Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Adventures of Tintin with Joe Garden

Episode Date: April 23, 2017

Joe Garden (The Onion) joins Griffin and David this week to discuss the mo-cap animated action/mystery, The Adventures of Tintin. But what was Peter Jackson’s involvement in the project? How is the character Tintin like a fine sparkling wine? Is Will & Grace really coming back? Together, they compare the film to the original children book series by Hergé, examine the lessons children were taught in the 1930’s, again revisit Mystery Men and also suggest what actor would make a good Professor Calculus for any future sequels.

There's a clue to another treasure! How's your thirst for podcast, Captain? Unquenchable tendon. Podcast Captain? Jesus Christ. Let's keep going. That was good. Let's keep going.

Welcome, everybody, to Blank Check. I'm David Sims. I'm Griffin Newman. He's so upset, guys. This is great. That was our second take, and I still fucked it up. Podcast captain. How's your thirst for podcast, captain?

I thought you were going to say podcasting. It might have tripped off the tongue a little easier. Yeah, well, you're not letting me legally do a third take. I think that was good. What do you think? What do you think, guest? I think it was pretty good. You sold it. David's trying to initiate

the thing where we have the guest talk before we introduce them. It's my favorite thing. So feel free to continue saying whatever you want, unnamed guest, for the next five minutes before we introduce you. Not a problem. I got a whole bit prepared. Amazing. Oh, wait, no, no, no. I'm sorry. There's no bits. Oh, right. This is a No Bits Podcast. This is, after all, Blank Check

with Griffin and David. That is correct. It is Blank Check with Griffin and David. We are Hashtag the Two Friends. True. This is a No Bits podcast. This is, after all, Blank Check with Griffin and David. That is correct. It is Blank Check with Griffin and David. We are hashtag the two friends. True. It's a podcast about directors, filmographies. Bits. People who have mass.

No. You're trying to slip one by me. I did. I'm sorry. This is a No Bits podcast. But it's about people who have massive success. Early on in their career, and they're given a series of blank checks from Hollywood. Sometimes an unending series of blank checks.

Sometimes. Sometimes those checks clear. They're fine. They go and they deposit the checks. They try to cash them out. It works. It's fine. Everything's fine. But sometimes they bounce, baby. There you go.

And we do mini-series on different directors going through the film one film at a time we are currently on the films of steven spielberg the dreamworks years yeah although at this point isn't dreamworks kind of in the tank i guess not yeah i guess we should like address we've been doing this uh mini series so out of order that we haven't really been talking about the chronology of dreamworks but this but this, yes. It's now. These are the first movies where DreamWorks is not even a logo anymore. It starts dissolving

in a major way, but let's just say this is probably if you cast. Of course. That's what it's called. And the film we're talking about today is this 2011 masterpiece. The Adventures of Tintin, subtitled, in certain markets, The Secret of Tintin, subtitled in certain markets, The Secret of the Unicorn.

Yeah. But in America, just The Adventures of Tintin. Right. Yeah. Because people are like, secret unicorn, what? We're very anti-secrets. We're very anti-secrets. As Americans.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah, we're a very open podcast. Yeah. For example, I just found out Ben has a cat. A cat named Pig. It's true. Yeah. Yeah, we're a very open podcast. Yeah. For example, I just found out Ben has a cat. A cat named Pig? It's true. Miss Piggy.

Oh, that's the full name? Wait a second. Which one is it? Well, formally, it's Pig, but she's a lady cat, so I call her Miss Piggy sometimes. Wait, formally, it's Piggy? It's like her formal name. Oh, oh, oh. Formally.

But casually. I thought you said formerly. But casually, I call her Miss Piggy. How are we doing, guys? Good. I just read a press release about Will and Grace coming back to NBC while you were doing this. Is it happening or not? It's happening.

Ten episodes. Ten episodes, that's all? How can they contain the greatness to ten? I don't know, man. It's a mini series. It's a limited event series. Yeah, it's like The Young Pope. But Will and Grace. Great. No one else, none of It's a mini-series. It's a limited event series. Yeah, it's like The Young Pope. But Will and Grace.

Great. No one else, none of them have anything to do right now. Hey. Even Megan Mullally's kind of taking it easy. How do you think people are going to feel about The Young Pope by the time we're recording this episode? No one will be talking about it. Three days after The Young Pope premiered. It'll be forgotten.

Right? Three days after it premiered? Yes. Yes. Three or four days, yeah. How many episodes is The Young Pope? Ten, I believe. Yeah. Okay, so it'll be, you know, it just started. It'll Three or four days, yeah. How many episodes of The Young Pope? Ten, I believe. Okay, so it'll be,

it just started, it'll be like mid-March. Done mid-March, early April. Bow wrapped. Hey, you know people won't be forgetting mid-March? Who? Producer Ben. That's true. A.K. the Ben-Ducer. A.K. the Perdue-er-Ben. A.K. the Poet Laureate. A.K. the Haas. A.K. Mr. Positive. A.K. Mr. Haasative.

A.K. the Fart Detective. A.K. the Meat Lover. A.K. a close personal friendate, a.k.a. the Haas, a.k.a. Mr. Positive, a.k.a. Mr. Hossitive, a.k.a. the Fart Detective, a.k.a. the Meat Lover, a.k.a. a close personal friend of Dan Lewis. He is the peeper. He is not Professor Crispy. He is the fuckmaster. He's White Hot Benny. He's Dirt Bike Benny. Jesus Christ.

Soak and wet Benny. Yeah, and he's got the titles. I said Poet Laureate is the finest film critic. He's graduated certain titles over the course of different miniseries, such as Kylo Ben, Producer Ben Kenobi, Ben Night Shyamalan, Say Benny Thing, and Ailey Bentz with a dollar sign at the finest film critic. He's graduated certain titles over the course of different miniseries, such as Kylo Ben, producer Ben Kenobi, Ben Night Shyamalan, Say Benny Thing, and Ailey Bentz with a dollar sign at the end of it. You always hit Kenobi weird. Kenobi.

Kenobi, you always say. Anyway, and almost all of those nicknames are enshrined on buttons that were just presented to us. And those buttons came courtesy of our very special guest today. Hey. But we'll talk about those buttons in the merchandise spotlight. Save it for the end of the episode. Keep people on the hook until the end. Now you have something to look

forward to at the very end. Our guest. Yes. You know him. He's written for The Onion and Adult Swim. But if you're a hardcore blankie, if you're covering the extended universe, got your eyes all over the place, you know him as an important figure

in the blankie mythology. Yeah. Because he has launched for months, perhaps even years now. I think it's getting, it's about a year, I think. Slow rumbling campaign. Which has then turned into

the loudest, most aggressive campaign I've ever seen anyone have for anything. His name on Twitter is blank check guest. Question mark. Which I'm changing to exclamation point after I got there with this. The Great Joe Garden is here today. Hey everybody, thanks. Thanks for being here, Joe.

Thanks for having me. I just would like to point out that the only reason I started my aggressive campaign was because early on you said, I think it was you, David, said, well now we've had everybody from our trivia team on the show. That is true. However, I think it was you, David, said, well, now we've had everybody from our trivia team on the show. That is true.

That is true. However, I was an alternate on the team twice, and that set my blood to boiling. Wow. Sure. So it was just that. You just went,

have we had everyone? We've had everyone. Ramona's been on the Avatar episode. We haven't had like, We haven't had Common on. No. Doesn't he live in like, Bulgaria now or something?

No, he lives in New York. He's back. We should maybe get him on Yeah We haven't had like Molly or So you know like Our friends

Sure Who are not in the Entertainment or media Industries Sure And including alternates There may be a few Bridie hasn't been on

Sure We'll have Bridie on Someday I'm sure She lives in LA Like Morgan Evans' Girlfriend was on a team That's true. And also, they're no longer dating.

Oh. Who is? You didn't. Yeah. Oh, boy. Someone I was once dating, very briefly, was on the trivia team, but you weren't there. No, but you were there another time. You know what?

Let's stop talking about this. Hey, now. Wow, the trivia team is just a littered with bad romance, isn't it? There was a lot going on on the trivia team, you know.

Oh, hey, you know what? This is going to be really late by the time this episode comes out, but I'll say this. Now that we're on topic. What? What is this going to be about?

I want to wish a congratulations to a former guest on trivia team member, Rachel Lang. Oh, she got married. Who just got married to Alex Pitts. Yeah.

In January. That's right. And they were both with us at Turok the First Flight. They both appeared in our Turok episode. And now they are wed. Now they are wed. It's unfortunate they couldn't get wed at Turok the First Flight. It is unfortunate.

And it's unfortunate that our congratulations have to come five months late. Well, this is the thing. We're recording Split in a couple days. We could do some of the timely stuff then. Yes. Because that actually posts next week. Yeah. Anyway.

The Adventures of Tintin. The Adventures of Tintin. The Adventures of Tintin. Do you like this movie, Joe? I have a lot of thoughts about it. And I'm not sure if I... I'm just ready to talk about it. Because I'm not sure that I love it.

I don't dislike it. It just seems like a... It's a weird movie to me. It is a weird movie. It is certainly a weird movie. It's a movie... I watched this with Joanna. It's a movie that she said doesn't know its audience,

which I think is fair. It's an odd movie. But then I... So I'm a tinted obsessive. I don't know if you guys are. Yeah, yeah. Big fan. Absolutely. I grew up with thosein obsessive. I don't know if you guys are. Yeah, yeah. Big fan. Absolutely.

I grew up with those books. Same here. Like my dad gave them to me and like, and I was thinking about it, like I read them obsessively from a very young age. And yeah, no, I mean like people died in them. It's probably the first things I've read where people died. People are waving guns at each other and like. Tintin shoots and he's only 14.

Yeah, all kinds of dark themes and then you're watching the movie and you're like, well, no, this is very faithful to the books. But, yes, maybe I understand that a child in 2011 is not going to want to watch the adventures of a cub reporter who, you know, busts, like, drug runners and...

Lives alone in an apartment with his dog. Yeah, and, like, befriends a middle-aged alcoholic. Tintin's weird. Helps him inherit not a stately home, but a nice place. It's a stately home. It's a manor. Sure.

It's a manor. It's not a mansion. Tintin is weird tonally, and it also gets in that territory of like, wait, why are Doc Brown and Marty McFly friends? Yeah, that's true. That's true. It gets into that territory, which I think more often happens with cartoons and children's books

where whoever's writing them will just be like, what are some interesting characters? You put them together and you don't feel the need to explain why they're friends with each other. Well, right.

And especially, I mean, we know in the books Tintin, initially it's just like Tintin, he's a boy reporter. He goes on adventures to other countries. His beloved dog, Snowy. He has a beloved dog who helps out.

A.K.A. Milou. Milou. A.K.A. I mean, what? Milou Ban. And then after about six or seven books, Hergé writes this haddock character, and he's like,

this guy is kind of like the extroverted id. This is good. He's a nice balance to Tintin. I'll just keep him around. And yeah, like, why would they be friends? I i don't know and it's sort of the crude development you have professor calculus who's not in the movie no and you have uh the thompson thompson yes right who are but they're not used as well as they could be no i mean this the movie is trying i think to hit a lot of the touchstones without weaving them all

in seamlessly. Some of the stuff is just like, well, we gotta... They were wise not to use calculus. This is 100%. That's someone you bring in later. This is 100% a Tintin and Haddock movie. That's what this is. It's like a Tintin and Haddock, basically, origin

story. It's a perfectly... I think it's a good movie. I think it's a great movie. I don like a Tintin Haddock, basically, origin story. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a perfectly, I think it's a good movie, I think it's a great movie, I don't know if I'd say it's a masterpiece, but I think it's a very good movie, and I think it is a very nice starter

to a franchise that does not exist. You know, I'd love to see the next two movies. and one could argue, a corrective to a franchise, already. You mean Indiana Jones? Uh-huh.

We'll talk about that in a little bit. Let's do a little housekeeping on DreamWorks because you raised a good point here, which is that we haven't been talking about this because we've been recording out of order. DreamWorks found it as a full deal. It's a proper studio. It's a studio.

They have their own distribution arm. They have their own fucking lot. You know, like all that fucking shit. And over time, DreamWorks becomes kind of unwieldy right um the most profitable division is their animation department yes which after like shrek like blows through the roof and they have like a run of big hits they spin dreamworks animation off into becoming its own studio they They do. It is its own entity. Its own, like, individually

traded stock, you know? Yeah. DreamWorks DreamWorks' last movie is Just Like Heaven in 2005. That is the last... Everyone remembers Just Like Heaven. Joe's making it. Vaguely, I don't remember. Reese Witherspoon's in a coma?

Yes, because this was- She's not actually dead. Not to talk about this. This was a film trivia trick question. They were like, is she a ghost or not? And we were like, yeah, she's a ghost. And they were like, well, no, she's not dead. She's in a coma.

She's in a coma, but then she becomes a ghost and she starts dating Mark Ruffalo. She's in a coma, but she's haunting her old apartment. Which Mark Ruffalo moved into. They fall in love, and then he realizes she's in a coma and wakes her up so it's sort of like beetlejuice if beetlejuice was just in a coma and beetlejuice just wanted to like date alec baldwin right at the end of the movie and gina davis wasn't in it i mean or you could whatever or if it was alec baldwin wanted to date jeffrey jones uh sure yeah no right exactly yeah no beetlejuice wouldn't even be involved no beetlejuice wouldn't be part of it no one one would call him. A thing I remember very-

You just saw The Bye Bye Man. Speaking of, we were just talking about The Bye Bye Man, speaking of movies where you have to say the name of something. I did just see The Bye Bye Man. How was it? It was not great, great. Okay. Not great, great?

Acceptable. I go to see most horror movies when they're in the theater because I love the genre. You'll support it. Yeah, I'll support it. And, I mean, right now, in 30 days, you have a new Underworld movie and a new Resident Evil movie. I know. And everybody's crapping on the Bye Bye Man. I mean, those two franchises.

Well, no, I think the Resident Evil franchise is interesting. I have never seen anything from the Underworld franchise. I've only seen the first film of each. But I was talking to former guests, previous and future guest, Richard Lawson, about this last night. They did Underworld and Resident Evil movies when I was in high school. I remember when those started. They're still doing those? It's really how I feel about it.

Really? Underworld? That was semi-cool in high school. It was never that big a deal. There are six of each now or five of each? There's five Underworlds and I believe six Resident Evils. And one of the Underworlds does not have Kate Beckinsale in it, and it's called Rise of the Lycans.

It's a prequel starring Bill Nighy. It stars Bill Nighy, who's in all of them, as explaining how the vampires came to fight the werewolves. I don't know. They released that in theaters. They spent more than $1 on it. And it grossed more than the latest Underworld. Yeah, I don't know. They released that in theaters. They spent more than one dollar on it. And it grossed more than the latest Underworld.

Just like Heaven, just before we ended the DreamWorks thing. Right, and then it goes under the Paramount. It becomes part of Paramount. They signed a deal with Paramount and they have first look at Paramount. And DreamWorks is their own essentially a super-sized, like, production company. Right.

Within a studio. But Paramount is the one who, you know, DreamWorks isn't doing home video anymore. Paramount's the one using their distribution arm and their marketing team and all of that. That ends with the masterpiece film, She's Out of My League, starring Jay Baruchel.

And what's that? That's 2012? 2010. 2010. Okay. And then DreamWorks teams up with Reliance. Uh-huh. And then it's like DreamWorks can just sort of, it's just like a, yeah, it's like a production

company and they'll do some Disney movies, they'll do some Paramount movies. Well, it's mostly Disney though. Mostly Disney. That's the main thing. Reliance is the one bankrolling them. Disney is the one who's sort of housing them as a full force studio. Like they did Cowboys and

Aliens. That was universal. They did Dinner for Schmucks. That was Paramount. They'll fuck around with other. Now they're just kind of nothing. They're just sort of a brand. I think the Paramount movies they go back to are largely cases of things that were set up back in the 90s.

But then there's even shit like it's like, okay, so DreamWorks, oh my god, they have Shrek, but then they spin animation off into its own thing and then DreamWorks animation

ends up going from Paramount to Fox to now to Universal. I mean, this is a little bit inside baseball, but who's making the decisions? I mean,

how do they go from Shrek and all the other, like the Spielberg powerhouses into this, they go from Shrek and all the other, like, the Spielberg powerhouses into this, into Just Like Heaven and, what was the other one, the Jay Baruchel movie?

Hey, she's out of her league. She's out of my league. She's out of my league. The problem was, it's very hard to establish a new studio that doesn't have

a back catalog because, like, a thing that's able to keep Warner Brothers afloat is that they have the entirety of the Warner Brothers library.

Yeah, people are still buying Casablanca or whatever. Right, right. And also just sort of the licensing to TV and all those sorts of things, you know? And DreamWorks like started in 1997, you know? And it's like not a very deep library. And if they make a couple movies that are big and don't do well,

like I remember like 2003, the big deal was their highest grossing film was Old School, which made $85 million, which was respectable, but if you're a studio and that's the number one film you release. Seabiscuit was 2003, but that was a co-production, right? I don't know. I think that was Universal and DreamWorks, and Universal got more of it. I know Sinbad, they did the hand-drawn animated Sinbad, which cost $100 million and made $20. Oh.

Was it good? It's not terrible. I'd say it's not good. I don't know why they made that. Yeah. That was at the tail end. That's like the Treasure Planet year. Yes.

Where you're like, you know, it's finally like the nails in the coffin for old school kind of Disney- style animated films. It's weird that the last four years of like the death rattle of hand-drawn animated films was all studios trying to make big boys adventure movies. Yeah, making very old fashioned like adventure movies. Because it was like Atlantis. Atlantis, Lost Empire.

Treasure Planet. Rotel Dorado. Isn't that in the 90s? That movie is. That's fucking crazy. That's a weird fucking movie. I think that in the 90s? That movie is fucking crazy. That's a weird fucking movie. I think that movie is 2000 on the nugget. That movie is a homosexual romance adventure.

Correct, yeah. About two white men who ruin a nice civilization. El Dorado. Elton John sings that in the movie. El Dorado. I think he does. It's a lot of bathing together No it's movies about two nice men

Who are in love with each other We're not being flip about it They're not like unaware of it Like the two men They are lovers They're in love with each other Every night before they go to sleep they kiss each other And they go I love you so much

It's just These, they're aware. They're in love with each other. Every night before they go to sleep, they kiss each other and they go I love you so much. It's just, it's, these things, they're odd. Yes. You're right. Boys adventures. Yes. You know, very 30s. And here's another boys adventure. They were all really expensive. Tintin is a boys adventure. And it's animated, but motion captured. Yeah.

In a weird way. The final point I was going to make about DreamWorks is like, the same way they lost dreamworks animation their big thing over the last 10 years was transformers but transformers was set up in their paramount days and paramount got transformers in the divorce like spielberg's still a producer on transformers but they're not dreamworks movies anymore i think in anything other than title um so it was like, you know, too many things that were costly failures. They didn't have a back catalog to rely on. Yeah, so the wheels come off the bus. And I think you have the three major people in charge, right?

Geffen, very shortly after founding DreamWorks, kind of stopped being a guy with his hands. And the music industry is falling apart in general. And he just became sort of like an old philanthropist guy rather than a dude who wanted to get his hands dirty and be in the midst of things. Spielberg, I think, got restless running a studio and just wanted to be making movies, right? He starts making not very big hit movies.

He doesn't really want to make these things. Which is kind of an overarching thing about this miniseries that's sort of interesting is Spielberg's this non-stop hit machine with a couple weird outliers. It's like big fucking four quadrant hits. And then they were like what if Spielberg started his own studio? And everyone was like, whoa! Every movie's

a Spielberg movie? And then he's like, what if I make solemn meditations on the gray areas of human morality? That's what all these movies are about. Human morality. I can't fucking talk anymore. Okay, so he makes Tintin.

Let's get on to Tintin. Yes. Let's get on to Tintin. We've talked too much. Oh, and then Katzberg was the third leg, and he went off and started his own thing. So that's what sort of happened. He's doing fine. He's still a cutthroat businessman who just wants to make Madagascars for all.

Yeah. So the story is, Steven Spielberg is doing press overseas for Raiders of the Lost Ark. You mean for Crystal Skull. Oh, you're going all the way back. I'm not going to track it day by day. Well, you know, maybe you should. He's doing the press tour.

And he gets a Tintin? Someone says to him, like, so it seems like your film is very influenced by... You're making a Tintin movie. Herge. Right, right, right. And he goes, who the fuck is Herge? I don't know from Herge. Sure. You're making a Tintin movie. Hergé. Right, right, right. And he goes, who the fuck is Hergé? I don't know from Hergé.

Sure. And they go, Tintin, motherfucker. He goes, what are you talking about, Tintin? You stutter? I don't think he talked like that. He was very polite. That's what he talked like. No, I don't think so.

At that period of time, yeah, look it up. For a very short period of time, he was like, I don't fuck with Hergé. Spielberg's rude face. He had the world by the balls at that point. He did. Why wouldn't he talk like that? Yeah, he had the balls and the vice. And he picked up a book.

I was like, oh, this shit's good. Yeah, well, he's right. Tintin's the best. Tintin fucking rules. Tintin fucking rules. He's a little boy who's a reporter. He's like 15. He's got a thirst for adventure and a nose for a good story.

He knows when he sniffs out a good story. Yeah. He has bottomless pocketsiffs out a good story. Yeah. He has bottomless pockets, too, which is really kind of an anachronism at this point. Bottomless pockets? Well, he has no, there's no end to the money he can spend to pursue a story. Agreed, but very short pants. Plus fours. He wears plus fours.

You think about how long those pockets must be in relation to his pants, which come up just around the knee? Yes. And not only that, they're very baggy. Yes. The plus four is a baggy pant. Also, no hesitation when it comes to punching an adult, right, in his nose.

Okay, so this is the thing I love about Tintin, because we talked about... He's also, like, his hairline is receding, which is strange considering he's 15 years old. And he's got the flip.

Yeah, he's got a little tuft. Called a quiff. Yes, he's got a quiff. The Tintin quiff, though. We talked about, in our Crystal Skull episode, and inevitably we're going to have to cross-reference Crystal Skull a lot in this episode, how we think...

Which is the previous film. Yes. That Stevie Spielbeger had made. Correct. I got his name wrong. How that... The thing that I believe appeals to Harrison Ford about Indiana Jones so much is that Indiana Jones is cerebral. And he's kind of a dork in the body of an action hero.

Sure. Whereas Tintin's really just kind of a dork. Yeah. Like he's good at fighting. He's surprisingly good at like firing guns and like riding planes. But there's nothing hip about Tintin. He can shoot a plane out of the sky with a pistol. Right.

With one shot. With one bullet. Well, this is the thing I kind of love about Tintin. Nothing about Tintin is badass other than the fact that he does badass things. I totally agree. Tintin himself, especially in the earlier when RJ started writing it, he's a blank thing. You're supposed to just project yourself onto Tintin. And you talking about the fact that it's like, who's this movie for?

That's the thing that's kind of great about Tin is like tintin looks like he should just be like doing like an educational book series about like yes learning like you know human morality but instead tintin's about like fucking punching pirates yeah because that's the thing it's like the only reason the plot gets going in tintin is tintin's like something's up with this weird little uh this this old sailor bro yeah this is a good story. He doesn't have to get on the caribougeon and fight a bunch of pirates. That's the Indiana Jones thing

and I think that's the comparison is that Indiana Jones just wants shit for his museum. Indiana Jones just wants to have a nice thing for his museum and he can give a lecture on it. He's not trying to make money, he just wants to get it, put it in a crate, give it back to Marcus Brody, lock it up. Tintin is a quote, reporter, end quote. I mean, you never see him write a story. You never see him like talk to an editor. You never hear what he works for, you know, you know,

but he is famous reporter, boy reporter, Tintin. A boy reporter without parents or an editor. With a name that is not French or Belgian or anything. It's just a name that Hergé just thought sounded nice. Tintin. Tintin, yeah. And he has no last name or first name. He's like a being. Well, I think his first name's Tin and his last name's Tin. They do call him Mr. Tintin sometimes, but I don't know.

His middle name's Ricardo. I think the thing, well, here's- Tin Ricardo Tin? Yeah. There's a larger point with this that strikes me, is that when you're reading the comics, you can project yourself really well, because he's got the round face.

He's very blank. But when you watch the movie, and he's more realistic, I was going to say more realistic, but because of the motion capture animation, he looks, you can't project yourself as well. So a lot of the, you're no longer participating in the stories. You're just kind of witnessing and it doesn't have quite the same. That's a fair criticism.

The animation is maybe where some people can't get on board with the adventures of Tintin in the movie. I'll make my argument for it. That's fine. I like the animation. But Tintin, yes, Tintin is kind of a cipher as a character. You know? I mean, you don't know much about who he is,

and his personality is really just that he, like, springs headfirst into adventure. But he doesn't seem very tough, other than the fact that he just never seems shaken by anything. It's weirder watching it in a movie because reading it in a book when his face is so blank, when you're not hearing the voice. Lean clear, or whatever it's called. His very

expressive blank style. As opposed to Haddock, Calculus, Thompson Thompson who are much bigger kind of caricature-y personality driven tick driven characters. And certainly like the villains and the supporting characters and all of that. Sure. But there are a lot of those similarities

between Jones and Tintin. And Spiller picks up the Tintin book, is like, shit's fucking good, calls up Hergé, Hergé is like, Spielberg, huh, Spielberg could make a good Tintin movie. Right, because they had made cartoons in the past. And there were two live action films. And Hergé thought they were a bunch of pieces of shit. Yeah, he didn't like the live action movies. No, the live action movies are bad

and they're original stories. They're not adaptations. They're original stories with the cast that were done in France in the 70s. He didn't like them. He didn't like the animated adaptations. He gets really into the idea of Spielberg doing Tintin. He keeps on saying Spielberg is the only person, the imagination, the delicate touch, all of this.

And he sells the rights to Spielberg. you know the you know the story right what he dies oh correct like and then Spielberg is going

to Belgium to meet him meets with his widow instead and his widow's like yeah sure have the rights Spielberg was getting on a plane to go meet Hergé in Belgium

and he died the day before and then when he gets there the widow's like he would have wanted I'm reading about it now he wanted jack nicholson to play captain haddock yep that is terrible yep uh boy and who would have played

probably anthony michael hall would have played tintin god right that would have been the guy at the time sure why not in like 85 yeah yeah absolutely emilio estevez as tintin uh melissa matheson writes a draft. I mean, it kind of gets close to going. He almost makes it before Last Crusade. He doesn't. The rights lapse. Yes.

Polanski wants to make it. Claude Barry wants to make it. Claude Barry wants to make it. But the widow's like, he really wanted Spielberg. You know? And then? Spielberg kind of loops back around. And then he eventually in in the 2000s,

starts sniffing around it again. And now he's like, maybe animated. He proposes this trilogy, which is maybe I'll do The Secret of the Unicorn, Red Rackham's Treasure as one movie, you know, doing these two-parter books. The book series are... The books are kind of diptychs.

I mean... Yeah, often. There's some that are stand-alones, but the most famous ones are kind of two-parters. Then he would do the Seven Crystal Balls, Prisoners of the City, Ink and Adventure, and then maybe like Tintin and Tibet, something like that. And he's going like, do I do straight animation?

Do I do live action with some CGI? He likes the work of Weta Digital, so he reaches out to them to say, hey, think about doing Tintin. Why don't you do a test to see how a CGI Snowy would look? And Peter Jackson, who had founded Weta, intercepts that transmission and goes like,

fucking Spielberg thinks he's making a Tintin movie? I fucking love Tintin. Yeah, let's make a Tintin movie. Well, you know what Jackson does, and it's very charming. Go ahead. Without telling Spielberg, they make their test of the CGI Snowy, and Jackson dresses up as Captain Haddock and films himself as the live-action element on video saying, like, yo, Spielberg, I'm Peter Jackson.

Let me in on that 10-10. It was charming. It was really charming. It was funny because... Peter Jackson is charming. And he looked like Haddock. He really did. Yeah.

The outfit's really good, and they were filming him in a CGI background to be like, here's a photorealistic background, here's a photorealistic Snowy, here's a real Haddock. And Spielberg's like, interesting, picks up the phone, calls him. He really does look like Haddock. Looks a lot like Haddock, especially when he was in his mid-weight level.

I once was Captain Haddock for Halloween. He's not hard to do as a costume, because he, like all Tintin characters, it's a lot of big, obvious elements. He's got a big sweater, it's blue, and it has an anchor on it. He wears a blazer and a sailor's hat and a beard, and that's about it. Ben, you've been getting into fashion recently. How would you rate the style of the Tintin universe?

I loved it. It was throwback-y. It was really fun. I mean, Tintin himself, it was pretty rough. Yeah, I don't know. You mean his style? The powder blue? Yeah, I'm not into the capris.

The pants, and then he's got the little collar popped. But no, all the guys on the ships were looking real sharp. Nice jackets, cool hats. The policemen and the like city dwellers. Yeah, I was really immersed definitely in the fashion. So I think Jackson's the one who makes this big push to Spielberg. He goes like, what if we go in on this together? Right.

And they come up with this plan. What if we do like- You talking about Pete Jackson? Peter Jackson. Okay. PJ says like, you direct the first one, I produce. Then we switch. True West on Broadway style.

Right. I direct, you produce. Right. The third one, that's a freebie. We'll figure that one out later. Yeah. Maybe we do it together even with sort of floated. And then Jackson goes like, but what about motion capture?

Kind of sells him on this motion capture thing. And Spielberg gets really into this idea of like, I could never figure out whether to do live action or animated. It's a property that exists somewhere kind of in between. There's a certain heightened quality that like, if you do a live action Tintin, the French ones look really weird. And they try to use makeup to like approximate the features. It looks bizarre. I've seen staged Tintin, like their plays, and those are good, but that's different because you're in a theater. You can suspend your disbelief.

But you go into a territory where you're like, do you choose to make it Dick Tracy-esque, where you go so over the top and so heightened that it becomes the style? Or do you set it in reality, in which case you have to tone down a lot of the elements of books in order to make it look more everyday? Right. So here you go and here's the happy medium oh i you know i don't want to do an animated film i like working with actors in you know uh what you might call it mocap there's the thing they call like in the space or whatever it is the volume where you're recording with people you can actually fucking operate the camera so it's like even though I don't have the set, I have the camera here, I can figure out my shots,

I can move it around, I can do these complicated moves. Sells them on that, films it. They do it. And Jackson, I think, does a lot of the post-production kind of stuff, since he has the experience of that.

But Spielberg's the one who shoots it worst with the actors. It comes out in 2011. It is... Stephen Moffat writes a draft. Yes. Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish finish the draft because of the writer's strike. It all gets fucked up, and Moffat writes a draft. Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish finish the draft because of the writer's strike. It all gets fucked up and Moffat goes off to Doctor Who. By the time the writer's strike ends.

Three great British writers work on this adaptation of not a British work, but it's certainly a work that's incredibly popular in Britain. Much more so than in America. In America it's more of a niche property. Right, and Tintin's at the cusp of overseas box office grosses are carrying more weight.

And I think that was a big thing of like, Sony dropped out of the movie very shortly before it was to be put into production. Because Spielberg asked for his customary 30% of the gross. And they were like, this is a gambit. Tencent's not big in America. It's an overseas play, this and that. And then I think Paramount stepped up to the plate then late.

Or maybe it was Universal dropped out and Sony replaced it. Whatever the fuck it is. Whatever the fuck it is. But there was a lot of hesitation to get the movie made, and it was like, okay, it's going to work in Europe. It's going to work in Europe. And it comes out in one of the weirdest moves of all time, comes out the same fucking week as War Horse.

Spielberg decides to release two movies within three days of each other. And both wide releases, both like 3,000 screens in America. And both very similar kind of like wide appeal family movies. Yeah, Apple Dumpling Gang movies. Right, they're like very earnest, like, you know, like old-fashioned kind of dorky gang movies. Right. They're like very earnest, like, you know, like old fashioned kind of dorky family movies. I mean, Tintin makes War Horse look like Care Bears. I mean, like, you know. Yeah.

Go ahead. Right. Yeah. But he releases one on Wednesday and one on Friday and the movies kind of cannibalize each other. They both end up around 80. Yeah. You have to think that if he had released one Spielberg movie at Christmas time, one

of them would have done. Release Tintin in the summer the summer. It makes no sense to release it at Christmas. War Horse is your Christmas movie. It feels like putting a Spielberg movie like that in the Christmas weekend could do $150 million. Maybe, yeah, sure. Of course. If you had one. If you can or whatever. Right, but it felt like they

kind of candlelized each other. And this movie doesn't have much of a lasting legacy. It was shut out of Best Animated Film at the Oscars because they have a real anti-mocap prejudice. It should have been nominated. Yes. And I feel like this movie is kind of a forgotten curio.

It is. It made almost $400 million worldwide. It did do very well overseas. But yeah. They keep on talking about the sequel

and it just doesn't happen. It's in that Pacific Rim territory where it has some fans and it did well enough overseas that they'll always be like, no, maybe we'll make another one. Except they're actually doing Pacific Rim

and it's now been six years since Tintin. I'm really excited to hear that. I love Pacific Rim. You want to see Pacific Rim 2?

Hell yeah. Well, because they're big. That is true. They are big robots. Like, they nominated Puss in Boots. Bad movie. Oh.

Instead of Tintin. I said bad movie. I haven't seen it. I don't know. A Cat in Paris, which is okay. Okay. Chico and Rita, which is sexy. Yeah, that's a real sexy movie.

Kung Fu Panda 2, which is- Animated. It's gorgeous. It's a gorgeous movie. It's not good. No. But it is gorgeous. I will say. Yeah, it looks really nice. Animation-wise,

it's kind of a triumph. And then Rango wins that year, which is mo-cap. Oh. Yeah, well. Somewhat. You know. Rango's weird because they didn't technically do mo-cap. They used reference. I know. Rango's really good, though. Rango fucking rules. Rango's great. But Tintin should have been nominated as well.

Agreed. Yeah. Didn't it win a Golden Globe though? It won the Golden Globe and at least was nominated for the BAFTA for animated film but no Oscar. Got the best score nomination which Johnny Williams almost always gets nominated any year he has a movie whether or not the work's good but this is a good

score. It's a decent score. It is. I got an OBE for the score. It's not my favorite Johnny Williams score but I think it fits the movie very nicely. I think it's really good. I mean, it's like, you know, it's certainly not as good as his Indiana Jones theme, but I remember having the feeling when I sat there in the theater and the opening credits started and they were playing the song,

I was like, this feels like the musical theme to Tintin. Sure. This feels like the musical embodiment of Tintin. They nominated him for Tintin and War Horse that year, which was overkill. Yeah, that's fucking sick. But let's get into the movie proper. This movie opens with this fucking awesome opening credit sequence and a jazzy version of John Williams' theme.

And they're running through all the Tintin iconography. Right. It's a little like the Catch Me If You Can opening. Sure. But more modernized. It's the same kind of like it looks like a Saul Bass on steroids thing where it's like these abstract images that keep on morphing into different elements and it's all done in sort of silhouette.

And it all has references like all the cities Tintin has been to in his adventures and other people that have popped up in books and so on. And it uses some of the still images from the books, which I like, some of the panels. So it's like a nice little primer course of like this is basically who this guy is. The backstory is important, but just know that Tintin's getting into adventures all the time.

And here's a sense of like the legacy and the weight of who Tintin is, right? And then we transition from that into... He's getting his caricature done. Very clever, Stevie. There's a man who looks a little like Hergé and he's doing a caricature

of a young boy. Take it down a notch. It looks like Tintin from the comics. Well, here's the thing about that. That open scene with the Hergé character. They wanted to make him look like Hergé, so they did a lot more of a realistic depiction of him. And so then when they switch over to the more stylized depictions, it's really kind of jarring.

Because I was expecting more of that uncanny valley. You wanted, right. Not wanted, but you expected it to be, right. I'm trying to think of I guess kind of what Zemeckis was doing at the time right the Polar Express and Beowulf

and stuff like that more like not a cartoonish more of a like let's see if we like Final Fantasy let's see if we can try to get this

to look like a person right but that's not what Tintin's going for there's a weird balance going on where it's like something like Beowulf, it's like, okay, he certainly uses the technology to make actors look different.

Yeah, he makes Ray Winstone look like Sean Bean. Right, right. Which is weird. He could have just cast Sean Bean, buddy. Right. Anyway. He makes Hopkins and Malkovich look older. It's like he puts digital old age makeup on them.

Sure, right. But also wants to make them look like realistic versions of those guys wearing makeup. In this, they look like cartoon Tintin. They look like Hergé's Tintin. Their noses are bulbous if Hergé drew the nose bulbous. They have little eyes. It's like a mimicking of the cartoon, but it's also a real face. It's a very bizarre approach.

Well, because as you said... Has anyone done anything like this since? I'm trying to think. No, because the only thing I can think of that's similar to this is Monster House was also mo-cap and is stylized, but they don't try to make them look realistic at all. No, that's a cartoon.

Right, there's no detail in that. Like, they just look rounded and smooth, you know? This is like they tried to figure out what the actual anatomy would be of people who had those faces. Right. It's like when you see those weird things on BuzzFeed or whatever where it's like, what would The Simpsons look like if it was real? Or, you know, like Mario, what would he look like as a real person?

And the joke is that it's always like kind of upsetting and creepy. Right, right, right. I like how- Because they have a big nose. Right, no one's nose should be that round or not have nostrils or whatever. I mean, I think it's interesting. Okay, so Urge looks more similar,

and Tintin they make look more realistic, but then a lot of supporting cast, like Haddock and the bad guys and everything, you get into these things where it's like nose shapes and face shapes and all that sort of stuff that you couldn't get in real life. What I like about it is I think it's the one, it's the one mocap movie that doesn't creep

me out watching it. I know a lot of people think Tintin looks creepy. I think he looks okay. Do you think he looks creepy? I mean, the film in general, but certainly that character as well. Oh, sure. The second, the first time, like for about 20 minutes in, it minutes in, it took me about 20 minutes to get used to it. I think it was creeping me out at first, and then I eased into it.

I think that's fair. You definitely need to get used to it, especially if you like the books. You're like, oh, I didn't realize. That's how I felt the first time I saw it. I didn't get that it was going to look like this. It's also weird because, as you said, Hergé's style was known as Linclair, like clear line.

It's like this guy, simple, clear lines. And then they were like, what if we took those clear lines and gave them pores and vascular muscular systems? Right, that's the thing they've done. There's some quote. And sped it up to about 17,000 frames per second. Right, right.

It's like a very fast movie. We're making them look photorealistic, the fibers of their clothing, the pores of their skin, each individual hair. They look exactly like real people, but real Hergé people. That's what Peter Jackson says about the look they wanted. It's an odd look to aim for. It's insane.

It's an insane gambit, and it's nonsensical. What I like about it, and I'm not going to give him credit and say that this was like an intentional meta textual thing, but this is how it ends up working for me, is I feel like this film totally owns the fact that it exists in the Uncanny Valley. Like they're like, we're trying to

encapsulate Uncanny Valley that is the world that the comic books exist in. Where it's like on one hand the Tintin books are like very banal, they take place on like very basic looking like European streets right people playing it's set in quote unquote Belgium wearing like normal clothes and then like crazy things happen and you have like ghosts and spirits and like spaceships and shit like that and I think this movie is like we talked about in our Crystal Skull episode how there's the thing where it's like Spielberg's really good at compositing CGI elements into live action films and really bad at compositing live action elements into predominantly CGI environments.

And this is like, this movie was going to get caught in that if he tried to make it live action. He didn't. He didn't. Yeah. Yeah. If he tried to make it cartoony, I think it'd feel too weightless. Let's talk about the plot of Tintin. I feel like we're getting bogged down in a discussion we've already had. He's living in the middle. Yeah. Let's talk about the plot of Tintin. I feel like we're getting bogged down in discussion

we've already had. He's living in the middle. Okay, alright. Tintin. Tintin. Okay, so Tintin's walking around the open market. Everyone knows him. He's Tintin. They love his bylines. He's a good fucking reporter. And he's a little boy. He's a teenager.

And then he sees a beautiful wooden ship. A model ship. He's a teenager. Yeah. Yeah. And then he sees a beautiful wooden ship, a model ship. He's excited. 50 guns. Yeah. Man o' war. I don't know. He says a bunch of stuff like that.

Oh, but here's the thing that's already happened at this point. Spielberg sets up some fucking gestures. We see this dude with spats on his shoes, rocking back and forth on his heels. We see his hands, his fingers flexing. Ooh, Spielberg making us pay attention to something. What's that? Where's that going? Right? Sure. So Simon Tana's thing is going on.

One is, here's this pickpocket. Now we know how to recognize him. We know what he does with his hands. We know what he does with his feet. And here's Tintin, he's just shopping around, right? Uh-huh. And it almost just feels like a Spielberg affectation. Oh, just, oh, little details.

Oh, what are little side stories going on here? Tintin sees the ship. He loves it. He asks the guy how much it costs. Buys it. Immediately, this sweaty guy comes up to him, who's the first guy we see in the movie who's got, like, crazy Hergé face. Sure.

Right? And he's like, how much do you want? Let me buy it from you. Kid, kid, I'm trying to help you. Right. And Tintin's like, I'm a kid. I bought a boat. Leave me be.

And then fucking Daniel Craig comes in with a point, I bought a boat, leave me be. And then, fucking, Daniel Craig comes in with a pointy beard and he is Sakharin. Sakharin, played by Daniel Craig, not a major character in the book that they're adapting at all. A minor character. Very minor. He's the same character at the start, which is like,

oh, let me have this ship. Yeah. And Tintin's like, no thanks. And he's like, damn it. That's kind of the last year. I mean, he's just an antique collector. That's it. Yeah. He looks like a bad guy, but that's about it. He does, because he has like a devil goatee and mustache. And like the pointiest nose in history.

And Daniel Craig is like fucking chewing that ham. Like chewing it back and forth, kicking it around in his jaw. Sakaran, of course, you know, one of the legendary screen villains. Probably one of the most iconic bad guys in the history of cinema. I see what you're doing here. I see what you're doing here. You're flipping it.

Kids fucking love Sakuran. Look, it's odd. It's odd that this is what they went for in this movie. Like, Tintin has a lot of cool villains. Yeah. A lot of cool villains. A lot of cool villains.

Yeah. Not a lot of villains like this. He's kind of a Belloc. What? Belloc from Raiders of the Lost Ark. For how awesome that movie is and how high the stakes are, that villain doesn't

ever seem to be that big of a thing. It's just like, oh, here's another stuffed shirt. Who's representing, like, he's financing the thing that's actually the threat to Indiana Jones. My problem with Sacherin, and I enjoy Daniel Craig at all times. I think he's lovely. I think, yeah, I like his voice a lot. I think Tintin doesn't really have a lot of villains like that who are like, it'll be mine. I'll kill you.

His motivations are shaky at best. Sure. Is that he's the descendant of the dread pirate Red Rackham. Well, and that's the point. This movie. Which they invent. But I mean, that doesn't even bother me. I don't really get like why he cares so much.

Sure. You know, I don't know. I mean, Tintin has no emotional arc in this movie. This movie, the emotional story of this movie is Haddock. Right. And Sakharin functions as a foil, you know? Yes, to draw out the best in Haddock. And Haddock is someone who feels like he has collapsed under the weight of his family's reputation.

And Sakharin is someone who has been entirely motivated and empowered by feeling the need to uphold his family's legacy. Yeah. Sakharin comes, wants the ship. Wants that ship. Some funny stuff with the guy, because Sakharin's like, name your price. Yeah, the guy's like, oh, I've been in business for 50 years. I've missed name your price by four minutes. Tintin's like, I'm sorry, I want this ship.

I like tchotchkes. This is already a thing. Like, I'm in this movie, like, already. I love Tintin. like, I'm sorry, I want this ship. I like tchotchkes. This is already a thing. Like, I'm in this movie, like, already. I love Tintin. My mom's French. Grew up reading Tintin books, right? She would read them to me. So I, like, love these characters.

I'm excited to see them on screen. But now I'm watching Tintin, and it's like, oh, man, Tintin's first stance in the movie is that he doesn't want to sell a toy he bought at a market. This is my kind of character. Boy, oh, boy. Name your price. Great. $100,000. Yeah. Let's do it. Have the, oh boy. Name your price. Great. $100,000.

Yeah. Let's do it. Have the boat right now. Wrap it up. And Tintin and the $100,000. Yeah, exactly. And he goes home and he's like, how will I spend this? Let's have an adventure.

Yeah. He doesn't care about money, though, as you pointed out, Joe. He's not, there's never any worry about like, ah, shit, how am I going to make men's meat this month? Look, you could make a list of the things that Tintin doesn't care about, and it would be longer than the list of things that Tintin does care about. Money, women, power, politics. No interest.

He's not going to school. Nope, education doesn't matter. He likes stories, a good fucking newspaper story. About adventures. And he likes adventure. He likes adventure. It's unquenchable, his thirst for adventure. That's all he likes, unquenchable.

Unquenchable. Unquenchable. I can't fucking do it. I was going to try it again, but I don't want to belly flop again. He goes home and is playing with the thing. The mask comes out. Ooh, discovery. Little silver thing rolls out. Yeah, but only Snowy sees that.

Only Snowy sees it. Now, this is the thing I love about this movie. Okay. Now, I want to be clear. I've seen this movie twice. Saw it in theaters, and then I watched it again just now. Okay. You've seen this movie. Okay. Now, I want to be clear. I've seen this movie twice. Saw it in theaters, and then I watched it again just now. Okay.

You've seen this movie, how many times? Probably like 45 times. Yeah, you've seen this movie, you're like an obsessive about this movie. Yeah, I really like this movie. It's one of those movies, and I have them too,

that you just put it on, and it chills you out, and it's like, you know it very well, so it's just sort of fun to see all the beats. Joe, how many times have you seen this motherfucker?

Twice. Twice. You're like me. And I wish I had actually seen it in the theater because so much happens. Well, we'll get to the action scenes later. I think I saw it in 3D. Because good use of 3D in this book. It's got pretty cool 3D.

I don't remember my theatrical experience much apart from that. I think I had a fine time. I can remember mine. I went to an early screening of it with my father who did not grow up with tintin and would leave the room when my mom read tintin books to me and i sat there with my father it was i don't fucking kiss some kid in a sweater what am i paying attention to not knowing that someday his son would grow up to become some kid in a sweater it's true yeah i'm i mean, I feel like I've modeled a lot of my life after Tintin, like unconsciously.

Um, but, uh, I sat there watching with my dad. My dad got like invited to this Tintin screening and was like, Hey, you like Tintin, right? Do you want to go see Tintin with me? And I was like, fuck yeah, I want to go see Tintin with you. Went and saw it. I just sat next to my father and I was like pumping my fist. We were in this tiny screening room that was like maybe 20 people in total. And it was like all like business people.

And like no one was excited. And I was there going like, fucking Tintin. Everyone else was just sitting there stuck. And my dad was like, what the fuck is this shit? Like, who cares? Yeah, he didn't know that this was like people were going to be into this. Yeah, it's for nerds. But yes, what I like about this movie a lot, I mean, I, as you pointed out,

yes, I do know every micro detail of this movie and I've tracked all the like minor, like, cause you're, you're like, oh, here's an element I love in the scene where the mask breaks and I'm like, what? Well, but this is a thing I like about this movie, right? Spielberg's a details guy and we talk about him being like a setup payoff guy, right? And a lot of that is how he uses the camera and editing and how he uses camera moves, motivated camera moves to draw your attention to things. I love it. Underline things, right?

This movie is Spielberg being like, what if a camera could do fucking anything? That's what I love about this movie. What if you made a Steadicam movie... What if I give you a 15 minute unbroken action shot that doesn't feel even like it's rubbing it in your face? And the Steadicam operator was Superman.

Right. Yeah, exactly. And you could go anywhere at any point. So there's just shit like the mass breaking and the silver thing falling out where like, I feel like Beowulf would go into the territory of just like, the camera can do anything and it would just feel crazy and it would just feel like you're like zooming around. Sure. In this, it feels like Spielberg's very grounded and like, it is a camera.

I'm just acting like it's a magic camera that can change sizes and move in any direction. Yeah. So there's shit like the silver mask falling out, which he's able to track as, like, one camera move. You know? That's a fair point. Underneath a cabinet where a camera could never fit without having to build a whole set for that. Right. And why would you bother?

And you get the dog's POV. Yeah. And without Snowy having to, like, fucking emote in a human way you see what Snowy sees and that he knows it's there and you set up that element which

really quick aside in the books Snowy does emote in a human way Snowy talks Snowy has thought bubbles he communicates with Tintin

and in the movie he does although it's sort of like odd like Tintin doesn't I don't know he can't communicate with people

but he can talk to Tintin but you never can get if like Tintin totally knows what he's saying or if Tintin's more just sort of like, good job, Snowy. Because that's the Garfield. They don't have conversations. In Garfield, where they were like, hey, Snowy, how was your day? They never do that.

But with Garfield, there's that thing where like, okay, Garfield's in thought bubbles. But sometimes it feels like what John Arbuckle's saying is responding. And sometimes it's just like maybe they're on parallel tracks. it feels like what John Arbuckle is saying is responding and sometimes it's just like maybe they're on parallel tracks. They wisely as in most adaptations of Tintin shows to make him non-verbal.

But he's a smart dog. And you get a lot out of him. This guy is expressive. What do you think of Snowy Joe? I like the Snowy. I like Snowy in the comics. I like Snowy this adaptation. Another quick aside regarding Snowy. Carol Kolby in the comics. I like Snowy in this adaptation. Another quick aside regarding Snowy. Carol Kolb, who was the former editor of The Onion,

she was a huge Tintin fan, still is, and she loved Snowy and Tintin so much she got a dog. Same breed, almost identical to Snowy, and it's named Dummy. In her Hergé homage. I've met Dummy a number of times. I didn't know that was his backstory. Interesting.

Good dog. I just want to say something about Snowy. Sure. Snowy's my least favorite part of the movie. I don't love Snowy. I love because I love Snowy, like the dog. Right, because Snowy's one of my four or five best friends. So if you could just go on and tread carefully.

But I mean, for some reason, I don't mind it. but I guess it's maybe it's that he's not mocap. He's just an animated. He's straight animated. Yes. For some reason, he just he's not quite right for Snowy to me. But maybe whatever. He's not my Snowy. He's fine.

Sure. He's not my favorite part of the movie. I mean, I can see him very suspicious. No, I'm trying. OK, I'm trying to put a case together like Tinson. I'm gathering clues for my story. I'll file at the part of the movie. I mean, I can see it. You seem very suspicious. I don't know. I'm trying to, okay, I'm trying to put a case together. Like, Tinson, I'm gathering clues for my story I'll file at the end of this episode. Well, let me go, let me back him up in as far as, he doesn't, like, in the book, because he actually has things, he has a personality.

Right, he has sort of a stream of consciousness, yeah. He's not as defined of a, he's not a defined character. He's just, I mean, he's a dog. He's more of a helpful dog. Yeah. Whatever. Like, Snowy's a little more of an ironic commentator in the book.

Uh-huh. And he has more of a personality. He has weaknesses. He likes bones. And he likes alcohol. He likes alcohol, which they probably wisely don't really get into. No, they do.

In the plane, he actually slurps up some of the- Oh, that's right. That's true. That's right. That's the one time he- A little tip of the cap. He competes with Haddock, yeah. Yeah. But otherwise, yeah, in the Oh, that's right. That's true. That's right. That's the one time he competes with Haddock. But otherwise, yeah, in the movie he's fine. He's a good dog.

He's a good dog. He's a good dog. I think he's a good dog. I'd love to have him on my side in any adventure. Hey, I don't want to be against you. I like his sequence early in the movie where he chases Tintin. Fun chase. I think it's a good chase. I just, whatever. Maybe Snowy's just not quite what I imagined Snowy to be.

That's all. He's fine. He's good. Yeah. He's okay. That's fair. Just remember he is one of my four or five best friends. Who are the others?

My best friends? Yeah. Woody the Cowboy. Jerry Maguire. Okay. I'm going to guess. Yeah. Robocop.

Robocop's one of my four or five best friends. Yeah. He's a little stiff, that guy. Yeah, but he gets the job done. He's got a good heart. At the end of the day, deep done. He's got a good heart. At the end of the day, deep down, he's got a good heart.

And then, my fifth best friend is you. Oh, that's nice. We are the two friends. We're the two friends. Okay.

So, you love how the camera can like, fuck around with this. Right, you can draw your attention. Jumping behind the desk and all that.

Yes, and make it all dynamic. But this is, they've got this silver capsule. People break in. They steal the thing. They steal the boat, but they don't get the capsule. It's slipped behind the desk. While Tintin's out investigating.

Tintin is intrigued. Yeah, rather than reacting with like, fuck, my apartment got ransacked. He's like, no, this means that boat, that boat, though. That's a good boat. Hey, also, this kid has a way nicer apartment than I do. Or ever have. Belgium in the 30s, you could do pretty well on a reporter's salary.

Yeah, but see, Ben, you have a lot of vices and interests. That's the thing. Tintin just doesn't waste any time chasing ladies. That's true. Going out, studying fashion. You know, Tintin's like, stories, adventures, done. That's how he gets his rent. Sure.

And he likes books. He likes books. They make a point of that in the comic, when they ransack his apartment. He's mad because one of his books is ruined. He likes books. He's a reader. He's got a landlady. Mrs.

What's her name? Landlady? She has, like, a name. Oh,ady. Mrs. What's her name? Landlady? She has like a name. Mrs. Finch. Right. Who is very used to all these antics. You know, when someone gets knocked out on her front door, she's like, huh. This again.

Once again. Around this time they set up the Thompson Thompson thing where they are two identical detectives. Although they are not related because one is with a P and one's without. Uh-huh. Played by Nick Frost and Simon Pegg and very clever casting. Agreed.

And they're looking for a pickpocket. They are? The pickpocket we saw from the beginning of the film. Mr. Silk. We now can recognize through gesture. Sure. Played by Toby Jones. Mm-hmm.

Who I always thought would make a good Professor Calculus. Maybe. I always imagined Calculus. Maybe. I always imagined Calculus as French. I mean, of course, all the characters are technically supposed to be Belgian or whatever, but I always actually imagined Calculus as a European. Not a Brit. Well, so then hire Ewan McGregor.

Oh, sure. Yeah. Right. You know what? It'll have come out, I think, by the time we release this episode, but Beauty and the Beast looks like dog shit. That's what it looks like. It looks like a piece of shit. But don't you think most of the time- I'm willing to be wrong.

Right. Because I feel like- Prove me wrong. You were saying the same thing about Jungle Book last year. Jungle Book was okay. I don't think that movie's great either. Yeah. But you were very against it before it came out,

and then you saw it and you were like, surprisingly functional. I saw it and I was like, oh yeah, it works. It works. Although I'll admit a week later I was like, there was a Jungle Book? Like, Jon Favreau made a Jungle Book movie? I had no idea. Like, it did vanish from memory. Sure.

Whereas I tweeted about how excited I was to masturbate to the Jungle Book, and then Saul was a little underwhelmed. You got, like, half-masked, and you're like, you know what? This isn't good. Yeah, I got a semi. half-masked and you're like, you know what, this isn't good. Yeah, I got a semi. But Beauty and the Jungle Book, at least, you're like, okay.

You know, animals, like, this is something where I could there's some reason to do this. In live action, sure. Beauty and the Beast, I'm looking at the trailer, I'm like, you just made Beauty and the Beast, the cartoon, that is good. You just did it again. You did the exact same thing, except it's live

action. Like, it looks like the exact same thing except it's live action. Like it looks like the exact same fucking thing but worse. My dad and I were watching TV and the ad for the new Beauty and the Beast came on and he went so is that based off

the Broadway show? Oh God. Your dad's weird. He's like a troll. I mean yes by association.

No it's not. It's based on the cartoon. What kind of question is that? It's like seeing Shrek 5 and being like, is that the Broadway musical Shrek? Is that based on Shrek the Musical? It's like,

well, in the sense that it, yes, that Shrek the Musical is based on Shrek and this is the fifth Shrek. Yeah. I don't know. Do you disagree with me

that Beauty and the Beast looks like a sack of crap? I mean, you look at like the animation of the cups in the cartoon and then you look at the live action where they're like, we put a face on a cup. I mean, you look at the animation of the cups in the cartoon, and then you look at the live action where they're like, we put a face on a cup. I don't know. I didn't think too

hard about this. This is the one point where I disagree with you. We put a face on a clock. By the time this episode comes out, the movie will be already released. It'll have made a billion dollars, and everyone will already have their opinion on it. Sure. I think the movie doesn't look good. I like the design of it a lot more than you do. I don't mind the design

of a lot of it. I just, for some reason, the, you know, the Cogsworth and the Lumiere, all those, those don't,

those aren't popular for me. Yeah, see, I think I like the way Lumiere and Cogsworth look. I'm really against the fact they didn't hire Jean Dujardin to play Lumiere

because that guy is a fucking human French candle. It's true. That's the one part he's designed to play. He is a French candle. You want a goddamn Oscar, let him play a Lumiere. He shouldn't have won an Oscar.

He shouldn't have. They should have saved it so they could give him best supporting act for playing Lumiere. Ewan McGregor is playing Lumiere. Yeah. That's just weird. I know that, and yet every time I say it, I'm like, wait, really? You're sure? He's not playing the clock?

Yeah, and he said they offered him the part, and he was like, oh, my wife is French. I probably can do a good French accent. They brought him in, and his French accent was terrible. By his own admission, they had to re-dub and re-shoot all of his shit. Huh. Because he was like, yeah, it was much harder than I thought. I had to, like, two goes at that. Why? Why him? Maybe make a sequel to the movie, Why Him?

But this time it's about Disney casting Ewan McGregor in the live action Beauty and the Beast. One more thing. This is on the record. I want this on the record because we're doing on the record right now. Because the movie will come out. I think Luke Evans looks great as Gaston and I'm excited for the Gaston scene. And he can sing. He's a good singer.

So, on the record. I hope he lived up to it. One more thing on the record. By the time this episode comes out, I assume they will have already announced at Greenlit a sequel to Why Him. Yeah, of course. About Ewan McGregor. Yeah. And Bill Condon. Yes.

And then also the sequel, How Her? What's that one about? It's about James Franco's parents meeting Zoe Dutch. Good. How Her? It made money. By him. Yeah.

Made like $70 million. Yeah, it's like made like 20 more than like fences. It's made like 100 more than silence. Yeah. Topical things people will want to hear

in May. Sorry, sorry, sorry. All right, what happens in the rest of Tintin? He goes on an adventure. Yeah. Joe's looking at his watch. No, no, no.

I'm looking at my fingernail because a little pain in my finger. No, carry on. Do you buy your adventure. Joe's looking at his watch. No, no, no. I'm looking at my fingernail because a little pain in my finger. No, carry on. Do you bite your nails, Joe? I do bite my nails. I'm a regular biter. I'm a nail biter. Do you fuck with the cuticles or just the nail itself? I fuck with the cuticles. I go down and then I guess I kind of like

fidget with the cuticles. I don't bite the cuticles. If I can help it. I'm worse. I bite the cuticles. My dad, who's getting a lot of air time in this episode, like picks at the cuticles only. It's gross. He's got bloody hands, he hates Tintin, and he thinks Beauty and the Beast is based off the Broadway show. What an asshole.

This is kind of like therapy for you in a way, isn't it? That's all this is. I love you, Papa. Talking about his jerking off to the Jungle Book and his best friend Snowy. I didn't. I was talking about wanting to jerk off to the Jungle Book. I didn't do it. All right, so Tintin, he smells adventure, and sure enough, adventure is on the way

because a guy gets shot in his doorstep and says you should go to the caribougeon. He's got his blood on his hands and he hits the thing in the newspaper. It's not very much blood, though. I mean, that guy got shot. Just enough. Yeah, like so much.

Just enough to figure some letters. What, you think he should just like explode? Like blood should just fly everywhere? Yeah, he should just have guts hanging out. I mean, come on. It's a Nickelodeon movie. They did have people getting eaten by sharks. It was not gruesome, but it was frightening.

That's true. That's true, they're getting eaten by sharks. You get bit by a shark, that water's going to get red. And is there- Well, it's very dark in that scene, Ben. Not red. Is there a children's movie that is more centered

around alcoholism than The Adventures of Tintin? I don't know. It actually made me feel a little self-conscious. Yeah, you saw some of yourself in Haddock? I did.

Yeah, you know. He's got a problem. And it's not just that he wants alcohol, it's like a self-worth thing. That's what I like about it. It's not just a cartoon alcoholic problem.

Go ahead, Ben. Well, I was going to say, it's like the memory thing, you know? Yes. Right, right. Yes, yes. It made me, I was on one hand feeling nostalgic for this kind of story, but then I'm also like, but what was my childhood like? I don't remember.

No, Ben, I think you had a backwood baseball cap and a slingshot, and you rode around on a skateboard, and you shot firecrackers into, like, police stations or whatever the fucking sane shit you did. All you have to do is drink a bunch of whiskey, and then you can magically remember four generations past in your lineage. Well, excuse me, you have to be in the desert. Oh, that's true.

So Tintin gets on the caribougeon. Because the blood tells him. That would have taken a lot longer than any other clue he could have given, because that means he's like perpetually pointing, like poking his wound to get it. Hey, it's a long name. And then the other thing is he has to find the appropriate letters in the right order. Right. Because Tintin isn't going to do like a fucking word jumble to be like, okay, cariboujian.

Like that could end up being like four more obvious things. Right. Because Tintin isn't going to do like a fucking word jumble to be like, okay, cariboujant. Like that could end up being like four more obvious things. Right. I mean, it's an Armenian word and it's not like that's a normal, that's not Tintin. Belgian is his language. Right. Well, French, let's be fair. French, right. I apologize.

Flemish, but I don't believe so. I don't think so either. Yeah, no, no, you're right. It's not a word that trips off the tongue, cariboujant. Cariboujant. But he finds it nonetheless. It's a a word that trips off the tongue, cariboujian. Cariboujian. But he finds it nonetheless. It's a boat. He leaves Snowy at home.

He's like, let me get on this boat. But then he gets kidnapped, right? Oh, yes, yes. He gets kidnapped right away by Alan. Delivery for Mr. Tintin. I didn't order anything. No, the delivery is you. Yeah, he takes his time with it.

He gets kidnapped by Alan, who's not in is you. Yeah, he takes his time with it. Chloroform. Yeah. He gets kidnapped by Alan, who's not in these books. He is. No, but he's not in the unicorn. He's in the crab with the golden claws. Right. Which this movie incorporates a lot of golden claw stuff, because that's the haddock origin meeting. Exactly.

And he's in other stuff, too. Yeah, he's a classic. He was in She's Out of My League. He was in She's Out of My League. He was in She's Out of My League. He was in Just Like Heaven. He's a DreamWorks repertory player. Yeah, he's played by Daniel Mays, who's like a Mike Lee guy. I love that it's all these Brits, you know, all these sort of like C-list Brits.

It's great. Pointy nose and a great coat. If only David Thewlis was in it. Good hat, too. That would have been. Yeah, Thewlis should have shown up. I feel like Thewlis could be a good calculus, too. Thewlis could be a good Calculus too. Thule could be a good, you know, Sakarin.

Yes. I think Daniel Craig is good, just to be clear. Yeah, I think he's really fun in this. It's just, I guess it's just an odd character. I just want more from the villain. I want the villain to really pop. Or to do more of a classic Tintin where it's like, there's not really a big villain. It's just like the gears of drug smuggling

or, you know, it's just Tintin's just going up against, like, you know, vice. Or the villain is actually revealed in six very text-dense panels in a row where it's like,

and then it was because we were interested in this that we sent, and it's just that you're like, oh, that makes sense. That are all the interior monologue of a dog. Tintin ex machina,

pretty much, is how they all end. Tintin was kind of the original A Dog's Purpose. All right, so that'll come out too, but I just saw a trailer for that. That's the dog keeps getting reincarnated? So we have to see the dog die over and over again? Yeah, they were like, what if Marley and me happen six times? The fuck is that?

And is the dog always called Bailey or whatever the hell it is? Yeah, and every time the dog dies you're like maybe a new voice oh no it stole Josh Gad oh it's Josh Gad it's all of the dogs

you'd have to I'm a film critic and you'd have to pay me a hundred thousand dollars to see that movie I swear to god I wouldn't do it I would never

if you put a gun in me the one thing that makes me you'd have to shoot me with a gun the one thing that makes me cry is watching a dog get injured in a movie yeah right

he was injured there was a get injured in a movie. Yeah, right. He was injured. There was a dog injured in a VHS viral and I almost lost it. VHS viral? Sorry. Is that the third VHS? It is the third.

I don't think I saw that one. I saw VHS 2. It was not very good. It was called SVHS. They said it was going to be, but then they retitled it. I was really into it being called SVHS. I really want to

shout out to... Should they do a Betamax? They should do DVD. Oh, DVD? That's a little crap. Laser disc. But no, there was a movie too with... Hit clips. Real player. There was an 80s movie. I saw one scene in which

the dog, a dog dies. I was flipping through channels. I saw a dog die. I had no dog dies I just like I was flipping through channels I saw a dog die I had no context for it and I just lost it it's tough with a dog dying yeah I will never see this Josh Gad film

never never never he's also in Beauty and the Beast I'll never see that film either because Josh Gad has ruined that for me as well because let's say you're a big Angry Birds fan and his casting as Yellow

really pissed you off he's in the Angry Birds movie? Yeah. If a guy like that hits gold and comes up with one iconic voice acted character that's going down in the annals of animation history, like one of the most merchandised characters. You mean that fucking snowman? Yeah, but whether or not you love it. What's his name again? Like Claude or something?

You don't know what it is. Olaf! You know what I'm saying? He's very iconic. Yeah, sure. You'd think he'd be like, great, I got my one. Don't keep tapping that vein. It's funny, though. I agree with you. It's funny how all the kids I know who are into Frozen, they're all fucking into Frozen. Kids fucking love Frozen.

They like the girls. They don't like the snowman or the boys or the moose. All their iconography that they have, all their plates and bibs and cups are the princesses. Should I watch Frozen, guys? Yeah, sure. Why not? Do you want to build a snowman?

Yeah. Okay, then it sounds like you want to watch Frozen. Oh, it's about snowmen. Well, there are snowmen involved. I thought it was about death. Well, every Disney movie is a little bit about death. It's kind of about learning to accept yourself for who you are, much like any Disney movie.

Yeah. Right? I don't know. Well, back on subject, Snowy in this movie does the opposite of dying. He survives. Thank God. They kidnap Tintin, but he's on the case, and he goes on a daring chase, and he makes his own way.

And it's a great example of Spielberg having the great untethered camera. Yeah, this is one of, I guess, like three or four action sequences in the film where halfway through you're like, you sort of, it finally dawns and you're like, right, the camera's not cutting. Yeah. And it's doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Like, yeah, like you say. It's like tracking along the top of a fire truck.

And then it like, when the jumps over to a different truck, you jump over with it. Right. I feel like the movie does a good job in very subtle ways of approximating a human hand behind the camera. Right. Without feeling an over-embellishment, there are little shakes. And when they're on a boat, the camera shifts a little bit in a way that isn't overly heightened. But it's like, oh, if there were a real camera operator here the boat would be shifting and that stuff

um this is an advanced version of what George Lucas was doing you know this is the kind of shit George Lucas is playing around with 100% you know not in as good a way and the Wachowskis are playing around with well and the Spielberg thing in the Matrix yes the Lucas thing was like I want to control every element of a movie

I want to have a movie where I have complete control over it and also I don't fucking, actors drive me crazy, right? Sure. And this movie feels like the opposite where it's like, Spielberg having complete control where he can design

every single element but he doesn't go over the top. The movie moves fast but it's not like insane in the way that Revenge of the Sith is. No. And it's also very performance based.

Like it's a movie that like, is people like giving these great, like, grand theatrical performances. You love this movie. I do. But then there are also fucking things like when they're trying to, Thompson and Thompson are chasing after the pickpocket,

and he, like, runs into the woman, and then they pan over to him, and there are the birds flying around his head. Yeah, right, that's good. Oh, that's the Looney Tunes thing, and it's like, oh, no, then there's a guy with a cage. The guy comes with the net, and he sort of scoops them up very quietly. I love that.

No, that's, like, such a Spielberg detail, and if he did that in live action, A, it would be impossible, or B, it'd be CGI birds, and he'd be like, oh, fuck you. You'd think this is too cute even for Spielberg. Right, but he can get away with those cute things, or, like, once they're on the ship, the cariboujean, there's the thing where they're going in, they're sneaking into the stocks to try to find the keys. And when he goes in, the boat is shifting back and forth, and there are rows of all these bunk beds, and all the sailors are shifting with him.

That stuff's fucking cool. Love that stuff. How do you feel about this stuff? I like it, but that's where it would have been helpful to see it on the big screen, because when I'm watching it on my, I admit, the pedestrian 28-inch television. Ain't nothing wrong with 28. No, it's fine. But it's a gentleman's TV size. Yeah, exactly.

For a nice compact area. But you don't get the whole sense of the room at all. So it would have been great if I'd seen it in the theater it was a great scene it's like really builds up a lot of nice tension yeah that scene is good because it's like you know Haddock sets the stakes so we should he gets on the caribouge and he finds Captain Haddock

who's this drunkard who's technically like the captain but he's just like a drunkard he thinks that he's locked into a room he's not even locked in the room and so Haddock wants to get the keys to the booze. And Haddock says, like, okay, well, be careful. Don't wake any of these guys up. And he keeps being like, that guy, for example, he'll do this and like that.

Animal husbandry. And so we've got the thing of like, oh, Tintin needs to be quiet, right? And then the boat's rocking around. They're all falling onto each other. None of them are waking up. Like, it's a funny little subversion of a set piece we might have seen many times they're like right creeping around set piece except yeah no it's not it's a and you get into this thing like we talk it's like a fun house you know in the crystal skull episode

like i was talking about what i don't like about the the uh sword fighting sequence where mullet williams is like standing between the two moving vehicles and it's just like it feels so ungrounded because the actors feel so disconnected so this is your point vehicles. And it's just like, it feels so ungrounded because the actors feel so disconnected. So this is your point, and I think it's a fair point. It's like, you're saying, with this, he's getting to do some of the tricks he's trying to pull in Crystal Skull. They don't work in Crystal Skull

because it's an uncanny valley in and of itself. Our eyes see and we do not believe. Yes. And in this, we're like, oh, we get it. This is fake, so we can be, you know, this is a cartoon. Right. So now we can accept these things. And it's just about having a cohesive reality.

Like, Wizard of Oz looks fake as shit, but it's heightened and stylized, and you accept the real actors in front of those real sets and the stakes feel real to you, even though they don't feel like actual danger. You know about the Wizard of Oz, though? What? Never on a Lloyd team. Never on a Lloyd team. Yes.

Love that callback. This is your first time making that joke and David I'd like to grant you 100 comedy points. Oh my god it was delightful. Oh boy. But this is an example of a movie where they can get away. He loves this movie doesn't he? He does. I love it. I love

watching him love it I do too it's like I didn't I'm surprised I was not sure if I was going to get this much passion out of this discussion but I should have

known better from Griffin I'm giving you the honor as long as you like a movie it's fun talking that movie with someone who knows it inside out yeah now if I did not like Tintin

I might be like Jesus Christ every scene's a masterpiece with you guys come on like Jesus he's just getting the fucking keys it's not like Tintin, I might be like, Jesus Christ, every scene's a masterpiece with you guys? Come on, like, Jesus. He's just getting the fucking keys. It's not like, you know,

Jacques Demy or whatever. It's like a sparkling wine. Uh-huh. You know? Light, refreshing. Yeah, and like fun, but it's got an air of sophistication to it, you know? Gives you a bit of a headache if you look at it too long? Sure. It's a little creepy.

My dad's not a fan. It mimics gunshots in the Tintin film. Yes. But all those sort of things. It's like all these kind of cute Spielberg moments that he's able to earn by the movie's sort of general kind of charmed tone of whimsy and the fact

that he makes it like a visually cohesive universe. Yeah. Tintin and Haddock that he makes it like a visually cohesive universe. Tintin and Haddock, he has to get the keys, and then, this is a major setup point, risks his life, seemingly, to go in this room and steal the keys away, and then, because they have to go in the closet and get some supplies, they go in, what's the closet full of? Booze. Booze? Haddock only cares about booze. All he likes is booze.

He put this young reporter at risk for booze. And immediately, ooh, here's the push and pull of Haddock and Tintin. Haddock, just a drunk. That's all he cares about is a drunk. He's got a chip on his shoulder, right? I think he wants to prove people wrong. Right, but he is a drunk. First and foremost.

He's self-loathing. He's making up for it. He's compensating it with the bottle. And Tintin is a young boy of endless empathy but doesn't particularly care for Haddock

but he needs Haddock because he can tell that Haddock's part of this bigger story somehow and that it's connected to the legacy of his family. Yes,

but I think also Tintin, he's, you know, he's like a pain-in-the-ass friend who wants to, like, help you out.

You know what I mean? Like, he loves a project. Haddock's like a fun in the ass friend who wants to help you out. You know what I mean? He loves a project. Haddock's like a fun project for him. Only Tintin could look at this man and think, I can get this guy off the sauce. Anyone else just looks at Haddock and is like, oh, he's a desolate drunk. All I'm going to do with this guy is either ignore him or manipulate him. But he gazes longingly into Haddock's little beady eyes and goes, I can fix him. But he doesn't do it for any other reason besides the fact he wants to further his story.

Sure. He doesn't do it because of his love of Haddock. No. At that point. I think the love develops. Yeah. Yeah, it does. And Haddock definitely drives Tintin up the wall.

And they have one moment where Tintin's, you know, kind of belief in him shatters. Yeah, which I think is well played. I do too, because it's not too big a deal. And they get right back together. It's not like they split apart for shatters. Yeah, which I think is well played. I do too because it's not too big a deal. And they get right back together. It's not like they split apart for a while. Yeah. But yeah, Tintin's on board. Right. So Tintin and Haddock escape. They get out in a little lifeboat. Yeah, there's a whole

crazy fucking fight scene with guns going everywhere. They're running up and down stairs. Go ahead, Joe. Good use of the camera there because you never know. I mean, it follows him on multiple decks, but you never feel like it's doing anything impossible. Yes. This movie also, I think it has

really, really good cinematic geography. You know? Yes, except for later in the film, the crane scene at the end, I thought was... It gets a little wacky. Yeah, well, the crane scene I don't like. You can tell that he's not taking shortcuts

and the boat is built fully within that computer. And when you're tracking through these rooms, it's like... Every room makes sense. The layout is totally well realized. Which is... That's very true to Hint Hint Hint. Pro ship.

He was obsessed with... Pro ship. Very pro ship. It's not a Smith ship. No. Let's be clear. It's obsessed with... Pro ship. Very pro ship. It's not a Smith ship. No. Let's be clear. It's the caribougeon. Yeah.

Jimmy Smith would be a good professor calculus. Oh, baby. I mean, you're just sort of naming actors in their 40s and 50s who are good. Smith has got to be in his 60s, though, by now. Yeah, he must be. Jimmy Smith. But he's aging like a fine sparkling wine. Jimmy Smith is 61 years old.

Wow. That's crazy. Yeah. It's even crazier. He was is 61 years old. Wow. That's crazy. Yeah. It's even crazier. He was never on Lloyd's. So, Tintin and Addict. There was an Ellen Barkin Jimmy Smith movie that just came up. Switch?

Yeah. It just came up. I was going through Laserdiscs I own. Sure. And I was like, oh, there's Switch. I don't know anything about this. And I put it back. And then moments later, Luisa Diaz, who's a comedy producer, tweeted, one of my

favorite movies is Switch. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? Because nobody ever talks about this. So Blake Edwards joined. The last Blake Edwards movie, perhaps? It's Jimmy Smits, who's like a chauvinist pig is reincarnated in Alan Barkin's body. Really? Yeah. He made

Son of the Pink Panther. That was his last. The one with Benigni. Never end on Benigni. That's what they say about filmographies. Never end on Benigni. They do say that. That's why Benigni is doomed. Benigni is doomed?

His last film will have to be a Benigni movie. There's no way around it. Well, what if he directs but doesn't act in it? It's still a Benigni movie. It's a Roberto Benigni movie. There's no way around it. Well, what if he directs but doesn't act in it? It's still a Benigni movie. It's a Roberto Benigni picture. A film by Roberto Benigni. You're not wrong. Poor Roberto Benigni.

Poor Roberto Benigni. Now I'm looking at Roberto Benigni. Well, I'm thinking about... He was in that Woody Allen movie. He was really good in that. He's a good actor. He was great in Night on Earth.

It was... Oh, yeah. Very charming. He's good in the Jarmusch films. Yeah. I would have given him a Best Supporting Actor Griffey to Roam with Love. The award or just a nomination? Nomination.

Okay. Nomination. Come on. I'm not crazy. I think that same year I would have given Haddock a Best Supporting Actor. I don't remember when to Roam with Love came out. It probably came out later. Roam with Love is the next year. Right?

So, yes. Yes, that's right. So, Tintin and Haddock escape into a lifeboat. Haddock played by Andy Serkis, to be clear. Really good. Jackson alum.

He is good. It's the kind of role he kicks ass at. Yes. For sure. Yeah. I don't always love Serkis, but I think he's great in this.

He gets to be funnier in this than I feel like he usually does. Sure. He often plays characters that are comedic, but are not, like, are humorous rather but not comedic. This he gets to really make use of, like, comic timing and line delivery. My dad loved Haddock. I'll say this.

Like, once Haddock showed up, my dad started laughing a lot. Haddock's a pretty lovable character. Yeah, he just thought this guy was funny. He liked every time he reached for the bottle. They get in the boat and immediately Tintin's seeing, like, oh like oh fuck this haddock guy starts a fire in the boat because he's cold drinking liquor like this a nightmare yeah nightmare and this is also you know this is the beginning of haddock realizing like god like what's happened to me i don't remember the story of the haddock family i don't have my boat anymore i i'm a you know yeah i'm a seaman but i'm i'm

burning the oars of the like lifeboat like what kind of a able seaman, but I'm burning the oars of the lifeboat. What kind of an able seaman does that, right? My only friend is some kid with a hair poof. The comic drunkenness plays off a lot better in the comics, though. That is true. Because it's a lot more funnier when you have a guy with drunk lines coming out of his head. Drunk lines are like a little spinny circle. Yeah, and he's sort of frozen in in like some sort of like obviously off-kilter pose.

But when he's actually in motion, it seems a little bit more like the stakes are high and you're just like, oh, that's really kind of sad. He's an aggressive man. Right, he's an aggressive man. Well, that's what I kind of like about this movie is that... No, I know what you mean. It's weird.

It's weird, certainly. But also that like in the comics, they're able to play his drunkenness as more of just like a frivolous, funny character detail. And in this, because they were aware that portraying this character dramatically and spending an hour and a half with him, you're going to get sad about the fact that he's drunk all the time. Without it becoming flight, this movie does become about Haddock having to figure out how to fucking take his life back. Yeah.

You know? They make his alcoholism a problem rather than just like, oh, yeah, that's, like, take his life back. Yeah. You know? Like, they make his alcoholism a problem rather than just like, oh, yeah, that's Haddock, he's the drunk. Yeah. The, uh, but, back on track, uh, he, uh, their, their oar's on fire. Yes.

Haddock is like, oh, what have I done? Uh, then all of a sudden their, uh, the boat is upside down, they've extinguished the fire, and they spot a plane in the distance. They're rescued. Or are they? Uh, uh, uh, uh. Oh, they're shooting atished the fire, and they spot a plane in the distance. They're rescued. Or are they? Oh, they're shooting at him.

Cool yellow plane. Yeah. Very English patient. Tintin pulls out his gun. Bad news, we only have one bullet. What's the good news? We have one bullet. Yeah, it's sort of a...

Cool! Yeah, he's rarely cool, but this is a line where he's suddenly like, I'm going to be cool. Tintin's my boy. Shoots that plane out of the air. Yeah. But he shoots it in a way that's easy to repair the plane later, which is even better.

Right. He just, that's true. He causes engine trouble that is fixable. And then Haddock's like, can you fly this? And he's like, yeah, I trained to be a pilot. Tintin's gotten a lot done for like a 16-year-old. Tintin shoots the plane. Tintin seems to have gone to four vocational schools.

The joke is he's like, yeah, I know how to fly a plane. He doesn't really. But he figured he's good at everything. They get in the plane. They identify, oh boy, here's some medical alcohol. This keeps happening. This is something that is

even like, because there's moments in this movie that are more cartoonish than the cartoon. Yes. Like at no time in the cartoon does Haddock burp alcohol into a plane's fuel like. Fuselage. Yeah. To make it go.

But that's charming. I basically agree. You couldn't pull that off. It's just funny that you couldn't put that off in the book. That's very Spielberg-y and it gets into the funhouse Spielberg. What are exciting Rube Goldberg contraptions I can set up? If this guy's drunk and the plane is running out,

then what do you do? He breathes in the plane. But also, the plane's flipping upside down, and so they're in zero-G, and the alcohol's flying in the sky, and he's able to drink it like a fucking astronaut. Yeah, this is, I guess... I mean, it like a fucking astronaut. And yeah, this is, I guess, I mean, it's a thrilling landing and Haddock has to get up on the engine. Tintin thinks he still has the alcohol.

Right. Pour it in. Instead, he has to breathe into it. You go inside the motor. You see it spark up. Land. Not ready to land yet. No land.

And then they crash. And then now they're in the desert. Right. True. The Land of Thirst. The Land of. True. The Land of Thirst. The Land of Thirst. Which is a movie that didn't... It didn't make that... That line didn't make... Was in the book, didn't make the movie.

In the book, they say it all the time. It's great. It's like, The Land of Thirst. And you can just see, feel his desperation. It's the best. I love that. Those books introduced me to the idea of mirages, which I thought were more of a problem when I was a kid. I thought that was something that you'd have to deal with all the best. I love that. Those books introduced me to the idea of mirages, which I thought were more of a problem when I was a kid. I thought that was something that you'd have to deal with all the time. That and quicksand.

You were saying mirage. Yes, yes, yes. Right. It's like that Malene joke about quicksand. It's like mirages seem to be omnipresent. They're like, it's a mirage. Be careful. And I'm like, it's just when you think you see water and you don't, right?

Well, in Looney Tunes, there was always a thing where people would think that someone else was food. That's true. They'd look at someone and they'd turn to a T-bone steak. That's true. In the book, they do that with Tintin and it turns into a bottle of wine. He turns into alcohol.

And Captain Haddock is going to unscrew his head. It's actually quite nightmarish, right? Because Tintin's head is the cork. And it's a really scary image. It's like his Haddock looks amazing. It's so good. And the scariest like a really scary it is a really scary image. It's like his hat looks crazy. It's so good. And the scariest part is he was only a port. That's the scariest part was only a port.

By the way, I'd like to apologize. I don't mean to be like crapping on it. I don't want to seem like I'm crapping on it every time I say in the movie they did this. But it is one of those things where I feel like there were some maybe some missed opportunities maybe some things that they just couldn't translate very well. They were, as you've said Griffin, they're going for adventure. Yes.

This movie is kinetic. It never really stops. Like, you know, it's just like they just collide from one adventure to the next. It's sort of a long chase. I mean, Tintin puts together pretty quickly. Eventually they get picked up by the French Foreign Legion. Oh, yeah, because we forgot to mention the whole thing that the silver capsule underneath turned out to be the scroll

that has the message on it. Tintin has a scroll with a mysterious message on it and some weird markings. Right, and there were three brothers to the Rackham family. No, to the Haddock family. Right, right. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Haddock is the only surviving member of the bloodline.

They need to unite the three scrolls to then get the secret message. So Saccharin's got one scroll. Tintin's got one scroll. The third scroll is in Morocco, where they go? Bulletproof glass. Behind bulletproof glass.

Yes. But yeah, so there's, yeah, this is the French Foreign Legion, that's the whole sequence where Haddock finally sobers up and recalls,

like, the history of, that happens in the desert too, where he's recalling. Yes, he's drunk, and the heat's getting to him and he starts remembering,

halfway through the story, he cuts out. You've got those cool images of like the boat coming over the sand's drunk and the heat's getting to him and he starts remembering. Halfway through the story, he cuts out. You've got those cool images of the boat coming over the sand dunes and the sand dunes turns into water. He likes those. Again, Spielberg's having fun. Those weird transitions. The transitions are good.

The handshake that turns into that. So cool. The handshake that turns into the car driving down the road and stuff. And then there's the part where the puddle, when Thompson and Thompson are walking, right? Right. Like Tintin and Haddock stranded in the middle of the sea turns into a puddle that Thompson Thompson walk over.

Yeah. That stuff's fun. It's just Spielberg having fun with the cinematic language. Look, I think it's great. I think it's great. I love the boat, the pirate shit.

Pirate shit's fucking awesome. Where the boats are, like, tangled together. And, like, that's great action. I don't know. It is. And it seems... I feel like I'm trying to win Joe over.

No, I agree with that. I mean, that was actually a really compelling thing with the two masts were intertwined. Yes, they're action. I don't know. It is. And it seems. I feel like I'm trying to win Joe over. No, I agree with that. I mean, that was actually a really compelling thing with the two masts were intertwined. Yes, they're tangled. You couldn't, and it's like, it actually seemed viable. It was not, it was cartoony enough to seem exciting and viable enough to seem like you could believe it. And scary. I mean, like the flames and the boats are both sideways.

You see people falling off. They're running up the masts and you mast to get on board the other ship. It was kind of scary. The sea stuff is actually- It's upsetting. It's got real weight to it. Then Haddock, halfway through the story, Peter's out. He can't remember the rest of it.

Then he completes it. They get him to a hospital. He's drinking water. He's like, what the fuck is this thing? They're like, water. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Great bit. Really good bit.

Haddock gets 10 comedy points. The nurse is like. Really good bit. Haddock gets 10 comedy points. So the nurse is like, oh, Mr. Haddock, 10 comedy points. And then they're like, fuck, how do we get the rest of the story? We're so close to this.

Snowy is like, let me sink some alcohol in there. Snowy gives him some really high grade medicinal alcohol. Yeah. And Haddock freaks out, thinks he's on the ship currently.

And there's a fun sequence. Fun! When Haddock is fighting everyone like they're pirates. That's right from the books. They can't stop him. And Tintin is trying to coax the story out of him.

Talk him through it. There's the nice moment where he's like, I need more drink. And then he's like, but then you remember. Tintin narrates the story to remind him he doesn't need to. He's the nice moment where he's like, I need more drink. And then he's like, but then you remember. Yes. Tintin narrates the story to remind him he doesn't need to drink. He's raising the bottle around his lips.

And then he decides that he's not going to, yeah. Finish the story. I will say this about the drinking, like, sort of like,

inducing his flashback or whatever. Uh-huh. I feel like it missed out on using Inigata Davida. Yes. That is a very good point, Yes, that is a very good point Ben If I had one complaint with this movie that is the one I would throw out Great

Stevie if you're listening, maybe do a special edition with that one change I would love Stevie to be listening Yeah, me too So now Tintin puts together the missing piece Red Rackham with saccharins, great ancestor This is an old, bitter blood war and the treasure. Yeah, this is not

in the books. The golden unicorn is at the bottom of the sea. That's what they're looking for. Unite the three scrolls. You'll get the coordinates. You can find this treasure. Tintin and Haddock will be rich, which is important because Tintin clearly... Will need some money. Need some money. Yeah, well, there's the whole

set piece at the emirs, you know, where the Bianca Castafiore. Yes, Ben Salad and Bianca Castafiore. They're dropping in these characters from the books who are maybe not as involved in these stories, but, you know, give them a little cameo. In the books, he's an opium smuggler and not just a patron of the arts. Yeah, Tintin, a lot of opiates in those. Hey, man, it was the 30s. Yeah.

And yeah, foolproof glass. She's a soprano. She hits the high note. Yes, she sings her famous song from Faust. Yeah. She breaks the glass and all the glass. That's a good scene. I like that.

But even before that, Haddock, it's hurting his ears for whatever reason because he's got like dog hearing. I don't know. So he runs out to get out of the room and he runs into the other two guys. He figures it out, right? The scroll and then the

two guys are coming after him. He gets out of his bottle to take a swig. The scroll almost flies away. He puts down the bottle, grabs the scroll. That's the moment which I really like. I agree. I like that he has his little unseen moment of personal victory here. Right.

But then immediately it's flipped back on him because the two guys come after him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They hit him with the bottle. Tintin thinks, oh, he went for the bottle and, you know, I can smell it on you. I can smell it on him. So now Haddock really wants to prove to Tintin. Well, then we kick off the final, no, not the final, the penultimate and best set piece.

Yes. This is incredible. The car chase in the Jeep. Right. Haddock's got the bazooka, and he blows up the hotel behind him, so the hotel, like, starts careening down the street with them. And, like, the hotel is, like, on top of a tank, so it's like a vehicle.

Right. Tintin's on the motorcycle. They're not in a Jeep. What am I talking about? It's in the motorcycle with the sidecar. Addicts in a dress. Yes, and there's the whole thing where the motorcycle comes apart and Tintin goes down the clothesline with one of the wheels.

It's an unbroken shot. It's an unbroken shot and it's like three scrolls. That's all you gotta do is get three scrolls. So you're just keeping track of all these characters and it'll move perspective throughout the sequence. Like sometimes you're following Saccharin, sometimes you're following Tintin, sometimes you're following Hax, sometimes you're following Snowy,

sometimes you're following that motherfucking eagle. Yeah. Right, there's the... The eagle is carrying... Saccharin's got an eagle. Yeah. I'm not talking about Glenn Frey. I'm talking about a real eagle.

Isn't it Fry? Yeah, probably. He's dead. He was in Jerry Maguire. Rest in peace He was in Jerry Maguire. He was? Rest in peace He's like the manager of the Arizona Cardinals or whatever. It's an odd

role. We didn't even mention it on the podcast but he's in it. Yeah. I mean he's like three scenes So He's the one who's like on the phone Yeah I think the weirdest So, they're chasing after the Skrulls. This one is like on the phone. Yeah. I think the weirdest cameo I can think of cinematically, though, is when Michael Bay plays the leader

of the frat boys in Mystery Men. It's a very strange... We were just talking about Mystery Men. It's been coming up a lot lately. I totally forgot about that. I re-watched it like a couple weeks ago. I love it. Michael Bay.

How self-aware is Michael Bay? That's a good question. That's the question. I hate...ed it like a couple weeks ago. I love it. Michael Bay. How self-aware is Michael Bay? That's a good question. That's the question. I hate, maybe it's a question we'll answer soon. Michael Bay, actually a pretty good mystery man. He's only got the one line, but he delivers it well. Michael Bay is pretty handsome and pretty charming. Because he does those ads sometimes where he's like, I'm Michael Bay, and I don't want

to do an insurance ad unless you blow it up or whatever. It's like, oh, ha, ha, ha, Michael Bay. That's what he does, ads sometimes where he's like, I'm Michael Bay and I don't want to do an insurance ad unless you blow it up or whatever. It's like, oh, ha, ha, ha, Michael Bay. That's what he does, right? But he's not stiff. He's decent. I forgot that he's a mystery man. Another reason for me to check back in. Yeah.

My favorite Kel Mitchell joint. Better than Good Burger? Yes. Oh. Yes. It is better than Good Burger. I also love Good Burger. Better than Clifford's Big Movie?

I have not seen Clifford's Big Movie. Okay. Kel Mitchell It is better than Good Burger. I also love Good Burger. Better than Clifford's Big Movie? I have not seen Clifford's Big Movie. Okay. Well, Kel Mitchell's a voice in that. Kel Mitchell is a... Kel Mitchell! He's a bummer, that one. Kel Mitchell. Well, let's not go down this corridor.

Jesus. Oof. It's Clifford's Really Big Movie. Okay. I mean, some props for... He played T-Bone. Yeah. He's ninth build.

Oh, boy. Kel. Oh, the mighty have fallen. It's just so crazy that Kenan is now one of SNL's most... Right? He's become a pantheon SNL guy. Right, yeah. And Kel is...

He's on Nickelodeon show where he plays... Not that Kenan isn't funnier than Kel. He is funnier than Kel. He is funnier than Kel. There's no disputing that. Yeah, but Kel was kind of funnier when you were 10. Kel was funnier when you were 10, but then when you're, in my opinion, even when you're 12, you're watching Kenan and Kel,

you're like, this Kenan guy is amazing. Well, it's like the Three Stooges. When you're young, you're watching Curly. When you're a teenager, you're watching Mo. When you get older, you watch Larry, and you're like, Larry is the one. Larry's the fucking smart one. He's the glue, man. He's the glue. Pulls it all together. He's the fucking glue.

Thrilling chase. It's tough to even talk about because it's just a visceral, purely visual sequence of joy. Our, uh, my friend, Simra Gal, a future past guest, he, um, always says

to me, because he doesn't like Tintin, and I'm always fucking talking about Tintin when I'm drunk, he says, like, what's so impressive about that shot? Anyone can make something in one shot if it's CGI. No.

I mean, you can, but it's like it doesn't look, it doesn't have the same look. I mean, the only thing, I mean, I'm glad you said that about blowing up the hotel. I didn't know where the hotel came from. Right.

I couldn't quite figure that out. Now it makes sense. But the whole thing, besides that, is pretty coherent. I think you're right about the... Yeah, you need to pay a little more attention to get why the hotel then slides down after them. But the point isn't like, that's amazing.

It's ridiculous to say, you need to be strong enough to do a good shot. I mean, it's not about tenacity and stamina. It's about how well designed that sequence is. And that the sequence has so many... Who are these idiots? Oh, this is Sam Ruggel. Banned.

No longer a future guest. No more appearances until he re-evaluates that position. It's just such a well-organized sequence that has so many good story beats in it. There are exciting reversals of who you think's about to grab the thing and where they're going. And it's also so geographically laid out

where it's like you see them traversing all this space and you understand where everyone is in relation to each other, even though they're covering a lot of land. It fucking rules. And then this movie does a thing I really like, which is that ends. They're reunited with Thompson and Thompson.

Sure. They find the wallet, so they have that scroll now. You know, all that shit. And then they go like, wait a second. I know where they're going. We know how to get there. Right. Well, how do we get there?

There's a plane. We could get there before them. And then the movie just cuts to everyone being there at the denouement. Agreed with that. Here's what I don't like that the movie does what follows its best set piece with easily its worst set piece agreed and the denouement set piece sucks unfortunately and i do think that it was kind of like it was either that they thought warring cranes was going to be a good idea or they were just kind of out of ideas i mean and they were like what happens

at a shipyard i don't know and it's like you know, it's a heightening of the sword fight. It's not, it makes, it's no good. It's no good. It's confusing. It is confusing. It's loud. It's a mess. I watched it.

I wasn't paying enough attention the first time. The second time I paid closer attention, I still didn't make a lot of sense. This is, I mean, what I think the movie should have done. I forgot to say that the way the chase sequence ends is Tintin is holding on to the three squirrels, holding them up to the light. They're all aligned. He can see the message that the three combine to, which are the longitude and latitude of

the sunken treasure. But the hawk is holding on to it. The eagle, whatever fucking bird it is. And Sakharin's like, I'll throw a fucking haddock in Snowy. I think we need to get to the Denim House. This is the end. This is the end. But the point is,

Tintin has to choose his friends over that. Of course, and he picks his friends. He lets them go, but then the movie just goes like, we don't need to see how he gets there. Let's just let him get there. He tracks them back to London or Belgium. But he clearly stole that plane.

Yes, he did. They don't talk about that. They don't say, oh, there's our answer right there. That plane that somebody clearly, that is not us owns. Well, Tintin's a thief and a murderer. The movie doesn't talk about that. They don't say, oh, there's our answer right there, that plane that somebody clearly that is not us owns. Well, since it's a thief and a murderer, the movie doesn't discuss that. I would say if I had any constructive criticism for this movie,

I would say once they cut to them landing at the docks and the final showdown with Sakharin, rather than being a fight, I would skip to the sort of emotional payoff. Right. Which is how the book works. Right. The whole point of the book is it's like hey man you know we actually just end up where we started which is like the treasure was here all along it was in marlin spike in the old haddock house but it's also it's in the basement like that's where it always has been they get into this fucking construction crane fight and then once they're the fight's over then

they're both just standing level on a boat talking right before they like settle it and you know haddock like uses the bottle to hit yeah saccharine so it's like for once he's prioritizing fine that's fine i would just skip straight to that yeah and then uh saccharine goes but still i have the scrolls ten ten grabs it from everything's. Haddock goes, my ship. Boom. Done. Fun. And then they got the coordinates.

They go. They follow them. Oh, what's this? It's the house. It's the mansion. Sakarin's mansion, which he snuck into earlier in the movie because he was looking for his stolen pirate ship. But it's really a Haddock house. And that butler.

Nestor. Oh, he was really on Team Haddock the whole time that butler... Nestor. Oh, he was really on Team Haddock the whole time. Okay, sure. Ooh, Nestor. Something they set up 45 seconds earlier. When he says, you don't pay me anything.

Alright, anyway. They go down, they... I already explained it. They get the treasure. I like the idea that Haddock, you know, knows what button to push on the globe because he's a good naval man who gets that. That's not an island.

That must be a button. Yeah. I like that. I also like that now they have like a fucking Batman setup where it's like, here's their butler. Here's their mansion. They can now afford anything. Right.

That's how Tintin then works from then on. Tintin lives in Marlin Spike with Haddock and Calculus when Calculus shows up. And yeah, it's like... They have a lot of pillow fights. Yeah, right. What do they do? I don't know. They have money.

Don't worry about it. You know, like, it's fine. Oh, sorry. Let's continue living in our asexual universe and chasing adventure. Right. No one in Tintin is ever sexual except Calculus has a crush on Cassifuri. That's the only romance that ever plays out in Tintin.

Calculus' Wikipedia page makes a point of noting that he's the only sexual character in the entire Tintin universe. That's pretty funny. Of either gender. I guess with Cassifuri, she always has suitors,

but they're not really romantic and trippy. No, no. They make, but in the movie, actually, she insinuates that she and and Sakharin

are boning. Yeah, there's also that scene where she fucks Snowy which is weird. No, but I mean she does say like we have,

he's a very passionate Yeah, that's right. patron of the arts. No, thank you. You're just like, whoa. How do they have, how do they have

the time for that? Like, what? I mean, I don't know. It doesn't matter. They had the time. They had some off-screen sex. They did it. Yeah, Craig and whoever plays her.

Maybe he's only a minute man. Kim Stengel. Yeah, he might be a one-minute man. Yeah, one-minute man. So that's The Adventures of Tintin, the greatest film ever made. Yeah, it's a good movie. It's an ambitious movie, for ambitious movie you can see Griffin right now

he's got the mic in his lap and he's just crouched over like a dumb baby number one on my sight and sound list I think it's great yeah I guess I'm trying you're trying to win me over at a certain point if you watch a movie enough times

it's almost like do I even think this is a great movie, capital G, capital M, or is it just one of my favorite movies? Yeah. And I don't know where you fall in this regard. If you made a top 10 of 2011, would Tintin be number one or would it be? No, it wouldn't. No, honestly, if we're being honest here, it wasn't my 10. It wasn't number one.

I think 2011 Master was my number one. I'm just looking at some of the movies. You've got The Master, of course. I think The Master was my number one. I'm just looking at some of the movies. You've got The Master, of course. I think The Master was my number one. I think Moneyball was number two. No, wait, no. The Master's 2012. Oh, really?

So in 2011, I don't know what my number one was. It wasn't Tintin. I'll be honest with you. You got Margaret. That was my number one. Oh, Margaret was my number one. That's my number one of the decade. Tree of Life is a movie from that year.

Below Tintin for me. Moneyball was above. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. So Margaret would have been my number one. Hugo. Moneyball would have been my number two. I don't like Hugo. Drive. Miracleia. Those films probably would have been in my ten below Tintin. Martha, Mercy, May Marlene.

Is a film I like a lot. Good movie. Was probably number four or five. Shame. Since it was maybe my three or four. Sure. That's good. Good movie. So you like it a lot. Pretty high. Yeah. Do you want to hear about the box office game?

Yeah. Good. I guess we won't do it for War Horse. Oh, yeah. This is going to have to cover it for both. Oh, wow. Because War Horse opens at number seven. Okay.

With $14.5 million. And eventually we will discuss. Good horse movie. Yes. Good money for a horse. It eventually grosses.5 million. And eventually we will discuss. Good horse movie. Good money for a horse. Eventually grosses $79 million. Tintin opens number five. $15 million makes $77 million. Okay.

So yeah, it's almost like they released two movies and they made half the money one movie could make. It feels like one of them would have made one fifth. So Tintin is number five at the box office. And this is Christmas 2011. Number one jumps after some limited release. It expands

and it jumps to number one in its second week of release. So this has to be your favorite of the franchise. Correct. Mission Impossible. Ghost Prot. Ghost Protocol.

Which had a limited release only in IMAX theaters. Correct. Opened well, but then finally went wide and opened bigly. It opened bigly. It's made $76 million at this point. On route to 220? On the route to $209,700 worldwide.

My number two or three of that year, for sure. One of my favorite movies. Lower than 1010 for me. Ever made. No. Number two is a sequel to another Christmas movie. The end of a franchise that has not been continued. Little Fockers.

No. Really? I was so confident on that swing. You were very confident. That was 2010. Okay. I think you might be right, yes. 2011, Christmas franchise has not been continued.

No, it's the second in a two-film series. And did people feel like it was maybe going to keep going? I don't think so. The passion wasn't there. The movie makes 186 domestic, 545 worldwide. There's no reason not to make another one. Live action or animated? Live action.

Is it a family movie? Not really. It's like an not to make another one. Live action or animated? Live action. Is it a family movie? Not really. It's like an action movie, kind of. I was thinking too literally when you said Christmas movie. You mean it was just a Christmas franchise? Yes, it's Sherlock Holmes Game of Shadows. Correct. Number three is a movie you talked about.

It's weird that they haven't made a third one to that. I think Downey Jr. is just busy and doesn't want to do it. The third one is a movie you talked about way too much on this podcast. I don't think you've seen it. I haven't. No. It is called... He knows what it is.

Yeah. Alvin. Yeah. El Chimón. Uh-huh. Chimón. Chimón. Chimón.

Chimón. Chimón. Great. Yep. It's made $ 56 million in two weeks It will make 133 domestic And you were right, I have not seen it Is that the one that's not Walt Becker? Yeah, that's the one directed by Mike Mitchell Who did Sky High

Made one great movie and now makes Trolls Did you see any of the other movies or no? I've seen one and four You haven't seen two? The Squeakquel? No I haven't seen the Squeakquel. So the first one it fucking sucks

that one's by Tim Hill. Did not see the second one which is directed by Betty Thomas. Okay. Skipped the third one which was directed by Mike Mitchell. And that's the one where it was like

David Cross is in it but he's in a full suit the whole like a full costume the whole time but they still made him like be in the movie and like be on like a fucking

boat for three months or whatever, right? Yes, that is Chipwrecked in which he's in a costume and then once they finally get Chipwrecked and the movie becomes, I shit you not, a Lord of the Flies remake. Oh. Then the costume comes off and it's revealed that that guy who's been in a costume for the first two thirds of the movie was it.

He was like, I can't just show up at the island part. Like, you can't just have a guy. Anyway. You know what neutralized that argument? What? When he went on all the talk shows and complained about that producer who wouldn't let him out by calling her a dirty Jew. Oh, I forgot about that. He's a dirty Jew himself,

David Cross. Yeah, he is. Still, not a great bit. True. David Cross has done some bad bits in recent times. Bad bit? Yeah, it was a very weird, I remember that was like, I don't even remember that part of it, but I remember he was very vocal about not liking that movie and not liking having

been in that movie. Every single press appearance he did for that movie, he complained about the movie and the producer and he named her. Number four at the box office. He's got a lot of work since then, hasn't he? Yeah, a ton. Number four at the box office. He's got a lot of work since then, hasn't he? Yeah, a ton. Number four at the box office is a film that people thought was going to do huge, huge money. It opens to 27 mil on Christmas. That they released this movie on Christmas is absolutely fucking bonkers.

The Girl with the Dragon Tat? Correct. David Fincher film. An incredibly excellent movie, in my opinion. I think a solid movie for me, but I haven't seen it since its release. It stands up. Another Daniel Craig joint. Yeah.

That's a big year for him. Looks good. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of forgotten, though, I would say. Made 100 mil, but forgotten. So that's the box office game. Yeah.

We bought a zoo. Oh. Oh. Fond memories. New Year's Oh. Oh. Fond memories. New Year's Eve. Oh. The darkest hour. Oh.

What was that again? I think that was kids in Russia and aliens attack or something. Cool. The Descendants. Yeah. With the Clunes. Yeah. Oh, movie people still talk about a lot.

They won an Oscar for best writing. Yes, and we all quote the lines from that screenplay that we love. Remember when his wife dies? They teach it in film schools. This is largely the most forgettable box office so far. There's like one or two memorable ones, and it's like mostly disposable. It's a weird time where, yeah, it's before studios were just like, you know what, we just fucking make superhero movies. We're not making

any money. We don't know what to do anymore. Was The Muppets that year? The Muppets is number 11. Hugo is number 12. You don't like Hugo, by the way? That's pretty rude. Ah, you should watch Hugo again. Young Adult. Underrated. Which is an underrated little picture. Certainly the best Reitman movie.

Hmm. Certainly the best Reitman movie. Certainly the best Reitman movie. Arthur Christmas. Oh, Arthur Christmas. The Sitter. That's a weird one. That's a weird one. Dawn 2.

What the hell is that? It must be a Bollywood movie. It is, yes. In summation, I think Tintin's fun. He's a cool guy. I like his sweaters. I'm probably going to be Tintin for Halloween next year. Sure, be Tintin. I love Tintin, and I think's a cool guy. I like his sweaters. I'm probably going to be Tintin for Halloween next year. Sure, be Tintin.

I love Tintin, and I think this is good. But I'll say this. Watching this movie, last week we talked about Crystal Skull, both last week in terms of release and last week in terms of when we recorded. Yep. And I thought I was going to be the one defending the movie. And it ended up that you and Richard, especially Richard, David Ehrlich, both defend that movie even more than I do. Which movie? King of the Crystal Skull. Yes, of course.

A movie that I think is interesting doesn't totally work. I think it's pretty interesting. Yeah, I think it's good. And I think you look at the Spielberg DreamWorks years, and a lot of times he gets into trouble when he tries to make a quote unquote classic Spielberg picture. Yep. Because he's sort of evolved and grown in this stage of his career where he's into, rather than using these primary colors, good versus evil,

black versus white kind of battles, he's grayer as these murky morality movies, human morality. Human. And I think Tintin's an outlier because the new toolbox he has given through this technology allows him to not just be replicating his old tricks, but try all new tricks. It is a tricks movie.

It's a funhouse movie. It's a fucking rollercoaster movie. But I think it's like some of the best action filmmaking of the last 10 years. And I also, I just, I like Tintin. I like these characters. I like the movie. So simple, straightforward, sincere, and exciting. Go to your local library and check out some of the books, Tintin. I like these characters. I like the movie. It's so simple, straightforward, sincere, and exciting. Go to your local library and check out some of the books.

Tintin. Crab of the Golden Claws. That's a good one to start with if you want to do that. The first haddock adventure. I like the moon ones. There are some fun fucking Tintin space adventures. Stay away from Belgium, or rather Tintin in the Congo. Not a good one to go to.

Yeah, that one I believe is harder to find for very good reasons. But yeah, once you get to Cigars of the Pharaoh, which to me is the first proper Tintin adventure, that's, you know, basically anything is good. I love Cigars of the Pharaoh movie. That was probably my favorite one. It's interesting to read Tintin chronologically, to watch Hergé's outlook develop,

to watch Tintin change. I think the last few Tintin books are just absolutely incredible. I think he researched as time went on. The first ones he didn't research, and then as time went on, he researched very diligently. He'd be more thorough.

And he'd mess with his own formula, very formally adventurous, like the Casa Fiori Emerald, which is the one where nothing happens. It's all set at Marlinspike, and there's no plot or villain. And Tintin Tibet, obviously, which is sort of his opus, which is very humane and very sad work. He's brilliant.

Look, I like the Tintin oeuvre more than I like this Tintin movie. I think the books are still the best Tintin thing. They're incredible. Far and away, right? By several miles. Is this the perfect Tintin adaptation? No. I think it's a really good mashup between Spielberg's style and Tintin and what that property is.

I think it gave him an opportunity to flex those Indiana Jones muscles that perhaps had been a little quelled by George Lucas' creative interference. And the new opportunities of the technology. But definitely read the fucking books. And also, hey, Steve, make a new Tintin movie.

Or Peter Jackson. Are you cool with Peter Jackson making one? Yeah, totally fine with that. I think he's another filmmaker who would probably be, he would be better if he worked in pure CGI right now. What I really like about this movie. Yeah, maybe. Did you guys watch the bonus features at all? No, no.

I liked it. What I liked about it is that you're watching it and Spielberg, who I figured would be jaded at this point in his career, comes off as just completely, he loves Tintin, he loves what he's doing, he's so enthusiastic about this. And meanwhile,

Peter Jackson seems almost kind of blasé. Like, he's the guy that, like, you're used to seeing, like, freak out about things. True. And he's just like, I think something happened

to Peter Jackson, man. I think something wrecked him. King Kong, I think, because he had so much hung on that. Right, he really wanted to make that. Well, I heard it was Beauty Killed the Beast but I

don't know if that certainly was what killed him. We have to stop talking about that. I think King Kong killed his spirits. Yeah. You know what? Hey fucking Joe Cornish Edgar Wright both great filmmakers who would make a great Tintin movie. Edgar Wright making one of these would be a god damn

delight. Yeah. That'd be great. Or Joe Cornish. Have Joe Cornish make a fucking delight. Yeah. That'd be great. Or Joe Cornish. Have Joe Cornish make a fucking movie. Yeah. Attack the Block's great. Talk about 2011. Oh, geez, yeah. That's an Attack the Block.

Yeah. 2011. What the, oh my God, I'm going crazy. So note to Hollywood, let Joe Cornish make a movie. Yeah, let Joe Garten

make a movie if he wants. Let Joe Garten make a movie. You're okay? I'll tweet, yeah, I'm fine. I'll tweet at him if I want him. If I really want to make a movie,

I'll just tweet incessantly at them until they tweet. Change your I want to. If I really want to make a movie, I'll just tweet incessantly at them. Change your Twitter username to future Tintin director? How was it to be on Blank Check, Joe? It was great. For my fans, well, I have a, can I ask, just like before we wrap up, absolutely. Sure. I just want to ask a couple questions just from the fans' perspective. Sure.

David. Yeah. You are, you've made reference to your time in Great Britain. Yeah. I grew up in Britain. So you are an American, but are you a British citizen or an American citizen? I'm both, baby. Really?

Yes. Is your mother British, father British? Father British, mother American. Okay. And then you- Got both passports. Just renewed them too. So how the hell do you not have an accent?

Had an accent. These are questions that are often asked to me when people meet me. Okay, good. Had an accent, a little bit of an accent when I lived in Britain. Had sort of a, I call it a, I always say that I sounded like Madonna. You know, I sort of sounded like an American kind of maybe putting on a bit of a British accent.

The Mark Ronson. Yeah. But the old joke was everyone in Britain thought I was American, everyone in America thought I was British. But when I moved back here, I'd lived in America the first nine years of my life, it just, within a couple months it was gone. But when I moved back here, I'd lived in America the first nine years of my life. It just, within a couple months, it was gone.

Like, I just sort of reverted. If I go there, it comes back, you know. It's my environment. I react to it. Good to know. And it's not just my accent, but if I go to Britain,

like, all these idioms, these sort of ways of speaking, like, just, the whole rhythm of the language is different there. And in ways that I'm not picking up on. But, like, if my girlfriend comes to me, she's like, you're talking different.

Like, you know, it's weird. I say if I go to, I didn't live in Springfield, Illinois, but it's like, and it's Springfield, Illinois is not the south, but I spent a lot of time there. I find that when I go back there or to the south, I start saying y'all without even being aware. It's these things. It's exactly that kind of stuff. In England, you drop articles. You say I'm going to hospital or whatever. You know, it's like, there's all kinds of shit

like that. I mean, obviously, you know the obvious things, but there's all these less obvious things that are also just baked into the language. It's very funny. Funny how we all talk. So you'd be a cinema critic in Great Britain. No, they... I guess they... I don't know what they call them. They call them Tintins in England.

Yeah, they call them. And then a question for the Haas really fast. Oh, wow. Hey, what's up? Have you seen the Mighty Mighty Boss Tones? Live? Yeah. No.

Okay. I've seen a bunch of ska. That's a good question. So that's a great question. I just, I don't know why. It just seemed like for some reason, what is the best ska band you saw? Catch-22. Oh.

Is that like, is that third wave or is saw? Catch 22. Oh. Is that like is that third wave or is that like post third wave? I think that's third wave. Okay. Because they were they were pretty popular

like late 90s into early aughts. Merchandise Spotlight here. Joe Garden has graciously made a series of Ben Hosley pins.

Do you know how many there are in total? I think there were 19, and I missed some nicknames. I doubled up on one. I will post a picture, but he has made a pin. All have the same image of Ben Hosley's smiling face wearing a Yankees cap, but each one has a different...

Do you have a bag yourself, Ben? Yeah, I'm looking at them now. Oh, man. I'm hearing the jostling. Each one has a different nickname on them. They're all in green, except it. We're hearing the jostling. Each one has a different nickname on them. They're all in green, except, of course, for the one in red, which has the Ghostbusters No Ghosts logo over Ben Hosley's face and says Professor Crisp. These are quite incredible, and it was one of those things where Joe handed them to me and I was like, oh, cool. Thinking that they were all just pinned with Ben's face on them.

Nope. Didn't get the customization, the second layer of customization that had happened. I mean, you have the Haas, you have Mr. Positive, and you have Mr. Positive. These are thorough. I did not want to, no stone unturned.

I did miss our finest film critic, though. Oh, wow. I apologize for that. Maybe you should just go back and do them again. Go back and do them again. That's less of a nickname and more of, I guess, an official job title. So that's fine.

But yes, I mean, we're recording this episode in January. So by the time this episode comes out in May, I assume these will be available to purchase at all Spencer's Gifts. Mass production. I'm going to go. My girlfriend and I are going to be mass producing these. Just turn them out. Left, right. Oh, by the way, my girlfriend Hannah, she sends a special message.

She wants me to stop bullying you guys on Twitter. Aww. Yeah, I'm cool with you bullying us. You're better than John Braylock, who's the chief bully of me on the internet. You've earned the right, Joe. You were a great guest. Thank you so much for being here. Oh, thanks.

Nice to talk with another fellow tinhead. And thanks for the buttons. They're amazing. Oh, they're so great, Joe. Thank you so much. Oh, I was happy to make them. It made me very happy as soon as I saw the layout. Yeah, man. There's something about Ben's face. It's the best.

It's one of the all-time great faces. I want like an Andy Warhol, like, prints of his face. God. It's something about the just, with the mouth open, the kind of like, yeah. So go to your local Journeys, your local Spencer's Gifts, your Hot Topic. Ben Buttons are available in a 20-pack. Yeah. At all fine retailers.

Joe, just make sure you produce enough. I will make sure. Like I said, churning them out. Thank you for being here. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. All that good business. Blankies. Reddit.

Subreddit. And as always, Denzel Washington would make a good professor calculator he'd be good he'd be good he's so good he's a good actor do you feel like you have a good haddock impression not really I don't want to set you up

please don't make me it's more about I'm going to say the line but then there's a haddock response which is good but maybe I'll try to do? It's more about I'm going to say the line, but then there's a haddock response, which is good. But maybe I'll try to do both. What is the line? I can't because this is not a... I mean, this is not... Red Rackham.

Red Rackham. It's unquenchable, Tintin. That's the last line of the movie. Yeah. That's why I'm saying it would feel weird if I say the second to last line and then the last line is... Eh, you do both of them. I'm not limbered up here. Okay, ready?

Yeah. Everyone's ready? We're ready. There's a clue to another treasure. How's your thirst for adventure? Fuck, I fucked it up. Were you going to do thirst for podcast? Yeah, of course.

Okay. Okay, let's try it again. You're too into Tintin. I'm too into Tintin. I've been wanting to play Tintin my entire life. Okay, ready? Yeah it again. You're too into Tintin. I'm too into Tintin. I've been wanting to play Tintin my entire life. Okay, ready? Yeah, you would have been. Would have been.

Could be. Okay. In 2-2? Tintin 2-2? You're happy with that. Tintin 2-2? 2-10? All right, go ahead.

This has been a UCB Comedy Production. Check out our other shows on the UCB Comedy Podcast Network Hey, I'm Tom Power I'm the host of the CBC Podcast Q with Tom Power I get to talk to artists from all over the world Writers, musicians, actors, directors All kinds of creative people. And we try to have the conversations you'd have with really, really good friends.

The conversations you have when you share a love of something, about ideas, when you want to hear about everything. I feel really lucky to have these conversations. Cue with Tom Power, available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.