Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Truth About Charlie with David Lowery

Episode Date: February 9, 2020

Director and filmmaker David Lowery joins the two friends to talk about a weird remake of an Audrey Hepburn movie, except bad, starring Mark Wahlberg in his self-described worst role. There are insane hat choices and a very long ballroom scene. What was the last video game that Lowery played? Why is Tom Cruise wearing Ugg boot? How does Ted Levine die?  And what film did Lowry review and later realize he hadn't actually seen? THIS MOVIE HONKS!

Have you ever been in love in podcast, Joshua? Can't say I've had that pleasure, Reggie. Well, you're still young. Maybe you still have a chance. In love in podcast. I don't know. Yeah. That's about as good as you can get.

I was watching the movie looking for possible quotes. And also, David and I were talking about this. And we'll talk about this, but we got too many Davids this episode. Too many Davids. We got hashtag the two Davids. Yep. Or this, but we got too many Davids this episode. Too many Davids. We got hashtag the two Davids. Yep. Or as you said, these are the Davids I know.

They're all here. All two of them. But the lines that stick out to me most in this movie are the lines that are directly lifted verbatim from Charade, which are the lines

that stick out like a sore thumb because they're clearly out of a different movie. A different screenplay. Every time they reappropriate a line that I find so charming in Charade, you're like, where the fuck did this come from? Right. It does not fit whatsoever.

Yeah. Is he the only writer on this? No, no. He has four writers. Okay, you want, can I talk about this? Four writers. One, Jonathan Demme, who often is not credited as a writer on one of his films. That's true.

Right? That's true. Two is Steve Schmidt, who often is not credited as a writer on one of his films. That's true. Right? That's true. Two is Steve Schmidt, who when I clicked on Wikipedia, it directed me to Steve Schmidt, the campaign manager for John McCain, who was the subject of HBO's Game Change. Yeah, the

sort of bullet-headed guy. Played by Woody Harrelson. It is not, in fact, the same Steve Schmidt. You're kidding me. For half a minute I got amped. Okay? Did this guy like hard pivot? But then pivoted back to politics? Third screenwriter is, what's her name, Jessica? Jessica Bendinger.

Who wrote Bring It On, then wrote Aquamarine, and directed Stick It, was kind of the patron saint of the teen girl movie. She wrote First Daughter, if you remember that one. And then hasn't made a movie since Stick It, which, Stick It, was kind of the patron saint of the teen girl movie. Right, she wrote First Daughter, if you remember that one. And then hasn't made a movie since Stick It, which Stick It, by the way, fucking slaps. Stick It's good. Stick It with Jeff Bridges? That's the one with Missy Paragram, right? Yeah, that movie honks.

That's my word. I know. I'm just trying to get it out there. I like it, I like it. But hasn't worked since then. This is the one outlier in her career. It doesn't fit in with the rest of her oeuvre. It's kind of cool that Demi hired her.

Did she have other screenwriting credits before this? Bring It On, I believe, is her first screenwriting credit. Bring It On would be the same year, or year before. That's it. Right, and then it's all teen girl movies. Creme de la Creme teen girl. She had also worked on Sex and the City,

I think is a very low-level... Right, but that was her other big credit, yes. So she came out of Sex and the City. And then the fourth screenwriter on this movie... City, I think, is a very low-level writer. Right. But that was her other big credit, yes. So she came out of Sex and the City. And then the fourth screenwriter on this movie Yes, Peter Stone, who wrote Charade, and is credited here as Peter Joshua, because he

hated the movie. He hated the movie, so he used the name that Cary Grant uses in Charade as his fake name to distance himself from the movie and then this movie flips that fake name. So instead of Peter Joshua,

it's Joshua Peters. But it's now credited as being written by Peter Joshua who's not a real person. Also, he's a great writer. He wrote, you know, Taking a Pillow in 1, 2, 3.

He wrote a lot of, you know, fun 70s, 60s, 70s movies. And hated this movie and was joined in that sentiment by most of the world. That's too strong

because no one saw the fucking thing. But yeah, most people who saw it, yes. The 13 people were like, no thank you. Here's an astonishing fact that I just noticed while looking for a quote

on the INDB page. Top trivia fact on Truth About Charlie is Mark Wahlberg considers this his worst film. Now, that might be some snippet from an interview that was done pre-The Happening. Because he talks about The Happening quite a bit. He often will dunk on The Happening.

But that is, you know, that's a competition. Quite a sentiment. How do you feel this compares to The Happening on the Wahlberg scale? This is a thousand times better. This is much better. And I feel like his miscasting is a little less profound. Yes. The Happening is just the platonic ideal of

like, wrong place, wrong time for him. The Happening is also a perfect example of one of my least favorite phenomenons in film, which is, actor hates their character. Yes. Is so embarrassed by and resentful towards the person they've been hired to play, the fictional character.

This, it feels like he's trying. It's a bit of an odd fit, but it's less embarrassing than the happening where he feels so actively embarrassed to play a nerd. It's also a role he keeps working on. I mean, this is the same character as All the Money in the World, basically. He keeps returning to this role.

Every seven or eight years, he comes back to can I be the super calm, intelligent, sophisticated man? When Wahlberg is always good with a chip on his shoulder. That's what I always say. He needs to be low status, not high status. He can never be the guy completely in control. He always has to prove something to someone. Introduce our podcast so that I can take you through Wahlberg just up to here.

That brief. And introduce our guest. Of course. This podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. And? our guest. Of course. This podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. Right. I'm David.

And? David Lowery. Well, the other David. Hashtag the two Davids. It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers giving a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. This is certainly a crazy passion project at a pretty fucking big check. A $60 million movie, I think.

$60 million 15 years ago. So this is like an $80 million movie. I mean, I think it's also, I guess it's that era of, you know, Wahlberg's probably getting a big check, right? He's become an A-lister. I mean, this is right after Planet of the Apes. Right, this is his worst A-list period where people are like, the guy can do anything, right?

And then very quickly they're like, no, no, no, no, no. He can't do anything. Planet of the Apes and Right, this is his worst A-list period where people are like, the guy can do anything, right? And then very quickly they're like, no, no, no, no, no. He can't do anything. He did Planet of the Apes and Perfect Storm. That's right. That's what I want to take you through is that he really had some big hits. Let me finish my introduction.

Yes, thank you. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. Sure. This is a miniseries on the films of Jonathan Demme. It's called Stop Making Podcast. Today we're talking truth about Charlie. Arguably his biggest bounce,

certainly financially, in relation to its gross. about Charlie. Arguably his biggest bounce. Certainly financially. In relation to its gross. I would think so. The biggest bounce. And we got the great David Lowery with us. Back for the second time. Director and writer, Old Man and the Gone. Did I screw up the intro earlier when I said my last name?

You have to talk before we introduce you. I knew that, but I was like, should I have just said David and left it a little bit of a mystery? I wasn't going to give you a line reading. I think either one worked. I was happy with what you did. I probably screwed it up even more by talking about it now. No, that's definitely, we're keeping that in a double. Keep it all in.

But it's so exciting to have you back on the show. It's a thrill to be back. So much has happened in the past year. That's crazy. It's been about... Just over a year. Yeah, yeah, because we did Sleepy Hollow long before we put it on the feed. Yeah.

So I think the last time you saw me, I was leaving here to go buy a suit for the premiere of Old Man and the Gun. Correct. And I talked about it in the following episode, but I went to that premiere and that suit was incredible. It was a little ill-fitting. You can find the pictures. No, no. I mean, I was stuck. Because you were selling so hard like, oh, I feel like silly.

I didn't pack anything. I'm going to be underdressed. I need to buy something. And you were talking about like, I'm going to be so under the gun, no pun intended, trying to find something last minute. And then I thought you had a killer look. It was a classic Zara 15-minute walk-in, walk-out. It was a great suit. I thought good fit.

Maybe you want tighter usually, but it was a good fit. It was good enough. It was good enough. I mean, the whole screening, you might say, was a little loose. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. The Q&A was a little loose. A little loose.

Why was it loose? I wasn't there. It was freewheeling. I'm trying to find the right words to describe it that aren't backhanded because I don't mean any. Yes. There were questions that were asked from the audience that were not heard, and then other answers that were given. But it was all fun.

There were both bizarre questions and bizarre answers. Loosey-goosey. You had like eight members of the cast there. I think everybody was there. It was a pretty large contingency. And a lot of characters. Redford gave the exact same answer twice to two different questions. Exactly.

That was one of those instances. It was a long answer, and it was almost word-for-word identical for two different questions. Exactly. That was one of those. It was pretty incredible. It was a long answer and it was almost word for word identical for two different questions. And you were like, this is a man who's been doing press for decades. And that was a week of that. I was like, I heard that answer so many times in the same and like, God bless him. Like he knows exactly what to say, even if he repeats it. It's that thing. The people who are that good at being famous, I have noticed,

really plan and perfectly script, if not literally type out, but really settle on, this is my answer. This is how I'm going to talk about these subjects. I will not leave press up to chance. And so they know like their activation points. Question A goes with answer Z.

Exactly. And they connect the dots. But it was amazing to watch him just reset on a second question. Versus the rest of us that say things that we were like, oh my God, did I just say that? Yeah. Oh my God. Exactly. And they connect the dots. It was amazing to watch him just reset on a second question. Versus the rest of us that say things that we were like, oh my god, did I just say that? Yeah. Oh my god. Right. It's like his anxiety. I just dug my own grave. I'm sure. Yeah. He's just totally chill. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway.

I made that, or I made that movie. I premiered that movie. I wore a suit. Great suit. Wynn made another movie. Wynn made another movie. Working on that right now. And now I'm back in New York just hanging out and dropping by to talk to Dish on Demi. To Dish on Demi. Yeah, some Demi dishes.

A little Demi dishes. Get our Demi dishes out. We're wiping them clean. I don't know. Competitively. As in Rachel getting married. Oh, great scene. Great scene.

At this point. We have not done our Rachel getting married episode. This episode will be, you know, broadcast in about three years. Yes. We've made it through. It's going to be our Valentine's Day episode. Oh, wonderful.

It's going to be mid-Feb. I'll say this. Yes. I mean, we're recording this in November. It's many months away, the release. We have pretty much recorded every episode that takes place before this. Okay, great.

We've been largely, Beloved is the only one we haven't done. Beloved is the only Demi we haven't done chronologically, and we have not done any Demis post this. Yes. So you haven't done Beloved yet. We haven't done Beloved, but we've done Philadelphia, Silence of the Lambs. We've done everything. So you're not catching us out of order.

Last time we did Sleepy Hollow, which is at the midpoint. We did that very early. We recorded with you because you are not a native New Yorker. We recorded with you like a month before we recorded any other Burtons. We were still recording Nancy Meyers and we did the one Burton out of order with you. That's good though. Now, psychologically you're catching us at this exact

point. We've really been steeped. We've been steeped and we've been going largely in order and so it makes this movie all the more bizarre to watch. It really does. It is so funny I know you're chomping at the bit to get that that walberg out no i know go ahead but it is so funny how his 90s are like such a weird they're sparse it's they're sparse there are obviously so many documentaries and

like little things in between but his three narrative fictional films in the 90s are weirdly of a piece where they're like the most somber straight face demi like he steps away from the playful thing in terms of energy and it's like him making like three dramas you know and they're a little they shift a little in what kind of drama they are but like it's him using all the style that he developed in comedy and applying it to the dramatic studio film with big movie stars and, you know, and the like. And then the 2000s become him being like, how do I bring that weird Demi stuff back but also, like, smuggle it into remakes of classic Hollywood films?

I don't know how else to describe it. It's so interesting, you know, to discover where Demi came from before that 90s period because, like, I, you you know certainly became aware of him with Signs of the Lambs in Philadelphia that was like when I was like 11, 12, 13 and so I was like okay this is a prestige filmmaker who wins Oscars. He seemed like the most

classically Oscar-y director. Exactly and that's just all I knew about him until like getting into I think most people of like my generation, our generation probably are like oh, Paul Thomas Anderson loves this guy? I guess we should check out this early stuff. Right, because you go like

Sons of Lambs, bizarre Oscar heavyweight. Philadelphia almost gets reduced to the basic idea of an Oscar Beatty movie and then Beloved is like people think of it as a temple, when it's not. It's not. It's a great film. Did you do the merchandise spotlight on Philadelphia?

Oh my God, no, Lowry. What's the merchandise spotlight on Philadelphia? But David, yes, what is your Demi experience? How do you come to him? What do you think of him now? I feel like in... Whenever Silence of the Lambs came out, it was on the cover of Newsweek.

And that was my parents subscribed to Newsweek. So I remember, I think I talked about this last time. That's also how I discovered Sundance and Tim Burton was through my parents Newsweek subscription. In any case, there was a cover story about

Silence of the Lambs and I think violence in media that also included an image of Laura Palmer wrapped in plastic. Yeah, Silence of the Lambs was definitely one of those, like, has Hollywood finally gone too far? And the Laura Palmer image, which I assumed just flipping through the magazine, freaked me out so badly that I had my parents throw that magazine away because it just really scared me. You cursed it.

But I assumed that that image was in Silence of the Lambs. So when I finally, several years later, watched Silence of the Lambs, I was just like dreading that moment. And then when you finally watched Twin Peaks, did you start screaming? Yes, basically. No, by that point I was like, oh, wait, that's that head. It is such an indelible image. You mean the one that's directly of her head. Yeah, just a classic.

And I think, you know, my parents had a very, they were very strict about what movies we were allowed to see. And so I didn't see the film until high school. Sure. But I did read the book. So I read Sons of the Lambs. I read Red Dragon. Really loved both of them. Those books were all.

I got to Hannibal after I'd already seen the movie. You threw the book across the room. It was lurid. I think Jonathan Demme did the same thing. It's so mad. Producer Rachel talking shit on Tom Harris. Grab that mic, Rachel. Old Tommy H.

I'm sorry. If you couldn't hear it, Rachel said she threw her copy of Hannibal across the room. At the end? Yeah, at the end. So out of disgust at where the story went, but not out of, yeah. Oh, yeah, no. It seems like what most people did. Yes, people were upset. Yeah, at the end. So out of disgust at where the story went, but not out of... Yeah. Oh, yeah, no.

It seems like what most people did. Yes, people were upset. Yeah, it was real bad. Yeah. I invested so much time in those books. Yeah. And they were good until the end. Hannibal is all over the place.

Was the Hannibal Lecter saga your Harry Potter, Rachel? Were you the person who was like, I can't wait to see what happens in book three? Well, I wasn't expecting that. That she would get with Hannibal? Yeah, what the fuck is up with that? It's what he decided to do. I appreciate it. No.

I think it's a strong, I mean, it's a different, it's different than you might expect, but I was like, okay, I appreciate that choice. It's a swing. It's a swing and he went for it.

The thing that I hated the most was there's a line that's something like, it turned out that Clarice was just really uptight because she needed some good dick. Yeah, that fucking sucks. Yeah, that stuff's not good. That stuff's not good.

That's a- Welcome, thank you for coming to my turn to talk. Can I throw out a hot take quickly? Sure. I think that's bad. Good dick is just not ever really going to be a phrase that lands smoothly. I don't think good dick should ever be said in any context. Especially not when you're talking about Cheney.

My definition of bad dick. There's this movie I saw last year. I'm going to forward it on to you. About Dick Cheney. Oh, thank God because no one's told that story. And just the other day Christian Bale said that he heard what Dick Cheney thought of the movie or his performance. Because a friend of his went to a, like had a kid at a private school

and Dick Cheney was happened to be there and was like, oh, my friend Christian played you in a movie. And he's like, oh, tell him he's a dick. Wow. And that's like, I don't tell him he's a dick.

It could go both ways. It's a, it's kind of a, he is dick. He's like, tell him he, like, was he being petty

or is he our finest comedian? It's one or the other. This was last week. Yeah. Breaking news. It'll be so old by... The new George Saunders? So anyway, I then did not see Philadelphia when it opened, but did see the Saturday Night Live commercial that we just watched on Saturday Night Live.

Which I'm sure only fed into that idea of, oh, here's this very like kind of like stodgy Oscar drama. Precisely. And to be honest, I didn't have that much interest in seeing it. Like it didn't appeal to me. We talked about the same thing that I feel like we watched the movie, David and I, both out of obligation to fill in our Oscar blanks much later in life. And then you watch it and you're like, this thing is fucking weird. It's beautifully made. It's a beautifully made, incredibly esoteric strange film. I can't wait to see it again.

As I listen to this podcast, I'll be revisiting a lot of these films and that's one I haven't seen since probably I was 16. And then Beloved mostly looked like, oh, this is like a failed Oscar play. Now, I love Beloved. I love the book. I read the book in high school.

I read it again recently. It is absolutely incredible. I think the movie is about as, not as good as the movie could be, but a really good. It's a really careful and thoughtful and loving adaptation of this work of American literature. Largely thought of to be kind of unadaptable. Yeah, and I would rather see that movie than the HBO miniseries. and loving adaptation of this. It is. A writer largely thought of to be kind of unadaptable. Yeah, and I would rather see that movie than like the HBO miniseries. Like I'd rather see it compressed

into three hours or three and a half. It's quite long. I think it's about three. But I love, you know, I'm sure you'll talk about this more in the episode, but I love the way Demi, and we don't need to get into like whether Demi should have been the one to do it or not,

whatever the case may be. Sure. Oprah brought it to him. Great. It's, I love the way he be. Oprah brought it to him. Great. It's, uh, I love the way he treated the ghost story aspects of it. So,

it's so much like a horror film. Right. Like there's like full on poltergeist. It's like a poltergeist movie. Yeah. Right. And, and I think it,

you know, towards the end, you can kind of feel that he's trying to cram a lot in there from the book. And the book isn't long. It's just that there's so much, it contains so much. The breadth of it is so big. So did you see that when it came out?

So I saw that when it came out. I saw that. It was, you know, by that point, that was 98. 97. 97. 98, you're right. I'm sorry. And I was a projectionist at that point.

I had been a projectionist for a couple months. And so I remember watching that the night before it opened, along with, I believe, The Waterboy. Was that the other? There was some. I think that sounds right. Because, I mean, Beloved was thought of as this is going to be a blockbuster and an Oscar player.

And then it bombed so hard, it might have opened directly against The Waterboy. No, The Waterboy's a month later. I'm now trying. We'll have already played this box office. There's some other comedy that opened up. Sure, some very broad comedy. And so I remember watching both of those, whatever that was that night.

That's a quite dull feature. But I loved Beloved at the time. It's like Practical Magic. Oh, interesting. Is there a comedy in the top ten that week? Practical Magic's the new movie. I don't know. We'll do the box office game later.

We're time traveling a little here. So I really like that. That was around the same time that I was really getting into Paul Thomas Anderson because Boogie Nights had been out for a year at that point. Yes. Rediscovered Hard 8 as a result of that. And on the Hard 8

commentary track, which is terrific. There's actually like two or three commentary tracks on that disc. He talks about Demi constantly. It's just like a Demi love fest. He's the number one guy. So then you're talking about Melvin and Howard. I'm like, what's Melvin and Howard?

Go rent that. And so that was sort of my introduction to Demi's earlier films. But I didn't really see most of them. I went back, watched Melvin and Howard maybe, no, I didn't even that was it. I kind of just stopped there. I didn't see Something Wild until a couple years later. But you at least now had a context for where he came from. Exactly.

A sense of who he was. And so by the time Truth About Charlie came out, I kind of had that sense that this was him wanting to go back to those madcap roots. playful yes the playful films right and i remember i remember that you know obviously the truth about charlie is just chock full of shoot the piano player references they're very overt but i remember paul thomas

anderson talking at the time of punch direct love referencing shoot the piano player as well and so i had this theory that they were probably just both hanging out and they both just made these huge epics you have to imagine once pta makes boogie nightson is a big you know he's like i gotta meet them right now i'm famous enough that i get to meet my idol right exactly so and and you know they were clearly close friends by the time he passed away and i never i've never of them, but I did see them both present Greaser's Palace at the Austin Film Festival, which was incredible. It is a thing I feel like we haven't talked about, but on Documentary Now, they've done two Demi parodies. Yes, they did.

In both of them, Paul Thomas Anderson plays the Demi analog off camera, which is really nice. They make it the same fictional director doing Stop Making Sense. I've seen the Stop Making Sense one. Which one was the – They're swimming to Cambodia. I believe it's called Parker Gale's Location is Everything. Yeah, it's him talking about not wanting to give up his apartment. It's him talking about Upper West Side real estate.

And it's Hader in a big wig and it's great. And there's obviously a lot less of the demi character in that. But I think you hear Paul Thomas Anderson saying like action and cut at the beginning and end of it. And then in the Stop Making Sense one, he does a lot of off-camera interview lines. So it's also just – I mean the work they do on that show to nail the like exact visual style. Well, they like go out of their way to like get the same lenses. They get the lenses. They make sure the color – yeah, that's it.

So I had this theory that they had post-Magnolia, post-Beloved, they're both just exhausted from these huge epic films that they'd made, which had kind of underperformed. And they were like, let's just go watch some French New Wave movies. And they watched Shoot the Piano Player, and they're like, man, it'd be great to make a movie like this. And they both went off and kind of made a movie in that spirit. And they both opened within two weeks of each other in 2002.

So that was my theory for a long time. In preparation for this, I was looking for interviews with Jonathan Demme. And finally, there were none in print anywhere, really. There was one maybe on the AV Club or something like that. But then I found a Charlie Rose episode that he did. And he said that Paul Thomas Anderson was planning to write the screenplay for Truth About Charlie with him. Wow. Weird.

And so it actually, like, that really was it. But then he got the idea for Punch Drunk Love and did that instead. Those are interesting, too. Like, those two movies zagging off at different points where Punch Drunk Love is so much reverse engineered from Paul Thomas Anderson's love of Adam Sandler and trying to figure out what he finds interesting about that star persona. But it's also a major scale down from Magnolia and trying to focus in, smaller budget, more contained story, fewer characters, all of that. And then Truth About Charlie is him staying at the same budget level

with a movie star he doesn't totally know what to do with. Exactly. Who's kind of misplaced. I was also talking with Sims right before this about like this being part of that weird much like Scorsese's Cape Fear where it's like a remake of one movie that's also kind of their

homage to another movie. Definitely. Where it's like let's remake Cape Fear in the style of Night of the Hunter. Where it's like, let's remake Cape Fear in the style of Night of the Hunter. Right. And this is, let's remake Charade in the style of

Shoot the Panel Player. Right. Let's talk a little about Wallberg. I guess we talked about him on The Happening. Have we done other Wallberg movies?

We must have. Planet of the Apes. Well, we did Planet of the Apes. He wasn't, like, the other thing on IMDb is that, yeah, it was supposed to be

Will Smith. That's what we wanted to do. I think it was not just supposed to be, it was going to be Will Smith that's what he wanted to do I think it was not just supposed to it was going to be Will Smith Will Smith and Tandy Newton it was green lit as a Will Smith

obviously Tandy Newton it was in Beloved and is this sort of exciting new star has been in Mission Impossible too at this point but Beloved was kind of her big breakout

and so and then Ali which was a monster shoot that went way too long went too long Will Smith couldn't do this. Wahlberg comes in at the last minute, which is really crazy. It's also just crazy.

But that's why I wanted to talk about Wahlberg. To imagine how he in 2001, a studio would be like, yeah, he's a good sub for Will Smith. That's fine. Mark Wahlberg, he'll be great. But it's that thing that I always find so fascinating where like when someone has their movie star breakout and people haven't quite figured out what makes them a movie star yet, there's

sometimes this hope that like maybe they're Tom Hanks. Maybe they can do anything. Maybe they can apply that. We see that so often now with 90% of like male stars. And then it takes like five years for them to circle back. Either they fall off or they circle back and they go, don't worry. I figured out why you liked me the first time.

I'm now going to stay. Then with Mark Wahlberg, you can also – you have to imagine that Paul Thomas Anderson is like, well, I made Boogie Nights. He was wonderful. Right? He goes to PTA and he's like, man, Will Smith dropped out. Who should I – who will fit this part? Right. He seems bankable at this point.

He's a known dude. Obviously, he's a musician as we all know. Marcus part. Right. He seems bankable at this point. He's a known dude. Obviously, he's a musician, as we all know. Marcus Marcus. Exactly. Yeah. And a model. And he makes fear.

Famously, well, not famously enough, I feel like people don't talk about enough from his modeling days, three nipples. Three nipples. He has three nipples. He has a little third nipple.

He still does, yes. Which is funny, considering that he was so often shirtless. Shirtless in all these movies. Yeah. Never knows. The scene where he's shirtless in this movie is a little bananas. It's hilarious how they play that in the trailer.

Because you're just like, oh, they're about to have sex. And in the movie, it's just like, he got wet a little bit. Yeah. A little few raindrops on him. But I feel like 95 years basketball diaries, 96 years fear. And it's like, oh, a lot of energy coming off of it. Maybe he's more serious than we thought. He's so good in Fear.

Basketball Diaries was, oh, he's proving he's a real actor. And then Fear was, oh, he's playing against type. He talked about they didn't want him to play that part. He worked really hard on it. It showed more range. And then Boogie Nights is obviously the slam dunk. Because up until that point, I think he was viewed as bargain basement DiCaprio. Right.

And this is a role that was sort of intended for DiCaprio, and he's taking it. Right. And, you know, obviously, that's how I feel like you have. Then he works with David O. Russell on Three Kings. He works with James Gray on The Yards. He finds a couple of filmmakers who really know how to use him in a row. Right. And he's in The Perfect Storm, which I think he's pretty good in.

I mean, that movie has all these great actors with beards and they're all just sort of grizzled. Everybody's fine in that movie. Everyone's fine. And that movie's obviously about the waves. But it's a huge fucking hit. It's a huge hit, which is crazy that it was a huge hit. It was such a big hit. It's such a grim movie.

And it's really long. And the premise. I mean, that movie probably, does that even play on TNT anymore? Like, does anyone? It should. It felt like for 10 years that was the TNT movie. It's just crazy that that's, it's a 130 minute movie and the entire premise is like, there was such a bad

storm that this big fucking wave killed a fishing boat. And like, that's the whole movie and yet, you know, like. Is there a rescue attempt in it? I mean, does any, like. You know, you're cutting to Diane Lane on a horn and Mary Elizabeth Master Antonio

is on a boat trying to get him I just remember this point in which hopelessness like sinks in and you're just like oh yeah

they're all gonna die and the first half is them being like should we go fishing you know like they do it and then at the end it's like yeah

and then they got you know they got drowned and that was that summer blockbuster of 2001. Fourth of July. Yeah, it was like a Fourth of July Summer Blockbuster.

Like a real blue-collar blockbuster. But I remember that being like a weekend where they were like, oh, this is a massacre. You got five wide releases on Fourth of July. There was a lot of shit. They all hit different audiences. No one knew what was going to rise to the top. And then Perfect Storm just fucking knocked it out.

I want to say it was the Patriot, which everyone assumed was going to be the blockbuster. Shaft. Perfect Storm, Shaft. I know Rocky and Bullwinkle came out that same weekend. It was like weird. And then Perfect Storm just like knocked it out. And I imagine after that. 182 domestic in 2000.

Huge. For a blue-collar, you know, special effects-y drama. But when a movie is... Patriot is the same weekend as is Rocking Bullwinkle, which is crazy.

Thank you. And Shaft is, you know, new-ish, and me, myself, and Irene had come out. Because I feel like X-Men comes out later. Next week is a scary movie.

X-Men is the week after that. Yeah. Like, yeah. Crazy stacked. It, like, rises to the top. It outgrosses all the films that you just mentioned. Right. It does.

And then I think everyone had been waiting for Clooney to, like, achieve the level of stardom that they wanted, that they saw for him. And he immediately after that is like, I don't want to do this shit. You know, he doubles down on Soderbergh. They do Ocean's Eleven the next year at Warner Brothers. Right. But I imagine that— Well, because, yeah, he must have been in a water tank. This was also a period where Wahlberg and Clooney were really tight.

They do Three Kings and Perfect Storm back-to-back. And then Wahlberg, I believe, was supposed to play Brad Pitt's role in— Correct. Yes, he was. He absolutely was. He was. And then that was, like, the end of that honeymoon. But, like, Perfect Storm is the last movie like that that Clooney ever does.

Is that true? Yeah, I guess so. Right? He never does like a studio epic blockbuster. The only thing that's arguably close to that again is Tomorrowland, which comes 15 years later and is a wildly different film. And he's only in half of it. But it's that bizarre thing where you go like for how big Clooney is, it's the three oceans movies. It's Batman and Robin, which was a disaster,

and Perfect Storm. And like the Peacemaker. But those are his only five movies that make $100 million. The Oceans trilogy, Batman and Robin, and Perfect Storm. Is that it? Right?

He didn't get like up in the air? No, probably not. No, like that's like 80. Michael Clayton's like 50. I believe those are his only 500 million dollar grosses Gravity I forgot about gravity I forgot about gravity

Which is why I'm always floating to the top Spy Kids 3D Game Over If you want to include his role in that He has one shot He plays the president of the United States That would be it South Park Made 52 Didn't do that president of the United States and the Spy Kids franchise. That would be it. South Park? If we're going there. Well, South Park

made 52. Oh, didn't do that. It did. I think it probably didn't cost much. Comparably, it did great. It's funny in South Park. Warner Brothers was Cloney's home studio for a long time. You imagine Post Perfect Storm, they're like, great, now we can put you in everything. And he focuses up and he's like, nope, I'm

using my star power to get the things I want made. And Wahlberg starts to present himself as like, I guess we go to number two on the call sheet. That's the guy we're going to groom into being a movie star. They had just tried placing him in Planet of the Apes in a role he's not right for. So no one is right. He's in Planet of the Apes. Right. Burton, though, working with a big director.

He also does Rockstar. Of course. Produced by George Clooney. Stephen Herrick movie, I believe. You know, this is so funny. I completely forgot that they were like best buds. In which he gets his nipple pierced, but not his third one. Not his third one.

Real missed opportunity there. We'd be talking about Rockstar much more frequently. Right, we would be. Rockstar is like Boogie Nights at 5%. Because it's the same where he's like, I want to be a rock star. I can do it. And they're all like, you will never do it. And he doesn't. Like loosely based on a true story. Yes. And then Invincible, I want to be a rock star. I can do it. And they're all like, you will never do it. And he doesn't.

Like loosely based on a true story. Yes. And then Invincible. I want to be a football player. No one lets me throw the big skin. But I'm saying the three movies. That movie is low key kind of great. Like that movie is like a really fun, just, you know, dumb nuts movie you see at a bar.

Another weird Disney thing that just doesn't happen anymore. Hey, tell Disney Plus. Once a year, Disney would just make a $30 million sports drama with a big movie star who was relishing the opportunity to tell a small human story.

Can you tell me the... Go ahead. McFarlane, USA, the last one of those. Yeah, and that movie... It's great. Honks. David?

I've never seen it. Disney+, gotta watch it. Can you tell me the director of Invincible? Well, he's a cinematographer, right? He made one other movie. The Point Break remake? Is his name Erickson Core?

Just a wild name. Erickson Core. Yeah. But he also... So Truth About Charlie is his Rockstar follow-up. So he's coasting on that rock. I feel like Rockstar actually probably made its money, right?

It did pretty well. And post this, he has The Italian Job, which is sort of a surprise hit. He has I Heard Huckabees, which is probably his best performance. I agree. Then he has the Four Brothers Invincible Double Punch, which are both kind of cruddy but profitable. Solid on base. Thriller or hit.

Yeah. And then he has The Departed and the Oscar nomination wow followed by Transformers which is where we get to like he's kind of like been that version of Mark Wahlberg

ever since but then there's also that run leading up to Transformers where he's kind of golden making junky mid-budget thrillers

he sort of like he has that run of like Contraband you know he alternates between two guns he's got like Shooter Max Payne you know and I'm just I'm like Contraband. You know, he alternates between what you're talking. He's got like Shooter, Max Payne, you know, and I'm just, I'm jumping.

Contraband, Broken City, Two Guns, Lone Survivor, right? You know, like. Because Contraband, Two Guns, and Lone Survivor all do really well. Sure. I don't know if Two Guns did amazing. They did okay. They did like 80. Yeah.

Contraband did like 80 in January. You also have We Own the Night, which he's great in. You know, he goes back to James Great. The Lovely Bones. Everyone likes to forget that that movie existed and he was the star. He replaced Ryan Gosling. Yep. You have The Other Guys, which is him exercising the comedy muscle.

He's so good in. He's very funny in that. And you have The Fighter, which is his passion project. He's great in. I would say, I would still say like I Heard Huckabee's Departed, like that's maybe his best work. But like The Fighter is his best movie star performance. Yeah, his earnestness really pays off in spades in that film. It's the best fit for what he wants to do on screen.

The Departed thing is still so wild because it is one of the few examples of what is truly just a pure supporting performance. Right. examples of what is truly just a pure supporting performance. So often supporting actor is the second lead of the movie who maybe has about as much screen time as the main lead of the film. Or it's someone who

has like... Did they have to talk him into that movie? He didn't want to do it. He was like, get the fuck out of here. I want to play the Leo role. Because of the scale of it? Yeah. And they had to be like you should work with Martin Scorsese and this is a very fun role that you can do stuff with. He talks about his agents kept on just breaking him down to do that movie. But that's the other thing is the other kind of supporting performance that gets nominated is like someone just knocks out two or three scenes.

Yeah, like the William Hurt in History of Violence. They take over the movie. Whereas like Wahlberg is always the fourth or fifth most important character in any given scene he's in in that movie. Yeah. You know but he's just throwing fastballs the

entire time. Anytime he's on screen you just it's just a joy. It's electric. And also he does finish the movie. He shoots Matt Damon

in the head. And that kind of there's weirdly something that it is satisfying and it revives his leading man career. Like then the other crazy thing is,

Depard did so well, and they were like, well, how do we make a sequel for this? They were going to do a Wahlberg sequel, right? And Moynihan wrote the Wahlberg sequel, and Scorsese wanted to direct it, and they said Mark Wahlberg can't carry this movie. Well, that's bizarre.

I don't know. So clearly, no one knew what to do with him in 2002, and they still don't. It's just such a weird star career. And you're right that now, yes, he's sort of in that like, you know, Transformers or Peter Berg movies. Or family comedy.

Or Farrell. He likes Farrell, Berg. Who's the director of Instant Family? Anders. Sean Anders. Yeah, so he's like making films with him and Peter Berg and that's pretty much it. I haven't seen Instant Family, but people said like, that's actually like a perfectly charming movie.

I've heard that movie is charming. So what's he got? He's got a bunch on deck. Wonderland. Is that a Peter Berg? That's a new Peter Berg movie. It sounds like, I mean, you said that title, and I knew it was a Peter Berg movie. An ex-felon named Spencer returns to Boston's criminal underworld to unravel a twisted murder conspiracy.

As one does. David is leaning in with excitement. You're telling me it's coming out in March? On Netflix. That sounds like such a Marshall. It's Netflix. Okay. And then he's making something with the director of Monsters and Men.

It's a movie called Good Joe Bell. Yeah, I read that script. It's about a father whose son was killed in a hate crime, so he walks across the country to just educate people about compassion, and it is a true story. Connie Britton is in it, it looks like. I don't know. So that seems more prestige.

The script was written by Larry McMurtry. Yes. Oh, wow. That's kind of a weird Wahlberg. It's a good part for him, though. Really? Yeah, it's like a blue-collar guy who was super homophobic

until he found out that his son was gay. He's kind of a good part for Wahlberg. Yeah, that's kind of a good part for Wahlberg. And then he's got this big, fuck-off Antoine Fuqua action movie called Infinite with like, you know, Chiwetel Ejiofor. I don't know. Is it a sci-fi thing? A man discovers his hallucinations or visions from past lives.

Excuse me. I am all in on that. I'll take as much of that as you got. I don't know. Come out in August? Come out in August, baby. Five stars. I'm getting as much of that as you got. I don't know. Come out in August? Five stars. I'm getting an immediate five. It's paramount.

Oh! It's a paramount August release. It's August. Oh, boy. Oh, I'm burning with excitement here. Anyway, so he's just going to keep going. And at the top of his IMDb list, it's been there for years, The Six Billion Dollar Man.

One day it'll happen. He keeps on talking about a movie that has been teased for 20 plus years. Who was the last director attached to that? Was it Guy Ritchie? No, it was the fucking Wild Tales guy. Oh, that's right. The director of Wild Tales. Danians. Yeah. Well, now Travis Knight

is attached. I think Travis Knight's making almost every film that's coming out in the next couple of years. That guy's been attached to fucking everything. Rumored for everything. At one point, Peter Berg was going to do it. He keeps on getting different people attached. Travis Knight is drinking from the Uncharted chalice right now, which seems to just poison everyone's career.

Stop trying to make an Uncharted movie. It's one of those video games. You don't play video games. No. It's just one of those video games where it's like Indiana Jones, and someone sees it, and they're like, Oh, this an uncharted movie. It's one of those video games. You don't play video games. No. But it's just one of those video games where they're like, it's like Indiana Jones and someone sees it and they're like,

oh, this could be a movie. Yeah, that's its vibe. Right. It's trying to feel like a movie. That already existed. There's nothing to hold onto in it, you know, that's not completely derivative.

So like trying to make a movie out of it is just sort of like a waste of your time. I also love the idea that they're like, oh, we finally came up with a good take. You know how this character is like in his 40s and he's like a really confident sort of like rakishly charming scoundrel? What if we retrofit it into a Tom

Holland franchise where he's a young, young man who is totally different from that character. We make prequels that never existed to how he became that guy and it's like, that sounds like you're not making Uncharted. That's a different movie. That's what happens when you've done development many times on this same thing.

You want Tom Holland to find a treasure, you can do that. Yeah, anyway. Good Wahlberg talk, guys. I don't play video games, but is Death Stranding, would I like that? Should I get a console just to play that game? Probably. I mean, I feel like that might be your vibe.

When's the last time you played a video game, though? The last time I played a video game was with the director, Aaron Katz. Okay. Who was really into—I don't remember what game it was. Gemini. Gemini. He's a Gemini man, one could say. Thirty minutes into playing whatever game it was we were playing, I realized my controller was not working.

Nice. I thought I was playing. I was just like, oh, this is interesting. And I didn't realize that the game was just playing. Well, that's, I mean, that's my... That is a Kojima experience where if you play Death Stranding, you're basically watching several three-hour movies in the middle of your game. My favorite

kind of video game is a movie. I mean, I'm really considering getting Death Stranding. I have a PS4, but it would be my first video game in over a decade that doesn't star Mickey Mouse and or Legos. Yeah, you've got your name. I've been pretty narrowly.

I was like, I went away for the weekend with David Ehrlich and he'd been playing it to write about it. And he was once in a while, I'd just be like, you know, and then like there's this baby that you carry around in a mobile womb. It'll give you a thumbs up, you know, and I'm like, there it is? How does that slot into what you just told me about how this game works? Sounds like it honks. It's like as soon as they, anything without narrative or goals sounds great to me.

I think you have to go around and deliver Amazon packages and also reconnect the internet. That's what I've heard, yeah. But David, is there a designated honk button? Can you honk? Does the game let you honk? I guess we're going to need honks.

Honk code? We need a honk. Great joke. 10 comedy points. George Clooney should have played this part. Well, this shows like an obvious, if you're going, oh, it's a remake. Cary Grant originated the role. He was your debonair guy, right?

That was Clooney's, you know, he's your salt and pepper Mr. Debonair. And instead you've got this beret on Wahlberg that it's just like the beret that randomly shows up in one scene. Does it fit more or less than Tom Cruise with the new Radicals hat and vanilla sky? I mean, I feel like that's the last time we've covered such an insane hat choice. Look, I just rewatched Eyes Wide Shut and I forgot there's a scene where Tom Cruise is wearing Ugg boots. Do you remember this? No. I don't remember him in the boots.

Is it when he's at home? It's when he's at home. He's sitting down at the couch. It's before they're about to have their big conversation. Sure. And he's wearing low-cut, low-rise Ugg boots. And I saw it, and I was just like, imagine the series of discussions.

Because everything in a Kubrick movie is at least talked about. Is it Tom being like, I've got these furry boots. I love them. I'm at my most comfortable in them. My character should be wearing them. Or is it that they present the Ugg boots to Tom Cruise and to him it looks like as much of a challenge as tying yourself to the side of an airplane. Or Kubrick's like, Tom, wear whatever you want want i'm shooting the scene from the you know top of the bed up and then like three weeks later they've covered the entire like he's like completely

changed how they shot it um i'm trying to there's the only image of it available on the internet is incredibly small but take a look there he is in his oh yeah wow that is crazy i don't i don't even remember that i mean obviously that's like a production still. That shot, like, is not in the movie. He looks so comfy. What kind of TV do they have in their fancy apartment? Yeah, they've got like a little, you know, like 13-inch CRT. Circa 98, yeah.

Top of the line. Do you know one other random thing? I know they just announced yesterday, by the point you were hearing this. Hopefully it'll be shooting. But the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie. Yes. And in the photo in Hollywood Reporter, he looks like George Clooney. It's so weird.

PTA? He's like evolved into George Clooney. He's got the salt and pepper. He's a good looking guy. He has gotten so fucking handsome. And every time he releases a new movie and does a new press tour, I become more jealous of how he looks. In every sense. I like how he dresses.

I like how he carries himself. He kind of has a Clooney grin. Yeah, look at that. Yeah, yeah. That's a good point. I feel like there was something so, like, devilish about how he looked when he was young. Like, it was like he was owning the, like, the L'Enfant Terrible thing. Yeah.

And now he just looks like this fucking smooth, sophisticated gentleman. It's also that joke about, like, it's great if you look like a character in your movie. Totally. Like a supporting character. Totally. That's a good vibe to go for. Yeah. He always has the period haircut.

Yeah. Love it. Love it. He was like, you know, when my wife and I first got married, he was like on her celebrity cheat list. But then at a certain point. That's how you know you married the right person. At a certain point.

That they want to fuck Paul Thomas Anderson. At a certain point... That's how you know you married the right person. At a certain point. That they want to fuck Paul Thomas Anderson. That's what I'm looking for. Celebrity cheats stop being cool at a certain point. Yeah, it's like a cute idea, and then you're like, oh, actually. Yeah, exactly, exactly. This is terrible. Especially if you work in the movie industry.

Yes. But The Truth About Charlie has Mark Wahlberg with a big old bar beret on his head. And a turtleneck. And he's, you know, Cary Grant. That's about the worst hand he could be dealt. That's like a 2-7 in Texas Hold'em. He's wearing the beret and it feels like it's magnets at opposite sides.

Like it should be flying off of his head. He also puts it on so prominently. Like in that one scene, he's coming downstairs and he just like puts it on. He really puts it on so prominently in that one scene. He's coming downstairs and he puts it on. He really puts it on with a capital T. And he's got a two degree tilt on it, which is not enough. You need to tilt that beret more if you're going to sell it. And then you have Tandy Newton, who is a

British actress who, apart from Beloved, she was Sally Hemings in Jefferson in Paris. That was like... Besieged? That Bertolucci movie? But then Mission Impossible 2 is the big thing because it felt like Cruise saying,

here, I found a new major leading lady. Gridlocked. Oh yeah, she was good in that. That's a great movie. Right, but that was the Mission Impossible thing and that movie was such a big hit that they were like, I guess he's extended his star power to her. And Beloved, I remember everyone's extended his star power to her. And Beloved,

I remember everyone being like, this is a breakout. This is going to be best supporting actress performance. It was too weird. Her performance is great, but she's talking in the E.T. voice for the first half of the film. The movie and the performance are too weird, and it didn't translate to her. But it makes sense

that Demi must have loved working with her. Totally, yeah. I mean, this movie was designed, like, he was like, what can I make with Tandy Newton? And she's such a good character actor, and I feel like her best performances come out of that character actor vein, but her natural presence

is so classic movie star. It is that weird thing where, like, when you see interviews with her, you're like, I understand how you could go, oh, maybe she's the next Audrey Hepburn. But then I think if you rank – She's so striking. If you ranked the best Tandy Newton performances, they're mostly the ones that play against that type. What would you rank among her best performances?

I mean I think she's great on Westworld. Yeah, she is. I think this is maybe a controversial opinion, but I think she's phenomenal in W. I really like her Condoleezza Rice. Oh, I forgot about that one. She's good. I mean, that movie is so weird. I would have nominated her that year.

I think she's the one performance that totally works in that movie. It is funny that this movie has her and Lisa Gay Hamilton, who was Vice's Condoleezza Rice. You have a standoff of the two Rices. The two Rices. She is good in Crash, which was obviously a big awards nominated. And she wins the BAFTA for that and doesn't get nominated for any other awards.

Well, the Oscars relationship with Crash is so bizarre. I'm feeling fruity and slept. You know what I mean? Where they gave a best picture, but also it's sort of weirdly under-nominated, considering they obviously liked it. Dylan was the only nominated performance, and they didn't even nominate Paul Haggis, or did they?

They did. He got director and won screenplay. He won screenplay. It also is the only movie to win Best Picture and not get nominated at the Golden Globes, right? Something like that. It didn't even get win Best Picture and not get nominated at the Golden Globes, right? Something like that. It didn't even get a Best Picture nomination. It won Spirit Awards a year before.

It came late. Yeah, right, right. Such a weird... Anyway, she is good in that. Now I want to look at... She's had a lot of really unfortunate roles. A lot of very... Like, Pursuit of Happiness.

Love Interest in Norbit is tough. Right. It's a really tough beat. And then she took time off for her family. And then when I was watching Dumbo. She's married to the director of Mamma Mia Here We Go Again.

And her child is in Dumbo. Which like, I didn't connect at first, but the whole time I was like, where have I seen this young actress before? I've seen her in a million things. And I was like, oh wait,

it's because she looks exactly like her. Run fat boy, run Norbit. Like there's a lot of weird. Norbit is just one, it's like the definition of a truly thankless girlfriend role where it's like you're not allowed to be funny. You only have to be nice. Your love interest is Norbit. He's not a person.

Norbit does not behave as a human does. And she's doing this Herculean task of every scene having to convey, I think I want to fuck Norbit. That's her character motive. I just, I love imagining her calling over like director Brian Robbins and being like, so what's my motivation in this scene? He's like, you just, you're really considering whether or not to fuck Norbit. You're into Norbit. And then when she's on Westworld, it was a little bit of that sort of like, oh, right. Of course, she's very talented.

Like, yeah, why haven't we been putting her in more things? Has she been nominated for an Emmy or anything? She won an Emmy. She won the Emmy last year. For season two. Great. That's fantastic. Which was great, and it did feel a little like.

Chronicles of Riddick, that felt like another, like, oh, she's going to be in a big franchise. What a weird movie. That movie is worth talking about someday. Yes, it is. I really would love to talk about those Chronicles. It's the miniseries I'm always pushing for. The Diesel. Do the franchises of Vin Diesel.

You do the Riddicks, the Fast and Furious, and the Triple X. I think Twohy is a director you could do. You could kind of do him. You know, you've got The Arrival, which is kind of a weird movie. Sort of fat Charlie Sheen. Fat Charlie Sheen. Then you got Pitch Black, Below, I've never seen. That's the submarine movie with

Zach Galifianakis. I saw that. And then A Perfect Getaway, which is good. That's a really robust thriller. I believe Roger Ebert said it honked. I'm sorry. The late, great Roger Ebert said it honked. I'm sorry. The late, great Roger Ebert said it honked.

I have to make a designated honk. Yes, please. Submission accomplished. So, yeah. So I guess we're going to do Twohy. Yeah. And then Riddick is insane. Yeah.

The third Riddick movie is. You mean Riddick colon Rule the Dark? It was not called Riddick Rule the Dark. They did that for like DVD. Really? Or maybe European releases or something. Wow. Anyway.

So you got those two guys. And then you have this Demi-esque collection of character actors and former collaborators and French New Wave luminaries that he's thrown into the mix, right? You have Lisa Gay Hamilton, Ted Levine, Ted Robbins. Having not watched Philadelphia, is Ted Levine in that? No, he could be. So you just went from silence to this. You didn't do... Yeah. Is this the only

Demi movie without Napier? Levine's also in The Manchurian Candidate. It might be. I'm not sure. I mean... I thought I saw Napier in the hotel at one point. Maybe he got cut out. Well, he's not Rachel getting married. Does Napier in the hotel at one point. Maybe he got cut out. He's not Rachel getting married. Does Napier's run end

at Philadelphia? He's not in Beloved. He's in Mentoring Candidate. Thank God. I was worried I was never going to see his face again. He's in Beloved playing Angry Carney. He's in Mentian Candidate but he is not in this one maybe he was cut out

as you say right maybe he had some you've got Jung Hoon Park who I feel like Demi had seen in that movie Nowhere to Hide I think and was like you seem great I'm putting you in my movie there's a lot of those sorts of cast in the original Shre which I want to talk about for a little bit

you have this group of men who are hunting down audrey hepern and it's like uh james coburn and george kennedy and it's like these classic sort of like weird hollywood character actor heavies and like oddball energy dudes and then this he makes it this incredibly strange group because like he kind of likes them he totally likes them Levine's the only one who's kind of playing it in a straightforward way and only because he feels like he's dying so even he has to put a

sympathetic twist on the one scary guy to make it like but this guy's really suffering and the rest of them are kind of nice and he has that probably the key point in the scene and the rest of them are kind of nice. And he has that, probably the key point in the scene, the key point in the movie is the tango sequence where everyone's just dancing together

and having a great time sharing information while Anna Karina's singing. It's the best scene in the movie. And that's a great scene, best scene in the movie. And that's where you feel like this is the movie he wanted to make. And you also are like, he just likes all these people.

He just wants to hang out with all these people. Well, it's such a weird fucking thing. He's taking the bones of charade, but right, there's not really a villain. And no one gets too mad about the identity switches. You know,

it's kind of like one brief, it's like, come on. And then they're kind of over it. Which is why the scene, the one scene that I feel like really probably doesn't work, um, is the standoff at the end.

Right. Because it's like, no one really cares. Yeah, everyone's fine. And I love that end because it's like, no one really cares. Yeah, everyone's fine. And I love that it ends with just like, them all just like laying down their guns

like, yeah, we don't really care. But it goes on for so long. Like you assume Robbins is gonna end, you know, like he shows up, he's Tim Robbins,

you're like, he's the villain. He's the math owl role. I know, right. It's so bizarre. Okay, Robbins, he plays creeps, he plays villains.

He'll be right. It'll turn out he's bad. And be right it'll turn out he's bad and yes it does turn out he's bad but right instead of him dying or you know whatever

they're just like yeah well whatever until he dies in the end credits in like a throwaway gag classic Demi end credits

thing he just puts plot in the end credits Hannibal Lecter gag yeah and he has like an Anne Ramsey looking mother

like smiling into a freeze frame as like the last shot of the movie. I mean it's... It's such a weird movie. Because Charade is like this sort of, it's viewed as like a light Hitchcock, like a Hitchcock that Hitchcock never made. Right. Sort of classic where it's Stanley Donen

who is much more of like a lighter, more souffle filmmaker. Sure. And is such a mood guy. And a filmmaker I love. But doing a film that's sort of unusually plotty for him. But the thing that's so fun about Charade is it's got this very convoluted like puzzle box narrative. But the movie is kind of flippant about like, yeah, but what you're really here to see is movie stars. Exactly. And you're here to see Europe.

And you're here to see the locations. It's very location based. And it's a movie that does a great job of it is so confusing. It is so impossible to follow on a scene-by-scene basis. But the movie kind of reassures you, like, don't worry. We'll make sense of it for you in the end. In the meantime, just, like, float on this energy. And everyone is having a ball in it.

Totally. Like, they're all chewing the scenery and just having a blast. And I think everyone was probably doing that on The Truth About Charlie as well. But they're not actors of the they're not the same type of actors. And so it doesn't work the same way. And it's also. The audience doesn't have that relationship. Like Charade is from like the tail end of a certain type of movie star led film where like the movie star is the franchise.

Exactly. And people are like commenting on their own personas. Charade has a bunch of like weirdly self-knowing like fourth wall break jokes about their past films and their careers and their reputations and the age difference between them. And it's sort of like, you know, this isn't reality. This is a Cary Grant movie. Cary Grant movies take place in their own alternate universe. Audrey Hepburn movies take place in their own alternate universe where their wattage transforms everything around them.

And it's as if it were a musical and it takes place in a fantastical land. And then Truth About Charlie is him taking that movie where the plot is already so difficult to follow and then going like, I also want to throw into it the French New Wave, which was largely, oh, let's take the skeleton of, like, a pot boiler. But don't worry about pots so much. Right. It's a girl, a guy, and a gun, but you mix it up, and it's not about that. It's about the riffs, and the playfulness isn't as much the actors, it's the filmmaking, and how the filmmakers are sort of deflating the self-seriousness of the pulpy

material. So he's putting that level of playfulness onto a script that only really worked when it was playful in an entirely different way, and then hiring movie stars who haven't really figured out their movie star personas yet. This is all true. I forgot to mention Stephen DeLayne. Yes, and then it's largely

marketed as a pretty straightforward thriller. Like, the poster looks like it could be any fucking generic, like, that it could be Paycheck. And the trailer as well. Yeah. It's got a bunch of posters too. You've got the one that's like the Eiffel Tower with stamps and a dead body. That looks like the Manchurian Candidate.

If you go see this movie off of that poster, you walk out and burn down the theater. Now, then they also had this one that's a little more lively and cute. It looks 60s pop art. It looks a little Saul Bass-y. I mean, the title itself is more fun than charade, which is like, it's almost like the reverse of when they did Dial Him for Murder, it became A Perfect Murder. They bland

up the title, and this one's like, let's liven it up a little bit. Let's take it to the next level. It's a little jokey. And then, David, as I'm sure you know, in Britain, the posters are horizontal rather than vertical for whatever reason. They always have the subway poster that's... Yes. Well, why would David know that? Because I grew up in Britain.

Why would I know that? Well, because you're a filmmaker who makes movies. I know. I've been quite fond of the subway posters I've had for my films. For the British subway posters? I wish they would fit in my house. Right, that's the thing. I feel like the British poster always has this different thing.

You're not reacting to the fact that I grew up in Britain. It's the truth about David. No, because it is the truth about David. There's something that Lowry just made me think of that's kind of embarrassing and I'm debating whether or not to say it. Alright, well you can think about that for a second but I feel like this poster is it's very small, you guys can't

really see it, but it's the epitome of it's everything is wrong. It's two movie stars getting ready to kiss. That's fine. It's sort of sepia. Their mouths do not look like they're getting ready to kiss. They don't look like they're anywhere near each other, but whatever. At the top, from Jonathan Demme, the Academy Award winning filmmaker of

Silent Slams in Philadelphia. Terrible expectations. The tagline is, everybody has a secret. Which is not a tagline and also just sort of vague and mysterious. Don't you love how they highlighted the word lie? And truth.

That's so clever. And lie. Truth, lie, truth, and lie. The billing is Mark Wahlberg, Tandy Newton, Christine Boisson, like, you know, who plays the... The commandant. Exactly. And Tim Robbins.

And you're like, okay. The truth about Charlie. And then it has a lower card of, like, Anna Karina, Ted Levine. Aznavour? Do they bill Aznavour? No. Okay. Yes. Yes, they do. Whoa! I'm just like,

if I'm seeing that poster, I'm like, what the fuck is this movie? And I just don't see it. And then no one saw it. The embarrassing thing I was debating whether or not to say is I've come very close and I'm still debating whether or not to buy a subway poster off of eBay. I have no idea how I one saw it. The embarrassing thing I was debating whether or not to say is I've come very close and I'm still debating whether or not to buy a tick Subway poster off of eBay. I have no idea how I'd display it. I just think it looks really cool. I think it'd be the most narcissistic thing I could possibly put in my apartment. Yeah, definitely get it.

Get it. Of course. I have like the posters they made that are like the regular dimensions. But the Subway one, it's like a cool format. It is. It's a very pleasing aspect ratio. And there were like a couple of them that all— Yeah, you should at least get it. Have the option.

How much can it be on eBay? Not too much. You can at least have it in your closet and make a decision to hang it later on. I yesterday took a road trip up to Farmingdale, New York to buy two pieces of furniture from the set of the Tick that were being sold off as part of some weird auction. Sure. So I now own two chairs from the set. Congratulations. I'm like

the biggest collector of Tick memorabilia from our show and it's because they wouldn't give me any of this stuff for free. Right. You'll be able to make a suited follow up. Yes. I'm going to self produce a season three. Right. You'll be able to make a suited follow-up. Yes, yes. I'm going to self-produce

a season three. Anyway, anyway. So I just feel like it's this weird jumble that no one, it's for nobody. It's for nobody. Except nerds

who are doing blank check filmographies. Yeah. We were all excited. Like you watch that movie and you see that the woman in the black veil and you're like, oh, who is that?

And then we look it up and we're like, okay, that's like the woman from La Dolce Vita and the Fleeney movies. And you see her again at the end and that extended closeup where Andy Newton's walking past her. She smiles. And I'm just like. It's so weird. I'm like, that's, that's what this movie exists for.

So we can sit here and be like, oh yeah, she was in that. I see. I get it. It's like. Just like where you see Anya Sparta leaving the storage unit for one second. I was like, whoa, there she is. But I just remember this being released as like,

oh, it was pushed back. It was sort of undated for a while. There's some weird Jonathan Demme remake that Universal isn't putting out there. And then when the trailer and poster came out, everyone was like, this looks like a calamity. It made $7 million worldwide and completely disappeared from the public consciousness.

And it wasn't like, I feel like Demi usually, I mean, he was a Berlin favorite. You know, his movies were usually at film festivals. No film festival for this, even though it came out in October in like ostensibly sort of an Oscar-y slot. But it felt like there were no award aspirations. It was a straight commercial play that they didn't even know how to sell.

And looking back at it now, there was like zero press because I can't find – I found that Charlie Rose piece. Right. They must have done the absolute bare minimum on that. It feels like everyone was trying to distance themselves from this thing by the time it actually came out. Like the Manchurian candidate was at the Venice Film Festival. Yeah.

And that was 2004? 2004. at the Venice Film Festival. Yeah. And that was 2004? That's the following film, yeah. I feel like he probably you know, obviously had put a lot into Beloved and just like And that had not worked commercially, really. I'm just going to keep referring to this Charlie

Rose interview because that's all I got. But like he said like he had a couple of false starts in there and that one of them was Hannibal, which he was planning to do. Yes, I think. Until he read the book. Until he read it. And threw it across the room. He was hypothetically prepared to make the follow-up. It made total sense. You're going to do it.

Like, you know, Silence of the Lambs is right, exactly. Why wouldn't you? Look, anyone else in his position would have probably done it. Not anyone else, but the majority of filmmakers coming off of Beloved. I just feel like, sure, yeah. Let me just go back. Let me go to the safe zone.

Guaranteed home run. I'll just fucking pinch my nose and make it. It is so telling that both Foster and Demi are the types of artists where they were like, I would rather not make it than make this. And it's because he cared so much about Clarice, which is what he says. He's like, I read it, and he's like, I love Thomas Harris, and I told him I just don't, I can't accept what you've done to the character. They pulled a Rachel. They threw their book across the room.

Do you think he or Jodie Foster were the first? Because they obviously both basically declined. I think it was probably. Do you think they declined in tandem? Like, I imagine like the book, the manuscript was, the galleys were delivered, you know, with a courier waiting to take them back. And they both sat there and read them like on the same day

I'd like to imagine they were on the phone reading it to each other trading off every other stand like oh it's pretty okay good dick

nope nope you hear they both heard each other throw the book in unison yeah exactly they harmonize

and and so I think he just wanted to the other thing he said in the interview is he really loved the mad spirit of the original charade. Sure.

And mad spirit is something you could also apply to his – Almost all his 80s output. Exactly. So he was like, let me just go do that again. And you look at – I mean, he said he was, like, very involved in the script, which is, you know, maybe that was, like, the biggest surprise. Right. biggest surprise. Right.

Because I assumed he probably just got the original script, had some folks brush it up, and then was like, let me go do crazy panning through dialogue scene camera tricks and things like that. And so the fact that he was as invested in the story as he said he was wasn't a surprise to me. But you look at the way he made it, and that's not surprising at all. You're like, he just wanted to go make a film like that again. And I sympathize with that. not surprising at all. You're like, he just wanted to go make a film like that again. And I sympathize with that. But it is weird. It's like he's using

this as a vehicle to make his... to do the kind of filmmaking he wants to do. Yeah, and he's like, the digital video stuff, like he's like throwing formats out. Yeah, I feel like that scene with Tim Robbins by the river was all done in HD. Yes. Like early 90s HD. There's like the one in the cab

with Tami Noonz and Mark Wahlberg that's all. And then the Eurostar thing, you know, where they're in the train and like the camera's all shaky and. You're like,

he's doing this two years before a collateral. Yeah, this is like Attack of the Clones. But like a year after Ali, which has that really grainy digital stuff when he's running.

Yeah. Right. It's very odd. It also is this weird thing. It's his whole crew is there. It's also that thing of like in the, I feel like the late 90s, early 2000s especially, and this is sort of like the tail,

not the tail end, but a couple years later, this kind of completely dries out. But Hollywood has not figured out how to perfect a franchise model yet. So few franchises actually work that the way that they can find kind of security in developing a property that feels field tested to them with a built in audience is take a classic Hollywood film and remake it with really big movie stars of the moment. Right. And it feels like that's the kind

of blank check you can get is whatever you want to do if you can figure out how to attach it to a remake of a studio film from the 1960s and you can pick two people who are either major stars or on the rise they'll give you like 40 to 60 million dollars to do it. Sure. I wonder what the budget of the Psycho remake

was. Are you like me that you think that movie is kind of great? I love that movie. Yeah! Isn't it good? Fun fact. Let's see. $60 million. Same budget. Jim Whitaker, who produced Pete's Dragon and I'm working on a new film with him now. That was his first producing credit.

I was like, I hope you're proud of it. What is his takeaway? The thing he told me was that his big influence as a producer on that film was gus van sant wanted to make the shower tile green he's like gus it's got to be white that is bonkers so that was the big thing he talked us out of i'm sure there's a lot more that movie is so wonderfully strange it's a it's so great it's a it's a lot more to it than that. That movie is so wonderfully strange.

It's so great. It's a piece of film criticism. And I, in a way, wish The Truth About Charlie was more of that in some ways. I mean, the thing about Psycho, though, that it has over a remake of Charade or a remake of almost any movie that exists is that Psycho is one of the most visually intelligible movies ever made. So every copy is recognizable. And then any tweak, you're like why'd he do that? Because there are so few tweaks. But anytime he does one, it sends a shiver up your spine.

It presents itself to you. It becomes like Warhol's Empire. Where like anytime anything happens, it feels like a seismic event. It is such a good movie. It is so strange. I feel like it probably almost plays better now that Vince Vaughn has tipped back to Weirdo. You know, like, at the time he was kind of this sort of like interesting dramatic actor. Then he goes full comedy and it's like, it's so weird that he played Norman Bates.

But now it's kind of like, actually, there was something to that. Well, it's a good thing it won the Razzie Award for Worst Director. I hope he's proud of that. Gus? Yeah. I feel like he has given so many interviews with so many different answers as to why he made it. It's almost become this thing where he toys with people about it. I hope he's proud of the Razzie.

I hope he displays the Razzie. He has an Oscar. No, he doesn't have an Oscar. He doesn't. No, but he's got a nomination. He's got a couple of noms. Yeah. Anyway, I know what you

mean. I feel like the blatant references to the French New Wave are a way of saying this is in communication with film history. Totally. We're having a conversation. But it's a little bit too on the nose. You think when Charles Aznavour just shows up in a hotel room, materializes

to say? Or when he plays the record and he's like you know Aznavour, he's like oh shoot the piano player, right know, he has to, or he's like, oh, shoot the piano player, right? Of course I know shoot the piano player. Then cut to footage of shoot the piano player. Right. Then he has to put the stars and directors of the film he's referencing. Do you think he made him watch it and stuff? Like, I love imagining, do you show movies for your crew

and cast? It's so hard now. We always try to, and this, you know, on this last film, we did a kickoff where we're like, let's watch something that has nothing to do with. Sure. You know, we always have the reference material that we talk about. But then we're like, let's watch something that just gets us fired up about movies. So we watched American Movie, which was a great way to.

But then we also watched Lost in La Mancha. Oh, sure. And I was like, maybe that, afterwards, maybe we shouldn't have watched that one. We're about to make a movie where an actor's on a horse. Yeah, that one's close to the bone. Exactly, exactly. I just like the idea of Demi being like, Mark, Tandy, Lisa Gaham,

we're going to shoot the piano player and charade back to back. I don't know. It's just fun imagining Mark Wahlberg watching the act of the piano player. Yeah, we're watching the Gleaners tonight. All right? Get ready.

Well, it is that. I mean, I keep on harping on this, but it's the thing that I find so fascinating about this movie. It's such a tough life for these Gleaners. The movie's best quality and its most confusing aspect is that, right, it's relying more on the playfulness behind the camera rather than the playfulness in front of the camera. And if movie stars are being that playful, you can kind of sit back and feel a sense of comfort and security and I'm in good hands even if I don't understand what's going on. They're winking without winking. I can coast on this.

Whereas when the filmmaker is being that playful, if it's breathless and the plot doesn't really matter, you can vibe on that because you're not disoriented by how little you understand whereas this when every scene every character is redefining who they are what their relationship is to everyone else and what they're trying to get even i having seen charade probably five times charade is a movie that i love i've weirdly seen so many times just because i always watch it with other people and And it's one of those movies where if you ask me the day after I've watched it what it's about, I cannot tell you.

When I'm watching it, it makes sense in and of itself. And more than like a day away from a viewing, I cannot even remember the basic gist of it. And watching this, having seen Charade five times, not having seen this movie before, I kept on going like, what actually happens in charade

a film I've seen more than most films and it's all the same thing because this movie has more information identical plot yes and they're like explaining things even more but it's still harder to right because you're like something feels like it's being obfuscated for me here like there's something right from the beginning

you're being invited to pay attention to the plot more you are and as a result and the plot more. You are. And as a result, the plot is also just as confusing. We're not going to try and explain that in this episode because it would

just be thankless. It's impossible. This is like the rare Wikipedia synopsis that doesn't try. I went to look at it and I was like, oh.

Yeah, some bullshit happens. I think there are a couple problems. One, Wahlberg is not great at changing his persona. No. So anytime it's like it turns out I'm this guy, it seems like he's just the same guy and you can't really get a handle on him.

He has a base level earnestness where he is not above the material, which is so great in so many movies. But in this, you need someone who is sort of like Cary Grant or that George Clooney could do where he's sort of like, like you were saying earlier, hey, everybody, you're in safe hands. I know what's going on. I'm going to be at the end of the movie pulling the rug out from under you, and it's going to feel great. You watch the whole movie thinking, does Tandy actually know everything, and that's going to be the twist? Right. Which is not the twist. Because no one would fall for what he's selling.

Exactly. No one's going to buy that. So it's like, is there some final Tandy twist? But there's not really. No. And it's just like, okay. Okay. I guess it was really. No. And it's just like, okay. Oh, okay.

I guess it was okay. Right. In lieu of talking about the plot, I want to go a little deeper on these two performances specifically. So like the Cary Grant thing is so fascinating because like so much of the mythology of Cary Grant is the he is a created ideal. He's Archibald Leach. That famous quote where he's like everyone wishes they were Cary Grant including me. You know that he was sort of so knowingly and openly to the public, like, I have created a persona, in quotes, that is a

perfected character. You know, Cary Grant has as much to do with Archibald Leach as like Groucho Marx has to do with Groucho Marx. And so it means that even though he is not transforming himself every time the character reveals himself to be a different person, Cary Grant in and of himself is so much a facade that you accept that this guy is fake and that you're never going to get to the bottom of the layers.

The Wahlberg thing is the exact opposite where he is so earnest and so incapable of playing outside of his range. He is so quintessentially who he is that there's something kind of nice about the fact that the movie does not make him work too hard to try to sell him as being anything other than what he is, that there's something kind of nice about the fact that the movie does not make him work too hard to try to sell him as being anything other than what he is, that he always sticks out as a sore thumb, and as a counterpoint to Cary Grant, who is so confident, so smooth, so successful and seductive, that Wahlberg always feels like a guy who's trying a little bit too hard to sell this idea. And the best Wahlberg scene is the end of the movie where he goes to his weird office underneath the stairs and you're like, this is this like dorky American guy who has completely

failed for two hours to sell the idea that he belongs in Europe. That his office is like littered with literal footballs and he's got a suit that doesn't fit him really well and he's like some dork who like actually would be a spy rather than the kind of like slick James Bond-y spy. That's pretty appealing. It's pretty appealing the scenes where it feels like it taps into that, where it's like he's almost a little too academic and studied in trying to be a charming light person. The problem is you don't believe she would ever fall for it or that anyone would ever fall for it. It does seem ridiculous to me.

All the lines from the original film, like just them saying, I love you. You're like, what? Seriously? Come on. He feels like the quarterback deciding to do the high school play. And you're like, he's pretty good considering. He's got some street presence. I will say when I saw the movie in 2002

I liked his performance a lot I was fully sold on Mark Wahlberg you want to believe in the future of Mark Wahlberg I still like him one of the funniest things that's completely random is like when Ted 2 came out I was like can't wait to see Ted 2

I really like Ted 1 and my wife was like you never saw it and I was like yes I did really like Ted 1. And my wife was like, you never saw it. And I was like, yes I did. I love Ted 1. And then I was like, oh wait, I haven't actually seen it. You felt culturally like you had seen it. I felt like I had culturally seen it. The trailers had made me laugh. And I really like Mark Wahlberg.

So I just assumed that I saw it and loved it. So I wrote a whole review of Ted 2 based on the premise that I had not seen Ted 1. And had to rediscover it. Did you do it for TalkHouse? Yeah. Did you ever watch Ted 1? I did. Sure. Well, there you go. You got to it. I saw both of them.

Sure. Fair enough. I would argue that Ted 2 has a pretty great premise, even if it doesn't know what to do with it. We talked about Ted and Ted 2 too much on this damn podcast. Ted 1 has no premise outside of the main hook. It's got no story. It's just a series of things happening

for two hours, essentially. The idea of Ted 2 is does Ted exist as a human being? Does he deserve human rights? He is a magical creature created by a wish. Should the government be able to view him as a Senian being? I think it's a pretty

insane premise for a film. I mean, it kind of goes into some of the stuff you talked about with Forky. Yeah. Our greatest movie star. Do you like Forky? I like Forky. Oh, boy. Wow.

I'm very qualified. I did not think Forky justified the perfect ending that was Toy Story 3. Wow. So you're just sort of like, no sequel necessary. Toy Story 3, I saw it with the aforementioned John McGarry here in New York, and I was just like shaken to my core. I was like, this is the perfect ending to a franchise. I was willing to go into Toy Story 4,

ready to have that franchise reignited, but I was like, you know what? I didn't need it. I mean, yeah, because I didn't need it weird I mean yeah because I I'm honestly a Toy Story hyper fan but I prefer the ending of 4

which I know I'm in a wild minority on among the Toy Story hyper fans yeah also amongst everybody I feel like even the people

who like 4 prefer the ending of 3 but the Forky thing for me is just so robust and I want Disney to start announcing the Forkys in other movies

sure that'd be so good I want them to be like Forky do a Forky if I me is just so robust, and I want Disney to just start announcing that Forky's in other movies. Sure. That would be so good. Right. I'll do it. I want them to be like Forky is playing. You'll do a Forky? If I make another Disney movie, I'm going to pledge right now. If I make another Disney film, I will put Forky in it.

Forky's going to be in that one. I'm just waiting for them to be like, never mind, Javier dropped out of negotiations. Forky is playing King Triton in the little barn. Is Javier Bardem playing King Triton? As of now, Javier Bardem is in aggressive talks to play King Triton. He keeps wielding a trident! What do you think he's going to wear? He's not going to be shirtless.

No. He can't be, but then it's not King Triton. King Triton is true. The chest is really where the authority comes from. That's where the performance comes from. From Kenneth... Oh, it's Kenneth Mars as King Tritonz which is so weird the nazi from the producers oh sure is the voice of king triton glad he's the nazi from the producer anyway yes um very curious

what the me too and you're like aren't they gonna dye his hair white is he gonna have a long white wizard beard he must right not oppose it or is pose. Or is he going to be good? He might be beardless with white hair. But could he do that? I don't know. There are certain things. Legally?

Like Awkwafina playing Scuttle. We were just talking about it. That's fine. All about it. Who's playing Flounder? Jacob Tremblay, your man. Ah, the Trem.

I love him. Our most consistently bankable movie star. Wow, Dr. Sleep putting a dent in that. Well, but that's, he's not even advertised. I know. Have you seen Dr. Sleep? They put him above the title. He gets eviscerated Dr. Sleep put in a dent in that. Well, but he's not even advertised. I know.

If they put him above the title. He gets eviscerated by it. It's a pretty brutal scene. If they put him above the title, that movie would have opened to 80. I have to imagine he wanted to. Like he was like, really murder me. Like I haven't done that yet.

I mean, obviously Mike Flanagan has his players. And so he's just like, hey, Jacob, want to be in this? And he's like, yeah, whatever you do. He was thirst trapping Mike Flanagan going murder me mike flanagan it's i just feel like he's a risk-taking actor who's like i want to do something new i want to be eviscerated by rebecca ferguson on screen in like a 10 minute sequence that's really quite upsetting fucking trembley yeah i mean i think it's maybe your finest piece of writing ever.

Finest piece of writing ever? If I had to be the one who chose what to submit for your Pulitzer bid, then I'm not winning. I would pick Jacob Tremblay is reviving the mid-budget studio film

with his bare hands. After Good Boys. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good Boys, a great box office. Yeah, that's true. Okay,

Thandie Newton. What's weird about- Thandie, that's true. Okay, Thandie Newton. What's weird about- Thandie or Thandie? Is that Thandie? Is it Thandie? You're right. I'm a moron. Thandie Newton.

What I find interesting about this performance is it feels like she is really going for Audrey Hepburn. She is giving- She's the one actor in this movie giving a performance that would fit into the classic charade. Right. Whereas everyone else is doing a weirder, more modern thing. She is very much playing like classic Hollywood star. And especially in terms of like this weird balancing act, the charade pulls off, which is all these horrible things are happening and they're rolling off their backs. Right.

Like water. Like it's like Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn constantly are witnessing people being murdered and going like, oh ho hum and making small like Hollywood banter. It's so,

like when she's like, I wouldn't take a bath in there if I were you. Like it's just so charming. Yeah. I find her very charming. Yeah, it's just delightful. It's very odd though

because it is, she's on a different tenor than everyone else where although Demi is trying to be playful, I feel like he's a little more interested in the stakes of this world rather than Charade, which treats death as like a weird inconvenience. This movie, like every time someone dies, it lands with proper emotional weight. He is concerned about them being human beings and not like nameless thugs. It's totally true, although I did find it really weird that Lisa Gay Hamilton dies in a pile of lettuce and tomatoes.

Very weird. Visually, it was very strange. No one's mad about it. No. Yeah. Like people should be maybe a little more upset about it, right? They react the same way everyone else in charade does. But like you feel like Demi's empathy is like, this is a loss of human life.

Of course. And which it is but then Tandy Newton starts crying and it feels so odd at that point in the movie that she is reacting that strongly to something

because you've seen her respond to news that her husband got murdered with a bunch of pithy like bon mots she was definitely going to divorce him she was definitely

going to divorce him even though Stephen Delane is a very charming and handsome man with a nice face. Weird look in this film. They gave him that hair.

Greasy hair. They're giving him the Da Vinci coat hair. And the thing that Game of Thrones, which he was on for many years and despised every second of, is he's been very clear. Yeah, he's always just been like, it was stupid and I didn't like it. And everyone's like, it's like your most famous role now. And he's like, well, it was awful. He played the Thrones?

He was Stannis, my personal favorite Game of Thrones character. I've heard that name. The Lobster? Stannis the Lobster? He has the personality of a lobster? He does have a bit of a personality of a lobster. Wait, what were you going to say, David? Charlie gets more screen time in this than the original. In the original, he just dies and gets a nice close-up. But that was what was weird.

The original, the deaths are all very visceral. Like, drowning in a bathtub, stabbed in the throat. The deaths are very Hitchcock-y and then no one takes them seriously. Exactly, which is delightful. Right. And this is weird

where it's like the deaths are sort of like offhand but everyone takes them very seriously. Because Demi is such a sweetheart. He is so fundamentally, right, as you say, just upset about, you know, a person. I'm still not completely sure

how Ted Levine dies. Me neither. Horribly. He died horribly. I assume he was like how Ted Levine dies. Me neither. Horribly. He died horribly. I assume he was like blow darted or poisoned. Or scared to death by Jim Robbins. But also there's an earlier scene where he's doing acupuncture on himself and no one comments on it. He has like the three needles just hanging off his left cheek or whatever.

So you're like, is he trying to treat a very specific pre-existing medical condition or is he a guy who's just constantly experimenting? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Levine's just got such good energy in any movie he makes. Like, he's just always someone I want to pay attention to. Yeah, he honks. Oh, I feel it's safe to say this at this point. But when I made Ain't Them Body Saints, we cast Ted Levine in it.

In the carotene part? In the carotene part. He wasn't ultimately able to do it, but for a brief period, I was in touch with him. And the first communication he ever sent to me was an email with a video attached. And maybe I can—I might be able to find it. But it was just him playing the banjo for four minutes. And at the end of it, he looked in the camera and was like, howdy. Oh, my God.

And so even though he didn't wind up being in the movie. He just made me rock hard. I will treasure that forever. Wow. And hopefully someday I can work with him. God. Wow. That fucking rules.

It's as good as it sounds. Yeah. Like I'm not underselling it or overselling. Yeah. Like I'm not underselling it or overselling it at all. I'm perhaps underselling it. We were talking about in the Sons of the Lambs episode how it's interesting

that he's a guy who's never stopped working at things of various sizes and it still feels like he's underused. It still feels like he so rarely gets the chance to really play to his strengths

even though he does such a wide array of different things in different genres with different people and it feels like he's out there. He's just so fascinating. He is somewhat fascinating. What's he done recently?

He was the villain in the last Jurassic World movie for the first half. Oh, that's right. Until it becomes an auction thriller. Which the auction thriller is unfortunately the part I like more in that movie. Same here. He's fine in that movie,

but it's also like a character that's been done in Jurassic Park. Every single one of those. So it's just kind of, he's like, no, but I'm the big game hunter who's really figured out

what I want here. He's playing Muldoon, but older. That's a movie that just sort of happened. Big hit. Yeah, big hit. Did you see the short just sort of happened. Big hit. Yeah, big hit. Did you see the short film?

I did. Can I throw out a hot take? Because everyone was asking for my take on it. Oh, the Trevorrow film? What was it called? A Battle at Big Rock. Okay. I kind of liked it.

Uh-huh. I think it's the best thing Trevorrow's directed. It was, we shot The Green Knight, the movie I'm finishing now, in Ireland. And they shot that in Ireland. So they basically, we were starting Green Knight, the movie I'm finishing now, in Ireland, and they shot that in Ireland. So they basically, we were starting prep while they were shooting that, so we got to go. Andre Holland, is it? Yeah. It was like a random thing that they shot in Ireland, because it takes place in California.

Yeah. But it was pretty cool to go see a big T-Rex animatronic on stage, I have to admit. I was like, I see the appeal. The movies are what they are, but getting to make one movie with a giant animatronic T-Rex is pretty awesome. But also, the one he previously directed didn't have any animatronics. The only animatronic in it

is the one dinosaur that's dying. So it's nice that Battle of Big Rock has active animatronic dinosaurs. I think it's pretty moody. It's nice in that it feels like it's very focused on what it's doing. It feels very streamlined. I think it ratchets tension pretty successfully. He's working with a good actor.

I think the end is pretty interesting because it feels like the first time I've clearly seen Trevorrow having his own total unique take on the Jurassic world that isn't tied to what Spielberg's done. You're talking about the ending, like the credits,

the ending? Yeah. The goofy, like, you know, here's people interacting with dinosaurs in real life, perhaps horribly.

The credits of the film are like cell phone footage of people having terrifying encounters with dinosaurs out in the real world. What was that Russian dash cam movie?

Oh, yes. It's like that. That should What was that Russian dash cam movie? Oh, yes. It's like that. That should be with the entire next draft. What the hell is that called? It's not called the car movie, but it's called something like that. The something movie, right? The road movie. The road movie.

It made me kind of excited to see what the next one is. I would so thoroughly love to be proven wrong and go hog fucking wild on the next Jurassic World. And the short gave me a little bit of excitement. Cool. I'm going to watch it. Yeah. Truth About Charlie. Truth About Charlie.

Tandy Newton is doing real old Hollywood stuff. None of the deaths are taken seriously by the characters, but they are by the film. Yeah, that's true. The deaths feel kind of incidental in terms of how they actually happen. There's some pretty lovely Paris location stuff. Yes. Like the original. They made good use of the city.

Exactly. The Ferris wheel scene is great. Yeah. You know, sort of Sh of third man as well. It is one of those things that also doesn't get talked enough about, I think, in Paris set films, which much like Beetlejuice, if you say Charles Aznavour twice, he shows up and serenades you. And most films totally overlook that. They do. They just don't say it.

It's a scientific fact. It's a scientific fact. I wonder, like, I was, he was definitely, I can't imagine he was there at the same time that they were shooting Mark Wahlberg and Tandy Newton at the end of the movie. So, like, Jonathan and me was like, all right, guys, look in the camera. Imagine this charming old French man singing to you and just dance and smile. Just smile. So much smiling. Because they, like, kiss. They have this, like, Hollywood happy romantic ending.

Because they like kiss. They have this like Hollywood happy romantic ending. Then they look straight at the camera and you're like, is this movie going to end with them just winking to the camera and going, we're movie stars? And then you realize, no, it's Demi doing his like subjective close up. And in fact, they're not looking at the camera. They're looking at their old buddy, Charles Aznavour, back for a reprise of his original song from the film. Not his song originally for the film, but the one song he sings twice in two different languages. What a weird fucking way to end this movie.

It's a weird way to end a weird movie, but it's a weird movie. And that's not the ending, as we discussed. They've done two Austin Powers at this point where they do the joke of, you hear Burt Bacharach playing, and then Mike Myers goes,

ladies and gentlemen, Burt Bacharach, and the camera whips around to show Burt Bacharach in the location. For Demi to do that after it's been made fun of twice is pretty insane. Right. I wonder if Demi had watched Austin Powers. I feel like he had to have.

He would have loved those movies. Yeah. He would have really felt for Austin. This man, he's out of time. He's been woken up. Now we're turning him into this Miyazaki figure. Sure. I think, I mean, okay.

So solemn. I watched this Charlie Rose interview this morning and they make lots of jokes about his name. Really? Just talk about Charlie.

I'm sure. It constantly comes up. God, Charlie Rose, what a hack. Because I do feel like that when you go, oh, Charlie, my name.

He's the ultimate example of he was doing so little that it almost looked like he was a genius because it almost felt like it was intentionally minimalistic. This guy has to be good at what he's doing. And the set's so simple, the music is so sophisticated, and his questions are so dumb

that people could use them as launching pads to get into interesting realms of conversation for 10 minutes that I feel like his guests always made it look like he was a better interviewer. But I've heard this story of when Wes Anderson went on Charlie Rose to promote Rushmore and apparently took Charlie Rose 30 takes to get Bottle Rocket right. He went, his first movie, Battle Rocket.

Bottle Cat. Yeah, every time. B first movie, Battle Racket. And they go, Charlie, back to, yeah, every time. Bottle Racket, Battle Rocket. I once saw him interview Vince Gilligan live at some screening for Breaking Bad or something. Yeah. And he was, at one point, just went, so, you know, the Boston Marathon bomber, Tsarnaev, he liked Breaking Bad, apparently. What do you think of that? And Gilligan was like, uh, I Bad, apparently. What do you think of that?

And Gilligan was like, I mean, I don't know. I don't like that. But he didn't even ask questions. He was just like, what do you think of that? That's his interview style. But also the Charlie Rose interview style of, okay, here are people who are in the junket circuit, right? They're doing all these like five-minute interviews where they're being asked the same dumb questions over and over again. Then you go to Charlie Rose. It's spaced out.

There's no pyrotechnics. And he leans in and goes, so why do you make this movie? Which is not a very interesting question, but allows someone to get into it. Literally, he's like, that's the beginning of this interview. Of course. So why a remake? Now, to be fair, a solid question for the truth about Charlie. Yes. Why make this movie is, a solid question for the truth about Charlie. Yes.

Why make this movie is a pretty solid question for this one. So that's when he brought up the term mad spirit. Okay. So then you're like, okay, I get it. I know Demi. I know why he made this movie. It all makes sense. The thing that really got me this morning when I was watching this interview was that he was so happy talking about it.

Like he was so enthused. He just, you could tell that regardless of whether he was happy with how the film turned out or happy with his reception, by that point, clearly the writing was probably on the wall. Right. After the film had been delayed. Right. I think that he loved it. Wow. And you could just feel this coming out.

And like that just, and when I, the one time I saw him in person talking about the Robert Downey Sr. film, he was just so pleased to be talking about it, just was so excited to be talking about it. And so that love for his characters I think transmitted to the film at large. And regardless of whether the film is beloved, no pun intended, or not, I think he really cared about them. Like even if he didn't invest himself completely and i'm sure he did but like he just like loved the movie and that was really moving to me to see and that was one of those things that like i aspire to myself is to like have that like to just be in love and yeah sometimes they don't turn out sometimes they're not the best thing ever

but like there was integrity behind my desire to make it and the people I made it with I love so much and they did such good work. He always talks about the good work that everyone else does. He says that, you know, he always tries to hire people who are smarter and better than him. Right. And he's so modest and sort of like collaborative in that sense. And so he never would put down a movie because he'd be putting down his collaborators who he loves so much. And I just really was touched by that. He was so infectious whenever he was talking about films, whether it was like presenting something or talking about his favorite things or even talking about his own films.

And he's maybe the only filmmaker I can think of where any time in any interview, and I've been trying to watch and read as much as I could, which there's not a ton, but throughout this miniseries, anytime he cites the work of someone else who worked on the movie, it always feels so genuine and wholehearted. It never feels like he's just sort of giving lip service to someone where he'll talk about like the great Carol Littleton, one of the best American editors alive. What she did in this film is magnificent. And a lot of times also when people say things like that it somehow feels like they're complimenting themselves

you know they're talking about how good that person's work was in their movie and it's like they're talking about I gave them a chance to do good work whereas this is more and look at how much my movie owns versus him he's just like what a professional you know this person came in and did their job so well and I'm so grateful for

it right it is though weirdly a movie almost like it's funny Professional, you know? This person came in and did their job so well, and I'm so grateful for it. Right. It is, though, weirdly a movie, almost like it's funny that it got invoked here, but like the Gus Van Sant Psycho, where I can't imagine watching this and not having seen Charade because it is so convoluted plot-wise that you kind of need to know what the normal version of this movie is

to be able to appreciate what he's doing as a director so that you can take away those aspects. And then there's that weird fact that the DVD had Charade as on the second disc because Charade was public domain. That's so weird. So they just chucked it on too. But it's just so funny to think that the movie comes out, it's a bomb. People are like, why did he remake Charade?

And they do a DVD and Demi's like, put the movie everyone likes on the special feature why not and charade criterion and put out charade they had gone out of print okay yeah it had gone out of print and then later it came back and they restored it and everything but it was available as a dvd extra at that period of time it was the first time charade had been on dvd in like five years uh in any good format because there were all these like horrible dollar bin public domain transfers. It's so weird. What a weird movie. Also, I feel like people will perhaps listen to this episode and be like, all right, we're going to buckle ourselves in for a weird movie.

And it's not weird in the way that you expect. No. It's weird, but it's not so weird that you're watching Dadaist art. No, it's right. It still has these weird formulaic thriller elements that don't really work.

They don't work because the stakes are just sort of a little absent. They feel like doing homework. And there's no romantic, there's not much romantic tension between Mark and Tandy, even in the scenes where they're like, oh, I have to get undressed

and change or take a shower. You know, like these scenes that should be sparking tension don't really, you know, amount to a ton. No, it's so it's more just you watching Demi have this wild time and do scenes like the scene where Anna Karina is singing and

everyone is dancing together and it's sort of joyful. If you know who Anna Karina is, you have it's sort of joyful. If you know who Anna Karina is. You have to kind of know that. And if you don't, you're like, why does this scene exist? Why are these characters doing this? These characters don't know each other yet.

It is also such a weird thing of talking about the joyfulness of his filmmaking process and how much he enjoyed making these movies. joyfulness of his filmmaking process and how much he enjoyed making these movies, most times that we watch movies that are either disastrous or have disastrous reputations, even if we like them and come to their defense, they very rarely look like movies that were fun to make. Yes. You know? It's usually like, man, this was such a difficult birth. How did this turn out this way?

Even if the director stands behind it the actors were miserable or the production crunch was insane something went horribly wrong and this is a weird example of like it looks like everyone's having a fucking ball and the movie selectively translates that to the audience and other times you kind of just can't get in totally yeah completely i also if it was 60 million it must have been a long shoot. Or lengthy. That makes sense. And all in Europe, too.

The budget is tough to reckon with. Because it's so, like, unless Wahlberg's making, like, 15. You know, like, some huge chunk. Right. But it also feels like it makes sense if it's greenlit as a Will Smith movie. Yeah. Definitely. Right.

Even if Wahlberg is getting a 25% pay cut from what Will Smith would have gotten, he's still probably getting an insane amount, and they've also adjusted everything in the budget to the level of Will Smith. That's why people don't say his name twice. I mean, he's like in the $10 million

piece. I am so small. And Hutcherson size. I think it's you know if I were listening to this you know and went and watched this movie the movie I think I'm going to get is Ocean's Twelve. Of course. Right. Something that is basically like

challenging every formal story telling convention in Hollywood. Exactly. It's like what would Harmony Corrine do with this movie? And a movie that is similarly rejected by mainstream audiences and only performed better because it was coasting off of the movie that everyone loved. Exactly. Like the most purely enjoyable movie of a decade is then followed by another weird experiment where a director is like, I want to make an homage to all those weird convoluted Euro thrillers.

Yeah. I really like Ocean's 12. I kept thinking – oh, Ocean's 12. Great movie. Yeah. Fucks. I just want to do Soderbergh, but I don't know how we do it. It's so long.

It's so long and with so many peaks and valleys that like. What if you like skipped every, like if you did every third film? You'd have a great series on your hands, but you'd also be skipping a bunch of great movies. That's true. That's sort of the thing with Soderbergh where you're like, yeah, you can edit, but even the bombs or the weird ones are fertile for discussion. So can I tell you a crazy thing I've been thinking about that I haven't even pitched to you

off mic, but it's a thing I've been experimenting with in my brain, and I want to put this out there as a flyer. What an incredible setup. Yeah, sure, go ahead. What if we all move to Mars? No. Someone like Soderbergh or like Scorsese who we'll talk about where we're like,

oh my God, they're so great. They have like well over 20 movies. It covers so many different periods and genres. You can't really isolate it to just this phase of their career. It will feel incomplete. There's not a clear division point like there is with Spielberg or Verhoeven or whatever. I've had half a thought recently that was like, what if you did someone like Scorsese and we committed to, we're going to sandwich it. Right. Like we're going to do half a Scorsese,

we're going to do two or three little filmographies in between, and then we'll come back. We're just going to do half of a movie. We're going to do half of a movie. But you know what I'm saying? That you would go like, we'll do Soderbergh up until here. Yeah, which we did with Spielberg. But then we're committed to we'll come back and do the other half within the same calendar year.

I don't know. Is that an insane idea? I want to see how people react to that. It's out there. It's out there now. It still becomes a giant, insurmountable number of movies to cover. Totally. It just prevents us from having six months where we're only talking about one person.

Okay. Yeah. Scorsese's the other one, like Soderbergh, where it's like 20 plus movies. But I think they're basically all worth discussing and would be a lot of fun. It's a year. You just have to commit 2022 to Scorsese and 2023 to Soderbergh. Right.

With like a little break. And then in between, you know, in the middle of Scorsese, we do Walt Becker, we do... For fuck's sake. Okay.

Let's play the box office game. Okay. The film, just to point out, as I believe we discussed, made, I think, $6 million domestic, so not good.

And one overseas, I think it made seven worldwide. Which is, hey, European movie, that's a real flop. Even the Parisians weren't buying it. I mean, it made even less than Black Hat.

It made less than Black Hat. Although adjusted, it probably lapped Black Hat. So it opened. Wait, and what was the budget of Black Hat again? That was like $200 million. It wasn't that bad, but I think it was close to $100 million. It was over $100 million. He spent a buck.

Yeah. His movies are not. Ever. The way it opened, they opened it on 700 screens in late October. It's October 25th. Real vote of confidence. You know, and it just opens to 2 million. It's the 14th.

I mean, just a death vote. It doesn't open. Does it ever go wider? Is that? It's a great question. Does it get to expand? Let's see. I'm still getting used to this new box office mojo.

No, it does not. Wow. Nope. I mean, in that case, the multiple is better than I would think. That's true. If it did six. That's true. Alpha two.

But, number one. Okay. October 2002. The inverse of this movie, a very cheaply made film that was a huge hit The Ring that is number two that was what I was going to say

interesting that is number two so that's I mean which is that is a real sensation that's the only movie I remember that's not like this period of time

was like defined for me by Punch Drunk Love and The Ring like two movies that kind of like rocked my October The Ring was kind of seismic I feel like we don't

give it enough credit as a cultural force. I mean, obviously, we want to do Verbinski, and it is an underrated part of his career, and it is a good movie. Yeah, it's a good movie. My hot take is I like it more than the original. I think that it's a better made film than the original.

I do think that the original has that scare that is so profound of her coming out of the TV for the first time. That was a movie that I just rented from my video store knowing nothing and when that happened I really did jump out of my skin. I think the Gore Verbinski one has

the girl under the cabinet door shot cut which is even scarier to me. To this day I will not watch that. I think The Ring was like the first horror movie a lot of people our generation saw in a theater. You know what I mean? First really kind of scary horror movie. I think that the video in The Ring,

the tape, is so good. It's so freaky. I watch it all the time. I am going to die in seven days. I partially hired Boyan Bazeli for Pete's Dragon because he shot The Ring and so I talked to him about that video and he said they made so many different versions

of it at different exposure levels so it would illuminate the actors faces at different it was like getting into the technical nitty gritty of that video was really exciting that video it's on freaking YouTube you can watch it anytime that's also a movie where

like it opened to like 14 and then it went up the second weekend and it ended up doing like well over 100 went 18 the second weekend which is this weekend yeah 18 the third that's nuts that's so crazy and makes 129 domestic 248 worldwide

I mean that 129 off of 15 is a pretty rare phenomenon. Yeah. Is that like Naomi Watts' biggest hit that's not like a King Kong? It's those two, yeah. Yeah. And then the ring too just kind of like doesn't. Doesn't exist.

Yeah. Where they give it to Nakata. Yeah. Yeah. And then rings. Did anyone see rings? Rings. The plane had the tape.

It was on the plane. What? That was a pretty good. Too many screens. That was effective on the trailer. It was effective on the trailer, but it also did feel like, oh, is there a plot to this movie or is this all they got? Anyway, so that's number two.

But number one is it's a comedy. It's an independent-ish film. it's an independent ish film that's a big hit huge hit uh makes oh not okay not huge but it makes 64 on i want to find the budget on a five budget wow uh it's a tv spinoff oh oh oh oh it is one of the best films of the 2000s. I, and I feel like this is a somewhat controversial opinion, think it's probably the best one. Sure. This is Jackass the movie.

It is. An American masterpiece. You think it's three the one that people really gravitate towards? That's the one, yeah. Yeah, because of the 3D. But people also love two. The reason three is like beloved is because it gets so emotional

at the end. They're like, we're all getting old and let's look back at the good times we had together and so that makes everyone like one.

It's great. It's one of the best uses of 3D ever. It was truly a stunning film to watch in the theater. I also think there's the added subtext of Steve-O has gotten sober

and the entire gang decides to do the whole movie cold turkey out of solidarity with him so it's the one movie where suddenly they have dread every time the thing's about to happen whereas in the other ones you can tell they're constantly drunk and they're just like reckless abandon Jackass 3D has the moments where they're just like

why am I doing this? and then the thing starts just like reckless abandon. Jackass 3D has the moments where they're just like, why am I doing this? And then the thing starts. That, I mean, maybe this is true for you guys too, but it really was. I went to a school, a boys school,

as I've spoken about on this podcast. United States country of Jackass. Very common in the United Kingdom to have single sex education. Oh, this is so funny. You misspoke. You meant to say the United States. Now you get to do it. Yes, the United Kingdom. I grew up. Oh, this is so funny. You misspoke. You meant to say the United States. Now you get to do it. Yes.

The United Kingdom. I grew up. No, state. What? All right. And just any lunch break, we're all hanging out in like the homeroom or whatever. Someone would be like, remember on Jackass when they did this? And then it's just like an hour of boys relating scenes from a show we've all watched.

My exact experience. So boring. And yet, like, that's all they wanted to talk about. That is a vital memory for me. It was Jackass and The Simpsons. The Simpsons, which was more my speed. Remember when? I watched Jackass. But Jackass was also the only really boysy thing that I ever felt infected me.

Do you know what I'm saying? You weren't really a wrestling fan. You weren't trying to think of other sports. That wasn't my favorite ilk of comedy. When it got to that level of conversation, if it was video games, usually music genres, I would always sort of be a step out of

my male friends at that time. And Jackass was the one thing where I was like, I am as into this conversation of comparing Jackass clips. Totally. No interest in cars, sports. No. Most music.

Yeah, but Jackass 100%. It's just kind of perfect. And it's also one of those things where it's like you only realize when other people do it poorly what a kind of magical thing they lucked into. Because so much of it is the dynamic of them. It doesn't work if the guys aren't as close as they are on Jackass and you can tell they actually love each other and when people make it and it's kind of sadistic and people just

fucking with each other. What are the other versions of it? Because post-Jackass... I feel like it's 87 MTV shows that we don't even remember the name of. Right, right, right. Where you're like, it's a group, they kind of do the same thing and they promote them really hard and it was five episodes and it disappeared. I feel like I've seen a lot of people who I can't even remember the name of. Right, right, right. Where you're like, it's a group, they kind of do the same thing and they promote them really hard and it was five episodes and it disappeared. I feel like I've seen a lot of people who I can't even remember try

to imitate that kind of thing. And even the Jackass spinoffs never worked as well. They were pretty bad. Yeah, that became a little sad too. Wild Boys. Yes. Who remembers Wild Boys? The Beagle of Bam. Beagle of Bam, of course. Beagle of Bam is the one I know of. Number three is a film. I feel like we've talked about a week...

I've been trying to find which one, but a weekend close to this weekend, because a lot of these films we've talked about before. It's a horror film. I've always thought it's a pretty good time. It had a great tagline. 13 Ghosts or Ghost Ship? Is it a dark...

Ghost Ship. Z-Evil. Julianna Margulies. Gabriel Byrne. Yeah. Crazy scene where a wire cuts a whole party in half. A ship. Man, I miss those Dark Castle movies.

I know. It was like a great brief period where like every Halloween you'd get a really good. Yeah. Even if it wasn't good, I would like really enjoy watching them. Was Dark Castle the Joel Silver? Or was that the Sam Raimi? Silver and Sam Raimi. Because Raimi had one and Silver had one.

I think it was Joel Silver. And it felt like it was good for business that they were competing. They were like the Beatles and the Beach Boys. They were driving each other. Sam Raimi went on to do the grudge, the first grudge. Silver and Zemeckis. Yeah, that's right. It was basically the tales from the Crypt Crew.

Right, that was Dark Castle. House on Haunted Hill, 13 Ghosts, Gothica. Yeah, Gothica. So Ghost Ship, I mean, not a hit. Made 30. I would say that's probably below expectation. Memorable opening scene. Incredible opening scene.

Good premise. Won Best Picture. It did win the Academy Award for Best Picture three years in a row. Yeah, weirdly. They just kept giving it back. They changed the rules. Number four. And I wonder if this is on Disney+, it must be.

Is it Walt Disney Romantic Comedy? But, you know, I would think it's a PG-13 with a big movie star. Is it a touchstone or is it Disney proper? That makes a big difference. Yeah, no, you know how the box office sites just say Disney. Yeah, I know. Oh, right, and I forgot if you search for this.

So, okay, it's October 2002. It's a Disney romantic comedy, but you think it is gentle enough. It was a touchstone. It's gentle enough that you would not be surprised were it on Disney+. I don't think it's this, but for some reason serendipity popped into my head. That's a fair guess, but it's not that. I remember specifically that being a wake of 9-11 movie.

That's right, a year before. Yes. But it's probably the same general time of year. Yes. You said it is or is not on Disney Plus? It is. Because it's interesting which things make the cut. The Dan in real lives. Dan's in real life. It's like attorneys general. Dan's in real

life. Tell me about the stars of this picture. Well, you got a big female star of the decade. Is it Sweet Home Alabama? That's correct. Okay. Yes. That's one of my favorite lines of all time.

Not a good movie in my opinion. Josh Lucas goes, girl, I know you used to be fearless. He does say that. It's such a good line. One of my biggest problems with that movie is that they're so, I think I've talked about this, but they're so like, oh, maybe it's not. I could have sworn I saw it on Disney+. Now I'm not seeing it. Andy Tenet.

Andy Tenet. Yes. Not Andy Richter. I would love to see what he'd do with that movie. And he was busy controlling the universe. He was busy controlling the universe around there. No, it's just, it's so committed to the premise of like, she hates Alabama and hates where she's come from and is very despotic. I haven't seen it, but I just like that line in the trailer.

It's a weirdly angry movie. Well, she, right. When she has come back, she's like, you fucking hicks. I got out of here specifically because you're all such hicks. And Josh Lucas is playing this guy who makes like lightning sand, you know, like, you know, lightning, like where, yeah, where they scoop up like the lightning hit. Right. He's making like sculptures. He has a sea lightning hit. Right, he's making sculptures,

he has a seaplane. It feels like he's at the Brooklyn Bazaar. He's a very successful, independent businessman. And like an artisan. Right, I mean, there should be a scene where he files his taxes just to prove where it's like, this man has an LLC, he's selling his art, he's got a great thing going, and she's like,

you hick. And Patrick Dempsey plays the Baxter in that movie. He's the mayor's son, and the's like, you hick. And Patrick Dempsey plays the Baxter in that movie. He's the mayor's son and the mayor is Candace Bergen. Right. And he takes her on a date. The mayor of New York to be fair. He takes her on a date to Tiffany's and it turns out he has closed down the entire store and the lights go on and all the employees are there and she can pick whichever ring

she wants for her proposal. Wait, is his lightning art being sold to Tiffany's? No, no. These are two different guys. I know, but wouldn't that be an amazing reveal? She's like, any ring you want. And she's like, that one. If the movie were good. At number five is the word of mouth sensation of the year.

We discussed it recently on the podcast. My Big Fat Creek wedding. My Big Fat Creek wedding. Will never happen again. How long ago did that open? They said it's 28th week and it's made 177 on its way to 241. I'm insane. I was a projectist in this period.

Yeah. I can only imagine how shitty that print was by this weekend. Because we never got replacement prints unless something horrible happened. But they would just get like Titanic was in horrible shape when we let that one go. That is so funny to think about. My big fat Greek wedding must have just been in tatters. Because it only finishes

its box office run the following March. That sounds about right. I think it plays for 11 straight months in wide release theaters. Yeah, it played through to April, April 2000. It played a full year.

It played a full. It played a full. It played a full. It played 50 weeks. 51 weeks at the box office. That is fucking bananas. When it hit 52, they were like, you know what? Yeah. You know what?

Wrap it up. Right. That's reserved for Jackie Robinson. You got to leave before you hit 52. And has Punch Drunk Love been out for like two weeks at this point? Punch Drunk Love is number seven. And it has been out for three weeks. Wow.

You're really, I mean, your. Your projection is sister. You got Red Dragon, speaking of Hannibal, which is doing just fine. You got The Transporter. Funny to think that that's that old a franchise. Brown Sugar, which I think is kind of a fun movie. Is that the one, when was

the first time you fell in love with hip hop? That was the tagline for that one? Is that the tagline for that one? I also, I just googled brown sugar which is as stupid as googling sweet home alabama the rhythm the beat the love dot dot dot and you don't stop brown sugar um you got the tuxedo as well just wanted to shout out the tuxedo as well. Just wanted to shout out the tuxedo. It's kind of incredible how much confidence everyone had in Jackie Chan making American Studio Films after Rush Hour and how no one actually knew what to do with him.

And he talks so dismissively about those movies where he's like, yeah, that's stupid. That's not what I'm good at. I don't understand why they want to put me in a tuxedo with a bunch of kids. But he just did them. He cashed the checks. He did tuxedo with a bunch of kids. But he just did. He cashed the checks. He did.

He cashed those checks. Yeah. But he always talks about, he's like, I don't understand this American sense of humor. This is not funny. The action scenes are bad. It's a bad premise.

What's, there's that other. And I'll take it made out to cash, please. What's the other one with a bunch of kids? The medallion? Is that the other one with a bunch of kids? Well,

no, there's the spy next door. The spy next door is the one I'm thinking of. The medallion is. The medallion's a weird of kids? Well, no. There's The Spy Next Door. The Spy Next Door is the one I'm thinking of. That's him doing The Pacifier. The Medallion's a weird... More of a grown-up. It's like... Claire Forlani?

Yes. And it's him doing The Golden Child, essentially. Is it Rennie Harlan directing it? I think it is. Someone like that, yeah. But that's like a mystical... Gordon Chan directed that. Okay.

So, wait, wait. Wait a second. Did Rennie Harlan direct that? Yeah, Harlan must have done a Chan, right? Brian Levant made The Spy Next Door. Of course he did. Director of The Flintstones. Well, you know what? Let me just look up Rennie Harlan must have done a Chan, right? Brian Levant made The Spy Next Door. Of course he did. Director of the Flintstones. Well, you know what?

Let me just look up Rennie Harlan. Yeah. Hopefully he is not a Leonard Skinner song or a type of baking ingredient. Just add two scoops of Rennie Harlan. Rennie Harlan did Skip Trace. Oh, well, that's a real. The recent. With Knoxville.

Knoxville. Yeah. Yes. Remember Who Am I? Who am I? Yeah. Remember that's a real. The recent. With Knoxville. Knoxville. Yeah. Yes. Remember Who Am I? Who am I? Yeah. Remember that one? No.

That was the one I loved. It's a Hong Kong one, but he wakes up and he doesn't know who he is. And he goes, who am I? For the entire movie. The one I loved was Mr. Nice Guy. Yeah, that one. Where he's like, I don't want to fight. And he kept on knocking people out by accident.

But isn't that kind of the tuxedo thing too, where he's like, whoa, I'm not in control of my body. That becomes the joke, like using his body against him. Because the tuxedo thing too where he's like, whoa, I'm not in control of my body. That becomes the joke like using his body against him. Because the tuxedo was like the bionic tuxedo, right? But it's also the difference of like the American films always had to have such a convoluted overthought hook. As to why he could do the things he does. Right, in his films it's like, I don't know, this is the guy's temperament. He's drunk.

Let fights proceed for the next two hours. End credits masterpiece. this is the guy's temperament. He's drunk. Let fights proceed for the next two hours. End credits masterpiece. And then the tuxedo is like, 15 years ago in a secret underground lab, a tuxedo was developed. Four medallions were buried in the desert many centuries ago. Like it's always so overcomplicated.

The medallion has the poster where Claire Forlani's leg is in some crazy angle. Yes. That can't be real. Right, it's like coming out of Jackie Chan's head. Oh, like Ty Sheridan's leg on the Ready Player One poster. I love, I love. Ty Sheridan's leg on that poster

is bananas. Unbelievable. Two years later, we're still talking about it. What the hell is going on here? This is crazy. It's a full split. It's a line. What's Claire Forlani been in recently? Because she was in something recently.

I feel like she was on a TV show. Apparently in 2003 she suffered a massive leg injury. For the listener at home, if you don't have access to the poster for the medallion, if it's not readily available to you, Claire Forlani's legs are at 12 and 6. Yes, they are. That's correct. Maybe, maybe 11. 12 and 6. Yes, they are. That's correct. Maybe, maybe 1145 and 6

if you're being generous. 1150 is the most I'll give you. And Jackie Chan is kind of doing jazz hands. He's sort of like, yeah. Lee Evans is also

billed but not seen. I think he's the villain. I think. I haven't seen him. I wish he was billed but not seen in the movie. He's third on the poster. The great Sonic the Hedgehog poster where James Marsden is first billed.

It's Marsden, Carrie, no Marsden on the poster. Oh, is he not on the poster? No, the poster is Sonic and Robotnik. Not enough room. You got to make room for Sonic. But you don't put shorts on the poster. And you do put Marsden above the title. At this point, that movie is basically about to come out.

Yeah. It comes out next week, according. Yeah. It's just. It's coming. It just. No, it just came out February 14th. Wow.

We're living a post. That's just the craziest story. Yes. In recent Hollywood history. And people were tweeting at me being when I tweeted about it being like, it's bad. Like fans shouldn't have that control. Of course. Where the backlash actually.

Horrible precedent. And I can only imagine, yes, that Paramount went to the visual effects studio and Australian was like, make Sonic look good! And whipping them and like, quicker! But it is just crazy where it's like they released the trailer. It was a calamity. It was a moral calamity. The United Nations assembled.

People were like, this cannot proceed. Paramount was like, you're right. And then they just went dark. And then they come back and they look like this now. And everyone was like, yeah, that's fine. That's A-OK. Slam dunk. And it's like, does the movie look like shit?

Yeah. It looks like fucking garbage. He's like an alien. It looks stupid. But everyone's like, Sana looks fine. I wasn't expecting this to be good. It also looks an alien. It looks stupid. But the difference is everyone's like Sonic looks fine. I wasn't expecting this to be good. It also looks like

the right kind of stupid. Right. Like even the jokes in it are like this is the kind of dumb joke I want out of a Sonic movie. Somehow in that new trailer Jim Carrey works better

than Sonic. It's so insane. It's adjusted everything. It's because of the design. Like now all of a sudden I can contextualize this movie properly. Whereas like when he looks

like the old design, everyone should just be sitting down and being like, what cruel god made you? Your tweet at the time was, what a bad approach to making a Sonic movie. Any Sonic screenplay should start with exterior green rolling hills. And then you see the new trailer, and it opens with the green hill zone,

him running, appropriate music, him saying, hey, I'm Sonic. I like running fast. You go, great. This is the exact kind of cinematic diarrhea we wanted. Feed it to me. Good job. So this opens on Valentine's Day.

It just came out. It just came out. It just came out this weekend. So romantic. What's going to be the top five? Oh, this is a great game. No one's ever thought of this before. This is an evolution on the record.

Wow. You want me to find the release schedule? Like for like, you know, what's sort of like vaguely on the book. I'm going to pull it up too so we can all look at it. Lowry, you have your computer. So Birds of Prey came out a week before. Okay, so that'll be hovering around. You also, some other things that you have hovering around that won't be hovering around

are the rhythm section, the much delayed rhythm section. God knows if that'll actually come out. The Reed Marino film. There seems to be some kind of Hansel and Gretel horror movie called Gretel and Hansel on the books. That's from Osgood Perkins, who I think I've really enjoyed

like the Black Coat Stoddard and the Pretty Thing in the House. Oh, I like the Black, yeah, okay. So he does like weird, like artsy horror films. I could see, but this is maybe a little more mainstream. But the trailer was pretty good.

It's Sophia Lillis from It. Is Gretel? Yes, I saw this. It looks like it could be like a sleeper. I'm sorry. Lock it up. Lock it down.

It'll be doing okay. Conversation over. Doolittle will be topping the box office for the fifth week in a row. No, that will have already, Congress will have already intervened to strike it

from the record. One weekend, they'll be like, America can suffer no longer. We impeach Doolittle. They could have taken the Sonic approach with that. Obviously, it was troubled a long time ago. They could have just released that trailer a year ago. Fans would have been in an uproar.

The Doolittle heads? The Doolittle-ers? They're epileptic right now. Can I say, I think Doolittle heads the Doolittleers they're epileptic right now can I say I think Doolittle is going to be the film that takes the sonic phenomenon one step further where they release it

in theaters and then a week after it comes out they go sorry sorry back to the drawing board pull the movie off the screen

I think it'll be they release it in theaters and then people are like that was a bad movie and you'll be like the last Doctor Doolittle I saw started at Murphy isn't it crazy

that they used to do that though they release a movie if it didn't do well let's pull it let's tinker with it for another couple weeks right

Heaven's Gate famously Citizens Band was one of those right yes this is my prediction

Bird Sonic I think Birds and Sonic are both probably doing in the 40s Kingsman no I think

I think if Fantasy Island opens I think that could be then Kingsman and then I think Photograph could be a sleeper.

That could be a sleeper five. Maybe The Gentleman is hanging on. Also, The Gentleman and Kingsman are too close together. Get these movies further apart. You can't have Guy Ritchie movies and Matthew Vaughn movies near each other. I thought The Kingsman was The Gentleman. Two different films released two weeks apart. Gentleman is,

I think, more of a hard R, Richie. Yeah. Kingsman, I assume, is more of a P13. It's got Ralph Fiennes, Harris Dickinson.

The Gentleman trailer made me laugh more than any trailer I've seen this year, but I will tell you why off mic. The Kingsman also has Risa Fonz playing the villain who is Rasputin. He's playing Rasputisa Fonz playing the villain who is Rasputin.

He's playing Rasputin. It's the welcome return of Rasputin as cinematic bad guy. They've done from Hellboy 1. From Anastasia. Yeah, Anastasia. He's been a villain from, of course, the end days of the Russian royal family. He was a great villain then. But I just love his sort of his evergreen value as a villain in movies that aren't about Rasputin.

You can always just throw him in there. You're like, and guess who's behind it all. Rasputin, that dirty bastard. His powers are just indefinite enough that he can just fit in anywhere. He's bankable. He claims he's a mystic,

but it's all fraudulent. Does he keep his penis in a jar or in his pants? Anyway. Uh, so great. Two great box office games. Great discussion. Truth about Charlie his pants. Anyway, so great. Two great box office games. Great discussion of Truth About Charlie. I recommend people see Truth About Charlie after having made their way through the rest of the Demi films.

I think you want to watch some Demis. You want to watch Charade. And within that context, it's a pretty rewarding watch even if it is not a fully successful movie. On its own, it is a completely confounding object. It really is. And that's why I think people were really distressed when he's like, I've settled on my next project. The Manchurian Candidate. Everyone's like

you mean the good movie that's good? I'm going to remake it. And then it comes out and people are like it's actually not bad. That was sort of the buzz on it. That's about as good as a remake of Manchurian Candidate could be maybe solid adult program

just as good as the original I don't know and then Denzel Shaggy Denzel yeah and like it's like a pharma company or something

I can't it's gonna be great I feel like that and Man on Fire were the same year and that was like or maybe Man on Fire was the year before

I think those were both 04 I think they're both 04 yeah really like the Shaggy Denzel in both of those movies there's a weird trilogy that is Manchurian, Man on Fire, and Taking a Pelham 123. Yeah, which he's also good in, and that movie's pretty good.

Wait, didn't Taking a Pelham 123 come out after the time out of, what was his time? It is later. It's after, what's it called? The other Tony Scott film. Which is the biggest spec screenplay sale of all time. Yeah, the time shuffling one. Isn't that Deja Vu? It's also out of time, but that's the Carl Franklin movie that's really more just like,

look, he's a horny Miami detective and what's going on. That was a couple years earlier. Right. Deja Vu is the one that's quite convoluted. Yeah. But I think those three movies are like, Denzel is still insanely handsome. He is remaking like Hollywood thrillers with kind of shabby

or more broken men in the lead roles. And the thing was always like, how does Denzel rough himself up enough so that he has big Matthau energy? And Unstoppable.

Yeah, Unstoppable. Unstoppable, he's great. It is so good. Those late Tony Scott movies are fantastic. Isn't, I miss, Deja Vu is the only one I haven't seen.

I haven't seen Deja Vu either. From what I understand, it's a treatise on filmmaking and film montage. Yeah. Which I would is the only one I haven't seen. I haven't seen Deja Vu either. From what I understand, it's a treatise on filmmaking and film montage, which I would love to see because I felt like Man Fire was already approaching that

in a pretty significant way. I remember thinking like Man Fire feels like if Guy Madden got to do a big budget action film. That's a really good take. And I don't know if that holds up.

Guy Madden, make Captain Marvel 2. I don't know. I don't know if Iden, make Captain Marvel 2. I don't know. I don't know if I'd actually want to see it. No, I know. Yeah, right. It's one of those double-edged. Yeah, exactly.

Does he actually want to waste his time on that or whatever? But also, Man on Fire comes right after Domino, and Domino, everyone was like, too much, Tony, stop it. Domino is too much. And then he's like, give me one more, give me one more. And then Man on Fire is a lot. That's the one with the subtitles. I love that.

It's so good. The use of subtitles. It's incredible. It's almost like... He's hot as death. He's going to paint his masterpiece. It's like his Gemini Man, where he insisted on doing the same thing that everyone revolted against the last time, except Man on Fire was really successful and very well received.

It wasn't that well received, but it was very successful. The New York Times review, I remember being a rapturous. Some people have said it was really sordid. People were really grossed out by it. It's't that well received but it was very successful. The New York Times review, I remember being a rapturous. Some people said it was really sordid. People were really grossed out by it. It's kind of an insanely gross movie. It is a dark fucking movie. It's also really long.

Yeah. It's dark and it's heavy and it's grotesque. And he blows a guy's ass up. It's got one of the greatest line readings of Greasy's artist death and he's about to paint

his masterpiece. No. For me, the greatest line reading is the guy says like, I wish, and he's about to paint his masterpiece? No. For me, the greatest line reading is the guy says, like, I wish. And he goes, wish? One of my wish. I wish that you had more time. And he spaces it out like that.

That's even better than grill on you. You should be fearless. That's when he's got to bomb up a guy's butt. He's got a butt bomb. All right, David, thank you so much for coming in. Thanks for having me back. Please just come back every couple weeks. This is great.

I would love to. I'll figure out, I'll find a reason. Yeah, just wipe your slate clean. And your film will come out undecided, undisclosed date in 2020. This February 14th, we can, you know. It's a lot of space. By this point, everyone will have seen the trailer. Cool.

They'll have formed an opinion. I'm amped to see this. I notably get involved with my trailer, so I think the trailer will accurately represent the movie. Cool. And any excitement derived therefrom will be justified. It's a really weird movie. Nice. We'll see.

I'm excited for people to see it. Is it horny? I think the tale is so horny. It's an adaptation of the tale of the Green Knight. Yeah. From a third-year legend. So I kind of discovered a lot about myself in this movie, and I thought it was going to be a pretty horny movie. It's a very, like, my Catholic chasteness from having grown up Catholic came through.

And, like, so it is very horny in some regards, but like it doesn't go over the top. And I was like kind of disappointed with myself for not pushing that boundary. You've cast such a handsome leading man too. I mean, fans of Dev Patel are going to be very happy, I think. Fantastic. I like to hear. And I think that they will, you know, be even bigger fans of him after this film. Sure.

I think that they will be even bigger fans of him after this film. Any horniness in the film probably will come from his performance. Has he got locks? He's got locks. He's got facial hair. Oh, boy. He is a dreamboat. He is such a dreamboat. Was he using the moisturizer technique?

In his hair? Yeah. Oh, yes. Do you know this, David? That article came out. He put Cetaphil on his hair and that's the secret. Well,

it's a that works. It fucking works. Oh, God. I don't know what to tell you. If the movie had already opened, I would tell you something else about that product.

All right, let's get off, Mike. We're done. We're done. You have too much to say. There's some exciting stuff. Anyway, I hope I hope the movie is I hope the trailer is

is, you know, getting people excited to go see it and hopefully it's out by this point. So we're plugging the trailer and film hopefully coming soon. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's been sold to Apple. What? They're like, actually, we're going to sell this to Apple. It's going to be hitting streaming in 2021.

We'll see. Well, thank you for being here, David. Thank you. And thank you for being here, David. Thank you. And thank you for being here, David. Thank you. And thank you for being here, David. Thank you. And thank you for being here, Rachel. I'm David now. Oh, okay.

The three Davids. And thank you all for listening. And please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. And thanks to Andrew Guto for our social media. And thank you to Lane Montgomery for our theme song. And thank you to Pat Reynolds and Joe Bowen for our artwork. And next week we got Manchurian Candidate coming. We teed that

up pretty cleanly now. So tune in for that. And as always, I think Sonic the Hedgehog is gonna honk. I've had that pleasure, Reggie.

Yeah, perfect. Okay, ready? I'm going to point at you when it's time for the line. Have you ever been in love in podcast? Can't say. Oh, Jesus. Jesus. I said I was going to point.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry.