House of R - ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘The Running Man’

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

Mal and Jo go to the movies! They discuss two recent releases with ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘The Running Man.’ Plus, they get into the horniest moments in Guillermo del Toro’s movies and the best action sequences in Edgar Wright’s movies! (00:00) Intro(06:29) Opening Snapshot(11:49) ‘Frankenstein’(53:44) ‘The Running Man’ Prepare for one last adventure at Target. Visit target.com/StrangerThings Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory RubinProducers: Carlos Chiriboga and Mike WargonSocial: Jomi AdeniranAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome to House of Arra. I'm Joanna Robinson. Joining me today, it is always Mallory Rubin. Mallory, how are you doing? Joanne, I'm thrilled to be here with you because only podcasters play God. Oh, that is the not-so-suttle tagline to Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein,

which we will be talking about today. We'll also be talking about Edgar Wright's The Running Man and then doing a little look at Guillermo's work, Edgar's work. We're fans of both of them. It's House of Our Goes to the movies here on a friend. What could be better? We're calling this the Sex and Violence Edition.

We'll get into that a little bit more as we go forward. But that is what we have planned for you all today. It's not our classic deep dive. It's something a little different. But it's a cold and rainy Friday. Perfect time to go to the movies. And that's what we've decided to do here. My only regret is that I didn't design you a custom popcorn bucket for this podcast.

I'm sorry. Next time. Next time. Let's go now to a break. This episode of House of ours presented by Target. Have you heard? Stranger Things is back at Target,

and it's time to gear up for the upside down. Head back to the 80s with awesome exclusives like the unreal Demogorgon popcorn bucket, the fog over Hawkins candle that reveals secret messages and the Demogorgon bundle box that's full of cool surprises. New items are dropping all season long,

so prepare for one last adventure at Target. Program reminders really quickly. Tell me. We are. If all goes according to plan, and we haven't heard otherwise yet. Yeah. Doing a crisp Nolanfall entry next week. Yeah, that is the plan. Should we say what it is? What? You do it. Great. I'm thrilled. And you know what? Again, if it changes, tis the holiday season. The pal and colleague who we hope is joining us for this is abroad and traveling. So things could. change, it's possible. But if all goes according to plan, we will be resuming the Nolan series with Christopher Ryan, another of the great Chris's. You know, we got Chris Nolan, we got Chris Ryan, to talk about one of Chris Ryan's favorite movies ever, also a movie that we really love, Dunkirk. So I'm delighted. We're thrilled to do Dunkirk. Is it House of Our Core, you may ask? I don't know, but we're doing all of the Christopher Nolan movies. And so Dunkirk is sure is one of them.

We're doing them all. And so, of course, we're going to talk about Dunkirk. I think we can make the case that the time violation, yeah, the chronological, uh, maneuverings inside of the film allow us to include it. And guess what?

If that weren't the case, wouldn't give a shit. We're going to talk about all the movies. I can't wait. I saw Dunkirk with CR for the first time. Like we went, you know, with, uh, with the crew, Ringer crew back in the day,

the Arklight, walked from the office. And I'm telling you this now because I intend to bring this up on the pot and see if he remembers this. Because famously, he doesn't remember seeing other movies with me. So I'm excited to drop that in real time. Let's just let's not tell him. Let's just ask him, do you remember where you were when you saw Dunkirk for the first time? There's no way he's going to remember.

Great. Speaking of movies, it's just a movie time for us. Wicked for Good is also on the docket for next week. I'm excited. Very excited about this. I'm going with my sister to the press screening. I'm really, really excited to spend that time with her. So excited to talk about that.

And from what I've heard from people who have seen it, banger. Quite good. Quite good. I'm fucking thrilled. I can't wait to see the movie next week. I can't wait to talk about it. It was really fun to revisit the first movie recently when my family was in town. Oh, nice.

Let's see Wicked. Like, great. Can fill the time and also to pod prep. This is ideal. Which stuff go? Which stuff is eternal. Okay. And then we're doing another best of the century quite soon.

and we're doing best fights. So hobbits and dragons at gmail.com, if you have a nominee for best fights of the century so far, we're talking one-on-one fights, so like duels. Yep, battles, full-on battles. Full-on battles. And also, we decided to include verbal spats. For now, we're deciding to include that.

We'll see if the consideration set becomes so vast that we have to walk that one back. But for now, that's our intention. I think it should be, I will fight to keep it. So, and then that could be one of the ones. of the best fights is our fight over whether or not to include that meta. Succession is not House of Arcor, but were it included, Shiv and Tom tearing each other to shreds out on the balcony in the final season,

would certainly be on the list. So that's the kind of thing we're talking about. So send us your nominations we want to hear from you all to Hobbits and Drag It's a Gmail.com. There's a lot of great stuff that's happening, Mallory Rubin. How would you suggest people keep in touch? keep tabs. Thanks for asking. Here's what I do.

I'd follow the pod. Why not? Follow House of R on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. You can watch full video episodes of House of our on the Spotify app. Incredible. You can also follow along

on the Ringerverse YouTube channel where there are full video episodes of House of Our Midnight Boys. Beow! And you can follow the Ringervverse on the social media platform of your choosing, whatever that is.

And you can send us your emails. The inbox is always open, Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. Some really touching stuff from you guys recently. So really, really stuff from the bad babies that's really meant a lot to us. So thank you for sharing. Spoiler warning. The works of Guillemuel Del Toro and Edgar Wright are sort of all on the table here as we discuss their larger work. I will say there are some, I would say specifically for Guillermo's work, there are a few sort of like revelations that we want to talk about.

But we can give you some advance warning when those are coming up. And also just House of Our contains adult content. We haven't said in a while. I thought it would be nice to reiterate here on the sex and violence edition. This one's going to get a little freaky today. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And obviously, spoilers for the new films for a running man and pregnancy.

We will be briefly sharing our thoughts on each of those before using them as opportunities to revisit the filmographies. Frild. Let's go to our opening snapshot. The playoffs are here. And you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandu Predict. predict the spread, total points, and even the game winner. Sign up and get a $25 bonus. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant, 18 plus.

Bonus is non-withdrawable and expires seven days after receipt. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at fanduel.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. All right. Usually what we do on a movie podcast is we sort of break down the reviews and the box office and all this sort of stuff like that. We're a little too early to do that for the running

man and we're a little too late to do that for Frankenstein, which is a weird thing to do anyway because it was like a three-week theater theatrical release and then on to Netflix. So here's just some fun facts that we will share. Frankenstein had a limited run in theaters, debuted on streaming last week. I would say, and this is what I was waiting for, meme city. Have you been seeing the Frankenstein memes? I was like, this movie was built to be devoured and memeified by the Netflix bingers. What do you think? Certainly some of the memes have made it to me in a way that is perhaps unsurprising, given my algorithm. I'll tell you what I'm getting even more of.

Stranger things. And it is interviews with Jacob Allorty about what books he's reading. Yeah. Oh my God. Inundated and keep it coming. I'm loving it. Jacob Allurey talking about how he read violent and now he's ready for Gravity's Rainbow. elite stuff, honestly. An incredible stretch on the internet. Having a blast. Absolutely true. Having a blast.

Okay. As far as reviews for Frankenstein, it's fairly like, it's like a B sort of average on the Rotten Tomatoes, on the Metacritic, you know, letter boxed in the threes. So it's sort of like a people think it's, okay, fine, right? Pretty okay is how people seem to feel. Is that your sense of the critical consensus of free of consensus? Critical consensus, yes. I feel like there is a more enthusiastic response from the wider viewing public. Okay. But I'm basing that on, you know, again, like the internet bubble that I exist in. Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting with Guillermo stuff, because I'm trying to pull like people in my life who are watching on Netflix to try to get like to get out of my critic bubble, right?

which is a place I can be trapped in. And for the most part, the people that I am pals with are talking to who like it, like it in the way they like other Guillermo movies like Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak where they're like, oh, it's not good, but I enjoy watching it. Do you know what I mean? Like, that's the sense from them. But if the wider audience, I believe that there also exists, a wider audience is just like, I love this.

I have always wanted a Frankenstein where a character turns to the camera basically says Victor, you're the monster. Like, that's always something that I wanted. Decent Netflix, viewership numbers, according to Netflix, we can never know, but according Netflix, it's fairly popular. So we will keep our eye on this spot. Possible that Frankenstein is going to endure into, like, Oscar season, Jacob Allorty is being tossed around and supporting and certainly, like, on the costume front production

design and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Did you see this in the theater or at home? I saw in the theater. And then I saw it again at home. Yeah, I did not. I really wanted to see it in the movie theater, and I did not, which I'm sad about,

because I would have really liked to get to see it on the big screen. But I did enjoy watching it at home, but I'm, yeah, I'm lamenting that I didn't get the big screen experience and also the shared experience with an audience. Yeah, yeah. It's a different thing. Okay. No one to blame but myself, really. And it was the extremely limited run.

Run and release a number of screens that was available on, but I do live in Los Angeles. You and I did go to the theater separately, but we did go to the theater this week. for The Running Man, which is fairing, at least in the critical world, a bit worse than Frankenstein. This is not getting great reviews. Not on Rotten Tomatoes,

a Metacritic on Letterbox. But we have very minimal data, right? Because we're recording this on a Friday. You know, at least some of our colleagues liked this movie. That's true, but some of our colleagues definitely did not like this movie. And we don't know what the general audience thinks. Maybe people are going to love this.

I really wanted to. I did not super love it, but I have definitely highlights that I want to mention. Anything you want to say about The Running Man before we go forward? Do we want to do our quick, yeah, our quick responses here or in each category? What's the way to do it? My very, very quick open to snapshot is that I actually enjoyed Frankenstein. I did not think it was like a masterpiece, but I felt warmly toward it and I'm excited to talk about it. I running man was a miss for me.

I was really looking forward to it and had it pretty high on the height meter. And I think there are redeeming aspects to it and performances and action stretches, et cetera. But something about it did not click into place in terms of the pace, the tone, et cetera. So that's a bummer. Okay.

We will dive a little bit deeper, but not very much deeper into that in individual sections. But we are going to go, we're going to do some Frankenstein stuff, and then we're going to do some running man. So there will be time codes for all of this in the show notes. If you want to skip around, I haven't seen Ferguson yet.

Good call. I want to hear what they have to say about the running man, et cetera, et cetera. But that's how we're doing the episode today. And we're hitting Frankie first. More people have had an opportunity to see that. Starting with good old Vicky Frank. Vicki Frank, right here at the top. Let's go now into what I'm calling our medium dive.

The shallowest of dives, Joe. Here we go. We're going to skim the surface together. Just like Frankie likes to skim the surface of the water that runs through his. His case. Yes, I was going nearly as deep as young Vicky Frank wishes he had gone into his own mother, you know? I made the first Frankenstein is the creature mistake. There will be many more anyway.

The creature is what I meant to say. Okay, so where are you on the idea of Frankenstein and Frankenstein's creature in general? Have you read or enjoyed Mary Shelley's novel? See any of the James Whale movies? Yes. The Young Frankstein, Mel Brooks movie, the Brana movie. I mean, better than cover match Johnny Lee Miller did a play version.

There's the McAvoy, Radcliffe, Victor Frankenstein that came out. There's a plotland and Penny Dreadful. We've seen a lot of Frankenstein opportunities over the years. Where are you with all of this? Penny Dreadful. Man, I didn't really enjoy Penny Dreadful.

Rory Kinear as the creature and Penny Dreadful is so good. Disturbing in a great way. I would say I'm a Frankenstein admirer and have a lot of appreciation for Frankenstein's role in literary history and pop culture as a touchstone and influence a figure and archetype atop a great sprawling coaching tree of subsequent aspects of horror and just genre storytelling more broadly. I can't claim that Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein, or Frankenstein's monster or the bride or any aspects of this, or the things I care most deeply about in the world of story. That's not the case.

But a lot of admiration and appreciation for the role it holds in the center of things. I certainly admire the novel. In terms of the films, a lot of my early memories of even just watching stuff in school

and learning about the way that a text could be adapted and changed or watching things. Then with friends do center around Frankenstein. I have liked the way that a number of of different creators have played with their version of it. So, like, Penny Dredfell is a great example of that, obviously.

And, you know, I think that what Guillermo del Toro did with this movie is an interesting meld and blend to me of various impulses where clearly so much of it comes from, and he's talked about this in many interviews over the years, including years and years and years and years before making this movie. Yeah, that this is like a central text. and set of ideas in his life as a creator and as somebody who is a world builder of his own, obviously. And so I think it is undeniable

when you're watching this movie that the appreciation and admiration for, even adoration for the core text is at the heart of this and also the tweaks and changes and interpretations that are so specific to Del Toro and are quite distinct in some ways from the moral framing of the text in some ways.

It was really interesting to me. It's just like a mix of impulses. So that was one of the things that I kind of like enjoyed thinking about while watching it and in the wake of watching it. So yeah, TLDR. Who does I think that Frankenstein is important? But also it's like not the thing I think about the most. Yeah. What about you?

It's interesting that you mentioned studying in school because I had like in the same year, I had a film history course where we watched like all the James Whale films, which are so foundational to film history. So there's that. And then I was in one of my favorite, I've talked about it before, but one of my favorite classes I took of all time, which was about literary adaptation. We read Mary Shelley's novel, which is epistolary and like has, you know, has all these elements that feel unadaptable.

And then we watched the Browna movie, which is maybe not the one I would pick. but has things to offer and, you know, whatever. So, but to your point, like thinking about the art of adaptation, Frankenstein has always been core to that idea for me. Watching, I love the point you're making about the way in which creators in general approach to the story has evolved over the years because the idea, I mean, I think my first exposure to Frankenstein was Young Frankenstein, the Marlbrokes movie. Same.

But, like, which I loved and watched a million times. But like that idea, the idea is we go forward of Victor Frankenstein is the real monster of this story, which is not necessarily Mary Shelley's framing because even though there is empathy for the creature inside of Mary Shelley's novel, it's more of like, we're not so different you and I kind of ending. And the creature sympathy wash that Guillermo gives this particular, you know, all of the deaths are like. like accidental, not his fault. Literally, he didn't do it, like all this sort of stuff like that, which is not the case in the book, all that kind of stuff.

Like, I think that's really interesting. Yeah. Making the creature extremely hot was an interesting choice that Gierma del Toro made fun. Agreed. The Benedict Camerbatch, Johnny Miller play version, where they, which, you know, was, I saw a broadcast on National Theater Live, like they put it in movie theaters. They switched roles. every night. So one night, someone

would play the creature and would play the doctor and then they would switch the next night and that was so interesting. I love that. Yeah. And like, I do think one, you know, I do think actually Camerbatch was a better Victor and Donnelly Miller was a better creature, but like watching both of their interpretations was so

fascinating to me. But that duality of man concept which is so integral to this, that shadow self sort of idea is so important. So I just think it has been interesting to watch the ways in which I don't think you can make a Frankenstein story now

and not have more empathy for the creature than existed in earlier iterations. It's just not the world we live in now in terms of the stories that we tell and the cautionary tales we want to tell about like men who dig too greedily or too deep or are so preoccupied, wondering if they can,

they don't stop to ask if they should. It's like all that sort of stuff. So that's where we are. Garewell-Dotory movies in general, I'll just run really quickly. Kronos, Mimick, the Devil's Backbone, Blade 2, Hellboy, 2, the Golden Army, Pacific Rim, Crimson Peak, The Shape of Water, Nightmare Alley, Pinocchio, and Frankenstein. That's the body of work we're here to talk about today. We're not talking about the television anthology he did.

That's for another day. Where are you in Guillermo in general? Do you have like a favorite Garamo movie? What's been your relationship with him as a storyteller? I love him. I love his movies and I love his style. And I love in particular, I should say this, I don't need to say this for the bad babies.

They can assume this and they're right. Some of the more hard, horror installments are ones that either I have skipped or made my way to later. But actually, by the way, learned a new thing about my husband this week. He told me that Mimic is one of his three favorite Deltora movies. Not a thing I knew. Adam. Yeah.

Fascinating. Learned a new thing about a person in my life who really loves movies but had never previously shared this with me. So look at that. Pan's Labyrinth is my favorite and one of my favorite films. And even though it was not necessary to revisit that for the framing of today's podcast in particular. That was like just, you know, in the run-up to Frankenstein, I'm like, can't wait to re-watch

Vance Labyrinth. Like, there's never a bad moment. I have such an incredibly fond memory of watching that with my college pals for the first time at my friend Taylor's dad's office garage on the end of this, huge TV. We went to watch that. You know, Syracuse, New York needs must. You find a spot, you find a cozy spot, and you curl up under a blanket and you watch a movie. I love that movie. and in general, I, you know, I, Blade 2, this is a big Blade 2 household,

won't surprise you to hear. I really enjoy his Hellboy movies. I am a little surprised about the Blade 2. Really? Yeah, yeah. It's not. I like, I really, yeah, I like that movie a lot. I'm a shape of water, admirer. Obviously, we'll be talking about that more today.

So I'll save further thoughts. But, you know, I really just love his movies, and I love his style and his particular, the way that he roots his stories and his examination of story in interpretation of fairy tale, modern presentation of fairy tale, and the way that myth and the idea of how stories filter their way down or influence people's lives is something that I really love about his creative vision. So yeah, he's a filmmaker I admire and I really enjoy spending time with his works. You know what I weirdly, I did not see Pinocchio, though. I don't know what's wrong with me.

I was like, wait, I kind of, I just didn't watch that one. So I need to catch a. I need to catch a. Great to Netflix and really only, like, I think, I feel like the only people who watched his Pinocchio were like the people who were on the award season beat that year, honestly. I am interested to see it, but I feel sad that I happened actually. What about you? What's your relationship to Del Toro? Okay. So it's interesting.

I love Guillermo Del Toro, the person. I love listening to Guillermo del Toro talk about film. I have seen him, like, in conversation with people before. I will go anytime to listen to him talk about. film. I think his breadth of knowledge, his grip on story. I love his love of the macab. I love how he's like, I want to live

in a haunted castle. I've got all these weird objects in my house. I think all of that's really cool. I think him taking his love of the macab and putting it into these fractured fairy tales that he tells really good stuff. There are some, like the highs for Guillermo and me so high. Pans Labyrinth, the Hellboy. just like extremely excellent stuff. But he is kind of hit and miss for me.

Like I don't love shape of water. I admire the visual splendor of Crimson Peak is like indelible. Like I think it is so beautiful. But as a movie, it's not one that I like want and not just because it's like scary. Like I just it's not there's just like something missing sometimes where I feel like in my view he gets a little loss in the sauce of visual sometimes and like loses his grip on story, which can't win it's firing, it's firing so well. So like I'm a little, I'm not as high on his work as you are, but like the stuff that is good, I'm a whole boy two defender, Golden Army. I actually really quite liked that movie.

So, you know, but like I've got pals who love Pacific Rim and I can't hang with Pacific Rim. I was talking to a pal the other day and she's like, she's like, oh, I want to see Frankenstein. and I was like, I was like, I don't think it's very good. And she's like, she's like, oh, I really want to see it. I was like, yeah, it's like, you know, like Crimson Peak. She's like, well, I love Crimson Peak. I was like, great. Then you'll love Frankenstein.

Then you'll love it. You know what I mean? And just as rooted in incestual longing. Yeah, exactly. And just as much like brightly colored tool wrapped around like various people, you know, so it's like, he's got a style, he's got a vision, and I love that he executes it.

I would have given him the Oscar for Pan's Labyrinth, that, you know, not the shape of water, but I love that he has an Oscar, and I love that he has a stasher that he has, that he can make these sort of, like, you know, he's, he's been in bed with Netflix for a little while. But, like, the fact that he can make these, like, big budget, lavish, fantastical movies is, you know, is really a gift. So that's, that's my Guillermo relationship. on this movie front. And then I will toss back to you. I will say this. Tell me.

Jacob Allorty in general has not been an actor that I have cared that much for or about. I thought his Elvis was fine. I think he's fine in euphoria, but he's playing a character that's so repugnant that it's been hard for me to divorce. Like, all this sort of stuff like that. I genuinely think he is phenomenal in this movie. And I think the movie gets so much better as soon as he shows up. And when he is the focus of the film, I actually think the film works really well. There's just a lot of stuff around it that I think is a little shakier for me.

But like his physical performance, his emotional performance, the makeup work, all of that sort of stuff. Like hiring someone who's freaky-diki tall in the first place. So like it all just kind of looks unusual. You know, I thought the costumes were exquisite and extraordinary. I thought some of the visuals worked really well for it. someone was a little CG dependent in a way that looked a little, I prefer the puppetry of Pan's Labyrinth, et cetera. So, you know, I had a good time with a portion of this movie, is what I would say. I think Oscar Isaac is miscast in this role. This is not my favorite Oscar. I don't, is there

like an inherent, like, ability to Oscar Isaac that I, like, don't need in my Victor Frankenstein or or something like that. Accent work aside. I can get over the accent if the performer seems like he matches the character. But in this case, it didn't... Let me devil's advocate you. That doesn't inhibit you in Ex Machina.

Yeah, but that's... Yes, you're right. Where his Nathan is doing, so obviously it's different, but his Nathan is like supposed to be charming. Whereas in this case, that's true. Everyone's like, Victor, you suck. That's true.

That is different. Everyone doesn't like him. And so, like, that idea that, like, charming, like, ability that he sort of weaponizes an ex machina is not really what's going on. Yes, you're right. There is a difference between having to find the sex dolls in his closets versus an entire auditorium of his peers telling him to remove himself from society. That is distinct. Versus him following his brother's fiancé into a confessional booth to try to, like, get her to admit his feelings for her. I've been meaning to tell you this.

I didn't text you this because I wanted to say this for the pod. And then in the words of a friend of mine, burning his special needs child alive. Like, you know, there's a lot that Victor has to carry in this movie. Joanna. When I saw him go into the confessional. Yeah. Carried a guess the first thing that popped into my mind in light of our recent shared experience. I was.

Buffy. Angel. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Of course. It's funny. I was like, whenever I see confessional now, I think interview with the vampire, but yes, of course, Angel. I was just like, I see somebody sitting there and I'm waiting for an astonishing accent to hit me.

So that was just very present in my mind, given our recent history. I think a creature sympathetic wash of this story, like even more sympathetic than the original story, I have no problem with it. I just think it was like, and we'll get to the idea of a clunky message clunkily delivered when we get to the running man much more. But like, you know, they're just like there was when spoilers for this movie, Victor's The Creature Together are responsible for the death of Victor's brother. And he says, I've always been afraid of you, Victor, you're the monster. I'm just like, I just don't feel like we need to like, I feel like, have a little more faith in your audience is how is how I feel about that. So, but this, the section of the film with like David Bradley, who plays the,

the blind man and stuff like that. I think I thought all of that stuff was really good. And all of the creature stuff when he was in chains, I was like really compelled by that section as well. So yeah. Yeah. So you ride for the creature's tail, not to be confused with creatures tale.

We are in the freaky-diki-diki sex stuff section on this podcast. It's true. Yeah, I'll have to really do some, I'll have to spend some time reflecting on what it means that maybe it all tracks perfectly. A baseball enthusiast, you know, finds a monster who looks like he's just a bunch of baseball seams stitched together. Like it's really working. It's powerful stuff. First thing I texted you when I finished watching the movie was Vicki Frank really wants to fuck his mom, huh? First step I said you. It's so funny because like that's kind of the whole framing

of what we're about to talk about in a minute is that idea. But it's not. It's not. it's when I showed it to a friend of one and when I watched it again with a friend of mine at home, they were like, I don't know what you're talking about in terms of Victor wants to fuck his mom. And I was like, I was like, I would say the double casting of Mia Gauth is doing a lot of work here. Yeah. But also when young Victor's like, and when father was away, mother was mine entirely. You know what I mean? Like it's there.

It's not the most I want to fuck my mom movie I've ever seen, but it is definitely on the list for sure. It's not the most, but it is. I would say, to me, it struck me as overt, and I think it was not just like a present aspect of the film, but it's like framed as part of the core motivation for what leads. Oh, her death. Yes. Yeah, on this path. It's right. The absence of the source of love and affection and belonging, but also desire in his life.

You know, the idea that. So it's certainly a movie where daddy issues and mommy issues are. Both present and entwined and inextricable from each other. I mean, brother issues, too. Why not cast Charles Dance if you're going to do that, you know? It's just, it's elite chef's kiss stuff without question. But, you know, to paraphrase or perhaps directly quote, our cherished pal and colleague Rob Mahoney, who noted this on Big Pick.

Like, when he is fingering, you know, pregnant maternal figurine, I would not call that subtle, though I do think, again, it's part of what's interesting to assess about the text. To be clear for people who have not seen this movie, he is handling it. He is not like, the orifices are too minute on that particular model for him to do any actual fingering, I should just say. Much of the spirit of the exercise of today's podcast, though. Just want to clarify. Thank you. Thank you for that. You know, the gentle caressing of the grave, as you noted, the fact that, when Mia Gauth shows up as Elizabeth, his brother's fiancé,

so even though that is not incest in the same form, there is an incestuous aspect to his covetous relationship to Elizabeth. And it's like, wow, of course, Victor is looking at her falling desperately in love because she looks exactly like his mother. To me, this felt like an in an escapeable part of the movie, but an interesting one to chew on and think about. I, like you, responded most strongly to the Allorty performance and to this rendering and presentation of the creature. I thought that that stretch of the film was like, I thought really lovely and really moving.

And I think to your point from earlier about the modern interpretation and framing of this story. And that's what I was alluding to as well with like this particular framing and spin that Del Toro seems interested in putting in his adaptation. Because a lot of it, you know, the idea of like, Victor is going to be telling this story in some capacity and we're up at the pole. And, like, you know, a lot of the different various framings and structures of the tale are similar, even though some of the particular, yeah, very faithful. Some of the particular aspects of the canon and character renderings are distinct. This very, like, warm embrace of the creature and desire to understand him feels so of the time. and I think very, it's interesting to me, like, for a creator, a movie maker, a director, a writer to root himself more fully in the, I was the creation perspective rather than what does it mean to be bringing things into the world.

I think that's just really interesting. So I like thinking about that not only inside of the movie, but what it tells us about, like, Del Toro more broadly. I'm interested in that. I thought, you know, Christoph Waltz, it's like always wonderful to hear that he's going to be in a movie and he's like such an incredibly mesmerizing performer. All of the, like, all of that stuff was a little less successful in the movie to me.

Though any time we get a like part of your head is just sloshing off because of syphilis story, I do then think of the Knicks. So that's always a treat. You never complain about an opportunity to think of the nick. Yeah, I was thinking about the English. But like, it's a lot of brain matter gets splattered inside of the story. I got to say. That was pretty gross.

But yeah, I thought that the, I agree that the David Bradley stretch with the blind man and the Lordy was, you know, did the part of my brain that can't help but overanalyze, wonder how more people in that lovely homestead could not hear the six-six creature lumbering around? Sure. Also, do they, is there crop of choice sticks? Do they farm sticks? Is that, is that why he was gathering bushels of sticks for them? A lot of wood, a lot of bushels of wood and sticks.

They're like, the spirit of the forest has been here to put sticks here. Yeah, we got to make a fence. We've got to keep the game in. We've got to be warm with the fire, etc. I guess. It was very, you know, the wolves are obviously presented as forces of ill, but of course, I was distressed to see a harm befall an animal. Again, a lot of brain matter.

That was tough. But in general, I, of course, I agree that, you know, the You're the Monster line is not the subtlest. I think it's like, okay, so a couple things. One, I think thematically, is that, is that, is the exploration of that in that particular way in the film the most successful and subtle? No. Is it a theme and an aspect of storytelling that I am interested in? Yes. You know, the hubris of man, the tendency to play God, where that least.

the characters, et cetera. And in a story where so much of Victor's mommy issues and daddy issues lead him down this path to then have his creation navigate his daddy issues too as like a compelling aspect of the text. I'm interested in thinking as well about

how, I'm trying to think of how to articulate this. There's something fascinating to me about thinking about like if Del Toro had made this movie earlier in his career, given clearly what an influential text it is and like a totem it is for him. I wonder how different it would have been.

There's something almost about like this has influenced so many of his other movies in a way that is undeniable. And then you get to the point where you're actually adapting the thing that influenced so much of your other work. And you're like, well, let me just like say the thing I want to say explicitly that I want to like spend a little bit more time reflecting on in terms of just where it falls in his filmography. It is interesting that, you know, had he made it earlier, he would have, he has, he was going to put Doug Joe. in this, you know, like his frequent collaborator, Doug Jones, as the creature. And that would have been really interesting. But yeah, well, that is, I mean, anything else you want to say about Frankenstein, a movie that you liked a bit more than I did, but, you know, exists for people to enjoy

on Netflix if they want to? Would you fuck the creature? I think that's a good question to ask before we segue into the next section of the pod here. Would you fuck the creature? and if so, would you do it when he, you know, entered his, like, long, wavy hair and, uh, warm woolen coat? Or you're, you're fucking him when he's in the diaper. I'm not, well, I mean, he'd be out of the diaper. I love that you say diaper.

Loincloth? He was basically wearing the, like, gold, golden undies that Rocky from the Rocky Horror Picture Show wears. Like, he could not have been more rocky-coated if they tried. I don't think he smells good. So I would like to know a bit more about what he smells like. But when Mia Goss's character goes down there and she's like definitely wants to have sex with him, I thought that was a compelling moment. Okay, so you need a little like a some sort of fragrance, a cleansing, maybe a cologne before you're considering sex.

I don't think there's enough cologne in this world. It's just a decayed flesh. I don't think there's enough incense. I don't think there are enough haltoids. I just think the aroma is a problem. Fair. But you would join a book club with the creature. Absolutely. And you'd do it with a gladness in your heart. Absolutely. Great. Bireside reading sesh with the creature? Wonderful. And his little rat friends. I was so touched by his little paradise loss with the creature. His little rat friends. That was sweet. That was sweet. And I do, like, I'm such an easy mark for this stuff. But it sounds. like we both responded most to this part of it, and I'm not surprised. Like, I do think there's something right now about watching a movie that's like the, what if we didn't judge this person? What if we got to do their heart?

Yeah, that I did really find affecting. I agree. Yeah. We're going to take a hard pivot from that and go back to Mallory's earlier prompt. Would you fuck that creature? Because this is a loving celebration of Guillermo del Toro's freakyest, dekiest, horniest moments. Hell yeah. A couple quotes from Guillermo del Toro.

Great. There's no sexual act in the world that is perverse unless you make it perverse. Perversity is in the eye of the beholder. It says Guillermo del Toro. This is about Crimson Peak. Incredible stuff. This is elite. I love this.

I'm going to start quoting this on every pad we do. This next part, I think, is also about Crimson Peak. He says, first of all, I felt it was very important to have a genre piece, a section that was sexual but liberating because normally, sexuality in any genre is damning. or is a sign of doom or shame or horror and I wanted to have this kind of core of purity that allowed the characters to be sexual without having any damning connotations. Actually, that can't be Crimson Peak

and that has to be something else because geezie crazy. Okay, so there are damning connotations to the sex in Crimson Peak. Okay, that might have been in shape of water. So what we're going to do here is there aren't enough examples for us to do a proper top five. We're going to do a top three,

Gierma del Toro what's going on here sex-wise moments but I should say I wanted to read those pieces because Gierma del Toro considers himself and I like this about him like a very like I'm not here to yuck your yum I'm not here to kinkshame you if you want to fuck a fish

that's interesting to me you know etc etc so I like that so we're not here to kink shame people We might be here to incest shame someone we could talk about that but here we go I'm not here to celebrate incest. I would like to clarify.

But this is a celebration of the impulse to explore this in the work. In cinema. From an Oscar-winning director, no less. Okay. In the shape of water, there's a scene where Sally Hawkins' character, quote unquote, floods the bathroom,

if you know what I mean. And I share some time with a fishman played by the aforementioned Doug Jones. And I should mention, I remember this very distinctly from this Oscar campaign, there was a lot of mention of like how they enhanced, like Doug Jones, a genius, an incredible person. They gave him like a prosthetic ass. They gave him just like a lot of enhancements to make sure that fish person looked as crumptious as possible. So you could understand why a woman want to flood the bathroom, as it were. Yeah. Anything you want to say about this shape of water relationship or moment in particular? Yes, thank you for asking.

This won an Academy Award. Yeah, it did and it should have. This, we're going to go through, we're going to kind of, you've very thoughtfully presented some contenders here. We're going to lock the top three in real time together. I'll just spoil. Nothing will sway me off this being number one. I agree with you. It won an Oscar.

It's his, the best. peak of his freakiness, honestly. Really good. It's the whole movie is I want to fuck a fish. That's what the movie is. Shout out Baltimore. We're very passionate about our seafood. Great. You know? I got to say. Do you think she sprinkled a little old bay on there? Maybe. Just add a little spice. You know, maybe that's what they do instead of like whipped cream or hot fudge. Find what works for you. Great. That's the lesson. the shape of water has been on my mind recently. I have a real desire to rewatch it over the last like month plus anyway due to the really

meaningful experience that I had, as you know, watching the, I considered, classic go fish during Puffy season two. So I was like, boy, it's time to revisit Shape of Water anyway. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to revisit this sequence at a minimum. This scene, flood the bathroom is a great way to put it. I mean, it's wet, it's sodden, it's dripping, it's soaking. The towel and under the door jam, you know, to attempt to fill this successfully ultimately to fill the room, has like such stealth, let's sneak into like this corner of the house and hook up while our parents are in another room.

Energy to me, for me, it's the way the water is dripping down into the cinema. The just one drop right into the open mouth of the moviegoer is what makes this I think undeniable is the top pick

that is so horny the naked embrace the entwinement the fact that they're discovered by Giles and then in that moment of discovery

a surge a gushing wave courses out into the screen nothing's stopping this nothing and to your point about the like

the prosthetic ass etc. on amphibian man or fish guys, as we like to call him. You know, he's shredded. Like, what are you going to say? He's absolutely shredded. The cake is serving. Okay.

In the film Crimson Peak, if you've not seen it, Tom Hiddleston plays for Thomas Sharp. He marries a woman named Edith, played by Mia Wasakowska. She comes to stay in this crumbling estate that he lives in with his sister, Lady Lucille Sharp, and it is later revealed in the third act of the movie. that the sharp siblings are close, very close. They have always been very, very close. And there is a scene where Edith discovers them, you know,

in the midst of, you know, their closeness, shall we say. What's really funny about this scene is she walks in. Yeah. There's like, she's been hearing moaning, right? And we as an audience know what's about to happen, but, like, Edith is a little, like, blink, blink, what's happening. It seems as though the moaning is going on for a really long time.

She's, like, encountering ghosts in the hallway all the while the moaning is happening. But when she gets there, Tom Hildleston is just, like, merely feasting on Jessica Chastain's neck. And I'm like, how long have we been, like, doing neck stuff? Like, this is relatively extremely demure. but it is nonetheless incest. Hold on. Hold on. Is she not jerking him off?

Probably. I think she's giving him a hand job. Okay. I would like to retract everything. I just said. She's definitely got her hand. Got her hand. He's doing a little neck gnawing for sure,

so neck nuzzling and neck gnawing. I do believe that she is jerking him off. Consider a little more sense. And thank you so much for sitting here. Happy to be. reporting as the incest handjob correspondent. You know, listen, incest and ghosts extremely on brand for House of Art of Cover. If anybody missed our, I was going to say many minutes, but frankly, probably hours talking about the, you know, aware wood induced vision slash dreams that old

Damon Targ had about eating out his own mom. I mean, this is the stuff we're here to cover and talk about. The subsequent, I knew it, you're not his sister, that's delightful I am. Push is just

the stuff of legend. This is, you know, stumbling in on brother, sister, incest, and then a push,

of course, very throensian. It's true. Very thronesian. It's true. Different dynamics among the three participants.

But, yeah. All right. In Corona, I had a stretch a little here. Kronos, there's a great one.

The premise of Kronos is complicated to explain, but I will say there is one quite suggestive, I would say, seen where a character licks some blood off the floor in a way that I would not say is unsexual. So you might say I'm reaching, that's fine, but it's here on the list. How do you feel about

this, Mallory Rubin? I had that seen this movie, so this is, I'd want to say thank you. You're welcome. For not only bringing this scene into my life, but by framing it this way so that this was on my mind when I watched this for the first time. This is not relevant for the prompt today, but I just, I have to say that the other guy who's using the bathroom who comes out, pants still undone, in a public restroom, and then seize the

blood on the vanity on the sink and does not wash his hands after clearly taking a shit, but does use his bare hands to push a stranger's blood away. I have some questions and I have some notes. I don't have questions or notes on your decision to include this in the consideration set, however. Because I think, first of all, there's the, when there's the more of like the kind of pulling of blood up on the sink, there's the, there is the fingering, the fingering of the blood, the gentle caress and the blood. This is a true fingering, absolutely. Absolutely. The, I would say that the filming, framing, and nature of the licking of the drop of blood, It's like a lapping is what I would say.

It is as pornographic as it could possibly be. Yes. That is a flicking of the tongue that you would expect to see in a very different context. Thank you. And also paired with the deep inhaling right before. That is like there is a heightening of the appetite. I've never felt more supported by you than I do in this moment. Thank you so much.

It's eligible. I appreciate you. We only have two more candidates here. Well, we've got Hellboy. I'm disinclined to include this, but I just wanted to float it, right? So Freaky is in the eye of the beholder, and I don't want to get mean about a story that is ultimately kind of like a beauty and the beast sort of thing. We're meant to be rooting for it, but I do have some size questions here and the main love story of Hellboy and also prehensile tale questions because we do see Hellboy steal a six-pack among other things with his tail. So even though there are no, like sexually explicit.

it scenes between Ron Perlman's Hellboy and Selma Blair's, Liz, I believe it is, it's up to the imagination. So this is left mostly to the imagination. How do you feel about Hellboy's inclusion here? You know, we're going to build toward in the second film, a pregnancy plot. So I think that this is very fair for the fandom to ask the size-based questions. And it feels to me very of a piece with all of the conversations all of us have had for years and years on end about the Hulk. This just feels to me like a thing that nerds talk about and I think it's fine and it's done from a position of intellectual curiosity and love.

No judgment. No judgment. The tail, the reaching for the six-pack of bud with the tail. Yeah. The nimbleness of the tail. The dexterous. Dexterous indeed. The broading, the poking with the tail.

Just the tip with the tail clearly needs to be here. I think that's undeniable. When we get the kind of flaming kiss at the end and the way he comes to life as they're wreathed in magic, I think, again, this deserves to be here without denial. I'm surprised at your, and, you know, I admire your restraint. It's not something I possess, but you didn't bring the broken horns into it, but I think you could have.

I'll just say I think you could have. Okay. And look, the right-handed doom. You know what they say about demons with giant right hands? I think this deserves to be here as well. Last amount of least, that brings us back to Frankenstein. There are a couple options here. I mean, I think based on you, my beloved co-host, it probably has to be Victor wants to

fuck his mom. Yes. But just for the record, the way Mia goth definitely wants to fuck that monster. And then just like the gall of making the monster. that hot in the first place, I think, is all sort of like in the mix here. But I think it has to come back to your number one takeaway from the film that Guillermo Del Toro has been waiting his entire career to make. The culmination of all of his intellectual desires and creative endeavors. And you're like, boy, that guy really wants to fuck his mom. No, my number one

takeaway is, my goodness, do I have warmth and empathy in my heart for the creature? And And boy, you know, we've been talking about Milton and Paradise lost a lot lately. And maybe it's time to revisit a crucial text. But yes, I did text you that first. I can't deny it. And so I will put Vicky, young Vicki Frank, wanting to, a lot of this movie is very phallic. You know, the towers, the prongs through which the electricity surges and creates life. And that is what Vicky wanted to put into his own mother, to fucker.

Tell me. Do I think Oscar is Miss Kasten's role? I do. Did I appreciate the scene where he just like strips off his shirt and like is wearing, I don't know, essentially black leather pants and just sort of like crawls into bed and like flops down face first and like the world's biggest sulk? I just thought that was that was for us. And thank you, Guillermo.

I was too distracted. I don't like when people like are filthy and they get into bed. That's true. But I thought you were like out of the bathtub sequence. You were like outdoor pants in bed. I thought you were going to bring up the bathtub sequence into naked science, which I liked. Oh, I was, like, I was horrified. That's not what I thought you were not to say. He was so, he was so, that's not, like, where's OSHA for, for this moment?

When the urge to create strikes. There were like, there were like electrodes, open electrodes and scalples and just all kinds of stuff. So many instruments near his instrument, I did not appreciate it. Okay. So number one. one is the shape of water without question. There's an absolutely no question. I really do think, especially now that I am made aware of the hand job, which I probably knew but forgot, let's just say that. Crimson Peak. Yeah.

High think has to be on the list. Yeah, but what's going in the third slot? Phraising. Do you want to put the – We got to use all the slots. Do you want to put the prehensile tail in the third slot? Is that like that? Sorry, I just wanted to say that.

I think you have to put Frankenstein. You, you, it's, it's, it's a. Yeah. Let's do it. It's key to the text. Let's do it for Vicky. It's shape of water, one, crimson peak to Victor Frankenstein number three. I feel good about this list.

And again, this is all, you know, from a position of. And no apologies to Giermore del Toro. We love your work. Love them. Love these movies. Some apologies to our producers for having to listen to that. Let's go on to our section on The Running Man. This episode.

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Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweet green wraps hit different. Order now at order. Sweetgreen.com. All right. So we're going to talk about the running man. Based on the Richard Bachman, which is a Stephen King pen name, a novel from 1982.

There was an Arnold Schwarzenegger film made in 1987, which is like a lot of people know that film. This adaptation by Edgar Wright is much more faithful to the book. I mean, it's faithful to the book in a way that the Schwarzenegger movie definitely is not. And stars our guy, Glenn Powell, Coleman Domingo's here, Lee Pace is here, Josh Burland's here, etc., etc., etc. Incredible cast. What's your relationship to the running man as a concept,

either the book or the Schwarz-Negger film or anything else? Have no relationship to the book whatsoever. I have not read a word of it. In my life, not once. I have seen the original film, and I consider it to be a blast. Yeah, it is. It's an absurd.

Absurd movie, but I get a real kick out of it. And the... The stalkers in that movie, you know, dynamo hive. Wild stuff. But I've not read the source text, so I am aware that this is a more faithful adaptation to that textual canon, but I don't have a familiarity with the printed word. I was mostly anticipating this movie because of my affection for Edgar Wright as a filmmaker. and because of the cast

and because I thought that the first couple trailers for this looked pretty great. So my desire to see it and my hype for it had less to do with a relationship to the material that goes beyond, like fun, weird movie from the 80s

and more about who was a part of this one, which probably then also heightens why I was disappointed in it. Are you ready for my scorching hottest take, which is hotter than Jessica Chastay giving Tom Hiddles in a handjob. I thought you were going to stay with the running man

and say a grenade exploding through an elevator shaft. But no, you went back to the ancestral handjob and that's why you and that's why we do what we do here at the House of Mar. So here's my hottest stake. Tell me.

I've hesitated to say this over the years. But the truth must be told. Oh, my God. This is what's about to happen? I think. Yeah. And it's actually, I've got spaced over here. I've got, if you're watching some video, on the DVD shelf behind me,

Spaced is there, Sean on the Dead is there, Hot Fuzz is there, Scott Pilgrim's here. I think those four things are among the greatest creations that have ever existed in film and television. They speak to me. They are hilarious. They are expertly done. They are masterpieces. All four of them are masterpieces to me. Scott Pilgrim versus the world, which came out in 2010, is the last Edgar Wright film that I think is really good.

Yeah. I don't think this is as hot of a take-as-you-tick-tis. Well, I think a lot of people really ride for Baby Driver. I do like Baby Driver. The World's End is messy. Some people ride for it, whatever. Yes, you're right. A lot of people don't, it's not on par. It's on par, Wish on the Dead and Hot Fuzz, so people weren't like, this is what I wanted. A lot of people like Baby Driver, I did not, and I felt like really weird about that I didn't like Baby Driver because I should because it's like essentially an action musical. How much was it about John Ham's hair given your...

You're a hair scholar, so that's obviously a very upsetting hair choice in that film. Is that something about that? I don't know what to tell you. I saw it its premiere at Southby, and I was so excited for it. And then I just, and like the room loved it. And I didn't. I felt very alone in that moment. And then no one really liked last night in Soho.

And so that's, you're right. That's not a brave stance to take. I think it's just me saying I didn't really like Baby Driver. And because I didn't really like Baby Driver, I haven't really liked an Edgar Wright film since 2010, which is a long time. And so when you think about like, I'm going to see this movie because Edgar Wright made it, I might have to start confronting the idea that like that is not necessarily a draw for me. You're going to have to ask yourself, is Simon Pegg also a driving force behind this? Is Michael Sarah?

And the answer then you have to say, is Michael Sarah only in a couple of scenes of it? Michael Sarah is really good at this movie. Michael Sarah was amazing in this movie. But that's incredible. Those are my Edgar Wright feelings. We talked about this a little bit. I think that's totally fair. animated, but, like, I feel bad about it because, like, I love from 1999 to 2010, like,

honestly, if you asked me in that stretch of time who one of my favorite filmmakers was, I would say Edgar Wright. I was just like, hot fuzz I have seen so many times. Incredible movie. It's like pitch perfect. Every line is so funny and clever. And, like, it's just like a perfect little puzzle. Scott Pilgrim, just incredible.

Undeniable. So fun. Spaced. I just, like, love space. Space is, like, such a, is so firmly lodged in, like, early nerddom for me. Like, it's just, like, very, very key and important text. And then I'm just sort of like, Edgar, buddy, what happened? Like, what's going on?

So the running man, I was, I wanted this to be good because I'm rooting for Glenn Powell. And I am always rooting. I'm rooting for Edgar, right? Yeah. You were hoping for a return to form. Yeah. And that's just not what it was for me. So, yeah.

I, first of all, let me say this. and let me say it on a podcast where we've talked about a sister jerking off her brother. Yeah. This is safe space and you can always tell us what's in your heart

and on your mind. I just feel bad. You know, because like I, like Edgar has given me so much happiness. Of course. So I don't want to like,

you know, kick dirt on him, but it's just, no, no, no, no. It's a sad fact, yeah. I, yeah, I think, we're in similar places.

I like baby drivers, so that, that's a difference. I, I get a kick out of that movie, but in terms of the kind of undeniable entrance, our lists are the same. You know, this is a Sean of the Dead and Hot Fuzz podcast, obviously. These are incredibly, and we've had the pleasure of potting about how much Scott Pilgrim means to both of us when we talked about the animated film. I love knowing what a role space plays in.

your life that makes me really happy. So yeah, we're, we're in, I did not see last night in Soho. In fact, because it was like so many people whose opinions I trust were like, this is just really not good. So I have not actually not seen that movie. Did you watch the dance clip that I put in the doc? I sure did. I sure did. Matt Smith really doing it. I was going to say, you didn't even have to sell it just through the, the, the, the Smith ones for me, which you could have. But I did watch, I did watch. There's a dance scene in Last Night in Soho, which is really well done. And it is almost entirely practically done where the dance part, Matt Smith's dance partner switch in and out.

And that is like awesome. And the rest of the movie is bad. So you can just watch that one clip on YouTube and that you've done it. So, you know. In terms of The Running Man, a movie I really wanted to like, I want to shout out. I'm just going to focus on two things. two, like, instances of pure enjoyment. Tell me.

And it is everything Coleman Domingo does as a sort of... Absolute no notes. As our dystopian TV presenter. Yes. And especially once the masks come off, comes off, everything Lee Pace does. I was worried that Lee Pace would not take the mask off. I'm insane. He doesn't take it off for most of the movie.

But once he takes it off, there's a whole sequence on the movie. the plane with an unmasked Leepace, and he's just phenomenal. He's just incredibly good, and as always. But he was also fun with the mask on, because, like, when he showed up in the friend that I was watching it with, we were just, like, elbowing each other because we were just, like, we know that's Leepace under that mask, and we know that he's, like, Leapaceing it up. These were my highlights. Bookended. There's a lot of Coleman Domingo in the front, and there's a lot of phrasing Lee Pace in the rear. And then there's a lot of movie around it.

And Michael Sarah also, yeah, just like a real joy. I'm with you on the highlights front. I thought that, I mean, Coleman Domingo is always the best, and that continued to be true here. And I thought not only was his performance and his energy so delightful every time he had a scene, but I thought that in terms of aspects of the film that often missed, which like centered on the, exploration of the state of society and where people find themselves and how they engage with the nature of their world, etc. The parts where that worked almost all involved, him, like cutting from the explosion to the broadcast with the little kids holding the candle. So good. It was incredible.

And I think if we had had more moments like that in the film, it would have succeeded more. Lee Pace, as you know, is one of my all-time favorites. I just think he's the absolute best. And I sometimes watch things that I'm not enjoying longer than I otherwise would because he's in them, like foundation most recently. Sure. The Hobbit films. His Running Man press tour,

I will feel grateful no matter what the overall reception to the Running Man is, that there is a Leepace moment happening right now, which he deserves and we all deserve, and the celebration of his fashion and his charm, and of course his performance, that's great. So that was a highlight for me as well. The first thing I texted you about Vicky Frank was Vicki Frank really wants to fuck his mom.

I think the first thing I texted you about Running Man was that was not a very good movie. That was not a very good movie. The second thing I texted you. Which is not a text I get from you that often. The second thing I texted you about Running Man, I think, was, or maybe I put this in the Google Doc. I can't even remember. It's Friday. We both had, I think we both found our system in a state of genuine active befuddlement.

Yes. That they're supposed to be like, oh, my God, the horror, the heart. He's hideous. When he takes his mad, the burns and the scars, he still looks like the hottest person alive. and it's bizarre to me taunting him about how disfigured he is and how he should put on some makeup because the cameras are going to roll

and all sorts of stuff like that and I'm like, do you have eyes, Glenn Powell? Like, what are you talking about? Lee Pace looks amazing. And his like, his fit is just like, yeah, it's a lot. Yeah. And then there's a lot of other movie

that's also there. Yes. I did like, you know, we'll get into this. This is, I don't want to tip anything for the fight action sequence we're going to do here on our list. but I did really like the Michael Sarah stretch, not only because that was an amusing character rendering

and like, you know, the hot dog cart and his dad and his mom ratting out Ben, et cetera. But that was, I thought, the most successful spoiler for our pending list. I thought that was the most successful and fun and interesting action stretch of the film, which actually is like, I'm raising it not to spoil our list, but because I think it reveals to me part of what was, missing from the movie in addition to the other things we've hit, which is like we, Edgar Wright is like a genius when it comes to not only the choreography of an action sequence

in a movie or show, but the specificity of like the vision and idea behind it. His action sequences are often so creative and weird, you know, like weird parentheses complimentary, right? Yes, yes, yes. Unusual. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and right, they're very quirky, they're very particular. You watch it and you're like, this is an egg or right thing.

And I was really expecting that to be a constant throughout the running man. I don't think it was. So like you build toward the climactic showdown on the luxury plane. And, you know, we know, we got in the questions. Yeah, we know, six bathrooms. Like, we've been primed. But, you know, and is it cool when we, the gravity changes and people move up about like, sure, but, and is it fun that Lee Pace isn't wearing his mask there and has to pull

like a shard of glass out of his eye, like, I guess. I did wonder if he was going to get sucked completely through. I know. I did. I was like, are we about to do like an alien? But there was something, I don't say this in any way to diminish the complexity of the sequences, because obviously they're very grand and spectacles. But there was something almost more like conventional about them than I would have expected. The whole movie was way more convinced. And it felt like Edgar Wright was trying to get away. And last night in Soho does this too, where he's like really trying to like not do the

signature Edgar Wright quick cuts, like, you know, all the stuff that like made his style so distinctive. Yeah. I am curious why. Like I don't blame him for like wanting to do something a little different. But like, you did that in last night and Soho, nobody liked it. So you thought you would do it again here. And it's just like the movie is so much more conventional than you wanted to be.

I found the tone very incoherent when an Edgar Wright film is firing all cylinders you're just like the tone is so assured and here I thought the tone was so over all over the map I thought the pacing was really funky and I thought the messaging was like so obnoxiously overplayed in a very strange way

that I just disappointed disappointed I think a movie that works against a clock is typically something that I enjoy and find propulsive as a pacing device. Yeah. And I thought that was really not the case here and that the movie, and I say this with the self-awareness that I routinely record three-hour plus podcasts, I'd like to own that before I say what I say next. I thought this movie felt really long. Yeah.

And I think that's because a lot of the action, you know, and especially because it's structured not only against the, you know, the 30-day clock and the clock's inside. of the clock every day with needing to get the tape in it and stuff like that, which in some cases was interesting and added to the tension. But, you know, it's very much structured around this character will enter the fray for a stretch of story. And we're going to move through person, person, character, character. Ben will encounter new people along the way they will either help him or seek to harm him. Right. That should, conceptually, to me, that feels like it should move with such fluidity and urgency. And it really didn't. I, like, routinely was like, How long are we going to be in this stretch before we get to the boy?

Like, we're still at the VA. Yeah. Like, yeah, it's interesting. I was thinking a lot, you know, Glenn Powell obviously has spoken about the fact that, like, working with Tom Cruise and Top Gun Maverick and, like, how much he admires Tom's career and what advice Tom gave him and stuff like that. And so, like, watching him literally run in this. I'm, like, thinking a lot about Minority Report, which is one of my favorite Tom Cruise performances,

but there's, like, a lot in common. And, like, everybody runs, like, this guy on the run underground. encountering all of these strange, unusual people in this dystopian society that he lives in, or something like the fugitive. You know what I mean? Like, there are versions of this story that we've seen that are anchored by, you know, Glenn Powell has a lot of charisma, but, like, Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford is just, like, in a different, like, stratosphere of movie stardom.

And it's just, like, it works there and it doesn't work here for us to be, like, with Glenn for so much. Yeah, it's just not functioning for me. I wanted to. Anything else you want to say about that before we get to some of these, the celebration of what Edgar Wright

has done well on the action fight front. Just that when they made it upstairs and Ben's like, why are we upstairs? Yeah. And it was just because we wanted to go down the pool. Go down the pool.

We are going to go down the pool. It's very amusing. Yeah, I also found, like, the premise is supposed to, like, Ben has a sick child, and that is why we are rooting for him. I did not feel like that emotionally attached to him. Michael Sarah's character, however, I'm just, like, very emotionally invested at him. Yeah, the more, like, earnest opening of the film was one of the weaker parts for sure. Yeah.

I guess the only other thing I'll note because it just wouldn't be me. if I didn't. Good Carhart jacket. Oh, excellent. Good Carhart jacket. I do have some notes for Ben is like I would switch up the, because he has these like ridiculous costumes he wears, but often he wears, if not the same, very similar red and black hoodie over the jack.

I'm like, switch up your look, my guy. Yeah, mix it up. Mix it up. You're hiding. Okay. This is the loving celebration of Edgar Wright's most transcendent action scene slash fights. This is a preview, I guess, of the best of the century fights pod that we're going to do in a couple weeks. Will any of these make your list, do you think?

Yes, I do. I think at least one. I think at least one will make mine too, probably. So Baby Driver may not be my favorite, but I wanted to celebrate just like up top here, the musicality of Edgar Wright's action connected. The fact that it's connected to very beginning of his film school days, he says, quote, I would put together compilations of film clips like to music. And I would also sometimes re-edit movies like I did Evil Day when it was re-released, you know, and he also worked as a music video director.

So there's this like choreography, musicality to a lot of his like better stuff. And then he says, well, he says action is always really challenging, like no doubt. But like I was looking at like who his fight coordinator, like if he worked with the same fight coordinator through all this stuff. No, but a couple times he worked with the late Brad Allen who was part of Jackie Chan's stunt team. And so some of this really good stuff is also related to hiring the right person to do your stunt choreography. Right. So we're going to pick five. There are a ton of options here mostly because I don't know if you've ever seen Scott Pilgrim, but there's a lot of great fights in Scott Pilgrim.

So there's a ton of options here. Yeah. I don't think we should go through like every single one in detail, obviously. We made a promise to ourselves to deliver a quick-paced podcast. But is there one that you feel like has to be? has to be never one. Okay. Geez.

I do have actually four Scott Pilgrim, if we want to limit ourselves to one Scott Pilgrim in the top five, I feel pretty strongly about what the picks should be. Maybe we start there and then we hit the rest of the list. I think my other big broad blanket statement

and it sounds like I was wondering if we would agree on this, but it sounds like based on your overall run-through of your relationship to the filmography that this will not be an issue. but I think that for the three flavors trilogy, we should eliminate World's End and put in an entry from Sean of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

So I think if we're doing one Scott Pilgrim, one Hot Fuzz, one Shot of the Dead, we'll have three of our five already and then we can figure out what else we want to do from there. That's my kind of over... I will at least do that. I want to consider the World's End being on the list, but I agree that a...

Well, I also think my entry from space should be on the list. So that's like four. Yes. My only question about that is whether we wanted to say movies only. But if we're including TV, then I think that's a no-brainer. And so then we're at four. And that was part of why.

I was like, okay, maybe we don't do all three from the, from the, three flavors. Let's start with spaced. I just want to start here. Yes. There is a sequence in space in actually my favorite episode of space. When our characters go out in the town, they get absolutely trashed. And at the end of the episode, they get in this like, it's not out of nowhere because they

sort of tease it earlier in the episode, but they get into a fight with these like tough youths in the street and everyone decides to do it with like finger guns. So they just like pull out like finger guns and are just like shooting at each other using only like hand gestures, like fake machine guns, fake pistols, fake grenades,

all the sort of stuff like that. They're before they put the adagio for strings over the top of it, you can hear the actors are making all the sounds and they put actual gun sounds, but also the actors are all making the sounds of the finger guns, the blood spurting from the neck part.

There's just like, it's so delightful to me. This is Jessica Hines and Simon Pegg versus, you know, Lee Ingallsby and like a bunch of other guys. I just, this is just like the kind of specific weird that Spaced was always really, really good at. And it's just like a completely iconic memorable TV moment to me. And so it doesn't have to be at the top of the list, but I want it on the list. I think it should be on the list too, for sure. I, yeah, co-sign all of that.

I think that the full, this is really emblematic to me of how Edgar Wright's stuff can just really like sore sometimes, full commitment to the bit. Yes. Right. It's a complete embrace of how totally dramatic and goofy and quirky something can be. And there is like a utterly surreal quality to the thing that you're watching that does not, not only is it not detract. It's like this was the final sprinkling of the thing in the culture. It made it all work.

Yeah, yeah. You know, sealing it with after the fingerguns, like, mini cap, yes, please. We're just like back to a regular exchange and a normal thing is like actually one of the most perfect details to me. So, yeah, I think that should be on the list, no question. We can assess the order maybe when we land on the five. All right. So if you had to pick one from, well, if we're picking Sean of the Dead, it has to be the don't stop me now. There's no question.

This is a must, must. I think this has to be a list. This has to be. Kill the Queen. The jukebox is so fucking funny. The way that the, like, everything in the pub setting, you know, the pool cues, the darts end up being incorporated into the desperation of the fight for survival is so brilliant. And like the way that settings and surroundings are incorporated into the flow of the action is, I think, something that that's very,

record what we'll talk about in a minute with hot fuzz, obviously. Make use of every single. Yeah. Yeah. I love, love, love that instinct. So the don't stop me now. Okay. Shonda's a must.

I think that that's in the running for like being pretty high on the list. I agree. That's a must. Quite iconic. Okay. So hot fuzz, I only put two. There's a couple options you do, but I put the village shootout and the supermarket shootout as the two.

I am a fan. I am an enthusiast of the church steeple. Oh. Well, that's a single stunt. That doesn't really count for this. And then the model village one going up through Timothy Dalton's face, also very good. But in terms of big action set pieces, there's the big village shootout, which is so long. And then the supermarket shootout, which is the entire sort of police crew together.

I have a strong feeling about one of these. I'm interested. I actually do too. I was like initially thinking, oh, this is pretty hard, but for me it didn't end up being that hard, even though I think both of these are great. Yeah. Are you going to supermarket? It's supermarket. It has to be.

It's kind of supermarket, specifically for one of my favorite lines from Hot Fuzz, is when Patty Constantine's character goes, don't worry, Andy, it's only Bolognais! When it is a jar of spaghetti sauce explodes on him. So good. That's my reason to mention. Not to mention Olivia Coleman saying, who doesn't like a little girl on girl? I mean, and yeah, just like the use of, like, all of the food stuff, the, using the trolleys to as like a battering ram against the deli case. The, like, bag boys showing up, like, right at the end.

Like, all that stuff is just, uh. Yeah. And it starts with Timothy Dalton going, well, well, here comes the fuss. Like, it's just, it's so good. I love it so much. Yeah. That's my pick too. I do think, like, in the village shootout, that's another good example.

I mean, both of them are in different ways of, like, how the setting is incorporated. The village shootout gives us that, you know, we're going for Village of the Year, like, the way that so many different characters have a role to play. Pay off. And, like, callbacks, like, Sergeant Angels here, look at his horse, you know, or, like, sending all the hoodies into the, like, you know, the corner shop and all these other, like, moments. And there's, like, some really heightened, effective stuff in that. sequence like okay when you see like the reverend pull out these guns like you really get what's

happening here and obviously there's like some stuff in that sequence that's very effective in terms of the um the histories and like interpersonal dynamics for the characters as well it's so that's it's really good but the bolognese i mean there's just almost nothing like it it's so funny and then the smashing from that moment of other, like, you know, jams and ketchupes and stuff. Yeah. And it's also just like, it is sort of bracing to have something in your life that makes you stop and think, like, boy, a pineapple is like pretty high on the list of things that I would like never want someone to throw at me. You know? A great point.

A great point. A great point, woman. So supermarket shootout were aligned. Okay. So you have three. You feel very strongly. Tell me what is your Scott Pilgrim. What do you think the Scott Pilgrim should be?

So obviously, I'm going to run down the Scott versus Matthew Patel, Scott versus. Scott versus Roxy Richter, Part 1, Scott and Ramona versus Roxy Rector. Scott versus Todd Ingram with the side of the vegan police. Scott versus the Katanaga twins. Scott versus Lucas Lee and stunt doubles. Ramona versus Knives, Scott versus Gideon Graves with a little moment of Negasgot at the end. What is your must have? So look, these are all good.

This movie fucking rules. And I think there are really good cases to make for a number of these. To me, it has to be vegan police. has to be Scott versus Todd. Like, I just, the glowing eyes, the anime hair, didn't you know? Todd's vegan. Yeah. Began just makes you better than most people.

It's so fun. Not a lot of fights, Joanna. Not a lot of fights in action sequences include the word ovum. And I just think it's something we should consider. Milk and eggs, bitch. Chicken isn't vegan, you know, coat number 8, 27, and piping half and half. It just kills me. I think it's so...

When you add the vegan police, I think you're right. I think the vegan police is one of the funniest things that's ever happened. The highlight of Tom Jane's careers are, as I'm concerned. My only competition would be Scott versus Lucas Lee in the stunt doubles. That's my runner-up as well. That's my second one. That's, I mean, Chris Evans' Lucas Lee is just like... It's great.

It's great. Honestly, I'm... As you know, Steve Rogers is very important to me. I think Lucas Lee is like maybe an even better... just because what Chris Evans is doing with Lucas Lee with so little screen time, that's actually hilarious. All of that sort of stuff is just, like, incredibly good. He's good, right?

Sometimes I let him do the wide shots is elite. Like, I wouldn't complain if we picked Lucas Lee. I will make a passionate case for Todd, but I will support it if you feel strongly about going with Lucas. What happens like, can you do a thingy on the real? All very good. I'm happy to go with Vegan Police, a truly iconic. Vegan police and its only bolognets are like two very important at great moments for me.

So I love all this. So we have four in no particular order. What's our last one? I want to say, I want to mention from the runny man. Yeah. Here are some options. Yes. There's Glenn Powell in the world's tiniest towel.

Yeah. Why? The why? Didn't make me chuckle. Genuine laugh out loud. It made me chuckle. I laughed out loud at the why. Glenn Powell and Michael Serra go full home alone in Derry, Maine is an option.

and then Glam Powell versus Lee Pace on a plane. Yeah, I would vote of those for the Home Alone stretch and Derry if we're going to consider a running man pick. Do we want anything from last night in Soho? No. The World's End, you already said probably not. Baby Driver is, I guess, the last sort of option of something we could pick. Yeah. Oh, boy, this is actually really tough.

The first four were kind of easy. I think there were like no-brainers. This is hard to decide what the last spot should be. I'm open if you want to make a case for one of the World's End ones. I mean, I think that's reasonable. The baby driver contenders, it's interesting because buddy versus baby, I would say, is the most in a way that feels important in baby driver and representative of baby driver. It's the most car-centric driving.

It's like in a parking drive. That's true. But I think it's my least favorite of those three sequences that we're talking about with the tequila shootout and the goodbye darling shootout. I think of those I would vote for goodbye darling, probably. Do you want that over Michael Sarah home aloning? Probably not. No. I would probably go for the Michael Sarah Home Alone stretch.

But what do you think? What do you think you think? Is there another one you want to consider? No, I think that's right. And I think our five are, and let's put them in order now, finger guns, queen, supermarket, vegan police, Michael Sarah, homeloning. Does that sound right to you? Yes.

I think it sounds like based on shared enthusiasm, supermarket shootout is number one. Great. Right? I love this for me. Yes. I mean, what's number two? Well, you said you thought Queen might have to be number one. Do you think it should be number two?

God, this is hard. These are all great. I know. Yeah, I would probably go Hot Plus 1, Sean of the Dead 2. Scott Pilgrim 3 spaced 4. Yeah. Does that feel right? That sounds right.

Okay, so we've got Running Man 5, just happy to be here. Happy to be nominated, honestly. It's an honor to be nominated. Okay, number five. Michael Sarah, with a side of Glenn Powell. sort of bewildered along for the ride absolutely destroys his own home just to fuck over the cops and it's pretty great. The gleam in his eye when he like pushes the button is it's really good.

Very funny. The super soaker on the electrified floor, all of that, very good. Finger guns from space. We already talked about how iconic that is. Vegan police, again, it's milk and eggs, bitch is very, very good from Scott Pilgrim. Number two, The Queen, Don't Stop Me Now, from Sean of the Dead. And number one, it's only Bologna's supermarket shootout from Hot Fuzz. That feels right to me.

We did it. We celebrated Edgar Wright after a movie from Edgar Wright that we didn't really like that much, but we found a way to support him anyway. Anything else you want to say about The Running Man or Edgar Wright or Gamal Del Toro or Frankenstein or... No. Can't wait to watch The Bride next year and talk about it with you. And despite the fact that I didn't really love these. two movies. I love going to the movies and I'm really excited to see Wicked and I'm excited to talk to you about Wicked next week.

Same. Anything else we should say, again, we are planning to do Dunkirk next week. Yeah. It is only international travel that will get in our way and that is out of everyone's control. But we are doing our best to do Dunkirk next week. We will let you know if that is not the case. Do we do it? We did it. Okay. A sprightly 90 minutes. Look at us.

Amazing. Amazing. Thank you to Carlos Chirboga. Thank you to Mike Wargan for being here. Thank you to Arjuno Ramka Powell for his production work in general. CT is here. I saw him in the background in the office. Great stuff.

Thank you, CT. And to show me a dinner on the social. And we'll be back next week. Thank you, Mallory. Anything else you want to say before we go? Just that I love you so much. I love you so much. Bye.

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