Blank Check with Griffin & David - Wendell & Wild

Episode Date: January 15, 2023

Henry Selick waited thirteen years to make his follow-up to CORALINE, and it feels like we’ve been waiting even longer to hear David’s TIFF Airbnb story - a yarn that finally gets unspooled with the help of friend Shirley Li. After that business is taken care of, we try our best to describe Selick’s WENDELL & WILD - a film that ranks among the more convoluted of the movies we’ve covered on the pod. Yet - we still find a lot to love about this tale of demons, hair creme, and private prisons! Stop motion puppets that look just like Key, Peele, AND James Hong! Esteemed British character actor David Harewood as Black Trump! And Ben shines a special spotlight on the film’s killer soundtrack. 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

Everybody's got podcasts. My podcasts have names. The demons. Demons. We're a couple demons. That's the opening line of the film, right? Or the opening voiceover. It's the end of the opening voiceover.

And then the title rushes towards us or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. We're a couple. We're like the Wendell and Wild of podcasting. Sure. In that we're like annoying little guys. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. We're a couple, we're like the Wendell and Wild of podcasting. Sure.

Network, like annoying little guys. Yeah, demonic. Who live in someone's hair. Right. Yeah. We're going to talk about this right before we start recording.

Just the way scheduling stuff shakes out, new releases and what have you. Like, at first we thought, oh, we'll do sell at the end of the year and we'll like time it out around when Wendell and Wild's coming out and then things shift around and you're you. Like, at first we thought, oh, we'll do Selleck at the end of the year and we'll like time it out around when Wendell and Walt's coming out

and then things shift around and you're like, oh, this episode's going to come out three months after the movie comes out. Will that be annoying that we're like

getting to it so late? And it does feel like this movie came out in October. We're recording right now in December. The episode will drop in January.

I would say this movie has already been forgotten. I don't think most people are aware that it existed in the first place. Yeah, forgotten is almost the wrong word. How can you forget something you never knew existed? Right. Our episode coming out three months after this movie was released on Netflix.

It was on the very popular streaming service. I think ultimately might function as a reclamation project. Yeah. I don't want to point any fingers at anybody because I don function as a reclamation project. Yeah. I don't want to point any fingers at anybody because I don't know who made this decision. Yeah. But it felt like it was almost illegal to reference that this film was coming out.

Bizarre. Like that. It was like some kind of like guarded secret. And not only that, but it was like, it does feel like Selick did the rounds. Selick went and did a lot of live events. There was stuff. It had a festivalck went and did a lot of live events. There was stuff.

Q&As, talks, festivals. It had a festival premiere. It did a lot of interviews, and most of those interviews seemed to be butt-dressing more. It's the anniversary of Nightmare Before Christmas. Yeah, and look, I'm among the culprits here. I didn't write about this movie,

partly because of the problem that I keep running into. I'm like, when do I cover this? Right. Like, it's out, but it's cover this? Right. Like it's out, but it's like barely out. To what extent is it out? Should I wait for the streaming release?

Then the streaming release comes around. You're kind of like, is this too late? No one's talking about it. Like such a weird situation. It also, it played at Toronto, but was one of those movies that feels like,

even though you liked it, all our other friends who saw it with you liked it. Yeah, and I forgot about that. I did include it in my Toronto writing. Right. But you were like, that's one of five movies you saw that day. You see 20 movies in five days.

Well, we're going to talk about it. David, I'm laying you up here. You are setting me up. Welcome. Introduce our show. It's called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David.

It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who experienced massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear. Sometimes they bounce. Maybe. Heroes of Homeworld. I don't even know how to define where this film exists.

This is the increasing situation with contemporary streaming releases. Where I'm like, seems kind of like a bounce, but... I mean, the whole financing model is bouncing. Right. So, it's a bounce within a bounce. This is the end of our Henry Selick miniseries. Ben Hosley's The Podmare Before Castmas. A good old time that we have had covering the career

of a great animator. Yeah, and I was saying this to someone today. I don't know if you've had this experience, but when people ask me, so what director are you covering now? Or in the months leading up to this, what director are you covering next? And I'd say Henry Selick, and they would tilt their head and say, who?

It does really feel like the Burton thing is a shadow he will never come out from he will never come out from under it but yes i would do like selic and they'd be like blank face and i'd be like uh he has a new movie coming out blank face and i'd be like he's the guy who did nightmare before christmas and they're like tim burton selic henry selic i got that so many times and then i would do the you know he did james and the giant peach and corlin they'd be like oh those were all the same guy. That's the exact conversation. So I do feel like we did a little good by making people think about these five movies.

I don't bring up Monkeybone at all in this conversation. I do. Maybe I build to that eventually. When I bring up Monkeybone, they're like, how do I not know about that movie existing? It's another one that it was sort of a federal law. And it lost a hundred million dollars. And it stars the actor that we're all revisiting the career of right now right but no one's like ah brendan let's go through you know it's like school ties with honors and cino man the mummy no one's like monkey bone you remember that one it truly feels like the one that is being

scared i feel like free vengeance comes up in conversation more than monkey bone as part of the the brennan sans or whatever the fuck we're calling it yes this is the uh last film of henry sellick's career i hope it's not the last in totality no it's his most recent effort here's the thing like even if this movie has you cannot call it a success in terms of the public perception. Right. Sure. It's not winning critics awards. It barely got reviewed, and it doesn't feel like most people know it exists.

I do think it still basically operates as a comeback for Selleck, just in that he finished a fucking movie, and it was released. I think it might make it easier for him to get the next thing made. And it was also not like a monkey bone thing where it was slammed. Maybe the reviews were a little tepid or maybe

the reception was just in general a little quiet. I think the reviews were largely good. It just feels like people didn't cover it that much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the reaction was generally like good. You know, I have some notes but right well our reaction

is happy to have them back yeah i like this movie a lot yes um i i i rank it probably the well we'll we'll do our yeah we can do all that later yeah but david most importantly as i said before you saw this movie at the toronto international film festival i did tiff uh where it premiered yes on september 11th oh no i did not see it at the premiere screening i saw it at a press screening that i think was maybe a day or two later now you have been building up to me the story it's one of those accidental build-up situations the airbnb store so here's how it went i think on one episode i said oh i should tell that airbnb story yes forgot genuinely i think it was the woman king episode the first episode we were right after you get back yes and then people like what's the airbnb story

and i was like oh right right don't let me forget and then on another episode i may have said it again you said well it happened before i went to see Wendell and Wild, so maybe I save it for that. Eventually, I was like, you know what? I'll save it. Now, I've been saving what is a small story, but now it has become a bit of a ball of wax that I have to contend with. It does relate to my viewing of this movie, though,

and my experience at TIFF this year. Now, you say it's a small story, but it does sound like the story is big enough that you cannot tell it alone. Well, I've decided I'm going to call Shirley Lee. The great Shirley Lee. Friend of the show, Shirley Lee. Past and future guest. Past and future guest.

Because she was with me for most of this. And she's my friend, and I love her. One of the great people. She is one of the great people. And so let's call her. Okay.

Let's see if this works. We're going to call her on air. New technology calling on air. Exactly. This is also just fun for us. This is fun to see if we can pull this off. We can become a call out show. Oh, yeah. Not a call in show.

Call out. You cannot call in. We can call in. I guess we could do a call in show. Hello. Oh, my goodness. Who's this? Oh, Shirley.

Can you hear me? Hello. Oh, boy this surely can you hear me hello oh boy she can't hear me hello she's laughing now i can hear you now okay there you go remember that guy the can you hear me now guy yeah can you hear us all i can can hear you all. Wow. Ben, good job. You're doing loud and clear. That's beautiful. Incredible. Hi, Shirley. It's David, your friend and colleague. Shirley, you're in Los Angeles right now. That's true. What's the weather like? It's brisk. It's chilly for LA. It's like in the 50s. Is it sunny? Yeah, it's quite sunny. All right. Sunny Los Angeles. Great. There we go. That's what I wanted to say. You're in sunny Los Angeles right now and we are in

dank windowless Brooklyn. It's actually kind of like LA weather here today. It's unseasonably warm. It is actually weirdly warm. 52 degrees. I thought I would call you because we are recording our Wendell and Wild episode and we are going to tell the Airbnb story. I don't think

you know this, but it's become a bit of a thing on our podcast that I wanted to talk about the thing that happened at our Toronto Airbnb this year and I kept forgetting and now it's been two months longer. Three months? Four months? When was Toronto? September.

Three months and Remember it was my birthday? It was your birthday. You turned f*** and we went to Mamafuku. Remember that? September. Three months. Remember, it was my birthday. It was your birthday. You turned... We went to Mamafuku. Remember that? Congratulations. Don't tell everybody.

I shouldn't. Is that a secret? Oh, your age. I'm sorry. We can cut that out. All right. I'll bleep it. Don't worry.

We did go to Mamafuku. We went in between Bros and the Woman King. Yes. Remember, they were like, we don't have a table for you unless you can finish in 45 minutes. And I was like, woman, we have to finish in 45 minutes.

We have bros to see. They were like, can you eat fast? And we were like, challenge accepted. Also, you don't have to accept anything. We only have this much time. Right. Yes. I just quickly, quick aside.

I'm sorry. I'm confused. You saw bros? Yes, we did But I thought straight men were the problem We are the problem Shirley and I were both the problem at Bros We resolved after seeing it to never tell anyone to see it

Don't love men with a problem, David This is, what? No, you're right It was my birthday It was your birthday It was her birthday It's not your fault Okay, so, Shirley, you and i went to toronto's international film

festival together uh we shared an airbnb uh in toronto's beautiful downtown district oh boy here we go right uh we were there for work right yes this is all true i'm just laughing because i don't know how much you've built this story up over the past. I really have built it up way too much considering what it is about to be. Listeners are now doing the that's trappy meme, but with that's the Airbnb. You finally mentioning the Airbnb.

They're doing Leo. Leo on the couch. Pointing. Okay. And surely on the evening of September 11th, 2022, a day that will live in infamy. If you remember, we both got home incredibly late. We both got back to the Airbnb like at midnight.

You had seen The Good Nurse, I believe. Right. And they had done a thing where they were like, the cast has to leave before the screening. So we'll do the Q&A in advance of the movie. Always makes sense. Yes, it was. It was. I was maybe sort of losing my mind. I like the film fine. I ended up writing about it. It's like they were like, let's shuffle the cast onto the stage and do the Q&A now before anybody has seen the movie. Right. Without revealing anything about the movie.

Yes. And it was a very vague, just annoying waste of time. So you're a little strung out. You're a little tired. I had seen, I believe the last film I saw that day was Sex Drama Sanctuary with Margaret Qualley coming to theaters in 2023. I didn't know that existed. Yeah, it's all right.

Okay. Anyway, we're both tired and the next day i have to see three movies and then i'm gonna drive out of toronto to new york where you live your home where i live because i foolishly drive to and from the toronto international film festival which is long and tiring but i enjoy it and i hate flying yeah and also this year i'd forgotten i don't know where my passport is right now, so the only way I can cross into the Canadian border is by land because I have an enhanced driver's ID. Wow. Okay.

This is all true. Yep. So, Shirley, you know I'm stressed out about this. Yes. And Wendell and Wild is screening at 9 a.m. I'm just remembering, you were telling us this story about your passport yeah before we recorded yeah then said

oh you know what that reminds me I shouldn't tell you the rest of this I have a good story I'll save it on my and then I've been waiting so I've set that up for you twice now yes okay and so I'm just setting up that we're both a little tired and stressed out uh-huh how's the house you know Shirley what's your review

of it of the airbnb the airbnb itself yeah the apartment that we were in uh let's see what are the what are the parameters again i mean like i i would put a 4.9 i'd say that wow comfort the cleanliness the communication all the seas it seems it's in great. All the C's. It was like Toronto, especially downtown Toronto, is littered with these gigantic tower blocks of like recently built condo buildings. And they're all freaking Airbnbs. It's like a problem, I think, that the city has.

Like they're all just kind of empty. Yeah. Which is a thing we encountered, surely. Would you agree? At this place that we were staying. It was very convenient to the Toronto Film Festival. which is a thing we encountered, Shirley, would you agree, at this place that we were staying, that was very convenient to the Toronto Film Festival. Yeah, downtown Toronto is a Potemkin village.

Yes, I agree. Right. But as Shirley says, the Airbnb itself, totally nice. Anything you need, you know, all the amenities, lovely. Did it have like a sign that said home? They always have a weird sign that said like home on the wall. I'm taking it down a notch to 4.8. There was no coffee. I had to rush out every morning. Okay, that's home. They always have a weird sign that said like home on the wall. I'm taking it down a notch to 4.8. There was no coffee. I had to rush out every morning.

Okay, that's true. And you got to have your coffee. I do. Shirley, would you also say my evaluation of our relationship the second we entered this Airbnb together was that we turned into teenage siblings and we're constantly punching each other

and so on and being like, you're stupid, you're stupid. Like we just immediately devolved like you're stupid you're stupid like we just immediately devolved into that or you would be like uh do you need the bathroom i'm gonna go to the bathroom i'd be like no and you'd be like okay like we would just do that at each other yeah yeah yeah it'd be like i'm leaving for a screening is that fine with you right anyway we're home it's about 1230 at night. Okay.

And suddenly, as we're chatting and winding down, a loud noise happens in the apartment. An alarm noise. Like a... Just like that. Just one tone. One. Just one.

Not, you know, just one. Okay. And we were like, what was that? And it came out of, of like an intercom that was like built into the wall like not like your classic sort of smoke alarm that you can unplug right because this is like a modern building of modern convenience okay this was like a 1984 okay right okay surely i think we both were just kind of like weird and like, yeah. Okay. Time for bed. And like went to sleep.

Right. Would you agree? We, we turned, we, we, we sort of turned in. I would agree.

The, the, the, the sibling comparison is apt here because it was kind of like, we don't have to take care of this. Mom and dad will. Sure. We were just like,

okay. And then it was either, I think it was every half an hour that would happen again. Okay. Just like that. Uh-huh. Without warning or explanation, Shirley, who I salute, somehow fell asleep. Right, Shirley?

You actually managed to just ignore this. Yeah. Here's the thing. Well, I think the difference was this was my first in-person tiff and i was really worn out yeah and i had earplugs you had earplugs and like i i just curled up on on the the sectional you were sleeping on the sofa right i and griffin maybe you can understand this grew to both fear i knew it was going to happen every half hour because the pattern emerged yes so i couldn't get to sleep partly because it would wake me up and partly because i was like it's just gonna happen

again how loud loud very loud like louder like very loud it was it's an alert it was designed to alert you it definitely wasn't just someone going like oh hey man you know like it was like but the weird thing was that it was not sustained sure so at 3 30 in the morning yeah after just hours of this i've gone mad right i have gone mad i almost feel and i'm also stressed out because i have to drive the next so i've got so much stress on the road but you're staring at the ceiling just waiting yes yeah if it were a sustained thing i almost feel like I have an easier time falling asleep because it becomes its own.

You just make it the sonic bed. Right. Like, you just get in there. Versus, even if it would be sustained for two or three minutes once an hour versus one burp. Right. It was like sleep deprivation.

It was like they were like, anytime you're about to nod off, don't worry, we're going to prod you again. So at 3.30 I have I'm just saying I have gone a little mad And Shirley sleeping snug in a rug As far as I can tell asleep I'm not like walking over to her and like poking her

Shirley can you verify this I can verify this I can corroborate this story Thus far At 3.30 I've gone mad I get up and I'm just walking Around the story thus far. Okay. Okay. So at 3.30, I've gone mad. I get up and I'm just walking around the apartment going like, what could this be? And I start to get into my head. And this is, I just, you know, I'm just, I'm a little loosey goosey at this point. I'm like, there's a security pad at the front of, by the door.

And I'm like, is like a door ajar? Is this like some weird like security system thing i don't understand so i go over to it and this is i want to fully admit the wrong decision okay i start punching buttons oh i don't like look around for how do you control this thing or like email somebody because it's in the middle of the night yeah i'm just kind of like i don't know i think i'm just delirious and i'm like i can't just like i can just turn this off you're grumpy you're sleep deprived and you just start hitting things in my memory i truly just truly just it was like this one no this one no like and guess what i did activated and armed the security system

which then immediately detected intruders and went off. And so I started a whole new problem, which was the security system was just blaring, you know, like full alarm. Now not only are you guys not sleeping, the neighbors are not sleeping. There are no neighbors. No one's in this

building. This is the thing I really realized. I was worried about that, obviously. There aren't even other Tiffers staying there? If if there are they're like spread out okay this is a huge building there were i remember encountering them the next day yes there are a few people surely you remember encountering people with death in their eyes and i hate david sims printed on a t-shirt we're not even the story's not done. I hate Davidson's fan club, whatever you call it, hate club. They were there,

they were there just for the whole week. They just don't like blank check. Yeah, exactly. They were prepped. Yeah, they think we're cuss. No, but also, I think I'm realizing as the security system is going off, that's not coming out of the intercom

that was making the other noise. This is coming out of the security system. So at this point, I'm like, oh my God, Shirley is now awake i mean right this is this wakes you up right shirley can you corroborate this i i yes i i can verify that i i fully woke up well not fully that's not the right word i woke up to a symphony of noise if i pressed a button it would stop it for a second so i just kept being like beep beep beep beep beep like you know like just to stop it you were djing almost this is why i wanted to call

you shirley i want your perspective on this on you like waking up and just finding me like crouched by the front of the apartment wait i don't remember okay you were crouched. I wasn't crouched. I was standing. Yeah. Yeah. I wake up and I'm like, what the fuck? I take out my earplugs, which was not a great call because then it was immediately a thousand times louder. Louder. Right. And yeah, I get up, I walk over and I just see you. You're standing in front of the alarm system, the security system.

You're wringing your hands. Anybody who knows you can probably picture you just wringing your hands at, like, the fastest I've ever seen you wringing them before. David's doing it right now in front of me. And I think, like, what was truly harrowing, it wasn't even the alarm. Like, it wasn't the alarm. It was seeing my friend David not be my friend David anymore. Like, you were just, like, you were a husk of a person you were

like like i think what crossed my mind was like you look like like like you've been infected yes you looked pale and like you were falling you were actively falling apart right and i think like your soul had left your body right that's what i remember right um i think i remember you came and i was ashamed i was ashamed i had woken you up i felt bad and also i knew i was like whatever this was i should not have started hitting this security system but you're in too deep now but surely i just remember you kind of like you're like put your hand on my shoulder. You're like, it's going to be okay. We'll figure this out. And then, so I, then I was like, all right, crack the fucking, you know, folder here.

Like, let's, let's get this guy's phone number, the host. Like, I hate to do this. But I call the guy, our host at 3.30 in the morning. And he answers the phone. He'd been asleep too. So I feel a little bad about that. Weirdly, he was asleep. You should feel more than a little bit.

To be clear, I had sent them a bunch of messages on through the airbnb thing sure but it was past midnight like there was no reason right you have to call yeah i call them i'm like i'm so sorry hi i'm your tenant or you know i'm whatever your person in this apartment airbnb or right uh i've activated the security system there's an alarm going off. And he was like, oh, we don't use that. Let me like find the code to turn it off. Like he doesn't like know it. Sure. He's like, it's written down somewhere. Yeah.

So he gives me that. So, you know, so after, you know, we do, we, we deal with that problem. Now, of course, the original problem remains. We're still getting the Blair. That still is going. That's still going. Does that seem to be only contained to the apartment you're in, or is that unknown?

It's, at that point, unknown. Okay. I'll reveal later what the situation was. Great, great, great. And I tell him that that's happening too, and he's like, I don't know what that is. That sounds weird. I will try to deal with, I'll try and look into that,

but it's 4.30 in the morning. I'm like, I understand. I'm so sorry. He's like, I hate you. No, he was, by the way. Credit to this guy, who I won't name obviously But like he was really nice about it We're done

Surely you went back to sleep right Yeah I did I kind of just like curl back up I don't I was I yeah I think I also finally collapsed And did sleep for a couple hours Humble crack Yeah seriously Then surely I'm gonna say it's 7

7 30 in the morning somewhere around there right i think it was earlier might have been earlier six the sun had risen okay so you maybe slept a clean 2 30 yeah uh the alarm shifts from once every half hour to total total now it's now now it is going going going and then occasionally a voice will be like fire fire leave building you know whatever these modern fire alarms with a voice yeah i remember very dumbly asking you if like oh should we should we leave right obviously one feels compelled to leave and this is when i'm like poking my head. It's the whole floor is doing it. You can tell now. Sure.

I'm poking my head out, not seeing anybody. Shirley and I just kind of sit there for a while, just being like, what do we do? I think we're both kind of like, are we in Dimension X? Like, have we both gone mad? Is this a collective madness now? We eventually go to the lobby, Shirley? We must have, right?

We, yeah, well, okay. I think, hang on. I'm trying to think of the sequence of events. I think I said we need to find out what's going on. Like, maybe we should contact the Airbnb person. But then, like, that wasn't very logical. We were like, why don't we just go? I think you were the one that said,

why don't we go downstairs and just find out? Right. We go to the lobby. They're like, we don't know what's going I think you were the one that said, why don't we go downstairs and just find out? Right. We go to the lobby. They're like, we don't know what's going on. There's no fire. We've called the fire department. That's what I was waiting for. Okay. No smoke, no fire. No fire. And they're like, sorry, it's the whole floor. You can

use, like, the lounge on, like, the 35th floor, because this is, like, a fancy condo. So we go up there. I have a nice picture of us. Okay. Sleeping legs, sleeping in there. Surely sleeping.

I think that's kind of, no, no, no, this is backwards. No, we went up there. We went up there and then we went down to the lobby.

Look, it doesn't matter what the sequence is. I'm trying to verify the story. I'm trying to tell you the facts, which is, I think we went up there first Because I had remembered There was a lounge up there Labeled the winter lounge

And then it just seemed wrong to stay there I don't know it was in order to evacuate That's all We go down to the lobby They're like we don't know what to do The fire department shows up The Toronto fire department A bunch of friendly canadian

bodies yeah they were good looking they weren't like you know nothing calendar material sure i mean there's a reason you sat on this story for three months and they're like we don't know what to do which is a real moment where they're like look this these buildings have these weird alarm systems run by private companies it's going off for some reason. It was pouring outside. And they were like, it's probably the rain has like short circuited something. But they basically think we detect no sign of fire. Yeah.

They're like, there's nothing wrong except for this alarm system is we're not working. That's not our problem. They're not. They're saying in a polite Canadian way, but they are saying it in a sort of like you got to call the company. Yeah. They're saying there's no fire. It's just raining outside. So at that point, eventually

after all this madness, surely you literally did try to sleep just like in the lobby. It was all very distressing. I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go to Wendland Wild. That's better than this. What time was the Wendland Wild? 9am. Okay. So I was just like, I can't do this anymore.

Yes. I'm actually going to put my clothes on. Yes. I may have even showered. No, I don't think I showered. Like in the fire alarm. That would have been too insane. But I was like, I'm going to put my clothes on and I'm going to walk my ass over to the

light box and just watch Wendell and Wild because at least there won't be a fire alarm. True. And Shirley, you were like that sounds good i'm going to retreat somewhere right here's the thing david i don't think we've talked about i was kind of genuinely worried about you and afraid of you at the time it's good to have her on the phone you you you were you were the walking dead right like you had wrung your hands so much. They looked like they were going to fall off.

I was just like, this man is going to go see a movie. He had wrung his hands to the nub. But seeing a movie is the only thing he knows how to do, Cheryl. That's the thing. I was just like, you know what? You know what? There's a movie. There's a movie.

I can go in there. It's great. There's always a movie. And so I went in the rain to see Wendell and Wild. I got a bagel. I got a bagel and a coffee from Second Cup. Shout out Second Cup.

What kind of bagel? I think it was like a plain bagel with butter. I was like, I cannot handle hot right now. And I go to the light box and I sit down at Wendell and Wild

and I'm like, look, I'm sure I'm going to have to end up seeing this again because like, Jesus, like I'm in no fit state. Wendell and Wild starts.

I'm immediately like pretty locked in and I had a good experience watching Wendell and Wild. I'm immediately like pretty Locked in and I had a good experience Watching Wendell and Wild It's a very dense movie But I remember like walking into the light box And there's the volunteers there And I'm like Wendell and Wild and they're like yeah you know

Theater 4 and I'm like okay but I'm saying okay To them like they're like Florence Nightingale Like I'm like thank you Thank you Like you're checking into Benny Ford Yeah yeah like I go to the theater and they're like yeah It's just about to start and i'm like thank you thank you like you're checking into benny ford yeah yeah like i go to the theater and they're like yeah you're just about to start and i was like okay and i said there's no one i know there and i just sort of like good i don't want to deal with anyone

right now just sit down watch the movie i was supposed to see the whale next i was like my plan was like i'm just gonna do back to back yeah i walk out of wendell wilde to surely you had texted me like the alarm has stopped like the company Came it's over and I was Like okay I'm not gonna fucking see The whale after this like I definitely And I went home and I finally like Crashed wow and that is

The Airbnb story And the guy refunded us The last night of the Airbnb Good guy yeah he was good Can I add an epilogue? You absolutely can. Which is that you were healed by Wendell and Wild. And during that time, I had gone up to the lounge

and I curled up and I attempted to sleep a little bit more. And then this person came around being like, the alarm's fixed on that floor. You can go back down. I went back down. And my next screening was Banshees of Nishan. And this time, by this time, i had seen my good friend david you know lose his mind during this whole time i have continued to try to sleep i i felt like my soul was still inside my physical

being sure you'd held on to it right i went i got a you know a Tim Hortons cup of coffee. I go into line for Banshees. And who's in a different line but our mutual friend Esther Zuckerman. And she captured the photo of when my soul finally exited my body after this ordeal. You had been holding on, but it finally caught up to you. And let me find the photo. Maybe we'll post it. It's a great photo. You look very cute, but you are in line

and you are, in my memory, looking up at the sky as if the sky may have an answer for you, and it won't. But there's clearly just this sort of searching look in your eyes. Let me find it. This is a self-serving story, but I just want

to provide evidence that this was an ordeal, even though you could... Sorry, we just saw the photo. You can summarize the story as, oh my God, an alarm went off in our Airbnb in the middle of the night. But it's not just that.

No. That's what I mean. Something deeper, Brooke. Shirley, thank you so much for sharing this with us helping the story live up to its full potential can I ask have you seen Wendell and Wilde I haven't

you and the rest of America baby it's on Netflix if you want to watch it just type Wendell in it's quote unquote available for free as people like to say about anything on Netflix. As if you don't pay for the service. $19 a month

for whatever. Let's see how quickly it gives me Wendell. Ah! W-E-N. Okay. I will watch it. I'm excited to watch it and it's been an honor hopping on talking about the Airbnb saga. Love you Shirley. Always a pleasure. You're the Airbnb saga. Love you, Shirley.

Always a pleasure. You're the best, Shirley. Love you. Bye. Bye. Can I get a review of the Airbnb story after all that buildup? I think it was good. Yeah. I think it was good. But it wouldn't have been as fun if I just sort of told that story myself after like

a month of buildup, right? Three months of build at this little more fun i mean and shirley's a delight she'll always make anything better i do think yes if you had told it solo at this point it would have been disappointing it would have just kind of like oh that sucks which was basically the reaction the story gets right we need shirley describing what you look like. Right, right. That's fun. I think to Torontonians, it tells a little bit of a story of like these creepy, weird condos. I think there's provocative. Yes, look.

Where it's kind of like, I don't know, man. The alarm's going off. What can I tell you? Look, you put yourself in a difficult position, which is how much you built up the expectations for the Airbnb story. Where, you know, I think people imagine so many different things that it could be.

All that having been said, look forward to the story of the Chappie deal coming two and a half years from now. Right. And my Michael Shannon story, which I keep forgetting to mention as well. We'll just float that one. I'll just see people online say, have I missed it?

When did you finally tell the Chappie deal story? Haven't yet? You haven't. You're waiting. I'll tell you when I'll tell it. The moment people stop asking about it and forget that it ever was teased it's look we have a few things that are in a kind of break glass in case of emergency thing has to be a surprise but that is how i saw wendell and why

no i'm the first time i am impressed it played well for you under those circumstances i think i was really just like this is not it's a story i'm involved i love these people yeah so so you typing in w e so w i'll even give you the you know w and e wednesday well this is what i was gonna say it's got the same first four letters as wednesday no you're forgetting how wednesday is spelt wednes day oh so w e n there you go wednesday drops off i'm the one who's fucking functioning like i got an alarm last night going off uh but but that might be helping it on netflix that it shares the same first two letters i have to imagine the most successful television show in history but also i have to imagine if you watch wednesday on netflix surely the algorithm's like

hey you know you might like Wendell and Wild. That's another thing we got that's kind of in that zone. But when people talk about, oh, this new movie just premiered and it's not even on the front page of Netflix, a thing that's often lost is Netflix has crazy algorithms.

They do. And they're showing entirely different things to entirely different people. Obviously, whatever the quote-unquote empirical top 10 will be the same for everybody, but otherwise what's suggested is different for everyone what truly astounded me is our good friend jd amato saying it has not been

presented to me once on netflix if netflix with all the data it has on jd i know over a decade has not once thought maybe we should put this in front of this guy who are they recommending this movie to they've never presented it to me that's a stunning indictment I agree right and I'm like if Wednesday's a hit they should be fucking pushing this as a viewers also liked or recommended

more films like this well all I can say is as you put it it's available for free yes to any Netflix subscriber and that is of an audience of 450 million people or whatever the hell it is how many 250 how many subscribers is that so um and uh and it's it's a good movie 250 let's let's dig in a little bit to this because a lot of the context of this movie is the context of Selick's wilderness of 13 years.

Yes. Not making a film after making a triumph. That's the thing that's so weird about it. Yes. It's not like this is after Monkey Pwn. No. After his most successful film. Yes.

He has forever to not make another one. Yes. And a film that has lasted, that it feels like has only grown in reputation, Coraline has, it feels like, firmly, like, planted itself in the canon.

Not some flash in the pan. They continue to fucking sell merch for it. They continue to reissue it on different fucking DVDs. The Steelbook just came out. 4K. Had mine pre-ordered.

But yes. In short, I think Laika believed that he was going to be their main in-house guy. He is their supervising director. Yes. And in fact, after Coraline,

his stated focus is, I'm going to help Chris Butler with Paranorman, our next film. Right. Which Paranorman rips. Good movie. Yeah. He also had been listed

as the future director of a CG film called The Wall and the Wing. This is when Laika thought they were going to do half CG, half stop motion. That never materialized. Partly, I think,

because Selick didn't want to do it and partly because Laika dropped that idea of like, we'll do CG. I'm going to just swing to a quick side tangent here. We talked a lot about Will Vint, Will Vint Studios, the Laika Takeover in the last episode,

some of which we were correcting ourselves in real time as we dug into the story. There was a documentary called Clay Dream that is fucking phenomenal. I recommend to Ben. Ben watched it as well. I had sort of, I'd not avoided watching it. I knew I'd probably like it,

but I assumed it was maybe more of a Sparks Brothers type, here is an unrecognized artist. Let's go through their whole career and show you all the gaps of it, whatever. It is mostly a documentary about the impossibility of trying to make art within a capitalist system and the weird balance of people

who try to become moguls in order to be able to control their artistic destiny. It is an incredible film. It goes so deeply into the film night like a takeover stuff. It is basically structured around videos of the depositions of the hearings years after uh will vint was pushed

out of the company the story is far more complicated than we even relate it in that episode uh i highly recommend that people watch it it certainly provides a lot of interesting like a context stop motion as a medium context all of that it only came out last year right it came out in 2022 yeah you're right it did it was it's a phenomenal film and you also get to see all his like early short films clips and high def and you know it's it's great it's such a like nice nostalgic sort of like take take me back to being a kid like i was i was really into the california races i I forgot I had a toy and would watch the show, I guess. But also a pretty brutal, unsparing look at a country that has no support for its arts

and a man who felt like he had to figure out how to become Walt Disney in order to keep an entire medium, an entire art form alive. He, at one point, is offered by Pixar to be bought out. And he would be given

a bunch of Pixar shares. And this is right before... Things get crazy for Pixar. Yeah, things get crazy. And he says, I would own the most Disney shares if I had taken that deal. He would have been the primary shareholder. He would have been Steve Jobs. Things get crazy. And he says, I would own the most Disney shares if I had taken that deal. He would have been

the primary shareholder. He would have been Steve Jobs. Yeah, right, right. Steve Jobs eventually basically takes that deal. Yeah. They're sorts of crazy. It's a phenomenal doc

that I highly recommend watching supplemental material to this whole mini-series. But all of this to say, the Leica takeover happens. Vinton is unceremoniously pushed out. They go after Henry Selick,

who's like the other giant of stop motion, at least in America, right? Arteman is not going to be broken up. No. They got their own thing going. Coraline,

they screen it at Pixar. Pixar will often have visiting filmmakers screen their new movies. And Lasseter and the Pixar team flip for Coraline and they're like, you should be working for us.

And then especially when Coraline comes out and is a big hit, they very quickly, with the support of Disney, go to him with the offer of like, we will let you make your own studio. You can now launch the Pixar of stop motion. Basically, what Salk has tried to do his entire career since Nightmare of like, can I develop an actual continuing studio? Yes, that can be constantly working on the next

film. I can be mentoring new filmmakers to take over as directors on further projects, what have you. Basically, like, you can move into Pixar campus in Emeryville. We will give you a wing. It's Cinderbiter Studios.

It's your deal. You do what you want to do. Disney will acquire property for you. They acquire, what is it, Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard? We're going to get into that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're getting into it. This is all this stuff. But the first thing announced is the Shadow King, right? Before signing with Disney, he had been choosing between three projects. An original story, which may be this. Wendell Wong.

An adaptation of a Neil Gaiman book that wasn't Coraline or The Graveyard Book. Okay. And an adaptation of an unnamed book that was unlike anything he'd ever made before. Okay. Lasseter brings him on, right? Yes.

Selick pitches everything, and Disney settles on the graveyard book, which I guess, whatever, is the game they decide he should be doing. And the Shadow King, quote, a deliciously magical tale about a nine-year-old New York orphan named Hap

who hides his weird hands with long fingers from a cruel world. Sounds pretty Selicky. And he meets a shadow girl who makes his shadows, hand shadows come to life and his hands become weapons in a shadow war

against a monster that wants to eat New York. Once again, sounds very Selicky. Sounds very Selicky in that it also sounds very hard to summarize and package.

But yes. A lot of what he wanted to do was, you know, it's like Dumbo where like his terrifying, gigantic ears end up becoming this artistic gif. Yes. These giant long fingers he has make him the best shadow puppeteer in the world. And a lot of what Selick wanted to do was combine stop motion and like shadow animation, cut out animation.

Which sounds cool as fuck. Right. And they use some of that in this film, Wendell and Wild. They do. Yes. But it enters pre-production in 2011. It enters production in 2012. He's set up at Emeryville. It's working.

They give him the funding. They've announced this. And Lasseter, to be clear, he went to CalArts with Lasseter. Like he knows John Lasseter. Yes. This is not some like like, random pairing here. No. They have history.

This is also this period right before Disney starts acquiring shit like crazy where they were like, how do we expand? And there was that Guillermo del Toro Disney double dare you

where they were like, we're giving you your own imprint to make spooky movies. Henry Selick, we're giving you your own animation studio. Like, they seem to be investing in people

and trying to form new Pixar's artists first rather than trying to acquire pre-existing material. Right. This is all shifting at this point in time.

The Marvel deal's happening. Marvel, obviously. It's 2011, 2012. You know, everything's exploding. In 2012, the Shadow King is shut down by Disney quote, for creative and

scheduling reasons the trades report that selleck is just too slow to finish in time for the planned release date 2013 uh and also the graveyard book was eventually dropped as well disney took a 50 million dollar write-down on the shadow king this is what is wild and semi-unprecedented wendell but it is wild they basically said a year into a three-year production process they're like no right the movie is like 40 percent sunk cost yes right they're like we'd rather cut our losses now than do anything to try to salvage this then what is even more bananas is they go, look, we will hand back to you the 40% of the movie

that you have animated and the rights and you are free to go shop it around and see if someone else will buy it. And he pitches it everywhere and everywhere passes. There is 40% of a movie that is a follow-up

to the man who directed Coraline. I know. And Nightmare Before Christmas. When he's like on a bit of a movie that is a follow-up to the man who directed Coraline and Nightmare Before Christmas when he's like on a bit of a... No, he's got... Yes. I mean, do you think that it's because of the stink of like, well, Jesus, if Pixar have done this, it must... We can't touch this. I do think it was that.

The stink of that. They must have seen that this is unworkable. Yeah. I think it was truly like quality be damned, is this thing ever going to get finished? Right. Is he going to be the most impossible to work with and deal with?

I think he also has burned some bridges by leaving Laika so abruptly with this sort of feeling of he left them holding the bag. He's a bit of a bridge burner. He's a bit of a bridge burner. Here's some quotes from him. Yes.

He says, it was the tone, a little dark and creepy for them and I agreed to do it for a certain budget, maybe a third or a quarter of the cost of a big Pixar film

but plenty of money. And the thing was, John Lasseter couldn't help himself. He's used to weighing in and changing and changing and changing and we went through

so many changes in the film that the budget started to creep up, up, up. Between that and the tone, they just decided to abandon ship. Now, this is Selick's quote. I'm sure he is telling

his version of the story. I don't know, you know, but he is essentially like, it was sort of Lasseter's fault for tinkering. He's throwing it all at Lasseter right now. Now, this is pure conjecture on my part. Here's how I interpret that, right? Pixar is infamous for having this brain trust.

Yeah. It's got like the eight or ten, like sort of... They've been there from the beginning. Doctor, and it, I mean, it was Doctor, they've been there from the beginning. Doctor. And it, I mean, it was Dr. Bird,

Stanton, Lee Unkridge, you know, uh, uh, whoever their, their top people are at any given part, I guess that's before Brenda Chapman is maybe outstripped.

All the brave comes out this year, whatever. Right. Um, and they're like very brutal with each other. They watch these movies very critically. They suggest wild changes. And Pixar, they've openly talked about their process is essentially make the wrong movie 20 times until you figure it out.

Right. It's like failure until you find success by process of elimination. lot easier to reanimate rough cgi than it is with stop motion right where you you you can have storyboards you get animatics whatever but once you're animating it you have to go back and just do the whole thing from scratch whereas with cgi the data exists you haven't rendered it you haven't added textures and you could just go back in and reanimate the models that exist in those spaces. Yeah. The other thing is, uh, Selick is, uh, Pixar at this point has basically honed their tenants of storytelling and what works for them. And Selick does not think along those conventional terms.

And they're going, we really think in act one, this needs to be set up. So the act three, this can happen. And Selick is basically saying saying I don't take notes he said this in other interviews basically if he's taking notes he's he doesn't really like them this isn't a committee I'm a director I'm the director of this movie and they're like well you're part of the Pixar thing

now and we all weigh in on all of this in the various quotes JJ's gathered here you know he personally met Laster for like changing changing change he's only really dug into this during the Wendell and while he's been talking about it during this the last 10 years he's been more available quiet about it yeah uh he says alan horn who was in charge of disney at the time disney studios yeah said the movie was too weird we don't know how to sell this like so he blames him too in 2013 it was announced he'd revived it with the help of k5 international

okay that stalled out uh who had helped make the beast of k5 international okay that stalled out uh who had helped make the beast of the southern wild uh that stalled out pretty quickly uh selleck says he does have the rights you know to this day he says i'll owe disney a little bit of money if we set it up but maybe it'll get made i absolutely feel like it would be successful and uh you know he uh it exists 40 he says he has five minutes finished. Interesting. That's a quote from him from very recently. Okay.

There may be more unfinished. Interesting. There's a little bit of footage that's watchable online that's leaked out that looks beautiful. I mean, I have no doubt, but I also have no doubt that the man takes a long time making movies. And as you say, you're going to give him notes. That's only going to make everything more complicated. I think there was a hope if this movie connected with the public that Netflix would be like, fuck it, we're in the Henry Selick business.

Let's pay Disney $2 million to get the rights back for Shadow King. That's what it sounds like. It's his, but if anyone wants to make it, then they have to pay Disney some money. With the Shadow King and the graveyardveyard Book dead he enters a true wilderness period. Yes. At one time Variety announced that he would be doing a live action adaptation of the 2010 children's book A Tale

Dark and Grim. Which I just cannot believe. Fizzled. He would ever want to do live action again. Eventually that became a Netflix series, which I've definitely heard of. He has said, apparently he might want to make like a live action PG 13 horror comedy. Um,

and he says like, you know, I've been looking at comedic horror films because I've been accused of being too dark, but I'm not that dark. Not compared to something like saw, uh, I want to do like,

you know, a horror film that has humor and some social satire. He may be just like, I don i want to do like you know a horror film that has humor and some social satire he may be just like i don't want to do cg yeah and i understand that stop motion is just so fucking expensive and complicated and long that maybe i just need to do something else yeah and uh at one point he meets with laika discuss doing a different neil gaiman book called ocean at the end of the lane uh which he still says he'd like to do, but that's kind of just like... Like it doesn't take him back.

Well, whatever. It doesn't happen. Travis Knight says, ultimately, we remain good friends. We talk about projects all the time. You know, kind of a sort of like... Sure. But it does feel telling

that they weren't like, Henry, anything. Of course. You know, yeah. Yes. One last project he apparently was going to direct a pilot of a Russo Brothers series called Little Nightmares that never came. Oh, that's based on a video game. Never came together.

Right. But that feels like a very Selicky thing if you look at the artwork for that game. The genesis of Wendell and We is apparently when his sons were little, his sons are grown now, where they were acting like demons one day. And he drew a little sketch of them as demons and wrote a little story called Wendell and Wilde. And he came up with the basic idea that is the movie and most of the

characters and he put it aside. And then years later he was channel surfing. What's on AMc yes rocky again what's on uh tbs the atlanta braves boring more of this yeah i'm giving david the hand signal to stretch out the act out of what's on tv pick like a commercial maybe that was running at that time applebee's i'm bad at commercials because i haven't had tv in years. ShamWow. Then, clicks on the Comedy Central channel. Heard of it? Home of Comedy. What's their catchphrase?

We're laughing. We don't pay Kyle Kinane. They don't pay him anything. He's been going off about this online. Good for you, Kyle. Get paid. They still reuse his stuff. He sees Key and Peele and he says he was dazzled and amazed by the third season he was just longing to work with them and then it hit me Wendell and Wilde Key and Peel uh he really likes the sketch prepared and and I guess he's just like

a double act they'd be perfect to play the demons I don't know he likes the um the sketch prepared for Terry's which is like the guys getting on the plane with the 3D printed guns and they're like, we're going to kill any terrorists. Right. And the most insane wigs of all time. So insane. Which is really funny. And he was like, that's Wendell and Wilde. Does King Peel premiere 2010 or 2011? I definitely remember

I lived in Bed-Stuy because I remember seeing, it was 2012. January 2012. And I really, you know what, I remember that's one of the last sketch shows where I was like, well, I'm watching that episode. Like I never would feel that way anymore. You know what I mean?

Like when like Arturo Castro had his sketch show, I wasn't like, God, I, you know, cue that up. And I'm not even trying to like, I'm more mean like key and peel.

I was still like, I sketch shows are exciting to me that was that was the it's like a golden age right a final age whatever

a diamond age Amy Schumer and Key and Peele yes there was a little bit of renaissance I feel like there were a couple others yeah there were and there still are good sketch shows

I'm just I mean I think I think you should leave is like incredible I think you should leave is incredible black lady sketch show but like it just felt

I guess you know what it really is. Portlandia was also that same time. Portlandia. But it's really it's that Comedy Central was still making things that I was like gotta check them out on television. That was a good era for Comedy Central. It was. Creatively. And what was great for them was the streaming

era of TV which they just shifted seamlessly into. I think I probably said this on mic but the thing I heard was that they they made a deal for Broad City on Hulu. Yeah. Seamlessly into. I think I probably said this on mic, but the thing I heard was that they, um, they, they made a deal for Broad City on Hulu. Yeah. And then Broad City like blew up on Hulu.

It did. Unsurprisingly, it turned out to connect far more with the Hulu audience and the people who are still watching broadcast Comedy Central. And then Comedy Central was like, we fucked up. Hulu's getting rich off of our show. These jerks. We are never licensing any of our shows to a streaming service ever again and then for like eight years you'd be like you should watch

review it's the best comedy on tv right and you're like how do i watch it uh the worst app in history it literally shuts down every time you go to a commercial break and then you have to start the episode over again from the beginning if you try to scrub to a later point it goes to an episode of tosh.0 right exactly so there's just eight years of comedy central producing the best comedies on television interesting stuff and like no one's watching and you had to be like what's your tolerance level for dealing with bad uis i mean i tried to get through watching detroiters because you had just like talked it up an amazing show i bought it on itunes that's how i mean that's what i should end up doing because i got so frustrated by it i was watching Detroiters because you had just talked it up so much. It's an amazing show. I bought it on iTunes. That's what I should end up doing because I got

so frustrated by it. I was like, I can't fucking deal with this anymore. There was a point where it's just like they have Review, Detroiters, Nathan For You, Key and Peele and Schumer were still like tailing off. They brought City, all this incredible stuff. Anyway. And that new movie came out

that they did. Oh oh with every actor in it yeah yeah oh i love i love their current original work from home or whatever the fuck it was i mean i want to i want to revisit that time that time that particular and i want to laugh i want to laugh it's a thing i look back on and want to laugh not only do i do i did i enjoy it at the time but it was so long ago i know know. So I've forgotten about it. You know who must be even more excited about the existence of that movie? The people who are still working from home.

Where it's not even a reminiscence, it's like a funny depiction of their everyday reality. I watch The Office, the most successful TV show of all time. The only show bigger than Wednesday. There we go, canceled now. I can't even say i like the office fucking cancel you want you don't even know it's wild because you watch the office i go

i cannot believe the people writing the show thought that michael scott was woke and correct at every moment they would get canceled if they made this now the whole point of this show is that they think everything he's doing is smart it's always sunny in philadelphia airs new episodes every season anytime anyone's always like oh my god these guys would get i mean it's always sunny in philadelphia airs new episodes every season anytime anyone's always like oh my god these guys would can't i mean it's always sunny is on right now it's a huge hit to this day mindy kaling did a multi-episode arc two seasons ago on it yes good for her i think what i was probably one of those things oh absolutely i'm not blaming her i'm just saying every fucking episode of the office is michael scott or Dwight says something you should not say.

And then another character looks at the camera and says he shouldn't say that. Anyway, what was your point about The Office? Oh, just that they would get canceled today? My point was when I watched The Office, I go, this is good. The one thing I wish is that none of these actors were in the same room. Yes. No, don't give me that. The chemistry.

In-person chemistry. It's too tight. They're reacting to each other too much. It's not believable, too, that they're making a documentary. Work from home. But like separate screens? That makes sense. It was one of those things where I was like, you know, a year into lockdown. I was like,

should I watch The Office? I mean, I watched all this other TV. Put on one episode. Put on the Dundies. I was like, I'll skip these. That's the same one I did. I put it on and I was like, 10 minutes and I was like, do you not want to deal with this?

Yeah, never have to watch this ever again. No interest in this. No disrespect. Yeah. I was just kind of like, I don't like this vibe. Yeah. I don't need to ever watch this.

Selick likes Key and Peele. That's the point of that bullshit we just did. Right. He suddenly sees, he's like, I see Wendell and Wilde in front of me.

Here's a comedy duo. And they'll go big. That you can build a dynamic around. He's like. I see Wendell and Wilde in front of me. Here's a comedy duo. And they'll go big. That you can build a dynamic around. Here's a modern Martin and Lewis. And fuck. I mean, they've already done it in Toy Story 4. I mean, not when he's at the time. But like, you know, their voice acting has been tapped a few times.

Right? Isn't there something else they did? Together? Is Toy Story 4 the only thing they did together? There's another thing they did together. And I'm trying to remember. Right? right i mean i just find it fascinating that i mean this is what we're going to get into now but he basically just looks at them as a comedic duo and says these are maybe stars i could sell a movie around right they're comedic personas right this movie takes so long to get made that the thing

that keeps it in the works that basically shields it from getting shut down at so many different points in time is that jordan peele a sentence to becoming the continued involvement of major success jordan peele right where now it gets to the point where you're like, this is maybe the last type of played wolves in store. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Well, let me give you a little bit. But the fact that this movie is now coming out and it's like Jordan Peele does not perform at all anymore. The last time he performed in any capacity was Toy Story 4, which is now three years ago. And even that was like two years removed from the previous time he had performed. Right, he doesn't perform much anymore. Right. So this movie like comes into existence based on the idea of building a vehicle for them.

And now it's... Well, it's not just that though. Because, you know, he is a co-writer of the film. This is what I'm saying. Okay, look. He becomes the co-sort of creative force. He finally gets in touch with them. Yeah.

Keegan-Michael Keely is like, you have a job for me? I can sign the contract right now. Yes. The man works a lot. Yeah. Do you need me to bring my own wardrobe? Yeah, exactly.

I can sell for poor, local hire. I have three other things that day, but it's fine. I'll just be in every place at once somehow. Jordan Peele is like, well, hang on, you're Henry Selick. I love stop motion Animation yes Monkey Paw My company has this beautiful stop motion

Opening sequence Does Monkey Paw exist at this point in time No might not But you know I'm just pointing that out Yes but he is a huge Selick fan He knows Selick by name and reputation Yes And he says like

I'd love to be this movie would i would love this movie to be the kind of movie i would love as i loved as a kid these stop-motion films like uh and uh the other thing oh this is interesting did you know this originally the story was about the nuns and sister heli played by angela bass in this film, was the protagonist. Okay. And Jordan Peele was like, Cat should be the protagonist. This movie should be identifiable to kids. Yes. It'll be more accessible that way.

I mean, this is the whole thing of Henry Selleck, where he's like, you know, Lasseter, always meddling with me. Meddle, meddle, meddle. Anyway, with Monkeybone, I wanted every character to be a 60s, you know, retired pitch man. And with Wendell and Wilde, I figured the lead character to be a 60s, you know, retired pitch man. And with Wendell and Wilde, I figured the lead character would be a middle-aged nun, not the teen, the plucky teen.

And Jordan Peele gave me that note. And as he says, it took a while to convince him, but he was eventually convinced. It's the easiest note in the world, Henry Selig. I also think the movie was more thoroughly about the demons at earlier points in time. That count was incidental. She still served the same function in the narrative. But Peele was like, why aren't we asking questions? Why would this not be the protagonist?

She's interesting. Yes. And here's another. This is the story of Henry Selick. I swear to God. Here he is on developing the script with Peele. It was a back and forth. I would take a stab.

He would rewrite. He was more big picture, big story. He would get into the details of characters. Sounds like writing, but okay. Dramatic storytelling. It kind of went like that. Occasionally, he would take the first pass on a new thought. Here's the quote.

He was really good at dealing with studio notes. He would calm me down. Yes. He just really needs a guy who's like, I have some clout and you like me and I understand you so I can kind of like,

it's like, hey, they don't want the movie to have the Esso tiger in it. Henry Selleck is like, I'm opening a vein. I'll fucking shoot you. And then he's like,

hey, calm down, calm down. Hey, we can figure this out. Maybe the Esso tiger doesn't need to be in it. He had Burton doing that for him on the first movie.

I haven't gotten over that monkey bone. I know you're obsessed with it. uh yeah burton doing that from to a far lesser degree on the second movie then monkey bone he's got no one and he had bill mechanic and the bill mechanic was gone so then during the actual miss making the movie it's chaos right and then laika it's like here's like the biggest independent animation studio that is just going to be hands off, let you do whatever the fuck. But Coraline is the most interesting one where you're like, you know what? It does seem like he was pretty unfettered and that is his best film. So maybe I should go fuck myself and maybe Henry Selick is right all the time.

But it's just things when you hear like Jordan Peele being like, hey, the girl should be the protagonist of the film. Right. Henry Selick being like, wow, you're crazy. I guess we'll figure it out look i i'm sure like jesus i am sure there was validity to the idea that like um the pixar brain trust was looking at shadow king in if not a binary way through the prism of what had been successful for them and trying to get them to conform to their same storytelling sort of uh principles which this is the same time that the Brave thing goes down. It's the same thing where they're just like,

she's like, I had this very personal story, and they kept on saying, this is not how we do Pixar movies. Right. You know? Like, this is when the brain trust is starting to fall apart a little bit, and it feels like they're meddling too much. Good dinosaur, all this sort of shit. That would have been said.

Yes. Bodied have been said. Yes. Bodied. Bodied. Kenny Rogers roasted. There's the credit at the end of this film, based on the book by Henry Selleck, and it's credited to a co-writer. The book was never published. Yes. If that book exists in any form, I'm unaware.

I could not find, I was like scared to see if anyone had leaked it online. He has the book. No. And when you hear him talk about it, it felt very sort of amorphous. I would love to hear a more detailed accounting of like, what did Selick have going in? What did Peele specifically pitch? I feel strong elements of both of them. I think, well, here, I'll give you a little more.

I think Selick basically just had the character. That's what it seems like. Because he did nine drafts with Peele. You know, they get all together. The real world message of the film about the prison industrial complex, which we'll talk about a little more, I'm sure. Selick credits... A movie for kids.

Yeah, right. Selick credits a lot of that to his wife, who for 10 years was an advocate for at-risk youth and special needs kids. Yeah, right. Selick credits a lot of that to his wife, who for 10 years was an advocate for at-risk youth and special needs kids. I know about that pipeline. There was a lot of research done, but it was really about boiling that down to the essence, and Jordan was always good about that.

But it's like, that's not a Selick idea per se, or even a Jordan Peele idea. Like, Selick's sort of drawing from his wife on that. It was in the soup. Yeah, it was in the soup from immediately. And this sort of attempted revitalization of a town. Yeah.

Right. And then in case of Kat and her look, it was influenced by Afropunk, you know, modern movement that goes all the way back to the original,

you know, punk movement. He says, but Jordan and me just really liked the look. You know, we really wanted her to look distinctive,

all that stuff. We should talk about the soundtrack too later. It's pretty fucking great. Ben was jamming out. Hell yeah. And Netflix, the whole thing with Netflix is, I will say that I do hear this from a lot of filmmakers,

that once you get the green light, they are kind of like, okay, go do it. It took a long fucking time. When does Netflix announce this movie? That's a good question. I'm sure I can find it. I'm not sure when. 15 or 16?

Yeah. It looks like the most crucial thing they cleared with Netflix initially was that the film will get a PG-13 rating. Right. He wanted to... Like, they wanted to, like, lay out, like, can we make this film kind of, quote-unquote,

grown up enough? You know. And Netflix was okay with that this is an odd case of a movie that feels like it's pg-13 just in sort of like thematic and intellectual intensity right there's not really anything objectionable that happens in this movie it's more of an attitude thing yes right film was made in portland oregon uh-huh uh the most prominent reason for the long production project i'm reading here that there was some kind of like pandemic due to a novel coronavirus

i'm aware of this but i still think there was a shutdown for a longer than usual development time on this movie from like the floating of selleck and peel are working on something to Starkey and Peele to Netflix has acquired it to animation is actually starting was like four or five years versus what's maybe usually a year, a year and a half. Yeah. I mean, it took a while. Apparently the wildfires messed with them. Apparently it felt a little shadow Kingy where you're like, are we just going to hear at some point that this thing just got shut down quietly right and then they finally start animation the pandemic starts they shut down and then these sort of uh bananas thing about this film is most of this film was animated remotely like animators moved sets into their homes. Right. And were in isolation working on their own sections.

That's bananas. Yeah. Selick hosts Coraline is getting more and more hostile to 3D animation. He doesn't like how slick and perfect it is, he says. Sure.

He said Coraline was maybe a little too smooth and he wanted to go a bit backwards and show off the artifice with this movie, he says. As we mentioned... Leica has just started cleaning up more and more and more and using more digital aid in these things.

He keeps the seams in the faces the entire movie. Right. That's one thing. I think that's become industry standard to erase. And those are the seams from the replacement faces to swap out the expressions. Correct. Yeah. Phil Knight apparently really hated the seam lines

is one thing Stalag said. So, like, that's one... I believe that. Mm-hmm. So, that's one reason he gets to do it now, now that he's free of the Knight family.

Why wouldn't you stitch that over with a Nike swoosh? Why won't you pay a child to do that? What? Okay. Bad guy. Watch Claydream.

It does not make him seem very endearing. Or his dumbass son. As you've mentioned on his previous episodes, Nightmare Before Christmas, Zellick is kind of bringing the artwork of Tim Burton to life. James and the Giant Peach, you got Lane Smith. Coraline, we talked about Tadahiro Usagi.

Sorry if I pronounced that wrong. Wendell and Wilde, Argentinian artist Pablo Lobato is the big inspiration for the look of a lot of these guys. You can Google him if you want to get a sense of it. Yes, his Instagram page has a lot.

His work is most known through The New Yorker. I think it is The New Yorker, right? He does a lot of illustrations for their profiles or their reviews. So he does a lot of illustrations for their profiles or their reviews. Sure. So, like, he does a lot of these caricatures, but he's got a very unique style

that's sort of a Picasso, very shape-based, almost cut-out style that is inherently very two-dimensional. Right. Very flat. And it's like Selick almost perversely picks a design language that he loves that should not be. It should not be possible to adapt into three dimensions and goes to his modeling teams and goes like, here are Pablo's flat drawings. Figure out how to build this.

Yes. What she does say was quite challenging to do. But the initial thing they do is they take these caricatures of key and peel themselves right and they turn them into puppets yes and they convince keen peel like isn't this good because keen peel were apparently like we don't know if we want to like you know be represented in the film basically as ourselves especially at this point in time you're like that's the selling point no one knows it's the selling point of from the twisted mind of Jordan Peele or whatever. It's Key and Peele as a comedy

duo. You also have to remember at this point in time, everyone assumes Key and Peele are just going to become like a comedy movie team powerhouse. Like there was this expectation of like Keanu. Great. They'll make their first movie. It probably will work. And then there'll be a new Key and

Peele movie every two or three years. They felt more suited to making that kind of leap than anyone in a while. Right. It is funny that, like, Keanu ends up being kind of neither here nor there.

And Peele immediately just pivots to, like, you know what? I'm going to make the movies I've always wanted to make. Right. And, like, gives up on performing. And now Keen Peel as a comedy duo only

exists in animation because animation takes so long. It's like the vestiges of things they put into works. Yeah, I don't know what the status of their relationship is. They seem to still be on good terms. They did press for this movie together. But it is interesting. Yeah, I just always wonder with that kind of a thing. Of course. It's like, hey, one of you became one of the most celebrated

artists alive. And the other one of you is keegan michael key who's like the hardest working man in show business like but like what is that same yeah no it's odd it's not i just i it just felt especially because the show was so cinematic yeah well that was always what was so magical about it right or like at least plausible about them making movies right they i just i think it felt like, well, obviously these guys will make a bunch of films. Their natural chemistry when they do the wraparounds, the bumpers are so good.

Yeah. I would watch these two guys playing versions of themselves. I'd also watch them playing characters. I could watch them in a genre riff. I could watch them in a low key buddy comedy, whatever it is. And now it's like, here's this movie where Selig is almost weaponizing.

Like we have to make the characters caricatures of them almost like it's the incredible mr limpid or something where you're like their face needs to be on screen i and i'm sure you'll agree it's so interesting the way it looks two-dimensional and three-dimensional at the same time like especially with them well they go through different stages, different puppets. That's right. When they're on Buffalo Beezle,

what's his name? Belzer. Buffalo Belzer. When they're, like, on his head, on his belly, they're purposefully making the heads of the puppets as flat as possible. Right, right.

And then when they come into the real world, they become more three-dimensional. They were kind of... Lou Romano, who everyone must know from, you know, didn't he work on? He was Linguini in Raticuri.

Right, yeah, that's what I thought. But he's also one of the best sort of character designers, art directors in animation. He worked on The Incredibles and all kinds of stuff. Worked on Iron Giant,

has worked on Selleck before. Right, particularly because of The Incredibles, which has that similar kind of like 2D, 3D thing. You know, they were like, you'll be perfect for him. They were inspired by things like wooden masks,

African masks, you know, stone carvings. That all makes sense. I think you see a lot of that with Kat's parents. Yes, right. Yeah. And, you know, they do use a little CG just, I guess, to make some of the stop motion, like, execute a little simpler.

I don't know. It's sort of vague what they used it for. To a minimum. He's not trying to cover up the imperfections of this medium. He's trying to embrace them. They find Lyric Ross. She's on This Is Us.

And I don't know. He really wanted someone who is not like too Disney, I think. Sure. Which I think successful in that regard. Yeah. And you know, this movie has an interesting cast. We'll talk about it now.

Yeah. Got Key and Peele. But less of a vehicle for them than you would imagine. Right. I thought they were going to be all over this thing. Absolutely. But they are prominent, obviously. They are, but they're sort of,

they're Beetlejuicy in the movie, in that it's like, well, it's really about Lydia. Yeah, right. And they're in, yes. They're the most colorful characters. Yeah. And then you have like Angela Bassett is a big name. But then I would say pretty much,

and Ving Rhames as Buffalo Belzer. Yeah. Which I love Ving Rhames. Fucking wolf whistled in the theater when his name came up at the end credits. A hundred percent. But then after that, I feel like he's mostly using character actors

like James Hong, Maxine Peake, David Harewood. James Hong, fascinatingly, the other one who is caricatured off of him. He kind of looks like James Hong. Oh, it absolutely looks like James Hong. And it feels like he's, yeah. It's a big, complicated movie. It is. Look, I feel like this is one of those episodes where people are going to be like,

they're pretending to like this movie because they don't want to end on a bummer. Right? And the reality is, I think all three of us really like this movie a lot. However, in talking about this movie, it is kind of hard to not make it sound bad because there are a lot of ways in which I think this film ultimately works in spite of itself because it does a lot of things that on paper sound catastrophic just in terms of being so dense and so plot heavy that essentially it has to spend the first two thirds of its running time setting up there everything about this movie while i was watching it the first time that i was just like did i i you know i had entered on time i was like did i miss a scene was there something explaining who belzer is or why

they live on him because it's this weird contradiction of like it's both moving so fast and also an hour and 15 minutes in you're like i still think the plot hasn't gotten into motion guess the stakes are almost set up now like kind of and i i'm watching and going look this is visually a thrill it's full of fun ideas i'm happy he got to make another movie again obviously this thing is a mess and then there's truly just the point like two-thirds in where it clicks and he basically like lays it out and everyone's there everyone's now ready like and you're like you know what every single character he set up now serves an important function every plot thread he set up every visual idea he set up, like everything does ultimately pay off.

Yes, but it does feel like a movie unlike his earlier films. Yes. Forgetting Monkeybone. That like a kid could maybe not grapple with. Absolutely. You'd need to pretty much be a teenager or maybe just below, you know,

like 10, 11, 12. Like if I put this in, you know, a six-year-old in front of this, I feel like they would just lose interest. I think so, too. Because it's all, like, there's just so many new things, and it's sort of hard to tell how it's connected. And even the stuff like Wendell and Wilder, the characters that would

appeal most to a kid, usually in terms of energy, comedically, and all of that, your introduction, you're just like, as an adult, it is hard to parse. Okay, they live on the head of a giant demon man who is their father. His belly is a theme park for dead souls. Yes.

Their job is he's insecure about his hair loss. So they have to rub magic hair cream into his skull. Correct. In order to grow his hair back. And then they realize that the magic hair cream has the ability to bring the dead back to life. Because it is... The cure for baldness

we don't have in our society that fully brings things 100% back to life that are dead, it can be used not just on dead hair cells, it can be used on full living creatures. Any soul that has died. But here's the other thing...

And all of that is communicated like just hit the ground running. But you're forgetting something. Yeah. Not just all that. They secretly harbor a desire to make their own amusement park. And that's sort of their quest.

Right. Their reason for wanting to leave Belzer's hair and or chest. Also, the reason they realize that the hair cream has the ability to bring the dead back to life is because Wendell is peel. Wendell is key and Wild is peel. Wild has been eating the cream because it gets him high. Yeah, it makes him feel all tingly.

It makes his tummy feel all tingly. Right. Yes. Incredibly complicated. Yes. feel all tingly right um yes incredibly complicated yes now and obviously wild is a sort of like round and sort of cheerful guy and wendell is kind of wiry and a little more antagonistic yes and wendell's got it what's interesting is it's like the same dynamic because it doesn't feel like this was the default dynamic they had on the show no they would switch right they were good

yeah toy story 4 gives them basically the exact same dynamic where the one guy's the motor mouth, high strung, idea man, we got to do this. And the other guy's

kind of like the good natured stoner. They're so funny in Toy Story 4. I think they're so funny. Those characters work so well. Those characters make me laugh. And when that first

fucking teaser came out it was them doing the Leonis and shit. You were like, oh Jesus Christ. You were like, oh, Jesus Christ. You were like, come on. Is this what this fucking movie's gonna be? It wasn't anything wrong with what they were doing.

It was just like, that's all they've got. It's just like... They're literally just adopting... It's Key and Peele. I'm like, I can watch Key and Peele. Like, why do I need this? Ducky and Bunny hit. They're really funny.

And I think they're funny in this too, but it also starts out and you're like, wait, so they're the villains in this? That's kind of surprising, to make them the villains. Does that limit how funny they can be? And then the more the movie goes on, you're like, they're kind of innocents.

Yes. They're not innocent. Like, they do bad things. No, but they're babes in the wood. They don't really know what they're doing. Absolutely. Unlike Beetlejuice, who, like, operates from a place of, like, pure malevolence, right?

And Beetlejuice is the classic, like like don't make a bargain with a demon. Of course. That guy has his own ulterior motives. Right. They do, too. But their ulterior motive is to make an amusement park. That's what they really want to do. I think this is one of the many things Henry Selig is trying to work through in this movie is like they are artists. Right. They have this vision of this thing they want to do. They have these paper cutouts. Right.

When they talk about it, it's about how much other people will enjoy it. They want to share this with other people. But unfortunately, their chosen artistic medium involves so much financial capital that the only way to get the thing made is to make Faustian bargains with horrible people. You have to align yourself with the worst institutions, old money, sort of cover your

eyes and not look at like who's getting thrown into the furnace in order to allow your funding to go through. Right. Yes. That's this whole thing. They start like aligning themselves with these horrible cultural forces because they're like, but ultimately the theme park will make people happy, right?

It's worth it if, and it's like this is being made by a guy who his chosen artistic medium is so expensive, so time and labor intensive, that the ask is so huge to get it off the ground. There's always going to be something vaguely unethical.

You're going to have to make a deal with the devil in some way or other. To some degree. Yeah. So you got well until a while. They're eating magic hair cream. They want to make an amusement park. They live inside someone's hair. It does really sound like we're just saying gibberish. Right. And they were the thing, especially in those early scenes where I truly was just sort of like, and remember

I hadn't slept, but I was like, I must have missed something. Well, especially as a scenes where I truly was just sort of like when remember I hadn't slept but I was like I I'm I must have missed something like especially as a rule lover like you're just like yeah I don't get it what is this it's also been enough time since I think I forgot like Henry Salk films always have an underworld yeah that's just accepted we don't need to even think about the fact that there's an underworld but this is why it's all the more disorienting is because let's back up like seven minutes the first seven minutes of this film are like about as grounded as selick ever gets yeah i mean is it seven really the whole you mean her family like that is it that long i was scanning i watched it again last night yeah i think it's

about seven minutes before the the proper introduction Wendell and Wilde on the head. Because you start with the cold open in the car. The car crashes into the water. She's listening to X-Ray Specs on the radio. Yeah. I mean, the whole fucking soundtrack is absolutely amazing. Wall-to-wall punk soundtrack, basically. Kat, her parents own a root beer brewery in Rust Bank.

Right. That's the name of the town. It's kind of like incredible revitalized town with this active art scene. Local businesses. Yeah. And she sees a worm, a two-headed worm in her apple. Yeah. But they're at the celebration of like, look, the fair, this town works.

We've done it. We brought such life. We've created a community. They've referenced the buyout in this opening to... The Klax Corp. Yeah. Yes. Right. And her surprise at the... She yells. The dad gets distracted. They drive off the bridge. The parents die.

She blames herself. The classic kid blames themselves. Yes. Very Roald Dahl opening. She is now an embittered, punky, juvenile delinquent. The opening credits happen over her escaping from the car rising to the surface her parents are dead and then she names

her demons and then we meet her demons but then it's like she's going to she says in the narration like everyone has their demon mine have names and you're like I'm sorry where did the demons come into this then you go back to like family friend driving her in a van to the girls' school that she has to go to.

They take her out of a juvie, right? Picks her up and basically is like, this is your last chance. You have to make this work. I made a promise to your parents. She shows up at the school. Our girls' Catholic school. Run by an elderly Asian priest.

Played by James Hong. Who's always walking on a treadmill. Great performance. He's really funny in this. Really funny. I love him in this. I mean, I think he's just always so funny. Arguably the true villain of this movie.

Well, no. The Clash of Clans. He's way up there, though. Well, but he's kind of... He sort of is like just a more advanced thing where he's like he just wants his but he's so in bed with bad people to keep the school running right permit anything uh and she is sort of like tv they're getting money for her to go to the school right like it's part of it like you know she's like almost like a work release which is

all i mean it's it ties into the whole thing this film wants to say about for-profit prisons and everything. But yes, this school is like the last part of this town that is in any way alive. And even they are basically hemorrhaging money. And by taking in this juvenile delinquent, they accept money as, you know, whatever.

To be her guardians, whatever. Whatever. To be her guardians, in a way. Kat meets three preppy girls. The main one is called Siobhan. She's voiced by Tamara Smart, who's on The Worst Witch and other various things. But she is the daughter

of the Klaxons, who are the heads of this private prison company that run the town. They run what a great performance playing Black Trump. Yes. Maxine Peake,

who I think a lot of people in Britain would know. She's in Shameless. She's in Dinner Ladies. She's in lots of things. Incredible character designs. Yes. She is sort of the Joanna Lumley character design. Like, you know, again,

he loves a long spindly woman. Jennifer Saunders. There's always the ghoulish woman, over up overly made up right yeah they like cat because partly because cat saves one of them from a falling brick like by the three the three young girls yes which raul knocks up one who is a a trans boy who goes to the boarding school and is sort of isolated away from everyone else. He's separate, but right. But like, I just kind of like that,

like, they're not bullies, really. Yeah. They're kind of like, hey, welcome to Click. And Kat's like, not interested. She's disgusting. Right, I don't want to do it. Right. But I like that they're, like, basically friendly. And I think this whole, like,

it's similar to the sort of, the boredom sequences in Coraline where everyone's kind to Kat. Right? Yes. As prickly as she is. There's this very quiet sadness. She has a cool boombox with a big eye on it.

It was her dad's boombox. Very cool. That this family friend is giving back to him. Ben, surely you love this boombox with a big bloodshot eye on it. Yeah, absolutely. It's like so fucking customized and fucking like the era of boomboxes when it was like you know, huge and it was like a

statement that you would walk around with. Like that's the family heirloom. Yeah. You know, it's not like she's got to lock it with her parents or whatever. It's like her dad's cool, customized painted boombox. And just like his cassette tapes of his like punk, like very specific 80s new wave.

You have two X-Ray spec songs. You have X as well, right? There's, I just had the soundtrack brought up here. Okay, so you have Death, Freakin' Out. Right, Death. I'm sorry. I was thinking of Death. Yes.

You have the specials going down with rules. Fishbone. Fishbone, of course, which also there's a lot of Fishbone sort of merch featured throughout. The t-shirt. And then, you know, TV on the radio for the big final sequence. Of course.

Yes. And there's even some newer bands, too. The one I won the shout-out, Special Interest, a great band. Their song, Young, Gifted, Black, and Leather, fucking rules.

Yeah, it's killer. It's really good. This is the thing, though, Griffin. It's like, the amount of characters, because it's like, she goes to the school. Who's at the school?

James Hong is the administrator of the school. Angela Bassett is a kindly nun at the school. There's three girls who are kind of a clique. Then there's, you know, Raul, who is separate from them, but also becomes friend to Kat. There's the old Jewish demonologist in the basement. Correct. Played by an Israeli actor named Egal Naor.

And a puppet that feels specifically modeled after late period Marlon Brando. I couldn't stop thinking about how much he looks like. Perfect example, when Hallie the nun goes to see him and she's like, come on, you know, like I know you need to

collect your thing. And I'm just like, again, did I miss something? Was this addressed? Who is this it feels like if in the opening this is halloween sequence of nightmare before christmas instead of being a song it was 10 minutes of dialogue across 18 scenes where they tried to set up each of the denizens of the town as if they had an important plot function and you're like why am i tracking the melting man in the suit and then here are some other rather than him just being a fun background exactly everyone's being put like given a sense of importance that you cannot

understand raul's mother mariana who's voiced by natalie martinez is like convinced cut out to her with her fucking yes she's good the klaxons burned down the root beer factory years ago and she's trying to figure that out and she's like on the city council or whatever then there's the character you mentioned before i think her name is miss hunter who's played by tantu cardinal a really good performance yeah who's uh you know she's um you know first nations and from canada uh like she's sort of floating around she's like an old friend who's there to help out there's just like this vast web of characters who are all somewhat connected even later you introduce like the doctor who's on the board along with roald's mom and then like the the dead uh well then we'll get to that right the day council people right like so when you cut to

buffalo belzer's head seven minutes in right it's almost disorienting now to have the movie slow down to like henry selleck pure vibes where you're like now this movie's operating on like it's breakneck yes no no it is because up until this point it's been very plotty and selleck is not a plotty filmmaker he's so much more about mood and characters yeah uh and i think his he tells stories. His stories have movements, but he's not really concerned about plot mechanics by and large. Right. Like we talked about something like James the Giant Peach is very picker ask. Right. Nightmare Before Christmas has like one major objective that everyone's right on. And this is just so much plot. Right. Where you're just like, has he fucking lost it? Because we haven't even gotten to that, like,

she then gets a skull on her hand, which is a sign. Well, that's what I was going to say. Yeah. It's like, it's already complicated. Yes. And then on top of it,

you're supposed to get your head around how this demon relationship works. Right. Which is really complicated and not anything like you've heard before. It's not like even like pulling from reference material in any way. No, she's a Hell Maiden. Yes. Which is a thing you can be. Yes.

And that comes with a unique power, but that's different for everybody. Yes. A skull on your hand. Uh-huh. And a connection to the underworld of some sort. Right. So now she has these designated demons. Which she doesn't know about

right they know about her all of a sudden right and wendell wild didn't force this connection no they just identify her when they're like in a dream with right basically opens up and then they go oh we could use her to our ends to help make our theme park thing a reality well no you forget it's the bells bear then she steals a stuffed bear. Because the bear is like some kind of weird possessed connection to the demon world. She like burns the hand on the bear. Yeah, it is funny. It is funny.

There's a couple times the camera like zooms in on the bears in Passive. It's kind of funny. Yeah. But like she summons Wendell and Wild using the bear and her hell powers. There's that great shot of them like coming, coming up from underneath and then, like, they go like, you know, like that. Like, this, like,

thing comes down and it, like, diverts them. Like, they're like a little ant hill. That's when they're actually rising up to the level. That's what I'm saying. She gets them.

She summons them. But there's that conversation. The first time she has the conversation with them. They're, like, in a dream. Right. And it's like, I think what they've done

is built giant puppets of just their heads because it looks like the faces are articulated rather than it being like replacement face animation. It looks like there's a giant rubber face and they are individually animating the lips and things like that. They look humongous. I know when they at the end of the movie, they're all in Buffalo Belzer's hand. They built that to scale. Yeah. end of the movie they're all in buffalo belzer's hand yes they built that to scale yeah they're not cheating and putting like smaller versions of the characters in a smaller hand the hand is like

15 feet tall and you see some in the credits some of the you know classic behind the scenes stuff of like those big puppets in the hand which is really cool you see the post-credits thing where she's like it's great i made her desk yeah it's really cute. You see the post-credits thing where she's at Amanda's desk. It's great. But that's the weird work from home thing. Anyway. So yes, they rise up. They basically realize we have this cream. Right. They promise we will revive your parents. We have that

power to her. That's how they're getting it. First they say to her, help us start our amusement park. She's like, you need to help bring my parents back to life. They're like, we can start our amusement park. She's like, you need to help bring my parents back to life. They're like, we can't do that. Right. She's like, the no deal.

They realize they have the cream. Right. They're going to get in trouble if they use it. There's the whole sequence where they put it on the bug that's squashed and they keep, like, reconstituting the bug. Very fun. But your brain is switching between, like, left brain, right brain shit.

Because anytime you're caught up in the world of the town, it's very literal. It's very, like, angry, political, pointed stuff. Yeah. Yes. I mean, there's a trans character. And so it's, like, there's just a lot of different, like, themes and topics going on. Versus when we're in the underworld, it's, like, crazy cartoon logic, flights of fancy, Henry Salkin caught up on visual

ideas. All of which I love. Me too. But I'm like, who is Buffalo Belzer? What is his role in like the spirit world? Right. If anything. Or is he just chilling? Here's the thing. We don't ask these same questions of someone like Oogie Boogie. No,

because he's the boogeyman. Yeah, it also helps that like Night before christmas doesn't start with 10 minutes of like the political infrastructure of a small town but this is the whole thing is i want to get clear i like this movie too but it is i had forgotten and you know and then i re-watched the movie i'm like right the whole city council plot yeah right the movie begins with her parents dying but then when we return to her, there are characters who are like, in the intervening years, the factory burned down and we want to deal with that.

I'm like, why do I care about this? This town has died. There's no way. But it's all part of this sort of like, right, this civic loss. Yes. Like this town was good. Now it's bad. It's been taken over by this prison, this private prison.

Is it sort of trying to be like Detroit adjacent ish? Is that what we feel like? Maybe I don't, because I don't, I just, it's hard again to read. Like I said, there are many examples. He said like my wife works for that risk. Sort of like Rust Belt. I just, cause like the whole idea is like cat is sort of maybe on the road to like, oh, she'll end up in one of these private prisons.

Right. She's a juvie already. She's on this sort of like, oh, she'll end up in one of these private prisons, right? She's a juvie already. She's on this sort of like, no one's going to help her. The system is stacked to do this. And she herself is caught up in the headspace of, I'm doomed. Who should save me? I don't deserve to be saved.

Like, even when people reach out a helping hand to her, she's like, I'm a fucking lost cause. Absolutely. But yes, the brief glimpse of the town you get at the beginning of the movie feels like a utopia. It was once. Right.

Right. And then it is this notion of like, what systems in place stopped this? Why wasn't this allowed to thrive? Why wasn't this allowed to exist? So first they revive James Hong's character, Father Best, who has been murdered by the Klaxons. Yes. Or getting too close to their... They kill him early. Like, in an insane

quick... Yes. Like, without thinking about it too much way. Right. Right. Like, they're playing golf with him, and then they kill him because he was the last witness to the factory fire, and they drown him. Wendell and Wilde bring him back to life, and then... What's the thing

they need him to approve where he makes the crack about, well, you're not going to get those votes unless those members come back to life of the board? Yeah, I don't... Whatever their newest construction. The bigger prison. Yeah, whatever. Yeah. But he plants that idea. And again,

in the middle of all this, it's been established that Kat is a hell maiden. It's been established that there's a guy in the basement of the school who hunts demons and puts them in bottles. This movie is just basically for the first 15 minutes saying, let's just put a pin in this and we'll come back to it. Right, right, right. Over and over and over again. And

you're starting to go like, guys, too much. I'm looking at a lot of pins on the wall. And it's like, I'm holding a plate with a lot of drinks and it's wobbling. Right. They bring back Father Best. They paint his face with makeup, which is funny. Really funny. He is a living corpse, but he is basically himself.

Yes. Sort of works. Yeah. I love how when he comes back, he's like, yes, I've returned. Yes. I'm here again. Don't worry about it. Like, and it's just very silly and it's starting to get more fun. Yes. You know, like, now we're

getting into it. Because now it becomes the thing of reviving the dead. They realize in talking to him, they're not going to be able to open their theme park unless they get approval to build on the land. Right. They too need the dead board members.

They need to revive the dead members of the city council. Yes. And the Claxton's are like, well, we need them for our thing, but they can also vote for your thing. Right. And so Wendell and Wilder are like, okay. And so they bring them back and it's very funny. Yes. Because they are old beyond old.

Skeleton. They're skeleton people and they're all different one of them's like a fucking admiral right they all have different outfits yes uh and it's such a clever idea it's an idea that makes me laugh so much yes like what if you brought back new york's city council from like the 18th century and there there was someone was like, well, there's nothing in the book that says they aren't, you know, voting members. I guess they have to be listened to. It's funny. It's very funny.

Where's Kat in all this? Kat also makes them swear some kind of bond to her. Yeah. Kind of by mistake. Well, she's trying to revive her own parents. I know. But they're not dealing with that. No.

It's sort of hard to keep the threat role needs to be her witness and there's things like revive wendell and wild that's what she needs but it's like sometimes they'll just throw out a piece of information where you're like and you need a witness and it's like why but i understand why you're doing this all right whatever you need another character to be there. No, that's the thing. When she revives them, that's the whole thing. They get diverted by that weird thing that I was saying.

Right, right. And so they don't show up. They pop up in the wrong place. She doesn't interact with them. So she doesn't even see them. They bring back Best. Then they bring back the council members. The council members start to cause havoc.

But then Raul steals the cream, seeing how it works, and revives her parents himself raul witness all of it happened because rules on the top of the building on the top of the church or whatever i mean this is our friends at podcast the ride just did an episode on the kingdom hearts franchise did they oh i should listen to that it's really great yeah and they uh despite being like theme park people in disney you know people obsessed with the disney company all the sore shit had never touched kingdom hearts and it was a thing where like the listeners were like you despite being like theme park people in Disney, you know, people obsessed with the Disney company, all this sort of shit, had never touched Kingdom Hearts.

And it was a thing where like the listeners were like, you have to do an episode trying to wade through this mythology. And a lot of the episodes, the fun of Scott just reading through the rules of the lore of Kingdom Heart, which is so much more confusing than you could ever imagine it to be.

Great episode. Everyone subscribe for the second gate. Worth it. But it's a similar thing where you just have to accept every time they tell you. And of course, this happens because of this. In this world, the heartless, of course, manifest in different worlds. Each tenant of a person's heart is

represented by a different princess. They all exist in different places. Like, you know. You're just like, that's what it... The Hellmaiden thing, you just have to accept that. Those are the rules because those are the rules. Those are the rules because those are the rules. Exactly. So the parents do come back. Yes. And they are nice. Yes.

But of course, the fundamental thing about this is like the cream only works for so long and there's only so much of it. They realize this. It's not an infinite thing. Right. Fairly late. But there's the great scene where Kat goes back to her childhood home and it's like her finally being willing to revisit the trauma

and they're there. Yes. And it's like both the exact thing she's always dreamed of and the most nightmarish version of it possible. Where her parents are corpse people who just woke up and are like,

what the fuck happened to everything? Yes. She still has barely interacted with Wendell and Wilde. Correct. And we're like more than halfway into the movie. Right's an hour and 45 minutes long yeah you're like this and the credits are fairly long yeah this movie is like split off into two halves that barely touch each other and they just seemingly keep on adding more things to the plate and then there's the moment where the

whole thing fucking finally clicks which i think is when the daughter goes and confronts her parents. Yeah, it's like Siobhan goes to see her parents. She discovers their lies. Right. I guess. Like, they're like, oh, these private prisons are nice. And it's like, no, you pack in more people. You get more money.

You know, it's like. You get money from the government. Google the prison industrial complex, fellas. Right. And they're like, it doesn't benefit anyone to have a town with a thriving black community it does not help anyone to have an art scene it does not help anyone but it's also like we don't care about rehabilitating people in these prisons that's the biggest having them in here is the money oh no these people are fucking monsters yes they look at human beings

in a way that like it's alarming, but luckily this is a fantasy. It's a fantasy film with no basis in reality. No, of course not. No, I mean, it's like, it's, I mean, I'm glad they're spot, like, he's spotlighting this issue. It's a very interesting thing to make a film about. But holy shit. They're like, look, if the prisons were successful in rehabilitating people, we'd go out of business. in rehabilitating people,

we go out of business. The town cannot have any health to it because then you are giving people opportunities to build lives for themselves rather than having to default. These people eat babies. That's how bad they are. They're horrendous.

I couldn't re-watching it, and again, I'm like, just seeing these characters have a daughter and exist and have a life, I'm like, these are these characters have a daughter and exist and like have a life. I'm like, these are true monsters. And they also they they deliver this to her in a like, we're finally ready to teach you about the family business. Like, it's not even delivered as this like villains, like great Ozymandias.

And here's the whole time, you know, like secret thing. It's like, I think you're old enough to understand the great way that we make a lot of money they're so embarrassed by what they're saying and they're like it's about to get better right so at some point hallie and men manberg man yes because hallie has at this point confessed to cat that she too is a help yeah but she's spending the whole movie being like you have to listen to me i know how this works and's like, I don't want to listen to you. Yeah. But they eventually are like, you need to sever your ties with Wendell and Wilde,

who you've barely interacted with. Right. But you've made a promise to them. You're sworn to them. So therefore, you're sworn to them. So you have to undo that, which is intense. Yes. And in doing that,

she kind of finally is like getting over the parents' death. This incredible sequence where they, like essentially have to make like a blood intense. Yes. And in doing that, she kind of finally is, like, getting over the parents' death. This incredible sequence where they, like, essentially have to make, like, a blood pact, bind their hands together by rim, and they're two demon hands, and then you have this extended, like, shadow puppet sequence. Right, which is really cool. That is, like, Kat living

through the basic... The car accident. The car accident, but also, like, the things that put her in juvenile detention, right? There's the sort of like accidental, like death or injury with the staircase. There's all this sort of stuff that makes her feel like she is not worthy of rehabilitation,

which is, you know, the whole other thing this movie is into of just like creating the mindset in people that they don't deserve better, that there is no other outcome for them, that there is no way for them to ever build a better life for themselves. You don't want to give people hope. And Kat has so fully bought into this.

Right. Into that sort of way. Right. That she is forced to like accept that. And I think is what is interesting is this movie doesn't want to wave some magic wand and go, everything is fixed. No one did anything wrong.

Everything's good. It's like many of the good characters in this movie have both good and bad qualities. Yes. And have done bad things for good reasons and good things for bad reasons and what have you. You have like the fucking Klaxons who are monsters who deserve to die in the fiery pits of hell but like they don't go like cat was framed no no i suppose you're right yeah yeah sure sure sure no she's not in this whatever she's i mean she's a child yeah yes and she's had a hard go she's had a hard go i mean her parents died she got put into like you know the foster system bad system this is

what the whole fucking movie is about the whole system is bad it feeds off of people giving in and giving up you know yeah in severing her connection with Wendell she gains full access to her precognitive powers yes Hallie is also kind of like

left kind of dead not dead but like she's like depleted by the ritual right like she's right yes right yeah ritual, right? Right, yes. Right? Yeah. Once again, it truly would take 10 watches of this movie to be able to... I've seen it three times.

I watched it kind of recently, and I just cannot... No. What happens is Wendell and Wilde steal her parents. They take them to the cemetery. Siobhan realizes that the money The Klaxons have been promising Wendell and Wild as seed money for their Amusement park is like fake money It's like Klaxon bucks

Right exactly Buffalo bells are finally Bursts out of the ground Having been like Searching for his lost demons But then there's like a mural That Raul has painted yes that he's been working on for the whole movie correct that convinces him like ah they're not so

bad my kids like and so he's not gonna like squish them he's gonna make makeup for them right and there's also this realization of you have chased all your other children away yes right that's what because when aller are like his last two children. You've tried to force your own wills. You tried to force your children into being you rather than letting them be

who they want to be and follow their own bliss. These are the last two. And he's like, I need to love my sons for who they are. I need to accept it. I'm not even going to be angry at them

using this cream to revive the dead. Oh, by the way, you know the cream love my sons for who they are i need to accept it i'm not even gonna be angry at them using this cream to revive the dead oh by the way you know the cream doesn't really work the hair falls out like almost right the cream is temporary so this is when they find out oh everyone's gonna go back to being dead best dies again and uh the but it's also revealed that the many jarred demons that manberg has been collecting are Belzer's children. So they are released. Right. So they can make this sort of deal of like,

they can, uh, I don't know, not sedate, but they can, they can appeal to Buffalo Belzer by reuniting him with the family he thought he had lost. Jesus,

this movie is so complicated. And then there's the big sequence with the bulldozers. Right. Where the bulldozers are going to demolish the town. Well, the other thing is they realize they only have a certain amount of cream left. So they, like, do you use that?

Pat's first instinct is get extra time with her parents. Right. But Raul is like, well, we could use this to, like, get testimony. The dad is the one who says it. Yeah, that's true.

But Raul's the one who does it, isn't he? I don't know. Yeah, but he's the one who basically says, like, we have loved every minute we've had with you. Yeah. But we're going to go away eventually, no matter what.

You could use the last cream you have to do something to bring this town back to life forever. We'll just get the testimony of the people who were in the fire at the burnery. So they go to, like, revive the three witnesses to the fire who are dead. Yes. To testify against the Klax Corp. After this bulldozer fight.

That's awesome. This bulldozer fight. That's a lot of fun. It's to the TV on the radio. It's the big sort of final sequence. You remember whipping ass in his wheelchair. Is there? Yes.

Or anything else to it? It's just fun. It just looks cool. Yeah. There's just like tons of bulldozers going. consequence you remember whip an ass in his wheelchair is there yeah is there anything else to it it's just fun it just looks cool yeah there's just like tons of bulldozers going and cat before her parents die uses her psychic powers to show them the nice future that russ bank is going to have yeah and wendell and wild say they can have vip passes to their afterlife amusement park which they they pop up in their pop-up book buffalo bells gets it he sees the vision he approves he approved normal movie very normal it's sort of about prison it's about parenting you're identifying correct correctly griffin this sort of thing of like you have to let things go you have to you know let your kids be different

from you you might have to you know make bed with the wrong people but you have to you know keep a hold of yourself there are things running through it but then it all also is just kind of like every 10 minutes you're like well i'm very engaged by how complicated this is yeah and i think some people maybe are like this is too complicated for me i don't think this movie has any dead ends. I don't think it has, you know, like split hairs and frayed edges or whatever. You know, like nothing about it feels incomplete. It's just one of those things. There are movies, you know, I find more often they're like the world's biggest sci-fi blockbusters that some people will slam for being corny or overwritten or underwritten

or whatever the fuck. Right. Right. That you and I will defend adamantly. Right. And there are things like Inception or Avatar where you're like, you know what? You if you're going to make this movie work and you're going to get to the pure pleasure and joy of these triumphant, virtuoso, final act and a half set pieces.

You need to just have a lot of inelegant, clumsy, ham-fisted exposition to set up the rules of this universe. You're just going to have an hour of making us eat vegetables, just shoving it down our throat, because then you can get to the point where you don't have to explain anything further. And Wendell Ball is a movie that operates like that for almost all of its running time.

I would say it works in spite of itself. A little bit. I fully like it. But I also support the in spite of itself-ness. Me too. If that makes sense. Oh, me too. But it is that thing where it's like

the whole movie is Inception style explaining to you, well, this is a kick and this is a totem and this is my history and my wife was this and all of that. And you're doing it on like a surprisingly big canvas for an hour and 40 minute animated film, narratively, big canvas. When you saw it at Toronto after a perfect night's sleep

and I asked you how it was, you said, I think it's kind of great. It's got a lot of ideas. And that's the thing I just keep on going back to where it's just like, it's got no shortage of ideas. I think it's great. I'm a big fan. I do too. And I think most movies like this where it's like, oh, they had too many ideas. You, you feel the excess fat. You feel like this was a thing from a draft from five drafts ago that no longer has any place in this movie and it doesn't tie into anything else.

It takes a very long time for him to properly weave all the threads. But I do think it is cohesive by the end of the movie. I agree. I felt satisfied at the end of the movie. I did too. A little exhausted.

Me too. Ben and I saw it in theaters. You did. We were playing at the Quad for like five days unadvertised. There was one other person in the theater. And we walked out and we were like pretty fucking invigorated by it. Like just talking about the actual things it is saying about society. Absolutely.

It's also a diverse animated movie. Yeah. Which felt really like special. Thumbs up to Salik. Absolutely. I think the way they deal with

Raoul being trans feels very like understated. Yeah. You know, the stupid reactionary fucking go woke go broke shit that people complain

about. I think what is more often a problem is when like movies want to pat themselves on the back for being progressive while making, well actually doing the film. Right. And this is just like, it's a reality of the movie. It's basically like stated only through context clues,

you know? Yeah. There's, there's, I mean, the idea I think is Raul was once part of the click. Yes clues, you know? Yeah, there's, I mean, the idea, I think, is Raul was once part of the clique. Yes.

And, you know, now feels different and alienated. And that's complicated. And, you know, feels that way, too. There's a connection there that's interesting. Feels alienated, to be clear.

Yeah. Do we say what happens, though, to the Klaxons? They get arrested. They get arrested because the corpses testify against them. Right, but I think the detail I just want to spotlight is that

they, like, go against each other. Oh, yeah, they immediately turn on each other. Because they're the fucking worst people on the fucking planet. Right, there's no one they won't sell out. Right. Right. Like, immediately. Immediately, yes. I don't know, I think they're great. Yeah. I think they should. They have a lot of interesting ideas.

Yeah, right. And they deserve a platform. You know, Celica said that his future, he's vague about it. He's basically like, look, I've got some things I want to do. I had a feature I almost did at Laika. Maybe I'll go back to that. He knows he can't wait 13 years. And he says, I kind of like the streaming aspect because I don't have to live and die by the opening weekend.

You know, I'm hopeful that that will be helpful he has the rights back to the Shadow King he's got that sort of game in Ocean at the End of the Lane thing that he's thinking about but he knows he can't think forever if he wants to do another like that is huge for him because I think the Shadow

King thing for so long just felt like they won't even let him start something again because the idea of having to take a $50 million write-off on an unfinished chunk of movie is what's scaring everyone else from giving him the green light. What a cool title. The Shadow King. But I will say, on the pessimistic side,

there is just that fear of like, wow, this movie didn't really feel like it broke through. At all. And I don't think that's like the death of stop motion because I do think like Guillermo's movie is breaking through a little more. Yeah. There's still a lot of love for that look.

Laika has another project on the way. But I do wonder if people will just kind of be like, well, there are people who are a little easier to deal with than you, Henry Selick, you know, than you, Henry Selick. I'll say this. I don't mean to put the pressure on any sense of, I don't know,

cultural, societal obligation. But you and I were just talking about how Marcel the Shell with shoes on has seemingly become the critics' choice for animated. We both feel like Pinocchio is probably

going to be the front runner for the Oscar but at least with critics groups Marcel seems to be popular. Yes. This does feel like

a movie that needs some people getting behind it and champing it just to remind people that it exists or let them know for the first time that it exists.

Yes. I mean I hope it gets an Oscar nomination. I would say right now that is maybe. It is wild that it's on the cusp., I hope it gets an Oscar nomination. I would say right now that is maybe. It is wild that it's on the cusp. It's on the cusp. Because this should be a locked nominee in a year

that was generally pretty bad for animation. The fact that this movie is not a lock is pretty damning of Netflix. You think there are three locks. You think the three locks are Turning Red, Pinocchio, and Marcel? I think Marcel is probably more of a lot yeah and then i think i would i would put wendell forth yeah and i would put either like the sea beast which a lot of people liked on netflix

big hit seemingly for them um or whatever that means don't make fun of me when i hear a lot of good things about puss in boots the last wish Wish. Apparently Puss in Boots The Last Wish rips. I remember I was like, I was going to something with Ehrlich and he was like, Emma Stefanski gave the Puss in Boots movie like an A- for us. And I was like, I hear it's good. It's supposedly good. So maybe that.

There are other things like Lightyear and Strange World that didn't really connect. There's stuff like the bad guys that kind of like did alright. I mean, I think Mad God obviously should be nominated, but that feels fringy. That would be my favorite. Me too. That was what I voted for. It'd be great to see three stop motion films. But this is the thing. I voted for

Mad God at the Critics Circle because I was like, well, that's the thing I really think. I agree. And then Wendell, I was sort of my second. More movies should go down. I don't like how movies are always going forward. I'm just realizing with Marcel, it basically is stop motion primarily. You could have a good category

where four out of the five nominees were stop motion. Yeah, it's possible. And they would show a pretty diverse range of films. Yeah. That would be my five. It's also a lot of work. That's the thing. I mean, watching that documentary,

like the Clay, you know. You gotta watch Claydream David it's just like I'm like what drives a person what kind of person do you have to be to want to do that and Wilvin was working

in fucking clay yeah like that shit like melts and it smushes you knock it over the whole thing's totally smushed crazy

yeah it's just you have to really be a certain kind of person to just like be willing to just like be willing to just like sit there and meticulously with

all these guys and it's like Phil Tippett Will Vinton Henry Selick they're all different types of people yeah the one commonality here with them is like and then

they go into some weird Zen flow state when they're animated I think the key word is you have to be a fucking weirdo you have to be a fucking weirdo big time yeah let's play the

box office game before we wrap up this series and announce our next series and do our rankings. Okay. Number one. No merch for this movie. Another thing that makes you feel

like Netflix. I understand that in some sense just because this movie was supposed to come out two years ago. Like, maybe they were just like, this is too big a movie target.

I think the only way in which I'm surprised is that it's like, A, visually, this movie looks so great. The designs are so great and all the characters. And B, the amount of money Selick Movies have made from merch. For there not to be anything, like not to be fucking T-shirts with these characters on or whatever.

You're like, Coraline stuff is still lining fucking Hot Topic, a store that basically exists as a testament to Jack Skellington. Yeah. I have one note Jack Skellington. Yeah. I have one note I wanted to read. Okay. This is Republicans' dream for our future. Ancient races vote for our future. Yeah. It is pretty funny.

If the Republicans were like, no, no, no, no. We're a very reasonable party. And we revived several members from the 19th century. We now know exactly what our founding forefathers intended because we brought them back to life. Right here. And there's just a skeleton going like... Number one at the box office on October 21st, 2022,

which is the weekend this movie was nominally released. No box office figures reported. Right. Most successful film of all time. The most successful movie of all time. Give me the weekend again. Sorry. October 21st, 2022.

Most successful film ever made. The most successful film... Got the rece Give me the weekend again. Sorry. October 21st, 2022. Most successful film ever made. The most successful film ever made. Of course. Of course. Is this weekend one or two? One. Coming out this week. Black Adam.

Yep. Which opened to, I'm seeing here, Infinity Money. Just a little eight on its side. It's funny. Wait, I'm seeing a different report here. It says it was number one with pure profit. It's funny. I'm seeing a different report here.

It says it was number one with pure profit. I should have called it in the blackout because it got there. Immediately. Immediately. Look, $67 million. A lot of people would just take the W of having a big opening weekend for your big movie. Other people would throw a two-month hissy fit on Twitter about it and eventually leak financial documents to a blog to prove that, yes, they made money. Definitely. Profit.

And basically, the documents reveal the projections that within five years, eventually, the total profit... There's money to be made making movies. And by the way, half of that profit is the amount of money that Warner Brothers pays itself through HBO Max. People were scandalized by that. And the amount of money that Warner Brothers pays itself through HBO Max.

People were scandalized by that. And I was like, that's always how they do it. And they control the fucking companies that own the billboard space. So they pay themselves to buy billboards and TV ads. Welcome to late capitalism. Anyway, the funniest thing about... If people want to dig into this, I'm sorry, but just Smoking Gun. I can't remember if it was Harry Potter 5 or 6,

but the Smoking Gun website like 10 years ago got the full P&L account of Half-Blood Prince or Order of the Phoenix or whatever the fuck it was and just explained the way that Warner Brothers

made it seem as if that movie lost $150 million so that they didn't have to pay out profit participation. This is why I like this. I like some people like what a pansy move by the rock to release. He's the ultimate candy to release, you know, doc, you know, basically like to leak stuff to a deadline to basically prove the black Adam made some money. I'm like, this is good a movie like black adam that was an objective failure yes that makes money this is the thing that we need to

start acknowledging that hollywood refused they'll be like oh well the business is in trouble it's like no you can release dog shit to no applause and make money well well if you restore the like sort of multi-tensural release yeah if you just punt the thing you're streaming you don't yeah i i david i agree don't you like money you fucks someone on our reddit brought up uh when tom hanks and uh bobby z yep we're on probably roadshow promoting polar express and so many of the headlines around that movie were that it was so fucking expensive and they were like, are you worried? And Zemeckis

just broke down like, it is basically impossible for a studio movie to lose money. That was at the time where DVD sales were so strong that they would push any movie into profit. And then it's like, and then you sell to pay TV and then you sell to network TV, a DVD and then whatever. And all these and then you sell the network TV, a DVD and then whatever.

And all these compressed windows shrunk the ability for any movie to go back into the black. And Black Adam shows you like, right, if you go through all the steps, you make money eventually. Anyway, number two, the box office opening against Black Adam, a fairly successful movie star movie. A Ticket to Paradise. Yeah. What's the worldwide total on that?

The worldwide... Well, domestically, it's up to 70. It's up to 66, 67. So it gets a 70. Yeah. And worldwide, I want to say it made a full hundo. Exactly. It's made $170 million.

Yeah. Doesn't it just kind of look like a fake movie? Yeah, exactly. It doesn't look like it's real. Still made money. Ben, it feels like a fake movie. Yeah. Watching it, it's probably the most made money. Ben, it feels like a fake movie. Yeah. Watching it,

it's probably the most disappointing film I've seen all year because I wanted nothing more than for that film to be a gentleman's six. It's like a gentleman's four and a half. Yeah, it's maybe a five if I'm being generous. Wow. But I am happy that it exists

and I am happy that it's successful. It's fine. More of this, please. Here's another film, number three at the box office in its fourth week and it's made $84 million on a small budget. What's another film Number three at the box office In it's fourth week And it's made 84 million dollars On a small budget

What's the film? Smile Smile I'm just so pissed off That in the last six weeks Yes Like Industry reporting

Has sort of turned back To like I don't know man I think this whole thing Might be cooked It's like Fuck you It's been a whole year of success

Smile And suddenly they're like I don't know I mean like This one movie isn't clicking ah strange world i think it's over guys might as well just put it all on streaming smile was going to go straight to paramount plus it sure was it screened at a horror festival they were like oh surprisingly good response should we take a flyer on this one 200 million dollars

worldwide franchise cost five if that it was just how much how expensive is smiling not expensive okay number four at the box office the flip side of smile the film that was released on streaming the same day it was put in theaters to the movie still made money but you know to a huge detriment for its uh brand name you know uh uh remind me which streaming service it's on picar it's a peacock movie it's called halloween kills no it's not halloween ends there you go sorry 64 million domestic yeah got crushed by smile halloween ends jamie lee curtis and michael myers were finally this is it guys well but that's not really what the movie was which people soured on and found out about pretty quickly.

No. I mean, well, yes, people didn't like the movie. But no, no, no. But like the marketing of that movie is still, you know, like, hey, we got Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Myers. Smile just had smiling. That's all it had.

The word about it on that thing was so toxic. It was. It's not a good. The people who go see the early Thursday night screenings all walked out and they were like, Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael michael myers were on screen together for five minutes fuck this movie i feel like it curdled immediately also people didn't love kills they didn't love kills the bloom was already a little off kind of overperformed considering it was also day and date on peacock it was surprising it made that much money like you know deeper in the pandemic

but anyway yeah number five at the box office. For two months, the only family film available to a starved audience that was just like, I guess we'll see this. It's made $85 million worldwide. I'm trying to remember what this movie is.

The only family film released in October. Yeah. Legion of Superhero, at least Super Pets, was in a similar zone where it hung in there for so long

because no one else was releasing any other fucking thing. Remind me what studio this is. Paramount. Lyle Lyle Crocodile? Lyle Lyle Crocodile. Yes.

Which Katie Rich keeps telling me is good. And that Bardem deserves a Golden Globe nomination. Evan Susser DM'd me being like, you seen it? And I was like,

no. He's like, damn it. I saw it in Javier Bardem. It's really good. I just want to talk about it with somebody. And I was like, well, I don't know what to. I saw it in Javier Bardem. It's really good. I just want to talk about it with somebody. And I was like, well, I don't know what to tell you.

You got to watch it. Also in the top 10, The Woman King. Another solid hit. Yeah. Made $70 million. Yeah. Terrifier 2. Another insane thing.

Made $10 million. Despite apparently being like just disgusting. Just true word of mouth. Don't worry, darling. A piece. Sorry. Flawed film. Yeah. That made $45 million. A piece de merde. about don't worry darling a piece sorry uh flawed film yeah uh that uh made 45 million dollars

yeah amsterdam there's no defending that no that thing just stunk should i should i see it though just to like stare at it yes go ahead why don't you stare at that one it'd make you so angry really triangle of sadness a swedish two and a half hour film about barfing has made five million dollars domestically yeah it's actually made some money yeah where the poster is an old lady barfing i this is what i would say i would say the problem is that all of the oscar movies are topping out at that exact number it's like triangle of sadness is doing better than you expect the problem is that you're like, oh, but that's the same number TAR

ended up at. Everyone's saying the market's gone, the market's gone, and I'm like, that's fine. Five to ten seems to be the market for everything other than everything all at once. I'm just like, guys, this is not a quick fix thing. Take your goddamn time and put your... No, I'm not ranting at you.

I'm ranting at the people in my DMs who work for the nice trees down from my throat god damn no i'm like put the windows back up make an effort here give people i have so many people in my life who are like i wanted to see the fablemans at thanksgiving and i couldn't it never happened why not right and i'm like yeah because they were actually too scared yeah to like release it and then it's like's like, well, it's on PVOD, like, immediately. And I'm like, why? And everyone at the studio is just like, I don't know, it doesn't really hurt. And I'm like, it may not hurt financially,

but, like, you're hurting your fucking business, you morons. Yes. Sorry. Anyway, that's the box office for Wendell and Wilde. Hey, numbers not reported. No. Has never cracked the Netflix 10.

No, right? I expect this episode will result in the biggest audience. And that's not us patting ourselves on the back. No, it's how apathetic the promotion of this film has been. I get them not wanting to cannibalize against Pinocchio, but they have like two movies in this one category in the same medium with both acclaimed filmmakers. And one of them's got a lot

more oscar heat on and a lot more critical adoration and that's now become their biggest oscar contender overall but it's strange now my top five selling i don't know what yours is what's yours i i'm a little stuck on the middle i know my top two and i know my i know i mean i i think uh i think i gotta give the hair to nightmare over core i figured you would i think they're both masterpieces i'm not a cock i'm not a dumb animation nerd i'm a big i'm not owned as i slowly turn to a coin cup um it just it falls into, like, Wizard of Oz territory. I sympathize with that.

I'm the opposite. There's just some magical, alchemical thing with that movie. Even if I think Coraline is kind of the greater achievement for Henry Selick O'Toole. Sure.

Right. If that makes sense. Yeah, I know. But you have Nightmare 1 and Coraline 2. I have Coraline 1 and Nightmare 2. But what's your number three?

I imagine you have Peach. Yeah, Peach is third. Wendell and Wilde is fourth. Monkeybone is fifth. I have it the same way, but I've considered putting Wendell over Peach. I just want that on the record. Sure, sure.

Wait, really? Why? I don't know. I dug Wendell and Wilde. That's the life for him. James and the Giant Peach is a more straightforward thing for me. I get why I like it. Bugs, Roald Dahl, Peach, fun.

Greatest soundtrack of all time. Sure, absolutely. Banger after banger after banger. Wendell and Wilde, I'm like, there's so much in here that's interesting. Does the movie function for me as well? I'm not sure. At the end of the day,

I'm going for Peach maybe slightly more functional. But I don't know. Wendell and Wilde's got for me as well? I'm not sure. You know, at the end of the day, I'm going for like Peach maybe slightly more functional, but I don't know. Wendell and Wilde has got so much going on. I'll say this. Yeah? Peach I've watched

many, many times as we've covered. It remains very watchable for me. Wendell and Wilde, I was curious if watching it a second time, it would have like

a glass onion effect where you're like, knowing where the movie ends up, I have a much greater appreciation for all the setup. I see it all from a different prism. Yeah. I don't think it plays that way on a second time. No, no, it doesn't. It has less sort of like pure joy rewatch ability than the first.

I encountered that, which is a problem for me. Right. It's still on second watch. It is still very plotted. There's a lot to get. That was my problem was I was like, right, they have to establish this. Right, they have to establish this. There were a few scenes where I was just kind of like, eh.

Yeah. But I like thinking about it. I do too. I think he's made four phenomenal movies. And Monkeybone is one of the more interesting, odd duck, bad objects ever. That I still even kind of more like than dislike. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of. No, I don't need to qualify that. I like that

movie. I kind of do as well. Yeah. Yeah. Ben's mixed. Yeah. Ben's a no. Right. And Justin McElroy is going back to graduate school to get his PhD. Oh my God. Yeah, seriously. I didn't like what you pointed out about Monkey Bone, which is the 90s aesthetic

I've thought about that a bunch since we recorded the episode but it's just like something about it's like it's swing revival we're in Smash Mouth all of a sudden and it's chain wallets that whole movie is wearing a cabara it really is

you know the weird thing in that movie we forgot to talk about what? I mean because we'd already gone long and talked a lot about the strangeness of that film the whole end sequence where chris katan and brendan fraser are fighting holding on to the strings of a giant monkey bone like thanksgiving day balloon right and it looks like i don't know how they did this or if this was intentional or not but it like looks like rear projection more than green screen. It looks like

deliberately artificially like they're just in front of a screen kind of shit. I swear to God that whole final sequence they start styling Frasier to look more

like a monkey. And that final sequence he's got like a unibrow. They have like stuck his ears out further. His teeth have gotten bigger. That's clever. And there's all kinds of fucking organs

are falling out of his body. It's like that's right. That's what you want out of a live action Henry Selick movie. I agree. I don't know. Weird film. I hope people watched it. Super weird. And I hope this has made you consider Henry Selick. Consider the Selick. Consider him.

Consider him as an artist in his own right. Who will you be considering next, my friend, before we leave? David, it's someone we've been talking about for such a goddamn long time.

And I will say, I selected, I basically said next year when we were in the thick of Kubrick and I was like, oh my God, this is so stressful. Yes.

I was like, next year, I'm going to do someone I like. You're going to do... Let's have fun. We're going to each pick an old fate. Pick. And I also kind of have that feeling of like,

we just got to get some of these guys off the board. Yeah. Some of these will do them. These are both major, we'll do them someday, guys. And major, we push them through March Madness year after year, guys. Yeah. So next, we're doing our first British filmmaker. Unless you count Nolan. Isn't he Irish? year, guys. Yeah. So next we're doing our first British filmmaker. Unless you count Nolan.

Isn't he Irish? Oh, David. He's not Irish. Is he not Irish? Is he not Irish? Is he not Irish, David? He's English. No.

You're freaking me out there. And Nolan obviously does count as an English filmmaker. But not really because like he hasn't really made movies, you know, in England or about England in a long time. Well. He's our first proper English director. And what I was about to do is going to become less funny. I'm still going to do it.

I'm warning everyone in advance. I'm still going to do it. It's just less funny now that I know he's not Irish. He's not Irish. Please say the name of the filmmaker. Danny Boyle. Oh, Danny Boyle, the pipes, the pipes are calling. Embarrassing for you.

I believe his parents may have been Irish. I think he was like born to irish oh daddy so there you go many series is calling um we're gonna do the films of danny boy a lot of people have been guessing a lot of different people yeah well wait okay so then are you gonna say yours oh well should we no it's up to you we don't have have to. We don't have to. Let's just stay silent. Yeah, then we'll do some... We're going to do a Griff guy, and then I guess after that,

we will do whoever wins March Madness. Yeah. And then we're going to keep doing guys we like to do. Some other things we have coming in 2023, though, of course, is the Blankie Awards. Uh-huh. M. Night Shyamalan's Knock at the Cabin, which has been rated R.

His first R. Violence and language. Cool. Cooler. Fuck! Fuck. Which is his first R since The Happening.

Old was a P13. We also, hopefully, are going to have Well, we're going to do a main feed episode on the new Mission Impossible movie next year. Right. Because we covered all the other McHugh films at this point. We're going to do Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. Uh-huh.

We're going to do Michael Mann's Ferrari, assuming that actually does come out. Yes. I think we'll do Aquaman 2. Oh, yeah. Whenever that's coming out. I think we will. Assuming that ever comes out. One of those weird things

where they made a billion dollar movie and now they're like, should we even release the sequel? I'm like, you probably should. Fucking, this ball and chain. So weird. But most excitingly, yeah, Danny Boyle coming up.

Danny Boyle. All right. So next week. Sunshine, one of the episodes we've been, you talk about since the beginning of this show, the things we've dreamed about doing episodes on. This is maybe one of the episodes We've been You talk about Since the beginning of this show The things we've dreamed About doing episodes on This is maybe

One of the last huge Like Griffin David Shared obsession movie Absolutely One of those like You know what's good Sunshine We're not gonna have

An interstitial Because we just did Avatar And we're doing Shop Lones Yeah We got Boyle We're not doing Palette Closer

Yeah Next week A little film called Shallow Grave. Enjoy you miserable, lovely people. Yeah. Couldn't have said it

better myself. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping to produce the show. Joe Bowen,

Pat Reynolds for our artwork. I know I've already called out what a good job Pat did on the Photoshop miniseries artwork for Selick, I think in the Monkeybone episode, but

it feels like there's a lot of versatility with the close-up zoomed-in photo of your face on the James puppet. It has been getting a lot of traction. People just think it has cold, dead eyes. Maybe I'll do my own podcast about it. Yeah, cold eyes? Yep.

Sounds good. Sounds original. Thank you to AJ McKeon, Alex Barron for editing. Lane Montgomery, the great American novel for our theme song, JJ Birch for our research. Went deep on the Selick stuff, as he always does. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, as he always does. You can go to blankcheck.com

for links to some real nerdy shit, including Blank Check special features, our Patreon feed, where we do franchise commentaries, and of course we're doing Hollywood's biggest blockbuster franchise right now in the month of January. The Cotsies. That's right. Cotsie Trilogy.

Thrillogy. We should call it the Cotsie Thrillogy. So if you want to see us watch esoteric movies while on CBD dog biscuits Ben's chomping on dog biscuits I should make it clear we emailed to Headgrass and said can you please send us dog biscuits

Ben wants to eat them on mic and the response was we will send you dog biscuits I just want to remind you those are not meant for humans or dogs and the response was, we will send you dog biscuits. I just want to remind you those are not meant for humans. Or dogs. And we would like it if you spent more time

talking about any of our other products. I was like, don't worry. They'll be used on Mike. Crunch, crunch. Crunch. His fans were spot on. All right, we're done. Come on.

How long is this episode? Long enough. Yeah, exactly. Hey, we love to hear it. Hey, we're done. Come on. How long is this episode? Long enough. Hey, we love to hear it. Hey, we love to hear it. Tune in next week for Shallow Grave. And as always, Crunch Crunch.