, those movies could not be less... What's the what? The place for HBO, where do I watch it?

Oh, Max is the one to watch when you want to watch HBO Okay, so number one is the 40YO version Obviously It's that sort of weird thing of like Carell is the star But The Office is hitting After they make it But before it comes out

They've done six episodes The six episode mid-season replacement before this Suddenly this guy is going to be hot is hitting after they make it, but before it comes out. They've done six episodes. And so it's like... The six-episode mid-season replacement before this. Suddenly this guy is going to be hot, all that stuff. Right. They kind of, I mean,

renewed the office on the promise of this is testing well, not knowing the thing was going to be that big. Right. And then that transforms everything. And then the rest of his career being a movie star while making the office. They had no idea that he was going to scream

the words Kelly Clarkson as someone ripped off his chest hair. That scene is funny. That's also, I mean, I guess it's still kind of the thing,

but it's like, Rudd is the funniest part of that movie. Romney Malka's incredible. The whole crew is fucking incredible. They are all good. That movie is

astonishingly funny. And it is brilliant. But that thing that I think still basically exists of like, people don't really release major things

the last two weeks of August. Totally. So if you're the big movie, the last big movie through the door the first or second week of August, you probably just run the table until like mid-September. But.

But. Another film's coming out this week. A film that I assume was kind of thinking it would be number one. Red Eye? R-rated thriller, Red Eye. Yes. Now, David's crush on Rachel McAdams,

post-Wedding Crashers, is already at 1,000. Have you ever considered kidnapping her aboard a commercial airliner and threatening her father's life, who's played by Brian Cox? And then there's also a grenade launcher, a rocket launcher at the end.

If she doesn't move somebody's hotel room Jemma Mays is in that one too She sure is Everyone's having fun Red Eye's great Obviously Cillian Murphy playing the crazy guy I want to put Craven on a bracket I was overdue for a bracket

It's a long career It is And there's some, you know, kind of fallow periods I was looking through it and I was like It's more consistent than I remembered it being It's a very interesting person to talk about The bit where Rachel McAdams stabs Cillian Murphy in the neck with a pen is probably the Mr. Vengeance-iest moment of Rachel McAdams' career,

I would venture to say. What about when that guy gets sucked into a jet engine, though? I mean, that was pretty good. Oh, no, he died. Park hasn't gone that far. Oh, no, he died. It's still the funniest line reading. People post that clip on Twitter once a week i always watch it i always laugh she's the fucking oh no he died um she's she's on this

season of dave the effects original series dave where the whole bit is that she's like his ultimate celebrity crush and then he actually has to meet her and the whole thing is like oh she's actually everything he wanted her to be sure because she actually probably is right she's the total package right and it's kind of

an astonishing performance where it's just like your job is to just be the most charming funny person in the world she didn't even know she was on that show exactly

have any of you guys seen Jury Duty not the Pauly Shore movie I've watched Jury Duty with the show yes I've seen the Pauly Shore both great

I've seen both I'd say the television show even better. I don't know why I'm thinking about that. Marsden playing himself. Marsden's incredibly good. There's a role that Griffin would have killed in. Alright, well don't make me feel bad. Whether the guy with the girlfriend or the tech guy. Either one. Take your pick.

The tech guy, I think that's the most astonishing comedic performance I've seen in a little while. That guy I'm blown away by. And no disrespect to the girlfriend guy, but I did have that thought of why I put out for this. David, what's number three at the box office? It's a film we covered on this podcast. It is a... It was out last week. It's the second

week. Coming down for number one. Lady in the Water? Nope. It is a... Sort of an action thriller, drama. 2005. First week of August Previous number one Action thriller Sure

You're saying sure like it's not real Action's maybe a little strong It's a thriller Sort of a drama thriller No That was 2004 What studio? Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Picture a bunch of stars dancing across the water skipping stones and then circle it around the encircle a mountain and you know paramount you know what i bet is atop that mountain what america's worst streaming service how dare you peacock's probably worse have i about... Peacock has summer house. Paramount Plus doesn't let you deactivate devices. Paramount Plus is not very good at being an app. It's not. Which I think it should improve at doing that because that is, of course, its job.

Right. But Paramount Plus does have things I want to watch on it. Let me be vindictive and not allow my exes to watch my Paramount Plus. I'm not allowed to kick them off? Really? Every other app fucking offers this. Aren't you looking for any opportunity to stay connected with them in some way?

Yeah, but it doesn't work. See them log in, you know, Star Trek Picard or whatever. Anyway. They're all Picard-ing it up. Third season, good. Come on, what is this hot film that we've covered?

We've covered it during the... We've covered it? Oh, it's Collateral. No, it's not. Fuck, that's 2004. Yes. It's 2005. This is 2005. It's a paramount. 2005. We've covered it. Think about it. George Bush in office.

One of our directors. Mentoring candidate? No. Fuck. That's 2004 as well. Damn it. Fuck. 2005 is kind of a fallow time. I know, but both of those are paramount. Is it a star vehicle? Yes, but it is also an ensemble, and that is referenced in the title of this film and the premise.

Oh, the ensemble. What if you had some of these? A couple guys. More than a couple. A hundred guys. Less than a hundred. Two guys. Two guys. It is four brothers.

Four of them. A Friday night special. One, two, three, four. Yes. Not a movie. It's a hardiday night special yes not a movie it's a hard movie to sort of tee up no yes yes you know what if there were four brothers yeah but it's kind of a revenge dramatic yeah it's not with more really an action movie right i mean it has some gun play or whatever but it's more like it's got garrett headland taking a shit it's got everyone taking a shot i enjoyed those three seconds where I thought there was a movie called Two Guys and it did really well

at the box office. There was two guns. Now remind me, did they jerk off together in that one? Yeah, they were hands on back. I remember all the things.

Right. They fuck Sofia Vergara on top of a washing machine. They don't all fuck right through my face. Jesus Christ. The four brothers, of course,

are Mark Wahlberg, Terry Skibson, Andre Hedlund, and Andre Bennett. Garrett Hedlund. Number four at the box office, it's the biggest comedy of the year. We already mentioned it.

Wedding Crashers. It's hanging around, crashing more weddings by the day. Number five at the box office is a horror film that is reverse get out. I once called it underrated on one of my lists that The Atlantic made me write during the pandemic, and someone made fun of me for that.

Skeleton Kid. I think it was Olivia. Yes, Skeleton King. Which you and I both like. A good movie. Good movie. Ian Softley directed it? Correct.

Not to spoil it, but it's literally just reverse. Get out. I mean, as if I have not seen Skeleton King on cable on a daily basis for the last 15 years. Probably in like Kate Hudson's

top five movies. Oh, yeah. No, I know that's, you know, she's got a top Emmy list. Well, number one, music. Yeah. Good fucking late Jenna Rowland's performance. Yeah, no, I think it's just a fun, effective programmer with a pretty decent swampy vibe.

I agree. Those August horror movies used to be credible, even as recently as 2005. They had a little bit more credibility than they do now. You've also got March of the Penguins. Them penguins be marching! I think it's because horror has become so big now That if you have a good horror movie you're not dumping it in August Yeah but Barbarian was an August release

That's a weird exception To the rule where no one September 9th I want to say Do you know that movie still does I've done so bad in this game Do you know that movie still does not have a physical release That's fucked up Come on Disney Is it on Disney Plus Yeah it's on Disney Plus that recent poll. Do you know that movie still does not have a physical release? That's fucked up. Isn't that fucked up?

I want to watch that movie again. Is it on Disney Plus? Yeah, it's on Disney Plus in the kids section. I know. I think it's on Hulu. Yeah, those penguins be marching all the way to 77 domestic. Oh, baby. Number seven at the box office. One of the

most instant fucking relic movies. Like, just just like let's never speak of this again the dukes of hazard oh it's just like two years later everyone i think was just like why did we do that i was gonna guess where it was because it opened pretty big it dropped like a fucking stone yes people a week later 80 million dollars but it like opened to almost 40 30 not bad Jessica Simpson not a movie star it turns out Not a movie star driving around in a confederate flag car Probably not advisable in the 21st century

No But the Dukes of Hazzard was There for you Number 8 at the box office A new film oh boy Animated I just wanted you to guess this one. 2005.

I know we don't usually guess those. Animated. What studio? The studio, of course, is... What distributor? Weirdly, it was distributed by Disney, but it's a British film. Is it Valiant?

Valiant. Yeah, right. That was some output deal. They didn't make that. Which was like E-Link or something. It was like one of those, you know, fucking Tony Blair cuts a ribbon being like, Britain's going to make animated movies again. It's Valiant.

RAF Pigeon. I was going to say, it's about a pigeon, right? Yeah. It's like, what was the fucking movie that you guys were obsessed with? The trailer with the birds, Will Smith's bird. Spies in Disguise. Spies in Disguise. It was that before that.

Or like Chicken Run, but shitty. You've also got Charlie and the Chocolate Factory another film we've covered and your favorite film of all time Sky High. What a fucking masterpiece. Have you ever seen

Sky High earlier? I mean I saw Sky High in theaters the day that it opened standing for Nicholas Braun day one. Same. I bet so big on that guy

so early where I was like you gotta bet big he's tall. He's incredibly and he was that tall at 15. You've seen that movie right? I have. He's tall. He's incredibly... And he was that tall at 15. Ranging. Yeah.

You've seen that movie, right? I have. It's very fun. Sky High is adorable and perfect live-action original teenage fare that we have deprived the viewers of.

Absolutely. And you're like, also still better than most superhero movies. Oh, yeah. How much better? Like, we were talking about, like, you were saying,

Sims, like, post-Spider-Verse, you were like, maybe all fucking MCU movies should have been animated to begin with. Yeah, why not? Where I'm like, you watch Skyse, you're like, maybe all fucking MCU movies should have been animated to begin with. Yeah, why not? Where I'm like, you watch Sky High and you're like, all superhero movies should be this silly. Did you guys see the fucking Spider-Verse?

All right, enough, enough. Another film I want to shout out in the top ten. We already talked about Spider-Verse. Off mic. That was amazing. Ben, did you see Do Spigolo European Gigolo? No. The power pizza was coming out of his crotch.

Oh my God. No, I didn't stick with it. To be fair. coming out of his crotch. Oh, my God. No, I didn't stick with it. You did. I assume you saw the first one. I did see the first one. To be fair, Ben wanted to go see it, but he had forgotten to renew his passport. Wouldn't let him into the theater? Yeah, right.

So the poster makes it look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa is his. I think that's just an accident. I think that was a coincidence. You think that's a coincidence? makes it look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa is his weakness. More like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I think that's just an accident. I think that was a coincidence. You think that's a coincidence? They were actually doing a whole other thing, right? They were just trying to take a nice photo of Rob Schneider. They saw that in post.

They were like, uh-oh, we can work with this. Will he ever complete the trilogy? Will he ever? Deuce Bigelow, what, goes to Antarctica? Like, what's next? Deuce Bigelow what, goes to Antarctica? Deuce Bigelow Vengeance Gigolo. Deuce Bigelow Legacy. Oh boy.

They don't make them like that anymore. Good. It was before Rob Schneider discovered Twitter. This was before Twitter invented. His real art form. That was the end of the Bigelowverse. Anyway. Spiderverse.

Do Spigolo relate to Catherine Bigelow? Yes. Yeah. And they address that in the film. He watches The Loveless. Yes.

I came into this recording session floating 48 hours after seeing Across the Spiderverse. Yeah, I saw it last night. Still half drunk off my margarita

at the Alamo. Fucking rules. Just so, it was completely levitational just so fucking good well just you watch it and you're just like what you want to yell at every other movie like what's your fucking excuse just do this try this hard i had never i've never seen this reaction before to a movie where the moment it cuts you to be continued the entire audience

groan loudly and then immediately as soon as the groan ended began cheering as loud as they could can i say incredibly smart decision that they backed off of this being across the spider verse part one and instead went this is across the next one's beyond the part one part two shit has i hate part one die yeah well it kind of has died and so i was alarmed that they were bringing it back. And I'm happy they did. And, you know, they did that with Infinity War, too. Remember, that was going to be Infinity War Parts 1 and 2? Why do that? People are like, my only beef is that, you know...

But then Den Reckoning is doing it. Well, Dead Reckoning is going to be a masterpiece. But I'm also just like, call it Dead Reckoning and Deader Reckoning or something. Give them different fucking titles. Just Dead Reckoning Reloaded. Paramount's on the phone. Dead Reckoning Reloaded. People are like, you know, it was annoying to me that Across the Spider-Verse was only half

a movie, and I was like, that could not be more of a movie. There are 300 movies in that movie. I agree. I think it's a full meal. I think it's setting up a lot of stuff for the next movie, and there are larger unresolved things. I think it is a full movie. I mean, whether it is or not, like, yeah, sure, it leaves you hanging, but I was like, who could

need more movie out of that? It's giving you so fucking much. My brain is bleeding movie, and I'm loving it. So, two hours, 20 minutes, longest American animated film. Yeah, it's long. It's longer than Hayao Miyazaki's How Do You Know. If the next one's two hours, I wouldn't be, like, mad about that.

No, look, I like things being shorter. I just think they use their runtime well. There's certainly a lot of fucking shit there. I agree. I was never unhappy to be watching Across the Spider-Verse. The last 90 minutes of that movie could just be Miles Morales kicking rocks, and I already would have been like, this was the best time I had at the movies this year. Here's my gripe.

Didn't even release it in 3D. No. Well, I don't need that. The animated films always get released in 3D. Spider-Verse, unsurprisingly, for Spider-Verse in 3D is really good. This movie in 3D would have killed you. Imagine watching this in your new Apple Vision Pro. And I would have died happy.

I just moved my 3D TV into my new apartment. 3D TV survives. And I got my fucking Spider-Verse, original Spider-Verse steelbook with the 3D disc. And I threw it on. I went, oh, baby. Can't wait to watch this new one. Yeah. He moved. Wait, did you move to Brooklyn? Downtown Brooklyn.

He's a Brooklyn boy. Yeah, downtown Brooklyn nooms. I had to keep the brand strong so I moved to downtown Brooklyn. Enough! Wrap it up. I'm peeing. Yes. You're peeing? Not right now. Erlich, anything you want to plug? Paternity leave. I like that you clarified, David,

that you weren't actively peeing on Mike just in your pants, I assume. He's choosing to do it now. Yeah. I would love to plug Sony Animation's

Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse. Is that the full title? A film that should be rewarded. Yeah. I think it hasn't been getting enough press. Very, very good. I don't know.

I'm currently on leave. By the time this comes out, I will be back't been getting enough press. Very, very good. I don't know. I'm currently on leave. By the time this comes out, I will be back at work ready and braced for Barbenheimer and Mission Impossible, Dead Reckoning, and all the joy that July should hopefully bring. My podcast cohorts at Fighting in the War Room will kill me. They will slice my Achilles tendons and leave me to drown. You often forget. In a river in South Korea, if I do not mention that podcast. I already mentioned its name once.

That's enough. Do you have a Spider-Verse episode? I guess we're talking about it tonight. I don't know. It's a matter of... Something to plug? Yeah. It'll just be me being like, the movie fucking ruled.

You already got the good stuff here. Yeah. I don't know. That's it. Great. Well, thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media,

helping to produce the show. Thank you to Joe Bone, Pat Reynolds for our artwork. Thank you to Becker. I was waiting for this. I hope Harrison Ford lives forever. Yep, of course. Long live Harrison Ford. Thank you, Joe Bowen,

for the aforementioned wooden carve-outs over our faces. That's mine. Don't fucking drink that. That's mine. I put that in the fridge for myself. I just saw you eyeballing it, and I don't want you to drink it.

It's an Olipop Cola. Put the Becker theme on again, bro. Thank you to Lane Montgomery and the Great American Owl for our theme song. Thank you to AJ McKeon, Alex Barron for our editing, JJ Birch for our research. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon blank check special features. Do commentaries on film series. Crossing some oceans

Yeah I think it's oceans right This episode is coming out July 2 We'll do the aforementioned little drama girl We just did oceans 1-1 Check into that episode For two hours of us asleep Snoring with no dialogue And then a special surprise at the end

That we did not predict There will be an unannounced surprise guest for the last 30 minutes of the episode that is fun. It's a good guest. Someone who's never been on the show before. Daniel Ocean. Himself? Yes. He stole the podcast.

Tune in next week for Old Boy with Allison Walmore. Allison Walmore returns to the show from New York Magazine. Honk, honk. Honk, honk. I don't know. And as always.

Are you guys doing an Ocean's 8 commentary? Yep. Is that the first time you've done a commentary on a movie that Griffin is ostensibly in? My arm is in it.

My arm is in it. I guess the answer is yes, right? Yeah. You guys are going across the Griffinverse. Yeah, and I'm warning people in advance.

We're going to pause for 30 minutes when my arm is on screen and really dissect like every inch of the frame. Anyway, and as always, this podcast is blank Becker now. It's a Becker podcast. It's a Becker Rewatch podcast.