Blank Check with Griffin & David - Thirst with Hoai-Tran Bui

Episode Date: August 13, 2023

Move over, Dracula. Eat your heart out Edward Cullen. A new sexy vampire is in town, and he just happens to be a PRIEST! Park Chan-Wook reunites with the wonderful Song Kang-ho to put his own stamp on the popular genre with 2009’s THIRST. Inverse’s Hoi-Tran Boi joins us to chat about this darkly funny (and devilishly sound-designed) film, an adaptation of Emile Zola’s classic novel Thérèse Raquin. How do the rules of vampirism translate to a culture where everything is cooked with garlic?   This episode is sponsored by:  Passages (mubi.com/passages) Indeed (indeed.com/check) Firstleaf (firstleaf.com/check) Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com or at teepublic.com/stores/blank-check

I don't have faith. I'm not going to podcast. I don't have faith. I'm not going to podcast. I replaced the word hell. I've tried to find quotes generally that are negative where the word I'm replacing with podcast has— I hear you, but it doesn't really read. No, it doesn't. The options are bad. Sure.

There's this sort of giant monologue that he gives to Christ asking him to punish him physically. That's one. Sure. The taglines for this movie are lusting after sinful pleasures. That's the tagline? And then the other one is this place is evil. Which you could use that to describe. This place is podcast yeah this podcast is podcast

do you know there was also a straight to video movie called thirst starring lacy shabert shabert how do you say her name shabert shabert uh which seems to be about people who are literally thirsty for water really they're like in the desert and they're thirsty. It's like Mad Max without cars. Surrender to the unholy oasis. When is this from? It's not about those people who hate drinking water to the point that they become dehydrated and have to go to the hospital. Would they hate that so much?

There is a story about this a couple of years ago. I can't remember where I read it, but there's a few prominent people. Who issue water. There's an athlete, I think, who hates the taste of water. So he would only drink Gatorade or something. But people who would become dangerously dehydrated because they don't like the taste of water and then would have to go to the ER and get like IVs and everything. I'm just going to keep this entirely anonymous.

Wow. I was at a wedding. They bring around the water pitcher, pour everyone a glass of water. Guy next to me at the table takes out a packet of crystal light, pours it into the water. Oh, my God. I give a glance at his girlfriend. She's like, do you not know this about him?

He hates water. So he has to flavor anything. He won't drink water sugar up some right he never chooses to drink water and if we're in an environment do i know who this is no okay he might listen but like if we're an environment where they're going to preemptively pour water for him he needs to have like five packets of crystal oh my god wait you have to keep that a secret that can't be good for his blood pressure or anything. There's no way that's good for you.

You need to drink water. Not good for anything. Exactly. What do you mean you hate water? But some people hate water. Some people hate water. David Dunn, Mr. Unbreakable. True.

Hates it. Remember Bruce Willis in Unbreakable? That's true, yeah. He dies at the hands of water. Dies in a puddle. Yeah. Arguably the water hates him too. Dies in a puddle. Yeah. Arguably, the water hates him, too. It's a two-way street.

The water has a vendetta against him. I think the water's indifferent. I think he just, you know, he meets his match. I don't know. In water. Puddle. You think it was involuntary manslaughter on the water's part? Be hard to arrest water.

That's the problem. Have you ever read the books, the three-body problem the um the series of science fiction books i have not read them i know of them i know this could be turned into a very expensive netflix television show right now i'm reading the second one right now the dark forest wasn't there also a movie it hasn't been adapted i think there was a movie maybe uh and he also wrote um the wandering Earth, which was a very big hit. Yes. He's got such big ideas, always.

And one of the billion ideas in The Dark Forest is that one of the people tasked with defeating the aliens, which is what the book is about, comes up with the idea of making people think thoughts, like encoding thoughts into their brains that they can't get rid of. Okay. The idea to be to fill them full of zeal, defeating aliens. Yeah. But he tests it by making people think that they don't want to drink water.

Oh. Wow. Because he's like, can I do something so fundamentally against their, you know, biological needs and still have it work? And it does work. So is the villain of this series...

There's no villain. Well, the villain is far away. The villain is really, though... I'm saying Dasani's not trying to get fucking revenge on this guy? It's one of those books where I could tell you things about the book for a hundred years. And you would be like, that's interesting, too. And I'm like, yeah, there's more.

There's more. I got more ideas. This guy has so many ideas. It's incredible. So many ideas. Yeah. It's a very loose narrative, sort of, but it's a lot of ideas. Interesting.

I like them. But I can only read like one of them a year. It's too much. Too many ideas for one year. It's too many ideas. It's a lot. Yeah. You know what this is?

I don't know. You don't know what this is? It's Boone Chick with Griffin David. You seriously don't know what this is? Oh, you're right. We've been doing this for like 8 years I'm Griffin though I'm David

That's who we are It's our podcast It's about filmographies Directors who have massive success early on in their careers And are given a series of blank checks To make whatever crazy passion projects they want And sometimes those checks clear And sometimes they leap up the side of a building baby

This movie is so good. Do you like this movie? I do like this movie. Thank God. Yeah. I figured you did. No, I hate this movie, actually. It's happened.

We've made that mistake. It's happened. A couple times we've made that mistake, and people will never let us live it down. I feel like when people have been asking who we're covering next or people who know that that uh this director won march madness and was coming up next this is like surprisingly one of the ones i hear people cite the most as a favorite that they're excited for absolutely i agree with you yes yeah yeah i think it's it's it looms larger than i think i think it looms larger than I think. I think it looms larger than I think. That doesn't really work if I say I think two times in that sentence.

Did you say the name of the miniseries? This is a miniseries on the films of Park Chan-wook. It is called I'm a Podcast, But That's Okay. Today we're talking about his 2009 vampire movie that is, according to Wikipedia, based on Therese Raquin on Therese Raquin? Therese Raquin? A book that I read in anticipation of this podcast. You did? Really? You busted out the Emile Zola? You know what I did?

I read a third of this book and then I finished reading the Wikipedia. More than I did. I recently watched the Oscar winning biopic, The Life of Emile Zola, because I decided that I had to watch every Best Picture winner ever. Yes, you finished it. Boring!

And he just writes that whole book. You have to watch him in real time. Yeah, he dictates it to someone. Yeah, do like four hours of writing. It's like the original biopic. Like, he's got mustache and glasses. He's like, oh, I have to write a book! Right. You know. Well, that's like Broadway Melody winning basically for inventing the musical. they were like we've never it's not good like that right biopic people were just minds blown well is it how well we'll talk about it you know what we'll talk about it yeah we'll

talk about it uh how how inspired it actually is i i was surprised to see that because the credit does not exist in the credits of the film right right? Well, actually, I'm not sure. In all the information around it, like the Wikipedia, for example. The Wikipedia does cite it, but Wikipedia is a bit. That's the other thing. I own this movie. I'm loading it up right now. We're going to see.

Sometimes I find on Wikipedia. They're burning up again. If a filmmaker in an interview says, like, I was kind of inspired by this, then someone will say adapted from. Right. It says directed by, and then it goes right to the actors. They do credits differently. Sure. Okay.

What's the name of the movie that we're covering? We're talking Thirst. Thirst. Our guest today who read one third of a book, which is one third more than either of us did. I probably rewatched Thirst. Rewatched Thirst? Oh, yeah. I think I did. I don't know. I think that's a key credit though uh uh Hoi Chan boy I'm sorry

did I fuck that up? Yes you did. I burped in the middle of it. Hoi Chan boy. Hoi Chan. It does say inspired by Emile Zola's Therese Raquin in the credits. Okay. Screenplay by Park Chan-wook and Chung Seo-kyung his usual I'm'm sorry, if I'm messing those up, his usual collaborator, I feel like, screenplay collaborator. Entertainment editor at Inverse.

I had to get that out. Thank you for being on the show. Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm so excited. Thank you for reading a third of a book.

Yeah. This is my first time on the show and I wanted to make a good impression and do some research and I did my research a little too late in the game. I started reading the book a day and a half ago.

No, but look. Okay. No, but no, no, no. You don't understand. That's the blank check way. That's the blank check way. That's Griffin's way, especially, where Griffin will be like, I want to read this whole novel. The episode's on the books.

We're going to record it in about six months. I've got time. Yes. And then the day before, I'm like, are you ready? And you ready he's like yeah i'm just trying to finish this novel i started yesterday i got fucking seven buster keaton books on my desk there you go i made it through one and a half it's not bad yeah but like six months ago i was like i'm gonna be airtight i'm gonna be perfect the buster keaton expert yes we have a researcher yeah for the listeners at home, though, we should just sort of mention Griffin's desk is covered. It's become pretty Griffin-y pretty fast.

Unsurprisingly, it's got a lot of crap on it. Well, napkins from previous lunch orders. Because you never know when you need another napkin. You never know. And I got two batteries. Yeah. I have a screwdriver. I have a drawing of Watto that I did.

I have a little ecto-trap. Honestly, this would go on for so long. Ben, here, I'm taking this off. David has a laptop, two or three records. Yeah, that I need to take home. David's favorite toy. Trusted tape measure.

He loves using this in the middle of episodes to... For what reason? Poke people They put it on my desk and I've just been playing with it I left it there And then of course you just have some various items from your pockets Well I have like my wallet and keys And I have a glass for water

And that's what I have, the essentials Like a magnetic floating hoverboard from Back to the Future Part 2 Seven Buster Keaton books My lunch Thirst Floating Hoverboard from Back to the Future Part 2. Seven Buster Keaton books. My lunch. Thirst. Thirst. We're here to talk thirst. Did you see this movie when it came out?

What is your... Yes, what's your history with this filmmaker? My history with this filmmaker is, like many Asian Americans growing up in the 2000s, I watched most of his movies illegally. growing up in the 2000s, I watched most of his movies illegally. Shout out to all of those former KissAsian123 website goers.

Wait, please. Sorry, KissAsian123? Yeah, KissAsian123.com. I don't know if it exists anymore. Also, don't go there. Bad stuff? My computer's on fire. It seems like it can't be reached.

But yeah, I watched a lot of his movies in a really grainy, really ripped right from the theater type of way. Right. And I think it was recently I went to see not this filmmaker, but I saw the host at Metrograph. And I was like, wow, it's so weird seeing this in total clarity on a movie screen. Excellent quality. But Thirst specifically, I actually had not seen until last year so this is a really recent movie for me and i was just kind of catching up on park chan-wook's filmography i had seen you know the standards old boy um the handmaiden when that came out

but i'm actually and i i love decision to leave last year, but I'm actually not fully caught up with this entire filmography. So Thirst is one of the ones that I was like, I have seen this and I really, really like this movie. So I would definitely be excited to talk about it. Cool. I feel like this one got a slightly wider release in the U.S. But like, I mean, Oldboy and The Host are two movies that I think of as, and we've talked about this a lot in this series, but like reading breathless reviews of these movies online and then waiting two years for it to come out in the United States. Like by the time it was finally playing at one theater in New York, I felt like I'd been hearing about it forever. Where is this came out literally like it was at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009.

So that's may 2009 came out in america in july 2009 right this is the point where i think his reputation was big enough here that his movie sort of just got proper releases right away um and i think yeah maybe it might be the first example of that because i'm a cyborg basically did not come out in america right uh and the vengeance movies we went over the weird release strategy of those in the same year right um and old boy was the only one that was kind of given any real shine in theaters yeah um so yes this is this is yes this is the beginning i feel like of him um being taken presented a little more seriously to Western audiences, but also this movie is a two-hour, 15-minute

sex vampire virus romance with lots of tits and blood. And like, yeah, exactly. Magic and religion. And I love this movie. I think it might be my favorite, but for one, I need to re-watch The Handmaiden. Yeah.

I'm giving away my rankings now. your favorite my favorite but for one but for i need to re-watch the handmaiden yeah that's giving away my rankings now um but i do think i remember in 2009 the review was which is often the review of his films the review was like that's a lot of movie oh i don't know it's not for everyone he's ever made a little movie no not really yeah like honestly decision to leave felt like his most restrained movie in a lot of ways, even though it's like very visually busy, you know, all the same. And structurally pretty dense. Yes. And complicated.

Also a lot of movie. A movie that drops you in the middle of another movie. Right. Right. I think, you know, like, A, he's certainly a filmmaker we've talked about who was really buoyeded by uh peak dvd era right and i think old boy and the rest of the vengeance trilogy just very quickly like growing in the couple of years after they were released when they certainly suddenly were available at blockbusters and such right um uh it's almost also because now old boy is not watchable in the States as it's about to be re-released.

They sort of pulled it from everything. And people were complaining about that they haven't been able to watch Oldboy in preparation for our episode. Reminded that that was like a perennial early Netflix streaming movie. Like it felt like that was from the moment Netflix started streaming always up there. But so those movies very quickly gain a much bigger following here in the states after their theatrical release and then also this movie's coming out the year after the first twilight movie i do feel sure there's a lot of vampire in the air that's fair there's a lot of vampire in the air and i do think there was a pretty quick people being like can i make the

art house vampire movie you know i think like jar like Jarmusch talks about Only Lovers Left Alive being like, you can get a vampire movie sold right now. You know? Yeah, get a couple movie stars, save their vampires. Doesn't matter how weird your movie is. People were buying that at that time. What's your favorite vampire movie? My favorite vampire movie? I don't know what my answer is. What is my

answer? There's a lot of vampire movies. Guillermo del Toro's Kronos? Great movie. I love that movie. I haven't seen that movie in years. Yeah. That's my artsy answer. My other answer, which first came to mind, was What We Do in the Shadows. Which I love. Yes. That is, look,

that's an incredibly charming movie. Yes. It's very funny. Yeah. Got turned into a TV show. I don't know if you know that. Great show. Also fun. Yeah. I do forget about it, though, yes. My show. It's also fun. Yeah. I do forget about it though, yes. My answer is Hotel Transylvania. One?

I think the one is still my favorite. That's not actually your answer. No, I'm trying to think what my actual answer is. I don't know. Nosferatu. I do like vampire movies.

Me too. Vampire movies are my favorite. I love vampire movies. Because I said it in a funny voice. Yeah. Nosferatu. Yeah, now I can't say it.

I loved when I was a pretentious teenager Guy Madden's Dracula. Pages from Reversion of S Yeah. No, Svirato. Yeah, no, I can't say it. I loved, when I was a pretentious teenager, Guy Madden's Dracula, pages from Reversion of Siren. Oh, sure. I like anything with vampires. I'm realizing. I like Blood for Dracula a lot. That's a very enjoyable movie.

Unfortunately, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a very formative part of my growing up. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Blade 1. Blade 2. This is your ranking blade three that's

maybe not okay you maybe haven't seen that one in a while but it's been a while you cannot say that blade trinity is your third favorite vampire movie we'll accept the first two okay yeah blade two does rule and blade one is pretty fun yeah come on have you watched original uh bella lugosi dracula recently i saw it in a theater with a friend of the pod karen hahn maybe like four or five years ago at the metrograph why i watched it recently too um and it's fantastic it rules good bad boyfriend movie yeah good bad boyfriend movie oh Oh, the dramatic lighting, the eyes, the just everything Bela Lugosi does. Fantastic. I mean, my my take on this, I know I think Jamel, our friend Jamel Bowie, did a sort of Universal Monsters rewatch in October and hadn't seen that one before and was tweeting through it. Mm hmm. It is very front loaded. Like the first 20 to 30 minutes of that thing are fucking unbelievable.

We were like, well, I'm watching the greatest movie ever made. Right. And it's the best performance you've ever seen. And then the stuff when he goes to London is it, it drops off a bit. It's all still fun.

You definitely are the most into, um, you're visiting Dracula at his castle. And he's going like, right. Yes. And like Renfield getting converted all that shit

all the little creatures of the night the thing is when I saw it I saw it without a score because it doesn't have a score it's a talk it's a sound movie

with no score because it was like right at the it's only at the opening right well it's got like an overture but there's no music

and so there's these scenes of like someone walking up the stairs and him walking behind with no music which is so's these scenes of someone walking up the stairs And him walking behind her with no music Which is so odd But fun and unusual But then of course there are scores that people have written

Like Philip Glass wrote a score And I've always wanted to see how it feels With a score This movie He was sort of generating Before Oldboy was offered to him Is that correct? Yes

Alright Yes this is the longest was sort of generating before Oldboy was offered to him? Is that correct? Yes. Okay. All right. All right. Crack open the dossier. Yes. This is the longest gestating Park project for sure, Dr. Park. He says it goes back to his childhood memories in the Catholic Church. The priest, this is his quote, a priest drinks red wine as a symbol for

the blood of Christ. And this always reminded me of vampirism. I actually wonder why no one thought of that before yeah that's yeah that's um that's that's how he feels about it um this project was initially called evil live um and he says during making joint security area he first thought about sort of whatever the broader concept of this movie then when he's making I'm a Cyborg, but that's okay, which is his prior film to this, he wrote down, he did a couple of images.

One was the birthday cake scene where he turns her into a vampire. And then the other was him being turned into a vampire at the beginning, the main character. He was like, the protagonist will be a priest-turned-vampire, and he will eventually turn someone else into a vampire everything else he had to figure out i thought it's a good starting point when does he figure that out is this sort of like just standing in his mind only as that no okay he was making a short film called cut have you ever seen this

i have not i have not seen this i assume none of us have seen this um there's an omnibus film called three extremes yes uh he can he's contributed a lot of shorts to these kinds of projects over I assume none of us have seen this. There's an omnibus film called Three Extremes. Yes. He's contributed a lot of shorts to these kinds of projects over the years. He was making Cut, and I guess that has a female vampire character with silver teeth. Cool. False teeth, which she uses to punch holes in the victim to get their blood. Like, she doesn't have fangs, but she has, like, these fake teeth that she puts in. Yeah, smart.

I don't know. That sort of starts the ball rolling for him again and then he picks up emil zola's therese racan and that for whatever reason is what you know he decides to fuse onto this story and it becomes thirst uh he'd been planning thirst for about 10 years and then he came across the book he liked that the book was not romantic or sentimental, which was the approach he wanted to take with thirst. So let's talk. We need to talk about Therese Raquin. Yeah. I think the stuff that he's taking from the book is like the mother, right, and all that stuff. Well, as someone who read one third of Therese Raquin, he actually took quite a bit from this book to the point that I was quite surprised because it's not just the mother.

It's the whole setup of how the affair starts and sort of with the wife and this repressed woman who is stuck in a loveless marriage and starts an affair with a friend of her husband. Right. And then they end up starting this this torrid affair ends up ending in murder so it actually is quite similar to the book and even has some like in addition to the broader beats even has some scenes that are like basically right like the scene where uh if i'm allowed to go into spoilers. You can. Please, spoil away. He's a vampire, by the way. That's the biggest spoiler.

Oh. The scene where they first have, they first start the affair and she kind of breaks into this confessional of all of her pent up feelings and her hatred for her husband and her hatred for her mother-in-law. That kind of comes spilling out as they're like in the throes of intimacy and passion that is from the book itself. And that is also, you know, very much basically straight than straight in the movie. Wasn't there a recent English language, Therese Raquin, direct adaptation? Was it the Oscar Isaac? Yes, it was called In Secret. Great title. And it starred Oscar Isaac? Yes, it was called In Secret. Great title.

And it starred Oscar Isaac and Elizabeth Olsen. Oh. And then Jessica Lange as the mother, the domineering aunt or mother or whatever. I guess Jason Clarke is the husband. Weirdly, Hollywood's number one cuck, Jason Clarke. This is a recurring discussion on the show. But he has been cheated on many times in film. He has, it's true.

It almost feels like a contractual requirement. Did not get that role. It went to, instead, Draco Malfoy himself, Tom Felton. You know what? He's got, he could, if Jason Clarke doesn't watch his back. He has to change his name to Jason Cuck, that's why. He could. Well, he tried, right?

Yeah. Do you like Felton? I do like Felton. I'm sort of pro-ton i am pro felton i'm not like i wasn't one of the you weren't falling over swooning over draco kind of person but i am fond of him i actually he came off very well in that uh documentary retrospective thing yeah he seemed very just um well you know sub-centered, I guess. Yes, not an asshole. Yeah. Right.

I remember his short stint on the CW's The Flash, and I enjoyed him in that. Interesting. Who did he play? Ooh, Alchemy. He was, yeah. Dr. Alchemy. Dr. Alchemy, yeah. He was a newcomer to Star Labs and sort of a foil and foe to Barry Allen.

I think I may, my wife was definitely still watching The Flash when he was on. I remember seeing him on The Flash. It's always interesting. He also did, he's in one of the Planet of the Apes. Is he the first one? He's the bad guy in it, right?

He played a great jerk in that. Yes, he's a jerk in that. I remember he's a jerk in Belle, right? Remember Belle? Oh, the Goo Goo movie? Okay. Yeah, right. You know how Belle, you know, like,

I always- People are mean to her. Right, some people are like, well, Belle, I accept you, even though this is unusual. You know how Belle, you know, like I always. People are mean to her. Right. Some people are like, well, Belle, I accept you. Yes. Even though this is unusual. And he's like, well, I don't accept you. Absolutely not.

I think you're bad. This is all bad. You know, that's his role. Great Tom Felton impression. I do imagine it must be. I mean, I think he's talked about that he had a serious drinking issue for a while. He kind of hit a wall for a bit there and took a couple years off of acting. I do think it must be tough to be like,

you're always going to be seen as sort of like a sniveling asshole. Like, Draco Malfoy, you just did it for 10 years. Rich kid, teen jerk. People watch you age into doing it, even though that character essentially kind of redeems himself by the end. He sacrificed his hairline to that bleach blonde hair he did did that ruin his hair yeah i'm just like dumping that stuff in his hair peroxide but like all the parts we're listing even though we're like he's good he's always good you're like he always is playing stuff that's kind of draco adjacent that

must be frustrating i still remember i think it's in the third it's an azkaban the movie uh where he suddenly you know the first two movies he has like the sort of slick back hair. He's a little twerp. And then the third movie, I feel like he's got the kind of emo. He gets bangs. Right, right. And I remember I was with my friend Hannah seeing a movie. The trailer plays, you see him, he's like, he's like blowing like a little, like a paper animal into the sea.

He's got this like, and she just went like, like, like the fact that they were fucking with things and making people look a little more like contemporary teen was so shocking to us. We were like, people were so fucking angry when that movie came out and they're like, they're wearing like jeans,

right? They wear jeans in them. How dare they? Yeah. They're in like sweaters and jeans and shit. They spend half the movie. Hermione's just like in a hoodie. Right. They wear jeans in that movie. How dare they? Right. That they let them get out of uniform. They're in like sweaters and jeans and shit. Yeah. They spend half the movie Hermione's just like

in a hoodie. Right. And it's like you wouldn't wear your uniform when you're fucking traping through the woods. You don't need to. On an illegal mission.

Yeah. Right. And like their uniforms are like robes. Yes. You need to be able to move. Yeah. Exactly.

That movie's good. Yes. Azkaban, very good. Yes. The best Harry Potter movie. Unquestionably in my mind. I think six is the best but I. Azkaban, very good, yes. The best Harry Potter movie. Unquestionably, in my mind. I think six is the best, but I think Azkaban's the second best.

Is Dobby in this one? Dobby's not in Azkaban. That is not good. Ben hates Harry Potter aside from Dobby. He had never watched any of them until like two years ago and then is only into Dobby. But Dobby's only in like two of the movies.

Well, those are the two that I like. Because he's in more of the books, but I feel like they were just kind of like, let's not bother with Dobby. But Dobby's only in like two of the movies. Well, those are the two that I like. Because he's in more of the books, but I feel like they were just kind of like, let's not bother with Dobby on this one. Do you like Dobby better pre-makeover or post-makeover? Like after he loses all his wrinkles, get some Botox. Well, don't make me decide.

Because you love all Dobby. I love all Dobby all the time. I can't pick. Dobby's just one of those million things, and we can't do this, in Harry Potter where you're just like she didn't know what she was fucking doing where it's like he has unlimited powers he's like very very powerful but they're like oh but you know how self-magic is sort of restricted and

he likes to wear a pillowcase so that means the weird little guy right and then you're just like this guy can just like do anything he's popping around all the time he can like levitate shit look it's i was thinking a lot about twilight while watching this movie just because it's so The guy can just do anything. He's popping around all the time. He can levitate shit. Whatever. Look, I was thinking a lot about Twilight while watching this movie just because it's so of this peak Twilight period. Yeah, but imagine if Twilight had pulled all this crap. Imagine if Robert Pattinson was covered in boils and stuff. Pinning that. We'll get back to that.

Robert Pattinson's going to hear this and he's going to be like, hmm, interesting. I need to actually get boils. Robert Pattinson's very active on our subreddit.'s not oh that's our bulbous are um but uh no what was i thinking no stephanie meyer it's like obviously that was like someone who like wasn't really thinking about like she's just writing all like like how her world works right like and it's like the obvious thing you throw at it and then with like 20 years distance looking at jk rowling stuff you're like basically all the same criticisms could apply here even if she did it more elegantly she throws time travel into the third one yeah i mean whatever we don't need to she's done a lot of bad things

where all right um so therese recan he felt reading this book rather initially uh park director parks notion of like sanghyun who's the main character, would have this moment where he caught himself in the mirror, seeing what he was doing as he's, like, you know, descending into vampiric madness. And that would be this, like, sort of shocking moment for him. And then he was like, what if it's a person who's the mirror? Like, what if it's this mom, like you sort of semi-comatose or whatever petrified basically and like she's sort of like watching everything that happens even though she can't do anything and that becomes the sort of like thing they can't escape the you know this the terrible guilt you were saying the the mom dynamic is similar in the book. Does she similarly like,

does she have a stroke? Is she frozen in the same kind of way? Yes, it's actually very similar. She has a stroke. She's paralyzed. They take care of her. But then as they're arguing during the falling out, her eyes move. I think her eyes move. She learns of the murder of her son that they committed. And then it's the guilt also drives them mad. It's the same. It's pretty similar, actually. I think they hallucinate his body in various places. I was about to say, does that have a scene where they have sex and his wet body is between them going like,

Ah! Don't mind me. Yeah. It's quite similar. And they also drowned him. I think the drowning in the book actually is much more practical than the one that they do in the movie where they're like, well, let's go fishing at 9 p.m. Right. Of course, they have superpowers in this movie, too.

Right. But yeah. It's interesting. This and Handmaiden are both him adapting books from different cultures and putting a lot of different stuff onto the bones of it. Right. Which more people should do in terms of adaptation of like. Yeah, but like most people aren't as talented as this guy or boring i also think it's really interesting that they're both english novels and they're both very extremely english and he finds

some commonality with that and korean cultural cultural history in some way right and i think that's fascinating in that sort of like cultural. Yeah. Now, he does think, on reflection, that it's funny that he took a very realistic book, essentially. It's like a psychological thriller. Vampire film. He's like, this is good, but what if it had vampires? He says it's fortunate that Emile Zola passed away 100 years ago because he might have had some notes otherwise. But anyway. He starts writing the screenplay. that emil zola passed away 100 years ago because he might have had some notes otherwise um but uh anyway he starts writing the screenplay now that he has this he starts writing it with uh with his

co-writer and uh then uh he thinks like oh is this gonna be like too bleak is this not gonna be funny he's then surprised when he makes the movie a few years later and he's like, I think it's the funniest thing I've ever made. Which is sort of, you know, arguably, I'm a Cyborg is more nakedly funny, but that's actually honestly more of sort of a sweet movie. This movie is kind of absurd and funny and like heightened. I want to say several times during my notes when I was doing my rewatch, I said, this is a comedy. It definitely is. Yeah. It's a very very very sort of gonzo comedy really i mean especially during the uh corpse sex scene especially during all the corpse sex and all the like inexplicable wetness i love that that's one of my favorite sort of weird like reality breaking into know, fantasy things that he does.

Anyway, the main character, he says, you find comedy and humor looking at the protagonist. He can't let go. He's trying to hold on to his faith and his newfound identity as a vampire. It's a desperate struggle to hold on to these two ideas, which are mutually exclusive. In this struggle, you can see funny things take place.

So it can be said that the audience that laughs the most watching this film are the ones who understand the tragedy of the character the most. He's always, he's just very profound. Yes. Um, and, uh, so, uh, he did like horror movies, uh, as a, as a young man. Mm-hmm. Uh, he says, when I was poor, I would watch a lot of horror movies on, like, an old small

TV. These things, I scare very easily. He's like, I can't actually handle a real horror movie. I need to watch it as like a shitty VHS tape to not be scared. Oh, wow. I bet he would watch it

on kissasian123.com. Probably would. Probably loved kissasian123. That's wild for someone whose films are so bloody, though. Although I guess

there are other examples of that where you hear of like horror directors who are fraidy cats. Right. And they're like, well, I like doing it because I'm in control.

Right. I'm purging. Right. Yeah. These fears. I see the process going into it being phony baloney yeah um his concept of vampirism he basically made it like a disease he wanted to take a fairly realistic approach so no fangs uh no bats right no hunchback servants or fear of garlic or the stake through the heart or any of that stuff. That's all gone. So basically, I feel like it gets boiled down to thirst for blood.

Mm-hmm. Power. Can jump and shove. Yeah, super strange. Jump-shove powers. Yes. Can't be in sun. He can punch a street lamp and run away in one of the funniest scenes of the movie.

Yeah. But that's basically it, right? Like it's fairly stripped down, this form of vampirism. Yeah. I guess he doesn't have heightened senses. Although there's the effect that's so great of him basically seeing people's veins. That is cool. Which is done very subtly.

He does have the heightened senses when he first sort of turns vampire because he wakes up from passing out and he can hear things on the floor below and he can see the little like bacteria on his skin, that kind of stuff. That shot of just the camera panning over and you seeing like his back basically roasting. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

I also think this is a funny quote where he's like he can't have a fear of the cross because he's a catholic priest so that wouldn't make sense and then he's like and also in korea all the food you eat has garlic in it they put garlic in everything in korea so if you're scared of garlic there's not a drop of blood you can feed on in korea it's kind of a funny gag if someone's eaten garlic in vampire lore, can you not drink their blood? I think it makes them sick, right? Yeah, maybe like a little garlic could be bad. I think when I read Bram Zerker's Dracula, it was just like he didn't like garlic, but it didn't make him like, you know, it didn't totally fend him off.

It was just like this sinks. I know vampires hate garlic. I know you know that. I'm saying. Yeah, you're saying like if I ate a bunch, if like a vampire was like about to eat me and I was like, man, I cook with a lot of garlic. That's my question is like, because usually it's like a fucking Van Helsing throwing a whole clove of garlic in his face or whatever.

Right. If you want to keep vampires away, do you just need to take like garlic supplements four times a day? Do you? I don't know. That's what I'm asking. They probably won't find out until after, though, is the problem.

You shake the bottle. Yes. You go look at... You have to come and walk around with a sign saying, I eat garlic supplements. You pop it in front of him.

All right. You just... Director Park's favorite vampire movies, Nosferatu. Heard of that one? Yeah. Martin,

the George Martin, George Romero movie. Which I've never seen and people love. I have never seen either and I would love to see. I think it's about to be re-released restored yeah sense they're all sort of good yes yeah yes i think just just got restored available if there was a director's cut with like an extra hour that was lost forever and i think they just recently found it that's cool i want to check that out he loves that movie he also loves the addiction by abel farrar which

is one of my favorite movies in the 90s you ever seen that no lily taylor it's a whole aids metaphor early 90s yeah very very cool movie i'm seeing here it's i'm more of an ht2 guy that's his favorite because i i like hard jokes right heavier on the jokes yeah um but yeah he didn't want to do the classic stuff he does think the addiction is probably the closest line you could draw similarly quote-unquote realistic movie like set in our world yeah and her her deal basically boils down to she wants to suck your butt that's like the main thing that is explicitly a vampire movie yeah okay but it's not you know it isn't it is well look at you. That also recently got restored.

There's an arrow of it that I bought. Really good. Yeah. He also loves everyone's favorite movie, Possession. Yeah. You know, the movie that no one knew about until five years ago, and then suddenly everyone on Twitter watched it at the same time. Yeah. I'm being snarky.

Have you seen that movie, The Sam Neill? I have seen it, yeah. It's a very good movie. I guess I didn't consider it a vampire movie. No he's more like this sort of aesthetics of that. Oh I see. The bloodiness. Yeah. Like all of that but no that's not a vampire movie per se. This is just one of his influences. Gotcha. Yes. Yeah. He does like that film. It is a great film. I don't mean to be snarky. It's just kind of funny how everyone watched it. I'm sorry that's how I learned about it too exactly me too we're all the same yeah i mean maybe you had watched it before i saw maybe about five years ago exactly i remember telling you i'd seen it you went why i said why yeah i was like i know everyone talks about on twitter i should go see right

it was a famous video nasty that one right that one. Right. That's the other thing. It was out of circulation for a very long time. And then it came back and then everyone was like, fuck. Banned in many countries. Right. That is, it is not a chill movie. No. That was the other thing. It was banned for a while. It was out of circulation.

And then there was like a Blu-ray that cost $150 and they made like 20 of them. I mean, always a good way to gin up some buzz. They almost did like a pre-master cycle thing where it's like, yeah. He also likes Ingmar Bergman's Thirst. Okay. Mostly coincidental. And he likes Cronenberg movies. Sure.

Sure. So do I. Okay, so yes, he was raised in a Catholic family. And so he does think that's a little bit of, you know, whatever, why this idea sort of is transfixing to him. Because the character is not a priest in the novel? No, the character isn't the same in the novel at all. It's just some random hedonist that she gets an affair with. Not a priest at all.

Right. He's a hedonist. Yeah. He's just some guy who wants to live an idle life, as they describe many times. Right. Because Therese is the, that's the lady. That's the lady. She's the protagonist.

And Camille, right. Camille is her husband. Is her husband. And then. Laurent. Laurent. He's no good. Laurent.

And they end up, not to spoil the end of thirst but the end of thirst is that they kill they kill themselves essentially uh and the novel has the same ending right they they sort of take a final embrace exactly the mother-in-law at the same time yeah so basically the guilt from killing camille the her husband uh drives them mad and then they decide to finally commit suicide together and the mother i think, just left her own devices knowing all of that happened. Yeah. But the fact that she's always there

means they can never escape the guilt of what they did. Yes. Even if she can't, like, you know. She's the flesh and blood specter. It's such a good idea. Mm-hmm. And Emile Zola. So this film was co-financed by universal pictures right mostly done by cj entertainment the

big uh korean company but uh that was a pretty big deal it was one of the first it was the first ever korean film to land u.s distribution before its local premiere in korea okay um now obviously it only made like 300 grand in um america still, that's not nothing for a movie this audacious, I would say, in 2009. Oldboy made about, I forget when we said in that episode, but similarly, I think they just knew these movies exploded on home video. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Oldboy made like 700 grand. The other two made, the other two Vengeance movies exploded on home video. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Obey made like 700 grand. The other two made,

the other two Vengeance movies made next to nothing. Right. But this movie was a big hit in Korea. Yeah. Talked about in the Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance episode, I think one of Director Park's strengths is getting into scenes late and getting out of them early. That's sort of like disorientation, but also sort of just like dropping you into the most interesting part of the scene without the shoe leather.

And leaving you with a sense of ambiguity and not immediately filling you in on the space between sequences. Right. There's just something to, especially since it is his creation is not anything from the novel that he's taking the introduction to this character of like here is this entirely respected man of the cloth who just kind of is filled with like deep ennui and unhappiness right this guy who like everyone else looks to for balance who's just like i don't know what the fuck am i doing? You know? And, like, a lot of other movies would be about this guy's downward spiral triggered by something.

Sure. And you basically just start at the point where he's like, I don't know, just fucking inject the virus into me. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. You know? Like, minute five, he's getting injected. And he never actually acknowledges the fact that he has some sort of existential crisis or problem. And he never actually acknowledges the fact that he has some sort of existential crisis or problem. Like he, I think during the interview with the experimenter who asks, are you doing this for martyrdom or for suicide? And he says, my prayers work fine.

And it's obvious that he's in some sort of denial about all of this. Yeah. Yeah. And there's no clear catalyst for it. We don't know how long this has been going on with him. Right. And we also, there's like this made up virus in this world that needs to be cured, and he's ostensibly, you know, looking for, you know, he's a test for that.

But there's that scene early on where he's taking confession with this woman, and he's just like, I don't fucking know. None of this matters, you know? He's like very dismissive to everything she has to say. Also, she kind of scolds him in that scene, doesn't she? Yeah. He says something like, turn to science, get some antidepressants.

Right, right. And she's like, worry about matters of the spirit. Don't worry about matters of the earth or something. Right. I didn't come to a priest for that. Yeah. Right. Sang-hyun Ho is so good at that, though.

Yes. At the ennui. Yes. At the weight of the world being on it but any other movie would would over explain i think why he chooses to take the virus right and and even just the idea of yes he's he's presenting it as some act of nobility this guy can't even really pretend that's what's going on here what's what's the virus called uh the emmanuel virus. Yes, EV. EV. Which I guess like makes you break out in weird hives.

Blisters. Blisters. You start puking blood. Not good. Not good. Bad. This is, I, you already brought up what we do in the shadows. This movie reminds me of that a lot in terms of how uh obsessed it is with just the inconveniences of being a vampire right you know just like the petty existence of it

right uh true pain in the ass especially if you're a vampire who's not going to just like wantonly murder right yeah right because if he doesn't drink then he will die because the ev will return yeah right right the blood keeps it at bay ostensibly this is the sort of like pseudo-scientific form of vampirism right he also heals that's the other thing yes because there's the whole thing where he's like cutting his wrist and then it heals up before he can get the blood right he he can let the the lead clergyman touch his heart inside his chest right um yeah uh anyway so okay catholic priest kind of whatever on the outs with his job on the outs with life on the outs with life yeah gets this injection becomes somewhat of a miracle man people want to spend time with him now because he survived the virus yes and uh and he's already a priest so people are like you must be you know

imbued with miracle powers or whatever which i think seems frustrating to him you you get the sense he just was hoping he could die and be relieved of all this and instead it's like not only do you have to keep living but everyone now looks to you even more for guidance for like for like magic people want him to solve all the world's problems now. I love this early section where he's got like the invisible man look with his bandaged head and hands. That's what I thought too. And just the tufts of hair poking out.

I was going to say, kind of going back to what his wishes were, there's that scene where he has come down with Evie and he's in his room. He's writing a letter. I don't even know who to, but saying like, oh, I have the nicest hotel, like room in this hotel. It's because they said I was handsome and I have a nice tan.

And he like picks at his nail and it comes off and his boils all over his face and he's playing his flute and he just throws up all over his flute. Oh, yeah. When it all comes out of the recorder. Yeah. That is very, very good.

Very gross. Very inventive. It's great great it's just like he's really happy dying away yeah i mean maybe yeah kind of what he wants i guess yeah um you're watching this movie i feel like you got guys in robes you got priests you got blood viruses sure you're definitely not thinking like this is going to turn into like a whole you know love triangle sex murder thing right like you don't see this being a romance vampire priest is already kind of it's a lot it's already thematically rich it's like you know because the priest is the sign of chastity and spiritual um like higher power and then the vampire itself is a representation of all of the of you know um lust and uh temptation yeah yeah i mean you know they're much better studies done of sort of like

the primal roots of all the classic monster archetypes but vampires are like always about sex they're always about sex and power and control and the sexy other yes yes boyfriend bad boyfriend bad boyfriends i just think a lot of movies like dracula are about like what if your daughter whatever you know the lover wife had a bad boyfriend right and a lot of movies like the twilight saga are about what if your daughter had the best boyfriend of all time because but he was a good boyfriend because he was like, I can't fuck you. I'll kill you. Right.

He's a good boyfriend who doesn't want to be a bad boyfriend. Exactly. But he's so afraid of being a bad boyfriend. Don't get near me. You smell crazy. The thing that makes him a good boyfriend is that he understands that he's evil. That is sort of the thesis of the Twilight movies. But like, especially with Dracula, like the whole notion of like, come to my castle.

Yeah. I'll make you dinner. Yes. I've got candles. I'll make you dinner. Yes. I've got candles. You know, all that. I thought you were going to say, I've got candy, because I thought that would be even better. I've got candy. Yes.

Trick or treat. Sour Patch Kids, plus the watermelon one. Some people like those better. But not the fun size, the full bars. That's a lot of nougat. No, just, you know, the the way dracula lays on airs and he's so seductive yes of course no but that's all vampire is about seduction and and ceding control to someone else someone having power over you you know and and no longer having

control of your own body because of the other person or because of the effect it has on you. Having these desires that you can't control and all that sort of stuff. And, you know... And then there's the very literal metaphor of blood lust.

Yes. Absolutely. You cannot... You must have blood. Yeah. You cannot be controlled. You cannot be held accountable for your actions.

But this is a guy who almost seems to have resentment that anyone looks up to him, takes him seriously, turns to him for guidance, that he holds any power in the community, right? Right. He's basically just like, let me fucking die. Let me rot away. He's thrilled when he's dying, hates when he gets better, and then I think seems almost most depressed in this era where everyone thinks he's a miracle man.

Yes, of course. Before he's really identified what's going on inside him internally because he didn't even do anything no just like didn't die and now there's just more expectations placed on him more responsibility placed on him he wants to disappear and be invisible invisible man um which is why i think he connects so deeply and violently to Teju, who is considered invisible within her own family and by her own mother-in-law and by her own husband. Right. So when he's making the rounds at hospitals, he runs into this one patient who turns out

as a childhood friend of his. Right. Who recognized him. Does he still have the bandages on at this point? He does not. No, he doesn't. Okay. him does he still have the bandages on at this point he does not no he doesn't okay um and invites him over for their weekly mahjong game he does with his mother his wife his friends and very

quickly yes i think he's drawn to her uh as almost like that's that's maybe where he wants to be. Sure, yeah, yeah. He seems like uncomfortable with the amount of power he has in his life, right? And there's a certain degree to which, like she is someone he actually wants to help versus everyone else he's like, fuck, right? Don't talk to me.

Well, so they're a family. Yeah. It's ostensibly sort of a warm environment. They're playing mahjong, right? Like it's like, it's a colorful in there kind of. Well, that'sibly sort of a warm environment. They're playing mahjong, right? Like, it's, like, it's colorful in there, kind of. Well, that's this environment as a whole, but why he's so immediately kind of latched onto her is, like, her life has, like, an order and a structure to it

that is perhaps not what she would choose, but it's, like, she actually does have... Everyone just expects that he can do anything, can roam around, has kind of complete freedom and control, not what she would choose, but it's like she actually does have um, everyone just expects that he can do anything, can roam around, has kind of complete freedom and control in his life, and to a certain degree, I think he envies the fact that she is kind of kept. That she has no expectations

for her. She has no expectations, and she's just sort of resigned to what she is told to do around her. Because the more leeway this guy is given, the more upset he seems, the more depressed he seems, the more suicidal he seems.

Right. He likes, hey, I don't mean to speak ill of priests. Uh-huh. But I do feel like you might crave order, rules, a way to go about your day. Right.

Someone telling you what to do. Yeah. Like, and, you know, being unable to stray outside. And priests never, obviously, stray outside of their rules or anything like that or never behave. No, never. But I just mean like the structure of religion, I think, can be comforting for people. This seems like a guy who perhaps pursued theology, looking for that order and control and purpose in his life and

then got to the top of the mountain and kind of feels like maybe I don't believe in any of this. This is not giving me any answers. There's an interesting line at the beginning of the movie where the blind priest tells him he told him to go to medical school, but then he pursued priesthood instead, I think, which I think is an interesting character trait that they don't really follow up on, but I think also kind of lends to his whole weird crisis that he's going through, too. Like he wanted to be a man of medicine and maybe a man of the earth. Then he turned to be a man of cloth instead. And then now he's kind of in that in between too yeah yeah yeah no no i think that's a good point yeah someone just sent me a real estate listing for a three-screen

colonial theater in maine who sent this to you some rando what's like a listener of the podcast yeah twitter you know okay Should we buy it? Well that's a big question This looks great it's in Maine Where in Maine? Belfast Maine Sounds like real Stephen King country doesn't it What it costs is probably the big question there

In terms of whether or not we should buy it 1.3 million dollars I don't think we should buy it It just looks so nice. It does. I agree. It's not close. Yeah.

I can't see it being convenient. You can summer there. Yeah. Yeah. You could summer there. Vacation land. Famous. Yeah.

It's an eight hour drive from New York. You and I have talked about this. So we could do like an 8 p.m. screening and be like, leave at lunchtime. Exactly. You'll be here in time for the movie. You and I have talked about that's like our one absurd rich person dream sure to own a theater yeah yeah yeah it'd be pretty cool maybe just not in belfast man they have a bus stop a single bus stop they've won how long's the bus ride 10 hours yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. About 10, 12 hours.

I think I'm going to buy this theater. You're going to buy the fucking, what's it called? Great question. David, here's all I'm going to say. If I find out you bought this theater, I demand we crack open the books of blank check finances because if you suddenly have the liquidity to buy this fucking movie theater for over a million dollars what would be the inaugural film that you would show at this theater incredible question and i don't know the answer um ponyo probably my favorite

movies right master and commander what's the first movie you ever covered on this podcast uh star wars episode one the phantom menace so it's gonna be star wars and episode one the phantom on this podcast. Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace. So it's going to be Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace. Hey, Disney, I got a proposition for you. It's called The Colonial. Okay. The original bit of the show is that we only covered The Phantom Menace, and we thought we were going to

do that forever. So I think if we bought a theater, we'd have to just only play Phantom Menace for four months. And then be like, never mind, we're actually going to branch out as a theater. We'd actually make some money if we did that. We would. Anyway, wow, it's really far up there.

You'd go from showing only half-hour increments of the Phantom Menace and then suddenly start showing, like, two-and-a-half-hour movies. Yes, yes, exactly, yes. A great metaphor for a podcast-length creep. David, you have to close this tab. I'm closing it.

It's gone. Thirst. Let this dream die. No, I'm going to keep it open. I don't know. Who knows? Maybe someone can go in on it with me. I happen to have $0.3 million.

You got 0.3? No. Just need the one. Need that big one. You got two left. Tim Simons is from Maine. Yeah. Call him up.

Hey, Tim. Have I got the two tallest men going to the movie business together? We could call it Tall Boy Theater. You should get Stephen Merchant to invest in Will. Tall Boy Theater is good. And we could sell Tall Boys in the lobby. I'm seeing here Maine won't let me have a look at this. This has got legs.

Sorry, I just got that. Tall Boy Theater's got legs. David, you know the old adage they say. Yeah. Don't fall in love with the first movie theater up for sale you look at Yeah right The very common adage The next day like a triplex in Brooklyn

Like four blocks from my house is for sale Just put a movie theater alert Shit I'm moving to Belfast Put a movie theater alert on Street Easy and see what shows up Zillow's been buying a lot of movie theaters right So this is like a we got a Zeus at your Right Alright thirst So he meets Teju Zillow's been buying a lot of movie theaters, right? So this is like a we got a Zeus at your Right, yeah

Alright, first, so he meets Taejoo He goes to the banjong The comely wife of Kangwoo Who is a churchgoer And a childhood friend of his, I believe They know each other He's a childhood friend

You know what, I'm just even going to simplify What I said about why he's so immediately drawn to her. I think he just immediately senses that she's sad. Right. And lonely and feels a little ignored. And angry. Yeah. Because the first time we meet her, she's rolling her eyes the entire time.

Right. This person is similarly kind of like over everything. She's sick of it all. They both have- Can I venture something else? Doria syndrome out the ass. Yeah. She's also very pretty.

She is. You think that maybe has some- Have you guys seen The Villainess? Out the ass. Yeah. She's also very pretty. She is. You think that maybe has some... Have you guys seen The Villainess? I have not. No. Which I know she's in. Kim Ok-bin, is that her name? Kim Ok-bin, yeah.

She is incredible in The Villainess. And the scene in Mission Impossible, ooh, which one? The one where Rebecca Ferguson is in the opera and shoots... Five. Yes, Mission Impossible 5, Rogue Nation. That scene is almost straight from The Villainess. Interesting. I remember the poster for The Villainess

because it was like, she's like going like she's got the gun pointed down and it's sort of like pink and blue. David's doing, for the listener at home, a perfect impression of the poster for The Villainess, but have never seen. She is a babe, I will venture, as is song king ho in with

his like emo floppy hair i have to say having only watched song king ho in uh bong joon-ho movies where he kind of plays usually plays a buffoon he usually plays a buffoon he just plays the dope that is hiding secret layers of power or you know some some secret or hidden right you haven't really seen song king-ho who fucks. Yeah. Right. And Park Chan-wook was like, he laid eyes on Song Kang-ho and was like, that is a sexy baby.

Yeah, sexy baby, right. You're kind of like, but also. Yeah. This is the first Korean film to feature full frontal male nudity. This is the first Korean film. This is the first Korean film with this is the first korean film with a penis with a penis on screen and uh it's in obviously it's not in an erotic context because it's when he's like stumbling out of the tent it's the least erotic moment because i kept waiting

i have to be honest i was sitting there going because a lot of sex scenes in this movie and i was like is he gonna show the peen in this one and he shows it kind of the worst moment yeah yeah he's he's very vulnerable i mean that's the idea of it when he's trying to ruin his reputation right right which i feel like is usually how male nudity is because a flaccid penis is more funny than sexy often right like a banana peel go on prop comedy so i feel like it is often when someone is sort of like humiliated or kind of like whatever no it's usually a punchline right um and and yes he is um uh jj said he could not back this uh claim up because this claim is just kind of one of those things that the press repeats or whatever and he says maybe we'll finally get together and

make blank checks big book of on-screen penises circle back on that one jj that's our researcher um but apparently yes the, the first Korean film with full frontal male nudity. Park says, Sung Kang-ho had no problem with that. He lost weight for the role. He had no hesitation about any of the raunchy sex scenes. He'll do whatever.

You know, he's very gung-ho about all of it. There is that thing. I feel like very often, like the biggest stars of non-american cinema right uh people talk about how brave they are and i think there's this feeling of just like oh you watch like antonio mandaris in all mode of our films or you watch like song hen ho and you can't imagine like brad pitt doing these things on screen, right? You're like the ultimate A-list men are sort of just anything for the arts. There isn't that same sort of like commercial calculation of

like, if I do this, the audience will turn against me. They won't follow me here. And I wonder sometimes how much of that is just which films get imported to us. Sure. That like American critics say that, but it's like, well, you're only seeing their artier films. Sure. Or if it is just like in other countries, there is a less, I don't know, what's the word I'm looking for? I don't, well, like obviously.

Puritanical culture. Obviously, many European countries are less buttoned up about sex on screen. That's not that unusual yeah um but i do think of korea as you know a society with some like yeah it's fairly socially conservative as far as i know right um so it is interesting to me that like there are but i feel like i think you're kind of like we kind of get we're're getting a lot of the sexy art house Korean movies right over here From these sort of major rotors who can take bigger risks or whatever right right like I don't know

I guess I'm gonna have to watch every movie from every country to that's the answer big list So Kim Ak-bin this is her breakthrough performance She according to director Park has big big hands okay uh she's a very famous dancer she's got a lot of muscle tone her legs he keeps talking about how like sort of physically imposing she is uh which is why uh he wanted to cast her because she was going to turn into the sort of like strong sort of monster um but he also liked the idea that this character cannot bear the frustrations of her daily life and feels trapped so every night she sneaks out and like runs and that's why she's got such great muscle tone this is something he thought about yeah uh in pretty

short order uh they they make good on their chemistry, on their attraction. Sure. They sleep together. Her husband's also a dink. Let's be honest. He's a dink, right? He's a real dink. Yeah. He's, you know, I don't know. He's a real wet blanket, you might say.

Right, right. He's a Jason Clarke type. And, you know, right. So he's not much of an impediment. And yeah, suddenly they're boning. I have to say, I really love, more so even than some other sex scenes, the scene where Song Kang-ho's Sang-hyun finds her running through the streets. And this is after he's just turned vampire. He flies, I think, towards her and lifts her up, takes off his shoes and puts her in his shoes. Right. And it's such a weirdly wholesome and warm action.

And one that, you know, is very protective and she's kind of shocked at. But I find that one to be more, I don't know, like a spark of connection between the two of them. Right. And even some of their sex scenes. And the sex scenes are very hot. They're very physical. Like, there's the one, you know, in the hospital bed. There's the one where she's sort of on top of him and there's, like, linens all around them.

They're in the hen box shop. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, like, I feel like the sex is also kind of front-loaded in their relationship. Like, there's a lot of it early on, and then they're dealing with, like, okay, well, what do we do about fucking your husband now? But I think you're right. You get a greater sense of, like, actual kind of selfless compassion

and how he treats her in the little moments like that than you see in any of the moments where he's actually supposed to be someone helping people. And people are acting like he is he's also breaking the rules he's a priest yes so he's not allowed to do that no not even forgetting that she's married or whatever you can't have any sex you can't have the sexy times you can't have the sexy times it's banned um the effects in this movie are so fucking good very seamless this is the reason i kept thinking about twilight because we did all the twilight movies on patreon and those run from 2008 to 2012 uh sure yeah i mean it's basically this exact same time but the first one's 2008 that one has the quote-unquote smaller budget but still cost a lot more than this movie did right you're saying that the twilight movies have a lot of people going like i'm doing like running in the air and it looks like junk look and this

movie has seamless like wire work and really cool visual effects movies and both of us came around to liking them on i enjoy basically every twilight movie the third one i find to be a bit boring the first twilight movie kristen stewart and robert pattinson's choices are actually inspired because we completely agree with you they realize that these two are just two extreme weirdos yeah and they're weirdos together right yes i agree and then i think i think the problem with the franchise as it goes on is they both get flattened out by like the thing becomes too big and they're like you guys have to be more normal Pattinson the first one is incredible after the first one he just seems like he

wants to die and then Stewart's thing is so much more subtle that she's able to hold on to more of it well she also has more to play like in the third one she's got the love triangle the fourth one she's pregnant and the fifth one I can't remember she's got the baby Renesmee! kind of suffocated by the series

where this is my baby goes out of it the most normal looking baby of all time um but but watching those movies i think the complaint we kept on having is like every single one of those films and the budget is like going up 25 on each of those movies they constantly keep on redefining the visual language of what their powers look like and seemingly the approach to the effects and they basically never work and in each of the movies they're like here's what jumping looks like here's what it looks like when they go fast here what their senses look like and you're just watching like seven different attempts at all of these styles of powers that never fit and in this movie every time nails it on the first try

and it is one of those things where you're just like he must have just been so deliberate because there are complicated shots you know and they're seamless as you said like a lot of them require like insane wire work there's shit like him vomiting blood that's like a hard effect to fake yeah you know and just the mix of like the digital and the practical it just feels like very organic in this movie. You actually buy that this is happening in a real tangible world. And what we do in the shadows was the one I thought of where I feel like similarly that movie has much more impressive vampire effects than most big budget vampire movies. Like the wire work is better, more organic.

I don't know. I was just I was every little moment there's the moment where he lifts up the mother-in-law in the chair and takes her down the hallway and it is done so offhandedly he's so good at that kind of i think just just thinking to making it part of the world yeah yes yes yes absolutely like it never feels like we're entering a fantasy world how to toss off those shots so they feel just like stolen moments. Water is spilling out of things. Right.

Yes. One thing I found really interesting about the powers and the depiction of the powers here, especially him like learning them and sort of showing them off to Taejoo, it is framed a little bit like a superhero movie. Yeah. Especially in when he first wakes up, he has all the vampire powers. He suddenly can hear, feel everything. He sees someone chopping green onions, like two floors down. He hears people talking. He sees things on his skin. And then and it feels very much like Raimi Spider-Man

in that sense. And then when he first shows Teju that he's a vampire and he picks her up and starts leaping through the rooftops, it feels almost like exciting and inspiring in a way that a Christopher Reeve Superman movie or a smallville will feel. It's interesting the way that it feels. It's almost like it's like a different movie. It just is like this windswept romance and it's framed like that sort of superhero sequences.

Well, and I agree with you that that first awakening moment is very Raimi Spider-Man, but then he avoids doing the montage of testing out his powers, learning everything he does, so that when later in the movie he does something like leap or lift something or whatever, you're kind of surprised at the reveal of like, oh, right, he can do this. They haven't like... He doesn't do it all the time. Yes, it is.

And sometimes he's just a bit of a fusser He doesn't project all-powerful vampires sometimes, you know what I mean? No, because it also doesn't make him very happy Look He's not carrying himself with some renewed sense of vim and vigor The man's in search of an answer He tries to kill himself with a virus He tries to, you know, fall in love with a married woman

He kills a man like these are all he's looking for answers that he's never gonna get when he realizes he's a vampire tries to kill himself again that's true like i just feel like he's always like maybe this will be it when does he do that doesn't that happen when he wakes up am i wrong about this i'm trying to find is he is it when he jumps out of the window? That's what I took it as him not knowing that he would survive. You know, he's like hitting himself. Right. A lot of that stuff felt like him.

The hitting himself, I read more as part of this Catholic upheaval. That's self-flagellation. Yeah, self-flagellation. Flagellation. Flagellation. Yeah, he's got a flugelhorn and he's hitting himself. That's right. He does have a flute

slash recorder. Blood recorder. The blood recorder thing is so gross. The thing with the, the like mouth pincers that they keep doing, you know,

is also a very, yeah, very cool, very gross idea. It's something that you're like, why would they do that? But at the same time, it looks so cool and it's so disturbing

that you're like, you know what? It's just part of the whole texture of the movie. Which he is so good at um but you know yeah he jumps out the window lands on the car okay he's like right and then he's like i guess i'm still alive right that wasn't him testing his powers that was him hoping he was ending it that's what i viewed as like it's a groundhog day thing of like he's doing things that accidentally reveal to him that he's invincible and then right after that is when he puts her in his shoes.

Right. And then they have sex. But let's say he basically confesses he's a vampire to only two people. One is his superior. Right. And he's just like, I'm a fucking monster. I hate this. Priest Ro.

Literally opens his heart up to him. Right. And, like, makes him put his hand in his chest to feel his weird vampire heart. And Priest Ro's response is like, well, I'm here to help you out. Which is not what he wants, right? Like, he wants to be damned. Yeah. Right.

He's like, drink my blood and also make me a vampire. Right, right. Like, he immediately offers up his own blood of, like, I'm here to serve you. And then clearly the end goal is, I would love to regain my vision. I want your power. He wants to see the world before he dies. Right. Yeah. goal is i would love to regain my vision i want your power he wants to see the world before he dies right yeah um and then when when he admits when he reveals that he's a vampire to her she's

immediately freaked out yes i i do think the one reason yeah he's just disgusted that like he's like what are these rules if if like if i am saying to my my superior i'm a vampire and he's not like well you are an offense to god yeah then why have i been doing any of this shit like well you know what are we talking about here i'm a monster tell me i'm a monster became a man of the cloths that find answers you get the sense he went i i don't think there are any fucking answers and the fact that people look to him as if he knows anything makes him feel like a bullshit artist right he knows now one thing demonstrably which is i am a monster i am actually a vampire.

He's a monster. And everyone around him is like, what if the vampire is good? And he's like, no, hate me. Chase me out of this town. They have lots of hot sex. And then she sort of like tells him that her husband is abusing her. And that is ostensibly why he's helping her kill. Right. But it's because he sees the bruises yes yeah um so would you um do do do boat murder would you do it no no you're

out on the boat murder no and i i swear to god i'm not just virtue signaling here i think i think boat murders may be one of the last types of murder I would commit. What's the first type of murder you commit? That's a great question. Let me think on that. Ben? I'm going to go ahead and say I wouldn't even fish. Oh, you wouldn't even just like do it for any. Yeah.

Well, I wouldn't even be tempted to commit boat murder because I would say no to the fishing. Right. Would you do boat murder? Well, I think I would say no to the fishing at 9 p.m. Yeah. It's a little weird. Night fishing. Night fishing. Would you do boat murder? Well, I think I would say no to the fishing at 9 p.m. Yeah, it's a little weird. Night fishing. Night fishing. Would I do boat murder?

No, I think I would be more likely to fall underwater than anything, even if I did have vampire powers. Maybe my answer is kill him with kindness. Maybe that's what I would do. It'd just be so nice. Yeah. Okay, so the sex, Director Park says, it's very important. The minute he's doing this, he's stepping over a line he can't, you know, he shouldn't have crossed.

It's the moral downfall of the priest. For her, it's liberation. You know, she's free from this marriage. So I didn't just want them to have sex. I wanted all these, like, complex facial expressions. Like, I wanted to choreograph every moment of the sex to make it like feel very, very powerful. Like that both of them are like sort of crossing these lines. There's this sort of handbra thing too.

She talks about how much the handbra. Right. She basically says like, I'm not shy. Right. While refusing to show herself after she's taken her clothes off. Right. Yeah. It just feels like the whole thing is so knurled and twisted in their own relationships.

She's trying to refute her whole sort of passive image that everyone has of her. Yeah. Is this like Chase sort of like a friendly wife. Mousy woman. Right. Because she also tells him that she's basically a virgin.

I guess this guy is, yeah, he's not, I don't know, not doing much. No. In Thérèse Lacan, I will say, he's an invalid. So, and she is raised alongside him. So she's raised like an invalid, even though she herself is actually quite strong and hardy. So she has a resentment against that because she's like, I was trapped in all these dank, dark rooms with him all the time. I couldn't go outside because he couldn't go outside.

He wouldn't take his medicine, so I had to take it alongside him right so she became a hypochondriac because of him together yeah i was this is um shin hakyun he's the he plays ryu in sympathy for mr vengeance the the mute uh lead character there and he's in joint security area another frequent park collaborator the um he's a park is like inveterate uh storyboarder right like loves his previous love right all his shots are so complicated he says the first things he storyboards are sex scenes because he knows they're going to be the most complicated thing and then he'll take them to the actress yeah and he'll be like all right so you know this shot's gonna have left nipple this shot's gonna have but like you know he takes them through the entire uh sort of uh choreography of it i do think this one wasn't exactly controversial

but it was pretty you know lurid for korea yeah it's pretty learned for anybody by the way so it's 2009 they filmed this in 2008 or whatever sure well you're describing with like his approach to storyboarding. That's what they do now, right? That's, like, basically the main function of an intimacy coordinator, not to literally draw the storyboards. Like, every, like, move of the sex scene. Right, but you just read every fucking actor over the age of 65 complain about the fact that, like, they've made all these sex scenes formal.

You can't do anything as an actor anymore. And basically it's just, like, treat it like it's an action sequence. Right. It's like stunt photography. It's formal. You can't do anything as an actor anymore. And basically, it's just like, treat it like it's an action sequence. Right. It's like stunt photography. It's choreography. Right. You need to,

like, just communicate this clearly. That's what it is. All the sex scenes that seem the most disastrous is where they were just like, all right, get in the bed.

We're just going to try a bunch of stuff. Disastrous, look, interpersonally for the people on set, but also, like, all the best sex scenes

in film history that people talk about were done in this way. With intentionality and communication. He thought about doing this in black and white. Because he thought it would be too gory for color, essentially. And then he decided, no, let's go the other way.

Make the blood look like wine, which I feel like it really does. It's very, like, dark red. Yes. And, you know he uh basically says it's like it's the most blood he's ever had in a movie this film's got a lot of blood i like that he was worried about how much blood there would be when there is a scene where after you know they commit the murder and they paint the house white just for some reason

for for reasons. And then that just is, I feel like it's for the express purpose of whenever there's blood spatter to just make it look cooler. It just looks insane anytime they're in that white room. He has the tiling on the floor

is like these long diagonal strips at sort of like odd angles. And they're so fine that you don't really see them until the blood lands and then it creates this weird pattern on the floor where it falls into the crevices and what have you god this movie's cool i'm just sort of watching it right now hey all right so yeah um they kill her husband yes um as their affair progresses uh they drown him and And they put his body in a cabinet.

Right? Right. Put it at the bottom. Put a rock in it. Yeah. Can we talk about the detail of there is a village underneath the water and he has to put him into a closet and put a rock on top of the closet? Mm-hmm.

Death by Atlantis. Is that normal to you? Yeah. Yeah. A very normal way to die or kill someone yeah um and this is this is in the lake the body of water in the lake yeah there's like a drowned city because like the remnants of uh yeah sure okay that makes so much more sense i could not figure out what was going on there is that from the book or is that just like some

wild sort of flight of fancy? That's some wild flight of fancy. I don't know if it's something that he imagines, like his character imagines, and this is just like a mental thing that he has to put him in this closet and he doesn't know if he's actually going to come out or something or if it's just that you know, if it's actually real.

But I like that detail and it's so interesting. Yeah. Yeah, and also look, a better alibi right if they find a dead body and it's just in the middle of a body of water with nothing there like why would he be hanging out here but you're like this was like a living room right so closet maybe he came here to do some work right um but like right after that you've got like they're trying to have sex when he's touching her. He's like, why are you so wet? Why is the bed damp?

Like, you know, I love the detail to that. It's a waterbed. Yes. Like they're suddenly feeling dampness everywhere. Yeah. And then just the most incredible shot that anyone has maybe ever done of her naked. Then the husband, wet, sort of snotty, with the most ridiculous expression on his face.

I don't know, a little stinker expression. And then Song Kang-ho naked on top of him, thrusting madly while the husband's just like... And he's holding on to the... Like Chippendale, and he's holding on to the rock. That he was weighed down with. And he's also bloated from the water, too. And just like, yeah, grinning goofily. It's's great it's that much creepier that he doesn't come back to haunt

their nightmares being like you killed me right like he's not a jacob marley ghost he's like by all means go ahead he's like i've always wanted to have a throuple i've always wanted to watch yeah yeah it's so funny while sweat i don't i just can't imagine another director thinking of that and then having the audacity to actually try and pull it off it's very it's a great laugh moment yeah but it's also such a creepy indelible image when did you first see thirst not to ask that in an aggressive way because i saw this in theaters i think this is certainly the first time i saw yeah i think yeah because i saw a little boy in there i think i certainly the first time i saw it yeah i think yeah because i saw a boy in there i think i saw this in theaters yeah oh and i just remembered like you know laughing the whole audience

sort of going ballistic it's also the side of it you know what uh the the older i get uh the more movies i watch the more impressed i am by anyone who is able to like handle two or three tones at the same time. Right. Not just switch tones within a movie, but like be able to maintain multiple feelings within a single sequence or shot, which he does. You're like the comedy should play against the horror. One should should. I don't know. Right. play against the horror one should should uh i don't know right the flexibility of genre

yeah within this just a single scene is so yes impressive yes uh okay so what else we haven't talked about the mom very much yeah yeah so she's sort of a domineering mom right before before she's extremely domineering yeah um yeah i don't don't know. You know, she's a... She owns some sort of bespoke clothing store. It's a henbox store from what I saw. Yeah. So they sell and make customized henbox, I think. That's the traditional Korean gown.

You wear it for like a wedding photo, right? Yes. I feel like I've seen Korean couples I know where you do the... Yeah, you wear it for a wedding photo, other r Yes. I feel like I've seen Korean couples I know where you do the portrait. Yeah, you wear it for a wedding photo, other rites and, you know, ritual occasions, that kind of thing. I have to note, I'm not Korean.

No, you're sure. So I am just saying from what I know of Korean culture. But yes, that's exactly what you wear it for, usually weddings. And like the guy has like a sort of, there's sort of, you know, guy, the male version is sort of these cool robes. Okay.

It always looks very impressive. We just moved past this, but you were talking about how in the book, the husband is an invalid. There is, of course, the thing that they, you know, the connection point happens in the hospital, right? And then after Song Kang-ho like enters their life, there is this period where he seems to be better or it almost feels like it's a psychosomatic effect of feeling like this miracle man blessed him and then very quickly his health starts getting worse again right and so much of her i don't know we we find out very shortly that he never abused her. He never laid a hand on her. That this was all a fix.

Yes. Right? She just wanted out. She wanted out. She didn't want to be with her dumb husband. Right. It does feel like. She wanted to be with his son came home.

Her life was very constrained by living with his mother under the sense of control with a person who was very limited in what he could do. She had this brief window of like maybe he's going to be able to be an active member of society again outside of these four walls and then when that's taken from her again it feels like she's just done she's trapped again right right she can't go back and she is immediately back to emo mode no offense to her she's allowed yeah sure um i mean i guess some offense She did kill her husband. Yeah, that part is offensive. Whatever. And so, you know, on this revelation, he eventually kills her by snapping her neck. Which, why didn't he fucking snap her husband's neck? Well, she begs him. She's like, let me be with my husband again.

She's suddenly wracked with guilt. But he doesn't want to let that happen. And so he turns her into a vampire in a very gross scene. Yeah, I mean, the only thing that's more depressing to him, he hates being alive and he's terrified at the notion of actually being dead, right?

He hates being alive, but he hates being alone and alive worse. That's the worst possible scenario for him. I just, I feel like the image of him like cutting his wrist, trying to get the blood into him. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's how I feel like the image of him like cutting his wrist, trying to get the blood into him,

yeah, yeah, exactly. That's how I feel about it. And like fails, he's like, ah, goddammit,

you know, and he has to do it again. Right now I'm grimacing, which is why. It's very nasty. Yeah. It's very clever, like I like it as a

world-building vampire, you know, your take on a vampire, because of course, that is classic vampire, right? That's how you sire another vampire.

Yes. There's a lot of sucking I'm healing too quick. Right. A lot of sucking. Right. And she's dying fast. You got a limited window. Right.

So she's up as a vampire and as in so many vampire stories. And it is one of my favorite things in vampires when you make a vampire and you'll be like, you'll be like me, right? And you're like, no. Yeah. I'm different than you. She's psychotic. I was different than you alive yeah like why am why are you surprised that i am now also different than you as like a

immortal superpowered thing yes i mean she's crazy she's attacking this with gusto i have no sort of uh i could have told him that's what's gonna happen yeah yeah you know she's emo like him but in a yeah much more rebellious way she takes action she fucking talks someone into murdering her husband she's not gonna be like a like a dilettante vampire yeah she has been waiting for this freedom her entire life and now that she does she finally has it she's going to go nuts and power she can do whatever the fuck she wants now yeah um it's uh she's a very cool hot vampire and i do think the bad vampires are the best i love the i'm a monster of woe is me vampires but i really like that kim oakbind's just wide leery grin

throughout this entire like last third of the movie she's so good she's so creepy she's grinning the entire time and just gleefully laughing away she's's so fun to watch. Another, of course, vampire property at this time is True Blood. Oh, sure. Right at the same time? Yes. More sexy vampires. More sexy vampires. More very much like, right, the sex metaphor is brought all the way to the front.

Yeah. And Debra Ann Wool's character is that. Okay. Where, what's his pants? Stephen Lawyer. What was his name? Stephen Lawyer? Yeah, I know. i'm trying to remember russell eric no eric was scars guard i think i can't no wasn't he uh has to make her a vampire for some reason i can't remember why but it's like a punishment

or something uh and she's like this retiring little church girl she was quote unquote the nice girl right and then the second she's a vampire she's like this retiring little church girl. She was, quote, unquote, the nice girl. Right. And then the second she's a vampire, she's like, this rocks. I'm going to go fuck shit up. And he has to be like, no, you have to do what I say. You're right. He's Bill. No, he's Bill. Bill.

Bill. Eric. Yeah. Eric is Skarsgård. Yes. Skarsgård is Eric. Yes. Bill was always going, sucker.

Sucker. That show was about Bill the sexy vampire. Bill. Yeah. But bringing it back to B Bill the sexy vampire. Bill. Yeah. But bringing it back to Buffy the vampire slayer, there's the whole concept of a vampire with a soul. Right. And then when Angel, who is the one vampire with a soul,

loses his soul, he becomes that monstrous, just psychotic. Yeah, and jealous. He loves that violence. He's a sadist, all that stuff. So there's that whole sort of duality. And he becomes a monster by taking her virginity. Yeah. It's all going on.

When he experiences his perfect happiness. And then Spike gets assaulted. Did you ever watch Buffy? I never did. You were really a Buffy kid, right? No, it feels not like a great time to start watching. It's not a great time. But you know what?

You can be like, this is separate from its creators. A lot of people work on things. Yeah. But it does feel like it's one of the shows I always meant to watch. And then the more things I heard about Joss Whedon, I was like, do I really want to jump into this? Buffy. I grew up with Buffy. Buffy very certainly.

Buffy, I've been looking for you. Along with The X-Files, you know, the first show to basically have comic book storytelling. And, you know, eventually that took over all media media but it was very exciting at the time yeah um isolated sort of like episodes that i loved uh yeah it's got great the great combo of serialized and teen soap exactly just the right there's sort of two tracks of like sometimes we're gonna be like a sci-fi serial show and sometimes we're gonna be you know more of a fun team that's a thing monster of the week really fucking lost with streaming is the like we have so many episodes to fill that we have a couple different that's the thing right we had 22 episodes you could you could switch off you could be like this will be a fun

one right you got like a lot more experimentation with form when people had to figure out how to not be repetitive hydrant was just telling me about fuck, I already forgot the name of the show. What's it called? The show, the Tom Holland show. Oh, The Crowded Room. And like, apparently they don't have the twist till episode seven or something. It's episode seven.

I'm not going to talk about the show because it annoyed me so much. What is the show? It's the one with Tom Holland on. Doing what? He. Yeah, there's some singing and dancing. I can't spoil it.

You can't spoil it even though the twist is so it because there was a spoiler embargo for episode seven. So basically you cannot reveal what the premise of the show is because it does not reveal itself until a crowded room. Exactly. It's the premise of the show. It's based off a true story of which you can't reveal what the true story is based off of. Now, you can Google the true story and then make some inferences. Yeah. It will have come out by this point, I will say.

But anyway, it doesn't matter. But anyway, that's yes we all agreed serialized tv was better in the 90s yeah sure bring back episodic tv yes let tv shows be tv shows again will they though i don't know it's all broken is it even tv though anymore streaming shows is that what should we call this is the i mean contractually all these things are written up as if they're web screen shows screen shows yeah it's on a screen yeah series do you like that no the boob tube yeah i like that let's bring them back we're gonna watch another another tube yeah another boob tube okay she's a crazy vampire okay they have the big fight in the rooftops they're jumping around um and then at some point soon after is where you sort of have

the scene where through eyes alone she sort of starts the mom starts to communicate what has happened because she knows everything well the right the mother, right, we should mention. Eyes and nails. Yes. Yes. Pointing, sort of. The sequence where she asked to be killed and then he cannot let it happen and converts her all happens while the mother-in-law is lying on the ground watching them frozen post-stroke. And then there's the scene

where the friends come over for Mahjong and are all like, I'm sure your husband will show up at some point it's tragedy who knows we'll get an answer at some point he's just missing right but just like aggressively unsuspicious right right and and the mother-in-law who up until this moment has seemed completely just kind of like i think to their mind she she's got nothing going they think she's almost vegetative right right and then she starts as you said like she she gets one of her fingernails off so she can write in blood on the arm of the chair. She teaches them how to, like, read her communication through length of blinks and stuff like that and starts spelling it out to them, which is an incredible sequence.

I love the fact that her nails are already so gross and falling off at that point. Like, it's something that even Taejoo and Sang-woo have not noticed at that point. They're like, what happened to your nail? And she's been working at it

to try to write in blood exactly what's been happening. So she has a mission. So she tips a couple people off and so they may have to die. I love movies where it turns out

everyone's going to have to die. You know what I mean? Where like you're in so deep and then someone else walks in and sees you doing something and you're like but they just like they start drawing curtains

like oh boy I guess we're gonna have to do this murder her with the hand saw coming up the stair you know she's got the big saw she's pretty happy about it she's pretty happy for a massacre she's looking for an excuse

she calls herself like a human eating monster at one point like the first thing when he when the uh i think the cop runs out and she just breaks his neck with his with her arm and she's like yep just all in a day's work she's excited about it yet she keeps the third guy alive right yeah the guy that she was also having an affair with yes she is randomly having There's that scene where They're having the worst sex She's just like sitting on top of him not looking at him And then just kind of gets up and is like I'm going Yes there's this sort of

Sub affair happening Who is that guy? He's just a guy? He's just a guy Right And then so after all of that murder Is Is the camping right is the is like him him leading her away basically right yeah this is yeah this is the ending right this is peak

just i i want to be caught i want people to destroy me right right he basically frames himself for sexual assault that he did not commit right uh at a campsite of people he knows uh adore him deify him right uh just to create a a paper trail basically of this guy sucks um and he yeah does get his dick out just to make sure people think he's a real loser right so why do you think he's so intent on leaving his legacy like that because he's already had that um wanting to sort of shed that and be left alone and not have to deal with people who idolize him but why does he want to leave make sure he dies that way yeah make sure he dies that way possibly discuss it with himself uh his sort of you know extreme betrayal of his original principles whatever they were yeah and i, and I think it's a heightening

of how he feels at the beginning of the movie, which is just like, I feel like a phony. That people look to me like I have any answers and my genuine belief is that it's all bullshit. And that heightens over the course of the movie to him doing a lot of bad things. The last thing he wants is to be deified in his death. He's been a monster

and hiding this whole time so now he wants to bring the monster out. Yeah. Right, because even when he did become a monster, no one turned against him. Everyone's like,

you're still great. Yeah. What a cool guy you are. And the one person that he revealed it to was like, cool, I'll become a monster too. I can has powers.

Right. But I think it's like not even a very strategic thing. It is that like people so overwhelmed with guilt that they do something stupid because they want to get caught. You know, it's like, why does Robert Durst steal the fucking sandwich? Why does OJ do the Jersey heist? That man is not normal. You think this man's normal? No, he's not too normal.

He's a vampire. I think he's better than OJ and Robert Durst. I agree. He's number three. And, yeah, and then you just have this incredible final sequence of them in this car, out in the beach, in the middle, you know, unable to get, unable to outrun the sun. Yes. I've taken us to a place where the sun's about to rise

and we just can't get away from it. Like, even if we ran. I like how extended the sequence is and also how funny it is. Throwing it back in the car. It's so funny. It's basically a big, like, just set up of gag after gag

of her trying to hide from the sun and him just demolishing that hope in some way or another. And she'll, like, grab a bit off of the car and, like, hit him and, like, all that stuff. She'll hide in the trunk. He'll throw the trunk's car, like, hood away. And then she'll try to, like, find the hood again

and she'll just throw it into the ocean. And then they're finally, like, okay. And they sit on the thing and she says, together in hell, and he's like, there's no hell, hell Like that's it Right There's nothing Yeah we're not going anywhere

Mother-in-law just trapped in the backseat Yeah They're far away It's gonna take a long time probably For anyone to find her Like that's sort of the darkest element of this It's true She may well die

She's probably just gonna starve to death I mean I guess maybe someone will Come out for a stroll She He gave her the phone Before he like Sure Committed suicide He put it gave her the phone before he like sure they committed suicide he put it in her hand so he's like yeah all right that's up to you now yeah i mean good luck uh obviously it's very intense them burning up but then there is the kind of the jokiness of

like their look ashy little legs and then the shoes fall off uh-huh it's just sort of funny it's funny but it's also kind of sweet because it brings it back to that first shoes you're right you're right and then but there's also just them looking out of like an ocean of blood right that's my favorite part he starts like hallucinating in that moment and just imagines the entire ocean is blood with dolphins swimming through the blood and everything it's fucking crazy yeah is the whole movie and the ending actually a metaphor for park chan-wook's uh own atheism like going from catholicism to atheism i think so i mean like absolutely it's so fuel but right like be like i mean he talks about it so clinically when he's interviewed he may just be trying to not sort of come off offensively or whatever he's just like you know one day i just decided as a teenager i'm not religious yeah and

that's fine but like yeah i mean the loss of faith can be like this really profound upsetting notion right you have this sort of you know idea of like oh i'm gonna go somewhere when i die or oh you know it's also come up a lot in directors we've covered yeah so many directors following some path as teens someone was like you'd be a good priest and and i do think it's it's often you hear like oh that this film became their new belief system at the moment where they suddenly felt there is no meaning to any of this what they would rather do is uh use fake stories to communicate their thoughts rather than stand in front of anyone and claim that they are telling the truth.

But it doesn't, you know, the novel obviously is working off of those sort of Victorian novels and like so many film genres where it is like fuck around and find out, right? So it's just like, look, it's fun. It's crazy what you do. It's liberating.

But then at the end of the day, you are going to probably die. I like categorizing a whole genre as fuck around and find out yeah in the wikipedia they say it's the it's one of the first examples of naturalism but fuck around find out is much better i think yeah yeah if i if i ever met emil zola i'd be like oh you kind of invented fucking around and finding out how do you feel about that um right because like like, you know Yeah It's not like quote unquote like crime pays It's more just kind of like, you know, you can search for the sublime or like whatever The answer all you want

Bill comes due Right But we're all destined for the dirt It's like what? This movie can't just end with them being like Let's just be hot vampires who murder and then like just jumping into the sky That would be weird You kind of like that? It's kind of a good who murder and then, like, just jumping into the sky. That would be weird. You kind of like that?

It's kind of a good pitch. Thirst 2, hardly thirsting. How does Only Lovers Left Alive end? Doesn't it end? I have not seen that film since theaters. Just basically restart the cycle of their relationship? Yes. It ends with them finding young lovers, like, kissing.

And they're like, here we go again. Like, you know, like, and it's great. That movie's great. I love that. But half of that movie is mostly just them sitting around being like, remember when we hung out with Mozart? What a crazy dude. Right? Like.

Yes. While they're in, like, a parking lot in Detroit. It's the same thing I love about The Old Guard of just, like, what do you do if you're thousands of years old? Right. If everything just becomes like meaningless. Yeah. Yeah. You've seen it all.

You've done it all. Have you seen Only Lovers Left Alive? I have not seen Only Lovers Left Alive. I need to. Do you like Hiddleston? I do like Hiddleston. It's like peak spindly, sexy, pale ass Hiddleston. Maybe.

Because I'm a fan of Hiddleston in Crimson Peak. So it feels like a one of. It's very similar era to that.on. Yeah. Maybe. Because I'm a fan of Hiddleston in Crimson Peak, so it feels like a one-off of a piece. It's a very similar era to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So maybe only a year or two before that. Yes.

Oh, he's good in Crimson Peak. He's great. He should do Del Toro. I mean, we thought he was probably going to win. He should have had a shot in this bracket

that Park Chan-wook won. Yeah. But then he lost to Park Chan-wook. Yeah but then he lost he lost yeah so fuck around and find out fuck around and find out is the lesson there um are there any other sort of like as a as a fan of his films general park chan-wook thoughts you want to drop on this episode um i like how intentional he is with uh his camera all the time and the way that he frames things he always loves frames within frames, especially in that introductory scene with the priest

when we have the shot of the hospital door and the shadows of the leaves on it. And it feels like there's something about nature and man and the clinical, you know, setting there going on and then um especially in the scene where um we have the mahjong um game and with the introduction of all of the people and the camera swings back and forth between people who are speaking but also people who are reacting and i was just thinking how different it is from how bong joon-ho's camera is with a big ensemble um scene with a big group of people and how this feels so much more laser focused on a single person with each shot versus with Bong Joon-ho.

There's almost like a more of a chaos to it, but also. He loves chaos. Yeah. But a more like framed chaos in a way. And I thought that was so interesting. People stumbling over each other. Yeah, right. Exactly.

What's the sort of anthropologist versus architect thing? Yeah. Mark Chen has always been that architect. He's very clinical. And some people don't like that. I love it. And him making a very clinical vampire movie that is as much about how

they are forces of chaos and evil, but as much as also ruled by their you know human natures it feels very the only he could make it yeah no this is a normal movie McG could make this can I share one thought before we move on

to the box office game please yeah the mother has a really special power that stuck out for me. Okay. At one point, her son is obviously sick. He farts, and she gives a big old whiff and is able to detect certain aspects of his sickness.

I cannot believe we almost went the whole episode without talking about this. In a way, sort of being a fart detective she is a fart detective right right she because she even goes like no it smells different than when you had pneumonia like she's sort of yeah she she's got like different samples to pull from yeah she is she is the true fart detective which by the way is a title we have bestowed upon ben in the years of this show i was wondering about this bit yeah detective yeah he's a fart detective, which, by the way, is a title we have bestowed upon Ben in the years of this show. I was wondering about this bit.

Yeah, he is a fart detective. And I don't necessarily love the title, but I have many others that are far superior. But anyway, it's just nice to see, I guess, yourself represented on this big screen. You clearly like this mob. Yeah, no, wasn't it that when we went to see Turok the First Flight, the Avatar Cirque du Soleil show, that the guy in front of you had lined up by a hot dog, farted, and tried to pass off like it was someone else? Yeah. And you called him out on it? Yeah. And then we called you the fart detective.

That's pretty much how that all went. Called him out on it, to be clear. He didn't call him out in person. No. Yeah, that's how that all went down. Yeah. Thirst was at the 2009 Camp Film Festival. Won the grand jury prize?

It won the jury prize, the sort of third place prize. It shared it with Fish Tank, the Andrea Arnold film. Some of the other movies at that can. Glorious Bastards? In competition were Inglourious Bastards. Yeah. Antichrist, which everyone had a very chill reaction to. Yeah, normal.

Jane Campion's Bright Star. One of your favorites. Wonderful movie, Almodovar's Broken Embraces. Gaspar Noé's Enter the Void. I love that movie. Ben Cannon. Bastards, like we said. You know, Jacques Audiard's The Prophet,

which is, sorry, A Prophet, which is a big deal. Great film. Ang Lee's, great film. Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, less of a great film But still And the Palm, of course, went to the White Ribbon Yes Michael Haneke

And Isabelle Huppert Was the jury president, and everyone was like She was in the bag for Haneke Yeah Just kind of a stacked camp Isabelle Huppert was the jury president. Everyone was like, she was in the bag for Hanukkah. But yeah, just kind of a stacked camp. Has he won three times or two times? Two times. No one's won three.

Right. Okay. It's a really good year. But yeah, Prophet won the Grand Prix. You know, Christoph Waltz won Best Actor. And Charlotte Ginsberg, Best Actress for Antichrist. Yeah. Chill movie.

That's why they gave it for Antichrist. Yeah. Chill movie. That's why they gave it to Gansmore. Yeah. Well, I think that was one of those kind of like, sorry, I had to put up It was a little bit like the Anadomas Oscar nomination.

Big year for full frontal male nudity. I was going to say, another movie with dicks. Yeah. Dick. Right. But isn't that one fake?

I think so, because it gets, you know, mutilated. That's also the thing that Lars von Trier said. He said Willem Dafoe's penis was too large and distracting. I believe he said confusingly that it took away from the story. Yeah, during the test screenings, the audience was confused.

That was the only part. Otherwise, logic crystal clear in this film. I'm confused. Yeah. The fox, I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But, you know, still, I feel like early, you like early It's the 2000s

It's still a very big deal for these films to be winning Major prizes at the Big fancy western film festivals Old Boys, Big Breakout, Was It Can, blah blah blah Was a success at the Korean box office And apparently There's an extended Cut of the film

On it's blu-ray It is the film on its Blu-ray. I don't know that I've ever seen that. It is only on the Korean Blu-rays. It has not been released in any other territories. The film itself is long. It's 2 hours 15 minutes, basically. The extended cut's like 2 and a half. Correct.

Let's play the box office game. Yeah, I looked into that. It's only available in one version of the Blu-ray that goes for like $250. This one came out in america on july 31st 2009 so it's the summer of 2009 griffin they released somewhat like 4 000 screens it was released on four screens okay number one of the box office is a comedy it's new this week july 31st 2009 it's a long film speaking Speaking of long films. Funny People. I knew that would be enough.

But a very low number one. Somewhat underperforming. As Judd Apatow's Big Fob to Knocked Up and an Adam Sandler movie, it's only making 22. I think people thought it would do better. Yeah. But they underestimated the fact that it's 14 hours long. Correct. And sort of incredibly depressing.

Kind of a bummer, yeah. Good movie, though. Great fucking movie I love. 14 hours long. Correct. And sort of incredibly depressing. Kind of a bummer, yeah. Good movie, though, in my opinion. Great fucking movie I love. Underrated movie. Yes. Hangover had been so big earlier in the summer. That's true. Hangover number eight, still hanging around.

And Sandler at this point, too, it was like, every time he made a happy mass in comedy, it made $100 million, without exception. And then when he would do his Spanglish or his Rain Over Me or his Punch Drunk Love, then it would kind of bomb. And everyone thought like, well, this is going to be the one that's right in the middle.

In the middle, right. Yeah. But it kind of bombed. Yeah. You know, it made 55. Or no, sorry, 51. Yeah, it didn't do great. It's very long.

Yeah. How long is it? It's like two and a half hours, I want to say. I think it's even close to 40. It's two and a half. It's crazy that they let him's two and a half it's crazy that they let him do that but knocked up had been such a smash yeah all right number two at the box office what did it open to 22 oh yeah number two the box office since third week is a

film i just said is in this episode i said was the best in its series you said in i said in this episode this film is the best in its series What series were we just talking about? Twilight No, because that's November I know, I didn't say it was Twilight Why did you tell me it was Twilight? Come on, we talked about it Come on

Oh, it's the fucking It's the Harry Potter you like the best Order of the Phoenix? No Though I think that one's also pretty good. Half-Blood Prince? That's right. Bruno Del Bonel. It looks great. Beautiful, inky visuals. I agree.

There's love potion comedy. That's the one that's mostly... There's Jim Broadbent turning into an armchair. Flashbacks, right? That's only happened in like three or four movies. I have to say, Order of the Phoenix is kind of underrated. Order of the Phoenix, the movie? Yes. Is Order of the Phoenix is kind of underrated. Order of the Phoenix, the movie? Yes.

Is Order of the Phoenix the fifth one? Yes. That's the Dumbledore's Army one? Yeah, and it's the first David Yates one. And it's him bringing some sort of juice to the series, in my opinion. He's got a lot of cool design ideas. Yeah, because Order of the Phoenix was him doing, I'm going to do these weird blue-tinted color scheme things.

And it works really well with Order of the Phoenix, but then he keeps doing it with the next ones. And I'm like, scheme things. And it works really well with Order of the Phoenix, but then he keeps doing it with the next ones. And I'm like, okay. I love it. But his design for the Ministry of Magic, where it's all the black tiles, it looks like a weird subway station. I just think he, I think, whatever.

He gave the thing some juice. And now he clearly still has all the juice from the crimes of Grindelwald and Secrets of Dumbledore. You can tell. Yeah. The man still got juice. Yes.

I'm joking. It does feel like a bit like a vampire thing where they like gave him a power and now it's like sucking. It's draining him. Yes. Half-Blood Prince is good though. It's one of the few summer potters, much like Azkaban. Yeah.

It was a summer potter. Yeah. Number three at the box office is a cartoon movie about gerbils. G-Force. Yeah. G-Force. One of those movies that like made $130 million domestic and it was like, wow, big hit for Disney. And they were like, actually, we lost $300 million on this. And you were like, why was G-Force the most expensive movie ever made?

G-Force was $300 million? G-Force. I know that Disney did like $100 million write-off on G-Force. You have brought this up so many times. It is fascinating. Yes. Because it was a hit. It did all right. Yeah, G-off on you you have brought this up so many it is fascinating yes because it was a hit it did all right yeah g-force did pretty good it was like it was directed by i think the guy who was like the special effects supervisor on the pirates the caribbean movies and his son was like you should make an action movie with gerbils and then he went to jerry bruckheimer and was like my dad my son said i should make an action movie with gerbils. And then he went to Jerry Bruckheimer and was like,

my dad, my son said I should make an action movie with gerbils. Yes. Son, you should make an action movie with gerbils. And Jerry Bruckheimer was like, here's $150 million. And then they like tried to do it with state of the art technology at a time where like you could make fucking Beverly Hills Chihuahua for $40 million.

No one gave a shit. They were like, what if we make the most photorealistic animals ever? And it just went crazy over budget and Disney lost their fucking shirt on it. Mickey was shirtless. He's always shirtless. He just wears suspenders. Yeah, because of G-Force.

He wishes he was wearing a shirt. Number four at the box office. Yeah. The romantic comedy that dared tell. The proposal. No proposal no dared tell what griffin the ugly truth that's right a movie we have argued perhaps killed the rom-com but you know women's head yes is in their heart area sorry her heart is in their head area right men's heart is in their dick area right the poster The poster is she's holding a picture of a heart. Yeah, but then there was the first even blunter.

You see where the man's heart is? It's not in the head at all. That's the ugly truth. But that's a prime example of a movie that was a hit that arguably killed Heigl, Butler. There we are. And the career, just romantic comedy as a genre for like 10 years. Have you seen The Ugly Truth

I refuse to watch The Ugly Truth do you know The Ugly Truth then you don't know The Ugly Truth I watched the trailers for The Ugly Truth and I'm like

I'm not watching that movie you'd rather live a beautiful life than ever know The Ugly Truth I'd rather live yeah The Ugly Lie for me

the idea is he's like a talk show host right and he's like he's like Howard Stern and they're like I'm telling you The Ugly Truth I'm Australian for some reason David he's like a talk show host, right? He's like Howard Stern and they're like, I'm telling you the ugly truth. I'm Australian for some reason. David, he's got an American accent. I'm telling you

the ugly truth. Hello, I'm Gerard Butler. I'm very much an American guy. I'm from Nebraska. Yeah, I do a talk show where I say, guess what? I don't care who's offended. I like having sex with women. And then Katherine Heigl is hired to make him more appealing to women.

And then, would you believe it? They fall in love. Yeah. Number five at the box office is new this week. It's a bomb. Children's film. It's a children's film bomb. It's a big bomb.

2009, July 31st. Is it based on anything? No. What studio? 20th century fox it's a big 20th century fox bomb it's not aliens in the attic it is in fact aliens in the attic griffin you got that in one that's one where you're just like what what was the pitch on this what if there were aliens in the attic and you said yes and you opened the checkbook for that yeah well that's what's number one number six the that's not what's number one that's what's number five sorry number six the hugely underrated horror uh orphan yeah i feel like not underrated anymore because it got that legacy sequel yeah um you like orphan yeah no it's

it's a good movie and um surprised that uh it's been so long since then yeah that's wild but that was also one where when it came out the reviews were like are they fucking with us does this movie know it's insane or not and then i feel like his career has demonstrated like yes i'm fully aware of all the insanity orphan is camp yes it's highly yes it is the moment and it's just one of those yeah yeah or estphan is camp. Yes. It's highly camp. Yes, it is the moment. And it's just one of those, yeah, yeah, or Esther is serving camp. Yes.

Yeah. No. Esther the orphan did the thing. There's something wrong with Esther and it's that she did the thing. No, just great Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard, just two great actors

to play like, the fuck is wrong with you? You know, the whole movie. Yeah. You've also got Ice Age, Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Which one is that? Three? That's three. Yeah. You've also got Ice Age, Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Which one is that? Three?

That's three. Okay. You've got The Hangover still. You've got The Proposal still. Comedy going strong. Cute. And then, of course, Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, the second and worst. The biggest film of the summer.

It was a huge fucking hit. It was humongous. It made $400 million at the U.S. box office. Yes. It like opened to $200 million. God. Do you like the Transformers movies? I detest them.

Wow. All of them? So just universally? Everything except Bumblebee, I will say. Bumblebee's a little cutie pie. He is a little cutie pie. I hear he doesn't do much in this new one. He's in it though? He's benched.

He's in it. He's in it. He's in it. He's not a beast. He's got to step back and listen. He's got to sit his's in it. He's in it. He's not a beast. He's got to step back and listen. He's got to sit his ass down. And let some others rise. Wait for the rise of the beast.

For once. Neither of you have seen Rise of the Beast yet, right? No. No. Especially now that I know that Bumblebee is not in it. Because he's not a beast. He's just a cute little bumblebee. Bumble beast.

Make him a beast. He is, in fact, a giant car. He is not a cute little bumblebee, but he's cuter. Let's see. No, yeah, apparently Pete Davidson's like one of the main Transformers. He's Mirage. I heard he's actually quite good in this, too. Yeah, I can see that.

Fuck, Ron Perlman is Optimus Primal? What? Yeah, monkey. The fuck? Yes. Michelle Yeoh plays... Michelle Yeoh? Yes. Areser plays Michelle Yeoh?

Yes Arieser? Airazer? Airazer She turns into a peregrine falcon apparently Correct, yeah Okay Is Cheetor in it? Rat trap?

I don't know what you're talking about Cheetor is in it Who plays Cheetor? Tanguy Chirizia Okay, no rat trap A Zimbabwean actor He was my favorite character I can't keep track of the nonsense you're saying Uh, Tanguy Chirizia. Okay, no Rat Trap. A Zimbabwean actor. Here's my favorite character.

I can't keep track of the nonsense you're saying. Rat Trap! Coleman Domingo apparently voices Unicron. Eater of Worlds? Yeah. Unicron's like the Galactus of the Transformers. See, I don't know any of this shit. I don't know any of this shit. I was going to say I don't either, but I'm saying you.

Yeah, you're the one who's saying, oh, what about this guy? You know at least a little bit. Yeah, I'm not really into it, but I know it. Yeah, literally every time I read a Transformers article, my eyes glaze over and I'm like, yeah, something about cars. Well, the other problem is anytime I'm like, I love lore. I don't like the Transformers movies or anything, but I'll be like, oh, let me read like a clean Wikipedia page. And it's like, no, there's like 18 different kinds of Transformers things. So there's not even like sort of like a unified canon I can enjoy. I like that the lore exists.

Do you know what I'm saying? Like I don't care about it. It's up its own ass. Yeah, that's what I kind of like about it. The more convoluted, the better. Correct. Unicron was the Orson Welles character. That was his final performance.

I know that. No, I know. He's a planet. He is a planet. He eats other planets. We love a planet eating planet. Yeah. It's just fucking Galactus.

Yeah. They just ripped it off. Except he transforms from a planet into a planet eating planet yeah it's just fucking galactus yeah they just ripped it off except he transforms from a planet into a planet with arms and legs i gotta go home oh now you gotta go home yeah i start talking

about unicron suddenly you gotta go home yeah i'm out of here okay uh hartran thank you so much for being on the show thank you so much for inviting me such a great guest gotta come

back overdue yes i'm also not at all resentful that Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much for inviting me. Such a great guest. Gotta come back. Overdue. Yes. I'm also not at all resentful that you guys didn't invite me for the Ghibli series. That was several years ago. Yes, that's true. It's okay. It's all right. It's fine.

I'm not the biggest Ghibli fan of all time or anything. But apologies. Oh my God. Wait. Well, what's your favorite? We'll talk. Yeah, what is your favorite? Spirited Away.

It's a pretty basic one, but it's my favorite. The correct answer. Do you have a favorite Takahata? Oh, Takahata. Because I feel like we'll do him eventually. I do love Princess Kaguya. Yeah. That movie's incredible.

Nice. I was looking, because it was this story. I'm sure it has changed by the time this episode comes out but at this very moment across the spider verse is the highest rated film in the history of letterboxd oh sure yeah just early it'd be come and see correct yeah um but i was just curious like oh what is the the letterboxd top 50 and how many of those movies have we covered and like what are the highest rated movies that we've covered and there are actually quite a few park jam book films on in the top 50 alone okay handmaiden i think is pretty high up there that's a that's an early

letterboxd fave too that came out right when letterboxd was getting hot spiritual ways like number four as it should be i've said it's the best film ever made. We should talk. We'll do a second. I've re-watched it 60 times. I have not seen it 60 times. How many times have you watched Ponyo? 15 or a lot. It's because I put Spirited Away

on when I did laundry, so that's why. It was a ritual. Spirited Away is like this special jewel in a box that I will take out in my toughest times. I love it. Maybe I should watch Spirited Away. You going through some stuff? The air is on fire. That's true.

Apart from that, I'm doing okay. Yeah. I'm just very stressed out yesterday with all the air on fire. Oh, not me. I felt very normal. As you know, I never extrapolate. Yeah, well, you never extrapol extrapolate You're out there extrapolating I just got that kid you're just sort of like

What am I supposed to do here And your kid's like go outside And you're like I can't go outside Stressful It looked like when he has the Fucking vision of the ocean Being full with blood at the end of thirst It did not look like that

It did look like that. Do you have anything you want to plug? I would like to plug my own podcast. Yes. Trekking Through Time and Space. It's a Doctor Who Star Trek watch podcast that I run with Jacob Hall of Slash Film. Right. You can find it on all your podcasting platforms.

But tell me, no, that's too, tell me the, how do you do this? Okay. So I have never seen Star Trek, I have never seen Star Trek. You have never seen Star Trek. Jacob had never seen Doctor Who. Okay. Never seen any of any series, any version.

Any of the series. I had seen the movies, the Abrams movies, but I'm a Doctor Who fan, Jacob's a Star Trek fan, and we decided to get together and show each other our favorite shows. So each episode is like one of each? It is. You're each picking like a curated episode for the other to watch or are you going through more? We're going chronologically, baby. Alright, I love that. Okay, so where are you?

I like these kinds of forms. Oh, absolutely. I knew there was a good form. Right, yeah, first episode where no man has gone before and rose. So you're starting with the rebooted Russell T. Davis. We're starting with the rebooted Russell T. Davies Doctor Who, but then we are going to be going back to the classic Who at some point. We're going to be doing a temporal pincer movement.

Yes, absolutely. You can't watch some of those early ones. They, like, don't exist. They don't exist. They're just, like, thrown in the garbage. Do you know, there's some of the ones where they still have only the audio and they've now started animating them. Which is kind of cool. They recently found some.

Believe you, you're aware? Those guys are crazy. Which guys are crazy? Whovians. Like, the true Doctor Who. Who's the one who's telling you about you're aware? Those guys are crazy. Which guys are crazy? Whovians. Like the true Doctor Who. Who's the one who's telling you about this, though? So I went to school in London, and you're not allowed to make fun of that. It's very serious.

And there was a Star Trek society, you know, and like they watched Star Trek episodes at lunchtime. You go check it out. It was a little dorky. Like fairly mainstream dorks you know star trek was like on tv right you know when we were kids when i was a teenager that was like prime time stuff doctor who was off the air when i was a pretty neglected moment it was you know because the whole 90s and much of the 2000s there's no doctor who right except for the one movie with paul mcgain The failed sort of pilot. With Eric Roberts

as the master. Yes. And there was a Doctor Who society, right, as well, and they would watch, but that would be a thing where you're like,

okay, so you're a teenager like me. This has never been on while you were a kid. Sure. So you are obsessed with a dead franchise that exists in sort of

videotaped form. It's like me being obsessed with Buster Keaton movies when I was 15. Yeah, and like, I was not judgmental of it, but it was definitely, it was a sort of a deeper, more devoted kind of quainter form of nerdery. Sure.

They were like the true nerds. They're idealists. They, a little bit. It was very sweet. And also like, I love those old doctors. I haven't seen that many of them. I've seen a fair amount of them. And they're quaint as well because they're, you know, they're very vintage.

I feel like so much of the attitude was like, well, they had no money to make any of this and it all looks bad, but the ingenuity. Yeah, and the spirit. The story writing and all that.

They had no money and a dream. Yes. Anyway, so that sounds fun going back. So what are you up to now? That's a great question. Oh, unfortunately,

well, we're going back and forth between Doctor Who and the spinoff, so we're doing some Torchwood right now. Oh, unfortunately. Well, we're going back and forth between Doctor Who and the spinoff. So we're doing some Torchwood right now. Oh, interesting. So we are at this point doing, we're finishing up Torchwood Miracle Day, which is terrible. I never touched any of Torchwood. Is that the last Torchwood?

It's the last Torchwood. Because the one before that was pretty good, right? Yes. Children of Earth is probably some of the best sci-fi TV I've seen in a while. Right. Torchwood season one I remember being very mixed. It's very mixed. It's very.

That's the nicest way to put it. Yes. Up and down. But yeah, right now we're in Star Trek TNG and Torchwood Miracle Day. But we're soon moving on to Doctor Who season six. I mean, I guess you guys truly picked the most bottomless of franchises. You really can't stop with these. We can go forever.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're in the middle of season two of franchises. You really can't stop with these. We can go forever. Right, yeah. Because you're in the middle of season two of TNG. We are. I was fanatical about Doctor Who through the middle of the Mets. Sure, I think a lot of people fell off sort of middle and end of Mets. But it's so daunting to even get back into it now.

Well, I think the new one's going to be kind of a reset. It's a nice reset. Russell Chidiabes is back. And we have a new Doctor. have david tennant coming back before the new doctor played by new by shudigawa comes on yeah so uh i think it'll be a good reset you can join in again although i will say as one of the people who fell off in the middle of the matt smith well actually at the end of the matt smith era um and then um you didn't watch the capaldi one i didn't watch it i came back to capaldi and now cap Capaldi, I believe, is the best Doctor. He was amazing.

It's just that the show, maybe I had my problems with his performance. Towards the end of the Matt Smith run, but Capaldi is like, well, that's of course exactly who should be playing the Doctor. He is incredible. Yeah. Like, literally every scene with him, just like, I need more of you. I need five more seasons of this. So, yeah. No, I agree with that.

I watched pretty much all of it. What are your Jodie Whittaker thoughts? The show just stunk with her. It wasn't her fault. It's not her fault. She's pretty charming. She was poorly served by very inconsistent writing

and one that didn't know how to characterize its own doctor. Who was the showrunner? Chris Chibnall. Okay. Don't get me started. Yeah.

The Broadchurch guy. I mean, that was his big claim to fame was he did Broadchurch. He did Broadchurch. He did a good job with that and he has some good ideas but he doesn't know how to follow through with them on any doctor who has somebody's written.

Right, because he did Torchwood as well, right? He did. Don't get me started. Oh, boy. I used to really give a shit about that stuff. Loved it. Yeah. Yeah.

I never watched Torchwood. I never watched First Word. I never watched Sarah Jane Adventures. No, I mean, at a certain point, like, yeah, there's only so many hours in the day. And then going back to the earlier stuff just felt like, yeah. Daunting. Daunting. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

60th anniversary of Doctor Who this year, guys. Is that what it is? Mm-hmm. Fuck. No, no, no. No, no, no. Best theme song of all time. Except for maybe ER.

I don't know There was this show That was on Starring Ted Danson Becker? Yeah Had a certain theme song God, I wish I could remember the Becker theme song David, could you play it quickly?

I haven't heard this thing in years What? This is from a That was a good theme song Yeah As I remember Absolutely But I can't even Oh, wait a second That was a good theme song, as I remember. Absolutely. But I can't even...

Oh, wait a second. Who's the doctor in the house? Hi, Chen. This is... We were doing a whole bit about this. Somebody from Mr. Vengeance? Yeah.

Somehow we spent half that episode talking about Becker and played this theme song eight times. Do you even know what Becker is? I've never heard of Becker

before. It's a sitcom with Ted Danson. I don't even know how old you are. You may have been a child when Becker was on TV. What if House was more of an asshole and he didn't actually solve anyone's problems? He solves problems. Well, I don't know.

He probably writes you a description. It's always lupus in this case. It actually always is lupus. It's just like, lupus, on you go. Yeah. Becker always says it's lupus, but it isn't. Yeah, right. Yeah, sure.

Anyway, wait, play the Becker thing. I want to take us out. I literally just... Alright, fine. I'll do it again. Okay. Okay, here we go. There we go. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media.

Why don't we just do this every episode now? Thank you to Joe Bone and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. Danny Burke for our theme song you to Joe Bone and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. Danny Birch for our theme song. Adrian Keenox Barron for our editing. Lama Gary the Grim Reckon. I sent that one already. Go to blanksharkpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon, Blank

Shark special features. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's going on? It just loaded up another video called Dr. Becker on political correctness that I don't know if we want to listen to. No, we definitely don't. Keep going with the outro. Is he a surgeon?

He's a neighborhood doctor. Yeah. He works in the Bronx. But he's an old school New Yorker. Blank Check Special Features, Patreon, film series, we're doing the oceans. No oceans full of blood, just oceans full of

stars. Yeah, movie stars. Movie stars. And of course we have our free membership on Patreon, where every 10 days we unlock an episode from three years ago. So that's Mission Impossible series right now. Yeah, sure. Let's see. I think yes.

Crime in the Pump for Dead Reckoning Part 1? A few days ago, we had Trolls, the experience with Richard Lawson. That's an early COVID episode. That is an episode describing the last thing we did before lockdown basically. Griff, I have to pee. How much of this? Oh, I misread that.

It doesn't matter. Enough. You're right. It was Mission Impossible. Well, I was right. Tune in next week for... Well, oh, I'm sorry. You put me on this much. Stoker. was right. Tune in next week for... Well, uh, oh, I'm sorry. You put me on this much. Stoker. Stoker. Yeah. Do you like Stoker? I do like Stoker. Yeah. Stoker with Emily St. James

returning to the show far too long. And as always, from here on out, every episode ends with the Becker theme. Play it again. No. Play it again. We'll play it in post. Let's just play it live. Okay, now you can go pee, David.

You don't like me pointing the microphone at my laptop? That's not a thing you like? I mean, it's not helpful.