Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Manchurian Candidate with the Flop House: Dan McCoy, Stuart Wellington, and Elliott Kalan

Episode Date: February 23, 2020

The Flop House joins Blank Check to talk about this remake that was like okay, but definitely better than the last Demme remake. Is Meryl good or weird? Why is a pack of cards so sexy? How many films and TV shows are there about last men? How do you get rid of ants? What mysteries are still left unanswered? And what does the Flop House think about Trolls the Experience? SFX: "Organ" by caquet; "movietheatreambience"  by NoiseCollector;  "curtain on rail" by Khanyi_190188; and "COUCH - falling on couch" by Jay6Waza. Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

Blank Check is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful podcast I've ever known in my life. Five Oscars all around and a six to Rachel for producing. She gets two. She gets two. Hello, everybody. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I am Griffin. I'm David.

And you know what it is. It's the... Let me just consult my notes here quickly. The kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful podcast I've ever known in my life. And it's a podcast about filmographies, if I can get serious here. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear.

Sometimes they bounce. And then there are movies like this where it's really kind of hard to decide what happened. Yeah, what happened with this? It did okay. It did okay. It did all right. It did okay. For a remake of a beloved movie that no one asked for.

I feel like it was one of those things where everyone was like, why are they doing this? Then people saw it and they were like, it's better than we expected. And then no one ever thought about it again. And it did all right. Yep. I guess that's how you'd put it. I'm taking my sweater off.

Introduce our guest. Jeez Louise. It's hot in here. We're talking about the films of Jonathan Demme. It's a miniseries called Stop Making Podcasts. David's now fucking showing off. No, I'm not. He's got the facts.

I've got glitter on my nose. It's Hot David 2020. And he's flexing. off no I'm not he's got the glitter on my nose hot David 2020 and he's flexin yeah I'm funny we went to something called trolls the experience this afternoon so I didn't want to start big-timing big dogging our guests here today but we did go to trolls the experience which is closing this week we had to get in under the wire yep and I'll just pass around to the room so you guys can see, and there's full transparency. Oh, my God.

What is he doing? Oh, you're taking out your scrapbook. And I think it's important that you guys see it as I introduce you so you can react in real time to our scrapbook from Trolls, The Experience, which is coming soon behind a Patreon paywall. It's a May series. Sorry, I know you haven't introduced me yet. No, you can talk.

So much crazier than I expected the thing that you were going to hand me. Well, you sound stunned. Imagine how we felt. We experienced it firsthand. I like this serious brick wall posing. We paid to do this. We paid money.

We paid American dollars. David bought a Pez dispenser. You got that thing? we paid to do this. We paid money. We paid American dollars. Yep. We paid American dollars. David bought a Pez dispenser. I did. Yeah. You got that thing? Yep. I got a cupcake.

Yep. Rainbow cupcake and an extra large shirt meant for a small girl. Right. Which was on deep discount. Which just about fit you. It was my fit. It was the closest fit to my body type. What's the targeted age range for this? I think probably men, 30 to 37.

Oh, you think 46? I mean, we'll talk about it more on the episode. We'll talk about it on the Patreon. When we walked in, they definitely have a button they hit with like, it's an irony group. This reminds me of a time that as a 40-year-old man, I went alone to the circus and sat between a mom and her child and another mom and her child. and sat between a mom and her child and another mom and her child. I will say, this was kind of like that, except imagine if the way the thing was designed

is that the circus had to be directly performed to you. Right, right. In a medium-sized room. Right. Like, it's supposed to be like, oh, this is like a group of, like, 15 with a mix of adults and children, and we perform it directly to them,

and they were like, get all the fucking kids out of there. Two of these guys got ironic glasses. Chules is about to get nasty. Because we've got some adults to perform to. Yep. They did a great job. But that's paywall business, baby.

That's paywall business. Right now, we're talking mainline miniseries. Jonathan Demme, stop making podcasts. It's the episode everyone's been waiting for, his 2004 blockbuster remake of The Manchurian Candidate. And joining us, long requested, almost since we started the show. Absolutely.

And it's taken five years to will into existence. This turned from something nice into a snub. No, no, it's just, you know, it's hard to corral. No, and I also feel like when we started talking,

we realized at some point there was some missed exchange. Was that when you came over to my bar that's also a front for celebrity coat stealing? Oh, you got your coat stolen at his bar. Yes, and I want to say, Ben and I said in an episode, we went to a bar and had my coat stolen, and someone triangulated and went, oh my god, the Flophouse guys are going to be on Blanket. Somehow from that amount of information they said, okay, that must be

Stuart's bar. After you got your coat stolen, I thought, okay, well, there goes our friendship. There you go. It's never going to happen now. You've been rebooked. You threw out that cake you had that said Dan plus Griffin. I'm realizing there was a snub, but we're the bad guys. This is terrible.

I mean, this is the question. It's sort of a Manchurian candidate-asked question of who's the ultimate puppet master here? Yeah. Why did this take five years? I don't know. You don't look at me. I don't know. You're not actually recording a podcast.

You're just going to take my coat and make me leave. I'm trying to get revenge for my coat. The Flophouse guys are here. Dan and Elliot and Stuart in the studio. Long time coming. Now, we were saying this when he walked in, but the Elliot Griffin in the same room at the same time thing has been thrown around on Twitter as either that will be great or unlistenable.

That will either be like a match made in heaven or like an immediately combustible combination. I feel like right now things feel pretty calm. Yeah, you put some chairs between you. Well, Elliot's a lot politer on other people's podcasts. That is true. I'm a very rude host. and I'm a very nice guest. Yes. And I'm still coming down from having to defuse a six-year-old meltdown earlier, right before

this recording. So I'm like, I'm rebuilding my energy, guys. But probably about 10 minutes in, I'll do a lot more like talking over people, interrupting them, singing songs no one wants to hear. You had to affect your sort of grown-up energy. Yeah, exactly. For once, right before coming here, and now you're going to slowly recede back into little stinker mode. Usually when we record, yeah, it's all little stinker.

It's all I'm a widow bad boy. Of course. People don't understand that's how podcasting works. You have to be a little stinker. Someone has to be a little stinker. You must't understand that's how podcasting works. You have to be a little stinker. Someone has to be a little stinker. You must stink. It's true. I mean, when we started this show, I said, I want to be very, very serious and important and smart.

And David, you said the same. And then the commissioner of podcast came to us and he went, I'm so sorry. One of you must stink. And I said, I'll take it. I'm smaller. I'll be a little stinker. You took the burden. Yeah, that's right. That's why you were 20 minutes late to Trolls the Experience today. Because I'm on brand. You either die a respected podcast host or you live long enough to be a little stankier.

This is what happens. Now, I don't want to dip into paywall territory. So don't dip right in. This is all good teasers. It's a good tease. Exactly. Did they force you to stand in a weird waiting area off to the side? Behind, I don't know, a candy rope or something.

100%. You're almost exactly correct. There's a rainbow archway. Yes. It felt like Ellis Island. I will say this. And not like visiting Ellis Island today, like visiting it off the boat in the early 1900s. Upon entering Trolls the Experience, everyone was very professional and lovely.

The act of entering Trolls the Experience was weirdly hostile. Incredibly hostile. Well, that is the experience of being a troll. I don't know if you saw the first Trolls movie, but they're in constant danger. And this is the difference. Once we entered, we felt like, oh, this is like the fun Trolls party. We're little people trying to make the best of this big world. Right, right, right.

But entering felt like they were trolling us. Not like DreamWorks trolling us, but actually just in real life trolling us. I wanted to take them aside and be like, you realize we like paid to do trolls in this place, right? Like, don't give us a hard time. We're already putting ourselves out here. So is the snake the villain? A great question.

A snake showed up at one point and everyone was like, watch out. And I was like, is he the bad guy? It seems like you have seen the trolls. I have seen enough of the trolls movie that I feel confident saying I don't remember there being a snake in it. But I haven't seen any of the ancillary. No, it's a true. I saw the Trolls holiday special. Okay.

Better than the Trolls movie, surprisingly. Interesting. Yeah. But in the Trolls movie, it's a lot of like trolls running away from like giant goblins. Okay. Which are called, I'm not remembering it, but I want to say gremblows. But it's sort of like Fraggle Rock. They're like larger creatures.

Sounds like something you could focus group with a bunch of kids. It's like Fraggle Rock if Fraggle Rock was computer animated instead of puppets and there was a lot more Justin Timberlake. Sure. It sounds a lot like an old lady who swallowed a fly situation where they're like, oh, we got trolls. Got to get some goblins in here to take them out. How are we going to get these goblins? Got to take them out. Yeah. How are we gonna get these goblins? Gotta get a snake.

Right. Gonna need gremlins. The entire process of making the movie sounds like a if you give a mouse a cookie that it just got out of hand. We asked the lady

who was working there, like, is the troll the bad guy? And she was too busy dancing. Which is what she should have been doing. She was getting us hyped up. That's right. We had to sing this song.

Anyway. You guys like Jonathan Demme? You went to his team? Yeah. Dan, you have very warm feelings for Jonathan Demme, and I have very middling feelings for him. Interesting. Really? Well, I mean, weirdly, like, you know, Science of the Lambs is the one that, like, was his big hit.

And that one's one I have only sort of grown to like that well. It was built up for me. I mean, like, Stop Making Sense, Stuart Makes Fun of Me, I mention it on the podcast a lot. Perfect movie. It is your spirit animal. I love Something Wild. I think it's such a...

Great movie. Like, it's got such a weird rhythm to it. It has sort of a straightforward story, but told in such an interesting way. And you love Truth About Charlie, right? That movie's interesting. It's kind of interesting. It's pretty terrible.

A lot going on. A lot going on. I went to see the Hitchcock pastiche he did at BAM recently. What's that one called? Last Embrace. I liked that quite a bit, actually. That one's like a solid sort of fastball down the middle, sort of. He's got a weird fucking film on.

He's got, I mean, we have mostly watched all of his movies, and it has been a wonderful experience. Of all the guys who are respected as kind of like, and I feel like he's been elevated quite a bit towards the end of his career, especially since his death. For all the guys who kind of hold that level, his is one of the weirdest all over. It really feels like he's like, what movie can I get made right now? Okay, that's what I'm doing. But he also – I mean he always brings to whatever it is like this kind of like multicultural downtown New York feel to what he does. Sure. Which I find very interesting.

And like a big-hearted kind of like worm and empathetic. And he has sort of like a recurring company of actors he pulls from. He's got very distinct visual style. Ted Levine. Charles Napier. But it is weird because he's got a very personal touch on his films, but the choices of what projects he does can seem kind of all over the place. He's kind of like – here's a comparison I'm going to make even though I like this other filmmaker's films more. That's kind of like John Huston in a big way.

You look at John Huston's filmography and it's like, these are not movies I would expect to all come from the same guy. When you watch them, you're like, okay, these make sense together. There's something about them. We talked about this when we did Ang Lee on the show a couple years ago, where he's another guy who weirdly feels like he's got the mentality

of a 40s studio filmmaker, where it's like, pass me three a year. I want to take my shot at everything. Right. And so often when we're covering modern filmmakers,

people are so much more deliberate about their career that when they make a movie that doesn't really work, it's like a real calculated move that doesn't work. And if it's a female filmmaker

that makes a movie that doesn't work, we never hear of them again. No. They're never working. They're taken outside and shot or whatever it is Hollywood does with them.

I mean, it could kind of just make them go work in advertising. Make and shot or whatever it is Hollywood does with them. I mean, it could kind of just make them go work in TV shows or whatever. Yeah, right. You direct 15 episodes of Last Man Standing.

Hey, he's the last man. Is that the concept? There's no more men alive in that sitcom world? It's actually a lot of a different show with a similar title.

All right, fair enough. It's called The Last Guy. The purpose of Last Man. No more boys. Oh, okay. Sorry, I was going to refer to a conversation we had before recording.

Why the Last Man. That's one of those things that they talk about all the time. That's right. Why the Last Man is the uncharted of TV, of prestige TV. The perennial like it never happens. Which I guess has been filming for six months but has lost four showrunners and might never see the air. The Snowpiercer, the TV show, is another one.

That's another one. Where they're like, it's going to be on TNT. I don't know. We were talking prior to recording about the Akira, Chaos Walking, Uncharted movie. The long promised, we promise that we start tomorrow. Definitely, we're building sets. Yes. Look at our call sheet. Everyone Definitely, we're building sets. Yes. Look at our call sheet.

Right. Everyone's waking up at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning to start shooting an Akira movie. And then at 4.55, they're like, yeah, don't show up. And to think, like, just a few years ago, we could have added Preacher to that list. But then they made a show. Then they did it. Hey, we got Good Opens. We got American Gods.

It's true. A lot of, I mean, TV, obviously. TV's been picking up a lot of the slack. Yeah. Uh-huh. It's the new movies. Yeah. It's all witchers now, right?

Do you know what? Everything's a witcher. I like that witcher. I gotta say, I'm enjoying the witcher. You know what? Why? Ellie Reyes is a really good point. Some of these things on TV, they're like movies these days.

No, because I was reading Obama's List, and some of these TV shows are so powerful that they're almost like movies. It's like every movie I've ever seen. I've always been like, this would be better if it was 10 hours long. Totally. And filled with unnecessary padding. I like it when you take a while for anything to happen. A good long while.

I like the experience of saying, this show should be interesting. I love the book. It's a great concept. And then I watch an hour of it and I go, hmm, they're exactly in the same place they were when they started this hour. Why am I watching The Man in the High Castle? I named the thing that I was talking about. I like it when they insert at least one like motorcycle chase each hour too. I mean, well, to be honest, that is the way that a lot of 80s action shows were where they were like, this scene, we find out what the crime is.

This scene, it's a red herring. Motorcycle chase, motorcycle chase, motorcycle chase. They catch the guy. We find out what happened, and freeze frame, we're done. You get around to it. You know what my favorite thing is about movies? Tell me. The popcorn?

Well, no, I was going to say, like comparing movies to TV. Scream scramblers. I love going to the movies. I love grabbing a big bucket of buttery popcorn. I loved a movie. Right, right. I grabbing a big bucket of buttery popcorn. I loved a movie. I love a big bucket of buttery popcorn. I love a ticket taker with his little epulants going right this way, the silver screen. And the little elevator operator cap or whatever.

And I love sitting down. Oh, that giant screen. Oh, the big curtains just part. The big curtains parted. And the organ plays a fanfare. Oh, I love it. And every time I go, the only thing that's missing is I wish I was watching this in the same room that my laundry bag is in. And that's why I love TV.

I love prestige TV because I can fully immerse myself in a 10-hour movie. It's like a 10-hour movie. I love Martin Scorsese, but could I watch it on a phone while I'm taking a dump? That's my goal. Finally, yes, I can. So Last Man Standing has aired 152 episodes. We've been talking a lot about Last Man Standing. I know a friend of mine, her dad has been a writer a long time for Last Man Standing.

It's good work. I'm glad he has it. Make that money. Hector Elizondo's on it. A regular. Cast member of my favorite movie of all time. Caitlin Dever is still on it, despite becoming the biggest star of the year this year. Nancy Travis. Of course. Yeah, of course. Anyway, so that's like, I mean, despite becoming the biggest star of the year this year. Nancy Travis?

Of course. Yeah, of course. So that's like, I mean, I don't know. Do the math. That's like a 75-hour movie or whatever? Yeah. It really does play as an intentional 75-hour movie. They're telling one story, and it's about a man who cannot get a word in edgewise.

I think High Age Cinema said it was the best film of the year. They loved it. Apparently Jay Leno recurs on that show. Did you know that? He plays a guy who works at an auto shop? What? I'm not kidding. A garage?

Now I want to imagine the moment when they said, Mr. Leno, we want to talk to you about your wardrobe. And he said, don't worry, I got it. Are you implying? He's been on 14 episodes. Wait, I'm sorry. Ellie, are you implying? He's been on 14 episodes. Wait, I'm sorry. Ellie, are you implying there's one type of fabric that Jay would be more inclined to wear? I'm just saying his skin may be allergic to all but one type of Gold Rush related fabric.

But surely a dark version of that fabric, right? You might want to throw some acid on it. You're going to want to to cut down the natural dandruff, which he is also allergic to deathly. He likes his denim d*** style. Just as much acid right to the face as possible. Two major Batman villains

with acid thrown in their face. Jay Leno and d***. Yeah, Jay Leno and d***. Oh, boy. Those poor dudes. Jay Leno, I kind of wish now that I'm thinking about it

that Jay Leno had played the Robert De Niro part. In Joker? That would have been. That would have been. Well, especially given the ending. If the movie had been made 15 years ago, he would have. Especially given the ending.

Same. The Tim and Eric level special effect gunshot, you mean? Yes. It actually really is Tim and Eric level. My favorite moment of the movie is when he tells the one funny joke in the movie and everyone goes, oh, you can't say that. You can't. Oh, you can't joke about that. And I was like,

that was a pretty good joke. I don't know. And then, and then you'll be happy to hear, Stuart, that the d*** himself spends three minutes scolding the audience

for the fact that you can't make jokes about anything anymore. Man. You can't do it. Speaking truth to power. I mean, you can push boundaries, but sometimes you might miss.

Sometimes you might miss. Yeah. And then you end up on mad TV. Yeah. Guys. It's an episode on the Manchurian candidate. Can you tell me, as we were just talking about success, I looked this up. You can all tell me the most financially successful Jonathan Demme movie ever made, right?

It's On Solace. Correct. Right? Mm-hmm. What's number two? Philadelphia. That's also true. What's number three?

Manchurian candidate. Well, he just did it all himself. two? Philadelphia. That's also true. What's number three? Venturion Candidate. Well, he just did it all himself. There you go. Pretty crazy, though. This is his third most successful film. And not a huge hit. No. But here's a weird thing to think about.

Uh-huh. A big summer release. Yeah. Oh, yeah. July 30th? Yeah. You got that, like, Nolan slot, basically. Big studio summer blockbuster.

Well, you had Denzel. Streep. You got Streep. You got Streep you got Shribe. You got Boyz II Chickachella. You got Farmig young Farmig. Young Farmig young Falcon young Anthony Mackie. You got

young Bill Irwin in one with two lines I think. Very young Duncan Cain from Veronica Mars is briefly visible. So I looked him up because he jumped out. I went, Teddy Dunn from Veronica Mars. You're like, is he done already? Well, Teddy was just getting started.

Now he's done? No, but I remember that he left that show like very abruptly in the middle of season two. And then never saw him again. And I was like, what happened to that guy? He's a lawyer now. He fights white collar crime. So he's actually doing something much better. Yeah, he left Veronica Mars and got a law degree and now fights against corruption.

He's inspired by Veronica Mars. It's the right choice considering how boring he was at Veronica Mars. He was. Duncan, was that his name? Duncan. Yeah. This movie's got Ted Levine. It's got Miguel Ferrer.

It's got Chris D. Shaughnessy, Roma Tori. Miguel Ferrer playing a part that never really necessitates a Miguel Freire level. Anytime you see Miguel Freire, you're like, oh, he's the villain. And the fact that he's just kind of like in it. He has like one scene. Miguel being in it was a transparent box office play. Because in the same way that Will Smith was still the king of the Fourth of July. Right.

Miguel Freire owned July 30th. That was his weekend. Well, it was his birthright from his father. Yes. Who owned it for decades, you know. Decades.

He had squatters rights on July 30th. Oh, Manchurian Candidate. Well, I mean, it feels like, this was another thing I was thinking about. 2004.

Uh-huh, sure. This same summer has Paramount releasing the Stepford Wives remake. That's right. They have these two 60s or is Venture Inc. at 50s? Venture Inc. is 60s. 62. Right. Stepford Wives is the 70s.

Is it 70s? Yeah. I'm sorry. But these two brainwashing films, right? Well, Stepford Wives isn't brainwashing it's robo-replacing. That's the remake. No, in the old one, too. Is the original as well? Yeah, it's also robos.

But it is the same kind of like, hey man, society is a thin gossamer barrel. Oh, yeah, yeah. Mind benders. Right. And Scott Rudin produces both of them. Interesting. What was going on in his life at the time? Both watching a lot of TCM.

Bullshit, man. Scott Rudin was like, he's calling up Demi. Calling up Frank Oz. We live in a society. It's pretty weird that Frank Oz made the Stepford Wives remake. That's what I'm saying. Like, it was like, here's this, like, big comedy director. Here's this big drama director.

Both have, like, stack casts. And it was these films that people were like, I don't know if you should remake them. And Scott Rudin was like, it's time. Society has changed. We have to comment. I mean, to be fair, if I can take us back to 2004 because we've all forgotten it because the last four years are now the entirety of human history. 2004 was like a pretty bad time. Really bad.

And it was the beginning of the endless war era of the United States. 100 percent. It was – there was still the – and I'll go to – we'll see what happens in the next year to four years. But the worst president of the 21st century so far was in the middle of his run. And like it was a real bad time and that's why I think there was this sense of paranoia and people on the edge of their seats. The edge of their seats. People on the edge that we've kind of forgotten about and also the edge of their seats if they wouldn't see the step for wives or matrimony. That's why we paid for that part

but it's also there was also a naivete because we haven't seen how cracked up society could be and that's why you get a movie like

Manchurian Candidate at least where it's like both sides are pretty gross you know what they're all in the pocket of big business and I'm like oh America

you were so naive then yes that's true but no but you're right the Bush era especially post Iraq it's like that weird Americana thing had come back where it's like we just want to live in a house and have a family. Are you why are you against America.

You don't want a house with a family. There was a lot of talk then about real America fake America who's a patriot is not a patriot and so the time is right. The whole Karl Rove sort of, you know, anti-gay marriage, all that stuff. And the time was right for Demi to be like, the Manchurian candidate's back. Right, like it felt like one of those things,

and both of those movies would get referenced a lot in the news and things, like people would relate them to real world occurrences. They still do with Manchurian. Right, but I'm saying that it felt like it was starting to become... Well, it's all the brainwashing going on these days. Huge.

But both these films coming like... The resurgence of playing cards. You want to play Solitaire with me? No, get away! Why would he say Solitaire with me? It's a stupid joke. Forget it. It sounds like a micro-bigly one-man show. Play Solitaire with me. I was very disappointed

that the Demi version doesn't update it with like computer solitaire I was hoping it was going to update it with like Yu-Gi-Oh or something That'd be so funny Pokemon trading cards Would you like to play a Digimon?

Denzel Washington Beyblading That'd be so funny if he's got to play Digimon, but they only have Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh cards or magic cards. They're like, why did you bring all these extra cards? I can't trigger him. He's got to get to Bulbasaur or else he's not going to kill that guy. They just replace it with nothing. Nothing. They just replace it with saying your name.

They replace it with saying your full name, which seems like the easiest trigger. I know. I mean, I have as a joke. I mean, you have to say Raymond, Raymond Shaw, Raymond Prentiss Shaw. Unless the mom of someone is like mad at you. Like, repeat. Raymond, Raymond Shaw, Raymond Prentiss Shaw. Captain Raymond Prentiss.

But also, what's weird is though is that the trigger in the old movie is very specific. Would you like to play a game of solitaire? And it does happen accidentally. And that's one of the clues in the old movie is very specific. Would you like to play a game of solitaire? And it does happen accidentally, and that's one of the clues in the movie. Here it's literally just having your full name said, and there's no accidental triggerings ever. Right, and concerning a character. You think if someone was walking through a restaurant with a message, or a telephone for Raymond Shaw, Raymond Prentiss Shaw.

You give it a couple shots. Right, if he's trying to get his order at Starbucks. Here's a guy who's in the public sphere. Constantly, yeah. You're pointing out, Dan, it'd have to be the specific order. But also, he's being talked about all the time. Also, his middle name is famous because his dad or his mom. It's not like he has no scary middle name.

He does give all three names to his baristas. It's pretty dangerous. Yeah. So I had never seen the original. That's crazy. And watched both today. Congrats. Finished the remake five minutes before recording started.

And you're still shaken. I'm triggered. I thought that was sweat beating on your forehead, but I think it's all glitter. Correct. It is Trolls glitter. You had a very busy day. We did. It took me so long.

I did not Sherlock Holmes those two things together. I watched two mentoring candidates. The Trolls and the glitter. I've been sitting here being like I can't ask Griffin why he has so much glitter on him

in his mustache you're like I know he went to the trolls experience something was said about glitter earlier I've shown you the photos which tipped off

a conversation about the trolls experience I feel like after all this time you should know how dim I am that's true now I love you

as a detective where it's like, oh, that's why I did it. I did it all right with this knife. And I did it because he was having an affair with my wife.

And you're like, hmm, tricky, tricky. It seems a game we shall play. If you want to throw Dan off your scent, you put glitter on the weapon and he'll know. That's true.

But why was Elton John in the room? What was he doing here? Who invited him? But it was a weird John in the room? What was he doing here? Who invited him? But it was a weird thing because I've heard this film referenced so much in so many different ways. Right, right. You yourself were briefly a sleeper agent for the Manchurian government. Correct.

So this movie hit a little hard for me. It was a little personal. Remind you all your good times with your buddies at the MKUltra project. What are they doing now? My life was a little more American Ultra than Mentoring Canada. It was kind of rad and edgy. But it was the thing of like

watching the original this morning, which, great fucking movie. I was like, how did they- You guys keep saying the original. We're talking about Zoolander, right? I will say that was the other thing for me was like when I saw Zoolander, when it came out, I was like, what a great fucking premise for a movie. Where did they ever come up with this?

What an incredible hook. Stolen. Yeah. Anyway, watching the original today. Satirized it. Sure. The original is so much about the fear of other countries. Yes.

Interfering. This is a classic Cold War paranoia. It is the classic. It's literally about- The original is so much about the fear of other countries interfering. This is a classic Cold War paranoia. It is the classic. It's literally about Russia and China interfering with an American election. So it's like, if anything, the movie is now more relevant than the remake. That's the weird fucking thing. It weirdly is. That's right. Even though the remake should be more relevant.

Where you're like, of course, big business. It makes sense. You're like, yeah, companies, they have computers now, cable TV. Instead, the one where they use typewriters is more relevant now. I looked up brainwashing because I just wanted to confirm my own suspicions that brainwashing as we see it in the movies is complete nonsense. It's total bunk. People do get Stockholm Syndrome. I don't know.

If you say something to someone a lot and they're sitting in a chair. People do get Stockholm Syndrome. I don't know. If you say something to someone a lot and they're sitting in a chair. People in cults, you malnourish them and put social pressure on them and maybe they don't leave. But brainwashing as we see in films obviously is not so. But looking at the history of brainwashing did come from what they talk about the Manchurian candidate like fears at the time of like the Chinese doing this literal thing. Right, yeah.

And so it's just it was interesting like I was like oh, that wasn't fanciful. Like people believed that that was a possibility. No, it was the pizza gate of its time.

Yeah. Right. And MKUltra which you referenced is that's in the 70s and that's them still being like is there something going on? That's a real program.

It is a real program. But the fake thing is that it worked. worked. The real thing was that they tried it. They were like, oh yeah, no, this is bullshit. They're like, oh, well, Sirhan, Sirhan. That was MKUltra. It's like, no, it wasn't. They couldn't do it. All they did was drive people crazy with LSD and make them mad. And one guy, they pushed off a building.

Like, that's the... Because when I was a kid, I was hip deep in conspiracies. Loved conspiracies. Believed in all of them. I made a choice to say the world is more interesting if I believe in all these conspiracies Loch Ness Monster also

yes Bigfoot yes I want to live in that world but then at first I was like oh people are kind of like too dumb to pull this stuff off and also like

it doesn't make any sense at all you know well right they all begin to compete with each other as well well especially anytime I read like any entertainment industry conspiracy about like what their plan was with like the fucking Star Wars movie and their agenda.

They wanted it to be bad. Right. That was their plan all along. I'm like I want you to spend five minutes in any boardroom meeting on any set. They are so fucking disorganized at all times. That all of human history is people trying desperately to keep up with the work they need to get done. Correct. The idea that there is like a council somewhere that's like, yes, and here's the 10-year plan that will lead to world domination.

Instead, it's just a lot of people being like, what's the easiest thing I could do right now? There are terrible people with terrible motives in the world. But also, no one is that fucking organized. No one can get their shit together to that degree. Do you know how many people there are making these things? So many. There are a lot with terrible motives in the world, but also no one is that fucking organized. No one can get their shit together to that degree. Do you know how many people there are making these things? So many. There are a lot of people. Jesus.

There are a lot of people. The answer with Star Wars is it was supposed to come out on that day, and it was too soon. They couldn't finish it. I don't know. I think they were trying to indoctrinate us. Yeah, you're right. And of course, they wanted to sabotage J.J. Abrams' career. That was it.

Guys, I read a thing. Oh, yeah. I heard a rumor, rather. Okay. Oh, you're right. And of course they wanted to sabotage J.J. Abrams' career. Guys, I read a thing. I heard a rumor rather. It turns out they sold like 100,000% of the shares in Star Wars and only a huge flop would make them get away with keeping all that money. So it's the producers? Yes.

The producers of Star Wars are the producers. Oh my god, they planned it. It was their brilliant plan to only make $900 million worldwide. Only then could they make a profit. It is this crazy thing though where like Manchurian Candidate has this like central sort of like heightened

sci-fi hook to it. But in both movies, the like evil influence is kind of right on the money. Like isn't as organized and as clean and as focused as it's like said to be, but like you're like, right, yeah, foreign corruption and big business.

It's like 100% what we're fighting on. I feel like if you just gave a guy a bunch of money he would do what you wanted. Totally. Right, that's the thing. You can money wash it with $1 billion. That was the comment. I went to see the movie in the theaters when it came out with my friend Brock Mahan. Just going to name drop. Brock Mahan. So, you know, if anyone's ever heard of him, hopefully they have. He's a great guy. But we went to it and we walked out of the theater and he goes, so what would they have a president who's even friendlier to big business?

Right. Like, again, this is when George W. Bush was in the White House and Dick Cheney was the vice president. Like, how is it going to get more friendly to big business? That's a fair point. What does Venturing Global really need? They're putting a lot of money in to get maybe a marginal improvement in business friendliness. The more the Russia trail is exposed, the more you realize half these guys were probably just complimented and then they signed up. Yeah. They were like, Paul, your jacket looks great.

And he's like, where do I help? What do you need? Who should I investigate? I'm happy to roll up my sleeves. But this movie is set in a sort of quasi future. It's kind of weird. It's like the four years in the future future.

Right, exactly. The not too distant future. You know, America is getting a little more, you know, democracy is beginning to bleed away maybe kind of. It is a lot more sci-fi in the tech too, which the original is very kind of analog. It's all just like crazy mind game shit. There's that sequence in the original that's unbelievable where you see them all in the meeting where they're being sort of presented to all the world leaders. With the flower show?

Yes. That is like unbelievable but you don't see a lot of the conversion. No. You don't see a lot of operations. There's no brain drilling. I think that really I love the original movie. The original movie has long been one of my favorites.

It's John Frankenheimer's original movie. The original movie has long been one of my favorites. It rolls. And like the – it's John Frankenheimer's best movie. Like it's – and one of the things I love about it is it's so matter-of-factly made. The suspense scene is really suspenseful, but all the brainwashing stuff is shot so straight on and kind of like almost unimaginatively. And so it's like – and you don't see the actual mechanics of the brainwashing, so you don't have to be like, would they really put like a chip in a dude's shoulder? Like how would that help? But is the shoulder connected to the brain? I guess it is a little bit.

But then it helps for me to build the weirdness, like the reality of it that like it's not goofy weird. But here it's like they really get into the sci-fi of it and his dream sequences are like goofy crazy. I love them. I love those dream sequences. I get this like weird Terry Gilliam like goofy crazy. I love them. I love those dream sequences. It's like weird Terry Gilliam, like 12 monkeys. Like suddenly there's a lady. There's a Muslim lady with a huge apple or tomato in her hands.

And the drawing style, Jeffrey Wright's drawing style is so insane. And they're watching like a rotoscoped cartoon. It's interesting that you say that about the original though, because I feel like one thing that these two have in common for me is they have like this bizarre tone. And I kind of wonder if that's partly because of the what I said before. Like we all like inherently know that brainwashing of this kind is bunk.

But there is like this creepy thing about someone like getting inside your head and messing around with it. Oh, yeah. I mean it's – And so they play it with this weird off-kilter – both of them have different kinds of off-kilter tone. Well, I think the off-kilterness of the original is probably because it's a pretty funny movie at times. Yeah. There's really solid jokes in it. Yeah. And this one – Sinatra is also just like popping in that movie. He is so charismatic.

He's so charismatic and also so nuts. Yeah. He's really good in that movie. He's somehow really charismatic while also being clearly about to – can I – I forget if I swear. You can be so swearing. Okay. He is totally – and I say the worst word ever and you're like, why did you say that? Jesus Christ. He is clearly about to lose his shit at every moment.

Yeah. But he is also super smooth and charismatic. And in this movie, Denzel Washington is – instead of being a guy who's about to lose his shit he's a guy who's lost his shit and he is like feels dangerous like watching the movie I'm uncomfortable like I don't want to be in the room with the screen it doesn't help that like a lot of those shots are so like straight on whether it's him

or when they're shooting when the shot is of Rosie and it looks like like it's from his perspective and it's like you don't know if he's gonna like go and strangle her down the middle Like it's from his perspective and it's like you don't know if he's going to like go in stranglers. Yeah. Classic Demi thing. Down the middle. Down the middle.

In the lens. I think Denzel Washington is like if anything a little too good in the movie because I'm like I buy him too much as a man who is falling apart and getting dangerous. But it's a weird – he's not doing – like that opening – I believe the opening shot is him in the Humvee where he's like, what I don't want to do is go on the road. And you're like, oh, it's Denzel. I love Denzel. And then he never does that again. You never see him in classic two guns, deja vu, Denzel mode. On the present day, I mean, his introduction is him

giving that speech to the Boy Scouts. And even then he's shaken. And that's before he starts to feel really paranoid. That's before Jeffrey Wright comes up and he's like, hey man, what are you doing? And you're like, oh God, what happened to Jeff? Give him some half glasses to look over. Has he lost the source code?

Jeff, get it back. Look, I love Jeffrey Wright. He's so great. He is an actor who gives you a lot. Yeah. He is not subtle. And he's also,

and he's willing to do, and my brother was going on and on about how much he loved seeing him on Rick and Morty talking about poop. He's great on Rick and Morty. And I like that he's kind of creative and he can be kind of theatrical and all of that. But to say to Jeffrey Wright, hey, we got one scene for you and you just need to be the craziest man in the world is a little dangerous.

But, yeah, but one scene. Well, he's doing his thing. He's doing a lot. He's doing his thing. He's doing a lot. He's doing his thing. He's emptied the entire paprika bottle onto the sandwich. I do think that like, for me,

this movie's biggest problem, and there's certainly nits to pick with it, but the biggest problem is it's merely a good movie when the first one is brilliant. Right. Yeah. And, and I think Demi for me is doing like as much as he can with a script that sort of suffers from a lot of 90s-itis. In that Jeffrey Wright, for instance, is a very traditional thriller crazy guy who has an evidence wall and stuff. He just walked out of Emmy of the State or whatever.

Conspiracy theory. It's got a lot of net in it. A lot of the net in it. A lot of net. The screenwriters on this are pretty standard studio like, studio 90s, 2000s thriller guys. And there's all, whatever. The script, they kind of were, like, rewriting on the fly the whole time. That's the thing.

I mean, it feels like they, because the weird thing with this movie is that, I forget what studio, maybe MGM released it originally, but then, or United Artists. It was a UA film, yeah, yeah. Right. But then, it came out the same year as the Kennedy assassination and people got kind of scared off of it. It came out the year before

I believe. Very close. It came out the year before. But it was a combination of the assassination happening right afterward. Back then like movie rollouts

were much slower. So the movie could have been playing and then That was the thing. And there was also a rights issue that kept it out of the public eye

for 20 years. But a big key of that is that Sinatra himself at some point bought the rights back. Hey, give me those rights. Right, because he resented the fact that he felt like UA didn't do enough with it. Yeah. And then in like the 80s, they rescreened it at the New York Film Fest when it kind of got reclaimed and started being played on TV again. And the opening title card of this movie is like a, it's his daughter.

What's his daughter's name? Yeah, his daughter produced this movie. Tina Sinatra. It's a Scott Rudin slash Tina Sinatra film. She was the one the whole time who was like we need to remake the Manchurian Candidates. Right, she carried the rights after he passed and she was the one who kind of willed this movie into existence. You imagine they

at some point just hire writers and go, make the obvious 90s version of Manchurian Candidate, make the thriller. And then when Demi comes on, he's a little bit too sensitive and thoughtful of a filmmaker to ever make that straight a version. But you have like the bones of a very conventional studio version of this movie, which is always going to be unconventional because it's thorny material. Then you cast a guy Who's like such a fucking movie star and you hear it in your head?

You're like Denzel is gonna play the Sinatra part He's gonna make it so cool and so confident sure and then you zag in the opposite direction where it's like But when this was announced it was announced right I remember right after truth about Charlie Yeah, and it's like he's doing another remake of a beloved classic. Like, why is he doing this? And this was, I mean, Halcyon days,

but you go, this was that period of time where anytime a studio announced they were remaking a classic movie, you were like, ugh, this again? And if any studio

announced that they were making a $60 million remake of a classic film, it would be like, finally. Great, sure, good,

good. You're releasing it in the summer, I can't believe it. All the classics, make them again. That is true. But then it it in the summer? I can't believe it. All the classics. Make them again. That is true. But then it would be the classic film shared universe. The dark classics.

It's like Rick has to leave Casablanca so we can get on the African Queen and go meet the Godfather. And he's played by Noah Centineo. Noah Centineo would play all of them. Harvey the Rabbit has to assemble them all together. He would be the secretly. it would play all of them. Harvey the Rabbit has to assemble them all together to stop Charles Foster Kane who has got the Philadelphia story.

He's got some magical thing from Thief of Baghdad. Yeah, right. He has the Maltese Falcon. I mean, this is essentially League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

at this point. In this world, you can buy the IP for just classic movies. They'll throw them all in together because we own classics. The classics. But they all have powers now. That's not a bad IP.

Like Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life, he has the ability to come back from the dead. And see alternate. He can talk to angels. He can talk to angels and walk between alternate universes. And it's driven him insane. You have to get him out of a sanitarium. I like the idea, though, that every lead character from the movie gets the power, the magical power of the

central hook of their movie. I have a question, though. Can we work Fortnite? Can this begin or end in Fortnite? It's bookended on Fortnite. What if Fortnite was like our next campaign is turn a classic into a DCM? Finally, you can have

Nanachka kill kill Gene Kelly and sing it in the rain finally Nanachka would be part of my dark classics and then he's got to wait around while his powers get up from cool down we know a guy he can sing in the rain like that's

the briefing meeting they throw down at the end he would create he would like use his hands to control a tidal wave that washes away the wizard. I don't know. But also the high note he hits while he's controlling. It's all the rain. I don't know. It'd be a good movie.

We got two months to pitch this. Until media disappears. Yeah, until it's done. But no, it does feel like this movie is so a product of like the last window of them viewing that as a bankable thing of like the movie, a classic movie. That title sells itself. And you put top tier talent on it. You can throw it in the summer. Like this was a movie they had aspirations of having.

Oscar success for sure. But also you don't release it in July unless you think it's going to make money. No, they sullied it. They did it in July. They did. They did sully it. They pulled a sully. Unless it's,

because there's always the kinds of things where it's like, what have you promised to the filmmaker? What have you promised to Denzel Washington? Right.

If Denzel Washington's going to be attached, you know he's going to want it to be a big release and that kind of thing. Right. So you got that. Right.

He can flip between this is just a thriller released in September and this is an Oscar play. And this feels like for Denzel it's more of a thriller play. Yeah. But this is also that Meryl period post-adaptation

where pre-Devil Wears Prada. Right, that's the big... But still, but she's trying stuff. Totally. She's in a series on unfortunate events, and she's in the Altman movie, and I don't know. Perry Holmes, she's really good at.

She is really good in that, yeah. Played the queen ant in The Ant Bully, so put that in your pipe. She's not great in that. No, she's really good. She is really good in that. She played the queen ant in The Ant Bully, so put that in your pipe. She's not great in that. No, she's not good. No, she phoned that one in. I have seen that film. That film was weirdly about communism. Okay. Well, it is an ant movie. It's actually not that weird to make an ant movie

about communism. You're right. Ants are inherently communist. Okay, so let me rephrase. No, ants are fascist. Well, sure. I just mean that they are a commune. You're right. But they are a fascist commune. It is under the command of one dictator. Guys, while we're talking about ants, how do you get them out of a house?

Because I've had some ant problems this year. Well, if you listen to – I know that James Taylor on The Simpsons talked about creating a vacuum to shove them out of a house. So I have to shoot into deep space? Well, but there's also – if you want to just shoot him with a gun like in that Colin Heston movie, right? I think if you watch the movie Mouse Hunt 2, there are a lot of lateral moves that you can apply. You just shrink everything they do by like 20%. Shrink and multiply. In the naked jungle, he tries to shoot at the ants.

Yeah. That's crazy. It's like in the movie Save the Green Planet where the bad guy unleashes – or not bad guy. It's a questionable who's the good the Green Planet where the bad guy unleashes – or not bad guy. It's a questionable. Who's the good guy? Who's the bad guy? Unleashes a swarm of bees that the police detective investigating him and he just is firing into the swarm and you see one bee fall to the ground. I love that movie.

It's so much better than if it had just not done anything. No, it's just a shot of one bee falling. We got one. What was I going to say? Demi. You were talking about a maturing candidate. Meryl. Meryl.

Yeah, Meryl's in that zone. We were saying earlier today, Leo Schreiber was in that sort of pocket that like Peter Sarsgaard was in the 2000s as well, where they were like, this guy's going to be the guy at some point, right? Yeah, there's something going on here. Right.

Cottonweary. This led up to Ray Donovan, right? Yeah, Ray Donovan. Well, this is leading up to his inexplicably or explicably. I do think this is

a Ray Donovan prequel. Yes. You know, he directed wrote and directed Everything is Illuminated right after that. Which we all remember and think about

and watch all the time. His weird passion project. Huge release. Jonathan Safran Foer is just two for two with his amazing adaptations of his books. His masterpieces. It's like how Ewan Jonathan Safran Foer is just two for two with his amazing adaptations of his books. His masterpieces.

It's like how Ewan McGregor made an American pastoral movie. Like, and everyone's just like, no, he didn't. No, he didn't. That never happened. And James Franco continues to pump out Faulkner movies. Of course. And an amazing clip. He's got a dark Faulkner universe.

Well, I mean, Faulkner did have one county, all his characters. Yeah, it's true. It's true. If you ask people on the street, like, how many movies do you think James Franco has directed? They'd be like, I've heard of one,

so I'm guessing three. Right. And you'd have to tell them he's made six Faulkner films alone. He's made like 18 movies. Yes, he's made like 18 films and six of them

are Faulkner adaptations. He's like Norman Mailer where you're like, oh yeah, Norman Mailer made a movie, right? Oh no, he has a larger filmography than Rian Johnson.

Okay. So fucking strange. Remember when Liev Schreiber was Sabretooth? He just had big sideburns? He was the more sensitive Sabretooth. I think that's a good performance. It's not a good performance. I think it's a good performance. I think the movie is a disaster.

One of the worst. But it's at least, he has an idea. I say, I'll give him that. It's possible for a good performance to be in a bad movie. It's certainly possible. Mr. J. It's possible for a good performance to be in a bad movie It's certainly It's certainly possible I don't think it gets to good performance Because he doesn't do fucking anything But that's why it's such a good performance

He's playing against type for saber tooth Who's supposed to be a wild man I think it's a good performance I think you have a previous professional wrestler Playing the part who only growls Who only growls and looks like a cat. And instead they're like, forget the cat, forget the growling. You're kind of

like a Broadway dramaturg kind of drama queen kind of guy and you got long nails and sideburns. And it's the Liev thing of just like, it's incredibly quiet aggression. Like he never pops. He's not an aggressive saber tooth. He's a passive aggressive saber tooth. I don't like Wolverine

literally he just had sideburns you can imagine Sabertooth Victor Creel has been he's been invited to a party

and they're like yeah and Wolverine's gonna be there and he's like oh god this was the look it's terrifying this was the look

I mean it's tough to see he looks like he jumped out from behind a bush and he's going I'm still haunted by the way he runs in that, where he's literally floating above the ground. Right, and he's just sort of doing this. But it's also, it's a four-legged. Yes, it's a four-legged.

But yes, you are right. He plays it as if he just dislikes Wolverine. I wonder if like in early rehearsals, he tried to kept being bigger and bigger, and that just made Hugh Jackman get bigger and bigger. And Hugh Jackman, when he gets bigger, he has to sink. It's just like that movie is like his ultimate nemesis is Sabretooth, and it's a guy in a trench coat who's grumpy. But everything in that movie is like that. That movie is so weird.

That movie is so weird. I want to do the Wolverine saga. And that is the movie where you take the Merc with a mouth and you have him not have a mouth he has no mouth he is ostensibly the final boss and he doesn't talk yeah

and Wolverine loses his memory because he gets hit on the head real hard I believe he gets shot with a bullet he gets shot with a bullet because he has

an adamantium skull it doesn't kill him but he's just like oh what it's a memory wiping bullet it is one of those damn memory bullets. Yeah.

I wanted to mention, just so I don't forget, for a dark guy, he certainly wears a lot of yellow. So, you know, he's got that yellow ruff and that orange fur. He's a very bright and colorful fellow. He is a flamboyant guy. There's a scene of him, like, brushing out his sideburns in front of a mirror. That's another thing. He was very well groomed because like

in the movie or in general? In the first Singer movie he's kind of gnarly and feral but then when you see Sabretooth in the comics you're always like he feels very well arranged.

Everything's very well trimmed. Well that was in the Fortnite they did before it. He goes on Queer Eye and they really they really they jazz him up. I liked his old like

bodysuit with the furry ruffs. Yeah, the slashes on it. He almost looks like a football mascot or whatever. Like, you know, like he could be. He's got that weird headgear. The headband that lifts the hair. The hair sticking out of the top.

That Cyclops had for a while, yeah. Right, right. Yeah, he's a great costume, great guy. He's a really good guy. Great guy, we love him. Right, murderer. What a horrific guy. How come he doesn't hang out with Birdie anymore?

Remember her? Who? Birdie? She was the psychic. From McDonald's? She had a thing called like – yeah, yeah. The bird from McDonald's. Do you remember that Sabretooth and Birdie dated in the 90s?

Why not? They're both animal people. It's like when Glenn Close and Woody Harrelson dated and you're like, I guess. When it was what? Frank Langella and Whoopi Goldberg? Oh, one of the greats. Yeah, they love each other. One of the all-time great celebrity couples.

Langella could have played Sabretooth. Now, I have one – A young Frank Langella would have been a greatberg. Oh, one of the greats. Yeah, they love each other. One of the all-time great celebrity couples. Langella could have played Sabretooth. A young Frank Langella would have been a great Sabretooth. Great Sabretooth. He was an okay Dracula. Yes. Oh, so here's the thing I wanted to say. Sorry. He was a good Skeletor.

Great Skeletor. As good as a Skeletor is going to get unless it's Willem Dafoe who would have been the ideal Skeletor. I mean, if we— Too big a penis. You'd be right. That tissue should have rotted away. Too big a penis. You'd be right.

That tissue should have rotted away. If we hope and we pray and we cross our fingers, Noah Centineo will fight Willem Dafoe's Skeletor yet. How ironic it was for me watching the movie now also to see Jon Voight playing the most liberal senator in America when he is now the craziest conservative. Where is he at this point in his life? At that point. Is this sort of when he's like made good with Angelina Jolie? Yes, I think so.

Well, it was tenuous. As good as they were going to get. Because remember, he plays FDR in Pearl Harbor just a couple years earlier. 2001, three years earlier. But in that same year, he plays her father. Lord Croft himself. That's right. And it felt like a big thing.

It was like an olive branch where it's like, we're going to be in a movie together. We're trying to mend the relationship. And he did. He's in Zoolander, of course. A great scene in Zoolander. He's in Ali. He's kind of popping right now, in fact. He's in National Treasure. I mean, he was very available and I think he needed money. Yes.

How close is this to when he started Bratz? What about the Bratz movie? Bratz is definitely 2007. When did he produce Baby Geniuses and Baby Geniuses 2? Well, this is all the same. See, I'm very fascinated with this, and I've never quite figured it out, but there's Crystal Sky Productions, which is the Paul family. No relation to Jake and Logan Paul. Crystal Sky Pictures.

I'm sorry. Correct. But they produce Bratz, the baby geniuses that filmed The Legend of Simon Conjurer. Do you remember that? It sounds kind of familiar. Where it was like Jon Voight in a fat suit and it was like a bunch of kids who have to solve a mystery. Nope. I don't remember

that at all. I thought it was something you were talking about. Something totally different. All the weird family films that Jon Voight's in are all through this one production company. Crystal Sky Pictures. The Bratz was three years after this. Yes. Okay. I think they start to really tank him.

In which he played Principal Dimly. Yeah. You say that like we don't know that. Did you know that he played a taxi driver in Baby Geniuses and the Mystery of the Crown Jewels? My point is that he also- And then he played Moriarty in Baby Geniuses and the Treasure of Egypt?

My point is- I just learned that. If I am not mistaken, he also has producer credits on all of these films. Yes. Because he is not in the first Baby Geniuses and the Treasure of Egypt? My point is, I just learned that. If I am not mistaken, he also has producer credits on all of these films. He is not in the first Baby Geniuses. He is an executive producer on all Baby Geniuses and he is not in the first one. Definitely the Baby Geniuses ones because I believe

he was a guest on the Daily Show when I worked there to promote Baby Geniuses. The first one. But he was just producing. Because I remember Can you give me the five credit block of Baby Geniuses. The first five. I think I can do this.

Do you think you can do this? Nope. Look, when I turned 38, I said, I got to be realistic about myself. Right. I can't pretend to know things I don't. And I'm 30, so ready? I'm going to come in hot. I believe the first build in Baby Geniuses is Kathleen Turner, correct?

That is correct. And Christopher Lloyd? Correct. Is third Peter McNichol? That is correct. And Christopher Lloyd? Correct. Is third Peter McNichol? Third is Kim Cattrall. Fourth is Peter McNichol. Okay. Remember, this is Sex and the City.

I buy that order. Even now I would buy that order. I buy it. Fifth? I was thinking McNichol off of Ally McBeal, but you're right. Sex and the City was the third. McNichol is never breaking number three. Even Sophie's Choice is not breaking number three.

Exactly. Even Dragon Slayer. Ghostbusters 2 is not breaking number three. Even Sophie's Choice is not breaking number three. Exactly. Even Dragon Slayer. Ghostbusters 2 is not breaking number three. The movie he started. Yeah, he's after the dragon. I mean, there's a dragon in it. Come on. Can you give me the fifth?

It's a legendary Oscar-nominated actress. It's a legendary Oscar-nominated actress. I want to see. Okay. Yeah, that was my test. Elliot laughed really hard at it.

Only because not at the person because the person I respect deeply. Right, that she's in it. She's in not at the person, because the person I respect deeply. Right, that she's in it. But at the unlikely, that she's in it and the unlikelihood that this is the name that you're going to come up with. Okay. Unless you've seen Baby Geniuses.

I have. Okay, so maybe we'll. But when it came out in theaters 20 plus years ago, 99, right? No, Baby Geniuses is, let's see, let's find out. First one, 98 or 99. No, it's 2006 or something like that, right? Baby Geniuses. I think that's Baby Geniuses too.

Jesus, I'm on Lee Schreiber. I have Gulf War Sin for open in my computer. You've got so many tabs. Oh, God, too many tabs. It's definitely 1999. Thank you. The first Baby Geniuses I know. 1999, you're right.

Oh, so you know what? So I didn't work at the Daily Show at the time. He must have been promoting Baby Geniuses 2, Super Babies. I don't know. Maybe, but I don't remember him being in the clip. That's the thing. I think I saw it. Maybe there was no usable clip of him in that movie.

That's possible. That's right. And he is the villain in 2. Yeah. It sounds like he's the thing. I think I saw it. Maybe there was no usable clip of him in that movie. That's possible. That's right. And he is the villain in two. Yeah. It sounds like he's the villain. I mean, I love the idea that those characters must be brothers or something. Like, he's just the villain in every movie, maybe. Very possibly.

There's one bloodline that includes Moriarty. Moriarty. And they retconned the first one, so it was part of the John Voight bloodline. Okay. Can you guess this one-time Oscar nominee? And here's my question. Was her one nomination for Baby Geniuses? No.

Okay, fine. That narrows it down. But it was one of those late-in-life nominations that was sort of like a salute to your career. It is not Lauren Bacall, is it? No. This is one where I feel like it's sort of— But you're more likely to get it if you name spouse. Can I guess someone?

Ellen Burstyn? Another great guess, but no. Are we sort of in the right zone? Yeah. I mean, you're naming good old actresses. Is it Lynn Redgrave? No. But one late in life, good actresses.

At the point the baby geniuses comes out, she's not an Oscar nominee, and she won't be for another six or seven years. Wow, huge. Can you tell me the name of the character? The name of the character? The name of the character? I think this is what might crack it for me. Margot. So you know she's at a wedding.

Definitely, she has to be. This is what people tune into this show for. It's a popular show. This is like a Houdini show where Houdini would say, they're locking me up, and then the curtain would go down, and people would stare at the curtain for minute after minute, just imagining what was going on behind it. Thrilled.

An honor to get and sit there and look at a curtain. You asking me, would I go to that show? You're damn right I would go to that show. While you try and guess, I'm going to give you all the taglines from Baby Genius. Please do. And this is now an episode about Baby Genius. Think innocent.

Think helpless. Think again. That's tagline A. Pretty sneaky. And then below the title, naps are history. That's right. Which is not, even no matter how genius they are, babies still need naps. Everyone needs to sleep.

They're very small babies. They can barely, you know, digest food. I mean, the babies, all they do is eat and sleep. And again, the things that happen when you eat, the food comes out. All right, I'm calling this. This is an older actress who doesn't get nominated until 2005, 2006.

2008 is when she gets nominated. 2007. 2007. She gets nominated for a 2007 film at the awards in 2008. 2007 film starring the star of The Manchurian Candidate. You're going to get it now. It's a Denzel movie.

Right. Is it Ruby Dee? It's Ruby Dee. Ruby Dee is fifth build. Fifth build in Baby Geniuses. And I'm sure she got residual checks for the rest of her life. Well, we're done, right? Thanks for coming, guys.

I do want to ask. I am a listener. They're just super smart babies. But I do. It's all in am a listener. They're just super smart babies, Dan. It's all in the title. But I'm also catching up with the old episodes. Sure. So on new episodes, do you usually talk this little about the movie?

Often, yes. It depends. Dan's wondering if we're ruining the podcast. I don't mind it. Oh, you're not ruining the podcast. I don't mind it. No, I don't think so. Oh, you're not ruining the podcast. I don't mind it. I'm just, yeah, I want to see whether we're coming in like the Marx Brothers. We actually did talk a lot about the Manchurian Candidate just then.

We did some, in the Baby Geniuses talk or something? Yeah, you did. No, we did get some talk. In a certain way, it's a weirdly hard movie to talk about. I think he has, as we were sort of saying, forefronted a lot of the thriller elements. Right. The thing that's kind of fascinating about this movie is comparing all the changes it makes. It definitely has that remake thing where, like, they view the original film as, like, okay, what can we clean up on the second draft?

Sure. So there are things like, because in the first one, it is the Angela Lansbury mother character. Yes. Does not appear in the film very much. That reveal happens very late. I suppose that's true. Sure. It's a very – it's an iconic Oscar-nominated performance.

You don't know that – well, she's great in it, but you don't know that she is part of the – spoiler alert, I guess. You don't know that she's part of the plot until – yeah, very close to the ending. Having watched it this morning, it's a lot of just like, oh my god, what an overbearing sort of career. I suppose Meryl reveals herself to be fully invested, like what, an hour and 20 minutes in or something like that. But also just the film centers

her a lot. And also she's more outwardly villainous throughout. She's Meryl Streep, she's second build. I mean, like, in the original it's Sinatra, Lawrence Harvey, Janet Le in the original, it's Sinatra. Lawrence Harvey. Lawrence Harvey, Janet Leigh, and then it's also starring. You know that it's like they've got a case of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy where I'm like, I think the mole is the other big name actor in the movie.

Right. I don't think it's going to be Toby Jones. Yeah. But it is, I think, also that problem, too, where, like, the Angela Lansbury performance becomes so iconic and she's another reference point as like, oh, like a Manchurian mother. Right. You know, that they just know like no one is going to get duped by this. Well, there's – I think it's in Roger Ebert's review at the time where he talks about like they have wisely decided – the audience knows what the movie is about. So why are we going to extend this mystery?

I think they were not wise because it's like even a movie like Jacob's Ladder, which is crazy, they ease you into it a little bit. Sure. Whereas this, it's like right off the bat. You're like, bah, bah, bah. Crazy. Everyone's crazy. It's bananas pretty quickly.

Yes. And one of the changes they made that baffled me at the time and I still don't get is there's – To open the film with Wycliffe John covering Fortunate Son? I mean that did – that I – That's a real opening. To open the film with Wyclef Jean covering Fortunate Son. I mean that did – that I had a feeling. That's a real opening. I was like this is – whatever is on my nose, it's this.

Whatever it's on, it's my nose. But the – that in the original movie, about halfway through the movie or so, you learn about this romance that Raymond Shaw had that his mother broke apart. It was the daughter of this senator who's the enemy of his stepdad. And oh, what's the name of the actor? Gregory? Who's the stepfather in the old one? He's so great.

I'm forgetting. He's in Beneath the Planet of the Apes and he was on Barney Miller for years. James Gregory is his name. James Gregory. James Gregory. He's so funny. He's General Ursus.

Oh, such a fucking good performance. Yeah, and he – so you learn about this thing and then they reconnect and they fall in love and they elope. And then he's triggered to – just along the way while he's killing somebody else, they say wipe out all witnesses and he has to kill her. And it's – when he realizes it later, it's shocking because this is someone he was in love with. In this movie, right off the bat, he's like, you know, I think about you still and she's like, it's over. I've moved on. Get the fuck away from me. Literally like you're a creepy stalker and I don't want to be near you. It's like, oh, OK.

So I know he's going to kill them later because that's the plot. But like it seems weird that now he doesn't have to feel that. It's like – I mean he still has to feel bad. No, no, no. She deserves no that. It's like, he doesn't feel that bad about it. I mean, he still has to feel bad about it. No, no, no, she deserves no sympathy. No, no, no, Stuart, she deserves no sympathy. But it's like, it may be,

and now I sound like a monster, but it lowers the stakes on that moment quite a bit. He is less of a person in this movie. Because he's really kind of a co-lead in the original. It goes back and forth between them a lot. Although Harvey is kind of sort of glassy in that movie. Harvey as an actor is kind of a cold actor.

Yes, he is. So it works really well for that movie. He's got that very clenched sort of steely, erudite kind of thing. He's a guy who always seems like he's got to repress

everything. Right. And in this one, Liev Schreiber, he gets some of that, I guess, but then it's like, I don't believe him

as a presidential candidate. Especially not when some guy's just biting stuff out of his shoulder. I mean that is – that's a wild moment. He's like, Jesus, get out of here. That's his reaction. Where security is like, whoa, are you OK? And he's like, go away.

I'm going to sit down. He's not going to press charges. I'm like, I don't know if that's the kind of thing that you have to do. It doesn't work that way. No, I – You've never seen a vice presidential shoulder bite attack before? Come on!

Here's the thing I'll say. I don't fully buy him as a presidential candidate, but this was the era of John Edwards that kind of like... Sure, yeah, that's true. America, especially the Democrats, were sort of like, we just need an action figure guy.

Isn't that what'll do it? Like, we'll beat Bush by just finding the blandest, most like broadly, he should stand in an amber field of grain, right, like that. And Schreiber's doing that. He's doing that weird glassy action figure thing.

But he also does have that weird underlying anger. You know, it's like, in the same way that you watch. Like a saber tooth. He's more like saber tooth in this movie. And his nails are very long. And he does get from one place to another by kind of hovering on all fours and pawing at the air. Rancing, but he's got a wire.

It's like when you see a very small dog walking around and its feet are barely touching. Wait, I don't know that's how anything works. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like floating over the air. Like the legs are too short to reach the ground. It's like a little puppet type thing. It's like when Yogi smells a picnic basket and his nose sort of pricks up and then his

whole body just sort of falls. Like a Monterey Jack situation. Yes, exactly. Yeah, glad for you for updating it for today's youth. Yes, the great Monterey Jack. We all know the great Monterey Jack. The great Monterey Jack situation. Yes, exactly. Yeah, glad for you for updating it for today's use. Yes, the great Monterey Jack. We all know the great Monterey Jack. The great Monterey Jack, like he passed away recently. A war hero. No, but it is an interesting thing that like...

He's named that because his jacket's made out of Monterey cheese. No, he's from Monterey. Oh. His name is John Mouston, and he's from Monterey. They call him Monterey Jack. There is that big structural difference where in the original film where you're kind of jumping back and forth between Sinatra and Harvey. You're not seeing Lansbury much at all. Sure.

And until the end, she just feels like she's part of this sort of window dressing of the world that they're building. Although, you know, a colorful performance, but doesn't feel like she's part of this larger plot. But the Sinatra character also is not seemingly going mad in the same way. As much as he has a nervy energy, Sinatra always keeps it cool and is not part of the plot that everyone's like, this guy might be losing his fucking mind. That's the thing. Washington has that energy of if he walked into a grocery store, someone would be like, get out of here. What are you doing?

No, no, no, no, no. That's one thing I enjoyed about the movie. I don't think it's necessarily a better choice. It's just a different choice. But I did kind of like that this movie got across to me like this particular horror of knowing that someone has messed with your brain. And the paranoia. I mean, I like any movie that's about someone has messed with your brain. And the paranoia. I like any movie that's about someone who's right

getting increasingly manic to a degree where no one will believe that. I don't like that because I've been living it for so long. That's, I think, what I like about it. That I feel represented where I see a movie where someone is 100% correct. Stop biting my shoulder. There's a chip in there. Also, you're delicious.

And even the glitter helps. I like that scene where he first digs the chip out of his own shoulder and then she startles him and he drops it and he's like fumbling with an open knife. And she's like, you all right, bro? And he's like, yeah, yeah. And it's revealed she's an agent, but she doesn't seem to notice that he's got a bloody wound on his shoulder or anything. I was telling my wife, I'm like, oh, no, that's simple. He just needs to open the P-trap.

He'll fish it out. I thought that was such a nice mix of funny and horrible, too, because it is like it could be a sitcom. I mean, it's up there in some ways with my favorite moment of Minority Report when he drops his eyeball. Or drops the eyeball he brought with him, I guess. And it's like, it's bouncing along the ground. It's always good to throw some hijinks into your paranoid thriller. I think with Denzel Washington's performance, sorry to interrupt. No, go ahead. It's like it works so well.

But what doesn't work is the other characters don't react to him the way you would react to a crazy movie. He's maybe like 10% too crazy. And that is the weird shift is like Sinatra is just kind of driving the plot as like the guy who's figuring the whole thing out. And when he presents his theories to people, they're like, that's crazy. Go take a vacation. But no one's like, you know, he's not being chased in the same sort of way.

He's not like. He like shambles up to Jon Voight and Jon Voight's like, you make a lot of good points. I should probably just take this right to Shaw. He's like, well, you have a crazy man's violent notebook with a lot of crazy drawings. You have – and I shouldn't say crazy about someone. But you have a printout of a scientist's face from the internet and you have something that you found on an article about that same scientist. This is lining up.

This is compelling evidence. It is the era when you could just look on something on the internet and people would be like, oh, this was on the internet? Well, I mean, trusted resource for information. You used printer ink on this? Pretty scary. You did go on the information superhighway. This is a post-Gulf War movie rather than a post-Korea War. Yes.

And Gulf War syndrome, like it's feeding into the Gulf War Syndrome thing, which was sort of like, why have these guys all got inexplicable diseases and mental illnesses post-Gulf War that no one could really explain? And it felt so conspiratorial. The thing that America seems to have to learn after every war is that war fucks people up really badly. Yeah, it's real rough on folks. It's like, hold on.

How come when you went over and you killed all those human beings, and then you got hurt, you're not totally okay now? You're not totally cool. It caused him fear that one or both of those things would happen at any moment. So that's his – he keeps going up. He's like, I'm having weird dreams, man.

And everyone's like, I know, Ben. It's all right. Yeah, it's tough. You're on the other side now. We all know that war fucks people up and they pump you full of all sorts of weird shit. and they pumped you full of all sorts of weird shit. But then the other change they're making in terms of the, you know, Eleanor Prentiss Shaw

is that in 1962, the idea of a female senator who would run the show was obviously, that's not a thing. But now they can, you know, play in that. They can give her a Hillary haircut. There's also the other. Then she says, like,

I based it on Peggy Noonan or whatever. You know, like, they can play. She totally did not base it on Peggy Noonan. Oh, no. She based it on Hillary Clinton. Yeah, that's the person she based it on. That one right there. Because Peggy Noonan talks like. You know, like they can play. She totally did not base on Peggy Noonan. No. She based on Hillary Clinton. Yeah, that's the person she based it on. That one right there. Just because Peggy Noonan talks like this.

She goes, I found it fascinating that when he talked about voters. She has like Hillary teeth in this. Yes. It took me a while to realize she's wearing fake teeth. She clearly. Oh, like flappers in this. Yes. It took me a while to realize she's wearing fake teeth. She clearly. Oh, like flappers? But then the other thing is that the original, it is Angela Lansbury's new husband.

Yes. Who is the stepfather is the vice presidential candidate. Yeah. And the Manchurian candidate, so to speak, is who they have trained to take the shot. Yes. And this flips it where then like the Denzel character is the one who's trained to take the shot on the son who is also the candidate, which simplifies things. It simplifies it. Right, right. It does.

It's weird when he shoots them, though, because he shoots Liev Schreiber in the back, right? Yeah, with a memory bullet. While he's hugging. While he's hugging his mom. But when they fall down, he's bloody on his tummy and she's bloody on her chest. Went straight through.

Downward angle. Down and to the right. Because it would have to bounce. Baby. Rubber bullet? Yep. Let's check the Yep. I think. Let's check the film. I don't know whether anyone filmed it, but let's go back to the tape.

He might be a wanted. Oh. That's the secret thing. Yeah. There is that scene where he takes a bath and, you know, heals all his wounds. Right. And then he goes to his loom. He sees that big tiger tattoo. Yeah, exactly.

He's got the future loom. He can see everything that's going to happen. Scrimshaw's his bullets. It makes it even weirder, though, that they He's got the future loom. You can see everything is going to happen. Scrimshaw has his bullets. It makes it even weirder though that they send him to go kill Senator Jordan. Because in the old movie, they're turning Raymond Shaw into a brainwashed assassin and she is horrified. And that's why she's like, we're going to become president and then we're going to destroy them for what they did to you. And she gives him that big old smooch on the mouth. But then in this one – and the Manchurian global people are like,

we invested a lot of money in this. Why did you send him to go kill some people? Right. And I'm like, that's a good point movie. Right, there's that direct flip where in the original it is

Angela Lansbury's like, I'm down with the cause. I did not realize you were gonna be the one who became the brainwashed assassin. And in this, they were like, Meryl, we thought you were

down with the cause. And she's like, I am. That's why I chose my son against your best wishes i mean all those changes are i i think to what dan said if you're gonna remake a movie and especially a movie that fundamentally works why not do the thought experiment of yeah what if it's this instead of this why not approach it from a different angle aside from the fact that

you're like making it about big money influences and all these other things and creepy doctors it's worth the test of what if it is more of a man losing his mind you know what if you're changing their roles within the thing the levels of complicity all these sorts of things it certainly works better than

the other favorite movie of mine remade by Denzel Washington The Taking of Pelham 123 yes where they make a lot of they also make a lot of changes to see what'll happen and it's like,

those changes do not particularly pay out. They don't. I mean, the original is a masterpiece and the remake is very silly. But they kept the last shot, right? Yeah,

with Denzel Washington going, mmm. That is another shabby Washington remake though. I forgot about that. But he's also shabby in that movie. Yeah.

He's shabby, but then he keeps calling back to his, is it that one or Inside Man? Where he's calling back to his – is it that one or Inside Man where he's calling back to his wife? Inside Man. It's Inside Man. It's Inside Man where his wife's job is to lie around in underwear and call him and say like, when you coming home, baby? I forgot. That's Inside Man.

Right. He gives her the ring at the end. Yeah. Yeah. Although Inside Man is a great movie. It's a fantastic movie. I want to watch it again right now. It's basically the new taking of Pelham 1 through 3, much more than the remake of Pelham 1 through 3 is.

Yeah. No, exactly right. Because it is a movie about New York at that moment when the movie was made. Yes. But Pelham 1-2-3 is one of those movies where it's like, why fuck with it? It is so tightly constructed. I kind of like the Tony Scott Pelham 1-2-3. Really? Even the part where they're supposed to show that a train is out of control, so they should put it in slow motion.

Tony Scott is putting something in slow motion. I'm not saying it's weird for Tony Scott. I'm saying it's weird for that moment of storytelling. It's not a good movie. There's stuff going on. Like, there isn't many a Tony Scott movie. The original is so near and dear to my heart that it's not like I prefer the remake. My point is less.

But it's got that weird kind of. Tony Scott hates rich people so much, and all his movies end up being about that. Yeah. And like it's like the sort of shabby civil servant defeating the Wall Street guy. John Travolta is an evil Wall Street guy. I mean it's one of those – Gandolfini is like a weird Bloomberg type who's like kind of grumpy. Gandolfini's the mayor in there?

Yeah, it's crazy. He's the mayor and he's like – Yeah, right. Exactly. The movie does – I mean time has caught up with the movie because at the time I was like, how are they going to get a Wi-Fi signal on the subway? Yeah. Now you can do that. I'm like, you know what?

Maybe that movie is a little bit more prophetic than I thought. Do you think that movie is why they spent $120 million installing Wi-Fi at every station, letting everything else about the city go to rot? Yeah. It's why they said – they were like, criminals could hijack a train. Get a police officer at every turnstile in the city. Yeah, you're right. Cuomo was like I had to. I saw Pelham 123.

I didn't have a choice. It was on TNT. I would believe it. It's watchable. We all know that Cuomo is devoted to installing the prettiest staircases that he can find at a few select stations. It's such beautiful. Can we talk – I mean as a bunch, people who have ridden the rails before. Sure.

Hobos, yeah. Some of these staircases at these subway stations, I have a hard time resisting giving them a smooch. They're so beautiful. They're so pretty that I'm overcome with romance. I want to pop the question. Oh, sure. Weirdly, the ones that aren't so pretty, I just want to cuddle them up. Right.

They're lovable. They're underdog. I see you for who you really are inside. You got good bones. But main train candidate. Yeah, Dan, you made a good point. Thanks.

Yeah. You know what? I've been waiting years for you to say that, Elliot, and now we can wrap up this podcasting thing. You did good, Dan. You did good.

Well, yes. No, it is that thing where, like, the structure of something like Pelham 1, 2, 3 is so strong. The basic ideas are so strong, and it's so primarily, like,

a thriller. It's like, it's not that you can't remake it, but don't fuck with the story too much because the thing works for a reason. Right. But, man, sure,

you can flip a bunch of the details. There are a bunch of different realities that make sense in the weeds of it, which I think they explore all well. And the films, as someone who watched

the two of them almost back to back with a little amoebush of Trolls the Experience in between, is that they serve as interesting counterpoints. I mean, they're kind of like in dialogue with each other. They don't really negate each other. It's just, you almost want, I mean, Demi is too good a director to really, well, Truth About Charlie is close to a fiasco, but you almost figure, oh, well, this should just

be a fiasco. It should. Right. Because it's not a masterpiece. It is not. But it is pretty watchable. It's got some sequences that sort of pop. And it is.

Schreiber's kind of good. Like, you know, there's like performances you can sort of root for. I would argue it's one of... But it's kind of like a seven out of ten. It's kind of a seven, but, and not that it needs

to be graded on the scale, I'd argue it's one of the better remakes of a movie this good. I, sure, I agree. In terms of how much it doesn't embarrass the original,

how much it sort of stands on its own while like exploring new things, but respecting what worked. Low bar, obviously. Low bar, low bar. Almost always movies like this are like, why the fuck did they even touch it? Yeah. on its own while like exploring new things but respecting what worked low bar low bar almost always

movies like this are like why the fuck did they even touch it yeah I think it adds things to the conversation I don't know

if I would go that far but it's certainly not one of the worst remakes I mean you're saying it came out the same year as Stepford Wives

right correct that is a much worse no no exactly right and you think about this after Truth About Charlie like you think of the landscape

it's coming out with the All the Kings Men remake. You know, I'm thinking like 2000s. That's like with Sean Penn, right? That was the same year, too, yeah. Right. Or maybe the year after. I think it got bumped.

Yeah, good call. Get out of there. But like 2000s remakes of like canonical films. I don't even like the old All the Kings Men with Broderick Crawford that much, but. Yeah, I think that's a good call.

But you look at like – It's an outdated movie. We know what's possible with remakes because we've seen the thing. Yes. And we know what's possible to take. In that case, they took a good movie and they made an amazing movie out of it. Yeah. But like you want it – it makes me wish that they had pushed Manchurian Candidate even farther into that weird direction maybe.

I don't know. Yeah. I mean it almost – watching it today, I was like this could be something they could continue remaking every 30 years. Manchurian? Sure. Yeah. I mean, watching it today, I was like, this could be something they could continue remaking every 30 years. Manchurian? Sure. Yeah. There's something sort of so elemental about it. There's a reason why the basic concept still has all this potency whenever we're talking about whatever political landscape we're in.

It always fucking comes up. There are always scary forces. There's a phrase for a political candidate who is being governed by some outside interest. It's just become the byword for that. Right. Manchurian candidate. About this movie. I insist.

It's the fact that they decided to do the assassination of the presidential candidate at the convention. At the convention. No, at the victory party, the night of the election. At the victory party, the party that has the most security and is most likely to be an inside job if that happens. They couldn't wait a week.

But Rachel, you of all people should understand that they have the guy working the soundboard on their side. And if the soundboard is with you, you can get away with anything. And they are able to repaint the security footage at the end to have a different look. That's kind of an incredible So seamless. I wish Photoshop was that good.

Well, it's, so in the original one, oh, they have this whole plan. She says, Angela Lansbury's explaining it to Lawrence Harvey. It's a great scene when she's just explaining it. She goes, when he says, country before my life, you will take the shot, and then your stepfather, cradling the bloody head of this man, will give the most amazing speech. She's like, I've read it.

It's the most amazing speech. They've been working on it over there for five years, and it will electrify this country and sweep us into the White House with powers never before dreamed and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, oh, they kind of walk you through why it's going to be this big moment where suddenly – It's a piece of political theater. Yeah, a piece of political theater. And seemingly off the top of his head, he's going to deliver this amazing speech that – Like a Mark Anthony style like French-Romance countryman. But here they're just like, we're going to take him out

and then you're the dude. Like, that's how it works. You're vice president. They get to be president. So you're right. Check with the referee sitting at the sidelines. Yeah.

There's a referee goes all allowed. Make sure he doesn't dance with you, because then you might get a double bullet shot. Don't twirl. No twirling. No twirling. But there's also a,

I mean, it's also in the original movie they make a big point of breaking Lawrence Harvey's programming. Yeah. Whereas in this they just kind of decide

not to be brainwashed anymore. The implication is the Farmiga thing just kind of flips it, right? I guess they sign for the brainwasher to flip the script on the brainwasher.

Well, there's the shoulder bite. Yeah. Oh, they take the chips out. It's like the script on the brainwasher. The shoulder bite. Yeah, the shoulder bite. Oh, they take the chips out. It's like Beautiful Mind. It just stops being – Oh, boy. I didn't realize too that like it makes more sense in the original version what you're saying that like, OK, they need to put this sleeper agent in the White House.

Like they're not sure they can do it. So they need something that's going to elect him. To sweep him into office. If they already have some of the power, even if it's the vice president, it seems like why do they have to involve an assassination? It's the thing that makes no sense. He literally gets elected president. They've got the vice president

as a candidate. And he's very young. Wait a couple years. It's going to be fine. And he's amazing looking. He's Liev Schreiber. And honestly, get one of those chip things. Put it in the president someday. To be honest, and I'm sure Demi had some

ideas about this, I want to see the campaign. They ran an amazing campaign. You see the electoral map. It looks like they've gotten quadrants of every part of the country. Oh, yeah. They're healing the nation.

I mean, the only place that they were up was the opponent's home state of Kentucky, I think they said. But you start pretty much with Meryl working the room to get her son the nod. On the ticket, yeah. Right. And then the movie doesn't really pay attention to their campaign at all until election night. No, then it becomes more just shabby Denzel. Right. Shoulder biting, Farmiga, Kimberly Elise kind of coming in and out.

Elise has a lot more to do than Janet Leigh did in the original. She's got more of like a job to do. That's the thing. It feels like they are. Janet Leigh's in it a lot, but mostly just as a love interest. They are kind of addressing the Reddit fan complaints, I guess, about Janet Leigh's scene, main scene of In Train Candidate, which is one of the craziest conversations. The train scene? Yes, in the history of movies.

I love it. It makes no sense. She's like, they're on a train together. He's struggling to light a cigarette and it falls in his drink and he's just like, oh, I can't handle it and goes outside for a breath of air. And she is so aroused by this that she walks out and she's like, you know was one of the original chinese workers that worked on this railroad and you're like what and the conversation gets weirder from there she changes her name four times within the span of the conversation like you can't tell if someone's like brainwashing him or deprogramming him or activating him i'm eugenia rose but i hate genia anyone call you rosie not if they want to be my friend they don't like it's

by the way my name's terry like everything's like And so that was like for a long time it would be like, oh, is she just like cycling through trigger phrases? Yeah, right. But I like the idea that she's just like – she's just this pixie dream girl picks up a lot of train. It's like – because from that point on she has no plot purpose. She's just there to help him rebuild as a human being. It is better to have her be a federal agent and make sense that she of spending this much time around this really off-putting guy. The only problem is that the FBI is like, we're on this. We think something's up with the whole Manchurian global.

Maybe they're controlling the presidential race. We're looking into it. Do you know? They're like close, but no cigar in this guy. We got the best man on it. He's a shambling crazy person. It's not only that they're on it. He's the best man on it.

He's a shambling crazy person. And it's not only that they're on it. Once it's done, they're happy to frame them because they don't have quite enough evidence, I guess. Yeah, right. They're like, yeah, let's just push it over the line. Cut to Manchurian Global in their room of evil. And it's like Dean Stockwell and Jude Chico Lella. And they're just like, fuck, we almost had it. God damn it.

They're manipulating evidence to help a double murder committing man to go to just live on his life. I do love how he you know, he's suspicious that she is part of the conspiracy against him. And then he's not only validated that she's part of a conspiracy, but like and even like one he didn't even consider. Right. Actually, I like that because there's something kind of Philip K. Dick about it. Yeah. considered. Right. Actually, I like that because there's something kind of Philip K. Dick about it. Yeah, yeah. It's also funny that their strategy

seems to be both in like trailing Denzel and their ultimate casing of the victory party is like something's definitely going on. We're going to let it play out and then we'll arrest

the people. Right, right. I mean, I mean, actually, I mean, you can't arrest someone for a crime they haven't committed. but they're never

close enough to being able to stop it from happening. She sees Liev nod at the rafters, and from that she's like, I get it. He's letting Denzel kill him. Yeah, no, no, I put this together. It's cool, guys. She just yells, it's cool. He's in on it. I figured it out. Can I say something that I do like, though?

I really do like the scene where he kills the scene where they're all sitting down in the hypnosis tent and they kill each other. Yeah, it's super scary. It's truly unsettling. And also Pablo Schreiber is Leo Schreiber's half-brother. Which is really weird that they cast them in the same movie. They cast them in the same movie.

But to the point of what's so unnerving in the original film is that everything is presented so matter-of-factly. So many of the killings happen so methodically and without any sort of like razzle-dazzle. Razzle-dazzle. The hotel. This is post-Chicago's Oscar win, so you had to razzle-dazzle. You did.

That's true. They told us that. Gotta give them the razzle-dazzle, razzle-dazzle. You don't want to end up being a Mr. Cellophane. They'll hardly know you're there. Right, exactly. And that's what happened to Miguel Ferrer.

Sure, they'll never even know you were there. No, yeah, they're disobeying the Ten Commandments of movies at the time. One, park the car. Two, I know a whoopee spot. Three, gin cold. Four, music hot. Yes. Piano hot.

Piano hot, sorry. Bruno Gans is in this movie. I know it's just a noisy hall where there's a nightly crawl. Yeah, Bruno Gans is in this movie. I can't remember every word. Is this like hot off a downfall? It's I think the same year as downfall, except in this he's just like, I'm a crazy scientist. I've never seen anything like this.

What I love is that they introduce Bruno Ganz with no general explanation. He has a friend who's a scientist. To the crazy man? It's not like he's a special agent. He's just there. And it's also like, I was like, all I know at first is that he's a guy who knows a lot about brains. And he has some like chimps in cages. Does he work at the zoo?

I couldn't figure it out. Maybe. Well, then like his fourth scene, he explains like, you saved me. You got me out of a bad spot. You gave me my citizenship. So I owe you. But it's also like Sinatra early on in the original is going like, I think there's some weird brainwashing thing. And they're like, we don't believe you,

but keep on showing up to the office every day at 9 a.m. And in this movie, they're like, fucking dismissed. Go take your pills, you loony. So Bruno Ganz has to function as like the guy that he's sharing his theories with. He's the Watson to his. Yeah, he's like, I believe you. Yes, right. And he's investing.

He's looking at the tracers. Have you seen anything like that yeah, yeah, all that. I'm trying to think of other differences that are interesting to compare. I mean you were talking about the senator's daughter. Yeah. Which in the original is also the senator is from a rival party. Yes. In the original, his family is essentially – they never say the names.

His family is essentially conservative. Right. And the opposite is – and Senator Jordan is liberal. He's like, I once won a libel case against your mother. I think what angered her more was I donated it all to an organization called the American Civil Liberties Union. Right, right. And that's not a good impression of John MacGyver.

If you want to hear a good impression of John MacGyver, listen to any episode of Gilbert Garvey's podcast since he does it every episode. But it is one of those things where like the original is so much about like the Red Scare. Yes. Yeah. And the candidate who is the stepfather instead of the brainwashed son is running on like a McCarthy-esque like we're going to find all the commies where they're hiding and call the names.

One of the good jokes in it is that – is when he's like, babe, you've got to give me a number, a communist. Like you keep changing the numbers and he's putting ketchup on his burger and she goes, hmm, and it cuts him going, there's 57 communists and it's like, come on, guys. That's a silly joke. He needs a specific target. Yeah. But there's – I think that was a change they made deliberately too.

Totally. It was like let's show that – in the old one, the irony is that it's the conservatives who should be the cold warriors are the ones who are in bed with the communists. In this one, we're going to make it that the democrats who should be anti-corporate are in bed with this evil corporation. And it's like – Because they'll do anything to win an election. Yeah, and again, in those halcyon naive days of the Iraq war when before we knew that like, oh, no, like one side is genuinely like a lot worse than like what it does in everything. It was like, you know, they were just doing that stuff.

Everyone had voted for, not everyone, but obviously both parties. I mean this is a movie that votes for Ralph Nader, which I'm not crazy about. Demi might have voted for Ralph Nader. I almost guarantee that Demi voted for Ralph Nader. Certainly in 2000. I don't think he's voted. I mean he didn't vote for Ralph Nader in 2012. That would be crazy.

Well. No, he definitely didn't vote for Bernie. But it is that thing where like when the Angela Lansbury. You got the fundraising email too? When the Angela Lansbury character is like complaining about the idea of her son marrying the senator's daughter. It's like he's going to turn my son into a commie. Like that's the big fear. Yeah, yeah. And then this, the rival senator is the other guy who almost got the vice presidential nomination

who is ostensibly part of the same ideology as them. Well, yes. There's a real difference in that it's like the left wing of the Democratic Party and the centrist like neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party, which like is a real difference. Totally. It's not such a big difference that it would be like, don't ever date his daughter. Right. I mean, I don't think anyone would have voted for him if they saw him kayak.

I mean, no, no. That is the most above water. Terrible form. Terrible form. The most real thing to me is that even the ultra liberal member has a country house and goes kayaking as an old man. 7 a.m. Yes.

But I love, as you said, though, that in the original, you spend a lot more time with him and the daughter. Like, it's about an hour in that he explains, I think, to Sinatra, like, I had this one love that got away from me. They flashback. You spend, like, six or seven minutes and flashback. Here it's just like, do you remember when you were mean to her at a party, Mom? And she's like, well, I don't think I was that mean anyway. He reconnects with her. They get married.

They have a little honeymoon. And it's like – because they've discarded all the solitaire stuff. Yeah. Which I get – no pun intended. I love the solitaire. I love the solitaire and that she – when they reconnect, she's wearing the Queen of Diamonds costume. Which is lovely. And it's another one that's like kind of a joke and kind of not. Yeah.

And that she – her mom is – his mom is looking for him and she sees that costume and they're just like, oh no. Like what happened? But as much as the Lawrence Harvey character is unlikable, you know,

he's giving an icy performance. Everyone talks about how he's an unlikable guy. You spend enough time with him that you can view him as a somewhat tragic figure. Yeah. Whereas even though

Liev is playing at moments the like, the fighting, those moments where he sort of confides in Denzel. Yeah, like there's an animal inside figure. Yeah. Whereas even though Liev is playing at moments, the like, the fighting, those moments where he sort of confides in Denzel. Yeah, like there's an animal inside him. Right. Like there's a saber tooth that's trying to get out. There are nails that he wishes could grow.

The guy is a little bit hard to really wrap your head around as a human being. Yes. But that's how people feel about politicians these days. I agree. That's an interesting thing. It's that thing where Obama's like, here are the movies I saw this year. He releases a list of, what, 15 movies.

And people are like, he's never seen a movie or had a feeling. This is made up. This is some corporate list created by, you know, it's like he probably watches fucking movies. It's not that crazy. Movies like Last Man Standing. He makes movies. He's a fucking development guy. He watches the souvenir.

It's not crazy, guys. Although it is true that the more you read about presidents, the more you realize that all of them are weird dudes. It's fucking weird. Why would anyone do that for a living? Yeah. It's a strange job to assume you should want or get. And so you read about them and you're like, how did any of these people get elected president? They're all like such damaged individuals.

Except, of course, for Obama who we'll find you know after his passing which i hope is not for many years some crazy thing about him um i i do like the the the thing that's nice about the solitaire trigger is like as opposed to it just being a phone call and then it's immediate snap there's this amazing fucking third act scene where Sinatra figures it out. Yeah. He puts together the Queen of Hearts thing and then he buys a trick magician's deck that's all Queen of Hearts.

Of course. Which are readily available of course. He has Lawrence Harvey play it over and over and over. There were a lot more magic novelty shops. You're right.

You're right. And also it was like what else am I going to do today except buy a magician's novelty card set. Of the 52 cards the Queen of Hearts is obviously the one that would be in a novelty deck.

I just assume the card – the store back then, magic and novelty tricks were such huge business that they had 52 different decks you could choose from, each with your own favorite card as the one card. Like a Bort license plate is what you're saying. Like a what? A Bort license plate. Oh, yeah. Like a Bort – I thought you said a porn license plate.

Yeah, a porn license plate. It reminded me of – if I could talk about something completely unrelated to this. My flight here from Los Angeles. Congratulations. Thank you. Hollyweird. It's a strange place. The guy who wore to the airport and on the plane his Pornhub Christmas sweater.

Wow. Which said Pornhub in pink letters and had the design of snowmen with penises and whips and chains. On the sweater. I've seen it. Oh, right on there. It's on Instagram. Seeing this guy On the line For the bathroom

And as my wife described Watching this woman Who clearly did not approve Standing behind him Waiting on line For the bathroom Just being like Oh

And I was like That is a bold move To wear your pornographic sweater Elliot just quick question Why did you feel The need to describe A sweater that you yourself Are currently wearing

Look Because again It's radio Okay It's for the listener wearing. Because, again, it's radio. It says ho, ho, ho, but it's spelled differently. Yeah, yeah. Oh. No, no, it's not that explicit because, again, you have to be able to wear it at the airport.

Yeah, of course, and you have to wear it at the airport. Knitting is not usually a detail thing either. I mean, it's like when I got super into anime, I started buying all-over print button-down shirts with Samurais on them. Yes. If I were to say, change that interest to one of pornography,

maybe I'd like to show that off by purchasing a Christmas sweater. A novelty Christmas sweater that has I'm getting, what, like, crudely drawn figures with wieners? Yeah, yeah, but there's snowmen and they have carrot wieners. I mean, you neglected to say, I mean, perhaps this goes without saying, Elliot, you neglected to say that the penis is a carrot. Yeah, yeah, but there's snowmen and they have carrot wieners. I mean, you neglected to say, I mean, perhaps this goes without saying, Elliot,

you neglected to say that the penis is a carrot. Yes, yeah, I neglected to say. That changes everything, actually. What I couldn't get over was the debate in my head, is that something he purchased

or does he work at Pornhub? Right. And that's what they gave out this year as the holiday gift. Can I throw out a third option? Yes, please. He's like a journalist who got it as a free gift

at the end of the year. Uh-huh. You know, he's like on the mailing list. I see, yeah. That was because he's a voter for the Sweaty Awards. He's a voter for the Sweaty Awards.

So he gets a lot of sweaters in the mail. What do you think the Sweaty Awards would be called, my friend? He was getting out of his Uber at the airport and his coat got stuck

in the door and it got ripped off and he got super scared because he was getting out of his Uber at the airport, and his coat got stuck in the door, and it got ripped off. And he got super scared because he was super cold, so he reached into his swag bag that he got from the Sweaty Awards. Pulled out the first sweater he found. That's what I call a sweater. I assume I'll just pull out the sweater from Noggin, the children's entertainment channel. Because he had also accidentally squeezed a lemon slice into his tea and squirted it in his eyes. He couldn't see it. He was blindly putting on the

first sweater in the sunlight. That low winter sun in LA. It was just like, you know, it was blinding him too. I'm glad we solved this mystery. I'm so glad we solved this mystery. I will also say the guy looked like a total creep. He just looked like a total creepy perv. Maybe he was just a fucking creep. Yeah, his face

was covered in troll's glitter. He still had the remnants of green paint under his nose. Is there anything else we want to say about Jonathan Demme's film, The Manchurian Candidate, before we play the box office game? Well, what I wanted to say, what I like about the solitaire scene, the Queen of Hearts scene, if I could just speed around two jokes. You're talking about the Frankenheimer movie, though. I'm going to use this as a point of contrast.

All right, fine. First of all, I just want to say, before Giuliani got rid of all the magic shops in New York City, I like to think, because we were talking about this, that it wasn't just that you could get any deck with 52 of the same card, but that it was like the M&M's store, where they were sort of on tap,

and you could mix and match, customize your own deck. Yeah, why not have a deck with seven jacks? Exactly. And 10 tens. Right, if it was a good store before Juliana got rid of it, you could probably make your own deck, okay? That was important.

I had to get that out. Like assembly a magic deck. Yes. Yeah, a literal magic trick deck. Yeah, all right. There's the scene. Yeah, you gotta have a lot of mana. Yes!

Now I wanna see the party magician who uses magic cards. That'd be amazing. Is this the prodig Yeah, you gotta have a lot of mana. Now I want to see the party magician who uses magic cards. That'd be amazing. Is this the prodigal sorcerer you were looking for? That unquestionably exists, right? It has to be, right? There have to be magicians who use collectible card games. God, that sounds so depressing.

I assume they hit the Comic-Con circuit, the same way that there are bands that do, like, Comic-Con. And burlesque that's themed around magic cards. Yes. Do you think there's a comedy and magic club that instead of being the comedy and magic club is for comedy and magic the gathering? Did you have anything you wanted to say

about the Manchurian Candidate? This is what I wanted to say. You have this scene where Sinatra figures out the thing with the deck. And has Lawrence Harvey play Solitaire and every card he plays down is a Queen of Hearts and he just gets triggered again and again and again. So he's able to have this very transparent conversation with him and deprogram him.

And it's such an exciting scene. I understand what the way they've set up the movie because they want— No, he has to bite his shoulder instead. And they also—they want Denzel to be the shooter. They've rearranged the plot. They want Liev, but it gets to this sort of core tension of the movie and also gives such a good acting showcase for playing the sort of weird programming and deprogramming, which I don't think this film ever totally gets at. No, but this— I don't think you have that sort of activation, deactivation thing, which in this movie when it happens, it's a much bigger swing, right?

He sort of goes in and out of Terminator mode. And he does the Demi close-up to sort of indicate that it's happening. Which for this movie, it makes sense because this is a movie that's about looking someone in the eye and trying to figure out if they're on the level. The novel is the most explicit about the mother's incestuous relationship with her son.

In this, they're kind of doing that. She kisses him on the lips. No, but the novel is very explicit. The novel is much more explicit. Yes, much more explicit. And in this, they have them embracing. They're trying to sort of bring that full circle with the kind of... And don't they show that it's been deprogrammed?

Because all of a sudden it fell out at the end? Oh, possibly. Possibly. Like, do you think that there was a shot originally where they went up to Liev Schreiber's dead body and all his hair had fallen out and they're like, oh, his brain's back to normal now. Right. It kind of does feel like maybe that's the implication. But then also maybe put a and they're like, oh, his brain's back to normal now. Right. It kind of does feel like maybe that's the implication, but then also may put a couple of bandages on and throw a scar on the back. I don't know.

Um, but I do miss that kind of thing that also is like in the scenes where you're seeing them in the sort of flower shop hotel hallucination and they're clicking in and out of murdering people. There's something about it being presented so plainly and having the actors just sell how casually what they're doing shifts that I think this movie cranks it up to a degree where even though the plot points are different, so you can't replicate the exact same

scenes. I miss that kind of pure actor showcased oscillation between the programming and normal mode. I don't know. It feels like there's not a lot of different tones. Yes. And it means you're at 10 in terms of like on edge. You're at 10 the whole time, but it doesn't have a lot of places to go.

So by the end, you're like, oh, okay. I guess they're like – I guess they're flipping the script. I don't know. This is as opposed to – there's a – I highly recommend in the BFI Film Classic series, Grail Marcus writes one about the old mentoring train candidate and – which is a different movie. It's called The Old Man Train Candidate. It's like Old Man Logan. He talks about –

He's old now. Yeah. I don't want to be brainwashed anymore. All right. One last adventure. One last brainwashing. He describes the movie – I think the way he describes it is like it's a movie that instead of pulling the rug – it pulls the rug out from under you and you realize there's no floor. Right.

And there never has been a floor. And this movie doesn't – I think because it doesn't draw you in the same way because it's always at that level of heightened tension. Yeah. That it like – it's not as shocking or not as surprising. Yeah. And this movie – And Turian Global is also such a – Simon McBurney, who we didn't actually really mention,

is great. He himself is very creepy and unsettling and interesting just anytime he's on screen. But Manchurian Global is extremely not interesting, not threatening.

And it's also strange in that Manchurian Global is constantly in the news, which makes sense. There's like, this is the biggest company in the world, I guess. But they're like,

Manchurian Global is creating a private army to invade other countries so that America doesn't have to. And you're like, that seems like they're really saying the quiet part loud on this one. Yes, they are. Like it seems like they're already getting everything they want and they're doing a lot of shady stuff just out in front. I think to your point though about like this movie not being able to rug pull, this movie also works the Manchurian candidate into as much of a happy ending as it could possibly have. Yeah. Because Liev essentially offers himself up as tribute, right?

Goes, I should be taken off the board. Gets his mother knocked out in the process, which exposes the Manchurian industries. Right. And then Denzel is magically photoshopped so that he's not guilty anymore, and he ends up on the beach. It's a demi-happy ending, baby.

It ends with him paying homage to the men in his unit, whereas the old one ends with Frank Sinatra seeing Lawrence Harvey kill himself. Right. After killing his stepfather. After killing his stepfather and his mother. Yes. And then Frank Sinatra crying in the rain. Like Roy Batty. Yeah.

Like Roy Batty. Yeah. Tears in the rain. It's true. I've seen things you wouldn't believe. My friend killing his mom. But it is a very bleak ending. It's a super bleak.

Where you're just like, what the fuck happens now? Yeah. I did feel, I mean, it is a happier ending for sure, but I did feel watching Denzel's performance at the end, like this is a guy who will maybe never be normal again. Yeah, and he's going to maybe get to holding, like, a full-time job. It's going to be his ceiling, right? That is why I think it's weird, though, that Demi chose to end the film with

I Can't Stop the Feeling from the Trolls movie. Well, I liked that. Branch and Queen Poppy come out and dance. It's very peppy. It is. It is also kind of crazy, though, that Trolls doesn't acknowledge that Manchurian Canada beat them to the bunch by, like, 13 years. Yeah, but, I mean, in Trolls that Manchurian Canada beat them to the bunch by like 13 years. Yeah, but I mean, in Trolls, Manchurian Global does play a big role in Trolls.

Dean Stockwell's in it, right? He shows back up. Oh, yeah. He's voicing the snake. He's the only live-action character in the Trolls movie. He's live-action. He's referring to him as Dean Stockwell. That's the crazy thing.

I mean, I appreciate the reference, but it's weird to see a children's movie made now where they're like, tell us what it was like to wearing the wig and the boy with green hair. I know. And he's like, I hated it. I hated it. It's like 15 minutes. It's like an Elvis Mitchell interview. It's a 45-hour movie. I mean, there's a lot of time to fill.

Poppy goes, Vim vendors. Just talk about that. All right. Before we play the box office game. Okay. This movie did not get Oscar nominations, but Meryl Streep did get pretty much every nomination. But an Oscar nomination? Gunga, BAFTA, didn't get the SAG.

Didn't get the SAG. But still, can you tell me who beat her for that final slot? Who beat her for that final slot? Because it was Portman, Blanchett, Lara, Linney, and Kinsey, Virginia Madsen, and Sideways. Those four were all locked. Right. But who knocked Meryl aside to take that Oscar nomination?

Tell me. Am I blanking here? Is it who then wins? No, no, no. Cate Blanchett wins. Yeah, she went for Elizabeth, right? Oh, this is the aviator. This is the aviator.

Okay, for some reason, I thought this was the no-tax candle. Isn't that bizarre? She didn't have an Oscar and she was playing a famous person and they were like, all right, you can have an Oscar. Did they think

Katherine Hepburn was up that year? Yeah, yeah. They thought this was Katherine Hepburn. They were like, alright, you can have an Oscar. Did they think Katharine Hepburn was up that year? Yeah, they thought this was Katharine Hepburn. They were like, it's been so long, she's dead. She should get a fifth one. Yeah, right, she died. That was tough for her. That she came back from the dead. It's great that she's in this movie. Do you know what's crazy? I remember seeing The Aviator opening weekend and the first scene where they

meet on the golf course and she's like, oh, they're howling, look at me golfing. And the first full line she got out, the audience applaud Howard, look at me golfing. And the first full line she got out, the audience applauded. Yeah. She's doing the voice. I turned to my mom

and I was like, I guess she's winning the Oscar? Yeah. Like people were just going fucking bananas that she vaguely did the impression. More than vaguely

does that impression. That she vaguely successfully did the impression. Right, right, right. Yes. Golly! Remember she's like that at one point?

Okay, so Blanchard, there's that one scene where she's like, well, Howard, and he's like, no, it's Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy Stewart. Oh, fuck.

Oh, damn it, damn it, damn it. And Marty kept it in. Weird. Because, you know what? You gotta see the process. Because they told him this movie has to be two and a half hours long

and he was like, all right, I guess I'll fill the time. Geez, I have to make a long movie. What am I gonna do? It's weird that movie has 20 minutes of outtakes in the end credits.

It's all Jude Law eating peas. Okay. Is the fifth best actress nominee from a Best Picture? Supporting actress. It's the fifth best supporting actress nominee from a Best Picture. No. And was it kind of an oddball nomination? Sort of, but it's a good performance and it is an actress you like.

It's an actress I specifically like. You liked her this year. Is it Ruby Dee? It's not Ruby Dee. I liked her this year as in 2019, 2020. Yeah, okay. I liked her this year in a movie. Is it Rebecca Ferguson in Doctor Sleep?

It's Sophie Okonedo in Hotel Rwanda. Right. She was the sort of surprise fifth, and she knocked Meryl out. And Meryl usually gets that. She gets the August Osage County nomination. She was nominated for, oh no, that wasn't her in it.

Never mind, I was thinking somebody else. I was thinking, in primary colors, that's not her, right? That's Emma Thompson. That's Emma Thompson. I got my Hillary Clinton's

in the movies. Yes, yes, yes. But let's play the box office game, guys. Okay. We've actually done this one many years ago. Interesting.

July 30th, 2004. July 30th, 2004. Griffin's going to try and you guys are welcome to, try and guess the top five movies at the box office that week. Manchurian Candidate was number three. 20? Opening to 20 million.

It's so crazy that you could release this in July and they'd be like, it's definitely going to make 20. No matter what, it's going to open to 20. The idea that that was number three at the box office, a movie like this, it makes me think, I'll walk around in a stupor sometimes being like, Moonstruck was number one at the box office. A movie like this. It makes me think all the other I'll walk around in a stupor sometimes being like Moonstruck was number one

at the box office once upon a time. People went to see it. A movie like that will never be number one at the box office again and we're poor for it. I remember it being like

oh yeah 20 is the basement on what that's going to open to if it breaks out it will do 40. Well the number one movie is new and it did 50.

And was it kind of a surprise? No. It was a big deal movie, and we've talked about it on this podcast. We've covered it. We have. With its own, its very own episode? Yes. Long time ago.

But not in a galaxy far, far away. Okay, so that rules some movies out. But it was a big Disney movie, open big, but had a severe drop off. It was a Disney with a big, big drop. And the name of the film is Le Village. It's The Village. Yes. M. Night Shyamalan's The Village.

Yes. Opening to 50. So this is its opening weekend. Correct. Wow. Yeah, big opening. But, of course, famously dropped 70% in its second weekend. Yeah.

Oh, word of mouth didn't help it out? A movie with no stars above the title and the poster is a picture of a hand holding a list and it opened to 50 million dollars. Then they released a second poster of a guy in a red hood looking at a village. Yes. They thought it was a sequel to Schindler's List.

People were thrilled. I don't know how that list ended. They were like finally we're going to find out what happened to Schindler next. What's at the end of the list? Is there a postscript? Okay, that's number one at the box office. Number two, big action franchise sequel. It's made $100 million in two weeks.

It's not Spider-Man 2. No. That has also recently come out. This is the best one. Of this franchise? Yeah, I think there's five. It's got to be a Transformer. Not a Transformer.

It's 2004. Was it the best of the five? Not a Die Hard movie. Oh. It's the best of's five. It's got to be a Transformer. Not a Transformer. It's 2004. Was it the best of the five? Not a Die Hard movie. Oh. It's the best of the five. Die Hard 3 is the best one, right? It's the second of five. It's the second of five.

Jurassic Park? If it was the best out of... Do they all have the same director, or is this like a pass? Three of them were done by one director, and then two other directors. Oh, I know. What is it? Is it... Wait, hold on.

The Bourne Supremacy? Correct. It's the Bourne Supremacy. That is the car fight. Best one, right? I mean, I know it's between that and Ultimatum, I think, for your favor. Well, as we've covered many times on this podcast, the only Bourne film I've seen is The Bourne Legacy because I thought it was going to be a clean entry point. Yeah, right.

I forgot that you have no opinion on the Bourne movies for that insane reason. And I was like, this seems like a good, I can enter here. It's going to be a hard refresh. Finally, a new issue one. Right. For the Bourne series. And instead, like, Edward Norton spends 20 minutes showing people cell phone clips of things that happen in the other movies. Well, it's a great way to catch up.

It is like that In Search of the Pink Panther. Yeah. That's what I thought it was going to be. Number four. God, this is a weird weekend. Yeah. Big action sci-fi movie. Big, big star.

I Rub It. Yeah. I Robot. I had a robot fever that summer. I remember. You did not murder him. I did not murder him. You had a fever.

Yes. And then number five, you already mentioned it. The biggest movie of the year. Spider-Man 2. But it's not. No? What was the biggest movie of the year? The highest grossing film of 2004, of course, was Shrek 2.

Oh, God. Jesus Christ. Which at that point in time was the third highest grossing film in history well deserved obviously Star Wars

E.T. Shrek 2 you've also got Catwoman oh great you got Harold and Kumar going to White Castle they went you got

a Cinderella story is that Duff is that a Duff that's a Duff yeah you got Anchorman uh huh you know

and you got Fahrenheit 9-11, which has made $110 million at the box office. It is kind of funny that Manchurian Candidate was probably like, we're gonna be the movie that taps into all this weird political rage. Instead, Mike was like, yeah, George Bush isn't so great. And people were like, I cannot

wait to see this fucking movie. They were like, I don't care that you don't give your employees health insurance and will never do so. Do you know what's such an alien concept? That that movie became— Like if you could buy things with memories. What if time was our currency? We should be writing this down.

When I think about how well that movie did, right? Fahrenheit 9-11. Fahrenheit 9-11. It was called Fahrenheit 9-11. The key to that movie doing well was people were so angry about it, they were like, I've got to go see it for myself. Sure. Like the idea of protesting it and being like, I'm not giving him my dollars. I just remember it was selling out in fucking red states because people were like, this fucking asshole.

I need to build my argument against him. $15. One ticket, please. I'm sure it was more like $12. You're argument against him. $15, one ticket, please. I'm sure it was more like $12. You're right. That was 2004. And back then, in red states, you could probably go to a matinee for like $6. Exactly.

Yeah, but with the conversion from then to now, $6 was a million bucks. Oh, wow. That's true. It's been a lot of inflation. It was a long time. That movie, Adjusted Inflation, would make $170 million. And you got to buy popcorn when you're there, and he gets a taste of that, right? I don't know that much about the movies.

I mean, I assume that's a weight joke, which I don't appreciate. No, no, no. Adjusted once everyone likes popcorn. No, in the way that a lot of millionaires buy their private ranch and start a vineyard or something, of course Michael Moore has a popcorn farm. Wine cave, right, right. Remember when he made a movie last year called Fahrenheit 11-9? Yeah.

And it was huge. Everyone went to see it. $6.7 million at the box office. But this is my point. Well, because the documentary boom is over. Right. Yeah, because no one sees him anymore. Right.

But liberals don't want to see Michael Moore movies anymore. Jesus. But the idea of someone who disagrees with Michael Moore going to see a Michael Moore movie is completely foreign. I mean I will admit that although this was to write a review of it, I was asked by someone to write a review of – I was asked by Alonzo Duralde, movie critic and podcast host, to write a review of Dinesh D'Souza's last movie. That one was –

The one that was not about – Transformers Dark of the Moon. Yeah, Transformers. The one that was – the poster Transformers Dark of the Moon? Yeah, Transformers. The one that was – the poster promised it would be about how Donald Trump is the Abraham Lincoln of today. Oh, right. And it's the one where the poster – Death of a Nation. Death of a Nation.

And it was like I was there basically to write a bad review of it. And there were six other people in the theater at the Americana. And they all seemed really creepy and didn't trust anyone else in the theater. And that was the night that my second son was born. And I didn't miss it. But there was part of me that was like, okay, these are the last hours. It could happen.

I went home and my wife went to labor and I'm like, I can't believe the last hours I spent with my wife before our second baby was born was watching Dinesh D'Souza's stupid movie. And did you like, ultimately not write the review because you were too busy then? No, I was too busy.

Did you write the review? I did. I just made your son Dinesh D'Souza Kaelin. My son is named Dinesh D'Souza Kaelin. Did you literally not write the review because you were too busy then? No, I was too busy. Did you write the review? I did. I was just a horror story. My son is named Dinesh D'Souza Kaelin. You had to watch that for nothing. Your son is named Death of a Nation Kaelin. Yeah, so I not only watched it and I had to contribute the price of a ticket to it. Yeah.

So it was like – To no end. And I mean the – it was like – so that I guess is one example of it. But you're right. People were like going to see Michael Moore's movies just to be like, oh. Right. Right. I mean because like the Dinesh films do well for what they are.

But very few people in the grand scheme – most of his audience I feel like waits for it to be available at home. And no one is going to do oppo research on Dinesh. No, no. Like I went to see two Dinesh movies in theaters and I was like – Jesus Christ. I did. Because I thought, like, Obama,

what was it, 2016 Obama's America? Yeah, well, you wanted to learn about, you know, the secret, I don't even know. That's because

the definition was all about how it was actually the Democrats who liked slavery. Like, you got us, you did it. Like, that's a good point,

D.D. I'll tell you, the one where he got me is America, Imagine a World Without Her, where the trailer made it seem like the entire film was an alternate history of what the world would look like today. And I was like, I want to see him spinning an alternate universe yarn. And he abandons that in the first 10 minutes. It ends up being about Hillary Clinton is literally Satan. As one final thing, if you're're curious I will neither confirm

nor deny whether JFK Jr. went to the Trolls experience with us so if you buy the Patreon membership Do you have a senior or a junior? Which one did I say?

You didn't say either you just said JFK It could be either or both I want to keep the mystery alive If it was junior big story If it was senior really big story

Great story I mean he is probably into Trolls, right? He's got to be the world's oldest Trolls fan, right? He has to be. Is that one of those Trolls, is Trolls one of those movies where if someone who died in 1963, you brought him back and showed him something, he'd be like, this is crap. Never seen anything like

this. Just automatically good. You bring JFK back and you show him like Six Underground or whatever that new Michael Bay movie is and he's like, this is astounding. I always imagined America could someday produce this. It's like watching the moon landing. Guys, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you.

Thanks for having us. Thank you for coming for a weekday evening record. I'm glad we could make this happen. We're very glad we could make this happen. Everyone should listen to The Flophouse, obviously. I was waiting for you to say it. Yeah, check out The Flophouse, obviously. I was waiting for you to say it. Yeah, check out The Flophouse podcast. Do you have any other specific things you want to plug?

Yeah, if you're in Brooklyn, New York, and you want to wet your whistle, why don't you head down to one of my wife's many bars, Charlene's on Flatbush Avenue, Hinterlands over in Kensington, or the brand new Minnie's Bar and get your coat stolen like a celeb. It's probably the best place I've ever had my coat stolen. I have gotten blind, drunk, and Charlene so many times. Oh, that makes me feel really good. Yep.

A lot of my 20s. Yeah, and I just reiterate, listen to the Flophouse podcast. It's kind of like this episode of the podcast that you're listening to, only it doesn't have the two guys you already like. It's three-fifths of this show, but without the guys that you want to listen to. It has the three guys you just fell in love with. Exactly.

Sick of us? Yeah. Let's pawn them off onto you guys. That's how podcasts work, right? You want to pawn your audience off. You want to get rid of them. I got to get rid of this audience. You got to move them through, right? They are wearing me down.

Yeah, thanks guys. Thanks so much for being here. Yeah. And, thanks to Andrew for our social media. Thanks to Lane Montgomery for our theme song. Joe Bowen and Pat Rollins for our artwork.

Go to Patreon, where the Trolls episode will be coming up shortly and other fun stuff happening next week we are discussing Rachel getting married

that sounds right right? that is the correct episode right? am I wrong about this? is there something in between? check the schedule I don't know

Jesus yes next week is Rachel getting married yeah Rachel congratulations next week producer Rachel is getting married Mazel Tov Rachel with guests Olivia Craighead and Aiwe Dabiri from the Iconography Podcast.

And Rachel, you are now under the gun. You have one week to find a suitable partner to spend the rest of your life with. And yeah, I think that's all the wrap-up stuff. I don't know. I'm forgetting all the things I usually say. Did I cover all the things? You covered all the things. I covered all the things.

It's just late and we're sweaty. It's late. I'm forgetting all the things I usually say. Did I cover all the things? You covered all the things. I covered all the things. It's just late and we're sweaty. It's late. I'm sweaty. And as always, Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life. All right. All right. Are you gentlemen aware that The Rise of Skywalker did that with Fortnite? I did, yeah.

That's what the dead speak alludes to, right? Didn't they like throw the Palpatine message? The beginning of that movie happens on Fortnite. Oh, I was wondering why they didn't show that in the movie. It seemed like a missed opportunity. I'm surprised you didn't mention it on the podcast. I think it was handled by Oscar Isaac saying, unfortunately, Palpatine returned. Were they watching from someplace else?