Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Animatrix

Episode Date: June 10, 2016

In the final episode of the Podchowski Casters mini series, Griffin and David discuss 2003’s collection of animated short films detailing the Matrix expanded universe, The Animatrix. Are Part I and Part II of Second Renaissance a successful prequel to the first Matrix? Does the short “World Record” set it’s own record for the most on-screen knee sweat? What are #thetwofriends final thoughts on the Wachowskis? Together they examine the nine short films featuring several collaborators writers and directors including Peter Chung (Aeon Flux), reasons why Keanu Reeves might not sound like himself, the pointlessness of Alice Through the Looking Glass and why “Kid’s Story” never pays off as intended. Also, a merch spotlight, a Burger Report and why you should check out the original Animatrix website: http://www.intothematrix.com/

it's the Anna podcast Wow great after all that After all that. I mean, what was it going to be? I don't know. There's no... The final flight of the podcast. Okay, great. Congratulations. It's pretty good. Yeah, that's fine.

I just didn't want to... My name's David Sims. Oh, hi, everybody. My name's Griffin Newman. And welcome to Blank Check with Griffin and David, the Podchowski casters. The final bonus episode. I mean, I feel like you could have put a point on the colon in between the two things.

I'm trying to move beyond colons. I am too, because I got horrible diarrhea today. Trying to move beyond this old colon I got. Good night, everybody. Got violent. Ben, turn off the podcast. Diarrhea. Diarrhea.

Diarrhea. Okay, okay. I'm having diarrhea poor month. Hi, everybody. We are having diarrhea parma. Hi, everybody. We are hashtag the two friends. Correct. You may not know this about us. This is sort of-

What that means is that we are two friends. Right. And we are the two friends. This is the sort of proprietary thing that our podcast has going for it. Right. That we are the two friends. We are the two friends. There are a lot of podcasts.

Hundreds. Yeah. Maybe thousands. I've heard. Are they hosted by two friends? No. And here's another thing. I've met a lot of people who are like, oh, this is my thousands. I've heard. Are they hosted by two friends? No, and here's another thing. I've met a lot of people who are like, oh, this is my friend. We're friends.

Have you ever heard of two friends? One, two. Nope. We're one, two friends. End of story. Hashtag it. Share it. Put it on a pog.

Slam it. Share it with your friends. So hot, they're cool. So cool, they're hot. Was that the pogs? That was the pop stars. Pop tarts. Oh, yeah. Put it on a pop tart. Okay. So this is

look, if it seems like we're avoiding the subject at hand, it's because this is a bittersweet day. It's always kind of sad when we end a miniseries. And we always do this kind of bonus episode I'm not going to be able to live without these guys I really am going to miss the Wachowskis

I love these folks they're the best Lily and Lana Wachowski are good friends directors of Bound The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded God Bless You was their fourth feature film The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, God Bless You was their fourth feature film.

No, it wasn't. The Matrix Revolutions, Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas, Jupiter Ascending, and the Netflix original series Sense8. Right. We've talked about all these things. Because that's what we do on this podcast. We've watched dozens of hours of content and given you dozens of hours of content. And that was just Sense8. Woo! Dozens of hours of content and given you dozens of hours of content. And that was just Sense8. Woo!

Dozens of hours of content. Yeah. Here's a fun fact for our listeners. After last week, when I binged all of Sense8 in one night, I then got sick and have been sick up until this very recording. I heard you saying that. So is this, you're still sick, you're saying? I'm getting saying that. So is this, you're still sick, you're saying? I'm getting over it. This is, you know, this is my last flight of the Phoenix or whatever, you know, of the Asyria or whatever that fucking thing is called.

I'm getting better. That's what's happening right now is I'm just pooping out the remaining sickness. I'm doing fine. But if I sound a little congesty, you know, George Mucousy, that's what's going on there. But that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is what we do on this podcast is we pick filmmakers who had big success early on in their careers

and they got a blank check to make crazy stuff. Yeah. And the Wachowskis were our subject for this mini-series and now the book is closed. And the reason we do these bonus episodes, we just, you know,

we finished the filmography and then we're left with all these remaining feelings that we need to put somewhere, right? So we pick a sort of do these bonus episodes we just, you know, we finish the filmography and then we're left with all these remaining feelings that we need to put somewhere, right? So we pick a sort of Yeah, sort of just we can return to their aesthetic. We just pick like a little thing we can dip back into. Here's like an adjacent piece of material.

So this is not something they directed. No, it's not. The mistake we made with Shyamalan was that we watched The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan, which was too weird for us to really spend much time in M. Night Shyamalan. We had to just talk about that weird thing. It's one of my favorite episodes. It's a good episode.

It's a good episode. Johnny Depp kind of ruined it, though. Good episode, though. I mean, Johnny Depp's future horrible actions kind of ruined that episode because we're so excited about Johnny Depp in that episode. When you're talking about the horrible actions, you mean Alice Through the Looking Glass, right? Can we talk about Alice Through the Looking Glass for a so excited about Johnny Depp in that episode. When you're talking about the horrible actions, you mean Alice Through the Looking Glass, right? Can we talk about Alice Through the Looking Glass for a second?

Not Johnny Depp. Have you seen it? Yeah, I reviewed it for The Atlantic. Oh, really? Yes, I'm a film critic and I reviewed it for The Atlantic. How is that tomato looking? I gave it a rotten tomato. You did? I did. Because I get to pick. Some people don't want to pick, but I like to pick when I put my entry. Tell me about this movie.

Well, it's not good. Yeah, okay, I'd'd heard that and it's just interesting because it is a blank check movie you know in a weird sort of a way i mean it's just a film where a lot of money has been lavished on something that i don't know that anyone can really understand why except for money you know like except for the original movie made a lot of money yeah but it's kind of a fool me once kind of thing made a lot of money but no one really liked it. It wasn't very popular. It came out five or six years ago. You know, it's not six years ago. It came out six years ago, and it came out two months after Avatar.

Yeah. And people were like, what if every movie is in 3D? We're going to be in Wonderland. It's like we'll be there. And then the movie sucked. Six years later, here comes a movie. It's called Alice Through Looking Glass. It has no bearing. It's not adapted from the book.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The book is in the, that book is in the first movie. I think. And so I didn't really like the movie, but no one has agreed with me on this, but I've been trying to talk about it and I have a podcast so I can talk about it.

I think that Sacha Baron Cohen is terrific in it. I've heard one other person say that. I can't remember who it was, but some critic on Twitter said, I don't think anyone's calling out that Sacha Baron Cohen's really good. He's so good. He plays time, the concept of time,

basically as this somewhat snooty, sort of unctuous, kind of persnickety little dude with a clockwork head. And he's great. And I just think every scene with him is great. And I just think it's a lost opportunity that no one's going to really ever talk about that performance or the obvious work he put into it. Well, it was directed by James Bobin, who did the two recent movies that I love.

I like him a lot. I mean, I love his work on Flight of the Conchords, which is very visually inventive. He also directed all of the HBO Ali G series. Yeah, right. So it makes sense that he's got a good performance of him because he's, he also did, he did a short film

with Dimitri Martin, I think called 1221, about like 13 years ago that I love, that I watched over and over again when I was at the peak of my Dimitri Martin phase.

I like James Baldwin a lot. I like the recent Muppet movies. It's a bummer for me that like, that, he's been forced into this direction. Yeah,

because I think everyone probably told him it was like, it definitely feels like a waste of time. And they also probably told him like, oh man, this is easy. Everyone's going to go see it. They saw the last one. You'll just make the money, just like toe the line. And it's a huge bomb. I mean, I assume it'll probably clean up enough worldwide to sort of forgive

whatever they outlaid on it. But no, it's a disaster. They're not going to make money. They might not lose too much. But I do worry about him too. I agree not going to make money. They might not lose too much. Sure. But I do worry about him, too. I agree with you. I think the film is better looking and more visually inventive than Burton's film. Yeah.

I think he did a good job given the horrible script and stupid idea. But it's not good. But just wanted to shout out SBC. I think Sacha Baron Cohen's a great actor when he's not doing his own movies. He's in a terrible career phase right now. He's not going to pull out of it.

He's in a Russell Brand tailspin. I don't think he can pull out of it. He also just signed on to do a Mandrake the Magician film, so he's not pulling out of it. Which one? Russell or SBC? SBC. Just signed on to do a Mandrake the Magician film from

the director of Gethard. You know that movie Gethard withrake the Magician film from the director of Gethard. You know that movie Gethard with Will Ferrell? How dare you? It's Gethard. And Kevin Hart. Is that Eton Cohen? Yes. Yes.

Is directing Mandrake the Magician. James Bobin is supposed to do MIB 23 next, which is the Men in Black Jump Street crossover. Jump Street sequel. Here's the thing. I think James Bobin's got a great sense of comedy. I think he's one of the most visually inventive comedy directors. He is, at least was, a visually inventive comedy director. He knows how to give sort of lightness of touch with performances

and a good sort of pace and energy, but also get these kind of cool aesthetics into his stuff. It's annoying to me that all he's doing is brand management. Like, as someone who loves The Muppets, his first four movies are gonna be just taking over franchises that other people have established, and it's like, why can't he invent? Yeah, make a weird little thing, dude.

Maybe he does, I don't know. I don't know. He always kind of has, though, because honestly, directing an HBO Ali G show and directing Flight of the Conchords is brand management in its own much smaller scale kind of way. You know, those are two established acts that he is giving a visual sense to. So maybe that's what it is.

Those are some thoughts. Shasta Baron Cohen's really good in Hugo and Sweeney Todd and Alice Through the Looking Glass. He's good in so many movies that he didn't, like, write. Agreed. I have two final questions about Alice Through the Looking Glass before we talk about the movie we're talking about today, The Animatrix, okay?

Oh, he's good in Les Mis. He's okay. I mean, whatever. Yeah, he's fine in that. Okay, two important questions. No, I'll answer any question how my baby colleen atwood there i mean you know good a lot of costumes yeah it's very i liked the time costume i like the costumes alice is wearing this chinese like trouser suit yeah i saw that it looks like a rainbow vomited it's not great but i mean the idea is it's supposed to be okay but like she's supposed to look stick looks like a rainbow vomited. It's not great. But I mean, the idea is it's supposed to be. Okay.

But like she's supposed to look, stick out like a sore thumb. Yeah. But like they have her in it the whole movie at a certain point. Like, can't she fucking take that off and just put anything else on? Like a tank top or something. Love you, Colleen. Second question. Worth buying the Disney Infinity figures?

I cannot imagine how I could answer that question. Isn't Disney Infinity dead? Yeah, so we're looking. Those are the penultimate releases. What's the final one after? Finding Dory. Hard buy for me. It's grim.

Getting those, but then it's like, I look at the Alice things. I would get time. See, because I've been a completist up until now, but now that I know the thing's dead, it's Dead Man Walking. These are just like they literally had made them before they canceled. They were like, fuck, let's ship them out. Okay, so today we're going to talk about the Animatrix. RIP Disney Infinity.

Did you guys know that 13 years ago there was a series of anime films collected around the Matrix universe that was released on DVD? One of them was released theatrically. Yeah, before. Not before the Matrix Reloaded. Yes, before. I thought them was released theatrically. Yeah, before. Yes. Not before The Matrix Reloaded. Yes, before. I thought it was before something else.

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you meant before the release of Matrix Reloaded. The film it played in front of was Dreamcatcher. Right. That's it. That's why I saw Dreamcatcher. Yes. Yeah.

Same here. Yeah. Oof. Great movie. Poop Monsters. We've talked about it, Ben. Two Poop Monsters. We've talked about it on this podcast before.

Yeah. Oh, hey. Wait a second. Yeah. What's talked about it, Ben. Two poop monsters. We've talked about it on this podcast before. Yeah. Oh, hey. Wait a second. Yeah. What's up? Is that Ben Hosley? Yeah. Hey, I'm here, guys.

Oh, we've got his name settled. Oh, we nailed it. Yeah. Can you pull up, just so we can properly credit the person who came up with this? Let me find it. Look, I'll stall. I'll stall while you're doing that. Here are some other names that Ben has.

Producer Ben. Yes. Produer Ben has Producer Ben Ben Ducer The Haas The Poet Laureate Birthday Benny Mr. Positive The Fuckmaster He is not Professor Crispy

No thank you Don't you dare. Is his audio crisp? Yes, of course. He's good at his job. Does that make him a professor? No. That's not an honorary title.

You need a degree. Yeah, I don't have patches on my elbows. He's got patches on his elbows. He's also accumulated certain titles after we graduate from a miniseries, right? Yes.

Producer Ben Kenobi was there. Mm-hmm. Then as we got through the supplemental Star Wars things, we handed him Kylo Ben, right?

Okay, then we moved on to M. Night Shyamalan and he became Ben Night Shyamalan. Mm-hmm. We've been struggling to come up with a nickname

to fit the Wachowskis. That's right. We thought about the Ben-O-Vinjian or the Mero-Vinji Ben. Both totally good. Like in the stream of nicknames, it wasn't really flowing. Yeah, Ben, you didn't like him. Yeah, it just didn't seem to roll off the tongue. I would struggle to say it. So, Ben, do you know what your name is? Did you see us talking on Twitter?

I think I know what this is called. Someone nailed it. Mark Slutsky, who's at Totally Slutsky on Twitter. A loyal fan of the show. The great Mark Slutsky. He tweeted at us and said what your name should obviously be. Do you want to do it? Yeah. Okay.

Bence 8. Bence 8. Oh yeah. I like that. It was right in front of us the whole time. That's so obvious. How did we not catch that low? Anyway, congrats, Ben Sate. It's perfect. How are you doing, Ben? I'm great.

I never saw these before. I thought these were visually all great, and some were kind of interesting. These seem like right up Ben's alley. Yes. And speaking of right up Ben's alley, before we get to talk about the Animatrix at hand, we're going to talk about- No, no, let's cue that up at the end of the episode. You want to? Yeah. Let's save it for the end talk about let's queue that up at the end of the episode you want to?

yeah let's save it for the end there's a special Ben surprise at the end of the episode if you're a hosthead oh god hosthog you're going to flip out hosthog David Dogg's griff head

that's what it is yep oh yeah shout out to all our blankies shout out to the blankies of course yeah this is a real bonus episode we got a real bonus episode feel

talked about Alice through the looking glass for 10 minutes yeah no if you like if you're a hosthog wait till the end of the episode bonus episode. We got a real bonus episode feel. Talked about Alice through the looking glass for 10 minutes. If you're a hosthog, wait till the end of the episode. There's a hosthog surprise waiting for you at the end. Hoshogs are going to be rewarded more

than they ever have up until date. If you've been tolerating old Griffey and Davey up until now just for the Ben, the slot machine's about to pay out. Yeah, that's correct. Okay, The Animatrix. The Animatrix.

Was released in 2003 on DVD. The first short was released theatrically. Yes, I believe you could watch them online in some form or another. Maybe not, maybe not. It was 2003, so the idea of watching a video online was still pretty adventurous. Yeah, I feel like maybe one or two of them were on the official Matrix site. It was 2003, so the idea of watching a video online was still pretty adventurous. I feel like maybe one or two of them were on the official Matrix site. Put it this way, the Animatrix at the Into the Matrix site has a Flash intro. It's still up there.

Boy, that's quite a sight. Is the boy, can you watch the boy maybe? You could watch four of them free. You could watch the second Renaissance, parts one and two, program and detective story for free. Oh, interesting. Obviously, you had to go to theaters to see Final Flight of the Osiris. Yeah.

And then there was also Kid Story, World Record, Beyond, and Matriculated. Nine films. Eight, really, because one of them is a two-parter. Yeah, I mean, this is of them is a two parter. Yeah. I mean, this is a weird thing that this thing does. It's like they, they settled into like when you watch the,

the DVD or the, or the Blu-ray. Sure. As I did. How did it look on Blu-ray? Well, you know, I mean,

some of these, especially final, the flight of the Osiris, very cutting edge. Yeah. Visuals at the time. Yeah. At the time.

Yes. Now I own a PlayStation four. Right. Which can literally shit that stuff out in its sleep. And here's the time. Now I own a Playstation 4 which can literally shit that stuff out in its sleep. And here's the thing. I don't want to... I might not know what I'm talking about, right? But I was watching this Blu-ray and I know this. The three Matrix movies,

full Blu-ray remastered. Very impressive transfers. Transfers, right? They put the work in. I know, and this box set I got, which is the ultimate Matrix box set, which is like fucking $30 on Amazon now. It's a good deal because it's like seven discs or whatever. Yeah. There were these four discs that originally came in the DVD set that are all the annexed

supplemental material from the world of The Matrix, the Zion Chronicles, the making of all that sort of shit. And all of that stuff is on DVD, right? Oh. Like, pointedly. It's not on Blu-ray. Not only did they not, like, Transfer it.

Transfer it and upgrade it, but they literally just put it on a DVD. It's not even just standard deaf video on it. And I looked at the Animatrix, and at times I was like, this might just be upscaled. Sure. Like, it is a Blu-ray disc.

No, I get you. And some of the shorts look better than others. I couldn't tell. We'll never know. It might be upscaled. Sure. Like it is a Blu-ray disc. No, I get you. But they just chucked them on. And some of the shorts look better than others. I couldn't tell. We'll never know. It might be upscaled. It might be upscaled.

Guys, it's a mystery and we'll never know. We'll never know. But if you do know, write in to us, blankcheckpod at gmail. Yeah, at blankcheckpod on Twitter.

Yeah. So, you know, a couple of these you could see. You could pay, slap down your fucking eight bucks. I thought it was just Final Flight of the Ascended.

Was there not another one? I'm saying the other one's online. Oh, sure. You could see them online. There were avenues for you to see them, but the big thing they wanted was, and this was like, we've talked about this in the past.

Matrix, the first Matrix DVD, had a limited amount of special features. They did this game-changing thing that was like, let's release a whole second disc that's a separate item. Yeah, called the Matrix Revisited. Right. That had all the special features

on it. Right. And like, it was like charging not just to upgrade, but to buy a whole different fucking just special features thing, and it sold really well. Sure. So they were like, we want people buying this. And they were also really, as we've talked about on our Matrix episodes, and guys, I missed the Matrix, and it was fun to get back into the world of the Matrix. That's why we're back in the world.

Good old Wachowskis. was just that they were doing this whole multimedia experience transmedia I believe is the term where it's sort of yeah one property across different mediums there were comic books there was animatrix there was video games and it was all part of this big fungy world fungible world oh which I should give this as advance warning. I said I was going to watch the 40 minutes of live action footage shot for Into the Matrix. Oh, I am shocked to hear that you didn't do that. The only reason I didn't is because I was sick and I didn't want to fucking deal with that when I was sick. There's no reason to watch that shit.

If I was feeling well, I would have watched that. I would have tolerated it. But when I was in bed, I was like... Guys, it doesn't matter. I can fucking watch Wreck-It Ralph or I can watch video game cutscenes. Oh, did you watch Wreck-It Ralph? Yeah, it's a good movie. Fantastic. That movie's very well written.

Very well written and I think beautifully animated. I think so too. I think films like Zootopia and Frozen are very flat. I don't like the animation very much. But I think Wreck-It Ralph takes advantage of the 3D style, which I'm not a big fan of in general. It uses it to its advantage. To its advantage.

How would you rank the modern CGI Disney animated films? Okay, so wait. It's Wreck-It Ralph, Tangled, Frozen, Balt. Yeah. Big Hero 6. Oh, yeah, that was cute. And Zootopes. Zootopia.

Is that all of them? I think that's the full, right? Yeah. How would you rank them? I'd go, number one tangled number two wreck it ralph number three frozen number four i would go uh zootopes number five, Big Hero 6, and six is Poopoo Bolt. Oh, I guess Meet the Robinsons is maybe... No, that's old. Yeah.

Yeah, no, Meet the Robinsons does count. That was Threshold. That was right when Lasseter took over. I believe Meet the Robinsons is the first... Post-Lasseter. When they reopened the Disney animation, yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen that film.

Oh, it's fine. The Princess and the Frog, obviously, is also in that era, but it is Disney animation. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen that film. Oh, it's fine. The Princess and the Frog, obviously, is also in that era, but it is 2D. Yeah. As is Winnie the Pooh. Oh, which is a masterpiece. But it's also 2D. Have you seen that movie? No.

Fucking rules. You want to know the best thing about that movie? The movie's 68 minutes long. Isn't that like the cutest runtime? Isn't that an adorable runtime? It's about as long as Dumbo is or Bambi. Yeah, it's cute. Anyway, yeah, I would say like Wreck-It Ralph and then like just take a deep breath, chill

out for a second. Tangle. Take a deep breath, chill out for another second. Frozen. Big Hero 6. Are you doing okay? You're breathing really heavily. No, actually, you know, Zootopia, Frozen, Big Hero 6, and then Balt and whatever.

Yeah. And I like them all. I just, the sort of Zootopia, Frozen, Big Hero 6, that I just think are like nice, like decent movies. If I was a kid, I'd probably like them a lot. They don't stick out to me like visually. They don't stick out to me like in amazing ways. I just like them.

I think they're good. Zootopia, Frozen are a big cut above Big Hero 6 for me, but Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph are definitely the two best. Big Hero 6 has the big Baymax guy. Yeah, that guy's great. He's real cute. Yeah, you know who's not great? Like the other five.

It's like Big Hero 1 for me. Yeah, I don't remember Big Hero 6 that well. It's probably fair that it, that Tangled and Zootopia, I mean Frozen and Tangled and Zootopia. Tangled Frozen and Tangled and Zootopia. Yeah. Tangled's really pretty. I like that movie. I love Tangled. I just think Wreck-It Ralph. I think the songs in Tangled are great. Wreck-It Ralph is great. Has what I

really want, and Zootopia has this a little bit too, but Wreck-It Ralph really has it, which is like world building. Like amazing world building. Yeah. But I also just love the herky-jerky style, like the way they move. That's incredible. The way it blends. Yeah. Yeah, three knee animation with uh you know video game pixel animation very cool i also think that that story they keep on threading

that needle perfectly there are all these points where you're like you are you can be yourself and like it's good to be yourself right but there's that thing where it's like okay so she's like essentially disabled is like the analogy they're creating with this glitch thing and they like can't make the argument that like she shouldn't get better but they can't make the argument that there's anything wrong with her right so there's like a plot where you're like how are they fucking gonna pull this off because either way they thread the needle but so i do think and i'm i do think the pixar movies when they're good like inside out are just a very obvious still cut above like i agree but i think uh they haven't been making as many inside outs recently right. That's a problem.

Right. Inside Out is the only one that's a cut above the recent Disney movies since 2010, unfortunately. Disney's been on a good one. Okay, Animatrix. How you doing there, Ben? I'm good. I had no idea what you guys were talking about. That's a bonus episode, baby.

Loosen that tie. It's a bonus. This is silly. Bonus. Maybe you should cut all of that. All right, so final- Keep it in. So let's talk about- I need a cigarette. Loosen that tie. This is silly. Bon ass. Maybe you should cut all that. All right. Keep it in.

So let's talk about- Ben, that last section, copy, paste, and put it in twice. All right. So here's what we're going to do. I'll just lay out how this all- So the way it came out was Final Fight of the Osiris, which is a real technical prequel to The Matrix Reloaded. It sets up one little story element for it. Which is addressed in the film. Yeah. Which is addressed in the film.

Which is mentioned in the film. That aired in theaters in front of Dreamcatcher, and you could go see it, and it was like a genuine little preview for The Matrix. The other films came out after The Matrix. At least the DVD did, After The Matrix Reloaded. When did the DVD come out? The DVD came out, my friend,

on June 3rd, 2003. Okay, so it was like a week, I think, yeah. Because I want to say... Whereas Dreamcatcher came out March 2003. Right, right. But they definitely want people to buy this DVD.

Yeah, but the other movies are not directly related to the plot of The Matrix Reload and the Matrix Revolutions. They're more just informing them. Well, the one, the boy's story, what's it called? Oh, it is directly related, I guess, yeah. Yeah, I think those two are directly related. I think

the other two, the history, the revolution. Well, we're going to get to them. We'll get to them. This is what I want to say, though. The format of this thing is interesting. Because Ben and I were talking before you got here of, like, this was kind of the first thing to do this, like, here's an adjacent

movie, right? And some other studios tried to do this afterwards, especially Warner Brothers tried to do this a bunch. They did a thing, I'm going to get the title wrong, but it was Before the Dark Knight, called, like, Batman Arkham Knights. but it was um uh before the dark knight called like batman arkham knights and it was like a film that was sort of like this where it was like anime story set in the

batman universe what does this have to do with anything that's after what are you talking about what's going on this is similar to the animatrix okay i'm gonna make a comparison that makes sense when i throw it i haven't seen this thing i don't know what you're talking it's okay but it's like here are stories that take place in the Nolan Batman universe and there's stories that people are telling about like they're in encounters with Batman. They're all Batman stories from like civilian eyes, right? Uh-huh. The thing

that's interesting in that one is it's also like a bunch of short stories given to different animators with different aesthetics, different storytelling styles but there's this sort of superstructure that's a bunch of people being like, yeah, I met Batman once, and then it cuts into that story. This film as it's presented is just like a bunch of short films

with their own credits and their own title sequences. And even the two-parter is like a two-parter just because they decided, here's a series of things that are 13 minutes long. They could have just had the two-parter be, here's one that's 26. Yeah, whatever. But I just think it's kind of an interesting format.

I like this format much better. I don't like the format you're talking about where it's like masquerading as a prequel, but it's actually just like 100% a cash-in effort. You know, it's kind of like, well, it's kind of like how when Marvel Comics will do like Civil War, you know, the big crossover event. And then there'll be, you should buy X-Men Civil War.

Well, I hate that. Like, this is cool, and you buy it, and it's like, the X-Men have a meeting. They fight a little bit, and then they decide not to be in the Civil War. It's like a completely self-contained, useless arc. That is exactly why I stopped reading single-issue superhero comics. Because it drove me crazy. It's a whole scheme. Anyway.

And it was an event that will change the Marvel Universe forever until the fucking next writer takes over and he goes, I've wanted to write Spider-Man since I was 10. I want Spider-Man the one I like. Right, right. House of M. Remember when House of M was going to change everything? House of M, the actual House of M

story? Pretty cool. And actually, all of the other shit? Oh my god. No, see, I think some of the supplemental House of M titles were kind of good. Okay actually- All of the other shit? Oh my God. No, see, I think some of the supplemental House of M titles were kind of good. Okay, fine. Better than the other ones. Civil War, the supplemental titles were- Terrible. Terrible.

Bullshit. That was also because Marvel was like spinning its wheels waiting for Civil War to be done. Yeah. Like, remember it got really late. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Classic Mark Miller. Yeah.

Ba-ba-ba-ba-bonus. Anyway, so what I like in these Animatrixes, the ones that are like direct prequels, honestly, they're a little lame The ones that are more just like, obviously the writers and directors were told like, you know what the world of the Matrix is like, just play around in it Do a story that's about these themes

Those are kind of cool Here are how I'd separate them, okay? So you go like the kid's story and the final flight are... And detective story. Detective story, I'd say a little less so. I think that is easily the worst one. Oh, no, no, no.

I'm not dividing good and bad. I'm saying the kid's story and the final flight are, like, the ones that are, like... These overlap with the events of the film, right? Those two function in that way. Then you have the two like history ones. Those are the best. I kind of agree. There's one I like more maybe.

I think it's the best one. But the history ones are very good. Yes, excellent. Those two are like, here's prequel sort of world building stuff. And then you have like the other ones which are kind of like the detective story which I don't really like is sort of just like

It's a prequel to The Matrix a little bit but not really. A little bit. It's just an excuse to have Trinity in one of them. And then Matriculated I think gets at the best interpretation of how to do this. That one, Detective Story, and a couple of the other ones sort of fall into this category of like here's just a story that takes place in The Matrix.

Here's just something happening in this world. No, but the difference to me is the detective story is a prequel to the film The Matrix. The first one, yeah. Whereas the world record and beyond stories are more cool, thematic, I like them, entries about how the Matrix might work. And then Matriculated is like...

About answering questions you might have asked. Matriculated is like a whole different philosophical exploration of... It's a cool idea. I love it. The only problem with matriculated is maybe it's too short. It's almost too ambitious. I definitely felt like I wanted to just see a feature-length matriculated. Yeah, it's a good idea.

Yeah, it also looks incredible. Let's go through them. I just started coughing. I'm getting you sick. Final fight. We're going to do it in order. Yep. Final flight of the Osiris is the first if you just watch them all in order.

We're getting focused now. This film, they're all like, what, nine minutes long? I don't know. 13, you said? I think 13. I don't know. The whole thing runs about an hour 40 minutes if you watch all of them. On the Nugget, hour 40 with a lot of credits.

A lot of credits. It's just eight, nine movies. So the first one, Final Flight of the Osiris, was written by the Wachowskis. Yeah. It was directed by Andy Jones, who is a visual effects supervisor. He's been nominated for visual effects work over the years for iRobot. Uh-huh. And also for Avatar.

He won for that one. Oh, Avatar. Avatar. He won for that one. Oh, Avatar. It is from the period of time where everyone thought the next big trend was going to be making fully animated films that were photorealistic with humans.

It was sort of Final Fantasy, the spirits within had come out and bombed. Hard. But people were sort of, and this was produced with that technology, with the square films technology. But people were still like, not a good movie, but whoa, this is the future, right? These crazy, fully realized, like, computer people.

Right. And then that was even what Zemeckis was kind of aiming for in his first couple motion capture movies was, I still want it. Now let's see if I can make the performance better by getting off the actors. Well, yeah, he incorporates his motion capture, which obviously is now where things are trending. But you look at Beowulf, and it still had that same sort of visual obsession of, can we make this look exactly like Angelina Jolie? It's fascinating to me that we've completely given up on that. Well, it's unconquerable.

People don't like it. No, people don't like it. Maybe it can be conquered one day. I have no idea. But certainly, people don't like it. What I just find fascinating is the only time you see people trying to make the thing look completely photorealistic is when it's computer animated characters in a live action film. Yeah. When it's like Avatar or like fucking Warcraft or whatever and it's like make this otherworldly thing look like a real person.

Well, no, of course. You can make monsters or animals look amazing. People buy that. Make that look photoreal. But I'm saying in terms of like animated films, I feel like computer animated films have gotten more cartoony in the last 10 years and more stylized. Even the Disney films we're looking at are very classical. No, it's true. They're not obeying physics and

they're using more squash and stretch than Pixar used to use. That's the zone we're getting into. Final Flight of the Osiris is fascinating. It's aiming for photorealism. It obviously looks like a PlayStation cutscene now. It's fascinating just in that sense it's like a time capsule of like, oh right, this is where

our head was at, was we thought maybe we wanted to do this, and now everyone decided not to follow through on that anymore. You know what, that's the only way in which it's fascinating. I agree. It's pretty dull. It's a kung fu, not kung fu, sorry, it's like a samurai sword battle between two

guys, a guy and a girl in a program, in like a training program. They're on this ship. Now, important detail, they're blindfolded. They are blindfolded. But let's just say I'm not the only peeper peepin'. Oh, fuck. I forgot that nickname too.

The peeper. He's the peeper. Ben's the peeper, and these folks are peepin' aplenty. Yes, they are. peeper, and these folks are peeping aplenty. Yes, they are. The man in the film, I was 100% sure, was voiced by

Michael Jai White, because he looks exactly like Michael Jai White. But doesn't the model look like Michael Jai White? I guess so. These things don't look like anything to me, because they look so bland. Maybe Michael Jai White is just a very conventionally handsome person.

But I was just convinced it was him. The other one is played by Pamela Adlon. Which is crazy. Weird, right? Especially since it's an Asian woman. Yeah. But both, you know, Pamela Adlon is primarily a voice actress. And the same for Kevin Michael Richardson.

These are two of the great voice actors. These are primarily cast with voice actors, these films. And you see the same with Tom Kenny is in this, Jill Talley's in this, and it's the same couple actors in most of the films. Yeah. Pamela Adlon, you know what her greatest role is, right? Bobby from King of the Hill? Exactly.

So great. Kevin Michael Richardson, who is, he's a husky black dude. He's not this handsome, tall, sort of conventional Michael Jai White type. Oh, he this like handsome tall like you know sort of conventional Michael Jai White type. No he's like a big he looks like a

like a black Pavarotti or something. Yeah he was in do you remember the show The Knights of Prosperity with Oh yeah. Donald Logue.

Yeah. About them trying to rob Mick Jagger's house. Yeah. Which was like one of the weirdest fucking shows that ever existed. You remember what the

original title of that show was? Let's Rob Mick Jagger. Yeah. Such a weird show. He was very funny on it. It's one of the rare times he was on camera. Very funny man. You remember what the original title of that show was? Let's Rob Mick Jagger. Yeah. Such a weird show. He was very funny on it. It's one of the rare times he was on camera. Very funny man. You know, I always-

But really a voice actor. I always like voice actors in live action. When I see voice actors in live action, I usually think they're- Phil Lamar. Anytime Phil Lamar pops in. The great Phil Lamar. Phil Lamar was just on Veep.

Yeah. I love Phil Lamar. But even like, you know, Tom Kenny and Jill Talley on Mr. Show were so fucking good. That's Mr. Show. Yeah. That's Mr. Show. That's the way I'm talking about Mr. Show. I mean, they're not voice actors yet when they're on Mr. Show.

Then they find that route, you know, into the industry. Yeah. But anyway, so they have a sexy samurai fight where they're cutting off each other's clothes. Ooh, bold. Yeah, I mean, it's like exactly like the Kung Fu sequence from the first Matrix, except they want to fuck each other. Well, and they have swords. And yeah,

they want to fuck each other. But it's got the same sort of vibe. Yeah, it's the same aesthetic. It's in media res. You see them fighting and they got blindfolds but they keep on sort of swashbuckling like fucking Antonio Banderas Zorro-ing each other's clothes off with their swords and then they'll take a little pee. The Zorro

sequence is wonderful, but it also has this weird threat to it where he's cutting off her clothes. Yeah. And it's like intentionally aggressive. Yeah. You know, and she's fighting back or whatever. But, you know, it's also more period appropriate because, you know, men were jerks. I mean, they're still jerks, but men were real assholes in Zorro era, just cutting off ladies' clothes all the time. Oh, I thought you meant

2003. Well, that's... 2003, well, the thing this... What I'm trying to build to here is, like, you know, when Zorro's cutting off Catherine Zeta-Jones' clothes, you know, he's a scoundrel, but scoundrels are much more Zorro-appropriate, Zorro period-appropriate. I agree. Here, where they're cutting off each other's

clothes, yeah, she cuts his shirt off, but he, like, efficiently disrobes her, and she's wearing, like, you know, very appropriate. I agree. Here where they're cutting off each other's clothes. Yeah she cuts his shirt off. Yeah. But he like he like efficiently disrobes her and she's wearing like you know very like sort of over the top sexy underwear. Yeah. And you know they try to have their cake and eat it and have both of them

peek at each other. But it's not super balanced. No. That's what I'm saying. I'm going to read through the subtext and say what you're saying. They should have showed that computer animated dick. Oh, yeah. That would have been great. If she had cut his fly.

Just like his pants slowly fell. But even not at the pants. If she just cut out of his fly zone and then suddenly the dick went. But then everyone would be like, oh. Yeah, that's. You know what? Risky. That's how America should respond.

You know what I'm saying? Fucking wake up, you sheep. Look at a dick. Yeah, that's, you know what? Risky. That's how America should respond. You know what I'm saying? Fucking wake up, you sheep. Look at a dick. Yeah. Go to a movie. Look at dick, sheeple. Okay, okay, okay. Stop yelling.

Buy a fucking tub of popcorn and look at a dick. So anyway, we get this. This is half the film. It's just them cutting each other's clothes off. It's like a solid four or five minutes. And here's the worst part. This is the better half. That's probably true.

So then the second half is they're on And here's the worst part. This is the better half. That's probably true. And then the second half is they're on their ship in the real world. They see a bunch of squids and then they see like, oh no, the squids are going to tunnel down to Zion. Which is exactly like the sentinel chase from the first Matrix, except not as good. Both halves of this film are very

similar to scenes from the first Matrix, except now done without real people. Right. But, and we'll get, anyway, and so I'll just wrap up the plot. Yeah. They see that the squids are trying to tunnel down to Zion, so she has to go into the Matrix and to jump around.

Yeah. In a bunch of ways, and then drop off like a message to the headquarters. And of course that message is received in the Matrix Reloaded. They say it like, oh, this message from the Osiris says, it was the final flight.

Yeah, right. And then the squids get the ship and they blow it up. Yeah. say it. Like, oh, this message from the Osiris says the Zion is... It was the final flight. Yeah, right, yeah, yeah. And then the squids get the ship and they blow it up. Yeah. The end. Now, I will say at the time, I thought this looked incredible. Oh, I did too. I remember just being like, wow, this is so cool, which really is funny to think of.

Yeah, I also convinced myself that Final Fantasy The Spirit Within was good. Yeah, I never did that, but I did think the visuals were cool. Like, I did. I did think it was the future. That movie's kind of incomprehensible, right? Kind of incomprehensible? Are you crazy? It's not remotely comprehensible.

I remember that being, like, the most plot-dense and, like, obtuse movie I had ever seen as a 10-year-old. Fucking bonkers. What was it, 12? Yeah, I must have seen 12 when it came out. Do you remember when they put that character on the cover of Maxim? Do you remember that? Of course.

That was like, again, that was all part of this very efficient PR campaign that did not work for that movie where they were like, it's the future where it's like, we're even going to have CG cover stars, you know, CG sexy ladies in bikinis.

I bet I could find it. Hey, guys, they never wanted to fuck a computer before, huh? Like, that was the whole angle on that movie. I bet I could find it. Hey, guys, I bet you never wanted to fuck a computer before, huh? That was the whole angle on that movie. I know. It was bizarre. I love that the marketing

was that base where it's like, hey, you want to fuck that cartoon, huh? And then you saw the movie and it made no sense. The movie's about like four spirits of nature.

It's about robot ghosts. There she is. God. That's disgusting. That's so gross. It is. It's really gross. and i'm not even just saying like it's the only thing because like the movie itself is not about like a sexy bikini

lady who has bikini adventures it's about like a scientist voiced by ming na who's like you know yes she also wears like the most sort of like androgynous jumpsuit the entire film i'll say this like when i say that's gross, it is culturally gross. No, it is gross. But more than that, it's just visually gross. I mean, that's the thing. It's like unsettling.

It's unsettling. I don't like that we did it as a people, but I also just don't like looking at it. Anyway, so, the second film,

and let's just talk about- Yeah, we're done with the Final Flight of the Osiris. That's it. Yeah. The second film is, and we'll just talk about, the second and third films

are called The Second Renaissance. Love it. Yeah, they were written and directed by Mahiro Maeda, who's working from info from the Wachowskis, I think, just to lay out the details of the machine war. The Wachowskis have a story by credit on this. And I also noticed there was no writing credit on this one, which I thought was interesting. Uh-huh. this and I also noticed there was no writing credit on this one which I thought was interesting so my theory is because this film doesn't really have dialogue it's sort of like a textbook kind of voiceover telling you the history I feel like the Wachowskis wrote that as background information

and then as a director he visualized it and had free reign to do whatever he wanted it's got this crazy visual thing where you're like in some sort of archival computer program and there's a crazy lady AI who's like, welcome to archives. But she also sort of looks like a Buddhist deity. And there's all these patterns, these weird color patterns that you're zooming in and around like you're moving through some sort of computer program. It's got a lot of gold, which is a color we don't really see in any of the Matrix movies.

The Matrix movies are so green. It's got these burnt oranges even in the Revolutions, but this is like a shiny gold. So this is the most interesting of the films, probably. Matriculated is also interesting. We'll get to that later. I think it does an okay job. I think it's,

me and Ben were talking about it before the podcast started. You know, it's pretty easy to poke some holes in this whole grand story it tells. Yeah, I mean, Ben, do you want to throw your main gripe out? Because I think it's an interesting

sort of thing. Well, yeah, because the story is that one of the robots overthrows and kills its masters. I guess, let's just do the basic overthrow. It's like, we as a culture create a bunch of robots

to be servants, right? And to manufacture shit. To make our life easier. One of the robots in sort of classic iRobot style kills his master. He claims it's in self-defense, but they take him to trial and they execute him. And because of that, the robots get angry and there sort of becomes like cultural friction.

Well, no, more than that. No, they don't just execute him. They start executing robots en masse. Oh, they execute all his kind. Yes. His like model gets executed in mass. And so that prompts basically, the film makes some very broad racism analogies, but that prompts the robots to sort of flee

and start their own civilization. There's a segregation. They start their own sort of continent, which is called Zero One, and they start manufacturing stuff from Zero One, and their manufacturing capabilities are much better than the humans. They quickly outstrip, and they start manufacturing stuff from Zero One. And their manufacturing capabilities are much better than the humans. They quickly outstrip, and they start advancing their AI.

And they quickly outstrip human civilization. They're making car motors, and then the humans are buying the car motors, and then the human economy goes so far down. They say at one point, like, the human nation, which I mean, I think that maybe the idea they're getting at is like all continents have, like all humans have become one large country yeah which i kind of like and then global

industrial right there's a global yeah sort of industry and then the robots are their own like sovereign state yeah and the robots try to join the un they are rejected they think now that there's these big businessmen this big swinging dicks they can come back and be like hey you're gonna let us back in right and they're like no like, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then war breaks out, and then the machine war, as we know it, obviously, ensues. Right. With the scorching of the sky. Well, that's the thing. The final

strike the humans have, because they can't take down these robots anyway, they try bombing them a bunch, and they're like, we're robots. Don't fucking bomb us. What are you talking about? We don't care about bombs. A bomb's a robot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, buddy, we'll just hang out with our bomb friend. So they were like, oh, how about we kill the sky? Yeah, we blanket the sky in nanobots.

Because a lot of them are solar powered. They're all solar powered or whatever. So they kill the sun, and now the robots have won, but they're also really tired because they don't got the sun anymore. And then they realize, oh, humans. Right, well, we know the premise of the Matrix. Yeah, they harvest the humans as batteries. But here's the thing I like.

They sort of say, like, they look, they were obsessed with, like, humans and, like, fascinated by the fact that they, like, keep on, like, reproducing all this. The thing that this thing gets at, it explains why the robots would go through the trouble of creating the Matrix rather than just having the humans be in hypersleep. Which is you show them sort of experimenting with them

and they like tickle them and then they get a charge. And they make the humans cry and they get a charge. And it's like specifically the thing that charges them is human emotion. So they need to create this. They need the brains to work. They need this simulation where the humans can go through the entire human condition in order to get it.

Which I think is a really interesting thing. No no it's all interesting because the world of the matrix is really interesting it also gets in like a monster zinc territory where it's like gotta get them screams but the question i had like oh this is great but the question i had is i don't understand the motive like the robot motivation why robots would want to exist that's not explained well you're talking about yeah it's it's the robots are the robot survival instinct is never explained right and for that to exist there essentially needs to be and this is a common like theme in a lot of sci-fi stories about robotics is the idea of this anomaly where somehow artificial intelligence becomes like genuine intelligence. You know, where feelings come into play.

And where they, you know, it's WALL-E, it's Sunny from iRobot, it's all these fucking robots where suddenly, here's the one robot that has a slightly different thing. It thinks like a human and then changes the sort of species. I mean, these are the questions of the Matrix. What is consciousness?

Where does it evolve from? Is it just, like, does it begin with just self-defense and like this sort of like, is that, these are the questions of the Matrix. What is consciousness? Where does it evolve from? Does it begin with just self-defense? Is that what consciousness is? Is it just the desire not to die? But these two don't ever really get into the robot's consciousness. They talk about what they did to survive. They don't really talk about why. This is more of a straight history. I agree that it

has to make these rapid jumps just to move the story along kind of quickly. Because it's kind of told like it's a documentary you would watch in history class. Right. Which I like. Like the narration's very sort of like clinical. Me too. I like that too.

I just think it looks amazing. It looks amazing. I just think the animation is so cool. I think the way you see the war evolve and then like once they splinter the sky and the robots really start turning into the squids and like the red eyed things that we know from the Matrix it's just so like nightmarish the violence is really gross

there's like a terrifying I mean a really successfully terrifying sequence where you see this like scantily clad woman running down the street and the guy is just fucking cold cocking her she's a robot he rips her shirt open first and her breasts are hanging out and she's crying and screaming and you're like woman oh yeah down the street and the guy is just fucking cold cocking but he's a robot well that's

what you find out i mean he rips her shirt open first and her breasts are hanging out and she's crying and screaming and you're like this is weird really upsetting are you trying to show us that humans turned on each other and then he punches her further and her whole face flies off right it's like oh she's a robot but it's playing on this sort of like it's it's the same thing as like sexual abuse as racism you know it's like you know sometimes these things are tough to draw i just want you know these parallels can be a little broad they also quote clarence darrow and they also quote the dread scott like they do these broad things but that's fine i mean like it's it's fine it's just you know it's broad stuff

what i do like is that the matrix movies themselves properly like't get into, because we're seeing it from the humans who are the ones... The machines are the enemies, especially in the first Matrix. Right. And you don't understand how it happens, so you're just like, oh, the robots got smart and they killed us all. And also that's such a classic sci-fi trope is evil AI. But you watch

these and you're like, oh, it's so much more depressing because they just wanted to be equals and we wouldn't let them fucking in the door well it's like it's like what we were supposed to say please and thank you to a robot exactly ben's right how dare you fuck you robots i like robots i want to be friends with a robot no i mean this is why i love the matrix sequel so much yeah it's because they dig into these questions i think the only thing in the first Matrix movie is that idea, which is said, that we are the ones who scorched the sky.

Yeah. So you realize, like, okay, we may have been the architects of our own doing here. Yes. And obviously, like, Agent Smith's growing consciousness is like a sort of seed for that idea. Right. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But that's what I like about the sequels is that they dig into this thing. It's like, yeah, you know what? Humans aren't great either, you know? No. We're all pieces of shit. Then again, I would also kill all the robots. Yeah, but then I also watched this and I'm like, okay, so we treated them like garbage.

They gave us like six chances, right? They kept on being like, please, can we come back? Yeah, I know, I know. Right? And then they were nice enough to like put us in a world where everything's really nice. Well, that's the thing. There is a benevolent weirdness to it, but it's also so creepy because we see them like the thing. I think the film successfully shows the cruelty of the robots. I agree. In experimenting on people. You see that thing where they like rip open a mecha suit and they start like, oh, so terrifying.

Yeah. So cool. But because the film has that clinical narration and stuff, it almost seems like it's propaganda for the robots. Like I say, robot written narrative, right? A.I. narrative. But at the same time, we can sympathize with what the bad things they're doing. You know, it exists in a lot of moral gray area. And I also think it makes the films themselves more morally gray, which is like what you the most you could ask for of something like this, of a supplemental piece that's meant to enhance the original films. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. This is what I want. The platonic ideal of an

animatrix. I'm not saying it's the best one, but it's like the platonic ideal of how it could function. I think Maticula is the best one. There's also an insane shot where a robot's got a human's head and he just squeezes it. And he pulls it apart, yeah. He squeezes it until the eyes pop out and then you're like, okay, I got it. The eyes popped out.

And then the brain pops out from the eyes. Yep. Fucking robots, man. Don't mess with them. Still want to be friends with one. If we have any robot listeners, please tweet at me, Griff Lightning, on Twitter. I like robots. I want to be friends with robots.

Okay, number three is Kid Story. Number four, technically Lightning, on Twitter. I like robots. I want to be friends with robots. Okay, number three is Kid's Story. Number four, technically, is Kid's Story, written by the Wachowskis. Oops! And directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, who, let me see who he is. Neither of us are big anime people. We should throw that

out as a disclaimer. Who worked on Cowboy Bebop. Okay. And, you know, the guy who did the second renaissance, Mihiro Maeda, he has a lot of interesting credits. He worked on a lot of cool anime shows like Neon

Genesis Evangelion. I've heard of that one. And he worked on a lot of Ghibli movies and he worked on the Kill Bill anime sequence. Oh, which I love. I don't know if his credit is the director. He just did a lot of key art for those things.

Just FYI. Yeah. So, a kid's story. This is about the kid from the Matrix sequels who's really annoying. Yeah, remember that kid that we didn't give a shit about in two separate movies? Played by Clayton Watson.

And you were like, why are they putting all this time and energy into him? He's in Reloaded a little bit and he's in Revolutions a lot. But in Reloaded, he's not in a lot, but they give him a big fucking entrance.

They hit it hard when he shows up and it's because this was part of that transmedia idea they had, which is like, you're going to see this kid and you're going to be like,

where did this kid come from? And then you've got to watch the animatrix. You watch it and you're like, I mean gives a shit i don't like that yeah no nobody cares i think this one looks great it's a very interesting look yeah it's really cool it's really weird yeah and like it's a it's basically the story is very simple this kid feels alienated he has classic matrix uh red pill you know, feelings where he's like something's wrong. Yeah.

He's talking to Neo on his computer, you know, hacking away. It's like when Neo started talking to Trinity on the computer. Yeah, absolutely. And this short is essentially Matrix high. Like it's like the whole opening chunk of Neo in the first Matrix except done in high school instead. So it's like, okay, he's talking to Neo instead of Neo talking to Trinity. The agents come and find him at school rather than at the office. It's like the shit we've seen before.

But on a narrative level, not that much. Well, so it's basically just that. Now, I think the Wachowskis are trying to write a story that's interesting to them, which is this idea that people who are disaffected, who suffer from depression, who suffer from some out-of-body problems, the Matrix is a dramatization of what that is, and, like, you know, feeling unglued from the world, and, like, you know, that's a cool idea.

Yeah. But it's all, this thing is very simple and not that interesting. Agreed. Except for one thing. Which is? He escapes the Matrix by himself. Yeah. Which is a weird concept.

By killing himself. He throws himself out of a school window. Yeah. And you see him, like, point of view shot of him, like, falling to the ground. He keeps on having this dream about flying through the sky and falling and everything. And then he gets to the, he's, it's this long escape sequence. He goes to the roof. He thinks he's gotten away from the agents.

The agents are on the roof. He knows what he has to do. He goes, I knew it wasn't a dream. And he jumps off. And then he wakes up. Or you hear his funeral. And they're like, some people aren't meant for this world. You he clearly was struggling you know his thoughts all the time i mean he distrust paranoia all that sort of you're like okay depression thing sure right and then it cuts

to him like waking up on the gurney and they're like uh oh oh the cell rehabilitation metastasis project i mean they kind of do one of those one line, like here's a technology you've never heard of that explains how we were able to bring him back to life. Maybe. Yeah, I don't know. They say something like that. They go like, oh, the cell regeneration. Okay, okay.

I don't even remember that. It's fine, whatever. Hey, also, dude can shred. Dude can shred. On the skateboard. Dude's a fucking rad boarder. 2003, baby. It's got the thing that the Kill Bill thing did as well.

It's got this really, like, scratchy, sketchy line style that I really like. Mm-hmm. It sort of looks like Egon Scheele drawings. Okay. Which I love. On a story level, it's not that interesting. Here's another thing I was talking about with Ben about it. I was watching this one, and, like and like you know Neo's got a little

part in this one right? Yeah. They don't make him look like Keanu. No. And when he starts talking I was like this guy's doing a fucking terrible Keanu impression. I mean he sounds like nothing like Keanu. Take me out of it. No it's Keanu Reeves. I know! Yeah. Wow. I'm dying.

But it gets at this thing you saw the motion picture of Keanu as well right yeah I did you mean oh well yeah cause his voice performance in that is also really undistinctive yeah that is true and it's weird because anyone I'm actually

gonna die no I just think it's like fascinating that anyone could do a good Keanu impression and then you see Keanu doing Keanu, and he doesn't sound like... Because he doesn't want to lean into it, probably. He doesn't want to lean into the, like, the, dude, whoa, stuff. Well, Ben's theory also that we were working on was just that, like, Keanu's such a physical actor.

Like, not just with action, but he's also so much more about presence than he is about, like, line readings. Maybe he's not good in a booth. I think that's true, but he's also... It doesn't matter. Anyway. It's just weird in Keanu where they have the big scene where the cat talks, and it's clearly the joke that Keanu Reeves is doing the voice,

and you're like, that doesn't sound anything like Keanu Reeves. Like, I know it is. But you want him to talk like this. You just did a better Keanu than Keanu. Exactly. I mean, Keanu's performance in the film Keanu was a real let down Really disappointing But that movie is also kind of disappointing in general

Yeah it's fine Alright the next film is called Program It's written and directed By Yoshiaki Kawajiri Who is A veteran of Japanese animation The creator of titles like Wicked City, Ninja

Scroll, and Vampire Hunter D colon Bloodlust. Okay. All sound great. This one stars the great Phil Lamar, the aforementioned Phil Lamar. Yeah, as a duo. And the other character's name is Sis? Sis. Yeah.

Hedy Barres. Yeah. So this has a very cool animation style. Very cool. Yeah. And it's like this sort of samurai battle between this like crazy white lady with big white hair and this sort of guy in like samurai armor among these trees. And this is sort of like a classic feudal Japan like setting.

Right. And it feels like, you know, I mean, it's sort of analogous to the Kung Fu training sequence in the first matrix because it's in such a different setting. It's less annoying to watch it a second time than it was in last flight of the Osiris. But yeah, it's like just crazy sort of like impressionistic,

surreal samurai world. But you know what? We just kind of said everything about it. That's sort of the problem with this one. Well, here's the rest of this one. The guy in it is like, hey, no one's listening. I want you to know I'm going to go back into the Matrix. Yeah, he's basically just doing the cipher argument

where he's like, when I took the red pill, I wanted to know the truth. Now I don't care about the truth. Like, yeah, we already heard that, you know, stuff from the Cypher story in the first Matrix. That's all fine. They have a big battle. She defeats him.

You know, she resists his challenge. And then it turns out it was all a training program to see if she would give in to that. Yeah, that's stupid. Yeah, and I want to say say too, it's like, why is every simulation fighting? Like, why can't it be like, I don't

know, a swim in the Caribbean? I agree. Or here's the question. Ice cream in bed program. Yeah, no, because that's tough to do. It is tough to eat ice cream in bed. It would be helpful to have a training program. Here's the question. No, because that's tough to do. It is tough to eat ice cream in bed. It would be helpful to have a training program. Here's the question.

No, but it's tough to do. Can they swim? Here's my question. What about swimming with ice cream in bed? Here's my question. That would be difficult. Because one hand would have to keep it above water, or else you'd get wet ice cream.

But you'd get a little floaty. This is my question. Yeah. Do you think they have sex in the training programs? No. There are sex programs. Question. So here's my question.

Why isn't one of those shorts about that? No, not that. You have to be plugged in and you have to have the programs loaded by an engineer and he has to watch. So how do you deal with that? Is it kind of like you go over to Tank and you're like, hey, Tank, I want to have sex with Switch. I'm Apoc. Yeah. Don't look. Hey, Tank like, Hey, Tank, I want to have sex with Switch. I'm Apoc. Yeah, don't look. Hey, Tank, I'm Apoc.

I want to have sex with Switch. So can you plug us both in, just load my favorite sex program, and then just take it easy for 15 minutes, just take a coffee break, whatever. You know what he'd say. Switch, though. Not like this. Not like this. That's program.

Here's another question. It looks good. I have nothing to say about's program Here's another question It looks good I have nothing to say about program Here's another question I had Okay So like In the Matrix They say like If you die in the Matrix

You die in real life And the scenes where we see Someone's plugged in And they get shot or whatever And then they cut back to them Like in the real world On the Nebuchadnezzar And they're like

Bleeding out of their mouth Getting brutalized Yeah They're getting those injuries, right? Not specifically those. It's like, not if you get shot, you don't get a gunshot wound. But you're having the internal effects of it. Your body

reacts. Right? If you go into the Matrix in like a simulation... Well, wait. Matrix or a training program. Those are two different things. If you go into... I'll say for either one. Okay. Okay? Yeah. I think my question applies to either one.

For the sake of clarity and keeping it on subject I'll say a training program. If you go into a training program that's training you how to fuck. Right? Fuck. And you do some fucking in the training program. Do you come in real life? Probably. You make a mess in your pants. You probably. It'd be like a wet dream, right? walking in the training program, do you come in real life? Probably, yeah.

You make a mess in your pants. You probably, it'd be like a wet dream, right? Probably. So are wet dreams just the matrix? Yeah, that's what they are. Hey, actually, I have another question. Please. David, you probably will be able to help with this.

Maybe Griffin. Okay. So in the matrix, are there, like, for example, are there people with disabilities? Like, is there blind people in the Matrix? Because that fucking sucks, dude. Yeah, I think there is. That's bullshit. You mean, so it's like, right, you not only are you a slave to machines who lives in like a,

but also within the world of the Matrix, they haven't even, well, no, yeah, they are. They are. That's absolutely true. 100%. Because the whole point of the Matrix is it has to be real. They talk about how there was the Paradise Matrix where everything was good and it didn't work because we didn't accept it. Uncanny Valley. Yeah. The only

people who can look like badasses are people who are broadcasting from the real world and plugging into the Matrix because they know they're in a fake thing. And that's why anytime Keanu plugs into the Matrix he looks like fucking hot shit. Yeah. You know and he's got a like you know $2,000 fucking hot shit. Yeah. You know, and he's got a, like, you know, $2,000 cassock.

Yeah. Or whatever. But normal people don't know that, so yeah. Okay, here's another question I have, and David or Ben, you might be able to help me with this one. How does sex work? Oh, just in general? Yeah, what is sex?

Dude, that's a great question. Is it good? I've heard good things. Like warm apple pie. No, that's a blowjob. That's what that is a metaphor for. Sex is like American Pie 2. Like a warm DVD of American Pie 2.

It's like American Pie 2. It's mostly a contractually obligated underwritten affair. It's Chris Klein's last chance for relevancy. I do like that in American Pie, everyone has very stupid,

like, you know, fakey Hollywood crazy, oh boy, like they're having sex in this, like on a pool table with the mom, like whoa, all this crazy shit. Except for,

it's Mina Suvari and Chris Klein, right? Yeah, just. Who just, no, no, no, no, it's not. It's Thomas E. Nicholas and Tara Reid. Because, right, Chris Klein and Mina Suvari and Chris Klein, right? Yeah, just... Who just... No, no, no, no. It's not. It's Thomas E. Nicholas and Tara Reid. Because, right, Chris Klein and Mina Suvari don't even have sex. Oh, right, that's the big thing. They watch The Sunrise.

Right. Thomas E. Nicholas and Tara Reid just have, like, boring loss of virginity sex where she's just kind of like, ow. Yeah. And, like, he's like, you okay? And she's like, I'm okay. Yeah. And that's it.

It's, like, totally... I like that they at least throw you a bone with, like... No pun intended. Yeah. And that's it. It's like totally, I like that they at least throw you a bone with like, no pun intended. Yeah. It's been a while since I saw American Pie, but I think I'm right. Yeah. What? No, I think you're right. I think so too.

By the way, our next main series is the American Pie franchise. Oh my God. Would we do the directed TV sequel? Yeah, you have to. You have to do all nine. But they're not canon. Are they not? No, they're not. I think it's canon that one

dude's dad, after that dude goes off to college, just starts hanging out with other teenagers. Including various relatives of Stifler. There's like three different Stifler relatives in this. Hey, you're Stifler's pool cleaner.

Okay, so imagine your dad, imagine you go off to college and your dad just decides to start hanging out with relatives of... And he emails you. That dude you didn't like. He's like, I ran a naked mile with Stifler's second cousin. And Jim's like, Stifler was a burden. Jim's like, I got married. I'm married to Allison Hannigan now. I've just been talking about how I don't want to hang out with Stifler,

and he just comes with the rest of the guys. That's like the big thing in American Pie 2 is the only reason they can afford the summer houses is because Stifler has money. And they're like, fuck, I don't want to live with Stifler. I don't want to live with Stifler. And Jim's dad's like, don't worry. I'm going to hang out with Stifler's nephew. But it's always like Stifler goes to band camp.

I haven't seen these films, but I've seen like trailers for them. Yeah. And then it's like, who turns around in the chair, but Jim's dad, he's like, I'm the new administrator of band camp.

By the way, he's still never given a proper name. No, I don't think so. His name is Jim's dad in like American Pie 8, the book of love. He cashed so many fucking checks, man.

Cause he was in Cheaper by the Dozen 2. He's in just so many. It's incredible. He was in that movie with the Book of Love. Eugene Levy cashed so many fucking checks, man. Because he was in Cheaper by the Dozen 2. He's in just so many. It's incredible. He was in that movie with the Olsen twins. New York Minute. New York Minute, which I saw opening day in theaters. He was in The Man with Samuel Jackson. Yeah, yeah.

Bringing Down the House. Yeah, I remember Samuel Jackson screened The Man for victims of Hurricane Katrina for free. I remember that. It was very hard to make fun of that because it was a very noble gesture of him. But also, they had gone through so much suffering at that point. Why make them watch The Man? So, how did we get on this?

Oh, forget the sex talk. Wait, wait, wait. I was going to say something really funny. Oh, no. I mean, I do have one funny thing to say. But before that. But before that? Oh, my God.

Can you imagine how offensive Bringing Down the House must be to watch today? Because even at the time... Bringing Down the House was offensive at the time. Very offensive. But now...

But I mean, it was like remarked upon that like, this is an offensive film. Oh, this is a very aggressive movie. If that movie came out tomorrow... People would burn down the house.

Yeah, they would literally burn down the movie house. No, I mean, it's a terrible, terrible piece of shit. This is what I was going to say. Do you think one of the American Pie sequels

has a scene where they're... Isn't the entire premise of burning down the house just that it's outrageously crazy to imagine that Steve Martin would be friends with a black lady? Correct.

It's like the whole idea. It's like, Steve Martin's got a new friend and it's Queen Latifah. What? $160 million domestic. that's the only joke of that film yeah and eugene levy with cornrows going you got me straight tripping bro that's right i forgot about that i mean that was 60 million dollars alone on that line uh that movie is fucking awful um do you think there's a scene in one of the American Pie sequels where Eugene Lovey's like,

Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Jim's dad. And they're like, Who's Jim? I don't know and I don't care to find out. I haven't even seen... I've only seen American Pie's one and two. I have not seen Wedding or Reunion. Oh, bro, you gotta attend the wedding.

I do not. And I won't. There's another thing jonathan braylock who gives me shit all every fucking week on twitter you see it every week he's coming hard every week he comes right at me he's one of our fans former guest friend of mine i love you john but every week you come after me and this week he committed the most unforgivable sin which was suggesting that we do brett ratnerner one day as a blank check. He is not a blank check filmmaker, in the slightest.

Tower Heights, though. He is someone who literally Hollywood would just be like, can you imitate the style enough of Silence of the Lambs to do us a Red Dragon? Can you copy Bryan Singer quickly just to do X-Men The Last Stand? Just come on, quickly. I can't wait to see how Braylock live tweets us talking about him right now.

But I also love that, like, for the first half of our podcast, when he would live tweet the episodes, he'd be like, Griffin, what the fuck are you talking about? And now he's switched to coming out really hard on you. He's so cruel to me. Ben, you're up next. You're going to face the Bray pretty soon. All right.

Oh, no. So let's move on. You're going to get Bray. What's our running time, Ben? About an hour. Okay, cool. All right. So, yeah, we're's move on. You're going to get braided, bro. What's our running time, Ben? About an hour. Okay, cool. All right. So yeah, we're getting

done. Okay, we'll be done in two minutes. So World Record is the next one. Okay. Screenplay by Kawajiri, who did the screenplay

for Program, and directed by Takeshi Koiki. I don't know. I'm certain I'm mangling some of these names, and I'm sorry. Anyway, I don't really have anything for you on him. Anyway, this is also kind of cool looking,

also weird looking. Yeah. It's about a runner, like a sprinter, who breaks the world record for sprinting, and there's this suggestion that he's so good at this that he's almost like a glitch in the Matrix, and he's becoming somewhat aware that the world is not as it seems.

And somehow manipulating. Right. Yeah. And the agents show up to try and stop him, basically, from breaking the world record because it's too weird. They don't want to do superhuman Neo stuff. Can I give this short an award?

I would like to give- I was nodding? I would like to give World Record the award for Most Animated Knee Sweat. A lot of knee. A lot of calf in this movie. A lot of calf. I'd say there's probably 20, a solid, I'm not overestimating here, a solid 20% of this runtime is a close-up of a knee with just beads of sweat propelled off of it, spring-loaded

off of the knee. I mean, the film is dramatizing an eight-second 100-meter dash, so it really has to slow things down. It's sinewy you're seeing like the muscles like you see his muscles like rupture yeah it's gross it's gross um but if you love knee sweat i mean you're gonna you're gonna dig this thing hard yeah i think that's enough right i think we did it about this one yeah yeah i mean this one is like this gets into the sort of like twilight zoney likey, like, Tales from the Matrix kind of, like, here are just things that could happen in a world.

Right. It has this vaguely interesting idea that he's, right, he's so fast and he's breaking the rules so much that he, like, they're kind of trying to shock him in his pod back into submission. Yeah. And he's briefly aware of, like, being in the pod. Like, he briefly escapes and then, you know escapes and then locks back into the Matrix. The code starts to lift.

Kind of a cool idea. Yeah, and the ending is cool. His legs totally rupture, and then it cuts to him at the hospital, and he's got these big braces. He will never walk again. And then he fucking wills himself to walk. And says, free,

which is maybe laying it on a little thick. The next film is called Beyond, and it's written and directed by Koji Morimoto who is a Japanese anime director who worked on Akira, worked on Kiki's Delivery

Service. He's the co-founder of Studio Four Degrees. I don't know. He's a guy. Oh, Studio Four Degrees. We're anime neophytes. Yeah, we really are. I mean, I really, I know shit about anime. Now I'm going to pretend to know.

It's crazy. I know so much shit about so many nerdy things that anime is just the biggest blind spot. I just never got into it. Apart from the Pokemon anime, which I watched every episode.

But there's so much nerd stuff that I know just from sort of osmosis, from proximity. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. You spend enough time in a comic book store,

you start to know about other adjacent nerd properties just because you're, like, in those worlds. I know, like, certain anime titles, but I know, like, fucking nothing. You know? What are you going to do? Yeah. I mean, I got pretty much heavy metal,

and that's about it. Sure. Yeah, I mean, that doesn't really... That's not even anime. No, it's just an animated movie. That was French, Ben. Oh, sorry. Sure. Yeah, I mean, that doesn't really... That's not even anime. No, it's just an animated movie. It was French, Ben. Oh, sorry. Yeah. It's cool, though. I didn't realize it was specific

to, I guess, Japan? Anime? Yeah, I think anime, like, yeah. I think specifically. Can I also say you liking... Oh, there's anime-inspired stuff. You liking heavy metal is the least surprising thing I've ever heard. That's pretty.

Oh, and there's another thing that Ben likes that we're going to talk about in a few minutes. We'll tease it. Yeah, I mean, don't spoil it. No, no, no. I mean about, it doesn't matter. We'll get to it. Oh, about the Animatrix you're saying. We'll get to it.

Yes, yes, yes. Anyway, Beyond. Beyond's cute. Yeah, this is probably, I don't think it's the worst one, but it's the most kind of inconsequential one for me. Very inconsequential. It's basically a bunch of kids, including a teenage girl, stumble across a glitch in the Matrix, like a weird house where weird shit happens.

Yeah. And they play around there, and then it gets fixed by the agents, and that's the end of that. This also, I mean. Looks good. Well, see, I was going to say, this is actually my least favorite sort of style of anime. It's very traditional. It's very traditional. It's very traditional. It's sort of limited movement, expressive, like, backgrounds, but, like, their faces are pretty static, you know?

I mean, it's just, it's not aesthetically my kind of thing. I'm not going to try to explain it because I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. But, yeah. It's kids just looking for a cat. Yeah, take care of your cats, guys cats guys yeah I think let's focus on that for a second you don't want to focus on that I don't want to focus on it

I want to move on to the next story which is called a detective story because you can put a chip on the cat and you can track it with a GPS yeah yeah cool good ideas guys we're booking through these now because I feel like we're going to talk a lot about matriculated Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Good ideas, guys. A detective story. We're booking through these now.

Well, because I feel like we're going to talk a lot about Matriculated. I think so, too. We're more than an hour in already. What is a bell going to do, you know? Yeah. You may put an iPod shuffle. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Exactly. So you can hear different songs rather than just the bell over and over and over again. A detective story is written and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe. Oh, he directed Bring Down the House, right? No, I already mentioned him, I think. He also worked on... Ah, fuck. It's coming.

It's a kid's story. Okay. Anyway, although the animation is by a guy called Kazuto Nakazawa, and this one is a prequel to The Matrix, sort of. Like, the original Matrix, sort of. Yeah. It's got a nice animation style.

Love the look of this thing. This noir-y, rainy. Black and white, sort of 40s, pulpy kind of thing. Done in voiceover. I mean, it's got that whole sort of vibe to it. Yeah, it's basically about a private detective called Ash who's voiced by James Arnold Taylor who is famous, I don't know if you know this,

for playing Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars Clone Wars and all other animated related things. I knew I recognized that name. I was going to say, again, like you were saying, they employed a lot of the big VO guys. He is given a case to track down this hacker trinity, and there's a bunch of Alice in Wonderland shit, like

in the movie, while he looks for her. And that's kind of that. He finds her. She tries to free him, but the agents are going to jump into his body, so she has to shoot him. And he's like, it's okay. Hell of a case, though. Lights a cigarette, and that's the end of that. Yeah, I mean, story-wise, it's kind of caca-poo-poo. It looks amazing. It does have that interesting idea, though, of

why don't the agents just jump into Neo's body? Yes. Which is never really addressed. Ben threw out something that I kind of like. Do you want to state your case for this one, Ben? I don't know if I remember now. The thing you were saying about him sort of being so old-fashioned. Oh, yeah. Like, he would never be able to actually deal with the reality of the world.

Like, you know, that he's stuck in the 40s. Like the fact that this guy is like fashioning himself as like a Philip Marlowe character. Right. Even just in how his like internal monologue sounds. But you realize he's in fucking 1999 because it's, you know, set the Matrix.

Sure. So it's like this guy he's in the wrong genre. Sure. You know when he finds this guy, he's in the wrong genre. Sure. You know, when he finds out that he's now stepping into this territory, and it's like, no, no, no, don't even deal with this. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. Okay, well, don't fart too much.

You said cock-a-boo-boo. Yeah, a couple minutes back. What, do you have any further things to say no i think it looks nice yeah it looks okay yeah yeah okay so the final short which i think is the best and you agree yeah uh is called matriculated it's written and directed by korean-american director peter chung who is widely known for his work on eon flux correct. The MTV awesome 90s animated series. Adapted into the mangled. Strange Karen Kusama, Charlie's Theron starring film.

Correct. Matriculated has a very cool animation style because this guy's got a really, I mean, he's a really amazing animator. And it's a really cool story. Yeah. So this is getting into like, if you separate these into categories, it's like, okay, there are the ones that overlap with the Matrix films, which is like sort of detective story to a lesser degree. We already talked about this.

This gets into the, here's just exploring the idea. It's just, this is a sort of off the wall idea of like, ooh, what if he did this? Right, and it's not like, oh, here's another story set in it. Here's a different character. This is like, what's a whole different sort of philosophical angle to hit the Matrix world from?

Right. Which I love. Yeah, because it's too easy to just think like, okay, so what happens is everyone just drives around in the weird hammer ships, and they fight squids, they go into the Matrix sometimes, and that's what they do. You know, it's nice to see something else that humans do in the real world, which is this band of humans who kidnap robots, you know, AI creatures. They, like, lure them into their base, plug them into a Matrix, like into an artificial world, and try to interact with them on that level. Yeah.

And, like, see if they can win them over, basically. So it starts out with this cool and flexy looking woman. Because and I think it's not really talked about in the films at all. But like the squids are not high AI. No. They just are search and destroy. They're like grunts. Yeah.

Exactly. So it's not like the squids sit around and they're like crazy day. A tough day to work. I flew around sewers for a millennia. Yeah. Like you know. I haven't had a vacation in fucking like eight months. I'm flying all to work. I flew around sewers for a millennia. I haven't had a vacation in fucking like eight months. I'm flying all the time.

I'm exhausted. My tentacles ache really hard. All 8,000 of them. I keep getting hit with EMPs, which sucks. All the fucking time. Here's the other thing. Do you know what it's like to go to work every day and know that everyone hates you? I'm just getting all this negative energy all the time. So that's what's happening in Matricula they're catching one of these basically

search and destroy bots it's called a runner it's even smaller than the squid sentinels it's kind of like a daddy long legs maybe right but they plug them into this artificial world and they try to interact with it there so it starts out with just like the thing looks amazing and it's this anfluxy looking woman

and her pet monkey I think it's a tarsier sure it's a little monkeyy looking woman and her pet monkey i think it's a tarsier sure it's a little monkey in a bottle uh really adorable looking and they're like getting this this walker to the runner to chase them and they get back to his own and then they're trapped and then the thing's kind of caught and then like the wall comes up and everyone's there applauding and they're like nice work nice work right but the whole first part of that you're like maybe it's just a chase thing maybe this whole short's gonna be just like a her on the run thing right and then they're like good then there's this really good scene i like which is her talking to the scientist

while he's sort of like doing upkeep on the machines and they're talking about the whole idea of consciousness within these machines right you know and dream states versus living states and whether like the dreams make you feel alive it's a really cool idea it's good dialogue the girl we should say is voiced by Melinda Clark a famous voice actress but also famous for being on the OC for many years

is Julie Cooper and she was also in the motion picture Spawn oh yeah way back in the day but she does a lot of voice acting but she spawn. Oh yeah. Way back in the day. But she does a lot of voice acting. Yeah. But she you don't really

know where it's going at that point. And then they like sit down in a circle and he's like would you mind plugging me in and they thing of the thing in the middle and they plug him in. It feels a little Inception-y too. Where it feels like they're going into like the human subconscious because then when you get to the aesthetics of

the world that they show you here, it's very... I mean, it's really brightly colored. It's very sort of... I don't know. It looks like... It looks different. I don't know. Yeah, it sort of looks like these

sort of religious paintings almost. Yeah, it sort of looks like these sort of religious paintings almost. Yeah, sure, sure. You know? But I think the idea is it's supposed to be more of a melding of man and machine brain thinking. I don't know. Right, but also the idea that it's not as clinical as the Matrix that the Machine World is great, which is about literally representing these things.

This is incorporating emotions. You know? This is incorporating the human feeling. So it is a lot more sort of fluid. Impressionistic. Impressionistic is the word I was looking for. Thank you. It looks fucking amazing.

I could watch it forever. Well, they run around for a while, and eventually the robot's eyes turn green rather than red, which suggests that there's been some sort of a change. Yeah, they're still sort of getting the runner to chase them around within this world, but they know what they're fucking doing. They're like, this is the thing, this is the routine, we do this

all the time. And then the machines come and sort of route this human stronghold and kill all the humans except for the girl. Yeah. And this robot, feeling sad about it, tries to- Are you talking about back in the real world?

Yes. Yes. Well, let's- What, is there something else? We spent time in the dream. No, because we did a quick turn in the thing. Oh, okay. They plug out, and they're like, what's wrong?

And they're like, fucking sentinels coming. Sure. So the robot's still plugged in, and the main lady's still plugged in. No, no, no, no, no. And they're trying to fight off the Sentinels and everyone gets killed except for her and the main writer. What I just said.

Yeah, but you didn't explain that. It sounded like it was within the fantasy sequence. So the good robot plugs himself back in and plugs the lady back in because he's sad. Yeah. Which is nice. And then she realizes what's going on and she literally dies. She like screams and disappears. It's cool. Yeah. And then she realizes what's going on and she literally dies. She like screams and disappears. It's cool. Yeah.

And then he's all alone. It's incredible. It is. It's very good. It's a very good idea. It's a fucking killer concept. It looks unbelievable. They're all naked. But like brightly colored. Whoa.

That's what you like. Yeah, I like them. Orange bodies. I do like green people. Love a green person. You haven't seen Warcraft yet, right? Paul Patton's green. You're seeing it tomorrow.

It might be enough to get me to go see that movie. I think Warcraft is going to be a film we're going to have to talk about one day. Yeah, I agree. It is a textbook movie that we talked about. Just like, why? Why was all this money spent? Because the reaction is either people saying,

that was the worst film I ever saw in my entire life. Or people saying, I don't know. I think I enjoyed it. But without really being able to defend it can i can i just like stump for a second here yeah so warcraft cost a lot of money to make right uh yeah and it's based on this big property that's existed for a long time that has like passionate defenders for 20 years right Right, sensitive material, right? Like sort of like holy material to its fan base. How many times are we fucking reading pieces where like studio executives are saying like,

look, just there aren't enough women who are bankable enough. There aren't enough non-white men who are bankable enough. There aren't gay actors who are bankable enough to lead a big blockbuster. Who's the fucking lead of Warcraft? Who is this fucking jamoke with the beard?

Travis Fimmel, he's in Vikings. Oh with the beard? Travis Fimmel. He's in Vikings. Oh, of course. Travis Fimmel from Vikings. Vikings. He can carry a $200 million movie. No, I agree with you. What the fuck is like... Here's the thing. If you're going like, oh, Taylor Kitsch, right? Okay, he's unproven, but he's

doing four of these at the same time. We think maybe we could balance this thing on him. Who fucking knows Travis Fimmel? I have to disagree with you. Taylor Kitsch is the exact same scenario. I'm sorry. I like Taylor Kitsch. I think he was great on Friday Night Lights,

and I get why studios all wanted to bank on him, but it's the same objectionable thing. Find actors of color who are unproven. I think both are shitty. Both shitty. Sorry. Travis Fimmel is on a successful TV show that people like. But here's the difference.

I mean, I don't like it or anything. I guess here's the one marginal difference for me why I find Travis Fimmel even like a step beyond. Right? I'm not saying one's better than the other. I'm saying one's worse than the other. The Travis Fimmel thing is for me. I remember when Friday Night Lights was on, everyone was like, this Taylor Kitsch guy, someone should put him in movies. Yeah.

Like it felt like people wanted to see him in movies. Yeah. Like, it felt like people wanted to see him in movies. He wasn't a big deal, but anyone who watched that show was like, he should be in movies. I haven't heard anyone ever fucking say

Travis Fimmel's name. He's good in Maggie's Plan. Oh, great. Give him a $200 million blockbuster? Dude, I just, I'm sorry, I don't disagree with your point. I violently disagree with you

on the Taylor Kitsch thing. It's the same shit. It's the same shit Hollywood pulls all the time. I think Travis Fimmel's a step worse. Nope, it's the same shit. It's the same shit Hollywood pulls all the time. I think Crash is almost a step worse. Nope. It's the same shit Hollywood's always pulled. And it would be worse only if Taylor Kitsch had been in one movie.

But he was in multiple giant blockbuster franchises. Yeah, I guess maybe that even means that. It was egregious. He got like three at the same time. And not only that, he never should have done it anyway because it fucked his own career. He was an idiot for signing up for John Carter, playing Gambit gambit and there's another big one uh battleship yeah what the fuck was he thinking now at least battleship makes sense because it's a peter berg movie and peter berg made friday night lights so you can see yeah why peter berg is like okay here's a guy don't

sign up for all three pick one pick one bro it's just i mean the mistakes that actor made and I love Taylor Kitsch I think he's a very charming actor in the right situation still it really it really makes me mad but then the same guy as Charles

who played fuck not street I'm trying to remember their names on a Friday Night Live did you watch Friday Night Live I didn't watch Friday Night Live oh shit

I'm gonna have to look it up because it's driving me crazy they all have you know kind of silly oh Smash Williams that's his name right why is his name Smash Williams running out of lights? I didn't watch Oh shit. I'm going to have to look it up because it's driving me crazy. They all have kind of silly Oh Smash Williams that's his name. Why is his name Smash Williams?

He's black. He's a black actor. That's a great name Smash Williams. He's great. They've all got great Jason Street Smash Williams

and whatever Taylor Kitsch's character's name Tim Riggins. He shit he's had no career. He's like a guest star on Grey's Anatomy.

It's nothing. It's right there. It's know, he's like a guest star on Grey's Anatomy. Like, it's nothing. Like, it's right there. It's stark. It's laid out for you right there. What happens here? Michael B., though. Yeah, Michael B., who, of course, was on the later seasons of Friday Night Lights. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, he's a great, more of that, please. Yeah. More of that. Yeah. Uh, anyway. Sorry. You just, you got my goat there. But, I mean, I don't like Travis Fimmel, either.

Like, being in movies. I'm not saying. I assume they wanted. This telekitch thing should have happened. I just got my goat there. But I mean, I don't like Travis Fimmel either. Like being in movies. I'm not saying. I assume they wanted. This telekinesis thing should have happened. I want to make that clear. I just, the Travis Fimmel one, I was like, who the fuck is this? It's bad. I hadn't even heard of him before.

My guess is they were just like, well, we need kind of Viking types, right? Because isn't this like medieval? Like, you know, they probably weren't thinking very hard about it. Get the Vikings guy. That's crazy to me. I mean, Dominic Cooper is in it. It's a lot of. Yeah. A lot of no-name white guys are in that movie. Yeah.

Yeah. I feel like, oh, Ben Foster. Yeah. The king of no-name white guy performance. I mean, I love Ben Foster once in a while, but- I love him once in a while. I think he plays a goofy wizard in this, and I'm interested to see it. Yeah.

Paula Patton, though. Well, but this is the thing. Paula Patton, but they totally screw her over. She's like crazy green, like CGI with big teeth. Yeah. Paula Patton though. Well but this is the thing. Paula Patton but they totally screw her over. She's like crazy green like CGI with big teeth and. Right. She gets bad roles. Philosophically I hate that she can only be in a movie like that if she's green. What was the other thing that she's in this year?

On a base level I like green ladies. No. Nothing wrong with a green lady. That's the problem. I enjoyed Zoe Saldana in Guardians of the Galaxy. Me too. I like green ladies. Oh the other thing she's in this year. Oh, what a bummer. The Do-Over. What a bummer. Yeah, the Adam Sandler Netflix film.

Do-Over's got a pretty good cast. Paul Patton's so good in Ghost Protocol. Yeah. I wish I'd kept her on. Yeah, me too. Me too. Although Rebecca Ferguson was a bomb. Here's a crazy idea. Have both. What? One woman. I know.

Paul Patton was still part of the team and Rebecca Ferguson still had the exact same plot line. Especially because Paul Patton didn't have any, like, there wasn't a romantic plot line with Tom Cruise per se. Pointedly didn't have a romantic plot line. Whereas Rebecca Ferguson, there's more of that going on. What do you think, Ben? Sometimes I love to throw in a bad jesuca.

Freeze up. I have been tuning out this whole part. Yeah. Because I don't know what you guys are talking about. Yeah. We're having fun. One thing you do know that we're talking about is the Ben Surprise. So let's talk about the Ben Surprise.

The Big Ben Surprise. Do we have any? Well, I guess we'll say goodbye to the Wachowskis right at the end. Holy shit. I'm not doing well, folks. The Big Ben surprise. Yeah. Cue it up for us. Okay. So, we wanted to do a palate cleanser. This is the end of the Wachowski. We're

going to get to our final Wachowski thoughts. And we were looking, what's a good palate cleanser? Because we didn't really do one. Batman vs. Superman ended up being our last episode. We wanted to do one miniseries. All these ideas were things we talked about before, but we're looking long-term.

And we're like, someone would suggest something, and we'd go like, ah, but we might want to do that director at one point. Do we want to take that off the table? And if we do that miniseries later, do we have to do it again? What are we going to do? How do we do one that doesn't cancel it out? I said the only option is Old Dogs. David said no yeah i did i said no i said old dogs though he said no though that's correct and then i said wait a second ben what's your favorite movie ever

yeah we just threw to ben like just ben off the top of your head and you were like how would that be a blank check and i was like what if the blank check is we're given birthday, Benny, the peeper himself, the blank check. Now I want to make it clear. I was very in support of this idea, but,

but I had like when he was, when that angle was, well, I want to say like the real evolution was, I was like, I really don't want to do old dogs. Maybe if we called it like Griffin's choice and like, then I get to pick a movie that you don't really

want to do someday. Then you said what if it was Ben's Choice? And you know you've said before we do this podcast. This podcast is done to Ben. Sure it is. I mean he just now was tuning out our annoying chattering voices.

But people love it when Ben gets passionate about something. When he finds something he really wants to fight for. So he said, what's the movie that Ben wants to fight for the most? And Ben has the floor, and for once the tables are turned and Ben gets to sell us on a movie. And I said, Ben, what would that movie be? Just fire it out. Fire the first name out of your head. And this was a three-way text conversation we were having, right?

The response came in within three seconds, which factoring in signal times means he probably typed it in within one second, right? And he responded with a single word. And that word, Ben, would you like to share that one word with the audience? Sure. It was Fletch. The Chevy Chase film from 1985. We said, Ben, you can vouch for any film.

The Michael Ritchie detective comedy. Yes. Followed by Fletch Lives. Ben, you can pick any film in history. Yeah, yeah. And Ben said, I want to fight for Fletch. I love Fletch. Fletch. So next week we'll be covering Fletch. Here's one thing I want to fight for Fletch. I love Fletch. Fletch. So next week we'll be covering Fletch.

Here's one thing I want to say about this. Ben's got the check and he's cashing it in on Fletch. Here's one thing I want to say about this. I've never seen Fletch. I have. I think it's fun. Ben's going to be fighting for Fletch. That's what I'm excited for. Ben's going to fucking fight

for Fletch. Well, it's the kind of comedy movie I like where it's all about the jokes. And a lot of the times the jokes break momentum, the story isn't even that good. But I don't know. For whatever reason, as a kid, I was obsessed with this movie. I could quote

it at length. It's all about ball bangers these days? It is. I'll have a steak sandwich and a steak sandwich. Charge it to the underhills. It's got some ball bangers these days. It is. I'll have a steak sandwich and a steak sandwich. Yeah. Charge it to the underdogs. Guys, don't spill all the jokes for me. Don't spill all the jokes for me.

But next week, Ben's taking the reins. Yes. We're talking Fletch. Yes. This is exciting, too, because Dave has never seen this movie. I've never seen it. Yeah, this is going to be an interesting balance. Someone who loves Fletch, someone who's fine with Fletch, and someone who's never seen Fletch.

Never seen Fletch. Yeah. And then after that, we're going to do our next miniseries. Yeah. Yeah, about Cameron Crowe. We've officially decided, here's why we're doing Cameron before James. We respect your votes. Yeah.

We're doing James right afterwards. Cameron and Cameron. Yes. The reason we're doing Cameron first is that... It's pure cynical marketing. Yeah. Roadies premieres in June, and we think it would be nice to dovetail in cynical marketing. Yeah. Rhodey's premieres in June, and we think it would be nice to dovetail in with that.

You know? He'll be on our minds. He's got a Showtime show, for people who don't know what Rhodey's is. It's his new show on Showtime. And it's possibly a redemption moment for him. Could be. Maybe a new medium will revitalize him.

And if we did James Cameron first by the time we got to Cameron Crowe and we're then trying to talk about roadies, it would be, you know, either it'll be a done deal, people will like it and it won't be exciting, or it'll be over and we'll be beating a dead horse. Because you know what this podcast is?

We talk about fresh stuff, like the animatrix, you know? We really like to be on topic. Keep it fresh. Fresh. So anyway, the Freshmaker, uh no we actually have to name the podcast i don't know what we're gonna call the jane the camera crow podcast yet uh i guess we'll think about had me a cast show me the podcast i mean you had me at podcasting is a pretty delightful simple it's so silly. You like podcasting

rather than podcast? Because it's just hello. It's not you had me at helloing. There's something so funny about it to me. You had me at podcast. Yeah, you had me at podcast. Yeah.

It just feels so sudden. You had me at podcast. Well, I mean, you know, feel free to write in names. We'll think about other stuff too. I don't know. Almost podcasters. Yeah, something like that. We'll do something like that.

We're not going to call it like podmarin Castro. Castro? Yeah, exactly. We bought a podcast? We bought a pod... Podcast town? Podcast town. Podcasting town? Podcast town. Podcasting town?

Podcasts. For singles? You get it? I do. That film, the only acting appearance of Tim Burton. I'm sure we'll talk about that at length. Podcast anything. Yeah.

We're almost done. Pod any cast. Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do we get through all of them? Well we haven't done Aloha It's a hard one to do Podlo

Yeah I don't know Okay Next week Talking Fletch Week after that Podcast me At

Hello Oh god Podcast me at Hello Is kind of fun You had me at podcast Is good man Well I don't know We'll figure it out Yeah we'll figure it out We'll figure it out I'll be better Oh, God. Podcast me at Hello is kind of fun. You had me at podcast is good, man. I don't know. We'll figure it out.

Yeah, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. I'll be better by- We always argue over the name. I know. I'll be better by then. I won't be sick. I'll be easier to sound and listen to.

After that, we will do- James Cameron. James Cameron. I promise you. I just feel like a break from genre filmmaking, this is the argument I was making to Griffin, would be nice. Just a little bit of a different stream before we dip into literally the most famous genre filmmaker of all time. And look, both the Camerons are pretty close in voting. We're just going to do both of them.

We're flipping the order from how you wanted it, but it was close enough. And I hope you respect our reasons and you don't take it personally. We love you. We cherish your opinions. We do, but also, you know, it's like if you don't like it, it's our podcast. It's a free podcast. Let's say this. If you're wondering what the next palate cleanser would be after that, a little

teaser, we then kept the text thread going because you were like, wait, I want to hear what other stuff Ben likes. Ben, tell me other movies you like. And Ben started listing movies and at one point we said what's your absolute number one favorite movie? Not what movie would you most like to talk about on the podcast. Not what

movie do you most want to defend. What's your number one with a bullet all time history of cinema favorite movie? And Ben's answer was? The Man Who Knew Too Little. The Bill Murray comedy from 1997. The John Emil joint. Which

I saw as a child. Me too. Haven't seen since. Yeah, I saw it in theaters. Remember him in a Russian hat? Yeah, me too. That's all I remember. So maybe one day we'll do The Man Who Knew Too Little. I also said Stargate. I like Stargate a lot. That I really wanted to do, but Griffin was like, maybe we'll do Roland Emmerich one day, and I was like, what?

You should totally fucking do Roland Emmerich one day. I don't want to do him. He's made too many crappy little movies. I love Dare to Tomorrow. I love Dare to Tomorrow. I just feel like that's so far down the road, but Stargate is bonkers. Can't deny that. You ever see Anonymous?

No, I haven't seen Anonymous. You also get to talk Stonewall. Give me a hundred, oh yeah, that's one of the worst films I've ever seen. That's one of the worst films I've ever seen. I saw that movie. Did you see it? I didn't see it. It's so bad.

Yeah, give me a hundred million dollars. Oh, what for? Listen to this. A scientist played by James Spader goes through a portal to ancient Egypt, but they're really aliens. Here you go. Right in the check. Let's do it.

This will be the first movie to ever have a website. Who's the villain? Oh, you know, Jay Davidson. Yeah, you know, Academy Award nominee Jay Davidson, who is the dude who everyone thought was a lady in The Crying Game? He plays Ra. Those are the only two film performances from Jay Davidson. Pretty good.

Two for two. Yeah. Yeah, batted 100. Got an Oscar nom for one, got an action figure from Jay Davidson. Pretty good. Two for two. Yeah. Yeah, batted 100. Got an Oscar nom for one, got an action figure from the other. Book closed. They didn't stop there. They made a show out of it. Oh, boy.

They did. They made several shows out of it. I think there are three different Stargate shows. Is that possible? I think there's Stargate. Yeah, Stargate SG-1. Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe. Am I wrong in thinking there was also a Stargate animated series at some point?

No. Stargate the animated series? I don't know. Maybe. MacGyver was in Stargate SG-1. Yeah, I know. MacGyver. Anyway, we're not doing Stargate, so I don't know why we're talking so much about Stargate.

Because we might do Stargate at some point. So that's that. And that's that. And so any last thoughts on the Wachowskis? We didn't really relate these to the Wachowskis but that's because the Wachowskis didn't have as heavy a hand in the Animatrix. But these are all, you know, it's just cool to see people playing in their world

and... Griffin, what are you looking at? I'm trying to pull up something. It'll make sense in a second. Say your final thoughts on the Wachowskis. I'm gonna miss them. I think they're make sense in a second. Say your final thoughts on the Wachowskis. I'm going to miss them. I think they're some of Hollywood's most just boldest voices, and I'm just going to miss talking about their movies. I was so happy to talk about all these movies. I really enjoyed actually getting to see the full Matrix trilogy.

Yeah. And, you know, I really got won over, like a lot of our listeners, to Speed Racer. And Jupiter Ascending was great, too. And I just, I think that I like that they're filmmakers that have really big ideas. Because I like big things. I do, too. I think they're great. I will say, I was talking to a friend the other day and I kept on saying like, you know, we do this.

You know, that's our struggle. Like I was saying like we and our. And he was like, what's with all this like lofty we and our stuff? And I was like, I honestly think that's just I've been watching more Chow Ski movies for like the last two and a half months. Yeah. Yeah. Like they've really kind of made me. You know, when you see them all in a row like this, you get into this very sort of humanist, like empathetic

sort of space. This is a time when we need a lot of that. It's a bit of a grim time in the world. I just watched like three hours of Donald Trump on my TV last night, I feel like. Yeah, can I say something? I don't like that guy.

I'm glad you said it. Yeah. I don't like him I don't like that guy. I'm glad you said it. Yeah. I don't like him either. No, but here's, here, I don't know if I'm going to get controversial when I say this. Mm-hmm. Not only do I not like him, I don't want him to be president of the United States. I agree with you. Watch us lose a bunch of listeners.

What if it turned out that all, all of our listener base was like just big Trump heads? I am, I'm just looking at our podcast reviews for the first time in a while. Have you seen any? Yeah, a couple of really weird ones. I thank the Wachowskis for helping my worldview. I love them. I want them to get to make more movies again. I hope we're lucky enough.

With a week's distance, I definitely appreciate Sense8 a little more for what it is, but I want to see them make them tight motion pictures, traffic dances on a big screen. Yeah, and I hope they do again and when they do, we'll be there. Oh, we'll be there, open in a day. So what do you want to read from the film? And our promise, if there's another Wachowski, we're doing

a one-off. Always know, any filmmaker we've covered, if they have a new film coming out, we're going to go back to the well. Here are the filmmakers we'll do. George Lucas. Georgie Porgie. Anything in the Star Wars series. M. Night Shyamalan. And now the Wachowskis. All added to the roster. All added to the

shelf. And if there's a sequel to The Judge. Judge 2. There's a real cliffhanger at the end of the film. You wonder if he's going to become a judge. I would like to do a little merchandise spotlight. Go ahead. Because there is one piece of merchandise that is showcased specifically in...

What is it? The Samsung SPH-N270. What's that? The Matrix phone. You mean that weird phone that she drops in Final Flight of the Osiris? Yes, which they made as a real phone. Can you spell it out for me? SPHN270.

Made to resemble the phone used in The Matrix Reloaded and also the Final Flight of the Osiris. By the way, guys, this is not the actually cool phone that's just a normal slide phone that Neo uses in the first Matrix. This is the really bonkers sci-fi phone that they all use in the sequels that is cool in its own way. And I quote, the design crew of the Matrix were closer to Samsung, develop a phone whose features and release date would coincide with the movie. Oh, nice that they made the release date coincide with the movie.

Now here's where I get tripped up. Ready? Yeah. the movie. Now here's where I get tripped up. Ready? Yeah. The SPH-N270 was not intended as a mainstream phone for everyday use. Okay.

When have you ever heard anyone use the term mainstream phone? I don't know. You know that weird indie cell phone you have? I don't know. Mainstream. Instead it was marketed solely to fans of the series as a piece of rare high quality merchandise. Maybe it was super expensive. Maybe that's what that means.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature, it's a spring-loaded earpiece which snaps up to reveal the screen. So it's like the snap is, the screen covering is the ear, I don't know, whatever. Right. And then it says, where's the thing here?

There's a section, relation to the Matrix. The green code on a black background made famous by the Matrix is found in many menus of the phone by default. So it's got matrix menus, which are probably just hard to read. Probably really hard to read. The phone is mostly made of black plastic and the button shows stylized green

digits. The manual box and collector also feature the matrix code. And here's a good detail. The charger is the only item in the package with no reference to the Matrix film. Thank you

for all that, Griffin. When it boots up, the Matrix is displayed on the screen. Yes! The phone's turned off, the message goodbye is shown, a manner reminiscent of Neo's first encounter with the Matrix. And it comes with three screensaver themes. All right, enough, enough, enough, enough. I'm turning your phone off.

This can't be the end of the episode. This is so boring. But can I just say, so it was a special edition. It cost $500. Yeah, that's why. There were 10,000 produced, and you could only use it on Sprint PCS. Here's my question.

If you're going to make a big point of the fact that this phone is like, oh, it's meant for collectors, it's not a mainstream phone, it's not for everyday use, then why make it a fucking functional phone? I don't know. Make a high-quality replica or make something I can use. I don't know. A weirdo.

This is a display phone. Make it a prop. I got nothing to say to you about this. I don't know. This is a display phone. I can make it a prop. I got nothing to say to you about this. I don't care. A merchandise spotlight. I'm glad we don't do as many merchandise spotlights. I'll say that much. I'm also just dying in here.

I'm putting my stuff away right now. Ben? Yeah, what's up? Would you happen to have any entries for the burger report? Yeah. I made burgers last night, but there were no celebrities present. I've eaten four in the last week, and I have seen zero famous.

I'm worried about you. There's too many burgers. I'm not doing well. Yeah. Okay. A burger report. Have I? Well, there's one that I don't think I'm

alright hold on give me a second here you're wondering whether you're allowed to share there's one yeah I don't think I should hot report being redacted before it's even shared oh my god someday but okay for now let's see

let's see I Let's see. I want to get a good juicy burger report. Okay, here we go. Juicy like a burger. This is cool. This is a good one. Uh,

so, I, it was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony. It was in New York. Okay. Um, and, and,

a bunch of people came, uh, afterwards to the second floor, so they shut it down. And I was working the bar. But I had an opportunity to talk to Tom Waits a little bit. The great Tom Waits. Very cool.

I was very, very, like, you kind of just get desensitized because you're around so many of these, like, really huge people. Yeah, Ben knows from Famos. I mean, at this point, you can't, you know, blow Ben's mind. Right. But Tom Waits really like, I was like very nervous around him, but yeah, I sold him on a burger and he was like in his, you know, gravelly voice like, it's pretty good. I'll have that burger.

This burger's good. I like eating this burger. So that was cool. And then I just talked to him at length about how I'm obsessed with Rain Dogs and Swordfish Trombones, which are like two of, like, I think his best albums. I didn't know you were such a Waits fan. Love Waits.

I don't really like the 70s stuff, the kind of jazzy troubadour stuff, but I like all the, like, weird experimental avant-garde 80s, 90s stuff. That makes sense. That fits in with the band. That does sound like a band um now let me ask you you said you had to sell him on the burger was it a hard sell was he showing resistance and if so how did you win him over well i went ahead and i talked to him about uh the uh burger being a mix uh that we do in-house obviously but a mix of it's got uh you know different cuts it's got some fat to it and it's like uh just the superior burger as well as it comes with this like really nice kind of like uh very strong kind of bitey kind of uh blue cheese i forget the brand

that we used or the variety that we used and then then it's just got some really good shoestring fries tossed with olive oil and rosemary. This podcast is so off the rails. Do you not want to get that burger right now? No, let's go get it. I mean, it sounds amazing. I mean, how long has it been since you worked there, Ben? Shit. A long time.

And even still, like, the sell's that good? I can't even imagine how Waits was hearing it. Waits must have gotten it hard. Oh, boy. Well, that's great. Of course, that brings us to the orange twist. There's no orange twist file. No, there's not.

What are you talking about? There's no orange twist file. There's no orange twist file. Okay, fine. Tune in next week for the orange twist file. We'll do a big merchandise spotlight for fletch uh hopefully we'll have some cool guests coming up we'll do some fletch fan fiction we'll read some reviews next week i think because we do have some good reviews that we should read they're really weird they're really weird uh we need to give them their time and their space uh we love the wachowskis please come back to movies we miss them they'll come back

they're the greatest and it's been so much fun talking about them, and I'm excited to talk about other people. I'll say this. It's been a privilege to talk about them and to watch their films. It always is. Yes. Yes. All right.

Thank you for listening. Thank you. Please rate, review, subscribe. All true. If you have ideas, any pitches for what we should call our Cameron Crowe miniseries, please throw them out. Yep. Into the garbage.

Yep. Throw them into your toilet. And flush. And, as always. Yeah. Oh. Well, nice to meet you. I'm Jim Staff.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. this has been a UCB comedy production check out our other shows on the UCB comedy podcast network